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

Drums!

I make grilled chicken drumsticks all the time. It’s just a couple of hours over indirect heat (charcoal of course), and some sauce in the last 30 minutes or so. Nearly effortless. I threw a couple of turkey drums in the mix last night, and they were a treat. I had one with my salad today for lunch.

Sunday Serial: Inkwell, Tab Finder 2, and Kagi Bangs + Launchbar

Aaron’s been home for spring break this past week, but he’s headed back to Rutgers later today. Since Rhonda and I have been working, we didn’t do much save for a few meals out. Aaron met me Thursday for phô near work, and last night we tried Carmella’s Cucina in Mays Landing. It’s a new Italian BYOB. I’ll probably write it up for Yelp; our dinners were excellent.

Inkwell

Manton Reece recently released Inkwell, a new RSS reader that works in your browser. There’s a Mac app, too. It’s more of a river-of-news style reader, with “Today,” “Recent,” and “Fading” panes.

There’s an iOS app that works with Inkwell too, called Silverleaf Reader.

Tab Finder 2

Tab Finder is a great little app that lets you search and open browser tabs. Developer … has a new version coming out, in beta now. Tab Finder is the simplest, macos-iest tab switcher I’ve tried in my search to add Chrome’s tab search feature to Safari. I think I’m all in on Witch, but I still like trying other options. Tab Tab has been great, too.

Kagi Bangs + Launchbar = 🤓🩵

I kinda forgot about Kagi’s Bangs, which are like those employed in Duck Duck Go. I don’t generally use Bangs, but thought that I might be missing something. I was reviewing some of the bangs available this morning before leaving for work, and I saw that there was a bang to invoke Kagi Assistant, which I use all the time.

All day long, I am invoking Launchbar, typing “k,” and then entering my search text into the resulting text box, which fires off a Kagi search in my browser of choice. I really wanted to be able to do this with Kagi Assistant, too (instead of opening a new tab and clicking on the Kagi Assistant bookmark).

If you want to use this, create a new search template in Launchbar, and use this as the template URL:

https://kagi.com/search?q=!ai+*

Sunday Serial: Bellview Winery’s Fioré Rosé, Phase Wallpaper, and Typinator 10

Rhonda and I took off on Friday and drove up to New Brunswick to pick up Aaron; he is on spring break this week. We made a day of it, hitting Stokelan Estates Winery for lunch and a bottle of rosé. We tried the caramelized onion flatbread and the charcuterie board, and took a bottle of rosé to go. He surprised us with a really short haircut that his friends gave him. He’s going to get it touched up at the barber during break.

Stokelan Estates Winery Flatbread and Charcuterie

Bellview Winery’s Fioré Rosé

Imagine my delight and surprise when I stopped at Bellview yesterday to fill our growlers, and learned of their new Fioré Rosé on tap!

It’s A pre-release of our new Dry Rosé hitting the shelves soon. This light and crisp rosé is a blend of Merlot and Petit Verdot wines. Perfect for sipping a glass of wine on the porch with the spring breeze.

It’s a less intense version compared their current rosé, less berry. It was delicious. We did our own cheese and salami etc at home, including a can of the excellent Fishwife mackerel.

Hector Simpson’s Phase Wallpaper

In addition to Aqueux and Hej collections, I added Hector’s Phase collection to my wallpaper gallery. I love the Dizzypaper app he created to manage his collections on your Mac, and the wallpapers are beautiful. I have a nice green for St. Patrick’s Day on my desktop Mac right now.

Typinator 10

I’ve been trying out Typinator for a while since it was included on Bundlehunt. It’s a great alternative to TextExpander. Version 10 has iCloud syncing, an updated interface, and iOS apps that extend your snippets beyond the Mac. As an aside, I’ve never made a practice of switching keyboards in iOS, so I haven’t tried the iOS apps.

Sunday Serial, Valentines Day Edition: Tramonti Vineyards and Dashen Ethiopian Restaurant

Aaron was born on Valentines Day, so we usually swap out celebrating a Hallmark holiday for his birthday. In that spirit, we drove up yesterday to see him. I’d have three things for tonight’s post but I didn’t get any good food pics at Fernandez Steak House in the Ironbound section of Newark. Aaron has always liked Chima in Philly, so I figured one of the Portuguese places in Newark would be a nice birthday dinner since he’s so close to Newark. Marriott upgraded our room to a studio, which has a kitchenette and a separate seating and TV area. But Fernades does the Rodizio thing, with the meat shaved off table-side in a succession of salty ribbons of protein.

Tramonti Vineyards (née Iron Plow)

Our intention was to hit Stokelan Estate Winery on the way up to visit Aaron yesterday, but they were all booked up. It’s not the kind of place you just chance by on a Hallmark holiday. The same was true for Valenzano. We thought we’d go to Working Dog, as the only thing they had on the calendar was a cupcake pairing in the evening, but I remembered seeing Iron Plow on Apple Maps when I was scouring for places to visit.

It’s not Iron Plow anymore; as the labels on the rosé and sauvignon blanc show, but Tramonti. We were offered a number of tastings before making a selection; we had the rosé in the tasting room, with our own snacks that I packed, and took the Sauvignon Blanc with us. The rosé has a deep flavor that I didn’t expect; it’s made from four different grapes, one of which is Cabernet Sauvignon.

Dashen Restaurant and Bar

A former colleague noted on an earlier Facebook post that we should check out Dashen, an Ethiopian restaurant in New Brunswick. It’s within walking distance of Aaron’s dorm, and right around the corner from the Indian Place we tried when we visited for Parents Weekend last fall.

I’ve never had Ethiopian before. It was served with injera, which is a fermented-tasting crêpe or thin pancake. The meat and vegetable sides are all very stewy and you eat them using the the injera instead of silverware. It was a lot of fun and we all loved our dishes.