The Bon Vivant of Brooklyn

And now, another exploration of recently ingested cheeses:

Gwynedd Caerphilly, Wales - (cow) mild lemony aroma, moderately creamy with a slight crumble, sharp acidic tang, hint of bleu or sharp provolone.

Pau, Spain - (goat) extremely creamy, with a taste like bacon flavored bubble gum, and a sourdough finish.

Idiazabal, Spain - (sheep) very hard and a smoky, Slim Jim flavor, with an oily crumble and an aroma remniscient of citrus. Nutty on the back of the tongue.

Pave du Nord Mons, France - (goat) wooden tang, subtle chocolatey aroma, dry and firm with no crumble, hints of cheddar. Bright orange color from carrots!

Soon I Will Be Invincible is a fun new novel by video game designer and author Austin Grossman (whom I met at NY ComicCon some months ago, and who graciously provided me with a signed copy of two sample chapters).  I purchased the book on Wednesday and devoured it in two days - it's a quick read at just under 300 pages, but I didn't put it down either.  General premise:  a standard superhero story told mainly from the supervillain's point of view.

Many blogs are repeating the rumor that the book is already optioned into film, and I for one will welcome it.  In fact, I would like to be the first to put in my picks for the cast of this hypothetical film.  Sadly this list won't make too much sense without having read the book.  But perhaps you'll read this list first, and when you read the book for yourself you'll picture these actors in the roles just as easily as I did. 

Doctor Impossible - Sam Rockwell

Fatale - Jennifer Garner

Blackwolf - George Clooney

Corefire - Ben Affleck (he'll have to go blonde)

Baron Ether - David Bowie

Damsel - Carrie-Anne Moss

The other parts aren't quite as central to cast.  But I completely picture Jennifer Garner as an Amazonian death cyborg with a metal jaw, and I can picture Sam Rockwell portraying supervillain anguish perfectly and doing some great voiceover work.  Georgy Clooney will basically just fill in his old Batman shoes, and the other folks will round out the supporting cast nicely.

Surely you've heard of GROM - the best gelato in New York, and perhaps the world?  The finest imported Italian ingredients, all organic and completely delicious, compose some of the most original and luscious tasting frozen confection around.  The Upper West Side location of the gelateria is the only one outside of Italy (so far) and since its opening earlier this year it has continuously drawn insanely long lines of people desperate for their fine product.  The steep price of $5 for the smallest size serving isn't slowing them down even a little bit.

So what are you going to do when you have to wait in line for an hour or more to get your divine dessert?  Print out this page and take it with you!  Read on for my top 5 tips guaranteed to alleviate your suffering whilst in the queue.

1. Stop at Beard Papa and get cream puffs before getting in line.  You heard me.  We're not screwing around here!  You came here for dessert, and it's going to be a long wait, so you might as well get yourself an appetizer before the main course. How tremendously considerate of GROM to open their store right next to the Beard Papa so you can easily walk the five paces over to baked good bliss.  Better yet, take a friend with you and get him or her to get the cream puffs while you hold your collective place in line.  Because why would you want to wait even a minute longer than you have to??  And kiss that wonderful two-dimensional bearded fellow while you're at it.

2. Get a careful look at the menu before going in.  It's posted pretty obviously outside the store, and also is on a huge wall size menu inside.  You don't want to waste any time waffling over your gelato choices at the counter - slap that stuff in my cup now, man!!  Or better still, go to the GROM website and pick what you want before you even leave home.

3. Can't decide?  Get both!  It's true, you can get more than one flavor in your cup!  This simple yet brilliant innovation opens up whole new vistas of possibility.  What two flavors compliment each other best?  Which one will I dive into first??  Oh joyous day!  But do not dare to exceed two - you will be disappointed by the tiny amount you get in a third of a cup.  Unless of course you're getting the larger, even pricer sizes... or, glory be, a whole LARGE container for $24.00??  You could easily pack six flavors in that bad boy!

4. Try to get the inexperienced gelaterista.  Yes, they really are called that.  And you'll be able to tell them apart from regular servers because they'll be wearing a shirt that says something along the lines of "gelaterista in training".  You want to get the noobs because they'll let you do things like sample each and every flavor before "deciding" on your purchase (and maybe you can pull the old "Can I try that other one again?" trick too).  And if you're really lucky, they'll slather more than the usual serving size into your cup.

5. Don't eat too fast!!  Okay, we know you've been waiting for an eternity.  SLOW DOWN!  Brain freeze aside, this is not the kind of thing you just want to throw in your gullet.  The stick is small for a reason!  Scrape up a little, place it on your tongue, and let it melt away and release all those complicated flavors into every tiny taste bud.  You've got to make this stuff last, baby.  Take your time with it and savor your hard-won treasure.

