Over at Shepherd, which is a newish website to help shepherd readers toward their next favorite books, I compiled a list of books that impress me with their sometimes poetic, sometimes beautifully figurative, prose: The Best Speculative Fiction Books with Lyrical Prose.

My choices:

This list is heavily informed by my love of African American literature (this was my Modern Literature focus in college) and my willingness to follow gorgeous imagery anywhere, anytime. Feel free to ask me more about any of my choices; I'm happy to gush.

I also mention in the article that I'm preceded by THREE GENERATIONS(!) of poets on my mother's side. Thanks to my mom, my grandfather William Parker, and my great-grandfather William Lee Popham for that legacy!

Wishing you some great new lyrical prose favorites! If you like my work, you may also want to check out the Shepherd list of Ominously Atmospheric Stories for Winter's Night for suggestons, as Wings Unfurled does have a good share of its own haunting. Also take a gander at their new Magicians (Fantasy) shelf on their bookshelves.

The Novel Fox is a small press, founded in 2014, that specializes in bridging the divide between talented authors and the new world of digital publishing. They have three branches, and Anthology I is the first collection released under their Shorts imprint.

The description in the press release sounded interesting to me, so I agreed to review the book (Obligatory disclaimer: It was provided for free). The release reads, “With stories ranging from ‘Paying Old Debts,’ about a thoughtful sex robot assassin, to ‘A Wand's Tale,’ chronicling the short life of a sentient magic wand, to ‘Subsidence,’ which includes a horrific golf hazard, the stories of Anthology I are riveting from beginning to end.” Those concepts sounded entertaining enough for this speculative short fiction author! I’m an easy sell.

Although the Novel Fox has a digital focus, I was pleased to receive a print copy of the book. And I was even more pleased by its high production values!

The cover artwork is smart graphic design. The size is squarer than a standard paperback, which felt easier to handle. The nicely spaced, easily readable font also pleased me, and I loved the simple artwork at the beginning of each story—it set the mood quite well. I did worry the cover’s thick, black ink would rub off on my fingers as it felt oversaturated, but I have no smudges to report on.

Aesthetics are important in publishing, but content even more so. The anthology contains eight short stories, equally divided between science fiction and the fantastic. Interestingly, the short stories mentioned in the press release aren’t the ones I enjoyed most, though they all have redeeming qualities. Of them, “Subsidence” by Peter White is the most intriguing, employing the Lilliputian concept in a more horrific manner than I’ve seen in a while. Neil Marshall is a typical, middle-aged, wealthy male whose friend goes missing on a golf course. Moral of the story? Don’t chase after that delicious barbecue smell!

My favorite selection was the most terrifying because it doesn’t feel so far off from today. “The Shadowless,” by Rati Mehrotra, does a great job synthesizing concerns about religion, patriarchy, and the omnipresence of technology without coming across as dismissive of any of those elements. In a future Marrakech, Nissa is constantly under surveillance by the public, her family, and the government. Even her lifelong companion, a robotic bird named Juju, tracks her movements and conversations. Nissa seeks a different life, and the depths of how little control she has in this too-familiar society is exposed. Excellent pacing, characterization, and world-building.

The collection’s lead piece, “Washout” by Dominic Dulley, did an impressive job capturing the heightened emotional state of adolescence through an unconventional break-up: one between a spaceship’s user interface and Nix, a teenage girl who’s been trained to control the ship through a complete integration of mind and body. Something goes wrong, and Nix’s anguish at the separation reminded me of every teenage boyfriend I once fought bitterly to get back to, certain they had been “the one.”

The collection’s remaining five stories are entertaining but didn’t particularly resonant with me. Ernesto Pavan’s “A Wand’s Tale,” uses beautiful emotional imagery but ultimately came across as derivative—maybe I’ve watched the Harry Potter films too recently. Noir fans may love Gerri Deen’s “Paying Old Debts,” but discounting Veronica Mars, I’ve never been a fan of the genre, in human or android form. I’m sure other readers will find them all more satisfying.

Regardless, I think Anthology I is a collection worth the read and a couple of bucks! Click here to order it from Amazon.

Friday night, I attended a performance of Amélie: A New Musical at the Berkeley Rep. This was my first time attending a show at that theater—I’ve only lived in Oakland 6 months, y’all. And my biggest takeaway from the performance is that I will absolutely never buy an obstructed-view seat at the Roda stage again. Honestly, I could only see two-thirds of the stage at any given time from the loge. Don’t do it. Pay full price.

