Uniform of the Day: Travel Edition--Bruxelles, le nord de la France, et Paris

Normally, I shun the merest thought of travel during the Thanksgiving week. This tritest, Hallmark-i-est, most maudlin of holidays, is fraught with forced family gatherings that inevitably lead to trauma when cousin Zach comes home from his freshman year at university in full Ru Paul, or Aunt Kelly finally lets loose on Uncle Morris after all those years of sublimating to the pencil-dicked, Limbaugh-swilling putz. Then there's the travel aspect of the holiday: roads packed, planes stuffed, tempers steamed. It makes me crazy, all of it. So, thank you, but no. Me, I prefer to stay home and have a few friends over for a nice Pinot Noir and some Cubans.

Unless I'm getting out of the country. Which we are. Ms F and I are on our way to Brussels, the north of France, and Paris over the next week. We're going to explore the area my grandfather and his regiment fought through during that last weeks of World War One, and the town near where he was wounded a month before the armistice. It's a blended trip, partially in the fields and partially in the cities; we fly into Brussels and have a day and a night there, then take the train to Amien and two days on the battlefields--The Somme, the Hindenberg Line and the San Quentin Canal, and then on to Premont. Then train to Paris for a few days and out.

Since we're going out to the battlefields and to the cities, we need a mix of clothes that will be country friendly and city acceptable. The added degree of difficulty is that it all has to fit into a roll-aboard--no checked luggage on this trip, and it's cold. 

So here's the rough packing list:

The lay-out

Blue and black jeans (a pair of chinos worn on the plane), two black half-turtlenecks, a couple OCBDs (plus another dress shirt worn), for evenings we're in town. Vintage (I bought them new and I've had them one month shy of twenty years) Timberland Gore-Tex lined boots for the field and longer walks in town, plus some wool socks to wear with them; cotton crew socks to wear with the black Gucci horsebit loafers I'll wear at night and during travel.

Two Brooks Brothers 1/4 zip sweaters, one lambswool and one cashmere (respectively, grey and blue); a black merino wool polo sweater. A tweedy RL Polo hound's tooth sport coat, and at the risk of being presumed to be one of Les Rosbifs, my Barbour Beaufort jacket and a Burberry cashmere scarf. 

As for accessories: For the head: a fleece cap, in case it's really cold in the field, and maybe a ball cap but I'm not yet sure, and Ray Ban aviators. For the hands: a couple pairs of gloves--fleece and rabbit-lined leather. I suspect the Submariner 5513 will be on my wrist, although the Omega Seamaster calibre 351 would also be a good, understated choice. 

In the backpack: the iPad will have to do, no laptop on this trip--though I'll likely stash a bluetooth keyboard; Bose noise-canceling headphones, two small notebooks; I'll have a small Canon digital and Ms F will have her Nikon DSLR. The iPhone will serve mostly as iPod, audio recorder, and storage device because we have an old flip phone we'll put a European chip in so we can have a local phone number; an old Business-Class amenities bag filled with chargers and plug adapters. Plus, a book about the 30th Division's war as a reference--my grandfather was a corporal in the 119th Infantry.

Now, about those horsebit loafers. One of my very favorite clips from The Trad's many blogs and tumblrs is this question and response from The Trad Rejection:

Anonymous asked: Gucci Horsebit loafers: Are they only for Persian nightclub owners and Douchebag Hollywood actors? Or, are they an essential part of a well dressed man's wardrobe?

Good question. It carries a lotta baggage for a shoe. It’s also a very comfortable shoe and can be worn with Bermuda shorts or a DB suit. My ex-wife hated ‘em. She had more taste than I ever will. I still have a pair but wear them sparingly and only around friends who know I’m an asshole.

Well, to paraphrase just a bit, TinTin's rejections page has more style than I ever will, and I absolutely agree with him on this, the shoe carries a ton of baggage. My personal take on this shoe and its baggage was to purchase the version with the thicker, chunkier sole. I've not seen many of this model, especially on #menswear blogs and Tumblrs, so I suspect it's not popular. I bought this version because it walks a whole lot better than the thin-soled 1950s version--especially in cold Paris and Brussels, but also because that sole takes away some of the edginess of the shoe (particularly because I can't wear them with anything but jeans) and thus, I think, some of the Douchebagginess that Anonymous questioned above. At least I hope so.

What about guides, you ask? Yes, to all: human, paper, and digital. We've engaged a battlefield guide. I've studied the war; I've learned the routes of my grandfather's division and regiment, but why not have an expert to fill in what we don't know. It's a once in a lifetime event, let's do it right. For Paris, on paper and online, we consult Pudlo, the guide locals use.

Pan Roasted Pork Chops

What is it this year? I've been completely captivated by pan roasting. Tonight: pork chops.

Pretty simple dish. Here's what you need:

--Pork chops.
--A cast iron skillet, probably a 10" one.

