The Blog of Jason “Jayce” Olshefsky

Ali and I walked over to The Mez (389 Gregory St., formerly House of Hamez and Daily Perks) to check out Burlesque for Bail, the benefit show to raise money for bail for Unconventional Action protesters of the upcoming political conventions. The show was pretty fun although it was basically some musical acts and Burlesque-styled striptease.

At one point, one of the guys involved in the show asked for people’s opinions of things around town and around the nation. Although the new police cameras brought loud jeering, I heard a lot of quiet support for them. In a later discussion with Ali and her friend, I tried arguing it logically, but I was frustrated: without any factual information, I was unable to do anything but an emotional appeal.

Although I said I choose freedom over safety, I think it’s more that I choose freedom over inaccurate accounts of safety. I guess the working theory is that the cameras prevent criminal activity. The first flaw in that statement is that no police action prevents crime: police can only catch criminals after a crime has been committed.

But if I give credence at all to the crime-prevention theory, it’s that criminals do not want to get caught so they will not commit crime where they will get caught. As such, the cameras cause crime to move away from the cameras. In other words, if it were possible to locate crimes before and after the cameras, my theory is that the crime rate would stay relatively steady but that fewer crimes would be committed in range of the cameras.

So in the end, I argue that it doesn’t reduce crime at all.

On the other side of the coin, the cameras can be used to break up protests. For instance, if an anti-war protest were held (or even a Critical Mass Bike Ride or any group of different-enough looking people for that matter), the cameras can be used to record the identities of the attendees and round them up later. Although protesting is not a crime, protesters I’ve met in this jingoistic, militarized country tend to be quite paranoid. As such, they behave like the criminals and would want to move protests away from the cameras. Unfortunately, protests are necessarily in those areas, as the cameras were placed where people tend to congregate — a protest is worthless if nobody is there to see it.

Thus, in my mind, the cameras prevent no crime and disrupt freedom and are therefore a bad thing.

Everyone who supports the camera believes that they do prevent crime and that they are overall a benefit — and why should they not?, for I can offer no hard evidence. So I think that what I should do is to test their theory. I’ll go hang out in front of the cameras with, say, a laptop computer. If the cameras do prevent crime, then I’ll go home after a couple hours. If they don’t, then there’s a chance I’d be robbed.

I suspect that wouldn’t be sufficient — for if I were robbed, I might witness a demand for more cameras — after all, if one camera failed to prevent a crime, then perhaps two will work better, and I really don’t want to see that. So I’ll just fight the robber and hopefully get killed in the process. Then, either I’ll be a martyr to the cause of freedom, or things will get worse but I won’t have to deal with it.

I’ll probably do it after Burning Man though because I kind of want to go to that first.

Anyhow, back to Saturday night …

Ali and I headed to The Tap and Mallet (381 Gregory St.) for a beer. She got her head set that we’d get Mark’s plates at the end of the evening, and that would require some serious drinking. We had some wine at Solera Wine Bar (647 South Ave.) then headed across to Lux Lounge (666 South Ave.) where we ran into some friends. We spent the bulk of the evening and four of us went to Mark’s Texas Hots (487 Monroe Ave.) I discovered what may be the most awesome plate ever: rather than burgers or hots, I got two over-easy eggs. Damn that was a great plate. I think that it might be improved with the addition of brown gravy (or “gravies” as the kids say) … and just possibly — and I say this only as an experiment to try, not to blaspheme — without the meat sauce, onions, and mustard.

Perhaps next time, then …

My best friend Sondra stopped in for the weekend (after [and before] highly annoying air travel). She was in town to wrap up things with her old house in Palmyra but we got to go out and hit the town. We started at my house then decided to change the scenery. I started out with Abeline Bar and Lounge (153 Liberty Pole Wy., formerly Tara) just in case it opened early, but it doesn’t. So we decided to hit our old haunt, Monty’s Krown (875 Monroe Ave.) Surprisingly it was closed — now this is … er … was no ordinary bar. I recall seeing people having beers out on the sidewalk as early as noon some days … typically more like 2 or 3 p.m. though. On this day, they were completely closed. As a substitution, we tried Monty’s Korner (355 East Ave.) but it was closed too. Same with Mex (295 Alexander St.) We gave up and stopped by Ali’s to say hi before heading to The Distillery (1142 Mount Hope Ave.) which — being a restaurant as well — was certainly going to be open, and indeed it was.

