Ask Alex - January 26, 2018

Patisserie Alex

Welcome back to "Ask Alex", where I answer all of your stupid questions with even dumber answers.  Have a question you need answered? Tweet it, email it or submit it here and I will get to it (maybe) next week.

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Only three questions for you this week...sorry, kind of a busy week work-wise, and very unexpected. On the plus side, it was also a lucrative one, so I’m not going to bitch too much about being stuck in the office until 11:00 a couple of nights this week:-).

Daryl has more Boston questions, this one cake related. Or pie, depending on how you feel about dessert terminology. Nutella Riot needs some clarification on how much texting he should be doing as a part of ruining his marriage, and January Jess is looking for a new place to live...and Alex has some pretty serious life advice on that.

Finally, we'll do a song of the week that is all about Rex!

Enjoy!

Submitted by: Daryl
Where did Boston Cream Pie originate?

First of all, imagine if you will, living in a time when America is so devoid of promise and hope that we haven’t year conceived of different words for “cake” and “pie” and just call them the same thing as if they are one heterogeneous dessert treat. *shudders*.

Science has come a long way people…

But this is an easy one! Boston Cream Pie was first served in Boston’s Parker House Hotel  in 1856. The Parker House, located on School Street, is notable for several reasons outside of it’s famous pie:

• It is about a quarter of a mile from Alex’s house, and she walks by it on the way to work most days
• It is the oldest continually operating hotel in America
• Charles Dickens first American reading of A Christmas Carol was at the Parker House while he lived there for five months in 1869
• It’s haunted
• John Wilkes Booth stayed there 8 days before shooting Abraham Lincoln. Oops.
• The chef coined the word “Scrod”, which, it should be noted, is not an actual fish but rather the North Atlantic white fish catch of the day
• The pie is one of at least two culinary legends created by the kitchen, alongside the Parker House roll
• John Kennedy’s first Congressional bid kicked off AND he held his bachelor party here
• Some interesting characters have worked in the Parker House, including Ho Chi Minh, Malcolm X and Emeril Lagasse

On this subject, the Boston Cream Pie is not, in fact, the best dessert created in an American Hotel kitchen. That honor belongs to Chicago’s similarly named Palmer House Hotel, whose owner wanted a dessert for ladies during the 1893 World’s Fair and asked her pastry chef to produce “a cake-like confection smaller than a piece of cake that could be included in boxed lunches”. He produced a denser-than-cake chocolate square of a size conducive to eating with one’s hands, topped with chopped walnuts (which modern science has rightfully removed because they are garbage.)

So, move over Ferris Wheel, serial killers, Pledge of Allegiance, Aunt Jemimah, Quaker Oats, Hershey’s chocolate, PBR, automatic dishwashers, zippers, fluorescent lamps, and Juicy Fruit and make way for the single greatest invention of the Chicago World’s Fair…

The Brownie.

I mean...baked goods, Chicago and Boston all in one answer? Best question ever, Daryl.

Best question ever.

Submitted by: Nutella Riot
How many text messages per month are appropriate for me to send to my mistress?

Well...now this is a tricky one. There are just so many variables...is she married? Is she hiding this relationship? Is she high-maintenance? Is one of you part of a secret government society that is either intent on subverting the President or just a recipe-swapping quilting club? Do you have sex-emojis on your phone?

Also, I just invented sex emojis. I know we throw the word “genius” around a lot, but sometimes it is just the only thing that fits. I mean, what have you ever done for humanity?

That’s what I thought.

Back to the question: rather than pick out a number, I’ll approach this backwards and point out what certain monthly volumes of text messages say about you and your relationship.

• 0: You’re too old to be having sex. Stop immediately.
• 1-5: You only text when you are going to make arrangements to have sex. Are you maybe using PayPal for this? This isn’t a mistress, this is a hooker.
• 5-30: OK, this is pretty serious...I am kinda worried. I mean, you have a wife, man...ain’t nobody got time for you to be making new friends.
• 30-100: This is a little obsessive, don’t you think? I mean, what name do you show up on her phone as? If it is “Jenny from accounting” then you are starting to stretch the level of believability for whoever she is hiding you from. And what do you have her name as? It has to be a dude, right? No way you are getting that many texts and not letting your wife think that it’s just Kevin and Mike from the bar...which means you now associate a text from your mistress with some dude. Fucking gross, man. Have some self respect!
• 100+: If you are over age 16, this is just embarrassing. 100 texts a month to the same person? Why don’t you just fire off a thousand tweets like the rest of us normals do!!! I’m wondering if maybe there is some number of texts that makes you common law married. I need to check with the proper legal scholars on this...damnit, where’s Bella?

Also, PSA, you’re a terrible person for cheating on your wife. I’m looking forward to her getting everything in the divorce! And then watching your mistress leaving you because you are now just a sad, lonely divorcee whose kids hate him and won’t visit him in his two bedroom apartment with shitty carpeting, thin walls and shared laundry facilities.

Think about what you’ve done, man...

Submitted by: January Jess
Should I move to Texas or Virginia?

