and depending on the hour the waves are rolling in or moving out, and I say, oh, I am miserable, what shall— what should I do? And the sea says in its lovely voice: Excuse me, I have work to do.
Last night, Patton Oswalt took to Twitter to comment on the amount of quality television entertainment there is to choose from. Sometimes the amount of great programming available can really get a bit overwhelming, and as per usual, Mr. Oswalt hit the nail on the proverbial head here. While his argument jokingly gives all the reasons why one should avoid going outside to live life and get sunshine to watch ALL THE TV SHOWS, his tweets are really a celebration of all the fantastic series that are currently at our disposal. I might just print these out and hang them somewhere in my house as a daily affirmation of sorts.
Check out the tweets below.
I know I'm supposed to embrace life & go outside & sunshine & I'll be dead someday but fuck TV is SO GOOD right now. It really is.
This is fantastic news for those of us who hate spending money on sunblock! Because of Netflix, we will never have to go outside again! Unless, of course, we just binge on both shows on June 12 and July 16. At least we know that as soon as we’re done watching OITNB, Wet Hot won’t be far behind. It’ll just be waiting there for us, ready to make a day of it.
Guilty. =/ HOWEVER I think apologizing for stepping on someone is totally warranted, and it's not cool to not apologize on principle when an apology would be appropriate.
In June, Pantene produced a video as part of their “Shine Strong” campaign showing thirty seconds of women over-apologizing followed by thirty seconds of things women can say instead of “sorry.” It touched off a storm of conversation in my friend group. We all felt we were guilty of it in some regard, and a couple of our male partners were driven up the wall by our tendency to apologize, but it was a hard habit to explain. The one woman who expressed making a conscious effort to not apologize told us how often she was called “bossy” or “mean,” or as one horrendous performance review from her boss put it, “not nice or warm enough to her colleagues.” (You know how you hear that all the time in men’s performance reviews. Excuse me while I bang my head against a wall.)
The conversation stayed with me. Then one day last month on the train home from work, a woman approached me and gestured to the empty window seat next to mine.
“Sorry,” she said, “but could I sit there?”
“Oh, sure! Sorry!” I said as I hopped up into the aisle to give her the seat.
I stood standing for a few seconds. Had we really both apologized for her needing a seat? It bothered me so much I decided that for one week I was going to keep track of every time a woman apologized to me. And I was going to apologize for nothing. Even when things were my fault. It was so much more difficult than I’d anticipated.
I didn’t know of the study until the Pantene video, but it seemed to be everywhere afterwards. Over-apologizing was reported on by several major media outlets, and in response articles to the video women admitted to apologizing for everything from a bad shot in a tennis match to bumping into a family member in the kitchen.
Though some felt the tendency to apologize was a sign of being more empathetic, my feeling was that all the shit I was being sorry for could be put down to habit and not being confident enough to simply say what I meant. It’s not that I walk around everyday feeling insecure. But interrupting someone or sharing an off-topic thought or stepping on someone’s foot without apologizing seemed… less nice. Which reminded me of my friend’s unfair performance review, where she was scolded for not being “nice enough.”
Being a “nice girl” was a stereotype I had a lot of feelings about, especially given that I grew up only caring about being nice and how much people liked me and never saying anything that someone might disagree with. Then I went to a women’s college and rounded out my college experience by making a man cry after he insulted me. So why did I still feel the need to be so sorry about everything? Turns out, it was a combination of social expectation and simple habit.
The week of women apologizing to me
At the end of the first day of my experiment, I accidentally apologized for buying yogurt we already had, and then said, “Oh man, I’m not supposed to be apologizing for things this week! Sorry about that.” While my fiancé burst into laughter, I considered how bone-deep this habit had become and how hard it was going to be to break. I think my exact thoughts were: “Well, fuck.”
But listening to other women apologize made me extra conscious of the things I was saying myself.
