Category: food and drink

Lunch!

July 16, 2025 • 10:45 am

Readers have clamored for photos of the food aboard, so I made a special trip to the Bistro, the fancy “real” restaurant aboard, instead of the bistro, which is smaller, has almost all the same stuff, and has better views.  (I almost always eat at the bistro.) So here is the selection from the “Balena” restaurant on Deck 5. I haven’t cropped the photos, so they’re a bit rough—not to mention that I was holding a plate in one hand and my Panasonic Lumix in the other.

First, the two menus you can peruse before you enter (click to enlarge). Note that there are two pages. And yes, they have everything that’s mentioned, and the menu changes with every meal (though breakfast varies little).

Note that burgers and hotdogs are always available, presumably for the Yanks, though we do have 28 nationalities on board if one includes the crew.

One difference between the Balena and the informal bistro is that the former always has a special “exotic food” station. Below is today’s, making shawarma to your taste. I avoid these as the food isn’t as good as the regular stuff, and the lines are long:

The first station is for salads; the bowl of lettuce is out of sight to the right, but you can see all the things you can put on top. There are always three kinds of dressings as well, and you can see trays of cold cuts, which often include lox.

Croque-monsieurs (toasted ham and cheese sandwiches) and chicken picatta. I don’t know what the latter is, but I got both of these, as well as a dollop of mashed potatoes (upper right).

Stuffed peppers. I probably should have gotten one of these instead of the chicken and sandwich, but it was too late; there was no more room on my plate.  If you are reading this (especially Alice Dreger), note that I LOVE stuffed peppers.  My mom used to make them, as well as stuffed cabbage.

What you’ve been waiting for: the first part of the dessert table, with superfluous fruits flanking the good stuff. There are always three small pastries, and they are always good.

More of the dessert table. There are always three flavors of ice cream in the Balena. The choices today were (l to r) strawberry, mango, and melon vegan ice cream, the latter properly known as “melon sorbet”. Naturally, I got mango, my favorite fruit:

And how could I resist hot cherry cobbler with a custard sauce?

I wasn’t that hungry at lunch (mirabile dictu, I skipped it yesterday), so I had the items noted above as well as salad.  I almost never drink when I’m traveling; for some reason I lose all desire for alcohol on trips. I had a diet Coke.

. . . and only two desserts: the mango ice cream, which was great, and the cherry cobbler with custard sauce, also great.

All three daily meals on offer are equally copious, so you have to be careful, especially if you’re landing and hiking after breakfast or lunch.  But I have seen people of size with plates loaded to the ceiling.

If you have questions, please put them in the comments.

Sunday lunch

June 22, 2025 • 1:16 pm

There is no conference yet (registration is tomorrow), I cannot brain, and so ye shall have food photos.  People do seem to want to know what I eat on the road.

Googling the restaurants around my hotel, I found there was a surfeit of ones that sounded good and got high ratings, ranging all the way from the upscale and famous Gage & Tollner, where I will likely splurge on lunch in the next few days, to Dave’s Hot Chicken, only a 2-minute walk from the hotel. (Confession: I’ve never had “hot chicken”, a spicy subspecies of fried chicken that is a specialty of Nashville.)

One of the ethnic restaurants that got good good reviews was the Cuban Shack, only a 12-minute walk from where I’m staying (menu here and also pictured below).  Since I adore Cuban food (in truth, the only ethnic cuisine that I find blah is Jewish!), I decided to make my way there. And I had a lovely and authentic lunch.

Well, I don’t know if the famous “Cuban sandwich” that I had is really eaten in Cuba, but it’s ubiquitous in Cuban areas of Florida, and Wikipedia says this:

A Cuban sandwich (Spanish: Sándwich cubano) is a variation of a ham and cheese sandwich that likely originated before the turn of the 20th century in cafes catering to Cuban workers in Tampa or Key West, two early Cuban immigrant communities in Florida centered on the cigar industry. Later on, Cuban exiles and expatriates brought it to Miami, where it is also very popular. The sandwich is made with ham, mojo, roasted pork, Swiss cheese, pickles, mustard, and sometimes salami on Cuban bread

Mine had all the ingredients above (the pork was chopped) save salami, which is superfluous.  It came with plantain chips and garlic sauce for dipping, but I decided to order a side dish of fried plantains (they come sweet or green, but they had only sweet), a dish I love, and is usually on tap only in Cuban places.

