Grosser Than Gross

Friends know that I have an aversion to sprouting foods. Things like onions and potatoes, vegetables that are supposed to be eaten long before they grow, gross me right out once they've developed stalks and eyes. Things like this (ew) make me leave the kitchen. And walking in to the kitchen today, I find a horrifying green tendril emerging from a piece of garlic, which bore an awful resemblance to the totally terrifying cordyceps fungus at work. I can't believe that you all don't think this stuff is horrible.

Eat Your Heart Out

Delicious meals awaiting me today: lunch at Taqueria Nacionale and a celebratory dinner at Comet Ping Pong. By the end of those posts, you will be salivating. Promise.

. . . and Murder Is Tasty

My favorite foodie blogger Metrocurean notes that hip vegetarian cafe Vegetate is finally receiving a temporary liquor license, over the longstanding objections of Shiloh Baptist Church. That's good news, but a temporary liquor license is only a battle won, not the war. Only when Vegetate is licensed to serve delicious, delicious meat will its day have finally arrived.

Better Than Cigarettes

Cheaper, too.

UPDATE: Allen Ginsberg is cooler than Charles Bukowski.

The fire in our hearth will beckon the thaw

Stocking stuffers!

• Brent Burton writes in the City Paper about the influence of Cormac McCarthy, author of Blood Meridian, on bands like Boris, Isis, and Sunn O))). Burton writes the piece as an update, sort of, on Jon Caramanica's NYT profile of the dark, shriveled, lit-loving heart of art metal, so be sure to read that, too. Heart-warming holiday fare.
  
• Meet the D'Angelo Bros., who operate the game counter in Philly where I bought the goods for game night, and from whom I just ordered a 12-lb. goose for a rich, pre-UnfoggeDCon holiday feast.
  
• Paul Schmelzer writes an update on the absurd obscenity charges that may be levied against Henri-Claude Cousseah, former director of the Centre d'Arts Plastiques Contemporains, and curators Marie-Laure Bernadac and Stèphanie Moisdon for displaying allegedly "paedopornographic" images in a 2000 exhibition. None of us is safe, if you can't get away with that stuff in France. (Art—I mean art.)
  
• Neighbor and G.p-pal Julian Sanchez thwarts a burglary (the, what, third burglary of his house this year?). Neil the Ethical Werewolf asks, "When libertarians manage to ward off criminal activity through their own efforts, do they feel a special pride in usurping the function of the state that other people do not?" Who's got a monopoly on violence now?
  
• Courtesy of one very drunk arthegall: Jeu Chiant, which is just as the name suggests.
  
• Pictures of some guy wearing decent suits. Merry Christmas, Catherine.
  
• The Scream, recently returned to the Munch Museum in Oslo, appears to be damaged beyond repair, according to the NYT.

Finally, a holiday miracle: Eakins's The Gross Clinic will remain in Philadelphia. Better still, it will be jointly owned by the Philly and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, giving the painting even greater presence—all in all, fantastic news, and Philly art phreaks have reason to celebrate. Thanks, Uncle Wachovia! It's disconcerting how much energy and money it takes to stop the Waltons from squirreling away the art history of America to Bentonville, Arkansas—but, fuck it, I'm going to eat a candy cane.

It's All in the Game

While I was in Philly visiting Emily, I found a meat counter at the Italian market that sold game. Whole geese, elk steaks, alligator fillets, buffalo beef, bones of all varieties for stocks, and sausage galore—anything you could ask for from the wider animal kingdom. The Dallas Cowboys partisan in me hesitates to say that it was enough to convert me to full-fledged Phillophilia—Eagles fans harassed Santa, for chrissakes—but I'm sure I've never seen any meat counter like it.

Before we left, K. and I personally ensured that every employee received a healthy holiday bonus. She'd been talking for a while about cooking a goose, but we couldn't buy one that day; the butcher only kills the goose on order (so you're in fact taking out a hit). Instead, we bought plenty of this, that, and the other. Last night, we made dinner with our spoils: figs wrapped in boar prosciutto, grilled, and treated with drizzled honey; rabbit sausage in bangers and mash; acorn squash with butter and brown sugar; a venison leg roast, marinated in buttermilk and herbs and then larded with frozen bacon nails before being roasted in Warsteiner with leeks, carrots, onions, and celery; and a delicious chestnut chocolate tort. (Firing up the grill in November is very much called for.) Some photos if you're so inclined, but fair warning—my point-and-click and I don't claim any food-photography chops. Check in with Matt Harvey for that.

So! This has been a fun post—I had a good meal and you didn't. But there's a story. Needing wax paper and milk, I stepped over to the nearby R/te A/d, never for a moment deviating mentally from the tasks back at the house: the grill, the gourds, the guests—and these leaves I'm supposed to be picking to use as molds for the chocolate garnish. I was deep in thought when I walked in, and focusing totally when I walked out with goods in hand, having not paid for them. The funny thing is, when you're walking home with loose groceries, even just a few, people will stop to ask you why you're not carrying them in a bag. It's a genuine curiosity. The answer is, "Because I shoplifted these," unless you don't realize what you've done—how's that for scatterbrained? When I did finally realize, I was terrified to turn around, for fear of looking too suspicious, carrying red handed my $5 in stolen groceries. Later, I felt like an ice-cold hardass.

So Bonnie and Clyde join Punk Rock Kitchen. Save room for transgression!