This year's fantasy baseball draft has started and my daily bonding sessions with Papa Jones have begun. By now Mama Jones has learned if her husband and daughter are on the phone during baseball season, they're most likely discussing the fate of their Yahoo team of sluggers. Last year, as my silent partner during my very first attempt at fantasy glory, dad advised me towards a team full of "reliable" geezers. The average age of our team was almost four years older than that of the winner's, but in spite of recurring injuries and the onset of osteoperosis, our old farts landed us in a respectable 6th place (out of 12). Supposedly three or four of my leaguemates threw in the towel mid-season, but I like to think they elected to quit after realizing they were getting their asses beaten by a girl.
I am no longer the only female in my league (there are two to beat this year, both Yankee fans. Grrrrrrr.), and I can't decide if I have more or less to prove. Dad has been a pretty good sport about our new girl-power teamname, The Flying Ginas (that's "Jy-nah"), mostly because I've given him no choice. He's also agreed to target some of baseball's younger talent and we have both made a pact to to avoid repeating the following sins of last year:
1. Drafting A-Rod.
2. Letting go of Francisco Liriano before the season starts.
3. Accidentally drafting Tom Jones instead of Todd Jones. (okay, that one was my fault)
We're already in the third round of the draft with Big Papi Ortiz and Jimmy Rollins taking their places at the top of Team Gina. I have confidence starting off with a Red Sox player instead of a Yankee player is good luck, and drafting a shortstop instead of Black Flag's lead singer is another step in the right direction. My turn to pick has come up once again and I put in a call to my father this morning to discuss my options. In the end, draft pick number three came down to Chone Figgins on Los Angeles and Troy Glaus on Toronto.
The process for making a draft decision over the phone can be long and taxing and usually goes something like this:
Stacia Jones: Okay, so we're down to Figgins and Glaus.
Papa Jones: Yeah, both great picks. Figgins will give you the speed you need. He's young, he's a hot shot...if you want to go young, Figgins is a great pick. But Glaus...Glaus will give you power. He's a powerhouse. He blasts the ball. Wait, check their numbers.
SJ: Figgins had 9 homeruns, 62 RBIs, 52 stolen bases...
PJ: See, I told you he was fast...
SJ: .267. And he's eligible for 2nd, 3rd and the outfield.
PJ: Okay, Glaus?
SJ: 38 homeruns...
PJ: See!
SJ: 104 RBIs, 3 stolen bases...
PJ: No speed...
SJ: and a .252 average. 3rd and shortstop.
PJ: Okay, I like it. I like them both.
SJ: But which guy do you think we need more? Do we need speed or power? We've got Ortiz's bat and Rollins is pretty fast...Wait, should we go pitching?
PJ: Naw, not yet. There are two hard, fast rules in baseball, two truisms that never fail. Fast guys always steal, and strikeout pitchers always strike out.
SJ: What does that have to do with anything?
PJ: I'm just saying.
SJ: Okay...
PJ: There are plenty of strikeout pitchers left. There hasn't been a run on them yet.
SJ: So Figgins or Glaus?
PJ: Hmmm, Figgins or Glaus... Wait, read me the top starting pitchers still available.
I search and read off the top starters to Papa Dukes...
PJ: Okay, now the closers...
Now check second base again...
And third???
SJ: Dad! Figgins or Glaus??!!
PJ: Okay, Figgins. I say, go with Figgins. Wait, wait, mom needs to talk to you.
Mama Jones, who knows little to nothing about baseball, gets on the phone.
MJ: "Make sure you get Figgins, and if you can't get Figgins, get eenie, meenie, minie, mo."
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Momofuk Me? No, Momofuk-U!
I love that this Eater guest post from Momofuku Chef David Chang (and tomorrow's highly anticipated Bruni review of Momfuku Ssam Bar) came a week after my very first trip to Momofuku Noodle Bar, which, as I've mentioned quite a few times, I've been dying to try since it opened. A few things I love about Chang's musings on what it’s like to wait for a review to drop:
1. He defaults to a chapter format, based on stars earned, to log potential responses to Bruni's review. (Almost a list! I approve!)
