Man of Leisure

The Sins of the Father

The NYT has a little item about my favorite grocery store, New Seasons Market, pulling Rockstar energy drink because it was created by the son of reactionary radio talk-show host Michael Savage (original Oregonian newspaper article here).

This seems to me to be a rather odd reason to pull a product. It's not like the can says anything at all about politics, nor even mentions Mr. Savage.

Here's the text of a note I sent to the president of New Seasons Market:

I'm really flummoxed by your decision to pull Rockstar energy drink from the shelves. Can you point me to anything on the label (or anywhere else) that promotes views that you don't agree with?

Punishing a company for its president's father's political views is just plain silly. The only mention of Mr. Wiener's father on the Rockstar official website is his role as an herbalist, which is an undisputed fact.

I'm a huge fan of your store, and though I don't buy or consume Rockstar, I am just totally blown away by this extremely public action that simply doesn't make sense - neither ethical nor business. Are you going to explore the parental politics of the company president for every product that you stock?

In Praise of Totino's Pizza

Slate Magazine has a review of frozen and delivery pizzas which almost gets it completely wrong. I say "almost" because they correctly ranked Tombstone below Totino's Pizza, but then the article proceeds to bad-mouth Totino's as if it truly were the worst of the bunch. A travesty of judgement, methinks.

Here is my paean to Totino's: It's inexpensive ($0.88 each at WinCo Foods). It's quick to prepare (13 minutes in a 450-degree oven). It has a pleasantly crunchy crust. It stacks well in the freezer (not like those bulky boxes of DiGiorno's or Red Baron). It's not doughy or over-sauced. It's not greasy. You don't feel bad when you discard two leftover pieces, because they're so inexpensive. Oh, did I mention that Totino's is inexpensive (even when you're shopping at Fred Meyer, it's a maximum of $1.25 each)?

Sure, I enjoy Chicago-style, knife-and-fork pizza from Geno's East. But if you're not watching the Cubbies lose on the TV while sitting at a table covered in red-and-white gingham and drinking a beer you brought from home, then you're wasting your time with anything more than Totino's. I prefer thin, crunchy crust on my home-cooked pizza. I'll settle for thin-crust Domino's, but for the same $7 I can enjoy 9 Totino's - and that means a full week of late-night pizza binges for less than a dollar a day.

And obviously I'm not alone - others enjoy the taste treat that is Totino's. MIT honored Rose Totino, creator of the frozen pizza, as "Inventor of the Week" in October 2002. The web also features an excellent set of instructions for enjoying Totino's Pizza. And this guy apparently has a cottage business acting as the customer support department for Totino's Pizza. What a country!

Chef It Up!

Salon.com has a little article that extols the virtues of two shows I TiVo every week: Good Eats and America's Test Kitchen. These two cooking shows are kind of like another favorite show, MythBusters, in that they use science to explain why things happen the way they do, and then show you how to reproduce the results: in this case, the results are great foodstuffs.

I like Alton Brown, the host of Good Eats, because he tries to be funny - he uses schtick that makes you wince, and does so knowingly. He doesn't give recipes: he teaches techniques that have given me confidence in the kitchen. I especially have loved the shows on Toast, Cheeses (Welsh Rabbit is something I can't wait to try making), and Tea. It's amazing what you can learn in 30 minutes!

America's Test Kitchen is the cooking show equivalent of Consumer Reports magazine: the hosts take a food and compare the ways to prepare it, explaining why some recipes don't work and then showing how to do it best. I watched a great episode last week that showed two classic French recipes: Creme Brulee (my favorite dessert, bar none!) and Steak au Poivre (Mmmm. Cow.). It makes me hungry just thinking about it! But during the episode, they explained which sugar is best to top the Creme Brulee, as well as explored the various options for kitchen torches (eventually deciding that a hardware-store torch was the best, because it's the cheapest). Very practical.

Another source of cooking information that I enjoy is a magazine that my mother receives: Quick Cooking. Every time I go to my parents' house, I flip through the latest issue to see what tasty treats I want to attempt. Most of the recipes are ready in 30 minutes or less, and many rely on prepared mixes; none require trips to the specialty boutique grocers. It's an excellent magazine, one that made my Santa list this year. Give it a look-see.

iTunes Kicks A$$

Apple released an update to their excellent iTunes music library program today, bringing a few new features to the free program for Macintosh and Windoze XP. The best new feature is sharing of playlists, by uploading them to the iTunes Music Store. There, other iTunes users can rate your list and purchase tracks that they like. I spent an hour or so this evening browsing some of the iMix playlists, and found about 40 songs that I'd like to buy very soon, mainly 80's radio classics.

I uploaded a playlist of my own, based on my "Meet Your Maker" collection of drinking songs that I made for Tom. The following web address should take you to the playlist, if you have the iTunes program on your computer:

http://tinyurl.com/3cq5n

Speaking of drinking, Tom and I completed The Project on Wednesday afternoon, well in advance of the official pub crawl. During our trip, we came across some choice quotes:

"How's your mother?" - This is what we heard when we sat down at the bar in the Twilight Room. Now while this is a normal question on a college campus, usually ending in some fisticuffs, this time the question was being posed seriously (albeit to another denizen of the bar). This fact helped Tom and I discern that the T-Room is truly a neighborhood establishment.

When Tom and I explained to Charity the Bar Maiden at the Portsmouth Club that we were doing our own version of the pub crawl, by enjoying a pint one or two stops at a time over a 2-week period, she remarked, "Well, it doesn't seem like you've been doing much crawling, then." Very insightful, Ms. Charity. Tom and I decided that the P-Club provided the best persiflage that we'd enjoyed during The Project.

Finals Week (Finally!)

