→ August 13, 2008
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Whole Foods’ troubles.

Two articles from the NY Times this month on Whole Foods. One, “Whole Foods Looks for a Fresh Image in Lean Times,” covers the chain’s troubles trying to expand beyond the right-tail portion of the pool of grocery shoppers. There’s an underlying implication that this is due to the stagnating economy this year, but really, this was inevitable. Nearly every high-end brand eventually tries to move downmarket because the high-end market isn’t large enough to sustain the growth rates the company and its shareholders want to see. Whole Foods has been slowly moving left on the income curve through two efforts: one, becoming more competitive on packaged goods that are also available in other chains (like Kashi products, including their TLC Crunchy granola bars, a staple scouting snack for me because they’re delicious and high in fiber); and two, educating more consumers on the benefits of natural and organic foods. The media has helped on the latter front – a case of left-wing media bias of which I actually approve – but Trader Joes, also rapidly expanding, is a serious thorn in Whole Foods’ side on the former front. Indeed, we split our shopping among several stores, and we buy a lot of staple packaged foods at Trader Joes, including olive oil, balsamic vinegar, organic sugar, nuts, dried fruits, jarred artichokes and roasted red peppers, vanilla extract, eating and baking chocolate, and even specialty items like pizza dough and Parmiggiano-Reggiano ($5/pound cheaper than Whole Foods).

The second article, of course, covers Whole Foods’ response to their recent recall of ground beef. I can say with certainty that I bought and consumed ground beef from Whole Foods within the recall time frame, and did not end up in the hospital or with a minor case of food poisoning; I do cook my burgers at least to medium, which helps. More importantly, however, I was unaware that Whole Foods sold any beef that wasn’t ground in the store. The one I frequent most often has little clocks up that indicate when each type of beef (85%, 90%, and 93%) was last ground. Why would I assume that they were buying ground beef made elsewhere? And, as the Times article points out, why on earth are they doing business with a processor with a history of safety issues? I switched all of my beef purchasing to Whole Foods years ago when I learned more about how cows are fed; Whole Foods “guarantees” that all its beef is made from cows fed vegetarian diets. Do I need to question that now as well?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,
→ August 13, 2008
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Trono radio.

I’ll be on the FAN 590 in “Trono” (that’s Toronto for you American types) this afternoon at 2:20 pm.

Filed Under: Appearances
→ August 11, 2008
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Long Beach eats, 2008 edition.

First up, some admin stuff:
* I’ll be on ESPNEWS today at 3:40 pm EDT.
* There will be a chat this week, probably on Thursday.
* I’ve got two blog entries up at the Four-Letter, one on the top prospects from the AFLAC All-American Game and another on the top guys at the Area Code Games.

To the food…

Long Beach was definitely in the house, although I ventured out to the streets of LA for a few meals. Dessert first: Frozen yogurt is all the rage in southern California, and the most popular chain is Pinkberry, so I felt almost obligated to try it so I could make fun of all of the people who consume the stuff. I was, however, unprepared for how absolutely vile the stuff is. The flavor made me feel like I was sitting inside a bottle of white vinegar, licking the sides and inhaling the fumes. Their yogurt comes in three flavors – “original” (vinegar-flavored), green tea, and coffee. It’s all nonfat, which is about the stupidest thing I’ve seen in ages, since the fat in yogurt helps coat the taste buds and mute the yogurt’s acidity. The result of removing the fat is the need to increase the sugar to balance out the acid, and that results in a major glycemic load and a very unsatisfying product. I ate the oreos I’d ordered as a topping and tossed the gunk. Something that looks that much like ice cream shouldn’t taste that much like shit.

