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CHOW TIME
26 May 2006
"Clef Palate" is a new video podcast from Brooklyn filmmaker and tech freak Craig Schober and two of his pals.
It deals with a subject long taboo in our culture -- the splendor, the spectacle and the tragic heroism of young American
males attempting to cook for themselves.
When Craig and his pals manage to cook edible foodstuffs -- and sometimes they do, they really do! -- they burst into
song, high five each other, take another swig of beer. For a moment order is restored in the chaotic discombobulation of
the modern male psyche. Several episodes begin with a parody of a scene from a famous movie enacted by the guys in monkey
suits. All end with a karaoke performance by one of the chefs. Don't ask why.
Craig used to be notorious, and perhaps still is, for highly theatrical, semi-demented theme parties thrown in his remote
Brooklyn loft. Now he brings the party to your house and shows you how to prepare the refreshments, with recipes and illustrated
directions.
Laugh with him, cry with him -- cook with him. Make dinner reservations elsewhere, as a back-up.
[Note: Episode 4 introduces the first guest chef, a cute girl -- good move, guys . . .]
Subscribe via iTunes or go here:
Clef Palate
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| © 2006 Paul Kolnik |
RANDOM VEGAS NOTES
14 May 2006
Overheard at a Vegas supermarket at 7am on a Saturday morning -- a woman pushing an empty shopping cart talking into her
cell phone: "You know, I'm starting to think the reason I picked you as a boyfriend was because I like putting myself
in stressful situations."
A 19th-Century journalist on "lorettes", the kept women of Paris, who offered their sexual services on a more
or less exclusive basis to men who supported them: "The lorettes of Monmartre are not women -- they are nights."
A step in the commodification of the female, as she becomes a commercialized "experience", like dining or drinking
well, like gambling. In the covered shopping arcades of 19th-Century Paris, which Walter Benjamin saw as loci of the century's
subterranean dreams, prostitutes trolled for johns and gambling establishments beckoned in rooms above the glittering shop
windows. Today, in Las Vegas, the shopping arcades attached to casinos rank among the most successful malls in America, in
terms of sales per square foot. Benjamin's fantasmagorical arcades have become, in Las Vegas, a model for organizing an entire
city.
As temperatures here in the desert start to creep up through the 90s, a sure sign that the unrelenting and merciless heat
of the summer approaches, I find myself oddly comforted. It's easy to forget that Las Vegas is in the middle of a desert,
what with all the fountains, the artificial lakes, the vast enclosed urban spaces of the big casinos, the omnipresent air
conditioning. But every year the Mojave grabs you by the collar, drags you out into an alley and beats the shit out of you
-- just to remind you who's boss. On some level, it's good for the soul.
Baudelaire had an image of the world, at its best, as an inn -- a place you can feel at home for a while, even though
you're not at home, even though "home" doesn't exist. This ties in with an image I've had of Las Vegas as America's
corner tavern -- replacing the real corner taverns that have disappeared from most places. A million and a half people live
full-time in Las Vegas -- thirty-seven million people visit it each year. It is for this reason, always, a city oriented
towards strangers -- an inn for people passing through . . . and thus, in Baudelaire's terms, an image of the world at its
best . . .
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| © 2006 Paul Kolnik |
THE MERCHANT OF VEGAS
7 May 2006
Michael Almereyda was in town last month -- that's him above at the Huntridge Bar downtown, photographed by Elizabeth
Blau. He was doing a preliminary scout for a film he hopes to shoot here in the Fall, a modern-dress version of "The
Merchant Of Venice". It's a cool idea -- Shakespeare's most problematic play set in America's most problematic city.
We packed a lot of sightseeing into the few days he was here. I got to take him to several of my favorite restaurants
-- Noodles at the Bellagio, the Pink Taco and Mr. Lucky's at the Hard Rock, and Panevino . . . and to a couple of my favorite
bars -- The Double Down and the Voodoo Lounge (for the view.) We also hit the Rainbow Grill, interesting from a sociological
standpoint, and the wine bar at Aureole, interesting from an architectural standpoint. We even squeezed in a trip to Red
Rock Canyon.
Michael's friend Elizabeth Blau, a painter and member of the pioneering artistic community that lives downtown, took us
to two places I didn't know, the Huntridge Bar, downtown on Charleston, and Chicago Joe's, downtown on 4th. The Huntridge
is a pleasantly seedy locals' dive bar with really cheap beer and Chicago Joe's is an ancient, homey Italian restaurant that's
been a Vegas fixture forever.
Elizabeth took Michael to the Wynn and to the Liberace Museum and Michael made his own personal inspection of Caesars
and the Mirage.
As a teenager, Elizabeth contributed a mural to the heavily decorated Double Down, and oddly enough I published a photograph
showing it on this web site over a year ago, in an April 2005 report on the punk wedding I stumbled into at the Double Down
-- the elongated female figures behind the bandstand are from her hand:
All the sightseeing just scratched the surface of Vegas, of course, but Michael took some interesting video footage as an
aide de memoire that looked most promising -- I have an idea that his film will reveal this town visually in ways it rarely
has been revealed in movies.
CROCK POT
5 May 2006
Jae Song writes from New York:
To save money I started cooking with my roomate Joe -- we have a crock pot and we decided to cook something in the crock
pot every week that will sustain us for that week.
The beauty of the crock pot is that you just throw everything in there and turn it on and by the end of the day it's done.
You literally just throw the ingredients in there and turn it on.
But with a little extra care, you can make something tastes a little better.
