Why I Dislike Montreal Bagels: My Definitive Listicle

 One of the enduring battles on twitter is between those who dislike Montreal bagels and people with bad judgment.  It came up today yet again, so why do I dislike Montreal bagels so much?

1. Most importantly, if they are not fresh out of the oven, they are bricks.  Chewy is not even close to what they are.
2. Some people like the wood oven taste (ignoring how bad it is for the environment but whatevs), but I find eating burnt baked goods to be suboptimal.
3. The choice is between poppyseed and sesame seed.  Which is kind of like: would you prefer to be burned by acid or by fire?  Neither one is a desirable choice.  Yes, there is lots of controversy over the flavors of non-Montreal bagels, but the choice of sesame and poppy is one of yuck or ick.  

 That's it.  The only things wrong with Montreal bagels are how they feel in one's mouth (brick), how they taste (burnt), and the flavors they come in.  Other than that, they are fine.  

Make mine NYC everyday and twice on Sunday.  The diversity of NYC bagels--pumpernickel, onion, egg, etc--means not just variety but freedom to choose.  Soft bagels that don't risk my teeth.  The most excellent platform for some cream cheese, lox, and red onions.  Or, if one prefers, fried egg, cheese, and bacon or ham.  

Montreal has a lot of great food, but the stuff that gets the most promotion/attention (let's talk smoked meat some other day) is wildly overvalued.  Perhaps it is all about overcompensation?

 

If You Can't Bake It, Fake It?

I am not new to baking or to cooking, but I have done a whole lot more of both since the beginning of March.  Cooking partly because I am not traveling, partly because my two nights of frisbee where I just grab a sandwich or eat after the game isn't happening, and partly because Mrs. Spew has had bronchitis for months.  Baking because it is good for managing the stress of this situation.  Ok, stress eating is good for managing the stress, stress baking helps the stress eating.  And the stress eating has also kept me motivated for the stress exercising.  Along the way, my siblings have gotten in the habit of challenging the family to make something each week.  One of us finds a good recipe, and the rest of us follow along (well, most of us, as my brother resists the herd).  So, I will * the items below that were product of family peer pressure.

Ranking Cuisines

It has been a while since I randomly ranked something, so I am inspired by both Tom Ricks's ranking of cuisines and my recent travel to rank cuisines.  My key criteria here are tasty and variety.

1. Italian--so very close with #2, but tie breaker goes to inspiration for American pizza and steak sandwiches
2. Chinese
3. Japanese--despite the fact that I am not a fan of sushi, I found Japanese cuisine to have tremendous variety and tasty stuff across a wide spectrum.  All of the variations of Yakitori alone would put Japan in the top ten .
4. Mexican
5. French
6. Indonesian--I have it so rarely that I value it more than the others below.
7. Vietnamese
8. Spanish--more tapas, more better.
9. Indian--I got some pushback for putting this further down my list.  Naan, by itself, could elevate Indian food.  But I have realized that besides samosas, bhaji and a few other appetizers, I am not a huge fan.
10. Greek American.  Had to revise as once a friend mentioned barbecue, that and fried chicken and other stuff, and American made the list despite being so great mostly because it steals from everyone else (and often improves like pizza).

Honorable Mention: Middle Eastern/Turkish (I need more exposure, but conditions in Turkey are unlikely to let that happen any time soon), German (underrated, plus that whole beer thing), Ethiopian (have only had it a few times but very interesting/tasty), Korean, Thai.

My trip to Brazil next month may shake things up a bit. 

Favorite Sandwich

 Thanks to a fb post by Ben Denison, I ran across this ranking of favorite sandwiches.  Since I am way behind on blogging this year, I thought I would come up with my own list.  The assumption here is that each one is made as well as possible, i.e., steak sandwich is made in Philly.  Obviously, this is an idiosyncratic list--my preferences are my preferences.  But they are also the right way to think about this stuff.

1. Philly steak sandwich.  I am not a huge fan of cheese but pizza sauce and onions are musts (folks were pushing roast pork sandwiches the last time I was in Philly but I was underwhelmed).
2. Bagel and lox.  No Montreal bagels.  No capers.  Just a good bagel, cream cheese, some red onionand a heap of lox.
3. Taco.
4. Gyro--can be beef, lamb, pork souvlaki, whatever.  
5. Shwarma, which is gyro but with less greek, more mideastern stuff.
6. Lobster roll, a very rare treat, but can easily be done wrong.
7. Fried chicken sandwich 
8. Hamburger
9. Po boy.
10. Bacon, egg and cheese but on a biscuit or croissant, not on a roll.
11. Pulled Pork
12. Hoagie (what others would call an italian sub)
13. Meatball sub
14. Cubano
15. Torta
16. Grilled cheese (I prefer quesadillas)
17. Tuna sandwich
18. Ham sandwich 
19. PB (not a huge fan of J)
20. Banh Mi

I am not including the ones mentioned in the article that I have never eaten nor desire to eat. I would like to try a tonkatsu sandwich, but didn't see any while in Japan.  Maybe next time.

