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  • You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have…

    THE GOOD
    After spending the better part of the past two weeks “living” (and I use that term only in the technical sense) without the benefit of God’s most precious gift, the carbohydrate, I threw caution to the wind yesterday and cooked up about a gallon of chili. And when I threw caution to the wind, I really chucked that fucker outta there, because as I stirred and cooked and cooked and stirred, I found myself quickly leaving the security of my ancient chili recipe behind — and instead making bold (some might even say foolhardy) ventures into the world of spice exploration.

    Let me clarify by saying that, up until yesterday, chili in my world has basically been an amalgamation of ground beef, kidney beans, chopped tomatoes, tomato sauce, a little cumin and a lot of chili powder. Good, solid stuff, but nothing remotely earth-shaking.

    Whiteale Yesterday, I explorified. I freestyled. The tomatoes were fire-roasted. The beef was two pounds of Whole Foods’ 90% lean. There were diced portobello mushrooms. There were a half-dozen cloves of garlic. There was chili powder, and there was cumin, but there was also cayenne pepper. And chipotle powder. Lots of of chipotle powder. There was a splash of amontillado, and half a bottle of beer. (I’ll let you imagine what happened to the other half.) And there was, of course, love. Because if you’re not cooking with love… don’t bother cooking at all.

    For more than four hours, it bubbled away on my stovetop. The sharpness of the spices and powders softened into strong washes of flavor, blending with the richness of the beef and mushrooms and the sweet spices of the great White Ale.

    And then, at long last, it was ready. On a January evening in New England, with the wind howling outside and the temperature hoving around 20 degrees, we settled down to big, delicious bowls of this wonderfully complex and sophisticated chili. Sprinkled a little shredded cheddar on top. Cut a few slices of thick, multigrain bread for dipping. Opened a bottle of smooth, rich, liquid magic.

    And by God, it was beyond good.

    THE BAD
    Reche1_2Reche fucking Caldwell, man. I know it’s not entirely his fault… but I think – in fact, I’m pretty sure – I’m always going to blame him for what happened last night. Yes, the Pats defense fell apart in the second half. Yes, their complete inability to mount a decent pass rush from the end of the second quarter until about four minutes before the end of the game basically doomed them. Yes, they looked exhausted and confused throughout. And yes, since credit must clearly be given, Peyton Manning had a phenomenal second half.

    But Reche. Those two balls you dropped… how is that even possible? Your entire career is leveraged on your ability to catch a football. And these two balls were thrown directly into your hands — you didn’t have to jump, or move, or even lean: they were delivered into your hands as cleanly as a newborn child into the arms of its mother. And you dropped them. You dropped the babies, Reche!

    (steaming)

    (steaming)

    Sorry. I’m not ready to be rational about this yet.

  • A cry for help

    …wife out of town on business…

    …drowning at work…

    …then home to three bloodthirsty “children” with no lifesaving buffer…

    …no rest…

    …no hope…

    …no carbs…

    …please…kill…me…

  • Re: carb-free vs. business travel

    “I’m not spending a week in Boise without drinking.”
    – TheWife

  • In which I say something that might be considered grotesquely inappropriate

    I fully realize that we’re in the midst of another Pats playoff run, and so it’s horrifyingly inapproriate for me to even be contemplating this subject at this point in time. And I would hate to be responsible for spoiling any good juju that Bruschi and co. are cooking up for Mr. Tomlinson and his cohorts.

    But it’s so very hard not to think of this. So very, very hard not to start feeling that familiar tingle…

    Matsuzaka_1

    (less than six weeks until Spring Training begins!)

  • I don’t know much, but I do know this.

    Today is Saturday, January 6th. And it’s 68 degrees outside. In Boston.

    I’ll repeat that. It’s the first week of January in Boston, a time when temperature is generally discussed in terms of wind chill and “below zero.” During the first week of January four years ago, I actually got a mild case of frostbite waiting for the T Commuter Rail to show up.

    It’s 68 degrees outside right now. I’m not joking when I say that everyone I’ve seen today is wearing either a t-shirt or a light long-sleeve. Hell, looking down the street right now, I can see a handful of kids throwing around a football… and they’re all wearing shorts.

    This is where I pause, take a deep breath, and admit that while I’m no scientist… I’m pretty sure this isn’t the way things are supposed to be.

