When you're feeling sick, sometimes you'll be lucky enough to get to stay home and roll back over and try to sleep thru it. That actually worked pretty well today. That and some applied OTC medication. And several cups of tea. Today's DVD: Seven Swords. Directed by Tsui Hark, based on a wuxia novel, starring Donnie Yen (and many others). The movie's got too many characters and too much plot getting in the way of the story. Literally. There are several points when the movie just stops for some scene or other that's hardly advancing the story at all. It's over-long and yet still feels like there are sections missing, as much of the plot is hard to follow and makes little sense. I mean, it doesn't reach Bollywood level of confusion and coincidence but it certainly doesn't have the clarity of storytelling of, say, House of Flying Daggers. What it does have are some amazing fight scenes, including one between Donnie Yen's character and the Big Bad in a narrow hallway that's worth the price of admission all by itself. And I was sorry Tsui didn't give us more of the army of Fire-Wind (the Big Bad) who come on like a cross between Cenobites and Chinese goth kids with lots of leather, face painting, tribal tattoos, knife licking, and drug-induced slaughter -- they are as full-on freaky as the villians in Bride with White Hair but they get killed off or spend much of the movie offscreen. So, yeah, the movie is a bit of a mess but still quite fun.

Rodney sez: check it out.

Painter R. B. Kitaj died recently. Here's the Times obituary and reviews of a 2003 California show and the 1995 Met show, which is the one I went to. Back in the day, as they say. It was amazing. But I haven't suddenly become an art critic so I'm not going to try and add anything profound about Kitaj or his work. There are plenty of places on the internets where you can go for that. Just wanted to mention his passing here.

Hey, I feel like crap (just wanted to share -- hopefully it's just a sinus attack and not the front edge of the same cold that Sarah had last week).
Anyway, while I'm lying here sneezing, let me clear out some leftover linkage: here's a blog about the Texas State Fair. I particularly endorse the posts on fair food, as Texas seems to be one of the centers of deep-frying innovation.
Or, perhaps not. Perhaps that honor belongs to South Korea.

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 28 oct 07)

Brazil 70 :: various
Colombia! the Golden Age of Discos Fuentes, 1960-1976 :: various
Latin Lounge Jazz - Havana :: various
Ticklah vs. Axelrod :: Ticklah
Music of Nat Pwe: Folk and Pop Music of Myanmar :: various
Father of Orquesta Tejana, vol. 1 :: Beto Villa
Panamericana :: Federico Aubele
Scare Tactics :: the Afromotive
Afriki :: Habib Koité & Bamada
Cal :: Son de la Frontera

this week's video feature: Federico Aubele

It's still all about the food (part continued & etc): the new stuff. It's been about 4 years since our last visit to Asheville, so there were several new places to check out. Well, there are lots of new places but we only had time to eat at a few. City Bakery is downtown, in the space formerly occupied by Blue Moon Bakery, which was another longtime favorite of ours (altho Sarah noticed last time that it seemed to be on the decline. City Bakery has a more of a slick, modern look/feel but the baked good seemed just as good. We had a multigrain boule, which was a damn good loaf of bread, and a mini apple cranberry pie (yum!).
Also new on the bakery scene is Cupcake Corner, which is a branch of the Sisters McMullen Bakery. It's right on the corner of Pack Square, just up the street from Salsa's. It was, in all our previous visits, a newstand/cigar shop which looked like it had been there if not forever then at least for decades. While I'm sure many locals were sad to see a long-standing local business close, I can't complain too much about a new shop that sells tasty, tasty cupcakes. We managed to restrain ourselves to only 2. Sarah had the pumpkin chocolate and I had the red velvet. Which was awesome. And their buttercream was very well done -- nice and smooth and just a little bit too much frosting to eat easily, which is just how I think a cupcake should be.
And last, but most definitely not least, there's 12 Bones Smokehouse. I'd read some good write-ups on it before we left, but hadn't written down any directions. This, btw, is the risk of going on vacation with no internets access. Or rather, it's the risk if you're used to having it and don't write names or locations of any of the places you want to visit. As luck would have it, though, we stumbled on it when we were taking the long way back thru the River Arts District on Thursday afternoon. We stopped there for lunch on our way out of town on Friday and ohmigod am I glad we did. Just some damn amazing 'cue. They're working the same side of the street as the Cue Shack in that they're not holding to any one tradition. They have chicken, ribs, brisket and pulled pork. I had the pork and it was right up there with Barbecue Joint as some of my favorite ever. They seem to be just smoking the meat and serving w/o any sauce. I had some of my sandwich with their vinegar sauce and some with the mustard-based sauce. Both were excellent additions. And the sides... wow! I had the smoked mushroom salad and the "damn good" corn pudding. The salad was wonderful, with a great smoke flavor on the 'shrooms. And the corn pudding may have been the best single thing I ate all week. They also had a side of smoked apples & onions, which Sarah ordered. I had a taste and it was kick ass too. The line was pretty long but it moved fast. We'll definitely be going back next time we're in Asheville. I wish I'd listened to Sarah and gone thru the line again and got some ribs to bring home with us. (what was I thinking...)
Here's a local's perspective on Asheville restaurants, including some I've written about here, some others we've been to, and some that are on the list.

