Category: Uncategorized

Terry

Yesterday, I wrote about my last 100 days.

Today, I’m in Kacey’s parents’ kitchen, listening to her vacuum the basement and waiting to go to the hospital.

Everyone’s story is the same, and everyone’s story is different. All your personal dynamics are magnified and all your relationships are strained. You plead for every minute you can get and then wonder if it is even fair to want more time. You expect to reach a limit of how much you can cry.

There isn’t a limit. You don’t run out of tears. That miracle of science, the human body.

One day, and it is impossible to know when, everything will be over. You have no say in how and when it ends. At the very end, you will have no one to answer to except yourself.

Terry Cox welcomed me into her family before I even met her. She has raised two daughters, one of whom I am in love with. She is smart, funny, caring, and makes the best steak I’ve ever eaten. She is why I had to try.

day 5 – dinner trumps everything

i woke up early and i had an adventure getting the car out of the driveway (which resulted in a scratch on the rental, dammit) and i had a bite of food in norway that wasn’t some cured meat or fish and i met a really nice cab driver in copenhagen and a friendly neighbor and a nice person who works at 7-11 BUT WHO CARES ABOUT ALL THAT because i ate at amass and i’m just back from that and it’s all i can think about.

it’s becoming apparent that norway was my wilderness blogger and copenhagen is going to be my food blogger. there are two things in this city: amazingly interesting scandinavian cuisine and coffee. through the recent work acquisitions, i was put in touch with gabe ulla, whose invaluable twitter (for people who like food and are visiting copenhagen, that is) turned me on to amass. amass is run by a chef who used to work at noma (where gabe got me an in, hopefully i get to eat there) and … well, just look at the team. it’s kind of comical.

one of the things i realized out of this meal is that i approach the entire concept of cooking entirely wrong. i think of individual elements, i think of how i expect them to look, and i don’t break outside this very simplistic model. the dishes i had at amass made it clear how simplistic this is: courses were broken down by their ingredients, and then presented in a way that delighted and shocked. i read some words, and then the thing set before me was those things but in a direction i couldn’t even comprehend.

let me put it this way – zach looked at the menu and said it was the most interesting menu i’d sent him of the copenhagen restaurants i’d run by him. zach saw the forest, and i didn’t get it. i was sitting here looking at this fucking tree like a sucker.

rather than breaking down each dish, here are the things that happened during this meal:

  • on more than one occasion, i wanted to ask the crew if they were witches. because i’m pretty sure they are.
  • one of the serving staff gave me a giant list of restaurants, cocktail bars, and coffee shops to visit while i’m in copenhagen. i’ve already made reservations at 3 of the recommendations.
  • pumpkin almost moved me to tears. seriously.
  • burnt cabbage also did this. seriously

also, it is worth noting that apparently my wonderful and wise sister has been reading along on these daily posts, and she’s been advocating the consumption of lamb necks for quite a while. well, tonight was the first time i had slow-cooked lamb necks (48 hours in crystal malt (no not meth)) and they blew my mind. so, good work nishi, you remain smarter than me.

if this is the food to look forward to in copenhagen… if this is what the rest of the meals are going to try and approach… i am not sure if there is anything worthwhile to read here anymore. i’m not a food blogger and i’m not going to photograph each course and break down the flavors from the meticulously kept notebook on my right during the entire meal. but jesus christ this food is going to erase all other memories of this city from my mind.

tomorrow’s goal: call noma and get a table. take some photos. drink some coffee. drink some beer. eat dinner. try to remember something other than the last thing on this list.

a cleansing fire

in 2009, i moved from elscorcho to here.

in 2012, elscorcho was killed by a mistake by dreamhost.

it is now 2014 and i am determining if i should go through the way back machine and save elscorcho or move on, and i think the latter makes sense. i mean, that is the purpose of the wayback machine, right?

elscorcho was a great site. i started to write there, and it helped define my blog voice. i grappled with problems, and i wrote honestly, and i pulled no punches.

i’m not that kid anymore, but there is still something to look back upon and applaud. and i think leaving it in the wayback machine is probably right.

anyway, happy new year.

let’s get started.

heavy rain is the best video game i’ve ever played.

i have played a shitload of video games. a shitload. especially since the middle of college. i remember skipping a week of classes to play through wind waker. i remember not being able to put down my controller during bioshock, or any of the last 3 call of duty games, because i was compelled to push forward through the single player game. i mean, if i’m going to spend this much money on this hobby/habit, i might as well finish these games, right? and since there’s only so much time before the next one, there’s not a lot of reason to do anything other than power through these games.

however, heavy rain felt different.

i slapped myself in the head, realizing that i forgot to do a task in one of the scenes. i regretted some of the decisions i made two, three, ten scenes after i made them, realizing why what i had done before was a mistake. and most of all, i was compelled to press through the game, to push forward in the story. not because mlb 10 and final fantasy 13 come out in the next two weeks. not because i was ready to put the game on the shelf and not see it again for a long time, or because i had some obligation to the game. i pushed through because i wanted to see what happened, and not only that, i had a connection to the characters that i’ve never had in any other video game i’ve ever played. they were each their own people, but i had made my little imprint in all of them, and that personal connection was a completely new experience to me.

the only game i can remember recently wanting to power through because the story gripped me was bioshock, and that game did not leave as much of an impression on me as heavy rain. more to the point, i’m never going to take bioshock off the shelf again unless a fit of nostalgia hits me. heavy rain will not be the same. i’m considering starting it back up right now.

if you have a ps3, play heavy rain. the end.

music i am listening to now, well behind the curve:
phoenix – no matter if geoff thinks it makes me a hipster, i don’t wear skinny jeans and have ridiculous hair and at least it is good to code to (which maybe isn’t a compliment)
passion pit – aiiya. i’m sorry, i can’t help it.
japandroids – fucking awesome, and made zach embrace distortion in ways he won’t even admit to me, so that’s double awesome.