on the road, days 1-2: belgian breakdown.

I don't have a lot of time to write at the moment, so i'll instead do that thing where the picture speaks for the thousand words, etc. These first two images really crystallize what the tour has been about so far. First, from Neufchateau, Belgium:

















and, in Nancy, France:

















Yes, that's right, the van died (for good) in Neufchatel. On the upside, being stranded in Neufchatel looks like this:


































That is, until you have to unload your van onto the side of the highway, and then it looks more like this:

















That is, until an amazing rescue team swoops down upon you from three hours away, packs you into their van, and then hurtles back across Luxembourg at death-defying speeds to land you at the gig just before you're supposed to go on. The second picture is from the next morning when the rescue van itself wouldn't start due to a misconnected brand-new battery...

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But everything worked out fine. Except for the yellow van being declared "a catastrophe" by the Belgian Volkswagen mechanic. There will definitely be more detail to come as soon as I have access to an internet connection for more than 30 minutes.

More relevantly for this page, on the eating front: I knew we wouldn't have much time in each city, but there has really been no time to do anything other than drive, break down, call for help, wait, get rescued, drive, load in, do the thing, pack up, find the hotel, find out that there aren't enough beds for all of you, toss coins to see who sleeps together, lose the coin toss, and then fidget until dawn.

What I'm saying is: it's been all petrol stations and backstage food. Add to that the fact we've only been in France for a few daylight hours so far, mostly Belgium and Switzerland.

But France is where the eating highlights of the trip thus far have occurred. It has illustrated that cliche of French cuisine "getting the simple things right": I had the best croissant I've had in a long long time at the hotel in Nancy, lightly toasted and crispy on the outside, chewy, airy, and lightly buttery on the inside. And the eating highlight of my trip so far has been an amazing grilled ham and cheese sandwich at gas station outside Nancy:

















It might not look like much, but what appears to be an innocent ham sandwich is actually a perfectly crispy baguette that's been grilled like a bruschetta, given a good once-over with real butter, and filled with good ham and better Gruyere. It's like a dream version of a ham sandwich. (to give Belgium some props, I had a perfect braadworst in Antwerp the size of my arm, with sauteed bacon and onions, mustard, and ketchup...a manly breakfast indeed).

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Other food notes: Let's see....in Opwijk I think a girl tried to hit on me by giving me a very tasty caramel (nice one) and then sitting on the CDs I was trying to sell (mmm...less good). It was hard to tell exactly what her intentions were because she was, I think, very drunk...after her first two sentences ("Would you like a caramel?" and "Parlez-vous Francais?") she became completely speechless (most probably because I don't parlez-vous Francais). But there is nothing quite like watching someone try to communicate while being doubly incapacitated by alcohol and a language barrier. Worrying and endearing at the same time, she was...I'm pretty sure she eventually found another target for her caramels of desire.

Speaking of incapacitation via language barrier, I will soon find myself in semi-rural France with not much French to work with. More on this in a bit. Til then, here's a picture of the rescue van hurtling through the Swiss Alps.

sidebar: breakfast rooms.

The hotel breakfast room in Europe: if you've never been to Yurp, you don't really know what I'm talking about, although the concept is familiar: your hotel room comes with a "free breakfast". In America, this means you go down to the lobby and have some cereal or toast and shitty coffee while you watch CNN or whatever pap is on the TV down there and simultaneously "read" USA Today. It can be a loud, semi-bustling environment (depending on what time you wake up of course).

In Europe, hotel breakfast rooms are deathly still and quiet, unless there are Americans there complaining about the lack of CNN, USA Today, and toast. Ideally you would never spend any time at all in one of these rooms....you would walk out the door, turn left or right, and within 50 meters you'd find a dreamy patisserie or cafe where you could sit outside with real people and enjoy a sublime croissant or pastry and a double espresso or two.

However, sometimes your hotel is not located in a city center. In fact, sometimes, your hotel is located in a very American-seeming highway offramp kind of situation, and if you're up before anyone else and hungry....the hotel breakfast room is your only option.

















The above picture was taken in the hotel breakfast room in Dendemonde, Belgium. I was up early and hungry, and OK although this time we were actually in a city center, I was interested in what a Belgian hotel breakfast was like, and didn't really feel like facing the outside world yet.

It was...modest but OK. Above you see a ham sandwich with Emmenthaler, oude kaas, and honey; a honingkoek (honey cake); and a couple of speculoos cookies. And a cup of tea. With honey. Lots of bees in Belgium apparently.

fantasyplan.

I have about 20 drafts of posts sitting around, the Blogger equivalent of Post-it Notes, reminding me of things I want to cook. This is a constant process pretty much, thinking of things to cook...which I thought sounded pretty fucked-up for awhile until I realized that for me it's a way of constantly "creating", and it can give you immediate, tangible results whenever you actually make time to stop by the stove and cook any of these brain visions.

The thing with leaving these posts as drafts is....I never look at them after I save them, so it's about as helpful as jotting down something on a Post-it Note and then throwing it out the window.

Which is why VDuck will probably contain more posts like this in the future. The point of this one in particular is to remind me to a) eat at Zinc Bistro the next time I'm in Phoenix (which will hopefully be May/June 2007), and b) steal some recipe and presentation ideas from Matt Carter (there's even a combination of tuna and socca, two of my faves with no (to me) obvious affinity).

Here's the eGullet thread that caught my roving eye.

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Also, I had a perfect no-time-for-prep vegetarian dinner planned for Tuesday, but the venue has been moved. For future reference, it was: Marcella Hazan's Ligurian Vegetable Soup; ricotta-zucchini-spinach raviolis (from Pasta Panini on the Rozengracht) with tomato-butter sauce; stoofperen.

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st. packrat's day.

We've been engaged in an unprecedented undertaking for the past few days: an actual Spring Cleaning. It's so obviously been a critical need for some time now, it seems impossible that we hadn't done it yet.

Maybe it's this: for the last few years springtime has found us either relocating our business across town (boo!) or moving house (yay!), and...while we one way or another got rid of truckloads of stuff each move...our newest living quarters are more modest, maybe even small: one room the size of (to paraphrase Terrill Soules) one room.

Into this one room we have crammed not only the semi-average-sized belongings of two mid-30s packrat nostalgists, but the flotsam and jetsam of our defunkt CD shop (including the entire inventory and fixtures), as well as a currently functioning CD/LP distribution business. And two sweet kitties.

Thus: after a truly impressive effort to get rid of every unnecessary thing in our apartment this week, we decided to commemorate the occasion with an uncharacteristic dinner: some kind o' meaty stew. I've made beef stew about twice in my life, but I've been reading Julia Child's The French Chef Cookbook, and wanting to cook something out of it for a few weeks now. Turns out however that after digging around in there a bit, her stews were just the tiniest bit more fussy than what I had time to cook tonight: and if I'm going to cook out of her book, there's no point in not following the recipes.

