After looking back at what I've just written, my goals for the fall can be distilled into the following statements: (1) (...and I repeat) enjoy every sandwich, and (2) avoid blunt trauma to the face.
Monday, August 15, 2011
The Summer So Far
As we enter the latter half of August, with fall so close I can almost smell the colorfully dead leaves, I feel the need to shamelessly reflect on my travels of this summer. In other words, I want to add back-stories to some awkward photos I have lying around.
In Dublin, Derek taught me the meaning of life. The Irish are known for their artful use of language, and his best advice was, "Your brain is nothing but a lump of jelly with electrical connections, so don't let it control you. Just be." Exactly what I had to say to bring on that line will be left ambiguous. This was before he slapped me in the face, exclaiming that emotions are for women and children... which probably had something to do with the fact that while this bar was busting at its rickety seams with pretty girls speaking in Irish accents, all of my attention was focused on this 41 year old man.
Cork felt like less of a tourist gathering than the Dublin I saw. Still, with a little persistence (translation: chain smoking until I asked the right crowd for a light) I was able to find a hopping pub in where I was the only yank. Despite my best efforts to blend in (see the Arizona Jeans baseball cap in this photo taken by my camera), I was eventually outed. Luckily, the Irish are a generous and fun-loving people, so rather than being harangued in an intimidating way, someone handed me this glass and told me to drink it. Upon downing it, I was laughed at for ingesting Goldschlager with a drop of Guinness; the quick-witted lad who got it called it a "black gold." I loved Cork... it felt authentic, and the most intimidating thing anyone did to me was to buy me a disgusting drink.
The glass box extending from the 103rd floor of the Sears Willis tower in Chicago is the only highlight to the two hour ordeal that is visiting Skydeck on a Saturday. For the first time, the obesity epidemic in our country struck me as quite worrisome; but only after a glance at the people standing beside me.
Within hours of being in that glass cube, I wound up in the ER receiving six stitches in my chin after what I'm going to call a "bowling accident." I can barely open an envelope using a letter opener, so I'm moderately proud of being able to deliver such a clean gash to my chin with only a hardwood floor and a dose of clumsy oafishness. A photo of the open wound is available upon request.
After looking back at what I've just written, my goals for the fall can be distilled into the following statements: (1) (...and I repeat) enjoy every sandwich, and (2) avoid blunt trauma to the face.
After looking back at what I've just written, my goals for the fall can be distilled into the following statements: (1) (...and I repeat) enjoy every sandwich, and (2) avoid blunt trauma to the face.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Thursday's Lunch: Blurry (and Large) Tomatoes at 'wichcraft
Apparently, water has seeped into my phone's already rickety camera. Things look a little fuzzy for the time being.
The BLT at 'wichcraft is featured at #7 on NY Magazine's list of seasonal foods to try before summer draws to a close. This sandwich features Greenmarket tomatoes, whose availability determines when BLT season (euphemism for the dog days of August) occurs.
Today's lunch comes from the first of two (been to the Dallas area recently?) sandwich shops on my radar that refuses to spell out "sandwich" to the bitter end... er, beginning. 'wichcraft, as we're all aware, was created by one of those Food Network personalities. This alone should price it out of my reach. There's one by NYU whose tenured-faculty/student clientele ratio is approximately three godzillion-to-one. The only other place in this area which such distinction is Knickerbocker Bar and Grill... because who doesn't need a three course steak lunch to spice up his boring Tuesday afternoons?
The sandwich place is, relatively speaking, for the rabble; so I can afford to shell out $14.50 for lunch when I'm feeling lucky. No, it's not absurd. But keep in mind I could almost buy three feet of BLT at the Subway across the street with that money. The sandwich itself comes with a price tag of $9.87, which sounds rather arbitrary until you realize that this makes for a round figure when tax is included. I do appreciate that. However, it also means I paid almost five dollars for a bag containing about four potato chips and a bottle of pop. Okay, so the bottle was made of glass, and the chips were kettle cooked... but THREE FEET, I say!
