Thursday, March 8, 2012
Oot and Aboot in DC: Rogue Sessions With Jen Caroll
This past Saturday, Liz and I splurged on a dinner reservation at Rogue24, enticed by the Jen Carroll edition of the Rogue Sessions concept that has been getting a lot of presumably well-deserved hype around DC the past several weeks.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Adventures in Charcuterie - Episode 1: This is how sausage is made
Every culture in human history that has achieved any kind of success has figured out a way to make some variation on tubular meat. Much like humanity's eternal need to get a buzz (a post for another time), the need for delicious, preservable, and portable meat preparations is universal.
Having grown up eating a variety of different European and Asian sausages, I was very excited to receive Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie cookbook for Christmas.
And so, after doing some reading and ordering some materials online, I set to work at making my first ever batch of sausage.
Mise-en-Place:
5 lbs Pork Shoulder / pork butt / picnic ham / etc (this cut of pig has a lot of names)
3 tbsp Salt
1 tbsp Pepper
3 tbsp Chopped Garlic
1 cup Red Wine (ice cold)
Casings, rinsed, and soaked (optional)
Butchery:
You don't want the pork skin in your sausage, so trim that off. It should go without saying to make sure you use a very sharp knife, but I'm saying it anyways. Dull knives are dangerous!
Dice the pork. I went with about a 1-inch dice, and to be honest, I should have gone smaller, as the bigger pieces required more effort to get through the grinder.
Season the pork with the salt, pepper and garlic. It's easiest to just use your hands to mix all the ingredients and get everything uniform.
SUPER IMPORTANT: Chill everything in the freezer for 30-60 minutes. Also, put all the pieces of your grinder in the freezer too. The grinding process will generate a fair bit of heat, and if your meat heats up too much, the fat will melt, thereby killing your sausage's texture. Warmer temperatures are also more conducive to microbial growth, and bacteria growing in your sausage is bad.
Grinding:
Grind your meat through the coarse die, into a bowl set into ice (again, temperature control is tres important).
This is a visceral process, so be prepared for that if you've never done it before. I used the grinder attachment for our KitchenAid Mixer, and it worked pretty well, although there was a fair bit of what sausage geeks call "smear" going on, which isn't ideal.
Nonetheless, I managed to get everything ground without too much hassle. I did have to stop and clear the grinder once during the process, which was every bit as gross as you'd think it would be.
Mixing:
Add the cold wine to the ground meat and mix to combine. I used the paddle attachment on our KitchenAid for about a minute or so.
Chill and Test:
Pull a sample (2 tbsp or so) of the sausage mixture and put the rest into the freezer to chill while you do some quality control.
Saute your sample in a pan with a little bit of oil and taste it.
My sample tasted salty as all hell - you know, if hell were a salt flat that you were trying to eat. In retrospect, I should have reduced the amount of salt to account for the amount of pork lost when I removed the skin at the start of the prep. Ah well, not much to do about it at this point except press on to:
Stuffing:
Not strictly necessary. It's totally fine to shape the sausage into patties at this point and call it a day, but I wanted to try our sausage stuffer attachment too, so away we went.
I bought pretubed, natural hog casings from thesausagemaker.com and soaked them overnight to make sure they'd be ready to go.
As with grinding, I made sure to chill all the stuffer parts in the freezer prior to use.
The stuffing process takes some getting used to, and my inner 12-year old kept wanting to make terrible, and juvenile comments the whole time. I had some difficulty gauging how full to stuff the casings, and wound up splitting the casing at one point when I overstuffed one section, and also wound up with a few sections that were woefully understuffed. But after a little while, I sorta got the hang of it, and after twisting the stuffed coil into links, wound up with this:
Not a bad-looking result for a first time, I figure. Total yield was about 18 six-inch links.
Cooking and Tasting:
As noted earlier, this first batch was a fair bit on the salty side. In an attempt to off-set that in the cooking process the first time I went to cook some of these, I did two things:
1. I blanched the sausages for a couple of minutes in simmering water to draw out some of the excess salt.
2. I sauteed the blanched sausages together with onions, peppers and mushrooms that had not been seasoned with any salt, allowing the salt from the sausage to do the seasoning for me.
That approach worked pretty well, and Liz and I enjoyed a couple of dinners the following week using this formula.
Other things we're looking forward to trying with this sausage include pasta sauce, and cassoulet, which also seem like good applications that can off-set a salty sausage.
A Few Other Notes:
There is a lot of garlic in this sausage. Make sure you have a fresh box of baking soda in your fridge and in your freezer so that you don't wind up flavouring your entire food supply with garlic. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing in all cases, but chilling a beverage with garlic-infused ice cubes probably isn't what you're looking for...
Having grown up eating a variety of different European and Asian sausages, I was very excited to receive Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie cookbook for Christmas.
And so, after doing some reading and ordering some materials online, I set to work at making my first ever batch of sausage.
