travel (sigh)

I got back from England last night, but my suitcase did not. It appears it has taken up residence at O'hare for the foreseeable future. I will be willing to forgive United for this error as long as said suitcase arrives today, because it contains every pair of underwear I own. Dammit.

I tend to be unlucky with respect to suitcases that don't make it to their final destination with me. Last Christmas I flew from Boston to Chicago via Philadelphia, and the Continental baggage handlers in Philadelphia all pretended to be sick (but were really striking). For five days. Which meant my suitcase arrived the day AFTER Christmas. Which meant I wore the same clothes for 5 days, had to buy new underwear, and attended Christmas eve church in tennis shoes, jeans, and a blazer of my mom's that didn't fit. It was classy.

condo watch 2005

The condo next door is still holding steady at $237,900. I think it's been on the market for 4 months now. Sources indicate that housing prices are starting to head slightly downward, which probably doesn't bode too well for condo guy.

mmm....fudge

Last weekend we were out and about and ended up at the Thias House. It was a little weird, it's a house (and apparently from the website, a B&B) that's decorated mostly like a normal house except everything inside is for sale. The important part, which isn't mentioned on the website, is that they also have a fudge shop. I bought vanilla fudge with pecans, and it's gone now, and all I can think about is how to get my hands on more.

cafe de france in clayton

D. and I went to dinner at Cafe de France on friday night, and my overall impression was that it was tasty, but perhaps not a 4 star place. I'd probably give it 3. Obviously from the name, this is a french restaurant. To start, a single roll appeared on our bread plates. D. said his was good but mine was chewy and possibly stale. It was not good, one gets better bread from Panera. This is a small quibble, but one expects good bread at a fancy restaurant, especially a french one. Also, a bread basket would have been better. I would have liked another roll but couldn't be bothered to ask the waitress. D. had french onion soup which was very good, and I had lobster bisque. The bisque was good, but not as good as that which I had earlier this summer at a wedding in MA. I think the MA bisque will be the gold standard forever and I'll probably never have any that lives up to it. We also shared a garden salad which was nice, not over-dressed and with tiny crumbles of what I think was blue cheese. For the entrees, D. had chicken in some sort of lemon and mushroom sauce that was oh so lemony and delicious. He loved it. I had salmon in some other sort of sauce. The salmon was very moist and fresh, but the bottom was a little overcooked and chewy. Overall both entrees were excellent, though, and came with mixed vegetables and some sort of small pasta/large couscous. Somewhere in here we also both had a glass of Reisling - very tasty, not too sweet or dry and apple flavored. Dessert was kind of funny because we inquired about the souffles and the waitress looked kind of alarmed. "Those take 25 minutes", she said. "You're supposed to order them with your entree, I guess I forgot to ask". We said we didn't mind and ordered one anyway, but we were wondering if she thought we weren't having a good time together or something, and couldn't stand to chat for another 25 minutes. The souffle was worth the wait, it was raspberry flavor and had some sort of liqueur flavored sauce that we poured inside it. It was light and fluffy and very good. I had never thought of souffle as a dessert item before but it worked really well. We also had a creme brulee. That was good too, but it was a little too sweet and the bruleed crust was a little too thick. We were stuffed by that point and probably could have done without the brulee. A waitress also tried to snatch it away before we were done, which irked me a little. Overall verdict - very tasty food, needs to work a little on the details (rolls, plate snatching waitresses).