Archive for the ‘Food’ Category

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Obit watch: September 23, 2018.

Sunday, September 23rd, 2018

Over the weekend, I was rewatching parts of “Project Grizzly” and I got to wondering what Troy Hurtubise was up to. I’d kind of lost track of him after the whole “Angel Light” thing.

Sadly, and completely unknown to me until yesterday, Mr. Hurtubise passed away in June, as the result of an automobile accident.

This is a damn shame. I’m extremely skeptical of “Angel Light” and “R-Light” (for obvious reasons), but Trojan armor seems like a logical extension of both the Ursus suits and the protective gear worn by bomb squad technicians. Firepaste doesn’t strike me as being too out there, either. I remember reading a book a while back about a famous magician who helped the Allies develop deception tactics during WWII. In his spare time, this guy also invented something that sounds very similar to Firepaste: the intent was that aircrews who anticipated a crash could apply the substance to exposed flesh and ideally get a little more time to flee a burning aircraft.

We extend our belated condolences to his people, and will pour out a 40 of something Canadian in his memory.

Anne Russ Federman, the last of the three daughters of Joel Russ, founder of Russ & Daughters (formerly Russ’s Cut Rate Appetizers).

Waxing rhapsodic in The New York Times Magazine in 2003, the editor and publisher Jason Epstein wrote that Russ & Daughters was “New York’s most hallowed shrine to the miracle of caviar, smoked salmon, ethereal herring and silken chopped liver.”

I’ve been reading Mark Federman’s book about Russ & Daughters, and I love the story behind the store. I also, as it happens, love me some smoked salmon, and I could go for a little herring, too. Next time I’m in New York City…

Posted in Books, Food, Geek, Obits | Comments Closed

Book news.

Saturday, September 22nd, 2018

NYT headline:

Would You Like Some Sausage With Your Novel?

After reading the article, the surprising (to me) answer is: yes, I do want some sausage with my novel, and I want to visit Bad Sooden-Allendorf, shop at the Frühauf’s bookstore, and get a couple of rolls to nibble on.

In other book news, I just discovered that Silvertail Books has reprinted Under an English Heaven.

I’m sure I’ve written before about the amazingly prolific Donald Westlake, mystery author and screenwriter. (Fun fact: “Westlake co-wrote the story for the pilot of the ill-fated 1979 TV series Supertrain with teleplay writer Earl W. Wallace; Westlake and Wallace shared “created by” credit.”) If you know anything at all about the mystery genre, you know Westlake.

But as prolific as he was, he only wrote two non-fiction books: a biography of Elizabeth Taylor under one of his pen names, and Under an English Heaven about the Anguillan “revolution” and “occupation” of the island by British troops. Rumor has it that this is a very Westlake-ian book, even if it is non fiction: more Dortmunder in tone than Parker. This is one I’m actually excited about: review (possibly) forthcoming.

Posted in Books, Food, Travel | Comments Closed

Obit watch: September 6, 2018.

Thursday, September 6th, 2018

George Austin, blogger and regular commenter, died earlier this week. Borepatch and ASM826 have nice tributes up.

Adding to what they said: I didn’t know Mr. Austin (I wish I had) but he was a frequent commenter here: as a matter of fact, he was the originator of Gavrilo Princip Day. We extend our condolences to his people.

Kenny Shopsin, restaurant owner. I never met him, either, but I was familiar with him by way of Calvin Trillin’s writings. I even have a copy of his cookbook, though of course I waited for it to show up used.

I suspect Mr. Shopsin and my stepdad would have gotten along famously, while there’s a 50/50 chance that Mr. Shopsin and I would have rubbed each other the wrong way. Such is the way of the world.

Posted in Admin, Food, Obits | Comments Closed

Quote of the day.

Tuesday, August 21st, 2018

(This whole thread is gold, Jerry, comedy gold.)

Posted in Android, Food, Geek | 1 Comment »

Headline of the day.

Wednesday, August 15th, 2018

Quit feeding marshmallows to alligators

Subhead:

Why is that even a thing?

Posted in Food, Reptiles | Comments Closed

Obit watch: August 7, 2018.

Tuesday, August 7th, 2018

Joël Robuchon, noted French chef.

Lawrence and I often joke about French cooking: “High prices. Small portions.” And I’ve never eaten at a Robuchon restaurant. But he sounds like someone who had the right ideas.

His butter-laden potato purée, one of many instant classics, consisted of four ingredients —potatoes, butter, milk and salt — but his labor-intensive technique of drying the potatoes and gradually introducing chilled butter and boiling milk elevated the dish far beyond its station.

