My Life of Hedonistic Foodie Pleasure

Meat is Murder, Tasty Muthereffin Murder...

2012-01-27T09:20:00.003-05:00

The benefit to living in any place for a set amount of time is getting to know the small business owners. Alas, our love affair with Mike began. And we'll just call him "Mike the Butcher".

Plain and simply he is a butcher. But to us, he is a religious icon who has more palpable influence on me than Jesus. And if Jesus were here today, I would probably meet him at "My Butcher and More" in order to pick up some well aged pork, sausage, foie gras, rendered duck fat, and beef marrow bones...all scrupulously picked and dry aged appropriately in the back room. I would then share my home-brew and pop a few bottles of Jesus's water to wine and discuss global marketing for his talents (We might later puff cigars and discuss inventing new iPhone apps...).

My digression is the result of multiple synapses humming and thinking about this local meat shop. It is the promised land people should fight over....forget Israel and Gaza....just go to Annapolis.

My selling point is simple. Many often rant that meat is murder, the cause for cancer, poverty, rashes, and whatever ailment du jour. And your point I will agree if you are talking about all that shit from Industrial Buildings where animals are simply blobs of meat much like the contestants on "Biggest Loser"...an animal depraved of actually being an animal is a sad and cancerous bane on our diet. To eat industry meat? I would happily go vegetarian. But to get your fat fingers on what God intended? Well, that's why Jesus and I would be hanging out. Forget the end of the world...maybe he's just returning cause he's hungry...

Digressing again...meat sweats...sweet sweet meat sweats. Check this place out...they have everything...and they even have meat butchering and prepping classes...

http://www.mybutcherandmore.com/

Kids...

2012-01-26T09:45:00.002-05:00

Kids scare the living shit out of me. It's not the kids themselves, but it's the prospect of actually having one, raising it, and somehow having something horrible happen along the way. Am I fit to be a father? Why yes, yes I am. Have I uttered verbally terrible statements about how I hate children and pregnant mothers like venom? Guilty on all accounts.

People's perspective is a great hideout for what you truly are. If more people think I would be a horrible father secondary to pithy statements pasted on Facebook about how I hate baby bumps, mother support groups, and snot nosed parasite kids sucking the potential lifeblood out of my retirement...then that is my intentional evil master plan. Lowered expectations set you out of less easy failure, any roob can see that.

The problem however is when your wife starts to believe the hype and questions your ability and desire to start, raise, and nurture a family.

Look, here is what I hate about kids...it's the obnoxious overbearing judgemental parents. It's the same attitude I hate about people in general. Oversensitive, overly politically correct, and hipocritical folks who only do good so they can stare down their noses at anyone they deem worthy. "Oh, you didn't use the (insert word here) method for parenting?....hmmmmm, Oh, you didn't get the "Specialist" for their sleeping habits and thumb sucking?" Yeah, what the fuck.

When you temper my beef against people with no problems who invent problems just to seem interesting along with my fear of raising a child and fucking it up somehow, you have me, on a window ledge, ready to jump.

The problem however is that I really like kids. For Christ sake, beneath the heavy swearing and innapropriate humor I really like children. I used to teach and guide young minds rather skillfully. I also work in medicine, reassuring people who are dying of horrible diseases. Inside I die almost 5 times a day seeing the shit I see in the hospital. Alas, my fear of seeing it happen to my family somehow makes me shudder.

My solace however is in my wife, and hearing her lament that maybe I just wouldn't be a good dad helped me see that it's time to move on and take that leap we took on our wedding day. It's the proverbial and predictable leap into thin air where anything good or bad can happen. What made me take that leap is that I got to hold her hand. My wife, the smarter version of the Jacobs, who married some blowhard boob who dabbles in blog writing, cooking, and trying to be a better person.

I've not shared outwardly how much I have reveled in holding our friends's new babies (while also holding a beer and letting a horse sniff her...long story), or practicing football holds on the baby while also drinking a beer. How I loved changing diapers, and running around with the baby in the car carrier (also after a few beers). I can't wait to actually emulate my dad who is still my hero and best friend. If only I too could be that lucky to leave an everlasting positive imprint on my child, much like he did me.

And that's where it leaves me. Yes, kids are the suckers of money lifeblood retirement homes. And they can be trouble, and sometimes one can fail in raising them. And most terribly they can die before you do...I think that's my nightmare, my aversion, and my true fear. But what they bring while they bring it makes the life cycle better. And with a woman you married due to her hotness and her smartness who now holds the friend's baby and you say, "Damn, she would be a great mom"...just makes me press forward...perhaps to push through the phobia and enjoy this great experiment of life.

My Tribute To Gunnar

2011-11-08T10:19:00.009-05:00

I struggle to come to terms with his death. Unlike thinking someone was going to live forever, I pretty much was at peace that my grandfather had passed his golden years and was progressing towards a peaceful sunset. With dementia and stomach cancer ravaging his mind and body, the old man still went on his daily walks, ate his forever treasured Swedish food, and stacked the wood stove full every morning at my great Aunt's farmhouse in Vigaker, Sweden. He was far cry from the juggernaut and pillar of human strength he once was, yet his lucid spells made you wince with agony I hear. Just when you were ready to say goodbye and write the old man off, he'd poke back in for one more round, one more story. As if saying, "I'm still here, lucky as hell, and I'm not sure what I did to deserve it."

The old man mirrored the long in the tooth retired champion horse, his barn filled with old medals. Not the participation medals, but the ones that weigh a few pounds, no longer attached to their ribbons as their weight and purity outlived the fragile ribbon. When shined they look new, but their tarnish remains, somehow adding to their legend.

In his latter years I always pictured him out to pasture, happy to have his belly rubbed, his ears scratched, a good meal, and happy for a saunter with his iconic cigar. Old, yet proud and triumphant at all of his accomplishments. He was the retired stud, and though his eyes grew grey and cloudy, they remained sharp, and that impish youth still shone it's innocent twinkle until death.

Gunnar deDon is the inspiration to my life. Born above the Artic Circle in Kramfors, Sweden, he transcended poverty. His father died of Tuberculosis when he was a child, and thusly he was seen by many as a bastard child. His formal education was in carpentry, let's just ballpark it equilvalent to finishing 8th grade.

He, like so many of his generation did what was morally and ethically necessary to succeed. And through luck and fortitude he immigrated from Sweden to Canada, and from Canada to Florida only to live the impossible and improbable dream of a life and death done on his own, yet only to be helped by so many along the way.

He was and will forever remain handsome and resolute. He was a Maverick and innovator, and the first to teach me what the word meant. At ten years old, I spent my first week away from home with the Grandparents and I was bored out of my mind. My BMX Bicycle could only take me so far, and away from cable, forced to play outside, I rode that sucker till the chain fell off. Unable to fix it on my own, he showed me how and said, "Boy, you know, you need to be innovative, do you know what innovate means?" In hindsight and maybe at the same lock step in time, I knew that standing before me was the definition.

Father of four, having no idea how to build pools, or houses, he started as a jeweler and ended up helping to set the crown jewels for the queen of England when she visited Canada. Then, by happenstance the first house he built with his wife, some passer by liked it, so he sold it to them. So why not build more, make a profit, and take his craft down to Fort Lauderdale. Why don't you start developing neighborhoods, building pools, start a pool company, and later buy and develop a community in Cashiers, North Carolina. That community in Cashiers is where our mountain house sits. Oh yeah, he developed the ~40 acres by himself, known as "The One Manned Band". Our family mountain house sits there today, finished as he turned 70.

There was not much he touched that didn't end up shining. Roughly, he could step into shit, and come out smelling like roses.

In his older years he used to say, "You know, I don't know what I have done to be this damn lucky?" And after hearing his stories about surviving a solo plane ride/stall out/crash where he jumped out of it and landed in Lake Ontario unconscious, starting brush fires that got a little out of control during droughts, and the countless adventures he had with his adopted brother, you had to scratch your head and just shrug your shoulders in reply.

Was it destiny? God always protects drunks and fools. Neither a drunk nor fool, the man had Teflon protection right up until the day he died. Anyone who met him could agree there was just something special about the man. To put it the way I can see it, Gunnar deDon had a plan, he wasn't sure what it was, but when he figured it out, it always ended up working. Call him the forever bumbler, call him God's court jester who entertained the hell out of him until the day he passed with a sweet smile on his face. I can see God looking down, smiling for 87 years saying, "This one, he's special, he makes me laugh, his heart is pure"...and on November 5th, my lovely family in Sweden gathered around his bed singing old songs and telling old stories as he finally slept that final sleep...smiling, happy to go home. God has a another entertainer finally in his court. And if God is anything like me, he could hear those stories for an eternity, knowing they will never get old, perhaps just a little more embellished.

Henlopen City Oyster House/Salt Air and Why Bar Seats Are Better

2011-08-09T12:55:00.005-04:00

Our good friend and part time chef/cook Michael Mooreland (known on past episdodes of "Michael Does Tapas") directed us to the Henlopen City Oyster House. Experienced to a good time with shellfish and happy hour drinks we hapilly accepted the challenge and rousted our butts for another adventure.

Happy hour starts at 3pm, can that be wrong? The Red Sox playing and beating the Yankees soundly while I slurped a variety of oysters next to the 5 women in the catty entourage of our party? The fact the smallish bar was jammed to standing room only and we nailed six seats within 5 minutes?

I am a believer that no matter how good the food, the ambiance makes or breaks a place. The bar room to the wonderful establishment is clean, bright, and is a shade of beige beachy brightness with weathered beach house planks comprising the walls. It's a place that feels high end and clean, but the cleanliness of the place drives it to that bright uplifting raw bar that instantly becomes a local "Cheers" joint.

Next door, Salt Air. Is it true we visited these establishments more than once? How else could we have known we could easilly water ourselves at the Raw Bar, take a break, and hit the happy hour next door? We will blame it on the bartender...

Habitually we tend to sit at the bar of any establishment. Call it my perpetual nature to kill a pint in less than five minutes, we like the availability of the savvy bartender. It's an upside. There is no awkward introduction from the waitstaff, or awkward waiting time. More importantly, there is not a long wait between drinks. Most importantly however, I feel we get the lay of the land in a new place. Hot spots, places to eat, places to go, things to do. The cadence of the talk is abrubt but generally warm with a New Yorker type attitude of pragmatism. And I dig pragmatic. I don't want to hear your fucking life story at least not for a few more pints...but I like to interact with you on a level that works for both.

At Salt Air, we hit the farm style table high top. Following suit that house made and homemade is the vogue rather than "Store Bought Chic" in the 1980s, we dove into tapas.

Paprika Grilled Wings

Watermelon, Pistachio, Mint, Tomato Salad

Mustard Cream and Country Ham Mussels (Warm bread for Sopping)

Tomato Salad with FRESH Bluecrab Dip

Roasted Beets with Goat Cheese

Scrupulously at each station of happy hour stoppage, our needs were attended, smiled upon, and quickly moved on as to say, "Welcome, thanks for coming, happy to have you, gotta roll". It's like many of our interactions in life. While we navigate with our small cadre of closests, we nimbly go the back and forth between our acquaintances. Bar seats, are the happy acquaintances in our busy life and are the reasons we dine and discriminate accordingly.

The Ode To Tracey and Backstory To Rehobeth

2011-08-09T12:45:00.007-04:00

I live a Rock Star life because my wife, and her mother are connected with friends. And these friends have stuff. And thankfully these friends have decided to keep me in the fold. When I tell the stories of the galavanting and charmed adventures, my parents forget I actually work for a living. I'm telling you, it's all in who you know. Enter Tracey Brebner, colleague and mutual friend, and lover of food, travel, and fun. The friend you want your wife to have because she is a strong woman who is unfazed by my penchant for flatulence, and off centered comments. It all means I too get to tag along, I get to be one of "The Girls". And the place where all of this happens is at her house in Rehobeth.

Tracey's house is HUGE...located two blocks off of the beach, it has been in her family for umpteen years. It's a special place because it is a) Huge b) Has a huge fenced in yard(our dogs love to play there) c) She still lets idiots like me visit d) Her family has adopted us as their family as well.

Last year, during the winter, this 1890s home was flooded immensely by leaky radiators. Thusly, it was gutted and quite an adventure to stay in through the summer in which we had nothing but beds and a few walls amongst a ton of rafters. To see the house transform itself back into a modern working beach home has been hardly describable. Albeit, I'd have to say staying there has been much more comfortable now that there is a huge leather man chair with a great flat screen tv and ESPN. As a side note, Matty generally is "one of the girls" whenever we visit. Seriously, it's usually 5:1 girl to guy ratio...the new addition has helped my cause immensely. No longer feeling boxed in by girly girl drinks and manicures, I'm able to open a few beers in the solitude of the leather couch and shut off the world.

Adventure is the name of the game with every visit. Paddle boarding on the Delaware Bay, bumming beers from people moored on boats, raw bar happy hour, and even the tromps in the bushes after a few too many, my hat goes off to a great friend from a benefactor of such a rad place.

Redeem Yourself Rehobeth

2011-08-09T12:45:00.002-04:00

Face down in the bushes, expelling the last of the poison, narrowly missing being arrested for trying to sleep in parked cars, I vowed to change. The hangover hurt so much. The wife frowned, laughingly I must admit, but embarrassed by her lush husband. The details we all tried to sort out...where did it all go wrong? Why did it get so blurry? Was it the fact we imbibed a shit ton of liquor while eating a steady heap of happy hour shellfish?

And there I was again, left by my wing man at midnight, my wife roused herself out of bed to find me barely conscious at the bar, some old lady hitting on me, and me completely unaware of anything.

That was Rehobeth. Guests of our friend Tracey, to her family beach house, those were some painful memories that no longer are excusable or "funny" at thirty two years old. July 3rd, 2011 was when my wife and I had our talk of how Matthew Jacobs can be a better human, and more importantly husband. That was when I decided wine and beer are fine for me, but liquor is the source of every silly story that ends up with me being an idiot. At thirty two, I'm afraid being an idiot could one day prove fatal. My column of self worth along with my vitality are too much at stake, thusly I have decided to change.

Visiting painful memories and reliving the bad times is something a Hedonist hates to do. And instead of this being a diary of psychobabble and self help for me, and pain for you, I feel it best to move on...

Inspired by my wife, and best friend of almost seven years, I decided to not dwell on my failures, and get back on the horse. Last week, shockingly, our dear friend Tracey emphatically invited us back to her place of solace. I wrote her a long email apologizing for my past behavior of one too many drinks and dives into the bushes. Unfazed she quickly replied, "I don't care how drunk you get, it's your hangover in the morning"...well said and I nice segue way to the roads of redemption.

For a week we tackled Rehobeth with gusto and vigor. If given the grace to change and make happier memories, this hedonist begs you to take full advantage. And heavens to betsy, it's not like I went to church and got up every day at 5am. Hell to the no! Instead, for an instance in my life I actually practiced self control while enjoying the shit out of our trip. No dives in the bushes, plenty of beer, daily cigars, and no blackouts...

Quite a sober entry that begs the question, where did you go, where did you eat, what did you actually do?

That my friends is the next adventure.

Ken's Back Porch Cafe

2011-08-01T22:45:00.002-04:00

Bottom line is you have to go. As "Annapolitans" I am ashamed to write we finally went. The experience was expected...informal atmosphere overlooking Back Creek, comfortable staff, on a back porch with ceiling fans blowing...giving way to the star.

Food, bottom line the food was the star. "Best Crab Cake In Annapolis", yes, I would have to say so. On special however was the stuffed back fin soft shelled crab sandwich". Sauteed to perfection, crispy, tender, buttery...paired with a cup of coffee that had nuts to it and a virgin Bloody Mary we collapsed in our king sized bed and dreamt of crabs jumping into a steam pot filled with Natty Boh and Old Bay.

The Crab Cake took the back seat to the special of the day. Relaxed, not pretentious, kind of a Cheersy no fuss it is what it is type place. By the way, it's also B.Y.O.B...note to self, next time at 10:30am, I'm gonna have to have a brown paper bag with something...yep, with something...

Tapas

2011-08-01T22:17:00.007-04:00

I love that anytime you tell someone not in the "know" about a "Tapas" restaurant they automatically say, "Topless Restaurant"? I giggle...and with the globalization of everything less and less people have this reaction.

Small plates...or as far as I am concerned, snacks with drinks. Done well, Tapas are the perfect bar snack as you plow through different wines. If the portions are correct, you can imbibe with little consequence. Done poorly, you drank more than you ate. Call the cab, don't rochambeau it, trust me.

Our latest tapas experience was with the wonderfully talented Michael Mooreland. By day he plays around as the C.F.O. of some muckity muck company. By night and by fun, he cooks, drinks, and enjoys the finer things...fox hunting, traveling...he's a man after my own heart, a fellow brother in the renaissance of what life's meaning truly is.

We had the pleasure of winning a night with Michael and his partner Michael at their residence in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Fashionably late we arrived at the door greeted by their sweet foxhound Kennedy. Michael was dressed in his chef's whites and invited us to sit along the kitchen island. It was a big beautiful kitchen, airy, spacious, yet well decorated and homey. Nothing was too big, your comrades were well within sharing distance and the wine bottles easily could exchange hands without getting up and walking across the table.

Michael introduced his aim that he planned tapas for two reasons. Reason number one, my mother-in-law requested it. More importantly, reason two, it was intimate, fun, and interactive. The mise en place was done thank goodness. Basically, at his request, we too got to put on aprons and fold little dish towels at our waist, and stuff empanadas, jalepenos, or portabello mushrooms (Meghan kept her apron on and ate, I think she was happy just to wear an apron and be involved).

The evening started with cold succulent sherry, toasted and well seasoned marcona almonds with Manchego and another Cow's Milk cheese. It again progressed while our glasses kept being filled and we digressed. Items on the menu were simple things like:

Carmelized Onion Biscuits

Bacon, Cream Cheese, and Onion Stuffed Jalepeno Poppers

Gambas al Ajillo (Shrimp with Garlic and Paprika)

Stuff Portabello Mushrooms with Onions and Chorizo

Scallop Ceviche

Langostinos

Roasted Pepper and White Bean Dip

The list probably goes on...and it was done amazingly as bottle after bottle of easy drinking Spanish wine evaporated into the recycle bin. We tried a really great 10 dollar Verdejo and an equally wallet friendly Rose made from Garnacha.

Sweet Kennedy sensing our jubilent mood went from lap to lap as his height was perfect for laying his sweet head on your trousers, looked up, and hoped for a bite. Michael and Michael joined in the fun and we all ate and imbibed with a relaxed sense that recapitulates why it is why I write about food. It's the people, it's the story, it's the enjoyment. Tonight, tapas were done right.

When I Found Time to Write...

2011-08-01T21:16:00.005-04:00

I hunger to write, and I hunger to eat. As a self proclaimed artist who enjoys the finer things in life I find if I get out of a habit, I tend to fall off completely. It's my all or nothing soul constantly embattled by excess while trying to stay within the lines. It's a bless, a curse, and I often find myself the maker of my own disaster...again, the dumbest smart kid I know.

I find myself wondering what new food and experience to write about. Especially when I find them so meaningful. Perhaps the meaning of food has reached its point in my life. Instead of taking it for granted, I find myself savouring each bite much like I find myself fantasizing to always enjoy life. And as happenstance, my readers have fallen as innocent bystanders saying, "What the fuck happened to your writing...go drum up some business and get in the kitchen"...

I sit, finally, finger to keyboard, and my thoughts immediately fall on my last few really nice experiences with food:

Crab, Crab, and More Crab

My dad loves to poke fun at us Marylanders and our affinity for crabs. He tolerates crabs and actually enjoys picking them. My mother on the other hand could care less. She has no desire to pick, and when/if you are generous enough to give that jeweled backfin, picked in all of it's glory...standing out like a beautiful crab lollipop, she feigns little interest, dips it in butter and says, "Thanks"...

Dad gets a couple of beers in him and says, "I'm happy as a crab in Maryland". After a few beers myself, I get all weepy and think about the meaning of picking crab, the social collateral you have just gained with your hardy party of picking persona. Crab is a religion. It's a right of passage and a cultural phenomenon. It's where battles are sorted and relationships galvanized. The fun of it, you start chugging beers with each delicious dip and slurp of buttery sweet crab. In fact, you're drinking at a rate that will damn near make you pass out if you keep it up. And then your brain says, "I'm sated"...and your hands keep working each crab, extracting everything the little bug has to offer. The beer stays the same height in the bottle, and it starts to warm. Usually it's beer number three for me...or two and a half...and the beer has smudges of butter and Old Bay all over it, the label has started to peel from the condensation.

This summer has been no exception to crab picking madness. The people have changed, but the experiences remained the same. We last picked a few weekends ago at a beautiful spot in Sheperdstown, West Virginia. Picturesque, private ranch on a mountain right next to their pool. It was a friend of the mother-in-law (I swear she knows everyone). We sat in 98 degree heat under a flimsy umbrella and banged our mallets on a spare table held together with duck tape...crabs brought in by us from Annapolis.

And there we were, three beers deep, the remnants warming in the bottle, hands pickled by Old Bay, and glistening in butter...bellies full, and relationships cemented, totally at peace, and Happy as a Crab in Maryland.

Why Not?

2011-06-01T20:58:00.002-04:00

It's like the title of Miles Davis's "So What" from "Kind of Blue"...

So What? Why Not?

Discipline has been my new mantra this spring/summer. Drink less, exercise more, try to indulge less with everything that might be bad. Yesterday we happened to pass by soft shell crabs. Could it be the season? Watching those cold little buggers in our fishmonger's case foaming at the mouth had me thinking I was looking in the mirror. Well, at least Grandma Burton would think so (As a backnote, Grandma Burton should have been the daughter of a waterman, she adored crabs, loved softshells, and loved everything of shellfish origin). As a whimsical wishlist I said, "I sure would do anything for one of those crabs, mmm, with butter, pan fried"...

Three years of marriage feels like twenty-five...not because of the hard assed labor and bitterness...but because it's like she has known me for twenty-five years and just seems to cater to me at every damned turn. Viola, here I come home to the picture featured above.

Thanks Mario Batali, Sauteed Soft Shell Crabs with Broccoli Rabe, Sundried Tomato Pesto with Capers, and Balsalmic Vinegar.

Discipline slipping out of the door, my wife said, "What should we drink with this, it's a special meal?"

Shield up, focused, head held high, "Sel..zer...(my voice cracked), it's a weekday, gotta get up at 4:30am and I didn't work out to...day(cracking again)"...

"Sigh....Lemme see what's in the cellar"...I trudge (only in my subconscious), okay, I run downstairs and unearth a sweet little bottle of Virginia Viognier from Pollak Vineyards...

Nice balance of acid with peachy apricot and honeysuckle notes...really balance out the buttery crab...

It's Wednesday night, boring night, diet night...

Does it really have to be mundane?

Skip breakfast, do a few sit ups, and no, it doesn't...

The Wedding House (Dana and Tom's Wedding Weekend)

2011-05-26T12:18:00.004-04:00

Our latest adventure was something I had never been a part of...a wedding house. The goal of the bride was to bring the "band" back together again (all the kids from med school) and have them live together for 2.5 days. Throw in a wedding somewheres in between and there was the recipe for something...

Typically I HATE brides...they get all ooey gooey for THEIR day where everyone lavishes them with attention. Then they get uber bitchy and uppity and super proper (especially when you know they used to get railed in the local bar bathroom), pop out some pups, and well, you know the rest. Yuck, yikes, that's just what I HATE. H-A-T-E...those brides make me scared of marriage and children.

Over the years (early twenties until now) the weddings have come and gone and I have gotten a little more domesticated and used to the ideas of marriage and family. Only a few weddings have been stinkers (usually there is no alcohol and too much Jesus involved)...so this one piqued my interest because it was with good friends and this really neat idea actually housing the wedding party.

Success! Genius Success! I mean totally and amazingly awesome...here's the rundown/back story/sprinklings of fabled fame.

So the bride rents out a HUGE McMansion in Reston, Virginia....like 5,000 square feet, totally furnished, heated pool, man cave, pool table, huge kitchen...like we hit the lotto on this one. And then everyone flies in from all corners of the earth. Partying, eating, and silliness ensues.

Friday: Wedding party arrives, everyone gets their own room. The bride announces their is no rehearsal dinner, just casually catered dinner with drinks. Whawhawhat? You heard it...

Then the bride's in-laws appear (all fifty thousand, think Irish Catholics), and they are all a hoot. Happiest people on earth. Drinking, talking, reuniting. EPIC I tell you, damn epic. I got the chance to get drunk, not drive anywhere, and hang out with a ton of cool people. Can we repeat that Saturday? Funny you might ask that...

Saturday: It's wedding day, I am required to do NOTHING. Seriously, the girls sit around getting their hair and makeup did. The bride asks one favor, "Can you put the warm beer in the fridge to make cold beer?" Done and done, I go for a run. At 2pm the limo picks us up. I opted to hang with the girls all day...so there I go, hopping into the limo with beers and wine bottles. At one point in the ride a bridesmaid tells me it must be hard to hang out with the girls the whole time. I reply slyly saying, "Not that bad in a limo with a lot of upskirt action". My wife giggles...best wife ever!

The wedding takes place, a lot of beer, a great menu (believe it or not, generally wedding food sucks)...seriously a medium rare fillet and crab cake. Then the DJ just rocks it and our good friend Rob did the worm. He always does the worm, like a worm expert. Honestly, he's an orthopedic doctor/worm dancing fool. Being that he's built a little like Cecil Fielder(little chunky but damn athletic). So everyone sits there puzzled saying, "How does that guy with the belly do those athletic feats?"

Everyone danced, even our friend's granny who is 90 cut a rug...then we got all the free accouterments(flowers baby flowers)...then we jumped on the mega bus and headed back to the wedding house for the after party. The youngest 20 somethings started shotgunning beers, and the 30 somethings attempted to replicate. I had NONE of that.

Saturday 10pm....Bus rolls home, sleepy I find my second wind. Flip cup, me repeatedly denying to play flip cup saying, "I can get mighty drunk here at the bar by myself, I don't need to chug".

11:30pm: Someone opens up the pool...drinking + swimming, not a great combo, oh well, what the hell...there are a ton of doctors here right? And one of the doctors used to swim competively in college? No problem.

Things ended for me at 1am, too tired, too much beer, time to sleep.

Next day, brunch...me still doing nothing except relaxing and eating. We all leave, no drama, no cleaning up, and a great reunion and wedding with wonderful friends.

Who knows if the house made the weekend better, or the people in the house? But the idea, think about it...one stop shopping. A wedding house to host parties all weekend? Yes, of course, why did I never think of that?

Accommodations Part 1

2011-05-26T08:03:00.000-04:00

Instead of doing something expensive, we elected for five days and four nights of camping in celebration of our 3rd wedding anniversary. The goal, set up camp in Luray, Virginia (nestled in the beautiful Shenandoah's) using the camp as home base for cooking gourmet treats by night. All the while exploring the region's offerings by day. Included, a blow by blow storyline with general insights, praise, and warning for current and future offenders of hospitality.

Day 1: Lift off...Arrival

When you are in Annapolis and need a great steak, hit up "My Butcher". For our final meal camping we chose porterhouse. Yes, there is a Wal-Mart in Luray, but I would rather have a fresh cut Porterhouse from a reputable butcher. "Mike the Butcher" is that and some. Although his store doesn't open until 11am, we banged on the door and begged them to open early...done and done, we hit the road, off to better lands.

What says AMURCAN (but made in other countries) more than Wal-Mart of Luray, Virginia, our first real stop before camping. After getting my fishing license from the skinhead working in the hunting section, we jetset with our new wares straight from child labor camps for cheap. Meg gets winks and stares from all men wearing Camouflage...I get hate filled looks as I'm dressed in Madras shorts with a t-shirt saying, "Mr. Strong"...might as well say "Mr. Fruity"...shaking my head and happy I have teeth we move on.

Safely and securely we arrive at "Outlanders River Camp" which is completely empty but in a good way. We found this spot last year and it's a beautiful one. Nestled at the bottom of the valley, ten feet off the Shenandoah river, and bordered by a beautiful pasture, we are isolated from everyone. The constant theme each night was good cocktails, stories of old, music, fire, and food. I don't suggest you go here on the weekend in the summer unless you would like to hang out with the Wal-mart crowd. I dunno, everyone is into something different I guess.

Day 2:

The Splendor of Luray Caverns...

Seriously cool to hike 1.25 miles underground while carrying the dog. Note to foreigners traveling in this here country...

1) When the Ranger says "DON'T touch the rock formations, they are old and will decay with touch", please don't act like you can't speak English. I can see you know it's wrong because you touch the rocks and look around to see if anyone is looking (Your Headphones are also saying that in your native tongue). And your dad who should have a cane because he can barely walk upright, please make him use the cane, the rock formations are not hand rails.

2) Please wear deodorant

3) When the Ranger is talking, it is impolite to talk over them, especially while wearing your Eurotrash shoes...they call us rude?

The Wasmund Distillery, Sperryville, Va

So the whiskey maker/helper wasn't too keen on giving us any free tastings, and after thinking about it, it made sense. But we got a killer tour at a Single Malt Distillery literally housed in a barn. Scotland just ordered 150 cases from them...remember, Scotland is Single Malt Mecca. The secret behind their hooch? Cherry and Applewood Smoking their grain. You can taste the smoke in the drink. And it was a blast going from the grain growing room seeing the grain all raked out and germinating, then to the smoke room, climbing the ladder to the vat and getting a HUGE whiff of a 2 day ferment...nearly took our heads off, and then to the finishing room. I kept saying, "Seriously, in Sperryville?" This is world class whiskey, and it's being done in the middle of nowhere. The maker said, "Why not, have you looked around at the beauty of this place?" Check em out, Copper Fox Distillery, they have a Single Malt Whiskey and a Rye. Equally great depending on your mood.

The Rappahannock Disaster

Matty: "Where to next?"

Meg: "Let's find some wineries in the area"...

Matty: "Well, 25 miles later, here's one, Rappahannock Cellars, I hear it's supposed to be pretty good, haven't we been there before? Maybe not...hmm.."

Matty: (Outside of the entrance), "It says we have to leave the dog leashed in the courtyard, go in an see if we can maybe have a tasting outside".