My Favorite Bagel Story

I am not a fan of Montreal bagels, which came up again on twitter this morning.  It did remind me of my favorite bagel story, so I thought I would share it as a diversion from all of this election stuff.

When I was five or six, living in Maryland (update: this is a change from the original as my mother has a better memory than I do of this event), I was tested by the public schools, and they thought I was, um, not bright.  Why?  The test consisted of showing me pictures, and I was to pick the right ones.  So, they showed a variety of breakfasts, and I chose as the best one the picture with the round thing with a whole in the middle.  I chose the bagel, although they thought I was choosing a donut.  I didn't choose the bowl with steam (oatmeal).

Yes, in early 70's Maryland, a bagel was not seen as a good breakfast food.  My mother went in and yelled at them for the culturally biased test.  I would tell this story in my American/Texas Public Policy classes to illustrate culturally biased tests.  My students would then report to me that the tests were still very obviously biased deep into the 1990s: what is the correct color for a banana?  For poor students, the answer is brown.

Whenever bagels come up, I have two thoughts: I remember this experience and I remember how little I liked Montreal bagels.  They are now inextricably linked for me.  Oh, and perhaps a third thought--the bagels in the Tokyo airport were surprisingly ok.

Anyhow, as always, when it comes to bagels, make mine NYC every day and twice on Sunday.

ISSS-ISAC Austin Tips

Tis my first trip to the International Security Studies Section-International Security and Arms Control conference and my first trip to Austin in a long time.  In my days in Texas, I got to visit Austin twice but saw very little of it.  So, I asked Hans-Inge Langø, a grad student currently based in Austin, to provide tips on food and drinks.  He provided the info below.  If you have any additional suggestions, let me know.

Food and drinks in Austin

The one thing you will quickly notice about Austin is all the food trucks. There are a lot of them. This can be a problem, because there are also a great many terrific restaurants and bars, so it all becomes rather overwhelming. Having lived here for over a year now, I still feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. However, there are some clear favorites that the ISAC-ISSS crowd should consider. Separating food and drinks is not very helpful, since most places have both, so I’ve divided the list into neighborhoods (some areas, like North Loop, are excluded because they’re a bit out of the way).

Manor: Close to campus

Right east of campus and the LBJ School you’ll find Manor Road, cutting through the neighborhoods Cherrywood and French Place. Like most of the eastside, it is in the midst of gentrification, but has several good eats and bars. El Sapo serves delicious Tex-Mex burgers (mmmm, chili burger with queso fries), while Haymaker has a big patio, a good beer list, and poutine [Steve asks: poutine in TX?]. There’s also the Butterfly Bar across the road with the excellent fresh-pasta food truck Patrizi’s. Of course, there are lots of Tex-Mex and taco joints too (El Chilito, El Chile, Mi Madre’s), but Manor also has affordable fine dining (Dai Due) and cupcakes (Sugar Mama’s, if you like that sorta thing).

East Sixth: Hipsterville

Further south on the eastside there’s East Sixth (Sixth street is divided in three, with the other two parts being frat central Dirty Sixth in the middle and the more grownup West Sixth in west downtown). This too is a gentrifying neighborhood, but full of hipsters. Not to worry though, there are some seriously great bars and food trucks there. At The White Horse you can do some two-stepping before enjoying some seriously good tacos out front at the Bomb Tacos food truck (try the bistec and picadillo tacos). There’s also amazing food at East Side King’s new truck behind the bar Wonderland (recently named one of the hottest new restaurants in the US by Bon Appetit). It’s all part of Paul Qui’s growing food empire and should not be missed (if you have money to burn, go to his new brick-and-mortar location Qui on the same street). There are plenty of other bars on the street, with Rio Rita being a particularly good cocktail location (try their Desert Sessions, Spicy Knees, or Bloody Mary), as well as The Liberty Bar, The Grackle, and Whisler’s. They all have large outdoor seatings, like most bars in Austin, and the temperature is finally tolerable now.

