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Saturdays at Sherman
The Sherman Café in Somerville's Union Square is just what an urban café should be. Laid back, good drinks, tasty food, helpful service and a low-key vibe that hides its hipness just under the surface. It’s a small space, but not nano, a tight rectangle or snug box.
On the gray Saturday I visited there was enough electricity coursing through the cafe to give it a pulse. Wifi comes with a fee, and that means half the customers are reading actual books!
Unlike Bloc 11, which I stopped into first, the Sherman is not a weekend flashmob.
Instead of gaggles of college students, mad programmers, dates, etc. downing salads and paninis, The Sherman has room to breathe.
The mood goes from romantic, peaceful to a perfect place to create. If I was to file one gripe, it’s the so-called art. Poster canvases, found at any suburban Bed & Bath & Beyond, lined the walls. But if the art’s too good, a café becomes a gallery. I wouldn’t touch a thing.
Amid the slate colored interior and scuffed floors there’s a quiet energy that’s one part Macdowell Colony and one part Lower East Side hang. Not too ying or yang. Balanced. You could work on a white sheet or a screenplay here.
Customers strike up pleasant (read quiet) conversations. No one looks at you askance when you walk in. The Sherman is the place to hang for an hour and feel recharged. Reminds me of a café I used to frequent in London in the ’90s.
The music is another attribute. It’s just noticeable enough to warrant a head nod. Yo La Tango’s syrupy loops is the perfect dreamy soundtrack of this vegan café that does a mean mate latte.
Drink of choice: mate latte (bitter, frothy, earthy, warm)
Ambiance: High ceilings, scuffed pine floors, big windows with a work bar, soothing ambient slate blue walls. Great hidden corners.
Music: Yo La Tango, “It’s not enough.”
Wifi: $4.95 an hour, $7.95 a day
Centro does lunch
Sometimes the best food is directly under your snout. I live all of 100 feet from one of downtown Lowell's most-raved about dining spots, and yet I gas up my car and drive 30 minutes to Cambridge and even farther to far-flung Jamaica Plain for inspired grub? No more. My new year's resolution is to keep my dining dollars as local as possible. And Centro's new lunch menu makes it as easy as chicken panini.
I visited the Market Street bistro yesterday for its lunch kickoff party and all I can say is Centro, you are my new favorite neighbor. Mired in post-holiday excess I went ascetic with a green salad. It was uber fresh served with waiter-endorsed avocado dressing and choice tomatoes, greens, onions, etc. My husband, the cranky carnivore, ordered the steak sauce burger. Pictured here.
He ate each bite with relish. So fast in fact, I had no time to inquire about its many splendors. I was too busy sneaking fries, or more accurately frites, when he wasn't looking. Shoe-string fried potatoes flecked with salt and pepper (simple, yet elegant) was a brilliant move by chef Michael Oozoonian, whose name I finally figured out how to spell. Four o's for outrageous.
He ate each bite with relish. So fast in fact, I had no time to inquire about its many splendors. I was too busy sneaking fries, or more accurately frites, when he wasn't looking. Shoe-string fried potatoes flecked with salt and pepper (simple, yet elegant) was a brilliant move by chef Michael Oozoonian, whose name I finally figured out how to spell. Four o's for outrageous.
They make their own pickles here too. And the icing on the cupcake is the price. Most lunch entrees are $8 and under. Add three new craft beer taps, subtract the wall that sanctioned the dining room from the bar and we've got a retooled winner.
Centro, welcome to 2013!
Driving Ms. Johnson
"Can anyone volunteer
to pick up Joyce Johnson at her hotel tonight?" Paul Marion asks at
the Jack Kerouac Literary Festival last weekend. Without thinking, my hand shot up.Joyce Johnson is On The Road royalty. The talented writer of eight books, and one-time girlfriend of Jack Kerouac, was in town for the night and needed a lift. I wanted to be her chauffeur.
I've read Minor Characters and heard the stories about this independent streetwise Manhattan writer nurturing Keroauc's words, navigating his moods and soothing his sensitive side. Of all the women who entered Kerouac's up- and downbeat orbit, Johnson is the only one to emerge unscathed. Or so I am thinking as my Mini Cooper pulls in front of Johnson's hotel. What would Kerouac's still-living Maggie Cassidy be like?
I escort her into my car and we head to sushi bar Blue Taleh in downtown Lowell as instructed. She's in a talkative mood, so I pepper her with deep journalistic inquires."Was he as handsome in person as the photos suggest?" I ask as we cruise down the Lowell Connector.
"He was amazing," Johnson confirms. "Deep blue eyes, ruddy complexion, dark hair. He looked like someone who just walked out of the woods."
