Month: July 2005

NY Times’ Joseph Berger writes on a NYC thing (or, more broader, an American thing) – where else can you find a Tibetan making pizza; an Indian making an egg cream that he learned from an Italian who learned from a Jew; and a Hispanic making sushi?

Daily News rates NYC pizzerias. Food writer Irene Sax reports:

At Di Fara in Midwood, Domenico DeMarco has been making pizzas all by himself for 40 years. On the window are pots of fresh rosemary, basil and oregano, in the back are cartons of San Marzano tomatoes, and in no place is there any attempt at decor or even housekeeping. But the pizzas that come out of Dom’s clunky metal oven are sublime: big, charred pies with thin, flexible crusts; a sweet sauce made from canned and fresh tomatoes, and a cheese topping that mixes fresh and buffalo mozzarella with a final toss of freshly grated grana padana. Think of the classic New York pie and then add a halo.

Franny’s on Flatbush Ave., on the other hand, is a New York pizzeria with a yuppie edge, opinions about sustainable agriculture, a romantic back garden and, usually, a line out the door. But despite the glitz, what owner Andrew Feinberg takes from his wood-burning brick oven is a pie that has a chewy, featherlight crust, a thin slick of bright tomato sauce and just enough melted mozzarella to fill your mouth. Although you may dream about that charred and smoky crust, you can’t ignore the beautiful toppings. Order a clam pie, seasoned with parsley and hot peppers, and you’ll know you’re in the presence of greatness.

Which of them makes the best pizza in New York? They both do. Di Fara is the peak of a New York tradition going back to Lombardi’s in 1905. Franny’s is the best of a new wave that blends innovative ingredients with traditional methods. They’re both in the New York style. […]

We sent reporters to all five boroughs with this assignment: Order two pies – one plain, one with toppings. Rate the plain, or margherita, on a scale from one star (edible) to four stars (incredible). And while you’re at it, take note of the quality of the toppings on the other pizzas.

When all the reports were in, we sent a second team to revisit the two places that had rated four stars. What they discovered surprised them. It turns out that New York doesn’t have one best pizza. It has two. And though they’re both in Brooklyn, they couldn’t be less alike. [….]

Think of this the next time you order a slice:

How is the crust? Pale or charred? Thick or thin? Rigid or flexible? Does the point flop over when you pick it up? Can you taste the wheat?

How is the sauce? Are the tomatoes fresh or canned and, if canned, are they from San Marzano? Seasoned with how much salt? How much oregano? Are fresh basil leaves laid on top?

What about cheese? Is it processed or fresh, sliced or grated? Is it even mozzarella? And does it sit in discrete little islands or has it melted all over the pie?

Finally, and trickiest: How is the balance? This turned out to be more important than we expected. Once we were in the field, we discovered that a pie with a perfect crust could be ruined by a dull sauce or a too-heavy blanket of cheese. A pie with world-class toppings could have a leaden, cracker-like crust.

Why no slices? Because slices are a different food. They are twice-cooked, once in their first baking, then when they are reheated. The second blast of heat makes both the crust and the cheese get harder. It’s not a bad thing – Di Fara sells fantastic slices – but not the same thing as a whole pie.

It’s no surprise that both winners are in Brooklyn. Despite stellar places like Nick’s in Queens and Una Pizza Napoletana in Manhattan, we found that Brooklyn’s quality was the highest in the city.

What was surprising was that it’s possible to eat almost endless amounts of pizza and not get sick of it. And, it seems pizza isn’t fattening: On a day when I had it for both lunch and dinner, I lost a pound. (Of course, I didn’t eat anything else.)

But the real surprise was the difference between good, better and best pizza. “I used to grab a slice if I was in a hurry or if I was hungry after a movie,” said one of the reporters. “Now I know how much goes into it. There are people out there who really care about using the best ingredients and doing everything by hand. They are true artists.”

