food and laughs
I feel like I did plenty this weekend, but don't have a whole lot to tell you about it. I often start entries this way and then prove myself wrong though. Let's see how it turns out today!
I can't even really remember what I did on Friday evening. Shobhit volunteered for VegFest all weekend: four-hour shifts three days in a row, Friday 2-6 pm; Saturday 8-noon; Sunday 1:30-6 pm. And I still did enough for Shobhit to get a Social Review point on both Saturday and Sunday. I didn't do anything with any other friends all weekend, although it was not for lack of trying.
But what about Friday, then? I rode my bike home from work. Getting home an hour before Shobhit was even done with his volunteer shift, I must have made dinner. Here, let me check my text history with Shobhit...
Oh! I made one of the Roasted Potato trays we got from Costco. I also sautéed vegetables and veggie sausage. Then I made over-easy eggs to have with it -- essentially, breakfast for dinner. It was super tasty.
I was just finishing making that when Shobhit got home. I'm pretty sure we just watched TV for the rest of the evening. Here, let me check my streaming history on Netflix...
...Hmm. No activity on the 29th! Was that the day I spent a little time actually reading my library book? Maybe it was! I may have watched something on Hulu or HBO but those stupid apps don't provide a viewing history. Hold it, wait! I remember now! Shobhit and I watched the entire third season -- easily done, as it was only six half-hour episodes -- of Catastrophe on Amazon Prime Video!
Whew. That took a while to figure out. Also it was sad they had to have a memorial episode for Rob's mom, who had been played by Carrie Fisher.
So anyway that brings us to Saturday, which was basically VegFest Day: I walked down to Seattle Center to meet with Shobhit at noon when he got off his volunteer shift. I got there about fifteen minutes earlier than expected. Shobhit was still manning the booth for a brand I can't remember, but which makes these savory pastry things which, honestly, were just okay.
To be perfectly truthful, I almost never discover anything new at VegFest anymore. Generally speaking, I'll have already been exposed to any new products, of which this event offers very little to longtime vegetarians, at work. Such was the case with the New Origin Foods dosa/ildi batter, of which we already have two quart sized tubs in our refrigerator at home. The guy behind that company was at VegFest, and I guess to be fair, I did taste it for the first time at VegFest, as Shobhit hadn't made anything with it at home yet. He did make some for his breakfast yesterday, though, and was unusually impressed with it. He actually went out of his way to remind me to tell Scott he liked it.
But the last time I came across something truly exciting at VegFest was when I finally got to try Field Roast's then-new "hand roasted patties" (veggie burgers), five years ago. That product remains the best veggie burger on the market, in my opinion; the "realistic" Beyond Meat or Impossible Burgers are actually a) too much like real meat for my taste; and b) actually not anywhere near as flavorful. And by the way, this year Field Roast's booth was just more of their veggie sausages -- something I've already been eating for years and years.
I literally put a reminder on my calendar last year to "REMEMBER TO PACE YOURSELF," because it's so easy to gorge yourself when you pay a cover charge and then can just eat all you want -- and I did a pretty good job, actually. Also, in years past how crowded it gets in there has gotten to a point of seriously annoying me, and yet this year, while still objectively crowded, I never found it particularly bothersome. Once Shobhit was done with his shift, we made our way around the show room to make sure we covered every booth. We finished with a final desert of a sample quarter-doughnut from Mighty-O Doughnuts. We also took several 2-for-1 coupons from them.
We came home with a shit ton of coupons, actually. Shobhit is saying this year that he won't do this volunteering anymore, and maybe we should not bother renewing our Vegetarians of Washington membership next year either. The thing is, he literally said both those same things last year -- and this year, he still volunteered all three days, and we still renewed our membership. So, we'll see.
Anyway, lots of coupons were given out on booth tables already, and then the goodie bag you get when renewing your membership comes with a whole packet of them, those ones including a lot of local restaurant coupons that generally all have to be redeemed by the end of May. We didn't even use but half of them last year, maybe; I'm hoping we can make more of an effort to use them all this time. Also, once you get your goodie bag, there's about three stations of other products you can take from -- a young woman told Shobhit multiple times he could only take one of each. He really snapped back at her, which was kind of a dick move, actually. Because believe me, had she not been paying attention, he would have grabbed more than he was supposed to.
Imagine what he's going to be like when he's seventy. Seriously. I shudder to think.
