Ten million people and no nice quiet cheap bar that serves food. What barbarism.
New York is, indeed, a wasteland.
I hear London's all right though. And Shanghai. Maybe meet there?
It's not the kind of place I would normally frequent, but the Pine Tree Lodge is, strictly speaking, in midtown, usually quiet, cheap for the neighborhood, and on some nights they have food (and will order out for you when they don't)
http://newyork.citysearch.com/profile/7120947/
it's all the way over on 1st, though, so that may be too far out of the way.
Would someone be so kind as to link to mcmc's page? I'm trying to find the bunny, but failing. TIA.
Ask, and ye shall receive. Check out the new animations.
I would personally favor the Friday. I could be there late on Wednesday or Thursday. And there are plenty of nice quiet reasonablish bars that serve food on Sunday through Wednesday. Thursday through Saturday is hard though.
I will be in town on the early side Wednesday evening. (And on the late side, but I am otherwise engaged watching Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3 (!!!!hooray!!!). I think the show starts at 8; but I could meet for a quick drink at 6 or so. Would love to meet mcmc.
I'm pro-Wednesday. Have we looked at Hell's Kitchen at all? There are some places over there that fit the bill.
I'm good with Hells Kitchen, if you've got a specific thought (actually, the place cerebrocrat linked looked good, but I figure people will resist being that far east for subway reasons.)
-- Also, is anybody going to listen to Truman Sparks tonight? I am, as I noted down in the One Night Stand thread, but nobody is probably reading that one today.
Wednesday sounds good to me. It's less crowded and we can enjoy ourselves more thoroughly.
I promise not to bleed on anyone this time.
Aw, you're no fun anymore.
I'm going to work on drinking rather more slowly -- I don't get out to bars much these days, and I tend to find myself staggering home from the Unfogged meetups wondering what hit me. You really lose your capacity to drink and remain standing up when you haven't been doing it a lot.
Last time, I swear I got hit by something like low BP. I had eaten! I had four pints over three and a half hours! I was a good girl! The fun part is, you'll get to see my bitchin' scar. It's way butch.
Aw, you're no fun anymore.
I'm going to work on drinking rather more slowly
Pot, kettle.
I don't have a specific thought, but was hoping to spur others. But let me think further...
No one wants to drink with a maudlin lawyer.
Or with a bear with a head wound.
That depends on whether maudlin lawyers and concussed bears sing.
My friends like a divey place called Rudy's in Hell's Kitchen. They serve free hot dogs. I do not eat hot dogs and prefer bars with upholstery not held on with duct tape, but the beer is unbelievably cheap. It's on 9th Ave. at like 46th.
I was here once on a Sunday and it was uncrowded and pleasant and cozy. I don't know how it would be on a Wednesday but if it seems like it's under serious consideration I could drop by tonight and peek in.
Do they also serve White Castle burgers? Because I know a bar that fits that description almost exactly. I thought it was called "Tunnel Bar".
Drat, and to think I'm in NYC this monday and tuesday (post crossword tournament).
The NY Post runs a crossword tournament? That's odd.
I dunno, Clownae. I've only been there once, and we were hanging out in the tent out back while my friends ate hot dogs. Ex-Clevelanders are a people of habit, so there may have been burgers they ignored. As far as I know, it's called Rudy's, though. There's a pig out front.
post = after
Anyway, am I incorrect in noting that it's hard for a big group to comfortably sit at Rudy's? I might be, but every time I've been there, it's been crowded, and the only seating was in booths that might not squeeze in an Unfogged meetup. Mayhap I did not take note of the entire layout, though.
So stay an extra day! What, you aren't prepared to rearrange your travel plans around the whims of a bunch of people you've never met?
Wednesday night Pork!
"With The Eagle and Spike now closed, the Lure (409 W. 13th St.,Tel: 212-741-3919) is New York's reigning leather bar, drawing a mixed leather crowd in terms of age and type. It's busiest on weekends, but on Wednesday nights, a theme party called Pork pulls in a large crowd, blending pierced East Village kids, mustachioed West Village daddies, and a few Chelsea boys for a night of bizarre fetish cruising, art exhibitions, and performance."
