arizona — Page 6

→ March 24, 2018
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 3/24/18.

My column identifying some potential breakout players for 2018 is up for Insiders. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Reiner Knizia’s Sakura, a light, quick-playing game where players all chase the lead ’emperor’ token, but where you can move your opponents as well and try to push them into the emperor, costing them points and sending them to the back of the queue.

Smart Baseball is out in paperback! U.S. Residents can enter a sweepstakes from HarperCollins to win a copy of the book and a phone call with me.

And now, the links…

Former Utah State basketball player Jalen Moore explains in an essay on the Players’ Tribune why he walked away from the NBA to deal with what sounds like crippling panic disorder.
Writing for the New Yorker, Andrew Marantz went inside to see how Reddit is coping with trolls, abuse, and harassment while also considering the need to allow users to express themselves (or else they might not have a business). My personal experiences on Reddit have been largely negative, so while I have an account there, I rarely even open the site.
The Guardian looks at “joint enterprise” laws in the U.K., which led to eleven people earning jail sentences for one murder, even though only one of the eleven actually participated in the killing. The piece argues that the laws’ application particularly targets young black men.
Mari Uyehara writes for GQ about the ‘free speech’ grifters decrying so-called “PC culture” on campuses.
This longread on a snake-oil saleswoman pushing fermented cabbage juice belongs in an April Fool’s joke post.
Here’s an easy tip on how to turn off “platform sharing” on Facebook, now that we all have some evidence that Facebook never bothered to protect users’ data from illicit use.
Brian Wansink, the Cornell food “scientist” who has been repeatedly accused of p-hacking and otherwise manipulating data to produce misleading reports and headlines, appears to have fraudulently accused Joy of Cooking of promoting unhealthy eating.
FEMA ignored requests for fuel from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands after Hurricanes Irma and Maria, so thousands of tons of food went to waste for lack of refrigeration.
The New York Times sent travel writers to five islands devastated by the pair of hurricanes to see how their tourism industries have rebounded, if at all. Most hotels and restaurants have yet to reopen on St. John, St. Martin, and other islands that were hit by both storms.
The newest nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control is a virologist with a long track record of research into HIV and AIDS … and accusations of scientific misconduct as well as support for abstinence-only sex education, writes Ed Yong for the Atlantic. Robert Redfield also has virtually no public health experience, unprecedented for a CDC director.
The San Luis Obispo Tribune investigates the death in police custody of a schizophrenic man who was restrained, tortured, and who then died while officers watched. An FBI investigation appears to be ongoing.
Will Leitch looks back at baseball’s “tepid” offseason for New York and asks if we’re leaded for labor strife after 2021.
Former Congressman Joe Walsh, now a conservative talk radio host/provocateur, has become one of Trump’s most vocal critics from the hard right. Walsh has defended the Mueller investigation, argued against selling the 2017 tax bill to voters (saying it won’t have any impact for most people), and criticized Trump’s attacks on the press.
Pennsylvania Republicans are trying to impeach the state’s Supreme Court in retaliation for the latter’s ruling against the GOP’s gerrymandering the state’s Congressional districts. I feel like PA residents should send diapers to these clowns’ offices. Pennsylvania had repeatedly shown up in analyses of the most gerrymandered states, as the Republican Party there split up the heavily Democratic southeastern portion of the state to tilt those seats to themselves.
Michigan State Senator and now Republican gubernatorial candidate Patrick Corbeck is a pseudoscience-spouting loon, a creationist anti-vaxxer who is now touting baseless conspiracy theories about electromagnetic radiation.
Harvard Professor Jorge Dominguez, accused by ten women of sexual harassment who also say the school knew about Dominguez’s transgressions and did little or nothing, is retiring, although the investigation continues. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
An Alabama sheriff *legally* siphoned off $750,000 in public money meant to feed prisoners in his jurisdiction and used it to buy a beach house – and then he retaliated against the source behind a local newspaper’s investigation. Maybe this is just me, but I think any locale where this is legal and supported would qualify as a “shithole.”
I’ve criticized Arizona’s government many times for its general lack of urgency on issues related to the environment, including water usage and climate change, but the state’s utility regulatory commission did something very good, demanding that utility APS stop new natural gas projects and boost renewable energy sources. The commission, which comprises five Republicans, has long been a mere rubber-stamp group for the companies it regulates. The state is now in a drought that has been going on since 1996.
France is experiencing an uptick in measles again, yet more damage wrought by Andrew Wakefield’s debunked, fraudulent paper and the various idiots who still think vaccines cause autism. France made MMR vaccination for infants mandatory as of January 1st, so let’s hope that puts an end to this outbreak.
The House passed “right to try” legislation this week, even though it’s not going to help anyone and may just spread false hope while reducing patient access to these drugs through existing, more realistic programs.
The open-access journal Scientific Reports, published by the same group behind Nature, finally retracted a paper nearly two years after they learned parts of it were plagiarized — and after a dozen of its board members resigned in protest that it wasn’t retracted a year ago.
Biohacking is bullshit and probably dangerous too.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker lost a lawsuit over his refusal to call special elections to fill vacated legislature seats in his state, a policy that would have left some residents without representation in at least one body for over a year.
Georgia Republicans are pushing a bill to restrict voting hours in heavily Democratic Atlanta. I assume next they’ll introduce literacy tests and a poll tax.
Opponents of abortion rights like to claim that the procedure is dangerous so they can pass laws that require doctors who provide abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital or even to perform the procedures at hospitals or surgical centers. Five states require doctors to contradict known science and tell women there’s a link between breast cancer and abortions. (There isn’t, in case that wasn’t clear.) A new study finds that abortion in the United States is safe, which underscores that these laws are about religion, not about protecting women.
I just discovered that Elena Ferrante, the pseudonymous Italian author behind the bestselling Neapolitan Quartet, writes a weekly column for the Guardian. Her latest entry argues that everything in women’s lives has been “codified by male needs.”
No, there was not a Ku Klux Klan rally at the 1924 Democratic Convention. That didn’t stop people from spreading the lie on social media – or Breitbart from repeating it.
Gateway Pundit, another far-right blog – with White House press credentials – repeated a different lie, this one libeling the Democratic Sheriff Scott Israel of Broward County after the Parkland massacre.
If you own a VR device like Oculus Rift, you can now play the board game Catan on the platform. I tried a beta version back in November and it was novel, but still the same game.
Please enjoy this delightful Miyazaki-inspired tourism ad for the lovely state of Oregon:

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: anxiety, arizona, baseball, guns, harvard, links, longreads, pseudoscience, stick to baseball, vaccines

→ March 17, 2018
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 3/17/18.

My biggest news this week is that Smart Baseball is now out in paperback. This edition has a new afterword covering a few new developments from the 2017 season.

For Insiders this week, I had three posts from the Cactus League, covering:
• Hunter Greene & prospects from four orgs (CIN, LAD, CWS, LAA)
• Chris Paddack, Adrian Morejon, and other Padres & Rockies prospects
• Mackenzie Gore and even more Padres prospects.