Here is the inside of the Cuban Shack, which is unprepossessing, but that means nothing when it comes to food.

And my lunch. The portion of fried plantains was huge, and I had to bring half of them back to my room (in fact, I’m snacking on them now).

A close-up of the layered sandwich, with chopped, roasted pork, ham, Swiss cheese, very thinly sliced pickle, and mustard. One might think this a weird combination, but the flavors meld wonderfully, which is why the sandwich is so popular. The only off-note was that the cheese could have been melted a bit more. Still, I loved it:

The menu (click to enlarge):

Here’s the part of Brooklyn where I am, and of course since I rarely ventured outside of Manhattan when I lived in NYC, I don’t recognize anything. Perhaps some readers do. There is a sign right outside that says “Last left turn before the Brooklyn Bridge,” so I must be close to the East River and The World’s Most Beautiful Bridge. But I am ignorant, and only the dead know Brooklyn.

What every American President liked to eat

May 26, 2025 • 11:00 am

More video today!  This one, of course, was suggested to me by YouTube, since I watch a lot of food videos as well as history videos. And it’s exactly the kind of video that I would have to click on, as it lists the favorite foods of every American President.

Here are the Presidents who, in my view, had the best taste (you’ll have to watch to see their favorites):

Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
James Monroe
John Tyler
James K. Polk
Abraham Lincoln
Ulysses S. Grant
Teddy Roosevelt
William Howard Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Lyndon Johnson***
Jimmy Carter

LBJ gets the kudos for liking the best dish, and, looking over the list, I see that it’s weighted with Presidents who liked Southern food. No surprise, as it’s America’s best regional cuisine.  They do mention a McDonald’s Filet O’ Fish as Trump’s favorite, but I thought he liked Big Macs better. Either way, he doesn’t make the list.

Ich bin in Frankfurt und esse eine Brezel

December 10, 2024 • 6:45 am

Happy Tuesday; it’s December 10, 2024, and Coynezaa is just around the corner. There’s another holiday, too, but it celebrates a myth, whereas I am real.

It has been a hectic three days, but also fun: giving two talks (I fell off the stage during the first one), touring around Katowice, and eating large quantities of hearty Silesian food. I have a gazillion photos, but, as I’m cooling my heels in the airport in Frankfurt, I have no time to post them—save one. And that is the picture below, showing yours truly eating a classic German comestible in the airport.

If I look a wreck, I am. My plane left Katowice for Frankfurt at 6 a.m., which meant boarding at 5:30, which meant getting up at 2:00 a.m. and leaving my hotel, some distance from the planes, at 3 a.m.

I went to bed at 9, hoping for five hours of sleep, but woke up at 12:15, soon after midnight, and what with the excitement of impending travel it was clear that I wasn’t going back to sleep. So I watched CNN instead (the only English t.v. channel) to discover, via Anderson Cooper, that the police had actually caught the man accused of shooting health executive Brian Thompson. When the law caught up to him, the suspect, one Luigi Mangioni of New Jersey, was chowing down at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.  And it doesn’t look good for him:

The Altoona officers who took Mr. Mangione into custody found that he had several telltale items that might tie him to Mr. Thompson’s killing, a crime that has riveted the nation while exposing Americans’ deep-seated anger toward the U.S. health insurance industry.

Mr. Mangione, officials said, had a gun and a silencer similar to the ones used in the Dec. 4 shooting, and a fake driver’s license that matched one used by the man suspected in the killing.

He also carried with him a three-page handwritten manifesto condemning the health care industry for putting profits over patients.

“These parasites had it coming,” it said, according to a senior law enforcement official who saw the document. It added: “I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done.”

The document specifically mentioned UnitedHealthcare, the insurance giant where Mr. Thompson was chief executive, noting its size and the amount of revenue it takes in, the official said.