31: And on googling, it appears to fail the 'quiet' requirement. I'm a cranky old woman, but I go to bars to talk to people, and it's not nearly as much fun if I can't hear what they're saying. I might as well stay home and shout at the houseplants at that point.
Apo, why do you know these things? Why does a married heterosexual living in North Carolina read reviews of New York gay bars? Do you just have some magical, intuitive connection to all things pervy on the internet? Do you have some special version of google that lists New York bar reviews first when you enter "pork"?
I don't tend to go out much in midtown, sorry I can't be more help. But I'll be interested in attending. More unfortunately, I rate the chances of my attending the Truman Sparks show tonight at 20%.
It doesn't have to be midtown, that's me being lazy.
Apo, why do you know these things?
They come in handy.
I have an idea. Let's create a proposal for a bar and make it happen. It could be a reality show about a bunch of internet nerds who fantasize about teh Best. Meetup. Evar. and make millions in the process. It would be accessible, reasonably quiet, cheap, food-serving, friendly but not invasive, unsuity but not too divey, and have TVs for when we need to watch political stuff happen.
Oh, wait, fuck, this is Wednesday the 2nd? That's the first night of Pesach. I can't come on Wednesday, but don't let me be a plan determiner.
Enough that I'm a bad niece if I skip out on a holiday for a meetup with internet friends. But wait, we're talking about the 28th aren't we? Damn dates. So confusing.
It is Wednesday the 4th, and it is the third night of Pesach.
Oh nevermind, it is not either.
Jews are notoriously bad with dates.
I can do Wednesday. Can't do Thursday or Friday, though.
The first night of Pesach is Monday the second.
Making 44 an accurate statement about the day one week from the date being proposed for our little get-together.
Well my aunt was trying to tell me we were having a first night seder on Wednesday the second. But she's a Jew.
You should get her a day planner.
Graham got me a day planner once. For 2006. I think it's still in my desk drawer.
Jews are notoriously bad with dates.
Please don't start sob-sistering about the demolition of Palestinian orchards, not in the party-time thread.
"Gentile charity" s/b "genital chastity"
They lose track of the date every Saturday, because that would be work. Also, they poison wells.
Whatever Portland lacks, it's got lots of nice quiet cheap bars that serve food. I'm just sayin.
Every city but New York has these places. Some outer boroughs have them, but since no one from one outer will go to another, it is not swingable.
Don't all the outer-borough Mineshafters live in Brooklyn?
Scott L. is in Queens. I'm not sure about everyone, though.
Teo, if Jackmormon doesn't get you for that, I will.
Fuck, I forgot about JM. Sorry, Jack. (Mike and Scott I didn't know about.)
It kind of sounds like Wednesday is the day, no? It would be pretty funny to come to NY and go to a bar that resembles a camp in Maine.
Oh shit, sorry JM. You're actually the only person here aside from Tia whose actual home I have been inside!
Portland has nice quiet cheap stripper bars that serve food. You have to tip, though.
Jeez, Emerson, we're not coming to Portland for the meetup. Dude.
It would be pretty funny to come to NY and go to a bar that resembles a camp in Maine.
There's a place down on 3rd Ave in the 20s I've been to that is like that, I think.
There's also the bar at Madeira Hotel in DC that's like that, but that idea is even more useless...
71: I believe I have made out in that bar.
I have been in the home of AWB, ac, JM, and Becks! I'm in ur apartmentz, accepting ur h0spitaleez.
That made me giggle, Tia. You should come over sometime.
We could go to the Pinetree Lounge -- I don't mind the location (35th between 1st and 2d), I just figured other people would. If no one minds it, a bar with a stuffed caribou head sounds fine to me.
Fine by me. Sounds out-of-the-way enough from the suity people.
Forgive me if this point has been made, but wouldn't it be equally or perhaps more fruitful to search for restaurants that serve drinks as well as bars that serve food? Or perhaps you strange new york people don't use the term "restaurant". You yankees can be so strange.
"Restaurants" in NY don't like it when you sit there getting wasted for four hours.
83 to 80: Yes, the mostly not liking it, and yes, Applebees must be avoided, but maybe a Chinese place, or similar ethnic? Like, I bet you could sit all night drinking in one of those godawful Indian restaurants on 6th. (I like godawful Indian food, but that's the kind they serve.)
Ten million people and not a goddamn bar. I can't believe it.
