#119 - acquired tastes.

about a week back, after an eight plus month hiatus from netflix, i decided it was high time that i got back on the ol film-by-mail wagon. i'd originally put the service on hold partially because i wanted to save $15 a month & partially because i'd get films in the mail & they'd just sit there unwatched for weeks on end before i'd get around to watching them. a couple times, i even sent a few back unwatched. in general, i was bored with film & ultimately decided that it just wasn't working out between netflix & i, so we took a break.

but the bitch is back! the first two films arrived in my mailbox last week. they're the same ones that i had all queued up back in november when i initiated the break--mister lonely (trailer here) & fay grim. mister lonely (2007) is the latest film from harmony korine, the dude who's responsible for creating gummo (1997) & julien-donkey boy (1999), but is mostly known for penning the script to kids (1995). the other film, fay grim (2006), is the most recent film from nyc filmmaker hal hartley. after ten years & a few films in between, hartley decided it was time to revisit the story from 1997's henry fool with a sequel. that sequel = fay grim.

the first one i took on was mister lonely. korine is no stranger to odd storylines & this is no exception. it's the story of a michael jackson impersonator who crosses paths with a marilyn monroe impersonator, who then invites him to come live with her in a commune inhabited by nothing but impersonators. with a cast of impersonators, there are endless moments where you get the juxtaposition of famous people doing mundane things (abe lincoln riding a tractor, larry, curly & moe slaughtering sheep). the story between marilyn & her husband (charlie chaplin) really brings out the idea that while these people get to pretend to be other people, they still have issues, as the lovable chaplin is actually, in the words of marilyn, "more like hitler than chaplin."

on top of that, there's an unrelated side story involving a father (played by werner herzog) & the nuns he works with. after one of the nuns falls out of the plane during a food drop & lives, they believe that they can fly because god will protect them. oh religion. overall, it's a pretty good film & definitely more accessible than his other two directorial efforts, but it's still nowhere close to a "traditional" film. if you can believe slashfilm.com, who have info from the toronto international film festival, his next film, trash humpers, is already in the can. with a name like "trash humpers," i can only assume that it's about people having sex with trash, a topic that's even more accessible than that of mister lonely.

as for fay grim, there was once a time when i thought that hal hartley's films were absolute genius. he's made eleven feature-length films over the last twenty years, all of which contain his signature style, one that can very easily rub viewers the wrong way, as his films typically feature some sort of social commentary, everything filmed at dutch angles & characters who speak their thoughts out loud. the last part pretty much goes against the whole "show don't tell" mantra i learned in screenwriting classes, but regardless, i've always loved the blatant feel of it.

it doesn't work as well here. the characters often speak their thoughts, but they also often use dialogue to explain a good deal of the plot from henry fool. it just seems too unnatural. the plot of fay grim revolves around a woman (fay grim, played by parker posey) whose husband (henry fool) is on the run from the law. he's penned a series of notebooks containing U.S. security secrets, so the CIA convinces fay to go to paris to find him. even with the blatant plot explanations, it expands upon what we've learned from the first film, so if you haven't watched henry fool first, there's a good chance you're missing half the story & will have no idea what's going on or know why you should care. if you have seen henry fool though, it's worth a watch, if only to see jeff goldblum play a CIA agent...not recommended for those who believe that the fast & the furious and its sequel (2 fast 2 furious) are the pinnacle of filmmaking.

#119 - acquired tastes.
snack: nori
drink: ito en's dr andrew weil for tea gyokuro green tea



the other night, whilst watching mr lonely at some unspeakable hour of the eve/morn, i was feeling a wee bit peckish. earlier in the day, i'd stopped by my brother's place for a bit & as i was leaving, he was all, "you want some nori?" yes. yes i did...so he gave me two strips & i put them in my backpack for later consumption & went on my merry way. since my peckishness came at an hour in which i probably shouldn't have been stuffing my face with snacks, i decided that the two strips of nori would suffice...& they sort of did.

nori's nothing more than the dried seaweed used to wrap sushi sans the filling sushi part. that's it. apparently japanese people love it. my favorite way to consume nori is to break off little pieces & let them dissolve in my mouth like some sort of salty, fishy breath strip. then i like to make out with the nearest person. since i was alone watching a movie in my apartment at the time, i settled for making out with my hand. please note that i did draw a mouth on my hand before slipping it the tongue, so i'm not a complete weirdo.

