Recently in Travel Category
Wow. I just looked at my blog and realized that it's been more than six weeks since I posted an entry! I have sort of an excuse seeing that I was homeless for a few week, looking for a place to live and then a major move to East Hampton, but still, six weeks? LAME! So here I go. Rabbi Report 3.0 starts....NOW.
I seriously don't know what the next 11+ months is going to bring for me, but suffice to say, this isn't just the rebirth of the blog. Over the past 4-5 years I've lost both parents (insert Importance of Being Earnest ref. here) lived in LA, New York and now East Hampton, worked in a variety of positions, including film festivals, freelance writing, blogging for an award-winning ad campaign and I've been a character in an ARG. And now....country squire? We'll see. For now, I am busy planting a vegetable garden, buying bird feeders and keeping the neighbor's cat away from my birds and bunnies. That and whipping the house into shape with, I am relieved to say, a little help from my friends! God knows what it would look like if I was left to my own devices.
At any rate, I'm back. There's likely to be a lot more about food and cooking, here from now on. I won't be skimping on other things, but my nine week trip through the south this Spring inspired me as a cook, as a writer and as someone who is concerned with what we're eating and drinking as a nation. I was introduced to the work of some outstanding chefs and food luminaries in my travels, including "eater/writer/educator" John T. Edge and chef John Currence in Oxford, MS; chefs Donald Link and Stephen Stryjewski in New Orleans; chef Frank Stitt in Birmingham, AL and chefs Sean Brock & Mike Lata in South Carolina. All of whom you'll be reading about, along with many more in the coming days and weeks, complete with mouth-watering pics from their establishments and maybe even some examples of my own experiments with Southern-infused Long Island cooking. Stay tuned!
Until next time, here are a few pix of my new (rented) house (after the jump) in East Hampton and a couple of yummy goodness!
Yours from Northwest Woods,
Mark
After visiting Gill and August's Green Building, I hopped in the car and made the 385 mile drive to Memphis and my three day stay at the Peabody Hotel. Billed as the "South's Grand Hotel," the Peabody is all it's cracked up to be. The staff in unerringly friendly and remembered my name instantly and they were very helpful about the local area, even if one of the valets had never heard of Payne's. He must have been new.... While the Peabody is indeed a fancy joint (it boasts Memphis' most fancy fine dining restaurant in Chez Philippe) there are deals to be found online. My stay was only $140/night through Orbitz but unlike some other hotels, I received no "bargain shopper scorn" when checking in. The Peabody is all class and that might have something to do with hotel Duckmaster Jason Sensat who also oversees the customer relations employees in the hotel, including front desk personnel and concierges.
More on him and the ducks in a later post, complete with video!
But now....Food! My first day in Memphis was a disappointment, since I drove out to Payne's and it was closed. A main goal of this trip is experiencing the finest BBQ known to man or beast and consistently listed on "Best of" lists and written up in any BBQ book worth its salt, Payne's (located at 1762 Lamar, Av.) was my #1 stop in Memphis. Alas, it was closed and my iPhone's map feature led me astray when I went looking for my other important stop on this trip, Cozy Corner BBQ. I ended up no where near where I was supposed to be, but instead wound up near another highly-rated joint, Central BBQ. There I made the mistake of choosing sauce on the side. Never choose sauce on the side. Let them sauce up your sandwich. I guess I'll have to go back, because it's supposed to be fantastic.
At any rate, that evening, through a suggestion from the hotel, I ate at McEwen's on Monroe and it was fantastic. I decided to try three small plates and was blown away by the Warm Hazelnut Crusted Goat Cheese Salad, the Shrimp & Grits (always a favorite) and the wholly original Red Tasmanian Sweet Crab Fritters. It was Americana with a southern bent, all prepared with care and excellent service. For dessert (I don't usually indulge, but....) the trio of sorbets was fantastic, see:
After my preamble trip to Hagerstown I had just enough energy to check my email when I arrived. It had been a rough day, considering I'd moved out of the family home I'd had for 30+ years, so when I pulled into the hotel just past 11, I didn't even care that I'd missed the cut-off time for beer at the hotel mini mart by only 5 minutes. I didn't even pitch a fit when the guy at the front desk told me that they were out of foam pillows. My allergies made me pay for that one.
At any rate, I was up at 8am and ready to go.... and after the mother of all time sucks, a visit to a local mall for some needed road supplies, I was on the road to Louisville and 534 miles awaited me. Were I driving with another person, 500+ miles wouldn't be a big deal but alone? It's drowsy time. Seriously, after about 375 miles or so I find myself chanting things like "badda badda bang ging gong bung ding badda ding big gong dang..." like some half-baked Bhangra singer with tertiary stage syphilis.
Drive alone, for hundreds of miles and you might find yourself talking to yourself. Or maybe even your video camera:
If you needed proof that the Mason-Dixon Line really does start at the Maryland border:
As some of you know, I have embarked on what might accurately be called an adventure. 2 days ago on Friday, March 6th, I left what had been been my family home for more than 30 years for the last time. With both my parents having passed away (and having sold the apartment) it was time for me to move on. That said, I'm not entirely sure where I am moving on to. To that end, I have embarked on a 6 week, 16 state road trip around the Southern United States. To wit:
Why? Well, I'm going to South by Southwest and thought it would be fun to drive there. Then I realized that the Sarasota Film Festival starts shortly after SXSW ends, so I figured I'd drive there. Then I realized that since I'd be in the neighborhood, maybe I should visit New Orleans and some places in Alabama and Georgia that figured prominently in the Civil Rights Movement. Pretty much all of my family was involved in that monumental struggle and I feel like I should pay my respects, especially in light of our new president.
