no.21 - The Meatball Grinder's Giant Balls

The meatball grinder is the great sandwich equalizer. It can be served in small, cheapo corner groceries or atop the swankiest five star hotels. Either can be atrocious. Both could be legendary.

For years I have used the meatball grinder as my compass. Like the fundamentals of Earth, Water, Air, and Fire, the meatball sandwich consists of four basic elements: Bread, Meatballs, Sauce and (usually) Cheese, and through these elements one can learn volumes about an eatery.

If you make sandwiches, the meatball sandwich exposes you for what you are.

The bread should be both crusty and soft. This is the easiest element to get right and the one that is so often very wrong. Quality matters here, but mostly, the bread is mearly a delivery system for the other elements. If the bread is too thick or too thin, the grinder is compromised. If the bread is soggy, all is lost.

The sauce is the most subtle of the four elements, the one which can add nuance to the sub. A meatball sandwich can withstand a mediocre sauce, but a great sauce improves everything. If the quality of the sauce is good, the meatballs themselves have often been attended to with the same care. However, be warned, a tasty sauce is sometimes used disguise low quality meat. Conversely, and more common, many good and even great meatballs have been found in a bath of tomato-flavored oil and water, or a sludge of tasteless pale red.

The cheese is, by some, considered an extra. This is a bad sign. If the maker of your meal asks what type of cheese you would like on your meatball sub, they are really saying a request for American Cheese or Swiss would be okay. It is not.

The cheese should be mozzarella, grated and then melted while the bread simultaneously toasts. It should not be three slices of waxy provolone with the meatballs slopped on top to do the dirty work of cheese melting. (Provolone is often substituted, but only because it is cheaper and it is easier to manage in an office cubicle.)

Finally there are the meatballs. The quality of these is paramount. If the meatballs in the grinder could not survive on the outside of the sandwich - moved, say, to a side of pasta — the meatball grinder is not worthy. If a bite of meatball, without sauce, is unpleasant, the meatball grinder is a fraud. If the meatball does not taste of beef something is very wrong. This last problem is shockingly common, leading me to wonder what sorts of meats I have eaten in my life.

But most vexing of all meatball problems is the modern meatball which consists of enormous fat grey monstrosities the size of softballs, jammed into a grinder is if the circumference of the meatball were all that mattered. They are often so big they must be sliced in half to fit the sandwich. These artery-clogging meatstrosities are constructed under the theory that quantity is better than quality and they are usually pulled from a frozen bag and microwaved, possibly one at a time because of their enormous size.

From an architectural point of view, the giant meatballs tend to slide out, making this sort of sub-sandwich impractical for travel, work or, in my most recent experience, the waiting area at my daughter's gymnastics class. Besides tasting like an approximation of meat, the vast size throws off the sauce ratios as the surface area of the meatball becomes too great, requiring more sauce than can be ladled into the limited space between the bread. This means the grinder is hopeless. Sauce cannot hide it and cheese can not bury it.

These behemoths have surely grown over time. Being smaller when I was young, I should now perceive everything as smaller, not the other way around. But meatballs, I think, have slowly increased in size and, I must admit, so have I.

no.20 - the Worm

The worm visits every city in the world, with the possible exception of Wellington, New Zealand where the atmosphere may be too friendly and collegial to engender wormy behavior.

The main attribute of the worm is that it does not want to wait in line. These people — these worms — in order to get what they want, feign obliviousness to the rest of the population of the Earth in order to cut the line.

Sometimes they work in pairs, pretending not to notice the other six thousand people standing in the heat, waiting for entrance to the vatican city. Sometimes they work alone, sneaking into boarding Group 2 on the plane out of Newark when their ticket reads Group 8.

I've seen them dressed as Gandalf, attempting to "apparate" into the line at the release of the final Harry Potter book. I've seen them in shorts, with fat hairy legs, grabbing someone else's scuba tanks "by mistake" so they can get on the dive boat without waiting another half hour in the bare Caribbean sun. I've seen them find that little gap, over and over — the one where normal people leave space others to get by — and stand at the back of the very short line they were "lucky" enough to find at noon on a Saturday at the Louvre.

"Oof! look at dis very short line ve has found!"

The worm will not make eye contact. The worm will pretend not to notice it's "mistake". When confronted, the worm will have difficulty hearing, or seeing or understanding in the hope that they can play things out until they are inside, where the matter will be dropped.

More often than not, the worm is fat - frequently obese. No doubt line cutting is not the only place where laziness rules their day and the time they save in line is probably time spent eating.

We have all thought about being the worm. Waiting in line is not fun. But being the worm is making a choice to screw your fellow human beings because being the worm is saying your fellow human beings are less important than you — they can wait longer, and, if they don't get in to see the Taj Mahal because you took the last viable place in line... well... too bad.

The worm has no conscience because it can not. Each time my wife and I watch someone worm their way into the line ahead of us, we name it out loud: "Worm."

But the worm should know this: When you push your way past others to see the treasures of the world, you will never truly be able to appreciate them, because that would require the thoughtfulness you choose to leave at the door.

no.17 - The Three Tined Fork

For a god commanding ocean and sea, perhaps three prongs make sense. For a farmer bailing hay or a devil tormenting souls, so too do three prongs seem appropriate.

But three prongs no longer have any place at the dinner table.

What skimpy silverware manufacturer has felt this was the way to save money? Does that single tine of silver cost so much?

But according to Henry Petroski's The Evolution Of Useful Things, the three tined fork is nothing more than a throwback on the evolutionary chain that started with the knife, gave rise to a dual pronged fork and which will no doubt, at some extravagant time in the future, lead to a fork with five tines.

Being rooted firmly in the present, I would prefer elegance of my four prongs, but I am ready for the future if this is how it comes. I will not, however, accept this Neanderthal fork near my plate, unless it is the giant one my mother uses to serve turkey on thanksgiving.

-as suggested by Moira from Dreamdogsart

no.12 - the Titleist

The problem began twenty years ago, when, during the film, "The Last Emperor", my friend Sean leaned over to me and, rasped in an old and frail voice:

"I was - the last emperor."

We were both convinced the movie was going to end with those words, as Emperor Pu Yi visited the site of his former glories.

The movie does not end that way, but it's pretty close.

Since then, when I see the titles of films - especially Academy Award winners - I feel compelled to predict how the title will be incorporated into the film. This happens against my will. Regardless of how little information I actually have about the movie, I am powerless but to allow the scene to unspool in my mind's eye.

Even though I have not seen any of the films listed below, I need to warn you that this post could still contain spoliers. I might guess critical plot points, but I might also ruin the films for you by planting ideas in your head.

• La Vie En Rose
  Let's start with an easy one. Obviously Marion Cotillard sings it. But, I will go a step further and suggest we hear it over the very end of the film, as Edif Piaf dies and the camera pans slowly away from her bed.
  (As an aside, do you have any idea how many near fatal car crashes Edif Piaf was in? Three! ...and a few years after she died, her widower husband Theo Sarapo died in fatal- car accident. How do they show this in a serious biography without it seeming like "Final Destination 4:Paris"?)
  
  
• Juno and Michael Clayton
  These are also gimme's since they are each characters in their films. Nevertheless I get a strong impression of George Clooney shaking hands and speaking his name in a offhand business way then holding the back of his neck, whereas Juno gets called "Juno" by her mother a lot. "Juno, come inside," "Juno, say something pithy.", "Juno, don't get pregnant," etc.
  (As another aside, wasn't there also an academy award nominated movie last year about a pregnant girl called Junebug? )
  
  
• Charlie Wilson's War.
  This one is a little harder, but I can see it now, Philip Seymour Hoffman is pounding a shoe on a table shouting with great emotion, "This is Charlie Wilson's War, God damnit!"
  
  
• There will be blood
  Daniel Day Lewis, all veiny and red in the face with rage, places his hand on the ground and growls "There will be blood" and then there is guitar music.
  
  
• Into the Wild
  Hal Holbrook looks off into the distance, while talking to his grandson. "Well, you're really into the wild now kid," he says and end of scene. The next scene is a campfire.
  
  
• No country for old men
  Javier Bardem grumbles "This is no country for old men" before shooting an old guy.
  
  
• Atonement
  I imagine the word "atonement" is snuck quietly in near the end, probably as depressing wrap-up art house film narration like: "And so it was that I sought atonement but did not find it, and that was the undoing of us all."
  

Please do feel free to correct how wrong my mind's eye is via the comments below.