Mise-en-Place:
5 lbs Pork Shoulder / pork butt / picnic ham / etc (this cut of pig has a lot of names)
3 tbsp Salt
1 tbsp Pepper
3 tbsp Chopped Garlic
1 cup Red Wine (ice cold)
Casings, rinsed, and soaked (optional)
Butchery:
You don't want the pork skin in your sausage, so trim that off. It should go without saying to make sure you use a very sharp knife, but I'm saying it anyways. Dull knives are dangerous!
Dice the pork. I went with about a 1-inch dice, and to be honest, I should have gone smaller, as the bigger pieces required more effort to get through the grinder.
Season the pork with the salt, pepper and garlic. It's easiest to just use your hands to mix all the ingredients and get everything uniform.
SUPER IMPORTANT: Chill everything in the freezer for 30-60 minutes. Also, put all the pieces of your grinder in the freezer too. The grinding process will generate a fair bit of heat, and if your meat heats up too much, the fat will melt, thereby killing your sausage's texture. Warmer temperatures are also more conducive to microbial growth, and bacteria growing in your sausage is bad.
Grinding:
Grind your meat through the coarse die, into a bowl set into ice (again, temperature control is tres important).
This is a visceral process, so be prepared for that if you've never done it before. I used the grinder attachment for our KitchenAid Mixer, and it worked pretty well, although there was a fair bit of what sausage geeks call "smear" going on, which isn't ideal.
Nonetheless, I managed to get everything ground without too much hassle. I did have to stop and clear the grinder once during the process, which was every bit as gross as you'd think it would be.
Mixing:
Add the cold wine to the ground meat and mix to combine. I used the paddle attachment on our KitchenAid for about a minute or so.
Chill and Test:
Pull a sample (2 tbsp or so) of the sausage mixture and put the rest into the freezer to chill while you do some quality control.
Saute your sample in a pan with a little bit of oil and taste it.
My sample tasted salty as all hell - you know, if hell were a salt flat that you were trying to eat. In retrospect, I should have reduced the amount of salt to account for the amount of pork lost when I removed the skin at the start of the prep. Ah well, not much to do about it at this point except press on to:
Stuffing:
Not strictly necessary. It's totally fine to shape the sausage into patties at this point and call it a day, but I wanted to try our sausage stuffer attachment too, so away we went.
I bought pretubed, natural hog casings from thesausagemaker.com and soaked them overnight to make sure they'd be ready to go.
As with grinding, I made sure to chill all the stuffer parts in the freezer prior to use.
The stuffing process takes some getting used to, and my inner 12-year old kept wanting to make terrible, and juvenile comments the whole time. I had some difficulty gauging how full to stuff the casings, and wound up splitting the casing at one point when I overstuffed one section, and also wound up with a few sections that were woefully understuffed. But after a little while, I sorta got the hang of it, and after twisting the stuffed coil into links, wound up with this:
Not a bad-looking result for a first time, I figure. Total yield was about 18 six-inch links.
Cooking and Tasting:
As noted earlier, this first batch was a fair bit on the salty side. In an attempt to off-set that in the cooking process the first time I went to cook some of these, I did two things:
1. I blanched the sausages for a couple of minutes in simmering water to draw out some of the excess salt.
2. I sauteed the blanched sausages together with onions, peppers and mushrooms that had not been seasoned with any salt, allowing the salt from the sausage to do the seasoning for me.
That approach worked pretty well, and Liz and I enjoyed a couple of dinners the following week using this formula.
Other things we're looking forward to trying with this sausage include pasta sauce, and cassoulet, which also seem like good applications that can off-set a salty sausage.
A Few Other Notes:
There is a lot of garlic in this sausage. Make sure you have a fresh box of baking soda in your fridge and in your freezer so that you don't wind up flavouring your entire food supply with garlic. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing in all cases, but chilling a beverage with garlic-infused ice cubes probably isn't what you're looking for...
Monday, February 27, 2012
Watching The Wire Part III: End Season One
I've been slacking on keeping up with my Wire-watching thoughts and impressions, but suffice to say that Season One is in the books, and I am really looking forward to watching Season Two.
I can tell that one of the tactics that David Simon seems to enjoy is getting you to like a character, and then having bad things happen to that character. He's a bit of a bastard that way, to be honest, although he at least gives you the courtesy of telegraphing it ahead of time so that you can prepare yourself.
Case in point - did any of you not see Wallace's death coming a mile away? That was an upsetting one for me - I liked that kid... You also had to know that the newly-promoted Stinkum was going to get it before long too. No shocker there.
Kima getting shot though... that one surprised me. That whole sequence where her undercover situation just keeps getting worse and worse (music's too loud to hear anything, street signs are spun around, no backup) is really well done, and yet, despite all signals to the contrary, I still found myself thinking "well, she's got a gun taped under the seat, she'll be ok... I mean there's no way that they would - OMG SHE GOT SHOT!!!"
