Let's Give'em A Hand

This weekend in NYC included dinner at Vatan (which is delicious but too much food for too much money, if that makes sense). If you go and can eat the whole battered/fried pepper that comes with the appetizer tray then you have my utmost respect.

After that, we moseyed on over to the Found Footage Festival which was hilarious! There are some clips on YouTube including this one.



And if you are NOT at work, the festival included parts of this one.
Did I mention this is not safe for work?
NSFW!

Update: I don't know why the embedded version of this did not work. But it is still NSFW!

Update 2: I completely forgot to include this photo of me and, uhm, yes, it is exactly what you think.

Yackity Yack

Yesterday was a bit of a Foodapalooza. Had lunch at Max Brenner's (and if you don't bring you kids there, you a an awful parent). Their slogan is "Chocolate from the bald man!" How can things possilby go wrong.

I had the Illegal Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Pancakes. They were very good but, quite frankly, they should put cocoa powder in the actual pancake. My friends got their kids a chocolate pizza, do-it-yourself hot chocolate and a chocolate syringe. Most of it ended up on one of their kids. All in all, a fun and tasty lunch.

Then off to a friendly get together on Long Island. There was food, drinks, a hot tub, yada, yada, yada. We ended up driving a couple of people back to Manhattan and we hadn't gotten very far when a voice from the back seat requested, "Uhm, when you can, could you pull over?"

Ruh-roh.

SCREEEEEECH!

That makes two wacky yakky weekends in NY. It's just like being back in college (except I'm not the one booting).

I Don't Have Anything For F2

Someone asked me for this not too long ago. I don't remember the source (somewhere on the web).

Fakorade

• 8.5 T. sugar
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. Morton Lite salt
• 1 pkg. KoolAid unsweetened (any flavor but I stick with lemonade)
  
• 2 quarts water

Nutrition (per 8 oz. serving):
52 Calories
14 grams carbohydrates
120 mg sodium
44 mg potassium

Gatorade (original) has:
52 Calories
14 grams carbohydrates
110 mg sodium
30 mg potassium

Bouley Vous Coucher Avec Moi Ce Soir

Friday night I had a really nice meal at Bouley. Pre-first course was a delicious (I'm going to run out of adjectives, I can see that already) cauliflower mousse-y thing with caviar, heirloom tomatoes and 25 year-old balsamic vinegar.
Appetizers (there's two of everything because my date and I are sharing) were a wonderful shrimp and scallop something and the ethereal Porcini/Crab Flan.
Main dishes were a, frankly, less than stunning (and let's face it, everything should be stunning) duck and scrumptious monkfish a la chop suey (don't let the name throw you; yuou must get this dish!)
Last time I ate here, I was so full by this time that a dessert was split. This time I was still hungry; a bit worried I might not have enough to eat (ha!) so we ordered two desserts. A pear dish (which was great even though I don't really like pears) and the incomparable orgasmic chocolate frivolous (six miniature chocolate desserts in one).
Before they came out, we had what I assume was a palate cleanser of yogurt with some pineapple syrup or who knows. It could have passed as a light dessert.
These were followed by our desserts and also a couple of ounces of a yummy (see? out of adjectives) dessert wine...and a complementary coconut creme brulee which my date sampled but she had reached full capacity and I polished it off. ANd then I was full.
Then came the tray of truffles and petit fours. No mercy! Thankfully, they packed those up for us and we ate them for breakfast the next day.
Along with the lemon cake (about half the size of a pound cake) they hand you as leave.
Drool. Drool. Drool.

A Trend To The End

First came this commercial for Jack in the Box.

Now we have this one for Hardee's.

I'm guessing the next commercial will come from Wendy's. Shocker!

Schokolade, šokolaad, шоколад, suklaa, choklad and chokolade

As I'm sure I've noted before, when I leave a country I generally use my leftover currency to buy chocolate.
After two weeks visiting six different countries that use five different currencies, that's a lot of chocolate. Here's the haul for the trip (minus what I already ate).

I like to get chocolate that's made in the county I'm in but that is not always possible. In the middle of the picture is what I think is chocolate from Russia. According to babelfish, the Russian word for chocolate is шоколад so I should be in good shape. More to come...

