Batgrrrl

I'm just finding myself baffled by you lightweights who can't finish a bottle of wine! But then again, klink and I are lushes. B-gal

I confess, california rolls are my favorite grocery store sushi, though I'm picky--only if they've got the fish roe (as opposed to being half full of cucumber) and nice looking avocado, and I like the crab meat in mayonnaise. Larry's Market makes a darn good california roll. And it's hard for me to argue with a good spider roll, with the cute little crab legs all tempura'd and sticking out the ends! Couldn't be more adorable. Darnit, now I want sushi even more... Batgrrrl

RandyB, that is a crime. You deserve to be given a bathtub of Mashiko's albacore to wallow around in. Come to think of it, we all deserve that! One recent trend I've noticed in sushi places in the last year or so is more interesting rolls--I'm becoming a big fan of some of the really creative ones. Mashiko's revamped their menu last December (see Klink's and my description of his birthday dinner there, the first night of the new menu), and I noticed he had a lot of fascinating sounding rolls on it. So when we get rolls as part of omakase there, they're generally incredibly tasty, and as RandyB says, not overly full of rice. I also really like the rolls at Hisago's, in the Northgate area--they do some really yummy and different ones, like the Maryanna roll, which has uni, de-skinned orange slices, and cucumber, and possibly something else. The uni and orange go together absolutely beautifully. They also coat some of their rolls in toasted rice, making for a lovely texture. So good rolls are out there--they are no longer just for the uninitiated! Crap, now I want sushi... Batgrrrl

You make the frying smell sound like a bad thing...

Okay, here goes: I leave it up to you guys to decide if this is appropriate! I realize it might be stepping on some people's toes. Batgrrrl In honor of the season…to be read in a televangelist voice. Brothers, sisters, I come before you with a tale of woe. A tale of suffering. A tale of a wedding at which there was Too. Little. Wine. The guests were thirsty—thirsty like the desert! The wedding party was left untoasted—untoasted like the whore of Babylon! But then, brothers and sisters, came unto them a man of talents! A man of plenty! And he did TAKE the pitchers of water, and lo, the people found them overflowing with WINE, wine to wet their throats and unleash the toasts! Friends, you need never be in this awful situation. You need never suffer the pain of unsatisfied guests, untoasted couples, if you just let the ALMIGHTY JESUS into your KITCHEN!!! Praise the Lord, he can fix any hosting problem that might arise! Didn’t buy enough fish for your dinner party? He’ll multiply those fish and throw in loaves to boot! Mother-in-law on the Atkins Diet? He’ll transubstantiate that bread right into flesh! He’s the one-god, cross-bearing, stigmata-king KITCHEN MIRACLE, and he can be yours for the low, low commitment of lifelong devotion. Brothers, sisters, don’t let this opportunity pass you by. If you pray within the next 10 minutes, we’ll send you FREE the one and only Archangel Michael with his Flaming Sword!!! Never have you seen such beautifully carved roasts, such expertly sliced and SIMULTANEOUSLY TOASTED bread! Act now, pray now, or forever hold your peace! (God the Father and the Holy Ghost not included. Crown of thorns available separately. Some feet bathing required. Satisfaction guaranteed or your damnation back.)

My favorite quote: "Vitamin E is said to help counter anxiety, depression, and feelings of homicidal rage. " Ah, the ever-useful vitamin e, for those frequent bouts with inconvenient homicidal rage... Maggie, you crack me up. A marvelous article, and best of all, impeccably and stylishly written. And no, I'm not just saying that because it's the end of the quarter and I'm buried in student writing! You have an excellent voice in your prose, and we're all enjoying it immensely! Heading back to comma splice watch, Batgrrrl

Transcription of conversation in the Klink/Batgrrrl kitchen, March 7, 2003: Batgrrrl: "Oh Jesus, we're eating fat. We're actually eating FAT." Klink: "Yeah, I do that to people."

Well, that's what I get for forgetting to log him out and myself in before posting! Or rather, that's what he gets! He's going to be veeeeeeery amused by this... Anyway, as I was saying, I'm a red meat eater too. Big time. During some poor phases (almost wrote poor periods) in college when I was living on grapefruit, milk and ramen, I would break down once a month and go to McDonald's--cheapest sourse of red meat (let's not split hairs on that one!) around. Other than that, while I don't do the chocolate thing, I do crave sweets generally--and I lost my sweettooth when I hit adolescence, pretty much. But once I craved (and actually made and drank) a chocolate coke--coca cola and as much hershey's syrup as I could get to dissolve. It was wonderful and disgusting and I was up for hours. Batgrrrl

Maggie, I love your parents!

