What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Including, it seems, my car. Last Friday Wes and I took a trip to Las Vegas. It was meant to be a quickie; nice buffet dinner at Paris on Friday, a fun Saturday bopping around town, a celebratory dinner at our favorite restaurant in the city, and then a Penn & Teller show and back on Sunday after lunch. All that was great. Unfortunately, we ended up staying a little longer than intended, because Saturday night, as we were stopped in the intersection with a green light, waiting to turn left into the apartment complex where we were staying with friends, our car got hit head-on by a drunk driver. We're okay. Not a scratch, amazingly enough. My Bug is in critical condition, though. The guy, Carlos C., was so fucking drunk he could barely walk. After he hit us he took off; I attempted to make a U-turn and chase him, but the Bug said, "Um, no. Critically wounded. Sorry." Oddly enough, he returned to the scene later, just in time to be arrested for DUI and felony hit-and-run, and fortunately we had witnesses lined up to make statements against him. The Vegas cops were great. About five cars showed up, and once they got there asshole Carlos stopped insisting he wasn't drunk. "Tell the truth. How much have you had to drink tonight?" asked one of the cops. "Four beers," he replied. "Okay. And how much tequila?" Nice. The future of the car is uncertain. It's been, and will undoubtedly continue to be, a huge hassle. Consequently, I haven't felt much like posting the past few days. This is my third encounter with a drunk driver, and the third in which I've emerged unscathed. I think my luck is running out, and I'm sick to death of these assholes. If I had anything to say about it, the penalties for doing this would be increased drastically. For instance, I think Carlos should do some hard time for this, and I hope he does. I think he should also spend the next five years taking the bus or bumming rides. Fucking asshole. Sorry, I'm still in angry mode. Five years paying for a car and keeping it in perfect condition, then some 21-year-old drunken idiot wipes it out, and we're all lucky he didn't wipe any people out (us, especially). I'll have pictures from Rosemary's later, maybe tomorrow. What's 'taters', precious? PO-TAY-TOES! Specifically, potato chips. Sadly, I left my camera in the car and didn't get a shot of this, but while we were tooling around Vegas last Saturday, we followed the advice of our friends Damon and Sharon and monorailed over to the MGM Grand to visit Wolfgang Puck Bar and Grill. We were already having dinner at Rosemary's that night, so this was just a mid-afternoon snack, and a highly recommended one as well. Accompanied by a proper Martini (Boodles Gin, which I'd never tried and which beat me about the head and shoulders with berry-laden juniper branches, and a healthy proportion of vermouth as if it were 1950), we had ... House-made potato chips drizzled with white truffle oil, with fresh herbs and Maytag blue cheese. Oh my Gawd. What's taters, precious? That's precious taters! The shot heard 'round the world. 'Round the wine world, that is, and shot in the form of four short paragraphs in TIME magazine, almost 30 years ago.
Nous sommes désolés. (Actually, we're not.) Yomigaeru, Aiy-yan ... Cheffff! Bruce Cole of Sauté Wednesday imagines a highly entertaining would-be Iron Chef battle between Chef Thomas Keller of The French Laundry in Yountville, California and Chef Heston Blumenthal of The Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire, U.K. I would very much like to be a taster at that battle, even though I'm not a giggly actress, lower parliament house member, fortune teller or rosanjin scholar. Man, I wanna try that crab risotto! Oh, and is it just me, or would y'all also rather watch reruns of the original Japanese "Iron Chef" than new episodes of "Iron Chef America"? The new show's not bad, and way better than that ridiculous spectacle with Shatner a few years back, but it just doesn't have the same spirit, campiness and fun of the original. [ Link to today's entries ]
Update/edit to the Kuchen Cookin'. I swear, I've got a memory like a steel ... colander. In all that foodpornorrific wordslinging about our last Fat Pack food gathering, I seem to have left out one crucial element, as Mary pointed out in email this morning, to wit: "But there is no reference to LARDO??!?! What the---?!" Moops. I stand corrected. Moderate Republicans? What moderate Republicans? Via Atrios, Matt Yglesias points out that the goopers now speaking out about the war -- Hegel, Graham, et al. -- are all hot air and no action:
God forbid any of them should grow a spine and go with their consciences instead of the Republican machine. [ Link to today's entries ]
