The Case for Concassé

Concassé in the flesh.  Actually Concassé is the flesh.  

    Demi-glace and roux get all the attention.  Unfair, really, as today fewer dishes call for a rich base.  Far more likely are meals with raw components and uncooked sauces, or, my favorite, a well-roasted piece of meat anointed with its own cooking liquid alongside some gently treated vegetable.  And yet a classic and fundamental method trundles along, loyally serving with barely an honorable mention.  Pity: tomato concassé is easy, delicious and versatile.  

    Perhaps the maltreatment begins with the name, derived from the French verb concasser—to crush or grind.  One could be forgiven for confusing the finished product for irregular pulp, but like most culinary fundamentals, tomato concassé is far more prescribed:  Clean, remove the stem root and score with an x one pound of ripe tomatoes.  Bring a large pot of water to the boil and prepare a large ice bath.  Boil tomatoes for 30 seconds before immediately plunging into ice bath for another minute.  Remove to a colander.  Peel skin, half widthwise, de-seed, and roughly chop into pieces approximately 3/8ths of an inch square.  This is specific stuff, and plainly free of any grinding or crushing. The novice will immediately discover that concassé's bluster is in the appearance of careful technique; the doing itself is easy.

    Apparent expediencies exist.  Canned tomatoes aren’t bad, but also effectively demonstrate the advantage of small batches of fresh concassé.  The benchmark for canned tomatoes is Italian. San Marzano, a type of plum tomato, has a high flesh-to-skin/seed ratio, the most consistent examples of which come from Apulia and Campania in the south.  I’ve also seen rare cultivars grown on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius selling for more than a tenner a can.  High or low, canned tomatoes are no more concassé than a bouillon cube is stock.  Canned tomatoes will be skinless, but not seedless. They are mostly cooked through as opposed to blanched.  They are also packed in a puree; the flesh is necessarily waterlogged, which is fine for the long-cooking scenarios of Italian sauces, but unsuitable for quicker application.  Concassé is the opposite in almost every respect: obsessively seedless and skinless, essentially raw, and comparatively drained of liquid—not dry, but concentrated.  The taste is rounder, fruitier and far more vibrant.  

The canned Italian stuff: not bad, just not concassé.

    Concassé is an ingredient rather than a one-dimensional preparation.  Anyone who has spent time perusing Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire will have noticed, often with a frown, that the terse descriptions feature ingredients like “1 deciliter of fish glaze” or “500 grams of forcemeat.”  Of course Escoffier might not have anticipated the amateur referencing his tome.  But the principle of well-understood components serving as ingredients is fundamental to more advanced cookery.  Put another way, if one wishes to improve as home cook, recipes are far less important than technique and ingredients.  Just like roux or a simple pan sauce, tomato concassé is endlessly versatile.  Concassé becomes a familiar and luscious spaghetti sauce when simmered with sautéd mirepoix.  It is essential in rich winter braises of oxtails or short ribs.  Seasoned with salt, concassé is also useful alone: as dollops on a plate of mashed potatoes and roasted chicken, on goat cheese canapés, or as a spread on a sandwich.  

    The lynchpin of all this famous ease, flavor and versatility is the tomato itself.  In case the smarty-pants bit of trivia has been forgotten, tomatoes are fruits.  This is significant; generally speaking, fruits are sweeter and less fibrous than vegetables, but tomatoes also have a pliable vegetable character alongside vibrant acidity.  These characteristics get amplified in concassé and the result is an ingredient that instantly adds desirable complexity to a dish.  Underrated indeed.

With the Grain

    What unearthed memory has led me to a modest collection of brushes?  What stale bristles did I encounter in youth that impressed upon me their worth?  I wish I had some Proustian moment to point to; the best I can muster is a foggy memory of my father whisking sand from my ankles with a dime store hand broom before leaving the beach.  And yet I can barely hold a good brush without studying its design, noting some feature likely invisible to most.  Brushes are tools, but reverential ones.  

    By collection, however, I do not mean a precious and well-lit display.  Each brush is used; when no longer able to perform its intended role, a demotion to some more menial brushing awaits, usually associated with shoes.  Shoes are a terrific excuse for brushes.  So are clothes, teeth, whiskers and felt hats.  A few brushes even deserve their own essays—coming soon, I think.

    Brushing itself is terribly nuanced though.  The brisk passes required to bring up a shine on a toe-cap have nothing in common with the circular nudging used to lather a two day beard.  And brushing a suit deserves five hundred words of its own.  Perhaps that’s why I’m drawn to brushes: each possesses an invitation to uncover a latent technique.  Once learned, the skill remains well past the life of the brush itself.

Seeing the Light

    My favorite style dictums—rules, if such a thing as style could be governed—are those that seemingly, and sometimes blatantly, contradict with other principles of dress.  I’m not referring to matters of opinion; one peacock is always going to disagree with another over sleeve length.  And the current fixation with artful dishevelment—or sprezzatura—is self-defeating because, like irony, the instant the notion is acknowledged its foundation goes poof.  Instead I refer to the hiccup in logic—the disconnect that some fusty tradition creates.  Take the opera pump, the very pinnacle of men’s footwear formality.  We may all agree on the pump’s courtly lineage, and there’s no disputing the slender and elegant line wearing a pair creates.  But we can also agree that even the best pumps are merely loafers with stapled-on silk bows and glued soles—likely the least expensive pair of shoes in the well-dressed man’s wardrobe.  

    And if that keeps some men up at night, imagine what the light-colored tie does?  The one rather dependable rule for neckwear is this: a tie should be much darker than the shirt.  This perhaps was, or should have been, the very first thing taught to every tie-wearing man.  Happily, adhering to the rule is easy as most earnest attempts at pairing tie and shirt seem to naturally abide.  But exceptions—magnificent ones, I might add—exist.  

    The wedding tie is a specific thing, rather than a concept, as most current stylists would have it.  Consequently, an image search turns up very few true examples.  Instead what fills my monitor are anything but: madras, regimentals, knits.  Strictly speaking, a wedding tie is a densely woven silk in a black and white pattern that resolves to silver or gray from a few yards away.  The traditionally small patterns are shepherd’s check, houndstooth and glen plaid, all running on the bias.  I prefer less stringent examples where navy is substituted for black and the pattern is larger.  As a side effect though, a tie like this displays quite a bit of white silk, and the result is a rather light tie.  So what shirt?  Strangely, and for reasons that contradict the aforementioned logic of ties being darker than shirts, my preferred pairing for this type of festive tie is a blue broadcloth shirt—something that reads slightly darker than the tie.  The effect is irrefutably formal, elegant and, I suspect because of the abundance of white, happy.