2. He projects calling upon drugs as relief from bad review-induced depression: "I would try crack, black tar heroin and crystal meth for the first time, possibly all three at once. Anything that would take me to a happy place."
3. He pokes lightheartedly at, but never denies the influence of one man's opinion on his culinary career: "Is he going to make us or break us? Is there a bottle of bourbon around here somewhere?"
4. He understands the limits of his charming little eatery, and doesn’t take his establishment more seriously than he should: “For fuck’s sake we don’t even have silverware and we use paper napkins. Our bathroom has a hand dryer.”
I’m pretty sure Momofuku Noodle had paper towels in the John, but it’s still an unfussy spot, focused on churning out some of the tastiest offerings to pass this Asian food-junkie’s lips.
Although it wasn’t quite as hectic as I expected for 6:30 pm on a Sunday, Momofuku was still filled to capacity with spare bodies huddled together at the door and a few growling stomachs beyond the glass window, pacing in the 16-degree wind. There isn’t much space to wait inside the skinny dining area, and it’s likely frigid temperatures kept away all but the most motivated of foodies, but even on a temperate traffic day it’s clear the only quick way into this noodle house is as a party of one.
I climbed atop a high stool that thoroughly tested recurring New Year’s resolution #1, and was handed the wonderfully concise menu, contained on a single laminated sheet. The majority of diners at Momofuku sit at a long bar facing the open kitchen and stretching from the front door almost to the bathroom at the opposite end of the narrow space, but I was seated at one of two smaller benches at the fore of the restaurant, away from the exciting action. My slab of dining surface was nailed into the wall, providing me about a foot-and-a-half’s worth of breathing space in front and even less room to each side where fellow cramped diners ate with chopsticks, elbows high in the air. Good thing I was in it for the food and not the view.
I enjoy dining solo, but I generally like trying new places with a partner in tow to increase sampling options. I remember reading a lot about the affordability of the Momofuku dining experience when it was in the first round of reviews, and if you share an appetizer with a date and each tackle a bowl of noodle soup, the total per person lands around twenty-dollars, which isn’t terrible for such tasty (and hyped) cuisine. But I’ve got big eyes and an endless pit of a stomach and you best believe after daydreaming for over a year about pork buns dressed with pickles and famous egg-laced ramen, I was letting loose with the ordering. I did an app and an entrée all to myself, and the still-slight meal set me back thirty bucks sans drink. Totally worth it, but I can eat six bowls of Chinatown Ramen for three Hamiltons, and probably a few pan-fried gyoza to boot.
But I needed to try those nine-dollar pork buns.
The dough of Momofuku’s steamed pork bun is less fluffy than that of the traditional dim-sum treat. It actually lays out more like an oval-shaped pancake, folding over once to enclose its contents inside like a money clip. The pork it houses is super-salty, enhanced by crisp, marinated pickles and warm, sweet Asian barbeque sauce. Two buns come to an order and I was glad to have them both to myself. The only utensils on the bar were chopsticks, quite impractical for picking up open-ended pork pockets, so I grabbed those suckers with my hands and put them each away in four or five bites.
Momofuku’s signature ramen was also as incredible as I expected. The broth is beautiful – slightly more textured than the traditional soup component, a bit unfiltered, like miso. Two different cuts of pork lie in the soup, one that falls right off the bone, the other tighter, and like the meat in the pork buns, lobbed into thick, meaty slices. The main vehicle for pulling the soup’s flavor across your tongue is the base of noodles. The wheaty strands are slightly undercooked to hold up to the liquid and accoutrements, the most decadent of which is a poached egg that bobs up and down until you spill its delicious cholesterol into the open water. The first bite of pork and yolk is scarily sinful. A real chest-grabber.
Like much Asian cuisine, the ramen went down warm and bold (Japanese “lumberjack food” to steal a byte from Amy Sedaris), but left me starving two hours later. So now I’ve hatched the master plan. Next time, Momofuku Noodle, then movie on 2nd Ave, and then the Ssam Bar.
No matter what Frank Bruni says.
