The line is Seahawks by 3, even though they’re the lower seed and they’re playing on the road. The Over/Under is 46. This is exactly the kind of game that I don’t like to gamble on — see the chart below.
Run
Pass
Overall
Seahawks Offense
3rd
27th
17th
Redskins Defense
5th
30th
28th
Redskins Offense
1st
20th
5th
Seahawks Defense
6th
10th
4th
Both teams prefer to run and have strong run games. Both teams are good at stopping the run. Either one or both teams may be forced to throw more than they’d like, and the game may come down to which quarterback has the better day.
…and to make it more interesting…
Both quarterbacks are rookies, and each has had an efficient season to this point — they’re 3rd and 4th in Quarterback Rating, behind only Aaron Rodgers and Peyton Manning. Maybe they’re both capable of a big day. At the very least each will provide a direct-comparison yardstick to use in evaluating the other. To me that’s going to be the most interesting part of watching the game.
This is likely one of those games that the team giving up the fewest turnovers wins.
Which is why I don’t like to gamble on this kind of game. I visualize a lot of cringing happening on Sunday, no matter what outcome you’re rooting for.
—-
For the purposes of silly predictions: I’ll take the Redskins and the 3 points and the Over.
I have always like Andrew Zimmern, host of Travel Channel’s, “Bizarre Foods.” The man has no fear about eating things that most people would find strange, although I do question his ability to actually taste anything since he actually likes lutefisk (one of about 4 things I will never eat again).
Zimmern was in Portland this summer filming and he is really hitting some of the best spots in the city. From eater.com:
Thus far, Zimmern’s Portland itinerary has included stops to Olympic Provisions, Laurelhurst Market (where Zimmern touts a smoked balsamic-brined lamb as having “insane flavor”), Steven Smith Teamaker, and Beast (described as “just a jewel of an eatery”). As previously reported, he’s filming at Lincoln today (where he’s already Twatted a photo of tonight’s dinner), and it looks like a stop at Nicky USA is also on the calendar.
What other Portland stops should be considered sufficiently Bizarre? Holler in the comments.
UPDATE: Zimmern’s Tweeting major food porn — wild boar collar, fermented Thai sausage, Vietnamese wings — from Pok Pok.
Laurelhurst Market is a favorite of the Iron Chef Leftovers family and has been previously reviewed here. Hopefully he got the marrow bones, which were some of the best I have ever had. I went to Beast recently and it was outstanding. Olympic Provisions, also reviewed here, is home to an amazing eggs benedict, which Mrs. Iron Chef Leftovers calls one of the best things she has ever eaten. Pok Pok, Lincoln and Teamaker are all on my short list of Portland places I want to hit.
The one I am most jealous of – Nicky USA. If you are not familiar with them, they are the largest purveyor of game meat in the US, most of which is sourced locally in Oregon. I really can’t wait for the show to air just to see what sort of goodies he got to experience there.
In 2012, I started writing beer reviews on this blog in a semi-regular segment titled “Beer of the Week”. It is a bit of a misnomer since some weeks you got 2 beers of the week (hey, those are good weeks) and some weeks you got none. Anyway, I don’t review every beer I drink and I don’t always post them right after I drink them, so you sometimes end up with beers that are out of season or just not available anymore. What I am most proud of is my 5 point rating system.
In case you haven’t realized, instead of awarding stars or mugs or whatever else, I usually award a rating out of 5 based on something to do with the beer or the brewery. For example, I rated the Diamond Knot Whip Ale 4 out of 5 Silent Lucidities based on the idea that the recipe came from Michael Wilton of Queensryche (get it…Queensryche…Silent Lucidity). Coming up with these can be a challenge sometimes – anything animal or plant related is easy, just use the scientific name. Some are harder and probably not quite as funny. My favorite for the year was when I awarded Firestone Walker Wookey Jack 3 Kashyyyks out of 5. Kashyyyk being the home planet of Chewbacca, Chewy being a Wookie, get it? See how my brain works?
I digress, I reviewed a number of beers this year and several of them score a perfect 5 out of 5 on my rating scale. Several of those were vintage beers, so unless you know someone who happens to be sticking stuff in their cellar for 5 or 6 years (like I do), I figured that I should eliminate them from the running for the beer of the year. That really brought me down to 2 beers for the coveted title: Latona 25th Anniversary Cask by Anacortes and Pumpkin Ale by Reuben’s. It isn’t an easy choice; both breweries are great, both are breweries whose beers I really love and the styles are completely different. I am a shameless hophead and the Anacortes beer really appeals to me, but I also love pumpkin beers, especially ones where you can really taste the pumpkin and Reuben’s really knocked it out of the park with a pumpkin rye, a style which you don’t see too often, giving everything that I love about pumpkin beers with an interesting twist (and if you haven’t tried any of their rye beers, you should, they are fantastic).