Moving along rapidly … I decided to revisit a restaurant I’d tried back in 2006 and didn’t love, because so many readers have told me it’s the best sushi place in this part of greater LA: Koi in Seal Beach. I admit I was wrong about Koi, having complained of bland sushi. I’m guessing it’s a maturing of my taste for sushi, since I’ve gotten to experience some high-quality sushi on my travels and now understand what incredibly fresh sushi tastes and feels like in the mouth. Koi’s is absolutely on par with the freshest sushi I’ve ever had, and the flavors, while not intense, were complex and smooth. I avoided all rolls – not only are they apparently inauthentic, but I feel like they’re a way to use sauces to cover up mediocre fish, and at a place where the fish is really good, you’re just hiding the quality under salt and sugar. I ordered salmon (I recommend it without the ponzu sauce), yellowtail, yellowtail belly (special order), and three items off of the specials board: sea bass (served with salt and lemon juice, so you eat it without any soy sauce at all), bluefin toro, and Japanese red snapper. Everything was delicious, fresh, and soft as butter. On my second visit, I asked the main sushi chef, named Taka, to “surprise me.” He hit me with albacore belly with lemon juice, sea salt, and shaved ginger, which was incredibly soft but had a very slightly fishy taste that I think came not from the fish but from the combination of flavors. It was almost like the faintest taste of a grassy cheese, although I hate to use that term because it makes the fish sound spoiled, which I’m quite sure it wasn’t. Taka surprised me again with sweet shrimp nigiri, the first time I’ve ever eaten raw shellfish. I ate both pieces, because I’m not an ingrate, but had a hard time getting past the knowledge of what I was eating. (If you missed the previous discussion, I avoid raw shellfish because the risk of food-borne illness is particularly high.) I also received the shrimps’ heads, deep-fried, but found them inedible between the tough shell and the weird goo in the middle.

My other sushi experience here, at Haru Haru on the border of Long Beach and Seal Beach, was disappointing; I went there because it was close to the stadium and next to a Trader Joes, so I could eat, get some supplies, and still get back in time for the second game. I asked if there were any special nigiri/sashimi of the day, but there weren’t, and the fish I got was bland and even a little bit tough. It’s not worth the stop so close to Koi, even if Koi is a good bit more expensive.

Tiny Thai in northern Long Beach – north of the airport just off Carson St and Lakewood – served totally nondescript Thai food, although it appears to have a devoted following. I asked the waitress for suggestions; she asked if I liked spicy food and I said not really. (Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. That night, I was not in the mood.) The first thing she suggests is a stir-fry with chicken, beef, or pork in a sauce of chili peppers and basil. The second thing is garlic beef or chicken, which isn’t so much spicy but gave me visions of waking up at 3 am as a fire-breathing member of the allium family. I ordered pad see ew instead – I had an odd craving for broccoli anyway – and it was very ordinary, and the chicken had clearly been cooked in advance, as there’s no way they could have cooked it in the time between my order and its arrival at the table.

Bouchees Bistro on Long Beach Ave is sort of a gourmet food for the masses place, and I was intrigued by the $3-5 sliders they offer, which seems to be a popular option. I went with three – the jumbo lump crab cake, the angus sirloin burger with bacon and spicy aioli (I had them omit the cheese), and the seared ahi tuna with avocado – and started with a house salad with balsamic vinaigrette. The salad was the highlight because it was flawlessly dressed – not a drop too little or too much – and the ingredients (romaine lettuce, cucumber, tomato) were ridiculously fresh. Sometimes I forget how good Californians have it when it comes to produce. Of the sliders, the crab cake was the best – they did not lie about jumbo lump – and the ahi tuna was the worst, with a seared exterior that was already cool when it reached the table and made me wonder if it had been sitting at all. One turnoff: I didn’t eat all of the tomatoes in my salad because I’m not a huge fan, but ate half of them. The waitress who took my salad bowl away said, “Next time, ask to leave the tomatoes off.” I felt like I was being scolded and pointed out to her that I ate some of them, figuring I didn’t need to point out that it was my discretion whether or not I wanted to eat every last freaking bite of my food. She backed off.

I hit two breakfast spots, nothing new. The Coffee Cup is my new favorite spot; I had chorizo and eggs, the combo ($6 for two eggs, two slices of bacon or links of sausage, and two pancakes), and the EMPT with their own honey apple sausage. Everything was good; the sausage was delicious although the casing got a little bit tough in the cooking. I appreciate that they didn’t charge me for the hot water for my tea – I brought my own bags, and some places will charge even if I don’t use their crappy Lipton bags. (The Coffee Cup uses Pickwick, a slightly better food-service option than Lipton but still not great.) The blueberry pancakes (50¢ extra for the berries) were good but had a strong taste of cinnamon that might turn some folks off. Their breakfast potatoes – big chunky home fries – are outstanding, but they do burn the occasional piece. I also love the whole wheat bread they use for toast, and they’re not stingy with the butter.