The pizza diet. Hmm. I’m glad they gave Brooklyn’s Grimaldi’s three stars and thought they were a little hard on V&T Pizza (the undergraduate Alma Mater’s local thing up on W110th St in Manhattan; but, the local favorite really is Koronet, for the huge bargain for the big slices; no one may credit the ‘hood for its spectacular palate).

Daily News’ Lisa Amand profiles this guy who will be giving tours of Brooklyn’s best pizzerias:

To Tony Muia, a slice of pizza is like a vitamin: nourishing and an essential part of every day.

The 41-year-old Brooklyn-born Muia is so into pizza he gave up a career as a respiratory therapist to dedicate his life to preaching pie to the masses.

When his Slice of Brooklyn Pizza Tour begins tomorrow, he’ll be spreading the gospel about the borough’s prowess when it comes to tossing around dough. He’ll also be following in the footsteps of his favorite matinee idol, another Brooklyn Tony who devoured slices two at a time while strutting down a Bensonhurst block in “Saturday Night Fever.”

Muia, who grew up in that very neighborhood, got the idea for the tours after years of showing out-of-town friends hidden spots throughout Brooklyn that serve out-of-this-world pizza.

The first stop on his four-hour tour will be at the legendary Grimaldi’s, where the ancient coal ovens keep the Neapolitan pies coming.

They’ll also get a little history between slices.

The tour weaves through Dyker Heights and Bay Ridge, checking out Diamond Jim Brady’s former home, a “really cool” tiny Revolutionary War cemetery and the Army terminal where Elvis shipped out to Germany. It also hits Brooklyn landmarks, movie locations and lesser-known nabes (like Bath Beach and Gravesend).

The bus will also cruise down Bensonhurst’s main drag. As they pass the famous Lenny’s Pizza, the opening scene of “Saturday Night Fever” will play on the bus’ screen, showing John Travolta bopping down 86th St., stopping at the sidewalk window to tell the pizzaiola: “Two, two. Gimme two.”

Muia will be taking his tour to one of his favorites, L&B Spumoni Gardens, again on 86th St., for two Sicilian squares. Muia has frequented L&B for more than 30 years.

“All you do is come here and people-watch,” he says on a sunny Saturday, surveying the al fresco scene where extended families fill the picnic tables, feasting on tomato-red rectangles, heaping plates of pasta and baked clams. [….]

Muia knows it’s not just tourists but even New Yorkers who need help navigating deep Brooklyn instead of focusing merely on trendy neighborhoods; though Slice of Brooklyn Pizza Tours will pass through Dumbo to point out locales from “Scent of a Woman” and “Once Upon a Time in America.”

Could he do a similar tour in Manhattan? “Fuhgeddaboudit. Everyone knows the best pizzerias are in Brooklyn!”

“Must See Dogs” – cute movie. An alternative from the usual summer blockbusters of blow-’em-up stuff and superheroes. Diane Lane and John Cusack playing cute. Some cute dogs. A moment of wondering if Cusack will act in other stuff than romantic comedies (I’m sure he has, because I enjoyed him in “Runaway Jury” – he just does romantic comedies very well). A fluffy nice movie. Very much a chick flick, with heavy doses of reminding me of “When Harry Met Sally” and “You’ve Got Mail” (well, for the latter’s Internet factor). Nothing brain taxing or Oscar nominating though.

“Wedding Crashers” – also not brain taxing. I mean, seriously not a thoughtful movie. Unless you come out of it thinking about weddings in a different way, as in “Geez, this ain’t boring if you just mingle by making up stories about yourself and lie to the men and women here for kicks. Oh, and accept that weddings are fun. And love your wingman.” Vince Vaughn – funny. Owen Wilson – umm, yeah, funny, but it’s weird to be reminded that the leading man is indeed getting in on years to be still doing the hijinks. And Christopher Walken not acting like a total weirdo.

