The Great American Food Truck Race

Over the past 6 weeks, I became addicted to the Food Network's Great American Food Truck Race. The concept was stunningly simple. Get 7 food trucks (mobile food stands the size of a FedEx truck) and have them travel to different cities selling their foods. The truck that sold the least amount of food in that city was gone.

The starting trucks were a pudding/wings truck (Nana Queens), Cajun truck (Ragin' Cajun), Crepes truck (Crepes Bonaparte), French gourmet food truck (Spencer on the Go), a pressed sandwich truck (Austin Daily Press), a burger truck (Grill Em All), and a Vietnamese hoagie truck (Nom Nom).

Some twists and challenges aside, the competition came down tonight to Grill Em All and the nigh-unstoppable Nom Nom. Nom Nom used social media and print media to give themselves advance notice at every city. They partnered with unique, cutting edge businesses and seemed to always find the hot spots.

The Grill Em All truck was nearly bounced out of the competition twice, needing to win a challenge to stay in. The next to last show they beat the Frenchies by $37 (sold literally at the last minute to a hunger customer who ordered 5 burgers).

And the winner was....Grill Em All.

The last show was in New York City and the idea was cool. The two trucks had to sell $500 of product in each of the first 4 boroughs of NYC (Bronx, Queens, Staten Island, Brooklyn) and then sell $1000 in Manhattan....then race to the roof of the Flatiron Building in Manhattan.

Grill Em All was just better than Nom Nom in this episode. They had lines of people waiting for them to open shop. Also, the Noms were not as optimistic as they had been. Their leader, Misa, was actually depressed right off the bat. They just faded under the pressure.

Pittsburgh has very few well-known food trucks. The most famous is The Goodie Truck that sells desserts. These ladies use Twitter and Facebook to their advantage as well. Perhaps the next frontier for Pittsburgh is to catch up to California with the mobile food truck craze.

I smell a business opportunity....

Offseason Trade Targets for Pitching (3 in a series) - Ricky Nolasco

Let's keep on trucking...we have already discussed James Shields and Scott Baker, so let's turn our attention to a slightly more volatile commodity in Ricky Nolasco.

The Marlins are always teetering on the edge of a fire sale, but last offseason's shot across the bow from the players' union about not properly spending revenue sharing forced them to raise payroll a little in 2010. The Marlins signed Josh Johnson to a big-money extension (4 yr - $39M through 2013) and already have Hanley Ramirez locked up through 2014. That's plenty of time for Hanley to keeping dogging it in the field and get a coach or two fired.

The Marlins are looking at $10M to keep Dan Uggla, if they tender him a contract of course. Once you add in their other committments and some estimated arb numbers and min wage numbers, you're looking at a $40M payroll without Nolasco, who will be entering arb-3 (he's a Super 2 so there will be an arb-4). Nolasco made $3.8M this year so a $5.8 to $6M contract in in the realm of possibility.

The other item to consider is that the Marlins farm system is drying up. A once fertile farm has started to go fallow, as Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller have been busts. Kyle Skipworth showed some signs of life this year, but not enough. Chad James from 2009's draft had a great debut, but he is years away still. Mike Stanton and Logan Morrison made their debuts this year.

The Marlins could trade Nolasco, rebuild the farm and re-load on the fly for 2011.

Ricky Nolasco 6-2/230 RHP, age 28 in 2011 season

Contract: $3.8M in 2010, going into arb-3 in 2011

I referred to Nolasco as "volatile" in the opening paragraph because unlike Shields and Baker, Nolasco is inconsistent but with better overall stuff than those two.

Nolasco throws a 91 mph fastball, an 84 mph slider, a 75 mph curveball, and a 85 mph splitter. Historically, both his slider and curve have been reliable out pitches that are above the run line.

The Marlins like boom or bust prospects and pitchers with some heat. As a result, I'm not going to use the Universal Trade Chip known as Rudy Owens in this scenario. Rather, I will sacrifice Jeff Locke, Diego Moreno, and Robbie Grossman to the Marlins.

A few folks on some other forums feel that what I'm offering in these trades is not enough, not even close. Here's what the Angels gave up for Dan Haren (signed thru 2012, with a club option in 2013), with the approximate Pirate equivalent in parentheses:

Joe Saunders (Zach Duke)

Tyler Skaggs (ZVR)

Patrick Corbin (Jeff Locke)

Rafael Rodgriguez (Steven Jackson)

Considering that Rodriguez is a total throw-in, these packages of 3 minor leaguers that I'm offering are the equivalent (or better since Saunders/Duke suck and are expensive) to the Haren package.

Bistro 19 - Good thing it's on Route 19, huh?

Mt. Lebanon is a strange place. It's like living in a bubble, I imagine. The school district, unlike most others in the region, is made up of one municipality...Mt. Lebanon. And that one municipality happens to be one of the wealthiest in the region.

I'm sure there are people affected by the recession that live in Mt. Lebanon, but just a whole heck of a lot less of them than in other places.

All of this ties into the restaurant that DB~ and I went to on Friday night, Bistro 19 on Washington Road (Business 19) in Mt. Lebanon. It's an upscale place that you can wear fancywe jeans to, if you like. I chose to go engineering-casual, which was khakis and a collared golf shirt.

