Pizza Line Of Sight Theory

There are a few "Theories" or general rules of thumb that seem to hold true. Sam Sifton came up with The Pizza Cognition Theory (basically the first pizza that you appreciate become what pizza is to you, might be Dominoes, or local place you went to aster a game, that's what you look for in a pizza). Angelo Womack has a theory about the quality of a pizza being directly related to how formally dressed like a chef the pizza maker is. If you look like you were just chef-ing it up in a super formal fancy restaurant, the pizza probably isn't very good.

Here's my Pizza Line of Sight Theory:

If you are in a pizzeria and you cannot see anyone making pizzas, the pizzas is not going to be great.

Sure that pizza might be passable and fill you up if you are hungry, but those slices are never going to be in the discussion about great pizza. I tried a family dinner package from a local place I had never tried out before tonight. I had driven past it for years but the last time I looked it up online the photos were of pizza I was pretty sure I was going to hate. When I looked tonight, the pizzas looked like they could be OK. So I got the large cheese, boneless Buffalo wing bites and garlic knots combo, Picking up the order, there was a display case with slices. They looked OK. I was getting my hopes up, even though all things pizza production were in a back room kitchen.

Opened the box and looked at the bottom of a slice. It was cooked on a screen. Another theory: Great pizza is not cooked on a screen. Again, pizza on a screen might not suck, but I don't know of a great one. Tasted it, the crust was bland. The texture was commercial. I'd bet this place is buying dough instead of making it. The boneless wings were clearly premade/purchased. Overall, the pizza looked like it might be alright, but it wasn't.

Anyhow, let me know if you have a place that disproves my line of sight theory. In my experience, it has been rock solid.

Politics imitating art

Remember back in the 80's when every good comic strip published books of all the comics? Far Side books, Bloom County books, Calvin and Hobbs books. In our house we also had pile of Doonesbury books. And while I might not have gotten every joke at the time I was reading Doonesbury, a few of the strips stuck with me. Probably most of what I know about Watergate is from Doonesbury. Not sure what that says about our education system or me, but there you have it.

When the brand new White House Press Secretary called a press conference to spend a few minutes complaining about crowd size, I was immediately reminded of Doonesbury cartoon from one of those books. Not sure why this particular cartoon stuck with me, but it did. Through the magic of the internet, I was able to look it up. Would you believe there is a Doonesbury search engine?

I remembered it was at the White House, I remembered the last two panels distinctly. And without too much effort I was able to find it. The strip originally ran on Sunday, April 7, 1974. Unfortunately, the image isn't very clear.

Here's a link to it: http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1974/04/07

I had no idea who the two men were when I read this in the early/mid 80s. The voice on the left is White House reporter Hugh Sidney and the voice on the right is Nixon press secretary Ron Ziegler.

Panel 1: Okay, who'd like a press briefing?!

Panel 2:

Panel 3: ...in sum, the information available to me at this time does correspond to my knowledge at the time of my previous statement.

Panel 4: That was beautiful, Ron.           Any other questions?

Panel 5: Yes. I have one, Ron.                Yes, Mr. Sidney?

Panel 6: Ron, sometimes I imagine you get up in the morning, look in the mirror before you've shaven, and think to yourself, "Ron, you're about to begin another day of evasion and deceit."

Panel 7: Here's my question, Ron: What do you do after you've come to such a realization?

Panel 8: I shave.

I have no idea why out of books and books of cartoons I remember that one so clearly. It's probably pretty obvious as to why it currently came to mind. In the last reporting I saw on the press secretary, when he said, "No, I'm not confused" it felt like he was channeling Martin Short's character Nathan Shurm.

 

"I know that! Why wouldn't I know that? It's my company, I'm quite aware of that! Is it me? It's him, right?"

You'd be surprised

Whenever I get something in a store that gets weighed, I always pay attention to the scale. I'm not sure why. For the most part, the accuracy of what I'm buying doesn't really matter. I guess I'm watching to see how good a feel for weigh the person behind the counter has. The guy that butchers our steers is amazingly accurate when packing ground beef. A lot of people behind the counter are really good. I suppose I'm just curious to see how close the initial guess is.

Recently, I had asked for about a third of a pound Percorino in an Italian market. Before I could say 0.27 was close enough, a little more was added to the scale. Now it was over 0.33 pounds. A pair of anxious eyes looked at me for a thumbs up or down. I said, "I'm not fighting you over a couple hundredths of a pound." His response: "You'd be surprised."

Yesterday, I picked up some sausage at Hannaford. I had never seen this particular name before. It was Parillo out of Saratoga. I figured I'd give it a shot. I actually prefer bulk sausage like this if I'm not grilling it. I asked for a pound and had a nice conversation about the sausage with the person getting it for me (he likes it and some other Parillo products too). He put the sausage on the scale: 0.98 pounds.