“The Tao of Pooh” – by Benjamin Hoff – I took a class on Taoism in college, and it amazes me that this little book, using Pooh as the allegory of all allegories, captured everything about Taoism (well, with the exception of how sex and other consumptions may come into play, but basically getting the point about the Way). I read it in one sitting yesterday. Kind of hard on Confucianism (I doubt that Lao-tzu really cared about being in competition with Confucius, and Confucius probably cared less about the guy who was the equivalence of his Oscar or a happy-go-lucky hippie weirdo), but I’d highly recommend “The Tao of Pooh.”

How long does it take for an idea to get from Asia to the US? From my measure, four months. BBC covered “Japan develops female android” on Wednesday. It soon became the highest linked article on Technorati. There were mentions on the TV news on Thursday. P– and I saw the robot in personfour months ago in Japan at the Expo.

Two more people at work lost loved ones. This is turning out to be an awful year.

In a Dae Jang Geum inspired moment (I just found out about thetheme park), on Thursday the gang went to NY Kom Tang Soot Bul Kal Bi House, one of the few Korean BBQ restaurants that still use real wood charcoal. Yes, I kind of still have that smoky smell, but it’s all good. Afterwards, we went to La Lanterna Caffe for dessert. P- and I miss hanging out in the Village.

Ah. Much nicer temperatures in NYC.

A NYC story – I’ll link to the NY Times’ version – the passing of Edith I. Spivack, described in the NY Times’ obituary as “by far the longest-serving civil servant in the department and quite possibly in the city.” I also liked the anecdotes about her:

A colleague, Jeffrey Friedlander, the first assistant corporation counsel, said that Ms. Spivack’s formal expertise was tax law. But, he added, her wide-ranging legal knowledge, administrative ability and extensive institutional memory were “the support behind the men who had the titles.”

Indeed, if Ms. Spivack had been born a man, Mr. Friedlander said, she would not have worked in obscurity for the many decades that she did.

“She was, essentially, the power behind the throne,” he said. “It was clear she was the brains.”

Her most important legal work came in the 1970’s, when she was well into her 60’s. She helped negotiate loans to keep the city out of bankruptcy. In the Penn Central Railroad bankruptcy, she helped collect many millions of dollars in real estate taxes. She successfully argued a major tax case, Walz v. Tax Commission, before the Supreme Court.

Short, small-boned, impeccably dressed, with a courtly manner from another era, she had a tart wit.

At a Christmas party last year at which Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg awarded her a public service plaque, the mayor tried to make small talk and asked when she graduated from college. Ms. Spivack replied that she graduated from Barnard College in 1929.

The mayor said his mother had graduated from New York University in the same year. Ms. Spivack looked at the mayor and said, “Well, I guess she couldn’t get into Barnard.”

Ms. Spivack was born on April 19, 1910…

After graduating from Barnard at 19, she went to Columbia Law School. She married a fellow student, Bernard H. Goldstein, who died in 1998. She retained her maiden name as a tribute to her parents.

She is survived by [Amy] Bass of Port Washington; another daughter, Rita Christopher Frank of Madison, Conn.; and four grandchildren.

Ms. Spivack was rejected by law firms, in part because of the Great Depression, but also, she maintained, because she was a woman and Jewish. When Fiorello H. La Guardia took office in 1934, political appointees were removed and replaced through civil service examination.

Told that the city had no money to pay her, Ms. Spivack worked in the Law Department as a volunteer and was finally hired at half salary: $1,700 a year.

In January 1980, the city began to force foreign consulates to pay their municipal water bills, but the consul general of Colombia refused.

After many telephone calls, she left a message: “If a check is not delivered this afternoon to the corporation counsel’s office, I’m coming up personally to shut off the water.” The check arrived.

In the 1980’s, Ms. Spivack took advantage of the elimination of mandatory retirement and continued to work until 1995, when she officially retired. After three weeks she returned to the department in an advisory capacity.

