Ben Holloway Eats

Sometimes you just really need some Burger King

2006-11-22T20:46:00.000-06:00

BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- Two employees of the city's ice skating rink have been fired for making a midnight fast-food run in a pair of Zambonis. An anonymous tipster reported seeing the two big ice-resurfacing machines chug through a Burger King drive-through and return to the rink around 12:30 a.m. on Nov. 10. The squat, rubber-tired vehicles, which have a top speed of about 5 mph, drove 1 1/2 miles in all.

The Zamboni operators, both temporary city employees whose names and ages were not released by Parks and Recreation Department, had to negotiate at least one intersection with a traffic light on their late-night creep from Idaho Ice World.

''They were fired immediately,'' said Parks Department Director Jim Hall. ''We're pretty sure it was just the one time. When we interviewed them, they didn't seem to be too concerned about it. I don't think they understood the seriousness of it.''

Hall said neither the $75,000 Zambonis nor their $10,000 blades appeared damaged, but the city could charge the employees with operating an unlicensed motor vehicle on a public street.

Three things I didn't know...but that don't surprise me

2006-11-16T22:53:00.000-06:00

1. The frozen Margarita was invented in Dallas, and "it was coeds from nearby Southern Methodist University who really spread the drink's fame."

2. In France, you can take the wild mushrooms you've picked to any drug store to make sure you avoid toxic varieties, because "all pharmacists here are trained mycologists."

3. Lonesome Dove, a restaurant that's perfect in Fort Worth, is not doing so well in New York.

Quote of the Day

2006-11-09T15:41:00.000-06:00

From a New York Times review of rapper The Game's new album: "Hi-Tek produced the slow-rolling "Ol' English," a tribute to the Game's favorite malt liquor and his favorite typeface, too."

Several of us have been having fun today thinking of new rap topics fitting the booze/font theme. Feel free to play along.

Laphroig and Century Gothic
Monopolova and Helvetica
Saucerne Sans Serif
Monotype Corosiva and Courvoisier
Dewars and Dwellers
Diploma and Dimple Pinch
Haettenschweiler and Goldschlager
Trebuchet Sauvignon
Malibu and ...Malibu

Of course, as fun as this is, none of us have attempted to actually write rap lyrics. Maybe this weekend.

Give this man a Nobel Prize.

2006-10-29T11:07:00.000-06:00

Or a Macarthur. Hell, give him an Oscar. Just recognize his genius in some fashion.

NEW YORK, Oct 26 (Reuters Life!) - A new fast food is making its debut at U.S. fairs this fall -- fried Coke.

Abel Gonzales, 36, a computer analyst from Dallas, tried about 15 different varieties before coming up with his perfect recipe -- a batter mix made with Coca-Cola syrup, a drizzle of strawberry syrup, and some strawberries.

Balls of the batter are then deep-fried, ending up like ping-pong ball sized doughnuts which are then served in a cup, topped with Coca-Cola syrup, whipped cream, cinnamon sugar and a cherry on the top.

"It tastes great," said Sue Gooding, a spokeswoman for the State Fair of Texas where Gonzales' fried Coke made its debut this fall. "It was a huge success."

Gonzales ran two stands at the State Fair of Texas and sold up to 35,000 fried Cokes over 24 days for $4.50 each -- and won a prize for coming up with "most creative" new fair food.
Now other fairs in North Carolina and Arizona are following the trend, and other people are trying to emulate Gonzales' recipe.

Gonzales gave no indication of the calories in his creation and said he would not patent it.

"The best I can hope for is that it's the original and hopefully the best fried Coke out there," he said.

But Gonzales said the success of his fried Coke had inspired him. Next year's fair-goers can look forward to fried Sprite or -- for those watching their weight -- fried diet Coke.

"We are trying to cut a lot of the sugar out of it. It has less calories but it's still very, very sweet," he said.

Ray Crockett, a spokesman for Coca-Cola Co., said: "We're constantly amazed at the creative ways folks find to enjoy their Coke and make it part of celebrations like fairs and festivals. This is one is definitely different!"

Another victory for Texas.

Drinking and driving

2006-10-16T18:26:00.000-05:00

In the interest of time, I'm going to have to spare the details. Just let me tell you this: after a couple of margaritas and a shitload of Tex-Mex from Chuy's, you should probably wait for a while before going to the driving range to hit golf balls. Trust me. The new rule is to wait half an hour before swimming and two hours before swinging metal rods in close proximity to total strangers.