…

“One of his favorite lines was, ‘Our job is not to make a mushroom taste like a carrot but to make a mushroom taste as much like a mushroom as it can,’ ” Ms. Wells, the co-author of Mr. Robuchon’s cookbook “Simply French” (1991), said by telephone.

…

“The older I get, the more I realize the truth is: the simpler the food, the more exceptional it can be,” he told Business Insider in 2014. “I never try to marry more than three flavors in one dish. I like walking into a kitchen and knowing that the dishes are identifiable and the ingredients within them easy to detect.”

Paul Laxalt, former Senator.

Tom Heckert, former general manager of the Cleveland Browns. (Hattip: Lawrence.)

Amy Meselson. She was 46 years old, and had a reputation for defending immigrants to the United States. Her obit opens with a great story about her zealous advocacy for Amadou Ly, a Senegalese immigrant who was part of a winning robotics team at his high school.

Federal officials were persuaded to drop the deportation proceedings and grant Mr. Ly a foreign student visa. He graduated from Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, became a citizen, embarked on an acting career and moved to Hollywood.

…

Ms. Meselson, who had struggled with depression since she was a teenager, committed suicide on July 22 at her home in Manhattan, her mother, Sarah Meselson, said.

…

Ms. Meselson earned her middle name by surviving a life-threatening respiratory disease. Besides dealing with depression, she had recently been given a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder and extreme anxiety — all aggravated when she traveled to Greece two years ago to volunteer at a camp for Syrian refugees, Sarah Meselson said at a memorial service.
At the service, she said she wanted to recount her daughter’s maladies for two reasons.
“One,” she said, “is to emphasize what everyone already knows — that it is not always possible to comprehend the level of suffering that others may be experiencing, especially when they appear to be successful and to excel to the extent that Amy did.
“The other,” she added, “is to applaud my daughter for all that she accomplished despite her mental illness.”

In that vein, this is hard as hell to read, but worth it. (Hattip: Popehat on the Twitter.)

Posted in Food, NFL, Obits, Politics, Sports | Comments Closed

I deny the allegations and I defy the alligators.

Monday, July 23rd, 2018

Contrary to what (some of) my friends believe, this is NOT my secret Twitter account:

Though I do fully support the sentiment.

Yeah. That’s a negatory, GhostRider. First off, there’s tomato residue left on the burger. Second, and more importantly: when I go somewhere and order a burger (or, for that matter, most other foods) and I say “I want it this way, with these toppings,” I expect to get what I ordered. If I ask for “ketchup and onions only” I expect to get that, not something with lettuce, tomato, and a bunch of vile glop on top. Don’t tell me “scrape it off”: FIX MY FOOD THE WAY I ASKED!

(Sorry if it seems like I’m worked up, but I’ve lost count of the number of meals I’ve had ruined or had to send back because someone didn’t get my order right, or added things that weren’t listed on the menu, or or or…)

Posted in Admin, Food | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: July 22, 2018.

Sunday, July 22nd, 2018

Jonathan Gold, restaurant critic for the LA Times and Pulitzer Prize winner. NYT.

This hit me kind of hard, and I’m not exactly sure why. I don’t live in LA, I barely even consider California to be part of the United States these days, and the LAT website has become so obnoxious I rarely read it. At most, I was an intermittent follower of Gold’s.

I know obituaries generally concentrate on the positive about the subject – I’ve seen very few that say, “Christ, what an a–hole” – but the tributes to him make him sound like an incredibly kind and funny guy who loved food, and even more loved telling people about food.

Gold was mission-driven as a critic, hoping his food adventures through the city’s many immigrant enclaves would help break down barriers among Angelenos wary of venturing outside their comfort zones. In the process, he made L.A.’s enormousness and diversity feel accessible and became one of the city’s most insightful cultural commentators.

…

He may not have eaten everything in Los Angeles, but nobody came closer. He rarely went to the subject of one of his reviews without stopping to try four or five other places along the way. He once estimated that in the hunt for interesting new things to eat and write about, he put 20,000 miles on his green Dodge Ram 1500 pickup truck each year. While driving, he liked listening to opera.

…

He preferred to praise chefs rather than pan them. If Gold wrote about you, he generally liked your food. Earnest and slightly awkward in person, he would voice displeasure with a gentle rebuke instead of the gleeful excoriating that other critics tend to dabble in.
“He wasn’t looking down his nose at the world, he was looking out from the table and trying to put restaurants, meals and cuisines in context. Empathy, understanding, commensality: That’s what he brought to the game,” Meehan said. “Jonathan didn’t write restaurant reviews, he wrote about who we are and how we feed each other. He wasn’t just a better writer than the rest of us, he cared more, too.”

