I just finished the rough cut of the third major draft of my new novel, Untimed. Just in time too to get out of town.
This weekend will be quiet and post free. I’m off to Vegas with the Foodie Club for some more high end gluttony. Namely Twist by Pierre Gagnaire and É by José Andrés (my review of the comparable Saam here). You can expect detailed coverage when I get back.
For more on the revision process, see this recent post.
As I slog toward the end of my third major draft of my new novel, Untimed, I felt the need for brief procrastination in the form of detailing the process. Most people seem to discount how much grind and sheer time investment is required in writing (and revising) a novel, even a vey steady workaholic like me. Let’s do a little breakdown.
Untimed is actually fairly short, currently at 83,000 words and 38 chapters. This is MUCH shorter than my first book started out. Length is a factor because you have to iterate (i.e. read through the book a LOT of times).
Think of each major draft as a loop (I am a programmer) with various sub loops.
. Generate Idea (for the most part this kind of happens or doesn’t)
. Character Design and High Level Plotting (you could spend who knows how long on this, I don’t find it that useful upfront, most of it just comes to me while doing other things)
. The First Draft:
. Initial drafting: For each chapter (1..38) loop:
. Plot the beats in the chapter. This takes an absolute minimum of 1-3 hours even if you know exactly what’s supposed to be in there. Sometimes it takes several days of banging your head and talking to others.
. Pound out a first draft. I can do 2000-2500 words of new draft in one 8 hour day. I generally make this a chapter. Occasionally I’ll be on a roll and do two.
. Reread it to catch really stupid typos, phrasing, and make sure it makes sense (1 hour)
. Subtotal. For above book that represents 50-60 workdays (NOTE: if you take days off, it’s chronologically much longer). Notes on finishing the first draft, here.
. High level pass:
. It’s impossible when writing a chapter or two a day to see the big picture in the book, so you have to do at least one faster pass through afterward.
. I can do about 10-15,000 words a day like this, which is actually fairly brutal
. Subtotal. About 7 workdays. 1-2 full reads.
. Quick read:
. If you want to judge pacing you have to read it all in a day or two like a normal book, not on the computer
. Subtotal. 1-2 days. 1 full read.
. Draft total. About 60-70 workdays. 4-5 full reads.
. Wait for feedback:
. Since you have to finish something and send it to someone, even a paid editor will take some time to read it and return feedback. This usually takes several weeks. I try and overlap it with the cleanup passes, but it’s tricky.
. Revision Drafts (I’m currently finishing the third major redraft) so I’ve done two of these so far on Untimed:
. Plan, outline, and organize changes.
. Can take from a couple days to a couple weeks. Some thoughts on this with Untimed HERE.
. I can do about 2-3 chapters a full day of revision. So for each block of 2-3 chapters loop:
. Do the actual revision. This can be fairly grueling, involving initial big surgery, a smoothing pass, then a cleanup pass
. Reread it to catch really stupid typos, phrasing, and make sure it makes sense (2 hours)
. Subtotal. Plotting 7 days, revising 15 workdays. Generates 2-3 extra reads per chapter.
. Medium Quick read:
. Checking for consistency
. Subtotal. 3-4 days. 1 full read.
. Total for each revision draft. Approximately 25 workdays. 3-4 full reads. Notes on the second draft HERE.
. Wait for feekback. You have to find out from others, often people who have never read the book before, how a draft comes across. This takes awhile. A reader who gets back to you in a week is amazing. It often takes several and some gentle (or not so gentle) prodding. Or tossing them some money. Sometimes that doesn’t even work. I had one (paid) unemployed beta reader tell me that they couldn’t start it because it interfered with their watching TV! NOTE: Said individual did not get paid.
. Line Editing:
. When the big picture is all settled out one sends it out to an editor for Line Editing. This involves more editor time than author time, but still chunks of the book come back and one must go over the edits and install them.
. My editor will request a “compression” pass before sending it to her. This is an extra pass to try and self edit it first.
. I can do about 8000 words a day like this. Approximately 10 days. 1 read. This is brutal but can be overlapped chronologically with the editor’s line editing. I.e. I can self edit a chunk and then send it out, meanwhile self editing the next chunk while the editor is working on the previous one, then also fit in the next part (processing) of returning chunks in a pipelined fashion.
. I can “process” returned line editing at about 6,000-8,000 words a day. For each chunk loop:
. Read over the track changes version of the line edit in word, approving and rejecting various edits and making cleanups
. Copy over each scene in into the real draft. Cleanup formatting.
. Do a quick read of the chunk or chapters to make sure nothing got screwed up
. Subtotal. Approximately 12 workdays, but spread across more chronological time as the edits can’t churn out this much per day. 2-3 full reads.
. Quick read:
. If you want to judge pacing you have to read it all in a day or two like a normal book, not on the computer
. Subtotal. 1-2 days. 1 full read.
. Total for line editing. approximately 24 days. 4-5 full reads.
As you can see. This adds up to a LOT of days and a lot of passes. Finishing up the third draft here, I’m already on eight months and at least 12 read throughs, and I can look forward to several more of each.
Restaurant: Mastro’s
Location: 246 North Canon Dr, Beverly Hills, Ca 90210. 310-888-8782
Date: September 17, 2011
Cuisine: Steak House
Rating: My favorite LA Steak joint
America is full of steak houses at every level from Sizzler to Cut. But I haven’t found one that I like as much as Mastro’s. Granted I’m not a plain steak fan (I prefer my beef more like this, or tartar, or even Fogo). But Mastro’s gets the steak house think right.
The Cannon drive entrance, just a block north of Spago. Inside the place is a ZOO. Sure this was Saturday, 8:30pm on Emmy weekend in Beverly Hills. But this huge restaurant was packed to the gills, including both bars. These are a sure scene. It’s hard to tell the merely underdressed and over siliconed ladies from the pros.
Our table was right in front of the rat pack. It was much more crowded than in this photo.
The PDF of the menu can be found here.
We were celebrating the engagement of one of my oldest friends so I brought some big guns from my cellar. This wine was the first truly GREAT wine I ever bought (circa 1996). This is the second to last of two cases I once had. It has constantly and without fail scored 100 points from Robert Parker. You will find no better expression of Syrah.
“The 1991 Hermitage La Pavillon follows the pattern of the 1989 and 1990 – it is another perfect wine. The saturated black/purple color is followed by a compelling bouquet of spices, roasted meats, and black and red fruits. Enormously concentrated yet with brilliant focus and delineation to its awesomely-endowed personality, this extraordinary wine should age effortlessly for three plus decades. In a short period of time (Michel’s first vintage was 1989) Chapoutier‘s Hermitage Le Pavillon has become a wine of mythical proportions. Produced from extremely old vines, some dating from the mid nineteenth century, with yields averaging under 15 hectoliters per hectare, this is the richest, most concentrated and profound wine made in Hermitage. There are rarely more than 500 cases.”
Everything at Mastro’s is well done, and that includes the bread. I’m partial to the pretzel rolls myself.
Five of us ordered the seafood tower. The quality of the seafood here is impeccable and the only thing we had to complain about was that there wasn’t enough! Really for five we would have expected the two or three story version 🙂 Still there were amazing shrimp, lobsters, claws, king crab (didn’t taste frozen), and oysters.
