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The art of the meal
Have a comment or question for Dr. Z? Click here. I'm just straining to get to those restaurant questions, but they'll be the crème brulee at the end of this thing. First the, ugh, vegetables. "Who was the greatest quarterback never to have won the Super Bowl?" I was asked in my last mailbag, and I responded with a tie between Sammy Baugh and Otto Graham. Had the question been phrased, "Since the Super Bowl era began, who was the greatest QB never to have won it?" I'd have said Dan Marino. But that's not what I was asked, and since I wear glasses, I'm a literal type (tripe?) person. So I opened the door and the rippers came storming in. MC of Toronto feels that it was an oversight on my part. Sorry, I thought both QBs I named were better than Marino, although he's in my top 10. Niv of Miami gives me a "duh," and then admits that he's only 20. So tell me, Mr. Duh, how can you evaluate people you've never seen? Hell, you've never seen Joe Namath or John Unitas or even Joe Montana, except as a wee kiddie. Back to Disneyland, pal. Kelly of Sarasota says, "don't give me that old crapola about me never having seen Sammy or Otto play back then ..." Crapola, huh? Want my grades on them? Want to see their proficiency in throwing each type of pattern, the fade, the cross, the go route, thrown with touch and accuracy, the 10- or 12- or 15-yard out? Get lost, Jack. Crapola indeed. Now it gets tougher. Much resentment from Ed and Tom, both of Baltimore, for my terming the Ravens a "classless outfit" and mentioning quotes by the Giants' Lomas Brown pertaining especially to Peter Boulware. Brown was the guy I quoted because, 1) he gave me permission to do so. Other Giants I spoke to came on even stronger but most of them didn't want their names used, and 2) I didn't want to load the piece with a bunch of similar quotes, especially since my space was so limited. I'm professional enough not to build a thesis on just one guy's observations. Now we come to the matter of Boulware being such a good guy off the field. I've seen lots of people like that, terrific citizens but classless once they got the pads on. I had a teammate once, on an army team in Germany, named Ulysses Bernard. A guard from Ocala, Fla., a terrific talent, a great competitor, but he'd embarrass us with his stream of trashiness. Off the field, a real nice guy. I used to have long talks with him. "Bernie," I'd tell him, "you're just hurting yourself with all that stuff." "I know, man," he'd say, "I just can't help it." Are we ready for the dessert yet? Nope, still more broccoli to come. Dan of Vegas says the measure of a defensive unit is the mesh, not the collection of individual talent. Granted, but the units I cited, particularly the 1974-76 Steelers (not the '78 vintage that he mentioned), certainly had the mesh. I mean, I wasn't just listing rosters. Steve of Scotch Plains, N.J., feels that the Ravens had the edge because the players are so much bigger nowadays. Bigger or more pumped up? The height and bone structure wasn't all that different. Given the intensive, year-round weight training, plus surreptitious chemical enhancement (and no one will ever convince me that it doesn't exist), the older guys would be hitting the three-double-o regularly. John of Baton Rouge wants me to compare the Ravens to the Buddy Ryan Eagles. Line not as good, LBs and DBs faster although in one or two spots not as good on individual talent. Better depth on the Ravens, better overall scheme, better all around. A personal question from David of Hong Kong. Why do I feel that the floating restaurants of Aberdeen are so vastly overrated? No, check that, he wants to know what I do after the Super Bowl. Rest up. Take the Redhead to Mendocino County,. Calif., for some vacation time. Get ready for the League Meetings. Part two: Weinke and Heupel in the draft. I'm not impressed with Weinke. Heupel's a good competitor, but don't know about his arm. I'll be checking more closely with the scouts as the draft approaches. Duane of Portland wants Marvin Lewis in Dallas. I'd be curious to know how Lewis' salary as a coordinator compares to what the last three Cowboys head coaches made. I'll bet it's close. I think he can do better for himself. Gary of Philly wonders why the Browns and Lions couldn't wait a couple of weeks for Lewis and John Fox to become available. You might disagree, but I think they preferred the people they hired. Super Bowl coordinators DO get hired the next year. To Dan of Doylestown, Pa.: No thoughts as yet on the Bills' new guy, Gregg Williams. I don't like to pre-judge unless I think the guy is brilliant or a stiff, and even then, I don't like to put it in print because it could come back to haunt me. Big cop-out, huh? Sorry. Whoo, here's a creepy one. Henry of Colorado Springs had a dream about me. To summarize -- I made a street corner appearance in "some suburb" (probably Parsippany, N.J.). He was the only one there, which is the normal turnout for one of my guest spots. I looked like ex-Florida Congressman Claude Pepper. (I'm trying to find a recent picture of same, but I can't come up with one. I'm guessing that he's a geek.) I arrived carrying a