Friday update

Beale Street Music Fest begins this afternoon! It’s a weekend of Lyft upcharges, traffic jams, $20 parking, scalpers, bars that normally don’t charge cover charging cover, East Memphians coming downtown for 3 days out of the year, puke on restroom walls and floors, the lingering smell of marijuana, people screaming “WOOOOOOOOOOO!” as they walk up the Main Street Mall at 4 in the morning, and walks of shame. Yay.

Sorry but I’m not as big a Music Fest enthusiast as a lot of Memphians. For me it’s a speed bump on the road to BBQ Fest.

Lettuce turn up the beet! is the theme at the Memphis Farmers Market this Saturday. Should that be Lettuce Turnip the Beet? It’s a veritable salad of puns at the Market! Don’t carry cash on you! No problem! Swap your debit, credit or EBT card and get spendable tokens. In fact, if you’re part of the SNAP program, the Market can match up to $20 of your EBT purchase to be spent on healthy fresh fruits and vegetables. The kids’ craft area will feature coloring from 8 AM to noon. Live, local music all Market long. The Market runs 8 AM to 1 PM every Saturday under the pavilion at Front and G.E. Patterson. If the rain stays away I PLAN ON BEING THERE!

“Bob & Friends” happens at Clayborn Temple 6:30-9:30 tonight. “Bob” is Memphis Symphony Orchestra conductor Robert Moody. He and violin virtuoso Charles Yang will host a night of cabaret entertainment. They and a few MSO members will sing tunes from Broadway to Pop, Beatles to Ben Folds, to Leonard Cohen. Tenor Piotr Bushevski will hit nine high Cs in an aria, and vocalist Camille Quarrels will perform her rendition of “Rise Up.” $125 table seating, $75 stadium seating/standing room.

The requested dress for Bob & Friends is Cabaret Casual, whatever that means.

Beale Street, home of the blues and Microsoft WordArt.

To be fair, I hear it does look really cool at night.

High Ground News will be “on the ground” in Uptown and The Pinch the next three months, covering a part of town that is often overlooked in the media. This week they have two stories:

Really good stuff in that second article about the history of that part of town. I learned quite a bit reading it.

LOL the guy who randomly blocks and unblocks me on Facebook for reasons unknown blocked me again. This is getting ridiculous. I’ll say it again, camouflage doesn’t hide character flaws.

Front Street Deli will stay open until midnight Friday and Saturday and 5 PM Sunday this weekend for Music Fest goers.

Congratulations to former Grizzlies head coach David Fizdale on being offered the head coaching job with the New York Knicks.

Bluff City Coffee has empanadas through tomorrow. They have chicken and cheese, or mushroom and pepper.

CNBC headline from yesterday: “Trump leads National Prayer Day event after saying he repaid lawyer for hush money to porn star.” I know ’tis not the season for the State of the Union address, but that headline summarizes the state of the Union at this time.

For lunch yesterday I went to Urban Fusion Asian Bistro on Exeter Rd. in Germantown. They mostly share a menu with their sister restaurant in Olive Branch. They have sushi, noodles, Thai, Japanese… a little of everything Asian. I ordered the Pork Katsu lunch Bento box. I started off with Miso soup (choice of Miso or clear soup) and a side salad.

Then the Bento box came out. Slices of thin, lightly breaded pork that were delicious and served with Katsu sauce on the side. The box comes with white rice (get fried rice for a dollar extra), four pieces of California roll, and a crispy spring roll. (The online menu says it comes with two pieces of fried shumai rather than the spring roll, but I was fine with either). A good lunch and a good value for $8.75.

Too bad my troll doesn’t come to work, and therefore work lunch, with me. She would have enjoyed standing in that Bento box.

I plan on going back to Urban Fusion sometime soon and trying their noodles. They have 8 different noodle preparations you can order with chicken, beef, shrimp, scallop or seafood. I see that they have noodles with kimchi. I love kimchi so that one is on my list for sure!

I will warn you about one thing, though. A co-worker had the same lunch idea I did, and when we got back to the office we compared notes on what we had. He got one of the noodle dishes, and they asked him, “How spicy do you want it? 0, 1, 2, or 3?” He asked for “1” and had to go through two and a half glasses of water with his lunch! I will heed his words of caution, because I would have gone for 2 or 3 if I had ordered a spicy dish yesterday.

In other news about me, I’ve had a great time reading feeds and online forums this week… :mrgreen:

That’s it for now. Back tomorrow with more news.