Chris Amirault

A bit too consistent, if you ask me. Was there some required citizenship course that assigned this salad? Or perhaps a conpiracy that can explain it? Why these three, and these three vegetables only? Surely some X-Files fan out there can help with this....

A few thoughts about work food. Look at this pleasant scene: Seems innocent enough: nice big fridge/freezer for staff use and the kids' beverages; coffee machine; microwave; spring water; few things here and there. But things are not nearly this normal. In fact, I would say that food here -- like food in most workplaces -- is very strange indeed. For starters, explore the conference room table and you'll find the "broccoli," as some staff call the items in this bowl: You can probably figure out why it's called broccoli. Why is it that work environments seem utterly anathema to healthy, decent food? And why is it that whatever food is actually around is treated with great stealth? For example, while that bowl contains the public stash, but hidden from view is the motherlode source, kept flowing thanks to the assistant director: Notice that this particular bag of candies includes Goetz bulls eyes. Notice also that the bowl does not. This is because I must eat all of them. For example, when I noticed the one in this photograph, I went back into the room and ate it. Now, I'm not required to buy every packet of Goetz bulls eyes in convenience stores. I never buy Goetz bulls eyes in convenience stores! So why must I eat them if they are here? Speaking of stealth stashes: This is the upper right hand drawer of my assistant director's desk. She buys boxes of Jelly Bellys and stores them there. She usually buys two so that she can give me one -- but I always refuse it and make her keep it there. Then, throughout the day, I go to her desk and casually pop open the drawer so's I can eat a few Bellys. I like my job. I can buy good food and store it here in many places. I can even cook something in the kitchen or oven downstairs -- but I never do. What is it about work that produces such food mishegas?!?

I'm writing down the name so that I can try to find them. Report to follow! Thanks, Ellen! I appreciate it. I really like the Googie stuff, too (not surprisingly). There also are a good number of Greek-run diners in Milwaukee; there's one on Capital Drive called the Riverbrook that had a great breakfast, I remember.... Speaking of NY diners, That's right, Michael, I remember that! For those of you that missed it, click here for Michael's foodblog. Yeah, no kidding! Shola's stuff just looks absolutely amazing.... I really feel like that experience must be remarkable. I'm hoping to get that scheduled soon!

Silence on the diner question, eh? No diner fans out there?!?

Wow, didn't know the tongue was gonna provoke such reactions! Y'all ought to stick yours out in the mirror sometime; that sensuous little muscle, without which we all would lose interest in things eGullet, is a bumpy, strange thing! Know the tongue, love the tongue, embrace the tongue!

Just a cheap and lascivious pun, Chris. Up here, peeler bars also refer to strip clubs, not unlike the ones you drive by on the way to work. Unfortunately though, it's a federal law here that they have to dance to Celine Dion, Anne Murray or Robert Goulet. No substitutions. ← Ah, you got me. I thought you meant peel 'n' eat shrimp; I had a NOLA flashback I guess. Always got food on the brain....

Quick break from work with an answer to Lucy's question: a cranberry apple cherry Clif bar and the rest of my Brown Cow yogurt. Real life food.

I dunno about the name, but I'm pretty sure its not the family name -- but I can ask the next time we're there! As for the bibimbap, I also wondered if you could cook the rice in the dolsot -- but how do you cover it? We really crave the NurungJi!! Lunch. Um... Excellent question! Lunch for the kiddies today is chicken salad -- -- so I'll be heading out to get something, or making Nongshim. Wrong foodstuff -- but the manipulation is correct and crucial. Getting closer.... Those plucked things are actually taste buds, because... Yes, indeed! Dean gets the prize: the pleasure of knowing that he, a fellow graduate of a fine Milwaukee school, is once again top of the heap.

After some morning difficulties involving keys and cars ( ), I arrived at the office to meet the Fire Marshal for an inspection! Now I have a bit of time to present breakfast. Since I didn't have a chance to eat before I left, I decided to stop at the Modern Diner in Pawtucket (where Lulu's school is). The Modern Diner is one of the classic New England diner restaurants. (Click here for an interesting article about diners from the Johnson and Wales Culinary Museum website.) Lulu and I have breakfast there when we've gotten out of the door early enough to do so; it's a few blocks from her school. If you've never been in a genuine diner before, here's a tour: They make a mean egg, bacon and cheese sandwich (english muffin, natch): This is just one of the area diners, which also include Jiggers on Route 1 in East Greenwich (great pancakes), the Seaplane Diner on Allens Ave (I pass it every morning driving to work), and the Haven Brothers diner, which is wheeled down next to City Hall every night. There was also a fantastic diner that was open all night long, the Silver Top, but I think it's lost to history. Do any of y'all have local diners? I'd love to hear about 'em or see 'em!