I also wrote about the Jake Arrieta contract. Due to spring travel, the next chat may not be until April, unless I get a rainout on the road somewhere.

Here on the dish, I wrote up a slew of new restaurants I tried in Arizona this month.

And now, the links…

One true longread this week: Jane Meyer profiles Christopher Steele of ‘Steele dossier’ fame for the New Yorker, which, in particular, shows the absurd, counterfactual lengths to which the President’s sycophants will go to defend him.
The Guardian has revealed how Cambridge Analytica used Facebook profile data on 50 million users, without authorization, to help Trump’s election campaign in 2016.
Meanwhile, the Administration is pushing new voter suppression efforts, like dispatching Secret Service agents to polling stations; fortunately Maryland is already considering legislation to combat such efforts.
This extremely candid interview with former ESPN President John Skipper was illuminating, and also explains why he quit so abruptly, just days after an all-hands meeting where he explained his strategy for the company going forward.
The Iowa GOP is hard at work trying to rig upcoming elections, through such means as putting the Republican candidate first on nearly all ballots in the state. Richard Thaler wrote in Nudge that the candidate listed first gets a 3.5% bump in votes, more if the candidates are generally not well known (e.g., there’s no incumbent).
The Justice Department is fighting for an anti-vaxxer parent in Wisconsin under the bullshit guise of “religious freedom.” The plaintiff was a nurse in a nursing home and refused to get the flu shot mandated by her employers, who fired her, because she’s a fucking idiot. I don’t think that goes far enough: You should lose any medical license you hold if you decline to get vaccinations mandatory in your profession.
The GOP tax bill, or “tax scam” depending on your perspective, was not really tax reform (which I favor), but just shifted around a bunch of giveaways to corporations. The Center for Public Integrity broke down the corporate welfare, including tax breaks for craft beverage makers, a rum tax that benefits distillers on Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, tax credits for mining operations on Native American reservations, and a faster depreciation schedule for people who own racehorses.
Matthew Yglesias examines the truth about public and campus support for free speech in the face of anecdotal claims that ‘political correctness’ is threatening it.
A disabled writer explains what the elegies to Stephen Hawking got wrong about the astrophysicist’s disability. Also, the death of a great scientist was a perfect time for a Republican Texas state rep to show his ass.
Is Russia fomenting anti-GMO sentiment online? One study looking at online coverage of the topic found Russian sites would slip anti-GMO content even into unrelated articles. GMO foods are safe, and public bias against them, which is rising, isn’t based on any actual science.
The Oath Keepers are a white, anti-government, extremist group that has, among other things, shown up unbidden to protect white businesses during the Ferguson riots or to ‘guard’ schools in the wake of shootings. Their founder stands accused of beating his wife and trying to choke his daughter, in a request his wife filed for a restraining order as she seeks a divorce.
The Guardian explores the questions and evidence around vitamin D’s role in health, including mixed signals on supplements and the difficulty of getting enough in plant-centric diets.
Climate change is very real, but FEMA has dropped the term from its strategic plans.
Arizona will hold a special election in April to fill the seat vacated by Trent Franks; it’s expected to go to Republican candidate Debbie Lesko, given how red the district is, even though Lesko denies climate change and blames it on the sun. Her opponent, Dr. Hiral Tipirneni, accepts the science on climate change and advocates increased solar and wind power in the state.
A new study by researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that people who believe the untruth that the MMR vaccine causes autism were then less likely to accept a hypothetical vaccine against Zika.
Our diets have shaped how our species has evolved, with adaptations like lactose tolerance and lighter skin arising in response to what we eat.
Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald caught up with former Red Sox prospet Ryan Westmoreland, whose promising career was cut short by a cavernous malformation in his brain. He just had his 16th surgery related to the issue on Monday.
My daughter and I both loved this photo essay from the BBC on the abandoned Ross Island in the Indian Ocean, which nature is slowly taking back, as it does.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: arizona, climate change, evolution, links, stick to baseball, vaccines, voter suppression

→ March 16, 2018
→ By keith

Arizona eats, 2018 edition.

I’m just heading home now from an eight-night trip to Arizona, briefly interrupted by my trip to San Francisco to Twitter HQ for the release of Smart Baseball in paperback, and since I was solo this trip I tried more new restaurants than I usually do in spring training, with several I can strongly recommend.

Ocotillo has been on my to-do list in Phoenix for probably two years now, but it’s so popular and distant enough from the AFL parks that it had to be a spring training option. It turned out to be well worth the wait, boasting a broad menu that offered plenty of diverse options and still had some excellent, hand-crafted items. I had the duck confit salad as a starter and a pappardelle with chicken ragout, both of which were good enough that I’d like to go eat them again. The salad comes with an entire leg that has been confited and I believe quick-fried to get the skin extremely crispy, and that’s served over baby lettuces, arugula, shaved fennel, candied almonds, and a citrus vinaigrette. The pappardelle – the menu says “duck egg papparedelle,” as if I’d know the difference – was well cooked, maybe a shade past al dente, with a tomato-based ragout that had white and dark chicken in it and a bright flavor like that of a vodka sauce. The only dish that anyone had that wasn’t a hit was the Brussels sprouts starter, as they were totally undercooked. The space is huge, but there was still a wait on Friday night if you didn’t have a reservation.

Taco Chelo just opened officially on March 9th, although I believe they had a soft open prior to that, and the new counter-service taco-and-drinks joint from Aaron Chamberlain (St. Francis, Phoenix Public Market) is both excellent and a good value. They offer five different taco options – vegetable, fried fish, carnitas, barbacoa, and carne asada – plus several starters, including a pinto bean dish I strongly recommend and chicharrones that could feed an army. They also offer little quesadillas for a few bucks each, and even though that’s not really my thing (I don’t eat much cows-milk cheese), this was outstanding, especially because the tortilla was thicker than what you’d normally get, giving the resulting sandwich (yes, a quesadilla is a sandwich, don’t @ me) more tooth. They also offer a few margaritas, a Paloma (tequila and grapefruit soda), and a few beers. You could easily get dinner and one drink for under $20 here.

Eric Longenhagen introduced me to the Arab market and restaurant Haji Baba, not too far east of Tempe Diablo, an unassuming and very reasonably priced restaurant serving Middle Eastern staples, including chicken shawarma, beef kofta, and lamb gyros. I got the shawarma, which came with hummus, basmati rice, tabbouleh salad, and Arabic bread (I would have called it a pita). The chicken was a little lean but very garlicky – that’s a compliment – and the bread and hummus were both plus. Tabbouleh just isn’t my jam, though; that’s a big pile of parsley, and as Thag could tell you, parsley is just for looks.