The Cocktailian. In last Thursday's edition of Gary Regan's fortnightly column, The Professor, our cocktailian bartender, found that "Scotch adds the smoke that gives Rauch its name." (This one looks weird. Laphroaig, Mozart and tamarind juice? This one I'll have to try, just to see. I wonder if Godiva is a good substitute for Mozart.) Bob Mould on downloading music. Sure, I've downloaded music without paying for it; many if not most of us have. That said, I primarily download stuff I've already paid for but am too lazy to convert from LP to MP3, live odds and ends, and stuff I've ordered online but am too impatient to wait for. What if you had a chance to download the new album (and the comeback album, as far as I'm concerned) from one of your favorite artists, for free? Seems that's what lots of folks did with Bob Mould's forthcoming album Body of Song, and he's not happy about it. I'm with him on this, and direct this to people who download music thinking they're putting the screws to Big Evil Record Conglomerates:
Unless you like to work for free, and tell the landlord or mortgage company and all your other bill collectors that gee, you give your work away for free, and so should they ... think about what Bob said. Speaking of Bob, I've heard the new single, and man, am I glad to hear his new stuff; I can't wait to hear the rest of the album. I must confess, I despised Bob's last album Modulate, and said some harsh things about it. I should have turned some of those sentiments inward and not blamed Bob for making the art he wanted to make. He felt different things driving him and motivating his muse, and felt the need to explore that and try something different. He made art that satisfied him. Was it his fault that I hated it? (Well, that's debatable; I didn't hate it just because it was different, I hated it because I thought it was really bad, and not up to his talents.) All that said, I'm glad his muse has taken him back to a place where he can make music that satisfies him, and I can love it again. Is your cow-orker a psychopath? I wasn't aware of the classification of "sub-criminal psychopath", but it sure does explain a lot of things, and explains a few people I've worked with perfectly. Recess! Via Wes, who says, "All this fuss over Bolton of course reminds me of the "West Wing" episode in which Bartlet declined to take advantage of a recess appointment, a tactic he felt to be inappropriate and essentially unethical when used simply to get around the Senate. And it pisses me off that Dubya is proclaiming Democrats to be 'obstructionists' when both Papa Bush and Reagan made far more recess appointments than Clinton did, even though he was dealing with a far more resistant Congress." Of course Bartlet felt that; he's a better President than Shrub, and a far better man as well. Too bad his major flaw is that he's fictional. Turns out that Frist-flop said he wasn't going to schedule another vote, and then voilà, he flopped and said he will. Wonder what nomination will be next? If Shrub follows his pattern of nominating the worst possible person for the job, I can only expect Dr. Jack Kevorkian to be the next Surgeon General. [ Link to today's entries ]
The Fat Pack cooketh. We had a Fat Pack gathering this past Saturday, which of course means lots of great food, backsliding on my weight, and being injected with nanobots to scrape the inside of my arteries out. (Okay, no nanobots, actually.) The idea was to honor Steve's Aunt Hester, who recently passed away at the age of 97. Hester, who wasn't born Jewish but married into a Jewish family, mastered all the family recipes from Steve's great-grandmother and cooked all the classic Jewish dishes like a pro. Particularly memorable in her repertoire was kuchen, a sweet bread baked either plain or filled with a raisin/walnut filling and rolled. We decided to have a culinary wake, and to make three varieties of kuchen: plain, with a raisin/walnut/cinnamon/sugar filling, and an experimental batch filled with semisweet chocolate chips. Dave had also been wanting to screen his old video of Yosh and Stan Shmenge's "The Last Polka", and I immediately offered to make cabbage rolls and coffee ("Mmmm, mmm, can't be beat!"); just call me Mrs. Vilveyatchke. Wes suggested we also bring along some żubrówka (Polish bison grass vodka, which is one of the most delicious things ever), shotglasses for sipping it straight from the freezer, and apple juice for mixing it into the only cocktail Poles make with it, the Szarłotka or "Apple Tart". Yay, żubrówka! Of course, as we planned and the "B" word was never mentioned, I had to complicate things by saying, "I know the point of this gathering was for other things, but I'm feeling bereft without bacon. Maybe I'll fry some up just for snacking." Dave agreed to come through with bacon, and then said, "Maybe I'll get some bratwurst too, and wrap some bacon around it." I replied, "Jonathan Swift once wrote, 'When a true genius appears in the world, you will know him by this sign; that he offers to wrap bratwurst with bacon.' Or something like that" And away we went.
