Postcard from the Edge

Mainly out of some vestigial attachment to his birth region, Fosco has found himself covering the complete economic collapse of Elkhart, Indiana (former RV capital of the world!). Thanks to the BeeMaster and his Consort, Fosco has a bit of good news to share:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The BeeMaster and his Queen are actually involved with the church and organization that are behind this plan and Fosco says "Kudos." Of course, Fosco tends to believe that government ought to be responsible for preventing people from starving; however, in the absence of a responsive government, this type of organized charity is life-saving. This is truly good work and I am thankful for it.

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Rounding Up Food, Again

"Foodie Friday" continues at Fosco Lives!

Here's a roundup of some very cool foodie things for the week:

• Fosco has been in love with kolaches for years, ever since Todd's remarkable parents introduced him to them. They buy them every so often at some ethnic bakery (Czech would make the most sense, but I don't think it's actually a Czech bakery) near St. Joseph, Michigan. In Fosco's experience, kolaches are kind of like heavy cookies with fruit filling and thick sugar glaze (like a crust, almost). I think Todd's parents normally get apricot and raspberry--both are good.
  
  UPDATE: Check the Comments section below for more information on this West Michigan bakery. It turns out that I was almost entirely wrong about everything. (What else is new...)
  
  Well, in this month's Gourmet, there is a feature article on kolaches! Apparently, the kolache capital of this country is central Texas(!), where the descendants of Czech settlers have created a kolache culture. Both the pictures and descriptions seem slightly different from the Western Michigan kolaches that Fosco is so fond of (these appear to be more like danishes), but they still look (and sound) amazing.
  
  But the best part? There is a chain of stores called The Kolache Factory (with locations all over the Midwest and Great Plains). Imagine--an entire factory dedicated to making kolaches! I am having "Willy Wonka" visions, yes I am. (Apparently, there is one in Austin. Hint, hint, John Mackey and AEJ.)
  
  
• I've mentioned before that I am now enthralled with Jean-Georges Vongerichten's blog. Well, recently J-G used his blog to announce two new innovations at his flagship restaurant in NYC:
  
  • the "select menu": a four-course meal of three signature dishes plus your choice of a dessert flight, all for $58. Even though the selected signature dishes are not quite as exciting as his frogs legs or black sea bass, this menu is an absolute steal at this price. This is a wonderful concession to a bad economy--thank you, J-G!
    
  • half glasses of wine: perfect for people like Fosco who like to taste a little wine, but who rarely want to finish a whole glass. As Jean-Georges notes:
    

    I noticed that people getting together at the bar would start with a glass of wine, and then be stuck in the awkward position of wanting to stay a little while longer, but not for another full glass. (Think first dates.) In the dining room, customers wanted to pair different wines with different courses, but didn’t want a full glass with each course. And colleagues who came in for lunch celebrations would want to order champagne, but a full glass is a bit much when you need to return to work. (In these times, it’s more important than ever to celebrate professional achievements.) Perhaps most importantly, I wanted diners who drove to my restaurants to drive home safely.

    I think this is brilliant, although I can't help but imagine the disdain the French will feel if they ever hear about it.
  
  
• Speaking of Jean-Georges, Mark Bittman explains a beet-roasting technique he learned from J-G himself. He also has an easy recipe for eating them:
  

  a dressing of walnuts, garlic and fresh orange juice. Note that all of these have some bitterness or acidity, which counter the sweetness of beets beautifully. To tame the garlic, I cook it quickly, along with the walnuts; toasting always makes nuts nuttier. This makes the purée smoother tasting as well.

  Fosco lurves beets and this sounds like a great preparation.
  
  
• You may know that the French Laundry (the best restaurant in the country) is located in the Napa Valley town of Yountville. Well, it turns out that, as Thomas Keller's restaurant empire grows, so do the ambitions of Yountville. As this article notes, Yountville is positioning itself to become the capital of Napa. As one resident suggests, Yountville is now the one stop that a person needs to make in Napa:
  

  "It's an experiential village — you can stay, eat, go to all these different restaurants, check out great art, enjoy the wine. It's what makes Times Square, Times Square. Yountville is the rural Times Square."

  Hmmm. An odd comparison, I think. Even so, Fosco is currently scheming a trip to Yountville; he'll keep you updated.
  
  
• Fosco's favorite Queen of Good Living, Jill of Stella's Roar, did some cooking and some mixology recently. Check out her amazing Gumbo YaYa and the filthily-named Black Snake Moan cocktail. I'm a little in awe of her lifestyle.

Cleveland Rocks? Not So Much.

Fosco loves city rankings. He could look at a different list of city rankings every day (10 Pinkest Cities! 10 Worst Smelling Chinatowns! 10 Itchiest!). So naturally, he can't resist Forbes.com's ranking of the Ten Most Miserable Cities in the US.

But what do they mean by "miserable"? Here is the methodology:

We compiled our rankings by looking at the 150 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the U.S., which meant those with a population of at least 378,000. We ranked those metros on nine factors: commute times, corruption, pro sports teams, Superfund sites, taxes (both income and sales), unemployment, violent crime and weather.

