Category: Eat, Drink, and Move That Body!

Back in college, my friend Janie and I both had to do a presentation on the Bel Canto singing style of the Baroque era. Janie was the voice major, and she ended up going right before me (“Great,” I thought, “Just what everyone wants is to hear two presentations on the exact same thing right in a row. Couldn’t somebody else go next?”). She had a little handout, and demonstrated all the various ornamentations that could be added to the music — sort of a musical reading between the lines that is much more strict than modern improvisational jazz. Yes, she sang them. She did a nice job, too.

After this fabulous presentation, I got up in front of the class, opened a book from the library (I’m pretty sure it was this one), and read a story that went something like this:

A great Diva was at a dinner party, and one of the other guests was going on about a new young singer, and her complete mastery of added ornamentation. The Diva finally tired of the conversation and replied, “Yes, but can she sing 6 plain notes?”

Then I began to discuss issues of technique.

And that strangely enough brings me to this week’s Top Chef.

Quick  overview for those who don’t know but do care (as opposed to those of you scrolling down to the closing bits), Top Chef takes 16 competitors who are actively working in top restaurants and whittles them down to one “top” chef of that season in a series of “elimination challenges.” While style and taste are important, this is primarily a TV show, and certain things are edited to be exciting for TV. After all, we at home don’t even have the luxury of smelling what they’ve made. This is clearly not to be confused with the big cooking competitions like the Bocuse D’Or.

So, this week there were 5 competitors left, and the elimination challenge was modeled on the Bocuse D’Or.

Remember, these guys are pros. They either own notable restaurants in their hometowns or are working with chefs every foodie has heard of. One has his very own James Beard award already (and frankly, a nice beard to go with it). So you would think this isn’t a big deal to them and you’d be wrong.

To make a long story short, 4 competitors made very complicated dishes that each had a fatal flaw: undercooked meat, salmon with a bone left in, imprecisely butchered proteins, ingredients that didn’t mesh as expected. One dish was less complicated — only by comparison! — but perfectly done. The chef who made this dish was ridiculed by another competitor as making “the kind of food I make on my day off!”

Yet guess who won? Despite the fact that the judges were disappointed by the level of sophistication shown in the dish, perfection won over complication. It turns out that all of us would rather have “6 plain notes” than a thousand poorly executed ones.

In Closing: the Senate is preparing to sell us all to the insurance companies tonight, so remember this day when the incumbents come sniffing around for money and votes; go ahead! Read the damn thing! Maybe they could all stand to know what’s in it!; AHIP doesn’t even want to hear about how small businesses can’t afford their products; let’s reinstate the laws that were deemed necessary in the Great Depression to keep it from happening again (you know, the ones that have been dismantled systematically since the Reagan Administration?); Elizabeth Warren; unfortunately, withholding medication from people in jail is not an isolated thing, but it is inhumane (treat people like animals and then be all surprised when they act like animals…. Listen up PETA, people have faces too, how about supporting rights for them?); I wonder how incarceration rates effect the official unemployment rate; it’s pathetic that even poli-sci majors don’t know the freakin Bill of Rights (I’ve known 2nd graders who could accurately summarize them); Christian Scientists have shorter lifespans; bank failure update; Ezra brings us Bourdain talking turkey; and finally, Nordstrom Just Says No to Christmas Creep, won’t deck the halls until Black Friday. I’m starting to really like Nordstrom.

Las Vegas is one of the top foodie cities in the nation — or the world, depending whose list you like to use. When Top Chef did a season here, we thought “it’s about time!” We’ve got our own copy of the latest Michelin guide. There won’t be a 2010 edition for economic reasons, but a fresh version will be out in 2011.

Last Saturday, we had the occasion to visit 2 restaurants mentioned (but not starred) by Michelin. We had been both places several times before, but this was more of an adventure than it needed to be.

