In Search Of The Best Corned Beef

Dave

This post may be viewed in Again? Really? and Jeffrey Gifford’s excellent blog, Best Corned Beef in Cleveland.

This little adventure began at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. We were at a black tie wedding. Sally, my girlfriend, was wearing a floor length gown. We were there for the groom, her youngest nephew.

This was an Orthodox (traditional) wedding. Most of the guests were present hours before the official ceremony. The groom was busy signing the Ketubah (wedding contract) while the bride was surrounded by friends and relatives in an adjacent room. The guests wandered back and forth between the rooms, celebrating, socializing and, of course, eating.

There were three large bars plus the ever-present wait staff offered glasses of Champagne and white wine. Others were carrying trays of finger food. There were two 12 foot tables of sushi, attractively arranged and all completely Kosher. And in each room near the sushi tables were carving stations.

Please remember that this is all a precursor to the wedding and a fabulous dinner. But you can work up quite an appetite at an Orthodox Jewish wedding, what with all of the music and spontaneous dancing. We grabbed some plates.

I selected a few pieces of sashimi and then met Sally at the carving station. The chef deftly carved a whole turkey and offered slices from the breast. There was also steak and, and something else. Even in the dimly lit room the color was the unmistakable dark pink of CORNED BEEF. But the shape was wrong. It was almost rectangular. Two slices found their way to my plate.

It was corned beef, but it wasn’t brisket. It was, however, warm, incredibly moist, and tender. The flavor was bright with more than the usual hint of pickling. This corned beef needed nothing. Rye bread, mustard, and horseradish were all superfluous. Taste. Texture. Color. My tux and upbringing were the only things keeping me from pulling up a chair right next to that carving station.

Back in town I discussed the corned beef with Boris Mikhi of Boris Kosher Meats. He guessed that it might have been a rib roast. That would be one expensive sandwich. The cut looked an awful lot like a chuck roast that Boris sells as a fish tail roast. He offered to cut, trim, and corn one for me.

Corned Beef Sandwich – My House
Special Corned Beef
Broccoli Slaw

Corned Beef
• 3 ½ pound corned beef fish tail (chuck) roast
• Big pot
• Lot’s of water
• Garlic Powder

Cover the meat with cold water. Throw in a little garlic powder. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for about 4 hours. The meat is done when a fork can be easily inserted all the way through the thickest part.

Simple Broccoli Slaw
• 12 ounce bag of broccoli slaw from the grocery store
• 1 thick slice of red onion, chopped
• Marzetti’s Slaw Dressing
• Garlic salt, black pepper, and celery seed

I removed the roast from the water and let it rest 10 minutes. I admired my handiwork as I carefully cut it against the grain. The color was perfect. The texture – excellent. It was delicious. Sally said that it was as good as the Plaza’s, but I think she was feeding my ego while I was feeding her dinner.

Truth – This version is as good, if not better, than any corned beef I’ve had in Cleveland, but it didn’t quite equal the Plaza’s. The texture was close, but not the same. The flavor wasn’t as intense. Both of these issues may be resolved in future attempts.

The best corned beef sandwich in Cleveland could be at YOUR HOUSE. Your butcher is waiting for you. And if you decide to visit Boris, tell him I sent you.

Stress Relief

Dave

7 or 9. And this block is either an 8 or a 3.

I was sitting in my recliner, smoking a cigar (Sol Cubano Artisan for those who care), and working on the Friday Sudoku. The hard one. The Indians’ game was on TV. I think they were winning. I was attempting to decompress.

The last few weeks had left me slightly off balance. There hadn’t been any major incidents. There weren’t any monumental personal struggles. I had faced countless minor annoyances. It was death by a thousand paper cuts. And by Friday evening I had had enough.

Stress relief for some is a movie, preferably one that requires little to no thought. Others dive into a book. One of my friends naps. Really. She just goes to sleep for awhile and wakes up refreshed and relaxed. Not me. Even my relaxation is a multi-tasking event.

It is an 8. Good, than this is the 3.

