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By J.Ho, October 19, 2007 11:14 am

It never ends. There are a ton of people I’ve been running into who have also had bad experiences at the Blue Smoke Bistro. No one I know seems to like this place. Many people think the food sucks. My dinner there was OK. Nothing great. Not horrible either, just a bit overpriced and a little fake.

I stand corrected. Blue Smoke doesn’t pay $50-60 for a keg of PBR. They only pay $30 per keg. I heard this from an incredibly reliable Blue Smoke/Alchemy insider. Selling PBR for $5 a pint. WOW. Keep up the good work! I don’t want to sound as if this is all I think about, but I heard the news this weekend and had to share. Cheers. Yankees suck.

Oh, by the way, I also heard that a place in NYC, also named Blue Smoke, is threatening legal action over the naming of Blue Smoke Bistro. With my limited legal knowledge, I’m guessing the NYC Blue Smoke doesn’t have a solid cause of action against the Hamilton Blue Smoke. Seems silly. Rich people like to sue each other though. PBR will probably go up to $8 a pint to cover the legal expenses. The NYC Blue Smoke is on the same block as one of my absolute favorite Italian restaurants in Manhattan, i Trulli. Yankees still suck!

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By J.Ho, October 15, 2007 10:48 pm

Hey, another bright, colorful, fun, cooking show on the Food Network with a pretty hostess that knows nothing about food! What could go wrong? Is it me or is the Food Network really beginning to suck? I understand as well as anyone the value of being an entertainer more than a chef on these shows, but this is getting a bit ridiculous.

I wrote about Ingrid Hoffman and her proposed new show Simply Delicioso a while back when I heard about it’s introduction. Read it again here. Now I hadn’t seen her before and the show was several months away from its broadcast debut. As usual I was taken back by her good looks, slammin’ Latina figure and blonde highlights. Foiled again! The Food Network threw in some eye candy to hide the fact there is nothing else about show worth watching.

I asked my beloved TiVo to record every episode. TiVo asked me if I was sure since I already scheduled him to record other shows that overlapped this show. I told him I was positive and he was like, “Aaaallllriiiiight, don’t come bitching at me when this show sucks.”

TiVo had it right. This show sucks. This show is beat. I mean like wicked beat! I wasn’t even sold on her prettiness for very long. Which is odd. Believe me.

My first problem was with the production set. Lots of colors. Trying to look too Latin. Or what they think the American audience believes should be Latin-looking. I mean, look at the pic on the left. Green limes, yellow lemons, red pot or something, orange bowl, fuschia shirt, olive green walls. Well, I like the shirt. Two giant thumbs up! The place looks like the house in the movie “Fools Rush In” after Salma Hayek was done decorating it. It also looks a lot like every scene in “Ugly Betty,” which Salma guest starred in and also produces by the way. I actually like that show. It’s all latin-like and colorful, especially Betty’s house, but it’s done in a style that’s meant to be comical. It’s all joke-like. The problem with Simply Delicioso is they are actually trying to be seriously real. Seriously beat!

I don’t know what it is, but I’ve been a cynical prick lately. Maybe it’s because I’ve been living in Massachusetts too long. Being on the north shore doesn’t help either. It seems everyone up here is angry for one reason or another. Anyway, not only is the set trying to look too Latin, she’s trying to act too Latin. She was “not Hispanic enough” when she auditioned for Latin soap opera television roles in the US similar to the ones in which she starred in her home country of Columbia. I guess her experiences are not without a sense of irony. I can read people like you have no idea. I can tell she’s is being fake and over-acting. Is this a show about Latin food and culture or Miami food and culture? There are differences. Big ones.

This show is fake and rarely features anything I would actually want to cook. The Food Network goons are trying to blend Charo with Barefoot Contessa. I’ve been attracted to Charo since I could walk. Ina Garten, not so much. The recipes seem to focus on how join ingredients in an unconventional (silly) manner, like mango-peanut dressing. Come on.

Yeah, I get it, the Food Network is basically trying to put on shows that are more about entertainment than food or real living. It is what it is, as they say in Havana. Or more like watching Nancy Grace and expecting to learn something about law. Sure Nancy is a licensed attorney, but she’s a freakin’ goof.

