Live from Opening Day

Its a beautiful day here in Japan. Ok, not in Japan. Boston. And its not exactly beautiful, it's really cold. Spring. Opening day. I just can't help thinking that when the games come back to Fenway it will be really cold.

As I write the Sox are up 6-4 in the top of the tenth. Hoping for an Okajima save to win this one and put it in the books (so I can get back to work). Keeping track of the game on the ESPN game cast thing was not working. So old stand by Yahoo sports works pretty well - just not the cool graphics of the game cast.

Go Sox!!

UPDATE: Sox win to remain in first place - thanks to Manny "the Man" Ramirez and newcomer Brandon Moss (JD Who?). Hot dogs and beer for dinner. Here's to an undefeated season!

MSG for You and Me

In the Dining & Wine section of the The New York Times is a good column about the history and uses of MSG. Author Julia Moskin goes into how MSG got a bad rap, how it is still being used in most Asian cuisines, and how forms of glutamate are used in lots of common items that most American consumers would probably not realize. I found this very enlightening, since all I ever knew about MSG was that it was a shortcut for adding umami to foods and that it was supposedly bad for you.

Maybe I'll start using that Accent I bought all those years ago...

Food & Wine Rates American Wines

There's a good review of American wines over at Food & Wine Magazine. Essentially a plonk review, they looked at over 300 wines under $20 and narrowed the list to 67 to buy and try in a bunch of categories. If you're like me, you're always looking for good every day type wines that won't break the bank. This should offer a good guide of American choices.

I still have trouble overcoming the stigma of screw caps, but environmentally isn't this the right way to go...?

Kapusta-head

I almost never cook cabbage. My grandmother did. A lot. She was Polish. I like to make Corned Beef and Cabbage every St. Patty's day, but that's its limited run in my house. There was a period when my wife (girlfriend at the time) went on that awful cabbage diet. At our annual Pig Roast, my mother-in-law makes cole slaw. Otherwise, cabbage is pretty non-existent.

So tonight, I had a cabbage in the fridge. I read a recipe about wilting t and serving it as a side. So I tried it. It was good. I gotta tell you though, it doesn't "wilt" very easily. Cabbage is a tough bugger. The recipe said to melt some butter, spice it up, then wilt the cabbage for about 5 minutes. Try 15. What was nice is that it was still a little crunchy, but tender and very tasty. I was thinking it would be like spinach, creamy and shrunk. But nope.

Anyway, if I can add it to the regular rotation, maybe less frequently than spinach, more often than lima beans, I can become a good kapusta-head...