What isn’t Apple, audiobooks, or alcohol is probably cats.
Food and drink we’ve made or tried, restaurants we’ve eaten at, and general information about the fuel that makes us all go.
For those of you who may not be interested in everything I write (hi Mom, sorry about all the technology stuff), here are some channel-specific RSS feeds.
For those of you who may not be interested in everything I write (hi Mom, sorry about all the technology stuff), here are some channel-specific RSS feeds:
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The other night Rochelle and I watched Monster’s Inc., in every way a better movie than the Oscar winner, Shrek. Before watching the movie, we made popcorn. With three different fats on top.
The other night Rochelle and I watched Monsters, Inc., in every way a better movie than the Oscar winner, Shrek. Before watching the movie, we made popcorn. I bought these popcorn packets, with coconut oil, seasoning salt, and popcorn, that are phenomenal.
But we weren’t satisfied with the basics. We skipped some of the coconut oil and substituted bacon fat. And then we shaved Parmesan cheese on top of it. Hey, that’s only three different fats. Rochelle talked me out of pouring melted butter on top of it all.
I just ate the last burger. The last burger sold by Rosamunde Sausage Grill. I took it next door to Toronado, ordered a Big Daddy IPA, and ate it. It was the last one. Because today is the last Burger-Day.
I just ate the last burger. The last hamburger sold by Rosamunde Sausage Grill.
Rosamunde’s is a sausage place (hence the name), but on Tuesdays — and only on Tuesdays — they served SF’s best hamburger. A large 1/2 pound patty of incredibly good beef, grilled perfectly, with lettuce, tomato, grilled onions, melted cheddar, and your selection of Rosamunde’s fabulous mustards. For $4. If you never had one, you missed out. Because I had the last one.
I ordered it about 2:30pm. I had gone by earlier, and it was too crowded for me to wait in line, order, and wait for a burger. I mean, it’s just a burger, right? Except it’s not. But they’ll just make more, right? Except they won’t.
So at 2:30pm, I decided the crowd wouldn’t go away any time soon, and I should get one. (Actually, I planned to get two, one for Rochelle.) There was only one person ahead of me in line, although Rosamunde’s itself was packed with people eating their burgers.
We both waited patiently, as the four men behind the counter worked their way through the 10 or so burgers that had come up and needed to be distributed. One guy on the grill, two setting up buns and fixin’s and doing assembly, and one guy running the register and The List.
The List turned out to be important. It’s the only way the chaos of a Burger-Day could be managed. At any given time during lunch, there are 20-30 entries on The List, with different levels of doneness, different condiments, special requests, and above all, a name for the person who gets to pay for and eat it. There’s a fixed number of burgers on a Burger-Day, 120, and when they’re gone, it’s over. Wait until next week. Except there won’t be a next week.
After the latest burgers got distributed, a quick count of The List showed that there were two burgers left. Two. The woman in front of me, one of the neighborhood’s crack whores, got one. And I got the other. A few minutes later, a gang of seven slackers turned away en mass when they were informed there were no more. Not “OK, I’ll have a sausage instead.” They just turned and left, all seven. Good riddance.
So I left and bought batteries, and took a now-working flashlight out to my car, and pet the cats. And went back for my burger. It was the second-to-last burger off the grill, but the last went to the guy running The List. Mine was the last one sold.
I took it next door to Toronado, ordered a Big Daddy IPA, and ate it.
It was good. It was the last one. Because today is the last Burger-Day.
We just ate cheese for dinner. Four really fucking good cheeses, air shipped to us from France. Rochelle read about Fromages.com in the New York Times, and talked Hilda into splitting a shipment with us. Our selection arrived this morning.
We just ate cheese for dinner. Four really fucking good cheeses, air shipped to us from France. Rochelle read about Fromages.com in the New York Times, and talked Hilda into splitting a shipment with us. So they ordered a selection of nine cheeses, which arrived this morning.
