I went to Las Vegas, and all I got was...broke.

Travelling back in time to Ancient Rome would have been way cheaper.

Eleven years ago, when I last visited Vegas, there were cheap rooms, free entertainment walking along the strip, and breakfast buffets that cost $3.99.  When I went to Vegas last week, there were discounted rooms in overpriced hotels who nickeled and dimed you for everything, 20-minute walks just to cross the street, and $14 breakfasts of scrambled eggs and coffee.  It's not totally fair for me to say this: I was staying at in-love-with-itself Caesar's Palace.  I suspect that, on the outskirts of The Strip, things are still more reasonable.  I have also heard that the downtown area (Fremont Street was recommended, but I never made it that far) yields some great restaurants at much better prices.  I cannot speak to this experience because I was dutifully trying to attend the convention I was supposed to be dutifully attending; all I can say is, if you stay on the strip, expect to get gouged (or at least inconvenienced if you search for alternatives).

Caesar's Palace, by the way, has given up trying to keep customers happy.  There is no uniform policy on anything--check-in time, what's included in the hotel room price, and even the hotel room price itself is all negotiable, depending on who you talk to and how good your social skills are.  I happened to have hitched my wagon to a very sociable star while I was there, but otherwise, I would have been screwed, as I possess no amount of social finesse whatsoever.

So, blah blah blah, the food was too expensive.  But I did manage to find a couple of little gems in the midst of the cigarette smoke and sad gambling people who didn't know what day of the week it was or whether it was night or day.

I think this guy made my noodles!

Beijing Noodle No. 9 

You can pay a lot to eat to eat some pretty mundane Chinese food, of you can stick to the first page of the menu and have one of their noodle dishes with homemade, hand stretched, traditional noodles.  I paid $12 for a big bowl of carb-o-riffic magic that got me through the night and allowed me to skip breakfast the next morning.

Warnings: the service is slow and bitchy.  Bitchy as hell, actually.  The restaurant is loud and all a blindingly bright white, so just go ahead and wear your sunglasses indoors.  It's not the weirdest looking thing they'll see.

payard PÂTISSERIE & BISTRO

This place is a bit more expensive but also offers a much more varied menu in terms of consistent acceptability.  Execution is fine, the bread they bring to the table is actually amazing, and the wine list is quite good.  At dinner (but be forewarned, not at lunch), the lobster bisque suffices as a fine meal, and the quiche and side salad is a satisfying, safe choice.  Portions are large.


Warnings: the service is just as shitty as Beijing Noodle No. 9.  I asked if they could split the check for lunch, and I was actually told, "well, you shouldn't do that if you're not planning on paying separately" with quite a bit of attitude.  So, shitty and incredibly stupid is a more accurate way to describe the service that day.

Rao's
I occasionally buy their jarred sauce as a jump start for a quickie lasagne at home.  The prices were too steep to justify a plate of pasta and tomatoes, but their wine list was not any more expensive than the cheaper in-house restaurants, and they had some real gems.  The cheapest red on the menu, the Primitivo, was quite good--full-bodied yet fruity--and the Prosecco was just right.

Warnings: no complaints about service--they were perfectly lovely.

Flamingo Pizza

When you get sick of the terrible service and overpriced food, it's time to get some carry-out.  Be forewarned, you will have to walk out to the far lane of shuttles and taxi service and meet some sketchy dude in an unmarked, 1990 red Honda Civic and sneak it back up to your room while no one is looking, but it will be worth it.  The pasta with garlic butter and mushrooms is ridiculously simple and good.

Warnings: I think they might be getting stoned at work here.  You will wait a loooong time to get your food, and then it will not come with utensils.  Ask ahead for forks or whatever the obvious choice for eating is, because it will not be obvious to them.

Now that I've recovered from the cigarette smoke and low self-esteem I developed in these restaurants, I've come up with some pretty convincing replications of these dishes (which are all pretty basic, anyway); stay tuned in my next posts for recipes for Chinese noodles with eggs and tomato, Lobster-like bisque, and fettuccine with garlic, butter, and mushrooms.

