moss

5/25/10

Fantasy & Science Fiction

I got an issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction in the mail the other day. In this Internet era it's nice to get something more than junk mail in your home mailbox, especially when it's unexpected. Ok, wasn't entirely unexpected: I asked for a review copy, but I'd forgotten about it. So, like a friend whom you've invited over for dinner, but forgot to write down the date, I was happy but surprised to see the manila envelope waiting for me on the front porch.

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and I have a long history. In high school my friend Stuart Pope introduced me to it via Robert Silverberg's "Lord Valentine's Castle," which was being serialized in F&SF before it was released as a book. By my Junior year I'd already read the Lord of the Rings trilogy and also the Lord Foul's Bane trilogy, which was was popular at the time and also ran in the vein of dwarves, elves and rings. But I didn't consider myself a "fantasy" fan, siding more with sci-fi writers like Philip Dick, Arthur Clarke, and John Brunner. Likewise, most of the short stories I'd read came in single-author collections. In F&SF I found a magazine that successfully merged fantasy, horror, and a certain style of science fiction into a single volume. I had to have more.

The same summer I discovered F&SF we spent several weeks at my family's rustic cabin in the woods near Port Orford on the Oregon coast. Since then I've made it a habit of picking up new and old issues of the magazine for reading by the lantern as the night fog rolls in from the beach, or in the mornings as the sun chases away the dew. Periodicals Paradise in NE Portland has a near critical mass of reading material, and so I'm performing a public service buying my back issues there, reducing the chance of a pulp explosion. I get about five issues from various decades. They all have a similar format: two or three novellas or "novelets", four or five short stories, some book reviews, a film review, maybe a serialization of a novel, and a couple cartoons. For years (30 years?) the cartoons were 100% Gahan Wilson, but more recently other contributors have squeezed in. In addition to the stories the magazine also ran the occasional contest organized around sci-fi books. I remember one contest asked people to contribute a book title with one letter added to make it funny. The winning entry was either "The Motel In God's Eye" or "Dog Androids Dream of Electric Sheep."

On the masthead it proclaims "61st Year of Publication." In that span of time quite a few writers have had amazing careers grow and flourish. I have an issue from December, 1958 that shows stories by P.G. Wodehouse, Algis Budrys, Isaac Asimov, Fritz Lieber, and Anthony Boucher on the cover. Not until you read the table of contents do you see that Ron Goulart and Walter Tevis are also contributors! By 1968 the "19th Anniversary All-Star Issue" mentions Goulart on the cover, along with Larry Niven, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Silverberg, Harlan Ellison, and the ever prolific Asimov. F&SF continues to showcase both well-known and up-and-coming authors. I have an issue from 2004 with stories by Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Sheckley and Paul Di Filippo (without F&SF I wouldn't have discovered what an inventive writer Di Filippo is).

A couple of years ago, as an experiment, I wanted to explore how science fiction has been affected by the events of September 11th, 2001 and the World Trade Centerdestruction. I decided to focus on short stories I found in F&SF, picking some issues from the late 90's, and then some post-2001. Although the sci-fi and fantasy realms deal with the end of the world nearly every day, I could tell some authors were deeply influenced by the shocking events of 9/11/01. One story by Joyce Carol Oates, set in a post-apocalyptic world where everything is just running down echoed the way I felt for most of the rest of that year. Likewise Robert Reed's story "The Majesty of Angels" from September, 2002 tells the story of a massive catastrophe on Earth, and the angels have come as flight attendants on a surreal jumbo jet to guide the victims on their trip. And, although I'm unable to find the issue, I'm sure I read the short story that the movie "Knowing" is based on it the pages of F&SF (trust me, the story was better than the movie).

