Loving.

Even before I’d seen Loving (available via amazon or iTunes), I expected it to get a Best Picture nomination because it was a well-reviewed film that covered a major social issue with renewed relevance in light of November’s elections. The BBC even tweeted an errant image of the BP nominees that included Loving with the nine films that actually did get that honor. Now that I’ve seen it and can actually offer an opinion, I’m surprised it didn’t get one, especially with Hell or High Water, an entertaining but rather formulaic movie, earning a nod instead.

Loving tells the true and still somewhat hard-to-believe story of the perfectly-named Lovings, a white man and black woman in Virginia in the 1950s who got married in Washington, D.C., because Virginia had a law explicitly prohibiting interracial marriage. The couple was arrested and pled guilty under an arrangement where they agreed to leave Virginia for 25 years, but after some time in D.C., Mildred Loving wrote to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who referred her to the local ACLU chapter, which in turn saw the Lovings as a perfect test case to try to blow up anti-miscegenation laws across the south and midwest. Sixteen states still had such laws in 1967, when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Lovings that Virginia’s law violated the Fourteenth Amendment; of those states, fourteen went for Trump in November 2016, the only exceptions being Virginia itself … and Delaware.

Director Jeff Nichols (Midnight Special) also wrote the screenplay for Loving and by all accounts, including comments from the Lovings’ daughter Peggy, hewed very closely to the truth, to an extent that might have actually hurt the film’s commercial appeal. This is a simple love story, not a courtroom drama or a rabble-rousing protest film. Richard Loving in particular was a very quiet man, uncomfortable with the public attention or the need to take any of this to higher courts; he just loved his wife and wanted the legal right to be with her. Mildred appears to have been the impetus behind the lawsuits and the charge up to the Supreme Court, conscious of the larger issues at play here than just their relationship (and the status of their children, who were considered illegitimate before SCOTUS struck down the Virginia law). It’s kind of a sweet story, with minimal drama and certainly no artificial flourishes to heighten the tension. I appreciated that aspect of the film because it’s such an antidote to hyped-up “based on a true story” movies that merge people into single characters or alter the order of events to make the film more exciting, but I can also understand viewers finding it dull because we just don’t see movies like this very often.

Ruth Negga earned a Best Actress nomination for her performance as Mildred, although I couldn’t see her winning over Emma Stone for La La Land on merit or popularity. Neither Mildred nor Richard is that intruiging a character, with Mildred the slightly deeper of the two, although much of Negga’s performance, while solid, involves showing varying degrees of anxiety or concern on her face. Loving doesn’t have a ton of dialogue, and neither character changes at all over the course of the film – because that’s the story, of course. The couple were already adults when they first chose to get married, and they stuck together through their challenges because they loved each other, but neither needed to acquire anything new to get to the conclusion. You might argue that Mildred showed unexpected strength in taking the lead during the legal process, but I interpreted it as showing that she already had this strength of character but was somewhat overshadowed because she was both a woman and a person of color, so less was expected of her.

Loving is, however, a classically romantic movie. These two people just love each other so much they were willing to break the law, resist arrest and imprisonment, and eventually concede much of their privacy to be together legally and to allow others to do the same. Nichols stays out of the way of the story in almost every aspect; I think the best way to know this is one of his films is the cast, with Michael Shannon making his required appearance (as a Life photographer) and both Bill Camp and Joel Edgerton (as Richard Loving) appearing as they did in Nichols’ Midnight Special. Perhaps it wasn’t quite flashy enough to attract Oscar voters, but I think it’s a beautiful rendition of a true story of great historical importance within our country and, of course, remains relevant to this day.

Hell or High Water.

Hell or High Water (available to rent on amazon and iTunes) earned Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay nominations for this month’s Academy Awards, which perplexes me no end because it’s just not that kind of movie. It’s incredibly entertaining, very well shot, but there is nothing in this story you haven’t seen before, whether we’re talking characters or plot. It’s cowboy noir, and while I love noir (and did really enjoy this movie), this iteration changes nothing of the noir formula except putting the action in west Texas.

Jeff Bridges, who earned a nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his work here, plays Texas Ranger Marcus (not Josh) Hamilton, who’s – wait for it – just a few weeks away from retirement when a string of small-time bank robberies, all of branches of the same bank, crosses his desk and gives him one last ‘big’ case before he heads off to his porch. The robbers, played by Chris Pine (Toby) and Ben Foster (Tanner), are a pair of brothers who are robbing banks solely of the small cash in the drawers, and are working up enough money to pay off some specific debt that becomes clear around the midpoint of the film. Pine plays the sensitive brother who doesn’t want anyone to get hurt, while Foster is the ex-con loose cannon who seems to enjoy robbing banks for the hell of it. Bridges’ partner, Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham), is a younger cop of both Mexican and Comanche descent, and bears the brunt of Bridges’ unending stream of bigoted “Injun” humor.

It’s two against two, and you can certainly guess how this is going to end if you’ve seen a few movies in your lifetime. That doesn’t make the trip less enjoyable, especially since the dialogue between the cops is snappy (other than the racist humor, which has a little shock value at the start and quickly overstays its welcome as a device to mask the affection Bridges’ character feels for his partner) and the scenery is stunning, with panoramic shots of the west Texas landscape. I haven’t been to that part of the state, but I’ve been to Arizona and New Mexico, even out of the metro areas, and it has that same feel of desolation between the arid climate and the lack of anything resembling civilization – buildings, paved roads, people, even animals.

The characters, however, are all straight out of Noir Central Casting. Foster plays his character turned up to 11 the entire film, and while he seems to be having a blast, it means the character has no nuance. He’s a psychopath and his only redeeming characteristic is that he loves his brother, although that’s just kind of a stated fact, with nothing resembling an explanation or a background. (He shows incredible empathy for his brother, but thinks nothing of shooting strangers, security guards, cops, and so on.) Bridges does everything he can with his character, although the cop who’s one case away from retirement is about as hackneyed as the hooker with a heart of gold, and it’s pretty easy to figure out who’s going to survive this movie and who’s not.

Where Hell or High Water really clicks is the dry humor, much of it around Texas playing a bit to stereotype. When the brothers rob their second bank, there’s an older gentleman at the teller; one brother asks him if he has a gun on him, and the man replies with a combination of shock and indignation, “You’re god-damned right I have a gun.” A young punk at a gas station who can barely hold his pistol correctly gets what’s coming to him for mouthing off to the brothers. Albert gets a few zingers back at Marcus that show him to be the more erudite of the two, despite the way Marcus talks to him as some sort of noble savage.

Was this script just a noir story, though, or was writer Taylor Sheridan trying to make some bigger points about evil banks and a dying way of life on the ranch? If the latter was true, it didn’t work at all for me; it was there but entirely superficial, and if the plot itself was familiar, the Big Bad Corporation aspect is downright bromidic. Sometimes a good guys/bad guys story is just that. Let them shoot it out for themselves and leave the bigger meaning to other films.

(By the way, two “where I have a seen that actor before?” moments for me from Hell or High Water: The brothers’ lawyer is played by Kevin Rankin, who played the priest on Gracepoint, and Toby’s ex-wife is played by Marin Ireland, who briefly played an Islamist terrorist on Homeland.)

I’ve seen five of the nine Best Picture nominees so far, and this would easily be at the bottom for me, and behind a few other movies I’ve seen this year, including Loving, which I saw Saturday and will review this week as well.

The 13th.

Ava DuVernay’s documentary The 13th, available for free on Netflix, aims high, trying to tell the history of mass incarceration in the United States while tying it inextricably to the history of the oppression of African-Americans post-slavery. DuVernay assembles a formidable group of pundits, activists, and politicians – not all black, and not all from the left – to examine the arc of American prison culture over 150 years through an narrator-less stream of commentary. It is almost guaranteed to disturb anyone who sees our racial divide for what it is, in social and economic terms. It is also an infinite loop of anecdotal fallacies, so light on hard evidence to support any of its many assertions that it is unlikely to convince the unconvinced of anything at all.

The 13th traces the history of the subjugation of the African-American in the United States from the passage of the 13th Amendment (hence the title) through the present day’s Black Lives Matter movements and the overt dog-whistling of President Trump while on the campaign trail. The 13th Amendment outlawed slavery but left a glaring exception within its text:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Did you know that “except” clause was there? I couldn’t have told you that if you’d asked me three days ago what the 13th Amendment said or did; I thought it ended slavery, full stop. What ensued set the stage for the modern era of mass incarceration, according to the various historians and pundits we see in The 13th: The southern economic engine ran on free black labor before the Civil War, so after it, blacks were arrested on trivial spurious charges, imprisoned, and then put to work to keep the engine running. White authorities used jail as a way to quell civil rights movements as well as a source of free or cheap workers, imprisoning nearly all of the major civil rights leaders at some point during the 1950s and 1960s, a practice the film implies ended with the acquittal of activist Angela Davis – a scene I’ll return to in a moment – only to have the system roll back over again on itself with a new tactic. “Tough on crime” politics gave authorities new reasons to lock up African-Americans, especially men, for longer periods of time even on lesser charges. Sentences for possession or distribution of crack were longer than those for equivalent quantities of powdered cocaine. Multiple levels of government enacted mandatory minimums and three-strikes sentencing rules. Many people were locked up simply for their inability to pay fines or post bail, something John Oliver covered well two years ago on Last Week Tonight. Prisons were privatized, and firms like CCA are now paid based on prison populations, so they have every incentive to keep jails full. The film asserts that all of these factors contribute to the ongoing high rates of incarceration for African-Americans relative to white Americans. You’re about six times more likely to spend time in jail in your life if you’re a black man than a white man.

