Stewman

Poker Degen, Tech enthusiast, blogger, and wanna be world traveler.

[Dweller @One_Way_Home]

Soccer skills are always appreciated during the FIFA World Cup tournament. Watched this multiple times and it’s amazing to me the ball never touches the ground.

And in jeans…

[Brian Rosenworcel @bowl_of_worcel]

If you steal a paint chip it's 10 years in prison but take what you want from our Capitol, that's worth a pardon.

[Nostalgic Gamer @16bitnostalgia]

Remember in FIFA when you could run away from the ref trying to give you a yellow card? Good times!

[Geronimo Morgans @GeronimoMorgans]

Look at Haaland calling his teammates and coaches to line up and do the Row Row celebration with the fans. we’re talking about the best striker on the planet and a leader among men. wouldn’t have happened without him. 🇳🇴

[Chris Mowrey @chrisdmowrey]

If Joe Biden said he didn't know what he was signing in the Oval Office I think every right wing pundit would have botox melting off their face from the rage

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

A restaurant in North Beach, San Francisco, called The Stinking Rose. The sign on the door read: "We season our garlic with food."

I read it three times.

This was not a restaurant. This was a school.

A hostess named Cathy seated me. She set down a small iron skillet of olive oil with whole garlic cloves swimming inside it, and a basket of warm bread.

"Just a heads up, every dish here has garlic in it," she said, kindly. "Like, every single one."

"...Then I will become it."

"...Become what?"

"Garlic. By the end. There is no other outcome."

"...Sir, I have worked here three years. You are the first person who has accepted that with no negotiation."

"There is no negotiation, Cathy. There is only the dojo."

Cathy paused, and then, slowly, with great dignity, set down the bread basket.

"I am bringing the chef out," she said.

"You do not have to bring the chef out."

"Sir, I do have to bring the chef out."

She left. I sat with my hands folded in my lap. I was, for the first time since I had crossed the Pacific, exactly where I was supposed to be.

I dipped a piece of focaccia into the oil. The cloves had gone soft and sweet. The way time turns hard things into kind things.

I closed my eyes.

This is what they hide inside the bulb. All the aggression. All the loud, unpleasant power. Until you give it heat, and patience, and it becomes the gentlest thing on the table.

Cathy returned with a round, smiling man. His apron had three different shades of garlic-brown on it, layered, the way a sword scabbard takes layers of lacquer over time.

"This is Marco, our chef."

I rose, and bowed.

Marco rose to the bow and returned it, with one hand on his chest. He had clearly been told, on the way over, what I had said.

"...A garlic clove," Marco said, slowly, "is a samurai who has finally retired. That is what you said."

"Yes."

"...I have been cooking garlic for thirty-seven years, sir."

"Then you are three years from your own mastery."

Marco looked at Cathy. Cathy looked back at him. Whatever passed between them was older than the restaurant.

"Sir," Marco said, "what would you like to eat."

"What is the strongest dish in this dojo."

"The 40 Clove Garlic Chicken. Exactly forty cloves, sir."

"...Forty is the number of years a master spends becoming a master."

"...I know, sir. I just told you, three more years."

"Then forty cloves. One clove for every year of training I have not done, and the last three for the years you have left."

Marco bowed again, this time more slowly. He went back to the kitchen. Cathy watched him go.

"Sir," she said, "I have seated a lot of people at this restaurant."

"Yes."

"I am going to remember this one."

The chicken arrived. The cloves were on the plate beside the bird, soft and brown like little jewels of warm earth.

I will tell you the truth. It was one of the best meals I have eaten in any country.

The chicken was tender enough to ask for the fork instead of the knife. Each clove burst soft and warm and not sharp at all. The way you remember the kitchen of your grandmother, in a house you can no longer return to.

I had not expected this restaurant to make me homesick.

I ate every clove. Forty of them. Slowly. With respect.

By the thirty-fifth I was no longer a man eating garlic. I was garlic, eating itself.

A couple at the next table, who had ordered a quiet salad, had stopped eating. They were watching me. Not in a rude way. In the way one watches a man crossing the finish line of a marathon he has been running for, by appearances, several lifetimes.

