nosh nook #137 - tuesday, september 22, 2009

stadium food? not so bad; in fact, many relish it (link)
09.21.09 - dallas morning news - by laurel laurentz

down in texas, if you're talking pro football, you're talking the dallas cowboys. sorry, houston, but you have a problem. your former team made it to a few conference championships, but your current team has yet to put together a winning season. the cowboys have been average at best recently, but they've won five super bowls & are "america's team." you're just the "texans." it's no contest, really. it'd tell you to put your hometown love behind the astros, but they've lost eight in a row & just fired manager cecil cooper yesterday. two weeks til the rockets preseason begins! oh wait. yao ming's out for the season. man. you houstonians can't catch a break, huh?

on sunday in dallas, the cowboys played their first game at their new stadium, an architectural behemoth that's the largest domed stadium in the world, capable of seating up to 111,000 people. since a live football game is even stupider without burgers & nachos & beers, the team has to be able to feed a ridiculous amount of cowboys fans for hours on end. according to the dallas morning news' laurel laurentz, a crowd of that size drinks/eats "about 7,000 gallons of soda; a ton (yup, 2,000 pounds) of nacho cheese; 40 tons of ice; and 7,500 pounds of beef for cowboys cheesesteak." there's even "the biggest beer cooler in texas," which holds "about a quarter-million bottles." i swear to god, they'd better have a legit recycling program at the stadium or i'll totally bust one of those stupid plastic bud light bottles over owner jerry jones' head.

laurel did the rounds at the stadium to find out "what's really good?" let me sum it up for you. ultimate nachos = great. bbq chicken sandwich = pretty decent, pretty good. truffled mac & cheese dishes = relished. angus burger = uncomplimentary reaction. chili cheese fries = really good. black angus burger = good. chili cheese fries #2 = really good. kobe burger = very good. philly sandwich = nothing but praise. green chili kobe burger = pretty good. pizza = good. bbq chicken sandwich #2 = good. seriously, cowboys fans. it's time to learn some adjectives. two-thirds of you described your football fare as "good." didn't you at least pick up one food adjective from one time texan melissa d’arabian on this past season of the next food network star? it only makes the fact that the cowboys blew the game on a last-second field goal that much worse.

the musical fruit: movement #15.

the musical fruit: movement #15.
song: "date with IKEA," pavement
fruit: dates

the indie rock world sure has had their fair share of respectable reunions over the past decade. with the pixies & my bloody valentine & the jesus lizard & slint & mission of burma & polvo reunions out of the way, indie rock scientists turned their attention to one of the most hoped for ones over the past few years--pavement--who dissolved back in '99 after years of rocky relations between band members. last week, the indie rock nerds got their wish, as pavement announced that they'd be playing a gig in central park an entire year from now. that show sold out in two minutes & they ended up announcing three more shows, two of which have already sold out. in their time together, they put out five full-lengths & for the most part they were all damn solid, although i prefer the first three over the last two. i want to be excited about the reunion, but have been so indifferent to lead singer steve malkmus' solo albums that i suppose it sort of brought my love of pavement down a notch. i'm working on that.

their fourth album, brighten the corners, is probably my least favorite of theirs (wowee zowee's #1), but "date with IKEA" (the fourth song off of it) is up there as one of my favorite pavement songs. it was one of two songs on the album that were written by guitarist scott kannberg, the only two on the album not written by malkmus. it's a quick two-and-a-half minute rocker with slightly nonsensical lyrics & a nice quick solo, all attributes that make me love their first three albums so much. i guess other people felt the same love for the song because when matador records re-released brighten the corners at the end of last year as brighten the corners: nicene creedence edition, they ran a contest where one lucky fan won a $500 shopping spree at the red hook IKEA with pavement's jack-of-all-trades bob nastanovich. the girl who won won because all she had was a suitcase & an air mattress. i guess she deserved it.

i've got a date with dates tonight. in fact, i've been having a lot of dates with the dates recently. sure, i bring along cracker & apple & sweet sweet goat cheese most of the time, but the important thing is that we've been spending a lot of time together these days. i even spent some time this afternoon all alone with dates, just the two of us at my desk working hard at making sugary sweet tweens happy through the magic of sugary sweet pop. these particular dates came from brooklyn's terrafina foods. ever since i first picked some up early last month (btw, i still haven't got a human date from that post, ladies) along with goat cheese & crackers, they've become a fixture in my kitchen. it blows my mind that they're a fruit but they're so darn sugary. i LOVE sugar.

as far as dates go, i LOVE them, but i don't LOVE THEM LOVE them. a man can't live on sugar alone. i mean, we have some really great times together & i don't want to sound like i can't be a monogamist or something, but things are better when it's me, dates & some goat cheese. i have trouble being exclusive with dates. i love them & all, but they're just better when i spread cheese on them. there. i said it. i like my dates more if they have goat cheese on them. it's public record now & they're just going to have to accept the fact that they have to work together with goat cheese for my pleasure...& why shouldn't they? just look at how well it worked out for french fry & ranch dressing.

nosh nook #136 - monday, september 21, 2009

cooking teacher whips up kids' interest in food (link)
09.21.09 - sf chronicle - by edward guthmann

last month, the nosh nook took a look at a ny times article about the creative cooks culinary center, a program here in brooklyn that teaches kids about food & cooking & whatnot. as i mentioned, kids are absolutely horrible at keeping a balanced diet. if left to their own devices, those little twirps would end up on the paul rudnick diet. luckily, there are peeps out there who have enough patience to teach twirps about how to eat healthy & luckily, those peeps aren't confined to some hippie commune in the berkshires. they've got tons of liberal hippies out on the west coast too!