Pa’la is the new place from Claudio Urciuoli, formerly of Noble Eatery, as he’s taken his love of wood-fired cooking to another small place that serves incredible grain bowls, a flatbread option that changes daily, and a half-dozen or so small plates from cuisines around the Mediterranean. The grain bowl is just fantastic, and I say that as someone who doesn’t necessarily love that particular craze. It has a mixture of five grains, toasted seeds (sesame, pumpkin, sunflower), roasted vegetables (mine had mostly beets, which I love), olive oil, and vinegar, and is topped with grilled shrimp or halibut. Grain bowls often taste kind of flat and cardboardy, but this one was bright, flavorful, and very satisfying even though it seems light. The contents of the bowl will change with the season, as will the rest of the menu. It’s very much worth going out of your way to find this place, especially if you’re traveling and tired of one meal after another centered around heavy meat dishes.

Barrio Café Gran Reserva is a high-end offering from Chef Silvana Salcido Esparza of Barrio Café (and formerly of Barrio Queen, although she’s no longer involved with that project), offering a five-course tasting menu for $49 per person as well as several a la carte items. It just reopened in the fall after closing for a few months for a “retooling,” and I think they might still need to refine their product, which has a lot of great ideas but very inconsistent execution. The duck taco, for example, was both overcooked and lukewarm when it reached the table, while the halibut was perfect on the inside but overcooked at the edges. The chocolate mousse was by far the best part of the meal, only approached by the amuse bouche that started the evening of muscat-macerated watermelon and a dollop of goat cheese mousse.

New Wave Market is a breakfast/lunch café in Old Town Scottsdale, a new offering from the folks behind the Super Chunk bakery, serving, as you might expect, baked goods, along with some egg dishes, a ‘bagel bar,’ and a Hawai’ian bread French toast for breakfast and coffee from Chandler-based Peixoto. Most of my favorite breakfast spots in the Valley are down towards Tempe/Ahwatukee, which is also where I like to stay, so I’ve lacked recommendations for folks staying in Scottsdale. NWM isn’t up to the standard of those other restaurants (listed below), but it’s a better choice than the chain options in Old Town.

A reader of mine is one of the partners in the brand-new Starlite BBQ, located just east of Old Town in a strip mall along Indian School Road. It’s a sit-down Q joint, like Famous Dave’s but with food that’s actually good. (I have eaten in a Famous Dave’s twice, both times over ten years ago, and both times it made me horribly sick.) I went with Eric and Arizona institution Bill Mitchell, a photographer who also writes some prospect lists for BA, and is as food-obsessed as I am. We ordered a lot of food, and a few extras came from the kitchen, but we agreed the biggest hits were the warm cornbread in a cast iron skillet, the hot fried chicken (which was spicy but very tolerable), the crispy potatoes (baked and then flash fried), the braised collard greens with tomatoes, and the “brontosaurus rib,” a full short rib that is smoked and then grilled to crisp up the exterior. The only item I think we didn’t care for was the smoked brisket, which didn’t have a lot of flavor on its own, in part because the slab we got was too lean, but overall it just didn’t have much smoke flavor to it. Eric and Bill both liked the shrimp and cheese grits, but I skipped the latter part of that. The meat portions are large – the chicken, for example, is half a broiler-fryer, and the brontosaurus rib is quite big given how fatty short rib is – so I’d say order conservatively on the meat and then go heavy on sides.

Roland’s Market isn’t quite open yet, but they expect to open their doors officially in mid-April, possibly with a soft open before that. The new collaboration between Chris Bianco of his namesake Pizzeria and Nadia Holguin and Armando Hernandez of Tacos Chiwas (which I still strongly recommend) will be open from breakfast until late night, with a menu during the day that will combine some elements of each side’s cuisines. I had the chance to sample some of their breakfast offerings, which include breakfast sandwiches served on Bianco’s bread, with fillings like a frittata with carne seca or one with red peppers and onions, both served with an arbol sauce; an asparagus frittata (since that’s in season now) served with a salsa roja; a stack of thick house-made corn tortillas with asadero cheese, smothered in chile Colorado, and topped with a sunny egg; and a French toast-like dish with house-made bread sandwiched around Nutella and served with fresh fruit, no syrup needed. They plan to make their own flour tortillas in-house, as Chiwas does, and the late-night menu will feature Chiwas’ tacos. The space, in a building that was first built in 1917, will have seating for patrons who will be dining in, a large bar area, and a quick-service counter at the front with an espresso bar and pastries.

I also hit a number of old standbys, including The Hillside Spot, Crepe Bar (now using local Provisions Coffee for their espresso), Matt’s Big Breakfast, FnB (still the best restaurant in the Valley IMO), Pizzeria Bianco, Frost, Cartel Coffee, Press Coffee (now open on Apache in Tempe/Mesa, serving food as well), and Giant Coffee (which seems to have dropped Four Barrel?). I didn’t get to Gallo Blanco, an old favorite that has reopened after a two-year-plus absence because its old building was torn down, but friends of mine out there say it’s as good as it used to be.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: arab cuisine, arizona, bbq, breakfast, mexican cuisine, phoenix, scottsdale, tempe

→ January 27, 2018
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 1/27/18.

My annual prospects package began this week, with about half of it running already and the rest to come next week:

• The top 100 prospects in baseball, split into two parts: numbers 1 through 50 and numbers 51 through 100
• A list of ten guys who just missed the top 100
• My ranking of all 30 farm systems (prior to the Yelich trade)
• My thoughts on the Christian Yelich trade, focusing on the prospects the Marlins got back

I also held a prospect-focused Klawchat on Thursday, answering about 150 questions. The team-by-team org reports will start to run on Monday, beginning with the NL East.