So we agreed on some essential components, basically: beef, red wine, thyme, carrots, onions, garlic, and potatoes....stewed. And that's what we had (what follows here is easily one of my worst efforts to date in trying to express a recipe):

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beef stew with bay leaves and thyme.

500 gr riblappen (boneless beef chuck), cut into 2-3 cm cubes
2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 large sweet onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced (you could even double this if you were in the mood)
1 cup red wine (Shiraz, Zinfandel, big wine)
2 tbsp. flour
1 cup chicken or beef stock
2 bay leaves
leaves from 3 sprigs fresh thyme

150-200 gr potatoes, cut into 2 cm cubes
3 medium carrots, sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 small leek, sliced 1/4 inch thick
2 tbsp parsley or selderij (celery leaves), minced


Heat large soup kettle/crockpot to high, brown the beef on all sides in the olive oil. Remove and set aside. Add onion to kettle, sauté 3-4 minutes. Add garlic, sauté 30 seconds then add flour. Cook 2 minutes or so until incorporated and browning. Add wine, stirring to incorporate and scraping bottom of kettle to get any crusty bits. Add broth, bay leaves, and thyme, bring to simmer. Add browned meat to kettle. After a simmer, turn heat as low as possible, cover, and simmer for 2 hours or so.

After two hours, add potatoes, carrots, and leek, along with some more wine or broth if things are drying up. After another hour, things should be tasting and looking good. Adjust taste via salt and pepper, add parsley. Let sit for 5 minutes and serve with a salad, fresh baguettes and butter.

Serves 2 proud mooperbirds.

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atlanta: keepin' it sleazy.

Some friends are headed to the ATL for one night only and wanted some entertainment tips. It was tough, due to the diverse, idiosyncratic, budget minded nature of this group of friends, so I just approached it as if it was me stranded on a Monday night in Brookhaven without a car.

Well, as if it were a budget-minded version of me. This is tough, as little gives me more reliably perverse pleasure than spitting on my own budget's grave; my first ATL inclinations would be to go to Sala or Tierra, or somewhere similar where I could seriously deplete my cash/credit reserves while seriously treating my giant hungry tooth to good eats...and then go do some of the other shit listed below.

Travel is another moneysucker: one of many negatives about the urban (and suburban) sprawl of Atlanta is that you must have a car to be truly mobile. Or a lot of money for cab fares: they pile up quick if you're carless and you don't have all night to try and get somewhere useful via MARTA.

For the options outlined below, the most cost-effective way to get to options B and C would probably be to take MARTA from Brookhaven/Oglethorpe Station to either Midtown Station, North Ave. Station, or Five Points Station, then take a bus or cab to any of the destinations below (specifics follow).

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OK, so now...the list. Keep in mind that this is a budget-minded version of me who's apparently trying to re-live his mid-20s.

So. I'd probably do one of these (in ascending order of adventurousness):







OPTION A: CHAMBODIA.

Take a moderately expensive cab (or hopefully hotel courtesy van) to Hae Woon Dae. The point of this option would be to experience a real Chamblee strip mall, an evening of real Korean BBQ, and plenty of real unusual (but pleasantly so) atmosphere, followed by a relatively early bedtime. To dramatically increase the adventurousness of this option, you could visit one of the next-door strip clubs for some concerned frowns, intimidating stares, assuredly ethnic booty, and maybe even some exciting gunplay.

This option has collapsed under the impossibility of its own logistics. There's just no reasonable way to get a larger group of people out there from Brookhaven without a car service, and I'm not sure that's in the budget. My suggestion of cabbing it to Buford Highway was met with tremendous skepticism by locals still living in the ATL.


OPTION B1, VIRGINIA-HIGHLAND

Take MARTA from Brookhaven Station to Midtown Station. Take the #45 bus (Virginia-Highland) and get off at the intersection of Virginia and Highland. Or take a cab from North Ave. Station to the intersection of Virginia and Highland.

Your destination is: my old watering hole in Virginia-Highland, the Highland Tap, for deadly deadly martinis, icy-cold Sierra Nevadas, and a superb burger or steak, possibly followed by either: Taco Mac across the street for their legendary beer selection (and hey Monday is trivia night, giving you the equilibrium-testing challenge of using your brain while simultaneously reducing its usefulness).

Other dining options in the Virginia-Highland area will appear here shortly.

Note: Should you feel invincible-livered, Option B1 puts you in an excellent position to combine Options B and C, but the degree of difficulty is high here. Read on for details.

If you're just looking to extend Option B1, you could enjoy a pleasant 15-minute postprandial stroll south down N. Highland to Option C below. It's a pleasant walk even if you decide to forego Option C but just want some exercise and a nightcap: The Righteous Room is where I'd go, and then call a cab from there.

Or you could take a cab to Heavy Metal Karaoke (with live band!) at 10 High Club (under the Dark Horse Tavern). Mara said it rocked.

Remember MARTA only runs til midnight, so...if things get out of hand, cabbing it back to Brookhaven will probably punch a $30 hole in your wallet.


OPTION B2, LITTLE FIVE POINTS
Take MARTA from Brookhaven Station to Five Points Station, then take the #3 bus (Auburn Ave / MLK Drive) east to Euclid Ave and get off in front of the Variety Playhouse. Or take a cab directly to the Variety Playhouse.

Your destination is: my old watering hole in Little Five Points, the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club, for a pulled BBQ pork sandwich, good beers, and entertaining camaraderie. There's a few more blocks' worth to investigate here, but really...it's hard to consider L5P a nighttime destination in itself these days without a show to go see there. During the day....maybe, for CD/LP shopping, but still...not a terribly rich seam to mine 'less you just wanna drank.

Pictorially, About.com hits some highlights of Little Five with this pictorial, but geez, here are some more nostalgic pictures from pre-digital times, 1998!


OPTION C, URBAN BLOAT
Take MARTA from Brookhaven Station to North Ave Station, then either take the #2 bus (Ponce de Leon) to Highland & Ponce de Leon, or take a cab directly to the Clermont.

Your destination is: the Clermont Lounge. To quote Wikipedia: "The Clermont is perhaps best-known for featuring dancers who do not meet the traditional physical standards for strippers, the most famous of which is Blondie, notable for her ability to completely flatten empty beer cans between her breasts." To say that the Clermont strippers do not meet traditional standards is...accurate. The only downside here is the shitty canned beer selection, but...you're slumming.

