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New Age Mozz Stops Complaining about the West Coast

If you tire of detail, intricate narrative, or fascinating anecdotes easily, I recommend against eating amongst the anthropologists. However I find them to be the best of company, and hearken back to the cultural universality of manioc root on a weekly basis. This past week saw the divine summit of all things anthropological in San Francisco at the AAA conference, and your humble Mozzadrella was fortunate enough to attend.

I actually hadn’t been to the Bay Area—brace yourself for the geek quotient here—since high school, when I went to a Model United Nations conference in Berkeley, and THEN summer economics camp in Palo Alto. It’s a miracle I manage to dress myself, even though my style these days screams “professional kickball player.” At least that’s what the burlesque “ladies” at Aunt Charlie’s Lounge told me.

Though I really didn’t stray from the “Tenderloin” area where the conference was being held, the food impressed so much I will no longer vow to set all of California alight. I had been dreaming of Salt House, an industrial/rustic-chic haunt, and its braised short rib for three days. Though the cavernous interior amplified sound—we could barely converse with the people next to us—I had the most delicious cocktail I’d ever sampled. The “New London” features cold Hendrick’s Gin with a kaffir lime-ginger syrup, and a chili-cardamom salted rim. I swooned. I exalted. I had two.

I admired the sweet delicate quality of the roast beet salad, but the braised short rib with mustard crust sent me reeling. As you raised your fork to it, the meat fell apart like a warm savory bloom. As it was served atop brussels sprouts and fennel, my appetite waived away all sense of reason or discretion. In that moment I began to see the reasoning behind elastic pants.

After I recruited Tiny and Mark, I insisted upon Vietnamese food whilst in Pacific time. We went to Mangosteen, also in the Tenderloin area, where the quail was served table-side, flambé-style, the skin snapping with searing crispness. All of our fresh rolls were delicious, and will the Pho was a tad waxy, and the décor a little 7-Eleven, I’ll be thinking about that quail in the months to come.

I still find San Francisco strange—the constant smiling from strangers made me wonder if I was suffering from early-onset dementia—I did take squealing happiness in the Ice Cream Parlor/Laundromat down the way from our hotel. Genius!

Borre Saethre, PS1

Mozz feels a little Wilted today, misses home

Indulge me a little concrete-clover love!

Upcoming events: Mozz's little sister is coming to visit! I am taking her to Sunset Park for Dim Sum, will drag her to Queens to see PS1, take her to the coop and have her help me carry bulk items home, and take her to Styleklash to benefit Harriet's Alter Ego. Anything else anyone can think of that's sister-suitable?

Pre-PreFab, or the Modness of Tommy Edison

Thomas Edison is a rock star. Literally: the man created incandescent light. Voices can boom and resonate thanks to the microphone. Global financial markets expand and contract on his tickers. The man held 1,093 patents (true, his factory sucked fresh ideas out of young idealists, but still).

I was unaware until recently of one of Edison's most prescient ideas--in 1906 he conceived of one of the first mass-produced domicile solutions. The dream of affordable housing, according to Edison, could be made manifest in concrete molded residences.





"His system involved the use of elaborate forms and machinery for pouring a one, two, or even three-story house in a single operation, and offered concrete built-ins such as a bathtub. Sectional cast iron forms bolted together were to be assembled on the foundation walls to the height of the house, ending in a centrally located funnel into which the concrete was poured."

The first single-pour concrete house was built on Hixon Street in South Orange, New Jersey (I guess J gets a little more love). Turns out that the cast iron mold for the house was ungainly and unwieldy, so only 11 were ever built.

What makes a movie a "Movie Event"?

Just curious if anyone could suss out the difference. Lifetime seems to have way more "events" than movies, which would make it quite the service.

Alex Guarnaschelli ousts Giada as My Number 1

She's sharp. She's deadpan. Her last name ends in "elli."

Giada who?


"LM: If you were going to be known for any one thing how would you want people to remember you?"

"AG: That I make great soup always. I make a split pea soup with fried bacon and fresh peas in it that I really love. I also make a great clam chowder. It takes five days to make, but it's worth it. I think soup is a good barometer of chefs. It's beyond upsetting when you have a crappy soup. You can have the best steak in the world and the best cherry jubilee afterwards, but the feeling of being let down by a watery, crappy soup never leaves you."

A Higher Cause I'm On Board With

I give you, Sister Noella Marcellino, the Cheese Nun:

Back in Black: ‘Drella hits the Ground, Ponders a Leather Jacket

I am clicking-my-heels-happy to be back in Brooklyn. And while it’s taken me some time to arrange my furniture and purchase plants, I’ve slated a full fall syllabus of activities. Mozzadrella swoons with aplomb!

I turned 26 on Thursday, walked down to the Brooklyn Bridge to see the waterfalls, and tried fruitlessly to find an electric blue blazer. On recommendation from my pal J’Wep, I also visited the East Village Cheese Shop on 3rd Ave., near 10th Street. I thought him a mendacious yutz when he spoke of Jarlsberg for $5/lb. That’s a cock-and-bull fiction.

“Look for the butcher paper in front,” he said, “with unreal prices. I promise it’s there.”



Interesting.

As it turns out, cheap imported Swiss cheese is not just the stuff of daydreams—in addition to bargain brie, muenster, and feta pre-cut in the cooling case. The wheel selection at East Village is not for the haughty curdspert; these are pretty standard middle-drawer items: President, St. Andre, Fromager d'Affinois. And since there’s a no-tasting rule at East Village Cheese, it’s fitting that you basically know what you are going to get.



There were a few surprises, though, like Moriber, which is a French cheese with a thin tasteless band of ash horizontally bisecting the wheel, traditionally separating the “morning milk” from the “evening” milk. Now it’s purely decorative. Which I appreciate.

The bevy of soy cheeses was mysterious, perhaps because I find soy cheese puzzling in general. (I’ve never been comfortable with soy—it’s just too creepily versatile). In particular, the soy blue cheese struck me as too common in color to play-doh to take a chance on.



Speaking of chances, would it be just too stale for me to get a leather jacket? What if it was green instead of black?

Mozzarella, an Unlikely Star, Opens in Midtown

I can't WAIT to go here next week!

"OBIKÀ is how Neapolitans say 'here it is.'

Obikà will open on Sept. 22 in the sculpture garden of 590 Madison Avenue, the former I.B.M. building.


'It’s about time,' New Yorkers might respond.

After more than a year of construction and red tape, the latest installment of Obikà, which opened its first mozzarella bar in Rome four years ago, will open on Sept. 22 in the sculpture garden of 590 Madison Avenue, the former I.B.M. building, between 56th and 57th Streets.