We made a couple of trips down to Asheville last week. And if you've spent any time reading this blog, you know -- it's all about the food. First up, the two old faves: Early Girl and Salsa's (no link for Salsa's, who continue to not have a website). At Early Girl, I had the veggie plate: collards, cucumber salad, mac & cheese, hoppin' john, and black pepper cornbread. Everything was outstanding. Just simple, straight-forward food, made with good ingredients (their focus is local & seasonal). Salsa's is one of the first places we ate back the first time we went to Asheville, which must be about 10 years ago. So I'm actually pretty impressed that they're still turning out good food. They work a Mexican-Caribbean fusion vibe. We shared a sorta flauta-like appetizer, the tragically named "spliff rolls" -- actually, a cross between a flauta and an eggroll with a crab & cheese filling. That was awesome. I had a pork carnitas enchilada, which came w/ rice, beans, salad, and this insane banana salsa. Again, just amazingly delicious. My only quibbles were: the meat, while damn tasty, was more simple roast or braised pork than what I usually think of as carnitas; the presentation of both the dishes we ordered was pretty much everything piled into a bowl. When served, it actually made a nice visual but eating it tended to mix it all together into kind of a soggy mess. Y'know, though, at lunch prices I'm more concerned about how the food tastes than how it looks.

As mentioned, we spent last week (Mon thru Fri, at least) at Briar Rose Farm, which is NW of Asheville about 40-ish miles. The closest town is actually Hot Springs, NC to the north but we didn't get up that way. We were thinking of going up that way on Wed. but that was the day it poured straight thru. Anyway, it was a different sort of vacation for us. No cell service, no internets, no TV (they had satellite but it wasn't working). And the drive back over the mountain was imposing enough that we only did afternoons the days we went down to Asheville so we wouldn't be driving back in the dark. But it was just blissful to have nothing to do for days. Reading, listening to music, sitting in the hot tub... just doing nothing.
You can read Sarah's account (and see her pics) here and/or click on this one to see some more of my shots at flickr.

Before re-capping vacation (which won't take that long because we did NOTHING for vast stretches of time... and it was great), I should mention the class I went to at Southern Season last weekend. It was on baking with whole grains, led by Peter Reinhart. In addition to being a well-known baker and very influential in the artisan baking scene, he also teaches at J&W down in Charlotte and is the author of several books, including a new one on whole grains. This was actually the first class in his book/teaching tour on the new book. But you'd never have known it. Everything went off smoothly and he did a great job of getting out a lot of information (and a lot of new information, even for someone with a background in baking) in an entertaining fashion. He did various steps in a couple of different kinds of breads and starters, as well as a whole grain cracker. That was the only recipe that I thought didn't come off all that well. Not so much the recipe, I guess, as the version presented. Needed a bit more seasoning. And, because it uses milled seeds, it was a little dry. Sorta came apart as I was eating it -- would have been better if presented with some cheese or dip, I think. Anyway, this was the second time I've been to a class at Southern Season. It's a nice set-up. If you're sitting down front you can get a good view of what the chef/instructor is doing on your own, or you can check out the video monitors overhead for a close up. And if you're at all interested in bread, I highly recommend any of Peter Reinhart's books and getting yourself to any class he teaches in your area.

bread good...

