mizducky

Well, East Buffet doesn't do potatoes or country gravy, but what they do serve did make me go back twice ... or more. I take another favorite shortcut of mine, Kearny Villa Road, northbound right through the heart of MCAS Miramar, thus avoiding the horrendous rush-hour traffic on the I-15, winding up on Miramar Road within a few blocks of my destination: (Dang, I gotta get a tripod or something for these nighttime outdoor shots, I can't seem to hold the camera still enough to avoid the long-exposure blur blues.) Anyway, as you can see, East Buffet is lit up like Christmas--or perhaps Chinese New Year? Actually, it's always got that red neon going on. Inside it's just as flashy: You can't quite see it from this angle, but that fountain is full of koi. Beyond it you can see the open kitchen island where the sushi chef and the mongolian barbeque chef ply their trades. And beyond them are several buffet islands with all the hot and cold prepared dishes: On one of these islands they've set up a couple dozen containers of raw items for the hot pot buffet. I talk with the waiter for my section (who remembers me from last time--he seems to be on buddy terms with a number of regular customers), and he gets my table set up with a gas burner and bubbling hotpot tureen: As far as I can make out, that's just water simmering away in there, though as I proceed to cook things in it, the water gradually becomes more broth-like. I am also provided with a little wire-mesh scoop and a ladle. I head back to the hot-pot bar and pick up my first assortment of raw goodies to dunk: Let's see: we've got half a blue crab; some meat balls and fish balls; whole cleaned baby squid; shucked oysters; shrimp with shells, tails, and heads all intact; sliced sea cucumber; thin-sliced beef and lamb; yuba (bean curd skin); cubes of pork blood; mizuna greens; and snow pea pods. Definitely not an Americanized assortment. The waiter demonstrates that I shouldn't be shy, just slide the whole lot at once into the boiling pot, and then fish out the food as soon as it's done, i.e. when the meats change color and so on. Here's the first batch after their little bath: Note the two bowls of dipping sauces in the background. One is a tangy and only slightly sweet "sate" sauce (at least that's what they're calling it); the other is a tofu-based spicy sauce that, to my taste, has a liverish flavor undertone. I find I prefer the sate sauce, and start merrily dunking and eating. The seafood is very fresh and clean-tasting. The crab actually has a bit of roe in it, which turns bright coral-pink after its dip in the pot. This is my first time tasting congealed pork blood--cooked, it tastes a bit like liver too (wonder if they put some of it in the spicy dipping sauce?) The lamb, glory be, actually has a pronounced lamb taste, which I like. I think my favorite items, though, are the baby squid--but then I always love squid. Second round: This time, in addition to getting seconds on some of my favorite items, I also get a few baby clams in the shell, and some enokii mushrooms. The clams are apparently alive--they're closed when I dump 'em into the pot, but pop open in just a minute. Now I go get a sampling of some of the non-hot-pot items in the buffet: What we've got here: a sampling of different little dim sum-type items--shumai, har gow, crystal dumplings filled with bean paste, sticky rice in lotus leaf wrap; a nice big juicy chunk of roast duck; some humongous yet surprisingly tender fried squid rings; battered fried frog's legs; a couple each of shrimp and crawfish; a very interesting-looking bright-green salad that I thought would be seaweed and turned out to be rice vermicelli; and a few edamame. There were a huge number of foods I passed on, including several stir-fried and stewed dishes, a whole bunch of shellfish, slices of fried fish, and a few concessions to the more American-identified eaters (i.e. the inevitable steamship round of beef, etc.) I take one more brief fling at the hot-pot items, then reluctantly declare myself full, but not before I get a little dessert: I'm no expert on either egg tarts or moon cakes, but these both taste very fresh, with nice flaky pastry, and not-overly-sweet fillings. All around me, other dining parties are also happily going to town on the food. Some people are also doing the hot pot thing, some are sticking to the regular buffet (the hot-pot option costs $2 more and includes access to the regular buffet items). Some people get a smattering of everything, others focus on one or two favorites, fetching back whole platefuls of just king crab legs or just crawfish, for instance. There's a mix of Asians and non-Asians of various nationalities--on previous evenings, I've seen huge parties of a few dozen obviously out for a family celebration complete with balloons and cameras flashing madly, and overheard snatches of conversation in a variety of languages. Like I said, this place isn't haute, but it's definitely a party. And my whole bill, including a couple of big glasses of Pepsi (cola is my secret weapon for preparing the tummy for the buffet onslaught) comes to a mere $16 and change, including tax but before tip. (I tip this waiter big, by the way--he's a real sweetheart). This was an incredibly cool meal. As I told the waiter as I prepared to depart, "This is fun! I *like* playing with my food!"