1. He defaults to a chapter format, based on stars earned, to log potential responses to Bruni's review. (Almost a list! I approve!)
2. He projects calling upon drugs as relief from bad review-induced depression: "I would try crack, black tar heroin and crystal meth for the first time, possibly all three at once. Anything that would take me to a happy place."
3. He pokes lightheartedly at, but never denies the influence of one man's opinion on his culinary career: "Is he going to make us or break us? Is there a bottle of bourbon around here somewhere?"
4. He understands the limits of his charming little eatery, and doesn’t take his establishment more seriously than he should: “For fuck’s sake we don’t even have silverware and we use paper napkins. Our bathroom has a hand dryer.”
I’m pretty sure Momofuku Noodle had paper towels in the John, but it’s still an unfussy spot, focused on churning out some of the tastiest offerings to pass this Asian food-junkie’s lips.
Although it wasn’t quite as hectic as I expected for 6:30 pm on a Sunday, Momofuku was still filled to capacity with spare bodies huddled together at the door and a few growling stomachs beyond the glass window, pacing in the 16-degree wind. There isn’t much space to wait inside the skinny dining area, and it’s likely frigid temperatures kept away all but the most motivated of foodies, but even on a temperate traffic day it’s clear the only quick way into this noodle house is as a party of one.
I climbed atop a high stool that thoroughly tested recurring New Year’s resolution #1, and was handed the wonderfully concise menu, contained on a single laminated sheet. The majority of diners at Momofuku sit at a long bar facing the open kitchen and stretching from the front door almost to the bathroom at the opposite end of the narrow space, but I was seated at one of two smaller benches at the fore of the restaurant, away from the exciting action. My slab of dining surface was nailed into the wall, providing me about a foot-and-a-half’s worth of breathing space in front and even less room to each side where fellow cramped diners ate with chopsticks, elbows high in the air. Good thing I was in it for the food and not the view.
I enjoy dining solo, but I generally like trying new places with a partner in tow to increase sampling options. I remember reading a lot about the affordability of the Momofuku dining experience when it was in the first round of reviews, and if you share an appetizer with a date and each tackle a bowl of noodle soup, the total per person lands around twenty-dollars, which isn’t terrible for such tasty (and hyped) cuisine. But I’ve got big eyes and an endless pit of a stomach and you best believe after daydreaming for over a year about pork buns dressed with pickles and famous egg-laced ramen, I was letting loose with the ordering. I did an app and an entrée all to myself, and the still-slight meal set me back thirty bucks sans drink. Totally worth it, but I can eat six bowls of Chinatown Ramen for three Hamiltons, and probably a few pan-fried gyoza to boot.
But I needed to try those nine-dollar pork buns.
The dough of Momofuku’s steamed pork bun is less fluffy than that of the traditional dim-sum treat. It actually lays out more like an oval-shaped pancake, folding over once to enclose its contents inside like a money clip. The pork it houses is super-salty, enhanced by crisp, marinated pickles and warm, sweet Asian barbeque sauce. Two buns come to an order and I was glad to have them both to myself. The only utensils on the bar were chopsticks, quite impractical for picking up open-ended pork pockets, so I grabbed those suckers with my hands and put them each away in four or five bites.
Momofuku’s signature ramen was also as incredible as I expected. The broth is beautiful – slightly more textured than the traditional soup component, a bit unfiltered, like miso. Two different cuts of pork lie in the soup, one that falls right off the bone, the other tighter, and like the meat in the pork buns, lobbed into thick, meaty slices. The main vehicle for pulling the soup’s flavor across your tongue is the base of noodles. The wheaty strands are slightly undercooked to hold up to the liquid and accoutrements, the most decadent of which is a poached egg that bobs up and down until you spill its delicious cholesterol into the open water. The first bite of pork and yolk is scarily sinful. A real chest-grabber.
Like much Asian cuisine, the ramen went down warm and bold (Japanese “lumberjack food” to steal a byte from Amy Sedaris), but left me starving two hours later. So now I’ve hatched the master plan. Next time, Momofuku Noodle, then movie on 2nd Ave, and then the Ssam Bar.