And to the weird, chain-smoking, phone-call-making golfer next to me: damn you! After you gave me that bit of "friendly advice," I lost what little concentration I had. I was at least avoiding the trees before you helped me out.

And if you're watching the news and wondering: we're just fine. Though the apartment building two and a half blocks away is now flooding, we're several feet higher. As long as it lets up just a little, I should have no trouble getting to work in the morning.

In praise of Great Chefs of the World

2006-10-06T17:19:00.000-05:00

The Food Network just gets worse and worse. They quit playing the real Iron Chef and replaced it with their lame Iron Chef America. They got rid of Anthony Bourdain’s A Cook’s Tour for the same reason: because they want to focus more on domestic food. Luckily, Bourdain got picked up by the Travel Channel, and No Reservations is much better than Cook’s Tour was to begin with. But Food Network has also been pushing loudmouth Paula Dean and her loudmouth sons way too much. They also devote an inordinate amount of time to cooking contests involving sculptural cakes. I never thought I’d live to say this, but Emeril Live is now one of the best shows they’ve got. (Emeril’s Essence, his traditional cooking show instead of the loud live one, is actually really good. It only comes on weekends.)

So let’s take a moment to remember Great Chefs of the World, which still airs (I think?) on the Discovery Channel. No matter what Alton Brown may say, GCotW is the ultimate foodie show. A single camera captures a chef making a dish in his own professional kitchen, not a set. He—we’re dealing mostly with hotel chefs in Europe, so it’s almost always a he—explains what he’s doing as he does it. A pleasant woman’s voice narrates, though she doesn’t actually translate word for word. This gives plenty of great moments when a chef will speak for about 60 seconds in German or Greek, and the narrator will only tell us something like “he then adds the other ingredients.” One of the other things that I like about the show is that the executive chef will prepare the dish from raw ingredients, so he has to chop, whisk, and sautee himself rather that making his staff do it. Occasionally, you’ll see him unsure about where to find a bowl or which pan to use.

The ironic charm of the show, and Food Network won’t understand this, is that the chef NEVER seems excited about what he’s doing. Imagine you’re at work and some stranger walks up and asks what you’re doing. You give a polite but short reply and move on. GCotW makes an extremely watchable show out of that format.

And that’s it. Each show features an appetizer, a main course, and a dessert. Each course comes from a different chef in a different city, and there’s no apparent connection between the three. The chef makes the dish, usually with some sous chef standing around in the background trying to look busy, a single shot of the finished dish gets displayed, and they move on to the next. No “bam!” or “mmmm, yummers!” or animal fats made from sock puppets. It’s not meant to be educational or even entertaining, unless you happen to enjoy great meals being prepared.

There are several varieties of Great Chefs, but the "...of the World" version is by far my favorite. A lot of the fun is lost when the chefs speak in English and know that the audience may actually show up at their restaurant.

Why I have to go to chicago soon

2006-10-02T14:52:00.000-05:00

Gourmet magazine named Alinea, in Chicago, the country's best restaurant. For the record, I've been to numbers 2, 3, 29, and 41. Part of the charm (and pathetic conspicuous consumption) of going to French Laundry was that it was the undisputed best restaurant in the nation. Oh well.

The Strip House

2006-10-01T14:22:00.000-05:00

First, a word about steak houses. As many people point out, grilled beef is grilled beef; you can only get so high in quality, and most steak houses overcharge for plain ol’ grilled beef. While this is somewhat true, we have to remember that it’s not just the beef you’re paying for. At The Palm is Dallas, you can get your shoes shined while you wait for your table. At Perry’s, also in Dallas, they have a tray of dozens of reading glasses in assorted sizes and shapes for people who need help reading the menu. Last night at the Strip House, I noticed that every time there was a waiter at a table, there was at least one other server behind him, and usually there were two guys in the background. When Amanda asked our waiter if he had a martini menu, he said he would have one out in just a minute. In less than a minute, some other server discreetly slipped the martini menu into our waiter’s hands and he produced it, as if by magic, without ever leaving the table. These are the little touches you pay so much for.