Neither. You should move to Boston. You can be my Nanny...I have extra bedrooms now that we’re done with construction and all moved back in! Bonus, you get to hang out with my sister, so you can have a full social life from day 1, and you never have to drive anywhere...it’s really kinda awesome.

What’s that? You are looking to avoid seven month winters? Hmm...well, I guess that is kind of a problem…

This is going to be a personal preference based on a lot of different factors. Mostly, what are you looking for in a place to live? Where do you wanna work? Those sorts of things. Also, it is worth noting that each of these states has huge variations in the places you might live. Like...HUGE…

Northern Virginia, for example, is home to several of the richest counties in America. They are highly educated, very cosmopolitan, rapidly growing and very livable. They are also extremely expensive, very liberal and kinda crowded. I could write at length about the inherent problems with Washington DC, a city with little actual industry outside of government, being the richest place in the country, but the problems don’t change the fact that Northern Virginia is the biggest beneficiary of the Federal Tax suck.

Then you get a whole swath from basically metropolitan Richmond southeast to the coast. You are still in a pretty heavily populated urban and suburban area, but the vibe changes pretty dramatically from a “Northern” vibe to the beginnings of a “Southern” vibe. You’re going to be markedly less likely to run into non-Virginians here than in Northern Virginia. From there, you can head west and get to some very, very rural places...in fact, quite a few of them. So, if you are looking for quiet, peace and available moonshine, you can find that, too.

Texas has, well, a little bit of everything. Houston is a hot, humid coastal energy hub that has the advantage of being home to @Annealexander70 and @marcannem96. Dallas is a hot, slightly less humid, glitzy purveyor of hated football teams and prime time soap opera families. Fort Worth is TOTALLY a different place than Dallas (wink-wink). San Antonio is more influenced by Mexico than the other cities, which means better Mexican food, more NBA Championships and, one would assume, much cheaper heroin. There are also millions or acres of non-urban ranch, farm and scrubland all over the state. West Texas is a whole other beast entirely, much more rancher than oil-man, outside of the seemingly endless supply of adorable homes that Joanna Gaines has made in Waco.

At least the ones that the ATF hasn’t lit on fire yet…

Of course, there’s also Austin, the city that conservatives love to hate like it is a liberal traitor deep behind enemy red lines. It is also, in a lot of ways, the most livable and dynamic city in Texas. It’s got the fastest growing local economy in Texas (which isn’t to diminish the rapidly growing other cities) and is on the forefront of food, music and other culture in Texas. It’s home to both the state capital and the massive and influential flagship state university campus. It’s the youngest of the major cities in Texas, too. Yea, I think the traffic sucks and, by Texas standards it’s a pretty pricey place to live, but it’s got a lot going for it. And you can hang out with @jholmsted!!!

You know what, though? You should put both of these off...you’re young, mobile and adventurous and we need to leverage that. Last we talked, you were talking about moving to Europe and I think we need to work on that, first. For someone who speaks French and aspires to speak it better, I’d send you straight to Paris. Forget the nonsense you’ve seen about roving bands of African migrants overrunning the city...that’s not a reflection of reality. Get yourself over there, find an absurdly tiny apartment in the very best location you can find and immerse yourself in being French. You can nanny, or wait tables, or tend bar or try to find more of a “career” job or whatever.

OK, so maybe Paris is overwhelming and you’re worried about finding a job. How about Switzerland? Your French is as useful in, say, Geneva as it is in Paris (and your English more so!) and it is a little more foreign-job-seeker friendly...unemployment is much lower, for one. Or maybe Basel? Very strong economy, really fantastic culture and a truly unique place...across the river from both Germany and France. Even better, if you hook on with either of the massive Pharma companies (Novartis or Roche) or the World Bank, you could probably transfer back to the States without finding a new job if you ever wanted to.

See, here's the thing...you’re not going to get this chance again. Picking up and living in another country is a remarkable experience, and if you don’t do it now, you never will. And what’s the worst that can happen? You get over there, get homesick and tire of chain-smoking Euro guys in skinny pants, so you move back to Austin. Are you really worried about waking up one day when you are 50 and saying “Gee, life sure is great, I just sure wish I had moved to Texas two years earlier 25 years ago…”? No, of course not!!!

So put Texas and Virginia on hold, move to Paris and live like most people only dream they did:-)

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Alex’s random old song of the week

Last week, while confessing the depths of his indefensibly horrible music taste, @boonaticrex took a shot at me for questioning the choices that functionally deaf people like he and Anne make when they pick out music to listen to. Never mind, though, I take no offense...it’s really not his fault, sometimes nature just makes people eardrums do weird things.

But, Rex is an Alabama boy, so I figured that maybe I could talk some sense into him by speaking his native language. So, this week, we visit the legendary Muscle Shoals Studios to bring you the second greatest song ever recorded in the State of Alabama (first is The Rolling Stones “Brown Sugar”, and third is Aretha’s “I Never Loved a Man (the Way That I Love You)” if you are keeping score).

I’m also going to note, as we learned from a confession-receiving priest in one of Rex’s favorite movies, The Commitments, that it was not Marvin Gaye who sang “When a Man Loves a Woman” but, in fact…

‘Twas Percy Sledge did that particular tune.