Don't Be A C.T.

Ever since I read about the Canadian ruling that people disabled by obesity are entitled to free second seat on airplanes I've been waiting for a similar lawsuit from those of us who are so tall that sitting in a regular seat could actually cause us to become disabled. But until that day I'll just do my best to get those exit row and bulkhead seats.

For my flight down to Florida, I checked in online and had the choice of either a middle exit-row seat that did not recline (because of another exit row behind it) or a middle bulkhead seat across from the flight attendants (meaning 8 feet of leg room). Since the flight looked pretty full I was a little concerned that if I chose the bulkhead seat there would be no overhead space left for my bag. And, with no seat in front of it, there's also the issue of where to put my briefcase. In the end, I could not resist the siren song of the goddess Legroom. I took seat 8B.

First on the plane, rows 1-6, First Class. Next is "those needing a little more time or traveling with small children". That's about a third of the plane right there. Then comes "Elite" frequent travelers and finally they start the rows: 40 and higher...35 and higher...

By the time they get to me, "now boarding all rows" there are only about eight of us left. While waiting on the Jetway, one of the crew walks by with a fistful of the dreaded "gate check" tags. Not a good sign.

I board already knowing there is no room for my bag but just then one of the flight attendants leans over the man in 8C and says "You've been upgraded to First Class." As he starts to move forward the FA asks if he has a bag. He opens the compartment above him and removes a bag and coat and before he's even move the four steps to First Class I've shoved my bags in the space he left and taken his aisle seat to boot. The guy behind me steps on the plane and is informed there is no more room and they'll have to gate check his bag.

For dinner we were served the usual Continental meal: turkey sandwich, chips and chocolate. Same as the meal I had coming back home. The micro-turkey sandwich is one or two slices of turkey and a quarter leaf of iceberg lettuce on a 2"x2" or 2"x3" roll. The chips were a 3/4 ounce bag of Fritos. The chocolate was a Halloween "Fun size" Kit Kat bar.

Who the heck named that "Fun size" anyway? Didn't they ever see Willy Wonka? "Fun" is eating as much candy as you possibly can...Augustus Gloop-style. This bar is more of a tease-a Choc Tease! Naughty bar.

Oooh, that was a long journey for that joke. Anyway, don't mistake all this for a complaint; it's just documentation. As far as air travel goes, my bar for complaining is now set so that if we land on land then I'm not complaining.

When I Get To The Mountaintop You'd Better Get Out Of The Way

Think of the bagel I had for lunch yesterday as Hancock.

Think of the fiber bar snack and giant dinner salad as the freight train.

"What happens when an irresistible force means an immovable object?"

Let's just say that I could use a nap.

Birds Of Mass Block Suction

Sixteen months ago, the NAS* was picking up "chatter" from known terrorist groups. Something big was being planned but they did not inform anybody.

Ten months ago, an agent with the DoW** spotted suspicious activity. Several men and women wanting to learn about animal farming. The strange thing though: they were not interested in cows, pigs, sheep or goats; only poultry. Even then, they weren't very interested in chickens or turkeys. They did not want to learn how to sell or butcher the animals or how to fatten their livers via forced feedings. The agent made a report but it was ignored.

It is clear now what was going on. Al-Qaeda cells are breeding geese and ducks at high rates and releasing them near strategic targets, such as LaGuardia Airport.

Fortunately, on Tuesday, all these problems will magically go away. It will be another miracle.

* - National Audubon Society
** - Defenders of Wildlife

Cyanide Is Natural

Apparently, Pizza Hut has a new pizza product called "The Natural". It features "a multigrain crust, all-natural pepperoni or Rustica sausage, all-natural mozzarella cheese and all-natural sauce made from vine-ripened tomatoes".

Alternatively you can still order their other pizzas: pan, thin, hand-tossed, stuffed crust. I assume these feature unnatural pepperoni, unnatural cheese and unnatural sauce. Or maybe their regular stuff is only partially unnatural? Which parts? And really, is there anything natural about pepperoni?

