Sagami: Classic Sushi, Hold the Mayo

We also hit up Sagami for an early dinner on Friday. Sagami, for those unfamiliar, is a fantastic sushi restaurant just outside of Philadelphia. For me personally, it’s the first place I ever had sushi. I had just graduated from college, and gotten a job in Camden City, which found me driving all around Camden County. I took mental notes of all of these interesting places I’d pass during the work day, and the Rhonda and I would light out for dinner and drinks on the weekends, often trying places I’d spied during the week. Interestingly enough, she had been there once before we went. But that was my first blush with raw fish, save for a fraternity prank, and it was illuminating and instructive.

I can’t possibly know enough about Japanese cuisine to speak authoritatively about it, but what I have always appreciated about Sagami is the utter simplicity of the presentation. Later sushi excursions have found me staring at complex maki, with fish inside, fish outside, and a goopy mayonnaise squirted about.

Sagami doesn’t play that game.

We shared some edamame, and then I ordered some fried oysters, and the following list:

Negi toro roll
Sashimi:
– Hokaido uni
– engawa
– hotate
– salmon
– hamachi

Sublime.

Classic Styles, Tonewood’s Touch

Yesterday, Rhonda and I dropped Aaron and Joey off at the House of Fun and headed over for a couple of beers at Tonewood.Brewing in Barrington, NJ. Tonewood’s non‑IPA beers consistently stand out; they don’t read as perfunctory crowd‑pleasers aimed at the Budweiser set, though widening their appeal may well be a factor. They feel like deliberate, respectful riffs on time‑honored styles. That’s no knock on their IPAs, though, which are excellent.

Yesterday, I tried the Birdie Rice Lager, and the Picnic American Pale Ale.

Birdie Rice Lager 4% : Light refreshing and crushable! Our Rice lager is brewed with Extra Pale Pilsner Malts, Jasmine Rice and Acidulated then hopped with Saaz, Mandarin Bavaria and Lemondrop.

Tonewood Picnic Pale Ale

Picnic American Pale Ale 4.8%: Notes of orange water ice, mango and papaya fruit cups, sticky pine sap and a fresh Spring breeze in Yakima

I nearly got the Slipstream Pub Ale again, but I wanted to try the Picnic. I still want to try the Slipstream on the hand pump at their Oaklyn location.

Sunday Serial: Mister Plimsoll, DaisyDisk, and Kagi Assistant

Happy Fourth of July! We celebrated the holiday with a barbecue at our house; I smoked both spareribs and baby back ribs. My parents came over, as did Joe’s girlfriend, and even Teri, my former boss from Vineland, joined us. We all drank a bunch of white wine too. I didn’t get any good pictures of the ribs, because I was hustling to get them done, but Aaron and I nipped out to get some red, white, and blue pictures of our stable of cars. I was hoping to get out there for these shots closer to the golden hour, but it was a bit later than I wanted.

Mister Plimsoll

Longtime Apple tech writer Glen Fleishman recently launched a utility for the Mac called Mister Plimsoll. It’s a free utility that will alert you to when a drive on your Mac is about to run out of space, name for the Plimsoll line on a ship’s hull¹. I’ve struggled with my Mac Studio running dangerously low on space, and my attempts to understand why, exactly, have found me staring at DaisyDisk and noticing that my Time Machine snapshots are growing out of control. Mister Plimsol doesn’t help you deal with storage issues, but it its helpful in updating you that things are getting tight. I missed two Arq backups because of Time Machine snapshot hoarding last week. I set up Mister Plimsol to send me a text message when my Mac’s free space dips below 10% of the drive’s capacity.

Indirectly related, I found that my Spotlight index was larger than it should be, so I rebuilt that using a strategy that Kagi Assistant recommended (removing the boot drive from indexing in System Settings, and then adding it back after a pause). I used DaisyDisk to delete some of the Time Machine snapshots, which were taking up over 70 GB of space.

DaisyDisk

As I mentioned above, DaisyDisk is a great tool for visualizing your Mac’s storage. It helped me narrow down what was taking up the most space on my Mac, especially when I compared the internal storage to that of my MacBook Air. That was the first clue that something was up with my Mac Studio’s Spotlight Index: the Air had almost no data in its Spotlight Index, according to DaisyDisk, while the Studio was taking up gigabytes of space. I knew that I was using a fair amount of disk space for both MailMaven and MailMate, because I’m not content to use Gmail’s web interface, but DaisyDisk helped me see beyond what I already knew.

