My two favorite tributes to the late Hugo Chavez: here and here.
Both the NYT and the LAT are reporting arrests and confessions in the Bolshoi acid attack. (Previously.)
The NYT says one of the men has confessed: the LAT says both men and Dmitrichenko have confessed.
Roy Brown Jr. has died. Mr. Brown was a car designer for Ford. This was one of his designs:
Come all without, come all within. you’ll not see nothing like Mighty Quinn’s.
(Sorry.)
I don’t think this would be a good SDC destination; while I’m sure you can get food at Buc-ee’s, it isn’t really an SDC sort of place.
However, we’ve had conversations about going to the Cooper’s in New Braunfels, so we could kill two birds with one stone…
I’ve added Steven Raichlen’s blog and Twitter feed.
Also added: Mick Vann’s “Gustidude”. Mr. Vann is one of a small number of local food writers I trust: I would say that even if it were not for the fact that he did a nice profile of the SDC many years ago.
And Gustidude came to my attention because he has a blog entry up about eating at Franklin’s BBQ with Raichlen.
You know, if I had it to do all over again, I’d seriously think about becoming a food anthropologist.
It doesn’t seem like this is a profession that rakes in the big money. But I think it’d be kind of fun to figure out how they made beer 9,000 years ago, or what the Anasazi indians ate, or how teosinte became corn. Why is meat inside some form of dough common across so many cultures?
What prompts this thought? Tuesday night, my mother and I went to see Steven Raichlen’s “Man Food Fire: The Evolution of Barbecue” lecture at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. (We had a very nice meal at Lambert’s beforehand. I had forgotten how much I liked their charcuterie plate.)
I hadn’t really thought much about the relationship between evolutionary biology and cooking. Part of Raichlen’s lecture was that we went from this:
(Lucy, Australopithecus afarensis. Note the large jaw and the protruding attachment points for jaw muscles.)
to this:
(Homo erectus)
largely due to our ancestor’s use of fire to cook meat. I may be glossing over some subtleties here, but the short version is that cooking meat (and other foods) allowed our ancestors to use their food more efficiently, leading both to the evolution away from the large jaw and large jaw muscles, and to an increase in cranial capacity – thus, larger brains to fill the space. And that’s how we got to modern man.
(It isn’t that I don’t trust Raichlen, but I’d really like to sit down and talk about his ideas with someone like LabRat, who knows a lot more about this stuff than I do. By the way, that linked post over at the Atomic Nerds site is well worth reading.)
Some other highlights:
Edited to add: Let me throw this in. The patron saint of barbecue and barbecue pitmasters? Saint Lawrence. This explains much.
Obit watch: Nora Ephron.
Oh, gee: “business leaders” are threatening to move their firms out of the notoriously corrupt city of Vernon, claiming the cost of business has become too high. Vernon has raised taxes and electricity rates, due to “the recession and a series of ill-fated investments that have cost the city millions”.
Among other bright ideas:
In other news, Stockton, California plans to file for municipal bankruptcy.
Hmmm.
More details on the Jovita’s heroin bust from the Statesman.
One of the great barbecue related stories of the past quarter century was the Kreuz Market feud. In brief, when the family patriarch died, he left the Kreuz Market building to his daughter; he’d previously sold the business itself to two of his sons. This led to a family fight, and ultimately Kreuz Market moved into a new building on the highway, while the old building became Smitty’s.
What’s news? Well, the owner of Kreuz and the pitmaster at Smitty’s, along with another family member, are opening a new barbecue place: Schmidt Family Barbecue in Bee Cave. I am morally certain we will be going out there for an SDC, as soon as they’ve had time to shake out.
This is going to be more like a collection of random notes towards an AA report than an actual report. I do plan on a longer more thoughtful blog post later; probably this weekend, if everything works out the way I want it to. (I’m waiting for something to come in, and I need to go out to my mother’s place to take some pictures.)
. At least one person said, “That’s it. I’ve got to get one.” Yeah, I like having the Kindle Fire.
on the way up. Tam has written about this book previously, and anything I could add except “go read it” would be superfluous.