Yeah, the problem is that the real estate values in midtown and downtown Manhattan are so high that it's completely uninhabitable.
People who don't like strippers could sit facing the other direction.
There are a couple of nice places a hop, skip, and a jump across the East River...
Applebee's has good wings. And great happy hour specials. And convenient locations all over Manhattan. And it meets all your other criteria, too. You people are snobs.
There's a first-hand report on the state of Mormonism in France on "Knowledge is Power". Not trying to ruin your thread ot anything.
This may be a stupid question, but I'm genuinely curious.
When you regular types show up at these meetups do you all stay "in character" as far as pseudonyms go?
Some posters here seem to have enough invested in their anonymity that I'd think they might be worried that meetup people might slip up at some future date in the comments.
Some do, some don't. I am incapable of asking adult human beings to refer to me as LizardBreath in person -- Ogged, on the other hand, showed up in NY a year or so ago and firmly remained Ogged. (I'm guessing that the leather mask he wore to the meetup was for other reasons than maintaining his anonymity.) But I'm much more anonymous to search engines than I am to people; anyone who really wanted to out me wouldn't have much trouble.
I am incapable of remembering most people's real names, even after having been reminded three or four times. (Sorry again, washerdreyer!)
At UnfoggeDCon, I got called Russ and Apo in roughly equal amounts.
How do people pronounce Apo? In my head, it's Eh-poe, but I suppose App-oh is just as likely.
I always go by "John Emerson", because anonymity is important to me.
I say Eh-poe.
Staying "in character" is kinda ridiculous. I've actually become real friends with internet people, so it's silly to withhold my info from them. In fact, I find it odd when my internet life starts to crowd in on my "real" life, in that people I know from school who read my blog ask me about "Toby" and "Max," even though these are guys they've met and hung out with under their real names.
How do people pronounce Apo?
Sek-see.
I've always heard it as sounding like "app-o", but then I didn't come up with the shortened version. So you can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay...
92: I'm glad you asked, I was curious too. I'd sort of prefer to remain anonymous-ish, but I don't think I could bear to hear people say "cerebrocrat" out loud.
I suggested Pinetree only because it (just barely) meets the criteria, and it's one of very few bars in midtown I've been to. I agree the theme business is a bit much, but like LB, I greatly prefer a quiet bar, which it has been on my previous visits. I can stop by after work tomorrow and ask about how Wednesday nights tend to be, if it remains a serious contender.
Having said all that, I actually have no idea if I'll be attending.
102: If you show up, and want to stay anonymous but retain a vestige of dignity (and really, why?) "I'm Bill, I comment as cerebrocrat" works fine. It's not like anyone's going to track down a first name.
I didn't mean to sound judgmental about remaining pseudonymous, cerebrocrat. If you choose to, I certainly wouldn't "object" or anything like that. I just feel especially comfortable with that crowd, but, given my circumstances, I'm more concerned about the wrong people in my professional life knowing about my blog than about the other way around.
I actually agree with 99, but I've had the scare put in me pretty thoroughly about the dangers of the "blogging" on the internets while being a hoping-to-be-tenured-someday academic.
Like LB, I really can't bring myself to expect people to call me "bitch" in real life, although I have occasionally, when it was clear that they had no clue who I was, introduced myself by name and then after a pause explained who I "really" am.
Generallly speaking, I figure that people understand the distinction between online and offline identities, and that anyone I'm meeting in person has enough brains to maintain the fiction of my anonymity online. So far I haven't been disappointed.
I really can't bring myself to expect people to call me "bitch" in real life
Snort.
It's not like anyone's going to track down a first name.
This is not legal advice.
So far I haven't been disappointed.
And hopefully it will remain so, Ms. Paglia.
Okay, someone could track you down. True. I am not your person to go to for successful anonymity.
107: Shut up, you.
109: Honestly, I think I'd have to just kill myself.
I have occasionally, when it was clear that they had no clue who I was, introduced myself by name and then after a pause explained who I "really" am.
Yeah, you had to do that with me at UnfoggeDCon. This was largely due to my tendency to create mental pictures of people that is entirely different from their actual appearance.
Don't damage any vital organs which might be used to keep fat men from being pushed under trolleys.