I’ve been using tmutil via the Terminal for years to manage my Time Machine snapshots when things got out of hand, but those instances were few and far between. Something with the Studio is amiss, though, and it accumulates a large collection snapshots.

If you purchased DaisyDisk on the Mac App Store, you can swap your license for a standalone license which enables you to delete snapshots. Probably worth it.

Kagi Assistant

Central to solving the Spotlight Index and the Time Machine snapshot problems I was trying to solve was Kagi Assistant. Sure, I’ve used ChatGPT and Claude, and I use (weirdly enough) Microsoft’s Copilot a lot, but Kagi comes bundled with Kagi Search, which is why I initially signed up for a subscription. I’ve come to rely upon Assistant as my go-to chatbot.

The Plimsoll line is the point to which the vessel can be legally and safely submerged in water under various conditions. ↩

Sunday Serial: Designed in California: An Apple History Podcast, More BetterTouchTool, and Bellview Winery’s Gemini Blend

It’s a hot Sunday here in South Jersey. We were going to steam some crabs, but they’re still pricey this early in the season, so it’s chicken thighs on the grill with rice and broccoli any minute now.

Joey and Sorayah are going on a trip to Kentucky for her work, so we’ll be a three-person household for the week. I am thinking about using Joe’s car to get around while I get some necessary repairs done on the Mustang. I was sorely tempted to test drive both a Subaru BRZ and a Mazda MX-5 Miata, as the old girl is not only getting up there in years, and requires some maintenance. But I don’t think I want to part with the Mustang, and a comparable replacement would be a tad rich. But then he slashed his own tire driving today, so I’ll have to get that replaced, too. Sheesh.

Designed in California: An Apple History Podcast

Jason Snell and Myke Hurley launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a podcast covering Apple’s history:

The two of us, Myke Hurley and Jason Snell, have been discussing Apple in depth every week for more than a decade on the Upgrade podcast. We want to go further, creating a podcast series that’s dedicated to telling stories from across all five decades of Apple history.

Jason has done some amazing work since leaving MacWorld; his “20 Macs for 2020” series was a blast, and I’ve been a longtime listener and subscriber of his Six Colors newsletter and podcast. He’s a great voice on MacBreak Weekly, too, which I’ve been listening to since its inception.

One of the things I appreciate about his coverage of Apple is that his Mac usage has traverses the same trajectory as mine: he’s been using a Mac since the early days, and has seen the evolution of the Mac from the classic OS through the transition to Mac OS X, and then the move from PowerPC to Intel, to the introduction of the iPhone, and more. He’s an enthusiast but to a fanboy..

There’s every reason to expect that Designed in California is going to be great.

More BetterTouchTool

I mentioned BetterTouchTool in my last Sunday Serial, and I’ve been using it since to learn more about it. I set up a couple of actions:
– Toggle Mission Control: command-option-mouse wheel scroll up/down
– Two-finger rotate right/left: adjust volume

I had always looked at BetterTouchTool as a way to hack the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar, and also a way to add gestures to the Magic Trackpad. I don’t generally use a trackpad with my Mac at home or in the office, because I plug into a Thunderbolt dock at both locations and use an external display, keyboard, and mouse. (I do like using it instead of a mouse with my iPad, though.) If I’m at home, I don’t use my laptop that much after dinner, which is more iPad time. And I am a Logi MX Master mouse user.

The announcement of the new launcher feature, a la Apple’s Spotlight, was a nice surprise and made me peek at this tool again. I realized how many features are included, and how it’s a competitor to another deep and complex utility, Keyboard Maestro. BTT can do everything BetterSnapTool can do, and then adds a ton of customization options. You can effectively replace text expansion utilities like TextExpander with BTT–as you can (and I have) with Keyboard Maestro.

Bellview Winery’s Gemini Blend

Described on their site as “a light dry white blend of Caygua, Gruner and Traminette.” It’s bright and crisp, less velvety than the outgoing Viognier we’ve been drinking. Perfect on a hot summer day.