All those years in which I wasn't watching The Wire, many of you kept telling me how awesome it was, but couldn't really articulate why. After noting my own reactions to Wallace getting killed and Kima getting shot, I understand now. These are all obviously fictional characters, and yet the show is so well assembled that they all feel astonishingly real.
Except for Omar - nobody's that bad@$$ in real-life...
I can tell that one of the tactics that David Simon seems to enjoy is getting you to like a character, and then having bad things happen to that character. He's a bit of a bastard that way, to be honest, although he at least gives you the courtesy of telegraphing it ahead of time so that you can prepare yourself.
Case in point - did any of you not see Wallace's death coming a mile away? That was an upsetting one for me - I liked that kid... You also had to know that the newly-promoted Stinkum was going to get it before long too. No shocker there.
Kima getting shot though... that one surprised me. That whole sequence where her undercover situation just keeps getting worse and worse (music's too loud to hear anything, street signs are spun around, no backup) is really well done, and yet, despite all signals to the contrary, I still found myself thinking "well, she's got a gun taped under the seat, she'll be ok... I mean there's no way that they would - OMG SHE GOT SHOT!!!"
All those years in which I wasn't watching The Wire, many of you kept telling me how awesome it was, but couldn't really articulate why. After noting my own reactions to Wallace getting killed and Kima getting shot, I understand now. These are all obviously fictional characters, and yet the show is so well assembled that they all feel astonishingly real.
Except for Omar - nobody's that bad@$$ in real-life...
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Gluten Free Livin' - Buckwheat Pancakes
About 3 and a half years ago, after a long, and arduous diagnostic process, Liz found out that she was gluten-intolerant / celiac / whatever other term you want. After an initial process of "ZOMG!!! NO PIZZA!!! NO BEER!!! WTFBBQ!!!" we went about eliminating gluten from her lifestyle (which coincidentally meant eliminating gluten from many aspects of my lifestyle too). It's kinda like how Samuel L Jackson puts it in Pulp Fiction:
"My wife is a vegetarian, which pretty much makes me a vegetarian." (just sub "gluten free" for vegetarian)
But after doing some research, we found that being Gluten-Free wasn't nearly as onerous as we thought it might be. There are certainly compromises that need to be made, but by and large, Liz has made the transition pretty well.
A big part of going gluten-free involves finding ways to keep your carby comfort foods in the rotation in a gluten-free form. And when it comes to breakfast, that means Gluten-Free Pancakes!
Here's the mise-en-place:
1 Cup - Buckwheat flour
1/2 Cup - Milk (plus a little extra as required)
1/2 Tsp - Baking Powder
3 Eggs
Buckwheat flour has no gluten in it, and has a great flavour to it. It's classically used in a number of French crepe recipes (usually from Brittany), but the goal here is not for a thin, rolled-up crepe - We're going for a thick, fluffy pancake, something that can be difficult to achieve without a gluteny flour.
The Key to a thick, fluffy, gluten-free pancake, as it turns out, is something that I pulled from a Jamie Oliver episode many years ago: Separate your eggs, and whip the whites. Here's the drill:
Step 1:
Separate your eggs.
Step 2: Deal with the yolks
Yolks go into a bowl with the flour, milk and baking powder. Mix them thoroughly. You can add as much as another 1/4 cup of milk if your batter is thicker than you like it. Any more than that, and you're getting into crepe batter territory
Step 3: Whip It
Whip the whites until stiff peaks form. What the hell does "stiff peaks" mean? Good question. Here's a picture:
Step 4: Combine
Fold the whites into the batter. Don't try to get everything 100% uniform, you'll just wind up breaking down the air bubbles you're trying to introduce into the mixture. Just get the egg whites incorporated to the point where there aren't big white chunks of foam floating around, and then stop.
Step 5: Prep your pan
Put a skillet on medium or medium-low heat depending on how nuclear your stove is. Melt a tablespoon or two of butter and WAIT for the butter to melt and get hot. The #1 reason (Number ONE) for subpar pancakes at this stage is a pan that isn't hot enough. Test your pan by making a miniature pancake, about the size of a quarter. If you don't hear an immediate sizzle, then your pan is not hot enough.
Step 6: Make Pancakes - Part I
Spoon dollops of batter onto your pan. If you've done it right, the batter should stand up a bit on its own, and you may need to shake your pan to get the pancakes to flatten out.
Step 6a: Garnishment
Optionally, if you wanted to add berries, or banana slices, or chocolate chips, this is where to do it. Just press your chosen accoutrement into the top of each pancake as it's cooking.
Step 7: Make Pancakes - Part II
When you see bubbles come up to the top surface of the pancakes, it's almost time to flip. When you see the bubbles around the edges pop and they don't close back over, it's time to flip your pancakes. Again, if you got your egg whites nice and stiff, you may need to pat your pancakes down with a spatula to flatten them out properly. They should only need a minute or two to get brown on the flipped side before they are ready.