Thanks, Ben! Dang, I wish I'd remembered that it was your post where I had read the whole "five blossom pork" thing! All I had in my brain was this trace memory that there was this interesting hunk of info out there, somewhere... heh, isn't the brain a funny place? Okay, how about: isn't *my* brain a funny place? Oh well--now I'll definitely know for next time. Just got back from dinner, and boy was it fun! Gotta upload some pictures, and then I'll be right back...

Okay, it looks like I got 6 votes for the buffet, 1 vote for Ba Ren, and one vote for soup. So I'll be maxing it out at the Big Buffet for your virtual dining pleasure tonight. But never fear, Ba Ren fans--I'm sure there will be many Ba Ren visits in my future, so now that I've got my spiffy little camera-toy I'll make sure to post photos of my next visit there. I'll be departing shortly to do a couple work-related errands, and then ... time to feed.

Poking my head in to see how the voting was going, and I must say I am pleased at the egalitarian buffet-embracing spirit being exhibited so far. God knows I've seen my share of mediocre buffets, but I've long thought the buffet was a much over-maligned and misunderstood dining category, capable of fine eating experiences if approached with the proper attitude. But voting's still open until it gets sort-of-around dinner time here (or until I can't hold out any longer) so keep chiming in, folks! Y'know, I'm usually not much of a soup eater in restaurants, especially if I'm saving tummy-room for dishes I find more exciting, so I haven't tasted the soup at either of these places.

Oh god--I once got into a memorably bizarre conversation with a (possibly consciousness-altered) Seven-11 clerk in the wee hours of the morning about a seafood item known to him as "shrim." He even spelled it that way. He started getting alarmingly agitated until I finally figured out what he meant. And we all used to say "p'sgetti" as kids, more because we thought it was funny than anything else. We also used to jokingly say "sparrow-grass" for asparagus. I know there's more--my whole family was a bunch of wiseacres--but I'm not remembering them all now ... Oh yeah, my dad used to delight in jokingly giving restaurant help a hard time (especially if the help in question was female, young, and cute ). He memorably started doing a variant of an old Marx Bros. routine at this poor girl working an ice cream counter--"So, do you have tootsie-frootsie?" "Um, I don't think so, what is it?" "Well, it's got toots and it's got froots..." And it just went downhill from there... Brilliant! I must remember that one.

Good morning, everybody! Once again, I totally appreciate everyone's appreciation. This has been a really fun project for me, not only as a food nut, but also as a writer (not to mention an enthusiastic but still obviously rather amateur photographer). I've got to get a slug of paying work done today, but I've got one last blast planned for your blog-reading pleasure. I'm going out for a blog-finale dinner this evening, and while originally I had it exactly fixed in my mind where I'd be doing that dinner, I realized this morning that it would be a lot more fun to turn this into another Audience Participation thing and let y'all decide where I'll eat. So--here are the two main choices I am contemplating: 1) Ba Ren -- you've heard me wax poetic about this place before. Terrific Szechuan food in a modest and friendly setting. I've witnessed lots of discussions both here on eGullet and in "real time" about what the heck "authentic" means with regard to various ethnic restaurants, but without fretting about it too much, I'd say Ba Ren has got to be one of the more authentic purveyors of this style of food that I've had the pleasure of tasting. Also one of the spiciest! -- although they do have a number of milder dishes on the menu. Since I'll be dining alone due to circumstances beyond my control, if this winds up being tonight's choice I will be forced--forced, mind you -- to over-order so that I can show you folks a couple different items from their lengthy menu. No worries, though, their food is great as leftovers. 2) East Buffet -- yes, a buffet. But what cheep eatz survey would be complete without including a buffet of some sort? And East Buffet is actually a darn good one as buffets go: a big flashy Disneyland of mainly but far from exclusively Cantonese-influenced food, including a chef station doing Mongolian-grill-style stirfries while you wait. Yes, the other stuff is sitting around in steam tables--but with the huge volume of business they do (they're directly across the street from MCAS Miramar), the food is freshened frequently. And while it's not haute cuisine, it's actually quite yummy when accepted on its own terms. I was especially interested in trying out their seafood hotpot buffet, which they only offer Mondays through Thursdays (I've only been there on weekends before). So there you go: Sorta highbrow vs. solidly lowbrow dining. A place I've already reviewed here on eGullet vs. one I have not yet done. Risking my tummy with hurts-so-good Szechuan spiciness vs. risking my tummy with all-you-can-eat excess. High end of cheap eats cost scale vs. more modestly priced end of scale. So--what do you all think? Which of these do you want to be your vicarious dining experience tonight? Meanwhile, I'm contemplating a really mild low-key food day the rest of today, in order to be properly prepared for tonight's blowout, whichever it shall be.

