New York Sandlot Collective

Category: Other thoughts

My Family’s Deli in Orange Magazine

I talk a lot about my background working in my family’s Italian imports store in Middletown, NY (Orange County). My uncle, Giovanni, and my father, Domenick, brought the Bensonhurst-style Italian Pork Store to Middletown back in 1988, 25 years ago.

I was a 9 year old kid, but I remember being there for the grand opening. I worked there through my teenage years and even through college, when I decided to move my career away from food and focus on the sciences.

Whenever I go back to visit, although little things have changed over the years, it still feels like it did 25 years ago. That type of history and tradition is difficult to preserve, as a recent article (see links below) explains. They’re still making sausage, sopresatta, capicolo, fresh mozzarella, and various other things the same way they did 25 years ago. They carry a plethora of unique specialty imports that still haven’t permeated their way into the common supermarkets of the area.

Orange Magazine, a print and online publication that mainly focuses on lifestyle in Orange County, recently published an article featuring the deli, “Famous Deli-Licious Italian Pork Store,” with some comments and even recipes from dad and uncle John.

You can read a Flash version of the article (pages 69-72) here.

To say I’m proud of my dad and uncle for making it through 25 years in that location is an understatement.

September 27, 2013
Living la vida pizza

I had to take a week off from writing here in order to focus on resting; I’ve been on the verge of getting sick, and I still am sick. I haven’t had the energy to keep up with everything that I wanted to do, so something had to give.

But I’ve had some time to cobble some stuff together, and I’m ready to share some notes of how the last few weeks have gone.

My Italian comfort foods class at Different Drummers Kitchen went really, really well. After sneaking a peek at the customer feedback cards, the customers there would love to have me back, and that’s good because I was already sharing some ideas with the powers that be there for some upcoming classes I’d be excited to teach. Unfortunately, due to the fact that it takes me a significant amount of time to develop and transcribe recipes and plan for the classes, I won’t be back on the schedule there until ~~2013~~ 2014. That gives me a bunch of time to start developing some of the ideas I have. The next class in particular is going to be something extra special, and may even involve co-teaching the class with a bona fide pizza and percussion expert. (That’s as much as you’ll get out of me until details are discussed.)

Speaking of pizza, I’m back on the All Over Albany Tournament of Pizza judging panel. To a certain degree, I’ve had a lot of fun participating in this in the past, and I think that it gets the conversation going on what kind of pizza is around. Given all of the colleges in the area and thus high density of pizzerias, it’s inconceivable that any one person can speak for every pizza, and while the scope of this doesn’t even reach that far, it at least gives a decent sampling for people who might be curious of what’s around. In the past, I’ve done a post here and there commenting on the judging, and I’m going to try to do that this year too, once it gets going. One thing people tell me is that they want to hear more stories about this; who am I to argue with people?

After July 4, I really fell into a groove with my fitness plan. I dropped weights from my workouts, and focused on straight up cardio, Focusmaster, and DDP Yoga. Doing it this way allowed me to remain motivated (and not sore) so that I could work out between 10 and 13 times a week. It seems like a lot, but most of the workouts are 30 minutes or less. Putting in a little over an hour a day allowed me to get within walking distance of my overall weight maintenance goal, so to speak. And now that I’m so close (10 pounds away), I’m going to coast toward that by dropping some cardio and filling in with some more DDP Yoga. So I’m working on overall conditioning and flexibility, and I’m still losing weight. Win-win-win. (Although pizza judging season may set me back from the losing weight part unless I step up the self-control, but I gotta have some fun, too, now that I’m back in shape.)

Ohh, those of you who still think DDP Yoga is a bunch of hogwash, listen to this (or read it, whichever works). There’s a lady from the capital region named Stacey Morris who has a very inspiring story in which DDP Yoga plays a large role. After she left a comment on my initial post about DDP Yoga, I made the connection that she was the person in this video. Now, I’m not going to sit here and say that DDP Yoga is the greatest thing ever, or that it’s a magic bullet that will make you well instantly, but it’s definitely something that should grab your attention even for a second seeing that it helped Stacey lose 180 lbs over 2 years, and helped me shed 30 lbs in the last 5 months. If that stuff didn’t get your attention, maybe watching Arthur’s absolutely inconceivable transformation will.

