Saucyman: Not That Big of a Deal

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Not That Big of a Deal

Maybe, possibly this has come up before, but I like shopping for food. I love a trip to the grocery store as long as it isn't Safeway. My neighborhood supermarket, New Seasons, is so big and clean and full of abundance and friendly people, if I weren't such a homebody, I would go, grab a cart and push it around and enjoy the the heated space, the humanity and be amazed at how many bottled foods there are – have you ever noticed all the salad dressings there are, it's like a whole aisle? Farmer's Market in the morning before it gets overly crowded; also really cool and the Vietnamese grocery is great and an errand to Whole Foods, doesn't seem like an errand. I would go shopping for groceries once a day if I had the time and money.

The trouble with treating food shopping like a form of entertainment isn't that like a movie you are frequently disappointed and out 12 bucks. The problem is, especially if you live alone, is that you can quickly fill the pantry beyond use. The next thing you know, the freezer is full, there is more than enough food in the fridge and going to the store is merely an indulgence and/or a way to stave off loneliness.

So I skipped going to the store last week. Since I had plenty of food and my embargo on restaurants and paying for meals is over (plus I had money and credit to spend on going out), there was little chance of going hungry. But not buying groceries for close to 2 weeks does leave a pantry strong in some areas and week in another leading to some odd combinations. A Quesadilla without cheese – I guess that makes it a dilla, Pepperless jambalaya, and a not horrible melange of Brussels Sprouts, potatoes, sausage and stone ground mustard.

Still, I was most proud when I was able to put together a meal of copa, arugula, sun dried tomatoes, truffle salt and pecorino tossed it with spaghetti. It was like leftovers without the Ur dish. And at the risk of sounding overly proud for having combined ingredients that were living 5 feet apart from one another, it was good, very good. Those items could have been a sandwich, if I had the bread. Or an omelet, but it's now something that I might try to make again by actually shopping for the ingredients, thus combining my loves of going to the store with eating well.

Here is the promised link to the beet article. More tales of food later in the week.

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Basketball

Since the lockout ended, I have been largely silent about the great sport of basketball. Despite Brandon Roy retiring, despite my beloved Blazer’s sprint out of the blocks to a really good start, despite my home team playing a style of basketball than can no longer be described as Van Gundying (Jeff) up the sport’s fluidity.

I don’t know, some interesting developments transpired: During the lockout, analysts and beat writers, the very people who possibly think about professional basketball more than I do, had a light bulb go on over their collective heads and across the league they discovered what everyone else pretty much already knew, NBA Commissioner David Stern is a dick. Over the last decade Stern forced bankrupt municipalities to build new stadiums for billionaires’ new play thing, this heavy handed behavior garnered nothing but praise. The writers sighed and thought eh, “we live in the suburbs, we write for suburban middle managers, our values are if anything anti-urban” - with all the weight that word carries. But needlessly locking out players jeopardizing their tenuous employment in publishing, well that is something that we might complain about except they hate the players more - Oh the conflict.

But mostly I can’t get excited about any team helmed by Nate McMillan. We’ll make the playoffs with a pretty good but not best record, maybe get home court advantage in the first round and then fail to advance. This is true until McMillan proves otherwise, 11 years a coach out of the first round once - this record while coaching some pretty good but not great teams. Along the way Nate will overplay star forwards LaMarcus Aldridge and Gerald Wallace so there is nothing in the tank come playoff time and risk their health. And yo-yo Nicholas Batum’s minutes so the young player becomes a head case instead of developing into a consistent contributor.

So a predictable finish is part of the my own jejune response to the return of the sport of kings (not really, that's horse racing) maybe it's the sweet science (damnit google says that's boxing). My attitude goes deeper than a finish more predictable than one of McMillan's earth toned, triple pleated suits, if the lockout exposed a fault line in NBA coverage it's that broadcasters and writers are now PR agents for the teams - so who is left to advocate for the fan - thank goodness for blogs and the posting cyborg that is named Henry Abbott.

2nd round or bust