  • Suck or No Suck? (Jan ’07 Edition)

    SUCK
    As a part of our recent holiday Netflix barrage, we saw The Devil Wears Prada, which was lauded at its time of release as being a smart and funny take on the “boss from hell” scenario. (I’ll note here that I didn’t bother reading the book.) Subsequently, we figured… “Hey, we like to laugh. And we like Meryl Streep — especially when she’s being funny. Let’s watch it!” Bad decision on our parts. This alleged comedy caused me to laugh only three times over the course of 110 minutes, and by the end of it I felt actively pissed off — not only at the fact that I’d just wasted 110 minutes, but at the lengths the film went to in order to pass off the Anne Hathaway character as somebody worthy of our admiration and sympathy… despite the fact that she spends the first half of the movie condescending horribly toward everyone in her company, then the second half flipping her attitude entirely because it’s to her professional benefit (despite what we’re supposed to believe are her strong moral and intellectual convictions) – even going so far as to dump her long-term boyfriend and then immediately start sleeping with some other guy who can advance her career – before finally leaving the world of high fashion behind and instantly landing her dream job as a writer/editor/whatever.

    Basically… it rubbed me the wrong way. Yeah, Streep was very good (when is she not?), but overall the movie left me seething. Which is not really what I was looking for in a comedy.

    NO SUCKKozelek
    Mark Kozelek’s new double-live CD The Little Drummer Boy, which is a gentle, sad and quite beautiful reminder of the kind of magic a guy and his guitar can make.

    SUCK
    Step two of our Netflix-fest was Miami Vice, which – despite the fact that Peter Travers basically wet himeself reviewing it last summer – turned out to be dark, dull and very, very confusing. What a tremendous letdown, especially considering that Hollywood defied traditional Hollywood logic by actually engaging Michael Mann in the process, rather than turning it over to Brett Ratner (see X-Men III for reference) or Michael Bay (see Pearl Harbor, The Island, and many other bad movies for reference) to transform it into predictable crowd-pleasing slop. Yeah, it looks seductively beautiful – not entirely unlike the way he shot Collateral, now that I think of it – but in all honesty, both TheWife and I were deeply bored and confused throughout.

    NO SUCK
    The Canon Elph SD700, which Santa brought us this year. It’s about half the size of our previous digital camera, does about twice as much stuff, and is basically so cool it’s completely absurd.

    SUCK
    Netflix debacle #3, The New World. God help me, but The Thin Red Line is one of my favorite movies of all time — an absolutely gorgeous meditation on the fleeting nature of love, terror and war against the timeless backdrop of nature itself. (The soundtrack is beautiful, too.) So when I heard that Terrence Malick was bypassing his usual 20-year layoff between movies to produce a new take on the John Smith/Pocahontas story, I was ready to be enraptured.

    Silly rabbit. This movie brought to life every negative thing I’d heard about The Thin Red Line — that it was beautiful, but hopelessly slow and confusing… that you often weren’t sure who was talking, or what – for that matter – they were talking about. Not to repeat myself… but what a profound disappointment.

    NO SUCK
    Watching three small kids under the age of four really enjoy Christmas morning together for the first time. That was pretty cool.

    (I still hate children, though. Just to be clear.)

  • Space and time

    So. How were your holidays? Great. Glad to hear it. Ours was a blur of family meet, greet and eats in which we drove from one end of eastern Massachusetts all the way to… a slightly different end of eastern Massachusetts. Relatives from relatively great distances travelled from various points south on I-95 to come up, visit, make merry, and give our offspring an ungodly amount of toys. It was all very festive, although we are now faced with the dilemma of what to do with the fact that we now have more toys than our home can actually accommodate.

    I don’t mean to sound ungrateful – because I’m very grateful indeed that our relatives like our children enough to actually go out and get them something cool for Christmas – but there’s no way around the spacial limitations of 5 people of varying sizes living in a 1750 sq. ft. home. In other words, when somebody gives us a stuffed tiger roughly the size of a german shepherd, it’s actually something of an issue. Similarly, when I decide that TheHurricane will be thrilled with one of those wooden, magnetically-connected train sets – without actually figuring out the logistics of how such a set would dimensionally fit into one of our rooms – I create an entirely new set of headaches.

    In other words: we’re outgrowing our house. Unfortunately we can’t afford to move — so we’re going to have to sell one of the kids, which should free up space while simultaneously improving our cash flow. (I’m very excited about this plan.)

    Anyhow. Tuesday, the kids went back to school/daycare — and TheWife and I decided to ditch work for a couple of days. I should note here that Tuesday and Wednesday mark the first “two consecutive days off from work” thing that I’ve enjoyed since the birth of the twins in June of 2005… so this break was a long time coming.

    So. Tuesday, we dumped the monsters brought our beloved children to school, and then immediately fled to the happiest place on earth — a.k.a. Portsmouth, NH. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but it’s one of my favorite little cities in America: a great combination of cobblestones and colonial architecture, seaside feel and tons of great little shops (and I’ll note here that TheWife brought us into pretty much every artsy-craftsy artisan place in the city, so as to fully appreciate the wealth of pottery and jewelry and clothing and… uh… other crap… therein). It also happens to feature – god bless me – a lovely little brewpub (a sister company to the good people at Smuttynose).