Over at Paste I reviewed Wasteland Express Delivery Service, which made my top ten games of 2017 list but hadn’t gotten the full breakdown.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: Think Progress looks at Louise Mensch, Eric Garland, Seth Abramson, and other anti-Trump conspiracy theorists whose claims and prognostications have repeatedly been proven wrong.
ProPublica found that the Red Cross fired an exec for sexual harassment but helped him land a job at Save the Children. Do not give your money to the Red Cross the next time there’s a disaster, even if it’s as easy as texting a word. They won’t account for how they use funds, and this is just more icing on that cake.
Cambodian dictator Hun Sen is using Facebook to push fake news while he jails critics, including an extensive effort to game Facebook’s algorithms so sites favorable to him dominate the news feed.
The Guardian examines new technologies to help those who lose the ability to speak, including one Boston-based firm that records a person’s voice (such as prior to surgery that affects speech) to help recreate it digitally. So much of our identities are tied up things we think about every day – your hair color, your complexion, your height and weight – but your voice is probably not something you’ve considered because you expect to always have it.
Vanity Fair weighs in on the potential regulatory disaster facing Facebook as its power continues to grow … and some people opt out of one or more social media services. The Economist looks at the question from the regulators’ side, arguing that Facebook and Google resemble trusts and the law must adapt to this new environment (subscription required).
A proposed HHS regulation would allow doctors to hide behind religious beliefs when declining to treat patients because they’re transgender or need an abortion or any other cockamamie reason. You have a right to worship as you please; you do not have the right to refuse to serve a customer on that basis. This should be even more true for first responders, doctors, and nurses.
WIRED looks at Google’s internal battle over diversity, including attacks on trans & queer employees, as well as attempts to harm the careers of people who speak out in favor of diversity and/or against the kind of insidious bigotry in fired engineer James Damore’s memo.
The neo-Nazi behind the Daily Stormer site is trying to skate on charges of organizing threats against a Jewish woman in Monday by using Holocaust denialism as his defense.
David French writes in the National Review how Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr. has beclowned himself with his tortuous, hypocritical defenses of Trump’s behavior.
Why is ICE asking people to prove their citizenship at a Bangor, Maine, bus station? Because they’re allowed to do so within 100 miles of any of our national borders. The ACLU is investigating. If you’re not at a border crossing, you do not have to disclose your citizenship or immigration status.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is defying state law by refusing to call for special elections to fill vacant seats in the state’s legislature. The people in these districts should be out in the streets demanding such elections, as they will otherwise be without representation until January 2019.
That’s not all Wisconsin Republicans are doing to try to cling to power; they’ve gerrymandered the state and passed laws to restrict voting rights, part of what Rolling Stone‘s Ari Berman calls a nationwide party attempt to rig elections (another longread). And ThinkProgress also uses the r-word in describing Trump & the GOP’s plan to make Congress whiter even as the population becomes less so.
Common Cause has filed a complaint alleging that hush money paid to Stormy Daniels violated campaign finance laws.
Northampton County, Pennsylvania, flipped to red in the 2016 Presidential election, and despite job losses in the area and no evidence of economic growth, most voters there still seem to support him, according to this Guardian piece.
Arizona voters in Trent Franks’ district will get one of these winners as the Republican candidate to replace him (video). The very first candidate to speak opens his remarks by bragging about his A+ rating from the Russian-funded NRA and saying teachers should carry weapons in schools, even though the question had nothing to do with school shootings; around 5:42, all five candidates say they don’t believe in human-caused climate change, with one dingbat blaming the sun and another moron saying the cold winter in the east (BTW, it’s 55 here today) disproves it. The primary for the special election will take place on February 27th, and the special election itself will occur on April 24th.
Despite a growing body of evidence that marijuana, or at least something in marijuana, may be useful in treating symptoms of PTSD, the VA is refusing to study any of this because of some reefer madness bullshit.
Missouri Senate candidate Courtland Sykes said women’s rights were nothing this week in a rant about how feminists have “snake-filled heads” and that he expects his girlfriend to have dinner ready for him every night. Did I forget to include his party affiliation?
Scientists from around the world collaborated on a paper that proposes redefining how research papers measure statistical significance, a response to another paper that argued for lowering the P-value required to use that term.
Jon Heyman wrote about how the Expos found the prospect Vlad Guerrero, talking to the scout who signed him off a brief tryout for a bonus of less than $10,000.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: arizona, baseball, first amendment, links, science, social media, stick to baseball, the swamp

→ April 15, 2017
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 4/15/17.

I updated my ranking of the top 50 prospects in the minors this week; there’s minimal reranking in there, just status notes on players, with guys moving up to replace those already in the majors. (Jesse Winker was promoted after the piece ran.) I wrote a long draft blog post on Hunter Greene, Brian McKay, and other draft prospects I’ve seen so far. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

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

And now, the links…

The one great longread I saw this week was from Backchannel on what’s happened to Google Books, the tech giant’s stated effort to scan every book, ever, to make them all searchable. I’ve used this feature quite a few times, including during the research for Smart Baseball, where I could search for certain terms or keywords in books I couldn’t get my hands on.
California passed a tougher law on childhood vaccinations, and, lo and behold, inoculation rates went up about 3 percentage points.
The handful of loonies who opposed the law largely claimed “parental choice” as a reason why they should be allowed to deny their children a safe, effective treatment that can prevent debilitating and sometimes fatal diseases. It’s a terrible argument, because those “choices” affect everyone, not just your children. (Also, that choice isn’t for you – it’s for your child, who can’t choose for him/herself, and depends on you to take care of his/her medical needs.)
If you’ve seen a vaccine denier point to measles outbreaks in China as evidence the MMR vaccine doesn’t work, well, the outbreaks occurred among unvaccinated groups. Facts may not carry the day with deniers, but it is on the rational among us to make sure the truth is still out there for people who might be on the fence.
A Utah judge praised a convicted sexual abuser during sentencing, with at least one of the victims present. This kind of behavior will only discourage victims from coming forward in the future. Utah judges may be removed from the bench via a judicial conduct commission censure or a 2/3 vote of the legislature, so if you live in that state, get on the phone.
I think my new least favorite food buzzword is “clean.” Panera, which is a decent chain choice if you want something vegetarian while traveling, claims its food is 100% “clean,” which means absolutely nothing unless previously they were rolling their bread dough out on the floor. It’s also a buzzword for people who eat weird, ultra-restricted diets that probably don’t provide enough nutrition because so-called “clean eaters” often skip dairy or wheat, foods that are often demonized without scientific basis. I’ll keep eatin’ dirty, thanks.
Dr. David Dao, the passenger beaten and dragged off a United flight last week, has filed court papers in preparation for a lawsuit and compared his treatment to what he experienced while fighting in the Vietnam War. Tim Wu of the New Yorker wrote about why he stopped flying United after it merged with Continental. Deadspin’s Albert Burneko discussed the absurdity of backing the corporation in such cases.
An American doctor has been charged with mutilating the genitalia of two girls under the age of 10, a barbaric practice common in eastern African countries and in Indonesia known as female genital mutilation.
New Mexico has banned “lunch shaming,” the cruel practice of embarrassing children whose parents have unpaid school meal debts.
I listened to the entire seven episodes of the podcast S-Town, and I’m not sure if I think the time was well spent. Did I really get anything out of it? Was John B. McLemore, who was most likely a manic depressive on top of the later medical issues revealed in the final episode, someone worthy of a seven-hour biography? The Atlantic also asks about the ethics of revealing so much of his life after his death, and the details of other characters in the play. The Guardian went to Woodstock, Alabama, to interview the locals about their sudden bit of fame, and most didn’t seem to mind the portrayals.
I was apparently behind the times, as I was unfamiliar with the Twitter replies-to-retweets ratio until this past week.
Paul Krugman wrote that publicity stunts aren’t policy and then Trump ordered (or simply handwaved along) the dropping of the ‘mother of all bombs’ on Afghanistan. It’s working, though: Compare media coverage of the Russian connection, or of GOP rollbacks of Obama policies, to coverage of the Syria and Afghanistan bombings and now our taunting of North Korea. (For what it’s worth, the North Korean government has always been the one that worried me, because it’s essentially sociopathy in government form, and they’re well-funded enough to do mass damage to someone, South Korea or Japan or us. But I would prefer to see a long-term policy solution to the issue, not threatening to Pyongyang to wag the dog.)
There can be no beatings and imprisoning of gays in Chechnya because there are no gays in Chechnya, say Chechnyan authorities. This Guardian report says otherwise.
I enjoyed this interview with Dana Cree, pastry chef for Chicago’s Publican restaurant group and author of the new cookbook Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream: The Art and Science of the Scoop. Within the Q&A she discusses which ingredients serve as stabilizers to minimize the size of ice crystals in ice cream, providing a smoother texture. I personally do not like the eggless ice cream known as Philadelphia-style, which is just dairy, sugar, and flavors, for that very reason. I prefer frozen custard, sometimes called New York ice cream, which includes egg yolks – often a lot – and less butterfat, because the yolks contain lecithin, which emulsifies the fat and the water in the base and thus prevents large crystals from forming. Lecithin can break down at subzero temperatures, however, so vegetable gums may be better if you’re going super-cold, if you can’t eat eggs, or if you don’t want that slight eggnog note in a delicate flavor like vanilla bean.
The first part of this NPR Fresh Air interview with author David Owen, about the Colorado River, is interesting and particularly relevant to me, because one of the main reasons I did not want to remain a long-term resident of Arizona was that the state has no strategy for dealing with the coming water crisis in the region. The Colorado River is overtaxed, badly, and Arizona’s idea of coping is storing a few years of water in underground reserves. He has a new book out on the topic, Where the Water Goes, and discusses some of it in the Q&A. Then he talks about golfing with Donald Trump and I moved on with my life.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: arizona, environment, food science, ice cream, links, stick to baseball, vaccines