Especially pay full price for a show as charming as this one. Before I go on, you need to know that I’ve never seen the Amélie movie, and my knowledge of it was limited to knowing it’s a quirky indie flick starring Audrey Tautou. You should also know this review contains plenty of spoilers—I want to talk about what worked and what didn’t, and it’s hard to do that without specifics. Lastly, I have only one song title, unfortunately, because the program did not include a scene list, which makes absolutely no sense to me unless they still wanted the freedom to change things up during this first run.

So What Worked?

The Whimsy. From the off-kilter set design to the choreography, props, and performances, Amélie’s (modern-day, Samantha Barks; young, Savvy Crawford) imagination comes through without it being an over-the-top hammer hit of “LOVE ME AND MY QUIRKS!” It’s subdued whimsy, if you will. One of my favorite scenes was the simple staging of Amélie skipping stones: quickly raised pom-poms streaming with blue were all that was needed for the image to come across. Special kudos go to the hearts that magically appear during the scenes when Amélie and her love interest, Nino (Adam Chanler-Berat), spy on each other in the subway station. The show would undoubtedly be a lesser being without the travelling gnome number as well. The postcard puns were a sheer delight on their own, and David Andino’s enthusiastic performance made it a highlight of the show.

The Songs. A good 90% of this show is songs rather than dialogue, with music by Daniel Messé and lyrics by Messé and Nathan Tysen. The performances and the score had airy, breezy qualities that made the songs easy to understand and able to show off the tonality of the singers’ voices well. Nino’s solo, “Thin Air,” and Nino and Amélie’s shared song around the doorframe at the climax of the romantic plot were plusses for me. To be fair, I’m a sucker for the tried and true romance device of lovers separated by a door. I must say, however, that my favorite musical moments were when the company rises up in harmony, which occurs in several numbers. These songs won’t wear you out, they’ll just guide you effortlessly through the plot. And frankly, an easy-to-follow plot is a win for a musical.

The Choreography. The first scene that takes place in the Two Windmills Café is a fantastic number. Simple percussive beats made by slamming cups or various other objects made it engaging and a great introduction to the characters that inhabit the modern-day portion of the narrative. The first song of Amélie’s childhood—it involved a giant goldfish puppet performed by Paul Whitty, who also plays Joseph—also kept the energy and fun level high. Sometimes, simplicity truly is best, and that also came through in how the company was choreographed.

The Company. I’m not just talking about the engaging performances the cast gave here, though I’ll go ahead and single out the fruit-loving grocer Lucien (Perry Sherman) and Amélie’s father (John Hickok) as vivid characters I wish had more focus. What I’m talking about, really, is how the company acts as a momentum-building force within the show. It’s not the same as a Greek chorus; rather, you get the sense that the presence of each of these characters is essential—the story could not have happened in this time, at this moment without them. Amélie’s journey toward emotional vulnerability would be changed, different in some small way if any one of the characters had not been there. Which leads me to the last strength of the show….

Amélie’s Emotional Journey: The characterization of the show’s main character is somewhat of a gamble. The narrative begins with Amélie in childhood and skips to her rote daily life in what I’d guess are her late 20s to early 30s. Modern-day Amélie is a void. With a repressed childhood and her mother’s (Alison Cimmet, who also plays Philomene) early death, it makes sense she’d be afraid of making connections with others. And indeed, Bank’s hunched-over portrayal of Amélie’s body language is her most significant feature. Until the plot point of Princess Diana’s death and the subsequent hilarious hallucination of Elton John (Randy Blair, who also plays Hipoloto) in a song as close to an Elton John melody the composer could get without infringing on copyright—a feat unto itself. The song inspires Amélie to seek meaning for her life through brightening others’ days. It’s only then that Amélie awakens as a person in her own right, and that’s about a third of the way into the show already. Like I said, a gamble!

Even then, Amélie’s hesitant, not so sure her new quest is one for which she’s well-suited and I liked that a lot. She’s uncomfortable taking this step into the world and that makes sense for her. That uncomfortableness continues as we gain more insight into why she’s so crippled by fear of meeting Nino in person, to the point that she must come up with fanciful ways of putting off their inevitable coming together until she’s emotionally ready for it. It’s honest, but having the lead character so inaccessible for so long is hard. That choice worked for me; it could easily not work for people who haven’t had similar experiences. Which brings me to….

Room for Improvement:

The Opening Number. I assume it’s a carryover from the film, but why is this song focused on a fruit fly? The performers sing it well, and that powerful forward push of the company is effectively set-up right from the first note. But I couldn’t stop thinking that anything but a fruit fly would be a more powerful focus of the song. Why not a butterfly? Too many syllables?