Hey, we're back from the mountains. And we brought some rain with us. I'll have more to say (and some photos) tomorrow when I'm not exhausted. In the meantime, hey! zombies!

Interesting article in today's NYTimes about world-fusion-indie rock. Or something. I'm not sure I buy the central thesis, about some sort of new trend of Eastern European influences in rock. Trend stories are usually BS. But it's nice to see mentions of a bunch of bands I like: DeVotchKa, Gogol Bordello, and A Hawk and a Hacksaw. The effort to grab in Antibalas and MIA was not too persuasive. But then again I'm part of the "30 to 50 world music crowd" so what do I know...

Okay, one last state fair post....
The other day we got into a discussion about whether or not this place would really buffalo anything. Or just mostly anything. (Not that we were interested enough to, y'know, actually stop and ask them.) For example, would they buffalo the deepfried cheesecake? Turns out they would.

Sarah and I had dinner tonight with Mary, spacegrrl and J. and, in her first encore appearance in the Triangle, Xta. At Piedmont, about which I have to say two words: "pork" and "belly" and if that's not enough to get you off your feet and down the street then we really have nothing more to say to each other. I also had a smoked duck appetizer, with mustard, fruit compote and some crostini that was pretty amazing too. Sarah had a butternut squash risotto which was outstanding. Good food times. And overall good times, chatting about food, wine, radio, furniture, cats, dogs, bacon, travel and other bits o' this & that.

Taking a break from all things deepfried only to discover a bit of a local uproar centering on Chapel Hill restaurant Jujube and its presence, or rather lack thereof, on Chowhound. You can read more about it here and particularly here which includes a response from Jujube's chef in the comments. I'm an infrequent poster at Chowhound but I do read it regularly. In fact, I was reading one of the now-deleted threads this morning and it was deleted while I was reading it. Literally. I tabbed away from the thread and when I came back 10 or so min. later it was gone when I reloaded the page. And, as others mentioned, when I wrote a comment asking the mods why the posts were being deleted, that thread disappeared. No mod wrote to tell me why the topic was unacceptable. Again, like many others, it's the silence of the moderators while they're wholesale deleting topics that I find rather egregious. Yes, it's their forum and they can do as they please. And, yes, being a forum moderator is a pain-in-the-ass thankless task. Neither of those immunizes mods from criticism if they're doing something stupid. Which this certainly seems to be.
Note: at risk of totally destroying my local foodgeek cred, I should point out that I've not yet been to Jujube. I'm not a regular, biased insider, investor or relative of the chef.

The last surviving member of the Rat Pack is surviving no more. So long, Joey Bishop.

Was actually back at the fair this afternoon with some of the crew from work. There wasn't much group interest in any of the exhibits or rides so we just walked around, checked stuff out, and ate. Among things sampled (not all necessarily sampled by me): barbecue sundae (a cup with pork barbecue topped w/ bbq beans, topped w/ cole slaw -- kinda tricky to eat but actually a pretty good taste sensation; sorta like having your barbecue plate all piled on top of each other), lime fizz (like an orangeade but w/ fresh squeezed lime juice, sugar water & plain soda), mini donuts, bloomin' onion, deep fried Reese's cups, deep fried Twinkies, deep fried green beans, deep fried PB&J sandwich (this was, I'm pretty sure, a Crustables deep fried w/o any additional batter; not bad but a bit overwhelming -- about halfway thru I found myself thinking that this was a lot of warm peanut butter to be eating; the jelly to PB ratio was not very good; I ended up giving up before finishing).