Johnson and Kerouac circa 1957
The woods of Centralville? I'm trying to imagine how a Franco-American kid from these gritty streets ends up looking like a wise woodman from Vermont. But there is no time to ponder. I only have Johnson for few more lights.
Submerged in a plush arm chair in the lobby is not an overly dolled-up 77 year-old, or aging beatnik chic, but a friendly, energetic woman with a wide smile "Are you here to pick me up?" Johnson asks, her face brightening.
I escort her into my car and we head to sushi bar Blue Taleh in downtown Lowell as instructed. She's in a talkative mood, so I pepper her with deep journalistic inquires."Was he as handsome in person as the photos suggest?" I ask as we cruise down the Lowell Connector.
"He was amazing," Johnson confirms. "Deep blue eyes, ruddy complexion, dark hair. He looked like someone who just walked out of the woods."
Johnson and Kerouac circa 1957
The woods of Centralville? I'm trying to imagine how a Franco-American kid from these gritty streets ends up looking like a wise woodman from Vermont. But there is no time to ponder. I only have Johnson for few more lights.
"How did you meet Jack?" I ask, pulling onto Central Street. "On a blind date set up by Allen Ginsberg," she says with vestiges of excitement about this fix up, 55 years ago, still lingering.
Picture it: Howard Johnson's, Greenwich Village, 1957. A struggling one-time author of the unacclaimed Town and the City calls her up and says "I'll take you out, but I have no money. Can you pay?"
Johnson, 13 years his junior, recalled how revolutionary this date was for many reason. "I had never paid for a man before," she says.
Johnson, 13 years his junior, recalled how revolutionary this date was for many reason. "I had never paid for a man before," she says.
Her early impressions of the writer confirm the gloom often found in Kerouac's prose. "He was drinking a lot when I met him." This was before On The Road came out. He was 34. His moods, says Johnson, were mercurial. "I had never met an alcoholic. No one in my family had drinking problems. I wasn't equipped to handle him."
What did she like most about him? "He was tender and supported my writing."
In promoting her newest biography: "The Voice is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac," Johnson mentions the Kerouac questions that bother her the most.
Q: "Why are people still reading Kerouac?" ( A: "Because of the writing.")
Q. "What was it like to sleep with Jack Kerouac?" (A: "What's it like to sleep with your boyfriend?")
Out in the chilly October night with Jack Kerouac's one-time girlfriend, now walking with a collapsible cane, I'm caught up in the significance of the moment. "This was Jack's favorite time of year," I say to Joyce. "Yes, everyone comes home in October," she says, quoting the famous line from On The Road. "He got that from Thomas Wolfe."
Happy are the cheesemakers
To stumble across a farmer's market in Maine in early autumn is to fall headlong into food nirvana. Along Bath's newly expanded waterfront on a recent Saturday morning, I found a few of my favorite things. Bread, coffee and cheese — yes please!
Lactose tolerant on your marks. This market teems with three local cheesemakers. An embarrassment of riches. Go ahead and blush. We did at Balfour Farm where cheese fairy Heather Donahue tempted us with fresh feta and lemon Greek yogurt. While her curds and whey were as pure as the soon-to-fall snow, we held onto our cash for a few more paces.
Appleton Creamery had us at "wild Maine mushroom goat cheese." My favorite fromage, studded with Maine foraged mushrooms, basil and spiked with garlic added smokey heft to this ethereal cheese. Slap it on crusty slices of Borealis Bread (next vendor over) for an absurdly local moveable feast. These cheesemongers (Downeast hipsters above) put the loca in locavore.
While this coastal hub is home to the incredible Cafe Creme, make time to sip samples of Big Barn Coffee. Sumatra and Columbia arabica beans roasted in Wiscasset, the prettiest village in Maine, deliver a bold, smooth and round coffee experience. Sold in sustainable glass jars, these gorgeous beans get our vote for best packaging in the 207. Small-batch coffee roasters are starting to rival craft brewers in the Pine Tree State. We'll drink to that!
Epic eats DownEast
I took a ramble up to Maine this week and found food nirvana. Not in Portlandia. Two hours up the coast, the crusty old sea village of Belfast is a tasty port to weigh anchor. When you're charting your course to Penobscot Bay this summer detour to The Lost Kitchen
Inside a Gothic flatiron building on Main Street, incredibly well-prepared vittles await you and your crew. An ancient bank and former coffee bar is now an upscale enclave, and we mean that in the most delicious way. There are two rooms, one with a well-stocked cocktail bar (with quail eggs instead of nuts) and a food bar, where cakes are frosted as you drool. It's not fit for salty dogs or sea hags. This is a Scratch kitchen with a capital S.
