Archives for December 2009

→ December 6, 2009
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Codex.

I’ve got a few new pieces up on the Four-Letter, including reactions to the Noel Argüelles signing, the Chone Figgins signing, and James Paxton’s lawsuit against the University of Kentucky.

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Pseudo-intellectual thrillers have thrived in recent years as a literary genre, particularly in mass-market paperbacks, with Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code leading the charge, although I think the style dates back to Michael Crichton’s preachy, predictable, very fast-paced novels from the early-to-mid-1990s. They’re potboilers in fancy dress, usually with lots of explanatory text so that you’ll understand the motive of the core crime or why everyone is running very fast. The technique of putting the protagonist in jeopardy and having various suspects and witnesses killed off over the course of a book works well in the spare writing of hard-boiled detective novels, but married with …

Lev Grossman, whose The Magicians was one of the best books I read in 2009, wrote a book in that genre that dispenses with the conventions of body counts, crazy chase scenes, and character cliches (like the beautiful yet brilliant female researcher). Codex, which came out in 2004, creates tension from the core mystery around the titular Codex (a medieval book that may hide a coded message, if it can be found, assuming it even exists) rather than the artificial tension that characterizes the more ponderous entries in the genre.

In Codex, investment banker Edward Wozny finds himself employed to catalog the rare book collection of one of his best clients, an English duke and his wife, and despite his instinctive indignation at the menial task, he takes it on and finds himself gradually sucked into the search for the missing codex, even when he realizes that not everyone involved wants the book to be found. At the same time, Wozny’s friends introduce him to a time-sucking computer game called MOMUS that seems to Edward to offer unexplained parallels and connections to the search for the codex. In both quests, he ends up hopelessly lost and has to enlist the help of others, including a not-beautiful yet brilliant female researcher who specializes in the alleged author of the missing tome.

The stakes are high for the characters in the book, but Grossman ignores the trend of raising the stakes to fate-of-the-world status, recognizing that something as small as a battle between two members of the same family can be serious enough to cause people to throw around large sums of money and throw wrenches in the works of another person’s plans. I found that the pace of Codex accelerated as it went simply because I wanted to know where the codex was, what it meant, and why the person who employs Edward wanted to find it. Grossman also avoids the pat ending, concluding the book on an appropriately ambiguous note, although he does rely on one error of judgment by a main character to get us to the finish line.

Next up: Dawn Powell’s satire of the publishing circles of late 1930s New York (particularly Claire Boothe Luce), a somewhat forgotten novel called A Time to Be Born.

Filed Under: Literature Tagged With: , , ,
→ December 3, 2009
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Pops Restaurant & the Top Chef semifinal.

Klawchat today at 1 pm. I’m on Rumor Central today talking Donavan Tate’s broken jaw and Polanco to the Phils. Top Chef spoilers at the bottom of this piece.

I had dinner with a friend last night at Pops Restaurant in Boston’s South End, a small place that serves fine-dining-caliber food with prices one level down from what fine-dining places in the South End or Back Bay would charge. I’d recommend it, as the meal was well above-average despite some small issues.

Once I saw the crispy confit duck on the menu, there was no shot I’d order anything else, as duck confit is probably my favorite meat dish and it’s not something I’ve made at home. The duck was close to perfect, with crispy skin with a little bit of spice (I think five-spice, but there was too little for me to say for sure) and outstanding texture; duck skin needs very little seasoning since it has so much flavor of its own. The meat inside was perfect, tender and moist, falling apart like a braised pork shank. The duck comes with a mixture of asparagus, wild rice gnocchi, and a ‘red wine chocolate sauce’ that was astringent and overly salty and that didn’t do much to complement the duck; duck and rice do go well together, but something like a risotto with asparagus would have worked better. The side also contained lardons that were excruciatingly salty – and really, when have you ever known me to say a bad word about any form of bacon? – and weren’t listed on the menu, which, given how many people don’t eat pork for religious reasons, is a little customer-unfriendly. We also ordered a side of French fries at my friend’s suggestion – they’re lightly seasoned with herbs (thyme and rosemary?) and perfectly fried with virtually no grease, reminiscent of the fries at the defunct Back Bay restaurant Excelsior, which made probably the best fries I’ve ever had and served them with a rosemary aioli.

We started with the truffled butternut squash ravioli with sage brown butter and fried egg; the egg was more of a garnish but the ravioli were excellent, just a little too soft, with the squash allowed to come through as the star of the dish. The arugula around the dish seemed like an afterthought but, softened slightly in the brown butter (which was mixed with a little pasta water), it was worth fishing out.

Service was good, not great; the waitress brought me the wrong beer, and it took over an hour from seating to the arrival of the entrees, although I imagine that would have been shorter without the appetizer. On the plus side, I had started at the bar and ordered sparkling water, and forgot about it when my friend arrived, but the bartender brought it back to the table for me after realizing I’d disappeared. The restaurant has two sections; we sat in the back, which is quieter but dimmer and lacks the visual appeal of the tables in the front near the bar and kitchen. The limes from the bar were dried-out, which isn’t a big deal for me but raises a small question about quality control in the back of the house.

