Most of these spam messages do not make any sense at all. For instance , a typical message might read  “Many thanks for this tips I had been looking all Search engines to locate it!”  and it may come from somebody who signs himself ( herself ?) Poczycjomyawnix.  Whatever….

Some of the spam messages are funny. My favorite is the one that said ” Many thanks for this post. Can you explain the third paragraph in more detail ? ” I felt good about this comment… for about five seconds … until I realized that my post did not have a third paragraph. Another one said ” Great post. If you are ever in Boston , look me up.” Then I saw it was from a Boston Cab company.(LOL)

In my blog , I often write about restaurants that I go to and I invariably get feedback , though not the type I want. Once , when I’d written about an Indian restaurant , I got a message which said” That place   is not bad but for the best Indian food in Edison , go to (……)”. Hmm, I thought to myself ” I must check this place out”. Then I looked more closely and saw that the message had been sent by the owner of that other restaurant ! Well, at least it means someone is reading my blog.

That spammers  take the time to troll the blogosphere and send spam is something I don’t understand. The three spam messages I wrote about are funny but the rest are pure drivel. I wonder at the sort of person who writes them .I always think of  spammers as being men. Perhaps I’m guilty of reverse sexism but I can’t imagine a woman spammer.

Of all the spam messages that got through to my blog , only one was hurtful. It went something like this “When I started to read this post I thought you had something to say on this subject but I was wrong. It was a complete waste of time. Why don’t you just quit ?”

Somehow, I know that was written by a guy.

One the one hand , many football fans still believe that Bill Belichick is the incarnation of the Devil . Even though “Spygate” happened several years ago , they have never forgiven him for it. That hate has been transferred to Belichick’s team , the Patriots , and so these fans  will never root for The Patriots, at least as long as Belichick is the coach. These are the same guys who will never root for the Lakers because that’s Kobe Bryant ‘s team and he was involved in that unsavory incident in that hotel room in Denver half a dozen years ago.

I don’t buy such logic.

Granted , Belichick was sneaky and underhanded in ordering an underling to tape an opposing team’s practices. Granted he is a humorless jerk who never seems to know what to say in front of a microphone. Granted , he is a sore loser who barely says two words to the opposing coach when the Pats lose. Still, that doesn’t take away from the fact that the man is a coaching genius. His defensive schemes have troubled the best QBs and coaches in the business. I always thought that the comparison of Tom Brady to Peyton Manning was unfair to Peyton.Those battles were not Peyton vs. Brady but Peyton vs Brady and Belichick. This year Belichick has excelled himself by disguising the flaws in the Pats defense and guiding the team to the SuperBowl. On offense he has come up with the idea of using two tight ends , Gronkowski and Hernandez, at the same time often ,with one of them in the backfield. Belichick also should be given credit for New England’s stellar drafts and trades and for the way he has molded the Patriots team into a playoff threat ,year after year. You can dislike the man’s personality but you have to give him props for his football acumen and his all-consuming dedication to coaching.

On the other hand , there will be some fans who will be rooting against the Giants because they are a New York team, and New York is a symbol of all that is wrong with America. New York is the home of those Wall Street shysters, and New Yorkers are rude, obnoxious , rich, arrogant  and classless. Never mind that the Giants play in New Jersey and the players themselves do not fit that stereotype. How can people not like Eli Manning? Or Tom Coughlin ? Or Victor Cruz? But perhaps I shouldn’t be asking such questions. After all, there are some fans who hate Aaron Rodgers , than whom I can’t think of anyone more likeable , unless it is Eli.

Yes , it is going to be tough for these fans to decide whom to root for.. .whom do they hate less , Belichick and the Pats or those %^$# New York Giants ? It’s a coice between the Devil and Sodom and Gomorrah.(LOL)

Meanwhile , it seems Boston fans are very , very nervous about the upcoming clash. The memory of  what happened last time these two teams met is still an open woundin their collective psyche. One Boston fan went so far as to say ” The Giants are like kryptonite to the Patriots” . Even Tom Brady and Bill Belichick seem to be affected by those memories. And that makes me nervous. On paper, the Giants are the better team , the more complete team, but that doesn’t mean anything when Bill Belichick and Tom Brady are on the other team and are itching to avenge their loss.

GO GIANTS !!

But first things first.