Sunday Serial: Steve Jobs in Exile, MarkEdit, and JXA Scripting Using Claude

It’s a long weekend here in the United States; we are celebrating Memorial Day, which is a holiday to remember those who have died in military service. Like many federal holidays, it has been associated with retail sales, and is the informal kickoff of the summer season. As such, barbecues (lots of outdoor grilling, more accurately) are a feature of the weekend. The boys have been working this weekend, and the weather is crummy, so we’re not doing anything special. I do have a grocery store prime rib in the oven right now, though, so that will be a fun meal later today.

I got home a little early Friday, so I stopped at Bellview to fill up our growlers. We took Aaron out for Indian food Friday night, his first visit since’s he’s been home from college. They had these laminated cards on the tables encouraging diners to try their chicken lollipops, which are frenched drumettes.

Last night, we tried a new Turkish place, Wandering Rose, that opened up in a spot previously occupied by a diner; we had it delivered via DoorDash. It was really good, and we’re excited to go back.

Steve Jobs in Exile

I preordered Steve Jobs in Exile a while back when I learned about its impending release. I’m perennially curious about how NeXT evolved into Mac OS X. On a recent Upgrade episode,author Geoffrey Cain spoke with Jason Snell about the book. Jason pointed out that Steve Jobs in Exile fills the hole from David Pogue’s recent history of Apple, where Steve Leaves before returning to Apple. As Pogue’s book is about Apple, he doesn’t wander into the NeXT era save for how Apple came to acquire it (also a great story).

Steve Jobs in Exile

MarkEdit

MarkEdit is a Markdown editor for the Mac; the developer bills it as TextEdit for Markdown. It has a great set of themes to choose from, including an excellent Cobalt theme, which is usually my favorite for such applications. I used TextMate for a long time with a Cobalt theme, and MarkEdit’s looks even better.

Claude Code for JXA Scripting

I downloaded Claude’s Mac app to try it out; I’ve been using assorted AI tools to help me cobble together AppleScripts for a while now. Since Apple has elevated JavaScript to have first-class support in macOS, and added the ability to write and run JXA in Script Editor, I’ve been asking Claude to build JXA scripts for me.

One simple script grabs both the URL and title of the current tab open in Safari and makes a link for me. Little scripts like this are a great time saver.

const safari = Application("Safari");
const tab = safari.windows\[0].currentTab();

const url = tab.url();
const title = tab.name();

const formatted = `[${title}](${url})`;

app = Application.currentApplication();
app.includeStandardAdditions = true;
app.setTheClipboardTo(formatted);

formatted; // return value shown in Script Editor

I like to fire these from Launchbar.

Sunday Serial: Bellview Winery’s Argento Blend, Schwinn 430 Elliptical, and Kagi Snaps

It’s the top of the summer, and we have a full house once again: Aaron is home from college. He’s got a neat job lined up at the NJ Motorsports Park as a marshall. He’s going to see a lot of cool cars in the next couple of months.

On a related note, Rhonda and I nipped out to Maplewood for diner Friday, as the boys both had plans to go to the food truck festival at their alma mater. I spied a couple of marked up Porsche Caymans in the parking lot, likely having just come from the track.

I keep a list of cars I’d consider buying in the event that I had to replace my beloved Mustang (MX-5, BRZ, Nissan Z, and some others), but the Cayman and 911 sit up there in the “if a pile of money landed in my lap…” fantasy.

I was up near Trenton Wednesday for work, so I lit up to Rutgers after work to pick Aaron up. He finished his final just about when I was pulling into New Brunswick, so we loaded up the Mini and nipped out for some phô, which was what he was craving. I stopped and got us a couple of Tsingtao beers to go with the meal. Asian beers are generally thin, watery affairs, enjoyable with just about anything. If you like juicy beers, Tsingtao is not for you. But it’s a great refreshing beer after five or so trips from the dorm to the car.

Bellview Winery’s Argento

Last summer, Rhonda and I enjoyed Bellview’s private party to celebrate their 25th anniversary. We had a great time, and got to try their newly released Argento, which is their take on a Bordeaux. It features their Cab Franc, San Marco, Petit Verdot, Blaufrankisch, and Merlot. It’s a great blend: pronounced berry, with some tannin and pepper on the finish. One of the ladies who works there tempted me with a taste a couple of Saturdays ago when I was filling up the growlers, and yesterday I made good on my resolve to pick up a bottle sooner than later.