You can see those turkey skin sculptures by clicking that link a few posts back -- and you'll see that this ain't that. But a good guess, Mel!

Nope! Sorry!

Now that there are two girls in the house -- one going to elementary school on the other side of town (a two-way bilingual charter school, for those that are interested in such things) and the other to her family care provider -- a dog to walk, and two people to get to work, it's a bit more dizzifying in the a.m. So I'm not going to have as much time this and tomorrow morning to write. Suffice it to say that this is the sort of morning for which a large, black Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee has been created! But I do want to give you a little reward for checking in this morning (thanks!), so here's a contest. The following hangs in our dining room, and is a photo by an artist friend of ours named Mary Beth Heffernan. Care to guess what you're looking at here? If you want a hint, click here.

That's just the area you've seen so far. We have stretches (Rt 2, for example) that look just like Strip Mall U.S.A., but I happen to have snapped photos of shops in neighborhoods. Most of the good purveyors are not in strip malls, as I stop and think.... We outfit our home (furniture, decor, etc.) in the design style known as mid-century (1950ish) modern, but we'll stretch the boundaries to include things as early as the 1930s and can go into the early 70s. Here in RI, we're surrounded by Colonial everything, and there's a lot of really nightmarish "contemporary" stuff. At least, according to our tastes! Thanks, johnnyd! Yeah, it didn't get very "verde"! I actually usually do that, but the very small kale leaves I had weren't lending themselves to julienne.... So I went for the quicker route and tried to chop it up more finely. I was wondering if anyone would notice Bazooka Joe! Actually, I teach "Philosophy of Education" in the spring, and I use that book. Dude, the peeler bars have gone the way of Ike! The culture of seafood in town isn't what it used to be. There are lots of restaurants that serve seafood (and I hope that we'll make it to a clam shack this weekend), and a few oyster bars, but there are no good seafood shops anymore. I buy virtually all my seafood from Whole Foods.... And I confess that I don't understand what you mean by "shrimp or chix"...? I'm certainly hoping to get a stuffie for your perusal, and I'm actually trying to figure out how to squeeze breakfast in on Saturday (before Lulu's soccer match) so that I can have johnnycakes. Or, rather, so that you can see some -- ! So, yep, we'll be hitting some restaurants, to be sure!

Actually, to get the full effect, you'll want to translate "El Gordo" into English, colloquially. ← Yeh, thats one, well #1. But there is another heres a hint 14,551 ← I gotcha! The man with the beans!

That's among my favorite tattoos of all time!

Actually, to get the full effect, you'll want to translate "El Gordo" into English, colloquially.

Thanks for the thread plug and the props, Mel! I appreciate it. I really like to think that wearing Yoko Ono's ass is a testament to my character, though I'm skeptical; I also really like to write "Yoko Ono's ass," and am grateful for the opportunity to do that a few more times. As for the tattoos, well, I've got a lot of 'em! The one on my left arm is about my schizophrenic brother, who killed himself in 2001; I also have one for each daughter, and Andrea and I got matching tattoos (the one on my right wrist) when we were engaged. I've got a few others here and there, each with their own story, but none are food-related -- yet!

Garrison's is fantastic, as good as it gets. It's on the corner of Hope and 4th, diagonally across from Seven Stars Bakery. Grab some bread there, grab some chocolate at Garrison's, and life is good. http://www.garrisonconfections.com/

I just tucked in Lulu and talked with her about dinner tomorrow night. She's not too psyched about lamb stew, so I think we're going with something else known as "Everything." More on that tomorrow, but in the meanwhile, here's a teaser: remind you of anyone?

I gotta say, La Brea isn't so bad, but there are at least two local artisanal bakers in the Providence area (Seven Stars and Olga's) that are a jillion times better and that supply some local stores. Surely there are bakers in your communities whose wares are worth supporting more than those of the corporation to whom Silverton sold out. My two cents.

Thanks! I did once find a great instant pho from a store in Boston, but haven't found any since then. You know, those ramen have about 400% of the RDA of sodium in them. I really have tried to cut back lately as a result....