It's the last week of the academic year here in Portland, and the weather couldn't be any more beautiful. I had a lovely weekend in Yakima, attending a wedding as the guest of Ms. Julie. It was fun to drive around and see the sights of Southeast Washington, including my uncle's winery, Hinzerling Winery.

The students are wrapping up the year, sitting on the grass and studying like fiends. Given the stresses of this particularly challenging year on campus, I think folks are in a good mood and ready to go away. Of course, the workload is getting ready to dramatically increase for those of us on staff at the University, but it will be for just a spike before the summer rhythm settles in again.

Tom and I are continuing on our project. Today we visited Tom's Pizza & Pub and the Sweet Home Bar & Grill. Both places were pleasant, and they're ready for the Pub Crawlers on Wednesday. It's really fun to talk to the good denizens of Lombard Street's establishments. They're a down-to-earth crowd. I'll have a full report after the kids are gone...

Incense and Sacraments

The Archbishop of Portland, John G. Vlazny, joined the university community yesterday to celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation with our 9 candidates. Joseph and I, along with Andy and Stephanie, worked with the program over the past academic year, and it was exciting to see them learn and grow in the Catholic faith. Now they're full-fledged disciples, strengthened by the Holy Spirit to live their Christian lives. What an exciting step!

It's Reading Week at the university, the penultimate week of school. It doesn't help that the flu has hit campus this past week, either. I am afraid that I may have gotten it, even right now I am feeling a bit of sinus pressure in my frontal cortex. I hope it's merely a lack of good sleep.

I made the Hobbit Casserole for Christine's belated birthday yesterday, and it was a hit. I made two batches: the original recipe, with cream of mushroom soup, and a funghi-free version with cream of celery. I must say, the cream of celery was a big hit. It was gooey-ier (or should I say, "more gooey"?) because there were proportionally less tater tots in it than in the cream of mushroom recipe. Perhaps I'll double the amount of soup and cheese when I make it from now on.

Day Drinking Again

My buddy Tom Gannon and I hatched upon a brilliant plan yesterday afternoon: drink a beer at all of the bars along the "Senior Pub Crawl" path, but do so before the pub crawl begins. So we began at the Kenton Station, which is technically #2 on the crawl; since Tom and I are both morally opposed to strip joints, we left the Dancing Bare off the list.

The Kenton Station is a fine pub. They have both PBR and Mirror Pond Pale Ale on tap, which makes for a nice selection. I had the Widmer Drop Top, while Thomas enjoyed the Redhook Nut Brown Ale.

Today, we continued our project: the Tavern on Denver, a workingman's establishment kitty-corner (cater-corner, for those of you who are into correctness in your English) from the Kenton Station. $1.75 pints of Hamms: how could we not Hamm it up? As Thomas pointed out, you simply gotta love a place where the sign at the door reads, "This entire establishment is a smoking area."

I've been working on catching up on my TiVo watching: today, two episodes of The Simpsons, two of Scrubs, and two of The Sopranos. What a season The Sopranos is proving to be! Tony Soprano is an extremely deep character; watching him is like living through him, because you're never quite sure where he's going to go with the decisions he has to make, but you know that it's going to be fairly painful before it's all over. I love this show!

What A Vacation!

As my host Fr. Bill pointed out just before I left Manhattan, it's hard to imagine packing much more into a 6-day New York City visit:
Carnegie Hall (Philadelphia Symphony featuring piano virtuoso Lang Lang)
Fresh Grilled Bacon at the Gramercy Tavern
Frankfurters and papaya juice at Gray's Papaya (twice!)
"Avenue Q", a smash Broadway hit
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The American Museum of Natural History
The Guggenheim Museum
"Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself", an awful arthouse movie
Fr. Bill's birthday dinner at Tamarind, a very tasty Indian restaurant
Shopping for gifts in SoHo and on Canal Street
Lunch at the Hello Deli with Ruppert Jee, star of The Late Show with David Letterman
Pints of beer at McSorley's Tavern, a New York institution since 1854
Several lovely meals with Fr. Bill's friends
Meeting up with my high school pal Marc Bailly
Destroying my feet by walking far more than I've ever done before...

All in all, I'd say it was a great week!

Another Favourite Photo

I've received a lot of flak for not posting anything in a while. I humbly apologize. I shall attempt to remedy the situation.

To tide you over, here's another favourite from the iPhoto collection, this one from my December 1999 trip to Rome. I'll bet you haven't seen anything like this in America since at least the mid-1980's.

That's right. It's a styrofoam Big Mac(r) box, being propped up by a styrofoam Filet-O-Fish(r) box.

Do you share my nostalgia for the "good ol' days"?

Confidential to Mike in Portland-Still waiting for the basement tapes, buddy. See you at 10 in the Multipurpose Room.

Blessed City, Here I Come!

I'm off to Seattle to enjoy the remainder of Fall Break. Campus has been quiet this past weekend. I haven't gotten squat done except assignment #2 for the M.A. program. My next discussion is Friday morning, which should be excellent - it's on a book I've read thrice (How To Read A Book), so I ought to know the material by now.

On Monday evening, Shino organized a progressive dinner in the Village. Fourteen residents and guests partook of the culinary offerings of our hosts. We moved through four different apartments in a two-hour tour that featured chips & artichoke and chili dips, gourmet salad, handmade enchiladas, and key lime pie. It was a very pleasant affair. Hopefully this will inspire future excellent programs of a similar ambition!

I discovered a great little time-waster for my computer desktop: Konfabulator, a software engine that runs little JavaScript widgets that perform all sorts of piddling tasks, like display the currently playing iTunes song in a gently appearing/disappearing window while the work goes on unhampered; show the five-day weather forecast with moon phase; display the lyrics to whatever song is playing on iTunes; provide a multi-engine search tool that floats atop my desktop; and many more. Konfabulator is delightful!