Personal rambling

Note: This is personal and has nothing to do with food or sports, no real need to read on. I don't usually turn this blog into a journal of sorts but wanted to get some thoughts out.

It is slightly amazing to me sometimes how much we turn out like our parents. We take on their ideas, manuerisms, etc even if it is subconsciously. Granted not everything, but there is always this underlying parent in us. My brother and my mom are like two peas in a pod most of the time. I am much more like my father, and sure there are a ton of ways that I'm not like him, thankfully. But I am very similar to him.

This brings me to the idea of circumstantial relationships. The ones that are different with the way one of the people lives. Parents are supposed to love their kids and support them no matter what. That is what my parents have always done, and what I hope to be able to do as a parent. However there are parents who don't operate like this. The ones who, if you make a decision they don't like in your personal life they treat you with spite. They may hold grudges, or even denounce you as a son or daughter all together.

This brings me back to how we are like our parents. I think that after seeing this, and being subjected to this it is a hard concept for someone not to incorporate into their lives. A friend does something that you don't like, or don't agree with in their personal life, away from your friendship, and it is an easy fix. Introduce shame, guilt and grudges into the equation. Exercise the same form of controlling others as your parent(s) did. However the problem is that functional adult relationships don't work that way. It is not fair to your friend if they have to feel judged. Friendships and other adult relationships should not be circumstantial, they should work across all situations.

As I've grown older I have realized this more and more. I used to use such tactics, but realized that it is no way to treat other human beings, especially ones that are supposed to be my friends. However, sometimes it is much to hard not to be like your parents and I think for some people this is a hard thing to see.

NBA All-Star voting, and fun with numbers

The NBA All-Star game is the most entertaining weekend of the three major sports in my opinion. The Pro Bowl is a joke, and baseball has tried to make their's more entertaining with the "this time it counts" slogan. However I completely disagree with giving home field advantage to the league that wins, also when undeserving players make it simply because each team must be represented it unnerves me a bit. The NBA All-Star game puts on a show, and gives us great moments by some of the best athletes in the world. Like Glen Rice's just can't miss 41 point outpouring, to Jordan coming back and winning the MVP as a Wizard. Also, although I've never done research into it the voting seems to mesh with who the best players are a lot better. Maybe basketball is more transparent, or maybe the stats are easier to understand. I'm not sure. I think it is easier to get closer to the best 30 players than 50 or 75 which helps the NBA as well. Elite players are easier to pick out. There are egrigous errors like Shaq being voted in while not playing more than 10 games once, but there are always stars who get in because they were good at one point, in any sport.

This brings me to my currrent problem. Tracy McGrady is leading Chis Paul (and every other west guard except Kobe) so far for the All-Star starting spot. Here is a brief comparison of the two so far this season:

Points: Paul 20.1, McGrady 15.9
Assists: Paul 11.4, McGrady 4.7
Rebounds: Paul 5.2, McGrady 4.8
Steals: Paul 3, McGrady 1.13
FG%: Paul .497, McGrady .400
FT%: Paul .884, McGrady .826
Player Effeciency Rating: Paul 30.48, McGrady 18.15

I won't even mention that Paul leads the league in assists, and steals, or that 5 rebounds from a 6 foot PG is ridiculous, oh wait I guess I will.

As you can see Paul does every single thing basketball related better than Tracy McGrady. So you ask why is T-Mac still leading. Because NBA voting has become wildly flawed by the global voting. We know that Yao Ming is going to be the starting center every year because the Chinese vote for him. That is not a problem because he is, you know, the best center in the West. However as the game gets more popular the Chinese vote even more, and they vote for Yao's teammates as well. For illustration, Rafer Alston has more votes than Brandon Roy or Chauncey Billups. Yep that Rafer Alston. Skip to my Lou. More. Than. Brandon. Roy.

Oh and how about Yi Jianlian over in the East. The guy averaging 10 and 6, with a PER that is below league average. Yeah he is third behind only LeBron and Garnett. Ahead of CHRIS BOSH, Paul Pierce, Josh Smith, Danny Granger and Hedo Turkoglu.

David Stern needs to intervene, or figure out a cap of votes, or weight votes, or something. This is absurd and it makes me angry.

Marginal wins

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2008/12/18/692197/marginal-payroll

This outlines a basic view of marginal wins for each team.* The Marlins and Rays were the best, and the Marlins were by far the best. What if the ownership gave the same scouts, and front office guys 2 Million per marginal win? Would we win 90-95 every year. Obviously the idea of diminishing marginal returns applies, but at 291,000 a win one has to believe that buying a few wins would return in spades.

* A marginal win is an easy concept. Basically a team of replacement players (whatever the team could produce for no money by way of AAA, or trade of non-prospect) would win about 48 games, I've seen 50, and I've seen 52. I'd imagine it is probably 2 or so lower in the NL where the talent pool is lower. Any win over that is a marginal win created toward 162. As the margin gets lower, the tougher a win is to create given the idea of diminishing returns. Getting to be a 90 win team on paper is basically the idea, and hope for a little luck.

New Orleans Eats: Supper Day 2

This seems like a simple idea but if you are running a restaurant, the food should be edible. What I mean is it shouldn't be incredibly difficult to eat.

I bring this up because I returned to The Gumbo Shop today to try the seafood gumbo because I was so pleased with my meal yesterday. The problem was that there were crabs in the dish which had not been cracked and there were no utensils given for doing so. Also they had been cooked in there and mixed around so much that the shell had begun to flake. I got shell in my mouth a few times, and I wasn't able to even finish the whole dish because of it. Don't get me wrong the flavor was good, but I couldn't get around this fact.

New Orleans Eats: Lunch Day 2

I decided to forego breakfast to get some sleep in after a late night last night. For lunch we hit up Johnny's Po'boys. They make pretty much anything you want into a traditional New Orleans style Po'boy. From in house made sausage, to veal, to seafood. Originally I was wanting to do an oyster Po'boy but when I got there I decided on the crawfish. The crawfish itself was excellent. The tails were much larger than the ones that we get in Florida and that made a difference. They were battered and deep fried, with an excellent crunch to them. However that is pretty much the whole highlight of the sandwich to me (albeit an important part.) It came with mayo, lettuce, tomato and pickle (I left off the pickle because regular dill pickles disgust me.) The bread was a traditional 12" crusty hoagie bread with good crunch on the outside but wasn't really soft and was too dry. It may have been day old, I'm not sure.

There were a lot of locals, and in fact were pointed in the direction of Johnny's by a local in one of the shops. However I feel like it may get by more on the name and tradition these days unlike Cafe Du Monde and especially Gumbo Shop. It was good, but not great and in fact I have had better Po'boy sandwiches. The portions were huge. I couldn't finish more than half of the food.

The sides Jon and I were split on. I got the red beans and rice and they were not all that good. They had smoked hamhock in them but were cooked to mush and not seasoned well at all. Again huge portions. Jon liked his sweet potato fries but I absolutely hated them. They were fried well but had what seemed like pounds of sugar and cinnamon on them. I couldn't eat more than one. So one was over seasoned, and one was under seasoned. The sandwich was worth the money and I could see myself returning one day, especially given the size and quality of the seafood (Jon got calamari), but the rest was below average.

New Orleans Eats: Supper Day 1

So it may seem like I am just enjoying all of the food I am eating without any discretion of palette. But really I am trying to tell you straight how it is. The food has just been that outstanding, part is because we have taken suggestions, and part is checking out menus that suit our tastes. For supper we went to a restaurant that boasts a CIA trained (and N.O. native chef) and a 17 barrel brewery. The Crescent City Brewhouse did not disappoint.

We skipped appetizers, and the bread was okay, just a crusty french yeast bread with a little sour taste. However the two entrees were outstanding.

Mine: A crispy fried soft shell crab topped with a crawfish-vermouth creme sauce and artichoke bottoms and hericot verts. I felt it was perfectly balanced, subtle and tasteful. I don't even like "green beans" but the sauce made me want them. The crab was not soggy, there was no lack of crawfish tails, and the vermouth barely fell across the toungue. Jon liked it but found it a little bland, where I felt it was perfectly subtle. It needed acid but they supplied a lemon wedge which I used (it could have used maybe a tiny bit more I'm nit-picking.) Truly what I expect from an upscale "creole" restaurant.

Jon's: Crispy Duck with an andoiulle-cornbread dressing, pepper jelly, and southern greens. The dish was not southern fried, but executed how many in asia and france do, by slowly roasting the duck and flash frying it to crisp the skin. EXECUTION PERFECT. The sauce reminded me of asian flavors, but the cornbread dressing was a wildly traditional southern dish. This dish was a great concept, and while not what I expected still great. Jon thought it was perfect, but I thought the flavors were a little bold and strong for my palette (although still delicious, again I'm nit-picking)

Jon also tried a sampler of 4 of their beers, and three of them were very successful (to both of us) and the last was not as good.

New Orleans Eats: Lunch Day One

After much deliberation Jon and I decided to eat at the Gumbo Shop in the french quarter. Locals have called their gumbo the best in town, and in a town that specializes in cajun and creole food, that is saying something.

For an appetizer I got the special, which was an alligator sausage. It was cut with pork, because I doubt gator would have enough fat to make a good sausage without it. They did a great job of combining the two. It tasted of red pepper, and you could tell it was alligator. It was served with a tangy and sweet sauce, of which I could pick out dijon mustard, honey, and horseradish, as well as cherry pepper bits. The dish was delicious, but slighly over cooked and if eaten with the crusty french bread dried up the mouth quickly.

