We begin…
As only brothers can pose.
Cousins, just before the picture.
A second later, the picture!
We conclude, baptized…
Then, afterward, pictures in the gown my grandmother was baptized in more than a century ago and onto cousin Kate and Stefan's house for so much good food (I ran the table on the desserts), me running out of battery, and talk of Olympics, snow and potential trips to Pago Pago.
Yesterday brought trip #4 to Ray's Hell Burger and my third burger off the house-special list, The Dogcatcher. A description is short but clearly hard-driving: "Roasted Bone Marrow, Persillade, Lettuce and Tomato."
Persillade is just seasoning, Google tells me. Bone marrow, Wikipedia says, "has fallen out of favor as a food in the United States." The brief "bone marrow as food" section manages to pass without a description of taste. To take a stab at one here… Hell Burger's bone marrow looks like a jam made of crab meat, tastes like a butter sauce that magically lightens a burger's flavor, and sounds like you have to go down to the junkyard, throw down your dogcatching net and fight snout to snout.
Or, as America's most famous bone marrow-eatin' literature declaims:
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.
Thoreau concludes we bear a "strange uncertainty" about whether life comes from the devil or from God and "somewhat hastily" decide to go with God. Yesterday's burger — yesterday's Hell Burger — was similar.
The only failure of the trip? No photos. Four times now, I have taken a camera and planned to capture my Ray's burger. And four times, I have forgotten. Eyes and gut have consistently beaten mind and processes. Unphotographed so far are the Burger of Seville in late 2008, a regular in September, a Soul Burger No. 1 in January, and now the Dogcatcher.
Seven specialty burgers to go at Ray's. Next — the Let's Get It On?
A great Morning News essay, "A Pledge to My Readers." The lede:
I've always written high-quality sentences, prepared with the finest grammatical ingredients. In the coming year, I'm raising the bar even higher: I'll be offering only artisanal words, locally grown, hand-picked, minimally processed, organically prepared, and sustainably packaged.
Readers no longer know where the words they read and hear come from, how they're produced, or who produces them, but I'm going to help change that, because good artisanal writing begins with healthy local materials. For nouns, I'm going to a nearby family-owned farm, where Anglo-Saxon and Latinate varieties are raised free-range, grass-fed, and entirely hormone-free. The farmers will regularly replenish my stocks with deliveries by bicycle, ensuring that these words ripen on the page, not in a cargo hold in the middle of the Pacific.
Order the grilled Cypriot Halloumi cheese on crostini, covered in warm apricot? And the margarita pizza? And then go see a Friday afternoon showing of Cop Out right across the street? Alrighty then. Delia's, your Post review bookmarked a month ago is right on, and your drink wins.
Cop Out, I wish we could say the same for you. Well, we can say critics were right. We can't say you were Delia's. You were a disaster. But at least you were watchable, except for the part were Lindsay fell asleep. Unless you were entirely — entirely — a homage to late '80s buddy cop movies, in which case your Kevin Smith is now as great as Tarantino.
Which, in the back of my mind, is possible.
Also, Ana de la Reguera, I love you.
D.C. gets a lot of crap for raiding groceries and canceling school when snow comes. I have some arguments against that criticism, but I don't want to get into them now. What I'd like to do is point out that, when we do cancel school, we don't send a breaking news alert about it.
Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Fri, February 26, 2010 — 6:34 AM ET
—–
Public Schools in New York City Closed Because of SnowAll New York City public schools will be closed on Friday in response to the huge snowstorm that pounded the region overnight.
Dozens of other school districts in New Jersey, Westchester County and Long Island also canceled classes on Friday. Before dawn, snow was still falling heavily, leaving foot-deep drifts in Times Square and turning roads across the region into skating rinks.
That said, New York, you are now our sibling in ridiculous snowfall this winter. You have a right to be crazy, even if it means a breaking news alert. Respect. I'm just saying, don't rip on us next year. Neither of our cities are Syracuse. I'm sure your people leave money for goods from abandoned supermarkets just like our people do. Right? Am I right?
We kid because we love. And because our blizzards beat yours.
The Nats' luck appears to be turning — if just on the green merch front. MLB has released its annual St. Patrick's Day line of green apparel, and the Nats get two hats. But do you know how big this is? This is huge.
Let's review.
In 2007, we got just one hat. In 2008, we got nothing. In 2009, we got nothing and were among even fewer teams to get nothing. It was your standard Nats losing streak. But now something has happened. We made a few decent signings. And we have Stephen Strasburg.
