tall glass of milk

a nondescript, carelessly numbered door with a hidden bell off a grubby residential Lower East Side block lies the height of New York's faux speakeasies.

Without use of a town car or yellow cab, or a divine LES loft, one must make use of at least two subways and a quarter inch of stiletto to arrive.

Reservations are required, and the phone number is both unlisted and often unexpectedly changed. Added to that is the question of whether entry through the locked door will be granted � the camera mounted above suggests judgment and denial. Seemingly a pretentious amount of difficulty to get into what is essentially a bar, but if your tastes require an authentic but civilized vision of an early 1930's speakeasy, this is an accurate and necessary detail.

The décor is simple. The long, narrow black space shimmers with beautiful pressed tin tiles on one wall that echo the potentially historic pressed tin ceiling. Black leather booths with small round wooden tables containing lovely built-in oil lamps line one wall up to the bar, which glows. A row of elegant black stools sit before the bar, any of which are perfect for an educational interaction with the well informed bartender.

If you chose a booth, the hostess, a beautiful but lovely lady, will ask what tastes you enjoy, and instinctively suggest an appropriate classic but interestingly obscure cocktail. She is chic, and epitomizes that ideal found in Emily Post's Etiquette of 1922 - graciousness.

For an absinthe tasting:

Death in the Afternoon, invented by Ernest Hemingway in 1935 - absinthe, Champagne, with added lemon juice served in a tall substantial trumpet Champagne flute lavishly filled to the top � as are all their cocktails. The elegance of the glass adds to the luxurious crisp taste.
Monkey Gland, a pre-prohibition cocktail with a scandalous and revolting origin, made of absinthe, gin, orange juice, and grenadine served in a Champagne coupe. Decidedly sweet � it was designed for the palate of another era. Detail in authenticity prevails. The Champagne coupe is a regal but delicate glass with a risqué rumor surrounding its design. You can see it used to move the plot forward in The Philadelphia Story.
Though the Sazerac was suggested, mixing rye whiskey with the above seemed unnerving. Instead I was served a cocktail of the bartenders own creation, a frothy mix containing absinthe and gin served again in a Champagne coupe and utterly refreshing.
Immaculately crafted, with a taste level both sophisticated and expensive � these are couture cocktails.

Throughout the evening tall glasses of water were refilled without hesitation.

Besides the graciousness and civility that characterizes the atmosphere, what struck me most was the music. A meticulous collection of Jazz, Blues, and period specific musical comedy completes the illusion. "Minor Swing" by Django Reinhardt was particularly diverting. Unequivocally, the work of the place is to create the ideal lair for real conversation, the kind people move to New York for � a dialectic on art, literature, and philosophy, with a sprinkling of repartee. Leaving, one feels satisfied, a rare sensation, and describing the complete experience as delightful
You work out, eat right and get plenty of sleep. So why the fatigue, headaches and serious mood swings? Chances are, you're toxic.

How can you tell if you're toxic? An in-depth look into your lifestyle can reveal wonders. From where you live to what you buy, your everyday choices often dictate your risk. A panel of experts came together to develop our quick-and-easy, 10-question quiz that can help you determine, based on these choices, where you fall within the different levels of toxicity-from nontoxic and on the right track to highly toxic and in need of some internal intervention.


You may be thinking, "Is being 'toxic' really an issue that needs my time and attention?" and "Isn't my body already built to eliminate what is doesn't need?" The answers may surprise you.

While it's true that your body comes equipped with a built-in cleansing system, that delicate orchestra of organs runs the risk of becoming overextended when bombarded with too many nasty substances. And, unfortunately, it's not too difficult to overload.

There are plenty of toxins on our planet that can infiltrate your system and leave you feeling sluggish and sore. In fact, they are all around us-from pesticides in food, to chemicals in cosmetics, to emissions from automobiles. Though we often take these toxins as a simple fact of life and don't give them much thought, these potent perpetrators can have a real adverse effect on our health and well-being.

"People are more toxic than they think," explains Dr. Holly Lucille, but notes that there are telltale toxic signs, "Have you ever felt fatigued for no reason? Have you gone to the doctor without felling well, the doctor runs tests, and tells you nothing is wrong? Are you less alert and more irritable? Is your stress resistance low?" All of these point to the possibility of being taken over by toxins, along with other physical signs such as brittle hair and nails, unexplained weight gain, and abnormal body odor or bad breath.

