jhlurie

Lets just say that apparently working these boats is a real Hemingway-type experience. Lots of grunting.

Imagine slipping on the inevitably icy deck, when cresting a 40 foot tall wave, and dropping 700 pounds of metal on your foot. Bam! Bye, bye, foot!

bean sprouts are a lifesaver aren't they?! The week before payday sees me pulling out the dried and canned foods... As we saw with last night's dinner with the fu (wheat gluten) and wakame (seaweed). I also tend to avoid dinners that us too much rice, so we tend to have non-rice meals more often as well. I would hate to run out of rice right before payday. ← Pardon my ignorance...but is rice very expensive in Japan? Am just curious because of the statements above. Great blog, again, Kris. ← I'm not sure if the laws have changed, but for many years Japan was somewhat infamous, trade-wise, for levying huge tariffs on foreign rice. EDIT - Actually... yup. Still an issue... 407% is the current figure.

I suppose we should be specific then, that this is about people who haul 700-pound crab pots around in icy, freezing arctic weather, while riding 40 foot waves (sometimes the boats are almost riding sideways, I believe) in search of Alaskan King crabs. These guys work from four to twelve days just once per year, in order to pay for an entire year of living expenses, and are probably dead drunk the rest of the year. Although apparently this is all changing. Half the danger is supposedly because they are in such an all-fire rush to grab as much as possible in that short season, but apparently Alaska is now switching to a longer season with quotas rather than a race-against-the-clock free-for-all.

Info: http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/deadliestcatch/splash.html The claim seems to be that this is one of the most hazardous jobs on the planet--with a 100% injury rate and pay as high as $140K for a single five day assignment. The show sounds... interesting.

They can be had at Han Ah Rheum in N.J. ← The Han Ah Reums only have a small selection -- by far, the biggest Pocky and Japanese snack/junk selection in the entire NY tri state area is at Mitsuwa Marketplace in Edgewater, NJ. I'm fairly sure there is a shuttle from Manhattan but I am not sure where it begins its run. ← Guys, even with Kris' dedication of the topic to NYer SobaAddict70, we shouldn't hijaack the entire topic in our extreme efforts to get him that Pocky... Turning to the subject of Pretz for a moment, personally I think it's the superior product.

I'd say "copy", more than "move", since most of those older threads will be beyond their edit windows. Actually, since the process is a lot more meticulous, "copy" isn't quite right either. In any such advisory though, we should also urge people to make they enter as many keywords as properly apply. I've noticed a lot of older recipes in the system are missing obvious ones--especially in cases where that keyword is also already a stated ingredient ("chicken" is a good example of that).

Isn't the key that the fat should be IN the meat (as in... marbled) rather than simply on or around it? Trimming is a good thing. But so is marbling.

So what did you eat, Qing?? And --- since you have the inside info, what do Cecil and the others eat? ← I've seen those guys eating Jiaozi. But also fishy head things.

Well, another example could be how sometimes all you need is lemon juice for a decent marinade.

To take this in a slightly different, but related, direction there are also cases where two or three ingredients are all thats necessary for an eating experience. That's another form of "less is more". I'll use the example of a good high quality pork chop, enhanced with only a bit of salt and a nice coat of fresh ground black pepper.

Fine time to give up this whole secrecy thing. It was beginning to be like the eGullet Manhattan Project.

Basically, it turns bitter the longer it is from the time it was picked. Right out of the ground... no bitterness. I have no idea how to visually tell how far gone it is, but my first hint would be to try and buy it from Farm stands instead of supermarkets if you can find ones which carry it. Or maybe grow it yourself, although I admit I have no idea how hard that is, having never attempted it.

I sigh with relief occasionally if I spot a blurry picture, because it reassures me that Lucy is still human. Joking aside, Lucy reveals the key here--taking LOTS of shots and picking and choosing. I have a friend who co-founded an international food website. For years, when taking pics of food, he used to dicker around and try and get the perfect shot. One day I broke down and yelled at him "it's digital, take 50 shots of that and worry about it later".

Cricket Green Tea Cola rules, if I remember correctly (it's been a while since I've seen it locally).

I just picked up a 12 pack of Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi. For the record, I've always considered this the Edsel of Diet Pepsis, but the package claimed there was a "Great New Taste" and so I took the plunge. It actually IS much better. I'm going by memory, but MY memory of the old version was that it was much sweeter, and the cherry taste was very artificial. It's still an Aspartame product, but I actually agree with the package. I can finally align it with the very successful implementations of Pepsi Vanilla and Pepsi Twist, which previously put this flavor (and most Diet Coke variants) to shame.

I have a simple question I've been dying to ask for days, Lucy. The white border you are using to frame your pictures... what are you doing to achieve that result? While it perhaps cuts into your picture size a bit (the pictures are all scaled to a certain maximum size no matter what), I think the effect it gives your pics is great. P.S. - love the scribblings

It appears to be this.

Given that this is supposed to be the network TV version of Bourdain (aka "Jack") and not the Cable TV version, it might not be an issue. Actually, once again, I'm thinking that the half-hour format might help. It's easier to be a believable bad boy in a sketch than it is in a detailed painting.

Good lord, why? Those ROCK. I can eat boxes of it in one sitting. I AM assuming that "Baked Corn" and "Roasted Corn" Pretz are the same item though. As someone born in N.Y. I have to ask... ...what's a N.Y. Brownie?

Isn't it great how you and I get to look like incredible geniuses when someone like Lucy takes a turn at this? Reflected glory is SO cool. Ah, the cool thing about eGullet Foodblogs is that they are eternal. Well, at least in read-only form. Pound for pound (word for word?) I'll hold them against any other content on the entire site. That's a shame. I almost felt I knew the guy from your piece. It wasn't quite a warm-fuzzy, but more of a sense that anyone who was such a character SHOULD live forever. I've cited it to several people as my personal favorite DG article. By the way, if anyone wants to comment specifically on Lucy's article, the discussion link in the article is outdated (we intend to do link maintenance on all of the old DG content at some point, but it hasn't happened yet). The proper link is here: Discussion of The Immortal Butcher of St. Nizier As for the gold watch? Maybe we can take up a collection.

Were they boiled first?

Okay, for 30 years or so I HATED celery. Then, a few years ago, I discovered why. Celery goes bad REALLY quickly. Chemical changes start happening in it almost immediately and what many of us have come to think of as the "taste" of celery is actually AFTER this transformation has started. I've had fresh picked celery in the past few years a few times, and it's an entirely different thing.

See, it's part of this sickness which insists that sandwiches can put put on bagels. Classic bagels? The ones which are boiled and small and maybe even a bit hard to chew (not to mention IMPOSSIBLE to find anymore, even in New York)? A "sandwich" with one of those means a bit of lox and a schmear. MAYBE a bit of raw onion. You don't put a %@&ing chicken breast on a real bagel. Assuming you can find one anymore.

Okay, I'm probably the worst type according to Jason's weird standards. I'm often a bagel-and-a-halfer. At least on all of those Jewish holidays where I can't resist another half, but couldn't quite stomach a whole other one. Mind you, I favor smaller firmer bagels and not those huge doughy abominations people seem to love in most places these days.