#he loves Mexican food and rightly so

[sunshineandlyrics]

🇲🇽🌮🍺

"Now if yesterday's story time"

"And he gave me many beers"

🌮 Louis was seen by a fan's family member, at a taqueria in Los Cabos, Mexico on 18 19 January 2023 x

[whimsically-ominously-auspice]

Ive always liked Alex we always seemed to grow up together from NYC to Texas to Oklahoma he always seemed to be around

And he was usually pretty nice.

Even if he got on my nerve he always seemed to get me to like him, he's quite easy to talk to with a nice personality

So, he wanted pets and as long as he's not abusive to them then I told him he could. He, too was privileged to be asked what he wanted.

So in his next room he has fish, bunny, hamster, bathroom and a real bed and fluffy pillows.

He said "just a prison room and all the animals that can fit" and he asked for a pony. I was like dude no that's too much. Maybe a stuffed one.

In Jr high his dad was pretty abusive so he stayed at my goose often. I had bunk beds but he would fall asleep in the floor then climb up into his own bed. Or say "dad I'm cold" and shiver in the floor... And not get up. I learned to get up off the opposite end of the bed and turn on the light and tell him to open his eyes and shake his foot otherwise he would grab mu leg and try to fight me while he was asleep. Then i would pull him a blanket down and cover him he would ask me "who are you?"

Id tell him "im your friend from school"

Sometimes he would tell me he didnt go to school or say "school I miss that place" and/or ask if i kidnapped him

I learned to tell him i did kidnap him otherwise he would sleep walk all over and I would find him in the pagan's yard asleep or some other random place in the morning.

Cause in his mind he thought "if I'm not kidnapped I'm free to leave"

And he was but not while sleeping.

And so if i had to tell him he was kidnapped he would ask if he could eat. I learned to tell him, "in the morning" otherwise I would make food he wouldn't eat or he would sleep cook and I would hear him choking and coughing.

Usually we played 20 questions. Sometimes I pretended to be asleep and he would climb in my bed like a little kid "I said who are you?!?!?"

Eventually i learned to say "Sabrina, you're safe for tonight, all the doors and windows are closed and locked, you're free to sleep in the house right where you are" then he would snore deeply until morning.

Sometimes he just showed up at my door, looking like some kind of wreck. "I just need a place to sleep. I don't eat"

But I would make him food and he would eat like he hadn't in days.

Just one of them ruffian kids that wouldn't make you feel sorry for him, you just did.

Whenever I looked at him in Oklahoma somehow he just made me cry. I didn't even remember him and we rarely talked he lived at this party house I sometimes went to down the street from my grammas.

He went down to Lawton a lot. That's where a lot of us got our weed. They all said that was where he was from.

Lawton was a distribution center for Mexican red hair from what I heard. That was all I smoked. Sometimes we had yellow hair...

One time me and Steph drove him to OKC to catch a bus because the fare was cheaper and he didn't have a car. He went to Lawton to "check on stuff"

He wasn't always rich or a jerk.

He is just who he is

So he has a phone now so his live feed will be turned off

As it was explained they only have live feeds for their loved ones because they don't have a phone with internet. He has a Galaxy 9 Note. So its a lot bigger than the others and what he had before. He had requested a large phone and computer as well. And a desk and its in his other room

So some people like Jesse have the ability to tunnel and make new rooms and he has two concrete rooms and 2 bathroom areas. And the one in the new room has a privacy curtain as requested. So he can shit in the nude and not all the guys be looking.

Jesse's hands do not hurt, too much. And he's convinced they're love bites from his demon wife he found on the beach. So he's happier. Yes he did request such a woman. He's quieter as well.

Which I like.

The winds came and destroyed Nathaniel's outdoor cameras with extreme fury at the house. So that was interesting.

My air conditioner was on 60°F and I turned it up to 69° and it was better but it worked attentively better when I turned it up two degrees to 71° I tried various degrees up to 75° but 71° works best.

I also tried "dry mode" which removes humidity from the air which worked well until it began to rain then,it was miserable again.

So meddle with your air conditioner numbers until you feel the best coolest air flow.

And it's good to try it at night ... To find the absolute best.. If it works well when it's cool it will be working as best as possible when it's 105° real feel and it's less frustrating. You just know its the best you got even if it's not good enough

Right now with the rain and humidity it makes it more complicated so it's better right at dusk

Stay hydrated and peaceful.

I know I'm being kind to prisoners whom don't rightly deserve kindness but their punishments are harsh. And what kind of person am I if I'm just mean to everyone?

Well.. If you ask me... Well..

There's this philosophy that being great to people invokes guilt. The feeling they have wronged. Most especially while being punished. They realize they should have treated better when they had their freedom.

It only works while they're incarcerated. Once they obtain their freedom they're like a flesh eating bacteria and go back to their bullshit

So we are very aware of this. So while they are not mistreated and their accomodations are as they wished and some get better over time as it is earned.

They will stay there. I did make contingency for work release but I am told NHRA has not allowed them to be on The schedule which I do appreciate

Nd it is for the safety

Matt Hagan got 2 ten pound bowling balls.

The reason we have low pounds is because our guards -- heavy weights thrown at guards can be very damaging. So a guard can take a 10 pound bowling ball to the gut but not a 30 or 50.

Amd they're bowling balls at 10 or 15 pounds because they're harder to handle these don't have holes. So if they're practising throwing them then they get taken away.

So then when they have weights and they go outside they have to put them on the bed or opposite side of the door along the wall, be handcuffed through the food slot and then they have to stand in the middle of the room and do a count down breathing and stretching session and then they approach the door then they can be foot shackled and the prisoner connects it themself

So you have wrist handcuffs and feet then a chain from both so they can't swing their arms and hit others.

Once connected it needs a key to unlock but it shows trust and cooperation and it's a good exercise

They keep their exercise equipment if they connect their cuffs correct. Its almost impossible not to. And they get shown how.

The guard can do it but it's an attempt to allow independence and recognition of choices and self authority and to say "you got yourself in this situation, take responsibility"

The guard didn't do bad things to have to be there. The prisioner did. The last straw for them to be properly arrested was what they did.

We allowed them 12 years. And they all made "bets" aka promises and so on and so forth. And they failed at being civilized human beings..

Jesse James wrote with shit on the wall and then ate shit the first night.

That is an obvious failure.

Its what he always does tho. But he has to live in it and clean it because he chose to do that and no one is going in his cell

That's his room. There is times that guards will but normally it's not necessary and it won't happen.

Alex will to have help with his animals but that's a little different it's for the animals welfare. Its once per week.

Like for their trash they have to request trash receptacle. They can pick the size or have a large and small and they have to request trash bags. Then they fill and Tie It and show the guard or cameras and then they have to place it 2 foot from the door and then stand on their bed or at the opposite wall and spread 'em arrested style. Arms and legs spread, hands against the wall back to the door. For guard safety. Then the guard gets it and locks the door and let's them know by saying the equivalent of "okay" in the language of the day. If the prisoner doesn't respond, the guard knocks on the door.

Its their room. Their house. Someone is at the door.

Then they say thank you in the language of the day when they respond and remove from their position.

Otherwise they have to be shackled. So this is simpler and easier and allows trust and cooperation and human decency and also the reminder they're in prison.

But most trash is food and so most just put it all back on their tray when the guard comes to collect.

So there's an old fashioned slot so if they tray falls to the hall. There's a basket there that should catch the tray and trash.

If they throw the tray out to make a mess in the hall, the tray of their food is covered with a light non tight layer of saran wrap then shoved through the slot to make it fly and make a mess.

The loose layer of saran is to protect the food... But at the same time it's loose and the point is made. As Well as a mess.

And then betrer behavior occurs.

So it's obvious who is in control but sometimes they wanna try their hand. But I'm a very angry person so my prison personnel puts up with nothing.

They don't question or wonder. What is done to them, they do in return.

They have their rules of humanity but when prisoners go on the wind, the guards blow back.

So if they get hit, 3 guards hit the prisoner. Always. And then rights get taken away. And all kinds of shit happens.

So we try to prevent violence against each other because if a prison riot occurs, my guards will be out of jobs.

So everyone has their own rooms and their wishes and they can ask and get nearly anything

Matt for example got 10 pound weights because he had a large body mass of muscle. And so that is what he worked for and earned. So he gets a 10 pound. And we go up to 15 but Idk i guess he didn't ask for top weights.

But the point is also he can do weights all day long as opposed to just half a day. And he can max the muscles if done properly.

But someone with smaller muscle mass will get a lighter weight

Like I said to protect the guard but also to protect the user of the weightsm too heavy can cause damage.

Going to a smooth bowling ball is cumbersome as opposed to weights with handles which of course is why he didn't get the 15 lb. He needs 2 weeks or so on the lighter ball in case he dropps it on his head or something like that and there is great over the head exercise. So I'm not being dumb.. It could happen.

So we treat them like we would kids

Like with Alex... Some of them never have been. And so they need that.

I know if i was always abused and treated like shit and had one year to live as they do with COVID, id like to be treated humane. I'd like to be treated like i had a mom and dad out there that love me.

I'm an orphan and i have been abused and I'm a good person. But I have been to jail. Arrested for real as an adult. So.

I been there. Just for a little bit. It was for weed and telling a cop he sucked. Some felonies. I went to rehab with Alex and it's all off my record now.

So it wasn't a super bad thing.

But if it had been....

I care about me, and i put myself in some places i could be in. And I try to make them better.

Me? I don't like being touched so having the last part of the cuff system up to me to put on -- it says like 'you know, i dont really want to touch you either.'

Like its a little bit of space around me just being able to do one little clip. A little bit of extra room in a super scary situation, being a girl, alone. Anything could happen... But.. I clip it right I have some argument space like "you can't rape me. I'm a model prisioner. I always clip my cuffs right! I'll tell they will believe me! You'll lose your job!"

So it's a privilege. As well as the acceptance of responsibility. I'm not the guard. But i got me here and im gonna be kept here but I'm safe.

[toddlazarski]

Last Suppers Vol. 4

Shepherd Express

“And I try to wash my hands,

and I try to make amends,

and I try to count my friends...”

— Neil Young

I never realized how much white existed on a kitchen wall calendar until we flipped to last month. May 2020: like an endless sea of milk, spilt, all over ripening spring and coming summer and everything between now and the distant horizons sprawling in every direction. The Target-bought spiral-bound hope of organization and forward-thinking adulting now somehow resembles a hanging talisman of the old joke about how to make God laugh: “make a plan.” There it sits, sometimes taking on the sense of a mirror, the unsmudged kind, too well-lit, the Windex-ed type necessitating looking away, the seeking of distraction. And there it remains, post-dentist visit luminous, crisp, unfettered, yawning, as we’ve quieted the ceaseless streaking of Sharpie, the scribbling and jotting and plotting, the road signs of an appropriately lived, full life, like all of us were looking up at the professor, scrunching brows, nodding knowingly, doodling something in the margins to play at attention and appropriate labor. Something to look forward to is the key to happiness, an old adage of sorts, is a wise thing a smiling, knitting grandma would say from a rocking chair, indicating you should get moving, with the plan-cementing and the aspirations of nights out and days together. For now though it is but a march of indistinguishable blocks of vivid pale, a tiny number in the upper left corner of each that means approximately nothing. 

March 11th was a date, in hindsight, that stands out. A memorial-type night where, within the half hour it took to put a toddler to bed, the country froze and sought in vain for the Ctrl+Alt+Del keys on a foreign keyboard. The NBA season was suspended. Rudy Gobert was positive. Tom Hanks had it. An impossibly incongruous confluence: Forrest Gump and a tall French shot-blocker I target in every fantasy basketball draft existing together as the collective harbinger of societal doom. It felt like being in a movie, or the first episode of Leftovers, but the part that would pass as an emotional montage, and then move on. March 13th—Friday the 13th, but not soundtracked or jump-scaring, quiet, and directed by a Fincher or Polanski or Lars Von Trier—was where an unspoken contract was entered by sentient and capable-of-critical thought Americans, a day where laying low, taking it easy, became a gesture of care, an act of society. June 13th is a wedding we’ll attend this year. An idea, an event to schedule a haircut close to, a thing to cause ponder on the state of my black suit, something to look forward to that will have too many long-unseen friends and reunion fueled by an open bar. It was a wedding we would attend this year. It’s been moved to the fall. July 20th was once a road trip start date, years ago, the commitment steer-branded on my mind, I remember, because people would ask: “what are you doing this summer?” “When are you leaving?” “When will you be in New Orleans?” Everything else of the fruitful season seemed mere preamble, fun-enough filler before an apex, day-after-day of appetizer or salad, a mere whetting of appetite. A big day was coming, anticipation followed me like cartoon character stink lines. July 4th was a date I saw Tom Petty at Summerfest; June 28th was a date I saw Tom Petty at Summerfest; June 30th was a date I saw Tom Petty at Summerfest. These were constellations, a solid reading of the charts, the blipping beacon the control tower sends up when it is stormy and time to turn off autopilot. Now our plain is mostly like the map you see where dragons are fire-breathing around the edges. I remember the dates, like jersey numbers of favorite players, of all the Fridays in whichever is the upcoming month: aims of nocturnal revelry to make all the Tuesdays and Wednesdays and nothing days pay. This year, so far, May 26th meant something, for a while, and April 24th before that. The end, the other end, of Safer at Home. Instead the political panoply that is supposed to represent us sat at home and decided we don’t need that guidance, or a plan. Public safety is less important than dollars. Our Supreme Court sided with all those guys outside all the Capitol buildings with guns.  

So maybe it’s time to get back to this, with the togetherness, the glasses clinking, hugs and unprotected mouth-open laughs at sunny beer gardens, the days you circle on the calendar and hope will have no rain, all the times where there is no greater mark of the specialness of a day than the meal. Like when my mom took me to Max & Erma’s for my 8th grade graduation. I don’t recall where the rest of the family was, but I definitely remember the tortilla soup. I’m not sure where my parents took me after high school graduation, but I remember knee-bobbing antsiness, the polite nods at congratulatory mentions of the future, because I was distracted by the prospect of going to go get very, very drunk. I remember my college graduation, where mom, somehow, before Google maps or Yelp or my Milwaukee food yammering, procured profound reservations at long-lost white table cloth gourmet Mexican southside spot El Rey Sol. Of course, I also didn’t care that much, because it was mostly a pitstop on a day well-deserving of getting very, very drunk. 

The rest of my Milwaukee occasion-eating can likewise be charted like a sprawling pinned Google map of identity-carving. La Merenda is where I told my parents my novel would be published. Palomino is where we told my mother-in-law we were having a kid, over Bloody’s and Maria’s, piping curds goo-ing with expectation. It is also where I’ve told my wife everything, through the years, our spot of sanctuary, gut-growing comfort, fingers always slick with grease and cocktail condensation. I began my food writing ventures with a dinner at Braise. Vanguard was dad-rock-appropriate and rightly meaty for my first Father’s Day as a father. Von Trier was memorable for impossibly hard news scrubbing. A liquid yuletide dinner at Jamo’s is where I told a new friend that Die Hard 2 was my favorite Christmas movie, thus cementing an annual tradition, quick-contracting an adult life together of corner bars and such ridiculous conversational ping-ponging. I think of the spots and memories as a kind of incomplete Pinterest board, accomplished peak experiences that add up to an old man’s personality, the only truly prized collections of a weathered damaged person as he ambles down creaky basement stairs to be with his thoughts and his whiskey and his sad music. 

