May Days

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s Cinco de Mayo. Look, I’ve already picked up my annual bottle of tequila. I’m partial to the Milagro silver. For me, it lives at that perfect intersection of price and quality. It’s delicious. Light, and even a bit floral. I find it to be enchanting either on its own, or mixed with lime and seltzer in a tequila rickey.

Margaritas, much like ketchup, are often too sweet.

But May 5 is full of other things too, and there are just a crap ton of other events in the next few days that you should know about. They may even help you drown your sorrows from the news of the day, be it political, social, or economic. Because if you don’t have sorrows, you haven’t been paying attention.

Yes, life is hard. That’s not new. But the hardships of living, sometimes need to be pushed down in the hole to make room for joy. Because life without joy isn’t living at all. So, maybe I can tempt you into some of these joyous moments.

Let’s start with the ridiculous, because yesterday in the mail I received something called a Frork from McDonald’s. It’s a french fry fork. No, it’s not a fork for eating french fries. It’s a rubberized casing that you can squeeze open to insert a few fries, so that those deep fried batons of potato serve as the tines.

What’s the point? Somehow it exists to promote the chain’s new Signature Crafted sandwiches. Let me quote you a couple of lines from the package, “Did the world need this? Nope. Does it work? Kind of… ? Either way, we hope you enjoy.”

I mention this because today, May 5, is when a very limited number of these Frorks are being given out in select restaurants. Your odds are probably better scoring one by going to the @McDAlbanyNY instagram page.

Or maybe you want to go to McDonald’s and send me a picture of you eating a burger with sticky sweet toppings just to make that vein in my forehead start throbbing a bit.

Now here’s something on the other side of the spectrum.

May 5 is also the night that Eric Paul is bringing summer cookouts back to The Cheese Traveler. I don’t know how many years he has been doing this for now at this point. What I do know is that I’ve never been able to attend.

Today is no different. Instead of going to this cookout, I’m going to have to listen to middle schoolers talk about the holocaust.

If you aren’t in the mood for celebrating, but you need to get out of the house, don’t forget that Friday, May 5 is also the official world premiere of Some People Hear Thunder at theREP. I have no idea if it’s sold out, but it’s a really small theater, so I can’t imagine there’s a bad seat.

Thanks to the good folks at Proctor’s, I caught a preview of the show this past week. At first when I heard it billed as a musical love story set in New York and Turkey around the events of the Armenian genocide, I was on guard. There are a bunch of words in that description that don’t naturally fit together.

There were some really moving moments. I’m not a theater critic, but the chemistry between the leads didn’t quite sizzle enough to sell the love story side of it. Still, the innocent American journalist going abroad, and finding himself covering the outbreak of World War I was compelling.

If you do go out on Friday, don’t stay out too late. Saturday is the Tour de Seasonal Burger Stand. If you haven’t sent me your RSVP it’s not too late.

Monday.

Monday is really interesting. There’s a big event that as far as I can tell is almost totally off the radar. But the borough of Queens is coming up to Albany for Queens Day.

Now, if you are a food loving person who makes it down to the city, you know just how much Queens rocks. And not only that, but they have some amazing breweries too. And to get a taste of that without having to drive down to the city and deal with parking and traffic is an incredible treat.

There’s a whole day of events and lobbying. But from 5-7pm at The Egg, there is going to be a grand tasting. SingleCut Beersmiths and Finback Brewery will be there pouring beer. I’ve also been told that Doughnut Plant from LIC, Pesso’s Ices from Bayside, Dumpling Galaxy from Flushing, Zum Stammtisch from Glendale, and a lot of other tasty businesses operating within the borough will be there.

The tasting is free, but you need to get on the guest list. As long as there is still open space, anyone can register. But registering is a bit of a bulky process. So, I’ve been asked to find people who might want to come and share their impressions of the event on their social media feeds. If that sounds like you, send me a note and I’ll try to squeeze as many people onto the guest list as I can.

Tuesday is another fun free tasting event, but the goodMRKT preview at the Palace is already filled to capacity. Maybe you scored a ticket. If so, I’ll look forward to comparing notes after the event. And if not, don’t worry, I’ll have a run down of the experience next week.

Have a great weekend, and I hope to see you at the Tour de Burger on Saturday. Cheers!