The Passage of Time. The chronology is perfectly fine until Amélie starts doing her good deeds…and then the whole rest of the show could have taken place over a week as far as I could tell. During Amélie’s fight with her neighbor, the glass man Dufayel (Tony Sheldon), I got the impression she had been working on her quest and finding safe ways to risk connection over several months. But I’m still not sure I was supposed to assume that, and if I was, I should have known that earlier. Some sort of passage of time notice would have done wonders for me to (a) buy into the romance, though in entertainment I must accept that romances are always whirlwind; and (b) be willing to accept she’d made a significant impact on people’s lives through her anonymous gestures. As it was, I felt Amélie had barely emotionally progressed to the point of participating in others’ lives before I was told she’d been using that as a crutch to stop living her own.

The Half-Way Boat Song. It’s a song that gives us great insight into why Amélie’s afraid of connecting with others in that she’s taken to heart her mother’s instruction that distances are never broached, only ever divided by half. But I got that message within the first few lines of the chorus—I didn’t need to watch Amélie’s mother give the lesson, young Amélie try to make it clear, and modern-day Amélie try to complete the walk to Nino and then retreat in fear. There just wasn’t enough movement on the stage for the number, so it felt like dead air to me. The boat and math equation projections are fine, but they aren’t exactly lively on their own. It was one of the moments when I wondered if my obstructed view was making me miss some background action.

Dufayel’s Final Painting. How great would it have been to see Amélie painted as the Mona Lisa or some equally well-known object d’art? Why didn’t we? Was this another obstructed view problem? I felt ripped off to learn Dufayel had moved passed his artistic block but not see the results of that progress.

That’s about it. The positives far surpassed the negatives for me. Amélie: A New Musical has oodles of potential that are by and large fulfilled. I hope it does get another incarnation that extends its life beyond its Berkeley Rep run.

Attended 18 September 2015.

I was contacted to do a review for Attractive Unattractive Americans: How the World Sees America, a book written by René Zografos, an award-winning Norwegian-Greek journalist. It is published under his own imprint, Renessanse Publishing.

I don’t do many book reviews, but this one’s subject matter caught my eye. “Almost every human being on the planet today knows something – and feels something – about America…But what does a world that contains seven billion people really think about the most talked about – and controversial – nation on earth?” reads the press materials, and frankly, I’m a sucker for every article I come across that tries to answer that question. Even in our modern connected world, we live such a myopic experience in the USA, tangled up in our own affairs in part because of how large of a country we are geographically and in part because rugged individualism is in the American DNA. We think we know how foreigners see America—the use of ‘Murrica! is now common parlance as is the notion we’re supposed to be world saviors yet are viewed as world manipulators. But are these conundrums what most people outside the USA ponder about us on the whole?

Zografos tackled that question through seven years of collecting anecdotes from and interviewing travelers and locals throughout the world, from Malaysia to the United Arab Emirates to Costa Rica. He has a direct, honest, and contemplative writing style.

The book is organized as a series of essays, some by Zografos and others by invited writers, on different topics related to the American identity. Interspersed with the essays are short quotes from interviewees in different geographical locales. Through this structural backbone, common themes arise that sometimes seem in direct conflict with each other. For instance, an admiration for American manners and our optimistic, you-can-do-it! attitudes comes through just as strongly as a disdain for American superficiality and lack of authenticity in our friendships. I found the comments about superficiality especially intriguing being as I come from the region of the USA that Americans themselves have deemed the most superficial: Southern California. So it was especially interesting to see so many travelers say Americans in general don’t have genuine friendships or make real connections with other people. I’m still chewing the cud on that one. Do people in other countries use that expression?

Another common theme was a general disavowal of American cuisine—the portion sizes, the sugar, fat content, et cetera. They are right on all counts, but what do we make of having our diets scorned while simultaneously being praised for the invention of the hamburger? This irony of being praised for the same things that generate the harshest critiques is, of course, exemplified in the book title itself.

There’s a lot of fodder for discussion and contemplation in Attractive Unattractive Americans that made it well worth the read for me.  I have only two critiques, both of which likely stem from my perspective as an American. The first is the “Jailhouse Blues” chapter that recounts crazy state laws. While that might prove interesting to foreign readers, American audiences are well familiar with these ridiculous codes, so it serves no purpose other than shutting down the interesting discussion Zografos has going for a few pages.