Get this, on the show’s main page (see it here), they give out Ingrid’s “Ingrid’s Sizzling Tips.” Seriously. Tips. What could these nuggets of knowledge be? Tips on using guava chips and pepper jelly. Woo-hoo! Just what the culinary world needed. Next was something that really caught my eye:

• Sit, Then Slice
  Whenever you cook any piece of meat, let it rest a bit before you cut it. If you slice into it straight off the grill, all the yummy juices will run out instead of staying where they belong – in the meat! For a thin cut, like skirt steak, a few minutes is fine. For a big chuck roast or tri-tip, 20 minutes under a little foil tent will do the trick.

Wow, did you come up with this one all by yourself, mija? These people really think we are all a bunch of tards. What’s good to watch these days?

Now don’t get me wrong, this show sucks, but Ingrid is one absolutely gorgeous little mamacita. Seriously. She’s wicked mint! Beautiful face, killer smile, insane body and great, great hair. Hair is a big deal with me. I love her accent. Women with accents drive me wild. Especially Latin accents. The only problem is my affinity for the accent is usually what’s first to go when I start to hate a woman. So, its appeal will eventually wear off.

Simply Delicioso? Simply Estupido! Yankees suck!

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By J.Ho, August 14, 2007 10:15 pm

Restaurant Week is an event which showcases a number of Boston restaurants offering special dining promotions of three-course lunches and dinners for fixed prices of $20.07 and $33.07 respectively. The idea is for people to visit the city and try restaurants they normally wouldn’t visit. It’s a great idea. On paper.

So I go into Boston the weekend before last dying to tryout a new place for dinner. I pick up a friend in the late afternoon and we took a stroll up Charles Street, walk across that bridge that connects Cambridge & the West End, and back again. It seemed like the entire time we were walking we volleyed back and forth: Chinese or Italian? Steak or seafood? Sushi or Indian? French or Ethiopian? Creole or Greek? What do you want? I don’t know. What do you want? Whatever you want. Seriously, what do you want? I don’t care. Well just pick something! You pick something. Come on. Why can’t you pick something? Cause it doesn’t really matter to me. Same here. Well, where do you NOT want to go. I don’t know. I hate it when you can’t make a decision. Well it sucks when you’re harshing on me for not picking something when you can’t pick something either. FUCK!

We’ve all been there …

The indecisive banter continues … what neighborhood we should dine in rather than the food type? Alston or Fenway? South End or Kendall Square? Financial District or Harvard Square? She says, Back Bay! I say, I hate the Back Bay, nothing but a bunch of banker/lawyer clowns talking about their weekends with Muffy on The Island. I say Theater District. She says there’s nothing but bums over there. I’m like, it’s not as bum infested as pretty much all of downtown San Francisco. We both chuckle. What happened next seems like a simultaneous stroke of genius on both our parts. A complete rarity. It was staring us right in the face and neither of us knew it. All of a sudden we look at each other and say, synchronously, “North End!!” Hells yeah! Probably one of the few things we agreed on all day.

We cruise over to the North End and discover half of the North End streets were closed down for the Saint Agrippina di Mineo Feast. It looked cool. They had a bunch of street vendors serving food, selling jewelry and offering carnival style games. There was a stage where some old fat Italian guy was belting out Volare. He had a pretty good voice. The feast was pretty small considering how much of the neighborhood was blocked off. I was like, they screwed up traffic for this? The upside was that we could walk around in the streets and not worry about being plowed by a cement truck.

The North End is by far my favorite area of Boston. It’s known as Boston’s Little Italy, but has had numerous ethnic groups occupying its borders since it’s inception as Boston’s first official settlement and oldest residential community. Plenty of big U.S. cities have some sort of “Little Italy” area or district. In Manhattan there’s Mullberry Street. In San Francisco there’s North Beach. Mullberry street was a nice experience. But in San Francisco’s North Beach isn’t all that. You wouldn’t even know it was a Little Italy if it weren’t for a few tattered Italian flags hanging from the light poles. Italian restaurants down there suck. Pinocchio’s, Molinari’s, Tosca, Vesuvio, Cafe Zeotrope and Caffé Greco are great, fun places, but everything else is for the birds. Don’t waste your time in The Steps of Rome. I guess it’s a cool place for faux Italian’s to hang out and watch soccer, but most of the guys in there are Persians sporting brightly colored European soccer shirts and wearing sunglasses at night.