Yes, he’s presumed innocent until found guilty, but I’m here to tell you that the probability of any other verdict seems nil. He’s 26 and will surely, if convicted, spend the rest of his natural life behind bars.

Read more about the pinch at the archived link here. It was a nifty bit of police work, made easier by Mangione pulling his mask down just one time, when he was flirting with a woman at a hostel.  But once was enough: look at the hostel picture and compare it to the many circulating pictures of Mangione. I’m glad he’s caught, for nobody deserves vigilante execution, which is capital punishment without a trial. In fact, I don’t believe anybody deserves execution at all. Life without parole is more than enough, and remember that some people can reform.

But they’re very sad about the arrest over at P********a, where the fulminating miscreants are not only delighted, but have been egged on in their hatred by the Chief Miscreant himself, who urges his baying hounds before pulling the trigger to first find out who heads healthcare corporations that deny claims.  Then, as the capo says, “After you’ve followed the chain of decisions, then you can consider terminating some rich a-hole. It’s the polite thing to do.”

Indeed, nothing makes you look better to “progressives” than urging your readers to murder rich people, preferably CEOs of healthcare corporations.

In other news, where is Bashar al-Assad? Is he dead, as some suspect? Or has he fled to his pals in Russia?

Paul Krugman has written his last column for the NYT, and, over in France, the right-wing Marine Le Pen is plotting to topple the French government and replace it with one far more to the right. Sound familiar?

There are reports of continuing peace talks between Israel and Hamas, but I don’t think they’ll amount to much. If they result in releasing thousands of convicted Palestinian terrorists from jail, while not letting all the hostages go—indeed, if a settlement leaves anything of Hamas to govern Gaza, Israel will have lost.

And that’s the nooz till I get home and take a day to recover.

Christmastime in Poland

December 7, 2024 • 8:15 am

It’s a mere 18 days until Christmas and, of course, the First Day of Coynezaa.  Both festivities are marked by an overconsumption of food, and Coynezaa enjoys the advantage of having no religious overtones save encomiums for Professor Ceiling Cat (Emeritus).

Here in Katowice, in southern Poland, the Christmas Market is already in full swing in the town square, and I happened upon it walking back from the Silesian Science Festival (today I registered, tomorrow and Monday I speak). It was exactly what I’d expect a Polish Christmas market to be: full of fun, food, and just a bit of religion in the form of singing angels (not shown). Here are a few holiday snaps I took while crossing the town square.

Yep, here’s where we are:

Katowice has an ancient history, but lacks the charm of other Polish cities for two reasons: it was an industrial hub for mining coal and steel, and, under German occupation, many of its landmarks were wrecked, including the Great Synagogue, shown below next to the City Baths. It was completed in 1900 and razed by the Germans in 1939.  And of course most of the Jews were killed or sent away to be murdered.

Photo from public domain, Wikipedia.

An old building that remains in the city square:

Here is a monument that I take to be in honor of the local miners. Note the flowers and miner’s lamp at the base:

And everywhere people were having fun and laughing, expecially the kids. This one got a big soap bubble:

But the adults were also having a great time. There are various plastic status behind which you can stick your face to get a photograph. Like these people:

A penguin:

And a train chugging the kids through the market:

But of course people were there to get stuff, too: mostly food. Like these roasted chestnuts:

And look at this inventive and mouth-watering display of lollipops:

And, of curse, gingerbread, a Polish speciality for the holidays:

Very fancy gingerbread. These say “Happy Christmas” in Polish:

Various candies (caramels?), some of them flavored with booze (“piwo” is beer):

And what is a Polish market without sausages?

There were stalls selling non-comestibles, too. This one carried a variety of soaps, including these cat soaps in lavender and lily-of-the-valley (“kot” is “cat” in Polish):

Walking back to my hotel on the shopping street, I saw a big line in front of one shop. It was selling a variety of soft pretzels, and I would have joined the line had it been shorter:

There was a variety, including non-twisted pretzels filled with Nutella. The cinnamon pretzels were nearly sold out:

But below is a store selling the quintessence of Polish baked treats: pączki.  Wikipedia describes them:

A pączek is a deep-fried piece of dough shaped into a flattened ball and filled with confiture or other sweet filling. Pączki are usually covered with powdered sugar, icing, glaze, or bits of dried orange zest. A small amount of grain alcohol (traditionally rectified spirit) is added to the dough before cooking; as it evaporates, it prevents the absorption of oil deep into the dough.  Pączki are commonly thought of as fluffy but somewhat collapsed, with a bright stripe around them; these features are seen as evidence that the dough was fried in fresh oil.

