Handbill Handout

Yes folks, it's time for that cheap blogger's trick, the "favorite music for (whatever)" list! Because, quite frankly, I have no new ideas today. So I will inflict the following on you. Friends, what keeps you awake while you're driving long distances? Lots of folks like audio books (I almost typed "books on tape", once again betraying my age though at least I didn't say "books on wax audio cylinder"). Others like to listen to the same satellite radio station playing the same genre of music with no human intervention for hours on end. Then there are those folks who like to listen to local talk stations, angerin' up their blood at the perceived foibles of the power elites. Sometimes I just like to put the radio on and hit "scan" until something interesting catches my ear. As time has gone by and terrestrial radio has become more homogenized I increasingly like to be my own DJ. Though I don't do mixtapes, er, sorry,...

I think the office cleaning lady has become a caretaker to my office plant. It started several days back when I came in one morning and noticed that the plant had been trimmed back and all the brown leaves removed. The plant in question is what my Nana used to call a “prayer plant”. I don’t know much else about it other than somebody at my office gave me a cutting over ten years ago and I still have the thing. All I do is water it once a week, shove a plant spike in the soil or toss some coffee grounds in the pot occasionally and put it in a window behind a cubicle in my department that overlooks Times Square so it can get some natural light. I have an inside office so it doesn’t get any during the week. So the other day I come in and notice that parts of the plant have been propped up. With pencils. From MY pencil cup. These cleaning ladies are bold. For a group of people that typically knock papers, my keyboard and my mouse all over my desk when they wipe it off at night they...

thinks that the clock is slow. needs to start going to bed earlier is back to the drawing board. is a busy little worker bee. going to bundle up and go for a walk at the beach as soon as it gets above 30. It's back to work tomorrow...bleh. is hoping the snow will still be on the ground for the Klondike Derby on Saturday. is making a large pot of coffee!!! just started hes hell week at work 3 hours ago... and already its not pretty... is ready for a crazy day at work...HS sports + snow and ice storm = UGH!!! Should be an interesting day! :). is sleep-working right now...please leave a message and he'll get back to you when he's awake. is home after the first tropicurl 2009 planning meeting. is so happy that two of her very good friends are both in a relationship...with each other! is off to band practice. is so FRICKING annoyed at her right eye's conjunctivitis that she can't even update FB correctly. is ecstatic to have won a spot at the Club Nationals. is contempl...

I made an appointment with my eye doc today. It will be the 16 month follow-up to the cataract surgery on my left eye and the beginning of me lobbying to get the right eye done as well. A person my age doesn ’t normally have to deal with these things but in my family the parts start wearing out early. I don’t want my vision to deteriorate to the point it got to last time where I was hardly reading anything I didn ’t have to read for work, had trouble driving, couldn ’t read menus in restaurants and viewed everything through a haze not unlike what your world would look like if you took a pair of eyeglasses and smeared butter all over them. The surgery itself is no big deal. You’re awake but high as a kite on valium as they destroy your lens with sound waves, suck it out with a needle and pop a new plastic one in its place that happens to be farsighted. Well, the one I got happens to be farsighted because the newer ones that adjust to your eye are still experimental and aren ’t cove...

This explains a lot.

It is another liquid-cold night in Times Square. I have just turned the corner of Broadway and am heading north toward the 50 th street IRT station when a guy hawking tonight’s comedy show at Caroline’s yells “Hey buddy, you look like you could use a laugh” as I walk by. You don’t know the half of it, pal. I keep my head down and keep walking. That’s not the funniest offer I’ ve ever had from a guy trying to drum up business for a club, I thought. The funniest was on a warm summer night as the Mrs. and I walked east on Rue St. Catherine in Montreal. As we passed by one of the local performing arts centers, the hawker out front yells to us “Hey, c’ mon in, we do couples too!” Alas we had dinner plans and did not take the fine gentleman up on his offer. Later on I am sipping a Molson on the bottom deck of the ferry zoning out and staring into space. Across the aisle from me is a guy in one of those furry toques with ear flaps and strings. You know the ones. As a kid I calle...

Two headlines appeared near each other on my Twitter news feed. Talk about unintended connections.... "Inaugural Balls Held - See Photos " and "Human Rights Worker Caught with Child Porn " I wonder if clicking on one led to the other.