Step 8: Eat Pancakes
You'll note that the buckwheat flour yields a darker colour than conventional pancakes. That is totally normal. You may also have some contrasting bits of egg white on the interior of some of your pancakes. That is also normal. If you stirred the mixture enough to get the egg whites 100% uniformly distributed, you would lose a lot of the fluffiness.
Tasting Notes:
Going with 100% buckwheat flour does result in some inherent differences with respect to taste and feel. I have seen buckwheat flour described as tasting nutty, earthy, grassy... I don't think earthy is accurate (mushrooms are earthy - buckwheat not so much), but somewhere between nutty and grassy sounds about right. I like it a lot, but it is distinct, and quite different in flavour than wheat flour pancakes. The important thing is that it goes great with Maple Syrup!
Texturally, buckwheat flour is pretty much always sold as a whole-grain flour. That means it is high in fibre and very good for you. It also means that it is going to be less luxurious from a mouth feel standpoint than refined wheat flour.
I'm sure that I can improve on this recipe by subbing in some chickpea, rice or tapioca flour to lend a little more smoothness to the mouth feel, but by and large, these pancakes are delicious as they are, and simple to prepare. That egg white trick works great with regular pancakes too, btw.
But after doing some research, we found that being Gluten-Free wasn't nearly as onerous as we thought it might be. There are certainly compromises that need to be made, but by and large, Liz has made the transition pretty well.
A big part of going gluten-free involves finding ways to keep your carby comfort foods in the rotation in a gluten-free form. And when it comes to breakfast, that means Gluten-Free Pancakes!
1 Cup - Buckwheat flour
1/2 Cup - Milk (plus a little extra as required)
1/2 Tsp - Baking Powder
3 Eggs
Buckwheat flour has no gluten in it, and has a great flavour to it. It's classically used in a number of French crepe recipes (usually from Brittany), but the goal here is not for a thin, rolled-up crepe - We're going for a thick, fluffy pancake, something that can be difficult to achieve without a gluteny flour.
The Key to a thick, fluffy, gluten-free pancake, as it turns out, is something that I pulled from a Jamie Oliver episode many years ago: Separate your eggs, and whip the whites. Here's the drill:
Step 1:
Separate your eggs.
Step 2: Deal with the yolks
Yolks go into a bowl with the flour, milk and baking powder. Mix them thoroughly. You can add as much as another 1/4 cup of milk if your batter is thicker than you like it. Any more than that, and you're getting into crepe batter territory
Step 3: Whip It
Whip the whites until stiff peaks form. What the hell does "stiff peaks" mean? Good question. Here's a picture:
 |
| Stiff Peaks - Got it? Good. |
Step 4: Combine
Fold the whites into the batter. Don't try to get everything 100% uniform, you'll just wind up breaking down the air bubbles you're trying to introduce into the mixture. Just get the egg whites incorporated to the point where there aren't big white chunks of foam floating around, and then stop.
 |
| Photo courtesy of Liz - And yes, I always wear a Metallica T-shirt when I make rockin' food |
Step 5: Prep your pan
Put a skillet on medium or medium-low heat depending on how nuclear your stove is. Melt a tablespoon or two of butter and WAIT for the butter to melt and get hot. The #1 reason (Number ONE) for subpar pancakes at this stage is a pan that isn't hot enough. Test your pan by making a miniature pancake, about the size of a quarter. If you don't hear an immediate sizzle, then your pan is not hot enough.
Step 6: Make Pancakes - Part I
Spoon dollops of batter onto your pan. If you've done it right, the batter should stand up a bit on its own, and you may need to shake your pan to get the pancakes to flatten out.
Step 6a: Garnishment
Optionally, if you wanted to add berries, or banana slices, or chocolate chips, this is where to do it. Just press your chosen accoutrement into the top of each pancake as it's cooking.
Step 7: Make Pancakes - Part II
When you see bubbles come up to the top surface of the pancakes, it's almost time to flip. When you see the bubbles around the edges pop and they don't close back over, it's time to flip your pancakes. Again, if you got your egg whites nice and stiff, you may need to pat your pancakes down with a spatula to flatten them out properly. They should only need a minute or two to get brown on the flipped side before they are ready.
Step 8: Eat Pancakes
Tasting Notes:
Going with 100% buckwheat flour does result in some inherent differences with respect to taste and feel. I have seen buckwheat flour described as tasting nutty, earthy, grassy... I don't think earthy is accurate (mushrooms are earthy - buckwheat not so much), but somewhere between nutty and grassy sounds about right. I like it a lot, but it is distinct, and quite different in flavour than wheat flour pancakes. The important thing is that it goes great with Maple Syrup!
I'm sure that I can improve on this recipe by subbing in some chickpea, rice or tapioca flour to lend a little more smoothness to the mouth feel, but by and large, these pancakes are delicious as they are, and simple to prepare. That egg white trick works great with regular pancakes too, btw.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Jeremy Lin, AZN solidarity, and Learning to cheer for a team from NY
Eight years ago, William Hung went on American Idol, and single-handedly set the cause of the Asian dude back 10 years.