→ February 25, 2017
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 2/25/17.

I wrote one Insider piece this week, on how the Mets should handle their rotation, with six capable major-league starters right now, but five of them coming off of some kind of injury last year, from Thor’s bone spurs to Harvey’s TOS repair surgery. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

My latest boardgame review for Paste covers the worker-placement game Ulm, which works fine mechanically but has a theme that’s just so overdone for me.

You can preorder my upcoming book, Smart Baseball, on amazon, or from other sites via the Harper-Collins page for the book. The book just got its first official positive review, from Kirkus Reviews.

Also, please sign up for my more-or-less weekly email newsletter.

And now, the links…

An oral history of Homestar Runner? An oral history of Homestar Runner! Thanks to my longtime friend Pete for finding this Q&A with the Brothers Chaps.
NPR’s Linda Holmes disagrees with me, saying this season of Top Chef has been especially satisfying. Link doesn’t contain any spoilers for this most recent episode.
Is I Am Not Your Negro the the target of racist vote brigading on user-generated ratings sites like IMDB? I think the answer is pretty obvious given how hard it is to see that movie in theaters.
This September 2015 article gives some background on the making of the Oscar-nominated film Tanna, one of my top ten films of last year.
My former home state of Arizona has decided the First Amendment rights to freedom of assembly and speech are no longer valid, as the state Senate has voted for a bill that criminalizes peaceful protests if those protests eventually turn violent. It’s based on a false premise of paid protesters, but really, it’s a sign that the state is run by white-nationalist extremists, as it was when I lived there.
A Muslim woman who worked for the National Security Council quit after eight days in the Trump White House. A ten-year CIA analyst and NSC spokesman quit after less than a month under the Trump Administration. Neither could stand working for this anti-democratic regime.
The “Blacks for Trump” guy behind the President at various rallies is a former member of a murderous cult with a more recent history of gay-bashing commentary.
A good first-person longread from Pacific Standard‘s Laurie Penny, who spent time on the Milo Yiannopoulos tour bus with the clueless alt-right kids who followed him.
The House Judiciary Committee’s Republican majority plans to bury the Democrats’ resolution to force Trump to reveal his entanglements with Russia, including any conflicts of interest. That Committee includes some of the worst humans in Congress, including outright racist Steve King of Iowa and anti-science Science Committee head Lamar Smith. Check and see if your representative is on the committee and perhaps make a call on Monday about this resolution.
The vaccine-denial movement in Texas has been energized by the election of Trump and other anti-science politicians. Every day I hear political news out of that state, I’m glad I didn’t take a job I was offered there a few years ago.
A math professor at Tufts is trying to fight gerrymandering by arming mathematicians to testify against it, using geometry as the alternative.
I’ve mentioned Universal Basic Income here before, but Finland’s experiment with giving UBI to 2000 citizens is the first I’ve seen of a real-world implementation.
Most of you saw this, I assume, but I’ll pass it on just in case: Hall of Famer Mike Piazza now owns a professional soccer team in Italy, in the region where Parmiggiano-Reggiano is made.
Fortune looks at the search for the perfect sugar substitute, and why artificial sweeteners, sugar alcohols, and stevia have all fallen short.
Speaking of sweeteners, here’s Stella Parks of Serious Eats on why you shouldn’t buy blackstrap molasses unless the recipe specifically calls for it.
If you want a preview of what’s in store for us, Zimbabwe’s longtime dictator Robert Mugabe is now 92, and his wife said when he dies his corpse would still win re-election.
I can’t even do “tweet of the week” any more because there are too many good ones, but this was the one I saved to include here:

I wish i could credit the artist on this. pic.twitter.com/Ao2teFan1U

— Greg Britton (@gmbritton) February 20, 2017

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: arizona, Cooking, links, stick to baseball, vaccines

→ March 21, 2016
→ By keith

Arizona eats, March 2016 update.

This spring’s Arizona eats roundup is mostly about one restaurant, Okra, the fantastic new place from the folks behind crudo, both because it was so good and because I didn’t try much else new worth discussing. (I have a whole Phoenix-area dining guide with past recs.)

Okra has a completely different concept than crudo, offering an upscale twist on southern comfort foods, generally via better ingredients rather than new tricks or techniques. The Calabrian pork bites, served over collard greens, are small pieces of pork belly lightly seasoned, kind of a twist on the southern greens cooked with ham hocks, but one where the pork is more the star of the plate rather than the collards. You could have this with a biscuit and probably call it a meal. The potato fritti are long fingerling potatoes sliced in half and seemed twice-cooked, mostly roasted and then quickly fried, served in gravy with a very slight drizzle of pimento cheese sauce that I didn’t even taste because the gravy and potato were so dominant. We also got a plate of the rendezvous spiced pork rinds, which were good but frankly I’ve never had bad fried pork rinds so I’m not sure what to say.

For entrees, I went with the pig cheek pot pie over olive oil mashed potatoes, while my daughter tried the fried chicken with grilled cornbread. I think she won, although I have no complaints about my dinner either. The fried chicken (“umbrian style,” rather than Nashville hot) was very crispy but still moist and juicy on the inside, and that corn bread – while a bit sweeter than I think true southern corn bread is – was amazing and could also be paired quite happily with those pork bites. The pork pie crust was the real gem in the dish; I could have used a little more pork as the plate as a whole had so much starch, but that crust was absolutely perfect, so much so that I have to figure there was lard involved.

For dessert, my daughter wanted the warm salted caramel “canned biscuit” donut, which is the one fixed dessert on the menu and was absolutely ridiculous – I assume it was just fried and it came with the donut hole as well, sitting on top like the king of the world. They have a daily selection of pies and I went with the Derby pie, a chocolate-walnut pie reminiscent in structure of a pecan pie, which was excellent (again, the crust was stellar, just perfectly flaky and tender) but couldn’t match the donut.