Some friends of ours recently got married way up north in Canton, NY, and the reception was catered by the people who run the local food truck, Slidin’ Dirty. I had never met the nice people who run the truck, so it was a lot of fun speaking with them. Though I was a guest at the event, I tried to help out in small ways by letting them know their platters were running low and by arranging to get some food for the bride and groom. I have a whole lot more to say about this, because I think they pulled off quite the feat catering to the approximately 150 people who were there from just their truck.

I picked up the recently released blu ray of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. This might seem like something so minor it’s barely worth mentioning, but those of you following on facebook and twitter know this is the final step in something I’ve been talking about for a while. I have a DVD copy of the film that is deplorable. It is full screen, matted, in mono, and is missing scenes I know were in the original film. I haven’t read anything about whether these scenes made it onto the blu ray, but, at the very least, I now own a respectable version of the film. That means the public smashing of the DVD copy is probably going to happen.

The first official installment of Brilliant Bites was a huge success as far as posts go. I have lots of little things people have whispered into my ear jotted in the notebook, so there’s a lot more of these to come in due time. Of course, I’m always ready to jot something else down, so contact me with some stuff you want to see featured. Remember, this is going to run on peer pressure.

There’s still quite a bit to say about Disney, and I’m still working on the derryX Dines post from my birthday dinner at Butter Restaurant, the one where we actually got to speak face-to-face with Chef Guarnaschelli for a decent amount of time. Some other things to look forward to are some derryX Dines posts where I sample some of the Italian-American food from some of the “red sauce” restaurants that saturate the area. In that vein, now that I’ve showed you my base for red sauce, I’m working on a post or two with some things you can do with it.

September 9, 2013
Did derryX feel the magic of Disney’s Magic Kingdom?

We split one of our few days at Disney between Disney’s Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom. We figured if we missed anything, with our Park Hopper passes, we could just go back the day before we flew home.

We hit the Magic Kingdom right after lunch at Yak and Yeti in Animal Kingdom and had a few hours we could spend there before dinner at Crossroads at the House of Blues in Downtown Disney.

The one thing that’s pretty obvious about the Magic Kingdom is that the merchandising is really running wild. When you enter the park, you have to walk through a pretty long stretch before you start seeing attractions; there are a lot of shops (seemingly more so than the other parks).

There were really only two things I took away from Magic Kingdom.

(1) There’s this interactive Toy Story game where you shoot stuff while moving around a track that is amazing!

Cassie and I loved this thing. It was far too short, lasting about 5 minutes after waiting a good 10 minutes even with a FastPass. But the wait for this thing was close to an hour for those without a FastPass. When you come out, they try to sell you your picture taken while you were playing. We didn’t buy shit.

You can tell we were really into it.

(2) The people at Be Our Guest are assholes for no good reason.

So Be Our Guest is the nicest place to eat in Disney. They apparently open up reservations six months ahead, and they fill up quickly. When we passed by, I figured I’d walk up to the gate and see if there was a chance they had any cancellations for the day. I also had hoped that they’d see my pin (indicating we were newlyweds) and maybe squeeze us in.

The entire scene reminded me of the part in Eyes Wide Shut when Dr. Harford tries to go back to the mansion during the day and is turned away with a threat (minus the threat part, of course, plus the fact that the people were dressed like idiots). I understand it’s probably very common for people to be going up to them all day, but it’s also common for a mason to be laying brick all day. Believe me, it’s not unusual for people to get combative when I approach, but these guys went well far and above that. It was maddening, but it won’t deter me from trying to get a reservation there in the future.

I was ready to bust out some tang soo do on those guys.

So what do you do when you’re pissed?

That’s right, you use a Disney deluxe dining plan snack credit and eat an ice cream sandwich. It was just like every other ice cream sandwich you’ve ever seen, except it was shaped like Mickey’s silhouette.

I don’t remember doing much else in the Magic Kingdom, and there sure as hell wasn’t anything that would warrant a trip back. Actually, we did say that when we were ready to shop for some stuff, if we couldn’t find something we wanted, there’s one big store at the front of this park where they had literally everything.

(Turns out there’s something like that at every park, including EPCOT, which is the best park in the Disney complex.)

August 29, 2013
A 34th birthday filled with sweetness!

A few weeks ago, I celebrated my 34th birthday. Cassie had surprised me with reservations to one of my dream restaurants, Butter, in NYC, so we decided to make a weekend of it. It works out really well because my brother, The Fat Lantern, and our good buddy, Jeff, are down there, so I got to spend some time with them.