Blue, we're still talking about drinks, right? Anything remotely sunny-day-sky-colored is off my list. You only need to throw up that color once to swear off it forever. And I too remember fondly the garbage pail parties in college. Or rather, I don't remember them, really, which is probably why I think of them fondly. I think we've probably all got that one liquor that we just can't even stomach the smell of, anymore--for lots of my friends it was peach schnapps. And Schielke, speaking of lovely mixes that f#&^ you up, one of my faves when I was in England was snakebite and black--half cider, half lager, and a shot of black currant juice. Yum, yum! Just sweet enough, highly poundable, and much more powerful than you think! But that doesn't really qualify for this list, because I will never give those up. Batgrrrl (for whom this is her second post today about alcohol. Man, am I ever looking forward to the weekend!) Edited: mee knot spel gud

Yo yo YO, you ladies bettah keep your d@#% paws off the General! I'm gonna be keepin' a close eye on this thread from now on. Gotta keep you ladies in line. Edit: *burp*

Although I'd say Col Klink's signature dish is his smoked pork--I don't care what cut of pork. As I told him recently, "Honey, I love your smoked turkey, I love your brisket, but I'm marrying you for your pork." And really, that's not a metaphor. My family has two signature dishes which we just cannot get enough of: Breaded chicken breasts with brown butter and lemon sauce, from Julia's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It's so very easy--the chicken breasts are flattened, dipped in flour, then egg, then a mixture of bread crumbs and parmesan, then fried in butter. What makes the dish is that you then add lemon to the butter and pour the sauce over the chicken. I know, so easy, but people do rave. And, of course, over the years we've seriously upped the amounts of both butter and lemon! Our other one is a spaghetti bolognese recipe that my father picked up in a recipe rack at a local liquor store. It's a basic bolognese recipe, with ground beef, carrots, celery, a very nice light tomato sauce, and mushrooms and white wine, but it's the chicken livers that make it. I've ordered spaghetti bolognese at restaurants before, and found it lacking. Now, not particularly liking the taste of chicken liver on its own, I've tried leaving it out, and the dish is totally boring. It NEEDS those little livers! So I either cut them up so small that there are no big chunks, or leave them big so I can easily find them. Guests love this dish--I rarely divulge the secret ingredient until they've eaten the whole thing and raved about it. Batgrrrl

D**n, that sounds lovely! Though in my own experience with wine, I look at that menu and think, great, but by the time dessert gets there I won't be remembering anything! Unlucky me, I inherited a propensity to not remember things after ridiculously little alcohol--particularly wine, which is odd, I think. So I'm always wistfully wary of wine showcase meals. But please report, anybody who goes!!! B-gal, the wine light-weight

Ah, resurrecting a topic just before it dips below the horizon! I'm so proud. And I just have to post, because I love the drive up to Vancouver--it's a real treat. For most of the last decade, I've been going up regularly to visit family, but they've since moved to the interior of BC (the Okanagan, serious wine country, how can I possibly complain?), and I miss that trip up to Vancouver. Anyway, on to the point of this post, which is not so much about Vancouver as it is about getting there--there's a great little place along the Chuckanut Drive (yes, you read that right) to stop and have some oysters. The Chuckanut Drive (okay, yes, I do really enjoy just saying that! CHUCKANUT!) diverges somewhere north of Mount Vernon and south of Bellingham--it shoots you west, takes you across the agricultural flats and then up a winding cliff-side road that runs right above the water--there are great pull-outs to stop and check out the scenery. It'll put you into the old historical district of Bellingham (Fairview? Fairmont?), and you'll see signs to I-5. If you have a little leisure time in your drive up to Vancouver, I highly recommend it. Back to the oyster place. Along Chuckanut Drive (CHUCKANUT!), when you're up off the flats, watch for some little cabins perched on the cliffside on the left--not long after them you'll pass a restaurant. They have their own oyster beds, I think--or they have a deal with an oyster farm close by, because you can park and walk down a dirt/gravel road that takes you right to a little shack that sells fresh oysters. I've only eaten at the restaurant once--they're a bit upscale, and I was a poor graduate student at the time, and woefully underdressed in my jeans and windbreaker, but I braved it and sat down and ordered a sort of "sampler" oyster appetizer, rather than a meal (have I mentioned the poor grad student bit?)--it's been a while, and I can't really remember what the preparations were, but I remember being very happy. It's kind of a fun thing to do on the way to Vancouver, if you're into oysters. My recommendation--show up dressed down and annoy the somewhat snooty wait staff. And who knows, that was a while ago, they may have changed. Whatever you're wearing, the oysters are worth it. Batgrrrl

These people make bacon sound bad. They must be stopped. Now. One of the weird ones I grew up on (along the lines Nightscotsman describes) was my grandmother's caramel corn (very excellent on its own) made not with popcorn but with cheese poofs instead--not the cheese curls, but the bigger ones with more air in them. Now that's a sweet-salty combination that really works! But it sounds awful, I know. Batgrrrl

Oh, like fur underpants aren't disturbing? The reason those are disturbing has so very little to do with the fact that they are made of fur, my dear nightscotsman!