Me: "Damn. That's pretty good."
Him: "Would you like me to top that off for the full pound."
Me: "Within two hundredths is close enough."
Him (while kind of rolling his eyes): "You'd be surprised."

There are people walking among us that apparently berate the staff at deli and butcher counters about hundredths of pounds. These people have thrown enough tantrums over grams of cold cuts and ground beef that the market employees are afraid to be off a tiny amount on anything weighed.

To these people I say: stop it.

Seriously. Stop it.

People Suck (but maybe not everyone - updated)

I follow a bunch of different pizza sites (apparently I have obsessive compulsive pizza disorder) and this was in the pizza news today.

Westport Car Dealership Messes With Pizza Delivery Guy, Feels Internet’s Wrath

It's easy enough to see what happened. A bunch of people at a car dealership ordered about $43 with of pizza and soda to be delivered. The guy that paid the driver had two twenties and two fives. He gave them to the driver expecting seven ones back. But he never asked for change. The driver left assuming he got about a 15% tip, which really isn't all that unreasonable to have thought.

A call is made, the driver comes back, and returns the $7. The driver also tries to understand why he got called back and that's when it starts to get ugly. Luckily it's all words and it doesn't turn into a fist fight. The driver leaves and one man is probably just being a loud mouth but he is talking about calling the pizza shop to get the driver fired.

I actually have some personal experience with a guy like that. It was back in my construction inspection days in the late 90s. A bunch of fill wasn't properly compacted. I told the site manager it didn't pass. He wanted to see the Troxler Nuclear Density Gage (fancy, right?) do the test. No problem. I set it up and started to run a 30 second test. He asked why I didn't do the minute test. I said I can run the minute test if you want. The guy lost it. Apparently he wanted know the different between the tests. My correct response should have been to explain the accuracy on the reading increases the longer the tests takes. I certainly wasn't rude and didn't raise my voice, but at the same time I wasn't a waiter in a cloth napkin restaurant.

I'm guessing this guy had a shitty day and decided to take it out on me. I was kicked off the site and told he was going to call my boss to try and get me fired. It was a weird feeling. I had been with the company for over a year and didn't think I'd actually get fired. But what if I did? Probably not the best thing to put on a resume.

The guy was true to his word. During the 10 minute drive back to the shop he had called and continued his tantrum over the phone with my boss. When I go into the office, my boss was waiting for me and I was greeted with a, "What the hell happened?" I shrugged my shoulders and told my story. Turns out our versions of the story were very different and my boss knew the construction site manager was completely full of shit before he was 3 sentences into his rant. I bet the pizza shop manager knew the complaint was bullshit and was being PC by saying he took the call seriously at first.

The people at the car dealership come off as assholes. And someone else that is stuck working with them, put this video of their co-workers online. Not sure if someone at the car dealership loses a job but this doesn't paint a flattering picture of the dealership. Maybe the lose some sales and commissions, maybe not.

In this case, I'd say the customer is wrong. Let's just try to be a little nicer to each other. And if you must throw a tantrum and be a jerk, leave the pizza out of it.
  
UPDATE: Maybe everyone doesn't suck 

In other random pizza delivery news, a group of real estate agents in Michigan tipped a pizza delivery man named Rob with a few winning scratch off tickets, a $25 Visa gift certificate, a friendship bread, notes of encouragement and appreciation...and a cup of cash worth $2,084.

It's a much happier video to watch.

Wait...what did I just say?

I’ve never liked going to the dentist. Kramer from Seinfeld would call me an anti-dentite and he’d be right. After leaving the dentist’s office on Monday morning, I figured I’d stop by Restaurant Depot on the way back to the office and pick up another 50 pound bag of pizza flour. You know, a reward for being so well behaved at the dentist.

I went with a 50 pound bag of Full Strength flour. For those keeping score at home, the last bag was Hummer Flour, and the first bag was All Trumps. I had forgotten Restaurant Depot carried Royal Oak lump charcoal so I grabbed a bag of that too. Roaming the aisles, I picked up a few more things. The last thing I grabbed was a package of 50 small pizza to-go boxes. I was probably giggling a little when I took them off the shelf and just thinking about them now makes me smile. Whenever I daydream about making pizzas at home in a wood oven, I also imagine sliding a fresh pie into a box and having one of the girls walk or bike a pizza to a neighbor. A small, in-neighborhood pizza delivery service. Wouldn’t that be great?