Saturday afternoon, we made a dinner reservation through OpenTable at Vintner Grill, a restaurant in the city’s West Side planned community of Summerlin. It is known for its extensive wine list, cheese list, and fine dining. Oh, and it does have something of a local reputation as a Cougar hangout. We arrived a few minutes early and were seated fairly promptly. Then things began to go wrong.

Someone had already long since taken care of water for our table by the time the waitress arrived. For some reason, she decided not to bother asking for our drink order. Perhaps she assumed that we wouldn’t be having any beverages; perhaps she assumed that a couple with a pre-teen child wouldn’t be tipping very well anyhow (and perhaps she should have asked her co-workers about those assumptions!). Either way, we almost had to beg to put in a drink order. She never did ask if we wanted any appetizers.

In the long wait that ensued, I overheard the hostess remind her about the table that had been seated right before us, I watched her stand at a table for about 5 minutes giving a dissertation on one of the menu items, and saw her go to another table to give what I can only assume was a similar lecture on a menu item. By this time, we were very hungry and there was no sign of our drinks. The server in charge of water came and left again, the server in charge of dinner rolls and butter had been to visit our table, but even though we had a view of the bar, not a sign of our cocktail orders.

A half hour after we had been seated, there were still no cocktails — if they had been shaken but not poured they would certainly be unpalatable by this time —  our waitress had not taken any of our food orders, and we had enough. We left some money on the table for the sparkling water and left. Notably, the host did not make any attempt to stop us or placate us in any way. No manager appeared. Since I have gotten no follow up email from OpenTable, I suspect they falsely listed us as “no-shows”.

So, still hungry, we went just down the street to Red Rock Casino Resort to one of our favorite restaurants, Terra Rossa (sister restaurant to Terra Verde at Green Valley Ranch, where one of the Hell’s Kitchen winners is working). We were immediately recognized as regulars and seated. Within 5 minutes we had a plate of cheese and veggies, dinner rolls, and a pair of martinis. The service was impeccable, the food great, and we had the kind of quality dining experience that one expects from a restaurant mentioned in the Michelin guide.

Guess which restaurant we will be visiting again?

By the way, if Italian isn’t your thing and you happen to be out at Red Rock, Hachi is good too.

We’ve tried writing our elected officials, calling and emailing them, threatening them with the loss of our votes, giving money to progressive organizations, telling the DNC the way things are when they call on the phone, crashing events, and anything else we could think of. Still, it seems at times that the actual constituents are the last people our Congressmen, Congressmice, and Congresscreeps think about.

Clearly there’s got to be another way to get through their thick skulls.

Maybe the problem is that we’re talking to them in their offices, while they are set for business and wearing suits. Perhaps the key is to catch them when they’re sweating in their workout gear.

It’s no secret that the President likes a good game of hoops, but fewer people know about the Congressional P90X club. It’s a group of almost 30 elected officials — so far! — and a big enough deal that Tony Horton himself has come out to lead workouts with them a couple of times. Most important are the bipartisan relationships they are making in the gym: it’s “an opportunity to build relationships that go beyond grabbing a glass of recovery drink together.” More:

And how does trainer Horton feel, knowing that his program’s not just building bodies but building the relationships that guide the fate of the nation?

“I have goose bumps,” he says. “That question gave me goose bumps.”

I can just hear Tony saying that too.

Excuse me, gentlemen, did you remember to log that workout into WOWY for your chance to win up to $1000?

In Closing: 20 worst kids foods; can you afford to stay home when you are sick?; 7 more bank failures yesterday brings us to 106 and counting for the year; Yakuza; and unusual clouds.

A new report suggests that while many women are getting the HPV vaccine, the ones who need it most are not:

The new HPV vaccine, which protects against viruses that cause most cervical cancers, has been a commercial success for manufacturer Merck, with worldwide sales last year of $1.4 billion. But some doctors now question whether the vaccine has been overpromoted to affluent women who need it least instead of patients most at risk of dying from the disease.

[snip!]

Women who die from the cancer tend to be poor women without access to routine medical care that allows doctors to find and remove growths before they turn malignant….