“My mom didn’t knit, never cooked, never drove,” Ms. Bass said. “She never typed. My mom was a professional woman, a professional lawyer.”

After the Penn Central bankruptcy, her efforts recovered $90 million in back taxes. “For some reason, Penn Central made out the $90 million check directly to me,” she recalled later. “But being an honest woman, I handed it over to the city.”

A certain known bar review provider is in trouble with a certain Multistate Bar Exam provider, because said bar exam provider ain’t too happy that the employees of said bar review provider take bar exams for the purpose of prepping hapless bar review students (link to the Yahoo posting of this article, which I originally found on Law.com). Hmm. Makes me wonder if the SAT people have gotten around to suing either Princeton Review or Kaplan for analyzing the SAT so well such that they’ve had to modify the SAT to trip up college-bound kids over and over. Is it really said bar review provider’s fault that said bar exam provider can’t be creative enough to find ways to prevent law graduates from becoming lawyers? Uh hmm…

More uh hmm – “Just how sexy are lawyers?” – Salary.com says lawyers rank 10th in their list:

The top three “hot jobs” were firefighter, flight attendant and chief executive officer. Lawyers ranked just below doctors and just above veterinarians.

The folks at Salary.com seemed to think their survey shows that salary is not a key component in determining a person’s sex appeal. […]

Fort Lauderdale labor lawyer Alex Londono, 29, doesn’t buy it. He passed the Florida bar exam two months ago.

The lawyer at Fisher & Phillips reports steady success on the social circuit. “As long as I slip in how much I make,” he added with a laugh.

Londono offered another bit of evidence that the survey may be flawed. After he passed the bar exam, his mother bought him a shirt that reads, “Trust me, I’m a lawyer.” Contrary to the survey findings, he said, wearing the shirt increases his chances of chatting up women. It doesn’t hurt that he speaks French.

Even if their sex appeal is dipping, lawyers are still better endowed, financially speaking, than professionals who ranked higher in the survey.

Salary.com reports that the median salary for lawyers is more than three times that of news reporters, who ranked third on the sexy jobs list.

That means lawyers can afford to console their lonesome selves with solo trips to exotic vacation destinations, while poor but charismatic journalists must invite their dazzling dates home to dine on Ramen noodles.

But wait.

News reporters ranked third, in a three-way tie with interior designers and event planners. That seems preposterous enough to invalidate the whole survey.

So, don’t be a lawyer, have some money, and speak French, gentlemen. That’ll get you the ladies. 😉 Enjoy Friday!

Ugh, I hate this kind of heat and humidity. At least the weather’s getting better tonight.

Hmm. Some bit of news on the “Alias” front, presuming anyone wants to know (not that it’s that big a spoiler, since Jennifer Garner’s real life condition would make her acting as Sydney a bit complicated).

Since I didn’t go to work Tuesday (floating holiday!), I managed to watch the Shuttlecraft Discovery lift off. Scary stuff – the idea that we can send someone up there. Now let’s make sure that the astronauts can come home safe and sound.

So I’m going through one of my tapes, since I taped way much PBS documentaries and stuff that need to be checked out before I decide to erase. “Broadway: The American Musical” – hosted by Julie Andrews, covering the history of Broadway, back to its roots in minstrelsy, operattas, and so forth to the pop stuff of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The documentary has its interesting moments, with the stories of the bigger-than-life people and the ties to American history; but, it also has it’s boring moments (I guess I’m just not into Broadway). Pretty nifty looking website, although I guess that they can’t do audio-video clips without violating copyright law or something. The documentary did have really great footage of some musicals – Jerry Orbach in “42nd Street” back in the day – a fantastic voice and such exuberance! – and his amusing stories of working the stage. So sad that he’s no longer with us.