Anyway, I love the North End. It has a true Italian vibe going. I know, I spent two consecutive summers in Italy. As you walk down the street you pass by dozens of tiny Italian restaurants and pastry/coffee shops. You smell garlic one second. Espresso the next. Over and over. I love it! We’ve dined at Florentine Cafe more times than I can count. The Daily Catch is, well a catch! Il Panino Express, great sandwiches. Lucca, amazing!

We decided to try something new. Wandering around aimlessly, we wanted to find a nice place where we could dine at the bar and watch the Red Sox game. And preferably someplace with large open windows. The weather was amazing. We walk past a place called Bacco. It looked nice, menu was reasonably priced, had a bar, a TV, wide open windows facing the sun, smokin’ hot hostess … Perfect!

We grab a seat at the bar and I say, mango martini for me and a cosmo for my lady friend. The service was a bit slow considering on how dead it was and how many people they had behind the bar. We sipped our drinks, watched the game, made fun of people walking past the windows, under our breath. The menu looked good. Wine list was fair. I asked what the daily fresh seafood was that came with their Frutti di Mare. He said that they weren’t serving the full menu due to Restaurant Week. I really didn’t understand what Restaurant Week was all about. He handed me a sheet of paper with the special Restaurant Week menu. I was all like, why the hell did he give us the full menus, let us look at them for 15 minutes, then wait to tell us we can’t order off it and then finally hand us a significantly smaller menu. Stupid.

That’s when I learned about the “pre fixe” menu baloney. We’d get an appetizer, main course and dessert for $33. They had only a few selections for main courses and none were the Frutti di Mare I was all ready for. Turns out this fixed price menu only saved us about four bucks. Basically a free dessert. This wasn’t much of a value to me since I rarely eat dessert, and when I do, never in the same restaurant I had dinner. I like going for a walk and finding another place to sit and have some coffee and a cannoli. Irritated, we decide to stay and order anyway since probably every other restaurant has the same deal.

I can only think that some guy was saying … “I got an idea! Let’s get drum up interest in local restaurants by limiting all the menus!” “BRILLIANT!!”, the Guinness guy replies. One argument was that if you have fixed prices, people can go to some of the more expensive participating restaurants and try out their food at a bargain basement price. This argument is weak. Read on …

I order the Caprese salad with vine ripened tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and basil as my appetizer. I selected the Veal Florentine with seared spinach, pignoli, fontina cheese, pan seared gnocchi, and a vermouth glaze as my entrée. My friend ordered Prosciutto di Parma with warm grilled pears, gorgonzola and balsamic vinegar for her app. Chicken Marsala with wild Mushrooms and polenta for her main course. As for the wine, Bramosia Chianti for her; Buckeley Shiraz for me.

It took about twenty minutes for the appetizers to arrive. As customary we split the apps. Everything was fine with the apps except for there was no basil on my Caprese salad. It was on a bed of field greens. No basil in sight. The workers seemed pretty busy, so I over looked it. I don’t understand why they were so busy though. The place was dead. I think there was an upstairs part, but no noise was coming from up there. And they kept bringing out trays and trays of clean glasses to stock behind the bar. I’m all like, this place is dead, who the hell is dirtying all these glasses?

So the food comes. Now, I’m very picky, yet very tolerant when it comes to dining out, if that makes any sense. The veal was tough and fatty. Obviously not a good cut of meat. Gnocchi was cold. As was the spinach and the vermouth glaze. My first instinct was to send it back, but I was so freaking hungry I couldn’t wait for them to fix it. My friend asked for a bite of my dinner. I gave her a slice off the one side that was warmer than the other. If she knew it was cold, she wouldn’t have let me sit there and not ask for them to fix it. Honestly, I just wanted to get out of there. I had a bite of her chicken marsala. Pretty good. We wolf down the complementary tiramisu and bailed out. What sucked more was that my tiramisu was partially frozen on one half and almost room temperature on the other.

