Category: Ruminations

The super lovely Cathy of noteatingoutinny.com came over to my house for some green tea and to interview me for Chief Mag. I skimmed over it really quickly so I'm not sure if I sound stupid or not. You can go read it if you want to. But if I sound stupid, don't tell me.

Overheard last night at Pho Grand, a Vietnamese restaurant on Grand St.:

[group of young people perusing menu]

HYPERACTIVE FAUXHAWKED ASIAN GUY: Dude, what was that thing we ate on St. Marks last week?

DROLL HIRSUTE JEWISH GUY: Okonomiyaki.

HYPERACTIVE FAUXHAWKED ASIAN GUY: Yeah, THAT'S what I want!

DROLL HIRSUTE JEWISH GUY: You can't get that here, that's Japanese.

It's my friend Alex's 40th birthday this year and to celebrate, his friends are throwing him a big, drunken party in Chelsea tonight. (We were originally going to go to Berlin, but the pittance I've earned from those Google ads all year would barely cover dinner and pilsener for two at Loreley.) My friend Shannon came up with a totally genius flyer/webpage/concept for it. The evening is called The Joy of Alex: A Guide to Mature Lovemaking and the page plays "Je t'aime...Moi non plus". I just about fell off my chair laughing when I saw it.

I had a funny idea for the birthday confection part of the evening, so I called up sugar Sweet sunshine to see if they could make my dirty dream come true.

GANDA: I'd like to get two dozen cupcakes, but I have a special decorating request. I'm wondering if you can, um, ice them to look like breasts.

BAKER: [Giggling] Breasts?

GANDA: You know, if you could make the icing flesh colored, maybe put a piece of red candy in the middle for a nipple.

BAKER: Red candy...

GANDA: And, you know, some of them can be chocolate too so we have multi-racial breasts.

BAKER: [Giggling] Chocolate...How about red icing instead of candy?

GANDA: Icing's great.

BAKER: Do you want red nipples or pink nipples? [Giggling]

GANDA: Oh, you know, whatever's appropriate.

I also thought it would be funny to get them all as red velvet cupcakes so when you bit the tit, it would be bloody on the inside, but I thought that might be a little too morbid so I just went with vanilla and chocolate.

Get thee to NYMag.com, where my second lunch guide has just gone up. Don't hate me cause you're emo.

rice grab: The term my roommate uses for when he eats my cold leftover rice straight from the rice cooker. (Doug says I have to specify that it can only be called a rice grab if the rice has been sitting in the rice cooker for at least 12 hours.)

"I did a rice grab today and there was a really crunchy kernel in there. How old was it, like five days old?"

Sometimes, in the line of food writing duty, you gotta take one for the team. Such was the case with Meatopia II: Decklefest! Meat, beer, more meat, and more beer and some scary looking "bluetinis". And meat. Did I mention there was meat? Josh Ozersky's gruntworthy birthday bash at Harry's Water Taxi Beach on August 22 probably took off a few days of my life.

Glorious fatty deckles, barbecued chicken, bacon hunks, beautiful burgers, spicy pork tacos, brisket, ribs, links, and something called Porky Pork with Pork Sauce were cooked up by championship 'cue man Robbie Richter, 5 Ninth & Fatty Crab's Zak Pelaccio, Scott Smith, Mr. Cutlets himself and others, all in front of the heartstrings-tugging New York night skyline.

Also, not to be a total starfucker, but Jeffrey Steingarten wuz there, and I was too chicken to kiss his ass. It was an evening of beefy bacchanalia my arteries won't soon forget. You'll probably pack on a few pounds just from looking through my Flickr pics.

New phrase I coined this weekend:

Living with the numbers -- Becoming accustomed to increased weight.

"When I got on the scale at the beginning of the summer, I was disgusted by how much weight I'd gained. But now that I've been living with the numbers for a few months, it doesn't seem so bad."

"I saw Pepper Dennis on the street today. Remember how skinny she was in X-Men? She's totally living with the numbers now."

"He's going to need a lot of plastic surgery to sew up all the loose skin now that he's gone all Karl Lagerfeld. He looked so much better when he was living with the numbers."

Circulate at will.

GANDA: So my mom wants to come out to visit and asked if I could find her a room to sublet. So I was like, Mae, why don't you just stay with us. But she said she didn't want to impose on you.

DOUG: Oh, that's so sweet. You know it's fine, right?

GANDA: Yeah, I know, so I told her your mom stays with us all the time. But if my mom comes, we have to hide the alcohol.

[Silence. Doug's jaw grazes the ground.]

DOUG: Everything?

GANDA: Yeah.

DOUG: Like not even a bottle of wine?

GANDA: Yeah.

DOUG: Are you serious?

GANDA: Yeah.

DOUG: Your mom doesn't know you drink?

GANDA: Look, she has this nice image of me that allows her to sleep at night and I don't want to take that away from her.

Genius. This is why I'm afraid of blind dates.

Ciabatta vs. Baguette!
Parmigiano Reggiano vs. Camembert!
Finocchiona vs. Boudin blanc!
Martini & Rossi vs. Noilly Prat!
Prosecco vs. Champagne!
Bagna Cauda vs. Pot au Feu!
Gnocchi vs. Pommes soufflées!
Spaghetti a la Chitarra vs. Sole à la Meunière!
Lidia Bastianich vs. Jacques Pepin!
Osso Buco vs. Gigot d'Agneau!
Tiramisu vs. Tarte Tatin!
Espresso vs. Cafe au lait!
Grappa vs. Pastis!

Whose side are you on?