You want local? Mainers invented farm-to-table eons before the fooderati caught on.
Take the Lost Kitch's incredible buffalo burger. I later learned it was sourced 16.8 miles away from a water buffalo farm in Appleton, Maine. Brilliant! Topped with gooey Gruyere cheese, sauteed onions and sandwiched between a perfectly crunchy bun with poppy seeds, it could go head to head with any trendiod Manhattan burger from any trendiod Manhattan burger chain. No hyperbole here.
Yeah the onion rings were incredible. Not too salty, greasy. Perfectly turned out.
The salad is worth its own post. Each fresh spinach leaf was painted with an olive oil that must have been pressed by food fairies. A smoky flavor, compliments of sauteed bacon bits, gave this healthy hit a pleasing richness. There was a duck egg too garnished with a darling edible flower. Too pretty to eat. Too hungry to photograph. Another local player Tinder Hearth was responsible for sourdough croutons that soaked up every last European nuance. This is the last salad to order before you die.
Kudos to chef Erin French. Talk about local, she lives upstairs. Word is she used to run a supper club for local foodies. Lucky for us flatlanders, we don't need to know the secret knock to try her clean, pure, nourishing fare.
Oh. Almost forgot to mention the hazelnut chocolate cake with butter cream frosting. Two words: Do it! Not too sweet. Actually tastes healthy. Studded with nuts, dusted in sugar and note the purple petal.
The Lost Kitchen, located on the same block as fresh-food magnet Chase's Daily, has put Belfast officially on the gustatory radar. This is the way life should taste.
Inside a Gothic flatiron building on Main Street, incredibly well-prepared vittles await you and your crew. An ancient bank and former coffee bar is now an upscale enclave, and we mean that in the most delicious way. There are two rooms, one with a well-stocked cocktail bar (with quail eggs instead of nuts) and a food bar, where cakes are frosted as you drool. It's not fit for salty dogs or sea hags. This is a Scratch kitchen with a capital S.
You want local? Mainers invented farm-to-table eons before the fooderati caught on.
Take the Lost Kitch's incredible buffalo burger. I later learned it was sourced 16.8 miles away from a water buffalo farm in Appleton, Maine. Brilliant! Topped with gooey Gruyere cheese, sauteed onions and sandwiched between a perfectly crunchy bun with poppy seeds, it could go head to head with any trendiod Manhattan burger from any trendiod Manhattan burger chain. No hyperbole here.
Yeah the onion rings were incredible. Not too salty, greasy. Perfectly turned out.
The salad is worth its own post. Each fresh spinach leaf was painted with an olive oil that must have been pressed by food fairies. A smoky flavor, compliments of sauteed bacon bits, gave this healthy hit a pleasing richness. There was a duck egg too garnished with a darling edible flower. Too pretty to eat. Too hungry to photograph. Another local player Tinder Hearth was responsible for sourdough croutons that soaked up every last European nuance. This is the last salad to order before you die.
Kudos to chef Erin French. Talk about local, she lives upstairs. Word is she used to run a supper club for local foodies. Lucky for us flatlanders, we don't need to know the secret knock to try her clean, pure, nourishing fare.
Oh. Almost forgot to mention the hazelnut chocolate cake with butter cream frosting. Two words: Do it! Not too sweet. Actually tastes healthy. Studded with nuts, dusted in sugar and note the purple petal.
The Lost Kitchen, located on the same block as fresh-food magnet Chase's Daily, has put Belfast officially on the gustatory radar. This is the way life should taste.
Getting Grumpy
It's cliche to say that Manhattan is the best and worst of everything. On a three-day coffee, art and music bender this week, I found only the best. I'm happy to report that nothing downbeat crossed my path as I explored the steadily gentrifying Chelsea. My first inspiration came, not from a bleeding-edge show at the Gagosian Gallery, but the prefect flat white at Cafe Grumpy.
Sitting on the bench on 20th Street enjoying my first mini latte (more espresso, less milk), I spread the gospel to all manner of tourists who were beating a path to the hidden-in-plain-sight Cafe Grumpy. Like a signless nightclub too hip to tell you this is "the place," Grumpy has a speakeasy vibe. Following the Brooklyn roaster on Twitter for months, I recognized the mischievous logo (too much coffee or not enough?) while searching in vain for my lodgings.
Thank God my sense of direction was so effed. This spot made my mornings. As most affordable (read anything south of $200 a night) inns in Gotham don't provide breakfast, a flat white and oat cake was all I needed to hit the streets raring to go.
