Thursday, March 25, 2004
Ah yes, the epic of the freestanding lasagna. Once upon a time, oh it seems a lifetime ago, our Aussie chef at Tulip introduced a menu item called "Freestanding Chicken Lasagna With Mushroom Duxelle." The point, he explained, was that it's not a traditional lasagna -- the kind made in a baking pan that's cooked onced, then festers in its own lasagnalally goodness for a few days, and then gets re-heated -- but it's made right on the plate each time it's ordered. The name elicted a good deal of discussion, most of it owing to the fact the people thought "freestanding" refered to the chicken, not the lasagna. (Sort of like free-range, I guess, but it doesn't walk around much?) So after a few weeks I changed the name to "Freestanding Lasagna of Chicken and Mushroom Duxelle." A few more weeks went by, and I noticed people were still looking at the name in a sideways perplexed kind of way, so I one day I Googled " freestanding lasagna." Go ahead, click on it. That's right, nothing. Here I was thinking this was some cutting-edge culinary innovation that our chef learned in France, but no -- the chef couldn't think of what to call it, so he made the name up. No wonder people were confused. So I finally ditched the word "freestanding" entirely. Recently I was having a drink with Geoff Goodfellow, a resident of Prague who from the sound of things never eats in. He claimed that at a Prague restaurant that shall not be named he saw a lunch special named "Freestanding Chicken Lasagna," and it pretty much looked just like Tulip's. It gets better. Goodfellow is a much better Googler than I, which stands to reason since the good bloke pretty much invented the Internet, or something along those lines. He typed in "free-standing lasagna" and found this. Go ahead, read it. What, too lazy to click on the link? OK, well, apparently the "free-standing lasagna" was in fact patented in August 1999. No joke. Here's the extract from the U.S. Patent Office.
Monday, March 22, 2004
"Never Gonna Let You Go." That's the cheesy 1983 easy listening duet by (though not sung by) Sergio Mendes that I've been trying to remember for a week.
There's a hell of a lot going on in the world right now. Know what bothers me? What bothers me is that I don't know of a single blog-type news/commentary source that devotes itself to international news events -- not Beltway bullshit -- without some huge ideological axe to grind. I'd buy a beer for anybody that could recommend, for instance, some interesting commentary about the killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin or the non-capture of Ayman Al-Zawahiri or the non-killing of Herat's Ismail Khan. I'd buy a whole dinner for somebody who can link it all to the Peace of Westphalia.
Here's an article I wrote a little while back.
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Well, well ,well. You know, I was going to tell a little story about my friend Sam, who's in a big fight with this guy Bob, and then Bob's alleged "friend" Rob announced that he really doesn't want Sam's friend Pedro to go jump off a cliff. So shouldn't Pedro jump off the cliff? If Pedro doesn't jump off that cliff, isn't that a victory for Bob and Rob? (Actually I think it all started when Sam, Pedro and Nigel broke into Bob's house. But Bob was a evil bastard anyway, and just to complicating things more, so is Rob...) I don't blame you for not following. You see, I was going to tell that story, but I'm not, because I just saw this. Apparently the Al Qaeda-linked group claiming to have carried out the Madrid attacks say they definitely don't want John Kerry to win in November. Indeed, they've endorsed Bush. They say Bush's "idiocy and religious fanaticism" would "wake up" the Islamic world, which is exactly what they want. The money quote: "We are not going to find a bigger idiot than you." There you have it: A vote for Bush is a vote for Al Qaeda. Case closed. (Yes, welcome to the Andrew Sullivan school of logic.) Of course, it's a bit too good to be true. In fact, this group probably had nothing to do with the bombing. Remember, they also claimed responsibility for the U.S. power blackout. But still, it's a bit odd that all those people decrying the Spaniards for their alleged "truce" with Al Qaeda (announced by the same group, in the same email, I think) haven't picked up on this one. (Yes, I mean you, NicMoc!) P.S. No wait. It must be a trick. They're saying we should vote for Bush deliberately to make us not re-elect Bush.... Nuh-huh. Anybody who saw The Princess Bride knows this is the oldest trick in the book. They're deliberately trying to make us think that they secretly want us to re-elect Bush, so that we'll re-elect Bush in an attempt foil their plan, when in fact they really want us not to re-elect Bush after all.... Say, where's the nearest cliff, anyway?
CNN reporting that Pakistani forces are involved in a fight-to-the-death stand-off with Al Qaeda forces in the frontier provinces -- forces protecting a "high value Al Qaeda target." Meaning? "You could guess and so could we," says the anchor, the Aussie guy.
