Jarad Geldner (1983-2021)

    I have been extremely fortunate to find a wonderful community of friends from my time living in Washington, DC; I say extremely fortunate because my introduction to most of them can be traced back to a Craigslist post that I put up in a rather desperate search for a couple of new roommates after two people I knew had bailed at the last possible moment. Such are the ways friendship networks develop. Our community lost an amazing person last week, and it's still difficult to put into words the impact he had on so many people. But I will try.

    I can't even remember when exactly I first met Jarad, because his gift with people was such that you felt like you had always known him. But of course I had to have met him initially at some point, and that introduction came through our mutual friend and my then-new Craigslist roommate Vince, his college buddy from American (although Hillary will correctly point out that she knew Vince first, and Jarad met him through her). It would have been sometime in the fall of 2008 at a barbecue or house party at the Alaskan Embassy, and Jarad (and Hillary, and later Jasper) naturally became part of the fabric of our social lives there. However, even if I can't pinpoint exactly when we met, I can certainly remember so many wonderful, curious, and fun times that we spent together.

    - It can be fairly said that the foundation of our friendship was food. Jarad was talented in so many ways, but one could make an argument that he was at the height of his powers in the kitchen (his, yours, whoever's). We bonded over a shared love of good food, and of trying new things and being creative in cooking for ourselves and others. I know some excellent cooks, and having spent the better part of six years in the restaurant industry, much of it in fine dining, I feel both comfortable in saying and qualified to say this; I have never known a better or more talented cook than Jarad. He was a master of both technique and flavor; he could draw an audience for his incredible efficiency in deboning a chicken, and everything he made was delicious. He was organized in the kitchen in a way that he was not in his everyday life (the best example being that he didn't actually graduate from college until 2017 - twelve years after the fact - because of some unpaid library fines). If you were attending any event that Jarad was either the primary cook or an assistant cook for, you were going to eat well. He passed his love of good food to both Hillary and Jasper; I can still recall Hillary announcing one time that a then-two-year-old Jasper had chosen sausage when presented with a choice between sausage and something sugary, about which she then said "paternity confirmed."

    - Vince and I watched the opening ceremonies for the Vancouver Winter Olympics at Jarad and Hillary's apartment, which at that time was in southeast DC near the Potomac Avenue metro. I forced myself to leave at some point because I had to coach a basketball game the next day (even though it was a weekend), but the three of them kept the party going, and Vince stayed the night. All of us had recently gotten into the Food Network show "The Best Thing I Ever Ate," and one of our favorite episodes involved the Golden West Cafe in Baltimore and their huevos montelenos dish. Jarad and Vince talked in the morning and said "Let's do it. Let's go there." The three of them got into the car, telling Hillary that they were going to get breakfast (she fell back asleep). At some point she woke up and asked where the hell they were, and was incredulous to learn that they were a) going to Baltimore and b) excited about it. Vince made it to the end of my basketball game to give me a ride home (I did not yet possess a car), and they had brought breakfast back for me. From Baltimore.

    - Jarad, Hillary, Vince, and some unknown young woman whom I seem to recall was Hillary's intern crashed my first date with Kristen almost ten years ago. I had invited Kristen over for scratch-made BLTs (including the bread) and a rum tasting, which came about because I had a moderate collection of rums from dog-sitting for my parents. I want to say that we had just eaten - and were still tasting rums - when the four of them burst in like a tornado from an event at the Smithsonian (the Embassy was easy walking distance away) that had been light on food and heavy on booze. And thus Kristen was introduced to Jarad and Hillary. Despite the inherent awkwardness of the situation (although they went to a second location shortly afterward, and perhaps a third judging by the hour at which Vince returned home later that night), she quickly became friends with the two of them as well, and their (third) wedding that fall was the first of more than thirty that Kristen and I have attended together. Kristen said on more than one occasion that she wanted to grow up to be like Jarad, particularly in observing him handle crises of any size and scope with the same unflappable calm that he displayed every day.

    - Jarad was always game for trying unique things when it came to cooking. He called me up one time and said "Hey, I really want to make a turducken. When can we do a turducken? Okay? Good talk." And so we made a turducken. In fact, we made two, although we made the second one a turduck-hen because a Cornish game hen was more presentable as the innermost bird than a massive Costco chicken. On the second of those occasions he invited his cousin Etai over to our house, telling him nothing other than that we were making a turducken and he was pretty excited about it. Etai, a seasoned veteran of Alaskan Embassy barbecues, rolled up at 8:30 expecting to find a bunch of people hanging around eating and drinking in various parts of the house, and was surprised to find over a dozen people sitting down for a Thanksgiving-style dinner waiting for him (Jarad, of course, had said nothing about it being an actual dinner). When I informed Jarad one time that the Latino grocer down the block from Kristen's Arlington townhouse regularly carried criadillas and that I wanted to try making Rocky Mountain oysters, his only response was "Cool, when do you want to do it?" He might also show up to a barbecue and decide that we should get a couple dozen oysters from the fish market two blocks away, and happily shuck them and dress them in the kitchen for whoever wanted an oyster.