I had one morning where I stopped at the Long Beach Café because the Coffee Cup was out of my way and I regretted it. The food wasn’t half as good, the “biscuit” was a sorry excuse for a baked good of that name, the eggs were overcooked, and so on.

Two recs from Los Angeles: I met dak and Junior from Fire Joe Morgan at BLD, the name of which is an acronym for the three meals they serve. We were there for dinner, and started with a plate of meats and cheeses that we asked the server (clearly a budding actress) to choose for us, with only the guidance that we disliked particularly pungent cheeses. She did pretty well by all accounts; I wanted no part of the camembert, but the sheep’s milk cheese (I think it was called Midnight Moon) was like a young pecorino romano, the speck (smoked prosciutto) was outstanding, and the spiced marcona almonds, quince paste, and slices of black mission figs on the side were all addictive. For an entrée, I went with the seared cod with spicy avocado cream sauce and sliced fingerling potatoes, all of which was impeccably fresh but disappointingly low-impact in flavor. The dish was just missing its mojo. The two writers paid for dinner for some inexplicable reason, so when dak comes to Massachusetts later this summer, I’m going to reciprocate and take him to McDonald’s. (Ken Tremendous big-leagued me and said he was too busy to show.) Anyway, both dak and Junior liked what they ordered, so I’d call it a hit all around, and even if I didn’t love my dinner I can appreciate the freshness of the ingredients.

Over on S Figueroa north of USC, La Taquiza is my kind of Mexican place: small and authentic, but user-friendly for the non-native. I went with the carnitas tacos – carnitas was the special of the day – and a watermelon agua fresca, which was my reason for going in the first place, as it was mentioned in the LA Times article to which I linked about a month ago. The carnitas were delicious, although the tacos were just fresh tortillas (I watched a woman making them as I waited in line) and meat, with a modest salsa bar available. The agua fresca was good, but not up to Phoenix Ranch Market standards, with a pretty strong lemon flavor but plenty of sweetness to balance it. It was like a watermelon lemonade, shaded a little more towards the watermelon. I’m underselling the place, though – I’d go back and probably be a little more specific on the order.

Filed Under: Appearances, Food Tagged With: , , , , , ,
→ August 5, 2008
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Embers.

I first learned about Sándor Márai’s Embers through this peculiar list of the top ten novels in Eastern European literature (according to Tibor Fischer), part of a long series of literary top tens that the Guardian has run. Márai’s stood out as one that was short, available in English, and Hungarian, a country that has always fascinated me, both before and after my 2003 pilgrimage to Budapest. I bought the book, and then reader Amy asked (randomly) in a recent chat whether I’d heard of the book, a sure sign that it was time to crack it open.

Embers itself is an unbelievably simple and powerful story, with just three main characters, one of whom is dead but who appears in flashbacks. The two living characters, both now in their mid-70s, meet for the first time in forty-one years as the visitor, Konrad, has returned from a self-imposed exile. Henrik, his host and formerly his closest friend, receives Konrad with cold hospitality and a long but spellbinding harangue on their friendship, Konrad’s exile, and the event that triggered Henrik’s flight.

There’s almost no action, and what action there is occurs in cut scenes where we meet Krisztina, the late wife of Henrik, and discover the key differences in Konrad’s and Henrik’s upbringings. Márai replaces action with the gradual unfolding of secrets and the stories that bound the three characters together and then drove them apart. Along the way, Henrik muses (to Konrad) on the nature of anger, betrayal, and vengeance. It’s a deep psychological novel in the tradition of Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, but in a much more manageable package. For those of you still in school, it would lend itself well to an analysis of how Marai uses environmental factors such as light, temperature, and weather to reflect or even set the moods of the book’s various scenes.

To say more of the characters would be to risk spoiling the plot, if I haven’t done too much of that already. If you can stand a book that is all talk and no action, but is gripping all the same, Embers is worth the three or four hours it will take you to tear through it.

Filed Under: Literature Tagged With: , ,
→ August 3, 2008
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Bel Canto.

All the brilliant things we might have done with our lives if only we suspected we knew how.

Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto, winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction and a PEN/Faulkner Award, is a beautifully written, intelligent novel with one of the best-developed character ensembles I have ever found in a work of literature.