"Now that it's upon us, the war sounds like a really really dumb idea. " That's what I wrote one year ago tomorrow, in my first blog post. As if you care what I think or thought about the war... But this is my blog's birthday, so screw you. Yes, in hindsight, I wish I'd been proven completely wrong about that one. I even somehow suspected that I'd be proven wrong, or at least more wrong -- which is a strange thing to think, because if you think you're wrong about something, you generally change your opinion. Unless of course something just doesn't sit right and you can't explain why, sort of like this whole "let's-invade-Iraq-and-walk-on-rose-petals-tossed-by-the-teeming-masses" thingie. Yeah, even a year ago, in all-out skeptic mode, I had much higher expectations. Go ahead, call me a sucker. New Year's Resolution: No more inside baseball, unless wrapped in elaborate metaphors involving fictitious guys named Sam, Bob and Rob.
I'm getting a little bit tired of hearing about Spain's "capitulation" in the War on Terror. Spain was against the Iraq invasion from the beginning. The only thing that's changed is that the government now reflects the popular position.
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Visegrad four mull retaliation over EU members' imposition of work barriersQuote of the day: "'We are the ones who should be worried, because we are facing a threat that our best of the best will leave,' Slovak President Rudolf Schuster said in reaction to the wave of announcements of employment restrictions by the EU member states."
Sunday, March 14, 2004
Hello, I'm going to Berlin tonight to finally pick up my visa. I'll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, take some time to read the Testimony of Past Worshipful Master Duane Washum. (Yes, I was inspired by the guy from Long Island killed in a Masonic initiation ritual.) When I'm back, a bit about the patented "free-standing lasagna" discovered by Geoff Goodfellow and the strange layered pasta-and-chicken dish making its way around Prague restaurants...
Saturday, March 13, 2004
Reuters: "Israeli mass circulation Yedioth Ahronoth told Europeans: 'Welcome to the real world'. " How nice.
Friday, March 12, 2004
What to make of this? The Institute for War and Peace Reporting reports that a pro-Coalition (or at least, an anti-anti-Coalition) militia called Black Flag is gearing up to go after evildoers in Iraq with or without the help of Iraqi police and Coalition forces. 'This militia seems more serious about dealing with the terrorists than the Americans, GC [Governing Council] and Iraqi police,' said Majid Harith, a teacher from al-Hurriya district.
One thing that struck me about news of the Madrid bombings -- apart from the so-close-to-home shock of it -- was that people were immediately blamed ETA, despite the fact that ETA's single deadliest attack in its history was an attack on a Barcelona supermarket that killed 21 people -- an attack for which they later apologized. You'd be way out of line to read this as some sort of defense of ETA. There is no defense of ETA, period. But ETA's speciality has always been assasinations and kidnappings with the occasion car bombing. Nothing like this. Multiple, coordinated, simultaneous attacks with no prior warning, designed to kill as many people as possible? Call me naive, but isn't there another big terror group that likes blowing shit up and killing lots of people? One with ambitions to reclaim Spain for the caliphs? I'm certainly no expert, but for this not-too-knowledgable observer, Al Qaeda certainly entered my mind. Last night I was having an exchange of this kind with my editor at Slate (I was scheduled to write one of those European press reviews, but got bumped due to my lack of Spanish skills -- fair enough in these circumstances) when news emerged that Spanish authorities had found a van with Arabic tapes of the Koran along with detonators. Plus, a little-known Islamic group has apparently claimed responsibility to a London paper. In any case, trying to look detachedly at the reaction 24 hours on, I think you might be seeing an Oklahoma City phenomenon going on -- in reverse. Most Americans immediately assumed that job was the work of foreign terrorists, only to have it later emerge that the threat was homegrown. Still too early to say, of course, but the immediate attribution of blame for Madrid -- if not wrong -- now looks to have been a bit hasty. Here are some interesting tidbits about the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade, the group claiming responsibility for the attack in the name of Al Qaeda. This group also claimed responsibility for those Istanbul bombings last year -- another too-close-to-home shocker -- meaning it could be Al Qaeda's deadliest wing targeting European soil. Then again they also claimed responsibility for the U.S. power blackout, so it could easily just be some freak with a fax machine. For news from the Spanish street, go no further than Iberian Notes: Investigations eavesdropping at the local bars determined just minutes ago that for male Spaniards who hang out in crappy bars in Barcelona, 100% are convinced of the ETA-Al Qaeda-PP-Aznar-Bush-Illuminati conspiracy to do dirt to the world in general and themselves in particular. The "Aznar fucked up and got us on America's side and now Al Qaeda has bombed us and it's America's fault" theme is rather a constant. Iberian Notes, by the way, was among the first to write with certainty, "Note to Americans: This is NOT an Al Qaeda job. It's the ETA." The writer remained convinced of this as of yesterday afternoon. More at Fistful of Euros.
|