    The other way of flouting convention is with a buff or palest-yellow tie.  These are largely connoisseur’s items; the majority of printed silk features motifs in lighter color combinations laid over darker grounds, likely for reasons of versatility and ease of pairing.  But the reverse—a lighter ground with a more saturated motif—can be very handsome.  Enter the dress stripe shirt—the fail-safe pairing for most foulards.  On the surface, the problem seems to be that a pale buff foulard will be too light for anything other than a white shirt, let alone a saturated striped shirt.  But the pairing works, somehow amplifying the dark stripes and setting the buff silk aglow.  

    These are happy discoveries, but come with a caution: the light tie can go quickly and dramatically wrong.  The wedding tie with lots of white in the pattern should really be reserved for festive occasions where at least some of the celebration is during the day.  And pale foulards are happy and casual, but almost never look right in the evening.  Perhaps that is the uniting principle: most occasions call for a tie that’s darker than the shirt, but a small collection of pale ties should occasionally see the light. 

The Wine, The Ritual and The Wardrobe

A decanter can be purpose-built, or, as is the case here, the destiny of a cut-glass and silver wedding present.  

“The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather, it proves the offender’s inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual.”

- C.S. Lewis

    As wines age, insolubles agglomerate and precipitate in the form of dusty-looking sediment.  If the wine has been correctly stored, which is to say horizontally, this sediment will have collected in a crop-row along the length of the bottle.  And so the first step to decanting is to stand the bottle upright, gently so as not to cause too great a plume, and for several hours until the sediment has resettled in the ring at the bottom.  Uncorking the bottle without disturbing the sediment requires a steady hand, or—and it pains me to admit this—one of those high-tech lever-action screw-pulls.  The decanter itself need not be one—any wide-necked glass or crystal pitcher will do—but it must be absolutely clean.  The other, rather more exciting accessory is a light source illuminating the bottle’s neck so the pourer can see and prevent any sediment from escaping.  This can be done dramatically with a low candle, but the flashlight function on a smart phone is just as effective.  The decanted wine will not just be sediment-free, but opened up from its long stay in the bottle.  

    The other type of decanting isn’t just a less refined process; it demonstrates quite effectively what is meant by that particularly obtuse term, opened up.  Younger, less complex wines also benefit from leaving the bottle before drinking, but the reason isn’t sediment—it’s air.  In the virtually airless environment of the bottle, a young wine might take several years to find a pleasant balance of tannin, varietal flavor, alcohol and acid.  The introduction of air—oxidation—speeds things up considerably, toning down astringency and amplifying the rounder, fruit flavors lurking just below the surface.  I also find the strong ethanol nose some warm-weather wines can have disappears altogether after decanting.  The method is blessedly simple: unceremoniously uncork a bottle and pour it vigorously into a clean carafe.  Let sit for some unspecified amount of time and drink.

A good hook is indispensable when setting out clothes.  

    I might be unique in drawing the comparison, but I’m always reminded of decanting wine while laying out my clothes.  I rarely remove something directly from a closet or armoire and pull it over my head.  Folded sweaters or polo shirts usually need some mild reshaping; trousers always benefit from a quick shake and smoothing; shirts I snap into life with a flourish.  The practice also affords the opportunity to inspect for marks, missing buttons or creases—those minor emergencies, correctible as they are, still better discovered at home.  But the main purpose is to knock some of the drawer and closet shape out of the garment before wearing—to allow the garment to breathe.  

    Like old wines, more formal clothes require significantly greater attention.  If a suit is needed, I remove it to a hook for inspection.  Despite precautions, lint and dust settle on shoulders and lapels—something remedied by a few gentle sweeps of a quality lint brush.  If a shake doesn’t release the errant wrinkle, out comes the iron and board.  Shirt, tie, handkerchief, socks and shoes are chosen, each carefully inspected and no less subject to brush or iron.  I arrange the various components; an hour later the results have either found a natural harmony or require some minor adjustment.  Either way, it’s the time spent out of ordinary enclosure that reveals.

    The truly devoted rotate their wardrobes and regularly inspect their wine collection; they shine shoes religiously and faithfully note cellar temperature.  These activities are executed in the name of practicality, and the tangible benefits—fresh suits and wine—suggests that practicality alone is motivation enough.  But it would be foolish to deny the ceremony; hobbyists are always aware of ritual.  As C.S. Lewis infers, forgetting oneself is the point.

The Skinny

Paillards, post grill.  Notice they aren't so thin as to shred.  One quarter to one half inch is best.  

    The worst part of making this dish is having to stand in front of a glass case brimming with well-larded red meat and request, out loud, that most anonymous and constant lobe: boneless, skinless chicken breasts please.  I’m always tempted to substitute adjectives; tasteless and soulless seem more accurate anyway.  I can almost hear the butcher’s inner dialogue as he wonders, once more, why his customers pass on the richest fruits of his labor in favor of the dullest.  Allow me to offer a reprieve to both parties.  Ask instead for several chicken cutlets, pounded to a 1/2 inch thickness and separated by wax paper.  There are enough specifics there to suggest a more interesting preparation than mere health food.  Those morsels are the start of that most ignored classic, chicken paillard.

    I say ignored because, of the dishes that begin with pounding flat a piece of meat, the paillard is usually unfamiliar to guests at my table.  What drove the world’s schnitzels and Milaneses, the saltimboccas and tonkatsus to popularity over the humble paillard is a mystery to me.  I’ve nothing against the breading and subsequent frying that most flattened meat undergoes, although if blindfolded, I wonder how many diners would be able to say which similar cutlet was pork, chicken or veal.  Perhaps that’s why I love paillard; it is singular in resisting the fryer.

    But back to the pounding.  Why lay into a cutlet with a mallet anyway?  Is it the crudest, fastest way of tenderizing less prime cuts?  Is it a way of thinning meat for quick, a la minute cookery?  Can a flattened cutlet be stuffed or rolled around some filling?  Does a flattened piece of meat look bigger and fill a dinner plate?  Yes to all of the above, with the common principle being manipulation.  I could tell half a dozen stories of using frying pans, Champagne bottles, rolling pins and pestles to flatten meat, a few of which ended humorously, but the more interesting anecdote is this: I have it on first-hand authority that butchers are secretly thrilled to flatten whatever you request.  No doubt something to do with getting back to the fundamentals of the profession—or perhaps it’s a release for the accumulated anger behind the popularity of boneless, skinless chicken breasts.  In any event—leave the pounding to the professionals.  

Paillards dressed with fried potatoes, arugula and marinated tomatoes.  Chilled Beaujolais, anyone?  

