Helping Out Old Friends
There are some things I promised not to talk about until June. And I’m going to keep my vow. But doing so may make today’s post seem a little cryptic. My apologies in advance, but I am a man of my word.
About two years ago, I shared with you all a story about a great cocktail blog I stumbled upon. It was the 12 Bottle Bar. And if you missed my little love letter to David Solmonson back then, I encourage you to go and check it out now. Not just my post, but also his blog. Because as awesome as it was in the early days, it proceeded to get even better, scoring interviews with luminaries ranging from Gary Regan to Lloyd Kaufman.
If you clicked on one of the links to the 12 Bottle Bar, you probably already guessed at what’s coming next.
Medicine, Culture and Antibiotics
Can blogging make you sick? I’m starting to wonder. I seem to be falling apart. First it’s my back, then it’s my back again, and now a head cold. Maybe I’m paying the karmic price for railing against banana “ice cream,” but I regret nothing.
More than likely everything is the result of staying up too late, stress, and not taking care of myself in general.
Thankfully, today is the last day of the Times Union’s Best of the Capital Region Poll. You can still vote up until noon today, and for Pete’s sake, if you haven’t voted yet DO IT. Now. Use this link for the FUSSYlittleBALLOT and this link for the TU Poll.
I’ll wait.
No really. Do it now. I wish there were some kind of key code so I could lock up the blog and not let people click through to the end of posts without them having voted in the TU survey. Seriously, getting better places on the paper’s list would really help advance the cause of better food in the region. Please help. This year more than ever, every vote counts.
All this pitching for the ballot has been exhausting. I’ve wanted to do more than I’ve done. I sent scores of emails, but I wanted to send hundreds. I gained the support of several prominent bloggers, but hoped to reach dozens. And it’s taken a toll. What a lucky coincidence for me that the whole thing wraps up today on 4/20.
Ask the Profussor – Almost Done
In the last couple of days before the polls at the Times Union close, I really should be making one final push for you to vote the FUSSYlittleBALLOT and email your friends. But if I haven’t convinced you by now, I’m out of options.
And as I’ve been hawking this admittedly quixotic project your questions have been piling up and other work is going undone. For example, do you know that the blog turns three on May 1? It’s my blogiversary and I’ve got nothing planned. DerryX has told me that this will not do. So I’ll have to think of something in the next few days.
For now, let’s take care of old business. I’ve got a big stack of your questions to answer. Should you be a relatively new reader to the FLB, I’m committed to answering every question asked in the comments, provided proper punctuation is used. However, I often cannot answer them all right away. Those questions that fall through the cracks get saved up for a periodic feature called Ask the Profussor.
Now without further ado, onto the questions!
Hot Night Cold Bite
When the temperature hits 90 in April, do you know what the last thing I want to do is? Cook. Nursing a sore and tender lower back injury doesn’t really inspire a lot of time in the kitchen either.
So what’s a fellow to do?
Grilling is out because I still don’t have my grill. It’s a long story, but I’m very glad I resisted the stop-gap temptation to pick up a gas grill last summer. Provided I can find a good source of natural lump hard wood charcoal, I plan to remedy this situation stat.
Pizza delivery is a commitment to bad pizza, and that’s only going to happen in the most dire emergency situations. Plus, take-out pizza really benefits from a quick reheating in a scorching home oven before eating anyhow. So this was off the table.
There wasn’t much in the pantry that didn’t call for at least bringing a large pot of water to a boil for a significant period of time.
Then I was struck with a crazy bit of inspiration. Cold mung-bean vermicelli salad.
Tour de Hard Ice Cream Nominations
Holy cow, it’s going to be a scorcher today. And what do you do when it’s hot? Cool down. And how do you do that? With ice cream, naturally.
Here in the Capital Region ice cream is synonymous with soft serve. It is virtually a religion. This is why last spring I led a group of intrepid eaters around the region looking for the best soft serve in the area. And now we know it’s at On The Farm in Latham.
But you know what? Soft serve pales in comparison to a great handmade hard ice cream: simple ingredients, true flavors, density, something that’s actually crafted by a person and not simply some preparation of a pre-made mix.
So we are going in hard. Hard ice-cream touring. When and where are still up in the air, but today, I’m taking nominations. As usual, I’ve got some thoughts to share, but then I’m opening up the floor to you. Because there are a lot of ice cream parlors in the region, and we can’t go to them all. In fact, we’ll be hard pressed to go to five. But we will do five or we will die trying.
Pizza & Painkillers
Ouch. My back is relapsing. It went out at the beginning of Passover, and it came back just in time for the end of Passover. This holiday is supposed to be about suffering, but this is ridiculous. And now the holiday is over and I’m still in pain.
Regardless, I wasn’t going to let this get in the way of my second annual Passover break-fast pizza date at DeFazio’s yesterday.
So I timed my muscle relaxants and painkillers so that their effects would peak when it was pizza time. Mrs. Fussy was kind enough to do the driving. And I was able to sit at the end of the table, so I could stand up and stretch out my back. The good news is that I made it through. I was even able to make it to The Snowman for a little ice cream afterwards.
The bad news was a little surprising.
Getting out the Vote
Mr. Sunshine is just going to have to deal with his disappointment. You know, he lives up in Saratoga Springs, and the food is better there. Perhaps that’s why he couldn’t care less about the FUSSYlittleBALLOT.
But he’s not alone. Getting people to vote for this thing is harder than it seems. And each subsequent year I do this, I attempt to get over an additional hurdle that tripped me up the year before. For example, this year there are no protest votes for businesses we would like to see in the Capital Region. Also this year there was reader participation from the very beginning, and we spent many weeks mulling over establishments that should get included on the ballot.
Still, people have their reservations.
A big thing I hear is that people think it’s just wrong. Somehow a group of people voting together to try and swing the results of an election is just undemocratic. Which is crazy, since that is how campaigns work. Political parties (who represent blocks of voters) try to figure out which candidates will best fulfill their goals (in something called primaries), and then encourage their members to vote for the candidates in the general election.
You know what’s wrong? Buying a stack of newspapers with printed ballots in them, and filling them out on behalf of your customers. It’s clever. And for a thousand bucks or so, you’ve got a pretty good chance of coming out on top of the poll. That is of course, unless you are found out, and a dedicated bunch of citizens counters with a plan of their own.
The above scenario is not hypothetical. Read on.
Fat Cats, Fatter Cows & Their Beloved Meds
This is sickening. And sadly, there is no miracle pill that you can pop to make it go away. Especially not an antibiotic, since it’s that miracle pill that got us into trouble in the first place.
Now let’s get one thing straight. I love antibiotics. I love them to death. They are important. They save lives. Antibiotics are not bad. They are great. It’s the patients who demand them to treat a virus, the doctors who overprescribe them, and the farmers who routinely give them to animals in their feed who are the problem.
All of these are alarming, but given that the vast majority of antibiotics used in this country are fed to our food, that’s the best place to start and try to reduce their consumption.
And maybe that’s what the FDA is finally trying to do. Did you happen to see the article in the New York Times? Well, we should talk about it, because it gets me angry. And if you don’t eat meat don’t think for a moment that this doesn’t concern you, because it absolutely does.
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