Micah's Read of the Week, Vol. 5
Peloton, Reads of the Week, Labor Day BBQ notes, and more
Hello, and welcome to Micah’s Read of the Week.
If you want more information about this newsletter, check out the introduction post here, and the entire archive of previous posts here.
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A few words about Peloton
I really liked this quick piece from the great Jeff Pearlman, I was embarrassed to get a Peloton. It’s saved me.
Do I love spin? Eh, it’s fine. Do I love biking? Eh, it’s fine. What I love about the ol’ Peloton—oddly, weirdly—is the positivity. The energy. I sign on, I snap in, I start a class led by, oh, Kendall Toole or Alex Toussaint and I just … feel it. In this isolated world of same faces, masked faces, Peloton has mastered the illusion/reality of making people feel as if they matter. When I’m on the bike, I don’t want to let myself down—but I really don’t want to let the instructors down. Which is, intellectually, weird, because they know not I exist.
I don’t know how else to explain it. But even as my feet ache and my shoulders throb, Peloton has given me some oomph.
We have a Peloton. It’s awesome. I’m one of those people with a Pelly who talks about his Pelly ALL THE DAMN TIME. I’m currently wearing my Century Club T-shirt. I even started a hashtag, #badboysofpelly, and fam, you know I’m team follow-back.
The Peloton is almost a perfect product. I highly recommend.
As much as I love it, I feel a little bit embarrassed about it. Glad to read I’m not the only one.
Podcast promotion tweet of the week
Shouts to Too Much Dip fan account @DipBonus
Seriously tho, check out TMD. Sports are crazy right now. Hoops, hockey, baseball, golf, and football is just a couple of weeks away.
Subscribe on iTunes here, or listen wherever you get podcasts. And if you want even more sports chat from me, check out Back Door Cover.
Podcast of the Week, non-Micah edition
The Steam Room with Charles Barkley and Ernie Johnson is really good. This week’s episode featured a great interview with Chris Webber and an surprisingly interesting conversation with Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Look, I’m no member of the Yang Gang, but his insight into the primary debates (or as he called them “extended cable news segments”) was really fascinating.
And please, remember not to remove your towel on inside the Steam Room.
Last Week’s Reads of the Week
Inside the emotional 48 hours that saved the NBA's bubble
As featured on last week’s Mind of Micah podcast. A wild, moment-by-moment breakdown of an historic moment in sports.
Walkouts, conflict, frustration and, ultimately, resolutions characterized this unprecedented time in sports history. And that’s all after the players have been sequestered in the Disney bubble, following strict health guidelines and focusing on competition for more than seven weeks.
This is how the NBA nearly lost its postseason but managed to find some common ground, come together and move on in a matter of two days.
Listen to the episode here.
Can You Hack the Jeopardy! Buzzer? Different schools of thought have emerged.
Another read featured on the podcast last week. Enjoyed this book excerpt about finding an edge in Jeopardy!.
Jeopardy!, is a unique beast in the trivia world. “If you’re playing a college bowl or quiz bowl or that kind of thing, people can ring in anytime,” he says. “But Jeopardy! is really unusual and different and it has this one twist, which is it’s basically a reaction-time test tacked onto a trivia contest.”
Check out the episode here. And subscribe while you’re there, please. Thank you.
Snap into a Slim Jim, Oh Yeah!
How Slim Jims went from bar snack to backpacks—with a little help from Macho Man
Of course, this story is about Macho Man Randy Savage. But it’s also about marketing a mass-produced meat snack to teenage boys.
“How were we going to get this snack to stand out? Kids eat candy bars… how were we going to get them to eat this?”
Leland’s focus group research concluded that kids saw Slim Jim as a “pick-me-up… an interesting, exciting snack” that felt distinctly more adult than the chips and candy bars they’d typically buy after school.
Oh yeah!
Make these salads at your Labor Day Weekend BBQ and be a hero
Tomatoes and cucumbers with a Thai twist. Yum. Will go great with hot dogs, burgers, steaks or anything else. The best part, only one step. Micah’s note: I’d add some fresh herbs to this. Any combination of cilantro, mint, parsley, and/or basil would be quite nice. Enjoy.
1 pound ripe tomatoes, mix of sizes and colors, cut into bite-size pieces
3 Persian or mini seedless cucumbers (about 8 ounces total), peeled if desired, then cut into bite-size pieces
1/4 cup fish sauce
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes or 1 teaspoon sliced fresh chile, preferably Thai
1/4 cup coarsely chopped roasted, salted peanuts
Step 1
In a medium bowl, toss the tomatoes and cucumbers with the fish sauce and pepper flakes or chile. Let sit 5 to 10 minutes to marinate, then top with the peanuts before serving.
Black Cherry-Pistachio Salad With Charred Scallion Vinaigrette
Come on! This looks incredible.
1 ½ pounds black cherries, washed
½cup raw pistachios (about 3 ounces)
1bunch scallions
2tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Ice water, as needed
Flaky sea salt, to taste
Using a knife, score all the cherries in half at the seam. Next, twist each cherry apart as you would an avocado, tossing the pitted half into a large mixing bowl.
Chop the pistachios into a coarse crumble, leaving no pistachio whole. Set aside.
Cut the scallions into two parts, slicing about 4 inches above the root to separate the white stalks from the tender green tops. On a stovetop burner, char the scallion bottoms over high heat, rotating every 2 to 3 minutes, until the completely charred on the outside and soft and cooked in the middle.
Transfer the charred scallions to a cutting board, and finely mince. Gather into a pile, and repeat mincing until the scallion bottoms turn into a fine, green-black paste. Transfer to a small bowl, and stir in apple cider vinegar and olive oil.
Take a few pieces of the green scallion tops and stack them directly on top of one another. Using a sharp chef’s knife, cut very, very thin slices of the scallion on a hard bias about 1 1/2 inches long, then transfer to a bowl of ice water. Repeat with the remaining scallion tops. Fluff the scallions in the ice water, so the scallions have enough room to curl.
Scrape all of the charred scallion vinaigrette into the bowl with the halved cherries. Using your fingertips, lightly massage the dressing into the cherries so they reach the cavities of each half. Add chopped pistachio, curly scallions, and a couple pinches of salt to taste. Transfer to a large flat dish, so you can enjoy all the colors and ingredients in the simple dish.
Where else can I find Micah content?
Podcasts: Mind of Micah, Back Door Cover, Too Much Dip
Twitter: @micahwiener & @producermicah (Why two twitters? It’s a long story)
Instagram: @micahwiener
LinkedIn: @micahwiener
Peloton: #badboysofpelly