So, how toxic are you? Find out now by taking this simple 10-question quiz. This will help you decide how aggressive you need your detox program to be.

1) You've been busily running errands and have worked up an incredible thirst. Do you...? a)Find the nearest vending machine for a fizzy fix of your favorite cola. b)Stop by the neighborhood deli for a freshly squeezed lemonade. c)Head straight home and grab a tall glass of filtrated or bottled water.

2) When you open your blinds in the morning, you can usually catch a clear view of... a)Tall buildings and traffic. The bustling city life is the life for you. b)Children playing in your quaint suburban cul de sac. c)The unspoiled beauty of nature, perhaps a serene lake or pristine mountain.

3) While shopping the weekend sales, you spot the perfect sweater for your high school reunion. The label reads "dry clean only." Do you...? a)Snap it up in a hurry. You visit your dry-cleaner on a weekly basis anyway. b)Buy it, but decide to wear it only on special occasions. c)Leave it on the rack.

4) The grumblings you hear from your stomach signal the time to start planning dinner. What will you do to curb your cravings? a)Grill up the ground beef you picked up at the grocery store along with a quick-to-fix can of creamed corn. b)Sear a butcher-bought steak and the vegetables you found at the farmer's market. c)Prepare a free-range chicken breast with a side salad of organic greens.

5) It's 5:45, your guests are expected at 6:00, and you've burned the appetizers. How do you hide the stench of charred cheese puffs? a)Spray the room with a scented deodorizer. b)Set out a big bowl of naturally made potpourri. c)Open the windows and let the fresh air sweep the smell outdoors.

6) If you were to compare your digestive system to your plumbing, would you say you were...? a)Severely clogged and in dire need of a good flushing. b)Occasionally blocked, but nothing that needs professional attention. c)Free-flowing and clear of muck.

7) During your first week on the job, you were thoroughly trained on how to... a)Safely handle the solvents or chemicals you'd be in contact with. b)Replace the toner in the office photocopier. c)Training? What training? You're a full-time parent and learn as you go.

8) You and your coworkers are planning a happy hour excursion for Friday night. Do you...? a)Suggest the name of a restaurant you know has an ample smoking section. You hate trekking outside every time you light up. b)Hope the group chooses a smoke-free area, but it won't hinder your fun if they don't. A little second-hand smoke doesn't bother you. c)Decline to join in when you find out that the restaurant doesn't ban smoking.

9) You're attending a special fundraising event Saturday night and you want to look your best. You call your beauty salon and schedule...? a)The works! Pedicure, manicure, and full foils. Heck, you may even call your dermatologist for a little Botox. b) A cut and some highlights. You don't go for color very often, but it's fun for special occasions. c)Just a trim and a simple blow-out.

10) Your kitchen floor has seen its better days. You head to your local home improvement store and order... a)The cheapest vinyl flooring they offer, complete with synthetic backing. b)Recycled rubber flooring made from used tires. c)All-natural and renewable cork flooring.

Give yourself 2 points for every (a) answer, 1 point for every (b) and 0 points for every (c). Combine your points into a grand total and find your toxicity level below.

0-6 pts. -- Nontoxic: You've brilliantly managed to avoid the hidden dangers that can cause toxins to take hold. Proceed on your path to pure living and continue to seek out ways to eliminate toxins from your life.

7-13 pts. -- Potentially Toxic: While you're on the right track, there are some choices you can make to further decrease your toxicity and increase your vitality. Read on and discover new ways to cleanse your system and improve your toxic score.

14-20 pts. -- Highly Toxic: You're headed for a total toxic meltdown! Now is the time to start decreasing your exposure to toxins wherever and whenever you can. See the following section for helpful detoxifying suggestions.

Demystifying the detox regimen.