So after much debate and locking the judges in a room without food and water until they made a decision (not really, I just spent 15 minutes thinking about who should win), we have a winner.
In a stunning upset, the new kid on the block, Reuben’s Brews wins the coveted Cheapseateats.com beer of the year award for their Pumpkin Ale! I highly encourage you to try this beer when it comes back around next year. It is so good that it is close to replacing Elysian’s Dark of the Moon as my favorite pumpkin beer on the planet, which is no easy feat since I pretty much consider Dark to be the second best beer brewed in Washington, behind Anacortes IPA of course!
Congrats to the wonderful folks from Reuben’s for brewing such delicious beers and keep it up. You will have some stiff competition in 2013 if you want to retain your title.
I love college bowl season – you can get some interesting matchups, especially when you involve some of the mid-major teams in the early bowls. Case in point is the New Mexico Bowl played on December 15th. It involved a 7-5 Nevada team vs. an 8-4 Arizona team. So what, you might ask. Well, let’s just say this sums up the kind of game you would expect (numbers represent their ranking among FBS teams):
Arizona
Nevada
Passing Offense
25th
52nd
Rushing Offense
16th
7th
Points Scored
16th
17th
Points Allowed
106th
102nd
Two teams with high powered offense and no defense, you would expect this game to play out like a video game, which it effectively did. Nevada rolled up 659 yards of offense in this game while Arizona managed a “meager” 578. The teams collectively converted 5 out of 6 4th down chances, combined for 7 turnovers, Nevada lost leads of 21-0 and 45-28, Arizona recovered an onside kick and went 49 yards in about 27 seconds to score the winning touchdown in a 49-48 victory. The game, despite its lack of defense, was actually very entertaining to watch. Arizona actually scored two touchdowns in the last two minutes of the game to pull of the come-from-behind victory.
One thing I had not realized about Arizona – their running back Ka’Deem Kerry, ended the season with 1929 yards and 23 TD’s. How much more under the radar could this guy be considering he is from a BCS conference and plays for a team that was ranked at one point this season. Oh, and he will only be a junior next season.
Since popup restaurants are all the rage these days, I recently saw a post on eater.com about one being done by a “celebrity chef.”
Here is what you would get:
Mac and Cheese with Butter Sauce and Crispy Bacon
Hot Chicken Bite with Tomato and Cucumber Salad
Meat Loaf with Collard Greens, Mashed Potatoes and Creamed Corn
Banana Pudding, Pecan Short Bread and Bruleed Bananas
Each course comes with a paired cocktail, a gift bag containing cookies and a bottle of wine and a photo op with the chef.
The regular price for this privilege is $399 per person, tax and gratuity included, but if you act now, you can get this meal for $175 per person (although there is some confusion if gratuity is included).
The chef?
Thomas Keller? Nope
Hugh Atchinson? Nope
Ferran Adria? Not even close.
The resurrected corpse of Julia Child? Well, that is closer.
It is none other than former Top Chef contestant Carla Hall, most famous for not winning Top Chef and being on a talk show. The event is held in Bloomingdales in NYC and I can imagine that Hall probably won’t be doing the cooking. For $175 dollars, go somewhere else – it is NYC, you can find a better meal just about anywhere. Hell, for half that, I will make the same meal for you if you want, and I am slightly less annoying than Hall.
A website, firstwefeast.com came out with a list of the “best” beers from each state. It is a tough thing to judge since you are going across so many different styles and tastes and then you have to ask are you limiting it by just beers that are bottled, etc. It is interesting to see what they came up with. The full slideshow is here, but here are my comments on a few (after the jump) in case you don’t want any spoilers before you see them all.
Well, the Mayans were wrong and what a better way to celebrate the fact than throwing a hedonistic feast in their honor. I will do this post in a couple of parts – this one with the menu, descriptions and any links to existing recipes that I used to make them (along with any tweaks) and a second set of posts with the remaining recipes (some of these are a pain to write out, so it will take a bit to get them out there). I really wanted to have fun with the meal, so I opted for simple preparations with fun plating and names. So, without further delay, I present to you “Meal of the Apocalypse”!
Cocktail: Heart of Darkness
I am pretty sure that I didn’t make this one up, but I have absolutely no idea where I would have come across it either. It is a champagne based cocktail, which are always delicious and refreshing and this takes about 1 minute to make.
The Heart of Darkness is looking a little lighter and more refreshing these days.
Here is what I wrote about the drink on my menu:
The story Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is the inspiration for one of my favorite movies, Apocalypse Now. It seemed appropriate to make a drink based on that, given the theme of the night.