I figured this outdoor closet that we have would be a good place to keep the boxes. Our basement has filled up surprisingly quickly. As I was walking toward the closet, a contractor putting new gutters on my neighbor’s house looked down from his ladder and saw me with 50 pizza boxes over my shoulder. He started a conversation asking about my gutters which we both agree suck. He explained a little about his gutter system and I said I was planning to replace the gutters when the roof gets re-shingled. I’m hoping to 5 more years out of what’s currently up there. He offered to leave me some information on the gutters and I said I give it a look.

Then he said, “That’s a lot of pizza boxes. Do you own a pizzeria?”

“No, not yet.”

“Six years ago someone would ask me if I had a contracting company and I’d say 'not yet' but now I do and it’s the greatest.”

He continued to tell me about his company and I suddenly realized that my response kind of made it sound like I was actively working towards owning a pizzeria. You don't need a psych degree to analyze my quick, subconscious response. While it is true I occasionally go through Craigslist and look at local pizza shops and equipment for sale (doesn't everybody?), these pizza boxes were more of a smile than a business plan.

I doubt not yet will ever turn into yes, but I should be ready…just in case. I should probably stop typing and make some dough.

Randomness from the week

Some random things since the last post...
 
1. Last week the kids found out who there teachers were going to be this year. A few days later, the kids received a letter from the principal asking them to wear school colors on the first day of school for a big assembly. I wouldn't have thought it was a big deal seeing as they had worn school colors to a number of spirit days and other events each year of school...

But never on the first day. They had outfits picked out for the first day. Plans were made before being rudely interrupted. It's been a few days. They are still upset and stressing over the search for new clothes that meet certain set of first day outfit requirements and contain school colors.

2. I set off a little firestorm redirecting the kids' first day outfit anger at me. Allison came up with the idea of making some Italian ice. Unfortunately, there was no time to make Italian ice before the kids went to visit my in-laws for a few days. So on my way out, I told Allison I would have everything at the house when she got back and then asked if she wanted to keep scraping a pan like the recipe called for, or use the ice cream machine. She said she wanted to use the ice cream machine and I headed off to work.

Apparently, the kids didn't remember we had an ice cream maker. They were both there the last time the ice cream maker got used but that was a few years ago. It's one of those appliances that gets used twice a decade. On the ride to my in-laws, my wife was peppered with questions:

Dad said we have and ice cream machine.
Where is the ice cream machine?
What color is it?
Did you know we had one?
What does it look like?
Did you get it before we were born?
You've had an ice cream machine and never told us about it?
Why didn't you tell us you had an ice cream machine?

This isn't going to end well for me. I know that their imaginations have lead them to believe there is a full sized soft serve ice cream machine hidden in the basement when in reality, it is a small little Cuisinart thing the size of a toaster. I've already cleaned out the little freezer insert. I should go put it in the freezer immediately.

4. The bottom rubber thing (I believe that is the technical term) on the bottom of the side door to our garage was falling off. I took the door off the hinges to get a better look. Instead of being able to just replace the unattached bottom rubber thing, I found a lot of dry rot. Turns out the bottom rubber thing was supposed to be attached to wood that had disappeared. Not wanting to have to replace the whole door and deal with realigning hinges, I dug out all the dry rot and replaced it with two types of epoxy, some paint stirrers used as filler and a new bottom rubber thing. In the end, I think it cost about $25. Hopefully this particular "fix" will last a few years.

5. I spend a lot of time thinking about pizza. Probably too much time. Between vacation and a few other things, I haven't spent much time on the pizza forum. I went from being right on top of things to 26 pages of forum threads behind. I was surprised to have found a knock-down, no holds barred argument over leavening agents suitable for a classic New York Style pizza. I was actually taken aback by the fight having never seen anything that mean spirited on the forum. The main participants were two guys that I have never met, but I have come to respect and admire both of them. I was relieved to see it had kind of ended and one of the guys related it to brothers fighting. But still, I've got a shit-ton of catching up to do.

6. More pizza. All of of backyard plans seem to stall out because of pure indecision. We've gone around in circles several times. Doesn't look like the wood fired oven is going to happen in 2014. There's still a good chance we will make progress on the yard and maybe get the foundation set, but I don't want to race winter with a masonry project. I want to be able to take my time. Get it right.

On the other hand, I hate our oven for making pizza. It just doesn't get hot enough. So as a temporary band-aid, I bought a Black Stone pizza oven at Lowes. There's been a lot of beautiful pizza coming out of them on the forum. Hopefully I'll be able to make some too once I get it assembled.

7. Still more pizza. Back when I made the Firedome, I had to trim an inch or two off a peel so it would fit through my makeshift oven door. I've grown tired of only being able to make really small pizza and I'd like to learn how to form larger dough balls. During lunch today, I set off to Bed Bath and Beyond to check out their peels. Have I mentioned I take pizza too seriously?

The only pizza peel they had there was basically a pizza peel shaped cutting board for $35. C'mon.

