Roadside America

I take great pleasure in kitsch. I just really appreciate people expressing themselves - even if others view those expressions as lowbrow, common, or without taste.  That is why, before the Internet, I bought a copy of Roadside America.

Roadside America is a book, and also a website now, that is a "guide to offbeat tourist attractions."  The website allows you to sort by state, themes (big coffee pots, big bovine, stonehenges) etc. You can even save a list of sites you'd like to visit.  I'm thinking about this now because I'm soon having breakfast with a friend who doesn't live too far from a site I'd like to visit.

Years ago I passed the Haines Shoe House in Hellam, PA, which is about 4 miles east of the town of York.  It was quite a sight, as you can see here.  This was my view when I drove past it.  Of course, my immediate thought was "the old woman who lived in a shoe."  Turns out an old woman had nothing to do with this.  It was the idea of  Colonel Mahlon M. Haines, owner of 40 shoe stores in PA and Maryland, who had an architect do this for advertisement purposes. 

The shoe - 45 feet long, 25 feet high, and about 17 feet wide - was offered to newlyweds and the elderly for get-aways.  It was built between 1948 - 1949 and, according to Roadside America,

There's a shoe mailbox out front, and a boot-decorated fence surrounding the yard. The dog house is shaped like a boot. Every window in the Shoe House is decorated with a stained-glass shoe. The front door frames a stained-glass portrait of the Colonel holding shoes.

Tours of the Shoe House are offered.  The Shoe House doesn't seem to have it's own website, but you can call 717-840-8339 to learn about the tours.  After all, kitsch doesn't get much better than this.

Back of the Shoe House (Fire escape added in the 1960's)

Click here to read more about the Haines Shoe House on the Roadside America website. 

Vroom Vroom

Brought to us by Sculptor Lorenzo Quinn.  Vroom Vroom was recently in Spain but the installation is travelling.  Apparently the "zoom zoom" car commercial people (Mazda? Toyota?) are suing him for calling this Vroom Vroom.  Really?!?!  They'll have to go after every 5-year old child, in that case.

Sweet Lula's in Pitman, NJ

I love a "proper lunch."  I've been asked what that means so I've had to give it some thought.  My definition is something you wouldn't normally eat during the week when you are at work or on the go.  It's not a run-of-the-mill sandwich.  Instead, it's food that's more creative.  The meal is slow and the atmosphere is relaxed, with no glancing at the watch because you have to be somewhere after lunch.  And, of course, there must be iced tea - with extra lemon.  Linen napkins are a plus but not necessary.  I found exactly this, and was pleasantly surprised at the reasonable prices, a short distance from Rowan University in NJ. 

Pitman, NJ is a throwback to gentler times.  Its little downtown, complete with a theater (and I don't mean movie), has several surprisingly good restaurants.  (One of which I blogged about this past summer.)  Today, I tried Sweet Lula's for the first time.  There were several temptations on the menu from which to choose.  We each started with a $4 cup of soup.  Mine was carrot cumin and it was absolutely delicious.  My friend had a corn chowder with smoked sausage.  Hers was good but we both agreed the carrot cumin was better. 

Next, I ordered a simple tomato stuffed with tuna salad on a bed of field greens.  I added vidalia onion vinaigrette.  This was light and tasty, except the tomato was very cold.  Too bad it wasn't room temperature as that would have helped tremendously.  My meal was a special and I don't know how much it cost but it was probably around $7.  My friend had a Peach Quesadilla (sliced peaches) and a Persian Lime and Honey dipping sauce ($7).

The chef, Anthony Asbury, came out to speak to a table and welcome them.  Ironically, the chef turned out to be the same man who previously came in through the front door with a basket of laundry.  I thought that was odd and mentioned to my friend he should have walked through the back door with his clean towels.

Asbury's personality is big and somewhat loud.  He was very humorous, but would have been funnier if he knew when to stop.  It wasn't hard to overhear him tell the table that he had a movie and dinner night on Valentine's Day.  During the five-course meal ($49), An Affair to Remember was shown.  He said the night was wildly successful - he had two seatings - and he was planning another on March 30th.  The movie will be African Queen.  I'm assuming the $49 price will remain the same.  (Not a bad deal at all at this BYOB.) 

When preparing to blog, I learned that Chef Anthony was a Hollywood puppeteer (including for Henson Productions) and an actor on and (mostly) off-Broadway. (For more on his career, click here and then click the Anthony Asbury blue link.)  That certainly explains the personality - definitely theatrical.  It also explains the many pictures of Asbury with some famous people (Tony Bennett) and some people I didn't recognize.

