To Do (Before I Die)

I've had this idea in my head for sometime now that before I die, I would like to dedicate a significant portion of my time to analyzing the science behind delicious food. Everyone has individual tastes, and these tastes all differ. But certain outstanding foods seem to be almost universally appealing (Think: Haagen Daaz vanilla ice cream). In my constant quest to eat good food, I aim to quantify what that universal goodness factor really is.

My first project will be banana bread. Following the scientific method (remember that all you old farts?), I aim to tackle different recipes of banana bread in order to find what it is that makes for the perfect loaf:

1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena. Lots of different types of banana bread are yummy, but some some are yummier than others.

2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. Breads that are yummier than others possess specific qualities that can be distinguished and identified.

3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations. The identification of these mmmm-inducing qualities will lend insight into the cause of the deliciousness factor of other foods.

4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments. Me and my multiple personalities will bake several different banana breads using unique "Best Banana Bread" recipes. Double blind testing and rating of breads will ensue.



Nutty bread?


Chocolatey bread?


Triple the bread?


Man bread?

Agassi and Virgins

Tonight, I went to the opening ceremony of the U.S. Open. For those of you who don't know this, I derive from an intensely tennis obsessed family, and I myself am at times an uncontrollable, raging tennis nut.

Before getting into the details of one of the most jing cai matches i have ever seen, let me just recap the opening ceremony a bit. It was a tribute to the great Billie Jean King, one of the coolest athletes+lesbians of all time, though still trailing behind Martina the Queen by a little. Jon McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Chris Evert, and Venus Williams were there, and they all gave these lame mini-speeches (except for McEnroe's, which was slighly amusing only because he's kind of an asshole). Bloomie was also there, doing his weird metrosexual bloomberg thing, as was Mayor Hinkins and Martina, not to mention Giesele and my new favorite Corporate member, Robert Deniro (both of whom, apparently, are camera averse. who knew?). Oh and Tony Bennet was there.


Did you know he is EIGHTY?


But the greatest thing of all was that DIANA ROSS was there. True to diva form, she even had a COSTUME CHANGE. She looked fabulous, and I was glad she was there to drown out that goddamned Tony Bennet's children's choir, or whatever that crap was. I kept telling Hans how amazing it would be if instead of having Mary Carillo commentate, Diana Ross just diva-sang all the commentary. Or maybe she could be the chair umpire. Fuck all that trying to make tennis sexy bullshit, here's a novel way for the USTA to boost interest in the sport!:


Oh my, look at that A-A-A-ACEEEE.

On to the match. Let's just say, the play in this match was closer and more riveting to watch than two monkeys in heat trapped inside a cardboard box. The crowd was going absolutely gaga for Agassi, but the funny thing was that he was playing Andrei Pavel of Romania. So everyone would be all "GO ANDRE," and Hans Tang and I would reply, "WHICH ONE?? WE'RE NOT SURE FOR WHOM YOU ARE CHEERING. CAN YOU PLEASE SPECIFY RECIPIENT TO AVOID FURTHER CONFUSION?"


I love you Andre!


(But which one??)

Anyways, it was so close, with both of them winning one set in tie-breakers. However, by the time Agassi was trailing 0-4 in the 3rd set,I was sure doom was pending. But then he came back 2-4, and I turned to the lady next to me and said "This will start his comeback." And, of course, my innate psychic tennis ability (known only by other members of the Tang clan) was once again on the money. Agassi won - 6-7 7-6 7-6 6- He might be the only one capable of challenging Safin as my favorite male player of all time.


In other news, can I just mention how excited I am that Dan won the date with Jane magazine's 29 year-old virgin?? In between driving celebrities around for the VMAS, he will go out on a date with her tomorrow night, probably to some east village jauntz. I'm planning on showing up incognito. I really hope Dan sleeps with this girl, but mainly to laugh at all the nasty and hilarious stories that would inevitably ensue. I am a bad, bad person.


Rolando is betting that Dan will be famous before year's end.

Getting My Mind Blown

Every now and then, while watching some sort of educational made for tv content, the insides of my head are completely blown to oblivion. my world is turned upside down, and my previous notions of reality are fucked. This first happened while watching the PBS special "The Elegant Universe." It happened again yesterday while watching BBC's "Blue Planet," THE DEEP segment. The Blue Planet is something Audrey, Jess and Dan have been obsessed with, but yesterday was Rolando, Mark, and my first experience. I'm pretty sure their minds were equally blown.

