Ms. Hen reviews Yoki Japanese Restaurant and Bar in Medford, MA

 

Yoki Japanese Restaurant and Bar

62 Station Landing, Medford, MA

https://www.yokirestaurant.com/

Ms. Hen decided to brave the hottest day of the year, and possibly ever, last Sunday 7/24 to go to Yoki Japanese Restaurant and Bar in Medford. She had gotten takeout from the restaurant before, but she had never eaten inside. Ms. Hen loves sushi! She thought it would be a good idea to have some when the weather outside was boiling.

Ms. Hen sat at a table, and the waitress was pleasant to her. She complimented Ms. Hen, and said she was cute. Ms. Hen ordered seaweed salad and Red Sox sushi. The seaweed salad was delectable, and the Red Sox sushi was so lovely, that it almost too pretty to eat, but Ms. Hen did eat it. There's a lot going on with the Red Sox sushi, and from what Ms. Hen understand the genuine sushi in Japan is not like that. But she likes a lot of flavors when she eats food, and she thought it was delicious.

Ms. Hen arrived at the restaurant for lunch, right at the beginning of the day, and the place was not crowded. It's only open for lunch on the weekends. Ms. Hen could see that Yoki could be bustling at night. There is a pleasant bar surrounded by high-top tables. Ms. Hen felt comfortable, and she wrote in her journal as she ate seaweed salad.

Ms. Hen is not a restaurant critic, she's more of a book critic, but she likes different things. She enjoyed her meal at Yoki, and she would go again. It's a little pricy, but everything is these days. It's a good treat on a hot day. Ms. Hen recommends eating delicious food, because life is short, and you only live once, most of the time...

Ms. Hen reviews Wind, Sand and Stars

 

Wind, Sand and Stars

Antoine de Saint Exupery

Harcourt, Inc.

1939

Translated from the French by Lewis Galantiere

Ms. Hen read this memoir because her rooster friend recommended it to her, since she likes Amelia Earhart, and is interested in flying. This book is by the same author as THE LITTLE PRINCE, which Ms. Hen read many years ago, and has always loved, as everyone has. Ms. Hen took this out of the library, and got ready to fly.

This book is about a young man learning to fly and work as an air mail pilot in France, first traveling to Morocco, and then South America, and attempting to fly to Asia. He describes the fear of his first job flying, whether or not he would cross the Pyrenees safely. He talks about one time when he was caught in a funnel, and the plane flew up, and he had no control, and thought he would die. He writes that when children die, it's more tragic than what he experienced.

Saint Expurey talks about how he almost perished of thirst when his plane crashed in the Sahara. He was with his navigator, and they walked in circles, trying to find someone to save them. He also describes the devastation of the Spanish Civil War, and how men turned into savages whose lives were expendable, killing innocent civilians, and putting their lives on the line for something they didn't quite understand.

He talks about how technology is supposed to bring people together, but it doesn't. When he discusses technology, he means air mail, and Hollywood movies of the 1930s, and he has no idea what technological advanced lie ahead, what we possess in our time. Ms. Hen had a discussion about this with some chickens recently, and some said that technology does bring people together, because we can communicate with people far away through Zoom. But Ms. Hen thinks that social media pulls people further apart. Everyone thinks they're communicating online, but that's not actually happening. A hen can have 500 friends on Facebook, but feel like she's alone in the world.

This book is beautifully written. Every sentence is like poetry, similar to THE LITTLE PRINCE. Reading this makes Ms. Hen wonder what Saint Exupery thought of Amelia Earhart, since they were contemporaries. She was one of the most famous people in the world when she was alive, and she did things that women didn't do in those days. July 24 would have been her 125th birthday.

Like Amelia Earhart, Saint Exupery disappeared on a flight; he went down over the Mediterranean. But he left behind books that exquisitely portray flying and the world as he saw it. To be a writer is to be able to see and hear, the same skills necessary for a pilot. He described the world in a unique, beautiful way.

Ms. Hen reviews My Family and Other Animals

 

My Family and Other Animals

Gerald Durrell

Pan MacMillan

1956

Ms. Hen decided to read this book because her rooster friend told her she should read more classics, and he recommended this. She had heard of the PBS show, THE DURRELLS OF CORFU, but she has not watched that as of yet. Ms. Hen didn't know what to expect from this book, but she found it charming.

This was a very small book. She picked it up at the library, and it was the tiniest book there. The print is miniature also, and even though the book didn't look large, it took her some time to read it.

This is a memoir about Gerald Durrell's time in Corfu, the Greek island, where he spent several years with his family when he was young. A friend mentioned to his brother Larry that the family should move to Corfu because it was beautiful. 

Young Gerry set out to collect and study the animals on the island. He had several tutors, including Theodore, who loved animals as much as he did. Gerry brought home many different species of insects, birds, turtles, and the family acquired dogs. He also talks about his family, and the pleasant times and misadventures they had together.

Many anecdotes from the family are shared, including the time Gerry brought some magpies home, which they named the Magenpies, and the birds ripped apart Larry's room, tearing his manuscript to shreds, and spilling ink, and walking around the room with ink on their feet. The Magenpies also broke into some beer right before the family was about to have a party, which Ms. Hen thought was hilarious. She didn't know birds could get drunk, which she is excited about.

The way this book presents the world is not the way we exist any longer. When Ms. Hen was young, she was not the type of child who would look at animals and collect insects and such. She imagines that some children did, but she thinks that propensity to be this way might be disappearing with the advent of technology. Why observe animals when the Internet exists? And YouTube and games, and other things to keep children distracted from the earth and the creatures who live here, too. She thinks it's sad, but she holds out hope that there might be children weird enough to do this somewhere.

Some chickens appear in this book, naturally, since it's about animals. A story about the Magenpies and how they mocked the chickens, "Another trick, out of which they got endless pleasure, was deluding the poor unfortunate flock of chickens, which spent the day scratching hopefully around the olive grove. Periodically the maid would come to the kitchen door, and utter a series of piping noises...which the hens knew as a signal for food. As soon as the Magenpies mastered the chicken-food call they worried the poor hens to decline." Ms. Hen is distressed that they poor chickens were fooled, but at the same time, she laughed at them. Magpies might be smarter that chickens, to Ms. Hen's dismay, but she's not surprised.

Ms. Hen thinks this is a pleasant summer book, thinking about animals and the earth, and the natural world which surrounds us. Ms. Hen is a backyard birdwatcher, just for pleasure, she is not an expert, but she takes pleasure in feathered friends, like herself, but more real.

Ms. Hen and a blue heron