→ February 21, 2013
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Top Chef, S10E16.

So it turns out the entire season up to this point was completed over six months ago, which must be agonizing for the contestants. That’s like playing League Championship Series as scheduled in October, then waiting until April to play the World Series. I shouldn’t give MLB any ideas.

We get one glimpse of Sheldon and Brooke acting slaphappy before they leave Alaska, including their versions of a “top-two-plus-one” dance, and Sheldon going all Adam Sandler on the ukulele.

* First we visit Sheldon in his restaurant two weeks before the finale, watching him tear up some pork tenderloins while he’s supposed to be removing the silverskins. (That’s not an easy thing to do, but he could have made cleaner cuts with a chainsaw.) It looks like celebrity has been good for his business. Also, his youngest daughter is pretty adorable.

* Then we visit Brooke in LA a week before the finale. I would like to point out to all the food-snobs who bash Trader Joes that there was a TJ bag visible in Brooke’s house. Good enough for me.

* Brooke and her husband – whom she met when she hired him as a sous chef – run two restaurants, and she says she worries more about paperwork and finances than she does about the food/kitchen. Her special the day the cameras visit is a salad made from fried pig ears, which is one of my new favorite things to eat, especially since I’m not likely to make them at home (you have to braised them for hours, then slice them very thinly, bread them, and fry them). I feel for her when she talks about how hard it was to be away from her little guy, who just turned five, during the competition. Traveling away from my family is the only part of my job I dislike, and she was gone for longer than I’ve ever been apart from my daughter in a single trip.

* They both seem to think Kristen will be the Last Chance Kitchen winner. Sheldon says he’d be shocked to see Josh, while Brooke would be shocked to see see Carla or Josie. Shocked to see Josie, but pleased, I imagine.

* And the LCK winner is … Kristen, which is the least surprising thing ever. This is like a 98-win wild card team getting to the World Series – she belonged there anyway but her path was needlessly difficult. If this were a sports broadcast, we’d be treated to a long argument over whether she has “momentum.”

* The elimination challenge: Create a three course meal to serve at craft LA in just three hours. Tom will expedite and tells them, “Please don’t screw this one up,” since it’s his restaurant. There’s no way the diners are unaware that this is a Top Chef night and not the regular craft menu. Then again, half the customers probably think Tom is personally firing their steaks in the back, so who knows.

* The chefs get their pick of proteins from the walk-in, which is probably the best selection of meats and fish they’ve ever seen. Sheldon says the spot prawns are speaking to him, which I think he meant literally. Might want to ease up on that good reefer, my friend. He’s doing a roasted quail entree that Brooke says “doesn’t sound like him,” but he wants to show how much he’s grown since he last cooked for the judges. I suppose nothing says you’ve grown as a chef than eviscerating a bunch of tiny little birds.

* Brooke is overwhelmed by the quality of the proteins and starts to psych herself out again. This becomes really critical later in the show, and I don’t think this is just a case of lack of mental preparation or toughness.

* Kristen is mapping out space and writing on the counters. Is that something other chefs do? I don’t remember seeing it before, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if she were an unusually organized chef given the food she produces.

* Hugh does the kitchen visits Tom would usually do and actually counsels Brooke while asking Sheldon not to burn the restaurant down. I suppose that’s marginally more helpful advice than Tom would have given.

* Kristen is making a chestnut veloute and is focusing on “simple, clean flavors.” Her main is an ahi tuna dish and she says she’ll do some “chocolate … thing” for dessert. She says she benefited from doing Last Chance Kitchen because she didn’t have time to overthink her dishes – meaning she had better balance between the rational and emotional parts of her brain when making decisions. Except that she kind of forgets about dessert here.

* So apparently Tom has dreamy eyes and everyone goes all Debbie Gibson and gets lost in them. I have no idea what to do with this so I’m moving on.

* Sheldon pours a bottle of wine into a pot and says it’s “for my homies, gangster pouring.” Are gangsters more into French reds or Italian? Or do they just drink fucking merlot? I’ve been off the streets for too long, it seems. I’m losing my edge like James Murphy.

* Brooke’s anxiety level is rising. We know Brooke has anxiety/panic issues from her own admissions in previous episodes, so I think it’s fair game to point it out here. The disorientation, the inability to order her thoughts, the catastrophic thinking, these are all hallmarks of anxiety problems, even if it’s hard to recognize them per se as “attacks.” You don’t have to be panicking for anxiety to affect you physically or mentally. If you don’t learn how to manage these thoughts, they take over and you can’t think about anything else, even if you are in a critical situation. I feel badly for her as she flails and her body language and facial expressions betray that inner turmoil. I’m surprised we didn’t get Gail saying, “I can taste the panic in the sauce.”

* Sheldon definitely wins the best vocabulary award when he drops a “mother hugger” on this show, although I was always partial to “mother’s younger brother” when looking for a euphemism.

* Sheldon and Kristen both seem to be punting dessert to some extent, Sheldon because he’s not that familiar with it, Kristen because she just sets it aside in favor of focusing on the first two items. She calls herself a “white person Asian,” a term I am not touching with a 39½ foot pole.

* Tom comes in and asks them to clean up right before service. Is that a trap to break their rhythm just before the first tickets arrive? At least he didn’t turn off the running water or anything.

* Padma’s in a skintight pink dress for the meal. Oh my dayum.

* Sheldon’s starter is spot prawns in court bouillon with radish and Asian herbs. This is a huge hit but it turns out it’s all downhill from here for Dazed and Confused tonight.

* Kristen’s starter is a chestnut veloute with a seared duck rillete and Brussels sprouts. The judges thought it needed a touch of acid, but one guest wants to pick up the bowl and drink the veloute. I have no problem with this, by the way. Etiquette be damned – isn’t that a big compliment for the chef? It’s like saying “your veloute was as good as the milk is after a bowl of Cocoa Krispies.” Because you all know you drank that as kids. Or last week. Let’s move on.

* Brooke’s starter is a crispy veal sweetbread salad with beets and kumquats. Martin Yan – who can cook, if you haven’t heard – says the beets are good but aren’t integrated into the overall dish. Hugh says the sweetbreads aren’t quite cleaned enough and are cut too thin. I heard when she served this on the Walking Dead she got perfect scores.

* Back in the kitchen, Brooke is in the weeds and has to replate some of her starters. It’s textbook anxiety – not to harp on this, but as I watched it it was a little like an out-of-body experience, like, “is that what I look like when I panic?”

* Kristen’s main is a seared ahi tuna with veal mustard jus and lemon curd; the fish is excellent but the curd was too bitter. She says cooking while Tom is expediting is frightening, delivering the quote that should go on her tombstone: “I peed in mah pants a little.” Next week’s finale of Top Chef will be brought to you by Depends.

* Brooke’s main is braised short ribs with Parmiggiano sauce, nettle puree, and squash dumplings. Yan says it perfectly cooked. Emeril loves the nettle puree. The sauce is a smash. From the descriptions and the presentations+, this was the best thing I saw on tonight’s show. That’s a $35 entree, easy, the kind of dish that could be a restaurant’s signature item.

+ So my daughter had to do a big poster on desert habitats and talk to the class about it on Tuesday. It went great, so well that she didn’t even need to use her notes on index cards. She was so excited to tell me that she “got to presentate my poster to the class.”

* Sheldon’s main is roasted quail with pine nut puree and tangerine. Hugh doesn’t love it and says it’s not Sheldon. No one likes the puree. It’s funny that yet another quail dish didn’t work (although it doesn’t have the curse of risotto or burgers on Top Chef), but the problem here wasn’t the quail.

* Brooke’s dessert is a brown butter cake with whipped goat cheese and blackberry sauce. John Besh loves it but probably feels awkward without Malibu Chris making goo-goo eyes at him all evening. Martin Yan loves the texture and balance and calls it yin and yang, spurring some bad puns on his name. There’s no winner named in this episode, but with Brooke nailing two of her three dishes it seems like she would have won again.

* Sheldon’s dessert is a white chocolate mousse with fennel and apple. The raw fennel is overpowering and distracting for the judges. I like fennel in moderation but raw fennel is pretty bold and even harsh, with the bitterness of darker greens along the anise flavor. What’s weird is that he used three ingredients that are all better when roasted to get some caramelization, but didn’t do that with any of them.

* Kristen’s dessert is a curry dark chocolate with cashews. The consensus seems to be that the odd flavor combination really works, but that the dish is too basic and ill-conceived. It’s not even clear to me what this was – a custard? Ganache? An unset mousse?

* Tom the Expediter is like a cross between a drill sergeant and a nagging mother-in-law.

* Besh-a-mel says it was all awesome. Hugh thought everything was easy/safe. These two should be made to duke it out. Yan says they didn’t put quite enough attention into execution; otherwise the meal could have been perfect.

* Sheldon is drinking Red Hook, a local beer, back in the kitchen as they await judges’ table. More local brands on Top Chef, please.

* Judges’ table: Sheldon up first. His app was very successful. The quail itself in his entree was fine, seasoned nicely and cooked well, but the pine nut puree was chalky. It turns out that he didn’t roast them; raw pine nuts are really unpleasant in both texture and flavor. I’m not crazy about most raw seeds or nuts, but pine nuts are one that desperately need to be cooked somehow, even if you’re grinding them into pesto. His dessert was killed by the raw fennel. Emeril comments on how Sheldon tried to present a new version of himself but says, “there was nothing wrong with the old Sheldon,” to which Padma replies “Amen.” Is it just me, or has this whole season felt more collegial than the last few? The chefs are mostly getting along better and on most episodes the judges are more conversational with the chefs and more supportive.