Tonight was bibimbap night. A few preliminaries. Lulu, our eight year old daughter, is here in our house for the next 3 1/2 days. She's what we in early childhood ed call a "back-n-forth kid," living here half the week and the other half with her mom on the other side of town. Melissa, Lulu grabbed the camera and accommodated your wish! Here's Yoko: This is my prized apron from the Tate Modern in London, very prominently featuring Yoko Ono's ass. There's really nothing more to say, is there? Does anyone else have a really great apron? As usual, the cook gets first provisions. As noted earlier, I can't find soju anywhere around here, so here's my libation in process, a caipirinha following johnnyd's excellent method. The lime chunks have been sugared and muddled: I wanted to include the fantastic Ice-O-Mat, a great example of midcentury modern design, in the photo. This thing crushes ice pronto, cost two bucks at some dope's yard sale, and does a better job than any blender I've ever found. In many ways, industrial design concerning kitchen equipment came to a screeching halt about thirty years ago... I also popped open a bag of Korean treats called "Goguma." I loved the shape, sort of fat little spiral funnels. They tasted malty but not too sweet, a nice foil for my drink. As you can guess, now that Lulu is in the house, we try to make sure that there is something on the table for her to eat as an acknowledgment of less adventurous tastes. She loves rice and tried the rest of the evening meal (shiitake mushrooms good, bibimbap a bit too hot but ok), but she also had an apple and... These little MFers are one of our very few concessions to processed foods. I find it dismaying to say this, but these Tyson frozen chicken things are better than any of the natural ones we've tried, which are soggy, spongy, and generally sucky. The popcorn ones are too doughy, but they didn't have the "tenders" (more like strips) last shopping trip. Tomorrow night, the meal is Lulu's favorite, but tonight we've giving the stockholders at Tyson a bump. OK, to the cooking. Here's the bibimbap mise en place: Shiitake, carrot namuru, bean sprout namuru, beef, pickled daikon, and storebought seaweed salad. (I also julienned a few scallions.) The first four items were great; the daikon was... off, and the seaweed salad had been colored a very odd green and tasted fakey. We ended up tossing the rest of both packages after dinner. I also put out a pickle tray: Kimchi, cucumber oshinko, and the off daikon. Finally, here are the dolsots! I hope you appreciate all the elbow grease required to make the inside of that oven shine so bright. Anyway, the dolsots. I got them today, two granite ones for $20/each. I posted a panicky note in the cook-off but didn't get a response, so I stuck 'em in a 500F oven for 30 minutes, which seem to do the trick. A quick splash of sesame oil and in went the Nishiki rice: It crisped up some, but I didn't push it down (should have done that, I think, right?) and didn't leave it for long enough -- we were hungry!! Here is dolsot bibimbap ready to go, with the other items and an egg yolk in the middle of both. Dinner is served! Last but certainly not least, Bebe enjoyed carrots and a good dose of Nishiki rice:

Thanks for the good wishes, Michael! As for your question: we definitely lean to stews and soups in weather like this, hearty stuff. I also don't like cooking outside, even under the porch, when it's so lousy. We have a very large grape arbor in the backyard that is nice to eat under when it's decent, and sometimes we'll eat on the porch. But it's a drag to have rain sprayed in the face during dinner.... Thanks, tejon! I really think you've captured it in this sentence. Thanks!! OK, back to dinner:

Just bought two granite dolsots -- now what? Clean 'em, heat them in the oven? Or on top of the electric stove? edited to add: Went with the oven; here's the results over on my foodblog!

Well, a few thoughts.... There's a lot of evidence that, in a society with an enormous amount of healthy foodstuffs available, children self-regulate their consumption of necessary foods. That's a bit controversial for some, but if you remember the first rule of kids and food ("you can't make 'em eat" -- unless you have a funnel and a plunger, I suppose), then it's actually something of a relief. In addition, kids are seeking out control struggles all over the place, and food is one of the classic scenes of struggle. These struggles can extend for long periods of time, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to consider that body issues, eating disorders, and the like involve treating the consumption of food as an appropriate place for struggle. Finally, since they control input and output, if you engage in a food battle, they've already won. So, since you control what is available and when it's available, use the power you have. Eat at specific times; put out the food you want your child to eat (get those proteins out there); no food rewards, bribes, coersion, or anything else; if the child refuses, that's fine; when the meal is over, eating is over. Then, later, if your child is hungry, you can remind her that she chose not to eat and that she'll have more food at the next meal. (Let me add that it's hard to say "No" to a kid you know is hungry, but of course that snack she wants proves that she's running the show: kid 1, mom 0! Having said that, a lot of folks who work with young children and food believe that implementing this system -- and utterly resisting all of the power struggles that will unfold -- takes only about three weeks. After that, most kids realize that food isn't the place to have pitched battles; instead, it's a place to share with family, have pleasure, and get nourishment. Sounds like magic -- but if you really stick to it, it works!) Of course, if she just doesn't like the stuff, well, try something else! Maybe the texture of non-processed meat is freaking her out (that's a big issue for the 2-4 year old crowd, actually); maybe her taste buds aren't too psyched about umami. Let her eat hot dogs, but buy good ones. She's going to change her mind about food about fifty-two times in the next sixteen years anyway, so this too shall pass. Finally: her mom is an eGulleteer, right? Maybe she has vey refined tastes! Nothing wrong with that....