This is where I ponder them all these days, because, of course, we can’t congregate. Not fully. Not at any more than 25% capacity. Not yet. We must continue to backlog the graduation and retirement celebrations; the birthdays, the date nights, are heretofore banished to arrears. Zarletti has long been a favorite for such big deal days: something so classic in it’s brand of old-school, low-lit, cozy, big-ish city downtown class; a spot from the Billy Joel song, the one about the bottle of white and the bottle of red, that turns drastically halfway through, and always reminds, surprises, wow, Billy Joel is really good. The spot to bring parents, when they are in town, and making a night of it, destination-dining for before a Jerry Seinfeld show. Or James Taylor. Or maybe another Paul Cebar night. Something at Riverside or Pabst or Turner or one of the other venues we sometimes forget about downtown because we only go downtown a few times a year that aren’t Giannis-related, the kind deeming it appropriate to bring parental credit cards and parental-type wine knowledge and the from-out-of-town desire for every appetizer. It was a New Year’s Eve, frigid beyond reason, a reservation and a window seat gazing on Milwaukee Street’s exhibit of amateur night: illegal-looking mini-skirts scooting by, vehement disregard for jackets, everyone flying trashily against the indifferent wind, quick to get to wait in line, outside, at a place called Dick’s. It was a night where I realized all I wanted was to eat, eat more, chase and maintain a wine buzz, and go home to cozy pants and couch hibernation. I realized I’d turned nearly full adult. Zarletti is currently offering curbside, another step in this direction during our time of being grounded, suspended. It’s a bit of make-believe, like when I put a pinky up in the air while pretend-sipping from an impossibly small cup at a tea-party, playing at elegance, it can be a reason to take a shower, put on non-elasticized pants, and be in the world.     

Of course, it’s not as easy as it once was. In our DIY celebration experience there was an unexpected iIrritability over what to order across the homefront, unease, uncertainty about such a menu existing on my phone—phone menus generally more of the realm of pizza and tlayudas and short rib melts, the unrefined domain within which I thrive. But, it’s also this: I simply love asking a waiter what to have. The guidance, the expertise, a cultivated person who knows how to pronounce aglio e olio, one who has probably been to Italy more than once, who can do the whole wine presentation rigmarole with appropriate authoritative nonchalance while maintaining white shirt. I was reminded of the crisp, professional Zarletti service and all that our curbside culture leaves me wanting for. All of the plan and the know-how and the guidance that our political system leaves us all wanting for, too. I sought out the phone server’s recommendation, not knowing what to expect—-this is a person answering the phone, this is a person freaked out about job security, this is not your guidance counselor. And, still, there it was, a cheery, helpful rundown of appropriate Chianti’s, clear-voiced reassurance on precise pick-up time, an unabashed endorsement of the bolognese, lending conviction and a jarring reminder of days where you could talk to people who knew more than you, when you could be led, by a leader, united, when somebody in a place of esteem and prominence knew to steer with a gentle hand on back. As if you could talk to a favorite grandma again, count on the chief of your country to pretend to care or know how to think or speak in coherent grown-up sentences.  

Even the server seemed to take part, ushering our fare outside before my brakes could even squeal, everything in a crisp stapled bag. Donning a medical mask and gloves, he seemed to have my best interest at heart: “I was starting to worry about you,” he said, coyly indicating my tardiness. You and me both, bub, I thought, but didn’t say, because it’s the kind of banter that doesn’t quite translate that well through a mask. Also, I simply felt slow. My interaction-ability, my small talk, seemed to have grown rust, an attempt at rapport seemed foreign, even dangerous. The languor was likewise synonymous with the entirety of downtown around me, dreamily desolate, like an hour of a city where only criminals are out, it all sucking me down, sponging inertia and energy for big weekend night specialness. In the backseat my daughter didn’t care, she was insistent only on seeing the monstrous inflatable lobster or crab or whatever it is atop the Milwaukee Public Market. I obliged, willingingly, thinking, honestly, it was actually probably the hottest thing going in town at the moment.

By the time we cracked the bottle, lightly re-warmed polpette di carne, veal and beef meatballs in bright pomodoro sauce, started guzzling old unpronounceable grapes, began twirling linguine flecked with pecorino and chile flakes, lacquered with olive oil and garlic, began greedily sponging bolognese stew with torn bread pieces because the all-day-seeming simmer of beef and pork had too much heart for rigatoni-conveyance, everything was right, and, somehow nothing seemed quite right. It was not just the takeout containers, needing to be dumped into real bowls. Or the fact we couldn’t find a candle. Or the dimmer switch in our dining room that buzzes subtly when romantic-levels are sought. Or the presence of a baby monitor between us, where a candle should have been. Or that I had to sweep up my own crumbs, and I don’t even have one of those special server crumb-shovels. Or my Nespresso machine, usually seeming quite nice, adequate for after-dinner digestif-ing, was now somehow not noisy enough, not old enough, not machine enough, more of an espresso app, really, compared to any real Italian joint. Or that I still had white paint crusted on my hands, because I’m at that point in quarantine of wandering around the house, simply wondering what else I might give a coat to. Maybe it was that, mostly, being home after all, I didn’t feel particularly rude looking at my phone mid-meal, and thus ruined the moment like the obvious bad date guy in every Nora Ephron piece. The food could not have been better—and yet it underscored that I’ve never missed a restaurant so much. 

Of course I can just as much be a liability in a restaurant. My Clark’s always look too scuffed, I don’t know how or when to tuck in a shirt, when we go through the wine tasting, testing bit—so formal, a pretentious thing all our 18-year-old selves would loathe us for—I feel that I’m suddenly sitting in my father’s borrowed and oversized suit, that I’m about to be called out as a fraud, politely asked to leave the place, be told, “this is for the grown-ups.” But if anybody likes the whole charade more—the welcome of the owner, as Frankie Valli seemingly always hits overhead, who kind of puts out his arms like he’s been waiting, the accepting nod from the host when she finds my name, validates my existence in the tablecloth world, the cocktails at the bar stoking expectation, being handed a menu like a fresh Choose Your Own Adventure but after a two-Negroni buzz, the recitation of clandestine specials from the server like a def jam poetry flow where I feel like snapping fingers, the big night conversation so much more potent, charged, so much less small, the feel of spotting your waiter across the room, seeing his hands full, knowing this is it, your time is now—they have a serious problem. 

Places like Zarletti don’t exist solely for special occasions. Under now unimaginable normal circumstances, we could go on a random Wednesday. Or for lunch. But, looking back, what did we ever do to deserve that? Did we get good grades? Memorize enough things in school to progress, avoid the margins of society? Did we have all our vaccines as a tyke and eventually quit smoking and go to the doctor once a year-ish and the dentist twice-a-year, more or less? And so now, yes, we should be good, barring car accident or one of those freak early cancer diagnoses that only really happen to other people anyways? Or are we all, the ones here, now, looking forward to going back to a lifetime of memorable meals so numerous we barely notice them, just incomprehensibly lucky?  

As of this writing June doesn’t look much better than May, and July—who knows? I notice a chiropractor appointment has sprouted like a weed in an innocuous white cube a few rows from now, making me wonder how the quarantine time warp has trapezed us into our late middle ages. But otherwise there is certainly space to contemplate, reckon, know and grow expectant of how the Sharpie will be ready—so unused, so hard-up—as to come out in those satisfying soaks where you have to write fast to keep from bleeding out, and then keep going, on to the next weekend. For now, out of nostalgia, out of caution, also out of reasonable hopefulness, I’m setting sights again on New Year’s. There will be reservations, and Milwaukee Street a-twinkle with clamorous revelry and mini-skirts like glorified handkerchiefs going by, the biggest fears of everyone just catching a cold, all of us ready to burn 2020 to the ground, dance on the ashes, drunkenly, irresponsibly, appreciatively clinking glasses, and here will come the waiter, expectant of all my wishes, eager to help, ready to hold my hand. 

[citypillow2-blog]

What Makes a Great American Food City?

What makes a great modern food city in America? Over the nearly five years I roamed the country as Eater’s national critic, this question almost involuntarily rumbled through my brain. Some standout criteria are obvious: A city’s dining culture needs baselines of excellence and eclecticism in every tier of restaurant. It needs first-rate grocers, farmers markets, and single-focus shops (coffee, ice cream, wine, bread, and pastries). Restaurant-goers should support culinary traditions but, at the same time, encourage creative momentum. And the “sense of place” about which food writers love to crow must include an innate respect for a city’s collective communities, both rooted and new.

But at some point during my wanderings, I realized greatness might boil down to the Long Weekend Theory. The core hypothesis is this: In most every American city with a sizable population and sufficient degree of cultural density, you can eat (and drink) with consistent pleasure throughout three leisure-filled days.

Almost anywhere, for example, you could kick off Friday at the irreverent cocktail bar; fill the major meal slots with the buzziest restaurant in town, the big-ticket splurge, and the indie marvels serving regional dishes from, say, Mexico, or Thailand, or Syria; go crazy at the do-what-we-want sandwich shop serving delicious monstrosities; moon over the soulful pie counter or the ice cream parlor concocting mind-jangling flavor combinations; and wrap it all up with one final blowout at the coolest breakfast hangout in town.

So the real test of a superior food city is, what would happen if you kept eating past the dreamy Monday-morning breakfast?

In a merely standard city for dining, a steep drop in quality and enticement becomes evident. Other hyped restaurants wobble in execution; places serving similar cuisines seem to duplicate one another’s menus. A great food city surpasses the long-weekend itinerary. It is replete with restaurants that deliver their own unique versions of the special something that can make dining out one of life’s sincerest joys.

Of course it’s unrealistic to expect that every meal at every restaurant will be near-mystical in any place. But an exceptional dining town has enough restaurants delivering abundant individuality and constant attention to detail that the choices don’t feel limited to a dozen or fewer true standouts.

Our most immense and our most richly aesthetic metropolises (New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, San Francisco, and New Orleans) can pass this test easily, as do the expected smaller urban centers whose food scenes draw plenty of notice, like Austin, Charleston, and Portland, Maine.

But what about a place like Phoenix? It’s the fifth-largest city in the United States by population, and, including adjacent cities such as Scottsdale and Chandler, the country’s 11th-largest metropolitan area. Despite its magnitude, Phoenix’s restaurant scene largely goes overlooked in the national media. There’s a vague perception of the city as an indistinguishable, sprawling flatland full of middle-of-the-road dining options, many of them chains. Local publications are acutely aware of its reputation as a culinary dead zone.

Scattered national acclaim does materialize. Veteran local chefs like Kevin Binkley (chef-owner of the tasting menu restaurant Binkley’s) and Silvana Salcido Esparza (lauded for her Barrio Café and sublime chiles en nogada) receive steady nods as James Beard semifinalists. Chris Bianco, whose game-changing Pizzeria Bianco has made him the country’s most famous pizzaiolo, is Phoenix’s most recognizable food ambassador. On a countrywide level, that’s about it.

I’ll admit to largely ignoring Phoenix on my Eater beat. I went once during those five years, and even then sped through only a polite survey of the town — I was really there to research a story about Bianco and how his dominion had grown since I’d first tasted his pizza in the 1990s. This past September, the Association of Food Journalists held their annual conference in Phoenix. I didn’t go, but the few attendees I informally polled about their dining experiences didn’t seem overly impressed.

Still, I wondered if treasures had gone unnoticed. Latino residents comprise 41 percent of the population: Surely they were paragons serving specialties from the neighboring Mexican state of Sonora? Ranching and agriculture is a $23.3 billion business in Arizona, and the intense heat equates to unique growing cycles: Asparagus was in high season during the February when I blitzed through Bianco’s restaurants. What other chefs were plugged into the rhythms of the Arizona seasons, and how were they expressing them? Dominic Armato, dining critic for the Arizona Republic, ate hard to compile a recent list of his 100 favorite metro-area restaurants. His roster of curries, tacos, tasting menus, biscuit sandwiches, and dishes that defy easy labeling makes a compelling case for the scope of local dining.

So in October I returned to Phoenix to see if the Valley (as its metro area calls itself) could pass — or surpass, really — the long-weekend test. I came for seven days to understand dining in Phoenix as best and as quickly as I could. A week, obviously, could never be enough to truly absorb the depths of a city’s food culture, though I trusted it was enough to judge if we’ve all been missing something. Or not.

Dinner at Tratto, a handsome restaurant of calming white walls and oak in the Town & Country shopping center, began with chicken livers spread over some righteously charred toast. Sweet-sour plum jam offset the livers; the fruit was left in big, melting hunks and scented with lemon verbena. Wide-mouthed rigatoni came next, sauced in a guinea hen ragu whose lightness felt ideal for a warm Arizona fall evening.

Conveniently located right next door to my favorite branch of Pizzeria Bianco, Tratto is the restaurant I’d most fervidly recommend to anyone visiting Phoenix right now. The finessed cooking, focus on stellar ingredients, and spirit of generosity put it on par with the finest modern Italian restaurants in the country.

A colleague and I ended up sharing the pork chops with apples, and a side dish of garlicky oyster mushrooms, with the group of four seated next to us; it was our sixth meal of the day. We were pointed toward a bottle of Klinec Medana Jakot, a funky Slovenian varietal that was as orange in color as it was in its citrus-blossomy notes. The wine saw us through to the finale, a wedge of custardy lemon tart exactly right in its simplicity.

Tratto opened in 2016 to rhapsodic reviews by local critics. Why don’t more people know about it coast to coast? As a maker of best-new-restaurant lists, I’ll speak to my own (flawed) thinking: Chris Bianco owns Tratto, and I didn’t think he needed any more attention. Yet Bianco has moved into a career phase where he is as much or more of a restaurateur and mentor as he is a chef. At Tratto, he cedes some of the spotlight to the energized team of chef Cassie Shortino, pastry chef Olivia Girard, and beverage director Blaise Faber for the day-to-day operations.

Bianco steps into more of an advisory role at Roland’s Cafe Market Bar, an all-day restaurant launched last year as his collaboration with Armando Hernandez (who previously worked for Bianco), Seth Sulka, and Nadia Holguin. In my long-weekend matrix for Phoenix, Tratto is the Friday-night stage-setter, and Roland’s is the Monday-morning finale. Hernandez and Holguin, who are husband and wife, also run three-year-old Tacos Chiwas on McDowell Road, a bastion of old-line Mexican restaurants northeast of downtown. “Chiwas” riffs off of Holguin and Hernandez’s heritage; both have roots in the northern border state of Chihuahua. The tacos and burritos at Chiwas are solid, but the gorditas — yawning wheat-flour pockets most memorably filled with deshebrada roja (shredded beef in red chile sauce) — steal focus from every other dish.