It’s easy to sit here in 2017 and handwave away much of the black-and-white footage in the film as relics of our racist past, but much of what the film covers from Reagan forward should really get your attention. The War on Drugs could easily take up this entire film for its effects on people of color, our system of mass incarceration, and the colossal waste of public funds for little to no public benefit. Decriminalizing possession works in many ways, including reducing usage. Portugal decriminalized drugs in 2000, adopted a recovery-centric approach to helping addicts, and has seen drug use fall while HIV infection rates stayed stable. The Netherlands decriminalized in 1976 and they have so many empty prison cells they’re using them to help house migrants. I thought The 13th could have gone even farther down this road, talking not just about what imprisoning African-Americans on minor drug offenses does to the community (and how it provides free prison labor and supports an entire industry of firms that contract with prisons to provide goods and services, including Aramark), but looking at violence related strictly to the War on Drugs and the effect that has on people of color.

As for Angela Davis, who appears many times on screen to discuss the issue at hand, the movie totally whiffs on her own backstory. The film never explains why she was on trial in the first place, implying that it was a politically-motivated charge to silence her, praising her for dominating the proceedings with her defense, and claiming that the state wanted to give her the death penalty. Davis was actually charged with murder, kidnapping, and criminal conspiracy related to the Marin County courthouse incident, where an armed 17-year-old tried to free his brother and two other men, who were charged with killing a prison guard – it’s a complicated story, so I encourage you to read those links. The assailant used guns purchased by Davis two days prior to the attack. The charges may indeed have been trumped up for political reasons. She was placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted List while she was on the run, which also seems like it was a political move. And I don’t see how she could even have been charged with anything but conspiracy if she wasn’t even present at the crime. But the film mentions none of this, and it’s pretty damn relevant to that entire sequence. The prosecution of Davis may have had a political motivation, but she wasn’t arrested without cause, either.

That’s a single example of a maddening problem with The 13th: It’s 90% opinion and 10% fact. Do I believe there’s a pyramid of firms profiting off our system of throwing people in jail for nonviolent offenses? Absolutely. But give us some data on that – how many people are locked up for these crimes? How many days or years are lost? Who’s paying for that imprisonment, and how much? In jurisdictions with lighter sentencing, do we see positive effects? Mandatory minimums vary by state; how have states that rolled back these laws fared? How about third-strike laws, which only exist in 28 states? These are subjects of real academic research, but instead of giving us data, or scholars discussing their work, we get circular reasoning, solipsistic assertions, and appeals to emotion. In fact, I thought the most fascinating commentary came from one of the film’s few non-African Americans to speak: Newt Gingrich, who offered thoughtful, intelligent remarks on the failures of the 1980s and 1990s efforts to get “tough on crime” and of the imbalanced sentencing laws on crack and cocaine.

The 13th has been nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary feature along with Life, Animated; Fire at Sea; I Am Not Your Negro; and ESPN’s own O.J.: Made in America. While it has sort of the political angle the Academy tends to favor in voting, it’s so full of rhetoric without evidence that I couldn’t possibly consider it over O.J., even before considering the latter’s length and vast scope. This is more of a call to action to the faithful than the film to send your “All Lives Matter!” friend to get him to realize he’s being ridiculous. (Better to unfriend him anyway.) It’s a demand for change, but to convince enough people to push the change through in the face of enemies with enormous economic incentives to support the status quo, we’ll need a lot more than The 13th provides us.

Stick to baseball, 2/11/17.

No Insider content this week – you’ve had plenty, so don’t get greedy. I did hold a Klawchat on Thursday.

For Paste, I reviewed the asymmetrical two-player game The Blood of an Englishman, which is based on Jack and the Beanstalk. I also returned to Vulture with a post on eight great boardgames for couples, in honor of Valentine’s Day.

You can preorder my upcoming book, Smart Baseball, on amazon, or from other sites via the Harper-Collins page for the book. Also, please sign up for my more-or-less weekly email newsletter.

And now, the links…

  • Detroit Tigers owner and Little Caesars founder Mike Ilitch passed away yesterday. Here’s a 2016 piece on the hidden cost of cheap pizza, where reducing prices often means taking it out of workers’ pockets.
  • One of the best longreads of the week covered how a Huntington, West Virginia, school official improved school lunches contrary to the meddling efforts of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver.
  • Another great longread: how a young Wikipedia editor/admin is fighting back against misogynist trolls on the site.
  • Eater has a longread, more a collection of shorter pieces than a single story, on the things people will do to hunt and pick rare mushrooms.
  • As much as I crush the NCAA for some of its policies, they’re leading the fight against anti-LGBT discrimination right now, including a threatened six-year boycott of North Carolina that would cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in lost business over that state’s hate bill HB2, which prevents local governments from passing laws or ordinances protecting LGBT citizens from discrimination.
  • There’s a potential famine brewing in sub-Saharan Africa thanks to the spread of the fall armyworm, which is devastating crops in Zimbabwe already and may be present in six other African countries. We can talk about organic agriculture all we want, but if a synthetic pesticide stops this worm, it’ll save millions of lives.
  • Speaking of which, Dr. Paul Offit wrote about how Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring cost millions of lives too, because DDT, while clearly bad for the environment as a broad-use pesticide, is extremely effective at stopping the spread of mosquito-borne illnesses like malaria.
  • Betsy DeVos was confirmed this week as Secretary of Education, but let’s recall the damage she did in Michigan with her charter-school endeavors. I’ve said on here before that I favor at least some school choice, but school choice is not a panacea for underperforming public schools, and her appointment is a potential disaster for public education in this country.
  • TIME became (I think) the first major publication to run an editorial arguing that it’s time to impeach President Trump. Meanwhile, good journalism keeps coming from unexpected outlets, like Vogue highlighting five things Trump is doing now but for which he attacked Hillary Clinton during the campaign.
  • Buy stock in telecom giants? The new FCC is going to kill off net neutrality, opening those quasi-monopolies up for greater power to squeeze money from content providers and consumers.
  • Meanwhile, Republicans across the country are fighting to restrict voting rights, moves that are likely to help their candidates in 2018 and beyond. If you live in such a state, make your voice heard now, before it’s silenced.
  • Why did House Republicans block a vote on a resolution stating that the Holocaust targeted Jews? Are they so beholden to party that they wouldn’t even vote on a fact?
  • John Yoo, who was Justice Department official under President George W. Bush and advocated heavy use of executive orders, wrote that President Trump has taken executive power too far. This is like Tony Larussa saying a manager uses too many relievers. And a former National Security Council member also wrote for the New York Times that Steve Bannon shouldn’t be on the NSC.
  • Are Trump’s opponents falling into his ‘trap’ with their outrage? I don’t know that I agree with this National Review piece’s conclusions, but it’s worth considering that there are still many voters who will nod their heads at his populist moves without considering their consequences.
  • Is Trump’s fight against the judiciary his Watergate? I doubt it, although there are some parallels.
  • Marco Rubio has moments where he appears to be one of the few GOP leaders willing to oppose the President or stake out a position near the center, including a little-heard speech he gave this week on the demise of civil disagreements. That’s great, Marco; now vote against your party’s President on something that matters.
  • Meanwhile, the GOP continues to use the term “fake news” to keep up its attacks on respected, objective journalism outlets, such as Alabama representative Mo Brooks calling the Washington Post fact-checkers “fake news” for pointing out that his voter fraud claims were, well, fraudulent.
  • Ah, North Dakota, where two Republican legislators said in session that women should spend Sundays taking care of their husbands. Will they face any electoral consequences for this? I doubt it.
  • Vaccines! There are over 400 mumps cases in Washington State’s outbreak. That’s why Peter Hotez, Ddirector of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, can say that the anti-vaxxers are “winning” in another NYT editorial. (I subscribed to the Times online in the fall, mostly to keep these posts going, because they are producing some tremendous content across the board right now.)
  • If you saw the Daily Mail piece claiming that politicians had been hoodwinked by falsified climate-change data, well, don’t read the Daily Mail, as it’s become an unreliable source on any economic, political, or scientific topic. And the story was utter nonsense.
  • Former Top Chef contestant Mark Simmons of NYC’s Kiwiana made his feelings on the Muslim ban quite clear with a pro-immigration message printed on his restaurant’s receipts.
  • Is artisanal chocolate the next big food trend along the lines of craft beer and coffee? I’m a little skeptical, and this piece glosses over chocolate’s big sourcing issue (there’s a lot of child labor and de facto slavery in the cacao supply chain), but I think there’s a market here for better chocolate that can make consumers feel better about what they’re eating.
  • An Intelligentsia Coffee staffer wrote this informative post on why we steep tea but brew coffee.
  • The British Academy of Film and Television Arts has published research on how to help women and people of color in the film industry, a sort of response to the #OscarsSoWhite criticisms we’ve heard the last few years. (The Oscar nominees are much more diverse this year, quelling such complaints for the moment.) It gets more at the root of the problem than the attacks on the Academy Awards do – you won’t see women nominated for Best Director if women are rarely hired as directors or if their films struggle to find funding or distribution. There were few acclaimed movies in 2016 directed by women; I think the best-reviewed was Certain Women, which received very little distribution at all.
  • Is mining asteroids an essential part of our future? I think it is, in some sense, although I’m surprised this piece doesn’t mention iridium, a critical element in manufacturing electronics; it’s believed most of the iridium on earth came from the meteor or comet that caused the K/T extinction event.
  • Vice’s Noisey asked a person with synaesthesia what several songs “taste” like to him. Synaesthesia is a rare brain function where senses ‘cross;’ Vladimir Nabokov had it. I don’t have this, but I do associate all twelve months with certain colors, because when I was maybe five my mom had a Peanuts calendar hanging in our laundry room where January, May, and September were colored in red; February, June, and October in blue; March, July, and November in green; and April, August, and December in yellow. Those months still have those colors to me today.
  • Humor: This New Yorker fake-dialogue post called “I Work from Home” hit a little close, especially as I’m writing this post at 10:30 am on Saturday while still in my pajamas.

Life, Animated.

Life, Animated earned an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature, a category that also includes an entry from my employer, the 7.5-hour O.J.: Made in America, widely expected to win the award. While I wouldn’t put the two in the same league, I did enjoy Life, Animated (which is free for Amazon Prime members) for its portrayal of a young, high-functioning, autistic adult as a real person with personality and the same hopes and fears as most of the rest of us – not as someone to be pitied or shut away.

