MORE TOKYO

On the left: Healthy shishito peppers. On the right: Grilled salty chicken skin. Balance.

Bookstore, Shibuya.

Tasting Japanese whiskies.

Probably if I lived here I would stop taking pictures in convenience stores of fluffy bread snacks. Probably.

Tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet) + Tsukemen (dipping ramen) = shirt stains, sweat.

TOKYO: BESUBORU!

Bobby Valentine to me: "So you're a Yankees fan or a Mets fan or you don't really give a shit?"
Me: Ummm.
BV: Have a donut. [Note: there was a box of donuts on the table]
BV manages the Chiba Lotte Marines. My friend Shun works with him and was kind enough to invite me and another Tokyo pal, Shinji, to the home game last night against the Yokohama BayStars and to introduce us to his boss. The Marines lost but it was a fun night out.

One of the many dozens of beer girls that roam Japanese baseball stadiums, bowing before they make their way up the aisle to dispense draft beer from their keg-backpacks. If you imagine a cross between a st. bernard, a school girl in knee socks and a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger you sort of get the idea.

Chiba Marine Stadium, Chiba Prefecture, outside Tokyo.

This is not the real ball they play with. This is a person dressed as a ball.

Light Up the Passion For Your Team. Other motto, on back of every chair: "A Passion for Our Dream, A Commitment to Our Flag."

KYOTO: A VISIT TO THE YUBA MAKER

Yuba is "tofu skin," a delicate, creamy silky thing made by carefully lifting the thin film that forms on top of gently simmering soy milk. I like yuba and have eaten in many times but never really gave any thought to how it was made until the other morning when I visited an old yuba maker in Kyoto. I sat in the back of the room and watched a young guy (a member of the family who has run the place for centuries) presiding over these vats of steaming soy milk, just barely at a simmer. When a skin had formed, he'd run a wooden dowel across a vat and pull up a translucent sheet of yuba and let it dry on a rack. It is slow work, a sort of mesmerizing ritual. Hours and hours and hours, one by one harvesting these dainty, weightless sheets, waiting for another skin to develop on the warm surface. The young tofu maker's aunt gave me a bowl of warm, freshly made yuba, scrunched up in a bowl with just a few drops of soy sauce. Simple, oishii, delicious. The family cat sat next to me in a styrofoam crate. The aunt brought a plate of salty, deep-fried yuba. An old man washed out the giant pots used to soak the soy beans. The young guy kept walking around his vats, watching. The cat yawned off for a nap. After a morning snack, I was ready to do the same.

KYOTO (DAY TWO AND A HALF)

I'm working in Kyoto for a week. Bright and sunny here a good time to walk the city. This morning I'm going to see more temples, wander through the food market, do some interviews and try to stop eating pillowy frosting-filled white-bread snacks from 24 hour convenience stores. From top: Little, sweet, miso-slathered fish. A famous tofu maker outside his shop. A not-famous tofu apprentice in his hair net. Watering the concrete (wet stone outside a restaurant or shop is a sign of welcome). Kyoto, 5/13–14.

REFLECTIONS IN A TUB OF DUCK FAT

Perhaps some time ago you could have asked me, "Do you think you might possibly become a person who takes pictures of duck fat?" Then I could have answered you, confidently, No. What sort of person takes pictures of any kind of fat? I might have asked you, What is duck fat for? And: Why would I ever be near a tub of it? I wouldn't have cared about a giant tub of perfectly creamy rendered duck fat sitting in my refrigerator. And just the thought of it resting there for months, concealing in its opaque depths, the color of french vanilla ice cream, salty pieces of confit duck legs, necks and wings, wouldn't have comforted me at all. So I'd have no reason to take it out once in a while just to admire it. But these days I do think about it and do look in on it sometimes. And so I'll take a picture of it now—just so I don't eat the whole thing today.

COUNT DRUNKULA

L to R: me, my colleague Andrew, Count Niccolo Branca of Fratelli Branca, producers of Fernet Branca and the deliciously old-man minty Branca Menta. Today at a press lunch somewhere in Midtown. It's a very food nerd kind of day for me, this rainy Monday. Next up: I'm guest live-blogging the James Beard Foundation Awards all night at http://www.jamesbeard.org/blog. There is apparently a Hendricks Gin bar in the press room. Oh no.

FYI

Have a happy and safe Friday, imaginary readers.

SOME PICTURES THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH EARTH DAY (EXCEPT THEY'RE FROM THERE)

Top to bottom: Botswana, Lisbon, London, Tokyo, Nairobi, Hong Kong, Tokyo.