* Kristen’s turn. Her veloute was nice and velvety, the rillette was good, but it was all too one-note for Hugh, who’s playing the hard-ass this week. She said her concept for her tuna entree was to simplify from the last time to avoid what got her bounced from the main show, although she doesn’t point out that what really got her bounced was Josie. The ahi was perfectly cooked, but the lemon got bitter and the combination of the celery puree with that bitterness didn’t work. Hugh said her dessert was “badly thought out pot de crème.” It seems like she has a slight edge of Sheldon; both their desserts flopped, and her entree edged his.

* Brooke’s turn goes better. Her sweetbreads were crispy, and were boosted with a bright note from the kumquats, although she didn’t clean the glands enough, saying she was cleaning to order and couldn’t handle it. Her short ribs were delicious; Emeril loved the parmesan sauce and the nettles. Her dessert was the only successful one of the three, although Tom said it was not a restaurant dessert because it seemed unfinished.

* The summary discussion: Sheldon’s flavors fell a little flat tonight. Kristen’s dessert was a flop. Brooke’s short ribs might have been the best of the nine dishes. She lost some points on the kitchen side, which Tom says was a lack of focus – but that’s what anxiety and panic do to you, robbing you of your ability to focus and think clearly. It’s to her credit that she didn’t melt down or quit at any point. That’s not a job where you can go take ten minutes to meditate and calm yourself down. I get that you’re judged on your food here, not on reasons you didn’t do as well as you should have, but Tom saw Brooke’s demeanor and body language, and might have been a little less quick to criticize because of that.

* Sheldon goes home. He’s very gracious in defeat. Bro hugs all around. I thought Padma might tear up again. She’s gone all soft since she had her baby.

* There are some words for the surviving chefs, though. Kristen gets dinged for playing it a little safe in her concepts. Brooke gets dinged for rough service.

* We have an all-female finale for the first time ever. The guest judges will be Betty Friedan, Sandra Fluke, and Queen Latifah. My pick remains Kristen, but after watching Brooke go all ’75 Reds on the competition the last four or five episodes, this feels a lot closer than it would have before Kristen’s original elimination.

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→ February 17, 2013
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Oklahoma City eats, 2013.

Oklahoma City is a fun town, especially downtown, where there are a few pockets of renewal that have spawned some local restaurants and shops worth visiting. I didn’t get to explore as much as I would have liked, since I had to head out to Norman, Yukon, and Midwest City, but found three places worth strong recommendations.

I returned to Ludivine, which was the star from my visit to OKC last year, and it was even better the second time around. It’s a farm-to-table restaurant with a pretty simple menu – a house-made charcuterie selection, four starters (including salads), four mains, and a few desserts, with everything but the seafood sourced locally. Last time I went with several small plates, but this time one of the entrees was calling me: Walnut Creek mangalitsa pork with potato gnocchi, winter greens (mostly green kale), grana padano, and pork jus with mustard seeds. The gnocchi were a little soft but that contrasted well with the thinly sliced but fully cooked pork (made from a Hungarian breed, related to wild boar, with richer, fattier meat than the common American pig) and the crunch of the curly kale leaves. The broth was the best part of the dish, with the smooth mouth-feel and umami-rich flavor of a stock, but well-balanced with the spice and saltiness of the mustard.

The dessert was even better – a white chocolate and lavender cookie, served warm at the bottom of a ramekin, topped with a chocolate-orange semifreddo, fig syrup, and cassis whipped cream. It’s hard to explain how the dessert worked together, as the whole was far more than the sum of its parts. The lead flavor was dark chocolate, but there were also hints of marshmallow, caramel, and the suggestion of lavender (which I like in tiny doses but which can make a cookie taste like perfume if it’s overdone). This represents culinary artistry to me – the ability to combine ingredients or elements so that, when tasted together, they add up to something greater and unexpected. Ludivine also has a full bar with its own mixologist(s) and had a couple of local beers on tap, including a Coop Gran Sport Porter that I found too cloying and syrupy.

Just a few doors north on Hudson Street is the roastery and cafe Elemental Coffee, a shop for serious coffee snobs, with three different roasts available for pour-overs and their own espresso blend that combines beans from Mexico and Ethiopia. My first test of coffee in any form is whether I can drink it without needing sugar to hide any bitterness or harsh notes, and both the drip and espresso blends (for drip I went with an Ecuadorian bean, their most expensive drip coffee at $3.25) passed. They also have a small selection of food items, including crepes on weekend mornings and a local yogurt/granola combination that, while a little small for breakfast, is excellent, with dried blueberries sprinkled on the plain yogurt and a cinnamon-spiced granola full of sliced almonds and pumpkin seeds. The barista I had on Sunday informed me that Nick Offerman of Parks & Rec loves both Elemental and Ludivine, further validating my selections.

East of downtown in Midwest City, I had some excellent fried chicken at a place that looked like it might need to be condemned, called Jim’s Fried Chicken. It’s nothing to look at on the outside but the chicken was perfectly fried, with a crispy crust that broke at first bite without shattering or falling off the meat. It was well-salted but not otherwise seasoned, at least not at a level I could detect. For $7, I got a drumstick, two thighs, two sides, and a drink; the fried okra was excellent and made to order while the beans-and-rice with sausage were excellent but a little on the spicy side, fine if I was only eating that but on top of fried chicken and fried okra it was a little more than I was looking for.

There isn’t much of a consensus around the best Q joint in Oklahoma City, but as far as I could tell Iron Starr BBQ was one of the contenders, although it’s a table-service restaurant with cloth napkins rather than your stereotypical (and often excellent) one-guy-and-a-smoker kind of place. The server suggested the St. Louis-style ribs and the brisket as their two best smoked meats, and the ribs were pretty special, coming right off the bone but still showing some real tooth, with a mild dry rub that wasn’t too peppery and a pronounced smoke flavor. The brisket was a little too dry and needed the sauce to compensate for that and the limited smoke ring. Iron Starr fries their okra whole rather than cutting it into bite-sized pieces, which is probably a good bit more healthful but left the okra inside slightly undercooked. The braised collard greens were, shockingly, undersalted. The square of jalapeno cornbread that came with the meal was excellent, but different in texture than you’d expect, more like a spoon bread than a crumbly southern cornbread. The “double-chocolate” bread pudding was more like a blondie with chocolate chips in it and a little melted white chocolate on top, too sweet for me to finish even halfway. I had a local beer here as well, Choc OPA (Oklahoma Pale Ale) at the server’s suggestion, but it was overwhelmingly citrusy, more like a wine cooler than a beer. I’d go back for the ribs and cornbread, and maybe to try a different protein, but would skip the brisket even though it’s quite popular.

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→ February 17, 2013
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Les Misérables (film).

The 2012 film adaptation of Les Misérables has been savaged by some critics, and even its positive reviews were often less than glowing, but I don’t get it at all. It’s the wildly successful and very well-received stage musical, on the big screen, with real settings and backdrops, and great performances of great songs. (Roger Ebert seemed to dislike the movie in part because it’s not a faithful adaptation of the book, but that was never the intent – it’s an adaptation of the musical, an almost straight one with one short song added and virtually nothing else.) Musicals are not to everyone’s tastes, and you have to enter them willing to have people sing much or all of their dialogue at you for two-plus hours, but if you respect the musical film as its own art form, Les Misérables is among the best.

I have seen the musical, twice, the last time in 1993, and enjoyed it tremendously. The show opened in London in 1985 to generally negative reviews, and 27 years later is still playing in the West End, with the show set to return to Broadway next year for its third run on top of the over 7000 performances already enacted. It won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical, when it debuted in 1987. And, in my experience, it’s one of the great “love-to-hate” works in the creative arts of my lifetime, where there’s a certain inexplicable pride in disliking something so popular. I’m not in that camp; despite the two-decade gap, I still remembered all of the songs and probably half of the words. But I liked the music, and like it even more today because it has a veneer of nostalgia for me; if you don’t like the music, you’re going to really dislike the film – and the play.

The story centers on the French convict Jean Valjean, who did 19 years of hard labor for stealing a loaf of bread and evading arrest. He gains his freedom at the start of the film, undergoes a transformation when a priest takes pity on him, and devotes his life to doing good for the less fortunate, becoming a successful businessman who employs many workers from the margins of French society. He encounters a prostitute, Fantine, who is ill and being harassed by a john; when Valjean discovers that Fantine was sacked from his factory, he resolves to help her and to raise her daughter, Cosette, who is in the “care” of the comically crooked Thenardiers. Through each stage of Valjean’s life, he is pursued by the policeman Javert, a cold, heartless man who sees no room for mercy within the law, a pursuit that repeatedly puts Valjean into situations where he must choose between sacrifice and self-preservation. The film’s climax revolves around the failed student revolutions of 1832, where the teenaged Cosette falls in love with the student leader Marius, who is friendly with the Thenardiers’ daughter, Eponine; her love for Marius remains unrequited as the tables from her childhood are turned. The ill-fated revolution puts Marius in harm’s way, during which Valjean manages to save him and have one final encounter with Javert.

Director Tom Hooper made the semi-controversial decision to have his actors sing live on the set rather than dubbing studio versions of the songs on to the film afterwards, but the move gives the film a tremendous rawness suited to the time and themes of the movie, and also avoids the always-jarring shift from live audio to studio recordings. (They do this at least once an episode on Top Chef with Padma, and it always sounds wrong.) The move also allows Hugh Jackman to show off an immense singing voice in a performance that could have carried the movie on its own; while Daniel Day-Lewis is considered the lock for Best Actor for Lincoln, I don’t think his role was as difficult as Jackman’s nor was his performance as huge. Les Misérables is over the top, by design, and Jackman has to fill space to meet those requirements. He does, without fail, aging 20 years from the movie’s start to finish while his character undergoes the most significant changes of any in the film.