If you had told me that Tom Brady would not throw a TD pass and that Joe Flacco would throw two while out-dueling Tom Brady , I would have assumed that the Ravens had won handily. That the Patriots were able to overcome a sub par performance from Tom Brady and somehow put enough points on the board to pip the Ravens is difficult to imagine , and yet that is exactly what they did . Kudos to the Pats running attack , particularly Ben Jarvis Green who ran with guts and rammed the ball through the heart of the Raven defense in scoring a TD. As for Brady , he wasn’t at his best but I would hardly say he sucked (his words). He did move the ball up and down the field and he did it against a ferocious Raven defense led by Ray Lewis and Ed Reed. Baltimore played their hearts out and , though I was rooting for the Pats, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the Ravens when Billy Cundiff shanked his 32-yard attempt. The Ravens were also unlucky on the previous play when their WR Lee Evans caught the ball momentarily before it was stripped from his grasp by a no-name Pats DB who had been cut earlier this season by the Raiders. In the space of two plays , the Ravens went from a sure win to a tie to a crushing loss. I couldn’t help but feel for Ray Rice who watched open-mouthed from the sidelines as all his hard running earlier in the game went for naught. A pat on the back  for Joe Flacco who answered all his critics with his play yesterday. I saw him as the weak link in the Baltimore offense but yesterday he certainly played well once he’d settled down.I don’t think Ed Reed or anyone else will ever call him out again.

The Giants -49ers tie was a slugfest and no praise can be too high for Eli Manning and his group of wide receivers , particularly Victor Cruz. Eli stood tall , even after being sacked five  times and absorbing numerous hits . He delivered time and time again on third down , many of his passes being hauled in by Victor Cruz. While the passes to Cruz, Nicks and Manningham were rifled with pinpoint accuracy, what was most thrilling was the way Eli  scrambled out of the pocket and completed passes to his safety valves , Henry Hynosky and Ahmed Bradshaw even as the 49er defense was breathing down his neck. The running game could have been better but I have to give credit to the 49er defense for stuffing the run.

 The Giant defense did its part in the win too , harassing Alex Smith all afternoon  and holding the 49ers without a third down until almost the end. Except for the two long touchdown passes to Vernon Davis , the 49ers didn’t mount a serious threat all day. Frank Gore had a couple of good runs but that was it . The previous week , Alex Smith looked like Joe Montana but, yesterday, all the old doubts about him re-surfaced . He has a long way to go before he can be considered an élite QB.

JPP , Tuck , Umeniyora and Canty have been playing lights out this past month and this team bears no resemblance to the Giants team that was at one point 7-7 and on the verge of not making it to the playoffs. Looking at them play now I wonder how they could have lost to Seattle and Washington ( twice).

Some thoughts on Vernon Davis and Jim Harbaugh. Davis showed yesterday why his previous coach Mike Singletary lost his cool and sent him home during a game last season . On his two TDs, he showed a combination of speed and strength that was simply awesome . His over-the-top celebration after the first TD I could excuse  as being attributable to an excess of adrenaline . What cannot be excused however is his behavior in piling on after a scuffle broke out. It cost the 49ers 15 yards in penalties ( on top of the 15 he had been assessed for his  TD celebration earlier ) and it proved that for all his physical talents , the man has a pea-brain.

As for Harbaugh, his actions in declining an interview immediately after the final whistle were a stark contrast with his over exuberant celebrations when the 49ers beat the Lions in a regular season game. The man is a good coach but he has no class. Class was what Giant coach Tom Coughlin showed in his post-game interview where he was generous in his praise of a defeated foe.

I don’t know if the SuperBowl will be another absorbing battle like the one we saw four years ago when the same two teams slugged it out. Certainly, the key players from that struggle are still around.. coaches Belichick and Couglin , Tom Brady , Eli Manning ,… and there are some exciting new ones – Gronkowski, Hernandez , Jason PierrePaul, Nicks , Victor Cruz. No reason why this game too should not be a humdinger. With two QB’s like Tom Brady and Elite Manning , there should be a lot of points put on the board and a fascinating battle of wits between Perry Fewell’s Giant defense and the coaching genius of Bill Belichick.

That would not be the case if yesterday’s games had gone the other way and the FortyNiners were facing off against the Ravens; that would have been a defensive struggle and a prospect too horrible to contemplate .

P.S Wasn’t that a great rendition of the national anthem by Kristine Chenoweth? I’ve seen too many others screw it up by trying to put their own spin on it .Bravo, Kristine.

A little history, first.

Chettinad cuisine  is the cuisine of the Chettiars who live in the Chettinad district of Tamil Nadu in South India. The Chettiars are an adventurous lot ; many of them amassed fortunes in the 19th and early 20th centuries as moneylenders and financiers in Malaya ( modern Malaysia). They brought their riches back to Chettinad and built palatial houses  distinguished by ornate, many pillared verandahs and  a central courtyard. They also brought back a liking for spices . Chettinad food is determinedly non-vegetarian ( an anomaly in South India) and uses copious amounts of black pepper , cinnamon, cloves , cumin, red chillies , fennel and  bay leaf ; it also uses the less common star anise and stone flower( dagadphool). It makes use of dried and salted vegetables and many Chettinad dishes are topped by a fried egg.