And why is natural better? Is natural wider? Because e aho laula--wider is better--if wider is natural than natural is better!

On the other hand, I've eaten some "natural" products that were not better in any way, shape, form or taste. Fish milk cheese ranks right at the top of this list.

What'll It Be, Guvna?

Several years ago, when I visited London, I ate at a restaurant called Champor-Champor. Apparently, I also signed up with them to send me specials, which they do about once a year. This year's pre-Christmas menu is very amusing in its pretentiousness.

FESTIVE MENU: 1 – 22 DECEMBER 2008

LUNCH: £25 (two courses*); £29.50 (three courses)

DINNER: £27.50 (two courses*); £32 (three courses)

Bread selection and canapés (please note canapés are not offered at lunchtime)

STARTERS

Chicken liver, duck liver and bird eye chilli parfait; deep fried puri bread; spiced cranberry jam

Waterchestnut and salmon fish cake; baby octopus umai; Hong Kong style XO sauce

Home-made lamb, Japanese pepper and kesum leaf sausage; Gujerati carrot salad

Tea smoked ostrich fillet, marbled quail eggs and celeriac mash; sesame and soy dressing

Chick pea, curry leaf and tofu falafel with plum tomato and Thai basil chutney (v)

INTER-COURSE (£2.80 supplement)

Coffee, khalua and clove granita

Chinese plum mulled wine and jaggery granita

MAINS

Malay festive water buffalo rendang; Kelantanese herb rice; deep-fried fish

Malaccan-Portuguese king prawn Bostador; Goanese steamed sanna bread; vegetable achar

Malay Royalty ‘opor burung’: boneless quail in thick, spicy and creamy curry; steamed jasmine rice; Indian rasam

Nonya venison in sweet soy and cinnamon sauce; coconut rice; green mango somtam

Indonesian style vegetarian ‘nasi ambeng’- a concoction of dishes including rice, curries and fried vermicelli (v)

DESSERTS

Rich chocolate mousse cake; rum-pickled green chilli cream

Poached plum trifle; Christmas pudding ice cream

Five spice and black pepper cake; cranberry parfait

Anyway, don't be put off by the crazy names. My recollection was that the food was pretty tasty...or at least different.

Why Are My Co-Workers So Fat?

If you are lucky enough to work with me and smart enough to come in to work today, I brought in Strawberry-Banana Cobbler. Please to enjoy.

People always want recipes. Off the top of my head, I think it's something like this:

• 6 T. butter
• 3/4 cup flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 6 oz. milk
• 2 very ripe bananas (sliced into cereal-eating size) and 4 strawberries (halved)

Preheat oven to 350F. You might as well put the butter in a 9" round cake pan and melt it in the oven.

Mix flour, most of the sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Mix in the milk until just combined (don't over mix, you don't need to get all the lumps out). Pour mix into the pan with the melted butter (don't stir). Toss in the fruit.

If you want a simple recipe then sprinkle the remaining couple of tablespoons of sugar over the top. Bake 40-50 minutes.

If you want the complex recipe then bake for about 30 minutes, then sprinkle the remaining sugar over the top and bake for another 10-20 minutes.

Cindy Gives Him Mr. Potato Head

Sometimes I spend an inordinate amount of time on something and afterward I look back and wonder "What the hell was I thinking?"

Today was one of those days.


By the way, the actual sweet potato fries are quite good.

Did You Mean Microspores?

Just in case you were worried that America wasn't doing enough to keep the obesity crown, worry no more.

Heat Post To 160 Degrees Before Reading

I would consider myself a healthy eater. However, everything in moderation.

And so, today, I bring you a story. A story about setting goals, taking risks, overcoming the naysayers. A story, friends, about looking death in the face and saying, "Is that all you got?"

Well, maybe that's overstating things a tad. It's really a story about eating the World's Cheapest Hot Dogs. How cheap? How about 7.375 cents each! And where does one get such hot diggity dogs? Aldi's House of Cheap Stuff (Most Of Which Can Pass For Food)!

Here's the receipt showing the price of $0.59 (newly reduced from an outrageous $0.65) for 8. You can also see that you need to be "bananas" to buy them.


