Walden Ponderings*

After a recent episode of No Reservations in which Anthony Bourdain shoved mouthful after mouthful of savory dumplings of pork and shrimp into his mouth, waxing philosophical about how the Chinese appreciate food and eating better than anyone else, we mopped up our drool and headed to Boston in search of dim sum.

In stark contrast to the hedonism we had planned for Sunday, we started our visit in Concord, Mass at Walden Pond, where Henry David Thoreau spent two years contemplating nature, solitude, and living a moral life. We didn't know a lot about Thoreau but had the impression of him as a sort of ascetic, not even noticing the hardship of living in a tiny, one-room cabin through two winters, gathering simple meals of tree nuts and wild berries, his transcendental philosophy more important than any bodily need. On our visit to Walden Pond, we learned that his cabin was a half-hour walk from his family's home, enabling his mother to come by occasionally and pick up his laundry. A 19th-Century version, perhaps, of living in one's parents' basement? The steps pictured above lead down to a pleasant, sandy beach at the edge of the pond itself, a 102-foot deep glacial kettle pond.

Here are John and Tracy discussing the virtues of civil disobedience:
Me and H.D., outside a replica of his cabin:
After the vigorous, 1.25-mile hike (with 8 ft. in elevation gain!) around Walden Pond, we were physically prepared for a Sunday of strenuous eating. Chau Chow, in Boston's not-picturesque Chinatown, was a worthy venue. It was that kind of dim-sum place where you wait with a sweaty, noisy crowd, through which waiters weave their way, thumbs stuck in the plates of noodles they're carrying to no one's apparent concern. My favorite dishes were squid fried in lots of crunchy garlic and jalapeno, and those little starchy fried cakes filled with bits of pork and green onion and heaped with thick plum sauce.

All we could do afterwards was plop ourselves down in a very accommodating but cold bit of public sculpture, in a Boston University park abutting (props to Noam) the Charles River.
Please note that that trick where you turn to the side to make yourself appear thinner only works when standing.

More pictures are here.

*Walden Ponderings was a literary magazine developed while I was a student at Henry David Thoreau Elementary School in Madison, Wisconsin (go Thunderbirds!). A quick Web search tells me that it's no longer in existence. More's the pity! I always thought it was a clever name for a journal of the poetry and drawings of 5- to 10-year-olds.