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Quick thoughts on last night’s Top Chef semifinal:

* Is Padma trying to be condescending, or is it just that her natural way of speaking comes off that way? My wife said last night, “I can’t picture her as a mother.” Growing up with a mother who is hot, famous, and sounds incredibly disappointed at the most minor of things is a recipe for a lifetime of therapy, no?

* We need to get Gail Simmons on “What Not to Wear.” It was like someone decided to add melons to the crush party menu. I feel bad for her – it’s not like she’s unattractive, but that dress – and it’s not the first – was not working in her favor.

* Have to try Bryan’s idea of cooking figs with short ribs and then pureeing them with the braising liquid to make a sauce. I’m thinking a dry red wine with good body but not too much fruitiness, but since I know jack about wine, I’m open to suggestions from the oenophiles in the audience.

* Jennifer undercut herself by, in effect, apologizing for making duck confit instead of grilling it. Play it up, talk about how you improvised, you love how it came out, spin it positively. Telling the judges you wish you’d done it another way isn’t going to make them like your food more. Of course, there’s a limit, since Kevin’s line about the undercooked didn’t go over well.

* This elimination was predictable, although I wonder (again) if the decisions are based on the dishes in that specific challenge or on the broader body of work. The weakest remaining chef was sent home; the three best from when I picked up the show about six episodes ago are going to the finals. I’m still sticking with my pick – Bryan.

Filed Under: Cooking, Food Tagged With: , , , , ,
→ December 2, 2009
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Bang!

I have a new article up covering Billy Wagner, arbitration offers, and other random stuff. I did a rambling hit with Mike Salk on AllNight last night. It certainly sounds like I said the Dodgers didn’t offer arbitration to “Woof.” Maybe he’ll sign with the Phoenix Desert Dogs next week.

I’ve had the Italian card game Bang! for over a year now, but finally got around to opening it the other day, since it requires four people to play and we always reach for Ticket to Ride or Carcassonne whenever we’ve got a group of four for game night. We ran through Bang! twice, and I’m guessing the game is better with more than four players, but I thought I’d offer a quick take.

Bang! has a simple object but the game play is a little complex. Each player gets a role: one Sheriff, one Renegade, two to three Outlaws, and one to two Deputies. Only the Sheriff’s role is revealed. The goal of the Outlaws is simply to kill the Sheriff. The goal of the Sheriff and any Deputies is to kill the Outlaws and the Renegade. The goal of the Renegade is to be the last player standing, so he’s the least likely to win although he’s fun to play because of the greater potential for deceit. Each player also gets a character who has one specific ability that deviates from the standard rules of the game.

The game is entirely played with cards, with nearly half the cards in the deck devoted to shooting opponents (called, appropriately enough, Bang! cards) or cards used to deflect shots aimed at you (Missed!). The remaining half of the deck comprises special-use cards, from Beer cards used to regain a life point lost to a bullet to weapons that allow you to hit players farther away from you at the table to the Jail card that you can use to try to force an opponent to skip his next turn. Some cards are played once, but others remain on the table in front of you for use in future turns until someone plays another card that takes yours off the table.

On each turn, a player can play all of the cards in his hand with the restriction that he can only play one Bang! card – that is, only fire one bullet at an opponent – per turn, unless he has another card that invalidates that rule. Turns move quickly, since you only start each turn with as many cards as you have life points remaining, and neither of our games lasted as long as a half an hour. The bulk of the strategy revolves around deciding whom to attack and which cards to hold in your hand, since there are various situations where having a Bang!, Missed!, or Beer card in your hand when it’s not your turn is beneficial. For example, you can play a Beer card even though it’s not your turn if you lose your last life point, thus keeping you in the game a little longer.

We found three problems with the game, one of which is easily fixed – a player can be eliminated or nearly eliminated before he gets a turn. A house rule that no player can be eliminated before he gets a turn is apparently a common solution. The second problem was that tying the card limit to the number of life points remaining means once you’re down a few points, you’ll find it hard to stay in the game without some luck or some help from an ally. The third problem was that a four-player game created something of an imbalance, with two outlaws against a renegade and a sheriff; two players are trying to kill one (the sheriff), while the other two players are trying to kill two targets. That imbalance means the sheriff is going to see his point total slip quickly unless he and the renegade happen to take turns before the outlaws do, and even the rule giving the sheriff one bonus life point didn’t help, as he was on the ropes quickly and eventually was killed in both games.

That said, I’d love to try this with five to seven people, since the next role added is a deputy, which should rebalance the game. The company’s site includes rules for a two-player variant, and the Dodge City Expansion expansion adds 3- and 8-player possibilities. (The online consensus seems to be that buying the complete set, Bang – The Bullet, which includes the expansions, is the best way to go.)

Boardgamegeek has a great forum post on Bang! where three kids, ages 9, 11, and 13, respond to some of the major criticisms of the game, and do so intelligently and sometimes humorously. The site also offers a Word doc that, when printed on both sides of a page, creates a handy player aid with condensed rules and card actions.

Filed Under: Games Tagged With: , ,