My kind of town

What a weekend. What a city.

Several great meals, including a magnificent dinner at one of the best restaurants anywhere followed by an unexpected bonus: a tour of the kitchen (including a quick hello and thank-you to the executive chef) provided by an unbelievably gracious waiter. A lot of walking and public-transportation-riding. (Kinda forgotten how to do that in L.A.) A solo late-night photo expedition. A completely-worth-it 90-minute wait to get into the one-and-only Hot Doug's. A picture-perfect day for Cubs baseball at Wrigley Field, which, as my wife pointed out, "smells amazing." Reunions with a couple of very special friends. First encounters with, seemingly, dozens of new high-rises that have sprung up since I left just a few years ago, including the stunning Aqua (bottom photo). And, a return to the exact spot where my wife and I first met, five years ago. 

Going to have to get back for another visit soon. If I'm lucky, I'll get a few more sights like these:

Phood foto phun

If you were the editor who wrote captions for the photos accompanying the Los Angeles Times' restaurant reviews, wouldn't you try to learn the visual differences between - just for example - a stuffed chicken on the one hand and pierogies on a bed of sauteed cabbage on the other?

No. Apparently, you would not.


Unless Jidori is Hebrew for "cleverly disguised to look like pierogies," I think this description is a bit off.

One other quick thought: Are those of us in L.A. and New York getting to the point where a restaurant having a "Top Chef" alum on staff is sort of like having a basketball team with a "tall dude"?*

* I think we are.

If eating you is wrong, I don't want to be right

Perhaps I have a very very very very subtle death wish. But any time I see a list of "worst foods" or "unhealthiest meals" or "snacks that will kill you dead as soon as you take your first bite," I immediately want to eat most of the foods on that list.

When I saw the latest such countdown of the worst artery-clogging, blood-pressure-spiking cuisine, courtesy of Yahoo! and Men's Health, I also felt a sense of pride. Because I'm pretty sure that during my 13 years in Chicago, I ate about 794 Jimmy John's Italian Night Club subs (oh, the bread!), also known as Number 8 on the list.

So, let's see: 794 sandwiches* times 2,165 grams of sodium means I might have consumed something north of 1.7 million grams of sodium during that part of my life. That sense of pride has just ballooned. Kind of like a cardiac catheter.


* It's possible it was somewhat less like, say, 780 sandwiches.

Today's main course? Inspiration

It's going to be very difficult for me to post a feel-good, sunshine-and-happiness kind of story without making some kind of snarky comment, but I'm determined to try.

Because I can tell: You could use a pick-me-up today.

So here's a big ol' heart-warmer, courtesy of that newspaper in Chicago (where, as I write this, it's 19 degrees with flurries, but I'm not gloating). It's about a woman who's been blind since infancy being offered a job as a chef at a world-class restaurant in the Windy City.

The whole story is impressive enough on its face, but to help put it in perspective, here's a sample menu for the restaurant where she'll be working. N.B.: You get to eat everything on the menu for dinner.

Ah, damn. Five minutes ago, I was feeling very inspired. But after looking at that menu, now I'm mostly just hungry.

If I can make it there

First, let me just say that as I'm typing this I'm eating a Ritter Sport chocolate bar*. And yet - despite the name - I don't feel any more athletic.

--

I was born in New York City. I visit at least once a year. I have at least twelve and a half relatives who live there. I spent my college years way the heck up in sunny** Rochester. Which is why I don't find this New York Times article the least bit surprising. A survey that concludes New Yorkers are the least happy citizens of our great nation? Sure, I'd believe that.

(One of my very best friends in the whole wide world lives in the Empire State, too, but I think the Oswego metro area must have been exempt from these ratings because it's a little slice of heaven up there.)

I hope I'm not making my New York readers even more upset by posting this. But you have to admit that if you place below New Jersey in too many national rankings, it's probably not a great sign.


* Don't fret, lactose patrol. It's dark chocolate.
** Just kidding about the "sunny" part.

Two delicious

In past posts, I've both poked fun at Baskin-Robbins and paid well-deserved respects to the company's founder.