Eight days ago, Jeremy Lin became the starting point guard for the New York Knicks and got those 10 years back, and then some.
It's a bit of a funny thing being a North American of Asian descent. The stereotypes that precede you are ubiquitous, often unflattering, but by-and-large tolerated for reasons that I will leave a sociologist to cover. It's no big thing though, and no Asian person I know would ever acknowledge those stereotypes as representing any kind of real adversity - just a social annoyance for which you learn a compendium of sharp retorts to use when necessary at an early age. Reality is too nuanced to get caught up in uncreative rhetorical exchanges with morons, right? Right. Society has moved on, and is all post-racial now, right? Right. After all, Asians are a prosperous demographic, and model minority, right? Right.
So... why is it that every North American of Asian descent has jumped on the Jeremy Lin bandwagon with the kind of zeal usually reserved for... well, no-one?
The kind of Asian-Solidarity that has emerged in the wake of #Linsanity is fascinating to me, precisely because it's the kind of thing that I thought I should be immune to. I identify more as being Canadian than as being Asian. I'm a hockey guy, and Paul Kariya broke through as a sports star of Asian descent long ago. I dislike NBA basketball. I hate every New York sports team.
And yet, I am 100% down with #Linsanity.
This past weekend, I was out in San Diego for a friend's wedding. At the reception, I happened to be seated at a table with two other North Americans of Asian descent. As often happens when dudes are first introduced and playing the small-talk game, the conversation soon drifted sports-ward. I can't remember which one of us first broached the subject, but at some point the question "did you watch the Knicks/Lakers game last night?" was asked, and instantly the bonds of AZN brotherhood were formed. We couldn't help ourselves. None of us were Knicks fans. If you had asked us the previous week, I doubt that we could have named more than 3 players on the Knicks between the 3 of us. And yet, there we were, raving about Jeremy Lin's 38 point demolition of the Lakers as if we were stereotypical Asian parents talking about a son who had gotten into Harvard.
I would have been disgusted with myself if I hadn't been so happy about it.
How did I get here? Where did this compulsion to throw my unquestioning support behind an obscure benchwarmer solely because he is Asian come from (and make no mistake, I would not have spared this story 10 minutes of attention if Jeremy Lin had been, say... Maltese)?
I'm not going to try to speak in generalities here. All I can give you is my own assessment of myself - and here's what it comes down to for me: I am a huge Jeremy Lin fan, because he has given the public's concept of "The Asian Dude" just enough of a jolt to question the old stereotypes, and to have people looking for new ones.
Yes, Jeremy Lin went to Harvard. Yes, Jeremy Lin has supportive (but undoubtedly demanding) parents. Yes, Jeremy Lin has a brother who is a dentist who let him sleep on his couch. Yes, Jeremy Lin is a nice guy, and a hard worker. All a standard part of the standard Asian dude package.
But being able to throw out a ridiculous spin move on Derek Fisher is not a part of that package. Going shot for shot with Kobe Bryant in the 4th quarter is not a part of that package. Blowing by John Wall and throwing down a one handed dunk is most assuredly not a part of that package.
When I look at my Twitter feed, and see it blowing up with puns and nicknames and barely-understandable ebonics phrases that border on being a little on the racist side, I love it, because all of a sudden, the old stereotypes don't apply the way they used to. The Twitterverse has had to get a little bit creative with incorporating racial elements to their Asian dude humour. Some attempts have been less successful than others (that means you, Jason Whitlock), but by and large, I'm kind of enjoying it. I mean, let's be honest here, "Yellow Mamba" has a pretty bad@$$ ring to it, doesn't it? And when I see myriad African-American commentators use the phrase "my yellow n*gga", I gotta be honest - it feels kinda validating in a Dave-Chappelle-Skit kind of way.
It just feels refreshingly different. And a million miles away from American Idol.
Eight days ago, Jeremy Lin became the starting point guard for the New York Knicks and got those 10 years back, and then some.
It's a bit of a funny thing being a North American of Asian descent. The stereotypes that precede you are ubiquitous, often unflattering, but by-and-large tolerated for reasons that I will leave a sociologist to cover. It's no big thing though, and no Asian person I know would ever acknowledge those stereotypes as representing any kind of real adversity - just a social annoyance for which you learn a compendium of sharp retorts to use when necessary at an early age. Reality is too nuanced to get caught up in uncreative rhetorical exchanges with morons, right? Right. Society has moved on, and is all post-racial now, right? Right. After all, Asians are a prosperous demographic, and model minority, right? Right.
So... why is it that every North American of Asian descent has jumped on the Jeremy Lin bandwagon with the kind of zeal usually reserved for... well, no-one?