The weekend started on Friday night when Cassie gave me my awesome birthday gift, a brand new camera!

The next morning, I started my day with my usual ham, egg, and cheese on an English muffin and had some iced tea lemonade on the side.

We hit the road, took a train, then a taxi, dropped off our bags at the Conrad on the West side of Manhattan, hopped in another taxi, and met Dom, Amanda, and Jeff at a place called Bill’s Bar and Burgers in the Meat Packing District for lunch. It was a good lunch, and I wore a milkshake during it, but that’s another post.

We hung around that area and did some things. The first thing we did was take a quick stroll through Chelsea Market. Even though I had just eaten a lot, I had to try some food in there. There was a little doughnut shop called the Doughnuttery that had interesting sugar and spice combinations, so that sounded good.

I tried the PBCP (Peanut Butter, Cayenne, Pretzel) and the PURPLE PIG (Maple, Purple Potatoes, Bacon). What they basically do is take their mini doughnuts and shake them with the sugar and spice mixture. They were very good. I felt like the PBCP was more interesting and memorable, but the other was good too.

After that, we walked upstairs to this place called The High Line, which I never knew existed.

Cassie and I posed for a picture at the same spot where Simon Adebisi chops some guy’s head off with a machete on HBO’s Oz.

Then I posed for a picture in the same spot where Scott Hall was hanging out with the Insane Clown Posse back in June.

My buddy Jeff had a pineapple and jalapeno ice pop atop the high line, and that was just about all we could take of that place. It was a really nice place though. We walked around a little more in that area and stopped for some sugary shaved ice at a stand called Imperial Woodpecker Sno Balls.

After that, we decided to trek back to the hotel and relax before our dinner. I got a few awesome presents from Dom and Amanda (We’ll find out what’s in the box later.).

The hotel room was really nice, as was the view.

Dinner was awesome, and the stars aligned such that we got to meet and speak with Chef Alex Guarnaschelli. But, that’s obviously another post.

I did pick up a signed copy of her book at the restaurant because it was not much more than it’s listed for on Amazon.

After dinner, I busted into the box of goodies Dom and Amanda gave me. It was some chocolate covered Oreos and s’mores from Li-Lac Chocolates, and they were delicious.

The next morning, I hit the complimentary Nespresso pods pretty hard.

(The black one sucks; the blue one is alright.)

Cassie and I went for brunch at a place called Kitchenette, then we walked around the lower west side. I got to see the freedom tower for the first time.

For the rest of the afternoon, we walked around the South Street Seaport.

I did get to try something at Asia Dog.

I tried the Wangding, which had Chinese BBQ pork belly, cucumber and scallions. It was really good.

We didn’t really accomplish much else there, but it was fun nonetheless. Nearby, there was a Midtown Comics, so I treated myself to a Thanos figure to take advantage of their 20% off action figure deal.

After lunch at a diner and an obligatory trip to the Barnes and Noble where Hugh Jackman buys his magazines, we headed back home. It was one hell of a fun weekend. I indulged, but I’ve been training hard, so it barely set me back.

August 19, 2013
Twinkie Weiner Sandwiches

I have a lot I want to say about celebrating my birthday, and all that is coming. One thing I received as a gift was a box of the newly re-released Hostess Twinkies. My parents gave it to me. I’m pretty sure it was a rib because I never actually liked Twinkies all that much. Don’t get me wrong; if they were around, I’d eat them, but if I was going to eat mass-produced, cream filled pastries, it was gonna be Ring Dings back in the day.

No Twinkie in history has ever looked like it does on the box.

So I had this box of Twinkies, and, for fun, I suggested to my friends (Rory, Brian G, and Nick) and fellow fans of “Weird” Al Yankovic’s 1989 film UHF that we try to recreate Twinkie Weiner Sandwiches. It’s not exactly something that takes much trying.

If you haven’t seen what this is and have no idea what I’m talking about, watch…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-_FO9p8Xdg&w=500&h=300]

From the video, you can see that the Twinkie Weiner Sandwich starts with a Twinkie in place of a bun. A room temperature hot dog is placed and lightly tucked atop the Twinkie, and it is covered in shelf-stable “spray” cheese. Weird Al even dunks his in milk as he eats it.

Yes, I know. It sounds revolting. But what kid doesn’t want to try something they saw in a movie? It’s not like we were reenacting the third act of Scarface or anything.