One woman apologized to me as she came out of a public restroom because I was waiting in line to use it. Another woman apologized to me for going into a public restroom that she was waiting in line to use. A colleague apologized for spilling water on her own desk; my college roommate pre-empted asking me a favor by saying “sorry”; a woman I was in the elevator with apologized for almost getting off at the wrong floor. My list of apologies is longer than I could have imagined.
Meanwhile, one day while I was having lunch in a coffee shop, a man approached me and said the following: “Excuse me, but you’re right in the shot I want to get for Instagram. Could I get you to stand up for just a few seconds?” When I did, he moved my chair with my purse on it, snapped the photo, and said, “Cool! Thanks!” and then walked away without putting my chair back. Five minutes after I sat back down, a woman came up and said, “I’m so sorry, but can I steal this chair from you?” It was an empty chair I was obviously not using. And she was sorry to take it away. But I mean… was she?
Are we really saying “sorry” when we apologize for these everyday actions? Or is it just a way to be unobtrusive? To get what we want without having to disturb someone? To enter and exit the stage with as little fuss and drama as possible, barely there in the first place? I don’t think it’s an accident that I both worry more about my weight than my fiancé does and also apologize more. There is something in me that seems to think the less space I take up, the better.
At the end of the week, though, I stepped on someone’s foot and the first words that came out of my mouth weren’t an apology. They were, “Whoops! Well, that was graceful. Did I hurt you?” I hadn’t. And the world moved right along.
And then came judgment
I’ve apologized way less since my experimental week. It’s been about a month now, and I’m surprised by how some of my relationships changed. A male colleague insisted one day that he be allowed to squish into the backseat of a small car because I was, “a lady” and, “ladies shouldn’t have to contort themselves like that.”
“Dude,” I said, “You’re a foot taller than me. And as a lady, I am also possessed of legs that bend. I’m sitting in the back,” I bit down on the instinct to throw a “sorry” in there. He was the one being an ass. “You know, they say chivalry is dead. I guess you’re the one who killed it,” he said. He told that story for days.
But you know what? He told it to our mutual superior one day while we were waiting for a meeting to start—a woman I’ve always admired but never quite connected with—and she smiled at me and said, “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”
I did apologize to the dog for waking up late one day and making him wait for a walk, so let’s not call this habit broken just yet. But it’s easier and easier to not apologize for things that, I’m realizing, were never my fault to begin with. I exist. I’m not going to be sorry for that.
Every single episode of this show has killed it. Here's another great segment that will infuriate you!
Last night on Last Week Tonight, John Oliver once again pointed out an inherent flaw with the United States government in that our judiciary system is — quite often — an elected process. In fact, the only other country in the world that practices an elected judiciary system is Bolivia.
This is problematic in a variety of ways. For instance, as John Oliver points out — after rolling one judiciary election ad that looks like it came straight out of Dukes of Hazzard and another with a judge whose platform involves being part of a dive team as a volunteer deputy sheriff — that “while political attack ads can be aggressive, judicial attack ads can be downright horrifying.”
Two more terrifying reasons why an elected judicial system is not ideal are that judges apparently tend to be harder on criminals during election systems — so much for that whole impartial thing — in addition to judges shaking down lawyers for campaign contributions, which is “the definition of a conflict of interest.”
In conclusion, Oliver said, “Faith in a strong, independent judiciary is essential for a civilized society. Without it, we’re settling disputes either in Thunderdomes, or via The Purge.” Yet, another reason we’re just that much closer to Idiocracy.
Every once in a while, Sesame Street loves to ignore the fact that it’s a children’s show and do something for Mom and Dad. In this case, it’s taking on the homicidal ambition of one Frank Underwood from Netflix’s House of Cards, which is premiering its third season this Friday. While no one gets killed in this excellent parody, called “House of Bricks” and starring Frank Underwolf, it makes a lot of jokes at Underwood’s expense. So, don’t expect to see a sequel to this video. Everyone is probably already dead or banished to Siberia.