    A considerably gentler touch is required for cooking.  Begin with the marinade.  I find an oily mixture of herbs, crushed garlic, salt, pepper and white wine is the best, as long as at least half of the result is olive oil.  Let the pounded chicken sit refrigerated in this mixture for an hour or so, but bring it back to room temperature before cooking.  Prepare a very hot grill.  Place each paillard at a 45 degree angle.  Close the lid for two minutes.  Rotate each paillard 45 degrees and close the lid for another two minutes.  Flip and close for another two minutes.  There is no need to rotate again; the first side is for presentation.

    Witnessing this dish from start to finish, one might be struck by the brutish, almost unrefined method.  The results are anything but though.  This is elegant, light fare—the sort of thing well-turned-out guests at good hotels order for lunch, or, as it might be put, luncheon.  Oh, and in case your grade school French is rusty: chicken pī-ˈyär.  There's no place for embarrassment at luncheon.

The Ape Apes

    I’m reluctant to say anything regarding vintage clothes, let alone reveal an opinion on the stuff.  As divisive topics go, positions within the genre are seemingly chiseled in granite, and experts are as plentiful as the orphaned suit coats that populate most of the vintage shops I’ve visited.   I’m not even certain what constitutes vintage, a designation that, when said aloud, sounds awfully near a more familiar, less obtuse term: old.  And yet I have unwittingly contributed to the concept, having given away (and in a few instances, sold) good quality clothing and shoes for which I no longer had a need—items that in forty years or so might haunt the racks of scattered second-hand shops.  Actually, I’m in deeper than that: I own a few vintage pieces myself.  What’s more, I cherish them.  

    My father is the primary source, and it never fails to tickle him seeing these garments reanimated.  I suppose the first layer of entertainment comes from seeing something familiar worn in an unfamiliar way.  In my twenties I used to wear a stodgy old houndstooth odd jacket of his with battered denim and driving loafers—a fate no one could have predicted when he bought it from Harrods in the sixties.  But I think a deeper current of pleasure exists for the original wearer: the bittersweet realization that garments that might not seem particularly old have gained an ironic appeal for the current wearer.

    The question of irony is a constant in the matter of vintage clothing.  I must admit a particular distaste for calculated irony in clothing, a category that for me spans from clever slogans on t-shirts straight through to bespoke button boots.  I prefer ernest attempts at personal style.  The problem, of course, is any line between the genuine and the affected is invisible, or purposely obscured, or verboten from being identified.  Put another way, irony vanishes the instant it is acknowledged.  I have a vintage Pringle sweater of my father’s with a single, exploded argyle rendered in pastels.  In university, to emphasize its unlikely presence, I wore it beneath a black motocross jacket.  The effect was singular, striking—but unrepeatable in its contrivance.  Fifteen years on, I feel comfortable wearing it again—this time over mid-gray flannels, and not even on Easter.

    And what would wearable postmodernism look like?  A high-concept couture gown that rejects its own label and categorization as a dress?  Androgynous Lycra separates which simultaneously display and conceal?  My vintage entry into postmodernism is the result of a more literal self-reference: the dustiest of ancient madder prints—buff and red paisleys on a gold and navy ground—but rendered in cheap cotton twill and cut and sewn into a humble button-collar work shirt.  The ideas at play have been deeply mined from the masculine cannon, but the result is surprisingly soft, feminine even.  I wear it for lounging at home, and more than once has its reflected image startled.

    My own contribution to the constant gyre of vintage clothing will materialize in waves.  It’s too difficult to discern a pattern in gestational period—how long some garment must hang in stasis before regaining its appeal for someone new.  Will it be only a few years before my graphic-print t-shirts— embarrassingly tight, occasionally threadbare—lure my daughters with the same irreverent slogans and self-conscious images that once seemed important to me?  Or will it take forty years before a curious nephew unearths my favorite trilby?  Are my tailored garments really just costumes for some unknown grandchild?  Among these unanswerables is a certainty: old clothes have value.

It's Alive!

Country calf: pebbly.  

    What has three eyes, an excellent tan and an open throat?  Possibly the most versatile men’s shoe, of course.  By open throat, we are in the world of derbies (bluchers), the more casual configuration of traditional shoe as compared to closed-throat oxfords.  However, the reduced number of eyelets, two or three as opposed to the standard five, and lack of any further ornamentation elevate this shoe above the merely casual.  The color?  Some deep, reddish brown that gets along with indigo denim through pale gray flannel.  These were once known as hilo shoes—a sort of truncated chukka boot with a sleek, unadorned shape.  

    The problem is in fine-tuning the configuration without losing the mind.  Do two rather than three eyelets increase the formality or nudge the results from useful to weird?  Should the sole be a low-profile single, as seen on oxfords and loafers, or the more rugged double leather typical of derbies?  Or perhaps the hilo is an opportunity to use a thin rubber sole for durability and all-weather wear?  There is another nagging question.  I have long wanted a shoe in the pebbly, characterful leather know as country calf.  Is this the right application?

    Strangely, when I realize the need for a new pair of shoes, the impulse is as likely to originate as a color than anything else.   This is unusual; most men might say something like “I need a conservative oxford for business” or, “suede wingtips would be perfect with my flannel suit.”  I suppose I’ve thought something similar, but usually it goes more like this: “tan shoes for summer would be great!”  I then realize I would rarely need a tan oxford, which leaves derbies, monk-straps and loafers.  Perhaps I have seen a good looking monk-strap recently; inspired, I picture the monk-strap in the shade of tan I have in mind.  If no capillaries have burst, I file the idea away for a month or two.  Following this gestational period, and if it seems my mind’s eye was firing on all pistons when conceived, the project gets green-lighted.  

A monk's defining feature--the buckle.  A more sensible option to the rather obscure hilo?

    Speaking of monk-strap shoes, they seem to occupy a similar place in a man’s shoe wardrobe to the hilo—neither particularly dressy nor so casual as to never see wear with a suit.  In fact, I vacillate between this hilo idea and a sturdy monk even now as I try to bring the vision into greater focus.  Versatility seems such a straightforward concept; the more one meddles with its underpinnings, though, the more likely it becomes to lose control of the reins, the project itself generating its own, rather disconcerting life.

    Certainly no one shoe can do it all, from dinner jacket to jeans.  But I bet a pebbly, reddish, three-eyelet derby would get a lot of use in-between.  Of course there is always the risk of creating something ghastly—something that ticks all the requirements and sounds sensible, but, once released from its box, causes the sharp intake of air from its creator.  I think only the most experienced men nail the details every time ; I feel a more realistic aspiration is in learning to avoid the monstrous.

The Small Things

    Between the steamer trunk and the hand-bag exists the traveler who goes lightly, but not entirely without those small artifacts of civility.  For my wife, these are capra goat hair makeup brushes, at least four sizes and individually wrapped in tissue paper.  She is otherwise a very sensible companion.  My small cache of home comfort consists of three utilitarian items, not one of which has ever raised the suspicions of a surly border agent.  