The star of the show was the chicken and andouille sausage gumbo. Traditional and excellent. Dark roux, cooked okra, flavored with the trinity. The long grain rice was well executed. No reason not to love this if you are a gumbo fan. Although I did add a *touch* of hot sauce for a little heat.

Jon had the chicken Espagnole which was a roasted smothered half chicken with a thick rich mushroom sauce. He said it was tender and good but the bones had been cooked apart and it was difficult to eat in that way. He didn't care for the turnip greens, but overall loved the flavor of the chicken dish.

New Orleans Eats: Breakfast Day 1

Breakfast this morning was spent at the famous Cafe Du Monde where I had an order of the beignet's and Hot chocolate, all for 4 dollars even. I don't know what else can be said about their delicious french doughnuts, but they were terrific. I didn't buy any of the mix, because I doubt I would execute them the same.

Everyone hates Kevin

TrueHoop by Henry Abbott of ESPN has an interesting post up about Kevin Garnett. Nobody likes him, or his antics basically except Celtics fans. He has crossed a line, NBA players won't even talk about him on record. His taunting and tough talking are getting on people's nerves and *apparently* he does it to rookies, and scrubs a lot more. I don't watch a lot of Celtics games, but even though KG is talented I have never been a fan. Maybe because he does things like this that make the game look stupid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arh5bmAsWb0

Marlins GM for a day

With the Winter meetings starting and one of my favorite baseball writers, Joe Sheehan, doing a GM for a day series over at Baseball Prospectus I thought I would offer a few of my thoughts on what the Marlins should do this off season. Joe has already said that he was only doing a handful of these and that he wouldn’t get to all of the teams. I assume that he won’t get to the Marlins because let’s face it not that many people on the site would like to read it.

So here goes it. The Marlins were 84-77 last season however they outplayed their Pythagorean record by a few games which called for a .500 team, as they scored only three more runs than they gave up. However this was a pretty good ball club and has a chance to be better next season. Their starters for the first half were horrible, but once Josh Johnson, and Chris Volstad got to the majors from injuries or promotion the rotation was better. They have already traded away players because they were reaching arbitration and the Marlins didn’t want to pay their substantial raises. Mike Jacobs was traded for a middle reliever, and a fairly competent one at that. This is the first good thing that has happened for us looking forward. Mike Jacobs has a lot of raw power, but his .299 OBP is below bad, so bad that the only time he should be hitting is against right handed pitchers and he should never ever be fielding. He is a butcher at first base. The Fielding Bible has him at -27 runs which was last in MLB. The second trade was of Scott Olsen and Josh Willingham for Emilio Bonifacio and some minor league players. Olsen was an innings eater, throwing 201 of them at basically a little below league average which is valuable as a 4th starter, and Willingham is a patient hitter who has decent power and had an injury riddled season but a pretty good one all around. Both were due big raises most likely in arbitration. Bonifacio is a slick fielding second baseman who can’t hit a lick. These deals leave a lot of questions about how our team will look next year with no 1B or LF and two 2B. Oh, we also traded relief pitchers one for one with the Cubs and got the much better player, Jose Ceda, for Kevin Gregg because the Cubs like the save stat.

On to next year’s club, and the first obvious move is to slide Cody Ross over to LF from CF to make room for Cameron Maybin, our best prospect and a kid that looks to have a ton of talent and potential. This shift does a few things. It makes the Marlins much better in outfield defense. Cody Ross was above average fielding in center, which means he will be a way above average fielder in left field, a place where Willingham was -7 runs. Also Maybin will be way above average in CF, probably close to 10 runs better than Ross. We are probably 30 runs better defensively in the outfield because of this. Offensively I doubt if there will be much difference. Ross is not quite as good as Willingham with the bat, but Maybin should be better than our CF situation last year that saw Alfredo Amezega get 150 plate appearances.

Now onto the infield, I would shift Dan Uggla from second base to third base. He will be much better than Cantu with the bat, and much better than Cantu with the glove. Uggla has been basically a league average defender at the keystone, so he should end up at least league average at third if not adding even more value than that. Uggla is probably 25 runs better than Cantu. So Bonifacio takes over at 2B. Like I said, the kid can’t really hit at all. He is basically a little better than replacement level, but he is only 23, so it may uptick a little bit because of maturation. But he will defend better than Uggla, or at least reports say that he will defend better. 2B defense is really important and we may catch 10 runs from that, but probably lose 30 in offense. So we probably lose 20 runs at 2B. If I had the money, I’d find a way to sign a 3B, or even better, sign a guy like Furcal and move Hanley to third base while retaining Uggla at second. But I have to work in a world where there is no money to be had, and right now Bonifacio, and aligning them correctly is the best I can do. Catcher is the next thing to address. I would try to trade Matt Treanor. He was by far the worst hitter that played everyday for us. Even with the huge positional adjustment for catching he was below replacement level. John Baker proved he can hit in his 233 AB last season after replacing Treanor who had an injury. John Baker is my everyday catcher, but I would like to sign a right handed catcher who can platoon and play 1-2 times a week. Ivan Rodriguez likes the area and if he will take a reduced role then I wouldn’t think twice about giving him two years that don’t weigh down the payroll. Also short-term is the way to think with catcher because our first round pick Kyle Skipworth is in the minors and 2-3 years from now should take over. Baker/Pudge is probably 25 runs better than more than half the starts going to Matt Treanor or the inept Mike Rabelo. Last but not least is 1B. Jorge Cantu is up for a raise too and if I could get value back for him I would trade him as well. His defense will be hidden more at 1B than 3B, and he was a better hitter than Jacobs. He would probably represent 5 runs better than Jacobs, maybe 10 which is good if I can’t find anything out there to get back in value. However free playing time is sitting there in the minors and I think that Gaby Sanchez can play to the same level as Cantu at first base for FREE since he doesn’t have an arbitration raise coming. It is like finding money in your pocket.

The guys who throw the ball were a huge problem for us last year. Only 4 guys threw more than 100 Innings for us last year, and two of them Andrew Miller and Mark Hendrickson had a negative VORP. Scott Olsen I already touched on, and the last was Ricky Nolasco. Ricky was a top 10 pitcher in the NL last year without many people noticing, throwing 212 Innings with a 3.52 ERA. At 25 there is no reason to think it is not for real either. Guys like Burke Badenhop, Mark Hendrickson, and Ryan Tucker were horrible while waiting for Anibal Sanchez and Josh Johnson to come back from injury. Once we got the rotation together it was actually above league average for the last 1/3 of the season. The rotation should set up as Nolasco, Josh Johnson, Chris Volstad, Anibal Sanchez, Andrew Miller with Ryan Tucker there to make spot starts. As GM I would think long and hard about trying to sign a cheap innings eater if I could find it, but it is not likely. Sanchez wasn’t good once he got up but has shown he has the ability to pitch at this level before. Miller and Tucker are both really young, and Miller has a ton of talent and should really improve next year. Replacing those other starts with healthy starts by Josh Johnson and Chris Volstad should severely help. Also since Josh Johnson and Volstad are both dramatic groundball pitchers the defensive improvement will be even more valuable. The bullpen was good, and got even better by leveraging Gregg’s save total to get Jose Ceda and adding Leo Nunez for the OBP black hole that is Mike Jacobs. However they didn’t offer arbitration to Arthur Rhodes who was a good lefty specialist for us. I would try to resign him. Lindstrom is going to close but I’d give high leverage situations to Joe Nelson and Jose Ceda.

Since we played at an 81-81 pace we will apply these run totals to that. With the pitching I could see us being 80-90 runs better which would make us an 89-91 win team which may or may not make us good enough to win the division. It will however make us good enough to compete for the playoffs. If we are still in it at the trading deadline maybe we add a piece that helps. Either way this is how I think they should go about their off-season and alignment of the team next year.

Chris Paul is good

From Hornets247.com

"CP3 had 21 points, 11 assists, 5 rebounds, 3 steals, and only one turnover. In thirty minutes. He shot 8-11. It seems almost ho-hum now, so I should point this out: Chris Paul now has 13 games where he had at least 20 points and 10 assists. The rest of the league's Point Guards combined have 16: B. Davis(3), Billups(2), Nash(2), Augustin(1), TJ Ford(1), Ridnour(1), Bibby(1), Devin Harris(1), Foye(1), Calderon(1), Duhon(1). "

If he continues to shoot over 50%, and do everything else he does, which means lead the league in assists and steals again he may not only have a better season that last he will be wading in the territory of having the best season that we've ever seen by a PG. It is amazing.

The best twice baked potato ever.

Recipe wil be following today or tomorrow.

The problem with cooking and my happiness (sanity)

To be a good cook, or a great cook it takes a lot of things. The first of which is an absolute love of food and wanting to gain knowledge of it. Just like with anything, an almost fanatical desire is required to truly be good as a cook or chef, or whatever it may be regarding food. I have seen said desire and to have it. I watch television shows, learn techniques, read books, try new ingredients, etc.

Another thing is being able to follow a recipe, and develop a recipe that can be followed closely. I struggle with this a lot. All of the recipes I write on this blog are not extremely precise, but more guidelines. I like experimenting and I cannot follow a recipe to save my life. This is a major problem. I was reading Professional Chef by the Culinary Institute of America, and it outlines the necessity to follow and develop recipes as an integral part of being a chef, while I was reading it, I remembered why I didn't go to culinary school.