The Clermont should be followed or preceded by a greasy pie at Fellini's Pizza, or a decent Cuban sandwich at La Fonda Latina (I wouldn't order anything other than this or the paella here). Don't expect greatness at either of these places, you're there for the patio and because I used to go there. There's also the Majestic, which really only makes sense when taken in tandem with the Clermont or similar debauchery.

Safety Note: you will probably snap this relatively quickly, but just in case: this is not really an area of town to randomly explore on foot unless you're up for "real adventure". Stick to Ponce de Leon Ave, walk tall, and don't talk to anybody on the street unless you're trying to score some drugs. And if you are, don't follow anyone anywhere to get them. Unless you really need them. And then, well...take it sleazy, bro.

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And speaking of scoring...you should also at some point try to score a HOT Krispy Kreme donut if you haven't had one. But don't bother looking for one if you're not prepared to wait for the HOT NOW sign in the window to light up, cos otherwise....it's just a donut.

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tour de france.

Ha. I am suddenly going to France for 11 days. Well, not just France, but frankly, wherever the van takes me. Here's where it will hopefully be taking me:

29-03 Opwijk (BEL)
30-03 Nancy (FRA)
31-03 Bern (SWI)
01-04 Genève (SWI)
02-04 Grenoble (FRA)
03-04 Montpellier (FRA)
04-04 Bourges (FRA)
05-04 Limoges (FRA)
06-04 Brest (FRA)
07-04 St. Malo (FRA)

I desperately need chomping tips for this tour, since: a) it's my first trip to France, period, and b) I don't know anything about anywhere we're going. Our schedule is tight, as in, we won't have much time for getting lost looking for good food, so I need reliable info....any ideas?

For my own reference, some notes:

We start out in Opwijk, which is a tiny Belgian suburb of 12,000 people outside of Bruxelles. I'm not sure what the deal is on this gig, or how late in the day we'll leave to get there.

5 hours away is Nancy (tourist info), in the Lorraine region, the Northeast of France. The more I look at it, the better it looks, it's full of Art Nouveau (L'Ecole de Nancy), which I know nothing about. Described more than once as "the artistic and intellectual heart of modern Lorraine". Plagiarism, or generally accepted fact? Here's the venue.

Then it's 4.5 hours to Bern (tourist info), which Wikipedia describes as "rich of cultural offerings for every taste" (sic). Right. We're playing at the Reithalle, which used to be "the old riding school of Bern, now a meeting place for the alternative scene, with concerts, parties, flea market and much more". Hmm.

Then, yay, a 2 hour drive to Geneva (tourist info). Here is eGullet's Geneva thread, not so helpful at the moment, but maybe it will chug into life soon. Here is where we're headed.

2 hours away, Grenoble (tourist info) is in the Alps, and is not only full of Italians, but is walnut country apparently, so I should try to find some nocino (or vin de noix, walnut liqueur); tourtons, pasta squares stuffed with cheese, spinach or prunes (amongst others) then fried. Restaurant listings here (apparently stolen directly from the Rough Guide).

A nice short (3-hour) drive to Montpellier (tourist info) is next. Montpellier is supposed to be notoriously difficult to eat well in (and drive in). Cellier-Morel (Maison de la Lozere) has received a bunch of recommendations, but it's Michelin level dining. Mosaïque (21 rue Vallat) is supposed to be good and simple.

Then, a 7-hour drive to Bourges (tourist info) in the Loire region. Someone recommended the pâtisserie Aux Trois Flûtes, on the corner of rues Joyeuse and Bourbonnoux; for chocolates and the local sweet speciality of fourrées au praliné, Maison Forestines on place Cujas. In general, fruit and veg are the shit in this region. Another recommendation just popped up for Le Jardin Gourmand. Which looks good, but I seriously doubt we'll have time for it that day.

3 hours to Limoges (tourist info). Limoges is part of Limousin, here are some eating links. Can this be considered prime foie gras country?

Ook. A tough day, 9 hours to Brest. Brest is in Brittany, sounds like it's not much to look at (bombed heavily in WWII). But this is the time to start looking out for crêpes and galettes. And seafood. La Carene is somewhat near the water.

3 hours away, Saint-Malo (tourist info) is in Brittany too, and looks awesome. Too bad the venue isn't closer to the water. Here's an eGullet post on Breton pastries, including Kouign Amann. And someone has said that the Le Petit Moulin du Rouvre restaurant just south of St Malo and west of Mont St. Michel is good eating.

Then.....11 hours back to Amsterdam, hopefully nowhere near as destroyed as the last time I tried this. Actually, maybe I'll hang out in St. Malo for a few days if the weather's nice, then take a train back.

dollyflower.

It feels like we're the last to know about how to make cauliflower taste good. I learned about it this summer from a Jean-Georges Vongerichten recipe, but further research revealed that the topic has been gaining critical mass for some time.

The concept is simple: cut the cauliflower into 1/4-inch slices. This thickness seems to allow the stems to cook at about the same rate as the florets. And then cover the whole mess with the best olive oil you've got. Roast it in the oven for 40 minutes at 200C, keeping an eye on it to make sure that it doesn't overbrown. You could also just turn it over every 10 minutes or so if you don't mind hanging out by the stove.

What you end up with is something that is nutty and sweet that most people would never guess was cauliflower. The extra good news is that the recipe readily accepts elaborations: using butter instead of olive oil; adding cumin or rosemary; pine nuts and capers, etc.

Below is my adaptation of the initial recipe that got me hooked on this preparation method, but it's also great without the caper-raisin sauce.

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roasted cauliflower with capers and raisins.

1/3 cup capers, drained + 1 tbsp of their liquid
1/3 cup raisins, preferably golden
1/4 cup water
2 tbsp. butter
nutmeg for grating
ground black pepper
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar

1 head's worth of cauliflower florets, stems cut longways into 1/4-inch slices
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil or walnut oil

Place cauliflower in a roasting pan and coat with olive oil. Place in a 200C oven for 40 minutes, checking every 10 minutes or so to prevent overbrowning. Meanwhile, combine capers, raisins, butter, and water in a small saucepan and simmer for 10 minutes. Let it cool and then zshoom it up in a food processor.

Reheat the sauce, then add the nutmeg, vinegar, pepper and salt if needed. Serve cauliflower with a dollop of the sauce onto 4 plates. Finish with a tiny grating of nutmeg.

UPDATE: Apparently I've incorrectly transcribed one or more improvisatory elements of this recipe...tried it according to this recipe last night and it had lost something. Will try to fix soon.

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let it FLO.

One of the most popular questions from our readers here is: "Why don't your photos have anything to do with your posts? Huh? Why not?"