Bel Canto is based on the 1997 hostage crisis in Lima, where fourteen members of a fringe guerrilla group invaded the Japanese embassy and held 72 people hostage for four months, at the end of which the Peruvian army stormed the embassy and killed all of the terrorists, with one hostage dying of a heart problem in the assault. Patchett’s version is in an unnamed, poor, Spanish-speaking country, in the Vice-President’s residence, where a party is being held in honor of a Japanese executive, Mr. Hosokawa, who may be about to bring a large capital investment to the country. However, he only agreed to attend the party when the organizers agreed to fly in Roxane Coss, a world-famous opera singer and Hosokawa’s favorite artist.

Patchett tips us off up front that the eventual murder victims will be the terrorists, not the hostages, although of course the characters don’t know that as we follow them through the ordeal. Patchett has created an amazing number of fleshed-out characters, showing skill both at delving into human emotions and at painting characters with the flourishes that give them definition. Once the initial period after the raid has ended, each character, terrorist and hostage alike, finds his or her niche within the makeshift commune, like the Vice President who becomes the housekeeper, or the poor priest with a secret love of opera. (In a flashback scene, Father Arguedas confesses his love of opera to his priest, who responds, “Art is not sin. It’s not always good. But it’s not a sin.” The priest asks Arguedas if he prefers Verdi or Wagner, and when Arguedas responds, “Verdi,” the priest answers, “You are young. Come back and tell me again in twenty years.”) But more impressive is the way Patchett takes the relationships between some of the hostages and some of the terrorists beyond simple Stockholm Syndrome territory, showing how factors such as age, size, gender, and skill define interpersonal relationships and building a web of interactions on that basis.

If there’s a flaw at all in Bel Canto, it’s that Patchett made her terrorists too sympathetic. Most of the rank and file members are just teenagers without ideology, and each of the leaders has some distinct humanizing trait. It’s good writing, but also the book’s biggest departure from reality.

Bel Canto lacks a linear plot, instead telling the stories around the shift from the captor/hostage dynamic to a commune that is so tranquil that some of the hostages find they lose their desire to leave. Whether this is because they’re truly happy or because they’re happy to be escaping from the tedium or stresses of their daily lives is left to the reader to decide.

Next up: I owe you reviews of Embers and the nonfiction book Manhunt, but the next book for me to read is a behemoth, Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.

Filed Under: Literature Tagged With: , , , , , ,
→ August 1, 2008
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Chat today.

I’ve got a chat today at 2 pm EDT over at the Four-Letter.

Filed Under: Chat
→ July 31, 2008
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The Road.

In The Road, the winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Cormac McCarthy tells a story about goodness surviving in the most awful of circumstances, but does it in such a brutal, hopeless way that it’s hard to walk away from the novel feeling good about much of anything.

The Road takes place in a world devastated by a nuclear holocaust. Most of the world’s population appears to be dead, and all animal life is presumed extinct. Nuclear winter is gradually setting in; the sun is barely visible through the permanent cloud of ash and dush, and the temperatures are dropping. The story itself involves a man and his son moving south on The Road to try to get to a warmer climate, struggling to survive along the way, needing food and water while also avoiding the derelicts, bandits, and cannibals – yes, cannibals – who also travel The Road.

If you focus almost entirely on the interactions between the man and his son – identified, in true McCarthy fashion, as the Man and the Boy – you find a powerful and tender portrait of filial love. The Man is motivated to press on in hopeless circumstances because of his love for his son, who was born on the night of the first bombing. The other people remaining in the world are separated in the eyes of the Boy into “the good guys” and “the bad guys,” and while the latter appear to far outnumber the former, there are hints of goodness here and there in their limited encounters with the good guys, and of course, in the sacrifices the Man makes to give the Boy a chance at some kind of life.

It was hard for me to glean those glimpses of goodness or faith in the human spirit among the sheer desolation of the setting and the stark brutality of McCarthy’s view of humanity, which borders on misanthropy, muted only slightly by the glimpses of empathy he slips into the text at the bleakest moments. Yet the most powerful moments in the book are the most depraved and the most disturbing, not the few moments of tenderness of the Man towards the Boy or the one meeting with “the good guys” on the Road. The prose, as it was in Blood Meridian, was amazing, and McCarthy knows how to weave little mysteries into his writing with talk about “the fire,” but again, beautiful writing that looks into the abyss is still, at the end of the day, about the abyss. It’s a brilliant work, and I can see why it won the Pulitzer, but it was an arduous read and one I can’t say I enjoyed.