When you walk in, the best word to describe the decor of Bistro 19 is....soothing. The lighting is low-level, with amber shading. The pendant lamps over the bar were turned low. There were plenty of people with smart-looking glasses, expensive shoes, and perfect teeth. A few scarves were out on the slightly chilly Friday night.

Once we were seated, the rear wall of the restaurant (of beige/olive tones) reminded me of both slow moving waves rippling on a lake or of hot sand on a beach. I felt very relaxed.

None of the preceding tells you anything about the food, though, which is what everyone (all 3 of you that read this blog, probably) want to know. I had the Black Tiger Shrimp. For an engi-nerd such as myself, I delighted in the presentation of this dish. In each corner of the square plate was one shrimp, each stuffed with artichoke/feta mixture. At the midpoint of each side was a perfect portion of spinach. And in the center was an size of risotto with a sprig of basil on top. I took a picture, but because the lighting was so low it seemed too dark to put on the blog (I didn't want a repeat of the Tamari blog).

DB~ had the Almond Chicken. I thought I detected a slight hint of cherry in the sauce, but DB~ thought it was just the almonds that I was tasting. Her meal also came with risotto and a vegetable, which I don't remember at this time.

Bistro 19 is well worth checking out, especially to people watch all of the upper crust dining "casual" that night.

Pork Roast in a Yuengling beer broth

On Labor Day Monday, DB~ and I invited her brother and sister over for dinner at my place. I was in the mood to use the crock pot and I had a pork roast, so I thought I was set. It was right before noon and I was all ready to crack open a can of chicken stock and get this pork party started....except I had no chicken stock in the pantry. That's inexcusable for me. I usually have 4 to 5 cans at the ready.

I semi-panicked for a second and opened up the refrigerator to see what I could cobble together to make my own broth...but that would take a while to make. And then I looked down and saw 4 bottles of Yuengling beer in my refrigerator door.

Sprechen sie deutsch? Yeah, we're going Oktoberfest with this one....

1 lb pork roast
1 medium white onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, diced
12 oz. bottle of Yuengling for the broth
salt
pepper
2 bay leaves
butter for sauteing (optional)
6 oz of Yuengling for sauteing (optional)

Season both sides of the roast with salt and pepper. Cut roast in half.
Add 12 oz bottle of Yuengling to crock pot.
Dice half the white onion and add to beer in crock pot. Dice one clove of garlic and add to the broth.
Place both halves of the roast in the crock pot. Place the other diced clove of garlic on top of the roast. Add the 2 bay leaves to the broth.

Turn the crock pot on low and let cook for 5-1/2 hours, turning the roast over once halfway through.

When the roast is done, take it out of the crock pot and leave the broth, onions, garlic, bay leaves behind. Place the roast on a serving dish to rest and wrap the serving dish with aluminum foil to keep it warm.

While the pork is resting, if you would like to saute some onions to place on top of the pork for serving....
Add the other half of the diced white onion to a skillet and saute in some butter until translucent. Add 6 oz of beer to the saute skillet and let the onion absorb the liquid. They will be a medium shade of brown. Place these onions over top of the pork when serving.

I made some snap peas with a sage butter sauce. The sage was fresh from my neighbor's garden. Also made some Uncle Ben's Wild Rice.

Everything was delicious. Even DB~, who is a borderline vegetarian, liked it a lot. And it's always great to watch her younger siblings make fun of DB~. Great night all around.

Offseason Trade Targets for Pitching (2 in a series) - Scott Baker

Continuing on in this series after I discussed James Shields, I would like to take a look at Scott Baker of the Minnesota Twins.

In 2011, the massive contract extension for Joe Mauer kicks in and takes his salary from $12.5M to $23M. The Twins also have Morneau ($15M), Joe Nathan ($11.25M) and Cuddyer ($10.5M) as big money contracts. As of now, the Twins have $72M in committments after having a payroll of $97M this year. And that doesn't include the following players either entering arbitration or in their arbitration years:

• Matt Capps (arb-3, $3.5M in 2010)
• Delmon Young (arb-2, $2.6M in 2010)
• Francisco Liriano (arb-2, $1.6M in 2010)
• Kevin Slowey (arb-1, $470K in 2010)

Plus there is a $5.25M club option for Jason Kubel.

In short, the Twins will be right up against the $100M threshold just trying to keep their existing players, let alone freeing up money for free agents. They may need to move a salary in order to find the extra cash and keep payroll flexibility. One of those players could be Scott Baker.

Scott Baker, 6-4/220, RHP, age-29 in 2011 season

Contract: $5M in 2011, $6.5M in 2012, $9.25M club option in 2013

In 2010, Baker has a 7.41 K/9, 2.13 BB/9, and a 36.6% ground ball rate, so he is a flyball pitcher. His arsenal consists of a 91 mph fastball, a 84 mph slider, and a 81 mph curve, with a 83 mph change sprinkled in. Historically, his slider has been his best out pitch.