THE SACHS-MEEHAN PLAN FOR SUSTAINABLE DRINKING

Step 1: Make sure someone else is paying. Step 2: Pick up the April edition of GQ which has a story of mine in which I follow the very talented and likable Jim Meehan, proprietor/barman of the very tiny and likable cocktail place PDT around on an investigative bar crawl. The idea is there are a lot of fancy cocktails out there now but none of us really know what to drink when, how to construct a menu of these things, what follows what so you're happy and don't feel terrible at the end of the night. You'd call PDT a hole-in-the-wall if it wasn't more properly described as a hole-in-a-phone-booth-inside-a-hotdog-joint. It's a nice place and you should go and drink Black Flips and That One Sachs Likes with the Pomegranate-Molasses But Made With Rye & Not Gin (pretty sure that's not the real name but it's the only way I can remember it) and eat Chang Dogs. Unless it's crowded and you might take my seat, in which case you should just send Jim your money and good wishes. I think that's supposed to be Jim in a jacket, facing the bar in the magazine illustration above. To the left is our friend Dr. Michael. The woman is GQ's own Sarah Goldstein. And I'm the woodcut on the right, though my hair doesn't look nearly that good in real life.

Have a look at the story HERE

NZ AM/PM

Just back from two very nice weeks in very nice New Zealand. More pictures, stories soon. For now, top: on the ferry to Waiheke island with the Auckland skyline falling away. Above: long-exposure shot of the view from the deck of the house we were staying at, on a starry, cloudy, moon-filled night on Waiheke.

RANDOM SUNDAY: PICTURES FROM HERE AND THERE

Bistrot Paul Bert, Paris 1.09

Buenos Aires, 2.09

Dubai, 12.07

Hobart, Tasmania, 12.07

Monte Argentario, Italy Tuscany, 6.07

THE SCARIEST SIGNS IN THE WORLD

Skull and crossbones? Check. Little girl in pigtails running away from the death wave? Check. Top is from Ticino, Switzerland. These signs are everywhere, next to the most innocent looking little quiet mountain streams. Bottom is from Montreal and is just plain evil. What is the instruction here? Simply: death is coming from above.

MY WAR ON BRUNCH; MORE MARCH MAGS

GQ this month has a big thing about the best breakfasts in America or the world or something. Within this larger story there is a tiny, angry, lunatic piece by me called WHY BRUNCH BLOWS in which I declare brunch dead and use a lot of exclamation marks. To read this important piece of breakfast journalism, go HERE. On a more positive note, the flip side of that very same piece of printed paper carries an even smaller ode to the DELICIOUS MORNING BUN from Tartine Bakery, San Francisco which I non-blogged about last summer HERE. GQ actually used my photo of the morning bun, which is kind of cool.

MONTREAL IN MARCH NGT

The nice editors of National Geographic Traveler called to tell me that Montreal was the most "playful" city in the world. OK, I said. Would I, they asked, go there and find the playfulness and report back? OK, I said. Mostly this involved talking to contortionist teachers at the national academy of circus, dodging the rain and drinking coffee with some interesting folks who love their city. Also: eating sweet Fairmount bagels, foie gras poutine (above, from the excellent Au Pied de Cochon) and a lot of other things that didn't make it into the story because it wasn't a food story. Anyway, I think everyone can agree Montreal is a fine city. PDF of the story is HERE. I'll put up a link to an online version when I can find one.

FAUXMOFUKU? MYMOFUKU?

I know this is supposed to be mostly a travel not-blog but sometimes I'm not traveling which means, usually, I'm at home trying to avoid avoiding work. Which means, usually, playing in the kitchen (if my office and kitchen were on different floors I would be much more productive). Walking home from Chinatown yesterday I stopped at a market to look for a quick lunch snack. Noticed these buns labeled "Steam Pita Bread" which look similar to the ones Momofuku uses to wrap their justly-famous pork buns. Figured I'd make my own homegrown approximation. Bought a couple pounds of pork belly at the same Chinatown market. Added some hoisin sauce I had and leftover white wine and some randomish spices, threw it all in a pot in a low oven and let it gurgle away for the afternoon. Assembled the pork in the buns with a quick cucumber pickle I made and steamed it all together which made everything nicely warm and gooey. Added a couple of drops of sriracha. Have to say: pretty momofukuing good. Cheap. Basically no work. Which reminds me…

STILL LIFE WITH BREAD & BUTTER (OR: EVEN MORE ABOUT THE DOLOMITES)

Still harping on my Bon Appétit story about the Dolomites. For some reason my pictures of the bread and butter at La Perla hotel's La Stüa de Michil in Corvara came out very arty. I wasn't sure what kind of arty so I asked my good and wise friend Val who is a fancy art dealer (I believe that's the term) what kind of pretty picture I was taking. Val writes: "That's a goddamn beautiful bread basket. Too sensual to be Dutch. I'm going to put your photo in with the Spanish painters of the 17th c., for its contrast of dark to light, its stagelit aura. Zubaran. Velasquez." So the Zubaran-Velasquez setting on my camera works!