If it doesn't squeak, is it still a cheese curd? Taking in the sights in Wisconsin's capitol city...

I recently had the good fortune of travelling to Wisconsin's capital city for some concerts in May, and I did indeed eat my proverbial heart out.  Non-Midwesterners may scoff at the idea of looking for fun and good food in Madison, but those from the Great Lakes region know it's a great college town with fresh produce stands all over in the summer, not to mention the locally made artisan cheeses and ice creams.  It's worth the drive if you're already in the Chicago or Milwaukee areas, and if you're in those areas to visit family this summer, it's a great short-term escape from Grandma's guilt trips and casseroles.

The view from Lake Mendota on UW-Madison's campus. 

Travel:
The cheapest way to get there is to fly in to Chicago at O'Hare or Midway (O'Hare is slightly closer to the Wisconsin border) and take the shuttle up to Madison.  Coach USA runs a bus with stops at both airports and the Amtrack terminal (union Station) in the heart of downtown Chicago, dropping you near two stations with multiple "L"  and Metra lines, if you decide to go that route.  They run an on-time (or early) ship and it's $58 round-trip/ $29 one-way.

[By the way, I'm not going to waste a lot of time saying nasty things about airlines in this post; I've done enough of that already.  But I would just like to warn you, in case you didn't know, that Spirit Airlines charges $35 per carry-on.  I did not know this when I booked my tickets through Priceline, and if I had, I wouldn't have thought they were the cheapest deal.  So don't forget to check baggage fee policies with the company before booking through an aggregate sight, kiddies!]

Activities:
Mostly I practiced and performed, but I can give you a few tips.  Frank Lloyd Wright spent many years in the area, so if  you're into that sort of thing, check out his handiwork near campus at the First Unitarian Church, which he built in 1951.  Monona Terrace Convention Center was not built while FLW was alive, but he did draw up the plans, and it's also where they record Michael Feldman's NPR show, Whad'Ya Know?, every Saturday.  There is a fee to be in the audience, but the free coffee and doughnuts are pretty tasty.

Monona Terrace

Olbrich Botanical Gardens are free to the public from dawn until dusk and contain the only Thai Pavilion in North America.  It is beautiful, and the gardens are really stunning (plus they're a fun way to learn what grows in this part of the country).

Did you know that University of Wisconsin has a big, honkin' LAKE right on campus?  For a reasonable fee, you can rent a sail boat from the boat house on campus and act all fancy.  Or you can just wander along the mostly wooded trail that rings the lake and enjoy the many Gothic-inspired buildings on the heart of campus for free.  If I had attended this school, I don't think I would have done much homework.

This is the student union building at UW-Madison!
There's a good ice cream shop in here, too. 

Eating:
This is the most important activity when visiting a town, isn't it?  It tells you so much about whether or not that town deserves to exist (the town where I reside, for instance, probably does not).

The Dane County Farmer's Market is the largest producer-only farmer's market in the US.  Wander around the charming downtown area every Wednesday and Saturday in the summer and eat your weight in fresh cheese curds and other artisanal cheeses, homemade salsas, samples of locally raised meat, and so much more.  There are food stands, too, so you can get a more balanced diet if you want.  This is actually a great place to go for lunch.

If you don't make it to a farmer's market, Brennan's Market is your next best choice. These sort of overgrown roadside stands are all over town, and they carry loads of local produce, wine, beer, and some groceries, along with a deli counter and another lifetime's worth of Wisconsin cheese (and yes, you can eat your weight in free samples here, too).  Local cheese, locally made wine, and a big loaf of crusty bread can all be purchased here and brought to any one of the several lakes in town for a perfect picnic lunch.

Lao Laan-Xang at 2098 Atwood Ave. offers beautiful Laotian food in a slightly gentrified Capitol-area neighborhood and a reasonable price.  There's a little outdoor seating, but it goes fast during Madison's short summer.

Across the street, get your dessert at Monty's Blue Plate Diner (that is seriously what we did).  They actually have a terrific-looking menu, with tons of egg dishes and healthier, often vegetarian versions of diner classics, reminiscent of Sweet Melissa's in Laramie or the Chicago Diner.  But I only went for the homemade pie, which was glorious in every way.