That's a lot of SFTC love, especially when you consider that I'm lactose intolerant and probably shouldn't really be eating a whole lot of frozen dairy desserts.

But it's possible that this is one of the 12 best food ideas ever. In fact, it might rank even higher than the Taco Bell Double-Decker Taco among foodstuffs that combine closely related items of awesomeness.*

Now I need to get my mom to come up with a comparable invention so I can combine her obscenely delicious pumpkin chiffon pie and chocolate bourbon pecan pie into a single dessert item when I'm home for Thanksgiving. It could happen.

* Also high on the list of foods not to eat immediately after consuming Double-Decker Tacos. Which, come to think of it, is a pretty long list.

Lettuce reconsider

The lettuce in the Trader Joe's Asian chicken salad that I brought for lunch today was 24 or 36 hours past its expiration date. Which was a bummer.

But I can say with absolute certainty that I'd rather eat expired lettuce than read any more stories about Tyler Perry or Mackenzie Phillips being abused as children. (No links to their stories because, well, it's enough already.)

I'm sorry they suffered (although I feel like Perry is sort of getting his revenge with all of the Madea movies), but I don't get why celebrities think that a perk of being famous is the opportunity to spout off about crap that happened to them three decades ago. Maybe they're just doing it because they know I'll blog about it. Clever bastards.

- - -

In news that is - I'm fairly certain - completely unrelated, my incredibly gorgeous wife and I ordered a pizza from Domino's last night. And it was totally worth it. Not so much for the pizza, which was, frankly, a Domino's pizza, but because of Domino's online order tracker.

Have you seen this thing? We haven't ordered from Domino's in about two years, so I may be way behind the curve here. But it's so much fun, we're seriously considering* ordering another one tonight.

Once you place your order online - who talks on the phone anymore? - you're directed to a new screen with a gizmo that looks like this:

At each stage of the pizza-production-and-delivery-process, the appropriate section of the bar flashes red until it's complete, whereupon** that segment turns solid red. We watched in awe as Fabiola (that's what Pizza Tracker said her name was) marshaled our dinner order from prep to oven to quality testing.

I was somewhat concerned that "quality testing" our pizza meant someone was going to smush their hand in the middle of the pie and grab a handful of the tomato sauce, cheese and pepperoni that was rightfully ours, but after a few bites of dinner, I got over it.

* Just kidding, Bugs.
** I'll have to double check, but this is probably the first use of "whereupon" on SFTC.

Two thinks about drinks

That's possibly the stupidest blog post headline I've ever written. But I'm too tired to care. Why? Possibly because I stayed up till 12:45 a.m. playing around with iTunes last night.

But more likely it's because I haven't had a cola* or a Starbucks chai tea latte in almost two weeks. (I tried this once before, memorialized for your entertainment here and here.)

Fortunately, I haven't had any of the withdrawal headaches you hear about, but I'm constantly sleepy and I've finished a 48-pack of Pepto tablets this week, often follwed by Tums chasers.** Also, I've realized that my recent blog posts are almost completely lame.

I'm blaming it all on my well-intentioned but possibly foolish cola-and-chai boycott. Essentially, I have decided that my body is rejecting the lack of caffeine. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but, as you might have read three seconds ago, I'm working without caffeine, people!

On a very loosely related note, it occurred to me this morning that if I lost some of my mojo, it would probably leave me with a mojito.***

Thank you. Don't forget to tip your servers.

* My beautiful wife made fun of me for using the term "cola" the other day, but the word choice is intentional. I did have about a liter of ginger ale last weekend and I was distinguishing that from Coke and its brown, caffeinated soft drink brethren. Now, having explained all of that, I realize I sound even odder, but whatever.
** This is probably not FDA-recommended.
*** I'm sure 943 million people have thought and/or said this before, but I've never heard it, so I'm just going with it.

Whereas other fish look like Michelle Pfeiffer

I'm torn on this one. Which do you think the hoki - a deep-water fish mostly found in the South Pacific - resents more?

