Restaurant Update….

Seems like winter has arrived a tad early; actually it feels like it has been here for almost a month already. But fear not, the weather has not stopped us from heading out to spend time with folks as the holiday season continues. Some of the places on the list include:

• Matt's in the Market – checked this out for lunch with Joanna and Mary. BTW, these two ladies both have a very serious golf game that would put most people to shame – men or women. They regaled us with tales of them hanging out with Lorena Ochoa right after she won her 1^st major at St. Andrews. NICE! We also got to hear about one of Mary's more composed moments when attempting to score a picture of Annika Sorenstam. And oh yeah, the food and wine were both really good too. Not a huge space, but nice and cozy plus we had an awesome view of the Olympics and Pike Place Market from our table.
  
• Chez Shea – checked this out for dinner with Ben and Nicole to celebrate their recent marriage. Unfortunately we were unable to go to their wedding, so we got to hear all about it at dinner plus we got into the usual current events political "discussion". I loved my Pear and Fourme D'Ambert Tart…. Sal actually made something similar back when we had the JDRF dinner at the end of September. Ironically enough, Chez Shea is in the same building and on the same floor as Matt's in the Market. And to top it off, Ben and Nicole were considerate enough to bring us a gift from their recent travels to Asia!
  
• Canlis – this is pretty much one of the best restaurants in the Puget Sound area. We actually had a gift card to go there and given some recent news on my job front, we felt we should go out and celebrate. David Kim and his team took such great care of us, and Dawn, our sommelier, deserves a special mention. She walked us through the Bordeaux section of the wine list (this wine list is something like 80+ pages) because we were interested in trying something from there, and we ended up with a bottle from Pomerol from the year 2000, which was excellent. Dawn also hooked us up with something that the Aussies call "the stickies" (sp?) – a Chambers Rutherglen Muscat – to have with our dessert course. YUM! We're going to try and find some of that!
  
• Latona Pub – love the grilled cheese and tomato-basil soup combo. They also have an awesome cheese selection, as well as a nice assortment of microbrews and wines.
  
• Mona's – also very solid food and the bartenders always take such great care of us.
  

More later on this week about some of the recent experiments in the kitchen. Stay tuned.

Tough week to be a baseball fan.

Given my love of the Yankees, I have been asked repeatedly of what I think of the results of last week's news around performance enhancing drugs in MLB. Here are my thoughts, for what they are worth:

Whenever I start a project at work, I ask people whom I work for a simple question. "What defines success?" The answer to that question pretty much dictates how I try and manage the project throughout its life until it is completed. Do things always work out as planned? No, but eventually we get back to where we originally envisioned by the project's completion. Based on the report and various news accounts, it is apparent that if that simple question of "what defines success" was asked, the answer was 'WITCH HUNT'.

Now I want to be clear that this has NOTHING to do with the amount of Yankees (past and present) cited in the report. I am not shocked by the Roger Clemens accusations, nor am I surprised about Andy Pettitte. If anything, Pettitte's explanation was a lame cop-out. He said that only after the report's release that he took HGH to recover from an injury and had he known it was wrong, he wouldn't have done it. Jemele Hill of ESPN wrote a great column on this. But Pettitte clearly has not learned from some other person who tried something similar – namely our former President Bill Clinton who famously said when asked about if he ever smoked pot, "I smoked but I didn't inhale." Pettitte would have been held in much higher regard in my mind if he would have just said he took it, it wasn't illegal then and he was sorry. He also could have helped by coming clean much earlier than when the report was released. So before anyone gets on my case about being annoyed about the amount of Yankees mentioned, save it.

Next topic – the investigation was flawed from Day 1. Why did MLB hire someone (George Mitchell) who is paid by one of the most popular teams in the league lead the investigation? Why create that conflict of interest? As if there aren't enough competent independent investigators out there without ties to MLB! Howard Bryant of ESPN wrote a great article prior to the report being released about the conflicts of interest. Interesting that Mitchell is affiliated with the Red Sox but no prominent players mentioned. The sad thing is that had MLB assigned someone who no ties, we may not have to wonder if the Red Sox clubhouse was truly clean or not. Eric Gagne and Brendan Donnelly don't count as they were not with the Red Sox during the time of the alleged purchases. The timing of the announcement around Paul Byrd taking HGH just before he was to pitch against the Red Sox in the playoffs is now brought into question because of Mitchell's affiliation with the Red Sox. I'm sure Ken Starr was available. Ok, just kidding. John Dowd had experience in this kind of thing. Anyway the perceived conflict could have been avoided had MLB exercised some basic common sense.

