Monday, October 6,
2014
One problem that I
have with organized religion is the sanctimonious pretense to hold eternal
verities, without conceding that eternal is often not forever. For
instance, a thousand years ago, the big rabbis decided that chicken really was
meat, an important definition within Jewish dietary rules. Before that,
chicken wasn’t considered meat, allowing it to be served with dairy
dishes. St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, Roman Catholic theological
giants, placed “animation” at about 40 days after conception. I’m not
going to put English words into their Latin mouths, but they seemed to be
speaking of personhood, if not life.
This philosophical
exercise is inspired by comments from Neil L. Andersen, of the Quorum of Twelve
Apostles, the second highest Mormon governing body. In explaining his
church’s opposition to same-sex marriage, he recently said: “While many
governments and well-meaning individuals have redefined marriage, the Lord has
not.” The trouble is that Apostle Andersen forgot that, “in 1890,
President Wilford Woodruff, fourth president of the Church, received what
Latter-day Saints believe to be a revelation in which God withdrew the command
to practice plural marriage.”
http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/polygamy-latter-day-saints-and-the-practice-of-plural-marriage [Offical Mormon media outlet] So,
the Lord never changes her mind, unless she does.
Conservation of
Resources Headline: “ISIS’ Ammunition Is Shown to Have Origins in U.S. and
China”
What a start to a new
year. Last week, I found a new restaurant, and today I found another
one. Kaede, Japanese Restaurant, 90 Chambers Street, is barely open one
week. Its interior is quite attractive, with two-foot square
slate-looking tiles, very dark brown faux-leather upholstery, a wall of
cherry-toned wood and a sleek sushi bar on its back wall. However, the
vacuous “pop” style background music was too much in the foreground.
Because we had two
different types of salmon at lunch and dinner yesterday, I skipped the sushi,
which was probably a mistake. Instead, I order a bento box ($11.95) with
teriyaki chicken. It had four small pieces of a very good California roll
(crypto-crabmeat and avocado), three mini shu mei dumplings, also very good, a
salad of iceberg lettuce, as if you needed to be reminded why iceberg lettuce
makes a bad salad, and a thin piece of tough white meat chicken, cut into strips
and covered with a vague sauce. It also came with a bowl of cloudy miso
soup. The California roll was so good, although not what I usually order,
that I’ll probably return for straight sushi in the future.
Tuesday, October 7,
2014
While I have to admit
not having much luck with new restaurants this year, I can report on an
outstanding ice cream flavor that has made its seasonal return – pumpkin at
Trader Joe’s ($3.99 a quart). It tastes enough like pumpkin if you like
pumpkin, and not enough like pumpkin if you don’t like pumpkin. It is
very creamy with notes of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves. It is so
seductive that, last night, America’s Favorite Epidemiologist had some even
after her bedtime teeth brushing ritual.
I went to an in-house
educational session at lunch time, equipped with a chicken-lamb combo over rice
($6) from the Two Brothers Halal cart on the corner of Centre Street and Worth
Street, although the cart was only large enough to hold one person. If
Jews and Muslims spent more time eating together, many of our problems might be
resolved, or just forgotten in the glowing aftermath of an excellent meal.
Wednesday, October 8,
2014
In spite of my rumored
facility with language, I’m really a numbers guy. After all, I taught
ninth-grade algebra for a whole year. So, I’m fascinated by the New York
Times’s interactive college football map, which displays fan loyalty throughout
the United States, by zip code, based on Facebook data.
Forget the sports
angle, it’s the sociology that intrigues me. Why do minority
neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Manhattan, Newark, Trenton,
Camden, Boston, Worcester and Philadelphia “like” the football team of the
University of Florida Gators so much? I simply don’t believe that many of
their residents have second homes in Gainesville, Florida. Why are the
North Carolina Tar Heels so popular in Montana, and along the border of South
Dakota and Nebraska? A very predictable result, however, is the national
constituency for Notre Dame, with the exception of Utah where Roman Catholics
are probably as much a threat as homosexuals..
Thursday, October 9,
2014
The sign says Cheung
Wong Kitchen, 38A Allen Street, but the menu says 38 Yummy Kitchen. In either
case, it is a new restaurant for me, although not newly-opened. It is
small, 2 rectangular tables seat 6 each, and one small round table can fit
another 6. Half the floor space is taken by the open kitchen. The
restaurant sits on a corner and its north face and half of its west face are
glass, allowing a lot of light into the otherwise dingy interior.
It offers almost 60
dishes over rice costing $4.50 to $6.75, most $5 or less. I had Singapore
chow fun, one of my signature dishes ($6.75). It’s not on the menu, but
Singapore chow mai fun and several chow funs are, so there was no hesitation in
giving me what I asked for. In spades. It was the biggest portion
of any noodle dish that I can recall, and well prepared, too. The spicy
curried noodles were mixed with green peppers, beef, pork, egg, shrimp, and
bean sprouts. I was very hungry, but still left about one quarter
over. A Styrofoam cup of tea was gratis.
Friday, October 10,
2014
Trip Advisor, the website
that aggregates reader’s opinions about hotels, restaurants and attractions all
over the world, has just released its list of the 25 best restaurants in the
United States, according to its respondents.
I’ll provide the top ten. See http://www.tripadvisor.com/TravelersChoice-Restaurants-g191-a_Mode.expanded
Alinea – Chicago
Eleven Madison Park –
New York City
Restaurant Gary Danko –
San Francisco
Halls Chophouse –
Charleston, SC
Victoria & Albert’s
– Orlando
Uchi – Austin
Bouley – New York City
Canlis Restaurant – Seattle
Pappas Bros. Steakhouse
– Dallas
Daniel – New York City
Note that Bouley and
Daniel did not get three stars from Michelin last week; only Eleven Madison
Park did. Three of the other seven top-rated New York Michelin group hit the top 25: Le Bernardin (11), Per Se
(19) and Jean Georges (24). In contrast
to the Michelin 8, none of which we ever patronized, we have eaten at 3 of the
25: Bouley (before it moved around the corner), the French Laundry (Yountville,
CA), and Chez Panisse (Berkeley, CA). It
looks like I have a lot of eating yet to do.
Tavish McMullen
arrived last night for visit over the long weekend. We have several
interesting things planned, which will begin next week’s report.
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