    - In the course of spending most of my Wednesday evenings emceeing live band karaoke at Hill Country in Gallery Place, I learned that the restaurant was going to have a chili cook-off on a Saturday in February. Needing to make several quarts of chili and wanting to get as elaborate as possible, who was my first call for assistance? Jarad, who was more than happy to show up at 7:00 AM with Hillary in tow to help chop vegetables (fourteen different varieties of fresh chili peppers went into that dish, in addition to half a dozen smoked pepper varieties, to say nothing of onions, garlic, etc.) and grind an entire pork shoulder. Even though we didn't win (losing to some pumpkin chili concoction that Jarad dismissively - and correctly - referred to as soup, not chili), we had a blast, and the one Texan on the judges' panel said that we made the best chili of the day.

    - Speaking of pork, perhaps our most memorable times together were after he and his college buddy and neighbor Aaron went in together on a caja china (roasting box) capable of holding an entire pig, and we wound up doing several pig roasts. Kristen was moderately appalled the first time that I told her I wanted to show up at the Geldner house in Silver Spring at 5:00 AM, but she was thrilled to learn when we got there that the guest bedroom had been prepared for her to sleep as much of the morning as she wished (and to have some homemade cold brew whenever she reawakened), because there was no one more hospitable than the Geldners. Future pig roasts did start a little later in the day, though. They also might include making head cheese on a whim, roasting squash in the hot leftover ashes from the caja china, and invitations extended to whomever anyone wanted to bring - friends, parents, partners, etc.

    - Jarad was always willing to go out of his way for his friends. When I helped organize our friend Paul's bachelor party at a Shenandoah vacation house, Jarad offered to sous chef and bring his Global knives, even though he had to get up at oh-dark-thirty the second morning to drive to somewhere in Pennsylvania for a work trip. He helped organize Vince's bachelor party (in Montreal), and called me one day after researching travel options:

"Hey, what's up?"

"So I've been looking at flights from DC to Montreal, and it looks like the cheapest options all have like a three-hour layover in Philly. I think that's dumb. Here's what we do; we drive to Philly, we get roast pork sandwiches for lunch, we get on the plane, and bam, we're in Montreal. Like Emeril."

"Works for me. I'll tell Paul."

"Sweet. Deal. Good talk."

    - The last time I spoke with Jarad was two weeks ago on May 16th, when he called to tell me that the cancer was back, and it was pretty bad. He said he'd been told he had about a year left, but I think he knew it was worse than that and he was just trying to let me down gently. What struck me most in retrospect was that he handled his imminent mortality with the same outward equanimity that he displayed in every other aspect of his life, and in calling to effectively say goodbye used the same tone that he would have to tell me when I should come by to start cooking a pig, or that they had bought a house, or that we should make the three-hour drive to Philadelphia and grab sandwiches for lunch rather than deal with a layover there. And that was what made him so special. Day in and day out, under any circumstances - even dealing with a deadly disease that reappeared and advanced rather suddenly - Jarad was always the same person, an amazing husband, father, brother, son, and friend. His passing leaves a giant void in all of our lives; the world was a better place with Jarad in it.

Kristen wanted to add a few words as well:

Jarad was gifted, and he was kind. He could talk to anyone, which is probably why it seemed like he knew pretty much everyone. He was a hilarious storyteller, and I always felt a bit like I'd won something if I could make him laugh in return. Truthfully, though, it wasn't that hard - he was pretty good at finding reasons to smile. He had a pop culture quote for many occasions. He was calm, and unflappable, and had a bluntly honest way of assessing problems that somehow made them seem manageable. I'll also add my voice to Owen's in saying that Jarad was a titan in the kitchen - he taught me everything I know about knife care (not much, but that's on me) and could prep French onion soup for 10 in the time it would take me to just peel the onions.

We stayed with Jarad and Hillary several times (add this to the list: they made me feel welcome in their home, always). The last time, a couple of months before the pandemic hit, I would wake up to the sounds of him playing music for his son in the living room. I watched the two of them dissolve into laughter while singing along to silly songs from old episodes of SNL. He went shopping for New Year's Eve party supplies with Owen and came back with a 15 pound cured ham because Costco sold it and they were curious. He showed me how to spatchcock a chicken and said the next time we were there, he'd teach me how to debone one. (There's a lot I would give to attend that lesson.) Through it all, he made Hillary laugh. It was a normal weekend, and a joyful one, and when we left I looked forward to more.