I also can't make it--not because of the Packers (I have, on occasion, been known to don the green and gold, drink bloody marys for breakfast, and scream my head off at big tvs--I did go to college in Wisconsin, after all) but because I'm helping a friend move. A little deposit in the moving karma bank is always useful. Perhaps the fur pants ate the meat-eating pants? They look manly enough! B-gal

I just thought of another "problem" with the lovely dessert you featured above, nightscotsman--it's not chocolate. Our culture is sooooooooo heavily biased towards chocolate desserts, it drives me nuts. I mean, I like good chocolate as much as the next person, but I intensely dislike the way it tends to overshadow everything else on dessert menues--if we go out for dessert, most places will have several chocolate options and only a few non-chocolate ones. So do your chocolate things fare any better than the non-chocolate items? Batgrrrl

I can personally attest to the fact that the esteemed Scotsman's desserts are indeed all he claims them to be! In fact, I'm thinking about asking if there are any openings in his office, just for the chance of eating more of them. In my office, this is generally no problem--but it's an academic office, and I think we never really lose that starving-grad-student-take-advantage-of-any-free-food-anywhere mindset. But I have some very good, dear friends, a couple, who I have simply given up on cooking with--they're actually rather adventurous, so my complaint isn't in that line, but rather with the fact that they know absolutely nothing about cooking, and so everything has to be explained in minute detail, and it takes them FOREVER. Slicing half a pound of mushrooms? 15 minutes. I kid you not. I'm so pleased they want to learn, but I don't have the patience to teach them. Another example? She was helping me frost a cake for a friend's birthday party--I gave her the frosting and a big spoon, turned away, turned back a minute later, no frosting on the cake--she looked at me, and asked, "how do I frost a cake?" Okay, okay, I know that yes, this is a skill, and there are mistakes that can be made, but for heaven's sake, it's not rocket science! Or as I like to say, since I teach literature, it's not reading a Dickens novel! And then, once explained, it took her 20 minutes. One more complaint about this couple--they are prone to bringing things to potlucks that sound simple ("we'll bring a fruit salad!") but then they show up with a bag of fruit and ask for: collander to wash the fruit, and access to sink towel to dry the fruit knife to cut the fruit, and cutting board bowl to serve fruit in spoon to serve fruit with And then that takes them 20-30 minutes to put together. Which raises another question--potluck ettiquette! I'm definitely of the "bring everything ready to go straight on the table" school, or requiring as little prep as possible. Any other thoughts, or examples of egregious potluck behavior? Batgrrrl

Ahhhhh, the joy of being Klink's primary taster... I just got to sample the coarse grind (Klink's going to tell you what all went into it later) and it's fantastic! Nice balance of garlic, very moist. I was already stuffed from dinner, but couldn't resist it. Details to follow from the colonel himself. Back to grinding. B-gal

Hajime's the very cute, somewhat skinnier Japanese guy, in his mid or late 30s I'd say--there's also a younger, slightly chunkier guy, also very cute. Both tend to work the right side of the bar (from the customer's perspective). Maybe we should ditch our respective misters and go some night when we can flirt with the chef! Sorry, Klink--when your sushi is as good as Hajime's, I'll come back! B-gal

Oh sure, you conVEEEENiently wait until I'm out of town to do this! When you know I'm stuck without good access to a grocery store! b-gal

I do indeed--the first was a 2000 Guelbenzu Azul, a nice, rich, spicy red reminiscent of a Fond Cronz (sp?) but more complicated. The second, which we had with the chicken, was a 1999 Domaine le Clos de Caveau Vacqueryras, which was drier and had more "bite" do it, so it paired very nicely with the chicken. Batgrrrl

Okay, okay, I have to put this one out, because I always get the weirdest looks when I describe it. My grandmother used to make this killer caramel corn--really good stuff. Then one day a neighbor told her to try making it with cheese puffs instead of popcorn. It's fantastic! Just the right blend of salt and sweet. I felt so validated when I found a frou-frou popcorn place that sold both caramel corn and cheesy corn, and also bags of them mixed together! Heaven. Batgrrrl

Funny--I was just thinking that the crab was one of the things I was hugely disappointed in at Salty's! I thought that and the peel-n-eat shrimp were both hugely overcooked, watery, and tasteless. On the other hand, they did have oysters, and those were quite lovely, though the thought of eating oysters raw at a buffet is kind of well, stomach churning. I went with some friends, who really like their brunch, and at $36 each, I wouldn't go again. I might if it were $20! I've heard Anthony's does a good sunday brunch--anybody been who can report? And while I'm at it, I'll ask a brunch-related question--any good recommendations for chicken fried steak in the area? I've had it at 14 Carrot on Eastlake (a transitory special) and loved it, and as this is a fairly new addition to my eating repertoire, I thought I'd see if we have any afficionadoes who can recommend a good place. Any help? Or tips on how to make this at home? Batgrrrl