And the answer is: get off my back, man. I finally managed to get over to Brasserie FLO and have a bite to eat (sorry Klary, I didn't mean to go without you guys, I just ended up over there unexpectedly around dinner time). This can't be considered an actual review, since I just sat at the bar and had a salad and a couple of beers, but I learned a couple of things about the place, enough to know whether or not I'll be back.

And: I will. The food was good. I had the "salad with rillettes of duck, smoked duck breast, sausage, bacon and croutons". Very tasty, lightly dressed, totally edible and something I wouldn't make at home.

The only real negative for me is that the lighting was a bit brighter than the Mole Family prefers. But this isn't really a realistic complaint, because the ideal dining lighting for us is near-total darkness. The service was young and unprofessional, but pleasant and they seemed to be trying to do a good job. And the prices were reasonable. All in all, initial indications suggest that it's a fine place for a drink and a bite. I can imagine that service problems multiply if you actually sit at a table or order an entree, but that's pure speculation. I'll let you know when I go back this weekend.

painting the town red.

Apparently many other people in Europe enjoyed the lunar eclipse last night. I myself did not, because during the fun part (pictured above), la luna became obscured by clouds.

Or maybe it went out for a glass of red. It seems that I'm not the only person in town who is wondering where the hell I can find a nice glass of red wine in a dark cozy environment. Free local rag nl20 has an article this month about wine bars in Amsterdam, saying that with the growing appreciation for wine in Holland and the proliferation of wine bars around town, Amsterdam is "finally beginning to act like an international city" (insert cynical dog poop joke here).

Maybe I shouldn't be skeptical. Maybe we haven't heard this before. Actually, we have. Back in 2002 or so, several similar articles popped up around the introduction of several winebars to the city's landscape. As far as I can tell, only one of those is still around, Boelen & Boelen. Back when those articles came out, I went by a couple of these places (whose names escape me at the moment), and...they just seemed soul-less and designed to attract the eye in a way I associate with flash-in-the-pan desperation. Understandably: opening a restaurant of any sort is a terribly risky proposition that usually fails expensively, at least that's what my dad told me when he talked me out of opening a restaurant back in the 90s.

So, back in the early days of the winebar rush, Boelen & Boelen seemed more physically approachable than the others, but mostly I just remember being knocked out by their high prices. Of course, now that Euro-inflation is an accepted fact and the U.S. dollar's implosion has made everything expensive for us expatriates, Boelen & Boelen's prices are looking downright average.

Bubbles & Wines, which is already on my list of places to check out, still looks interesting and not quite as self-congratulatory as some of the others. I think it helps that, in the photos I see of B & W, the people behind the bar seem to be friendly-faced, with welcoming, open smiles. I'm such a sucker for crafty marketing!

The other names mentioned in the article are:

1. Vyne. Good name. Really cute website that doesn't play vapid smooth lounge-jazz beats when it starts up. Huge points for that. Unfortch, the photos on the website make the place look a bit like a museum shop. It's definitely not a relaxed, comfortable-looking bar, it looks like a place to go out and fetishize something. The IENS reviews are rather terrible and suggest that this place suffers from the now unsurprising Amsterdam problem of unqualified, disinterested, perhaps even rude waitstaff. O, it's laughable, up to a point, isn't it.
   
   I'm just about beyond that point...I've been really reluctant to reach this conclusion, but I think that this inability to really understand the concept of "customer service" might well say something significant about the culture here (across the Internet, a chorus of unpleasant, whiny voices cries out in unison, "oh, ya think???"). I definitely don't want the robotic Stepford Waiters or the fawning/bratty customer-is-always-right relationships of the U.S. to take root over here, but...fuck. Just try a little.
   
   Which reminds me: our friend Andy, who is not a needy person while dining, finally ate at this Dos place off the Marnixstraat (maybe an offshoot of Duende?), and said that while the food was good, there was a woman working there who was the most unpleasant person he's been served by in a long time. It would've been a total bust if he hadn't struck up a rapport with the chef, after which everything was smooth sailing and generally very good. So...there you go. Avoid the blonde woman at Dos. IENS reviews suggest that she's either new or a fill-in.
   
   
2. Rosarium. Looks like a beautifully designed place, but the website is not too forthcoming about the food or drink options. The IENS reviews are uniformly excellent, which is unusual and more than likely indicative of something out of the ordinary, exactly what I'm not sure. A negative point: it's out in Oost Bumblefuck.
   
   
3. Silex. It's not immediately obvious what this restaurant is doing in an article about winebars, based on their website menus. Their 2 red by-the-glass choices are uninspired, while the bottles are very heavily weighted towards French and Italian standards. The menu is very "European". Looks expensive and disappointing...but: the IENS reviews are very positive. Not that that means anything. Maybe worth seeing what the bar area is like. I need a scout. Or an intern.
   

So....more places to check out. Too bad I'm on the wagon for a few weeks as part of my new "month-on/oh shit: another month-on/thank god, finally a few weeks off" drinking regimen.

southern cookin'.

This could have been one of those post titles that every newspaper slash magazine hack has used to death: you know, talking about the southwestern Asian/eastern Mediterranean country Georgia but using coy little references to the southeastern U.S. state Georgia. I'm not even going to give an example of it here, you know what I'm talking about. This post is just a reminder to start cooking some Georgian food, because it looks like a fantastic way to take advantage of the lovely Moroccan/Turkish goods at Bario Market downstairs (quite possibly the friendliest men in Amsterdam).

On the web, About Georgia has some nice entry points into Georgian cuisine. Here's the eGullet post that got me a-salivatin', and this cookbook from Darra Goldstein (or this one from Paula Wolfert, or both) will probably end up in our comparatively modest (45 or so) cookbook pile/stack.

let it snow.

I'm only writing instead of working because I got 8 minutes of sleep last night (see previous entry), and because it's actually snowing outside, only hours after I idly wished it would. That almost never happens. These are hardly conditions under which a man can be expected to get anything done.

Except maybe cook (and clean, fuck!). I have suddenly contracted a fi-yuuurious craving for Chinese food, specifically something from the Szechwan side of da house--my head needs blown off, badly. I want my lips to fly around the room screaming (assuming that's still possible when they're not connected to the rest of me).

But I ain't gwine to do takeout, you know...see, all my homies (New King, Nam Kee) live on the other side of town now, so I gots to do it my own self.

One of the better resources I've seen for making this stuff at home is on eGullet, innocently titled Chinese Food Pictorials. They're done by a guy called hzrt8w (uh, real name W.K. Leung), and they're thorough as all get-out.

If you're not already familiar with the degree of obsessiveness with which eGulleters can track a topic, the Szechuan Peppercorn thread is a good place to get a taste. Lots of additional photodocumentation of homestyle Chinese cooking can be found on the Chinese Cooking at Home thread.