The kuchen were fabulous. Cheers, Aunt Hester! 
"The Last Polka", which despite being a huge SCTV fan I'd actually never seen, was hilarious, and the concert footage a brilliant parody of "The Last Waltz". We loved The Lemon Twins, too (all three of them). We ended up skipping the coffee, but my cabbage rolls were a hit. I've loved the Polish gołąbki I've had at Polka, our favorite neighborhood Polish restaurant, but most of the recipes I found online looked kinda bland. I dug one up for a German-style cabbage roll that sounded better; it called for allspice in the red gravy, and I know that allspice is used in Polish cooking (the Polish word is kubaba), so that sounded pretty good. Of course, these cabbage rolls were supposed to be Leutonian, but I did the best I could. Next time I think I'll incorporate a Hungarian touch -- shredding up the leftover cabbage after the rolling leaves are removed, mixing it with an equal quantity of sauerkraut, then putting that on the bottom of the pot, with the cabbage rolls on top, and then the sauce. A combination of German, Polish and Hungarian has got to be as close to Leutonian as we can get. As it turned out, the cabbage rolls were tasty, but far too ... well, good for us, to be a true Fat Pack dish. I had to supplement it with something, maybe an appetizer. What better thing to provide than a slab of pork fat? Lardo, to be specific, is cured pork fat, ideally imported from Italy. "Made from the layer of fat right under the pig's skin," the same place where we get cracklins, this lardo was cured and seasoned with lots of coarse salt, black pepper and herbs (rosemary was prevalent). It's sliced ultra-thin, then briefly heated in a skillet until transparent and served warm on warm toast. In our case, the toast was made from freshly-baked semolina bread from the Eagle Rock Italian Bakery and Deli, at Colorado and La Roda in the heart of our beloved little town's main drag. The lardo was fantastic -- porky and salty and silky and smoky and delicious, and on that semolina bread too, madonn'!. The combination couldn't have been more perfect. We left the leftover lardo behind, and it can also be reheated and tossed with some pasta, or used in place of pancetta in dishes that call for it. That annoying little angel-looking thing materialized over my left shoulder and kept whispering in my ear, "You're eating pure pork fat right now, you know that? Pure. Fucking. Pork. Fat. Fatfatfatfatfat. How many points is that, pray tell? Five points per ounce, that's how much! All saturated fat! How much of that is going to be pasted right onto your jowls and neck and middle and gut and thighs and the interior of your arteries, although for some reason not on that bony little ass of yours? Huh, Mr. Pork Fat?" I grabbed the rolling pin from the hands of one of the kuchen-makers and batted him across the room, through the closed screen door and into the bug zapper. Annoying little fecker. Fortunately we also had plenty of fresh fruit -- grapes, watermelon, cantaloupe and honeydew melon -- so I didn't feel like such a huge maiale after the lardo ... at first. Then Dave started frying up the fabulous applewood-smoked bacon he got at Whole Foods. (Are there three more beautiful words in the English language than "applewood smoked bacon"? I think not.) We snacked on that as Mary and Nettie worked on the kuchen, then I heated up the cabbage rolls, which went over well. Dave then grilled up the brats, plus some French garlic smoked sausage with Cognac (yum!), all on poppy seed buns accompanied by more bacon. Diana also did a cool cucumber-dill salad, then we had the kuchen for dessert ... and then, a surprise. Dessert after the dessert? What's all this then? Diana, in an example of true evil genius, decided to make fried raised doughnuts that were stuffed with ... ricotta cheese mixed with ... crumbled bacon. Oh my. These were delicious, fantastic, except we kept having problems with them. They didn't cook all the way through, and were still doughy on the inside next to the filling. We figured they were at least twice too big, so the next time we do them they should be small like a hush puppy, with no more than a tablespoon of filling. Or else they should be fried plain and then filled with a piping bag ("Yeah, but I was hoping to avoid the whole piping bag thing," Diana said. Ah well.) It was tough to get a balance between cooked-on-the-inside and