The Strip House, on McKinney Street downtown, does not look or feel like a traditional steak house. It looks more like a Las Vegas restaurant, and it sounds like one too, with house music playing over the speakers in the large dining room (there are two private party rooms as well). The periphery is lined with bright red leather banquets; the walls are covered in a bright red fabric; even the ceiling is red. I had heard that the restaurant’s décor is a collection of 1920’s-era nudie pictures…excuse me, erotic photography…but I was expecting them to be neatly arranged in wood frames, pretty much the same set-up as any other steak house only with the racehorse pictures taken out and black and white boobs put in. Instead, the photos are randomly arranged on the wall in a puzzle-like pattern. Some are actually on glass in boxes, some are lit up with spotlights, and some are backlit with red lights that add to the “damn this place is red” motif. Rather than comfortable or clubby, The Strip House feels slick and hip. Slick and hip is not what most people look for in a steak house, any more than they expect a DJ at a country club. The saving touch: the napkins, which match the wall upholstery, have a Victorian-ish Oriental pattern which, on closer inspection, appears to made up of silhouettes of James-Bond-into ladies.

The cocktails, as they should be, are perfect. My Manhattan, shaken and poured at the table, was perfectly balanced, and Amanda’s blackberry martini was, as she put it, yummy.

The wine list is extensive, but overpriced. There were some good deals, but the more recognizable the name, the more dollars were added on. For example, a 2002 Silver Oak Alexander Valley Cabernet was $140, while $120 is more reasonable. Strip House had a bottle of Flora Springs “Trilogy” for $140, but we’ve had the same bottle at Farrago for $85. Our waiter gave us a great recommendation, though. I like a very tannic Cabernet, while Amanda likes her reds softer. We ended up getting a 2003 Proveenance Cabernet, and it was the perfect compromise between our two tastes. He told us that only 600 cases were produced, while Amanda’s research found that 1600 cases were produced, but it’s still a small production. We also noticed that the sommelier is a woman, which remains a rare find.

Amanda ordered a 10-ounce filet mignon, medium rare, and I had the 14-ounce New York strip, rare. The beef was cooked perfectly, charred on the outside and juicy inside. But there are handfuls of places in Houston who can do a perfect steak. Strip House sets itself apart with the side dishes. We had a truffled cream of spinach (don’t worry, the waiter assured us, it’s made from frozen spinach) that came out in a small copper pot. Because of the truffle oil, the dish remained rich and soft without using too much cream. What we had was a strong bite of spinach, not a slightly green bite of cream. We also ordered the signature side, crisp goose fat potatoes. They take a mound of potato gratin and pan fry it in goose fat, so that what comes out is a crispy, browned, giant tater tot fit for the gods. I can say many many great things about the goose fat potatoes, but I should also say this: they’re not that much better than Hickory Hollow’s hot tots, and they’re twice as expensive.

For dessert we split a Grand Profiterole—a six-inch-tall cream puff filled with two types of chocolate ice cream and topped with warm chocolate sauce. We ordered a piece of 24-layer chocolate cake to take to Amanda’s sister. The reason we went to Strip House was for a thank-you dinner for Amanda’s sister and brother-in-law, but they couldn’t make it into town. Sorry we missed you, Toney.

Read other reviews of The Strip House here, here, and here.

Baby's first baseball game

2006-09-25T21:42:00.000-05:00

We took Little Miss to see the Astros Friday night. One of financial printers had Amanda's group from work at their suite, so the living was easy. I had a hot dog with grilled onions, ketchup and cheese. Minute Maid Park also has the best, and most calorie-laden, potato salad in the world. It has been my ritual for some time to have Cracker Jacks in the seventh inning, and this weekend was no different. Most important, I took advantage of all the people to look after Little Miss (and Amanda's designated driver status) and drank three Shiner Bocks.

Little Miss had two bottles of formula.

What's in a name?

2006-09-25T21:36:00.000-05:00

Just ask my little sister.

Note to Lorien: the name of the guy who owns the Mi Cocina restaurants is Mico Rodriguez, so the name is a kind of pun.

Everyone's a critic

2006-09-17T22:35:00.000-05:00

Amanda had one bite of her Kashi Go Lean cereal and said "it looks like cat food, but it tastes pretty good." WIlliam Grimes couldn't have said it better.

What's in the papers

2006-09-13T18:45:00.000-05:00

Two stories in the New York Times dining section:

One, artisinal espresso has finally made it to New York City. These super-skilled baristas work on $10,000 machines to get the temperature and pressure just right, depending on the type of single-estate coffee they're using at the time. My favorite fact: "Tamping is also codified. At Ninth Street Espresso, it’s 30 pounds of pressure. Mr. Nye encourages his baristas-in-training to practice tamping espresso grounds into the portafilter on a bathroom scale so they know what 30 pounds feels like."