Owen Suskind’s story is a peculiar one: at age 3, his autism came on suddenly and he lost all verbal communication skills and even saw regression in gross motor skills. He spoke only in gibberish for at least a year, before his parents discovered that he was able to repeat a line from The Little Mermaid – coincidentally (or not) one about Ariel giving up her voice to Ursula. Over the coming years, his parents were able to use his love of Disney films and ability to memorize huge chunks of dialogue to re-form his verbal communication skills, succeeding to the point that he was able to return to school and eventually graduate from a high school program for kids with special needs. (Disney, my ultimate employer, granted these producers the rights to include a lot of footage from Disney films and to use the likenesses of many Disney characters.)

Owen is an unusual success story among autistic children, and there’s no specific reason to believe that, say, Disney films will unlock every kid whose brain is ‘trapped’ by autism. I would imagine he’s a favorite of researchers both because he did largely come out of the fog and because he can articulate so clearly what’s happening to him. He has a prodigious memory and a broad vocabulary (sometimes in a humorous way, because his speech is stiffly formal, but always right), so he can talk to his parents, his therapists, and here the camera about what it felt like to be four years old and unable to understand anything anyone was saying, or to explain how bullies nearly caused him to shut down emotionally while a teenager. But one of you asked me on Twitter if I thought it insinuated that this might be a cure or treatment for other kids who experience that sudden onset of autism and lose their verbal skills; I really didn’t think so, but then again, I’m not a parent grasping for hope because my child is autistic.

(Also worth noting: Vaccines do not cause autism.)

Instead of trying to tell a sweeping story like ESPN’s OJ documentary or Ava DuVernay’s The 13th, which I just finished today, Life, Animated is just a slice of life and a portrait of one family – and the love and support of his parents and his older brother form a huge part of Owen’s story. I didn’t get any greater message out of it than that we should view people like Owen (and some of his friends whom we meet along the way) as fully-formed people with lives worth living. It might make you a little more compassionate the next time you meet a “strange” person out in public, or perhaps it’ll make you rethink what it means for someone to be “on the spectrum.” At one point, Owen’s parents ask what it means to have a meaningful life, and if Owen is happy and makes others happy, isn’t that good enough? We should all hope to accomplish so much.

Top Chef, S14E11.

If you’re looking for this week’s Klawchat transcript, click that link.

Down to the final four, with no rookies remaining, and the final episode in Charleston before the series heads to Mexico for the final rounds.

* Quickfire: Guest judge Michael Solomonov of Zahav here in Philly. I’ve still not been to Zahav, although I’ve been to their hummus bar Dizengoff a couple of times (it’s incredible). With a name like Solomonov, does he just split all his dishes down the middle?

* It’s that stupid partition challenge where they have to give instructions to someone they can’t see. It was on Top Chef Masters once and was painful to watch then. The winner gets $10K and a Joule sous-vide machine, which J. Kenji Lopez-Alt reviewed favorably on Serious Eats last year.

* It’s John’s wife, Sheldon’s wife, Brooke’s sister, and Shirley’s husband. This is ridiculous – there’s no way three of them didn’t recognize their spouses’ voices.

* OK, Sheldon figured it out. The face he made when he realized it was priceless. “Knowing the skillset of my wife, I’m going to keep this one super simple.” If I said that to my wife, I would not have a wife any more.

* Brooke’s got her sister poaching eggs, which is not easy at all – they can stick to the bottom, they get very stringy and wispy if you don’t strain the extra liquid from the white, etc.

* Sheldon’s a former WDW cast member! I’ve asked him on Twitter what his job was.

* Tesar doesn’t have a guess who he was working with. He’s surprised when he sees who it is, saying his wife is shy and didn’t want to be on TV. Their dishes are pretty similar.

* Shirley seems legitimately surprised too. “I’m glad I didn’t recognize your voice, otherwise I would be flustered.” Her husband Jimmy’s dish is slightly better seasoned.

* Brooke sees it’s her sister and asks, “how did I not recognize her voice?” Theirs look pretty similar and taste very similar. Padma seems to pick on Jessica’s poached egg, but I think it looks good for a novice; I’ve probably poached eggs a dozen times or so and I’ve read a bunch of tips (Ruhlman’s in Egg is probably the best recipe) and mine still don’t come out perfect.

* Sheldon and his wife also got their dishes to look very similar, right down to the knifework. He wins the challenge and is closing the gap between him and Brooke to be the favorite to win.

* Elimination challenge: Mary Sue Milliken of Border Grill and Top Chef Masters is there. The chefs must prepare dishes that represent their journeys in Charleston, and the winner will get to serve it at the James Beard House there. Padma is cooking dinner at the house for the four chefs and their family members.

* Sheldon’s going to make noodles from rice flour by grinding his own Carolina gold rice rather than buying rice flour – but the rice noodles aren’t forming. He ends up adding more rice flour and some tapioca starch, which is a strong thickening agent and often found in gluten-free recipes and wheat-flour alternatives.

* Brooke is braising her pork shoulder in cola in a pressure cooker. Braising liquid tends to reduce a lot over the course of cooking, so anything in the cola, like the sugar or the various acids, will end up concentrated in the resulting dish.

* Tesar’s making a fairly simple seafood dish with clam broth, coating his fish in what he’s calling a “soo-frito,” but which looks to me like a made-up mirepoix of onions, garlic, and bell peppers. He says he’s leaving the peppers unpeeled because he doesn’t want the peppers to turn too soft in the pan. Really, this is a saute of aromatics, which is fine, just not what he’s calling it.

* The diners are Ken Oringer, Renee Erickson, Sean Brock, Milliken, and Solomonov. That’s some serious heavy hitters at one table. I’ve been to a couple of Oringer’s places, both of Brock’s Husk spots, Milliken’s Border Grill, and Solomonov’s Dizengoff. They’re all pretty fantastic.

* The food: Tesar serves “soffrito”-topped scallops with braised leek “sea broth.” He says he kept it simple, with very few ingredients, and wanted to get the sense of the ocean into the dish. The broth has clam broth, butter, lemon juice, and green Tabasco. Brock says it captured the ocean. Tom doesn’t like that John didn’t peel the peppers, which produced a real bitter note in the dish. (I’m not sure what the process is here, though – do you scorch the peppers to get the skin off?)

* Shirley made oil-poached grouper with meat-and-bone herbal tea consomme, collards, and cracklings. She says she combined her heritage with Charleston cooking. Tom says it “should be a signature dish.” Brock says “I’d really like for you to open a Chinese soul food restaurant in Charleston.” Chinese soul food sounds like something I would greatly enjoy.

* Brooke isn’t in love with her dish; she wanted to make it beautiful and it’s not, saying she wished she’d had more time to “fine-tune.” She serves braised pork shoulder and tenderloin on smoked island sweets, with braised radishes and egg yolk. MSM loves the radishes and greens. Gail loves the texture. The egg yolk nods back to a challenge earlier in the season. But Brock doesn’t like the texture of the sous-vide tenderloin and everyone seems to agree the cola’s sugars became too concentrated and overpowered other notes in the dish. I really don’t like cooking with sodas for this main reason – to me, it’s like cooking with full-sodium boxed chicken or vegetable broth. You’ve taken away my ability to control a central taste (salt) in a way that I can’t dial down unless I dilute everything.

* Sheldon made Carolina rice chow fun with pork belly, okra, annatto seed, and turkey neck broth. Brock says it’s “insanely good. … you should be proud that Tom ate the okra.” Later says “I’m going to steal that technique” of making noodles from the Carolina gold rice.

* It’s clear that nobody failed this time around; Brock says he was “pretty blown away” by the whole meal.

* The top two were Shirley and Sheldon, so they’re through to the finals. Sheldon wins – of course he does, he made fresh pasta!

* It sounds like Tesar’s was really good except for the pepper skins. Padma asks if he “worried it would be too simple.” Brooke’s dish was comforting, with “homey” flavors, but the sous-vide may not have been necessary given how small pork tenderloin is, and the dish was a little too sweet. I find pork tenderloin kind of boring; it is very easy to cook, as long as you don’t overcook it, but it’s really lean, doesn’t have the flavor of shoulder or belly, and the texture is kind of bleh. For me, that cut is entirely about what’s around it on the plate.

* Brooke is eliminated. The season-long favorite goes down.

* Tom reminds her that “I will see you in LCK,” to which Brooke says “yeah, shut up.”

* Of the remaining chefs, I’d rank them Sheldon, Shirley, Tesar. One of Brooke or Casey will rejoin the group in Mexico; I’d probably still slot Brooke in at 1 if she wins Last Chance Kitchen, and Casey behind Shirley if she wins.

Klawchat, 2/9/17.

My latest boardgame review for Paste covers The Blood of an Englishman, an asymmetrical, two-player card game based on the Jack and the Beanstalk story.

You can preorder my upcoming book, Smart Baseball, on amazon, or from other sites via the Harper-Collins page for the book. Also, please sign up for my more-or-less weekly email newsletter.

Klaw: There was music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air. Klawchat.

Ryan: Cubs traded for Alec Mills yesterday, is he a starter long term?
Klaw: Yes. Opinions I’ve heard range from okay fourth starter (so, think a little below league average) to swingman. I think he’s probably a decent fifth starter option, which the Cubs needed. Nothing really exciting.

addoeh: My favorite Dylan song! Would she change it all if her hair was still red? Starting pitching depth the biggest concern of the Cubs? Top four is set. Fifth, and in case of injuries beyond, not so much.
Klaw: I think acquiring Mills gives them at least 3 viable options for the fifth spot with him, Anderson, and I guess Montgomery (who I still think is better suited to relief). The issue is as you said that they’re not well set up to fill an extended opening in the front four.

Steve: Very much agree on your ranking for Quantrill. Not a lot to there to not like. How soon before we see him in the majors? Late 2018 too aggressive?
Klaw: On stuff/command it’s not too aggressive, but I imagine his workload this year will be heavily restricted, and that may push his debut further back even if he doesn’t suffer any further injuries.

