Funday: Building, Inspiration & Pop Up Grill
I suppose today could have been a Photo Friday. We haven’t done one of those in a while. But dammit, there are a few things that people have asked me to share with you all. At least two of them are press releases. Another one is a link to the newest edition of an online food magazine in which I have a story. There is also an email.
So, without further ado, unto the press releases in all their unedited glory.
Sticks and Stones
You can learn a lot by reading blogs. It’s one reason I try to maintain the blogroll you’ll see over on the far right side of the page. Of course, it’s probably at the waaay bottom of the page if you’re reading this on a phone. And God knows where it may be if you’re reading the FLB on a tablet.
Anyhow, you should know that I just spent some time updating the blogroll. Holy cow there were some long abandoned blogs mucking up the works. Sorry about that. I try to never delete a blog once I put it up here. Instead, should the writer lose momentum, I simply file the blog away in the X-Files: Blogs on Hiatus section.
It’s sad to see the Ridiculous Food Society in the X-Files. And it’s even sadder still that once again it has been locked down to invited guests only.
But back to things you can learn from blogs. Recently, I learned that chef Dominic Colose took his family to the Washington County Fair by reading his blog, chefsday. It came in the form of a snippet. Here it is, verbatim:
Washington County Fair tomorrow. Tractors and animals for Tate, Rides for Stella. No corn dogs, they’re nasty.
Those sound like fightin’ words.
Trying Out Travers
Saturday I got bit by the bug. Going to the Saratoga Race Course for the 146th Running of the Travers turned out to be a great idea.
Crowds aren’t really my thing. For example, I won’t stand in line to get into a bar on principle. Battling traffic drives me bonkers. And masses of people in one place tend to make me uneasy. But the reality of this historic event in Saratoga Springs was that the crowds just weren’t that bad.
Sure, parking was expensive. But I arrived super early, a little after nine o’clock, and avoided downtown entirely. Plus I stayed at the track until the last race had finished, so getting out wasn’t that bad either. We hit Shake Shack early in the day, when there was almost no line at all. Burgers for breakfast are never a bad call. Later in the day, when it was time for a Hattie’s fried chicken sandwich, the line was fast moving and pretty painless.
It was a great day of learning all around. I took in a ton about horse racing, a bit about the food at the track, and even something about myself.
Betting On Burgers
The newest issue of Consumer Reports arrived yesterday with an alarming cover. It’s the disembodied head of a living steer staring straight off the page into your eyes. Written across his head reads the message, “Wanted: Safe Beef”.
My instinct was that the magazine would get the story all wrong. Safe food is irradiated food. And nobody wants irradiated food. Real food grows in the dirt. It’s surrounded by bugs and animal droppings. It’s full of bacteria. And for the most part, I think that’s okay because human beings turn out to be more bacteria than human. Man, I love the human biome project. This stuff never ceases to blow my mind.
So beef. It’s not safe. What a shocker. Get me my smelling salts.
On the blog, I’m sure I’ve talked about the giant feed lots and their massive sewage pools. I know I’ve mentioned that conventional beef gets fed chicken feathers, which is contaminated with spilled chicken feed, which is made from cows, which is how cows can contract mad cow disease. We’ve talked about the routine use of antibiotics on healthy animals, the importance of happy meat, and all the goodness that comes from grass fed cows.
Still, there are a few facts in this month’s cover story that are unsettling.
Beer Paralysis
How do you choose what beer you want to drink? It’s a huge question. Especially as there are more and more choices for consumers. And the answer for the same person may change day to day. Here are some situations I’ve personally encountered lately:
“It’s hot, so I want something refreshing.”
“I’m feeling decadent, so I want something rare and expensive.”
“I need to stay sharp, so what’s low in ABV but still tasty?”
“Here I am on vacation. What’s available in this state that I can’t get at home?”
And these selection criteria help to narrow the field substantially. At a good beer store, there should be someone who can help you navigate the options, too, based on what you enjoy, and what you are looking to purchase.
My immediate problem is more about what to do at some of our region’s great beer bars where there are some truly great offerings mixed in with some less great ones. If you go when it’s slow, you can chat with the bartender and find something fantastic. However, far too often the bar is busy and the time you have with the person working the taps is brief at best.
The obvious solution is to have The Fuj on speed dial. But outside of that, I’m hoping the beer geeks out there can offer some real world advice. Let’s take the list that I’m facing tonight as an example of the problem.
Keep Fussy Weird
When I took the Yelp job, I gave everyone the heads up that the blog might start to take a different tone. And since that date, I’ve been good about staying above the fray of petty conflict. It’s hard when there is someone who is wrong on the Internet. But I find a way to persevere.
But the FLB is still the FLB and there’s no danger of it losing whatever it is that makes it unique. It’s just that there’s a bunch of weird stuff happening in my life and the food world in general. Plus there was something interesting that landed on Keep Albany Boring yesterday (which in itself is a riff on the modern Austin battle cry – perhaps you remember my feelings on Austin).
Anyhow, this introduction to today’s post is a scattered mess. Sorry about that. They can’t all be winners. I assure you, the body of today’s post is just as scattered and twice as messy. So proceed with caution.
Delighted by Mediocrity
The Internet can be a dark and dismal place. I tell my kids not to click on links, unless they are absolutely sure about where they go. It only took one moderately disturbing YouTube video to really hammer that message home.
It would be nice if I could follow my own advice.
I don’t even know where I stumbled upon this link. Perhaps someone posted it on Twitter. But it took me to a corner of the Internet that I wish I could pretend didn’t exist. However, now that I’ve seen it, I can’t pretend it’s not there. Probably my best bet is to just talk about what I saw, and try to make peace with it.
As I sit and reflect on the matter, of course there are people like this out there in the world. In fact, some of you may engage in these kinds of deviant behaviors. And I’d like to say that I’m not judging you. But that would be a lie.
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