I have friends in the dirty hippie community who use alternative names as a matter of course. It's not for anonymity purposes.
Point being that given a pronounceable enough name, it doesn't feel like a pseudonym. It works.
Russ (who?) for example, is easily Eh-poe with no stretch of the imagination.
I haven't read the rest of the thread, but before I do and my heart sinks with the realization that we're taking a tourist to east Midtown, I stopped by L'Angolo tonight, and I can report that it is quiet on Wednesdays and there are big couch areas, both of which were unoccupied when I was there, which could fit easily fit 10 people around, 12-14 with squishing, and with rearrangement of the couches to make a bigger couch area, as many as we wanted. The serve food, Italian, and it's cheap. The one disadvantage I can see is that it's awfully dark, because it's sort of a makeout bar.
Also, it was around 8:30 when I stopped by. Presumably it would be even less crowded whenever the meetup started, giving the Unfoggers an opportunity to stake claims to large areas and rearrange seating as needed.
Staying "in character" is kinda ridiculous.
Interesting. I keep using people's pseudonyms even in extensive off-blog communications where I know their real names, and do the same when I'm talking about them. I only use their real names occasionally as a punchline. This brain isn't big enough for two names per person.
That probably is better for everyone -- subway service-wise certainly.
117: Weren't you the one who mocked me for putting "Ogged" into my cell phone rather than your real name?
And yes, I know I'm violating blah blah blah, but it's relevant.
What I mock you for bears no relation to what I believe, Camille.
But in fact you bring up a good point: I always put people's real names in my cell phone. Huh. I guess cell phones are pretty serious business.
I could go either way with the pseud thing. Depends on whether the handle makes sense as a name.
Is it that you think phone numbers are part of a hierarchy of intimacy that requires real names first? Like, if I gave you my phone number and not my real name, you'd be like, "Eh, not worth it"?
121: I am shocked and disappointed.
122: Maybe it has to do with the potential for someone else to access your cell phone address book.
I'm trying to figure that out. I've put in people's numbers with the pseudonyms when I didn't have their real names...gotta make dinner real quick...back with blinding insights soon...
Here are some other possibilities I found on citysearch if people are turned off by darkness (it is really dark). I haven't been to these places, but would be willing to scope, ask the bartender what they're like on Wednesday nights. Cuz the thing is, lets be honest, there are lots of places to go on a Wednesday, we just don't know where they are because we are evidently not the kind of people who know where all the bars are, and picking a bar in East Midtown just feels like I'm surrendering into being the kind of person who doesn't know where the bars are, instead of pulling herself up by her bootstraps and bettering her situation.
Metrocafe and Wine Bar apparently has a mezzanine that can seat 40. I'll bet that mezzanine would be open for staking early on a Wednesday.
Common Ground looks nice, although according to ity Search Wednesday is trivia night; we could check to make sure that's the case; sometimes City Search gets that stuff wrong and maybe it's nothing to worry about.
Ok, I think I've got it: it's the everything gets to be in just one category, and the phone is in the real world category, so it feels strange to put blog names in it. The best example is Unf, who I have a lot of trouble calling Unf even when I'm talking about him with blog people--I generally revert to his real name (first name only, I haven't him yet).
131.--I'm not sure about that. Bar trivia quizzes usually have strict injunctions against using the internet.
If they were heterosexual I think that B. and Ogged would make a good, normal, miserable couple.
I think these seem like our kind of people.
OMG! What if I want to hang out with some of those not-lesbians or w-lfs-n-wig-wearers?
138 to 137, obviously.
Also, I actually seldom disagree with Mr. B.
Well, at least you know your place.
That plus he's a reasonable man, despite being an immigrant.
Hey, look at one of the ingredients on the first cocktail at Common Ground! I think it's a sign.
Almost all of those cocktails look like utter shit.
Good thing ben's not coming to this meetup.
The description of this bar contains an interesting use of "a priori".
NYMag is obsessed with Death and Co., but I haven't tried it yet.
Sorta OT: tonight I met Clownæ, an amiable chap I must say. Thanks for coming out!
We should have a meetup here sometime.
Pffft. w-lfs-n college. Your choice, Oxford or Cambridge.
If we want to cross the pond, sure.
w-lfs-n aims to provide a supportive environment in which students can focus on their academic work and pursue other interests.