One of the things that really makes the Mastro’s seafood tower are the sauces. We have cocktail, a spicy mustard, and the Atomic Horseradish. They use this particular magic brand (you can buy it here). The stuff is — pardon my French — fucking awesomely potent. I’ve taken to buying it myself for home. No other horseradish is this punishing. It has a nice flavor too. I particularly like it mixed in with the cocktail sauce. It can have you literally pounding the table in pain — ahem pleasure.
Beefsteak tomato and mozzarella. With pesto.
Since both I and my newly engaged friend were born in 1970, I grabbed from the cellar this puppy. Parker gives it a mere 95 points. Sure it isn’t quite the 1991 Le Pavillion, but it gets extra credit for age. “The 1970 Palmer is one of the great wines of the vintage. It exhibits a dark, opaque garnet color, and an emerging, fabulously complex, exotic nose of licorice, over-ripe plums and blackcurrants, soy, cedar, and minerals. Rich and concentrated, with medium to full body, a sweet inner-core of fruit, firm but silky tannin, and a long, rich finish, this remains a youthful, potentially superb Palmer. While approachable, it will keep through the first 10-15 years of the next century.
Here comes the beef!
Like most steak houses Mastro’s serves up the entrees bare (all the better to extract more cash from you). This is the New York Strip.
The bone in filet (12 ounce). This is my favorite cut of steak. It has both the filet tenderness and some extra flavor from the bone.
The straight petite (8 ounce) filet.
And the bone in filet, oscar style. Yes this was mine. Like King Robert, I’m trying to eat and drink my way to an early grave. “Oscar Style” means that it’s topped with asparagus, crab cakes and bearnaise sauce. Bearnaise sauce (French: Sauce béarnaise) is a sauce of clarified butter and egg yolks flavored with tarragon and shallots, with chervil and tarragon simmered in vinegar to make a reduction. Lean and mean baby!
Salmon steak. Looking lonely.
But it need not fear, the sides are here!
This is “Gorgonzola mac & cheese!” Oh so light, oh so yummy.
And even better, the evil “king crab truffle gnocchi.” Yes that’s right. Cream, cheese, truffles, crab, potato. What could be better?
In case you don’t get the idea, you have to see it up close. Oh so good.
Then the light “lobster mashers.” That orange stuff, that’s butter.
And for those not seeking an instant heart attack, the “sauteed spinach” (cooked in butter).
We continue to suffer on the wine front as well with this third gem from my cellar. Parker 96 points. “The 2008 Flor de Pingus offers up an enticing nose of smoke, Asian spices, incense, espresso, black cherry, and blackberry. On the palate it displays outstanding volume, intensity, and balance. Rich, dense, and succulent, it has enough structure to evolve for 4-5 years and will offer prime drinking from 2015 to 2028.”
So now we get to the desserts. This is “Mastro’s signature warm butter cake ala mode.” Basically a pound cake with an extra four sticks of butter or something. It’s really sweet and really good. Goes well with the magic whipped cream (see below).
Because of the incredible whipped cream here, we ordered up some fresh strawberries. Combine with below.
The photo is a little blown out, but Mastro’s has the most incredible whipped cream. You can just chow down on it my itself. Made fresh with really good cream and LOTS of sugar.
I couldn’t resist their key lime pie either. I LOVE key lime pie and they make a real good one. Plus it goes really well with the whipped cream.
Overall Mastro’s, while a zoo, and very expensive, is a spectacular steak house experience. You can really feel your heart palpitating as you roll out of here!
For more LA dining reviews click here.
The wines lined up in my cellar. I even brought a bottle of 1996 Dom P that I didn’t even open (not enough Champagne fans at the table). Another night.
Title: Ready Player One
Author: Ernest Cline
Genre: Pop Science-Fiction
Length: 384 pages
Read: September 13-18, 2011
Summary: 10: buy book 20: read book 30: goto 10
I read this after two different friends recommended it in the same week. Wow! If you’re one of my (presumably) many readers who love video games. Go buy and read it. This is pretty much the ultimate classic video games novel! And I should know, having been born in 1970, the perfect time to experience the full rise of video games and modern pop culture (inaugurated May 25, 1977). I was so enamored of computers in general and these little beasties in particular that I went and made (and sold) thirteen of them professionally.
But back to Ready Player One. It’s a first person narrative set in a roughly 2040 dystopia where the world has basically gone to shit and most people live inside a gigantic virtual reality video game. It’s creator has died and left his vast fortune to the winner of an elaborate easter egg hunt (think Atari Adventure Easter Egg crossed with the Great Stork Derby). This whole world and contest centers around an obsessive love of all things pop-culture and 80s, particularly films, comics, and most importantly, video games.
In practice the novel is an old school adventure set mostly in virtual reality. But it contains an astounding number of well placed and deeply woven 80s pop-culture references. For me, they were continual fun. I got 99% of them, including some damn obscure ones. I’ve played every game described in the book (except for Dungeons of Daggorath — never had a TRS-80 — but it looks like Wizardry), seen every movie, heard nearly every song, etc. I don’t know how this book will read for someone a lot younger who isn’t up on all this old school geekery, but I sure enjoyed it.
The story is great fun too. The protagonist is likable and all that. It’s not a long book but races along. There are a few second act jitters (the “romantic” period between the first and second keys), but I blew through them fast enough. The prose is workmanlike but unglamorous and there are some cheesy or cringeworthy moments. They don’t distract from the fun. The last third in particular was awesomely rad with numerous 1337 epic moments. When the protagonist faces off against an unstoppable Mechagodzilla avatar and invokes a two-minute Ultraman powerup I felt tears coming to my eyes.
As Science-Fiction the book is a bit mixed. Mr. Cline manages to deftly describe what must to the novice be a bewildering array of virtual reality technologies and concepts. He’s fairly unusual in actually specifying some of the interface elements in his world and he does a credible job with all of this. Nothing stood out as particularly bogus, but was based on decent extrapolation. There are some elements, however, which still exist in his 30-years-from-now future that are already on the way out. Hard drives in “bulky laptops” for example. One only has to look at the iPad and the Macbook Air to see that writing on the wall. Again, I must point out that these minor quibbles do not detract from the book’s extreme fun factor.
Cline is uncannily knowledgable about his video games (and again, I should know), but there is a curious oddity in the biography of the central Bill Gates crossed with Richard Garriot character. He is described as releasing his first hit game (for the TRS-80) in 1987 in plastic baggies. Besides wondering if any TRS-80 game had much cultural impact (Read my own Apple II guy origin story here!), the date is totally off. If he was talking about 1982 that would have been fine. But by 1987 the TRS-80 had gone the way of Allosaurus and plastic baggies hadn’t been seen in years. My first game, Math Jam, was released in baggies in 1984 and that was way late for them. 1987 featured games like Zelda II, Contra, Maniac Mansion, Mega Man, and Leisure Suit Larry. All of these are well after the era venerated in the book. This small, but important, error is odd in a book so otherwise accurate. I can only assume that the author (and his character), living in the middle of the country, existed in some kind of five-year offset time-warp 🙂
On a deeper level, the novel toys with one of my favorite futurist topics: Will we all get sucked into the computer? I actually think the answer is yes, but that it’s unlikely to happen via 90s envisioned visors and immersion suits (like in Ready Player One). I think we probably will have retina-painting laser visors/glasses at some point. Then neural implants. But the real big deal is when our brains are digitized and uploaded into the Matrix. Muhaha. I’m actually serious, if flip. Eventually it will happen. If not this century then the next. I just hope I make it to the cutoff so I can evade bony old Mr. Grim and upgrade.
