Archive for the ‘Food’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Spaghetti Carbonara day.

Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

We were somewhat amused to see, on the day before Thanksgiving, the NYT publishing a recipe for “Spaghetti With Sausage Alla Carbonara“. As you might be able to guess from the title, sausage substitutes for bacon in this variation.

We are big fans of a well-done spaghetti carbonara, and look forward to giving this particular variation a trial run.

(We know we linked to this yesterday, but for those who do not understand the significance of spaghetti carbonara and Thanksgiving, once again we link to Calvin Trillin.)

Posted in Clippings, Food | 3 Comments »

Random notes: November 9, 2010.

Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

The Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art opened in Biloxi, Mississippi on Monday.

Here’s a nice photo of the museum. Can you guess who designed it?

When Mr. Gehry’s massive, titanium-clad Guggenheim Museum opened in Bilbao, Spain, in 1997, thousands of art tourists helped revive that dying industrial town.

Later buildings by Mr. Gehry have not had the same effect.

Looking over Wikipedia’s list of completed Gehry buildings, I don’t see a lot of post-1997 that were designed with that intent. The only two I really see as being possible tourist attractions are the Experience Music Project and the Walt Disney Concert Hall; everything else seems to be corporate, college campus, or medical. That just seems like a pointless shot by the NYT.

The University of Texas has acquired Spalding Gray’s archives. I know that Mike the Musicologist is going “squee” with delight at this news.

I also know some folks who tried to go to the “Gypsy Picnic Food Trailer Festival” on Saturday. Their experience was very much like John Kelso’s.

If you wanted something to eat, it would have been quicker to sit on the corner with a tin cup, collect change and grab a tuna sandwich at a convenience store. Or bag a possum and build a fire.

Posted in Art, Clippings, Food, Gehry, Sarcasm | 1 Comment »

More signs! More portents!

Wednesday, October 27th, 2010

Lotus of Siam, my favorite restaurant in the world (at the moment), is opening a second location in New York City.

New York can also look forward to crispy rice with sour Thai sausage.

That’s one of their dishes that I’m personally fond of, but not everyone has a taste for it.

In other news, the Russians are actually cracking down on spammers. Lo, surely the Apocalypse is upon us!

(Additional sign: I noticed the other day that the Joe’s Crab Shack at 183 and Duval was closed. Not that I was a big fan of Joe’s Crab Shack (I wasn’t) but how often have you seen one close?)

Posted in Clippings, Food, Geek | 2 Comments »

On a stick watch.

Tuesday, October 5th, 2010

“Top 10 New Foods at the 2010 State Fairs“, by way of No Silence Here.

I confess, the deep-fried cheddar-bacon mashed potatoes on a stick actually look pretty good to me.

On the other hand, the original tornado potato doesn’t sound like a bad idea, but this year’s modification sounds awful. When I think of great tastes that taste great together, my list does not include “potato” and “chocolate”.

And then, of course, there’s the number 1 item on the list, which you may remember from our previous coverage.

Breakdown of the list: two items from the Texas State Fair, three items from the Minnesota State Fair, two from the San Diego County Fair, one from the “San Diego State Fair” (could this be a typo? The link to “My Burning Kitchen” indicates yes), and one each from the Indiana and Wisconsin State Fairs.

Edited to add: Speaking of “My Burning Kitchen”, “deep-fried butter in both garlic and cinnamon sugar flavor“? So not only does deep-fried butter actually exist, it comes in flavors?

“What flavor is it?” “It’s butter, innit. It’s bloody butter, it’s not any bloody flavor!”

Posted in Clippings, Food, On a stick | Comments Closed

Food note.

Saturday, September 25th, 2010

Before the chaos set in yesterday, we had a spectacularly good meal at Tino’s Seafood in San Antonio.

The place looks kind of divey, and the menu is a bit limited, but they make the best fried fish and shrimp I’ve had in a long time. Both were not greasy, not oily, and nicely fried with a crisp crust. Everything is fried to order; nothing sits around under the heat lamp all day. A decent sized basket of four large shrimp and two large fish fillets with fries or cole slaw goes for $6.99. They also have ceviche, shrimp cocktail, and soups, none of which I tried, but they looked pretty good.

I found it interesting that in addition to tartar sauce (one slight drawback; you get one tartar sauce with the meal, and extras are 20 cents each), there were also three sauces on the tables; cocktail, what I believe was an escabeche (pickled vegatable) sauce, and a habenero cocktail sauce that was quite tasty.

Tino’s appears to be a regional chain; the other locations are in Brownsville and South Padre Island, as far as I can tell.

Highly recommended. I’d happily go back.

Posted in Food | 1 Comment »

You’ve got to know when to Myhrvold them…

Thursday, September 23rd, 2010

Nathan Myhrvold, the former chief technology officer of Microsoft, has a new “cookbook” coming out “sometime in the not-too-distant future”, says the LAT.

(According to Amazon, Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking is set to be released March 7, 2011. And it’s going to go for $500 – but, hey, you can get free shipping with Amazon Prime!)

“The food world eagerly awaits the former Microsoft technology officer’s book on the science of cooking.”

