Author: AJ

Brazil Preparing For World Cup

by A.J. Coltrane

From Sports Illustrated:

Prostitutes in one of Brazil’s biggest cities are beginning to sign up for free English classes ahead of this year’s Confederations Cup and the 2014 World Cup.

Cida Vieira, president of the Association of Prostitutes in the city of Belo Horizonte, said Tuesday that 20 have already signed up for the courses and she expects at least 300 of the group’s 4,000 members to follow suit. The association is organizing the classes and seeking volunteer teachers.

…and the part that I found amusing:

“I don’t think we will have problems persuading English teachers to provide services for free,” she said. “We already have several volunteer psychologists and doctors helping us.”

How about that?! I guess you could say that English speaking soccer fans will be in good hands during the World Cup!

Justin Upton and His No-Trade Clause

By Blaidd Drwg

I honestly believe the Mariners are trying to get better, just not trying as hard as they should. Once again they don’t do anything in the free agent market (although I still think they are going to ultimately sign Michael Bourn to a Chone Figgins like contract and get Chone Figgins like production) and their big trade this off-season was Jason Vargas for Kendrys Morales, which succeeded in making the logjam at C-1B-DH even worse.

I read recently that they made a pitch for the D’Backs Justin Upton. They supposedly offered a “substantial package” to the Diamondbacks (I am guessing at least one of Paxton-Walker-Hultzen and probably Nick Franklin and some other prospects) for the 25 year old OF, who is under contract until the end of 2015 at an average salary of $13 million per season, but the trade was rejected by Upton, who currently has a no-trade clause to 4 teams – Seattle, Toronto, Boston and Chicago Cubs.

Ok, I can understand the not wanting to be traded to Seattle or Toronto, but Boston and Chicago? Two of the biggest markets in sports and two of the better hitting stadiums in the league – I would think that he would jump at the opportunity, but I guess not.

Meanwhile, we will just have to sit in Safeco field enjoying Jason Bay and Raul Ibanez do their best to show us how not to play left field.

Toasted Quinoa Hash

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Too bad the Mayans hadn’t actually invented this dish, they might be remembered for something other than they amazing grasp of astronomy and a faulty calendar.

I like quinoa – it is nutty, easy to cook and really healthy for you since it is a whole grain and does not contain gluten. It is also one of the oldest cultivated agricultural products on the planet. I recently served a quinoa hash as a side dish for my End of the World meal. If you need a hearty side dish or something that can be expanded to a meal and cooked in really short time, this is one for you. I got the idea from this recipe from both Modernist Cuisine at Home and Cooks Illustrated, but the recipe is pretty much my version.

The Software
½ cup red (or any type) quinoa
2 teaspoons olive oil
¾ cup stock (chicken of veggie) or water
½ can black beans (preferably low or no sodium)
2 oz. queso fresco

The Recipe
Rinse the quinoa and drain. In a medium sauce pan, heat olive oil over medium high heat until it begins to shimmer. Add the quinoa and toss to coat with the oil. Sautee the quinoa for 3-5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until golden and fragrant. If it starts to brown deeply, lower the heat to medium. Add stock to the pot and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to low and simmer uncovered until the quinoa begins to unfurl, about 15 minutes. Drain the beans and fluff the quinoa with a fork when it is finished. Add the beans to the quinoa, taste (add salt as necessary) and let sit covered for 10 minutes. Plate and sprinkle queso fresco on top. A sprinkle of chopped cilantro would also be nice.

Notes
The quinoa can be made in advanced and reheated with the beans prior to serving. This serves as a nice base for chicken, fish, veggies, or pretty much anything that you would want to put with it. Make sure you rinse the quinoa first and drain most of the water before putting it in the oil. Rinsing it removes a naturally occurring chemical on the grain that produces bitter flavors if you make it without washing it first. Quinoa can be found at most supermarkets either in the bulk food section, the rice isle, organic section or the ethnic foods section.

cheapseateats.com – What the Hell Happened?

I bet you are wondering what the hell happened to this site. Well, yesterday was not a good day for Iron Chef Leftovers. In both my real job and the blogisphere, I had an issue with a software update causing major issues.

The update we ran on this site basically torched it. We still have all of the content and most of the files, but the recovery process has left the blog without links and comments at the moment as well as a new site design. These are just temporary.

