This One Is Biggie Sized

Craving Something Different
I have to hurry and make a blog entry about my dinner at East Atlanta’s newest restaurant Crave (nfws) before everyone else takes all of the clever play on words surrounding its name. For those of you who are addicted to Yelp, you may want to skip a head because this will be a Very Special Encore of my Yelp entry for Crave.

“I made my first trip to the newly-opened Crave this evening. Crave has garnered some attention this week thanks to a review in the Creative Loafing.

Being hungry I decided to try a starter and entree.

The starter I ordered was Andouille Queso which was served with deep fried pita chips. The chips were good, the queso I was not thrilled with. I guess I was expecting white cheese with either chunks of sausage or ground sausage. Instead the cheese was an orange melted cheese and the sausage was almost non-existent.

My entree on the other hand was fantastic. I ordered the braised short ribs served with bock choy over a bed of jalepeno grits. All components “worked”. The beef was succulent and the jalepeno grits provided a nice, spicy foil.

The food was consumed with a lovely beer.”

He’ll Be Coming Around The Mountain
Don’t I wish…

Yesterday’s exercise consisted of a bike outing of thirty-five miles from the Candler Park Marta station to Stone Mountain and back. About three miles from my completion one of my pedals malfunctioned and I had to hobble back using the DeKalb Path and McLendon Avenue in an effort to avoid traffic. I sort of knew something was up with the pedal because entering and exiting it seemed a little different than in my past rides. Perhaps this is the impetus needed to buy some new pedals and shoes (finally!).

The ride I took on Saturday afternoon nearly cost me big time. When riding solo I am a proponent of packing ID in case something happens to me. You know, to identify the body, that sort of thing… Anyway, I seemed to forget this detail at the end of Saturday’s ride and didn’t discover my error until Monday morning. That meant I went a day and a half of driving without having my driver’s license on me. Luckily none of Atlanta’s Finest decided that I was a threat on the roads this weekend… So, do any of you athletes have a suggestion for a substitute ID that will work for riding and running?

When RealiTV Collides
Being a huge fan of Iron Chef as well as a fan (and one-time short-term employee of) Alton Brown (who I believe still lives in the area) it was a natural for me to watch the American version of Iron Chef when it started up a few years ago.

Being a fan of BBC America as well as the shows they made starring chef Gordon Ramsey it was a natural for me to watch the Hell’s Kitchen when Fox aired it last year.

On Sunday night (at least that’s when it was recorded to my Dish Network DVR) these two worlds collided when Hell’s Kitchen runner-up Ralph Pagano was the challenger on Iron Chef America. It was kind of odd, like when you find out that you have common friends with co-workers.

What Pops Music Into Our Heads?
Occasionally I am able to determine why a certain song enters my brain after years of absence. It usually has something to do with an old movie I’ve been watching, a tv commercial which has adopted the song or band, or something associated with a phrase that I’ve heard recently.

However none of those explanations cover the reason for me singing (in my head at least) “Stop Making Sense” by the Talking Heads this morning. I’ve owned the cd for the past 15-20 years, but couldn’t tell you the last time I played it. One of the many good things about owning an iPod which can store one’s entire music collection is that in a case like this you can feed the monster by playing the cd on your way into work; at least that’s what I did this morning.

CD Pick Of The Week
This week’s pick is a slam dunk! Considering that I am a big Gomez fan and that I am going to see them in concert when the play the Variety Playhouse on Thursday night it’s easy for me to pick their release of “How We Operate” as my pick this week.

Gomez not your cup of tea? Okay, there are a few other interesting releases in today’s drop.

You could always go Old School and pick up one of the releases from Pearl Jam or Tool. I own previous releases from each (and saw Tool in concert circa 1993 in New Orleans at Lollapalooza), so those intrigue me as well. The Pearl Jam disc has been receiving some love on the Blogosphere as well. Check around, you’ll find some.

Not Old School enough? Well my friend Neil Young is releasing a war protest album (it’s really a cd but this is Neil Young I’m typing about so album seems more apropos) today. Feed your inner-hippy and go buy it. Play it on your iPod at the next anti-war rally and you’ll have all the bases covered.

Too much testosterone? Alrighty then, everybody’s second favorite Alaskan (Maigh should be on the top of your list) Jewel also releases a cd titled “Goodbye Alice In Wonderland” today.

Still not satisfied? How about a cd which features the incredibly-talented musician Alejandro Escovedo? While I was unable to see him perform at The EARL a few months ago because the show sold out I hear that it was a fantastic show.

And if none of that satisfies your tastes I can’t help you, try again next week.

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood – behind
Current Music – Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 26, playing The Plastic Constellations — “Sancho Panza”. (everytime I hear them I think 311?)
Website Of The Day – I admit to being a RealiTV junky. I think that I will be wasting many an upcoming hour scouring the Reality TV Digest over at Reality Blurred.

If you ever want a quick glance of the sites I’ve picked for my Websites Of The Day, you can check them out on del.icio.us, my user name is InsideThePerimeter (go figure), and they are all tagged as “blogged.”

Exercise (b)Log – biking, 35 miles (Candler Park Marta Stone Mountain) on Saturday

Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]