    A thumb-sized purse might have slipped into irrelevance with a move to the US where the $1 banknote made carrying coinage unnecessary.  It rode in the center console of my car for some time holding quarters, but even parking meters are paid in plastic these days.  It now is essential when I travel, holding collar stays, cuff links and the occasional tie-pin (for windy, tie-wearing occasions abroad).  Pig skin, double stitched with a nickel zipper.  Despite physical abuse, not to mention multiple existential upheavals, it endures.  

    A shoe horn might seem an obvious-enough accoutrement to travel, but try finding one small enough that doesn’t require unfolding or some other switch-blade-like action alarming to security guards and spouses.  Mine is black leather embossed in gold with the words “Made in England,” a calming phrase which must defray some of the shoe-horn’s threatening nature.  I have no idea where it came from; it appeared one day in my carry-on like some sort of talisman of a future without crushed heel-cups.

    The final, and most recent addition to my arsenal of creature comforts is a mitten of shearling and pebble grain leather for the purpose of buffing one’s shoes while away from the full complement of emollients and horse-hair brushes.  The design is ingenious, rolling up to save space (and, presumably, the purity of the sheep pile).  I have not yet had the opportunity to test the full patience of a border agent with this device; it can’t possibly be any more offensive than individually wrapped cosmetic brushes.

New York City's Leffot has a basket of these nestled among a collection of very fine shoes.  

Heave and Cleave

An ideal splitting surface has a wide sturdy base and tightly packed grain.  

    When I was a boy, Robert Frost’s 1915 poem “The Wood Pile” inspired me to take up a splitting axe and go to work on a mouldering stack of logs behind my childhood home.  The poem itself doesn’t romanticize the chore; the speaker understands the labor required to split a cord and is puzzled that it should have been spent only to abandon the fruits in an untrammeled wood.  Fuel disappears in a fireplace at about the same pace it takes to split, haul and stack it. This is why the fellow with the tender shoulders and rough hands is least likely to complain of a dying fire and the cooling living room.  Splitting logs is damned hard work.  It’s also terrific exercise.  

    What would Frost think of the current taste for mimicking labor for the purpose of exercise?  Some of these gyms have duffle bags full of stones; paying clients haul them around in punishing routines.  It brings to mind another Frost poem “Mending Wall”

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
​To each the boulders that have fallen to each. (13-16).

Frost is aware of the futility of repairing a stone wall that each year tumbles, but at least there is a wall to point to (or a tradition to uphold).  What about mimicking splitting wood, a task with neither?  In a gym, this is safely executed by pounding a tractor tire with a sledgehammer.  I don’t doubt the exercise is effective; I just prefer having a wood pile to admire when finished.  

    Of course wood-splitting isn't possible without a few arrangements.  Space—say a clearing with a five-yard diameter.  Some shock-absorbing surface is best—wood chips or grass—to help deaden the flight of the errant log.  The best splitting surface is a heavy and squat log—some unsplittable cross section taken from the base of a tree with the beginnings of a root structure that will act as a stabilizing flange.  The axe must be a splitting axe, or maul, with a wedged head not lighter than seven pounds and a sturdy handle with a reenforced neck.  Goggles and gloves are supposed to be worn.  

    The technique is rudimentary, engrained even.  Stance is shoulder width.  Dominant hand grasps the neck, the other firmly above the pommel.  Take aim at the cut end of a vertical log, drawing the axe back on the dominant side before bringing it up and over the head.  On the down-stroke, slide the dominant hand down the handle, driving the axe head into the center of the log.  The poetry, and I suspect the physical benefit, is in the rhythm that develops.  If you wish to last more than a few logs, a measured pace must be established.  Don’t forget that retrieving and stacking the spits is half the work.  Aim for duration rather than volume.  Learn to cleave in one blow.  If (and when) the maul gets jammed, put the log on the ground, step on it and rock the handle back and forth until released.  If that doesn’t work, lift the jammed log to the swinging position and execute a controlled stroke, striking with the sledge end of the axe.  The log will split itself over the upturned blade.  

    What about safety?  I know I have split safely when, the day following a session, my torso and shoulders are sore.  But a sore back portends injury.  A back becomes sore when it is put in charge of the stroke—a mistake as the back lacks control.  And the arms are merely the cables holding the axe; control comes from the front and sides of the midsection—the muscles facing the action.  I wonder, though, if the same exertion occurs when the danger is removed—say when pounding an immobilized rubber tire with a sledge hammer?  I think Frost would agree: the difference between a sisyphean task and a fruitful one is purpose: “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know / What I was walling in or walling out” (“Mending Wall” 32-33). 

The fruit.

The Full Complement

One or two courses?

    Indecision.  Conspicuousness.  Mediocrity.  Subterfuge.  Disappointment. A classic dish with a resume like this should already have perished alongside the ham in aspics and salmon molds that haunt an American culinary past.  A silly, rhyming name (made much worse by a juvenile contraction) should have been the death blow.  Surf n’ Turf persists, though, a recurring zombie of seaside and landlocked restaurants from sea to shining sea.  Maybe that very appeal of bicoastaliality is the dish’s lifeline; perhaps the symbolism of a plate groaning beneath the fruits of a wholesome land and a fecund sea is just too good to cast aside.  But then why isn’t Surf n’ Turf our national dish?

    The classic preparation is either a demonstration of restraint or an opportunity to check off the list of regrets that opened this short essay.  Ideally the beef is premium, relatively lean and not too large.  A small filet mignon—better, perhaps to call it petite—is the unrivaled correct choice when grilled properly.  Next to that morsel: a modest lobster alive when boiled.  Lemon and parsley are welcome, Béarnaise sauce borderline.  So what’s the problem?  Cost.  Two premium proteins, even if dining at home, is an expensive premise.  Restaurants manage the issue by altering expectations.  A single filet becomes filet tips or shell steak smothered in mushrooms (effectively hiding the diminutive portion), and the lobster loses its claws and body—the tail is “butterflied,” which is menu code for “pushed out of the shell to make it look bigger.”  Everything swims in sauces or hides beneath a shower of parsley.  Lemon wedges fill in any remaining gaps.  Cost is driven down, but the consumer price remains lofty.  

    The other route—one I endorse to an extent—is to alter the theoretical premise of the dish.  Higher concept restaurants have been doing this for years.  I’ve had scallops filled with braised beef cheeks.  I’ve also had bone marrow foam alongside razor clams.  This might sound avant guard, but the idea trickles down the line (and far back, historically).  Bacon-wrapped scallops?  Crab-topped steak?  What about that Victorian classic beef and oyster pie?  Spanish paella?  Food from the Azores seems not even to draw much of a distinction between surf and turf: pork, sausage, mollusks and fish appearing in conjunction is standard.