MORE ABOUT THAT POLENTA

This is Rifugio Scotoni, the little mountainside hut I mentioned in my Dolomites story in this month's Bon Appétit, and this is the polenta at Scotoni, the best polenta in the world. If you are some other polenta, really it's time to pack it in, give up, go home and just be happy being cornmeal and get a job being a taco or at the bottom of an english muffin. This is the polenta elite and you don't have what it takes. And what it takes apparently is a lot of cheese. The cook here sees polenta as primarily a cheese delivery system. He takes three local cheeses—Fontina, Schiz and Dobbiaco—and folds them into the polenta and flips and turns it and keeps working the stuff until as, as I say in the story, he somehow manages to "elevate the humble polenta to a many-textured thing of complex, creamy, grainy, crisp-edged, gooey-but-sturdy wonder. The magic polenta sits next to a pork sausage, more German or Austrian than Italian, split down the middle and grilled—simple, salty, good. This is fortifying food that cries out for its own classification in the Michelin Guide: Worth Climbing a Mountain For."
(Whole story is HERE)

ARGENTINA ON TWO HOURS OF SLEEP A DAY (SOME RANDOM PICTURES)

Down in sunny Buenos Aires today, getting ready to fly back to cold NYC. Good week here and in Mendoza. There was a lot of wine involved. And fancy chefs. And, above, empanadas.

Polo match at Cheval des Andes, the winery owned by Chateau Cheval Blanc. The Andes are behind the players. The sparkling wine and ladies in sun dresses are behind the camera. Not a bad way to spend the morning.

A private tasting with Laura Catena and her charming winemakers at Catena Zapata in Mendoza

A coffee, some water con gas, old men reading newspapers, taxi blurring by and a book (not shown): Pretty good recipe for how to spend an afternoon.

DOLOMITES (FINALLY)

My story about hiking up snowy mountain passes in search of perfect polenta and driving the rental car into walls of ice in the insanely beautiful Dolomites region of northern Italy is finally out in the March issue of Bon Appétit magazine. Check out the story HERE. Hope you like it.

BUENOS AIRES BOUND

Headed down to Buenos Aires tonight. As I have no picture of me sweating and running to catch the Air Train (and who would want to see this) I offer SOMETHING ELSE, randomly: recently published interview with the lovely Rashida Jones, part of my continuing series of brief conversations with pretty women about what they like in other men. More, relevant and, I hope, sun-drenched pictures from Argentina shortly.

HALL OF FAME OF PORK (VII)

Behold the andouillette de Troyes. Rarely a crowd-pleaser, sometimes a room-clearer, and not to be confused with either the firmer, smoked French andouille sausage or its distant Cajun relative, a good andouillette is a fine and noble thing made of coarse and ignoble stuff. Specifically it is a loose assemblage of pig parts, roughly two parts large intestine to one part chopped stomach, stuffed into more intestine. Cut into one and—well, fragrant is the polite way to put it.

Ed Behr, in an excellent story about andouillette in the latest issue of his always excellent journal The Art of Eating quotes a former prime minister of France and mayor of Lyon who put it this way: "Politics is like an andouillette, it should smell a little of shit but not too much."

I first tasted an andouillette somewhere in Lyon about ten years ago. Half enjoying, half put off by the steamy funk, I liked it enough to eat them again every now and then in Paris since then. The flavor is…I was about to write "earthy" but that's wrong: it is deeply animal-y. I've had some good ones (and a couple of literal stinkers) but never a great one until last week, following Behr's suggestions, I made my way the tiny l'Estaminet d'Arômes et Cépages in the Marché des Enfants Rouge, a covered market in the Marais. The andouillette served here is from La Charcuterie Daniel Thierry, considered the best in Troyes. Grilled to a papery crispness on the outside, the smell was mild but the taste of the meat was deep and alluring. As usual Ed Behr gets it precisely right : "A good andouillette is rich, meaty, tender, and—almost like some distant, suspect relative of a truffle—highly sensual."

Funkadelic.

MR. ADAM GOES TO LUXEMBOURG

My friend Pavone and his family recently moved to Luxembourg. Over in the friends' column on the right of this page, I've got a link to his blog about living and cooking there. It's really good—both the writing and, as it turns out, the actual living and cooking there. Sunday I took the TGV from Paris to Luxembourg (two hours in pitch black; there could be a tunnel there for all I know) to stay with them for a couple of days. I'd never been to Luxembourg, was a little skeptical of its existence and, after a fun week, needed sleep and tennis. Pavone picked me up at the train station. He is by birth and temperament and fierce loyalty a true New Yorker, so it was a fun to find him standing by an idling Audi in the icy dark of middle Europe. He expertly guided the Audi through a kind of stone slalom of ancient roads back to his apartment which, as promised, was directly across the street from the Grand Duke's palace. (He looks out on the back of the palace; I took the picture above early the next morning after waking unaccountably early). I got to hang out with his excellent almost-five-year-old boys, Sam and Alex, who decided to call me "Mr. Adam". This at first seemed slightly formal, deferential, fitting given the proximity of the ducal palais where foreign heads of state are welcomed. By day two however the boys had taken to pinning me into the kitchen with a plastic sword and screaming so that all the world's last remaining grand duchy would know, "Mr. Adam is a monster!" Pavone roasted a blue-legged Bresse chicken. In the morning we played tennis at a sports complex in Kockelscheuer that also housed badminton courts and a pizzeria. So I'm happy to report that Luxembourg exists and my friends seem well there. After I'd left for Paris, Pavone reported this verbatim exchange with his all-knowing all-seeing kinder.