Hiya Kirk! Thanks for the great update on the local kine grindz! As well as for this info: Cool. I would like to play with the stuff, just to see what it's about. Thank you barolo, that's incredibly helpful! And reassuring to know that I was at least in the right ballpark. So now I'm ready for the next go-round... I may be totally off-base here, but I think your tan and our great produce are related. No, really! The connection I'm guessing at here is the fierceness of the sun. I'm not sure why, possibly some combination of a nearby ocean and sorta-nearby rocky desert for sunlight to bounce off of, but the sunshine here is astonishingly fierce--I have to really be achtung about hat, sunglasses and sunscreen at noon on hot sunny days or else I get totally scorched (not to mention close to the edge of heat prostration--YIKES!). And all that abundant sunshine, plus the mild weather year-round, (plus a monumental amount of irrigation, to be sure) allows for Cali's major produce production. Or at least that's how I figure it. As fast food burgers go, Carl's Jr. and In-n-Out have definitely got it going on. Burger King's alright--I'd definitely take them over McDonald's (ick). Of the big national chains my personal favorite is Jack in the Box (terrific funny TV ads too). But I'd take a Carl's over a JITB any day. Oh--and char siu, that's another fun cooking project to add to the list. Man, I'm gonna be the Mistress of Pork Belly by the time I'm done.

It's funny you should bring all that up, Madame Zuke, because I was just reflecting on how, when I first joined the Unitarians, one of my (many) issues to sort out was concerns about their foodways. Yeah, they were refreshingly eclectic and open-minded in their spirituality, but I feared they might still be mired in tired old church-supper cuisine. And, well, some of their congregations do have that problem. But many more put together potlucks and dinners fully as eclectic as their worship services, and the bunch I hang with here in San Diego do seem to know how to cook up a storm when they put their mind to it. My bunch also seems to handle the vegetarian thing pretty gracefully--they just accept it as a given that they will provide veg and non-veg options at all congregational food events, and nobody fusses at anybody else about the matter. So--I got down there tonight to discover that there were several events going on simultaneously, two of which at least having need of the main kitchen (there is a second kitchen attached to one of the larger Sunday school classrooms--that's where I wound up making felafel a few months ago for a children's world religions class that was in the middle of a unit on Islamic culture). Anyway, in addition to the lecture reception that I was there for, the youth group was having a meeting and dinner, but we all shared the space with good humor: And the big bad mysterious coffeemaker that everyone was afraid of turned out to be a real pussycat: It already has a connection for water, so all you have to do is turn on the heater, plop in the filter and a couple of pre-measured packets of coffee, wait for the "ready to brew" light to switch on, and then flip a switch and voila: coffee! Meanwhile other folks were getting the refreshment table set up in the social hall adjoining the main kitchen: And then there was nothing to do except slip into the meeting house to catch the tail end of the lecture, and then wait for the teeming hordes to descend on the goodies. Alas, cookies and crudites do not a dinner make, so after it was all over I headed out to grab some real food. Since I was feeling a little overdosed on meat, I decided to go for a meat-free meal, so I headed back to my neighborhood of Clairemont Mesa and one of my favorite vegetarian joints, Sipz Fuzion Cafe: Other than its overly cutesy name, I really like this place. The core of their menu is from the venerable Asian Buddhist vegetarian cooking tradition, in which soy products and gluten, along with terrific technique, are used to fashion foods that resemble meat products in both flavor and texture. When done really well, the results are not only fairly convincing, but really tasty. More importantly for a sometimes-frustrated carnivore like me, their foods have a really satisfying mouthfeel, capturing that chewy-yet-tender combo that I really love. The "fuzion" in the cafe's name refers to the fact that their dishes draw from a variety of different Asian cuisines, and also includes vegetarian takes on selected European dishes like lasagna and such. Their dining room is simple and casual, and tonight full of twenty-somethings along with a couple of families with young kids: I order an appetizer of "chicken" drumsticks, and an entree bowl of Thai curry "chicken." The appetizer: These are soy protein formed around a wooden stick in a drumstick shape, wrapped in a thin layer of what I think must be yuba (bean curd skin) and then deep fried. They are hot out of the fryer, juicy and flavorful, with a great slightly chewy texture. The dipping sauce has got a lovely balance of sweet/sour/salty/spicy that goes well with the drummettes. The entree: The coconut-milk curry sauce on this stuff is absolutely wonderful, thick and creamy and spicy--I asked for it super-mild and it still has a bit of a kick to it. The sauce is chockful of chunks of very convincely-textured soy "chicken," sliced bamboo shoot, straw mushrooms, bell pepper, baby corn, potatoes, and other assorted veggies. Oh, and as you can see, a big scoop of fluffy rice is plopped right on top. The bowl is huge, but the sauce is so excellent that I wipe up every last bit of it with every last bit of the rice. This entire meal set me back about $14, including tax. Not bad at all for such a huge quantity of food. And now I'm home and trying to warm up--the heat's been off and the house is like an icebox!

