Scowl, Nu?

It’s been eight years since I’ve left you babe, let me tell you ’bout what’s gone down…

A little over ten years ago, we started up Scowl, Nu? as a personal journal where we would write about our daily life in San Francisco. Scowl, Nu? turned into Scowlzine and along with a cast of fellow writers, we tried to bring an online magazine to market – well before today’s established blogging syndicates.

Then we stopped. Occasionally, we posted articles on Yelp or Judy’s Book, and rarely, we’d be inspired to write something on the site, but it just fell into disrepair. Heck, for the last year, the site was essentially broken – unable to even serve up basic content.

But we’re now heading towards the end of the first decade of the new millennium and there’s some interesting stuff to talk about. Barring that, we’re rapidly becoming barflies again, this time moving towards the cocktail scene instead of the beer world.

So, will we stick to it this time? Who knows. If nothing else, getting the site online again was a feat in itself.

Welcome to the ten year anniversary of Scowl, Nu?

PS, if you don’t get the reference… here’s a hint

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Last night, by his own volition, another Mensa member did his best to give the world a chuckle at the expense of everyone else that happens to belong to this group.

On Monday’s episode of The Apprentice, 27 year old Tarek introduced himself to the viewing audience as a member of Mensa, which meant that his IQ was in the top 2 percentile. Based on this, he was made a project manager responsible for this season’s inaugural task… which of course, he failed at.

Sure, it’s good television. Make someone look arrogant, full of himself, or elitist because of his intelligence, and watch everyone celebrate as he makes an ass of himself. Of course, when you have a week’s worth of footage, you can build enough sound bites for a one hour show to sell the scenario to the “realityâ€? television audience to make anyone seem arrogant. The second that Tarek mentioned he was in Mensa, it was pretty well guaranteed that the episode would end with him coming off looking like an idiot.

As expected, I wasn’t disappointed by the producers’ predictability. The show closed with Trump saying that Tarek was “overrated.�

It’s politically incorrect to pick on fat people. Harass someone because of their religion or race and you’re practically committing a hate crime. But pick on someone because they have a high IQ? It’s elementary school bullying, just in a more media-friendly manner. Worse than that, it’s completely socially acceptable.

In all reality, having a higher IQ doesn’t mean much. Think of it like having a big engine in your car – if you know how to use it to its fullest potential, you can get where you want to go much faster. However, to master driving at very high speeds, you need training and practice. Someone driving a car with a smaller engine but knows the streets much better can usually get from point A to B much faster than someone in a faster car but in unfamiliar surroundings.

A high IQ is just like the bigger engine in the car – if you enjoy learning, you’ll do it faster. Love music and you’ll probably master an instrument faster. The same goes with science, language, cooking or business. If you have a faster processor and the desire to do something, you’ll probably be able to get good at it faster.

This doesn’t mean that you’re going to be inherently better than other people who have more passion or training in a subject, just that you have the potential to get better in it, faster. It also means that you have an easier time processing more complex problems. In school, this was anything but a blessing. Luckily, in my home town, they had special programs for the “smarter� kids, letting us work at our own speed instead of having to constantly slow down. That changed in Junior High when my family moved to a smaller town.

Here, there were no classes like what I had growing up. Math teachers hated me because I never showed my work. They called me lazy or accused me of cheating, when in fact, I could see the problem and know the answer without going through it step by step. Being forced to slow down and show the work just bored me and by high school, I was underperforming because I had lost all of my passion for school.

That’s what Mensa was designed for – to give people in the upper 2% a place where they can think faster and be challenged (if they want) and to advocate to school systems on how not to stifle the potential of children who learn a little bit faster. It’s a group filled with artists, jocks, scientists, business people, great human beings and pretentious assholes – just like the rest of the world. There is nothing special about Mensa and unlike what most people think, its members don’t get together and work on equations, wear lab coats or quote Shakespeare or Tolkien. Ok, some of them do – but so do people who aren’t in Mensa. However, the media only seems to mention Mensa when it’s the butt end of a joke, painting a picture of arrogant, geeky or otherwise socially maladjusted people who join the society because they’re better than everyone else. Saying Mensa is elitist because it only allows people whose IQ is in the top 2% as members is like saying that the NAACP is elitist because it is a society for African-Americans.

Let’s hope that in Trump’s zeal to create “compelling reality television� he’s not sending a negative message that brings self-hatred to the next generation of “smart kids� out there.

We decided to take Friday off to just have a day to chill (and so I could get a haircut in advance of a trip to Omaha later this week). Since the salon appointment was at 2pm, we decided to head into Hayes Valley a little early and catch lunch at Patxi’s Chicago Pizza. 

