Once again, I'm going to channel my inner Abe Simpson and publicly whine
about a few things:
Major League Baseball is on hiatus
By hiatus, I mean I’m not watching any of it this year. A
few years ago, back when I was still exercising regularly, I was on the road
for work in Utica. I had just gone for a jog and noticed that there was a
baseball game being played at the high school next door to the hotel. I went
over and watched a few innings. Yes, a game played at the high school level is
not played as well as in the big leagues. But it was more fun to watch. And
since my oldest daughter has been playing softball, I’d rather be a part of
that than watch a pro game. Have you ever seen a college softball game? That’s
more fun to watch than a pro baseball game too. But major league greed is what
pushed me over the edge. This off season, it has become painfully clear that
there are several teams that just don’t care about a winning season for their fans. I’m
not taking about a World Series win, I’m talking about putting a pro team on
the field that is worth watching. Something more than a game above 500. Tanking multiple seasons has become an accepted
practice and every year is a "rebuilding year." Pro baseball doesn’t deserve its fans.
Veterinarian Bills
Our dog Bailey recently got spayed. Now maybe it’s the vet
office we chose, but if the cost of spaying/neutering a dog is this much
everywhere, there is no reason to wonder why there are so many orphaned dogs. A
lot of people aren’t going to pay that. I’m surprised I paid that. A few years
ago, there was a great weekend in Boston with a bunch of college friends.
We ate and drank and had a blast. Valet parking was involved. That all-out 3
day weekend was cheaper than the sum of our first 3 vet visits.
I don’t have a lot of experience with veterinarians, but
spaying/neutering is something they should probably do a little closer to cost
(which should include payment for their time). We needed to return a few weeks
after our first visit for a booster shot. They offered to draw some blood for
some tests before the spaying operation. It would be $100 cheaper to do in
advance instead of on the day. Yeah, sure. Do that. For comparison, I had some
blood work done a few months after getting bitten by a tick.
Blood work place: That will be $1200
Insurance company: We’ll give you $49
Blood work Place: OK
What an absurd scam. I don’t expect the vet to lose money
with spaying and neutering. But maybe if they didn’t quadruple up on the cost
of the procedure, more people would listen to Bob Barker and “help control the
pet population. Have your pets spayed or neutered.”
Restaurant Apology
We went out to dinner last night. We weren’t rushing, but we
had one daughter with us and had to pick the other up so we weren’t planning
for a long meal. After placing the order, we waited. After about 15 minutes,
the waiter came to top off our water glasses and said the food would be out
shortly. About 10 minutes after that, he came back and told us that they lost
our ticket and were rushing to fill our order now. He apologized. We said it
was OK, it happens. He brought out the food and apologized again. We started
eating. A manager came over to check on us and apologized, asked how everything
was and told us she was going to comp an entrée. She said there was an
emergency in the kitchen, someone had to rush out and the ticket got lost. We
accepted her apology. The waiter apologized a few more times. They offered us a
free desert which we passed on because we had to get going and they took a $21
entrée off the bill. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say they apologized
for the delay 6 or 7 times. It kind of felt like the Monty Python sketch about the dirty fork: “I am the manager. I’ve only just heard." "I want to apologize humbly, deeply and sincerely about the fork.”
The apologies
worked. I don’t have any ill will toward the restaurant and I’d go back. Truth
be told, the only apology I really wanted was for making me have to listen to
Phil Collins sing Against All Odds while waiting for dinner.
Reviewing the Reviewer
More often than not, when I buy a Sunday Times Union it’s because
I need paper for lighting chimneys of charcoal or fires in the wood oven. That’s
probably a sad statement about the newspaper business. I haven’t been keeping
up with the weekly restaurant reviews but when I get a paper I read the write up. It’s
weird how reviews seem to end up in either moderate, silent reader agreement or
passionate, loud reader disagreement. Writing style plays a big part in it too.
I’m sure the current reviewer is a great person, but I don’t care for her
writing style. Aside from occasionally needing a dictionary to understand a
sentence, there have been a few “scat” references that I felt were poor choices
in a professional restaurant review. From a review of Forged:
The black bean brownie with tofu ganache ($9) certainly
pushed me to the edge, with its constipated scat of solid black beans and oats,
and dribbly coconut milk “whipped cream” with an empty taste of melted ice.
Maybe it was an attempt at humor that went by me. It’s ok not to like something, but the Times Union
restaurant review can make or break a local restaurant. Leave “constipated
scat” out of a review. And water. Water is “the empty taste of
melted ice.” In this week’s review of the Galleria 7 Market, there was an
unnecessary shot at a nearby restaurant.
Of course, you've already checked out Innovo Kitchen in the corner,
either because your curiosity was piqued by its owners' embezzlement
imbroglio at their previous place or because you'd heard they were
killing it in their new space.
Then in the description of the pizza place in the food court:
Anna's pizzas, cooked to order in three minutes, have an intriguing tangy tomato sauce and soot-blackened bottoms that could use a little crunch ($11).
I suppose a little bit of burnt/charred crust could be considered soot. I tend to think of soot as the particles in smoke that end up lining the chimney from incomplete combustion of the wood. I guess you could argue that delicately charred crust can be delicious, incomplete combustion.
I’ve been to Anna’s once. It’s not my favorite pizza. As
my father would say, “It isn’t the worst pizza I ever had.” It is easy to find
worse pizza locally. I had a slice for lunch last week and I’m still mad at how
bad it was (I should have just turned around and left after getting a look at
the slices). Anyhow, the reviewer wished Anna’s crust was a little more crisp.
Now, I’ll give you Anna’s isn’t a true Neapolitan pizza, but it is clearly
inspired by the style and that style is not crisp. To my completely insane pizza
obsessive sensibilities, that’s like saying, “the pizza was alright but
I wish it was Chicago Deep Dish instead” or “I ordered the steak but
wished it was chicken.”
An Anniversary
One year ago today, according to my brother in law's Facebook timeline (and the end of this post), the first pizzas came out of the wood oven.
Made some good progress on the oven since then. It's snowing now but the forecast calls
for 40s on Saturday. Time to fire up the oven and make some pizza. I think I’m
going to try to make some bigger pies this time. I’m usually in the 13-14 inch
range. I’m going to see if I can bump a few pies up to 16 inches. As I age, it’s
amazing what passes for excitement.
Note to Phairhead - I hope you are feeling better soon!