A brief Google search could not produce any information on Asbury's chef credentials or where he learned to cook.  He didn't prepare lunch for us so I'm assuming he prepares dinner.  I don't think he's at the point where he's simply coming up with the ideas and passing them to an underling.

The "proper lunch" I had at Sweet Lula's is making me lean toward trying this month's movie/dinner night.  Or, according to a February edition of The Gloucester County Times, in April I can go to Sweet Lula's and see the man who played Arthur Weasely in the Harry Potter movie series.  How Chef Anthony will work that in will be interesting.  As a former puppeteer, I'm sure he'll know how to make it good theater.

He Said, She Said

Scene:  On train during morning commute.  Two people sitting in seats directly facing each other; both with noses in their books.  Train slows as it nears his destination.

He:  How do you like that book?  It had a great review in the New York Times.

She:  (Immediately pleased by this conversation)  Well, I'm just a dozen pages into it but I like it so far.  I listened to the author interview on the NPR website.  Was the Times review recent?

He:  Yes, just this past Sunday.

She:  Oh good.  I'll have to check it out.  I noticed the book you are reading.  How is it? 

He:  Good.  I was really interested in reading it.  The author is a poet and this is his first novel.  It got good reviews.  It's about the South. 

She:  Too bad we have to work; we could finish our books.

He:  Yes...so many books, so little time.

He and She:  A few more comments and a shared laugh.

No romance here...except for the love of words and books.  Absolutely made my day.

JG Domestic

Yes, we read reviews stating "you sit under an escalator" and the food was good but pricey.  Even so, we looked forward to trying JG Domestic to see for ourselves.  I was already a fan of the chef and was anxious to see if I still felt that way when I left.

Friends from a former employer took SEPTA in from the Western suburbs on this cold day for a "reunion" over dinner.  Conveniently, they did not have to even go outside as this Iron Chef Jose Garces restaurant is connected to 30th Street Station.  Up one escalator and down another delivers hungry travellers or foodies to this restaurant within a business office building.

It is easy to see how some would fret that the space is "under an escalator."  This criticism seemed much ado about nothing as the dining space that doesn't have an actual ceiling is limited and it looked very comfortable with  overhead beams and lots of plants to soften the space.

Our group followed the hostess to the back, which was most certainly an actual room with walls and a ceiling.  A party of 5, we sat in the back right corner.  As seen in the picture below, this room was obviously for larger parties as there were only 4 tables - 3 for 6 and 1 for 8.  For quite some time we had our own private room.  About mid-way through our meal we were joined by a party of 8.

It did not appear that you needed to have a large party to get a seat away from the hostess stand (read: away from the escalator).  The restaurant does have an open kitchen, so bear that in mind when making a reservation to help you determine if you want to see what's going on or not.  One possibility if you do sit by the kitchen - you may get to see Jose Garces in action.

We didn't sit by the kitchen but our waitress told us that "Chef" was in that night.  We joked that we were going to complain about a dish and demand to see the chef.  Our waitress semi-smiled.  She had either heard that a dozen times or she thought we were complete rubes.  We didn't complain but we did see "Chef" on the way out and he was kind enough to greet us, asked if we enjoyed it, and thanked us for coming in.  We thanked him, as well, for this treat of a dining experience.

When we were first seated we asked some questions about the wine.  Even though our waitress' "favorite" was the $165 bottle, we opted for the $40 bottle of Rosenblum (red) Zinfandel.  The wine was perfectly acceptable - especially after it breathed a little.  (A few days later I saw the exact bottle in a New Jersey wine store for $11.)  One of my friends ordered a drink with Stoli vodka and we were reminded what the "Domestic" means in "JG Domestic."  (Everything is from the US.  While Stoli didn't make the list of exceptions, we were told a few scotches did.  Apparently they make that concession for the older businessmen in the Cira Center, the building in which JG Domestic is housed.)

There is a Chef Tasting Menu every night but the entire table has to order this.  This night one of the two tastings was based on the passion fruit menu Chef used when he retained his Iron Chef title just the week before. (If that's something you want to try, it should be available for quite awhile as I've backdated this blog entry almost three weeks and it is still on the menu.)  We, however, were all anxious to sample a wide variety of dishes.  Since we had some specific ones we wanted to try, we opted not to go for the tasting menu ($65 per person) where the chef chooses what is served. 