Anjappar Chettinad is part of a restaurant chain founded in Madras in 1964 by a Mr. Anjappar who got his start as a personal chef to MGR ( M.G.Ramachandran , an icon of Tamil films). Today there are over 30 Anjappar restaurants worldwide at locations that include Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, U.A.E, Dubai, Canada and , of course, the U.S.( Dallas, Bay area, New York and N.J). In New Jersey there are two, the one in North Brunswick and another ,smaller, one in Edison itself.

Anjappar, North Brunswick is located in a strip mall on U.S 130 North. It consists of two large dining rooms furnished in ” Generic Indian Restaurant Mode” with formica topped tables and minimal decor. It is functional and not ornate ,which is fine with me since I am there for the food . The afternoon that we were there the place filled up rapidly. Almost all the other diners were South Indians , a good portent for the authenticity of the food.

 Since we were a party of seven we decided to share the dishes, family style ,and thus try as many dishes from the menu as we could. We started out with mutton bone soup which was pleasantly tangy unlike at other Chettinad restaurants where the cooks are too free with the spices. Here it was like a spicy rasam made with mutton stock and it was a good start to the meal. For appetizers we had two vegetarian dishes , Gobi 65 and Onion Pakodas ,and shared two Specials  of the day, Egg Uthappam and Kheema Dosa.We’d had the Gobi 65 and the Pakoras on our previous visit and they were as good as we remembered. The Gobi 65 consists of cauliflower florets marinated in yoghurt and a mixture of spices ( allegedly 65 different ones , hence the name ) and deep-fried . Both it and the pakoras were crisp, greaseless and yummy. The egg uthappam was a bit of a disappointment and I’d have preferred a regular onion uthappam . The eggy batter made the uthappam fluffy but didn’t do much else. The kheema dosa , a crisp pancake rolled around spiced chopped goat meat, was a novelty but nothing special.

For main dishes we tried  the mutton curry, pepper chicken ,  fish curry and crab masala.Along with them we had tandoori rotis , rice , yoghurt and onion raita.Except for the pepper chicken, the spicing for which was lackluster,all the dishes were very good . I liked the  mutton curry the best . It was flavorful and very spicy but not overwhelmingly so and the meat was tender . I didn’t have any of the crab masala but those who did said it was terrific. It consisted of king crab legs cooked in a spicy gingery Chettinad masala . Watching the others crack open the king crab legs to get the last morsels of meat , I wished I’d saved some space for it and not eaten as much of the mutton curry. All the curries were served in stainless steel vessels with lids while the uthappam and the masala dosa came on stainless steel compartment plates, thus adding to the authenticity of he meal.

Knowing what I do now, I’d have steered clear of the pepper chicken  and instead tried some of the dishes we saw being served at the adjoining tables.  Perhaps the Pondu Kuzhambu (Garlic cooked in a spicy tamarind sauce ) or Kathrikkai Kuzhambu( Curried oil roasted eggplants) or the Mutton Biryani. They all looked delicious. From previous experience , I can vouch for the thali or combination platter , both vegetarian and non-vegetarian. The vegetarian thali consists of rice, chappathi, sambar, rasam, kootu, poriyal, pickle, curd, pappad and sweet. It’s a filling meal and the sambar and poriyal are delicious. In the non-vegetarian thali, the sweet is replaced by a portion of non-veg, mutton, chicken or fish according to your choice.

We were pretty full by this time but tried out two dishes from the  limited dessert menu,  pineapple rava kesari and kulfi. These are restaurant standards , difficult to botch but impossible to hit for a home run . At Anjappar, they were competently executed. Overall, the meal was better than I’ve had at any other Chettinad restaurant in N.J and I’ve been to a few.If you want to check out the restaurant and the menu, please click here: www.anjapparusa.com/about.

P.S Friends who have been to Anjappar Express, the Edison location of Anjappar,   tell us that it is small place meant mostly for takeout. If you want to dine out , you would be well advised to drive to North Brunswick.

What I’ve written is an honest account of our experience at Anjappar. While I’m not an expert , I like to think that I’ve eaten at enough restaurants , Indian and non-Indian , to know what is good and what is not. I am dismayed by some of the diners “reviews “that I read about Anjappar  which slam the food , the service and everything else. I’ve seen this happen with other restaurants too and can only conclude that they are written by other restaurant owners with a vested interest in running down the competition.Don’t trust everything you read .Anyone with access to a computer can write what he wants, secure in his anonymity.If the menu appears interesting to you , check out the restaurant for yourself and make up your own mind.