With respect to performance enhancing drugs and nothing else, Roger Clemens = Barry Bonds (minus the perjury charges, although this account of Bonds trying to nickel and dime prospective defense attorneys had me laughing pretty hard).

On a roll now – and this goes back to my simple question around defining success. If the success criteria were around getting players to buy-in to a more comprehensive policy, again MLB screwed up. They made $6 BILLION (yes, that is billion) and only allocated $450 THOUSAND (yes, that's thousand) to research on better drug testing for HGH. Now that is commitment from Bug Selig. When they have the word 'moron' in the dictionary, Selig's name should be there as the epitome of the word. He had a chance to act assertively a few years ago and unlike some of predecessors, he decided to ignore all of the signs. But everyone ignored the signs, to be fair.

But of course Bud is looking to punish the users mentioned but much of it is based on circumstantial evidence, which would never hold up in any criminal proceeding and I doubt it would even hold up in a civil proceeding where the burden of proof is much lower. If he wanted to be seen as a true crusader, he should gotten the owners together and leaned much harder on the union (with Congress) to get folks to cooperate. If one of the success criteria was around getting players to acknowledge sources, reasons and cleaning up the game, give everyone a mulligan because punishing folks is not going to hold up and it's not going to bring a frank discussion to the forefront for people to learn from. Way to be a hard-line guy that will elicit no real change in the drug culture, Bud.

Look all I am saying is that if wanted names and to shame people, he should have worked towards getting subpoena authority and all of the other requirements associated with such an investigation. But he had none of that and so naming names at this point is somewhat weak. And the impact is major. Now they have players who were mentioned in the report and may not have had any involvement.

Now the Players' Union also needs to get with the program and get their heads out of their [you know what]. Had they had a better response to the inquiry, and asked for some compromises (i.e., I will instruct players to talk if they can get amnesty since the point is REALLY to clean up the sport for good), maybe they could have come out better in all of this. Negotiating is all about finding the 'win-win'. You would think that people being paid this kind of money would comprehend that.

Finally if I was a player, I would be skeptical of any drug testing system run by the WADA and USADA based on the debacles in US Track & Field and of course, the professional cycling world. How many of you USED to watch the Tour de France and didn't bother watching this year because of all of the scandals? No one has faith in the integrity of the testing system so it is unfair to everyone. As a player, I would not trust the confidentiality of the drug testing process. A good process should be in place not to be a witch hunt but to ensure that people are not taking drugs to enhance their performance. There is a big difference. If MLB had spent money on working really hard to tighten a process to ensure fairness and integrity, maybe the players would have been onboard.

All of the above being said, Jayson Stark also wrote a great article highlighting the double standard that exists between MLB and the NFL. Consistent improvement and accountability across all professional sports leagues would be a welcome change.

OK – I feel much better now.

Some Snow, Lots of Wind, Tons of Rain and Some Comfort Food/Wine.

I know the Northeast has been getting pummeled with some nasty weather as has the Midwest. We, in the Pacific Northwest, have also been getting our fair share of the elements over the past few days. It's been a little bit of everything. On Sunday, which means that Marc is on the couch watching football, I ventured back into the kitchen to try a new recipe. I was in the mood to do the comfort food thing given how awful the weather was and I hadn't cooked duck in awhile.

So I opted to try something out of Danny Meyer's Union Square Café cookbook – Rustic Duck Stew with Rigatoni. The wine recommendation in the book was a Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Hermitage or a Bandol. Nice call – we brought out a 2003 Chapoutier Hermitage. It was a pretty good pairing, although the wine definitely tasted better one day later. The dish came out excellent, and the leftovers will be sure to be yummy.

Still wondering if the Yanks will be all bark, and no bite as it pertains to the Johan Santana talks.

And the Giants got pretty lucky on Sunday. But we lost a key guy in the process. Bummer.

Vegas, Thanksgiving and other musings...

