Plague Diary: In Which I Admire Cleveland

[lydy]

I have been freed from Durance Vile!  In celebration, I WENT OUT and DID THINGS.

The first thing I did was drive to Warrensville Heights, to the Bed, Bath, and Beyond there because they have a 2 quart dutch oven that should fit in the toaster oven and enable me to make bread, and it was on sale.  I was a bit croggled by the sign on the door that said that the store was rated for 576 customers.  That seems appalling in non-pandemic times.  In pandemic times, yeah, fucking terrifying.  There were, however, nowhere near that many people.  I found the dutch oven I wanted, in a fetching blue, and a cheese grater.  There was a Staples in the same strip mall, so I went there to get a Sharpie (how did I ever decide to leave the house without one?) and some scotch tape, which I will need when it finally comes time to wind the last skein of silk into a ball.  

I got in my car, told der Google to take me to downtown Cleveland, and did what it told me.  Please do not ask me about routing, as I couldn't answer if I tried.  It has been a grey, grey day with short spats of pellet-snow and brief moments when the clouds part and the winter sun shines down clear as crystal and sharp as a knife.  Warrensville Heights felt, topologically, very much like the Midwest.  Rolling hills, that sort of thing.  As I drove to Cleveland, there was this abrupt change to topology and architecture which felt extremely Rust Belt.  Very reminiscent of Pittsburgh, although the hills aren't nearly as steep.  I got to Cleveland, and decided that it was cold and I was lazy, so I didn't get out of the car.  Instead, I just tootled around in my car.  

I like Cleveland.  I mean, to look at.  I haven't really interacted with it as a city, so much, so this is entirely looks.  But the downtown is actually rather lovely.  The Standard Building and the Rockefeller Building were both stand outs.  There was this weird monument that I couldn't really get close to that had some dates in the nineteenth century on it, so I'm thinking probably a Civil War monument of some sort.  It had a bunch of lovely muted earth tones, and some heroic figures and a very tall pillar.  I shall go back and look at it more closely.  There were other bits of lovely public art, a strange green man reaching for the sky while standing on a swirling sphere.  No idea what that's about, but I liked it.  A huge huge rubber stamp that says "free".  A weird black tube, twisted in a shape that reminds me of what I used to do to paperclips when I was stressed, at least a story high.  I got glimpses of the lake, but it is supposed to be much nicer, later this week, so I plan to go back when it is warmer and there is reliable sunshine.

Cleveland was pretty empty, for a Monday afternoon.  I do not know how much of that is because of the pandemic and how much of that is because the city core is in trouble.  Probably a combination, if I had to guess.  I think a majority of the people I saw out and about were black. This is notably different from Minneapolis, but in a very welcome way.  I grew up in a multi-racial neighborhood, and my hindbrain associates a a mixture of skin tones as safe and welcoming.  (More precisely, I grew up in a neighborhood that was experiencing block busting, and the only two races were white and black, with the former fleeing year by year and the latter increasing year by year, but I honestly never noticed that at the time.)

I then drove to Trader Joe's, picked up enough frozen dinners to last me for two weeks of lunches (my freezer is now full) and some other basics.  Although they were metering people, Trader Joe's was uncomfortably crowded.  I was masked, and so was everyone else, but it was really difficult stay at least 6 feet away, and it was just....I mean, I haven't seen people in a while, so maybe that was part of it?  But man, it felt close and worrying.  I will try to figure out a less busy time to go.  At this exact moment in time, I should probably be both somewhat immune and not contagious, but I don't really want to count on that.  I am very, very careful about being masked when I am out of the house.

When I got home, there were GIFT SPICES.  Thank you, Ambyr.  I am delighted and pleased.  

The toaster oven is preheating with the dutch oven inside.  In mere moments, I'm going to go put the bread in it, and see what happens.  I have no idea how long to cook it for, no idea how well the toaster oven will manage, it's all very uncertain and I'm excited to see what happens next.  

ETA: the bread came out fabulous.  Life is just great, this very instant in time.  I'll take it. 

Comments

[dragonlady7]

I presume you've seen the Hastily-Made Cleveland Tourism Video and its sequel, which has aged poorly but that only makes it sort of funnier.

I've only visited Cleveland, and actually quite liked it, but then, I live in Buffalo, which is its sister city on the opposite side of the Lake. (Directly opposite, actually; sometimes sustained winds will cause a "seiche", or kind of inland tsunami, also known as The Slosh, which hits us both because first the wind shoves Lake Erie squarely into downtown Buffalo, and then like 25 hours later it sloshes the other way and gets Cleveland terribly wet. So. Fun times!)