Anne Hathaway has received much-deserved praise for her turn as Fantine in a supporting role – she’s dead before the halfway point, sorry – and a performance of the musical’s best-known song, “I Dreamed a Dream,” that should leave audiences in the fetal position. (You might also know that song as the coming-out tune for the Scottish singer Susan Boyle.) Hathaway’s was just the most notable of several supporting performances in Les Misérables, however, as the narrative seems to have focused on her and Jackman while ripping Russell Crowe (more on him in a moment) and ignoring everyone else. Helena Bonham-Carter appears as herself Mme. Thenardier, with Sacha Baron Cohen as her husband and the two of them chewing the scenery as the film’s main comic relief, the thieving, amoral, unhygienic inkeepers who scheme right up to the end of the film. Eponine, whose “On My Own” is another heartbreaking ballad (it’s actually a pretty tragic story for most of the characters), gets a tremendous rendition by the Manx singer Samantha Barks in her first film role, although she’d played the character on the stage for several months before the film was made. TV actor Aaron Tveit usurps Marius (played by Eddie Redmayne) in several scenes as the even more fervent revolutionary Enjolras, with Tveit commanding the camera more easily despite the same silly foppish hairstyle as his fellow tourists.

Crowe has been hammered for his mediocre singing in the film, somewhat unfairly – he’s the worst, yes, because someone has to be, but his poor singing didn’t detract from the film at all, and his performance as Javert was cold because Javert is cold, a pre-Terminator of sorts who sees only black and white. I thought Amanda Seyfried, while as pretty as ever, was just as weak a link and also not a particularly strong singer, but she’s received none of the same wrath as far as I can see. Cosette is the worst-written of the major characters in the musical as well – Eponine, as the tragic figure, is much more interesting and gets that one knockout song, while Cosette just flutters along, gets the boy she wants, and they live happily ever after.

Seeing the stage musical brought to life with real sets and closer views of the action was a thrill, since I saw the play from the cheap seats, but the cinematography in the film version was a real weakness, remarked on even in many positive reviews I’ve seen. I noticed it most during two of the film’s chase sequences involving Javert and Valjean, as well as the advance of the French soldiers when they begin their assault on the student barricades – the camerawork was shaky, uneven, and often angled oddly, while we are treated to far more closeups than we ever needed, especially of wide-open mouths going all fortissimo on us. That said, Hooper and company were up to the challenge of presenting ensemble numbers sung by characters in different locations, easy to do on the stage (you only have so much room) but harder on film, such as in “One Day More,” which could easily become a confused mess but holds together just enough to get us to the finish.

What may bother critics who disliked the film is its inherent populist feel. The songs are all written to move the viewer emotionally – tragic numbers, rousing numbers, comic numbers, even the cloying “Castle on a Cloud” sung by the neglected child Cosette. The story has a strong theme of redemption, with many references to God and religion, as did the original novel, with attendant themes of charity, equality, and respect for one’s fellow man (and woman), along with condemnation of the abuse of authority, of justice without mercy, and of concentration of power. The film wants you to feel something, lots of somethings, but so did Hugo, even if he did it without soaring harmonies and repeated melody lines. It’s neither right- nor left-wing, but it is pointed, and mixes hope with tragedy in unequal portions. You’ll have a song or two (or five) stuck in your head, but I think Jackman’s performance alone will prove just as memorable, as will the film as a whole.

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That concludes my run through the Best Picture nominees, as I’ve seen all but Amour and am choosing to skip that one. It has no chance to win, apparently, but I’d still vote for Zero Dark Thirty for Best Picture, with Ang Lee my choice for Best Director for Life of Pi. I have only seen three nominees in each of the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress categories, but I’d vote for Jackman and Hathaway, respectively. I’m hoping to see at least one or two more nominated performances before the awards are handed out next Sunday.

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→ February 16, 2013
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The Machine.

I broke two of my reading guidelines when tackling Joe Posnanski’s The Machine, his 20010 book about the remarkable 1975 Cincinnati Reds, focusing on their larger-than-life personalities as much as he does on the way they steamrolled through the National League. The first rule is that I almost never read baseball books. Baseball is work; reading is pleasure. When work invades pleasure, it becomes work. So I keep them separate as much as possible. The second rule is that I try not to read books written by people I know, especially if I count them as friends (as I do Joe), because then if I don’t like the book, I am faced with the difficult task of keeping my mouth shut, which, as many of you surely realize, is not something at which I am particularly skilled.

The good news is that I liked The Machine quite a bit – not as much as I loved The Soul of Baseball, which isn’t really a baseball book anyway, just a book about some people who played the game, but that’s an absurdly high standard. I won’t pretend to give The Machine an objective review, so I’ll focus on why I would recommend it.

I turned two during the 1975 season and have no memories of the Big Red Machine other than my parents telling me about those teams (including their dismantling of the Yankees in the 1976 World Series) when I was first becoming a baseball fan about five or six years later. Posnanski does a good job of keeping readers in the flow of the season, which started slowly for the Reds but turned into a romp that didn’t end until they faced the Red Sox in October, while also weaving in short but telling anecdotes about the team’s central personalities – primarily Rose, Anderson, Morgan, and Bench, and if you need their first names, well, you’re probably not the target audience here anyway.

Posnanski does a good job of humanizing Rose and Morgan, both of whom needed it for obvious yet totally unrelated reasons, while somewhat demythologizing Johnny Bench, who was one of baseball’s last true Hollywood stars, although he’s now better remembered for Krylon commercials and his gigantic hands. (Truckasaurus.) Rose doesn’t come off as sympathetic, just as pathologically driven; you won’t forgive his transgressions, but you can at least somewhat understand how he reached that bottom. Morgan, meanwhile, comes off as the cerebral player we all thought he was, given his stat lines, but that he did his best as an announcer to convince us that he wasn’t. (Disclaimer: I’ve never met Joe Morgan, and have no idea what he’s like as a person or as a student of the game.) Anderson, Tony Perez, Davey Concepcion, and Ken Griffey (Sr.) don’t get quite the same treatment, although I found the quiet rage of Griffey, still evident in contemporary quotes within the book, more reminiscent of Barry Bonds than of Ken Griffey, Jr., who had more of a reputation in baseball circles as an idler and a bit of a diva.

The Machine kicks into high gear at the end of the book when the nobody-respects-us Red Sox reach the Series and finally give the Reds the test they didn’t have all season. Those games were dramatic and come off as such on the pages, especially the epic Game 6, which Posnanski evokes through quotes and stories, including Rose’s boundless enthusiasm for what he correctly identified at the time as one of the greatest games in baseball history.

Posnanski mentions the team’s ethnic makeup and players’ obliviousness to it a few times during the book, but I wonder if that was truly a coming of age for MLB players post-Civil Rights Movement or just a function of winning breeding good chemistry. Was it unusual at the time to have a lineup – and the book is mostly about the lineup – that was so racially balanced? Did contemporary news sources see it as a big deal? In 1960, it would have been, and in 1980 it would scarcely have been noticed. I don’t know where 1975 fell on that continuum.

Posnanski’s writing has always spoken to me and, as you’d expect, the book absolutely flies – I knocked it off on a weekend trip to LA earlier this month. The friend who gave me this as a gift made a damn good call.

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→ February 14, 2013
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Top Chef, S10E15.

Some admin stuff first…

* I have a new post up for Insiders, ranking the top 20 prospects by expected 2013 impact. The ranking incorporates my best educated guesses at playing time, based on what I’ve been told by team sources, although injuries could obviously change that. And I did a brief Klawchat, abbreviated so I could take my wife to lunch for Valentine’s Day.

* I’ve updated the Arizona spring training dining guide with a few places I forgot to mention.

* alt-J’s An Awesome Wave, the Mercury Prize-winning album about which I’ve been raving since late October, is now just $2.99 on amazon through that link. I reviewed the album in October, and you can listen to it on Spotify if you’d like to test-drive it first.

—

Josh’s wife is now a week overdue. I just can’t fathom being in Alaska while my wife was in labor in not-Alaska. She’d be furious with me and, for once, she’d be right.

* Before the quickfire, the three chefs have to fly in a helicopter for about 15 minutes to get to the challenge site – and Brooke’s very real anxiety kicks in almost immediately. She’s in tears, somehow gets herself on the chopper, and spends much of the ride with her eyes closed and clinging to Josh (who gets major points for both helping her and for not patronizing her for her fear). I’m fortunate that my anxiety has never taken that stark a form, but I understand how strong that reaction is, and that it’s not just mental at that point but is physical. Eventually she does recover enough to look out the windows and get absorbed in the views, although I thought that might trigger another round of panic for her.

* Sheldon, meanwhile, thinks this is awesome: “I would die for some good reefer!” You and Tim Beckham, my man.

* They land on Norris Glacier, which appears to be near Mendenhall Lake and Glacier just northeast of Juneau. They’re at a camp where dogsled racers are training for the Iditarod. The quickfire: make a dish using ingredients and equipment found in the camp. It looks like there’s at least a decent supply of fish on hand, but the kitchen is tiny, there are no electrical appliances, and the burners are small and not very powerful.

* I know you’re shocked, but Josh is doing breakfast again – corn cakes with eggs and smoked salmon. He doesn’t have time to fry the eggs and keep them warm when he brings them to the outdoor table, so he scrambles them, which means his plate looks and feels like mush.

* I like that the sled dogs have little dog huts to protect them from the wind.