Food is only fun to me when I am creating the flavors myself. It is only fun when I am creating recipes that I haven't seen the exact same way. I have followed recipes before but it wasn't the same. I love to take the classic techniques I have learned and put my own spin on it. Food is more art to me than it is anything else. I could make something that has no feeling in it that would taste fine, but if I try to create something like a painting, when I taste it, it is more important to me. It makes me happier to eat these things. My favorite thing is to take the traditionally southern dishes my family loves and to recreate them, but with a classic focus.

What I am saying is that I don't think I can ever be more than an artist, and I hope that I can be a good one. Following recipes isn't fun to me, and if food becomes something that isn't fun to me, I wouldn't be happy with myself. It is an odd feeling, because all of the good cooks I know can follow recipes, they can make them their own, they can triangulate them, and create something that elevates the food beyond where it was. But to me it is all about the art, creating something from an empty canvas that makes me love food.

Uncooked proteins, dried beans, fresh vegetables, seafood stocks, legumes, pasta... all I see is a paint brush with different colors, and I don't wait to just do a paint by numbers.

Thin Pork Chops Milanesa

Standard breading procedure. Dredge with flour, into egg wash, then into bread crubms, each can be lightly seasoned with salt and pepper. Then pan fry at a high temperature to create a nice crust on the outside. This can be done with any meat, I chose thinly sliced center cut pork chops sans bone.

Sauce-
1 Bosc pear (diced)
1 Gala apple (diced)
1/2 a bottle of merlot (about 375 mL)
1/3 cup chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste.

Reduce all of the ingredients in a sauce pot over medium low heat until it thickens slightly and the fruit is soft throughout.

Creamed Leeks

Everyone who knows me knows that I tout the effects of bacon in food quite often. But the truth is, I actually prefer flavoring things with pancetta more. It brings a more balanced pork fat flavor without needing nearly as much fat, also there is no smoke brought to the dish and if I wanted that I'd just use bacon. Not that I don't like american bacon for tons of things, but in laying base flavors I prefer pancetta.

Creamed Leeks

2 Leeks (cleaned well and cut into rounds.)
1 oz whiskey
1 medium thick slice pancetta
a few cracks of pepper
1/4 stick of butter
4 oz heavy cream

Start the pancetta in a pan over medium-low heat and completely render the fat and then take it out and crumble it, returning it to the pan. Add the whiskey to deglaze the pan and suspending all of the pancetta taste. Add the butter, cream, and pepper until it all comes togetherstirring occasionally. Add the leeks and cook down for about 15 minutes. Serve with your favorite protein.

Gordo's Cuban cuisine

Gordo's Cuban cuisine is a casual resturaunt mostly frequented by the college students at Florida State University, as it is just blocks away from the campus. In full disclosure, it is literally across the street from my house and is a favorite of mine. The reasons it became my favorite place in Tallahassee are simple. The food is good, it is filling, the portions are big, and the price is fair.

There are two Gordo's and the first one was in Tampa, but if I didn't tell you, you would probably think it was just a local shack that was bought by a Cuban family. My favorite dish is the Lechon Asado, which is roasted pork. It is the most famous of all Cuban dishes, and this one doesn't disappoint. It has a spicy taste and has been marinated in lime juice before hand. On it's best days it is moist and juicy, and on it's worst it is just in need of the extra lime juice they give you. It is topped with Onions and come with two sides (all dinner entrees come with the same choice of sides.) The congri which is red beans and rice that are cooked with chorizo, or black beans and rice is the firsdt choice. Fried sweet plantains, or under ripe fried plantains (maduros.) I always go with the sweet plantains, but switch up between the congri and the black beans.

They also have a line of sandwiches that are popular for lunch. They are all pressed, like a cuban. The turkey and ham pressed sandwich, named the Gordo is probably the most popular, and it has a smaller version called the Gordita. They are all served on fresh Cuban rolls and pressed on both sides.

Lastly, they have a few things that go outside the traditional Cuban food realm. The first of which they are famous around town for is their small fresh cut fries with Gordo's sauce. Gordo's sauce is mayo, lime juice, and mojo seasonings. They also have pressed cheesburger's which are their spin on famous american burgers but pressed in the Cuban style.

Everything I have eaten there has been up to par, including the new sliders that are a beef and chorizo and can be eaten as a full meal because the dish is so big, although it is an appetizer. The only knock I have on Gordo's is that the service can be slow a lot of time, so if you don't have the time don't try it.

Week 3 News and Notes

- First and foremost, did everyone see what Anthony Morrow put up in his first real run as an NBA player? 37 points, 11 Reb. on 15-20 shooting. He followed that up with 25 points the next night. He was an undrafted free agent, Warriors have to be happy with that.

- Staying on the rookie trend, Greg Oden looks special when he is on the floor. Since returning he is averaging 15.3/9.6 with 3 blocks a game. He still looks a little uncoordinated, but David Thorpe of ESPN says that is normal for a big guy his age and experience level.

- Cleveland leading the league in Offensive efficiency is not a sentence I thought I would write in the Mike Brown era, but at 110.5 points per 100 possessions they are 3 points clear of the field. L.A. Lakers still lap the field by 3 points in defensive efficiency at 91.6

-Hornets watch: 5-4 is not where they would like to be. But the positives are that the overall difference is still positive at +2.8 and they have played the toughest schedule in the NBA thus far. Still not up to par on either side of the ball from these eyes though.

Bradford Doolittle of Basketball Prospectus has this to say of the team. “The Hornets have been playing well, but their most deficient categories are the ones in which Tyson Chandler excels. Chandler is back in the lineup and when he works his way back into form, New Orleans will be even better.”

-Chris Bosh last night. 40 pts, 18 Reb. (7 offensive), 2 steals, 1 block, and 4 assists. He did this against Dwight Howard, and somehow the Raptors lost the game.

-Players of the week: No change in the East as LeBron James got it again. Chauncey Billups was awarded the honor in the West.

-Speaking of Chauncey Billups he has them playing a little slower. They are still 4th in pace but down from 100 possessions per game to 98.1. Now the only team over the 110 possessions per game mark is the Flying Dantonis in New York.

-In one week the Spurs went from dead last in defensive efficiency to 19th. John Hollinger believes that Popovich has had to get onto them a little earlier this season because of the injuries, and I think that’s probably pretty true.

- Some pretty long streaks going on right now. Cavaliers have won 8 straight, Minnesota and Oklahoma City are on the opposite end having dropped 8 in a row.

- Running through everything I noticed that there are a lot of mediocre teams right now. Only 14 teams have a record above .500 with 7 in each conference which would leave one team with a losing record getting into the playoffs from each side as of now.

-LeBron James, Chris Paul, and Dwayne Wade look to have a serious shot at playing at a clip of 30.00 PER or higher. That is twice the league average, and is considered especially elite. Only Paul and James finished there last year, but Wade has been fantastic and healthy. Those of you who wonder why I left Tony Parker off (currently 32.78) is because he has PERs of 19, 21, 21, and 18 the last four years and has established his expected level of play. I think that since they may need him a little more this year he may be able to get up into the 23-24 range, but sorry if I’m not buying him into the elite class.

BBWAA Awards round-up

All of the major baseball awards were handed out in the last two weeks and the old-boy's club did well with the winners (although further down the list there were some bad selections) and that is certainly progress at least for this year.

The winners read as this:
Rookies: Evan Longoria, Geovany Soto
Cy Young: Tim Lincecum, Cliff Lee
MVP: Albert Pujols, Dustin Pedroia

All of these are reasonable choices. I liked Santana over Lincecum by a hair in the NL Cy Young, and had Pedroia a (close) 5th on my Internet Baseball Awards ballot, but they were both good.

Now for the bad. Ryan Howard is barely a major league first baseman against left handed hitting, he can't field, or run, and he finished second because the BBWAA likes RBI's and people on winning teams. Meanwhile the best hitting, and fielding second baseman on the planet plays next to him and finished 14th.

K-Rod, who is a closer, and never pitched in more than one inning at a time, and pitched in about 4% of his teams innings, and only got all those saves because he got so many opportunities...ok end of rant. That guy got a FIRST place vote and finshed sixth in the AL in MVP, AHEAD OF CLIFF LEE WHO WON THE CY YOUNG. And Lincecum finshed 5th among NL pitchers in the MVP voting after winning the Cy Young, behind C.C. Sabathia, who only played in the NL for like 3 weeks (exaggeration.)

This is something I wrote on another website about Delgado finishing ninth in the NL ahead of Beltran and Jose Reyes.

Jose Reyes- OPS+ 118, good not great SS defense.

David Wright- OPS+ 141, best 3B glove in the NL

Carlos Beltran- OPS+ 129, Best OF glove in the game

Carlos Delgado- OPS+127, poor 1B glove

One of these things is not like the other. I won’t even go into baserunning, where Beltran really excels, but basically what I’m saying is that you should have a problem with Delgado getting the votes he did not Beltran. I could make a heck of an argument that Beltran was their most valuable hitter/fielder.

NBA week 2 News and Notes

-The East is 17-12 vs. the West. It seems the turning of the guard is happening some. Age has gotten to some of the western previous powers obviously, but I can’t help but think that David Stern was right when he said conference power is cyclical.

-Hornets watch: 4-2 after a 1-2 week. They got caught by Eastern teams contributing to that 17-12 record, by way of Atlanta and Charlotte. They are currently playing at the 4th slowest pace.

