Friday: My wife and I met friends at the South Street Seaport to see a band called The Pains of Being Pure at Heart perform for hundreds of very polite young people. I thought they sounded like the Jesus and Mary Chain crossed with a Pepsi commercial. She said they reminded her of the Connells—a band I had not thought about in several thousand years, so kudos to her for whipping out explicit references in the face of my rote sarcasm. That said, TPOBPAH might be the most appallingly good-natured band I have ever seen, making even the most earnest, NPR-approved indie rock seem like black metal in comparison. In spite of my general disinterest in such music, I must commend their singer for deploying a brilliant on-stage comment which went something like: "Good night, God bless America, and we'll see you all at Pizzeria Uno!" Let's hear it for the death of irony, eh?
Saturday: Evening plans to hit Coney Island for the Cyclones game were scrapped because of the crummy weather forecast, so we instead devoted the day to gastronomical adventures that had me doing food-inspired happydances not once, not twice, but three times for three different meals!
- Breakfast: Leftover buttermilk pancake batter retrieved from deep freeze, cooked up wi
th fresh blueberries and strawberries, plus orange maple syrup. Crazy delicious. [Recipe here]
- Lunch: A late morning voyage to the supermarket revealed that it is finally heirloom tomato season! We wasted no time in selecting two of the ripest and gnarliest looking purple and yellow specimens, and to the grocery cart also added a loaf of still-warm sourdough bread and an appealing wad of fresh mozzarella cheese. Back home, we cut the bread into lengthwise slices, spread leftover rocket pesto on each side, added the cheese, tomato, some windowbox basil, and a splash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Result? Heaven on a stick, bub. Heaven on a stick.
- Dinner: I'd recently seen an episode of Tyler Florence on which he made jerk chicken, so with a whole bird already stashed in our fridge and most of the other ingredients within easy reach, I decided a major culinary project would be just the thing to take our minds off the missed Cyclones game (they got stomped, by the way.) Anyhow, here's the recipe we based our jerk chicken on, but with the following alterations: Instead of a Scotch-bonnet pepper, we used some unknown green chili. Also, since we're not crazy enough to try smoking meat inside with only makeshift equipment, we soaked a bowl full of cedar chips and prepared the outdoor grill for this first critical step. (I put the soaked chips in a big cast-iron skillet, got 'em good and smoldering, and then laid a slotted grill tray on top of it to rest the chicken on. This hasty bit of improvisation worked out well, but I fear the skillet may be done for as a result of subjecting it to such trauma.) The end result was magnificent, as was the accompanying corn porridge [recipe], which we consumed while watching The English Patient. This was my first re-viewing of the Oscar-winning film since it debuted in 1996, and it once again inspired the familiar debate over whether Kristin Scott Thomas is hotter than Juliette Binoche, or likewise, if Naveen Andrews is hotter than Ralph Fiennes. No definitive conclusions were reached, but I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that it's been too long since such a drool-worthy cast has been assembled for any film, major or independent.