It’s my conclusion that the restaurants weren’t trying that hard to push out quality meals in the Restaurant Week pricing format. I can’t imagine that the real expensive places would give you $100 food for $33. Then again, I only sampled one place. The net-net of it all … Bacco sucks. However, the wine was great.

We leave Bacco and there was some sort of random marching band across the street. Pretty cool.

We’re walking back towards Hanover Street and we walk by a restaurant called Trattoria il Panino e Giardino. It smelled so awesome walking by. They had a great little outdoor garden dining area. That’s going to be my next dining experience in the North End I assure you. We’re walking up Hanover street looking for a quiet bar to watch the rest of the Sox game. We pass Mike’s Pastry. This place has some of the best pastries, cannolis, cookies and Italian bread you will ever find. It’s nearly impossible for you to walk anywhere in the North End and not see people carrying white & blue Mike’s Pastry boxes tied up with twine. I love it!

After wandering around for ten minutes we end up at the Waterfront Cafe on Commercial Street near the Coast Guard station. Awesome little Italian pub with an excellent selection of beers. Flat screen TVs everywhere! We finished watching the game. The Red Sox won, 4-3!

I took a picture of the vending machine in the bathroom. With a pretty girl in the bar, awesome beer on tap, Sox on TV, gorgeous weather, and this stuff in the vending machine … what more do you need? Yankees suck!

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By J.Ho, August 5, 2007 11:32 pm

My friends ooh and ahh. They wonder how I did it. How I transformed myself overnight into a beaming beacon of ever empowering, pulsating, life giving array of splendorous energy. How I turned the corner and regained my soul. Cannons are blaring. Birds are singing. Frogs are croaking. The ocean air smells sweeter. Fireworks light up the night sky everywhere I go. It’s true, things are different. And they are good! Women’s heads turn towards me as I walk by (instead of away from me as usual.) I look, and feel, younger. And to think all it took was shedding 122lbs.

122lbs of soulless, pain-in-the-ass jerk girlfriend!

That’s right. Single again! You know what they say though, nothing gets you over the last one like the next one.

The dust hasn’t completely settled, but this party train is moving forcefully down the tracks towards complete physical, mental and spiritual oneness. I’ve always been the guy who is completely open to establishing a long-term, infinite romantic relationship with a woman. I’ve always preferred to court the type of woman I could see marrying and brush off the tramps that I knew wouldn’t last more than a week, no matter how hot they were (that’ll change). In the few lengthy, serious relationships I’ve had in my life, I always felt a tight bond. Always have been comfortable, happy and content.

Now that I’m single again (and pretty much every other time I opted out of a long-term relationship) this serious relationship marrying-type of guy has never been so fucking happy! Talk about irony. I like being single. Why? Cause it freakin rocks! That’s why. I feel like I just got paroled.

But I’m still totally going to act like I have a girlfriend. I’m even leaving my status listed on MySpace as “In a Relationship.” One thing I’ve noticed is nowadays when I meet a pretty, young single girl, the second they find out I have a girlfriend, their interest in me skyrockets. Is it because they are mostly interested in men who can show they are the types that are willing to commit? Possibly. Is it because most young women only want what they can’t have and are completely willing to destroy someone else’s relationship (and sometimes even their own) in order to gain the maximum possible attention from anyone and anywhere they can get it? BINGO!

So when I meet someone new, I’m totally taken as far as she is will know. Hell, I might even thrown on my old wedding ring. Believe it or not, during the 15 months I wore a wedding ring I’ve never been hit on more times in my life. Go with what works, as they say in Tibet.

Most everyone who knows me is aware that I have more chick friends than most guys on the planet. All of them are hot too. I mean, if you have chick friends, you eventually have to listen to them mouth off and put up with a bunch of their girlie stuff. If you’re going to have chick friends, they might as well be great looking. It’s not a coincidence that all of my chick friends are hot. It didn’t happen by accident. It was by design. Whenever I cruise with any of them, people think I’m the MAN or gay. Or both. Which I actually think is kinda funny.

Almost all of the hot chick friends never met the girlfriend. None of them understood why. Isn’t it obvious why I’d never bring hot chick friends around a hot girlfriend? Chick friends and girlfriends NEVER get along and will always hate each other. This has been happening to me my entire life. Someone, if not everyone, will do their damnedest to start some bullshit super-dramatic trouble on a massive scale. Why is it that whenever a chick friend wants to hook me up with one of their friends, they go out of their way to find someone they know damn well I would not be remotely interested in? Weird.

One chick friend was recently moaning that she never gets to meet my now X and how it sucks cause she wants to be friends with her since she’s friends with me. I was like, “look here sweet tits, the fact that you’re friends with me isn’t legal tender to be friends with her.” If they ever met, it would suck because there would be nothing but pure jealousy on both sides. I’m not being conceited or audacious. God knows I’m pure humble pie, but it’s just the way the sherbet Push-Up® melts. The funny thing about chick friends is that you don’t hook up with them, but they still feel they should be the center of your universe. Stupid, I know.

Let’s turn this situation around for a minute. Let’s say the hot chick friend(s) actually had become good friends with an X. How sucky would that be? I mean, imagine me having to meet up with some friends and one of them brings along the X since they are still friends with them. Pure nonsense! There’s a reason why I don’t like dating someone that resides within 15 miles of where I live and hang out. If we grow apart, at least I still have my de-militarized buffer zone.

Anyhoo, I cannot in good conscience keep this tidbit from you even after this lengthy rant: as I was typing this I received a call from said jerk ex-girlfriend and I agreed to house/dog-sit for her while she’s out of town on a business trip. Like we all don’t know her devious scheme. However, I’m going to do it. I can hear you already: “Kid, you’re a wicked goon with no backbone!” I’m not a goon. And I have a wicked strong backbone (I used to hate hearing people say wicked, now I can’t stop). I’m actually a pretty nice guy so no need for us not to be friends, right? Even though our future as a committed couple is non-existent, I’m open to hanging out with her and the dog from time to time. I’m not even planning on booting her from my MySpace friend’s list.

But seriously, when she’s gone I get to use her flat in Boston’s Back Bay district with exclusive access to the fourth level outdoor roof deck. I’m gonna throw a couple wicked kegaaahs (translated to non-Bostonian English: outstandingly fun parties featuring kegs of beer, awesome food and great looking people). She’s also leaving me her corporate-owned Red Sox tickets in the Green Monster seats. Maybe I’ll audition for Sox Appeal. I’ll even take the dog on several strolls through Boston Common and the Public Garden. Maybe I’ll meet a nice girl there who also has a dog. I might even wear the wedding ring! The funny thing is that the wedding ring attracts more married women than single ones. Like on a 3:1 ratio. Take a guess as to why.

Now I can spend more of my free time continuing to develop this recipe website blog project literary experiment thingy. I have barely done any cooking this summer. I know, it’s an freakin crying shame. Stay tuned for coverage of my Restaurant Week 2007 kick-off in the North End and the first pleasurecooker.com™ recipe gala event: Seven Days of Pasta! Yankees suck! As do Barry Bonds and the Colts.

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By J.Ho, February 1, 2007 5:29 pm

So I was waiting for my date at Matt Murphy’s Pub in Brookline … standing at the bar … I had to stand, there weren’t any barstools. Even if there were barstools, there wouldn’t have been any room for them. I didn’t see any beer taps so I assumed they served bottled beer. I asked the bartender what bottled beers they carried. In a comically over-done Irish accent he tells me they don’t have bottled beers and tossed me the menu with draft beers on the back. Hey, I know Irish folks. I’m part Irish. This guy’s Irish accent was way over the top. I mean, yeah, he could possibly actually be from Ireland, but he was trying real hard to make sure I heard his outrageous, yet slightly smug accent. I wanted to say, “Tanks, laddie … just git me a fookin bear and stay away from me lucky charms! Jaysus!” … but all I said was that I’d like a Newcastle.