The peel is made with wood fibers and some kind of resin. It's also dishwasher safe. Not sure why you would want that, but maybe someone out there does. I don't know if you can read the "heat resistant" section out in the second picture. This $35 cutting board is "heat resistant"  all the way up to 350 degrees F. I can even get my crappy oven up to 500 degrees. I see this $35 piece of saw dust and glue melting all over someone's pizza stone or steel. I should be able to take a deep breath and move on, but instead I took pictures and then was pissed for the rest of the day. It's not healthy. I'll see if I can get to a restaurant supply store tomorrow.  I bet I can get a better peel for less than half the cost.

I'll have what he's having

Last week, I was on the road for work and spent a night in Syracuse. Harry, my road trip partner in crime, asked Alicia at the hotel check in desk, "Where is the best pizza in the area? Not necessary nearby. Anywhere in greater Syracuse. Where's the best?" She directed us to Nick's Tomato Pies and off we went.

Unfortunately, Nick's Tomato Pies must be running some kind of summer hours because they were closed when we got there. Nick's is in the Armory Square section of Syracuse and there are quite a few dining options. I had heard someone else at the hotel talk about Pastabilities and after looking around a little bit, we decided to give it a shot. While sitting at the bar waiting for a table, Harry noticed a sign that said "Guy Ate Here." So after we were seated we talked about it with our waitress. Turns out, there was and episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives filmed here. Which is a little confusing because having looked around the place, it clearly isn't any of those things.

After looking the menu over, we decided to try what Guy had. First up, their Spicy Hot Tomato Oil. As soon as you order, you are brought a basket of house made bread and a plate that is thinly covered with tomato sauce. If you want bread and a big bowl of tomato sauce, that's $5. You can also buy this sauce in jars at the restaurant, online and I think they said Wegman's too. Guy gave the sauce and bread combination the Triple D rating, "That's Craaazzzy." The bread was good, warmed up would have been better but it was good. And the sauce is tasty too. Got a little sweet, a lot of fresh tomato flavor, a good amount of oil and a slow after burn of heat that isn't overwhelming, just nice. It's a good sauce but I think you could make something similar at home. When eating it, I thought they had used a chili oil, but after watching the video they used a chili paste. It kind of looks like the Secret Dipping Sauce (SDS) that was going around on Serious Eats awhile back. 

Next up was the Duck Bacon Pizza. Here's the description:

Pasta's Duck Bacon Flatbread Pizza $15
house-cured smoked duck bacon, Humboldt Fog aged goat cheese, mozzarella, tart cherries, shallots,
pomegranate drizzle, cracked black pepper, on our bakery fresh pizza dough

Alas, no pictures. I tried to take one of this pizza and the flash went off like lightening in the middle of the restaurant. Then I tried to take some without the flash and it was too dark. But here's the photo-less pizza story. After we had each had a slice, our waitress stopped by to ask how we liked the pizza. We said it was good and I think she was a little offended. We were clearly supposed to have had our minds blown. To give credit where credit is due, the flavor combination of the toppings is absolutely inspired. The duck bacon (house cured and smoked duck breast) is something I will try to recreate in my kitchen someday. Who am I kidding, I'm going to try and copy the whole pizza some day. But when I copy it, I will only copy the toppings because that crust doesn't deserve to be in the same restaurant those those toppings. And if you watch the video you'll see why. At about 1:50 in the clip, they start to top a pre-made flat bread that goes into the oven for 12 minutes and then under a salamander to crisp up the top. Guy said, "The crust on this flat bread is righteous." While his looked better than ours, the crust was tough to chew and the bottom tasted like uncooked flour. I think their pizza dough is their bread from the first course pressed into an oval. It is better as bread. Guy goes on to say (of the toppings), "Funkalicious," "One of the best duck dishes I've ever had," and "You jackpot-ted on that one, girl." He's pretty much right. The duck pieces are fantastic and the flavors on top of that tough, hard to chew not-pizza bread are pretty spectacular. Sorry about that last dig on the crust.

Moving on to the main dish: Wicked Chicken Riggies. I'm not sure why Syracuse sometimes seems to try and steal from Utica. Sure, my affection for Utica is unhealthy, but this almost seems like sibling rivalry. In the video, it is described as "an Upstate New York dish" but if Wikipedia can be trusted, the first line of the Chicken Riggies entry reads: "Chicken riggies or Utica riggies is an Italian-American pasta dish native to the Utica-Rome area of New York State. It is a pasta-based dish usually consisting of chicken, rigatoni and hot or sweet peppers in a spicy cream and tomato sauce, although many variations exist."