Chandlers calls this “The ’33 Plymouth”; it is, of course, made with Plymouth gin and Nolly Prat vermouth. They do warn you that it takes 10 minutes to make one; I consider it worth the wait.Grandy at Popehat observed a week or so ago, in response to an observation of mine about Southern Living‘s “Top Ten Pitmasters” piece, “Because people like BBQ.”
In that vein, I wanted to point out the lengthy Statesman profile of John Mueller, grandson of the legendary Louie Mueller. This is pretty much your standard “scion leaves the family business, strikes out on his own, struggles for a while, and starts making a comeback” story. Also, a considerable amount of this story was already covered in Texas Monthly’s “Of Meat and Men” (which also covers the story of Aaron Franklin of Franklin’s Barbecue), but I think both articles are worth reading. Ideally, with about a pound of good brisket and maybe some sausage and beef ribs.
(I checked BugMeNot: the “tx@bugmenot.com”, “texas” user ID/password combo works fine.)
I’m sure this study is going to be extensively analyzed, refuted, the refutations refuted, and the refutations of the refutations themselves refuted. I don’t expect any clarity on this before I die in a supermodel’s bed at the age of 115.
However, as soon as I read that headline, the first thing I was reminded of was “The Dread Tomato Addiction”, the essay that taught me “Correlation does not equal causality” before I could even pronounce “correlation” or “causality”. (Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration. But I still commend the essay to your attention. Please note the original publication date.)
(For more about Mark Clifton, you could start with this Wikipedia article. You might also, if you ask Glen real nicely, get him to weigh in on They’d Rather Be Right, “perhaps the most contentious novel ever to win the [Hugo] award.” He’s the only person I know of who has actually made the effort to find a copy and read it; I’m not sure Lawrence has done that, but he can correct me in the comments if I’m wrong Edited: see comments.)
A. G. Sulzberger is covering the Midwest for the NYT.
A.G. Sulzberger is a vegetarian.
A.G. Sulzberger wrote a piece for the NYT food section about how hard it is to be a vegetarian in the Midwest.
So, you’re a vegetarian, and you went to a steakhouse, a fried chicken restaurant, and the single greatest restaurant in the world (according to Calvin Trillin, anyway). Good planning, guy.
“Common sense” my ass. And as a dedicated carnivore, I’m no more bothered by the fact that meat is muscle than Mr. Sulzberger seems to be by the fact that tofu is coagulated soy milk.
This is the kind of thing that makes me not just agree with Anthony Bourdain, but wish that Mr. Bourdain and Mr. Trillin meet up with Mr. Sulzberger face to face one day and have a frank and open exchange of views.
(I do love the caption on the photo at the top of the article, though.)
Per the Statesman, Sam’s BBQ in East Austin has reopened. You may (or may not) recall that Sam’s was one of the three places involved in the meat sting back in July.
The owner is quoted as saying he was able to get his health permit back because “the kind of meat involved in the sting isn’t what’s sold on his menu”. To which we say: ?!
So far, things have been relatively smooth. Just a few minor problems; I left a couple of things behind in Austin, but nothing that I can’t make do without.
There have been a couple of slightly unpleasant surprises. I discovered yesterday that one of my other favorite restaurants in Las Vegas, the Tillerman, abruptly closed in February. Google turned up this account of events from the Las Vegas Weekly: there’s a lot I disagree with in it (the neighborhood doesn’t strike me as being particularly sketchy, for example) but it is the best account I’ve been able to find.
I do have a badge, and I only had to wait in line two hours to get it. The other slightly unpleasant surprise, though, was that DEFCON decided that electronic badges are “passé”: this year’s badges are inert hunks of titanium, tied in with some sort of “puzzle based reality game”. (Joe Grand’s big enough to take care of himself, but the reference to “gameboy on a string” in the DEFCON program seems to me to be a nasty, though perhaps unintended, slap.)
Last night, I decided to try a place I’ve been driving past and thinking of trying since…oh, about 2000 or so. Yes, I know they’re a chain, but have you ever been to a Lawry’s The Prime Rib? Did you even know Lawry’s had restaurants, or were you just familiar with their seasoning salt? (There’s four Prime Ribs in the US: Vegas, Chicago, Beverly Hills, and Dallas.)