"Why can't Mr. Adam stay?" [Alex asked]
I told him that you needed to get back to New York.
"Why?"
Because you had a job, I said, and you needed to get back to it.
"Job?" he asked, looking at me incredulously, actually shaking his head.
"Mr. Adam doesn't have a job."

IF IT HAS TO BE A SALAD

If the first thing you eat in the new year has to be a salad, then: Eat it in Paris. In a friendly, funny old place. Share it with someone nice. Make sure it has fresh, perfectly cooked eggs on top. And a lot of cured duck ham. And gesiers confit. And lardons. And bits of foie gras tucked underneath just the littlest bit of lettuce. A satisfying, stabilizing beginning to what I hope will be a happy new year for everyone.

SOME THINGS I FORGOT TO MENTION

A magnum of nice old champagne. Which has nothing to do with this except that someone was kind enough to share it at a friends birthday recently and I thought I'd commemorate it with a photo — that and the subject here is OLD STUFF. I've been bad about posting links to stories I've had out recently. So— some VERY LITTLE THINGS that have cropped up here and there over the last couple of months (none of which will age as well as the '61 Moet). Click dates for links.

GQ 8.08 "Provide anything but hookers and drugs" — and other advice from hotelier Klaus Ortlieb.

GQ 11.09 In defense of drinking on the job. The fact that I can't remember writing this is proof that if nothing else I occasionally follow my own advice.

GQ 1.09 Tips for running a great restaurant from the boys at Frasca in Boulder. OK, this one's not technically old yet but it will be soon!

DEPARTURES 12.08 A story about the Apple stores. In case you are just waking up from a coma.

From Best Life, brief telephone conversations with pretty ladies in which I ask them about what attracts them to other men.
11.08 KIM RAVER And 12.08 Mad Men's CHRISTINA HENDRICKS

Talking about Swedish rock and Bjorn Borg underwear in Stockholm in SPIN 7.08

COQ BLOCK R.I.P.

It is with a heavy (though unclogged) heart that I must report that BLOCK ROOSTER FOOD has disappeared from Varick and Downing Sts. With it goes one of the great nomenclatural mysteries of the city. When I first moved to the neighborhood this was just a typical KFC-rip-off joint—Kasparov Fried Chicken or Kennebunkport Fried Chicken or something. One morning the familiar red-and-white awning was gone. In it's place, a sleek blue awning and bold re-branding: Block Rooster Food. How did they come up with it? What did it mean? I always meant to stop in and talk to them about it. Maybe pitch it as a story for Fast Company or something.

Q: Did you use a consultant for the name?
A: Yes, we have a friend and he has a thesaurus. We told him we wanted something that says basically "neighborhood chicken restaurant." You know, but more interesting, more jazzy. We considered "Area Poultry Chow" but it seemed ill considered to go from KFC to APC. "Local Avian Eatery" was very vowel-y and sounded like an illness. Then we hit on Block Rooster Food and it just sounded right.
Q: Can I really get thighs-and-fries for $2.50.
A: Yep.

So long BRF.

OIL OF POULET

There is, however, some good news in chicken shack signage. The line about "moisturized chicken" disappeared a couple years ago from the awning of the Chester Fried on 23rd St. But I found another one where the strange, beautiful description still lives.

THE BIG BALLOON INDICATOR

An American friend working in India emailed me today to say that she'd noticed the Big Balloon Men of Bombay have returned. These are the guys you see in the streets of Colaba near the Gateway of India and the now-shuttered Taj, slapping their wares and shouting "Big balloon!" Under normal circumstances it is almost touchingly ludicrous except that after one minute you want to either run away or stay and help them figure out a better business plan than getting adult foreign tourists to buy giant balloons. Today it would be a welcome sight. Anyway, since I'm not there but home in New York, I thought I'd put up some more pictures. In case you missed it, read Suketu Mehta's solid op-ed in the New York Times about this resilient city.

TODAY I MADE THESE PRETZELS

With my hands. While I was thinking. So it's not procrastination. Not at all. It's keeping hands un-idle while brain is working. Later when it's time to type with my hands, my mind will be free to think about eating pretzels. Or something. But for sure it's not procrastination. (They taste pretty good for a first attempt. I am now eating while thinking.) Goodnight, imaginary readers.