No seriously, you're going to need to brine them first, but in the end, it's the chop that makes the difference. So buy some good ones. I got two from our butcher on Massachusetts Avenue, and threw them into a brine this afternoon. You can spend lots of time making a brine--boiling it, adding lots of herbs and spices--or you can just use water and salt. I compromise and use water, salt, some brown sugar, and sometimes apple cider.

Drop the chops into a bowl and cover them with the brine. Refrigerate, covered, for half a day at least.

When it's time to cook, preheat the oven to about 400.

When you're ready, pull the chops out of the brine, dry them well, add salt and pepper.

These are the chops, fresh out of the brine, dried, salted and peppered, ready to go into the pan. 

Heat the skillet over medium high heat. Once it's ready, add the chops and brown both sides for about three minutes each. Then stick the skillet in the oven.

Now you can start on the brussels sprouts and potatoes. 

Add a few small red or yellow potatoes to a pot of water and boil until the potatoes are soft enough to pierce with a fork. Drain, salt and pepper, add a little butter to the pan and coat the potatoes well. Some chopped parsley if you have it is a nice addition. Re-cover and let sit. 

While the potatoes are cooking, cut off the hard stem remnant off of the sprouts, then slice them in halves. Clean and slice lengthwise half a leek, then slice into 1/4 inch slices. Add some olive oil to a heated skillet, then add the sprouts and the leeks. Stir in salt, pepper and a pinch or two of thyme, then heat through, allowing the sprouts to brown just a bit and the leeks to soften, about 6 or 8 minutes. Pour about two ounces of water into the pan and cover, allowing the vegetables to steam for a few minutes. Turn off the heat and leave covered. 

Leeks and sprouts a few minutes before I added the water to steam them. 

All this should take about twenty minutes. By then, it's time to check the temperature of the chops. Pork should be cooked to 160 degrees F according to every cookbook in the world, so I won't tell you to pull them out earlier. But I pull mine out at about 140 and they are perfect. 

Ready to go.

Let them rest under foil for about five minutes--which likely brings them up to a safe temperature--and serve. I set them up with an Oregon Pinot Noir that worked quite well. 

Uniform of the Day--Creative Mornings DC

So my friend Jason Steinhauer is a curator at the Library of Congress. Jason has curated a number of big shows including "Ours to Fight For" for the Museum of Jewish Heritage. This morning he was the speaker for Washington DC's Creative Mornings event on the subject of bravery. He invited me to join him on stage to discuss some of the work we do at the Veterans Writing Project and to read some of my poetry.

Creative Mornings is a global phenomenon of which I had heard nothing up to this point. So I learned as much as a could and dove in. It's very cool and I was very pleasantly surprised that my work and my reading was quite well received.

This is a group formed around the idea of sharing creativity, so I chose to be a little creative--but it's hard for me to give up classic. So I went with this: Grey Harris Tweed jacket, black suit vest, RL Polo chambray shirt with a vintage Brooks Brothers red and cream spotted tie, some olive jeans from J.Crew, an alligator belt with a sterling buckle, Allen Edmonds Jefferson brogues and the Submariner 5513. 

Here's an image captured and tweeted by one of the creatives attending, Jackie Titus. @Jtitus 

Artichoke and Pecorino Risotto

It's cool outside and now is a great time to begin making some of the comfort food dishes that get pushed aside during the summer heat. Tonight: artichoke risotto.

Here's what you'll need:

Some fresh (or pre-packaged grilled) artichokes.
Chicken stock
Butter
An onion
Risotto
White wine
Pecorino or Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper

To start this off right, acidulate some water (add the juice of half a lemon to a bowl of water). Trim the rough, stiff portions of a dozen artichokes and peel off the fibrous stalk. Drop them in the bowl of water and go light your grill. Once the grill is ready for direct heat. Grill the 'chokes until the edges are beginning to brown, about five minutes. Remove and go back to the stove.

... Or, you could use pre-grilled artichokes available in the vegetable section of the Whole Foods.

Most of the ingredients; the artichokes are already chopped here. The onion is already in the pan with half the butter. That's wine in the smaller measuring cup.

Dice a medium onion. Melt half a stick of butter in a large skillet. Add the onion to the butter and stir until the onion is soft and golden translucent, about ten minutes. Stir in 2.5 cups of risotto rice and continue stirring until the rice has absorbed the butter and is warmed through. Add 2/3 of a cup of dry white wine and rapidly bring it to a boil to remove the raw alcohol taste.

Begin adding the chicken stock--for a vegetarian, but not vegan version, use vegetable stock. Professionals say to keep the stock warm, but I don't bother. Just pour it into the pan and stir the rice. Keep the rice covered and don't let it dry out. Stir every couple of minutes to make sure all the rice is absorbing all the stock. Keep this up until the rice is creamy. This should be at least 20 minutes and take four to six cups of stock.