to wash down the nori, i went with a can of ito en's dr andrew weil for tea gyokuro green tea. it's one of a line of special ito en teas made in conjunction with dr andrew weil. as the can shows, he's a bald but thickly bearded man who enjoys gazing skyward. in addition to his skygazing, the doctor's also a leader in integrative medicine & according to his website, he's "your trusted health advisor." a side note for health advisors: that "trusted" slogan's totally trademarked, so don't even think about claiming that you're someone's trusted health advisor. anyway, essentially, he's a proponent of combining conventional medical treatments with unconventional, alternative medicines. that means CAH-RAZEE stuff like homeopathy & meditation & healthy diets & whatnot.

the healthy diet part includes drinking his bland, crappy teas. sorry, doctor, but your gyokuro green tea sucks. i mean, i understand that green tea has all sorts of antioxidants & junk & you're all about keeping a simple diet, but would it kill you to add a little sugar or honey or something? basically, you're paying for a can of tea that you can just as easily brew & chill at home except at home, you can at least sweeten it a little bit. sure i could have poured it in a glass & dumped in some sugar or something to make it taste better, but what's the point on buying it pre-made then? actually, i know where i went wrong. you need to fully embrace the dr weil-branded lifestyle to enjoy the tea. i didn't do that. to enjoy the tea, you need to purchase some dr weil multivitamins & some dr weil mega-mushroom face cream & some dr weil fruit & nut bars & dr weil sockeye salmon sausage & if you still have money left after that, you should pick up a couple of his books & DVDs. without them, the tea just won't work.

the musical fruit: movement #5.

the musical fruit: movement #5.
song: "bankrupt on selling," fresh cherries from yakima
fruit: cherries



about a half decade back, when i was playing a lot more guitar, for as much joy as i got out of writing my own songs, i would also sit around for hours on end learning & playing covers of my favorite songs. these days, the few times when i pick up my guitar, it's usually to figure out how to play some song that randomly comes up in the itunes shuffle & grabs me by the scruff. my skillz are slower these days, but a half decade back, i was playing a good amount & my skillz had reached an acceptable level of quality. at the same time, i was all into lo-fi music, so it was fine if my playing or recordings sounded flawed or blatantly home recorded.

sometime around then, i came across this dude who goes by the name fresh cherries from yakima. he's from washington & i first came across him because of a cover he did of wolf parade's "you are a runner & i am my father's son." back then, i thought his stuff was brilliant. my favorite was (& probably still is) his cover of modest mouse's "bankrupt on selling," which, after hearing, i immediately tried to learn how to play. it's one of those songs you can play as slow & sad as you want & in as much isaac brock voice as you prefer & it still sounds good. mr cherry's done covers of the decemberists' "eli the barrow boy," wilco's "jesus, etc," neutral milk hotel's "communist daughter," "linger" by the cranberries...a bunch of stuff i've totally tried to play at some point or another. in fact, there's a whole library's worth of his potentially unlistenable covers & originals on his website, a number of which i've tried to learn. as for my reaction upon hearing his music again for the first time in a few years...not as fresh as i remembered it being back in the day..."specific time in my life" sort of stuff, i suppose.

earlier this week, as i went back & rediscovered fresh cherries from yakima, i did so under the influence of a shit ton of cherries. cherries are pretty much the best fruit alive these days. cherries--you may remember them from last month's tropical thunder & cherries related post. that means you get two photos of two different angles of a bowl of cherries for your money here at eat!drink!snack! this time, i learned from my mistakes & made sure to consume them over the course of 48 hrs (the unit of time, not the eddie murphy/nick nolte gem). another 48 hrs [insert rimshot here] & those cherries would've been as gross as a monkey with a self-deprecating attitude.

but i didn't wait for that to happen. you see that bowl up there? something like twenty/twenty-five cherries in it? i can not tell a lie. that was half a package & before i'd even had a chance to finish listening to four songs by FCFY, the cherries were reduced to a sorry bowl of pits & stems. ooh! let me drop some science on you. cherry trees take somewhere in the range of five years to grow & produce crop after first being planted. that's a half decade & that's the same amount of time since i first discovered fresh cherries from yakima! whoa!

and...theme.