After seeing the Homer Simpson coma theory the other day, a reader sent me this story from an anonymous poster on Reddit who lived 10 years of "a different life" entirely in his head while he was briefly unconscious after being hit by a car.
I met a wonderful young lady, she made my heart skip and my face red, I pursued her for months and dispatched a few jerk boyfriends before I finally won her over, after two years we got married and almost immediately she bore me a daughter.
I had a great job and my wife didn't have to work outside of the house, when my daughter was two she [my wife] bore me a son. My son was the joy of my life, I would walk into his room every morning before I left for work and doted on him and my daughter.
One day while sitting on the couch I noticed that the perspective of the lamp was odd, like inverted. It was still in 3D but... just.. wrong. (It was a square lamp base, red with gold trim on 4 legs and a white square shade). I was transfixed, I couldn't look away from it. I stayed up all night staring at it, the next morning I didn't go to work, something was just not right about that lamp.
No idea if this is actually true, but if so, that's one of the most terrifying things I've ever heard. I had a similar but far less scary experience. A few years ago, I fainted. I was told I was out for about 8-10 seconds, but within that time, I had a dream that lasted for ~30 minutes. The details have faded but at the time, the dream felt very real and super vivid and I was pretty freaked out by it. I can't imagine what feeling like you've lived 10 years in an instant would feel like. (via @monsur)
There are few things as certain to bring on the waterworks as dogs welcoming home soldiers after a prolonged absence. Something about the combination of patriotism and dogs being loyal and wonderful creatures does it every time. But what about their feline counterparts? Surely cats are also excited to have their humans back home too, right?
Nope. Cats do not give a flying crap when you come home from servicing our great nation. As long as someone is around to dole out the Whiskas Temptations, you can just stay in the Middle East forever as far as they’re concerned — at least according to this video compilation (which is a few months old, but just going viral now thanks to Reddit). The little a-holes are lucky they’re so cute.
Franklin, the first black member of Charles Schulz's Peanuts gang, made his debut in July 1968. His presence came about through the efforts of Los Angeles schoolteacher Harriet Glickman, who wrote Schulz several letters in the wake of Martin Luther King Jr's assassination arguing that the inclusion of black characters in the most popular comic strip in America would be a positive thing. Here is her initial letter to Schulz:
After some back and forth between Schulz and Glickman, Franklin made his first appearance in the strip.
Franklin's introduction was part of a five-day sequence featuring Sally tossing away Charlie Brown's beach ball and Franklin rescuing it. In some ways, this seems an aggressive bit of integration -- many American public beaches, while no longer legally segregated, were still de facto segregated at the time. In other ways, the strips suggest what might be seen today as an excess of caution; of the twenty panels of the series, Franklin is in ten panels and Sally is in eight, but never is Franklin in the same panel as the white girl. Franklin would not reappear for another two and a half months, when he came for a visit to Charlie Brown's neighborhood. He was somewhat lighter skinned here, which seems to be less a matter of trying to make him acceptable to the readers and more a matter of cutting back on shading lines which were overpowering his facial features. Franklin's job in this series was to react to the oddness of the neighborhood kids, and that was a precursor to what would be his primary role in the strip as a whole. Perhaps due to excessive caution, Franklin was never granted any of the sort of usual quirks that define a Peanuts character, the very sort of mistake that Glickman was warning about when she called for one of the black kids to be "a Lucy."
His inclusion made news nationally and upset many people, particularly in the South. Schulz had a conversation with the president of the comic's distribution company:
I remember telling Larry at the time about Franklin -- he wanted me to change it, and we talked about it for a long while on the phone, and I finally sighed and said, "Well, Larry, let's put it this way: Either you print it just the way I draw it or I quit. How's that?"
