Archive for August, 2008

Eagerly awaited: The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz – A little disappointing after all the buildup, but a wild ride and great airplane read.  Wish I had a dictionary of Dominican Spanish slang.  My personal takeaway quote:

“Every snake always thinks it’s biting into a rat until the day it bites into a mongoose.“

Last month’s book club: Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name by Vendela Vida – Weird and potentially wonderful.  Mainly made us all want to visit the ice hotel and drink vodka, which I suppose is enough to qualify it as a summer read.

Passed on from book swap, months later: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen – Despite the nearly irresistible  urge to call this book “Like Water for Elephants” it stands on its own with great humor and historical depth.

This month’s book club: The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger – Sorry, it’s against the Rules of Book Club to discuss the book before the meeting.

Most played after seeing her in concert: The Great Beyond by Aimee Mann (the special acoustic version if you can get it – I got it on iTunes) love the keyboard line, hammond organ maybe?

Recently picked up on remainder at Brookline Booksmith: The New Kings of Nonfiction, edited by Ira Glass; Total Immersion by Allegra Goodman; Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra – we shall see…

Right on the heels of the terrible cheese/chocolate choice, I find that somebody has made an important cheese choice for me. I went to Diesel Cafe for lunch as I often do and ordered the Branch Trio as I often do – in fact, it was the winner of the Davis Square cheese-off back in May – but found that they had dropped it from the menu as part of a general refresh done this month. The nice lady offered to cobble together a “Branch Duo” since they had only two kinds of cheese – cheddar and jack.

Only two kinds of cheese? There are a dozen sandwiches on the menu and only two kinds of cheese in the whole shop? This is starting to sound dangerously like that Monty Python sketch. To be fair, there is also fresh mozzarella and cream cheese, but those never really belonged on the Branch Trio.

Interestingly, the improvised Branch Duo, while lacking one cheese and some sprouts, featured toasted bread and for some reason cost $2 less than any of the official sandwiches on the menu.

I understand the need for a business to control food costs, and how this can lead to the elimination of a favorite item or ingredient.  (If you don’t, you might need to hire a restaurant consultant.) We’ve all seen sandwich prices rise on account of the price of tomatoes, for example. I guess this is how its going to be. Unless the next president can muster the guts to open the national cheese reserves, it might be a good idea to begin hoarding cheese and maybe also buying cheese futures as a hedge (wedge?) against future cheese inflation.

Earlier this week I was in Santa Monica engaging in the dark art of qualitative marketing research. (For more insight into marketing research, try Lynne’s shiny new blog, Marketing Analytics) While dining with my colleagues, I discovered that they had been having on ongoing discussion on foodie topics, and were eager to draw me into the symposium.

The questions came rapid-fire, each one positing gut-wrenching choices: “if you could have just one cheese for the rest of your life…” “what’s your favourite fruit?” “what’s the best seduction meal?” “what would be your last meal?” and so forth. I shot from the hip answering alternately thoughtfully and blithely, and then they unleashed the stumper – the question that was disturbing in its very implication.

Cheese or chocolate?

If starting right now – no last fling allowed – you had to give up one of those foods forever, which would it be? Each one has hundreds or even thousands of varieties and forms and applications. There’s chocolate in some of my favorite coffee drinks, and cheese in so many savory foods. For some, a dessert is incomplete without one or both. Chocolate cheesecake is off the table immediately. I waffled, I wavered, I changed the subject.

I told two friends about it recently, and they chose quickly but came down on opposite sides. One claimed a bit of lactose intolerance and the other pledged allegiance to the savory side of life. Others I’ve told, especially vegetarians, have been as worried by the question as I am.

I remember a few months back, twitter buddy @thespottedduck asked which four cheeses you would restrict yourself to for the rest of your life and had a hard time getting any takers to cut back to just four types, even with broad categories like “swiss” or “goat.” And similarly terrible to contemplate, a man in England raised over 1,000 pounds for charity by pledging to give up cheese for just one month. See the terrified reaction here by one bloke who has a list of top five European cheeses. He’s not cutting back to four anytime soon.

As a marketer, I’m all about forced ranking as a way to uncover preferences. As a businessman, I’m all about making tough choices to stay focused and productive. But as an eater, I’m just not sure I like thinking about this sort of thing.

Peanut butter Nutella cookie.  Why didn’t I think of that?

At Jack ‘n’ Jill’s of Beverly Hills in Santa Monica.

About a week ago, I went to the Fisherman’s Feast of the Madonna in Boston’s North End and had a glass of wine at Vinoteca Monica.  Today, I’m in Santa Monica, so of course I went down to the famous pier.  Maybe I should have waited for the fog to burn off first, as I stumbled out of my once fancy but now faded deco hotel (but oh, so well-located!) at an early jetlagged hour.  Here’s a look back towards land from about midway down the pier.

The sun trying to burn through over the carnival.

And the Pacific Ocean.

Being in Los Angeles always puts me in an odd funk, making me think of Chet Baker (old Chet, not young Chet), David Lynch and Michael Penn lyrics. “Mermaid on Pico / lifts her fin / demands a towel“  Go figure.  Nothing some good sushi can’t fix.