Now that you know what you're up against, it's time to take action and get started on the path toward total wellness. But, again, where do you start? The best detox regimens are those done naturally and gently, especially when you are a first-timer. There are a variety of options, so it is best to consider what will suit your own individual needs. Once you begin composing your personal plan for purification, here are some options to consider adding to your everyday life:

Increase your daily intake of water to two quarts.
Take a detox bath once a week: put 1/2 cup of baking soda or sea salt into bath water, soak for 15 minutes, then scrub the skin gently with a natural soap or fiber cloth.
Exercise regularly to sweat out toxins, but refrain from strenuous activity if you are detoxing in other ways. Walking, yoga and jump roping are all great, gentle ways to get your exercise in. If you have any medical conditions, always get your doctor's approval prior to starting a new exercise routine.
Use an internal cleansing product. A great one to try is Enzymatic Therapy's Whole Body Cleanse. This simple two-week system contains everything you need to properly cleanse your whole body in one convenient kit -- dispersible fiber, a gentle laxative formula, milk thistle and other herbs for liver, blood and kidney cleansing. Use it once or twice a year if you are "Potentially Toxic", three to four times per year if you are "Highly Toxic."
Change your diet. Replace packaged and fast foods with whole grains and fresh fruits and vegetables. Buy organic whenever possible. Also cut back on caffeine, alcohol and salt.

Whether you sweat or soak, fast or flush, any detox program is better than none. Lightening up your load of toxins can help you restore, refresh, and rejuvenate your body. All it takes are a few, simple lifestyle changes. Make detoxifying a part of your practice, and discover just how better feels. I've probably given about 30 seconds' thought to Peruvian food in the past ten years. The culinary wonders of the Andes were totally off my radar. Yeah, I knew the little coastal country had thousands of genetically diverse varieties of ancient potatoes and corn. But spuds and maize do not a world-class cuisine make. Especially since the Peruvians apparently never heard of butter.

Then two things happened. I acquired a friend who wouldn't shut up about ceviche. "Just looking at you makes me hungry," he said one time. "I sure could go for a big bowl of ceviche."

I was reminded of the old cartoons where the hungry dog would stare at, say, somebody's big toe, and it would morph into a juicy hotdog. Whenever this guy saw me, I guessed, I turned into a tall glass of pickled shrimp with lime and cilantro. So I started looking around for places that made ceviche. And that, of course, led me straight to the people who invented the stuff.

The second thing: I read Calvin Trillin's funny story about his trip to Peru and Ecuador with Douglas Rodriguez and Rodriguez's ceviche chef. The tale involved a boisterous trek through every ceviche shack along the Pan American Highway and beyond, and I suddenly remembered the first time I ever ate marinated raw fish. I was 19 and on a boat, and somebody had just hauled up some grouper. They cut it up and put the chunks of white meat in a jar with lime and peppers and left it for three quarters of an hour while we drank margaritas. Then they passed around the jar, and when it got to me, it had to be forcibly taken away. That raw fish, which had "cooked" ever so slightly in the lime juice, was the most delicious food I had ever tasted.

How did I lose track of ceviche over the years? It must have been all that sushi I was eating. Occasionally, some trendy restaurant would serve me a martini glass filled with tuna or shellfish that had marinated for so long that it had disintegrated and simultaneously absorbed the bitter taste of lime pith, a concoction I privately called cev-ouch-ay.

Meanwhile, a revolution was going on in Peruvian cooking thanks to a few chefs, including Gastón Acurio, who had fled the country during the Shining Path troubles and gone to European cooking schools. After things settled back down, they went home to Lima and applied their cordon bleu skills to the traditional recipes and ingredients of their compatriots: anything from the sea, including black clams and scallops, squid, octopi, and langoustines; river trout; all those varieties of potato and corn; sweet-hot aji peppers; many kinds of beans; and dozens of exotic fruits. They drew on all of the influences that had pervaded Peruvian cooking for hundreds of years: the criollo spices and peanuts of African slaves who worked the coastal plantations, the taste for raw fish the Japanese had imported, Cantonese fried rice, pesto and pastas of the Italians, and, of course, the cooking tricks of the Spaniards and Basques. In the process, the traditional peasant cooking of the Andean people was rediscovered and celebrated. And little by little over the past decade, Peruvian restaurants started opening around the United States.

Including in South Florida. When we find ourselves craving potatoes with huancaína sauce, we can pretty much close our eyes, spin in any direction, and find a Peruvian place within driving distance. Las Totoritas, in Pembroke Pines, is the 15-year-old daddy of them all (owner Gary Gordillo has two other branches in Miami; it's named for a favorite Peruvian beach). We also have three iterations of Cabo Blanco, serving Peruvian and Cuban, including one on Cypress Creek Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. Gran Chimu has opened in Davie, Inca Grill and Ceviche House in Boca Raton, and, farther south, the gourmet-Peruvian Francesco in Coral Gables and Douglas Rodriguez's Nuevo-Latino Ola on South Beach.

The first time we showed up at Las Totoritas, there was a raucous birthday party going on accompanied by a guitarist blowing a set of Peruvian pipes. We found a seat and looked around: oil paintings of archangels, rustic wooden ceiling, tile floors, paper napkins. Nobody at Las Totoritas speaks much English, and we had no clue about half the stuff on the menu. What, we wondered, was a veal herat kabob? Who could decode "tacu-tacu" or explain why we would want to drink a glass of "ceviche juice"? As for "deep fried seafood" or "fish fillet with garlic," the descriptions seemed willfully oblique.

Not that it mattered. Over the course of two visits, we figured out the shorthand. A gigantic bowl of parihuela ($9.85), a fish and seafood goombay stew, would have worked as a display at the science museum. Goombay is gumbo, and this one employed the familiar brown roux as a base, to which the cook had added a lineup of marine animals to make a Louisiana Cajun blush with shame: shrimp in three sizes: tiny as baby fingernails, medium, and one large, with the head on and guts in for extra richness. Three sizes of calamari: rings big as a bracelet, pasta-like tubes, tiny tentacles. Octopi. Chunks of corvina. Snails. Scallops. A whole fire-engine-red crawfish. Tossed in a pepper-infused broth with handfuls of cilantro, a squeeze of lime over the bowl, it made a fine meal indeed: layers and layers of flavor ― some strange, some homey ― that wouldn't quit. We ate this with the queen of French fries: fat, crunchy yucca strips ($3.95) dipped in huancaína sauce made from farm cheese, evaporated milk, and yellow aji peppers. The sauce, also good with cold boiled potatoes, has the texture of a slightly grainy mayonnaise and suits the sweet fries perfectly.

The 31-year-old blonde bomber made his soap-opera debut this week on Passions, a campy daytime drama that depicts supernatural adventures between rival families and foes along with the "whose bed have your boots been under" storylines that make every daytime drama a favorite guilty pleasure for all who watch.



Interesting enough, the same ingredients that make shows like Passions popular are some of the same ingredients that make NASCAR one of the most talked about sports on TV.



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Like a soap opera, with a dash of reality television, NASCAR is not without family feuds, tawdry trysts and tussles, bouts with drugs and blunders under the covers.



And like a high school cafeteria, the NASCAR garage is where it all starts; it's where the worst-kept secrets are revealed as soon as they are whispered.



Most industry players will tell you the garage is a real hot bed for gossip and drama; drama for your mama, your sister, your cousin, brother and your uncle, too.



Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin explained why.



"NASCAR can be that way because we all travel together so much and we know so much about each other's lives," he said. "You know guys talk about each other when they walk away. It's not like other sports where there are only two teams on the field."



NASCAR has an estimated 48 teams socializing and living together every weekend in the close confines of a racetrack, more or less the makings of a college fraternity.



And the more media coverage and hype surrounding the sport and its cast of characters, the more likely Hamlin and other drivers will become topics of conversation. They are increasingly becoming targets for celebrity Web sites, Page 6 and gossip blogs.



The most recent episode of unfounded hearsay and innuendo came when fair-weather fan Paris Hilton reportedly flirted with NASCAR's man candy Kasey Kahne. Then a few short weeks later, reportedly canoodled with Hamlin.



Nothing was founded but it didn't stop tabloid journalist from running with it, namely the NASCAR gossip blog called Tall Glass of Milk, the most well-known in a string of NASCAR gossip blogs to surface in recent years.



Operated by a pop culture blogger in California, Jen, who has asked her last name not be mentioned for fear of retribution, makes it her mission to know which NASCAR drivers are single, married, dating, persona non grata or all of the above.



She knows their breakups and their make-ups. She has positioned her blog as the People magazine of NASCAR.



Hamlin, who Jen follows with regularity, became blog fodder for his recent split with a long-time high school girlfriend and now his current love interest.



"If that site didn't write it, someone else would've," Hamlin lamented.



McMurray initially embraced the celebrity attention early in his NASCAR career but now prefers his privacy.