F&SF isn't all heavy material, however. The current issue has a good mix of stories: a fantasy tale of a woman who put her life into her painting, a tongue in cheek story of the "real" Martian chronicles, a twisted vision of a toy train set gone bad, an alternative WWII story where the Nazis planned to release zombies as their ultimate weapon, and more. As I read through the issue I got wrapped up in the stories, each one a little vacation from daily life. A vacation, maybe in a cabin, in the woods at the coast, reading by lantern light as the night rolls in.

You can read more about The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction or subscribe at their web site www.sfsite.com/fsf/. Here's what other people are saying on the internet about the May-June 2010 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

This site has an index of all the past stories and authors, while this site has a nice archive of F&SF cover art.

5/20/10

Bobby Jindal - A dangerous flip

Image via Wikipedia

Here's Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal today, talking about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill:

We’ve got to be completely focused on defending this coast. The cost—the difference between keeping this oil out and having this oil in this wetlands, it literally could be life or death for many of these species...The day that we have all been fearing is upon us today," Bobby Jindal told reporters after a boat tour to the southernmost point of the Mississippi river estuary.

Here's the Fox news story of Bobby Jindal in June, 2006:

House Votes to End Offshore Oil Drilling Ban - The House vote was a huge victory for Pombo, two Louisiana lawmakers — Republican Bobby Jindal and Democrat Charlie Melancon — and Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa., who spearheaded the drive to lift the moratorium.

Here's a bit more from WikiPedia:
In 2006, Jindal sponsored the Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act (H.R. 4761), a bill to eliminate the moratorium on offshore oil and gas drilling over the U.S. outer continental shelf. A poll taken while the bill was being debated, showed that 73% of the U.S. public supported the measure. Jindal argues that 30-40% of oil reserves of the United States are near the Louisiana coast and increased drilling would reduce American dependence on foreign oil. This prompted the watchdog groups, Republicans for Environmental Protection as well as the nonpartisan League of Conservation Voters to rate him among the lowest in Congress in 2006

My opinion is that offshore drilling in depths greater than 500 feet should be banned world-wide.

5/6/10

Sandwich Review: Kenny & Zuke's -- A Jewish Delicatessen in Portland

It was Take Your Child to Work Day, so I decided to show my son one of the best things about having a day job: going out for lunch. I'd heard from my friend Matt that Kenny & Zuke's Deli was outstanding but he didn't elaborate, so my interest was piqued. Browsing the website was only slightly less cryptic: I had agreed to meet Matt for lunch, but there were two locations, Kenny & Zuke's SandwichWorks in NW Portland, and Kenny & Zuke's Deli on SW 10th & Stark. A couple emails cleared up the confusion-- we were to meet at the Deli -- but I lingered over the "Food Pics" section of the website. I could tell from the photos that someone was really enthusiastic over bialys, pastries, meatloaf sandwiches, Reubens, clubs, dogs and pastrami, pastrami, pastrami.

Not to break the tension but yes, I ordered a pastrami sandwich.

I can count my memorable experiences with "New York Style" delis on one hand. In the 80's I used to hang out at Rose's deli on NW 23rd, stuffing myself on their oversize cinnamon rolls. After the old Rose's closed Kornblatt's, which lacks the charm but has excellent Reubens, filled the niche. My most authentic experience was at Carnegie Deli on 7th Ave in New York. I was sightseeing lower Manhattan and randomly chose the spot based on a photo of the chocolate cream pie. Aside from the pie, the most memorable part of the meal is that it's the first time I paid $8 for a sandwich (this was when McDonald's still had a 59 cent hamburger). It felt extravagant to be in NYC and pay so much for a sandwich.

What's memorable about Kenny & Zuke's is their goal to be a Jewish deli in the traditional way. Jewish delis spun off from the German delis, distinctively providing kosher and comfort food to the wave of Eastern European Jews who immigrated to New York in the late 19th century. More than just a restaurant the deli was a convenience store, a neighborhood grocer, a place to go for sandwich meats and kosher foods. By 1930 the typical Jewish deli had become what everyone knew as a New York style deli.