-Phoenix leads the league in offensive efficiency at 108.8 points per 100 possessions, so much for Steve Nash needing Mike Dantoni’s offense. The Lakers are first in defensive efficiency. Only L.A. and the Celtics are allowing less than 90 points per 100 possessions.

-The Lakers are also still leading in differential, although they haven’t really had difficult games and that is going to start tonight in New Orleans.

-T.J. Ford’s PER-19.40, Jermaine O’Neal’s PER-12.00. So far, advantage Pacers on that swap. Although more time for Calderon is a good thing, and I have read anecdotal evidence that O’Neal has been playing good defense.

- Amare Stoudemire and LeBron James were the players of the week. Both are quality choices who will probably win multiple POW awards this year.

-I said last week that Kevin Pelton of Basketball Prospectus’ system of projecting teams had San Antonio out of the playoffs. I also said it may not be that far off. Well now that looks even more likely with Tony Parker out 4 weeks, and Manu still not scheduled to return until around the same time. They are dead last in defensive efficiency and I don’t see how they create shots outside of Tim Duncan.

-Washington is still the only team without a win. 0-5. They were 0-5 last year and made the playoffs, I’ll go out on a limb and say in the improved East that doesn’t happen again.

-Rudy Fernandez, Jason Thompson, Kevin Love, O.J. Mayo, Michael Beasley, Derrick Rose, Darrell Arthur are all rookies that are playing more than 20 minutes a game and giving above league average PER (15.0 is average.)

-All NBA teams combined are 64-31 at home this season. The only division with a losing home record is the Southwest. The Southwest division’s only home unbeaten…The Memphis Grizzlies.

-The Raptors, Knicks, and Blazers all have been outscored on the season but carry with them records above .500, they are the only three such teams in the league.

-Denver is 3-0 with Billups at the point. Detroit is 1-2 with Iverson, needing a comeback victory over the Kings last night to get that one.

Marlins make a move.

"The Marlins moved two players in a salary dump, trading Scott Olsen and Josh Willingham to the Nationals, who are in a perfect position to roll the dice on left-hander Olsen while receiving a big upgrade offensively from outfielder Willingham. It's an easy win for Washington, but Florida's only major gain may be salary relief"-Keith Law

The move is obviously just a salary dump, but that is not a surprise. Olsen's attitude probably hurt his value, as he regained his 93-94 mph fastball at the end of the season. He was the fourth starter on this team.

Josh Willingham is a bigger loss to me. He is probably undervalued because he strikes out a lot, and hits for a low average. However he is patient and puts up a good OBP, and hits with some decent power. He is slow in left field but steady. He is at least solid average to slightly above average when he is healthy.

I don't know anything about the kids we got, but nobody seems to be real high on the big league promise of them, anytime soon atleast. However this deal does have it's advantages. It allows Cody Ross to shift to left field where he will be a plus defender and rookie Cameron Maybin to play in CF which will improve run prevention as well. Ross had a good year and Maybin has tons of talent, if he can get some plate discipline. It also allows us more financial freedom to work with when thinking about important arbitration eligible guys like Dan Uggla and Josh Johnson.

Marscapone cream sauce

I posted a long while ago about a fig, marscapone, and balsamic appetizer. After which I had some left over marscapone cheese. So this is a post about what to do with left over marscapone cheese.

Heat a pan to medium and add any of the marscapone cheese that you have. Then cover the cheese with heavy cream and a couple pats of butter. The consistency should be that of any other cream sauce that you may have created, so it may take more cream than you expect. Add to that a couple cloves of garlic, a pinch of salt, and a few whole peppercorns (which should be taken out upon serving.) Fresh herbs, not woody ones, like parsley or basil may be added at the very end of cooking as well. If truly ambitious, peppery greens like arugala can be chopped finely and stirred in as well. Serve over pasta. It is quick, simple, easy, and delicious.

I also like it with some herb sauteed chicken.

Kobe (Wagyu) Beef Burger

When in Atlanta for the Florida State vs. Georgia Tech football game last weekend my friends and I ate at the Cheescake factory in the perimeter mall. I had eaten at Cheesecake factory a few times before that, and had a positive experience so I was looking forward to it. I decided to try their "American Kobe beef burger", which is not really Kobe beef but a similar hybrid of original Kobe beef cows and American Angus cows. They are fed and massaged in the same manner to promote tenderness and marblized fat content throughout. The American version is called Wagyu beef.

This was my first experience with Wagyu beef although I had seen it prepared, and read about it before. I was extremely anxious to try it. Honestly the beef was tender and almost melted at impact with my teeth. They cooked it medium and the fat wasn't anywhere near cooked out which kept the burger moist and juicy, The flavor was subtle but beefy still. The only problem I had was just how tender it was. It left nothing "to the tooth" I have a sneaking suspicion that if the burger had been made with 80% Wagyu beef and 20% Angus sirloin it would have been perfect, and one of the best burgers I had ever eaten.

It was served with thick strips of well cooked bacon, deeply carmelized onions, and a toated briosche bun that had been buttered and put on a flat top. It was excellent.

NBA Week 1 News and Notes

- The Philadelphia 76er's are 2-2, and a lot of people are jumping off their bandwagon, especially because of the bad loss to Atlanta. I would note that at +11.3 they have the best differential in the Eastern Conference. They are also incorporating a new cog, namely Elton Brand, the guy who will lead this team in scoring. So let's give them a month or so, ok?

- Players of the week, Chris Bosh and Chris Paul. I would get used to seeing this. If Bosh played in America I think he'd have a shot at MVP.

- Everyone has thrown in their two cents, but the Iverson trade worked well for both teams. For Detroit they got a ton of free cap space after this year ( Iverson and Sheed.) The Nuggets made their team better by having a real point guard (and genuine threat from 3) that will allow Melo more room to operate in the high post. What I don't belive the Pistons got was a shot at Lebron James. Even if William Wesley ( look him up on TrueHoop if you don't know him) is friends with Joe Dumars. The Pistons still won't be able to offer as much money as Cleveland, and they can't offer the market of NY.

- The Pacers have been impressive. The Lakers have been unreal (+21.7 ?!?), and the Spurs have been bad. Kevin Pelton of Basketball Prospectus has the Spurs missing the playoffs, and who knows if he is that far off. Duncan and Parker have been phenomenal (#4 and #1 in PER so far) and they are still 0-3. They can't get Manu back soon enough.

- My Hornets are 3-0. Two missed games by Tyson Chandler, One by Peja. So much for having no depth. Posey has really anchored that second unit and the others are fitting together nicely. Rasual Butler has been good especially.

- Only 5 teams in the West have scoring differentials that are positive. All but 4 East teams do. The East is closing the gap. There may not be much of one besides the tip top of the West.

- Utah has been really good without Deron Williams, tonight's game with the Blazers will be on the small television in my living room while the Hornets are on. Williams may play tonight. Analysts are raving about how Sloan runs their system and they can plug guys in and get it done. I think they are certainly a much better team with Williams offense out there, but I can see what they mean when I watch them dismantle teams with Ronnie Price running the point. Ronnie Brewer is a really good defender and finisher and is probably a little underrated by the national media. This team is good. Like, could win it all this year good.

- The young Grizzlies are playing good defense. No really, to the tune of 85.3 ppg. Small sample size I know, but impressive still.

Balsamic-Honey Butternut Squash

1 Butternut squash in approx. 1 inch cubes
Balsamic Vinegar
Clover Honey
Kosher salt
Fresh cracked black pepper
Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Cover the squash in a small amount of Olive Oil, and put into a roasting pan. Cover the bottom of the pan with plenty of balsamic vinegar. Drizzle lightly with honey, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast at 375 degrees until tender, serve as a side dish with other savory dishes, or as eat as a snack in the place of chips, popcorn, or candy.

Tuna Sushi

So my girlfriend bought some sashimi tuna and made sushi. I liked the picture because the cat is creeping around in the background, probably trying to eat the fish. It entertained me.

Mike Jacobs Trade with links

The Florida Marlins traded first baseman Mike Jacobs for 25 year old middle reliever Leo Nunez. It was basically because we have other guys who can fill the role who are controlled for a lower amount of money. Jacobs is arbitration eligible and is barely above replacement level. He is an OBP black hole, and should only hit against righties, where he is (somewhat) useful. His glove is horrible. I've never seen Nunez pitch, but you can see reviews of the trade at these locations.

http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?name=law_keith

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/the-mike-jacobs-trade/

http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=8278

How to make fried rice (well)

Begin by par cooking whatever your vegetables and meat will be (or if it is just fried rice plain skip this step.) I prefer raisins, diced onions and sweet peppers in mine. Do this in a large pan with a small amont of oil.

Prepare rice that is almost fully cooked, but fully dried. This is important, the rice should have no residual water left.

Add a small amount of vinegar (rice wine) and soy sauce, leave enough to absorb into the vegetables and leave a tiny pool in the bottom of the pan.

Add the rice and stir everything, coating the rice with the liquid in the bottom and stirring the vegetables equally. Then move the mixture into a circle around the outside of the pan. This should leave an inner circle that you can pour the eggs stright into the pan. This is important as well.