I spent over 9 hours in my office last weekend. This is part of the annual recertification to meet with my clients to discuss Medicare related products. Boring. Mind Numbing. Insulting. The whole process is offensive. The biggest difference between being a Washington bureaucrat and an insurance agent is that they don’t respect us and can force us to take hours of meaningless training and tests. We don’t respect the bureaucrats, but all we can do is write blogs.

And yet we lived to tell the tale. These aren’t major problems, just annoyances.

I’ve traded emails with one of my regular paper-cutters over the last few weeks. This guy wants to be a big fish. He wants to be a force. And he wants to be paid what he considers to be what he’s worth. He’s not. He won’t be. And he is already paid what he is really worth. Sucks to be him. And if I was him, stress relief would entail a lot more than sitting in a comfortable chair, working on a Sudoku and smoking a good cigar. But dealing with him and his mishigas is still a pain I could do without.

I think the Indians are going to hold on and win this!

So please let me share this thought with you – it doesn’t matter how minor the issue is. If you are being irritated, if you are being annoyed, if you are being stressed, find the time and manner best suited for you to STOP, catch your breath, and regain your balance. Don’t let anyone pooh pooh your stress. And don’t let anyone tell you that there is a right way and a wrong way to relieve your tension. Find your own method. Relax and persevere.

I solved the Sudoku, finished the cigar and watched the last pitch of an Indians victory. What stress?

Two Casualties From Iowa

Dave

The Iowa Straw Poll, a non-binding popularity contest where the candidates literally buy their votes, claimed two victims this past weekend. Governor Tim Pawlenty has decided to suspend his campaign after finishing a distant third. And I have proven that my ability to predict Republican candidates is just slightly worse than my golf game.

My June 9th post predicted that Tim Pawlenty would be the Republican nominee. Several of my Repub friends had doubts, but they were hoping that I was correct. These guys weren’t part of some Pawlenty Fan Club. (Is there a Pawlenty Fan Club?) No, they were looking ahead to the general election and searching for a Republican ex-governor, not named Romney, that could win in November 2012.

Winning in November is not a universally shared goal. Each party has a core group that is more interested in being right than in winning elections. The Democrats had Senator John Glenn who many thought could win the 1984 presidential election, but had no chance in the primaries. This, of course, may be the only time Tim Pawlenty is mentioned in the same sentence as John Glenn.

So as Texas Governor Rick Perry enters the race and Pawlenty and I leave, I ask you to opine whether the Republicans will choose a candidate that appeals to just the base or if President Obama will face a challenger also capable of attracting the independent voters.

Contraction

Dave

V.N. was visiting my office for our annual political / insurance conversation.

 DC – I heard something new today, a new word.  Contraction.

VN – Contraction?

Contraction.  Sounds ominous.

How is that different than a double dip recession?

I suspect that the difference is that a double dip recession still implies that at some point it ends and things return to normal.  A contraction means that the economy…

Implodes?

I’m thinking more like a crash landing.  If we get the wheels down, everyone survives and the plane suffers only minor damage.

And if we don’t?

Well, you have got to hope that there is enough time to foam the runway.

Otherwise we are all doomed.

Yes, you are watching the Priest walking up and down the aisle administering Last Rites.  “Any Catholics?  Anybody want to be a Catholic right now?”

It doesn’t look good, does it?

We may be in trouble.

We may be in trouble is the understatement of the century.  Our elected officials are long on ambition and short on talent.  There are few visionaries.  We appear to be stuck with managers.  The most competent are fighting for the right to foam the runway.

So as a public service, I am asking you, my readers, to name one Democrat AND one Republican that would be worth your vote.  They don’t need to be on the same level of even represent you.  I would prefer that you only name living, U.S. politicians.  No fair naming FDR and Ike.  An acceptable answer might be Orrin Hatch, the Republican Senator from Utah, and Democratic State Representative Armond Budish.  I’m not saying that either would, necessarily, be my choice.  But, to participate you need to name both a D and an R.

I am asking you to shine a positive light on a rather bleak subject.

I had a lovely visit with V.N.  As she was leaving, she mentioned how long I’ve been her agent.  “29 years”, she said.  “I must be your oldest client.”

“No”, I said.  “You are one of my youngest clients.  I’ve just been your agent for a very long time.”