In conclusion, I have to agree with the back cover quotes of some other authors I like:
John Scalzi: “A nerdgasm… imagine that Dungeons & Dragons & an ’80s video arcade made hot, sweet love, and their child was raised in Azeroth.”
Patrick Rothfuss: “This book pleased every geeky bone in my geeky body. I felt like it was written just for me.”
So if you have even the least enthusiasm for video games, virtual reality, 80s pop culture, or just plain fun. Go read this book!
For more book reviews, click here.
PS. If you are 5-10 (or more) years younger than me (born 1970) and have (or do) read this book. Tell me in the comments what you think of it. I’m really curious how those who didn’t live it see it.
I couldn’t resist.
Restaurant: Joe’s Restaurant
Location: 1023 Abbot Kinney Blvd, Venice, CA 90291
Date: September 16, 2011
Cuisine: California Farmer’s Market
Rating: Consistently good
I’ve been coming to Joe’s since 1995 or 1996 and they are approaching their 20th anniversary any day now. In a major metropolitan restaurant scene, that’s an eternity. Chef Joe Miller was an early proponent of the ingredient driven “farmer’s market style” of California cooking that is very popular right now. And despite the restaurant’s venerable age, the menu is continually rotating and the dishes remain fresh and relevant.
The Abbot Kinney frontage.
Quaint bar. Further inside is a little maze of little rooms and a lovely patio that is perfect for brunch.
The daily tasting menu, which is a pretty awesome value.
And the regular menu.
I brought this 2006 Brunello from my cellar. It’s not rated, but it is good, being from a tiny producer who makes only 3,000 bottles a year.
The back for the vintage.
Joe’s has good bread. Particularly the butter toasty thing.
Olive tappanade and butter.
“Heirloom tomato salad, smoked garlic tomato vinaigrette, young greens, seared bread.”
“Bocconcini di bufala mozzarella, smoked o’henry peaches, plums, sweet pea, purslane, almonds, olive oil.” This was a really yummy combo. The fruit was perfectly ripe, the mozzarella fantastic, and all in combination, particularly with the nuts and the purslane pesto-like stuff, it was really yummy.
“Hiramasa Crudo. Pickled plum, shishito, flowering coriander, pickled garlic vinaigrette.” Also wonderful. Hiramasa is just yellowtail, but this was some very good fish, and the vinaigrette had a powerful tang that contrasted nicely with the sweet and sour plums.
“New zealand red snapper filet with potato scales and wild rice. Salsify, red wine sauce.”
“Sonoma lamb sirloin, figs, chantarelle mushroms, wild rice soubise, english peas, huckleberry jus.” Also a wonderful dish. Like rack of lamb, but without the bone. Slow cooked in the sous-vide. The rich jus and vegetables complemented nicely.
The dessert menu.
“Vanilla buttermilk custard. Market berries, bittersweet chocolate, pistachios.” I light fun dessert, with a berries and cream vibe.
It’s been a little while since I was at Joe’s and I somehow expected it to be more staid. The food is just as contemporary and relevant as any other ingredient driven Califonian. It’s not fat focused like the Gastropubs, or avant garde, but it is really good. And setting it far above many wanna-be followers of this tradition, each dish expresses a really balanced interplay of elements.
Location: 1810 Ocean Ave, Santa Monica, Ca. 310-394-5550
Date: September 14, 2011
Cuisine: Italian with Cal influences
Rating: The food here is really very very good.
Capo is an occasional favorite of mine and I’ve reviewed it before HERE and HERE. They have a particular high end (but not formal) blend of California style (Farmer’s Market ingredients) and Italian tradition. But it’s not a strictly traditional Italian, more interpreted through a vaguely Tuscan / California vibe.
The intimate dining room.
They have very good bread at Capo, particularly the crispy things.
Capo always puts out this little humus-like spread. I suspect it’s fava beans. It’s addictive though.
We settle down to examine the MENU, which is big, and always a difficult decision because there is so much great stuff on it. They have an odd menu format, in which each item is identified by only it’s principle ingredient, forcing you to guess or ask how it’s actually prepared. Plus they have “fill in the blanks” on the menu which are filled in by a separate sheet of daily specials. No big deal, but it’s kind of bizare. Doesn’t matter though, as the food is great.
I got this 2004 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva at the vineyard in Tuscany. It was just released as it’s aged for 5-6 years in old oak. “From vines in Castelnuovo dell’Abate, is gorgeous, layered and elegant in its violets, tar, licorice and cherries. The finish is long and impeccable, but this is a somewhat ethereal style, with aromas and flavors that are already a touch forward relative to most 2004 Riservas. Ideally the wine is best enjoyed within the next decade. Anticipated maturity: 2010-2020.”
It’s worth noting that Capo has a peculiar corkage policy (I rant on it here). In short, you can bring one and no more than one bottle, and that it must not be on their list.
The amuse, a cone of tomatoes. Essentially like a tomato bruschetta — in a crispy cone.
“Heirloom tomato vegetable salad.” Very fresh Farmer’s Market vegetables.
The same salad, but with Burrata. Which, like bacon, makes everything better.
“Burrata black truffle bruschetta.” Besides the shaved vegetables and the bread underneath this is a big blob of burrata, fresh truffles, and a whole poached egg! It was pretty good, but decidedly rich. In some ways similar to my special eggs, in some ways like the famous Melisse truffle egg.
“Steak tartar.” The fries and aioli are obvious. The meat was delicious! There was a lot of pepper in there, and olive oil. But mostly it just tasted of wonderful raw beef. One of the better tartars I’ve had. Maybe a little shaved parmesan would make it even better!
We killed the first bottle (from my cellar) and bought this one off the list. It makes a horizontal of sorts, being another 2004 Brunello Riserva. It was good, but not quite as good as the Potozzine. “The 2004 Brunello di Montalcino comes across as lean and powerful in its expression of red cherries, tobacco, spices and earthiness. The aromas aren’t perfectly clean and the wine’s structural components seem to have the upper hand over the wine’s density and richness of fruit, suggesting the tannins will ultimately dominate the wine’s overall balance. Anticipated maturity: 2010-2018.”
“White corn ravioli.” You can’t beat fresh pasta in a butter sauce.
This is “buccatini with lamb ragu,” and it’s one of the best pastas I’ve ever had. I’ve come back like three times for it. I love a good ragu, and the buccatini (spagetti with a tiny hole in the middle) is perfect. The dish is rich and meaty, divine. I always order it.
Capo has an impressive wood fire in the corner that they cook a lot of the entrees on. The prices are pretty punitive, but they’re good. Plus the fire lends a wonderful wintery smell to the whole dining room.