A) That New York Times writers are stating categorically that it is "an ugly creature"

or

B) That there's a good chance it ends up covered in "cheese" and served as a McDonald's Filet o' Fish sandwich

Thinking about that delectable combination of fish and cheese reminds me of one of my favorite (that is, one of the nastiest) restaurant reviews ever, which I blogged about back in the good old days.* If you missed it, you'll want to check it out. Unless, of course, you happen to own Gladstone's in Malibu.

* last year

Super, dawg

Airport layovers usually stink.

But when you're traveling cross-country and you've got a few minutes to kill at Midway Airport in Chicago, layovers rule.

Why?


Photo credit: Me
Food credit: Superdawg

I sort of meant to take a picture of the hot dog, contentedly cushioned in its bed of french fries, but I ate the darn thing too fast.

Oooey gooey diplomacy

Am I seeing things, or did Vlad Putin - Vlad and I are on a first-syllable basis - serve Toaster Strudels when President Obama arrived for breakfast yesterday?

Visual evidence from the New York Times:


Seriously, I think that look on Putin's face pretty much says: You take the strawberry strudel, Mr. Obama, and I'll go nuclear.

Oh, and if you're one of those folks who actually reads the news instead of just scanning the pretty photos, here's the story about their meeting.

One passage about U.S.-Russia diplomacy that I found interesting, if not very surprising:

Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev announced an agreement to open a joint early-warning center to share data on missile launchings. But Presidents Bill Clinton and Boris N. Yeltsin announced the same agreement in 1998. Mr. Clinton then announced it again with President Vladimir V. Putin in 2000. Mr. Putin and President George W. Bush recommitted to it as recently as 2007. And none of them ever actually built the center.

Well, good to know we're moving in the right direction on that front.

Half the battle

A few people I know insist that I'd feel healthier and have more energy - and, possibly, my trousers* would fit better - if I incorporated more fruits and veggies in my diet. I'm skeptical, and, frankly it seems a shame to just ignore the Taco Bell/KFC right down the street.

(Just wondering - do any of you ever go to one of those combo places and order "dinner" from Taco Bell and get "dessert" from KFC? I'd be impressed.)

Not only that, but now I'm hearing that the fruits and veggies they sell at my local grocery store probably are all contaminated with god knows what, and that it's almost not worth buying produce unless it's certified organic, free-range, locally grown, tenderly harvested, nuclear-free apples and strawberries and whatever.

Which is great, because if there's anything in this world that gets me pumped up, it's the idea of paying $6 for a multi-adjective apple.

Happily, a few weeks ago, a new farmers market began operating nearby every Saturday. I knew this was my kind of farmers market, because in addition to leafy things I had previously only seen in photographs, this farmers market also has vendors that offer hand-ground chocolate and organic** pork sliders. Seriously, though, most of the stands had signs proclaiming their goodies to be organic and pesticide-free, which I knew would make my health-nut friends happy.

With their advice ringing in my ears, I knew I couldn't go to a farmers market and buy chocolate and pork. Or, I should say, I knew I couldn't only buy chocolate and pork. So I decided to invest in some strawberries, grapefruit, garlic, mint and - because my gorgeous wife loves them - avocados.

Which worked out well, because other than the avocados, which I knew would be eaten, I think I ate everything... well, everything except for the grapefruit, garlic and mint. And most of the strawberries. But let me tell you: The chocolate was truly out of this world. And nearly worth the $30 I paid for all of that other junk.

So now I'm just hoping that purchasing healthful food will help me stay fit and live longer. If so, I'm cruising toward 100!

*I'm going out on a limb and saying this is the first time I've written the word trousers on my blog.
** I have no idea if they're organic, or, indeed, if there is such a thing as an organic slider.

Hard to say I'm sorry

Is it just me, or does this apology not seem very timely?

I am glad that the resolution made headlines today, though, because it gives me a chance to mention what I think is one of the stranger names for a restaurant chain I've ever seen. Here in L.A., we have a handful of eateries operating under the evocative name Souplantation. Whenever I drive by one, I imagine sharecroppers harvesting the vegetables that will be used to make their bisques, chowders and gumbos, which I have to say, doesn't make me feel great about stopping in.