Also, he was only 57: pancreatic cancer got him so fast most people didn’t even know he was sick, according to the obits. I’ve linked to them before, but The Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research still gets four stars from Charity Navigator.

Also among the dead: Shinobu Hashimoto, screenwriter perhaps most famous for his work with Akira Kurosawa (including “Rashomon”, “Ikiru”, and “Seven Samurai”.

Of the writers in Kurosawa’s stable, Mr. Hashimoto was among the longest-serving, contributing to eight screenplays from 1950 to 1970. Their other pictures together include “Throne of Blood” (1957), a reworking of “Macbeth” set in feudal Japan; “The Hidden Fortress” (1958), an adventure film about a princess escorted in disguise through enemy territory; and “Dodes’ka-den” (1970), about the residents of a Tokyo slum.

Madeleine Kamman, noted French chef and author.

By the time she died, Ms. Kamman had established a reputation as a strong-willed teacher of traditional French cuisine for modern tastes and an influential chef whose cooking was deeply informed by her knowledge of food chemistry, botany, history and geography.

Last, least, and burning in Hell: Barry Mills, leader of the Aryan Brotherhood.

Posted in Food, Law, Movies, Obits | Comments Closed

After action report: Reno, NV.

Wednesday, June 13th, 2018

Yet another excuse to post photos and links and some ramblings. I’ll put a jump here since some of the photos might take time to load…

(more…)

Posted in Food, Guns, Movies, Photography, Planes, Trains, Travel | Comments Closed

Obit watch: June 8, 2018.

Friday, June 8th, 2018

Anthony Bourdain.

I don’t remember now what prompted me to pick up Kitchen Confidential, but I’m glad I did: it was a wild, fun, and funny book that I enjoyed immensely. I think at this point I’ve read almost everything Mr. Bourdain wrote that was bound between covers. I wasn’t as up on his TV shows, what with the whole not having cable thing. And I really wanted to meet him sometime when he wasn’t frantically searching for a bathroom in an airport and say thanks.

I had been reading Appetites: A Cookbook right before I left, and I remember him talking about how much he loved his family and friends, and cooking for them. That was pretty much the whole point of the book: cooking well for the people you love. I guess I sort of half-consciously knew that he went through a divorce after that…

Bethany Mandel wrote a good piece for the NYPost the other day about suicide and what it does to the people left behind. I commend it to your attention, especially the last paragraph.

The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you live outside of the United States, TVTropes has a surprisingly good page of additional resources.

Posted in Books, Food, Obits, Travel, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: June 5, 2018.

Tuesday, June 5th, 2018

Prominent fashion designer Kate Spade has passed away at 55.

The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you live outside of the United States, TVTropes has a surprisingly good page of additional resources.

Robert Mandan, television actor perhaps most famous as “Chester Tate” on “Soap”.

Barbara Kafka, noted cookbook author. When I was younger, I cooked a lot of meals out of her Microwave Gourmet.

For the record, the paper of same still has not published an obit for Gardner Dozois.

Posted in 1970s, Books, Food, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Overthinking it.

Thursday, May 31st, 2018

Headline:

Please Don’t Roast Marshmallows Over the Erupting Hawaii Volcano, USGS Warns

At first, this sounds like a bunch of joyless fun suckers sucking all the fun out of life. But USGS’s argument actually makes sense: the H2S and SO2 present around a volcanic eruption would probably make the marshmallows taste bad.

But the idea of using something other than an open campfire to toast marshmallows has a certain appeal. What you want in the ideal toasted marshmallow is for it to be evenly browned, not burned. You’re looking for that perfect Maillard reaction all over the marshmallow. And that’s really hard to get in a campfire context.

So why not use an indirect heat source? Could you use something like a heat lamp or some sort of radiant heater to toast marshmallows, instead of radiated heat from hot molten rocks? Why not? Even better, what if your marshmallow toasting stick had a motor in it? Just some sort of small battery powered one that, when you pushed a button, rotated the marshmallow at a uniform speed over the indirect heat source until it was evenly browned.

I thought I’d check Amazon and…well…I found this, which instantly turned me off the whole idea. I’m not sure why: maybe the whole idea of a dedicated electric S’mores maker just seems antithetical to the whole idea of S’mores.

Maybe part of the appeal of a toasted marshmallow isn’t just the striving for an even Maillard reaction, but also the added flavors of wood smoke and the great outdoors.

Or, maybe, I’m just overthinking it.

(But I strongly encourage at least one of my readers to purchase this and report back on the contents.)