The man at that table whispered to his wife, "should we order what he ordered?"

His wife whispered back, "we are not ready."

I bowed, with my fork, in their direction.

"Dessert?" Cathy asked.

"Garlic ice cream, please."

"...Sir."

"Yes."

"...Are you sure?"

"I cannot leave the dojo before the final test."

"...Sir."

"Yes."

"I respect you so much right now."

The ice cream arrived. Pale. With chocolate sauce hardened over it, like a small dark roof, the kind of roof you put over a saint.

I took a spoonful.

It was vanilla, with a small savory ghost behind the sweet. The most polite garlic in the building, served last, after I had been broken in.

I bowed to the bowl.

The couple at the next table, finally, ordered the 40 Clove. They did not look at me when they did. But they ordered it. I felt the order leave their table the way you feel a small wind shift in a forest.

Outside, I tried to call a car. The first driver accepted, then politely apologized at the curb and asked if I would mind walking, as it was a beautiful night. I agreed it was a beautiful night. He had been on the road since dawn. I wished him a safe shift. He was a kind man, and I bore him no ill will. A man transports passengers all day. A man also has a nose. These are two facts that meet, occasionally, on a sidewalk in North Beach. The driver waved as he pulled away. I waved back.

So I walked.

Fifteen blocks. The night was warm and the bay was somewhere to my left.

A man passed me on the sidewalk. Instead of crossing the street, he slowed down, sniffed once, and grinned at me.

"Stinking Rose tonight?"

"...Yes."

"Forty clove?"

"...Yes."

"Welcome to the club, friend."

He walked on.

Twenty paces later, a second man, walking the other way, slowed, breathed in, raised his eyebrows, and nodded once at me with the recognition of a soldier nodding at another soldier from a war neither of them is supposed to talk about.

I nodded back.

I had not, in any practical sense, made friends. I had not exchanged a single name. But for thirty seconds total on Columbus Avenue, three strangers, who had eaten the same chicken on different nights of their lives, recognized one another by nothing but breath.

It was, I have to say it, one of the best thirty seconds of my year.

I came to learn from this country. I have.

I came to be made gentle by something stronger than me. I have been.

A clove of garlic is a samurai who has finally retired. By the time I reached my hotel, so was I. Not from this life. From one shorter, harder life I had been carrying, for too long, without knowing.

Tomorrow, I will come back, and try the rabbit.

The dojo does not close. Neither will I.

[Jess Magdefrau @JessMagdefrau]

Go watch/listen to my husband’s new Podcast. He’s back like he never left and the best interviewer around. 💁🏼‍♀️

[Football Tweet ⚽ @Footballtweet]

🚨 Heinz have pulled off a marketing masterclass. 🤯

FIFA World Cup stadiums are serving Heinz condiments, but because Heinz aren't an official tournament sponsor, every bottle has been covered up with black tape.

Instead of hiding from it, Heinz turned it into a campaign. The brand embraced the blackout, launched content around the taped-up bottles, and even sparked a viral exchange with Levi's.

What started as a sponsorship restriction has become one of the most talked-about marketing wins of the World Cup. 🎯🌎

[Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_]

John C. Reilly: “Why aren’t people on the right wing concerned about human rights? They’re human too. Elon Musk says don’t be fooled by the empathy trap. Empathy is not a trap, empathy is a superpower. It’s what makes human beings exceptional, our ability to look outside ourself”

[Power to the People ☭🕊 @ProudSocialist]

The United States is the only country in the World Cup without Universal Healthcare.

[Lance Bradley @Lance_Bradley]

The way in which he is eating this burrito:

White Tragic (™).

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

A Waffle House at three in the morning. I ordered hash browns. The waitress, Charlene, turned toward the kitchen and shouted.

"Scattered, smothered, covered!"

I rose from my stool.

These were battle commands. Shouted across a room, fast, in code, the way a captain calls a line into position. Something was happening. I prepared myself.

"Who is under attack?" I asked.

Charlene turned back. "Huh? Oh. That's just your hash browns, baby."

I sat back down slowly. "...The potatoes have their own commands?"

"Mhm. Scattered means on the grill. Smothered's onions. Covered's cheese."