At Roland’s, the Mexican-with-hints-of-Italian cooking is uplifting and individualistic. An open-faced (read: pizza-shaped) quesadilla dotted with mortadella and asadero cheese is a palpable tribute to Bianco, whose company provides the organic Sonoran wheat flour for the tortilla on which the quesadillas are built. Yet this is really Holguin’s show — an expression of la cocina norteña (the cooking of northern Mexico, born of its desert and Gulf of California geography) that merges her background and her culinary training.

Beyond the fantastic quesadillas (they rightly star on the breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus), the entomatadas highlight Holguin’s precision with textures: crisped and stacked corn tortillas bathe in chile-spiked tomato sauce, fused by shredded asadero melting in the heat, and crowned with a fried egg. Alongside the flaky, painstakingly plaited empanadas filled with cabeza (beef head meat), ask for an array of salsas, bright in color and flavor, that aren’t automatically brought to the table. Chihuahua is the spiritual home of the burrito; Holguin fills her concise, captivating version with pork saturated in ruddy, garlicky chile colorado.

Breakfast or lunch at Roland’s makes for an apt conclusion to a long-weekend agenda, especially in how it frames la cocina norteña: This is a chef ascending to her deserved platform. If in a decade Phoenix becomes nationally synonymous with chefs ingeniously upholding and interpreting variations on northern Mexican cuisines, I predict Roland’s will be seen as a major touchstone in that progression.

Before a meal at Roland’s, seek out some Sonoran- and Chihuahuan-style cooking throughout the Phoenix metro area: It puts a nationally under-sung aspect of the city’s culture in delicious perspective. A rambling Saturday outing began for me with those lush wheat-flour gorditas at Tacos Chiwas. At the original Carolina’s Mexican Food, not far from downtown, sunshine slipped through narrow windows, revealing a nearly imperceptible blizzard in the streaks of light. The air was filled with flour; Carolina’s doubles as a tortilla factory. I ordered a simple, blazingly hot burrito wrapped around scrambled eggs and machaca — a Sonoran staple of dried and rehydrated beef, served shredded and often combined with other ingredients.

I’d return to Carolina’s for the atmosphere, but El Horseshoe Restaurant, on an industrial stretch west of downtown, is the place to truly savor homemade machaca for breakfast. Here, the Avitia family sautees it among potato, egg, and onion, its concentrated beefiness permeating every molecule of the dish, with sides of rice, beans, and a freshly made tortilla. The state of Sonora, beyond its desert interior, stretches across much of the Gulf of California’s eastern coastline; Horseshoe serves a restoring version of cahuamanta, a classic brothy stew bobbing with shrimp and pearly hunks of manta ray.

For a deeper immersion into regional seafood dishes, I swung by El Rey de Los Ostiones, a seafood market in a low-slung strip mall northwest of downtown. The bilingual staff graciously quizzed me on my tastes, finally delivering customized aguachiles and ceviches full of shrimp and oysters, along with several kinds of hot sauce and other condiments to tweak the seasonings. A 10-minute drive from El Rey, I had my favorite tacos of the trip at Ta’Carbon, an always-packed draw specializing in carne asada (among other meats like lengua and cabeza) grilled over mesquite.

Before the afternoon ended I veered off the Sonoran trail for a “taco” of another kind: a puffy, palm-scorching, mood-elevating flatbread filled with green chile-laced beef, refried beans, and cheese at the Fry Bread House, a Phoenix institution started in 1992 by Cecelia Miller of the Tohono O’odham Nation.

Restaurants serving American Indian cuisines are too few around the country and in the Southwest. Kai, the flagship restaurant at the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass and one of the Valley’s toniest dining experiences, vaguely themes its dishes in Native American directions with indigenous seeds and beans and plants. But really, Kai falls more into the category of modern-American splurge restaurant.

The signature grilled buffalo tenderloin came surrounded by sides and adornments straight from 1990 — smoked corn puree, cholla cactus buds, a light chile of scarlet runner beans, chorizo, a drizzle of syrup made from saguaro blossoms — that manage to coalesce. That entree is $58. The setting, with the sun disappearing behind mountains in the distance, is gorgeous, but for a more consistently dazzling and sure-file splurge, I’d suggest Binkley’s immersive tasting menu, or Silvana Salcido Esparza’s Barrio Café Gran Reserva for beauties like pan-seared corvina served with rose pepper mole sauce and salsa fragrant with smoky morita chiles (and her chiles en nogada, as superb as ever).

On Sunday, I needed extra coffee to jolt me after Saturday’s taxing schedule. A skillful macchiato and pour over at Giant Coffee animated me. First stop: Little Miss BBQ. Every major city in America has a pit master whose next-level dedication has pushed its scene to great smoked-meat raptures in recent years. Scott Holmes achieved this in Phoenix with his blackened, barky brisket, deliriously fatty in the style of Austin’s famed Franklin Barbecue. Loved the on-theme smoked pecan pie for dessert.

Second lunch, a restaurant recommended by local food-writer friends, was the trip’s sweetest surprise. I’d been briefed on the setup at Alzohour Market. Owner Zhor Saad takes orders and prepares the tiny restaurant’s Moroccan specialties herself. I poked around, looking at the clothing and candies and bric-a-brac she sells in the retail space adjacent to her dining room while I waited for bastilla, the sweet-savory masterpiece traditionally made of spiced pigeon and roasted almonds wrapped in phyllo and dusted with sugar and cinnamon. Saad substituted shredded chicken in her bastilla, but it was among the best versions I’ve had in America. Her lamb tagine was nearly as poetic.

Charleen Badman, chef and owner of FnB, also regularly appears on Beard semifinalist lists; her restaurant in Old Town Scottsdale gave me the trip’s most accurate and evocative sense of Arizona’s growing cycles. Salads of persimmon and pistachio, or little gem with pears, plums, and pecans; rice-stuffed squash blossoms with a riff on shakshuka made with summer squash; sheets of pastas entwined with foraged lobster mushrooms: I felt myself settle into the land in Badman’s dining room. Like many modern chefs, she thinks about flavors globally. For example, wonderful lamb manti (Turkish dumplings) dolloped with yogurt, sprinkled with pine nuts, and served in butter flecked with urfa chile was one of several dishes that evoked Middle Eastern cuisines. That dish also paired well with a fairly spectacular syrah from Rune Wines, a luminary among Arizona’s maturing viniculture industry.

I sat finishing the last bites of huckleberry-lemon sponge cake with fig-leaf ice cream, thinking that in a city with a glossier dining reputation, Badman and FnB would be basking in even more accolades. If I’d have beelined to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport right after this dinner, I would have climbed into the heavens happy and sated.

A quartet of Addison’s favorite tacos in Phoenix, at Ta’Carbon

Assuming that most people don’t gorge through a city like a food critic on a research jag, I’ve detailed more than enough meals to exceed a long eating weekend in Phoenix. (And here I’ll fill in a couple of potentially empty slots in the Long Weekend Theory itinerary I vaguely followed above: You can drink as well as you eat at Tratto, but for a pre-Friday night dinner starting point, the move is Bitter & Twisted Cocktail Parlour, cheekily located in a building where the Arizona Prohibition Headquarters was once housed. Also, for a second breakfast option, try local darling Matt’s Big Breakfast for Americana personified.)

Sure, there were ups and downs as I continued grazing through the area. Other charmers included Pa’La, where Claudio Urciuoli writes out his affordable daily menu on a chalkboard behind the counter, anchored by a top-shelf mix-and-match grain bowl. But there were mid-level letdowns, too. Two memorable disappointments came from newer arrivals with strong local word of mouth. Maybe I totally misordered at Cotton & Copper in Tempe, but the oddly mealy corn dumplings in parmesan cream and carpaccio topped with citrus segments and chunks of chewy cheese felled my dinner at the bar. And I was intrigued by the promise of “modern Southwest cuisine” at Ghost Ranch in Chandler; that amorphous genre could use some sharp redefining. I didn’t find it in a ho-hum sampler platter (pork and chicken enchiladas, cheese-filled chiles rellenos, grilled skirt steak) and bland grilled chicken with polenta and green chile jus.

Overall, though, I left impressed by Phoenix. I knew there were pleasures and pockets of potential gems I’d left untried: dim sum at Mekong Palace Restaurant in Mesa, other serious pizzerias spurred by Bianco’s success, and upscale stalwart Rancho Pinot, for starters. But even after only a week of immersive gorging, it’s clear that dismissing the Valley as a snowbird’s destination for chains and lowest-common-denominator palates is anachronistic and plain wrong. I’d nudge other national food writers to come test out the Long Weekend Theory here for themselves. Is Phoenix’s restaurant culture on par with a similar sprawl of urban vastness like Houston? Not yet. Is the breadth and depth of dining better than most of us are giving it credit for? It won’t take more than a few happy, immersive days of eating to know the answer is: absolutely.

Bill Addison is a food critic for the Los Angeles Times; he was Eater’s roving national critic for nearly five years until November 2018. Fact checked by Pearly Huang Copy edited by Rachel P. Kreiter

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[elizabethhgarcia-blog]

Welcome to My Life

My name is Elizabeth Garcia and I was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. I am from the barrio of Glassell Park, more specifically, I am from the 3200 block of Drew Street. A place where gang violence, drugs and crime once thrived. Drew Street, a two-block street, is among Los Angeles’ most notorious streets due to the drug trade and gang violence that grew out of there. 

In the late 1960’s the City of Los Angeles built apartment buildings in this isolated neighborhood surrounded by dead ends which would later be a benefit to the gang that ran the street (Pelisek, 2008). In the late 1990’s the small street I grew up on was primarily occupied by Mexican immigrants, most of them from the small town of Tlalchapa, Guerrero, México which was also known for being one of the country’s most violent regions. The one who ran the street was a woman named Maria “Chata” Leon, who was a mother to 13 children and lived up the street from my family. This woman “lived up” to every stereotype one could have on women of color. She had many children, lived off of welfare before she got involved in the drug business, was involved in the drug trade, and was also a criminal. Maria Leon fit the description of the “Welfare mother” as stated in The Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins. Though she did not identify as a black woman, she was a person of color that fit the perception of this image. “Welfare queen is a phrase that describes economic dependency- the lack of job and/or income...” (80).  This controlling image that individuals have of black women, could also relate to Maria Leon. 

Up the street from where I lived, was the “satellite house”. In this place, Maria raised and taught her children how to run the drug business. There was not one person on Drew Street that did not know who she was due to the many fire fights that stung out of here. Some of her children ended up in wars against the other local gangs and therefore ended up losing their lives. There are many negative associations about this neighborhood, therefore many individuals with aspirations left the street and those who remained turned Drew into a hive of drug and gang activity (Quinones, 2008).  This categorization that occurs amongst people of color, is a way of being marginalized and being thought as “no good”.  As we see in the works of Michael Zweig, What is Social Class: What’s Class Got to do With It, he states that “we are of course all individuals, but our individuality and personal life chances are shaped- limited or enhanced- by the economic and social class in. which we have grown up and in which we exist as adults.” (127) In my case, growing up on Drew Street meant that life should have been different than what it is today. For those of us who stayed in Glassell Park, we had no choice but to try our best to make it out and become someone while avoiding these stereotypes that people from the “barrio” are nothing but a statistic. 

   Both my parents, immigrants from the small town of Tlalchapa, Guerrero received no education in the United States. My father received an education in Mexico but did not do anything with his accounting degree here, whereas my mother was never able to afford an education but that does not mean that she was not a wise woman. My father often times at work in order to be able to provide for us and my mother always being with us and making sure we didn’t fall out of line and join those on the street. A quote that stood out from the reading by McNamee and Miller Jr., The Silver Spoon: Inheritance and the Staggered Start, was “Most parents only want the best for their children. As a result, most parents try to do everything they can to secure their children futures.” (132) This quote resonates with my life experiences because growing up, though we didn't have much, my parents always strived to give my siblings and I what we needed to succeed. We might not have had it all in terms of luxury items but there was always love, food, shelter, guidance and support in every aspect of life. 

Growing up, my mother was very strict as to who I was allowed to play with and talk to but I never understood why. Although I did not have it all growing up in terms of material things, I had the love and guidance from my parents and that is the reason why I continue to work on myself today. In the words of McNamee and Miller Jr., “cultural capital includes but is not limited to interpersonal styles, and demeanor, manners and etiquette and vocabulary...” (133). Just because someone does not have it all economically, it does not mean that you cannot succeed with the values and manners you are taught from the beginning. In the words of my mother, “la educación empieza en la casa”.  The household I grew up in, is what I call a “traditional Mexican home” where there are many rules and expectations of the children, family is most important, and future success is always a topic. As a child I never liked being told what to do, how to do it, and being held to the highest expectations. Somehow my parents expected more from me than they did from my older sister and my younger brother. 

As I got older, I came to the realization that I was raised very different than those I grew up with.  For fun, our father would take us to the library on Friday’s if we did good throughout the week, we went on hikes, and had dinner on occasion. I never met a classmate that did things like my family did but one thing we had in common was the idea of what was normal. Our normal included witnessing several gang fights, gun shots almost every night, and constant lock-downs, a protocol that is taught in schools for security purposes. If something of this nature did not happen in two or three consecutive days, we would wonder what was going on. Growing up on Drew Street was rough. Always wondering if we were safe walking to and from school, if anything would happen to us while we were playing outside, and most importantly, wondering if we would be able to make it out of there and become someone. Without the structure that I grew up with, I could have been a teen mom, possibly in the wrong footsteps, and without a desire for pursuing higher education. 

In this graph, we see that Hispanics, like Blacks and Asians, continue to be underrepresented in college enrollements. Though numbers of enrollment have increased over the years, we, POC, continue to be outnumbered by White individuals.

 As a child of a working-class family, you learn the values of hard work and determination. You realize that your parents left everything they once knew so that their children could have the best future possible, so it is only right to pursue a higher education in hopes of being successful one day. For minority individuals like myself, pursuing a higher education is not something that is guaranteed. People like me struggle to secure a spot in a community college, let alone a prestigious university. McNamee and Miller state that for “heirs of large fortunes- their future is financially secure. They will grow up having the best of everything and having every opportunity money can buy.” (132). This quote relates to the recent scandal that broke out in March where over 50 people got charged in the largest college admissions bribery case. All of these people: white, upper-class individuals with the money to buy their way into top universities. This might leave people that belong to this cultura of the struggle feeling like they are not receiving the credit they deserve for rightly securing a spot in these colleges and universities. The problem here is that “in recent years, by all measures, the rich are getting richer, and the gap between the rich and everyone else has appreciably increased” (McNamee and Miller, 2004). This enormous gap between us, working-class individuals and the upper-class families is what is causing the underrepresentation of POC in many aspects of life. A concept that plays an important role in the underrepresentation of people of color in higher education institutions is white privilege. White privilege is all around us and those who are white “are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege as males are taught not tp recognize male privilege.” (McIntosh, P., 2008). These individuals fail to see where and how they are to an advantage. 