Having finally crossed that off my list, I have to say I’m glad I went. The Prime Rib’s an interesting place; the decor (at least in Vegas) reminds me of photos I’ve seen of Chasen’s and other old star hangouts in Los Angeles. And the whole experience has a certain…theatricality to it that’s missing from pretty every restaurant in existence today. Your waiter preps your salad in a spinning salad bowl at the table. When you’re ready for your meal, a carver comes by with a massive polished steel cart and cuts your prime rib off of what must be at least half a cow right in front of you. Plus there’s mashed potatoes and honest-to-Ghu Yorkshire pudding served with it. I think my late stepfather would have loved this place. He was a big prime rib fan, but I think he also would have gotten a kick out of the whole sort of…vintage experience, is the best way I can think of to describe it.
I’ve never really thought of Las Vegas as a bookish town, but Lawrence tipped me off to two vintage bookstores that I visited today. I heartily endorse both of them, and strongly recommend that you visit both. Doing so is pretty easy, as they’re basically right across the street from each other.
I’m sorry I didn’t catch the name of the gentleman who runs Greyhound’s Books, but he came across to me as someone who’s very much worth knowing. I wouldn’t describe him as “kind”, as I so often describe others; he seems intolerant of the rude, the willfully ignorant who wish to remain so, and others who would waste his time. (While I was there, he literally chased one person out of the store for using a cell phone.) But for the serious and polite book shopper, this store is a delight. He seems to be very strong on mystery, military history, and history in general. His food and cooking selection also seemed strong to me; he had the only copy of Cross Creek Cookery I’ve seen in probably five years of searching. (The owner also writes, along with other folks, at Books of Worth, an entertaining site I was previously unaware of.)
I didn’t want to press for details (I’m not sure it is any of my damn business) but Amber Unicorn Books appears to be related in some way to Greyhound’s Books. I didn’t have as much interaction with the owners there as I did with the Greyhound’s Books owner, but they certainly seemed like very nice folks. Amber Unicorn appears to be stronger in paperbacks, especially genre paperbacks, but also has a good stock of history, mystery, and law/true crime.
One thing that really struck me about both stores; the folks at both knocked 10% off the total of my purchases for no apparent reason, other than (I guess) I was reasonably polite and didn’t use my cellphone or urinate on their rugs. They didn’t have to do that, and it was very much appreciated.
(And it helped, especially at Amber Unicorn. They had a copy of Skeeter Skelton’s Good Friends, Good Guns, Good Whisky, a book I didn’t even know existed until today. I’ve written before about the gun writers I read growing up; I remember Skelton’s stories with great fondness. Especially the one reprinted in this volume about Dobe Grant and his crate full of Colt Single Action Army parts. When I read that for the first time, man, I wanted a vintage Single Action Army. Still do, come to think of it. I don’t want to say what I paid for that book; let’s just say “Nostalgia is a moron” and leave it at that.)
If you’re a serious book person, you have to visit both of these stores if you’re ever in Las Vegas.
You know, if you run a restaurant, it only makes sense to buy your food – things like meat – from respected restaurant suppliers, such as Texas Meat Purveyors (not the bluegrass band, the restaurant supply house). I’m not saying you have to purchase your meat from them specifically, but you should at least purchase your meat from someone with a license and reputation, not from sketchy people on the street.
I know, I know, this is obvious, why do I feel compelled to say this? Some folks didn’t get the memo, that’s why.
The APD conducted a sting operation today that resulted in five arrests, warrants for two more arrests, and the closure of three restaurants. (The article says six arrests, but I only count five names on their list. Likewise, it states three people are at large, but names only two. Edited to add 7/29/2011: the Statesman updated the article late last night with the correct numbers.) It appears that a ring of folks were stealing meat from HEB…
The restaurants had their health permits revoked, and
The three restaurants in question are:
It’s kind of interesting to see that, of the seven people named, three have the first name of “Willie”. Do you have to change your name to “Willie” to work at a barbecue joint in this town? (Only two of them work for Willie’s Bar-B-Que: Willie Joe Showels and Willie Joe Showels III. Yes, I do wonder about Willie Joe Showels II. The third Willie, Willie Don Mays, worked for Sam’s.)