Brooklyn - On Being a Food Blogger

I Have No Idea What I'm Doing...
....but somehow the Puff List has reached the magical milestone of 10,000 pages viewed this month.  It's been exactly two years - I started the Puff List on Sept 15th, 2008.  Is 10,000/month a lot?  No idea.  I have learned a few basic facts, however.  First, it's hard work.  Sometimes it's hard work just overcoming the inertia to leave the house to go to a place and other times the words don't exactly flow.  Second, food blogging is like high-school: there is the cool crowd who only link and comment on each other's blogs and if you're not in that crowd, good luck getting any hits.  I think a lot of those folks read Puff List but they almost never comment or link to it.  I cannot figure out why - perhaps it's simply not good enough.  Last, I've been doing it for two years and even when I get frustrated I keep on.  Why?  I enjoy writing, I like the creative aspect of it.

Brooklyn - Movie Scene

State St Gets Hijacked
It's always strange when a movie comes to your block. They basically just camp out, take over and try to shut everything down. There are people with headphones and walkie talkies acting like we're in the DMZ. "Can I help you?" Ummm, well, if you want to "help" me carry my laundry bag up five flights, that would be nice.

Paris - Decathlon Update, Grudgingly

We're All Tied at One Victory
The better man won, simple as that. Neither Colin nor I had ever tried Petanque but he caught on much more quickly than I did and beat me 2-0 in a best of 3 match. The games were close, coming down to the last throw but he had the edge. We had a bigger crowd for this event, including our teacher Pierre on the left. From left to right are Ming, Colin, Laurent and Wayne.

Paris - Coaching Em Up

Some Are Better Than Others
Yann, a colleague of mine, brought his son Eugene with us to go practice. He listened and executed better than the grownups I was instructing. Funny thing is - I'm not good enough to be showing anybody anything....

Paris - Decathlon, Part II

The Frenchiest Event
Time to get it on!! Next Tuesday Colin and I will battle in our second decathlon event - Boules. It's the French version of lawn bowling. Neither of us is totally sure of the rules so we've drafted a real Frenchie to come along and help. Ming, our trusty admin, got us each our own set. They're a lot heavier than they look. To make it uber-Frenchie, we are going to play in Place des Vosges.

Paris - Culture Shock

I glanced at my watch, we were ticking into the third hour of dinner and hadn’t yet ordered dessert. I was outnumbered nine to one by French colleagues so English was spoken only here and there. From what I could gather, the conversation had recently drifted from a debate about the cultural superiority of Moscow over Paris to a more pressing topic – a comparison of the 2002 Medoc they were sipping to the previous Burgundy. Just twenty-four hours earlier, I was stooped over a bowl of beef noodles in Singapore, listening to a shifting mix of Singlish and Mandarin. The fried chicken was being debated – I thought it was delicious but I was in the minority. There was a better version elsewhere, they explained, at some elusive place I’ll never get to.

My cell phone rang, it was Miguel. “Where you at, kid?” “Paris”, I answered, sticking a finger into my free ear. “What time is it there?” he worried. “No problem man, it’s only 11pm, I’m still at dinner.” I was so happy to hear his voice, to understand every word. “Cool, cool. Hey, when you coming home? You know you’re my get out of jail free card.” I wanted so badly to explain just how strange it was. How weird to be in one part of the planet and then in another, just like that. It’s not the cultures themselves, I’m familiar enough with both. It’s the switch from one to the next so quickly. It’s jarring. “I’ll be home in a few weeks. Make sure you’ve got plenty of money ready, I’m bringing the new clubs with me."