And speaking of the menu.  Wow.  We were unanimous that everything was excellent and one dish was "OK."  Fortunately, each of the five of us didn't mind passing dishes and allowing others to try everything.  This is what we ate:

• Maine Lobster Cappuccino - a soup including Butternut squash dumpling and vanilla emulsion
• Kabocha Squash - with black kale, sheep milk cheese candied squash seeds
• Sugar Pumpkin Croquettes - with chevre, baby fennel, orange
• Chef's Garden Crosnes - a tuber with potato dumpling and crispy artichoke (more detail below)
• Chilled Heirloom Baby Beets - with whipped creme fraiche, molasses vinaigrette
• Texas Wild Boar Rack - with mustard glaze and maple grits
• Jidori Chicken - herb roasted with baby carrots, fingerling potatoes, cipollini
• Adobo Rubbed Ribeye - with refried rancho gordo cranberry beans and vidalia onion rings

The precious gems amongst all of these jewels were the lobster cappuccino soup, the pumpkin croquettes, and the crosnes.  The soup had great texture and taste.  The pumpkin croquettes literally melted in your mouth.  And the crosnes?  Quite a discovery for our party!  We asked the waitress questions about this tuber.  She said they had the texture of a water chestnut and were becoming more and more popular in the US.

This root vegetable is pronounced "crones" (one syllable) and was named after the French town of Crosne where they were brought from Japan in 1882, according to The New York Times.  In February 2004, the paper had an informative and amusing article about this unsightly vegetable.  A New York farmer was quoted as saying this one-inch vegetable is difficult to harvest in the late fall when the ground is cold.  For cooks, 

they are impossible to peel and annoying to clean. (Rub them with salt and a little water -- the salt gets the dirt out of nooks and crannies.)

Apparently, much of the flavor resides in the skin.  The article added,

The French variety tastes a bit like potato. The American variety is smaller and nuttier. The delicate flavor suggests jicama or Jerusalem artichoke. Unlike most tubers, crosnes stay crunchy when cooked.

Intrigued by this little vegetable prepared so well at JG Domestic, I did a little more research on chow.com.  It said this tuber is "from the mint family with a nutty, artichoke-like flavor."  This website differed from The New York Times, however, in that it stated crosnes were brought to France from China.  Whatever their origin, I will be on the hunt to try crosnes in other restaurants.  I want to see if they are as fabulous as I think or if they benefited greatly from the wizardly of Chef.

The last two meals listed above (chicken and ribeye) were extremely large portions.  The boar was..well...a bore. It received mostly rave reviews online but our table was very ambivalent about it.  I've had better in several places, including Pumpkin in South Philly.  Also, it was a much smaller serving than the chicken and ribeye.

After discovering the proximity to the escalator is not an issue for JG Domestic and, yes, the food is pricey I still highly recommend it.  If you're going to travel by car, it may be easier to park at 30th Street and walk through the train station than navigate the maze of roads and railroad tracks around the Cira Center.  But if you decide to drive anyway, I certainly understand.  Chef Jose Garces' restaurant is so comfortable and the food so creative that this fan knows you do what you have to do to experience it.

The Angela Bofill Experience at the Keswick Theater in Glenside, PA

She topped the charts in the 1980's with the voice of an angel and the looks of a bombshell.  Even after her star faded a bit here in the US during the 90's and 00's, she still widely performed internationally.  But in 2006 her star crashed to the ground when she had the first of her two strokes.  Even so, over the years I - and many others, apparently - wondered what became of her.  It also made me wonder - again - what happened to someone else.

Angella Bofill's voice has the ability to stir places in one's heart that have been fortified for years in self-defense.  Tonight I Give In is filled with almost painful joy, I'm on Your Side makes one ready to enter battle for a loved one and declare your undying loyalty, and This Time I'll be Sweeter can drop you to your knees remembering past remorse.  I know - sounds dramatic.  But these songs can really make you feel.  Give each of the three below a chance.  You don't have to listen to each song in its entirety to get the gist of the emotion and the voice.

Tonight I Give In (Actual Video with her singing on Soul Train)

I'm on Your Side (Audio only)

This Time I'll be Sweeter (Audio only)

This daughter of a Cuban-American father and a Puerto Rican mother grew up in The Bronx where she started performing in her teens.  She wrote much of her music and used it to showcase her 3 1/2 octave range.  After her 2006 stroke, and her second stroke the following year, that wonderful voice was silenced.  "Angie," as she is know to her friends, could not walk or speak for three years.  During those three years she lived in a rehab facility.

After being released from the rehab facility, Bofill moved in with her baby sister in California.  Friends saw her getting depressed and doing nothing in life.  They encouraged her to put together the Angela Bofill Experience, which is what I saw.  During this show, a wonderful singer named Maysa sang Bofill's classics - in a voice that rivaled Bofill's.  (She was truly amazing.)  Bofill's role was to briefly describe the origin of the songs, why she wrote them, etc.  This part of the evening was painful.