Bronzino, grilled, with vegetables.
Dover sole.
Veal chop, nice and rare.
This is the “chocolate soufflé,” an excellent implementation of the classic. You have to preorder it at the beginning of the meal.
And they add a big dollop of fresh whipped cream.
The “chocolate volcano cake,” also with whipped cream, also preordered.
And this. This was to die for. “Meyer lemon semifreddo,” with a blueberry or blackberry sauce. Everything about this was spectacular, one of my all time favorite deserts. The cold-soft texture, the bright lemon flavor, and the tart sweetness of the berries. OMFG!
A nice plate of little petit fours, not so usual at American Italians, more french. In Italy sometimes you’ll get treated to little almond cookies and shots of grappa or sambuca.
So to conclude, Capo is hands down delicious. The food is VERY VERY GOOD, and the service is top notch. The intimate little atmosphere is great also. It’s just very expensive — definitely not a good value — perfect if someone else is paying :-).
Two other Capo meals HERE and HERE.
Restaurant: Mori Sushi [1, 2]
Location: 11500 W Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90064. 310.479.3939
Date: September 14, 2011
Cuisine: Japanese / Sushi
Rating: Top sushi, but not cheap
In a town full of top grade sushi, Mori Sushi is consistently regarded as one of the best. It has it’s own particular style, somewhere between the Osaka school types like Sasabune and the classic Sushi Sushi.
The interior and sushi bar.
The following meal represents the “Omakase” the largest and most expensive ($170) of the chef’s options. Several truncated or more sushi centric variants are available. This is basically a series of hot dishes followed by flights of sushi.
Kohlrabi greens.
Housemade tofu, with homemade wasabi and soy. This is the soft silken tofu that I’ve had a number of times recently, like at Moko and Ozumo. This particular example was very nice and light.
Sashimi. Left to right: marinated sardines, abalone liver, baby abalone with yuzu/pepper sauce, shitake mushroom, pike eel jelly, marinated Japanese onion, and Japanese okra. The sardines were really good and sweet. The liver reach, like an ugly blob of chicken liver. The abalone tender. And the jelly like a cube of flavorless jello.
One of those subtle Japanese soups. Pike eel (the white stuff), yuzu (the green sliver), and Japanese eggplant.
Santa Barbara sweet shrimp (with the roe), red peppercorns, and in front: scallop, halibut, and octopus sashimi. All this is dressed “new style” with a bit of olive oil and pepper. The shrimp was very sweet and tasty.
Uni (sea urchin) tempura with salt. I forgot to photo it, but this photo is of the same dish at a different restaurant. It was nearly identical, and very good.
Halibut with kelp on the left. Seki buri (wild yellowtail) on the right. Both solid “normal” fishes of extremely high quality.
Big eye chu-toro on the left and blue-fun toro on the right. Yum!
Kohada (Shad gizzard) on the left, pickled in vinegar, and Spanish Mackerel on the right. Also very nice fish.
Grilled baby barracuda on the left with a really nice charred flavor and mirugai (geoduck jumbo clam) with miso sauce on the right.
An uni (sea urchin) duo. Santa Barbara on the left (sweeter), Hokkaido in the middle (very fine also) and very fresh Ikura (salmon roe) with yuzu zest on the right.
Tamago (sweet omelet) on the left and anago (sea eel) on the right, grilled, with a bit of BBQ sauce. The eel had strong grill flavors and less of the cloying (but yummy) sweet sauce than usual.
Toro cut roll. Soft and velvety.
A pair of homemade ice creams for dessert. This is sesame, which tasted it but was a bit gritty and not very creamy.
And ginger ice cream which was very soft and pleasant, like a french vanilla with a ginger kick.
Hojicha, roasted green tea to finish.
Overall, I found Mori Sushi to be top notch. But it’s not cheap (not in the least). The ingredients are top notch and you pay for it. It has a subtle restrained style. I slightly prefer Sushi Sushi with it’s larger pieces or Go Sushi with it’s more over the top flavors. It hands down beats out Sushi Zo in my opinion. Certainly Mori is in the top five or so places in town — and that’s saying a lot as LA is unquestionably the best place in America for sushi.
For more LA sushi reviews click here.
Morihiro Onodera (old owner) in the palm shirt. Masanori Nagano left (new owner).
Restaurant: The Hungry Cat
Location: 100 w. channel road. santa monica, ca 90402. (310) 459-3337
Date: September 11 & 25, 2011 & January 1, 2012
Cuisine: Seafood
Rating: Can never get enough seafood
I’ve been trying for months to find a convenient time to go to the new opening in our neighborhood, the Westside branch of The Hungry Cat. This particular spot, on the corner of PCH and Channel Road is a bit cursed. Years ago it was the Beach House, which got destroyed in the middle of the night by a crazy driver (who literally crashed into the dining room). Then it was the Brass Cap, a lousy and ill-fated brasserie. After 3-4 years empty it’s now reopened as The Hungry Cat. This is a very raw bar and seafood oriented joint.
I started with a “Dark and Stormy,” the classic Bermuda cocktail. Excellent.
The interior doesn’t look too different than it did in it’s previous incarnations, but it was always a pretty looking place.
Oyster crackers substitute for bread. I’ve always had a weak spot for these puppies, shades of my Eastern Shore of Maryland upbringing. The menu can be found here.
The cat has one of those reasonable corkage policies where they waive the corkage for each bottle you buy off the list. This almost always makes me buy a bottle.
“hawaiian albacore / cherry tomato / cucumber / opal basil / tomato water.” Lots of bright vinegar/citrus flavor hear. Plenty tasty.
“marinated hamachi / stone fruit / shisho / togarashi / lime.” Another nice sashimi dish, although none-too-much fish.
A special. Raw scallop, uni (sea urchin), various salad bits. The combo is great. The scallops tasty. The sea urchin was a little “fishy.” Maybe it’s the Sunday factor, I don’t know. Overall I enjoyed it, but slightly better Uni would have sold it.
“heirloom tomato / watermelon / red onion / persian mint / french feta.”
“heirloom tomato / opal basil / red onion / arugula / burrata / red wine vinaigrette.”
This is the two tier “medium” seafood tower. It was certainly good, although not quite as tasty as the Mastro’s one, but more reasonable also.
On top are shrimp (two types), a bit of trout caviar, Alaskan crab legs, and a half lobster.
Beneath are oysters, muscles, and two types of clams (littleneck and cherrystone).
A seperate order of peel and eat shrimp (already peeled). These are good meaty steamed shrimp.
A nice assortment of sauces.
Off the kids menu. Basic pasta with parmesan.
Fish and chips, also from the kids menu.
A softshell crab in a sort of thai chilli sauce. According to its killer, delicious.
Another special, lobster roll with fries. This was SOLID. As good as a lobster roll gets — and I’ve had plenty. On par with this one I had back east last year.
A seared scallop special. Really quite good.
The dessert menu. But we were too full.
We didn’t try too many things. And I seriously have to come back with some crustacean lovers and get a huge raw bar tower, but I enjoyed this little feline foray. So I’ll return soon enough.
In honor of the recent 15th Anniversary of my baby Crash Bandicoot, I present collected together the original suite of American TV Ads which premiered in September of 1996. It’s the suit that helped make the Bandicoot what he was.