No matter what Frank Bruni says.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Le mot du jour
I love me the dictionary.com "Word of the Day," especially when said word derives from or is a working part of la belle langue Française.
So I was especially pleased when yesterday's mot sauntered into my inbox late this afternoon, four rosés deep and reeking of Chanel No.9:
idee fixe \ee-day-FEEKS\, noun:
An idea that dominates the mind; a fixed idea; an obsession.
(How great is the phoenetic spelling of the word "fixe," p.s.?)
It just so happens I am quite familiar with les ideés fixes, as the cultivation of such obsessions has become a trademark of my personality. Most of mes ideés are umbrellaed under the categories of la culture, mon travail (work), et les hommes (that's men) but when it comes down to it, there is potential for me to obsess about almost anything.
For now - since February has proven to strengthen my resolve on this long-standing, well-tread idee fixe of mine - I proclaim to you, the reader, and to the world, in the name of French scents and carbonated spirits, online dictionaries, silent l's and rolling r's:
I WILL WRITE.
Word.
So I was especially pleased when yesterday's mot sauntered into my inbox late this afternoon, four rosés deep and reeking of Chanel No.9:
idee fixe \ee-day-FEEKS\, noun:
An idea that dominates the mind; a fixed idea; an obsession.
(How great is the phoenetic spelling of the word "fixe," p.s.?)
It just so happens I am quite familiar with les ideés fixes, as the cultivation of such obsessions has become a trademark of my personality. Most of mes ideés are umbrellaed under the categories of la culture, mon travail (work), et les hommes (that's men) but when it comes down to it, there is potential for me to obsess about almost anything.
For now - since February has proven to strengthen my resolve on this long-standing, well-tread idee fixe of mine - I proclaim to you, the reader, and to the world, in the name of French scents and carbonated spirits, online dictionaries, silent l's and rolling r's:
I WILL WRITE.
Word.
Pollanology and Johnny Appleseed
After reading the first chapter of Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire this summer, all I could talk about for days was Johnny Appleseed.
Pollan’s book is divided into four chapters, each mapping a singular plant's - perhaps conscious - evolution and adaptation to the desires of humans that has resulted in the plant's propagation. Pollan first takes on the apple (tagged as appealing to the human desire of "sweetness"), where he reveals the story behind a plant that was "eager to do business with humans and perhaps nowhere more so than in America." The figure that facilitated more transactions with the shiny-skinned fruit than any human in history, was Johnny Appleseed.
Although christened John Chapman by birth, Johnny Appleseed did exist. And he did traverse the wilderness of America planting trees, but they were trees yielding the most wretched, sour apples imaginable. It turns out all apples planted from seeds are wild strains, and the only way to cultivate one of the carefully engineered apple varieties we are familiar with today is through the grafting of existing trees. John Chapman's nearly inedible apples were welcomed on the frontier, however, because of their usefulness in making cider. Johnny Appleseed, myth and hero of kindergarten tall tales, was perhaps the number one unknowing proponent of alcoholism in early America.
Even more ironic/fucked up: During prohibition, apple-growers devised the slogan "an apple a day keeps the doctor away," to promote the supposed healthfulness of the source of their beloved alcohol. Thus, apples became one of the first products pushed our way through the wagon-wheel cogs of public relations.
And to think -- though I never liked you, I believed in you, apples.
I haven't yet cracked open Pollan's most recent work, The Omnivore's Dilemma, but he recently wrote an article for the New York Times Magazine about "nutritionism," which I finally got around to reading last night (it's nine pages long).