I’m a pretty outspoken Judd Apatow apologist, but even I’ll admit that the idea of him directing a movie that’s not about him or his family sounds refreshing. Especially when it’s a starring vehicle for Amy Schumer. In Trainwreck, Schumer headlines a cast that includes Brie Larson, Dave Attell, Bill Hader, Tilda Swinton, Colin Quinn, Mike Birbiglia, Jon Glaser, Vanessa Bayer, and Jim Norton, telling the story of a one night stand-loving single chick who just can’t get it together. One day, she meets a surgeon-to-the-stars played by Bill Hader, and they make beautiful dating comedy together. Famed comedian LeBron James plays Hader’s best pal.
Speaking of which, Judd Apatow needs a celebrity cameo intervention like yesterday. It used to be one or two per movie — Seacrest in Knocked Up, Eminem in Funny People, Billy Joe in This is 40 — now he’s got two or three just in the trailer. He’s getting as bad as SNL, who can’t go a whole sketch without at least two famous people showing up to wink at the camera and grind the story to a halt. “Ha ha, isn’t it hilarious how famous I am?!” I’m sure it’s exciting to meet celebrities, but maybe just invite them to the after party.
This is really interesting. I definitely have a hard time paying $10+ for a dessert, but I had no idea that was so close to the cost for the restaurant. Worth clicking through to the original WaPo article, too, if you're interested in this kind of stuff!
Growing up, my family rarely went out to dinner due to financial constraints, and if we did for a special occasion, we never ordered dessert. My father believed desserts were a waste of money, and my mother didn’t have much of a sweet tooth.
Economist Tyler Cowen tells The Washington Post that desserts offer restaurants the thinnest of margins:
Food in general is tough to make money on. Restaurants have long relied on the mark-up they tack onto drinks, not grub, to boost profits. As food costs soar, that reality has only become more true, because there’s a limit to how much people are willing to pay for different parts of their meal. For many mid-scale restaurants, that limit is $30 for entrees, no matter the ingredients, Todd Kliman noted recently in the Washingtonian. For desserts the ceiling is much lower, and much less flexible, says Cowen.
“Dessert needs good ingredients to taste good, but you can’t psychologically convince people to pay even $20 for dessert,” Cowen said. “You can’t really go cheap on it, but you really can’t charge extra either.”
Cowen also points out that parties that tend to linger over desserts after a meal can also slow down turnover, which is often essential to a restaurant’s bottom line. He also notes on his blog that places like Starbucks, which serves coffee and pastries (post-meal staples) have become “a more popular and durable model for injecting sweets and cream into the body.”
As for me, I love ordering desserts after a big meal. A part of it is probably psychological—a way to reclaim something that was denied to me during my childhood. But, also, just look at that crème brûlée.
I approached a worn copy of E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey with the hopes that the book would be willing to give me an honest interview. I was nervous, so my first question came out a little awkwardly.
“You’re one of the best-selling books of all time, right?” I asked. It’s a terrible kind of interview question, one designed to corroborate what you—and your readers—already know.
“Actually, I am the best-selling book of all time,” Fifty Shades told me, its voice piping out of the covers in a way that was both overeager and presumptuous.
“Depending on your source,” I say quickly. I’ve done the research.
“All time is a very long time,” Fifty Shades continues. “Think of all that time stretching out, before us and behind us, with me in the center of it. Of all the books in the world, I am the one that the most people have chosen to hold, to take to bed with them, to caress and thumb the pages. And sometimes”—and here the book winks slightly, if books can be said to wink—”to throw me against the wall.”
“Okay, but that’s really unsafe,” I say. “Do you think you have a responsiblity for educating people on safe and consensual ways of exploring BDSM together?”
“I’m just a book,” Fifty Shades says. “A story. When do stories need to be responsible for anything but themselves?”
I change the subject. “So your movie’s opening this weekend, right?”
“It’s the fastest-selling film in movie history,” Fifty Shades says.