After that, it's on to Sarasota, other parts of Florida, South and North Carolina, Virginia...and well, we'll see! Along the way I'll be shooting video, eating and drinking some local specialties and just generally commenting on my trip. Should be fun!
Day one was uneventful...besides leaving my home. After I closed the door for the final time, I noticed this on the door and peeled it off. It's getting framed:
Then I got in my car and left Manhattan.....
A few seconds of Czech Scooby Doo, recorded at about 5am, on my way up to my room from Hell in the basement of the Hotel Thermal in Karlovy Vary on July 7th.
A thought struck me when I was riding in from the aiport in Toronto, the other day: In Canada, are they just simply called "Geese?"
Another day, another festival. Or is it another beer? Well, same difference, sometimes. At any rate, it is another film festival, my umpteenth + 4, I think. This time it's the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF, often pronounced, awkwardly: "K'viff") in the Czech spa town of the same name. I am currently in the lobby of my hotel, the Thermal, drinking a wonderful Pilsner Urquell at the extortionate hotel price of $1.50. Yup, you heard right. The thing is, they're 85 cents on the street, so $1.50 is rather a steep markup!
This being my first trip to the Czech Republic (or to any former Eastern Bloc country for that matter) since 1974, there is a certain amount of adjustment to be made. First of all, unlike the rest of Europe, smoking cigarettes in public places is still a national sport, here and that, combined with the lack of anything resembling dry cleaning in my hotel may prove to be a problem. I also forgot my razor, but the Czechs do shave, so I assume at least that won't be a problem. Then there's the language. While I consider myself lingustically adept, I am finding this one rather difficult to learn, but then again, I've only been in country a little over 30 hours, much of that spent either asleep or in a jet-lag/beer induced stupor.
Now about the alcohol. Cheap beer abounds and does a peculiar spirit called Becherovka. It's akin to Jägermeister, in that it's made with oodles of herbs and packs a wallop, but is significantly less viscous and purports to aid in digestion. Considering the preponderance of meat on Czech menus, I might be making copious use of it. It is usually served cold as a shot or on the rocks, but you can also have it with tonic, in which case it's called a "beton," which oddly means "concrete" in Czech. It's actually pretty tasty. To the left is a pic of a wedge of lime seemingly hovering above the surface of BAM curator Florence Almozini's beton.
Planet Earth
Narrated by David Attenborough
Produced by Alastair Fothergill
I don't think there are enough superlatives in the English language to fully convey how mind-blowingly cool the BBC series Planet Earth is. I am only 4 episodes in and already I know that as far as nature docs go, this is the ne plus ultra of the genre. Even when viewing the standard resolution DVDs (as opposed to the HD DVD or Blu-Ray editions, also available) on a 27-inch TV, you are bombarded with such astonishing image and sound (Dolby 5.1 stereo) as to make it very difficult not to watch all 11 50-minute episodes, plus the 150-minute extra series all in one go. Of course, that would mean 700 minutes of continuous viewing. But hell, that's only just under 12 hours. Why not?
Wow. Talk about memories....
On our way to Cuba as part of the first group of Americans to fly direct to Cuba from New York City since the early 1960s, my friend Shelley Parker and I were apparently photographed by Agence France Presse. I confess, I don't remember that, but ok! I am planning on a return visit, this December.
That was indeed a fantastic trip. I think I need to digitize some pix. Also on the flight with us was filmmaker Laurie Collyer (SherryBaby, Nuyorican Dream) and in Cuba we hung out with the Sundance group, including Todd Haynes, Todd Solondz, Darren Aronofsky and Eric Watson. Good times, good times!
Oh, and I have video. I guess I need to digitize that, too!
So I had to take these pix. I was just kinda transfixed by the array of fish on offer at the KaDeWe's seafood department and these three were so very pissed off. I suppose I would be too, if I were....ugly as sin, dead and on ice in Berlin.
So...fish:
And the angriest of them all, the Monk Fish:
Yikes.
A dinner some friends and I had recently in what we like to call Das Fleischhaus:
It consists of: 4 Schnitzels, 4 small steaks, 4 pork cutlets and 4 small ground beef & pork links called Cevapcici, not to mention 2 kinds of rice and fries. Sheer heaven...so we ordered 8 of those on the side. My doctor would be so proud!
A snack food I got at my hotel in Amsterdam. I'm a little concerned as to what the ingredients might be....
New Nabisco Filipinos! Chocolaty goodness, a cookie crunch and stewed pork flavor!
I have, courtesy of a friend, recently discovered a feature on my camera that allows me to toy with the colors it captures by highlighting one color with the rest of the image in black & white. Not only that, but it automatically saves a full color version, like the following 2 pics. Pretty cool, hunh?
Here's another one:
6:15pm, February 5th, 2007, outside the hotel Estheréa, along The Singel in Amsterdam
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