It's time to forget again

It's Friday on the ACBN, and I'm ready to play ball.

Mar 29, 2024

∙ Paid

Baseball is a sport that thrives on remembrance.

Consisting as it does of a series of one-on-one, hitter-vs-pitcher matchups, baseball allows—more than any other sport—for individual statistics to be isolated, for players to be defined by the numbers they generate in their time on the field. Those numbers, in turn, allow for their performance to exist across eras—for a player’s greatness or lack thereof to be reevaluated for better or for worse long after he hung up his cleats.

It’s a sport of beloved miniutiae—of remembering who played left field for the New York Mets in 1996 (Bernard Gilkey) or who the last pitcher to win 30 games was (Denny McLain) or how—just how—am I going to play Kenny Lofton in Immaculate Grid today?

It’s a well-worn internet trope at this point, but baseball fans can sit around naming old players and just have the best time.

(Brian Giles. Ron Gant. Arquimedez Pozo.)

More poetically, it’s a sport of memories—of your parents taking you to your first game as a child, of seeing that vast ocean of green grass spread out before you, of thrilling at the performance of a larger-than-life player that you still think was great even if the statistics don’t really bear it out years later. (Sandy Alomar, Jr.)

Like I said, it’s a sport of remembering.

The beginning of baseball season, though? That’s a time of forgetting.

It’s a time to forget everything you know can hurt you about the sport. It’s a time to forget how last season didn’t go as hoped. It’s a time to forget how your favorite team’s ownership would rather pocket a revenue-sharing check than sign an outfielder who can hit, to forget how the magic of Moneyball has curdled into the McKinseying of the sport, to forget the overpowering sense that the people in control of the sport don’t seem to love it nearly as much as you do if at all.

It’s a time to forget all of those seasons that have ended in heartbreak before and to believe, with all of your heart and as little of your brain as possible, that maybe, just maybe, this year might be different.

Baseball has started again, my team is undefeated, and I’ve forgotten any reason not to be thrilled.

Friends, it’s Friday.

Welcome back to The Action Cookbook Newsletter; I hope you’ve had a good week. Whether or not you have, the weekend is finally upon us, and I’m here to do my small part in helping yours be a little bit better.

Today, I’ve got thoughts on Dad Meal, my cheap drink of the season, some great music, a terrific book, and more!

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack—I don’t care if I ever get back.

Let’s talk about Dad Meal.

By merit of one tweet I sent many years ago, I became somewhat of an authority on the dumb meals we invariably eat when our significant others are away—a concept later given the name “Husband Meal” by writer Gabriella Paiella.

I have referenced this many times in this newsletter over the years, usually as preface to some atrocity I’ve made for myself.

That’s not what I’m doing today—not quite.

You see, Husband Meal isn’t the only protocol that’s activated when my wife goes out of town. I have two children, and though I work hard to feed them nutritious, balanced, not-garbage meals most of the time, that often goes out the window when I’m parenting solo. It’s not that I can’t feed them better things, it’s that it’s not worth the fight when I’m outnumbered.

This isn’t a time to surrender, though.

It’s a time to build one’s legend.

Last weekend, my wife had to leave on a business trip. I was well-prepared; I’d planned out good meals for the time she’d be gone, and I wrote them on the kitchen blackboard we use as a weekly menu.

For one item, though, I left an air of mystery.

“THE DAD SPECIAL”

My kids were intrigued—nay, obsessed. They spent the entire day asking me what The Dad Special was, and I refused to tell them. Even as I was cooking, I refused to divulge any details. They begged and they pleaded, but I wouldn’t betray a hint.

Was this a gamble? Perhaps. I risked overselling, of backing myself into a corner I couldn’t cajole my way out of. I was confident in my approach, though.

In the end, I made something easy, something I’d seen in a few Instagram reels over the years—Spaghetti Squids.

That is, I threaded strands uncooked spaghetti through slices of turkey smoked sausage, then cooked them like I would any pasta, and they came out looking like this.

Artful? No, not really.

Balanced? Not at all. (I did give them vegetables on the side.)

Successful? The kids were delighted, and every day since, they’ve asked when we’re going to have The Dad Special again. That’s a victory in my book.

(Oh, and as far as Husband Meal goes, I made lemon pepper wings.)