Two, Lipton and other teamakers are putting premium long leaf tea into pyramid-shaped nylon or muslin bags for a superior cup of tea that's easy to make. The new-and-improved teabags have limitations, though: "And even though the better tea bags will produce an excellent cup of tea, some of the finer points of tea making have been lost, like the different water temperatures and steeping times required, depending on whether the tea is black, oolong or green. An exception is the tea made by Le Palais des Thés: a suggested temperature and brewing time is printed on the foil packets that contain the muslin tea bags."

Super-elite espresso and high-end tea bags follow microbrewed beer, fancy-pants chocolate, artisanal cheese, and organic meat in our ramping-up of food quality. What's next?

My money is on lemonade. How long before we read "Jackson uses a simple Ph test to measure the acidity of each batch of sorrento lemons and adjust the amount of organic turbinado sugar and Greenland Iceburg water he adds to the mixture. Optional added flavors include Madagascar vanilla, pomegranate extract, Moroccan blood orange, or Tibetan yak's milk. Sales at his Fort Greene boutique, Lemon Aid(e), have quadrupled since opening in early 2006. Jackson plans on opening outposts in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Eugene, Oregon in 2007. You can also read his blog at lemonlarge.com or check out his band on myspace"?

Gotta Love The Heights

2006-09-08T22:12:00.000-05:00

This is totally unrelated to food, but I have to share:

At the gas station around the corner from us, we just saw three Goth girls--violet-black hair, black eyeliner visible from a block away, black sweaters over black skirts with black tights to match the jet-black hair--on roller skates. They were gathered around a purple art car, shaped like a dragon no less, that some other goth kids were filling up.

It may have been no American Graffiti, but it was just as sweet and charming.

Bonus. Dictionary.com's word of the day today is "small beer." As in Shakespeare's Henry IV: "Doth it not show vilely in me to desire small beer?"

Slate gets it wrong.

2006-09-01T10:36:00.000-05:00

Today's cover piece in Slate is "Brunch: an investigation." Bryan Curtis spends a few paragraphs (are all Slate stories shorter now? Is that part of the new fomat?) with a few New York chefs who claim that they, or their relative, invented Sunday brunch. He offers two ways of looking at things:

"While it's tempting to see brunch as a secular ritual—a slow start for those coming to after nocturnal prowlings—there's an argument that it owes a great deal to American Jewry. Brunch, Gary Greengrass acknowledges, was a kind of Jewish alternative to church. Jewish families, with nothing much to do on Sunday mornings, would take a long, leisurely meal, with traditional foods like bagels, lox, and blintzes."

"It's easy to see brunch as a battle of wills: the restaurateurs, who want to keep the turnstiles moving, versus the customers, who would have the meal to take all afternoon."

Although New York is indeed one of the best food cities in the world, not everything can be traced back to Manhattan. A lot of restaurants--and every hotel--in the country have Sunday brunch for the same purpose. Anthony Bourdain will tell you in his book, and any other chef will tell you if you give him a cigarette, that brunch is the long, drawn-out version of Minestrone: a way to get rid of leftovers. Saturday is a big night for food. You have an extra special, you have big parties, you have your catering wing out and about putting finger foods in chafing dishes. And Sunday is the day you get rid of the extra food. You open a little later that usual, and you offer cheap breakfast foods and leftover dinner foods. The best brunch dishes, eggs benedict for example, are a combination: eggs tossed in some water and covered with the holindaise from last night's asparagus. You may be thinking that good holandaise sauce breaks down long before the next morning, but when was the last time you had really good holandaise sauce on eggs benedict? That creative combination of vegetables, cheeses, and meats in your Sunday afternoon omelette? That's what was in the bottom of those chafing dishes last night.

Now that Brunch is such a great tradition, lots of places use fresh ingredients and make it a meal equal to the others. But if you're looking for the origins of bruch, look no farther than the leftovers from a Saturday night wedding.

Hitler's Cross

2006-08-23T17:26:00.000-05:00

Here's an odd story about a new restautant in India with a Hitler theme.

I don't know why, but I think "Saddam Mutton Shop," from the last line of the article, is really fun(ny) to say.

Foie Gras Revolution

2006-08-23T08:57:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, as Chicago’s ban on foie gras went into effect, Chicago restaurants had a good time flaunting the law.

Not only have restaurants been building special menus and parties around the duck liver, but places that don’t normally serve foie gras made a point of serving it Tuesday. Chefs have shown off their creativity, making foie gras hot dogs, foie gras hot chocolate, even foie gras ice cream. Ironically, the new ban produced foie gras’s finest day.