    I find the best approach is to think in terms of dishes.  One pork dish, and one scallop dish.  One platter of barbecued chicken alongside a poached salmon.  Skirt steaks grilled and served with roasted tomatoes and a dish of rare tuna, sliced over arugula.  When two dishes are made, options multiply.  One or the other can be eaten; one can be eaten, then the other; they can be eaten together.  The user determines the level of harmony, from none, to two proceeding courses, to an experimental pairing of land and sea.  

    Harmony is really the point.  Azoreans know well that pork fat enriches otherwise lean shellfish.  Meaty oysters seem at home with braised beef and bacon has never detracted from a scallop.  These examples rely upon each other, which, sadly, reveals the downfall of classic surf n turf.  Filet with lobster is a pairing based upon pretense—the expectation of luxury—rather than palpable harmony.  Apart they are noble; together they are complementary in name only. 

Pork tenderloin shares a grill with large scallops.  Whether they share a plate is another matter entirely.  

Heavy Metal

The blazer wall (part of it, actually) at Tender Buttons.  

    Where did I come into the idea that, with perseverance and an easy attitude, a suitable blazer button would make itself known through the piles of uninspired, unentitled, ugly, and unworthy?  Why should I ever have thought something handsome and understated would have found me?  I suppose some naiveté can be forgiven; the internet promises vast choice, but remarkably few viable leads.  And even trace impatience erodes the delicacy of the task.  Choosing a blazer button demands respect for what’s at stake: the finished garment’s character.  

    The smart shopper will know in advance what the things on buttons mean.  At the top and most explicit level, school, club and military emblems.   These are easy to eliminate from a search if one has no attachment to the institution.  Paradoxically, these are the most prevalent.  They tend to be intricate, colorful and loaded with busy symbolism.  My impression is they are more secret handshake than understated elegance anyway.  Generic symbolism comes next.  These cast a broad net: lions (monarchy), thistles (Scotland), anchors (nautical), but always strike me as adrift in vagueness.  Does the thistle-wearer endorse an independent Scotland?  Will the anchor-wearer blush if asked about his boat?  A subspecies of this category is the literal symbol: golf clubs, racquets, guns, foxes, pheasants, ducks etc.  These are safe for the sportsman who wields or shoots at one of these, but, again, what if the wearer just likes water fowl?  The rarest category is the blazer button free of anything literal or symbolic—the metal disk with some subtle machining or nothing at all.  This is what I’m after.  

    Keep in mind though that no garment is ever entirely free of association.  A tank-top means something; so do horn-rimmed spectacles.  A navy blazer with metal buttons, regardless of what appears on them, will register some association with those who encounter it.  My intention is that my blazer registers as a blazer rather than an orphaned suit coat; I am relying upon metal buttons to some extent, but also upon the textured hopsack cloth and gently swelled edges.  Put another way, the buttons are only part of the display.

    New York City’s Tender Buttons was the most promising brick-and-mortar source.  While a charming place, the choices are either very specific (Civil War uniform buttons set in 18K gold) or, and it pains me to say this as the place really is lovely, rather generic.  Online (or through a tailor) new buttons can be had from two premium English sources: Holland & Sherry and Benson & Clegg.  The former offers an edited selection of generic and literal symbols alongside a handful of plains all in solid brass, some enameled or plated in precious metals.  The latter offers much the same at a lower price point as well as school, club and sporting buttons.

    The wild card in this endeavor is the wider marketplace—the public auction or street vendor.  Perhaps one has Welsh or Swiss roots, or was born in Hong Kong or Auckland.  Perhaps one’s uncle was a paratrooper, a crack shot or a wizard.  Maybe the albatross or loon is a point of personal fascination.  Buttons featuring all of these exist waiting to be snatched from the ether.   A family friend recently sent me an image of some buttons she found at a market with hopes of deciphering the strange symbol of a chimeric creature wrapped about a gothic column.  I haven’t turned up anything yet; if she wears them perhaps someone will one day approach with an elaborate handshake.  Now that would be a good button story.

Knit Picking

Behold--the world's most versatile garment.  Made by Sunspel.

   In the context of clothing, summer is far less predictable than winter.  Cold weather always requires layers of covering; whether 13 ounce worsted or 15 ounce flannel, whether a shetland vest beneath tweed or a lightweight cashmere roll-neck beneath camelhair—these decisions are about personal tolerance.  The wearer can shed or pile on as necessary.  Not so for summer.  Depending on the occasion, warm weather might have one in a suit, where light or breathable cloth is the only defense against challenging heat, or on the beach where trunks and a polo are suddenly inadequate against a stiff, onshore breeze.  I have experienced that last scenario too often; I now always bring a sweater to the beach.

    What qualifies a knit as a warm weather garment is the construction and/or the composition.  The most disappointing garment I have ever owned had high marks in both categories—an expensive lisle cotton crew-neck.  Perhaps the problem was that it was too good; by the end of season two it was unsalvageable.  I hear knit linen is more durable than cotton, with many of the same cool-wearing properties, but its loose weave and droopy weight always remind me of fishing nets—not the seaside connotation I am aiming for.

    In my experience, merino wool is far superior to either.  A relatively high-twist means the yarn can be woven to a smooth, breathable finish that is at once resilient and very fine.  The result is something that won’t wilt in a beach bag and is smart enough for casual lunches and dinners.  Merino is soft enough to be worn against bare skin—preferably this way in warm climates as when layered the insulation multiplies—and will launder easily on a delicate cycle or in a hotel sink.  Laid flat on a towel-covered luggage rack before heading out, a merino sweater will be dry well before cocktail hour.  

The collared knit: at home on boat decking or under an odd coat.

    The way the neck is finished is what gives these various sweaters their names: crew-neck, v-neck, polo-neck, turtleneck.  I have one of each, but I might as well have just one: a navy cardigan.  In merino, this configuration might be the apex of versatility in wardrobe theory.  I wear mine over shirts and under tweed, over polos at the beach and under a blazer to dinner.  I can vaguely recall the last time I travelled without it: I was chilly.

    Actually all merino knits are good for travel; in addition to resilience and versatility, they are thin enough to pack without sacrificing too much space.  I find they also suggest themselves in ways they might not when home; a navy polo-collared merino knit really is very dashing with cream linen trousers.  And v- and crew-necks are perhaps a man’s best excuses for neckerchiefs.  Could these knits be the link between all elements of masculine style?  Perhaps, but I should stop before readers suspect me of having a stake in the global merino wool trade.

Fish Story

This red snapper has lemon, spring onion and mint stuffed in its cavity--not such a terrible fate.  