There was another Chettinad restaurant in the vicinity, in Franklin Park, that I’d wanted to try. Ponnuswamy, like Anjappar, is part of a restaurant chain that started out in Chennai. Unfortunately, it closed down before I could sample it..

1. Fans are unforgiving and their memories are short.  Aaron Rodgers had a stellar, record-setting season and led the Packers to a 15-1 record in the regular season . All this after he led the Packers to a Super Bowl victory last year. No matter. After the loss to the Giants , some fans turned on him with a vengeance.Some were Brett Favre loyalists who said that the Packers would never have lost if good ole Brett had been the QB. Can’t pay too much attention to these rubes , half of whom spelt their heroe’s name F-a-r-v-e . They also spelt the current QB’s name as Rogers and made references to Mr. Rogers neighborhood.The response that really stunned me was the one from a Packer fan who wrote :” The Packers have to be the dumbest football team in the world. How do you bench Matt Flynn after he threw six TD passes in the team’s last outing ? Flynn should have started . Had Flynn started , the Packers would have won , period.” Another said ” Let Rogers ( sic) 

go this summer. Start Flynn next season .” This is so breathtakingly ignorant that I’m speechless.

2. Not everybody enjoyed the State Farm commercials.You know ,the ones that mimic Aaron Rodgers cinching an imaginary championship belt around his waist ? Discount double check ?? Personally , I liked them . I thought they were fun and that Aaron Rodgers came across as a sporting ,low key guy who was willing to poke fun at himself.Many fans didn’t see it that way and there were plenty of cracks about ” Discount Double Choke”. One fan even wrote:  ” Broncos fan here. Seeing my team go down like that was real tough to deal with but knowing that there will not be any more stupid Discount Double Check commercials … Priceless!Great game , New York !”  Hmm, all I can  say is that  the Giants better win the Super Bowl or else I’ll be reading about Eli and how stupid his Toyota commercials are.

3. The Green Bay Packers are not as well liked as I thought. I was surprised at how many people rejoiced in the Packers defeat. These were not Giant fans but just supporters of other teams who seemed to have been rubbed the wrong way by all the ink that the Packers and Rodgers got during the regular season . Some of them lumped Rodgers and Drew Brees together as they gloated that both were out of the playoffs . I don’t understand their point of view. Rodgers and Brees both had outstanding seasons and the Packers came close to a perfect 16-0 record. Why shouldn’t they have been in the spotlight?

The Packer fans at the game also came in for criticism. First because there were scattered boos as the stunned Packers went off the field at half time , down 10-20 and second, when the stands began clearing before the end of the game . Here too I think the comments were a little harsh , it was only a few fans who behaved like that . As to comments that the Packers fans are arrogant , I really don’t think so. I think they’re no different from fans around the league and , if anything , better than most others.

While some of  the anti-Packer comments were hurtful , others were quite funny.For instance ,read these:

Giants are going to whip these cheeseheads into grilled cheese sandwiches …

Cheeseheads are turning into Cheez Wiz.

The only way the Packers will make it to the Super Bowl is if they have tickets.

4. The announcers and the zebras came in for their share of criticism, Aikman unfairly so. I didn’t agree with the guy who wrote “Aikman’s had too many knocks to the noggin”. On the other hand, the criticism of the refereeing was understandable since there were at least two flagrantly bad calls. My favorite comment occurred after Giants LB Michael Boley sacked Rodgers and pretended to wrap an imaginary belt around his own waist. One new York fan immediately responded ” Taunting ! Mimicking Rodgers TD dance  !! That should be a flag !!

Next week should be more fun as evidenced by this comment from a 49er fan ” The only good Giant is a San Francisco Giant.”

Yes, it should be great.

As a Giant fan , I enjoyed the Packers-Giants game the most but , as a football fan , I have to say that the 49ers win over the Saints was impossible to top. The football pundits had expressed doubts about how the Saints would fare away from home and so it proved in the early going. The Saints played well but were a little less than their best. When they play at home , they look well-nigh unbeatable; at Candlestick , the 49ers stifled the Saints offense early on and jumped out to a quick 17-0 lead. Still, Drew Brees is one of the best QB’s in the game today and he made it look easy as the Saints came roaring back with two quick TD’s. Even after San Francisco  kicked a field foal , the score was only 23-17 with 7:36 to go in the fourth. When Darren Sproles hauled in a 44 yard pass for a TD to put the Saints ahead 24-23, I frankly thought that the Saints would win ; the 49er offense had been stymied in the second half and it didn’t look like they would be able to score again. What happened next is still hard to believe as the lead changed three more times in the last 4 minutes, culminating in an amazing catch by Vernon Davis right at the goal line .