nosh nook #110 - friday, august 14, 2009

times company creating a wine club (link)
08.13.09 - the ny times

if we learned anything from the final season of the wire, it's that it's a hard knock life out there for newspapers. it's damn near impossible to get kids these days, with their blips & their bleeps to read a magazine let alone read a newspaper. heck, even i, in my mid-thirties, use the ny times' iphone app. i download my content for free in the morn & evening, read it on the subway home & ignore the ads at the bottom. plus, no ink on my hands. i hope they're generating some revenue from it, because it's a complete win-win for me. in fact, i can't even think of the last time i bought a physical copy of a newspaper & i wasn't in an airport.

um...so as the um, ny times reports, the ny times company announced yesterday that they're starting a money-making venture--the new york times wine club. members of the club will get "a selection of wines at two price levels, $90 or $180 per six-bottle shipment, and customers can choose to have wine delivered every one, two or three months." it's something that a few newspapers are already experimenting with & the ny times probably figured they have to do something fast. as the ny times notes, "revenue at the new york times company has been falling." both ad revenue & overall revenue fell during the second quarter & they've been trying to dump the boston globe (which has been destroyed as a newspaper during their ownership) for a while now.

in case you're feeling a bit weird about the fact that the times is doing an article about the times' new wine club & feel that there's something odd going on there journalistically, you don't have a thing to worry about. the ny times is serious about keeping editorial separate from money-making. take this example. the times spoke with tom carley, the times company's senior v.p. of strategic planning & learned that "the venture is run independently of the times’s food and wine editorial sections." carley even mentioned that they were keeping them apart "so there would be no conflict or appearance that our critics were selling." the times does note, however, that "excerpts from wine-related times stories run on the side of the club’s web site, nytwineclub.com, and members will receive booklets of times recipes from its archive meant to be paired with each shipment of wine." it's probably nothing to worry about. for more on the new york times & the new york times company, please visit nytimes.com.

#118 - bacon bacon bacon!

back at the beginning of june, upon the exciting announcement of an amazing new bacon jerky, i opined about how the popularity of bacon was seriously spiralling out of control. there were bacon tattoos & bacon donuts & bacon dresses & bacon salt & bacon bacon bacon! since then, peeps' bacon obsession has continued to get more & more insane. bakon (the bacon flavored beer) has hit the market. andy richter did not approve. brooklyn brewery is working on a bacon beer. they even have a bacon exhibit at the met (for three more days). it's everywhere! don't take my word for it though. take baconbaconbacon's word for it...or maybe bacon unwrapped's. they've both sort of got a thing for bacon.

seriously, what's the obsession with bacon? how did it get elevated to such a status, something that's gone way beyond an ironic hipster fad? i have three possible theories as to why:

theory #1 - after years of the national pork board's attempts to woo the average joe pork-eating crowd with their "the other white meat" ads, the national pork producers' council (whose website appears to be porked at the moment...oh, back up! unporked!) decided to go after the hip crowd by going all viral. bob in marketing decided it was time to think big & think big he did. he & his team slowly inserted bits of bacon into the culture & folks started to be all "oh yeah, bacon. let's grab hold of that bus for a while." economic downturn & all, they've since laid bob off & he's been laid off for some ten months now, but that ad campaign that was his bacon baby has already been born. in fact, that bacon baby is now all grown up & driving that bus himself, speeding around town & doing blow off the chests of hookers as he does. the law's helpless to do anything. some drunk guy on the corner in the village once told me that cops love bacon, so i guess that could have something to do with it too.

theory #2 - hipsters were desperate. the yeah yeah yeahs & strokes had become lame & heroin was so passe & moustaches itch! & bushwick was becoming "too yuppie" & hipsters tried to fill the void with skinny jeans & big sunglasses & keffiyehs & trips to IKEA, but it just wasn't enough. we were living in a post-9/11 world & they needed to turn their irony toward america in order to heal. american food felt like a funny target. hamburgers were too boring. tv dinners were too cold. apple pie was too cumbersome. coca-cola was too evil...so they went with bacon. now they're just keeping it up to slight the cupcake people.

theory #3 - it's a combination of the two.

win rosenfeld (who worked with nova sciencenow for a while) seems to think that the bacon craze is finally over...



...i respectfully disagree.