When I was there, we enjoyed a really fascinating indoor market that is surely shut down in COVID times, and some lovely restaurants that I'm sure are also not operating, and mostly I was there to visit some friends. So I have no advice. But I congratulate you on the on-sale Dutch oven.

[lydy]

I have seen the video, and I liked it. But, honestly, Cleveland pleases me. If I lived here, I would probably be pretty cynical about it, but I do like what I've seen.

The "seiche" sounds...mostly like a bad idea, actually. I haven't been to Buffalo since I was a small child, but I did live in St. Lawrence County from ages 2 through 9. I have fond memories of it. Hay mows and meadows and sledding and rambling about unsupervised. But also, 40 degrees below zero weather on a pretty regular basis, and snow pants that were uncomfortable as hell.

[quadong]

We decided to try curbside pickup recently and at least at our Aldi, it was very easy, efficient and pleasant. No idea how it goes (if at all) at Trader Joe's, but maybe a good option?

You remind me that the other cooks in my house have been asking for a dutch oven for a while and I should buy one.

[lydy]

As far as I could tell, there is not a curb side pick up option for TJ's. I intend to continue to do curb-side pick up for Giant Eagle (although I will never again let them choose my avocados).

[pameladean]

I don't think eagles of any size would know much about avocados, no.

I determined at one point that TJ's in the Twin Cities does curbside pickup, but there may be a lot of local variation.


P.

[bibliofile]

I wish that the one TJ's here in Madison did curbside pickup! No way am I shopping in person right now: they're too popular and always busy. Maybe two weeks after Xmas, but before the students come back?

Yay for leaving the house and roaming around Cleveland! DOING STUFF. And homemade bread.

[petrea_mitchell]

I was intrigued by your description of the weird monument and asked a search engine about monuments and pillars and Cleveland. Is this it? (If so, you're right, it's a Civil War monument.)

[lydy]

The very one! In the grey light, it was considerably more amber and umber than those pictures. I look forward to actually walking around it and seeing it at my leisure, rather than from the window of my car.

[womzilla]

There are descriptions of FREE STAMP and The Fountain of Eternal Life on this page that google spat up quickly:

https://www.thisiscleveland.com/blog/december-2019/stumbling-into-cleveland%E2%80%99s-public-art-scene

The Soldier and Sailors Monument looks truly monumental.

[lydy]

The fountain around the Green Man was (obviously) not on, but I do like him quite a bit. Also, is it possible to install a piece of public art that does _not_ cause outcry? Hoomins! Why?

[calimac]

Probably the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument. Did it look like this? Monument to those from the area who served in the Civil War. On the Union side, of course. Their names are listed inside. (Recently a number of Blacks who were somehow omitted from the original 1894 list were added.) That's the allegorical figure of Liberty on top of the pillar.

[lydy]

Yep, that's it. I really look forward to admiring it my leisure. I am fond of political art.

Out and about

[lsanderson]

It is great to hear that you are out and about. I keep thinking there's a large body of water not far from where you are.

[thewayne]

I would have never considered the possibility of baking bread in a dutch oven in a toaster oven! How very cool and clever!

That's interesting about the TJ's: when I went to the one in Albuquerque a month or two ago, they were limiting the number of people in-store to 45! No terrible problems with close encounters.

As I recall, the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame building was pretty cool to look at from the outside. The inside is revamped regularly, and it's been 15 years since I was there, so no idea what would be in it now.

[lydy]

Well, I normally bake my bread in a dutch oven. Evidently, it gives a better crust. And in a tiny toaster oven, it wouldn't be possible to create steam very easily (and the door doesn't seal near so well as a proper oven door) so it seemed like the dutch oven would be the best choice. I measured the interior space, and a 1 quart dutch oven just barely fits. But, man, the bread was nearly perfect. If it hadn't worked, I was considering options for a stove top baking, but those would also mostly involve a dutch oven. It is very cute and blue. I did, however, manage to set fire to the parchment paper when I first put it in the oven. That was exciting. I need to remember to trim the paper or fold it into the dutch oven. In a normal oven, the paper doesn't come anywhere near the heating element. In the tiny toaster/convetion oven, that was not the case.

[thewayne]

Well, I baked a cake inside a dutch oven on top my stove, so you can certainly do amazing things with them!