Posted in Food, Geek | 2 Comments »

Three days straight.

Sunday, May 6th, 2018

And I ain’t been doing what I should.

Swag of the day: probably my signed Jerry Miculek hat.

Yes, I am rocking the “Archer” shirt that Lawrence bought for me and dared me to wear to the show. Only one person commented on it, and that was to ask me if I had kids who played lacrosse. When I explained it was an “Archer” reference, he got it.

And that person was…American Rifleman editor Mark Keefe, who gave a pretty good presentation on John Garand, the M1 rifles, and the touchy relationship between the military and AR when the rifle was first introduced. He was also kind enough to speak with me for a few minutes about some research I may be doing in the near future, gave me his card, and said “email me, I’ll see what I can do”. I saw him do this for a couple of other people, too. Good guy.

Purchased: a snazzy “tactical backpack” from Viridian. Don’t know quite what makes it “tactical”, but it’s a nice design. I may try to use it as I ease into long range shooting, or I may just use it as a backup for my existing pack.

I also bought one of the KR Training endorsed TUFF prodcuts iStow packs. I like the idea: I want to see how it holds up in the real world.

Speaking of KR Training, you should go read Karl’s blog post, especially for the part about concealed carry clothes. I have some thoughts quasi-related to his about Carry Guard, too, but I want to wait until I can put them into better form.

Someone who isn’t me purchased an EFK Fire Dragon barrel, so I hope to have some feedback on that soon. It seemed like they were doing a land-office business, which just goes to show: quality swag bags work.

At this point, I’m hungry, exhausted, and my feet feel like the soles have been beaten for three days by Nazis trying to get the plans for the M1 gas system out of me. (That’s a subtle joke for those of you who attended Mark Keefe’s presentation.) As soon as I hit publish, I’ll probably think of something I missed. Updates to come. Maybe.

Update one: Forgot about food. I thought the buffalo sirloin at the Uncle Buck’s Steakhose and Brewery was kind of disappointing. It seemed tough and it, and the sweet potato with it, should have been warmer. We did have a pretty good breakfast at Commissary, which was packed to the rafters.

Update 2: Junk on the bunk?

No, swag in the bags.

Also: Royal China is a pretty good old-school Chinese restaurant. Recommended if you’re in town.

Posted in Clothing, Food, Guns, Hats, History, Nazis, NRA, NRAAM, Pants, Shirts | Comments Closed

Day two.

Saturday, May 5th, 2018

Starting this in the car on our way to Grapevine. The blogger screams for buffalo meat.

We had a pretty good meal Friday night at Campisi’s in downtown, and a so-so one at the Press Box Grill.

Best swag bag: EFK Fire Dragon. Thoughtfully designed, with a long enough strap so you can hang it off your shoulder. Runner-up: Brownells.

I have so many bags, I can go grocery shopping for the rest of the year without reusing any.

Best swag: hard to say. I got a free moon clip from Ranch Products, and had a good conversation with a guy in the Eley booth (who also tossed in some swag).

More tomorrow, I think. Time for to go to bed.

Posted in Food, Guns, Travel | Comments Closed

I have no joke here…

Monday, April 23rd, 2018

…I just like saying “county-funded fajitas”:

[Gilberto] Escamilla was fired in August and arrested after authorities checked vendor invoices and obtained a search warrant that uncovered county-funded fajitas in his refrigerator.

Mr. Escamilla worked at the juvenile detention center in Cameron County, Texas. This is way down in the south part of the state (Brownsville is the county seat.)

Mr. Escamilla was allegedly ordering fajitas through the detention center, using county money, and then delivering them to his own customers.

His scam was uncovered when he missed work for a medical appointment and an 800-pound (360-kilogram) fajita delivery arrived at the center, which doesn’t serve fajitas.

The state claims this scam amounted to $1.2 million worth of fajitas over nine years. Mr. Escamilla was sentenced to 50 years in prison on Friday.

Edited to add: more from Texas Monthly.

Theft of more than $300,000 is automatically a first-degree felony in Texas. On top of that, Texas treats theft by a public servant differently from other kinds of theft. The theory behind that is that theft committed by a private individual harms the person or people who were stolen from; but theft by a public servant harms the taxpayers who pay their salary, and harms society at large by eroding trust in those who’ve agreed to serve us. In cases where a public employee is accused of stealing less than $300,000, charges involving public servants using their official positions to facilitate the crime are automatically escalated to the next-highest level of felony. In Escamilla’s case, the value of the meat he stole meant that it was already the highest class of felony—which helps explain why his sentence was so high.

Posted in Beef, Food, Law, Politics, Texas | Comments Closed

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