"And there are more?"

She counted them off without looking at a menu. "Chunked is ham. Diced is tomato. Peppered's jalapeños. Capped's mushrooms. Topped's chili. Country's sausage gravy."

I was silent for a moment. Nine words. Nine fates, for one potato.

In my homeland, a man earns a name through a lifetime of deeds. Here, a hash brown can earn nine in a single night. I had badly underestimated this country.

"I want all of them," I said. "Every word. The potato has earned them."

"...You want it all the way?"

"All the way. To give it fewer would be an insult."

Charlene shouted the whole thing back into the kitchen, the full litany, and the cook answered without turning around, and I stood again and bowed to him, sergeant to sergeant. He did not see it. It did not matter. I knew.

It came buried. Onions, cheese, ham, tomato, peppers, mushrooms, chili, gravy. You could barely find the potato underneath, which seemed correct, because by then the potato was no longer a side dish. It was a decorated soldier.

I ate the whole thing with a fork in both fists. It was hot and filthy and magnificent. I have eaten in palaces. I have never eaten anything that was honored this thoroughly.

So tell me, America.

You can shout the same potato into nine different lives.

Who wrote this language, and where can a foreigner learn it?

And the cook who answers in code at three in the morning. Is that a kitchen, or a war room?

[Wendy Peffercorn @SandLot84]

Petition to keep the Europeans here ❤️😂

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

I went to In-N-Out and ordered a cheeseburger. The cashier, a calm young woman named Destiny, asked me a question I did not expect.

"You want that Animal Style?"

I paused.

I did not know what this meant. But a samurai does not admit he does not know. So I answered with weight.

"...Animal Style."

"Cool. So that's mustard-grilled, extra spread, grilled onions, pickles. Yeah?"

I understood now. This was a sacred permission. For one meal, I was being told to put down my manners at the door. To eat the way a beast eats, without shame. I had waited my whole life for someone to give me this order.

"Yes," I said. "I will become the animal."

Destiny did not blink. "...Okay. You want your fries Animal Style too?"

I stopped. Even the potatoes?

"The potatoes also become animals?"

"I mean, they get cheese and sauce and grilled onions, so..."

"Then yes. Let the potatoes abandon their restraint as well."

"...Got it." She was the calmest woman I have ever met. "3x3, 4x4, or just the one?"

I did not know these numbers, but I knew a challenge when I heard one. "How many must I face?"

"It's, like, how many patties you want."

"How many is the most honorable?"

"...Four is a lot."

"Then four. A warrior does not ask for fewer."

She wrote it down without argument. A 4x4, Animal Style, with animal fries. She warned me once, kindly. "That's gonna be huge." I told her I was counting on it.

It arrived. It was a tower. Cheese and sauce ran down my hands the moment I lifted it. There was no clean way to eat it. There was no dignified way. That was the entire point.

I ate it like a beast. Both hands, no honor, grilled onion on my chin, and I have to be honest with you, it was the best thing I have ever put in my mouth.

For thirty years I have kept my manners at every table in the world.

They handed me a burger and told me to be an animal, and I have never felt so free.

So tell me, America.

The whole country knows the secret menu. What else are you hiding in plain sight?

And "Animal Style." Was I eating the animal, or finally becoming one?

[Papii🥤 @ammalusty]

Every McDonald's should have a flag they fly at half mast when the ice cream machine is broken

[AB⚕ @AbsoluteBruno]

I genuinely don’t think there’s a better celebration in club or international football right now.

[Louise 💙 @louisedbegin]

When you realize Creed wasn’t playing a character on The Office… he was just telling the truth the whole time. 😳👀

Creed joined The Grass Roots in 1967 as lead guitarist and was part of their biggest commercial run. In 1969 the label fired him so they could use studio musicians instead.

His character shares the real name and the actual backstory … which means almost every wild thing Creed said about his music career was straight from his own life. 🥹😳 The writers just let him tell his own chaotic story.

Absolute legend.🔥

[Chris Orzechowski @chrisorzy]

I love when restaurants put “market price” next to certain menu items. Like yeah, I’ve been monitoring scallop futures all week.