Just out of curiosity, I went to the company's web site to see how many locations it has in the deep South. (Note, the same company operates Sweet Tomatoes restaurants, and if you click through to the map, those are the ones you'll see in North Carolina, Georgia and Florida.) Wanna guess?

In which chocolate, chocolate, caramel, chocolate and cookies are "good for you"

Being lactose intolerant, it makes all the sense in the world that one of the Twitter feeds I follow is that of Baskin-Robbins.

Perhaps it's to test my will power. For example, since starting to follow BR's tweets, I have successfully avoided going to my nearby BR31 despite my deep passion for BR Rocky Road ice cream. I even managed to stay away during last month's 31 cent scoop promotion (which, as I write this, is still being promoted on the company's home page despite the fact that it was held - in case you missed it earlier in this sentence - last month).

A few minutes ago, those crazy ice cream-making geniuses actually posted this* on Twitter: Try our new Brownie a la Mode w/ layers of chocolate brownie, chewy cookie, & caramel. Good for you & your friends!

Which seems accurate. Except maybe for the, uh, second sentence. So I retweeted part of the message with a quick commentary:

I'm not saying it was necessarily in response to my tweet, but 14 minutes later - I counted - BR had deleted the original tweet and posted this version, deleting the "good for you" and replacing it with "big enough for you":

My guess is that in order to keep the promo within Twitter's 140-character limit, the writer translated "enough servings for a party of five" to "good for you." Here's the nutrition info** - you can decide for yourself whether the two are synonymous.

SFTC: Looking out for your saturated fat intake, one post at a time.

* It's possible that I'm off by a character or two - they may have had "and" instead of "&" in order to stay within the 140 chracter limit, and I couldn't access the original message once they deleted it. But the "Good for you & your friends" language is precisely what was in the original tweet.

** Worth reading, if only because this confirms that - I am not making this up - the dessert does not contain crustaceans.

Extra pleasure formula

(I wonder what ads Google will pop up here when its magic scanner thingies read today's headline. And now, on with the show.)

My next blog post after this one will be Number 300, and I was thinking about using my 299th entry to announce some kind of big celebratory SFTC contest in which you, the reader, would have the chance to win fabulous gifts and prizes, but that's as far as it got.

Instead, I want to tell you about a new mathematical equation I'm working on. It's going to be a formula that will calculate the likely amount of enjoyment that can be derived from any given dining or entertainment activity.

I'm using variables such as amount of time waiting in line (let's call it Tw), amount of time enjoying the food or activity in question (Ta), impact of weather on the wait time (W)*, cost of the activity ($), and something that I'm calling the X factor (strangely, this will be represented in the formula as Z), which is really just going to be a way for me to fudge the equation if necessary in order to come up with the result I want.

Now, I haven't actually gotten around to plugging in various numbers to see if it will make any sense**, but in my head, the formula looks something like this:

(Tw - Ta) * W

__________ + (3.14 - Z) = ENJOYMENT FACTOR

$

What brings up this sudden dive into advanced mathematics, you ask? The answer: two activities from the past weekend that ranked at opposite ends of the enjoyment scale - and the realization that I waited in line for 35 minutes to do one of them and for no minutes to do the other.

The activity that was worth a wait of more than half an hour? Eating a pair of $2 tacos. You read me right, mamacita: Tacos.

But not just any $2 tacos. These were a Korean short rib taco and a spicy pork taco, hot off the grill from one of the Kogi barbecue trucks. If you live in L.A., you've probably heard about Kogi, which has two vehicles that stop all around town for three hours at a time (you can follow them on a twitter feed), serving up the aforementioned tacos, plus burritos and other specialities like Kobe beef hot dogs. Oh, and if you don't live in L.A., this actually might be a reason to move here.

Waits at the trucks' late-night stops outside of bars have been rumored to be an hour long or more, but based on what I ate Sunday, those line-waiting drunks are actually making very good decisions.