Dan: You said in the last Klawchat that if you knew you’d be in this industry you wouldn’t take the same education path. What would you study if you could go back?
Klaw: I’d major in applied math and take a bunch of foreign language classes, because I love all of that stuff and would have enjoyed college much more had I done so.

guren: I seem to recall reading somewhere (on Twitter?) that you will not be providing the narration for the audiobook version of Smart Baseball. Was this your decision? I personally would be more inclined to purchase the audiobook if you were the narrator, but rest assured I will still purchase the hardcover book.
Klaw: Publisher’s decision. Not sure I have a good voice for that, and of course there’s a time commitment involved too.

jay_B: Do you think Jeimer Candelario has a MLB-regular future? Tough to tell from your capsule on him but it doesn’t sound great.
Klaw: Yes, but not with the Cubs. I have seen him very bad at 3b. Other scouts claim he’s better than that.

J: In the past couple years, I feel like you’ve been ahead/higher on a couple guys who are now moving up lists in general – thinking of Alex Verdugo and Kevin Newman specifically. Not a compare/contrast to others’ work, but do you think there’s anyone who fits that description this year?
Klaw: I haven’t compared my list to Mayo/Callis’ yet but I imagine we have some wide differences. I probably had Quantrill a lot higher?

Marky Mark: Why is one 6 WAR player more valuable than 2 3 WARS
Klaw: Because roster spots are scarce.

Cory: Lots of positive press about Hunter Greene going #1 to the Twins in the draft. Why should the Twins take someone other than Greene?
Klaw: Because high school pitchers are a high-risk class, and this draft has several college players who are 1-1 worthy.

Paul: Bundy bringing back the cutter this season. Reason for optimism or added risk to the injured wing?
Klaw: I think it’s good for Bundy, but he wore down badly at the end of the summer and already had shoulder damage before the season. I don’t think the cutter adds to that concern, but I’m bearish on him staying healthy.

Nick: Rhys Hoskins, Dominic Smith, Rowdy Tellez. Hoskins is 23 w/ a lot of question marks for me. But Tellez and Smith are both 21, I would argue Tellez had a far superior 2016, both were in AA. How is Smith a top 30 guy, and Tellez nowhere to be found? Also like the Tellez is 6’4″ instead of Smith’s 6’0″. Thoughts?
Klaw: I dispute that Tellez had a “far superior 2016,” since NH is a very good park for LH pull power hitters. Smith’s a much better pure hitter, able to hit velocity Tellez can’t touch, and is a much better defender at first (Tellez is more likely a DH).

Joe: Keith, do you have any opinion on the Bart Hubbuch saga?
Klaw: I’m not familiar enough with that NY labor law to have an opinion.

ND republican: I’m not a fan of Trump in the slightest, but just curious if the republican nominee would’ve been Romney instead of Trump, would you still have voted Clinton?
Klaw: It depends on which Romney – the 2012 nominee version, or the Massachusetts Governor version (for whom I did vote back in ’04 or whenever that was).

Andres Alvarado: Hey KLAW, I’m at work and won’t be able to log on today, so I’m taking a sec to send in my question. Hopefully I can get you to answer and read up on it late. What do you think of the full LP by Ten Fé? It finally released!!
Klaw: Liked it quite a bit, although all the best songs were the ones we’d already heard as singles.

Ted: What is your assessment of Bobby Dalbec and was he close to making your top 100?
Klaw: Power over hit right now, never had a consistent stance or swing in college. 70 arm at third. Not close to the top 100; wasn’t even on my predraft top 100 after he had a horrendous spring with an unacceptable K rate.

Andy: I know you place emphasis on depth in ranking the farm systems, but I’m having a hard time understanding how the Indians, with two top 100 guys (and a couple more HMs) are next the the Red Sox, who still have so much elite talent. How deep/shallow are the relative systems that they can be so close? Is this almost anomalous?
Klaw: I think you answered it – after Boston’s top 4 guys there’s a big dropoff.

Adam: Is there a team whose 11-20 is better than another’s 1-10?
Klaw: No. I get this question pretty much every year, BTW, and I don’t think I’ve ever answered “yes.”

Adam: Jacob Nix is consistently ranked 6 or 7 on most Padres prospect lists. Could you expand on what Padres fans can dream on in regards to him?
Klaw: Potential #2 starter. Three pitches, good delivery, control already there.

Tyler: Keith, you left guys like Dietrich Enns and Jordan Montgomery off of your Yankees prospect list. Both guys dominated AA-AAA last year. I understand that success in the minors does not translate to the pros and that there are so much that goes into it. (1) Can you give a brief explanation why they are ranked so low to give me a better understanding and (2) can I expect to see them get called up during the season to fill a back end starter role with the Yankees rotation being so thin? Thanks.
Klaw: I don’t think either is a big-league starter, so what are they then? Middle relief options? I think guys like those are a dime a dozen, and while a few will end up having big-league value – an unexpected velocity spike, a new pitch, magic pixie dust – I don’t see anything to separate them right now from all the other similar guys in the upper minors.

Nelson: When scouting, do you take all height/weight listings with a grain of salt? If Fransisco Lindor is listed at 190lbs, hes gotta be the strongest skinny person Ive ever seen
Klaw: I ask teams if I think a listed height/weight is wrong. Often public sites still have info from when the player signed or was drafted.

Ben (Washington, DC): In your review of “The Blood of an Englishman” you mentioned that you hadn’t come close to the 30 minute suggested game time. Does this mean it took you longer or shorter to get through a game?
Klaw: Much shorter. We finished in 15-20 minutes every time.

Jesse: Are there any board games currently in the 101-150 range that could move way with a good season?
Klaw: Nicely done.

Michael: I’ve never been political until now, but in the last month have called and written by Senators/rep, attended a town hall, called Congress to oppose Bannon.What I can’t comprehend is how each party isn’t up in arms that Trump is blatantly and brazenly profiting off the office. How is this not a bigger deal? It violates the constitution and our basic principles of democracy.
Klaw: I think today’s Kelly Anne Conway exhortation to buy Ivanka products is a bellwether. She appears to have violated a federal law. If the Republicans won’t support an effort to charge her, well, then you’ve got your answer.

Pei: What happened to Gordon Beckham? Went from projected star to utility player almost overnight it seems
Klaw: I flip-flopped on him – was way out after seeing his swing when he was a sophomore, he had a huge junior year and easily a dozen people told me I was wrong, so I figured hey, maybe he’s like Hunter Pence and can hit with that huge hitch. So I was right, and then wrong. Anyway I think that’s the explanation – he never could get over the hitch and get the bat to the zone on time.

Nelson: Gleybar Torres held his own at a young age, but didnt really break out last year unless you consider the AFL. Why the big surge in your rankings?
Klaw: He spent most of the year in Myrtle (great pitchers’ park) and then some in Tampa (good pitchers’ league in general) and hit for more power with a higher walk rate. I think that’s a breakout.

Nelson: Not all republican senators are dummies, so how can you explain them voting in DeVos? Are the afraid of going against Trump? Against Ryan?
Klaw: I assume so. Follow the party line and you’ll get something that matters to you down the road? I think the majority of Congresspersons operate that way.

Elf: What are your thoughts on Daniel Murphy getting close to repeating last year’s numbers? An ESPN cohort of yours has an article saying yes, but uses a lot of loathsome phrases like “eye test” and “lineup protection” to make his argument.
Klaw: I guess it depends on “getting close” but I’d bet the under. He set career highs in BABIP and ISO last year, and while there’s some mechanical explanation there, there was almost certainly some good fortune involved too. If you offered me three choices for his performance in 2017 – his 2015 line, his 2016 line, or right down the middle of those two – I’d take the third option.

Freddie Gibbs: Have you ever seen Oscar De La Cruz pitch?
Klaw: Nope. He hasn’t pitched that much due to injuries. But after I listed him as a Cubs sleeper a scout I know texted me to say he approved of that choice.

Geno: Appreciate all of your hard work Keith. What are your thoughts on the Alec Mills for Donnie Dewees swap? Thanks!
Klaw: Mills I discussed earlier. Dewees can run and put the ball in play but has no power and a 20 arm. I don’t think you can use him in CF, so what is he? Bench bat?

John Liotta: Will you be updating your KLaw Top 100 novels soon? This year?
Klaw: I think I’m due, but of course last year was crazy busy so it wasn’t a priority. I need to update my iOS boardgame apps list too.

Ben: Is AJ Minter being a bit overhyped with people saying he’s best braves reliever prospect since Kimbrel? Or is he really that good?
Klaw: Wildly overhyped because people are scouting the stat line.

HugoZ: So which is worse, the seven-inning game, or a runner on second to begin extra innings?
Klaw: The seven inning game might end me as a baseball fan.

Tim: I believe you have contested the idea that PEDs led to the spike in offense during the 1990s/200s. I think part of your reasoning is lack of evidence. But what level of proof are you looking for? If the standard was simply more likely than not – such as in a civil case – would that change your opinion? Asking because it seems your belief is based on a lack of scientific evidence, which is a pretty high standard of proof.
Klaw: Offensive levels spiked very quickly from 1992 to 1993, so unless you think everyone started using the good shit all at once, the PED explanation doesn’t pass even your “more likely than not” test. I’m sure PEDs were part of it, but they don’t suffice as the whole explanation or even a major part of it. Just to be clear, though, my issue with steroids/HGH/similar drugs is that we don’t know what their effect on performance is or was, so trying to say “well, this guy wouldn’t be a Hall of Famer without them” is pseudointellectual masturbation. We just don’t know, and we can’t know, so it’s a waste of time.

Andrew: Bummed Ohani won’t be playing in the WBC. Or exhibition games so who cares?
Klaw: This killed my number one reason to watch. I shouldn’t say that, I guess, because I love the concept of the WBC, but he was the main attraction for me.