This is about half way through. You can see the swirl in the center where I've just been stirring. 

In between stirs, chop the artichokes into small pieces.

Add half a stick of butter and about 3/4 of a cup of freshly ground pecorino or parmesan cheese, stir until it's all melted in and blended. (For this batch, I used a mix of these two cheeses.)

Add the artichokes and blend.

Ready to go. 

This will also work well if you substitute mushrooms for the artichokes, too. And you know, a little slab bacon can't hurt either.

Serve with a dry white, maybe a French chardonnay.

-- Chapeau: Maxine Clark.

Uniform of the Day--On Capitol Hill with Americans for the Arts

I was asked by Americans for the Arts to brief invited Congressional staff on the work we do at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. American for the Arts has just released a white paper on their National Initiative for Arts and Health in the Military. This was the roll-out for that paper. They asked me to talk about the therapeutic work I do at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE) as part of National Endowment for the Arts programming. My role at NICoE is as the curriculum writer for their expressive (therapeutic) writing program and as the lead instructor for the creative writing program.

I went with a Ralph Lauren Polo blue pinstripe suit, white (double cuff and straight collar) shirt and Ferragamo tie featuring hedgehogs and apples. I added some spotted socks and Allen Edmonds Jefferson full brogues. I wore the 1950 Omega Seamaster gold-top cal 531 and some Florentine-style gold cufflinks I think I got at the Metropolitan Museum store a dozen or so years ago. A pretty conservative look, I suppose, but Congress is a pretty conservative place--even when we're talking about the arts. 

Uniform of the Day--Washington Ideas Forum//Aspen Institute

So, I don't usually get invited to Big Think idea festivals like the Washington Ideas Forum, but my friend Richard Marks does. He's stuck up in NYC because of a family medical emergency--fingers crossed, Richard--and he offered his slot at the forum to me. He is such a mensch.

The forum is run by the Aspen Institute, which is a pretty Big Think kind of organization to begin with, and The Atlantic. But the whole idea of the WIF is to get as many Big Think-ers together in one place as possible and let them speak about what's on their minds. I hope this is really a good deal and not just the usual Washington bloviator fest. Given the list of blow-hards politicians on the speakers' list, there's a chance it will be all blah-blah-blah.

Regardless, I'm relatively sure I won't have much to say and not only because I'm just an invitee and not on the rostrum. I suspect I'll be in total submarine mode: Run Silent, Run Deep.

Since I did the grey suit thing yesterday at the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, today I chose something else.

Brooks Brothers olive wool suit, lavender dress shirt (sorry that the color only really comes through at the bottom of the photo), a black and purple Ted Baker tie, Allen Edmonds Jefferson full brogues, some Ben Silver dragonfly cufflinks, and because I plan to Run Silent, Run Deep: the '85 Submariner 5513.

Uniform of the Day--National Endowment for the Arts

So, the most formal of the three events was today, downtown in the Old Post Office building, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Art, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the President's Council on the Humanities. I was moderating a panel discussion with novelist Richard Currey, author C.Q. Tillery, and blogger Kate Hoit--common denominator: all veterans.

We four gave our own thoughts on The Healing Power of Narrative, our subject, then had a nice back and forth with the audience.

I went with this:

A charcoal grey suit, a pink puppytooth dress shirt and spotted red tie both from Piero Politi in Florence, brown suede cap toe oxfords from Johnston and Murphy's handcrafted in Italy line -- highly recommended, very comfortable and sharp looking. I added the 1950-ish Omega Seamaster cal 531 and some typewriter key cufflinks.

I thought the grey suit was conservative enough for a government office and that the pink shirt and red spotted tie loosened it up a bit given that our hosts were arts and humanities people.

Uniform of the Day--Veterans Day

Veterans Day. Each year we host a public event, a reading, at the Navy Memorial on Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown, DC. I invite a mix of more or less professional writers and writers we've recently published or who have really just gotten started.

This year we had Vietnam veterans Jeff Stein (who has been a professional journalist and author since the late 1960s) and Jay Snyder (who was a professional tennis umpire and the director of the U.S. Open after getting shot up while serving as an airborne infantry company commander in the 1st Cav). We had Iraq veteran Alex Horton (who this morning had a piece published in The Atlantic and is a real fast-burning up-and-comer, a student at Georgetown following an infantry tour in Iraq); Afghanistan veteran Lisa Barber (a medically retired USAF officer who was pretty badly worked over leading convoys during her tour). We also had Marine veteran Kyle Noe, a homeschooled former grunt sergeant who got out of the Corps just before 9/11, served as a CI agent in the FBI and who took part in the most recent bust of Russian spies in DC. And I also read, so we had a good mix.