not-too-brown-on-the-outside, but we ate them all anyway. It was after that that I called in the nanobots. Screenplay excerpt of the day. FADE IN: INT. ROADSIDE CAFE - DAY All four are seated at a booth. The women have given their orders and a WAITRESS stands above Bobby, waiting for his: BOBBY (looking at his menu) I'll have an omelette, no potatoes. Give me tomatoes instead, and wheat toast instead of rolls. The waitress indicates something on the menu with the butt of her pencil. WAITRESS No substitutions. BOBBY What does that mean? You don't have any tomatoes? WAITRESS (annoyed) No. We have tomatoes. BOBBY But I can't have any. Is that what you mean? WAITRESS Only what's on the menu... (again, indicating with her pencil) A Number Two: Plain omelette. It comes with cottage fries and rolls. BOBBY I know what it comes with, but that's not what I want. WAITRESS I'll come back when you've made up your mind... She starts to move away and Bobby detains her. BOBBY Wait, I've made up my mind. I want a plain omelette, forget the tomatoes, don't put potatoes on the plate, and give me a side of wheat toast and a cup of coffee. WAITRESS I'm sorry, we don't have side orders of toast. I can give you an English muffin or a coffee roll. BOBBY What do you mean, you don't have side orders of toast? You make sandwiches, don't you? WAITRESS Would you like to talk to the manager? PALM Hey, mack! BOBBY (to Palm) Shut up. (to the waitress) You have bread, don't you, and a toaster of some kind? WAITRESS I don't make the rules. BOBBY Okay, I'll make it as easy for you as I can. Give me an omelette, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast -- no butter, no mayonnaise, no lettuce -- and a cup of coffee. She begins writing down his order, repeating it sarcastically: WAITRESS One Number Two, and a chicken sal san -- hold the butter, the mayo, the lettuce -- and a cup of coffee... Anything else? BOBBY Now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, charge me for the sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules. WAITRESS (challenging him) You want me to hold the chicken. BOBBY Yeah. I want you to hold it between your knees. The other three laugh, and the waitress points to a "Right to Refuse" sign above the counter. WAITRESS You see that sign, sir?! Bobby glances over at it, then back to her. WAITRESS (CONT'D) You'll all have to leave, I'm not taking any more of your smartness and your sarcasm! He smiles politely at her, then: BOBBY You see this sign? He reaches his arm out and "clears" the table for her. Hollywood character actress Lorna Thayer, who appeared in many roles over the course of a 40-year career in Hollywood and who played the waitress in this very memorable scene from "Five Easy Pieces", passed away on June 4, as was announced on Friday. (Even St. Peter ain't gettin' those goddamn tomatoes. No substitutions!) [ Link to today's entries ]
Jeb Bush is an evil man. I am speechless.
No, actually, I'm not speechless at all. Jeb Bush is scum. This is how he reacts to this week's autopsy results which show him and his idiot ilk to be completely wrong, so he continues and abets the so-called "Christians'" persecution of Michael Schiavo. It's a vendetta, a scapegoat hunt, because they didn't get their way. This is hardly what I'd call Christlike behavior. Jeb Bush is despicable. He and his ilk have no sense of decency. Wes points out, "Jeb Bush is grandstanding for the sake of his [right-wing] constituents -- he knows that nothing real can come of this. It is disgusting, but I'm not unhappy to see him so desperate." Armando at dKos says, "Using the power of the State for political retaliation. Shades of Nixon. [Michael] Schiavo should sue." Another dKos diary with excellent comments discusses how blatantly this demonstrates that Jeb Bush is in the pocket of Dobson and the radical religious right-wing theocrats. A sobering thought from Atrios: "Your family could be next. This is about a minor discrepancy between statements made today and events 15 years ago." Painting of the day. I got this in email from Gregg the other day; he unfortunately didn't know the source or the artists. If anyone knows, please do let me know in comments. It's brilliant.  Click to enlarge A Republican with a sense of decency. Also via Kos, "Republican Former Senator John Danforth says no to the Dobson/Bush/Frist Extreme Agenda:
Bravo. Distance. Ah, internecine struggling within the goopers. Love it.