Frank: Can we finally agree that if the Marlins, one of the worst run baseball teams are actually going to sell for 1.6 Billion that no owner is ever allowed to cry poor again and ask the public to pay for a stadium.
Klaw: We can agree but voters will derp every time they’re asked for a “bond guarantee” or some other euphemism for a handout.

Nelson: Any interest in the Twin Peaks re-boot coming out in May?
Klaw: I liked TP season one back in the day, but I think 2-3 episodes into season 2 it petered out completely. I’ll wait and see what Sepinwall etc. say about it. I did record Legion last night so that might be my next new series.

Tim (KC): KLaw – Thoughs on the Minor League implementation of having a runner start on 2nd base for every extra inning? (And possible MLB implementation?) Personally, I feel it is stupid as they are fixing something that is not broken… I mean extra- innings are a gift. MLB wants people to get their sleep in the playoffs I guess?
Klaw: Agree. It’s a solution in search of a problem. And was anyone complaining about how WS game 7 played out?

Matt: Why do the Mets feel the need to take guys like Anthony Kay in the draft who projects as a 5th starter when they seem to crap out an Ace every other year?
Klaw: I thought he projected as more than that.

Scherzer’s Blue Eye: Which is more foolish: the 4-year/5-year deals to Melancon, Jansen, et al; or what the Nats are doing: rolling the dice on Kelley, Glover, Treinen, et al.
Klaw: The long-term deals. I think there’s a closer in that mix for Washington – Glover has the stuff and aggressiveness, just not the command – and that Rizzo has played this out very wisely.

Sam: Javier Lopez retired yesterday. Greatest LOOGY of all time? If nothing else he helped define one of the best baseball terms ever.
Klaw: He retired as the best MLB pitcher to ever come out of UVA by WAR.

Johnny: Is Victor Robles pronounced “Rob-LES”, or “Ro-blay”
Klaw: ROBE-less, like he left his robe at home.

Dave M: Are you a fan of Philip Roth? Have you read American Pastoral or Portnoy’s Complaint?
Klaw: Read both and didn’t love either. I think I particularly dislike Zuckerman the character, and in AP, the scene where Swede sees his daughter again and doesn’t attempt to physically rescue her is unfathomable to me.

Marty: Do you have any thoughts on the Eddie Butler trade for the Cubs?
Klaw: If healthy, he’s got great shit. I’d take that flier and see if it was either the injury or the altitude that killed him.

Jobu: Hi Keith. Thanks for your recommendations of coffee roasters. I’ve really enjoyed several of their selections. Any Boston/Cambridge are roasters you’ve had in the past that you’d recommend?
Klaw: I haven’t been to George Howell but he’s a legend in third-wave coffee and I want to try his stuff out this summer.

Matt: if you had to put odds on Frankie Montas sticking as a starter, what would it be? 1/10?
Klaw: Yep, that sounds about right. Lacks the third pitch or maybe even a good enough second one, the command, or the body.

Ron: Hi Keith- If Buxton is up all of 2017 and is the full-time CF for the Twins, Where would you rank his arm among CF in both leagues? One of the best or above average? Hope he can hit decent and get on base. Packs a lot of wallop in that frame!
Klaw: It’s at least a 70 arm. He’s a legit 5 tool guy, and regular readers know I hate when that term is thrown around loosely.

Jer: How far would have had to list the Mets prospects to have Tim Tebow? 316?
Klaw: Maybe 23.2.

Alec: What do you think of raising the minimum wage? Every time this comes up–as it has in my state now–it makes me angry. I feel it’s just catering to a high voting base, and anyone with any sense sees it does nothing good–creates job loss due to higher costs, raisers prices, puts businesses out of business, etc.
Klaw: The academic research on the subject doesn’t favor your appeal to common sense argument; its effects on employment are mixed, at least. Doesn’t it also depend on the new wage level? Raising from $7 to $8 won’t have the same effects as raising from $7 to $15.

Jay: PECOTA projecting the Dodgers to win 98 games (and score more runs than most AL teams) with mostly the same roster (except Forsythe) which had among the worst wOBA against lefties in all MLB?
Klaw: Does PECOTA consider platoon splits? I don’t know the answer.

Rick: I heard an explanation that Otani can’t pitch and play the outfield on “off” days because of the throwing that outfielders have to do, so what about using him as a DH in between starts?
Klaw: Yes, you definitely want your ace to miss 4-6 weeks after straining an oblique muscle while swinging the bat as a DH.

Lyle: Did the Mariners get enough in return for Gohara?
Klaw: His stock was way down, so while I prefer Gohara, I understand their side of the deal.

Tim (KC): RE: 90’s and 2000’s power surge: 4 Expansion teams in the 90’s… which means more pitchers to pitch those increased number of innings/games. Basically, the talent level of the average pitcher decreases due to the increase in pitcher spots to be filled from what is a finite supply of quality pitchers.
Klaw: Yes, also very true – we’ve seen outlier individual seasons in every expansion year, I believe, including 1961 and 1998. And new ballparks, some of which played more hitter-friendly than the parks they replaced.

Mike: Why is PECOTA consistently way off on the Orioles? For example projecting 71 wins this season. Underrating the bullpen?
Klaw: Again, I can’t answer anything about PECOTA. I would say that they project to have one of the worst rotations in baseball (again) and that their offense is almost certain to be worse this year after a career year from Trumbo and no apparent upside there. And can Britton possibly match what he just did? I’ve long been a big believer in his stuff, but I could never predict any pitcher to put up a year like that.

Mike: Any business that claims it will go out of business because it had to pay a higher minimum wage was going to go out of business anyway. Seriously, if you build your business on having the cheapest possible labor, you are just wasting your time and money.
Klaw: if you build your business on having the cheapest possible labor, you can become Secretary of Labor!

Zac: Is Lucas Erceg a guy you could see “vaulting” up your rankings with a strong season?
Klaw: I was pretty aggressive with him this year. Lowest drafted player (2016) on my top 100, I believe.

Jim: When you say a player might get too big for SS, do you really mean too slow? If a guy got bigger but could maintain his lateral quickness somehow, wouldn’t he be just as good or better?
Klaw: Slow would imply foot speed; I’m talking about agility and yes lateral range. Rare is the guy who can get bigger without losing either or both of those.

Anonymous: Does Houston really NEED to add a starter? Where do you rank a Keuchel/McCullers/McHugh trio, given the play near their “reasonable expected level,” whatever that is? Do Musgrove/Martes/Morton/Fiers round out a solid enough 4-5? I feel like the rotation is very middle of the pack, could be top 10, or bottom 10 also though.
Klaw: Need, no. Would help, yes. I don’t think you can reasonably expect 25 starts from McCullers, but I think they have five other solid starter options. Adding Quintana would still be a 3-win upgrade though.

Scott: Any good Environmental/Climate Change organizations that you recommend donating to?
Klaw: I haven’t given to any yet – so far it’s been Human Rights Campaign, ACLU, and a lot to our local food pantry, Food Bank of Delaware.

Mitch: Youve said before that you voted Republican in the past. May I ask which GOP candidates you voted for? Reagan?
Klaw: I’m too young for Reagan; my first Presidential election ballot was 1992. I’ve voted GOP at all levels – mentioned Romney above, voted against Ted Kennedy every ballot I had, etc. Last year, however, I was straight-line Democrat, and I won’t vote GOP again until this strand of white nationalism is out of the party.

Tristan: The Blue Jays aren’t exactly blocking Dalton Pompey with their planned platoon of Carrera & Upton. Can he still be a long-term asset, with speed and defence, even if the bat never fully blooms? He’s still young and has upside. What’s your take on his future?
Klaw: Still think he’s got value. Obviously came up too soon, had a hard time adjusting, but the talent that made him a top 100 guy is all still there.

Joe: Kevin Gausman had, in a lot of ways, one of the 15 best seasons of any AL starter last year. Is there another step for him to take?
Klaw: Yes, sort of. I think he started to take that step in the second half. Breaking ball was consistently better after he moved back towards the middle of the rubber.

Liberal Fringe: am I paranoid waiting for Trump’s Reichstag?
Klaw: Nope.

Nelson: Ever been to Iceland? Have any recommendations?
Klaw: I have. Go to Gullfoss. Breathtaking.

Alberto, Dom. Rep.: Hi Keith. What’s your interest level in the WBC? and what are your thoughts on it? Here in Latin America we take it very seriously but it sure doesn’t seem that way in the States.
Klaw: This is why it matters – it’s good for marketing the game in Latin America and east Asia. I don’t ever want the US to win because that defeats the tournament’s whole purpose.

Greg: So you don’t think Minter is elite RP prospect since people who are really high on him are just scouting the stat line?
Klaw: Strawman. I don’t think he’s an elite prospect because I’ve seen him and don’t evaluate him that way. Really, did you think you had a point with this question?

Ridley Kemp: The governor of Texas is actually trying to foment a constitutional convention and bring back nullification and has taken to use the phrase “You’re fired!” As bad as things are in D.C., they could always be worse, huh?
Klaw: Just leave us Austin and Texas can go back to being its own country.

Santino: Are you going to do your “breakout players” under 25 this year? I truly tried to look up the schedule that was posted a while back but could not dig it up.
Klaw: Two separate pieces. Breakouts in March. Top players under 25 I don’t know.

Bulgakov: What do you make of the recent paucity of African American big league catchers? Ever since Charles Johnson last played 12 years ago, I think only Russell Martin (technically Afro-Canadian) is the only one to log significant, if any, playing time. Do you think there’s a bias somewhere along the line that keeps African Americans away from the backstop position?
Klaw: I don’t even see African-American HS catchers very often, so if there’s a bias (likely) it may be happening even before scouts see these kids. Martin was a converted infielder, too.

Dave: Klaw, on raising the minimum wage, wouldn’t the higher minimum wage lead to less need for welfare, etc which could lead to tax breaks for businesses offsetting the raise? Or am I delusional…..
Klaw: It’s a very complicated economic question. It’s not as simple as drawing a supply and demand curve. And a fair minimum wage in NYC would be a lot more than a fair minimum wage in Utica.