But of course the whole case against foie gras is ironic. There are two foie gras producers in America, both of them small farms committed to a quality product. We’ve banned their fatty duck livers in Chicago—and are in the process of running Hudson Valley out of the state—but we still consume tons of chicken and beef that are produced under conditions much worse than what the ducks go through.

I don’t doubt the sincerity of the animal-rights activists who crusade against foie gras, and I have to admit that the process does sound gross—it sounds a lot more gross than it really is. But I can’t help thinking that the more widespread disdain for foie gras has less to do with the comfort of ducks and more to do with class and scapegoating. Foie gras, unpasteurized cheese, and sous-vide cooking, recently banned in New York, are all associated with fancy restaurants and the French. Any attempts to limit or control the sale and production of foods that are harmful to people—Big Gulps bigger than a human stomach, addictive spicy Cheetos, pesticides in fruits and vegetables—are quickly condemned as upper-middle-class meddlers trying to impose their values and higher prices on the common people.

So common people, whoever you are, let’s make a deal. I won’t moralize about the type II diabetes epidemic in ten to twelve year olds or ask that schools stop selling soft drinks if you’ll just let me eat some foie gras now and then. And stinky cheese. Lots of stinky cheese.

Reinvigorated

2006-08-22T11:27:00.000-05:00

Amanda made guacamole last night. Not the quick version, where you put some salsa in some avacado, but made REAL guacamole, with fresh tomatoes, onions, and spices.

Not to be too corny, but it was one of those moments when you relearn the little joys that make life wonderful. On the spontaneous happiness continuum, it was far above seeing a plastic bag blowing in the wind and thinking the world is just so beautiful that you cry, but not quite hearing that the Supreme Court finally reversed itself on Gore v Bush.

And speaking of avacado, Basshole told me just a few minutes ago about a place in Austin that makes a Margarita with pureed avacado in it. I think a field trip is in order.

Still Catching Up

2006-08-16T22:03:00.000-05:00

[Today was the first day of school. I'm a little tired and very hoarse.]

I've been catching up on back issues of blogs. Is Ashbloem getting more esoteric, or do I just need to get back into the groove?

I noticed two things on Diner's Journal. On August 3 he talked about Houston's and had fewer good things to say about it than I do. He should have tried the veggie burger. I'm as carnivorous as the next guy (unless this is the next guy), but I like a good veggie burger, and Houston's has the best. And his August 15 post, on menus without prices, has 115 comments, far more than any other post. I thought that priceless menus went away 20 years ago--not only was I wrong, but it seems that it still gets people worked up. I can only imagine what people would have to say about our pet peeve at restaurants--when servers obviously assume that I will be paying the bill when I eat out with Amanda. Not only is it slightly sexist, it's almost always wrong.

Eating Out with Little Miss

2006-08-14T20:15:00.000-05:00

Ah, it’s good to be back. Our computer crashed about three weeks ago, and I’ve been without internet since then. But now—a new hard drive and several hundred dollars later—I’m back.

Although I’ve neglected my dining blog lately, I have not neglected dining. It turns out that Little Miss is great at restaurants. At least for now. We feed her and put her into the car seat, and then she’s out for a few hours. We can take her anywhere. Mostly we stick to super-casual and kid-friendly places. She’s been to Berryhill, Chuy’s, and Dry Creek a few times each. We took her for a Café Society day two weeks ago by hanging out at Onion Creek for a few hours, playing cards and drinking coffee (she did neither). After feeding her at home, we went out again to Empire Café for lunch.

But Little Miss has already had a taste of the nicer stuff, too. She was only two weeks old when she accompanied us to celebrate her Grandpa Jack’s birthday at McCormick and Schmick. She had lunch last Friday at T’afia. She’s even been to a private party at Kirby’s Steak House. Amanda and I are trying to give her an idea of the variety of restaurants out there.

People Who Know tell me that this won’t last. For many reasons it’s easier to take a three-month-old baby out to eat than a six-month-old. So we’re enjoying ourselves while we can.

[Note to Basshole: she heard your complaint, and Amanda got some walnut oil and sesame oil.]

Fish fun

2006-07-19T17:33:00.000-05:00

Frank Bruni's two most recent blog posts concern fish with multiple names. The first post concerns Branzino, which is really popular in New York right now (and which I watched Giada cook on television a few days ago).