The idea of fried rice is to coat each grain but not have esentially scrambled eggs all over the rice. Pour how ever many beaten eggs you would like. It should feel like too little, again no scrambled eggs. I use two eggs to 4 cups yield of rice. The pan should be very hot, but nothing should be sticking because of the vinegar and soy sauce. Once you pour the eggs in allow them to scramble very briefly, about 10-20 seconds seconds or so, then begin to fold the rice into the eggs quickly. You must move the rice and eggs around the pan furiously until they are cooked. If you do not the eggs will not coat the rice correctly, and you will end up with scrambled eggs, rice, and vegetables, no good. Serve Immediately.

Me and My Peja on a stick

So since the season Has officially begun, I felt I needed a Peja head like the ones they run around the arena with when he hits a three. I made one for waving during games, and there will be more updates with me hanging out with my Peja.

Home Plate officiating.

Home plate umpires are a joke. Their job is way too difficult to do with the human eye. They are perfectly parallel to a ball coming in at 90 mph.

I bring this up because in the fifth inning Scott Kazmir struck out Pat Burrell twice. 5 should have been strikes. The last two called low, and one wasn't even close. It was eventually called a walk. It is impossible to give big league hitters 6 strikes. This is a joke.

Hornets naming backups

Everybody knows about the New Orleans Hornets starting five. Chris Paul, Tyson Chandler, David West, Peja Stojakavic, and Morris Peterson make up one of the most brutal (for other teams) starting fives in the league. They may be the best first unit in all the land. However the Hornets have struggled with their second unit. Jannero Pargo, who was a firecracker off the bench albeit an inconsistent one, has left for a bigger paycheck in Europe. That left the problem of who will run the point for about 14 minutes a game while Chris Paul gets a breather. Mike James has won the battle between himself and Devin Brown. After watching some preseason, and having just a baseline knowledge of each of their games I think it is the right move. The Times Picayune reports that Brown will see time at shooting guard, while James Posey will be getting time at power forward.

Coach Scott loves to play multiple ballhandlers together; he did with Pargo and Paul. As Julian Wright progresses as a player, and learns to be more under control handling the ball, I think he will steal a lot of minutes from both of the backup guards and Morris Peterson. Obviously like a lot of others who follow this team I am excited about Posey off the bench. I don't like the back end of the contract but Posey plays hard, smart defense. He is also another shooter surrounding Chris Paul which can't be a bad thing.

Last Year: Pargo, Wright, Wells, and whoever (Hilton Armstrong or Melvin Ely) at the 5.
This Year: James, Wright, Posey, and whoever (Hilton Armstrong or Melvin Ely) at the 5.

Pargo was better than James defensively, but Posey is much better than Wells. Also there is a year of development for the galloping giraffe (Julian Wright) which hopefully will bring great things with him. I like this second unit a little better, and they should be more consistent when the starters are off the court because you never knew which Wells or Pargo was showing up last year.

Live Thoughts on World Series game 4

I'm going to put some random thoughts that go through my head during the game, talk about how I watch the game, mock the announcers, and really just have some fun with this.

The "scrappy" Phillies got it done last night according to Fox's pregame analysts. Scrappiness always wins out, they shouldn't have to mention that, duh!

Rob Neyer is chatting over at ESPN.com. I like his analysis a lot, so I will probably pull from what he chats about and try to add to what he has to say, or disagree and back it up.

8:07- Patti Labelle is not so much good.

8:22- I think that if Sonnanstine isn't really on his stuff we will see the hook quick and David Price will be asked to go for a while, and maybe Edwin Jackson will be on alert early too. They have to win this game and Maddon should mangae like it.

8:33- They just showed a graphic that said Joe Blanton is "unusually over the top" and I had to explain it to my girlfriend. If they are giving us the horrible Buck and McCarver duo that means they are marketing to the masses not the die hards. They should be explaining what things like this means.

8:35- Blanton goes 1-2-3 in the first and looked good doing it other than a long fly ball to the track by Iwamura. By the way I love when guys behind the plate yell strikeout really loudly, it's funny.

8:40- McCarver just said "cut fastball inside" to the pitch Jimmy Rollins hit for a double. Pitchtrax showed it to be on the outer third.

8:45- Another horrible call. Rollins was out at third, tagged by Longoria. Instant replay, Instant replay, Instant replay. That could decide so much. Instant replay.

9:00- Tampa Bay needs to take more pitches and make Blanton labor a little. Zobrist just swung at the first pitch after a goot at bat by Navarro, getting the Phillies out of the inning.

9:09- Sonnanstine has been pretty decent, but not pitch effecient. I'm predicting Price by the 5th inning. The run was given to the Phillies on the bad call. Blanton has been particularly sharp with 4 K's through 3, and allowing only two softly hit singles to the opposite outfield.

9:18- Iwamura just kicked a ball that was an easy play. Utley should have been out, especially with the shift on. Howard singles hard, and gets Utley to third. Maddon should be on the phone.

Update: Utley scored on a Pedro Feliz single, then Andy (we're on a first name basis now) loaded the bases but got Blanton to pop up. I would start the next inning with Price and hope to get 3 innings from him.

9:34- A friend, Kellan, asked me to comment on the smudge of dirt on Blanton's cap. Obviously I don't know what it is. But with the Kenny Roger's situation of having pine tar on his hat it might come up. (Pine tar allows a pitcher to grip the ball more tightly, thus giving it more rotation upon release.) I'd probably have it checked especially because Blanton has been particularly sharp and Maddon at least could get in his head a little. Although I have not seen him adjusting his cap, and it doesn't seem to be nearly as brown as pine tar is.

Crawford smacked a Blanton fastball offering into the right field seats about a row in as I typed that. 2-1 Phils.

9:45- Edwin Jackson is up. I guess he is the long reliever tonight. I hinted that might be the case. They just interviewed the Ray's pitching coach and he said that if we see Price it would be later in the game with a lead.

I am on the record saying that what they had done with Price thus far was a good idea not just using him as a 3 out closer but for long appearances in high leverage situations. They should not get so tied to the idea of that being his "role." Managers get in trouble when they define roles instead of looking at skill sets. These are high leverage situations, better pitchers for the situation should be in.

Howard is up and there is no way I'd let a right hander face him given his platoon splits (batting against RH or LH piitchers). Trevor Miller is getting loose in the bullpen for a reason.

9:49- Homerun. I swear I wrote that before the swing happened. Maddon may have just cost his team a real damn shot at the game, and with Hamels on the mound in game 5, the series.

9:57- Hinske just nailed a HR deep to center pinch hitting for Sonnanstine (told you no 5th inning). Cliff Floyd got injured and he was added for todays game. That's a nice little addition. But I'd like to say that I think Baldelli should be playing in right field, even though he is right handed and Zobrist is left handed. He is much better in the field, and I doubt if there is any value lost at the plate.

10:05- Edwin Jackson is in for the Rays, and he is throwing 94-95. And as I start to type about how he looks, the pitcher Joe Blanton, hits a ball into the bleachers and becomes the first pitcher since 1974 to hit a HR in the World Series. Wow. The Rays have not looked good as a whole this evening.

10:11- Neyer just said he thinks the Rays are probably about 5 wins or so better than the Phillies next year. They won more games, in a tougher league, and are quite a bit younger. I'd bet the Rays are forcasted for more like 8-10 more wins. Something like 90-82. We won't know until the moves this offseason are made, but that is just my guess. I am no PECOTA.

10:14- Pena and Longoria still yet to get a hit. They are both up this inning. 1 out walk of Pena (Blanton's first). Longoria strikes out on a good outside fastball by Blanton.

10:19- The home plate umpire just called a strike on a ball that was so far outside ESPN pitchtrax had already listed it as a ball. No lie. Strikeout victim number 7 is Dioner Navarro. Only 9 more outs, and down 4 runs the game certainly looks over at this point. The Phillies should go full pipeline with the bullpen, 7 innings from Blanton, Madson, then Lidge. Don't let the 4 run lead change anything, just pretend it is a one run game. Let's see if Manuel is thinking the same thing. Obviously Maddon and I have been off all night.

10:24- Rob Neyer just commented on the substance on the bill of Blanton's cap, and he said the exact same thing as me basically with a few less words. And another lead off batter on base with Werth's double over the head of Carl Crawford.

10:30- Maddon is walking Howard intentionally. I would just bring in a lefty, David Price actually, since the guy can't hit lefties. Then I wouldn't have to have two men on base. Manage this game like it is game seven Joe! As soon as I say that Burrell hits into a 6-4-3 double play making me look bad. But the idea is still wrong even if it worked.

10:42- Walk and a hit and now the top of the lineup. Time for the rally caps, or rally monkeys, or cowbells. Scott Eyre coming into the game. There is one out. I haven't said it because it is fairly obvious but this is pretty much a must win with Hamels pitching tomorrow at home. If this inning is going to be a big one, it will go straight through Carlos Pena and Evan Longoria, who still are yet to have a hit. I wonder if the BBWAA will start talks of how unclutch Longoria is already. I doubt it but it would be like them to forget all he did to get them to this point, in high pressure situations.

10:47- Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus just posted an e-mail where Joe Sheehan said he wouldn't let Howard face a righty when he hit that bomb that opened it up. I am in pretty elite company with that and it makes me smile. Although it wasn't all that hard to figure out, managers still struggle with it. Which makes me wonder about managing and the credentials it takes. Probably its own post so that's all I'll say.

10:52- Upton struck out just before it got to Evan Longoria and Carlos Pena.