there's one such hippie at the thousand oaks elementary school out in berkeley, ca, where michael bauce "teaches basic cooking and nutrition to 438 students." as the chronicle reports, twenty years ago, bauce's wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, so they began eating macrobiotically & she lived for another ten years partly thanks to the diet. during that time, they also started a "macrobiotic meal-delivery service out of (their) home." shortly after she passed, the woman who started the thousand oaks food education program reached out to him & the rest is history. he's been teaching kids how to make "three sisters stew" and "sautéed broccoli & cauliflower" ever since.

it appears that bauce runs a tight ship in his classes. with each class, once he's told "them about the harvest of the month," they wash their hands, put on aprons, mix the food, wash their cutting boards, set the table & sit down quietly. "everyone has to be quiet. no one eats until we say the magic words, 'bon appetit, let's eat.'" it doesn't say so in the article, but i can only assume that if you're a rambunctious eight-year old who can't sit there quietly, you don't get any tomato salsa. you'll probably have to take off the apron too. he also has a rule called the "three bite rule," where "if someone doesn't like the sound of something, they have to try three bites." this is similar to the "no thank you helping," a concept developed by my mom's mom & in my case, pretty much exclusively applied to butternut squash. anyway, it's a tight ship...a tight, hippie ship. say that ten times fast.

nosh nook #135 - friday, september 18, 2009

a yummy forecast (link)
09.18.09 - the ny times - by daniel m. gold

holy crap. did you hear what the weather's supposed to be like this weekend? the summer's not even officially over yet, but the forecast is calling for cloudy with a chance of meatballs. meatballs! i knew that global warming & el nino were on a rampage, but can you believe that crap? since i'm pretty sure that he predicted that this time was nigh, i feel like it's high time that i check out that al gore movie & see what the deal is. i've heard of it raining cats & dogs, but nothing like this...scary.

speaking of movies that predicted this weather anomaly, the folks at sony pictures released cloudy with a chance of meatballs today. coincidence? i think not. the times' daniel m gold checked out the the animated flick, which is based on the beloved 1978 children's book. the story follows flint lockwood, an inventor who lives in a town called chewandswallow. one day, he invents a machine that "converts water into menu items." it helps him score with a babe, but like with most stories involving inventions, things get crazy when "the technology runs amok, and a perfect storm of the four food groups threatens his town and beyond."  

overall, gold seems to like the film, but notes that in a world dominated by films like up!, it's tough to compete. still, for phil lord & christopher miller (the creators of the film), it's a good first animated film. they may not save the world with their film adaptation, but "if the filmmakers opt to make only light statements about junk food, obesity and solid waste, they at least leave the audience sated on a single serving of inspired lunacy." puntastic, mr gold. puntastic.

the musical fruit: movement #14.

the musical fruit: movement #14.
song: "the pineapple vs the watermelon," xiu xiu
fruit: watermelon

since i've moved to nyc & fallen in love with the indie rock, i've come across a lot of hyped stuff & a lot of weird stuff. i'm well versed in pitchfork & it's through them that i discovered xiu xiu, the slightly spooky project of oakland's jamie stewart & a bunch of other peeps. it was around the release of their 2004 album fabulous muscles that i fell for them. the album is made up of equal parts poignant, whispered lyrics & acoustic guitar and unexpected, jagged, clanging sounds with some occasional rocking thrown in for good measure. the title song features the lyrics, "cremate me after i come on your lips. honey boy place my ashes in a vase beneath your workout bench." i found it awkward & creepy, but still fell hard for it, so hard that i made sure to write a piece about them for ny press' music section during my time there. as adam (my friend & co-worker at the time) often joked, "these guys are art rock, huh?"

their 2006 album, the air force, features a song called "the pineapple vs the watermelon." i'm not sure what the hell the title's all about. the song's actually about suicide & there's no mention of fruit at all in the lyrics. just some stuff about "someone felt something pure and told it all to you. that was why you killed yourself. to prove it wasn't true. say hello to cory's mom. say hello to freddy's mom. say hello to ryan's mom." it's typical dark-ass xiu xiu. the song begins with the aforementioned soft guitar & hushed lyrics & throughout, there are little bells & wood blocks & noises, but no frantically jarring stuff. i still like the jarring stuff, but the non-jarring stuff sticks with me more, for obvious reasons. this one in particular really grabs me.

i wasn't feeling ambitious or hungry enough to get both a pineapple and a watermelon. pineapples are too much work & i wasn't up for lugging a whole watermelon home on the bus. i'd just end up smashing it like some sort of accidental, less-comedic gallagher anyhow. maybe if it was one of those awesome square watermelons or heart-shaped ones that the japanese developed & i had a lot of yen to blow, i'd put forth the effort. instead, i opted for some watermelon & picked up a three pack of pre-sliced wedges from the supermarket, allowing me to eat watermelon at my leisure. shit, i'll probably even save one for breakfast tomorrow. it's a laid back life i lead, folks.

here's my take on the watermelon. i'm not cool with the seeds. never have been. for a little while when i was a little kid, it was cool to have multiple opportunities to spit things, but now they're just annoying & make me self-conscious. thank god that japanese science created a seedless one too. when it really boils down to it though, i'm cool with watermelon. it can get a little messy with its water & whatnot (see previous comments re: self-consciousness), but it's so subtly sweet & summertime fun refreshing that i'm all like, "toss some chunks of it my fruit salad, please." "if you don't mind kind nj lab technician sir, please inject this square of hubba bubba with a facsimile of watermelon flavor & when you're done, can you do something for the smell of my shampoo? that would be most delightful. thanks, science."