Two hats! Sure, we're not the Red Sox with 31 items, the Yankees with 30 (that hooligan hat is pretty good), the Cubs with 28, the Mets with 24, the Phillies with 20, or the Cards with 17. But the Orioles, Padres, Pirates, Rangers, Reds, Rockies, and Royals only get an item each. The Angels, Blue Jays, Diamondbacks, Giants, Marlins, and Rays get zilch.
As good luck goes, we're now officially middle of the pack.
Lindsay flew in last night on her way from Guatemala to Taiwan. Told tales of writing and mini-quakes before passing out on the blue couch. Then today came, and we celebrated my first vacation day of the year.
Had to make it count.
Stopped at work for 10 min. Then it got better. Missed the turn for the Original Pancake House, didn't get Lost Dog parking, and got detoured around Whitlow's due to construction. The drive ended perfectly — and the day began — with bacon, egg and cheese on sourdough at Earl's.
Then affogato of spice hot chocolate and Samoa gelato as the owners told a maybe investor of their passion. To us: "Remember to breathe."
Bottle of champagne while watching great old school Sesame Street.
Dinner at Co Co Sala, thanks to Living Social. Here we have the start of the "Italian Voyage," vanilla panna cotta and chocolate in praline soup.
Further into the voyage — chocolate, strawberry and classic tiramisu.
Not pictured here: petit fours, bacon mac and cheese, mac and cheese tart, cheese fritters, and winter and spring cocktails. Today? Count it.
Good for the Post Story Lab. Steve Hendrix noticed this line in a New Yorker blog item and posted about it: "The biggest play of the game may have been Alex Ovechkin's open-ice demolition of Jagr, which led to a quick Russian goal and an arena-wide gasp (it was the hockey equivalent of the collapse of the North Tower)."
Like Hendrix, I'm a big fan of NYer writer Nick Paumgarten, but what a bizarre comparison. One other blogger thought the same: "I mean, I love me some Ovechkin talk on newyorker.com, but this may be a tad inappropriate." (The one funny thing was Hendrix's initial post title, still reflected in the URL: "But what can he do with curling?") No one else on the Internet seemed to notice. I posted the line and Story Lab link on Facebook yesterday, and friends were similarly mystified.
But as the day rolled on, friend Andy noticed the New Yorker quietly removed the North Tower reference. No explanation, no note. The line lost its parenthetical and joined with the next sentence, "The biggest play of the game may have been Alex Ovechkin's open-ice demolition of Jagr, which led to a quick Russian goal and an arena-wide gasp, but Datsyuk's defensive work, as resolute an expression of skill as any spinorama or one-timer, was the secret to Russia's success."
Not a cool way to edit online, New Yorker. See the post here.
About to tie Ragtime as the bar closest to my home, meet Sushi Rock, a rock and roll sushi joint. Walked by last week, work is underway.
This morning, I came across the City Paper update on what it will be:
DJs will add to the effect by mixing and mashing up music videos on seven TVs at the back of the expanded boomerang-shaped bar. The final touch will be, of course, a digital karaoke machine for those who want to take the rock-star trip one step further.
The food, Hudgins promises, will be equally rock star. Public Group is in negotiations with a chef whom Hudgins cannot yet name but hopes to hire by Friday. Sushi Rock will serve "the highest quality sushi that we can bring [and] a very distinctive mix of rolls that will be both traditional and eclectic," Hudgins says. There will also be a hot food component.
From the under-construction SushiRockDC.com: "Spring 2010." I know in the past I've called for a Krispy Kreme, Cereality and grilled-cheese restaurant in the location. This is only rock and roll sushi, but I like it.
Hank Stuever had a wonderful sentence in the morning's Post as he reviewed the new WETA Washington in the '70s documentary: "I could watch an entire hour about the 'cut and cover' digs that carved out the gloriously new Metro system through downtown."
Me too. I watched the hour-long film late last night, enjoyed it, wanted so much more from it, and thrilled to the dig shot even thought I knew it was coming. I love the building of Metro. I once realized things would end with a great girl when she declared the construction boring. Either you marvel in journeys closer to the center of the Earth or you don't.
So, I may be in the cut and cover afterglow, but, crossing the Facebook feed recently, this video from friend Whitney about a day on the Metro is my new favorite Post.com video. Not sure on the old one. I saw the article it accompanied days ago, and the words didn't do much for me. The video did — mysterious, exposed, engaged, crushed, and emptied.