* Brooke’s pan cools down immediately when she adds the fish, which she says may have to do with the altitude, although I also wonder what material the pan was and how long it would hold the heat (I need a physicist’s opinion here). She made a pan-roasted halibut with lemon zest, smoked sea salt, red currant-beet vinaigrette, and a panzanella with walnuts and crunchy croutons. Despite the pan problems, her halibut has a nice brown sear on the outside.

* Tom’s reaction to Josh’s scrambled eggs – “Really?” – was pretty telling.

* Sheldon does a seared halibut with a chicken broth-tomato sauce, sesame bok choy, and pickled radish. His halibut doesn’t look seared like Brooke’s, but Tom said it was cooked perfectly, instead criticizing the sauce as too salty and very one-note. That turns out to be foreshadowing.

* Brooke wins, no surprise there. Her only real competition at this point is still hanging out in Last Chance Kitchen. That’s her third Quickfire win and seventh win overall.

* So Padma drives the trio back to Juneau after the helicopter ride down, which leads to Sheldon mocking Padma’s driving, saying she’s probably been chauffeured everywhere. A little casual misogyny, maybe?

* Elimination challenge: Cook dinner for the Governor of Alaska and his wife at the Governor’s Mansion. The guest judge is Roy Choi of the Kogi Korean BBQ food trucks (which popularized the Korean taco) and A-Frame.

* Roy and Emeril cook lunch for the group, during which Roy tells about how he was a real stoner into his early 20s, and one day, while high on his couch, he had the Food Network on and saw Emeril braising short ribs in red wine, at which point “Emeril popped out of the TV and slapped [him] across the face” (must have been some good weed), after which Roy started researching culinary schools and turned his life around. That moment felt genuine – I don’t think Emeril knew the story was coming, either.

* Josh asks Emeril one of my favorite culinary-philosophy questions: sugar or no sugar in cornbread. Emeril says no sugar. This is why we like Emeril despite all the “BAM!” stuff. Cornbread with sugar is corn cake.

* The challenge: make a dish that represents the moment when you knew you wanted to be a chef. Brooke says she knew it from age four, so I assume she’s making pureed green beans and Cheerios.

* Josh gets the call from his wife – her water broke, she’s crying on the phone, he’s upset, wife tells him, “if you are still competing you just need to win,” and now he’s crying. Two things: I was surprised that even his wife didn’t know that he was still in the competition, and this reminds me of something I learned when my daughter was born, that only about 10% of pregnant women have their water break before they get to the hospital. Of course, my wife’s water did break, at 5:45 am on a Friday, five weeks before the due date, after which she helped and I had to be peeled off the ceiling.

* Sheldon is making a snapper dish as an homage to Hawai’ian chef Sam Choy (who made an infamous clam flan on Iron Chef America). Tom cautions him not to start cooking the fish too soon, which seems to get into Sheldon’s head … but more on that in a moment.

* Josh’s “moment” was the first time he tasted foie gras, saying its delicate liver flavor changed how he thought about food. He’s making a torchon, foie gras that is soaked, lightly cured and marinated in white wine or brandy, briefly poached, and then wrapped tightly in a towel or parchment paper to dry and chill overnight in a cool place, a process that takes several days but that Josh will try to do overnight. Best of luck.

* Brooke talks about watching Julia Child as a kid and how her mom cooked dinner every night, so she’s making her mom’s braised chicken but is also adding quail to show who she’s evolved into as a chef. Quail has to be high on the list of things chefs screw up regularly on Top Chef.

* Brooke has a lot more ink than I realized, which I bring up because of the debate last week over whether she’s real-life cute or just Top Chef cute. I think she’s real-life cute, for what it’s worth.

* Josh’s wife calls again, obviously in pain and possibly high on medications, crying, “I just want you to be here, I love you, I have to go.” Good luck recovering from that phone call. Anyway, the baby’s born, yata yata yata, back to the kitchen everyone.

* I’m kind of disappointed that Sarah Palin is no longer the governor of Alaska, because maybe she could shoot another caribou for the chefs to cook while asking them to refudiate veganism or something.

* Sheldon starts to cook his fish with 20 minutes to go, but discovers his broth over-reduced and is too salty. He’s hinting that Tom’s comments got in his head, but why the hell wasn’t he checking the broth while he waited to cook the fish? If it’s reducing too fast, take it off the heat, or add some water? Am I missing something?

* He plates first, serving a pan-roasted rockfish, spot prawns, baby vegetables, and some of the dashi (broth) he used to cook the fish. The prawns are great and slightly sweet. Roy loves the concept of the dish. And everyone says it’s too salty. Whoops.

* Wolfgang’s father used to tell him that he’d be good for nothing, which seems to be a common theme among professional chefs – and when Wolfgang became a chef, his father said cooking was for women. Sounds like the damn Father of the Year.

* Moving along rapidly … Brooke serves braised chicken with crispy skin, grilled quail, carrot barley (she cooked the barley in the carrot juice), pickled baby turnips, and mushrooms with pearl onions. Wolfgang says his quail was a little overcooked, an angle I think was played up from here on out through editing to make it look like she didn’t absolutely nail this dish start to finish. Roy says she was “a prodigy in LA” when she first got started. I think her unassuming demeanor masks how extremely skilled she is.

* Josh’s torchon isn’t set up sufficiently and moves it to the freezer. You can hear his death rattle.

* He serves foie three ways: the torchon, foie pan seared on corn purée, and profiteroles with foie mousse. Roy loved the flavors, Gail liked the profiteroles, but the torchon wasn’t set. Tom says you just can’t do it, even if you’re as good as Tom Colicchio. (He may not have phrased it that way.) The Governor says the dish had too little texture contrast, so already he sounds smarter than his predecessor.

* Judges’ Table: Josh says he “wanted to go balls to the wall,” but Tom questions “short-cutting” the torchon and hammers Josh on his core concept. Brooke’s had great flavors, looked simple but was “like origami” according to Roy, and we hear that the quail a little overcooked. Sheldon’s fish cooked perfectly, but he botched the broth. Wolfgang says the fish and prawns were beautifully cooked “like you were the best chef in the world,” so how could Sheldon fail to taste the broth before plating?

* Brooke wins, again. If it weren’t for Last Chance Kitchen, this would be the least dramatic finish for Top Chef in ages.

* Josh is eliminated. I thought Sheldon made the bigger error here, the third week in a row he had a glaring mistake in the elimination challenge and stuck around; Josh used an ingredient he didn’t fully understand (per both Tom and Wolfgang), but it seems like the remainder of his fish was strong. Have they saved Sheldon a little too often?

* LCK: Make Tom a great plate of food. Lizzie wins save-a-chef, so it’s her versus both Kristen and Josh. They get 30 minutes to cook and can use anything in the craft LA kitchen. Josh goes for venison as his protein, claiming he’s “curing” it (impossible in 30 minutes) but really just using a coriander-heavy rub with kale and shaved raw carrot. Lizzie goes for black cod, cooking it with black pepper and vinegar, plus spaetzle and savoy cabbage. Kristen grabs semolina flour to make fresh pasta. Nearly certain she has new tattoos on her arm. She makes caraway orecchiette, with pea tendrils, citrus, brown butter, pomegranate seeds, and fresh herbs. There’s a lot of handwork required to make that shape, although I think that’s part of her strategy – impress the judges by accomplishing tasks they know are arduous or difficult in a short time period. Josh’s venison looks raw, kind of purplish, and sure enough it was cold in the center, so he’s sent home immediately. The winner between Kristen and Lizzie is … to be announced next week, on the show.

* Rankings: Kristen, Brooke, Lizzie, Sheldon. I’ve just lost confidence in Sheldon’s ability to execute in the bigger challenges. The finale really needs to be Kristen versus Brooke in some form; they have nine of the fourteen elimination challenge wins, and they’ve been by far the most impressive contestants this year, blowing just about everyone else out of the water. I know Tom insists the judging is always strictly about the food, but you know Bravo is loving the Kristen storyline, and they figure ratings will be highest if those two women are in the finale.

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Arizona spring training dining guide, 2013 edition.

I have lots of dish posts on food in the Valley, searchable via the search box above or by location tags like Phoenix, Scottsdale, or Mesa. But with spring training games about to begin, I’ve revised last year’s post with new recommendations, a few deletions, and some more thoughts on the better places to eat in the Valley, which I hope will allow you to limit your patronage of chain restaurants to the occasional visit to In-n-Out. I’ve also appended a section at the end of this post listing the best places in downtown Phoenix, which really aren’t close to any of the parks except maybe the Giants’ but are all worth checking out.

Scottsdale/Old Town (San Francisco):

* Citizen Public House: I like this place enough that we went there for my birthday last year … and again on Christmas Eve. I love the pork belly pastrami starter with rye spaetzle, shredded brussels sprouts, and mustard vinaigrette. I love the short ribs with a dark cherry glaze. I loved the seared scallops on grits. I loved the bacon-fat popcorn and the chicken-and-waffles starter. The only thing I didn’t love was, surprisingly, the duck breast, which was so rare that I couldn’t cut it. Great beer selection as well.

* Barrio Queen: A spinoff of Barrio Cafe (reviewed below), Barrio Queen is all about the mini tacos, which you order on a piece of paper like you’d get at a sushi place. They range from about $2.50 to $6 apiece and everything I tried was excellent, especially the same cochinita pibil that is a signature dish at the original Cafe.