Never fear – in addition to being a mediocre cook, a bad comedian and a lousy blogger, Iron Chef Leftovers is also the webmaster of this site. Well, maybe you should fear?

Until I can get everything back to its original, upright and locked position, enjoy something different. You will still be able to see the newest posts we have, but you won’t be able to comment or search or look at the archives until I get that all restored. Hopefully it will be some time this weekend, depending on how ambitious I decide to be with fixing this.

In the meantime, if you have any comments about our posts, please feel free to leave them on our facebook page.

Thanks
-Iron Chef Leftovers, Blaidd Drwg and AJ Coltrane

 

Update – I am quicker than I thought. Links are working again, archives and search work, comments are working. I just have to fix the pictures and the site look and then we should be back to normal. Well, as normal as is possible for this site.

Final Update – Well, we have a site look that looks like the old site, the pictures are back but only from January 2012 forward (that is my fault – I started the restore before I realized the backup was not finished and lost the data in the process) and everything else seems to be working the way it used to be. If anyone finds any issues, post to the comments section.

 

Beer of the Week: Bridgeport Fresh Hop Pilsner

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Bridgeport Brewing, out of Portland, Oregon, makes some very solid and occasionally spectacular beers. You can never go wrong with picking up a Hop Czar or Blue Heron – they won’t blow you away, but they are beers that you will enjoy drinking. In 2012, Bridgeport decided to try a fresh hop beer – a pilsner. I personally thought that was a gutsy move – pilsner is an under-represented style in the Northwest and because it is more delicate, it can be easily overwhelmed by hops if the balance is not just right. Of course, seeing the beer available in 22 oz. bottles, I had to pick one up.

According to their press release, the beer comes in at 8% ABV and 44 IBU. The beer uses Oregon Tettnang and Austrian Aurora hops to give it is complexity.

The beer pours golden yellow in color with a white head, exactly what you would expect from a Pilsner. A complex nose is dominated by lots of grain and sugar with plenty of green hops in the background, a wonderful balance of the two – lets you know you are drinking a pilsner, but this one has some legs to it. The initial taste is very crisp and dry with pleasant grain and a very quick grassy hop finish. The beer is not overly floral and is balanced with a hint of sweetness at the very end that comes out when the beer warms a bit. For an 8% alcohol beer that is on the lighter end of the spectrum, the alcohol is well hidden and I would not have guessed the ABV in that range.

The Fresh Hop Pilsner is not the most hop forward beer that you will ever drink but it had a good balance between grain and hops and would be a pleasant enough to drink it you wanted to experience a fresh hop beer without going toward the pale ale/IPA hop bomb end of the spectrum.

Although not a style I tend to prefer, Fresh Hop was a pleasant drinking experience and I would love to see Bridgeport bring it back in 2013.

Bridgeport Fresh Hop Pilsner crosses over with a respectable 3 suspension bridges out of 5.

FIFA, the MLS and Popularity

By Blaidd Drwg with AJ Coltrane

Recently, MLS president Don Garber responded to FIFA president Sepp Baltter’s criticism of the MLS. Basically, Blatter was critical of the MLS for not promoting soccer enough in the US. I can understand where the comments come from – the United States is a rich market that FIFA would love to get millions of dollars in revenue from and it hasn’t been able to since soccer is arguably the 5th most popular professional sport here, behind football, basketball, baseball and hockey.

While I am no fan of Blatter, he has a point. A few reasons why:

  • The U.S. initially dropped the ball on getting a league going – it took 2 years after the 1994 World Cup for the MLS to start play and they lost any momentum that might have been gained to increase popularity. The US has a large immigrant population that is a ready base for soccer fandom, and by waiting, these people went right back to watching the club teams from their respective countries and didn’t give the MLS much thought on its inception.

 

  • The league did very little to bring in names that most Americans recognized, even from their own national team. Most of the players from that 1994 World Cup team went back to Europe to play club soccer, leaving the league essentially with secondary national team players and college kids. Couple that with a strict salary cap and this contributed to some pretty lousy soccer.

 

  • There is no relegation system. The league won’t improve if there is no incentive to get better. You drop the bottom two teams every year and bring up the top 2 from the 1st Division and you will improve the league in a hurry.

Garber points to the league’s success based with the following:

The league has set attendance records in the past six years, as the average has increased from 15,504 in 2006 to 17,872 in 2011 and a record 18,807 in 2012.