Unlike the dominant race in American society, us Latinos and people of color, are taught to “echarle ganas” y “ponernos las pilas” porque tenemos que salir adelante. Those are just a few things I heard from my parents growing up, as im sure many others have. Education is something that is not for everyone, but it should always be an option. Latinos tend to make up a small percentage of the educated population due to financial hardships or lack of resources and mentorships available in underrepresented communities. From experience, lacking mentorship when in this situation makes it difficult to fill out a simple college application and an application for financial aid. Therefore, many students choose not to go to college simply because they cannot find the resources to pay for it or others may end up going but end up dropping out. Since parents of first-generation children often times do not receive an education in the United States, there is no way you can ask a parent for help.

For me, going to college has been a bit of a struggle. My older sister did go to college, but even then, the uncertainty of not knowing if paperwork is being filled out correctly makes you overthink the slightest of tasks. In my extended family there are only two cousins, not counting myself or my sister, who have made it to college. My sister Lizette, being the only one out of all of us who has graduated and is now in the process of obtaining her Master of Arts in Teaching degree at the University of Southern California. 

 I started off at the University of Phoenix, yes, that online school that is advertised on TV.  Over 40k invested in this institution that did not care for my success and that is why I am here, today, living in Albuquerque.

In the beginning, moving out of state sounded like so much fun, but only because no one in my family had done it before. I would be the first “to leave the nest” as my parents like to say and I had to learn some things the hard way and face some not-so-nice individuals along the way. I transferred to the University of New Mexico in Fall 2017 and that summer, as we were driving here, we stopped at a gas station in Arizona and that is where my first conflicting encounter occurred. As I was standing in line to pay for some snacks, a man approached me and went on to say, “You look like the real life Pocahontas” and in that moment I did not know how to react. I did not know if he meant it as a compliment or as an insult but I was just in shock to hear someone say such thing. Whether or not it was a compliment, in the works of Dr. Derald W. Sue, this would be considered a microaggression. This man who said this to me was a person of color and that is why I believe that there was no ill-will behind this comment. After all, “the most detrimental forms of microaggressions are usually delivered by well-intentioned individuals who are unaware that they have engaged in harmful conduct toward a socially developed group. (Sue, Derald W., 2010) 

There have been many other instances where I have received comments from peers including: 

- “How do you afford to pay for college?” 

-”You have a really white name for being Mexican.”

-”You were born in Mexico right?”

-”What do your parents do for a living?” (after telling someone that my parents don’t work, implying that they must be doing something illegal to allow me to receive an education.)

-”Your culture would be Indian culture right?” 

“You have some Black in you huh.”

These are all things I have heard since moving to Albuquerque and I have convinced myself that it is because compared to other Hispanics, Latin@s, Chicanxs, I am of a darker complexion but it is who I am and nothing anyone says will make me question my identity. The road to getting to where I am today has not been easy. Leaving everything and everyone back home, 800 miles away was no easy task but it was been well worth it. Every struggle one faces in life contributes to the person you are destined to become. In a few days, I will be finally graduating with my undergraduate degree and I am so thankful that I get to represent my people, mi cultura, my home, mi familia with this accomplishment. 

Always remember : “It’s not where you come from, it’s what you grow into.” 

Text Sources: 

-Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought. Routledge, 2009, pp. 80

-McIntosh, Peggy. 2008. "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack." in The Meaning of Difference : American Constructions of Race, Sex and Gender, Social Class, Sexual Orientation, and Disability, edited by Karen Elaine Rosenblum and Toni-Michelle Travis. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, c2008.5thEd.

-McNamee and Robert K. Miller Jr,. 2004. The Silver Spoon: Inheritance and the Staggered Start. Edited by Rosenblum, Karen and Travis, Toni-Michelle. The Meaning of Difference: American Constructions of Race and Ethnicity, Sex and Gender, Social Class, Sexuality, and Disability.New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, c2016. 7th ed. 

-Pelisek, C. (2008, March 5). The Gangsters of Drew Street, Glassell Park. L.A. Weekly.Retrieved from https://www.laweekly.com/news/the-gangsters-of-drew-street-glassell-park-2152296

-Quinones, S. (2008, July 23). A&E Biography Documentary on Drew Street and the Leon-Real Family. Dreamland. Retrieved from http://samquinones.com/reporters-blog/2013/07/23/los-angeles-ae-biography-documentary-on-drew-street-and-the-leon-real-family/

-Sue, Derald Wing. 2010. Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, ©2010.

-Zweig, Michael. 2004. What is Social Class: Whats Class Got to do With It?. Edited by Rosenblum, Karen and Travis, Toni-Michelle. The Meaning of Difference: American Constructions of Race and Ethnicity, Sex and Gender, Social Class, Sexuality, and Disability. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, c2016. 7th ed.

Photo sources: 

-https://www.omnihotels.com/hotels/los-angeles-california-plaza/things-to-do/area-attractions/dodger-stadium 

-https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/24/more-hispanics-blacks-enrolling-in-college-but-lag-in-bachelors-degrees/

-http://adobeoasis.com/welcome-new-mexico/

[cryptodictation]

Dedicado a Max is reminiscent of Gus' main goal

Attention, spoilers to Better Call Saul! The new Better Call Saul– Follow Dedicado a Max dissolves the cliffhanger from last week and also provides us with new information about Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito): Mike wakes up in a small Mexican village that the drug lord personally finances – ironically, there is no gun or violence here.

This makes the antagonist a bit more ambivalent. The latest revelation is particularly exciting in connection with the title of the episode, which is also engraved in a fountain. Gus has dedicated his charitable project to a very specific person.

Better Call Saul Season 5: Who Was Max Arciniega?

Dedicado a Max refers to Gus' former business partner Max Arciniega, with whom he managed the fast food chain Los Pollos Hermanos. We once saw Max in a flashback Breaking Bad. This leads back to the 1980s: Max and Gus have a conversation here with Don Eladio, who is not happy that he was manipulated into the meeting.

© AMC

Breaking Bad: Gus and Max

Max tries to smooth the waves and asks to spare Gus' life – with success. Shortly thereafter, however, Hector Salamanca suddenly shoots him in the head from behind. Since then, Gus has been fixated on revenge for the Salamanca clan. Better Call Saul Season 5 gives the scene from the breaking bad episode Hermanos even more weight.

Some fans speculate that Gus and Max were not just business partners, but also had a romantic relationship. In this respect, Breaking Bad and Better Call Sall remain ambiguous. Giancarlo Esposito addressed the question in an interview with The A.V. Clu b:

My theory is that nothing is black and white. The affection he shows for someone else's support could be misunderstood as a romantic affair, and it's not written as a love affair. My job as an actor is to give you all the options and let you find out for yourself.Better Call Saul: Gus Fring has a clear motive

Last week, Better Call Saul confused us with a cliffhanger when Mike was surprisingly saved and he regained consciousness in the middle of the Mexican pampas. Now we know for sure: Gus had him monitored.

We speculated that Gus primarily needed Mike to drive the construction of his laboratory. Lalo Salamanca sticks to his heels. In Dedicado a Max, the mafia boss also clearly reveals the existence of a revenge plan. Mike's son – a police officer – was once killed by two of his colleagues. So Gus is counting on Mike to understand him. Most likely rightly so.

Podcast for Breaking Bad fans: is El Camino the perfect ending?

in the Stream rush start Andrea, Jenny and Patrick check whether El Camino is worthwhile for Breaking Bad fans.

In the first episode of Streamgestöber Andrea, Jenny and Patrick wonder if El Camino: A Breaking Bad film is the perfect end to one of the most popular and popular series. Or wouldn't it have needed the movie tag? From 00:08:55 we will start with El Camino and from 00:38:16 we will dedicate ourselves to the Emmy winner Fleabag.

How did you like the new Better Call Saul episode?

The post Dedicado a Max is reminiscent of Gus' main goal appeared first on Cryptodictation.

from WordPress https://cryptodictation.com/2020/03/19/dedicado-a-max-is-reminiscent-of-gus-main-goal/

[relationshipadviser-blog]

Esther Perel: 'Fix the sex and your relationship will transform'

New Post has been published on https://relationshipqia.com/must-see/esther-perel-fix-the-sex-and-your-relationship-will-transform/

Esther Perel: 'Fix the sex and your relationship will transform'

Esther Perels breathtakingly frank therapy podcasts Where should we begin not only make for juicy listening, theyve revitalised the stale private lives of millions. Miranda Sawyer listens to the psychotherapist

Passion has always existed, says Esther Perel. People have known love forever, but it never existed in the context of the same relationship where you have to have a family and obligations. And reconciling security and adventure, or love and desire, or connection and separateness, is not something you solve with Victorias Secret. And there is no Victors Secret. This is a more complicated existential dilemma. Reconciling the erotic and the domestic is not a problem that you solve. It is a paradox that you manage.

Ooh, Perel is a great lunch date. All psychotherapists are, in my experience, but shes particularly interesting. Sex, relationships, children; she covers them all in the two hours we spend together. But also collective trauma, migration, otherness, freedom all the good stuff.

Perel is a practising couples and family therapist who lives in New York. Aside from her clinical work she counsels around 12 couples or individuals each week she has two best-selling books: one about maintaining desire in long-term relationships (Mating in Captivity), the other about infidelity (The State of Affairs). She has released two fascinating podcast series, called Where Should We Begin?, where listeners get to listen in on real-life couples having therapy with her. The podcast is where I first came across her its won a British Podcast Award, a Gracie Award in the States and was named as the Number One podcast by GQ.

On top of all this, she hosts workshops and lectures as well as the inevitable TED talks, one of which has been watched more than 5m times. I went to one of her London appearances earlier this year. Alain de Botton was the host and he introduced Perel with quite some hyperbole, calling her one of the greatest people alive on Earth right now. (Perel dismissed this afterwards, though she likes de Botton: He put me on such a platter.)

Esther Perel sometimes sings to her clients; she tells them off quite a lot, especially if they think sex should come naturally. Photograph: Jean Goldsmith for the Observer

The reason for Perels popularity is her clear eye on modern relationships. She says, rightly, that we expect much more from our marriages and long-term relationships than we used to. For centuries, marriage was framed within duty, rather than love. But now, love is the bedrock. We have a service model of relationships, she says to me. Its the quality of the experience that matters. She has a great turn of phrase: The survival of the family depends on the happiness of the couple. Divorce happens now not because we are unhappy, but because we could be happier. We will have many relationships over the course of our lives. Some of us will have them with the same person.

For a while, Perel wasnt taken particularly seriously by the therapist community: she tells me that when Mating in Captivity came out in 2006, it was only the sexologists that thought it was great. This is because her thinking went against long-established relationship wisdom, namely that if you fix the relationship through talking therapy, then the sex will fix itself. Perel does not agree. She says that, yes, this might work, but I worked with so many couples that improved dramatically in the kitchen, and it did nothing for the bedroom. But if you fix the sex, the relationship transforms.

We meet in a boutique hotel in Amsterdam, where Perel orders her food in fluent Dutch. She has a light Belgian accent (she says boat for both), and she wears some delicate gold jewellery, a bit like the Indian hath panja, on her right hand. (Both of these seem to excite American journalists, along with Perels good looks. A relationship therapist who you might fancy, shocker!)

We begin talking about her podcast series. Its an astonishing listen, partly because you get to earwig other peoples problems (always great) and partly because Esthers methods are so flexible: in the first series she got one young woman to wear a blindfold while her partner inhabited a more assertive sexual character, which he did by speaking in French. She sometimes sings to her clients; she tells them off quite a lot, especially if they think sex should come naturally: Who the hell told you that BS?

Series three, released next month, is slightly different to the last two. This time round Perel very deliberately chooses couples at different stages, because she wants to show an arc of a relationship, all the way to its end. Also, she says, I wanted to bring in the way that relationships exist in a larger, social, cultural, context. That context often gives a script about how one should think about suicide, about gender, about divorce and so forth. So we hear from a young couple coping with enforced distance in their relationship: one is US-born and the other is Mexican, without a US visa. Another is a mother and her child, who does not identify as either gender. Another couple, with a young child, have divorced, but seem to get along much better now: why?

Perel finds her podcast therapees via her Facebook page: they apply in their thousands. Her podcast producers sift through, using guidelines that Perel suggests them: this time round she knew she wanted to cover infertility and also suicide. Then theres a lengthy pre-recording interview process where its explained to the couples that, yes, this really is going on air and, yes, they might be recognised (from their voices; theyre anonymous otherwise). Are you OK in understanding that your story will become a collective story? You will be giving so much to others, as well. Its not just for you, actually. And then they have a one-off session with Perel for three to four hours, edited down to around 45 minutes for the podcast.

She loves the format. The intimacy of it, the private listening of it, the fact that you dont see them, thus you see yourself. You hear them but you see you. It reflects you in the mirror. But also, surely, its quite exposing for you? Oh yes. People can come and hear me give a talk, but theyve never seen me do the work and you cant talk about what you do. But when you write a book, that is the first part of exposure. Then comes TED and the podcast. If you ask, What does Perel do? My colleagues know how I do.

Perel is 60 now; I wondered how she found being a relationship therapist when she was younger, in her 20s. Werent clients put off by her youth? Actually, Ive always found that the age of the clients goes up with me, she says. It mirrors. I dont know why. She doesnt think lived experience is necessary, though sometimes she wonders how she had the chutzpah to counsel parents before she became one herself (now she has two grown-up sons; shes still married to their dad, Jack Saul, who is a professor and an expert in psychosocial trauma). But then I have worked a lot with addiction, and Im not an addict.

Interestingly, she came to therapy via drama. Drama and collective trauma. She was the second child of Polish Jews who came to Belgium as Holocaust survivors (Perels first passport was a stateless passport of the UN). In Belgium, they became part of a community of 15,000 Jewish refugees.

Loss, trauma, dismantlement of the community, immigration, refugees All these themes that I observe in the world today, were basically mothers milk to me, she says. Everybody had an accent, a good number of people had the number on their arms. There were no grandparents around, there were no uncles. Its all I knew. Its different than if it was just your parents. Its every home I went to. One of Perels earliest memories is of card games where her parents would talk of a friend, and someone would say, casually, Ah, he was gassed, he didnt make it.

Perels parents had her older brother in 1946, then she came along 12 years later. This was not uncommon. When people came out of the camps, the first thing they did to prove that they were still human was to have a child. They waited to get their periods back, and then they had a child. But then there was a gap of 8, 10, 12 years before they had another. Perel thinks this was because the parents needed to establish themselves in society. Hers ran a clothes shop in Antwerp. The family lived above the shop. They spoke five languages: Polish, Yiddish, German, French and Flemish. Every evening they watched the news in German, French and Flemish, to get a good all-round view.

