Why I like baseball

The Nationals have not had a good season in 2009, to put it mildly. But baseball finds ways to reward its fans, even fans of bad teams. A perfect example was the last home game of the 2009 season. The Nationals were playing the NY Mets for precisely nothing: both teams had long been eliminated from playoff contention, and the Nationals had already clinched last place in all of MLB for 2009. The Nationals entered the bottom of the ninth inning trailing by two, facing Mets pitcher Francisco Rodriguez, at one time the most fearsome closer in baseball. The Nats managed to score a run and load the bases with two outs, bringing rookie Justin Maxwell to the plate. It is essentially the most dramatic possible moment in baseball--bottom of the ninth, two outs, rookie batter versus veteran pitcher, even a full count! Maxwell falling behind, fouling off pitches, Rodriguez struggling to find the spot that will get the final out... Listen to the radio guys call it. Seven-and-a-half minutes of baseball magic, building to a crescendo that will have you on the edge of your seat even if you're the most casual of fans. (The excellent call is by Nats broadcaster Charlie Slowes, aided by Dave Jageler.)

Park THIS... in your BELLY!

You remember my test of skill that was one of the original inspirations for this blog, the three-by-six? Well, the finesse and automotive skill of the 666 park has met its match in the all-out culinary feat of endurance that is the 999! Behold its terrible majesty and despair!

The last of baseball

DC is now going through a ton (more) of baseball firsts with the new stadium (such as being first in the NL East! I bet we can hold the top spot at least another day...). Here a few of my baseball lasts (other than Nats in last place...).

Frank's last game, from 2006:


My last slice in New York, the night before Nick Johnson broke his leg at Shea:

Yes, I haven't had pizza with pepperoni and bacon since. That slice stayed with me almost as long as it took NJ to rehab.

And meeting DMeathook before the last game at RFK:

Coca Cola Route

The Fraulein and I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro last month. The climbing isn't "technical," in the sense that you're not using ropes and harnesses and going up sheer rock faces. It's just hiking, although the trails get really steep towards the end with a lot of scrambling over loose scree and rocks. There are several different routes up the mountain. We took the Marangu Route with our friends J-Dawg and Altitude. Marangu is called the "Coca Cola Route" because each day you end your hike at a "hut." These are permanent encampments of a dozen or twenty small wooden A-frame huts, an eating hall, and varyingly primitive toilets. Anyhow, the infrastructure means that you have access to certain luxuries on the climb--namely, you can buy a Coke:



The picture is from midway through our last day. We stopped about 6 miles from the bottom and had a Coke. Believe me, we'd earned it. From the name, you'd figure the Coca Cola Route was easy. Turns out? Not so much. By this point we were quite happy to embrace any vestige of American cultural imperialism. You see, by about the third day of our climb, everyone was half-mad with fantasizing about what we'd eat as soon as we found a McDonald's. Even the avowed and semi-avowed vegetarians in the group needed something: Big Mac, McNuggets, Quarter-Pounder... All in spite of the fact that none of us ate at McD's very often back home. I found the same phenomenon with Brits, Germans, and Danes that I met on the mountain and back at the hotel: everyone had a McCraving. What is it about the arches? Needless to say, when the Fraulein and I had a three-hour layover in Amsterdam on the way home, first stop was the Mickey-Dee's in the airport.

The Secret? Simple: the Sizzerp!

Sweetening cocktails can be tricky. Most cocktails are served cold, and getting sugar to dissolve in them while shaking or stirring with ice can be a challenge. You may end up with gritty, undissolved bits of sugar floating through your cocktail, making it seem more like poorly-mixed Gatorade than the transcendent libation it's supposed to be. So, how do you add sweetness? Use pre-dissolved sugar in the form of simple syrup:

Simple Syrup

1. Heat one cup water until it boils
   
2. Turn off heat, add two cups sugar
3. Stir until sugar dissolves

The only simpler recipe I can think is maybe "simple water." You can, of course, scale the recipe up or down to make as much as you need. Just remember one part water to two parts sugar. You can keep it at room temperature in a sealed glass jar.

The Fraulein and I threw our biannual New Year's Eve party this winter, and we used simple syrup to make a cocktail which proved to be a big hit with our guests (warning, the recipe below fills about half of a martini pitcher, so don't try to drink it all yourself).

Citrus Martini

In a martini pitcher, mix:

• 1 cup vodka
• 1/2 cup triple sec (or other orange liqueur)
• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 oz simple syrup (2 tablespoons)
• A handful of ice

Stir well and strain into long-stemmed cocktail glasses. Garnish with a twist of lemon peel, a lime wedge, or a half orange slice (depending on your whimsy... or alternate among them for different guests). Serves 4. Do not use Rose's lime juice (never use this if you can help it). Squeeze fresh limes, or use reconstituted lime juice.

