Oh, Honeycrisp

You all know how I loathe the winter. Well, last year I found the silver lining to the black cloud that is November through March: Honeycrisp apples. Every sunday I stock up at the farmer's market near my apartment. I recently discovered (via a random poster somewhere on Orchard St.) that Honeycrisps have only been around since the early '90's. Oh man, they're delicious.

In other food-related news, I've been experimenting with recipes I wouldn't usually make, hoping to shake things up. Last night I made a roasted root vegetable dish (along with a snow-pea shoot based salad with tahini-vanilla dressing). The verdict: I still don't like beets, but the rest (parsnips, yams, carrots) were good.

In art related news, I went to a couple of good shows this weekend.

My old bandmate/buddy Marty Key plays with Ted Leo & The Pharmacists now, and they played a benefit where they first played a set of their music, then played backing band for live karaoke. Andrew W.K. was the emcee. Several people wanted to do karaoke versions of Ted Leo's songs. Personally, I would find it strange to sing someone's songs while they were right behind me, especially if I didn't know the words and pretty much slaughtered it. But, apparently other people didn't feel that way. I was feeling kind of sick when I got there, but the healing power of rock n' roll cured my sore throat.

The other show was of the visual art variety. My pal/ex-coworker Jay Pluck curated a collection of paintings by ex-Utrecht employee Zoe Nelson and current Utrecht customer Joseph Greenberg. It was incredibly packed, and we couldn't see the artwork, so we stayed long enough to say hi to our friends and then got some dinner. I can't remember ever seeing Joe so happy, so that was gratifying. He's actually the guy that led me to draw my "Old Man Winter" comic. The character doesn't look like him, and hopefully the events are not in any way predictive of his future. He always talks adoringly about his deceased wife, and you can tell how much he misses her. The essence of that loneliness was the germ of the "Old Man" comic.