This is exactly what can be found at Kenny & Zuke's: They make their own pickles, bagels, bialys, rye bread, and more. And did I mention the pastrami? The menu described the Pastrami on Rye thusly:

Cured 5 days, Smoked 10 hours, Steamed for 3 & Hand-sliced Just for You. Served with Pickle & Potato Salad or Cole Slaw. $11.75

So, a few minutes after noon my son and I met Matt for lunch. As mentioned I got the pastrami sandwich while Matt ordered a Deli Club (pastrami, turkey & swiss on toast), and my young protege ordered breakfast for the second time that day. The pastrami was exactly as advertised. Thick & roughly hand-sliced, but so tender it falls apart in your mouth, and without a lot of fat. The rye has tasty caraway seeds, just as it should. Other than bread and meat it had mustard, a side of potato salad, and a snappy pickle. Matt's sandwich reminded me of the B. Kliban book "Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head" (luckily he only consumed half of it, saving the rest for dinner). It also came with a pickle and a side of coleslaw that looked more like sauerkraut, but tasted somewhere in between.

The place has a surprising array of sodas and drinks. I ordered a Cock 'n Bull Ginger Beer because I couldn't pass up the chance to order aloud. Matt mentioned they also have the Mexican Coke, which is a different because it doesn't have any high fructose corn syrup -- just pure cane sugar.

On the way out I stopped to drool over the lox and pickles at the deli counter. When I visit Kenny & Zuke's again (and I will) I think I'll drop in at breakfast time for a bialy, or maybe check out the Fried Chicken Wednesdays (with "smashed potatoes"). The sandwiches were good, but Kenny & Zuke's also offers meat platters and pastrami by the pound, so I'm tempted to just buy the fixin's and build the masterpiece myself.

I was surprised to learn that the Jewish Deli is a dying breed, but one man has taken it as his mission to revive the deli. Writer David Sax published a book earlier this year called “Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye and the Heart of Jewish Delicatessen.” As mentioned in this article:

"In 1931 there were 2,000 delis in New York City, three-quarters of them kosher. Today, Sax says, his research turns up 25 Jewish delis in the city, two-thirds of which are kosher. A similar pattern has followed across North America, with city after city sounding the death knell for its last traditional deli. Sax guesses there are just a few hundred left worldwide, most of them in the United States."

Sitting, having lunch in downtown Portland at the corner window at Kenny & Zuke's, I can see the value of the deli. The dining room was busy but relaxed, the sun broke through the clouds. Next door is an old hotel that has been renovated to bring young travelers to stay in the heart of Portland. I felt a touch of nostalgia taking my son to lunch, thinking of lunches at diners with my dad or my grandfather. It was a way to enjoy the old, slow style of food and company while bringing the vitality of local foods and business into the twenty-first century.

Kenny & Zuke's Delicatessen
1038 SW Stark St
Portland, OR 97205
503.222.DELI (3354)
www.kennyandzukes.com

4/21/10

Sandwich Review: Pine State Biscuits

I've heard people claim their comfort food is sushi, or stir fry.

Unless it's congee or hum bao, I have to wonder whether they mean the same thing by 'comfort food.' Sure, it means the food you ate when you were a kid, but there's also a deeper biological drive for comfort. Our bodies are comforted by any food that adds extra calories, especially fat calories that provide quick energy to escape predators, or hunt for prey. Fat is comforting because historically it meant you would survive longer in the wilderness.

So, it's no wonder KFC released their Double Down: Two fried chicken breasts sandwiching two slices of bacon and two two slices of cheese. Including the "special sauce" it's essentially three kinds of fat between two pieces of deep fried chicken. A blatant attempt to short-circuit our instincts that borders on obscene.
I don't want to pick on just KFC -- all the fast food restaurants are eager to give you what you crave.