* FnB/Cafe Baratin: One restaurant with two concepts, a minimalist lunch, where the menu comprises just six items (one salad, one sandwich, one starter, one veg, one potted/pickled item, and one dessert), with more open-ended haute cuisine at dinner. They appear to have retired the Baratin name and merged the two concepts into one space and under one name, FnB. I’ve only tried the lunch here, but I’ve been four times and have been blown away each time, including one vegetarian, Middle Eastern-inspired sandwich that was the best eggplant dish I have ever eaten. Also, I don’t really like eggplant.

* Pig and Pickle: Just outside of Old Town, and only open since November, they do things with pig and with pickles, like the braised pork belly, yam puree, and brussels sprouts slaw starter that was pretty special. I loved the braised duck leg, although the mung bean cake served underneath it was overcooked around the edges.

* Culinary Dropout: A gastropub of sorts, located right near Old Town across from the Fashion Square mall. Definitely a good place to go with pickier eaters, since the menu is broad and most of it is easily recognizable. The chicken truffle hash and the turkey pastrami are both very good.

* Arcadia Farms: Farm-to-table breakfast dishes and sandwiches. Not cheap, but you are paying for quality and for a philosophy of food. I have been there twice and service, while friendly, was leisurely both times.

* ‘Pomo Pizzeria: Authentic, Neapolitan-style pizza. Not as good as Bianco, but better than anything else I’ve had around here. Toppings include a lot of salty cured meats designed (I assume) to keep you drinking … not that there’s anything wrong with that. Full review.

* Grimaldi’s: Local chain, related to the Brooklyn establishment of the same name. Very good (grade 55) thin-crust, coal-fired pizzas, including nut-free pesto, and similarly solid salads in generous portions. Not terribly cost-effective for one person for dinner, although they’ve finally introduced a more affordable lunch menu.

* Distrito: Inside the Saguaro hotel is this cool, upscale Mexican place, an offshoot of the restaurant of the same name in Philadelphia, serving mostly small plates at a slightly high price point but with very high-quality ingredients, including the best huitlacoche dish I’ve had, and an excellent questo fundido with duck barbacoa. I also liked their Sunday brunch … except for the coffee, which was strong and dark enough to dissolve the cup, the table, and the floor en route to causing a singularity and collapsing the entire known universe.

* Searsucker: I’ve had dinner at the San Diego restaurant and have now had lunch at this new location, with nothing but praise for either meal. The lobster roll here is probably the best I’ve had outside of New England, with large chunks of lobster meat and sweet pickled red onions on top, served in a buttery brioche-like roll. The “chocolate bar” dessert is decadent. It’s attached to the Fashion Square Mall, on the north side of Camelback next to Nieman Marcus.

* Los Sombreros: A bit of a drive south of Old Town into the only part of Scottsdale that you might call “sketchy,” Los Sombreros does high-end authentic Mexican at Scottsdale-ish prices but with large portions and very high quality.

* I have yet to try the Brat Haus, an artisan sausage-fries-beer place that is on Scottsdale road but is walkable from the Giants’ park and has 30+ beers on tap. They were at the local food truck festival last month at Salt River, but their selection was minimal and their pretzels, apparently a standby at the restaurant, were really tough.

Scottsdale central/north (Arizona/Colorado):

* Soi4: upscale Thai and Thai-fusion, very close to the park. Owned by the same family that runs Soi4 in Oakland. Full review of my first visit. I’ve gotten pad see ew as a takeout item from here a few times and it was always excellent, full of that crunchy bitter brassica (similar to rapini), and smoking hot.

* Il Bosco: Wood-fired pizzas, cooked around 750 degrees, at a nice midpoint between the ultra-thin almost cracker-like Italian style and the slightly doughier New York style I grew up eating. Their salads are also outstanding and they source a lot of ingredients locally, including olives and EVOO from the Queen Creek Olive Mill. I’ve met the owner and talked to him several times, and he was kind enough to give my daughter a little tour behind the counter and let her pour her own water from their filtration machine, which she loved.

* Wildflower Bread Company: I’d say “think Panera,” but this place is so much better than Panera in every aspect that I hate to even bring that awful chain (which now owns the Paradise Bakery chain) into the discussion. Wildflower is a small chain, but their salads are very fresh and filling, and the sandwiches are solid. There’s also a location in Tempe that’s attached to my favorite local bookstore, Changing Hands.

* True Food Kitchen: I’ve been to a TFK in Newport Beach and enjoyed the menu’s emphasis on fresh produce, not always healthful per se but more like healthful twists on familiar dishes. There are two in the Valley now, one downtown, and one located at the heart of a shopping center on the east side of Scottsdale Road, just north of Greenway and across from the Kierland mall. The same complex includes Tanzy, a Mediterranean (mostly regional Italian) restaurant and cocktail bar that gets strong reviews for its lengthy menu of salads, sandwiches, and pricier dinner entrees.

* Press: In that same shopping center is a small coffee shop where they roast their own beans and will make you a cup of coffee using your method of choice (vacuum, French press, pour-over), as well as the usual run of espresso-based options. There’s apparently also a location at Sky Harbor in Terminal 4 by the B gates (USAirways), although I haven’t visited that one.

* Butterfields: The lines are crazy on the weekends, but if you like a basic diner and want good pancakes or waffles this is one of the better options in the Valley.

* Sweet Republic: I actually find this place to be a little overrated, but if you prefer traditional New York ice cream to gelato or custard, then it’s a good bet, and not far north of the park, just east of the 101 on Shea.

* Perk Eatery: West of Scottsdale road and the Kierland mall, on Greenway, probably stretching the definition of what’s near Salt River Fields, but Phoenix doesn’t have a ton of good breakfast spots and this is one of the few. It’s a diner by another name, open for breakfast and lunch, with a slow-roasted pork option along with the regular array of breakfast meats, and rosemary potatoes that are a must with any egg dish.

Tempe (Angels):

* Hillside Spot, Ahwatukee (Phoenix). My favorite place to eat in the Valley, right off I-10 at the corner of Warner and 48th. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I recommend the pulled pork sandwich, the chilaquiles, the grilled corn appetizer, the house-cut French fries, the pancakes (best in Arizona), and the coffee from Cartel Coffee Lab. The Spot sources as much as they possibly can from local growers or providers, even providing four local beers on tap, and you can get out for under $15 including tax and tip. I’ve written about it more than once; here’s one of my posts, which talks about that pork sandwich. They’ve also added an evening menu called “Cocina 10,” including (on some nights) a really great take on fried fish tacos. For breakfast and lunch they’re outstanding, but I have found dinner service to be a little less consistent – but still usually great.

* Cornish Pasty Company: Just what the name says – large, hearty Cornish pasties with dozens of traditional and non-traditional filling options. I’ve eaten one for lunch and then skipped dinner. Second location in Mesa isn’t too far from the Cubs’ park and is bigger with more parking. Convenient to the A’s ballpark.

* Four Peaks Brewery: One of our best local microbreweries with surprisingly solid food as well. You’ll see their beers all over the place, but the restaurant is absolutely worth hitting. Parking is very difficult on Friday through Sunday nights, though. Also very convenient to the A’s ballpark. Disclaimer: One of their employees is a reader and you’ll see me tweeting back and forth at him (@fourpeaksmike) from time to time, but I’ve received no compensation for this mention.

* angel sweet: Well, not the best gelato I’ve had out here – that honor belongs to Frost in Gilbert – but the second-best, and the one that’s closer to a ballpark. I recommend the super dark chocolate and the coconut, assuming you don’t feel like a nut.

* Cartel Coffee Lab: Among the best coffee roasters in the Valley, and now in an expanded place that doesn’t feel so much like a fly-by-night operation. They’re also in the C wing of Terminal 4 at Phoenix Sky Harbor.

Mesa (Cubs):

* Urban Picnic: In downtown Mesa, south and slightly west of the ballpark, and my favorite spot near the Cubs’ facility. They do a small selection of sandwiches on some of the best crunchy French bread you’ll find out this way, with the Caprese sandwich (fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil) and the roast beef with horseradish my two favorites. I will say that while the lavender lemonade might sound intriguing, it tastes like perfume.

* Chou’s Kitchen: Just over the line in Chandler, at the intersection of Alma School (north-south) and Ray (east-west), this hole-in-the-wall place does dongbei cai, the cuisine of northeastern China – what we used to call Manchuria – which is heavy on dumplings, mostly fried and generally delicious, with large portions designed for sharing and vinegar on the table for dipping. I also love their lao hu cai or “tiger salad,” a vinegary mix of shredded vegetables, scallions, cilantro, jalapenos, and peanuts.

* Pros Ranch Market: A Mexican/Latin American grocery store south of the ballpark (at Stapley and Southern) with a large quick-service department offering some of the best burritos (including, hands-down, the best carnitas) I’ve had in Arizona. The enchiladas are solid, my daughter loves their quesadillas, they make great aguas frescas in eight to twelve flavors, and there’s an extensive selection of Mexican pastries. You can stuff yourself here for under $10. There’s another location near the A’s ballpark in Phoenix as well.

* Thai Spices: In a strip mall of Asian restaurants, Thai Spices is among the best Thai places I’ve found around here, just doing a great job with the basics of Thai (or perhaps Americanized Thai) cuisine. I really loved their soups, both tom yum (clear, sour/spicy soup with lemongrass) and tom ka (sweeter, with coconut milk, and also lemongrass), as well as the green curry.

* my arepa: The weirdest place I’ve eaten out here – it’s actually a Rosati’s Pizza place that also serves authentic Venezuelan food, very cheaply. You’ll feel like you’re eating in the kitchen of a double-wide but the arepas are good and the cachapas are even better.

