The Blog Goes A-Twitter
December 17, 2009
From the Evan Williams party in Louisville. My New Year's resolution is to appear less stoic in photographs. Heck, I might even start to smile.
So I figured it was finally time to twit the blog. For those of you reading on a regular basis (that’s everyone right?) you will have noticed a new feature on the right hand sidebar which now shows daily twitter updates from yours truly. Borrowing and turning a phrase from the New York Times, it will feature all the news that fit to eat… and tweet.
Name Your Poison: Culinary Icons of Halloween
October 28, 2009
Would you let this man cook for you?
It had really started to bother me to the point that I resolved to do something about it. Like every 7 seven-year old boy my son is well acquainted with the Star Wars universe and I couldn’t, in good conscience, continue to let him associate one of my favorite actors with the almost comical character of Count Dooku. The time had come, I decided, to introduce him to the real reason movie goers around the world know the name of Christopher Lee. You see while I despise the modern take on horror movies, which are really nothing more than two hours of torture scenes strewn together with dialogue, I have a certain affinity for the classics of old. More properly called monster movies than horror, they came from a time when there were still such things as literary classics to inspire actors and film makers. Peter Cushing, who along with Lee made Hammer both a house hold name and one synonymous with horror, got the better turn in George Lucas’ double trilogy when he was cast as Grand Moff Tarkin in the original Star Wars. Lee had to settle for Dooku, but then again, throughout the dozens of films the pair made together, Cushing always had the better lines. Famously, Lee complained to Cushing that he had no dialogue in Hammer’s 1957 The Curse of Frankenstein. “You’re lucky,” Cushing replied, “I’ve read the script.”
In the 1930’s through 1950’s when many, if not most, of the best of these films were made, the meal still held an important place in daily life and ritual. This was even more true for the days of the mid to late 19th century when many of the literary works on which the movies were based were originally written. It is therefore no surprise that eating and the requisite drinking played a more important role in these stories than just to supply a background scene. In many ways, the communal meal represented the normalcy that was about to upended when shortly, in a literal sense, all hell broke loose.
Real time blogging during “No Reservations – Sardinia” tonight at 10pm EDT
September 15, 2009
Tony Bourdain in season 1. Will season 5 mean the end of snark and the beginning of, gasp, respectability?
The fun starts tonight at 10pm EDT for the final episode of the summer season.
Bourdain’s blog earlier this week was interesting. The thumb ring, one of the more potent symbols of the man Tony once was, is gone. Dropped into the abyss to spend the rest of eternity in Davey Jones’ locker. It went, as he wrote, ”…the way of my earring, joining—in one sense or another—my Dead Boys T-shirt, my telescoping billyclub and my crack pipe.” On the heels of that posting comes tonight season 5 ending episode where we meet, at last on camera, the Bourdain family. His brother we know already, but to the image of the little sibling so at odds with his more famous older, more adventurous brother, we know add… Mrs. Bourdain. Along with all of her Sardinian relatives. Has Tony turned over a new leaf? Has the snark finally gone to the way of Dead Boy’s t-shirt?
Real Time blogging during “No Reservations – Burning Questions” tonight at 10pm EDT
September 1, 2009
I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flame went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire
“Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash
Ah yes, burning questions. I had a friend in the Marine Corps once come back from leave with a bad case of those, but hey that’s what penicillin’s for, right?
Tonight’s show is based, God forbid, on a Travel Channel online poll. Tony answers the top questions from viewers, complete with illustrative scenes gleaned from previous episodes. Now clip shows can be scary enough (anyone remember the NR Labor Day Special from last year?) Shudder. I’m already incredulous going in, but the No Reservation’s Facebook page promises much hilarity and a Zamir highlight reel, so maybe it will all work out in the end. I mean, Facebook wouldn’t lie. Would it? Read the rest of this entry »
You can bury me on Deadwood Mountain
By my brother Wild Bill and sister Calamity Jane
Don’t bring me no flowers
Just a six gun smokin
Put me eight feet down
When you bury me
“Deadwood Mountain” by Big & Rich
It became painfully obvious last week that the whole real time blogging while watching a TV show idea might be wearing thin. The Jimmy Buffett inspired “Here We Are” post drew more viewers than the Thailand show blog, which would have told a more intelligent or perceptive writer a thing or two. However, with only 3 more episodes left in the summer season after tonight, I have decided to see the enterprise through until the bitter, painful, discombobulated end. More on that later.
