Let me explain that the food at Brown University was excessively good, they treated us real well there. They were good people and they knew what was what with the Web and all.

The roast beef was tender, medium, medium-well, sliced thin.

There was a phenomenal chicken satay on a stick with sesame seeds.

At each buffet there were multiple dishes, such as a zucchini tomato onion thing, that would work for both vegetarians and vegans.

Nice pasta salad, nice.

Good tossed salad too: mixed greens, no iceberg lettuce: a well-herbed vinaigrette.

Real mozzarella floating in olive oil, or sandwiched between tomato slices with basil leaves.

At every event at Brown there were three kinds of coffee, and two kinds of bottled water floating in ice.

There was actually Brown University Bottled Water, which is better than the decent conference water here at the AWP in Albany, where we have received only a shred of the respect we got at Brown. Which is good. For us. Little humility won’t kill you.

Every morning at Brown there were free bagels & cream cheese & coffee. Good coffee, locally roasted. They treated us real nice there at Brown.

Goddammit.

We love Coover, man.

Don’t get me started on the suite we got.

There were exquisite pastries in the shape of swans. They were so fragile that it was difficult to pick them up without breaking them. You could hardly taste the labor.

The bar had Tanqueray, Maker’s Mark, Harpoon, a satisfying merlot, all call liquor, nothing rail at all.

They also had an exquisite multi-bean salad that demanded that you have seconds. Which I did. They were frugal at Brown; food from a previous supper appeared at lunch the next day. However, the food was so good, it didn’t really seem like leftovers.

The chocolate cake had more chocolate per cubic centimeter than I think physics allows. I put my piece on a plate that had salad dressing residue still clinging to the edges. One of the Brown service people offered me a clean plate, but I didn’t care that the cake would include a trace of salad dressing: besides, there was so much chocolate—frosting, pudding, cake—it didn’t matter.

Oh, and lots of fresh fruit: I ate strawberries until my teeth were coated with seeds.

At the bar there was great food, including a marinated artichoke heart and mushroom salad. Coover poured us a round of Magic Hat.

We miss Brown.

Here’s us hanging out at one of the many fine banquets at Brown with Lisa Guernsey from the New York Times. She wrote a pretty decent piece on the conference for the Circuits section, and even printed our URL. We liked Lisa.