H1N1 and bacon wrapped oysters

First, why is this dish referred to as angels on horseback, and by whom? In real life, I mean.

Second, do you poach the oysters before wrapping them in bacon? Do you broil the darlings or do them in a pan of oil? Do you bread them for extra crunch?

Does properly cooked mean deliciously cooked? I hope so. Clearly it does if you are at Porchetta.
NY Restaurants Fear a Pork Pullback.

Keep your hands off my A on H, honey.

scanwiches - ?

mmmmm...
yummy stuff;
mo' yummy stuff from the wonder that is NPR,
Spring's Cold Comfort...

s'a good thing that it is nearly lunchtime...

They asked me to make the block party poster again this year

Last evening's mock-up makes me worry that they'll think they made a mistake. (Well, to tell the truth, that thought didn't occur to me. It occurred to Lori and she shared it with me.)

dickensURL - love it - the opposite of tinyurl

DickensURL.com
as in:
http://dickensurl.com/4853/The_men_who_learn_endurance_are_they_who_call_the_whole_world_brother

lovely piece on secession by H. Hertzberg...

via the New Yorker magazine, Online Edition,
So Long, Pardner;

via NPR.org, D.Faris seconds that emotion,
Don't Mess with Texas ... Get Rid of It!

Current swine flu is the inevitable result of modern farming methods – HS Daily Wire

http://hsdailywire.com/single.php?id=7867

The statement isn't so shocking. That it's being made in the Homeland Security Daily might be. Dig that word *inevitable*.
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28 flights down, thank you

Me and thousands of my best friends evacuated our buildings this lovely Monday morning. Golly, it's good to be away from that boring old Portland, ME, and back here Gotahm!

so much music...

via the Hype Machine,
by way of Akkam's Razor
All the blogs that The Hype Machine checks for fresh music.
so little time...

Lunchtime specials at the Thomaston Cafe, Thomaston, Maine

Including, today:
* Shad roe pan fried and served over a bed of spinach w/ bacon and home fries.
* Finnie haddie cakes w/ salad.

To die for.
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coming soon, to a theatre near you

ju ju spock in Starship Bloopers
aka
the revenge of the ex-girlfriend...

leader of the monkeez indeed...

Bar Lola, Portland, Maine

At the top of the big hill, just past the firehouse. Totally fabu. We shared 10 (ten!) dishes. Am totally wiped. (Note to self: lay off the Scotch.)
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dos cosas...

and both worth sharing...

via esteemed weblogging comrades Steve B. and Kevin M.,
first up, Mr. Baum points us to this moment in time,
and Professor Murphy provides us a timely history lesson
(for which I am very - ! - grateful, ignorant fool that me be...)

one o' these days me hopes to buy each of dese guys a beer
(or some adequate substitute...)

Brooklyn Based, and bees buzz

E forwarded mail to me last week from Brooklyn Based (which caused some brain fog that only cleared when when I saw E this weekend: She said, Did you get my email? I said, no, but I got an email from someone with your name - oh, that was you? stroke).

Anyway, it was all about beekeeping in here in River City. Lori says, No. There go the mead plans.

worthy of mention hereabouts...

& credit where credit is due,
me thanking the clusterflockers,
and now, without further ado,
Wunderkammer

Tour de Brooklyn

I said what I said, and I meant what I meant...

Nice label!

Bitter sage

Cross posting a pic from our wee private winemaking blog. Have a sage & lemon thing happening on a grain alcohol base, that should finish just in time for the big summer party hereabouts. Naming it Juju Pongo's Love Balm.

Billionaire's Vinegar

Just read the first third of Benjamin Wallace's The Billionaire's Vinegar. A fun whodunnit, especially for me in this time when I seem to be awash in booze (prep for the 3rd annual puttanesca and new wine bash, trying to get Pietro to bottle his 2007 wine so I can make some room in the cellar, experimenting with making a couple more liqueurs...). There was something I read in the book yesterday that, on first blush, I scoffed at, but then quickly changed my mind about.

There was a romantic aspect to it all. Rodenstock and his new friends were "drinking history," as they liked to say, and would commonly wax historical about what Goethe, Schiller, or Napoleon was doing in the year of the vintage they happened to be opening just then.

And I thought, poo, poo, but almost immediately followed that thought with, Hey, we have some old wine. I want to drink some wine that was made before 9/11. Hmmm. (I just went down there and checked - the oldest bottle is a 1966 antique port. Boom boom.)

Shameless promotion: Eating for Beginners

Neighbor and puppet-master-blogger (eh, he's pulling my string again), DL, points to other neighbor Melanie Rehak's Eating for Beginners where, yo yo yo, on my very first visit I see a WCW pome, just like at home.

Golf, wee bairn

Am at bar of Bridge Cafe stop
Circa late 1790's stop
Good salad stop Reading David Owen's article re Askernish in current New Yorker stop
Remembering Jack Pero who taught us golf with whiffle balls circa late mid 1960's stop
Hellofa lot more like the Askernish game of Old Tom in Owen's article than anything I've seen on the vidi lately stop
http://newyorker.com stop
FORE stop
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Coke spermicide

Collage-itti

Carroll St. F.

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so THAT'S the secret...

not saying that most of yourstruly's paramours have had decidedly simian characteristics (& just what would you expect would attract a big ol'ape fellah like me anyways...)
"hey, my leetle monkee-gal, howzabout a steak dinner?"

p.s. - ain't that the truth...

Diorama Zen

web zen / diorama zen, from September, 2008.

Apropos the little contest we've been running, prizes have been selected, including Vladmaster's The Public Life of Jeremiah Barnes, and Slinkachu's Little People In The City.

Buona Pasqua

The best anisette I ever had...

... I had last night before beddy bye, just a wee dram, and it was made by me from this simple recipe in Dona & Mel Meilach's Homemade Liquors, page 83:

• 2/3 tbsp anise seed
• 1/2 tsp fennel seed
• 1/2 tsp coriander seed
• 1.5 cup vodka

Mortar the seeds, and put into the vodka for 1 week, shaking daily. Then strain and add

• 1/2 cup simple syrup

I strained it a number of times before I was happy (cheesecloth). I also turned it a few times a day for a few days until I was really happy with the integration of the syrup and the infusion, but I probably could have instead just shook it real hard when I added the syrup.

Way less cloying than most. (My syrup was 2 parts sugar to 1 part water.) Spicy! Yummy! Finished product about 30% alcohol.

Ain't misbehaving

Blow me down. Right now, go listen to Irving Mills' Hotsy-Totsy Gang playing Ain't Misbehaving (singing and dancing by Bill Robinson), 1929 Brunswick recording, at Scott Alexander's Red Hot Jazz Archive site. Yow! I'd gotten out of the habit, but 20's dance music is biting me again.

the will to live...

ahhhhhhh...
Sophie Tucker lives
that picture reminds me so of my late, lamented cattledoggy, Cam...

May - NYC Bike Month

Worlds collide - Mamas & Papas dioramas / my life as a professional

I rarely post about work related matters, even in a general manner, but I think this item will pass censor.

I invited folks from companies where I spend a goodly amount of my employer's money to submit dioramas in a head to head competition. Theme: The Mamas & the Papas. Due date: April:10. Judging: April 15. Judge: me. Judging criteria: undisclosed (and, uh, unknown).

These are some pretty competitive people submitting.
See: here. (Will post more as they come.)

Submissions so far from: Autonomy Interwoven, Cervalis, Cisco, Fidelus, Insight, IntApp, LexisNexis, Microsoft, Mindshift, Premier Tehnology Solutions.

Mechanical Music Extravaganza

Quake! Colleague LD is pointing us to the next Mechanical Music Extravaganza, Sunday the 19th in Wayne, NJ. Been a long time since we took this drug. But you know what they say... Once you've had shellac, you'll never go back!

That drip of mu on his nose made me feel real bad for the pork guy

What a couple of days his weekend. Saturday morning was whippin' windy and chilly. We went up to the farmers' market and the guy from Flying Pigs - not Mike Y but the guy who's name I don't know - was shivering and had this little drip of mu at the end of his nose. We felt so bad for him we got him a cup of hot cider. That probably warmed him and then he probably had to piss, on top of shivering. Dang. But he did have more hot sausage than usual, and the Wilklow people had more flat irons than usual, so, sorry, it worked out real nice for us.

Sunday! Sunday was a beaut! Warm and blue and we had all three meals cooked at home. Leftover wheat berries & farro for breakfast a la Bittman; lunch was scallion pancakes and that Sicilian sheep cheese flavored and colored with saffron that we bought at the Cheese Store of Beverly Hills when Lori had meetings there last month; dinner was that Batali pasta dish with tons of black pepper and arugula and cacio de Roma, and we got to eat it in the back yard as the sun set and the air cooled. Lori remembered that we hadn't had that dish in five years. (Gonna have the leftover pasta tonight as a side with some of the flat irons.)

Some rain, some wind

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And, of course, there is the charango...

(By the by, I read the posts over at Futility Closet - why assume Will Rogers was joking?)

two wonderful linky bits...

(well, three actually...)

numero uno: Curious Expeditions;

numero dos: Futility Closet;

and, providing referral to both of those wonders, bifurcated rivets.

Tiples, taro patches, and Antebellum

Been thinking of tiples and taro patches lately, half from enjoyment of my Akulele uke and half out of pure g.a.s., and that led me to stumble on Jake Wildwood's Antebellum Music site.

Do, if you're feeling strong, see the custom electric tiple at Specimen. Gadzooks!

25 years today!