Micah's Read of the Week, Vol. 87
St. Peter's heartwarming story, Nick Cage, Retirement the Margaritaville Way, Micah Recommends, Recipe Corner, and more.
Hello, and welcome to Micah’s Read of the Week. Back on our regularly scheduled release date.
This is a newsletter filled with things Micah Wiener finds interesting.
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The miracle of Saint Peter’s: How Jersey City produced the most unlikely Sweet 16 team
Ok, so we all know St. Peter’s got smoked yesterday by ultimate blue blood North Carolina. But this story is amazing and surprisingly heartwarming.
“For a lot of students who are at Saint Peter’s, they love the experience, the education,” Saint Peter’s President Eugene Cornacchia said in an interview. “But I think a part of them always thought, ‘I wish we were better known.’ Well, now everybody knows who we are.”
The ultimate underdog team comes from the ultimate underdog school. By design, Saint Peter’s attracts and provides aid to students who are the first in their families to attend college. More than 70 percent of the 2,134 undergraduate students are minorities. More than 60 percent live off campus. Saint Peter’s sits deep in the city, hemmed in by a high school, tan-brick apartments and Bergen Avenue, which within one block houses an Egyptian market, a Jamaican fruit stand, a Dominican restaurant, a Mexican cafe, two pizzerias and a pawnshop. Modest rowhouses line Montgomery Street across from Run Baby Run Arena.
St. Peter’s beat Purdue to reach the Round of 8. Purdue has about 41,000 undergraduate students. Saint Peter’s claims roughly 34,000 living alumni.
Alexandria Hall, a communications student from Turks and Caicos, had watched both games on large screens at Run Baby Run Arena. “Every single person that I knew on campus was there,” Hall said. It left her thinking it was the best thing that ever happened to Saint Peter’s.
“A lot of people don’t even know we exist, to be honest,” Hall said.
They know now.
Like many schools, Saint Peter’s has seen its student body shrink during the pandemic. It wants to boost admissions and continue its growth in postgraduate students, hoping for 2,500 undergraduates and 4,000 total students, with about 50 percent living on campus. A storage facility across the street from McGinley Square Pub is under construction, being turned into a six-story dorm. The school draws students almost exclusively from New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
“But not for long!” Cornacchia said, smiling as he pounded a desk. “They’re hearing about us. It is priceless advertising for us. We couldn’t afford to push ourselves out nationally like that.”
Sports are the best when they uplift a community.
“They’re playing with grit and tenacity, which is synonymous with the city,” Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop said in a phone conversation. “We’re in this media market of New York City, and we’re across the river here. It’s very much an immigrant community, a working-class community, a blue-collar community historically. When you think about that team over there, they’re playing against much bigger programs and punching above their weight. I’d like to think that’s Jersey City’s story for a long time.”
Lede of the Week
From: Nicolas Cage Can Explain It All
He is one of our great actors. Also one of our most inscrutable, most eccentric, and most misunderstood. But as Cage makes his case here, every extraordinary thing about his wild work and life actually makes perfect ordinary sense.
Fifteen minutes from the Las Vegas Strip, into a tranquil gated community, up a red-brick driveway, past the palm trees that touch the Mojave Desert sky, through the veil that separates the astral plane, and here he is: the man they say gained and lost a $150 million fortune; who owned castles in Europe and the most haunted house in America and the Shah of Iran's Lamborghini and two albino king cobras and a rare two-headed snake; who had to return his prized dinosaur skull upon learning it was stolen from Mongolia; who went on an epic quest for the actual Holy Grail; and who—when his singular, fantastical life eventually comes to an end—will be laid to eternal rest in a colossal white pyramid tomb in New Orleans.
Nicolas Cage greets me at his door, wearing a kung fu suit.
“This is my Wing Chun kung fu suit,” he explains, waving me in and handing me a mug of coffee. “I studied with my sifu, Jim Lau, when I was 12 years old, because I was a big Bruce Lee fan. And so it's like my uniform to relax in.”
The rest of the piece is equally bananas, and it’s worth a click just to see the photos.
New Yorker Cartoon of the Week
Honestly, same.
Micah Recommends
Charles Dickens’ American Road Show
This new book from friend Peter Barbour is a fascinating look at the literary icon’s final tour of America.
