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Indian Food Comes To Waterville

12/4/2014

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Heavens.  I haven't made a post since April?  Ugh.  Definitely makes the blog title ironic.  I've been very busy with work, touring colleges, and real-world effort to build a creative economy in Waterville via Common Street Arts and Waterville Creates!.  The exclamation point is actually part of the name, not overenthusiasm on my part - and thus the ! followed by a period. Something I don't think Strunk & White ever covered.
Anyway, what this post is about is The Jewel of India.  (FB Page here) It's our new local Indian restaurant, braving the mercurial economic terrain of Waterville.  I've eaten there twice and people keep asking how is it, so here's my answer.  KennebecTom's official rating is "Awesome."


Simply, the food is delicious.  Really delicious.  As good as any Indian cuisine I've had - which is admittedly just a handful of places in a handful of cities.


Now, please be patient.  They are mobbed and nearly over-loved right now.  My wife and I had to wait for a table at lunchtime last weekend.  As soon as I put the first bite of chicken biryani in my mouth, I knew the wait had been worth it.  The garlic nan and vegetable samosa were fantastic.


So, when my wife won a "Teacher of the Quarter" vote at her high school, we celebrated by getting takeout.  Well, it was quite a gauntlet I ran with good humor.  
First, I tried calling from work for 20 minutes, but every time I got a message after two rings that the "user's mailbox had not been set up yet."  Whaaaaat?  I gave up and concluded an in-person order would have to be made.


I drove downtown and was only half-surprised to see every table occupied, people waiting, and the waitress busy with tallying a bill so I had to wait to report both the phone issue and place my order.  Then I learned the wait would be 30 minutes. There was some communication difficulty due to language barrier, but at ethnic restaurants I consider this confidence inspiring.  As you may recall, cornerstones of my immigration policy are that any foreigners can stay as long as they like if employed in cooking delicious foods of their country just like their grandma (or whatever their word is) taught them, or if volunteering to pay my income taxes.


 I still had enough time before picking up a daughter at dance class, so I said fine and went across the darkened, wintery Main Street to check out the new Loyal Biscuit downtown and see if they carried my favorite cat litter.  They didn't, but it's very nice inside and the clerk appeared to authentically have her own dog working the register with her.


Next I wandered down past Kringleville, set up beautifully in The Center in the front windows with a righteous Santa and helpers, but few children this early in the season.  A beautiful, warm setup behind the picture windows it is.  Much improvement over Santa's old shed with often muddy entrance of years past.


I walked down to Common Street Arts, just to make sure our snow removal guy did his job and had a chat with programming coordinator Lisa Wheeler, who is currently working hard to make this year's Holiday Bazaar even bigger and better than last year.  Having satisfied these curiosities and savored the crisp night air amongst the historic buildings (some of which have watched over 123 prior Christmases), I strolled back to wait inside The Jewel.


The place was humming.  I read the news, checked Facebook, and checked my email on my beloved iPhone, and chatted a bit with other customers, included several familiar faces.  Some folks waited, some folks decided to try an alternative, but took a takeout menu with them.  A quartet beside me began discussing the "Chinese restaurant around the corner" as a possibility, and I butted in that if they meant Jin Yuan, it is excellent and my favorite Chinese restaurant in town.  They thanked me and took off, my opinion having clinched it, and I'll stand behind that opinion any day.  It could have been a ruse to advance my position in line, but I'm not that kind of guy.  It was an honest plan to drive business to another beloved restaurant in the downtown of course.  I am that kind of guy.


So I stood and observed the slightly stressed young Indian man and two new waitresses confront their sudden and overwhelming popularity in a milder, culinary version of what Lorde must be going through.  They have all the standard startup issues of any new restaurant - wonky phones, new procedures, untested systems, etc.  I got my food, picked up my daughter, and finally made it home.  And as soon as the first bite of chicken tikka masala and basmati rice hit my tongue, I made my popular "savory face" (lips pursed, eyes closed, face turned skyward), said "Mmmmm" and knew the wait was worth it.


