A beagle, for the first time, won Best In Show at Westminster held at MSG. The last time a beagle won Best Hound? 1939. Why it’s taken so long for dog breeders and dog show judges to acknowledge their superiority in the hound world, I do not know.
Congratulations to Uno and all beagles across the world. They are intelligent, loyal, cute and endlessly stubborn animals.
I was just listening to Les Savy Fav - What Would Wolves Do?
Posted in New York
I did a lot of eating this past weekend, or at least that’s what it felt like. On Saturday, I celebrated Chinese New Year with some friends and was treated to an authentic home cooked meal one might have in China, or Singapore to be specific.
The appetizer/salad started with a tin pan full of bean sprouts, carrots and other thinly julienned vegetables you would expect to see in an “asian salad”. Everyone at the party circled the table featuring this centerpiece while various ingredients - fried won tons, peanuts, sesame seeds, fish oil, duck sauce, etc. were dumped over the salad one at a time.
Once all ingredients have been added, everyone is tasked with tossing the salad together using chopsticks and not being afraid to be messy about it. In fact, it appears the celebratory method is to scoop and drop the ingredients high off the table letting them rain down below while saying a praise/wish for the new year like “Here is to being healthy this year…”
Then with great anticipation, we all started eating it. And it was good.
That was followed by duck soup, curried chicken, glazed chicken and my favorite of the evening, pork belly and mushrooms served with steamed bao buns.
Everything served was delicious and the 3-4 hour Nintendo Wii tournament that ensued was probably a necessary step to burn a least a little of the dinner off.
What I was most fascinated by was the dessert that was served, a layered cake called Kuih Lapis. Except this is no ordinary layer cake featuring 14+ layers at a total height of 1-2 inches. I can’t imagine the amount of effort that goes into making it but apparently it’s more effort for anyone in the United States; the cake was actually flown in on a carry-on from Singapore. And like much of the cuisine from that part of the world, eating it was only half as fun as looking at it.
But this giant amazing meal was not enough for weekend. No, I just had to take a friend up on an offer to travel out to Di Fara - Brooklyn/Midwood pizza joint which serves what many claim to be the best pizza in New York.
Everything about the experience suggests that it’s unique and of the old world. There’s an older gentleman, Domenico De Marco, hunched over a small workstation making the round and square pies. His sons are working in the back prepping ingredients and, although somewhat socially awkward, taking orders from the unorganized mass of people hoping to get their attention at the counter.
Among four guys, we took down an artichoke round and sausage square pizzas. I can verify that the square pie was the best pizza I’ve ever had although the round pie was no slouch. Both are prepared similarly with some great sauce, high quality buffalo mozzarella and baked in a massive oven to create the crunchy-thin yet slightly chewy crust.
When De Marco pulls the pies out, he gives each pizza a healthy dash of fresh shredded parmesean, basil and olive oil. His techniques and flavors suggest that this is a rare, lost art in the Americanization of Italian cuisine. Or, he just figured out a good way to make pizza.
“What’s important is what you like – not what you are like” - Rob Gordon
I like a candidate who micro-manages the music at their events.
Posted in Politics
Today, I was alerted to this page on the Texas DOT website where people can vote on the next license plate design. The current license plate design is on the ballot although it is in last place for votes.
I chose the “traditional” plate, since it’s clean, not gaudy and very legible.
The rest of the selections are horrendous. Which makes me wonder what kind of resources Texas and the other states put towards designing license plates…
So I did a little hunting and found this website which contains complete current and historical galleries of license plates here and abroad. It’s an impressive collection and worth browsing through to see some of the more iconic designs, such as New York’s “Lady Liberty 100th Anniversary”, North Carolina’s 1983 “First in Flight”, and Virginia’s 1976 “Bicentennial” plates.
Who doesn’t love playing the license plate game?
I was just listening to Puscifer - Momma Sed