As Marc mentioned in his last post, we met up with my sister and her husband in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. Marc got to do his wave pool thing, and we all got to eat in some great restaurants and spend some quality time together. In addition to Michael Mina (lobster pot pies), we also checked out Aureole, Burger Bar, Charlie Palmer Steak, Olives and Little Buddha. And it worked out that Maroon 5 was also playing that weekend, so good times for sure.

I, for one, enjoyed the wine list at Aureole - see right. It was a tablet PC (yes, it was running Windows XP) so that was unique. And the list was extensive. Aureole also has this wine tower that has ladies on some pulleys to obtain the wine. Apparently the word is the more expensive the wine, the higher the lady goes up on the pulleys. And I played in my first ever poker tournament and lasted about 90 minutes before losing all of my chips. Miracles can happen.

We had to make a slight change in our plans for Thanksgiving, due to Marc's recent and unfortunate injury. So we decided to make things low-key and do something for just the two of us. The final menu ended up being (thanks to Food & Wine's Thanksgiving issue):

Green Salad with Tangy Mustard Vinaigrette

Bacon-Roasted Turkey with Sweet Onion Gravy (stuffed with some Whole Grain and Sage Stuffing)

Green Beans with Shallots and Walnuts (substituted pine nuts for walnuts)

Mashed Potatoes (from the Good Housekeeping cookbook - one of Marc's specialties)

Crunchy Milk Chocolate-Peanut Butter Layer Cake (substituted Dark Chocolate for Milk Chocolate)

We decided to go with Pinot Noir as the wine of the day, so we started off with a 2003 Patricia Green Cellars - Bonshaw Vineyard and then went with a 2002 Archery Summit. The Archery Summit had a little bit of smokiness to it, which went really well with the bacon paste in the turkey.

So I was reading a story this afternoon about how more and more schools and universities are banning Wikipedia for researching school projects. It made me think of a story that Jarrett (brother-in-law) told us while we were in Vegas.

He was in court for a motion, or something like that, and how an attorney was making an argument with the presiding judge on the matter. When the judge asked the attorney where the case law precedent was from, the lawyer mumbled something. This lead the judge to say something like, "Did you just say that you researched this on Wikipedia?" Apparently this led the entire gallery into huge laughter because Wikipedia, while very helpful, is able to be updated by pretty much anyone, so that probably doesn't make it the best source of information.

It would have been great to have a camera on the attorney when the judge was about to pummel him (and probably his client) for citing Wikipedia.

And to the server at the hotel who thought Lisa and I were twins based on the picture below, I hope you enjoyed the extra tip. For those of you who don't know, Lisa is almost 6 years younger than I am. :-)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Surfing Fake Waves

I have wanted to play in the wave pool at Mandalay Bay for years and years. I recently got the opportunity to actually do this when we met up with Jill's sister and her husband in Vegas. It is fun! I would wish for (1) higher wave frequency, (2) a longer ride, (3) sand on the bottom rather than grates, and (4) healthy ribs instead of the pain from the SF Taxi Incident.

It probably wasn't the best idea to surf the waves here with the pain in my ribs. I re-aggravated things to the point that I thought we might go to a Vegas ER on the final night of our stay rather than eat at Michael Mina. But I just toughed out the extra new pain and popping sensations in my lungs. And after dinner, we went to eyecandy to play with the interactive tables.

The reason I went into the wave pool with painful ribs is that I know we won't be staying at Mandalay Bay anytime soon – likely ever. It mostly has to do with Jill wanting to stay at Bellagio or other high end places more in the center of the strip. Even though we stayed at the Four Seasons @ Mandalay and it was pretty nice. I can't really disagree because being at the end of the strip is pretty lame. But that pool……… <sigh>.

Hip Hop 101

Let me begin by saying I know absolutely nothing about Hip Hop. I listen to flavors of rock. A friend that I used to play pool with in an APA league dropped by the other night to catch up a little. One thing I learned is that he has been into Hip Hop for decades. And he works on a public access show in the Seattle area called Hip Hop 101.

I won't go into the details on how the hosts introduced themselves for the show. John usually works behind the scenes although he's been known to make a guest DJ appearance from time to time. So John put our name on the program that evening. The screen shot is attached.

Cheers!