Fifty Shades looks a little ruffled. “And Amazon is letting viewers see the film for free.”
“Well, Amazon is letting people receive Fandango Movie Cash that can only be used for Fifty Shades tickets, if people buy a series of select romantic DVDs. You can only get $7.50 in Movie Cash, which probably won’t be enough for the full ticket cost. And who still buys DVDs?”
“My readers,” Fifty Shades says. “My trillions of readers love DVDs.”
I don’t know which part of that comment to address first, and I’m starting to feel a little awkward about constantly correcting and instructing Fifty Shades. I don’t want to be the Christian Grey of interviews, after all. I switch over to an open-ended question, the one I often pull out when I don’t know what to ask:
“What else would you like Billfold readers to know about your finances?”
“Do you earn money from sales of each of these products? Can you reasonably predict your income every month?”
“I don’t keep track of my earnings,” the book says. “I have people to do that for me. And there is both official and fan-created merchandise out there, so I don’t earn money from everything.”
“Well, it was fan fiction that helped you get started,” I say, setting Fifty Shades up for another leading question. “So you’re happy that other fans are making money off your success?”
“Mmmmm…” the book says, a little indecisively. Then, switching to what feels like a prepared statement: “Fifty Shades is for everybody and we are happy that everybody is contributing to our sales and our story. In fact, hardware stores in Great Britain are preparing themselves to sell large volumes of rope, masking tape, and duck tape in association with our film launch.”
I can’t stop myself. “But that’s really unsafe. You can’t just use hardware store rope and duct tape. That’s not how BDSM works.”
“Ah,” Fifty Shades says, “but I’ve reinvented the genre.”
“What about the 50 Dollars Not 50 Shades campaign, which is asking users to forego seeing your movie this weekend and donate the money you would have spent to a women’s shelter?”
“I have no comment on that,” the book says, “except to say why not do both? You can indulge the senses while helping others.”
“I don’t think that’s the point,” I begin, but it’s clear that the book is uninterested in discussing anything further, and I am escorted out and away from its Seattle mansion and back to my tiny microapartment, where I too wonder if I could write a piece of fan fiction about an existing property and get—wait, what was it?—trillions of readers.
Dan Chamberlain was enjoying a wintry stroll through Brooklyn’s McGorlick Park with his favorite four-legged friend over the weekend, when suddenly the energetic pup took a tumble. Unable to hold his laughter in, Chamberlain approached his be-mittened pal and… promptly slipped on the same patch of ice.
As funny as this clip is, we have to give credit to Dan for uploading his video — once his New Balance sneakers were back underneath him — with “Karma” as the title.
Prior to Friday night, Pratt had kept a buttoned lip about the possibility that he would replace Harrison Ford in a full reboot of the beloved franchise, but apparently when someone gives you a bra with dinosaurs on it, it is customary to say a few words about possibly playing one of the most iconic roles of the last 30 years.
While Chris Pratt wouldn’t admit to knowing anything about all those rumors about him being in the running to play Indiana Jones, the Guardians of the Galaxy actor did say it would be an “awesome opportunity” to play the character, during a press appearance to talk about his Hasty Pudding Man of the Year award.
Bit of an understatement, but at least Pratt’s first public comments about this latest rumor aren’t doused in fear even though it would be understandable if they were. This isn’t like resurrecting the Jurassic Park franchise. Even if Jurassic World fails, Pratt has some cover because the real stars are the dinosaurs and the effects. With an Indiana Jones reboot, all eyes would be on whoever takes the whip out of Harrison Ford’s hands and many of those eyes would be shooting daggers at New Indy.
It would be quite an “opportunity,” but it would also be an immense responsibility. Whoever winds up in the role will surely understand that, but they’ll also have to possess a bit of “I don’t give a f*ck,” because swagger would seem to be a prerequisite for the job. Maybe even a little insanity, because if you take that role, you’re jumping into the nerd snake pit and you have to believe that you’re going to at least meet expectations. Maybe Chris Pratt does or maybe he’ll never get the chance to consider it fully, but at least now we know that he’s aware of the possibility and he isn’t screaming and running in the other direction.