I was happy to see him, no matter the occasion - everything from a black tie wedding to a 5:00 am pig roast was more fun with him around. He could make most anyone feel like he was always happy to see them too. He was a good friend, a devoted husband, a loving father, and in all the years I knew him, he always, always gave more than he took. I will miss him very much.

What Could Have Been

The pandemic currently sweeping the globe has taken something from almost all of us. Regardless of whether or not we are sick ourselves, many of us have lost jobs, freedom of mobility, the opportunity to spend time with friends and family, etc. I myself lost my primary source of income because restaurants in the Commonwealth of Virginia were closed to dine-in traffic for two months. The loss of said primary income, however, is not what I am most upset about or have been thinking the most about over the past ten weeks and change. Rather, it is the cancellation of the remainder of my club volleyball season (scheduled to go through the South Atlantic Championships over the recently completed Memorial Day weekend) that saddens me first and foremost. Allow me to tell you a story.

Will the Nats run it back in 2020?

Fourteen years after baseball returned to the District of Columbia for the first time since the 1970s, and after a quartet of first-round playoff heartbreaks over the preceding seven years, the most entertaining Washington Nationals team of them all broke through and won a World Series. They rode a dominant starting rotation and potent lineup while papering over the worst bullpen in the sport (principally by not using it), winning five elimination games along the way, four of them against the acclaimed two best teams in the sport, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros. It was a remarkable season, and when the dust settles and the champagne and beer are washed out of the uniforms, where do the Nationals go from here?

Thoughts on the coming labor kerfuffle

For the past several years, the winter of 2018-19 has been billed as the biggest baseball free agent bonanza in a long while, but for the second straight year, major league clubs are showing that they are far more hesitant to pay out nine-figure salaries to players whose peak years are, by and large, behind them. What was supposed to make this year different was the unprecedented arrival at free agency of two star players, Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, who reached the majors at such a young age that despite their six-plus years of service time they both just completed their age-25 seasons. Given what we now know to be true about the aging curve, this of course means that both players theoretically have several of their very best years immediately in front of them, and both at this point in their careers are on track towards building Hall of Fame careers. Baseball-Reference's similarity score rater through age 25 has three inner-circle Hall of Famers (Ken Griffey Jr., Frank Robinson, and Eddie Mathews) and two certain future first-ballot inductees (Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera) among Harper's top ten player comps, PLUS Andruw Jones, who was a Hall of Fame talent through age thirty before injuries and poor conditioning short-circuited the back end of his career. Machado's comps through the same age also include three Hall of Famers (Ron Santo, Cal Ripken, and Griffey) in addition to Jones and future no-doubter Adrian Beltre, who additionally rates as Machado's best year-by-year comp for five of his six MLB seasons (Santo is the other). Interestingly, Harper shows up as one of Machado's age comps (sixth), but the reverse is not true. Very rarely in the forty-odd years of free agency have any players this talented and this young hit the open market, and two of them doing so at the same time has never happened. All of this is quite familiar to most serious baseball fans, but it bears repeating for the more casual fans out there.

Nationals trade proposal

A quarter of the 2017 baseball season has come and gone, and things are beginning to crystallize a little (although only a little). Raise your hand if you thought that the Colorado Rockies would have the best record in the National League in late May (followed by the Diamondbacks!), or that the Milwaukee Brewers would be leading their division thanks in part to a blistering April from AAAA journeyman-turned-Korean demigod Eric Thames.* The third division leader in the National League, meanwhile, the Washington Nationals, are exactly where they were expected to be at the start of the season, except that none of their division rivals (most notably the injury-ravaged Metropolitans) are putting up much of a fight; the rebuilding Atlanta Braves are closest right now, six and a half games back and four games under .500.

Eaton a Better Fit Than Sale

The buzz from yesterday afternoon/evening at the Winter Meetings was that the Washington Nationals may have given up too much (in the form of young pitchers Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, and Dane Dunning) for Chicago White Sox outfielder Adam Eaton, who has never played in an All-Star Game but who does have, as several people (notably Dave Cameron of Fangraphs) pointed out, a skill set that has made him one of the more valuable players in baseball since he became a full-time regular three years ago. I believe that this trade will work out well for both teams, and that the main reason it ever might look bad for the Nationals is due to the organization that their three young pitchers went to.

Team Endless: Phight for Philly

We saw our first big breakthrough on the offensive end this weekend in our final Zero Gravity tournament, breaking the fifty-point barrier for the first time in our second game. Unfortunately, we were not able to capitalize on that success and close out the game, losing 57-50. However, I do think it was a big confidence boost to a couple of players in particular who had been more or less invisible on offense, and were able to see what could happen when they asserted themselves.