Like crudo, Okra has a craft cocktail menu, and I recommend their update on the old-fashioned, the New Gothic: Bullett rye, meletti amaro (a potable bitters), yellow chartreuse, and orange bitters.

I love crudo, but Okra is in many ways the better recommendation because their menu will have a much broader appeal, and you’re certainly getting more food (or at least more calories) for your money because crudo specializes in raw fish preparations, which are (and damn well ought to be) expensive by comparison. Plus, who doesn’t love southern-style comfort food and potent potables to wash them down?

* I’ve had O.H.S.O. Brewery on my dining guide for a few years now based on others’ recommendations, but this month’s visit was my first actual meal there. It was solid-average, nothing spectacular, with a menu centered on burgers and similar sandwiches like the salmon BLT I ordered. The beer was also good, but not as good as local craft stars like Four Peaks or Oak Creek, with the Extra Special Bitter my preference of the pours I tried. They also distill their own vodka and rum and make their own gin.

* I did try Worth Takeaway, the sandwich shop that has taken over the space previously occupied by the wonderful Urban Picnic in downtown Mesa, but it just wasn’t up to par. The options are few and the bread, which was the best part of Urban Picnic’s excellent sandwiches, isn’t as good.

* I went to downtown Gilbert for the first time in two years, and I can’t get over how much it’s changed for the better since we moved out of Chandler in June of 2013. Where previously there was just Liberty Market and Joe’s BBQ, now there are outposts of several great Phoenix/Scottsdale restaurants – Barrio Queen, Pomo Pizzeria, and Zinburger among them.

* One of you mentioned on Twitter a new coffee place in Phoenix called Futuro, founded by a former Cartel employee, that does espresso and drip (but not pour-over). I didn’t get to try it, in part because I also wanted to hit Giant at least once before leaving town, but would appreciate any reports from those of you who like that kind of third-wave coffee and get to try it.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: arizona, beer, coffee, gilbert, mesa, phoenix

→ February 23, 2016
→ By keith

Arizona spring training dining guide, 2016 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. This is now my fourth edition of the dining guide, and my second since moving back to the east coast last summer; I’ve done my best to keep up with restaurant news from out there, but I’m aware I’m likely falling behind. Nothing’s new in the structure and I’ve left the list of places in downtown Phoenix that aren’t close to any ballpark at the end. A lot of the text is unchanged from last year, so don’t be shocked if it seems familiar.

Scottsdale/Old Town (San Francisco):

* Virtu Honest Craft: Award-winning, including a James Beard nomination for best new restaurant in the country, with reason, as this might be the best restaurant in all of Arizona. Virtu is only a 12-minute walk from Scottsdale Stadium and offers inventive, attractive, and most importantly delicious food that plays with textures and flavors in unexpected ways. I went there in October and wrote up the meal in depth.

* Citizen Public House: This was my birthday dinner spot each of the last two years we were out there, if that gives you some sense of how much I liked it. 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 as well as the best negroni I’ve ever had.

* FnB: I’ve had lunch and dinner here and never been disappointed at all; it rivals Virtu and crudo for the best restaurant in Phoenix, with a menu of smaller plates that often showcase produce of a quality I didn’t think you could get in the state of Arizona. Chef Charleen Badman was just nominated for the James Beard Award for Best Chef, Southwest, for the second year in a row.

* 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, as well as a great selection of cocktails.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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 like molten lead. I haven’t been here since the makeover, however.

* Cartel Coffee Lab: Best coffee in Arizona. Full writeup below in the Tempe section. This shop is on 5th street right across from Citizen Public House and FnB.

* 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.

* Defalco’s Italian Market is a great spot to grab an authentic Italian (specifically New York-Italian) sandwich while you’re on your way to a game anywhere in Scottsdale. I prefer it to Andreoli’s, which offers a similar menu and is much closer to Salt River Fields.

* I should mention Franco’s Italian Caffe, right on Scottsdale Road, as it’s very highly regarded by locals, but I was very disappointed. Authentic Italian cuisine is light, focused on simple recipes with big flavors but rarely heavy, while Franco’s menu skews toward what I think of as New York-Italian cuisine, with heavier dishes including lots of heavy cream and salt. It’s not my thing, but I won’t judge you if it’s yours. I also tried The Upton, a new small-plates-and-cocktails kind of place just off Scottsdale road south of Camelback, but their execution was very uneven (e.g., the fried oysters’ batter was inedibly salty) and the service was just kind of weird. I ate at EVO in Scottsdale in October and had a uniformly awful experience.

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.

* ‘Pomo Pizzeria: This location is in the same shopping center as Soi4, with others in downtown Phoenix and out in Gilbert. Authentic, Neapolitan-style pizza, not as good as Bianco, but in the running for the second-best pizza in Arizona along with cibo. 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.

* 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.

* Andreoli’s Italian Market is a decent spot for New York-Italian sandwiches, although I prefer Defalco’s in south Scottsdale.

* 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.

* Crepe Bar: Amazing savory and sweet crepes, and expertly pulled espresso shots using beans from heart coffee roasters, one of the best micro-roasters I’ve come across. They use a lot of local ingredients, including produce from Agritopia Farms (which also hosts Joe’s Farm Grill in Gilbert, seen on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Douche), and bake their own brioche if you’re not in the mood for a regular or buckwheat crepe.

* nocawich. Nestled right off University within the heart of ASU is this fantastic sandwich shop serving breakfast and lunch, with the Dolly, a fried chicken sandwich that is so good I’ve scheduled layovers at this airport just to eat it at their Terminal 4 location. (I’ve done the same to get coffee at Cartel, too.) They also offer an amazing patty melt sandwich, triple-cooked fries, and H&H bagels for their enormous breakfast sandwiches.

* 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. Convenient to the A’s ballpark. Second location in Mesa isn’t too far from the Cubs’ park and is bigger with more parking, and there’s one within a mile of the Giants’ place in Scottsdale.

* Four Peaks Brewery: One of the 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.

* 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, in downtown Phoenix, and right in Old Town Scottsdale near Citizen Public House.

* I haven’t tried Moroccan Paradise yet, where they serve Moroccan (duh) and French food, but it’s garnered some nice reviews, as has BP Street Cafe for its Malaysian food.

Mesa (Cubs):

Most of the places I suggested for Tempe are also quite close to here, including Crepe Bar, Cartel, and the Revival.

* The best smoked brisket I’ve ever had outside of Franklin BBQ in Austin is at Little Miss BBQ on University Avenue in Tempe, right near the airport. If you’ve been to Franklin or read about it, you know what to expect: Get in line by 10:30 or so if you want to eat before 1 pm; they start serving at 11 and they stop when they sell out of meat; and don’t expect a lot of variety. The menu is short but amazing, with all meats smoked over oak and pecan. The brisket is amazing, the sausage is excellent, but everything’s good, and it’s a great place to go with a group because you can only order some items – like the occasionally available smoked lamb neck – by the pound.