Watch as farmer Derek Klingenberg calls his cattle in by playing Lorde's Royals on his trombone.
I can't tell if this is the perfect Monday video or the perfect Friday video. Maybe I'll post it again on Friday and we'll compare. (via the esteemed surgeon and writer @atul_gawande)
According to a new study conducted by Match.com with the help of Dr. Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist at Rutgers University, people who use emojis are getting laid more, y’all! The study, which surveyed both women and men in their 20s, 30s and 40s, concluded that 54% of emoji users had sex in 2014 — compared to 31% of singles who did not.
Additionally, they found that women who use kiss-related emojis have an easier time achieving orgasm, which seems kind of oddly specific. Emoji use also reflected an individual’s desire to get married, with 62% of emoji users wanting to get married compared to only 30% of non-users.
Match.com
But what’s the reason for their findings? Here’s some insight, via TIME:
It’s notoriously difficult to read tone in texts and emails, but emojis can bridge the gap. “[Emoji users] want to give their texts more personality,” says Fisher. “Here we have a new technology that absolutely jeopardizes your ability to express your emotion… there is no more subtle inflection of the voice … and so we have created another way to express emotions and that is the emoji.”
One could go so far to argue that emojis even offer an advanced way to convey emotions, because before emojis came along there was really no subtle way to suggest to a current or potential sexual partner that you wanted to get down better than “finger pointing” emoji directed at the “OK hand sign” emoji followed by the “thumbs up” emoji. It really just takes out all of the guess work.
No, HBO still isn’t going to commission a new Flight of the Conchords miniseries anytime soon — if at all. Yet this doesn’t prevent the New Zealand folk duo of Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie from gracing America’s shores once more. In fact, Clement teased a possible tour when asked about the Conchords‘ status at the Sundance Film Festival:
Flight of the Conchords‘ Jemaine Clement says he and Bret McKenzie “are planning on touring later on in the year in the States. It isn’t very solid yet, but we’ve been talking about it.”
As in years past, Clement says the Conchords will play new material at the shows. “I really don’t like the studio part of music,” he says. “I more enjoy playing live and letting others take care of the recording.” (Via Billboard)
Anything new from the Conchords is smashing, but don’t forget who started the whole HBO mess in the first place: Clement himself. His misquote sent the internet into a frenzy last September, but it was all for something else. So no to internet frenzies, yes to a Conchords tour later this year, and yes to stealing really nice cushions.
Parks and Recreation may sadly be ending on February 24th, but hopefully it will be of some small consolation to fans that Aziz Ansari is coming back with a brand new Netflix standup special shortly after, on March 6th. This will be a follow up to 2013’s Buried Alive special he recorded for Netflix, in addition to his previous specials, Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening and Dangerously Delicious, both of which can also be seen on Netflix. From the UPI:
“In the special, Ansari headlines the iconic Madison Square Garden and delivers his most hilarious and insightful standup yet,” Netflix said in a news release Friday. “Filmed in front of a sold-out audience, Ansari’s latest special is an uproarious document of the comic in top form — covering topics ranging from the struggle of American immigrants to the food industry to relationships to gender inequality.”
If for some reason you haven’t watched Ansari’s previous standup specials, I can’t encourage you enough to get caught up. They are all wonderful. If you need convincing, here’s a clip from Buried Alive about “black dudes getting blown away by magic tricks”:
David Duchovny wrote a book, and it has nothing to do with God hating us all (probably). Holy Cow is about, to quote the New York Times, “a traumatized cow, a sassy turkey, and a pig converting to Judaism.” Duchovny came up with the idea when he asked himself, If I were a cow, why wouldn’t I try to get to India? As one does. After taking a detour to a story about a pig getting circumcised, the Times inevitably brought up The X-Files, which led to this exchange:
There is a lot of Mulder-Scully fan fiction, and some of it is pretty Red Shoe Diaries, if you know what I mean.