Although they look like German berliners (bismarcks in North America) or jelly doughnuts, pączki are made from especially rich dough containing eggs, fats, sugar, yeast, and sometimes milk.

(Note that when JFK proclaimed himself “Ich bin ein Berliner” in Germany in June, 1963, his attempt to forge solidarity with the divided people of that city actually meant, in German, “I am a jelly donut.”  He should have said “Ich bin Berliner.”)

Believe me; these pastries are superb! The only thing preventing me from trying one or three was that I was full from the ample spread of goodies in the Science Festival’s VIP room, to which I have access as a speaker. But have a look at these puppies! There are four zloty to the dollar, so each large filled pastry is about two bucks.

Happy Christmas from Poland!

Thursday: Hili dialogue

December 5, 2024 • 6:45 am

Today we’ll have a shortened Hili Dialogue as I’m getting ready to travel to Katowice tomorrow for the Silesian Science Festival.  Posting may be light or nonexistent until I return to the states next Tuesday evening.

Welcome to Thursday, December 5, 2024, Polish Fruitcake Day. Well, not really, but Malgorzata made a stupendous fruitcake yesterday. Ingredients: rye flour, oat flour, prunes, walnuts, dried apricots, raisins, butter, baking powder, vanilla sugar (and other ingredients).

The whole cake:

My breakfast slice (great with coffee):

It’s also Krampusnacht (beware!), National Sachertorte Day (arrant cultural appropriation), National Blue Jeans Day, National Comfort Food Day, and World Soil Day. 

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the December 5 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Joe Biden made a trip to Angola to foster U.S. ties with the oil-producing country, but all anyone wanted to know about was his mistaken pardon of his son.

President Biden’s long-anticipated trip to sub-Saharan Africa, the first by a U.S. president in almost a decade, was interrupted by the same question, shouted outside of Angola’s presidential palace, in ornate meeting halls, and on the sidelines of a sunset speech outside the country’s slavery museum: “Mr. President, why did you pardon your son?”

The three-day visit to Angola, scheduled to be Biden’s last foreign trip with six weeks left in his term, fulfilled his promise to travel to the region. It was meant to serve as a capstone in his administration’s efforts to strengthen ties with the oil-rich nation and highlight U.S. investment in the region to push back on China’s influence.

Instead, Biden’s last trip abroad was often overshadowed by events that had taken place at home. First was President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in last month’s elections, casting uncertainty over Biden’s vow that America is “all in on Africa.” Then, shortly before boarding Air Force One on Sunday evening, Biden announced that he was pardoning his son Hunter, going back on his previous promises not to do so.

As he shuttled around the country, Biden ducked questions about the controversial pardon of his son, which was being met with outrage by Republicans as well as many in his own party back home. “Welcome to America,” he joked to the Angolan delegation at the presidential palace amid shouted questions from the U.S. press about the pardon.

Biden, who at one point closed his eyes for an extended period during a roundtable with African leaders, didn’t hold a news conference during his trip, a once-standard practice on foreign visits.

Did he fall asleep? I wonder if he’ll simply drop from sight after his term is over, or whether reporters will continue to monitor him for signs of decline.

*Both the LPGA (Ladies Professional Golf Association) and the USGA (United States Golf Association) announced that transgender women would not be allowed to compete in women’s golf tournaments (h/t Wayne).

The LPGA and U.S. Golf Association have announced changes to their transgender policies, effective for the 2025 season. The policies, which were announced in tandem on Wednesday, prohibit athletes who have experienced male puberty from competing in women’s events.

Hailey Davidson, a transgender athlete who competed in the second stage of LPGA Qualifying in October, fell short of an LPGA card but did earn limited Epson Tour status for 2025. She became the second transgender golfer to earn status on the developmental circuit. Bobbi Lancaster earned status in 2013 through Stage I of LPGA Q-School but never actually competed in an official event.