My second critique is that the final quarter of the book reads like a series of advice letters to Americans, all written by Zografos, that sometimes draws on discussion that came before it and sometimes doesn’t. Part of this book’s strengths are the many different perspectives it provides, so to end with only one person’s voice, however well-intentioned the conclusions may be, was not as successful for me as the preceding chapters, and majority, of the book. In particular, I bristled at Zografos’ assertion that the America he first visited is not as nice as the America of today, and he lays that charge at our youth. I always scoff at the notion of there being a grand old yesterday of American history in light of how much progress human rights have made into the here and now of today, not to mention our fallen crime rates. But it’s more that I simply disagree that young Americans are responsible for rising xenophobia in the wake of 9-11 or that we (I’m speaking as an elder Millennial) are more pessimistic than our forebears. I think it’s quite the opposite, actually, as I’m very optimistic about what our open-minded and creative generation is doing to move this country forward.

Regardless of my disagreement with those theories, Attractive Unattractive Americans was enlightening, surprising, and both a skewering of American culture and a celebration of its merits. That’s not an easy feat to pull off, and I applaud Zografos for seeking genuine opinions rather than knee-jerk ones and taking the time to present the material in a manner that allows us to mull it over for ourselves.

If you’re interested in the answers Zografos gathered to that age-old question, order Attractive Unattractive Americans below! It’s now available on Amazon in paperback and ebook formats.

Not ready to commit? You can get more of an idea of the book by visiting its Tumblr page.

Obligatory disclaimer: I was provided with a review copy of the book.

About two weeks ago, my first guest blog for Localwise went up! Localwise, you say? What's that?

Well, my friends, it's a Berkeley-based start-up that's essentially a classifieds board for local jobs. They began with listings in Berkeley and Oakland only, but after six months of operation, they've expanded to Alameda, Emeryville, and San Francisco with more Bay Area locations in the works.  The site is easy to navigate and a much preferred alternative for local businesses and applicants over that other free classifieds site. You know the one.

That's great, Becca! But what does that have to do with you? You write about food, drink, and travel, not job hunting!

So true. But one of the most appealing aspects of Localwise is their commitment to building community in the Bay Area, because knowing your neighbor and neighborhood business owner generally tends to improve everyone's quality of life. As part of that goal, Localwise runs a blog that highlights local businesses, job profiles, and the food & drink scene. Why that last item? Because food industry positions make up around 2/3 of Localwise's job listings at any given time. That's right--2/3! We like to eat here, folks. We like to eat a lot.

Perhaps you can see where I come in now? Along with a few other Bay Area food & drink bloggers, I'll be contributing short articles to the blog on at least a monthly basis. My first one touched on three of the newest food joints in Oakland's Temescal neighborhood.

It started like this....

Oakland’s Temescal neighborhood has no shortage of restaurant options, and in the last six months, it’s added three more to its roster. Two of them are brand-new locations, and one is reimagined, but all three are worthy of your gastral attention. Ranked from fastest out the door to least likely to kick you there, here are Temescal’s newest eateries:

And you can read the rest of that article over at Localwise. I'll let you know at the Gourmez when the next one goes up!

Last month, in advance of its December release on DVD and VOD, I screened a little indie flick from 2011 starring Nicole Beharie of Sleepy Hollow fame. Beharie's smiles are magical on Sleepy Hollow, so I welcomed the opportunity to see more of them in this Brooklyn tale of musician Leticia (Beharie) striking out on her own and German businessman Niklas Hank (Ken Duken) vowing to seduce her on his one day in town.

That sounds like the set-up for a bigscreen whirlwind romance that I rarely buy into, but My Last Day Without You resists taking the predictable paths toward superficial love connections. Leticia is no manic pixie girl, and Niklas is not a floundering manchild. Rather, he's a corporate hatchet man in the vein of George Clooney's character in Up in the Air, and he shows little compunction when confronted by the people whose jobs he's just ended.

During one of many shots beautifully framed through windows, Niklas meets Leticia, who offers him one of those smiles and a sample of her CD.

Niklas is entranced by this charismatic woman. With the encouragement of his chauffer, an avowed romantic played with relish by Robert Clohessy, Nik vows to seek Leticia out as a distraction until his flight back home that evening.

Unbeknownst to them all, Leticia is a casualty of Niklas's company's downsizing. That job had been the means by which she could finally move out from under her father's loving, but controlling, thumb. Her father, Lester Johnson (Reg. E. Cathey) is the pastor of a church in Brooklyn, the setting for his own unexpected but thoroughly delightful romance with faithful congregant Luz (Marlene Forte). Their love story is a mirror of Leticia and Niklas's. Whereas the main couple has just met and are testing how far to take their instant attraction, Lester and Luz have been friends for many years and must now decide if companionship and matching emotional baggage are enough to bring an attraction about. The awkward scene in which Luz lays down her case for them to date is a highlight of the film. Lester is blindsided, but as his later actions show, why waste time when you already know a person through and through?

