nosh nook #123 - wednesday, september 2, 2009

so this is dorm food (link)
09.02.09 - l.a. times - by david ross

in case you haven't heard, dorm food is the worst. they usually make it out of pigs' noses & discarded leather jackets & 1920s newspaper clippings, but it's college, so you live with it for as long as you can & hope that you don't get a tapeworm. i was lucky enough to only have to spend one year in the dorms & therefore only had to endure dining hall food for that year. the other three years, i was in apartment style housing, where i had a stove & microwave & toaster oven & was able to retain complete control over my cuisine. over time, i became quite the spicy stir fry whiz kid.

saul sutcher, a student at l.a.'s snooty occidental college (home to obama for two years) couldn't take dorm food either & decided to do something about it. as the l.a. times explains, after trying dorm food for a while his freshman year, he "started eating off-campus as much as (he) could afford." that first summer home, he interned at eccolo, "a high-end trattoria" in berkeley. sophomore year, he & a small group of friends started getting together for dinners that they made in the dorm kitchenette & by second semester, it'd turned into a full on cafe called "cafe norris" with a first meal that featured "pancetta-wrapped quail, butternut squash and ricotta ravioli, and tarte aux pommes for dessert." fancy!

this summer, he worked some connections to open a successful version of the cafe (cafe 20) back in his hometown of berkeley. now that he's back for his junior year after a summer working with small dishes, he's planning on creating dishes such as "braised goat, rabbit medallions and salad of house-cured anchovy with toasts." the kicker is that on the last day of school last year "signs appeared in dormitory kitchenettes stating they were to be used only for warming foods." sutcher is hoping that occidental will be flexible on the policy & still let them cook full meals. after all, the dinners build community. without fancy dinners, they'll have to resort to normal college community-building exercises--keg parties or passing the bong or something.

nosh nook #122 - tuesday, september 1, 2009

foodie festival's fare is cheap and healthy (link)
08.31.09 - sf chronicle - by robert selna

out in the bay area, people are basically a bunch of hippies. liberal commie pelosi-loving hippies. that's just a scientific and historical fact. what makes it worse is that they can't just keep to themselves & be content in their homes with their pornography & their jazz & medical marijuana & homosexuality. instead, they roam our streets, pushing their extreme counterculture ways on everyone else. it's a travesty, really. except for that mormon-funded gay victory, they've taken over the entire bay area. i bet tricky dick & anita bryant are rolling over in their graves over the current situation.

get this. according to the san fran chronicle (which is probably a liberal rag...or is that the examiner?), this past weekend, oaklanders attended something called the "eat real festival," a three-day sustainable food gathering held in a square named after socialist author jack london. it "featured farmers, brewers and street vendors with trucks selling mexican food, falafel and barbecue." i believe a falafel is an arab sandwich. hmm. the festival's purpose: to show "that cheap and tasty food can also be good for people and the planet." oh, brother. there they go again with the planet.

i don't get the festival's take on food. the reason why we're such an advanced nation is because we have such huge farms with such advanced technology & such advanced distribution chains that we can feed everyone. robert seina, author of this article mentions that "most items on sale at eat real were in the $1 to $5 range." $5? how is that sustainable? you can get a $5 dollar foot-long for that price! liberals love spin, i guess. as for the festival, it wasn't entirely bad. friday was "ice cream friday." i like ice cream. they had a "beer shed." i like beer. there was even a butchery contest, an event where "three teams of local butchers go head-to-head on quarter steers." i like butchering things.

nosh nook #121 - monday, august 31, 2009

miley cyrus and big sis take the range rover when they shake things up (link)
08.30.09 - examiner.com - tom lapointe

OMG OMG OMG GUYZ!!! miley cyrus was totally at millions of milkshakes, right in west hollywood! i know! isn't that awesome? i love milkshakes? you do too? that's why we're soooooooooooo BFFs! HEY GUYZ!!! guess what she was doing? OMG you're so right! she was getting a milkshake! get this though! miley is so down to earth & spunky at the same time that she went right behind the counter & made the shake herself! OMG!!!

the examiner.com's tom lapointe has the lowdown on the hollywood.tv video that documents miley's big trip to the famous milkshake joint. miley, her sister brandy & an unimportant/unnamed friend arrived in "rather attractive jean shorts and white tops" & got behind the counter & made "miley shakes." apparently the kardashian sisters & lindsey lohan have done the same thing, so that means she'll be headed for a life of crime soon if the pattern follows. you want a miley cyrus milkshake? if you like "vanilla ice cream with cookie dough, reese’s peanut butter cups, and whipped cream," then you do. check it out! eleven engrossing minutes of miley cyrus taking over "million of milkshakes!" how exciting!



i love that last night, when i first came across this breaking story, there were two ads for colon cleanser on the right next to miley. i also love that this article (apparently because miley showed up in her dad's range rover) eventually devolves into an article about the range rover, complete with a description from edmunds.com that goes into the specifics of the standard terrain response system..."journalism" at its finest.