* Rancho de Tia Rosa: A bit east of the ballpark, Tia Rosa has a large, upscale yet family-friendly Mexican restaurant with a smaller take-out taqueria located on-site as well. I wouldn’t call it high-end, but it’s expensive relative to the typical crappy chain faux-Mex restaurants that seem to be everywhere out here (Macayo’s, Arriba, Garcia’s … avoid all of those).

Phoenix (Oakland):

Everything in Tempe is pretty close to here as well, and you’re not that far from Old Town Scottsdale either.

* Pros Ranch Market: Mentioned above in the Mesa section – from the Oakland park, just hop on the 202 west, get off at 24th, head south (left), right on Roosevelt. Also very close to the west exit from the airport – my old Fall League tradition was to get off the plane and head right here for lunch before going to my first game.

* Honey Bear’s BBQ: Just under the highway when you head west from the ballpark, they offer solid smoked meats but below-average baked beans. There’s not a lot of good Q out here – the best I know of is Bryan’s in Cave Creek, which is a hike from the closest stadium – so Honey Bear’s gets a little overrated.

* Barrio Cafe: About 15 minutes west of Phoenix Muni via the 202/51. Best high-end Mexican food I’ve had out here, edging out Los Sombreros in Scottsdale. Table-side guacamole is very gimmicky (and, per Rick Bayless, suboptimal for flavor development), but the ingredients, including pomegranate arils, are very fresh. Great cochinita pibil too. There’s now a location at Sky Harbor’s Terminal 4, past security near the D gates.

* Pizzeria Bianco: Most convenient to Chase Field. Best pizza I have ever had in the United States. No reservations, closed Sunday-Monday, waits for dinner can run to four hours, but they’re now open for lunch and if you get there before twelve the wait usually isn’t too bad. Parking is validated at the Science Museum garage.

I’ve got more downtown suggestions below, after all of the other ballparks, most of which are better for after a game at Phoenix Muni than before.

Maryvale (Milwaukee):

* Just remember this: Even the Brewers don’t want to be in Maryvale. You don’t either.

(Update: I’ve never been to Tacos Atoyac, just east of I-17 at Glendale and N 19th Ave, but it is rated one of the best taquerias in the Valley and is maybe 15 minutes from the Brewers’ stadium – and it’s not in Maryvale.)

Goodyear (Cincinnati/Cleveland):

* Raul and Theresa’s: Very good, authentic, reasonably priced Mexican food, really fresh, always made to order. The guacamole is outstanding. It’s south of the stadium and doesn’t look like much on the outside, but I would call it a can’t-miss spot if you’re going to a Cincinnati or Cleveland game, since there isn’t much else out here that isn’t a bad chain.

Glendale (Dodgers/White Sox):

* If you’re headed here or even to Goodyear, swing by Tortas Paquime in Avondale. They do traditional Mexican sandwiches, with the torta ahogada – literally a “drowned” sandwich – covered in a slightly spicy red sauce, although that was a little over-the-top heavy for me. Solid aguas frescas here as well.

* Also in Avondale, just across the border from Goodyear, there’s Ground Control, a coffee shop that offers a solid selection of fresh salads and sandwiches as well as house-made gelato.

* You might also try Siam Thai, which is in Glendale on Northern but is at least 15 minutes away from the park, heading east. It is, however, superlative Thai food, perhaps the highest-rated Thai place in the Valley.

* Two places I haven’t tried in Glendale but that come recommended: La Piazza Al Forno, thin-crust, wood-fired pizzas that are reportedly good but not as good as Bianco’s or Cibo’s; and Arrowhead Grill, new American food at a moderate price point.

Peoria:

* It’s a wasteland of chains out here; the best options I know are both very good local chains, Grimaldi’s and Blu Burger. The latter is a family favorite of ours, since there’s something for the picky eaters of the family (hint: not me), and there’s a Blu Burger very close to our house; they offer several kinds of burgers with an impressive list of build-your-own options. My daughter loves their grilled cheese and zucchini fries.

Surprise:

* I’ve got one good rec out this way, the new-ish Vietnamese place Saigon Kitchen up on Bell Road just north of the ballpark. There’s good Vietnamese food to be had out here if you work to find it, and this is the best, especially in presentation – the menu is familiar, the food is a little brighter and fresher, and the place is far more welcoming. I’ve yet to try Amuse Bouche, probably the best-reviewed restaurant in Surprise, which does a more casual sandwich/panini menu at lunch before shifting to fine dining for dinner.

Away from the parks: Downtown Phoenix and Camelback East

* Bianco’s Italian Restaurant: Off route 51, tucked back in a strip mall near a Trader Joes, this is Chris Bianco’s third restaurant in Phoenix, with an emphasis on fresh pastas made in-house from Arizona-grown wheat, including the best bolognese sauce I’ve had in Arizona (and really one of the best I’ve had anywhere). Their farinata, a crispy savory crepe made with chickpea flour, seems to have moved from a regular menu item to an occasional special. One of the owners told me they’re expanding into the neighboring space and installing a pizza oven so they can offer the same produce as Pizzeria Bianco without the insane waits, a project that may already be finished by now – I haven’t been since December.

* The Grind: The best burger I’ve had out here, far superior to the nearby Delux, which is overrated for reasons I don’t quite fathom. (Maybe people just love getting their fries in miniature shopping carts.) The Grind cooks its burgers in a 1000-degree coal oven, so you get an impressive crust on the exterior of the burger even if it’s just rare inside. Their macaroni and cheese got very high marks from my daughter, a fairly tough critic. They have photos of local dignitaries on the wall, including Jan Brewer and Mark Grace, which might cause you to lose your appetite.

* Chelsea’s Kitchen: I’ve only been to the airport location, in the center of Terminal 4 before security, where the food was excellent but the service a little confused. The short rib taco plate would feed two adults – that has to be at least ¾ of a pound of meat. Their kale-quinoa salad sounds disgustingly healthy, but is delicious despite that. Both this and The Grind (and North Fattoria, an Italian restaurant from the Culinary Dropout people) are near Camelback and 40th, about 6 miles/13 minutes west of Scottsdale Stadium.

* crudo: There isn’t much high-end cuisine in Phoenix – I think that’s our one real deficiency – but Chef Cullen Campbell does a pretty good job of filling that void here with a simple menu that has four parts: crudo dishes, raw fish Italian-style, emphasis on tuna; fresh mozzarella dishes, including the ever-popular burrata; small pasta dishes, like last fall’s wonderful squash dumplings with pork belly ragout; and larger entrees, with four to five items in each sections. The desserts, like so many in the Valley, are from Tracy Dempsey, the premier pastry chef in the area. Like the previous two spots, it’s about 12-13 minutes west of the Giants’ ballpark.

* Zinburger: Not the top burger around here but a damn good one, especially the namesake option (red zinfandel-braised onions, Manchego, mayo), along with strong hand-cut fries and above-average milkshakes. Located in a shopping center across the street from the Ritz. Try the salted caramel shake if you go. There are also two locations in Tucson, and two in New Jersey that are licensed but independently owned and operated.

* cibo: Maybe the second-best pizzas in town, with more options than Bianco offers, along with a broad menu of phenomenal salads and antipasti, including cured meats, roasted vegetables, and (when available) a superb burrata.

* Federal Pizza: Rivals cibo for that title of second-best pizzas, including a Brussels sprout pizza that I adored (with lardons of bacon, aged Manchego, and a spritz of lemon), as well as an impressive board of roasted vegetables if you want to add something healthy to the table.

* Pane Bianco: Sandwiches from the Bianco mini-empire, just a few options, served on focaccia made with the same dough used to make the pizzas at Pizzeria Bianco. My one experience here was disappointing, mostly due to the bread being a little dry, but the cult following here is tremendous and I may have just caught them on a bad day.

* Gallo Blanco: Tucked into the Clarendon hotel, this spot, owned by the same group behind the Hillside Spot and the various Bianco restaurants, is my favorite gourmet taco place in the area, even though it’s more upscale and a touch pricier than you’d expect a taco place to be – the target market here is the business crowd, whether at lunch or at happy hour. They make their own tortillas, they offer a solid selection of fillings, and the flavors are all big and bright. And it’s way better than the highly overrated La Condesa, where they spend too much time on their absurd salsa bar while they’re using prefab corn tacos that feel like those rubber pads you use to open the lids on glass jars.

* Matt’s Big Breakfast: Oversight on my part in the original post – one of the top 2-3 breakfast places in the Valley, now with a second location to handle the overflow from the first one (they’re a block or so apart). They do the basics, but they do them extremely well, with high-quality inputs.

* Beckett’s Table: Seasonal American dishes, largely built around comfort foods, with a heavy emphasis on fresh ingredients and one of the best kids’ menus in town.

Other places that I’ve read or heard great things about, but haven’t tried yet, all in Phoenix or Scottsdale unless otherwise noted: Lux, O.H.S.O. Eatery and nanoBrewery, Roaring Fork, Posh, The Herb Box, Litchfield’s (Litchfield Park, just west of Camelback Ranch – fine dining with menu by Chris Bianco).

I’ll update this post with any new places I try over the next two months, and of course, feel free to offer your own suggestions in the comments below.

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→ February 8, 2013
→ By

Lincoln.

One more plug for the top 100 prospects package, which starts with the top 25 players with scouting reports. Thanks to all of you who’ve read, offered feedback, caught typos, or signed up for the first time this week.

—

Lincoln is a fine film about the man we would all like to believe was our 16th President, a hagiography so thorough in its depiction of Lincoln as a latter-day saint that it reminded me of the likely apocryphal story of George M. Cohan’s reaction to the film about his own life, Yankee Doodle Dandy: “It was a good movie. Who was it about?”