Meg: "Okay, sure thing"

Meg: (Returning, steam starting to shoot out of her ears) "They wont let us taste outside, they wont let her inside, and it's too hot to leave the dog in the car. I'm not tying my dog up in the yard like a redneck in order to taste their wine."

Matty: "Was the lady snooty?"

Meg: "No, but she was totally unaccommodating, we are THE only people here, we're leaving, I will NEVER taste their wine".

THAT is how to lose our business. Yes, we respect everyone is a small business owner, and there are rules. But if you like to make money and run a successful business, go the extra mile. Had you actually tried to accommodate us, we would have stayed, we would have probably spent money. Meg and I are both suckers for customer service. We received none, thusly we left.

Remember, Virginia wine still isn't that great...it's tolerable, and I've given it very favorable reviews. But your bottles are 22 dollars and up...I can buy pretty killer stuff for 30 from reputable well established places like Napa, or OTHER COUNTRIES...why waste my money on Virginia wine sentiment out of nostalgia and pride? I like your wine, I yet don't love it. Please don't take me for granted, no matter how many po dunk medals you won at the county fair last year. Henceforth, the title of this blog is called Accommodations in tribute to your lack of service.

Thirsty and hungry we headed back to Luray. And we land at this placed called "Victoria Inn Wine Bar". It has a porch, it's perched on the top of Main St, but I was not having high hopes after Rappahannock. Meg was steaming mad, and I was starting to smolder. At first glance, I saw this: Small menu, small wine list...losing hope fast.

As we walked on to the porch the owner was smiling, happy to have us. "Sure your dog can hang out on the porch" She says. As we sat we find out the following: This place is under new ownership...new blood coming out of Orlando. Husband/Wife team, he cooks, she runs the front of the house. They just opened 2 weeks ago, so already she's apologizing for the small menu and small repertoire of wine. Oh, and she spent hours upon hours on the play list for the music playing in the background? Let's also mention they have Thomas Keller quoted at the Mast Head of their Menu...these people have balls and as we delved into our first glass of wine, we start realizing we found something special.

BLT: Local Pork Belly Braised in goodness with a beautiful sear, Tomato Jam, Micro Greens

Crab Cakes: Jicama Slaw, Chipotle Mayo, Fried Lightly with a nice Florida Crab Cake style to them

Shrimp Fry Rice: Pure Goodness, flavor profile well developed, not greasy, but greasy enough

Pork Chop: Roasted Medium, Sweet Potato Hash

Chocolate Mouse Cake, Toasted Pinenuts, Creme Anglaise

Bill: $108...and we had 4 glasses of wine, that's a deal.

Literally we ran out of this place telling everyone we could find to go here. I could potentially see them on Food and Wine in the "Best New Chefs" category in the popular trend of better food gracing smaller towns all over the USA. Thank you!

Marterella Winery...

2011-05-12T10:15:00.000-04:00

As we packed our bags and left our Redneck campground (winding our 3rd anniversary trip to a close), we knew we had one goal in mind. "Wood Burning Pizza Oven"...We had to visit that winery...we just met the owner yesterday, and we felt so chic. It was like meeting a celebrity. Hell, I think it was even better than meeting a celebrity. We had no idea what we were in for...

After navigating a great coffee house, Central Coffee Company in Sperryville, Virginia (Honest to goodness best coffee ever, greatest lesson in coffee tasting, and all certified National Wildlife Refuge for safe practicing of ecofriendly planting and disposal), and checking out a neat little winery called Narmada in Little Washington, we wound our way through a few pig paths to find Marterella Winery in Warrenton, Virginia.

One word, Home...

Going there was like coming home. Katherine Marterella was our kind of people. And that day, she was frazzled, stressed, all over the place. She instantly recognized us and graciously thanked us for coming. We told her we were hungry and looking forward to pizza and wine. She grinned, looked around, and ran out saying, "Shoot, I gotta get the oven going, gimme a minute"...her daughter stepped in to help pour wine and Meg and I started laughing. The girl, right out of college was not the local wine expert as she awkwardly read from the tasting notes...but something about the place stuck with us.

This was natural, and this was real. This was probably what Napa was like back when it was just honest farmers trying to make something special. It reminded me of watching "Bottle Shock". Sure there was swirling and spitting and discussion of floral accents with roundness and balance...but there were no airs. This, was the winery we wanted to open and run. This, was like Cheers.

Katherine came back to the counter and said, "Thank you so much for coming, you all truly made my day, it's been one of those days, kind of a bad day". And she kept moving with whirling dervish speed, pouring, making phone calls, and coaching her daughter on the finer points of running a business. Generally I'd find this off putting. I don't want to know if your day is bad, just serve me wine, do your job, I could care less about your life. Yet we were both strangely sucked in and felt at ease. It was like stopping by unannounced at your friend's parents house for a chat. While they were always busy, they always took time and never missed a step in running their own lives.

This was a lady running a business, making pretty good wine (The Reserve Rose and Pinot Grigio were my favorites), and giving lessons in hospitality by just being herself.

It was her house, it was a spacious sun filled room where everyone there was smiling, drinking, and laughing. Turns out, everyone there were regulars, they were all "her friends" as she said. I cannot imagine anyone going there and not being her friend (Should we move closer, we would be regulars and need help from Betty Ford herself). Katherine's personality is infectious, it's her spirit, organized, smart, businesslike, yet sometimes frazzled, sometimes all over the place. In the perfect place we all try to go and try to be, she was a reflection of what we could be if we had our own way...if we could get away with it. Casual, yet pragmatic.

As the day drew to an end, my shoes were off, Fenway was running around with the vineyard dogs, Meg was basking in the sun, and I was actually cooking the pizza in the oven. Katherine looked over and said, "Gettin' the hang of it, I think a lot of people enjoy doing that".

That, Yeah, I think we do, and I hope to be able to do a lot more of it.

Accommodations Part 2

2011-05-12T08:53:00.000-04:00

Some of our trip has to be montaged in time based format. These snippets hold high comedy and remind you of what life would be like if you were as dumb as my wife was to marry me. That, and the fact that I cannot rage all damned day on one bad experience in customer service. Fun to note that we all can easilly dwell on the 1% that is bad, get riled up, and lose sight of the good...

Day 3:

11:30am: Johnsonville Cheddarwursts and a cold Natty Boh. One cannot say enough about meat in tube form. Sure it might be 11am, that's why we go hiking after a lunch like that. Back to happy thoughts...cheese, grease, beer...

Onward and Upward to the Jacobs's Death March on Skyline Drive. If you haven't driven Skyline Drive, do so. We hiked about 5 miles of breathtaking gorge/mountain/trail. I spouted off story after story of nostalgia camping/camp counselor memory while Meg said, "See, I like hiking, but this is a frekkin death march"...

5pm: Jamaican Jerk Chicken with Rice and Peas done on the grill accompanied with a nice cold Pale Ale or Pilsner.

7:30pm: Getting misty, this was really a week of telling Meg how much I loved her, loved everyone, and overindulging in alcohol.

8pm: I really love this awesome new whiskey from Copper Fox Distillery...let's pour another on the rocks. So smooth...ah, this Cigar is great...everything is just GREAT!

9:30pm: Due to the campfire starting to spin, I have one of the following:

a) Vertigo
b) Too much to drink
c) The Rapture is coming and this is how it happens

Still not sure on the answer...

3am: Why did all the sheets on the air mattress get rearranged? We both wake up shivering and my wife complains I smell of cigars and booze. I blame the dog for all of our troubles (The dog continues to snore and exhale loudly at the mention of her misdeeds).

Thursday, May 5th

Feelin' a lil' rough we decide to quell our misery with more sampling of the Virginia Wine Country.

Here are the wineries and their profiles:

Fox Meadow Vineyards: First winery of the day. Nice service, nothing memorable, a fine start (Remember, it was 11am, and I was just starting to wake up, shake off the cobwebs as well as the tremors. My palate was in no shape to sample wine, but my spirits were a little improved after the first whiff of fermented fruit.

Phillip-Carter: Awesome director Mark Parsons, GREAT Rose. Mark KNOWS food, and wine, and we were totally at home. Dog ran around the tasting room and he gave us good suggestions on where to eat for lunch. Coulda sat there for hours talking shop...yet we had to make good on his suggestion to eat at Forlano's in The Plains, Virginia.

Forlano's....Grilled Meatloaf on house made panini, Meg went for the BLT...had a nice Viognier from Delaplane Cellars with lunch. Across the porch were two ladies stopping for lunch with their Golden Retriever. Naturally, I introduce Fenway and we learn one of the ladies owns a winery. "What's the name of your winery" I call as they head towards their car. "Marterella" she calls back. "Stop by tomorrow for lunch, we have a wood burning pizza oven." Spirits renewed with that post food coma wine buzz, I elected for a nicely brewed coffee for a pick me up. Listen, there is an art to riding the line when mid-day wine tasting.

Naked Mountain Winery: Drink Naked! Under new management, sweet locale on a Mountain. Really liked their Reserve Chardonnay. Dog ran around, bright sun, vineyard, certainly awesome new young owners. Although none of the wine blew my mind I would always go back. Again I find it so interesting that I can write such scathing things about things I dislike. However, when it comes to something that was rather enjoyable and it met our expectations, I sit here typing these little one liners.

5pm: All set for our Porterhouse, we put it aside. Too exhausted for MORE gourmet, we did it all day. Leftovers would suit us just fine. Three nights of camping was starting to get to us. It was time to go home...

Liberation

2011-04-15T08:40:00.020-04:00

Spring inflicts the nostalgia of grilling. For me, there is nothing like getting home early from work only to steal the rest of a sunny day. It's like getting tax free money from the government. You mean I can drink a few beers, grill on our porch, marvel at the yard I scaped and since it's early I can be ready to be back at work free of hangover the next day? Fuckin' A right man!

Within my internal clock, the lengthening days and plentiful sun provide the nostalgia of grilling with dad, miscounting beers, and waddling to the kitchen table, grinning because mom only thinks we drank 2 beers and is satisfied we insist on water with dinner(We are merely biding time until we can go back outside and start being boys again).

Time and time again, whenever I get that early slip out of the office, I find myself grabbing the $3.22 package of Chicken Thighs, Bar-b-que sauce, a can of baked beans, and a six pack of suds. It's a ten dollar meal with leftovers that spawn instant happiness. I slink outside, blaring music that was popular in the mid 90s thinking that was only a few years ago, and I get happy. It feels good, I feel free, the dopamine washes through my system and I think this is why we live to eat.

There are those however who find no adventure in food and often find new and unfamiliar food scary. "I don't like that, ewwww"...

Why?

The responses are predictable ranging anywhere from "It sounds gross", "I don't know, I just don't like it", "Long story, bad memories", or the tale of someone lovingly throwing together a Insert Name Here "Special" that ends up looking like dog shit twice passed and 48 hours old, generally with a pale yellowish color.

Regardless of personal reason, the intuitive central theme of disliking certain foods involve a negative memory. Instead of conjuring pleasure, food can cause pain. Fear, sadness, the deep rift in your soul you push away merely to move on to happier times.

For my father, Asparagus conjures up his wildly abusive step-dad making "Canned Tuna Fish with Canned Asparagus Omelets" and forcing them down the hatch with the gusto of a tyrant conducting mass genocide. For my wife, Bar-b-qued chicken resurrects the bad times in life...single mom, broken home, working 15 hours a day, and fixing the same meal of "Dry Chicken, Bar-B-Que Sauce, with Broccoli Cheddar Rice". My cousin once barfed all over the dinner table because her broccoli casserole touched another food on her plate. "EV-ery-THING needs to be separated on the plate" my Aunt reported, defending this heinous action (thanks for the heads up, and I still HATE Broccoli Cheddar Casserole).

Every time my mouth waters for bar-b-que'd chicken thighs, my wife denies with a child-like "Yuck". I feel like that secretive overly obese person who buys McDonald's and sits in their car crying in an empty parking lot as they eat...similarly I wait for my wife to work a night shift leaving me home alone...all the while I greedily lick my chops, happy to be alone and indulge in my own filth. I keep checking through the closed blinds, sneaking another juicy bite, making sure she isn't coming home early to catch me with bar-b-que face, dirty neck napkin, and bar-b-que hands (Remembrances of watching The Playboy Channel when I was 14).

Observantly through my posts you discern I'm an adventurous eater. But why? Was it because Mom and dad MADE me try everything at least once? I used to sob and gag at the table when dad would yell at me to finish my omelet (dry, cheese all eaten, nothing but bland grossness), often compromising at going hungry and sitting in my room as punishment. What made me change in some ways yet still abhor Broccoli and Cheddar Casserole?

Our preference for food is a microcosm of our life. Regardless of negative memory, some cope and thrive while some never recover. For me, the bad memories weren't all that bad and my palate changed. I grew to appreciate my father's berating at the non-appreciation of my mother's dry omelets and I pressed on to enjoy new ventures, appreciative that they always encouraged/forced me to try new things. Other fallen citizens never got up the gusto to conquer new territory, thusly falling into the category of eating the familiar for whatever comfortable reason it invoked.

Regardless the category of eater ("New And Exciting", vs "Just The Familiar Please"), I am convinced we all Live to Eat. And I still contend that when done the right way, in the right setting, and with the right person (just like anything in life), the fear of the dreaded ingredients can be changed. Thusly pushing away the fear, darkness, and pain, only to liberate our hearts with the pleasure of something new.

The New York Diary

2011-04-11T09:38:00.004-04:00

Blow by blow, a tribute to the New York food scene is tedious and overdone. I don't want to be that New York hipster sneering at the latest craze. Instead, I will give you the running diary of the Jacobs's latest sojourn...

Thursday, April 7

4:45AM: Wake up, pack car, yell at wife, make coffee, need coffee, feed cat, apologize to wife.

5:55AM: Hop train, Meg goes right to bed. Me, I'm wired, delve into a book that inspires me to write in diary fashion (Thanks Bill Simmons).

10AM: Arrive at Penn Station, charge back into city life, check bags, head to David Chang's Momofuku Noodle Bar.

12PM: After telling the cabbie how to get there (this is a recurring theme and I don't understand why they need directions, they are fucking cab drivers in effing New York), we arrive at this little noodle bar. You can read your own reviews. But what transpired there was something new for us.

We have always wanted good Dim Sum, and in San Francisco we were sorely disappointed with greasy, salty, bloaty, and oft blandish lacking direction Dim Sum. Step in David Chang and we were welcomed with a soy soft boiled egg with onion crispies (a snack), move on with steam bun pork belly, pickled cucumber and kim chi, duck confit salad with poached egg, and blast your socks off ramen with poached egg and pork belly.

I'm an egg slut, he seems to be one too as just about every dish had poached egg on top...top that with a great regional pilsner/lager list, and we needed a nap.

2pm: Goaddamn this hotel, nothing but slack jawed small towned Americans and deer in the headlight foreigner tourists, neither really speak English and have no sense of being self aware...they are in my way, I am very sleepy, and they wont let us check in until 3....

2:05pm: To the bar for a few more nap inducing cocktails?

2:55pm: After an act of congress, license, passport, credit cards, and promise of naming our first born Olga, the lady at the front desk is convinced I am actually who I say I am, and can stay with my wife and we get our room.

3pm: Did they really just give us a room directly outside of the elevator? Eh well, at least we're tired.

7pm: Woke up thinking it was 7am, disoriented, feeling a bit unpolished after those harmless cocktails, time to rally to the rooftop bar. We meet up with Meg's friend from Driver's Ed and proceed to imbibe a cocktail and head up to "The Plaza Hotel" for cocktail lounge/jazz action.

8pm: We just went through an airport style security check to see jazz? Guys are walking around with ear buds on and sunglasses, still remains a mystery as to who was there. Nonetheless we enjoyed some "great" 12 dollar Sam Adams (Budweiser for 10 bucks, what a deal) and a nice lounge act by a band named "Lapis Luna".

10:15pm: Again, the cabbie needs directions to "Babbo" which infuriates our friend Tina who is now a local. Take the fact that his culture's norm is to treat women as 5th class, and the fact that she was kind of raised in that setting and now she is all independent and shit...we have an old fashioned melee in the cab about why he shouldn't be driving and we should. I love how he keeps silent as we keep jabbing about how cabbies should know where they are going especially for the fact that they are CAB DRIVERS for cripes sake...love it how he suddenly became deaf or forgot how to speak English...

10:45pm: Tina heads to Brooklyn, we head into Babbo where our flamingly gay waiter "Vinnie" happily helps us and makes eyes at me. Nothing wrong with gays, it's just that my wife loves to watch the flamboyant ones make eyes at me due to the one mishap years ago when I was date rape french kissed after a night of platonic male bonding...she still giggles, I still cringe (I guess I know how a ton of girls felt in college when I pulled that same trick).

10:46pm: Meg still making Vinnie and Matty jokes...

11pm until...

Round after round of pasta, clearly indicating we were searching for that amazing comforting 11pm and a few cocktails later comfort dish. Yes, the Lambs Brain Ravioli were great, sure the Beef Cheek Ravioli were great....indeed so was the Guanciale(Pigs Cheek Braised with Ramps). And actually, at one point into the Guanciale, I reminisced about my grandmother's pot roast (When you do that to me you're doing something). Mario Batali has to be given respect, look at what he did for food over the last ten years. However, nothing blew us away. We can't wait to taste more Batali places, and we adore the book "Molto Mario" as it has opened our eyes making Italian food accessible to the home cook. He is a hero and forever will be in my mind as one, I just didn't love the food...such is life.

1am: Wobbly, I pose for a picture with my wife by the centerpiece of the restaurant. I saw the picture the other day and said, "When did we take that?" Oh Vinnie, you sly little devil you with your "half glass" pours.

1:20am: Drunkenly I take lobby furniture next to our door and place it in front of our door as if it will act as a noise buffer and double as a "Do Not Disturb Sign"...it's my eff you to the hotel for their crap service and my annoyance with their tourist patrons.

Friday, April 8th

The point of the trip was to not eat at status fancy places and do New York on the cheap...er....Day one, New York 1, Jacobs 0...

9:30am: We vow to try and do it on the "CheapER"....

10:15am: My wife and I walk outside of the room and she says, "Ugh, who the hell would put this furniture in front of our door, effing hotel"...I shrug...

10:30am: (After an hour of my wife getting ready and me growing steadily hungry and staying steadily hungover) Ess-A-Bagel. You want New York in a bite of breakfast go here...surly yet helpful New Yorkers making and doing the Lord's work....Lox, Potted meat, Bagels, Pickled every kind of fish possible, Kosher, Non-Kosher. Two quick Bagel Sandwiches, couple of coffees, and we decided to kill time till our next meal.

11am-1pm: We proceed to walk about 5 miles exploring people, sights, and Central Park. I realize no one speaks English in this city, which really isn't bad since my Grandparents started that way. But I realized that it's not just American tourists who are dumb and inconsiderate...it's the whole fucking human race. Wanting to go into a crowd like Neo from "The Matrix" and start throwing elbows on "Mr. Smith"...

1pm: Salumeria Rosi...aka Meat Heaven. Lardo, Prosciutto, Pasta, Wine...Cesare Casella is a genius and god to me. We walked 2.2 miles home to make room for the next indulgence. Feeling less perturbed about tourists...

2:30pm: I just saw Kelly Kapowski from "Saved by the Bell"...she was pushing a baby carriage, looking a little plumper than I remember, hair a little longer, and wearing house slippers...but there she was. She froze and took an escape route when she saw me whip out the iPhone and probably loudly say, "It's Kelly Kapowski" (Hey, I just went to meat heaven and had a few glasses of wine, who cares).

I could give a shit about taking her picture, I was only calling Nicky Freitag, my old high school buddy and co-chair of the self appointed "Saved by the Bell Fan Club", devastated he didn't pick up I left a rambling 3 glasses of wine into the afternoon tall tale story of my run in with fate....he texts 5 minutes later his disappointment that I didn't accost her with one liners from the show like he did to "Mr. Belding" when he met him on a golf course.

Meg happily commented, "She looks a little busted, that makes me feel better as she was the standard of "Pretty" in high school"...true, but c'mon...she's Kelly Kapowski busted or not. I once dreamt she and I got married in place of Mark Paul Gosselaar on "Saved by the Bell Vegas Wedding". I think I was in my mid twenties then...

4pm: Nap

6pm: Collichio and Sons Tap Room...Ricotta Cavatelli, Brocolli, Parmesan, and Soffritto....that is what we were searching for...THAT was the comfort pasta dish. Drunken Onion Jam and Bone Marrow on Toast Points...and one of the best burgers ever with pickled ramps and bread and butter pickles (Burger = 70% Chuck, 30% short rib).

8pm: Dessert = Zepolle With Banana Malt Ice Cream & Butterscotch. Zepolle = Doughnuts of a higher calling!

10pm: Carnegie Club for jazz...imagine my delight when we find out it's a cigar lounge as well (Meg thinks I totally planned that). So we have a seat, light a stogy, and shoot the shit. All the while a semi familiar looking gent walks in with his wife and shares chat about just seeing the Charlie Sheen show/wreck/debacle, living in New York, and wanting to visit Annapolis.

We share some similar stories (food travel, etc), and I am temped to ask if he is a celebrity (cause he looks so damn familiar), especially after being on such a roll with my Kapowski sighting. Suppressing the urge, we hang out a little more and our new friend hands us his card and says, "Since you guys live in Annapolis and we've never been, shoot me an email of where to eat and go, we are looking to travel there in the near future." They exit stage left...five minutes later the bartender tells us we should make friends with this guy as he just picked up our tab.

Not a celebrity as far as we know, just a great and generous guy...less agitated about the idiots touring New York at this point.

12:30am: We decide to give it a rest, anxious to chase the night, but wise enough to let it go...you can't chase a good night out. When someone pays your tab, you now are playing with house money. Fold the deck and move on...

1am: Back at the hotel, wreaking of poorly ventilated cigar bar, I proceed to go "Cookie Monster" all up and down my Carrot Cake Cupcake from "Crumbs".

1:30am: Still picking crumbs out of my hair.

Saturday, April 9th

10am: We too shall be tourists, after arguing and nearly having a hypoglycemic meltdown we settle into Grand Central Station and find solace in burnt coffee and Falafel from one of the many market vendors. What is it about street food that makes me really hungry even as I write?

12:30pm: We simulate the immigrants coming to America circa 1800/1900s by buying tickets to Ellis Island and The Statue of Liberty. Here are the similarities, no English spoken, throngs of people, lines out the wazoo, people panhandling for money...just a little cleaner and less impoverished I bet. We sell our tickets to someone as we have no time for this (seriously the line was too long), snap some photos of our nation's landmarks and head up-town to "Craft Bar" by Tom Collichio with whom I'm in love with after last night's meal.

Nothing blow your mind good, but all around solid. Snacks, meatballs, drinks...

2pm: Let's walk to our hotel, grab a cab, and head home

3:45pm: We wait for a cab to take us a mile...

4:15pm: No cab...??? Oh, we are told it's change of shift, so we start walking and see a couple of the black Lincoln Town cars that love to gouge you and enjoy doing so without lube.

"How much to Penn Station?" My wife asks, "15 dollars." He replies..."Fifteen dollars, seriously? That's ridiculous"....The he starts with a condescending "Women are inferior" tone that sets my wife and me over the edge, "Fuck Off!" I say as we walk on...

Meanwhile it's now 4:30....25 minutes till train time, still not a mile within the station...enter warp speed walking, pushing foreigners out of the way, becoming ugly Americans and loving the adrenaline...

4:50pm: Hop on train

4:55pm: Train departs

5:05pm: Sam Adams, book, New York City Esq Pie as soon as we reach our doors.

Bromancing The Stone

2011-03-27T21:02:00.006-04:00

I cannot tell you how much a bromance can make a marriage stronger. I am at the point that every time me and the boys hang out it's all about the finer things...cigars, great Bourbon or Scotch, Wine, Steaks...anything that is great...but this more than about food today.

I just wanted to shout out the boys who helped me grow up, cope, regress, and grow stronger.

In your darkest times and in your best, things are always better with people. Lots and lots of people. Call it being dependent, or just call it the need for social. Me, I left rural for city...and I am convinced I am always "CITY". I always need that college community. Is that why Facebook happened? As much as my mother says, "Your father and I never grew up in the dorm life"...I'm glad I did. Loneliness is the balls in life, and in all honesty, I am deathly afraid to be alone.

So many times in life my friends have bet the odds on me and taken their losses. And when things kinda came sour on my manloves, I kinda bowed out...most of the time for the best..but sometimes a little too chicken.

I have never bet on someone who was down...I always bowed out. Or, if I bet, I hedged.

This weekend I decided to bet on the off horse...and...I think he was the better horse, it just wasn't his race.

It inspired me to write this post to everyone who bet on me, and those who made my life better,
and I think it was worth it.

If it's not, the money I laid down was worth it in itself. Because, hats off to my wife, she made me take risks, she made me open my eyes to the terror of bad happen, and she made me cope. Deal with this MattyJakes she said, you can lose, but you will live an epic life in trying.

0% chance she is wrong, 100% chance she is right.

Bros, In Different Area Codes...

2011-03-21T12:16:00.006-04:00

In college it was man city. I once passed out with my best friend spooning, and pissed the hell out of the girl trying to sleep with me. I thought it was classic, hell we all did in some homoerotic manly way. Now I look around, single night, no wife around, and there are no dudes to hang out with. Literally, last night I sat at home drinking Rum and Cokes, watching March Madness, and stalking my cat in order to Furminate. Honestly, I would sneak up on her, hold her down, and de-fur our bad little Maine Coon Cat.

Meg got home at 1am and literally all I could talk about was grooming our cat. "Look at all this fur! Oh My God!"

What has happened to me?

What the hell happened to those nights of male camaraderie? Where did the dudes go? Are you telling me that until I have kids I will be spending Mantown with my dog and cat, Jack and Coke? Surely I can't hang out in bars as a married dude. I've tried that, it's weird, And I don't really like it. Just like in the dating world, you generally don't meet your future wife in a bar...meeting reputable guys in a bar who don't already have a manlove? Next to impossible. Should I start going to church? Maybe cool guys hang out there...

Did all the good guys get married, start popping out babies, and reform? Do I have cooties? I have married the hottest woman in the world, surely if I can pull that off, can't I get a Mandate? In five years one bromance fizzled out(his wife was the pits), and I have one budding romance with my buddy JP...but he travels due to work...so it's like a long distance relationship. So, all of my bromances live in either Chicago or North Carolina. I got bros in different area codes (Rest in peace Nate-Dogg).

We talk of moving down to North Carolina almost on the daily and are making strides towards that goal and the little kid in me gets excited that he might get to reunite with his man friends once again...

Until then, and until I find the answer regarding what happened to all the quality brohams, I will continue to sit home, sip cocktails, and chase our cat around as "The Furminator". Yes, I do pretend I'm Arnold Schwarzenegger...

Lobster...and Head on Shrimp

2011-03-19T18:08:00.007-04:00

This will be quick, no pictures necessary, but I'm totally gonna plug Rick Moonen's Book "Fish Without A Doubt".

Rick Moonen is a god to the seafood world and has a great restaurant in Las Vegas. Have I been there? No, but my wife has, and she met Rick, and yeah she got his book and he signed if for me saying, "To Matt, Best Wishes, Enjoy the Ocean One Fish at a Time".

He is the beatnik chef who preaches sustainability and teaches the same. His book is a compendium on how to purchase, clean, and prepare fish any style. Don't know how to debeard a mussel or shuck and oyster...there is eduMAcation for that. Wanna know how to butter baste or butter poach? Sure...not a thing.

He thinks like an ocean creature...recreate the cooking environment to how they lived...example...Lobster.

I got no pictures, but I do have something new...

Salinity. Maine Lobsters live in salt water...if you're gonna steam them please, I beg of you try this out.

For every quart of water you use (Preferably 3 quarts for two 1.5lb lobster), throw in a 1/4 cup of salt (So that's about 3/4 a cup, seems like a lot, but this really works). We're all used to steaming this bad boys and girls, and we always see that whitish albumin looking stuff after the steaming. Do it this way, and you will be amazed. No white coagulated stuff, and they seem to come out of their shell easier.

Bring the water to a rolling boil, throw in the Lobsters, wait till the water rolls again and keep them for 1 minute, take them off the heat, and let them hang out in the hot water for ~10 minutes...drain, dry, eat till your are content (might need more lobster).

I have never had a better lobster, the salinity and clean taste was unprecedented.

Next preaching point, head on shrimp. "Ew, heads, yuck, you guys are so adventurous with your eating"...Not really, ball up guys, try something new.

1) Head on Shrimp are generally cheaper
2) The flavor the head gives changes the dish to something way better than the Cost- Co Shrimp Cocktail.
3) Prepare them with a little garlic, lemon juice, and butter in a pan after cleaning them.
4) Pull the head off and suck...

Bon Appetit

Double Rainbows and NOLA Cooking...

2011-03-12T09:57:00.006-05:00

After the rain finally subsided, Meg and I needed to get out of the house. We had brought our P90X workout video and bands, but were so tempted to go hiking. Like always, we made a game of it...

1) Hike new trail

2) Find good place to eat, have a post hike beer

Okay, Gorges State Park...Rainbow Falls..."Wonder why they call it "Rainbow Falls"?"

Yup...that's why, and once we topped the falls and returned back down, the rainbow was gone...effing cool!

2) Thirsty, must have post hike beer to replace valuable burned calories...must find decent place to eat...

Meg pulls out the iPhone app "Vicinity" and starts naming places off of Main Street in Brevard, NC...we can't find half of them, and as Main Street is starting to fade into residential oblivion, we spy "Hobnob".

The husband/wife team are from Buffalo, NY, and NOLA...the chef is from Maryland and trained in San Diego...sounds like a pretty good resume of culture. Combine that with a healthy list of local beers (Asheville NC, right around the corner was named the top beer city in the US...imagine my excitement).

And imagine our excitement when we saw "Po Boys" on the menu. Unfortunately in New Orleans, we were disappointed with our Po Boy experience as the first was closed, and the second was BYOB and they were out of their signature MEAT (Roast Beef). Alas we settled for Catfish and Shrimp Remoulade...not bad, but we wanted fried Shrimp and fried Oysters.