Super Bowl display case that contained a football, a picture of Al Davis standing next to a guy with a lawnmower (How do you remember such dream details? I sure can't), several Super Bowl rings and an assortment of yellowed fingernails. After insulting Henry, I explained that the fingernails belonged to players who had them torn off in the Big Game. Which players? Jim Thorpe and Larry Csonka. Explain the dream, please. Well, I immediately FedExed all dream information to the Psychiatric Institute in Vienna. They reported back, somewhat alarmed, that either you or I, possibly both, should be immediately committed. Claude Pepper signifies bittersweet -- Florida oranges vs., well, pepper. Al Davis and the lawnmower? The attempt to control his efforts to constantly alter and slow down the playing surface of the Coliseum, in other words, a bid for fair play in a lawless world. The rings and football? Cliché trappings of one who, despite all his efforts, remains basically mediocre. The torn-away, yellowed fingernails? Early fascination with Fu Manchu movies. Thorpe and Csonka? A clever voyage into the realm of numerology. Assigning a strict numerical value to each letter, starting with one for A and progressing to 26 for Z, you get a total of 82 for Thorpe and 73 for Csonka, which, when added, gives 10 for each, and then, on further addition and distillation, one and one. This represents the importance of one-to-one matchups, not only in football but in life itself. I hope I've made all this clear to you. The Flaming Redhead, incidentally, says that she just read your letter and thinks that your dream sounds suspiciously like the ones I experience. Unfortunately Henry progresses into mundane matters, which lessens the whole dream impact. Gradishar in the Hall of Fame? A good player but others were better, I feel. Jack Lambert slamming Cliff Harris into the turf, head first, in the Super Bowl? Nope, never happened. Harris said something to kicker Roy Gerela, Lambert gave him a shove, he lost his balance and toppled. That's the way it was. Another case of mistaken memory: Everyone remembers Jackie Slater "unloading" on the Jets' Mark Gastineau during his sack dance. Oh, my, what a vicious blow. He shoved him, Gastineau relocated and continued his dance, until, ding ding, he realized he'd been shoved. Then the fight started. Finally, rounding up Henry's overlong missive, if Lynn Swann could make the Hall of Fame with lesser numbers, why not Bo Jackson? Sure, a great talent, but only four decent seasons. Wehave to draw the line somewhere. Whew, glad that's over. John of Toronto is looking for more potential Niners Hall of Famers, once we get by Young and Rice. Hard to find. If Bryant Young continues his comeback and puts together a few All-Pro years he might have a shot. Packers questions from Roy of West Caldwell, N.J. No, I don't think Mike Sherman should be both coach and GM. Will Ron Wolf be on my Hall of Fame short list? Depends on who the other candidates are when he comes up. Wolf's rating among GMs? Very high. Old guard. Began by pounding the pavement as a scout, as George Young did. Walsh, as we know, did not, and I'm much more impressed with him as a coach than as a GM. Randy of Nottingham, Pa., is already bugging me about the Eagles' chances next season. Give it a rest, man. Wait for the draft. Wait for free agency. I will say, though, that I think Tom Modrak is one of the league's finest personnel men. Cla of L.A. wants my all-time play-by-play announcer and color man. Well, as a kid I loved Mel Allen on football. Yep, that's right, the same Mel Allen who did Yankees baseball games. Don't know why it sticks in my mind, but I remember him doing the '48 USC-Michigan Rose Bowl. The Trojans had a 300-pound defensive tackle named Jay Perrin, and I remember Mel offhandedly saying, "Better snap your hat on, big boy, they're comin' at you again." Fifty-three years ago, and I can still remember it. Why is that? Best analyst? Easy. Irv Brown, a third- or fourth-string announcer at ESPN. No one close. I once heard him call a fumble before it happened. A BC-West Virginia game. A BC guy, or maybe it was a Mountaineer, can't remember which, was back to return a punt, and this guy was also a starting defensive back, and Brown said, "It's a mistake to put him back there. He'd just had a long run to knock down the pass on that last play. That's when you get your fumbles." Bloop! Fumble. Called the formations, the blockers, the defensive force, the correct tackler, predicted the action with uncanny accuracy. In short, the guy did everything superbly, but no one ever heard of him because he didn't have that old pizzazz. Ryan of Newark, and that's in Delaware, wants to know what the Giants have to improve in order to get back to the Super Bowl. More punch in the offense, one or two more big league O-lineman, more speed at the corners. Vikings' cap problems concern Dean, a Packers fan from Ashburn, Va. Having flunked economics not once but twice in college, I can't figure out a way they can pay everybody. Maybe they ought to call Carmen Policy and Dwight Clark for some imaginative financing tips. Got this note from Jimmy: "AUL—E GOT A EW LETTERS HAT MENTIONED THIS." You're right, he wrote it near the left margin, and the faxer machine viciously trimmed off first letters. By conducting a deductive investigation I figured out that more than one person repeated the correction supplied by J. Corey Edwards of Irving, Texas, that Tex Schramm wasn't the culprit in naming the Cowboys America's Team, as I had mistakenly written. It was Steve Sabol of NFL Films who dood it. Mr. Edwards, let me give this to you straight. I don't like my prejudices messed with. Steve is my friend, Tex Schramm once called me a "communist" (because I supported the Players Association). If I want to believe it was Tex who came up with the name, I'm gonna believe it, but, of course, I will never write it again. John of Newark, the right Newark this time, wants to know how Marv Levy can get into the Hall of Fame while Tom Flores, who won two Super Bowls, can get stiffed. It's a popularity contest at times. There wasn't a big rush of support for Flores. Hopefully, next year there will be. Now on to the good stuff. Three letters about the Tampa Bay-St. Pete restaurant ratings in last week's mailbag. First of all, I want to thank this trio for supplying the Redhead and me with what looks like a great roster of sleepers. There are three ways to find restaurants in a not-too-familiar town. The best is word of mouth from people whose opinions you respect. Much worse is to go by reviews, which usually tell you everything you want to know except if the food is good or bad. And the worst way is to use the Zagat Guide, which will direct you to the world's leading tourist traps. So, gentlemen, I am indebted to you for sharing your secrets with me, and I assure you I'll try as many of them as I can. And even though the collective correspondence contained some rips, the wealth of information more than compensated for them. To Martin of St. Pete: You gave me a great roster, but you have to remember that we were only there for a week, and how many places can the Redhead and I eat in while still retaining our sleek physiques? I chose Bern's because I wanted to show it to Linda, particularly the huge wine list, and as a surprise, I was going to show her an entire page in said list devoted to yours truly. Well, it was gone. It had been in their 1,200-page list, but it was trimmed when the book was abridged. How did I earn the honor? Well, 26 years ago Bern and I went in, jointly, on two cases of a Burgundy, a 1966 Romanee-St.Vivant, Domaine Marey-Monge, that we got for $260 per case at the Heublein auction in New York. When Bern listed it, he gave me a big puff, a whole page, mentioning stuff like how I spent an afternoon entertaining his kids with bird and cricket imitations. Now you know how a wine list can swell to such an ungodly size. The problem with Bern's, and I've always found it this way, is that the steaks are the weakest things on the menu. They never taste exactly right. Chris of Tampa mentioned that it's the aging that does it. Uh uh. I love aged steaks. Someone mentioned that they were "dry-aged," and that isn't really the best way to do it. Not being a chef, I can't comment. They don't taste the same as Peter Luger's, incidentally. The Brooklyn landmark, generally conceded as New York's (well, Brooklyn's) best steak house, has steaks that taste good, but the last time I was there I had a huge fight with the waiter who insisted on bringing the steak out already sliced, and essentially I was told that I'd eat it their way or take a hike. So I crumpled. But I've never gone back there and never will. That'll show 'em. The best steak place in New York (well, the Redhead's best, because I wasn't along when she ate there, dammit, and besides, she has a better palate than I do) is Michael Jordan's in Grand Central Station. The best steak I've eaten in a long time was in Dallas -- Morton's of Chicago (kind of a conflict in terms there). Ted of St. Pete offers the Red Mesa for Mexican food, and you get a big Thank You from Linda on that one because, being from Phoenix, she loves authentic Mexican food, and, unfortunately, until very recently, she hasn't been able to find it here in Jersey. My poker buddy, Dr. Leo Gonzalez, told me that a funky little place in Dover called Azteca has the most authentic Mexican food in our area. Next night we were there. A little mom-and-pop joint with food so authentic that we could barely eat it. Then we got a tip on Don Jose in East Hanover. Yes! We're there about once every two weeks. On that hearty note, we head for vacaciones , and a couple of weeks in Mendocino County, where our favorite restaurant for years has been the Boonville Hotel. If you want a full restaurant report, including ratings, just ask -- Jimmy, let all restaurant queries through, please -- and I'll be happy to supply same. Just one more thing, as Columbo used to say: How do I do all this eating and still keep my weight down to a trim 250? No lunches. A wasted meal. Totally unnecessary. Get out of the habit, is my advice. Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman covers the NFL for the magazine and CNNSI.com. His "Inside Football" column and Mailbag appear weekly on CNNSI.com. To send a question to Dr. Z, click here.
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