#118 - bacon bacon bacon!
snack: vosges mo's dark bacon bar
drink: black sheep riggwelter yorkshire ale



last month in chicago, ms allison introduced me to the wonder of vosges, a line of gourmet chocolates with retail locales in chicago (we visited lincoln park), nyc & vegas. while there, it was revealed to the extremely friendly girl working there that i dabble in snack blogging, so she offered me some badass, probably expensive truffle. it ruled my face. super chicago friendly customer service! since we were en route to the pitchfork festival & they had a no entry with drink/food policy (although allison managed to smuggle in an avocado like a ninja), i had to forgo getting one of their crazy-ass chocolate bars for the time being. luckily, much to my surprise, during her travels the next day, allison picked up one of their black pearl bars for me. yay good host! it ruled my face.

since returning to nyc, i hadn't found the time and/or energy to travel to a vosges, but the other night, at a random park slope fancy bodega, they had a rack of gourmet chocolates. among them was the vosges mo's dark bacon bar. i'd sampled it in chicago & was completely intrigued that bacon & chocolate could taste so good together. i suppose reese's peanut butter cups got started in a similar "should we?" sort of way. i couldn't resist, especially after that sample. it's so good. since the bar ran me six & change, i've been taking my time with it, treating myself to a square or two at a time. tonight, the bacon bar comes to an end...a chocolatey, salty, occasionally crispy end. don't hate, people. this is one of the few good things to come out of the bacon craze.

one night this weekend i took in a pint of black sheep riggwelter yorkshire ale with a few squares of the bacon bar. the black sheep comes to us from the u.k., an area where folks have historically been huge fans of sheep...meadows & whatnot. it sort of explains why they also brew a monty python's holy grail ale. those blokes loved sheep. according to the back of the bottle, riggwelter is "from the old norse; rygg - back and velte - to overturn. when a sheep is on its back and can not get up without help, local dales dialect says it's rigged or riggwelted." silly helpless sheep...just like the ones i see while i fall asleep...but with less blood.

the flavor apparently contains "hints of coffee, bananas and liquorice." i tasted the coffee. not so sure about the other two. since the beer's a brown ale, it had a fairly typical english brown ale flavor, sort of like a newcastle but not really. it made for a rich & filling pint of ale, a nice complement to the bacon & the chocolate...which makes me wonder about the combo possibilities. can you make bacon out of sheep? yep. apparently you can...& when you're done, you can coat it in chocolate. done & done. bacon...is there anything you can't do?

nosh nook #109 - thursday, august 13, 2009

latin corn snack in midst of a makeover (link)
08.12.09 - chicago sun-times - by lisa donovan

here in brooklyn, there are a ton of latin street vendors scattered around the borough. the ones i'm most familiar with are near the parks--prospect park, sunset park, the red hook ballfield--and they're out hawking roasted corn & icees & churros to passers-by. of course, other cities have their fair share as well. in chicago, the big thing for latin street vendors is something called elote. what the f is "elote," you say? that's a damn good question. at first, i had no idea what it was. in fact, neither did the puerto rican/dominican guy i share an office with. isn't that latin?

according to the chicago sun times' lisa donovan, elote is some sort of "dressed-up and delightfully messed-up corn-on-the-cob snack." apparently you can pull down the husk to form a handle & eat it like a popsicle or cut off all the corn like a wuss & eat it out of a bowl like you're at KFC or something. you've been able to get it at white sox games for ten years now in bowl form & this summer "a few local chefs have re-invented the traditional mexican street food." at their brewpub, goose island (official beer of the pitchfork festival) serves a "blanched corn (that) is tossed on the grill with a bit of butter and dressed with cilantro-lime aioli, cotija cheese, smoked spanish paprika and a lime wedge on the side." fancy!

john manion (goose island's chef) has created a recipe that pays "tribute to the wicker park and ukrainian village neighborhoods circa 1995," specifically "the stretch of ashland avenue between division and north," which he & friends have dubbed "corn cob alley." corn cob alley! anyway, it's a corn snack that i pretty much have to try now. luckily, i've discovered (after some quick internet research) that there's a place in williamsburg right near the lorimer stop that's called "elote." you bet your ass they have it on the menu. maybe i could get some closer to my apartment & maybe i could even get it from one of those vendors i've seen selling roasted corn. they don't have a website or a back garden though, so they lose.