Written with warmth and humor as a series of journal entries, the book follows the tour along the East Coast from DC to Maine as an unexpected and hypnotic tale of danger, intrigue, and love unfolds along the way. Grounded in detailed historical research, this novel is a compelling account of the ways in which literature connects us to both the past and each other, and reminds us of the humanity of our heroes.
I recommend the audiobook, voiced hilariously by John Edson.
Jose Garib, Goosehead Insurance
If you think you are paying too much for insurance or if you have some life changes in your future, Jose is your man. He’s an insurance broker, so he does all the work pricing all of the major companies so you don’t have to. And he’s a great guy.
He personally saved me a ton of money.
210.640.6676 jose.garib@goosehead.com
Locking your mortgage loan today
It’s no secret: rates are going up. Don’t believe me? See the chart below that tracks Mortgage-Backed Securities over the past quarter. You don’t have to be an expert to see the trend here.
I hope we’re at the bottom, but I don’t see any evidence that we’re going to see any relief until Q4 at best.
So what does this mean for you?
Now is the time to buy before rates continue to rise. And if you’re under contract, get your deal locked ASAP.
I am a Certified Mortgage Advisor and I am happy to discuss your options. Text me or schedule a call today at 512.695.5920 or micahwiener.com.
Thanks,
M
Tweet of the Week
Retirement the Margaritaville Way
At the active-living community for Jimmy Buffett enthusiasts, it’s five o’clock everywhere.
Here’s a tremendous look at a Florida development for Parrotheads, by Jimmy Buffett (Inc.). So what’s it like? Exactly as you might expect:
Tracts of development radiate out from the town center, where, in addition to the Bar & Chill and the sprawling puzzle-piece-shaped Paradise Pool, with palms, cabanas, and tiki huts, there is the Fins Up! fitness center, the Last Mango theatre and banquet hall, and an outdoor band shell and plaza, with a movie screen, for concerts, Sunday N.F.L. games, and such.
At the Bar & Chill, and everywhere on the grounds, light classic rock plays all day. You hear it in the village square, in the locker room at the gym, in the model villas that have been staged with plastic cheeseburgers and plastic margaritas.
Who would want to live at a place like this?
The neighbor was Jack Sjursen, a retired ironworker from Patchogue, on Long Island, who was turning sixty-two the next day. “It’s my birthday, bitch!” he called out. He appeared to have momentum. He’d also just learned that he had a new grandson, and was going saltwater fishing at dawn. “I fish and I golf,” he said. “I’ve been here for two and a half years, loving every minute of it.”
Stuart Schultz, a former summer-camp director who, as Latitude Margaritaville’s head of residential community relations, serves as a kind of cheerleading pooh-bah, told me, “It’s like being in college, but with money and without having to study. You have a great dorm room, you never have to go to class, and there’s always a party.”
Sounds pretty good, to be honest.
One resident said, “In our previous life, we could do paper calendars. Here we had to learn Google Calendar.” Some had college- or adult-aged children living with them who were startled by their parents’ social lives. “My daughter’s always, like, ‘You’re going out again?’ ” one woman said. Men with guitars set up outside someone’s garage, and the golf carts appear out of nowhere. Commence the beer pong. Pool parties, poker nights, talent shows, toga parties, pig roasts. Cigar-club meeting, group renewal of wedding vows, a pub crawl in old St. Augustine. Oktoberfest this fall had a “Gilligan’s Island” theme; “Hoodstock” was hippies, Fireball, and multicolored jello shots. The golf carts zip and swerve. “By the time we got to Phase 3, we were driving on people’s lawns!” one participant told me. (“Open containers are encouraged,” he said.)
The biggest takeaway from the piece: people really love living at Margaritaville.
Cohlan told me, “It attracts people—and this may sound corny—who have a set of common values. Those values are rooted in this attitude. A person created that attitude. But whether or not you feel connected to that person, it’s not physics. It’s, ‘We’re interested in meeting other people. We like to have fun. We don’t want to be overly political. We like the idea of being happy.’ ”
“This is by far the greatest place I’ve ever lived,” Farkas said. “Ninety-nine per cent of the people here are wonderful. The one per cent you don’t deal with. They’d bitch and fucking moan wherever they lived. You can find miserable people everywhere. If you can’t be happy here, you can’t be happy anywhere.”
Recipe Corner
The weather is heating up. Grilling szn is here. Let’s make a cocktail.