It’s a really cool service. You tell them on what day you want the cheeses to arrive, and they will ship it overnight the day prior, for delivery the day you select. So if you’re taking the cheeses to a party, or throwing your own, it’s easy to schedule it so they’ll be at the peak of ripeness when you get them.
We ate a lot of phenomenal cheeses while we were in France last year. Yes, there’s great cheese available right here in the Bay Area, but there’s really nothing like the cheeses we enjoyed overseas. So, while it’s a little expensive, it’s worth doing from time to time.
It also seems like a great way to thank France for their courageous stand against the pressure of the US to launch an attack on Iraq. We’ll be eating French cheese, and drinking as much French champagne as we can in the coming weeks.
That’ll be a hardship.
I’ll spare you the politics, and just say once again that we’re huuuuge fans of Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant, on Geary between 23rd and 24th. They have, hands down, game over, the best margaritas in the Bay Area, and probably in the United States. There’s more than 200 premium tequilas available, and a deep and abiding love for the spirit that makes you love it too.
I’ll spare you the politics, and just say once again that we’re huuuuge fans of Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant, on Geary between 23rd and 24th. They have, hands down, game over, the best margaritas in the Bay Area, and probably in the United States. There’s more than 200 premium tequilas available, and a deep and abiding love for the spirit that makes you love it too.
Rochelle and I are spending most of our Sunday afternoons there between now and the end of May, working on our Ph. D. in tequila, timed for completion with Rochelle’s birthday. Come by and drink with us!
Tonight Rochelle found what must be the oldest thing in our refrigerator, some sliced pickled ginger in sweet vinegar. The package says it expired in 1997. Which means Rochelle has had it longer than she’s had me.
Tonight Rochelle found what must be the oldest thing in our refrigerator, some sliced pickled ginger in sweet vinegar. The package says it expired in 1997. Which means Rochelle has had it longer than she’s had me.
We threw it out.
Yesterday we hosted a comparative champagne tasting. We selected six bottles of wine, three pairs, and put them in paper bags to serve them blind. We tasted and compared each pair, paused to collect ourselves, and then moved to the next. The bottles ranged in price from $30 to more than $120. The winner was a surprise, even to us.
Yesterday we hosted a comparative champagne tasting. We selected six bottles of wine, three pairs, and put them in paper bags to serve them blind. We tasted and compared each pair, paused to collect ourselves, and then moved to the next.
Since Rochelle and I knew which wines we’d chosen, and I knew which was which from opening the bottles (in spite of the bags, the caps told all), it wasn’t a completely blind tasting for us. But even so, there was quite a bit we didn’t know, and had to really go on taste, rather than knowing the label, or how expensive the wine was.
This was a once-in-a-blue-moon event, because the wines were all outstanding (most were received as gifts). We’ll not hold another such an orgy for a long time, I’m sure!
The wines we tasted were:
A: Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé
B: Gosset Grand Rosé
C: Dom Pérignon 1995
D: Dom Pérignon 1993
E: Veuve Clicquot Brut (yellow label)
F: Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame 1995
I won’t attempt to post tasting notes, because my palate vocabulary isn’t that developed. As a group we were disappointed with the rosés, we theorize because they would have gone better with different food. In the middle pair, the Dom Pérignon 1993 was preferred over the younger vintage by most, but the aspiring Master of Wine who attended said that 1993 was not a very good year, and felt the 1995 was better.
In the final pair, and for the tasting as a whole, people were very happy with the standard Veuve Clicquot which was, at $30, the least expensive wine in the group by more than $20.
I was partial to La Grande Dame, but again, I knew which it was, and so I don’t trust my judgment. I am looking forward to someone stepping forward, and hosting a similar tasting where I can be a guest, and prove my choice wasn’t a fluke. Still, at $120 or more a bottle, I don’t know how I could justify drinking La Dame over her country cousin.
Viva la Veuve!
