As I type, the Bulls and the Celtics are going into their fifth overtime period in the series. Whatever the outcome of this admittedly excellent series, one thing is for sure. If the Celtics can barely beat this team there isn’t much hope for them in the later rounds. The D has been spotty. The bench is the worst since Greg Kite was their “sixth man”. It’s actually been hard to watch.
Oh well, at least it’s not pick and roll pick and roll every damn time down the court.
I hate my optometrists. Or should I say, I hate my ex-optometrists.
I’ve worn glasses since I was in fourth grade. I’ve never been able to handle contact lenses, and to me there’s also something refreshing and liberating about having a little mask that I put on when I wake up and take off when I go to sleep. Eyeglasses are, perhaps, my only concession to the world that there is this constant public dance called “fashion” and that I participate in it.
The problem with glasses isn’t in the objects themselves, but that buying them is such an exercise in consumer frustration. (more…)
Possibly the best game currently available for the iPhone/iPod Touch platform right now, Uniwar fulfills pretty much all of your “Hey, I’d like to play something like Advance Wars” needs.
The polish is sort of stunning – multi-player online games, with multiple players per team (2v2, 3v3, or 4v4), email notifications when it’s your turn, a computer opponent that’s not too shabby, and best of all, it’s in your pocket wherever you go.
I have seen the future of gaming, and it isn’t the Nintendo DS.
I’ll keep this short, because no one could possibly be less interested in my continuous car shopping than you guys. But in my previous missive I forgot to list the questions brought up by this exercise. So here they are now.
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Consider the humble sardine.
Yes, yes, I’m doing it again: rehabilitating foods that odds are you, for some godforsaken reason, don’t eat. Even though these foods are awesome. I’m not going to stop anytime soon. You don’t eat prunes, so I tell you to eat prunes. You don’t eat olives, so I tell you to eat olives. You don’t eat liver, so I tell you – at least those of you without heart conditions – to eat liver.
You don’t eat sardines. You should eat sardines. Here’s a recipe that is better than most of the pasta recipes you’ve made in the past year. Unless you’re Lidia Bastianich. In which case you already know that you should be eating sardines. (more…)
Lately I’ve been trying to get a handle on a few basic techniques, one of which is braising meat. I’ve always had good luck with making stew but mixed luck with braising. After gaining some insight through failed practice sessions, I think I finally cracked the code this weekend. So here is what you do.
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We were in Dinette the other night getting ready to tuck into one of their excellent pancetta and sunny-side up egg pizzas when we spied a plate of prosciutto go by to the table in the back. It was placed in front of a young girl, maybe 8 years old. “That’s a lot of ham”, I thought. A while later, having polished off the pizza we looked back over and the plate was empty and a second plate of ham was being placed in front of the young girl. Now, I’m sure she had some help from dad in polishing this off, but she still ate most of the second plate as well. My heart was warmed and I thought to myself that here was a rare child whose dad was nurturing a healthy future love for that perfect food: pork
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Cocktail-making is as close as most people get to alchemy.
One might think that cooking or baking qualify, as well. But in both cooking and baking, technique can tend to predominate, and it’s rare that you end up with something inexplicably numinous. In the cocktail, however, more often than you’d think, you can put three ugly ducks into a shaker and end up with a swan. The sum of the ingredients is greater than its parts. (more…)
I’ve been looking at cars lately. I have never really shopped for cars in the past because for reasons that are too complicated to get into we’ve always just bought minivans. But, the current van is reaching the end of its useful life and for various other reasons that are too complicated to explain, it’s time to find a car for me to use as a commuter. I have found the experience to be both enlightening and confusing. Maybe you in the intertubes can help with the confusing parts.
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Long time readers will no doubt remember that my favorite Asian food restaurant in Pittsburgh is Rose Tea Cafe in Squirrel Hill. Rose Tea is so good that you can come back to Pittsburgh after a week in a city with a real Chinese Food community and eat there without blinking. If this was all they had achieved, the place would represent a true watershed in the food history of our fair city. But, Rose Tea has actually achieved much more than this and is therefore an even more important entity in the city. The reason is simple: they are teaching the locals how to eat real Chinese food by only serving them real Chinese food.
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