Going into the game , the biggest question had been whether Alex Smith and the 49er offense could score enough points to outscore the Saints. Alex Smith answered all doubts Saturday as he was simply magnificent. Whether throwing a 47 yard sideline pass to Vernon Davis or taking off on a 28 yard run or rifling that final  goal line  pass to Davis ( who else ?) ,he looked a worthy successor to Montana and Steve Young. For this one game , he was their equal as he played with poise and heart and made things happen.Why he was not successful earlier in his career will always be a mystery.

The Saints have nothing to be ashamed about as they came oh so close to pulling out a win. Brees passed for 4 TDs and 462 yards and completed almost 64% of his passes . Three of his receivers had over 100 receiving yards each and the defense performed creditably. And all this was done without benefit of a credible rushing threat as Pierre Thomas was knocked out of the game early. No , the Saints don’t need to hang their heads ; they will be back next year as one of the favorites.

So will the Packers.

I had hoped that the Giants might be able to pull off another upset but I hadn’t expected it. In one poll the previous week , the Packers were given a 32% chance of winning the Super Bowl, the Giants only 2%. Green Bay’s glittering 15-1 regular season was daunting as was the fact that  the Packers were playing at home .What gave me hope was how well the Giant defense had been playing recently and the  maturity of Eli Manning. The Giants managed to keep it close throughout the first half as Green Bay receivers kept dropping passes . The commentators kept saying that the Giant defense was unable to mount any pressure on Rodgers but they must have been doing something right as Rodgers was unable to hit anything long. The Giants were clinging to a slim lead just before halftime when Simms threw a Hail Mary pass and Hakeem Nicks came down with the ball in the end zone. Lucky ? Yes. Great catch? Yes. Whatever you want to call it , it put the Giants up by 10 and thoroughly deflated the Packers, They were not the same team in the second half . In spite of two atrocious calls that went against the Giants , they were able to pull away and win handily, 37-20. No nail-biting finish but that’s okay with this Giant fan .

The Giant defense was terrific , though not as dominant as it had been in the previous game against Atlanta  and Eli and the passing game were magnificent. The one blot on the offense was the running game which was mediocre. The Giants gained only 95 yards on the ground and 38 of those came on two rushes ( one each by Ahmed Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs) , late in the game. Jacobs , in particular, was disappointing as he was indecisive in hitting the line and seemed to run east-west more than he ran north-south. I hope that he and Bradshaw have their A-game next week in San Francisco because the Giants will definitely need it.

Giant fans are still steamed about the two second-half calls that went against the Giants . In one the replays clearly showed that it was a GB fumble ; in the other, Osi Umeniyora was called for a phantom roughing – the passer – penalty that gave the Packers a first down and eventually led to a TD that made the game close. While the calls were terrible , I think we can forget about them now since they did not affect the outcome . Had they resulted in a Packer win it would have been a rank injustice. Be glad that it didn’t happen. I don’t hold with those who say that the calls were deliberately done to let the Packers win.

I was surprised by the shellacking from Green Bay fans that Aaron Rodgers came in for after the game .( More about that in my next post). I thought he played well though perhaps a tad below his best. He looked dangerous every time in the first half when Green Bay had the ball but he was victimized  six or seven times by his receivers dropping passes that they would normally have hung on to.If the Packers didn’t put more points on the board , I would rather credit the Giant defense than lay the blame on Rodgers.Most Green Bay fans are true sports fans .I feel these critics and those who booed their team when it went into the locker room trailing 20-10 are fair weather fans who can’t seem to understand that sometimes your team will lose because the other team played better.

One of the New York newspapers has ignited a mini-tempest in a teapot with claims that announcers Troy Aikman and Joe Buck are anti – New York. I hadn’t noticed any such bias and paid careful attention to the commentary this time . I thought that Buck and Aikman  were fair in their comments as they unequivocally criticized the refs for the bad calls.It seems to me  that fans always complain about the announcers and how they don’t add anything to the descriptions of the game ; that they utter only platitudes and offer no insights . I think this is unfair . Surely, all the announcers cannot be bad . In some cases , I the fans are mad because their teams are being criticized but mostly I think it is because many of them are know-it-alls.It’s easy to be a Monday morning quarterback.

Next Saturday’s championship games should be good and close. In Foxboro, the Bill Belichick coached Patriots take on the defense-minded Baltimore Ravens. I feel the Ravens chances depend entirely on how well QB Joe Flacco does.You know that the Ravens will play stingy defense and that it will be a low scoring game . The question is ” Can Flacco generate enough offense to overcome Brady’s heroics?”  Flacco is a better, much better,  QB than Tebow  but you can rely on Belichick to come up with some new defensive schemes. Whether you like Belichick or not , you have to admit the man is a defensive genius.