Well, we did tried, and, from my perspective, we’re no better for it.

I brought the Twinkies; Rory was on hot dog duty and he chose Nathans’; Brian was on the spray cheese, and he couldn’t even do that right! He didn’t even buy Kraft; he bought the silly knockoff Price Chopper “Cheezy does it” which was bad even by spray cheese standards! Nick was the one who stood there and constantly reminded us that this was gross.

We made a video as an homage to UHF. The video shows Rory assembling his and taking a bite in a windy Schenectady parking lot.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AVLEKaM6GY&w=500&h=300]

I made one and took a bite; it was enough for me. Actually, it was too much, but we had fun. Sort of. If you ask me, Brian liked them a little too much.

Next time I decide to try to do something I see in a movie, it’s going to be making timpano from Big Night starring Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn8_eKy3PdE&w=500&h=300]

August 15, 2013
Salt + Food = ?

It seems like simple arithmetic.

You add salt to food, and it brings out the flavor.

Unfortunately, it’s not necessarily that simple. That’s why, when I’m eating somewhere, a main thing I take into consideration is the way salt is being used in a dish. The extent of doneness of the components in the dish, the balance of flavors, and the way salt is used are the three things that will make or break a dining experience whether you’re eating waffles and hot dogs on the street or foie gras at a fancy restaurant in France.

What prompted me to sit down and think about this is the steak I had at Crossroads at the House of Blues in Florida. The steak I was served was beautifully cooked, had a tremendous amount of spices that brought flavor to the game, but the damn thing had no salt. It’s unfortunate, but a common trend.

I’m opposed to the growing mentality at crowd-pleasing restaurants that low sodium should be the default; I’ve seen it a thousand times, someone who’s on a low salt regimen will specify that every time they order out.

In the case of the steak (or pretty much any animal protein), salt prior to cooking serves a very specific physical purpose. A piece of meat is made up predominantly of water. That doesn’t mean that you can dry it off and keep pouring water out. The water is retained within the protein structure. Salt is able to draw some water out of the proteins (osmosis), and this facilitates some unfolding of the proteins to accommodate the loss of water. This, in turn, makes the stars align to make Mallard reactions happen (that’s how the nice crust is developed). This is all technical stuff, and I could break it down further (the joy of being a chemist!), but it proves the point that salt is a crucial early ingredient to cooking proteins.

Salt also has a flavor, and it’s not like you can cake salt all over stuff and things will work. The way salt interacts on the tongue is an important consideration in how much to use. The cartoon-y way I like to think about it is that the receptors on the tongue are waiting to be electrified, and the positive sodium and negative chloride ions provide the current to carry other flavors to the receptors. If there’s too much salt, the ions only serve to overload the receptors muting the other flavors. That (and the fact that table salt contains some iodine) is the reason why just adding salt to food after its cooked isn’t a solution to the matter. The application of salt is a tricky balance; that’s why I see it as a true skill of a cook or chef in the conception and execution of a dish.

There are some more areas where salt is crucial. For example, certain preparations of eggplant rely on the osmotic effect of salt. If you were to flour-egg-breadcrumb a slice of eggplant just after slicing it then fry it, you’d get a horrible, spongy mess (stand far away from the oil if you’re crazy enough to do this). By laying the slices out with a small amount of salt, water is drawn from the cells, helping them collapse, so that, by applying the same procedure, the result is a soft, creamy eggplant encased in a crust. The same is true for things like zucchini.

Tomatoes and other soft vegetables behave similarly. That’s why when you make a salsa and add salt, you’ll come back a few hours later and it’ll be watery. Another example is the way an awesome salami and tomato sandwich becomes a mooshy mess after sitting on your desk all afternoon. Sometimes, that’s the effect you’re looking for; sometimes it ruins your meal.

There’s a lot more to the story, though. What about cooking pasta? People add salt to the water to raise the boiling point, right? Wrong. People add salt to the water to season the pasta, because it’ll take the salt in better when it’s submerged in the water than if you were to take a salt shaker to it after draining. [It would actually take approximately 1/4 pound (1 cup) of salt in 1 liter of water to raise the boiling point of the water a barely detectable amount; that’s a lot of salt! Trust me, it’s too much salt!]