There is a lot more to do in this diverse, education-rich, politically active town, I'm sure.  In the short time I spent there, I was overwhelmed by how much fun I had every single day.  Madison is a great place to hang for a weekend as a 20-something, 30-something, or as a whole family.  In mid-May, the weather was near-perfect every day, and there were plenty of places to go biking and running (in fact, you can rent bikes from the city for sight-seeing).  I highly recommend a visit.

In praise of unhealthy food

Well, in light of my recent post siding with Anthony Bourdain, perhaps this title seems a bit hypocritical.  Perhaps it would be better to praise "eating food for food's sake" and "not freaking out every time a new item at the grocery store is labeled a super food".  My thoughts today are about whether or not we can rely on our groceries to stave off cancer, keep us looking like we are 20 forever, and make us thin.  Despite ongoing, desperate reports to the contrary, it appears that about all food can do is keep us from going hungry.

This is no longer meat.

Those antioxidants in super-expensive pomegranate juice?  Slate tells us they are probably useless.  In fact, who knows?--they might even be bad for you.  Drinking milk after workouts to get/ keep thin?  Probably a load of crap pushed through by the powerful American Dairy Association.  Remember the food pyramid?  It's gone.  Remember when eggs were bad for you?  Now they're good!  Potatoes?  Also good!  Bacon?  No longer considered a meat source!

What I am trying to illustrate is our utter and complete confusion regarding exactly what the perfect diet is for all Americans.  It's no wonder, of course--different bodies probably need slightly different foods.  But with so much idle time and our dabbling in what the media has convinced us is "science", we have spent far too much time, in my humble opinion, searching for magical ingredients to help us live forever and puzzling over why others seem healthier than we are.  The Asian diet, because some Asians live much longer than some Americans, has been touted as our new savior: very little meat, lots of vegetables, tea, and tofu.  No booze.  It sounds like a good idea, doesn't it?

But then, why do Italians have such low incidences of heart disease when they drink red wine and eat pasta every day?  It's the fish!  If you eat exactly what they eat, you, too, will have a healthy heart!  You see, it's all healthy fat.  That's the difference.  But wait--what about the French?  They don't go to the gym, they eat stinky, fatty cheese, duck liver, and tons of white bread, and they drink champagne like it's going out of style.  That does sound awesome, but is it a diet America can get behind?  Well, they live slightly longer, on average, than we do and they are noticeably thinner as a culture, so yes, yes we can do that.

The Italian diet in action.

Here's the dirty little secret that never gets mentioned in our obsessive, schizophrenic search for the perfect diet: A LOT of countries have longer life expectancies than we do.  35 countries, to be exact, including Japan, Italy, France, but also Malta, Macau, and Israel, where people are constantly killing each other.  We kind of suck at staying alive, apparently.  Same thing for staying thin, which is supposed to help with being alive.  We are fat and die earlier than others despite our constant anxiety and our constant talk about diets and health.  And we will experiment with all kinds of kooky, nonsensical fads, but we never seem to make up our minds.  So here is my inexpert, entirely non-tested advice (but I'm not overweight and I'm not dead yet, so who knows?):

Don't eat this too often.  Unless you're my grandpa.

• Stop looking for a miracle cure.  It's not pomegranate juice, nor pasta, nor red wine (sorry).  No food or beverage will guarantee that you won't contract some rare form of cancer and die at age 35.  And while many people around the world struggle just to eat enough to stay alive, isn't it a bit crass to pay $26 for an antioxidant tonic promising to be your new fountain of youth?
• Stop trying to copy others.  My grandfather lived to be 92, and he ate only tan foods whenever possible: fried chicken, potatoes and gravy, and of course Werther's carmels.  He had low blood pressure, low cholesterol, and was relatively active late in life.  I would not attempt his diet for myself (because it's disgusting), but it worked for him.  And tofu and veggies work for a lot of Japanese people, and cheese that smells like feet works in France.  Our bodies are all different, though, so that doesn't mean that any of these approaches will work for you.  
• Stop acting like a freak and use some common sense.  Three meals of Reese's peanut butter cups every day, while FABULOUS!, is probably not good for you.  Nothing but grapefruit all week, with no other nutrients to round it out, is also probably not a wise choice.  That cheesy omelet you had last week?  Meh, I don't know.  But if you're worried about it, maybe you can have some more broccoli today to even things out.  Moderation, and not constantly worrying, might be the only tricks we need.  