Divorce happens now not because we are unhappy, but because we could be happier: Esther Perel. Photograph: Jean Goldsmith for the Observer

As a teenager, she was interested in psychology, mostly because she hated the strictness of school. She read Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child-Rearing, about a British school run like a democracy, and from there she moved to Freud. I was interested in understanding myself better and in people around me. People dynamics. I was quite melancholic and I was often wondering, How does one live better? How do you talk to your mother so she understands you better? Id say the primary ingredient I had was curiosity. I was a massively curious person I still am. She was also a good listener a confidante for her friends. I tell her she would have made a great journalist, and she agrees: That would have been my other career.

After school she went to study in Jerusalem, a university course that combined French linguistics and literature. More importantly, she developed her interest in theatre, which had begun in early adolescence. I assumed she was an actor, but shes talking of improv and street theatre, with puppets, of all things. Big ones, you hold them on two long high sticks, or I did hand puppets. She liked the immediate contact with people and gradually, she found herself merging these skills with her studies, doing theatre with gangs,with street girls,with Druze,with foreign students. At one point she went to Paris to study under Augusto Boal, who created the Theatre of the Oppressed. He would stage fake crises in everyday situations: actors pretending to have a physical row on the Metro, for instance. Perel found it interesting to see which passers-by would get involved and which would turn away.

She moved to New York to do her Masters. She specialised in identity and immigration How is the experience of the migrant different if it is voluntary migration or forced migration? and in how minority communities relate to each other. She led workshops for what were then called mixed couples: interracial, intercultural, interreligious. I knew the cultural issues. I knew how to run a group. I dont think I knew much about couples dynamics.

Around that time her husband, who is a few years older than her, suggested she might enjoy systemic family therapy. I ask what this is. For a long time when people looked at a problem, they thought the problem is located within the person, says Perel. But systemic family therapy thinks that a family, or a relationship, is made up of interdependent parts. What is the interactive dynamic that preserves this thing, that makes this child not go to bed? That makes this man never get a job? That makes this son be such a nincompoop? How is the family system organised around it? You need two to create a pattern, or three or four or five.

Its interesting how therapy has trends, I say, and how those trends manifest themselves in actual life. Couples therapy goes in parallel to the cultural changes and the expectations in a culture, says Perel. During the 1980s her married clients didnt come to her because their sex life was bad, they came because of domestic violence or alcoholism, not because we dont talk any more. Back then, the shame was to get divorced at all, even if one half cheated; now its not to get divorced if one half cheats. She saw clients having problems with infertility, the changing role of women and daughters, the Aids crisis. In the 90s, single mothers, blended families, gay couples with kids. Todays problems, she says, are often centred around people marrying later, after a sexually nomadic youth. Also, modern fatherhood dads wanting to be more involved in childcare and monogamy versus polyamory. Straight couples are becoming more gay, gay couples more straight.

The obvious question, of course, which she has been asked many times, is how Perels own relationship works. She doesnt like to give too many details, but what she does say is that she and Saul give each other a lot of freedom If youve had an interesting life, you have more to bring back, something that energises the couple and that they renegotiate their relationship as it changes. At the moment her husband is entering what she calls a third stage, and he wants to paint more. This means he will be away from New York a lot, while she is usually in New York or travelling herself. We need to, once again, come up with a new rhythm of how we create separateness and togetherness. Its a fundamental task.

She wants others not to copy her own relationship, but to use her work as a way to better their own relationship for themselves. And plenty do. Just the other week a young woman came up to her and asked for a selfie. She said, My boyfriend listens to you all the time, and he comes home and he says, Have you listened to this episode, we need to talk? The podcast is a transitional object, a bridge for conversation. Like a teddy bear that you hold and you say: Its OK, dont be worried.

Like when couples talk through their dog, I say.

Yes, she says. There is such disarray and such hunger about getting help on how we manage our relationships today, on navigating the challenges For the first time we have the freedom of being able to design our relationships in a way that we were never capable of doing before, or allowed to do before. So, I dont give the details of my relationship. Instead I will give you the tools to come up with your own thing.

Season 3 of Esther Perels Where Should We Begin is available exclusively on Audible from 5 October

Try this at home

Three ways to change the way you think about your partner at home

Pay attention to what is important to the other What happens in a couple is that we often give to the other what we want them to give to us. If somebody is upset, you dont talk to them, because when you are upset you like to be left alone. It isnt necessarily what they need.

Roles are often patterns rather than habits If you really want the other person to take out the rubbish, you have to be able to spend two weeks not doing it. You dont say anything. You just wait until the other person finally notices it. When youre not there, the other person sorts the bin. They can do it. Its just that when youre there theyd prefer not to.

Women are not less interested in sex than men, theyre less interested in the sex they can have What makes women lose that interest? Domesticity. Motherhood. The mother thinks about others the whole time. The mother is not busy focusing on herself. In order to be turned on you have to be focused on yourself in the most basic way. The same woman whos numb in the house gets turned on when she leaves. She doesnt need hormones. Change the story.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

[oldguardaudio]

Alan Keyes – Renew America -> Build the Wall Protect us all

Todays illegals are Tomorrows Democrat Voters at HoaxAndChange.com

illegals flipping USA burn flag @ Hoax and Change

Mexican Gangsters MS-13 we love America! at HoaxAndChange.com

January 15, 2019

Build the wall – protect us all

Alan Keyes calls Trump TV speech ‘an act of impeccable statesmanship’

ALAN KEYES — President Trump’s televised address to the nation last week was an act of impeccable statesmanship. He said what was needed, in the way it needed to be said. He addressed the cost –– in human lives, seething disorder, and money –– of the dereliction of duty characteristic of his immediate predecessors (Democrats Obama and Clinton, and Republicans George H.W. and George W. Bush). They neglected or refused to carry out the Constitution’s mandate to see that our nation’s immigration laws are faithfully executed…. (more)

January 15, 2019

The Washington Post, Bezosgate, and the National Security State

CLIFF KINCAID — The slogan of The Washington Post is “Democracy dies in darkness.” So I did a search of recent articles on its website about its billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, who does business with the CIA and NSA and finds himself in the middle of a sex scandal that makes even liberals cringe. I found a story about his announced “split” with his wife in which a lawyer is quoted as saying “the couple’s amicable joint statement indicates that the split probably won’t be messy or protracted.” The lawyer added, “Sounds like they are making an effort to do this the right way and not make it into a public spectacle.”… (more)

January 15, 2019

Pentagon extends border deployment for active duty troops through September

MARINE CORPS TIMES — The Pentagon announced late Monday that it is extending the mission of active duty troops to the Mexico border through September, marking almost a year-long domestic deployment of forces there. The approximately 4,500 active duty and National Guard forces now on the border were first sent there in late October 2018 to meet a request from President Donald Trump and the Department of Homeland Security to secure border entry points from thousands of immigrants traveling north through Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S. Several units have rotated in and out during that time, and have been tasked to lay concertina wire, barriers and help assist border patrol agents at points in Texas, Arizona and California…. (more)

January 15, 2019

Former Trump lawyer says president facing DOJ ‘coup’

NEWSMAX — President Donald Trump is facing an organized “coup” at the Department of Justice, his former attorney John Dowd said Monday. During an appearance on “The Brian Kilmeade Show” on Fox News Radio, Dowd said current and former officials at the DOJ and FBI were out to get Trump from the beginning…. (more)

 Huckabee: Hold FBI behind Trump probe accountable (Newsmax)

 Trump denies ever working for Russia, blasts investigators (Newsmax)

 Rep. Pete King: ‘Absolutely disgraceful’ for FBI to investigate Trump (Newsmax)

January 14, 2019

Fox News’ Gregg Jarrett: FBI’s ‘dishonesty and corruption are endemic’

On Trump probe, he says bureau ‘defied the law, ignored or perverted facts’

GREGG JARRETT — Pointing to a New York Times story revealing the FBI investigated in 2017 whether President Trump was a covert Russian agent, Fox News analyst Greg Jarrett concludes “dishonesty and corruption are endemic” at the bureau. Jarrett, in an opinion piece for FoxNews.com, said the “accusation itself was ludicrous on its face.”… (more)

January 14, 2019

Trump tweets withdrawal from Syria has begun

NEWSMAX — President Donald Trump tweeted on Sunday that the United States has begun withdrawing from Syria. “Starting the long overdue pullout from Syria while hitting the little remaining ISIS territorial caliphate hard, and from many directions,” Trump wrote. “Will attack again from existing nearby base if it reforms. Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds. Create 20 mile safe zone.”… (more)

 Let’s leave Syria (National Review)

January 14, 2019

Pompeo: NY Times report on FBI probe of Trump ‘ludicrous’

NEWSMAX — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dismissed as “ludicrous” a New York Times report that the FBI began to investigate whether President Donald Trump was a national security threat after he axed former bureau director James Comey…. (more)

 Trump calls report on FBI probe of him ‘most insulting’ (Newsmax)

 Jonathan Karl flips script on ‘The View,’ says it’s right to be ‘skeptical’ of NYT report (Daily Caller)

 ABC’s Karl: ‘Zero evidence’ that Trump or campaign colluded with Russians (Breitbart)

 ‘It’s a coup’: Former Trump lawyer responds to NY Times report of FBI probe of president (Newsmax)

January 14, 2019

Jonathan Karl: Mueller report ‘almost certain to be anti-climactic’

NEWSMAX — ABC Chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl on Sunday said Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report is “almost certain to be anti-climactic.” Karl, who was on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” discussing the bombshell report in The New York Times and Washington Post that said the FBI opened up a counterintelligence investigation into President Donald Trump in the days after he fired James Comey because they were suspicious of his behavior, also said there has been no proof of collusion between Trump’s campaign team and the Russians during the 2016 presidential election…. (more)

January 14, 2019

‘Russian agent’? Trump tougher on Russia in 18 months than Obama in eight years

JEN KERNS — Even though the left-wing media will never give him credit, President Trump has been far tougher on Russia than his predecessor, Barack Obama. For starters, it was President Obama who, according to Reuters, was “caught on camera” saying to a Russian leader that he’ll have more flexibility after the election –– not President Trump…. (more)

 Jen Kerns appears on ‘Fox and Friends First’ to discuss govt. shutdown and control of the House (YouTube)

 Alan Keyes rightly calls Obama a radical communist [VIDEO] (YouTube)

 Putin says he’d reverse collapse of communist Soviet Union if he could (RadioFreeEurope)

 Obama admits communist Frank Marshall Davis ‘schooled’ him on white racism (Cliff Kincaid)

 ‘From the Vault,’ Barack Obama, Sept. 1995 [VIDEO—start at 4:33 and view through 24:30] (YouTube)

January 14, 2019

$20M donated for border wall via disabled vet’s GoFundMe page may be refunded: report

FOX NEWS — GoFundMe could be returning more than $20 million in donations to help fund a U.S.-Mexico border wall if donors don’t redirect their funds to a newly created nonprofit, reports said Friday. Triple-amputee U.S. Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage, 37, created the campaign, dubbed “We The People Will Fund The Wall,” last month. It quickly went viral and has amassed more than 338,000 donors. But the campaign failed to reach its $1 billion goal…. (more)

 GoFundMe will return $20 million to 330,000 border wall donors, but the creator has a different idea (Washington Examiner)

January 14, 2019

Federal workers offered free food to help them through shutdown

NEWSMAX — The Capital Area Food Bank has organized five free pop-up markets in the Washington D.C. area to provide fresh produce and canned goods to help government employees during the partial federal shutdown, WUSA9 reported. All furloughed government employees and federal contractor are eligible to receive the items…. (more)

January 14, 2019

‘Muslim-free’ gun range fights to exclude members of terror-linked group

‘A dangerous business. This isn’t a lunch counter’

WORLDNETDAILY — Does an American gun range have the right to exclude Muslims who are members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations because of the group’s ties to terrorism? That question could soon have a legal answer as a Muslim has filed a discrimination suit against the owners of a gun range in Oklahoma…. (more)

January 12, 2019

Legal analysts: Trump has the right to declare an emergency and build the wall

WASHINGTON EXAMINER — President Trump has the constitutional and legal right to invoke his emergency powers to divert funds to build a wall along the southern border without running afoul of the Constitution or the law, according to top legal analysts…. (more)

 Trump plan would improve current border situation (Byron York)

 A shutdown stalemate as Trump goes factual, Democrats illogical (Michael Barone)

January 12, 2019

Sarah Sanders responds to NY Times report that Trump a ‘Russian agent’

DAILY CALLER — White House press secretary Sarah Sanders responded quickly to a Friday New York Times report claiming that President Donald Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey led officials to begin investigating “whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests.”… (more)

 FBI reportedly investigated whether Trump was working for Russia (Daily Caller)

 Flashback: Peter Strzok expressed concern that ‘there’s no big there there’ in collusion probe (Daily Caller)

January 12, 2019

Governor removes Parkland sheriff over failure to save children

Criticized for not having department ready to respond to killer of 17

WORLDNETDAILY — The sheriff whose deputies failed to confront the shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, one year ago has been removed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Sun-Sentinel reported former Broward Sheriff Scott Israel was replaced by former Coral Springs Police Sgt. Gregory Tony, 40…. (more)

January 12, 2019

Blackburn bill would eliminate all federal funding of abortion providers

DAILY SIGNAL — Newly elected Sen. Marsha Blackburn announced Thursday that she has introduced her first bill in the Senate, one that would end federal funding to all abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood…. (more)

 Marsha Blackburn introduces bill to strip funding from abortion providers (National Review)

January 12, 2019

Pat Boone’s wife of 65 years, Shirley, dies: ‘I’ve parted with my better half for a little while’

PEOPLE — Shirley Boone, the wife of legendary 1950’s singer Pat Boone, has died. She was 84. Shirley passed away peacefully on Friday morning at the pair’s home in Beverly Hills after suffering complications from vasculitis, which she had contracted less than a year ago…. (more)

 Shirley Boone, Pat’s love for life, dies at 84 (WorldNetDaIly)

January 11, 2019

Locked out of Twitter for telling the truth about Islam

BRYAN FISCHER — Here is the message that greeted me on Monday morning as I opened my computer and began researching yesterday’s program: We’ve temporarily limited some of your account features… (more)

January 11, 2019

Lindsey Graham: Trump should use emergency powers to fund wall

NEWSMAX — Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on Thursday that President Donald Trump should declare a national emergency and bypass Congress to fund a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “refusal to negotiate on funding for a border wall/barrier – even if the government were to be reopened – virtually ends the congressional path to funding for a border wall/barrier,” Graham said in a statement…. (more)

 Trump edges closer to declaring national emergency to build border wall without Democrats’ OK (Washington Times)

 Trump: ‘We’re not changing our mind’ on border wall (Newsmax)

 CNN’s Acosta mocked for border wall video (Newsmax)

 Nail in the coffin: Trump finishes off Acosta after brutal day (Daily Wire)

January 10, 2019

Study: Border wall would pay for itself

Even if it stops only 3% to 4% of expected illegal crossers

WORLDNETDAILY — A study shows that President Trump’s southern border security wall would save American taxpayers far more than it would cost. The analysis comes from Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, who pointed out that the key issues are the cost of each illegal immigrant compared to the cost of a wall…. (more)