And there it was...Po Boy bread imported from New Orleans, seafood flown in daily...even the owner felt she got better seafood in landlocked Western North Carolina then she got on the coast....

Here here!!!

Shrimp and Oyster Po Boys!

Oh Boy!

Food Buzz...

And you bet, better than we had in New Orleans!

Cypress

2011-03-11T18:18:00.007-05:00

Can we call the James Beard Foundation? Seriously, I want them on line 1!

You all have read my blog, and know I come from a strange religion, wore glasses as a kid, and hated the south for the small towned mindedness it exerted on my freewheeling soul. My wife now talks of moving to North Carolina...yeah, we live in Annapolis, I know it's not technically the north, but I have reticent feelings on going back home...

"You a Yankee now? Think you're better than us?" (Say it in Southern...cringing)

The south = my worst nightmare...cold sweats, nightmares, banjo music....ughghghgh!

Then we went to our mountain house. "The Hillbillies" my Swedish Grandfather called them...."Mountain People"...back in the day, Cashiers, North Carolina was never the bustling center of culture. Even the surrounding areas, you couldn't hope for much. Now you can see where this blog is headed. And I am eight years too late, as that was when Cypress opened. Cypress gave me hope, quelled my night sweats, it is the Ambien with a Valium chaser to my horrific flashbacks of ridicule.

The shit has changed, and I was the one who was small minded. Cypress is the beacon of hope that has helped open my eyes to see I am now 32, not 5 years old with glasses and unable to keep Christmas and birthdays. As I have changed so has everything and like the mountain terrain, Cypress is perhaps that seed that somehow sprouts into a beautiful tree growing off the side of the cliff. "How did that grow"? Everyone says? It had no chance...we have all killed more plants in our back yard with the best fertilizer and soil...how the hell did that tree grow?

Chef Nicolas Figel had a dream just like everyone I guess. He consummated that dream in Highlands, North Carolina...about 30 minutes from our mountain house on Lake Glenville. Listen, before I start telling you about his hopes and dreams let me just say he cooked for us, and we sat at the chef's table of sorts...an open aired kitchen. Between artful dances with his staff and sous chef as he cooked, he talked with us, shared philosophy, and got jazzed that we took pictures like Japanese tourists. We didn't ask him soul searching questions like Matt Lauer and Larry King. But what he told us, he spoke with his food. We said, "We would be honored to have anything you would fix us, you have Carte Blanche to make us what you like."

He makes peasant food from around the world. That is what drives my wife and me. Comfort food...the chef's eyes lit up when I told him my last meal on earth would be my grandmother's pot roast or Swedish Meatballs. That is my blog. I don't have much more to add. Chef inspired me through his example of cooking for "Small Minded Mountain People"...he said, "Hell, I'm taking a chance, maybe just maybe this place will fly".

He opened in 2002, and he stayed open through the "Twitter" and "Facebook" era...wireless, direct tv, digital...you get the point. A pioneer, a hero who makes me feel about this big when I think about how small minded I have been about where I come from.

We walked into the restaurant and the ingredient du jour was featured. Fresh Tilefish...clear eyes, red gills, julienned green papaya (How the hell did they get that into Western Landlocked North Carolina?). The dishes were completely complex, something reminiscent of any great James Beard award winning restaurant we have ever been to. However, that seems like such a left handed compliment. This was different, original, clean tasting and a concept we have maybe thought of in dreams, but have never seen it carried out.

Okay Okay...here's the deal, this is what Meghan had, in pictographical order:

Malaysian Coconut Dumplings filled with Spiced Beef on Grilled Mango

Tilefish Over Lobster Salad with Green Papaya, and a Mint Cashew Sauce

On to my dishes: Spanish Tapas; Calabras Blue Cheese, House Made Spanish Flatbread, Roasted Roma Tomato, Olives, Serrano Ham

Korean Hot Pots....Tomato, Thai Basil, and Mint Broth, Beef Jerky set with Smoking Oak Chips, Jasmine Rice and Fried Shallots (Oh my god, mini Onion Rings!)

Not Pictured because we ate it too fast:

Lavender Ice Cream, Shortbread Cookies, Drizzled with Honey

Mexican Chile Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Sauce...this is a horrible description to the beauty we ate, it's like saying, "Yeah, the Mona Lisa is a picture of this plain looking lady from a long time ago." The slow burn on the back side of the throat as we ate this cake was amazing...holy shit...I wanted to be on television...in my mind we were on television...the meaning of finding this gem and the epiphany it gave me was something that comes around a handful of times in someones life.

A peasant food menu? A skeptic would say, "That's too many dishes...it's like a restaurant with 50 menu items, but only 3 things are palatable".

I'm sure they are the same skeptics who thought things in the south would never change...

God Bless you Chef Figel for giving me an insight to a bigger world.

Foie Gras Dogs, courtesy of Maiale

2011-03-11T14:21:00.006-05:00

All hail the Salumeria!

Years ago when learning about Mario Batali, and his voyage to Italy in order to learn and hone the Italian Craft, I learned about his parents. They have a Salumeria in Seattle, and people line up outside of the store daily. Mario's mother as well as other meaty crafters will slice treats for the patient patrons and bring "strip mall" Esq samples around the line that oft winds its way around the corner.

I have longed to go, I have urged and begged friends making the trip to please sample their weirs. No one has even taken the bait.

Then came Maiale (My-All-Ay).

Last summer, in Rehobeth, Meghan and I found Billy Rawstrom, proprietor of Maiale. He was searing some of his sausages on a portable burner at a local Farmer's Market. Tentatively I sampled his creations. My mood was kind of down...rainy colder day at the Beach, not really into shopping, and when I heard "Chicken, Spinach, Red Pepper, and Sharp Provolone Sausage", I was kind of bored. I have had that sausage before (never with sharp provolone). And to be honest, it had always given me the shits, and the taste was a salty muddled flavor, blah!

Not this time. Fresh, clean...that sharp Provolone just killed it, and in a good way. He also had a North African spiced Lamb Sausage...bingo bango as dad would say. I took his card, and serendipitously kept it. A few months later, after we consumed the meat, talked about how AWESOME IT WAS and how we wanted more, I cleaned out my wallet. And there was the card...it had an email address, it had a website.

50 dollars later we just received a HEAP of different sausages shipped on dry ice.

Today we climbed the mountain, today we had the "FOIE GRAS DOGS".

It's a rich smokey meat bomb that needs a little and sweet to counter the savoury. We paired these meat tubes of love with a local grilled baguette, slaw of homemade green cabbage and carrots (mixed with a little honey, olive oil, salt, and pepper), then we thinly sliced a Granny Smith Apple and sauteed it with sweet onion (seared in olive oil), just enough to caramelize the sugars.

Paired with a local deli Mac and Cheese, and more importantly with a Petit Manseng (Charlottesville, Va, Whitehall Vineyards) and Aprihop Ale from Dogfish Head Brewery (you could go with a good IPA and/or Reisling or Gewurztraminer)...

www.mailaecuredmeats.com

I have nothing left to say except I finished the meal and ran to blog, it was that good I had to share.

An Ode to Special Friends...

2011-03-11T09:59:00.007-05:00

Beef, Bacon, Dirk, and Alaina...

Now that is a hot title for a porno. Alas, read the title of my blog...you have to know it refers only to the special meat associated with the two aforementioned friends...wait a minute...that too could insinuate porno, damnit!

Well, doulbe entendres be damned, Dirk, and Alaina broughteth the Berkshire Pig and the glorious bacon and ham it provideth, along with a tasty steer comprising 70/30 ground beef...and of course, with good friends, they brought so much more.

The story of Dirk and Alaina Barth in our lives started at our honeymoon in the Ambergris Caye in Belize. Coincidentally, we all were married on the same day (in different places), and they showed up to the resort twelve hours before we were hit with two major tropical storms. I remember meeting them in the bar/lobby of our resort...they were checking email and fretting about the upcoming weather...I said something like, "Email and Weather.com isn't gonna save you here, we're going to town to explore and shop for a suitcase (ours busted on the flight in), wanna come?"

The rest of the friendship was cemented via duck and dive eateries and bars, one shady cigar shop (Dirk and I both swear the cigars were laced with Cocaine, Alaina just thinks we're both pussies), an even shadier place to buy a suitcase, and home made trash bag ponchos. In such instances we shared stories about our love for travel, eating, drinking, and in general having a good time through thick and thin. As the storms grew closer, we did too (amazing what booze, food, and shady establishments do for friendship).

The randomness of meeting complete strangers on our honeymoon, and the unlikeliness of remaining close and perhaps growing closer perhaps mirrors every danged thing that happens to me...Generally unplanned and random, yet somehow great!

True story, every time we get together, bad weather ensues for about a day...hence our most recent visit.

Unbelievably, Dirk and Alaina agreed to drive out to our mountain house 5 hours in order to stay overnight and leave the next day(due to work constraints). Alaina is in her second trimester (most of my friend's wives would have nixed that trip due to hormones and the general distaste that their husband would booze it up with MattyJ and his dad while she painfully watched sober), so her okaying the trip was unprecedented. And of course, as they drove in, torrential downpours had ensued. We had planned to go boating, and or hiking. Yup...Belize part two, except we couldn't all booze it up with abandon with the baby on board. Alaina is special, I cannot emphasize that enough.

Instead, we went for a quick walk on the beach shielded with more than trash bags this time, though Dirk and I thought about fashioning out some old ponchos for posterity sake. Armed with random nostalgic stories and some good cigars, Dirk said, "Though it's shitty weather, I can see why this place is special". After about 45 minutes of soggy walking we headed home.

Prior to embarking on the soggy voyage of Gun Point (the coined name of the point our house is located on), we had planned an election of eatings. Dirk and Alaina had purchased a quarter of a steer and a quarter of a Berkshire Pig from the local 4-H in Ohio (where Alaina is from). It was like being on Iron Chef with the secret ingredient of "4-H MEAT"! Literally I was excited about planning this menu for about 2 weeks prior.

The Menu:

Fresh Guacamole, Red Pepper Cream Cheese Dip, Truffle Mousse Pate, Cheese, Homemade Cheese Dip, Fresh Roasted Peanuts, Homebrew (Dogfish 60-Minute IPA Clone, Sam Adams Cherry Wheat Clone)

Farm Burgers (Sweet Beautiful Beef, Alfalfa Sprouts, Herbed Goat Cheese, Toasted Onion Roll, Topped with a fresh Hen's Egg laid at my parent's friends house)...and the most beautiful thick cut Berkshire Bacon...some of the best I have consumed. It was like candy, sweet sweet candy.

Parmesan Truffle Fries

Swedish Sunday Cake (Much like Strawberry Short Cake with fresh Whipped Cream

And Snoots....and more beer....prior to his first snoot, Dirk said, "What's a snoot?"

Snoot: The coined phrase for a shot of liquor, and a requirement for all guests to partake in upon their arrival (excluding pregnant women and teetotalers).

After such a wonderful dinner we all engaged in some card games, watched dad go into an epileptic fit as UNC beat DOOK, and proceeded to imbibe more. The girls all went to bed and the guys had "Man Town Campout with Gas Passing Action" on various homemade cots, couches, and air mattresses. The testosterone was magical, there were no complaints about cigar breath, "drunk leg", or snoring. Even awaking at 6:30am due to my mother and father's incessant need to eat breakfast that early could not keep me down.

For breakfast...Russet Potato Truffle Hash, Pan Fried Berkshire Ham Steak, and Easy Over Eggs

Oh God...I pause, grasping for words. I could go on and on and on. I still have visions of taking that steak and sopping up the creamy yellow yolk.

As Dirk and Alaina packed up to go (leaving the bacon, what great friends, woulda snuck it out of their bag had they not), we got a call from our caretaker that the dirt road was washing out. Knowing the road and the detours, dad and I set out as escorts in his pickem' up truck(man town in full effect), steering our friends to safety!

Two hours later the downpour subsided and the sun came out.

Seriously?

Yet somehow, we keep and remain friends with these really special people. Good friends hardly come often, and we find ourselves more and more frustrated that as we grow older, it's harder and harder to find people willing to look outside of their own worlds to share a laugh, dinner, similar interest, crappy ass hike in the rain...or even their Berkshire Pig and Special Beef. Yet here they are, Dirk, Alaina, Beef, and Bacon...

Matty and Meghan...

Cheers!

The Mountain House...

2011-03-02T08:38:00.003-05:00

I feel like such a turd every time I tell people, "We're going to our "Mountain House" this weekend, yeah, it's located in the Smokeys, it's our family's house." But that's what it is. My grandfather is a legend and when looking up the phrase "American Dream", his picture sits next to it.

Born in Tuberculosis Era Sweden, he lived through a lot of shit. His dad died of T.B, leaving his mom to raise he and his brother. 8th grade education, yadda yadda yadda, immigrated to Canada, then to Florida, eventually to North Carolina, he stepped into so much shit along the way and always smelled like a rose.

Thusly, this house is his legacy and testament to a lot of who he is and was. It's located on a lake, next to a couple of ponds, and I've been going there since I was four. Oh could I bore you with sentimental stories of learning how to fish, crashing my bike while humming the "A-Team" theme song while careening down a mountain road...

But what I find even more compelling is that I have gotten to be part of something so special all of my life. I get to sit there and pretentiously say things like, "Oh we'd so like to get to our mountain house more, but it's just such a far drive"...and inside I laugh about how absurd that sounds, and how I'm not meaning to be absurd at all. It's like a big guard saying, "There is something bigger to this, the smoke and mirrors of saying, "Mountain House" is just to distract you from the bigger picture of what this place is." It's the part of me that never grew up, or old, it just grew along with me. Everytime we go, I get giddy for all of the nothing we actually get to do. The smell of the woods floods my mind with magic nostalgia and all of the things in my mind's eye blurs with color and pleasure.

It's the shenanigans my dad and I have pulled, "Feats of Strength, Who can Knock Down the Dead Rotted Tree"..."My dad's black eye from drinking too much and hitting his eye on the deck railing" (how do you do that?)...my Grandfather giving me life lessons through our daily walks...taking my wife and sharing such a special place in my heart...it has been my Walden Pond...and as I pack our bags for our trip this weekend, the colors start to blur, and the smell of goodness starts to fill the air.

Food..

2011-02-28T14:26:00.004-05:00

Terrible always comes in threes right?

And it's been a shitty year last year right?

First my father-in-law, next Meg's grandmother...

And then my cousin Kate. Lord, c'mon, I guess you can take the older ones, it stings like hell, but seriously? You gotta take the one who just graduated college?

Yeah, no rhyme, no reason. Slick icy road, spun out car, traumatic brain injury, close curtain. I briefly grieved, sobbing in my living room by myself. Thank god for our puppy who licked away my tears, thank god for our kitten who purred her little heart out to make it better. And I've remained stoic, and angry, yet accepting this is what happened. C'mon...seriously?

With heavy hearts and armed with a good cookbook (Molto Mario, James Beard Award winner...don't leave home without it), we headed to North Carolina to provide some reprieve. My Aunt Linda and Uncle Paul share the same birthday, and painfully, their birthday is about 2 weeks after their daughter died...ugh.

But you know how the Jacobs do...and since you read my blog, and if you wonder where I get my kindred spirit, look no further than my father, and his brother Paul. When in need, drink...celebrate...lottery, funeral, birth? Drink more! Their birthday was coming up? Well...let's....

So we cooked from the soul...an old Italian standard one pot meal...Chicken alla Vin Cotto (Chicken in cooked red wine), Cheese Bomb Polenta, Arugula Salad with Fried Goat Cheese Balls (thank you Carla Hall), and a yummy orange/Grand Marnier vinaigrette, and Orange and Olive Oil Cake with a Grand Marnier reduction.

My favorite part of the meal was the hand holding prayer before we broke bread. My Uncle Paul always did that before good meals. He is such a GREAT cook...he always says the BEST prayers hinging on sincerity mixed with some great theatre...his wife Linda is a great artist and potter and has made us some of the nicest pieces for our wedding and for Christmas...and their daughter Kate could bake...man could she bake some good stuff. I shared that Meghan and I channeled Kate, putting all the love we could into their early birthday meal.

Grief really has no bounds, and I'm not sure how to grieve especially at this tragedy. And I guess sometimes grieving doesn't deserve tears. A thoughtful meal, a holding hand, or a listen to someones prayer. In our case, on that very day, we laughed, ate, drank, and came together to celebrate what we had.

A Weekend of Luck...

2011-02-28T11:02:00.006-05:00

Life gives the ebb and flow of tragedy, triumph, good luck, bad luck...

Last year, ebb...no flow...bad luck...not good luck. Anytime someone goes to the hospital in my family I casually say, "Okay, looks like another funeral to attend eh?" Call me a morose motherfucker. But that's how I see it...if it's your time, you're generally not ready. We don't make plans to die or check out, or get sick for that matter. Henceforth, you see why I enjoyed New Orleans so (err, too) much.

But don't forget that tragedy is part of life's great adventure, the great story we all get to live in triumph as it all passes us. There is plenty of SUCK in life, but goddammit there is plenty of good stuff too.

Enter our most recent weekend.

Set the scene...two days off...gala to attend...some errands to run...so here we go.

Saturday was like the epic deal day. Seriously, there are some days when you go to the store and they bend you over without any lube. You know you're getting soaked, and you just take it. But there are days like Saturday...

On our way to pick up our new Breville Elite Juicer, we take our Cuisinart Wine fridge hoping for a return. We received the wine fridge for our wedding, 11 bottle capacity. Within a year, it burned out, got replaced for free and upgraded to a 12 bottle fridge. Burned out as well...sat in the basement for 6 months and pretty much exceeded the warranty send back rule.

Two words....CRATE AND BARREL...okay, three. Register here for gifts...they took our crapped out wine cellar, and upgraded us to a 16 bottle fridge..no cost...SCORE! Fuck Macy's is all I have to say...worst and dumbest employees we have ever dealt with...they put the IN in INCOMPETENT. Move on from the wrath...walk slowly, deep breaths...ok.

Breville Juicer, check, fruit, veggies...check, new wine fridge, check...tux pants altered and some new AWESOME fox head gold studs with ruby eyes for my tux shirt...check (Thank you Mary Ellen for such a BEAUTIFUL gift for my birthday, they were her husband Mike's...so it's an honor).

Top that off with a new find called "Punk's Backyard Grill" for lunch, and we were rockin. By the way, Punk's Backyard Grill serves all the local fresh stuff and made to order with a sick selection of microbrews. Hell, they even have beer tasting/pairing classes. The owner makes his own brew, so there is your seal of approval!

Got home, unpacked all the new goodies, went for a 4 mile trail run with the dog and got ready for our gala. The gala was absolutely spectacular and an honor to attend. Our bosses were really nice to invite my wife and allow her husband (me) out in public...I even got to change underwear, shampoo, and shower...epic. Phenomenal party band playing anything from Michael Jackson (the black years) to Black Eyed Peas. So you're reading this and saying, "sure you had a great day, things went your way, good for you".

You're damn right good for us because here is the kicker..."Mr. Buzz" started kicking in, and they made the announcement that the silent auction was closing in 10 minutes. Like any good husband I requested the ability to scout a few of the items to see how much damage they could do.

And I found the 5-night, 6-day trip to Chile...the Andes mountains, to a posh little ski resort valued WAY MORE than it had been bid on. One flick of the wrist and bid number was chicken scratched as the highest bidder. With minutes to go, the CMO of the hospital outbid us and I said to Meg, "No way we can win now"...at that moment he looked back and said, "Oh my god...you guys are bidding on this? Oh, I'm so sorry, go ahead, we've been, it's lovely, you all take it"...

When the dust settled our little bid number stood alone, and we were high fiving each other at the randomness of winning a trip to Chile...such luck...such fortune.

Our night and entire weekend has become known as "The Deal Weekend"...just when you think there is no customer service left, or kindness, or cooler side of the pillow, your faith gets renewed. The little things, so lovely, so great. And by the way, did you see how great my wife looked in that dress?

NOLA, The Yin To My Yang

2011-02-28T10:12:00.007-05:00

In fantasies I pretend I'm Tony Bourdain. I drink, I swear, I pillage monstrous amounts of bad for you food thinking, "Yeah, I'm pretty invincible, look at Tony, he used to be on heroin, and look at him now!"

And then my belly kicks in (saying eff you sick pack abs), and the fact that I'm not 20 anymore, and I think about having kids, and the fact that I'm married and responsible, and that the world is about more than just me. Drunken swashbuckling and swearing can't be an everyday occurrence...hedonism has its bounds...and for me, the bounds stop at a creeping 36 inch waist and a wife who really adores the time we spend and remember together...something I always cherish and adore.

Enter New Orleans...

Fucking laid back, people who aren't plussed when you tell them how great their food is (cause it's kinda like rockin a hot wife on your side, you know you got it). There is sunshine there, it's half damn tropical as you're blowing down St. Charles on the streetcar packed like a sardine with a goofy smile on your face in the middle of February.

Bloody Mary at 11am in the French Market (oldest open aired market in the U.S.) after you nursed your wicked hangover with a freezy drink and some street jazz? Why the hell not? The fact that I was half buzzed cruising through this market with my wife and a fistful of cash and some raucous street food (battered and fried corn anyone? Crawfish pie?)....don't mind if I do. Commenting to my mother-in-law, "It's 1pm, I'm half drunk and buying shit, life is good", cannot be wrong...all with a goofy ethereal grin.

Our trip to New Orleans was planned as the epicurean adventure for my wife's belated unmentionable 30th birthday. The icing on the cake is that we have a friend who is from New Orleans, and her folks happen to have a spare condo in the Garden District that is open to anyone who wants to visit. Literally, they met us at the door, showed us around, gave us the keys, and left. When I told my friend we were once offerred a place in NOLA but we had to pay, she said, "Obviously they aren't really from down here".

And that is New Orleans. You read about the pride, the stubbornness to stay through Katrina, it's easy to condemn and make your ivory towers judgements. But it's so much more than a post hurricane ravaged Sodom and Gomorrah. It's a place that says, "Yeah, we may eat and drink too much, but fuck it, we will die anyway, get me another drink". It's a town of kindred spirits and a reason I felt so at home. Let your freak flag fly, wave it proud, but be kind, be good to each other.

In a world with so much repression, so much show and tell with no substance, New Orleans embraces the bad and the good and lets things be what they are. So apt to judge the pleasure we find in social interactions beaten into us by the puritanical principles of old. "Needing Jesus, or religion, or solace from the sin"...when merely all we needed was solace.

In food, drink, and extremely good company we found our solace. This month however, I found the gym, and the diet....

Oh New Orleans, how I love you...if booze and food had no calories, now that would be something.

I so hated wearing this fucking glittery crown...

Cooking with Carla Hall

2011-01-08T10:46:00.008-05:00

My wife purchased a Groupon to attend a cooking class with celebrity Top Chef contestant Carla Hall. At the time I think both of us were pretty busy with work and I said, "Sure, cool, that sounds fun". By the way, did I mention the class sold out in 3 hours? The other day...finally in January of 2011, we attended the event. Wow, what an honor!

Chef Carla Hall is a pretty down to earth lady who is a chef caterer (Alchemy Catering) and got her recent notoriety from Top Chef Season 5. As we drove to the event I said to Meghan, "As a caterer, how did this lady get discovered?" It wasn't like she was some hot shot molecular gastronome making sprays, foams, and pollen dusts with a bustling resume under the most famous Michelin Star Chefs...Meghan said, "I guess probably because her food tasted good".

Bingo! Chef Carla Hall apparently on a whim auditioned for season five, and made it to the big dance of up and coming chefs. And she was no slouch, making it to the finale and just missing the championship by a few mis-steps. In our opinion, she probably should have won. The gal has chops and is now featured on "Top Chef All Stars". She has gone from this familiar quirky and often hilarious down to earth character on season 5, to a favorite in our home. Watching her lights up the room and always brings a smile to our faces. She is real, and like a lot of the chefs on that show, she cooks with love and inspiration.

When you watch Carla, and you meet her, she always talks about adding love to dishes. She talks about ingredients like they are cherished children, saying that when you add the perfect mix of elements, the dish has "BADOW!"...and how the perfect restraint and combination of love will make that dish have feathers like a Peacock...oh yeah, and when you make a great dish..."Dance around, strut...literally, shake those Peacock Tailfeathers!".

The setting for this little "Cooking Class" was in her catering building. We dressed to cook and get dirty...but delightfully found out she was serving us a four course dinner with wine tasting menu, only to demonstrate and explain how she did each dish. Very very candidly answering questions about her experience on the show, her life's work of cooking, and showing us about her dishes while her sommelier paired those Peacocks with some really great wines. My regret of the night was not photographing the first dish of Smoked Coho Salmon Tartare...wow, best Tartare I think I have ever had. Meghan HATES smoked fish and said, "Wow, best ever, I would eat that every day".

The dishes were delightful, healthy, and pretty darned simple.

1) Smoked Salmon Tartare on bagel round, paired with Fume Blanc, Chateau St. Jean

2) Fennel and Winter Greens Salad with Molten Goat Cheese and Champagne Vinaigrette, paired with Oak Grove Chardonnay, Oak Grove 2009 (8 bucks a bottle...holy smokes, it was so damned good with notes of toffee, caramel, and vanilla).

3) Pork Tenderloin Medallions with Rot Vegetable Ragout, paired with D'Autrefois Pinot Noir, 2009

4) Butterscotch Mousse with Almond Tuile and Salted Almonds, paired with Offley Ruby Porto

Note per note, gosh it would be such a long blog. Everything was wonderful, and it all sounds so simple doesn't it? We looked at the menu and said, "Really, is that it?" Pictures, tastes, and smells overran the titles of the dishes much like anything Chef Carla does. Carla is a really normal and nice lady who isn't showy and traditionally a "Diva Chef". But she can cook, and everything she made was ridiculously flavorful. And that's what we loved about her...it was like a reincarnation of Julia Child...

Normal person who adores cooking, doesn't have any fussiness, and everything they turn out inspires you to cook more, and often because you walk away saying, "We're normal too, it's accessible, it's just love, add the love, make the Peacock, shake your feathers!"

Chef Carla embodies the reasons why we cook, and we thank her for inspiring us and giving us all those little hints on how to make our food have daily "Badow!"

2006 Jelly Jar Zinfandel and THE BURGER

2011-01-07T22:26:00.006-05:00

We make burgers, and I blogged about it. And tonight, we have made a burger to rival Laurent Tourondel. Balanced with a very important and wonderful Zinfandel, best we have ever drank named "Jelly Jar" from Napa.

It's a wine we have dreaded drinking, because we only had one, and it was our first trip to Napa. And we knew it would just taste like beautiful music. And it did...the name is derived for when the wine maker's ancestors made wine in jelly jars...but as you know, Zinfandel tastes like an amazing jar of Blackberry jelly.

The Burger...Whole Foods Local 85/15 Ground Beef, Spanish Herbed Goat Cheese (the silkiest we have ever sampled), Over Easy Egg, Bacon (Burger pan fried in Bacon Fat), Brussel and Alfalfa Sprouts, and fresh Onion Bun pan toasted in Bacon Fat...

Take any of that away, and the burger is no good. The melding of great ingredients, perfect ingredients, paired with a perfect Zinfandel...

Like us, just like us...And we say adieu to a wonderful montage, and bonjour to more saveur.

The Home Revolution...

2011-01-06T22:04:00.003-05:00

Locavore, Local, Stop the Corporate Giants! I'm inspired to write this after watching "Beer Wars". As a home brewer it piqued my interest because I absolutely have gone ape shit over beer. I guess at 17 I started saying, "In a year, I can vote and die for my country in war, hell yes, I can also imbibe."

As apey as I go over home cooking, eating at wonderful establishments, and experiencing food revolution innovation...I totally support whole hog, righteously fully, the craft brew movement. If you watch the documentary your blood will boil at the savagery and monopoly Anheuser Busch, Miller, and Coors has put on the little man brewer since prohibition. Due to their monetary success they have bought up the board just like the winner in the game Monopoly. It's the American Dream I suppose.

However, those companies have stood for mediocrity. Their flagship beers SUCK...and they really have survived on buying up the little man. Their actual beer ideas are poaching of great craft and regional breweries. I sit here with a Dogfish Head 90 minute ipa savoring the flavor of a righteously well made beer. As Carla Hall would say, "It was made with love, you can taste the love". Thank you Sam Calagione for your well thought brews!

So many of us, including myself say we as Americans live in post modern Rome. The calm before the giant collapse. Like so many others I feel America is in it's twilight. I hope it's not the case however. In two-hundred years we have lived the "American Dream". And in humanity, I think our corporate success first and dreams last culture is beginning to fail us. Is it the time of rising for small businesses with actual organic and soulful ideas? Whole Foods is cornering that market when you shop at their establishment. Whole Foods = you support small, you are an individual, and you have a mind of your own to take down corporate food...and I feel it's catching on.

Listen, I home brew and cook at home with my wife because we too have love to give to our ingredients. Isn't it time you do the same?

Going Bamboo for Christmas

2011-01-02T14:12:00.016-05:00

The 2 weeks preceeding our Christmas vacation were pretty brutal. Aside from working almost 2 and a half weeks straight, my cousin ended up in the Neurosurgical Intensive Care Unit with a Traummatic Brain Injury. Meghan's sleep schedule and work schedule were erratic. Then she got into a small fender bender while I was away tending to my family. I've never seen her more at her wits end regarding an absolute emotional collapse. Suffice it to say, Fort Lauderdale was to be a huge break.

When our wheels touched down our spirits lifted. Warmth, sunshine, and the freedom of not having any responsibility except for grabbing our Rent-A-Car and heading to our B&B was liberating. They say it takes 3 days to find vacation mode. We hit our stride on day one.

Immediately after check-in, we walked to a great little beach bar named "Aruba". On the beach, next to the pier, live steel drum music in the background...heaven. And moreso...Shot of Johnny Walker Red, Corona...feeling great. Time to eat? Why yes, plate of Conch Fritters and the Lobster Salad Sandwich.