Rainey Street: Proper bar crawl

The best place to get great cocktails is Rainey Street, south of downtown. What used to be an old residential street is now a bunch of old houses turned into bars (sometimes it feels like you’re walking into someone’s living room). Icenhauer, Half-Step, and Clive’s have great cocktails, and the latter also has a mescal bar that seems to be open at random dates. Further down the street there’s Blackheart, which has live music, and Craft Pride, which has a seriously good beer list (oh, and it has Detroit-style pizza out back in the Via 313 food truck). For a proper sit-down dinner, go to G’Raj Mahal Café for delicious Indian food. Or just go to the food truck lot across the street. Oh, and there’s Banger’s, which specializes in sausages and has a 100+ draft beer list.

Downtown/Dirty Sixth: Frats and grownups

Downtown Austin is a mixed bag. There’s Dirty Sixth, which is where all the college kids go out on the weekend (or so it seems), but not without its charming dive bars (Jackalope and Casino El Camino), and the terrific beer garden and bakery Easy Tiger. Tucked away on Lavaca Street there’s The Ginger Man, one of my favorite beer bars in Austin.

Elsewhere:

There are also ways to enjoy food in Austin without going to a bar. There’s an abundance of taco joints, but the local chain Tacodeli is not to be missed (for either breakfast tacos or regular ones), and Veracruz All Natural on East Cesar Chavez has some of the best fish tacos in the city. Hopdoddy’s on South Congress has fantastic burgers, but be warned, there is always a line out the door. If you’re feeling particularly indulgent, go further down South Congress to Lucy’s Fried Chicken and share a bucket with some friends along with their delicious deep-fried deviled eggs. For desserts, go to Lick Ice Cream on South Lamar. They have lots of weird flavors, both savory and sweet, and definitely not to be missed.

First Step Is

The first step is admitting you have a problem.  Well, thanks to this piece, I am more at ease admitting that I am addicted to oreos.  Particularly when they are stuffed double.  I have been able to quit my addiction but only with the intervention of loved ones and, yes, I occasionally relapse.  I am just glad I can go to OA and get support from other oreo-addicted folks.

The Taco Theory of International Intervention

Will McCants, who defeated me in our round of twitterfightclub months ago, reminded me today that I owed him an explanation:

@will_mccants "Intervention is like a taco ...."
— Stephen Saideman (@smsaideman) June 8, 2012

So, how is intervention like a taco?  If I remember what I was thinking a month ago, I think the answer is: messy.  But that is too easy.  Let's think of the ingredients that go into a taco and the obvious or less than obvious parallels in an intervention:

1. Let's start with the main filling: it can be beef (ground or not), pork (carnitas are a personal favorite), chicken, fish (very popular in some areas but never to me), shrimp, turkey, fake-meat, whatever.  In an intervention, the key question is who joins?  Is it mostly a US effort, which makes for a more robust, filling taco but one that could cause bloating (too much intervention can be a problem)?  Is it a bunch of European countries?  This would make for a blander taco (chicken--skipping the obvious joke and focusing more on the meh quality) that would perhaps be less likely to upset a delicate digestive system.  It could be a mixture of lesser militaries from countries that prefer to export their armies rather than have them hang out at home, which would be the tofu filling.  Not quite the real thing, not likely to upset a stomach, but not really what people have in mind when they think intervention.
2. The next decision is about what kind of beans to include: black or refried.  Often it is the case that an intervention builds on a previous one.  IFOR supplanted UNPROFOR, for instance.  That would be a case of refried beans.  The choice here is mostly determined by path dependence--what have you got at the point you are making the taco/intervention?  Building on a previous one?  That is often the case.
3. What vegetables to include? For a good taco, you need a good balance of meat and veggies.  For a good intervention, you need a good balance of military and civilian efforts.  The only problem with this analogy is that a good intervention might have a civilian dominate the effort, such as the High Rep in Bosnia, but, in personal opinion, the veggies should never dominate the meat in a taco.  Oh well, there are limits to any analogy.  A good mix of lettuce, onions and peppers works for me.  The UN would be the lettuce here, providing some structure and glue.  The EU would be the peppers (not hot peppers, just red/yellow/green ones) to provide critical fiber and flavor (reconstruction).  The non-government organizations would be the onions, as they are all over the place--often too much in one spot, too little in others, not really coordinated with anything.
4. Next: you have the guac and sour cream.  In moderation, these can provide some flavor and bind the ingredients together.  Too much, and not only do they overwhelm the rest of the ingredients, but they cause the taco to fall apart quickly and most messily.  So, what is the appropriate analogy here?  Hmm, how about the media?  You need to have them involved to spotlight the situation, to drive up awareness and foster oversight and accountability.  But too much or too misdirected can mean that secrets that need to be secret get blown, like negotiations or attack plans.  
5. Penultimately, you have the salsa.  It can be mild, medium, hot or muy caliente.  These refer, obviously, to the rules of engagement and the resolve behind them.  An intervention with heaps of caveats and limited rules means that it will not make much of an impact.  A taco with mild salsa is not likely to create much of a reaction.  
6. What wraps all this up?*  A soft tortilla or a hard shell?  The reality is that either will break upon eating.   This is really a trick question: the hard shell is akin to a UN effort.  If eaten forcefully, the shell will crumble quickly, making an utter mess.  However, if eating slowly, carefully, it can last a while.  On the other hand, NATO interventions are soft tortillas: surprisingly strong in containing a mixture of ingredients, but must be consumed quickly before the liquid-y materials soak through.  Kosovo and Libya were the NATO tacos par excellence: despite all of the ingredients almost bursting out, the tacos could be consumed without making too much of a mess.  Afghanistan, on the other hand, was simply too long, so that the various pieces of the NATO effort began to spill out.  The Dutch ingredients, followed by the Canadian, and then French.  Soon, the consumer just had bits and pieces of American and British meat dangling from the soaked tortilla.