Wait a minute, what's all this crazy talk? Why, everything's going peachy keen, according to the Blank Smirk and Puppetmaster Cheney! 'Cept for the fact that Republicans as well as Democrats are talking exit strategy. [ Link to today's entries ]
The tyranny of the majority. Here's yet another example of how this country is sliding into one-party rule (the kinda thing we learned was bad back in civics class in high school, using the Soviet Union as an example). Rep. John Conyers is launching hearings into the contents of the "Downing Street Memo", but has to do it at Democratic headquarters because Republican Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner has denied the use of committee hearing rooms on Capitol Hill to all Democrats on the committee.
So much for our vaunted democracy. This is what Bush wants to export to the entire world? Hearings begin tomorrow at 1:30pm EDT; C-SPAN will broadcast. Frist is a quack. Bill Frist, who still claims to be a medical doctor, did a non-examination "examination" of Terri Schiavo and had the temerity to diagnose her, saying this (via DailyKos):
Schiavo's autopsy results were released today. Among the findings:
I'd like to write this information on the side of a two-by-four and whap it upside the head of all the right-winger idiots who screamed the whole time that she was conscious and not a vegetable, and who hurled appalling insults and false accusations at her poor husband. So much for the Golden Rule. Wilco were brilliant last night. Misunderstood It was a beautiful night under the California stars (although, unfortunately, they didn't play "California Stars"). The performance was spot-on, and Jeff, who said right off that he wasn't going to be too chatty that night and just play music, was very warm with the audience. He had a couple of sweet moments too: when he dedicated "Mountain Bed" to their guitarist Nels Cline, "who's our hero, and also to Nels' mom, who's Nels' hero." He also had his family up front near the stage ("My five-year-old is asleep now."), and jumped down to have a dance and a cuddle near the end of the main set. Good feelings all around ... except for the four idiots behind me who wouldn't stop talking during most of the set, and who (thank Gawd) left before the encores. [ Link to today's entries ]
A musical week. Well, I've been being social, and getting some reading done, and seeing movies, and going out to hear some music. Free content resumes. Last Saturday night (following a meal of som tum, spicy Thai green papaya salad with dried shrimp, chile, lime juice, onions and cilantro, plus a crispy duck salad and pad kee mow, very spicy wide flat rice noodles with chicken, onions, chiles and holy basil) we headed to Avalon to see OK Go and Kaiser Chiefs; we're big fans of the former, and had only just heard of the latter. OK Go were brilliant, of course, concentrating on their forthcoming new album (August!) Oh No, plus a few great cuts from their debut. I really liked all the new stuff, both tonight and at their own gig at Spaceland a while back. Incredibly catchy songs, very energetic stage presence, a good sense of humor, and ... oh yes, the Damian-Kulash-is-a-sex-god factor, too. Unfortunately, they only played for 30 minutes (but treated us to a new choreographed encore routine, done to one of their newer songs). Perhaps the reason was the unannounced, unexpected and unwelcome jammed-in-between set from Jason Falkner, which was lame and boring and which we really could have done without. Kaiser Chiefs were terrific, too. I was completely unfamiliar with their stuff, but heard a lot to like -- very much their own sound, but you could hear the heavy influences from early Jam, some Clash and even a touch of XTC here and there. Ricky Wilson is quite the rock star, too -- pulling the girl out of the audience to dance with her onstage was a nice touch. And a couple of hours ago, I just got offered an extra ticket to see Wilco tonight, then found out to my surprise that a bunch of my friends will be there as well. It's been a good week. Cocktail of the day. I made it home from work in less than an hour last night (wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles), and we celebrated the lovely, cool evening with the signature cocktail of the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel (as found in the book Meet Me In The Bar: Classic Drinks From America's Historic Hotels).