BOMBAY, BURNING

Watching the very sad and scary news from India. Shootings and bombings all over the city—a city which under normal circumstances exists in a state of permanent functional mayhem. I spent a month camped out at the Taj hotel around this time last year. It's now under siege, its old wing in flames, hostages taken—pure terror. It's as likely a target as any I guess, an iconic fortressed preserve in a city that has few identifiable landmarks. A report from someone at the scene described gunmen entering one of the hotel's restaurants to round people up. Gin and tonics are nearly twenty dollars a watery drink at the hotel bar. I've had my share. You drink them knowing that people are sleeping on the pavement outside—literally across the street from the little back exit, away from the grand entrance which opens up onto the Gate of India and its touts and milling crowds and the usual mess of costumed bellmen and comings and goings and waiting drivers. You sip the gin and tonics inside because it's quiet, thinking all the while: I don't know what to think. Easier to think once you're home, a million miles away. Tonight, from safe, holiday-cheery New York, I feel terrible fear for those inside the hotel and for those still in danger. And sadness for the rest whose lives will be damaged by this indirectly. Bombay is a compelling insanity and it gets under your skin.
(Above, a resident crow in the usually bucolic courtyard, Taj Mahal Palace, Bombay, 10.24.07)

HEARTS AND BONES

Upstate this weekend with some nice people for Rapoport's birthday. Made a beef-and-bacon-and-stout pie which was pretty good. Better than the pie (and continuing the English theme) was the by-product: beef shank bones. Roasted them per Fergus for 20 minutes or so & scooped the beautiful marrow onto toasts, with a simple parsley salad. It is stupid not to do this more often.

TALL THINGS

(Left to right: Sydney, Dubai, Hobart)

REFLECTION ON REFLECTIONS (SUNDAY DIGRESSION)

"Reflections in water belong to this kind of poetic strangeness. It is a great joy for me to observe them, especially on hot days, when the the light is perfect and the strangest symmetries are generated: two swans swim toward each other, with two other reflected swans, perhaps a heraldic insignia. Tropical islands, doubled ships, trains passing upside down over a bridge, the moon. Everything with perfect colors. If you look only at the reflection, and not at the reflecting part, you see a gratuitous reality that exists for you alone… In New York you may happen to see a sunset on the East Side, the sky there acting as a mirror to the sunset. The real sunset, coming from New Jersey, is uglier, as though the fact of coming from New Jersey made it in bad taste."—Saul Steinberg, Reflections and Shadows.
(Above: Lago Ritom, Piora, Switzerland. 10.5.08)

HALL OF FAME OF PORK (VI)

As promised, a return to the timeless, important topic. Here, a classic: The bacon appetizer at Peter Luger. Had it again on Saturday at lunch with my friend Val who was visiting from Chicago. Our next president is also from Chicago. Come to think of it if you turned the plate a little and cleaned up the sauce a bit and added a few more strips of bacon (and why not?) this would actually resemble the brilliant Obama 'O' logo…

VIEW FROM MY WINDOW (HAPPY DAY-AFTER EDITION)

Good work, beautiful strangers. So many big and true and better things will be said by others about what happened yesterday. But I want to write something, if only just to feel I'm marking the moment in my tiny way. This week I got a nice email from an old lost friend of mine from Page Ave, Louisville KY days which got me thinking about the things we did as kids. Sometime around the bicentennial, my existence became very focused around the stickers that said "Spirit of '76". Maybe they came in Cheerios boxes. I remember the stickers arriving suddenly from everywhere and being suddenly everywhere, stuck on bikes, on all surfaces in my room. Patriotism wasn't a concept I really could wrap my six-year-old brain around. I was just intoxicated by the Spirit of '76, like some kindergarten Kerouac jazzed up on the idea of that giant abstract adult thing America stretching out beyond Page Ave and celebrating an unimaginably big birthday. I guess Star Wars would come and distract us all a year later, but for a while it felt like being an American alive right then was the coolest, luckiest thing ever. And that's sort of how it feels today.

SORT OF A BIG DAY TODAY.