So the women who are at greatest risk of dying are the women least likely to be vaccinated. The root cause of both “greatest risk” and “least likely to be vaccinated” is that these women don’t have access to routine medical care. And no news reporting, no PR blitz, no advertising is going to change the fact that if someone has a hard time getting together the money for a doctor’s visit and a pap smear, they are going to have a hard time getting together the money for a doctor’s visit and a set of vaccinations that is sometimes not covered by insurance.

Oh, and one more thing. Those of us who can afford a pap smear may find that the lab went ahead and did an HPV test too. That’s a nice little extra fee for the lab that you’ll be paying (at the very least you’ll cough up a co-pay) on a test you didn’t even ask to have done.

In Closing: not sure what to make of 90 salads in 90 days; how did the nurse coming to your home to see how you and the baby were doing turn into government agents invading your home?; for those still unclear on the subject, why the public option is important; [gulp] structural unemployment to be high for the next decade; clothing so complicated you need a class or an expert to help you out; man’s life ruined over breath mints; too big to fail must die; famous last words, why oil won’t go back to $100/barrel; old fashioned judge insists on stuff like due process, cause, and warrants, why not powdered wigs too?; and Forbes gets it wrong again, getting a cooking style mixed up with an illegal drug.

I am a purist about cocktails, for the most part. As far as I am concerned, a “martini” comes in two flavors: Gin or Vodka. You won’t catch me drinking apple-tinis, choco-tinis, berry-tinis, kalhua-tinis, mocha-tinis, tini-tinis, or any other abomination served in a cocktail glass ending in tini. The plain, simple, unembellished martini was good enough for James Bond (although strictly speaking in the novel it was a Vesper), and it’s good enough for me. 

That being said, when exactly did the “cocktail menu” become the “martini menu”? Who decided that “random alcohol or mixer plus vodka equals some kind of martini”? When is the Screwdriver going to be rebranded as the orange-tini? And I hate to ask, will it sell better?

I don’t begrudge anyone their frou-frou cocktail, their “sex on the beach” or “woo woo cocktail” or whatever they want to call it. I’ll just usually order something simpler. 

But herein lies the problem.  I know exactly what to expect when I order a “Tanqueray Martini, Up, Olives.” Likewise, I know what I’m getting if I order just a “vodka martini with a twist.” If I order a “Makers Mark Manhattan,” I know that in many places I had better specify “up”, or it will come on the rocks, which isn’t bad, just different. Some people look at me twice when I order a Manhattan. Apparently that’s “an old lady drink” — perhaps they are thinking of Winston Churchill’s mother.  By the way, a Manhattan can be greatly improved with sweet vermouth and/or a splash of Cointreau. 

Where I get into trouble is ordering a “cosmo“. What I am expecting is a drink containing cranberry juice, some sort of citrus juice or liqueur, and vodka (perhaps slightly sweetened, as cranberry is rather tart). What I have been served lately varies from that to pink lemonade with vodka, to some sort of cherry kool-aid thing with vodka (this last was so vile I couldn’t drink it and sent it back in favor of a Tanqueray Martini, above). Apparently, I am lucky to have not been served this vodka-sorbet combination from Rachel Ray. What’s next? Calling “Red Bull and Vodka” a cosmo? 

Henceforth, when I get a wild hair for a cosmo, I shall order a “vodka cran” instead, and save myself much grief. 

In Closing: why is Jack Welch afraid of the Obama Administration?; “we’ve got m**** f**** questions on this m**** f**** plane,” a clear security risk for blind men to ask what the heck is going on;  Cheesecake Factory profits are up (on less, booze, more cheesecake. That’s not the right way to “tighten belts”, America!); better fuel efficiency in the works, and now we can’t complain that it will drive the Big 3 out of business because 2 of them are already effectively there; does Pelosi have a target on her back;  health care follow up from Reich; Ezra moved; Wal-Mart sticks a fork in Game Stop, starts buying used games; LEGO USB hubs; and there’s gold (and silver) in them thar hills.