You're all heart.
We should have a meetup here sometime.
The w-lfs-nian is -arguably- one of the only two world-class art institution Miami has. The food and drink there is highly recommended, although not quite the "Miami" experience you'd expect.
(Mickey w-lfs-n himself is the other. An odd but truly nice man.)
re: 151
Clearly Oxford is the way to go ...
Nah. Cambridge. Much easier to get to from here.
By the website, w-lfs-n seems to be a place for wogs to hook up with blondes. It's probably Oxford's traditional ghetto college for the talented riffraff of empire.
I kind of like being "al" IRL, though it doesn't come up often. I was wanting to wear my alameida nameplate the other day, but then I realized that anyone curious about it would end up at unfogged in short order, which would be WRONG. crazy, running-away-napolean dynamite-style guy is talking to me again, unfortunately, and just generally creeping me out. I told husband x he should be the prime suspect in my mysterious disappearance. seriously seems like the kind of person who would snap. I am home sick in bed with serious asthma, which I used as a perfectly reasonable excuse not to go have coffee with him, and he very insistently offered to come over to my house and share the magic of AA with me while I'm in my actual sickbed. he's got the peculiar, total inability to understand appropriate social mores that characterizes the crazy person. also, I think you should listen to Tia and go to L'Angolo. sounds nice. I'm jealous, too; hi Tia.
117: I'm with you, I don't want to waste neurons keeping track of different names for different venues and it prevents outings by mistake. I make exceptions for some people after I've known them in "real life" for a decade or two.
Jesus, Ala, you go to the safest police state in the world and what do you find?
crazy dutch stalkers, apparently. also s33krit agent x has clearly got it bad because the other day he asked me what kind of perfume I wore, as he particularly liked how it remains in his car after he's given me a ride home from the meeting, and reminded him of narcissus. this is really not the type of thing you think much about otherwise. I should probably hang out with him less but he's cute and fun, in an insane "I'm off to a workshop on money laundering techniques in north thailand" way.
Hey Truman Sparks was pretty seriously great, although there were problems with the venue's sound system. Also a pretty wild opening act (Shinytown, on tour from Omaha -- think Bauhaus in orange jumpsuits, with "Shinytown" written on the back in spangles) and an abysmally bad second act which made a good excuse to go outside for a smoke break and chat with Stanley and his bassist. I would totally go to L'Angolo for a bit of early bibation -- it is convenient enough to the Knitting Factory that I could hang out till 7 or so.
Solas on 9th b. 1st/2nd has an upstairs room which I believe is available on off nights. Though L'Angolo is fine, or that place with Welcome Back Kotter night. and board games!
If there is ever a Pgh meetup, it should be at Ray's Marlin Beach Grill. If being not-crowded is so dang important, that is.
Beach? Where do you go in Pittsburgh for a beach? (A river beach, at the confluence of the Allegheny and the mighty Monogahela? It's very inconvenient having family in Pittsburgh, because since childhood I've been compelled to repeat the confluence of the A.a.t.m.M whenever the subject of Pittsburgh comes up, and now it comes up more often. I suppose I could get over the compulsion, but it doesn't seem to be happening of its own accord.)
Actually, this website makes it sound a lot less cool than it was three years ago. Perhaps there is no appropriate place to have a meetup.
The words "Marlin" and "Beach" are really just there to remind you what the décor is going to be like.
My choice of bars is pretty much entirely dictated by the size of its beer selection, which may not be everybody's priority. Second priority is whether the place is chockablock with douchebags, but that factor can be overcome if the beer selection is interesting enough.
chockablock with douchebags
constructions like this are among the reasons I love reading the internets.
chockablock-with-douchebagism can be a real problem with midtown bars, from what I've observed. The only one besides Pine Tree I ever go to is the Waterfront Ale House, which has the beer-selection advantage. There are some douchebags there, but they're often the douchebags I work with, so I'm desensitized.
In Pittsburgh, just eliminating all the CBDB bars from consideration leaves you with slim pickings (or none at all) on the South Side, Oakland, and Shadyside. The more quiet and comfortable bars are in areas that are known mostly as residential areas (this may be true of every other city in world history, what do I know).