* Republica Empanada offers outstanding empanadas, small plates, a few entrees, and beer. I loved everything I tried here but particularly recommend a side of maduros.

* 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.

* Tia Rosa’s: A bit east of the ballpark, Tia Rosa’s is a taqueria that offers a few other Mexican dishes in a casual setting; the large, high-end restaurant that used to be here burned down, although they offer that menu at a location way out in east Gilbert.

Maryvale (Milwaukee):

* Life is nasty, brutish, and short. Don’t make it any worse by going here.

(Okay, fine, here’s an actual recommendation for this neighborhood: the Phoenix New Times just reviewed a place called Machete Azteca, which sells the machetes (like giant quesadillas) of the Distrito Federal region of Mexico.)

Goodyear (Cincinnati/Cleveland):

* Ground Control. In the Avondale/Litchfield Park area, but kind of between Goodyear and Glendale, this coffee-shop has upgraded its menu so it’s now a craft-beer paradise and upscale sandwich shop and coffee bar and even gelateria. I’ve been twice; the service can be a little spacey but the food is very good and I even liked the coffee. They do breakfast as well. This place should be so much more popular than it is, given the paucity of quality non-chain options in the area.

* 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.

* For finer dining and good cocktails, try Cuff right in downtown Glendale, which does very unpretentious but fresh, high-quality food, including burgers, sandwiches, and salads that use much better inputs than most places that try that sort of menu. I’m underselling it a bit – it’s basic food, but done exceedingly well.

* 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.

* La Piazza Al Forno: thin-crust, wood-fired pizzas that are not as good as Bianco’s or Cibo’s, but are certainly authentic Neapolitan pizzas with the wet center you’d expect. It’s a couple of doors down from Cuff.

Peoria:

* It’s a wasteland of chains out here; the best option I know is the local chain Grimaldi’s, mentioned above.

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

These places are no longer near any ballpark other than Phoenix Muni, which now houses Arizona State but no spring training teams.

* 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. There’s now a second, larger location just off route 51 in the Town and Country shopping center, serving a few pasta items as well as the signature pizzas. By the end of March, a trattoria serving house-made pastas with locally grown wheat will open in the space next to that Town and Country pizzeria.

* Welcome Chicken and Donuts: Located in a former KFC location, this spinoff of the Welcome Diner serves “Asian” fried chicken, lots of donuts, and not a whole lot else. You can get one of three sauces on the chicken; I don’t recommend the Vietnamese option unless you really love fish sauce. I thought the chicken was plus and the donuts were Hall of Fame-worthy.

* Noble Eatery: Artisan European-style breads from the Noble Bread Company, with 3-4 sandwich options each day in a tiny (“intimate”) cafe. It is truly some of the best bread you’ll ever have this side of Italy.

* 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. Chef Silvana has also opened a cocktail bar with lots of small plates, serving three meals a day, at The Yard in Phoenix.

* 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 great 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. This is now my go-to rec when someone wants a splurge meal in Phoenix or wants more adventurous cuisine.

* 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.

* 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.

* Otro Cafe: The chef behind Gallo Blanco (which is now closed) has a new place, with a very simple menu – a few taco items, a few tortas with the same meats you’ll find on the taco menu, a few Mexican street-food starters, and a full bar. There’s a bit more focus on local fare here, and the guacamole is my favorite in the Valley.

* Matt’s Big Breakfast and Giant Coffee. Owned by the same guy, located a few blocks apart, but not otherwise connected as Matt’s doesn’t use Giant’s coffee. Matt’s is the best pure-breakfast place in the Valley, and one major reason is that they use the black-pepper bacon from Queen Creek’s The Pork Shop. Everything here is good, but the veteran move is breakfast at Matt’s original location with coffee or espresso afterwards at Giant. (Matt’s uses ROC, from Cave Creek, a popular roaster with Valley restaurants but nowhere near Giant’s quality.) Giant uses direct-trade beans for its espresso from Four Barrel and usually has three or four single-origin options for pour-overs. Matt’s recently opened a second location that should take some pressure off the lines at the first spot.

* Federal Pizza. Federal’s was the best Brussels sprout pizza I’d ever tried until I found Motorino in NYC, and even then it was close. I’ve tried a few of their pizzas and their roasted vegetable board, loving everything, and their crust is a great compromise for folks who want more chew and less of the cracker-thin crust of a place like Bianco.

* The Gladly. The second location from the folks behind Citizen Public House, the Gladly’s location and menu are built more around the alcohol – I think the atmosphere they’re going for is cocktail party, or upscale happy-hour, with smart food to go with the booze. I had a mixed experience in my one meal there, loving the chicken-liver pate starter but finding less success with the duck ramen (which I’m told is a dish they frequently tweak). Given their track record at CPH, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

* Blue Hound. Another great cocktail bar that happens to offer good food, mostly sandwiches and other items you’d expect at a quality bar, although I’ve only been here for drinks and bar snacks (like the tater tots, which I highly recommend).

* Frost Gelato. Located at the Biltmore, right by Zinburger, Frost has the best gelato or ice cream anywhere in Phoenix. The sea salt caramel is their top seller; I suggest you pair it with the dark chocolate. They also have locations in Gilbert and Tucson.

* The larder + the delta, the new place from former Blue Hound exec chef Stephen Jones, specializing in southern cuisine, located inside the Desoto Market downtown.

Some of the places I’m hoping to try on my spring training trip this year: Okra, the new place from the folks behind crudo; Forno 301, serving thin-crust pizzas and salads plus daily pasta specials; Couscous Express, another Moroccan place, this one on East McDowell in Phoenix; Craft 64, serving pizza and beer, which is like the meaning of life; TEN, serving simple, well-done pub food in the Biltmore area; and Ocotillo, a combination coffee bar, beer garden, and restaurant serving lunch, dinner, and weekend brunches.

Feel free to offer your own suggestions for places I haven’t listed or tried in the comments below. I believe everything I’ve listed here is still open, but if you know that one of these restaurants has shut its doors, again, please let me know.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: arizona, breakfast, burgers, coffee, donuts, fried chicken, glendale, ice cream, mesa, phoenix, pizza, scottsdale, spring training, tempe

→ October 26, 2015
→ By keith

Arizona eats, October 2015 edition.

My second and final Arizona Fall League post for this year is up for Insiders, covering Dom Smith, Clint Frazier, Jake Reed, Jason Garcia, and more.