It's that getting to know a person part that guides much of the action for Leticia and Niklas. Leticia quickly figures out that Niklas is the three-martini-lunch type of guy, and that is not her MO. Although her anger over her job loss propels her to test the waters, she's still a good Christian girl who remains true to herself throughout the film.

Yet she's intrigued to know more about this insistent stranger. The audience pieces together Niklas's background at the same pace as she does. My expectation as a conditioned movie viewer was that I should root for Niklas to grow as a person, but neither I nor Leticia were sure that's something Niklas was capable of or even wanted to do. Thankfully, this is a film wherein Niklas ultimately has to work that out for himself, and the audience cannot be sure of the outcome.

The moment when I realized I could trust these filmmakers to do the unexpected came after Niklas believes he has undergone a transformation. But when he tries to press money into Leticia's hands to pay for borrowing a pair of her father's shoes, I shook my head right along hers, knowing as she did that Niklas just didn't get it. Sharing that connection with Leticia gave me the release I needed as a cynical viewer to buy into the movie's final scenes.

With a script that smartly delays a foregone conclusion, a set of engaging side characters, and plenty of spark between the two leads, I found My Last Day Without You to be a delightful, believable tale of love that might be.

It was directed by Stefan Schaefer and produced by Christoph Silber. The story is loosely based on the events of Silber's own chance encounter with love. The pair co-wrote the film as well as much of its original music. Turns out Beharie can sing!

The soundtrack is available on iTunes and Amazon, and the film has now been released through DVD or streaming at Amazon, Vimeo, and most anywhere else you can purchase movies online. You can also access it directly from the film's website, here. Amazon buy links follow.

Emily Matchar, a journalist and writer based in Chapel Hill for at least part of the year, published a book, Homeward Bound, on the movement toward reclaiming the domestic arts for women among twenty- and thirtysomethings, which she coins as "the New Domesticity."  When she sought reviewers (meaning my copy was free), I jumped at the chance because I've been fascinated by the do-it-yourself attitude of our generation: chicken raising, canning everything, and covering every body part in some form of cable knit. I often feel like I'm the only person I know who doesn't want to sew her own dresses or make radish pickles. I admit to being amused at the misadventures my friends have trying to keep chickens alive. I get the appeal of gardening and the pride of wearing something you've made yourself, but it all takes so much work. And time. And I manage to fill up all my time with work as it is. Why would I want to add more?

Which is what Matcher's books asks: Why are more and more people spending their time making their own vinegar or sewing their own cloth diapers? Is this a trend backward or forward? What are its roots? Matchar interviewed many women, and some men, who are partaking in the more extreme ends of this movement by taking themselves off the grid, committing to attachment parenting, and/or blogging all about the experience and making careers out of making homes. There's no judgment in the book, and Matchar deftly handles the irony of a generation of people returning to what their feminist forbears fought to get away from. In fact, many of the women in the book frame reclaiming the domestic arts as an act of feminism, as having the right to choose whether to have a career or a life in the home and to relearn the skills that were taken from them due to being deemed oppressive.

The motivations discussed in the book for making such a big change in lifestyle range from workplace dissatisfaction to resenting absentee parents to distrust of government's ability to make foods safe. This is where Matchar's analysis shines strongest, cutting to why, in increasing numbers, people are reinventing their lives with a focus on domesticity and family. She makes clear that the tasks of domesticity aren't a problem and are often admirable work, but the underlying reasons some people have chosen to devote themselves to them are. And she doesn't refrain from pointing out the chinks in the armor of this revolution, either. New Domestics, by and large, can afford to withdraw from the consumer culture in the first place, even if they pinch every penny from a single income household after. Women who put aside workplace skills can end up in a bad spot if the supporting partner leaves—and nearly all the couples involved had at least one of them still employed in a traditional workplace. And of course, prioritizing parental instincts over the realities of scientific study lead to things like the anti-vaccine movement and the resulting increase of diseases that had been nearly eradicated in the USA. Most importantly to me, it shows a declining faith in solving problems as a society rather than as individuals.

Matchar also highlights very interesting similarities in language in the ways people talk about their commitment to New Domesticity from both progressive and conservative standpoints. Progressive women who feel drawn to relearn what Grandma used to know talk about doing what comes naturally to them. Replace natural with God, and the arguments are identical to those of women who became homemakers for religious reasons.

I would have liked a little more exploration of how simple rebellion may play a role in the origins of the New Domesticity as well. If our mothers rejected the home because they didn't want the same lives as their mothers, then maybe we've taken up those tasks and focuses as hobbies or a lifestyle for the same reason—because our mothers didn't. Regardless, "Homeward Bound" is a needed book that does a great job examining the trend, its origins, the motivations of those who devote themselves to it, and the societal problems its existence exposes. It's well-worth the read.