Usually I am a great fan of the "heist" genre.  I could rattle off a slew of films that fit the bill, but you should know the type:  plot gets laid out, plans get made, obstacles encountered, surprising method of overcoming obstacles is revealed.  In essence, the heist movie is basically the same type of entertainment you get at a magician's performance, with the final act being "the prestige."  When I saw Nobel Son at the Tribeca Film Festival this year, I was very pleasantly surprised by the story and performances (with many kudos to Alan Rickman as the bastardly egotistical scientist), despite the shaggy dog nature of the story's ending.  In comparison to that gem, Ocean's Thirteen, while enjoyable, is relatively bland and predictable.

I desperately wish that George Clooney would put his director's hat back on.  I love Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and would even admit under duress that I appreciated his efforts in Solaris, though the execution was a little off there.  But his flat, granite-faced, chisled-smile performance in this film was a bit painful to watch.  And it may not have been entirely his fault; the story itself was really quite weak as far as heist stories go. 

Once again, I find myself a victim of low-quality writing!  Practically everything goes entirely according to plan - this is unheard of!  How dare you do this to us, terrible Hollywood writers??  Every heist fan knows that there are always serious complications!  The improvisation is often the most fun part to watch.  And one of the biggest obstacles in the film, the one that is portrayed in the opening sequences as the key to the whole kit and caboodle, figures very little in the plot later on in the movie... I was expecting more of a conflict of man versus machine or at least more of a conflict between the machine's creator and his erstwhile hacker partner (played respectively by Julian Sands and Eddie Izzard).

Eddie Izzard is MASSIVELY UNDERUTILIZED in this movie.  I think he gets all of five minutes of screen time, and I was sorely disappointed by that (and that's probably twice as much time as poor Julian Sands gets).  Of course, in a heist movie with 13 characters, any of them is lucky to get at least one shining moment in the spotlight.  Thankfully Don Cheadle gets a nice turn in front of the camera, and Ellen Barkin is at least refreshingly amusing... everyone else practically amounts to little more than a cardboard cutout (even Al Pacino, who has none of the fire of his previous performances).

Bottom line: if you're hungry for a heist flick, check this out at a matinee, or hold out for a second run theatre if you've got one nearby.  New Yorkers should save their precious movie dollars for better films to come.

From time to time I'll post a journal entry dedicated to a particular foodstuff.  Most often I'm sure that I'll be posting about cheeses, wines, and chocolates, as those are primarily my favorite complex edibles.  For this entry, I'll discuss two of the cheese purchases I made tonight from the Bedford Cheese Shop (which happens to be one of my favorite establishments).  I picked up three cheeses, several bottles of soda, and a loaf of bread.  I've only sampled two of the three cheeses, and one of the sodas, so perhaps I'll follow up more later with the rest of it.

We begin with the trifulin tartufo, an Italian cow's milk cheese that is, as the tartufo portion of the name indicates, laden with truffles.  It comes as a tall cylinder, and I purchased a third of a pound of it; the outer rind has a yellowish cast, and a rough stippled surface.  Beneath that, you have an off white cheese, with the onsistency of a crumbly feta or a pressed ricotta salata.  Visible hunks of truffle are strewn throughout; this cheese is primarily a truffle delivery system.  As you raise it to your nose, you sense the extremely bright truffle odor, and it is quickly followed up by an equally powerful flavor coupled with a pecorino tanginess.

Next is the French boulette d'avesne, another cow's milk cheese, this one raw.  It is sold in individually wrapped packages instead of by the pound, as some particularly ornate cheeses are.  I unwrapped the packaging and found myself gazing upon a rotten and extremely moldy red potato; but thankfully, appearances are deceiving!  Slicing it open reveals a slightly more normal looking cheese with an irregular distribution of several types of fats and a variety of green herbs (much like a compound butter).  There is a meaty odor to it, and the immediate taste sensation is that of a medium strength acidic tartness, like a slightly spoiled cream cheese.  The herbs give it a slight savory aftertaste, and the bubbles of fats alternately make the texture smooth like butter in one bite and chunky like cheese in the next.  It is certainly not a cheese for the faint of heart, but I found that it actually makes other stuff taste better after you eat it!

To drink, I selected Fentiman's Traditional Dandelion & Burdock soda.  An English import, and a brand I am quite fond of, this flavor of fermented botanical dandelion and burdock drink with ginger extract was intensely pleasing.  Upon opening it I discovered that it was "distinctively aromatic," as the bottle advertises, and it is no lie.  The taste was a mixture of cream soda and ginger ale flavors, with a hint of bubble gum and cinnamon (that made me grow nostalgic for BIG RED gum).  This beverage was a perfect pairing with the two cheeses, especially so for the boulette.

Lastly, we come to the vehicle of cheese consumption - a Sullivan Street Bakery mini ciabatta.  Moist, crunchy, and flavorful, but not too overpowering.  I will have to venture out to the bakery one of these days and get some of that good stuff straight from the source.  That's all I've got for now - more later!