Eat, Drink, Bloviate

As it turns out, Macau is not just for whales—even small-time gamblers are finding a place on the island. But the perks don’t exactly include comped meals at Nobu or a night in the Hangover suite. According to the Wall Street Journal,

At Kam Pek, top customers were offered the chance to redeem their loyalty points for popular dried-seafood products to celebrate the holiday, but they still had to pay for their own drinks. Gamblers can also use points to enter the “Fun Machine Cash Cube,” which gives them 30 seconds to grab crumbled bills blown around by a fan.

If customers want to spend the night at Kam Pek, they are offered one of about 30 basic rooms the casino doles out to its better players for a quick rest, but “they can’t complain…it’s for free,” says Mr. Chun. “Most of the time they’re waiting for the border to open,” he adds, referring to Macau’s border with mainland China, which is shut overnight and doesn’t reopen until 7 a.m.

What’s most striking is the difference in wagers between U.S. and Macau casinos: “Over the past year alone, average minimum bets at mass-market, or non-VIP, gambling tables in Macau have more than doubled to HK$1,000 ($129) from around HK$400 ($52), says analyst Aaron Fischer of brokerage CLSA. That compares with minimum bets of $7 to $50 at casinos in Las Vegas and most other casinos globally, the brokerage estimates.”

$129 for a minimum bet? Macau needs more Stardusts, Four Queens, and Saharas. And some dim sum equivalent of the Cattlemen’s Buffet at the Frontier for $12.95.

0 comments

While at Hillsdale, I gave an interview to the school paper, the Collegian. It’s funny how you seem to forget you’re being recorded, even if the iPhone is right there on the table. I sort of just kicked back and, well, bloviated. I remember transcribing an on-the-record call with Anthony Bourdain, who let loose upon Wolfgang Puck (“c—sucker” as well as a Nazi comparison). I also recall another chef who digressed about his love of women. And actor Joe Pantoliano was refreshingly candid about his time on the Sopranos (telling me how he pleaded with David Chase not to allow his character to sleep with Janice Soprano—”not Janice!”). Luckily, I wasn’t as candid.

0 comments

Earlier this week I was in Hillsdale, Mich. Not because of the weather—subzero temperatures for the last few months plus the accumulation of snow and ice have transformed this part of the Wolverine State into the planet Hoth. It was so cold even the Michiganders were telling me they were sick of it and yearned for a day in the balmy 30s.

Rather, I was asked by my good friend John J. Miller, a professor at Hillsdale College, to come meet with a few students and talk about my upcoming book on vodka. (That would be Vodka: How a Colorless, Odorless, Flavorless Spirit Conquered America, due out July 1 from Lyons Press, preorders available at Amazon, ahem.)

I’ve been asked if it’s such a good idea to talk about booze to college kids. If I were telling them to drink a lot of vodka (it’s low calorie!), advising them on how to get a fake ID (I got mine from a Filipino-run video rental store), or simply regaling them with drinking stories involving death-defying stunts (one friend, now a lawyer, walked a ledge) and friends who lost control of bodily functions (you don’t want to know), the answer would be no. But I did talk to them about the phenomenon of the vodka boom, how in 80 years it became the most popular spirit in this country, how much we consume and spend and why. All that plus the writing process I’d like to think they found interesting.

The Hillsdale students I encountered were smart, inquisitive, funny, and genuinely sincere. They’re at Hillsdale not because of the party scene—unlike at some schools, when prospectives and their parents tour this campus, they ask, “Is there anything to do around here?”—but because of a love for learning and the liberal arts. And while the acceptance rate is in the 40s, the students are self-selecting, so the group that ends up enrolling is quite focused and conservative (with both religious and libertarian strains).

I remember going to school with classmates whose parents were wealthy and influential power players. Some of these kids just went through the motions, knowing after four years they’d find some job thanks to a parental connection. Did they learn anything? I get the sense they’re really learning here (certainly moreso than I did). Some of the students I met are off to work at newspapers and other media outlets. I’ll be interested to see how it all works out for them. Aside from John Miller, I owe special thanks to Prof. Gary Wolfram and students Casey Harper and Bailey Pritchett.

It was great to talk about the book—and I hope to be back some day. Preferably when the temperatures are less Hoth-like.

(I don’t know too many campuses with a life-size statue 0f our 40th president. I couldn’t resist taking a picture of Reagan, above, as a literal cold warrior … or a victim of severe dandruff.)

0 comments

Sixty years ago, the average American consumed 8 pounds of cheese annually. Now it is closer to 33 pounds. Not long ago, the selection of cheese at your local supermarket was fairly mundane—think American, Cheddar, Swiss, maybe Edam, Gouda, Muenster, possibly some Bleu. Now you’ve got cheese shops with local and foreign offerings numbering more than 100 (check out Fromage in Old Saybrook, Conn.). Other venues make their own cheese on site like Beecher’s.

But obviously how we like our cheese depends on what we’re eating. As Sarah Nassauer explains in the Wall Street Journal:

Cheese lovers all have a slightly different definition of melt, says John Brody, a technology principal and natural cheese specialist for Sargento Foods Inc., a Plymouth, Wis.-based cheese maker. Some people feel cheese is melted when it softens, for others “it has to bubble and flow,” he says…. When eating macaroni and cheese, people want a creamy melt, which is different from the “tablecloth melt” on burgers, says Michelle Malone, research and development group leader at Schreiber Foods Inc., a large Green Bay, Wis., producer of cheese for restaurants.

Nassauer writes that “[t]he holy grail of melted cheese science might be making the perfect combination of processed and natural cheese, one that melts smoothly without producing oil, but ‘acts like a natural cheese,’ so it has more texture and stringiness, [Michelle Malone] says.”

I guess that “Cheese, Glorious Cheese” campaign really worked, even if it was a bit, um, cheesy.

0 comments