Brand Awareness

The Fraulein and I have been listening to a lot of Nats games on the radio. You get familiar with the ad rotation pretty quick: buy Nats tickets, buy a used car (where Spanish is proudly spoken, albeit announced in English...), and buy Budweiser. The Budweiser commercial has their repetitive, annoying jingle (focus-group-approved and probably adjusted by evil corporation psychologists to ensure you can't get it out of your head by any means short of a Metallica concert). Anyhow, the chorus of jingle is: "This is Budweiser/This is beer." My initial (and continuing) reaction is, "oh, so that's what it's supposed to be!" (Yes, I can be a beer snob. Sue me.)

Coming up: Fall Food and the End of Baseball!

Presentation

I worked (and ate) my way through a good portion of college by waiting tables at the campus faculty club. It was a pretty fancy place, considering most of the waiters were students. Of course, there was no tipping--just as well, since academics are notoriously cheap--instead, we got an annual bonus that depended on seniority and how many times you were late and whether or not the head waiter liked you. Which is part of the reason why the "inside waiter" position was arguably the best spot to work during dinner. Since you couldn't hustle for tips, there was no point in hoping for a prime spot on the floor with tables full of boozy, free-spending bonhomie, so why not the kitchen? (Although you did get the odd bone from a table of former-waiter alumuni... I once manage to wrangle all of a $14 out of a party of TEN that kept me there until 11 freakin' o'clock... give me the kitchen any day!).

It was the duty of the Inside Waiter to prepare the outgoing trays of entrees for the other waiters: stack the plates, prepare the carts for the table-side-prepared Signature Dishes, coordinate timing with the chefs, and--most importantly--mop up errant bits of sauce to make the food "pop" against the white china. The payoff for the gruntwork:

1. You didn't have to wear the ridiculous Love-Boat-Style waiter jacket and accompanying burgundy clip-on bowtie
2. First crack at the leftovers!

And #2 was by far the bigger bonus. I'm not talking about something rude like picking over half-eaten entrees, these were the prime scraps from the Signature Dishes: Caesar salad (the real kind, tossed fresh with a coddled egg and actual chopped anchovies--it's probably illegal in these days of "food safety" and "Caesar dressing," although I can't recall any diners dying of salmonella... I drank more back then, but I'm pretty sure I would remember that) and Chateaubriand (a big ol' hunk of rarish beef tenderloin with duchesse potatoes and roast veggies). Both of these went out on little carts, and the Maitre d' would toss, slice, plate and serve them table side, as appropriate. And there would usually be a little bit left when the cart came back to the kitchen--too much food on the plate didn't present well, and the place was too chi-chi to leave the extra sitting out next to the table like the bonus container that came with the Silver Goblet Milkshake at Bob's Big Boy.

(Although how cool would that be? "Your tenderloin sir... and I'll just leave the... extra tenderloin... right here.")

Anyhow, the Inside Waiter got first crack at the cart when it came back (although it was uncool not to share with the waiter who had the table). You'd tear open a fresh roll, tuck in the leftover Chateau scraps and spend some time in the Happy Meat Place. Even if there were no scraps, you could always use the roll to scavenge up the fresh drippings that had collected in the little bowl molded into the carving dish (again, the Maitre d' would drizzle the jus over the sliced meat when he served it, but if he put too much it wouldn't present well... there was always some left!). Yeah, I actually lost weight when I went off to grad school and started having days where all I'd eat would be 4 Big Macs and a plate of donuts. Good times, good times.

My point in all this? Presentation has benefits beyond the mere aesthetics of the plate.

But achieving good aesthetics on the plate isn't as easy as it looks. There's a reason the chi-chi restaurants go for small food on a big plate: it highlights the food, like a good mat on a framed print. I've been coming to grips with this in my attempts to find a good presentation for a seared Ahi dish that I've been working on. It's tuna steaks on a bed of sliced avocado, with grilled bell peppers and/or pineapple and/or tomato on the sides. Lots of color, with green from the avocado, yellow/red/orange from the veggies, plus the zillion shades of Fiestaware we eat off of, not to mention the strong lines of the grill marks on the tuna playing against the curve of the avocado slices. The problem? Size. Take a look:



Okay, so the Ahi's a little overseared, but the color is a wonderful, energetic tangle. A tangle that's too crowded on the plate! It's not a large dish, so I used a lunch-sized plate, not wanting the food to look lonely. Instead, it looks cramped, and the color is leaning toward busy rather than lively. Next time I try this, it'll be with a dinner-sized plate. I'll tell you how it goes.