I don’t know that I’m really representative of the food world, but speaking strictly for myself: no. I’d much rather read Ferran Adrià’s book, or a cookbook by the guys behind the “Cooking Issues” blog.

Posted in Books, Food, Geek | 3 Comments »

“I see it– coming here– hell-wind– titan-blur– black wings– Yog-Sothoth save me– the three-lobed burning eye…”

Thursday, September 23rd, 2010

Giant squid are roaming the Pacific, and they’re not just wiping out fish stocks; they’re eating fishermen.

A single female is believed to be able to lay 30 million eggs, each one capable of becoming a giant killing machine.

Honestly, I take this entire article with a grain of salt. However, any time I have a chance to link to a story about giant man-eating squid, I can’t pass it up.

(Hattip: Dinosaur Comics. Really.)

Posted in Clippings, Food, Geek, Hysteria, Squid | 1 Comment »

Quote of the day.

Monday, September 20th, 2010

“…for me, as a New Yorker, however quaint the concept, homeland security is still about keeping suicidal mass murderers from flying planes into our fucking buildings.”

—Anthony Bourdain, from Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

Posted in Books, Food | Comments Closed

Clippings: September 1, 2010.

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Obit watch: Laurent Fignon, two-time winner of the Tour de France, and the man who lost the Tour to Greg LeMond by eight seconds in 1989.

Is it just me, or do Tour winners tend to die relatively young? (Yes, I read the obit. Yes, I’m aware Fignon blames his drug use. I’m trying to avoid painting all the Tour winners with the same broad brush.)

Kim Severson profiles Roger Ebert, rice cooker chef.

I wanted to blog this yesterday, but didn’t get a chance: the Barnes and Noble across from Lincoln Center is closing. People are sad, though it sounds like many of them were getting their books elsewhere. Remember when people were indignant that Barnes and Noble and Borders were destroying the little bookstores?

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

50 words for General Tso’s Chicken.

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Patrick over at Popehat links to a NYT article I noted late last week, but didn’t have time to read until yesterday.

Guy Deutscher’s article is basically (as I see it) a call for reconsideration of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, that our language determines how we think. I encountered Sapir-Whorf for the first time many, many years ago, in the pages of the late lamented Dr. Dobb’s Journal, and it blew me away at the time. I figured, “Well, if language influences how we think, then I need to learn FORTH. And C. And LISP. And…” Later on, of course, I read the various arguments against Sapir-Whorf, and don’t completely buy into the strong version of it any more, but I still retain some affection for Sapir-Whorf.

The Deutscher article is an excerpt from his (forthcoming? It looks like it comes out today) book Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages, which I’ve already added to my Amazon wish list.

In other notes, sorry about the blogging slowdown; I spent the weekend at ArmadilloCon, and am now somewhat tanned, rested, and relaxed. I spent some time yesterday bumming around various Half-Price Books in a futile search for A Short History of the French Revolution, but I did run across a handful of other interesting books:

Posted in Books, Clippings, Food, Geek, Linguistics | Comments Closed

Turn out the lights.

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

The peak of Western Civilization has been reached, and it has been reached by the great State of Texas.

We have figured out a way to fry salad. And beer, too! The deep-fried “frozen margarita” also sounds interesting.

(Hattip: Bill Crider.)

Posted in Clippings, Food | 1 Comment »

Recent SDC updates.

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Added May and June 2010.

Still pushing to get done before Armadillocon.

Posted in Food, SDC | Comments Closed

The banshee screams for antelope meat.

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

From the police blotter: our local sheriff’s office busted a couple for breaking into a place called “Wild Bubba’s Wild Game Grill” (no, really!) in Del Valle.

Our fun couple, the female half of which goes by the name “Amber”, are accused of prying open the front door and stealing:

  • a bottle of Tito’s vodka. Well, I give them some credit for stealing good vodka, but wouldn’t it have been easier to hit a liquor store? There’s no shortage of them out that way.
  • a TV and VCR. Shoot, guys, you probably could have picked those up at a garage sale, if not the Goodwill.
  • and 25 pounds of beef, buffalo, and antelope meat.

For this, “Amber” and her guy pal are facing felony burglary charges. As Jay G. says, “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

More interesting to me, though, is the very existence of Wild Bubba’s, which had previously escaped my notice. I sense a road trip coming on in the next few weeks (as soon as some things get resolved and some scheduled events pass).

Posted in Beef, Clippings, Food, Law, Stupid | Comments Closed

The Thais that bind.

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

Rob Balon wonders in his latest blog entry, “why so many Austinites seem to be either indifferent toward or uncomfortable with Thai food“. As Dr. Balon frequently does, he suggests that Austinites are so used to barbecue and TexMex that “something relatively unfamiliar has a hard time breaking through”.

Dr.  Balon’s essay is curious for a few reasons. First of all, he’s talking about Thai food, yet completely omits the longest lived (as far as I know) and single most successful group of Thai restaurants in Austin. We could argue about the merits of Thai Kitchen versus Madam Mam’s all day long, but just simply ignoring the metaphorical 800-pound elephant in the room is…curious, to say the least.

