VenerableBede

appleman was in san francisco until a month ago or so.. .he was the chef at A16 and co-owner of SPQR.

i too had never heard or seen of such a thing until i saw it made twice in "V for Vendetta" and then again on Top Chef a few seasons ago. I grew up in San Jose, so, maybe it is a regional thing that just never quite made it out to the urban areas of California.

went last night. . .had the rigatoni carbonara. . .could have used more of the guanciale. a friend had the rigatoni aglio e olio, and another had the spaghetti cacio e pepe. . .it was agreed that mine was the best. also had the fried mozzarella, which we all liked. one of my friends complained that the portions were smaller than the first time she had been there, which was shortly after they originally opened. i didn't really mind.

There's an article here on Carol Scott. . .

to join the list of people here, i too remember taking the helm and making drinks for guests at my parent's parties. . .but this was in the 70s. . .and i was making seagrams and 7's, just like katie. . .i found it more interesting that the daughter was making things like old fashioned's and tom collins'. when my wife and i see scene's like that, we joke that "yep, that's gonna be our child."

i thought the exact same thing. . . . as for carla, i thought the whole "served with love" explanation endearing. . .it doesn't excuse poorly made food, but it does explain a lot about carla; and while that is also not a defense, i didn't care for the way the judges went after her on that point. she's just a wacky, out-there individual.

There's the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis which is all about. . .flour. Well, the history of flour and flour mills in Minneapolis. They have a bunch of old Betty Crocker boxes and various General Mills products (their HQ is in Minneapolis); as well as a test kitchen on the various types of flour and their effects in baked goods. I must say, the more interesting aspect of the museum, other than explaining how flour particles are combustible, is how Minneapolis harnessed the Mississippi River for hydropower to power the mills.

Had a great dinner at Stokes last Friday night, would go back in a heart-beat. My one minor quibble- the kitchen went a little overboard with mushrooms on their mushroom pizza. Although, upon return to our hotel, one of the workers there told us that he heard it was up for sale. . .don't know anything about that. However, had a less than stellar dinner at Sardine Factory, but I'll attribute that to the fact that I was attending a group dinner for 40 or more people. One of the amusing parts of the dinner was that the group holding the dinner had the head of the Monterey Bay Aquarium there and she spoke, at length, about this and that, including how shrimp catching has done untold damage to marine life (shrimp was served for dinner as part of a surf n'turf) and also how sardine catching did a lot of damage off the coast of california, and we were eating in a restaurant called the sardine factory. she also let us know that the aquarium now has an accompanying chart of sustainable fish for sushi...I resisted asking her why all the best sushi was on the avoid list.

beef jerky, pork rinds and moon pies. i'm only half joking.

instead of drinking the jug wine straight, why not turn it into sangria. . .or some other punch-like concoction, that way it doesn't really matter what the quality.

i'm sorry, but i really must have missed something when i visited gary farrell. i found them to be very overpriced with a staff that was not the least bit interested in talking with us about the wine. course, gary farrell was in between a stop at sunce (love that place, ditto what trishiad said, cindy's awesome) and porter creek, so i suppose we weren't ready for napa treatment in between sonoma treatment.

I bought one within the last week or so - maybe ten days - in Ricmond, CA - across the bay from San Francisco. i'm guessing its only san francisco.....was somewhere on the road to redding off of I-5 and stopped at an McD's that still had the double cheeseburger for $1.

The McDonalds across the street from my work here in San Francisco raised the price of the double cheeseburger a few months ago.

2 things on this area since I kind of work in this area. . .the refrigerator is the primary consumer of electricity in the kitchen and is roughly 15-20% of a home's overall electricity consumption (depending on the amount of AC primarily). 1) there was an ad at the bottom of page 1 of today's San Francisco Chronicle food section that is about Miele refrigerators. I'm transcribing the text of the advertisement: "Does your refrigerator keep in touch with you? Miele's new RemoteVision WIFI technology will notify you if there's a problem or even if the door is left open." So, what's the next logical progression in this. . .if a refrigertor is able to contact you and tell you the door was left open or whatnot, why not just be able to have more control over the settings. 2) This post projects the future kitchen and being able to monitor and control the usage of all your appliances, but especially the refrigerator. It's a bit more heavy on electric rate design (which is what I'm interested in and work on), so it may be a bit too into the weeds for some people. It deals with home area networks and home energy management services where people can monitor their electricity usage by the hour or minute and see where their usage comes from and being able to control that usage in response to electricity prices or emergencies. Like I said, pretty in the weeds. In a related post, the Green Lantern on Slate answers a question on when is it cost-effective for one to buy a new energy efficient appliance, such as a refrigerator. Of course, what we've found in California is that people might buy a brand new, energy efficient refrigerator, but then put the old one in the garage and use it for beer, Coke and other larger items that need to be frozen or refrigerated. Which, I guess, sort of defeats the whole purpose of that effort.