You’re using all my work against me. When X-Files was kind of in its heyday, that was the beginning of the Internet. I was very skeptical and thought, This thing will never last. My favorite was the fan fiction that had Alex Krycek, my nemesis, and me as lovers. It was beautiful. (Via)
Indeed. In 2000, Courtney Gray’s How to Throw a Curve Ball — summary: “Following the orders of the Well-Manicured Man, Krycek hands over important information to Mulder, and in the rain storm of this night, the status quo between the two men is irrevocably changed” — won “Best Series” at the prestigious (?) Lisa e Krysa Awards. Also, this happened.
FANLORE
Mulder had to leave the show for two seasons to recover from Krycek’s love*.
Some of you may know Jayson Werth for his prodigious beard, his resemblance to Opie from Sons of Anarchy, or his $120 million plus contract. But if you’ve got a “Jayson Werth” google alert running, then you know that the Nationals rightfielder got into some trouble for reckless driving and now he’s serving 5 days in prison that will be spread out across a few weekends, because apparently driving recklessly earns you a Breakfast Club sentence.
While in prison, I’m sure that Werth is trying to keep a low profile, but this isn’t the kind of guy that blends in to a crowd (or gen-pop) so it’s not surprising that Werth apparently got asked for an autograph while on the inside.
So, is it real? Hardball Times’ did a non-scientific examination of a few Werth autographs on eBay and that led them to conclude that the signature “appears to be legit,” so that’s pretty cool. There’s no word on what something like this would be worth, though my guess is two packs of cigarettes and a snack cup. Also, please notice the shocking lack of an “XOXO” at the end of Werth’s alleged signature — that’s a smart omission in light of the context.
"That's why I'm really proud of what we did here," he said over his cup of sake. "I'm proud of the big things, but I'm also proud of the little things we routinely did well. Do you know what made me most proud in the meal I served you? The Wagyu beef. It was perfectly cooked."
"The advantage of sous vide," someone said.
"But it wasn't sous vide!" Dufresne said. "That's the thing. It was cooked in a pan. And it had no gray on it! Do you know how hard that is? Do you know how much work that takes? Turning the beef every seven or eight seconds ... And so that question you asked me before, about food and music -- that's my answer: a perfect piece of Wagyu beef cooked in a pan that comes out without any gray on it. It might not be 'When the Levee Breaks,' but it's definitely 'Achilles Last Stand.'"
Let's start with the premise. Anybody who's ever grilled in their backyard with an overbearing uncle can tell you that if there's one rule about steaks that gets bandied about more than others, it's to not play with your meat once it's placed on the grill. That is, once steak hits heat, you should at most flip it just once, perhaps rotating it 90 degrees on each side in order to get yourself some nice cross-hatched grill marks.
The idea sort of makes sense at first glance: flipping it only once will give your steak plenty of chance to brown and char properly on each side. But the reality is that flipping a steak repeatedly during cooking -- as often as every 30 seconds or so -- will produce a crust that is just as good (provided you start with meat with a good, dry surface, as you always should), give you a more evenly cooked interior, and cook in about 30% less time to boot!
Although honestly, I eat and cook steak a lot less than I used to. Burgers too. A belly full of steak just doesn't feel that good anymore, gastronomically, gastrointestinally, or environmentally. I'm trying to eat more vegetables and especially seafood. Actually, I'm not really trying...it's just been working out that way. I still really like steak, but it's almost become a special occasion food for me, which is probably the way it should from a sustainability standpoint. ↩
Growing up, my family rarely went out to dinner due to financial constraints, and if we did for a special occasion, we never ordered dessert. My father believed desserts were a waste of money, and my mother didn’t have much of a sweet tooth.