Schwinn 430 Elliptical

I bought an elliptical at our local Sears (remember Sears?) probably 20 years ago; it was on clearance, and I paid maybe $500 bucks for it. It was a nice low impact cardio machine, and I got a lot of miles out of it. Rhonda started using it, too, combining it with some hand weights, and really liked the results.

I’ve gotten into cycling, rowing, lifting weights, and then rowing again in the intervening years, and while I could see the use for an elliptical in our home gym, I didn’t see the need to buy another one. Rhonda, however, has lamented the fact that it doesn’t work anymore (the computer broke, and replacing it would require finding something on eBay; the last few times I looked for one, they were incredibly rare and expensive).

I was circumspect about buying another elliptical, as the second Concept2 rower I bought was originally intended to be hers, but she doesn’t really like rowing. (Not true for me, though: I use it pretty much every day).

Schwinn 430 Elliptical in the upstairs bedroom

I did end up ordering a Schwinn 430 Elliptical from Best Buy for her; it’s a reasonably priced model, and I think will do the trick. I was tempted by a NordicTrack model, which include a more fulsome computer with video workouts, a la Peloton, but I didn’t want to pay the price.

I put the Schwinn together last weekend, and make a few last adjustments this afternoon after hearing some squeaks while I was testing it out. It’s all set and ready for action. Here’s hoping it sees some usage! It’s nice having the upstairs apartment vacant and available for our use. It’s a separate hangout space for the kids, a seasonal closet for our wardrobes, a place for an extra refrigerator, and now a home gym annex.

Kagi Snaps

I tried Kagi search on John Gruber’s recommendation, and recently, he posted an article about their “Snaps” feature, which are similar to their Bangs, which are similar to Duck Duck Go’s bangs. The difference is that they restrict the search to a particular website.

I’ve never actually looked any of these up. I just guessed at the ones I most want to use and they all worked on the first try. @nyt returns results from The New York Times; @wsj is for The Wall Street Journal. Take a guess what @df does.

Kagi Snaps

I made one for Uncorrected, natch.

War of the Rosés

Hopefully I’ll never write a headline that trite here again, but I couldn’t resist. We opened the ‘25 Myra tonight for Mother’s Day, and while I was fetching it from the fridge upstairs, I paused to assemble our humble collection.

Rhonda wisely observed that the Stokelan puts her in mind of Bellview’s Fiori Rosé, less so their dry rosé. Both are paler, less berry versions.

Sunday Serial: Stokelan Estates 2025 Myra, Sweet Amalia Oysters, and Subaru Lane Keep Assist

Turned out to be a beautiful day. We were saving up all of the yard work and other necessary maintenance tasks for today; Rhonda mowed the lawn, I did some weed whacking, changed to oil in Joey’s car (I’m too cheap to go somewhere for an oil change), and in filling up Aaron’s Mini’s tires with air, I broke the rear passenger-side valve stem. So the Mini is jacked up in the driveway, and the wheel is in the trunk of the Mustang so I can drop if off for repair. No good deed indeed.

Stokelan Estates 2025 Myra

Rhonda and I took off on Friday and journeyed north to replenish our salami supply at Bagliani’s, and then lunch and a sip at Stokelan Estates Winery, (which was just reviewed on New Jersey Uncorked). We were disappointed to learn that their stock of the 2024 Myra dry rosé was exhausted, but the cheerful server mentioned that the 2025 was cellaring after being bottled. She snuck down to the cellar and gave us a bottle with a gentle reminder not to open it for a couple of weeks due to bottle shock, a phrase I had not encountered yet (Jimmy at Bellview did say once that a new stock of a varietal was “settling” and not yet for sale though).

So we have one in waiting and are very excited to try it when the time is right! We enjoyed both of their Chardonnays (the Catspaw, which is unoaked, and our favorite, as well as the Crossroads, which is lightly oaked version). We had their excellent sausage and fennel flatbread again, too.

Sweet Amalia Oysters

One of the two local seafood shops (fishmongers, if you’re a market romantic) has been posting that they have Sweet Amalia oysters in stock. Rhonda and I were out in the vicinity of Dad’s Seafood, and she suggested we take a peek. They had crabs, but they were from Virginia and North Carolina and selling for 60 bucks a dozen. It’s early in the season, and that’s pretty typical.