Say, as long as it's just you and me here, what's Pittsburgh like as a place to live? A friend of mine has a line on a possible job there, and we were both kind of scratching our heads, knowing not a thing about Pittsburgh as a city, lifestylewise.
I think maybe Tia's right about L'Angolo--cheap food? check. big couches? check. Plus if it's dark enough, it'll be just like commenting. We can follow each remark with our pseudonym.
Re. 163 -- I was not getting any relevant Google hits for "Shinytown" because the Nebraskan band's name is Shinyville.
Man, I should have reread the thread -- I thought you said. But Clownæ was going to be there early, right?
Hey, Tia, what's the cross-street? (Or general area, at least; the bar's website is straight useless.)
I'll try to get there sixish--I have to meet Clownae.
175 -- Yes. 178 -- Looking forward to it. 174 -- Aw rats.
I'll be there! Not sure what time yet.
We also never got to celebrate Scott Lemieux's birthday, and I humbly suggest we sing him a song if he comes.
Any song in particular?
One that mentions birthdays. Can you think of one we can get the rights to?
Well there's that Beatles tune but I think Michael Jackson owns it. "Happy Birthday Baby, You Sure Did Treat Me Right" might be out of copyright.
Aw fuck, no that's a "Merry Christmas" tune. Sorry...
But as regards the second update, I am finding the assertion that there are "directions at the link" troubling. The linked page does contain the word "directions", granted; but that's about the extent of it. Anyone who needs help getting to 108 W. Houston St. should probably speak up here so it can be explained to them.
Perhaps you could just explain how to get there in advance so anyone who happens upon this thread will know.
Get out on the orange line at Broadway-Lafayette and walk west.
Or take the 1 to Houston and walk east.
Speaking of bunnies, the Offspring was gifted with one for his birthday. It is, unlike mcmc's, not enraged. In homage to the bunny, I put bunny peeps on the Kid's b'day cake. [Should you ever be asked to make a Red Velvet Cake, do not use the NYT's recipe. The thing came out grease-laden, the texture of an auto shop towel; I tossed it and made a different recipe.]
This has nothing to do with meeting up, unless someone wants to come to LA to see a laid-back bunny.
Waterfront Ale House
An underrated establishment; I haven't been there in a while, but still have memories of watching Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS there. Plus, like taking people from out of town to a place that's on 30th and 2nd and is called "The Waterfront."
My neighbors downstairs have a pet rabbit by the name of Mr. Peaches. He's great. He likes to sit perfectly still until you've forgotten him, then leap into the air causing you to spill your drink. Okay, maybe it's not that great of a party trick, but he's a rabbit, for god's sake.
Years ago, I had friends who owned a large black cat and a large white rabbit. They used to lope around the house, following each other. As many folk in that era were chemically enhanced, parties were interesting - newcomers who didn't know about the beasts often thought they were experiencing an Alice in Wonderland moment.
I'll be there! Not sure what time, though.
'Smasher and I considered making rabbit for Easter dinner. I think we've moved on but I highly recommend that someone else take this idea and run with it, especially if they have small, easily emotionally-scarred children.
Rabbit is tasty, and cooked whole remarkably disturbing looking.
Cooked whole? you mean with the head? and the ears? gaah!
There are now two non-chain supermarkets in my area that are specializing in produce and meat for the many different immigrant communities who live around here. The available cuts of meat—whole rabbits, sheep heads looking back at you, pig heads—are an education.
Not the ears or the head, but a whole rabbit carcass stretched out in a roasting pan is a suprisingly skinny-biped looking thing.
cooked whole remarkably disturbing looking.
As Alex Forrest established. Was one of your college boyfriends the screenwriter for Fatal Attraction?
Well, maybe not exactly a boyfriend, but I wasn't going to be ignored.
I have a recipe for rabbit (liè,vre, actually, which I think is "hare") that I've been wanting to try for years now. It calls for 3 bottles of red wine and a cup of blood, among other things, and takes about 10 hours to prepare. Some day!
I wasn't going to be ignored.
Yikes! At this juncture I am not sure whether to say "lucky guy" or counsel you as your lawyer to assume Presidential blog immunity. Or both.
They used to lope around the house, following each other.