It's sunny in New York. From the little window in my little office, it looks like a bright and beautiful day out there. And it feels like one too. I've sat in this office on a lot of sunny and easy days. I also sat in this chair and listened as fighter jets circled the sky in the days just after September 11th when you had to show identification to get below Houston. That sound—American war planes above your home, there not for an air show or a practice run but for protection—is not one I ever thought I'd hear and not something you soon forget. The feeling then was that the world was changing for the worse but that we as Americans were coming together. That happened for a while and then it kind of un-happened. Today it feels (to me anyway) like we have a chance to come together while the world changes for the better. I really hope so. This is a big and wonderful country. And we as a whole are better than our baser elements and stronger than our fears and smarter than the moronic cliques that try to divide us. This isn't a political blog. As Hodgman has noted the only pork issues I tackle are of the cured, smoked and salted variety. The only job I've ever had in politics was during the strange, lost year I lived in Washington DC after college. I worked for a Democratic polling firm during Bill Clinton's first campaign. I honestly can't remember what I did at this job other than I walked to work and brought my own sandwiches from home and felt vaguely relieved that I had a place to wear my one suit. I remember though watching the election returns at the office all night and going out to celebrate with my co-workers who had real jobs and knew what they were doing. They were nice to let me feel a part of everything. Stumbling home as the sun was coming up, I walked by some dancers getting off work. They asked what had happened and I told them the news and we all cheered in the empty street. I'm going to refrain from making a joke here. It was just so exciting, all of it—the feeling the next day of generational change, of hope and possibility. Just wanted to check in here before I go vote, with a moment of honest optimism in my brain and heart, tempered by a bit of abject fear in my stomach and the excitement of a big day finally here. See you tomorrow, when I will again take on the larger issues of what I had for lunch and where I'm going on vacation.

PRE-ELECTION FREAKOUT RANDOM IMAGE MONDAY

From top: There's Many Dog Shit In Your House, Tokyo. Wall, NYC. Sweet sobagaki, Tokyo. Street sign, Auckland NZ.

Hello NYC

(Outside: View from the Hudson River Park tennis courts, 8am today. Inside: sheets of pasta drying on my office desk)

"The two moments when New York seems most desirable, when the splendor falls all round about and the city looks like a girl with leaves in her hair, are just as you are leaving and must say goodbye, and just as you return and can say hello."
—E.B White, 1955

MONTREAL

In Montreal this week/end. Sun, rain, contortionists, foie gras poutine and sweet bagels.
AM: students practicing at the École Nationale de Cirque. PM: "Duck in a Can" at Au Pied de Cochon.

COLD PIZZA

I'm no graphic designer but I'm not sure how I feel about the use of the universal frosty-cold font for a pizzeria. Even if it is a pizzeria high up in the Swiss mountains. (Cimetta, Switzerland, 5485 ft. 10.6.08)

McTerroir

Locarno, Switzerland. 10.6.08.

NOV FOOD & WINE

That was quick. Returned from Lima on August 8 and now my story about Peruvian food and chef Gaston Acurio is out in the November issue of Food & Wine. In addition to the great food, I was really taken by Gaston's involvement in a cooking school we visited. The students (above) are from the poor surrounding areas. From the story:

"On my final morning in Lima, we drove an hour-and-a-half north of the city to a shantytown called Pachacutec, where wild dogs stood in the dirt road. After the corrugated metal houses faded away, we came to a few new, single-story brick buildings near the ocean. This is the world’s most unlikely cooking school, co-sponsored by Acurio; each day, kids walk miles to learn a trade that they hope will take them away from Pachacutec. In a well-lit room, serious young students whipped up elaborate puddings and fried donuts. They fed me and thanked me for visiting. It was an uplifting place and a reminder that change depends on providing an education you can’t get from cooking shows."

Peruvians compare the typically dreary sky in Lima to the underbelly of a donkey and from the picture above you can see why (that's Gaston's dapper driver Walter in the red sweater standing outside the school). I'd fallen asleep in the car on the drive from Lima and when I woke up we were on dirt roads deep in the giant shantytown. More like a shanty-city. Then no more town and just sand and, like an oasis, this cooking school at the end of the world. I was feeling and looking a little ragged that day—hungover, too much food. The students were bright-eyed and welcoming. One made a very sweet speech welcoming to the school and they all clapped. It was a humbling experience. I wish them all well.

I'll scan the story and put it up on the main site sometime but for the web version is here.

BEFORE/AFTER: CHESTNUT EDITION

Left: Ticino. Right: my refrigerator.

A FEW MORE FROM AMSTERDAM

Eat herring. Push to walk. Unchain my car. Amsterdam. 9.08.

ATLAS OF IMAGINARY PLACES

Some of the exterior walls of Manhattan's Pier 40, Hudson River at Houston, are painted pale blue and peeling in interesting ways. I was out doing some highly productive day-dreaming & noticed that these looked like maps of unknown islands. Rusted-out continents, fallen into disrepair. Rustania. Crapesia. Lower Peelopia.

HALL OF FAME OF PORK (V)

Fried cotechni with zabaglione. Let me repeat: fried cotechino with zabaglione. Hosteria Giusti in Modena, Italy. More than most things I ate two summers ago I can remember the precise taste and texture of this ridiculous, wonderful thing, or combination of things. BM had a chance to not only eat there but cook for a story a story (see *here*). Mario Batali called the proprietor of Giusti his "go-to man for any and all truths about pork." In The Food of Italy, Waverly Root quotes a 19th century satirical poet Giussepe Giusti, "the existence of Modena sausage makes up for the existence of the Duke." I say simply, respectfully: holy shit.