The sandwich needed salt, and needed something more than untoasted boring wheat bread. It needed a little more texture. I would even add Bacon. But the fritters...oh, the fritters...totally deceiving. On the outside, they were really dark brown...I thought they were burned. But on the inside, moist, doughy pillows of savory goodness with a right fine amount of conch. A couple more Coronas, and the walk back with a big stinky cigar had me feeling the vibe.

My vibe was the ghost of my last trip with my parents, six years ago to be exact. It was and continues to be a great memory. I was starting to date Meghan, my grandfather stayed with us in probably his last trip to Florida, and I feel like my parents finally started settling into a relaxation mode on vacation. Look, relaxation with mom and dad installs housework, yardwork, and then fixing dinner. It's something I cherish...but laying on the beach...not their forte. And finally, dad and I lounged on the opposing lawn chairs with Margaritas in hand for 20 minutes...or maybe 30. Listen, that's a HUGE step. I think mom even lounged by the pool while I painted. Suffice it to say, my relaxation mode hit its stride because I remembered all the great memories, and seized the moment with my new crew. Six years ago, I dreamt about dating Meghan. And there I was...married to the love of my life, hand in hand with her on the beach, same B & B Villa, same sun, same crystal blue waters, and seafood, mmm, seafood.

Each day of our Christmas was wonderful. Mary Ellen said, "This is the least stressed I have been for Christmas". And I would have to agree. We were on vacation and we officially went bamboo never leaving our place except for Christmas Eve and our jaunt to South Beach. On our last day, I spoke to my Uncle Rob on the phone and said, "I'm so sorry we didn't hang out more (we actually hung out three out of our 6 nights). We really enjoyed ourselves with you." And he replied, "Oh man, I can't believe you hung out so much...family can be the pits, we were just so happy to see you guys."

In a time where Christmas can just get ridiculous with expectations and ostentatious presents, it doesn't surprise me that people give up on the holiday. I think it's our innate need to please...we give, and we give, and at some point when we can't give anymore. Exhausted, we become embittered. The next thing you know, you're so goddamned bitter, the magic of Christmas is lost. This year for me, Christmas was losing its magic. Call it working too much, call it a shitty year, call it cold winter depression. We weren't ready to celebrate, we weren't able to give anything more than what we had. Yet there we were, becoming recharged by the warmth and sun of Florida, and the hospitality of family who enjoyed us just for stopping by. Christmas was re-invented. Sometimes, you just gotta go bamboo.

The Stone Crab...

2011-01-01T18:28:00.005-05:00

Listen...this is something I just DON'T GET! In Florida they go NUTS for "All You Can Eat Stone Crab". Nuts I tell you. See that little bugger? There's no harvesting of the full on crab...nope. You dive down, or trap em up, pull a claw off, and send em' back to Davie Jones's Locker. They regenerate their botched claw while living as "The One Armed Man I Tell Ya"(sorry for "The Fugitive" reference), and live to give another claw at another time.

Great idea, especially for all the hippie tree hugger PETA types. Our first encounter with the ole' Stone Crab was on the Ambergris Caye in Belize. Fresh off the reef, crabbers would chug in on their little Jon Boats with a 5 gallon bucket toppled with meaty claws. Served on some Jasmine Coconut Rice and Peas, lime, and butter...can't be beat. Claws...meaty, tender. But the Floridians and their ways astound me...

Served on Ice, pre-cracked, with mustard sauce...

Dood...I tried...and immediately asked for warm butter. And I ate about four pounds worth of claws..they weren't bad...and I needed food to soak up the beer. My uncle however wrote to my dad and said, "I'm not sure Matty likes the Stone Crabs"...me guesses he could tell I wasn't a fan of the mustard.

Listen, they were fine. And I love seafood. But to go this crazy over ice cold claw meat? I don't get it. The chilled claw has no flavor except that of the warmed butter. And there is no more crab to pick...imagine if you ate Maryland Blue Crab and all you got to eat was a cold claw...

My suggestion, and it may IRK the traditionalists, but I suggest you serve em hot, uncracked, and with plenty of clarified butter. Mustard is for Hot Dogs and Pastrami Sandwiches...not crabs. And another thing...cracking the crab is part of the journey. You ask anyone who "picks" Maryland Blue Crabs...and they will tell you it's a religion. It's an event...you drink beer (and you can't drink more than three because you get too engrossed in picking crab while salivating), you conversate, and you get all giddy at the treasures of lump meat you excavate from the cavernal labyrinths of esteemed crab.

Pre-Cracked, Cold, Mustard?

I must be missing something.

South Beach

2011-01-01T17:47:00.004-05:00

For the 27th of December, my wife wanted to head to South Beach for her big birthday. It's a snappy drive from Lauderdale by the Sea, so we all said, "Shoot, why not", hopped in the rental and drove down.

Couldn't have been a better day to go...not too crowded at 10am, a cinch in parking, and quite the pleasant walk through Ocean Drive (which is "The Strip"). Biggest gripe were the countless restaurants hocking their wares, begging for you to come in....ugh... But big in culture, panache, and soul.

I myself had a great time poaching a few local hand rolled Dominican cigars. We absolutely fell in love walking through Espanola way and I ducked into a great little french cafe named "A La Folie" for a "Snack". The girls were shopping and Meghan kept asking me to look at all the things she was about to try on...low blood sugar and all, I said, "Look, I need a coffee, I'll be right back". 5 Minutes later sitting down, I called her and said, "Dood, gotta come in here for a treat". She was totally annoyed I didn't wait up...I laughed.

The Cafe Au Lait was served in a huge soup bowl...I looked around, bemused and bewildered, and saw people just picking up their bowls and drinking. Reminded me of a time at the dinner table with my Uncle Paul eating soup...I went to drink the last of the broth from the bowl and he interjected, "Matty, gotta ask the chef if you can pick up and slurp"...

I intended to walk in for a quick cafe au lait and pastry, but the pastries were in the oven...so I settled for a Crepe Normande. Known for their apples and Calvados in Normandy, this crepe gets it's chops from the tart sauteed apples and Calvados creme sauce. Honestly I had two or three bites and savored. The girls came in from shopping and were delighted to share this delightful bite.

With snacky hunger sated and lunch hunger closing in, we checked out a couple of quaint art deco hotels for future stays and debated where to eat.

BLT Steak by Laurent Tourondel, at Hotel Betsy caught our eye. You might recognize this chef from such shows as "No Reservations" as "One of the Best Burgers in America". Guilty from not venturing to his establishment sooner (we live 40 minutes from his place in DC) we settled for a go.

Beautiful setting...a little too chilly to sit out despite the glass heaters outside. We settled on a few morsels that plain out rocked our worlds.

Heirloom Local Tomatoes with Bermuda Onions, Russian Tarragon Dressing, Gorganzola, and Charred Onion Compote with Micro Basil....a superb combo...try a silky Goat cheese if you don't like Gorgonzola...but I insist you try it first.

Gruyere Popovers...they actually hand you the recipe when they bring out the treats...that could be our next holiday bread for the table.

Potatoes Au Gratin...really good with three cheeses, but nothing to really get excited about.

BLT Burger...no Wagyu, no Kobe...straight up Angus cooked Medium Rare (the way God wants your meat to be). Perfect bun to burger ratio...and by far one of the best burgers I have ever laid hands on.

Sure, we should have gone to a down home dirty old local joint...but have you ever had those days where you just don't want to plan all that hard to find the "hard to find out of the way place?" I have an App on my iPhone called "Best New Chefs" from Food and Wine Magazine. Literally, I let the phone use my location, and I clicked on the button, "Locate Near Me"..... And 0.2 miles away popped up BLT Steak.

Call South Beach what you will....flashy, showy, pompous, shallow. There is not ENOUGH money to have down there. You make 100 million dollars on a 5 year basketball contract? You aren't wealthy my friend...you are doing okay, and you could be poor if you don't watch yourself. Great place to play and visit, and I would go back for a day or two anytime. It's honestly a wonder of culture, people, and food. My senses were just vibing off the energy and I felt hip. Where's all the sooped up Guido's from "Jersey Shore"?...lemme at em'!...on second thought, leave me alone, I'm a prepster for life.

We got out in the nick of time around 4pm, just as the traffic heated up...we dodged it all, and I smoked a great Torpedo Cigar on Lauderdale Beach to celebrate. Ah, a freshy, rolled on the thighs of a beautiful Cuban virgin...at least that's what I think they said...

Airports, and Why Florida Doesn't Suck...

2010-12-29T13:47:00.002-05:00

Help! We're Stuck! Stuck in the Mother-Effin Airport! Trying to beat the band, and make our way home early to rescue our baby kitten and puppy, we decided to fly stand by. Waking up at 4:10am, not only to be skunked once at 7am, but then twice at 10am. And here I sit, after watching a NetFlix on Demand, having a few pints, charging our computer and phones at the bar...and oh yeah, commiserating with my mother-in-law whose flight was canceled and now re-vamped to a 12:10am arrival to Raleigh.

We had the chance, we coulda, we shoulda just stayed at the beach. Airing out the last day of sun, gettin' straight red-brown tans only to saunter into our late flight complaining of the hot sun, the great winter tan lamenting the fact we should have tried to fly our earlier.

Well, we tried. No regrets. And for the amount of money it would have taken to reschedule, we've taken to the bar in food, drink, and the Best Buy machine to purchase goodies for our laptop in order to view our Netflix on demand.

But seriously, am I complaining? Hell no, no way would I complain about this. In fact, I've enjoyed this little adventure of airport squatting. A real day of napping, drinking, movie watching, people watching, and no control of when you leave except when you actually booked your flight...unless it got cancelled.

Small notes...our bartender has been great...the food, surprisingly Florribean, fresh, and good...note to self...start airport chains of yummy food and not the crap everyone is subjugated to eat. Imagine if you design a Vegas like atmosphere of airport celebrations...Imagine?

Listen, all my life I grew up hearing why Florida sucked. "The Traffic, Rude People, Too Busy, Blah Blah Blah". And all the while I never really hated it. It was my folks who outgrew the hustle and bustle of city life way back when. They love to be bumpkins...they love the country and are personified country mice. Hustle Bustle you say? They look the other way. And there is NOTHING wrong with it. Except I LOVE city life, especially in little doses. Because there are still doses of the stories and the cultures I would never know had this little country mouse never journeyed to the city.

Good day to you Miami City Mice from this little country mouse.

Ah...stories to follow from our Fort Lauderdale Christmas Mis-Adventures!

Das Kegerator

2010-12-29T13:16:00.006-05:00

"What's that"? I asked my friend Samantha...who had just bought a new house. As she was showing us the pictures and layout of her new digs I spied this ancient white fridge...rusting away and hanging out in her future man cave basement. "Oh, it's an old fridge" she replied. Feasting my eyes I wondered on the magic I was beholding...1950ish, rusted, still working, glorious fridge.

K-E-G-E-R-A-T-O-R?

Yes friends, yes indeed.

Best present ever from a friend...dropped off on our back patio intact and still running. My Cuban buddy said, "That's the same fridge my folks have back in Cuba...still runs".

Wheels spinning, mind grinding and turning, grocery list in hand, we went to work.

Outfitting a future Kegerator is modestly expensive. The double barrel tap system with CO2 was about 500 bucks, the endless cans of spray paint, furniture dolly, sandpaper, outdoor electric cord instead of the factory indoor cord, cord protector shield, hole saw bit, wrong drill bit...I guess we could say it cost around 650 to outfit.

So why didn't you just buy a brand spanking new one Matty J? Other than the quote from my Cuban friend, here is more reason.

See from the picture? It has character. And...it's something anyone drools about. It's a conversation piece. People have come over to our house just to worship the kegerator (guess you have to keep it filled). Hell, my old friend Dick Nesbit gave me the idea 7 years ago when he had us drag up an old Sears Kenmore from a faculty housing basement...it became a magic faculty party machine. We all marveled at it....it was like talking to a proud father about his kids...whatever party he had, was mo' better because of his beloved Kegerator.

Armed with two tap handles, it is equipped for two home brews at a time and has a super cold freezer for storing mugs, DAS BOOT (thank you to my bromance JP)...it's a liter sized glass boot fit for drinking beer, and MEAT. What man wouldn't camp out in the freezing cold just to wake up and have a pull from those stainless steel nectar dispensers? Pull some meat out to thaw, have a few brews while you grill, and what the hell could you ever bitch about?

I am a Smoker...I Refuse to Quit

2010-11-10T06:57:00.005-05:00

Coming out of graduate school I dreamt of one day owning a few things...being that I had accountant and banker roommates who worked hard, played hard, and were able to conduct their fantasy football leagues from "work" as well as collect nice paychecks to buy nice man stuff...I was jealous seeing their heavy stack of accouterments....flat screens, dvd's, dvr's, poker tables...you know, man stuff.

So, when Meg and I first moved in together our lot in life was to purchase a flat screen. Sony Bravia...42 incher. You should have seen how we stuffed it in the Mini Cooper the day after we got engaged. Literally, we poured out of the car in the parking lot of our ghetto apartment like clowns. Very discreetly, we snuck the flat screen to our 2nd floor apartment under cover of a big wool blanket. "Careful", we thought..."Can't let the neighbors see this gem"...pretty smart of us considering the neighbors next door got their door kicked in by the S.W.A.T team conducting a drug raid. Funny how the last night of our residence there was a pissy drunk latino who kept trying to get into our apartment at 3am...what was I doing up? Oh, I was drinking a few coldies and finishing off the remainder of our pizza from a few nights prior...needless to say, we moved out the next day into our new house.

Ah, back to the story. After watching these roommate clowns from back in the day cash in on their early successful jobs, I decided I NEEDED and HAD to have a few quintessential things once I was finally all grows up. Cool enough indeed my girlfriend, fiance, and wife (all the same person) signed off on these things, never revoking my man card, NOT EVEN ONCE. God bless that lady! Oh, yeah...so what is on the list that every man needs to have?

1) Vegas Poker Set...check..got that for an anniversary gift

2) Home Brew Kit...check...got that one for an anniversary as well

3) A wife who says, "Honey, you haven't made any beer lately, can you make some for Thanksgiving"...BONUS...Score!

4) Another flat screen t.v...a blue ray wireless DVD player...

5) A Smoker for smoking meat...

Yes, our friend Bryan retired his smoker to us for an upgrade. Boy do I love it when a guy I only know through my wife (because they used to be neighbors in college) Reunites with my wife via Facebook, and we start hanging out...and then he says, "You need to have a smoker Matty...here have mine...for FREE!".

Ding ding ding! Can you think of anything better? And then your wife becomes a junkie to all web sites devoted to smoking meat product. Literally, she has sent a countless barrage of recipes all pertaining to the art of smoking meat (stop right there...just stop the dirty thoughts). And by gosh we have had a great time experimenting with this propane smoker and the array of different wood chips available.

Gotta say I love the propane simply for the fact I can set it at one temperature and not worry about stoking a fire...it's easy..that damned easy, and EVERY man needs this little toy. Haven't you noticed you always flock to the house where bar-b-que'd meat is a plenty? My late father-in-law could attest..some of the better pulled pork I had eaten was done on his mega pit...no lie.

Rather than boring you with the trivial "Here is the report of what we have cooked", I'll transition to the next man gift...

The Kegerator.

I have acquired a 1950s Hotpoint refrigerator which I am currently painting "Corvette Red" and fashioning for outdoor homebrew dispensement.

Reports and photos will follow...but my curiosity is piqued at the fact and the chance for hilarity to ensue if any of the neighborhood finds out there is readily available beer so long as they open the fence gate, stroll in, and pour themselves a pint. Seriously, the Kegerator is to be housed on the back patio under the deck...oh wait, I just gave away too much info...ah, you still don't know my address..okay, some of you do...

Picture my wife discovering our recovering alcoholic neighbor passed out at 5pm in our back yard...better yet, picture the ghettonians from 4 blocks down trying to smuggle the fridge out of the back yard (I have placed it on a furniture dolly for better transport)...it would be like seeing Ice Cube and "Smokey" from the movie "Friday", trying to rob me in broad ass daylight...oh the mental picture.

And then, picture the police wondering why these hoodlums are pushing a "Corvette Red" fridge on wheels up the road...cops pull over, arrest the guys, "Confiscate" the fridge for evidence and get loaded on my homebrew right there next to my house (Picture the movie "Superbad" and the drunk cops).

Later, I pull in, see a few guys arrested in the back seat of a police car, and see some rowdy officers dancing around the keg, chanting, bowing to it...

Being drunk, they easilly comply to return the Kegerator on a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, and then it returns back to my house like some bad journey...a "Milo and Otis" for beer lovers of sorts...shoot me if you don't remember that movie.

Then the officers agree to let Ice Cube and Smokey go...we all become friends...the world unites.

Oh what a story that fridge will tell...my imagination runs wild...

That Kegerator could spell the unification this nation has been waiting for...no wonder why Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Ben Franklin all brewed beer...

Why Virginia Wine Doesn't Suck...

2010-11-04T09:46:00.008-04:00

Virginia isn't just for lovers anymore...although the wine may aide in the love department. Quickly, Virginia is establishing itself in our view as something special. The special ingredients other than the majestic views, nice people, and growing cuisine with "think local" inspiration, are the grapes. Clear and simple, the grapes are quickly being brought to the forefront with the restrictions the vintners are using to craft a thoughtful and relevant wine to people who actually like to drink wine.

Let me digress. I am a Carolina boy at heart I guess. But comparing the neighboring states's vineyards should be peanut butter and jelly...both good separately but nice when compared. To be honest, peanut butter and astringent vinegar. God, I hate to say it but Virginia (especially in the Charlottesville region) has such a leg up in restriction and know how...compared to the North Carolinians who tend to predominantly hick it up with scuppernong varietals for the winos ducking out of Baptist church. The Charlottesville and Northern Virginia Region (Okay, Sunset Hill and Hillborough especially) has studied the terroir and adapted the right vines to their soil and extracted the right juice that can actually sort of hang with what the mainstream produces.

Sure, a lot of the wine is still "young" per se. But some of it by Jove is making strides to actually make it's own way in the world. Literally, we just had the Veritas "Cabernet Franc"...berry berry good...god do I love a nice Cab Franc..and that's good for Virginia as it grows really nice in their soil. Now imagine, we had half a bottle...and as the pizza consumed our wine, I yanked out an old favorite Sangiovese from a year old Italian wine dinner. Yawn. Not bad...but we just tasted Barboursville Sangiovese today...I gotta say...Virginia 1, Italy 0. Such an anecdote, and 99 times out of 100, Italy wins...France wins, and so doth California. But like every NCAA tournament, we all love a Cinderella. And when the Cinderella becomes a prominent sweet 16 contender year in and year out....they become old hat...what's the latest rage they say? Welcome to the latest rage, move on over old hat...

Dining at the Clifton Inn

2010-11-02T21:33:00.006-04:00

So angry from the long trip of the w(h)ine trail(please see two entries prior), we rolled into the Clifton. Attempting to compensate for the lack of carbohydrates from our meat and cheese with cracker, lotsa wine lunch at 2pm...I mandated McDonald's (No worries, we held back with a double cheeseburger and single). As we drove up the drive to the Clifton and saw the Relais & Chateaux insignia, I thought to myself..."Meg, throw the McDonald's wrappers in back seat, out the window, burn them, stuff them under the seat...anything"...my god was I embarrassed. Hurridly, doors slamming and distracting the host from our hamburglarery, we walked up to the matre d, shaking his hand and helped him welcome us to some kind of wonderful.

God do I want to talk about the upgraded suite for no reason, the complimentary Madeira inspired by Jefferson...the fact we have our own porch, sitting room with windows abound. But I MUST tell you about our dinner. Our fancy night. Our night that mandates no sexy time after...the one where you feel so sated...like Thanksgiving or Christmas....so damned stuffed...you are happy to not have to bid adieu to family, so happy they're not still hanging around(picture that crazy Uncle who just wont leave and all you can do is wish he would, cause you're just SO FULL).

That's us...tell me 10 months ago that I would be dining in this opulence, I would laugh. "Surely you jest little person", I would say..."I have been to the mountain, have you seen my food resume?" "The Inn at Little Washington, The Laundry, Michael Mina, Gary Denko, Komi, Volt, Cindy Paucin"...I guess our list grows.

And our list plain out stopped at unexpected innovation. Think about it. You dine at "The Inn at Little Washington" or "The French Laundry" and nothing surprises you because you know everything MUST be the BEST...OR IT SUCKS! Weigh our differences between the two, Chef O'Connell wins outright. But you come here...much like the McDonald's in the car and the drive up to the special insignia...we expected nothing close to what we have come to experience.

More or less, it's like going on a blind date, expecting to see Rosie O'Donnell, and there you have it, Gisele Bundchen arrives.

By my life, accidental has been the best ride. Ask me about my soul mate, the one whom I adore? She came to me after a parody act on stage, goofing on a graduate school professor. No expectations, I found a priceless artifact from heaven. And you're asking me, "Are you comparing the food at The Clifton to your angelic wife?"

Well, "Does the food compare?" Well, someone was singing at the chef's table. It was no angel, and he has been seen in the Devil's choir. Fail to differentiate heaven and hell, you have no difference who actually sang the praises (In one life, it coulda been an angel).

As I write I wonder should I list the menu outright, should I blog detail by detail, or should I just hit the highlights of the chef's creative juices? And then I wonder, it does no justice to just mention what the chef did without mentioning the staff and their elaborate detail to everything. Then I think about what the sommelier said as I casually mentioned while walking out, "I just wanted to dance on the kitchen table". "I think they might have liked that", she said.

Hell yeah I thought...pirates, swashbucklers making their way through cuisine like pioneers, conquerors, or the people who defended their beloved land and pressed onwards, sometimes diving on their own swords out of allegiance to greatness. Their flag was in their food, their own locavore movement of "Good". There was no foolin' around. There were no frothy foamy trickery of gimmicks on a plate. Food appeared, nothing but the whole food...God Bless Grilled Squash, Squash Puree, Toasted Squash Seeds, and Braised Rabbit. God Bless the home made pasta with Roasted Butternut Squash Pasta ,and the Chicken Liver Pate with Char...God bless the fact they incorporated a Char...and I don't mean Artic Char, but burned Char to just about every course. THAT was the inspiration amongst many other things that made the menu unique and GREAT! THAT was the secret ingredient, the spice if you will. Ninety-nine of One-Hundred chefs would have effed that up, guaranteed.

Per our usual routine at the beginning of the meal, we gave the menus back to the server and said, "Just have them pick what they want for us, we'll take the five course tasting." And mid-way through the meal the sous chef and one of the youngest of the fold looked at my wife and said, "How can you just say, "Pick out dishes" and not worry"? And we thought, and trusted, and I guess we just knew. Replying with conviction we uttered, "We know it is all going to be good, we wanted you to pick out your favorites". In an unspoken word, at a chef's table, you can feel the energy, the passion, and the know how that whatever makes its way to your mouth...it's like something mom or grandma made. When it hits the nostalgia meter...the chef has transported you home.

That is a Chef's table, that is a kitchen.

That is the Clifton Inn.

Next time, I'm jumping on the freakin' counter top, grabbing copper pots and banging them around!

The Locavore

2010-11-02T14:45:00.006-04:00

Local, fresh, slow food...yes, it has taken us by storm...things Alice Waters tried to create way back when...and the kids are finally getting it right...thank you East Coast for finally listening to our Left Coast brethren. And as tired as it seems as everyone advertises Organic and Fresh, and Local...it's the way I have always eaten out of necessity growing up (you own a garden because it's cheaper than buying or eating out), and the way we would have it if we were not tied to any family in the states.

Yes, we would move...preferably to Italy or France...possibly Australia. They do it right...seasonal, wine, work, exercise, controlled yet delectable portions. FUCK Appleschmies and TGI-McFrankfurters! There, I said it.

As we were wheeled into the ambiance that is "The Cliffton Inn" last night, the house staff suggested we might try, "The Local"...a place outside of Charlottesville proper plopped down in Belmont. And it's in short a proper locavore "Gastropub"...think great pub food with a gourmet flare, local brews, local wines...local spirits...yeah, you get the point. College aged kids behind the bar who think their food is great...and...

So stick a minute with me on this. Back in the day of Chapel Hill...college days mind you, 9 years ago...we had no such thing. Sure, we had a couple of places you would take a date when you wanted to get laid, but they were "fancy"..they weren't hip, they were just "fancy"...the bars we had were smoke laden dens full of fried food and "South Paw Light" for 2.75 a pitcher. Micro-brew? Wine? Silly talk, just silly!

Fast Forward...these post grads who are definitely wicked smart are the ones running the new food and drink movement. It's cool to be smart, goofy eclectic, driven, and "Brooklyn Sheik". These unkempt bar maids and bros are dressing in their thrift store clothes and dabbling in the philosophy of mixology and roaring 20's drinks. Matter fact', it's hip, it's cool...and goddamn it, I like it.

Step into "The Local". All red brick inside that's been so shined up it looks lacquered. The unfinished ceilings give it the polish it needs. Luckily, it was 1/2 bottle wine night upon sauntering in. And here's the thing. The folks of Charlottesville are so proud of their wines, it's really something special...ask for the wine list...the locals are in the front of the book, want something less risky, sure venture to California or France...but they are out there in front, ready to be tread on and judged...and they ain't bad. Me, being w(h)ined out took the hopville highway towards some high gravity hop resin goodness with froth topping...Meg, she took the vino to the head and bagged about 3/4 of it for safekeeping at our inn(she's a lightweight and only Jacobs via marriage).

The food...

Well, by accident and great hospitality we were "comped" two dishes.

So, that makes four apps we got into...and good golly we wanted more, but we could tamp nothing more into our stuffed gullets:

1) Cornmeal battered and fried oysters with a caviar and local vodka creme and a mixed green and red beet salad

2) Crispy Shrimp with a black sesame and ginger seaweed salad

3) Truffled Mushroom ragout with house made fettuccine and shaved Parmesan

4) Black truffle and cheddar mac and cheese

Dyn-O-Mite!

Long live the locavore movement, this could be America's saving grace...Lord knows the folks in Charlottesville are well on their way towards saving the ones who dare to care.

The W(h)ine Trail

2010-11-02T08:41:00.008-04:00

Meg couldn't wait to take me to Charlottesville for my birthday. Ten months later after a few family tragedies, the day finally came for our trip. The gleam in her eyes was easily palpable...plans...she had plans. And when the Burton women plan...you better drink your coffee, get a good night's sleep, and say a few "Hail Marys"...cause it is gonna be a lonnnng day.

GDD...Gym, Drop the dog off at Grandma's, and Drive...yep, that's our reality show. Now let us all forget (not really) that it was about 12:20pm once we had left our precious pup at Grandma's house. For anyone who knows me, I eat every 3-4 hours, require 30 minutes of exercise a day, or I'm generally a huge piece of shit to be around.

"We need to find a quick place to eat", I said. "Ok", she said, "maybe there will be something at the winery".

Did I mention our plan?

Drive to 3-4 wineries "along the way" to Charlottesville, Va from Middletown, Md...wait a second, that's at least a three hour drive. "Hey honey, these wineries are in Charlottesville right?" "Hey Matty, turn right here". Let's not forget we were 20 minutes into the trip.

First stop, Breaux...yawn...the Wine Barista was flustered...it was Monday, 10 people were at her counter, and she had NO skills in triaging her wine...the vintner...a real estate tycoon from the Outer Banks, apparently "Sun Realty"...not undrinkable..except the fact I'm a Jacobs, so I can drink some hooch. Bottom line...stick to real estate, the wine thing and the atmosphere, and the fact you want to charge 48 dollars for your Nebiollo cause they charge a lot for good bottles in Italy...go back to real estate bub.

Getting angrier, we literally drive 3 minutes to a friend of a friend's vineyard...Hillsborough.

Literally I bust in the remodeled barn door (god was it beautiful), and raid the meat and cheese fridge...I must have looked like some kind of mongrel rummaging through their product on a Monday at 2pm muttering things like, "mmm, meat...cheese....mmm, do you have bread?"

My poor wife...said something like, "Listen, our friend Bryan's buddy Karem works here, and we called ahead, and yeah, sorry for my husband, he's like a Wildebeest when he's hungry, we didn't plan for lunch".

Magically, after stuffing gobs of Amish Sharp Cheddar and Pinot Grigio Cured Salami into my mouth the clouds lifted...I could see the beautiful view of a kaleidoscope of changing leaves on trees and grape vines...our conversation with the Wine Barista was familiar...friendly, we were getting drunk on atmosphere and pretty decent Virginia wine...I must say, the "Onyx" would feature as a nice little table wine...did I mention we somehow got this friends and family discount of 20% after my erratic caveman behavior? Have charm, will travel (feed me first).

Next stop...Sunset Hills...literally another 3 miles or so. Sated...I didn't have ANY expectations. Best wine of the day, the most complex Virginia wine I had ever tasted...seriously. You can actually lay these bottles down for a few years and they might actually taste good.

Looking at my watch...3 o'clock..."Hey Meg, how much further of a drive?" "Oh, about three hours"...

Seriously? Really? As the blood sugar ticked down slowly, and the drive got more trafficky, and longer, and the roads wound on and on I kept trying to notice the ABSOLUTE BEAUTIFUL scenery that passed us by. Farms, hills, mountains, changing leaves, oh my God was it beautiful. But I was hungry...meat and cheese and wine do not make for good nutrition prior to a 3 hour drive.

And at 6:30pm, we pulled in, wearily, to a beautiful surprise...The Clifton Inn...a place on the Relais Chateaux list...the same list as "The Inn at Little Washington?" Patrick O'Connell was just here two weeks ago? Oh, that's because he is the president of the "list" on the East Coast. The Obamas were just here last week? Do go on...we've been upgraded from the Garden Room to the Blue Ridge Suite overlooking the property?

Do go on...forget the W(h)ine trail and the longest drive ever...lets move on to our first dinner..."The Local"...

Meg, she done good...real good! And Virginia...your wine is starting to make some ways in our world.

Fall Frolic Inspiration Rolic

2010-10-20T08:48:00.004-04:00

The summer was funktastic...who wants to cook when it is 100 degrees +? Now fall is in the air...crisp nights, cool breezes. We find ourselves on the cusp of being so much more motivated to exercise, cook, and I have found it interesting to brew some beer.