*Yes, at any burrito shop, the tortilla is the first choice but it made sense to conclude with it here.

You can tell that I am somewhat biased in what I like in my taco and what I like in an intervention.  I prefer a mixture of meats for more flavor and a mixture of countries for a portfolio of capabilities and backgrounds.  I prefer black beans--that an intervention is the first one rather than refried--a repeated effort with heaps of failed international efforts to proceed the latest taco/round.  I prefer a few strong vegetables rather than too many kinds and fewer but stronger civilian efforts so that they can be coordianted.  I prefer a modicum of guac and sour cream to hold things together.  The media is a vital part, but should not be the show.  Restraint is required so that people are not endangered, that risks can be taken--such as bargaining.  I prefer hot salsa rather than muy caliente--too much discretion to the troops on the ground can be a dangerous thing.  Caveats are a blunt way to influence behavior on the ground.  Again, moderation is the key.  Finally, I prefer soft shells to hard--they are less likely to break.

So, there you have it, the Taco Theory of Intervention.

Feel Better About My Burrito

Whenever I go back to the US, I seek out a burrito shop.  I just cannot get any decent burritos in Montreal, which is ok because you can get pretty much everything else in very good quality.  Anyhow, where I do usually go: Chipolte's.  They have reliably tasty stuff.  And now, I can feel better because they have a snazzy ad campaign:


Yep, the burritos are sustainable.  Well, sort of--I will keep buying them.  How about you?

Montreal Cuisine

The International Studies Association tweeted this link in the run-up to the ISA meeting in Montreal in March.  The idea, of course, is to promote Montreal as a great food town, which it is.  Unfortunately, this article tends to buy the wrong hype.  Let's consider each item on the top ten in the article:

1. Outdoor markets--these are nice, with lots of funky stuff.  But with restrictions on what one can take across borders (as I was reminded during my Nexus card briefing), this is mostly a tourism thing and less of a buy heaps of food to bring back home thing.
2. Poutine.  Fries, gravy, cheese curds.  I have not yet had the guts to try it.  Maybe soon.
3. Smoked meat.  Is delicious, but not nearly as special as Montrealers would like to think.  Kind of like pastrami.  Tasty and a good lunch, but not nearly as unique as they aver.
4. Bagels.  Um, yuck.  Give me a NY bagel anytime.  The Montreal ones are only bearable if they are freshly cooked.  If I want a pretzel, I will order a pretzel.  
5. French cuisine.  Indeed, now we are talking.  The French food in Montreal is fantastic. It may even be illegal to do it poorly.  
6. International flavor.  I would actually have several bullets for this one, rather than just one.  The Middle Eastern stuff (Lebanese and then some) is just the starting point.  Omitted entirely here.  Montreal really benefits from those parts of the world where the French used to be (Vietnam, Middle East, etc) which makes it a bit distinct from other big cities with "foreign" food.
7. Chocolate.  Indeed.  Patisseries here rival those in Paris.  
8. Cheap eats.  Indeed, unlike other major cities (Berlin, Paris, Sydney to name some I have experienced in the past couple of years), there are plenty of places that offer great food at reasonable prices.
9. Cheeses.  I have no idea.  I am not a cheese guy despite being so very cheesy.  Yes, I went there.
10. Maple syrup/sugaring off.  Indeed, good stuff.  One of my favorite ski areas has a little shack near the top of the mountain.  You can ski over, get a Popsicle stick and poor some maple on some snow and then wrap the snow and maple into a sweetness on a stick.