I could go on and on about the Clover-made Brazilian coffee we also downed, and the bags of whole bean coffee that bear the name of the farmer listed as producer, but it's hard to capture the essence of Cafe Grumpy with words. Even plain-clothes cops at the Precinct next store frequent this cafe along with tech types, stressed-out magazine editors and what looked like a film crew fueling up for a shoot.
Not every place can handle the flat white, a refined drink from New Zealand. It takes precision and a steady hand. Grumpy is as good as it gets.
Welcome to Beantown
The coffee scene in Boston is on a tear. If this pace keeps up, a caffeine junket to Seattle, Portland or San Francisco will soon be null and void. I chronicled a few of the hotspots for the Boston Globe Magazine this week.
Since that story went to press, Dwelltime announced it will open this weekend. This is the new mid-Cambridge cafe from the bean gurus behind Barismo — Arlington's famed small-batch roaster. An even more mini micro batch house in Medford, Mystic Coffee Roasters, didn't make the piece. Short on time, I wasn't able to shoe leather it out. But this spot should be on the list of any self respectable coffee tourist. Big tastes are oft-served in tiny joints.
The North Shore got a major wakeup this spring when Cafe Gusto opened last month serving the Cristal of coffee — Stumptown. Detour here on your next beach trip.
Back in Beantown, Northeastern students and instrument-totting NE Conservatory types are digging the new Pavement Coffeehouse that just opened on Gainsborough Street. This is a major step up from Espresso Royale, where I whiled away many afternoons between journalism class. The food looks incredible too. But bring your Tweetdeck, lines can be unbearable.
Progressive cafes are slow to percolate on these shores. But now that the tide is high, the intoxicating stench of Costa Rican La Minita will soon rival cod. Boston bean junkies, we are very lucky. Tea drinkers, surrender your bags!
A ceremonial cup
In coffee we trust, has been my mantra since I learned to talk. You don't have to hail from Portlandia to consider the almighty bean a Godsend. It goes without saying that brewing coffee should be a religious experience, not a mindless, one-button Keurig hit. So when the invitation to attend a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony at Barrington Coffee arrived, I considered it an honor and cleared the decks.
Inside the months-old cafe in Boston's rapidly gentrified Fort Point Channel neighborhood, this squeaky clean space was getting an exorcism, blessing and purification in the name of Java. I took a seat on a burlap sack in the middle of the cafe with company founder Barth Anderson sitting Indian-style to my right. Three eager employees — two baristas and a roaster — joined us at the makeshift altar to arabica.
The grand priestess was Tigist, a beautiful Ethiopian woman clad in pink, bangles and presiding over buna — a typical coffee ceremony from the birthplace of coffee. Over the course of two hours she roasted green coffee beans until they turned deep brown and smelled like popcorn. She then brewed three varieties laced with sugar. Forget the Spanish siesta, Ethiopians take time each day to gather round the coffee urn. To this advanced African culture, coffee is a sacrament and the end-result is not slugged down in a paper cup on the way to work.
The first brew, percolating in an ebony kettle, was called arbol. As velvety as Mayan drinking chocolate, it imparted a deep, coffee flavor from the jungle. Between rounds, the coffee queen burned Frankinsence and resin in a chalice to heighten the moment and clear the air. You won't see that at your corner Starbuck.
Tona, the second serving, was akin to an Americano, yet more nutty and nourishing. Tigist passed tiny, ornate cups around and we shared sips making the ceremony feel less like stagecraft and every inch an authentic experience. To Ethiopians, making coffee is as important as drinking it. By participating in this mindful experience I began to feel closer to the beloved beverage we consume daily, yet know so little about.
Although the cafe was buzzing with iPad-toters ready to start the weekend, the energy did not damper the ceremonial spirit. By the time the third and final batch (baraka) was passed, we were a little chatty and I for one was secretly glad it had become a watered down, deli-style affair.
I salute this Berkshire beanery for trying something new and just a little risky in staid Beantown. When you're ready for a real cup, stop in for a single-origin brew like Ethiopian Tuktant. The message is clear — drink less, drink better coffee. With Barrington Coffee opening its first Boston cafe, that just got easier.
Inside the months-old cafe in Boston's rapidly gentrified Fort Point Channel neighborhood, this squeaky clean space was getting an exorcism, blessing and purification in the name of Java. I took a seat on a burlap sack in the middle of the cafe with company founder Barth Anderson sitting Indian-style to my right. Three eager employees — two baristas and a roaster — joined us at the makeshift altar to arabica.