RANDOM ARTIFACT MONDAY

Years ago I interviewed Hugh Hefner at the mansion. While we were waiting for Hef to come down in his pajamas—and after I'd had a surreal conversation outside with a wandering aging playmate about the whistling birds and howling monkeys that roam the mansion grounds—one of his trusted lieutenants took me on a little tour. Coming across a pad of note paper, he said "I sign things for Hef all the time, here I'll give you an autograph." And that's what he wrote: "Adam, You suck —Hef"

TUE: CH-MXP-NYC

My week in polenta-lake-and-mountain country up, I'm leaving the pretty resort town of Ascona this morning. Early morning drive via Milan w/ as many early AM espresso Autogrill stops as it takes to get me there & then home. Some pictures of Ticino above. More later.

AUTUNNO

It's fall in Ticino, Switzerland. Hiking on Monte Tamaro the following things fell on my head:
1. Hail. 2. Chestnuts.

REQUIEM FOR A LIGHTWEIGHT

Some of you nice imaginary readers have asked in the comments what kind of camera I use to take the little pictures here, which is nice and funny because I don't pretend to know what I'm doing with a camera. An answer, too late: For the past couple of years I've had a Panasonic Lumix DMC FX-10 (above) which I really loved and which last Monday died in the line of duty when I let it drop from my pocket onto the pavement, somewhere in Bellagio near Lake Como. I'd flown into Milan that morning and stopped for lunch on my way up north to do a story on Ticino, the mountainy Italian-speaking canton of Switzerland. [I just like saying "canton". I could say "part" or "region" but I am just going to keep saying "canton." Or typing it, I guess. I'm not actually sure how to pronounce it out loud. In my head I have an great accent.] But the camera — why was I talking about the camera? I liked this camera for a lot of reasons some of them even rational. It was easy to get along with. It went with me to a lot of places and remembered them better than I did. So I was sad to see it go, though it had been in ill health recently. It had developed black spots, cataracts of the lens. Sometimes it would jam up and refuse to do any work for a couple of days, usually after I'd stored it in a pocket where I was also keeping a lot of sand. Anyway, I took a ferry to Bellagio, dropped on the way to lunch and, as a result, have no memory of what I ate. Sardines were involved. On the walk back to the ferry I watched a large yellow helicopter land in a clearing in a field. Paramedics (also in yellow, I believe) exited, carrying a stretcher and ran behind the tall grasses where I couldn't see them. I didn't wait around to see if they had an actual patient or if it was some kind of practice run or performance art. There was something strange and dreamlike about the whole depressing scene. I felt melancholy for my lost camera and, of course, I've got no pictures. You'll have to trust me it happened. Once in Lugano, fortified by polenta—which I do remember because I've been eating it for a week—I searched and found a replacement, the warmly familiar yet subtly flashier more wide-angley DMC-FX35. So far, so good, but here's to the old guy, RIP.

AGAINST EVERYTHING

Amsterdam, that otherwise most permissive of cities.

Paris.

DAVE WONDRICH (AS SEEN FROM INSIDE HIS BRAIN)

Dear Imaginary Readers, forgive the slowness of my updates. I haven't been doing nothing. It's just looked like that here for a while. I was in Los Angeles for a couple of weeks. I walked a lot, yes, and was not this time shit upon by a bird. Joel Stein pulled pork (not a euphemism). Some sweaty tennis was played. Then Portland OR to see my brother and four days in Seattle for the Bumbershoot festival. Coulton played and we destroyed his hotel suite while drinking unnecessarily cerebral beers. Saw Deathcab for Cutie, Superchunk, M Ward and some others. Tig Notaro and my friend Jessi Klein did great standup. It was all a lot of fun. And there were donuts (see below). From Seattle I went to AMSTERDAM, where I wandered and ate great quantities of herring and onions. Along on the trip were my friends the talented Mr. Jim Meehan of PDT, the finest cocktail bar inside a hot-dog joint; dapper smart-guy Allen Katz; and the magnificently bearded David Wondrich, cocktail-historian, writer and possessor of Hodgmanlike total world knowledge (though in this case it's all true). Here is a photograph of the inner-workings of his brain, taken at the Genever Museum, Schiedam, Netherlands.

OK.

Somewhere in Seattle. 8.08.

I AM A BAD MAN

This is a good donut. Top Pot Doughnuts, Seattle WA. 8.31.08

LONG WAY HOME

Thursday I drove to a shantytown outside Lima and was introduced to the students of a wonderful cooking school for underprivileged kids set at the edge of the sea. More on that soon. That afternoon I walked around faded, regal central Lima and later took the overnight flight to NYC. Arrived Friday AM, repacked my bag, and left again for the weekend rush of the LIRR and the strange culture shock of the Hamptons. Back in the city now, locked inside working, liking the post-downpour breeze. Lima, above, in bits and pieces.

