Junkfood

Restaurant Week in Boston is next week, August 23-27, 2004. It's a good opportunity to sample some of the best restaurants in the area, with special, prix-fixe menus of $20.04 for lunch and $30.04 for dinner.

http://www.bostonusa.com/visitor/resdet.php?seqnum=9680&type=event

At the Market Basket there were some fruit called Pluots which I had never heard of before, so I decided to try some. It turns out that Pluot is a trademark for a patented fruit owned by a company called Zaiger's Genetics. It was created as a hybrid between a plum and an apricot. As I understand it, when you cross a plum and an apricot, you get a fruit called a Plumcot. When you cross a Plumcot with a plum, you get the Pluot. And, when you cross a Plumcot with an apricot, you get another trademark fruit called Aprium. (My descriptions are just an approximation and are not 100% scientifically accurate.)

I'm not sure what variety I bought (there are quite a few), but my Pluots looked like large, purple plums. The flesh was firm, and the pit was small and came out of the fruit readily. It was very sweet and tasty, with only a bit of sourness near the skin. I recommend this fruit over regular plums.

I went to see The Lord of the Rings Motion Picture Trilogy: The Exhibition which is currently at the Museum of Science through October 24, 2004. It is a traveling exhibit that previously appeared in New Zealand, London, and Singapore. This is the only stop in the United States. It travels to Sydney, Australia next. I met some people from Minneapolis who traveled to Boston specifically to see this exhibit.

This is a exhibit with artwork, models, props, and costumes from the movies. It had a focus on the science behind the movies (special effects, prop making, etc.). They had a lot of stuff. There were video clips that showed interviews with the movie makers and explanations of how certain things were done. They also had The One Ring on display (encased in lucite) that I found myself strangely drawn to, going back repeatedly to gaze at it.

Also, there were four interactive exhibits:

1. They have a greenscreen set up where you and a friend can sit side-by-side in Gandalf's wagon. One person is scaled to be hobbit-sized and the other wizard-sized. It's free, and for $5.00 you can also have a souvenir picture taken.
2. Another greenscreen is set up so you can try motion capture technology. You hold two pieces of foam, and the computer maps your movement to control a CG warrior or elf on screen. One hand controls the movement of the shield/bow and the other controls the sword/arrow.
3. You can stand along a measurement wall, and a sensor will determine your height and tell you what Middle-earth race you could be. (I am as tall as an orc.)
4. In the final interactive exhibit, you can have your face scanned by a laser. A computer then maps your face using polygons, smoothing, and texture. The final image is your face as a stone statue. I think that this was used to model the Argonath based on Viggo Mortensen's face.

Some tips and hints for seeing the exhibit:

• Avoid wearing green clothing. You'll want to show up properly in the interactive exhibits that use greenscreen technology. (They'll lend you a blue shirt if you happen to be wearing green.)
• The exhibit is $19/17/16 for adult/senior/child. It includes a separate ticket for general museum admission, usable anytime within six months of purchase. For members, admission is $3.
• A limited number of tickets are sold for 15-minute interval entrance times. Once you go in, you can spend as much time as you want inside.
• It is conceivable that the day's allotment of tickets could run out. You may want to consider advance purchase, especially on holidays and weekends. I note that today (a Monday, not a holiday) at 11:00am tickets up to 12:45 were sold out, and at 2:38pm, tickets until 4:15pm were sold out.(I arrived at 9:00am on Saturday and had no difficulty purchasing a ticket for 9:00am.)
• There is a queue outside the exhibit, for ticket-holders to wait for their entrance time. However, I don't think that it is worth getting there early and waiting. This is because I can think of no benefit to being one of the first admitted within your time group. (In 15 minutes another group will be entering, anyway.)
• I spent 2 and 3/4 hours in the exhibit. I read just about every display and watched every video clip.
• There is no re-admittance to the exhibit once you leave. There are no restroom facilities in the exhibit.
• I recommend going early in the day. There are lines for the interactive exhibits, and I imagine that these might get to be long during the popular times. There were almost no lines from 9 to 10am.
• No cameras, strollers, bags, or mobile phones are allowed in the exhibit. No weaponry is allowed either for those people who attend in costume (and there were a few of them there).
• Like most museum exhibits, this one exits through a gift shop (which wasn't very impressive).
• The Green Line no longer goes to the Science Museum stop, due to construction. The museum advises visitors to catch a shuttle bus from Government Center (though the shuttle also stops at Haymarket and North Station.)
• If you park in the museum garage, the ticket gets inserted with the stripe on top and on the right. (I had trouble figuring this out.)
• Sean Astin (Sam Gamgee) is scheduled to visit the museum on October 15 and 16.

Lobster is on sale for $4.99 a pound at Market Basket this week. They can cook the lobster for you (they steam it), but if you do this in New Hampshire you'll pay an additional 8% meals tax. (There's no tax on live lobster.) These are "new shell" lobsters, which apparently means that they have less meat, compared to regular hard-shell lobsters.

The Maine Lobster Festival is this weekend. (http://www.mainelobsterfestival.com/). The Food Network recently showed (or re-ran) an episode of All American Festivals featuring it. There's a Food Network web page for the episode, along with links to recipes from the lobster cooking contest featured in the episode.

There are two all-you-can-eat lobster buffets in the area. Nordic Lodge in Charlestown, Rhode Island, is the older buffet. It is $65 (tax and gratuity included). Custy's International in North Stonington, Connecticut, is a more recently opened incarnation of a Custy's restaurant that used to be in Rhode Island. It is $62.95 (tax and gratuity not included). I've never been to either. I note that you could spend approximately the same amount of money and buy 12 pounds of lobster at Market Basket (approximately 7-8 lobsters).