Dr. Balon does mention Madam Mam’s, but I find his comments kind of dismissive. He doesn’t even note that there are actually three locations; the third one is near the Alamo Drafthouse in the Village, and to my untrained eye appears to be doing well.

“And yet just a few miles south on W 6th st. fine restaurants like Lemongrass and Thai Tara have languished and ultimately closed.” I would have to go back to the archives and do some research, but my recollection is that the closing of Lemongrass was a lot more complicated than that. As for Thai Tara, it stayed open much longer than I would have expected; I’d suggest that it closed almost entirely due to a bad location, and especially due to parking issues downtown.

Dr. Balon mentions relatively new places such as Chon Som and Titaya, but I see even more Thai places that he doesn’t mention popping up on street corners all over town. (For example, Pad Thai on Guadalupe, and Thai Cuisine at Parmer and I-35.) Thai Village seems to be doing much better than the shopping center it’s in. Bangkok Cuisine has stayed in business for many years (how, I don’t exactly know). Compared to the Thai situation in, say, 2007, we’re living in a golden age.

Could some of these places (like Satay) use more customers? Dr. Balon seems to know more about this than I do. But let’s say that they could use more customers; is that because they serve Thai food, or is that because of the economy in general? If we compared Thai places to TexMex places, or barbecue joints, would we see a similar trend towards a smaller customer base?

Dr. Balon may have a point, but I don’t think he’s mustered the evidence to back it up.

Posted in Clippings, Food | Comments Closed

After action report: Las Vegas, NV.

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

I covered a lot of stuff in my previous travel report, so this will mostly just be updates.

  • Project e worked spectacularly well at DEFCON. This is the first chance I’ve had to really push the battery life, and I was able to get an good 12+ hours out of the battery without running it totally dry. (This was with the machine set to “powersave” and putting it into “standby” or “hibernate” when I was in the dealer’s room, or driving around with Mike the Musicologist and Andrew. Continuous usage with the wireless would have been more like 6+ hours, I think, which is still pretty impressive.)
  • My one regret is that I forgot my Alfa external WiFi adapter. I would have enjoyed playing with that at the convention.
  • The 5.11 bailout bag also worked out well for lugging around Project e and various other equipment. Again, I was able to carry a pretty good load, including the laptop, charger, books, a couple of bottles of water,  the small camera, and miscellaneous other necessities.
  • MtM has the Nikon with him and has been taking a lot of photos. As you saw below, I did use the Nikon to take some Gehry photos. When I have more time, I’m going to put up an expanded and annotated Flickr photo set; I did some side-by-side experiments with aperture priority vs. automatic exposure.
  • Food in Las Vegas was, without exception, pretty darn good. The worst meal I had (at the Four Kegs) was still better than average (and I didn’t order the stromboli, which is the house specialty). We also had a very good (if loud) tapas meal at Firefly* on Paradise, the usual wonderful meal at Lotus of Siam, the previously mentioned dinner at Shabu-Shabu Paradise, and a Moroccan meal at Marrakech. (I had not previously had Moroccan food, so I can’t comment on how authentic it was. I certainly enjoyed my meal, and the belly dancer didn’t hurt.)

    Vegas does have something of a shortage of good breakfast places outside of the casinos (and even inside of the casinos, if you’re not looking for a buffet). We had several good breakfasts at Blueberry Hill on Flamingo and one excellent breakfast at The Egg and I on Sahara. I know that MtM and Andrew went to a good Italian place in New York, New York while I was at the convention, and I’ll let them comment on that.
  • Between Tucson and Las Vegas, the refurbished Kindle I ordered arrived, and it went on this trip. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about the Kindle later on, but my first impression is “Meh”. I did manage to read John Clark’s Ignition! in PDF format and a Project Gutenberg MOBI format copy of Heart of Darkness without too much trouble, but my experiences with other PDF files and eBooks have been inconsistent.
  • On the other hand, I finished, and highly recommend, Ubuntu for Non-Geeks 4th Edition and am almost finished with Cisco Routers for the Desperate 2nd Edition (also recommended). No Starch Press rocks. And the coupon code “DEFCON18” will get you a 30% discount. And they’re running a half-price sale on all e-books.
  • My Southwest experience this time was much more pleasant. No misplaced bags, and no flight delays. One thing that was particularly unusual was going through the security line in Las Vegas; I had, literally, no wait. Just walked straight up to the TSA agent and got in line for the metal detector. It took longer to take my shoes off and the laptop out than it did to get through the rest of security.

My thanks to, in no particular order, the DEFCON 18 staff and presenters, No Starch Press, UNIX Surplus, SEREPick, Lotus of Siam, Shabu-Shabu Paradise, Sarah at the iBar in the Rio, and the unknown belly dancer at Marrakech.

Special thanks to my high-speed, low-drag travel companions in the primary, Mike the Musicologist and Andrew “Porous concrete? What were they thinking?” Wimsatt.

Posted in asus_eee, Books, DEFCON 18, Endorsements, Food, Gehry, Kindleing, linux, Photography, project_e, Thanks, Travel | 3 Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »