The J.R.S. #9- Croissants, The Wind, & Watching Your Baseball Team go to The World Series
Happy Birthday Alexander Hamilton! Who knew your biggest contribution to the country would be a Broadway show. I can’t believe I sat through three hours of singing only to find out the main character died.
Welcome to The J.R.S – the newsletter that reviews life so you don’t have to. If you like what you read, have your friends subscribe! Every time I get a new reader, an angel gets its wings. Self-promotion finished, it’s time to sit back, eat a legal edible, and treat yourself to some words typed by moi.
Croissants
"Butter Flavored Cotton Candy"
Growing up I was an obscenely picky eater. I don't know how my parents didn't drown me in the sink when I refused to eat even the basics - like pasta with butter and olive oil.
What I did eat, I ate in great quantities, most notably bread, fruit, and chicken. As a growing boy, a sensible breakfast to me was four pieces of white toast, slathered in butter.
With age, comes wisdom, and more noticeably, a slowing of the metabolism. Bread is now a sacred and simultaneously dirty word in our household. Something not to be taken lightly, for a meal with bread is a meal to be savored.
When I do indulge in bread with breakfast, I almost always prefer a thick piece of sourdough. Jam is the poor man's fruit, so jam be damned. It's butter or bust, baby.
Bagels are eaten on rare occasions and are always acquired at a deli or Jewish bakery. My girlfriend loves to lord her New York bagel snobbery over me. Since I've never had a New York bagel, the ones in California taste just fine.
I almost never order an English muffin (unless it's a serving tray for eggs benedict), and I try to only get biscuits if I'm in the South.
Which leaves us with the final option for breakfast bread - a croissant.
One evening, my girlfriend and I were discussing cooking, and she brought up Julia Child. I had never seen the cooking guru, so we immediately began watching old French Chef videos, and one of them was the croissant episode.
Holy moly, J.C. is liberal with butter. I love watching her throw around dough (10:55 in the video) and mutter her bizarre (and iconic) kitchen phrases.
I felt very conflicted watching Julia zoom around the kitchen because I didn't see any practical use for croissants. Yes, they're delicious, but that's because butter is delicious.
Croissants themselves are flaky and get crumbs everywhere. I feel like I leave half my meal on my shirt whenever I eat one. They're not filling, because they're so airy, resulting in me wanting to eat three more. Finally, they're terrible vehicles for sandwich ingredients, due to their flimsiness.
Order a croissant sandwich, and after the first bite, you'll just have all the ingredients in a chaotic display on your plate.
If you're getting croissants fresh from a bakery, I'm talking hot out of the oven, then that's a different story. When we were in Iceland, we visited a bakery in Reykjavik four days in a row after tasting their fresh croissants and cinnamon rolls.
However, it's not common that one is eating a fresh croissant, still steaming from the oven. More often, they're gobbled in coffee shops and in business meetings. They're cold, hard, and inevitably leave incriminating evidence on your clothes.
My love of Julia Child and the memories I made in Iceland boost croissant's ratings, but not by much. If you're going to spend precious carbs on bread during breakfast, do yourself a favor and choose an option that fulfills your appetite, not one that leaves you full of regret and buttery sadness.
Croissants - 2 out of 5 Stars
The Wind
"The Trees Are Really Sneezing Today"
The weather in 2018 has been a real shitshow. On the East Coast, we have freezing temperatures in the single digits and below, resulting in a "Bomb Cyclone." While sounding like an excellent diss track from Eminem, it is actually a very bad thing.
On the West Coast, California is mostly not on fire, but this week we had serious rain, which resulted in torched areas breeding mudslides, destroying homes and families alike.
While Mother Nature can be a bitch, it's worth remembering that she also gifted us with the noblest of elements. Sorry Captain Planet fans, it's not heart. I'm speaking of El Viento, or The Wind as we like to say in Ingleses.
