Not much is happening photowise as I’m visiting friends, nomming, and having R&R in one of my favorite towns. Here are a few holiday snaps.
First: Chicago, the day before I left. Sporadic rains had left a haze in the air:
On my first night in Cambridge, we made the usual pilgrimage to Christina’s, which has the best ice cream of all places I’ve ever tried, and that’s a lot of places! (Dr. Mike’s in Bethell, Connecticut, highly touted by Jane and Michael Stern, doesn’t measure up.)
The flavor board. I invariably get “burnt sugar”, the best ice cream flavor in the universe, but decided to vary that this time because I’ll be coming here on several occasions during my visit. Look at all these flavors (click to enlarge)! As always, it’s very hard to choose. Green tea, ginger molasses, mango, cinnamon, chocolate mousse, Khulfi (an India flavor with rosewater and cardamom), malted vanilla, salted caramel, and so on. What to choose?
I had a combination of chocolate peanut butter and carrot cake (below right), while my old friend Betsy had the famed burnt sugar (left). Everything was lovely as usual, and the carrot cake ice cream, which tasted like carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, was great.
A perambulation through Harvard Yard yesterday on the way to lunch. Another old friend, Andrew Berry, who lectures and advises biology students at Harvard, poses in front of the lovely epicenter of the University. One of his daughters, who is in her first year at Harvard, lives in the dorm at the far right:
There’s a statue of John Harvard, one of the University’s founders, in front of the administration building, though it’s said not to really be him. Tourists like to pose in front of it, and yesterday the Yard was mobbed with them, for Harvard is Something You Must See when you visit the Boston area. This time there were so many tourists who wanted to be photographed with John H. that they had to queue up. These were mostly Asian tourists waiting patiently in line for their shot:
Lunch in Harvard Square, with Andrew, was at the Indian restaurant Maharaja’s, where there’s a creditable buffet lunch for only $10. My (first) plate: tandoori chicken with naan and onions, butter chicken, raita (yogurt with veg), saag paneer (spinach with Indian cheese), and a lentil dish made with kidney beans. Yum! Needless to say, I didn’t have dinner
Th-th-that’s all, folks! More to come.
Fun stuff. And: NICE SHIRT! 🙂
Are you hitting the town with Steven Pinker?
We always stopped at Toscanini’s for ice cream. It’s closer to campus.
I like the feature in Google Maps where you can click through and get a 360 of the inside of the establishment. You can clearly read the flavors on the wall (though they may be out of date).
I guess I’ll get Indian buffett for lunch today :). BTW, lentil with kidney beans is called Rajma.
Having Indian food near an elite university brings me back to my CMU days and the Shree’s truck …
I wonder where that Lavazza sign came from.
I’m forever grateful to have grown up in Cambridge. On my next visit, I now know where to get some great eats and treats. Don’t forget Harvard Book Store and Groliers. So many bookstores have shuttered these past years.
Are you signing your books? I would love to get an autograph of you.
Christina’s?? I know about Rancatori’s and Toscanini’s, but where is Christina’s?
The ice cream and Indian food look utterly delicious. Reading posts like this one induced me to buy the ice cream attachment for my Kitchen Aid. First batch of ice cream made included bananas and brown sugar, and I have no regrets whatsoever.
Jeebus,
The flavors on that ice cream menu combined with the photos make me weak in the knees.
I need to be there, now.