"Nutritionism" or the switch in public consciousness from eating food, to consuming nutrients has been upon the United States for the last twenty-or-so years, and Pollan is successful at unveiling the negative effects of this ideology on our health and diet. When emphasis is placed on incorporating singular nutrients instead of whole foods in our diets, we miss out on the positive effects of micronutrients that have not yet been isolated as well as the beneficial chemical reactions incurred when nutrients are ingested in concert, within the context of natural meals. Instead of eating balanced meals, we add nutritional supplements (whose benefits and drawbacks we don’t fully understand) to processed food products (whose essential nutrients have been removed in the first place). And Americans are never told to "eat less" of anything, lest we upset the balance of a prosperous food trade. As with many industries ruled by agendas of profit and policed by a government susceptible to bullying lobbyists, the food industry - and our health in turn - is plagued by its own regulations. As Pollan notes in one of my favorite lines of the piece:
"Of course it's also a lot easier to slap a health claim on a box of sugary cereal than on a potato or carrot, with the perverse result that the most healthful foods in the supermarket sit there quietly in the produce section, silent as stroke victims, while a few aisles over, the Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms are screaming about their newfound whole-grain goodness."
And sadly it still makes me feel better, when I breeze through two boxes of Cocoa Krispies a week, to find they're low in fat.
Pollan makes many other points about dietary over-generalization, the dangers of reductionist science and the effects of processed food on nutrition, that are worth absorbing and applying to your daily life (pending sufficient willpower). If you have the time, read the article. And eat a banana for God's sake.
Pollan’s book is divided into four chapters, each mapping a singular plant's - perhaps conscious - evolution and adaptation to the desires of humans that has resulted in the plant's propagation. Pollan first takes on the apple (tagged as appealing to the human desire of "sweetness"), where he reveals the story behind a plant that was "eager to do business with humans and perhaps nowhere more so than in America." The figure that facilitated more transactions with the shiny-skinned fruit than any human in history, was Johnny Appleseed.
Although christened John Chapman by birth, Johnny Appleseed did exist. And he did traverse the wilderness of America planting trees, but they were trees yielding the most wretched, sour apples imaginable. It turns out all apples planted from seeds are wild strains, and the only way to cultivate one of the carefully engineered apple varieties we are familiar with today is through the grafting of existing trees. John Chapman's nearly inedible apples were welcomed on the frontier, however, because of their usefulness in making cider. Johnny Appleseed, myth and hero of kindergarten tall tales, was perhaps the number one unknowing proponent of alcoholism in early America.
Even more ironic/fucked up: During prohibition, apple-growers devised the slogan "an apple a day keeps the doctor away," to promote the supposed healthfulness of the source of their beloved alcohol. Thus, apples became one of the first products pushed our way through the wagon-wheel cogs of public relations.
And to think -- though I never liked you, I believed in you, apples.
I haven't yet cracked open Pollan's most recent work, The Omnivore's Dilemma, but he recently wrote an article for the New York Times Magazine about "nutritionism," which I finally got around to reading last night (it's nine pages long).
"Nutritionism" or the switch in public consciousness from eating food, to consuming nutrients has been upon the United States for the last twenty-or-so years, and Pollan is successful at unveiling the negative effects of this ideology on our health and diet. When emphasis is placed on incorporating singular nutrients instead of whole foods in our diets, we miss out on the positive effects of micronutrients that have not yet been isolated as well as the beneficial chemical reactions incurred when nutrients are ingested in concert, within the context of natural meals. Instead of eating balanced meals, we add nutritional supplements (whose benefits and drawbacks we don’t fully understand) to processed food products (whose essential nutrients have been removed in the first place). And Americans are never told to "eat less" of anything, lest we upset the balance of a prosperous food trade. As with many industries ruled by agendas of profit and policed by a government susceptible to bullying lobbyists, the food industry - and our health in turn - is plagued by its own regulations. As Pollan notes in one of my favorite lines of the piece:
"Of course it's also a lot easier to slap a health claim on a box of sugary cereal than on a potato or carrot, with the perverse result that the most healthful foods in the supermarket sit there quietly in the produce section, silent as stroke victims, while a few aisles over, the Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms are screaming about their newfound whole-grain goodness."
And sadly it still makes me feel better, when I breeze through two boxes of Cocoa Krispies a week, to find they're low in fat.
Pollan makes many other points about dietary over-generalization, the dangers of reductionist science and the effects of processed food on nutrition, that are worth absorbing and applying to your daily life (pending sufficient willpower). If you have the time, read the article. And eat a banana for God's sake.
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