We had a couple margaritas and caught up with stuff as we often do (except over the phone usually). Next stop was Solera Wine Bar (647 South Ave.) where we met up with Ali. The three of us split a couple bottles of wine and two of their delicious cheese boards. It was getting late by then and we tried Betty Meyer’s Bullwinkle Café (622 Lake Ave., a.k.a. “Bullwinkle’s”) but it was closed — as rumors go, I’m pretty sure it’s done. [I’ll have to stop by Betty’s house at some point — which is coincidentally not far from where I live — and find out the deal.] So we headed back to The Flat Iron Café (561 State St.) but it wasn’t open yet — and by now it was closing in on 11 p.m. As a consolation, we checked out this ultimate dive of a country music bar called Sandra’s Saloon (276 Smith St.) As places like this go, the bartender and owner was a kind woman and the patrons kept to their own. It was actually quite nice, and the band was really good, too.

To wrap things up, we stopped by Abeline Bar and Lounge (153 Liberty Pole Wy., formerly Tara). This time it was open, and by now the band had finished. We chatted with the bartender a bit and tried their absinthe. Alas, it was more like a licorice liquor than absinthe — flavor-wise it was pretty close to what we’d had in the past, but mild-hallucination wise, not so much.

Sondra had to get up early to make her flight: as in, leave the house at 4:30 a.m. So we said our goodbyes before crashing at my house. In a tale for another day, she did eventually make it back to Colorado.

I took a little tour of South Wedge and got pizza from Little Venice Pizza (742 South Ave., formerly Skippy’s) which I ate at Solera Wine Bar (647 South Ave.) with a glass of wine. I stopped by Lux Lounge (666 South Ave.) for a bit and hung out with some friends before heading to The Method Lab (650 South Ave.) Photographer Clark Condé’s work was on display. It’s really good stuff: evocative and slightly abstract — and large, which always helps if all else fails.

Ali and I decided to go to Mario’s Italian Steakhouse (2740 Monroe Ave., formerly Mario’s Via Abruzzi) for their Sunday Brunch Buffet. We’d been before, but it sure is a good time. After noon, you can even get mimosas as part of the brunch. We took our time and had three square meals over the course of some 3 hours or so. If you have the time, it’s really worth the price.

Ali and I went to Make and Take Gourmet (1475 E. Henrietta Road) to make a few do-it-yourself take-home-and-cook meals. I had set up an event with the MEETinROCHESTER and 5 of them came as well. We had a great time — a few people brought some wine so we had a ball drinking and cooking. I made the “Inside-out Bacon Cheeseburgers with Green Onion Mayo” and Ali made the “Sautéed Chicken in Dijon-Cream Sauce”. When I was all done, I had 3 burgers with cheese and bacon inside in a foil pan along with a green onion mayonnaise in a zip-lock bag. The really amazing thing was that it only took 10 minutes to prepare the whole thing — it’s so easy when someone else has prepared all the ingredients.

Afterward we were naturally hungry so we ended up going out to The Tap and Mallet (381 Gregory St.) for what actually turned out to be a rather light dinner. I had their “Sliders” which are mini-burgers: one beef, one bean, and one spicy chicken — all excellent.

Ali and I went to the Ontario County Real Property Tax Foreclosure Land Auction at The Ontario County Safety Training Facility (2914 County Road 48, Canandaigua) hosted by The Reynolds Auction Company. We were not planning to buy anything, we just to see how things get run.

