It's the beginning of a long and never ending winter, a brutal season of grayness, a desolation so pure our current communication technology, words and pictures, can't describe it justly.
So let's talk about warm and soft stuff like:
*$10 off all the pop ups this weekend only. Use code turkeybutt at check out. Our next pop up, the Late Autumn Farm Dinner, is Wednesday the 1st at 6pm. It's 4 courses, with 4 beverage pairings for $70. (A bargain featuring black garlic tagliatelle). All the pop ups are listed here.
*This week's introduction is 350+ words of food facts, many of which I totally made up.
*Gracie's in Union Square turned 7 this month and I frogot because sometimes I froget things.
Details on these and more (rare ice cream still available in Union Sq) below.
Sitting with silence.
Today will be a little shorter with a slightly different format. So let's talk food facts. Some of these facts are real and some are fake and you'll just have to decide which ones are are which, but if you've got to know, send a note and I'll probably remember which ones I made up. No promises. Why are we doing real and fake food facts? Because otherwise the newsletter just starts with naked commerce and you need a little romancing with nice words and some giggles before the transactional nature of our marketing efforts become apparent, no? Four million pounds of hash browns are sold in New York everyday. Bananas are berries. Strawberries are not. Raspberries are roses. Black raspberries are real. Pistachios are fruits and everyone knows tomatoes are fruits, but did you know persimmons are vegetables and also eggplants are fruit and are called eggplants because they were first cultivated in Belgium by the botanist Porter Egg? Brussels sprouts taste better now than they did when we were younger because a Dutch scientist made a better Brussels. Brussels are vegetables in the same family as kale obviously and less obviously acorns. And did you know there are 283 varieties of mango in India and 400 in Florida and there are more varieties of carrot than mango and orange combined. Broccoli contains more protein than steak and steak contains more hydroxycologorcine than apples.
I've mentioned before how if they didn't want you to eat the stickers on fruit they shouldn't make them minty, but they absolutely should do a Thanksgiving series and make them taste like mashed potatoes. Like we don't have that technology? Preposterous. In the United States 83% of all turkey purchased (by weight) is purchased this week, while 88% of all green beans (by weight) are purchased this week, while 60 million pounds of Velveeta are sold in November and December. In fact, the monetary value of turkey sold this week is equal to the California GDP, which is the 11th largest GDP in the world. This one was told to me last week by someone who worked at Kraft and I may have heard incorrectly, but I'm trying to get this fact, at least, correct. 42% of American pumpkins come from Illinois, pumpkin pie became popular during the Civil War because pumpkins were grown on small farms, not plantations, and have you ever seen an ice cream shop bail out of the subject of a newsletter introduction right in the middle because it might be too boring? NOW YOU HAVE. OK fine, lots of you are traveling by various methods and so here are two good bands I saw when I was younger with poetically good travel-related names: Rain like the Sound of Trains and Planes Mistaken for Stars. Do any of you have any very bad Thanksgiving travel experiences? I'm sure you've missed a train or two. (And we're so far gone here, the both of us, obviously, but not not so far gone we can't get ourselves out of this paragraph with a relevant ending.) My Thanksgiving travel has been generally without incident, but one time I was in Berlin on Thanksgiving and we were in a restaurant and the server spoke very good English but didn't know how to translate das Wild and so she said, "Like Bambi," which did a good job of translating the dish, but did not sell the dish. As always, there's a book recommendation if you make it to the bottom of the newsletter and you can pre-order and pay for Gracie's in Union or Earnest Drinks in Kendall Square. You can order delivery from both locations just by visiting those websites. This is the funniest thing I saw this year, no question. Don't experiment on Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is as good a time as any, better even, to support Native issues in an effort to affirm the dignity and humanity of all people in our community. This thread is a good start for some places to start if you wanted to look into it. More locally you can support MCNAA or NAIC of Boston. Related: I just read an enjoyed We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans & Comedy by Kliph Nesterof.
No one loves commerce as much as I do, and so to celebrate commerce, use code turkeybutt at check out to save $10 per ticket on every pop up we've got scheduled with Amanda Lowery. This weekend only. On Wednesday, December 1, we've got a Late Autumn Farm Dinner celebrating the farm bounty of late November/early December. It's a delicious looking menu, roasted beet soup, black garlic tagliatelle, braised beef short ribs, and dessert paired with 4 beverages as well. You can grab a ticket today and save $10. All the pop ups are listed here. Nothing better than dreaming of something creative and then executing on it. I used to be obsessed with British people doing American accents, but this cured me. If you've got $1775, consider a 55 gallon drum of personal lube. Yes, really.
Welp, Gracie's in Union Square turned 7 this month and I totally frogot to do a party or tell you about it in the newsletter. This is a thing what happens when you get older, apparently, or have two shops and a pandemic, frogetting stuff is. Either way, maybe next year I'll remember. Thanks for being awesome supporters of the Union Square shop these last 7 years. Something about me is I've never really been able to think years in advance and so being open for 7 years is not something I could have planned before we opened, but it seems fine, I'll keep doing it. Here is another song I like to listen to.
This paragraph is the same as last week because I frogot to put the lemon verbena and fresh mint pints up for sale until Saturday last week. You can see what pints or scoops we have available in Union Square if you want to. We're going to have once a year fresh mint chip and lemon verbena, both grown with herbs from my garden, available on Friday in Union Square. Please don't forget to keep your freezer packed up with pints, it helps us cover overhead during the winter. If you order in advance it's a real quick experience. We've still got some Frank's RedHot ice cream at both shops, order at Kendall Square or Union Square. We've got 26 different ice cream pies in Union Square. In Kendall, we'll make the pie to order if you give us a few hours notice. Along with a fall cocktail list, we've also got a four new beers from White Lion Brewing in Springfield for you to drink with your lunch or dinner or ice cream.
I'm out of stuff to try to sell you this week because we're trying to keep the newsletter short, right, so here's all of the fun stuff which would have been included. Please be whelmed.
How to dry shoes in the dryer.
Mesmerizing goose running.
Cats where they shouldn't be.
This lady puts raisins in everything, which sounds criminal, but she's got 1.8 million followers, so I think it's bit, and I spent 24 hours howling and crying laughing because she's obviously very good at cooking and cooking videos.
Here is a lovely story of how you can just drop anything off at a chain grocery store. I encourage you to watch them all. Beginning | Middle | End.
Baby lions can roar, but they're really bad at it, but it's really cute.
Thank you for reading, forward this to your friends so they can read it, too, and thank you for all your previous support. There are no exclamation points in the newsletter this week which is what we try to do regularly. Would you like a book recommendation? How about Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead. My favorite book last year was Deacon King Kong, a story set in black New York City in the 60s/70s. Harlem Shuffle is set similarly, with well developed characters, a great story, and excellent writing. It's good, you should read it. Buy it at Porter Square Books or Amazon.
Gracie's + Earnest Drinks team