I have tickets to see Anthony Bourdain in Louisville on September 25th. His appearance is part of the IdeaFestival (for more info check out www.ideafestival.com). I’m a little worried, because as the trailers for tonight’s show make clear, there was a bit of a “military situation” while NR was filming in Thailand. Add that to what happened in Beruit, and one might say Tony is maybe not the harbinger of joy and good tidings. The last thing Louisville, Kentucky needs right now is conflict and fighting amongst rival factions. That’s what the debate over the fate of the Louisville basketball coach is for.
Week 4 of the play by play blog experience is history. Tony Bourdain and the “No Reservations” crew landed in San Francisco. We hope you tuned in, turnd on and dropped dumplings. The recap is below. Enjoy.
I have no emotional or cultural attachment to hippies, counter-culture or the Summer of Love. Being born in 1971 I missed the whole thing. I suppose if I had been born three years earlier I might have been named after Timothy Leary or Jerry Garcia. Instead, I was named after Neil Diamond as my mother spun Hot August Night on the record player over and over again. She told my father she wanted to name me after Neil Armstrong, the astronaut, but let’s just say there were no Neil Armstrong records in the house when I was a kid, and the only concert my mother ever attended without my father featured a greater display of gold and chest hair than a bearded women’s convention. Besides, my parents’ upbringing was a lot more Happy Days than Haight-Ashbury. In short, I’ve never been to San Francisco, and I don’t know what I’m missing. The closest I’ve come is singing the opening lines to Jimmy Buffett’s “Come Monday”.
Real Time blogging during “No Reservations – Down on the Street”, tonight at 10pm EDT
August 3, 2009
Week 3 of this little creative experiment has wrapped up. If it’s not blatantly apparent by now, Monday nights are kind of slow around here. Tonight, Tony Bourdain indulges in one of his favorite indulgences – street food. A recent article in the local paper belabored the lack of street food in Lexington, KY. So even if you live where you can’t enjoy the various delicacies of mystery meat in tube form, hopefully you still enjoyed the show and our commentary as well. Think of all this as a culinary version of Mystery Science Theater 3000, only without the robots. However, I am considering adding a talking Cuisinart as a side-kick.
Week two of the blogging experiment and TV show commentary is over. I hope you enjoyed it, and if you didn’t find it enlightening, may you have at least found it entertaining. The recap follows below.
The internet creative experiment continues tonight at 10pm EDT, with real time blogging during Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations – Rust Belt” episode. Tonight we will vicariously visit through Tony’s eyes Baltimore, Detroit and Buffalo. Accompanying Tony tonight is his Russian friend, Zamir, last seen costumed at the Halloween Party at The Castle Dracula Hotel in Romania.
The Rust Belt episode should appeal to all true foodies for the simple reason that it’s likely not on anyone’s list of top places to visit. These cities, laid out across the large swath of the United States, are probably best known for violent crime, dying industry and, well let’s face it – hockey. Buffalo has the eponymous wing, christened at the Anchor Bar and now the top appetizer in the country. Anyone who has seen Niagara Falls from Buffalo has likely made a bee-line for the flower festooned gardens of the Canadian side of the border. Baltimore – the most appealing of the three – has the harbor, Maryland Crab Cakes, it’s proximity to Washington, D.C., and the grave of Edgar Allen Poe. That leaves Detroit which has, well, the Red Wings and not much else. One of the murder capitals of the US, some of the most violent gangs in the country, the battered remains of the once proud automotive industry – let’s face it, if any city in the US needs an Extreme Makeover it’s Detroit. Which is why I’ll be glued to TV tonight to see what Tony has actually uncovered worth spending precious TV dollars showing the rest of us. Considering the state of post Soviet Union Russia 20 years after glasnost and perestroika blew up in Gorbachev’s face, Zamir, I think, should feel right at home in Detroit.
Welcome to my first attempt at real time blogging. Enjoy, and please check out the rest of the Shenandoah Supper Club blog.
Due to a severe case of boredom and a sore back that precludes other activity, I will be blogging in real time during tonight’s episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations – Australia airing at 10pm EDT on the Travel Channel. This may be the most lame thing I’ve ever attempted (online). Tune in for pithy (or pissy) commentary – depending on your point of view.