10:58- The game is getting a little solemn for those of us rooting on the Rays, or just rooting for a longer series so that we can have more baseball. I can't help ask what if Maddon hadn't let a right handed pitcher face Howard. It most certainly was the type of situation that can allow a game to get out of hand quick. Howard lead the league in HR, and there is just no excuse not to use the knowledge of his platoon splits to your advantage. Iwamura and Pena just made a great double play to end the inning.

The 3-4-5 hitters need to make some noise, to produce runs without making outs and flip the lineup over so it isn't the worst hitters up in the 9th.

11:09- Longoria and Pena strikeout. It is extremely difficult to win ballgames when you lose all the production in the middle of your lineup. Their OPS + were 125, and 127 respectively. That is a lot to lose. Add in the bad call that cost a run, and the managing mishap, and it has been a long night for the Rays. Although it has been a pretty entertaining game. Homeruns, by big stars and pitchers, hat controversy, bad call controversy, managing tactics, etc.

11:19- Jason Werth hit a 2 run HR. 8-2 Phils. This will be me signing off unless something super crazy happens, which I really doubt.

Bullpen usage, the Rays, and David Price.

So, it has been broken down by many people much smarter (and way too many people who just have an audience) than me, but the Rays won World Series game two. James Shields was OK, but the part I want to focus on is David Price.

It was a two run game. David Price got the last seven outs in the World Series. I applaud Joe Maddon for going outside of the normal managerial box to use a very talented pitcher to get seven outs. Most managers get in a zone of "save their own ass" by doing what is expected, by going with proven relievers and known quantitie closers. Maddon leveraged the situation in his advatage by using his most talented left handed reliever to get out the Phillies best hitters (who are left handed) and stayed with him throughout it.

Further proof that conventional bullpen usage is ridiculous. The save stat, the Baseball Writers, etc, all hurt the overall understanding of the game in the public.

NBA Preseason Picks

MVP: LeBron James
Defensive Player of the Year: Ron Artest
6th Man of the Year: Rodney Stuckey
Rookie of the Year: Greg Oden
Coach of the Year: Jerry Sloan

Divisional Winners:
Atlantic- Boston
Central- Detroit
Southeast- Orlando

Other East playoff teams: Toronto, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Indiana, Chicago

Southwest- New Orleans
Pacific- Los Angeles
Northwest- Utah

Other West playoff teams: Houston, San Antonio, Phoenix, Portland, Dallas

Western Finals : New Orleans vs. Los Angeles
East Finals: Philadelphia vs. Cleveland
NBA Finals: Los Angeles vs. Cleveland
NBA Champions: Los Angeles

I originally wrote that New Orleans would win it all, which I a big part of me still believes. But if the Lakers can stay healthy they should be the best team. Also I would seem like and huge homer (and feel like I jinxed it if they lost.) I think there are are 4 west teams who can win easily (LA, NO, Utah, and Houston.) I don't think any East team will be strong enough to compete with them, unlike last year.

Dessert Happenings

Easiest dessert ever, and sort of impressive if you have friends over. Just put sugar on to a banana that has been cut in half long ways and across. Leave the peel on and then place sugar side down in a hot pan and wait. Then toast peanuts for a minute or so in a pan and pour more sugar over, cook until caramel is formed all around and pour onto parchment or other non-stick surface and break apart. Add your favorite ice cream.

Braised Pork Ribs

Braising Liquid

5 Vine Ripened Tomatoes (quartered)
1/2 sweet onion (quartered)
1 shallot (julienned)
1 red bell pepper (julienned)
kosher salt,fresh cracked pepper
4 cloves garlic (slivered)
1/3 cup Heavy Cream
Handful of Italian Flat Leaf Parsley (fine chop)

Combine everything but the heavy cream and parsley in a large saucepan and cover with water, just above all of the ingredients. Cover the pot. Cook on med-high for about 45 minutes (or until everything begins to fall apart and combine.)Let cool, and then puree in a blender (or puree now if you have a stick blender.) Move to a saute pan without curved walls, often called a frying pan, and reduce heat to simmer. Add cream and parsley.

Salt and Pepper the boneless pork ribs. Bring a saute pan with a small amount of oil up to high heat. Once hot, brown the ribs on both sides to create a crust on the outside. Move the ribs into the braising liquid, and turn the heat up to meduim- medium low and finish cooking the ribs. Flipping them to make sure the liquid is cooking through.

I love Manny Ramirez

Manny just hit a homerun that was in on his hands out to left field. He rounded the bases and went back to the dugout. He then yelled back to the pitcher, Brett Myers, "if you don't throw 95, don't go there."

Everybody should love Manny Ramirez.

Tyson Chandler's Lucid Thoughts on Taxes

Tyson Chandler is 7 feet tall, plays basketball for a living, and never went to college. However he is a well spoken and intelligent human being. His blog is on NBA.com and had this to say about paying taxes at a rally for Barack Obama. I'm not trying to illustrate a political point, very far from that. I have tried to keep my political views out of other people's lives. I wanted to illustrate that not every guy in the NBA is a greedy jock who can't think without a line of people doing it for them.

"It's funny, because when Obama was giving his speech, he said he was gonna give a tax cut to 95 percent of the people. He says, "If you make under $250,000 a year, raise your hand." And everybody there raised their hand, except for this one small section of guys. That was our section. And everybody around us was laughing.

But you know what, it's a bigger cause. And the way I look at it is that I can afford to pay more in taxes. But my parents, my grandparents, my cousins ... with what they make, they can't afford to cut back in their household with what they're trying to survive with. I can afford to make cuts and still survive. They can't take that knock.

I think that's what's going on now and the reason why the middle class is struggling so much. The upper class, we can take that hit. Obviously, nobody wants to take it, but we still can. And we can afford to live nice lives.

I've lived in both situations. And not only that, I'm obviously the only one in my family that can say that I'm a millionaire. I've seen my entire family struggle. So, would I rather see my whole family struggle while I get a break, or have me not get a break while the rest of my family gets one? I'll take my entire family getting a break."

Hollinger's PER 08-09

It is almost time to switch to basketball season from baseball season as my predominate passion. Right now I'm at about 65-35 baseball. But our favorite statistician and yours John Hollinger has come out with his individual PER rating and low and behold who is first. Actually I'll just copy and paste.

2008-09 outlook: Paul projects to lead the NBA in PER this season, a fact that surprised some folks -- like me, for instance; I'd expected LeBron James to be first. But Paul is only 23, is playing a position where development curves tend to be long, and has made substantial improvement in his first three seasons.

In fact, if you compare how he played at ages 20 through 22 you'd be hard-pressed to find a single point guard in history who was demonstrably superior, which might make it easier to digest the possibility of further ascent. It might be odd to think of a 6-0, 175-pound guy as the best player in the league, especially when iconic talents like LeBron and Kobe are in their primes. But if Paul improves much at all from last season, we're going to have to get comfortable with that idea.

I've said it once, I'll say it again Chris Paul was the best player in the NBA last season. NOT KOBE BRYANT. Lebron was (mostly) better than Kobe too, but Kobe's other stuff like playing through injury and not coasting for 20-30 games made Kobe second in my book. I don't truly expect Paul to have a better season than Lebron even though it is entirely possible and those two are probably going to battle for that honor. I'd love to see it, and the Hornets could have just as successfull season if he does live up to these lofty expectations.

Update: Bubble and Squeek

That is the Kale and red potatoe version. It went well. Served with a flat leaf parsley compound butter. Besides that it was just baked potatoe, kale, salt and pepper. Then made into rounds and "grilled" (it was in a grill pan.)

Bubble and Squeek

Bubble and squeek is a traditional breakfast side dish in England, usually made from leftovers of a roast dinner. Vegetables (mainly cabbage)are mixed with mashed potatoes in a hot pan. I had it for the first time last week and it was grilled with collards and mashed potatoes.

I am going to attempt to make it soon, two different ways. I'm thinking maybe kale and red potatoes, and sweet potatoes with mustard greens. I will update on how it goes.

Steakhouse Night

I wanted to make a traditonal "steak and potatoes" dish to take a picture of for my blog so I did and this is how it came out. I served it with a red wine reduction sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, and an green onion infused olive oil.

Bad baseball writing, and the people like me who can't stand it.

Buster Olney: So there might be one tangible thing the Mets need to fix: They need to get David Wright … well, right. They need to help him work through his apparent anxiety in high-pressure situations. Big-picture: The Mets didn't make the playoffs because of their bullpen failures, as Jack Curry writes, but over the weekend, they mustered a total of five runs, and Wright had a whole lot to do with that. He cares so deeply that he puts enormous pressure on himself, and this trait seems to wreck him in big spots. He seems to leap at the ball when he's trying to hit with the game on the line. They need to address this.

I don't know how they do it. Maybe they get Wright to start talking to a sports psychologist, someone who might get the kind of help that has aided John Smoltz and Matt Garza and others. Wright is a cornerstone player who will be an MVP candidate in most years of his career, so the notion of trading him is silly. But they have to help him find a way to relax -- and if the team's best player relaxes, this will, in turn, take pressure off the rest of the team.

Jay Jaffe of Baseball Prospectus: The phenomenon of a team's best player or players taking an inordinate amount of the blame for their failures is one that Bill James noted back in the Abstract years, and it's even truer today in a more hypercompetitive media. Good Lord, on ESPN Insider today Buster Olney is suggesting that David Wright needs to see a sports psychiatrist to "work through his apparent anxiety in high-pressure situations." Wright certainly deserves his share of the blame given his part in a lineup that managed only five runs over their last three games, but he did go 4-for-9 and hit .340/.416/.577 in September, including .462/.559/.769 in the seven games prior to the Marlins series. Carlos Delgado went 2-for-11, where's his Rx for a shrink, Buster? Sheesh

Fandom. The end of the season.