I could talk about this for hours, but I’ll stop here. Thinking about things scientifically helps understand why things are the way they are, and I think that helps with enjoyment across the board. So, when you eat something, pay some consideration to where in the preparation the salt is utilized, and really think about the effect of salt on the food.

August 12, 2013
Living like animals in Disney’s Animal Kingdom

I think wildlife is pretty cool. It’s pretty amazing that there is still a theme park that thrives on simulating a jungle habitat. Especially after recently learning about the failure that was Jungle Habitat via Tom Scharpling on The Best Show on WFMU.

We didn’t allocate a lot of time to this park because, looking at the map, there weren’t many things we both wanted to do there. We did at the very least want to stop by so I could see what it was all about now (Cassie’s been there multiple times). So we spent half a day there and split after lunch at Yak and Yeti.

The main attraction of the park is a bus/trolley tour through a simulated jungle. In that tour, you get to see a number of exotic and truly awesome beasts.

At one point, they kind of threaten you with this sign:

It was lightly raining while we visited the park; it was annoying, but not as annoying as it became later in the trip. After our tour of the safari, we walked the entire park and saw the fun little Asian and African “towns” they created within the park.

I got to play some bongos too!

It’s definitely a park I think kids would get a kick out of, but there wasn’t much there for me aside from the safari tour. You know me, though; I make a great time out of anything!

There was a dinosaur park that didn’t have any real dinosaurs, which was an expected disappointment, but I did get to snap a picture of a dinosaur statue because dinosaurs rock!

July 17, 2013
What I’m up to…

I’ve been laying low a little on the social media in recent weeks. I’ve honestly been trying to focus on relaxing a little; the last thing I want is the summer to go by and to not enjoy it as it happens.

One thing I’m working on is getting prepared for the next cooking class I’m teaching. It’s a number of weeks away (Monday, August 19), but little by little, I’m piecing together the recipes and hashing out a plan. I really went back to my roots for this one, and it’s going to be a lot of fun. I actually love preparing Italian food even though I don’t do it often any more, and this menu is a lot easier to execute teaching-wise. Stop in the store or visit the website and sign up!

I’ve been training hard. We’re talking ten or eleven times a week. I do my cardio and weights four times a week, FocusMaster three or four times a week, and three to five workouts from another program that I’ve been holding off writing about until I finish the 13 week plan. It’s pretty intense, but my body is feeling great, and it’s responding well to everything. If my progress continues as it has, I’ll pass 100 pounds lost on July 4.

I’m still working out vacation and wedding posts, and I’m pushing those out as I finish them. I’ve also started visiting restaurants for The Bob Cobb Quest. The timing of this overlapping with the enhanced training schedule is actually pretty convenient, as a Cobb Salad can be a pretty fulfilling and somewhat substantial meal for someone training like me. And I haven’t forgotten about Brilliant Bites, either. I’m working on a few of those too.

One thing that’s really intrigued me recently is listening to some of my favorite music, the body of work by Metallica. For the most part, for the last six years, I’ve focused on hearing some other artists in lieu of Metallica, which, at one point, was the only artist I listened to. It’s actually been really refreshing and enlightening going back and listening to Metallica albums now after hearing lots of other stuff, but I’m a lot more critical of them than I used to be. I think it would be fun to make a writing project out of this. Maybe that’s coming soon.

I have some fresh pasta recipes that I’m going to try soon. Depending on how it goes, I was going to compare recipes by Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, Mario Batali, and Lidia Bastianich. Oddly enough, although the method is the same, the ingredients and ratios vary widely between those four. So I’m eager to see whose pasta is good and who is full of shit.

We’re welcoming a new member to our family this weekend.

She’s a French Bulldog named Freya. That probably won’t be the name we keep for her, but we’re really excited to get another puppy. It’ll give our little Emma a little playmate.

I’m sure there’s other stuff going on, but I’ll stop for now. Lots of things to do!

June 24, 2013
How is Hollywood Studios these days?

The first park we visited was Hollywood Studios. I think the thought process was that we could go there on the day we arrived, try to do as much as possible, and, since we had park hopper passes, maybe go back later in the trip if we really needed to.

Last time I went to Disney’s Hollywood Studio was some time around 1995. Back then, it was called MGM Studios, and I don’t really remember much else, to be honest. [My two cents: A 16 year old adolescent male doesn’t appreciate Disney the same way a kid or an adult does, not this 16 year old adolescent male, at least.]