    Delicate sauces, well-planned side dishes—even handsomely laid tables—these components of a good meal go ignored the instant some large, primal piece of protein is introduced.  Is respect for the unbutchered beast hardwired into our species?  Does the felled mastodon stir our appetites still?  I think it does; Thanksgiving is a celebration of bounty, the centerpiece of which is a large, unadulterated bird.  Consider too the modern pig roast; the ones I’ve been too are as much about status and chest beating as good taste.  And then there is fish.  The true mark of a good haul isn’t the gentle fillet or the raw morsel.  Only the whole fish, cooked and plated, proclaims mastery of the sea.

    Cooking anything whole requires an unexpected restraint, but none more than fish.  I say unexpected because the assumption is usually the opposite—that hauling and preparing something large and intact requires elaborate procedure.  While a pig can be heavy and unwieldy, even a large fish is a one-man operation.  It begins like this: “One cleaned fish please.”  Cleaning fish—removing the guts, scales and fins—is nasty business and there is no advantage to doing it yourself.  Once home, season the cavity with salt, herbs, lemon and onion, tying it off in a few places with butcher’s twine.  Drizzle the outside with olive oil and lemon juice and season with salt.  Roast in a hot oven or grill over medium-high heat until skin is crisp and flesh opaque.  Over- or under-doneness is not much of a concern—when it looks finished, it is.  

    Good results begin with selecting the right fish.  If a grill or oven is large enough, a whole salmon is a very dramatic thing to put on a table for six or more.  Red snapper (typically from the Gulf or Caribbean) seems exotic but is widely available.  Its red skin turns mahogany when roasted and its flesh is mild.  Serves two to three.  For one reason or another, branzino from the Mediterranean is a bit of a status fish.  Its flesh is sweet and mild and crisps well in a hot pan or grill.  One per person as an entree.  Oily fish, like mackerel and sardines, are pungent and do best over real charcoal or roasted in a wood-oven, where the smoke and char are good foils to any fishiness.  

    There are bones in whole fish.  Announce this four or five times before service, and then twice more during.  Even then, some boob will no doubt point out: “there are bones in this!”  Unless you are a connoisseur of invertebrates, there are bones in all creatures we eat.  We don’t throw down our silver at Thanksgiving and announce that there are bones in our turkey legs, do we?  So why does the presence of bones in fish consistently alarm?  I suspect some combination of squeamishness and fear of choking is to blame.  The solution is very simple though: anticipate bones, chew slowly and don’t panic if one is encountered.  

    The very presence of those inedible parts—the bones, heads, tails etc—is what makes whole fish a pleasure.  They force a slower, leisurely pace—not methodical, just unhurried.  This is food that requires interaction from its audience—conscious, attentive eating full of knife and fork work and sips of wine.  The appearance of a whole fish might be primal, but eating it is rather more civilized.

Presto (Patience)

My shirt bucket materializes beneath a magic oak tree when summoned.  

    Remedies for stains often have a whiff of magic.  Treat red wine with white, as if the latter is the cosmic opposite of the former and, when introduced, both will vanish in a poof of cancelled ions.  And do we all realize that the prevailing theory for why club soda is superior to plain water is that the former’s fizz levitates the stain from cloth?  As for commercially available products, I would be hesitant to squirt anything with sensational claims on my clothes, no matter how charismatic (or Australian) the spokesperson.  

    The rather boring truth is oil and water-based marks in washable cloth—what we commonly refer to as stains—can be removed or lessoned with soap, hot water, rinsing and patience.  That last bit—patience—is crucial.  Soaking a soiled garment is often the difference between salvation and the Salvation Army.

    First, a word on prevention.  I suspect qualms about tucking a dinner napkin into a shirt collar can be traced to a common fear of the lace jabot.  This strikes me as a legitimate concern, as demonstrated by George Lazenby in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.  But if splash-prone foods are forced upon me, I prefer jabot to uh-oh.  The other, and more sensible option, is to avoid dishes with a higher probability of splatter.  Soup is deadly; Alaskan crab legs worse.  Strand pasta is dangerous too; of course most Italian men I know are not afraid of temporarily looking like Lazenby.  

    Despite precautions, stains happen—sometimes just as magically as those cooky remedies mentioned above—and when they do, a good soak is the wisest option.  The vessel is important.  I prefer a standard round bucket as its narrow opening prevents garments from merely floating on the surface, and a large one will keep five or six shirts comfortably submerged.  This bucket should be dedicated to its role, something best achieved with masking tape, a permanent marker and a sternly worded message.  A lid is useful, but not necessary.  

    A good solution is hot and soapy.  Some swear by white vinegar as its mild acid seems to loosen stains and deodorize, but I find natural white soap works much better and without the unpleasant Greek salad top notes.  Using a micro-plane grater, grate several tablespoons of soap into the bucket; fill two-thirds full with very hot water, stirring to dissolve soap; plunge garments; leave the house if you cannot resist the urge to prod and stir and fuss.  Several hours later (or the next morning) lift the bucket into a deep sink and run cold water into it until the garments are thoroughly rinsed.  Drain, squeezing extra water out, and launder as usual on a gentle cycle.  Hang-dry and press.  

    Admittedly, soapy water and buckets are less exciting than hocus-pocus potions and alakazam additives.  If you feel the above procedure lacks pizzaz, consider painting your bucket black and adding a brim: your shirts will emerge like pristine bunnies from a top hat.  Personally, I am satisfied with the slow magic of soap, water and time.

Shouldering The Burden

Artist's rendering of proposed travel coat (borrowed pen on cocktail napkin).

   Travel is usually considered broadening, but I wonder if it also reins one’s imagination in, creating focus where before was only whimsy.  I write from an airport lounge, the morning after packing, and at least an hour before that cart rumbles down the aisle bearing a Bloody Mary.  I am preoccupied with clothes for travel; not the stuff neatly stored in a (hopefully) single carry-on, but the ones intended for the journey itself.   At the moment I have on ready-wear chinos and a navy merino cardigan over a shirt, a comfortable if somewhat pajama-like ensemble.   But “travel cardigan” hardly seems like a sound solution for racing between planes and trains.  No—a travel odd coat is what’s needed.

    Traveling clothes is a romantic genre full of tweed capes, reversible balmacaans and hidden buttons.  Historically, the principle was simple: more durable, less precious clothes should be worn that still look well enough to appear in public.  Features, such as convertible collars that could effectively be worn up, might afford some additional comfort in a drafty club car, but I suspect had as much to do with novelty as necessity.  Tweed suits were standard; so were wardrobe trunks and porters and bar cars captained by experienced barmen—irrelevant, the lot of it.

Porter & Harding's Glorious Twelfth book is packed with faux tweeds made of high-twist worsted wool in busy little patterns--perfect for camouflaging the occasional mishap.  