Unlike, say, the people behind Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, which I also, um, experienced this weekend. (Oh, just to tie this back to my Enjoyment formula - no waiting in the ticket line, but 115 minutes of waiting in my seat for it to be over.)

If you haven't heard, the film stars Matthew McConaughey, which I mention only because my favorite movie reviewer, The Regular Guy on WXRT, accurately described his performance this way: He's "the man who has the whitest teeth in the world - my god, they're blinding!"

It wasn't just that GGP is horrifically, abominably awful - which it is. It's how a movie that is nominally a chick flick could be so misogynistic. (All of the "comedy" comes from McConaughey's character learning to use women and his ensuing misadventures - oh and Lacey Chabert's bride-to-be character acting like an insane shrew.) It's like it's a film for women who love men who hate women.

There's something about that formula that doesn't work.

* A long wait could actually work as a positive factor, if it's sunny and 70, which it pretty much always is where I live. I swear I'm not rubbing it in.

** Of course it will make sense.

Sold! And why Tuesday is the new Monday

I'm just starting to read up on new Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, but if our old pal Mitt (Schlag) Romney is against her, I feel like my decision is probably made.

I'm sure thrilled that today is the beginning of a four-day work week, but Tuesday is still off to a sucky start because (listed in chronological order of when I read and/or tasted them, not in order of importance)...

1) I read that former Wilco member Jay Bennett died this weekend. Bennett was an influential part of the band when it recorded the albums that are by far my two favorite, Summerteeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. 

Although I think all of Wilco's music has been interesting since Bennett was fired, it's not nearly as much fun anymore - an assertion that I think is strongly supported by the band's latest, Wilco (the album), which is online now and being released soon. In an NPR music blog, one reader referred to Wilco's recent music as "dad rock," which, sadly, I had to agree with. But someone once told me never to speak ill of a recently deceased multi-instrumentalist's former bandmates, so I'll leave it there. Point is, Bennett helped create some of the songs that became my favorites during the past 10 years, and it's sad that he's gone. R.I.P., Jay Bennett.

2) I cracked open my Trader Joe's Essential Greens Veggie smoothie? juice? residue-in-a-bottle? for some healthy, mid-morning refreshment and - I probably should have figured this out from the photos of cucumber, kale, spinach, parsley and probably fungus on the packaging, but - blecccccchhhhhhhhh. Maybe it's considered healthy because it's crushing my will to eat or drink anything else today. 

I think it's ironic that where the expiration date is printed on the bottle, instead of "Use by" or "Drink by," this item has "Enjoy by May 29." I don't think so. I don't think there's a date by which I will enjoy this.

3) The California Supreme Court missed a really big chance to do the right thing when the justices voted not to overturn the unfair state law created by Prop 8. Other states have figured out this issue. Can not figure out why it's so tricky in this state, which was once considered to be progressive. On the plus side, more protest marches coming up, I'm sure.

Still, I'm determined to finish this veggie drink. Maybe if I add some sugar, things will start to turn around.

Octopus is still the new black

If you've been paying attention, you know that SFTC has proclaimed this the Decade of the Octopus. Those crazy coleoids are getting all the headlines lately.

It's clear that people are taking my proclamation to heart. Now comes further evidence in the form of a new restaurant here in L.A. that takes its name from the suddenly very trendy eight-armed creature.

SFTC: The source you can rely on for the latest in octopus news.

P.U. D.I.Y. (Possibly unnecessary do-it-yourself)

Look at me with the acronyms.

I know the new economy is supposed to be all about putting the consumer in charge. (Either that or putting the consumer into bankruptcy - I forget which.)

So lots of companies have responded by introducing products that let the customer design their own product. Hence the rise of those Mongolian BBQ restaurants where you pick all of your own ingredients before the chef fries it all up for you. (By the way: Really? That's how they roll in Mongolia?) And that's why Nike and Puma have web sites that let you choose the colors and design of your tennis shoes. (Hey, Puma even calls their service "Mongolian Shoe BBQ." Seriously, I had no idea Mongolians were such do-it-yourselfers.)