For a short while as a teenager, I had a very docile persian cat and a rabbit, who also appeared to follow each other around the house. On closer inspection, the cat was actually fleeing the rabbit, who would take any opportunity for contact with the cat to, you know, do what rabbits do.
Harry the rabbit didn't last long, however, because I have never been more allergic to anything in my life, and I have no doubt that Stanley the cat was greatly relieved to see him go.
Say, as long as it's just you and me here, what's Pittsburgh like as a place to live? A friend of mine has a line on a possible job there, and we were both kind of scratching our heads, knowing not a thing about Pittsburgh as a city, lifestylewise.
I've never lived in another big city so it's hard to have a frame of reference, but it's been good for me as a place to live. There are distinctive neighborhoods with interesting stores; the cultural stuff is accessible and unpretentious, etc. As long as you don't expect to live in an apartment that was built in the last 40 years or has a parking lot. (well, there are some extremely expensive new apartments downtown and in the South Side, as part of Operation "Make Up For Having A Tax Base Consisting Entirely of Nonprofit Institutions By Trying To Get Rich People To Move From the Suburbs into the City").
Rootless cosmopolitan Matt Weiner might have more constructive contributions.
We had a rabbit that herded with the goats. But our fearsome cat stalked it.
The only time I had rabbit at a restaurant, it was tough.
Very impressed with Bourdain's visit to the market in Paris last season, where he showed the amount of game available. Where do you buy that kind of thing in NYC? I know it appears on the menus sometimes, and possibly the individual restauranteur needs a private source.
I don't know about New York but here in Oxford there's no problem getting game -- rabbit, pigeon, hare, guinnea fowl, pheasant, partridge, various kinds of venison, etc.
It's not even that expensive -- someone on a student budget could afford to eat it now and again without breaking the bank.
I assume there are proper butchers in new york that get it? Or at least get the stuff that's native to the US.
here in Oxford there's no problem getting game -- rabbit, pigeon, hare, guinnea fowl, pheasant, partridge, various kinds of venison, etc.
That sounds absolutely bizarre to me. Who is the intended consumer?
There are retail butchers in NYC that stock game -- the only one that comes to mind is the place on Bleeker between 6th and 7th but I'm sure there are others -- and wholesale meat purveyors carry game.
re: 208
People who want to eat it? It seems to sell well. Some of it probably goes to college kitchens or restaurants, some of it to posh people or country people used to eating game, and some to other people who just like it.
It is after all healthy organic/free-range meat, low in fat and quite rich and tasty if properly cooked.
I don't buy it that often but I've bought pheasant a couple of times in the last year, and rabbit and venison a few times.
There are some, but I think buying game is less mainstream here than it sounds like it is in the UK. People I know who eat venison shoot it themselves, or get it from people who do -- I can't think of anyone I know who buys game often.
There's a company---d'Artagnon, I think---that specialises in packaging game-type food for the NYC market: rabbit, poussin, duck, pheasant. It might be those people who also package boar and deer, which I've seen for not too expensive at Fairway (the city's big foodie grocery chain). At some point I'm totally up for trying to cook some deer.
re: 213
I never bought game in Glasgow, but that was only because I wasn't as into meat-based cooking at the time. I don't think game was that widely consumed there apart from a bit of rabbit or venison.
We did have rabbit occasionally growing up (before we went vegan) as our neighbours used to poach.
Supermarkets here sell venison burgers, for that matter.
"I have a recipe for rabbit (liè,vre, actually, which I think is "hare") that I've been wanting to try for years now. It calls for 3 bottles of red wine and a cup of blood, among other things, and takes about 10 hours to prepare. Some day!"
You are going to have to give me more than 3 bottles of wine to get a cup of blood.
wtf at the price of rabbit on that website. That's insane.
I think we pay about 2 or 3 quid for a rabbit here. Pheasant is about the same price as decent chicken.
Guinea fowl isn't really game -- it's been domesticated for centuries. Likewise pigeons. Squabs are delicious but high-fat.
"Wild meat" is a serious environmental problem. Turn down the pangolin if offered.
194: Heh, when we were kids in 4H my sister and I rasied rabbits. And yes, we did have rabbit for Easter at least once.
A cup of blood is easy to get if you butcher the rabbit yourself, since you bleed it.
Game is pretty good, ime. I just realized yesterday that there's a wild game & steakhouse restaurant on the other side of town and made a mental note that we have to go there soon.