And if you shy away from a drink called "The Pink Palace" because of some kind of silly machismo, you're actually a coward. Besides, this drink'll kick your ass. Parce-que les huîtres (pas ma grand-mère) sont flambées. I decided to try a dish the other night, one that I'd been looking at for a good while. Chef Kevin Curran created a dish at the now-defunct Flagons and wondered what the flavor elements of a Sazerac cocktail would taste like in a sauce. So he pan-fried some oysters, poured some Sazerac fixins over it and set the whole thing on fire. Voilà ... Oysters Sazerac. I thought it was worth a try. To prepare, set up a standard three-stage breading station: season some flour with salt, black and red pepper, and do the same with some cornmeal (the recipe called for bread crumbs, but I don't fry oysters in bread crumbs), then mix 2 egg yolks with 1/4 cup of milk. Make a sorta-Sazerac with 3 ounces of Old Overholt, an ounce of Herbsaint and 2 teaspoons of Peychaud's bitters. Shuck a couple dozen of the biggest, fattest oysters you can find, then roll in flour, dip in yolks/milk and roll in seasoned cornmeal, shaking off excess at each stage. Pan-fry the oysters in a few tablespoons of hot butter until done, then pour the cocktail over it and very carefully set it aflame. (Make sure you use lower-proof whiskey; I used 101-proof Wild Turkey rye, and the flames shot up almost to the ceiling. I guess my eyebrows will grow back before too long.) Shake the pan until the flames go out and most of the liquid reduces down. Then serve 4 oysters for an appetizer portion or 8 for a main course, sprinkled with some chopped green onions and, if you like, napped with a little beurre blanc. 
They were good, but we were disappointed that they weren't ... well, Sazeracier. Next time I'm going to try deep-frying the oysters, then transferring them to a pan for the flambé and see how that works. Chef Paul. Opelousas-born Chef Paul Prudhomme is profiled in the Times-Picayune, with many fascinating comments from himself and a host of local luminaries. Prudhomme's not a New Orleans chef -- he's Cajun -- but as Poppy pointed out, he's had an amazing impact on New Orleans cuisine, not only for being the first chef to use andouille and tasso in the city, but for all the other great local chefs (from Frank Brigtsen to Greg and Mary Sonnier and more) who trained in his kitchen. Forget all that blackened redfish stuff; it goes far, far beyond that. [ Link to today's entries ]
If Watergate happened today, with the current Republican-controlled, rubber-stamp Congress, there'd be no Watergate hearings. (Via VidiotNewsweek's Jonathan Alter nails it:
Read the rest of it. It's depressing, because you know that's exactly how it would go. The even more depressing thing is, what's happening now makes Watergate look like Romper Room, and nobody's doing a goddamn thing about it. Who will save us now? Cocktail of the day. I can't believe I'd never had one of these before. I'm not sure how many of you cocktailians out there have experienced this, but it goes something like this:
This is, of course, providing that you can actually find a bartender who can make any Manhattan, and who knows what bitters are and how to use them. (I sometimes despair.) Yes yes, Mr. Cocky, I know that you're God's gift to the bartending world, but when I specify certain cocktails as "perfect", what I really mean is that instead of using one or the other type of vermouth, you use equal parts of both. Therefore, a perfect Martini would, instead of a measure of dry vermouth, would use a half-measure each of dry and sweet vermouth. This works really well in a Manhattan, and Wes pleasantly surprised me with this night before last. The crowning touch was to eschew the Angostura bitters for an excellent new product:
Last night I made a Fancy-Free Cocktail using Regans', and it was wonderful. I also used a frozen whole sweet dark cherry instead of a neon-red Maraschino cherry, and I'm likin' that idea. The Top 50 Things Every Foodie Should Do. From Nigel Slater of The Observer, who asked the likes of Nigella Lawson, Gordon Ramsay (more on him later) and a host of other food writers, chefs and restaurant critics what the holy grails of eating are. I've got a ways to go; here's what I've done so far (my comments in italics):
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