Set adrift on memory bliss
May 22nd, 2013
April 12th, 2013
Fog blankets hills after rain. Street lights warm a sleeping city through the lacy blackness of branches. Against the lumber of a train, a robin sings, restless as an April night in-between hours.
This is insomnia, the perch to consider the abyss of failure and possibility.
April 4th, 2013
March 31st, 2013
La Vie en Sichuan, from the Times
The menu is hard-bound and as thick as Vogue, with glossy close-ups of more than a hundred dishes. You grow dizzy; a sense of panic seizes the table. A cheat sheet, then: start with the pig ears, sliced as thin as prosciutto, gossamer staves with white lines of soft cartilage; cool eggplant, aloof to the frenzy of its accompanying hot green peppers; and diced rabbit, a minefield of little bones, each to be studiously denuded of a chile sauce that nestles like a purr on the tongue.
March 21st, 2013
Outside of the newsroom, it’s 18 degrees.
Person 1: “I feel like I’m in a prison labor camp in Siberia.”
Person 2: “You’re not wrong.”
Person 3: “I woke up shrieking when I saw snow.”
Person 4: “At least it’s sunny.”
Person 1: “Fuck you and your relentless optimism Brian.”
March 19th, 2013
November 11th, 2012
Really good writing.
The River Café is a restaurant that in the best way does not belong to the young, which is to say that it doesn’t adhere to the Brooklyn of vintage motor gear and skinny jeans and biases against reservations. The culture of expensive restaurants in the current age is the culture of culinary fashion, turnover, alliances, brand experience, the cultivation of an intellectualized relationship to food. The River Café is about none of those things.
October 9th, 2012
Reviews from a favorite PGH listserv.
Was in a shit mood Sunday night. Head hurt. Felt like balls.
Ended up going to Spak for the first time in a couple months. Whoever the gentlemen were working that evening… pat yourselves on the fucking back. You guys served me, my wife, my bro, and his girl some of the best damn sandwiches I’ve ever had at your fine establishment… and I’ve had quite a few over the years.
These grinders were made with tender loving mother fucking care. Perfection. Prepared just how I asked. Extra cheese was popping, melted just right. Seitan sliced nice and thin, evenly disbursed across that delicious toasted bun. Even the placement of the tomato slices was a work of art. Hell, even the curly fries were going HAM. Not too greasy. Not too soggy. Not too crunchy. Just god damn right.
If I was on death row, that would have been a solid last meal to have devoured before departing to meet Lucifer.
If yinz had one of those “quality bells” hanging on the door like at Arby’s, I’d have rung that jazz for like 10 minutes straight.
Cured my headache by the time I was done grubbing… and the mother fucking Crow soundtrack was playing the whole time I was eating too. Real talk.
August 31st, 2012
Drive by sushi. With a sake pour.
