monku monku

http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/Season6/Tomato2/Tomato2Trans.htm

"Now you could eat that sauce as is on anything from pasta to eggs to your breakfast cereal. But you'd be missing an important dimension of flavor and I just hate that. So add a cup of white wine—I like a nice cheap chardonnay—and bring to a boil over medium heat. Why bother? Because tomatoes contain alcohol-soluble flavors that can only be delivered to your tasting mechanisms in the presence of alcohol. Now you could use vodka for this but wine also brings a nice fruitiness to the party.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57084-2004Sep28.html

"The real reason we use wine in cooking is simply that a good wine contributes its good flavor to the dish. It has nothing to do with dissolving flavor components...  The properties of the mixture, including what it can and cannot dissolve, vary as the percentage of alcohol varies. If a given substance dissolves in pure alcohol or pure water, that doesn't mean it will dissolve in any given mixture of alcohol and water."

To be fair, the tomato episode originally aired in 2002 and Wolke's wapo article wasn't published until almost two years later.  I'm just tired of having to fact check my entire brain.  Everything you know is wrong, all of your opinions are based on erroneous assumptions, damned dirty lies, etc, etc. 

I really need to get out of the house.

[1. General] [Axerr]: lots of people here this late.
[1. General] [Axerr]: whats everyone doing = o
[1. General] [Umetaro]: not hanging out with girls
[1. General] [Axerr]: =c

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-mall31-2008may31,0,1284077.story

A shopping center in the Little Tokyo section of downtown Los Angeles that calls itself the largest indoor Japanese shopping mall in the country has been acquired by investors who may convert its theme to Korean.

Korean themed? What're they gonna do, open up more bad sushi restaurants? Don't they have their own town to fuck up?

"We haven't finalized what we want to do with the property," Kim said. "We're considering plans to do it a couple of different ways."

One of them would be to convert the three-story structure at 3rd and Alameda streets into a Korean-themed center with a Korean market, an electronics store and a Korean-style spa with herbal steam rooms.

Another possible approach, Kim said, would be to create a more broadly American-style market with a mainstream grocery store such as Ralphs and nationally recognized retailers.

Yeah, that's going to do a lot to help preserve a 125 year old ethnic community. Who cares about cultural diversity, I want a Ralph's near downtown. I guess this pretty much signals the end of any good Japanese food east of west L.A. I wonder who's gonna buy it next after the South Koreans are done protesting themselves into an economic recession.

"This place sucks. Maybe it's because I don't eat meat"

YOU DIE.

Ah, nationalism.

If you haven't heard about this particular urban myth or haven't seen The Chinese Connection (what's wrong with you?), you may not have the background to put this picture into context.  In any case, you'd think someone would have told the dude to write it in Français, non?



The whole torch thing was pretty quiet lately with a few exceptions (attacking a family? way to validate that idiot's "goons and thugs" comment, folks). 

People seem to be going batshit in China.  There was a comment by a Chinese resident on one of these blogs that everyone he knows has shifted their shopping to the Japanese owned store a couple blocks away and will probably switch back to the French owned store once the anti-Japan protests start up again.

I'm not exactly sure how to feel about the anti-CNN protest.  I think it's a pretty nifty idea, but I find it odd that it hasn't happened before about other issues.  Y'know... like the whole going to war and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians thing.  Ah well, what ya gonna do?  I watched the video and the protest seemed kind of tame.  If I were them I'd go to Ktown and get some Koreans to help out.  Now there's some people who know how to protest!  If I ever hear Koreans are gonna protest something I'm involved with, I'm getting the fuck out of there.

The torch will be in Nagano soon.  I've read that they'll be busing in Chinese students from all over Japan.  I hope someone's warned them about the uyoku (crazy ultra-nationalist assholes in black vans) that will probably show up just to beat on foreigners.

Someone vandalized the Zenkoji.  Probably not the smartest of moves.  They just moved the torch starting point to a parking lot. 

"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."

I went to Six Flags' Great America the other day.  Not as great as advertised.

I saw this in their food pavillion.



"Meat Rolls."

Isn't it someone else's turn to have their ethnic cuisine raped and defecated on?  We've been doing this ninja-sushi-karate shit since the '80s!  Asia is a big place!  I bet kimchi would be easy to fuck up.  Rotten cabbage?  C'MON, PEOPLE!  LET'S OPEN UP THOSE HORIZONS!  Westward ho!

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gOINGOz7EYFm9NC2glJqGvZZMEsA

"They are bringing operatives into that region for training -- operatives that, a phrase I would use, wouldn't attract your attention if they were going through the customs line at Dulles with you," Hayden told NBC television.

The new recruits "look western" and "would be able to come into this country ... without attracting the kind of attention that others might," he said.

I guess that's one way to eliminate racial profiling.

Waitaminit... did he just admit it's easier for white people to pass through airport security???

The other night I found a package of kimchi in the back of my icebox that I'd bought more than a year ago.   I spent a few minutes wondering how and where I could obtain one of those biohazard refuse bags before finally deciding to make BudaeJjigae with it.  After a bit more "fridge cleaning for sustenance" I also came up with these ingredients to throw in the pot:

BBQ Baked Beans
Carrot (2 weeks old)
Corn (6 weeks old)
Garlic (w/ green shoots)
Instant Ramen
Kamaboko
Linguica
Negi (1 week old)
Onion (2 weeks old)
Spam (4 weeks old)
Vienna Sausage

It actually turned out quite nicely.  This is from Day 3:



Now, I wouldn't say I have food poisoning...

but if you don't hear from me for a while...

AVENGE ME!

