Sometimes You Want To Go Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Last night I went back to my hometown for the first high school football game under the new lights in Cedar Grove. For the past few years, living in Pearl River has made me pass through daily life anonymously. No hellos at the bagel shop. No horn toots as friends drive by the house. As an in-betweener just starting his own family, those roots are just being planted in my new town. But, it's great to go back home from time to time where, even though you've been gone for over a decade, people still bring up in the context of casual conversation how great your 8th grade football team was, and stories that begin with "I remember when." I know that may be a bit overboard but it makes you feel good...like you mattered when you were here, and that you can always go back. By the way, CG won 28-3. Go Panthers!

The 3:30 Dilemma

YankaRutgerDame game today...very cluttered TV this afternoon. What to do?

Meat in the Media

As a food lover, I have thoroughly enjoyed the recent articles in major men's magazines about meats, beef and steakhouses. Men's Journal did a meat bible. GQ had a nice piece as did Maxim's July issue - "Building A Meat Temple" about the perfect brick grilling station. My favorite, however, was a feature in this month's Details (with Brad Pitt on the cover). The article, entitled "The Best New Steakhouses in America," profiles some of the hottest beefeterias around the country in an attempt to break the mold of red checkered tableclothes and dark wooden walls. While many of these places are still full of white collared, corporate card power types, most boast a stylishly designed interior decor that somehow tricks the brain into feeling like less calories are being consumed. Personally, i have eaten at Craftsteak in Las Vegas and have my eye on Quality Meats in Manhattan for a near-future boy's night out.

The Sanctity of Morning

Is it just me or is 7:00 am SHARP too early to use an industrial ride-on lawnmower to cut the grass? I know, I know. The town ordinance says...Well, I think I am just going to have to use my leaf blower at 10:00 pm this Sunday night. What happened to me?!

Everyone Should Have A Dog

How funny is this?!

Cocktails...Skinnydipping...Sports: Why I Like Being My Age

The older I get, the more I realize what's important. Years ago, if asked to a 1st birthday party, I probably would have made a face. When you're younger, you feel like there's a million things you would rather do, even if you end up doing nothing instead. You act that way because you think you're cool. Now, with age you begin to realize that what is really important is being with good people who enjoy each other's company and welcome other good people into the circle. Today, we had a 1st birthday party and I had as much fun as I ever did at any house party or night at a bar. Why? Let's talk about this party. There was great food, a stocked bar, every sport imaginable and a lot of amazing people trading laughs and stories. Being an expectant soon-to-be dad, I also noticed how cool it is to have a bunch of little rugrats around. There were kids belting baseballs into the house, flipping horseshoes left and right. Then, a bunch of the little boys stripped down to their birthday suits and made a break for the neighbor's sprinklers. Sounds like a domesticated version of a crazy college kegger, right? Bottom line: I love being domesticated. You appreciate what it's all about and this next phase of life is really awesome. Can't wait until parties like this go down at my house. Buckle up!

Things I've Never Tasted

Today, I shocked people when I told them I was eating my first wrap ever. That's right...until today, I had never eaten a wrap sandwich and frankly, I don't see what all the buzz is about. Good old bread kicks a wrap's ass any day.

People's reaction to my wrap comment prompted me to want to share some other fun food revelations. Here it goes...In 29.5 years on earth I have never eaten:
1) a tuna sandwich (I love tuna sashimi, seared, grilled, ahi, fatty, yellowtail...all that, but no way on the canned stuff)
2) a bagel with cream cheese (love bagels, love cheese, no cream cheese)
3) clam chowder (Manhattan I've tasted, New England is barf in a bowl)
4) egg salad sandwich (yuck, do I really have to explain this one?)
5) will not knowingly eat mayonnaise on anything but Wendy's or a BLT and the occasional potato or pasta salad

Flank Steak Perfection

I am THE grill master! We had a little Sunday BBQ today and did a monster 2.5-lb. flank steak. Made up a great marinade with a little Asian twist. Not sure of the exact measurements but you should definitely give it a try:

- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/2 cup soy sauce
- 3-4 crushed garlic cloves
- 1.5 tbsp minced ginger
- chopped green onion
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- two dried red chilies with seeds

Mix all that up and pour it on a flank steak covered in some cracked black pepper (no salt - the soy sauce has plenty of that already). Let that sucker sit for about 4 hours. Be sure to scrape the stuff off before laying it on the grill - it will catch fire and cause the ends of the steak to burn. Cook it to medium rare, then let it sit for a few minutes to collect its juices back. Slice it and enjoy.

You're welcome!

Back to Grass Growing for a Second...

If you read my last rant about lawns here, you know that I have been way into grass this year. Found a cool site dedicated to grass growing. It's called Watching Grass Grow. Check it out. My personal favorite is the 1-year time lapse.

Picture Me Rollin' - My First Trip To Buy Buy Baby

Yesterday we went crib and stroller and playpen and car seat and glider shopping. As this is our first baby, the whole experience was totally foreign to me. It's weird, like anything else, you begin knowing nothing and then after a few excursions, you're explaining to a total stranger why the 30-lb rating will get you through an entire year while the 22-lb is going to put you back in the store at about 10 months. Wow! We went to a few different places first but ended up at Buy Buy Baby. This place is major. You've got your doe-eyed young expectants (like us) walking around like "we need this and, oh, we need that" and then your battle-hardened experts with three toddlers in tow and the husband on the Blackberry (left mine at home). The sales guys at this place are like a car lot meets a furniture store meets the handbag department at Nieman Marcus. You can't walk 10 feet without someone wanting to show you something. But they are good. Our guy - a late 40's live with his mom-type - knew every spec of every stroller in the whole store. Good for us but how did he get to that point? Anyway, we need a cool stroller, a good man stroller, with good wheels and a slick look. Even though we're having a girl, this thing needs to be a man-pushable package of baby-carrying technology. I am learning that baby shopping is like a new frontier of cool gear. Why just get wheels when you can have shocks and wheels...why buy a seat when you can get one that vibrates? So watch out! I am picking up the lingo, checking out the color patterns and thinking about the bells and whistles. I guarantee that our stroller will be something I'll be proud to roll around town.

Like Watching Grass Grow

There is something about having your own little piece of property that makes you obsessed with grass. We had some work done in the back of the house that left with zero grass. I started the season with pure dirt and rocks. Since then, I have been near OCD about seed spreading, watering and the casual observation of said grass as it peeks through the soil and begins to grow. I moved around the yard caring for little bits at a time as if my grass was a pet. After dinner, I would go spend time with the grass-to-be, I would fluff it, water it, pick foreign objects away from it, scare birds and squirrels away from it...I would talk to it, encourage it, negotiate with it. Four months later, I know have Yankee Stadium-esque looking grass in my backyard and it's freakin awesome. Sure it's a mix of Kentucky, Bermuda and some crab (a result of many different seed combos), but it's my grass that I planted from scratch. I am proud of my little lawn. From now on when people say "it's like watching grass grow," I might think that's a good thing.

My Saturday College Football Routine

Every Saturday begins the same way:
1. go to bagel shop for taylor ham, egg & cheese on a plain bagel with SPK (that's salt, pepper and ketchup), a Yoohoo and an everything bagel with low fat veggie cream cheese for the Mrs.
2. go to Dunkin Donuts for two large regulars, one with milk and sugar (me) and one with milk and Equal (the Mrs.)
3. stop at convenience store for Daily News for an easy read during commercials
4. go home and eat breakfast while watching College GameDayWhat do you do?

The Domesticated Man Gets Ready for Football Season

Football season is dangerously close. Every year at this time, something changes in me. I start wearing jerseys around the house, making sure we have no plans on Saturday afternoons and buying Tostitos medium salsa con queso by the metric ton. It's an animal instinct, the way a salmon knows to swim upstream or a wolf just knows how to kill its next meal. Way back when, I played football. I played junior football as soon as I was old enough, then again in high school and even continued on at a division 1-AA college. After college, I took some time off...didn't go crazy for it. I was busy going out in NYC and doing other things. Sure I followed my teams - Rutgers, Notre Dame and the NY Jets - but I wasn't fanatical about it. So a few years ago I got bit by the football bug again. Like an amputee scratching an itch on a leg long gone, I have begun to make football a central part of my life again. What I used to put into physical preparation, I now compensate for in attire, comfort and good food. The hardest part now is not becoming a lard ass couch ornament. That is why I always watch games with a ball in my hand. Simulate a pass, toss a few up to yourself, stand up and do a few Ray Rice moves to keep the blood flowing. That's how I do it!