Reflection of a hotel chandelier in a spoon
Sunday morning it was the OCLC update breakfast – a chance to hear about what’s new at the big global library consortium, delivered in a talk by the president and CEO. For as long as I’ve been going to these, probably about 15 years, OCLC has had the same president, a guy named Jay Jordan. He announced his retirement in 2011, but then they had a failed hire – the party was already planned for the annual conference in 2012, but the successor who was selected must’ve had something really shady in his past, so Jay had to stay on another year. In 2013, Skip Pritchard became president, but his start date was July, so Jay still did all the presidential stuff at the 2013 conference in June in Chicago, and this Midwinter one was my first chance to to see Skip in action.
Like I said, I was still full after dinner on Saturday night, so at the update breakfast, I had coffee and grabbed an apple and headed off to meetings.
Briskit sandwich at Reading Market – the half I could just not finish – wish I had had someone to split it with
And made a grave tactical error, above. By 3:30 I was just starving, so I went to Reading Market, thinking I’d get another roll, but the sandwiches at Herschel’s Deli looked so good, I succumbed to the briskit. I only ate half; tried to offer the other half to a passing librarian friend, but turned out he doesn’t eat red meat, so it went into the landfill. The trash bins in Philadelphia were labeled “Landfill” or “Recycling” – a little depressing but probably accurate.
I had another meeting, then went back to the room to meet up with Mark & Toni. The plan was to adjourn to our division’s happy hour at a bar in China town, Bar-Ly. Mark was having one of those unpleasant experiences – he knew more then the tech support available at the hotel’s business center, and it took him about 45 minutes to print boarding passes for him and Toni for the return flight on Monday. I did the barcode to my iPhone thing, and that was quicker, but who knows if it would of worked for two people.
By the time we got to the happy hour, it was after 7:00, and it was a little odd. The organizers had booked the back room of the bar, but it was too small, so we were all kind of standing around awkwardly, looking like we were in a queue to get into the room …. We only were there for about half an hour before we had to head out to our 8:15 reservation at Osteria, another Marc Vetri joint, same as the pizza we’d had on Friday. That was also a little unnerving – I forgot that any walking directions that have you swing around the back of China town in any larger city are going to take you through a few heart-pounding areas, that make you wonder if you are really safe walking at night, even with 3 people.
But it was worth it – Osteria turned out to be our best meal of the trip, even though I wasn’t as hungry as I should have been, due to the ill-timed briskit sandwich. We got four dishes, that all came out family style. For starters, we had a roasted vegetable salad – little piles of red and gold beets, celeriac, parsnips, and Brussels sprouts with prosciutto arranged around a larger pile of arugula dressed with a little vinaigrette and a few shaves of Parmesan. We got two plates of the roasted baby pig, with potatoes. Two pastas: Candlestick (candele) with wild boar bolognese, and “chianti gemelli with guinea hen ragu”. And we got the chocolate zeppole for dessert. All amazing, cooked in their wood fired oven – but the vegetables were the highlight, for me.
I think this is a summer version – with eggplant & corn – of the salad we ate