Anyhow, when Pastabilites says "Wicked," they aren't kidding. While those who are into spicy foods will enjoy this level of heat, I think it is more than the average person wants in an entree. It seemed a little to much for Harry, and he isn't a spice wimp. This version also had more cream than most versions I have had and all the spice was in the sauce - no chunks of pepper. While watching the sauce get prepared, Guy said it looked like "spicy tomato al Fredo" and that's a pretty good description of the sauce. After tasting it, Guy made a few guttural noises and then the cook said "Winner! Winner! Wicked Chicken Dinner!" and robbed of us of whatever bizarre combination of words Guy was about to share with us.

So we had what Guy had. Some of what he said was right on, other things he said were just hype. If I ever returned to Pastabilities, I might give the pizza another chance but I'd go with a different entree. There are better Riggies out there. I'd start looking about 60 miles due east.

Ripped from the pages of an old notebook

In preparing to move a mile up the street, we are purging stuff that has been residing in the corner of our basement. Among the things being recycled are lots of old college notebooks, tests and homework assignments. I pretty much scrapped anything I did at RPI. Haven't looked at any of that stuff since I finished a grad degree about 7 years ago. I had a bunch of stuff from Northeastern and UCONN too. I started my lengthy college career (Sophomore year of college...best 3 years of my life) in Boston as a business major. It didn't take. Especially economics.

I hated economics class. Hated the professor. This guy was a jerk. Once, while I was giving a presentation, he left the room. On his way out the door, he told me to keep going. It was awkward to say the least. I didn't want to give the presentation and the class had no interest in hearing it. Everyone's presentation was a useless circus show for him.

Following the professor's "blow off the class" example, I used to write bizarre SAT style multiple choice questions where horrible things happened to horrible economists instead of taking notes or paying attention to a lecture.

So here, you go...a circa 1990 page from the only college notebook I'm keeping:

See if you can answer this...

Two Economists, A and B, decide to take skydiving lesons. Neither A nor B recognize their Skydiving Instructor, C. At one time, C was a student in A's class and B was C's TA while C was in A's class at College D which is located in the northern part of State E in Country F. A and B have finished their lessons and are ready for their first jump out of Plane G. G is now cruising at Speed H and at an Altitude I. If C pushes A and B out of G without parachutes, how long will it take A and B to make a dent in the ground of E in F?

1) A and B will survive by making a parachute out of their clothes.
2) 27.6 seconds
3) Does it really matter?

Pros & Cons

Some recent pros and cons, in no particular order:

Pro: To date, I believe I am winning the 2013 Battle of the Lawn.
Con: I fully expect the lawn to die tomorrow now that I have jinxed it.
We are in negotiations to buy a house.
Pro: I really like the house
Con: Thinking about moving and mortgages gives me a stomach ache.


Pro: The wok I ordered was delivered today
Con: I'm on the road this week and off on a vacation next week. I won't get to use the wok for at least two weeks.

A friend text messaged me on Friday night from my favorite bar.
Pro: The bartender was disappointed I wasn't there.
Con: I wasn't there.
Even more Con: The bar is about 300 miles away.
Rebound Pro: I should be visiting in mid September.

Pro: I'm really enjoying Twitter.
Con: I've wasted hours and hours screwing around on Twitter

Pro: There's a stupid motorcycle game on my phone and I'm pretty good at it.
Con: I'm fairly confident that all of the random opponents I have played are kids messing around on their parents' phone.

Pro: My daughter will begin trumpet lessons this year and there's a good chance she will use the same horn I played at her age.
Con: I'm going to hear Hot Crossed Buns a million times.

I wonder how sound proofed the basement is in that other house....

Flashback: Easter Sunday 1993

In the spring of 1993, I was living in a dorm at the University of Connecticut. I had spent a lonely weekend on an nearly empty campus. When my roommate returned around 8:00 Sunday evening, he had a big plate of sandwiches that his mother had made for me. They were great. Everything about them was delicious. The rolls (egg knot rolls that I still remember 20 years later) were so fresh. The ham was moist and tender. I was treated to a perfect storm of sandwich greatness. On Monday, I fired off a thank you note to my roommate's mother.

That was the only year I shared a room with that roommate. We remained friends but he stayed on campus and I moved to some nearby off-campus apartments. Around 8:00 on Easter Sunday for the next three years, he tracked me down and delivered a plate of seriously kick-ass sandwiches to me.

I think of those sandwiches every Easter. His mother and I reminisced about those sandwiches at his wedding a few years ago. A few hours ago, I got an email from him wishing me a happy Easter. Earlier today his mother told the story of those ham sandwiches while she made this one and asked him to send me the picture.

Unfortunately, I don't get to eat this sandwich. It looks really good. But it is nice to know that I'm not the only one who remembers Easter 1993 and those sandwiches with a smile.

Caffeine Confession

I am a complete and total caffeine wimp. I used to drink caffeinated drinks all the time. Loved iced tea. Southern sweet tea is the greatest.