There's also another thread that has piqued my interest these days: Korean Home Cooking. One of the ringleaders here, ChryZ, has a blog where most of the pictorials also show up. Here are the front runners on my to-cook list:

1. Dwenjang Jjiigae (pork stew)
   
2. Haemul Pajeon (seafood/scallion pancake with spicy dip)
3. Buldak (korean fire chicken with mozzarella)
   
4. Soondooboo Jjigae (shrimp/kimchi stew with tofu)
   
5. Jajang Myung (noodles with black bean sauce)
   

Jajang Myung is last because it's the only one of these I've actually tasted before. It looks like a can of motor oil poured over a bowl of linguini, but it's good eatin'. There was a good bulgogi restaurant in Atlanta whose bulgogi was so good that it kept me from branching out too much. I don't think it was My Dong. The restaurant.

Actually My Dong might have been Vietnamese. The restaurant. Here's eGullet's Vietnamese Home Cooking thread as well.

And....I also found Andrea Nguyen's Vietworldkitchen to be a valuable storehouse of great writing and recipes from the Vietnamese kitchen. The question is: will I get around to cooking any of these recipes, or will I get distracted by some other piece of exotic fluff that will generate yet another pointless post and no actual food?

brainstorming.

Unfortunately I find myself awake and sleepless after a very disturbing dream about an ex-girlfriend. And there wasn't even any sex.

I was sitting at a table in a modern Italian restaurant (a la...Babbo, let's say, but not Babbo) before it had opened for dinner, say 4pm, in a tuxedo, waiting for something, all the lights were off inside but there was still enough light outside so that you could see everything fine. A menu was on the table. A wedding party noisily exited of one of the back rooms, just having done some post-wedding thing, post-wedding because the bride was in white, and...lo, the bride was my ex.

We were surprised to run into each other there, but not like, "Wow, haven't seen you in forever," more like people who see each other regularly and are just surprised to run into each other somewhere unusual. I said something like hey, that's three years in a row we've seen each other here at this place. She sits down next to me but facing me, it was one of those banquette thingies, and starts talking about something. When she turned to her right, toward the rest of the restaurant, to look around, I could see that she was wearing a lot of makeup, as brides tend to do...but there was something really garishly wrong about the part around the temple side of her left eye.

Not wrong like, this is the part where she's actually dead or anything...it was just unfinished, strangely white and shiny. So while she was talking, I blended it in with my thumb and it looked better.

And, sadly....that's all i remember. The bad part was Lynchian in it's level of scary evilness but the specifics elude me. Well, a little girl's body was pulled limp from an ocean harbor by a crane, but then the sun shone on it and it was alive and waved to the crowd; also, I'd hidden a Christmas present for someone (R. Scott Hanson I believe) somewhere and couldn't find it. I knew it was in a high place, somewhere that I had to stand on tiptoe to reach. But while I was looking for it, I was also embarrassed about the gift because it seemed cheap and lame, it was some kind of old "classic" piece of literature in it's original paperback version, with notes scribbled on the cover. I think Scott's parents were getting dressed to go out during this.

None of this was scary, just menacing...the bad part was happening simultaneously, though, and it had something vaguely to do with my ex, and with me being part of a group of 6 very bad people who received instructions about what specific bad things to do via an intricate system of cubicles and P.O. boxes. There were toilets involved as well. Ominous, no?

And so you see, I am awake, with only a couple of hours of sleep under my belt. Leaving me to ponder things like "what will I do with the thawed salmon in the fridge?" I also have some merguez I bought yesterday, mm-hmm, yes...now watch as I attempt to deploy some maple syrup as the bridge ingredient here, and a dab of orange marmalade as well, for a kind of Seattle brunch vibe:

+++

marmalade-glazed salmon with merguez sausage and maple sweet potatoes?

1/4 cup orange marmalade
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1 garlic clove, pressed
250gr salmon filet

4 merguez sausages

2 sweet potatoes
1 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp butter
grated nutmeg

toasted pine nuts, minced chives and minced cilantro for garnish


+++

We'll see...

party time, part 6127.

As so often happens 'round these parts, we've decided that it's "time for a party".

At our last apartment, well...we used to have a lot of parties. Or more accurately: we had a good number of small "dinner parties", several medium-sized "get-togethers", and a few rather large and memorable bashes, including that rare bird (pictured above), the Successful New Year's Party. You know the one where, although alarming things happen: someone you don't know does a serious swandive off a kitchen counter, faceplanting into the corner of the stovetop; someone else is allegedly "pushed" down during Nieuwmarkt midnight fireworks and returns with an ugly bloody gash on her calf; the cats disappear and the party has to be "paused" for 10 minutes to make sure they're inside because they've never been outside before in their lives...

Although all of that happens, the oven diver is carried upstairs and put to bed (asked if she needed anything, she replied "vodka" and then fell asleep), the leg gash is swabbed and gauzed, the cats are found...

...and the food is exotic and excellent because you are fortunate enough to have friends that can really cook; just a few too many people bring unexpected numbers of people so that it seems ever-so-slightly overcrowded for an hour or two; random and not-so-random DJs step up to the task masterfully and everybody dances, you manage to properly gauge your own alcohol intake, and you go to bed at 9am feeling good about the world and your place in it.

+++

We've lived in our current apartment almost exactly 1 year, and we have not yet had a party party. Yes, there are good reasons: my primary co-partier was away in the Arctic north for almost 5 months. Upon her return, I was absolutely mired in work goop, nose to the grindstone like the proverbial paperhanger until the holiday parties set upon us like a pack of hungry Duran Duran wolves. And then her parents came to party visit, and then we went on vacation, etc. etc. etc.

So, sure. There are reasons. But what I'm saying is...in the words of King Geedorah and Mr. Fantastik:

it's on nigga
on and crackin'
like Dig'em
lips be smackin'.

+++

Obviously, after the guest list (unfortunately, the supercomputer-like calculations required to properly calibrate the ideal mix of people who will be interested in each other or can at least all have fun together are beyond the scope of this page), the first consideration is the food. Actually, for me that comes before the guest list.

This highlights one of the very few things that my co-partier and I disagree on. One of them is dub music, which is not very relevant in terms of food. The other is (sniff) cilantro. She is a "cilantro/soap" gene person (I realize that this enzyme/gene thing is still under debate, but I'm hoping that that's the explanation), and I am currently in the mood for something cilantro-heavy. I'm aware that cilantro can be served in a bowl on the side. In fact, one might say that that's a better way to do it for a party anyway since apparently something like 25% of people might have this soap gene (Source: Wikipedia).

