Boston

Events of September 16-19.  John visits Boston

John spent most of four days in Boston, Massachusetts on business September 16 through 19.  This was not all work, and provided opportunities to visit with friends, eat in some good restaurants, spend some time at the Museum of Fine Arts and enjoy family.

He had a fine time with grandsons in the suburbs, who are growing well.   His visit with friends he had not seen since their wedding was lovely.  Michael and Patricia have had an interesting 23 years of marriage, living now in Back Bay.   

The restaurants were interesting and belie Boston's old reputation of dreary food.  It's not been like that since John's college days, but the reputation still exists.   

His first good meal was at Wink and Nod, a dark basement restaurant, beautifully decorated and lighted by old-style Edison lights.   On Appleton Street, south of I-90, it has the air of an old English club.  The food, however, is Filipino with other Asian influences.   John and friend Angela enjoyed dinner of rice with beef, huge shrimp in hot sauce, and cubed crisped pork with strong spices.   Wink and Nod is a lot of fun, but if you go, sit under one of the lights.  Otherwise, reading the menu is a bit difficult to say the least.

The second good time was at Grill 23, a steakhouse near Copley Square.  It was a chance to enjoy a good steak and frites, though the amount of frites was overwhelming and got shared among the three of us.   A huge salad with excellent light cheese was a good starter.  John's old friends had selections of salads, and scallops.  A good Gruner Vetleiner assuaged Patricia's tastes while John enjoyed a pinot grigio from Veneto.   He moved on to a syrah that was outstanding.  We split an order of profiteroles for dessert.   An evening of good food with good conversation.

Japanese screen from the 1520s

The visit to the MFA was superb.   John had seen a Wall Street Journal review of "Made in the Americas, The New World Discovers Asia,"
He was fascinated by the Asian influence on colonial American art and design and went to see it.   It's worth every moment of the visit to see pieces from Asia from the 1520s that showed traders and then showed how their arts, brought to the Americas, influenced art, furniture and design from colonial New England to viceregal Peru.  http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/made-in-the-americas

Copley's Art

Lunch--a very fine Cuban style panino sandwich with good coffee while he listened to Greek music and dancing to celebrate Greek culture day.  He finished up his visit with time in the John Singleton Copley and the colonial art galleries.