I find it hard to imagine that Abraham Lincoln was anywhere near as perfect a man as Steven Spielberg’s movie would have us believe he was. In the film, which largely covers the month of January, 1865, and Lincoln’s efforts to get the wartime House of Representatives to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery in the United States. It’s not the ideal subject matter for a lengthy drama, one that involves a whole lot of talking (in language that feels stilted today and may have even been so for the time) and not much else, nor does such a short period of time and such a binary issue of right and wrong lend itself to a thorough character study. Titling the film The Thirteenth Amendment rather than Lincoln would have been more accurate, although I imagine it would have hurt ticket sales and perhaps even awards buzz.

Daniel Day-Lewis is superb as Lincoln in a performance that has been largely sweeping the major acting awards so far this season, although he may be receiving too much credit for the consistency and power of his portrayal of the man’s bearing and accent, as the character on the screen lacks much depth. The worst thing you can say about this version of Lincoln is that he’s willing to trade a handful of patronage jobs to secure passage of an amendment that would free millions of people from bondage. He is otherwise unflawed, a devoted husband, a pillar of strength in his family and for his country, a tireless leader fully committed to his principles of freedom and some form of equality. Day-Lewis looks the part, and sounds the part, but was the part really as complex as his mantle full of trophies might indicate?

The somewhat two-dimensional nature of Lincoln’s character opens the door for Tommy Lee Jones to steal a few scenes as the cantankerous Representative Thaddeus Stevens, a radical Republican (back when that party stood for something very different) and staunch abolitionist whose speeches in favor of the Amendment are shown as pivotal to its passage. Lincoln may have the best monologues, but Stevens gets the one-liners, and Jones gets to stretch a little more, especially in the range of emotions required for his role. Beyond Jones, the film is packed with white character actors you’ll recognize and spend a few minutes trying to place, including a few veterans of The Wire, as well as a brief appearance by David Oyelowo, who played Danny on the first few seasons of the British series MI-5. These roles seem to be more focused on historical accuracy than depth of character, with the same applying to Sally Field’s nuance-less portrayal of the neurotic Mary Todd Lincoln, a role in which she practically wrings her hands off their wrists.

The story opens in early January of 1865, as Lincoln has just won re-election but, as was true until the passage of the Twentieth Amendment in 1933, must deal with a lame-duck Congress until March 4th, at which point the numbers will shift more strongly in Lincoln’s favor. Lincoln chooses, over the counsel of his tiny Cabinet, to push for passage of the Amendment even though the House had been stalling since the Senate’s passage of it the previous April. Lincoln indicates that he wants to use the threat of passage as a way to force the South’s hand and encourage their surrender, beginning a series of horse-trades and slight deceptions that gradually line up the required votes in the House. The most interesting of these scenes, however, don’t involve Day-Lewis, who is so thoroughly embedded in his depiction of Lincoln that he precludes the potential for balanced dialogue (which may simply be the fault of Tony Kushner’s script) when he’s on the screen.

This shouldn’t really spoil anything in the film, but the amendment does, in fact, pass the House with about fifteen minutes left in the movie, meaning we get the great climax and then a bunch of housecleaning scenes, including the South’s capitulation at Appamattox and, of course, Lincoln’s assassination, shown off-screen and handled in the most perfunctory manner. The film could just as easily ended with Lincoln’s reaction after the climactic vote, but finishing his personal story at the movie’s conclusion felt forced given how little of his personal story appeared elsewhere in the film. It’s not really a biopic, but the story of a specific political endeavor, and tacking on the war’s end and Lincoln’s death was, at best, unnecessary.

Although the script was written and the film completed before the 2012 Presidential election, I thought there might be some faint parallels intentionally built into the movie. We now have a liberal President, entering a second term, pushing issues of freedom – with lower stakes than slavery, but, whether we’re talking about the War on Women or marriage equality, still matters of liberty and equal rights – while trying to wind down not one but two unpopular wars. Lincoln used the political capital of his second term to try to push through a morally justified but not overwhelmingly popular amendment to the constitution. Is Kushner encouraging President Obama to cash in some of his political capital to fight for specific causes, like marriage equality? I concede I may be reading far too much into the film, but the parallels seemed too strong to ignore.

I’ve now seen seven of the nine Best Picture nominees, all but Les Miserables and Amour, and while Lincoln may very well win the award, I couldn’t give you a competent argument that it should. I wouldn’t rate it higher than fourth, behind Zero Dark Thirty, Django Unchained, and Argo, and if you want to tell me it should be behind Life of Pi I won’t fight you on it. Day-Lewis is a lock to win the Best Actor award, but since I’ve only seen one of the other nominees’ performances – Brad Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook – I can’t offer an opinion on that one. Jones shouldn’t beat out Christoph Walz (Django) for Best Supporting Actor, while Field is probably going to be trounced by Anne Hathaway for Best Supporting Actress and would be behind Jacki Weaver (SLP) on my ballot anyway. (All links in this paragraph go to my reviews of those films.)

Lincoln was based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s hefty, critically-acclaimed book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. I’ve got a few long reads on my to-do list already, so I’ll save this for another time.

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→ February 7, 2013
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Top Chef, S10E14.

First, the links to the organizational top tens, with comments, 2013 impact guys, and sleepers.

I also did another Klawchat today, and the Baseball Today podcast finale is up as well. Thanks for listening for the last two years.

—

So Sheldon thinks Stefan was the front-runner until he was eliminated, but I have a hard time thinking Sheldon or anyone really believed that. Brooke has been cleaning up, especially with Kristen gone, and there’s no way the other chefs in the house haven’t noticed that. As the group arrives in Juneau – the only US state capital with no roads leading in/out of town, and the only one to border another country – Sheldon says he should put extra underwear on to “keep the package nice and warm.” Somehow this is less creepy coming from Sheldon than it did from Stefan. Still creepy, just less creepy. Slightly.

* Quickfire: Sean Brock of Husk is in the house! The chefs must cook at Tracy’s King Crab Shack, “Juneau’s #1 culinary destination” according to Padma, who doesn’t strike me as standard crab-shack clientele. The challenge is to create a dish highlighting Alaskan crab. Brock loves it with a little bit of lemon and dipped in butter. He says that’s too boring for Top Chef, but he’s right – good crab needs very little help to taste great. It’s the candy of the animal protein world.

* Lizzie makes a crab frittata with cherry tomato, garlic oil, and fried capers (drained, not soaked, so it came out very briny). I also feel like that’s a little 1970s brunchy for Top Chef. Brooke does a crab toast, trying to be as delicate as possible with the flavor of the meat, and serves it with a compound butter made from dungeness crab and the Alaskan king crab shells. She tops it with a sweet corn and leek salad for what was easily the best-looking of the four dishes. Josh butter-poaches his crab and serves it with bacon and succotash, saying his food is similar to Sean Brock’s. Along those lines, I think my writing is similar to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s. Sheldon makes “miso” with crab innards and two kinds of crab, then uses pine needles to smoke his asparagus. I didn’t realize this was possible, since you can’t smoke using pine wood (or any other softwood) because of resins that can turn toxic when burned.

* Lizzie’s frittata was overcooked and the capers overpowered the crab. Josh served succotash to “a succotash snob,” his bacon overpowered the crab, and the butter sauce broke, after Josh said he thought he had this “in the bag.” Sheldon’s was simple and interesting, per Sean, between the faux-miso and the pine needle-smoking. Brooke’s looked too easy, and Sean says he didn’t want to like it, but it was flat-out delicious. Sheldon wins thanks to his ingenuity and use of the whole crab, grabbing a $5K prize but no immunity.

* Elimination challenge: Cook a dish with salmon and sourdough for guests at the Gold Creek Salmon Bake. Why wasn’t I told about this tradition sooner? /moves to Juneau

* The chefs each get a large tub of a 31-year-old sourdough starter. This reminds me of Gus toting around his ten-year-old sourdough biscuit starter in Lonesome Dove and hating when he has to leave it behind. The chefs make their bread doughs the night before, working them by hand, which is probably bizarre for them since they would all have large Hobart stand mixers in their restaurant kitchens for making large batches. The real problem here, though, is that if you screw this up, there’s no recovery the next morning.

* Looks like they’re doing a warm rise in the kitchen rather than a cold rise overnight in the fridge, which produces more flavor. Or they’re doing two rises and the editing faked me out. It’s not that hard to do that to me.

* Sheldon’s self-description “I’m just a kid that plays the ukulele, came from a small town in Hawaii, started out as a dishwasher.” Also, Scott Brown drives a truck.

* The chefs get their salmon straight off the boat, packed in ice, still intact, with king, sockeye, and chum, at the very least, all available. Given the chefs’ tendency to cook salmon medium-rare if not rare, I’m a little concerned about the anisakis simplex parasite, which loves salmon and can cause some pretty nasty GI reactions as well as triggering anaphylaxis in some people. Other than that, it’s great.

* Sheldon decides to make pea soup for the first time ever even though it’s not his style – why do that? Why take this risk on a dish that, if executed perfectly, will still just be pea soup?

* Josh’s wife is already dilated while he’s working in the kitchen. My wife would have castrated me if I’d tried to travel when she was 8 months pregnant, let alone 9, which she never reached anyway since my daughter came five weeks early. Seriously, though, go home.

* The color of this salmon is absolutely insane – if you like fish, especially cooking it, you’ve got to be going insane with jealousy as you watch this. Lizzie, meanwhile, is doing a beet glaze, which is all about color, not flavor, so she’s going to take this gorgeous red fish and dye it magenta.

* Tom questions Brooke’s decision to poach the fish to order. Searing and holding really risks overcooking it though, and poaching can be quick if you can hold the liquid’s temp. I get this, plus Brooke executes almost every time out. Mostly Tom just likes to freak the front-runners out, I think.