January 10, 2019

Senate passes bill to pay federal employees – after shutdown ends

WASHINGTON TIMES — Senators passed a bill Thursday to ensure all federal employees, whether they are still working or were furloughed, will be paid in full when the partial government shutdown ends. The shutdown will cross the three-week mark on Friday, which is also the same day that they will miss their first paychecks…. (more)

January 10, 2019

Trump tells feds not to fret: Furloughed employees will get back pay

WASHINGTON TIMES — President Trump Wednesday assured federal workers sidelined by the partial government shutdown that they’ll get paid retroactively. “They’re all going to get the money and I think they’re going to be happy,” he told reporters at the White House on the 19th day of the shutdown…. (more)

January 10, 2019

Democrats embrace ports of entry crackdown amid Trump border standoff 

WASHINGTON TIMES — Congressional Democratic leaders have embraced the goal of increased border security in their fight with President Trump, proposing measures to harden the U.S. ports of entry –– but omitting the barrier they supported five years ago. Those designated border crossings account for roughly 2.5 percent of the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border…. (more)

 Trump rebuffs Dems’ border security plan: ‘They don’t come in through checkpoints’ (Washington Times)

January 10, 2019

Democrats used Facebook to suppress GOP vote

Ex-Obama official bought ads on fake pages during midterms

WORLDNETDAILY — Led by a former Obama official, Democratic operatives bought ads on misleading Facebook pages to suppress Republican voter turnout in the recent midterm elections, reported the Daily Caller News Foundation…. (more)

January 9, 2019

Dem strategist: Pelosi, Schumer ‘struggle’ to ‘relate’ to Americans

Disappointingly ‘somber and stern’ in televised response to Trump

NEWSMAX — Democratic leadership appears to “struggle…to relate to Americans,” strategist Andrew Feldman said Wednesday. In a panel discussion Wednesday on The Hill.TV’s “Rising” program, a day after President Donald Trump’s Oval Office speech on border security, Feldman said he was disappointed in the somber and stern televised response from Senate Minority leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif…. (more)

 Rush Limbaugh: Schumer, Pelosi like robotic ‘undertakers’ in response to Trump’s border address (Washington times)

 Trump speech: Twitter pokes fun at Schumer, Pelosi ‘hostage tape,’ ‘American Gothic’ vibe (USA Today)

 Jerry Falwell Jr. to Newsmax TV: Trump ‘at his best’ in speech (Newsmax)

 Trump walks out of shutdown meeting with Democrats (Washington Times)

Previous news

Alan Keyes – Renew America -> Build the Wall Protect us all Alan Keyes - Renew America -> Build the Wall Protect us all January 15, 2019 Build the wall – protect us all…

[sxmmersover]

Insecurities, Jealousy, internal conflict and… Hypocrisy?

I’ve known Emma for a little over a year. we’ve been dating a week. that leaves pretty much a whole year where i wanted to be with her exclusively, but she wasn’t ready for relationship. 

i’d only really been properly single 2 months when i met Emma. 2 months to process and get over a 3 year relationship amid final year coursework, clearly not nearly enough time. i was nearly there though, i’d asked out a couple girls on dates with little success… but i was moving on. i knew once she’d given me the smallest ounce of attention and interest that i was hooked. she was stunningly pretty, wickedly wild and a total nerd loser at heart like me.

Classic Joe move, obviously caught feelings super fast even though it was clear this girl was on the anti relationship warpath. maybe i could’ve just seen her as a fuck, but Emma also treated me as something much more a lot of the time, so i dared to hope one day she’d come around to being with me. true she made it ever so clear the last thing she wanted was a relationship, but in many ways we treated each other like we were at least ‘seeing each other’. it caused me a lot of pain to know she’d kiss other guys on nights out etc but it brought a lot of comfort that i was the only person she was sexual with, shed always end back in my bed at the end of the night. i lived with that, it wasn’t what i wanted but it was the compromise i made to keep this girl i really liked in my life. i appreciated Emma’s honesty, it says a lot about her that she’d be completely upfront about what she did at the risk of me cutting things off.

The real focus of this post is sex, and my very confused feelings on it so that’s where i am gonna try to steer it now. my problem is holding things Emma did with other people whilst i was in her life against her. i don’t mean that i beef her, or v rarely do. its more when i’m low i think of those moments and think of the girl i love spitefully, its an awful feeling but i do and i want it to stop so bad.

a little ways in whilst continuing this casual friendship i hooked up with another girl multiple times. i don’t really know why i did, i guess it was purely because i could. Emma found out and was mad at me for keeping it from her. rightly so i should have mentioned it, but i was in denial thinking that i had no reason to tell her, i was just covering my ass.

Anyways, a little while later we were past that and it seemed we were getting very close, we even mentioned potentially proper dating. the problem was i was moving away so in the end what was the point. mid April while Emma was in Scotland she fooled around with a guy up there. it hurt me a lot true, i thought we were going to be dating when she got back, i felt a lil betrayed but she also never said we were exclusive so wcyd. when Emma came back from Scotland we fought and i told her she either committed to me or we stopped speaking. in a brutal fashion she said no way so i ended it. fair enough on her part but so far from what i wanted obviously.

during the time we weren’t speaking Emma slept with a guy a couple times. i can’t really understand why this still makes me want to vomit nearly 8 months later. its not the literally fact another dick was inside her, we both have sexual history obviously. its not like she cheated on me so its no that either. i guess its simply because hes the only other guy shes been with in the time i’ve been in her life. maybe that in that moment she was with him, she knew i existed, knew i loved her, wanted her more than anything, but instead chose to be with him. i know it isn’t as simple as that though, we weren’t on speaking terms so it wasn’t a simple choice between the two of us. i don’t really worry that much about him being a better shag. i know im good, but i still can’t her description of that night as ‘oH mY gOd the sEx’ like its burned into my brain. i still remember sobbing endlessly onto my friends floor as i saw her tweets showing he’d stayed over in her bed and they’d gone out for food and later that she had feelings for him. all while saying she needed to get over me. the whole thing still makes me want to fucking pull my hair out. literally some of the worst few days of my life.

that paragraph was heavy. i guess the point is that it doesn’t matter anymore. Emma never wronged me, but it still hurts and i subconsciously hold it against her. which isn’t fair on either of us. but see, this whole thing isn’t about trying to beef her being the whole sex thing is NOT one sided at all. by Sean, we’d both slept with one other person, not that numbers count, but my point is how can i be angry at her when i did the exact same thing, and i did it first? i even did it sober and many many more times than her. i also did it while we were on good terms, she did it while we weren’t even speaking. objectively emma sleeping with sean was no different to me sleeping with laura. i dont even think about laura, it was so unremarkable. emma probably feels the same with sean so why do i fixate on it so much?

fast forward many months theres little to talk about sex wise until Emma slept with a girl on a night out in late October. this one was a lot shittier in my eyes, she’d told me she didn’t wanna be with anyone else and i believed her, BUT and its a big BUT, we still weren’t exclusive so technically she didn’t wrong me. it hurt a lot, i felt so betrayed and so worthless but they are my own feelings to deal with, we weren’t exclusive so she was free to do whatever.

i don’t really have the energy to debate straight and gay sex but to me gay sex doesnt really bother me. so the fact emma fooled around with 2 girls recenly doesnt bother me to a massive extreme. hurts a little bit 1-2. what hurts a lot more was that she fooled around with connor who i was assured a million times over was just a pal but we literally werent even speaking then so can’t beef, but for whatever reason it still hurts.

see now while me and Emma weren’t speaking i started speaking to another girl in what i’d consider a fairly serious way. like we saw each other a lot, she met my fam but that was lit because they wouldn’t let me have a girl over without knowing her. probs because she was Mexican smh. SO THIS IS MY POINT. i slept with this girl, took her to college in the morning etc went on a couple dates yet im hung up over emma’s drunk pulls? WHY? that makes me such a hypocrite. well, at least i can recognise that. maybe i see myself as a victim? maybe its a lack of empathy? but from my understanding emma isnt bothered about me sleeping with other people (obvs before we got into a relationship). i evens slept with another girl in the UK. again counting numbers is silly but since we met emmas slept with 1 other guy to my 3 other girls? so why do i hold it against her and feel so shite about it? maybe i’m a bad person i wish i had a clear cut answer.  

perhaps how i see alice, laura and sindy as literal specs of dust compared to the wonder that is what i have with emma is how she views sean and those girls and thats why its not a big deal to her. maybe its not something to feel sick about all the time. like i said before the whole polygamy thing for the first year we knew each other was certainly both ways.

this has helped a lot, its emptied my head an awful amount. i just want us both to enjoy a long and loving relationship and for the past not to hold us back. its late and i should sleep. this post has literally 0 plan, a literal thought train but its also months worth of thoughts all rolled up into a big mush.

i wanna make it clear Emma isn’t responsible for my feelings, nor do i think she is. i just wanted to explore my own gripes to try and understand them a little better, maybe even resolve them in this little egg head of mine.

i know none of this matters now. i love this girl more than I've ever loved anyone. if we aren’t together at LEAST 5 years i’ll feel cheated by the universe. goodNIGHT

[blograzorwit]

Jest A Minute (23/12/2016) from Subroto Mukherjee

The BJP claims Modi-ji is 'as clean as the Ganga'! Which of course raises the question, exactly how clean is this river today? *** Love Machines!-------------------------- This news item jumped out at me from the papers! It has been predicted that, by 2050, humans will be having sex with robots! Ugh! Metal-made robots will make love to women who will give birth to half-metal babies -- and, the worst part, these babies will be given aptly metallic names like Taimur (meaning iron) or Stalin (meaning steel)! But wait -- wait -- no need to wait for 2050, this is already happening in 2016. Saif has just named his bonny baby boy Taimur. Well, (sigh) sounds awfully like Saif is a big fan of savage invaders. But not such a big fan of good sense and sensibility. *** No Great Shakes--------------------------------- The monstrous cyclone that recently struck Chennai did not shake up the resilient people or the hardy animals over there, including the docile-looking cows. Otherwise the next morning, instead of milk, people would have received milk-shakes on their door steps! ***   Cleaning Up His Act----------------------------------- Mumbai's BMC has made Salman Khan the poster boy for its cleanliness drive. OK, maybe his presence will help de-litter our streets a little bit. Spotting him on the streets, his fans will pick up any piece or scrap of paper littering the ground to take his autograph. *** You'd think potholes are no longer confined to our Mumbai roads. Picking Salman as the Chief of Clean-up Marshals is a sure sign that a gaping pothole has now appeared in the BMC's own think tank. *** Bars Barred------------------------ Very rightly, the Supreme Court recently barred bars from operating along our highways to curb the menace of reckless drunk driving. My own view on this is that drivers are by and large sensible people. When they realize they are drunk -- too drunk to drive -- they don't drive. Instead, they fly! They fly their vehicles along the highways as if it were runways and their vehicles were planes racing to take off! *** Kissing A Goat--------------------------- And our Supreme Court has also ruled that, if you are in the Indian Air Force, you cannot keep a beard. And an Air Force officer was overheard grumbling to someone : "The Air Force won't let me keep a beard. And my wife won't let me keep even a little goatee! She says, every time she kisses me, it feels to her like she is kissing a goat!" *** Hen-Pecked Pets-------------------------------- I hear pet shops are now to be regulated in our country. In other words, the authorities will now keep an eye on pet shops to ensure that pets are well cared for and not ill-treated. My question is, will the authorities also regulate the domestic scene where the dominant wives treat their poor hubbies like docile, willing, hen-pecked pets? *** Of Oval Office And Oval Eggs----------------------------------------------- Turns out Trump cannot spell simple words like 'unprecedented'. The other day in a tweet he spelled it as 'unpresidented'. I suppose this must be welcome news for George Bush Jr. During his time, he convinced us that he was the most ignorant and illiterate specimen ever to occupy the Oval Office. Now Georgie Porgie's own image is improving in our eyes, thanks to Dumb Trump who is not yet in the Oval Office but already laying perfectly oval eggs, to our great entertainment!     *** Tit For Tat--------------------- We banned Pakistani actors in India. And tit for tat, they banned our films in Pakistan -- only to realize how stupid their tit was to our tat. And the other day they had to revoke the ban on Indian films when they found that they were left with no films to show in most of their cinemas. Hey, where is their film industry? They have nothing, forget a film industry to make A song and dance about. They don't even make enough films to fill a matchbox -- forget filling all the theaters across their land!   *** Mad Maduro-------------------------- If you ask me, there are three kinds of people. (1) Those who blunder and learn from it. (2) Those blunder and learn nothing from it. And (3) those who actually repeat the blunders of others! I am not sure in whether our Modi-ji falls in the (1) or the (2) category but Venezuelan President Maduro definitely falls in the (3) slot! His demonetization move sparked wide-spread riots across Venezuela! Maduro must be quite mad to impose demonetization after seeing the farce of demonetization playing out here in India! *** Choke Hold!------------------------- Of course I don't have a clue but it could be that poor God was choking on a morsel of food while feasting in Heaven! Whatever the reason, the other day Henry Heimlich was hastily summoned to Heaven. Dr Heimlich might have left us but he has left behind his life-saving legacy -- the Heimlich Maneuver, the technique which is applied to save a person who happens to be choking on his or her food. In case you had no idea -- well, I didn't -- that choking on food is a pretty common hazard. In fact, right now here in India, many of us are choking on something called demonetization -- it's stuck in our throat and we are unable to quite swallow it as something beneficial to us! Too bad that we are choking at a time when Dr Heimlich is no longer around to save us! *** World's 9th Wonder Woman--------------------------------------------- The last of those irrepressible Hollywood glamour dolls -- Zsa Zsa Gabor -- is no more. In her lifetime, she possessed a wardrobe of 9999 fancy outfits and footwear, she enjoyed 999 affairs, married 9 times, once being married to a Mexican hubby for 9 hours or 19 hours and she passed away at the glorious age of 99! Wow! But wait, I am 99 percent sure I have not got the facts and figures right here. So excuse me please! Thank you.   ***

[toddlazarski]

Milwaukee’s Top 30 Restaurants

Shepherd Express

The problem with any trip to New York, aside from the cost, a frustrating inability to eat everything you want to eat, and again, the cost, is that no matter where you live, inevitably you’ll have to come home to your city's comparative small town-ness. Eventually you will get back, and eventually you will wake up hungry once again, somehow find new funds to go out to eat, and with brow furrowed, hoping for inspiration, will peruse a list of the top restaurants in town.

You might happen upon the Journal Sentinel's Top 30 Restaurants, Ranked.  At which point you'd be met with the usual, yearly suspects: your James Beard nominees, your spendy suburban steakhouse, overpriced casino stuff, trendy hotel fare. In short, you'll get the old school, parochial food journalism belief that such a 'top' list in town requires Bartolotta representatives, Sanford and such, special occasion spots where the food might, hopefully, taste better because it's a special occasion.  