4 years ago my wife bought me a beer making kit for our anniversary...can anyone say keeper? And like all new hobbies I started brewing like a bandit who robbed a bank, and then got lazy...sitting on my laurels, more interested in doing home improvements.

But another whiff of adrenaline has found it's way to my happy heart, and I invested in a couple of kit recipes ready to roll for our quickly upcoming Thanksgiving in North Carolina.

Pumpkin Ale, and Old Ale...

Believe it our not the Pumpkin Ale's recipe had me add a 32oz can of Libby's Pumpkin Pie Mix...along with hops and malt of course. And credit to my late father-in-law...I got to brew two beers at once having inherited his propane boiler.

Currently they are burpin' away CO2 at breakneck speed and the basement is filled with hints of yeasty goodness. Put it directly, it smells like a brewery...man heaven!

What's more exciting is that I also got a "Hot Point" old school fridge...the one kids used to get locked into and suffocate back in the day...and it will soon become a kegerator (thinking Christmas present to myself). Oh sweet ale how I love thee.

Last but not least...smoke em' if you got em'. Yep, my man buddy Bryan donated his old propane smoker to us as he cashed in for a newbie. What a guy...what a guy...to pass his inspiration to smoke meat to two neophytes in the Jacobs clan.

As the fall weather progresses to winter...think of the loverly opportunities for greatness! Kegerator...home brew...smoking meat....

Taking future reservations now.

Why Cook...

2010-09-10T22:36:00.005-04:00

It's been a maddening 48 hours...

I've had two days off...and when my wife hears that she starts her wheels turning...chores

The old men at the barbershop called it the "Honey Do List"...

My problem is I actually plan my days off to matter. Generally it's "Matty do things for house, home, and cook your wife a romantic dinner". And then my wife throws in the old (and I swear she got this from the mother-in-law) if you're able to, can you do, THIS , THIS, and THAT?

ahem...cough, sputter...any hope at a day off with chores allowing you to work out, maybe watch the tube, or just leisurely do things...GONE.

So on our way to the Outer Banks, aka OBX (I hate that sticker), I said, "Honey, I'm gonna pre-fix that bomb ass Chlli of Michael Simon's...the one with pork shoulder and black eyed peas, with toasted corn bread. And, you wanted that "Roasted Heirloom Tomato Soup with Basil"? Sure, I'll cook that too.

7am wake-up...I cooked...scrupulously. Hell, both of us barely cooked all summer. I cooked my ass off like it was Thanksgiving..plus I cleaned the house, manicured the lawn, ran with the dog, cleaned the house...cooked....good dang Lord....

Spectacular!

That IS the reason to cook. It's sweat. It's the actual Puritan work ethic saying, "Yes, work hard, it makes things better...work your ass off son...and maybe, just maybe you will be a god"...

And I am in my own mind...

And in my own mind, the muse for the pan to the electric ratty ass burner (God, for Christmas or any other holiday you value please allow us to have a gas stove), I cooked my ass off because my wife adores the Redskins, the NFL, Football, and the fall. Mix my wife's sentiments and the fact we fell in love this time of year, I am a hopeless and hapless complainer, sadistically enjoying my plight, secretly hiding the fact that I'm enjoying myself for the fact that...

Sunday night...the START at the NFL season Redskins vs. dallas cow pokes...our menu will be:

Pork Shoulder Chili with Black Eyed Peas, Smoked Cheddars, and Cilantro Creme Fresche

Toasted Corn Bread and Butter

BEER (LOTS OF IT)

Dessert: BEER, Jacobs Harmonica and Guitar Entertainment (Liquor)

Breakfast: Tylenol and Ibuprofen

The Ring of Fire...

2010-08-26T14:01:00.006-04:00

Me on Facebook: "Going to Rehobeth Beach for a week"

JRS: "Dood, can you get me some Nic-O-Bolis"?

Me: "What the hell is a Nic-O-Boli?"

JRS: "It's like a Stromboli...but better...amazing...they come frozen, order me a case, I'll pay you."

Me Status Post Consumption: Jon...you asshole..it was so good, but 6am was bad...really bad....

JRS:..."Ha, I see you tamed the ring-of-fire"...

Me: No reply...but I was seriously having cravings for another go round....

Nicola's restaurant is a pizza joint with their claim to fame, the "Nic-O-Boli"...and in all honesty, it's like a Stromboli. I mean, look at the picture...you got dough, mozzarella, tomato sauce, and sauteed ground beef. But in all honesty, it's just...better...why? I think it's the beef...it's just a greasy wonderment of rendered fatty meatyness...meatyness? Yes...meatyness.

My first trip was after a few beers at midnight. My buddy was with me and is one of those guys who can't sit still. Seriously, it had been a really relaxing evening with a great cigar out on the porch of our beach house. Instead of enjoying our nicotine buzzes...he chirps off, "Hey, wanna grab some pizza...wanna go for a walk?" Seriously...we weren't even buzzed enough to crave late night eats yet...literally I think we were like two beers deep...but I caved. The kid just couldn't sit still.

Instead of haunting the local Grotto's Pizza (like the night before)...I piped up, "Hey wanna try a Nic-O-Boli (and explained the strange word)?" I then added something like, "I heard it can really give you grief in the bathroom later on"...halfway giving it a chuckle...bathroom humor is still so funny to me. "Ring of Fire" I told him..."Anyway, wanna try it?"

Disbelieving the "Ring of Fire" claim...and knowing that I have an iron stomach, I upped the anti by adding double anchovies and onions..and maybe that's where I went wrong. Oh god was it good...salty, savory goodness..all washed down with a PBR (that's Pabst Blue Ribbon)...ESPN was on the screen, and we had a cougar for a bartender talking about walking around in a thong at her house using spray tan (yeah random, but I swear that's what was happening, and me and my friend were thinking...this shit is hilarious and awesome).

We closed our tab, walked home, laughing about our crazy ass bartender and relished in our freshly stuffed guts...mmmmm, anchovies, beef...beer...we were men, we had smoked cigars, drank beer, and gotten our eat on.

And then 6am came...and it went...Ring-O-Fire...

Two days later however I went crawling back, for another hit of smack...F the "Ring-O-Fire"...it was worth it, well worth it...18 hours later...on the way to work mind you at 5:30am...Ring-O-Fire...under a street lamp, in the dark...

And just as a loyal friend would do, I smuggled out a half case of frozen Nic-O-Bolis for my buddy JRS...hmmmm, we have a microwave at work...do you think he would know if one went missing? If anyone knew, it would be me...and my poor wife...she did ask for me to put the flame out before ever setting foot in the house again.

Thrashers...

2010-08-26T13:37:00.004-04:00

"You've never had Thrashers?"...uttered a disbelieving Meg..."No hon, never..."

"Oh my god, when we go to Rehobeth Beach in August...you are getting Thrashers"...

I climbed the mountain, I have conquered the journey of the fry...and for that I am a better human being and a better man. In short, I will now be a better future father because I tamed the beast that is Thrashers.

Thrashers is a "Board-Walk Fry"...not only is it a Board-Walk Fry...it's a level of potato genius I have never seen recreated...in short, this is a fry place that has been dishing it out since 1929. It is ubiquitous amongst beach going folks to the shores of Maryland and Delaware. Walk down the family saturated boardwalk, and you'll smell Thrashers. Oogle your ways towards the herd-like masses of fatties...yep..Thrashers. Literally the containers come in size sensible to the ostentatious size of "Type II Diabetes and Coronary Artery Disease". (I of course ordered "size sensible")

The fries are cooked to order...no limp old man shrivels here. Once cooked, and hoisted into the container du jour...you eye the golden rods of holiness and start to hyperventilate. The outside of the fry is glistening with fry-o-later peanut oil...extremely hot to the touch, the outside is crispy. On the inside however is a poetic genius resembling the cotton pillows of a well made gnocchi. Add the two opposing textures...heavenly golden latticework to the Almighty.

No ketchup needed...merely malt vinegar and salt...and please forget the fancy kosher/sea salt...literally the big industrial iodized salt container has nail holes punched in it...that's what you use. And if you are industrious like me, and you crave a cold beer...duck on in to a local place (choose a bar that looks kinda seedy because the self loathing feels better when you can greedily eye your fries as you cram them into your maw by the fistful).

Oh Thrasher fries...how I love thee...how I love thee indeed.

Paella brings a family closer...

2010-06-12T11:15:00.003-04:00

Okay okay, so it wasn't the dish...but maybe it was. And like so many epiphanies and special moments I have at home with my parents...this was no different. This time, it just involved Paella, and a yummy local wine that paired beautifully.

The recipe is a bit time consuming (peeling and de-veining shrimp is tedious), but I got a head start with my prep work before my folks got home from work. The rest...was a really nice family event all centered around the grill. And what an event it was...

See, my parents and I have sort of grown up together as life long learners, and the God's honest truth is that they have always been willing to try new foods and life events, no matter what. And as I have grown, they have been there every step of the way trying new uncomfortable things with gusto.

This visit's new thing, was to give them Paella. Certainly not a new dish to the world, but a new experiment in the kitchen for Meghan and I. Equipped with Rick Moonen's "Fish" cookbook (he is the god of seafood), and having cooked it once in Annapolis a few weeks ago, I set out to give them a treat.

You see, my folks live in land-locked Mt. Airy, North Carolina. The seafood is tough to come by..often frozen, often fishy...making a seafood paella is really not tops on the list. So, I loaded my cooler in Annapolis with fresh grouper, head on shrimp, and clams. And gosh darnit everything made the field trip lickity split.

The cooking arena was out on my folks's patio, surrounded by a jungle of flowers, plants, cacti, hydrangeas, and whatever else can grow. My mom was stationed on the deck...kind of the bird's eye camera view. Dad was on the picnic table. And every time I opened the grill to add the essential ingredients (you have to add the seafood sort of in sequence...hence a lot of checking, adding, and re-checking) the aromas would waft towards their ever growing eyes, and rumbling stomachs. Dad would make a few suggestions, and mom would comment on how much she missed my wife and wished she could have made the trip down south.

Then the camera popped out, and mom started ordering dad to take pictures so we could sent them to my wife. "Take more pictures", she said, "Meghan needs to feel part of this event". And I guess that's the magic of what was happening. We were bonding. We shared stories, cried about recently losing my father-in-law Mike, cried about how mom and Meghan were able to settle their misunderstandings and how much my mom really loved my wife and was so glad we got married. And we laughed...and then we started breaking out in true Jacobs form via song (mom had the old Willy Wonka theme song in her head). By the time we got to dessert (grilled white peaches, fresh local honey, toasted pecans, and greek yoghurt), my dad had enough..."I'm going to bed". I actually laughed and said, "Dad, it's 9'o'clock"...mom woke me up 5 minutes later on the couch....exhausted...it was time for bed.

Nonetheless, we were family, we were trying something new, and we were enthused about it all. Although I have been separated from them by a few state lines since I was twenty-two, we have never drifted apart. Though I write that food is the leveler of socioeconomic plains, equalizer of humanity, and bonder of friends and family. You can't unequivically say with conviction that paella and events like this kept my family close through thick and thin. But you can't say it didn't help.

The Inn at Little Washington

2010-06-06T15:16:00.012-04:00

"Hey Matty, can you write about death of a loved one and how it is bettered by presence of bar-b-qued pork?" Why yes, I think I can. "Well then, how about writing about "The Inn at Little Washington"?"

dead silence....."Hello, Matty? Are you there? Hello?"

I have long dreaded writing about our magnificent experience at "The Inn at Little Washington" because I can really say no more greatness than the thousands who have written before me. In short, the gods of food spoke long ago. Me and my wife, fledgling epicureans as we may be hold no candle to review this long revered international destination. I can highly recommend going and can do nothing but rave on the food and hospitality.

Chef O'Connell is accessible, personal, and genuine. Although we knew we were merely another insignificant set of travelers, spending yet another important event in "our" lives...we felt we were the most important people to ever visit. And that is the magic that is "The Inn at Little Washington".

To describe the dishes in run down sentence snippet fashion is insulting and cheapens the event to nothing more than voyeuristic pornography or a one night stand. Sure...I photograph dishes, write about recipes, and review food on this blog all of the time. However, this was something different. There was a reverence I have seldom felt while dining and staying over. No detail was untouched...and maybe I can only equate it to the act of making love...there's no bragging to the boys on the exploits of exploring the inner most sanctums of you and your partner's soul. It is something for you and your partner only. It isn't reproducible in print nor spoken word. This was a special connection, it was spiritual, personally poetic, and completing.

And that is what Chef Patrick O'Connell probably set out to do. To enhance lives via his craft of food and hospitality...it is his life's work. And to be part of someone executing their life's work with such love in any facet is something very special. It is rare to find, and priceless to experience.

Memorial Pig

2010-06-06T10:02:00.005-04:00

On February 13th, 2010, my father-in-law Michael Courtland Bailey (a.k.a Mike Bailey) died. It was tragic, it was catastrophic. I wanted for months to write about how sad I was, and how sad we all were, but I couldn't find an appropriate medium of expressing just what I felt. There was no way for me to find an appropriate way for me to honor him as the man I knew. The blog was to be about him, not about me, certainly not about my sadness.

Yesterday we honored him through memorial, and one of his best friends roasted two 220lb pigs in his honor. You see, Mike was a born foodie. He wasn't a complicated gastronomic moleculizer with foams, froths, dusts, and trendy new frosted hairdos. Nope, he was a "Pit Man". A down home pig roasting, cole slaw makin', pancake and scrapple breakfast griddlin' fool. Knowing Mike, he was a student of any game...a renaissance man if you will. Ex-Marine, Welder, Sculptor, Saw Mill Operater, Motor Cycle Enthusiast, Tractor Puller, Hopeless Romantic, Fox Hunter, Mechanic, and relevant to the pig....A "Pit Man".

As we shared our stories via podium speeches, alligator tears, pictures, gregarious hand laden gesticulations with throw your head back laughter...the smell of the beautifully cooked pulled pork galvanized an epic event of some three hundred odd people there to celebrate a man who met no strangers.

Semantically, Mike was my step-father-in-law. However, to my heart he was my father-in-law, and more importantly my friend. And nothing says a more beautiful memorial service than a million friends showing up to tell stories, drink beer, and roast a pig in your honor...conjuring up the deceased's "pit skills" saying..."This one is for you Mike"...as if to say, "I only hope it is half as good as the ones you used to roast for us".

The purpose of my blog is to share food, but more importantly share the humanity and emotion tied to food because of the relevance it has to all of us. The emotions associated with food are entwined with our humanity...poor or rich. Yesterday was a profound statement reminding us all of just that. Death was celebrated with friends, tears, laugher, and drink. Most importantly however, a simple succulent multitude of pork honored our beloved Mike. And in many ways it helped heal our sorrow, reminding us of his legacy, and closed the chapter of a life he lived and loved with intense sincerity and reverence.

Sugar Snap Peas and Scallions with Pappardelle

2010-05-20T22:43:00.008-04:00

Add Bacon...

What a Springy dish, springing into summer...mmmmm!

Meghan found this recipe from Food Network Magazine and what a SNAP (pun completely intended)

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/pappardelle-with-snap-peas-recipe/index.html

This was such an easy fix as I was ravished by hunger after the gym. I was honestly thinking of getting take out, but the peas were going to go bad had I not fixed this then and there. Honestly this dish took 20 minutes.

Easy Easy steps here....Dice up your veggies, cook bacon, get your pasta water heating...cook veggies till tender, cook pasta Au Dente (translating "To The Tooth" in Italian), add bacon, and grate fresh Ricotta Salata or Pecorino Romano. Viola..enjoy.

By easy mistake Meghan bought a fresh Ricotta instead of the Ricotta Salata. Thusly I used a Peppato Romano instead. Just like a Pecorino Romano...except the Peppato has Black Peppercorns giving it an extra peppery taste.

Now you ask me, "What is Ricotta Salata?" Well, the word "Ricotta" actually means "Re-Cooked" referring to the process of making the cheese. Traditionally a Sheep's Milk is cooked and then separated out (curds and whey type stuff). The big difference of "Salata" vs traditional hand dipped Ricotta is that the product is immediately dried and pressed together and not aged. So you get a nice salty and milky taste/texture to your dish. Thusly pairing well with your pasta.

What a happy happy dish, healthy as well. I paired it with a great little white I found at a local winery in my home town. Nonetheless a crisp Sauv Blanc or velvety Viognier will work as well.

Roasted Heirloom Tomato and Basil Soup

2010-05-20T07:40:00.004-04:00

Alas I forgot to include this recipe from our "Golden Girls" outing. Honestly, this is the best Roasted Tomato and Basil Soup I have ever eaten. There are a couple of hidden secrets that make this recipe better.

1) Use Heirloom Tomatoes instead of the standard fare available at the grocery store.

2) ADD BACON....more or less 6 pieces.

3) We use our Dutch Oven to crisp the bacon, then we deglaze the bottom of the pan to get the extra yum yums into the party. Then you can add the rest of the ingredients.

4) Use a little Balsalmic Vinegar and Crushed Red Pepper Flakes.

5) The best...use an Immersion Blender to mix it all together. I love using these because it's like bringing a power tool to the kitchen. Oh yeah baby...the blender is nicknamed the "Boat Motor" by a lot of chefs b/c in large industrial setting, it actually looks like a boat motor. Also, please use some heavy cream, it adds a texture that makes this dish.

6) For an extra flare for your guests, place empty bowls on plates at their setting. Place a few roasted cherry tomatoes and pieces of crisp bacon in the empty bowl. When plating, pour the guests the soup on top of the goodies they discovered in their bowl. The bitter/acid taste of the cherry tomatoes and crisp bacon pair well with the rich velvet texture of the soup.

I suggest pairing a smokey Malbec with this dish. They are highly underrated and FINALLY gaining steam amongst wine lists here in the states.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/roasted-tomato-soup-recipe/index.html

Bon Appetit

The Golden Girls

2010-05-19T12:19:00.007-04:00

The Golden Girls came back. Yep, they tasted the "Koolaid" and came running for another bruncheon. Last May, I blogged about a catering Meghan, Mary Ellen, and I did for her Grandmother and her closest friends. This year, Mary Ellen decided for a repeat.

What a treat, and honestly this brunch was better paired and a cinch to make...my wife and mother-in-law did most of the cooking...I did a lot of smiling, greeting, and busing of tables. Nonetheless, another success and a really nice time to watch these old birds reminisce over the old times and talk about the new ones.

Ahem...yes, the menu:

For starters, we HAD to have cocktails...let's not talk about these ladies trying to drive home...hear no evil, see no evil...speaketh none!

Mary Ellen's White Cranberry and Peach Cosmopolitans

This is made in true Mary Ellen fashion..dash of this, splash of this, add the ingredients to your taste, no measuring involved!

Ocean Spray Low Sugar White Cranberry Peach Juice
Citrus Vodka
Cointreau
Fresh Lemon Juice
Add either Lemon Peel or Orange peel for Garnish

For Finger food she made "Steamed Asparagus with a Lemon Dipping Sauce" as well as "Pickled Shrimp"

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/pickled-shrimp-recipe/index.html

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/foodwine/2004290938_recipeasparagus19.html

...Main course....

Bacon Potato Torte with a Mixed Green Salad and Dijon Balsamic Dressing

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/melissa-darabian/potato-bacon-torte-recipe/index.html

The Vinaigrette...

1 Clove of Garlic halved
3 Tablespoon Balsamic Vinegar
1 Tablespoon Dijon Mustard
Splash of Soy Sauce
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper to Taste

1) Take the halved garlic and rub your empty glass (preferably wooden) bowl with it.

2) Add Vinegar, Mustard, dash of Soy Sauce and whisk vigorously.

3) Drizzle in the Olive Oil with one hand, vigorously whisking with the other, thusly combining and emulsifying the ingredients. You really want to see a nice velvet texture. You will know you have too much olive oil when it will no longer combine the two elements together.

4) Add Salt and Pepper to taste.

Raspberry Tart

From Cucina Italiana....

Try as I might the recipe isn't available online...here is the way we did it:

Use a pre-fab Pie Tart Crust...so easy (can make your own tart crust if you like, we were lazy).
1 Jar Raspberry Preserves
1 Pint Fresh Raspberries
1 Lemon
1 Tablespoon of Turbinado Sugar

1) Bake the Pie Tart crust in the oven with pie weights for about 10-12 minutes on 350, take the weights off, and cook till golden brown

2) Let the crust rest until cool

3) Spread fresh preserves on the crust

4) Fill the tart completely with fresh raspberries

5) Grate fresh lemon zest on top and sprinkle with Turbinado Sugar (raw sugar)

6) Serve

Martitha's

2010-05-14T20:15:00.004-04:00

Ahem...

Ladies and Gentlemen, we now have a new champion in Pupusas. Down round ole' Chincopin Round Road, off to the left, in the strip mall of shops....lies Martitha's Salvadorian/Mexican Restaurant.

Holy Cow! Does this place have everything...like 30 some items of goodness. Meg and I tried the Pollo al la Plancha (Grilled Chicken Breast), Beef Tacos, and wait for it...yes..."Pupusas".

Traditionally Pupusas are thick hand made corn tortilla/cakes filled with a nice soft cheese and pork. We saw them being hand done as street food in Belize for the first time and fell in love. The condiments are awesome...red salsa, green salsa, and cabbage. The best is that the condiments are served seperately in little baggies (Spare no expenses). These were the most succulent, moist, and savory pupusas we have ever had. The cheese was kinda of melted/fried hard on the griddle..cooked just right.

And you know it's the right spot to go for a few reasons:

1) The girl at the liquor store who married a Guatemalan goes there and swears by it...first clue.

2) I was the only white guy there

3) A Soccer game was on the t.v.

4) Plain out it just tasted good

Seriously guys, go out and do it...find an authentic hole in the wall restaurant and enjoy a food not of your own origin.

Alexander's...

2010-05-13T16:41:00.005-04:00

Talking to Washingtonians they all say, "Where the hell is Buckeystown?" Hell, talk to a lot of people and the reply is the same. And I would never know save one helluva find by my mother-in-law(who knows everyone I swear), and late father-in-law Mike.

The chef Chris Smallwood is the son of Chip Smallwood, my late father-in-law's grilling buddy. Chip and Mike ran a cool operation of catering bar-b-que as well as breakfasts called "Guys on the Grill". Long story short, when we were looking for a caterer for our wedding Mary Ellen said, "Why don't you go with Chip's son Chris...he caters all the time...he makes wonderful home made ice creams...the food is divine".

So, we went out and met Chris at a little wedding he was catering. Food was simple yet elegant...he was hired, our wedding was perfect, end of story. Or was it? Bout a year ago word on the street got out that Chris was investing in a new venture, opening a restaurant at an old Inn called "Alexander's", located in Buckeystown, Maryland.

"Where the hell is that?" I said. "Near Mike's brother's place for the annual corn roast." said my wife. "Aha, middle of nowhere..." And yes, you blink, you have driven through the thriving metropolis of Buckeystown. However, if you keep your eyes open you will actually see a huge mansion with about three signs reading out, "Alexander's".

It's actually quite stately, unique, cozy, and well...comfy. As you walk onto the veranda you can imagine yourself sipping iced tea, or maybe a mint julep. There you are, rocking on the porch, watching the weather pass, wondering where each car is going as they drive by, talkin' bout' nothin'.

You walk in, such a non assuming place for an old mansion. The staff, welcoming and simple. The tables, antiquey with white linen. There are no pretenses. Thank god for that too, because much of the beltway arena is nothing but a soulless and shallow succubus of material. I don't care what car you drive, who you know or what you do. I do care about who you are. And that's what sticks about this place from the start. People are who they are...there's some meat on them bones at Alexander's. The service may not be fancy and elegant, but it's genuine and real.

The chef, he's pretty gifted as he is a "One Man Band". No sous chef, no prep, no guy at the fry station...and definately no pastry chef. The guy is all alone back there, sweating it out, putting soul onto plates.

Before opening, Chris and Chip journeyed to the south in search of the best pulled pig, fried chicken, home made pie, a la best damn southern food to emulate in that talent laden mind of his. My wife said, "There's no way I'd like to share a room with them at night after eating all that comfort food"...she's got a point. Roughage...line two...need some help here...

Our epic pilgrimmage and party of 5 diners gave us 2 entrees, 3 appetizers, 1 extra side, and 5 desserts. Christ, in hindsight that's a lot of food. Aha, to the food...

Apps:

Crispy Pork Boudin Balls with Tomato-Grain Mustard Dipping
Sauce

Who the hell can beat hand rolled and deep fried sausage balls cooked perfectly?

Fried Green Tomatoes with Pickled Shrimp and Red Onion
Salad

A finely sliced green tomato...perfectly paired with the pickled shrimp.

Slow Smoked Brisket and Pimento Cheese served on a
Buttermilk Biscuit Sliders

His Pimento Cheese is the real deal, the biscuits are great...the Brisket and the tomato based sauce pairs with the savory cheese like nothing I have ever eaten.
Entrees:

Southern Fried Chicken

What can you say about half a chicken fried to a succulent perfection...moist, crispy skin...I'm having a seizure...or maybe orgasm...I think I need a cigarette, or a nap...

Low Country Shrimp in sherry cream sauce with Benton’s
Bacon and Roasted Peppers on Creamy Stone Ground Grits

Been to Charleston...Where the hell is Charleston and who the hell cares after eating these grits?

Dessert

Chocolate Cake with a Marshmallow Creme Frosting

Yellow Cake with a Vanilla Bean Frosting

Yellow Cake with a Marmalade Jam, and Vanilla Bean Frosting

To be honest, the cakes were a bit dry...good ideas however. Chris himself admitted he was working on getting the moisture "just right". The Marshmallow frosting reminded me of a "Moonpie"...paging R.C. Cola? Anyone got any? Seriously, when you remind a southern boy of Moonpies and R.C. Colas you're doing something right.

Chocolate Coffee Ice Cream

Strawberries and Cream Ice Cream

His Ice Creams are the creme de la creme....no pun intended, some of the best I've tasted. Fresh frozen strawberries in the vanilla ice cream....and a terrific strong coffee bean ground in the chocolate.

Let us never forget...the most perfect side available...Potatoes Au Gratin...heaven in many many a bite!

Bottom line, Chris Smallwood is just waiting to be discovered. And he's doing it the right way. He's done his research, he is perfecting his dishes, and you will not be disappointed at this little hideaway.

http://www.frederick.com/index.php?action=sponsor&id=839/

You Want Fries With That?

2010-05-13T08:41:00.005-04:00

Done correctly fries are amazing...done wrongly they are quite like an old man's wiener...limp, soggy, and no zip. Vis a vis..."The Good Stuff Eatery"...horrible fries. And like all good food we all have our favorite places to nosh on those delightful strings of starchy goodness.

Do I have an all time favorite? I can't really answer that completely because fries can often be compared to sex. Some are amazing, some are okay, and some are plain not good...but it's still a fry. Like getting something at discount or for free, you're still getting to enjoy a fried potato...whether good or bad. Kind of like sex...bad or good, it's still sex (This can also be applied to pizza).

As a relation to my favorite fries lately, they have to be the ones Meg cooks. And the recipe once again comes from that hippie nutritionist Ellie Krieger from Food Network. The one with that cute pixie haircut trying to convince us that we can eat vegetables and like them..."It's all about portion control" she says. Okay okay, I kind of agree with her. And despite her whole "yippee" (that's yuppie/hippie) persona that she oozes...she ain't half bad.

And these are baked...what the hell? Am I becoming soft? Is this blog even credible any longer?

As you'll see in the recipe, the secret is in that wonderful garlic I so astutely presented in my "Greens and Garlic" blog. If you feel good add some white or black truffle oil and Parmesan cheese on at the end (hand grated reggiano of course). Remember, they are baked, so you can add the extras. I promise you, you will enjoy them.

http://recipes.kaboose.com/ellie-krieger-garlic-fries.html

Greens...and Garlic?

2010-05-12T11:01:00.006-04:00

Growing up in the south I never ate greens. I think it was because of the whole pork phobia we had. Usually, anything associated with greens, was associated with pork.

In my limited knowledge, me thinks all of the fatback/bacon/pork shanks/ham hocks...PIG, was used to counterbalance the natural bitterness of most greens. Having had greens a few times after the religious pork ban was lifted, I never fell in love with them.

They were too bitter, and too wilted (dadgummit if people didn't try to cook the bitterness out of them by overcooking them), floating in some sort of yellow/greenish/brown juices...blechhh...not worth my chewing time and effort especially when many other yummies existed on the platter (fried chicken, bar-b-que, etc).

Then I met Alton Brown and his most recent book "Good Eats, The Early Years". He has a dynamite recipe for greens. Honestly, I have never had greens so good. The trick...garlic, and well...not overcooking them. To paraphrase the chemistry behind the magic...

Garlic contains the compound "Alliin" and enzyme "Allinase". They are seperated via cellular layers within the garlic. When you slice into garlic, the compound and enzyme combine giving you a pungent aroma of the new compound Allicin. Thusly, if you crush the cells together in a garlic press, you have a more pungent smell and taste because you broke and combined more cellular layers. If you roughly chop the garlic and penetrate less layers, less smell...less "Garlickey" taste. If you roast the garlic whole...a nutty/sweet aroma/flavor. For this recipe, we'll stop and settle that we want more "Garlickeyness". So, finely mince your garlic, or use a garlic press if you have one.

What is genius about this recipe is that the garlic counterbalances the bitterness of the greens...thusly making them more buttery and more palatable, also giving the ability to not have to cook them to "death" in order to render out the bitter taste. We also add bacon. Why? Bacon makes everything better.

The recipe is listed below. Sorry I didn't photograph our greens...they disappeared before the camera came out. We used this recipe once with Swiss Chard and once with Collard Greens. The result = good. And if you ever watched the movie "Jerry McGuire", the famous line "You had me at hello, you had me at hello"...was originally "You had me at bacon...and garlic" of course.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/vlads-very-garlicky-greens-recipe/index.html

All Hail the Slow Cooker!