This required slightly dressier look than the jeans and tweeds look from yesterday, but it's still autumn, so tweeds rule. I went with this:

I figured you can't go wrong with Duck Head khakis and Bass Weejuns. To this I added a yellow Lands End Sail Rigger OCBD. This is their old-school, heavyweight oxford cloth that takes about half an hour to iron, but is totally worth it. This shirt is substantial, like the old ways. I put on a maroon (not burgundy, but maroon like paratroopers' berets) knit tie with it. On top, I wore a tweedy Ralph Lauren houndstooth sport coat in some great Autumn colors. I also wore a Waltham A-17 military watch from the early 1950s and my Bronze Star Medal lapel pin. 

Lest we forget, Veterans Day in the U.S. evolved from Armistice Day, marking the end of the First World War -- on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month the guns in Europe fell silent. It's known as Remembrance Day in Canada, which I think is proper. 

North of the 49th parallel, this poem is recited pretty much everywhere on this day. It's dated, to be sure, not a modern poem in any way. But it's still fitting today that we mark it here. 

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields. 

--Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae

Canadian Army Medical Corps

Uniform of the Day--Literary Reading

It's a busy time, Veterans Day weekend. Today was day one of a three-day public-event-fest I'm involved in. This afternoon I took part in a reading at The Writer's Center just up the street from us in Bethesda, MD. There were several of us reading from works we've recently had published in The Delmarva Review's 6th edition. I read a piece called "Writing My Way Home," which will also be in my book. Here's a link to the essay that was re-published by one of the local papers on the Eastern Shore//Delmarva Peninsula.

I decided to go pretty casual, but not too casual since I was the featured writer in both the journal and for the reading. It's a delicate balance.

I went with a pair of J.Crew 484 jeans, an alligator belt with a Tiffany's buckle, LL Bean plaid shirt with a Sid Mashburn grenadine tie, an Orvis light brown herringbone tweed jacket, Allen Edmonds Amok chukka boots, and the Submariner 5513. 

Throughout the next few days, each successive event will demand slightly more formal attire--short of actual formal wear. And to top it off, on Tuesday, when I need to be the most dressed-up, we're expecting snow. Joy unbound. 

Chilaquiles

I haven't done any breakfast foods yet on this blog despite the fact that I cook breakfast pretty regularly. So here goes with a family favorite, chilaquiles.

You'll need:

Eggs
Bacon or chorizo sausage
Onion (yellow and green)
Green chiles
Jalapeno
Corn tortillas (fresh or chips in the bag...)
Cheddar and/or Monterey Jack cheese
Cumin
Chili powder
Cilantro
Salsa
Sour cream

Start by cutting a couple slices of bacon--I used a thick sliced, applewood smoked bacon--into halves lengthwise and then more or less making a dice of the strips. Add these to a skillet over medium heat.

Dice half of a small yellow onion and, once the bacon has begun to render its fat and just starting to crisp, add this to the skillet.

After a few minutes add the green chiles and jalapeno.

If you're using fresh corn tortillas, slice a couple of them into strips and then again into smaller pieces and add them to the pan. Let the edges crisp. (If you're using corn chips from a bag, wait....)

Scramble the eggs and stir them into the pan, mixing well with the other ingredients.

Add cumin and chili powder to taste.

If you're using corn chips from the bag, crumble a couple of handfuls into the mix now. I usually use fresh corn tortillas, but we had this bag of corn chips hanging around in the pantry on the counter, so that's what we went with. There isn't much different either way, but I actually do prefer the thicker, crispier corn tortillas in this dish.

Once the eggs have set, grate a good couple of ounces of the cheese over the top, remove the pan from heat and cover to let the cheese melt.

When that's happened, serve with some chopped cilantro and green onion, salsa and/or hot sauce to taste, and if you like, a dollop of sour cream.

Schmidt Scores From First on a Wild Pitch.

You don't often get to re-visit a play in which two future Hall of Famers are the principals. But here's one. Phillies-Mets, April 18, 1988. All said, according to Dom Consentino on Deadspin, the game was "incredibly ugly. There were 12 walks, five wild pitches, three batters hit by a pitch, and 19 runners left on base."

"The game," Mets manager Davey Johnson told Newsday at the time, "doesn't deserve much comment."

But this play does: Gary Carter behind the plate, some kid named David Cone on the mound, and 38-year-old Mike Schmidt on first. Cone buries a ball in the dirt in front of Carter and it slips past, rolls all the way to the dugout and then continues to roll along the edge without falling in. Carter is stumbling and trying to grab the ball, Schmidt take second and continues to third, Cone (and every other infielder) fails to cover home, so Schmidt rolls home and scores standing up.

Cone and Johnson probably should be in the Hall along with Carter and Schmidt. But I don't get a vote and I'm glad fans don't or we'd end up with some real hoseheads in the Hall.

See the video on Deadspin It's pretty astounding.