Sandwich	Calories	Cal. Fat	Grams fat	Mg sodium	Mg cholesterol
Double Down	540 cal.	290 cal.	32 g	1380 mg	145mg
Whopper	670 cal.	350 cal.	40 g	1020 mg	75 mg
Big Mac	540 cal.	260 cal.	29 g	1040 mg	75 mg

Using this calorie calculator you can see an average person should consume about 2000 to 2800 calories per day, which works out to 500 to 700 calories of fat. Any one of these sandwiches provides 50% of that amount, as well as giving you 30% to 50% of your sodium (sodium RDA is 1500, with an upper limit of 2300).

Fortunately there are local Portland restaurants that provide comfort without selling your stomach to the devil. I'd bet on Pine State Biscuits' flagship sandwich, the Reggie ($7), against the KFC's Double Down any day of the month. The Reggie is a piece of fried chicken with bacon and cheese in a flaky biscuit smothered with gravy. If you're going to eat the Reggie I suggest a good workout beforehand, or bring along a friend. I love this kind of stuff, but it's just too much for me to eat even one of these sandwiches -- just too much 'comfort'. I prefer the simple egg and bacon and cheese in a biscuit ($4.50), hold the gravy. That'll last me from breakfast until 1pm or later.

It's the early bird that gets the biscuit -- even at 8am there's a line. The small space makes seating a premium so if you live nearby, or it's nice enough to eat in nearby Sunnyside park, you might think about getting it to go. Also, the coffee is strong, and I like the variety of hot sauces. Both work well to perk up your body after the carbo/lipo load.

In addition to the sandwiches you can get Southern-style sides such as collard greens, fried green tomatoes and grits. They offer a shitake mushroom gravy if you want vegetarian fare, and the biscuits, at $1.50 each, are flaky and tasty. I see from their website they will also be at the Saturday Farmer's Market in the Park Blocks near PSU.

Pine State Biscuits
3640 SE Belmont Street
Portland, OR 97214
(503) 236-3346
Open 7 days a week, 7am - 2pm
www.pinestatebiscuits.com

4/14/10

Sandwich Review: An Xuyen ("Bun Me!")

"Something is happening here but you don't know what it is do you, Mr. Jones?" -- Bob Dylan

Five years ago on my on my first visit to An Xuyen bakery I felt like the Thin Man. I'd read an article about Vietnamese sandwiches called Bánh mì, and it mentioned a couple of restaurants in Portland to check out including An Xuyen. Instead of a restaurant, however, I found a place stacked with green and yellow pinwheel cakes, pink cookies, unrecognizable pastries and loaves and loaves of french bread. A very small girl peeked around the counter, smiled, and ran into the back room. On the wall was a hand lettered sign "Bánh mì" and a couple of options. Something was happening here, but I wasn't sure what it was. After a bit a Vietnamese woman showed up, and took my order. I got the sandwiches, warm in my hands, but there wasn't much space to sit so I headed for home to eat.

They were surprisingly good. The crunchiness of the carrots and daikon radish offset the thickness of the pork pate, while an unrecognizable sweet condiment tempered the raw jalapenos, and cilantro brightened up the whole sandwich.

The best feature, however, was the baguette. It's the closest I've found to an "average" French baguette in the US. Many artisan bakers try for a crisp crust on their baguettes, which is nice, but it doesn't work for sandwiches. The baguettes from An Xuyen have a lightly crunchy crust that gives way while the inside is fluffy, some say "butter air soft," but still provides substance.

It's a history lesson in itself explaining how a Vietnamese bakery in Portland can make such excellent sandwiches. It starts with Napoleon III establishing French control over Cochinchina (the southernmost part of modern Vietnam including Saigon) in 1867 and 1874, and continues though the Viet Nam war, the fall of Saigon, and the Vietnamese immigrants to the US, quite a few who filtered through Louisiana and the south. In the US, Bánh mì is sometimes called a "Saigon Sub", a "Vietnamese Sub," a "Vietnamese Po' boy" or a "Vietnamese Hoagie". I usually just call them Bánh mì ("Bun Me!") or Vietnamese Sandwiches. They are usually a combination of French and Vietnamese ingredients (Eurocentric baguettes, pâté and mayonnaise, mixed with Asian influences of cilantro, hot peppers, fish sauce and pickled carrots).