While Bofill's speech is back, it is very labored.  She speaks in very simple, incomplete sentences.  If you cringe with compassion when you hear Dick Clark speak on New Year's Eve, you would do a double-wince to hear Bofill.  She also needed some prompting by Maysa when it was her turn to speak, almost as if she was a little confused.  And watching Bofill get out of the wheelchair and back in it?  Ugh.  I felt like a voyeur as the clock seemed to tick loudly while the audience held its collective breath.

At one point Bofill played the cowbell with her one functioning arm.  At first I thought, "Look what she's been reduced to" but then I realized, "Hey, she's out there, back in front of an audience that loves her decades after her heyday.  Good for her!"  Even if she was mostly watching someone else perform her songs, she was showered with applause by the audience.

Angela Bofill (left) watching Maysa perform the Bofill hits

A few newspapers, including The Washington Post and The Philadelphia Inquirer, published articles about this Angela Bofill Experience that were interesting to read.  This experience and the articles made me wonder about a woman I didn't even know.  Bofill's music reminds me of her...although not for reasons you may think.

Back in the 80's I frequented a bar where I would often go after my evening of (college) studying ended because I liked the bartender.  This was a small and quiet bar that never had a lot of patrons during the week.  One night, a woman came in and sat at the far end of the bar by herself.  This meant there were only three of us there.

This woman ordered a drink, got quarters, and played Angela Bofill over and over again.  When the jukebox stopped, the woman got up and put more quarters in.  In between, she often sat with her head on the bar in obvious emotional pain.  Every now and then, she would raise her head - eyes closed - and sing to Bofill's songs in such a beautiful voice.  One song - I'm pretty sure it was I'm on Your Side - made her cry.  I'll never forget the quiet tears rolling down her cheeks.  I now realize she was probably grieving for the loss of  a relationship with someone she loved so much that she was still willing to be on that person's side, even if it was obviously killing her.

I still see that woman in my mind's eye today, and probably always will.  It was a powerful moment in time for me.  Just as I wondered these past years what happened to Angela Bofill, I've wondered more what happened to that woman.

The Persian Grille in Lafayette Hill, PA

Over 20 years.  That's how long it has been since I have wanted to try The Persian Grille just outside the northwest county line separating Philadelphia and Montgomery counties.  I wish I could say it was worth the wait.

Years and years ago I lived in the Germantown and then West Mount Airy sections of Philadelphia.  I also worked in nearby Chestnut Hill for awhile.  During these times, I would often pass this restaurant, which seemed extremely exotic and mysterious in my limited world experience and youth.  I finally stopped there this past weekend as I was heading to a concert in Glenside, PA; this restaurant is only about 7 - 8 miles from the theater.

The dining experience got off to a great start.  The restaurant had quite a few patrons at 6pm and I could tell from the way many interacted with the waitstaff that the patrons were regulars.  That, combined with the intriguing Iranian/Persian art, made for a comfortable and interesting atmosphere.  The food also got off to a good start.

Two of the three appetizers we had were very tasty.  We started with Halim Bademjoon ($6.95), a

special seasoned open flame charcoal grilled eggplant made with shredded chicken, sauteed onions, mint and walnuts.

This was very good.  Next, the waiter brought us complimentary dishes, costing about $9.00 on the menu if we had to pay for them.  These were very reminiscent of starters that accompany papadam at an Indian restaurant.  The tomato, onion, cucumber mixture (Salad-Shirazi) was very good.  The yogurt and cucumber dish tasted sour.

Even though I tried it, I can't remember what my partner ate for an entree.  Chicken-something that apparently did not "wow" me. I had Shereen Polo ($19.95), which is described on the menu as

basmati rice with saffron, slivered almonds, orange peels, slivered carrots and pistachio nuts. We add our special sauce and a generous portion of oven roasted chicken topped with a mild orange sauce. This dish is served at persian wedding (sic).

Sounds great, right?  I wish I could say it was.  It wasn't bad, mind you.  It was just that the orange taste was overwhelming and the chicken was dry.  The portion was huge and, because there was not a great diversity of taste, I wound up with the dreaded "same-taste syndrome."  (Remind me to copyright that phrase.)  I left a lot on my plate. 

We ended the meal with some baklava and I had some tea that came with rock candy on a stick - dunk to add the sweetness! 

Too bad the enjoyable and tasty beginning and end of the meal wasn't accompanied by a strong middle.  Perhaps I unfairly expected more diverse flavor.  Maybe I jinxed myself after the first eggplant appetizer and all of the interesting eye-candy (in the form of decoration) when I said, "I'm definitely coming back here."  All I know that is that I'm glad I tried it after 20+ years of thinking I would get to it.  I'm willing, however, to wait that amount of time again before I re-visit, even if the place did have a large line of eager customers when I left.