What is it about Charleston that makes me feel like I need to wear a sweater or jacket when it’s 15°C outside, yet be perfectly comfortable in a t-shirt when it’s 15°C back home in Edmonton?
Pet Fest
I meant to post these pictures from last weekend’s Pet Fest earlier, but never got around to it until now.
Some of the JASPCA‘s adoptable dogs.
Basset hound pups with the Carolina Basset Hound Rescue.
Edging to the Mac side
I really, really want to get one of the new iMacs especially after seeing some of the uber-spiffy things OS X Leopard can do, but I’m less than enthused about the circa 2006 hardware specs. Then again, considering the circa 2001 hardware I’m using now, a new iMac would be a huge improvement. And it would look really good on my desk. ATI HD 2600 with 256 MB video RAM though? Is that enough for Leopard?
And seriously, WTF is up with charging $700 to go from 2 GB up to 4 GB of DDR2 RAM? You can buy like 14 GB of memory for that much retail.
Still saving up for a new computer for next year. Whether it will be Mac or something else is still up in the air.
It’s too bad I can’t just buy OS X to run on a computer I put together myself.
Fez for dinner
Up the road from me Fez opened up a little while ago in the space formerly occupied by Lulu’s Bistro. The food is billed as French-Moroccan, so the wife and I tried it out tonight.
It’s nicely decorated inside, although a tad on the dim side. We suggested to the staff that they consider using taller candles on the tables because we were quite literally eating in the dark at our table off in the corner. Next time I’m going to make sure to grab a table underneath one of the lights so I can see my food.
At least the food was tasty. I started with the Moroccan style mussels while the wife had the kefta (2 skewers of a spiced veal meatball type thing). A little small for the price ($7), but I thought it was pretty good. The mussels were excellent in a rich tomato-citrusy broth.
For the main course we each tried one of the tagine dishes. She had the braised short rib tagine, which was well prepared but was seasoned with something she didn’t care for too much. I had the lamb tagine, which was a definite winner. The lamb was tender and flavourful and nicely enhanced with figs and apricots adding some sweetness to the dish.
Dinner was rounded out with a sugar coma-inducing chocolate and sesame cream and creme brulee. The chocolate sesame cream was excellent – pudding like (much thicker though) layers of rich dark chocolate and light sesame with some really strongly cherry flavoured something at the bottom of a martini glass. The chocolate pretty much overwhelms any sesame flavour, but since I’ve never met a chocolate I didn’t like, I didn’t mind. The chocolate combined with a little bit of the cherry was really good. The creme brulee came out with a nice solid top of brulee and was well made but turned out to be infused with lavender, not a flavour the wife is fond of.
Fez is definitely a place to check out if you’re looking for new flavours to try. I’m looking forward to going back to try some of the French style dishes. It’s a little on the pricey side ($15+ for the entrees) and I didn’t end up with any leftovers. You do get some really good food though and a cozy, albeit dim, atmosphere to enjoy dinner in.
Mystery nuts
I don’t suppose anybody out there can tell me what kind of nuts these are.
They’ve been falling all over the place on one side of the house, and the dogs love to pick them up and crunch on them. Not knowing what kind of nuts they are, I make the dogs drop them whenever they pick one up.
They fall from a tree with leaves that look like this