The wind has been my favorite element for as long as I can remember. Growing up in California, a Santa Ana would come roaring through our backyard as I lay snug in my bed, and I would spend all night listening to the hot air passing by me.
Unlike what Joan Didion and Raymond Chandler wrote, a Santa Ana never put me on edge. I didn't roam the backyard with a machete, nor did my nerves jump or my skin itch.
My first memory of being amazed at the power of the wind was at the age of seven. I was running around in our oak tree laden backyard in the late afternoon when the winds began to blow. Instead of seeking shelter inside like a sane person, I climbed up a nearby tree and watched with awe as the gusts shook limbs above me, acorns rained down, and air stung my nostrils.
Wind plays a starring role in my favorite season - autumn. Watching leaves dance in a circle, tossed and turned by flurries of air brings true joy to my face, making me a dead ringer for the creepy neighbor in American Beauty who records floating bags and describes them as the most beautiful thing he's ever filmed.
I see the other side of the coin when it comes to wind. Tornadoes and cyclones seem like terrifying natural disasters to me, and I live in an area that is 20 years overdue for a major earthquake. Even worse, we're in a projected tsunami zone. But it's tornadoes that haunt my dreams.
Wildfires are energized by fast-moving gusts and can result in hundreds of acres being torched in hours. Wind giveth and wind taketh, but none can say that the wind isn't neutral.
Ancient Greeks were the first ones to label the four elements (according to the Google search I did), and I think that Earth, Wind, Fire, and Air still stand the test of time today.
Next time there's a strong breeze where you are, do yourself a favor and stay outside for an extra few minutes and take the calm and chaotic gusts in. If possible climb a tree. Simply standing there is a strong reminder that whether or not wind is your favorite element, weather is neat.
Wind - 4 out of 5 Stars
Watching Your Baseball Team go to The World Series
"Oh My God I Can't Believe This is Happening"
Editors Note: I’ve only now just able to process my feelings about the Dodgers losing in Game 7. As part of the grieving process, I share with you my review of the day the Dodgers got into the World Series.
I'm not a sports person. I don't really care about who got traded, which team is ahead, or what player off the field said about whatever.
I do like Dodger Baseball though.
I grew up going to Dodger games, not as an exercise in sports knowledge, but like most families, as an excuse to bond over America's past time. I think I've been to Dodger Stadium roughly between 50 and 75 times in my life, and I've watched the roster swell with local favorites, then slump for years into obscurity.
The Lakers were incredible in the early 2000's, and I jumped on the hype train because of course I did. It's fun to root for a team that wins more than not, but then I stopped caring.
I joined a fantasy basketball league when I was in my early 20s, but I knew nothing about the players. Luckily I was at my first advertising job when the draft happened, so I had a group of men sitting around me yelling at me whom to draft. I won that year.
I was kicked out of the league the next year, due to lack of effort.
The Dodgers have always been part of my mind though, and a team that I still actively follow. Some seasons not as closely as others, but whenever I'm in Los Angeles, I normally catch two or three games a season. The last few years, we've fielded a promising team, made it to the first round of playoffs, and then inevitably, choked.
This year I had the same hopes as I do with all years. Maybe this will be the year that we make it out of playoffs and into the World Series, something we haven't done since 1988, or for the last 28 years of my life.
Last night, in a smashing victory that included a grand slam, The Los Angeles Dodgers are headed to play in the World Series this year. Against a team that I'm quoted on the front page of the Los Angeles Times talking trash against - the stupid Yankees (Boy oh boy do I wish we had played the Yankees.)
It's a stupendous feeling to finally see your boys get their chance. I'll be watching every game with more passion than I can put on paper.
Watching Your Baseball Team go to the World Series - 4 out of 5 Stars
That's a full lid on this version of The J.R.S! Thank you so much for gracing me with your eyes. Don’t hesitate to telegram me at JRSdiaries@gmail.com and let me know your thoughts, opinions, or World Series coping strategies. Like most wedding DJs, I do take review requests.
Love you. Miss you!
Joey