Homeward Bound: Why Women Are Embracing the New Domesticity
By Emily Matchar
Simon and Schuster
288 pages
Buy Here

If you were on vacation last week, you may have missed my newest post at WRAL's Out and About blog. I was, and I almost missed it myself! This one is on all the amazing foodstuffs you can find within a block of what I call Durham's Bermuda Triangle for foodies, also known as the intersection of Mangum and Parrish streets.

Take a food tour through the South's Tastiest Town #

By Rebecca Gomez Farrell

Posted: May 27 Updated: May 29

Durham, N.C. — For foodies, the intersection of Magnum and Parrish streets in downtown Durham is a Bermuda Triangle they may never want to escape. Within one block of it, in any direction, is a plethora of eateries, bakeries, and bars that prize local ingredients, quality products, and creativity. Consider this your guide to a perfect food lover’s day in Durham without doing more than crossing the street.

Stop 1: Breakfast at Monuts Donuts (110 East Parrish St.). This donut and bagel shop used to operate out of a tricycle. Cake and yeast donuts come in flavors like chocolate chai and the delicious maple bacon bourbon I sampled. Bagels are also a hot commodity and can be topped with eggs, cheese, and … maple sriracha? Counter Culture iced coffee should help with that morning headache....

Read on for all the stops on my foodie tour...and to see just how many times I can manage to misspell Mangum in one article. Find the rest of it here, along with a pretty awesome slide show of the tour, if I do say so myself.

I'm a little (a lot) behind on the times in that I'm just now posting this teaser here, and it was published about a month ago at WRAL's Out and About blog. Oops! My time from reviewing a spot/drink to posting about it is on a month lag right now, so that's par for the course! Oh well. Someday, I'll get back to more of a 1--2 week lag.

But enough of my behind-the-scenes issues. Here's a teaser of my review of Sarah's Empanadas:

Durham, N.C. — Sarah’s Empanadas is one of those lunch locations the RTP crowd keeps close to their vests. I’ve spied it many times when heading to dinner at Papa Mojo’s or Thai Lanna, but it’s only open at midday, so getting there during operating hours was a challenge—a challenge now conquered!

The Company: A pair of women whom I meet up with every month to try a new-to-us lunch location, which was quite convenient for this purpose.

The Location: A nondescript strip mall exterior hides a cozy restaurant. Inside, Sarah’s Empanadas is adorned with tropical bird decorations, creamy mint walls, and a giant, colorful mural. It’s also likely to be packed with diners and a long line of patrons paying at the register. Never fear, the cashier is speedy and has amazing credit-card-sliding reflexes....

Want to know more about the Bolivian empanada wonderland? Read on here.  And I wouldn't leave you without some food porn. Here's the chicken and cheese empanada.

I'm a little slow this time in letting you all know I have another review up at WRAL's Out and About. Forgive me? This one was on Village Burgers, the hamburger joint inside the University Mall in Chapel Hill. Was it worth reviewing? You bet your brioche bun. Here's your teaser:

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — The mall is rarely my choice when I’m craving a burger, but one of our local chefs, Giorgios Bakatsias, opened a joint in Chapel Hill’s University Mall that is likely to change my tune. The Giorgios Group owns a string of fine-dining restaurants in the area, including Bin 54 and Parizade, so I was intrigued to see what would happen when this upscale, internationally trained chef took on the quintessential American meal...

You can read the rest of that review at WRAL here. And because a photo makes everything more exciting, here you go.

It's that time of the week again! This time, I have two food blogging items to brag about, both recent developments. First, Carpe Durham, one of the blogs I contribute to, was a finalist for the third year in a row in the Best Blog category in the Independent Weekly's Best of the Triangle awards.

I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to be part of a website with passionate readers who vote for us year after year. Thank you so much!

Second, I have another review up at WRAL's Out and About. This one is of the newly added brunch menu at the Durham and Hillsborough Bandidos locations. Here's your teaser:

Bandidos is located a hop, skip and jump from my house, so you can bet my husband and I are regular customers. They serve Mexican food in the American style: rice, beans and whatever combination of meat, cheese, sour cream, lettuce and tortilla you want. It’s not street tacos, but it’s comfort food to me. Their salsa is my favorite in the area, and their house margaritas are impressively tasty and strong for the price. Don’t miss Margarita Mondays when they are $1.99 per mug!