Our first stop was to grab a bite to eat. One thing I noticed was that it took a fair amount of walking before we started seeing any attractions. We saw lots of shops, though. That’s the thing about Disney, they take every opportunity to sell you branded merchandise that they can.

No, we didn’t do the Tower of Terror.

One thing that I really wanted to do was Star Tours.

I think it was the first attraction we did, and it had the longest wait for anything else we did that day. I thought it was a lot of fun, but it literally was three minutes. Three fun minutes, but only three minutes. Being that it was the first attraction and that I hadn’t been in an amusement park in 18 years, it was a bit of a surprise that the exit of the ride led to the Star Wars gift shop.

There were so many things in that gift shop that I wanted. There was a station where you could build your own lightsaber. Thankfully for my wallet, I couldn’t figure it out. I bought two things in the store; one Star Wars/Disney crossover figure for me and one for my brother. Hey, all the nerds got to complain when Disney acquired the Star Wars franchise from George Lucas, why not rub it in their faces by owning a Mickey Mouse as Anakin Skywalker action figure?

The crossovers reached an all new level when I saw the Muppets/Star Wars action figures.

That was actually the next attraction we saw: MuppetVision 3D. Hey, I had to make my puppet buddy, Wally Wackiman proud somehow.

That was a really fun show. I’m happy that the Muppets are making a bit of a comeback. Somewhere around there, they had a f*cking Jedi training academy.

One thing I really wanted to do but looked like a ghost town was the American Idol Experience. Ohh well. Maybe next time.

There was this really fun stretch with some busts of famous actors and stuff. I took a few minutes to pose with Bill Cosby and the man, Walt Disney, himself.

After that, we went to our hotel to hopefully check in and get everything straightened out. But we were going back to Hollywood Studios that night. We had plans for dinner and to see the show, Fantasmic.

Fantasmic was really fun, but it was also frustrating. So you need to get there a little earlier because it fills up. I didn’t believe it would, but it actually did. About 30 minutes before the show, they put on a cheesy performance with audience participation to get the crowd going. Honestly, I think it just about ruins the awesome spectacle that people are about to see, but maybe that’s just me. Anyway, that pre-show is bad. The weather was a little iffy. It was just starting to drizzle and you could see some lightning in the distance. Every time the announcer would say something over the loud speaker, I was sure they were going to cancel the show. The show started, and Mickey dressed as the sorcerer’s apprentice shooting off fireworks and doing other awesome stuff. Then, all of a sudden, the production went dark. I thought it was part of the act. Apparently, it wasn’t. They halted the show because of the weather. Within 10 minutes, the show resumed, and it was great. Seriously, this is the one thing that you have to see in Disney’s Hollywood Studios (I wish there was a way to see it without having to bear with that dumb pre-show.)

Getting out of the park was a bit of a story.

So there’s only one entrance and exit to Fantasmic. When the show ends, ten thousand people are trying to get out of there. So there’s a lot of pushing, running, and being jerks. We made it through most of the park without a hitch, but just about when you can see the entrance gates to the park, something caught my attention to my left. I have no idea what it was, but you can bet it probably had something to do with Star Wars merchandise. Up to this point, Cassie was walking to my left but I was a step ahead of her for some reason. While I was distracted, I guess she switched over to my right side to avoid some annoying person. Next thing we knew, we were both looking for each other in a sea of people. The second I realized I was lost, I started looking around frantically in circular motions. I think it would have been funny to see the panic in my face. I tried calling Cassie’s cell, but I guess she powered it down to save battery. Once she realized I was lost, she turned it on and called me. She had made it about 100 yards further than I before she realized I wasn’t there. Looking back, it was pretty funny, but I was horrified for a good minute there. Gotta love theme parks!

We had a fairly productive day in the park and, from looking at the maps, there wasn’t much else we wanted to do, so we didn’t go back to Hollywood Studios for the rest of the trip.

June 20, 2013
Rehearsing for a Wedding…

It kind of comes without saying that the days leading to your wedding are jam packed with action no matter who you are. The way everything panned out, the day before our wedding was pretty busy for the both of us, and Cassie and I both were apart for the entire day taking care of all different kinds of things.

This is my side of the story.

In the morning, I awoke at 6:30am and lazed around for a couple of minutes in bed catching up on some news on my phone, and I noticed a small electrical jolt in my hands. I made nothing of it. I put on my gear and went to the gym for a long cardio session, 50 minutes on the elliptical trainer at a moderate pace with moderate resistance. During this time, I reflected on the upcoming events and thought of things I could do to make the day go smoothly.

After coming home, showering and making an egg sandwich, I had to head down to Albany to pick up my brother at the Greyhound bus station. When I got into my car, knowing that I had to eek as much juice as I could out of my phone, I connected the same phone charger I had in my bedroom into my car. As soon as I plugged in the phone, I noticed sparks coming from the frayed end right off the connector into the phone.

That couldn’t be good!

I freaked out a little more than you’d expect a grown man to freak out over a cell phone charger (If you’ve seen “The Big Lebowski”, I imagine it looked like The Dude’s reaction when the marmot got thrown into the bathtub.). I didn’t have time at that point to get a new charger, but I could easily insert a stop at a department store later in the afternoon.

I was a few minutes early to pick my brother up, and his bus arrived on time. We lunched at Mingle.

Dom and I split an order of Korean tacos, and, of course, I had to have the Asian burger with some extra gochujang on the side. It was a very fulfilling and amazing meal (Thanks again, Jose!), and was a nice little cheat after really pushing it at the gym for the few preceding weeks.

Afterwards, I had to pick up a monster order of 300 assorted baby cheesecakes for the wedding from Cheesecake Machismo. These were part of the dessert bonanza we had planned for the wedding.

I don’t know if you remember April 26, but it was an unusually hot day for the spring. I had to blast the AC to keep the cheesecakes cool for the ride over to the fridge at Indian Ladder Farms.

While we were on the way to make this drop off, my other groomsman, Jeff, arrived with his girlfriend. Thankfully, they were able to check into their hotel room a little early because I couldn’t meet them anywhere for a while. When I finally made my way to pick him up, I stopped at Walmart to pick up a new charging cable for my phone. The urgency picking up this stupid cable took that day was ridiculous. It’s not like I don’t already walk around with two fully charged replacement batteries for my dumb HTC Thunderbolt, any way! Whatever, I felt like I had to do it, so leave me alone.

After swinging by the Hilton Garden Inn by SUNY Albany to pick Jeff up, the three of us were off to pick up the guys’ formalwear at Tuxego. This went off without a hitch; everything fit perfectly!

We had a few minutes to relax at the hotel, so that’s when I presented them with their groomsmen gifts for (hopefully) exemplary service. It was also nice to sit down and breath for a few minutes.

It wasn’t long before my parents arrived at the hotel, and, once they were checked in, it was time to head over to the church to rehearse.

It was reassuring to see the pastors go through the motions.

For our “rehearsal dinner,” we decided to let it take on a character of its own and be entirely relaxed. We utilized the social hall space at the church, and our parents prepared some food for our party.

Cassie’s mom, Holly, makes kick ass mac and cheese with more cheeses than you can count on one hand; she prepared two humongous trays for the dinner.

She also prepared a big salad, which was a nice thing to cut through the richness.

My dad hauled two humongous heroes from his deli in Middletown, NY. One was Italian-style with ham, mortadella, sopresatta, provolone, and homemade capicola; atop this monster, he pinned knots of his fresh marinated mozzarella. The other was the American-style with ham, turkey, roast beef, and swiss cheese. This was topped with a thin slice of roasted pepper.

The spread was impressive, and no guest left hungry. (I think there were a ton of leftovers, too.)

We reminded everyone to save a little room, because they weren’t getting away without having a treat with Cassie’s and my touch. We ordered five ice cream pies from Snowman for dessert. Three were snickers with their homemade vanilla ice cream; these were loaded with caramel, hot fudge, snickers. Two were Reeses Pieces with their homemade chocolate ice cream; these were loaded with peanut butter, hot fudge, and Reeses Pieces. (Now, when I say “loaded,” trust me, ok?)

I took on the task of cutting the pies, so mine got a little melty by the time I got to eat it.

Being that Cassie and I always order Snickers sundaes at Snowman, we were expecting this to be superior. I think the general consensus was that the Reeses pie was the better of the two. But this is kind of like comparing Lennon to McCartney; nobody loses. In actuality, one pie was left uncut, so four pies comfortably fed our party of 20-25. That includes the 3 (+?) pieces I devoured.

After dinner, everyone went off their separate ways into the sunset, and we all rested for the remainder of the night.

It was a damn good day!

June 17, 2013