The weird part was watching this clip of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George” – starring Mandy Patankin, and then… hit pause on the VCR, isn’t that Data from “Star Trek: The Next Generation”?! Lo and behold, Imdb confirmed that Brent Spiner did “Sunday in the Park with George.” Who hasn’t done Broadway/Off-Broadway? I think it’s great though – it takes a lot of skill to go back and forth on the stage and screen (the tv and big one).

Great, now that I’m watching the last episode of the documentary, I feel like I can’t get myself to erase this. Huh – it’s really interesting to consider the New Broadway stuff – can they match the Old Broadway; are we consistent with the roots and reaching for the future?

So, is echinacea good for preventing colds or not? Hmm.

So it goes.

The secret to perfect roast beef? First, the ingredients are really simple. According to Cook’s Illustrated The New Best Recipe, there are only 4 ingredients: a good cut of beef (I had about 4 pounds of bottom round), salt, pepper, and vegetable oil. The critical technique is pan browning, followed by slow cooking at 2 temperatures. Using the Polder Cooking Timer and Thermometer‘s continuous reading probe, it is really painless to pull it off — you just set the internal temperature desired (250 degree oven until 110 degree internal temp, followed by 500 degree oven until 130 degree internal temp). You don’t even have to peek in the oven and mess up the temp. The results came out perfect – good crust on the outside, medium pink on the inside. Totally succulent, and good eating for the next few days.

This entry: hearing — from people, by people, for people.

Great news! I heard from one of my old friends from college; she’s having her first baby next month in Hong Kong. So many of my friends and family are having babies this year!

As the Asian American International Film Festival centerpiece film, Michael Kang’s The Motel is a wonderful coming of age film. A Chinese family runs a seedy New Jersey motel; the 13 year old Earnest Chin, played by Jeffrey Chyau, explores the ways he can express himself and be heard prodded by a Korean American guest with a clouded background. I originally saw the workshop reading at NYU during the 2001 AAIFF; being able to see the final result after its four year evolution was very rewarding. Recommended.

Today, P– and I went to see my co-worker’s appearance in an off-Broadway play called Top Ten. Ten actors are only initially identified by number, but gradually we learn about who these people are, and how they live, calculate and interact with each other, providing political and social commentary in the process. My co-worker was “Nine”, who served the narrator’s role, somewhat like El Gallo in The Fantasticks. The double entendre of the play’s last line is the moral that we need in these uncertain times:

“Hope… it’s good to hear from you.”

Recommended. It plays until the end of the month, so catch it before it ends.

Not as humid as it has been the past couple of days. Ah, a NYC summer indeed.

“Are subway searches legal?” Slate’s “Explainer” gave the best possible answer under the circumstances: Depends.

Slate’s “Explainer” also explains how those bomb-sniffing dogs learn to sniff bombs. I confess – the real reason I’ve linked to this article is because the dog in the picture looks so cute! It looks like he’s enjoying his job a little much. And, Slate’s caption for the picture – “I love the smell of C-4 in the morning …” – as if the dog’s really that enthusiastic. Um, ok…

Slate has an interesting conversation on U.S. Supreme Court nomination of John Roberts.

Ok, now I can’t find the article (maybe it was Daily News or MSNBC or NY Post) – CBS News’ John Roberts is apparently amused that he got to announce on tv that the White House nominated John Roberts as Supreme Court justice. Hehehe. It is much too common a name. And, there’s the strangeness that Judge Roberts’ family all have “J” names.

Watched “The Apartment.” Great movie. Would you compromise your principles to get ahead with your career? Would you give up the love of your life, since she’s really the (married) boss’ girlfriend? And, geez, Jack Lemmon got a little creepy there when it turned out he knew a little too much about life of the elevator girl (just because he’s in the insurance company and had access to her insurance info — um, geez). But, it had heart, since in the end, Jack Lemmon as C.C. Baxter – well, turns out that C.C. had a heart after all. A real softy all right. A vibrant young Shirley MacLaine. A villanous Fred MacMurray (not the same nice guy from those Disney movies). And a taste of NYC in 1960. Highly recommended.