Last night I went to the this book launch party with my friend T. There was a lot of meat, and even more meat-themed tattoos. It was fun. During the lecture/demo, I was standing next to a woman who had brought her sons with her, one of whom was conscripted to be a human meat model.
Jessica Applestone, one of the authors, asked us, “Does anyone know where the tenderloin is?” To demonstrate, she gestured to the boy’s back. “It runs along both sides of your spine. Right there–” she pointed “–and on us, that’s a pretty tough muscle, because it holds us upright. But on cows, who stand on four legs, it’s very tender.”
Naturally my immediate thought was, “I wonder what the most tender cut of meat on a 12-year-old is.” And then I felt vaguely monstrous.
The 12-year-old asked her, very carefully, “What would be the most tender cut of meat on a cow if they walked on two legs?”
“Hm,” she said. “That would be the brisket.” And she patted her pecs. He looked satisfied with that answer. I know I was.
So, basically, I am mentally a 12-year-old boy. But not as polished.
Twenty-fucking-eleven. I’m approaching my 13th anniversary in this stupid city. And speaking of which, I picked up a copy of Gary Benchley, Rock Star, while I was down in Florida for the holidays (it takes Florida an average of four years to receive books that aren’t bibles, written by Glenn Beck/Elmore Leonard, or from the Left Behind series) and it was very entertaining. I feel a bit guilty that I didn’t buy a copy when it first came out. The other book I brought with me (but didn’t make any headway into) is Boozehound. The former book, being a lightweight paperback, was a lot more comfortable to hold. And I am lazy.
And I’m going on (at least) six months with Go Down Together and am halfway through about two dozen other well-written and intriguing titles, which would mean that I only read one goddamned book in 2010, and I bought it in Florida five days before 2010 ended.
We got to Florida and spent a week furiously maintaining a food- and alcohol-induced torpor. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this in the past, but (perhaps unsurprisingly) the wine selection in central Florida blows. (I really hope Vine opens an outpost for us once we move down there.) It’s a sea of plummy, jammy, big New World reds with 14% alcohol and koalas or Model Ts on their labels. A popular brand is called Chocolate Cupcake or some shit like that — seriously, if you go into restaurants and ask for red wine recommendations, the servers will ALWAYS recommend the Chocolate Cupcake Merlot. All the French and Italian wines are super-expensive (though at ABC Liquors I did manage to grab the last three bottles of a $13 Chablis on sale, and a pretty decent bottle of Chapoutier something-or-other whose most memorable quality, 10 days later, is the Braille on the label). So we generally drink a lot of Spanish stuff. Mostly things with wood prints of dragons and cavalry on the labels. I don’t know why.
The worst wine I have ever — EVER — had was in Florida.* And it was made in St. Augustine, our home away from home. After years of turning up our noses at it (and laughing at the billboards advertising the FREE TASTINGS everywhere), we gave in one night after walking around the Winn Dixie wine section for ten minutes, grapelessly.**
How bad could it be, we thought. We brought home a “red.”
Me: “Does this taste like…Chocolate Now’N Laters to you?” I asked.
N: “It has hints of banana, with lingering notes of Robitussin.”
It was so bad it couldn’t even be salvaged with 7-Up.
Now we’re back home, drinking our cheap Italian wines with NOTHING BUT TYPE on the label. I’ve been told it snowed while we were away.
Fear – New York’s Alright If You Like Saxophones
Bo Diddley – Bring It to Jerome [supercool image above stolen from Tom.]
*Also the worst Tom Ka soup, which I swear was made with Coco Lopez and squeezy-bottle lime juice (and very little else). Yes, serves us right for ordering Thai food from a place in a strip mall, but virtually everything in Florida is located in a strip mall. The only things not located in strip malls are megachurches and the malls that are too big to be strip malls. When the waiter asked us what was wrong with it, we said — using a phrase we learned from an Italian friend — “It is prepared in a manner to which I am unaccustomed.”
**NO we don’t just buy wine at supermarkets, it’s just that the Winn Dixie is right next to the Blockbuster and since we don’t have a car and rely on N’s parents’ goodwill to get around; we’re trying to be considerate. (Needless to say, the wine at ABC Liquors and Wine Warehouse is not all that much better.) We rented The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo this time around — the cashier behind the counter held it up and said, “Y’all know this isn’t in English, right?”
As I said the other day, I have a fractious relationship with the Midwest. I have been to Detroit, Chicago, Omaha, and now St. Louis. Also Cincinnati, sortof, but technically I was in Kentucky most of the time. So, I’ll say that I ate Skyline chili in Cincinnati. The rest of those places, I visited.
And I have come away with nothing but love for the people I’ve met while there.* Because you know why? New Yorkers are horrendous, nasty, oblivious monsters.** (Though not as bad as the Spanish tourists who come here.***) Thus, when I go someplace else and check into a hotel and the person behind the desk does more than grunt when he addresses me IT IS A TRANSCENDENT EXPERIENCE. Or when a server in a restaurant acts all cheerful about bringing me my food.**** Or when the cashier at a grocery store makes small talk about the delicious juice I’m buying and don’t you just love juice?
Look, I understand that they’re just faking it. But I like to be lied to. Fucking lie to me already. It makes me happy. (This is also why I loved living in the South.)
So I caught some flak awhile back because I said some less-than-flattering things about the food in Chicago. (And also about Local H*****.) Let me tell you–if you want to get Chicagoans riled up, comment on their penchant for deep-frying everything and pouring melted cheese and ranch dressing all over it and piling it on a plate the size of a skimboard. (Nobody cares if you mention their legacy of corrupt politicians or dramatic socioeconomic stratification.)
They get especially pissed off when you say things like
You can order just about anything, provided it contains meat and/or cheese. At this restaurant, they had a “Light Bites” section, which included hot wings and something called “Sausage Salad.” We ordered burgers, because it turns out that if you want to order something other than that at this restaurant you have to have a note from your oncologist.
And LC remarked, “I never thought I’d find myself in the position of specifying that I don’t want Alfredo sauce on my hamburger.”
The food was similar in St. Louis. We were relegated to mostly shitty restaurants, it’s true. (We had two amazing meals–both of which were also astoundingly huge.) Flagons of ranch dressing and surprise melted cheese toppings (or fillings).
However, the people in St. Louis were the loveliest people in the world (on par with Omaha, I’d say, but also extremely apologetic about the weather and the cable box in your room not functioning properly). So I will forgive them for their dressing, for they know not what they do.
In part 2, which I plan to get around to writing before New Year’s, I’ll discuss the one anomaly we encountered, and what everyone can learn from her.
*Sweeping generalization #1
**Sweeping generalization #2
***Sweeping generalization #3
****More on that shortly
*****LC and I found a flyer on the sidewalk for a Local H show. It reminded me of elementary school, when you set off a helium balloon with your address tied to it and you hope that someone four towns over finds it and writes to you. I thought about whether I should write to Local H to say that someone finally found their balloon.
Last night, after attending the (say it along with me, boys and girls) Love Is a Four-Letter Word reading, I tagged along with the readers to a Cuban place down the street from B&N where I ate half of a giant plate of pernil. I might’ve been able to finish the whole thing, but I [...]
Where did she go?
I am lazy. If you're bored, go visit my tumblr, updated daily with other people's witticisms and erudition.Also by me
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