Below is the package. Notice that these are not beef franks (those babies will run you $1.99 for 8, but they are 2 oz. franks). I'm not sure if the brand is B*Bar or Babar. If you feed these to a child, don't tell them that they are Babar wieners or they won't eat them (also they won't cry when Child Protective Services take you away for feeding them this crap).

You'll note that these dogs are "made with chicken, pork & beef". That wording is between "made from chicken pork & beef" and "made by chicken, pork & beef". Based on the rules of advertising, that means that these dogs at least have chicken, pork and beef nearby when they are made. It's like the other day. I had a friend over and made dinner with her. No part of her was actually eaten. {rim shot}


Note that the label trumpets that these furters are "Fully Cooked" and yet the must be heated thoroughly to 160 degrees. Normally, you heat stuff to that temperature to kill anything that might be living but what could live on these things?

Moving on. Here's the ironically named "Nutrition Facts" label. For every wiener you shove down your hole you can look forward to a rush of nearly 400mg of salt and the energy punch of 10g of fat; perfect post-marathon food.

The first ingredient is "mechanically separated chicken" Did you ever get a double yolk egg? Well, if that egg had been fertilized there's a good chance that Siamese chickens would have hatched from it. Farmers hate this because when they slaughter one chicken the other runs around with a chicken with its head cut off; the craziest site you've ever seen. So the farmers use a high precision mechanical separator called an "ax" to fix what God has eff'ed up.


Next is "meat ingredients" not to be confused with "meat". "Meat" is always some identifiable part like lips, hooves or eye lashes. "Meat ingredients" can not be identified by the finest veterinarians.

Then we have water (another great post-marathon ingredient!) and some other stuff until we reach "potassium lactate". There can't be very much of that though because it is very expensive (do you know how hard it is to milk a potassium?)

A bit further we find good old ascorbic acid which gives these dogs more Vitamin C than a glass of orange juice.

A very small glass.

So ends the preliminaries. Now to answer the big question: "Can you survive if you eat them?"

Obviously yes...but do you want to? I decided to heat mine in a skillet. I had two. One with just mustard then the other with what I thought it needed to taste good.

The mustard one was not very exciting. Somewhat similar to a warm but uncooked soft pretzel. Mushy, salty, nothing to write home about.

To fix things, my second (salty) dog had (salty) mustard, (salty) ketchup and (salty) cheese. This one was much better because, frankly, I put way too much cheese on it.

Get it? Frankly?

Overall, I think these would be great for a cookout for people you don't particularly like, relatives who have over-stayed their welcome and kids' birthday parties before they develop a more refined palate and insist on the 24.875 cent franks.

Is That A Banana On Your Pop-Tart Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

This whole thing started when a friend stated at lunch that he used to eat Pop-Tarts with butter on them and, of course, I had to try it out. (I'm still working on finding a Chelada and by "work" I mean if I happen to see that crap, I'll buy it.) But I couldn't just stop at butter, oh, no. That would not do. So, without further ado, here they are.

Eight Toppings for an Unfrosted Strawberry Pop-Tart

1. Butter - Unexciting. Tastes exactly as you'd think; a buttery Pop-Tart. At best it gives it a more "homemade" quality.
2. Peanut Butter - This would seem to have a huge potential but there just isn't enough filling to counter balance the peanut butter.
3. Cream Cheese - Based on the peanut butter results, I went with a shmear of cream cheese and that worked out quite nicely. They actually make a similar Tart.
   
4. Maple Syrup - I thought this would be horrible and overly sweet. Well, it was pretty sweet but not horrible. I had one with a couple scrambled eggs...kind of like a pancake. Here's a tip: put the Pop-Tart upside-down so it will hold the syrup better.
5. Ham - If you are wondering, "Ham?! WTF are you thinking?!" then you've probably never had or even seen a Monte Cristo sandwich which is normally a ham, turkey and cheese sandwich, fried and served with jam (at least at Bennigan's). Maybe I used the wrong kind of ham or maybe because I didn't have cheese or turkey but this was boring. I couldn't even taste the ham. Oh, well.
6. Banana - Winner! This was fantastic. It wasn't easy keeping the banana on the the Tart but otherwise this gets the big thumbs up.
7. PB&J - Another winner! Now I'm on a roll. A Pop-Tart roll! Ugh. The extra jam countered my glob-o-peanut butter. Why don't they make a PB&J Pop-Tart?
8. Cereal - I broke up a Tart and layered it on top of this morning's bowl-o-goodness featuring Quaker Shredded Oats, Life and Raisin Bran. Not bad (it didn't make me vomit) but nothing to write a blog post about. Oops.