Andy: Based on various terrible laws, will that impact your traveling to see prospects this year?
Klaw: I don’t think so, although where I have discretion I’ll try to see certain players on the road (e.g., JB Bukauskas) to avoid spending extra money in states with discriminatory laws on the books.

Chris: Wondering if you have seen the 13th on Netflix? It seems like the white nationalism has been in the Republican party since it migrated from the Democrats in the 60s. Amazing that some people think the impact of race is in this country is overstated. It has defined politics in this country since the beginning.
Klaw: This is next on my watchlist.

Ethan: Have you ever read or spoke with anyone at Pirates Prospects? I value their work on Pittsburgh minor league system and was just wondering if you had any reason to ever come across it?
Klaw: Spent some time with Tim last March. Really enjoyed my chat with him.

Stan: Higher wages don’t lead to less welfare. Less welfare would be the result of forcing people to choose a way to support themselves outside of welfare. The old “work or starve” analogy.
Klaw: Actually, the best way to get people off welfare is to cut welfare. We tried that c. 1995 and it worked fantastically.

Hank: As a Twins fan, I fear that Miguel Sano is going down the Chris Carter path. I still believe, but I also think this year is a make or break year for him….as far as for the Twins, not for his career by any means. Do you think he can improve and be the star everyone thought he would be?
Klaw: I think he’s a better hitter now than Carter ever was.

Nathan: Percent chance Glasnow reaches his upside?
Klaw: A year ago I would have said over 50%. Now, maybe 30-40%.

Scott: Do you think Manaea has the durability to become a #2?
Klaw: I’m not sure he has all the elements to be a #2 (someone who’s ranked somewhere between, say, 20 and 50 in MLB). I feel better about saying he’ll most likely end up a #3, with a fairly small chance to be more.

Henry: I am intrigued by the welfare question. Welfare is a lifestyle for many, even if most on it are struggling to survive. There are simply people who choose the path with the least amount of responsibility attached. So, if you want to get the most people off of welfare, the best way is to eliminate welfare so that people have to find other ways to feed themselves and their dependents.
Klaw: What ways would you suggest they find? You can tell them to get off welfare and get a job, but what if there isn’t a job there for them? Who takes care of their kids? How do they get to/from work? What if they’re physically unable to work? What if it’s more lucrative for them to do something illegal? And is welfare really “a lifestyle for many?” I fully understand the economic disincentives of handouts, but let’s not pretend this issue is as simple as “get a job.”

Ethan: Making Shrimp Po Boys and can’t decide what to serve with it; any suggestions?
Klaw: Something with acid. Fresh cole slaw?

Andy: The problem with the “work or starve” mentality, is that some people would starve, which creates a problem with crime/vagrancy, without even getting into the moral issues.
Klaw: And you have victims there – kids who are malnourished, perhaps otherwise abused, who then grow up to become financial burdens on the state. There’s a financial incentive to take care of these kids now, but there will be adults who take advantage of any such system.

Pat: I am very concerned about the Orioles’ cavalier approach to Bundy’s health. Last year, they set a 75 inning limit and blew way past it (he threw almost 110), and he wore down. Now going into 2017 they seem willing to let him loose with no innings limit. What gives?
Klaw: It became more important to make the playoffs (for one game, as the last entrant) last year than to protect him or Tillman going forward. I didn’t like the abrupt change in plans, and if I were publishing forecasts on individual players I’d adjust both pitchers down for 2017.

Patrick: What do you think are the best coffee(s) or types of coffee for cold-brewing?
Klaw: I’ve never cold-brewed. It’s all pour-over or espresso for me.

Joe: Some of these questions on welfare are borderline stunning in their cruelty. Is this what we’ve actually become?
Klaw: I’d just say they lack some compassion. Stories of “welfare queens” are generally unfounded. Any government program that transfers wealth to specific individuals or companies will be abused. You want to limit such abuse, yes, but there’s still a policy goal here, or several goals, that we can’t just throw away.

Timothy: An argument of fairness and striving for something. I’m college educated and make $17.50/hour, so why is it right for a fast food worker to make $15?
Klaw: Why does that fast-food worker’s wage matter to you? Is he holding your wage down?

CJ: As relievers are typically pitchers who can’t handle starting, do you think that a starter with non-traditional closer stuff – think Tom Glavine – would have been a dominant reliever?
Klaw: Relievers are often guys who couldn’t handle the starter workload, lacked the third or second pitch to start, lacked the fastball command to start, or got hurt. I don’t think Glavine, working with a lot of average stuff, would have been a dominant reliever.

Tim (KC): RE Immigration: When you over generalize a group of people (like say those on welfare) and give them a certain stereotype (they are all lazy and looking for a handout)… then you lead to further illogical thoughts like “let’s ban everyone from a specific country” or worse.
Klaw: I’d agree with all of this. I wouldn’t generalize any group – those on welfare, or those who pay the most into the system and thus end up supporting those on welfare.

Ridley Kemp: On Anthony Bourdain’s Part Unknown, he had an interesting discussion with Jiao Tong University who noted “The difficulty is that the technology is so advanced that we don’t really need that many people.” His premise was that there simply isn’t enough need for work to provide sustainable employment for everyone (or that there were too many people). Is there any reasonable solution to this problem that isn’t monstrous? That seems like a looming issue of almost global warming dimensions.
Klaw: That’s the argument behind a Universal Basic Income. I truly don’t know what to make of that – I think the arguments around it are too far beyond my education – but I agree that we’re going to face questions around finding sufficient employment for future generations, not because of immigration but because of automation.

Garrett: Speaking of converted catchers, you think Texas’ Josh Morgan makes it as a big league backstop?
Klaw: If he moves there permanently, I think he’ll be at least a 55.

BD: Not saying I agree with this, but the flipside to a guy like Bundy, is go ahead and “fire the bullets” so to speak, extract what value is there, as he is a ticking time bomb.
Klaw: Understood, but he and Tillman had worse results as they fatigued too.

Zach: Your response to the fast food eage question is everything. Just because someone gets a raise doesn’t mean it comes out of your pocket. I’m noy sure why people have a hard time understAnding that.
Klaw: The only time I’ve ever cared about what someone else was making was when it was someone in the same role as mine or one similar enough that it was useful in comparison for negotiations, or as a sign that I was underpaid and should leave the company.

Kyle: Re: Lack of black catchers; Do you think it could have something to do with the high price of catcher’s equipment? Not to over generalize, but anecdotally the majority of high-end african american players seem to have been either multi-sport athletes at some point, or came from inner city baseball leagues. Is the several hundred dollars requisite for a good set of gear a road-block for players who a) play several sports and don’t want to make a heavy financial investment in just one, or B) do not have the wiggle-room in their budget to afford to?
Klaw: I think that’s the argument, or at least an argument, why we don’t see enough black players in youth baseball, period.

Archie: Is there any single pitch that you think specifically causes injury to pitchers?
Klaw: No. I guess it’s possible the screwball does, but we have almost no samples to examine anyway. I think it’s less what you throw and more how you throw it.

Mikey: Are the Rangers mishandling Jurickson Profar? I realize he hasn’t been truly healthy but isn’t he being stifled by lack of playing time? Wouldn’t he make for a better fielding 2B than Odor, who by many metrics is below average?
Klaw: I would like to see Profar get 500 AB if healthy this year. Wherever it happens is fine with me. (But yes, I think he’ll be a better defender at 2b than Odor.)

Billy: Unintentionally, I think we have gotten to the crux of Trump’s Detroit campaign speech wherein he built on his immigration stance by saying the jobs illegals have been working will now be available for Americans, particularly those struggling in the inner city. Which begs the question….is it unreasonable to expect people receiving handouts to take available jobs in construction, agriculture, or other industries that they do not feel like working in?
Klaw: Many of those jobs require skills that the working poor or unemployed poor don’t have, or physical access they lack (you can’t tell someone living in the inner city, hey, go take a farm job).

Timothy: In some ways, yes, the fast food worker’s wage does affect me. As middle class, my wage does not go up, but doubling wages will affect what I have to pay for goods/services, thus lowering my spending power.
Klaw: I don’t believe that will apply at the lowest end of the income scale. The point of a “living wage” is to cover basic living expenses, which have relatively inelastic prices. Raising the minimum wage to $25 or $40 an hour might do so, because then you’re giving a whole new class of people disposable income they can use on nonessential items with greater price elasticity.

JR: Your response on wages reminds me of this excellent Louie CK quote: “The only time you look in your neighbor’s bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don’t look in your neighbor’s bowl to see if you have as much as them.”
Klaw: Compassion. Pass it on.

Klaw: OK, that’s all for WelfareChat this week. I’ll be back next Thursday to do it all over again, and will have another Insider column up on Tuesday too. Thank you as always for reading and for all of your questions. I’m sorry I couldn’t get to more.

Louder than Bombs.

Louder than Bombs is the first English-language film from Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier, after his critically-acclaimed 2011 film Oslo, August 31st, which I found kind of unwatchable because it was … just … so … slow. But Louder than Bombs also garnered great reviews, has a treendous cast (four actors with past Oscar nominations, plus Golden Globe winner Gabriel Byrne), and made Will Leitch’s top ten films of 2016. It’s also free for Amazon Prime members, which meant I really had no good reason not to watch it.

Of course, it’s pretty great. It’s a very understated film, and often painfully quiet, but the story here really works and even takes advantage of those long silences. The performances are good across the board, and the film includes some clever dream sequences and re-enactments that introduce its only true dramatic elements. It’s certainly not for everyone – I don’t think I would have liked this movie twenty years ago, but now I have both age and patience I lacked back then.

Louder than Bombs looks at the aftermath of the death of Isabelle Reed (Isabelle Huppert, herself nominated for an Oscar for Elle this year) on her family, husband Gene (Byrne), not-large adult son Jonah (Jesse Eisenberg), and 14-year-old son Conrad (Devin Druid), who is the movie’s central figure because his grief, coupled with his apparent introverted nature, is the most obvious from the outside. All three men are hurting, but Conrad wears it on his sleeve a bit more, and his father and brother are unable to figure out how to help with him or cope with their own issues surrounding Isabelle’s death, which they believe, at least, was a suicide.

