Friday the 13th Post

Let me start this by saying I love Friday the 13th. I always wear black and make a lot of bad jokes that involve my patented malevolent laugh at the end. Today when I went to leave I found the vagabond cat that spends time at our place (she doesn't live here but has her own entrance and we feed her--she's the landlord's cat maybe?) as you see her above. Black cats rule.

Today my wonderful black celebration was ruined. Pardon my over-dramatic turn here. My cousin who had been struggling for a few months now was found dead by his own hand. He was a really cool, articulate guy who could keep up a conversation with anyone and was deadly funny. In the early '90s I went out for an extended visit to Colorado to get over a girl, and he (along with all of my family out there) was key in my getting over her (and myself) and getting back on track. I never would have made it out to NYC and infamy if I hadn't spent time shooting the shit with him, being an annoying vegetarian who rarely drank, and I will always remember him and love him for that. Even when he had a picture of Oliver North on his wall, all I could do was laugh because while I know he respected Crazy Ollie for his loose cannon ways, I always thought that it was kind of a joke that he was making--poking at anyone who would ruffle at the sight.

I knew he was in trouble when he emailed me a few months ago. I'd never gotten an email from him and his words were all hopeful, but wild in the way of someone who was clawing to find some way to keep on. We exchanged emails for a few weeks, and I purposefully kept it on specific topics that weren't what was going on with him. When he went away to the hospital after a bad bout, I emailed him and just let him know that I wanted him around the next time I went out to visit, to take care of himself. I didn't hear from him again. And when I got a call last night that he had been missing I knew inside that he wasn't going to be there anymore.

So I apologize again for this dour turn from the usual robot and grafitti antics. I have some great news that I will post later, but I wanted to memorialize him and get it out of my head for a while.

Tha Real Taqueria?

This is a taqueria just up the street from me in SF. I have to admit that I've never seen many of these things on a menu. Guess I've never lived in the Inner Mission before, huh? I tried the barbacoa, which is the inside cheek, and it was as tender as you would think. But it's best not to think. I have to admit that I couldn't even imagine trying ojo or buche, but maybe I should. For $1.50 I should try everything on the menu!

I've eaten camel sausage, kangaroo in a salad, emu burgers, barbecued and boiled dog, snake blood wine, pidgeon kebabs, bison burgers, and water buffalo roast (came sizzlin' hot and just in time after two months of no meat in India).

Is there anything you wouldn't eat? Besides feces, of course.

Let's Get Nasty

Just before Xmas I received a mysterious package. I wasn't expecting anything...I don't get many presents in the mail anymore. When I opened the plain brown box, I discovered a copy of The Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain. Oh joy! Months before, I had filled out an online form to receive the book for free. I have no recollection of why the site was making the offer...hell, I don't even remember the site.

Anyway, I finally started reading it a few weeks ago, and it lives up to and exceeds his Travel Channel show, No Reservations. He's a got a Noo Yawk punk attitude--bitterness, irreverent seriousness, and curiosity--about food and the places he goes to find it. Great stuff.

The other day I tweaked my dear friend Missus Tanya about her pro-Bourdain post. This is because T is a big fat (or skinny) vegetarian. And if you've watched the show or read his books, you know that Mr. Bourdain is against the veggie people because he doesn't think you should limit your eating curiosity to non-meat items. (See his scathing take on Woody Harrelson and the raw food movement included in full in this book.) As a fully recovered vegetarian I have to agree.

Aren't people who quit something--whether quitting meat or smoking, or even quitting not eating meat--the most annoying? They always feel the need to heckle the other side--often with little or no humor about it--as I am doing now (hopefully with some humor). But I do it with love as I remember all too clearly my family making me the butt of all food jokes during my 10 year sentence as a vegetarian. ("If he gets hungry on the way, we can just pull over to the side of the road and let him gnaw on a tree!" Much laughter and looking to see how the vegetarian will react.)

So I am on a plane reading the book and I had a laugh-out-loud moment. Bourdain is in shock when he is in a dingy old London pub and he discovers that, not only do they have a gourmet menu and call themselves a "Gastro-Pub," but they have a whole side of the menu dedicated to vegetarian food. This does not sit well:

"A good pub should never have fine food. What's wrong with a good meat pie? Black pudding? Sausages? Shepherd's pie is a beautiful thing. I don't want truffles in it! And a vegetarian menu? In a pub? Vegetarians in a pub? For their own good, vegetarians should never be allowed near fine beers and ales. It will only make them loud and belligerent, and they lack the physical strength and aggressive nature to back up any drunken assertions."

Bah dum dump. Good stuff. Mrs. T is the one person who jumped into a fight with me many years ago, so I would never accuse her of not having an aggressive nature. But still, it's a good joke.