Many (well, I don’t know how ‘many’ of you there are, I suspect I can count on one hand) of you know that while I work in a techie field, I am not necessarily a tech fiend. I don’t jump on social networking sites (for kids), I don’t worship at the altar of Steve Jobs (the economist begs to differ), and I still insist on keeping a Yellow Pages in the house, because they’re useful dammit (and I think in some instances faster than the internet). However, I do love me some Internet. I get to consume hours of content (of questionable taste and usefulness) every day. I do research, deep dives into esoteric topics, keep on top of whatever political vein I follow, and make attempts to keep tabs of what pop culture I can get my hands on. I can easily see what the top songs in Itunes are, then make a quick listen so the next time I hear new music out in public, I (theoretically) know what it is. M tends to do better at this than I do, but I digress. I’m plugged into a few websites that do a decent job of digesting what’s out there and giving me the easy version of it so I have knowledge a mile wide and an inch deep. This is the way I like it. Last night the internet rose up to meet my expectations once again. There I was, sitting on the train, reading my ink and paper New Yorker, when I came across an article about a dead composer. His life sounded interesting so I decided to hear what his music sounded like. I pulled out the iphone, fired up youtube and searched for him. I found a few samples, took a taste and quickly spat it out. Disgusting (Iannis Xenakis, in case you were wondering). So I had youtube open, classical on the mind, and a longtime question came to mind. What was that music playing as Max Cady was driving around in his Mustang convertible? This is a reference to Martin Scorsese’s 1991 film ‘Cape Fear’. Max Cady (Robert DeNiro) was a generally bad dude, who instantly became somewhat awesome to a 14 year old in the opening scene of a hardened prison character with a gigantic cross tattooed across his shoulders and down his back doing a hard core prison workout and exuding the personality of a rattlesnake. So there’s this one scene where Max is driving around, blasting some opera music and ticking off the checklist of movie madman (psychopathic personality – yes, inexplicable affinity for high culture/art – yes, thinking 5 steps ahead of everyone else – yes, alternately menacing and charming everyone – yes), and this music was really cool sounding. It had this great quality of being triumphant and enlightened and ol Max just looked like he was doing whatever he wanted. This was great 18 years ago and it still is. Except I have no idea what the song was. It’s not on the soundtrack (movie soundtracks never have the good stuff). Movie Credits are really hard to find online. And it sounded too old and Italian to be something created just for the movie. Previous web searches came up empty, but maybe this time I’d get lucky. There was my answer – Gaetano Donizetti’s ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ – Per te D’immenso Giubilo – I’m not an opera person. Wikipedia says Donizetti was pretty good at it though. This loosely translates to ‘immens jubilation for you’ and it sort of sounds like a celebration, which is what I was having when I found it. I’m sorry it took a character like Max to get me to go searching out classical Italian opera, but if that’s what it takes…
I just got back from a trip to Chicago (work, not pleasure). I love Chicago. Something about it resonates with me. It’s new(er). I guess completely burning down can have a decent effect on your city. San Francisco has a similar feel to it. It’s huge, but not as overwhelming as NYC seems. It doesn’t stink, the people are mostly polite. There’s a whole lot less car honking and crazy driving. For some reason it just seems more civilized. Maybe it was just the parts I see, but that’s the way it is. I was there over the weekend and tried to do a little sightseeing, which is more than I do when I travel for work. Unfortunately I was sort of on call, so I couldn’t wander too far. On a recent trip to Toronto some coworkers and I went on field trips to find great burgers. This is a noble task. Here is almost zero chance of finding a bad burger, and you get to do a little traveling. So why not find the good burger in every town? Chicago had a highly ranked burger about 10 miles from where I was staying, so I jumped in a cab and headed out. Unfortunately, as M and I discovered in an attempt to go to a great pizza place in Brooklyn, when there is a highly regarded establishment in a gigantic city, there is a good chance it will be completely overrun. And this was true in Chicago as well. I took a $25 cab to the middle of nowhere and completely struck out. If I was with a group, there is at least some camaraderie or shared excitement for the endeavor, which can spur people to withstand long outdoor lines in rain/snow/deep freeze. When one is alone, that excitement is considerably lessened. I took a look at the line and crowded bar and said hell no. I crossed the street to get a cab going the other way. As soon as I crossed, I peeked in a bar window and saw people being served truly epic looking burgers. As much as I wanted to flip the whole endeavor the bird, I was starving and these looked amazing. The bar was empty, the Olympics were on, so why not? I sat down, ordered the burger and struck up a conversation with two heavily tattooed and pierced guys who were pounding Pabst Blue Ribbon in between Marlboro breaks. They were cooks at the place I tried to go initially, and they HATED it. They came to where I was sitting now to get burgers. The way I see it, if you want a goo d haircut, don’t go someplace where everyone cutting hair has a good haircut, go to the place they go to get their hair cut. I was eating where the best burger cooks in Chicago go to get burgers. I was not disappointed. I suppose my favorite aspect of the burger was the pretzel bun. This is going to be incorporated into all summer burger cooks from now on. In case you were wondering, the first place I wanted to go can be found here http://www.kumascorner.com/food and the place I ended up at is here http://www.squarechicago.com/square_menu.pdf - I got the ‘Big Square’.
Along by travels, I stumbled across a restaurant called Bice. This is another happy accident with en equally long winded story. On our first vacation together, M and I went to Quebec/Montreal for a long weekend. In Montreal, as we strolled the July streets, we decided to get dinner at a place called Bice. It was a memorable dinner, one of the first meals of truly excellent food we shared. Bice has a few locations around the world and we decided to try them as we traveled to world. Not to travel exclusively to eat at these places, but if we happened to be in town with one, we’d stop in. First we found one in Orlando. I forget what I ate, but M tried the Osso Bucco with saffron risotto. Well, at least we learned that we don’t like saffron. Not the greatest, but a nice little diversion. Next, we learned there might be in Monte Carlo – we looked and it was long gone. I just realized today there is one in Madrid, but can’t find anything else on it. If we had known, maybe we would have looked, but I think we did pretty well for eating in Espana. Of course we could have gotten lost and then had a hungry fight and then regretted it, so best to let that one slide. Well I found one in Chicago, the menu looks good, and I know for certain where it is. There may be a weekend trip in the near future.
Speaking of cooking, look at this stove. For those of you not into hand enameled custom built cast iron French ranges, this is a La Cornue Chateau 120. It starts at around $11,000. This particular model was in the employee kitchen of the office I was in. You’ll notice the granite countertop. They don’t use it for a stove. Towels are currently being stored in the ovens. I offered to take it off their hands if they didn’t want it. My offer was politely declined.
The last picture I’m going to share is of some spray painted silver sticks in a tall glass cylinder with glass beads in the bottom. Oh yeah, I’ve seen these before: at our wedding. M and I were way out in front of that one. Granted the concierge at the W Lakeshore gave me some weird looks, but forget him. This was too good to pass up.
Movies - The Hurt Locker. Watch this movie now. It’s really good. Not quite an action movie, not quite a war movie. Not a tourist film for the middle east. The Ladykillers – kind of weird, even for the Coen brothers. Not particularly recommended. Surrogates – this was better than I expected. Good to see Bruce Willis still has a fastball. And it was shot in Boston. Always nice to see Boston in the movies. Fast and Furious – I don’t know why I like these movies so much. This was another monster addition to the franchise. I’m looking forward to the next one. So good. John Adams – period film by HBO. Long, historical and really entertaining. I wanted to brush everyone’s teeth in it though. Good to see they got 18th century oral hygiene correct. Not a kindly portrayal of King Louis. Slumdog Millionaire – very watchable.
