My Other Favorite Car

Though I do love the American LaFrance Roadsters, my true automotive loves are the Bentleys of the 1920s. I love both the Speed Sixes and the less common Blower Bentleys. I gave up on owning one many years ago, as their availability is limited (there were only 55 Blower Bentleys made!) and when they do show up, they sell for prices in the millions of dollars.

Nonetheless, these are the cars of James Bond and John Steed. They are the stuff of legend. They are elegant and nimble and fast as lightning. They have the finish of the best British craftsmanship, and they look so darned good!

Another Crappy TV “Chef”

The English. At their best they build world dominant empires, subjugate native peoples and are universally despised oppressors. They are explorers, superspys, swordsmen and sailors. They are gentlemen who will best you at fisticuffs and be so gentile about it that you will thank them for the privilege.

At their worst they are cooks. They are the worst cooks in the world. They tell lies about Irish cooks just to take the attention off of how bad the English cooks really are. The very worst of the cooks end up calling themselves "chef". Gordon Ramsey is a creation of the BBC – he represents the worst that the UK has to offer with none of the breeding nor the refinement of the truly great chefs, and the very worst of what the cooking industry has to offer as well. This is obviously a winning combination, so now they are cramming another lousy English cook down our throats, Marco Pierre White. White bills itself as a "great" or even "the world's greatest" chef.

Startlingly, the truly great chefs would have blushed to have that moniker expressed to their faces. Escoffier was self-effacing to a fault, as was René Verdon. Jacques Pepin is the same. They all struggled to get to their lofty positions. Yes, they had a great deal of talent, far more than either White or Ramsey have, but they maintained a sense of great humility throughout their careers.

I have worked as a chef and a sous-chef in my time, and I will grant you that there are times when tempers flare in the kitchen. It is a high pressure environment demanding high levels of production and quality at the same time, and it is natural that voices will be raised periodically. To cultivate a reputation as a person with a short temper, however, is not indicative of being a good chef, much less a great chef. It is indicative of being a juvenile fake, as these two embarrassing exponents of the once great Empire both are. I am sure that either of them can flip a burger with the best of them, but that is all. It is another embarrassing condemnation of the American television audience that anybody knows these creatures' names – they should be as anonymous as those other abominations of the kitchen, Rachel Ray and Sandra Lee.

Jenn

Sweet Pea
by Amos Lee

Sweet pea, apple of my eye
Don't know when and I don't know why
You're the only reason I keep on coming home

I'm like the Rock of Gibralter
I always seem to falter
And the words just get in the way
Oh I know I'm gonna crumble
And I'm trying to stay humble
But I never think before I say

Sweet pea, keeper of my soul
I know sometimes I'm out of control
You're the only reason I keep on coming
You're the only reason I keep on coming yeah
You're the only reason I keep on coming home

Jodhpurs

In doing my wardrobe research I came across a poorly written website with some decent information on it, and some blatant misinformation. The thing that offended me the most was that it accused Steed of wearing Chelsea boots, the fashion of the Beatles and other mods. In truth Steed wore fine looking Jodhpurs, unchanged in style since the 1870s, complete with elastic sides. The Chelsea boots that he is claiming that Steed wore were normally higher heeled and had pointed toes, the Jodhpurs do not.

Steed was a gentleman and a horseman and wore the footwear of a and equestrian gent. He often integrated hacking jackets into his wardrobe and periodically rode in the series. It is a natural extension that he should wear Jodhpurs. It is not, however, any sort of connection that he would wear mod fashion. This person claimed that Steed integrated a good deal of mod fashion into his wardrobe, but it is simply not the case - Steed was a classic.

Why this rankles with me so much, I cannot say, but it truly does.

The end.

“Clothes Make the Man.”

"Naked people have little or no impact upon society." Or so sayth Mark Twain.

As time goes by, however, I am getting closer and closer to being a naked man, with the commensurate social impact. I am a guy who, admittedly, at a time in his life was a full-fledged clothes horse. I had a closet of great suits and jackets including three really convincing dinner suits, a wardrobe of custom-made dress shirts and neckties, cravats and bows sufficient to circumnavigate at least a good portion of the Equator. What happened? Priorities, obesity and poverty.

I am now down to four pair of khakis, a few tee-shirts and sport-shirts. I have two decent dress shirts, both with my preferred spread collar, but no ties of sufficient length to produce an appropriately grand full Windsor knot to fill the spaces between those distant points. In addition, it is hard for a really fat guy to get a decently fitting suit off the rack. We are just not cut the way that the mass production suit-makers think we should be.

I, however, am facing two situations that compel me to dress decently again. The first is that I am in the position of applying for conservative, 8:00 to 5:00 work again, and that requires that I turn out splendidly. The second is that I have been watching The Avengers on DVD of late, a program (or programme) that I have loved since childhood, and fundamental to that show is the dashing manner in which John Steed presents himself.

Sadly, I am no Patrick Macnee and I don't have a Halston designing suits for me. And I am on a restrictive budget. So the next step is to do the most with a minimum of resources. To that end, I have found an Eddie Bauer produced black blazer that looks like a fairly forgiving fit. I plan to pair this with a pair of decent quality gray cotton slacks. I have a fine quality Merino wool mock turtleneck that will give me a satisfyingly "James Bond's Fat American Cousin" look, and I can certainly pair it with either the white or the blue dress shirt to good effect. As for the tie, I plan to get a good quality navy polka-dot and a navy and gold rep-stripe in memory of my alma mater.

I have a pair of dark brown jodhpur boots that I can get away with, but black would be better. I recently discovered that my favorite old black dress shoes had completely worn through soles, and they are not of a quality where half-soles are an option, so I may have to look into having them completely re-soled and heeled. Or I may pick up a new pair of jodhpurs in black, which would be quite dashing and John Steed-ish.

That is my plan as of right now. I need, of course, to get a really fine bowler or, better yet, a Coke hat with a fine and tight curl and a whanghee crooked brolly.

Another of My Favorite Restaurants Where I Have Never Been

Shade is a restaurant owned and operated by the beautiful and ingenious Chef Claire Smith. Next time I am in Houston, I will be spending as much time there as possible.

Chef BQ Project #2