Next up: I’ve already finished Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto and am most of the way through Sandor Marai’s Embers.

Filed Under: Literature Tagged With: , , , ,
→ July 30, 2008
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Deadline TV and radio.

I’ll keep updating this post as more hits come in.

I’ll be on the Herd this morning at 10:25 EDT (“Spanning the Globe”) and on ESPN 1050 in New York at 11:10 am EDT.

I’m scheduled to be on our deadline special on ESPNEWS on Thursday from 1-3 pm EDT, and then on ESPNEWS’ The Hot List at 4:10 pm EDT. I’ll also be on Pregame (6-8 pm EDT) that evening, but we haven’t fixed a time for the hit yet.

Filed Under: Appearances
→ July 29, 2008
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The Next Food Network Star, final episode.

Well, that was totally predictable. I don’t particularly mind seeing Aaron win, since he was one of three contestants whose shows I might have watched (Adam and Shane were the other two), and I think that what he does poorly (relate to the camera) can be taught, especially if his problem is nerves. The only thing that I dislike about Aaron is his butchering of the language – things like subject-verb agreement are not really optional in my book – but he’s likeable and I’m interested in his food.

If Lisa said “za-ba-YONE” one more time, I was going to punch the television. She referred to it as an Italian sauce, but the Italian word is zabaglione, four syllables with a defined “L” sound in the middle. In Italy, it’s also more likely to be a dessert – it’s egg yolks, sugar, and dry Marsala, whisked to the ribbon stage over simmering water – rather than a savory sauce. The savory version is the French sabayon, without a “z” in sight. If you can’t pronounce it properly, fine, just don’t over-enunciate it every damn time you say it. My wife was watching with me, and when I finally said, “Why the hell is she pronouncing it like that?” my wife’s response was dead-on: “Because she’s a snob.”

Adam was great on camera, as usual, but beer-can chicken isn’t all that special a dish, and it’s a little bit white-trashy. I didn’t walk away from his pilot feeling like there was a real show there. And by the way, McCall was a ringer, right? She talked like she was reading lines off a script.

I wish they’d shown a little more of the behind-the-scenes stuff with Gordon Elliott, either more of the “pitch” meetings or more of the directions he was giving the talent during the tapings. And it’s a pretty bad job by FN to say that Aaron’s show (“Big Daddy’s Kitchen”) will air in one week, when we all know that that final episode was taped ages ago, and when his show is nowhere to be found on any FN schedule. I’d like to at least give one episode a shot, but odds are by the time it comes around I’ll have forgotten all about it.

Unrelated note … my wife also likes the analogous HGTV series Design Star, and I watched their last episode with her on Sunday. (The winner is chosen by audience vote, rather than by judges, so there’s one more episode coming where they announce the winner.) One of the two contestants, Jen, painted horizontal stripes on the wall in two close but not identical shades of beige, and kept calling it an “architectural feature.” I liked the way the walls looked, but what the heck is an architectural feature? Why is that a good thing? You can’t drop jargon into a show aimed at a lay audience. I wouldn’t go on ESPNEWS and start talking about a back-side collapse or a hook or stab without either explaining it further or substituting a more accessible term. I’m not saying Jen shouldn’t win, but I was surprised that none of the judges criticized her for her use of the industry vernacular.

Filed Under: Cooking, Food Tagged With: , ,
→ July 28, 2008
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TV, radio.

I’ll be on ESPNEWS today at 3:40 pm EDT. Unfortunately, they changed my hit time to 3:20 pm but did not tell me about the change until it was too late for me to reach the studio, so no TV for me today.

I’ll also be St. Louis 1380 AM today sometime in the 4 o’clock hour CDT with Bernie and Randy (4:20 or 4:40, probably), and then on the ESPN St. Louis affiliate (1190) on Tuesday at 11:30 am CDT.

I’m also going to tape a segment for the evening show on ESPN 710 in Los Angeles, although I don’t know when it will air within the show.

Filed Under: Appearances