San Francisco Taxi Cabs (Part II)

In the first part of this post, I noted that I had written a letter to the Taxicab Commission of San Francisco. Well, they actually wrote back already with a more impressive response than I expected. My expectations were either a form letter or a standard response slightly tailored to my original note. I think Heidi Machen took the time to really read and respond individually to my letter.

I am in receipt of your letter, dated November 5, in which you chronicle a weekend of bad experiences with San Francisco taxi drivers. Thank you for taking the time to contact us.

First, let me say that I am sorry that you and your wife left the city with a bad impression of San Francisco taxis. Taxi Commission makes every effort to ensure that visitors and residents are safely transported, including requiring three days of training prior to being licensed. We have recently added 3-1-1 to our arsenal of tools in monitoring service: any customer can phone 3-1-1 to report a complaint – or hopefully at times, a compliment – about the taxi in which they are traveling. It helps to have as full information as possible since we regulate 1400 taxis spread disparately among 34 taxi companies. All taxi numbers, displayed on the side and rear of the taxis as well as on the rate cards inside the taxi, are unique to that taxi and even more helpful to have than knowing the taxi company.

Taxi drivers are held to a least the same standards as other drivers on the road and do not enjoy special immunity from the Police if they violate traffic laws; in fact, they may suffer administrative penalties along with infraction penalties for violations. Taxi companies are motivated to only retain good drivers since they risk property and personal liability in the event of accidents, thus the industry tends to be self-regulated in favor of better drivers. Unlike government civil service workers, taxi companies can readily terminate their drivers in the event of accidents or if drivers accrue substantiated complaints.

All this said, San Francisco has a high incidence of red light running, for whatever reason. The city has taken many steps to remedy this occurrence over the last decade, such as installing more all-direction-red signaled intersections, working with the state to increase the fines for red light running to nearly $300 per incident, and installing red-light cameras at several intersections. We are doing a lot – and, thus, it is sad to hear that visitors such as you and your wife continue to have bad experiences.

Best wishes to your speedy recovery.

Operation Purple Teeth!!!!

So Marc and I have been working on a top secret project for a bit, and have enlisted some of you for assistance. No, these folks are not under 'non-disclosure agreements' for this exercise. We have creative, legal and accounting people already working on some things related to this initiative. Yes, very serious.

You're probably saying, "what are those guys [Marc and Jill] up to now?", and we can understand that so I'll explain. Marc and I are going to start making wine and our operation will be known as 'Purple Teeth Cellars' and for you geeks out there, we have already secured the domain (currently links to other site). Come on, as if you had any doubts. :-)

The 'Purple Teeth' name comes from what Marc's teeth look like after he consumes some red wine, which some of you know we like to do on occasion. So we needed to head to SF to meet with our winemaking company, Crushpad. We're a bit late to the 2006 vintage so we chose to "Adopt-A-Barrel" - a Petite Sirah to be more precise from Eaglepoint Vineyards in Mendocino County, CA.

We had a tour given to us by Dave, and I got to get my hands dirty a little bit to get a preview of what to expect when we start the process from scratch for future vintages. And so Cousin Claire, who has been with me for many of my wine adventures, took one for the team and came down for a barrel tasting of our wine. You can always count on Claire for these types of activities (ok, she has helped me in a lot of other ways but clearly the food and wine tasks are her favorite).

More to come on this in the future. Stay tuned, and yes, this is the final post related to the 72-hour trip to SF. Gosh, a lot happened huh?

Family, friends, food and beverages.... [part II]

OK, so this should be the final post on what was a pretty "interesting" 3 days in SF.  We've covered Marc's maiden driving experience in the Ferrari, our jackass cab driver and unfortunate consequences of his asinine actions, as well as some of the family, friends, food and beverage adventures.  No trip to SF would not be complete without hooking up with Cousin Claire and Hurricane Sally. 

We'll cover our adventures with Sal first.  She made reservations at a place called Range.  Sal's friend, Samia (sp?), also joined us.  All of the food was excellent, which would make sense given the recent "one-star" designation given by the Michelin folks.  Then Sal took us to a rooftop bar up the street in the Mission called Medjool.   Met up with a couple more of Sal's friends and what made the evening even better was the weather being so pleasant.  It was the beginning of November in the city of SF, and we were completely comfortable on top of a roof without jackets.