You can read the rest of that post here. See you next week for more of my food-blogging bragging. We'll get back to fiction eventually. ,)

You may have missed it last week---I know I did---but my second review for WRAL's Out and About was published. This time, I visited Southern Rail in Carrboro to check out their dining scene, knowing full well that the drinking scene is worthwhile! Here are the results:

Southern Rail is a nightlife and dining complex in downtown Carrboro. The Station, their main bar, is housed in a refurbished train station, and the dining takes place in vintage railroad cars. They also have a large beer garden space and two more bars housed inside the facilities. On a warm night with a DJ or band playing outside, Southern Rail and the Station are happening.

I hadn’t tried the food since they first opened five years ago, so I decided to remedy that and investigate whether Southern Rail offered good options for a bite between drinks.

You can read the rest of the post and check out the pictures at Out and About.

Last Thursday, my first post for WRAL's Out and About--their blog on the Triangle's entertainment, food, and nightlife--went live, and I didn't even realize it! If I had, you can bet I'd have let you all know about it then. I'll be contributing a couple more pieces for WRAL during the course of the year, and I look forward to it! This first one is on 604 West Morgan, a fancy and delicious Italian restaurant hidden in downtown Durham's warehouse district. Here is your teaser:

I have a compulsion when dining out in the Triangle – I must try a new place every time! We are spoiled with amazing options, and I’m lucky enough to have friends just as excited to try them all as I am.

My dining companions on this particular evening all work in the American Tobacco District in downtown Durham, so we wanted somewhere nearby. The usual suspects like Revolution, Rue Cler and Dos Perros were quickly eliminated – we’d all been to them before!

Where we hadn’t been is an Italian restaurant just half a mile away in the redeveloped West Village warehouses. Unless you happened to glance into the courtyard between the Flowers Warehouse and Cooper Shop buildings as you walked down Fernway or Morgan streets, you wouldn’t know 604 West Morgan was tucked away inside.

For the rest of the review, and pictures, head to the post!

I may give off an artsy, sophisticated air but as all those who know me can testify, I'm really a soul-sucked television glutton at heart.  I've had many obsessions stem from the world of the glowing screen including Sonny & Brenda (General Hospital), Spike (Buffy, the Vampire Slayer), and most recently, Adam Lambert (American Idol but soon...the world!).  My fascination with The Glittery Alien from Planet Fierce, as dubbed by his own brother, reached great heights this summer.  So much so that I did something I thought I never would.  I bought a ticket to the American Idol concert in Greensboro.  Not only that, but I suckered three friends into going with me.

Now, I still try to maintain some sort of dignity, so I don't watch American Idol until the performances start getting meaty, around when the Top 10 perform.  This year, Matt Giraud's save was the first episode I watched so I had never heard the first two performers of the night before except for a duet on the finale.

Matt Sarver was really quite good.

He was soulful with a Southern twang and his two-song set definitely felt too short.

Megan Joy, on the other hand, was a hot mess.  I didn't get any good pictures of her but girl looked like a kinky Barbie doll in her pink tight dress and Marilyn Monroe curls.  The Halloween cocktail waitress outfit that came out during the group sing was not an improvement.  I wanted to find her unique voice exciting but it was too brassy for me.  Paired with the outfits, I just didn't get her at all.

Scott was next up and I quickly discovered that the piano's glare was a problem for my photography so I don't have good solo shots of him, either. But here's one of him tickling the ivories with Matt Giraud from the group sing.

He was very comfortable onstage and gave a warm performance.  This was when my friend Kim first started musing how much better the show might be with a little more going on than just the singers singing.  I completely agree.  Back-up dancers would have been nice and a few of performers would have benefited from more help with staging.  It was a pretty bare bones concert for the most part.

Next up was Lil Rounds, whose voice sounded rather generic to me on the show.  She had lots of energy and her set was full of fun, hip songs.

Stripping down to a Beyonce-style bodysuit was not a good idea, though-I barely like how Beyonce looks in one.  Lil Rounds sang it well but it seemed to go on too long.  After two of her songs, I wanted to hear more.  After three, I was done.

Anoop came out next and of course, received a hearty welcome from the hometown crowd.

I love that he is a man who embraces both his geekiness and his preppiness and I must say, I dug the outfit.  He's got a rich, smooth voice that's just plain pleasant to hear.

Next up was Matt Giraud, the Justin Timberlake look-a-like.

He doesn't look like Justin anymore with that new mohawk!  His punk Old West bartender look, a description supplied by my friend Sarah, was great.  This boy can sing well and play up a storm on the piano.  I liked him best when voice and keys were exercised together rather than when he simply sang.  He had fun, though, and that's always infectious.

A forgettable group sing was next, then a totally unnecessary 20-minute break. I was getting antsy by the time the second half started but luckily, it was much more dynamic than the first, largely due to all four performers displaying great showmanship.  Allison led off and she can definitely pose well on stage.