I have to express some real gratitude for Shobhit though, particularly on Saturday -- because in the end, he decided to join me for the Amy Miller comedy show at Laughs Comedy Club in the U District, just so I would not have to go alone. On Saturday, when I was hoping Gabriel would come with me -- as he had the last time Amy Miller performed there, in March of last year -- I looked up Laughs Comedy Club on Groupon at Shobhit's suggestion, and found a ticket there for 42% off. Knowing the only showtime Gabriel could even possibly go to was the 10pm late show, that's the one I chose. It's too bad we had know idea then Shobhit would wind up coming, as I would have gotten two at that price. As it was, the Groupon offer was gone by the time Shobhit decided to go, which was after even the 8pm show on Saturday had actually started. So, with tax, I spent another $21 for Shobhit's ticket alone. I had paid all of $8.75 for mine.
And I even tweeted to Amy Miller directly to ask if that had any effect on the cut she gets. She seemed to really appreciate the question, but replied that she gets a flat rate, no matter how many people even show up. "So save that money." So that was pretty cool.
Laughs Comedy Club also has a two-menu-item limit, though, and Shobhit and I each had one cocktail, a side of mozzarella sticks, and a veggie burger we shared, which was actually better than I expected. I remember the food not being great last year, but I enjoyed this.
Also just like last year, there were maybe five local openers, of pretty widely varying quality. It must be said: on average, the straight white guys had the weakest material. To be fair, the one black guy did not have the greatest material either. Actually the best openers were the host, who was actually pretty funny (and a straight white guy); easily my favorite of the openers, though, was a redheaded woman I remembered being among the openers last year too. She even addressed me at one point because, as she started talking about Whole Foods, she recognized the maple leaf on my shirt as part of a yogurt brand's logo. She was the second person to talk to me about my shirt that day, and I couldn't even remember what product the shirt was for -- it has only the leaf on the front, and the brand name on the back, which I could not see and could not remember. (It was Chobani.) Anyway, that lady was kind of delightfully demented.
And finally Amy Miller herself came up, and although as I feared she did cover some of the same material she had done when I saw her last year, it was never exactly the same. And she really seems to have a knack for rolling with the punches, whether she's shutting down anything even remotely like heckling at nearly the moment it starts, or doing some form of actual crowd work. I feel like she's good at making pretty much anything funny.
Also, even though Shobhit came largely as a favor to me -- as, kind of predictably, Gabriel did wind up unable to make it, having already had evening plans with his girlfriend and a couple friends of hers -- I could tell he also had a good time. He got several good laughs out of Amy Miller's set in particular, once even doubling over and clapping his hands.
I actually took naps on both Saturday and Sunday afternoons, on Saturday mostly because of a carb coma after VegFest, but also in an attempt not to be too tired at the late show to see Amy Miller. It worked, mostly. And Shobhit fell asleep too, and slept much longer; I watched Friday night's episode of Real Time with Bill Maher on Saturday afternoon while Shobhit was snoring up a storm in the bedroom.
And then, Sunday morning, Shobhit and I went to see Dumbo, and it was . . . not great. It did win me over, as I mentioned in the review, but it was still not great. I had been super excited for that one, too: Tim Burton, re-teaming with both Michael Keaton and Danny DeVito, and adding Colin Farrell? What's not to love? Well, pretty much everything except Dumbo himself, actually. The baby elephant is exceedingly adorable.
And Shobhit went straight to his VegFest volunteer shift from that movie. I went to Target, to get a mouthwash they no longer have in stock; so then I walked to Bartell Drugs on Capitol Hill and got it there. I also got some Reese's Peanut Butter Cups to mash in with some peanut butter ice cream I had at home, which I should not have done, but it was so delicious! In that instance, worth the calories.
I wrote the review, and . . . again, fell asleep. I then drove down to Seattle Center to pick Shobhit up at 6:00 when his shift was done. He got in the car and said he didn't think he'd do this again next year, and once again I was like, "We'll see." Then we drove home, we had tomato soup with a sample fresh bread he got at the festival (and he unloaded a bunch more product samples from his packpack), and, kind of randomly, we watched the multicultural Thanksgiving movie from 2000 called What's Cooking? He found it on Hulu and decided to watch it -- and he really liked it. I always liked that movie too, although now it's a bit dated in some ways.
I have often considered re-watching that movie over the years, and hadn't realized fully 19 years had already passed since it came out. I always think about watching it in November, the actual month of Thanksgiving; in the end I finally re-watched it in March. And, it's set in L.A.'s Fairfax neighborhood -- which Shobhit lived literally blocks away from in West Hollywood for five years, so now I am very familiar with the neighborhood in a way I could never have been in 2000. Spoiler alert! In the end you find out the four different families the movie focuses on (one Vietnamese, one Latino, one Black and one Jewish -- that last one including a lesbian couple) all live on or near the same neighborhood intersection. The film's MetaScore is decidedly mixed, and it's kind of easy to see why; it's also easy to get sucked into it. Shobhit, for his part, actually said "This is a very good film!"
And then we watched episodes of Will & Grace, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and the season premiere of Veep.
[posted 12:15 pm]