The kind of Asian-Solidarity that has emerged in the wake of #Linsanity is fascinating to me, precisely because it's the kind of thing that I thought I should be immune to. I identify more as being Canadian than as being Asian. I'm a hockey guy, and Paul Kariya broke through as a sports star of Asian descent long ago. I dislike NBA basketball. I hate every New York sports team.
And yet, I am 100% down with #Linsanity.
This past weekend, I was out in San Diego for a friend's wedding. At the reception, I happened to be seated at a table with two other North Americans of Asian descent. As often happens when dudes are first introduced and playing the small-talk game, the conversation soon drifted sports-ward. I can't remember which one of us first broached the subject, but at some point the question "did you watch the Knicks/Lakers game last night?" was asked, and instantly the bonds of AZN brotherhood were formed. We couldn't help ourselves. None of us were Knicks fans. If you had asked us the previous week, I doubt that we could have named more than 3 players on the Knicks between the 3 of us. And yet, there we were, raving about Jeremy Lin's 38 point demolition of the Lakers as if we were stereotypical Asian parents talking about a son who had gotten into Harvard.
I would have been disgusted with myself if I hadn't been so happy about it.
How did I get here? Where did this compulsion to throw my unquestioning support behind an obscure benchwarmer solely because he is Asian come from (and make no mistake, I would not have spared this story 10 minutes of attention if Jeremy Lin had been, say... Maltese)?
I'm not going to try to speak in generalities here. All I can give you is my own assessment of myself - and here's what it comes down to for me: I am a huge Jeremy Lin fan, because he has given the public's concept of "The Asian Dude" just enough of a jolt to question the old stereotypes, and to have people looking for new ones.
Yes, Jeremy Lin went to Harvard. Yes, Jeremy Lin has supportive (but undoubtedly demanding) parents. Yes, Jeremy Lin has a brother who is a dentist who let him sleep on his couch. Yes, Jeremy Lin is a nice guy, and a hard worker. All a standard part of the standard Asian dude package.
But being able to throw out a ridiculous spin move on Derek Fisher is not a part of that package. Going shot for shot with Kobe Bryant in the 4th quarter is not a part of that package. Blowing by John Wall and throwing down a one handed dunk is most assuredly not a part of that package.
When I look at my Twitter feed, and see it blowing up with puns and nicknames and barely-understandable ebonics phrases that border on being a little on the racist side, I love it, because all of a sudden, the old stereotypes don't apply the way they used to. The Twitterverse has had to get a little bit creative with incorporating racial elements to their Asian dude humour. Some attempts have been less successful than others (that means you, Jason Whitlock), but by and large, I'm kind of enjoying it. I mean, let's be honest here, "Yellow Mamba" has a pretty bad@$$ ring to it, doesn't it? And when I see myriad African-American commentators use the phrase "my yellow n*gga", I gotta be honest - it feels kinda validating in a Dave-Chappelle-Skit kind of way.
It just feels refreshingly different. And a million miles away from American Idol.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
A Field Guide To The Public Skating Rink
So every year, when the National Gallery of Art's Sculpture Garden rink gets going, I try to get out there as much as I feel like I'm willing to drop the $8 for admission. Skating outdoors rules. No matter how unseasonably warm it might be (it's been around 20C through most of Advent), skating outside is a surefire way to kick your brain into winter-festivities mode.
The Sculpture Garden rink is small, and crowded, which can impede your ability to get a really good skate in, but it sure does make for great people watching. And for the benefit of those of you who don't often get out on the rink, here is a handy guide to the denizens of the public rink - some of which might even apply to you:
1. The Figure Skaters
Rule #1 of the public skating rink: The Figure Skaters own the center. If you don't know a Triple Lutz from a Triple Salchow, you'd best stay to the outside and skate NASCAR laps with the rest of the Plebians. The Figure Skating category resolves down into several sub-categories:
1a. The Public Rink Diva
Easily identified by the tight-fitting gear, the ability to land a jump on a single edge, and impressive looking spins with enough arm flourishes to make you look around for the French judge's score for artistic impression, The Diva is there to make you look at her (and while there are dude figure skaters out there, The Diva is always female... always). She is, however, only there to be looked at. Don't try to approach her, Icarus, lest her brilliance melt the wax on your wings.
1b. The Grinder
An aspiring Diva, The Grinder is there to practice the very moves that The Diva executes blindfolded and in-time to arrhythmic crowd-clapping. Only problem is that The Grinder fails a lot, and spends a lot of her time on her @$$, collecting the snow carved up by the Diva's latest spin. Hence her alternate name: The Zamboni
1c. The Figure Skating Dude
A rarer species, the Figure Skating Dude always garners a bit of a double-take when he busts out his first single axel. His presence at the rink tends to annoy The Divas in the crowd, as the Figure Skating Dude tends to collect a disproportionate amount of attention due to his scarcity.
2. The Hockey Players
Check the skates. Not just for the fact that they're hockey skates - check for the telltale signs of hockey-wear-and-tear: black puck-marks on the blade holders, cuts and scuffs on the boots from fighting in the corners with opposing players, visible signs of mold or mildew on the laces... You may also see some team swag - a logo'd ball cap, or a warmup jacket.