A Lesson From Woody

Dave

Woody Hayes once noted, “There are three things that can happen when you pass, and two of them aren’t good.”  That little math formula applies to any number activities in our daily lives.

The other day a friend of mine told me that the mayor of his bedroom suburb was running unopposed.  That isn’t uncommon in Cuyahoga County.  We have 50+ municipalities in our county.  We couldn’t possibly have enough qualified people to occupy the nearly countless elected and appointed positions of all of these fiefdoms.  Once someone manages to get in, they stay in.  Mayors, Councilmen, they either get wheeled out feet first or are led out in handcuffs.  This is countywide.  Eastside, Westside, South, if the harbor patrol were elected, they would serve for twenty years at a minimum.

So I bring you back to Woody Hayes.  There are three reasons why an elected official continuously runs unopposed, and two of them aren’t good.

  1.   They are truly loved and admired by the community
  2.   Nobody respects the position enough to want it.
  3.   Businesses and community leaders have already figured out how to get around the guy holding the job.

The last one is the most interesting.  If a politician continuously runs unopposed, he/she has no need to raise a big campaign war chest.  This is great for the bottom line.  If you as a business can get what you want without having to invest in the politician through the donation/election process, you are ahead of the game and the envy of businesses locked in competitive districts.  Nothing beats FREE. 

Is there a cost associated with the time and energy a business has to expend to stroke the fragile egos of some local politicians?  Sure.  But that is negligible, at best.  We are ramping up for the election season.  Karl Rove’s Super Pac, Crossroads GPS is already running ads on TV.  Those cost real money.  Hiring a caterer to do an extra ribbon cutting is just an expensive lunch.  

So the next time someone brags to you about being unopposed, ask yourself why.  Is it #1?  Is it #2?  Or are you standing next to a walking, talking embodiment of #3?

A Facebook Dilemma

Dave

I received the first email as an agent. The second came moments later because I am also an insured. The flier that came by regular mail was sent because I’m a top producer. It had all of the trappings of a campaign. The insurance company must have hired a social media consultant. XYZ Mutual wanted me, and all of my clients, to Like it on Facebook.

Like is such a strong word. It overstates the relationship. I’m much more comfortable with tolerate. That, of course, wasn’t an option.

The insurance company had paid attention to the consultant and included a drawing for a couple of fancy juice machines. I can’t tell you much about the juicers. I deleted the emails, tossed the flier, and have yet to look at the Facebook page.

This is a Facebook Dilemma. If a friend, like Jennifer Davis, gets a new job and asks me to Like the business, I do it. That’s easy. And if I had never heard of the business prior to the request – very easy. Beth Bryan asked me to Like the Lorain Arts Council. No Problem. I find that it is sometimes easier to support the businesses and causes you don’t know than the ones you do.

Let me know if you really want to enter a drawing for a fancy juice machine. I’ll provide the name of the insurer. And as for this post, pretend you don’t know me and Like it.

The Contrary Son

Dave

“The Contrary Son says: What is the meaning of this ceremony to you?”  To you and not him.  Saying to you, he excludes himself from the group, and thus denies a basic principal of our faith.  You may therefore set his teeth on edge and say to him: “This is done because of what the L-rd did for me when I came forth from Egypt.”  For me and not for him; had he been there, he would not have been redeemed.”

I was in danger of becoming the Contrary Son, the worst of the four sons described during the Passover Seder.  It was hot.  I was tired and a touch inpatient and I was asking an important question during a fundraising/membership meeting of a local non-profit.  There was nothing wrong with the question.  The topic needed to be addressed.  The issue, possibly one that only I noticed, was that I had excluded myself from the group.  I wanted to know what THEY were going to do.  How would THEY resolve the problem?  What was THEIR goal?

I tried to catch myself.  I certainly had no interest in offending anyone.  There were only a half a dozen people in the room.  Five were true believers in the cause.  I had been invited to help, to share some ideas.  I don’t know if they expected an emotional buy-in.  I suspect that they just assumed that exposure would lead to conversion.

Didn’t happen.

Please don’t get me wrong, the charity in question is worthwhile and ambitious.  Their goals are lofty and they have a reasonable chance of success.  I hope that they succeed and I’m willing to help them.

Them and not us.

My next meeting, my fourth, was a few days later.  My internal alarm was buzzing.  This time the room was packed.  The realists were debating the romanticists.  They were all well-meaning.  They were all working, to the best of their abilities, in the organization’s best interest.  The teams changed as the issues changed.  The only constant was that I wasn’t on any team.  I wasn’t committed to any of this.

I was write a check committed.  I was call me up and run some ideas by me committed.  But I was not sit in a hot, dirty, uncomfortable room for one more minute committed.  7:30 marked the hour and a half point.  I made my excuses and left.

You can’t marry every pretty girl that’s nice to you.  You can’t donate to every worthwhile cause.  Until I learn to say “No”, I will have to settle for the self awareness of knowing when I’m in the wrong meeting.

New York State Of Mind

Dave

Three fifteen.  We are standing outside.  Alec, Sally’s son, and I were wearing tuxes.  Sally was in a full length dress.  We were in New York for a wedding.  Sally’s youngest nephew was getting married to a lovely girl who came from real money.  We were waiting for the car service to take us to the Plaza Hotel.  We were waiting. 

We eventually called another car service, one who bypassed the toll bridge by taking us through Queens and across the Koch.  This proved to be just as fast on a Sunday afternoon and we got the added excitement of guessing which red lights the driver would take seriously. 

We had three days and two nights in the city.  That translates to 2 shuttle rides, 2 trips by car service, and 4 cabs.  There is nothing that makes me miss Cleveland more than New York transportation.  It’s not the danger.  It isn’t even the money.  It is the lack of control.  And it is dealing with the best and worst of society from the passenger seat of a speeding vehicle. 

We were staying by LaGuardia.   I was able to get two clean and reasonably sized rooms for a fraction of the price of mid-town.  The trade-off was that we would need a service or cab to get in to Manhattan. 

We had walked a couple of blocks to a 7/11 to kill time and get a snack.  The wedding would be at 5ish.  We were to be at the Plaza by 4.  As we were getting back to our hotel at 2:15, I noticed a black Lincoln parked at the building next door.  I called the number, conveniently located on the trunk, for Fernando’s Car Service.  We scheduled the driver for three.  How hard could this be?  The car was 30 feet away.  Very hard.  He never showed. 

The cabs couldn’t, or wouldn’t, find the hotel.  The fact that it was visible from the freeway must have added to the challenge. 

One of our drivers, coming from a car service, was from the Dominican Republic.  He was delightful.  We enjoyed a lovely conversation about his homeland and his adjustment to New York.  He was the exception. 

We spent much of Saturday afternoon at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).  We needed to grab a cab to get to dinner.  We walked a couple of blocks to catch a cab going in the right direction.  At one point we found our way blocked as the street was closed for a gay pride parade celebrating New York’s new marriage law.  What to do?  Led by my brother Rob, we dove in and marched diagonally till we got to the other side.  We flagged down a cab.  The driver asked about the parade.  

“Are they protesting the lesbians”, he asked in a thick, barely understandable accent.  

“No”, I answered.  “It is a gay pride event.”  

“It is for the lesbians”, he asked incredulously.  “They are shit”! 

We almost got out of the cab.  He did not get a tip. 

The wedding was joyous.  The bride, gorgeous.  Alec escorted his grandmother down the aisle.  I found that attending a wedding as a guest, as opposed to as a participant, was incredible.  I should do this more often.

Crossroads

Dave

The beers were good. The conversation, better. The focus shifted to resiliency. How do you overcome adversity? How do you keep on keeping on when giving up would be so much easier? The other part of that conversation is just as valid. When is it time to cut your losses? At what point do you get to leave?

We have all faced these choices. Some of us are trying to sort out personal relationships. Some of us are at the proverbial fork in the road at work or in our professional lives. We might encounter this challenge at church or synagogue.

The truth is that we are constantly challenged to evaluate who or what deserves our time and resources. Sometimes the right answer is to persevere. And sometimes the right answer is to say, “Good-bye”.

My friends were busy defining resiliency as I was grappling with my own personal struggle.

Not home. Not work. My little issue is related to one of my hobbies. I am struggling to find my place in an organization that grudgingly admits that it needs me, but wishes it didn’t. And I have to decide whether it is still worth my time and effort.

I know my buttons. I know what gets to me. I hate to be taken for granted. It really bothers me when people attempt to take advantage of me. And I despise unnecessary conflict. Some people enjoy fighting. Some people argue for the sake of arguing. Not me. I’m not afraid of conflict. I won’t walk away from a fight. But I don’t have any need to fight, and I would just as soon not.

My dilemma is that one of the many organizations I frequent is all of the above. At some point I have to decide whether the petty politics and backbiting are worth my time. The organization’s mission is still one of my missions. The goals are still my goals. And of course, the people involved will eventually move on to poison different wells. But is it worth the wait? I don’t know.

I am currently involved with over a half a dozen organizations. I serve in leadership positions on five. I won’t be stuck at home watching TV if I dump this group. It is about resilience. I have to decide whether walking away is simply the easy way or whether I deserve to be in a more positive, less self-serving environment. And that decision is mine.

Now I have to tell you, dear reader, that there are those, the professionally offended, who will immediately believe that this is about them. These people exist in every organization. And it would be fun to get them all into a room so that they could shout out their grievances, simultaneously since they wouldn’t be listening to each other, until they were left without a voice. But it isn’t about them. We measure resiliency by how well we face adversity, not how aggressively the adversity pursues us.

So the answer is not today. I’m not ready to leave.

What If You Couldn’t Read?

Dave

What would happen if you couldn’t read? What adventures would you miss? What worlds would have gone undiscovered? If you couldn’t read you would never know the real joy of Tolkien, the adventures of Harry Potter, or even the simple beauty of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poetry.

But you can read. But what if you never read a newspaper? No Wall Street Journal. No New York Times. No Plain Dealer. Where would you get the news? In Cleveland we have local and national television news and opinion shows, talk radio, the internet, and, as of yesterday evening, the telephone.

My home phone rang just a few moments before 7 PM. The only reason I have a land line is for clients to find me during an emergency. Those calls come once or twice a year. Otherwise, if the phone is ringing it is someone violating the Do Not Call laws or a politician looking for cash and sympathy. This call was from my Congresswoman’s office.

The recording invited me to a telephone town hall meeting. Congresswoman Marcia Fudge was going to address health care issues, specifically Medicare. All I had to do was stay on the line. I was already agitated from a long day at the office. What the Hell, I figured. Let’s see what Ms. Fudge had to say.

I have no idea how many constituents were participating in this meeting. A press aide came on the give us the ground rules. The Congresswoman would deliver a brief introduction. We would have the opportunity to ask questions. A few minutes later we heard the familiar voice of Congresswoman Marcia Fudge.

Ms. Fudge thanked us for participating and assured the audience that health care in general, and Medicare in particular, were her top priorities. She then asserted that Medicare didn’t cost money, it saved money. She then stated as fact that Medicare had been far more successful at controlling medical expenses than the private sector. Next she quickly dismissed Senator Lieberman’s recent proposal to move Medicare eligibility to age 67.

WOW. Déjà vu. It was spooky. This was all so familiar. I was silently trying to solve this mystery when my phone went dead. It was as if the Congresswoman’s office had realized that they had dialed a wrong number. Disconnected. I put the phone back on its charger, turned on the Indian’s game, and picked up the Plain Dealer. The paper was open to page A7, the Opinion page. The main article:

Medicare Saves Money by Paul Krugman

Point by point Paul Krugman regurgitated all of the arguments, many roundly rejected, that he had put forth during last year’s health care debate. And Ms. Fudge’s intro was nothing more than an attempt to paraphrase this column! Now in fairness, the call was prematurely disconnected. I may have missed a whole section of original thoughts from my Congresswoman. I may have also missed Beetle Bailey and Judge Parker.

We don’t need to read the paper. Congresswoman Fudge will now be calling us to deliver her favorite column of the day. But I like to read. And more importantly, I read both the writers who support my positions and the ones who don’t.

So until Ms. Fudge can help us do the Sudoku over the phone, I’ll keep my subscription to the Plain Dealer and skip the next invite for one of her telephone town hall meetings.