Ah, but the night was young.  Sal, Marc and I then hightailed back over to the Clift to hit the Redwood Room, which was a huge "scene".  We scored a table that was primed for people watching and did we get an eyeful.  Lots of short skirts (Marc always complaints that I wear short skirts too often - HA!), which when we told Cousin Chris about it the next day, caused him to say that there could have been some transvestite action going on.  Marc claimed it was all real, but Chris had some healthy skepticism.  Entertaining stuff.

We'll skip Saturday evening's festivities with Sally back at the Redwood Room after Gary Danko, and just move to a much more sedate Sunday evening.  After the day's activities, Sal met us for dinner and we had some much needed protein at Morton's.  Sal graciously then took us to what was probably the only 24-hour pharmacy in SF so Marc could get drugged up.

I lied - Cousin Claire and the associated adventure with her will be covered in a separate post.  :-)

And oh yeah - Sal has a new suitor.  Even bigger HA!

Family, friends, food and beverages.... [part I]

Yes, we had some unpleasantness in our recent trip to San Francisco. The accident was unfortunate because we were having such a great time with our family and friends.

Marc already talked about his ride in the Ferrari (to be fair, Chris did not require much convincing to let Marc drive the car so it's not like my salesmanship skills are that good), so I'll cover some of the other things that we did.

Sticking with Cousin Chris, who was probably sick of us by the end of the weekend, he gave us a product demo of the latest venture (Marin Software) he is heading up. It's pretty cool and very user-friendly, so we are all pulling for Chris and his team to be successful. We didn't get a chance to see RS (his wife), as she was under the weather, but Chris took us to one of the best restaurants in SF - Gary Danko. What a great meal, and we were joined by Cousin RA and her husband, Bob. Good times, lots to catch up on, and RA finally paid up on her promise for Team Bobby t-shirts from this year and years past. Fun times....

Unfortunately we only got to see one of the 4 younger cousins due to scheduling (naps - I miss those, soccer games, etc.), but we'll get them next time.

So we also met up with Matt on Sunday afternoon to watch the Pats-Colts game, but unfortunately we had to take a detour through California Pacific Medical Center. While it was a bummer that we could not spend more time with Matt, he came up big by rescuing us from the hospital and getting us some much needed food and beer. And we ended up catching the 4th quarter to boot. And Matt's friends picked up a much needed round of adult beverages, which was nice.

I'm not going to write about the accident, other to say that I am beyond livid that the cab driver was so reckless with our lives and to reiterate that Marc is right yet again - wear a seat belt in all cars/trucks regardless of who is driving and where you are sitting. That's all that needs to be said from my end.

The Past Weekend Wasn’t All Pain & Suffering

Before the terrible taxi incident, we took a ferry to Tiburon which went past Alcatraz and stopped at Angel Island along the way. Once in Tiburon, Jill's cousin Chris came by and picked us up. Somehow, Jill convinced him that I needed to drive his Ferrari. I was ok with just taking a ride as a passenger.

Chris got onto highway 101 and stepped on it. It felt like being in a rollercoaster. After mere seconds, he says "we're going 100 now". It felt so smooth other than my head being against the seat. We drove about 10 minutes up the highway and got off. Then Chris let me drive it back home.

The car has paddle shifting by the steering wheel. It will shift up or down if it needs to or you can do the work. You don't even have to let off the gas while shifting. I was extremely careful and only got up to 80. Keep in mind this is California where everyone drives at least 70. In fact, when I was at about 75 cruising in the left lane, a mini-van passed us in the carpool lane to our left. That's California. I wish the drivers in Washington knew how to drive fast in the left lanes.

San Francisco Taxi Cabs

For those of you who buckle up every time you get in your own car or buckle up when you get in your friends' cars, ask yourself this. Why do I hop in a cab and not fasten my seatbelt? Lots of people think a taxi cab is some safe sanctuary. But if you think about it, who are the craziest drivers you've most recently ridden with? For a lot of people, that answer is a taxi driver. For those of you who do buckle up, congrats.

I convinced Jill long ago to always buckle up when we get in taxis. They drive like insane people. Fortunately we are very much in the habit of fastening the belts. This past weekend, we were in multiple cabs in San Francisco that ran red lights. On one occasion, we got hit pretty hard by a van and I am convinced things would be worse for me if I wasn't belted in.