    Today’s travel garments reflect the current environment, one that, if we believe Agatha Christie, has significantly decreased in elegance.  Comfort, convenience and security are the main objectives, which wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t translate into oversized clothes made of nylon embellished with more zippers, latches and buckles than a standard flak jacket.  Designers view traveling as battle, and the ready-wear market for this specialized type of clothing is packed with technical garments.

    I think a good travel coat should securely contain passports, boarding passes, device(s) and whatever else is needed, but not at the expense of style, and, more to the point, ordinariness.  This might mean nothing more exciting than a subtle navy check with patch-and-button-flap pockets, perhaps one or two additional interior pockets, and a durable lining.  I don’t mean the coat should be uninteresting; I just want to be able to wear it outside of the context of travel without even a single Inspector Gadget reference.

Proposed Guidelines for Travel Coat:

Cloth must not be precious

Cloth must be durable and somewhat breathable

Color should be dark, or busy enough to disguise the minor calamity

Pockets must be sturdy rather than capacious, and might benefit from having a button closure

Lining is necessary so the coat won’t grip trousers while you leg-it to another terminal

Coat should be useful upon arrival at destination

A Master Presses

    Sometimes words fail, and not because a few can’t be committed to paper—that never seems to be a problem.  Describing the complex or entirely subjective can be a challenge, but some jagged attempt is always possible.  No—the impasse to which I refer has little to do with ability; sometimes words are just not the best medium.  

    Returning from a recent trip, and despite my well planned packing, I found a linen suit was creased beyond the charming rumples that make wearing the stuff a pleasure.  With a holiday weekend full of invitations approaching, I needed it pressed.  As it happened, I had an appointment with my tailor, Chris Despos, so I brought the suit along with hopes of a tutorial.  What I instead witnessed was a master in his dojo vanquishing wrinkles with razor-sharp focus, speed and a few moments of humor.  

    His iron is old and formidable.  His bench wears a battered padded top.  Other implements—a standard spray bottle, a sleeve board, a shoulder stand, strips of unbleached muslin—are no more high-tech than the principle behind pressing itself.  As Despos puts it: “wrinkles release under pressure, heat and steam—remove one and you aren’t pressing.”  This is why he warns against hanging garments in a steam-filled bathroom—that old routine does little  but fuzzes the nap and puckers the seams.  

    I dislike when crafts or skills are compared to art as I feel doing so cheapens both.  But I must admit the parallels to poetry are obvious: form, structure, intent, beauty, and, finally, imperfection.  “A suit,” Despos says, “should never be perfectly pressed.”   Could have fooled me.

The Latest Amendment

Hockey puck in size, not density.  Pack loosely and you will be rewarded with a tender and moist hamburger.

    “Hamburgers and Hotdogs” isn’t a meal; it’s a declaration of indifference.  When someone asks “What can I bring?” the answer is too often: “We’re just doing hamburgers and hotdogs, so bring whatever.”  In other words, so generic and casual is this thing we are hosting, that should you turn up late, drunk and empty-handed, it won’t matter.  I feel this is a shame; hamburgers and hotdogs deserve a more respectable seat in the pantheon of authentic foods.

    The prevalence of deeply processed, bland and generic versions is responsible for the pejorative sense of the expression “hamburgers and hotdogs”.  For those who haven’t experienced either, the former arrive frozen and mechanically punched out, the latter, as disturbingly uniform tubes vacuum sealed in plastic.  They are either burned over a hot grill or carelessly heated through, slathered with sweet condiments and sandwiched between cheap, sugary bread.

    Of course I should step gingerly here.  I realize dismantling prized examples of American authenticity is a tricky business, even if the intentions are good.  And so, in the spirit of not wanting to offend, I’ll sidestep specific origin stories and further declarations of mediocrity and just say this: hamburgers and hotdogs share common European ancestry, arriving independently in the US sometime in the latter half of the 19th Century where they became, through the gyre of American assimilation, widespread, iconic, and the food of nostalgia.

    What’s most surprising is that hamburgers and hotdogs share more than similarities of origin; they are born of a common technique.  Most would immediately recognize a hotdog as a sausage, but hamburger meat is really just beef sausage that has been made into patties rather than stuffed into casings and twisted into links.  Sausage as a genre is about maximizing yield from a slaughtered animal—taking lean, tough meat and grinding it with fat and seasonings until palatable.  What shape is made of the result is only a matter of taste.  

Real frankfurters are longer than the generic hotdog.  One more reason to ditch the bun.  

    The hotdog, what we might more specifically refer to as a Frankfurter, is a style of sausage where a beef and pork filling is ground to a smooth, emulsified forcemeat.  The mixture is then encased in a particularly snappy casing, smoked and cooked through.  The results need only warming though in a hot water bath (as is done in New York) or brief coloring on a medium grill.  Making frankfurters at home is possible, although quite a bit of time and equipment is needed.  Better to find a German butcher.

    Hamburgers, however, I insist you make at home. This is how I do it: find a reputable butcher.  Ask for two large  ribeye steaks, ground-to-order.  Endure the inevitable raised eyebrows and suggestions to buy their pre-ground burger meat.  Once home, put the ground meat into a stainless steel bowl.  Season with salt and pepper, mixing sparely.  Form loose patties slightly larger than hockey pucks.  Gently grill over medium heat, flipping once.  Do not, press, bash, or flip like some chipper 1950’s diner chef.

    I decorate both with restraint.  When good, the well seasoned meat needs little, although a dab of sharp mustard works well.  Even buns are optional, although frankfurters go well in pretzel rolls and it’s difficult to improve upon the structural advantages of a toasted English muffin for hamburgers.   If you still find “Hamburgers and Hotdogs” has a whiff of indifference about it, try delivering the platter to the table with the proud declaration: “Two types of authentic American sausages.”  If you are met with fifteen minutes of silent eating: success.

Trousers, À La Carte

Most dress codes today ban things rather than suggest standards from fear of driving away business.

    Most have heard of the traditional, albeit somewhat fusty, practice of the emergency tie—the inevitably creased and limp piece of silk kept behind a maitre d’s podium for the guest who might have forgotten his own.  In a perfect scenario, the tie is the establishment’s own, perhaps embroidered with an insignia and in some muted color palette.  More often it has been fished from the lost-and-found bin, dribbles of clam chowder still very much intact. 

    I have seen the practice extended to blazers at clubs and restaurants that require a jacket.  Hilarity ensues when a busboy is sent to chase down the borrower who, after two glasses of chilled Beaujolais, has forgotten he wasn’t wearing one when he entered.  But during a recent visit to the Yucatán Peninsula, I witnessed this practice applied to the lower half: the lending of trousers, I am sad to report, exists. 