We considered Lot #4 as we looked at it last week. It’s located just south of where Routes 32 and 64 meet in Bristol. According to Google’s new terrain maps, the property is located about a half-mile east of the valley and 320 feet higher into the surrounding hills with the first 1000 feet of road at a 20% grade. Ali’s poor Saturn SL-2 barely made it up (and the transmission’s “2″ setting didn’t even come close to helping on the way down).

The property was listed with an assessed value of $27,500. In an information session last week that I attended, someone asked about that particular property’s assessment, commenting that they own land nearby and they thought the assessment was wrong — I assumed they meant “too high”. With that in mind, I was a little worried that it would actually sell for something approaching what we could afford — a couple thousand dollars, perhaps — because we didn’t even bother to register.

Well this one was particularly unusual. Ali knew the County Treasurer Gary Baxter from her days working in Canandaigua and when we chatted with him earlier, he menionted that there seemed to be a lot of people interested in this particular lot. Well I had no idea — I guessed they’d attempt to start bidding around $9,000 (then they work down until they get a bid) and it would sell for something like $12,000. Ali was worried it would sell for much less — after all, we looked at it and it’s hard to get to (i.e. 4-wheel-drive-access only) and the A-frame structure was in need of a fair amount of repairs, but it would indeed be a nice secluded spot to get away to on occasion. In the end it went for $37,500 — percentage-wise the largest amount over the assessed value of any of the properties we stayed to see. I sure hope those people like it.

We stayed through 14 of the properties and noted that the later you stay, the more people leave so in the future, I’d consider bidding on one of the later properties on the list. After that we had a nice dinner at Eric’s Office Restaurant (2574 Macedon Rd., Canandaigua). We hadn’t been there in a while and it was a bit late; food preparation time was a bit slow for us personally but the quality was quite good. I thought the French Onion soup wasn’t as good as we’d had at Hogan’s Hideaway (197 Park Ave.) but Ali liked it more. We split both our meals in half so she had half my portabello sandwich and I, half her cheeseburger. Both were great. Amusingly enough, the auctioneer John T. Reynolds and one of the women he was working with (I forgot her name and don’t know their personal relationship) happened to get dinner there too.

Ali heard about this new place in Henrietta — Make and Take Gourmet (1475 E. Henrietta Road) — so we went there to check it out for their menu sampling day. Everything was very good and it was nice to get to try everything. The idea is that you assemble a meal (or you can buy it preassembled “to go”) and take it home to cook and eat or to freeze for later. It’s definitely a niche concept but it seems to make sense: you get to try out a new recipe without the hassle of buying all the ingredients (and having to find an immediate use for the left-over perishables that wouldn’t ordinarily get used) and hoping — against all odds — that you got everything you needed.

Make and Take provides a bunch of recipes to choose from each month — in May 2008, there are 16. They have “assembly stations” set up at their location with all the ingredients for one or more of the recipes and you can go there and get all the ingredients ready in a take-out container (that they provide although you can also bring your own). I think you may be able to just walk in, but they prefer that you sign up before you show up so they can make sure to have enough of everything ready-to-go. The recipes are scaled for either 2-3 people or for 4-6 people and one of the perks of making it yourself is that you can add more of what you like and omit anything you hate.

Ali set up an event on May 20 — you can see the details on Tuesday’s entry of this JayceLand update.

Ali and I thought we’d try The Blue Cactus Mexican Grille (5 Liftbridge Ln. E., Fairport) to see how its “traditional Mexican cuisine” compares.

It was awful.

Well, that’s not quite true. It was bland, unsatisfying Mexican food — “traditional” for people who think “traditional” means bland and unsatisfying. The drinks at the bar were adequate but a bit pricey, but the meal was quite expensive and only marginally enjoyable. I ordered the Chile Rellenos: (from the menu) “one stuffed with beef picadillo, the other with a corn medley, [then] oven roasted”. I was irritated that the server made a point of saying something like “wow! isn’t that a wonderful presentation?” — don’t patronize me: I’ll make my own decision on whether I think it’s attractive or not. The roasting seemed to take all the characteristic flavor out of the chilies, leaving them not quite as flavorful as a roasted bell pepper. The beef picadillo wasn’t bad, but the “corn medley” is a poor excuse for dumping corn and other unseasoned soup ingredients into the pepper … er … chile.