2010-05-12T10:39:00.006-04:00

Take the following recipe, and cook all day in your slow cooker...

http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/apple-glazed-barbecued-baby-back-ribs

My parents gave us a slow cooker for Christmas back in 2009. A great gift I do say, as you can really be productive all day doing other things. As long as you wake your busted ass up in the morning to put the dish du jour in the pot and turn it on...it pretty much makes it self. And when you find yourself too tired at the end of the day to think of a meal to cook...you take the lid off the pot, dig the dish out and plate saying, "Dinner is served!" Seriously, as non chic as a Crock-Pot may seem, it's a worth-while invention.

As a child, I only knew slow cookers for chicken, roasts, and the general chili or baked beans...quite pedestrian I thought. However, leaning on the principle that cooking things slow and low means keeping the succulent juices in and not out, you can do oh so much more.

Vis a vis...ribs. Seriously, these ribs are damned fantastic. If you want to get fancy you can grill them afterwards in order to caramelize the sugars. Best of luck however because these oinkers are falling off the bone...you'll get lucky to get them to your mouth before letting them fall all over your tablecloth. Add some baked beans ( we cheat with the "Grillin Beans" from out the can), and some greens. Mmmm pork you cunning little beast, I love your ribs.

If you are into pairing wine or beer, try a nice Belgian Trappist ale (the sweet compliments the heat) or a smokey Syrah or Malbec.

The Perfect Burger...

2010-05-12T08:52:00.006-04:00

Whoever grills the heck out of their burgers, pushes them down with the spatula, and waits till they are charred with grill marks...STOP IT! For the love of everything holy please please please just stop!

Laurent Tourondel, owner of BLT burger and BLT steak (arguably one of the best burgers in DC) is a master at burger making. Joining a heap of other chefs, he advocates cooking the burger on the flat top grill. Say goodbye flame broiled whopper...say hello to pan seared burgers...with butter no doubt! Did meat ask to be cooked on a grill where it can watch it's own life drip away into a firey pit? No! It only makes sense it likes to bathe in it's own merry juices as it sears away on a happy hot top.

The other night, we used a cast iron skillet placed on our grill top. Mmmmmm....add bacon...and we like to make a Chipotle Mayo (take two Chipotle peppers, add some salt, olive oil, mayo...blend together...yum). Cook the burgers to rare/medium rare (only 80/20 meat will do unless you find Kobe). Please don't forget cheddar (we have lately been using smoked cheddar), cause cheddar makes everything better! Biggest disappointment for us lately is seeing all of these beef cheek burgers done perfectly with bacon, and then the chef throws on that processed American Cheese..yecchhhh (Note to you Chef Tourondel and Joey Campenero)!

A must is finding a good bun...we really like Brioche...it's soft and soaks up the flavor of the beef. Worst thing...dry bread or really crunchy/crusty bread.

The resultant difference of the burger on a flat top is certainly palpable from those dried out grilled burgers of yore...remember those picnic burgers where usually the man or dad wears some kind of clever apron saying, "Dad knows grilling" and proceeds to kill everything that is already dead? The worst thing about guys on the grill are guys who have no idea what they are doing on the grill. Generally there is much bravado and beer involved and not a lot of time spent on the product...well, unless you count the time they overdid everything they cooked.

You wanna know something Mr. Grill Man? You can't undo overcooked meat! And stop it with all the bacteria scares. Please leave some moisture in your meat...hence the point of searing a burger and letting it baste in its own gloried juices. There are ways to cook meat to a perfect doneness without killing it...oh...don't get me started...

Oh Mr. Jacobs...Cardiology line one! Can I get some fries with that?

Say Hello and Wave Goodbye

2010-05-03T15:10:00.006-04:00

To follow up on our farewell trip to "The Mexican Cafe", it was the perfect goodbye, hence, the perfect break up. Service, food, and drinks...all that and more of what we forever remembered. However, we couldn't leave it alone.

Remember those epic nights out, when you didn't plan for anything to happen and the night fell together in legendary proportion? You can't try to re-create it, no matter how hard you chase it the next night...it just wont work.

And like the tumultuous tumbles of the 70 year old who had too many Margaritas, we tried to say goodbye just one last time. We wanted one last haunt with those candy-like Margaritas. And just like telling yourself, "I'm just gonna sleep with her one more time, and then we're through"...we attempted another jaunt. Except in this instance, she said, "Guess what poppy, I'm pregnant"...or better yet, "Hey, that burning you're gonna get...sorry, you'll need to see a doctor for that".

It's the re-awakening, the revelation...epiphany if you will, of taking back your ex, and realizing they were a horrible person and the only thing that was good was your first date. Suddenly, the nostalgia of the cafe came to a screeching halt....from the moment we arrived, the ugly just kept coming. Our hostess claimed a new seating policy...thusly the friends we wanted to hop tables from a 2 to 4 top, got squashed. The waiter...whizzed by us, acted like he was deaf, and when he brought the half pour Margaritas he said, "That's the standard here"...abruptly leaving us in disbelief.

Instead of acting gracious we were for our last jaunt, everyone acted smug..."who cares they projected...we are leaving this dump anyway, we don't need you, pay your bill and leave". Dead and gone we were...sitting there, jaws dropped, knowing the relationship was dead...itching to get the bill and split.

After swigging down that last bit of memento, our friends (whom we happened to meet there on coincidence) turned to us and said, "You ever been to the Ebb Tide"? I said, "The "Duck and Dive" next door? Won't we get stabbed, shot, or corn holed there?"

"No way," they said. "The burgers are awesome, the drinks...cheap...the wine pours, top of the glass, and the mixed drinks...splash of soda".

Through our Margarita goggles we peered at the cinder block facade and thought, "What the hell...couldn't be that bad". We were right...we had struck gold baby! A down home crusty place with not too many folks. Food = Burgers...awesome!..house made hand cut fries? Yum! Fish and Chips...actually not bad. The summary...Cold beer, surly patrons, fried bar type eat em' up food and a great bartender who busted her ass to keep our glasses and bellies filled...top notch.

Interestingly enough, we found our waiter from "The Mexican Cafe"...he was at "The Ebb Tide" all along...doing who knows what...but he kept coming back...in and out, in and out...seems like he too knew the old cafe was on it's last gasp.

The most perfect thing about the "Tide" other than the non-pretentious nature and good food...cool signs!

Hey folks, all mother-in-laws have a free place to park!

Hello new "Cheers", good riddance "Mexican Cafe". And just like getting a new girlfriend and learning the old one sucked and your life is now quite better...you remember the good old times, and look forward to the better ones.

Oooooh You Dirty Dirty Poutine!

2010-05-01T19:15:00.008-04:00

Since watching my food idol Anthony Bourdain take down some Poutine in Quebec, I have longed for this stuff. My longing was placed on the back burner and fired back up when I watched Al Roker and his cronies chowing down on some Poutine over in Vancouver, B.C. (During the Winter Olympics). And at last, after a long ass night at work, little sleep, and a big hike, I finally got my wish.

You're reading and saying, what the hell is this Poutine? Well, apparently the stuff originated in Quebec..just outside of Montreal. And in "American", I can say, basically it's like cheese fries...but with a few subtle differences.

Poutine = Fries, Cheese Curds, and a Sauce (generally a veloute...Chicken or Veal stock based sauce). There are many derivations on this theme and of course there are the Poutine traditionalists insisting only "Real Poutine" can only be served in Quebec. However, I had my first Poutine experience in Columbia, Maryland at "The Victoria Gastropub".

All I can say is "Damn, that shit was good". I don't have an honest picture of the actual experience for you...well, I do, but it's damned horrible. My friend Melly Mel tried to take a picture of me eating a huge bite of the stuff on her iPhone, and I just looked washed out and terrible after working all night. Thusly I deleted the pic.

My Poutine?..Fries cooked in duck fat, Duck Confit, Gruyere Cheese, Veloute, and some scallions. I later topped it off with a Kobe Burger with Maple Bacon, Onions, and Swiss (Paging a Cardiologist...anyone?).

In America we have "Cheese Fries"...and they're damned good, but I have never had such a thing as a Veloute (it roughly translates to velvet in English, and it's one of the mother sauces of French cuisine) on top of fries. I beg of you, find some Poutine, or find a recipe..you wont be sorry. I do highly suggest trying the cheese curds as they are the traditionalist cheese with the dish. If you haven't had cheese curds they are briney, and chewy, and I imagine will match well with the sauce and fries.

If you are longing for cheese curds, or have never had them, go up to Wisconsin...they are ubiquitous as Midwestern accents up there...seriously, nothing better than a game of bean bag at a bar (many of you know it as the game "Corn Hole"), drinking Leinenkugel beer, and eating basket upon basket of fried cheese curds. Oh God...do you serve fried food in heaven? I promise if you do I'll still do yard work for my wife, and maintain an active healthy life...within reason of course.

Heirloom Tomato Tart

2010-04-28T15:16:00.003-04:00

This was easy...I had no part in making it except for saying things like, "Yes, that sounds like a great dish", and "I think we should leave it in fifteen more minutes".

If you make your own pie crust this could be a bit more challenging...of course we cheated with the Pillsbury ready made. We then added the left over hand dipped Ricotta we used for the pancakes (after you place the crust in the pan, place the ricotta on the crust). Then, we topped with heirloom tomatoes. Bake at 350 for 1 hour and forty minutes (gotta render out the water from the tomatoes). The buttery flaky texture of the pie crust, along with the silkiness of the ricotta, and tart tang of the tomatoes make an excellent combination.

We made this dish last night in conjuncture with our fettuccine with baby artichokes and pancetta. For dessert we sliced some fresh strawberries and topped them with a 15 year old balsamic.

The occasion was my mother-in-law coming to town. On a surprise for our upcoming wedding anniversary she brought us a brand new kayak, along with some old shelves (we've needed help re-organizing our wine cave/food pantry). And to be honest, I had a smile on my face all night enjoying my wife and mother-in-law's company. In the background we had Edith Piaf playing, in our non-cooking hands, a decent Cab Sauv called, "The Show". And from start to finish it was just a nice celebratory night, enjoying each other's company, laughing, sharing stories, and oooing and ahhing all over the food we prepared. I might be rare saying I really love my mother-in-law's company. She's fun, loves to eat our food, and never passes to enjoy the moment. For almost 6 years now after meeting my wife, my life has been more and more enriched by that philosophy. Cheers to a really happy evening.

Pancakes

2010-04-27T10:22:00.005-04:00

Comfort food comes in many ways. For me, pancakes are the tops, and every time I make them, nostalgia floods in. Back to the days when mom cooked, I slept in, and every Saturday she would yell, "Wake up, Pancakes are ready"...dad would say something like, "Get your lazy ass out of the sack boy"...all the while it was 7am...sheesh.

At age 24 I decided to emulate my mother's pancakes strangely enough for the newest love of my life...my future wife. She had never had scratch made pancakes. They were such a hit I started making them for my future mother-in-law and late father-in-law. And voila, out came a comfort food that made me smile every time I got in the kitchen.

And although I still think my mom's pancakes are dynamite, I have to say I've tweaked the recipe more to my liking. The secret for me is including whole fresh ricotta and buttermilk. Another must is mixing the wet and dry ingredients seperately, and when combining don't overmix, unless you like glue. Without futher adieu...

Matty's Lemon Ricotta Pancakes (Feeds 4)

1 Cup of Flour (any kind will do, I usually used unbleached all purpose)
1/2 teaspoon of Baking Powder
1 teaspoon of salt
(Mix these together)

2 egg yolks (Sepearate the whites in a seperate bowl)
1 cup of non-fat buttermilk
1/2-1 cup of whole milk ricotta (hand dipped stuff from Whole Foods I find is best)
(Mix these together)

Combine the wet and dry just enough that they are mixed...like I said, don't overmix, if you see a few lumps of flour, that's ok

Now, beat the egg whites until you have stiff peaks.

Fold the egg whites into the batter.

Now, with a hot griddle, pan, etc, scoop out the pancakes and cook.

A trick Meghan and I like to pull is grating fresh lemon zest into each pancake, and adding fresh blueberries.

A nice healthy trick is cutting up fresh berries for antioxidants and a natural sweet instead of dousing with syrup.

Lastly, top with maple syrup (don't go Aunt Jemima on me if you took the time to make such a gourmet dish)...

Voila...now you have a new family tradition.

Authentic Guilt

2010-04-24T23:31:00.003-04:00

So yeah, I blogged about Tacos before...mmm, heavenly pulled pork tacos. However, I have a guilty cash only hole in the wall pleasure by the name of "Taqueria Juquilita". It's nestled between the yuppie dog wash/coffee bar called "Bark and Bean" and the local laundromat. Let's just say it's an interesting observation of affluent and poor. On one hand, people are paying groomers to wash their muddy hounds while sipping on their latte. Two doors down, you have folks who have no washer/dryer at their residence, doing the week's wash. If this were Manhattan, I'd buy it...it's Annapolis, it may be the state capitol, but it's no thriving metropolis. Thusly said, an interesting observation of different people commercing withing the same string of building.

Having watched many episodes of Anthony Bourdain finding a "hole in the wall" joint with amazing authentic food, I decided to give this place a shot. The name...sounds authentic to me...cash only?...galvanizing my theory...Telemundo blaring some cheesy game show or campy soap opera in Spanish...getting warmer...posters of the cartoon "Bambi", a map of Puebla, Mexico, and various herbs growing in a sundry of pots in the window? I went to the counter and ordered...

Tacos galore, soups, burritos, heuvos rancheros, chicken mole...there is nothing on the menu that sucks. The food? Authentic...you could bring in Rick Bayless (the gringo expert on Mexican cuisine) and he'd agree. No dishes smothered with cheese, cream, and "flare"...just straight up simple food man. The chef...she's maybe 50ish, short, stocky, a bit wrinkled. Her hands are weathered yet strong...one glance into her eyes and I swear you can see into her soul. I've never interviewed her, but that one glance tells me everything I need to know about a chef...she lives and breathes what she makes. Her passion is her food, one bite and that's clear.

My guilty pleasure are the tacos. There are at least 10 different types to order...and if you like offal, you're in the right place. You can choose from tongue, tripe, head, cheek, barbeque pork, pulled pork, diced ground pork, even chicken...the options are endless...the tacos, a fresh house made double corn tortilla, meat, onions, cilantro, radishes, and salsa. Done..that's it, no 79 cent cheesy Americanized Taco Schmell.

As I munched on my "Huevos Mexicanos"(scrambled eggs with peppers, re-fried beans, rice, avocado, and queso fresco all piled into a yummy corn tortilla) for breakfast this morning I realized that America is finally trending back to these mom and pop places. More and more people are longing for homemade, simple, and fresh. And more and more, middle America is at least progressing past the T.G.I-McFunsters, and stepping out to an uncomfortable place...foreign people speaking a foreign language, with a hole in the wall establishment serving good food.

Authentic cuisine of the foreign country du jour is no longer limited to the big American cities. Our immigrants are finding life and work in our rural towns, and the shops are opening in your back yard. And as scary as it may seem to wander into a shop that doesn't speak a lot of English, these proprietors are as hungry to share their wares as you will be to enjoy them.

L'Academie de Cuisine

2010-04-19T21:57:00.010-04:00

A brilliant friend of mine suggested I take my lovely bride for some sort of cooking class for her most recent birthday. On went the "Google Machine" and voila..."L'Academie de Cuisine".

A weekend of food...and who could beat that? We were set to cook two lunches, instructed by the founder of the Academie (Francois Dionot). The setting for the class was at the Mercersburg Inn, in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. Basically, a Bed and Breakfast where you eat a nice breakfast, work for 3 hours on lunch, serve each other with a 4 course sit down (accompanied by good wine of course), and then have the afternoon to nap...in our instance, they had a cool "Man Room" downstairs complete with a pool table. We found a stray husband (his wife was busy reading) and played "Cut Throat Pool" for 2 hours. Meg and I, exhausted, elected for a reprise in the form of a nap.

The Mercersburg Inn

On Saturday night, the chef of the Inn shows off with an elaborate 4 course dinner (with wine..hello!), don't forget cocktails before and afterwards in the great sitting room cozied up to a roaring comfy fire.

Chef's Dinner Menu...

Asparagus with a Blood Orange Creme Sauce...Divine!

Perfectly Seared Tuna with a Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

Braised Short Ribs and Roasted Rutabaga

The classes were on French technique, yielding French food. The two dishes I prepared were a shrimp, chicken, and shitake mushrooms in a shrimp broth, and a dessert. The shrimp broth..breathtaking, absolutely voluptuous, sexy, silky, and unlike anything I have ever made. The secret? Using the shrimp heads and shells along with saffron...making your own stock makes a dish that much better.

The dessert...hard to title...something like a "Galette with Creme Patissiere, Poached Rhubarb, and Star Anise Creme Anglaise". The Creme Anglaise I had made before...simply, "Frozen Custard". However, making a pastry creme to place in a pipetting bag was new (Creme Patissiere), and poaching Rhubarb was new as well. The Galette...a simple shortbread cookie.

Meghan was tasked to dicing many an aeromatic the first day for her grouper, roasted vegetables with a parsley taragon sauce. Hence, she was less than pleased that she got to practice knife skills. Add insult to injury when one of her classmates salted the Grouper 90 minutes before it was to hit the pan...Francois our chef...pissed and yelling...me...giggling...the dish..Francois was right, do not salt until it's ready to cook..dry..yecch...more sauce please!

Fillet of grouper with fresh vegetables & parsley tarragon sauce

On day two, Meghan learned how to de-bone a duck..what fun! I was wicked jealous. Then she learned how to sear a duck breast. Unfortunately her group lost out again when an overconfident student decided he knew what he was doing and overcooked the breast...hence, more yelling by Francois...me..giggling again. The result...not medium rare, but still, they recovered with the Aus Jus...dang..roasting bones for duck stock works, who woulda known?

Pan Seared Duck Breast, Parsnip Puree, Duck Aus Jus

The weekend was a blast. We met a lot of new people, learned quite a bit about cooking from scratch, making stocks, de-boning ducks, and racks of lamb...invaluable tools towards becoming better cooks (and better people in my opinion). And although the chef sometimes yelled when you messed up, he did it for the passion of the ingredient and the dish it became. To paraphrase Chef Dionot, "A recipe cannot teach you to make a dish, you have to learn by making it, and then making it many times again." We were absolutely blessed to have such a talented and passionate chef (along with his sous-chef daughter and wife) take the time to help us learn French cuisine.

The experience was invaluable and recapitulates the respect we have for the culinary world. In many ways cooking has been glamorized by "Food Network" and "Top Chef", and in many ways these shows have brought cooks back to the kitchen. For Meghan and I, cooking is our way to communicate and work together, a way to strengthen our friendship and marriage. Food is our passion, and it was a pleasure to spend such a weekend with a group of passionate foodies and chefs willing to make us better at what we love to do.

Best Scallops I have ever had! "Pan Seared Scallops with a Three Potato Risotto"

"Galette with Creme Patissiere, Poached Rhubarb, and Star Anise Creme Anglaise"

"Shrimp with Poached Chicken, Shitake Mushrooms in a Shrimp Broth" Holy Schmokes was the Broth the best part of lunch!

Meg had fun!

The Shirt Says, "Bacon, It's What's for Dinner"

Before our Chef's Dinner

Bacon Makes Everything Better

2010-04-10T10:31:00.008-04:00

What is better than a perfectly crispy potato hash, the nice aromatics of garlic and shallots, topped with easy over eggs and truffle oil?

Add ham...

But if you got it, use a nice thick cut artisianal bacon instead.

The dish today was awesome, but to totally quote my wife..."Everything is just better with bacon". And as Meghan raved in between bites saying, "Oh my God Matty, I'm so spoiled"...I kept thinking, "The caramelized ham adds such a salty savory quality...the truffle oil and fresh chives from the garden really makes this pop...I could bathe in a vat full of this runny yolk from the eggs...but something's missing".

That something was bacon...

It adds such a meaty, smokey, and chewy mouth feel (that's what she said) that elevates the dish to four star food porn. Like when Tom Cruise says to Rene Zellwegger in "Jerry Maguire"...."You complete me".

Bacon, you complete me.

Stay or Leave

2010-04-07T16:58:00.007-04:00

The Title is one of my favorite songs by "Dave Mathews". And listening to it has got me thinking about a soon departing friend.

Tonight, I want nothing more than to go out and enjoy someone else's toil in the kitchen. But what does one do when the invitation to stay home on your sun kissed deck seems more appealing? Do I just order pizza in?

Truthfully, it's deeper than that. I sit here torn due to nostalgia, to the thought of actually saying a painful goodbye to an old friend.

Remember the show "Cheers"? Go where everybody knows your name. We all have those places, those dive bars with sometimes really good food, or generally some kind of snack. They are the local speakeasies, the Towney places...and tonight we were dead set to head to a place that is now changing venues within the month.

The name: "The Mexican Cafe" Is it Mexican? Nope, it's mostly the bastardization of Mexican, it's what I abhor...

However, it's like crack...more specifically, the Margaritas are like crack. Rumored to be made with grain alcohol, they are the reason people go to this little dive. In the infamous words by Dave Chappelle playing "Samuel Jackson's" character in a spoof of "Samuel Jackson's Beer"..."It'll Get You Drunk"! And that's that. It's a place where you eat a wheelbarrow's full of chips and salsa, get shit faced, and proceed to eat that fatty greasy cheesy Meximerican goodness saying, "Holy Shit, this is so good!"

The owner's lease is running out and they are now relocating to a different place in town. A place you cannot walk to...cause seriously, no one should drive from it. Case in point, I once saw a 70ish year old lady so tanked she was crying after falling off the step. Literally she sat down on the pavement, and balled her little eyes out like an overdrunk sorority girl(I know because I used to see this in college)...her family members quickly carried her to the car. I'm sure none of them were driving sober.

The new locale is not a hole in the wall adjacent to a "Duck and Dive Bar" called the "Ebb Tide"...it's in an upper scale part of town. In many ways for the business it actually might be commercially better...but it will probably no longer be that old dive, that place that was like an adult "Disneyland", or a poor man's Vegas.

I guess I just don't like change...

Yet I sit, contemplating do I even want to say hello and goodbye to this old friend one more time? Or do I just ignore that old friend and act like I was too busy to stop in...it deadens the hurt you know? But so do those Margaritas.

Pizza

2010-04-06T09:58:00.005-04:00

That's it, I'm done with ordering Pizza out...okay, well, I guess not because there is nothing like that salty yet savory lazy day New York Pizza after a long day of traveling. Or a long day of work paired with a nice glass of wine or beer.

But C'mon, America has Bastardized good pizza just like they have fucked up "Italian" or "Mexican". If you live in small town America you know what I"m talking about. "Real Italian" and "Mexican" in Middle America is just smothered with cheese and sauce. Thank you to the "TGI McFunsters" and "SchnappleBEAS" all over the planet advertising cheap eats, drowned with frosty mugs of domestic beer...ahhh, I abhor you, this is why we are so goddamned fat!

Excuse my digression, but this is why we cook. Why pay for overpriced meals that constantly fall short (Exceptions are of course excellent chefs)? Aha...yes, further digression would be nonconstructive...to the Pizza

First admission, we cheated, we have the recipe for dough...but we haven't yet made it fresh. Instead we snitch our dough from the local Italian Delicatessen, Fresh Market, Whole Foods, Pizza Shop, or Grocery Store. Now heaven forbid you get those Boboli pre-made pre-baked crusts...yechh! You have to get the ball of dough, frozen or fresh...it works, and it works well.

The type of Pizza we generally make is in emulation of the Classic Neopolitan originated in Naples.

You need a few other things to make your life easier:

1) Pizza Stone...they are pretty ubiquitous now, google it, or go to a kitchen store, it's essential for getting that nice crusty part to your pizza

2) Pizza Paddle: Another easy find...get it, make your pizza on it, but make sure to cover it with a generous amount of flour thus helping the dough not stick. Transfer to hot pizza stone in oven, cook till golden brown, spatula it back to pizza paddle (Meg and I first started with pan spatulas and cookie sheets and had a hell of a hard time, the right tools are essential).

3) Warm your oven to 500 degrees. Theory is, you're simulating those brick ovens from Italy...hot hot hot gets the dough to a crispy outer texture while keeping the inside insulated to that chewy almost half underdone mouth feel...melding with the ingredients.

4) Dough...and you don't have to try to spin it on your fists to a perfect disc. Just try and make it as circular as possible. Honestly, look at the pictures in Italy, the pizza turns out how it turns out...quite simply, it's bread with stuff on top, make it taste good to your liking.

5) Simple Simple Simple: We don't need all that horseshit "Meatlover Onionlover, Mushroom, Extra Ranch Dressing Topped Pizza" Start with some Crushed Red Tomatoes (Preferably from San Marzano...the best sauce tomatoes around, and they are easy to find, just something you don't know to look for), fresh Mozzarella (It comes in a ball, slice the ball and top on the pizza, dont' use the shredded kind), and Fresh Basil...done, that's it.

If you're feeling fancy, add some Meatballs. Find your favorite Meatball recipe. We do simple and fresh. The meatballs you're seeing on our Pizza were from "Molto Mario" Here's a simple recipe from a tried and true source as well:

http://lacucinaitalianamagazine.com/recipe/red-bean-meatballs-with-spicy-sauce

6) Wine: If you imbibe, grab something to pair. Now pairing isn't that hard. If you feel something is easy drinking and you like it, grab a glass of it and accessorize with Pizza. We consider ourselves simple wine snobs. That means, If we like it we drink it.

7) Don't forget: For this type Pizza (The Margherita), when it comes out of the oven, sprinkle fresh Basil on top, Parmigiano Reggiano, and good Olive Oil. Most Importantly, do NOT forget a healthy dosing of freshly ground Sea Salt or Kosher Salt with freshly ground Black Pepper (We prefer Baleine Sea Salt and Tellicherry Black Peppercorns...these are easy to find).

Let it rest for a few minutes, cut to your desired slice, and enjoy.

Last night we enjoyed this with a great and overlooked movie called, "Bottle Shock", an entertaining history of how the Napa Valley came to the forefront of wine (overtaking the French in a blind tasting) in 1976. Cute movie, simple story, a little bit of drama. Grab a nice bottle of wine and thank your heavens you aren't killing your body with the preservative laden Middle American Bastardized Diet of "Real Italian Food".

Recipes

2010-04-06T09:14:00.005-04:00

I have heard you all would like me to share our recipes for our dishes. Aha, graciously noted. Please click on the links below for the recipes to the corresponding dishes. Starting from now on I will include the recipe for each dish I write about (unless we didn't cook it (Seared Foie Gras topped with Cotton Candy...I don't know how to make that one yet, but L2O in Chicago does...God bless Laurent Gras).

Banana Bread

http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/banana-nut-bread

Roasted Split Chicken with Mustard Crust

http://www.kqed.org/w/morefastfoodmyway/episode204.html

Baked Shrimp with Tomatoes and Feta

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ellie-krieger/baked-shrimp-with-tomatoes-and-feta-recipe/index.html

Spaghetti with Artichokes and Pancetta

http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/spaghetti-with-artichokes-and-pancetta

Buon Appetito

I'm A Total Egg Slut

2010-04-02T09:28:00.009-04:00

Uttered by my personal food hero Anthony Bourdain, my wife and I are enchanted by the simple yet complex nature of the egg. Morning, noon, or night, I can always whip up something...sandwiches, hash, seared duck breasts, and it is enhanced with an easy over egg on top. Nothing beats a beautifully cooked egg with that runny yolk contributing it's flavor, texture, and vitamins to your food.

Today's breakfast inspired me to write because Meg decided to make banana bread. The hour baking time wait with those sweet yet savory smells made us say, "Gotta make something to hold us over".

Get some leftover ham cold cuts, brown em nice and good with a quality olive oil, add some scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese (the sharpness of the cheddar cuts the richness of the eggs), I also add the simple ingredient of "Season All". Cook the scrambled eggs to your liking(we prefer a little bit undercooked as we abhor dry eggs...yechhh)...

On your plate...Cheesy Scrambled Ham and Eggs...it's incredible, edible, it's the Egg...

And they're not just for eating...last weekend my parents and I dyed Easter Eggs. Dad and I upped the ante with shots of Makers Mark and Beer to supplement the experience. The results were damn creative as we etched sketches of "Happy Easter", the police call box from my mom and dad's favorite Sci Fi show "Dr. Who" (fell asleep mid way through that show, still don't understand the appeal), and my favorite, "Hope =Crap" (my dad's distaste for Obama is more than palpable).

Point is, I love being part of a dynamic and wildly hand gesturing life loving Swedish/Irish family who makes some kind of excuse every day to celebrate life.

A Good Glass of Wine...

2010-03-31T06:06:00.007-04:00

My wife is my best friend, and lately I've seen very little of her. Over the weekend I was back home in North Carolina gorging on pork, and several days before that we were on opposite day/night shifts. So, our first night together we decided to celebrate with a simple little dish from Ellie Kreiger (A really crunchy nutritionist/cook) and a bottle of yummy (and exquisitely cheap Merlot).

The meal: "Baked Shrimp with Tomatoes and Feta". Despite my dislike of crunchy healthy tofu loving nutritionists, this really is a yummy creamy tomato dish with the briney/salty bite of fresh feta. Pair it with a fresh toasted baguette and you can sop the sauce while diving into the baked prawns. A velvety Merlot goes down nicely and paired quite well with the acid in the sauce.

It had been a long 14 hours of work, and opening the door to an ecstatic puppy, good tunes on the stereo, and inviting smells wafting though my brainpiece soothed my soul. After exchanging manic jumps, twirls, kisses, and snorts with Fenway(our pup), kissing my wife hello, and sitting down next to that glass of grapey liquid gold I thought..."Nothing like being home with a good glass of wine, great eats, and my wife (Fenway and Manny too)." Who needs more than that to make them happy?

Pork, Pork, Pork

2010-03-30T14:31:00.004-04:00

Growing up, pork was forbidden. Reading my earlier entries you will see I was somewhat of a Christian Orthodox/Jew/Muslim/Seventh Day Adventist/Jehovah's Witness identified as a member of "The Worldwide Church of God". Summarizing: We kept a Sabbath, No Pork, No Christmas, No Birthdays, and in hindsight..."No Fun".

Our religion changed to something a bit more sane...less "Acts of Faith" and more, "God kinda knows what's in your heart, so it's okay to eat pork, He wont smite you", and voila...I started eating everything I could...pork being one of my most favorite new friends.