What works best in Louder than Bombs is the excruciatingly frail relationship Gene has with Conrad. Gene is flawed, aware of his flaws, but still a pretty reliable screw-up, and even continues to do so by having an affair with one of Conrad’s teachers (played by Amy Ryan). Conrad doesn’t know that his mother killed herself, or that she’d suffered from depression, which you’d think would be relevant given that he too may be showing signs of the same illness. He’s a little bit of a stock character – the sullen teen who hides in his room and plays video games – but there’s some complexity there that becomes apparent later in the film.

Jonah is the least well-developed of the three men in the movie, a functioning adult with a wife and newborn child, but whose marriage isn’t what it seems and who is more than willing to rekindle an old flame when he returns to his hometown to help his father go through Isabelle’s papers and files. He’s dealing with his own grief by compartmentalizing it, and thus stands in the way of his father (who might be too impetuous) telling Conrad the whole truth about their mother, because doing so might force Jonah to confront the full reality of her suicide. The film doesn’t delve into Jonah’s emotions the way it does Conrad’s or Gene’s, which is only a shame because Jonah himself could have been a more interesting character, especially if we saw why it seems like he’s acquired some of the less desirable personality traits of both his parents.

Huppert plays Isabelle’s depression in the film’s many flashbacks as a sort of sleepwalking, awake but rarely present, with a vacancy in her eyes that may not be perfectly realistic but conveys the sort of emotional absence that depression gives the sufferer. I would have enjoyed seeing more of her performance, but the film isn’t really about her; revelations about her, many of which come about because her former colleague (played by David Strathairn, whose voice is just such a pleasure to listen to) is writing an article about her life, appear to show their effects on the survivors.

It’s hard to avoid a comparison to the other big grief movie of 2016, Manchester by the Sea, but the two films differ both in story and in performances. There’s no tour de force by anyone in Louder than Bombs, but there are also signs of marginal progress for the three men by the time the movie reaches its somewhat ambiguous conclusion. Where Casey Affleck’s character can’t escape his grief (and role within it), Gene and his sons might just move beyond theirs. It’s a little bit more hopeful, but just as compelling in its portrait of survivors struggling to cope with unthinkable, unexpected loss.

Stick to baseball, 2/5/17.

My organizational reports for all 30 teams, featuring at least ten prospects ranked for each club (and as many as 25), went up this past week for Insiders. You can find them all here on the landing pages for each division:

American League East
National League East
American League Central
National League Central
American League West
National League West

My list of thirty sleeper prospects, one for each MLB organization, for 2017 went up on Friday, wrapping up the prospect rankings package for the year. I also held a Klawchat on Friday.

For Paste, I reviewed the complex strategy game Forged in Steel, a citybuilder with some worker-placement and card management aspects that, once you get the first few moves underway, really gets going and manages to be both smart and fun.

You can preorder my upcoming book, Smart Baseball, on amazon, or from other sites via the Harper-Collins page for the book. Also, please sign up for my more-or-less weekly email newsletter.

And now, the links…

  • The must-read piece of the week – actually published in early January – comes from British journalist Isabel Hardman, who wrote about how even England’s vaunted NHS doesn’t do justice to people with mental illnesses, although the piece itself also provides a great window into her own difficulties recognizing what was happening to her and getting properly treated.
  • It’s Super Bowl Sunday! If you wouldn’t let your kids play football because it’s dangerous (and has led to the premature deaths of many players), is it moral to still watch the NFL?
  • I thought this New Yorker profile of Evan McMullin, who has emerged as a major Trump critic from the center-right was both an excellent piece of balanced journalism and a good window into someone who, even though I disagree with him on a couple of major policy issues, speaks very clearly to my concern that the man in the Oval Office – well, that man, and the one pulling his strings – needs to be stopped.
  • The batshit insane people who claim Sandy Hook was a hoax believe Trump’s election furthers their cause. I’m just glad these hoaxers are facing legal consequences when they harass relatives of the deceased.
  • As if Betsy DeVos’ awful answers in her confirmation hearing and embrace of creationism and other anti-science bullshit weren’t enough to disqualify her from running the U.S. Department of Education in everyone’s eyes except, well, our President and 50 Senate Republicans, she’s also a major investor in an utterly useless pseudoscience business of neurofeedback that claims it can use brain waves to diagnose and treat autism, depression, and why are we even talking about this it is such obvious bullshit? If you have a U.S. Senator who is planning to vote for DeVos – that’s every Republican right now except Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Sue Collins (Maine) – get on the phone on Monday morning, or send a fax, or go to their offices and make it clear you want a no vote on DeVos. One more Republican will end her candidacy, and while we aren’t guaranteed that the next nominee will be better, I’m not sure they can find one who’s worse.
  • You want more about DeVos being delusional in her belief in anti-science folderol? Look at her use of code words for creationism. While her camp has hidden behind the federal law and court rulings that intelligent design can’t be taught in public schools – it’s religion, thinly disguised as pseudoscience – that opens the door for her to push to change such laws, or challenge the court rulings, to suit her own misguided beliefs.
  • The House Science Committee is something between a joke and a modern-day Spanish Inquisition, thanks to its science-denialist head, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas, where else?), and the new Holman Rule that allows House appropriations bills to target any federal employee and reduce his/her salary to $1. Boys, all you boys, you think you’re so American.
  • Is the white-supremacist (and possible fascist) Steve Bannon positioning himself to be the de facto President? Fifty Democratic Congresspersons have called for Bannon’s removal from the National Security Council, co-sponsoring a House bill that would ban political strategists from serving on the council. (Reports that the appointment requires Senate approval were false or at least incomplete.) Meanwhile, filings from Bannon’s second divorce include accusations that he failed to pay child support and was abusive toward his daughters.
  • I think this ProPublica piece has the wrong title. It’s not can the Democrats be as stubborn as Mitch McConnell, but will they? Of course they can, but so far, I see no signs that they well. Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley is prepared to lead a filibuster of Trump’s SCOTUS nominee Neil Gorusch, who’s filling a seat that should have been filled last year by Merrick Garland. (By the way, if you saw the claims that Gorusch had created a pro-fascism club while a student, those were false.)
  • Eric Trump’s business trip to Uruguay – that is, a trip to benefit the Trump family business, not on U.S. official business – cost the taxpayer over $97K in hotel bills. This is a good example of where the Democrats need to be obstructionist – Elizabeth Warren introduced a bill requiring him to divest, but even the Dems appear to have little interest in this fight.
  • How about that immigration order, now halted, that served as a de facto Muslim ban? The Archbishop of Chicago spoke out against it. The order stranded a Brooklyn doctor in the Sudan. VICE published a list of doctors and researchers thus barred from returning to the United States. Don’t you feel so much safer now?
  • Bloomberg published a short op ed that argues that Trump has failed his Wall Street and big business backers twice over, by putting all permanent resident employees at risk of deportation or refused re-entry, and by failing to repeal the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule, which – get this – which requires financial advisers to act in the best interests of their clients in retirement accounts. I don’t know what’s worse: that Trump’s camp wanted to repeal the rule, or that the rule was ever necessary in the first place.
  • The farewell message from Tom Countryman (!), Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, who was summarily dismissed along with five other State Department lifers last week, is well worth your time.
  • Who’s behind the fake-news site CGS Monitor, which uses real experts’ names in bylines on articles they didn’t write? It could be Russia – I mean, of course it’s Russia, right? – although this piece speculates it could also come from Iranian interests.
  • This post from “The Jester” on Russia’s infiltration of our federal government pissed someone off enough that the site was hit with a DdoS attack a few hours after the article went up. Within it, he points out that the ex-KGB/FSB official suspected of helping MI6 agent Christopher Steele assemble that dossier on Donald Trump was found dead in his car on December 26th, and the the author accuses the Kremlin of orchestrating his murder.
  • Republicans are further trying to rig the electoral college system in their favor by pushing blue states to adopt “proportional” electoral voting, which, as that FiveThirtyEight piece explains, means that Clinton could have won the popular vote by five percentage points and still lost the election.
  • A new law in Arkansas allows rapists who impregnate their victims to stop the latter from getting abortions, or a husband to sue to prevent his wife from doing so, and so on. Even setting aside the clear infringement of religious belief into law here, this is as blatantly anti-woman as you can get. I’ve got one state left to visit to be able to say I’ve visited them all, but you know, I think any trips to Arkansas can wait until they start to treat women like actual people. UPDATE: Snopes has more details on the law, such as pointing out that rapists can’t sue for damages, and that the law delays rather than prevents the abortions. The ACLU is still planning lawsuits.
  • Abortion is an important, sometimes lifesaving medical procedure, and keeping it legal and available reduces deaths from unsafe abortions, while improving access to abortion and contraception reduces abortion rates overall. Again, women are actual people, and the infamous photo of Trump signing an anti-abortion executive order while surrounded by men sort of says it all – and that’s why the photo of the Swedish Prime Minister trolling Trump is such a thing of beauty.
  • Protesters plan to shadow Trump whenever he travels so he feels their dislike, an extension of the idea that he thrives on public adulation.
  • The apparently random murder of a woman walking on a Reykjavik street after dark has shaken the city, which is known for its low crime rate and 24-hour party culture.
  • I tweeted about this earlier in the week, but donors across the country are helping pay students’ lunch debts. It’s such a little thing, and so easy to do if you have any cash to donate. We called our daughter’s school, asked how much it would take to clear any outstanding tabs, and wrote them a check. You’ll make a lot of families’ lives easier, and will reduce the shame these kids feel for something that’s no fault of their own.
  • The Brits have all the legislative fun: A Labour MP held up a sign saying “He’s lying to you” behind Nigel Farage in a televised address by the far-right UKIP leader.
  • The University of Nevada joins the growing list of NCAA football programs reneging on scholarship offers weeks or even days before the official signing day. I’m no lawyer, so I’ll ask the crowd: at what point does such an oral agreement become binding on either party?
  • I’d never heard of the Chinese delicacy fat choy, a bacteria that grows long, noodle-like strands, but it turns out its farming is harmful to the environment, and the Chinese government is now cracking down on its production and sale.
  • Recode has a long, fascinating interview with my former colleague Bill Simmons on The Ringer, the rise and abrupt end of Grantland, the demise of his HBO TV show Any Given Wednesday, and much more. I’m still not sure I get the mission of The Ringer; they’ve mixed some great sports content with some head-scratchers where they offer advice to the movie or music industry. But it’s early in the site’s history, and I’m 100% behind any site that supports good journalism and pays its writers.
  • I’m linking here to a piece I saw on Google’s home page (I think) but that I really thought was trash: you could read 200 books a year in the time you waste on social media. There’s a lot wrong with this piece, but let me highlight two things. One, not everyone is wired for the kind of sustained attention required to read a lot of books, and no one should make someone feel bad because s/he isn’t a book reader. I love finding fellow bibliophiles, but if you don’t read books, you shouldn’t feel guilty about it. Two, his math suchs. He says “typical non-fiction books have ~50,000 words,” which is wrong; that’s under 200 pages, and even Smart Baseball, which I did not want to be too long, runs over 80,000 words. He also says he reads 400 words per minute and assumes that most Medium readers will too; I doubt he reads that fast unless he’s speed-reading, which doesn’t work (you don’t retain what you read as well), because reading 400 wpm would mean reading about 80 pages an hour, which I think would put anyone at the far-right end of the scale for reading speed … or means he’s reading books written for children. I read a lot, and I read fast, and I doubt I read 400 wpm unless it’s something simple and incredibly engrossing, like genre fiction or a Wodehouse novel. So, yeah, if you don’t read 200 books a year or 100 or even 20, don’t feel bad. This article was just stupid.
  • Is the hunt for paid editors tearing Wikipedia apart from the inside? That seems a bit dramatic, but I think the mere existence of paid editors is cause to retain or recover our skepticism about the reliability of information found on the site.
  • From McSweeney’s: The Rules of This Board Game Are Long, But Also Complicated. I don’t understand why this is supposed to be funny.

