Hot Diggity Dog

Saturday, May 18, 2024

This is an interesting collection of reputedly the world’s best sandwiches. 

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/worlds-best-sandwiches?cid=ios_app

I've had some of them and they seem worthy of the distinction. However, where is bagel and lox and a BEC, bacon, egg and cheese on a roll? Also, there is the existential question, is a hot dog a sandwich?

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At the other end of the culinary world, we have the news that Tokyo has more Michelin-starred restaurants than any other city in the world, including Paris. In fact, four of the dozen restaurants awarded three stars feature French cuisine, one is Chinese, the others Japanese. I looked carefully at Sazenka, 4-7-5 Minamiazabu, Minado-ku, the Chinese restaurant, figuring I’d find common ground. It has four set menus, none readily available on Mott Street, ranging from ¥46,200 to ¥104,500. That amounts to $273 to $617 in real money. But that includes tax.

If I had that kind of money, I’d be buying tickets to the National Hockey League’s semifinal playoff round at Madison Square Garden. A seat that I might normally occupy during the regular season supposedly costs $375 in this round, but it doesn’t. $1,668.95 is the current asking price for that ticket for Wednesday night’s game. I’ll be home if you need me.

Monday, May 20, 2024

An article in The New Yorker citing an article in Esquire provides us a serious adult spelling challenge. Not the sort of biomedical monstrosities that they hit gaunt 12-year olds with in spelling bees. Words spoken by human beings. Here is a selection.

Moccasin

Asinine

Rarefy

Liquefy

Impostor

Mayonnaise 

Impresario 

Inoculate

Sacrilegious

Tuesday, May 21, 2024

I get most of my news from a variety of media, print and electronic. The New York Times predominates, but that often presents a problem when an item that warrants forwarding to the world at large sits behind its paywall. The article below gives a fascinating look at gun violence in the USA and, if you can access it, I urge you to get it. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/14/us/gun-homicides-data.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Put in any address in the country and gun deaths within a quarter mile in the last four years are illustrated. The story claims that one in seven average Americans lives within the immediate vicinity of a gun homicide.

Wednesday, May 22, 2024

Speaking of whether a hot dog is a sandwich, a river separates Brooklyn from Manhattan, but they are connected by three bridges, one tunnel, a ferry service and 15 subway lines. Four of us existentialists crossed over today by subway to a landmark, Nathan's Famous, 1310 Surf Avenue, Coney Island. I ate three hot dogs ($5.49 each), Original Crinkle-Cut Fries ($4.89 large portion), Diet Coke ($4.09 large size). If you’re not with three good guys and you can’t stroll the boardwalk in beautiful weather, I'd say skip it unless you've never been here.

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Not only did I save $1,668.95 by watching the Rangers playoff game on television at home tonight, but I was spared experiencing the agony of defeat in person.

Thursday, May 23, 2024

Barry Koch does important work fighting human trafficking and teaches about it at Cardozo Law School. We had lunch today at Ben’s Kosher Delicatessen Restaurant, 59 Old Country Road, Carle Place, now the flagship of this small chain since its Manhattan location traded taste for piety. Translation -- Ben's, an ordinary Kosher restaurant at 209 West 38th Street, was replaced by Mr. Broadway, a glatt Kosher restaurant. The main ingredient in glatt Kosher cuisine, supposedly adhering to a higher biblical standard, is salt.

With coleslaw and pickles appearing with the menu, we were off to a good start. I had a deli double, two half sandwiches on rye, corned beef and tongue ($24.99), French fries ($6.49) and a Dr. Brown‘a Diet Black Cherry ($2.79). This would probably be my last meal if the Big House were not located too far from civilization, except I would ask for Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray Soda, no longer produced in a diet version, but what would it matter at that point?

Friday, May 24, 2024

I am retired, but before I retired I was a lawyer and before I was a lawyer I was a management consultant. So, I bring a track record as a problem solver to the day’s events. Two headlines yesterday got my attention:

• “In House Hearing, Republicans Demand Discipline for Student Protesters”    
• “Anyone Want to Be a College President? There Are (Many) Openings”

Solution: Place those Republican legislators in the available positions where they can apply their acumen to the ongoing controversies among students, faculty, administrators, local police forces, rich alumni, parents of students, politicians, cafeteria workers, and surrounding neighbors, thereby removing them from meddling in issues that affect the rest of us.

.  .  .

There are Kim Sykes people (playwright, actor, artist) and there are Adam Fox  people (New York Rangers defense person). I happen to be both, which presented a challenge tonight. We had tickets to a performance of the limited run of "In a Roundabout Way," Kim's play about the relationship between the widowed Mary Todd Lincoln and her former seamstress, Elizabeth Keckley, while the second game of the semi-final round of the Stanley Cup playoffs was being played at Madison Square Garden.

Ars vincit omnia, so too the Rangers, 2-1.