Anyway, we decided to just get a dozen of the oysters (they were 20 bucks a dozen) and have them with spritzes and cheese + salami yesterday afternoon. They are always excellent, and this batch was no different: small to medium in size, soft and assertively briny.

Lane Keep Assist

I was talking to one of the school psychologists at work (and a friend from grad school to boot) and she mentioned a button on her Subaru Ascent’s steering wheel that steers the car for you on the highway or turnpike or freeway or expressway or… you get it. I declined the overview at the dealership, and I’m not good about reading the manual until I have a question, so I never knew what it was. I figured the new WRX had cruise control just like the last one, and it worked the same way: it’s on and you have to adjust as you encounter traffic.

This shouldn’t surprise me considering all of the safety goodies even Joe’s base Impreza has (lane assist and crash detection). I tried it out on the ride up to Stokelan on Friday, and while it didn’t do anything on an earlier stretch of Route 206, once we got a little farther north and the pace of traffic picked up, I noticed how the car was using the lane markers to keep me centered. As my colleague had mentioned, it took curves and bends in the road on my behalf. It was wonderful. I sent her a text with a picture of the button on the wheel and sung the feature’s praises.

Even the cruise control has come a long way. The cameras in the car watch the car before me, and the system moderates my speed to keep a safe distance between me and the car ahead. I’m looking forward to trying this out when we go up to help Aaron move out of his dorm in a couple of weeks.

Sunday Serial: Keyboard Maestro’s Classic Mac OS Application Switcher, HeyNote, and PaperTrail–A TaskPaper Client for iOS

What a difference a day can make! It was hot enough for shorts yesterday, and we hit 90 degrees mid-last week. It’s a much more seasonal 45 degrees today, and it’s entirely possible that I can get a few more days of sweater weather this week.

Rhonda and I treated ourselves to dinner at the Savoy on Friday night. They had fried squash blossoms on the menu as an appetizer, and we split those. I love squash blossoms; they’re a perfect vehicle for delivering something fried and unctuous in an exotic, time-constrained wrapper.

We used to frequent a restaurant around the corner called Brassie’s, which was a bar that was famous for serving crabs in the summer. A fellow named Keith took it over after it had been around for a long time, and he brought in a new, more upscale menu. He was talking to us one night about how a purveyor was tryin to get his business, and Keith delivered a challenge to him: get me squash flowers and I’ll use you. The purveyor came through, and we were treated to his treatment of the dish.

Shortly thereafter, one of the farmers who property borders ours started growing zucchini, and kindly offered us our pick of whatever we saw growing in the field. So for a couple of weeks, Rhonda was frying up blossoms every night, sometimes with ricotta and sausage, and other times with… well, I don’t remember. But it was delicious, and made all the more special by the fleeting availability of the flowers. Like our local Jersey tomatoes and watermelon in the summer, zucchini flowers are a seasonal treat.

Tear-Off Application Switcher Using Keyboard Maestro

One of my favorite features from the classic Mac OS is the ability to “tear off” the application palette from the application switcher. You didn’t have to have the switcher open all the time; it was there if you wanted it, and the mouse gesture was intuitive and a joy to use.

Mac OS X removed this feature, as it offered the iconic Dock in place of the application switcher. The Dock is a great bedrock feature, but it’s not the same thing.

DragThing, a utility created for the Mac by James Thompson, the same developer who created the original Dock, did have a feature that harkened back to the classic Mac OS application switcher–or at least allowed you to create a palette in the same vein.

DragThing Palettes–the one to the left of the Trash is What I’m Referencing

Months ahead of DragThing’s retirement, Keyboard Maestro introduced the Application Palette, which allows users to create all kinds of versions of the application switcher. In its default form, it looks very much like the Dock, although it’s a highly customizable palette. Enter my tribute to the tear-off application switcher or yore:

I like to keep it near the top right corner of the screen, which was where I usually left it in the classic Mac OS.

HeyNote

Andy Inhatko sung the praises of Heynote on MacBreak Weeklyearlier this month, and I was compelled to try it out for myself. It’s such a clever notes app for software nerds. It introduces the concept of a buffer as an organizing principle; each buffer is a tab in the app. You add text blocks to a buffer, which you can review vertically in each buffer. Programmers can change the language in each buffer, and happily, Markdown is supported for basic note taking. It’s most certainly worth checking out.