Anyhoo … as I began to sip my suds I thumbed through the pile of newspaper at the end of the bar. I picked up a page and started to read an article about cooking with a broiler by Mark Bittman. I own a cookbook by Mark Bittman titled How to Cook Everything. It’s one of the best cookbooks I own and I highly recommend everyone in the world to buy it. The article was a excellent read. Low and behold, I was reading the the cover of the Dining & Wine section of the New York Times. Now I’ve pretty much given up hope that the New York Times would ever be a paper worth reading. I mean this is a place that actually pays Paul Krugman to write editorials. Sheesh! Over the past several years I have been convinced that the New York Times is a place with boundless hypocrisy … severely lacking in journalistic integrity, ethics, accuracy, quality and style. I let my hard-nosed attitude towards the paper neglect the Dining & Wine section. I wish I hadn’t. I’m glad I’m back. I went ahead and added the NYT Dining & Wine section to the links on the right and I’ll be perusing through it as often as I am able. Hell, I even linked to the Boston Globe’s food section as well. I’ve largely ignored the Boston Globe since they are owned by the New York Times. Two peas in a pod as they say in Tibet. What makes me sick is the fact that via the Boston Globe, the New York Times also owns a piece of the Boston Red Sox and NESN.

Just as I finished reading the article, my date shows up. Let’s call her Dimples. She orders a Guinness. Nice! The smug extra-Irish bartender says something completely inaudible … He sounded more like the Swedish Chef from the Muppets than the extra-Irish barmaid he was shooting for. Dimples and I look at each other trying to figure out what he was saying. It turns out they didn’t serve Guinness. If you wanna act extra-Irish in a town like Boston, it doesn’t help by not having Guinness on tap. She orders whatever the house substitute was. On to the food … Dimples ordered the fried Atlantic cod & chips. I had the Beef stew. My stew was pretty good. Beef was tender and the vegetables were fresh. The fish & chips were much better. That’s what I’ll get next time I go.

As for the rest of the pub, it was an overall good experience. They typically have live music, but I have no idea where they could fit a band. This place was pretty small. No music last night since there was some sort of a trivia league. We weren’t playing but I helped out the table next to us on a few questions. Doesn’t everyone know that Billy the Kid also went by the names Henry Antrim and William Harrison Bonney in his younger years? As for Dimples, she was wonderful company. Namaste! Yankees suck!

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By J.Ho, December 26, 2006 7:27 pm

A little off topic, but I had to publish …

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BOSTON, MA, December 26th, 2006 —- Hampered by disappointing prospects and a variety of injuries, Fantasy Football icon, J.Ho, has skillfully and masterfully guided his team to the Yahoo Fantasy Football 2006 Public League #4006 championship. The Tumbleweeds soundly defeated Flying Weaselz in the semi-finals to advance to the championship round.

“It was a good match-up in the championship round,” says Greg Gaven, assistant general manager of The Tumbleweeds. “J.Ho dropped Marion Barber mid-season but I urged him to pick him up again late in the season. Barber served us well, but laid an egg in the title round. Believe me, he’s gonna hear about that!” Gaven continued.

“It’s all about match-ups,” J.Ho stated. “Seriously, I can’t stand to look at Peyton Manning’s ugly face, or his stupid little brother’s, but Peyton has put up some awesome fantasy numbers for our team. I hate that punk-ass choke meister, but hey, it’s all about fantasy business.”

Since J.Ho is an avid New England patriots fan, when asked why he had benched most of the Patriots he had on his team, he said, “Well, like, Lawrence Maroney was the only Patriot I had that was worth a shit. Reche Caldwell did OK. Troy Brown was completely worthless. Gaven pushed me drop Brown and that’s exactly what I did.”

The Tumbleweeds faced the Terribletowel Waivers in the championship round. “As soon as I saw that we were going up against Michael Vick I knew we were going to win!!”, J.Ho said. “I knew it! I knew it! Victory, baby! I mean, who in their right mind would count on Michael Vick in game as important as this one. I called the owner of the Terribletowel Waivers and gave him the opportunity to just go ahead and forfeit.”

A Terribletowel Waivers front office executive told Fantasy Sports Illustrated under the condition of anonymity, “J.Ho just calls up laughing and saying our quarterback Michael Vick was a goon and we would have to be ‘wicked sheets’ to put him up against the Tumbleweeds. He asked if the Tumbleweeds should just be awarded the championship outright or should we actually go through the formality of playing! What a pompous ass bag!”