The tomato was certainly the star of this sandwich, and given the other ingredients, that usually means that the bacon just failed. Even without the delicious distraction of pork, I've never really remembered a particular tomato like I will remember these. It didn't hurt that these "slices" came in roughly the same dimensions as short stacks of pancakes at IHOP. Killer tomatoes, indeed (okay last time).
My only method for assessing how "organic" something (so often do I find this necessary) has always been based on size. I remember pulling toothpick-sized carrots from my grandparents' yard as a child. Never has an unnaturally large, store-bought carrot tasted remotely as satisfying as the shrimpy ones I used to nurse from seed to snack. Maybe the recent sewage spill acted as supercharged fertilizer for these guys, but these were notably large tomatoes. From what I can gather, the Greenmarket name-dropping only suggests that these were "locally grown," and I can find no stipulations about what kind of BLT experience-enhancing chemicals were used in these guys.
Verdict: Well, I didn't really want to like it. When I found out that the tomatoes weren't necessarily hormone free, it started to taste better. Still, if I'm not paying for "organic," then I don't know why I'm paying so much for this smallish sandwich (it could have been three feet long!). Still, at the end of the day, I can't say I don't approve of anything that uses bacon in a constructive way. Constructive and tasty.
The BLT at 'wichcraft is featured at #7 on NY Magazine's list of seasonal foods to try before summer draws to a close. This sandwich features Greenmarket tomatoes, whose availability determines when BLT season (euphemism for the dog days of August) occurs.
Today's lunch comes from the first of two (been to the Dallas area recently?) sandwich shops on my radar that refuses to spell out "sandwich" to the bitter end... er, beginning. 'wichcraft, as we're all aware, was created by one of those Food Network personalities. This alone should price it out of my reach. There's one by NYU whose tenured-faculty/student clientele ratio is approximately three godzillion-to-one. The only other place in this area which such distinction is Knickerbocker Bar and Grill... because who doesn't need a three course steak lunch to spice up his boring Tuesday afternoons?
The sandwich place is, relatively speaking, for the rabble; so I can afford to shell out $14.50 for lunch when I'm feeling lucky. No, it's not absurd. But keep in mind I could almost buy three feet of BLT at the Subway across the street with that money. The sandwich itself comes with a price tag of $9.87, which sounds rather arbitrary until you realize that this makes for a round figure when tax is included. I do appreciate that. However, it also means I paid almost five dollars for a bag containing about four potato chips and a bottle of pop. Okay, so the bottle was made of glass, and the chips were kettle cooked... but THREE FEET, I say!
The tomato was certainly the star of this sandwich, and given the other ingredients, that usually means that the bacon just failed. Even without the delicious distraction of pork, I've never really remembered a particular tomato like I will remember these. It didn't hurt that these "slices" came in roughly the same dimensions as short stacks of pancakes at IHOP. Killer tomatoes, indeed (okay last time).
My only method for assessing how "organic" something (so often do I find this necessary) has always been based on size. I remember pulling toothpick-sized carrots from my grandparents' yard as a child. Never has an unnaturally large, store-bought carrot tasted remotely as satisfying as the shrimpy ones I used to nurse from seed to snack. Maybe the recent sewage spill acted as supercharged fertilizer for these guys, but these were notably large tomatoes. From what I can gather, the Greenmarket name-dropping only suggests that these were "locally grown," and I can find no stipulations about what kind of BLT experience-enhancing chemicals were used in these guys.
Verdict: Well, I didn't really want to like it. When I found out that the tomatoes weren't necessarily hormone free, it started to taste better. Still, if I'm not paying for "organic," then I don't know why I'm paying so much for this smallish sandwich (it could have been three feet long!). Still, at the end of the day, I can't say I don't approve of anything that uses bacon in a constructive way. Constructive and tasty.
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