I ATE PERU. THERE IS NOTHING LEFT.

Down in Lima this week working on a fun food story. It's grey and sort of fall-wintry here, which I would have dressed myself for if I was someone who remembered to check the weather before leaving the house (or country). The warmth of my hosts and all the good food they filled me with more than made up for the weather. Can't go into too much detail as I need to save it for the story, but highlights included: the famous anticucho lady and the famous black clam, both seen above. Anticuchos are cow's hearts that are marinated, grilled and served hot on skewers out of little carts like this one that come out at night all over the city. This lady's been in the neighborhood for over thirty years and hers are meant to be some of the best. They were in fact really, really good. Conchas negras are jet-black clams from the north of Peru, used in remarkable looking all-black ceviches or just grilled. Other notable items consumed over the last four days: lungs; stewed tripe; fried blood; chirimpico = a dish of goat's tripe's & goat's blood; kid goat marinated in chicha; devil fish; an interesting sea urchin ceviche; crayfish grilled in a corn husk; guinea pig; fish roe fritter; pork ribs; green Peruvian minestrone; green tamales; pappas rellenas; and on and, I am afraid, on.

WHAT'S LEFT BEHIND

Sunday. On a train to Newark, trying to not miss my flight to LIMA. The last time I was in Peru was a few years ago for a story for Food & Wine. We hiked the Ancascocha trail way up in the Andes. In five days of walking we passed maybe four or five people who lived in the hills (and no other hikers). One of them was a woman who owned some sheep. The chef I was traveling with bought one of the old woman's sheep for our dinner. He and the guides brought the poor thing down from the hill, slit its neck and, working swiftly, pulled the skin off like a sweater. A couple of local kids drained the blood (a vivid quickly coagulating red) into a bucket. We took the meat and left everything else for the locals who had uses for all parts of the animal—the skin for some kind of musical instrument I can't remember the name of.

HALL OF FAME OF PORK (IV)

Those aren't big bats. This isn't a cave. And that's not my own raincoat. It's Spain and those are hundreds, thousands of legs of jamon iberico, the greatest ham in the world. This is where they hang the bellota to age. The disposable coat is for the visitor's protection: at room temperature, the fat drips down like sacred rain. Earlier in the day we'd run around with the very happy pigs, bloated and happy on acorns. Then of course we ate a lot of the stuff and it was of course really good. This is an old picture — wish I was there today but I'm in muggy NYC and who wants to see a picture of that?

SCOTLAND: "GIE HER A HAGGIS!"

Past weekend = a long, boozy one in SCOTLAND. Fly fished, danced in a kilt, drank priceless Scotch, had a look at Loch Ness, hiked a very little and slept less. Flew to Newark—where I spent my layover at a Scottish sounding place called McDonald's—and then on to Florida for my grandmother's 96th (!) birthday. Above: Glenlivet master distiller Jim Cryle tends to a reproduction of the kind of small old stills bootleggers would use to make moonshine whisky in the hills around here a long while ago. The stuff bubbling straight out of the thing was surprisingly mellow and good.

STUCK INSIDE, THINKING OF ELSEWHERE

My particular form of desobeissance is to day dream about recent travels and flip through old pictures while I am supposed to be working. It's a perfectly nice bright New York day outside my office window, but I'd rather be wandering around somewhere. These shots are from a short trip to Paris in March. I could go for a pression of Mützig at the Brasserie d'Ile St. Louis (middle picture above, with the pretzel-lifters) or better yet a Leffe Brun at the perfect horseshoe bar, Petit fer à Cheval on Vieille de Temple. Mostly though I just feel like wandering. OTHER THINGS I AM CURRENTLY OBSESSED WITH: granulated cactus honey powder; cauliflower; Duke Ellington's Money Jungle with Mingus and Max Roach. OK, BACK TO WORK…

WHERE DO THEY ALL COME FROM?

A couple more pictures from Liverpool, while we're on the subject. Within an hour of arriving, I watched two drunk women beat the shit out of a man in a wheelchair. Also, I find in my travel notes this cryptic statement: "Salad is a flawed concept."

A FOUR OF FISH (HOLD THE FINGER PIE)

Was in LIVERPOOL in February working on a short little thingy for Bon Appetit magazine which is out in this month's issue. For a Beatles fan, there's a funny dream-like feeling about landing at John Lennon International Airport (actual slogan: "Above Us Only Sky" — is that really the message an airport wants to get behind? In case of plane failure, there is no after-life?) and directing the taxi driver to the Hard Days Night Hotel which opened earlier this year and which is right around the corner from what remains of the Cavern Club. The fish & chips are from a restaurant called London Carriage Works. Anyway, the story is HERE