The LPGA’s new policy states that players whose sex assigned at birth is male must establish to the tour’s medical manager and expert panel that they have not experienced any part of male puberty, either beyond Tanner Stage 2 or after age 12 (whichever comes first). They must also maintain a concentration of testosterone in their serum below 2.5 nmol/L.

.   The LPGA’s updated Gender Policy extends to the Ladies European Tour, Epson Tour and any other elite LPGA competitions.

“Our policy is reflective of an extensive, science-based and inclusive approach,” said outgoing LPGA Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan in a statement. “The policy represents our continued commitment to ensuring that all feel welcome within our organization, while preserving the fairness and competitive equity of our elite competitions.”

These seem to me reasonable standards, assuming we have any data on golf performance of trangender athletes. If not, I’d favor a blanket ban until we have such data.

The absence of male puberty seems more important than circulating levels of testosterone, which was the standard that used to be used in the Olympics, as there is also no overlap between the levels of men and women. From Mt Sinai:

  • Male: 300 to 1,000 nanograms per deciliter (ng/dL) or 10 to 35 nanomoles per liter (nmol/L)
  • Female: 15 to 70 ng/dL or 0.5 to 2.4 nmol/L

*At the Free Press, Olivia Reingold reports, in a piece called, “How to ‘Make Your Campus Palestinian’” (archived link) on a large convention in Chicago dedicated to the enactment given in the title. There are a uumber of “Palestinization” exercises for college students:

. . . . This exercise, called “Crisis Room,” was part of the programming for college students at the 17th Annual Convention for Palestine—the largest gathering of its kind in the U.S., which was attended by thousands last weekend. The event is hosted by American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), a nonprofit currently facing a House probe over allegations it has “substantial ties to Hamas.” The purpose of the conference, which attracts Palestine supporters from all over the country, is to “galvanize their base,” according to Jon Schanzer, who specializes in Iran-backed terrorism at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

There is evidence that AMP has been helping drive the anti-Israel movement consuming college campuses of late, Schanzer told me. Indeed, the group’s executive director, Osama Abuirshaid, was spotted speaking to student activists last spring at both Columbia and George Washington universities. Abuirshaid, who federal authorities had previously designated as a “known or suspected terrorist,” told Columbia students, “This is not only a genocide that is being committed in Gaza—this is also a war on us here in America.” Less than 48 hours later, he appeared at George Washington’s encampment, telling a crowd of keffiyeh-clad students, “Zionism is no less evil than white supremacy.”

This year’s Convention for Palestine also featured speakers such as AMP board member Salah Sarsour, who was arrested and imprisoned in 1995 by Israel for eight months for supporting Hamas, and Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who last year said he was “happy to see” Hamas carry out its October 7 attack on Israel, which left 1,200 dead.

Schanzer, who testified before Congress in 2016 about AMP, said that over the last decade, the group “has invested a great deal of effort, and from what we can tell, no small amount of money, in cultivating the next generation of activists on behalf of the Palestinian cause.” He added that the group has “done a lot to galvanize people in support of Hamas.”

In support of Hamas! If you live on campus and see all the resources invested in pro-Palestinian protests (where did those tents come from?), as well as the extensive legal resources enjoyed by protestors, it’s hard not to believe that there is some shady money behind it all.

*Over at the Substack site Reality’s Last Stand, founded by Colin Wright,  author Jon Guy analyzes the competing views of human sex that Dr. Steven Novella and I (also a doctor!) espoused at CSICon in Las Vegas.  Guy is identified this way:

Jon Guy is a science communicator who writes about critical thinking, pseudoscience, logic, and psychology. He’s the author of Think Straight, a contributor to Investigating Clinical Psychology, and hosts The Curious Case of Science on YouTube.

I am delighted to say that before hearing our talks, Guy was a “spectrum of sex” guy, but now he accepts the human sex binary:

You can read his longish piece by clicking on the link below:

An excerpt:

This year, I attended the annual CSICon conference, hosted by the wonderful skeptical organization Center for Inquiry. Among the star-filled lineup of amazing speakers were Professor Jerry Coyne and Dr Steven Novella, who both gave talks about the science of biological sex.