When I first started working at my current job, everyone went downstairs to grab a coffee around 10:00. I followed. We'd hang out for a few minutes, shoot the breeze and lady making the coffee brewed really good coffee. For about 2 months straight I had a 10:00 coffee. Until one fateful morning, I was scheduled to attend a 10:00 meeting and missed my coffee. The ensuing caffeine headache lasted 3 days. After that, I switched to decaf and choose my caffeinated moments more carefully. Like at work after being up all night with a baby or the times I had to change up my schedule and work the overnight shift.

Earlier this week I had to attend a few afternoon presentations. They were interesting enough and the presenters were engaging. But it was around 2:30, and the lights in the room were dimmed and I found myself fighting to stay awake. I had a couple head-snap-was-I-just-snoring? moments. Outside the presentation room in between talks there was a big bucket of ice cold Pepsi. Personally, if I'm picking soda I'd go Coke but beggars can't be choosers. I drank about 8 ounces of Pepsi. Wow. That perked me right up. I'd say even made me a little jittery.

And that is why skinny cans of Red Bull and those little bottles 5 Hour Energy freak me out.

Grand Theft Cookie

On most days, I'm a pretty honest guy. But for the past few days, I've been considering turning to a life of crime and planning a heist. I knew when and where there would be several truckloads of Girl Scout Cookies. And since the Girl Scout Pledge start with the words "On my honor," clearly there was going to be no security.

Each local troop was assigned a time to load up on their cookies. We were there for two troops whose orders filled two pickup trucks and an SUV. Took about 15 minutes to load everything. The truly impressive sight was seeing large moving vans filled to the brim with cookies. To borrow a phrase from the Profussor, one truck was filled with a shit-ton of Thin Mints. This is one troop's allotment of Thin Mints.

Other cookie varieties shared space on the same truck.

 

I didn't pull the trigger so I've got a year to come up with a plan of attack. I'm considering going the Thomas Crowne Affair route. Any co-conspirators out there? Taking cookies from little girls would be almost as easy as taking candy from a baby. I wonder if we'd be able to hit a milk truck that afternoon....

As with last year, here is the extremely scientific survey of Girl Scout cookie popularity.

This year the Thin Mints took a hit but still remained king. Two large orders may have skewed the results. My brother Mike switched his case order of Thin Mints (he gives them out as gifts - at least that's what he says) to Trefoils. Plus a friend from the curling club ordered an additional 10 boxes of Trefoils (he's definitely not giving them out as gifts).

One thing that is interesting to note in the stats: more boxes of cookies were donated than the combined sales of Savannah Smiles, Thank U Berry Much and Dulce de Leche. I think that pretty much sums up the quality of those cookies, although there are people out there that really like Savannah Smiles. I don't get it. However, these Savannah Smiles lovers are probably very nice people that would never dream of stealing truckloads of Thin Mints and Samoas, unlike certain other people we know...

Pam XYZ

I have no idea who Pam XYZ really is. I "met" her completely by accident.

Last April, I triumphantly made the leap from flip phone to smartphone and I have an unhealthy love for this new phone. My sister-in-law had already had a smartphone for a couple of years. In showing me around Google Play, she pointed me to Draw With Friends. The game is basically Pictionary, but it is on your phone, you draw with your finger and you take turns guessing with other people on other phones. So I began playing Draw With Friends with both of my sisters-in-law.
 

Once the kids saw the game, they wanted to draw for their aunts. Fun for the whole family. While my older daughter had control of the phone, she pressed the "Start a random game" button and drew an extra picture. A few hours later, I have a drawing from Pam XYZ on the phone. Who? What? Huh? Feeling very guilty for initiating a game, I couldn't blow Pam XYZ off. So, I drew back.

Pam XYZ's first drawing to me was "venom." She drew a pretty impressive snake and I'm guessing she has the full version because of all the colors. I drew a crappy unicycle back. You can watch the other player guess your drawing to see how quickly they get it. She figured out my weak unicycle quickly and sent me a ridiculously well drawn peacock. Wow. Colored in feathers. The works. Now it's my turn again.

My choices are cupcake, seagull or demi....I'm not an artist. I go with cupcake.

I make my little cupcake, put on some sprinkles, make some lines for the crinkle folds in the wrapper. Not my best artwork, but certainly not my worst. And I press send.

Oops. Turns out I fat fingered seagull. I drew a cupcake and the word was seagull. So I am watching this poor woman try and guess seagull as my crappy cupcake starts to come onto the screen. She uses a bomb to get rid of some letters. Then about six letter shuffles, a few letters go up and come down and then she finally unscrambles seagull. I felt horrible (although it was pretty funny to watch). I cleared up the error in the chat section and Pam XYZ thought it was funny too. The same thing happened to her a few months later.