On the follow-up post, he provides a link to the Food and Drug Administration page where you can look up all the different names a fish can be marketed under. He calls it fun for the whlie family. Fun indeed. So far, I've tried Red Snapper, Sea Bass, and Mahi Mahi.

Bruni's post before the fish fun is a meditation on doggie bags. He and several commentators point out that doggie bags often get left on the table. But the New York-based Bruni doesn't contemplate an even worse fate for doggie bags--being left in the car.

Picture this scenario: You meet your girlfriend at Flip's for a late dinner on Thursday night. You order salmon, and you eat half of it. You have the remaining salmon boxed up to enjoy for lunch later. You then follow your girlfriend over to her apartment, where you forget the fish in the car. You end up spending the weekend at her apartment, driving her car back and forth to work. So you dont realize you left the fish in your car until you get back into the car on Monday morning, after three full days in the Texas summer. It takes more than a week for the smell to go away.

And that's why I never get doggie bags anymore.

Home Inventory

2006-07-17T10:22:00.000-05:00

Without much to report on the dining out front, I thought I’d turn inward and take a quick inventory of the house.

Amanda’s cookbooks: 60
Bottles of wine in the bottom of Little Miss’s closet: 41 (they're not hers)
Bottles of wine in dining room wine rack: 11
Bottles of wine still in shipping box in dining room: 6
Bottles of Champagne in the refrigerator: 1
Bottles of Scotch: 3
Bottles of vodka: 4
Bottles of tequila: 3
Cans of Campbell's Soup: 4
Boxes of Brown Paper Chocolate: 3
Amount spent on dining, year to date: $4142
Amount spent on groceries, year to date: $2175
Amount spent at Spec's Wine Warehouse, last year: $622
Amount spent at Whataburger, last 12 months: $36
Pots and pans: 11
Knives: 18
Wine openers: 8
Types of oil: 2
Types of vinegar: 10
Frozen pizzas in freezer: 2
Frozen pizzas in freezer, including half-eaten bag of pizza rolls: 3

"The thirst of the English"

2006-06-28T20:44:00.000-05:00

As Independence Day approaches and we recount all the reasons why these United States needed to free themselves from England, let us remember that the British, God bless 'em, are still worthy of our respect and admiration. No matter who wins the World Cup this year, "the English proved themselves world champs" in Germany.

Don't Worry

2006-06-15T11:46:00.000-05:00

As my childhood hero always said, I know what you’re thinking. Now that this guy has an infant in the house, there’s no way he’s eating in Houston (and sometimes other places) and telling you about it. And in a way you’re right. I can’t imagine we’ll re-schedule our lunch at Moderne anytime soon, nor will I be returning to Bank--for food this time.

But a guy has to eat. And thanks to wonderful friends and kind neighbors, we’re eating pretty well.

When we brought Little Miss into the house for the first time, a fruit and cheese tray was waiting on our dining room table, with a pot of tea. Janet across the street arranged this. We’ve also had, thanks to Jennifer, some salmon with pasta and ginger snap peas form Maggie’s in Memorial catering. Phil gave us gift certificates to Star Pizza and Candelari’s. And Marie, across the street, brought us a frozen lasagna. Her cousin, who is “real Italian” and lives in Florida, says that Michael Angelo’s frozen lasagna is better than the rest, and I intend to find out soon. [What’s the difference between New Jersey Italian, Florida Italian, and Real Italian? I don’t know, but it sounds like something right out of Seinfeld.]

So I’m still eating. And once I start sleeping as well—probably in two to eight weeks—I’ll start telling you about it more frequently.

Here she is!

2006-06-13T16:42:00.000-05:00

Here's Little Miss. In this photo, she's about 20 minutes old. Email me if you want her name, batting average, IQ, or other stats.

Another Reminder that I Married the Right Girl

2006-06-04T18:38:00.000-05:00

Amanda has been stuck on "bed rest" for a week now. Not that she's actually required to stay in bed, but she has spent a lot of time on the sofa, napping and watching the television.

And what does Amanda do when she's beginning to get really bored with bed rest? Why, order wine, of course.

She just ordered a bottle of Sean Thackrey 2002 Sirius petite syrah (which we drank at French Laundry and Amanda is particularly in love with) and a few bottles of Le Cupole 2003 red wine (pretty affordable at $25. It's what we drank at Da Marco when we went there).

I'm going to start leaving some maps of Margaux around the house, just in case she gets bored again.