Alexandria, Astoria!

Saturday afternoon, I am in New York, and I'm restless. I know that I should go somewhere walkable, so as to exercise those muscles that have atrophied in the Western wilderness I now inhabit. And yet, I can't think of any place in Manhattan where the interest provided by the shops will be worth the walk in the cold. I reflect on how I never really figured out how to enjoy New York when I lived here, I never found those spaces in the city where I could really enjoy being a flâneur, those streets so full of interest that it was worth the bother of a forty-minute subway ride to get there. Except for the unequivocal joys of Flushing and Curry Hill, that is. It is heresy to say it, but here it is: I never found New York all that.

As I sat thinking, my muscles atrophying even more, I thought about the fact that the M60 bus that takes me to LaGuardia airport passes right by Astoria, and that I always have the urge, but not the time, to stop and explore. I decided to go, figuring that even if nothing else there was interesting, I could indulge my melancholy with a shisha pipe and a cup of Turkish coffee. I met my boyfriend at the M60 stop, and off we went to Steinway Street.

Coupez les avocats en deux!

If you enjoyed my previous etymological musings here and here, you will love Matthew Driscoll's essays on the avocado, courgette, ginger, and turbot at Etymologiae cibariorum. If nothing else, you will learn how to make flavorful lawyer balls.

Cookbooks galore

When they said Dallas was great for shopping, I scoffed. I scorned. I'm not that kind of person, I thought, I'm, you know, deeper than that.

Of course, back then I didn't realise how great the shopping was, nor how much more fun it is to shop when you're driving around in a car. Nor did I quite understand that some of the shopping would involve.... books. I refer mainly to the spider's web that awaits me on the way home: Half Price Books. It has used books. It has remaindered books, often very good ones. (I just bought Nicholas Orme's Medieval Schools brand new for $20, for example.) It has a quirky little foreign language section, where I bought an Icelandic collection of medieval Chinese tales. And it has cookbooks. As if its low prices weren't enough, there is also a discount section where books cost either a buck or three. Moreover, being an educator will get you a discount card, and showing your public transit pass will get you an even bigger discount.

This is how I got each of these books for 85 cents plus tax:

I used to read my parents' copy of The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines: China, Greece, and Romewhen I was a teenager.