[bostonian #7] : MIT to food truck, or Plan B

(photo originally posted on the Clover Food Lab's website)

Some people deplore the portions, others the "weird" food selection, but I must say that the Clover food truck, located behind MIT Medical and the Kendall T stop, is one of my favorite eats in the area. So what if the line is a bit long? As you can see above, they've made a scientific chart giving customers an idea of average wait times. They were recently featured on TLC and on the MIT News website, which is a step for this young business (started just in 2008).

My friends and I have ventured over to this now-campus mainstay after studio and before classes countless times in the last semester, and it hasn't yet gotten old for us. The food truck, founded by MIT alums, focuses on freshly-made sandwiches and other delectabilities with an organic and sustainable bent. The menu varies slightly day to day, depending on available produce, but my favorites are mainstays: the chickpea fritter (aka overflowing fried falafel sandwich), rosemary fries, and hot mulled cider in the winter time.

Why love (or at least try to like) Clover:

• It's local.
• It's fresh.
• It's fun(ny - the staff is entertaining along with being friendly)
• They play good music.
• When the weather's cold, you can virtually get their without going outside - even all the way from Building 7
• They have fried sweet plantains at night with their expanded hours.

Clover has inspired some architecture friends and I by providing a Plan B: in case architecture doesn't work, we can open a food truck serving either dessert or a fusion of Chinese, Middle Eastern, and French foods. Now, that's sound career advice as a side dish to good fooding.

The vault madness continues

I still have a backlog of things to write about from break, but of the moment is this quintessential photo as evidence that the vault project does indeed continue, in its phase 2 of existence. See our project's official blog for more info, but I'll try to cross-post a bit to keep things up to date.

These are the Mickeys of the woodshop, posing with our first successfully-cut piece from the CNC machine. Whether or not they're proud of that title...well, maybe you can tell from their expressions.

Quotes : A readable feast

"Read voraciously, many books at a time. Only then will you hear the conversation taking place among them."

"The best library contains both books you have read, and books you have not. The latter should grow in proportion as the library expands. A working library is as much a place for the possible as it is a record of the past."

From "Ways of Reading," a post thanks to A Working Library blog

This is what is happening to me, slowly but surely. My room at school doesn't feel its affects, since transporting books is a pain for me, although my shelves at home still welcome new volumes among their ranks every few months. Library book sales, street-side book tables, flea markets...all are places where I fall victim to twitchy reader's fingers. Sometimes I just have to say "No!", although inside I'm sad to say so. Alas.

During school, I still try to read something for fun despite the craziness of classes, extracurriculars, etc. (That and daily Bible devotions are some of the ways in which I keep sane.) My strategy for finding guaranteed time: read while brushing my teeth. It seems weird (and potentially splashy), but hey - this is how I got through a Ben Franklin biography this semester and a poignant memoir on marriage and faith last semester. Now that it's technically break...it's time to stop "moon lighting" and start reading in daylight again.

Indecent exposure

Now that I've been liberated by the academic semester and have the leisurely time to read books for fun (egads!), this New York Times article on bad book covers strikes both my literary and design minds alike. A bad cover is like a bad stench in your hands, although I wouldn't say that appearances are everything: I actually like books that are a little worn at the corners over a completely pristine edition.

Anyways, I like the author's solutions for bad book covers (see the article for the listing). My most practiced solution in the past was to brown bag the book (#1) - also an frequent practice from elementary through high school, when the books we read for English class and others were mere borrowed editions. The brown bag gives the liberty of creating your own cover for the books, which I usually did while doodling during a boring class.

#6 (ripping the cover off) just makes my skin crawl, like a gross injustice was just committed.

Back to reading: Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence.