Friday Faves 8/7: Pizza Party, Indian Matchmaker, Nice White Parents, Thai Wraps, and Transfusions

This Saturday, Tiff and I joined our friends for round 2 of the quarantine pizza bracket. The first region was Charlestown in June and Figs was the winner (which was a surprise to all of us…). On Saturday we diner on four Cambridge pizza joints. Needless to say there was leftover pizza, but it was a delicious afternoon. We tried All Star Pizza, Area 4, Pinocchio’s, and Aram’s #2. This was more fun because we were eating some of these pizza’s for the first time. If we could do it again, we probably wouldn’t have chosen Pinocchio’s, which was a last minute addition because our fourth place closed recently.

The best pizza of the bunch was Area 4 (which will advance to finals with Figs), but Aram’s and All Star are also great pizza’s. I was told after the fact that Armando’s should have been in the mix…

The next region is The North End and then we’ll wrap up with the last four where each of the four eaters choose any place we haven’t tried yet (maybe Armando’s slips in…).

Best Watch

PGA Championship - Major golf is back! The last major was in July of 2019, it’s been a long time. Living on the east coast when a major is on the west coast is always fun. Primetime golf on the weekend, especially when there isn’t much else to do, is the greatest (Tiff will likely be in another room watching Golden Girls re-runs…)

Indian Matchmaker - This one slipped through the cracks but after two recommendations from my sister and a friend, we watched two episodes and it’s pretty good. I know the show has received some critiques due to the cultural stereotypes that it perpetuates. If you watch it with a grain of salt and listen to what people think of the show, it’s a worthwhile watch right now. This Bachelor Party interview with Bloomberg’s Shruti Rajagopalon is a good listen, too.

Axios interview with Donald Trump - I’ve watched this interview twice now. It’s incredible to watch someone sit down with Trump and try to reason with him. The bar graphs Trump refers to look like something I’d hand out to a fourth grade class learning how to understand data.

Best Read

Five-Minute Coronavirus Stress Resets - The runaway anxiety that the last five months have produced is tremendous. I’m fortunate to have running and golf to get outside and be around people (or get some individual time). Last week I also joined the Ten Percent Happier 21-day meditation challenge called The Summer Sanity Challenge. It’s been 10 days, and is really helping. This New York Times article offers some good quick calming exercises, too.

Best Listen

Nice White Parents - A New York Times podcast that has three episodes so far. It’s an exceptional listen about a public school in New York city and the racial dynamics that exist when white parents show up and basically try to change the school. Really interesting listen.

Best Eat

Thai Chicken Wraps - This relentless heat has made it tough to motivate ourselves to cook. Firing up the oven or stove is daunting and makes the apartment even hotter. We also ran out of propane, so our grill was out of order for a week or so (nothing like prepping dinner for the grill, firing it up, and then returning five minutes later to a cold grill…). So we’ve been ordering a bit more, and Wednesday night was one of those evenings. I ordered a special from Monument, the Thai chicken wraps. What a delight. They provided some different sauces and I constructed the wraps myself. It’s like a less guilty taco. The ground chicken wasn’t really even flavored, it was all about the sauces. Really good.

Best Drink

Transfusion - This is not a drink I have often, but I’m always glad when I remember it. It’s kind of a weird golf drink. It’s vodka with grape juice, ginger ale, and lime juice. This Tito’s recipe includes muddled grapes and some ginger syrup. It’s refreshing after 18 holes (or during!). Make one, sit outside, and enjoy.