yes, the anchor steam brewery tour. . .i greatly enjoyed that tour, especially the beer at the end.

three things- 1) having gone to college in waco, i wish they showed more than just the suspension bridge in the background; but, i also realize that there's not much more to waco than that. 2) according to this article from the chicago tribune, tony hit hot dougs, silver palm, ramova grill, L2O, in addition to whatever else people have confirmed/sighted 3) monday night's tokyo episode. . .i want me one of them knives. . .

i made a joke on another board about wanting to follow him around d.c., and the awesomeness that would be tony hanging out with jose andres and seth hurwitz (owner of 930 club and close friend of jose andres).

No conversation about what is brunch is complete without a Simpson's reference: Jacques: I know, I know. My mind says stop, but my heart, and my hips, cry proceed. [Marge reacts accordingly] Marge darling, I - I want to see you tomorrow. Not at Barney's Bowlorama, away from the thunderous folly of clattering pins. Meet me tomorrow for Brunch. Marge: What's Brunch? Jacques: You'd love it, It's not quite breakfast, it's not quite lunch, but it comes with a slice of cantaloupe at the end. You don't get completely what you would at breakfast, but you get a good meal! Marge: I don't think so.

i've now got a few pounds of plums from the tree out back (and looking for a jam recipe while i'm at it). the tomatoes have a few buds on it, and the peppers are moving a bit slower. i expect the "warm" weather here in s.f. over the next few days will help ripen more plums and push along the peppers. and check with some local nursery's, i know here in s.f. sloat sells ladybugs (and mantises for that matter). . .

we were late in planting, and have only put in two tomato plants: s.f. fog (never heard of it, thought would give it a try since we get alot of fog in our part of s.f.) and roma. we also planted an anaheim and a bell pepper. the dwarf meyer lemon is taking its time with about 10 lemons. the plum tree that was already in our backyard when we moved in is full of green fruit- we did a major trim over the winter so the branches are drooping all over the place, some all the way to the ground. an english thyme that survived a fall and winter in a bed full of weeds has recovered and is flowering. . .

Hey, Conspiracy Theory #29 - maybe the frozen scallops were PLANTED in Tramonto's freezer, just to see if any chef had the bad judgment to use them? Nifty theory, eh? Eh?! ← according to this chicago tribune posting, that's exactly what happened. "The frozen scallops in the walk-in freezer at Tramonto’s Steak & Seafood were part of the challenge on “Top Chef,” said Rick Tramonto, executive chef and co-owner, and not part of the restaurant's inventory. ... “Their team purchased all the food and put it in the coolers,” he explained, saying he felt that most people realized it was part of the challenge. He just wants to set the record straight. “They put those in the mix to see ... who would use them or not.” And certainly Spike went for them. “It’s interesting that he had first choice and he obviously didn’t have to use them” but he did anyway.""

First off, what is the first U.S. airport you fly in to, because that sets your state allowance and whether you need an importer license or not. After that, for federal customs and taxes it's 3% of the total value of your wine for customs and another $.20 or so per bottle for taxes. Someone much more knowledgeable than me can correct me on that though. My wife and I recently got back from Spain and Portugal and we brough back about 25 bottles of wine, with 18 of them packed in wine shipping boxes. . .we declared $500 in wine, but customs just waived us through. So, don't mean to get your hopes up on that front, just know that customs can be very haphazard.

if you are staying close to union square, one of my favorite wine bars is a short 10 minute walk (or so). . .it's called the hidden vine

I've been ruminating on that movie as well. All the ideas I have are good, but not nec. fine dining (much like the movie, actually). I haven't seen the movie in a while, either, so my memory might be foggy: 1. Something involving chile peppers, evoking the scene where they accidentally kill the hitman sent to take care of them. 2. Lloyd is a pet groomer -- something with hot dogs/sausages? 3. The whole end of the movie takes place in aspen, and involves the untimely demise of a snow owl (or was it a whooping crane...I might be confusing it "PCU"). There you can go in the small cooked bird direction. Okay, enough of this.... ← for dumb and dumber. . .sea bass!! the best line of the whole movie, "kick his ass, sea bass" (sea bass was played by hockey great cam neely). the scene takes place in a diner, although i think they're eating breakfast (i can't remember).