PaperTrail–TaskPaper Client for iOS

TaskPaper developer Jesse Grosjean helpfully recommended PaperTrail to his rabid base of TaskPaper users via email over the weekend. PaperTrail implements the TaskPaper format for iOS and iPadOS, and it’s been a long time coming: Like Jesse’s excellent Bike app, TaskPaper has been a Mac-only affair, despite some interesting support from Agile Tortoise’s Drafts and some other apps.

My Car Maintenance Project from OmniFocus, Exported to TaskPaper format and opened in PaperTrail

OmniFocus, my to-do manager of choice, even supports importing and exporting from and to the TaskPaper format, which is helpful if you like to start planning in apps like Drafts, or even TaskPaper the app.

TaskPaper and OmniFocus, however, approach task manager and project management in different ways. OmniFocus is a database of tasks, organized by project; TaskPaper is a document-based system, and isn’t intended to be one giant document with all of your projects in one document (I suppose the flexible nature of TaskPaper makes this negotiable). It’s a flexible format for sure that lends itself to varied workflows.

PaperTrail isn’t a barebones viewer and editor of TaskPaper files: it brings some of its own ideas to working with this amazing document format. It supports due dates with a cool due date picker toolbar command, introduces “progress” tags, and offers outline-level formatting, which is customizable by the user. It has a helpful tool bar (or tool belt) that runs along the bottom of the document, which is user-customizable.

It’s a new app, so the otherwise first-class presentation on an iPad is limited somewhat by the lack of menu bar items. But boy does it look good, and finally offers a native, first-class TaskPaper experience on the iPad and iPhone. Typing command-p on your iPad’s extended keyboard will bring up a the Go To Anything palette, while option-command-p opens the Go To Project palette. Very nice.

The Weber–our second–does duty all year, and only the most severe of weather keeps us from using it. This week featured a couple of staples: a 24-hour dunk in an Asian-influenced marinade, lean protein, and a blast from a lump-fueled fireball.

Chops and Chicken in Marinade

Pork Chops on the Grill

Chicken Breast on the Grill

Garlic Soy & Lime Chicken Marinade

Vietnamese Grilled Lemongrass Pork Chops (Paywalled, alas)

📸 Sunday Chicken Drums

I made the drums again tonight. Same rub as last time, low and slow on the Weber with lump charcoal.

Grilled Chicken Drumsticks Barbecue Outdoors 2026 04 12.

Sunday Serial: The Bagliani Salami, Wineries, and Togethering

Spring break is just about over! I’ve treated myself to a lot of extra calories over the last ten days, so I have some restricting to do! Ahem.

I mentioned Dredge+ last week, and I have been playing the game all week. I just love it. I haven’t felt compelled to play a game this much since Limbo (and Balatro maybe). I described it as a fishing game, which is the grind mechanic you need to do to stay solvent, but it’s not really a fishing game. Lots of descriptions are “Lovecraftian,” and in that vein the game reminds me very much of On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness. I used to play that game on our Mac in the living room with Joe sitting on my lap. What a blast we had. I ran the keyboard but consulted with Joe before each move.

The Bagliani Salami

It occurred to me that while I mention our ongoing love affair with Bagliani’s spicy salami, I never say much more than that. This is because I know nothing about the salami: the provenance, the ingredients, nothing. The red rubber band means it’s spicy. They sell them out of a deli case and by the pound. One of the checkout girls remarked, “you got an extra slimy one” when ringing one up once. My father, an aficionado of these things, has gleefully marveled about the possibility that they’re not legal in the normal sense of the word, as it applies to groceries.

Stokelan Estates Winery

Nothing new here and I’m conflicted about including it here in this week’s post, but we had such a nice visit over break, cementing the primacy of their 2024 Myra as one of our very favorite rosés.

Take Home Goodies from Stokelan Estates Winery

White Horse Winery

Hammonton, NJ, has a tremendous variety of wineries within and just beyond its borders. Rhonda and I tried their oaked Chardonnay after our visit to Stokelan. It was pretty good, although a little tart on my palette. Something in the flavor profile reminded me of Cedar Rose’s Chardonnay.

Togethering

Rhonda and I spent the whole break together, taking Aaron back to school after making Easter dinner on Saturday, and then running errands and finding pleasant diversions.