“Food usually tastes better if an animal died to make it.” Sad, but probably true. One only has to compare french fries cooked in vegetable oil vs. fries cooked in duck fat, the way god intended.
“Food usually tastes better if an animal died to make it.”
Sad, but probably true. One only has to compare french fries cooked in vegetable oil vs. fries cooked in duck fat, the way god intended. (An approximation is to compare McDonald’s fries of today, fried in vegetable oil, versus the fries of yesteryear, which were fried in rendered beef lard. Not that I’m advocating patronizing McDonald’s…especially now that their fries suck.)
“Finally, a champagne brunch with enough champagne!” (The “brunch” was actually a champagne tasting, i.e., lots of champagne, no food. We just happened to go there at noon, so “brunch”…)
“Finally, a champagne brunch with enough champagne!”
(The “brunch” was actually a champagne tasting, i.e., lots of champagne, no food. We just happened to go there at noon, so “brunch”…)
Photos of our meal from Gerard Boyer are up in the photos section. This was the best meal of our trip to France, and the most expensive. We both had the fixed price lunch of the day, with the only difference being our desserts.
Photos of our meal from Gerard Boyer are up in the photos section. This was the best meal of our trip to France, and the most expensive. We both had the fixed price lunch of the day, with the only difference being our desserts.
I felt badly about going to this 3 Michelin star restaurant in slacks and shirt, instead of my suit, but we’d just gotten it back from the fiasco with Virgin, and I hadn’t had time to unpack it.
They still treated us wonderfully, and the food was spectacular. I would imagine that at different times of the year, or during different economic times, the dining room is packed, but we were able to dine peacefully in a half-empty room.
Recommended!
In the course of shopping for various things this holiday season, I had occasion to use Google quite a bit, searching for information and vendors. One of the things I noticed was that for some queries the ads served with my results were actually more valuable than the search results themselves.
In the course of shopping for the parts for my replacement server, I had occasion to use Google quite a bit, searching for information and vendors. One of the things I noticed was that I occasionally found more useful pointers in the ads than in the results, I was actually clicking on the ads to learn more.
And then I was shopping for, of all things, popcorn. Not just any popcorn, mind you, but the popcorn, oil, and seasoning packs to go with our Whirley Pop popcorn popper. The combination produces popcorn that’s infinitely better than microwave popcorn, and virtually identical to movie theater popcorn (of which I usually eat two bags when I see a movie).
I had started at Amazon.com, which carries the popper itself, but not additional popcorn packs. So I searched Google for “whirley pop popcorn” and got a slew of results, none of which was actually useful in finding a place where I could buy the packs.
Ah, but the ads! Of course, the ads are from people who want to sell me something — something I want to buy! And indeed, there were about a dozen ads from different popcorn supply companies. I clicked through a few of them, looking for the right package, and placed an order at the third store I visited.
It won’t be every day that the ads are worth more to me than the results, but I sure am glad that someone has figured out how to make advertising valuable to those viewing it, instead of a pain in the ass to be avoided any way I can think of. Kudos to Google!
In the past couple years I’ve read of a shortage of cork (the raw material) to make corks (for wine bottles), and seen some of the results in the marketplace, with rubber and composite corks becoming fairly common. What I didn’t know was that the artificial corks are bad for the environment.
In the past couple years I’ve read of a shortage of cork (the raw material) to make corks (for wine bottles), and seen some of the results in the marketplace, with rubber and composite corks becoming fairly common.
What I didn’t know was that the artificial corks are bad for the environment.
A recent article in the BBC explains that the decline of real cork is due to demand falling, not supply, and the ripple effect is causing considerable ecological damage.
It turns out that not only is harvesting real cork 100% environmentally friendly (the trees are not damaged, and the rest of the forest thrives), but as demand has slumped, cork farmers are cutting down the cork trees to plant alternate crops. Yikes!
So, the lesson for us is, drink more champagne, which only uses natural cork for a stopper.