I'm just saying: we don't disagree about much: but this "party food" thing brings up the one thing we may never see eye to eye on (there's still a chance for dub, I think), this cilantro issue, and it's just not fair...because, dammit...OK, Andy puts a bunch of cilantro in his party food and it's great. And I should be able to, too. Because otherwise he has an unfair advantage. There, I said it. It's out.

+++

Up next: More procrastination in the guise of Menu Planning!

+++

P.S. I wish it would snow.

UPDATE: Six hours later, it is snowing.

team trivia and hot wings.

Well, after a buttload of traveling, Team Duck is now back in Amsterdam battling jet lag and a weird, Affliction-like toothache. So if you ask me something and I bark "It's my goddamned TOOTH, I can't take it anymore!" and then throw you over a lunch counter, or douse you with gasoline and set you aflame....that's what's up.

In other "towering achievements" news, we thoroughly spanked the rest of Churchill's Pub in East Cobb during an evening of Team Trivia...actually, it was an upset win, down to the last question, which had something to do with Fargo and the AFI's list of 100 Greatest American Movies Of All Time. I can't quite remember the details...what was I even drinking? Oh right, Jaegermeister.

Before the freezing brown liquid gunked up my circuitry, though, I somehow correctly identified some lines of poetry as being Robert Browning's. Actually "brown" was a bit of a theme that evening (oh, isn't it always when you hang out with MT). We chose "Brown" as our team name (we're usually sporting the witty moniker The Libya Miners); there was a question about a Browning automatic, and, um....well, I think that's it. The only other question I can remember had something to do with the Arctic Ocean.

Whatever. Ever wonder about the whole deer/crucifix thing?

south beach: fifty again.

Well, after all was said, done, eaten, drank, etc., I don't have anything nicer to say about anywhere in South Beach than Fifty.

It is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. The bar area is frankly, ah...quite awful aesthetically; in fact, the whole interior is pretty bad. Kind of like a repurposed bank branch or something. The porch can be really pleasant, but there's a Thinsulate sheet that is usually rolled down to protect the diners from....what? Who knows. The service is well-intentioned but thoroughly underprepared, like having a good friend wait on you who's never waited tables before. I ended up with three napkins on my lap tonight because every time she brought a new one I didn't have the heart to remind her that I already had one. Where did she think they were going?

But, but, but: if you're sitting outside at a table on a warm night (and the pedestrian protector is rolled up out of the way) and you feel like eating smartly conceived, well-executed apps at normal human prices, TGI Friday's prices, for fuck's sake, you can't do any better in South Beach than Fifty.

Here's what I ate:

+++

Butter Head Lettuce, Sunny Side Up Egg, Crispy Bacon, Maytag Blue Cheese, Toasted Pinenuts & Warm Horseradish Vinaigrette $9

Steamed White Water Clams & our own Tasso Ham (Spicy Cajun Ham) $9

Pecan Pie with Sweet Potato Ice Cream & Caramel $7

+++

It was all great, but the best spoonful of food I've had in my mouth over the last two weeks was the Warm Pecan Pie with Sweet Potato Ice Cream. Well, that spoonful is honestly tied with Joe's Grilled Lobster Reuben, chicken empanadas from Charlotte Bakery (actually three different chicken empanadas, pictured above and below, from Chile, Argentina, and Venezuela, left to right), Mark's South Beach's Foie Gras Peach Cobbler, El Chalan on the Beach's Green Salsa, Clarke's' blue cheeseburger, Talula's Scallop and Corn Chowder, Taste Bakery's Pistachio Muffin (I have no idea why I didn't take a picture of this huge, beautiful creature), and actually, Fifty's Plantain-wrapped Crab Cake in Avocado Oil as well. Honorable mention goes to Big Pink, where we ate 10 times, I'm not even exaggerating.

south beach: disappointments.

During a two-week stint anywhere you're bound to run into some less-than-satisfying dining experiences. Aren't ye?

Best case, you go somewhere that's supposed to be great, a landmark, and it's average. And expensive. Joe's Stone Crab, for instance. Don't worry, I didn't wait two hours to be seated or anything, I just got takeaway. I just don't understand what the appeal might be. It's basically upscale room service food.

Worst case: excruciating food poisoning. El Pub (or El Pube as Mara calls it) in Little Havana sent me to bed for a solid 24 hours wishing I was beyond dead. I can't even explain to you the degree to which my body rebelled against this food. Lamb stew with plantains and a mamey batida. I haven't been in that much pain since a bad Eggs Benedict at a Howard Johnson's when I was 12 years old.

UPDATES: Interesting developments afoot. Yesterday Mara came down with a mercifully milder version of whatever I had on Wednesday, so I can't say with 100% certainty that El Pub was to blame for my G/I blowout. My lamb was a bit gamey, and the symptoms I endured included a bunch of pain, which I do not normally associate with a 24-hour bug.

And, although there's nothing about this that makes me want to retract my "hotel food" characterization, I did have my first fantastic bite of food from Joe's today: their Grilled Lobster Reuben is out of sight. Thank goodness, cos I felt like a real sucker going in there again after I'd already written them off.

south beach: nemo.

I never had a girl before with much of a figure
So excuse me if I start to play with your Digital Display
Digital Display - I wish your music start to flow
Digital Display - To make your digits want to show
Digital Display - I could turn you off by day
From your Digital Display

+++

Mara woke up this morning complaining that she'd had "weird dreams", soundtracked by Ready For The World's 1987 hit "Digital Display". She also had two tremendously swollen bug bites on her shin and forearm; I like to think that the weird dreams were caused by insect toxins coursing through her veins and stimulating the portion of her brain that stores information about "the Minneapolis Sound", Prince-related bands like Sheila E., The Family, Jesse Johnson's Revue, The Time, etc.

Before I forget, here's what we ate:

+++

1/2 dozen Oysters with Black Pepper Mignonette and Cocktail Sauce.

Big Eye Tuna Tartare
quail egg, tobiko caviar, Maida's corn melbas.

Steamed Mussels
tomato-harissa broth, scallions, sticky black rice, garlic chips.

Bread with cinnamon dal dip.

+++

Against all odds, Nemo was just as relaxed and all-around easy as it was when we were last here six years ago. A tad more expensive maybe, but then maybe everything is. The warm, glowing eggs that illuminate the exposed bar are still as cool and beautiful as ever, and the generally infernal color scheme still feels warm on cooler Miami nights.

The food? It seems like I've eaten little other than raw tuna and (cooked) foie gras since I've been in Miami. Nemo's tuna was the most satisfying I've had yet this week, largely because of the homemade corn melbas that were served with it. Mara's mussels were very pleasantly spicy and briny, but not terribly surprising. Maybe that's a plus come to think of it: what kind of surprise are you really looking for when opening a shellfish? A loud noise would be good. When we asked for some bread, it was delivered with a cinnamon-spiked dal dip that managed to be both exciting and comforting.

south beach: talula.