I’m not going to jinx the Giants by making any predictions but , if they play like they did last Sunday , I like their chances. I just hope they are healthy ( Chris Canty being assisted off the field was a scary sight) and that Brandon Jacobs re-discovers his aggressiveness.It should be another good weekend !!

The movie is  set in Arizona in the 1880′s.It begins with an amnesiac Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) coming to consciousness in the middle of the desert , with a strange futuristic device locked to his wrist. He manages to escape this predicament and make his way to the town of Absolution only to run up against Colonel Dolarhyde ( Harrison Ford), an autocratic rancher.He butts heads against Dolarhyde’s bullying son and ultimately winds up in jail thanks to a mysterious beauty,  Ella Swenson ( Olivia Wilde) who seems to know about his past.  Jake keeps having flashbacks about his past as a robber,  about aliens who stole his gold and snatched his wife  away. Dolarhyde rides into town with his crew to rescue his son who has been locked up in jail , along with Jake. We learn that Jake had stolen the gold from Dolarhyde , who is now out for revenge .Just as Dolarhyde is about to get his hands on Jake , spaceships streak over the town , blowing up buildings , snatching townspeople off the streets with hooks and whisking them off into their ships. Jake manages to drive them off , shooting down one of the spaceships  with  his wrist device. Jake, Dolarhyde  and his hands,   Ella  and some of the townspeople set off in pursuit of the aliens . Dolarhyde wants to rescue his son , Jake wants to rescue his wife and the townspeople their relatives. Along the way they join forces with a band of Chiricahua Apaches and we come to know  who Ella really is . The ragtag band tracks down  the alien spaceship and that’s when the fireworks really start.

Cowboys and Aliens is based on a graphic novel that came out in 2006 and the movie treatment reflects these  beginnings. There is lots of action but the storyline is rudimentary and predictable. The motivations for the aliens actions are not well explained and what there are of them is  silly.The lighting in the first part of the movie is inadequate and this along with the flashbacks make it difficult to follow. At first , I even thought that Lonergan’s wife and Ella Swenson were the same girl . I can’t blame Daniel Craig or Harrison Ford for their acting because they are only doing what the director told them to do . There are lots of steely eyed stares,and mano-a mano posturing which sometimes caused me to laugh.The film is a failure because it straddles the genres of Westerns and science fiction and succeeds at neither.

 One fan wrote ” Have been looking forward to seeing this movie for months. After reading all the bad reviews by “professional” critics I lowered my expectations as I walked into the theater ….From the get-go it had my attention. Okay, so it is trite, corny and predictable. But it is first-rate entertainment. I loved every minute. … Yeah, the film was a little bit like James Bond meets Indiana Jones with Alien thrown in for good measure. It will not, or should not, win an Academy Award for anything. But sometimes it is okay to sit back and just have a good time. ” When you put it like that , I agree. If you can suspend your critical faculties and overlook the gaping holes in the story , if you  stop trying to ‘understand’ why something is happening , Cowboys and Aliens can be fun. (  Two and a half stars out of five ).

Writing about Spam caused me to remember some other meat products which are rarely seen today : scrapple , head cheese and spiced ham.During my college days,these were to be seen in meat cases in supermarkets  but today they are not to be found at least in the supermarkets here in Central N.J.

Both scrapple and head cheese date back to earlier times when nothing was wasted and every part of the pig was eaten except the squeal. Scrapple , a  Pennsylvania Dutch specialty, is a mush of pork scraps left over from the butchering, thickened with  cornmeal and flavored with sage , thyme , black pepper and other spices. The mush is formed into a semi-solid congealed loaf, and slices of the scrapple are then pan-fried before serving. Head cheese , which originated in Europe, is not  a cheese but a terrine or meat jelly made with flesh from the head of a pig or calf and often set in aspic. . Head cheese may be flavored with onion , black pepper, allspice, bay leaf and salt. In England, it is known as brawn or , when pickled in vinegar, as souse.It is usually eaten cold or at room temperature as a luncheon meat.

I wasn’t a big fan of head cheese or scrapple but I used to buy spiced ham fairly often because it was cheaper. I’m not sure what spiced ham  was exactly but I think it was made from odd pieces of ham or ham trimmings ground up, mixed with spices and formed into a loaf with some sort of binder . I don’t recall seeing it in meat cases at supermarkets , not for the last thirty years at least. It seems to me that the diminishing varieties of cold cuts available at the supermarket hint at the increasing pickiness of American eaters. This is somewhat of a surprise, From the cooking shows on the Food Network it would seem that Americans are becoming more , not less, adventurous in their tastes.