Five years later An Xuyen is a little different. The girl is older and she often works the register. The sign is more professional, and I think they offer more kinds of sandwiches. Bánh mì are small and cheap enough ($2.25 each) you can order a couple and eat immediately, or save some for lunch the next day -- they keep well. I tried to order one shredded pork, and one nem nuong (pate), but there was a communication problem and I might have switched the pork for the thit nguoi (combination). Just like in French pate, the meats undergo a series of transformations that make it hard to positively identify, which might make the food a bit challenging to some (if you like to ID your meat, go for the BBQ pork sandwich).

The quality I like best about An Xuyen is that the Bánh mì are just part of the bigger picture. You can tell it's a family business from the people who work there and they focus primarily on the bakery. The bread is perfect, but they also have a huge variety of interesting pastries and cakes. There are only a few tables for eating in, but the sandwiches are neatly wrapped and great for taking with you at lunchtime. I haven't been to Binh Minh, but An Xuyen is cheaper and higher quality than Best Baguette. Order the combo and you can also enjoy the French/Vietnamese fusion of ca phe su da.

An Xuyen Bakery Inc.
5345 S.E. Foster Rd.
Portland, OR 97206
Tel: 503 788 0866
Open 7-6 M-F. 7-3 Sunday
www.anxuyenbakery.com

4/9/10

Logorama

A commercial break, after the content from our sponsor...

But seriously folks, Logorama is an Academy Award winning short is made entirely of corporate logos. Is it product placement when the logo appears in a jungle of other logos?

imdb.com describes this movie simply as "Police chase an armed criminal in a version of Los Angeles comprised entirely of corporate logos." The auteurs spiel "Spectacular car chases, an intense hostage crisis, wild animals rampaging through the city... and even more in LOGORAMA !"

So, check out it.

Logorama from Marc Altshuler - Human Music on Vimeo.

3/30/10

Sandwich Review: Taqueria Los Gorditos

Furu ike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto -- Basho

This haiku by Basho is one of his "frog" poems. At least that's what I'm told. I can't read the Japanese, but I recognize the structure of a haiku, lines with syllables of 5 / 7 / 5. In addition to the beats, haiku also also has rules dictating kireji -- a cutting word that divides the poem -- and specific references to nature. Luckily for me this poem has been translated so I can choose an English version by Dorothy Britton and figure out what this 17th-century poet was thinking.

Listen! a frog
Jumping into the stillness
Of an ancient pond!

When translating the poem into English Britton had to make certain decisions: whether to adhere to the syllables, how to keep the elegant feeling of the poem without dragging it through a literal interpretation, and to mind whether the haiku reflects the voice of the original author. It feels like she did a good job, choosing "stillness" to pause the poem for example.

You might ask why bother with all the rules and structure? Why not just write the dang poem!?

One reason is because structure creates an artistic tension. The rules provide a framework for the art, but they also provide a challenge. When an author decides to write a haiku she accepts the rules (syllables, imagery, theme), but she also brings a palette of words, feelings and experiences ready to stretch the framework, creating a work unique to her own vision.

The same rules can be applied to food. Take a sandwich, for example. What is a sandwich? We could say it's anything between two slices of bread, but we'd be wrong. That leaves out huge swaths of perfectly sandwich-y food: gyros, hoagies, hot dogs, and falafel in pita for example. But I think it's essential that bread of some sort come into play in the making of a sandwich.

