Did you know crackers can go bad? We had a box of common crackers sitting on a shelf for a year or two, and we finally opened it to toast some to go with corn chowder last week. Laurie and Iris split and buttered the crackers, and I toasted them in the oven. The result was rancid, plasticky crackers.

But chowder without crackers? Impossible. So I sent Laurie to QFC for a replacement. She returned with Sailor Boy Pilot Bread.

Pilot and common crackers are both descendants of hardtack. Iris found this fascinating, because she loves pirates. The pilot crackers are the beefiest cracker you’ll ever meet. They’re round, about three inches in diameter, and thick. They’re made to be eaten in soup, but Iris just dove in and started crunching. “I love hardtack!” she explained.

Later we did a kitty-and-pirate story where someone was eating K. Rool’s hardtack and Keelhaulin’ Katie got stuck in the hardtack box. The story got confusing, however, because Iris kept eating the props.

I really liked the pilot crackers too, at least in chowder. Hopefully we can finish them off before they go rancid.

Recently I learned two facts about Mongolian barbecue that I think you should know.

* Mongolian Grill-style restaurants don’t serve authentic Mongolian food. But there is real Mongolian barbecue, called [Khorkhog](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khorkhog):

> To make khorkhog, Mongolians take lamb (goat meat can be substituted) and cut it into pieces of convenient size, leaving the bone. Then the cook puts ten to twenty fist-sized rocks in a fire. When the rocks are hot enough, the rocks and the meat are placed in the chosen cooking container. Metal milk jugs are a traditional choice, although any container sturdy enough to hold the hot rocks will serve.

* There is, in fact, a BD’s Mongolian Barbecue restaurant in Ulan Bataar:

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It’s halfway between the California Restaurant and the Rockmon Building, if you’re in the neighborhood.

Iris and I had lunch today at Blue C Sushi, the conveyor belt sushi place. Iris ate and enjoyed a tempura green bean.

After dinner, I had to drag Iris into the shower because she was absorbed in a [new book](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0142400440/?tag=mamstesgrubshack).

> **Laurie:** Books are evil.

> **Matthew:** Yeah. Iris, from now on, no more books, only video games.

> **Iris:** NOOOOOOOOO.

> **Matthew:** And no more salad, only burgers.

> **Iris:** That’s okay, because I don’t like salad.

> **Matthew:** You like green beans, though. You ate one today.

> **Iris:** Yeah, but it had a crunchy outfit around it.

Last year, my local Starbucks location slated to close. Okay, “my local Starbucks” is a joke, since there are five Starbucks within a short walk of my house. Anyway, one of them was put on the closure list.

Instead of closing, however, it shut down for a couple of weeks and has now reopened as 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea, “your local coffeehouse.” (Here’s [a Seattle P-I story about the place](http://www.seattlepi.com/local/408407_starbucks24.html), along with [great photos by Josh Trujillo](http://www.seattlepi.com/photos/gallery.asp?SubID=4969&page=1&gtitle=15th%20Avenue%20Coffee%20%26%20Tea&pubdate=7/23/09).) Among my neighbors, this is going over about as well as a gorilla dressing up in a suit and trying to convince you that he is really human, honest.

To design 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea, Starbucks employees spent months hanging out in the other coffee and tea places on 15th, as well as bars like [Smith](http://www.smithseattle.com/), taking notes. No, seriously. In a related development, I have John Updike peeking over my shoulder right now to see how a *real* independent writer does his thing. (What, John Updike is dead? Okay, maybe it’s Philip Roth.)

I went to check the place out this morning, and I was too impatient to wait on line, but I enjoyed the well-choreographed protest going on outside. There was a guy dressed up as Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and a couple of women in green aprons, welcoming you to “the first local coffeehouse ever on Capitol Hill.” I went in to take a look around, and on the way out, the Schultz-alike asked, “How was the smell? Did we get that right? It was a point of contention down at the main office. I mean the LOCAL office.”

Don’t get me wrong–I don’t hate the new place. I think it injects a needed bit of whimsy into the local coffee landscape. The local places I frequent seem worried. I don’t think they need to be. Authenticity is really hard to fake, no matter how talented your clipboard guys are. Some people don’t care about authenticity, of course, but *those people were already going to the Starbucks.*

Oh, one postscript: the new Fauxbucks serves beer and wine. In 2005, I wrote [an article about drinking beer at coffeehouses](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/pacificnw09252005/taste.html). In it, I said:

> It will not surprise you to learn that no Starbucks locations serve beer, and a spokeswoman chuckled when I suggested it.

Who’s laughing now?