The biggest news in Phoenix food has been the arrival of the Noble Bread Company, crafted artisan loaves of classic European breads, so good that every restaurant I tried all week that served bread bought it from Noble. (One such restaurant: the estimable FnB, still outstanding and one of the best bets in town if you want to eat a lot of vegetables and still feel like you had a real meal.) Noble now has a second spot, the Noble Eatery on McDowell, where the menu changes daily and includes two or three sandwiches, a flatbread option, and a salad. I went with their open-faced tuna salad sandwich, made with olive oil rather than mayo and including chickpeas and potatoes, served on a dark, crusty peasant loaf; with three slices and a huge portion of the tuna it was more than a meal for me, closer to two. The bread is just to die for – this ranks among the best breads I’ve ever tasted, with the texture expert bread bakers describe as “creamy” inside a crackling crust.

nocawich reopened in a new location in Tempe on College Avenue, right in the heart of ASU’s campus, this summer, with their justifiably renowned fried chicken sandwich still on the menu, as well as a giant patty melt served on good rye sandwich bread and triple-fried French fries that are out of another world entirely. On this trip I tried their breakfast, getting an oversized egg and chorizo sandwich with arugula, avocado, tomato, mayo (not much), and cheese on a sesame bagel from H&H in New York City. Everything Elliott creates there is amazing, and if I wasn’t behaving myself a little bit this week I would have grabbed one of the incredible pastries available – he has a pastry chef fly in from Portland to make them weekly. Other than nocawich I stuck to morning favorites on this trip: crêpe bar, the Hillside Spot, Matt’s Big Breakfast, Cartel Coffee Lab, and Giant Coffee.

My frequent dining partner-in-crime Nick Piecoro introduced me to a new taco/burger place in Arcadia called the Stand, where the menu is very simple: a burger, three types of tacos, hand-cut fries, and shakes. I tried all three tacos, for research purposes of course, and would recommend the short rib and chicken tacos but not the vegetable taco, which couldn’t hold the fillings in and was decidedly flat in flavor, with a lot in it (mostly quinoa and some sort of winter squash) but nothing that really popped in flavor. It needed something with umami to bring it together.

Speaking of that fifth taste, Umami in Tempe (very close to nocawich, at 7th and Mill) does ramen, and a few other things, but mostly ramen, customizable to order with five choices of broths and about a dozen or so toppings or add-ons, including chicken, roast pork, and pork belly. I went with the pork and chicken bone broth, roast pork, and a soft-cooked egg, all of which came out perfectly – the broth itself was a little salty but full of body and depth of flavor. They could probably stand to use better noodles, though; these tasted like they came right out of the package, even though more hip ramen joints in other towns have gone with fresh ramen noodles instead. The ramen, a small seaweed salad, and an iced tea ran about $13 before tip, and it was plenty of food for one.

La Piazza al Forno isn’t new – it’s been open since around the time I first moved to Arizona in 2010 – but its location in downtown Glendale, next to Cuff (one of my favorite spots on the west side), isn’t that convenient to any of the ballparks, so I hadn’t tried it till this week. Their specialty is Neapolitan-style pizzas, and they have the VPN certification that is supposed to go only to places that correctly follow the standards of Neapolitan pizza … although in my experience the VPN designation means virtually practically nothing. La Piazza’s pizzas are thin and they use top-quality ingredients, including San Marzano tomatoes and the option of using mozzarella di bufala, but the pies’ centers aren’t wet as they should be in Neapolitan pizza, and they put the basil on before baking the pizzas so it comes out very dark and loses its bright, faintly sweet flavor. Still, if you’re looking for pizza on the west side of Phoenix it’s this and Grimaldi’s and nothing else I’d recommend.

My one real disaster meal of the week was at a new modern Italian restaurant in Old Town called Evo, where the focus is on handmade pastas but not on service or even execution. The concepts for the dishes are sound, but neither item I ordered was well-constructed, and one of them came out wrong (spinach, which I can’t eat, instead of the promised escarole, an essential ingredient in the dish). The white-bean hummus with the roasted cauliflower was too thin and coarse, and didn’t add anything to the cauliflower itself, which was beautifully caramelized. The house-made orecchiette in the main course were shaped incorrectly – more like thimbles, so that the individual pieces couldn’t pick up any portions of the sauce or the other items in the dish. Even the fennel sausage in the dish was off, cut into inch-long rectangular blocks rather than broken up into smaller pieces when cooked. My meal also took forever; I don’t think my main course was fired until I reminded my server about it, a half hour after I ordered, despite the fact that the restaurant was almost empty. I would guess that EVO will be gone before I get back in March given the food and the rent at that location.

Still good: FnB, especially their socca with pickled butternut squash and cultured butter, and their salad of persimmons, pecans, pomegranates, and shaved Parmesan with mixed greens; and Welcome Chicken and Donuts, although I think the next time I go there I’ll try the chicken without any sauce at all. I tried a chocolate-glazed donut with pistachios and what I think were rose petal-flavored marshmallows; it was good but the donut tasted a little past its peak. Crêpe Bar in Tempe (Elliott and Rural) appears to be expanding, and they still bring out all kinds of little bites that the kitchen has thrown together. I can also verify that Citizen Public House still makes a mean negroni. The Revival in Tempe has closed; however, former executive chef Kelly Fletcher is now at Phoenix landmark El Chorro as chef de cuisine.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: arizona, bread, breakfast, coffee, glendale, italian cuisine, phoenix, pizza, ramen, sandwiches, scottsdale, tacos

→ July 25, 2015
→ By keith

Saturday five, 7/25/15.

I ranked the top five farm systems as of right now – well, right then, as I wrote it – for Insiders this week, and broke down the Scott Kazmir trade. I also held a Klawchat on Wednesday. I don’t plan to write up the smaller deals of the week, such as the Aramis Ramirez or Steve Cishek trades, because they’re just salary dumps without significant prospects going the other way.

I reviewed the new Splendor app for Paste this week. You can get the app for $6.99 for iOS or Android devices – and you should, as it’s a great game that’s very well done.

And now, the links…

My colleague Jay Bilas (who is, IMO, the best and most important voice in the movement to bring the NCAA to heel) and I have gone back and forth a little over his endorsement of a “brain training” app. There are a number of research papers out there showing these tools and games don’t work as promised, but a reader sent along this open letter from various neuroscientists that argues the point more forcefully.
Noted (and loud) vaccine denier Dr. Bob Sears is selling medical exemptions to parents in California … or, to be more accurate, he’s all but saying that’s what he’s doing.
The likely-illegal arrest and subsequent death of Sandra Bland sparked this post on your rights when you’re stopped by a police officer. The post says it’s for Texans but I think these rights apply anywhere; it’s not like citizens of other states have fewer rights.
The title says it perfectly: For the Love of God, Would People Stop Writing Think Pieces About Things They Haven’t Seen?.
Survivors of the Horace Mann sex scandal aren’t getting any satisfaction from the school.
The myth about gluten being bad for you isn’t based in science, and avoids bigger questions of what’s going on with our immune systems and auto-immune disorders.
Arizona eaters rejoice: nocawich is opening in Tempe on July 27th, and it looks like they’re going to do a bang-up breakfast, with house-made English muffins and bagels shipped in from New York’s H&H.
A review of two books turns into a long, insightful essay on the rise of ISIS, albeit one that will likely leave you even more depressed about the future of the region.
The Planned Parenthood videos were made by a group that may have lied about its nonprofit status. With colleges and hospitals that rake in dough, paying officers huge sums and constructing fancy new buildings, also claiming to be nonprofits, maybe it’s time to put some resources behind enforcing or tightening those rules?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: arizona, food science, links, pseudoscience, saturday five, tempe, vaccines

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