Thanks to Playstation Museum for collecting and uploading these. You’re hurting my elbow!
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    My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed |
Restaurant: Upper West
Location: 3321 Pico Blvd, Santa Monica, Ca. 310-586-1111.
Date: September 10, 2011
Cuisine: Gastropub
Rating: Tasty
More and more gastropubs seem to be opening up. For those of you unfamiliar this is bar/restaurant with an emphasis on food, specifically tasty “comfort” food emphasizing fattening (i.e. tasty) ingredients. I wrote up two reviews of slightly similar Waterloo and City recently. Tavern is also a similar type of restaurant.
The location is conveniently off the Centinella exit (just west) of the 10.
The pubby interior.
From my cellar. Parker gives this silky Rosso 90. “The 2009 Rosso di Montalcino is totally beautiful and elegant in its expressive bouquet, silky fruit and understated, harmonious personality. This is a wonderful, impeccable Rosso from Le Potazzine. Anticipated maturity: 2011-2017.” I’d rate it perhaps 91-92, with a little boost for understated style.
The menu.
“BURRATA. greenapple-blackberry panzanella / baby heirloom tomato / chamomile salt / fresh basil / dill-mustard vinaigrette.” This was a big hit. It’s hard to go wrong with so much Burrata.
“BRAISED LAMB CREPES. madras curry / wilted spinach / israeli feta / lavender demi.” Very meaty. Not light, but certainly tasty. The meat reduction sauce was great.
“ROASTED VEGGIE BURGER. housemade veggie patty / grilled pineapple relish / avocado / piquillo pepper / tomato aioli / toasted brioche bun.”
“BACON WRAPPED BACON. prosciutto wrapped-braised pork belly / heirloom tomato / melon / tomato syrup / cilantro vinaigrette.” I couldn’t resist the name of the dish, but I overdid myself here. It tasted good, but…
The fat content of the port belly (this is just the fat I didn’t eat) was a bit much! Then again I asked for it.
This is actually the second time we’ve been to Upper West. Both times I was impressed. Not blown away or anything, but all the dishes were well done and full of flavor.
For more LA dining reviews click here.
Title: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Author: Susanna Clarke
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Length: 948 pages, 308,931 words
Read: August 20 – September 10, 2011
Summary: Really good, really unusual book
This is one of the best and most unusual books I’ve read in a while, although it’s not for everyone. As you can see it’s quite a tome, clocking in at 308,000 words! It’s set mostly in England during the Napoleonic Wars (first 15 years of the 1800s for historical dolts). It’s also written in a very clever approximation of early 19th century British prose. Think of it as Dickens or Vanity Fair with magic. Actually it’s a little earlier than either of those, but still.
This is not your typical modern novel. It doesn’t have a lot of action. It’s stylistic and archaic voice mostly “tells” (as in “show don’t tell”). But the voice is great, if you like that sort of thing (I did). It’s wry and very amusing, with a defined narrative tone. The voice gives the who book a kind of wry feel, as if we (the reader) are in on something.
It’s also a very character driven story. This is the tale of two magicians, the only two “practical” (i.e. real) magicians to surface in England for some centuries. It’s to a large extent about their quirks and their relationship. There isn’t a ton of action, although there is plenty of magic. There are copious and lengthy asides. Every chapter has several pages of footnotes on magical history! You can skip/skim these if you like.
The historical feel is really good. Most of the characters are “gentlemen” or their servants so their’s is a particular rarified world of the early 19th century British aristocracy. I know quite a bit about this era and it felt pretty characteristic. The Napoleonic Wars are well researched, but they aren’t front and center, serving more as a backdrop. This all has a very British slant to it, which is accurate from the British perspective. I.e. Napoleon is a bit of a bogey man. While the British felt this way, it was mostly propaganda. I’m actually a pretty big Bonaparte fan — he did a lot to shake up and form the modern era — even if he was a “tad” aggressive. The 19th century British Empire was itself staggeringly arrogant and well… imperialistic. But anyway…
I also liked the way the book handles issues of enchantment and perception. This is a very fairy oriented magic — as is appropriate to a historically based English Magic — and it’s treated deftly with a strong sense of the fey. Many of the characters are under strong enchantments, preventing them for hundreds of pages from realizing something which seems rather obvious to us readers. This is both fun and frustrating.
If the book has any problems (besides being a bit long) it’s that the end isn’t entirely satisfying. Things are not really explained to either the characters or the readers. They are wrapped up, but not clarified. So I had the feeling of a grand build up without appropriate payoff. But I did enjoy the journey. This is clearly one of those huge first novels that was like 10 years in the crafting — making it unlikely the author will every exactly repeat the phenomenon.
For more book reviews, click here.
Update 4/28/15, there is a BBC adaption heading our way summer of 2015!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE1nsOoTJos]Restaurant: Polo Lounge
Location: 9641 Sunset Boulevard, Beverly Hills, California 90210. 310-276-2251
Date: September 10, 2011
Cuisine: American
Rating: Good but pricey
My wife and I were married (10 years ago) at the Beverly Hills Hotel so it’s a tradition of ours to go back there once a year. We usually wander around and then eat at the Polo Lounge (even though the lounge itself had no part in the wedding, which was in the Crystal Ballroom).
This is an old school and iconic spot in Hollywood history. The hotel is still gorgeous too, having been heavily renovated by hot black oil cash from the Sultan of Brunei.
The patio.
Old school Hollywood style in the dining room.
And the bar.
The current lunch menu. Brunch is available only on Sunday.
What would a visit to the Polo Lounge be without a cocktail, in this case a mimosa.
They also have good bread. Same exact basket (basically) was served at our wedding LOL.
I’ve totally been on a gazpacho kick recently (made it at home here). This is “golden tomato gazpacho, garlic crostini, basil pepper relish.” Despite the yellow color it tasted classic. Very nice smooth refreshing summer texture and flavor.
“Pizza margarita.”
“Salmon burger, tomato salad, cucumber & yogurt, dill bun.”
The usual condiments, but stylishly presented.
“Lobster cobb salad, gem lettuce, tomato, bacon, avocado, quail’s egg, tarragon.” Pretty much a great cobb, the only thing to complain about being the price. The juicy bacon cubes sold it.
Cappuccino to combat the coma.
Overall, the Polo Lounge has great lunch/brunch food in a stylish setting. Really the only disadvantage is the price, which is pretty punitive. But this is pretty much the usual high end hotel tax — making it a special occasion kind of thing.
For more LA dining reviews click here.
I passed 300,000 site visits today! Not too bad for less than a year, so approximately 1,000 a day on average. Probably more like 2,000 a day for the last 6 months. Video games and certain “geek oriented” (and proud of it!) topics are the most popular of course.
Spread the word!
…CONTINUED from PART 4. Or start at Part 1.
This post is presents an algorithm of sorts for learning to program. It applies not only to the fundamentals, but to all aspects, including the acquisition of small component skills. Thirty years after learning, I still follow the same basic procedure. To tell the truth, modified, it works for leaning most things.