Recalling briefly on using "Five Guys" as "Chicken Soup for the Soul" for life changing decisions, I recently used Pork as my newest aide. Actually, I headed home for the weekend to visit my folks, and dad was into making "Pulled Pork Tacos".

As a side regarding my father, he has always self-identified as a "Grilling Man", but his prowess in the kitchen has often been undermined by his enthusiasm to toss everything into the kitchen sink. I too had the same problem until I started reading about food, and then the tumblers started to click into place.

Recognizing his passion and need for honing I got him a book by Rick Bayless, a known American expert on Mexican cuisine. The proposed menu? Pulled Pork Tacos,(rubbed in a savory adobo, smoked, and slow cooked) and Guacamole.

Dad eyes gleamed like a kid's on Christmas morning as he carefully thought out each meticulous step. Step 1: Rub the Pork Shoulder (Boston Butt) down with a savory adobo. Step 2: Smoke the Butt with White Oak. Step 3: Cook that sucker slow and low in the "Crock Pot". Step 4: Make some guacamole. Step 5: Have his son (the sous chef in this case) prep the taco fixins and imbibe some beers to enhance the experience.

The end result: A succulent sexy hunk of pulled pork enveloped in a double corn tortilla with some basting juices, radishes, spritz of lime, and pinch of cilantro. Add the tortilla chips with fresh guac on the side and a few more beers and you had some kind of magic. I was asleep by 8pm dreaming of little piggies flying through buttery flaming hoops after swimming in a basting vat...oh you succulent crispy skinned porker.

Such opulent dining was simple, cheap (the roast cost about 11 bucks for 7 pounds), and exquisite. Making argument against the thousand dollar dinners of Thomas Keller's "French Laundry" and more for the lip smacking dopamine indulgences of pleasure via simple family style dining. Overdosing on a simple pulled pork...I tried, I failed, I slept 12 hours of peaceful sleep.

As for my life changing decision? I think I made it, with aide of pork, libation, and family.

The Good Stuff Eatery

2010-03-25T14:53:00.004-04:00

The foodies are raging in waves as eating, and blogging about eating is becoming hot gossip. If you tune into Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" or read any of his books, you'll read the same snarky comments about new celebrity chefs frosting their hair and grabbing their first chance at a new t.v. show, thusly selling out to the pirate world of chefdom they once starred in.

Cases in point, look at the reality shows involving Gordon Ramsey berating future chefs, Iron Chef America, Top Chef, and even a foodie movie devoted to Julia Child (her book "My Life In France" is an amazing memoir of her learning to cook and live...highly recommend it). That said, there is a celebrity buzz to certain chefs, it's almost reminiscent of collecting baseball cards when compared to eating at certain establishments. My wife and I will often name drop when referencing "The French Laundry", "Michael Mina", "Komi", etcetera.

And playing further into the hype we decided to visit "The Good Stuff Eatery", partially owned and operated by Chef Spike Mendelsohn, who was on Top Chef Season IV. Chef Spike opened a burger joint. And instead of reuniting with our med school buddies at a haute cuisine esque place, we all opted to play it on the cheap, and schlepped it over to Capitol Hill.

Honestly, it's a step above "Five Guys". The burgers are made to order per se, but not cooked to the liking of the guest...meaning all are cooked well done. All advertise farm fresh ingredients and gibe with the recent hippie hysteria of free range, freedom of speech, freedom to vote and own land that everyone insists on when buying their meat from Whole Foods (we nickname them Whole Paycheck).

On the whole, the burgers are greasy, and good. Being that Chef Spike curiously placed the burger joint in the middle of a bunch of bars where sloppy drunk horny interns will get the hankering for a burger and fries, it's genius. However, to echo the sentiments of my wife...we expected more. I guess seeing Spike cook his ass off on TV, we wanted a Foie Gras laden black truffle dusted pork belly sprinkled gut bomb of ecstasy. Instead, we found ourselves eating solidly constructed "burger joint" burgers a shade better than five guys (I consider Five Guys to be a good old standard especially if you reference my latest blog).

Of note, the "Village Fries" were limp, lacked texture, and had too much damn thyme and rosemary. My wife makes much better in our oven. His milkshakes however, golden! The strawberry was the best I have ever had, it actually tasted like the tart fresh yet small ruby red picked berries you find at the beginning of the summer. Seriously, I tasted summer, I saw sunlight, and envisioned a picnic and white linen drying on the line.

The "Milky Way Shake"...get a spoon, don't even try a straw...unless you are interviewing a potential date for fellatio. It was thick fudgy, chocolaty, and caramelly malty goodness. After several NCAA tourney beers we ate here, we tried to rally and drink afterwards, no go...food coma.

Thusly, a good meal, it was enhanced with the company of some really good friends of whom we also call Doctors.

Five Guys

2010-03-24T20:10:00.003-04:00

So, I'm considering a change in jobs, and I have no idea what to do. After a 3 hour meeting with a prospective employer, I went to Five Guys.

Nothing makes a decision more palatable than a double bacon cheeseburger topped with jalapenos, onions, mushrooms, and A-1 Steak Sauce. Now gimme some fries, dip em in mayo, and then dip some in ketchup.

My decision has been derailed, I'm now in a food coma, I guess I'll just sleep on it.

Fettuccine with Baby Artichokes and Pancetta

2010-03-23T21:52:00.006-04:00

When you see a recipe by Mario Batali, dive in...

Meghan(my artistic muse and wonderful wife) and I saw the most recent issue of Food and Wine and decided to drool...

On the cover...Spaghetti with baby artichokes and pancetta by Mario Batali. Having cooked from "Molto Mario" in the past(Mario Batali's cookbook and a James Beard award winner..that means it's really good) we said, "This should be simple, rustic, and of course pretty tasty".

So, we ventured to the new "Fresh Market" in Annapolis, retrieved our ingredients, and proceeded to completely bail each and every night..."Hon, I don't feel like cooking...just don't feel like making fresh pasta...oh well, let's just go out again..."

As I tried to convince my wife to have a sushi night tonight she convinced me those baby artichokes were wearing out their welcome in the fridge...

So we rolled fresh pasta, she browned a thick slab of pancetta, tenderized the baby artichokes, aromasized the onions, and...

Voila...

Nasty Good, Yummy Silky Pasta...

Add the salty pancetta, paired with the savory Parmigiano Reggiano and you got magic.

It's rustic, it's simple, it's a dish that is simply easy, pair it with a nice Tuscan Red, and you have good times...

Bon Appetito

Hiatus

2010-03-15T00:02:00.002-04:00

It's been too long since a blog. Honestly my blogging energy has been sapped due to some familial things I will have to write about at some point, I just can't bring myself able to do that at the moment. I have heard I have some secret blog watchers and they get tickled (amused in southern) at my blog. I appreciate everyone reading those blogs while drinking or doing drugs...that's why they are so amusing.

On other notes the trumpet took a break (hell it barely got started), I started re-training for that damned marathon in October, and we're beginning to plan our summer plans.

When I am more inspired, I'll write...till then.

The Blogging Public

2010-02-26T22:30:00.002-05:00

A Random thought as we begin to blog and Facebook ourselves into another decade. Will this be the old school way of documenting once our grand kids are born?

My wife tape-recorded her grandparent's stories back when they were in their late 60s. Do the kids now blog their grandparent's stories? Shoot, they can record them via camera very easy now...what's next?

It's interesting how life develops. In maybe a 1,000 years I bet we finally meet up and start civilizations with "Aliens". Why not? I don't know if a "Jesus" will ever come down to rescue us.

I once believed that I lived in the time when "God" would come and rescue us all because we tried to learn too much to become "God Himself"...that and the apocalypse was coming. Goddamn religious values taught by someone "called" to hear "God's" word. Am I a bit questionable and angry? Yes. Did the same stuff I'm angry at help teach me wonderful values on how to become a wonderful human being happen as well? Yes. Conflicted. Not really, just stating the facts ma'am.

We are gods...period...we have a creator. It would be nice to be invincible. Superman, where are your underwear? I'd like some bulletproof pants.

Wasted Day?

2010-02-12T16:47:00.002-05:00

I used to think that the longer you did stuff, well, it just was more meaningful. Call it the Puritan work ethic. If it's more difficult, it's better for you. Thusly, long runs, long work outs, painting for 4 hours, playing the trumpet for two hours. If you can't devote 6 monk-like hours to your passions your day is wasted...

The older I get, the less time I have to spend devoted amounts of hours on things I love. Rather than throwing them away, I have had to adapt. What used to be a waste is perhaps better.

Case in point...10 minutes on the trumpet. Professor Ketch was right when he said, "Just 10 minutes Matt", it will melt away your stress.

10 minutes, my time, forget about the dog barking at the paper blowing across the street, forget that I have to be in Washington DC in the next 70 minutes and I really need to shower after my pilates and hike through the park...

If you've ever played horn, your lips get this nice red pucker to them much like a fishes lips at the end of your session. Your lips even tingle a bit and are a tad bit worn...play long enough they get callouses. It's a nice feeling to come back home to.

Less is more sometimes when you are going for things you really love.

15 minutes

2010-02-10T10:46:00.002-05:00

As I grabbed the old horn I bought used for 600 dollars at age 17, it all came rushing back.

My fingers smell like horn oil...memories...the dirty yellow polish rag shined up my little Bach Stradivarius, and with the iPhone as my metronome (yes, it has that "app" as well), I started belching out old etudes from the biblical verses of trumpet land...Sigmund E. Herring Etudes...perhaps one of the fathers of technical classic trumpet...

And it was like riding a rusty bike. Full of groans, splats, and creaks, but it got down the road, perhaps slower than before, and certainly not with the grace it once rolled. But the nostalgia that came flooding back it was religious. It was like cooking a perfect meal, or that perfect moment after really saying, "I love you" to your wife. It was magic.

I thank my trumpet professor James Ketch, I thank my father for stealing his step-dad's "Olds Coronet" and letting me impersonate Louis Armstrong before ever taking lessons.

To all the times when I ran out of my bedroom crying because dad criticized my playing during our lessons (he was my first teacher), I am thankful I was given the opportunity to come back into this art.

Tommorow...more etudes I guess...the dog woke up once, and went back to sleep. No howling, she didn't even investigate. And my wife said, "It sounded pretty good, a couple of hangups"...

At least I'm legendary to myself.

Slowing down for a moment

2010-02-10T09:17:00.002-05:00

A perfect storm has happened in my life. If you know me, you understand I'm a milestone person. For example, at 25, I met Meghan and realized I had to straighten up...somewhat. At that time I was vying to prove myself more than just a "fun loving guy"...6 years later after just turning 31...I have a meaningful career and she actually married me

Yet...I'm still the same "fun loving guy"...I'm just not as reckless. With time comes filters, some days more than others, thinking how your actions affect others, realizing you just aren't in a bubble. With time comes a wonderful sense of responsibility and a greater sense of purpose. Call it an idyllic narcissistic legacy. With time comes more knowledge, a greater journey, and for someone who is in love with life itself things just become more meaningful.

Presently and literally the perfect storm has happened...two blizzards in 1 week. All of this amidst my 31st birthday. And with snow in the south (yes, southerners, Maryland is still the south), EVERYTHING shuts down. Meghan and my busy "run run" life has taken a reprieve and has allowed some time for me to re-evaluate what I want in life.

Usually our life consists of working 60+ hours a week, and then getting as much away from work as possible...parties, social functions, volunteer opportunities, traveling. It's non-stop. And we don't even have children. But I've found myself empty. Culturally and spiritually there has been a void. Laugh as you might I am quite spiritual...just not churchy. I have my conversations with God, I just don't like to conversate in a "church" per se. And at many times folks my age sense this void as a time to be "saved". I ask...saved from what?

On my birthday my parents sent a great gift grab bag box of goodies. And what pulled at my heartstrings the most was an article from "Our State" magazine (North Carolina) about my old professor for Trumpet. If you didn't know, I was a trumpet major on scholarship my freshman year at UNC. I chose medicine, gave up trumpeting at age 19, and never really looked back.

Feeling Nostalgic I Facebooked Professor Ketch (I love the miracle of Facebook) and got an immediate reply thanking me for the note and asking me to pick the trumpet back up for 10 minutes a day. He said, "it will lessen your stress, you can even join a community band or something". Paraphrasing what I heard, "Matt, the possibilities are endless, just pick up your horn, it's part of you". Apropros?

You're talking to a kid who started playing on a used Coronet at age 7...practiced 30 minutes a day religiously until age 17 or so and then I started playing 2 hours a day. Deeply ingrained in my soul is music and giving it up abruptly was a choice of finding a career that paid me well in dollars as well as in spirit. I have always been driven to do things my way, and find some sort of financial comfort. A career in music didn't seem comfortable for me. I worried about constant travel, auditions, jobs, and no way to settle down. Plus, I had a need for science, I loved helping people through medicine. In short, I have always wanted a career in medicine, and I put my music on hiatus in order to achieve those means. At 31 I find myself trying to get back to my roots.

Amidst those roots, I also paint watercolors. So I have decided to commission a few still's of some beautiful flowers my wife placed throughout our house. It's been almost three years since my last piece of art. I guess it's been a little too long.

So, I've decided to blog my re-immersion to music and art. It's that place in my soul that I find so unique about me. My quirkiness was born from the Jacobs's musical and deDon's (my mother's side) artistic soul. Fun loving, mischievous, yet driven. It will be a slow start full of bad notes, missed strokes, and maybe the dog will howl. I'm really not sure. But I know that for now, I have found a solace for my spirit. Thanks in advance to my wife for putting up with the music.

Stay tuned...

Done with the Bullshit!

2010-01-27T12:30:00.005-05:00

Turning 31 in a number of days, and life has just gotten me privied to a lot of bullshit. The older we get, the more cynical we become. The glass is still half full, but I'm just running out of time to be playing the game of putting up with bullshit.

You smell it, you know it, you step in it, and you wear it for a while. Hell, you practice it and folks can smell you a mile away like a hungry lion and a pack of gazelles.

To an extent we all bullshit to get what we want but inherently good people know how to play it. Selfish unaware people use it with reckless abandon. It's gotta be up to you to stop it before it starts. Have a sense of ownership people, own your bullshit, don't make others choke on it.

Beer

2010-01-27T12:17:00.003-05:00

In 2006, my then fiance bought me a home brew kit, sensing our new found freedom of no school or studying for boards, she appropriately guessed my curiosity in the art of brewing that magical elixir.

And like any zealot, I brewed with a furious purpose, turning out good brew after good brew. My two masterpieces were the Christmas Ale and the I.P.A. High gravity were these magical mixtures of hops, grain, and malt. The boys (certainly not men) at my bachelor party tea totaled my brew in favor of their water downed miller lite...as my dad says, "They just can't hang with the Jacobs".

And then I disappeared from the brewery map. Completely..for almost 2 years when finally my wife said, "You gonna finally brew me some beer?"

Two weeks later, I have one batch ready to bottle, and one in the percolator, and have found a newly awakened sense to brew. To me, brewing is working with your hands. It's like music, painting, cooking...all of which I enjoy immensely because it deals with making order out of disorder...my life's work. I find a sense of purpose of making a bunch of water, grains, malt, and hops turn into something magical to drink. Same as braising 40 clove chicken, learning a new song, or painting a new picture to hang in your house.

Next for me, picking back up the watercolors, music, and the fun hobbies I used to relish in a few years ago. I'd like to write a book, just can't find the storyline...

A snippet in the life of Matty, it's random goodness.

Does God want us to become God?

2010-01-11T08:31:00.003-05:00

Just read a book that got me thinking about the general consensus in religion is that "God is in control, and we are merely fallible humans, vessels waiting to be beamed up to that great gig in the sky while we fritter about like busy chipmunks".

Really? I just don't know if I buy that logic. I believe in a God, I believe we were created by..well, let's just call it "Him"...but why create a bunch of fallible humans, let them run around creating and destroying and then decide to finally "beam them up"?

What's with the wait? Why not create people in your image and live happily ever after? Why make us serve penance for some lady eating an apple that a snake told her to eat. Really? We are still on earth because someone chose to be curious about a piece of fruit?

Cowering from an omnipotent being, always asking for forgiveness, please do this, please do that, and living in fear that "He" might smite you because you said a bad word is a horrible state to live in. So why are there so many people who choose to be religious? Always "Afraid" of God...always passively praying and asking "Him" to fix things for you when you have the know how to fix it yourself, or it just can't be fixed.

Not saying I don't believe in miracles, not saying I don't pray...I just don't agree that we are "just some passive imperfect lumps of flesh waiting around for God to come and rescue us from our intrepid world". Why would God create people and then be so angry with them that they have to cower, and only talk to you in prostrate, and say, "I'm so sorry, I'm only human, I'm so imperfect, please fix my life?"

So, my thought is, God created us in His image to become gods. Think about it...why were we given the ability of reason? Why has science progressed so far if we are just biding our time before we are rescued from this planet? In my eyes, we are godlike...we may not be the "Supreme Architect of the Universe" (as the Masons call it), but we were put here for something. Where we go after we die scares me because I don't know. I'd hope we continue doing something, and I'd hate to realize that we just hung around for a few seconds just to push the pendulum a little further for the next generation. But think about it, are we not designed to become like God if "He" created us in "His" image?

Interesting musing don't you think?

Moments

2009-10-24T20:08:00.005-04:00

No matter what you do in your life we all strive for those small moments of perfection where whatever you are doing is effortless, yet the outcome is optimal. When I was fourteen I made a life changing decision to join the high school cross country team. And for the first two years, I hated running. Matter of fact, I really didn't like going to high school. Awkward, braces and glasses really killed the self esteem. I was tempted to quit running and just hide. Yet the masochist in me wouldn't stop. My junior year I made a commitment to religiously train in the off season and I added weights to the routine. Bigger, faster, stronger, and more disciplined I started seeing the fruits of my labor. Then my braces came off, I started my first job, and shed those horrible rimmed glasses in exchange for contact lenses.

And the next two years of high school were quite the transformation. The not so popular Matt Jacobs morphed into the high fiving crowd surfing "Matty J". Senior year I dated often and many, became the high school mascot and got a partial ride to The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The summer before senior year I met my best friend whom I roomed with all four years of college (now he manages my lack of funds as our investment advisor)

But it all started with that first lung burning run, flopping my 14 year old baby fat up and down the sidewalk, and it progressed to a few runs where I could only just go faster and faster and faster. It progressed to a waxing and waning obsession with pushing one self to the limits for that sense of accomplishment, that meaning, and the clarity one can achieve for being such a narcissist.

Today was a run where I could only go faster, it was extra clarity, an ultra high. I dreaded all 10 miles today. It was rainy, muggy, and I was tired from working the overnight shift the night before. The first two miles seemed like bears but my splits were decent. Five miles later after two horrific passes over the Severn River by way of the Navy Bridge, I felt my legs spinning faster and faster. Holding the pace for my kick the last mile it started to pour. And my body cooled as my lungs took in glorious breath after glorious breath and my legs kicked and kicked their way down the sidewalk to a nice finishing time for my thirty year old body. Nothing hurt, nothing seemed difficult, the precision of the run spoke for itself. I felt clean, my mind felt clear, and I felt high. It's a difficult experience to replicate with words. But to me, it's the sense that I kicked ass, felt great kicking ass, and did it honestly. It's a sense of meaning. It is one of those little moments in life that is selfishly yours, and it keeps your wheels spinning until the next one passes by.

You can't make this stuff up

2009-10-23T19:18:00.004-04:00

I work in the ghetto of Washington DC. And, I also work with a Redneck constituent in Maryland. Drug seekers versus drug dealers, crack versus methadone and crystal meth, trannies versus well, you get it, you just can't make any of this shit up.

In the ghetto, the storyline for a gunshot wound to the head is something like this, "Well, see, I was mindin' my own business, taking grandmamma to church, and then somebody reached in the car and shot me" (that's if they are able to talk after the assault, you'd be surprised, many are).

In redneck land the story for running out of pain medicine is something like this, "Well see, I'm out of work, and my pain Doctor refused to see me, and I don't want to get addicted to no pain medicines, but this tooth ache has been hurtin an awful lot". The retort depending on my mood is, "Have you gone to a Dentist?" Then they say, "Well, I don't have no money for that". Meanwhile they have a Blackberry phone and pack of cigarettes in their pocket. They usually get testy when you confront them about their money to buy cigarettes. I remember confronting an old man with Asthma and Obstructive Pulmonary Disease how he had enough money for cigarettes and cable TV but no money for his inhalers (he came in asking for a free inhaler). The response was something like, "I didn't come in here to be judged...wheeze...cough...I could just leave and go else...cough...wheeze...where. I gave him a free inhaler, hell, I'm a sucker for schmucks I guess.

And I'm told that God loves everyone. I suppose so, I'm just puzzled that the scum of the earth can survive multiple gunshots to the head while the single hard working mothers of three get diagnosed with terminal brain cancer at age 40. The good dying young has me question my faith in God the most, but it's more like a "I'll ask God when I get to meet Him question" than actually turning into an agnostic.

This morning I was at the Dermatology office for my quarterly skin check. My P.A. scraped a mole and said, "This could be neoplastic, let's just make sure it's not". And I said, "Yeah, Melanoma to the Brain sucks, terrible death, we've had a few of them.". And she said, "That's the part I like about my job, we find things generally when they aren't bad, aren't advanced, we don't have to give the ole "Sorry Johnny, your mom is dead speech".

Interesting, we do. A friend recounted his "Sorry your mom is dead speech" one day in the call room. As a background, this Doctor is a very soft spoken conservative person, and extremely stoic. When he finished telling a family their loved one had no clinical sign of brain function, a concerned and distraught family member said, "You are a Neurosurgeon right? Is your service like that Neurosurgery service on "Gray's Anatomy"? Is everyone sleeping with each other?"

If I never learn anything else, I will never be surprised at the great art form of the human race. God gave us life through Adam and Eve, and He tries to find ways to guide us to become better people...but dang, the disrespect people have for themselves and each other is universal from ghettos to trailor parks.

The universal theme is disrespect and lack of accountability. It's always someone elses fault, job, responsibility, etc. Will it ever get better? Is it worse now, or has it just stayed the same?

Diminishing Returns

2009-10-18T13:18:00.004-04:00

The Washington Redskins are a horrid team. How do I know and why do I care? I married a life long fan. And what really stinks is that my wife went from angry to apathetic about how much they stink.

I identify the problem as Dan Snyder, the owner. Although he is an extremely successful owner in terms of profit, he has managed to turn much of the fan base against him. Charging exorbitant amounts for tickets, food, and parking while overpaying mediocre players, he has run his team into the ground with reckless abandon.

What is difficult to watch is that for at least 5 years the offensive line has been a basic root of their problems. They are old getting older, often hurt. We hold our breath waiting to see when the water boy will be inserted for a play, and then get a fat contract as a new diva. And each year when draft day comes, filthy Snyder decides we need to draft 5 defensive positions, overpay some out of shape player, and or draft 5 wide tight ends. Never does anyone say, "We need to fix the offensive line, the problem isn't the Quarterback, it's the fact that not even Tom Brady could manufacture a fart without getting sacked".

So every year, a decrepit offensive line falls down, we all boo, and call for the head of the coach, QB, and everyone except the root of the problem....the owner. And he can do nothing but sit on a fat pile of cash and laugh, because fans keep showing up, and keep paying what he decides to charge.

So what does one do? I guess we just suck it up and hope it gets better next year. I guess it's like being a Browns fan, or maybe a Cubs fan.

Living Forever

2009-10-17T19:40:00.002-04:00

Since I was one year of age I attended church and subscribed to the idea that one day, most of us would end up in heaven to live in eternity with God, Elvis, and Jesus. No particular order mind you. And although I'm not a big time church goer and I detest most organize religions, I am still very spiritual. I usually have my conversations with God on the way to work, asking for the usual things: forgiveness, protection, and ways to become more mindful of myself in order to be a better person.

And since I was small, I have always wondered the same thing. And today, for the first time in years the idea crept up in my head as I was taking an afternoon nap. Mind you I didn't nap well, as the question I have is spooky to me, and quite unsettling.

If we are to live for eternity in the afterlife, do things ever stop. I mean, think about it. It seems a bit like Groundhog Day. Day after day of perfection and happiness. Does life just stay the same? Is there no end point?

As a child I was told that God didn't tell us everything because there were things mere mortals just couldn't comprehend. It's like if we tried to wrap our little pea brains around such grand ideas as eternal life as it pertains to time, our heads would explode. Mine simply hurts at the idea.

To me it's like the scene in "The Matrix" where Neo finds out he has found the architect before and failed many times. He just keeps returning and doing the same things, yet he has no recollection of his previous lives. Or Bill Murray in the film "Groundhog Day", when he keeps waking up day after day and finds it's the same.

Mind you, I love my life now, but there is surely a beginning and end, and I hope there is a continuation in that "Heaven" we all hear about. But something so finite with limitations is comprehensible to me. Having an eternal life with endless perfection boggles my mind tremendously. What the hell do you do with forever...think about it...forever. The idea of monotony scares me, it scares me to get bored and not be able to move on.

So maybe we just have to wait and see, maybe our minds are just too small to comprehend such greatness. And then you question your faith, is there a God? If so why is there so much suffering and pain? I think I will always have those questions but my mind is set that there is a deity out there. For me it's a lot of faith; however, I see no way around how else the earth we live on was created.

Spiritual Musings...I think I'll just move on to farts from now on.

My facebook life

2009-10-17T17:47:00.003-04:00

So an old acquaintance posted something on my Facebook like this...

"Your updates have me thinking you take daily hits of the nitrous"

And so I write, "Abigail, you knew me in college, and I'm way more watered down now".

The post she was referring to was the following...

"Rawrrr!!!! It means I love you in Dinosaur"

And then I thought about all of the posts I write about how much fun it is to poop, and then to have gas, and then my rants about the poor, and socialism, and lazy people. And then I post things about Homer Simpson...you get it, it's random, and most posts have me giggling like a schoolgirl, then informing my wife of how clever I am, and she says, "Huh?!...I love you Matty"

So then I write back to Abigail, "I have no idea why my wife married me, it's like a daily Facebook newsfeed of wondrous and completely useless updates".

And the life of MattyJ rolls by, legendary moment after legendary moment in my own mind.

When we have kids, I expect life to still be a fun zoo of Facebook posts, silliness, and overall bathroom humor. There is a saying that kids "learn what they live". My family learned me how to laugh at bodily functions. Every family get together my aunt (generally 10 minutes into each meal) says, "Can we not at least have one meal without discussion about bodily function?"

There is not a closing to such a post like this.

Gas

2009-09-29T22:52:00.002-04:00

If methane were a limited and expensive commodity, I would be a very rich man. This morning I awoke to, "I can't sleep, I think I'm going to vomit, your ass smells horrible, you've been at it all night".

She was right. I had more green clouds coming from me than the Wicked Witch of the West. More smoke than a magic show. Had you put some floaties on me on the Cuban coast, I coulda tooted over one hundred refugees in an hour (being that Cuba is 90 miles from Florida, mathematically my ass would have been going 90 miles per hour).

Call it a blessing or a curse (depending who you are), the Jacobs butt reigns supreme and it's disgusting. I woke up literally tearing up and gagging from some of the rotten eggs I laid.

And it's not really what I eat or don't eat, I have always been tooteriffic. My poor wife, my poor dog. They will all succumb to some sort of interstitial lung disease some day. So what do I do? Take Beano? Maybe Activia? It's a conundrum of manhood. I mean, think about it, someone else farts, it smells, we're all grossed out. But to paraphrase what George Carlin once said, "When we fart, we're kinda like, Hey, that's not so bad, we grin, and sometimes we giggle". And as much as I was gagging this morning from the putrid stench I emitted, I was physically giggling at the fact that I farted. As I write, I'm grinning from ear to ear anticipating at the next possibility for spontaneous combustion.

Thank God for being a newlywed, because she still puts up with it. I can see however that my future will consist of two separate rooms for those nights I create my own magic show of "Matty the Human Fog Machine".

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2009-09-28T11:49:00.005-04:00

Not Christmas, but Fall. And as I look out the window at the beginning of our Autumnal season I'm reminded of why this is one of the greatest seasons of the year.

And while many people think of it as the commencement of growth with the replacement of a slow death of warmth, leaves, and all things that bloom, fall represents much more. In my life, it has always represented change and a renewing of one's spirit.

As a lad, fall was our Christmas each and every year due to our religious beliefs. Biblically, we celebrated the promise of being rescued by God at the Apocalypse, Judgement Day, and finally Eternal Life. As most main stream Christian religions do not celebrate these Old Testament based "Holy Days", we were a little different, or you could just say "cultish". However, each fall, around this time of year, we would take a vacation usually to some sort of beach, give each other gifts, eat at a lot of nice restaurants, go to theme parks, and enjoy meeting new friends whilst becoming closer with our immediate families. Those religious holidays were known as "The Feast of Tabernacles", or quite simply, "The Feast". And the weather was always very crisp and clean. It's the kind of weather you wake up to at 7am and say, "Damn, let's get this day started, Yeehaw".

Our church's religious practices have changed from a "Fire and Brimstone" type religion to a more "Honor God with your Heart" based practice. Unfortunately the days of the "Feast" and other old testament based holidays have disappeared. However, the memories of such good times and spiritual renewal have stayed in place. In fact, my mom and I always call each other around this time and say, "It's Feast Weather".

Anchored with these special memories in my heart, the fall has continued to be special for me, and on my way to work this morning I was thinking that five years ago, was when I met my wife.

Five years ago was a different time for me in my life. I was incredibly immature, really hurt from a previous breakup, and my self confidence was quite shaky. However, after a brief attempt at stand up comedy during a presentation in graduate school, my future wife came up to me and said, "I just had to meet you after such a hilarious presentation".

And as I maintained the courage to man up, ask her out, and keep persevering to win her heart, the weather became "Feast weather".

It was autumn, and I'll never forget riding out to her farm to study and go horseback riding. That day was where we had our first kiss on her porch while we should have been studying. After we went horseback riding she came up to me, kissed me, and as I stood there shocked, she said, "I just wanted to do that". I'll never forget how special I felt. You see, at that time in my life I was so used to giving so much in relationships and never seeing such happy returns. I felt valued, and to the romantics out there, I felt in love.