I am a realist. A lot of baseball writers would call me an idiot for caring way too much about statistical analysis of the game. But, I am a fan at heart. I am not a statistician who just tries to make baseball a game of numbers. It actually offends me harshly when people who write for huge newspapers (but really, newspapers will be gone in the next few years) and Sports Illustrated, and other large publications use their position to discount what people like me have to say. I am in fact just someone who spends hours and hours trying to understand a game that I truly love. The same game that baseball writers all around the country speak about. I choose to do so by reading about and understanding different statistics.

I grew up looking at RBI, and BA, and assuming that the people who had the highest numbers in these stats were the best players. I have now learned that this is not the truth, because newer (better) statistics are able to separate what certain players contribute without their teammates.

Some people will say that this takes away from the team aspect of the game. That it detracts from the nature of the game and doesn't account for humanistic qualities. Certainly I disagree to this notion.

I have watched at least 100 of the Marlins games this season. I have watched countless other games that do not include my favorite team. I love baseball. Sports fans that I know and love often don't understand the almost chaotic way that I follow the sport. However there is an attack on anyone who would rather use advanced statistics over traditional ones. Many of the more palatable baseball writers that I read have obviously made peace with this. However I have a hard time with people accusing anyone who loves learning about the game in a different way than them of caring only about numbers and not the game.

This brings me to the Marlins. They are outplaying their pyth record (or assumed record because of runs scored vs. runs against, which is proven a better predictor of actual record) by quite a bit. They have locked up a winning record and are going to finish behind the Phillies and Mets, but not that far back considering pre-season projections. However, I love it. I am not some stat freak who would rather see the teams with the most predictable seasons always win. There is luck involved in a 162 games season. There is clutch hitting invloved. However, clutch hitting is not (although many writers will disagree) a repeatable skill.

I am still happy with our season. We played hard. We improved our defense somewhat. We hit the ball hard. Our rotation looks very promising if it is somewhat capable of staying healthy. A winning season was not expected but yet we still found a way to do so, meaning that all my watching had a pretty positive result total. This Marlins team has provided a ton of great moments. From Amezega's homerun fresh off a long rain delay to give us the lead, to Hanley's huge season that will go mostly overlooked, to Uggla looking horrible in teh All-Star games, it will be remembered fondly.

How it won't be remembered is just as a list of numbers. Neither will the live games I was able to watch against Tampa Bay with friends. Neither will be the countless hours I have spent reading Rob Neyer, Baseball Prospectus, The Hardball Times, and other intelligent baseball sites. I wish just one baseball writer of the BBWAA would read this to learn what I mean.

Ultimate Meatball Sub

I hope there is no copyright infringement on that tagline because of Tyler Florence. You can see my GRE study book in the background of the picture! okay now onto the food.

So Jon (roommate mentioned many times in my food posts) doesn't like meatball subs because they make his bread soggy. He likes meatballs, and subs, just not together. I set out to change his mind.

The bread is fresh baked hoagie roll from Publix Supermarkets, and they are delicious. I don't really bake so....yeah. The meatballs are beef with an 80/20 fat ratio and they were roasted in the oven at 425 degrees until they are still pretty pink and soft in the middle.

2 lbs ground beef
2 eggs
bread crumbs to hold moisture
3 garlic cloves
salt, pepper
3/4 of one medium orange bell pepper finely diced.

The sauce was a pretty basic strained plum tomato and garlic sauce with beef stock. It was simmered with merlot and a little bit of (gasp! store bought) vodka sauce to thicken it. Then I put mozzarella chesse on the bread and put it under the broiler to the desired meltiness, braised the meatballs in the sauce to finish them and assembled the sandwich.

Finish the sandwich with some fresh basil. That leaf actually got sprinkled all over after the picture.

Call him a convert.

Great baseball Writers and Jason Bartlett the Pear.

I have been studying for the GRE, hoping to get into graduate school for the spring. Since I started way too late, I will not be nearly as prepared as I wish I would be. However I can't sit and study all the time, I'm just not that type of studier, I have to pace myself and hope that I got enough of it in. When not at work, and not studying I have been keeping myself busy with sports, fantasy sports, and as always cooking. Today was a good day for baseball reading with a great simple article from Joe Posnanski (who may be the best baseball writer in all the land), and food with a meatball sub for the ages. First thing first. Joe Blog. I'm going to copy the whole article and then just basically agree with him a little.

Jason Bartlett has an 83 OPS+.

Jason Bartlett has a .328 on-base percentage and has struck out three times more than he has walked.

Jason Bartlett has a .358 slugging percentage and has hit 1.00 home runs this season.

Jason Bartlett has missed 32 baseball games, which accounts for his relatively unimpressive total of 43 runs scored and 34 runs batted in.

Jason Bartlett ranks 11th among “everyday shortstops” with an .825 zone rating.

Jason Bartlett ranks 12th among “everyday shortstops“ with 4.22 range factor.

Jason Bartlett ranks 17th among ”everyday shortstops“ with a .969 fielding percentage.

Jason Bartlett scores a minus-1 on the Dewan Plus/Minus fielding system, meaning he has made one fewer play than the average shortstop in baseball this year.

The Tampa Bay Chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America voted Jason Bartlett the Tampa Bay Rays most valuable player in this magical season of 2008.

Your honor. The defense rests.

This goes to show that Jason Bartlett is in fact a pear not a baseball player. Okay bad food-baseball joke, but it does show that he is well below average for a SS in today's game. His OPS+ says about 17% worse than average actually. However maybe by the hand of God the Rays won all those games and he was actually their best player lets check. Posnanski, because he is better at this than me used a bunch of fancy stats to show how bad Bartlett Pear is, but for offense I'm going to use my favorite VORP because to me, it is the best overall offensive metric, although OPS+ is very good I still think it doesn't value OBP enough. It may though. Oh well, here we go.

Evan Longoria 33.8
Carlos Pena 33.0
B.J. Upton 30.2
Akinori Iwamura 17.3
Dioner Navaro 15.1
Cliff Floyd 14.7
Eric Hinske 11.8
Jason Bartlett Pear 11.2

He is the 8th best offensive player on his team this year. That's probably only because the next two guys (Carl Crawford and Gabe Gross) lose production points for being corner outfielders, and production is so much more at a premium at shortstop, so his replacement level is way lower. None the less, not even close to most productive offensive player.

As Posnanski alluded to Jason Bartlett ranks only ahead of Edgar Rentaria and Stephen Drew at SS. I used John Dewan's Revised Zone Rating (which handles out of zone plays seperately, and doesn't give the player extra credit for double plays)and he came in at .808. Khalil Greene is about league average at .835.

But wait. There are plenty of pitchers on Tampa Bay who are above Bartlett Pear in VORP as well. Included in them are James Shields, Scott Kazmir, Edwin Jackson, Matt Garza, J.P. Howell, Grant Balfour, Andy Sonnanstine, and Dan Wheeler.

As you can see I went through way too much work to prove a point that had already been proven. However there was no hand of God that allowed a team with a below average SS as their best player to make the playoffs. Actually there are about 14 or so Rays having a better season, give or take a player who is close. Further proof the BBWAA is ridiculous and should be stopped.

MVP Bullcrap

Everyone who follows or writes about baseball has been talking about the MVP in the National league. PTI just gave Ryan Howard a 60% chance of winning it because "if you look at the numbers that matter, 50 HR and 150 RBI they are there" and "he should win it if his team makes the playoffs. I don't want to dig up the same arguments that anyone who has a brain that has an iota of baseball understanding has said, but I will anyways.

Value, as in the middle word of MVP, is not restricted to teams that make the playoffs. If I am the best player, the most valuable player in the league and the rest of my team stinks, I still have value. So much so that other teams would probably trade the farm for me and pay me a ton of money to move to Boston, or New York, or LA. Whatever games we did win were probably mostly because of me. The money that fans pay for the game are probably to see me. Value, lots, tons, boatloads of value without being on a team that makes the playoffs. Sort like Albert Pujols I guess.

If you want to read about how poor a measure of baseball value RBI's are read something by FireJoeMorgan.com, or Joe Posnanski, or Keith Law of ESPN, or just read Moneyball and start there. But basically the people who finish with the most RBI most of the time are the people who have the most RBI opportunities. It is a statistic that measures teams, not individuals. It might help Ryan Howard because he has Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley on base all the time. Now onto fun with numbers and why Ryan Howard's name shouldn't even come up, WOO!

National League Players with higher VORP

I was going to make a list but there were too many players. He is 33rd just behind Randy Winn and Mark Derosa. And just ahead of the National league only statistics of Jason Bay and Big Marky Tex. This is not to say that Ryan Howard isn't valuable. Just that there are a lot of people playing better baseball. Being a first baseman, he is expected to be able to hit for power. It is easier to get power production out of a first baseman than say, a shortstop. His line of .249/.337/.546 is really good. But Albert Pujols is currently sitting at .354/.468/.640. They play the same position. If you believe the most important things to scoring runs are getting on base, and hitting the ball hard (which I do) Albert Pujols is lightyears ahead of Howard. Hanley Ramirez is currently .296/.398/.538 while stealing 33 bases and playing the much more important defensive position of SS.