We went to the NC State Fair yesterday as we have pretty much every year since... well, I can't remember the last one we missed. Hit all the traditional faves: mini donuts, giant vegetables, rabbit house, prize winning crafts. Walked around the midway looking for interesting stuff to take pictures of. Went to the pig races -- they were fun, altho no substitute for the absent-this-year Dogs of the Wild West. The guy at the info desk told Sarah they were doing a fair in Texas instead this year. But I'll bet the damn fair spent too much money on Paula Deen so had to scrimp on the other entertainment. (kidding!)

But, really, it's the fair and it's all about the fried food. All the buzz and howl this year seems to be on the deep-fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We did not choose to partake, instead opting for the deep fried cheeseburger. Which was pretty damn good, actually. Super-greasy but that's more due, I think, to inadequately hot grease. Conceptually, it's a sound idea. The burger's bun is replaced by the batter coating. I think if you had a lighter batter, like say a tempura, and had your fryolater running at the right temp, you'd be able to turn out something pretty amazing. I'm still pondering whether the patty was pre-cooked. I suspect it was. I think it'd be difficult to get a raw patty cooked all the way thru after you batter dipped it.
Other deep-fried highlights: shrimp sandwich, Reese's cup, peach cobbler (which was actually just peach slices, battered and deep fried but was still damn good, probably because they were battering and frying everything to order).

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 14 oct 07)

Studio One Roots, vol. 3 :: various
Scare Tactics :: the Afromotive
Rarities :: Kinky
Live at Couleur Café :: Konono No. 1
Summer Records Anthology, 1974-1988 :: various
Both Far and Near :: Kioku
Joya :: Funky C
la Radiolina :: Manu Chao
More Colours :: the Pinker Tones
Samba Meu :: Maria Rita

this week's video feature: the Pinker Tones (TMCR month continues)

Last night's movie: Trekkies, a documentary about Star Trek fans. The movie's dated 97 but the interviews must have been filmed over a number of years. DeForest Kelley appears to be in good health, Wil Wheaton looks not much older than when he was playing Wesley, and you can see the Sands in the background of a scene shot in Vegas. Altho I'm not that big a fan (of anything), I've been to cons and had friends among the fannish. I don't know what the fans thought but I thought the movie was an affectionate portrait. And it got a wide range of fandom in there, including Klingon language speakers (one of the best scenes is when the cameras follow a group of Klingons, in costume, into a McDonald's and Denise Crosby, who narrates the movie, asks the McEmployee if he's ever waited on a Klingon before -- it's clear she expects him to answer "no" but instead he looks rather sheepish as he says that yes, he has waited on Klingons before. Deadpan hilarious!) and slash fanfic writers. That was an interesting section. One of the writers insists on being filmed in shadow and with his voice disguised. Another woman is very direct and open about what she does and is not only seen on camera but named. She writes, among other things, domination fantasies about Capt. Janeway from Voyager. I can only wonder what kind of twisted stuff the disguised writer must be working on. Or perhaps it's a generational thing. Maybe younger slash fic writer are less concerned with anonymity. Or maybe the disguised writer lives in a more conservative part of the country and doesn't want their hobbies to become public information.

Hey, hey... it's NC State Fair time. The local paper highlights some of the fine fried food options available this year. I'm particularly intrigued by the deep fried cookie dough. I'm particularly alarmed by the deep fried PB&J sandwich. Altho it is on a stick. Sarah and I will be going on Monday. And I might also be going on Wednesday, with some co-workers. Mmm... deep fried everything...

So, according to the latest email update, John Wesley Harding will be doing a reading/singing appearance in late November, at McIntyre's out in Fearrington. Wed. 11/28, along with Daniel Wallace (local author, of Big Fish among others). There's nothing about it on the Fearrington site yet so I'll have to keep checking back. I assume this will be more of a solo acoustic thing but that's okay. He's put on a fine, fun show all the times we've seen him. Perhaps I'll even remember to bring my copy of Miss Fortune and get it signed. Maybe I'll even have finished it by then.