(10:49:11 AM) huff: man. how can you not know what a kobold is?
(10:50:25 AM) umetaro: she probably had "friends" as a child and stuff
(10:51:04 AM) huff: pssht. chicks.
(10:51:11 AM) huff: i had friends!
(10:51:15 AM) huff: they played d&d!
(10:51:25 AM) huff: then we got licenses.
(10:51:30 AM) huff: and beer!
(10:51:37 AM) huff: and then, less d&d.



(11:23:30 AM) huff: dude, i'm totally blaming you for this
(11:23:31 AM) huff: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/03/04/national/a103425S84.DTL&tsp=1

- Stayed awake all day waiting for a delivery.  It never came.  They didn't even attempt to deliver it.
- Ordered a pizza.  They charged my card.  2 hours later, no pizza.  They didn't even pick up the phone. 
- At this point nothing is open and all I've eaten since wednesday is a small bowl of noodles.
- Went to move my car.  Battery dead.  Tomorrow is street cleaning.  They may boot my car at this point.

I'm just fucking done. 

I'm gonna go find something expensive and throw it at a wall.

Is Chop Suey the Worst Name Ever for a Korean Restaurant?

Zak Pelaccio has been getting an earful from some Asian-Americans over Chop Suey, the name of his latest project as Consulting Chef of the Future. At least among the ones who commented on Grub Street, the prevailing feeling seemed to be that, political aspects aside, the name was just dumb: “Chop Suey is such a HORRIBLE NAME! Not only is it NOT Korean generally, the name “chop suey” or ‘za sui,’ when used in Chinese, has the meaning of cooked animal offal or entrails.”

I'll start siding with all the asian people who're angry about this when their peoples start making Japanese food correctly.   Hey, you know what's a worst name for a Korean restaurant?  SUSHI BANG.  That's right, remember how you all thought I was overreacting about shitty Japanese food everywhere I went? Well now you know what was up my butt this whole time. YOUR SHODDILY MADE ETHNIC FOOD.

Fuckers.

[...]

Also, let the Korean-Vietnamese race war begin.

I just ate a pound of rotten cabbage. The Korean lady at the corner store, astonished by my predilection for kimchi, has been bestowing upon me containers of homemade baechu kimchi. So yeah, I should probably cancel all my plans for the day. Gassy.

Having no goals or ambitions in life, I've decided that I need to make some tsukemono. Narazuke, specifically.

Narazuke is the famed tsukemono of Nara. Vegetables are pickled in miso, shoyu and alcohol. Another dish with many detractors, popular with older men, goes well with rice, sake and beer. A buzz can be had on just a few bites of narazuke alone!

Anyway, you're supposed to let them pickle for 3 years to get them exactly right. I'm thinking I'll try 3 months before I start letting something rot in the kitchen for a few years. This will either be way awesome or I'll die of botulism poisoning.

Miso soup (if made properly) contains katsuo bushi (dried bonito flakes).

Kimchi (the tasty fermented type) contains fish heads, anchovies, or shrimp.

What's that ringing? Oh, here you go. It's the cluephone.

Ah well.  It's not like most of the asian restaurants in SF get the food right anyhow.

I'm back in SF.  15 lbs heavier.  

I told my boss I was just following his wishes when he said he wanted to see more of me in the office. 

I don't even remember what movie that joke is from.

I gained 12 lbs in the first week and 3 the next.  Grief eating?  No, I'm just a glutton.

It feels like I haven't slept well in years.

I've had a really shitty week and then I read this:

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/484937

No. Civilizations have sharp divisions between them, and eating live animals mark a distinction between one side and the other. If you subscribe to pan-cultural relativism then you can eat human brains with the headhunters in Borneo. If not, then we have to stand our ground in what could be called a fully civilized society. Cuisine has vast cultural implications, and eating live animals mark where the status of those implications rest.

NYJewboy Jan 31, 2008 07:48AM

I wonder if those fuckers will start deleting my posts like last time.

Wow. An American implying that another culture is uncivilized. Didn't we just cause the death of hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq? Ah, I guess we can all be intolerant again now that MLK day has passed.

I believe the japanese call it "ikizukuri." And the Chinese have their dancing shrimp and little fish that swim into tofu. The Vietnamese have that live cobra heart thing (although I hear only western tourists want to eat it), but those are all asian cultures... I guess they'll just have to look to the west to learn how to be civilized.

Hey, didn't the Romans think Jews were uncivilized? How'd they fix that? Maybe we can let them asians know so they can get on that train too...

uchinanchu Feb 01, 2008 04:09AM

[...]

Wow, they deleted my post already, but didn't touch any others. Even the one containing profanity is still up there. Unfuckingbelievable. Apparently, sarcasm isn't okay, but implying that asian people are uncivilized and barbaric is... good going chowhound.

I think this'll be the last time I go to Hawaii (barring any weddings or funerals). It seems like every time I visit someone dies. I'm the angel of death and I'm running out of relatives.

There's also the matter of the 12 lbs (that's a baby and a half!) I managed to gain in my first week here.

And the $1000 I've spent on food so far.

Hawai'i... it'll make you lonely, poor, and fat.

The ultimate genetic expression of these four people...



turned out to be this...



I find it quite disturbing... it looks like I ate a baby.

Maybe it was a friend.

No wonder I was lonely as a child.

I have an attention span briefer than the space between raindrops.

I gained 5 pounds in 4 hours the other night. I blame you, chili and rice. You with your multiple locations and 24/7 availability. I'm tempted to get in the car and get some of you RIGHT NOW. You think a 7 pound barrel was enough? Do you KNOW who you're dealing with here? DO YOU???


(the quarter is there for scale)

[...]

I've decided that I like little kids up to the point where they can articulate their needs and desires. After that, I don't really want anything to do with them until they turn 18 and can run to the store to buy me smokes.