Step 1: Goal. Invent some manageable goal that excites you (in a later context as a profession “excites” is often replaced/supplemented by “need”). My first program was a text-based dungeon master (see here). If you want to be a video game programmer, there’s nothing better than a game. If it’s one of your first programs, make it damn simple. Copy some REALLY REALLY old and simple game like anything from before 1981 (Pong, Breakout, etc.). Truth be told, using text only for a couple weeks/months might not be a bad idea. Graphics just complicate matters. They’re awesome — and you’ll need them soon enough — but first the fundamentals, like variables, flow of control, scope, etc. Any individual task should take no more than a few days. If your goal is bigger than that, subdivide.
Step 2: Environment. All programming is done in the context of some environment, and you must learn about it. You need to start with a simple one. In my case it was mostly AppleSoft BASIC. For learning interpreted is good. Some decent starter environments today are Python, Ruby, Flash, Lua. DO NOT START WITH A LANGUAGE LIKE C. I will elaborate on this environment question in a separate full post, as it’s a large topic and highly religious for programmers.
Step 3: Research. This means reading. If you don’t like to read, either learn to or find yourself a new career. I’m serious. Reading separates the Neo Cortexs from the gibbering marsupials. I’m serious. Be a New Cortex. Your love of reading must be so extreme that you can stomach slogging through 900 page Library Reference Manuals (maybe not at first). Programming is full of details.
Step 4: Theory. Get out a pad of paper, a text file, Evernote, or whatever. Design what you are going to do. Later, you might or might not skip this step (and do it in your head), but it’s useful for the beginning programmer. You don’t need to write out the entire program, but you should design your data-structures and modules or functions. If it’s one of your first programs, you should hardly HAVE data-structures. You might instead write down the modes and loose flow chart between them.
Step 5: Code. Actually try coding your program. This is best done in an iterative way. My advice is generally to start with creating your core data-structures, and then the functions or methods that support them. Test each of these individually. Interpreted languages with a listener are the best because you don’t have to write test suites, but can just test the components as you go at the listener. Time spent debugging individual functions and groupings (say all the methods that belong to a data-structure) pays for itself 100-fold. I still do this. The less code you are testing, the easier it is to spot and find bugs. If you know that your functions are reliable (or semi-reliable) they provide robust building blocks to construct with.
Step 6: Debug. See above in “code” because they are heavily intertwined. Coding and debugging happens together in small loops. Again. The less NEW code you have to debug, the better. Debugging is hard for novices. Do not write an entire big program and debug it all at once. If you are using a language that syntax checks, check each function after you have written it. Fix the syntax errors (typos) and then test and debug the single function (or component of a program). Baby steps. Baby steps.
Step 7: Iterate and improve. Just keep adding things to your program to get it to where you want. Add a new feature. Improve an old one. Rip out some system and replace it. Add graphics. Upgrade them. Try to keep each of these changes as small as possible and test after each change. The longer it has been since it ran, the harder it will be to make it run.
I can not emphasize how important baby steps are. They are the key to avoiding fatal frustration. I have a law that helps define the size of subtasks: DO NOT EVER LEAVE THE COMPUTER IF YOUR PROGRAM DOES NOT RUN. You can take a piss or stretch. That’s it. I lived by this rule my entire programming career. You can’t always follow it, but try. Get your ass back in that chair. Mom wants you for dinner. Shrug. Your co-workers call you for a meeting. Snarl. I always think of a program like a car engine. You can sometimes merely tune it up, but a lot of times you have to take apart the engine to fix/add something new. That time when the engine is apart (the program does not RUN!) is very important, and should not be very long. If it is, you are not subdividing your tasks enough. I write all sorts of custom code to allow the engine to run again (even if in a half-assed way) while big changes are going on. These intermediate constructs are intended as throw-aways. But they save time. Having your program broken, writing more than a couple hours of new code that has not been tested, is a recipe for disaster. You could easily reach the point where you have no idea where the problem is. If you test in small bits as you go debugging is MUCH easier. Bugs are perhaps 80% likely in the most recently stuff. It’s the smoking gun you goto (haha) first.
You can do a lot with ASCII graphics!
A starter example of this whole process: My first game was a text based D&D type RPG game. I wanted to include a number of “cool” (to a 10 year-old) encounters. So I structured it as follows: There was the “character.” This was to be just a number of global variables (this is long before object oriented programming) like G (gold), HP (hitpoints) etc. I wrote a couple “methods” (functions – but they didn’t have names in BASIC, just line numbers) like “takes a hit.” This subtracts from HP, and if <= 0 branches to the “you are dead” part of the code (not really a function in those days). Then I wrote a number of “encounters.” These were the main flow of control in that program. It popped from encounter to encounter. They might be like: You have met an orc. draw orc on screen with text graphics (aka print statements). present options: “attack,” “run,” “use magic,” etc. wait for input and apply logic. If you are still alive send the player back to the main navigation loop (the place that doesn’t have a particular encounter).
That’s it. I expanded the program by doing things like: Adding more encounters. Adding resurrection as a pay option when you died. Adding an actual map to the main loop. Moving the “combat” logic from individual encounters into a function. Then adding to the character attributes like strength and dexterity which influenced combat. Beefing up character creation. Etc etc. These are all tasks that can individually be accomplished in a few hours. This is key. It keeps your program running most of the time. It provides good feedback on what you are doing.
The entire above “goal” -> “debug” loop can be repeated endlessly. Example: “add a save game.” You now have to save and restore the state of your player (various global variables). But to where? Disk presumably in those days. So you crack the BASIC manual and read about file I/O. First you go simple. There is one save game. It’s always named “adv.sav”. You write a function to open the file and write the vars into it. You examine the file to make sure it put them there the way you want to. You write another function to read the file. You add options to the game menu to call these functions. Then test.
Next baby step. Allow multiple save games. You add “filename” (or save slot or whatever) to the load/save functions. You hardwire it to something and test again. Then you add interface to the game’s main menu to specify which slot. You test that.
Iteration is king! Good luck.
Parts of this series are: [Why, The Specs, Getting Started, School, Method]
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My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed |
Restaurant: Yojie
Location: 501 W Olympic Blvd. Ste 102. Los Angeles, CA 90015. (213) 988-8808
Date: September 7, 2011
Cuisine: sukiyaki and shabu
Rating: Sleek and tasty
I often go to Shabu Shabu (review of one of my favorites here), but it’s been a long time since I had Sukiyaki (it’s sweeter eggier cousin).
Yojie is smack int he middle of downtown and is one of those new slicker more modernized ethnic places. I.e. there is decor.
They offer both Sukiyaki and Shabu Shabu, but I’ll concentrate on the former. Both are hotpot dishes, cooked table-side by the diners.
Here is the Sukiyaki page of the menu. It’s mostly about the beef. And mostly about the size. I went “sumo” — because I’m well a big eater (you never guessed!).
Here is the beef itself. A little thicker than Shabu Shabu. The rice and the all important raw egg.
And the veggie and noodle plate. Pretty similar to Shabu Shabu.
The difference here is that the “broth” is a sweet Teriyaki-like sauce. Things are cooked a bit more heavily. And then instead of the post cooking dipping sauces you put the hot items straight into the raw egg, which then very slightly cooks as it coats the meat — and certainly makes it richer.
The broth gets all hot and sticky like a yummy thick meaty sweet teriyaki soup.
If you cook a bunch of stuff on it and ladle onto the rice you can make your own Teriyaki bowl type thing. The waiter actually wasn’t paying much attention to our temperature control and let our pots get too hot (we filled the room with smoke).
But he made up for it by giving us free dessert. In this case milk chocolate fondue, which conveniently also uses the hotpot.
These various yummies are then dipped in the chocolate. Not too shabby.
Overall an enjoyable Japanese treat. At the perfectly right thick bubbly consistency (which is hard to maintain) the thick sauce is pretty spectacular with the beef noodle and egg combo.
For more LA dining reviews click here.
The Vengeful Polyglot prays to the hotpot gods.
In honor of Crash’s 15th Anniversary I wanted to make a post whose primary purpose is to serve as a repository for comments from you — the fans — about your first and favorite Crash Bandicoot impressions. Please make them in the comments. This is the place to tell that story of how you got your Playstation and Crash Bandicoot for Christmas when you were five, etc. etc. So to that effect, I’ll start it off with a brief tale that begins the night Crash Bandicoot launched.
In September 1996 all of Naughty Dog flew to New York for the combined Crash Bandicoot / Playstation 1 year anniversary party. It was on a big rooftop deck in the meat packing (hehe Beavis, you said meat packing) district. All of us got pretty drunk. There was a loud band. Very loud. Simultaneously, Ken Kutaragi (father of the Playstation!) decided to engage me in a highly technical discussion — against the 120 decibel background — using his rather broken English and my exactly zero command of Japanese. But in any case I didn’t sleep — we saw dawn in some New York greasy spoon.
About four hours later, Jason and I were on a plane to London. I didn’t sleep — why waste good reading time.
We arrived in London for ECTS and various Crash launch promotional meetings. We were immediately conducted to small hot smoky cubicles and interviewed by a variety of game journalists in numerous European languages for about eight hours — also against about 100 decibels of trade show. We then went to the bar (scotch). Then to dinner (wine). Then to a night club (more booze). Then a cigar bar (more scotch). Then to our hotel room (with about 15 or so European marketing and sales folk). There we consumed every single item in our minibar. We called down to the desk (4 in the morning) and had them bring us a NEW minibar. Yes, a complete refill of all items at 4 in the morning. We consumed that. Except for two miscellaneous tiny liquor bottles I can’t remember. The cost of just one minibar was 800 pounds sterling. We ate/drank two.
We didn’t sleep.
But we did spend another eight hours giving interviews. Then we went out again. That night I think we got 2-3 hours of sleep. But interviews again starting at 8am.
Somewhere in there I visited Westminster Abbey.
By day three we discovered that a number of our new friends (English) had never left the Island of Great Britain. So we all boarded the Chunnel and went to Paris (from Waterloo to Napoleon stations specifically, which is amusing). In Paris we started drinking at 10am. We kept drinking (many bars). We ate dinner (more wine). We went to someone’s apartment (more drinks). There was no sleep involved. After staying out all night (drinking) after the day of (drinking) we boarded the Chunnel back to London. I might have dozed. We went straight from there to the airport and got on a flight back to LAX.
Ah, first class. There were scones with clotted cream. And perhaps an hour or three of sleep. But we landed in LA at 7am. I was on the beach jogging by 8:30am. In the office at 10am. Back to work on the Japanese version of Crash. I went home early that day. Midnight.
Making video games builds stamina.
Don’t forget to put your own Crash memories in the comments section!
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My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed |
I think I’m over the hump with the third major draft of my new novel, Untimed (for a quick blurb see here).
Story structure is hard. And while this book is much better structured than early drafts of my previous novel, it had two major problems: the ending and the first part of Act II. Late (very late) in the second draft I cracked the ending. So that just left the middle.
Therefore, I wasn’t surprised when the biggest comment from my awesome freelance editors’ (I use three: Renni Browne, Shannon Roberts, and R.J. Cavender) involved problems in this middle section. It’s not that the scenes wen’t good or exciting, but mostly that I fell prey to a personal need to sneak Napoleon into the story (time travel seems to call out for the most pivotal personality of the modern era) and this resulted in a bad case of “Double Mumbo Jumbo” (or a variant thereof).
So what is the dreaded Double Mumbo Jumbo? Most specifically it’s the phase coined in Blake Snyder‘s Save the Cat book (which I discuss here). DMJ is invoked by throwing two unrelated implausible things into the same story. However, my specific problem is really a cousin, what my editor Renni calls “1+1=1/2”. This is, the idea that doing the same improbable thing twice in the same book isn’t twice as good as doing it once, but actually half as good. Even if the thing is cool. So a kind of DMJ.
And I was doing it in my middle.
Still, this section of my story accomplished a lot of other things too. And I had to figure out how to rework it to keep as much of the good as I could, avoid a DMJ — and not make TOO much work for myself in terms of repercussions later in the book. Thinking about various ways to restructure, particularly given the constraints of my story, my elaborate time travel scheme, and history itself, was quite the brain buster. I thought on it all day for at least a week. So hard one Friday that I literally gave myself a migraine headache! I found myself pondering time travel so aggressively that I became confused as to what year it was — and then my vision began to shimmer (migraine).
I probably outlined 15 different scenarios and talked about countless more. This part of the writing process is very peculiar. I often end up with a half-baked scenario that satisfies some goals, but just doesn’t really work. One quickly reaches a point where no new ideas surface internally and you need to shake it up. I then find it extremely useful to talk with a limited pool of friends who have read the book in it’s latest incarnation. This allows me to efficiently go over the possible elements. Then we talk out the problems. By vetting numerous failed scenarios it’s often possible to collect enough different disconnected ideas that a single coherent new plot can be jig-sawed together. Or at least coherent enough to polish out in the writing.
This last week, I even twice resorted to writing out (as prose) incomplete outlines to see if they worked. The first revealed itself as a miserable failure. The second made it to the finish.
Now it’s off to friends and editors to see how it passes muster.
Restaurant: El Rincon Criollo
Location: 4361 Sepulveda Blvd. Culver City, Ca 90230. 210-397-9295
Date: September 3, 2011
Cuisine: Cuban / Spanish
Rating: Garlic!
We took our son to the “train store” in Culver City (he loves trains) and this Cuban joint happened to be next door.
They curb sell with this cool 50s era car.
The menu. Mostly Cuban classics.
Bread of course.
Some croquettas (ham and cheese potato fry-balls) with banana chips. I’m not much of a banana fan, but these taste pretty much like potato chips.
And are extra good in this pure garlic sauce.
My son got plantains rice and beans. He loves bananas but for some reason knownst only to 2.75 year-olds would not try them.
But he did like this banana smoothy.
This is salmon in garlic sauce with onions. Rice, fries, and beans on the side.
And shrimp in garlic sauce. The garlic sauce is pretty uber actually, particularly poured over the rice. It did give me a carb coma though.
With the check are these weird little Cuban coconut caramels. Pretty good by my taste.
I’m not a serious Cuban aficionado — yeah I’ve been to various places a dozen or so times, but I’m no expert — but this was certainly tasty. And I do love garlic.
For more LA dining reviews click here.
On Friday, September 2, we hosted a small Shabbat dinner party. This was a non-dairy (meat) kosher meal, which can be well done if you care (and most kosher restaurants don’t). As usual with our events everything was homemade. Almost all produce came from the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market.
For appetizers we served fruits and nuts. There was also some homemade humus and eggplant dip (that one of our guests generously brought), but I forgot to snap a photo.
Wine is one area where we go normal. Kosher wines are uniformly awful. Hideous. Wretched.
Parker gives this silky Rosso 90. “The 2009 Rosso di Montalcino is totally beautiful and elegant in its expressive bouquet, silky fruit and understated, harmonious personality. This is a wonderful, impeccable Rosso from Le Potazzine. Anticipated maturity: 2011-2017.” I’d rate it perhaps 91-92, with a little boost for understated style.
And the sweet option. Parker 91. “Donnhoff‘s 2009 Oberhauser Leistenberg Riesling Kabinett – ultra-delicate at only 9% alcohol and with considerably more overt sweetness than its Krotenpfuhl counterpart – is scented with buddleia, white peach, toasted almond, and a fusil note of crushed stone, and offers subtle creaminess, lusciously juicy refreshment, and minerally interactive persistence. This illustrates slate as a sort of sounding board as well as support structure for fruit such as one also encounters in the best residually sweet Mosel Rieslings. Donnhoff routinely expresses acute awareness of a duty to make something truly special out of the cooler ‘wrong-side-of-the-river’ Oberhauser vineyards that until the latter part of his father’s era constituted almost the entirety of his family’s acreage. That duty has here once again been deliciously discharged.”
What would Shabbat be without Challah. Raison Challah to be exact.
After going to Spain last year I’ve been on a bit of a Gazpacho kick, despite my general aversion to raw tomatoes (which I’ve been overcoming). And then about 5-6 weeks ago we went to Jose Andres’ Tres for brunch where they have a wonderful Gazpacho bar. So afterward I dug up his recipe on the internet and we tried it.
When I get into cooking certain dishes I like to perfect them. I’ve been working on this with my Ultimate Pizzas, my Spanish Eggs, and my Margaritas. This is our second stab at Gazpacho. It tasted great the first time but the texture was too chunky, so in this instance we whipped the living bleep out of it in the ever-reliable Blendtec. This batch is made with heirloom tomatoes and cucumbers from the SMFM and premium Spanish extra-virgin olive oil.
But first the garnish. This is a bowl prepped. The basic approach is to do this, and then to ladle in the soup itself table side, then dress it with a bit of premium Spanish olive oil. This garnish is croutons, cucumbers, heirloom tomatoes, spring onions, and chives.
The olive oil is on the left. On the right are homemade croutons. These are rustic bread fried (by hand) in olive oil and garlic, and seasoned with a bit of parsley.
Some of the gorgeous tomatoes used as garnish. Other cool looking ones are in the soup itself.
Chopped chives.
I’m kicking myself, but I forgot to photo a finished bowl with the soup. This one is three-quarters eaten 🙁 It was darn good though.
For the main course we made a homemade Morrocan Basteeya. This is prior to baking. This is a savory pie of chicken and spices, slightly sweet.
Out of the oven.
You can see into it here.
One of our guests brought this lovely salad.
We also made this baked Israeli-style eggplant, with tomatoes, onions, garlic, and peppers (all from the SMFM too).
Here it is baked.
And my mother’s amazing fruit crumble. This one had SMFM peaches, blackberries, and apples. With a sweet crust and pecan topping. Due to the fact that my mother was on the other side of the country, and the written recipe a tad cryptic, the crust turned out a bit “different” than her more crumbly variant.
Still, it tasted great after baking!
And some farmer’s market fruit to finish.
For more home cooked meals look at the bottom of the food page.
Restaurant: Hostaria del Piccolo
Location: 606 Broadway, Santa Monica, CA 90401. P: 310-393-6633
Date: August 27, 2011 & May 6, 2012
Cuisine: Italian
Rating: Good new casual Italian
Hostaria del Piccolo is a casual new Italian with a rustic Pasta/Pizza emphasis from the people that brought us Piccolo (my review here).
It’s located in a chic modern space at the corner of 6th and Broadway three blocks behind the Santa Monica Promenade.
The interior has a modern rustic quality.
And they have a lovely patio, which given that it was 5pm on an 85 degree perfect California August day totally ruled.
Given the weather, I decided to take a cue from my Italian friends and order a glass of Lambrusco Frizzante. Sparkling grape juice with a kick, what more can you ask for in the heat?
Very nice thick and buttery grissini.
The menu. Secondi are not numerous in quantity, but they have a lot of pizzas and a number of tasty sounding pastas.
Valpolicella Ripasso is something I found in my Sommelier course on Italy. Ripasso means rested and this is basically baby Amarone.
“CANTALUPO tuscan melon and Bresaola.” Artfully arranged!
“MESCOLATA organic greens, roasted tomatoes, sliced almonds.”
“RICOTTINA seared fresh ricotta, seasonal mushrooms, vincotto.” This is a very Southern Italian dish and really, is pretty much identical to one I found in Apicus, the 1900 year old Roman cookbook. The sweetness of the vincotto (must) plays off against the creamy sweet cheese.
“FARRO organic farro, heirloom tomatoes, basil pesto, walnut, arugula.” Farro is also very common in ancient Roman food. This being a rustic Italian, we have more of those old school influences.
“COSTICINE roasted pork ribs, cannellini beans.” Pork and beans of this sort is classic Tuscan. This is basically like Italian babyback ribs.
Rigatoni pomodoro for the boy.
“PAPPARDELLE tomato sauce, roasted eggplant, mozzarella di bufala.”
“RIGATONI italian sausage, tomato-cream, peas, parmesan.” One of those meat, cheese, and pea pastas that I love so much.
“SALSICCIA tomato sauce, smoked mozzarella, sausage, bell peppers, Castelvetrano olives.” I actually ordered the FARCITA (which was a white prosciutto pizza) but he must have misheard me and anyway this was a tasty pizza. The sausage was very tender and flavorful. The crust was really yummy, and the whole thing not overly burnt like some wood oven pizzas are. If you want to see my Ultimate Homemade Pizza, click here.
A different sausage variant with broccoli, garlic, and fontina but no tomato sauce.
“QUATTRO PER tomato sauce, mozzarella, ham, mushrooms, artichokes.”
“PARMIGIANA tomato sauce, breaded eggplant, basil, parmesan.” Looks like meat, but isn’t!
“AGNELLO Marinated and grilled New Zealand lamb chops, roasted garlic sauce.” Very nice tender straight up grilled lamb chops. Bone gnawing good.
The dessert menu. We were full and didn’t order any.
But they brought my 2.75 year-old this ice cream cone as a freebee and he was mighty pleased.
Overall, Hostaria del Piccolo is a very nice new contemporary Italian, with a heavy pizza/pasta focus. This is sure to make it a crowd pleaser. They could use to beef up the variety of anti-pasta and secondi a bit, but what I had was very nice.
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The open kitchen inside.