So after spending a couple of days on International Drive in Orlando, it seems to me that at least sections of it are what Vegas would look like if there was no legalized gambling. It's all mini-golf courses, giant souvenir shops, water parks, and TGI Fridays. There are also two buildings with facades designed to make it look like something traumatic has happened -- a magic theater made to look like the whole bldg is upside down and the Ripley's museum which looks like it's breaking in half. Sadly, I didn't take my camera with me last night when I took the trolley up to the mall at the north end of International. Which was a weird place. Very high style, with a multiplex and a Ron Jon Surf Shop and a Vans Skate Park but almost no shops that sold anything you could imagine anyone wanting to buy. Y'know, they had a book liquidator instead of a Borders or B&N. And the place was oddly deserted. But it wasn't rundown and neglected looking. Just an odd combination all around.
The main thing I learned on this trip though is that I'm still at heart a miserable, anti-social bastard. Having to make conversation with total strangers for hours was exhausting. This morning I went back to make a last tour around the show floor and make sure I'd checked off all the items on my list and I had to fight off waves of ennui and inanition just to get myself to chat with one more vendor.
It's good to be home.

Bonus late-night movie from last night: Banlieue 13, or District B13. Another Luc Besson protege checking in with an action-crammed movie w/ a plot that could have been written on a cocktail napkin. Seriously. "Set in the ghettos of Paris in 2010, an undercover cop and ex-thug try to infiltrate a gang in order to defuse a neutron bomb." That's pretty much all the time you need to spend thinking about the plot. The movie combines the sleazy demimonde of Subway with the cranked-out action of Transporter, Just strap in and enjoy the wall-to-wall parkour action.

Tonight's DVD: Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That!, the Beastie Boys concert movie. For a 2004 concert at Madison Square Garden, the Beasties gave 60 camcorders to a bunch of fans and then edited together their footage (with, I'm pretty sure, some pro stuff added in to the mix). Among the best stuff from the audience: spotting Ben Stiller in the crowd; the person who did the "I'm crushing your head" bit; the guy who filmed his bathroom break; the guys who managed to get backstage. Best concert moment: they say goodbye after "Ch-Check It Out" then run from backstage, up several levels and around the Garden, to do the first encore, "Intergalactic" from the crowd. Proof that the Beastie Boys own NYC. Also tells you everything you need to know about the relationship between band and fans. Runner-up moment: Money Mark doing handstands on his keyboard during "Sabotage." The movie is highly recommended for Beasties fans. I instantly recognized about 3/4 of the songs -- it would've been more except for the "funkiest Vegas lounge band on the planet" segment in the middle. If you're not a fan then, no, maybe not so much.

Thanks to WDC and Leesh for tipping us off to this Metafilter thread about VTW. I don't, frankly, expect there will ever be a second printing. Still, it's nice to see that the deck still has a small but vocal cult following.

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 07 oct 07) (special florida remote edition)

Studio One Roots, vol. 3 :: various
Summer Records Anthology, 1974-1988 :: various
Live at Couleur Café :: Konono No. 1
Rarities :: Kinky
Samba Meu :: Maria Rita
la Radiolina :: Manu Chao
More Colours :: the Pinker Tones
Joya :: Funky C
Blueprint :: Suphala
Kocourek A Horecka :: Kvety

this week's video feature: the Pinker Tones (again! another cool vid from TMCR)

So it's been brooms all around as the Rockies, D-backs and Red Sox have all swept their series. Alas, the Indians were not able to seal the deal against the Yankees tonight. Perhaps because they were missing the Jake's magical gnat fu. But tomorrow is another day. Another day on which the Yankees can be eliminated, that is.

On other fronts: Next Iron Chef was awesome. I don't know who to root for yet and I'm finding it frustrating that, with so many contestants, there's not much time for the judges to say anything substantial about most of the dishes. But it's still kickin ass. Plus it looks like they're gonna make 'em do MG next week -- the preview showed them messing around with some mysterious powders and one of the chefs going all in with a tank of liquid nitrogen. Like fun!
I'm off to Orlando tomorrow AM. I'll have the iceBook with me though, so posting might or might not happen. As usual, depending on whether I can think of anything interesting to say.