If You Like P*nis Cheladas

Way back when, I posted about the horrific Budweiser Chelada. One reader (of about three) was dumb nice enough to go out and get some and smart enough to pawn it off on someone else. Here, dear readers, is her story:

DeborahSmith said...

There was no way I could ever bring myself to consume such liquid but my Dad had been saying that the young guys he worked with would drink anything. So... I gave it to my Dad and said the only catch was I wanted to hear what they thought of it. They told my Dad that he better never do anything like that to them again. They couldn't believe how terrible it tasted. It met all their criteria too because it was alcohol and on top of that it was free.

"Those guys" criteria for drinkin':

• alcohol - check!
• free - check!

Similarly, "those guys" criteria for sexin':

• boobs - check!
• free - check!

That works for them most of the time, until they have their own, personal Crying Game. Then it's:

• free - check!
• no penis* - check!

These are the kind of guys that long for a simpler time.

Around 15,000 BC.

* - or substitute a dress or boobs and lots of alcohol

Pair It With Scrapple!

If someone can help me find a can of this, I will gladly consume and regurgitate it and write a big long post about it for your amusement.
If you're having trouble reading it, it's a combination of Budweiser beer, Clamato (itself a combination of tomato and clam juice), salt and lime.

What's The Deeley?

There are only one or three things less manly to have in your throat when you die than fairy cakes.

Surely Adam will be this year's Darwin Award winner.

Eat My Banana...

Ice cream.

I started working on a chocolate banana ice cream recipe not too long after this post from over a year ago. I am happy to say, after many attempts, some decent, some not so great, I finally hit on a ready-for-prime-time recipe.

Update! I made this again a few days ago and it came out terrible. When cooking the bananas they were very dry. It may have been that they weren't ripe enough (they were yellow but not brown). I didn't cook the bananas very long because they were so dry and that probably didn't help. If you make the recipe, please let me know how it turns out.

Update 2! OK. Made it yet again. This time I made sure the bananas were very ripe (half-brown) and it came out great! I will update again if the recipe ever fails with super ripe bananas.

Jay's Chocolate Banana Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

a little butter (for frying)
5 med. bananas (very ripe, half yellow/half brown is good)
1/2 cup sugar
8 oz. heavy cream
4.4 oz. (125 gr.) of bittersweet chocolate, chopped (10 squares of Trader Joe's PoundPlus bar)
1 tsp. vanilla
3 oz. mini chocolate chips (optional if you are crazy!)

Heat non-stick fry pan over medium heat with butter (maybe 1/2 - 1 Tbl.)
Peel and slice bananas into ~1/2 inch rounds. Fry until they start to caramelize, maybe 5 minutes (don't move them around until then!). Flip/stir them around and continue to fry for a few more minutes until they are very soft all the way through. Pan should have a lot of juice. Mash/break-up the bananas a little with the back of a spatula. If you don't want to blend later, mash them as much as possible.

Sprinkle in the sugar and mix until dissolved. Simmer 1 more minute. Add cream and stir in.

Reduce heat to low and add the chocolate. Stir constantly until almost melted. Turn off heat, take pan off burner and keep stirring until chocolate is completely melted. Mix in the vanilla.

Transfer to a bowl and, if you have one, use a hand blender to smooth the mix. Either cool, covered in refrigerator overnight or place in an ice bath (stir every few minutes). The mix should be cold before you churn it!

Churn it! Near the end of churning, add the mini-chips. Freeze and enjoy!

If this doesn't get you laid, there's no hope for you. ;-)