I've written to the Taxicab Commission in San Francisco imploring them to fine and revoke licenses for drivers who run red lights. I have no idea how they can truly enforce this, but I'll let you know if anyone actually takes the time to write me back on this.

The Bronx Zoo is back...

So the Red Sox won their 2nd World Series in 4 years. Doom and gloom has set in, and last night was one of those times where I reflected to myself and said:

I'm lucky. My family is healthy; my friends are healthy. And if I could change things around so that the Yanks could win the World Series, I wouldn't do it. That being said, it still sucks that the Red Sox won it again.

There are 3 players on the Red Sox who I really don't like and wish failure on more than the other players. Kevin Youkilis strikes me as a complainer as if there is a conspiracy against him when a call doesn't go his way. Maybe he is just annoyed at himself as opposed to the umpiring, but then again he should just be thankful that he gets to play a game for a living. Dustin Pedroia was someone who I initially liked until he said that an opposing picture "stinks" which doesn't really buy you much in terms of good sportsmanship points. I don't care if he almost got hit by a ball. I would rather you charge the mound and not knock someone else's ability - Pedroia had a dismal start to this season and a lot of people could have given up on him, but they didn't. Maybe some humility is in order.

And of course, one of the mainstays from both teams - Curt Schilling - is a hypocrite who boasted that lots of players took steroids and then backed down when he was asked about it under oath in front of Congress. And as if he didn't learn from his performance in Congress in 2005, he made more dumb a** comments on the topic again. If you're going to speak up about people cheating, back it up or shut up.

Now before you start laughing at me criticizing every Red Sox, there are a number of Red Sox players whom I respect - A LOT. Jonathan Papelbon is clearly someone who competes hard and will have a great future if his arm is managed properly like it was this year. I was stunned when the Red Sox were going to make him into a starter. Jason Varitek may be on the decline offensively but he is up there with Jorge Posada in terms of the value that he provides to the team in terms of managing the pitching staff. David Ortiz seems like a good guy and plays hard - I get amazed at how fast he tries to run around those bases given his size. Jon Lester has had a life-threatening illness and overcame it this past year. And Josh Beckett is the Mr. October of pitching. Mike Lowell, the WS MVP, to the Yankees? He has also rebounded from cancer.

Now as for my Yanks - I am ambivalent about A-Rod opting out. I'm not hurt, not amazed, not jubilant. It's always been about the money with him and I guess he doesn't have enough. Yes, he will break more records and will be in the Hall of Fame, but he'll never be revered like a Varitek or Ortiz, regardless if those two get in the Hall of Fame. It's kind of one of those things where I think he is full of crap about his reasons for leaving. I was joking with a friend earlier that I have never encountered someone so politically unsavvy in terms of how to reading people.

The fact that they made this announcement during the World Series is disrespectful to the two teams playing (yes, even to the Red Sox) and to the game. It wouldn't have mattered for them to wait a day or two to kick off negotiations. Whatever. A-Rod had a chance of an amazing legacy in New York, so now he will be remembered for his performance in October. When I see him play again, I'll boo him if he is playing my team but I do that to everyone anyway. I hope he goes to an AL team like the Tigers or Angels because Marc is right - they'll get cursed.

Joe Girardi as been offered the job of managing the New York Yankees. Next year is going to be a transition (not re-building because you can't really claim that with a $150+ MM annual payroll) year, but I like how Girardi plays small ball and believes in hustling. Don Mattingly would have been more of the same in terms of Joe Torre, so I am pleased with this choice. We'll see how it all shakes out with the free-agent signings.

More to come in this space..... and I need to figure out how I am paying up Nat and Ric.

Oh - I wonder if Rudy Guiliani is going to go to the Red Sox victory parade in Boston. He should go read about Benedict Arnold since he is such an avid reader of history (for those of you who don't know, during 9/11 Rudy reflected a lot on Winston Churchill and how he led during the London bombings in WWII).

Hill?

The reason for Jill's disclaimer: I have nothing positive to contribute to that story. I certainly don't think my fingers should type anything that would come out of my mouth on this subject.

Here's my theory. Politics divide people – even people that would normally not feel hate for another human being. Sports bring people together – even people who cheer for bitter rivals. They usually still come together on some level and respect each other. Jill is living proof of this every time she meets a die-hard Red Sox fan.