Since I like you, I will give you the recipe here.
The drink is 1.5 oz. blood orange juice or soda, 4 oz. sparkling wine, 3 drops Scrappy’s Chocolate Bitters and a frozen strawberry, served in a wine glass.
I would recommend using a drier sparkling wine for this so that you don’t get overloaded with sweetness. I personally used Washington produced Treveri Pinot Gris sparkling wine in this version.
First Course: My Last Meal
Being Italian, it seemed logical to start off the meal with pasta. I did a meat ravioli with a taleggio, shallot and sous vide egg cream sauce and topped it with a sprinkle of guanciale, just because I could. It was decadent and over the top, but it pared nicely with the 2010 Wilridge Pinot Grigio, which has a bit of sharpness to it that cut the richness of the dish.
Since it seems I didn’t actually take a picture of the pasta, I give you one of the cats sunning himself on the couch. This was the general happy response to the pasta, so let’s just call this the after picture.
My notes on the dish:
One of the components of my last meal on earth, if I got to choose it, would be something that my dad made for me when I was growing up. This is my adult version of the meal that I enjoyed as a kid.
Second Course: The Mayan Slaughter
I wanted to make mole without making mole, so I basically took a bunch of the spices that are used in mole and made a spice rub for some pork tenderloins. Then to get the chocolate component of the dish, I made a chocolate gastrique as a side sauce that was meant to be eaten with the pork. I really felt like I nailed this one as the combination of the spices and the chocolate really reminded me of a mole, although a more complex one than you might expect since the fruit notes in the chocolate really came out. I served it with a toasted quinoa hash (quinoa, black beans, queso fresco) that I got the basic idea from Modernist Cuisine at Home. I pared this with a completely killer Argentinian Malbec from my cellar that a friend brought me back from Argentina – 2006 LaGarde Riserva Malbec.
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.
There was one problem with calling this dish the Mayan Slaughter:
The Spanish brought pigs to the new world and they became a main protein of Mexican cooking well after the Mayans. A deconstructed mole sauce is a tribute to the Mayans, although the Mayans didn’t really invent it and quinoa is actually from South America. We will just ignore those little details.
Third Course: Side of the Road Salad
Just a simple salad of wild arugula, dandelion greens, truffle oil, 30 year old balsamic vinegar and alder smoked sea salt. I wanted to add some sun chokes to this, but my attempt at making a sun choke crouton didn’t work. I served this with a 2009 NHV Rose which wasn’t a fan favorite by itself, but worked well with the salad.
No picture of this since: A) salads are boring and B) I forgot to take a picture of it before I started eating.
My story about the salad:
You could, in theory, survive in Seattle eating nothing but foraged food (there are people who do this willingly), if you know where to look. This just proves that you can do it and still eat well.
Fourth Course: Raid the Emergency Supplies
This was one that I went really creative with the presentation. What better to celebrate the world not ending then with eating your stockpiles of emergency supplies? I made my Belgian Beef Carbonnade recipe, topped it with a potato slice and served it in a tin can. Of course, since I went with the really classy presentation in a can, I had to serve a great bottle of wine, in this case the 2001 Conti Sertoli Sforsato in a mason jar.
Here are my thoughts on this:
You should have a stockpile of emergency supplies including canned goods in the event of a natural disaster. If Dinty Moore beef stew tasted this good, I probably would be eating it every night. When serving stellar food in a can, it is only appropriate to serve a killer wine in a mason jar, just to keep it classy.
Dessert: Last in Line for the Human Sacrifice
I really needed to have a human sacrifice as part of this meal; it just seemed fitting and, after much debate, decided that it would be at the end of the meal. So how do you have a human sacrifice without killing an actual human? Well, you first take an altar made out of chocolate pudding. You then take a human made of a sugar cookie and place him on the altar. Then you take some raspberry blood and dot that on the plate. Then you take a spoon and kill your cookie man and enjoy. Just for the hell of it, you pair this with a Maison de Pagett Pillow Talk Vanilla Port. Human sacrifice has never been as fun or delicious as this one.
Our vicitm just before he meets his untimely end. In an interview just before the sacrifice, he was quoted as saying, “No thanks, I would rather be lost.”
The gory details:
A line from a George Carlin bit about being lost. No proper post-apocalyptic meal would be complete without a sacrifice at the end. There was also much debate among my friends about where in the meal the sacrifice belonged. We will try it here.
This year the Hall of Fame ballot gets crowded and interesting. Steroids argument aside, you have two guys who statistically are among the 10 best players in the history of the game and 4 guys who have a strong case that they should be in the Hall, and those are just the guys who are on the ballot for the first time this year.
