Brix Picks

Drinks »Piwo Grzane

Those polish really know how to improve on the already perfect. They put bison grass in vodka and now I find out they've been heating up beer with mulling spices and calling it Piwo Grzane. We partook in this warming to your tiptoes beverage at Greenpoint's best Polish eatery, Karczma at the delight of our waitress who was concerned it would be too strange for us.

I can understand her worry. Hot beer is just not the kind of thing American's can eagerly accept (the idea of even luke warm beer is distasteful to us), but with the spices I can promise you, it's like a great mulled cider without that sticky sweetness that can make cider a bit unpalatable after a couple sips.

I wonder if making this on my own would result in such pleasing tastes, I doubt it, but I might just give it a try if I can find a decent recipe – not sure if I feel like messing with chicken eggs in my beer, but I've found?some good tips though, for example never let the beer boil – this will burn off the alcohol and make a mess.

Here is a history of warmed beer, seems it wasn't always such an oddity but it's popularity has cooled off since the beginning of the 19th century with the introduction of refrigeration and lager which required it.

The poles know better than to forget the past though, and I can imagine this becoming some sort of absinthe type rage in the bar, er excuse me, mixologist scene in the city if anyone gets wind of this winter delight.

In the meantime, friends, lets make a date for Karczma because I can't wait for you to try it and to have it myself again.

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Posted on December 1, 2008

Style Icons: Male »Dan Cleveland

dan cleveland driver 23 I really wish I could recommend the documentary Driver 23 as this week's movie pick but Director Rolf Belgum really shit the bed on this one, and what could have been a miraculously perfect documentary left me frustrated, wishing someone with more skill had made the film. Even if it were made for 700 dollars he could have bothered to actually hold the camera a little more and let the interesting subjects talk without cutting them off.

Still, with that warning I say see it anyways- because the subject, one Dan Cleveland is unbelievably fascinating. He's a man who seems to be constantly in a Herculean struggle against the noise in his head, gravity (which he fights with the laws of physics and mouse trap caliber contraptions) and the world at large.

Armed with duct tape, which he uses for everything including a home made recording studio, cinder block exercise equipment, a double neck guitar, and I swear, at one point shoes, he is fighting against the daily grind of his daytime job, his distant clown wife (literally a clown, most of her interviews are done as she takes on or off the makeup) and band mates that keep quitting on him.

His band Dark Horse is his curly long hair obsession (next to duct tape) and you really want to root for his dream which he can envision with such positivity even as things crumble around him. He is half delusional half genius and wrought with the struggle of being bipolar and heavily medicated with the American dream weighing heavily on his back. While you may find yourself laughing at some points, you can't deny the man's will to carry on in a world that doesn't seem to want him to.

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Posted on December 1, 2008

Hunks »Francois Truffaut

Catherine Deneuve knows her way around attractive men of the silver screen and creative world, Marcello Mastroianni, David Bailey, Serge, and Dean Martin to name a few. She also fell, not to my surprise at all for the forlorn and deep eyes of Francois Truffaut, the legendary director who ushered in the French New Wave with his classic film, 400 Blows. The film was independently funded and dealt with the issues of his own childhood including an absent father, a burgeoning love for cinema and a mischievous adolescence.

While his work is not always my favorite (Mississippi Mermaid, which I was dead set on loving left me cold) there is no denying his vision and if you don't care about the vision he's also pleasing to look at. Dashing but a bit rugged, he looks like a French noir convict complete with fedoras and cigarettes even though reportedly he decided he hated gangsters while making the film adaptation of Shoot the Piano Player.

His career carried through the seventies and eighties with internationally acclaimed films like Day for Night (Oscar winner for best foreign film), The Story of Adele H and The Last Metro. Surely his career would have continued on had he not succumbed to a brain tumor in 1984.

Intensely private, devoted not only to film (he was a huge Hitchcock fan and wrote a biography of his hero) but his love of books (many of which he adapted) Truffaut's work was both enigmatic and universal. He was also an actor and you may recognize him from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

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Posted on December 1, 2008

Albums »Movement (Collector’s Edition)

new order movement When the disturbed Ian Curtis, lead singer of Joy Division took his own life in 1980, his remaining band members decided bravely, to carry on under the name New Order. Not surprisingly, the band was initially under a lot of scrutiny and endured perhaps unfair comparisons to the former line up, especially with their first album, Movement. Slammed by critics and fans, this album seemed to spell the end for New Order, but with later releases, they managed to secure a great career and position in pop history.

After listening to Movement for the past week or so, I think it's earned a bum rap and deserves a re-listen particularly the Collector's Edition with the added tracks that include the amazing songs Ceremony and the Temptation 7″ Mix (that has me yelling:

Oh, you've got green eyes
Oh, you've got blue eyes
Oh, you've got gray eyes?

in my head for hours).

The original album, though dark and kind of mushy, lacking punch does begin with Dreams Never End, an undeniably great piece of post-punk electronica. The rest is the kind of swimmy music that begs for asymmetrical haircuts and could probably be a major favorite of Buffalo Bills from Silence of the Lambs as it is danceable, dreary, poppy, but never, ever upbeat (hey, they were all dealing with the loss of their friend, what do you expect, The Age of Consent).

While I understand it may not be the greatest that they had to offer, Movement, bolstered by the Collector's Edition tracks is definitely worth revisiting.

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Posted on December 1, 2008

Songs »Black Night

black night deep purple Those great ideas we all have when at a bar, drunk? Well Deep Purple's Black Night proves that they're not all garbage because that's exactly how it was conceived. This was a surprise hit in England and even made it to number three in the charts. Of course, Smoke on the Water is the preferred song by the heavy metal forerunners in this country, and therefore it's woefully overplayed.

Crank this one loud, as they were once called the Loudest Band on Earth by the Guinness Book of World Records, and though the new(er) kids in town, My Bloody Valentine and Swans have unofficially taken the title, the band would probably still appreciate it.

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Posted on December 1, 2008

Movies »Classe Tous Risques

Classe Tous Risques translates to “The Big Risk” and it begins with just that as two crooks, one awesomely slicked back and tooth-picked and one you might recognize from other noirs of the French New Wave played by actor Lino Ventura, commit a brazen daylight robbery. The risk is necessary because Abel (Ventura) is a desperate man who has been on lam for years in need of some money to get out of Italy as the local police close in.?The escape is made even more difficult and grave as he's traveling with his wife and two adorable young boys who are always performing doe eyed acts of cuteness like eating sugar from their hands and falling asleep in get away cars.

Fortunately for Abel he's done enough no gooders good to call in a few favors but most of his friends seem to have pretty short memories and instead of helping the guy out himself, they find a reliable stranger. Enter Jean Paul Belmondo and where Belmondo goes, the dames follow. Here, again he reminds me of what a doll he was. If quirky French men with oodles of charm are your thing, that you owe yourself a marathon of his films.

This stark, almost quiet noir is a great one to include. It's a sometimes sad, sometimes violent chapter in the french new wave about loyalty, betrayal, and revenge. It shows the reality that a life on the run is a fairly terrible thing that can bring down the toughest and best of men. It portrays the last hurrah of a lifetime criminal at the end of the road, and while the bodies pile up and he's certainly not afraid to use a gun it ends not with a bang but a whimper.

Classe Tous Risques was released on Criterion as well as other Rialto Pictures of the french noir genre like Les Deuxieme Souffle which I also watched this week but found to be over long and disappointing despite a great night club featuring bee hived and long legged lovelies doing a synchronized smoking act.

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Posted on December 1, 2008

Recipes »Chicken and Fennel with Tarragon Broth

chicken fennel tomato tarragon broth Not everything delicious can also look good on camera. I don't usually most enjoy cooking chicken, as I've probably mentioned before, the whiteness of the flesh is not always appealing to me in raw form, but this Chicken with Fennel, Tomato, and Tarragon Vinegar makes the unpleasantness more than worth it.

The unique mixture of flavors, all of which are favorites of mine: tarragon, cream, garlic, fennel is superb. Light but very flavorful, this is prefect for a cool evening when you're hungry but don't want to go overboard. It's only 227 calories too, which will be surprising once you taste it.

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Posted on December 1, 2008

Laughs »Once upon a time…

Capucine Story Telling I love little kids of all ages, but my favorite age is about three, when they can't stop talking fun time nonsense. This unbelievably adorable video features, “A breathtaking story by [a French toddler named] Capucine. Starring baby monkeys lost in frightening trees, a witch, crocodiles, a tiger, a “popotamus” and a lion, and even a “tremendously very bad mammoth”. There are also magic powers and an orange ring, but sometimes, “something goes amiss”.”

t makes me laugh and want to be a mommy.

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Posted on December 1, 2008

Web Sites »The Selby

Like most people I imagine, I get a great thrill when I can peek into someone's windows. Not in a pervy way, but I love seeing into the little boxes people call home, especially at night, lit by the glow of their TVs. The Selby takes anyone curious about living spaces on a hip, ultimate ride of excitement. Not only will you see stranger's (sometimes not so humble) abodes, but those strangers are the most styling people out there.

Mostly from New York and Los Angeles, The Selby profiles DJs, artists, designers, models, perfumers, hip grandmas?pretty much anyone that would have an article about them in Black Book Magazine and make you envious of their casual fame that seems to afford them amazing apartments and all the quirky knickknacks a crazy craft lady could ever want.?

These spaces are usually snazzy and innovative and will make you wonder why your place still looks like a dorm room by comparison. So just be warned, you will suddenly want to up your interior decorating budget from a possible “$0” to “whatever it takes”.

One of my favorite places is, of course, the hamburger memorabilia covered home of Jennifer Earle and Mike Gabel. Their life size portraits are in delightful bad taste and I plan on using their shelf of VHS tapes to beef up my netflix queue (here we come Brain Damage and Humanoid). I also love the work space of Ralph Lauren's Senior VP, Mary Randolf Carter.

Makes me wonder if my desk couldn't do with a few more tasteful collages of Willie Nelson and Vreeland Visionaires hanging around my desk instead of empty tissue boxes and dried up sharpies.

The man behind it all, who takes the lovely photos and doodles the quirky portraits is Todd Selby and it's his artistic touch and simple but great idea of profiling interesting interiors that is the heart and success of the site. His other work, which includes photo shoots for New York Magazine and W can be seen here.

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Posted on December 1, 2008

Places to Visit »Jersey Shore Premium Outlets

claire's bounty from jersey shore premium outlets While opening new malls might not seem the brightest thing to do in this economy, I guess outlet malls are a different story. We took a trip down to the area's newest The Jersey Shore Premium Outlets in Tinton Falls with work because it's the site of our newest Oshkosh B'gosh store. I have to say, it looks great. I hate to sound like a commercial but, hey, I happen to actually be very proud of our product, I only wish it were closer to us so more people could discover our clothes! Just look at this adorable striped toddler dress (all yours Bea when I see you) and this soft newborn onesie that has bear ears and paws on the feet. You can also find the standby classic overalls and cuddly toys for all the little boys on your gift list.

While the mall is also home to some high end shopping like Burberry and Kate Spade, you kind of know me well enough by now to know that I am not always about high end. Therefore I found a bit of flashy high heeled happiness at Nine West, where these were by one get one half off, so I opted for red and purple. My real find was a discount Claire's (I know how can a Claire's become even more discount??) well,?I went insane all over this place and walked away some neon nail polish, a necklace, and with over thirty pairs of earrings. I'd like to draw your particular attention to these zipper ones.

The J Crew outlet was a great spot for boyfriend/husband shopping and more than one of my coworkers and I were swayed by this lovely purple top, which looks like preppy boy heaven with the striped tie.

It's about an hour drive from the city, and to be honest the food court is terrible, but, and I know this could convince me to return – coming soon is an Orange Julius! I didn't even know they could be found anymore. I was crushed to see the sign and realize it was not opened yet.