Chicago pizza, for the uninitiated, is very different from the normal thin-crust pizza. Instead of just a thin dough that, if rolled thin enough becomes almost crackerlike, a proper Chicago crust is more like a puff pastry – flaky and buttery. On top of that, layer your meats, cheeses and vegetables, and then cover with sauce.

We decided to go for their “Favorite”, a combination of pepperoni, mushrooms and black olives. Since it was just the two of us, we went with a small… but honestly, if they had an 8 inch pie, that would have worked, because after two slices we were stuffed.

The sauce was very good… nice and acidic, which might have been due to the black olives. The crust was flaky and buttery, reminiscent of the great Gino’s East… better than most, but not a life-changing sort of crust. Then again, I usually get my Chicago pies with sausage, which does lend alot of flavor to the crust as the fat fro mthe forcemeat starts to melt into the dough. Next time, we’ll do a classic sausage, pepper, mushroom and onion.

If you miss Chicago-style pizza and are in Hayes Valley, it’s worth stopping in. They do have slices available during lunch… if you like the combos available. This time it was cheese or pepperoni and artichoke hearts.

It’s not a fast lunch. Pies take up to 40 minutes to cook, but if you have a jonesing for a taste of Chicago and have the time, it’s worth checking out.

Last night, we snagged Larry and Jeremy and headed out to Incanto, hoping to reprise the dinner Janet and I had with my co-workers two weeks ago where the truffles (both black truffles and melted cheese as an ultra rich fondue and freshly shaved white truffles over linguine and mascarpone cheese).

Unfortunately, the white truffles were gone, and the fondue – a gift from the kitchen because the sister of the sous chef was at the table – was a one time sort of thing, though we were told that the staff would get the fondue over fresh maccheroni as quite possibly the best Mac ‘n’ Cheese in existance.

This week, the dinner focused on apples, pumpkin and fish.

We started with an amuse-bouche of tuna pate on a wafer thin cracker – a perfect interpretation of the tuna creme found in Vitello Tonno – the classic thin slice of veal in a tuna sauce. This pate featured a light citrus dressing that matched it perfectly.

After that, we moved to the appetizers. I went for the Handkerchief Pasta with Pork Ragu – an absolutely perfect handmade pasta with a spicy sauce bolognese. Janet went with a bread pudding with radiccio, and Larry and Jeremy each had a half-order of apple ravioli with black truffles.

The main courses were outstanding. Janet went with a fregola, a pasta that resembled israeli cous-cous, with picked dungeness crab. As we found out from the kitchen, 43 orders of crab went out – much to the chagrin of the prep cooks. I had a whole bass, stuffed with herbs and covered with cirtus and ginger – which is in the top fish dishes I have ever had, beaten only by meals at Tantris (Munich), Enoteca Pinchiori (Florence) and, surprisingly, an amazing Dorade from Incanto earlier this year. Larry had a close-to-perfect pork shoulder, and Jeremy had a creative pumpkin and amaretti risotto.

We finished with with the malted chocolate budino – the best chocolate dessert in recent memory – malted milk chocolate pudding and a cocoa nib biscotti and the bay leaf panna cotta.

The meal, fantastic, but the bar seemed to be a bit swamped, running out of glasses for the flights of wine we ordered – though they quickly recovered by using full size red wine glasses instead of the typical smaller white wine glasses. The Tuscan flight Janet and Larry both had was excellent for the price, but the mystery flight that Jeremy and I both had was a little weaker than usual – still great for the price, and the white selection was fantastic, but one of the reds (whose name escapes me) just fell apart too quickly, not able to stand up to the rich food. Still, that’s why it is a mystery flight – sometimes the wine is a perfect match (like the Primitivo we had at our last two dinners) and sometimes it isn’t.

If you haven’t been there, don’t go. It’s already too popular and it’s getting harder for us to get a reservation. But, if you promise not to go on any day when we want a reservation, then it’s OK.

Incanto Italian Restaurant & Wine Bar, Noe Valley, San Francisco 415-641-4500

Turkey? Not our style. This time we decided to go Italian…

The Main: Porchetta

Take a pork shoulder, stuff it with pesto, a sofrito made of sage, rosemary, garlic, thyme and olive oil, pecorino toscana cheese and San Daniele proscuitto.

Roll, cover with pepper bacon and tie up.

Finally, add vegetables (beets, carrots, parsnip, sweet onions and garlic).

The Side: Wild Mushroom Risotto

Crimini, Chanterelle and White Oyster Mushrooms, shallots and lots of great herbed stock…