5:30AM. While some really inconsiderate people fuck in the pool directly outside my window, I'm left to consider (among other things) a rather remarkably uncool moment I had at the bar at Talula last night:

+++

Female Bartender: So, can I get you guys something else?
Me: No, thanks...we're kinda ready to crash out.
Mara: (actually crashing out)
Female Bartender: Okay, well I hope we see you again!
Me: Oh, we'll definitely be back...we'll probably be here on Sunday for 25%-off wine night.
Record Player: (needle skipping off)
Rest of Restaurant: (stops eating and talking)
Mara: (ears perk up)
Me: Hmmm.
Mara: Niiiiiice.
Female Bartender: Well.....
Rest of Restaurant: (waits patiently)
Female Bartender: ...that's a good time to get a really nice bottle. That's what I do.
Record Player: (resumes playing)
Rest of Restaurant: (shakes head, returns to meal)

+++

Or something like that. I think I was especially sensitized to the un-hotness of this comment because Mara and I have both been reading Neil Strauss's offensive caveman scientist pickup bible The Game, and I'm sure there's a term for what I did: saying something so obviously inimical to closing a set that you might as well have shat on the bar or puked in your drink.

Actually under the right circumstances I'm sure that either (or both) of those two approaches would be more effective than the 25%-off wine comment. Needless to say I really didn't mean for it to come out like that, and I didn't even realize how it sounded until the bartender desperately tried to cover for me (which I thought was sweet). What can I make?* I'm operating a human body under the influence of a serious sleep deficit. But, you know....they do have a 25%-off wine night--you should be allowed to mention it at the restaurant without feeling like a cheap bastard. I guess my date was just so hot that the bartender was hoping that I'd overcome my obvious physical obstacles and get it on some recipe.*

But enough about my lack of game: Talula, let me just say, was excellent in just about every way except for the fact that we almost didn't go there because their website makes both the food and the inside of the restaurant look incredibly unattractive. We'd heard so many good things about the place that we went in spite of the impression given by the website...the only logical explanation is that it was done by a family member or close friend who needed the work. I'm happy to report that neither the restaurant itself nor the food look anything like the website photos.

We had:

+++

Tartar of Ahi Tuna
Serrano chiles, cucumber, crispy rice, trout roe.

Grilled Shrimp Tamale
Fava beans, roasted poblano chiles, teardrop tomato vinaigrette.

Grilled Sonoma Valley Foie Gras
Caramelized figs, blue corn cakes, chile syrup, candied walnuts.

Daily Soup: Corn Chowder with Grilled Scallops

+++

Mara's soup was unstoppable, the best version of this I've tasted since Eddie Hernandez's now-defunct Sundown Cafe in Atlanta...I think we both could've eaten this all night. The tuna was good, but not legendary; the version I had at Clarke's was just as satisfying, if simpler and less ambitious. In fact, Mara out-ordered me last night...both of her dishes were just about flawless; she followed the soup with the tamale, while I had the foie gras. I ordered it to compare it with Mark's South Beach's version, and I have to say I preferred Mark's. The fig notes here were a bit confusing, almost as if they'd used both dried and fresh. After I got to the blue corn cakes, things improved dramatically, but the first impression of this dish wasn't stellar.

In any event, Talula won big points for a friendly, foodie vibe, and for having a Caesar salad that was less than 10 bucks. Not that I'm going to order it, it's just the principle of the thing. The rest of the menu looks sufficiently interesting to guarantee a return trip. You know, on 25%-off wine night.

* Denotes patois or pidgin English. Insensitive, I know.

south beach: wish and mark's south beach.

So yesterday we decided to get our inevitable massive disillusionment over with and visit what had been our two favorite South Beach eateries in the past, Wish and Mark's South Beach. Actually, we didn't really decide this, it just sort of happened, the way things do when you head up the beach at night without a plan in your head.

We stopped at Wish first, for what we knew would be an embarrassingly pricey drink and to see what was what food-wise. I'd forgotten that it's almost a perfectly beautiful restaurant outside; I'd also forgotten that the bar is just (for me) all wrong. It's tiny, sterile, and expensive, with bad EuroMiami lounge music setting a vibe that I would ordinarily run away from fast. It's so much an afterthought to the rest of the restaurant that one wonders why they bothered with it at all. I being that one.

We had such an indelible (you know, aside from the stuff I just said I'd forgotten) experience at Wish last time largely due to the atmosphere: we sat outside in the barely bearably romantic garden on a tremendously humid night that finally erupted into big warm raindrops and everyone had to run inside under the porch for a bit...so we had drinks on the porch and watched the downpour drench all of the white linen tablecloths and gradually fill the empty water and wine glasses left behind in the rush, just like in that Guns 'n' Roses video...and someone told me I should "hold on to this one", and I said "I married her"...I'm pretty sure he meant Mara.

Back to 2007: while the menu looked good, the bar was killing my mood, so we had to bail. Luckily, Mark's was a few blocks away. Mark's was a perfect illustration of why you want a good bar scene in your restaurant. Whereas the vibe at Wish was of a lackluster hotel bar, Mark's felt like...well, foodies hanging out insulting each other in a hotel bar.* I knew everything was going to be OK when Mara and our Italian-Irish bartender Damien started busting each other's balls immediately, then unfurling entire paragraphs of actual Goodfellas dialogue while I just sat there wondering if I'd blacked out and somehow missed portions of the conversation:

+++

Damien: Amsterdam? Wow, I almost moved there with my...
Mara: Boyfriend?
Damien: I like you.
Mara: But it didn't work out.
Damien: I'm not changing my religion for nobody.
Mara: Jew broad?
Damien: I can't believe this. This day and age, a Jew broad, prejudiced against Italians.
Mara: I'm trying to bang this broad, you gonna help me out or what?
Me: Huh?

+++

So while Damien reminded us why we love good American bartenders so much, we ordered some food.

+++

Pan seared foie gras over white peach cobbler.

Jumbo scallops, purée of calabaza, passion fruit butter
and plantain crisps.

Chocolate souffle with vanilla creme anglaise.

+++

The foie gras was just what I was looking for, though serving anything remotely sweet alongside a good peach cobbler will probably work out just fine for me. Mara thought her scallops had way too much of the calabaza puree on board, giving the dish a pumpkin pie feel that was seriously distracting...I like sweet stuff with my seafood more than she does and it was way too much for me too. However if you portioned out the puree appropriately, the scallops were great and everything made sense. The chocolate souffle was a nice, not-too-sweet finish, but paled in comparison to the amazing apple/maple syrup souffle we had at Mark's during our legendary visit in 2001.