Me? Unless I'm getting paid for my vegetable-and-spice selecting abilities, I'm happy to go to a restaurant and let the chef actually do all of the work - including determining how many water chestnuts and how much paprika to use. And the shoe companies employ professional shoe designers, I'm pretty sure. People who probably went to school for this stuff. Given the same palette of colors and materials, I'm pretty sure they'll design a better shoe than I could.

But I'm a little bit torn about the latest entry into the do-it-yourself pantheon. Because Kettle Chips, which makes the absolute best potato chip in the history of crisped vegetable snacks (see the first bullet point here), has introduced a make-your-own-potato-chip-flavor kit.

That is, they send you a few bags of naked chips and seven packets of seasoning - lemon butter, caramelized onion (the carmelized part seems weird because it's in powder form, but whatever), roasted tomato, cheddar, vinegar, sweet chili and sour cream & chive - that you can mix and match to create what is sure to be either a snack that is uniquely suited to your personal preferences or - and this seems like a distinct possibility - a truly frightening combination of powdered flavor granules.

So, I'm on the fence here. On the one hand, Kettle Chips has done a pretty good job coming up with a flavor I dig (namely spicy thai). On the other, I'm sort of curious what a lemon butter-cheddar-onion-vinegar potato chip would taste like.

Biting the mail... update added

Just posted a quick update to the Wolferman's English muffins saga. See the end of the previous post, below.

Thanks for all the interest!

Biting the mail-order catalog that feeds me?

Well, this might be disappointing.

When I wrote yesterday about the deliciousness that awaited me in my newly delivered package of Wolferman's English muffins, I sort of figured that at some point - the Internet being what it is, and Google being what it is - someone from Wolferman's would find the post. If nothing else, I'd have brightened the day of someone at the company (maybe even a distant relative of Louis Wolferman). That would have been just fine.

I wrote that I'd welcome a package of English muffins in exchange for the unsolicited testimonial - that was just a joke. Realistically, though, I thought that someone from the company might even leave a pleasant note acknowledging the post.

Sure enough - according to my trusty Feedjit widget, over there >> near the bottom of the right column - SFTC started attracting an unusual amount of traffic from Medford, Ore., where Wolferman's is based. (Actually, any amount of traffic from Medford would have been unusual, so it was pretty easy to spot.) A few clicks last night and five so far this morning. See for yourself (click to enlarge):



So I was kind of stoked, figuring that the tasty muffin folks had found my glowing report and that, just maybe, I'd brought a little sunshine to someone's day. Because, as you know, that's how I roll.

Then, about 30 minutes ago, at exactly the time that those five Medford clicks were happening, I got a comment from... well, from "Anonymous."

Want to guess what the comment was? Let's go multiple choice!
A. Thanks for the plug! So glad you like the muffins.
B. I'm writing from Wolferman's. Enjoying the blog.
C. Checked out the site and found this great deal - 12 pack of muffins..you choose the flavor for $29.95 + free delivery
D. Tell us your address so we can send you some more muffins, on the house!

The correct answer is... C.

That's right. The response for writing about my love affair with the world's best $2 English muffins was an anonymous comment - I know I'm going out on a limb, but could it possibly have been a sneaky person from company HQ?!? - suggesting that I go drop another $30 on the damn things.

(Also? Good christ, I just ordered two dozen - how many freaking muffins do you think I can eat before they get stale?)

All I can say is.... well, I'll let Jeff Tweedy sing it for me.

***

UPDATE, 3:15 p.m. PT: Cindy from Wolferman's corporate relations got in touch (click Comments link below to view) with a nice big "thanks" for the original post. She also said that although this kind of thing does fall under her group's responsibilities, she couldn't figure out who would have posted the anonymous comment with the sales pitch as a response to yesterday's post but she was looking into it.

Better yet, she offered to send more English muffins and other Wolferman's goodies! (my first BIF, or blog-induced freebie!), which I just might share with some pals at the office. If they're really nice.

Another happy result of this little storyline is that today was the busiest single day for traffic on SFTC so far. Which can only mean that you people must really love reading about English muffins. I'll have to keep that in mind. (Also, thanks, Loree and Laura.)