Go team!

Hill and Jill....

[Note the views expressed in this blog entry are Jill's - NOT Marc's. This is not to say that we agree or disagree; it's just that if he chooses to express his views on this topic, he will do so.]

So many people have preconceived notions - good and bad - about what it is like to work at Microsoft (aka Evil Empire to some). In reality like anything else, there are great things about this company and not-so-great things about this company. I guess that's why it is called work, and not utopia. Anyway MSFT employees are lucky enough to have a company that has enough clout to bring in political leaders to come in and talk to us. This takes place at our satellite campuses as well.

This week, we had Senator Hillary Clinton on campus and I was able to get in early to get a good seat. Having a laptop to stay productive also helps. I know she is a divisive figure so I know some people on this blog may cringe as this story continues. Anyway this was my first time getting such an up close view of a Presidential Candidate (never been that close to the President), so I kind of didn't know what to expect.

Senator Clinton went through her talk, which was very geared towards the audience - tech savvy, strong interest in research, immigration for skilled workers, etc. She was incredibly prepared, which is probably in no small part due to having probably some of the best aides out there but I always say that the candidate still needs to deliver the message in a compelling way. The other interesting thing that she talked about was how she thinks they are going to win the White House. Her sense is that Kerry/Edwards spent too much in places that they knew they had won (i.e., larger cities like NY, SF, etc.) and less in the rural areas.

She talked about how when she ran for Senator in 2000, she spent the bulk of her time initially in upstate NY. I actually remembered that because I remember thinking that after going to college in upstate NY how different the two constituencies actually were, and that Rudy (when he was still in the race) would not have a chance up there because he had no idea how people in rural areas lived. Lazio, her eventual competitor, failed miserably up there as well. She is planning on following a similar strategy for the White House.



And I actually was selected to ask a question, which was cool (the video above covers part of her answer to my question). My question was about simplifying the tax code and what was her plan around it. I didn’t want to ask an obvious question around pro-choice, stem cell research and given MSFT’s population, you can imagine immigration was already covered. She talked about how it is part of a larger problem with the economy and general competitiveness, and basically said – I need your help to figure it out. I do wish there was more of a plan here, but understand that it is part of a larger problem. I wonder whether that will resonate with people who do not understand economics past salary, bills and taxes though, and I think that is a large part of America. Then again, it could have been very targeted towards the audience.

Later on, when this VERY BLURRY picture (think mosh pit around Hillary) was taken, Senator Clinton remembered me and asked me what I would do and I mentioned the AMT (quick answer, quick response). Her speech will probably something similar to what is being said in places like the Bay Area and other well-educated constituencies. I doubt that many of the issues she touched upon today is part of what she is talking about while visiting Iowa, for example.

My opinion – very well prepared. Everything was very off-the-cuff (yes, she probably has staffers who prep her but you still have to deliver the message). The consensus from the people I was sitting near that she actually was funnier than we thought she would be. Very focused, but actually had some witty comments which made the audience laugh.

Rumor has it that Obama is coming soon. Laura, one of our friends who is an avid NPR listener, suggested that the e-mail dispatch from that event be entitled, "Beck and Barack". Hmmm.... we'll see.

Oh - and supposedly the biggest Yankee fan around - that would be Rudy Guiliani - is cheering for the Red Sox in the World Series. No serious Yankee fan would ever cheer for the Red Sox - ever. This was the same guy who took a shot at Hillary when she said she was a Yankee fan when she initially ran in 2000 for the NYS US Senate seat.

Food, wine and friends...

Well, it's good times over in the Beck household this evening.  The New York Giants are a shocking 5-2 and have won 5 straight games.  And I got to see them play, which is a bonus given I am an out-of-market fan.  The NFL is trying to build their international fan base, so next week's game is in London.  Tonight, we also got to see the Denver Broncos get back on track with a solid win over the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Needless to say, Marc was incredibly happy after last week's dismal outing. 

It's Sunday, so I went into the kitchen to try something new.  Today's recipe was from Tyler Florence's new book called 'Tyler's Ultimate'.  Made some Lemon Curry Chicken with an Apple-Basmati Rice Salad.  Came out pretty good as it had an eclectic assortment of flavors and textures.  The wine pairing was ok, not fabulous.  Think it was more about the wine then the pairing itself.