* And we’re at the Gold Creek Salmon Bake. There are bears in the trees. Bears. In the trees. Why is no one concerned about this? Have they never heard of Timothy Treadwell?

* Hugh is back! And Sean sticks around for the elimination challenge, so why is Gail here with four serious chefs (those two, Tom, and Emeril) in the house? (That’s rhetorical, people. I know the answer – both answers, really.)

* To the dishes, starting with Brooke, who does a lightly poached sockeye in seafood broth with mustard-seed caviar and grilled dill sourdough. The broth is really nice with a good amount of acid, although Hugh says the mustard seeds looked weird when they broke down. She nailed the bread, with the dill tying in to the salmon. This reminds me of a place that used to be in central Arlington, Massachusetts, called Blue Plate Express, that did an unbelievable rosemary flatbread, grilled to order. I’ve never had anything quite like it – thicker than a fresh pita, but still clearly a flatbread.

* Sheldon makes a green tea and chive sourdough, then uses both chum and sockeye in his pea soup, which has a king crab, shrimp, and salmon bone base. Padma doesn’t like the green tea and chive together, and Emeril says the bread didn’t have any salt. Everyone says the salmon is too smoky. Sean is offended to see Sheldon mishandle (or manhandle?) the fish with his tongs. He likes the soup, but Hugh thought it was too thick, saying it reminded him of baby food: “Good baby, healthy baby, well-flavored baby.” Hugh, baby food doesn’t actually have babies in it. Some locals are acting like chum is an inferior fish and can’t believe Sheldon used it. Isn’t that the trend now, though – using less-glorified species that are more plentiful or sustainable, just like using the whole animal instead of just certain portions? That’s very much Sheldon’s ethic too.

* Emeril says when Katrina was coming, his chef brought the sourdough home, took it when he evacuated, fed it, and had it ready when they reopened three months later. That’s dedication.

* Josh does a roasted garlic and sourdough soup, sockeye salmon, and black olive croutons. The salmon is well cooked, the soup has a ton of flavor, but the two don’t go together very well, with the garlic overpowering the salmon. I’m just shocked that he didn’t serve it in a bowl made of bacon.

* Lizzie figures that with everyone else doing some kind of soup, she should do something not-soup, instead making sliders on sourdough rolls, with citrus- and beet-glazed salmon sliders with poppy seed butter and red onion and cucumber pickles. The bread is a clear winner, with huge marks from all judges and the locals, but the fish was bland.

* As the judges walk off, apparently into the forest to go foraging, a woman shouts, “Bye Emeril! I love you!” I can just assume they edited out what was hollered at Padma.

* The judging – Lizzie gets big praise for the roll’s crust and for hand-rolling them, and even for nicely cooked salmon, but it just wasn’t seasoned. She writes her own death warrant when she says she didn’t taste it all together, just tasting the components by themselves. I also thought she might have had too much roll vs filling, although if the filling wasn’t seasoned it wouldn’t have mattered. I love fish, but it needs salt just like every other protein does. Sheldon’s bread was just so-so, and the salmon was too smoky, but the fact that he used an ingredient (chum) that the locals typically feed to their dogs may have been his saving grace, even with too much smokiness in the fish itself. They rave about Brooke’s broth more than anything else in her dish. Sean was “crazy about that bread.” Yeast-raised flatbreads are awesome, really. Josh gets big praise from Emeril for bread soup and his use of garlic (shocker); Hugh says the salmon was awesome, but it got lost under the garlic. So Josh executed but the concept wasn’t there. This all seems pretty straightforward so far – Brooke is clearly going to win, and Lizzie or Sheldon will go home.

* Winner, both with judges and “nearly all the locals” the judges spoke with, is Brooke. Green Mountain Coffee is sending her and a guest to Costa Rica. This is her fourth elimination win and sixth win overall. She and Kristen have combined to win (or, in one case, share the crown) eight of the 13 elimination challenges. Besides those two, only Sheldon has multiple elimination wins (2).

* Now the interesting part, the debate over who goes home. Josh had “a balance issue” (per Tom), Lizzie’s was too bland (Tom) and too simple (Sean), while Sheldon didn’t do a great job with either of the key ingredients (Padma). In this discussion, Sheldon comes out the worst, with talk of bitterness in the fish.

* Lizzie ends up eliminated after all. Padma sounds upset as she tells Lizzie to hit the road. Lizzie cooked the least ambitious dish, and then she didn’t taste it, which had to offend the sensibilities of the chefs on the panel. We had a chance for an all-female final with her, Brooke, Kristen, but it wasn’t meant to be.

* Last Chance Kitchen: Both chefs make fish stews. Lizzie’s dish was so good Tom said she would have won the elimination challenge with it, but Kristen wins anyway, of course. Tom took just one bite of Kristen’s and seemed to be laughing to himself over how complex it was. Maybe Lizzie ran into a buzzsaw. I wonder if she’ll win the Save-a-chef contest against CJ now; she’s certainly more likeable and fared better in the main competition.

* New ranking: Kristen, Brooke, Sheldon, Josh. The only elimination that would surprise me next week would be Brooke. Josh seems weaker than Sheldon, but Sheldon’s had execution issues in the last two elimination challenges. Anything other than Kristen vs. Brooke in the finale would be a disappointment, though.

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→ February 5, 2013
→ By

Parker (a.k.a. Flashfire).

The top 100 prospects ranking is out now – you can view the entire list of names or jump right into the top 25 capsules, as well as the ten prospects who just missed the cut. My ranking of all 30 farm systems went up on Monday. I also did a Klawchat today. Wednesday will bring the AL top tens, with the NL on Thursday along with a fresh chat and the finale of the Baseball Today podcast.

—

I’ve mentioned Donald Westlake’s Parker series, written under the pseudonym Richard Stark, twice before, thanks to the series of reissues by the University of Chicago Press and the fact that they keep sending me copies of these books. The latest one to show up in my mailbox was Flashfire, which has been reissued under the title Parker because it’s the loose basis for the movie currently in theaters, starring Jason Statham as the title character and Jennifer Lopez as his romantic foil of sorts.

Based on the Wikipedia description of the film’s plot, it seems like the screenwriters made a number of changes for the worse, attempting to ratchet up both the drama and the romantic tension in ways that violate the spirit of the novel and of the Parker series in general. Westlake’s writing here is sparse, as stark as his pen name implies, a stripped-down version of the more literary noir novels of the Chandler/Hammett cohort, and the plot is straightforward although not exactly simple. The novel begins with a bank heist where Parker is betrayed by his three partners, who keep his share as an “investment” in their next job, a massive jewelry theft planned for Palm Beach. Parker has no choice but to let them leave with his money, instead plotting a slow, thorough revenge on his former mates. The plan ends up intertwining him with a local realtor, Leslie, who starts to figure out that he’s up to something other than just shopping for real estate, which turns out to be critical when Parker is shot by hit men sent after him for reasons not entirely Parker’s fault.

The novel’s main separator for me was the interaction between Parker and Leslie, where Leslie’s interest in him goes from purely opportunistic – he’s her ticket to a better life – to something resembling romantic, while Parker remains all business at all times, and views Leslie as a useful asset but nothing more, even contemplating killing her if she becomes too problematic. The imbalance replaces the generic romantic tension of mass-market detective/mystery novels with a different kind of tension, as two people who need each other try to use each other within the parameters they’ve each set for themselves, one trying not to get too close, the other trying to get just close enough. I’m disappointed to see that the film alters this formula a little bit to try to appeal to a broader audience, which doesn’t seem to have worked anyway; sticking to the book more faithfully might have garnered stronger reviews, bringing in a different but at least more substantial crowd.

The one flaw in the book is Parker surviving the attempt on his life by the hit men due to a highly amusing deus ex machina, a white supremacist militia that might as well have been organized by Joe Arpaio and that happens to be patrolling the area of the Everglades where Parker is shot. For a character who survives and succeeds on his wits in most of the books to live to see another day thanks to a band of idiots happening to be in the right place at the right time is a copout unworthy of the character or of Westlake. Even his decision to get into the car, under duress, with two people likely to try to kill him was questionable; I expected him to make some kind of move rather than submit to near-certain death. I won’t pretend that the Parker novels are great literature, but the plots are always interesting and tightly crafted, so this one plot point was all the more irritating for its relative cheapness. Outside of that, Parker fits the bill for me for plane reading – quick, engrossing, serpentine, yet never pandering or insulting.

Next up: Joe Posnanski’s book on the 1975 Reds, The Machine.

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→ February 2, 2013
→ By

Saturday five, 2/2/13.

As most of you know by now, the ESPN Baseball Today podcast is ending. This Thursday’s episode, February 7th, marks the series finale, and I’ll be on with Eric to talk about my top 100 prospects and to personally strangle every remaining kitten in the studio.

  • The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist. Need I say more?
  • From mental_floss, 50 Collective Nouns to Bolster Your Vocabulary. Most of these have fallen into disuse, but I do have some favorites, like a business of ferrets, an exaltation of larks, a murder of crows, and a chass of Luddites.
  • Guys, sticking your finger in that immersion blender blade’s path while it’s still plugged in is a bad idea, and the New York Times is on it.
  • An amazing and sad story about the late-1970s encounter between Russian geologists and the Siberian family that had had no contact with outsiders for 40 years.
  • Another NYT post, this one on food myths. I include this link not because I agree with it, but because it’s a good example of how the mainstream media often gives you only half the story on food-science questions. She mentions organic farming without discussing its environmental benefits, while hand-waving away the issue of pollutants in farmed salmon.
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