               

Oh yeah, and

• Move your fat butt off the couch!  French people aren't thin from loving life, they are thin because they walk everywhere.  I have perfectly mobile colleagues who will wait for an elevator for several minutes to go up one floor, so strong is their disdain for walking up a flight of stairs.  Stop it.  That's stupid.  

This is how you walk.  Try it today!

Is elitism a bad thing?

Sass-mouthed celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain is in the news for picking on sweet, down-to-earth little ol' Paula Deen.  He is the edgy, former druggie who brought you such bedtime classics as Kitchen Confidential (in which you learn that, yes, sometimes cooks put pubic hair in your food) and No Reservations, a culinarily adventurous television program in which he sometimes eats anuses. She is the Georgia peach who taught us how to embrace our love of butter on The Food Network and in her many cookbooks.

So the gist of the argument, in case you have been living under a rock, is that Bourdain has said some not-so-nice stuff about Paula Deen being fat and practicing unhealthy cooking habits.  He does not lie.  He also got personal and said her food was crap, and maybe that didn't help his argument much.  But his major complaint is that, in a country gripped by an ever-increasing obesity epidemic, perhaps it is not helpful to push fried chicken and biscuits and gravy up close o the tv camera, no matter how much we like them.  Paula has retorted with a very populist defense, reminding Bourdain that not everyone can afford fancy menu ingredients and that she is cooking for real people, not the elite minority.  You can follow some of the juicy details here.

What Deen has not come out and said, but it seems to be lingering in the air, is that Bourdain is an arugula-eating (remember that gem from the last presidential race?), homosexual socialist.  Or something like that.  OK, Bourdain is abrasive in his use of language, which is a major part of his celebrity persona, but is he wrong to point out that we should stop eating junk all the time?  Meals made of various shades of tan with no green or red on the plate ARE helping to degrade the health of many members of American society, and this is a problem.  First lady Michelle Obama is struggling to tackle this issue on a national level, and despite her sweet, nurturing rhetoric, she has been painted as an enemy much like the swaggering, f-bomb-dropping Bourdain.

This pseudo-populist rhetoric, adopted by the mega-rich Bush regime of the early '00s (QUESTION: who would you rather drink a beer with? ANSWER: the guy who gives rich people tax breaks!) and equally mega-rich Paula Deen, whose stardom on The Food Network has led to a culinary empire worth undisclosed millions, is ridiculous.  Perhaps she is reflecting the taste of poor people in Georgia, but she has no right to wear that badge of honor as if she was one of them.  And she certainly isn't doing anything to help them by improving their fatty recipes.  When her very expensive physician tells her that she is suffering from  lard-induced heart disease, she will be able to pay the best physical trainers and nutritionists to get her back on track and nurse her to health; what of her "regular folk"?

There is more fresh produce and healthy food available at reasonable prices in this country than ever before (and if the government ended subsidies to the dairy and beef industries, who knows, that stuff might be cheaper yet).  Why not teach regular people, many of whom currently live without health insurance or regular doctor visits,  how to make healthy food taste good in an economical way?  I am an unrepentant cheapskate, and I do it almost every meal.  By pretending this fight is about snobs vs. the "little guy", Deen and her ilk somehow present diet-induced heart disease, obesity, high cholesterol, and premature death as the American Way.  This attitude is illogical, patronizing, and painfully transparent--she waves the American flag in order to sell you more cookbooks, fatty salad dressings, and speckled enamel bakeware.  Don't be fooled, regular folk: Anthony Bourdain doesn't hate you (well, maybe he does, but you can ignore that part)--he just wants you to put down the rum cake.