What has been omitted? 

• Beer!  BEER!  Great beer in this town--not so much in the form of micro brew pubs (although a few exist) but that the Quebec beers and Canadian beers are excellent, even the national brands (compared to the swill that Coors, Bud, and Miller put out).  Smaller companies here put out some very fine stuff.
• Chez Cora and its competitors.  Great breakfast places including crepes but also other stuff as well.  

Any other areas I have overlooked? [Yes, the Montrealers are going say I am wrong about smoked meat and bagels, but they can be forgiven for such foolishness] 

Gone But Not Forgotten

The summer of Freaks and Geeks continues.  We had a bit of an hiatus due to overnight camp and then a family vacation got in the way of good TV.  We are enjoying it very much, even if the show often has Apatow-ian bursts of painful squirming comedy, like Sam walking through school wearing a Parisian night jumpsuit.  Ug.  I am proud to say I never tried to feather my hair like he did.

Anyway, before getting the new duds (meant both ways), Sam asked his dad for money to go shopping, and his mom started to plan to take Sam, including a stop at the Magic Pan.  Yes, the Magic Pan!  This led Mrs. Spew and myself to engage in a bit of reverie about this unique bit of foreign food in the malls of 1970's America and then we had to explain it to my daughter.  Foreign food is not so foreign to her, as we now have all kinds of options at the average American/Canadian mall.  Plus we live in the land of crepes, so the idea of a creperie in a mall is not so strange.  But it was to us back then.

And that led to a brief discussion of Shakey's Pizza.  What did they have in common?  Both chains got much attention for showing the making of the food.  You could see the automated crepe machine at the Magic Pan, and I do remember seeing pizza dough being tossed at Shakey's.  I think we first encountered Shakey's in Maryland, and my NY pizza-loving family was far from enthused.  I remember this as one of the first distinct moments as the family outlier--that I liked this pizza and the rest did not.  Just like they like wine and I drink beer. 

Anyhow, Magic Pan is gone, Shakey's has retreated to international waters plus California, Georgia and a few other places.  I am trying to remember a restaurant that sold spicy shrimp and sangria, but the name is eluding me now [update: Beefsteak Charlies!].*  What other restaurant chains have come and gone?  I am far less nostalgic about Arthur Treacher's except for its potential inspiration of the competing fish food chain in Fast Times:

So, the question to the readers: what chains do you fondly remember but cannot find anymore?



*  The wikipedia entry is pretty useful--I remember the all you can eat shrimp, but not all you can drink elements (I was usually a designated driver with my enormous 1971 Buick Elektra so I am not surprised that I don't remember that).  And the entry also reminded me that there was a location on the other side of the street from Mrs. Spew's office when she worked in NY while I was still in college.

Penny, Say It Isn't So!

The cheesecake factory is responsible for "the most unhealthy restaurant chain dish"?  And not its cheesecake but its pasta carbonara: 2.5k calories and 85 grams of fat, the equivalent of five of KFC's double downs?

As the battle cries against obesity and overeating become shriller than ever, we've become adept at crucifying the most easily recognizable offenders -- red meat, fried chicken and sugary, fried foods. But our food education is woefully inadequate; many people still don't know what makes a meal genuinely healthy -- or that, for instance, a white-flour pasta slathered in cream sauce is just as bad as a plateful of cheesy fries.

I guess I will stick to my MickeyD's hamburgers--they never make it to the top (or is it bottom) of these lists.

The Right Stuff

I do miss double stuff oreos, but perhaps not this much:

Sweet Goodbye?

Salon has an interesting take on the Cupcake boom or bubble as they put it. All I know is that Magnolia's does have the best cupcakes I have had in years and are now something I track down when in NYC.

I do wonder about the economics of the business, but, then again, walking in malls and on streets with specialty shoppes, I always wonder how such businesses survive. Indeed, I hope that Porter has a good business plan as it seems like a great idea that might not survive the medium term.

But then again, I have no clue about how the business world works. So, I just hope that folks will continue to eat thy golden cupcake so that I can visit these shoppes again.