That is a 21% increasing in attendance. Sound good, huh? Well, it is technically true, but not quite the way that Garber wants it to be. Between 2006 and 2008, the league’s average attendance increased from 15,504 to 16,460, or about 6%. Nothing spectacular, but not horrible either, about 2% annually. Then, in 2009, the league opened up an outpost in Seattle. With the Sounders drawing 30,000+ a game, the league attendance jumped 14% between 2009 and 20012. If you take the Sounders out of the equation, league attendance between 2008 and 2012 jumped just 6%. That is incredibly slow annualized growth for the league (around 1.5%) when you take out the rabid Sounders fans.

The other comment I took issue with that Garber made:

“If he were to come to a game — whether it be in Seattle, Portland, Toronto, LA, Philadelphia, New York or any of our MLS markets — I think he would be very pleasantly surprised to see the passion that exists in our fan base and the high level of soccer IQ that exists in our fan base,” Garber told mlssoccer.com.

The passion is a bit overstated. Yes, Seattle has turned out to be a fantastic soccer market and there are plenty of people here who are causal fans. The same situation exists to an extent in Vancouver and Portland. Outside of that, unless you are actually attending games in many of the other markets, the fan base is almost non-existent. I can tell you from the time that I have spent in NY, Boston, LA, SF and Toronto, soccer is an afterthought in those cities. Heck, in Boston, I would be willing to bet that MLS soccer ranks below college sports in terms of popularity. So, Mr. Garber, if you want to impress FIFA, take them to a game in Seattle. If you want them to think they are right about their comments, take them to a game anywhere else.

Coltrane, the Sounders supporter he is, has a different take on this:

My take on it is that the FIFA president was talking out of his ass. I feel that the MLS commissioner has a much better grasp of his marketplace than the FIFA president does. If I were the MLS commissioner, I would have been “surprised” too. Soccer growth in the US is not going to happen overnight, or even over the 20ish years that the MLS has had so far. Establishing the sport will take another generation or two — when I was growing up all the dads/coaches would just roll the ball out there because none of them had played. It’s now getting to the point where dads who played are bringing sons to games to share the game they love (and coaching the kids) – just like baseball or some of the other “established” sports. I got the feeling from the FIFA president quote that he felt that his “beautiful game” was just going to roll into the US and take over the sporting landscape, and he was shocked that it hasn’t happened yet, which is ridiculous.

Round Two

by A.J. Coltrane

Atlanta represents a very different opponent. They’re going to throw the ball. A lot.

  Run Pass Overall
Seahawks Offense 3rd 27th 17th
Falcons Defense 21st 23rd 24th
       
Falcons Offense 29th 6th 8th
Seahawks Defense 6th 10th 4th
The line is Atlanta by 2.5. The Over/Under is 46.
 
According to Scouts, Inc., DE Chris Clemons is Seattle’s best player, and he’s out with an ACL injury.
 
See:
 
 
I don’t see either team really stopping the other. The Seattle defensive backs and linebackers are going to have a rough time covering Jones, White, and Gonzalez. Atlanta probably won’t really be able to shut down the Seattle running game.
 
The Washington and over didn’t work out last week, but this week the Seahawks won’t be facing a crippled quarterback. If this week’s game comes down to a shootout I’d put my fictional money on the more proven quarterback with the vastly superior receiving corps. For silly prediction purposes I’ll take Atlanta and the Over.
 

My Last Meal

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Mr Bourdain, is that a beef knuckle in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? An actual picture from “My Last Supper”.

Well, it looks like the Mayan’s were wrong* and we survived the end of the world. It got me thinking again, what would be my last meal if I could actually pick it. A few years ago, a book titled (appropriately) “My Last Supper” by Melanie Dunea asked the same question. There were very little qualifications – the meal could be anything and cooked by anyone, dead or alive. The meals ranged from the simple – Anthony Bourdain wanted roasted bone marrow with a parsley salad to the extravagant – Gary Danko wanted this insane meal that would have made a Roman orgy look like a Golden Corral buffet. Chef’s play this game late at night sitting around drinking and it is an interesting question. You should check out the book, in addition to some great stories, there are some really wonderful photographs.

I digress. I think about the last meal and I am pretty sure I know what I would want it to be, so here it is:

Tortellini with Cream Sauce made by my dad. I have so many fond memories of this, I have spent years trying to recreate the flavors exactly and I have never quite been able to do it.

