Overheard:
“He isn’t a genie. He is a magic talking
salad. Of course he can grant
wishes. God damn.” Ever given any thought as to what you would ask
from a magic talking salad? I don’t
think they are particularly common; at least I’ve never seen one. But it might be a good idea to prepare a
small list in case you happen across one.
I just
returned from a quick trip to the outskirts of Chicago, done to dole out legal
advice and counsel. But as a result I
had the opportunity to go for a run along some suburban creek in the shadow of
Ohare, a maze of single- and double-track crossing and diverging in woods,
preserved despite my strong suspicion that the development of that part of town
occurred at a time when folks were not concerned with the preservation of green
space. The run was fine, unremarkable
except for what I got to observe about my reaction to the snaps, crackles, and
pops of wildlife moving through brush. It
turns out that I expect anything sounding larger than a rodent to be a moose or
bear. That the area was pregnant with
deer gave me many opportunities to feel my pulse quicken and my muscles tense
at the sudden awareness that I was sharing the trail with a doe-eyed
(literally) local. The first gave me
pause. Is it safe to pass? Are there fawns near? My habits have become those of one used to
seeing moose and cautious of getting either too close or between a cow and calf. The deer continued to give me pause, up until
I came across a homeless man feeding them from a large bag of… Grain? Seeds?
Stale bread? It seemed the deer
maybe weren’t as big a threat as my fight-or-flight instincts would have had me
believe.
Nothing
follows a good run in the woods like pizza.
And no pizza debate is greater than the classic war of preference: Chicago
style versus New York. I lived in New
Jersey for a few years, and my prejudices are well set, but I needed to eat and
was not going to pass up the chance to sample the classics of the genre. A quick search with the following keywords—Best
Chicago Pizza—will bring up more websites and online discussion than one person
can read, but four pizzerias keep floating to the top: Uno’s, Gino’s East, Lou
Malnatti’s, and Giordano’s. I’m not
saying these are the four best pizzas in Chicago, but they are seemingly the
four most talked about. There were
branches of both Gino’s and Giordano’s near the hotel I was staying out (again,
at Ohare). Gino’s was closing, so
Giordano’s got the nod, and freshly scrubbed I went to claim a booth.
Pizza
seems a poor description for what Giordano’s served. I ordered a 10-inch stuffed pizza, and was
eventually brought a cheese pot pie, or maybe a cheese casserole. Has anyone ever calculated how much cheese
goes into a single slice of deep-dish pie?
I would be interested to know the answer; or maybe it is better not to
know. And this coming from a guy who has
made many a dinner out of a block of cheese and a baguette. In any case, the crust was buttery,
practically pastry, the cheese was stringy, the sausage was surprisingly
sparse, and while it tasted good it did not taste like pizza.
In
other travel, a family trip took C and I to central Massachusetts for a funeral. We flew in and out of Boston, and had enough time
to recognize that if Chicago versus New York is the preeminent question in the
world of pizza, then Mike’s or Modern is the first question in the world of
Boston pastry. Based on our review of the
town’s garbage, I think Mike’s takes the popularity contest:
Finally,
signed up for and ran the 2012 Turnigan Arm Trail Run. It was punishing, as I haven’t been doing
much running up and down, but fun. It
was perhaps most remarkable for two things.
One, the official event photographs included what has to be the most
unflattering picture of the entire race:
A close look at my face shows I have transitioned from
youthful exuberance to a curmudgeonly old man about two-weeks away from telling
kids to stay off my lawn. Two, to start
the race we had to run past this sign:
So, maybe that is why the deer in Chicago had me on edge. And yes, that is a can of bear spray in my
hand in the picture above.