So said the ticker on the outside of the News Corporation building as I crossed Sixth Avenue. “That sums it up, doesn ’t it?” I thought as I angled toward my place of work. Since today's Big Event is in Washington I hope that referred to the capacity of the devices as well as the volume. Yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen. Today is our quadrennial celebration of our American self. The day when we Americans congratulate ourselves on the non-violent change of executive power. Why, it’s been almost half a century since the last time we switched leaders via someone having a cap busted in their head! Hey, maybe that’s a sign they should put outside of Washington: “(Blank) days since our last violent transfer of power.” Kinda like those (blank) days since the last accident signs they used to have in factories to encourage safety. So yes, today is a big deal. For the first time in anyone’s life, the chief executive of a nation originally founded to guarantee the freedoms of white m...

This weekend one of the all-news radio stations told the story of a woman who flew to NYC from Phoenix on the spur of the moment just to see the US Airways jet that landed in the Hudson River. Her reason? "I'm a frequent US Airways flier and I wanted to see it." Oh. Of course, she is just one of many tourists who come to this town with the strange desire to gawk at tragedy (or in the US Airways jet case, near tragedy). The site where the twin towers once stood has become, by and large, just another of the must-see tourist attractions in this town complete with enterprising citizens selling T-shirts, hats, and commemorative trinkets of all kinds. I accidentally became the owner of one such trinket, a truly classy bottle opener with a revolving oval piece in the middle with the Statue of Liberty on one side and the towers on the other. I say "accidentally" because I bought it when I was in need of a bottle opener one evening and only saw the Statue of Liberty side...

There is an absolutely beautiful segment in the book " Moominland Midwinter " that describes the coldest, darkest night of the winter embodied by the Lady of the Cold. The Lady of the Cold is an incredibly beautiful spirit of pure white (though she may look red or green from certain angles) with clear blue eyes who moves slowly through Moominvalley . Meeting her gaze causes any living thing to instantly freeze. And yet it is hard not to look at her as she passes. I was in awe when I read that part of the book. It captured the dichotomy that makes winter unique: it is at its most beautiful when it is deadliest. The cold that kills plants, animals, and people also creates a world that is still, silent, and crystalline. I think about that dichotomy whenever I'm somewhere experiencing deep cold. Both of my parents were snatched from this planet in the extreme cold. Both in January as a matter of fact, though my mother hung on in a coma until early summer. And yet when we ha...

Based on what we have and what we can get at Wegmans, the winners are roast chicken for tomorrow (either with a balsamic glaze or in tapenade depending on what size pastured birds they have) and braised short ribs on Monday. That's beef, as in "it's what's for dinner". American as it gets (and grass fed from the last trip to the farmer's market. Thank God for freezers). More actual writing later in the weekend if I have time.

It's a three day weekend for the Mrs. and I. An American holiday weekend. To mark the occasion, I was going to do what I have done to mark Martin Luther King day which is to try to cook an American classic. The past few years I've done a roast turkey but this year I'm birdless and idea-less. I was going to start a corned beef, (which despite its Irish association is, to my understanding an Northeastern US immigrant dish) but the the recipe I have requir es five days of brining before cooking. So maybe I'll do something else with the brisket I have in the freezer. But what? Maybe I should do something else entirely. What is a quintessentially American savory main that I can spend a lot of t ime with? Hmmm....a puzzlement. Protein-wise I have a London Broil, lamb chops, pork chops and some ground beef in the fridge. A bit of f resh (u ncooked) chorizo too. No birds, our local farm market isn't back until May and I didn't have the motivation to stop at Union Squ...

If you look closely you can see little faces in the picture...is it possible I cooked an image of the Virgin Mary into a chicken and it took this little internet toy to bring it out? Good thing my address isn't in my profile, I don't have room for all the pilgrims.

This is the start of the actual cooking process. The chicken and mirepoix were marinated in a bottle of red wine overnight, Then the chicken was removed, dried and seared (that's what's going on on the right) and the mirepoix was strained out of the wine. After the chicken was seared on all sides, I browned the mirepoix , stirred in flour, poured the wine from the marinade back in, scraped the fond off the pot and put the chicken in the pot and stewed it for an hour and a half. Meanwhile, I chopped a quarter-pound of my home made pancetta into lardons and fried them off. Then I browned the button mushrooms in the fat that rendered off the pancetta . These are the end result of that process. Here's one thing I think I screwed up. The next step after the bacon and mushrooms is to cook the pearl onions in a small saucepan with 2 tbsp butter, "enough water to cover", a pinch of sugar and a pinch of salt. As you can see, I used a saucier and not a small saucepa...