In all fairness to J.Ho, he was right. Michael Vick was projected to put up 14 fantasy points and actually posted negative 1.

When asked about some stealthy, seriously ballsy moves made my him during the season, J.Ho said, “I picked up rookie running back Maurice Jones-Drew off the free agent market. That was the pick-up of the year!!” Jones-Drew finished the fantasy season in sixth place with 140 points. “A rookie running back placing sixth? Who saw that coming? ME!! ME!! That’s who!! ME!”, J.Ho bellowed.

When asked whether or not J.Ho will be forming a second fantasy team for next season called the Jackrabbits, J.Ho refused to comment.

“I’m all about Fantasy, baby!”, J.Ho was quoted. “Victory party tonight at Gavens in Middleton!!!” J.Ho will undoubtedly be seen at the fantasy victory party with his fantasy girlfriend.

“That’s how we doooooooooooo!!!” J.Ho hollered as he left the press conference. Yankees suck!

—Peter King, Fantasy Sports Illustrated

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By J.Ho, November 10, 2006 5:18 pm

Rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated. I haven’t posted on this site in a very long time. My first summer living in the Boston area was much more fun that I had imagined. I have tons of friends and plenty of women to cook for.

Over the summer I was very busy. There was always something going on. A party here, BBQ there, beach bash down there. I have plenty of ideas on how to expend this site and it’s message. Who wants local restaurant reviews from a real person’s point of view? Who wants more activity? Who wants more inventive, yet simple recipes? I have a lot of work to do, but I love it.

Today is the 231st anniversary of the US Marine Corps. There is an article below on Fredericksburg.com that I would love to share with you all. I used to live about 10 minutes north of Fredericksburg, but that’s not the point.

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Devil Dogs at 231

‘There is no finer fighting organization ‘

HARRY TRUMAN, who had served in World War I as an Army artillery officer, groused that the U.S. Marine Corps had “a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin’s.” To which any thoughtful Leatherneck ought to have replied, “Well, thank you, Mr. President!” The Marines know the value of myth, in part because they have been the stuff of it.

An example: The image of five Marines and a Navy corpsman–next to his rifle, a Marine grunt’s best friend–raising the Stars and Stripes on Mount Suribachi is recognized from Congolese villages to the steppes of Uzbekistan. It has probably even penetrated the consciousness of most American teenagers. But the icon was no PR gimmick. It arose amid and from countless acts of heroism, preceded, perhaps, by a heroic bout of drinking.

It was, after all, at Philadelphia’s Tun Tavern, 231 years ago today, that the Continental Congress created the Marine Corps. In 1805, nine Marines, led by Fauquier County’s own Lt. Presley O’Bannon, set the tone for the Corps to come when they and 300 mercenaries tried to capture Tripoli during the first war against the Barbary pirates. The force failed to reach the city, an inconvenience that did not prevent the Marine Corps Hymn from commemorating the event 60-odd years later (see Truman, above). But the invaders did set a standard for dash and daring.

Alas, not all subsequent Marines covered themselves or their branch with glory. Two early commandants were court-martialed, and at First Bull Run, a Marine unit hightailed it along with the rest of the Yankee side. Of the Banana Wars and related pre-World War I adventures involving the Corps, another commandant, Smedley Butler, would say: “I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Wall Street and the bankers. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.” Presidents from Andy Jackson to Ike wanted to fold the Marines into the Army and be done with them.

But along the way, the Marines fought. They fought very well, from Belleau Wood, where their German foes nicknamed them the tattoo-worthy “Devil Dogs,” to the deadly islands and atolls of the Pacific Campaign, to Inchon, where their 100-to-one shot amphibious landing turned around the Korean War (MacArthur: “There is not a finer fighting organization in the world”), to Hue and Fallujah and a thousand dusty, wet, or cold places unlisted except in the atlas of valor. Even the rare retreat became, in the words of one Marine officer, “attacking in another direction” (see Truman, above).

So happy birthday, Marine Corps. The myths you’ve made are called history, and they’ve kept a country free.

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Amen to that. Semper Fi! Yankees suck!