    It was the evening following a raucous wedding, and our large party had a considerable wait before the tables and staff could be mustered.  We were in good, if groggy, spirits, and filled the time pleasantly with rounds of Havana Club, Aqua Mineral y Limón.  Several restaurants faced each other in the courtyard where we lounged and people-watching was inevitable.  At some point I became aware of a group of men stepping into what appeared to be baggy trousers.  I considered for a moment if they were some sort of troupe gearing up for a performance, but then they followed the tuxedoed maitre’d into the dining room and sat down.  Several moments later, and in front of another restaurant, I saw a sunburnt couple approach; a few words were exchanged before the hostess reached into the drawer of a small chest, producing a similar pair of large, black pants.  The man sheepishly stepped into them before being seated. And then I grasped the game: the dress codes of all these places prohibited shorts, but rather than turn away those wearing them, the savvy business decision had been made to provide trousers.  

This beach-goer has little to fear come dinnertime on the Yucatán coast.

    This anecdote might just be a cheeky account from a foreign port-of call.  But with ample time on the return flight to consider the implications, I have decided the lending of trousers is significant beyond its humor.  The practice asks: what is a dress code?  Historically, rules governing dress are signifiers of status.  Consider sumptuary laws from ancient Greece through Medieval Europe and feudal Japan.  Portions of these rules dealt specifically with what cloths and degree of tailoring various echelons of society were entitled to.  We might view this as quaint or irrelevant today, but consider that many laws remained in place through the Protestant Reformation, and indeed made landfall in the US alongside Puritan settlers.  This idea—that rules of dress rein-in and separate—is still ingrained, something that sadly plays itself out by the toting of so called luxury brands.  One might argue that the steeper taxes often imposed on these goods are a contemporary version of sumptuary laws—a built-in penalty for those who desire to display their riches.

    The other way of looking at a dress code is as an aid in the face of confounding and infinite choice.  If men are asked to wear tuxedoes, and if what constitutes a tuxedo is not permitted to drift, then there exists little room for error.  If guests are instead asked to wear, as one recent invitation put it, “chic party clothes” the margin for egregious faux pas is a gaping canyon.  Put simply: the presence of a clear dress code is a relief rather then a burden.  It must, of course, be enforced if expected to equalize those to whom it applies.    

    The problem with handing pants out at the door (not the hygiene one) is that they don’t improve the aesthetics of a dining room; nor do they shame anyone into dressing better in the future, as demonstrated by the hooting and hollering men I saw cinched into their communal coveralls.  Ultimately, what may have started as a quiet convenience for the tie-less man has ballooned into a farcical enabler of ever lower standards.

The cocktails were good there though.

Evenly Cooked

    For me, the realization that I wasn’t the sort of person whose skin grows golden and lustrous in the sun came shortly following a vigorous game of lacrosse on a South Florida beach when I was perhaps fourteen.  The tingling I felt was not, as I had thought, the salt water and kicked up sand; it was the beginning of a very bad burn.  The next morning, as those around me woke up handsomely burnished and ready for another game, my shoulders and back had developed a Mars-scape of scorched plains and raised plateaus.

    Happily, my skin has changed over the years and seems to take a light tan rather well now.  I say happily because, as anyone who has taken a look at one of those complexion color wheels knows, very little complements the permanently pale.  While I would never strive for George Hamilton levels of tan, a bit of sun on the cheeks can dramatically broaden the range of flattering shades worn.   While I emphasize light above, I wonder if natural is the real operative word; it’s the difference between someone who has tanned, and the tan acquired by someone while otherwise engaged.  The latter is, in my experience, far preferable.

These suggestions have served me well:

Find an activity to do.  Like a rotisserie chicken, movement in front of a heat source produces more even results.

Several applications of lower SPF are better than one slathering of higher SPF—strikingly similar to basting.

The use of accelerants, tanning beds and spray colorant is akin to artificial flavorings and dyes.  

If sedentary tanning must be done, avoid overdoing it.  A few minutes on each side should do.

No napping; the danger of waking up well-done is just too great.

Palms provide lousy shade.  

Some Haul

A jacket neatly inverted and folded.

    For a certain sector of clothing enthusiast, nowhere do principles of cloth selection, construction, versatility and coordination more perfectly culminate than when it comes time to contain their garments in a case for travel.  Packing, is for those fringe elements, art.  I can’t say I share the position; neither can I deny a certain pleasure in a properly packed case that produces barely wrinkled, easily unpacked garments a few moments after arriving at a destination.  So in that spirit, I offer a few principles of packing well.  

    At the heart of the matter is a tension between efficiency and care—the need to use space wisely and the desire not to damage your things in the process.  I firmly favor care, which means I’d rather pack less and make do then cram more and risk wrinkled lapels and shoulders unsalvageable with mere irons and shower steam.  But I also believe the right case can allow some compromise between the two.  A hard shell case might seem old fashioned, but cannot be beaten for interior space and exterior durability.  

    These also encourage the building of an interior architecture.  For a short trip, that architecture might look as follows: two pairs of odd trousers, halved at the knee and laid flat; one pair of shoes, in shoe bags, one at either end of the case; socks and underwear folded or rolled along the long sides of the case; into the central cavity now created by shoes, socks and underwear place folded shirts, handkerchieves, ties, sweaters, polos, bathing suit and dopp kit in layers; buckle straps, if present; finally, lay tailored jackets, shoulders pushed through and folded in half, on top and gently close the lid.  

    What’s this business about pushing shoulders through?  As techniques go, this one is better shown than described, but the basic principle is to reverse one shoulder into the cavity of the other and then fold the jacket in half, protecting the lapels and jacket fronts in the process.  There are two things to keep in mind though.  One, the interior straps of a hard case are terrific for securing your other items, but to cinch a gorgeous navy double breasted is criminal. Secondly, this is a technique most suited to active traveling shorter than three hours, after which time wrinkles are inevitable.  

    Enter the garment bag, by which I don’t mean the luggage variety meant to be checked.  Instead I refer to the vinyl or cloth ones that come with suits.  I despise having to keep these, but I do for precisely the following reason.  Whether through magic or physics, a suit in a garment bag, folded in half and put into a case resists wrinkles.  This ease and care comes at heavy cost though; plopping a garment bag full of suit in a case is a lavish waste of space.  As I said, at the core of packing is a debate between efficiency and care.  

    Hats, of course, are impossible, and I always smile when I see those men so dedicated to their prize felt or straw that the thing doesn’t leave their head for fear of being mangled in an overhead bin.  A valid fear, I would say, but with an unreasonable response.  For me, travel is an ideal opportunity to use a soft cap.  That’s a compromise I’m happy to make. 

Don't feel pressured to close your case until the last moment.