Perogies made by my grandmother (mom’s mom). Another insanely simple thing that I have never been able to get quite right. Just fried up in some butter please!

French Onion Soup made by my mom. She didn’t make it very often, but I still compare every other one that I have ever had to it.

Tripe Soup made by my dad. Say what you want about tripe, it is delicious and when I try someone else’s that is remotely close to my dad’s it pretty much brings me to tears.

Rabbit Stew made by my grandmother (dad’s mom). I had it once, when I was very young and I don’t remember much about it, but my dad’s parents lived on a farm, cooked over an open fire and made hearty meals. I will take the ultimate comfort food any day.

Bread baked by my grandfather (mom’s dad). My grandfather was a baker by trade and I never once remember him actually making bread (he was retired by the time I was born). I want that opportunity to try it.

Wine made by my grandfather (dad’s dad). Hey, you need to wash the meal down with something, don’t you?

I have had many amazing food experiences in my life, some that I can remember every little detail about, but when it comes down to it, the food that I grew up eating made by the people who made it for me is how I would want my last meal to go.

* I am writing this about a week before the Mayan prediction for the end of the world. If you are reading this either the world did not end or it did but the internet survived. If the Mayans were right, my apologies to them for doubting them.

Russian River Brewing and the Washington Market

By Iron Chef Leftovers

I think I just lost all respect for Russian River Brewing. I will explain why.

They are pulling out of distribution in Washington State as of December 2012, which means no more Pliny, but more importantly, no more of their really good Belgian style beers. Russian River is not a big brewery, but Pliny created a huge cult following for them, so the demand usually far outstrips supply. Russian River distributed in 5 states – California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Pennsylvania, so they weren’t exactly widely available except on the West Coast.

Earlier this year, I found out from talking to someone in the industry that Russian River was cutting back their shipments to Washington, which I thought was rather odd since they had increased them a few months before that. It wasn’t a big deal – it just made getting Pliny a bit harder. Then they dropped the bomb on us a couple of days ago.

They wrote a letter which, in summary basically says they are at capacity at the brewery and, because of the state laws in Washington, have no control over their brand here, so they are pulling out. This to me doesn’t sound like it is the whole story – as far as I know the laws surrounding beer distribution have not changed in several years and they distribute in Pennsylvania, which has some of the most draconian laws involving alcohol in the U.S. I am not sure if we will ever know the real reason for this, but I suspect that the owners of RR aren’t particularly smart about how they are controlling their growth and it is causing problems. As a result, the 2nd biggest craft brew market in the country doesn’t get access to arguably the most in-demand beer in the country.

Whatever the reasons, I will be making a raid on a couple local shops for Damnation and Suplication before they are all gone. As for Pliny, I have 1 bottle at home that I will be cracking open soon with some friends to enjoy.

R.A. Dickey and Long Term Contracts

By Blaidd Drwg

R.A. Dickey is the reigning Cy Young award winner in the NL. R.A. Dickey has had 2 great and 1 pretty good season in his career. R.A. Dickey is under contract with the Mets for 2013 (making $5 million). R.A. Dickey is looking for a long-term contract from the Mets (I have heard 4 years north of $50 million). R.A. Dickey is 38 years old.

I think Dickey’s success story has been an amazing one. He was a 1st round pick of the Rangers in 1996, was pitching with no ligaments in his elbow, didn’t make his MLB debut until 2001 at age 26, didn’t get another shot at the majors until 2003 at age 28, was generally pretty lousy for most of his career, developed a fast knuckleball, went to the Mets and then finally seemed to be able to get MLB hitters out at age 35, winning the Cy Young last season.

That being said, I really don’t think you want to sign a guy who has a very short track record and is at an age where most pitchers are not really effective. Maybe Dickey will surprise me and be effective well into his 40’s, but I wouldn’t bet the mortgage on it. The other red flag – he had a massive jump in his K rate. His last three seasons, the rate hovered around 5.5/9 IP. Last season, it was 8.9/9 IP. I just see this ending poorly by 2014 or 2015 for any team that signs him to the deal he wants or really anything longer than 2 years.

Post Script: I wrote this article about a week before R.A. Dickey was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays on 12/17 for 2 high ceiling prospects and Dickey received 2 year, $25 million contract extension, which seems a little high on the dollar side (appearantly to account for the higher tax rate in Canada) but about right on the years.