Following CSICon, both Novella and Coyne wrote blogposts about the others’ talk, and I decided to make a short Facebook post giving my own brief opinion about the matter. It didn’t take long before Dr Novella appeared on my post to argue the issue, and what followed was a cascade of scientific blunders, logical fallacies, and a critical thinking deficit that one wouldn’t normally expect to see from such an esteemed member of the skeptical community.

With Brandolini’s bullshit asymmetry principle in full effect (Brandolini may have been off by an order of magnitude or two), the comments section just wasn’t cutting it. So I wrote up a response and offered Dr Novella the opportunity to publish it on one of his blogs. Not surprisingly, Dr Novella ghosted me so hard that one would be excused for thinking he started believing in the undead!

It’s there to demonstrate two things: One, that when I first took an interest in this topic a few years ago, I was heavily biased towards Dr Novella’s position (I’d been arguing the “spectrum” position at that time). And two, despite his ideological blind spot here, Dr Novella is still a champion of science and reason, and it’s important not to throw the baby out with the bath water. But, as we’ll see, this is some particularly nasty bath water, so let’s get punk rock and dive in.

The waters are deep, so I’ll just give the conclusion:

. . .Nowhere in his link [to sex in plants] does it describe a sex other than male and female.

Additionally, plants are not humans, no human “true hermaphrodite” has ever been shown to exist, and no human reproduces using both gametes. Nonetheless, hermaphrodites are not a third sex. Rather, both male and female merely exist in the same individual. In other words, there are still only two reproductive roles, even in hermaphrodites.

Call me skeptical, but I don’t anticipate that Dr Novella will humbly learn from this article, read the links, and come to understand the binary nature of sex. He seems to be too invested in his position, and turning back now might prove to be too big of an ego blow. However, my hope is that some may see the frail attempts of one of skepticism’s finest for the science-denying rhetoric they are, and stand up for science as I have here.

I note that there are “true” human hermaphrodites in that about 400 individuals have been described that have parts of both male and female reproductive systems. I would consider them “true” in that sense, but in no case to my knowledge have any been fertile except for one that produced only sperm and another that produced only eggs.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Szaron are nice and comfy:

Andrzej: May I make the bed?
Hili: Maybe later.
In Polish:
Ja: Czy mogę posłać łóżko?
Hili: Może później.
And a picture of Baby Kulka that I took:

*******************

From Meow:

From Jesus of the Day:

. . . and from Cat Memes:

From Masih; Nargas Mohammadi, defiant to the last, is an Iranian human rights activist who was imprisoned in 2016 and shared the Nobel Peace Prize, while still in prison, in 2023. She’s out now on medical leave, but may go back since she was sentenced to 16 years for campaigning against the mandatory hijab and other injustices.

Not from Masih, but in my feed. These women will hang unless something intervenes:

From Luana, a tweet about a grifter at Stanford:

From my feed:

Science Question: When they say "8 MEGA ROLLS EQUALS 32 REGULAR ROLLS" do the regular rolls exist…anywhere? Are they just in the imaginations of toilet paper marketers??? Do they make one tiny "regular" roll per year just to keep the story alive?

— Hank Green (@hankgreen.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T05:57:41.716Z

J. K. Rowling discovers the NYT completely distorting the pushback she’s received:

From the Auschwitz Memorial; one that I reposted:

Gassed to death upon arrival at the camp. She was nine.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T08:47:02.739Z

Two tweets from Dr Cobb. First, Christmas dinner for the first astronauts to reach (but not walk on) the Moon:

Christmas dinner on the Apollo VIII (1968) as it headed to the moon.(Pic via NASA)

— Present & Correct (@presentcorrect.bsky.social) 2024-12-04T18:56:16.358Z

And this is outrageous! I’m glad I no longer use Blue Cross/Blue Shield

Blue Cross Blue Shield in Connecticut, New York and Missouri has declared it will no longer pay for anesthesia for the full length of some surgeries.It the procedure goes over a certain time, anesthesia will not be covered for the duration.www.asahq.org/about-asa/ne…

— More Perfect Union (@moreperfectunion.bsky.social) 2024-12-04T17:36:31.389Z

Goodbye Vegas, hello Utah

October 28, 2024 • 8:45 am

I’ve finally left the entrance to Hell, otherwise known as Las Vegas. Thank goodness the conference was there to provide respite from the noisy, jangling streets, filled with tattooed people swilling margaritas. But of course all I know of Vegas is the Strip, and I’m told there are parts of the city that resemble real urbanity.  So be it.