So if you've been following that thread on Eat at Joe's that I linked to, you'll have noticed much crosstalk (most of it quite interesting) about molecular gastronomy. Which, as I've said, I have mixed feelings about. It's not the kind of food I'm looking for when I go out to eat. And, quite frankly, a lot of it does seem silly and pointless. I'm thinking particularly of Homeru Cantu and his class 4 laser. But I can't get with the wholesale dismissal that I run into somtimes out there in the big wide world o' food blogging. If you read This or Adrià or a blog like Tasting Menu it's clear that these are people who care deeply about how food tastes. They've just taken a different approach.
And speaking of which, here's el Bulli's laboratorio website in case you want to start doing some MG in your home kitchen. Assuming you have hundreds of dollars to plunk down for jars of agar and various enzymes.
Or you could just order takeout and watch the Next Iron Chef which starts up tomorrow night.

Here's Michael Ruhlman discussing his recent trip to Durham. I was really sorry to have to miss his reading at Regulator but the timing just wasn't good. I've got his book Making of a Chef that I'll be taking to Orlando next week.
He also references the recent NYTimes interview with Bryan Zupon, which has caused a bit of a ruckus in the local blogosphere. I guess I can understand how local restaurant pros could take exception to the article. On the other hand, I'm a local foodgeek and it didn't bother me. But it's also interesing to see a 20+ comment thread that mostly remains polite and on-topic.

If you like your retro with a side of snark, but without the heartwarming family stories and borderline wing-nuttery, check out Do What Now?. I gave up reading Lileks sometime last year I think. I still love stuff like the Gallery of Regrettable Food but it just got to the point where his politics was killing my ability to enjoy his pop culture writing. Not even so much the politics but this vibe he gave off that you were some kind of idiot (at best) if you disagreed with him. Too many references to Hugh Hewitt and Michael Medved, as opposed to Michael J. Nelson. I'll gladly sacrifice a bit of writing skill and access to a wider range of archival material in exchange for no more yammering about how Bush and Cheney are doing what needs to be done yadda whatever...

A few random thoughts from the media watch dept (advertising division):
1. If you're going to pay good money to run radio ads in this market, shouldn't you make sure that the people you're hiring know that Raleigh does not rhyme with rally
2. Watching TV the other night, I saw a commercial for Traveler's Insurance and I was thinking, "hey, it's that guy..." And that was about as far as I got until later that night when insight struck and (thanks to the internets) I found that it was Richard Edson. As in co-star of Stranger Than Paradise and former drummer in Konk.
3. My favorite current ad is one for Bojangle's that has a woman ranting about how much she loves bacon. It ends with the Homer Simpson worthy lines "I'll stop eating bacon when pigs fly. Mmm... flying bacon."

So I never got around to following up on the John Waters talk. It was hilarious. I thought there'd be a bigger crowd but it was still a pretty good house. Lots of XDU folks, of course. Waters talked for about an hour, mostly roughly following the chronology of his movies, but with digressions on vaudeville, gay culture, shoplifting, Michael Jackson and more. Good news, part one: he's working on a new movie. He was pretty vague about it but it's apparently a holiday-themed movie called Fruitcake. I think he even described it as a children's story. The mind boggles. Good news, part two: he's got another mix CD coming out later this year, following up on the Xmas and Valentine's disc. This one's going to be called Breaking Up with John Waters.
And, hey, check out the boing² link to the Indy's interview with Waters.

Following up on my beisbol post from the other night... Alas, the Mets finished their epic choke for the ages on Sunday and the Phillies won so no deranged four-way tie. Altho, I must admit, there is something karmically appropriate about the Phillies (previous holders of the epic choke title for baseball) being the beneficiaries of the Mets bit-spitting this year. And the Rockies and Padres did hold up their ends by respectively winning and losing so they're in a one-game playoff tonight to see who ends up as the wild card. It's tied as I write this. Now that the prospect of utter chaos is gone, I'm much less interested, I must admit.