The Twins may be the most conservative organization in baseball, especially when it comes to pitching. They value the "floor" of a prospect way more than "ceiling" and frequently select low to mid-upside college pitching early in the draft. Because of these tendencies, the Twins may find Rudy Owens very appealing in a potential trade package. Owens is pretty much assured of being able to pitch in the majors, but may not have more upside than a #3 or #4. But he will be cheap, which is a valuable commodity for the Twins in the near future.

As for the trade package, Owens, Evan Chambers, and Brian Friday may be enticing enough for the Twins to part with Baker.

A 100 lb pig roast, 18 holes of golf, and a Greek food fest

I'll take "Three things that usually don't occur within 6 hours of each other, Alex, for $400."

For the past 3 or 4 years, the Friday before Labor Day has had the pleasure of 2 of my favorite events occuring on the same day. One is a really well put together golf outing at a great course north of Pittsburgh, with the highlight being a pig roast that follows it. The second is the night that my family goes down to the Holy Trinity Greek Church on the North Side to enjoy their Greek food fest.

This basically means that I have to activate a second stomach on this day, as there is a tremendous amount of great food consumed in a short period of time.

The golf was great, but long. The round took a shade over 5 hours, which is kind of standard for a golf outing with 2 group starting on most holes. As soon as we got back to the party tent, the skies opened up and the rain came down sideways. Most importantly, the 100 lb, 4 foot long pig (with stuffing inside and a Hawaiian lei for decoration) was safe from the rain and the heavy winds.

So at 4 pm, I had:
A generous helping of pig
A generous helping of stuffing
1 breaded chicken drumstick
1 helping of scalloped potatoes
1 bowl of fruit salad

I bid farewell to the large contigent of people I came with and drove home to pick up DB~ to head downtown (after getting a quick shower and change of clothes). We got to Holy Trinity at 6 pm and by 6:30 pm, I was dining on:
1 order of moussaka
1 order of spanokopita
1 order of rice pilaf

We all got dessert, but took it home with us (but not after a bunch of us split a baklava Blizzard from a Dairy Queen stand set up there).

Oh, and as always, the place was packed on a Friday at dinnertime. If you go, and I recommend you do, pick an off-peak time to go. When they start playing the Greek music inside, it gets really loud and is tough to talk. Plus, it's difficult to find a table during the dinner time on Friday and Saturday.

The Greek fest goes until Sunday, so check it out.

Offseason Trade Targets for Pitching (1 in a series) - James Shields

It's pretty obvious that the Pirates need help in a lot of areas. You don't come by a 44-89 record by accident. And while the offense has been horrendous at times, you hope there is some natural progression from Tabata, Walker, Alvarez, and McCutchen.

If this season was good for anything, it was to embarass the ownership and front office into spending more money this offseason to hasten the rebuilding process. There are some nice pieces percolating on the farm, but the ones that may help in 2011 are not "wow" players. It is more likely that the Pirates try to improve a pitching staff that has been dreadful for the vast majority of the season.

But I'm not advocating the free agency route. For the most part, you are buying players moving into the decline phase of their careers and are expending large quantities of cash for declining assets. Rather, I'm suggesting that the Pirates take advantage of the decent number of teams who will be trying to shed payroll this offseason. Some teams are moving into rebuilding phases, but others are up against their own internal "salary caps".

One of those teams will be the Tampa Bay Rays. This year their payroll was at an all-time Opening Day high of $72.8M. Their owner has already said that they will reduce payroll this offseason, maybe into the $50M range.

The Pirates must act like a buzzard circling a kill and zero in on teams like these. And from the Rays, the target could very well be James Shields.

James Shields, 6'-4"/220 lbs, RHP, 29 during 2011 season

Contract - $4.25M in 2011, $7M option in 2012, $9M in 2013, $12M in 2014

Shields' arsenal is a 91 mph fastball, 86 mph cutter, 77 mph curve, and his killer pitch is his 83 mph changeup. His changeup has consistently been his best rated pitch through his career, rating at a +1.6 runs above average.

This year his K/9 is 8.46 (career high), his BB/9 is 2.21, but his HR/9 spiked to 1.52 -- well above his career average. He is also a flyball pitcher as his ground ball percentage is at 40.6% this year. But none of that should matter. He would instantly be the best Pirates' pitcher, especially getting the bump from the AL East to the NL Central.

The question would be "What would it take to get him?" Tampa Bay is notoriously tough to trade with, as Pirates fans may remember from the Jason Bay talks in 2008. But judging on the limited packages received for Dan Haren and Cliff Lee in 2010, I would say something with a Top 10 prospect, a Top 20 prospect, and a lower tier player may get it done.

Tampa has a pretty loaded system, especially with pitching, but you can never have enough cost-controlled pitching. Perhaps Rudy Owens, Quinton Miller, and Brock Holt may interest them. The most important thing to remember is that other teams are desperate to shed payroll and it is a buyer's market right now. Trades right now do not involve blue-chip prospects and young major leaguers. Recent deals are involving more quantity than quality, which the Pirates have.

This will be a very telling off-season for this front office. They have the payroll space to take on salary (especially if they non-tender Duke) and the type of prospects teams are always looking to stockpile.