Of course, there are aspects of this method that we could disagree with (are income taxes really a good proxy for misery? Don't taxes often provide important, life-improving social services?). Even so, the resulting list does seem to be pretty face valid--after all, I think most people could name Detroit, Buffalo, Flint, and Cleveland as miserable, miserable places.

Here's the top ten:

10. St Louis
9. Miami
8. Buffalo
7. Detroit
6. Flint, MI
5. Modesto, CA
4. Cleveland
3. Chicago
2. Memphis
1. Stockton, CA

Fosco has visited seven of these cities and he can heartily agree with all of them, except Chicago. Chicago is something of a surprise, because it's actually a pretty great city. However, the weather is cold. And most Chicagoans have a punishing commute. And the Cubs suck SO MUCH ALWAYS. And corruption... well, we know a little more about that than we might like.

If you're not a Californian, you might be surprised to see two CA cities on the list. But here's what you need to understand: just as California is divided along a horizontal axis into NorCal (good) and SoCal (bad), the state can also be divided vertically into the Coast (good) and the Central Valley (bad). The Coast contains places like San Francisco, San Diego, and Santa Barbara. It's people are well-educated, attractive, and tolerant (for the most part). The Central Valley is like a little taste of Oklahoma. It contains cities like Stockton and Modesto. There is no reason to ever venture into the Central Valley. Ever.

You know what makes me sad? I'm sad that South Bend, Indiana is too small to be eligible for the list. Because, well, I think I know where it would place...

Should Obama Help Elkhart?

Tomorrow, President Obama will make a speech in Elkhart, Indiana--a town very near where Fosco grew up (he still knows people who live there). It will be O's first visit with ordinary (trust me: very ordinary) Americans since becoming president. He will use the speech to play up the stimulus package and he couldn't have chosen a better place. Elkhart currently has the highest unemployment in the US (eighteen percent, according to Elkhart's mayor). This piece in USA Today offers the whole sad story about Elkhart.

You see, up until a few years ago, Elkhart used to call itself the "RV Capital of the World." They even have an RV Hall of Fame (Fosco has not visited yet, but Todd volunteers to give tours there on Sundays). Of course, the bad news for Elkhart is that the RV industry is not going to recover. Ever. The cheap-gas era is over. And I don't see "the electric RV" in my crystal ball. And the Senate Republicans can cut income taxes as much as they want (not that they really want to cut taxes for the lower middle class), but it's not going to bring RV jobs back to Elkhart.

I mean, I'm sure some of the Neo-Confederates would only be too happy to offer some low-paying, no benefits jobs to Elkhartians (let's open another WalMart!), but that's not really the kind of jobs that Elkhart needs, right? Hey, I have an idea: what if we invest in education and infrastructure! Maybe we could re-train some workers and set others to work on our crumbling transportation and electrical grids. Hmmm. I wish someone were proposing that kind of plan...

But do you know what's so maddening about Elkhart? The entire local economy has been "cratering" (to quote a geriatric schizoid) for over a year; and yet, this deeply racist and die-hard fundamentalist city still couldn't bring itself to vote for Obama last November. Fosco wants to fly back to Elkhart and grab each McCain voter by the collar and shake him or her: if the election had gone differently, do you really think John McCain would be giving a flying fuck about your hick-ass town right now? But hey--I'm sure you'd find unemployment less hopeless as long as there were fewer overseas abortions and a family of certifiable morons living in the Vice President's mansion.

At least some people in Elkhart have come around. As the USA Today article notes:

This area did not vote for Obama in November, but The Elkhart Truth newspaper is on board with that message now. "President Obama needs to help Congress understand that the stimulus package isn't about politics. It's about survival," the newspaper said in a Sunday editorial.

Maybe it would help if the residents of Elkhart (and other cities in Indiana) made a few calls to their elected representatives--and thought twice about voting for the Republican ones next election cycle.

Another Obama convert (sort of):

It feels that way to Ed Neufeldt, a father of seven who lost his $20-an-hour job in September. He had been building RVs at Monaco Coach for 32 years when his boss came out of a meeting in tears and announced that the company was closing its plant, putting 1,400 out of work.

Neufeldt, 62, has two children living at home, and two of his grown daughters and their husbands — all four also RV industry workers — are out of work as well.

When his unemployment runs out next month, "I don't know what I'm going to do," Neufeldt says. "I've been trying to find a job, but there aren't any jobs out there. I can't even get a minimum-wage job."

He didn't vote for Obama, but he's backing him now. In fact, Neufeldt will introduce the president at Monday's town-hall-style meeting. "Sometimes you don't care too much for the coach," he says, "but you're praying for him to win."

After eight years of a president who essentially ignored large portions of the electorate because they didn't vote for him (remember black people in New Orleans?), I think we finally may have elected someone who is willing to help all Americans--regardless of whether they can reciprocate with votes/donations. And while Fosco suspects that there are a number of people in Elkhart who don't really deserve Obama's help, it makes it all the more moving that they are going to get it anyway.

I hope Obama can help Elkhart. And I hope Elkhart can bring iself to acknowledge him when he does.