I liked her style but she sings too hard for me, both while on American Idol and at this performance.  I want to appreciate her great, ragged voice but it kind of ends up sounding like distortion to me, a little too loud and run together.  I would love her if she just dialed it down about three notches in volume while keeping her performance energy at the same self-assured level she had tonight.

Danny totally surprised me.

On the show, I only liked one song he sang, which was during Rat Pack week.  He sounded much, much better live and the raspy quality of his voice didn't grate on me for once.  I thought his Latin number was definitely the best of the set with some fun, flirty salsa moves and would have been completely satisfied if he had left out the little inspirational moment.  Heck, Danny did two Rascal Flat songs and I didn't hate them!  That's impressive.

And then there was Adam.

I am way too obsessed with this man.  He's so gosh darn comfortable in his skin.  His "Whole Lotta Love" was a pelvis thrusting, microphone straddling, sexy entrance that he quickly mellowed out with "Starlight."  I think that song might be my favorite of his tour performances, though I also really enjoyed the Bowie medley.   He and Allison also had loads of fun doing Slow Ride-it was my favorite performance of hers of the night.

Adam has such a great stage presence and that voice is just plain beautiful.  I know many can't stand his higher register but I really enjoy a good rock wail so that just adds to his overwhelming appeal for me.  He better become a superstar!

Kris performed very well, also.  He's got the singer/songwriter charm down pat and infused it with plenty of rock grit.

I didn't like his Killers cover in the video I'd seen previously but in person, I was singing along heartily.  "Bright Lights" was too low energy for me but the rest of the set was great and the curtain drop was nicely done during "Ain't No Sunshine."  He's adorable and I'm sure his album will be, too.  It's an automatic buy for me along with Adam's.

The whole slew of Idols finished out the night with "Don't Stop Believing" and I left the show with it happily stuck in my head.  I was much more impressed with a lot of the performers than I expected to be.  But most of us agreed that a more full production would have been nice, by which I mean the addition of dancers and better staging and lighting.  For those who already knew how to work a stage or have learned fast, their sets were riveting but for the others, they needed a little more help to completely hold our attention.  Regardless, I had a fantastic time.  Sadly, my obsession of the summer has only gotten worse.  At least I have pretty pictures to stare at.  What, you want to look at them too?  Go ahead!

The Receptionist by Adam Bock
Manbites Dog Theater Company
Downtown Durham
2/12–2/28/09
Yes, you already missed it.

I received the flyer for The Receptionist about 2 months ago and was instantly intrigued by the woman at the desk with pens, phones, and staplers at her command.  I felt a kinship with her as most of my post-college career has been in similar positions.  So I asked Ben, "Can we go?"  He said, "Fine" but qualified it with a loud sigh.  Undeterred, I bought tickets and we went Friday night.

The acting was fantastic.  All the main actors were masters of facial expressions and while I still have no idea why the audience found his opening monologue about fly fishing hilarious, Carl Martin, who played Mr. Raymond, did just fine though he was not quite as appealing as the other three.  Marcia Edmundson, who played the receptionist, Beverly, definitely was the star of the evening.  Her little "hmms" and other noises were essential for conveying the judgmental, yet good-natured character.  She maintained a believable aura of ignorance until the very end, even as she found herself in the harsh light of the central office.

The play itself came across as a riff on that poem attributed to Reverend Martin Niemoller in 1946, which begins with "First they came for the socialists but I did not speak out..." and that has infiltrated the web repeatedly, attaining its own meme-dom in comments and articles everywhere.  In other words, I found the play to be about plausible deniability, in the setting of working for a company without considering just what that company does or how much it may cost you to work there.   It begins as a very simple office piece, with a likable camaraderie between Beverly and Lorraine, the only other employees except for Mr. Raymond, who is out.  Mr. Dart, a very creepy and randy individual comes from the central office to meet with Mr. Raymond and spends most of a morning making small talk with the women.  At the end of the first act, the audience learns that this company tortures people and follows a protocol that must never be wavered from.  Mr. Raymond violates the protocol for a "client" and thus the central office has come to take him away.

In the second act, Lorraine's exit is done very well.  She repeatedly emphasizes to Beverly a few details that make this a very unusual morning and then makes her escape, with Beverly either none the wiser or just too deeply wrapped up in the notion that this is a normal job.  She never seems to consider that something unusual could happen thus buying herself a one-way ticket to the central office.

To sum up, if the Receptionist comes to a theater company near you, check it out.  I enjoyed it; it was simple, yet quite suspenseful and the actors made a play that could fall flat fly with their stellar energy instead.

3 stars