A few photos and a video from my stay:

The Bacchanal Buffet at Caesar’s Palace. For a mere $85 you get 90 minutes to stuff your gut with as much food as you can. And it’s good food, by and large, so I’d say the buffet is worth it. Given how fast i.5 hours pass, I didn’t have the time to photograph much of the food. This is the beginning of the carving station (the buffet is HUGE). The lamb t-bones, at lower right, are small cuts of lamb that were absolutely terrific (Mike Chen recommended them on his Bacchanal Buffet video).

Below: the beginning of the seafood station. My buffet strategy was to first eat crustaceans and oysters (crab claws, snow crab legs, oysters Rockefeller), and then head for the meats (prime rib and lamb), have an elote (Mexican ear of corn), and then fill in the remaining gastric corners with desserts. I believe I got my money’s worth. Here’s a man grabbing crab.

If you go (and you have to go to a buffet in Vegas), I’d recommend this one, but watch a few videos on YouTube about the offerings, which will help you plan your buffet strategy. 90 minutes go by awfully quick!

Caesar’s Palace is the height of kitsch, decorated with Greek and Roman statuses throughout. Here’s one with a statue next to an ATM:

Back the the Horseshoe, feeling like a python that’s ingested a small antelope.  These are scenes from the casino floor at the Horseshoe, where we were staying and the site of CSICon.

Slot machines are everywhere, and they are no longer one-armed bandits, but are designed to appeal to the video-game generation. They are loud and big, liable to set off epileptic fits in those susceptible to their flashing lights. Plus you’re allowed to smoke on the casino floor, so it doesn’t smell all that great.

The lacunae between machines are filled with craps, roulette, or blackjack tables. Here’s a craps table for betting on dice:

Lots of action around the tables:

I found a cat-themed slot machine called “Karma Kat”!

. . . and here is a short video I took of what it’s like on the casino floor. Even when it’s not busy, as below, it’s noisy. Look at all those slots!

My friend Phil Ward, an entomologist at UC Davis, picked me up at noon for the two-hour drive to his shared house in Ivins, Utah, near St. George. We went through a bit of Arizona and then entered Utah, where I’m staying for the next three days, planning trips to the National Parks like Bryce and Zion—places I’ve never been.

First, though, we passed through an Indian reservation (“Native American” reservation?), housing what is formally known as the Shivwits Band of Paiutes, who settled in the area around 1100 B.C. and were hunter-gatherers but also cultivated crops. The only members of the tribe I saw were at the gas station/convenience store, whose sign is below.

It immediately struck me that “Shivwits” sounds like a Jewish name, and it went through my head that this might be one of the lost tribes of Israel that settled in Utah. (Remember, Mormons believed that Jesus came to America.) And then a joke went through my head if that scenario were true: A Shivwitz male could say, “I am a Man of Shivwitz.” Get it? Of course I mean no disrespect to the tribe; it’s just wordplay.

Gas was about as cheap as I’ve ever seen here: about 3 bucks a gallon (I believe things sold on Native American reservations are exempt from tax), so we filled up for the trip to Zion today. Proof:

Ivins is small and inconspiculous, with houses built only one story high and deigned to blend into the mountain scenery. It is beautiful here. Below is the view from my bedroom window (the house belongs to four people: Phil and three of his friends):

Today we head for Zion National Park, a place I’ve always wanted to visit because of its geological beauty. I’m bringing my decent point-and-shoot Panasonic Camera and will post pictures. Here’s one from the Wikipedia site, labeled “Zion Canyon at sunset in Zion National Park as seen from Angels Landing looking south.”

Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons