North Carolina, Days 5 and 6

Day 5 was supposed to be when T and I went to Charlotte for the day.  Instead, I decided that sleeping in (again!) would be a better use of our time, so we instead went only as far as Raleigh.  E and M stayed in Chapel Hill working for the day, so we took just mom and K with us.  We went to the exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences on Ghengis Kahn, and also saw the special 3-D movie about tornadoes.

Sword and bows from the era

Leather armor and chain mail

An image of the warrior on his horse

Everyday items from the late dynasty: a bowl and woman's dress

We left there and stopped at Cafe Helios for an early dinner (not part of the plan, but we were hungry).  But my sandwich (and apple and brie grilled cheese) was quite satisfying, and the coffee was so pretty!  Also, I have to say that around here, they've mastered the art of the simple side salad.  Just greens with a super-good lemon vinaigrette is all you need.  (The one I had with my omelet at Rue Cler was delicious also - same idea.)

Our coffees, which would have been too pretty to drink if they hadn't tasted so darn good

We ended our outing with a trip to the Varsity Theater in Chapel Hill to see Moneyball.  More on that later.  And I got some belated birthday flowers from mom!

 

Day 6: our last full day in the Research Triangle area.

We started out (again) with lunch, which was at an Indian restaurant called Saffron.  It was mom and the three of us, as the boys were off taking care of some work things.  We opted for an Italian-style family meal: we got one appetizer, three entrees, some sides, and a dessert, and everything just got passed around the table.  It was all quite good; my favorite entree was the lamb korma, although I wouldn't turn up my nose at the nargisi kofta or the gobi mussalam if someone offered them to me again!

We made one more trip to Raleigh, this time to do the one thing we had planned on even before our arrival in North Cackalacky: the NC Museum of Art. They had an exhibition called Rembrandt in America, which (obviously) consisted of works of Rembrandt's that had found their way to the States one way or another.  Most of them had been acquired by museums over the course of time, but a few were still in private collections.  It was a large exhibit, but no pictures allowed.

Outside the museum

Personally, I find Rembrandt's works a little dark, but I guess that makes his skill with the invisible light shining on his subject stand out even more.  Right near the end of the exhibit was one gallery in which they focused on the work that goes into investigating the authenticity of works of art, as many of the works on display had originally been attributed to Rembrandt but were later determined to have been painted by a student or another painter in his school.

We also briefly pondered the question of intention of the artist.  There were a couple of paintings that had been "restored" to their original condition; that is, later changes or additions to the painting (by the original painter) were removed to reveal the "true" work of art.  But is it really the true work, if the painter felt as though it was so unfinished that he needed to keep touching it up or making changes?  Seems like it's not really for the restorers to decide what paint to remove, just to make sure it's cleaned and archived properly.

Anyway, our last big outing (though not our last NC meal) was at Piedmont in Durham.  E heard about the NYE menu, so we added J to our group and gave it a shot.  It was a prix fixe menu, so I started with deviled eggs with a Calvander cheese sauce and paprika oil.  It's hard to go wrong with deviled eggs.  My entree was rosemary chicken on a bed of kale and a cornmeal sauce.  The chicken and kale were good, but I'm not a fan of cornmeal.  (I'm not sure why that didn't occur to me when I was ordering...?)  Dessert was a chocolate mousse cake with caramel ice cream.  Delish!  (And also predictable.)

We all crashed at E's pad for our New Year's celebration, champagne and all.  We were joined by a number of her friends.  It was lots of fun, although I was up way too late for my own good!