#122 - speakin' easy of the old-timey.

a great man once said that you could do anything back in the olden days. that great man was wrong. back in the olden days, beginning almost ninety years ago this year, you totally couldn't drink...legally, at least. prohibited! prohibited via the 18th amendment! thanks, fanatical old-timey religion. only two states voted against the amendment (CT, this is the only thing you've been good for thus far). actually, it wasn't all that bad, i suppose. the american government & ladies in long skirts, a decade removed from WWI, were in no position to actually enforce the 18th amendment, so you could get booze. underground! still, the amendment remained an actual part of our constitution for over thirteen years. sorry only amendment to be no more. repealed! they had to create a whole new amendment to get rid of you. lame, #18.

...but they tried for a while to keep the country dry & yay! we got gangsters! we got dudes with classy hats & tommy guns & whatnot. have any of y'all seen brian depalma's the untouchables? if so, you remember that one scene where al capone bashes that dude's head in with a baseball bat? that scene ruled & definitely freaked my thirteen-year old ass out (in both a good & a bad way). i guess that's one positive thing that came out of the 18th amendment. without it, brian depalma never would have made the untouchables. it's basically the last good movie he's made & i wouldn't want to take that away from him. there was word that he was working on a prequel to the film starring nicolas cage as capone, but that project's been stalled. too bad. that could really lift depalma's spirits.

i can't even fathom those times. people rolling around town bop bop bopping people with tommy guns, having crazy car chases, posing as cops to assassinate members of a rival gang...you could do that stuff back then & often get away with it. old-timey murder! less than a hundred years later, the mob just ain't what it used to be. i mean, maybe it's so far underground than i don't even notice, but these days, you only really get to hear about one, maybe two sweet mob killings a year. it's got to the point where there are more reports of arrests than there are of gangland murder. the most famous mob family--the sopranos--even they met their end. fuggetaboutit.

these days, here in nyc, there are faux speakeasy style establishments popping up all over. when i first moved the city near the beginning of the decade, there were a couple speakeasy type bars (i.e.--milk & honey), but now it's become such a trend that the ny times did a piece on speakeasies back in june. there's PDT (please don't tell), a speakeasy hidden through a phone booth in the back of crif dogs. brooklyn has the hideout (in ft greene) & rye, a restaurant in williamsburg that looks like a speakeasy. just the other day, the museum of the city of new york finished up their speakeasy series of events, ones that celebrated the fact that manhattan used to be home to around 30,000 speakeasies. there's senor swanky's mexican cafe & speakeasy in the upper west side, but that's only a speakeasy in name. i turn my apartment into a speakeasy a couple nights a week, but it's so far underground that i'm the only one who's found it so far. bootleg!

#122 - speakin' easy of the old-timey.
snack: tyrrell's sweet chilli & red pepper chips
drink: speakeasy white lightning



holy crap! will you look at the old-timey hats on those dudes on the front of the bag of tyrrell's sweet chilli & red pepper chips? i can't tell...are they prussian or bobbies or something? probably bobbies, since tyrrell's is a u.k. company. the u.k. thing also explains the crazy spelling of "chili." crazy brits with their double l's. the car the bobbies are in is totally old-timey. it's the sort of car you'd expect to tip over taking a corner or whose radiator would explode for no good reason. i wish i had one of those cars & was on the front of a bag of chips. lucky probably dead now dudes. i tried out tyrell's beef & horseradish potato chips around the beginning of the year. they have a cow on the front of the bag. sir walter tyrrell's his name. i'm hoping that he's still alive, but he's a tasty cow, so it's tough to be certain.