But then you might flash back to that last day in Brooklyn, where you found yourself ambling up the avenue of Puerto Rico, toward East Williamsburg, past a Russian bar, an Indian restaurant, countless pizza places, toward a Lebanese joint named Wafa's. A spot with mom cooking, son prepping, some kind of tertiary uncle schlepping meat back to the kitchen from the rear of a double-parked Cherokee, with wafts of steaming kafta, plumes of roasting eggplant, spits spinning toward infinity with lamb and Middle Eastern promise, pungent, garlicky homemade hot sauce, and the most juice-spurting of chicken shawerma. It's the spot that would rightly make you wonder why you fretted for so long over reservations at Peter Luger Steakhouse - with button-down aesthetic, comically brusque waiters, instagramming tourists, loud mouth brokers seemingly still high on the last viewing of Wall Street. In short, Wafa's is the kind of spot to remind of the magic of going out to eat, of digging for another world.

Maybe it's just a penchant for the esoteric. For finding one's own hidden gems. But it gets at a deeper issue: even the NY Times' stodgy Pete Wells, in his Top New York Restaurants of 2016 piece, recognizes that "the growing distance between the very rich and everybody else is replicated, in miniature and with less alarming implications, in the city’s restaurant scene." Then he gives thanks for the fact he's able to include 3 places in his top 10 that "bowed to more moderate budgets."  

Now, with the rise of egalitarian treatment of low and high food, with the revelatory genius of Jonathan Gold, with the likes of Eater’s Essential New York Restaurants placing hipster pizza and downhome barbecue alongside the likes of old guard’s like Luger, it seems that, away from haute cuisine and fine French, the valet-level expectations, real food is elsewhere. We're past the point where we should confuse how the mouth feels with a price tag, with professional courtesies and hot hostesses, with overpriced wine, with a need to iron your pants, with some kind of perceived taste quality corollary to the bill amount.    

Sure I've never been to Sanford, but either have the vast majority of Milwaukeeans. For the rest, there might exist a counter list, for the everyman, for the family, for midweek, for those who prefer steak tacos to steak houses. For those who believe the spice of life is, well, spice itself. And who think the best cook is still grandma, or, in a pinch, mom.  

1. C-Viche

Most good restaurants have a signature dish, here we have mouthfeel dreams of at least four: the anticuchos - beef hearts, though that sounds much less romantic - are as juicy and earthy as steak bites get, even for the offal-squemaish; the esquites, easily the best corn dish in town, are served off the cob with a velvety queso crumble, citrusy kick, and creamy, gently spiced chipotle finish; patatas bravas, fried potatoes with homemade chorizo and indefinably spiced rocoto sauce, have all of the salt, grease, and crispy carb happiness as is responsible for a before meal dish; and pork beans, whose addictive, lardy creaminess goes full Magritte: by comparison, every previously encountered refried legume seems like it was maybe not a representative of beans at all. And these are just the apps and sides. Kick everything up with aji verde sauce - a serrano pepper and mayo marriage of spice and texture to float away on. Wash it all down with citrus-bursting caipirinhas or yolky pisco sours. And only now, finally, can you get down to entrees. The lomo saltado, a beef tenderloin sauteed with onions, garlic, tomatoes, and cilantro makes even the best steak frites offering seem suburban and soulless. Or there’s the tostadas, with deeply smoky, spiced chicken, topped by generous crema and avocado. There’s also the matter of their eponymous seafood stuff, fresh and lime-zinging. Actually it’s a bit of everything. The pan-Latin smorgasboard is equally good for taco Tuesday or Sunday brunch, for day drinking with a Peruvian spiced ham sandwich or for a churrasco date night. C-Viche combines all things into a soul all it's own, of the sort and quality not even approached anywhere else in town.

2. Points East

Every sports bar in America does wings. Every gastropub too. Not to mention most Asian places, many Mexican spots, and the five convenient Milwaukee-area Wingstops. Yet, few seem to realize or care that the majority are doing America’s favorite snack wrong. Crispy - they are supposed to be crispy. Points East not only does them right, they make them completely their own. Fried, then sauced, then grilled, they get crispy caramelized, with heat and drip from the sauce and a smoky grilled essence, a black-flecked char and tender juiciness combined in happy, hot union. It's an inspired riff, made all the better by a stubborn realization that one million flavor sauces does not a good wing make. They do them one way, their way. Every order at Points is a tasty testament to specialization, to ignoring the masses to stay true to yourself. It's also the best chicken wing this Buffalo native has ever tasted outside of the motherland.

3. El Tsunami

Forget steak tacos. The tacos al carbon from this sliver of a corner dive on Lincoln are so much deeper, richer in smoky charcoal taste, smacking of fire-love and something ephemeral, that the asada offerings from, say, the beloved Guanajuato, might as well be Chipotle. It calls back to an older country, an older time, and it’s a reminder that just when you think you know Mexican food, there’s another layer, another foodstuff. Of course it helps that they also have maybe the best version of that ubiquitous southside sauce - creamy, avocado-touched, emulsified serrano salsa. This alone might make an El Paso-seasoned offering taste great. But then you can round out a taco order with arguably the best chorizo in Milwaukee - crumbly and porky and guajillo-and-garlic-noted. Or try the stewed beef desebrada. Or opt for a fish entree coated in the spicy, buttery diablo sauce, or really anything from the massive seafood section. Actually the latter can be sampled just by sitting down - a ceviche dip is gratis, with warm chips and two popping table salsas, and is slung your way as soon as you get comfortable. It’s a portent of a spot most generous in all ways.  

4. La Merenda

Milwaukee’s original proprietor of the small plate, farm-to-table aesthetic is still the best. The warm, colorful joint is hip, while holding claim as O.G. of the Walker’s Point foodie scene. It is under the buzz radar, yet always bustling. You can get Panang curry next to seafood escabeche. Merenda is everything and yet completely it’s own. Personal favorites: chipotle pork tostadas, goat quesadillas, Argentinian beef, patatas bravas con chorizo. That’s a lot, and it disregards half the menu, half the world. There’s also the likes of shrimp masala, veal potstickers, pork belly crepes. If that’s too much taste mileage for one meal, bring everything back home with the most essential menu offering: goat cheese curds. LaClare Farms cheese nuggets with a chorizo cream sauce and crostini. It’s exotic ‘Sconnie, it is fat guy foodie-dom, it is a gold label bar snack. And, like most of the menu, it is pure taste bliss.

5. Pho Hai Tuyet

This airport-adjacent dive would warrant a top-five spot solely on the bahn mi: crisped, juicy pork scrags, equal parts flattop char and chewy, spiced and greasy, bedded in a pillowy French baguette that is pleasantly slicked with garlicky mayo, topped with a bursting bounty of cilantro, chopped carrots, and fresh, seedy jalapeno. That is but a list though, and the product is far greater than the sum of the parts. Meaty, salty, saucy, bready and tangy, the sandwich is a considerably girthed taste torpedo, almost too big, and full of consistent, with-everything bites. It’s the type of offering to render the other 70 some menu items as afterthought, and easily takes the title as best sandwich in town. But, it is in the name, so a responsible eater should at least sample some pho. Of the offerings, we prefer the meatball varietal, with baseball-sized orbs of spongy beef, floating languorously in rich, salty broth. Top everything with chunky garlic chilli sauce, wash it all down with a Thai iced coffee, and don’t question the weird calculus of milk, sugar, and condensed milk, the surprising ability of a decidedly non-coffee shop to craft such a satisfying caffeine concoction. It gets at the kind of intangible, comforting charms found in the likes of far flung Queens, or in a wistful Jonathan Gold article. And it’s just kitty corner from our own General Mitchell.    

6. San Giorgio

Whatever VPN (Vera Pizza Napoletana) means or doesn’t mean, whether it is adherence to the grandest Southern Italian tradition, or merely a marketing ploy, this is the best Neapolitan pizza in town. The neighbor of Calderone Club is a long overdue downtown dinner spot, equal parts relaxed and classy, inspired and traditional, perfect for an in-the-know date night or a before Bucks game snack. But the background barely matters. Even the sight of the slick from-Italy oven, the how-the-sausage-is-made pizza bar, or the toppings themselves - smoked provola cheese or bufalo mozz, soppresata or Genoa salami or prosciutto  - should be afterthought. It’s about flour-meets-flame: the doughy, charry, leopard-skinned crust is a bed of appetite dreams. A perfect canvas. A paradigm of the simple, somehow transcendent joys of wood-fired ‘za.

7. Vanguard

It’s hard to imagine Bay View before Vanguard. The bar is the meat of the coolest neighborhood in the city. But it’s even harder to imagine Milwaukee before Vanguard. In a land known for sausages, the city had no true sausage spots. Now the likes of the ‘Salazar’ (Hungarian sausage with cream cheese, cheddar, and bbq sauce) and the ‘Kilig’ (an Asian-leaning pork sausage with hoisin, soy and chili sauce) are household names, while the Duck BLT and the velveeta-draped Dirty Burger - yes, a sausage burger - are pigout game-changers. Co-owner Jim McCann brings Michelin-star pedigree - he is also part owner of Chicago’s Longman & Eagle - and big city, Hot Doug’s-ish inspiration toward a cheffy, artistic approach to tubed meats. The menu changes frequently, a neat analogy for the ‘hood. But sociological analysis here seems beside the point, Vanguard is simply a killer neighborhood corner bar that is also the ultimate fat guy food emporium.

8. Odd Duck

It’s easy to want to exclude Odd Duck, what with the hip zip code and cliched ‘small plate’ aesthetic and  rustic motif by now embraced by every restaurant ever. But the Duck somehow manages to sidestep hipster tropes and attitude and maintain the feel of a neighborhood joint - one that is endlessly friendly, surprisingly affordable, and so damn interesting, time and again. Shortrib carnitas, lamb kofta, and Hungarian peppers stuffed with spiced beef are some recent highlights, alongside the always extensive charcuterie and cheese plate offerings. These are also some of the stiffest, craftiest of craft cocktails around. That very statement deserves an eye roll, yes. But every trip here reminds that trend fatigue is no match for quality, care, and execution.   

9. Guadalajara

Behold the power of the mighty arbol. The innocuous looking little dried chile that most novice Mexican chefs have a barely-cracked bag of in the back of a cabinet from that one time a too-hot Bayless salsa recipe called for them, is the MVP (Most Valuable Pepper) at this old school haunt. Primarily, in the bistec en chile de arbol. Tender skirt steak is drowned in the devilish red sauce. Creamy and creeping, it comes with a little voice in your ear that urges you to keep eating. It’s self preservation, because the burn sets in when you stop. This is probably the best spicy dish in town - but, like, beads of sweat from a workout spicy. There’s also a request-only arbol-based salsa, perfect for taking everything else on the menu to the same Dante-ish level. Speaking of everything else, from the table salsas on up, it is solid, and slung with a smile in a Walker’s Point corner joint that feels like your Grandma’s basement bar, that was finished sometime in the late 70’s.   

10. The Tandem

Socially, it is the most important restaurant in Milwaukee. When Caitlin Cullen left Bavette to strike out on her own, she eschewed Walker’s Point, Bay View. Instead she set up shop in Lindsay Heights, the oft overlooked west side neighborhood with a near 50% poverty rate. She asked the community what type of dishes they would like to see on the menu of her new venture. She decided to focus on hiring exclusively from within said neighborhood. She sought to go further, banking on her Detroit-area teaching background, to offer extensive kitchen training to new employees, even those with no experience, hoping her spot is a kind of launching pad for restaurant help within the entire city. But that refreshing do gooder-ism isn’t even why it makes the list. It’s the fried chicken. The Memphis style is impossibly crispy, red-flecked, crumbly, succulent underneath, and refreshingly not just in the hip vain of Tennessee’s other chicken city. There’s also a golden Georgian variation, and the likes of smoked kielabasa, burrata, chicken liver mousse, or simple Coney Island dogs. At the bar there is also a sense of good will, good times, and a good reason to get fat and leave a huge tip.

11. Palomino

Nobody seems to care much about Palomino anymore, and that’s fine. That means less wait for the impossibly juicy griddled burger, for the spicy pimento cheese, the fried bologna, or the most satisfying, consistent soul food dish in town: the hot chicken sandwich. It’s a crispy thigh, slick with mayo, popped with homemade pickles and tangy homemade hot sauce, housed in a soft but sturdy brioche. Top it with more of the hot sauce, wash it down with whichever double IPA is fresh - there always seems to be a new one. Palomino has no more bingo, or down home aww shucks, curds-and-High Life-and-Packers game vibe. But now the curds are exquisite, big and gooey and smartly battered, indicative of a food level that is vastly improved. Every meal here, even when it’s half empty on a Friday night, seems to remind that in life, things change, that that’s not bad, and going out to eat should be about quality, taste - not nostalgia.  

12. Zarletti

Every legit big city downtown should have one old school pasta place fit for the conjuring in that Billy Joel song. Zarletti is our pick, though from the house ragu of the day to the house ravioli of the day it’s clearly dedicated to far more than a bottle of red, a bottle of white. The Crostini Misti - crunchy bread topped with either roasted pulled lamb, mortadella pate, or a piquant peperonata - is appetizer genius. Decadent, especially considering, if you’re doing it right, it should be setting the place for either the  ossobuco or the veal in lemon pan sauce. You’re worth it, sometimes. Sure, here, there are always suits, valet parking, and the aforementioned feel of special occasion. But the sliver of a bar always feels laid back enough, especially for a solo meal and chat with the bartender, and the al fresco dining is no big deal in the simple fashion of the way they do it in the old country. Wherever you happen to fit in, we stand by the idiom that you should judge all Italian chefs and restaurants by their carbonara. Simple, satisfying, with popping pancetta, a hint of onion, generous Pecorino, it’s the al dente chewiness of consistent comfort, of fat and cream, egg and cheese, of just the right amount of craft and downhome-ness. No matter Zarletti’s Milwaukee Street location or that Porsche parked in front, at it’s best it slings this perfected peasant food.  

13. El Tucanazo

This splinter of space on 13th Street feels like a roadside spot somewhere in the Mexican state of Hidalgo. At least according to someone from there. To us it feels like a favorite hidden secret. Colorful and dingy, all meat smoke and spatula crack on the flattop and Tecate swill and futbol on the TV, it’s the epitome of the conclusion of Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain: “heaven is a Mexican restaurant.” We go back to the bistec en salsa verde, the steak treading, but going toward drowning, in it’s salty, sheeny bath of peppery, onion-and-cilantro-chocked verde sauce. But there’s so much: marinated pastor, deeply smoky cochinita pibil, greasy chorizo, a satisfying chipotle salsa. Or, in other terms, they have the basics, done right, with passion and flair, a huge menu, some attitude, and a consistent serving of a saucy, spicy, southside slice of paradise.  