In the US wild boar and wild bear are your only sources of trichinosis any more, if you're thinking of getting trichinosis.
re: 201
Hare is a bit more expensive. They are a little under 10 GBP each. I've never cooked one but I've heard it's hard work and there's not a huge amount of meat on them.
219: It's really unusual, is the thing, so prices are high. Americans hardly eat lamb, for heaven's sake -- meat is beef pork or chicken, and that's about it.
re: 225
To be honest, for most British people it's the same unless you live in a rural area or somewhere with good butchers where other stuff is more widely available.
Supermarkets here do tend to sell duck and venison though, so that's fairly widespread.
The choice of seafood is generally very good here, though, compared to say Prague which is the only non-British place where I've done a lot of food shopping.
That's also the price list for Citarella. Not known for being reasonably priced.
Even if you live in a rural area in the US, cooking and eating the indigenous fauna is generally associated with two groups of people:
A) people whose main hobby is hunting and who go out and kill the deer or turkey themselves
B) stereotyped rural poor "white trash" people, eating squirrels or gophers or muskrats.
And in both of those cases, it's assumed that it was killed by the person who's eating it, or one of his friends or relatives. You just don't see non-domesticated meat in the grocery stores, aside from extremely limited niches in extremely high-end stores, which are of course usually in the city.
John McPhee wrote a fabulous article about a guy who loved road kill.
Rabbit is not particularly expensive at Greek butchers in Astoria, though it is not always available either, and is frequently frozen. I expect without any knowledge that some of the latin american live poultry merchants in Long Island City and thereabouts carry rabbit and/or cuy.
Hrm. The ones in Inwood don't seem to. (If avian flu hits, my neighborhood will be devastated.)
Wild game and fish are still part of the gift economy around here. There probably are people who hunt and fish for economic reasons, but even they swap stuff around. There's no better gift than fresh-caught fish.
Someone fishing for food around here would fish for carp, of course, which grows bigger than any of the game fish.
Suburban Americans had better learn to eat deer.
Don't forget Irish babies!
I don't understand why there aren't programs set up in the suburban east coast to allow the wholesale commercial slaughter of deer for meat -- they're an incredible pest, but the human population is too dense to safely allow either amateur hunting or the introduction of some kind of effective predator to keep the population down.
But thinking this is obvious probably makes me a weirdo.
But thinking this is obvious probably makes me a weirdo.
No, not really. My sister had a great idea for turning suburban golf courses into night-time deer hunting ranges. There might be some zoning and liability issues.
The real problem is the sentimental citizens. I've forgotten which city proposed euthanizing feral cats, but the officials involved got death threats and ended up retracting their proposal and pleading forgiveness. I don't imagine anyone considers deer enough of a pressing civic threat to invite that kind of reaction.
Just let the deer eat some suburbianites expensive plants and they will be ready to start shooting.
I dunno -- I hear 'rats with hooves' pretty often from suburbanites. And they spread Lyme disease. The sentimentalists are a powerful force, but there's a lot of anti-deer sentiment. The idea of amateurs with high powered rifles in dense suburbs terrifies me, though -- I like the idea of keeping it professional.
Susan Fleder's Thinking Like a Mountain has a remarkable series of chapters about Aldo Leopold's misfortune to be advocating a doe season in the year Bambi came out.
Stands with Beyond the Hundredth Meridian as an object lesson in the likely fate of the visionary intellectual, who actually knows something, in American life.
Weren't there similar reactions to those against the cat-euthanizing program (in sentiment if not letter-writing vigor) among people who had never been to Athens about whatever it is they did to the stray dogs before the Olympics?
My sister had a year in college where she was so broke that she and some hunter friends ate venison for months on end.
LB's idea wouldn't fly on the coasts, because blue-state suburbanites who have lost expensive plants to deer still get all squidgy when it comes to having a contract put out on their heads.
There was a posh suburb of Austin that did implement LB's plan several years back, and the only debate about it was what gauge to use.
Once again, L'Agnolo is at 108 W. Houston; the cross-street is Thompson, and people should be getting there sometime around 6 -- I probably won't get there until nearer 7.
Great to see everybody I saw, lousy to miss those I missed. Generally exhilarating.