The Banana Licuados — a milk-based smoothie which I opted to add oatmeal to (”to make it really authentic!”) — was really quite good. Ali and I experimented with our own rendition later. Although the server said the oatmeal was not cooked, I think it should be to allow the oats to dissolve with the milk.

Today is Ali’s and my second anniversary together.

To celebrate, we decided to go to Rooney’s Restaurant (90 Henrietta St.) for a fancy meal. I was fortunate to have discovered a postcard under the computer that reminded me they had a special chef coming for the week so I made reservations a few days early. [Can you imagine that?: reservations. A few days early. In Rochester. Who knew?]

The guest chef was from Brasserie Georges Lyon (30, Cours Verdun Perrache, Lyon, FR) and had set up a special French menu. We started with the Lyonnais salad — a mesclun salad topped with chopped bacon and a poached egg, perfectly matched to the mild vinaigrette dressing. For dinner, Ali had the beef tenderloin over mushrooms with mashed potatoes — the beef was spectacular and the potatoes were deliciously prepared with a massive amount of cream. I ordered the Lyonnais pike quenelles — essentially puréed pike made into a soufflé and floated in a puréed lobster-and-mushroom bisque. Although the word “purée” doesn’t sound all that appetizing, the meal certainly was. We even got dessert: Ali the crème brûlée and I the flourless chocolate cake. Both were amazing.

Afterward we headed back home. Unfortunately this was the start of a flu-like illness that kept Ali home all weekend, so I was left on my own while she rested.

In the end, though, I wonder how we can keep having such great anniversaries. After all, we have a lot of them to come.

Ali, her friend Emily, and I headed to Hogan’s Hideaway (197 Park Ave.) for dinner. Ordinarily Ali and I have excellent service and food overall. There is one server, however, that we’ve had terrible luck with and that happened to be the very one who served us tonight.

We ordered a carafe of house wine and he managed to spill a bit on Emily when he poured it. Rather than apologizing he quipped that her animated ways caused him to get all worked up — peculiar and unto itself not a big problem. Emily also happened to notice lipstick stains on mine and Ali’s glasses so she asked that he get clean ones. He returned with two fresh glasses and left before I noticed that the new glass I got had a stain as well … I just wiped it off, but come on!

Ali had ordered the quiche of the day (ham and cheese, I think) but what she got was something different (artichoke and roasted red peppers). Even though he returned to the table to confirm what she wanted, he didn’t bother to mention they had switched quiches. By now we all had our meals and he just said that “they must have run out” and offered to put in an order for something else ,but Ali decided it was good enough rather than waiting 20 minutes for another dish.

Next, Emily found a piece of eggshell on the bottom of her sandwich. When she inquired with our server, he said (and I might not have the quote exactly right but it’s pretty close), “I assure you that eggs are one of the ingredients when making the rolls”. The way it was stuck on, it was obviously not baked in but collected from being set upon the eggshell. He said, “well what do you want me to do?” Before we could answer, he headed back to the kitchen then returned and offered to remove the item from the bill. Emily asked to see a manager and he said there was nobody available. She asked, “well, who’s in charge?” “I guess I am,” he replied. In the end, she decided to eat the sandwich with no bun, hoping to avoid getting sick. We snagged someone busing tables and asked, “hey, is that guy really in charge?” and they said he wasn’t and laughed incredulously.

When we got the bill, he had removed the sandwich but had added a salad we didn’t order. We told him and he removed it. He came back and in his haste of busing the table, he managed to dump several items on Emily. He didn’t say a peep — I had enough of him and I almost told him to just leave everything until we were gone.

We ended up leaving a 10% tip. In retrospect we should have gone with our original plan to dine-and-dash, stiffing them with the whole bill.

After all, it’s not like there was a manager on duty to chase us down.