i've tried a couple of the tyrrell's flavors & they've all had a nice, full flavor. the sweet chilli chips are no exception. they've got a no-too-greasy kettle feel & a burnt orange look with a bunch of lil sweet flavor specks scattered throughout. the sweet specks dominate over the chilli & pepper, so if you're one of those fancypants who can't handle spicy chips, it's ok. they won't hurt you...you candy ass. jk, candy ass! jk! seriously, they're good chips...a tad pricey, but good nonetheless. according to the bag, they're even "suitable for" you candy ass vegans. jk, candy ass vegans! jk! quick question, vegans. is candy ass one word or two? jk!

the speakeasy white lightning is totally bootleg! well, not really. the name implies that, but it's actually made by an totally legit brewery out of san fran. no canadian border runs from the g-men here! their website is goodbeer.com, which is a tad cocky. the white lightning's not on the website though, so i'm not sure if the beer's named after the george jones big bopper-penned song about g-men & t-men & pappy's brew or the 1973 burt reynolds movie in which reynolds plays a guy named "gator mcklusky," a former moonshiner who goes undercover in the moonshine circles to expose the sheriff who killed his brother. i haven't seen it, but it was shown as part of quentin tarantino's first ever semi-annual film festival, back in 1997...so i guess it's that kind of movie. hopefully it's named after that.

to be honest, it's a pretty boring beer. it's a wheat beer flavored with coriander seed & curacao orange peel, but it's really light for a wheat beer. there's not really that much flavor there, especially when competing for my flavor love with the deliciousness of the sweet chilli & red pepper. i expected more from it. i guess that's why it's such a self-conscious beer, with its pair of eyes staring at me from the neck of the bottle the entire time i drank it. it was all looking askance & mumbling "you're not impressed are you? you've had better, huh? i'm sorry to hear that. did i mention that speakeasies are old-timey? you like old-timey, right? ok, i'll be quiet now. enjoy your beer."

the musical fruit: movement #9.

the musical fruit: movement #9.
song: "the grapes song," demetri martin
fruit: red grapes



...gotta be honest with you. i started off trying to give demetri martin's comedy central show important things with demetri martin a fair shake. by the end of the seven-episode first season, i was over it. it was funny & all, but the funniest parts were the more ridiculous ones & those only happened about 40% of the time. most of the time, i felt like i was watching my dad tell jokes. i know that dry, smart humor is his shtick & all, but i'd prefer to laugh more...anyway, it's coming back for another season beginning in 2010, so i guess i got my wish for them to shtick with it. here's to it getting up to 50% ridiculous funny by next season.

"the grapes song," off of his album these are jokes is a perfect example of his more ridiculous moments. you should at least check out the whole song on the youtube. it sounds sort of like a song by cake or beck, but with demetri's grandma talking over the music. "i like peaches. i like pineapple. almost everything. fruit is the best thing you can eat," she says. fuck yeah, grandma! anyway, grandma must be proud because demetri's got his first lead role in an ang lee film that came out here in nyc on wednesday & nationwide yesterday, taking woodstock. it's the story of elliot tobin, the guy who offered up his family hotel to the organizers of woodstock. demetri is elliot. the star! you should probably eat some grapes in his honor. raisins are good too. don't eat the brown acid or something.

i really hope demetri is talking about red grapes, because those are the only good kind. f green grapes. those dudes are boring & aren't even good for making wine. they should just give up now. red grapes win & with that in mind, on the way into work yesterday, i picked up a bag of red grapes for breakfast & when i got into work, i fixed myself a big ol bowl of grapes whilst waiting for forever for my wack computer to boot up. since i was feeling suspiciously friendly & generous for that early in the morn, i dispensed grapes to the good people of my office. that's one of the sweet things about grapes. since they come in a bunch, you can share them with the world & really bring people together. grapes for everyone! bring me my concubines so they can feed me grapes whilst i recline!

this bunch of grapes was good & firm, pretty damn fresh. even when fresh & clean, red grapes always seem to have that spotty whitish appearance on the skin. without fail, every time i have red grapes, i try to wash it off, hoping it'd just go away. it doesn't. c'est la vie. regardless, it worked out just fine & i ended up finishing the whole bunch (with a lot of help from one particular co-worker) over the course of my first few hours at work. i have to say it was a nice way to ease into the day, chillin' at my desk snacking on grapes...& spreadsheets & reports & comps. i'm with demetri. i like grapes. they're so delicious. i like grapes. they're so nutritious. i like grapes.