Remains of the Day

El Bulli on hiatus in 2012 and 2013

Ferran Adrià is putting El Bulli on a 2-year research hiatus (sabbatical?) in 2012 and 2013.

I tried to get a reservation this year but didn't land one of the coveted spots. The restaurant only opens for a few months each year, and I have to imagine the applicant pool is massive. In the whole world, is there a tougher dinner reservation to land?

Food: the new rock n' roll

Jonathan Gold writes that right under our noses (mouths?), food became the new rock n' roll:

While nobody was paying attention, food quietly assumed the place in youth culture that used to be occupied by rock 'n' roll -- individual, fierce and intensely political, communal yet congenial to aesthetic extremes: embracing veganism or learning to butcher a cow; eating tofu or head cheese, bean sprouts or pigs' ears. I could happily go the rest of my life without hearing about another celebrity potato farmer or rock-star butcher, about 15-year-old cheddar or 150-year-old Madeira. And I am not alone.

Perhaps that explains the food truck fever in LA, which has grown into an epidemic. There are so many food trucks with Twitter feeds that online aggregation sites for tracking their locations have evolved into attempts to aggregate physically in space. Whereas once the food trucks would bring your meal to you, now we're being roped into chasing our food? Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

For something unique, which Chef Roy's Korean tacos for Kogi were, a trek to seek out a food truck can be a culinary adventure. Kogi shot to fame from amidst the more workman-like pool of Mexican taco trucks which had been roaming LA for years before, but Kogi's rags-to-riches story (featured in NPR, The Wall Street Journal, and the NYTimes) and its use of Twitter to summon crowds like the PIed Piper (if you tweet it, they will come), seemed to launch a rush for curbside real estate. When I stepped out of work one afternoon to try out a grilled cheese truck that happened to stop down the street from our office, I ended up on the evening news on CBS. Construction workers who've been eating from taco trucks for years would have been appalled.

There are now trucks serving food that is both expensive and undistinguished ($9 cheesesteak?!), passing along none of the overhead savings from operating out of the back of a truck.

If a truck pulls up nearby your office and offers an alternative to the usual several lunch spots you're confined to, that's one thing, but if you hop in your car and drive out to a mobile food truck and pay premium prices to eat normal or even mediocre food out of a paper tray while standing on a street corner, you're getting robbed, both literally and figuratively.

The food truck bubble, as with others before it, will burst, taking down many a meal on wheels. If it isn't landlocked restaurants lobbying local officials to crack down on their mobile competition, it will be just plain fatigue. After all, this is a town where you can pay about $5 and get a really solid burger, fries, and drink, not to mention a table to sit at and enjoy the LA sun. Yes, In-N-Out is the Springsteen of this new rock n' roll.

Cooking for Thanksgiving

I finally uploaded some photos from Thanksgiving. Here's Karen showing off the heritage turkey that we roasted and that I wrote about before. It's the best tasting thing I prepared all year.

Cooking Thanksgiving dinner for a huge group just doesn't seem possible for one person in a home kitchen. I couldn't have done it without the help of my sister Karen, my sous-chef/commis. For our creamed corn pudding she grated about two dozen corn cobs with a box grater. That's heroic.

Bits

The stretches between my posts here are lengthening. Perhaps the best way to ease back into things is in the new year is in bits and pieces. Repetition of small victories, perhaps it's the rough sketch of a resolution?

• The single best thing I tasted over Christmas break in New York was the Crispy Frogs Legs appetizer at Veritas. The legs were encased in a crunchy, stringy crust and served with butternut squash gnocchi, pork belly, chanterelle mushroom, parsley coulis, and parmesan foam. Spectacular, one reason being that it combined the three primary food textures: crisp/crunchy, meaty, and soft.
• I learned about the three primary food textures from a book I read over break: Knives at Dawn: America's Quest for Culinary Glory at the Legendary Bocuse d'Or Competition. It took me a day of intermittent reading to plow through it on my Kindle. It appealed to me by combining many of my interests: food/cooking, contest/competition I've never heard of (shall we call that the Bloodsport factor?), obsessive people (Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud, among dozens of others), long odds/underdog story (can the Americans finally medal at Bocuse d'Or, long dominated by the French and, surprisingly, the Norwegians?), a true story, and heavy doses of conflict. My only complaint is that the author Andrew Friedman telegraphs the outcome by interspersing hindsight quotes from many of the key players. You can do that in a way that doesn't give away the ending; any modern reality TV show that sprinkles in post-event interviews has to deal with the problem. If you read reviews of the print edition, the spoiler issue is worse; the photos in the center of the book depict the ultimate winners. That amateurish mistake aside, I still recommend the book. The world's leading chefs are all borderline psychotic and reading about their obsessive natures put in the mood to cook sous vide and scrub my kitchen to a sparkle.
  
• Back to Veritas, they are known for their world class wine list (PDF). Martin stopped by and treated us a bottle of the 1995 Eisele Araujo Cabernet. That's not a bottle of wine one drinks every day, the price tag will incinerate your credit card, so many thanks, Martin. It was a true California cabernet fruit bomb. If you are an oenophile in search of a good meal in NYC, Veritas belongs on your shortlist.
• I have a MOMA membership so I was able to bypass the massive line outside and walk right into the Tim Burton exhibit. But there was no avoiding the mob inside, and even had it been empty, it would have failed to hold my interest, consisting mostly of old sketches. You have to be a fanatic of someone's work to want to see their early sketches. I appreciate reading about people's processes, but I mostly enjoy seeing their final products. It's like watching deleted scenes on a DVD, you rarely find one you want to undelete.
• Obama should hire Bruce Schneier to be our nation's security czar. I love his term "security theater," and his summary of U.S. aviation security in light of the Nigerian terrorist plot on the flight to Detroit will sound maddeningly sensible to every air traveler standing in their socks in a U.S. airport this holiday season.

I wasn't looking at my watch last night and so my passage into the new year slipped right by. And we're off.

Thank-full

I had just landed in Chicago for Thanksgiving and was strolling through the O'Hare concourse towards baggage claim when my phone rang. It was my sister Karen's fiance Kevin.

"You know how Karen was going to pick you up from the airport?" he asked. "She can't. She's been in a car accident."

He sounded calm which reassured me, especially since he'd already spoken to her. But then he told me their Prius was in bad shape. My gait quickened even though I had nowhere to go. She might be fine physically, but mentally an accident of that severity had to be a shock.

I called my other sister Joannie to fill her in on the situation, and after an hour or so of phone tag, one car was dispatched to get Karen from the place where they'd towed her car, another to get me from the airport.

When we finally all gathered back at Joannie's, the story had been reported and rereported multiple times, the truth coming together like pieces of a puzzle. Two guys in a sedan had the right rear corner of her Prius, sending her into a spin that ended at the center median of the highway. The sedan, meanwhile, somehow ended up flipped on its side on the other side of highway, on the shoulder.

As Karen got out of the car to gather herself and as various people stopped to help, the two guys somehow made it out of their vehicle. One of the two stumbled a few steps and vomited all over himself. The two of them were drunk.

The police took the two men to the hospital to draw blood, but they'd already failed the onsite sobriety test. The legal system will, I assume, deal with them. But in the meantime, I felt firsthand the anger of those hurt by the stupidity of those who get behind the wheel of three to four thousand pound machines under the influence of alcohol. There is nothing courageous or admirable about someone who manages to drive from point A to point B drunk; it's merely dumb luck.

It's also luck that helped Karen get out of the accident unharmed, save for a stiff neck and bruised knee. My flight arrived late, and so traffic on the 90/94 was light, so no cars were close behind that might have run into her during or immediately after her spinout.

The story has a happier ending as most of our family spent the rest of the week together celebrating Thanksgiving. We didn't dwell on the subject of her accident, especially the hypotheticals. To do so would seem morbid, and I sensed a need for us all to move on lest we cede the happiness of the entire holiday weekend to those two drunken idiots.

This was my first time in charge of preparing a Thanksgiving meal. I did a lot of research on how to prepare a turkey having had many a dry and unappetizing bird in Novembers past. My first big decision was to go with a heritage turkey over the breed commonly found at the grocery store, the Broad-Breasted White. Though they cost more, up to $10 a pound, heritage turkeys are known for their higher proportion of dark meat and a more guilt-free narrative: they tend to be raised on organic feed, on small farms where they're allowed to roam freely. If it lived up to the taste, then paying around $160 for a turkey that would feed the entire group on this once-a-year holiday would be worth it.

The next question was how to prepare the turkey. I consulted most every foodie I knew about their past experiences, and the number one technique mentioned was brining. I thought I could stop there, but it turns out there are different brining techniques. The one I'd heard of most often involved soaking the turkey in salt water. But then, while I waited for my take-out lunch one day, I saw a front page story in a section of the LA Times on the bar counter about dry brining.

It sounded too good to be true; just salt the turkey a few days in advance. Not only was it less messy than a wet brine, it supposedly produced meat of a superior texture.

The best laid plans were nearly derailed by a FedEx delivery person who couldn't distinguish a one from a zero. I spent all of Tuesday checking FedEx online, and mid-afternoon, I got the note that the turkey had been delivered to the front porch. I wandered outside, around the side of the house, poked in some bushes, looked out on the back deck, behind the garage...no turkey. I called FedEx, they tried to call the driver, but he was gone for the day.

Just as I was ready to call FedEx back to tell them they'd ruined Christmas for a group of orphans, a guy in a grey station wagon pulled up out front and walked out with a box. I was standing out on the front porch with such a look of consternation on my face that he must have put it together all at once.

"Are you Eugene? I found this on my porch when I got home just now."

Whoever you are, guy in grey station wagon, I salute you.

After letting the turkey thaw for a couple hours in a cold water bath (it was still vacuum sealed), I brined it inside and out with a mixture of kosher salt and minced parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme, a the Simon Garfunkel of seasonings. I put it in a baking bag and we put it in Joannie's basement fridge, breast-side up. The next day I massaged it and flipped it over, the salt having sucked some of the liquid out of the turkey as I had read it would.

Wednesday we spent the afternoon prepping a few dishes in advance, a batch of creamed corn pudding, garlic mashed potatoes, and the turkey stock. Spices at the grocery store are not sold loose but in plastic containers that always contain too much for any one dish, I used the excess thyme, rosemary, sage, and parsley to make a compound butter and stashed it in the fridge to use as a rub on the turkey the next day. Compound butters are handy to have around in the kitchen and a great way to not waste all that spice.

Making stock, like ironing shirts, alternates between soothing ritual and exasperating burden from one minute to the next. I love the meditative pace of the process, the way the scent sneaks up on you as the liquid absorbs some of the character of all that's in it, the turkey giblet, heart, and neck bones, the mirepoix of onions, carrots, and celery, the sprigs of rosemary and thyme, the parsley and stray chicken parts. But with seven other dishes to worry about, I was tempted, at moments, to reach for canned stock, like a monk tempted by the sins of the material world.

Thankfully I had Karen as my faithful partner chef in crime, and we had enough time to get enough prepared that we could let the stock just simmer while we dined on some Chicago deep dish pizza.

On Thanksgiving Day, I thought about using a turkey bag for roasting, but some articles I'd read suggested that the steaming it would encourage would deprive us of trying a more traditional roasted texture and flavor. My decision was made when we couldn't find the turkey bag we'd set aside.

I contemplated two other methods of adding flavor, one being injection and the other being a rub. Since we didn't have a turkey syringe and I'd made the compound butter the night before, we went with the rub.

Heritage turkeys don't require as high a finishing temperature as regular turkeys as they're free of antibiotics. That brings with it another benefit: a shorter stay in the oven. I gave it about a half hour at 450 degrees to brown the skin, then lowered the temperature to 350 and covered the breast with aluminum foil. One of the chief problems with in preparing turkeys is the fact that the white breast meat tastes best at a lower temperature than the darker leg and thigh meat, thus the selective application of foil. Ultimately, I had to remove the legs and thighs and give them an extra ten to fifteen minutes alone after the rest of the turkey was finished, about two and a half hours later.

Fast forward to the taste test: dear readers, it was good. Damn good. The best turkey I've ever had. Was it the dry brining, or the rub, or the heritage of the turkey? I don't know, but the white meat was moist like a roast chicken, and the dark meat tasted almost like duck. But it was still undeniably a turkey.

A few years back I ordered a turducken for Thanksgiving, and while it was fine, there didn't seem to be any real synergy among the three meats. Stuffing one inside another inside another seemed to offer simply an advantage in carving efficiency, but the flavors simply added up to the sum of the parts, nothing more.

The heritage turkey, with its mix of different meat textures and flavors, seemed to fulfill the vision of what a turducken was trying to be. But whereas the turducken resorts to the culinary equivalent of plastic surgery, the heritage turkey is au naturel, a product of good genes and healthy living.

Thanksgiving day, one soon-to-be-convicted drunk driver was probably pondering a grim future at the hands of the law. Meanwhile, my little sister may have been without her new Prius, but that day she was celebrating Thanksgiving with loved ones over a great turkey she helped prepare. Sometimes the lessons of Thanksgiving come as simple as that.

Why we use cookbooks

The potential miracle of the cookbook was immediately apparent: you start with a feeling of greed, find a list of rules, assemble a bunch of ingredients, and then you have something to be greedy about. You begin with the ache and end with the object, where in most of the life of appetites—courtship, marriage—you start with the object and end with the ache.

That's Adam Gopnik in this a recent New Yorker on why we keep buying, reading, and using cookbooks. Great read.

Food Rules

Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food was a great read in part because it offered succinct, easy-to-remember rules to improve one's eating habits (its core rule "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." has been burned into my brain ever since I read it).

Pollan asked his readers to submit their own rules, and he posted his twenty favorite here.

French Laundry

On the last night of a week and a half vacation I took earlier this summer, a trip that covered Hong Kong, Tokyo, and San Francisco, I ate at The French Laundry. Diners there self-select into a specific crowd. Given the restaurant's reputation as one of the, if not the best, restaurant in the U.S., the difficulty of securing a reservation, the average cost of a meal there (four or five dollar bill icons next to certain restaurant names should be put in quotation marks, this being one of them), and its rather out-of-the-way location, a meal there feels like a pilgrimage.

Years ago I had made about a month's effort to secure a reservation, with no success, and then I forgot about it for a while. Back in that day, French Laundry was not listed on OpenTable.com. Two months before the day you wanted to eat there, you had to submit yourself to 15 minutes of frenzied speed dialing each morning at 10am PT and hope for the best, like trying to get through to Ticketmaster to purchase tickets to a Radiohead concert. Eventually you'd get through, just in time to hear that all tables had been booked. It is perhaps fortunate that two months would elapse before anyone fortunate enough to secure a reservation could actually dine there; in that time, the unpleasant and barbaric reservation scrum would have faded from one's memory rather than taint one's overall experience with the restaurant.

While I was planning my vacation, I saw San Francisco sitting at the end of my itinerary, and I may have been hungry at the time, but the thought of trying to tack on a trip to The French Laundry just popped into my head. I didn't think I'd have any luck securing a reservation given I'd only have one day to try to score a reservation, but lo and behold, I called the very next morning, and a table for 2 opened up for me, albeit at the late hour of 9pm PT. When, a few weeks later, I tried to switch my reservation to a party of 3 (it would be a meal to celebrate my friends Howie and Tram's upcoming wedding), they were able to accommodate me, even apologizing for having to move my reservation up to 7:45pm, a far more desirable time. Viva la recession!

Over the years, I've talked to many people who've eaten at The French Laundry, and I couldn't help factoring their reports into my expectations for the meal. Most had nothing but praise, but the few accounts of disappointment hung out in the back of my mind. I was three parts anticipation, one part anxiety.

Even on a weekday, with San Francisco traffic, it only took about 45 minutes to drive there, across the Golden Gate Bridge and out to the town of Yountville. The GPS told us when we were near, but not knowing what it looked like and given its somewhat understated signage, we drove right past the restaurant the first time.

The French Laundry

We arrived early, just before sunset, and the hostess welcomed us to take a tour of the garden across the street or to spend some time in the garden/patio outside the front door. We did both.

Walking through the garden across the street is a unique experience. I've been on many a kitchen tour, met many a chef, sat at many a table watching sous-chefs and line chefs mid-task, but this was the first time I'd seen the raw ingredients on the vine. While we were strolling and admiring the gorgeous produce, someone from the kitchen came out to pick some ingredients. I'm fairly certain he wasn't sent out just to impress us.

Leeks in the French Laundry garden

Howie loves snow pea vines

Greenhouse

Back at the patio, we snapped a few photos on various benches, in front of different plants, standing in archways...no matter how our meal turned out, it would be well-documented. Our hostess came out to grab us and ended up offering to snap some photos of the three of us together.

Inside, we were led to our table on the second level. The interior layout recalls an expensive home converted into a restaurant dining space. To one side of us was a group of three older diners. They had the look of foodies about them. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what that is, but it's a way one carries oneself, with the ease of a lifelong Red Sox fan strolling to his seat at Fenway, for example as opposed to the wide-eyed anxiety of a virgin on prom night fumbling with a bra strap, say.

To the other side of us was a table of about eight young male investment bankers in navy suits, a pack of wild dogs with a client's expense account to pillage, the hint of date rape hanging in the air over their table. They were, at that moment, still sober, but I tried my best to turn my chair away from them. More on them later.

We had the choice of two nine-course tasting menus, the chef's or the vegetarian. Both were $240 each, service fees included, with the option to have the foir gras en terrine for an extra $30 on the chef's tasting menu. No disrespect to the vegetarians of the world, but for that price, my meal was going to include some animal flesh. Tram and Howie concurred, and we split up our choices so that we'd have the chance to try both choices for those courses where two items were offered.

I had just begun collecting wine a short while before this meal, and even with my limited knowledge of some of the more famous wines in the U.S., it only took a minute or two for the French Laundry wine list (PDF) to stagger me. Just about every hot boutique winery and big name wine I'd heard of was represented. It's a world-class all-star wine list, the most storied wine list I've ever looked over. The lofty roster had prices to match. High end wines typically don't support more than a 100% markup given the high starting price, and that seemed to be the markup here, but 2X a high price is, well, a higher price. But if you're going to splurge on a meal at French Laundry, digging into their treasure chest of a cellar for a bottle you might not be able to find on the open market is one of the treats.

For those looking to sample a flight of wines, The French Laundry has a great selection of half bottles, of which I picked out two reds, both of which are no longer on the wine list, so quickly does their wine list rotate. The standout to me was a reasonably priced pinot noir from Skewis Winery, the 2006 Bush Vineyard, Russian River Valley. A few weeks after my meal, I ordered a lot of bottles of that gem from Skewis after finding out that it would be their last year of producing the Bush given the passing of the owner of that land. I usually don't enjoy California pinots as they aren't earthy enough for my taste, but this was a beautiful drinking wine, with a long and complex finish.

Here was our menu (many special characters were pillaged from France in its making). I won't linger on every dish, but will call out the standouts afterwards.

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This is California cuisine, yes, but not the type content to surround two fresh beet halves with five niblets of corn, two asparagus spear heads, and three peas in a miniature tableau and call it a dish. I love fresh ingredients as much as the next gourmand, but in this day and age, when I can visit the same farmer market the local high end restaurant visits for super-fresh produce, the premium I'm willing to pay for such food has shrunk.

Anyone who has perused chef Thomas Keller's French Laundry Cookbook knows that attempting to conquer any of the recipes therein is no task for the average home chef. It will end up more of a coffee table book for most of its owners: inspiring, yes, but a bit like a weekend warrior reading about Lance Armstrong's workout routines. Me, I'm happy to pay for this type of meal because I won't at any point in the meal wonder if I could prepare that dish myself, let alone at a reasonable cost in terms of time and equipment.

Take, for example, the first official course (the first amuse bouche was unlisted and was the same as the one I had at Per Se, Keller's New York sister to French Laundry: cornets of salmon tartare with red onion crème fraiche), one of Keller's signature dishes, "Pearl and Oysters." Served with a special mother-of-pearl spoon, it's a dish whose preparation is a delicate and complex chemistry experiment. If the end justifies the means, then it's worth it, because the dish is brilliant. I don't have the culinary vocabulary to describe it, but in its flavors and textures it's something wholly unique, a creation all Thomas Keller's.

[Note: It was really dark in the restaurant, I did not want to use flash and bother the other patrons, and so the photos are a bit grainy. I would have preferred to shoot with a bit smaller of an aperture to increase the depth of field, but these pics were the best I could manage.]

"Oysters and Pearls"

The butter-poached Maine lobster "mitts" tends more towards traditional Californian cuisine, but the butter poaching and black truffles added just enough dazzle without distracting from the simplicity of its mix of flavors.

Sweet Butter-Poached Maine Lobster "Mitts"

Perhaps the most memorable dish of the night was Confit de Cœur de Veau, literally the confit of a veal heart. Rather than serve the heart in one piece, Keller wisely chose to shave it thinly, and it came out arranged like a bouquet of pastrami for the gods. Rich, dense, and unforgettable. I'm not even sure where you could buy a veal heart to work with, so I took my time eating this one.

"Confit de Cœur de Veau"

One last dish to highlight, and that is the Snake River Farms Calotte de Bœuf Grillée. It is one of the best pieces of beef I've ever had in my life. If I were to become a vegetarian for the rest of my life, I'd want to stash the flavor of this beef in my memory to serve as the canonical flavor of beef for the rest of my days.

Snake River Farms also supplies Wolfgang Puck's fantastic LA steakhouse Cut with its American Wagyu, and if you fancy yourself an expert in the preparation of beef you can purchase direct from them. Best of luck if you go that route: 4 10 oz ribeyes will run you $199.

Snake River Farms "Calotte de Bœuf Grillée"

The only thing marring our meal was the company to my left. By this point in our meal, the investment bankers had a few bottles of wine in them. The volume of their voices had turned up, and snippets of conversation from their table drifted over.

"You could tell, just looking at her, she was a little sexpot."

"Oh yeah. If she was a year or two older, what was she, seventeen? My god."

"Hell, even if she wasn't."

[bawdy laughter]

To my relief, the American Psycho crew left by the time our desserts came.

The name of the restaurant comes from the fact that the building was once actually a French laundry. In keeping with that theme, the napkins are held in clothespins when you arrive, the bill comes on a laundry ticket, and the lampshades have ironing icons on them.

French Laundry lampshades

By the time we finished dessert and nibbled on the mignardises (the little candies and cookies that follow dessert at finer dining establishments, like a post-dessert dessert), I was suitably full. Not sickeningly gorged, but content.

If you drink wine, figure on $300 a person for dinner. After we settled our checks, I mentioned to the waiter that I'd seen the French Laundry kitchen once before, on a plasma TV in the kitchen of Per Se. The two sister restaurants stay connected via webcam. Without my asking, the waiter said once he'd run our credit cards he'd give us a kitchen tour.

The kitchen is not massive, it's smaller than the one at Per Se. By the time we walked in, the kitchen was almost spotless already.

The kitchen

Two things hanging in the kitchen impressed me. One was a sign over one doorway with the definition of the word "finesse." The other was a clock over a doorway, under which was a sign that read "Sense of Urgency." After having completed our meal, these didn't seem like empty decorations but a fitting summary of two of the qualities that make The French Laundry a world class restaurant.

Finesse

Sense of Urgency

And so ended our journey to one of the world's culinary meccas. I thoroughly enjoyed the meal and recommend the journey for those who can drop that much for a meal and not regret it. You know who you are.

El Bulli, Dan Brown, et al

Man hits the culinary lottery and gets a reservation at El Bulli, then recounts his meal in comic book form. 30 courses! I felt engorged and exhausted just reading about all the dishes.

***

Bill Maher rants at Huffington Post about the idiocy of Americans in an article titled "New Rule: Smart President ≠ Smart Country." Bryan Caplan would be proud.

At times like this, trying to pass some form of healthcare reform, even a watered-down version because of the difficulty of getting any big change through the conservative institutional roadblock that we call the Senate, one wonders how the government has ever achieved anything on behalf of anyone other than a special interest.

Obama took his argument directly to the people in an Op-Ed in the NYTimes. I'm curious who was the last President of the U.S. to write an Op-Ed in a major American newspaper. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it wasn't the previous occupant of the office.

An interesting sidenote to the whole debate on healthcare reform is the uproar over Whole Foods CEO John Mackey's editorial in the Wall Street Journal arguing against the health care bill on the table. The Opinionator over the the NYTimes tracks the timeline of the whole brouhaha. If you disagree with Mackey, I don't think boycotting Whole Foods is the solution, but I do think CEO's of companies need to be careful of what they say because it's too convenient to read their comments as representative of the views of Whole Foods as a company, and it's dangerous to ascribe too many coherent policy decisions to a capitalist institution, even one like Whole Foods which many people associate with a progressive lifestyle.

***

Andrew Collins examines the global phenomenon that is Dan Brown, universally reviled by literary critics and other writers but whose next novel The Lost Symbol will command the largest first print run in Random House history at 6.5 million.

I'm not sure it's such a paradox that someone can be a bad writer yet spin a real page-turner. What grabbed me about The Da Vinci Code was the fabricated secret that tied together so many known quantities in history in a clever way, from The Last Supper to Mary Magdalene and everything in between.

The plots of his stories themselves never strike me as plausible or gripping, his characters are two-dimensional (and that may be generous, though perhaps I'm being sexist in finding gorgeous and leggy nuclear physicist Vittoria Vetra of Angels and Demons a bit implausible), nor is his command of the English language that noteworthy. After all, one chapter of The Da Vinci Code concludes with this sentence, one that would have failed me out of my first year fiction writing class in college:

Almost inconceivably, the gun into which she was now staring was clutched in the pale hand of an enormous albino.

***

A physicist writes that The Time Traveler's Wife may be the most scientifically accurate movie treatment of time travel ever. No comment on whether the cheesy slow dissolve of Eric Bana each time he travels through time is also consistent with the laws of physics, or whether his expressionless acting is a consequence of too many leaps through time and space.

The article's a good read, though, as I didn't realize that physicists had come to such consensus around these constraints of time travel. I still say The Terminator remains the most brilliant time travel movie because of its stunning revelation that by going back in time to change the future you just create it, illustrated in the movie by the Moebius strip of a plot in which John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time to protect his mom, only to have Kyle Reese become his father.

In that twist, the movie adheres to one of the principles stated in this article, the so-called "self-consistency problem," that is, "You can't kill your own grandfather."

***

Justice Antonin Scalia and Thomas, the Twiddle Dee and Dum of the Supreme Court, argued in the minority against allowing a prisoner to challenge his murder conviction after many witnesses recanted their testimony and implicated another person as the actual murderer. Scalia, in his dissent (PDF), claims the following:

This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is “actually” innocent.

Those quotation marks around the adverb actually in that sentence rank among the most pernicious and cruel punctuation I've ever encountered. It is not a ringing endorsement of our government that both Scalia and Thomas ended up with lifetime appointments on the highest court in the nation.

***

For those of you waiting with bated breath for Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are, this week's New Yorker features a short story by Dave Eggers, "Max at Sea" which is an excerpt from Eggers upcoming novel The Wild Things which itself is loosely based on the screenplay Eggers wrote with Jonze for the movie, which in turn is based, of course, on the children's book by Maurice Sendak.

Knives and thumbtacks

Oh, what I wouldn't give for a Bob Kramer chef's knife (his knives are used by some of the most famous chefs in the world, like Thomas Keller of French Laundry fame). I'm on Kramer's waiting list, and I hope to make it to the top of it while I'm still in my cooking prime.

I received an e-mail from his mailing list saying he'd just put one of his knives up for bid on eBay. It sent a brief surge of excitement through me that lasted until I followed the eBay link and saw the current bid price.

***

Some famous people share their favorite places on Google Maps. Not a very long collection of people, though I was curious to see what places Ferran Adria of El Bulli picked out.

Factory indeed

Michael Ruhlman teases Kelly Alexander for lauding Cheesecake Factory. Alexander challenges Ruhlman to try the miso salmon there, and if he doesn't like it, she'll pay for the meal and buy 15 copies of Ruhlman's new book. If he loses, then...

The dishes Ruhlman and his group order all turn out okay, but he concludes that the "Factory" part of the restaurant's name rings all too true:

The biggest drawback is the mall-like atmosphere, a sense of faux everything that is perhaps inevitable in any large chain. The fact that any of the 146 CFs around the country can put out this astonishing variety of food is an impressive work of corporate organization and efficiency. But I left feeling sad, and not sure why. I think, on reflection it was because of the sense that what we'd just experienced was simply a company responding to the demands of America, and the demands of America were helping us to take our food one step backward rather than one step forward, and I don't think we have time for backward steps.

What's more frightening, though, is the caloric counts of some of the dishes there:

The salmon weighs in at 1,673 calories -- which is to say, a bit more than 75 percent of the food an adult male should eat in a day. The piccata is a comparably slim 1,385 calories. The crispy beef is 1,528 calories. And the carbonara? 2,191. (source: Ezra Klein)

Wine tip

Many of us should be drinking our white wines warmer and our red wines colder to maximize appreciation for their character. This is one reason people are often surprised when they go to a wine tasting at a winery and find the reds served cooler than they're used to.

Miscellany

Sportswriter Jim Murray once wrote about Rickey Henderson, whose excessive batting crouch helped him to draw lots of walks:

Rickey Henderson's strike zone is smaller than Hitler's heart.

***

A recent New Yorker article in the Food Issue examined the knife-making industry and profiled Kramer Knives of Seattle. Bob Kramer is one of a select group of Master Bladesmiths in America (as credentialed by the American Bladesmith Society); there are only about a hundred. To pass the test, one's knife must undergo a grueling series of tests, from rope cutting to wood chopping to shaving hair.

There is a multi-year waitlist to buy one of Kramer's knives, used by the likes of super chefs like Thomas Keller (I myself am on that waiting list). He has collaborated on a more widely available series of knives that are sold exclusively by Sur La Table. The Chef's Knife from that series is a beauty (if you're looking for a last-minute gift idea that will just dazzle a loved one who loves to cook, that's a great way to go, though my mother always shunned giving knives as gifts because of the Chinese superstition that giving such a gift foretold the severing of that relationship).

Upgrading the dull chef's knife is one of the best investments a home cook can make. Dull knives make cooking a lot of work and leads to injuries when a knife slips. Proper knife technique is the other simple lesson a chef should learn. To properly capitalize on your knife's edge, the blade should be moving horizontally across the food being cut. Too many people just press down, and that's not how a knife is designed to work. Doing so exerts a lot of needless effort and is slow. Think of your arm and knife moving in a continuous elliptical motion, like the horizontal metallic bar on the outside of a train engine car's wheels.

***

I don't recall what things were like four years ago, but it feels to me like there are many more "letters to the President-Elect" in the media this time around, on topics from bailouts and reviving the economy to drugs, food policy, and education. I suspect this is the consequence of having a President we regard as well-read and thoughtful.

***

An old article from The Morning News, as seen back on Reddit today: How do you know if a girl loves you?

If you’re Gael Garcia Bernal: She loves you.

Michael Pollan's letter to Obama

This is hardly a new article, but I'm so busy that I don't ever get to reading issues of the New Yorker or NYTimes until weeks, sometimes months later.

In the food issue of the NYTimes Magazine from Oct 9, Michael Pollan pens an open letter to the President-Elect urging for a reform in U.S. food policy. It is one of the best articles I've read all year, appropriate for both those already familiar with food policy and those who don't know the first thing about where the food on their dinner plate comes from.

Pollan's thesis:

There are many moving parts to the new food agenda I’m urging you to adopt, but the core idea could not be simpler: we need to wean the American food system off its heavy 20th-century diet of fossil fuel and put it back on a diet of contemporary sunshine.

The most fascinating part of the article is Pollan's history of how our current food production system came to be.

After World War II, the government encouraged the conversion of the munitions industry to fertilizer — ammonium nitrate being the main ingredient of both bombs and chemical fertilizer — and the conversion of nerve-gas research to pesticides. The government also began subsidizing commodity crops, paying farmers by the bushel for all the corn, soybeans, wheat and rice they could produce. One secretary of agriculture after another implored them to plant “fence row to fence row” and to “get big or get out.”

The chief result, especially after the Earl Butz years, was a flood of cheap grain that could be sold for substantially less than it cost farmers to grow because a government check helped make up the difference. As this artificially cheap grain worked its way up the food chain, it drove down the price of all the calories derived from that grain: the high-fructose corn syrup in the Coke, the soy oil in which the potatoes were fried, the meat and cheese in the burger.

Subsidized monocultures of grain also led directly to monocultures of animals: since factory farms could buy grain for less than it cost farmers to grow it, they could now fatten animals more cheaply than farmers could. So America’s meat and dairy animals migrated from farm to feedlot, driving down the price of animal protein to the point where an American can enjoy eating, on average, 190 pounds of meat a year — a half pound every day.

But if taking the animals off farms made a certain kind of economic sense, it made no ecological sense whatever: their waste, formerly regarded as a precious source of fertility on the farm, became a pollutant — factory farms are now one of America’s biggest sources of pollution. As Wendell Berry has tartly observed, to take animals off farms and put them on feedlots is to take an elegant solution — animals replenishing the fertility that crops deplete — and neatly divide it into two problems: a fertility problem on the farm and a pollution problem on the feedlot. The former problem is remedied with fossil-fuel fertilizer; the latter is remedied not at all.

What was once a regional food economy is now national and increasingly global in scope — thanks again to fossil fuel. Cheap energy — for trucking food as well as pumping water — is the reason New York City now gets its produce from California rather than from the “Garden State” next door, as it did before the advent of Interstate highways and national trucking networks. More recently, cheap energy has underwritten a globalized food economy in which it makes (or rather, made) economic sense to catch salmon in Alaska, ship it to China to be filleted and then ship the fillets back to California to be eaten; or one in which California and Mexico can profitably swap tomatoes back and forth across the border; or Denmark and the United States can trade sugar cookies across the Atlantic. About that particular swap the economist Herman Daly once quipped, “Exchanging recipes would surely be more efficient.”

Whatever we may have liked about the era of cheap, oil-based food, it is drawing to a close. Even if we were willing to continue paying the environmental or public-health price, we’re not going to have the cheap energy (or the water) needed to keep the system going, much less expand production. But as is so often the case, a crisis provides opportunity for reform, and the current food crisis presents opportunities that must be seized.

Pollan goes on to offer a prescription for reform. Highly recommended.

Design matters

Gregg Rapp is a menu engineer. He designs menus to increase restaurant profitability.

The first step is the design. Rapp recommends that menus be laid out in neat columns with unfussy fonts. The way prices are listed is very important. "This is the No. 1 thing that most restaurants get wrong," he explains. "If all the prices are aligned on the right, then I can look down the list and order the cheapest thing." It's better to have the digits and dollar signs discreetly tagged on at the end of each food description. That way, the customer's appetite for honey-glazed pork will be whetted before he sees its cost.

Also important is placement. On the basis of his own research and existing studies of how people read, Rapp says the most valuable real estate on a two-panel menu (one that opens like a magazine) is the upper-right-hand corner. That area, he says, should be reserved for more profitable dishes since it is the best place to catch--and retain--the reader's gaze.

Cheap, popular staples--like a grilled-chicken sandwich or a burger--should be harder to locate. Rapp likes to make the customer read through a mouthwatering description of seared ahi tuna before he finds them. "This is akin to the grocery store putting the milk in the back," he says. "You have to walk by all sorts of tempting, high-priced items to get to it."

The adjectives lavished on a dish can be as important as the names of the ingredients. What would you rather eatplain grilled chicken or flame-broiled chicken with a garlic rub? Scrambled eggs or farm-fresh eggs scrambled in butter? "Think 'flavors and tastes,'" Rapp says, repeating a favorite mantra. "Words like crunchy and spicy give the customer a better idea of what something will be like." Longer, effusive descriptions should be reserved for signature items. Especially the profitable ones.

Marathon Man

I was in NYC the first weekend of November to watch my brother James run his first marathon. It was a true family affair as James ran for Fred's Team to raise money for Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center where my other brother Alan works. James raised something like $13,000, just an amazing amount.

I flew in late Thursday night. The next day, while James was off at work, I got up and just walked around. New York City is still my favorite among all the cities I've lived in, and I suspect it's because it's the one city where I can feel both alone and among people at the same time.

I stopped for lunch at Momofuku Ssäm Bar, one of the outlets in the David Chang empire. Back when I lived in NYC, I came here on its first day open, when they still didn't have a menu. It was like a burrito bar back then, and when I walked in the one guy behind the kitchen counter looked surprised to see anyone. Now it's transformed into a fairly chic sit-down joint with a menu and prix fixe lunch. I had crispy pork belly buns...

...and spicy rice cakes.

It was Friday, Halloween, but more importantly, it was the last day of the Banksy exhibit in the West Village, The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill. I managed to get there just about a half hour before it closed.

Banksy is to the art world as Michel Gondry is to music videos, just conceptually brilliant. This faux pet store wasn't populated with the real animals. Instead, there was a depressed and caged Tweety...

...a caged animatronic monkey wearing headphones, clicking on a remote control, and watching a TV playing a documentary about monkeys free in the wild...

...a rabbit looking in a mirror and applying lipstick...

...animatronic fish fingers swimming in fishbowl...

...and animatronic sausages squirming around like earthworms.

A leopard fur coat basked in a tree branch, its "tail" hanging down and swaying lazily. A rooster watched over its children, little Chicken McNuggets with legs bobbing for food.

Not Banksy's most subtle social commentary, but a humorous conceit executed simply. According to the security guard, the exhibit was on its way to London next.

That night I caught a production of David Mamet's Speed the Plow at the Barrymore Theater on Broadway. This three person meditation on the conflict between art and commerce in Hollywood starred Jeremy Piven, Elisabeth Moss (Peggy Olson on Mad Men), and Raul Esparza.

Bashing Hollywood for favoring money over art is hardly an original form of cynicism, but the underrated Piven is always fun to watch on stage. He plays a character not so unlike his Ari Gold from Entourage: Bobby Gould is a studio exec tasked with making commercial hits. When Elizabeth Moss, a temp secretary, playing someone not unlike her Peggy Olson in Season One of Mad Men, appeals to his conscience to push for an adaptation of a dense and decidedly depressing novel (for some reason I thought of Blindness by Saramago), the battle for his soul is on, with Raul Esparza playing the devil on his shoulder, having brought Gould a made-to-order action script with a big star attached.

Piven has a way of making greed warm and fuzzy. His Ari Gold and Bobby Gould both talk a game of mindless materialism, but the body language conveys a person not entirely comfortable with all the bravado. We see in Piven our own greedy nature, but because we sense his chance for redemption is our own, and so we root for him. Tony Soprano and Don Draper are part of a recently crowded stable of antiheroes, and Piven is like their comedic brother.

After the play, I set off to my old neighborhood haunt of Union Square. I'd read that there would be a flash mob of Sarah Palin look-a-likes this Halloween night, but only a few materialized. Dagmar and Alex, two other folks from UCLA Film School were in town for a thesis shoot, so I met up with them and followed them around, taking pics of Dagmar with costumes that struck her fancy. We snapped a lot Palins, among others. But the most popular costume, by far, perhaps for ease of creation, was Heath Ledger's smudged-lipstick-and-white-face-paint Joker.

The night ended, as many busy social days in NYC end, with my sister Karen hobbling in pain alongside me at 3am in her Audrey Hepburn circa Breakfast at Tiffany's high heels, the two of us trying and failing to find a single unoccupied taxi in Greenwich Village.

The night before the marathon, we all stayed at the Westin in Times Square as James and all the Fred's Team runners were put up there for their fundraising efforts. They got their own transportation to the start line.

The family met up to watch him at the Fred's Team viewing bleachers on 1st Ave., near 67th St, around mile 17. We saw the wheelchair division fly by. One man in a wheelchair stopped across the street, attached a pair of artificial legs below his knees, and ran. The competitive women and then the competitive men flew by, and we saw both eventual winners in those groups.

Thanks to the marathon's e-mail alerts, we knew when James was approaching. As he ran by, giving Alan and the kids a quick hug, I shouted out to him to "Drop the hammer!" He looked back, then down at the street, puzzled, thinking I'd said that he'd dropped something.

We tried to make it across town to the finish line to catch him, but he was too fast. He'd already finished in an impressive 3:57 by the time we waded through the Central Park mob.

Congrats, on both the great time and the amazing fundraising haul! Each speaks volumes, one to his obsessive nature, the other to his likability.

Black Bull

A Starbucks coffee grande has over 4X the caffeine of a Red Bull. This and many other interesting coffee facts via this NYTimes article.

Serious party people know that the go-to drink to get you to the crack of dawn is coffee and vodka.

Drinky drinky

"New Hints Seen That Red Wine May Slow Aging"

The Wisconsin scientists used a dose on mice equivalent to just 35 bottles a day. But red wine contains many other resveratrol-like compounds that may also be beneficial. Taking these into account, as well as mice’s higher metabolic rate, a mere four, five-ounce glasses of wine “starts getting close” to the amount of resveratrol they found effective, Dr. Weindruch said.

I'm skeptical. The amounts tested on rats are always ridiculously high. However, that note about four glasses of wine a day is a dangerously seductive nugget to throw out there. If your liver doesn't fail first, maybe you'll enjoy a few extra years of sobriety to compensate for the earlier percentage of life spent in a drunken stupor.

blah blah blah

I'm not picking sides on the debate about the impact of the web on journalism, but I do venture to say that stories like this would not have made the news prior to the rise of the web.

American Airlines to start charging $15 for the first checked bag. That's great, because I just adore flying those roomy coach seats. I I look forward to being charged to use the bathroom, charged to do the crossword on the in-flight magazine sudoku, and charged to rent an overhead bin for my carry-on luggage, too.

Eating vegetables raw is not always the healthiest way to consume them. Thank goodness. Also good news: eating vegetables with a bit of fat, for example in full-fat dressing, may help you absorb more vitamins.

Recommended

Chris Rock's latest standup tour - Last night I caught Chris Rock's latest standup show with some coworkers. I have to let it soak in over a few weeks (during which I will dutifully, as a male, repeat his jokes to many of my coworkers and friends with a substantially substandard delivery that will deflate 85% of the humor of the routines), but with the performance fresh in my mind I'm convinced it's his best standup performance yet. I was in tears a couple of times. The Presidential election, race relations, differences between men and women, marriage, sex, steroids...he ranged over all the topics I was hoping he'd hit. If he's coming to your town, get yourself a ticket.

There's nothing like seeing good standup live; you can watch the inevitable HBO special, but you won't have the energy from thousands of people laughing to feed off of (the flipside is probably also true, that seeing bad standup live is exponentially more uncomfortable than seeing it on TV).

I last saw him live in Seattle some four years ago, during his Never Scared tour. Of all the standup comedians I've seen live (not a huge list, but includes folks like Dennis Miller, Seinfeld, Russell Peters), Chris Rock is my favorite. I saw Seinfeld twice in a four year span, and he repeated a great deal of his material. Though Rock covers similar themes in each show, I've never heard him use the same joke twice.

***

Lays ketchup flavored potato chips - one of my coworkers brought a bag back from Toronto. Apparently this flavor is a specialty north of the border. In America we love ketchup with our french fries, so why hasn't this flavor of chips caught on here? Whatever the reason, to satiate my fix I may have to resort to bidding on eBay.

***

State of Play - the British just seem to be able to crank out great political thrillers and police procedurals (I'm still a huge fan of Spooks, or MI-5 as they rebrand it for BBC America). This six-part miniseries stars the always fantastic Bill Nighy and a young Kelly MacDonald and James McAvoy, to name a few actors more recognized this side of the pond. It starts, as these things often do, with a dead body. When the press, government, industry, and police all tug on the thread, the plot unravels at a healthy clip.

Things I Like

* Modern Love, the weekly column in the Sunday Styles section of the NYTimes. I enjoy the introspective, confessional nature of each installment. This past week's column, "Mom, It’s Me, Your Son, Finally," was a good example of its tone. It's interesting to me how my tastes for various sections of newspapers and magazines has changed over time.

* New Balance 1220 running shoe series, of which the latest incarnation is the 1223. My flat, wide feet are thankful for shoes that, unlike Nikes, aren't made for people with perfect feet, narrow, high-arched. I guess that's to be expected from a shoe company named after a Greek goddess. The 1220's don't change too much from generation to generation, so when I walked into the store looking for a replacement for my 1221's, the saleswoman simply handed me the same size for the 1223s, and I walked out and was running in them fifteen minutes later. There's something to be said for product continuity in the shoe market.

I loved the Air Jordan VIII. It was the first pair I ever owned, and the day my mom bought it for me from a sports store in a mall is still a tactile memory. But subsequent models of the shoe changed so drastically that they just didn't fit my feet anymore.

* Runner's high (proof it exists?). I'd always thought runner's high was the occasional feeling that one could run forever without getting tired, but the definition in the article implies that it's something you always experience during running. Which may be why I have not experienced it in so long.

* Taco trucks. Seemingly an LA institution, the Hulu dev team seems to find a new one every week, each better than the next. I have yet to find one comprehensive listing of all taco trucks, though partial coverage can be found at The Great Taco Hunt and this Google Map.

It's your birthday

Yesterday was, alas, one more tick of the odometer on my life gauge. Yesterday some friends of mine decided to accelerate my progress towards the grave by taking me to Cut, the acclaimed Wolfgang Puck steakhouse in the Beverly Wilshire hotel, a 2007 nominee for "Best New Restaurant" by the James Beard Foundation and the winner of Esquire's 2006 Restaurant of the Year award.

It's one serious luxury steakhouse with one heavy-hitting menu. Walking in we strolled past a Bentley and an Aston Martin and several dozen middle aged people whose dress and mannerisms screamed of old money. If I knew what many executives in town looked like I probably would have spotted several seated in the dining room

The first three starters listed:

• Kobe Steak Sashimi, Spice Radishes
• Prime Sirloin "Steak Tartare", Herb Aioli, Mustard
• Bone Marrow Flan, Mushroom Marmalade, Parsley Salad

It went on to include starters such as...

• Austrian Oxtail Bouillon, Chive Blossoms, Chervil, Bone Marrow Dumplings
• Prime Filet Mignon "Carpaccio", Celery Hearts, Shaved French Black Truffles
• Maple Glazed Pork Belly, Asian Spices, Sesame-Orange Dressing, Winterella Pear Compote

Even the breadsticks and bread, laced with parmesan, tasted decadent. Cut serves four levels of beef (listed here from expensive to obscenely expensive):

• U.S.D.A. PRIME, Illinois Corn Fed, Aged 21 Days
• U.S.D.A. PRIME, Nebraska Corn Fed, Dry Aged 35 Days
• American Wagyu/Angus "Kobe Style" Beef from Snake River Farms, Idaho
• True Japanese 100% Wagyu Beef from Kagoshima Prefecture, Kyushu, Japan

Before our meal, the waiter brought out five huge slabs of beef wrapped in cloth, three slabs of American Wagyu and 2 of true Japanese Wagyu. The marbling in the meat was apparent to the eye, just beautiful and mouth-watering.

I went with the American Wagyu 10oz Rib Eye, while others ordered Bone-In Filet Mignon, New York Sirloin, Colorado Lamb Chops with Cucumber Mint Raita, and Kobe Beef Short Ribs "Indian Spiced" and cooked for eight hours.

For a starter I had the bone marrow flan. I still prefer the cleaner and simpler mix of flavors of the Beef Marrow with Oxtail Marmalade at Blue Ribbon Restaurant in New York, but the bone marrow flan is damn impressive. Transformed into flan, the bone marrow lost a bit of that marrow flavor I love so much, but in combination with the mushroom marmalade it made for one fancy bread spread.

Seven waiters delivered our entrees, setting them down in front of us with the choreographed timing of a theme park fountain show. I cut a piece of my rib eye, cooked rare plus, and dipped it into the shallot-red wine bordelaise sauce. Then I put it in my mouth, and about 1.7 seconds later, as I finished my first bite, I went to a happy place. The marbling produced a rib eye with the consistency of foie gras. It was spectacular.

Dessert of banana cream pie and chocolate souffle brought traffic in my remaining arteries to a standstill. As far as steak dinners go, this was one of the more memorable ones of my life. I may not eat another piece of beef for the remainder of the year, but if so, the memory of the various cuts I tasted last night will tide me over.

Technorati Tags: dining, food, LA, restaurants, steak

LA's stars

The Michelin guide for LA and Las Vegas cameout, and EaterLA has the star count summary.

I've been in LA a year but have not really explored the "fine" dining scene much at all. Besides Melisse and Spago and Matsuhisa I haven't heard of any of these starred LA restaurants. The value here seems to be in ethnic food, always to be ignored by guides like Michelin which value ambience and service.

Dark

Via Eric and Christina: the latest branch of a unique restaurant opens in Beijing, China. These so-called dark restaurants put a twist on the dining experience: you eat in complete darkness, guided to your seat and through the meal by visually-impaired waitstaff wearing night-vision goggles.

The goal is two-fold. One is to increase employment opportunities for the visually-impaired and raise awareness of the challenges they have to overcome. A second is to enhance your appreciation of the taste of the food by shutting down one of your other primary senses.

Add that to the list of novelty dining experiences, like Ninja Restaurant. There are Dans Le Noir restaurants in several major cities around the world.

The bathrooms, wisely, are brightly lit. There are some affairs one should conduct without the help of a spotter, for the benefit of both parties.

Pinkberry

The dessert chain Pinkberry is all the rage in Southern California. They serve "frozen yogurt" in a clean, minimalist store with Philippe Starck furniture and sell designer accessories like $60 dog bowls.

I put quote around frozen yogurt because the Pinkberry Wikipedia page links to a now pay-blocked archive article in the LA Times in which they sent samples of Pinkberry to a lab that found that it did not contain enough bacterial cultures per gram to qualify to call their product "frozen yogurt" with all its attendant health benefits.

I think it tastes fresh, with more of that sour true yogurt taste than stuff like TCBY's in the 80's, but at $5 for a medium (8 oz) 3 topping yogurt, it ain't cheap, and the lines at the stores during peak hours are more than it's worth.

I don't know which store inspired which, but a whole host of frozen yogurt competitors have sprouted up, all clustering around similar sounding names. Besides Pinkberry, there's Red Mango, Kiwiberri, Snowberry, Yogurberry, IceBerry, and Berri Good. Straight from Korea to LA, it's the frozen yogurt revival.

Eric and I have discussed opening a business selling toppings right next door to Pinkberry locations. Customers could save the $0.95 they charge per topping by ordering their yogurt plain and then walking next door to choose from our even larger and cheaper selection of toppings. $0.95 for a teaspoon of Fruity Pebbles?

And a side of angioplasty, please

Some insane doughnuts offered at the Portland eatery Voodoo Doughnut. A maple bacon doughnut?

How about the Triple Chocolate Penetration (chocolate doughnut, chocolate glaze, and Cocoa Puffs):

You can find other interesting ones on the menu, some not safe for a child's eyes (though anyone with an imagination can probably connect the dots using some common donut shapes).

Technorati Tags: dining, eating, food, restaurants

The river

I'm still recovering from a weekend in Vegas for Betina's wedding. Good times, though exhausting. If I ever stayed there for more than a weekend I'd surely end up like Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas. Two cruel and stone-faced blackjack dealers nearly made it a costly weekend, but I managed to fight back valiantly at a poker table and a blackjack table, finally surfacing into the black sometime around 4am on Sunday morning.

Get your order in now for the 2005 vintage of Marilyn Merlot.

A list of the world's fastest growing religions. High birthrates in countries where a religion dominates are critical for growing the religion.

SomeEcards offers e-cards for the modern, sardonic sensibility. I'll definitely be sending some of these in the near future (some are funny but borderline NSFW).

Steampunk Star Wars desktops.

RetailMeNot collects coupons for online shopping sites. They offer a Firefox extension that notifies you when there's a coupon for the online shopping site you're visiting (there's also a Dashboard widget).

Tim Allen to star in the mixed martial arts drama Redbelt which David Mamet wrote and will direct. Huh?

Technorati Tags: desktop, film, humor, movies, coupon, religion, shopping, wallpaper, wine

Budget kitchen

Mark Bittman advises readers how to assemble a well-equipped kitchen for $200 to $300 by hitting up restaurant supply houses. The low prices he quotes for many kitchen tools are impressive.

The economics of The Godfather.

The Visual Effects Society announced its list of the 50 most influential visual effects films of all time (remember, the difference between visual effects and special effects are that the latter must be done on set, e.g. blowing up a car, turning on a smoke machine). The top 10:

1. Star Wars (1977)
2. Blade Runner (1982)
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
3. The Matrix (1999)
5. Jurassic Park (1993)
6. Tron (1982)
7. King Kong (1933)
8. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
9. Alien (1979)
10. The Abyss (1989)

RIP Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Can't say it bothers me much. The show never really grabbed me.

Technorati Tags: cooking, economics, film, howto, movies, tools, tv

Tidbits

Lousy placement of a Yahoo ad at a baseball stadium.

Mozy offers 2GB of free online file backup for Mac users. Their unlimited backup service is only $5 a month which is not a bad deal. You get backup religion the first time your hard drive dies and takes your MP3 collection to the grave with it (Disclosure: that link contains my referral code, and for every four customers I refer I get 1GB additional free backup).

"As Hotel Prices Rise, a Villa May Be a Bargain" - the headline says it all. I want to stay in a villa!

Mmm, now this is some fresh sashimi (YouTube)

Technorati Tags: food, humor, internet, tech, travel, video, web, youtube

World's 50 Best Restaurants

This list of the world's top 50 best restaurants brought to you by S.Pellegrino. The top 10:

1 El Bulli (Spain)
2 The Fat Duck (UK)
3 Pierre Gagnaire (France)
4 The French Laundry (USA)
5 Tetsuya's (Australia)
6 Bras (France)
7 Mugaritz (Spain)
8 Le Louis XV (Monaco)
9 Per Se (USA)
10 Arzak (Spain)

Alinea cracks the top 50 with the best showing of any new restaurant to the list, landing at #36.

Technorati Tags: bestof, food, list, dining, restaurants

Ovens of desire

Super oven (via Pogue's Posts)! Cooks up to 15x faster than a conventional oven: Roast a 12 lb turkey in 42 minutes, bake a Chicago 12 inch deep dish pizza in 6.5 minutes, and bake a 9 inch apple cranberry pie in 12 minutes. Used by Starbucks and Subway and, for those who want more illustrious names, Charlie Trotter and Gray Kunz, the TurboChef Speedcook oven makes the "time is money" equation as tangible as can be, costing $5,995 for a solo unit and $7,895 if paired with a conventional oven.

For that price, you're within striking distance of a Rational CombiMaster. I saw one during a tour of the kitchen at Per Se, and after hearing about its combination steam and hot air cooking mode, I vowed that someday I'd own one, even if I didn't have the restaurant to house it.

Technorati Tags: gadgets, cooking

RIP Momofuku Ando

The founder of Nissin Food Products and the inventor of instant noodles, Momofuku Ando passed away at the age of 96 today. In honor, I plan to eat a bowl of chicken ramen today. In the last half century, I can't think of too many food inventions that have had a greater impact on my life.

I'm surprised that ramen with Omega-3 and other nutritional supplements hasn't hit the market. Given its popularity and its relative lack of nutrients, ramen has always been a guilty pleasure. A brand offering the same taste with even a hint of nutritional benefit would do quite well, I suspect.

Technorati Tags: food, obit

A visual pun?

Coming back from a Christmas morning brunch with my family at Joe Shanghai's, I spotted this not so subtle ad on a Chinatown store window and had to snap it with my cameraphone.

The name "bubble tea" comes from "boba tea," as it was known in Taiwan where I first encountered it in 1982. "Boba" is Chinese slang for breasts, or, in a strange phonetical coincidence, boobs.

Technorati Tags: advertising, food, photo

Thanksgiving redux

A few highlights from Thanksgiving, which I spent at my parents' place in Temecula (yes, I'm really behind):

• I ordered a turducken from New Orleans this year. We had traditional turkey on Thanksgiving day, and then the next night we branched out into the turducken. It arrived on dry ice and was simple enough to prepare. Thaw, cover, and bake in the oven for 4.5 to 6 hours, until the meat was at 165 degrees inside. Because it was mostly boneless, carving was much easier than with a normal turkey. The meat was tasty, seasoned with cajun spices. But in the end, I couldn't fully embrace the concept. Here's the problem: with the shipping price of over $30, a turducken ends up costing about $100. Yes, you save on some preparation time because it arrives cleaned, stuffed, seasoned, and ready to bake, but I didn't detect any synergies from embedding a duck inside a chicken inside a turkey. In fact, many people find it disgusting. I don't, but I also think you're better off just buying a duck, a chicken, and a turkey separately and preparing each as its own dish. The turducken was nothing more than the sum of its parts, while I was expecting something more.
• At every holiday gathering in our family, there is one comic sketch or movie that recurs in conversation over and over again. This year it was the David Blaine street magic spoof. Mike and Jason and Linda, among others, had sent it to me the week before, and on Wednesday night, while waiting for traffic to die down, I watched it at home. Brilliant, especially since James has shown me so many David Blaine street magic videos in the past.
• My parents live just on the other side of an Indian reservation. Just over the wall, on the reservation, is a house on the side of a hill. It's surrounded with a wooden fence, and on the fence is painted, in brown paint: "F*** U" (but without the asterisks). It has been there as long as I can remember. Somehow, on Thanksgiving, a holiday first celebrated between Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians, and given the subsequent history between the settlers from Europe and the Native Americans, that graffiti greeting seemed more appropriate than ever.
• A few of us did pay restitution to the Native Americans, in a way, by giving business to Pechanga Resort and Casino, the largest casino in California. Much to my dismay, those lucky few did not include me. It's a running joke now. Every holiday in Temecula, I want to make a pilgrimage to Pechanga, but no one will go with me and I feel so guilty about leaving the family to go by myself that I abstain.
• Other things that are a bit of a family tradition include some heated board game contest. This was the first family gathering in a long time which did not include such a contest. But it doesn't matter what the game is...it could be a game of pure chance, it always feels like a Yankees-Red Sox game. It's all giggles and smiles and hugs until a game is proposed, and then everyone dons their game faces.

Technorati Tags: food, humor, thanksgiving, turkey, video, youtube

Chips

Beta test some new Kettle Brand Potato Chips flavors.

Cinematical has compiled the YouTube links to every Bond opening credit sequence ever.

Louis Menand on the new Thomas Pynchon novel Against the Day:

[It] is a very imperfect book. Imperfect not in the sense of “Ambitious but flawed.” Imperfect in the sense of “What was he thinking?”

Online only, in this week's New Yorker, five different Thanksgiving-themed covers by Chris Ware.

Technorati Tags: books, comics, film, food, movies, chrisware, thanksgiving

Q&A

Thanksgiving stuffing--in the bird or out? Mark Bittman recommends out, in which case it's dressing, not stuffing.

Do you really need a 1080p TV, or will 1080i suffice? You're probably okay with just 1080i, marketing literature notwithstanding.

Does Daisuke Matsuzaka throw the gyroball or not? Will Carroll published a new article (you have to be a subscriber to read it, unfortunately) on Baseball Prospectus today stating that he does believe now that Matsuzaka throw the gyroball, but that he doesn't yet have control over which type he throws. There appear to be two variations that differ based on the tilt of the axis of rotation. If it points up, the ball moves more laterally away from a right-handed batter (all this assumes a right-handed pitcher). If it tilts down, the pitch actually breaks in on a right-handed batter. Carroll pointed to this video of Matsuzaka as having the closest rendition of a pure gyroball:

You know what I enjoy about watching Japanese pitchers? They tend to have long, deliberate motions with high leg kicks, long windups, with hands and feet tracing wide arcs around their bodies (many also have these odd pauses or hitches that mess up the batter's timing). It's old school. Not many pitchers have such motions anymore (as a Cubs fan, Mark Prior and Kerry Wood's super simple deliveries come to mind, in contrast to a guy like Kevin Appier). I love watching old videos of guys like Luis Tiant or Sandy Koufax, with their huge leg kicks. Every pitch looked like a complex series of coordinated motions requiring maximum exertion to pull off correctly.

Technorati Tags: baseball, cooking, electronics, food, gadgets, pitcher, pitching, gyroball, recipe, shopping, thanksgiving, turkey

Hmm

Economics can be applied to all sorts of decisions, e.g. the costs and benefits of a bikini wax.

You've heard of the turducken, but how about the turduckencorpheail? The osturduckencorpheail? Or the bustergophechideckneaealckideverwingailusharkolanine?, a 17 bird nested bird roast served at a royal feast in France in the 19th century? Sounds disgusting? I'm not sure the nested vegetarian concoction, the tofucken, has any more appetizing an appellation. Apparently the rule on nested birds is that their name must be nested to create a monstrosity similar in nature to the dish itself. [thx to Joannie]

The trailer for the Simpsons movie.

Technorati Tags: dining, dish, economics, food, movies, simpsons, recipe, timharford, trailer, turducken

Moo

At long last, Verizon activated DSL at my apartment and I'm back online though it will take me a good week to catch up on e-mails. Actually, wiith seven classes and about 475 boxes to unpack, it may never happen. But I'll try.

***

Moo.com is offering the first 10,000 Flickr Pro users who respond 10 free MiniCards which are like business cards with one of your Flickr photos on one side and text on the other. For non-pro users it's $19.99 for a set of 100, and you can print a different photo on each card if you want.

Finally, I will have 10 business cards to pass out to all the new people I'm meeting here in LA.

***

Audrey sent me a link to this M&M Dark Chcolate product launch movie puzzle online. It's a poster with visual clues for 50 "dark" movies (horror, for example). Good fun, though I'll have to tackle this in earnest some other time when I have a free block of time (which, judging from my courseload, will be sometime in mid 2007).

Dark chocolate M&M's? Sounds tasty to me. I was a dark chocolate Kit Kat addict when those came out, and occasionally I still have to satisfy my cravings by sourcing them through eBay. Because dark chocolate melts at a higher temperature than regular chocolate, it can completely transform a once familiar candy, often in a wonderful way.

***

Cinematographer Style is a movie about, yes, cinematographers, following in the tradition of Visions of Light. Documentaries about filmmaking specialties seem to come in twos, e.g. The Cutting Edge and Edge Codes.com, both documentaries on editing. I was sad that I was unable to catch a screening of Cinematographer Style at the DGA theater in LA tonight. I just love this type of stuff, especially now that I'm in the biz, sort of.

***

Some economists surveyed 3,200 high school seniors and estimated which of two colleges students would choose if they were admitted to both. The resulting matrix is here. Harvard was the one university that won its head to head matchup with every other college in the survey.

El Bulli

Mark Bittman on El Bulli and Ferran Adrià in today's NYTimes. I guess he's not doing foam anymore.

If you offered me the opportunity to eat at one restaurant tomorrow, anywhere in the world, El Bulli would be the choice. That just lumps me in with probably half the other foodies in the world.

Sometimes, just to torture myself, I browse El Bulli's general catalogue and gaze at the photos. You might scoff at applying such nomenclature to food, but scan some of his creations first. They are examples of food elevated to art.

I've eaten at several Adrià-inspired restaurants in the U.S., and if you have the chance, I highly recommend Alinea in Chicago. Grant Achatz is the Lebron James of American chefs.

Links

New David Sedaris piece in The New Yorker this week. Also an interesting article on neuroeconomics.

Harold McGee answers some common questions about kitchen science on Chow.com, like what's the difference between pressed and chopped garlic and is it safe to heat food in plastic in the microwave.

50 Years of Janus Films - a 50 DVD box set. Pre-order before October 24 for $650, actually a bargain at $13 a disc. Drool.

Zyb - a site to back up your cell phone contact info. The service is free and works with over 200 mobile phones. Useful.

BP's Statistical Review of World Energy 2006.

One of my questions to Gothamist was posted to Ask Gothamist, though unfortunately the response didn't go live until I'd already left NYC. Before I left, I did find this useful list of places in NYC to donate goods of all types.

Trailer for Johnny To's next movie, a spaghetti Western transplanted to macau, Fong Juk or Exiled as it's known in English. Oh, I wish I were at the Toronto International Film Festival. Exiled opened there to strong reviews.

Trailer for the next animated feature from Satoshi Kon, Paprika. If I knew how to read Japanese, I could actually tell you something about the movie. Early buzz, though sparse, is good.

I wasn't a huge fan of Tony Jaa's Tom Yum Goong, but it sounds like the condensed version from the Weinsteins, retitled The Protector, is even worse. Oh well, we can shift our hopes onto Ong Bak 2, which Jaa will direct himself.

Happy Labor Day

A thorough explanation of why Chinese is so difficult to learn. I grew up hearing Chinese in the house and even attended some Chinese school, and I found it to be a bear. I never did really learn to write or read cursive Chinese handwriting very well (yes, Chinese has both print and cursive, like English), another item I'd add to this writer's litany of complaints. Just when you think you've memorized a character, someone scrawls it in their own cursive style and it's as if someone took a print character's brush strokes and tied them in butterfly knots. Of course, without cursive, writing Chinese, with its numerous strokes, is like writing English in neat block capital letters...sloooooooooow).

Curse of the Golden Flower, a movie by Zhang Yimou, starring Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat, releases this Christmas season (trailer). Yeah, I hate dandelions, too, but I wouldn't go so far as to call them a curse.

Crocodile hunter, felled by a stingray. Stung through the heart by a stingray...brutal. I guess it should be obvious from their names, but I didn't realize stingrays were that dangerous. Earlier this year, on a dive trip down in the Turks and Caicos islands, Dave and I fed stingrays just off the beach with some fish our guides had brought along for that purpose. We were soon overrun with stingrays, and one ran up my back and bit me. I popped out of the water, and Dave said the ray had drawn blood. Shortly thereafter, two lemon sharks wandered over, and I hustled out of the ocean.

Get your bootleg Van Goghs and Da Vincis: a city in China is the world's leading producer of reproductions of famous paintings. It doesn't surprise me one bit.

A computer program named WebCrow defeated dozens of human competitors in a crossword puzzle competition. Humans managed to defeat the program in two Italian crosswords featuring lots of puns and political clues.

That green lump that resembles playdough, the one they dump on your platter of sushi? That's not wasabi. Real, fresh wasabi is rarely served at sushi restaurants, but whenever a sushi restaurant offers it I'll request it. Real wasabi is not as hot as the faux stuff, but it's better for you. Unfortunately, the real deal costs a fortune.

Michael Apted's next in his Up documentary series is about to release. He interviewed many children at age 7 about their lives and dreams for 7 Up, and since then, he's gone back to check up on them every 7 years (each doc in the series is named after the age of the characters, so 14 Up, 21 Up, and so on). This next installment will be 49 Up. All the previous installments are on DVD.

The new Sunday Night Football theme (MP3) is by none other than John Williams.

Four words no man wants to hear: bleeding in the scrotum. It's been that kind of year for the Cubs.

HiveLive is a site that allows you to post and share files and information among public or private hives, or groups of people.

The Statistical Review of World Energy 2006, by British Petroleum, including historical data series in Excel format.

You got the touch! Feel, feel, feel, feel, feel...feel my heat!

Corddry leaves TDS, I leave NYC

I spent the entire weekend packing. I want to shoot myself. Before I go dark for my cross-country move, a few links from my final bit of housecleaning here.

I complained just the other week about the quality of YouTube videos. Stage6 is a YouTube knockoff, but using DivX encoding, so the video quality is much much better (for example, or another). Its selection is so miniscule it's laughable when compared to that of YouTube, but I look forward to the day when we surfers can have both selection and quality in online video aggregators. There's no reason we can't right now.

Speaking of YouTube, I'm Really, Really, Really Excited! Every hot new online community crowns its stars, and Bree (lonelygirl15) is YouTube's. I'm reminded of the mystery video footage which generated a cult-like following in William Gibson's Pattern Recognition.

Rob Corddry's has spread his wings and flown the Daily Show coop. Last Thursday was his last episode, and he follows in the footsteps of Colbert and Carell as Daily Show stars who sought greener pastures. The Daily Show is the Oakland A's of comedic television, launching talented funnymen but unable to retain their services once they achieve stardom. Except for Jon Stewart, of course. He's The Daily Show's Billy Beane, I guess.

I always wondered if the movie Sideways sank sales of merlot, and a brief scan of some older articles on the web seems to indicate only a mild effect, if any. But pinot noir sales got a boost. I'd been a fan of pinot noir for a few years before the movie came out, but the movie spurred a boost in production that has flooded the market with pinots that lack the earthy taste of the terroir that I loved. Many pinots now taste like syrahs, and it seems as if you have to spend upwards of $25 to $30 a bottle before you find a decent pinot.

Two researchers claim to have solved the "cocktail party problem," or how to separate one recorded voice from a group of other voices and sounds.

Tony Jaa's The Protector (I guess The Weinsteins weren't too impressed by its original title, Tom Yum Goong) is a huge letdown, especially after Ong Bak, but you wouldn't know it from the trailer, which features Jaa depositing his elbow and knees in a variety of unfortunate stuntmen.

Majority of "To Cross Street Push Button" buttons in NYC are placebos. I've long suspected that most "Close Door" buttons in elevators are also dummies, also.

Show me the money

Talk about a horse: just one day after throwing 178 pitches in a 15 inning tie, Japanese high school pitcher Yuki Saito came back to throw a 118 pitch complete game victory to lead his team to its first National high School Baseball Championship title. It was Saito's fourth complete game in four days, and in the tournament he threw 948 pitches in seven games. My shoulder exploded just reading that.

Tim Harford uses game theory to explain why engagement rings came about. So that's why women want a huge rock! It's a security deposit on the marriage, so the larger the better.

Frank Bruni's first impression of L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon: very pricey, with slightly scattered service, but quietly thrilling. It's still in its soft opening (no reservations taken yet) so I've been thinking of stopping in for one last decadent meal before leaving NYC. But with prices like those...perhaps I'll just stop in, order Robuchon's famous potato puree (which happens to be my favorite potato dish ever; here is one online recipe, here is another), surrender my Amex, clap and spread my hands palms up like a blackjack dealer leaving a table, and walk out.

Bottom of the 9th

Okay, I'm back from a busy but enjoyable wedding weekend in Seattle (mostly Whidbey Island) and entering my final week in NYC. I do need a post at some point on just the weddings I've attended this year. By the end of October, I will have attended 8 out of 11 weddings, a record for me (I'm not the only one who climbed a wedding peak this summer). I had hoped to see many people in Seattle, but too much of travel is consumed by long security lines at airports these days (I'd been told to get to the airport three hours early for domestic flights, but the security lines turned out to be about the same as they were prior to the whole elemental profiling campaign against liquids). I will have to return to Seattle again soon, though. The summer weather there is perfectly neutral, such that you don't feel hot or cold, just an equilibrium between skin and air.

I made one concession to my culinary memory and stopped at Salumi for a sandwich. Salumi, an Italian Salumeria exported to the Pacific Northwest, is the creation of Armandino Batali, Mario Batali's father. It's my favorite Seattle restaurant, and they've begun shipping meats online through their website.

Things may go dark here for a bit as I'm canceling cable and Internet service in the next day or two, though I will try to siphon an hour or so of Internet oxygen through my neighbor's Linksys wireless router from time to time. But most of my time will be spent packing and walking the streets of New York, trying to swallow the anguish of leaving this, the city of my heart.

One of the things that will serve as a weekly rebuke of my departure for the West coast will be the weekly arrival of The New Yorker and the NY Times. So many sections of The New Yorker come to life when you actually live in the city, from Tables for Two and every other section of Goings on About Town to Hilton Als's and Anthony Lane's reviews of local theater and cinema. Before I lived in NYC, I just ignored Goings on About Town. Now that I've lived here, I will peruse it each week from afar and weep at the cultural riches just out of reach. Why would I torture myself thus? I don't know, but I believe Odysseus would empathize. Odysseus had his men stuff their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast of his ship when sailing past the Sirens so he could hear their irresistible song but not chase after it.

Speaking of The New Yorker, this week's issue is a good one, including Malcolm Gladwell again on the silliness of having companies supply health insurance and pensions, a system that cripples companies when their dependency ratios soar; George Saunders helping Iran to find some alternatives to popular English phrases that have infected its language; and James Surowiecki on the dubious ethics of management buyouts.

Okay, back to boxing and taping.

Perhaps this will shorten the lunch lines at Shake Shack

Shake Shack fails health inspection, earning 140 violation points from the NYC Department of Health. The average NY restaurant scores a 12, and a score of 28 or lower is required in order to pass the health inspection. Eater has posted the official response from Danny Meyer and company's Union Square Hospitality Group (thx to Anne for the heads up).

Product feature: does the body good

A gallon of milk on Amazon.com inspires hundreds of customer reviews. Ships from Gristedes in New York. I priced out what it would cost to ship to me here in NYC, and it came out to $30.24, with expedited shipping, which I highly recommend for milk.

Toyota about to pass GM to become the world's largest automaker, though they've been fighting some quality issues recently. I remember when our family first purchased a Toyota Cressida, it might as well have been a Bentley to us. We later participated in the Camry tsunami.

Domaines Ott and French rosé wines are the new hot summer drink. What I find most surprising from this article, though, is that Alex Kapranos, lead singer of Franz Ferdinand, is a food columnist for The Guardian, and Jay McInerney is wine columnist for House & Garden.

"My other vehicle is a Gulfstream." I just enjoy that article's title. Private air travel is tough on the environment because of the outrageous fuel consumption, so I always try to airpool when I take my jet to Aspen or Jackson Hole, cuz that's how I roll. Okay, that's not true. I've only flown in a private jet once, and that trip confirmed that private jets is heaven compared to the human cattle call that is commercial air travel.

Floyd Landis's B-sample came back positive, so his team Phonak fired him. Now USA Cycling and the US Anti-Doping Agency will prepare a case against him while Landis and his team prepare his defense. It will be months before we hear a verdict, though the court of public and media opinion works has already issued theirs. On the "Top Ten Landis Excuses" piece on David Letterman, number nine was "Who can resist Balco's delicious 'spicy chipotle' flavor." Landis posted a statement on his weblog yesterday and a response to the B-sample positive test today.

The pilot for Aaron Sorkin's new TV show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip leaked onto YouTube this week, then was promptly pulled. So I can just link to this 6 minute promo (begins with a riff on Network, beats up on NBC's own SNL, and makes a joke about Sorkin's coke habit) and 30 second trailer. Anyhow, this is all an excuse to tell a short story about my apartment hunt in L.A. At the first apartment I went to visit in Santa Monica, a bald guy named Evan answered the door. He looked really familiar, like someone I'd seen on TV or in a movie, but I just couldn't place him. So I didn't say anything. He showed me his apartment and was really generous with his time, explaining the neighborhood and its nearby attractions. He mentioned that he'd done the New York to LA move also, and that I should keep an open mind to LA (I'm in depression over leaving NY for LA right now). He never mentioned his work, but after I left his apartment, and as I was filling out an application, I realized who he was. Evan played Charlotte's flame Harry Goldenblatt on Sex and the City, the role for which he's most known, and he'll be in the pilot of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I didn't end up taking his apartment because I got a roommate and needed more space, but it seemed appropriate that he be one of the first people I met in LA.

Google announces "All Our N-gram are Belong to You," which I think is pretty generous of them.

A/C, Tenacious D, Rainier C

Finally, I have air conditioning in my apartment again, and all is good again. A handy phrase to learn, one I learned from my sister, who is a lawyer, is "warrant of habitability."

Trailer for the upcoming Tenacious D movie The Pick of Destiny.

I found Rainier cherries for $2 a pound in Chinatown. They're my favorite, the queen of cherries, but seemingly not as widely known here on the East coast. Some people I've spoken to here think they're discolored Bing cherries.

Sometimes, mainstream media is late to cover topics, like the NYTimes here on HDR photography.

Pre-salting

Good article on Judy Rodgers of Zuni Cafe in San Francisco and her theories on pre-salting meat. Definitely something to try the next time I prepare roast chicken or pork chops or some other meat entree.

Once upon a tongue, in a faraway place

I was in China last year, and I jotted a few notes about the food in my journal:

My first meal in China was at one of the best Sichuan (Szechwan) restaurant in Beijing, Yu Xin. Straight off the plane, Eric and Christina wasted no time in tossing my stomach into the fire, literally. The spiciness of real Sichuan cuisine comes from mala, a spicy sauce of Chinese chilies and assorted seasonings like sesame oil and Sichuan peppercorns. The word "ma" refers to numbness, the word "la" to the spiciness, so mala spells out its effect: it burns and numbs at the same time. The numbness actually allows you to eat more of it than you would otherwise.

The first dish that came out was a meat dish, but it was unclear from its appearance what the dish contained other than diced chilies. I had to send my chopsticks burrowing deep into the mountain of chilies to find a chunk of chicken. By the end of the meal I'd lost all feeling in my mouth, but that didn't wipe the big grin off my jetlagged face. The problem with eating lots of mala is that all other types of food taste bland in comparison.

The toughest restaurant to get a table at in all of China? Kentucky Fried Chicken (ken da ji). Far more popular than McDonald's. It's so popular that another chain of restaurants knocked off KFC's logo, colors, and mascot. Yes, there's another restaurant with a Chinese-looking colonel and the white lettering on red background, but that restaurant doesn't serve fried chicken at all. I didn't have time to walk into one to see what they served, but its existence seemed appropriate in a place where respect for copyrights is about as scarce as toilet paper in public bathrooms.

The hottest new American export to the Chinese dining scene since my last visit? Starbucks ("xing ba ke" in Chinese, xing meaning "star" and ba ke simply being a phonetic rendering of bucks). There's one in the Forbidden City. We stayed with Joannie's friend Arthur and his wife in Guangzhou. We asked him what he liked to do for fun, when he wasn't cranking out sneakers for Nike (he worked at a supplier to the Swoosh). He said his favorite event of the month was every other week, when he and his wife would drive 45 minutes to an hour into the heart of the city to get Starbucks.

In China people actually don't use soy sauce much. Soy sauce and egg rolls and General Tso's chicken, they're all largely staples of the Americanized version of Chinese food. In China, they prefer vinegar use it instead of soy sauce as seasoning, for example, for dumplings.

My visit two weeks ago to Beijing was another culinary adventure. Christina and Eric are among the more passionate foodies in my circle of friends, and the week's worth of activities they organized for everyone leading up to their wedding included visits to many of their favorite restaurants.

That was music to my mouth. I don't look forward to the cuisine in every country I visit (many of the stops on my E. European visit earlier this year left much to be desired from a dining perspective), but China is a culinary mecca. On my visits there, I look forward to eating as much as or more than sightseeing.

Some meals I remember from this trip...

Our first lunch was at Lei Garden, a fairly new restaurant to Beijing. I don't believe it was there last year when I visited, but it's the newest branch of a high-end Cantonese restaurant chain that first achieved renown in Singapore. For those who love Chinese food but don't possess the most adventurous of palates, this is the perfect restaurant. The restaurant, tucked away on the third floor of a somewhat sober business building, is elegant and polished, and the service is top-notch. As for the food, when I found out we were returning to Lei Garden for the rehearsal dinner, I delivered a celebratory chest bump to the next guy I saw in the street, sending him scampering away in fear.

For one of our dinners, we visited the Qianmen branch of Quan Ju De (English website), the famous Beijing (Peking) duck restaurant. Roasted over a fruitwood flame, the duck arrives with a crispy skin and tender, juicy meat. Carved tableside and served in a wrap with scallion and plum sauce, it's a dish I can never pass on. Quan Ju De has the reputation of being the top roast duck purveyor in Beijing, though there are whispers of declining quality and worthy challengers. If you're only in town for a quick vacation, though, it's the safe choice.

Our dinner the next night was at Qiao Jiang Nan. What I remember most about our meal here, in a private banquet room, was that all the waitresses were wearing one-piece tennis outfits, much like the one Nicole Vaidisova is sporting here. I realize this seems like an excuse to reuse this picture of Nicole, but this is honestly the first photo of this type of outfit I could find. At any rate, I felt like we were eating at the clubhouse at Wimbledon.

Perhaps my favorite meal of the trip was at Ding Ding Xiang, a Mongolian hotpot restaurant which bills itself as "Hotpot Paradise." It's not boasting if it's true. It instantly moves onto my list of restaurants and dishes that will haunt me forever. My second day back from China, I actually did have a dream about eating there again, and when I woke up I nearly cried at the cold slap of reality. At Ding Ding Xiang, everyone gets their own personal hotpot, set on top of a flame. Each diner can select one of several different broths to serve as the base of their hotpot. Christina helped Jed and I out and chose the mushroom stock.

I saw abalone on the menu and had to order it, despite it being the priciest of the dishes. I adore abalone. The waiter actually brought it out for our perusal, and it was still moving! I'd never seen one live before. We also ordered lamb, a whole slew of mushrooms, spinach and other greens, and a whole lot more. The presentation was gorgeous, and the hotpot was simply the most delicious I've ever had, and I've had more than my fair share over the years. I'll be dreaming about that meal for years to come, and it is unequivocally my top restaurant recommendation from this visit to Beijing. The next time I visit, it will be my first stop upon leaving the airport.

As for changes from my visit last year, the Starbucks in the Forbidden City is no longer there. Our guide told us the Congress over there gave it the boot. All the other branches of Starbucks remain a huge hit, however, and Kentucky Fried Chicken is still the king of the fast food restaurants in China. I did not eat there this trip, but I am also not one of those foodie or travel snobs who turns their nose up in disgust at the mere sight of a KFC or McDonald's.

I think it's somewhat of a waste to spend a meal at McDonald's or KFC when abroad, especially when most of what they serve is available back home. But, even as an American, I don't flog myself every time I spot a branch abroad, and I no longer recoil in horror if someone has to duck in under the Golden Arches for the taste of something familiar. The typical travel snob who holds everything foreign on a pedestal can't ignore that most American fast food franchises abroad stay in business primarily through the traffic from locals. I find it interesting to gauge foreign perceptions of American restaurants and culture, and fast food restaurants are an easy barometer.

It's also been many years since I've harbored any illusions that any popular travel destinations are hermetically sealed time machines, completely devoid of other tourists or influences from home. Wherever I go, I see American movies, travelers, books, music, and yes, more than a few frappuccinos and Big Macs. If a complete absence of anything American is the only way you'll be satisfied, then consider that your presence abroad is probably ruining some other travel snob's vacation.

One last food story. I've always been a fairly adventurous, open-minded eater. My mom forced me to clean my plate, to sample something from every dish. Whether it was innate or trained, my broad palate has been with me for as long as I remember. It's a high risk, high reward dining strategy. At times, as with drunken shrimp in Hong Kong, it ends with gustatory ecstasy. At other times, as with some bad (though tasty at the time of consumption) ceviche in Quito, it has sent me to the hospital.

Last year during my visit to Beijing, a bunch of us went for a stroll down a well-known food alley near the Wangfujing neighborhood of Beijing. There, we stumbled upon more than one street vendor hawking some creatures I'd never thought of as food before. They were impaled on kabobs. The mere sight of them was fearsome, but after an initial bout of revulsion, I tried to summon my stomach, so to speak. More than few people from our travel party were there, and an audience usually amplifies my dining bravado. I asked the vendor how much for a kabob, and he said they were 10RMB, or just over $1.

I took a deep breath. Okay, I'd eaten a fried grasshopper before, surely this was not much different. I could do this, and I'd have a story to share for years to come. After all, they were deep fried, right? The vendor reached out for one of the kabobs, for another customer, and that's when the true nature of what I'd be attempting became clear.

These creatures' legs started waving wildly, even as they were impaled on the kabobs.

"I thought they were fried!?" I gasped in Chinese.

"No!" said the vendor, recoiling in horror. "Much better alive. Fresh!"

I couldn't do it. We walked away, but not before I grabbed some video of these unique creatures, both pre and post skewering. These creatures should be familiar to most people (view either the 320 x 240 high quality or the 640 x 480 medium quality Quicktime clip, both about 3.5MB), though perhaps not as a snack.

I'll eat most things, but not everything. I don't know who has the unfortunate job of having to prepare these creatures nor how they do it. I don't know how they ensure you aren't injured or even poisoned when biting one of these while they're still alive. You can ask for them deep fried, but even on my return trip this year I couldn't pull the trigger.

After my initial encounter, just as we turned to leave, a young boy of perhaps 7 or 8 years old walked by with his father. The boy had a kabob of these and had chewed the head off of one.

His t-shirt read: "You are what you eat."

Bone marrow

In this interview, Anthony Bourdain lists Fergus Henderson's roast bone marrow with parsley salad as his "last meal before you die." I saw that in another article also, maybe it was in GQ. Here is the recipe.

If you're in NYC, perhaps the closest you'll come to trying this dish (without cooking it yourself, of course) is at Blue Ribbon Manhattan with their beef marrow and oxtail marmalade appetizer. Spread it over some crostini, sprinkle on some sea salt...soooo delicious. It's my favorite late night post going-out munchy cure.

Henderson has written a book titled The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating, the first edition of which is a treasured tome among foodies and chefs.

The Bourdain interview is a hoot, by the way. On vegetarians: "Joyless, angry, frightened, anti-human, and just plain rude. How can you travel and be a vegetarian? I don't like my grandma's cooking, but at least I try it."

On amuse bouches: "I think I've had enough amuses. I'm not amused anymore."

On non-smoking laws: "I'll stand out in the cold and smoke until I drop. All the cool people are outside anyway. In New York, there are people who actually pretend to smoke, because that's where all the cool women are."

On Rachael Ray: "A bad tipper. Come on -- ``$40 a Day''? I find her relentless good cheer terrifying and distrust anyone who could stand in front of a camera and eat mediocre food and say it's good. Be honest and say it sucks."

Da Da Da

When they come out with that list of 10 worst jobs next year, I think being a defense lawyer for Saddam Hussein has to make the cut.

Why do U.S. doctors continue to misdiagnose fatal illnesses about 20% of the time? Perhaps because the current medical system offers no incentives to improve.

A deadly flu from Asia strikes America. There is no cure, and if you catch it, and you have a 10% chance of dying. If you take a vaccine, it will protect you, but there' s a 5% chance the vaccine will kill you. What do you do? The correct answer is to take the vaccine, of course, but patients choose correctly more often if choosing for someone else than for themselves. Not entirely surprising. It's tough to think big picture when you're smack dab in the frame.
UPDATE: Sorry, as one of my readers John points out, I should have said you have a 10% chance of dying. That's not conditional on catching the flu or not. Otherwise you'd need to know what the chances of catching the flu are.

Using similarity scores, Richard Lu rates the NBA prospects coming out from the NCAA this year. At the top of the list? Ronnie Brewer. LaMarcus Aldridge ranked 6, Brandon Roy 8, and Tyrus Thomas 11. Overall, the similarity scores confirm what most people have said, that this is a weak draft.

Yes, Dan Brown is a terrible writer. But one popular indictment of his mega-bestseller is unfair. Referring to Leonardo as "da Vinci" in the title is not the same as referring to Jesus as "of Nazareth" (as explained here by Geoff Nunberg of The Language Log). You don't need a linguistics PhD to know this, though. People refer to me as "da man" all the time, and I'm totally cool with that.

The top 10 ultimate grills. At number one on the list is the gorgeous specimen pictured below:

This backyard set from Lynx Professional Grills has a 42" grill with access doors, double burner, storage drawers, warming drawer, beverage area with outdoor refrigerator, ice machine, and cocktail pro (a bar area with sink and faucet).

Tiny bubbles

How can best put $1 to use? The author's conclusion is to lend it via a microfinance organization.

Interactive population growth map. Covers the world from 1955 through 2015, helping to visualize the growth in urbanisation.

Man jokingly rents out tree house for $150/mo in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and receives 30 offers. Do you count as a rural or urban dweller if you live there?

As seen on the Chappelle Show, perhaps: the pre-sexual agreement.

Not happy with comments from Frederic Rouzaud, managing director of Louis Roederer, about hip-hop's long association with Cristal, Jay-Z has switched his allegiance to Krug and Dom Perignon. As a show of allegiance to my Man, I'm switching to Krug and Dom to fill my hot tub.

Revisiting 2 Nov 2004

Reserve your pair of Blu Fom sneakers commemorating Core77's eleventh anniversary. A collaboration between Fila and Core77, the limited run of 300 sneakers is available from Core77.

Google Sketchup is now available for Mac OS X. Google Earth Release 4 is now in beta.

Did Bush steal the 2004 election? Robert F. Kennedy Jr. thinks so. Cat Power, after her concert Friday night, told the audience to go out and read this article. Farhad Manjoo of Salon thinks Kennedy is off base. Then Kennedy and Manjoo traded another series of verbal parries.

Brushed chrome kitchen appliances are so yesterday. Give me a cast-iron range (really, because I can't afford it).

Looks like Sutton Foster is finally getting her own domain name to replace the Geocities page that was the top Google result for her name. She deserves the upgrade, Geocities being the trailer park of the Internet. I saw her in The Drowsy Chaperone Sunday and in Thoroughly Modern Millie a few years back. She's a charmer, and her story is the stuff of movies: unknown pulled out of the chorus to play the lead.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

Google Browser Sync is a Firefox plugin that syncs your Firefox browser settings across all your computers. Useful to me because I'm always bouncing between my desktop and laptop.

Al Qaeda leader Zarqawi is dead, killed in an air strike north of Baghdad.

Jon Stewart vs. Bill Bennett on gay marriage. If you wanted to send someone from the right to match wits with Jon Stewart on this issue, Bill Bennett probably isn't on the shortlist.

The Yoda backpack makes it seem as if Yoda is hanging on your back so you can look like Luke in The Empire Strikes Back. Pair this with a Force FX lightsaber and, well, you might as well lop off your manhood and put it in that backpack because it won't be getting any use.

Speaking of Star Wars, the DVDs for the original, unaltered Star Wars trilogy, Eps IV through VI, are being released in September, and the fans are already killing them with customer reviews on Amazon.com. All three DVDs currently average about 2 out of 5 stars in customer ratings. It's not just that fans are being forced to buy yet another set of Star Wars DVDs but that the original, unaltered movies will be released in non-anamorphic widescreen and will not have a new Dolby Digital 5.1 sound mix. Some fans say it's just the original laserdisc transfer (I own those laserdiscs, by the way). Oh, the horror.

An online strategy guide to rock, paper, scissors. There's even a book in print called The Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide. I went to a book reading/signing by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner today. It was fun to finally meet them in person. They mentioned that they're going to write a sequel to Freakonomics to be titled SuperFreakonomics. Their talk strayed to the topic of rock, paper, scissors. Phil Gordon is going to throw a $50,000 rock, paper, scissors tournament so Levitt can study the play. It just so happens that Levitt is studying the human ability or inability to randomize. He mentioned some initial studies that indicated that football (I think he meant European football) players are superior strategy randomizers. He's not sure why. If given 4 strategies to employ against each other, the optimal mix is something like 40/20/20/20 (or so Levitt said), and football players do that naturally. Rock, paper, scissors is a good test of that human ability. Gordon believes that some people are gifted randomizers and can consistently win at rock, paper, scissors, but it sounds like Levitt's skeptical since different people make the rock, paper, scissors finals each year.

Chip Kidd is the guest blogger at PowellsBooks this week. Among the his to-do's for the week:

• Design a cover for Christina Garcia's forthcoming novel, A Handbook to Luck.
• Construct and photograph a miniature set for Martin Amis's new novel, House of Meetings. By Thursday morning.
• Redesign a poster for a Pedro Almodovar film festival.
• Do the mechanical for Robert Hughes's Goya, newly in paperback.
• Get an approval on a jacket for a book on the history of relations between Jews, Muslims and Christians in the Middle East (by Zachary Karabell).
• Do research on a poster for Sofia Coppola's upcoming film, Marie Antoinette (I'm so, so behind on this and Sony's being very patient).
• Design a cover for a play by Cormac McCarthy, entitled Sunset Limited.
• Do same for Kim Deitch's new graphic novel, Alias The Cat, which I am also editing. And which rules.
• Reconfigure my design for the Surprise CD by Paul Simon in order to adapt it to, of all things, vinyl.

Even Danny Meyer's wife and kids have to wait in line at the Shake Shack.

Cover up

A list of exceptional cover songs, complete with MP3 downloads of the originals and the covers, so you can judge for yourself.

If, like me, you love seafood, especially fish, you'll find this updated list of guilt-free fish a handy reference. All these types of seafood are low in contaminants and not overfished. Here's an accompanying article. Put your fork down, your hands up, and back away from the Chilean sea bass.

If you go to the Nacho Libre website and navigate to the Nacho Libre Confessional, you can watch video clips from the set, starring Jack Black. Some of the episode titles of this video podcast include "Prelude to a waxing" and "Montezuma's Revenge." Just seeing Jack Black in costume, with the mustache, acts as sort of a comedic colonic.

Samples of the 6 new Microsoft typefaces.

A super score returns

SoundtrackNet reviews the new Superman Returns soundtrack by John Ottoman and offers sample clips from each track. I don't have high expectations for the movie as a whole, but two aspects of it really excite me. One is that 20 minutes of the movie, mostly action sequences, will be shown in IMAX 3D. The other is hearing some of John Williams' classic Superman cues revived for the big screen.

Use Javascript to add sidenotes to your web page. Awesome. I'll have to implement this since I'm so parenthetical happy.

It's not always better to buy than rent. Chris offers this rule of thumb: For every $100 you spend in rent a month, you�d be better off buying up to $12,500 in property instead. Tim Harford discussed the rent vs. buy decision recently and noted that renting has many hidden benefits.

8 special edition new flavors of M&M's, all with cutesy puns for names like Eat, Drink, & Be Cherry or Orange-U-Glad. I'm a sucker for limited edition candies, but $49.99 for a tin?

The folks behind the book The Wages of Wins: Taking Measure of the Many Myths in Modern Sport apply their metrics to Michael Jordan and confirm the popular opinion: he was the best ever.

Diving in Grand Turk

NOTE: As I write this, out my window here in New York snow is dumping onto the streets and the thermometer only shows 40 degrees. Last Friday it was sunny and in the fifties. About twenty minutes ago, I was in my running shorts, about to head out for a jog. The weather is having a schizophrenic fit.

This past weekend, Dave and I grabbed a discount fare for a some diving in Grand Turk. Three years ago, Dave had visited and dove at Grand Turk, one of the Turks and Caicos Islands, north of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

The first thing a New Yorker notices upon landing in Grand Turk is the languor. People stand around, leaning against walls or sitting on the ground, and it seems as if they're all waiting for something to happen, though they're in no particular hurry either way. In New York, even the panhandlers are aggressive and in a hurry. If all the cities of the world were grouped at the start line at one point, New York sprinted off and has never stopped, while Grand Turk jogged a few stops, then strolled to the side of the track to lie down in the grass to watch the clouds floating by. On Sunday morning we set our watches ahead an hour, but by the time the trip ended, my watch was probably five or six hours behind.

Perhaps the laid-back pace of life arises from the metronomic refrain of the surf lapping at the shore. It is set for all of time at a soothing largo, and at night it would soothe me into slumber. The perfect weather this time of year didn't hurt. With the sunshine and a light breeze of warmed spring air, no one's in a hurry to get indoors. Wherever you are, that's a good place to be.

The people of Grand Turk, many of them Haitians, also prize spontaneity and a live-in-the-moment attitude over certainty and planning. The next day's schedule at the dive shop seemed to change from moment to moment, and ask a question twice and you're likely to receive a different answer each time. At restaurants, inevitably the first thing I ordered would be unavailable. Dave and I tried to order lobster quesadillas at one restaurant as they were listed on the chalkboard as that day's special. The waitress said they didn't have any lobster. When we pointed out the board, she glanced over and said, "Hmm." Every day, for breakfast, I tried to order the crab and avocado wrap, listed as a specialty. Each day, I was told that avocado would come in the next day, but it never did.

The only time I'd been diving before was in 2003, when I got certified on the Great Barrier Reef. I dove there and in the Galapagos, but hadn't touched thought about diving at all in the years since. I couldn't even find my PADI certification cards for this trip, but fortunately the dive shop was able to look up my info so that I could rent tanks. Dave, on the other hand, has been on some 90 odd dives, and he also owned all his own equipment.

On Sunday morning I took a quick refresher course, relearning how to set up my equipment, handle basic emergency situations underwater, and control my buoyancy. Then I joined Dave and a couple from California for our first dive, at Finnbar's Reef. One of the attractions of diving at Grand Turk is how close the reef and ocean floor wall are to the shore. A five minute boat ride and we were there. I'm not a huge fan of living aboard a boat or taking long, choppy rides out to a dive site.

Diving, like spelunking, has a strong mental component. I'm no yogi, but putting in the regulator and dropping into the ocean feels to me like entering a meditative state. If your mind doesn't want to go to that calm place, your body won't follow. It's not a sport for the easily panicked.

My first open water dive ever, on the Great Barrier Reef, was in really choppy waters, on a rainy day. We jumped in and all grabbed hold of a rope, leaving our snorkels in while waiting for our classmates. The waves kept crashing into us, and when one particularly dense wave hit, the woman next to me, a jittery middle-aged Londoner, suddenly lost her grip on the rope. In her panic, she grabbed onto me and pulled me down into the water.

I immediately choked down a mouthful or two of ocean water. Her hands were all over me, tugging at my hair, mask, BCD, snorkel. My mask came off and I couldn't see. I gave her a light shove to free myself, then tried to get my mask back on. The waves kept pounding me, and I kept swallowing water. In a second between waves, I spotted the rope, too far away now for me to reach. At that moment, I decided I couldn't wait any longer and just put my regulator in, cleared some air out of my BCD, and dropped into the ocean.

With salt water in my mask, I couldn't see much. My heart rate was high, my breathing quick and shallow, and my first few breaths drew nothing. They'd taught us this in class, that you had to breathe slow and deep to pull oxygen out of the tank. I closed my eyes, let my body relax, and drew in the longest breath I could, then exhaled as slowly as possible. And again. And again. And finally, the air came, and I could hear my heartbeat slowing. As I sank down, one foot after another, the water around me grew still. Once I felt in control again, I cleared my mask and swam back to the rope. My first time out, and perhaps my most valuable real world dive experience.

In Grand Turk, I was reminded of the lesson twice. Once, Dave dropped down a few feet, then ascended again. I asked him after the dive what had happened, and he told me that he didn't feel completely right upon entering the water, so he popped back up to straighten his head out. Another time, our divemaster Mackie couldn't clear his ears, so he ascended almost as soon as he'd hit the ocean floor. It took an ascent all the way to the surface before his ears cleared. Experienced divers know it's better to straighten yourself out at the surface then to try and do it down at the ocean floor.

Almost immediately after dropping down to the reef at Finnbars, we encountered a sea turtle feeding. As we flocked around to watch it, I heard a metallic tapping. Our divemaster Mackie (a spitting image of Dusty Baker, but with a Haitian accent) was tapping his tank and pointing into another nook in the reef wall. I swam over to find another sea turtle, even larger than the first. Later we spotted a lobster hiding in a dark nook. On the next dive, at Aquarium, I found a half dozen or so barracuda waiting for me at the anchor line. The water in Grand Turk was a dazzling aquamarine, with glass-like visibility.

[All the sweet pics here are courtesy of Emanuel, one of our guides, who had a Nikon D70 in a really high-end housing with two flash arms. If you're serious about underwater dive photography, this seems to be the way to go, to put a serious camera inside an underwater housing. I've seen plenty of photographs from point-and-shoots and cheaper underwater film cameras, and it just doesn't seem worthwhile. The cost of high-end underwater photography gear will give your wallet the bends, though. Emanuel estimated he'd sunk some 6 to 7 grand in his setup, and with each different lens he'd have to buy a new dome. Dave and I purchased a CD of 25 of his pics to contribute to his effort to recoup the value of his camera equipment.]

That's me, checking out a sea turtle.

Heading back to the line for our decompression stop, Dave and I met up with a group of barracuda.

The next day, we dove twice in the morning. Our first dive was at a site called Tunnels for its two swim-throughs. It was my first time navigating through a tunnel, and it was amusing, like playing in an underwater playground.

Me, popping out of a tunnel.

Our final dive was at Coral Gardens. On the boat ride out, Emanuel told us to prepare to meet one of Grand Turk's local celebrities. As soon as we swam over the edge of the wall, he popped up to greet us. He turned out to be Alexander, a friendly grouper. We were able to pet him, hold our hands over his mouth, and cradle him like a puppy. Dave even pulled out his regulator to give him a smooch.

Greeting Alexander the grouper.

Dave pulled out his reg to give Alexander a smooch.

Up on top of the wall, another grouper named Pretty Boy had staked out his plot. Grouper are territorial by nature, and Pretty Boy had chased Alexander down off the shelf. We spent a good amount of time playing around with Alexander, and without realizing it, he pulled us further and further down the wall. Emanuel finally flashed the signal for us to ascend a bit. I looked at my computer and saw that we were down at 120 feet.

Before our decompression stop, Dave pointed at what appeared to be some dark fern arms poking out of the sand. I shrugged. He tried to think of how to explain what he meant, then went down to the sand and wrote EELS. I looked again and realized he was right. The short, dark strands poking out of the sand were tiny eels.

We wanted to do an afternoon dive, but because we were flying out at 11:15 the next morning, Mackie and Emanuel advised against it. We might have a bit too much nitrogen in the system to fly so soon. Instead, we took the boat out around the southern tip of Grand Turk to Gibbs Cay. Along the way, we stopped to free dive for conch. They scuttled across the floor of the sea, sometimes disguised by the seaweed clinging to their shells.

In a swimming pool, I don't ever have to clear my ears when diving down to ten feet or so. Here, diving down to 15 to 20 feet to grab conch felt like inflating my brain against my skull. The pressure in my ears and head were excruciating. The other issue was that I always had to shoot to the surface after grabbing a conch because I was out of air. We grabbed about six conch, just as much as we planned to eat, and headed on to Gibbs Cay.

Mackie showed us how to clean a conch. First you punch a hole through the shell, near the wider end of the shell, on the opposite side of the opening. Then you use a knife to prod the conch out the other end, so that you can grab it and pull it out. Outside its shell, the conch is an alien looking creature, like a clam or mussel, but with a more complex shape. The conch has a sharp tooth or claw that it uses to drag itself along the sea floor.

The part of the conch we ate was the white flesh, with the consistency of clam. We chopped that portion up and mixed it with diced tomatoes, habaneros, onions, and red peppers. We topped it off with fresh lime juice and a few drops of Tabasco and sealed it in a tupperware container to make conch ceviche.

While we waited for the lime juice to work its magic, we waded into the water with some small fish to feed the local stingrays. They'd already been circling just off the shore in anticipation. The touch of a ray's skin is a bit like liquid velvet. Dave and I weren't prepared for just how aggressive these rays were. We were flanked on all sides, and they hit us high and low. Rays are fairly docile creatures, but those eyes, mounted on top of its body and staring without emotion off to either side, are chilling. Seeing one come towards me was like being stalked by one of the tripods in War of the Worlds.

A few times, I nearly lost a finger. How do stingrays see where to bite when their mouths are underneath their bodies and their eyes are above? Maybe they don't, as I learned. While underwater feeding one, I felt a sharp pain in my back. Another stingray had tried to climb over my back to steal the fish, and on its way over had taken a bite out of my back. I hadn't realized that stingrays had teeth, but now I did. Dave and Emanuel saw my back and seemed startled. The overzealous ray had left a fist-sized bloody hickey on my back.

Later, after a few Presidente beers on the beach, our conch ceviche was ready. That was one tasty dish. While snacking, another visitor arrived, a lemon shark. We waded back in with our snorkels and masks for an underwater peek. For some reason, seeing sharks while diving or snorkeling never seems too dangerous, perhaps because they tend to keep their distance. Of course, the only really dangerous shark I've seen underwater is a hammerhead in the Galapagos. If I saw a tiger shark or a great white, I'd pee my wetsuit.

The only thing we missed out on were the humpback whales, who usually migrate through from late February through early April. They hadn't been spotted in the last few days, and since Dave and I were the only ones interested in going out, the dive shop felt it wasn't economically worthwhile to attempt a trip.

I'd like to try and dive at least once a year from here on out. It would save me the trouble of relearning all my skills each time out. For you divers looking for a good dive site, Grand Turk is recommended. Wear sunscreen on your back, though, so you don't end up looking like a cooked lobster, like me. Dave also suggested diving at Bonaire, Curacao, and Thailand, all of which I'll have to try at some point. For our next dive trip, I'm not sure of where to go, but probably not South Africa.

After seeing marine life up close and personal in the ocean, aquariums seem so dull.

Vitamins and poison pills

Here are those snazzy opening titles from Thank You For Smoking.

***

Are vitamins really good for you? Well, I guess we can wait to see what happens to Ray Kurzweil. Most of the harmful effects of vitamins seem to arise in studies with high dosages. Should be interesting to see Barry Bonds and Kurzweil in about twenty years.

***

Once solely the domain of Corporate America, poison pills have come to the NFL. The Seahawks inserted a clause in their offer to Vikings receiver Nate Burleson that the contract would become guaranteed if he played five games in the state of Minnesota. So of course the Vikings did not match the offer, not that they would have even without the clause. I'd be surprised if these types of poison pills were allowed to stand. If you're allowed to make up random poison pills, then the entire concept of matching offer sheets is negated. You can make up anything to prevent a team from matching your offer.

***

Ryanair turns a profit by discounting plane tickets heavily and making up for that with fees for most every other flight amenity. It's difficult to ascertain exactly how the airlines turns its profit just from reading the article--it could be primarily a result of a low cost structure rather than gimmicky fees--but you can't argue with their results in a tough industry.

***

The most popular movie in South Korean history is King and the Clown, a movie inevitably compared to Brokeback Mountain for depicting a gay male relationship.

***

I would be remiss if I didn't record here that this was the first year that March Madness was streamed online, for free. This was a well-designed first effort, complete with a Boss Button, which would transform the streaming video window into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet with one click.

***

The cost-of-living in NYC is so high, I don't feel quite as guilty as I otherwise would in using the local Barnes and Noble and Sephora as a personal library and medicine cabinet. I still do feel guilty, but on the other hand, there's something of the New York survivor spirit in the frugality of such tactics. I have no idea if those high-falutin moisturizers really reduce aging, shrink pores, and restore a youthful complexion, but $50 for an ounce is probably too high a price to find out with my hard-earned savings.

Yesterday I stopped in B&N to flip through John Dewan's The Fielding Bible, which I do have on order, though from Amazon.com. It attempts to bring defensive evaluations to another level by using data from Baseball Information Solutions.

Instead of just looking at statistics, Dewan and company used video of every batted ball the past several seasons and translated each into a vector composed of direction and velocity. Then they computed which of those balls should have have been turned into an out by a particular fielder. That provided each defensive player with an expected number of outs, and the main statistic in the book is how many plays each player made versus expectation, the plus/minus. The book includes some other statistics for each position to evaluate things such as fielding of bunts for corner infielders and throwing arm for outfielders (the only position not evaluated is catcher).

Some of the book's conclusions align with widely held assumptions. Ichiro is the best right fielder (though the trend is one of decline). Orlando Hudson is probably the best defensive 2B in the game. Manny Ramirez and Adam Dunn are atrocious in left. Torii Hunter is fantastic in CF.

Bill James contributes an entire chapter on Derek Jeter's defense, a much debated topic. After putting Jeter through several different defensive evaluation systems and watching video of Jeter's best and worst plays, James, a noted contrarian, concedes that Jeter's defense is indeed lousy (Adam Everett evaluates as the best shortstop three years running, and it isn't even close). Hey, Jeter counts among his ex-girlfriends Jessica Alba and Adriana Lima; please allow us this one grudging flaw in his game.

At any rate, it's a fun compilation of stats to pore over, the type of book to bring to a ballgame and use to incite heated debates between innings.

42

Lots of exciting finishes in March Madness this year, no doubt. Color me George Mason green and yellow. Just remember, Cinderella may wear a glass slipper, but you still should have her remove them at the door.

More on the Final Four: of the over 3 million entries in ESPN.com's Tournament Challenge, 4 people picked all four teams in the Final Four correctly. About 2/3 of entrants didn't pick a single one of the Final Four teams. I wonder how many of the 284 people who picked George Mason to win it all actually go to or went to the school.

Maybe 42 really is the answer to the secret of the universe?

The proper way to pour ketchup.

Everyone thanks those in our volunteer army who are fighting in Iraq, but if a draft were instituted, everyone would raise bloody hell. During times of peace, signing up for the military seems like a decent deal, but these days, the Army is missing its recruiting numbers despite lowering its standards and raising its cash bonuses. It's one of the ugly truths about the Iraq war: those who fight the war are the ones who don't have more attractive options. The issue is close to my heart because one of my editing class projects was Edet Beltzberg's upcoming documentary on army recruiting. Much of that footage was wrenching to watch.

Eric Haney, one of the founding members of Delta Force, gives a karate chop to the throat of the current Administration for the war on Iraq. I'm almost done reading Inside Delta Force, his account of the founding of Delta Force and his years in service. The book is in the news now because David Mamet used it as inspiration for his new TV show "The Unit" on CBS. The book isn't quite as thrilling as I thought it would be, mainly because Haney can't reveal a lot of classified methods and anecdotes. As for the TV show, I'm not so sure all the actors are cut out to deliver Mamet-ese. I enjoy his dialogue much like I enjoy a bloody chunk of prime grade beef, but in the hands of the wrong cook, even the finest cut of beef can be turned into lunch room salisbury steak. Haney's dismissal of the effectiveness of torture is a damning indictment of the abuses at Abu Ghraib from a different perspective--torture doesn't gain effective intelligence, Jack Bauer notwithstanding.

This might be the coolest bath toy you could buy for your toddler. I wonder if human fear of snakes is innate or arises from reading the Bible or watching movies like Anaconda, a movie which mostly developed my fear of Jon Voight in a ponytail.

Movies from Sundance always seem to be trickling into theaters. Brick was one of the consensus group favorites of our Sundance crew two years ago, though I thought the conceit of setting a film noir in high school lost its novelty appeal by film's end, giving way to a somewhat unsatisfying potboiler ending. Still, it's a gas to hear high school kids spewing hard-boiled dialogue, and what better place to transfer the stock characters of film noir than high school, a time in our lives when most of us were trying on personas in a massive game of social fencing. As compared to most multiplex fare, Brick is joltingly fresh. The movie won the Originality of Vision award at Sundance, and that was the appropriate honor to bestow on that movie.

Thank You For Smoking is the latest of this year's Sundance babies to hit the big screen. Like Brick, the movie sprints out of the blocks with gorgeous opening credits and loses breath by the finish. No one wears sleaze better than Aaron Eckhart, though, and the movie shares his charming cynicism. Until Nick Naylor (Eckhart) loses his nerve, the movie is a pleasant smartass. Rob Lowe and Adam Brody as a CAA agent and his assistant had industry insiders at Sundance crying with laughter. For those who want Eckhart neat, instead of on the rocks, try In the Company of Men, in which he played one of the more memorable characters many people have never heard of.

David Bordwell wants more from contemporary film criticism. More than just opinions or insights, he wants to learn approximately true things about film. Something tells me the two movie blurbs above probably don't meet his standard.

James sent me a link to this amazing single hand of poker between Phil Ivey and Paul Jackson. Whereas many players hide behind sunglasses, Ivey eschews them in favor of his cold, piercing gaze, against which sunglasses might be the only defense against going blind.

Victoria

Portable cloaking technology finally a reality?

In search of the mythical pitch called the gyroball, a baseball thrown with the rotation of a football spiral, or a bullet, and nearly unhittable.

Beware the flirtatious IM stranger, especially if you're a college basketball player about to play a big game.

Fastest growing city on Earth: Chongqing. The two times I've been to China, I'm always amazed to travel through towns like Chongqing, that no one has ever heard of, all with populations larger than New York City.

...the planet's population is currently split almost right down the middle: 3.2 billion in the city, 3.2 billion in the countryside. But by the start of 2007, the balance will have tipped decisively away from the fields and towards the skyscrapers.

I predict more men will be asking for jalapenos on their Subway sandwiches.

Whatever People Say I Am Thats What I Am Not

Google Pages is a free, online web page creation tool.

Whatever People Say I Am Thats What I Am Not, the mega-hyped new album from maybe the most hyped new band of the last year, released yesterday. The good news is the album is a whole lot of damn fun, and the hype is forgivable because the band allowed MP3s of their tunes to float around the Internet for a long time before they released their work. That helped to build the buzz and a fan base. Even before their CD released, they sold out a few concerts in NYC before most people could hit redial on their phone. It helps to be good, yes, but it also helps to realize how to feed the machine that is the Web hype monster with some choice cuts. Cheap, efficient marketing.

NYTimes food critic Frank Bruni reviews NYC's midtown Hooters in his new blog. "They may wear skimpy attire, but they have big hearts."

The Manhattan Trader Joe's could be opening in mid-March, ahead of schedule. Some localization will occur: Two-buck Chuck will be three-buck Chuck due to Manhattan inflation.

Tiger Woods annihilates his first opponent in The Accenture Match Play Championship, 9 & 8 (basically, Tiger won every hole of the match, nine in a row, with 7 birdies and 2 pars). Even I, with my terrible game, might have been able to eek out a tie on one hole on the front 9. Before the match, Ames had made a comment about Tiger's driving to the press, saying, "Anything can happen, especially where he's hitting the ball." After the match, when asked if he had any response to Ames' comments, Tiger responded, "9 & 8." Just this once, it would have been great if trash talking was allowed in golf. Every time Tiger sank a birdie putt, he could've turned to Ames and said, "How do you like where I hit that ball, you $*@#!?" Everyone knows if trash talking were allowed, Tiger would be even more dominant than he is. He'd be like Jordan, just cruel and relentless.

I forgot to point out yesterday that Sports Guy's latest column, summarizing his NBA All-Star Weekend trip, was awesome.

236 phrases/keywords censored by a Chinese blogging service. Among them:

• Set fires to force people to relocate
• Hire a killer to murder one's wife
• Fetus soup

Trader Joe's to open near Union Square in 3 months

Yahoo!

Bob Loblaw

What foods to buy organic (lots of fruits, meats, and baby food), and what not (seafood).

Analysts guess that Sony's Playstation 3 will cost $499 when it's released, as opposed to the $399 that the Xbox 360 theoretically costs now, though if you want one right at this very moment you'll probably pay a lot more than that on eBay.

Skype 2.0 for Windows offers free video calling. Non-Windows XP users don't get the video calling feature, but that means we get to continue calling in the nude, so we've got that going for us.

Nikon to halt production on all but two of its seven film camera bodies, phasing them out one by one. My old Nikon film camera is already starting to display that healthy antique glow.

No go on running Windows XP on the new MacBook Pro, at least for now, but you can run Vista if you can somehow get your hands on a beta copy.

John Madden Arrested for possession of turhumanheaducken (I've flirted with the turducken for many a Thanksgiving now, so James just had to pass this along to me).

Digi-portraits - Sweet! I want one!

Kobe vs. Lebron tonight, though it's really lame in the NBA that star players almost never guard each other, so it's really more like Lebron and Kobe tonight, on the same basketball court and occasionally within a few feet of each other. John Hollinger compared the two statistically (ESPN Insider subscription required), and to summarize, Lebron won out by the slightest of margins.

Apple of my eye

Oh, new MacBook Pro, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways (starting with $2,499 of them). Will you be my Valentine?

The Webcomics Examiner's Best Webcomics of 2005.

Anthony Lane looks back on the year in movies.

Download the Mac beta for Adobe Labs (formerly Macromedia) new application Lightroom, a competitor to Apple's Aperture. For many people who just need an application for photo retouching and processing, either Lightroom or Aperture is likely a better choice than Photoshop, which has always been bewildering in its complexity to newbies (I say "likely" because I've yet to try Aperture or Lightroom, though I'm downloading the latter now; I wish Apple offered a tryout copy of Aperture).

The pre-beta version of Filmloop is available for download. This is photo-sharing software that pushes pics in a slideshow to other people's desktops. Apple today announced that iPhoto in iLife 06 will include a feature called Photocasting, which allows users to push iPhoto albums to other iPhoto users through .Mac. I'm surprised Flickr hasn't released something similar (Flickr allows you to publish your photos as an RSS feed, but that doesn't pass the grandma ease-of-use test). If I ran the show at Flickr, I'd have a lot of people focused on cranking out an app like Filmloop ASAP. This all reminds of PointCast, the first popular push software for the web. It went kaput, but everything old is new again. For Christmas I wanted to get my parents one of those digital picture frames that could display pictures all of their kids would upload. I did some research on the Ceiva service, and it turned out to be a massive disappointment, with outrageous annual subscription fees. So I got them something else, with the hopes that I could just find a way for all the kids to publish photos to their desktop instead. And without even a request to the Lazyweb, my wishes are nearly answered.

IMDb plot summary for Roberto Benigni's next movie Tiger and the Snow, to be released in 2006 in the U.S.: "A love-struck Italian poet is stuck in Iraq at the onset of an American invasion." I'm all for the resilience of the comedy and the human spirit in the face of tragedy, but jeepers creepers.

The humane way to kill a lobster, a short article dedicated to David Foster Wallace as a response to his essay "Consider the Lobster," an article originally written for Gourmet and which provides the title for his latest essay collection. Besides being humane, that is just an impressive move with which to show off your chef's knife.

If you want a copy of Flash Gordon by Mike Hodges on DVD, you can find it on Amazon Canada. I saw this on television in Taiwan in 1982 during a family trip, and it's one of the earliest movies I saw that left specific scenes impressed in my memory. In one scene, some sort of competition, Flash and someone else take turns sticking their hands in holes in this giant mound of dirt. I forget what happened if you chose poorly; some creature chewed off your hand? In another, Flash and his adversary wrestle on a moving circular floor with spikes that would emerge intermittently. If you fell off the side off the floor, you fell to your death, I believe. Finally, at the movie's conclusion, Max von Sydow's Ming the Merciless is impaled by the spike on the nosecone of a spaceship, a fitting end for the criminal in a cheesy, kinky, quintessentially 80's movie. I wonder why this DVD is out of print in the U.S.; I'd like to see it again.

Compound juices

For the longest time, I thought Seth Rogen, who played Ken on Freaks and Geeks, pulled a reverse Kirstie Alley and lost a ton of weight in order to play Logan Echolls on Veronica Mars. I finally paid attention during the credits and realized that Echolls is played by Jason Dohring. Same face, same voice - they look like brothers.

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On so many airplane flights, they don't have apple juice or cranberry juice, but they do have cran-apple juice. SKU and space-saving decision, or the fingerprints of the powerful cran-apple lobby?

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At the grocery store near Derek's apt in Chicago, Bartlett pears were selling for $0.59 a pound. I wanted to cry when I saw that. Those same pears sell for $2.49 a pound at Whole Foods in Union Square.

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Sign up for the beta test of AllPeers, which looks like it will be a killer extension for Firefox.

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Since we have such a big Brady Bunch-esque family, we instituted an annual Christmas gift exchange several years back. Every year I use the Excel random number function to assign everyone another member of the family to shop for, and all we have to do is purchase for that one person. It reduces the holiday shopping stress by at least one magnitude of order, and everyone receives something substantial. The days of receiving three pairs of socks, a book, and a $20 GC to each of four different stores is over.

I highly recommend the same for those who are driven bonkers by holiday shopping.

Back from holiday break

They say writing is a muscle (and I believe it), and if so, mine is weak and out-of-shape after a holiday break with no writing, minimal time online, and wave after wave of consumption of various holiday foodstuff. Come to think of it, I'm just flab all over. Much of the popularity of New Year's fitness resolutions can be explained by timing, New Years coming directly after typically the most protracted and gluttonous of American holidays.

Just as with going to the gym, every day I don't write adds to the output I feel I need to generate the next time I do write. After a while it feels impossible to make up for all the lost time. The only way to get rolling again is a little chunk at a time.

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Do people still eat geese, or is it an anachronism from Dickens' novels and a time before people learned to appreciate other fowl? I never hear of anyone eating a Christmas goose anymore. Is it not good, or is it just too much hassle to farm-raise geese to make it a grocery store staple? Geese don't seem to be endangered. I see them everywhere.

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The BT Technology Timeline - BT has a futurology department, and they've built this interactive timeline that runs out to 2051 (which probably covers the remainder of my life expectancy). My first thought on seeing this was that some lucky SOB's job is to sit around and predict the future. The second was that even the most advanced futurologist has no clue when the Cubs will finally win a World Series.

Lots of fun to play with, though there's little in the way of supporting evidence. A cursory kicking of the tires spilled these nuggets (my notes in parentheses):

• Androids will make up 10% of the population in 2015 (ensuring that already awkward blind dates will begin with the administration of the Voight-Kampff test)
• The world's population will peak at 10 billion in 2039 (you think finding an apartment in Manhattan is tough today)
• Virus crosses over from machine to human in 2025 (because some eager SOB forgot to do the Voight-Kampff test before jumping into the sack)
• Rise of a global machine dictator - date unknown (Skynet?)
• Robot superior to humans in 2030 or so (well, we still have 25 years to enjoy our supremacy)
• Creation of The Matrix in 2030 (related to the prediction above?)
• Fully telepathic communication in 2049
• Brain downloads in 2049 (shortly thereafter, someone will write a plug-in to allow direct sending of brain logs to all the major weblog software packages; confusion will reign as the term blog is re-appropriated to refer to brain-logs)

Arthur C. Clarke: "...any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic..."

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Some guys TiVo'd the previous night's Texas Lotto drawing and then bought their buddy a matching ticket that day. Then they set up a camcorder, played the drawing while their buddy was there, and put the video up on Google Video. I hope they take their buddy out for dinner or something. That's just cruel.

At any rate, it's just an example of a type of humor which seems to be at the peak of its popularity: laughing at the person in the dark, the person who is being honest and genuine. It's the modern ironic mode of expression as entertainment.

Punk'd. The Ali G Show. All those reality television shows in which contestants are kept in the dark as to the real premise of the show, like My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance. Even The Colbert Report, at times.

I hope this mode of humor hit its saturation point in 2005. There's a mean-spiritedness at its core that isn't that funny and is only tolerable in small doses, a level it has long since surpassed in mass media.

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While searching for a copy of The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner on DVD, I stumbled across Nostalgia Family Video, a site which carries just such hard-to-find movies on DVD. The aforementioned DVD is just one of many gems in their catalog.

Bodacious

That Peyton Manning commercial for Mastercard makes me cringe. In it, Peyton seeks the autograph of a grocery store clerk and feigns ecstasy when a hardware store employee tosses him his apron. Having a multi-millionaire athlete satirize the anonymity of the common man? Priceless.

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Sportscenter aired a segment on Bodacious, one of the most feared rodeo bulls of all time. The footage of him bucking cowboys off of his back like rag dolls was awesome (and I don't mean that in the modern sense of mega-cool). Here's a short homage to Bodacious which includes the key highlights from his life, including his conquest of famed bull-rider Tuff Hedeman. Bodacious broke every bone in Hedeman's face, and the next time the two were to meet, Tuff climbed off when they opened the gates, essentially waving the white flag.

How did bull-riding start? What cowboy thought to himself, "Hey, let's put an electric prod to that bull's testicles and then see how long I can hang on its back before it either tosses me and tramples me or headbutts me in the face, cracking my skull like a coconut?" Someone on the prarie was smoking some serious peyote.

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One of the first things I do upon arriving in Southern California is to hit In-N-Out, home of America's most beloved burger. I'm embarrassed to admit, though, that it wasn't until this most recent visit for Thanksgiving that I heard of and sampled something off of their secret menu.

I went for a burger Animal Style, and my receipt actually read "ANIMAL STYLE". A burger prepared thus contains a layer of sauteed onions embedded in the melted cheese. I enjoyed it, though it unleashed hell on my digestive system. James tried getting his fries Animal Style; it didn't really work. All you could taste were the onions.

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Over Thanksgiving break, our family was discussing what book should serve as the next nominee in our unofficial family book club. Every so often, one book gets passed from one kid to the other until all the siblings have read it. Given our diverse tastes, it takes a special book to make the rounds; fiction novels seem to be the most palatable across the board. The first book to complete our circuit was Atonement, and currently crossing home plate is The Time Traveler's Wife.

One book that came up just a few kids short was The Life of Pi. It was originally to be adapted for the silver screen by M. Night Shyamalan. Now it's in the hands of Jean-Pierre Jeunet. I was intrigued to see the Shyamalan version. The book has, in its own way, a big twist of an ending. When I heard Shyamalan was directing, I could already picture how he'd reveal the twist in a Keyser Soze-like moment.

I would have preferred Shyamalan direct, if for no other reason than that Jeunet's sensibility doesn't mesh with mine. Regardless, I want to see the movie to see how Jeunet interprets the book, and he will have fun with the fantasy imagery. I'm always surprised at how many people interpret the book in vastly different ways--the ending seems to strongly favor one interpretation of all the events that came before. The book accompanied me for a week through New Zealand in 2003 after I picked it up from a Borders in Auckland. I'd like to flip through it again to refresh my recollection of the details, but my copy seems to have disappeared.

On the bright side, with Jeunet on board, we're spared the possibility that Shyamalan might have cast himself as the lead.

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Michel Gondry's next movie, The Science of Sleep, sounds interesting, and joy of joys, it will be at Sundance!

Ticket packages for the first half of Sundance sold out in a day this year. I had a lottery time on day two and got shut out. If you have enough friends also entering the lottery, you can pool resources, but the festival is outgrowing its capacity. Every year its popularity rises some more, and every year the scrum for tickets and accommodations becomes that much more onerous.

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Thank goodness, we can finally sleep at night: Congress is looking into the "deeply flawed" BCS system. Hey, I'm a guy, I like sports, but it's ridiculous that our elected officials spend time investigating sports issues like steroids in baseball and the college football post-season format.

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I'm always a big fan of Filmoculous's list of year-end lists. Here's his compilation for 2005. Among them is the short-list for Time's Person of the Year. My money's on either Mother Nature or The Google Guys.

Superman reruns, or returns, and so does Johnny Cash, sort of

Hipster shirts for your dog, including a Von Bitch T.

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The teaser trailer for Superman Returns came out last Thursday evening, attached to the latest Harry Potter movie. The few glimpses imply a remake of the Richard Donner Superman--we have the John Williams score, the same Jor-El voice, the same uniform and hairstyle, the same improbably penthouse apt. for Lois Lane on a journalist's salary, the same unknown actor donning the red underwear--but then I clicked on story and realized it really is supposed to be a return of sorts. Where did he go? The trailer didn't excite me enough to care.

How is it that Jor-El can continue to speak to Superman about present events. Is he like Obi-Wan Kenobi, part of the Force in some way? If that is so, and I were Clark, I'd definitely have him record my answering machine message. Marlon Brando as Jor-El: "Whom do you seek? [long pause] I jest. My one and only son, Kal-El, whom you know as Clark, is not present. But I have sent him to you, because you are a people of promise, a people who need merely a light to guide you, and so, if you should deign to leave your name and whereabouts, I shall send him to you, my one and only son, my [beep]"

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Perhaps this is the real reason for the war in Iraq: to capture a new market for Fox's The Simpsons, or Al Shamshoon as it's translated in the Middle East. Homer is now Omar, and in deference to the Koran, forbidden items such as Duff's beer and bacon have been replaced. [Thx Arya]

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The Movies101 selection last Wednesday was Walk the Line. When the title was announced, the woman behind me squealed with delight and kicked me in the back of my head. I was less than sanguine, not because of the sharp blow from her pointed heels, but because biopics, let alone those about musical luminaries, are not my cup of tea.

Prof. Brown prefaced the movie with a long disclaimer absolving the filmmakers of any blame for any liberties they took with Cash's life. He believes that in condensing a life into two hours, it's not only acceptable but necessary to abbreviate and remix a person's life so that it tells a good story (his primary requirement for a movie).

I agree that movies that have to condense a lot of material--biopics, adaptions of long novels--have to convey the spirit of a person without rehashing their entire lives. But to me that's not an excuse for gross simplification or omission. Many people watching biopics become so tied up in the illusion that they believe that what's depicted on screen is how that person actually was; that's a lot of responsibility. Most often, biopics seem to cross the boundaries of acceptable artistic license by cleaning up the protagonist and by sullying the antagonist. Hollywood believes we want our heros to sport a core of decency below any cinematic soot our enemies unambiguously dark, with black hat and sinister mustache translated into the appropriate time period.

I'm actually not an expert on Johnny Cash's life, so I can't comment on this movie's accuracy in depicting his life, or his spirit. Contrary to what many are saying, Joaquin Phoenix does not sound like Johnny Cash (who does, really?), but he channels the spirit of the music, sending his voice down into the earth, and that's what matters. Reese Witherspoon sparkles. I know nothing of June Carter, but if Witherspoon isn't channeling her spirit, then whoever she's playing is still fascinating. Both Phoenix and Witherspoon are shoo-ins for Best Actor/Actress Oscar nominations: these are the right types of roles, the right types of performances.

I'm less gung-ho about the movie itself. It still has the fairy-tale quality of a biopic, even if it covers some dark territory (though nothing dark enough to match the grit of Cash's music itself). If anyone ever does a biography of my life, I hope it's Hollywood, because then I know that I'll come off well.

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When I was growing up, my mother used bajiao (eight feet), or the star anise, to make beef stew. I never could appreciate the flavor, only because every time I bit into one of those eight-legged stars while eating my mouth would be assaulted by that bitter licorice taste.

So it's a bit ironic to me that star anise is now one of the most coveted spices in the world because it provides the shikimic acid at the heart of Tamiflu.

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The most popular recommendation I received for my cold (and thank you all for the unsolicited plugs for your favorite remedies) was Airborne. It's a preventative measure, to be taken as soon as you feel a cold coming on. It's a pill that combines lots of popular cold cures, from zinc and echinacea to vitamins C, E, and A. It's an aggregation strategy product, like putting lotion in Kleenex, or combining teeth whitening and tartar control substances in toothpaste.

I've never taken anything that's helped me to stave off a cold. If I feel the symptoms developing, the cold always follows. Some medications have helped me to combat the symptoms of a cold. Still, I'm willing to give anything a try, so I've added some Airborne to my medicine cabinet for a test next time.

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I decided to shelve the turducken idea for Thanksgiving. In the end, it just sounded too gimmicky. Here's another aggregation product, but in the end the idea of combining the flavors of those three meats just didn't sound intriguing enough to drop $100.

A different product has caught my eye: the 72 oz. steak. As illustrated in an episode of The Simpsons and in John Candy's The Great Outdoors, attempting to devour an enormous slab of red meat in one sitting is a time-honored American tradition. Among the interesting trivia of this long-standing contest:

Frank Pastore, a professional pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds, ate the complete steak dinner in a record that still stands today of just 9½ minutes back in May of 1987.

He failed to make the team in Spring Training and was out of baseball that same year.

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Stream the new Ryan Adams album, 29.

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Sometimes when I listen to Bush and his Administration speaking about the war in Iraq, I'm reminded of the concluding scenes of Aguirre, the Wrath of God, when some of Aguirre's companions sit on the raft, driven mad by illness and hunger. Meanwhile, one by one they succumb to the arrows from near invisible enemy, Indians hiding in the forest to either side. An arrow pierces a man's leg.

"That is not an arrow," he says.

He sees the carcass of a ship, sitting high up in a tree.

"There is no ship," he says.

It's a beautiful sequence, because Herzog does not show most of the attacks. Aguirre simply finds one body after another, a poisonous arrow in the neck. Aguirre holds his daughter, and then the camera tilts down, and we see an arrow in her chest.

tick tock tick tock

I'm puzzled, really, at how I could have caught this stubborn cold when my human contact in the past week has been so minimal. My nose is so raw it hurts to breathe. I'm fairly certain that the truth behind Rudolph's red nose was that he caught a cold up at the North Pole. That or he was a coke addict.

When people say, oh, yeah, that cold has been going around, it sounds as if we're all sharing the same cold. How likely is that? Maybe we all caught it from Kevin Bacon? Paris Hilton? How many different colds are going around in one city? Which one is popular among Eastern European models right now? If I'm going to be sick, at least let me be sick in the most stylish way.

I'm torn. On the one hand, if it's the same cold everyone has been catching, then at least I know it's not fatal. A cold I can live with. Any flu associated with an animal--bad news. On the other hand, everyone feels a little possessive of their illnesses in a Larry David narcissistic kind of way.

On a positive note, I've been sampling the 2004 vintage of Vicks 44D. Very full-bodied, with a strong cherry bouquet leading into a musky finish. Tastes like port and goes wonderfully with leftover Halloween candy.

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A lot of the hooks in Madonna's Confessions on a Dance Floor sounded really familiar, like the ticking clock at the start of "Hung Up". Turns out her producer was Jacques Lu Cont, the British DJ behind some popular remixes of songs like Gwen Stefani's "What You Waiting For" (where I first heard that ticking clock) and The Killers' "Mr. Brightside."

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Today Microsoft released its backward compatibility list for the XBox 360. The list includes about 200 games right now. To play them you'll need to install a software emulator from XBox Live, by burning a CD-ROM of files from xbox.com, or by paying to have a CD shipped to you. Original Xbox game will be upscaled to 720p and 1080i.

It all seems like a hassle for the casual gamer--this Q&A with an XBox VP on this topic stretches on for nearly 4 pages. Not ideal as a marketing message.

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The first chapter of Nicole Richie's new book, whose title is irrelevant. It's as awful as you'd imagine, some of the most laughable fiction ever committed to print, but what I'm curious about is whether generations past have had to endure the same celeb-lit piffle. Did Plato lament when youngsters bypassed The Republic in favor of Confessions of a Teenage Eunuch by Anorexales?

Every book finds its audience, though, and Nicole has hers. When asked if the character of Simone Westlake was based on Paris Hilton ("Simone was leggy and tall, though no one knows exactly how tall because she'd never been seen out of pumps since puberty ... not even in her night-vision skin flicks, filmed strictly for private use, of course.") Nicole responded: ""It's not her. I've come across many people in my life that are like that."

Haven't we all.

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James Surowiecki writes about the at times symbiotic relationship between the government and the tobacco industry in this week's New Yorker. This quote intrigued me:

The industry now spends more than half a billion dollars a year in legal fees, and billions of dollars a year in settlements. In strict monetary terms, the settlement with the states might seem like a bad deal for the tobacco companies. Research by W. Kip Viscusi, a Harvard economist (and frequent pro-tobacco witness), suggests that if you take into account tobacco taxes and the higher mortality rates of smokers, which reduce the government’s Social Security and Medicare payments, smoking actually saves the public money.

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Our family is preparing a traditional Thanksgiving dinner this year, but I'd like to supplement it with an alternative main course. I've yet to try a fried turkey, a turducken, or a quaducant. The preparation of a fried turkey sounds downright intimidating. It involves several gallons of peanut oil, a hot tub, and a flamethrower wielded by ninjas. I doubt we'll be having that unless someone prepares it for us off-site. Preparing a turducken yourself also sounds like a chore--lots of deboning, preparing, assembling, sewing. Substitute people for fowl and you'd have Thanksgiving at Buffalo Bill's from Silence of the Lambs.

"It rubs the gravy on its skin."

"Please, why can't we have turkey like every other family?"

"Put the effing gravy on your skin!"

You can purchase a pre-assembled turducken, but they're not cheap. Those of you who've tried one: does the integration of the chicken, duck, and turkey actually lead to a whole that's greater than the sum of its parts? Would I get all the same benefits if I prepared a chicken, duck, and turkey separately, then had a relative spotting me so that I could shove one forkful of each meat into my mouth simultaneously?

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Google Analytics, a free tool to help websites to optimize their traffic. Not surprisingly, it integrates tightly with AdWords.

Hornets, Mechanical Turks, and swords, oh my

If you absolutely can't wait to see Tom Yum Goong in American theaters, you can pre-order the VCD. The quality will be terrible, though, so I recommend making the soup instead and waiting for the movie to arrive on the big screen.

How to defend against Teen Wolf.

Once a year, Popular Science publishes a list of the Worst Jobs in Science. This year's list included a link to this bizarre video clip (MPEG) of a ballerina dancing around a NASA robot which resembles a giant, umm, unmanned vehicle. Yeah.

Red square: keep away, if you can. [This and the next two links via Me-Fi]

A condensed jpeg of Ground Zero from straight overhead, a short while after 9/11. The not condensed version of the photo. Meanwhile, with scant media buzz, construction on the new World Trade Center began two days ago.

Sword swallowers actually do swallow swords, though the swords rarely reach the stomach. I saw a sword swallower in China put a long fluorescent light down his throat, and then they turned off the house lights and he turned on the lamp, and we could see the light through the skin of his throat. Now there's a great opener the next time you want to start a conversation with an attractive stranger at a bar.

One of the last projects I heard about when I left Amazon.com and its Web Services team looks to have launched, sort of: The Mechanical Turk. It allows software developers to add human intelligence to their programs, because there are still many things humans do better than computers. A devious use might be to have humans interpret captchas for your automated ticket hoarding program. A less nefarious use might be to help an AIBO interpret human facial expressions or tone of voice. What incentive do you have to help out a computer program with tasks like these? Cash. Reminds me a bit of that marketplace for human talents in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age.

Curbed's Eater publishes the complete list of 507 restaurants in the New York Michelin Guide.

Thrilling if gruesome video (Windows Media File) of a couple dozen giant hornets massacring a colony of some 30,000 honey bees in order to plunder the honey and larvae. By massacre I mean they just use their jaws to bite the bees in half, one after the other. Sheesh. I tried to trace the movie back to its original poster, but gave up after about ten or so hops, so I'll credit J-Walk, who published some great references on Microsoft Excel and who maintains a prolific weblog.

This week's Out of 5 is a good one: They Got It Right the First Time - Great Songs Better Known Via Inferior Covers

Results of the Michelin Guide to NY 2006

Here's the press release announcing highlights of the first ever Michelin Red Guide 2006 New York City. Highlights:

Three star restaurants

• Alain Ducasse
• Jean-Georges
• Le Bernardin
• Per Se

Two star restaurants

• Bouley
• Daniel
• Danube
• Masa

One star restaurants

• Annisa
• Aureole
• Babbo
• BLT Fish
• Cafe Boulud
• Cafe Gray
• Craft
• Cru
• Etats-Unis
• Fiamma Osteria
• Fleur de Sel
• Gotham Bar and Grill
• Gramercy Tavern
• JoJo
• Jewel Bako
• La Goulue
• Lever House
• Lo Scalco
• March
• Nobu
• Oceana
• Peter Luger
• Picholine
• Saul
• Scalini Fedeli
• Spotted Pig
• The Modern
• Veritas
• Vong
• Wallse
• WD-50

The Michelin Guide chose to acknowledge the existence of 507 other restaurants by listing them in the guide. The NYTimes captures the mixed reactions of some New York chefs.

Silly Billy

Panasonic launched a blog called Def Perception to discuss its HDV 24p camcorder the AG-HVX200 and high def filmmaking in general. To request a free instructional DVD on the AG-HVX200 (for U.S. customers only), go here. B&H is pre-selling a kit with the AG-HVX200 and two 8GB P2 cards for $10K.

Wednesday is the day when Michelin releases its New York restaurant star ratings, with the release party that evening at the Guggenheim. Who will receive the coveted three-star ratings? Early favorites include Per Se and Alaine Ducasse. As a way of going long Per Se, I snagged a reservation for mid-November.

Yesterday, I attended a Halloween party with my nephew Ryan, looking as adorable as ever in his deluxe Thomas the Tank Engine costume. The parents association that sponsored the party hired a clown to perform, and I was so busy chasing Ryan with my camcorder that Anita had to point out that the clown was none other than David Friedman, from the Andrew Jarecki documentary Capturing the Friedmans. David was one of Jarecki's original subjects since the documentary began as one about birthday clowns. David seems to have shaken off any stigma from his father's pedophilia conviction and continues to work as the clown magician Silly Billy. Only in NY.

Ken reminded me that Cool Hunting linked to this collage of cassette tapes, many of which the two of us used to purchase by the dozens to dub our music. So many of these images still seem as vividly familiar as if they were sitting on my shelves now. Ah, those days when a metal cassette tape was like gold.

Apps for doing this on a Windows PC have long been available, but now Mac users can treat a GMail account as a hard drive using gDisk.

My old roommate Scott, in an aside, guessed that I'd heard of a movie titled Snakes on a Plane, starring Samuel L. Jackson. Well, I hadn't, so I looked up the plot summary: On board a flight over the Pacific Ocean, an assassin, bent on killing a passenger who's a witness in protective custody, let loose a crate full of deadly snakes. Well, a title doesn't get too much more literal than that, and though it's not due out until 2006, it's already inspired a long and often chuckle-worthy thread of over 100 proposed sequels.

A list of John Peel's most treasured 7-inch singles. The White Stripes are big winners, with an amazing 10 spots on the list.

James forwarded me this little easter egg video of Yoda breakdancing, from the Star Wars, Episode III - Revenge of the Sith DVD, releasing tomorrow.

"is comprised of"

One of the most common usage errors in English is the phrase "is comprised of." A Google search for the phrase returns 20.8 million results. A whole comprises the parts. In most cases when people use "is comprised of" they should use "comprises" or "is composed of." For example, "New York City comprises Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens." The incorrect usage is so popular, though, that fighting it might prove a losing battle.

Worthwhile usage lessons like this can be found in Garner's Modern American Usage, an essential reference for writers.

***

A hack: free SkypeOut calls. I'll need those and much more after reading this article on how much money you need to truly have "f*** you money" in NYC. Basically, without going into the detailed calculations, the article said I'll be eating ramen, watching pirated DVDs on my old laptop, and stealing wi-fi from my next-door neighbor for the rest of my life. Just passing through, just passing through.

***

The Michelin Red Guide 2006 New York City will be unveiled next week at the Guggenheim. Some of New York's prominent chefs weigh in. Anthony Bourdain provides the gossip:

The big question is who will get a top ranking: The thinking is that Ducasse is a shoo-in for three stars. If they don’t give it to Ducasse, it will just be a terrible slap. And if they don’t give three to Per Se, that’s really a huge turd in the punch bowl. If Per Se gets three, and Ducasse doesn’t, that’s a whole other political situation. At least that’s the girls’ talk—you know, when the chefs are all sitting around bitching and gossiping. As for Zagat, it’s devalued. It’s like, “Some say ‘delicious’; others say ‘smells like cat pee.’

Danny Meyer puts it all in perspective:

Particularly in its first year of publication, a Michelin star will represent nothing but upside for any restaurant. This year, the guide will award but not remove stars from any restaurant. Many will be helped, none will be hurt.

***

Evidence suggests that many U.S. Senators profit off of insider trading. That's not shocking considering how connected they are. What Martha Stewart did is hardly the exception to the rule, but making an example of her seems unlikely to curb the practice. Perhaps the only way to halt this, and it's not practical, is to prevent anyone in a certain position or job level from trading on certain publicly-traded stocks (like CEO's and Senators). This would constrain their investment options, but then again, they're rich.

***

This list of the 20 best license-free fonts on the web should have included any of the Peter Saville New Order/Joy Division fonts. They're flat-out gorgeous, and they're free. Now I just have to figure out how to convert them for use on my Mac.

Pocket lint

Studies fail to find any link between diet and cancer. If people believe in the cancer-fighting benefits of tomato sauce and antioxidants and fiber and beta carotene, that peace of mind is not without value.

A helpful rundown of all the cases for the iPod nano.

James sent me this link to some crazy-ass breakdancers in the Redbull BC One competition. Too bad the video stream is so choppy.

Fascinating article about the constant influx of Chinese who immigrate to America through NYC and then ship out immediately to some of the more than 36,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S. A few interesting factoids: there are more Chinese restaurants in the U.S. than McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger Kings combined. The market price for getting oneself smuggled into the U.S. is upward of $60,000. Those Chinatown buses that offer $15 one-way rides from NYC to Boston or Washington originally sprang up to transport these workers, but now they carry quite a number of non-Chinese looking for cheap transportation.

Economic integration cited as one of the main reasons for improved test scores in Raleigh school district. This is one of the main reasons why some education reformers believe the answer to education woes is not to segregate all the best and/or wealthiest students in their own schools. It's a tough sell to the parents of those kids, though.

Downloadable subway maps for many major cities for your iPod. Great, except New York City's MTA and San Francisco's BART have filed cease-and-desist letters. Some graphic designer just needs to make their own versions for this guy. No reason to wait for them to license it to him. That's just ridiculous. The latest update is that he's making progress on his own version of the NY Subway Map.

How can you tell if a woman loves you?

If you’re Gael Garcia Bernal: She loves you.

If you’re not Gael Garcia Bernal, but you’re willing to sit through a “GGB” marathon and agree for 10 consecutive hours that he is indeed the most beautiful and talented man alive—and so down-to-earth, too!—and afterward agree that his portrayal of Che Guevara would have earned an Oscar nod were it not for the implicit politics, agree that taking Spanish classes is a great idea, or salsa, or tango, whatever, agree, agree, agree, and that night lying in bed after sex that ends with her screaming, “Si! Si!” wonder aloud, “But you’re happy with me, right?”: She loves you, man—no one can compete with that Latin bastard. Forget about it.

Customized colors for your iPod Nano, at a premium of $85

Ninja NY

Ninja comes to NY. This giant Japanese restaurant chain features ninjas that leap out at you while you eat, or something to that effect. I heard that after a frightened patron had a heart attack in the LA facility, they turned the lights up and cut back on the ninja theatrics. The few reader reviews up at the NYTimes suggest that the type of geeks attracted by this theme aren't likely to be able to afford to eat here, let alone spell omasake. Rarely has kitsch cost so much.

Searching for information on what it's like to eat at Ninja, I stumbled upon a review from Alex, lead singer of Franz Ferdinand, on his blog. Since I couldn't figure find a permalink, I've excerpted it below. You can also find the original at his weblog by scrolling down to the July 30, 2004 entry. He visited what I assume is the flagship Ninja restaurant in Tokyo. That the most detailed review of dining at Ninja would come from the lead singer of Franz Ferdinand, who I'm seeing in concert in a week and a half, is a bit odd. So odd that I just looked up at my ceiling to make sure no ninja was clinging by his fingernails, ready to aerate my forehead with a few well-thrown stars.

Leaving For Fuji Rock, Tokyo
30 | 07 | 04
We arrived last night. It's close, humid and warm, the opposite of what we left down South. It's amazing here, almost overwhelming. There's too much to absorb. I feel like I've run my finger across the icing of a huge, intensely rich chocolate cake and licked it. A taste, that's it.

Last night, after we dropped our bags off at the hotel, we went out for something to eat. The restaurant was called Ninja and it wasn't just a restaurant. It was a themed adventure. When I walked in, the girl at the bookings desk brusquely ordered me back outside. "Your Ninja not ready yet! Outside!" I stood sheepishly in the street with the others, feeling the perspiration grow across my skin, watching the blocks of lucky salt by the doorway dissolve in the warm mist. "Hai! Come now! Ninja Ready!" We clattered back down the stairs. "Ninja! Ninja!" she cried, then clapped her hands twice. Another girl burst from a secret door into a forward roll in front of us. She was dressed in black with a scarf around her head. She wasn't an out of work actress, she was a Ninja. "Follow me! Watch head!" We followed her through another secret door into a dark passage. It was lit with a low green light. We stopped by an artificial fountain built into the wall, with plastic plants surrounding it. "This Ninja Shrine!" We murmured appropriate awe and agreement. It reminded me of the boat trip you can go on in Blackpool, where you go for a journey around the world, seeing what a guy from Blackpool's idea of Egypt and Africa is. "Watch head!" We followed her further along the dark passage, abruptly stopping by two windows with bars over them. We looked through and could see more plastic plants and fake rocks. "This Ninja Nest!" We murmured appropriate awe and agreement. "Watch head!" We followed her still further down the passage. We turned a corner. The Ninja's face creased in dismay. "Oh no! Not ready! Go back!" We shuffled back round the corner. The Ninja disappeared. Then reappeared. "Right! Come now!!" We shuffled after her. "Oh No! What happened?" I wasn't sure. She was pointing at the floor in front of us. There was now a sheet of perspex over some more fake rocks and plastic plants, Swith dry ice curling between them. "Oh no! How we get cross?" We murmured appropriate anxiety and perplexion. "It's OK! I'm Ninja! Hai!!" She clapped twice and a draw bridge suddenly fell down, allowing us to cross the thick perspex in safety, into the restaurant beyond.

...I sat down on a cushion at a low lacquered table on lacquered floorboards, enclosed by paper screens. Our Japanese friends ordered a selection for us, including warm Saki. That stuff is fantastic. As the food began to arrive, so did another Ninja. This one was a magician. He asked us if we liked card tricks. Before we could finish saying yes/hai he puked up a deck of cards across the table. There was then an intense ten minutes of concentrated, very impressive tricks, no time to linger on applause, just trick after trick, before he disappeared into the Ninja night. The food was incredible. Leaves with frozen smokey dressing and jellyfish. Soft-shelled crab tempura, like eating a tarantula with excema. Fish eggs, some tiny, some huge, translucent, red, yellow, black and orange, all glistening like jewels. Fatty belly of tuna, minced into a raw paste. Cuttlefish scored with a cross-hatch. Sea anemone perched on seaweed. Silver mackerel skins. Cold noodles in cold salty soup. It all tasted so wonderful, so many new flavours and textures, food like I've never eaten before, the feast of a lifetime. The saki melted my limbs and I began to slide under the low table.

When we got back outside, I'd forgotten how close and humid it was. The cicadas were belting it out in the trees, drunk businessmen fell out of a whisky bar with bottles of every Scotch ever distilled stacked in the window. I got back to my room and decided not to negotiate the electric toilet's high-powered cleaning jets, despite the helpful diagrams which illustrated exactly where the jets were aimed. I put on the complimentary kimono, span round a couple of times and collapsed on the bed, falling into a very satisfied sleep.

posted by “Alex”

Moto's Doughnut Soup recipe

Earlier this year, I posted about my visit to Moto. In it, I raved about one of the post-modern desserts, donut soup, and asked if anyone had the recipe or wanted to share ideas on how to replicate it at home.
Today, after class, I found an e-mail in my inbox from a MaryLouise. It turns out she'd read a profile of Moto in the August edition of US Airways magazine and jotted down the doughnut soup recipe on a barf bag (yes, just a hint of irony in that).
She made the soup this past weekend (the results were delicious, she reports), and while Googling for a photo of the soup, she came across my post. Bless her heart, she was kind enough to e-mail me the recipe, along with a warning to ensure my blender was up to snuff.
And now, little man, I give the recipe to you.

Doughnut Soup

Ingredients
5 glazed yeast doughnuts
1 c milk
1 c water
powdered sugar
salt

For the stock
Break 2 doughnuts into small pieces and caramelize in a dry pan.
Add milk and water, bring to simmer.
Remove from heat and steep for 20 min.
Strain.

Puree 3 doughnuts in a blender with enough stock for a cream-like consistency. Season to taste with salt and sugar, and run through a fine strainer. Serve warm in demitasse cups alongside an espresso.

On the Marc Jacobs

On the Marc Jacobs homepage, you can click a link to watch the video of his 2006 Collection runway show, which opened with the Penn State Nittany Lions marching band playing "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Never have so many band dorks shared the stage with so many babes. Fashion shows are inherently ridiculous, so twists like this one or the nude runway show at the end of Altman's Ready to Wear are to be expected. Still, I'd leap at the chance to see a fashion show in person if I could score tickets. Who wouldn't?

***

Among the 25 new MacArthur Fellows receiving $500,000 genius grants this year is Edet Belzberg. We will be editing her newest project, which isn't even listed at IMDb yet, in the second half of our class. She's most known for her first feature-length documentary Children Underground, which is now at the top of my Netflix queue. So exciting!

***

Smashing Pumpkins lead singer Billy Corgan fielded questions about the Chicago Cubs in the Chicago Tribune Sports page. Being a creative type, he chose to ignore the Shift key.

I can't even talk or think about the Cubs anymore, this season has been such a disappointment. I haven't watched one of their games since I left for China.

***

Stream the new Elizabethtown soundtrack at MySpace. I've never once touched my MySpace page, but it's MySpace has carved out a nice little niche for themselves in the crowded social community software space with their music content.

***

As NYC waits to see which of its restaurants will be crowned with three stars in the first Michelin Guide in North America, or even which 500 will merit mention at all (pre-order the Michelin Guide to New York City 2006 from Amazon.com for 32% off; it ships on Nov 4, 2005), it's useful to review what three stars from Michelin mean. According to Michelin, three stars denote "exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey, where diners eat extremely well, sometimes superbly. The wine list features generally outstanding vintages, and the surroundings and service are part of this unique experience, which is priced accordingly."

I tried using a Michelin Guide once, but it wasn't nearly as useful as I'd hoped, in part because my French was rusty, but also because the guides don't actually provide much description of each listing. Fortunately, the web community will be sure to blog the 3-star winner(s) to death.

Michelin's inspectors have been paying anonymous visits to 1,200 NYC restaurants since February. During this time, I have been tempted, on more than one occasion, to stroll into some of NYC's finest restaurant with a Moleskine notebook and Mont Blanc pen, wearing some stylish metal frame glasses and sporting a French accent. I'd look all about me like a tourist entering a cathedral in Europe, and after the first bite or two of each dish, I'd jot notes in my notebook.

You laugh, but simply bringing my camera into a restaurant and snapping photos of my dishes before eating them has led to no shortage of free dishes, compliments of the kitchen, and face-to-face meetings with the head chef.

***

Epicurious lists ten restaurant trends they hate. Personally, the most exasperating thing about the NYC dining scene is the impossibility of getting a seat at any half-decent place. If you have to make a reservation weeks in advance, any meal starts to seem like an ordeal, placing undue pressure on the experience. One is bound to be disappointed in some way. It's less the scarcity of reservation slots as it is the dearth of walk-in availability that disappoints me.

I enjoy being able to stroll into a neighborhood joint to enjoy a spontaneous bite, to feel like I can run into a friend on the street and be enjoying an unplanned but delightful meal together just a few moments later.

***

Google WiFi service to launch shortly?

***

Which animal kills more people in the U.S. than any other?

Mugged

Short story by Tobias Wolff in this week's New Yorker
I long ago stopped reading the weekly New Yorker short story unless it happened to be by an author I know and love, like Wolff. Also in this week's New Yorker, Noah Baumbach wrote the comedy bit, titled "Tom Cruise is My Dog." I heard Baumbach speak after the screening of his movie The Squid and the Whale at Sundance this year. Baumbach, a close friend of Wes Anderson, did not seem like the type of guy who'd write a piece like that, but I guess I was wrong.

Upcoming cookbook by Ferran Adria contains recipes from his famed El Bulli
Will cost $210 and include interactive CD-ROM.

Entourage gets a third season

Tattooed fruit could mean the end of the annoying little stickers you have to peel off

***

I'm away from NYC a lot in the next month, so every day here is spent running errands. This stretch of days where I have to venture out onto the street just happens to coincide with the muggiest weather since I've moved here. Within a minute of walking out into the heat, I feel like a damp towel. NYC feels like a sauna with a concrete and asphalt floor, brick and metallic walls, and the sun for a heat lamp in the ceiling.

***

Every camera store I've been to in NYC so far is owned and run by Hasidic Jews, including the massive B&H. Yesterday I had to drop off my inkjet printer for repair at a local camera store and was greeted by a store full of Hasidic Jews, just like B&H. It's the fourth such store I've visited. Interesting cultural phenomenon.

Do camera stores have really low margins? Are photographers a jealous, misanthropic lot? How does one explain the awful customer service at camera stores (it was the same at Glazer's in Seattle)? A majority of camera store employees I've dealt with are rude and curt, as if they disdain my business. I have no idea why that is but it's really unnecessary.

The late night employees at Whole Foods, on the other hand, are just careless and indifferent. Twice the clerks there have forgotten to pack one of my items, and each time I've had to stand there waiting while the checkout clerk carried on a social conversation with one of their peers. In this heat and humidity, it's more than aggravating to walk 10 blocks round trip to retrieve a single item. When this happened again last week, I had to throw a tantrum on the phone to the manager to get him to credit me for my salad (which I pictured the manager eating himself as he replied "uh-huh" "uh-huh" to my litany of complaints). I'm not going there in the evening anymore.

***

I only caught a bit of the British Open, but it seems safe to say that Tiger Woods' swing changes have worked themselves out. To hurt Tiger, a course needs to punish him for errant drives, and if that doesn't work, competitors have to hope he's putting badly. The rough at the U.S. Open handled the former, and Tiger couldn't putt that week. But the British Open links layout didn't punish him when he hooked or pushed his drives. Errant tee shots landed in the next fairway over, and he simply hit irons from wherever he landed. The fairway bunkers? Tiger drover over most of them.

***

While in DC last weekend, Joannie and I visited the Holocaust Museum thanks to Rich's sister Catherine who works there and left passes for us. Even several years beyond its opening, it's still an attraction that requires advanced planning in order to secure a spot. The main exhibit is linear, winding down from the top floor back to the main floor. For some subjects, like this one, I prefer that format over an open format where you have to choose your own path.

Impressive exhibit and well worth a visit. Of course, I also dragged Joannie to see the insects at the National Museum of Natural History. As a compromise I went with her to view the Hope Diamond and other assorted bling.

Thank goodness the DC Metro stations are air conditioned. It was so hot that wandering from museum to monument to museum felt like strolling in a ceramic kiln. At the Supreme Court we viewed a video interview with the current Justices. Ginsberg commented that when the Constitution was written, women couldn't vote and blacks were still suffering the indignities of slavery, among other injustices to be rectified in later years. While she spoke, the video cut for a few seconds to the face of strict constructionist Scalia, and it was all he could do to keep from rolling his eyes. High comedy. Scalia's a nut.

The trip to DC was a success. Joannie found an apartment in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. It will be great to have her and Mike closer by, just a three and a half make that four five hour bus ride away. The bus drivers this time around sure took their sweet time.

On the way down, the in-drive movie was that awful movie in which Jennifer Lopez and her daughter and haunted by a crazy guy, presumably her ex-husband (I wasn't watching that closely). The lunatic was played by the guy who played Carter Buckley on The O.C. this season. Finally, after being terrorized by the guy for the entire movie, J.Lo trains herself in boxing and goes after him. Our arrival in DC cut off the final fight scene, to no one's dismay.

***

I keep receiving a phishing e-mail for eBay, an excerpt of which appears below. This fraudster needs a copy editor. If you want to steal someone's money, at least put some effort into it.

It has come to our attion that 95% of all fraudulent auctions are caused by members using stolen credit cards to purchase or sell non existant items. Thus we require our members to add a Debit/Check card to their billing records as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to reduce the instance of fraud on our website. Your Debit/Check card will only be used to identify you and bill any open seller fees incase your initial credit card gets declined. If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and renew your records you will not run into any future problems with the eBay® service. However, failure to confirm your records will result in your account suspension.

@&*#!

How much cussing is there in Deadwood? A lot (audio, not for @#$%&*-ing sensitive ears).

Since Michael Lewis published Moneyball, have major league front offices corrected for the undervaluation of on base percentage (OBP)? These professors suggest they have, due in part to the ascent of some members of the Oakland A's front office to General Manager positions elsewhere. Valuation of OBP took a huge jump up in 2004, leaping above the valuation of slugging percentage (SLG) for the first time.

New York Metro profile of Jean-Georges

Upcoming videogames: The Warriors, and The Godfather
Videogames borrow from movies, movies borrow from videogames. Paramount is big on derivative stories: Aeon Flux, War of the Worlds, The Honeymooners, The Manchurian Candidate, The Bad News Bears. Related: an e-comic adaptation of H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds (with art by D'Israeli).

Hub

Living in NYC is like hosting a party attended by a lot of supermodels. Or getting a boob job. People you haven't seen in ages just drop in all the time. I've had old friends in town for seven weeks straight now. Compare that to living in Seattle when I'd be surprised if more than one person visited within the span of half a year.

Jen stopped in over a month back, and we grabbed dinner at Blue Ribbon Sushi in Soho. It was my first time there. Visitors are always a good excuse for a nice meal out. Who else did we spy in the lobby of Jen's hotel? Clive Owen. I wanted to ask him to repeat one of the funnier lines from the movies in 2004 (delivered with his signature venom in Closer, "You writer.").

Rich was in town the week after. Martinis at 2pm in the afternoon, and a slab of bacon at Gramercy Tavern at happy hour (my first time in the bar area there; the bacon entree, if it's still there, is artery-clogging nirvana). After that, Glengarry Glen Ross on Broadway, followed by an 11 pm surf and turf dinner at some steakhouse near Times Square. They brought out a slab of red meat the size of half a loaf of bread. It took me a week to recover, and even then, angioplasty looms large.

Then Bill dropped into town. More late afternoon martinis as we waited for a seat at Union Square Cafe. Seated at the bar, we battled the dizzying influence of the martinis with USC's famous garlic potato chips, then chose some heavier artillery in the roast suckling pig.

Karen was in town for James's birthday, and we visited EN Japanese Brasserie in the West Village. We had the omakase dinner. I've been a few times now, and I prefer to order a la carte. The omakase wasn't all that satisfying taste-wise or portion-size as compared to the food my previous visits. Go a la carte, order the pork belly. I can't but help thinking of izakaya restaurants in Vancouver when I try izakaya in NYC. Vancouver's are better and two orders of magnitude cheaper.

Who was next? Howie, I think. His tastes are quite specific. We had Double Shack burgers at Shake Shack on a sunny afternoon. Nothing better, though the lines there are borderline prohibitive. The burgers are really good there, but remember to get at least a Double Shack burger. The regular Shack burger doesn't have enough meat, the Double is just right, and the Triple is indulgent. I needed all the calories to keep up, what with Howie keeping me up past 5am some four nights in a row. My body clock is still on the graveyard shift some two weeks later.

This past weekend, I was waiting for Scott to join me for a bike ride when Audrey called me on my cell. Turns out she was in town for a wedding and only a few blocks away. I rode over and walked her and her boyfriend and friends down to the Ashes and Snow exhibit, then met back up with Scott where we battled the annoying Fleet Week crowds all the way up the West side until we reached Central Park. The Central Park loop of 6 miles was just barely tolerable, what with pedestrians wandering out in front of us with nary a look in either direction. We couldn't really go that fast for fear of running over some fellow New Yorkers. We rode back down 5th Ave., my first taste cycling NY city streets in high traffic, and it was an adrenaline rush. Just plain terrifying. Scott rode without a helmet; he's crazy (Scott's also training for an Ironman, more proof he's crazy). A few times I felt like I was in a BMW commercial as city buses on either side of me collapsed in on me. This must be what it felt like in the approach run towards the exhaust chute of the Death Star in Star Wars. Not an experience I'd seek out, and I shudder to think of someone trying to learn to ride clipless pedals in Manhattan.

I also visited my new nephew Evan and happy/tired parents Alan and Sharon out in Long Island this weekend. We celebrated Sharon's birthday by battling Mace Windu and General Grievous in James's copy of Revenge of the Sith for XBox. No wait, correction. We ate cupcakes to celebrate Sharon's birthday. The light saber battling was just calisthenics for the fingers.

Dave's in town this week. We had dinner tonight downstairs at BLT Fish (upstairs, the fancier half of the restaurant, is reservations only). I hadn't eaten all day when I met up with Dave, and two beers on an empty stomach left me a little loopy. This always happens when people are in town--I end up drunk before dinner. My fish and chips? Nothing special, but Dave's striped bass impressed. Afterwards I stumbled home, and just as I collapsed on my sofa, my phone ran. Bill was in town for Book Expo. A short cab ride later, he was sitting on my beanbag. We caught up again for an hour or two. By the time I jumped online, Dave had already posted about our dinner.

Emily's in town next week, and then nearly the entire family comes through the week after. Cirrhosis the weekend after? Exhaustion, at a minimum.

Of course, I'm under no illusions that anyone is here to visit me. I'd like to think it's personality, personality, personality, but as with real estate, it's all about location, location, location.

Somewhat related note: is there a term for someone you haven't heard from in ages who suddenly e-mails, then when you respond, they go silent? E-mail and run? Pump fake?

Hello Moto

In March, I visited Mike and Joannie in Chicago. Originally, I planned to take them to Alinea for dinner, but it hadn't opened yet. Fortunately, Chicago hosts more than one "post modern" or "avant-garde" cuisine restaurant (this food movement has yet to settle on a term for itself, and molecular gastronomy is not the most appetizing of terms). Chef Ferran Adrià is widely credited with founding this movement with his restaurant El Bulli, situated a few hours north of Barcelona and voted best restaurant in the world by Restaurant Magazine just a few years back. Besides Alinea, Chicago also hosts chef Homaro Cantu's Moto and Graham Elliott Bowles Avenues. I opted for Moto.

I'm not an expert on post-modern cuisine, and this was my first experience with it, but some of the tenets seem to include the following:

• Dining out should be an event in and of itself, a show both fun and intriguing
• A meal should appeal to senses other than taste to a greater degree than they do today
• Taste buds deserve something new, too
• Distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow food are artificial and should be bridged
• New technology can help to create new dishes with unique flavors and textures
• Food can appeal to the intellect

Located on Fulton St., Moto is a bit cool in atmosphere, and on this Wednesday night (Mar 16), the austerity was amplified by the emptiness. We were one of just three tables occupied, and the hushed silence caused the three of us to whisper subconsciously. I killed my cell phone even before reading on the menu that "moto is a cell phone free environment unless we issue one to you" (italics theirs). One data point can't be extrapolated in any direction, but the restaurant is a bit out of the way for a Tuesday night feast for working folk. The lighting is quite dim inside. The website explains: "the minimalist decor of the main dinning room allows our guest to focus on the main attraction: Chef Cantu's food." I maxed out the ISO on my digital camera and still could have used a tripod for pics (as some of the blurry shots below will attest). I'd love to see mini spotlights at each table, perhaps on telescoping arms, or from mini table-standing lamps, or even hanging on long cords from the ceiling, to highlight the colors of the food. Ones eyes can't make out the color and texture of the food as well when everything is bathed in dim lighting.

Moto offered three tasting menus. The base menu includes five courses for $65, the next step up includes ten courses for $100, and the grand daddy is the Grand Tour Moto (GTM), eighteen courses for $160. The GTM is described on the menu as "the best way to experience our vision in the post modern movement," but my wallet's appetite could only stretch to the ten course taster. Our waiter told us that all three tasting menus included the same amount of food, and the thought of the portions in the GTM gave new meaning to molecular gastronomy.

Our first course was the sushi cartoon, one of Moto's more famous dishes. Homaro Cantu had devised a means to feed food dyes through an inkjet printer, and this roll of sushi included photos of the fish printed on the outside of the rice paper wrapping. Novel, but more interesting conceptually than taste-wise. Cantu has a patent out on this method of printing on rice paper, and our waiter noted that Cantu hoped to enclose flavored rice paper in plastic for distribution in magazines and other outlets in the future. The culinary equivalent of perfume samples in magazines, it might be a way to market a restaurant directly to diners' taste buds.

Course two was champagne & king crab. The grapes in the photo had been carbonated somehow (with a syringe?). Each bite provided a fruity fizzling in the mouth that took me by surprise, and the dry champagne and sweet-tart grape complimented the salt and seafood flavors of the sturgeon and king crab nicely. See the piece of plastic below? It housed another of Cantu's inkjet creations. In this case, he had printed a piece of rice paper with the flavors of the dish below. After eating the dish, we were told to put the "negative" on our tongue for "developing." The result, if executed properly, was to be a reminder of what we'd just had. Cantu named this concoction deja vu. I didn't follow directions and got the negative stuck on the roof of my mouth where, presumably, humans have few if any taste buds. Joannie's negative stuck to the roof of her mouth also, suggesting that the deja vu idea needs tweaking. The result was more of a fuzzy Polaroid than an Ansel Adams print, but I still loved the dish.

Course three: French onion soup with a hot - frozen crouton. The waiter added a cube of liquid nitrogen at the table to cool the soup, causing smoky plumes to emanate from the bowl. The waiter explained the reasoning behind the liquid nitrogen, but I don't recall the details. Perhaps rapid cooling locks in the flavor in a more concentrated fashion?

Dish four: lobster with freshly squeezed orange soda. The orange is to the right in the photo below. The lobster was served over pureed celery root with brown butter icea cream. The orange, like the grapes earlier, had been carbonated. I'm a fan of the carbonated fruit. It adds a playful touch to the traditional palate cleanser. The lobster was magnificent. I love lobster, and any dish that incorporates lobster has to let the lobster be the center piece. Let lobster be lobster. This dish did.

Dish five: sunchoke, lemon, thyme, & kalamansi. Our waiter filled in the details: sunchoke (Jerusalem artichoke or sunflower bulb) sorbet, lemon and thyme jelly, and kalamansi foam. Kalamansi is a Japanese citrus fruit. The foam texture is said to deliver a more concentrated dose of Kalamansi flavor, but I'm not sure I've ever had Kalamansi so I can't comment on the success of the technique.

Before bringing out dish six, our waiters brought out a thermal polymer box heated to 400 degrees. Inside rested a raw piece of monkfish, soon to be dish number seven after it finished cooking on our table. Until then, dish six: french fry potato chain links with sweet potato pie. The potato links were carved from one potato. To the left below: porcini mushroom ragout. To the right: fennel and cabbage topped with juniper marshmallow.

Below, Joannie demonstrates that the potato links indeed formed a continuous chain. This is something I did not learn in my knife skills cooking class. The cook learned the technique from Andre Soltner of the French Culinary Institute in NYC. I'm quite certain it's something I'll never attempt.

Dish seven: monkfish bouillabasse. The waiters removed the monkfish from the thermal polymer box and placed it over bouillabaisse made from powder and the juices of the monkfish itself.

Dish eight: prime dry aged beef with braised pizza & garlic. What makes the dish noteworthy is not the democratic inclusion of pizza but the utensils. The top of both the spiral metallic fork and spoon speared a grilled(?) clove of garlic. Before each bite, we were to smell the garlic. This, the waiter explained, would fool our taste buds into tasting garlic without actually having to eat it. The effect was mild, but I had a stuffy nose. I have no problem with garlic breath, so I'd prefer my garlic in my mouth, but the beef and pizza combo was still a winning one.

Dish nine: doughnut soup. The blurry shot below is just a bit below actual size. We each received an espresso-sized shot of this dessert, and it was my favorite of the night. I don't have the adjectives to describe it, but just imagine drinking a Krispy Kreme glazed donut. The liquid had the consistency of skim milk, and the flavor was just the right level of sweetness. This is a shining example of where molecular gastronomy goes right. It's as if the flavors and smells of a donut had been magically distilled into liquid form, delivering something that tasted more like a donut than a donut itself, if that makes sense.

I had to know how the dish was made, and our waiter provided a brief description which has blurred over the passage of time. I believe they boiled a few Krispy Kreme donuts in milk, then strained the liquid and added sugar. Then they pureed a few Krispy Kreme donuts, mixed it all together, and strained the liquid out again. I hope Cantu (or is this the work of pastry chef Ben Roche?) releases the actual recipe someday because this is something I'd try and make at home. I hope to attempt this soon, and if anyone wants to trade recipes or secrets, do e-mail me.

Avant-garde cuisine has spiced up the dessert canon with its willingness to tap fast food and school lunch snacks. Another Moto dessert is Kentucky Fried ice cream (tastes like fried chicken!), and chef Bowles at Avenues incorporates Rice Krispie treats in one of his dishes.

Lastly, manjari chocolate cake with hot ice cream. The flourless chocolate cake was covered with walnuts and filled with maple syrup that gushed out once I breached the outer wall with my spoon.

No, wait, another dish, courtesy of the kitchen. Packing peanuts. The texture was that of, well, packing peanuts (when avant-garde cuisine succeeds, dictionaries fail because the food tasted just like it's named), the taste was that of popcorn, complimented by a caramel dipping sauce. We also opted for tea to conclude our three hour plus meal, having as one of our selections a tea called Iron Goddess of Mercy. Our waiter shared its history.

This reserve grade oolong tea was made from a 1400 year old tree. It gained its exalted status after curing a Ming Dynasty emperor and was made from only the middle leaf of the three leaves on the end of each branch. Why only the middle leaf? I don't know, but it makes for a good story.

Our waiter, coincidentally, had trained under Grant Achatz (of Alinea fame). He had nothing but praise for Achatz and was training to open a place of his own in the future. All waiters at Moto work in the kitchen as well, and our team of two or three waiters were trained in the techniques of high-end dining service. All our dishes touched the table at the same instant, and all wine labels were rotated towards diners while being poured. Occasionally, a waiter would even come over and adjust the placement of my wine glass which was too much attention for my taste. The timing of the arrival of each course was precise, so I can't imagine how long the GTM might take. One might be at the restaurant for four or five hours.

One last surprise remained. Our waiter had noted me jotting notes in my notebook and snapping the occasional photo, and he'd fielded many more questions from us than the other diners. When our check arrived, he brought with it a laminated copy of our menu, dated March 16, 2005, signed by chef Homaro Cantu! A perfect memento of an already memorable meal.

My lasting impression of Moto and avant-garde cuisine is a positive one. I'm as much a fan of simple cuisine as anyone (especially in my own kitchen), but letting my tastebuds experience sensations and flavors they've never been is the equivalent of traveling to undiscovered countries. The mixture of familiar cupboard favorites (A-1 steak sauce, e.g.) and childhood favorites (PBJ, cotton candy, e.g.) with expensive ingredients (foie gras, lobster) is not just playful but often successful, and many of these dishes are not just gimmicks but successful attempts at extracting flavors in their purest forms for seamless and intriguing integration.

This food movement is still young, and as such, some of the chefs' attempts will be unsuccessful. However, we have enough restaurants that know how to crank out steak frites, braised lamb shank, or Chilean sea bass, and only a handful of offshoots of El Bulli experimenting at the frontier of cooking. At this point in the movement, the risk-reward ratio for both the chefs and a foodie like me is still far in favor of experimentation. Foodies already treat meals as events, and they're the target audience here.

Those of you wishing to sample some avant-garde cuisine need to travel to Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., London, or Barcelona (and you'll need more than a dose of good luck to score a table at Alinea or El Bulli):

El Bulli, Roses (Girona) 972150457 (reservations)

Minibar at Cafe Atlantico 405 8th St., NW, Washington, DC 202 393 0812

Alinea 1723 North Halsted Street, Chicago, 312 867-0110

Moto 945 West Fulton Market, Chicago, 312 491-0058

Avenues Peninsula Hotel, 108 East Superior Street, Chicago, 312 573-6754

WD-50 50 Clinton Street, New York, 212 477-2900

A few more pics from Moto...

Feel Good

Eat fat to lose fat
Now there's a headline I can get behind.

Party Ben mashes Gorillaz and Cake: "Never Feel Good" (MP3)
Gorillaz "Feel Good" is the catchiest single I've heard this year. Not sure how long until the new Apple commercial spoils it for me, but not yet. It stands alone better than it does mashed up. Ironically, it sounds best played large, on a full-size sound system. I love my iPod, but it's not the best device for really showing off music, and people who only listen to music on the iPod are missing out on something good (and possibly damaging their hearing)

Alinea, the latest entrant in the avant-garde food movement, debuts
Let's hope the food is better than the website. Grant Achatz is widely regarded as a prodigy in the culinary world. I wanted to go there when I was in Chicago earlier this year, but it hadn't opened. Instead, I took Mike and Joannie to Moto. I've been meaning to write up my meal there. Before I do, though, let me summarize: I'm a fan. My dessert at Moto was donut soup. It tasted like a liquid Krispy Kreme donut. Awesome.

Eliot Spitzer brokers a deal b/t Time Warner and Cablevision so Mets and Yankees games can be seen by Time Warner Cable customers (like yours truly)

Two thoughts: how ridiculous is it that a huge portion of NYC, the largest baseball market in the world, couldn't see their home teams on TV, and what doesn't Eliot Spitzer do?

Is their a way to get Mac OS X Tiger's Dashboard widgets to persist? If not, there should be, especially for the multi-day weather forecast widget.

Roast pork, docile elephants

After reading a stellar write-up of this joint in The New Yorker, I had to try Tony Luke's. Headed up towards Central Park, I stopped in along the way for a sandwich. It's most well-known for importing its cheesesteak ingredients (and a chef who apprenticed with Tony Luke himself) from Philly, but I opted for its other claim to fame, the Roast Pork Italian sandwich. With variations of just three basic sandwiches on the menu, Tony Luke's sticks to its specialties.

The restaurant itself is nothing to speak of, though people who know give it props for an authentic Philly atmostphere. White tile floor, fluorescent lights, and a counter and bar stools on the right and left lead to an ordering window at the rear of the shop. The woman behind it slid the window open, took my order, and slid the window shut. I felt like I was at a Western Union waiting for money to be wired over from family on another continent. A short while later, a different window opened, and a pair of arms passed me my sandwich.

The roast pork Italian is $7.95 and offers roast pork, provolone cheese, and broccoli rabe on foot long, soft-baked bread. They don't cheat on the length--I think mine may have been a foot and a half long--and they also don't cut the sandwich in half or offer any utensils. If there's an elegant way to eat the sandwich, it's likely limited to people with Michael Jordan-sized hands. I just stuffed my face with it, pork and rabe and provolone and grease spilling out in all directions.

Simple, and effective. The bitterness of the rabe, the sharpness of the provolone, and the saltiness of the pork form a beautiful love triangle, delivered on a plush bed of dough whose starchy taste stays out of the way. My one grips is that the restaurant offers only napkins. You need a sink with soap or at a minimum three wet naps to clean the grease off your hands afterwards.

Tony Luke's is on 9th Ave. between 41st and 42nd St. Next time I visit (after my arteries clear)? Cheesesteak.

Before stopping for a sandwich, I stopped at the Ashes and Snow photography exhibition (at Hudson River Park's Pier 54 until June 6). The exhibition is housed in a "nomadic museum" building designed by Shigeru Ban and built out of shipping containers and paper tubing (Ban is famous for building all sorts of structures out of cardboard tubing).

The photographs and 35mm film by Gregory Colbert reveal elephants, whales, cheetahs, falcons, and other animals living in peace and harmony with humans. In many of the photos, man and animal seem to be meditating together. Having lived without pets and in cities most of my life, the photos seemed fantastic, even artificial in the empathy depicted, but nothing I read at the exhibit indicated that the animals were anything but wild, or that the photos were manipulated in any way. In fact, one text said that the man free diving with the humpback whales was Colbert himself.

The 35mm film featured slow motion footage of the same subjects, but in motion they're even more mysterious. One shot showed a young girl lying asleep in a canoe, drifting down the river. The shot was from overhead and followed as the canoe passed below an elephant standing in the river. Was the elephant wild? How did they film some of these scenes? The large crowd of onlookers stood in rapt attention, like pilgrims in a temple.

If you're in NYC and looking for a peaceful way to spend an hour or two, Ashes and Snow is well worth a visit. If you're not in NYC, perhaps the nomadic museum will stop near you in the future, or you can check out more of the photos online or purchase some of the work here. A few more Colbert pics after the jump.

2005 James Beard Foundation Awards

The Oscars of the restaurant world were announced. NYC is the Miramax of the restaurant world, or at least when Miramax was in its prime.

NY winners:

• All-Clad Bakeware Bakeware Outstanding Pastry Chef Award: Karen DeMasco of Craft, NYC - if I were a flying squirrel, I could jump out my window and glide to the doorstep of Craft. I really should go.
• All-Clad Cookware Outstanding Chef Award: Mario Batali of Babbo, NYC - is that the trophy Batali is holding, or is he about to bludgeon one of his foes on Iron Chef? I like a chef with a little heft; it's visible confirmation that they like to eat.

  

• American Express Best Chef, New York City: Andrew Carmellini, Caf� Boulud
• Ecolab Outstanding Wine and Spirits Professional Award: Joseph Bastianich, Italian Wine Merchants, NYC
• Illy Best New Restaurant: Per Se, NYC - Beat out, among others, Spice Market, Cru, and The Spotted Pig, also of NYC. I've been to Spice Market, and while the space itself impressed me, the food, supposed to recall Asian street food, left me unmoved and much poorer. I'd rather go to Asia and buy real street food for loose change.
• Waterford Outstanding Wine Service Award: Veritas, NYC, Wine Director Tim Kopec - the corollary to liking large chefs is trusting wine directors who hit the bottle. Tim didn't wait until the post-party to imbibe.

  

• Waterford Wedgwood Outstanding Restaurateur Award: Danny Meyer, Union Square Hospitality Group, NYC - hospitality is an appropriate name. Every Meyer restaurant I've been to has impressed with friendly service

Capogiro riso gelato

A few years back, while visiting Florence, I tasted riso gelato (rice gelato), and ever since I've been an addict. But back here in the States, not too many gelateria's offer riso. Perhaps the production is too onerous. Perhaps the demand isn't there. It should be. Riso gelato, made right, is sweet, but not too sweet. The rice is soft but offers just enough resistance to the bite (firmer than tapioca, softer than a rice krispie treat).

Here in NYC, my gelato of choice is Capogiro which can be found at Garden of Eden. They also sell gelato online, though. Recently, I wrote in requesting riso gelato, and Stephanie, one of the gelato queens there, obliged. Friday's daily flavor list e-mail even called me out on it:

Buon Giorno!!

fior di latte
lemon yogurt
burnt sugar
bourbon butterscotch
basil
banana
riso milano (for eugene)
lemon
crimson grape
tarocco-siciliano orange
champagne mango
caped gooseberry
lime cilantro
granny smith apple with chervil
avocado
kiwi
thai coconut milk
espresso
irish coffee
chocolate
mexican chocolate
bacio
cioccolato scuro
nocciola piemontese
macadamia nut
toasted almond
pistacchio siciliano

ciao!

www.capogirogelato.com

If you enjoy gelato, a six pint order from Capogiro is an excellent investment. If you order six seasonal gelati and want riso included, make a request for it in the comments section. And tell them I sent you and Stephanie will choose some winners for you. She mentioned that this week she's going to whip up some violet and possibly nasturtium, and perhaps some crimson grapes, rambutans, and cherimoya (paired with lime and thai coconut milk). I don't know half of the ingredients she mentions to me, but they all sound amazing.

et al

This really is an iron chef

Cool photos from the Hubble Telescope linked off this article

How to beat a speeding ticket
Wow, that's a lot of work. Another option is just to show up, and if the cop doesn't appear and you plead not guilty, you get off automatically. That's how I got off of my first speeding ticket.

How to sanitize your cooking sponge

Wine and swine me

Two Mondays ago I attended a food and wine tasting event. The theme? Pinot and pork; these are a few of my favorite things. A local wine importer sponsored the event, and proceeds went to Slow Food U.S.A, an "educational organization dedicated to promoting stewardship of the land and ecologically sound food production; reviving the kitchen and the table as the centers of pleasure, culture, and community; invigorating and proliferating regional, seasonal culinary traditions; creating a collaborative, ecologically-oriented, and virtuous globalization; and living a slower and more harmonious rhythm of life."

The pork dishes? Delicious. As soon as the event began, everyone was fighting for a spot in one of the food lines to grab a sampler from one of the participating restaurants. A bite of pork belly here, a bbq pork sandwich nibble there, and before you know it you're stuffed. Quaff the equivalent in pinot and you're loopy to boot. Rookie mistake. Next time I'm going to pace myself and wait for everyone to tire themselves out, and then I'll make my move. The space, which appeared to be a night club after hours, didn't have enough tables. People were standing around trying to hold a wine glass and a small plate of food and to eat and drink, all at once. Not an easy task with only two arms.

My old roommate Robert first turned me on to pinot noir. Ever since Sideways, the popularity of pinot has soared, and unfortunately, most of the pinots I've tried since just don't measure up. The pinot noir I love tastes like earth, and the pinots I tried at this event tasted fruity, like light burgundies. This seems especially true of pinots from California, though I haven't sampled enough to assert that with any confidence.

Around my brain in 80 seconds

Congrats Dave and Karen!

Whole Foods opens in Union Square this Wednesday, Mar. 16
Whoo-hoo! I've been waiting for the store to open ever since I moved to NYC. In another city, Whole Foods would count as a premium grocery store, but relative to other NYC stores, I think its prices will be reasonably unreasonable. Trader Joe's may invade Union Square this year as well, providing some downward pricing pressure. [news via Gothamist]

Bill Gurley blogifies his "Above the Crowd" newsletter/column
RSS feed for the column here. Always an interesting read, though Gurley's last post up until this week was from Fall 2004. The blog format should encourage more activity

The fantasy baseball league I play in, Mendoza Baseball, implemented an arbitration simulator this spring. Really cool. I don't think I've seen that in any other fantasy baseball simulation anywhere. I went to arbitration with some of my players today, and it was nervewracking waiting for the browser to refresh and display the arbitrator's decision when the player and I differed on salary judgments. Yes, I'm a total geek for caring about this, but some of you out there must play fantasy baseball, and if you're interested in trying to be a fantasy Billy Beane, check it out. The league has all sorts of interesting participants, from professors to students doing their PhDs on fantasy baseball

Kurt Eichenwald's Conspiracy of Fools hit bookstores this week. The book details the Enron scandal. I have a soft spot for white collar criminal non-fiction. Eichenwald's The Informant, about price-fixing at Archer Daniels-Midland, was excellent.

From The Onion: "According to a study released Monday by the Center for Media and Social Research, the reality-TV genre is unfairly biased against black people. The study revealed that reality is unfair to blacks, as well."

And from The Onion frontpage: "Could Hillary Clinton Have What It Takes To Defeat The Democrats In 2008?" and "Thick Sweater No Match For Determined Nipples"

Last Friday, Mike, Joannie, and I caught DJs A-Trak and Diplo at Sonotheque
Amazing stuff by DJ A-Trak, an honorary member of Invisibl Skratch Piklz and the first DJ ever to win all three major titles (DMC, ITF and Vestax) and the first DJ to win five world championships. He was Kanye West's personal DJ on tour last summer. A-Trak's first DVD and soundtrack Sunglasses is a Must comes out this summer on Audio Research Records

...

Darn, Lance is going to skip Paris-Roubaix after all

I like this week's New Yorker cartoon of the week. My nephew Ryan is a Babar fan; I'll have to save this for him.

New York Magazine's Best of New York 2005

John Updike reviews Jonathan Safran Foer's second novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Updike would have preferred the novel slightly further away, and a bit quieter

Food porn
Agh, I'm so hungry

Waiter Rant
Meant to post this a while ago--I think I saw it it in a NYTimes article a while back--but it's still a fresh read

The movie rental version of "Who's on First?"

NASA's World Wind is a sweet app that allows you to browse photos on any place on earth via satellite photography
Sadly, it's only available for Windows users, but I demoed it on a friend's computer and it's cool, if a bit slow

Fries

Fingertips posts a good list of free MP3s available on the web
More and more high quality (and legal) MP3s are being posted on the web by saavy musicians. Pointed out by any of numerous MP3 blogs, these free downloads have turned me on to many good bands I otherwise would never have heard of. It's a side story to the whole music piracy issue, but free MP3 downloads are a hugely effective marketing tool for many midlist bands who live towards the ends of the Long Tail, leading to revenue from CD sales, concert tickets, etc.

Tim Burton fonts

Study by economists Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner shows real estate agents sell their own homes for more profit than their clients' homes
One major problem is that the incentive system doesn't align with the seller and agent's interests; leaving your house on the market for longer in the hopes of snaring a higher bid isn't often worthwhile for an agent. Can't wait for Levitt and Dubner's new book Freakonomics

Human switcheroo (two 3MB Java Applets)
These videos from the University of Illinois Visual Cognition Lab depict a "human sleight of hand" that was detected by 50% or less of subjects

The largest purchaser of fresh apples of any restaurant or food service operation in the world is McDonalds
This doesn't include the lower grade apples used in their pies. They are the Wal-Mart of fast food in terms of purchasing power

Afternoon delight

I'm in cooking class for five hours each day this week, and so far I've had a blast. We're learning basic techniques. The first day was all about sauteing (direct heat), the second day we roasted chicken and boiled rice for pilaf (indirect heat), and today we braised lamb shanks and steamed mussels (wet heat). We're on our feet cooking almost the entire time, but the hours fly by.

The only problem, if you can call it that, is that we have a full five or six course meal to eat at the end of class, around 2 to 3pm, every day, with wine with every course. I've been floating home from class with rich food in my stomach to weight me down countered by a half bottle of wine lifting me into the sky.

Working in a huge industrial kitchen with fresh ingredients and every type of bowl, pot, skillet, and utensil imaginable is spoiling me rotten. I come home to my apartment with a counter the size of postage stamp and just want to cry. The good thing is that we have leftovers each day so I haven't had to cook dinner once this week.

I've learned a lot: how to make compound butters, prepare one's own chicken or veal stock, saute different vegetables, whip up a sinful chocolate mousse, braise leeks, macerate fruit, and the zen of mise en place. In an ideal world, I would have taken this class years ago.

I love to eat, no question about that, but I've come to enjoy the craft of preparing food and the joy that arises from carrying a beautiful dish over to the dinner table. The ritual of preparing and sitting down to a good meal feels so decadent in this rushed day and age.

Fruits of my Pseudo A.D.D.

One of the most useful Firefox Extensions is SessionSaver
In the event of a crash, it restores your browser as it was

You really can die from heartbreak
Which is why it's unbelievable when you see octogenarian Cubs fans

Sofiane Sylve, considered the world's foremost Balanchine dancer
One of the NYC bright talents I need to see sometime

Linky is a Mozilla plug-in that allows you to open multiple links at once
Saw this in Boing Boing. It's a godsend for pages with lots of photo thumbnails

Video for "An Honest Mistake" by The Bravery
Touted as one of the hot bands to watch for 2005. Reminds me of alternative music I listened to in the late 80's (in a good way), back when alternative was more, well, alternative

The Penny Black Project from Microsoft Research
This particular anti-spam approach attacks spammers by consuming CPU cycles for each message sent. I've read many variants on this approach, including charging a tiny amount per message, and it always sounds reasonable and feasible. My spam filters keep my inbox manageable, but I'm all for new approaches

Graphic, brutal, pro-vegetarian video from PETA titled "Meet Your Meat," narrated by Alec Baldwin
I turned vegetarian for a half year once before, and this video has me feeling it again. If anything, it's at least a powerful argument against factory farms and for purchasing organic meat from more humane farms, if at all possible

Ever since installing Mac OS X Update 10.3.8, my PowerPC G5 fans have been turning on and off constantly
If they ran all the time, I'd probably forget about the noise, but the constant on and off is really distracting

A primer on how to cut various fruits and vegetables
Excellent--lots of wisdom I learned in my knife skills class is available here for free!

The Nike Dunk Pidgeon sneaker
When I saw this, I thought it was perhaps the most beautiful sneaker I had ever seen. No idea why.

Pseudo A.D.D., brought on by the Internet
I am almost certain I suffer from this

IKEA is freaking dangerous
Just a half year ago, at least 3 people were crushed to death at an IKEA store opening in Saudi Arabia. Competitors might also take this as a sign that the world really, really needs cheap furniture

I wanted to laugh at this guy, but he's having a lot of fun, and I do the same thing myself from time to time

I agree, this change to the NYTimes e-mail an article functionality stinks
You can no longer e-mail the body of an article. I used to e-mail bodies of NYTimes articles to my GMail acct for future reading, my GMail acct being like a meat locker for mobsters to stash bodies

Knife Skills 1

I cashed in one of my Christmas presents yesterday, taking the one day Knife Skills 1 class at NYC's Institute of Culinary Education. The class was three hours long and taught by Norman Weinstein, a colorful character. I'm no dynamo in the kitchen, but I considered myself competent, though self-taught, with a knife. What I aspired to was the speed and accuracy of the chefs I'd seen on television. Like Daniel LaRusso, I walked in expecting to break boards, and instead was handed sponges and paintbrushes and told to wash cars and paint fences.

This was a good thing. We started with basics, the knives themselves. Weinstein was a huge advocate of Wusthof knives, and those were the type provided for the class. They're the same knives provided to the professional students at the school (we were the recreational track). I was glad to hear it as the 8" cook's knife and 3.5" paring knife I have at home are both Wusthof. Something about the way they feel in the hands just feels right versus knives like Henckels, and they have a nice heft to them. Some people prefer lighter blades, but the techniques we learned in the class rely on the heft of the knife to do a lot of the work, so wielding lighter knives (e.g. Global knives) would require more effort and strain from the arm.

Along those lines, Weinstein sold me on the idea that size matters, and by the end of the class I'd come around to his line of thinking (I could hear Paul Hogan's voice in my mind's ear: "8" cook's knife? That's not a knife. [Pulling out 10" cook's knife.] This is a knife"). I spent most of the class wielding the 10" cook's knife, and at the end, I took advantage of the one-time 10% discount they offer to students of that class to purchase a Wusthof Classic 10" Cook's Knife from the school store. That special discount brings prices for Wusthofs down below those you can find on the internet and was an unexpected benefit of taking the class.

The most important thing I learned in the class was not to ever chop down with a knife. Let the blade do the work, and the blade works best when it's moving more horizontally than vertically. Most of our cuts were made pushing the knife away from us, angled slightly down. With the proper technique, cutting vegetables became effortless, almost zenlike, the bolster of the knife tracing a tilted ellipse in the air.

We learned how to grip various knives, which knives to use for which tasks, what the best cutting board material and brand was, how many knives we needed to own, how to hone and sharpen knives, and, of course, how to cut a variety of vegetables. Of course, some of it was Weinstein's opinion, and different teachers at the school have their own preferences. Another student who was preparing to work in a restaurant soon mentioned that another teacher she'd had at ICE used nothing but the Wusthof Santoku Knife. Most all the experienced chefs and cooks there use the same basic techniques, though, and now, hopefully, so will I.

Fun class, and recommended for all who have a few hours to spare to learn basic kitchen knife skills. Everone in the class was older than I was and had spent a lifetime in the kitchen, and even they had much to unlearn and learn. I may have to pony up for Knife Skills 2 and 3.

Eleven Madison Park

Last week was Restaurant Week in NYC. I sampled several participating restaurants, but the one providing the best experience was Eleven Madison Park. From my point of view, a restaurant that participates in Restaurant Week should do so to attract new customers who might otherwise be intimidated by the normally steep prices or just by the unknown. Therefore, you should put your best foot forward for customers stopping in that week.

Eleven Madison Park was the only restaurant I visited that seemed to subscribe to that theory. After my friend and I had finished our lunch ($20.12 prix fixe lunch in honor of NYC's bid for the 2012 Olympics), chef Kerry Heffernan stopped by our table to ask how our meal was. Then they gave each of us a $20.05 gift certificate for our next meal there and a large chunk of chocolate shaped like a leaf. Exceeding expectations? Check. Return customer? Check.

The staff and service were impeccable, a common denominator of all the Danny Meyer restaurants I've been to. No need to flag down a waiter; simple eye contact sufficed for any request since the waiters were always looking out for such cues. I'm anxious to try The Modern, Meyer's newest restaurant (just opened this Monday) at the MOMA, and Blue Smoke, his BBQ joint.

The Aristocrats, et al

The opening text crawl from Star Wars Episode III has been released on the starwars.com

Ouch--apparently widescreen MGM DVDs sold b/t Dec 1, 1998 and Sept 8, 2003 were actually just pan-and-scan DVDs with the tops and bottoms cropped out. A class action lawsuit has been brought against MGM, and you have until March 31, 2005 to submit a claim form. If the suit is settled, you can either exchange each of the DVDs for $7.10 or a new, correctly framed copy

1 in 4 men suffers from trajectile dysfunction

Instant classic: Safin defeats seemingly unbeatable Federer in Aussie Open semis in 4 1/2 hours and five sets
Two of the players with the most game on the men's tour beat the crap out of each other for hours in the Aussie heat

Entourage filmed a scene for season two at Sundance at the Egyptian Theatre
I was there, saw the cameras out front, saw the Queens Boulevard poster outside the Egyptian Theatre entrance, and failed to connect the dots. I'm an idiot.

Black RAZR V3
Sexy

Sign up to be notified when the Kung Fu Hustle DVD is available for sale
I had more fun in that screening at Sundance than any other

The boys of South Park tell the Aristocrats joke (Windows Media File--vulgar and not for the easily offended)
One of the movies screening at Sundance was The Aristocrats, a documentary in which Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller) and Paul Provenza follow 100 comedians doing their version of the joke. I didn't see it, but after reading the synposis, I was certainly curious about what the joke was about. The joke seems to be like Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto for violinists, a rite of passage for comics to prove their mettle.

How to get reservations at French Laundry

Google and Yahoo are introducing television closed captioning search capability, and Amazon announces block viewing for its A9 Yellow Pages
Still, no search service is able to locate individual missing socks from my laundry, though

$13 Smirnoff beats out premium, higher-priced vodkas in NYTimes taste test
I can now cite this taste test when explaining why I bought Smirnoff instead of Grey Goose for the pre-party. Certainly sounds better than admitting I'm cheap.

For the first time ever, cancer has passed heart disease as the #1 killer of Americans under the age of 85

ICE

For Christmas, Karen got me a gift certificate for the Institute of Culinary Education in NYC. Today I signed up for Knife Skills Workshop 1 and Techniques of Fine Cooking 1. My goal is to learn to chop vegetables and throw knives like Geena Davis in The Long Kiss Goodnight.

Cooking in NYC isn't always fun or worthwhile. My kitchen is the size of a hall closet, and so I have precious little counter space. And groceries are more expensive, so the cost benefit of cooking instead of going out to eat is often negligible. Still, every dollar counts, and so I plan to cook more in the coming year. My super lives down the hall, and she's always preparing meals for her family. The smell wafts down the hall and drives me insane, so cooking is also a way to send my own mouth-watering scents out my door to wage combat.

I received a copy of Jacques Pepin Fast Food My Way over the holidays, and I prepared pork chops the Pepin way the other day. Fast, simple, and tasty: all elements of an ideal NYC recipe.

It's freaking cold in NYC

FASB approves rule requiring companies to expense stock options
Makes sense. Won't change affected companies at all, but sometimes perception is reality, so their stock prices may take some temporary hits.

Time's Person of the Year 2004: George W. Bush

A Xmas pop culture icon: the Christmas Story leg lamp, shipped in a crate marked fra-gi-lee

Smart drugs: steroids for brains?
Side effects may include enhanced memory

The O.C. Chrismukkah Yarmuclaus - festive fashion for Jew and Gentile alike
Too bad they're sold out and won't ship until Jan 17, 2005

Video of the Honda ASIMO robot walking and running
It looks like the robot is sprinting towards an outhouse while in danger of pooping its pants

Over the past 25 years, Americans are smoking less but eating more, which may be why everyone is fatter

Klein, Cartier-Bresson, Rutgers, and Macchio

I went New York holiday sightseeing Saturday with a friend. We went by Rockefeller to purchase a Christmas ornament at the Swarovski booth. I could have sworn the Christmas tree at Rockefeller was much taller in years past. Perhaps I've just grown taller?

Our next stop was the Met. One of the exhibits we visited was the compact photography exhibit "Few Are Chosen: Street Photography and the Book, 1936-1966". It's not a large collection, but it contains work from my favorite photographer, William Klein, and a few of my other favorites, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank. They had old, old copies of the books Life is good & good for you by Klein and The Americans by Frank behind glass cases, but not a copy of Cartier-Bresson's The Decisive Moment, an out-of-print book I'd love to own. The image to the left is perhaps Cartier-Bresson's most famous, "Behind Saint-Lazare station, Paris, France, 1932."

After a Xmas-tree ornament-hanging party Saturday night, James and Angela took me to Blue 9 Burger in the East Village. Good burger, often referred to as the NYC equivalent of In & Out, but not quite that good. A burger with a bit of grease or fat? That's okay, much better than a dried out patty. I always feel guilty eating burgers with Angela because she orders them without the meat; it's the anti-Atkins burger. I'm not sure what you call that. The man behind the counter said, "Oh, you want grilled cheese."

Sunday, I took the train out to New Jersey to meet up with Scott and Ruby and their golfing buddies for a round at the Rutgers course. We lucked out with a sunny day after the previous day had nearly brought snow. I haven't golfed since the end of September, which just means that I hadn't grooved my already ugly stroke. The first nine holes, I felt like a beginner to the game. I could barely remember how to grip my clubs, and I shot a 55, one of my ugliest nine holes in years. Then I shot a 39 on the back nine, maybe my lowest nine hole score ever (from holes 10-18 I went triple bogey, par, par, par, par, par, bogey, bogey, birdie) and actually had a ten or eleven foot putt for eagle on the 18th, a par five I reached in two. What a schizophrenic round.

It was my first round of golf since moving to NYC, and I now have a sense for what's involved: a long train ride out of Manhattan, with clubs in tow. Not the easiest thing in the world, but doable. I need to get in my rounds with Rob before he becomes a father (of twins, no less!). I know enough new parents to know what that means for one's free time.

Yesterday night, I went with friends to see It's Karate Kid! The Musical. With tickets costing $15 and set in Teatro La Tea in a community center on a somewhat sketchy street on the lower East side, I was fairly certain as I walked in that I wouldn't be seeing Sarah Brightman as Ali. And yes, at least a third of the audience were friends of the cast. This buyer be warned.

Now, Karate Kid is a movie that could be adapted almost straight up and serve as a comedy. It's a much-adored cult classic (at last check, a new first print of the DVD was selling for $99.99 on Amazon). I even remember seeing it in theaters with Tim Rush and his parents back when parents had to take my friends and I out to see movies. But this adaptation chose to dial the spoof up to 11. Almost every character in the musical was gay except Ali and Mrs. Larusso, who was bisexual. Picture Mr. Miyagi as a black drag queen, and his magic hand-rubbing-chiropractic-magic-move administered while seated on the back of a moaning Daniel Larusso and you'll have a good sense of what type of play this was. Don't bring your child if you don't want to be answering "What does [insert sexual obscenity] mean?" all night. The entire show is built on a conceit that doesn't hold up from start to finish (and I never picked up on any latent homosexual overtones in the movie; Top Gun, sure, but Karate Kid seemed fairly asexual to me), and the dance moves and music don't even attempt to aspire to Balanchine or Gilbert and Sullivan. The dialogue and lyrics were often difficult to make out as speakers fired the songs out in all directions in a somewhat echoey room. But the show has its moments. My personal favorite was "Miyagi's Lament," a rap tune that I'd love to get on tape.

The funniest moment, though, came when Scott told us at intermission that the actor playing Johnny Lawrence was the same guy that Scott had just beaten up at a restaurant a short while ago. Supposedly this guy and his friend were being extremely rude to Scott and his date, and so Scott had gone out to the sidewalk and chucked this guy into a car. In Scott's version of the story, the actor was the big guy, and his friend was a short bald guy.

After the second act of the show, Scott was certain this was the guy. So I looked up his bio in the program, and it turns out that this actor had most recently directed and starred in several Saturday cartoons for Fox, the Kids WB, and PBS, and was gay. When I'd first heard the story of Scott's altercation I was picturing the big guy as Vin Diesel, and it turns out he was a gay drama student. I'm going to blame the lighting--trendy New York restaurants are dark, so dark you can't tell if you're drinking red wine or tap water, beating up a bouncer, or one of the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy Fab Five.

Nate, Heather, Bialystock and Bloom

This was the week I turned in my grad school app, and so I've come up for air. I've allowed myself to leave the computer for more than just bathroom and food breaks, and it's been a literal breath of fresh air. Walking the streets here is so invigorating, perhaps because everyone walks at such a brisk pace. I've never been to a city where so many people walk faster than I do.

I haven't run since the marathon, but Tuesday night I played two hours of pickup basketball with some bankers down in SOHO in a church gym. I heard about the game through a friend of a friend, who connected me with her friend, who heard about the game through his friend. And it turns out that I knew this guy (the friend of a friend of a friend) from a summer camp from 1992. Six degrees of separation in this world, but with over one and a half million people living in Manhattan alone, you can eat through six hops in one subway ride.

Running a marathon? Not much help in the sprinting of full court basketball. In fact, I venture to say that the benefits from running a marathon translate best to, well, running a marathon. Running up and down the basketball court, I almost passed out at one point, but it was a good feeling. Anywhere in the country, you can find a pickup hoops game, and it has to be one of the most foolproof ways to immediately see other guys for what they are. Pickup hoops is like a truth serum of some sort. It bares people's souls (and yes, some i-bankers do have souls, contrary to popular opinion). Like hunting in Hemingway's day, I suppose.

Wednesday, an old high school friend came to town. I haven't seen Nate since the early to mid 90's, and I also finally got to meet his wife Heather. Nate is as I remember him, and he still has a sharp memory. I enjoyed hearing news of former classmates and having Nate fill in missing names and events from my high school days. Heather is amazingly sweet, and they were kind enough to tolerate this NY novice as a pseudo tour guide. We visited Rockefeller and the newly lit Christmas tree, Central Park (where I learned from Nate and Heather that John Lennon got shot outside the Dakota building which is on the West side of the Park), the Plaza Hotel (where Carmela and Meadow Soprano took their annual mother-daughter tea, and where Tony stayed when Carmela booted him out of the house), and Times Square.

Nate and Heather were also kind enough to treat me to see The Producers. I actually knew very little about the show, only that it was THE SHOW to see when Lane and Broderick were playing it. I'd also seen a scene or two as played by Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm. It was much funnier than I anticipated, a type of meta-Broadway show.

Just after I made it home that evening, I got a call from Bill, playing in NYC that night only, at the Paramount Hotel. So I retraced my steps up to Times Square and caught up with him at the hotel bar.

I've also ventured out more this week for food. My favorite eatery nearby is Wichcraft, the sandwich shop companion to Craft and Craftbar. Wichcraft's sandwiches are tasty. Really tasty. The shop name is apt.

Union Square is host to a whole series of holiday tents where artisans are hawking crafts and clothes and the usual assorted junk. I walk past most of it when getting off the subway without wasting a glance on any of it, but today I stumbled on a soup vendor. The smells called to me and summoned me. What better to repel a late autumn, early winter cold snap than a bowl of hot sweet corn chowder. Tasty. I haven't visited the Soup Nazi yet, but if his soup tastes like this, then I'll shut up and place my order promptly. No questions asked.

Thanksgiving 2004

I had a great Thanksgiving feast at James and Angela's place last Thursday. I've thrown a few pics online. Angela, as anyone who knows her can tell you, is highly detail-oriented, an overachiever, and so the most memorable thing about the whole dinner was that she used some leftover woven paper from her wedding and printed up menus to put on every place setting. So classy--I saw them and immediately rushed home to change into my tux.

I finally tried Angela's brown sugar/butter sauce. James had been raving about it, and holy moly it is sinful, but in the best sense. I poured it over my baked sweet potato and experienced that side dish in an entirely new way. James had two such sugar bombs, and we had to inject him with insulin and carry him to the sofa afterwards.

I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land. (Jon Stewart)

Heritage turkeys

I read an article about Heritage turkeys in Fortune. These turkeys take longer to raise than the Large White turkeys that make up most of the turkeys eaten in the U.S., especially at Thanksgiving. But Heritage turkeys taste better (more dark meat...mmmm), and the way they're raised conforms to the principles of the more ecologically-concerned.

Heritage turkeys almost went extinct, but ironically, they've made a comeback because organizations like Slow Food are encouraging people to eat them. That in turn means more farmers have economic justification to learn how to raise them.

Heritage turkeys cost more, but if you're only going to prepare a turkey once a year for Thanksgiving, seems like a worthwhile cost premium. Here's a list of farmers and mail-order sources for Heritage turkeys.

A thousand empty paper cups

I've been reading the 9/11 Commission Report, and the 9/11 timeline at Center for Cooperative Research has been a useful copmarison. More and more, I doubt the former and trust the latter. Paul Thompson is also planning to publish his terror timeline in book form.

A treasure trove of SNL transcripts

It was a great year for humor books

Halo 2 sells $125 million in its first 24 hours
I...must...resist...

The Grand List of Console Role Playing Game Cliches (sent from James)

Trailer for the remake of the Japanese suspense flick Dark Water
The remake is directed by Walter Salles. I saw this with Bean at the Seattle Int'l Film Fest a few years back and enjoyed it. Unlike Ju-On, the creepiness of the original didn't derive just from camera tricks and audio. At its root the mother in the story is haunted by her own feelings of maternal abandonment, and that overpowering sorrow pervades the movie. I'm not high on these remakes of Japanese horror movies, though. I love Jennifer Connelly, once a dormmate of mine, but having highly recognizable Hollywood stars instead of relatively unknown Japanese actors in these roles reduces the sense of everyday horror by a crippling amount.

Interesting quiz on population and health and economy - I only scored 60%. This quiz, on agriculture and food, was even tougher. I only scored 50%.

Amazon follows in BMW's footsteps with a series of short filmercials.

Informative graphics illustrating the ebb and flow of the electoral vote from 1940 through 2000.

The trailer for the videogame based on Star Wars III: ROTS gives away more about the action scenes in the movie than the trailer for the movie itself.

Now that the nearest snowcapped mountain is further away for me, maybe I need to turn to alternatives to snowboarding, like Freebording. Seems like it would be a lot more fun in San Francisco, where there are hills, than New York, where you're likely to end up as a multi-colored advertisement on the side of a cab. Looks like fun, regardless. Clever design.

David Foster Wallace reviews the new Borges biography for the NYTimes, using 7 footnotes in the process.

Ramen restaurants in NYC
Mmmmmm, just in time for the winter cold snap.

"Incompetent or incoherent" sounds like a Jeopardy category

The Economist endorses Kerry, though only "with a heavy heart," titling their endorsement "The incompetent or the incoherent"

Some creative Halloween costume ideas from The Stranger for your child, including "The Littlest Prisoner at Abu Ghraib."

Another reality tv show: The Next Food Network Star. The winner gets their own six-episode show on the Food Network.

West Elm's beds don't hold up under wild sex. I walked through their new Chelsea Store the other day and it was mobbed. You'd think that heavy pounding would be a standard stress test for a bed frame.

Union Square Cafe

James, Angela, and I went to Union Square Cafe Sunday night. From the outside, it really does look like a small cafe. The interior is more spacious, though still cozy. Danny Meyer's restaurant, which opened in 1985, is a New York institution. We enjoyed both of the things it's famous for: chef Michael Romano's excellent New American/Tuscan cuisine, and the hospitality.

Our appetizers were the butternut squash gnocchi and terrine of duck foie gras with pear/apple chutney. The butternut squash gnocchi were super, and the terrine of foie gras solid, but I wish they had seared foie gras instead. For entrees, I had crispy duck, James the herb-roasted baby lamb chops with garlic potatoes and mustard greens, and Angela the special entree, hangar steak with basil risotto and chanterelle mushrooms. The lamb chops really stood out. Cooked to medium-rare perfection, and those garlic potatoes just melted in our mouths. For dessert, James ordered butterscotch mousse, Angela the pumpkin upside down cake, and I the Baked Alaska. The wine list is both extensive and impressive.

Our waiter, a very young guy, was extremely friendly and knowledgeable. I wonder, though, if the restaurant's hospitality would be as notable in another city. At restaurants of similar quality and price range ($9 to $16 for an appetizer, $24 to $30 for entrees, $8 to $10 for desserts), isn't top-notch service de rigueur? Or perhaps it's the warmth of the wait staff that's the novelty, not the service quality? Smiling, courteous waitstaff, a reliably solid meal--I can understand the restaurant's status as bedrock of the NY dining scene.

The three of us decided to try and visit one expensive and renowned New York restaurant a month (if a restaurant is good and cheap, you can visit anytime). Any and all foodies are welcome. For November, perhaps we'll target one of the hot new eats in the Time Warner building.

Shake Shack's "Shacktoberfest"

Angela was the first one to tell me about Danny Meyer's newest restaurant, Shake Shack. Meyer is the man behind Union Square Cafe and Gramercy Tavern, respectively ranked as Zagat's Most Popular NYC Restaurant in 2004 and 2005. So when I first visited and saw Shake Shack a few weeks back, I was a bit taken aback.

It was literally a shack, albeit one with modern lines and lettering, situated in Madison Square Park.

As for the food, it wasn't anything fancy. The menu's staples include...

Of course, this is New York, so you can order a glass of wine with your Chicago Style Hot Dog.

The difference between Dick's in Seattle and Shake Shack is one example of the difference between Seattle and New York City. A deluxe burger at Dick's cost $1.80 (I think; it's been a while). A Shack Burger costs $3.95. Both, in their contexts, are considered cheap eats. I was never a huge fan of Dick's burgers but could understand the appeal of one to satisfy a case of late-night munchies. The Shack burger is pricey but really tasty. The secret is the Shack Sauce, a concoction that reminds me of Thousand Island dressing with more zing and spice.

Shake Shack's Chicago Style Hot Dogs are, to this former Chicagoan, quite good. I've already lauded the Shack Burger; I much prefer it to their plain hamburgers and cheeseburgers. The meat is ground daily from sirloin and brisket. I have yet to sample the fries; Dick's had good fries. I also haven't sampled the plain frozen custard, though, so I can't compare it to Ted Drewes in St. Louis (good stuff). I did try one of the concretes (frozen custard blended at high speed with homemade mix-ins) and it lived up to its name. It took me an entire day to finish one cup it was so rich and thick (The Concrete Jungle: hot fudge, bananas, peanut butter, mixed with the frozen custard of your choice).

Yes, I'm a big fan of Shake Shack. It's just a few blocks away from me, and sometimes if I've run a lot during the week I treat myself to one of its temptations. Today I stopped by on my way back from midtown and discovered, much to my pleasure, that they're running "Shacktoberfest," featuring special beers, sausages, and hot dogs. Special sausages

• Rocky Mountain Wild Elk Sausage stuffed with Jalapeños & Cheddar Cheese
• Wild Boar Sausage stuffed with Cranberry & Apricot
• Wild Buffalo Sausage stuffed with Jalapenos & Cheddar Cheese
• Pheasant Sausage stuffed with Mushroom, Spinach & Parmesan

The special beers:

• Brooklyn Brewery's Oktoberfest
• Kostritzer, Schwarzbien
• Reissdorf, Kölsch
• Ayinger, Oktober Fest-Märzen
• Smuttynose, Pumpkin Ale
• Victory, Festbier
• Rogue, Dead Guy Ale

Tomorrow, all the special sausages and beers will be available. And three new concretes: Caramel Apple, "Shakes" Pear in the Park, and Pumpkin Pie.

I tried the featured Wild Buffalo Sausage and Reissdorf, Kölsch combo today. On a grey, cool autumn day with a brisk breeze blowing, the meal was so pleasing. Nothing like a light beer buzz mid-day.

Sadly, Shake Shack shacks up for the winter Nov. 1.

Remains of a weekend

I haven't set up my television here in NYC, and before that I was traveling for months so I had just sporadic access to a television. I haven't missed it nearly as much as I thought. It's given me time to read and enjoy life outside my apartment. I'm sick of reality television, have no need for CSI: Minneapolis ("Hmm, I think Steve Buscemi died when his partner axed him in the head and put him through the wood chipper. Yaaaa, I do."), and any television show I really want to watch can usually found on BitTorrent. For example, the clip of Jon Stewart on Crossfire as he bitch-slapped Tucker Carlson. Deeply, deeply satisfying. I can't stand Tucker Carlson. What a buffoon. If you don't know how to use BitTorrent, you can see the clip just fine here at iFilm. Could Jon Stewart be any more golden right now? I walked by the Union Square Barnes and Noble when he was there for his book signing, and by the looks of the drooling women in line, you'd think Jude Law or Brad Pitt was there to sign a swimsuit calendar.

Of course, I must have my television set up by this Thursday, when The Office Christmas Specials (part 1, part 2) air in the U.S. on BBC America. I tried to find it on DVD in London this summer, but all I could turn up was pity from Londoners who tsk tsk'd as they revelled in recounting the rapture of humor the special had bestowed upon them. The DVDs? Release in the UK Oct. 25. If you haven't seen the show yet, I either pity or envy you. And who the hell are you and where have you been living?! The show has no laugh track, because you'll provide one. But don't take my word for it. The New Yorker calls it perfect.

Malcolm Gladwell writes about the high cost of prescription drugs with his usual (i.e., unusual) insight.

Wal-Mart.com, of all sites, has audio clips of the Friday Night Lights soundtrack. I'm just about over my Friday Night Lights kick. After watching the movie I bought the soundtrack and inhaled the book (recommended and recommended, respectively). The music has been a nice change of pace from the usual stuff in my "Running" playlist in my iPod, all of which I've heard about eighty times by now.

The baseball stadium in Houston is a joke. People are hitting pop flies out of the stadium in left field for home runs, and that hill with the pole in it in center field is ludicrous. What an atrocious baseball playing field (I've never seen the exterior, but it seems fine). The fact that all baseball stadiums have different dimensions in the outfield used to never bother me, but if they standardize the dimensions of all playing areas of all MLB stadiums, allowing architects to customize all other aspects and dimensions of the stadium, I'd have no objections. Imagine one NBA basketball court having baskets nine feet high instead of ten, or a three point line that was shorter than in other stadiums.

Games 3 and 4 of the ALCS were brutal. Each game lasted about two days. Alan, Sharon, and I rented a movie, started watching when game 3 started, and when the two hour movie finished that game was in the fourth inning. I don't know how anyone who's not a Yankees or Red Sox fan could stay awake. I remain steadfast in my hope that MLB will speed up the games. If you adjust your batting glove and then stand there to take a pitch, why do you need to step out and adjust it again? Is the velcro defective?

I met James, Angela, some of their college friends, Alan, and Sharon for lunch at Carnegie Deli today. The Carnegie sandwiches are MASSIVE. RIDICULOUS. I had a reuben, their specialty, and it was actually just a mountain of pastrami covered by several layers of cheese. It looked like an elementary school model of Mt. St. Helens erupting cheese. I finished about a quarter of it and will nibble on the remains for the rest of the week. Carnegie Deli is a mecca for pastrami and corned beef lovers.

I didn't miss my car until I saw this promotional clip for the new BMW M5. Sweet mother of...sometimes, late at night, when the subway seems like it will never arrive, wouldn't you just like to hop into something like this and just play Pole Position with the cabs.

NYC's arts lineup is overwhelming. Everyday I find at least five things I'm dying to go see. Monday night (oh, that would be tonight) Ricky Gervais is speaking at the Museum of Television and Radio before a screening of The Office Christmas Special. I'd kill to see Julie Taymor's production of The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) at the Met. Alex Ross raves about it. What stops me is the memory of my first NYC credit card bill. Upon opening it and reading the balance, I screamed, dropped the bill, my eyes rolled up into my head, and I fainted theatrically, like a swooning movie diva.

The weekend ended with puppet entertainment. No, not the marionettes of Team America World Police, but the puppets of Avenue Q, the much acclaimed musical that won the Tony for best musical in 2003. I am not a huge musical fan, but I enjoyed this one for not taking itself so seriously. It offers quite a contrast to the melodrama of most musicals and seems a descendant of the Rent lineage of musicals, one that's sadly sparse. The show features a cast of puppets and people who live in a rundown neighborhood in Manhattan as they sing about life and its problems. But these are HBO-class puppets, not Sesame Street or Jim Henson muppets (even though some of the characters really resemble Ernie and the cookie monster), so they swear, drink, and have sex. As Phil said at intermission, it might not a musical you'd be comfortable seeing with your parents. The puppets are held by actors who stand alongside them as puppeteers, singing, with their hands clearly inserted up into the puppets or waving their arms around. It's jarring for just the first few seconds, but then, the rest of the time, as the cast sings songs like "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" or "The Internet is for Porn" or "Schadenfreude", you realize it all feels on some level like a clever deconstruction of the musical as an art form. Would Kermit and Miss Piggy have grown up to be a dysfunctional married couple? Would Bert have come out of the closet to confess his love for Ernie? Would Big Bird be surfing porn on the Internet? I'm of the generation that wouldn't find those stories surprising at all, and I'm glad some musicals have caught up.

All About Apples

A free e-cookbook from Scott Carsberg, chef at Lampreia in Seattle. I only ate there once, and it was awesome. Lampreia is certainly one of the top high-end restaurants in the Pacific Northwest.

1 tasting menu, 8 recipes, 100 pages, 291 photos. That's a really high ratio of pages and photos to recipes.

Gourmet, August 2004

I don’t usually purchase cooking magazines (correction: Gourmet bills itself as “the magazine of good living”, a broader lifestyle claim, though it is grouped with the cooking magazines at the bookstore, rather than with, say, The Robb Report or Cigar Aficionado) though I do subscribe to Cook’s Illustrated (the cooking magazine for gadget geeks, what with its scientific-method laboratory tests of cooking methodologies, kitchen tools, and foods). Cooking magazines are dangerous for a pack rat like myself. I can’t bring myself to throw out magazines that contain useful information I might someday need or use, however remote the possibility. By that definition, cooking magazines are almost never disposable, filled as they are with recipes and articles on various foodstuffs and magical cooking techniques and secrets. However, I purchased the August 2004 issue of Gourmet because it included an essay by David Foster Wallace.

I go out of my way to collect magazines with essays by Wallace or Malcolm Gladwell or short fiction by Tobias Wolff (in the case of Gladwell and Wolff, nearly always the occasional issue of The New Yorker). I enjoy Foster Wallace’s fiction (okay, let’s abbreviate to DFW, as his fans refer to him), but I adore his essays. His essay collection A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again is, in my opinion, his finest work. It is in his essays that DFW's odd writing tic of inserting copious footnotes throughout his writing (to a shallow inspection, it’s the habit that most identifies him as a sui generis of the writing world) is most effective and endearing rather than ponderous, as it can be in his fiction. I admit to a similar tendency (one could argue that it’s a symptom of being a writing pack rat, unable to jettison the least relevant train of thought), albeit in HTML my digressive train of thought manifests itself in an abundance of parentheticals due to laziness (creating footnotes in HTML is a hassle, and for longer works not broken up into separate web pages, anchor links are necessary to prevent the reader from having to scroll back and forth vertically, an action which, if performed multiple times in succession, might lead to repetitive stress injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome).

DFW’s essay for Gourmet is a paragon of the DFW essay style. What makes him such an unique and engaging journalists is not just his cool, perceptive, and almost clinical eye, or his flat and just slightly satirical, acerbic tone, but his complete disinterest in writing a conventional half-investigative, half-advertorial piece that most travelogues or celebrity interviews turn out to be. Gourmet commissioned a piece on the Maine Lobster Festival. A third of the way into his essay, DFW abruptly shifts gears from a straightforward overview of the logistics of the Maine Lobster Festival and the taxonomical and culinary history of the lobster itself to raise the real topic of his essay:

”Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?”

It’s a question DFW spends the rest of his essay attempting to answer with his usual cubist mind. But enough on DFW and his essay. His work is nearly impossible to describe simply through a few excerpts. The footnote-laden style demands a journey to the source material.

This issue of Gourmet also contains another article that fascinated me, one that investigates whether or not wine glasses, particularly Riedel wine glasses, actually make a difference in how wine tastes. It’s particularly relevant in light of the recent news that Riedel purchased Spiegelau, creating the world's largest wineglass producer.

The article recounts how Riedel claims that their glasses improve the flavor and aroma of wine. How do they do this? At a Riedel-sponsored seminar, a Riedel representative explains that their glasses are engineered to deliver the wine to precise areas of the tongue, taking advantage of the "tongue map" which charts which regions of the tongue experience which tastes (e.g. sweet, acid, bitter, salt). Riedel has glasses for just about every variation of wine you've heard of, and many you haven't.

There's only one problem. The tongue map is a myth. It's one I was taught in grade school health class, and even I hadn't heard that it had been debunked until reading this article.

Furthermore, the article points to all sorts of scientific studies that have not only shown that in blind taste tests, the type and brand of glass makes little to no difference. It also cites one famous experiment in which wine experts were fooled into thinking a white wine with food coloring and another in which wine experts pooh poohed a mass market wine while praising a luxury wine to the heavens, only to discover that the testers had reversed the two wines.

Wine has always been a front in class struggles, bolding otherwise imperceptible lines between the highbrow and lowbrow. Non-wine snobs always suspect that they’re being bamboozled, victims of an elaborate hoax, and perhaps they’re right. Price disparity of wines is high, and objective measures are lacking. I often find myself in the wine aisle of the supermarket or a wine store, baffled by the selection of wines, the hundreds of brands, all priced seemingly randomly.

On the other hand, as the article concludes, expectations can have a huge impact on one's enjoyment of an experience or product. If you believe that paying more for a bottle of wine will buy you a better wine, or if you believe that a $40 Riedel glass will improve the taste of that Pinot Noir, that belief may indeed improve that bottle for you. Certainly Riedel wineglasses are more aesthetically pleasing than a Dixie paper cup or your average wineglass from Target. Disentangling form and function altogether in assessing a product is counter to how we experience them in everyday life. Despite the fact that most golfers would be better served by spending their money on lessons, sometimes it helps to spend it on a fancy new driver that they believe will improve their drives. If you feel more confident with a certain club in your hands, that can translate to better swings. Mind over matter.

Many people wish to affirm their purchases after the fact, like reading a Pauline Kael review after seeing a movie in the hopes of finding her in agreement with your opinion. After reading this article, I won't feel quite so bad snickering at the wine snob at the next party I attend. There's always one.

Related: Ordering lobsters online
Kinky sex secrets of the lobster (in which Trevor Corson, author of The Secret Life of Lobsters, debunks DFW's Gourmet article)

Gourmet, August 2004

I don’t usually purchase cooking magazines (correction: Gourmet bills itself as “the magazine of good living”, a broader lifestyle claim, though it is grouped with the cooking magazines at the bookstore, rather than with, say, The Robb Report or Cigar Aficionado) though I do subscribe to Cook’s Illustrated (the cooking magazine for gadget geeks, what with its scientific-method laboratory tests of cooking methodologies, kitchen tools, and foods). Cooking magazines are dangerous for a pack rat like myself. I can’t bring myself to throw out magazines that contain useful information I might someday need or use, however remote the possibility. By that definition, cooking magazines are almost never disposable, filled as they are with recipes and articles on various foodstuffs and magical cooking techniques and secrets. However, I purchased the August 2004 issue of Gourmet because it included an essay by David Foster Wallace.

I go out of my way to collect magazines with essays by Wallace or Malcolm Gladwell or short fiction by Tobias Wolff (in the case of Gladwell and Wolff, nearly always the occasional issue of The New Yorker). I enjoy Foster Wallace’s fiction (okay, let’s abbreviate to DFW, as his fans refer to him), but I adore his essays. His essay collection A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again is, in my opinion, his finest work. It is in his essays that DFW's odd writing tic of inserting copious footnotes throughout his writing (to a shallow inspection, it’s the habit that most identifies him as a sui generis of the writing world) is most effective and endearing rather than ponderous, as it can be in his fiction. I admit to a similar tendency (one could argue that it’s a symptom of being a writing pack rat, unable to jettison the least relevant train of thought), albeit in HTML my digressive train of thought manifests itself in an abundance of parentheticals due to laziness (creating footnotes in HTML is a hassle, and for longer works not broken up into separate web pages, anchor links are necessary to prevent the reader from having to scroll back and forth vertically, an action which, if performed multiple times in succession, might lead to repetitive stress injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome).

DFW’s essay for Gourmet is a paragon of the DFW essay style. What makes him such an unique and engaging journalists is not just his cool, perceptive, and almost clinical eye, or his flat and just slightly satirical, acerbic tone, but his complete disinterest in writing a conventional half-investigative, half-advertorial piece that most travelogues or celebrity interviews turn out to be. Gourmet commissioned a piece on the Maine Lobster Festival. A third of the way into his essay, DFW abruptly shifts gears from a straightforward overview of the logistics of the Maine Lobster Festival and the taxonomical and culinary history of the lobster itself to raise the real topic of his essay:

”Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?”

It’s a question DFW spends the rest of his essay attempting to answer with his usual cubist mind. But enough on DFW and his essay. His work is nearly impossible to describe simply through a few excerpts. The footnote-laden style demands a journey to the source material.

This issue of Gourmet also contains another article that fascinated me, one that investigates whether or not wine glasses, particularly Riedel wine glasses, actually make a difference in how wine tastes. It’s particularly relevant in light of the recent news that Riedel purchased Spiegelau, creating the world's largest wineglass producer.

The article recounts how Riedel claims that their glasses improve the flavor and aroma of wine. How do they do this? At a Riedel-sponsored seminar, a Riedel representative explains that their glasses are engineered to deliver the wine to precise areas of the tongue, taking advantage of the "tongue map" which charts which regions of the tongue experience which tastes (e.g. sweet, acid, bitter, salt). Riedel has glasses for just about every variation of wine you've heard of, and many you haven't.

There's only one problem. The tongue map is a myth. It's one I was taught in grade school health class, and even I hadn't heard that it had been debunked until reading this article.

Furthermore, the article points to all sorts of scientific studies that have not only shown that in blind taste tests, the type and brand of glass makes little to no difference. It also cites one famous experiment in which wine experts were fooled into thinking a white wine with food coloring and another in which wine experts pooh poohed a mass market wine while praising a luxury wine to the heavens, only to discover that the testers had reversed the two wines.

Wine has always been a front in class struggles, bolding otherwise imperceptible lines between the highbrow and lowbrow. Non-wine snobs always suspect that they’re being bamboozled, victims of an elaborate hoax, and perhaps they’re right. Price disparity of wines is high, and objective measures are lacking. I often find myself in the wine aisle of the supermarket or a wine store, baffled by the selection of wines, the hundreds of brands, all priced seemingly randomly.

On the other hand, as the article concludes, expectations can have a huge impact on one's enjoyment of an experience or product. If you believe that paying more for a bottle of wine will buy you a better wine, or if you believe that a $40 Riedel glass will improve the taste of that Pinot Noir, that belief may indeed improve that bottle for you. Certainly Riedel wineglasses are more aesthetically pleasing than a Dixie paper cup or your average wineglass from Target. Disentangling form and function altogether in assessing a product is counter to how we experience them in everyday life. Despite the fact that most golfers would be better served by spending their money on lessons, sometimes it helps to spend it on a fancy new driver that they believe will improve their drives. If you feel more confident with a certain club in your hands, that can translate to better swings. Mind over matter.

Many people wish to affirm their purchases after the fact, like reading a Pauline Kael review after seeing a movie in the hopes of finding her in agreement with your opinion. After reading this article, I won't feel quite so bad snickering at the wine snob at the next party I attend. There's always one.

Related: Ordering lobsters online
Kinky sex secrets of the lobster (in which Trevor Corson, author of The Secret Life of Lobsters, debunks DFW's Gourmet article)

Eat to run, or run to eat

Marathon training continues, invigorated by an infusion of new routes thanks to Manhattan. I've jogged on the trail that runs along the east side of Manhattan (noisy and loud as it shoulders the FDR), along the west edge of Manhattan (lots of eye candy with the Hudson River to the west and the city skyline to the east), and of course Central Park (plenty of route permutations through its dense network of trails, and it contains the only soft surface I've found thus far in the 1.5 mile loop around Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir).

This marathon training is turning out to be useful, because without it I would've gained ten pounds in my one and a half weeks here. Manhattan is an embarrassment of riches for foodies. In just a few meals out, I've had insanely good sushi (Bond Street), delicious authentic Korean (Kang Suh), inspired American (Gotham Bar and Grill), cheap Chinese comfort food (Sammy's Noodle Shop), and satisfying wurst and corn fries (Mandler's Original Sausage Co.). I've run by at least a dozen other places I'm dying to try, and that's just to add to the list of twenty five or so places I've been told I must try. I could live here for the rest of my life and still be singing the same tune.

That pleases me.

Omakase at Mashiko: a Seattle foodie's treat

July 1, Eric, Christina, and I went to Mashiko in West Seattle for their omakase dinner. Christina, my most passionate Seattle foodie friend, had heard good things. Her word is gospel to me, so we cruised over for a late dinner. An omakase dinner basically means chef's choice. You pay a flat fee like a prix fixe and wait to see what the chef sends your way. The omakase at Mashiko costs $35.00 a person.

Chef Hajime noticed us from behind the sushi bar because I had just received my new Nikon D70 digital SLR that day, and I'd brought it along. He came over when he noticed me snap a photo of one of our first dishes and asked if I'd mind taking some photos for him to use on a new rev of his website.

No problem, I said. It turned out to be a good trade, because Hajime proceeded to send some twelve or thirteen courses our way, and all were uniformly divine. Some of the highlights...

The sushi was some of the best I've had in Seattle
(from left: scallops, mackerel, squid, salmon, tuna)

The green tea tiramisu was incredible

An innovative sushi dessert

Hajime even created some edible art pieces

Chef Hajime is at the right, working on one of our courses.

By meal's end, I could barely walk, drunk on culinary bliss. As it was possibly one of my last visits to West Seattle, we stopped on the way home to gaze at the Seattle skyline at night.

I highly recommend this meal for foodies, especially Japanese cuisine lovers. It's the best omakase meal I've had in Seattle. If you're want more and larger photos, I've posted all my pics from the meal to a massive web page.

I've been Christina's foodie wing man on many occasions here in Seattle. She's the scout who finds out where the good places are, and Eric and I tag along. I'll miss having someone like her near once I've moved away. We had one last meal together at Lark last night. It wasn't as amazing as the first meal I had there, but it was still excellent.

Christina's about to embark on a family vacation, and a grand meal was a fitting way for us to bid each other farewell.

More Seattle Essentials

• Cinerama - probably the finest theater I've ever seen a movie in. The bathrooms are almost fully automated. If you could wave a hand in front of the door to the men's bathroom and have it open, I don't think you'd need to touch a single thing in the bathroom. Well, except...oh never mind. We can simply agree that automated public bathrooms are a really good thing. Decent candy selection, and of course the sound system and video quality are awesome. The two downsides to Cinerama are that it's difficult to find affordable parking and the seats are in serious need of renovation. The seatback spring tension needs a dose of Viagra, or Levitra, or Cialis (hey, those TV commercials work! I remember all three brand names). If you are tall, you will have the seatback in front of you resting on your knees during the entire movie.
• Cedars - I wish I could remember who first recommended this Indian/Middle Eastern restaurant to me, because it's a place that gets passed down from one Seattlite to another, like an heirloom. Cedars is cheap, and the food is dreamy. A real tandor (clay oven) produces fabulous chicken tikka, naan, and paratha. Cedar's chicken tikka masala or malai kofta are canonical in my mind. If you haven't overdosed on sugar in the constantly refilled chai (service is snappy), owner Mohammed Bhatti nearly always sends a free dessert. In the seven years I've been in Seattle, Cedars has never been less than packed on weekends. That's staying power. My last meal there was with Rich and Christina and Eric and Christina, a fitting last supper since they are some of the devoted acolytes who I was happy to introduce to the restaurant.
• Summer weather - Seattle's summer climate is the nicest of any major city in the U.S. There, I said it. Not too hot, not too cool, and dry. Many days, the temperature outside is so neutral I don't feel anything at all, neither warm nor cool. There are no mosquitoes, and because Seattle is so far north, it's light out from 5 in the morning until 9:30 in the evening for a good few months.

Seattle Essentials: Vancouver restaurants

One of my favorite things about Seattle is not even in Seattle. Vancouver is just a two hour drive north, across the border to Canada. Even though the U.S. dollar is not as strong versus the Canadian dollar as it was just a few years back, the ratio is still such that Vancouver is a better city for foodies than Seattle itself.

That's not to discount the restaurants in Vancouver. For Asian dining, Vancouver is both literally and figuratively north of Seattle. This weekend I took a last minute getaway up to Vancouver with Eric and Christina and feasted at every meal as if it was my last. Our first dinner was at Bin 941, cousin to Bin 942, both tapas parlours.

We sat at the bar in front of the kitchen to watch the chefs at work. The food was heavenly, especially the cinnamon chili rub Texas Flank Steak, maple syrup chipotle sauce, charred baby bok choy, cucumber salsa, tobiko, served with Yukon Gold pepper pommes frites. It was so delicious we ordered it twice.

Other gems...
...duck confit, warm nugget potato, pancetta, goat cheese and truffled sping bean salad, cinzano fresh cherry vinaigrette
...Fresh Charlotte Island Halibut filet, lemon fleur de sel crust, smoked halibut croquettes, spiked tomato "cocktail sauce", watercress garnish.
...white chocolate cheesecake (I can't remember the full name anymore, but the flavor lives on)

We ate until we could barely walk anymore, and it still came out to under $30 a person with a full bottle of wine, dessert, and post-meal libations.

Today, our eyes and appetites were so greedy we ate two lunches, one at Kintaro Ramen (why no gourmet ramen bars in Seattle?) and another at the Malaysian gem Banana Leaf (like Seattle's Malay Satay, but superior). If we had had time to stay until dinner, we would have hit one of the local izakaya like one of the three Guu locations (izakaya are Japanese pubs that serve pub food/tapas; sadly, I know of none in Seattle), and if we had another morning, we would have grabbed dim sum in nearby Richmond, the dim sum epicenter of North America. If we'd had a hankering for Thai, you would have found us at Montri, no question. Korean? Jang Mo Jib. Chinese? Green Village. Prix Fixe? Cru.

We did rent mopeds and ride around town on Saturday, but in hindsight, I must confess that I think we drove all the way up there just to eat. For Seattle foodies with a hankering for new culinary frontiers, there are few better ways to spend a weekend.

Seattle Essentials: Salumi

Salumi is my favorite sandwich shop in Seattle, though in truth it takes its inspiration from Italian Salumerias. The cured meats there are incomparable, and the hot and cold sandwiches showcase the Salumi (Italian cured meat) beautifully. When I worked down in the International District it was my favorite lunchtime indulgence, an affordable one at that (sandwiches from $5 to $9).

The pedigree of the ownership is unquestionable. Owner Armandino Batali is the father of celeb chef and restaranteur Mario Batali. That family knows good food. One of my great regrets in leaving Seattle will be never having attended one of Salumi's once-a-month invite-only dinners.

The only downside to Salumi? The limited hours. The shop is only open Tues-Fri from 11am to 4pm. But once in a while, it's worth the drive over to Salumi in Pioneer Square pick up a sandwich to eat at the nearby Waterfall Garden Park.

Caipirinha's and sashimi

I finally experienced the Japanese and Latin culinary fusion while back in Chicago. It's not a pairing that leaps to mind, but apparently it's quite popular in Chicago.

First, Joannie, Mike, and I hit Tank Sushi, a fairly new and trendy sushi joint near their condo in Lincoln Square. The menu features traditional Japanese and Latin American favorites like sushi and ceviche, but in areas like sushi rolls it brings ingredients from both regions together in unexpected combinations: escolar and jalapeno, yellowtail and mango.

The fish was fresh, but why the pulsing techno music? Or do Japanese and Latin American music not mix?

Later in my visit, my first business manager Ted and I held a lunchtime reunion at Sushi Samba, a restaurant which is more precise about its lineage: Japanese, Brazilian, and Peruvian. South American beef maki rolls? They call the U.S. a melting pot, though I don't think it was meant literally.

This whole movement hasn't made its way to Seattle, yet, though the sheer number of possible combinations of cuisines is mind boggling.

First purchase for the new middle class? Meat

Interesting tidbits from a Wired magazine article on aquaculture:

World population is expected to grow 10 percent by the end of the decade, but demand for fish and other meat - beef, pork, and chicken - will rise 25 percent. What gives? Call it the curse of the emerging middle class. As consumers become wealthier, the first thing they may want is a TV - but the next is animal protein. "When disposable income increases, people tend to improve their diet," says Steve Blank, an agricultural economist at UC Davis. "They don't necessarily change volume, but meat is one thing they add."

The average American eats 56 pounds of meat annually. But US consumption is relatively flat; it's expected to grow just 5 percent by 2010. Less-developed countries will see bigger increases. In China, for example, consumption will rise 43 percent by 2010: The average citizen will consume 15 percent more fish, 36 percent more pork, 45 percent more beef, and 68 percent more poultry than in 1999. (Even then, per capita meat consumption in China will be half the US total.)

Open-ocean aquaculture may meet the growing demand for fish, but satisfying the desire for other animal products poses a bigger challenge. That's because fish rate especially high in what the industry calls feed conversion - the ratio of food an animal consumes to meat it produces. A pound of deep sea-raised salmon requires roughly 1 pound of fish and fish oil. Chickens take in 2 pounds of feed for 1 pound of flesh. Raising the beef for four Quarter Pounders requires at least 9 pounds of grain.

Unlike farming fish, the production of poultry, pork, and beef isn't likely to get much more efficient than it already is. But distribution is ripe for an overhaul; producers can make the most of their animals by selling various parts where they're more valued. On menus in China, for instance, cow stomach - not steak - is a delicacy. "Tenderloin stays in North America and Australia," says Dermot Hayes, professor of agribusiness at Iowa State University. "The tail, internal organs, and reproductive organs go over to China."

Chalk one up for global trade.

Mmmm, tripe.

The much publicized new studies endorsing low-carb weight-loss diets won't help with our global meat shortage.

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Dark chocolate Kit Kat bars

I'm not sure when the whole craze started, but Hershey's is issuing lots of limited edition candies. After a while, they get pulled of shelves, in some cases never to return (thus distinguishing them from the McRib, which seems to come every two years or so).

Some of these limited editions are gimmicks, like the black and white M&M's, but I strongly recommend that you try and get your hands on the new limited edition KitKat dark chocolate bar. I saw them at a gas station this past weekend when Bill and I were driving out to Tiger Mountain for some mountain biking, and I stashed one away as a post-ride reward. I only found it in my Camelbak today when unpacking my bike in Chicago. The dark chocolate limited edition is much better than the white chocolate version of which I also purchased one. The dark chocolate adds a certain je ne sais quoi. Oh, it's so naughty.

You can also stock away cases from sellers on eBay to tide you over once the limited edition sells out.

Are the limited edition Inside Out Reese's Peanut Butter Cups still out? Maybe I should snag a case off of eBay. I never did get my hands on those.

Lark

Steve and I don't eat out often, but he's a foodie, so when we do eat out, it's an event. Most of the meal is spent discussing cooking, great meals past, dining experiences memorable for both the good and bad, and mysterious combinationf of flavors that have burrowed their way into our memories. Within me lies the soul of a reluctant foodie. Reluctant not because of the pleasure of fine dining, but the cost. But every so often, the monster emerges from its cage, usually because Christina or Steve has lured it out.

Steve and I converged on Lark tonight. It's the latest venture of former Earth and Ocean chef Johnathan Sundstrom.

We had both hear similar stories about Lark. A treat for the taste buds, but not a great value. I had tried to dine here twice previously but been turned off by the long wait: they don't accept reservations for groups of six or fewer, a policy I think they should change. It's one policy that often turns me off of the next new hot restaurant, and Lark fit the bill. It had permeated the Pacific Northwest food zeitgeist. I was in for a half hour wait tonight, but when Steve arrived a table opened sooner than expected.

The menu is arranged in the following order: cheeses ($4 for one, $11 for three), vegetables/grains, charcuterie, seafood, and meat. We'd both heard the cheese proportions were so small as to be non-existent, so we passed, despite being cheese fanatics. From the vegetable menu we chose four dishes: (1) the sugar peas and pea vines, (2) artichoke heart soup, (3) morel mushrooms with garlic, olive oil, and sea salt, and (4) pommes de terre robuchon Robuchon (Jo�l Robuchon, the world thanks you). We also selected a bottle of the Harlequin 2002 Syrah.

The sugar peas and pea vines were sauteed in shallots and butter, always a winning combination. The most memorable aspect of the soup was the black enamel iron bowl it arrive in. Very cool. The morel mushroom mix was solid if not spectacular, and the potatoes Robuchon deadly, just the right blend of butter and potatoes. I'd describe potatoes Robuchon as pureed potatoes acting as a vessel for butter. All delightful, though we began comprehending what we'd heard about the stingy portions. Tapas is a euphemism for portions too small to qualify as a dish.

While we waited for our next dishes (compliments to the waiters for knowing when to bring out every dish), we discussed great Seattle meals past (Lampreia and Cafe Juanita), Paris must-try restaurants, and how we'd ever get a reservation at French Laundry.

We skipped the charcuterie and took on two dishes from the seafood menu: seabass and yellowtail with truffled green peaches and sea salt. The roasted eel with saba and potato salad tempted us, and the waiter pushed us towards the scallops, but are there two worse values on any highbrow menu than scallops and shrimp? $20 for four or five lonely scallops? No thanks. The seabass has faded from my memory; it looked more like trout than any seabass I had seen before. The yellowtail arrived sashimi style, with asparagus, mixed greens, and the aforementioned truffled green peaches and sea salt, and it was excellent.

The waiters, all knowledgeable on food, recommended the seared foie gras from the meat menu instead of the foie gras terrine from the charcuterie. We selected that and the crispy duck with caramelized apples, though one waiter talked us out of the rotisserie chicken, feeling it was too much food for just the two of us.

I worship foie gras. Steve and I always order it when it's on the menu. It is the food that separates foodies from non. However, on this occasion, I regret not having chosen the foie gras terrine. The seared foie gras came in a sauce that masked the taste of the foie gras, and to me that's a no-no. The duck was fantastic. Let's just crown duck the king of fowls. No one is ever going to say duck tasted like chicken, and that's a good thing.

For dessert, torn between a rhubarb crisp with ice cream and a Valrhona chocolate tart, we opted for chocolate. Not epic, but good.

So the end verdict? Lark is a restaurant for foodies, pure and simple. Mere mortals won't recover from the sticker shock and tiny portions (count on $50 to $100 per person depending on your wine selection). The rest of us will exercise selective amnesia and choose to remember the food.

Pacific Northwest James Beard award winners

In the 2004 James Beard awards, two Seattle chefs were nominated in the category Best Chef: Northwest/Hawaii: Scott Carsberg of Lampreia and Eric Tanaka of Dahlia Lounge.

Eric Tanaka won the, uhh, Beardie. It's been a while since I've eaten at Dahlia Lounge. I guess Tom Douglas is just a figurehead. I ate once at Lampreia. Spectacular meal, but PRICEY.

Leslie Mackie of Macrina Bakery & Cafe was nominated for All-Clad Bakeware Outstanding Pastry Chef Award. Her work I haven't tried, and that must be corrected soon.

I've been trying to hit all the restaurants I haven't tried in Seattle in an effort to complete the list before I head out of town. Last Friday I dined at La Carta de Oaxaca (tasty and cheap, but very crowded and slow on weekends when no reservations are accepted; go during the week), yesterday Kate treated me to Kaspar's (thumbs up, but how do they stay in business as everyone I've spoken to who has eaten there has sat alone, and we were no exception), and tonight I'm headed to Lark (Johnathan Sundstrom's latest venture).

Mmmm, ostrich

More fodder, err, food for the low-carb revolutionaries: Ostrim. High protein, low-fat, low-calorie meat sticks made from ostrich meat.

Happy fall day

Autumn comes and goes quickly in Seattle. It's rough on me since fall is my favorite season--crisp-cool autumn air, brown/yellow/orange, pumpkins, football, light frost on the grass. This weekend may be the only real autumn weekend we get in Seattle all year.

But in the moment, all that matters is that it's here. Rich, Tom, Brian and I stole away today for some fall golf at a new course called Trilogy at Redmond Ridge. Within that distance from Seattle, it might be the best value golf course I've played. Only a half hour drive or so for me, public, not as spendy as Newcastle, not as far as Gold Mountain or Harbour Pointe or courses like that, and nicer than Jefferson or West Seattle. Fall golf is great.