The grand priestess was Tigist, a beautiful Ethiopian woman clad in pink, bangles and presiding over buna — a typical coffee ceremony from the birthplace of coffee. Over the course of two hours she roasted green coffee beans until they turned deep brown and smelled like popcorn. She then brewed three varieties laced with sugar. Forget the Spanish siesta, Ethiopians take time each day to gather round the coffee urn. To this advanced African culture, coffee is a sacrament and the end-result is not slugged down in a paper cup on the way to work.
The first brew, percolating in an ebony kettle, was called arbol. As velvety as Mayan drinking chocolate, it imparted a deep, coffee flavor from the jungle. Between rounds, the coffee queen burned Frankinsence and resin in a chalice to heighten the moment and clear the air. You won't see that at your corner Starbuck.
Tona, the second serving, was akin to an Americano, yet more nutty and nourishing. Tigist passed tiny, ornate cups around and we shared sips making the ceremony feel less like stagecraft and every inch an authentic experience. To Ethiopians, making coffee is as important as drinking it. By participating in this mindful experience I began to feel closer to the beloved beverage we consume daily, yet know so little about.
Although the cafe was buzzing with iPad-toters ready to start the weekend, the energy did not damper the ceremonial spirit. By the time the third and final batch (baraka) was passed, we were a little chatty and I for one was secretly glad it had become a watered down, deli-style affair.
I salute this Berkshire beanery for trying something new and just a little risky in staid Beantown. When you're ready for a real cup, stop in for a single-origin brew like Ethiopian Tuktant. The message is clear — drink less, drink better coffee. With Barrington Coffee opening its first Boston cafe, that just got easier.
A shot of Bourbon in Cambridge
Last week Porter Square got a shot of something some may say it doesn't need, but I beg to differ: More Coffee! DC-based Bourbon Coffee opened in the Porter Exchange building on the first floor where The Gap once stood.
It's not as big as the disappearing jeans outfitter, but much more sprawling than your average indie cafe. As a purist I tried a dark roast from Rwanda, where all the beans here hail. They will offer pourovers and requisite milk drinks too. I'm happy to report that my first experience with Bourbon brew was clean and velvety with plenty of caffeine to keep me up all night and stay good and groggy the next day — that's what I get for pulling over on Mass Ave at 8 p.m. and crashing a soft opening. But the cafescenti has been waiting for the "crop to cup" cafe to open since last Christmas. Christ, has it been that long?
I met Bourbon's general manager Bosco Munga (above), a delightful man who has deep knowledge of the local coffee scene. And knows how to rock a Big and Tall suit. Stop by while he's still in town for a crash course on Rwandan joe.
Now that Bourbon is pouring the nectar of the African goddesses, this stretch of Mass Ave is getting quite muddy. With the beloved Simon's Coffee House (George Howell's fave) a block away and Hi-Rise bakery doing the third-wave dance directly across from Starbucks, this "square" rivals Harvard for espresso love. A good place to stay up all night. Now all we need is a 24-hour movie theater.
If it's not Scottish it's crap
The immortal words of Mike Myers followed me into The Haven in Jamaica Plain last week as a sea of Highland plaids, greens and a man in a kilt greeted us.
It was my first visit to the newish Scottish pub and I immediately knew this could be a favorite hang. We sat at the snug, but not cramped, bar and did the only sensible thing, ordered two pints of Bellhaven stout. Scotland's finest ale is deep-hued and velvety with a lingering honey sweetness. Upon first sip, I finally understood beer geekdom. The transcendent ale made our holiday shopping fatigue disappear in a Glasgow minute. Another fine choice is the lighter Notch Saison.
There were two bald headed gents at the bar talking in a Trainspotting tongue, eating crisps and watching a soccer game on the telly. The Scottish theme here is not in name-only. Owner Jason (did not catch his last name, but let's go with McClure for the sake of this post) is straight from the UK and yes wears a kilt and a friendly smile. By this point we were in such a good way it mattered little how the grub was. Or even if there was more beyond the complimentary oatcakes.
Everything is made in house, down to the dense wholewheat morsels they start you off with. We split a Scottish egg, a Haven must! The yoke did not run and we did not care. This is the most nourishing bar food on the all-things-Scottish menu. This deep-fried egg nestled in rice with a taut shell was tucked into a bed of micorgreens. A dollop of devilish mustard added a gourmet flourish. The beginning of a perfect winter repast.
The chicken bangers (white puddings) and garlic mash I ordered with braised kale kept me merry and bright. My mate's fish platter was a fresh cut of cod (or haddock?) fried without excess grease, chips and served with terrific minty peas. Better than it sounds. The mulled wine, lacking in aromatics and a tad bitter, was the only down note, but it still cheered us on a cold night. Nothing is crap here, nothing.