I will stick with them for the long haul as long as they keeping cooking like this.  It's delicious, fresh, and savory.  I'm no regular culinary writer with a food-oriented thesaurus, so I'll have to leave it at that.  They're a wonderful addition to Waterville's Downtown Dining District - as defined by yours truly.
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Colby College Museum of Art - Grand Reopening

8/9/2013

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Picture
On July 14, 2013, I went up to Colby College Museum of Art for the grand re-opening day celebration and tour.  And I was floored.  Really.  The floor is totally amazing.  Beautiful, beautiful wood, stained a rich deep tone that emphasizes the grain.  But of course, I'm sure the Lunders and the Alfonds didn't intend for this all to be a wood-floor showcase.

Moving on to the museum and the art - wow.  Actually, more like WOW.  I am majorly impressed.  I entered cautiously, half skeptically.  It's been talked up a lot and I wasn't sure how much was credible assessment and how much was emotional wishful thinking.  Well, by the time I made it through about 35% of the expanded place, I was sold.  I had MOMA and Met flashbacks.  I was running into names and works giving me 1990s UofA art-major flashbacks.  I was being stunned again and again by paintings full of dramatic light and sculptures of uncanny sensitivity to form, texture, and motion.  

This was a quick pass-through visit on probably one of the museum's most crowded days.  I got a sweeping panorama of greatness.   It served to impress upon me that I need to come up often.  It's clearly now a place where one could spend 1-2 full days viewing and learning.  The photos I've posted below are only a portion of what's to be seen.  I realize now that I completely forgot to take pictures of some galleries because I was conversing with people I knew, or heartily congratulating Sharon Corwin and Patricia King (director and asst. director) on the magnificence of this fruit of their labors.  It was cool to see how genuinely excited Sharon was to see so many people in the museum.

If I follow through with my intentions, I will come to the museum regularly, almost as a meditation, to just stare at some of my favorites for much longer than most people look at paintings.  I've always felt guilty at how quickly I may move on, and saddened by how quickly others may.  Some works I've seen, both here and elsewhere, don't deliver their full effect until you've stood there long enough for the colors to begin to oscillate, or your peripheral vision to give up reporting, leaving you absorbed in your focus.  


In a nutshell, the reviews and the hype appear true and accurate to me.

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PechaKucha Waterville volume 9 - 10/26/2012

10/28/2012

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I have been watching news of PechaKucha online, via Facebook, for quite a while.  I watched one or two presentations online and was intrigued.  Then I came to know Tammy Rabideau, orchestrator-in-chief, through our mutual involvement with Common Street Arts.  Her passion for  PKN (as it is abbreviated to avoid the awkwardness and insecurity of pronouncing it) convinced me to take her invitation deeper to heart than many invitations I receive.  Thus, I overcame the fatigue of a Friday night after a hell of a disjointed week, and the gravity of one daughter to be picked up from a school dance, and two other exhausted family members cozily schlumping out at home.  Much as I longed for a recliner, I installed myself in my car and ventured forth, up the long hill to Colby College, to try to find, in the dark, a venue I've not previously been to up there - Ostrove Auditorium.

After researching the campus map online and planning my route and parking location based on landmarks I do know, I found the building readily enough.  I had to park a good distance away, but the weather was kind and so the stroll to the building was comfortable enough.  The lobby of the Diamond Building was very full, and I recognized only a handful of the other attendees.  I stood still a bit and gauged the scene.  There was a nice blend of elderly, middle-age, and college age people.  Some snacks and synapse-lubricating alcohol were available.  I myself eschewed the hooch, since I was still on a steady diet of cold medications from the Acadian Death Cold that had been plaguing me for 20 days.  In fact, during my solo stroll to the building I engaged in some vigorous half-intentional power-coughing in an attempt to clear my lungs to sit silently and not be the most annoying man in the auditorium (which I probably only half-succeeded at).  Anyway, while a beer sounded good, I didn't want to risk the paranoid delusions I once experienced in college due to an unwise combination of otherwise innocuous cold remedies and alcohol.