Top Chef, S14E10.

I skipped last week’s recap and didn’t even see the episode until Wednesday night in my hotel room in Bristol. I don’t think there’s anything I have to say about it; the worst remaining chef went home, one of the top two remaining chefs won the quickfire and the other won the elimination challenge. And we didn’t see enough cooking. This week’s gives us a little more to discuss, at least.

By the way, the entire prospect rankings package finished up yesterday with the sleeper prospects for each team, from which you can link to all of the other content.

* Brooke is terrified of vomit. She’s also a parent. Those two things do not go together, as I was reminded again about a week ago.

* They’re all going shrimping. No word if they’ll be pimpin’ or B-boy limpin’.

* The shrimp they catch are just enormous. The chefs are eating them raw, which I think is gross (I’ve had raw shrimp, just once). This is after the episode was filmed, but the Carolina coast has had an unusually long shrimp season this year thanks to the warm waters (perhaps due to climate change).

* Quickfire: make a dish with shrimp. Oh, and it’s a sudden-death QF. My favorite kind.

* Sylva has to open a can with his $400 knife. Do they really have no can openers available?

* Shirley thinks she’s stoned from the motion sickness pills. I feel like we missed some good comedy from this.

* Sheldon wants shrimp with roe still in it, as if I weren’t already sufficiently weirded out.

* Several of the chefs used “sea beans,” which is the plant I knew as glasswort. They’re delicious – salty and crunchy and bright green.

* The dishes … Casey made red curry shrimp with coconut broth, tomato, grilled pineapple, and sea beans … Sylva made togarashi- and orange-marinated shrimp in light coconut broth with dill, orange juice, and mango … Shirley made garlic shrimp with charred sea bean and jalapeño .. Brooke served shrimp and clarified butter with pickled sea beans in a tomato seed vinaigrette … Sheldon made poached shrimp in tomato water with yuzu, radish, and sea beans; he also grilled the shrimp quickly with pine on the hibachi … Tesar made ceviche with lightly poached shrimp, with fennel, peppers, jalapeño, lime juice, and olive oil. Apparently it’s very spicy.

* The winning dish was Sheldon’s. The three worst were from Casey, Shirley, and Sylva, meaning they compete in the sudden death round. (So Tesar and Brooke are safe.) Casey’s was a tiny bit salty. Shirley’s could have used more finesse; the plate was messy and her shrimp was rubbery. Sylva’s was really salty.

* Sudden death QF: make a dish using the bycatch from the shrimp trip. There’s shark, squid, skate, and ling (similar to cod); Tom later clarified on Twitter that the shark was actually dogfish, which is sometimes called mudshark.

* Casey was definitely having the most trouble during the cooking process, if that meant anything. Shirley served grilled baby squid with roasted fennel, mirin, ginger, garlic, and chili broth. It was very “flavor-forward,” so now I guess we’re talking like Project Runway. Casey made charred squid with mushroom-soy broth, fennel, and radish. Tom called it an “umami-bomb.” Sylva made seared and butter-poached redfish with tarragon butter, tomato, red cabbage, fish sauce, and champagne vinegar. Tom says it was the most subtle of the three dishes. Casey’s eliminated; Shirley and Brooke are in tears. I kind of get it, because it’s a crappy way to get eliminated, but at this point in the series anyone can get bounced. Five chefs remain.

* Elimination challenge: Guest judge Dominique Ansel, the super-imaginative French chef who created the cronut. I don’t own his cookbook but I’ve seen it, and yes, the cronut recipe is in there. The chefs must make a brunch dish that mashes up breakfast and lunch. Tom mentions one of his restaurants serving a “foie-grasffle,” foie gras served in a waffle. I would probably just prefer the waffle by itself, thanks.

* Brooke won previously with a brunch dish, but of course she can’t make it again.

* There’s no prep time – two hours from start to service. That got a bit underplayed during the episode, because nearly every elimination challenge involves some prep on day one and then final cooking on day two.

* Shirley says she’s been making potstickers since she was four or five. She’s making her wrappers from scratch, which is no small task. But if she’s doing cheeseburger filling in a dumpling, where’s the breakfast element?

* Sheldon is shown unpacking premade frozen waffles, which is what got Kwame sent home last season, although it turns out that he’s got another idea for them.

* What the hell is Padma wearing on her head? Most of these women look ridiculous in those stupid hats but hers was particularly bizarre. (My daughter liked Gail’s, though.)

* The dishes … Shirley made beef and cheddar dumplings with bacon-tomato jam. The meat inside is a little dry, but Dominique likes the cheese inside the dumpling. (I can only assume that, when he said cheese in a dumpling was unusual, he was referring to Chinese or Japanese dumplings.) Gail likes the crispy bits from the bottom of the pan. She’s like the voice of the regular person here, who just wants the stuff to taste good.

* Sylva has to call an audible in the kitchen because … well, I’m not quite sure how he ended up where he did. He was going to make a frittata, which is cooked on the stove and finished in the oven, but I think he just ran out of time. His dish ends up as arctic char with a “fritatta” with morels, beet sabayon, and pancetta. It’s really a scrambled egg now. Dominique loves the fish preparation, but wishes it was more creative. Tom says it screams that he was struggling.

* Brooke’s plating isn’t working; she was going to make cups of yogurt that would hold her hibiscus-strawberry broth (like a soup), but cups she’s piping aren’t tight enough and she has to just pour the broth around the plate.

* She says her dish is a “play on a parfait.” She serves matcha and chia yogurt with hibiscus and strawberry broth and peanut butter crumble. Dominique can’t taste the matcha and says it’s not creative enough. Tom says liquid nitrogen “could have been your friend with this one.” Even if it was perfectly executed, though, I don’t think this would have hit the creativity or flavor marks they wanted.

* Tesar made an octopus hash with kimchi scramble, chorizo, and hollandaise. Tom misses the crispiness he expects in a hash, as does Dominique. It also doesn’t look very clean on the plate.

* Sheldon made Korean fried chicken with a compound butter of seaweed & oyster sauce and waffle crumble. He fried the chicken twice and then pressed it in the waffle iron. Dominique seems to love it, but wishes there was “a little bit more of the waffle.”

* Judges’ table: Sheldon and Shirley had the only dishes that worked. Gail said that Sheldon’s had the most flavor. But Shirley won. No one mentioned that her dish had nothing I’d call “breakfast,” other than that dim sum itself is a breakfast (or brunch?) style in Chinese cuisine.

* Tesar’s octopus and egg were cooked well, but the hash didn’t really work; he says he didn’t have time to conceptualize it. Brooke says she’s “embarrassed” that she wasn’t whimsical enough; the hibiscus ended up overpowering the matcha, and the presentation looked sloppy. Sylva says he couldn’t execute the frittata, although I still don’t understand why. The scrambled eggs he did serve were completely overcooked – you could see that on TV, where they looked like the separate piles of egg curds you get out of a hotel pan at a buffet.

* Padma didn’t get Brooke’s dish as a mashup. Tom thinks Sylva overcooking two elements is the bigger sin. Gail agrees with Padma. Tesar cooked everything well enough to be safe.

* Sylva is eliminated. I get it, given the dish, but man, would I have preferred to see him stay and Tesar go at this point.

* So we’re left with four veterans after all. Brooke may have just lost her biggest competitor; she’s still the favorite, followed by Sheldon and Shirley, then Tesar fourth. I haven’t kept up with LCK this year, but I saw Sylva didn’t make it out of the most recent round, so he’s officially done.

* This ep continued the season-long trend of not showing us enough of the actual cooking, although this time around, we did get more explanations of the finished dishes and there was legitimate drama in the kitchen to cover (as opposed to, say, Tesar and Katsuji bickering like schoolchildren). And unfortunately it looks like the next episode starts with that quickfire where the chefs give instructions to someone (a family member or friend) they can’t see, which is all gimmick and little cooking.