Since I "met" Pam XYZ we have exchanged over 1000 drawings. The game stops keeping count at 999. Yesterday, I typed her name into Words with Friends. I was going to see if she was on there too and invite her to a game. Well, I must have hit the same button my daughter hit because I accidentally started a game with her. She accepted my challenge and off we went. I think we are going to start playing a Yahtzee type game too.

Ahh, the internet...

41 going on 12

The first two weeks of the year are pretty much gone. Christmas was a blur. This was the first time the kids really tore at presents. Years past had been a leisurely affair where they would open something, want to play with it and completely forget that there were a bunch of other things for them waiting to be opened. After Christmas with my in-laws, we had a one day layover back at the house then we headed down to visit Joe and Adrienne (and their kids Olivia and Nate) for New Year's in Maryland. Joe and I were freshman roommates in college and it is always fun to get together. We went with less of a sit-down dinner for New Year's Eve this year and it was more a a pick at stuff all night affair. Shrimp, steaks, scallops in bacon, cheeses, wines...the list goes on and on. The big finish to several hours or eating and drinking was a bread pudding. Here's the recipe. From Emeril. Wow. And the sauce - WOW.

If you take away the several back-to-back days of gluttony, my favorite thing to do while visiting is outside. Nate has a kick-ass Razor scooter. The wheels are bigger, the base is wide and trust from experience, that model scooter is significantly faster than other models. Which bring us to the hill. Here's the view from the driveway.

Right off the bat you are heading downhill. A few pushes and you're moving at a pretty good clip well before you get to the stop sign. That's a 3-way stop. Cars coming at you don't stop. So when all is clear, you push off at the driveway, get the scooter going and make a wide left turn (remember, you're already going kind of fast) at the intersection and head down this long hill.

 

I'm not sure how fast I am going when I past the first neighbor's house but I'm giggling, the wind is loud in my ears and it feels like you would really hurt yourself if you wipe out, so wiping out is not an option. I keep going until the Razor runs out of gas at a side street you can't see in the picture. Damn, that is a fun ride. If we leave now, we could be taking turns riding the scooter in about 6 hours. Who's in?

Change

And I went down to my old neighborhood
The faces have all changed, there's no one left to talk to
And the pool hall I loved as a kid is now a 7-11

Over the past 2 months, we've been slowly leaving the house my parents bought 3 weeks before their wedding in 1959. As the process literally moved along, I have had this Social Distortion song rolling around in my head.  This weekend, the move kicked into high gear with a U-haul, an amazingly popular "free stuff in the driveway" giveaway, and a lot of help. Earlier today as I made one final dump run, I pulled over and snapped this picture. Because of the song and because the 7-11 I loved as a kid, is still still a 7-11. I was never any good at pool.

Tip to all legal college drinkers: A big gulp makes an excellent, cheap mixer. Go heavy on the ice, light on the Coke, then add some other adult beverage of choice and you are go to go. I was a Seagram VO guy back in the day. Classy, right? And the secret to a good microwavable "egg and cheese ham-lette"...add the pepper before microwaving. One time we were in there and my buddy Derek bought a Moon Pie. On the wrapper it suggests microwaving the pie. So he does. The moon pie makers weren't thinking of strong commercial microwaves and even the lowest button proved to be too much for the moon pie which inflated, expanded and then exploded all over the inside of the microwave. It happened over 20 years ago. I'm still laughing.

Some institutions like a town's 7-11 manage to remain the same, other things change. For example, my bedroom never looked like this when I lived in it.

Truth be told, when I lived in it, I doubt you could have seen the carpet through the combination of junk and dirty laundry.  As I drove away from the house this afternoon, after having spent my last night there, the Social Distortion song was back.

Good times come and good times go
I only wish the good times would last a little longer
I think about the good times we had and why they had to end

But as one chapter closes, a new one begins. The new chapter has a pool and has already started its own good times. The condo's pool is apparently home to several new Olympic events including synchronized jumping

 And the very challenging (don't try this home) sport of synchronized one arm handstands.

Even though the Olympics are over, the kids are still cheering for Team USA. In the events, they pretend to be other countries and the other countries never win. It's kind of funny to watch them sabotage their own performance. "Hey, Allison. I'm China and I'm doing the puppy paddle!"

Olympic Fever - C'mon America

I don't really pay too much attention to sports. I like UConn to do well in the tournament. It would be nice if the Mets won, but I don't follow them all season. Hockey pretty much died for me when the Whalers left Connecticut. I lost my team. And I just don't get football at all. But I've always liked the Olympics.