If I had a vote, my ballot would have the 10 name maximum on it this year and probably for the next 4 or 5 years. Here is how it would look (keep in mind the steroid questions are a non-issue for me):
The New Guys Barry Bonds – No brainer, only some guys named Babe Ruth and Cy Young have higher career WAR’s than Bonds Roger Clemens – Easily the most dominating pitcher of the last 40 years, which is saying a lot. Craig Biggio – He was overshadowed by the gaudy power numbers of his era, but this is a guy who hit, took walks, stole bases and won 4 Gold Gloves as a second baseman. Heck, he even switched to the outfield when the team asked him to. Basically he was the 1990’s version of Robin Yount. Mike Piazza – Arguably the best hitting catcher in MLB history. Not bad for a guy who was drafted in the 62nd round of the draft as a favor by Tommy LaSorda to Piazza’s father. Curt Schilling – Forget the bloody sock in 2004. Schilling was among the best in baseball for the better part of a decade, should have won at least one Cy Young award and is probably the best post season pitcher in the 2000’s and maybe the last 50 years.
The Returning Guys Jeff Bagwell – He needs to be in. The guy could hit and run and field and, unfortunately, got lost in the shuffle by playing his entire career in Houston. Alan Trammell – Larkin is in, Trammell was better. Rafael Palmiero – Do I need to say anything more than 500 HR and 3000 hits? Tim Raines – I think last year was “The Rock’s” last, best chance. The ballot is too crowded and I don’t think he has enough support. Mark McGwire – The guy was a masher but he was the modern version of Ralph Kiner.
Sadly, I think that Jack Morris will get in this season, despite being less than qualified and not even being better than another guy who should not be anywhere close to getting elected – David Wells. Don’t believe me, look it up. Wells and Morris had very similar regular season numbers and Wells was a better post season pitcher than Morris.
My prediction for election – Morris is the only guy who gets in because the writers are idiots and won’t vote for anyone they suspect might have been involved with steroids, even without proof.
Philly Boys was a food truck located on 4th Ave in Sodo in the parking lot of an auto repair shop. Philly Boys is now a physical location just past the said auto repair shop on 4th Ave. in Sodo. This is a much preferable location just because you won’t be standing out in the rain to get your cheese steak fix. I had the pleasure of venturing down there on a nice, sunny weekday to sample their wares.
I just ordered a steak, with onions and whiz, I wasn’t feeling particularly hungry and my was stuck behind a massive order that the staff was trying to get finished, so I ended up waiting about 20 minutes for my food. I can’t believe I am saying this, but it was definitely worth the wait. The steak came out perfectly cooked and seasoned, a hint of salt and pepper and slightly greasy which mixes in perfectly with the cheese whiz creating a cheesy/meaty sauce that lubricates the sandwich. The amount of whiz was just about perfect, it probably could have stood just a touch more to properly lubricate the sandwich, but there was enough that I did not end up with bites that were all meat. The roll was a great combination of soft and chewy, durable enough to maintain its integrity while the sandwich sat, but retained enough of its original form to give the sandwich more than just one texture with each bite. The onions really made the sandwich though. They were perfectly cooked and seasoned and lent a slight sweetness and toothiness to the sub, heck, I probably wouldn’t mind ordering just a grilled onion sandwich. The steak cost $8.50 and was worth every penny.
The menu is pretty much limited to a couple of cheesesteak variations, fries, and drinks, but you really don’t need anything more from the place.
Two words of caution – they are cash only, so you need to bring some greenbacks with you if you want to enjoy your steak, and because of the location, the place is LOUD. There is a ton of truck traffic on 4th, so if they have their doors open, you really won’t be able to have a conversation sitting in their small dining area. That being said, you should still make the trip down to visit them. They don’t have a website, but they have a Facebook page.
With only Hey Piason left to try, Philly Boy’s takes the lead for the best “authentic” Philly steak in Seattle with 4 Betsy Ross’s out of 5.
1. First off, here’s a look at the size of a MLB strike zone, by count. (Hint: It’s not even remotely the same, depending upon the situation.) Includes very cool visuals.
2. The M’s trade a pitcher (Jason Vargas) for a hitter (Kendrys Morales). It’s basically just defense for offense. Both players have one year left before free agency. Morales is represented by Scott Boras, so I’d assume Morales is basically a rental. Actually, I kind of hope that he is. Morales is Cuban, so who knows how old he is, really? Plus, it’s Scott Boras we’re talking about dealing with here. Pass.
USSM has two posts with excellent analysis of the trade and the aftermath.
3. Finally, because I couldn’t leave it alone: The Jets are reported to be seeking to trade Mark Sanchez and they have an interest in Michael Vick.
Good Lord. Really?!
Repeat after me: “If Michael Vick is the answer, you’re asking the wrong question.”
FlatbreadGarden 