And every fall, something new and cool usually happened. Fall 2004, the same time I met Meghan, the Red Sox ended their 86 year World Series drought. Fall, 2007, we bought our first house, and the Red Sox won the World Series again. Fall 2008, we raised our Puppy. Fall 2009, we have been married over a year and I keep falling in love with my wife each and every day just like 5 years ago when she introduced herself.

As a hedonist I find ways to celebrate just about everything about life because it's too damn short. And fall, well, it's another celebration. Raking leaves, jumping in them, carving pumpkins, getting drunk while carving pumpkins and then eating the burnt pumpkin seeds you conceptualized on cocktail number two or three (who's counting), Autumn festivals, harvest time for grapes, nice meals of your favorite comfort food because it's nice and cool outside, sleeping with the windows open and burrowing under the covers, the list goes on and on, and yours might differ...

but to me, it's the most wonderful time of the year.

Racist Facebook Patron

2009-09-25T21:51:00.002-04:00

Facebook really has to go. Okay, well, maybe not, it has enabled us to reconnect with people we wondered whether or not they were dead or alive. But, you have to admit it has the ability to get a few people in trouble due to sharing too much information (myself included).

Honestly, what more is Facebook other than a quasi stalker friendly website allowing you to peak at other's lives as a comparison where you say, "Hey Meg, at least we have it better than this person".

I constantly find myself looking up old ex girlfriends and laughing at their bloated bodies, balding significant others, and litter of kids, then turning to my wife and saying, "Ha ha, look at them". And she echos..."You da shit Matty J".

Okay okay, maybe it's not literally like that, but it's damn close. Facebook makes me more and more of a hater of people. Sure it's okay to be curious of what people who you knew 10 years ago are still doing. But curiosity did kill the cat. And for that reason Facebook is not a good thing for vindictive assholes like myself who are still bitter over breakups from first grade. I openly write this with no qualms because I am not the only one.

Seriously, when you "reconnect" with folks on Facebook, do you all of a sudden go out to dinner with them, give them a call, start hanging out? Maybe, maayyyyyyybe 10% of the time.

I'll admit, we have reconnected with some folks and actually met in person. However, I'll stand to and abide by the opine that many of us use it as a voyeuristic way to watch the train wrecks of other's lives. It's like interactive reality television.

And to the subject of my post...I was called a racist one summer night because I suggested Obama was elected in part due to his color. In my opinion, the political climate was appropriate to elect anything more dissimilar to a white collar white silver spoon elitist Texan as possible. Throw in the fact that Obama is one of the greatest orators we have ever seen with a dash of charisma...point made.

Had he been a charismatic oratorically gifted white guy...I'm not sure if the results would be the same. Many young white people were sorry to be young and white. I myself feel guilty to be a young white male as I do tend to have it good. I hate our society for discriminating one due to their color, sex, or sexual preference. We all wanted to differ from the norm of white male. Obama was a way to say, "Change...and sorry my forefathers were racists". Unfortunately electing a black man didn't and will never erase the crimes that will perpetually exist against mankind.

Forget the tunnel vision of racism. Open your eyes more to the total vision that our world is a cruel cruel place where crimes against humanity happen every day. More and more I find myself veering back to my religious roots. In one way it's easy to question the idea of deity because so much wrong exists. In another way it's comforting to believe a deity exists, and a utopia will one day appear where everyone can be their potential and the suffering of horrible crimes against mankind will stop.

And I thought this was just a post about Facebook.

Regaining Ground

2009-09-25T20:23:00.005-04:00

As the summer winds to a close I vow to pick up my blogs and write again. Honestly, I found blogging a bit of a fad, much like Facebook. Currently my Facebook posts have involved a fakeout of my bowel activities over the past 72 hours. I am thirty, and I am still laughing like an infantile 8th grader.

As a general lover of life and all things pleasurable (call me a hedonist), this summer was the best summer I have ever had. Meghan and I got a lot done with our home improvements, worked a ton, yet had a lot of time for cheap vacations with the in-laws. And as the summer draws to another dreadful close (at least the NFL and fantasy football is back), we see ourselves NOWHERE towards parenting a batch of little Mattys.

The end of a summer brings me to a bittersweet impasse of observations. Bittersweet because like much of life, I really don't know what to make of it other than observe and stay hopelessly positive about what we have at the here and now junction.

In no particular order:

1) The Baltimore Marathon is paused until next fall due to over training like an 18 year old at age 30. Lessons learned, yet I still fall into the pitfalls of persevering through the musculoskeletal woes of being thirty. Nonetheless I am still a svelte 169ish, and still proud to go "Skins" at the Redskins game due to the fact that it was "Damn Hot, that's why I took my shirt off"!

I will be registering for the Rock-n-Roll Marathon in Virginia Beach on St. Patty's Day. In my twenties I couldn't think of a better thing to do than get rip shit at some pub on St. Patty's Day. Now I'm planning to run 26.2 miles. My how things change.

2) My Grandpa Joe died unexpectedly in July. And I'm still not really sure how I feel about it. You see, it was a strange relationship as he was my father's step dad. Not to get too much into my fucked up family dynamics, my immediate family and I walked away from a side of the family who caused many years of psychological torment (let's say 3 years ago). We hadn't spoken to my grandfather in that length of time. To add more confusion to the pot of stinking dung, we only heard that Joe had cancer 2 days before he left us (Could they have at least Twittered us sooner?)

The tragedy on a personal level was watching my father go through such a tearing of heart strings. One day, I hope my epitaph reads, "Matty J, he was as good as his father".

Through all of the trial and tribulation my father has seen throughout his life, it killed him not to run back to his family to swoop in and be the rescuer he has always been. He's just that good of a person. Personally, he had just been shat on too many times. He couldn't fathom becoming involved again only to be hurt one more time. Picture a Gary Larson cartoon with a caveman walking into a cave with a sign that read, "Lion's Den" above the door. Yeah, this time the caveman learned to read the sign.

I can see my dad one day in heaven as the guy everyone wants to be around because his positive energy is just that damn contagious. Shoot, I see him as that right now. The pensive nature of death and dying this time around spurs me to emulate my father more and more. If there was a human living in the way Jesus wanted us to live, look no farther than my dad. I said it when I was 22, I'm still saying it now.

On the note of losing my grandpa Joe, it's so bittersweet. On one hand he was a physically and emotionally abusive alcoholic to many a people. I remember in 1997 when he kicked my grandmother out of the house because he was back on the booze. Yet, he mellowed, and when Meghan met him she thought he was the sweetest and cutest old man in the world. To be honest, he cleaned up his act the last 10 years of his life. But the scars of time do not necessarily heal such wounds. I find myself cautiously aloof and happy to be in Maryland as I too am tempted to jump back in the hot cesspool of bad family dynamics. I find myself speechless in a sad and sober manner.

3) I have been inspired to write a book. I haven't written a page. I have thought of a few ideas, but then I start working my two jobs, do some housework, and take a little time to relax with the Mrs and I forget about it. My inspiration is a single mother of two named Joan Lehman. We're too long into this blog to describe how damn cool I think she is. I just find it really neat that she has published her first book, she's an Emergency Medicine Physician, and well, she's left a really valuable impact on my life just in who she is and what she stands for.

It's been too long since I've blogged and though Facebook has gotten way too old with it's ridiculous updates and sissy ass fights over politics, parenting, and well anything you could write a snide comment about...I guess I'll try and blog some more. Until then, goodnight.

Pathetic

2009-07-31T08:36:00.002-04:00

Folks:

This summer my blogging has become pathetic and non-existent.

In an effort to keep it pithy, I'll list our activities thus far.

1) Lost 13 pounds training for the upcoming Baltimore Marathon in October, 1o more weeks to go.

2) Gotten a great tan from places such as, "Assateague Island, Ocean City, Our Pool, The Bay, The Eastern Shore, and sooon to be Chincoteague Island".

3) Added on to our deck and have started to finalize plans to finish correcting our yard-drainage problem/landscaping issues.

4) Reunited with the Mayberry folks at Nick Freitag's wedding

Honestly, it's been a summer of avoiding work at all costs. We still have worked very hard and I still have two jobs, but I just feel every time I finish work, we're off traveling to some new place, even if it is as simple as catching up on a new "Food and Wine" Magazine at our pool. The second year of marriage has been sweet, and I've just not been able to be bothered regarding blogging.

Instead, I have had the epiphany to write a book. I'm toying with the idea, but once I become obsessed enough with the details, it will probably happen. Still haven't thought of a subject/storyline, but I'm just not into any hurry at this point. Summer is too short for us not to take advantage of living 2 minutes from the Chesapeake Bay, and 20 minutes from the Eastern Shore..oh and 2 hours from the ocean. Blogging and work can happen when it gets cold and when we have kids...

Speaking of kids, we both just can't imagine giving up our freedom of spontaneity at this moment. Maybe one day.

I'll blog more when I have the time, maybe some nice observations from all the traveling we did this summer...I think I have some stories...

Big Papi Wants You!

2009-06-02T09:33:00.029-04:00

I'll save everyone from the epistles of late. Instead, I'd like to give a few updates since it is once again the first of the month (Cue the Rap song by a bunch of miscreants about getting their welfare checks....honestly the song exists, I was and am still a fan of it, the artists are "Bone Thugs and Harmony").

1) Learn to be more honest

This is a lifelong lesson I struggle with. I'm a "Yes" man, and I'd rather go out of my way to do something nice than create a potential rift of conflict. But, after a nice conversation with my father-in-law Mike, I resolved to at least try and tell it like it is.

Case in point...there is someone I know who is so full of shit all of the time, who hasn't done a lot with their lives personally, but finds it necessary to tell everyone else how to live. At one of these philosophical junctures, my friend said to the person, "You're so full of shit".

Those five words shut that person up, saved some excess Carbon Dioxide, and really honestly probably saved both the parties useless time spent on crap. I'm a pragmatist, it works, I think I'll try it.

2) MacBook

Fuck Microsoft, I decided to finally be the "Cool" kid on the block. Meghan and I are scrapping our PC's and Laptops and we went in on ONE brand new MacBook. Awesome, convenient, and to go with the theme, pragmatic.

3) Loseit

In my effort to finally confront my guilty eating habits, I downloaded "Loseit" from Apple. It's on my iPhone, and I get to count calories and exercise with a daily limit of what I can intake. Being that I'm ultra competitive, it's like a game...sorta like taxes..."Let's see how much I can win against the system today". Stay tune to how much I actually lose. My goal is roughly 6-10 pounds.

4) Marathon

I officially declare my plan to race in the Baltimore Running Festival this October. Five months is plenty time to procrastinate....er....train. Plus, it helps me with the aforementioned category. Meghan tried to feel guilted into training for the half marathon. However, I think she does better with cross-training. Not that she is a bad runner, but she HATES running. And her family has osteoarthritis like Michael Vick has debt. I don't want to help spur along my wife's ambulatory demise at an early age. She's too hot for a limp.

5) Birthday

Shout out to my pop, who's turning 54 in 3 days. Goddamn, can you believe it? Something to say about having a son when you're 24. I'm 30, not at all ready for a child. My dad keeps laughing saying, "You wont be able to chase your kids around because you'll be too old".

6) Big Papi

Last but not least, I bid a premature but appropriate melancholy farewell to David Ortiz, better known as "Big Papi". I love him dearly, he carried the Red Sox on his back during 2004 and 2007. However, it looks as if his career has come to an end. Yeah, he's still playing, but it's sad the way we watch his tired bones creak as he slowly hacks at pitches. His bat speed is nill. It's like watching my grandfather slipping into dementia, or your old dog with arthritis attempt to limp over to the tennis ball it used to fly to. No one wants them to go, we all hope that they turn it around. And to be honest, we'll all keep them around until it's time, but it's just sad to watch the end of an era, sad to watch that lovable spirit hurt so badly as time starts to pass them by.

It's a song and dance we all must wrestle with as we watch our loved ones slip away, and then we have to finally dance that dance ourselves. We have to be vigilant to enjoy our time now. It's too easy to never be satisfied and always want more. It's the double edged sword of living the American Dream. I want more money, I want to lose 10 pounds, and one day I want to live in a nice house somewhere on the water with a boat. But honestly, I have so much already living with student loans and a mortgage in the beginning of my career with a beautiful wife. Both of us are starting where everyone else does...square one.

The other night, my wife and I had steak outside on our porch at dusk, great music was playing, there was a slight breeze, and at that point in time there was nothing wrong with the world. Total perfection, two whole hours of it, not a want or a care, just an existance of satisfaction.

How many of us can find perfection within our day? It's so much easier to bitch about our "tough times" here in America, but really, are we constantly scrounging for food, are the readers of this blog moving their family from refugee camp to refugee camp? Did our houses get bombed, or did our village get pillaged by another tribe seeking genocide for their beliefs?

You can answer that yourself, but I profess we are mostly a nation of fat cats, spoiled and complacent, too worried about minimalist imperfections. Yeah, Big Papi is losing his swagger, he's the old dog who can't run to the ball anymore. And yeah, my grandfather is slowly slipping into the grips of dementia. Personally, it hurts to see one of my best buddies fail to remember who I am, or never really acknowledge my beautiful wife. But as my Aunt Ingrid said in her broken English (she now takes care of my grandfather in Sweden), "It's Life". And goddamnit she is right, it's not perfect. In these cases both parties have long ago reached their summits, but we still love them because there is no other way to feel.

As always thanks for indulging yourself in work avoidance for the day.

Dumbest Smart Kid I Know

2009-05-16T15:45:00.041-04:00

Before I met Meghan, I dabbled more than once with many members of the opposite sex. Many say I was a man whore. More particularly, I was a kissing man whore. I could make out with chicks like it was 1950 at a drive in movie. And I was good too. Problem was, I was like a free clinic. It didn't matter your race, financial status, weight, or how attractive you were...I could hook you up. I took all callers finding the excuse of inner beauty and "personalty" for most of my customers.

If you meet anyone who knows me, they will let on that I'm a total pushover. My friend Samantha calls me a "Yes" man. And I'll admit, they're right. I HATE confrontation, and will do a lot to get out of it. It's a double edged sword as you can imagine. So, if I can say yes without causing injury to myself, even if the yes consists of me going out of my way to do something...sure, why not, life is short, I'll generally do it.

That's what makes me a genuinely good person. I like to people please, and I hate when people are upset. It's something I have to monitor because in the past I have put myself in harm's way just to make an unhappy person happy. However, through the school of hard knocks, I learned that people are generally happy or unhappy regardless of what you can do for them. But that took a long time and a few bad relationships to realize.

You see, I have that type of personality that is infectious. Think about it, I'm happy, I'm outgoing, and I'm damn handsome. The only problem, is I'm ultra sensitive to what people think about me. So, that can make me a little unsure of myself every now and then. Add that to the fact that I like to make people happy, step back and ask yourself...what type of people gravitate to a handsome, charming, yet sensitive guy?

Needy people...Yeah, that's right. And often times, those needy people are psycho. Put that together with the fact that my friends have said, "Matty would even hump that lamp post", and you have my list of ex-girlfriends. The problem is, needy people bring you down.

My coach in high school once said, "You're the dumbest smart kid I know". I took great offense, but looking back on my life's transgressions, you'd have to agree. You're talking to a guy who took two and a half years to break up with a girl who faked an abortion, threatened her own suicide at least five hundred times, and kicked in the headlight of my truck. That breakup took about twelve interventions from my best friends. All the while I was sustaining a 3.7 GPA. Enough said.

All the exes share similar breeding, or I guess similar articles of clothing...shoes...big shoes....ISSUES. Mommy, daddy, doggy, "No one loves me", shit, the list is endless. The problem is, they never really got better. You could make an argument about the last ex (we'll just call her "Dirty") not having as big of SHOES, but her own "Daddy" issues consumed her as well as her love for spending another man's cash.

Dating these mongoloids was depressing and exhausting. You see, they all saw me as their knight of hope. Shit, I was like Obama to them I guess. So instead of working out their own problems, they looked to me to fix them. And I was happy to help. You see, I guess I thought, "Keep being the nice guy, they can change, they'll get better, what would Jesus do"?.

What would Jesus do? Shit, that man would have tucked tail and run long before he caught a glimpse of them, that's what Jesus would do. But I was young and I thought I could change a person. I thought I was some kind of emotional healer. Honestly, these folks would have had better luck with a tarot card reader, or perhaps Dr. Phil.

In my effort to help the helpless, I never gave myself a shot to get something better. I guess I opened myself up too much to their own unhappy criticism. In order to stave off confrontation, I would always say "YES". Making them happy became my number one priority. Fearing the idea that I could disappoint someone coupled with my unquenchable desire to change someone for the better, I sold myself short and settled for many unhappy dating years. The evil cycle of rescuing with the false hope of change kept me doing what I was doing. In hindsight, I kept myself miserable.

And in my final epic relationship of CRAPTASTICNESS (Yes, it's a word), I finally realized my unhappiness (Shit, it only took 9 years of dating a million different people). So I decided against hiding my feelings, and shared my sentiments with my girlfriend "Dirty"(whom I was hoping to someday marry). My reward, "We should break up, I can't make you happy Matty". Gee, that was nice. A few months later, I found out she was shagging another guy all the while we were dating. That guy coincidentally was the "nice" bloke who offered to take me out drinking the day we broke up. Pour salt into the wound there and add a dash of, "They just got married", and you have irony.

But the veil of night is always followed by a ribbon of light at dawn. And you know by now, her name was Meghan. For whatever reason God put her in front of me, and I landed a date with her. She proceeded to take this wounded little fawn, nurse him back to health, and kick him in the balls by saying things like, "Stop feeling sorry for yourself, be a man, let's go, stop worrying." Sprinkle in the fact that she appreciated me, found me totally hot (dammit all who wouldn't), and didn't have a laundry list of psych problems, I was done.

Finally, I had stopped scraping the bottom of the barrel. I had met my perfect match and I was happy. I had at last found an environment where I could grow as a person and didn't have to reconcile with a hopeless head case.

When I used to work at "America Restaurant", I had become friends with this guy named "Roy". And he said to me one day, "My 30s were my best years, not my 20s. You see, I was stupid then. In my 30s I still had my looks, but I had a clue about how the world worked...less mistakes, more payoff".

My addition to that statement would be the following...

"Back when I was in my teens and twenties, I thought I could change people, and I cared too much about what they saw in me. So that would get me down, I never gave myself enough credit, and always settled for the bottom of the barrel. I was stuck in a perpetual motion of dating shitty people because I thought I could change them. But in my mid twenties I found an angel, and somehow I decided to act right, and she kept me, now I'm 30 and I'm happily married....less mistakes, more payoff".

Shit, even the dumbest smart kid can finally learn to do something right.

Here's to you Roy.

One other thing, "Dirty" married that "nice" bloke for his money, and she spends a ton. Now that's JUSTICE with a capital J

The Difference Maker

2009-05-16T10:53:00.007-04:00

Today has me wishing a melancholy goodbye to the man who was our dentist. Unfortunately, a battle with cancer took him way too soon, he was in his 40s. I felt like I knew the man all my life even though I didn't. He was just that personable. He could talk to anyone about anything knowledgeably, and was a staunch advocate for preventive medical dentistry.

You know how when you say, "Yeah so and so is a doctor, or lawyer, or mechanic", and you get that mental picture of what they look like? Our dentist was born to be a dentist. He just looked the part. A little disheveled, but not sloppy, a little nerdy, but not in a bad way. He could have never been a teacher, or mechanic...it just didn't fit him.

As campy as it sounds, he changed the way I clean my teeth by actually taking time to show me the right way to floss and brush. He did his own cleanings, x-rays, and of course whatever surgical procedure you needed. He was the first dentist who didn't just come in after the hygienist finished ripping out your gums and say, "Hmm, yep, ahem, well, we'll see you in 6 months Mr. Jacobs". His only assistant merely handed him some things and made you rinse that disgusting fluoride wash at the end of your session.

It's strange to write about someone I feel so close to, yet know nothing about. He was just one of those positive people who made differences in other people's lives. He was kind and extremely benevolent. I once heard a story that he married a lady from somewhere in South America, and then paid to have her immediate family sent to America so they could join the "American Dream" and not be separated.

Meghan and I would often joke about how long our dental appointments would last. Honestly, he'd take 90 minutes a piece cleaning your teeth, making you feel really bad you didn't floss correctly, and patiently review how to floss, brush, and do whatever you needed to to promote dental health. When I first started going to him, he started giving me discounts because I was a friend of Meghan (who had been going to him since she was a child). He understood I was a poor student without dental insurance. Later, when I had insurance, he still gave me courtesy discounts.

Funny enough, last summer we even snuck our dog into his office. I don't think he really knew we were going to do that, and I'm sure he wasn't psyched that his practice could get shut down if the health department found out. But his office assistant gave the green light and said, "Where is your wife?" I said, "Well, we brought our puppy and she's in the car keeping watch". "Oh, bring the dog, we'd love to see her, Dr. Orbach wont mind". The look on his face was priceless as our little Boston Terrier puppy came bounding past the waiting room door and started sniffing his crotch(I was at that moment having my gums ripped out). Of course we apologized and placed the dog in the empty waiting room. He just smiled and said, "She's a cute pup".

Meghan and I both work in a field where too many assholes live to see another day, beat another wife, and suck the life out of the taxpayers so they can keep living on welfare. And we see people just like our kind hearted dentist, die an untimely death. My farewell to Dr. Orbach is quite lonely for me, as most farewells often are. His death appropriately has me asking the question of why things happen the way they do to so many good people, and the not so good people get to keep living?

It's a faith shaking question, but the thoughts of everything good that he did, within his short window of life eases the unsteadiness of that question. To me, everyone is here to die but not everyone around us is here to make a positive difference. For whatever those positive differences are worth, what he did was worth quite a bit to me. And I guess I come to the epiphany that he wasn't on earth just to help people have better overall health through dental hygiene. He was here to make us all be better people, his craft was just the vessel he used to accomplish that feat.

Manny being Manny

2009-05-08T09:52:00.018-04:00

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I stand at the precipice of a dilemma, again. Manny Ramirez was being "Manny" again, this time, instead of whining about fake hurt knees and loafing on his team, he got caught using performance enhancing drugs. The benefit for me as a baseball fan is that at least he's not still playing for my beloved Red Sox.

If you all know me well, you know I am a ridiculous Red Sox nut. I love the "SAWX". And everyone always asks the same question, "Are you from Boston?" Nope, I am not. However, the Red Sox became my identity at age 20. You see, I had taken to leaving my hometown of Mt. Airy, NC, and exploring the rest of the world. That summer, I had booked a gig as a canoe instructor at a summer camp in New Hampshire. Coincidentally, my girlfriend (at that point in time) lived an hour away. Before she became totally crazy(one day I might tell the tales), she took to touring me around all of New England. And penultimately, the tour consisted of locking me into the lore of the Red Sox. She knew I was a hopeless romantic, and I guess she figured that since I was a sucker for lovable losers, I was a perfect candidate for the "Sawx".

I'll never forget that day, the park, the smells, the enthusiasm, every pore of that place oozed life, newness...a fresh start to a 20 year old with new ideas who just wanted to leave the repressing ideals of small-town America. It was like being reborn. The New Englanders adopted me at Fenway Park..."Oh a southerna who wants to cheer for the SAWX, you like to be miserable? Ok, have a beer and a Fenway Frank."

I was a welcomed stranger in a land I had been taught to fear all my life. "Those "NORTHERNERS"....THOSE "YANKEES" up there, they're so rude, they can't drive, you'll get shot if you look at them cross eyed". All my life, those were the quotes I heard from my "The South Shall Rise Again" compatriots of North Carolina.

On that day, and many days to come in the land of the "Northerners" I was adopted as the favorite son from the south. I was an honorary "New Englander". And I finally felt a place where I belonged. I could swear with ease, not trust anyone until I actually knew them, wear sear sucker suits, bowties, pastel shirts and pants, and say stuff like, "Wicked Good". I was looked at as intelligent for thinking forward, rather than just being a "fancy smart kid". Yeah, the Red Sox and New England became my identity.

And until 2004, the Red Sox kept losing with style. You see, they hadn't won the World Series since 1918. This was big, and I was a small cog in the Red Sox Nation wheel. There were old people hinging every last breath on living to see them win in their lifetime. Folks, this Red Sox thing was serious business. And countless times, the "SAWX" would get to the precipice, only to be knocked back down to base camp. They didn't just lose, they lost with style. Get your heart and soul into it, and they would gut you, stomp on your organs, burn them, and then feed them to birds of prey. Yet, again and again, the whole fan base would come back for another season.

In 2003, they broke my heart. Pedro was left in too long, Posada hit the game tying double, and Aaron "Bleeping" Boone hit the walk off in extra innings. However, I was back for '04. By then, I had adopted the same mentality as any New Englander/Red Sox fan. I was used to being miserable, never expecting anything to come of something that seemed good. "Yeah we're playing well May-July, just wait till the playoffs, they'll find another way to break our hearts again." In fact, it was my mantra for life..."Yeah life seems good, but I'll find some way to fuck it up when it counts."

And in 2004, everything changed. The greatest comeback EVER happened, we finally beat the "Evil Empire", and the curse was reversed when we swept the Cardinals. At the same time, I had met a girl named "Meghan" who later became my wife. Coincidentally, my attitude started to change. Things that were good could stay good, they didn't have to turn bad.

In 2007, when they won again, I was engaged, had bought a house, and was working at a successful job in Neurosurgery. My life had changed from dating fat psycho chicks and thinking I could do no better, to a guy who was a consistent winner. No longer was I waiting to fuck up, I was expecting to win.

When Manny was traded for Jason Bay last year, I asked my wife, "Do we have to change our cat's name to Jason Bay (Of course I named our cat Manny, and of course they won the series in 2007 when we adopted him)?" And now, tragedy has struck again, and I find myself thinking, "Do we need to change his name, or will our cat be associated with steroids and cheating?" On a broader level, do the recent championships count, or do they have the dreaded asterisk beside of their name?

More deeply, does this somehow give my life an asterisk? Did I really ever deserve everything good that happened to me? Quite seriously, you can correlate the Red Sox winning the World Series in 2004, and Meghan and I first meeting and deciding to seriously date. In 2007 when they won again, I got an amazing job that boosted my self confidence to what it is today, oh yeah, and right around that time Meghan and I got married. Have you seen my t-shirt that says "My Wife is Hot"?...yeah, damn hot, I married the prom queen.

On the most personal of levels, I used to really like doubting and hating on myself. I loved to "almost" get to date the hottest girls, but then I would fail with the same style the Red Sox would, losing when the games counted most. I loved feeling sorry for myself, worrying about failing, failing, and then crying about it. Honestly, the early 20s of my life were the most inconsistent and stressful because I couldn't close the deal, and at the most opportune times I put myself in bad situations.

You can say what you want about Manny and whether these championships are now tainted by the dark cloud of steroids. But you can't put an asterisk on the positive changes in my life. Will I rename my cat? No, I can't, because to me, that places an asterisk on my life, that sends a message that says, "And I've changed to become a permanent winner, and now I'll go back to when life was less certain...when we hadn't won since 1918". Manny is Manny and will always be Manny. And Matty will always be Matty, it's just that ever since those Sox won, Matty did too.

Saying "Yes"

2009-05-05T08:58:00.014-04:00

So I said "Yes", when Meghan said, "You don't have to come to Grandma's Mother's Day Luncheon, really it would be ok if you didn't come". I may not be the smartest man, but my dad has taught me a lot in the 34 years he has been married. No way was I going to fall for that trick!

And so I went. We loaded up the dog, got dressed up in our pastel "Prep-tastic" Spring colors and made a day of it. And dagnabbit, it was fun! The whole party was really a lot of fun. Picture a bunch of 75-80ish year old really wealthy women (who have by now mostly outlived their husbands) sitting down for a formal luncheon. The event was fabulously done; elegant China (Grandma has about 300 place settings of priceless hand painted China, I've seen nothing like it), hand cut crystal, silver, and some really nice gourmet courses that my mother-in-law and wife put together. Seeing these old ladies start with Mary Ellen's signature vodka cocktail at noon was more than humorous.

The overall atmosphere was a really happy place for me. Watching the old timers get doted on by their children, grandchildren, and close friends was probably more of a reward to the hosts of this event than the guests. And although the event was all about Grandma and her entourage of "Golden Girls", it felt a lot like a date with my wife and me. Meghan was dressed to the nines, smokin hot, and I felt like were had just started dating again. I kept stealing glances while we prepped our dishes, bussed the tables, and washed the bone china, crystal, and tiffany glass that easilly tripled our salary.

And honestly, I was happy I said "Yes". After the party had ended, Mary Ellen said, "Matt, thanks for coming, I know you'd rather spend your day off in many other ways, but it was nice to have you". And I thought, "Sure, I guess I'd rather be having a nice selfish day doing what I want, but in hindsight, this is what I wanted to do. I may have griped about it, and I may be a terriffic Martyr, but I really enjoyed myself today."

Folks, I am terrific at whining, and I have been schooled well in the annals of Martyrdom. But there are a lot of times (and many more lately), when I have found that shutting up and doing is much more rewarding. Because, when it's said and done it was never as bad as that selfish ego made it seem. In fact, why is it that we bitch and whine so much, why is it that we all have the fault of being selfish?

For me, I find that being selfish and making excuses is better than trying and failing. Not that I was worried I'd fail at cooking for a bunch of old ladies, but more globally, I constantly battle fear of failing with a lot of things I end up investing in. For me, it is much easier to hide from events that, "Might not turn out to be a success" and use excuses of "I'm too busy".

This is no revelation, and I am certainly not the only one who experiences these emotions. However, I'm lucky to know who I know, and have wonderful inspirational people around me who challenge me to rise up and be that figurehead, and not a bumbling idiot too afraid to take a chance. Thus far, I'm 30, married to a really hot wife, becoming more and more successful at life and my job. So, "Thank You", to my wife, my friends, enemies, mentors, and any remote inspiration that makes me say "Yes". "Yes" is much more empowering than worrying about saying "No".