If the center of the rink can be thought of as dominated by the Figure Skaters, the outside of the rink can be considered to be loosely patrolled by the Hockey Players. They tend to play the role of impromptu instructor for Terrified Amateurs, and are often first on the scene when a Fearless Amateur takes a bad spill. They also tend to be well represented in the "Couples on a Date" category.
3. The Amateurs
Rental skates? Stiff, upright posture? Total lack of control? Check, check, aaaannnddd.... check. The Amateurs present a lot of the people-watching fun at the public skating rink. Their enthusiasm, effort level, and general lack of self-consciousness is awesome from a spectator standpoint. There are of course, a few different sub-species here:
3a. The Terrified Amateur
Distinguished by the death grip they maintain along the sideboards, the Terrified Amateur believes that if God meant for them to skate, He would have given them pointier feet. Nevertheless, the Terrified Amateur is a gamer, having been dragged to the rink by friends, family, or the hope of getting somewhere with their date. Fortunately, the Terrified Amateur knows their limits, and their hanging-on-to-the-boards-for-dear-life strategy usually keeps them from injuring themselves. They are also easily picked-out by Hockey Players as candidates for an impromptu skating lesson if they look cute enough.
3b. The Fearless Amateur
The most dangerous animal on the public rink, the Fearless Amateur is like the proverbial Bull in a China Shop, only if that China Shop had a frozen sheet of ice for a floor, and the Bull had sharp, steel blades strapped to its feet. The Fearless Amateur has generally acquired some ability to skate forward, but despite a lack of turning or stopping capability, will gleefully cannonball around the rink as fast as they can until they hit something. Best case scenario: They slam into the boards. Worst case scenario: They take out an entire family of Kosovan refugees.
4. The Couple On A Date
The skating date makes for great people-watching. The rink acts like a de facto fishbowl, as the couple literally skates into and out of close proximity of everyone else at the rink on a recurring basis. It's like having a date in a restaurant, only if your table slid around the restaurant on a conveyor so all of the other patrons could take turns listening in on what your favourite movie is, and where you would like to travel to. Depending on the relative skating ability, there are three (technically four) different variations of Couple On A Date at the public rink:
4a. Both parties know how to skate
Probably the closest to a regular date, as the public rink is just treated like any other venue: a park, or a seashore for instance. For the two people on the date, this scenario allows them to connect via a shared interest and skill (skating) that really is a bit of a niche thing in the DC area. It's actually quite sweet, and gives the rest of the rink goers a bit of a d'awwww moment to brighten their day.
4b. Dude knows how to skate. Girl is a total amateur
This is actually a pretty good situation for the dude. If his date is a Terrified Amateur, she will be clinging onto him for dear life the entire time, and he will be able to prove his value as a man by protecting her from an imminent, ice-related demise. If his date is a Fearless Amateur, then it is a virtual guarantee that she will wipe out hard at some point, and he will have an opportunity to prove his value as a man by picking her up, dusting her off, and giving her some hands-on coaching on how to improve her skating (the level of hands-on can vary depending on the dude's douchebag factor...). All guys should learn how to skate, if only to open up this scenario for them as a future possibility.
4c. Girl knows how to skate. Dude has no clue
Emasculation central. And also, the most entertaining for spectators. Pride kicks in hard here, so the dude has no choice but to be a Fearless Amateur, and the flailing, stumbling, keystone cops routine that ensues is hilarious, both to his date, and to everyone else at the rink. It's made even better when the girl starts to show him up by trying to pick him up off the ice, or letting him use her as a pylon for balance as he waddles around the rink. Ultimately, the dude may send her away, swallow his pride, and go into Terrified Amateur mode along the boards. That just opens him up to have his date skate up to him at speed only to snow him with a power stop (also hilarious). All guys should learn how to skate, if only to prevent them from ever appearing in this scenario.
4d. Neither of them know how to skate
I don't think this ever happens, because if neither of them knows how to skate, why would they go skating?
5. The Rink Guards
Ostensibly there to enforce the rules, the actual role of the Rink Guards is for them simply to exist, so that the rink ownership has a means for avoiding legal action stemming from the injuries caused by Fearless Amateurs. I don't think I've ever actually seen Rink Guards do anything particularly useful, but that might just be me.
6. The Zamboni Driver
Everyone wishes they could be this guy...
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Watching The Wire, Part II: Chess - It's Not Just a Game, It's a Metaphor!