West Texas Smash
Seeking to make a refreshing cocktail, Amarilartender Tiffany Reagan turned to an unorthodox ingredient growing in her garden.
4 slices of green bell pepper
1 jalapeño, sliced
1 heaping bar spoon of local honey
2 ounces gin
1 ounce pineapple juice (ideally fresh, but be canned)
Tajín for the rim
Muddle peppers and honey together in a cocktail shaker, add in the gin and juice and shake with ice.
Double strain in a Tajín-rimmed glass with a large block of ice.
Skirt Steak With Scallion Thecha
The weather is warming up, and it might just mean the return of skirt steak szn.
Spicy, garlicky thecha is a green-chile-based condiment that hails from Maharashtra in western India.
1 small bunch cilantro, tough stems removed, leaves and tender stems coarsely chopped
4 scallions, coarsely chopped
3 green Thai or serrano chiles
4 garlic cloves
1 tsp. Diamond Crystal or ½ tsp. Morton kosher salt, plus more
⅓ cup vegetable oil, plus more for steak
1 tsp. cumin seeds
¼ cup salted or unsalted roasted peanuts, crushed
1½ lb. ½”-thick skirt steak, cut into 5”-long pieces
Flaky sea salt
Pulse cilantro, scallions, chiles, garlic, and 1 tsp. Diamond Crystal or ½ tsp. Morton kosher salt in a food processor (a mini processor works well here) until a coarse paste forms. Transfer to a small heatproof bowl.
Heat ⅓ cup oil in a small skillet over medium-high. Cook cumin until fragrant, about 10 seconds. Transfer to bowl with paste; add peanuts and mix well. Set scallion thecha aside for serving.
Pat steaks dry with paper towels and season on both sides with kosher salt. Rub a little oil over steaks to coat lightly.
Heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high. Add half of the steak, arranging in a single layer, and cook, undisturbed, until a golden brown crust forms, 2–3 minutes. Turn steak over and cook until second side forms a golden brown crust, 2–3 minutes. (Steak should be thin enough that once it’s seared it will be cooked to medium-rare—about 125° on an instant-read thermometer. If you have a very hot pan, this will happen quickly.) Transfer steak to a cutting board and repeat process with remaining steak. Let rest 10 minutes.
Slice steak against the grain and arrange on a platter. Top with reserved scallion thecha and sprinkle with sea salt.
Gem Salad With Grapefruit, Pickled Onions and Avocado Dressing
FOR THE PICKLED ONIONS
3 tablespoons hot water
1 teaspoon honey
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup thinly sliced red onion (half-moons)
FOR THE DRESSING
1/4 cup fresh cilantro or basil leaves
1 scallion, coarsely chopped
1 ripe avocado, halved, pitted and peeled
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons plain Greek yogurt (low-fat or full fat)
2 tablespoons water
1/4 teaspoon fine salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste
FOR THE SALAD
2 red grapefruits
8 cups (4 ounces) lightly packed torn gem or romaine lettuce leaves
Make the pickled onions: In a small bowl, whisk together the hot water with the honey until fully combined; then whisk in the vinegar. Add the onions and let sit at room temperature, stirring occasionally, for at least 20 minutes or up to 2 hours.
Make the dressing: In a small bowl of a food processor, pulse the cilantro or basil with the scallion until finely chopped. Add the avocado, vinegar, yogurt, water, salt and pepper and process until smooth.
Make the salad: Cut the top and bottom off each grapefruit, then, resting the fruit on one end, remove the peel and pith by cutting down from top to bottom, following the shape of the fruit with your knife. While holding the fruit over a wide bowl, use a paring knife to remove each section of grapefruit from its membranes (this is called supreming the fruit), collecting the sections in the bowl. Squeeze the juice from what's left of the fruit into the same bowl.
In a large bowl, gently toss the lettuce with the dressing until evenly coated. To serve, place about 1 1/2 cups of the dressed lettuce onto each serving plate. Pluck 3 to 4 segments of grapefruit and place them on top of each salad serving (reserve the juice for another use -- or drink it) and several slices of the pickled onion. Serve, grinding more black pepper, to taste.
Did Micah practice yoga this week?
Yes. 60 minutes Sunday at the Black Swan Yoga with Carrigan. She kicked my ass.
That’s 11 in-person weekend classes in 12 weeks this year. Namaste.
More Micah
Podcasts: Mind of Micah, Back Door Cover, Too Much Dip
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