Here are some excerpts and FUN AND INTERESTING FACTS from the website:

1. Below 1,000 metres you enter the dark zone and an alien world. In a world where RED LIGHT DOES NOT EXIST!!!!, dark red jellyfish and shrimps float by, confident that they are almost completely invisible.

2. The only light here is produced by the animals themselves through BIOLUMINESCENCE.

3. Female angler fish use their lures to hook a male. Just one tenth the size of their partner, a male completely fuses itself on to the female's body, becoming little more than an attached bag of sperm (FOR LIFE!!)

4. In just a few places, along volcanic ridge lines, animals survive off energy produced by hot vents - totally without energy from the sun. Since their original discovery in 1979, a NEW SPECIES has been described EVERY 10 DAYS!!!



This is a real fish. OMG.



Ths Scientists call this guy "Dumbo."

Craziness, right? And the whole time they were talking about these crazy creatures and all the sea urchins that crawl along the ocean floor, 4000 meters below, i kept thinking "mmmm, i'll bet they's make for some good sushi. mmmm...uniiiii."







Jackie likes my idea.

Restaurant Review: Le Pain Quotidien

Max and I came here for a working girl's lunch today. It was half personal, half business - you know, the norm for us. Though it's a franchise (started in Brussels because some crazy chef wanted to make the perfect, most simple loaf of bread), the food here is really fresh and good, if a little pricey. All the weird little biblical references are kind of neat too. Like the "communal table" - I kept thinking I was going to turn around and see Jesus and his disciples breaking some daily bread and washing each other's feet, or something kind of creepy like that.



We ordered two open-faced sandwiches, or tartines, if you will. One was proscuitto with mozzarella and roasted peppers, the other jambon frances avec three mustards. The prosciutto tartine was to die for, with melt-in-your-mouth mozzarella and a perfect drizzling of pesto. The ham tartine was fine, great only if you love ham. We mainly ordered it because I was fixated with the prospect of not one, not two, but THREE mustards. For dessert, we decided on sharing a Belgian Brownie (Max didn't think I was excited enough for the apricot tart). This brownie, bigger than one of Max's child hands, was heaven - a deliciously dense, moist, not too-sweet triumph of decadence. The kind of brownie i daydream about at my desk when i'm trying to calm my 3:00 sugar pangs. Even the older lady who sat down next to us asked us if she could eat what we didn't finish. Ofcourse, we politely replied, "Fuck no, biatch."

Everything that everyone else was eating looked damn good as well. The service, on the otherhand was shitty. I don't think we could have gotten our waiter's attention even if we had been dirty whores. Our bill came to $35, including tax and tip.

On a scale on 1-10, this is how Le Pain Quotidien rates:
Overall*: 8
Food: 9 Space: 7 Service: 5 Value: 7

*food, being the only thing that really matters, is given more weight in the calculation of the overall score

Alvarado House Annual Pig Roast

Last Saturday I experienced my 3rd Alvarado house PIG ROAST, complete with fully roasted pig and all. As always, eating, drinking, music playing and dancing were the cornerstones of the night. As an added bonus, a few of Rolando's high school friends got BUTT naked. One of them didn't have pubic hair, and I have got to say that that was one of the more disturbing sights I have seen in my 23 years.

Dan took lots of party photos with his uber duber camera profesional:


Here is Trontle trying to get some milk out of his nipples, because he was thirsty after the vegan brownies he indulged in.


Jesse and I are just lounging around.


Graham looking very cool.


Annie looking very pretty and blue.


Eliza looking berry seXXXy.


Dan had a momentary lapse in sanity. He got in trouble -with RON!


Jess had a bad taste in her mouth. That's cause she just vommed all the cup'a'cup that she had inhaled.

We are trying to look sassy.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again , goddamnit.

I'm going to start blogging. For real this time. Well, probably not for real since I have the attention span of a small child. Regardless, I will try, and that's all that matters anyways.

My brother is amazing

Check out what my brother wants to bring our dog duke to: http://goldstock2006.org/
It's like a Woodstock for Golden Retrievers. Isn't that WEIRD? Isn't that FUNNY? But, most of all, isn't that CUTE?