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The Daily Dose/February 14, 2010
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
Notes from around the Human Experience...
Capsule Early Valentine's Date Review: The Go Raw Café, Windmill and Eastern, Henderson, Nevada and the Henderson Symphony Orchestra Performing Various Selections From Romeo And Juliet: While don’t bother with Valentines Day, or feel obligated to do something, i've got to admit, The Woman and I have always enjoyed it. It was especially pleasurable this year because I didn’t have to any of the planning.
A Change In Plans: The past couple of years we had gone to Lawry’s for Valentines Day, which is certainly a major league Valentine's outing by almost any standard, except maybe the standard used by royalty or the snobbishly rich.
But matters started overtaking us. A couple of weeks ago The Woman started making noises that she would not completely object to doing something different on Valentine's Day, which we celebrate as our anniversary even though it's not. Then some friends had told us about the Go Raw Café. Then at more or less the same time The Woman had heard something about Romeo and Juliet being performed and the next thing anyone knows yours truly was agreeing to a complete makeover of the Valentines Day paradigm.
Deep Background: It should be duly noted in the record that the Woman and I were open to something besides Lawry's because neither of us have not eaten land-based flesh since November, so
1) there is really no point to going to Lawry’s, which specializes in prime rib (though their salmon and vegetarian offerings are of the quality you expect from Lawry’s)
and
2) we were more open than most to trying a vegan restaurant.
Outside The Bun: Actually, the Go Raw Café is not unlike Taco Bell, which used the same five items – beans, cheese, sour cream, lettuce and a tortilla – for everything with the only difference being your preferred Tortilla Delivery System, taco, burrito, chalupa, what have you.
Most of the items looked eerily similar. Whether it was the Mexicali "pizza" or the Traditional "pizza" - neither of which are real pizza but a "raw, sprouted buckwheat crust" with toppings - both appeared to contain nuts and various, though not particularly identifiable, vegetables and what appeared to be vegan guacamole and both of these bore a resemblance to the Avo “Butter” Toast, which was avacodo, hemp seeds and tomatoes on their “Delicious living bread”.
Dry, Technical Matter: The “delicious living bread” actually isn’t half bad, but honestly, it resembles those crackers you’d get out of the vending machine at the zoo to feed the goats with, which isn’t too bad for morale, but, honestly, doesn’t lend itself to telling yourself you are at a feast.
Dry, Technical Matter II: ‘Not half bad’ may seem like a backward compliment, or maybe even criticism, but it’s not. It was a term Dad used, fairly often, actually, to describe something that was good, but not great, like my latest report card or maybe a meal that was tasty but didn’t particularly move him to actually call it 'good'.
Back On Message: We also had the tomato and mushroom soup, which is served cold and was lighter on the mushrooms than we would have liked. This was really good, tasting like it had been harvested in the soup garden a few minutes earlier and put into a bowl.
Continuing On To Further Action: After dinner, which was rather filling actually, we were off to watch the Henderson Symphony Orchestra perform selections from Romeo and Juliet.
FunFact: The Henderson Symphony Orchestra is a volunteer orchestra operating on a budget of about $20,000 a year, most of it donated from patrons like us who are moved to throw a few bucks into a violin case on the way out. The conductor is Ukrainian-born Tyrus Krysa and featured an original composition by Jorge Grossman, which was sung – fairly well, we’re certain – by Arsenia Soto, whose day job is singing in The Phantom at The Venetian Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The orchestra also played music written by Sergei Prokofiev and Hector Berlioz
Standard Internet Disclaimer: Though he is very happily and more or less settled down with The Woman, Gaylon had a long, honorable bachelor career and is fully qualified to render a big-picture judgment on the overall merits of a given Valentines Day date. However, he is rather new to the raw eating racket and all he really knows about organic eating is it’s a hell of a lot more expensive than regular eating. Also, he is utterly unqualified to pass judgment on the efforts of a musical ensemble.
We Interrupt This Program For A Word From The Ratings Department: Following Is The Official Writer's Shack Capsule Review Rating scale:
EX - Excellent; as good as the medium can produce in every respect.
VG - Very Good. Well worth your time.
GD - Good. More or less worth your time.
AR - All Right. Not completely without merit.
SP - Nothing of substance; a steaming pile, utterly without merit.
Final Rating: VG. It was a pretty good night. The Woman enjoyed getting dressed up and yours truly raked in the bonus points all night long which I will be milking for a while, probably through the Fall. From heeding her ideas in the first place, to compliments on her appearance that were as ubiquitous as they were obsequious to staying awake the whole night, yours truly almost pegged out the points meter. The Go Raw Café was really good if you are open to that kind of eating, but get a Diet Modification loan first because it wasn’t cheap. The Henderson Symphony Orchestra probably will not win Orchestra of the Year honors, but they provided a warm, thoughtful concert.
TILL DIVORCE DO US PART: Today is Valentines Day, which is actually the Catholic feast honoring two (2) St. Valentines, Valentine of Rome, who was martyred near the end of the third century AD, and Valentine of Terni, who flourished late in the second century AD. It was been associated with romance since the 14th century.
TOKEN ON THIS DATE ACTION: Iran's leader Ayatollah Khomeini calls for all Muslims to try and kill British/Indian writer Salmon Rushdie because the were offended by his latest book The Satanic Verses.
A few days later Rushdie offered a statement regretting the "distress" caused Muslims over the book and calling for everyone to be 'consicous of the sensibilities of others'.
Well, That Helps: The Ayatollah was so impressed by Rushdie's statement he backed off a little bit, saying now it was merely 'incumbent on every Muslim to employ everything he has got, his life and wealth, to send him to Hell.'
FunFact: From time to time over the years Iran has reaffirmed the death sentence. Neither Rushdie nor his family has been harmed, though his Japanese translator was stabbed to death and his Italian translator was severly injured in a stabbing attack and his Norwegian publisher barely survived an assassination attempt.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: To be great is not to be placed above humanity,...but to stand above the partialities and futilities of uninformed desire, and to rule one's self. - Baruch Spinoza
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Canada has won the most Olympic hockey gold medals with nine, seven men's and two women's.
Today's Stumper: In the play Romeo and Juliet, how old is Juliet? - Answer next time!
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