Then there is the other half of the diamond, the defense. I mentioned that Pujols and Howard play the same position. But that is only mostly true. They both are by name a first baseman. However, Pujols' Revised Zone Rating (amount of plays made in the zone for the position played expressed as a decimal) is .842 while making 49 plays out of the zone. Ryan Howard's is .766 while only making 31 plays out of the zone. According to Baseball Prospectus that is worth 23 runs, ON DEFENSE ALONE. 23 runs is worth about two wins over 162 game season. Did I mention that Albert Pujols is a much better hitter. Just for kicks Hanley is about 5 runs better than Howard, playing a much harder position and being a much more impressive hitter. As a Marlins fan I love to see Hanley playing about league average defense this year.

Back to Pujols, if Howard wins over him there should be an investigation into the voting. After looking at defensive and offensive metrics here is a list of players who are having a better full season in Howard's own division.

Hanley Ramirez
Chase Utley
Jose Reyes
David Wright
Carlos Beltran
Chipper Jones
Brian McCann
Dan Uggla
Jimmy Rollins
Christian Guzman!
Carlos Delgado

IN HIS DIVISION. THIRD ON HIS TEAM. The same argument also goes for Delgado, he is just slightly better than Howard.

NFL Announcing is horrible.

On NFL Countdown today Emmitt Smith called Matt Cassel by the name of Matt Hassel at least 4 times in the span of less than a paragraph of analysis. The same Matt Cassel who everyone has talked about until we all knew that he hadn't started since high school, he played baseball at USC, his brother plays for the Astros, etc. However Emmitt neglected to learn his name.

And as soon as I decide to stop watching the Marlins all the time and following everything they do for the rest of this season, they go out and win 5 straight games. Cool, I'm pumped about that.

Sweet potatoes.

Unabashed, I love sweet potatoes. Most of the time I just enjoy them baked with a little butter, salt, pepper, red pepper, and sugar. However I wanted to start using them in different ways. A couple months ago I made a jalapeno and sweet potato mash that I thoroughly enjoyed. Last week I made a dish that will probably stay in the main rotation for quite a while. Initially they were sweet potato pancakes, but my roommate bought a deep fryer for the kitchen (a post about this is going to come soon) and I made them as smaller fritters. Same batter just smaller and less pancake shaped.

2 sweet potatoes
2 eggs whites
2 roasted jalapenos
2 ears of sweet corn
a pinch of kosher salt
approx 1 1/2 tbsp cracked black pepper
bread crumbs
sugar to taste

Begin by baking the sweet potatoes until fully cooked and then remove the meat from the inside into a large mixing bowl. Add all of the ingredients except the bread crumbs and combine. Add the bread crumbs in small amounts until the batter is no longer noticeably wet. It will thicken up and you will be able to handle it in your hands fairly easily without it sticking. Form into small pancakes (and pan fry) or fritters a little smaller than a golf ball (and deep fry.)

Summer lunch at my brother's house.

When my mom came up to Tallahassee from Ft.Myers I made lunch for Gi (my girlfriend), Kristen (my sister in law), Sandy (my mom) and myself (me.) I wanted to use lots of vegetables because Kristen, and to a smaller effect my mom love vegetables. Not to say they don't enjoy meat, I just wanted to keep it light. I prepared two things. Asparugus that had been wrapped in proscuitto, and a jicama salad with shrimp.

Aspargus:

I par boiled the green vegetable leaving a bit of a bite to it. Afterwards I shock it in an ice water bath to stop the cooking. Then I wrapped it with the cured ham. After the bundles were assembled I sprinkled them with salt and fresah ground black pepper and sauteed them until they were warm all the way through and the proscuitto was crisp on both sides. It looked like this.



The salad was made of red onion ( I prefer it slightly cooked and in thin long strips, however I left it raw), jicama that has been cut into thick julienne cuts, cucumber that is cut just like the jicama, and shrimp. I used pink shrimp that were 31-35 size. The shrimp are sauteed with garlic before the salad is assembled and shocked just like the asparagus was.

The last part of the salad is the dressing which is a red wine vinegarette. It consists of red wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, spicy mustard (I used Boar's Head brand), honey, salt, pepper, and celery salt. I didn't measure any of it but just made it to my taste. Vinegarettes are simple one you learn them so practice is just the key. Drizzle the oil in after everything else has been whisked well.

September call-ups: Marlins

So it is September, and my team is out of the chase for all intents and purposes. However this is the time of year that rosters get expanded so teams can go to a 40 man roster. Teams usually call up as few people as they can, because of Major League service time, and starting arbitration clocks, and whatnot. The Marlins called up a bunch of also-rans that we have seen pulled up a few times for spot starts. The likes of Andino, Carrol, Miller, De La Cruz, and McPherson get nobody extremely excited. Although I did just learn McPherson was leading minor leagues with 42 home runs.

I fully expected Cameron Maybin to get called up. I was in the line of thinking that getting potential abover average everyday players some time in September was a good idea. I have no idea what his Major League experience is as far as arbitration, but I know he is yet to see the light of day in Florida. I do know that he has been up and down this season but is posting a respectable .375 OBP, and .831 OPS, and it has jumped to .898 since the all-star break, all while playing CF. Cameron still may get called up, and there are tons of things he still needs to work on (like his 120 Ks vs. 60 BB.) But I think that if we expect him to fill the hole at center that is currently filled by 4th/5th outfielders, we need to see what he can do in the bigs.

Mexican night. Every night should be Mexican night.

Chicken enchiladas, sweet corn with bell pepper and red onion, white rice.
This, if anything, is my signature dish, and it was pretty much perfect last night.

New Uniforms for the Hornets

Today the New Orleans Hornets renovated their uniforms with an all new color pattern. The design scheme of the jerseys has also changed back to a pinstripe look from way back when they were in Charlotte. Overall I like the uniforms. The text stayed the same and they kept the yellow around a little bit. Personally I prefer the colors from the last couple years. I will love to see what their alternate uniforms are, because I absolutely loved the yellow jerseys from last year. The new apparel is sweet too, especially the NOLA shirt with the trumpet.

All of that was really just a primer to say that it was something they absolutely had to do. We all know they had the lowest attendance in the league for a while last year until they sustained the winning. Eventually they sold the games out, made the playoffs, and dispelled any rumors of leaving the city by the great season ticket sales so far. However, they still need revenue to compete on a larger, year in and year out, scale. Switching designs will make people want the new stuff, and buy up jerseys of guys like Chris Paul, Julian Wright, and David West. Coming off of the season they just had, the timing is perfect to make such a move. The excitement is immense and people are more likely to spend for these types of things now.

I'm going to buy a Chris Paul jersey when I get paid I think. White or Blue?
I just checked, they sold out in a day of both.

Chicken Paillard

Just a picture I liked of Chicken Paillard, Potatoes Au Gratin, and a Romaine salad from earlier this week.

Links this week.

Read the Hall of Fame post from today over at FireJoeMorgan. Nothing like people who talk in absolutes when using subjective arguments.

Goodbye Jannero Pargo.

Great article by Joe Sheehan over at Baseball Prospectus. Big surprise. Another big surprise: Josh Hamilton and K-Rod don't stand up to others in the AL MVP debate. Article not free.

I completely disagree with Peter Gammons on this. Soto is not even on my long list of MVP candidates, nor is he the best catcher in his league. Joe Mauer in the AL, I'd listen to that conversation (even if I disagree.) Also have to be an insider.

This one is free and a really good read about curveballs.

Look I can read humanistic baseball stories too.

Shrimp and Grits

Regionally southern foods have always been near and dear to my heart. My parents grew up in the south part of Arkansas, which is steeped in the middle of the traditional South. Growing up, the food that my parents cooked and ate were dishes that had been a part of their diet growing up, and I would imagine that of their parents as well. Southern food isn't any different than the food anywhere else in the world in that way. Regions take what they have and find a way to make good food out of it, then it is passed on from generation to generation and it evolves and gets better. What the southern United States have is lots of different vegetables, starches, and fruits. Rice fields line highways all throughout Louisiana and Arkansas. Farmers who sell fresh tomatoes, peas, and corn often sit on the side of roads. What else they have is a lot of coastline and access to seafood.

No doubt shrimp and grits was once just a porridge of ground corn, liquid and a highly available seafood. However it has evolved into a dish that great chefs have turned into high art. For me it is often a mark of a great southern restaurant to have done it well. Because restaurants who survive on the premise of doing classic southern dishes should be able to do them well, and do them with their own spin.

The best shrimp and grits I've ever had was at a Bistro 1896 in downtown Asheville, NC. It was a delightful twist with large polenta cakes that had been crisped in a pan instead of hominy grits that resemble a gruel. It was served with large wild United States pink shrimp and a remoulade sauce that was not a slave to the traditional Louisiana spicy aioli. It had lots of fresh herbs and still a fairly present flavor of garlic. I still remember this dish years later because it was that unforgettable.

What made me think about this is that I went to Harry's Seafood Bar and Grill here in Tallahassee and ate some shrimp and grits not too long ago. Their take on the dish included a remoulade as well. It was a much more traditional one but good nonetheless. It included hominy grits that were stiff (which is a good thing) and there was Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese inside and finishing the plate. The dishes were far apart on approach and flavor but both hit the mark.

Shrimp and grits is a great regional dish that I have never attempted, but after having it on my mind I'm sure that I will soon. I'll update when I do.