Wolfgang’s is located in what used to be the Vanderbilt Hotel, a building that dates back to 1912. When you enter the restaurant , you are immediately transported to another era. The high , tiled, arched ceilings , the wooden floors , the brick walls , the typical steakhouse ambience , the white aproned waiters gliding among the linen topped tables  create a feeling of déjà vu. We were a party of fifteen so we were ushered into a spacious private room to the right of the main dining area.Unburdening ourselves of our coats and gloves ,we took our seats at the large table and perused the menus that we’d been handed . The fare was considerably more varied than we’d expected. You can judge for yourself . Here is the menu: www.wolfgangssteakhouse.net/menu  .

We started our dinner with Wolfgang’s Caesar salad and many of us felt that it was the highlight of the meal. Traditionally,Caesar salad consists of crisp Romaine lettuce and croutons bathed in a Caesar dressing  made with Parmesan cheese, lemon juice , olive oil, garlic and black pepper , sometimes with the addition of anchovies. At Wolfgang’s , so perfectly was the dressing mixed that I couldn’t tell the ingredients apart; it was a harmonious whole . What really made the salad memorable was the grilled, thick cut Canadian bacon that was served with it . Hitherto , the Canadian bacon I’d eaten consisted of circular pieces that tasted not much different from ham . At Wolfgang’s , we were served a rectangular piece of bacon ,about 4″ by 2″,  fully 1/3 rd of an inch thick  and grilled to perfection. It was hot , it was crisp, it was salty… it was delicious. When the waiter asked if anyone wanted a second piece, almost everybody’s hands shot up . I restrained myself but, out of concern for my wife , I did take half of hers.

My praise of the Caesar salad as the highlight of the meal is not a criticism of the steaks that followed. As at Peter Luger’s , steak at Wolfgang’s means porterhouse. Other cuts are available but porterhouse is the star of the steak menu and  it is simply listed as Steak for one , Steak for two etc. While we waited for our steaks we had a lively discussion of the term ” porterhouse”. Basically , a porterhouse is a thick cut T-bone steak ( at least 1.25 inches thick) which contains both a tenderloin and a top loin ( New York strip steak), two of the most highly prized pieces of beef. The central bone helps distribute the heat more evenly and as a result the there is less shrinkage or drying out during cooking. The name itself is somewhat of a mystery but I think the steak is named for the Porter House ,  a very popular name for restaurants in the 19th century. It is impossible to which one of them lent its name to the steak.

Porterhouse steaks are very large and are too much for one person to handle , so we asked for ours to be served family style . The steaks were sliced and served , re-assembled around the bone , two  to a platter, with the platter properly tilted at one end to allow the steak juice to pool at the other. Some traditionalists turn up their noses at the idea of steaks served already sliced but I’m not in sympathy with them . It’s the only way to serve steaks if they are to be shared by diners.Our steaks , which were ordered ” medium ” , were cooked just right ; the steak connoisseurs among us pronounced them ” perfect”. I did not, however, care for Wolfgang’s Old fashioned Steak Sauce , which I thought was too sweet by far. It is supposed to be a near-exact facsimile of Peter Luger’s Steak sauce , which I didn’t care for either. Give me A-1  steak sauce  any day !

With the steaks came a variety of sides : sautéed mushrooms , thin-cut onion rings , German potatoes , creamed spinach and all of them were excellent . Particular mention must be made of the German potatoes ( hash brown potatoes fried with onions) and the creamed spinach ( rich , creamy, a dense dark green) which were outstanding.

Already sated with the main course and sides , we decided to share several desserts just to taste them . We  ordered Creme Brulee, Key Lime Pie, Assorted Sorbets  ( raspberry & lime), Chocolate Mousse cake ,  Apple Strudel and Hot Fudge Sundae . Several of them were served with schlaag ( the thick German whipped cream) . All of them were very good but the pick of the lot was the Creme Brulee with it’s  crackly surface concealing a rich custardy interior.

The dinner was washed down with several bottles of wine  and that led to an amusing incident. My niece was going to select the wines and when the sommelier asked whether anyone else wanted to see the wine cellar , I put up my hand.  It wasn’t what I expected. I had visions of descending the stairs to see hundreds of bottles lying on their sides in racks.  In fact, the ” cellar” turned out to be a glassed in space in the main dining room with barely enough space for the three of us to enter. It was more a large cupboard than anything else.

Wolfgang’s is very expensive ( $$$$$) but the ambience , the excellence of the steaks and the feeling of being pampered makes dining there an experience to be savored.