Our last masterpiece was beef stew and it turned out great. You need a pretty big pot for this -- ours is around 1' diameter
and 8" tall -- this fills the pot to the brim:
2.5 lbs of chuck beef (cut in cubes)
2 carrots (medium size)
3 potatoes (smallish size)
3 onions (small to medium size)
5 ocra
3 cloves garlic
1 jalapeno pepper
red wine of choice or stout (or oatmeal beer) 3-4 cups
salt
pepper
Adjust amount of ingredients depending on the size of your crock pot
What I did was first put in the onions (chopped), garlic (minced) and jalapeno (minced -- be careful doing this and wash
yourself afterwards) so it can perfume the rest of the ingredients as we pile it on top (don't know if this really does anything
in the early stages of the cooking process but why not?)
Then I seared the beef on a really hot pan (put beef in pan and don't touch until the skin turns dark brown) . . . we
are not cooking the meat here -- just trying to reduce the fat on the outer layer with the heat to release the sugar and caramalize
on the pan. If a little gets burnt and sticks to the pan that is fine. Just sear the outer areas of the beef and then throw
in the pot. Of course burning the beef is bad so pay attention.
Then throw the rest of the ingredients in the pot (chopped -- I like to chop the carrots really small for some reason).
sprinkle salt
sprinkle pepper
Then deglaze the pan you just used for the beef with your wine or beer. Turn on the heat to medium -- pour around a cup
and a half in and with a wooden spoon scrape up everything in the pan -- basically clean the pan with the wine. Pour that
into the pot. Add 2 and a half more cups.
Turn on the crock pot and let it cook for ... 3 hours -- mix it up -- let it cook for another 3 hours -- mix it up --
taste -- add salt if needed -- let it cook for another 3 hours and it should be done.
You don't really have to keep checking on it every 3 hours -- you can just mix it once after 4 hours, taste and season
and let it cook.
You can also just chop everything up and throw in the pan -- pour in 3 and half cups of water, turn it on and come back
in 8 - 9 hours and it should be done.
This lasted us a good week -- we ate it with bread and with rice, with some added tobasco sauce at times or chilli powder.
It cost us 18 bucks.
Try it if you're in the mood to cook.
For more exciting recipes be sure to check out the Food Rules section of this web site:
Food Rules
TWILIGHT OF THE OYSTERS
1 May 2006
A few days ago I looked at the calendar and was startled to see how few days were left in April, the last month with an
'r' in it until September. I don't eat oysters in months without 'r's in them, so I knew I had to act quickly to fortify
myself for the coming oyster drought.
I took a bus over to the Strip, caught the monorail down to the MGM Grand and walked across Tropicana Boulevard to the
new Hooters Casino. I was headed for the Hooters restaurant inside it, which offers the best oyster deal in town -- a bucket
of about three dozen roasted oysters for $19.95. You have to shuck them yourself, but they're always delicious, dipped in
a little melted butter.
Delighted but still unsatisfied, I took a cab to Joe's Stone Crab in the Forum Shops at Caesars. Joe's does really good
fried oysters and I ate a plate of them with considerable satisfaction. Then I took the bus home.
On Sunday, the last night of April, I decided on one last oyster fling, so I made my way to a place I'd never visited
before, Bouchon at the Venetian -- an upscale French bistro with an oyster bar. Walking into it I had a distinct feeling
that it was going to become my new favorite restaurant in Las Vegas, and I wasn't wrong.
The high-ceilinged room has a Belle Epoque feel, though lighter and airier than a genuine French bistro. In fact, it
feels like a cross between a bistro and a 19th-century English hotel tea room. It has a vast bar covered in zinc, or some
sort of acceptable substitute, and to reach its seating area you walk past a glassed-in bank of ice troughs filled with the
oysters and lobsters served at the bar.
On my way to the Venetian it occurred to me that an upscale French bistro in Las Vegas might actually offer Kronenbourg
-- a French beer (from Alsace) which isn't a truly great beer but whose taste brings back a lot of fond memories of traveling
and dining in France. Not only did they have Kronenbourg but they had it on tap -- something I've never seen in the U. S.
They also had Chimay and one other Belgian beer on tap, as well as Anchor Steam, from San Francisco, which is another great
accompaniment to shellfish.
This all looked very promising, and the promise was more than fulfilled when I ordered half a dozen of the special oysters
of the day -- St. Simons, from New Brunswick, Maine. Small, sweet, fresh and incredibly tasty, they were some of the best
oysters I'd ever eaten. I then ordered a mixture of a dozen of the four other varieties that they had on offer -- two from
the West Coast and two from the East. None were as fine as the specials, and the East Coasters were better than the West
Coasters, but they were all good and interesting.
I glanced over the dinner menu for future reference -- it looked most promising, too -- and drifted back to the Strip
in a kind of pleasure-daze. I wasn't ready to decompress from it just yet, and as I was near the Forum Shops I headed back
to Joe's and ordered oysters Rockefeller. They were scrumptious, washed down with an Amstel Light. Then I had a slice of
key lime pie for dessert. It was the best key lime pie I'd had outside the state of Florida, its filling tart but balanced
by a sweet graham-cracker crust and a dollop of whipped cream on top -- comme il faut.
The return bus ride, with maids and dealers heading home after their shifts, brought me slowly back to reality after my
brief sojourn in oyster paradise. I felt fortified to face the long 'r'-less months that lie ahead.
But I'll tell you what. I'll meet you at the Bouchon bar on September 1st. We'll go wild.
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