Yesterday I found an entirely new way to get food stains on my clothing. I know, I know, this may not seem like an achievement to most of you but when you have my particular bulk getting food on your clothes as you eat is tough to avoid. A protruding belly necessitates either leaning over the table or picking up the dish and eating with it close to one's mouth the way you're kinda sorta supposed to eat Japanese noodles. So it was that the latter was how I was eating my healthy , low fat chicken salad bowl from the new organic/sustainable food chain place that recently opened in the building where I work. Bowl positioned right under my chin, fork in right hand, newspaper that I was reading on the desk below. No way I'm getting anything on my shirt front today, no sir. And then it happened. A piece of lettuce went up my sleeve. I couldn't believe what happened at first when I felt the cold, slightly wet bit of vegetation land one my elbow. Surely I couldn't have dropp...

Twitter can be fun. Here are some recent posts of mine: __________________ Soup? This is a car wash! 1 minute ago from web in reply to sallymack So how are we all doing? Want to see a dessert menu? about 2 hours ago from web So that's one cheeseburger deluxe, a patty melt, two green salads and four cokes, one with no ice. Do I have that right? about 3 hours ago from web So, where did you want this? about 6 hours ago from web Who put THAT over there? about 22 hours ago from web Look out! 2:46 PM Jan 7th from web Bailing as fast as I can. Or trying to. 8:40 AM Jan 7th from web Savoring the moment. 9:43 PM Jan 6th from web Surprisingly sharp! 2:49 PM Jan 6th from web Fighting the inertia 9:26 AM Jan 5th from web

Last night I had the strange experience of being able to walk in a relatively straight line from my place of work up 6 th avenue to the bus stop instead of having to bob and weave through the writhing mass of bag-clutching holiday celebrants as I have to each December. They’ ve all gone home, or back underground, or to wherever they go to wait for the warm weather. January doesn ’t have much going for it, but one thing it does have in its favor is the lack of crowds in the neighborhood around my office. Settling into my seat as my homeward-bound bus eased across 50 th street last night I looked to my right and saw the Rock Center Christmas tree still big as life and all lit up. The crowds, however, were gone. The tree belonged to the locals now for what little time it had left before being mulched and used in the city’s parks. The bus stopped at the mid-block traffic light and I began to think. It seemed like only a few days ago that I had first seen this year’s tree as I typically ...

I begin this post with yet another warning: there is a lot of abstracted, pretentious twaddle in the following. If you’re not up to dealing with it, I suggest you click out now and come back in a day or two when I might have some more humorous observations about drunks or something. Last Saturday I, along with the Mrs. and a friend of ours from Chicago had the full 20 course tour at Alinea . I wanted to write a review of the experience. Then I realized there is no point. More qualified people than I have written extensively about the place. Go on and google it and find out for yourself. Anything I would add would be redundant, superfluous, and frankly boring since I am terrible at writing about food. Instead of a review, this is a reaction to the experience. But first, we need to discuss the nature of art. (I heard that groan. Go click on this if you don’t want to hear about it). I am not an academic. I am not an art critic, food critic or any kind of critic. I am, however, a...

This story must be preceded with the Jean Shepherd warning. The one that goes: "Warning, the following is in bad taste. Then again, life itself is often in bad taste." One of the things I love about Chicago is how well they treat their drunks. For example, on New Year's they drop the subway fare to a penny from 8pm-6am on the 31st into the 1st and they run almost rush-hour frequency service from 1am-6am. You can't beat that. Of course New Year's is also amateur night so you will often run into (not literally, hopefully) the odd gigantic pile of stuff that had been until recently residing in someone's stomach. However, play your cards right and said pile can provide you with great entertainment. How do you play your cards right? Well, sit far enough away in the car that you can't smell the stuff for one thing. And then keep your eye on everyone that boards through the doors nearest the pile. Laugh as they grab their nose, gag, run out the door or run to yo...

Doors open to the left.