Groping The Intangibles

So, I owe like eight people I'm already friends with an explanation/apology for a week generally absent of any blogging at all. Or... even that is maybe grandiose? It is, isn't it. The Joe McEwing picture is suddenly even feeling grandiose. Perspective check!

Okay, apparently I'm still more relevant than Super Joe, which is good. Anyway, what had happened was that I was coming up with all these things I wanted to write -- in no particular order, the weird rightness of a couple pieces at Gawker that finally barfed on The Hills and the weird wrongness of one that destroyed some asshole lady's life, most recently, and also some other stuff about this incredibly terrible MIA video (you can read most of what I would've written down in the comments, although I'd add that it's hilarious that Costa-Gavras' kid is also hyphenating his semi-name) and a ridiculously ill-conceived thinky thing that I promise will never write that was going to be called "The Tears in Philip Glass's Eyes" -- and then writing other stuff that I will hopefully be paid for eventually. And I did some invoicing. And there was the day gig, which is an apocalypse of ridiculousness in a dozen different ways, but which I am not going to get into here because that would just be a stupid way to lose a gig. But all of that is now more or less wrapped -- I mean, the day job is forever and eternity, but the fun stuff is wrapped -- and I've got a Slate piece coming up I'm very happy with and a honeymoon I'm looking forward to and I should probably go to bed. But so yes: this is going to get quiet after probably another post or two this weekend, for like two weeks. Just rest assured that I'll be somewhere in Italy, drinking wine and eating things with, like, stomach or duck or whatever those guys serve me in them, and spending some time with my wife. Whom you probably know from her ace fetching abilities, and who I actually used to hang out with quite a bit before she had to do this big gala thing and other stuff.

But yeah. I'll be away for a bit. Not starting now, but starting soon. So be prepared for, like, a post about what I'm going to read while I'm in Italy -- this and this and hopefully a novel or so -- and maybe another INSTANT CLASSIC about ramps or something, and then for some silence. It's cool. There's plenty of other stuff on the Internet. If you're having trouble getting up the willpower to commit suicide, I recommend The Drudge Report.

Real Rampy Up In Here

It is frankly pretty late for a mundane bit of THIS blogging, but seeing Endless Boogie (in space, as ever) and Dead Meadow (terrifyingly amazing; I may want to write more about this later) has left my ears ringing and my brain a lot less tired than it should be. And anyway, this isn't the usual this-bloggy link out to some Dahlia Lithwick column or long New York Review of Books disquisition. It's a link to a recipe. And a link to a recipe so easy that even I was able to nail it pretty well tonight, before a bunch of really high dudes blew my mind. You could do this, too. The thing you need to know: you will need oniony weeds in order to make this work.

The oniony weeds in question are known, for the few weeks a year that they go from being a rural nuisance to being a bafflingly expensive luxury greenmarket food, as ramps. I am not afraid to jump on a greenmarket trend and jam the fuck on it, as any number of breath-destroyingly crappy garlic scape adventures can attest, but ramps have always been a bit more rewarding in my experience, even before I figured out how to cook them. They look a lot like especially robust versions of what I knew as "onion grass" when I was a kid -- like to the point where I wonder if I was actually and idly pulling up delicious North Jersey ramps out of my parents' lawn during Reagan's first term, without even knowing how tasty they could be if sauteed/blanched properly -- and do not, by any reasonable standard, look like something that should be going for $3 a bunch. Or, just to hazard an extrapolation out from that, probably something like $15 a pound. If you live out of New York City and are lucky, these wide-leafed wild leeks might well be growing somewhere in your yard, for free. Like a million other waste products turned gourmet products -- from lobster on up -- they're kind of objectively fucked in an aesthetic sense, but also potentially very awesome when administered orally. Ramps are in season for maybe another couple of weeks, and after having cooked them tonight I've got half a mind to go to the Union Square Greenmarket tomorrow and do it again.

The recipe I linked to above is the best I've yet seen on this topic, edging all the fraudulent and too-oniony pestos I've attempted with ramps in the past. Done wrong, as I ordinarily do things, ramps are basically tiny medicinal onions with a strong big-bite-of-dirt downside. Done right -- sauteed in good olive oil until almost toasty, then blessed with some garlic and red pepper flakes and kosher salt and, eventually, tossed with the chopped up fibrous greens and pasta -- they're ridiculous in the best possible way. Your apartment/home will smell like The Good Lord's oniony breath for 24 hours and there is nothing you'll be able to do about that and still you'll be all "oh great, it smells like awesome in here." Let Babbo get its traffic -- anything to help Mario Batali get some real grown-up shoes -- but cook this if you can. Then mouthwash/floss/brush/fluoride rinse. Then cook it again the next day.

If I were the sort of person who photographed his food -- and I am, luckily, not that kind of person -- I would've taken a picture of the way it all turned out. As it is, my 15-minute dinner would easily have qualified as the most transcendent experience of my Sunday, had three dudes on acid not rocked my brain with maximum kaleidoscopic guitar activities. Which is probably not going to happen on Monday, unless this ear-ringing thing becomes a lot more distinct and transforms into Dead Meadow's extra-drummy set-closer. Which I guess would be okay, too. I am wondering now if ramps have hallucinogenic properties? Hold on, this unicorn is telling me to go to bed.