There are a number of benefits to marriage that people overlook all the time. I have a built-in best friend I can try all kind of experiences with, often negotiated at the very last moment.

That’s me being glib; our relationship surely resembles some others, but is entirely unique. I remarked the other day that while some of the locations have changed, we don’t do anything that different compared to our twenties, when we first met and we’d find places to eat and brew pubs to try, which were new to us back in the late nineties. We’ve known each other for 30 years. You can’t fake that.

I’m very thankful.

Jersey Rosé: Spring Has Sprung

Rhonda and I took flight yesterday to recharge our salami supply at Baglianis, and then rolled up to Medford’s Stokelan Estates winery to split a bottle of one of our favorite rosés from the Outer Coastal Plains. We are happy to report that the flatbread crust at Stokelan is much improved. I directed our entourage to White Horse Winery thereafter, in the spirit of exploration; we thought to visit Tomasello, but the operation was scheduled to close at 5 pm, leaving us little time to browse the stock. White Horse, happily, was open until six, so we were able to review the menu at our leisure and grab a bottle of their barrel-aged Chardonnay.

Outdoor charcuterie board wine glass 2026 04 10.

Outdoor pizza green sauce meat 2026 04 10.

Couple posing outdoors sunny day 2026 04 10.

Stokenlan wines estate winery new jersey 2026 04 10.

Sunday Serial: PCalc, Dredge+ on Apple Arcade, and Living Colour

One of the downsides of having the kids in college is that they don’t really have any time off for Easter. Aaron came home for the weekend with a friend, and we’re scheduled to make the return trip in a couple of hours. Rhonda and I will drive Aaron and a friend back to Rutgers, and then our spring break commences. We made a rib roast for dinner last night, since Joe had to work and we wanted to have dinner without worrying about driving back in the same day. I followed Kenji’s recipe this time, forgoing my usual sous vide method. It came out great.

PCalc

My favorite calculator app for the iPhone has long been Calcbot; it’s the perfect size and design for my elementary needs, and the conversion feature is both useful and thoughtfully designed. Alas, it doesn’t work on the Mac anymore, which saddens me. I just don’t like the official Apple calculator very much.

PCalc is a famously fun calculator for macOS (and iOS), with a gazillion customization features, and a deep set of features for more demanding use cases. The About screen even had a game stuffed into, which was wild; developer James Thompson pushed it out into its own app, though.

Thompson’s blog is a great read, too; he’s shared many great stories about working for Apple as a developer during the switch from OS 9 to Mac OS X, and he wrote the original Dock. That was an exciting time for Mac nerds.

Dredge+ on Apple Arcade

I tried the demo of Dredge a while back on my iPad, but didn’t take the plunge of a purchase; it had a great art style, and simple mechanics, but I didn’t spring for a purchase. I tried it again when it came out on Apple Arcade, and it’s incredibly enjoyable.

In Dredge, you play as a fisherman whose job it is to catch fish, sell them, and use the money to upgrade your boat. There are a gazillion mini-missions that you are tasked with, as well: delivering dredged supplies, catching specific fish, and delivering packages. All of this happens in the backdrop of a story about a mysterious red glow in the sky, and malicious creatures in the water. It feels a bit like the side missions that you encounter in a Zelda game.

Living Colour

I was coming up with material for last weekend’s Sunday Serial, and “Nothingness” by Living Colour came on the HomePod while I was researching. It’s one of my favorite songs by them, and one of my favorite songs of all time. I got to thinking that Living Colour wrote a number of my favorite songs. I remember in high school, our religion teacher tasked us with bringing in an example of a song that represented a certain version of love. I chose “Solace of You” and she agreed that it was a good choice, and exemplar of the kind of love she was talking about.

I listened to Living Colors debut album, “Vivid,” over and over when I was finishing middle school and starting high school. I’d ride around on my Haro BMX bike and listen to the cassette using my walkman. It’s a great album start to finish, and I love their cover of the Talking Heads “Memories Can’t Wait”; I learned it on my guitar in college.

Their second album, “Time’s Up,” includes another of my favorite songs of theirs, “Under Cover of Darkness,” which featured Queen Latifah on the track. Their third album, “Stain,” might be my favorite of theirs. I love “Nothingness” most of all, but eight of the first nine songs are incredible.

📸 Brie and Wooly Wooly Cheeses