So Marc's colleague, Gülay and her husband, Ian, hosted a shindig on Saturday evening.  It was nice to catch up with some of his colleagues and have some laughs (one at a former colleague's expense that worked at both WaMu and Starbucks - she was just a tad psycho).  The other cool thing was that the party was within walking distance of our house, which makes things much easier.

Finally, I hope I have developed what is considered a temporary addiction to Facebook.  It's all Jeanne's fault. 

And good luck to Vij tomorrow. 

Chocolate Jeep?

This is really weird. But since it involves chocolate, I'm mesmerized.

How to define Italian food....

My folks just returned from their inaugural trip to Italy - Venice, Florence and Rome to be more precise.  Spoke to Big Yves (Mom) this afternoon and she starts talking about how different Italian food is in Italy vs. back home in New York.  I remember going through this the first time I went to Europe back in '92, and then remember going through something similar when I went to Hong Kong and learned what real Chinese food tastes like - as opposed to my tried and true beef and broccoli with white rice.

Two of the items that Big Yves spoke very highly of were lasagne and tartufo.  Now this is not the same tartufo that Marc referred to last year - this is a dessert.  Yes, one of my favorite cheeses is called Sottocenere al tartufo.  But my Mom's new addiction has a different definition:

Tartufo is defined as an Italian confection similar to truffles, made of premium ice cream rolled or dipped in a coating.

Source: http://food-management.com

Anyway I had planned a few days ago to make some lasagne for Marc and I today.  I wanted to do something different, so I opted not to go for our traditional recipe of lasagne with lots of tomatoes, cheese, meat and herbs.  Before speaking to my Mom, I knew I wanted to go "old school" so I found a recipe that I wanted to give a try.  The main differences were:

1. Instead of an overload of mozzarella and ricotta, I made a bechamel sauce which was ridiculously easy to put together.  The sauce acted as one of the layers in the dish.

2. The meat sauce had something other than ground beef or turkey as the base for the ragu.  So two other meats were used - ground veal and ground lamb, plus we had some pancetta in there.

3. The only remnants of tomatoes in the dish were from the 6 oz. can of tomato paste that I had to throw in the Ragu Bolognese (this link will bring you to something very similar).  The rest of the sauce had carrots, milk, white wine and some thyme.  In our other recipe, we use lots of different herbs.

It came out pretty good, although of course, I am already thinking about what I would do differently next time.  Marc missed his hot red pepper flakes, but I really liked what the homemade bechamel sauce added to the dish as opposed to the mozzarella and ricotta.  Drank an Italian wine from Sicily called Ceuso 2000 Custera, which went very nicely.

As my Mom was regaling me with tales from their trip (her very close friend Barbara V. went along as well), she starts telling me how Barbara was peppering the Italian tour guide about "Italian dishes" that are very common in the US.  These are dishes that are very common throughout Italian-American kitchens and are made in countless Italian restaurant kitchens throughout the US.  Dishes such as chicken parmagiana, veal marsala, etc.  Barbara grew up in an Italian-American family and she is a great cook - I say this from much experience.  It must have been a kick to watch her go into shock as she learned the major differences between Italian-American cooking and Italian cooking.

Don't worry - from what my Mom told me, Barbara still managed to have a great time.  I'll look forward to see what kind of magic Barbara conjures up in her kitchen the next time I am over.

Guilty as charged.... and the Yanks blow.....

Yes, yes. The person who Marc refers to in his previous post is me. Jill B. Yankee fan. I know this does not come as a shock to any of you who know me, but still I'd like to think of myself as a person completely accountable for my actions.

For the record, I would add that my language is significantly toned down when I am in the presence of children (oversized children like my husband are not included in this categorization).

That being said, the Yankees offense looks as anemic as I have ever seen it this evening. They are playing like they could give a **** and want to start working on lowering their golf handicaps. Winning 3 in a row seems very unlikely so I guess I'll announce that my social calendar for the month of October has now re-opened.

And Nat - given that you are up 2-0 against the Halos, I'll start thinking about the bottle of wine to send over.

Potty Mouth

Can anyone send me some soap? Because I'm living with a potty mouth here with the Yankees on TV. It was bad in the regular season, but the language has elevated in October. I need help.