Of her latest, The Singer’s Gun. here.

So the first time I ever rode a road bike, I was about 17, and it was a red and black Raleigh Record ten-speed of some indeterminate year I got from a garage sale for what must have been $30. It had awful black grip foam, and rust spots everywhere, but it was beautiful. My friends snarked that everyone’s parents had one or two of those in their garages. The cool thing at the time were 21 speed Mongoose mountain bikes from Walmart, and compared to those things, that Raleigh just flew. I wrecked it accelerating out of a corner, the chain caught, or something, and I still wear a scar where the bike chain caught my right leg.

The first thing I did when I went to college was to visit the Blackstone Bicycle Works and get myself a road bike. It was too big, but you can’t imagine how good it is to ride on the lakeshore path before as the sun rises until you’ve done it. That bike got stolen from under me, and then I had a dark blue Raleigh that likewise got stolen. My last road bike was a 1980 Raleigh Super Grand Prix, which I bought at Working Bikes, still before old bikes were considered cool. It had mostly original components, and after a tune up would ride like a dream. My favorite feature of the bike was the TI Raleigh Tour de France sticker on the toptube. A friend and I turned it into a fast boulevardier.

What I love about Raleighs is that they’re really racy, and there’s just speed for days in those old frames. Unlike on an old (say) Schwinn, I never feel like the bike is holding me back. It’s a good feeling, knowing that your bike isn’t going to let you down. And I’ve always just liked the way Raleighs looked, with their skinny steel tubes and that slight taper on the front fork. It looks like a road bike from before EPO, and that kind of matters to me. For a long time, I’ve wanted a steel road racing bike with lugs and modern components. I’d asked around about getting an old frame converted, and it didn’t seem worthwhile considering the price of a modern gruppo, and then Raleigh released the 2010 Record Ace. Reynolds 520 tubing, lugs, and ULTEGRA. Apparently, Raleigh decided to build by dream bike.

At the price range of a new Raleigh Record Ace, I could have gotten basically any bike I wanted. A new Specialized Roubaix costs less (note here, this bike is full carbon). Any aluminum frame cyclocross or timetrial bike would have cost less. I was in striking distance of an entry level Rivendell. But this new bike of mine is just beautiful. They don’t make a prettier road bike (bespoke custom builds not included), and it runs fast. Sure, I can’t quite keep up with the new carbon bikes, but in 30 yeas, I’ll still be riding this one. It’ll be my old Raleigh road bike, from when they still made such things. It’s beautiful.

Having seen Mike Phillips’s routine get put together, I have to say, the most impressive thing about it is how simple the ideas in it are. Simple as in Escoffier’s maxim, faites simple. It may require fast hands and daring execution, but there no touch of extravagance or complication for complication’s sake anywhere in the ingredients or the routine. It’s kind of stunning to watch, actually.

And you really gotta root for the home team on this one. So one more go Mike. This time, just go and win it.

:::UPDATE::: He did it! Yay! Mikey!

But why all the bellyaching about it?

Well done meat is just plain awful, and while it’s not exactly wrong to like it, it’s kind of wrong to like it. You’re just missing all the fun. And you haven’t lived until you’ve had uniformly medium rare short ribs from sous vide. But that’s ok, because that just frees up the better cuts for people who are going to actually enjoy it. It’s sort of like French Roast is wrong, but we accept it because it’s a way to get rid of the leftover green coffee from last year.

At a steakhouse, (or for that matter, any restaurant that clears a lot of steak) meat is ordered in primals. A shell primal (New York or Kansas City Strip) has maybe 4 great steaks in it (rare, mr), a few not quite as good as that (medium), and a few that are ripoffs at the prices a steakhouse charges (cook the snot out of them). A good grill cook is responsible for keeping track of which is which.

But you’re right. It makes you deeply, deeply uncool.

About two years ago, I wrote here that Peak Oil was already upon us. The argument provided by people who refuse to believe it usually runs along the lines of “we can always find new sources of oil that have been impossible to extract in the past, like offshore drilling, the Canadian oil sands…” Well, now we know what that looks like.

But drilling that far out in the gulf was clearly insane, and how much do you want to bet that what happens next is going to be even worse? Wait, just wait for the full force of the spill to contaminate every last stretch of ocean front on the Gulf Coast. This will be worse than Katrina, and it will be all of our faults.

Yes, my fault too. And yours.

So, anyway, all the usual missives about personal responsibility – ride your bike to places instead of driving, buy local food even if it’s more expensive, recycle, and all the rest.

It seems like every time Caitlin Flanagan writes something, everyone immediately jumps on her for being Caitlin Flanagan and for having Caitlin Flanagan’s opinions. Fair enough, after all, this is the same woman who famously almost felt bad about feeling that having a nanny and a stay-at-home job as contributing editor to a top flight national news and opinions magazine was the best thing since sliced bread. But after all, it is more important to be interesting than right, and Flanagan is one of the best at writing interesting copy. Ainsi soit-il.

(more…)

I guess that analogy really doesn’t explain all that much for most people, but I’m going to go with it. Something something, three days, lack of sleep, whiskey… And amazing, amazing geekiness. But mostly the whiskey.

Having played once before, I was asked to scav for GASH by Amber. And so I roll into headquarters and start introducing myself. Someone calls and reports that they’ve found a rather large spool, does someone have a truck? No, well, can someone roll it back to HQ? Apparently, that’s me, and so I walk off, and then I come back and ask if someone can ride my bike back, or better yet if it can somehow be fit into my messenger bag. No, it won’t fit in my bag, yes, someone will ride back my bike. That would be Amber, who barely fits on my bike with the seat dropped as far as it will go, and she discovers that it’s fixie, which she’s never ridden before.

(more…)

I suppose one would call this bit of mixed media a painiting from Brie Cella. It’s really much better in person. A lot of the effect depends on its dimensionality. It reminds me of a meal at Alinea.

And then there is this photograph/print from Mary Sea

Again, dimensionality. The photograph by itself was already pretty nicely composed, and then there’s the print overlain upon it. You don’t see prints over photographs all that often. Plus I like old wood buildings, and birds on powerlines, so there.

As of right now, one of my favorite things to do is to throw a couple of Eggplants on the grill overnight as the coals die. Just the eggplants in their own skins with a layer of olive oil over them.

Also, the other day, I wrapped a chicken airline breast with a deboned leg. I stole this idea from Blackbird, but wrapping a breast in a leg is genius. The thigh needs to cook longer… Just remember to season the inside before wrapping. It’s a nice serving size for one hungry diner.

I’ve been writing. I really have. But more, I’ve been taking photographs.

Anyway, here is a review I wrote for The Front Table on Marlantes’s Matterhorn.