I hadn't played in a while, but the swing felt decent, and even though I didn't play driver all day, and even though I missed a three foot birdie putt on the par-5 18th, I broke 90 for the first time all year with an 89. I think I swing better without any warm up. We got lost on the way over and so we had to go straight to the first tee, no practice swings or putts on a completely strange course, and I went par par the first two holes.

Todd and Juli and Audrey and I went to the Strokes concert tonight. But first, we had a birthday dinner at Il Terrazzo Carmine where Philippe works. Now, I'm no restaurant insider, but as far as I could tell, Philippe was running the show in the kitchen. I've heard a lot about the restaurant over the years but never been. What I've missed! The food was superb, eccellente. Italian food in the low and mid range doesn't excite me, but at the high end, it can be operatic. I think Audrey's duck with Italian cherries was singing to me. All compliments to the chef.

We got to the Strokes concert just as The Kings of Leon were finishing their last song. Then, while the roadies were setting up the stage for The Strokes, songs from the Cure's Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, one of my favorite albums of all time, played in the background, and it sent me back to happy times.

The Strokes sounded fantastic, despite having to play in what the lead singer accurately described as "one fugly arena" (The Seattle Exhibition Center looks exactly like what you'd imagine an Exhibition Center would look like inside, which I suppose is suited for showing curtains and bathroom sinks and whatever else they show at exhibitions but has absolutely no business hosting any musical acts; yet, in the last month, I've seen both The White Stripes and The Strokes there--why'd they get stuck with that sterile dump?!? Well, at least it's clean). Punk/garage bands always sound better live, the feedback from the guitars registering beautifully, especially as compared to the sanitized acoustics on the album. The Strokes' songs all make me happy, and while their new album Room on Fire may prove that they're not going to change the face of rock, it's hardly an indictment that couldn't be applied to just about every album that arrives each week.

[Room on Fire is also available from The Apple Music Store, whose selection grows a little more impressive every few weeks]

Lost in time

I got on Seattle time this morning. Now it's about 5:15 in the morning and I'm back off of Seattle time. It just takes one long phone call to Australia to kill your schedule.

For the life of me I couldn't remember how to dial an international number from the states (you need to first dial the international direct dial code, which is 011). Hmm. Since the country code for Australia is 61, that meant I woke up a lot of people in what I presume was the Boston area. Yikes. To all of those people who cursed me out, and those I hung up on, my deepest apologies. I deserved every four-letter word. With the thick Boston accents I wasn't quite sure what was being said, but the tone of voice left little to the imagination.

Sliding down memory lane

Got all my slides and negatives back today. Most of them came out, too, save a few stray shots taken when my shutter was closed or that brief period when my batteries crapped out and every other picture came out black.

I need a smaller, lighter camera to take with me into places where I couldn't or wouldn't bring my F100. I see gaps in my pictures, events and people and places, and I wish I had some photos to keep them fresh in my mind. And when you're out at a club or a bar and just want a picture of you and your inebriated companions, who cares about picture quality? Especially when posting to the web. I need a really thin, small, digital camera.

Well, next time. And nothing beats looking at slides on a light table with a loupe. That's about as close to seeing it with my own eyes again as I can get. Tomorrow I need to write down as much of the specifics of my trip as possible before it fades into history. My photos will help refresh my memory. Given my past ratios of success, I'd say I did okay this time around. About a little more than half of the photos are decent and usable which is pretty good. Throw out the five hundred photos I wasted on obscure dolphin fins and sperm whales off in the distance and I'd say about 3 out of 4 of my pics were ones I'll keep. Since I shot 17 rolls of 36, that's a lot of friggin slides to scan into my computer.

New Zealand's scenery helped. It's what you call postcard country. Everywhere you point your camera and click the shutter? Instant postcard. If my PC doesn't drive me crazy tomorrow, you may catch your first glimpse of some of my NZ and Oz shots.

New Zealand and Australian soundtrack

Clubbing in NZ and Australia, you get a feel for what's going down in the music world. Wouldn't you know it, the cool kids overseas listen to pretty much the same stuff you hear on the radio over here.

Let's see, I have to start with Eminem. Lots of Eminem. It wasn't a night out if I didn't hear Lose Yourself at some club. Good tune, but it always inspires thug dancing and mugging. Not attractive.

Creed?! Sure, you can label someone a snob if they raise their noses at popular music, but when I have to put up with garbage like Creed out clubbing I can understand where they're coming from. Not only is it destined for tomorrow's trash heap, it's also impossible to dance to.

Red Hot Chili Peppers. Haven't heard their new album, but By the Way is a good tune. Not really a dance tune but you can jump around and karaoke.

Kylie. Grrrrrrrr. We'd be out clubbing, drinking, yapping our heads off, and then suddenly a tune from Fever would come on, and Kylie would appear on the video screen, 15 feet tall, and everyone in the club would stop and stare, transfixed. Australia's sex kitten, purring "Come....come....come into my world." Every guy was ready to follow. What a great dance album.

If Michael Jackson is the monstrosity plastic surgery wishes to lock in the cellar, Kylie Minogue is the its poster child. Good lord. Speaking of which, if you don't have a copy of Kylie singing Can't Get You Out of My Head over New Order's Blue Monday, get thee to a file sharer straight away to download it. She's performed that mash in concert, and it's awesome.

Nelly. Hot in Here. I thought it had peaked at clubs here in the US but apparently, as with movies, everything lags by about half a year there in the Southern Hemisphere. Can't stand ten seconds of it on the radio, but in a dance club context it's groovable.

Back to the negatives. NZ and Oz are not immune to dreck like YMCA by the Village People and the Ketchup Song. Stuff like that, most of which I've erased from memory. It's like the wave at a sporting event. Exercise your freedom as a human being and resist. They'll tell you you're having fun, but you really aren't.

Down Under by Men at Work. Hearing it in Australia put it in a whole new light for me because I finally had a taste of . Packets of it could be found at breakfast each morning, next to the butter and jam. I tried it and will do it a favor by labeling it the Spam of the Southern Hemisphere.

The highlight for me was the first bar we visited in the Bay of Islands. One stretch of classic techno--Alice Deejay, ATB, New Order...good stuff.

Sniff

Sharon sent me this pic today of Alan and my new nephew Ryan. How beautiful is that?

@#$*&ing Windows

Okay, Macs are slower, but I'm really about ready to kick my Windows desktop over the edge of the deck here. Since Windows XP crapped out my CD-RW drive I installed a new one today, one that's supposed to be compatible with Windows XP and Roxio Easy CD Creator 5. I updated all the drivers for Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 off of their website. All of this took hours since my PC now takes about 30 minutes to boot after the Windows XP upgrade and I had to restart it several times.

Go to burn a CD. No luck. Easy CD Creator 5 engine failed to initialize. Go to the Roxio website and they claim they've had a rash of these because of antivirus software. So I disable that and try again. Same error. I update some more drivers and reboot. Half hour later? No dice.

I also get these annoying "Your paging file is too small" errors everytime I boot. It tells me to set a larger paging file. So I do. Then I have to reboot. Then the same error comes up again. I'm flipping my computer the middle digit the whole time, with both hands.

Fortunately I finally found some random program that Sony included with its CD-RW drive. I think I've got it working. I'll need it to burn all the photos from New Zealand and Australia to CDRs b/c my hard drive is getting really full.

Yes, Macs are slower, but damn if my laptop didn't work beautifully the whole trip. I could take digital photos from my travel buddies and load them into iPhoto and have a slideshow going in minutes. I could import digital video from my camcorder and burn movies onto CDs for other folks in about half an hour. Yeah, sure, you can do all these things on a Windows PC but you'd be sweating driver compatibility the whole way. I'm not quite ready to sign up for a Switch commercial, but outside the business environment I dread having to go to my Windows desktop for anything.

Alas, that's the only platform my slide and negative scanner is compatible with. I have hours of fun ahead of me, what with Photoshop crashing after every four photos I open and edit because my virtual memory is too low.

The only book I buy every year

I should stop writing about baseball because I don't think any of you give a damn, but I can't help it. Little League and years of watching the Cubs on WGN have distilled baseball into my blood.

There's one book I pre-order every year and await with the eagerness of a groom on his wedding night, or a young child on Christmas Eve. That book would be the annual Baseball Prospectus. This year's version is the best yet, with a whole new set of statistics and expanded player coverage.

I'm not sure how many times I've plugged Baseball Prospectus, but if they'd start putting out crap I'd stop. Move up to the next level of baseball understanding and buy yourself a copy.

Blog as vanity plate

Katie ranted about the blog as self-congratulatory exercise in vanity tonight, and I must admit that much of what she said is true. There's a certain presumptiousness in boring the world with the mundane details of your everyday life, and who really cares what I think about this or that anyway? In that respect, I almost crave to keep the visitors to my site at a minimum. And maybe I should reduce the frequency of my posts--perhaps I'm guilty of using this as a writing outlet at times. Maybe 2003 is the year I cut back my posts.

You can twist yourself into a pretzel trying to please your audience, too. Just who is my audience anyway? Random people from all over the place, who know me in all different contexts. Perhaps a large audience is a good thing. They keep you honest, because most will disappear if you sling too much BS. If no one was reading, would I still be writing? I had about one visitor a week for the first two months, and I never really publicized my site, but somehow one day suddenly all these random people were reading it. I have no idea how they found my site, and I still don't know who half of them are, but I read the traffic reports and they're there.

Of course, most my readers are too embarrassed to admit they visit my site, or if they do visit, it's a dirty secret. Boy, let me tell you, that's a great feeling. This must be what it feels like to be People magazine.

And what about blogging about blogs, like I'm doing now? That must be the ultimate in intellectual masturbation (I can't remember where I read that term, but it makes you cringe, and that's exactly the punishment you want to mete out to those guilty of perpetrating it).

I'm overthinking this. Why am I thinking about this right now anyway? Self-conscience is a terrible thing.

Jameson's

Johnny, my tour guide in New Zealand, was fond of Bushmill's Irish Whiskey, but tonight out at Mr. Lucky's I discovered the joys of Jameson's Irish Whiskey. Peter, clearly a scotch and whiskey aficionado, has set me on the path of goodness and there's no turning back.

American bourbon? As Johnny put it, f***ing swill.

Use it or lose it

Speaking of Mr. Lucky's, I met a few friends out for drinks tonight. Just as Tour de France bike racers have to get out even on their two days off during the Tour just so their body doesn't go into shock from not being pushed to the limit, I need to keep my liver primed and active in anticipation of Carnival in Rio. I'm not doing my gut any favors, but I suppose another week won't hurt.

I'm less worried about drinking myself to death in Rio than of getting shot. At least four people sent me e-mail links to articles about the recent violence in Rio, suspected to be caused by gangs. City of God may hit a little too close to home this weekend. I'll have to keep my head down and steer clear of danger.

Speaking of drinking...

Must send out props to Laura, who was one of the folks who showed up for drinks tonight. She thinks she doesn't get enough airtime here, and yet she definitely rallies for fun nights out more than just about anyone else here in Seattle (and after 4 weeks of living large in NZ and Oz I'm acutely aware of how slow my social life here is).

So Laura, your very own post. BTW, Laura also organized a birthday dinner for me this year, and since it was my last day in the office it was a doubly special event. It's also the last birthday I'll ever celebrate since next year that first digit is supposed to change (and after 4 weeks of living large with mostly younger kids in NZ and Oz, many of whom like to remind me of my age, I'm really hyper-tuned to my life clock...TICK TOCK, TICK TOCK, what have you done with your life old man?).

Libeskind

The Libeskind design for a memorial at Ground Zero has won. The slide show outlining the ideas behind the design are really intriguing.

I don't profess to know much about architecture, but the various Frank Lloyd Wright houses and buildings I've walked through are so inspirational. There aren't many things in life I have to have personalized for me, but it would be amazing to design your own home with an architect. How sad, that we must always live in someone else's conception of an ideal shelter, especially when our physical reaction to space is so personal.

Someday, perhaps, a place of my own.

Pot roast

I received a slo-cooker (aka crock pot) recently and put it to use yesterday. I made a pot roast.

Turned out okay though the flavor needs more salt and is too tomato-ey. Also, I was impatient so I cooked it on high and the meat is on the tough side for a roast. I'll adjust the recipe next time, but the thing with a slo-cooker is you have to spend about ten days finishing each dish.

You gotta pay to play

Bummer. Baseball Prospectus is going to start charging for most of its content. $39.95 for a year's worth.

Web subscriptions are pricey (Salon charges $30 per year for an ad-free subscription). Compare that with $24.95 for a year's subscription to a print magazine like The New Yorker and it seems expensive. Compare it to the cost of 2 or 3 CDs in which only 33% of the songs are memorable and it doesn't seem so bad.

Groovy

Groove Armada has a new CD out--Lovebox. Releases on my birthday. As if I needed an excuse to buy it for myself. Right.

Can I get any more real?

Thank goodness I'm leaving this country for a month. Otherwise I'd be overdosing on reality. Joe Millionaire on Monday. American Idol and The Real World on Tuesday. The Bachelorette on Wednesday. Without reality TV, how often would be able to feel superior to our petty, conniving, fellow men and women?

Carnival: the dream that was

My dream of visiting Rio for Carnival is disintegrating. All my wing men are dropping like flies, to marriage, kids, the types of things I don't really think about. I'm starting to realize what it means to only get to see the guys on the occasional guys night out because that's about how often I see them now. Well, it is what it is. No use raging against this machine. There's always next year.

The chase dream

This is my last week of work before I begin my personal leave (I've been told not to use the word sabbatical, though I'm not certain why). I feel calmer than about this than I did a few weeks ago, yet last night I had another pseudo-nightmare. I think it's related to my impending leave, but who knows? All I know is I've had lots of anxious dreams in recent weeks.

Last night's was a scene out of some bad movie, or maybe it was peeled off of an impression of Some Like It Hot, left over from Xmas break. I was standing on the ledge of some building (no idea why, as is typical in dreams) and looked down to witness a violent gunfight in the street. A whole bunch of men, standing around cars, shooting each other with machine guns. One group seemed to win out, led by a guy who looked like Peter Stormare (the guy who offs Steve Buscemi in Fargo). Then the Stormare character spots me on the roof and starts shooting bazookas at me. Debris is flying everywhere. I jump onto the roof of the building and head to the back of the building where I run down a fire escape into the courtyard and take off for cover. I spot two other guys, doing the same thing. Apparently they witnessed the gangland execution as well, and now we're all marked men.

I hope a few fences, run between a few buildings, and suddenly I'm out on the sidewalk by a beach. A few folks rollerblade or walk by. The ocean glimmers at the edge of the beach, reflecting the light of a high noontime sun. I start walking as casually as possible, trying not to draw attention to myself.

Suddenly I spot a suspicious looking character. He looks like a Tibetan monk. He's staring at me intently. I get this feeling that he's probably working for the Stormare character, and he's got his suspicions. He asks me what I'm doing out here. I say I'm just catching some afternoon sun. I ask him what business it is of his. He just smiles and turns to walk away. Then he turns to look over his shoulder and sees the look on my face. All at once we both realize we've got the goods on each other. We take off sprinting in opposite directions. I'm not sure who he's going to alert, but I'm not sticking around to find out.

I feel the heat coming over my shoulder. Then I'm awake.

Fresh-thinking baseball GMs

There's a small but influential contingent of so called sabermetric general managers in baseball now. Theo Epstein, 28 year old whiz kid and new GM of the Boston Red Sox. J. J. Ricciardi, GM of the Blue Jays, and one-time disciple of the most renowned of the group, Oakland GM Billy Beane. You have to be psyched if you're a Red Sox fan because of the brains in the front office, from owner John Henry to president Larry Lucchino to Epstein to Bill James, and the deep pockets which someone like Billy Beane will never have access to in Oakland. Let's hope these guys are successful, because they may just overturn some conventional thinking and herd behavior in baseball.

For example, sabermetricians have long wondered why all teams insist on finding one pitcher to serve as a closer when so few pitchers have the skills to justify that kind of responsibility. The Red Sox will take that heart this year as they plan to go with closer by committee. Hopefully the Cubs will have the sense to do the same, though I doubt Dusty Baker, spoiled by years of signaling for Rob Nenn, will have such wisdom.

The Big Anti-Aristotle

John Hollinger writes in his weekly CNNSI column:
"Tell Yao Ming, 'ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-soh.'" That's what Shaquille O'Neal said six months ago, but this week it ignited a firestorm after a columnist for AsianWeek complained about it. Shaq insisted the comments weren't racist, saying, "At times I try to be a comedian." At times Shaq tries to be a rapper too, and it works out about as well.

Shaq: great player, lousy interview, lousy actor, lousy rapper, terrible dresser, and let's add ignorant to that list now. It's unlikely to happen, but let's hope Yao takes him to school (and teaches Shaq some Chinese) this Friday.

Kids, don't feed the fat man

One thing about heading off for a leave of absence: it's tough to manage your diet, because everyone takes you out to eat to all your favorite restaurants. Dinner Friday was at Malay Satay Hut (a fascinating blend of Asian cuisines), Sunday was Le Pichet courtesy of Eric and Christina (the roast chicken entree and chicken terrine appetizer are to die for, and the wine menu is first class), and tonight my team took me to Tango (a rotating menu of tapas, always tasty, and half price bottles of wine on Monday nights). I'm supposed to do attend another dinner Tuesday night but I think I'll have to beg off one night to get an angioplasty.

Iron Chef

I'm seeing double. Thanks to my poor coordination, Christina and Sang are each baking a turkey, making stuffing and cranberry sauce, baking pies, roasting vegetables...the three of us are going to basically have two of everything. Hey, I'm not complaining. My plate runneth over, and over, and over. The sun is shining, I couldn't miss the basket at morning hoops where I earned my dinner, I have two master chefs working hard in the kitchen (where I'm just a hindrance today), and it's a day off. Truly, much to give thanks for.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Oops Part I

Sleep deprivation began catching up with me today at the office, so I downed two cans of Red Bull. I'd never really tried it before except for once at a rave, and it didn't seem to affect me then. I'd seen lots of engineers around the office sipping it in meetings, and given the cloudy, addled state of my mind and my general drowsiness I decided I needed the chemical boost.

Oops.

I don't take a lot of caffeine, and those two cans of Red Bull gave me heart palpitations. I nearly had a panic attack during a meeting. I'm not joking. My arms were shaking, my mind was racing, my heart was pounding, and I almost snapped my pen in two. Right now it's about 2 in the morning and my body is still at Defcon 1.

No more Red Bull, no coffee, no soda, no caffeine. As Yoda would say, "Bad things, it does." Keeps you awake, sure, but it's hard to be productive when you're vibrating like a helium molecule in heat.

Oops Part II

I just realized I haven't been archiving my old movie reviews. I overwrote most of them and they're lost forever. Humph.

Someday, when I'm not working, perhaps I can go back and recall what I thought about all of them. Pauline Kael claimed she never had to watch a movie a second time--her first impressions were chiseled into her memory. I dare not claim to be a fraction the critic nor to possess a sliver of the memory of a Pauline Kael, but my opinions of movies tend to be fairly constant after setting in.

ESPN Commercials

Some of ESPN's Sportscenter commercials are back online for a while thanks to T-Mobile. They never really get old, do they? I mean seriously, I've tested this. I've watched the same commercial over and over again for about 57 times, and I still laugh my ass off every time. Every time! When Kenny Mayne slides down on the office carpet and strikes a pose at the end of the commercial where he scores a goal on Alexei Lalas in foosball, I start convulsing and snorting things out my nose. It's got to be something hard-wired in the male brain, like a reflex.

"So Karl started drinking a little bit, and then he was going on and on about he and Mrs. Met. Nasty stuff, I tell you. Nasty stuff."

Doonesbury

Last week's Doonesbury was all about blogging. I liked this one best.

Hostage

The new BMW Film Hostage, directed by John Woo, is available for download. Clive Owen returns to play the poker-faced Driver for hire with a heart of gold and a stable of BMWs at his beck and call. As with all Woo movies, you get some closeups of bullets and guns which come through nicely if you download the 104Mb version of the short movie.

My primary complaint: men should not drive roadsters.

The Marshall Doctrine

Baseball Prospectus recently ran a fascinating two part interview (Part 1 Part 2) with pitching coach and former major league pitching star Mike Marshall. He has a website where he lays out some of his unconventional theories. Chapter 28, on pitch selection, is fascinating if you're a baseball fan. An excerpt:
1. Pitchers should throw all pitches for 66.7% strikes.
2. Pitchers should end 75% of at bats within three pitches.
3. Pitchers should end 100% of at bats within five pitches.
4. Pitchers should pitch equally well to both sides of home plates.
5. Pitchers should use the best six pitch sequences with which to achieve the lowest batting averages and on base percentages for the four types of hitters.

"To hitters who hold their bats vertically, pitchers should throw four seam fastballs. To hitters who hold their bats horizontally, pitchers should throw two seam fastballs. To hitters whose rear foot is close to home plate, pitchers should throw them fastballs away. To hitters whose rear foot is away from home plate, pitchers should throw fastballs inside. However, because all hitters want to hit fastballs, pitchers have to convince them that they do not need to throw fastballs."

I'm very curious to see how you throw what Marshall calls a pronation curve. Pronation of the arm during a throwing motion has applications in lots of sports. When a tennis coach finally taught me how to pronate on my serve, I went from having tennis elbow and a terrible serve to being able to hit the occasional ace with either pace or spin, or both.

For folks more interested in hitting (perhaps for your local softball league), Batspeed.com offers some interesting theories on hitting. Their basic premise is that most swing mechanics incorrectly cite linear mechanics when they should be preaching rotational mechanics. I'm going to try and apply some of these ideas next summer in my softball league.

A new kind of hero

The Bourne Identity wasn't a great film, but one of its appeals is the pragmatic, serious nature of Jason Bourne. He's a suitable new hero for the post Sept. 11 America, which is ironic considering he's based on a character from a novel published in 1980. Bourne's character in the film can be read as a metaphor for our nation under attack. He awakens near death, with little or no memory, as many of us did after Sept. 11. Who is Al Qaeda? Why do they want us dead? Slowly, the clues come back, and in both cases a ruthless CIA plagued by internal machinations and bickering is at the heart of things.

Bourne is the America we want to believe we are. He's not an obnoxious American stirring up trouble abroad. No, the international world is out to get him despite the fact that he just wants to get the girl and retire peacefully. Agents of all nationalities come after him in all parts of the world, including Clive Owen as The Professor, just as terrorists seem to be attacking us from cells distributed throughout the world. Wherever Bourne goes, he brings trouble to those he comes in contact with, just as many nations have mixed feelings about accepting American military, economic, and political assistance for fear of retribution from neighboring states. Bourne doesn't deserve this--his whole loss of memory came when he couldn't bring himself to complete an assassination orchestrated by the CIA. Perhaps that is where his story diverges from the truth, as the U.S. government has rarely hesitated to intervene overtly or covertly with force to achieve its ends. But that's not the hero we wish to embrace.

Like our government, Bourne is not afraid to react with deadly force when attacked, and he does so efficiently. We hope our military and intelligence agencies are equally competent.

Most of all, Bourne represents an America which just wishes to be left alone. Contrast him with our popular heroes from the 70's, 80's and 90's, like James Bond, the suave and sophisticated incarnation of the ugly American. Brash, arrogant, always dispatching his various foreign foes with a cruel, almost disdainful sense of humor. Or John Wayne, the rugged, macho American. We sense in these earlier heroes strains of the haughty, presumptious America which is what terrorists claim to be reacting to in launching its attacks.

Bourne is none of these things. He is confused--why are we under attack? He just wishes he could have a little peace and quiet. So do we all. But it's unlikely, considering a sequel is in the works. Sadly, the same fate likely awaits the rest of us.

Macintosh pop-up killer

Has anyone found a free, effective Macintosh-compatible pop-up window killer? I am so damn sick of Orbitz ads popping up everywhere I go.

Conventional wisdom

My mind gravitates towards ideas that revoke conventional wisdom. I enjoy articles like the one about the health of low-carb vs. low-fat diets which I cite below, ideas like the ones Stephen Wolfram postulates in A New Kind of Science, and some of the recent (last two years) writing by Voros McCracken on pitching and defense resonate with me.

Okay, I've already discussed the first two ideas before. What about Voros McCracken's ideas on pitching and defense? Voros' analysis showed that pitchers have little control over the rate of hits on balls put in play. Instead, that statistic of hits on balls put in play is much more strongly correlated with a team's defense as Rob Neyer notes when examining some of the recent research by Dick Cramer.

Voros' work does explain why so many of history's greatest pitchers have high strikeout rates. That's the best way for a pitcher to prevent a ball from being put in play and earning an out. Once a ball is hit and put in play, the chances that it falls for a hit are likely the same for Pedro Martinez as they are for Jose Lima, the team defenses behind them being equal. It gives you a greater appreciation for pitchers who have low strikeout rates who still manage to maintain low ERAs over long periods of time. There aren't many, and the ones who do almost always have to have pinpoint control.

Atkins Diet--what if it's right?

Fascinating article in the NYTimes Sunday Magazine about the Atkins diet, obesity in America, and the frightening thought that perhaps fat isn't all that bad for you but carbs are. One of the more enlightening discussions of the topic that I've read. Worth reading for folks who have been wondering how to eat healthy and lose weight, which is about 90% of people I know.

Of all I've read on the topic, this article was the most convincing in presenting evidence that casts doubt on the healthiness of a high carb, low-fat diet, commonly represented by the food pyramid taught in schools all over the country, with 6-11 servings of grains at the base and minimal fat at the apex.

The joy of the prime of cycling season is that none of this matters. I can pretty much eat whatever I want to because I'm burning off so many calories. But for the other month's out of the year, it's appealing to imagine that simple adjustments to one's diet might lead to noticeable changes in weight and long-term life expectancy.

I can't move my arms

Yesterday I went out on Lake Washington on Eric's speedboat with Todd, Juli, Aaron, and a whole crew of others. I learned some new things. First, riding in the front of a speedboat being driven at high speeds is a lot of fun. The boat angles up, and you see only the sky as you bounce around like so much loose cargo. Second, wakeboarding is exhausting on the arms (when you don't know what you're doing). After watching Travis and Jared skimming around the water with seemingly little effort, I thought "I have to have a go at that." About 15 fruitless attempts later my arms were lead and I'd imbibed a good pint of Lake Washington. Splendid good fun because everytime Eric slowly cranked up the speed on the boat, and I felt the tension of water below my board, I thought to myself, "I'm going to get it this time."

Also, it's a new challenge to look forward to this summer. A summer without a new hobby or something to learn is death. My mind is still trapped in the past, in school, at the beginning of the quarter, perusing the coursebook, looking for new classes in random subjects.

Last night I barely had the strength to shift gears in my car or turn a doorknob. This morning I couldn't push myself up out of bed. I awoke at 6:30 in the morning to try and watch Stage 2 of the Tour. For the 15 minutes before 6:30, my alarm clock was on, and some lady was chatting about some farmers who raised their chickens and cows using a particular diet that produced better tasting cheese, and I was so tired that her words actually permeated my thoughts. I dreamed I was wandering in this dark, dingy, abandoned prison, and this farmer was leading me from cell to cell, where he kept his animals. Peacocks, chickens, and goats wandered around while the farmer sprinkled feed on the ground. Felt like Hannibal Lecter's asylum, but all the time I was supremely excited to rush to the supermarket to purchase a brick of this special brand of cheese. I woke up, and for about 3 minutes I remembered the name of this brand of cheese. Meant to write it down, too. Now I've forgotten it, and frankly I can't tell what part of the dream was imagined, and what was real. Don't even know if this brand of cheese even exists.

Le Tour

The Tour de France started yesterday. The Prologue was exciting, a short 4 mile time trial. Laurent Jalabert came out with a miraculous effort to complete it in 9' 10", then Lance maxed out with an even more incredible effort to win the Prologue by two seconds in 9' 8".

People think soccer is ignored. So is cycling. With Lance in his prime and Ullrich out of this year's Tour, attacks will come from all sides. Anyone with OLNtv who isn't watching is missing out on two hours of high drama every day. What these 190 or so cyclists will do over the next three weeks is to complete the most incredible endurance event in the world. 2100 miles of cycling, sometimes up mountain grades rated at about 20%, with only two rest days.

Also, everyone seems excited that the U.S. may become competitive in international soccer. Well, the U.S. is further ahead in cycling. Many teams' have American race leaders. Of course there's Lance, but some of his former teammates have moved on to other teams to be the boss. Tyler Hamilton (2nd in the Giro D'Italia this year), Levi Leipheimer (who placed in last year's Vuelta) to name the two most well-known. Floyd Landis, one of Lance's domestiques, finished second to him in the Dauphine Libere and showed himself to be a promising climber and possible future GC contender.

Rick vs. Sammy

Everyone's probably heard about Rick Reilly asking Sammy Sosa to take a steroid test during a post-game interview. Reilly even went so far as to get the address of a local clinic. Well, Sammy went off on Reilly, so Reilly wrote a column in SI raising doubts about whether Sammy was clean. Reilly concludes the article: "True, it would take some large cojones [to get tested right away, without waiting for mandatory testing]. Of course, if these players are on steroids, they lost those a long time ago."

Rick Reilly is an a$$ for confronting Sammy like that, and a bigger one for then trying to come off as if he was the one wronged. Innocent until proven guilty, Rick. You should've learned that in grade school. That was a cheap publicity stunt which you're milking for all it's worth. Want to prove your cojones? Go ask the same question of Barry Bonds, or Mark McGwire if he were still playing. Then we'll see if you and your cojones fit in a locker room urinal.

Asian Invasion

First you have Japanese players like Ichiro coming over and leading all All-Star voting, then Yao Ming from China is the first overall NBA draft pick this year, and now 113 pound Takeru Kobayashi has won Nathan's Famous Annual hot dog eating contest for the second year straight. And not just by a little. He ate 50.5 hot dogs AND buns in 12 minutesm while second place contestant Eric Booker (400 pounds) only managed 26. There was controvery, though, as apparently Kobayashi heaved and coughed some of the hot dog back up (one of those acts that induces in observers the same reaction) into his mouth. Judges let him keep the title, though, and, amusingly, his margin of victory covered the spread of 20 hot dogs established by Internet gamblers.

Read the article--it's hilarious. Reads like an Onion article, except it's real. Among the more humorous excerpts:

• Booker, spouting Zen-like strategy, reminding me of contestants in the annual Hands on a Hard Body contest: "I didn't want to suffer the mistakes I had last year, where I was looking around to see what everyone was doing. It was just me and the dogs."


• Contestants are disqualified only if food is actually visibly regurgitated. "Footage captured by ESPN confirms that some hot dog slush did spill through Kobayashi's fingers and pieces of liquid bun spouted out of his nose, but footage shows time had already expired."


• Now he knows how Lance and Sammy feel: "These (American) guys last year were yelling and screaming drugs, drugs, drugs," said Rich Shea, who noted that contestants accused Kobayashi of using muscle relaxers. "I was with him all morning, and I've seen no evidence of it. As the international federation, it would be our duty to bring drug testing into this sport, but there's just no evidence."

Kobayashi weighed 113 pounds before he began, 120 pounds afterwards. I would find this particularly disgusting if not for the fact that a bunch of friends recently held a wing-eating contest (part of the regular Tatonka Night wing-eating gathering established by Andy). That night, Dave ate 72 wings, Jason gained some 9 pounds in fat, chicken, and beer, and Jenny put away 45. I ate 30 wings once at the event. Eating a massive amount of food is less about the actual volume consumed than the extreme self-disgust and self-hatred (pity?) which results from harming your body like that. Short way of saying the mental fortitude required to do something like that is more impressive than the physical act of doing so.

Free smoothies for a year

Joannie ran the Chicago Jamba Juice All-American 8K today (she's training for the Chicago Marathon), and at the end of the race she won the grand prize in the raffle. Free Jamba Juice smoothies for a year. The mental picture that persists is Joannie posing for pictures with two people dressed as strawberries.

Little pink coffin

Yet another company has announced a tool for fighting spam (unsolicited e-mail, not the mysterious canned meat). Cloudmark's tool is called SpamNet.

The idea is that this add-on software places an extra folder in your e-mail program. When you receive spam, you can click on it and add it to your spam folder, where it gets reported back to a central server somewhere. If you report spam properly, your future reports are taken more seriously. The idea is that there are just as many, probably a lot more, people reading e-mail and receiving spam as there are sending spam. Of course, each spam mailer sends out a ton more e-mail than the average recipient. However, if the entire e-mail community begins to report spam, you have an entire army fighting the problem instead of relying on a small central group to track it.

Clever idea, and one of the more promising approaches I've heard.

SpamNet only works for Windows computers running Outlook. If you qualify, I encourage you to download it. Since it derives its power from the size and participation of its community (like Napster, or SETI@Home), it will only be effective if a critical mass of users adopt it. You'll feel like you're contributing to better the world of e-mail for everyone--think of it as volunteer work.

What they really need is to have support for Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, whose accounts tend to be spammed mercilessly because spammers can just guess at usernames to attach to @hotmail.com or @yahoo.com. My home e-mail account is actually fairly immune to spam so far. Or someone like Microsoft or some standards board should encourage its integration directly into Outlook and other popular e-mail programs as a standard.

Electronica

Odd convergences. Cleaning out my e-mail at work today and found an old link from James to the video for Dirty Vegas' Days Go By. You know this song, even though the title may not be familiar. It's the one in the Mitsubishi Eclipse commercial, where three young'uns are driving at night, seemingly to a rave, and this song comes on, and the girl in the passenger seat starts grooving.

Cool commercial. Cool tune. Same day, I read an article in Salon about the influence of electronic music on the American music scene, and it mentions this song and the commercial a couple times.

Oh yeah, cool video. Go check it out. I couldn't get the Quicktime link to work, but the Windows Media link came up just fine. I may use a few of those moves next time out on the dance floor.

What the $#@*&!

The fifth leading votegetter for an NL outfield spot in the 2002 MLB All-star game is Tsuyoshi Shinjo, ahead of Andruw Jones, Larry Walker, Jim Edmonds. What, can people not tell the difference between Japanese outfielders and think he's Ichiro? Actually, Armando Rios of Pittsburgh has more votes than Andruw Jones or Larry Walker. I have no idea how that happened.

Creative Comments, er, Commons

Another interesting interview with Lawrence Lessig, law professor at Stanford and the public figure most known for trying to get the folks in D.C. to understand the world of technology and how law might best apply in that world. I agree with him on the principles which he titles end-to-end, which says that you should keep the network simple, placing intelligence at the edges. The Internet is a good example. TCP/IP is fairly simple--it moves data. Computers at the edges of the network are smart and can do all sorts of fancy things like play movies or music, create web pages, process spreadsheets, etc. The principle allows networks to evolve quickly, without requiring the coordination of multiple parties.

Open Source Software

Joel has a theory on why various companies are pursuing open source software.

Quicktime

Quicktime rules.

Will it cause tumors in your ear

Now this would be a cool, a phone that is planted in your tooth and which you hear through your earbone. Someone could be whispering in my ear. All they'd need is a video feed to see what I'd be seeing and a panel of experts could be informing me of people's names, jokes, and random facts which would make me the toast of every cocktail party.

Of course, it would exacerbate the problem now where people talk into earpieces connected to their phones and I mistakenly think they're talking to me.

"Hello?" they'll say.

"Uh, hi," I respond.

(ignoring me) "Hey honey! How are you? Hey listen..." they chatter.

(small black cloud over an embarrassed yours truly)

Starbuck

Starbucks, the coffee chain, was named after the coffee drinking character Starbuck from Moby Dick.