    (Let’s take a moment here to makes the brilliant observation that wandering through hundreds of little boutiques becomes a far more palatable experience after you’ve downed two extremely potent belgian-style ales. To quote myself as I tripped over the cobblestones: “Wheeeee!”)Smuttybeers

    Afterward, we came home, picked up the kids and navigated 14 hours of screaming enjoyed our evening and morning hours with them before dumping their bodies once again leaving them with their friends and teachers and fleeing making our way to places better experienced without the company of parasites children — in yesterday’s case, Harvard Square.

    It’s funny how much Harvard Square has changed over the past decade. Many of the great old, high-character stores (like Wordsworth, God rest yr soul) have departed and been replaced by chain stores — which is sad, insofar as that a lot of the Square’s appeal has departed along with them. That being said… we still had a good time, first hunting down a couple of decent used and indie CD stores (and picking up the newish Mew, which had better be good or else somebody’s going to get their ass kicked) before making our way to a splendiferous Indian feast (with accompanying Kingfisher, of course), grabbing a pint of Herrell’s mint cookies and cream, and finally returning to the suburban wasteland we call home.

    Where the tiger was waiting.

  • Happy Holidays

    From my famdamily to yours, here’s hoping you have a holly jolly one…

    Twinsbasket_2Walkingawayzoo_10

  • Fencing

    I was talking to a colleague of mine today about a blue moon-rare occurrence TheWife and I enjoyed last weekend: we went to a movie. In days long gone by, we were intrepid movie-goers — probably seeing 2-3 movies per month. Now? Let’s just say that this was the first time we’d sat in a theater together since The Da Vinci Code came out, which was… what, February?

    Christ.

    Anyhow, we managed to land a pair of toddler watchdogs for a few hours on Sunday, and so away we goed to the local 14-plex, where we plopped ourselves down in a couple of plush seats with oversized drink-holders and sucked in the wonder and majesty that is the newest James Bond film, Casino Royale.

    Now, granted — it’s possible that our overwhelmed response was (in part) informed by our absurd joy at being out of the house without the trio of lampreys who are usually latched onto our sides. But beyond that, from what I’d like to imagine was a not entirely irrational standpoint… it was a truly outstanding Bond film. Forget the campy one-liners and goofy gadgets and overblown villains of Brosnan and Moore (shudder) days… Daniel Craig makes one seriously badass Bond. He’s lean, mean and tougher than hell — but in the process, he also transforms Bond from a stereotype/archetype into a very real and fascinating character. Plus, he doesn’t blink much. Apparently, this stillness is a big part of Craig’s acting technique… and it works wonders here.

    Point being: GREAT movie, and (unlike The Da Vinci Code, which blew giant hairy chunks) we walked out of the theater very, very happy.

    So. Today I’m talking to a colleague about what a great movie it was, and I mention the scenes in which the classic moment from Dr. No – when Ursula Andress walks glistening and magnificent from the surf – is turned completely on its head as Craig lumbers cut, taut and angry from the water (TheWife, for example, mentioned how much she enjoyed those scenes. Several times.).

    At this point, my colleague mentions that another actor who was considered for the role was Clive Owen, who she suggested might have had a similar impact on the women in the audience. In her words – and at this point it seems appropriate to mention that my colleague is a gay woman – “If Clive Owen came walking in… I might just have to jump the fence.”

  • Music Appreciation

    Yesterday was the annual holiday singalong at the twins’ daycare place, and so I dutifully ditched work for a chunk of the morning to attend. Predictably, it was a fiasco — as you would expect from a room full of antsy 18-24 month olds trying to stay still and remain calm for a full half hour, even as their parents tried to maintain their precarious seats on tiny little plastic chairs designed to accomodate… 18-24 month olds.

    The singalong was led by a 50something folksingy dude who apparently makes his living doing similar performances for kids all over eastern Massachusetts. He had curly gray hair, creepily long fingernails (the better to pick for you, my dear), and a quavery voice that brought to mind an enfeebled John Denver — and for half an hour, he spoke and sang generic, nondenominational holiday songs in a preternaturally calming tone that managed to bore toddler and parent alike.

    The big finale involved a more energetic strum in which he tried to get the kids to dance. Some of the older toddlers started busting some moves, eager for the chance to actually start moving… as for mine: Rabbit stood up and kind of swayed from side to side a bit, while M. Butterfly remained tearfully clutched to my shoulder throughout the proceedings. Good times.

    All of which put last night into vivid contrast, as the famdamily was hanging out with me in our office/playroom after dinner. I was checking e-mail, and for some reason decided to throw on iTunes and hit “shuffle.” I can’t begin to tell you how delighted I was to discover that Slipknot’s Duality – a song not normally targeted at the under-5 set – suddenly had all three kids jumping up and down, shimmying all over, and laughing hysterically. I ended up repeating it a half-dozen times, much to TheWife’s horror.

    (beaming with pride)