I can remember everyone "speed" roller skating after Eric Heiden won five gold medals in 1980. If you were an American kid during the summer of 1980, you bent over and skated one arm flailing whenever you laced up your roller skates.  Eddie the Eagle was a hero of mine (even though he's British) and one of the best Olympic stories of all time. How cool would it be to buy that guy a beer?

Remember when Greg Louganis hit his head, got a concussion, and still won? That was the summer everyone became a diving expert: Ohh his feet separated or that guy wasn't straight when he went in the water and my favorite - that was too big a splash, points off for that. I remember staying up way past my bedtime with my brother Dave to watch the late night broadcast, the one that starts at 1 AM. We were watching a woman's volleyball game and the network had the nerve to interrupt it for a local news report. We played chess with the sound off until the game came back on. The team needed us.

The Olympics brought me to the game of curling. I was watching Olympic curling in 2000 (Salt Lake City Olympics) and talking with my buddy Joe on the phone while he watched too. We agreed that while we probably wouldn't make the next Olympic team, it was a game we could actually physically play. Two weeks later on the Great PBS Auction, there was a family membership to the Schenectady Curling Club. I bought it and have been playing ever since. Didn't even know the club existed.

Sadly, the Olympics also taught me a little about politics. The Olympic boycotts are probably the politically driven thing I can remember. Plus the judging...I pretty much stay away from judged events now. Torvill and Dean's ice dancing bronze medal in Lillehammer took care of that. You didn't need a trained eye to see that they were clearly the best. It wasn't close. I still get a little pissed off thinking about that one. Anything without a judge, count me in.

Sunday afternoon we were just hanging out, watching the Olympics and the kids were really getting into it. I was surprised how quickly their nationalistic pride generated. Allison had a little fist pump every time the US men's volleyball team scored against Serbia. And she got a little tense when the Serbs had a rally in the 3rd set. When I heard "C'mon America!" I told them about U!S!A! and that was probably a mistake. That chant is significantly louder than "C'mon America!"

Meat Tenderizing

Last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Chef Adam Perry was on to plug his new grilling book. In the segment, he and jimmy took a large, two bone prime rib roast and beat it with baseball bats. The theory was that a flatter surface would create more crusty char on the outside.

I'm OK with flatter for more char. The damn bats seemed so dumb and gimmicky. If you were buying high quality beef, that was a $50 or $60 roast. Even a cheaper supermarket Black Angus roast that size is probably $25 or $30. The meat he cut up looked good, but it also looked slightly less beaten. But seriously, a bat? I should just stop watching TV. I'm addicted to the stupid box though.

Shuffled off to Buffalo

Work has brought me to Buffalo this week. I'm typing this is the lobby of a Holiday Inn listening to the smooth sounds of the Backstreet Boys. I have to write something about the Modernist Bacon when I get home. We've had it twice so far. Spoiler Alert: freakin' awesome bacon. The kitchen is stull under construction. The granite backsplash is supposed to get installed tomorrow. Then we just have to pick tile and install it. And I think I'm going to change out all the outlets too. Piece of cake...

Extrememly Scientific Girl Scout Cookies Study

The first round of cookie orders are due on Wednesday. Sales are continuing but if you have already placed an order, that order will get submitted this week so your cookies will arrive in the first truckloads delivered to the Capital District. The kids did a pretty good job selling. In this round of sales the two of them sold 152 boxes of cookies. Being the spreadsheet nerd that I am, I had to break down the sales and I am scientifically counting each box sold as a vote for the buyer's favorite Girl Scout cookie. At this time, the voting is over and all precincts are reporting. We now go to Wolf Blitzer at the CNN Girl Scout Election Headquarters in Atlanta for the results:

The Thin Mints win it in a landslide. Not even close. This was a pretty random sample covering teenagers working at an after school program up all the way up to senior citizens. Although my brother Mike may have skewed the results a little - he bought a case a thin mints to hand out as gifts. But he just padded the victory. The thin mints had it before he ordered.

Just back from the Troy Farmer's Market

I just like walking around the market. I wasn't sure what kind of time I have to play with food this weekend so I skipped the seafood stand. Allison enjoyed picking out a bunch of apples from Saratoga Apples and we split a waffle while I waited in line for a coffee from Spill the Beans. I'm a wimp and pretty much only drink decaf. But the waffle...holy crap those are good.

In other news, the Modernist Bacon project is currently on hold. Adventures In Food was unable to get me a pork belly this week. It is supposed to be coming in this Thursday.  I've been reading American Pie, Peter Reinharts book on the search for a perfect pizza. Strangely, since I've started reading the book, I've been craving pizza. I believe the book was also the start of his Pizza Quest blog. There are some great web-isodes over there. I'll have to make a post with links someday. I think the web-isodes will eventually become a PBS series.

In other, other news...anyone want to buy some Girl Scout Cookies?