Overall, very good food, great service, rumours of a decline in quality proved to be unfounded thus far, at least while dining at the bar. We're going to sneak in another visit before we leave.

* Our evening was greatly enhanced by Damien's performance; little did we know that it was to be one of his last at Mark's: we subsequently found out from Josh at Nemo that, 48 hours later, Damien would walk out of Mark's during his Saturday night shift. Apparently the "good bar scene" only existed when we were there; word on the street is that the bar was normally desolate and bar staff usually made 20-30 legitimate dollahs on an average night.

south beach: fifty.

Yesterday we finally accomplished a few of our modest goals for this vacation. We:

1) had a full day of sun on the beach
2) opened the tequila bottle
3) made it out of the apartment for a restaurant dinner

Even better, we have no sunburn (thank you Hawaiian Tropic), no hangover (thank you Vitamin Water), and the food was very above average (thank you Fifty).

One of my reservations about this trip is: we don't eat like we used to, both in volume and in terms of what we're looking for. Back in the 90s when I first started cooking, it was during the rise of super-hyphenated and pretentious fusion cooking in America, and I'm sure that my tastes suffered immeasurable setbacks. I really don't try to cook like this anymore, but I still like it when a chef who has successfully assimilated these ideas cooks for me.

We ate at Fifty thanks to some last minute research which revealed that no one had a single bad thing to say about this modestly-priced place that is right across the street from us. We've been doing a lot of research and running into trouble because of the new appetizer pricing model in America: $15 and up suddenly became totally acceptable at some point in the last 5 years.

I'm balking. If it's fascinating food that I can't either technically can't make or conceptually can't imagine at home, I have no problem with these prices. But I'm not paying 15 bucks for a caesar salad, a carrot-ginger soup, or a watercress and endive salad (Nemo I'm talking about you here). Buffalo mozzarella, basil, half-roasted tomatoes, and an infused EVOO makes for a nice appetizer, but I can do this myself.

Anyway, Fifty was an easy sell because their prices are still 1999 prices and their food looks thoughtful and unusual. Chef Rolando “Roly” Cruz-Taura worked with Mark Militello for awhile, and Mark's was a landmark dining experience for us back in the day. Did I mention it's literally right across the street?

Fifty's a nice-looking place, a bit hotel bar, but not distractingly so. We sat outside because there was no one sitting inside. We had:

+++

Calamari Trio:
Buttermilk Fried Calamari, Baby Turk & Caicos Conch and Chile Rings
Grilled Squid Stuffed with Spicy Braised Oxtail
Chilled Calamari & Baby Octopus Cocktail

Jumbo Lump Crab Cake (how-to here)
Wrapped in green plantain with Avocado Aioli & Herb Infused
Extra Virgin Avocado Oil.

Crispy Veal Sweetbreads with Chimmichurri and White Truffle Essence

+++

For now, let me just say that the crab cake was excellent, do not fail to order it if you go to Fifty. Before last night, I myself had not ordered a crab cake in a restaurant since 1996 or so, but our server said that it was one of their signature dishes, and I do love avocados. When the plate arrived, it was the kind of crab cake that shouldn't even be called a crab cake, it should just be called Crab, no filler in sight. And the sauce was platelickingly good. I could've eaten 4 of these.

The calamari trio was 66% awesome, 33% good: the cocktail portion wasn't my scene, kind of a Bloody Mary/gazpacho presentation that has never been a favorite of mine. But the other two calamaris were heavenly.

The sweetbreads were a solid B: the sweetbread component was a bit undersized, allowing the chimmichurri to overwhelm it in volume, we agreed that a nice crouton or something to soak up the extra sauce would have made the disparity less obvious.

To sum, we'll be going back at some point in the next 10 days, I'm sure. I will add my voice to the chorus of people who have nothing bad to say about Fifty: upbeat and real (as in non-robot) service was also a nice plus.

south beach: big pink.

Well, we did it: beach vacation in progress. It only took us 5 years. At some point I'll get around to trying to understand why South Beach works for us, but for now I'll just be happy that it does. It definitely doesn't hurt that our room is simply awesome, 50 yards from brilliant turquoise water that we can see and hear from our windows. It also sports three windows that open (!), which allows us to set up crossbreezes of scarily windtunnellish proportions. I awoke to see my cash money flying around the room this morning in a worryingly unstable cyclonic formation...I managed to secure most of it without incident. Anyway, I wish you all could be here.

Eating: against all odds, one of our favorite emergency grub places down here is Big Pink, a 20.5-hour diner (you know, vs. 24-hour) that combines a vast menu of competently-prepared gourmandized diner food with a stainless steel industrial vibe and a full bar. I've heard some terrible things about the service here, but in the 8-10 times I've been here everyone has always been exceptionally nice to me. And this was even before I'd gotten used to Amsterdam service.

Example: yesterday I ordered a glass of sangria (which may or may not even be on the menu, I'd just spied this empty pitcher labelled "sangria" behind the bar and assumed there was some more of it laying around somewhere) because I'd been walking around for 90 minutes in jeans and a black long sleeve shirt looking for flip-flops (long story). The bartender said that they didn't have any sangria, but that she'd be happy to make me a glass of it. This kind of thing does not usually happen in Amsterdam.

Anyway, Big Pink has great salads (including this soy-marinated mushroom kebab appetizer served on bok choy with a feta dressing that shouldn't work at all but is very very good) and red velvet cake. The only disappointment we've had: "Nemo" polenta fries with a spicy ketchup. The ketchup was like a European version of tomato salsa, sharp and overcooked, pointlessly spiced; the fries were sadly tasteless.

The Nemo referenced in that dish refers to Big Pink's parent restaurant, Nemo, where in the past we've enjoyed many slow, expensive evenings at the bar. We should find ourselves back there any minute now, I'll let you know how it goes.

UPDATE: An hour after my "isn't South Beach wonderful" moment above, I was nearly killed in what I'm sure will eventually be a deadly altercation between the possibly violently racist Cuban counterman at Washington Ave. Food Plaza and a black patron of questionable sanity. Why neither of them riddled the other one (and in all probability me) full of bullets remains uncertain.

season's beatings.

As in, I took one over the holidays. Something inside me demands escalation, and unfortunately during the winter holidays this is achieved through repeated submergence in holiday cheer. Bosom Caresser, anyone? I won't even get into the Supercock.

My point being: Happy New Year, etc. On Saturday heading to sunny beach places for a couple weeks and will document my foodstuff encounters when appropriate.

In other news, it's time to revise my Amsterdam recommendations...in December I revisited a few of my "must-eats" and, well...there've been some changes afoot, for example: Toko Ikan Mas has changed their loempia recipe, so sadly this is no longer a must-eat.

More of this sort of thing later.