Five episodes into the first season, one scene in particular stands out for me:
There are so many things I love about this scene. First of all, you get a clear demonstration of the differences between Bodie and Wallace, illustrated via the contrast between Checkers and Chess. Yes, it's a bit of a rote cliche (put the phrase "chess not checkers" into google to see the borderline overuse of the phrase), but it fits so perfectly into this context. Wallace comes across in these early episodes as smart, thoughtful, and as the kind of kid who, in different socio-economic circumstances, could probably have gone to college and gotten a legit job, and a legit life. It's telling that he wants to learn how to play chess instead of checkers - He knows that there is more to the world out there, and he wants to learn about it. A few episodes later, it's Wallace who speaks up to D about not getting paid, and him again who spots Omar's boy playing pinball and then has the presence of mind to call in the hit. That kid's got potential!
Bodie, on the other hand, knows what he knows, thinks that he's good at it, and doesn't care to step outside of it. But once D explains the basic rules of The Game, Bodie buys into it, and whereas Wallace quietly takes it all in, Bodie immediately looks for ways to work the rules to his benefit. That closing exchange speaks volumes:
Bodie: A'ight, but if I make it to the end, I'm top dog.
D: Nah, yo, it ain't like that. Look, the pawns, man, in the game, they get capped quick. They be out the game early.
Bodie: Unless they some smart-ass pawns...
Bodie is crafty enough to escape from juve, but there's no way he survives long within this story arc. He's a pawn striving to race across the board, and there's no way that can end well. Bodie be out the game early methinks...
Another brilliant aspect of this scene is how effectively, and efficiently, it educates the viewer on how a drug organisation operates. The routine of moving the stash around, so key to the "Omar steals the stash scene," is established here. The explicit identification of Stringer as the guy who gets $#!^ done, the idea that The King's crew "run so deep, he really ain't gotta do $#!^", and the inherent futility of the drug-dealing lifestyle ("Everything stay who he is"); all of that critical background information is packaged up and delivered in a phenomenal 3-minute scene.
Finally, the chess metaphor changes the way you (or at least I) watch the show. A lonely McNulty wants to hookup with the DA, so he uses a work-related gambit as an opener, before making the booty call play. The stakeout of Omar's van? That's all about the Cops trying to set up a collar of Omar with a weapon on him. Only Omar is thinking two moves ahead: He makes a clean move in the van to set up a parlay, and then drops the fact that he knows Bubbles is working with the cops. Avon is jumping at shadows, and trying to get two moves ahead of the shadows: He gets his landline disconnected, and starts using different pay phones.
And Stinkum? He gets a shot at being a pawn that gets promoted.
But The King Stay The King...
Yo, why you playing checkers on a chess set?
There are so many things I love about this scene. First of all, you get a clear demonstration of the differences between Bodie and Wallace, illustrated via the contrast between Checkers and Chess. Yes, it's a bit of a rote cliche (put the phrase "chess not checkers" into google to see the borderline overuse of the phrase), but it fits so perfectly into this context. Wallace comes across in these early episodes as smart, thoughtful, and as the kind of kid who, in different socio-economic circumstances, could probably have gone to college and gotten a legit job, and a legit life. It's telling that he wants to learn how to play chess instead of checkers - He knows that there is more to the world out there, and he wants to learn about it. A few episodes later, it's Wallace who speaks up to D about not getting paid, and him again who spots Omar's boy playing pinball and then has the presence of mind to call in the hit. That kid's got potential!
Bodie, on the other hand, knows what he knows, thinks that he's good at it, and doesn't care to step outside of it. But once D explains the basic rules of The Game, Bodie buys into it, and whereas Wallace quietly takes it all in, Bodie immediately looks for ways to work the rules to his benefit. That closing exchange speaks volumes:
Bodie: A'ight, but if I make it to the end, I'm top dog.
D: Nah, yo, it ain't like that. Look, the pawns, man, in the game, they get capped quick. They be out the game early.
Bodie: Unless they some smart-ass pawns...
Smarter than your average pawn
Bodie is crafty enough to escape from juve, but there's no way he survives long within this story arc. He's a pawn striving to race across the board, and there's no way that can end well. Bodie be out the game early methinks...
Another brilliant aspect of this scene is how effectively, and efficiently, it educates the viewer on how a drug organisation operates. The routine of moving the stash around, so key to the "Omar steals the stash scene," is established here. The explicit identification of Stringer as the guy who gets $#!^ done, the idea that The King's crew "run so deep, he really ain't gotta do $#!^", and the inherent futility of the drug-dealing lifestyle ("Everything stay who he is"); all of that critical background information is packaged up and delivered in a phenomenal 3-minute scene.
Finally, the chess metaphor changes the way you (or at least I) watch the show. A lonely McNulty wants to hookup with the DA, so he uses a work-related gambit as an opener, before making the booty call play. The stakeout of Omar's van? That's all about the Cops trying to set up a collar of Omar with a weapon on him. Only Omar is thinking two moves ahead: He makes a clean move in the van to set up a parlay, and then drops the fact that he knows Bubbles is working with the cops. Avon is jumping at shadows, and trying to get two moves ahead of the shadows: He gets his landline disconnected, and starts using different pay phones.
And Stinkum? He gets a shot at being a pawn that gets promoted.
But The King Stay The King...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)