Which reminds me of an early memory of food "lost in translation." When I was a kid we used to drive across the country from Michigan to spend the summer in Oregon. On the way we'd pass through ~~Green River~~Rock Springs, Wyoming, which was just a notch in the rocky hillside. The town had what William Least-Heat Moon calls a "three calendar" cafe, and for a couple years we'd stop there and I'd order buttermilk pancakes. One year as we pulled into town everything looked different. Either they'd struck oil, or they were building a dam, but it was a minor boom town. The red hills were dotted with mobile homes and trailers for the workers. The cafe was still there, but it had been sold to a family from Detroit who turned it into a "soul food" restaurant. My entire world (for the day) was turned upside down. They no longer offered buttermilk pancakes. Still, we were hungry, and my parents needed a rest from driving. The town was still small enough that there weren't any other choices, so ordered a safe meal: the chicken sandwich.

When it arrived I was aghast: it didn't look like any chicken sandwich I'd ever seen. The plate held half of a roasted chicken sitting on a piece of white bread smothered in gravy.

Now, as an adult, I'm intrigued by this sandwich. It was probably an authentic BBQ chicken, and it may have been something really tasty. But as a kid that I was disgusted. The chicken had bones in it, which made it impossible to eat as a sandwich. And when I tried to pick up the bread it fell apart in the gravy. My understanding of a sandwich was something I could hold in my hands and gnaw on, not a floppy mess that needed a fork and spoon. I would have preferred a blob of peanut butter and jam without the bread over this.

So, for the sake of argument, I'll say that a sandwich has to have at least one piece of bread, and the bread supports the contents of the sandwich. The bread is key to the structure of the sandwich, forming the basic rule. In this case, the translation from "chicken sandwich" to the half chicken on white bread drowned in gravy fell within the realm of sandwich. Unfortunately my 10-year old brain had not yet learned to understand this context, and so I rejected it as a meal.

One would think that with age comes experience, but time and time again I've been surprised by new forms of sandwiches. A couple years ago I was at a Mexican restaurant and saw something on the menu that caught my eye: torta. A torta is basically the fillings for a burrito, but served on an oversize hamburger bun. Called a bolillo or birote the bread can be slightly crusty and is usually about 6 to 8 inches around. So, once more my idea of "sandwich" has been translated: a burrito relocated to a bready neighborhood.

So in my sandwich foodessey I figured I should include tortas, and what better place to try a torta than at a place called "the big fat one"? Los Gorditos restaurant at SE 12th & Division is from the same owners who run the burrito cart at SE 50th & Division. I've had their Super Stacy Burrito (recommended!) and their Garbage Burrito (meh...) so I had high hopes for the tortas. At $5 a sandwich the price is right, and they offer a range of meat and other fillings: Al pastor (spicy pork), pollo, carnitas, deshebrada, lengua, cabeza, encebellados, or chicharon. I went for the al pastor and a Sprite and grabbed a seat. It

arrived without any surprises: it looked pretty much as described on the menu. The bread was nicely toasted, so it added crunch to the bite, and I like that they don't put too much mayo on it. Watch out for the avocado, it wants to escape by shooting out the side. I've had better al pastor, but it was tasty enough, and I added some of the red hot sauce (they also have green hot sauce). One torta is a full meal, earning the name "los gorditos." For something amazing, however, I'd go for the Super Stacy burrito.

The translation from burrito to torta may be an ingenious innovation, but it doesn't work for me. In a burrito the beans provide enough carbs, and the tortilla suffices to hold it together. A torta bolillo is usually too floppy and tends to lose the fillings out the sides, ending up with half of it on your plate. Like the English translation of Basho, it's missing a few beats. Nevertheless, there are times when I get a craving for a torta.

In addition to burritos and tortas Los Gorditos advertises "Vegan or meat breakfast" and "soyrizo". Watch out for the parking lot, it's awkwardly placed so large cars might have to park around the corner. When I went it was "cash only," but they might accept debit cards now.

Taqueria Los Gorditos
1212 SE Division, Portland, OR
(503) 445-6289
7am - 9pm
7am - 3pm Sunday