Wolfgang’s seems to be doing very well , having expanded from its midtown location to outposts in Tribeca , Beverly Hills, and Waikiki.There was a bit of a spat with restaurateur Wolfgang Puck in 2007 when Wolfgang’s Steakhouse  opened in Beverly Hills , barely a block from Puck’s eatery. Puck felt that the diners were confused by the name into thinking that it was one of Puck’s many restaurant ventures. Puck was not mollified by the fact that the sign for the steakhouse carried the legend ” Owned by Wolfgang Zweiner ” ( albeit in small print) and took the case to court. No doubt he would have preferred the sign to read ” Wolfgang Zweiner’s Steakhouse”. The court, however , found for the defendants ; a just decision, I think ,since Wolfgang is a not uncommon name in Austria and Wolfgang Zweiner has been around longer than Wolfgang Puck , though not in the restaurant business.

I was busy until 2 PM and missed the start of the Giants-Falcons game . When I finally  switched it on ,  the Giants had just gone ahead 7-2 and the rest of the game was pretty much one sided. That was a nice change from previous games when the Giants have lost when they were favored , as happened against the Redskins twice. This time ,the heroics from Eli came early and there was no need for a nail-biting finish. I couldn’t get over how different this Giant team looked as compared to the way it played in mid-season. In particular, the defense was awesome ,with Jason Pierre-Paul, Justin Tuck and Osi Umeniyura constantly pressuring the QB while also  shutting down the Atlanta ground game . The dominance of the Giants D-line meant that the Giant corner backs had an easy time yesterday.The other big difference was the re-emergence of the Giants rushing attack which piled up 172 yards on the ground. I’ll admit I had given up on Brandon Jacobs ( who’s been ineffective ,to say the least) but yesterday , he was back to his punishing best . If he and Ahmad Bradshaw can play like this against the Packers , the Giants have a good chance of winning in Green Bay. Eli Manning was masterful . Watching him at work yesterday , I was struck by how much he has improved as a signal caller. He has gained a maturity and confidence which wasn’t there earlier and bids fair one day to be as good as his older brother. After his heroics this season , nobody is going to question whether he is among the elite QB’s in the league. Yesterday , I was struck by the pinpoint accuracy of his passing and his elusiveness in the pocket. He’s never going to be a twinkle-toes but he’s shown an increasing ability to avoid sacks by sidestepping pass rushers.

I can never really enjoy a Giants game because I’m too big a Giant fan . Unless it’s a blowout , as yesterday’s game was, I’m on tenterhooks waiting for disaster to strike as it so often has in the past. When the game doesn’t involve the Giants, I’m more relaxed and can truly enjoy football. Such was the case with the second game yesterday,In the Denver-Pittsburgh game , I was not rooting for anyone in particular. I am not a Tim Tebow fan ( at least I wasn’t one until yesterday ) and he really stunk in his last outing against the Chiefs . I’d written him as a scrambling QB without much in the way of passing skills. Yesterday he proved me ( and many others) wrong. Granted he was playing against a depleted Steeler defense but I was still impressed with his elusiveness and toughness. And when he needed to , he came through with his passing . Some of those long passes were notable for their precision as they threaded the needle between leaping defenders. A tip of the hat to the Steelers , and particularly Ben Roethlisberger , for fighting back to a 23-23 tie after being down 20-6.Big  Ben displayed a lot of heart , playing on a bum ankle , and bringing his team back into the game . That final TD pass to Jericho Cotchery was a thing of beauty. By that time , I was rooting for Denver but  I wasn’t very hopeful that they’d pull it out in OT. The suddenness of the strike to Demarius Thomas was absolutely breathtaking. Kudos to Tebow and the rest of the Broncos. 

Next up for the Giants are the Packers and , while the Packer offense is formidable, the defense is suspect. I think the Giants have a chance against the Packers whereas I don’t think they’d be able to beat the Saints , the other class team in the NFC. (Though the San Francisco 49ers are the second seeds , somehow they don’t feel so invulnerable  and could fall to the Saints even though the game is being played in SF). With Eli in such good form , if the Giants running game is able to play like it did yesterday , the Giants can put a lot of points on the board. The question is : will it be enough to beat Aaron Rodgers? With his quick release and his pinpoint passing, Rodgers is really going to pose a problem for the Giant CB’s. I hope the Giant pass rush will be able to rattle Rodgers just enough while the Giant offense plays ball control and keeps the ball out of his hands. It should be a great game .

As for Tebow and the Broncos , I’m sure Bill Belichick is going to come up with some defensive schemes to confuse them . If Tebow is able to overcome them , then it is going to be a surprise and it will definitely add to his legend. I don’t see it happening but I hope he keeps the game close.