After perusing the informational table, which only made partial sense without the benefit of the  upcoming presentations, I entered and selected a seat.  Ostrove is a fine, modern, comfortable venue.  Plenty of legroom I was delighted to find.  There's a lot of negativity and contrariness in the air of this nation and town due to election-season.  PechaKucha provided a much-needed antidote.

I was in for a night of inspiration and celebration of the human spirit.  As follows:

Inspiration #1:  The 180-seat Ostrove Auditorium was filled - in fact, there were people standing - for an event that is described by Tammy as "a symphony of ideas."  Smart people with open and creative minds.  Heartening to say the list.

Inspiration #2:  Izzy Labbe, the 14-year old emcee, was dynamite.  Her age would suggest she be referred to as a girl.  Her poise at the podium, her command of the crowd, and her sense of humor demand she be called a young lady.  I would easily have believed she was a college freshman rather than a high school freshman.

Inspiration #3:  The format.  Each speaker was well-rehearsed to keep their presentation in line with the 20 images they were permitted, each displayed for 20 seconds.  Really.  20 seconds.  The speaker could not control it.  This format is awesome because it keeps the momentum rolling, ensures people are concise, protects the audience against tedium and tangents (though I assure you I detected no such trends), and gives a fantastic rhythm to the event.

Inspiration #4:  Margy Burns Knight's (mother of Emilie Knight of Common Street Arts fame) germinating idea for a project examining statues of famous women throughout the country in conjunction with the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment.  I was astonished when she displayed a statue of a Native American woman from the Yavapai tribe in my hometown of Prescott, Arizona.  What are the odds?

Inspiration #5:  Gift Ntuli, an unassuming, kind, and genuine Colby student from Zimbabwe, who matter-of-factly described how he is bettering the lives of orphaned children in his homeland by coordinating the acquisition and delivery to them of solar lanterns so they can study after dark.  Their days are consumed with school and survival, since most of their parents have died from HIV/AIDS.  The lanterns permit them to study and perform additional chores after night falls.  I was moved nearly to tears at how this young man happily described how he has put this project together, and how he intends to continue it and expand it.

Inspiration #6:  The friendly, warm, beverage-sipping speech of James Chute describing his project of making drawings while interviewing over 50 female artists.  His drawings were juxtaposed with images of representative works by the interviewees.

Inspiration #7:  The whimsical-yet-questioning relief and installation art of Barbara Sullivan.  She called them frescoes, but to me it was more relief-like in nature.  All of it insightful and tinged with humor, her work reminded me of why I've come back to seeking art after a couple of decades out of touch with it.

Inspiration #8:  Chatting with librarian Sarah Sugden about the so-called "creative economy" in Waterville and it's potential to invigorate Waterville, during which we got that delightful fervent head-nodding "you're so right" kind of effect going.

Inspiration #9:  Tammy Rabideau publicizing and talking up Common Street Arts and, when she asked how many people in the audience had visited the gallery/studio, seeing half the hands in the place go up.

Inspiration #10:  Laura Lessing's presentation of the mysteries confronting a curator at Colby Museum of Art.

Inspiration #11:  The humble, revelation-packed enthusiasm of Rurik Spence for beekeeping.

With that, I had to reluctantly break away before the last presentation to drive across town and pick up my daughter from the junior high dance.  But on my way, I replayed the creative and positive displays of the night in my head and was infused with the warmth of hope, and the conviction that, yes, I would really like to do one of these myself one day.  In the meantime, I hope to attend again.  And should you attend PechaKucha?  Yes.  I firmly believe you'd find the presenters interesting, illuminating, and thought-provoking.  And even if there is a dud, it'll pass in 400 seconds.  

PechaKucha Waterville on the web


PechaKucha Waterville on Facebook
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    The Daily Consternation 
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    Tom lives on the east side of the Kennebec River and works on the west.  He relocated from Arizona to Maine, by pure choice,  in 2001 and loves music and history.  He may change any viewpoint expressed on this site at will and without warning.

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