14. Anodyne

Whether it’s our town’s coffee king or not is a personal opinion. But Anodyne’s groundbreaking nitro cold brew is, objectively, the best caffeine offering in Milwaukee. Frothy, bold, creamy, it’s the game-changer every summer morning deserves, like starting your day with a well-poured Guinness. Speaking of which, they also have beer, which follows a need necessitated by pizza. Owner Matt McClutchy  followed his backyard passion of making ‘za to a from-Naples, top-shelf Stefano Ferrara wood-burning oven that is the heart of the shop’s Bay View location. The few-years development of the crust, from spotty, to respectable, to occasionally-perfect, shows the art, the practice, the tasty rhythm within making a great pizza. Now, with pies like the white sauce and sausage Bianca, the sopressata and chili flaked ‘Spice’ or a traditional margherita, it seems fully astride, to the point it’s easy to wonder: is Anodyne a great coffee shop with pizza, or a great pizzeria with coffee? The answer is yes.        

15. Kopp's

Kopp’s is the Tom Petty of Milwaukee restaurants. Universally beloved, everyone agrees on the All-American satisfaction level herein, even if they only think about it once a summer or so. The old school burger and ice cream joint is also a highly professional pleasure-bringer. Everything is done swift, smart, proficiently, like the solos you know, the way you want to hear them - the beefy, smoky wafts hitting you from the parking lot, tapping into some protein-craving primality. Whatever your patty base, customization is the key to the lock of one’s personality. We like goopy mayo, running with hot sauce, fried onions, and jalapenos. We also need regular therapy. We also prefer a double, and how it takes gluttony as far as is advisable, stopping just short of state fair freakout foodstuffs. Like the best of old school burgers, there is always an almost unappetizing amount of grease. That almost is key. Because then there’s taste space to wash it all down with a sundae. A combination better than Jesus and America, too.   

16. Tomken's

Points East - West. The fry-sauce-grill method perfected on Jackson Street has a spiritual home in this ‘Stallis haunt - the wings are similarly charry, crispy, still-saucy, ever-tender, with Frank’s Red Hot-hued tang scorched right into the skin, smacking of salt and vinegar and ephemeral tongue burn. It’s an honorable understudy, an apt homage to Buffalo - the city that’s made a spiritual art out of second place, and another inspired take on everyone’s favorite bar snack, one that maybe constitutes enough of a presence to deem this ‘Milwaukee style.’ Maybe. The spot also says ‘Friendly Fried Chicken’ right on the marquee, and indeed it comes lovingly wrapped in napkins like a steaming newborn, maintaining juice and fryer essence. It’s really indicative of a spot that takes bar fare seriously, in a city where it’s far too easy to phone in your burger and fried curd offerings.  

17. Juquilita

Another testament to the layers upon layers of Mexican cuisine are the layers upon layers of flavor within a well made tlayuda. It’s a thin, crunchy, lightly fried tortilla pocket lovingly stuffed with refried beans, queso fresco, avocado, salsa, and your choice of meat - which should be pork. It’s a Oaxacan specialty, hitting all flavor points, satisfaction spots, orgiastically combining everything your mouth may want to feel at the same times. There’s crunch, grease, a savory pie-like delivery system, creaminess, fatty bean smear, gooey, hot cheese, charry grilled meat, plenty of bright pepper pop. Top bites in rotation with salsas that are in turn fresh and bright, silky and hot, smoky. It’s one of the few tlayudas in town, perfect for nights when you can’t decide on Mexican or pizza. Don’t wait for tomorrow, have both now.

18. El Canaveral

Still another way to fit everything in there at once, to rebel against refinement, to embrace hedonism in bite form, is the Mexico City specialty known as the alambre. Essentially a Mexican stir fry, Canaveral’s specialty is a pork-on-pork-on-steak skillet, with crisped asada, salty chorizo, and chopped bacon, topped with cilantro, onion, tomatoes, jalapenos, and an irresponsibly generous layer of goopy melted queso. It’s a greasy, heady, make-your-own taco mash. It’s also what your hangover hunger stomach dreams about, and can be topped by salsas that show off the kitchen’s penchant for emulsification. Creamy, spicy, with habenero or jalapeno, it’s a table sauce trio that shows the oft overlooked fact that texture is one of the most important aspects of salsa. Also of note is the fact that Canaveral is the rare kind of Mexican dive: a warm-wooded, old school Milwaukee barrom you’d actually want to hang at. Really, for an alambre, we’d probably want to hang anywhere.

19. Thai Bar-B-Que

With the likes of Thai Lotus, Bamboo, Vientiane, and the salsa bar at Fiesta Garibaldi’s Chicken Palace, Silver City’s strip of National Avenue is rife with faraway spices and exotic appetite options. But Thai Bar-B-Que remains the regional monarch. The menu is a bounteous smorgasboard, bouncing between lovingly grilled meat, and spicy, aromatic stews. The city’s best soup, in highly meaty, salty, noodle-laced, comforting pho form, can be sided by impossibly succulent barbecue chicken on a stick. Larb can be had alongside beef in an oyster sauce. Try anything with a meatball, or, better yet, a pork ball. And certainly get something “marinated and grilled to perfection” - not an empty promise. Chase the heat with a soothing tea, or sugary iced coffee. It’s a daunting food list, begging of repeat visits, adventurous orders, and offers a sensory gamut for the nose as much as the mouth. By fortune cookie time, it feels like an experience on par with a friend’s tip for an in-the-know spot in Astoria. More nuts-and-bolts though, with all the heartening, brothy heat and zing, it’s at least the best winter restaurant in town.  

20. Quiote

It’s not a southside hidden gem, it’s far from the seediness of taqueria row whose presence would make it feel a diamond in the rough. But from an unassuming corner of Bluemound, Quiote yields unparalleled fish tacos. Whitefish, liberally smacked with ancho chile, grilled into soft, saucy nuggets, is housed in a double tortilla home - one corn, one flour, durability and flavor, authenticity and a touch all their own. Chiptle aioli, pico de gallo, crumbled queso fresco, and lettuce round out the flavor packages, lending depth, sauciness, and a resounding gardeny pop. There are also deep, dark moles, reeking of smoke and so many spices and all the kitchen work nobody wants or can do at home. The place is really a tiny flavor slice of Oaxaca, a state known as the richest of Mexican cooking culture. One could even make a case for the fish entree dishes - whitefish or shrimp in a Veracruz tomato sauce or a garlic butter concoction. But it’s the fish tacos that continually drag us west. I’ve never been to San Diego, but I’ve been to Jacobus Park.  

21. Don Lucho Carnitas

Of all the life lessons Mexican cuisine has in store, maybe the most important, the most ephemeral, resides in carnitas. The slow-cooked pork dish is traditionally served on weekends - as a reward for the week’s work. Could there be a better reward than pork bits, slicked in a fatty sheen, soaked in the residue of a long hot bath in lard, being hacked fresh from a pig heap by a little guy with a big knife?  

For in-the-moment tacos we might actually prefer the Don’s pastor - big, saucy chunks of seasoned pork, with hefty onion and cilantro essence. Yet it’s really about what happens later. There are two thick, beautiful salsas - one red, deeply smoky and piquant, and a verde that bursts with jalapeno freshness. Get one of each to go, along with a half pound of carnitas. The key to happiness is something to look forward to. Especially if you can look forward to later on in the night, and the moment of standing at the refrigerator, dunking lard-fried pork into awesome sauce, forgetting Monday will ever come again.   

22. Los Gemelos

Trompos are painfully hard to come by - expensive to keep heated, a pain by which to placate the health department, underappreciated by the masses, there are but a few in town. Of these Lebanese-inspired Mexican spits, Gemelos is the best. And even they only fire it up once a week. It’s worth it to find that day at this unassuming strip on 11th and Mitchell, for the fleshy, pink, lightly crisped, salty, and vaguely Middle Eastern-spiced meat. It’s an intriguing slab - a porky canvas for maybe the ultimate tag team of salsas in town - there’s a red hot habenero emulsification, full of bite and a little smoke, along a chilled out, creamy jalapeno number. It’d be hard to have a bad meal with such good sauces. But we’ve cycled the menu to make sure. Highlights include a comparatively light, still flavorful chorizo, and moist, tender arrachera. On non-trompo days, they do a different pastor - a marinated, slow-roasted pork. It’s a morsel mouthful of a reminder that seasoned pork is still seasoned pork. And that the cooking of Oaxaca - where the owner hails from - is the best in the world.

23. Glorioso's

The hardware store is a brunch destination, Mimma’s is sleeps with the fishes, and Glorioso’s maybe lost their heart by crossing Brady Street into bigger, brighter, cleaner Whole Foods-ified digs. But when the prosciutto hits the bread, nothing else on Brady Street matters. The ‘Human Torch’ -  with calabrese, capocollo, provolone, hot pepper spread and hot muffalata mix, is a big, spicy burner, a next-day-regret-bringer in the best sense. It’s a personal favorite, but near anything else is equal as an exemplary butcher paper-wrapped, oil-dripping, sheeny, cured meat lunch slayer. From the chicken parm to the meatball to the sausage to the muffalatta, these are the kind of simple, soulful, spicy sandwiches fit for a guy in a hard hat sitting on a beam, for a road trip, to pick up and stick in the fridge as long as you’re stopping to pick up some guanciale from the meat department. Despite the aesthetic upgrade, Glorioso’s does harken a simpler time, like the days when the likes of Paulie Walnuts could sit out front with his tanning mirror and not wonder if the East Side was losing it’s soul.

24. Crazy Water

Before Walker’s Point was everything, and probably after it’s had it’s moment too, there was and will be Crazy Water. Equal parts class and friendliness, small plate and entree, oysters or grilled octopus, hanger steak or short ribs. It seems to nail farm-to-table buzziness and comforting classics, in a vintage tavern with a laughably petit corner kitchen, and a vibe that makes you feel like you should drink wine, make friends with your neighboring table. While it is essentially a seafood restaurant, a land-focused eater could make a feast of just the starters: Berkshire pork belly, sichuan pork dumplings, peach glazed baby back ribs, a burrata grilled cheese. Just make sure to at some point sample the Crazy Shrimp - shrimp, chorizo sausage, tomatoes, cilantro, asian bbq sauce, and jalapeno cornbread muffins. It’s a new genre type of dish, that somehow feels it’s always been there. Much like the restaurant itself.  

25. Chef Paz

Peru - with its cultural heart a melange of Inca, Africa, Spain, China, Japan, Italy, its topographical makeup a hybrid of coast, highlands, and jungle - is home of the most diverse cuisine on the planet. So a spot with a French sounding name in the heart of West Allis seems apt to hint at the spectrum. On the simple side are traditional empanadas, kicked up by a creamy, garlicky green hot sauce, or a trio of limey ceviches. Things start to get interesting around the yuccas though - you can have them boiled, topped with an Andean cream cheese sauce, or fried and stuffed with cheese and sirloin. Entrees bound between the “jungle” - the smoked pork cecina; to the Latin likes of paella; to the “Chef Paz” - a bean pancake with strips of juicy tenderloin, sautéed on “high flames” with onion, tomatoes, and wine, topped with a fried egg; to a Peru-Chinese fusion form of fried rice with shellfish and a creole sauce. The latter is described as “aphrodisiacal,” which instantly makes this the most swaggering menu in town. Wash anything down with a pisco sour or a chicah morada - a purple corn, cinnamon, clove glass of alchemy -  and sit back, giving wonder to how such sexy fare can feel so homey.      

26. Merriment Social

They have beer cheese soup dumplings, al pastor and pork belly on top of garlic fries, cheese curds with herbed breadcrumbs and fontina, a chicken and waffle dish sided with  sriracha-beer gastrique - just to name a few of the elevated-leaning bar fare dishes that read like a menu designed by Guy Fieri fresh off a semester studying in France. With that the spot that’s never been able to sustain a business seems like it’s finally found a groove, as a cool garage-door-open summer patio, fit for Third Ward happy hour-ing or a quick pregame beer outside before Summerfest. Still, the most merriment really stems from the burger. Thin double patties are constructed with cheek, chuck, short rib, and brisket, topped with house-churned American cheese, applewood bacon, house sauce that swirls mayo, mustard and bbq sauce. If Kopp’s is rock, this is Bach. Note the half-melted cheese, reaching just the perfect goo point as you smush down on the buns - it’s indicative of a mindful flavor meld, like everything was carefully calculated, ratios balanced with a bubble level, the package as close to the meat-cheese-sauce-bun apotheosis as possible. There’s no better ‘craft’ burger in Milwaukee.

27. Amilinda

Chef Gregory Leon combines the many roots of his existence - Oklahoma, Venezuela, San Francisco, a deep love of the food of Spain and Portugal - into a singular, precise, limited-menu vision in his first full restaurant. There’s really only a few things to eat on any given night, so it is with a certain amount of trust that a diner must embark upon the hip Wisconsin Ave eatery.  Yet just one meal can teach to believe in his artistic yet comforting flair. There are the simple fall time pleasure of a smoked trout salad; a skirt steak, plopped in romesco sauce, pepped by shishitos; a pork chop, the tender hunk bathing in adobo sauce, sided with broccoli raab, and, because Leon clearly wants us to be happy, linguica. It’s a buzzy, sceney spot to spend a night downtown, and Amilinda reminds that that can sometimes still be a soulful thing.

28. Anmol

An underrated cuisine, on an overlooked strip, a prodigious menu, and very few caucasians - Anmol checks all the boxes for ethnic food greatness potential. Pakistani fare doesn’t have the same sticker appeal as neighboring Indian, but this unassuming spot on Mitchell can open eyes and appetite horizons. There are standard makhanis, curries, samosas. But consider there’s an entire section devoted to mutton. And there are deep cut offerings like qeema naan stuffed with ground beef, buttery, tomatoey chicken sixty-five, goat brain curry. We often find our way back to the rolls - the seekh kabob roll, specifically, with minced beef, onions, chutney - and to the fact you can judge any restaurant by how they fry chicken. Here the chicken pakora are delectable, marinated nuggets of fryer heaven - crisped, juicy, salty, they are dangerously addictive, even without the zesty chutney.

29. Benji’s

If Kopp’s is Petty, Benji’s might be Springsteen. It’s a beloved joint of a very specific time and place, of a very certain type of everyday, everyman heroism. And people that love it really love it. In fact all Shorewood-ers seem to be regulars, either favoring the benedict-type breakfasts, or the definitive Milwaukee corned beef, best sampled in reuben form. If it’s not an every week type of stop, it’s best to combine both pre-night meals: try a corned beef hash and cheddar omelet, or the Hoppel Poppel - scrambled eggs blended with crisped potatoes and fried salami. It’s a cool old school diner from before old school diners were cool, and it’s the saltiest, cure-iest corner of comfort - the kind that piques neighborhood jealousy.

30. Jake’s

Instead, you may, understandably, prefer Milwaukee’s best pastrami: salty, consummating tender pink and charry black, dominated by salt, stacked in a thin-sliced tower, topped by swiss, housed in rye - the way it’s been done on North and 17th since 1955. Side it with a matzo ball soup, fatty and grandmotherish, and appreciate that you’re going beyond the common big deal food tropes, the so-called destination fare, sharing in history, while also supporting a largely forgotten neighborhood. Not that food should be about anything other than taste - but a little feel can go a long way.