Okay, I'm off to play Church Lady with my alterna-groovy Unitarian friends. I've got my camera with me, so at the very least I'll show you the kitchen set-up in our social hall. And I'm hoping to sneak another cheep eatz hit in there somewhere. Looking forward to fielding more of your comments when I get back...

Could you remind me where you're located, BarbaraY? I'm always fascinated by the cultural geography of various foodstuffs, especially those associated with specific regional and/or ethnic cooking traditions.

Well, I sure think so. It's even better the next day, too. Pico de gallo is normally served more as a fresh salsa-type garnish with tacos etc., but I simply cut my veggies into bigger cubes and eat it straight as a salad. I vary the ingredients based on whim and what looks good in the market. I've even added daikon on several occasions with great success--I love radishes, and daikon not only has a really nice mellow radish-flavor but it's much more efficient to chop up than the cute little round red radishes. I've also used a nice flavorful red wine vinegar instead of lime juice when I don't happen to have any limes in the house.

Thank you! Myself, I have yet to see uncured pork belly by any name in any mainstream American supermarket around here--but then, said mainstream supermarkets don't actually have proper butcher departments anymore. All their meat comes in pre-packaged from a central commissary or something, and you hardly see any cuts other than super-standard chops, roasts, etc. When I've seen pork belly in big Asian supermarkets like the 99 Ranch chain, it's been in a variety of forms, skin-on and skin-off, as big 2lb-plus uncut pieces and also pre-cut into large (around one-inch) chunks. And like I said, while Iowa Meat Farms did have it, they didn't have it fresh but in their freezer, suggesting that it's not one of their high-priority items. The situation, however, may well be different in other parts of the US, such as Florida where Susan is. Meanwhile, I'm making note of the flour tip. I also find myself wondering if giving the skin-side a light coating of oil somewhere in there would have helped. I'd also seen a two-step process in which, instead of just pouring boiling water over the skin, you start out by giving the whole piece a short par-boiling before applying the various saltings/rubs/etc. Oh dear. I suppose I will be forced--forced, mind you--to buy more pork belly to conduct further experiments.

Good morning, all! Well, it looks like my bod has voted to sleep in again this morning. So, an easy start to the day, and a chance to catch up on a couple of previous comments: Just think: you could have eaten crispy-fried Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam instead. ← Heh. If I really needed to get some fried chopped re-formed pork product, I could always avail myself of this local establishment: Da Kine's Plate Lunch. I haven't had a chance to hit this place yet--again, they're in the middle of the busiest stretch of Pacific Beach, which I usually try to avoid. mmm-yoso, as an expatriate of Hawaii, finds them a little uneven, but I still want to check them out some day. And I'd probably get a side of the spam musubi, if they have it, just for grins. Hi Susan! By all means, give this a shot at home. But bear in mind that I obviously haven't gotten my method perfected on this one yet. I mean, I enjoyed it fine, but frankly if I had been serving that belly for guests, I'm afraid I would have had to carve the skin off first, as it really was still a bit too hard and chewy to serve as-is in good conscience. By the way--all feedback and suggestions about how to improve this (I mean, in addition to remembering the danged steps I spaced on ) are heartily welcome; there *has* to be a way to do this right, and I want to figure it out. As to what the cut of meat is called: yep, it is also known as "side meat" among many American butchers. That's in fact what the butchers at Iowa Meat Farms called it when I asked for pork belly. Dunno about the small pieces you've been seeing it sold as--they would probably work fine for roasting, though the increased surface area might mean even more shrinkage than I witnessed, so if you could get a bigger chunk I think that would be better. This is also the cut of meat that is used to make American-style bacon. Are there any Asian markets at all near you? I don't recall seeing any on my brief visits to Daytona, but then I wasn't deliberately looking for them at the time.

As I'm reading this topic, of course the first thing that pops into my warped brain is this memorable movie moment: Actually, if somebody ever used Otter's pickup line on me in a supermarket, I'd probably bash 'em with my pocketbook or something ... I do know, though, that anybody demonstrating in any way, shape, or form that they're a fellow adventurous diner scores big romance points in my book. They suggest dim sum? They take me to their favorite sushi bar where they're friends with the sushi chef? They show me their favorite little hole-in-the-wall joint that makes outrageously good food? I'm definitely thinking "Okay, this one's got serious potential." And if they demonstrate that they know how to make excellent dinner conversation--that they understand that part of the joy of dining is to use the food and the atmosphere as fuel for the social engine of wordplay--then they've really got my attention. But as to the appropriately seductive music for such a promising date: Well, you know I love Frank, but for purely romantic purposes I think I prefer the devious smoothness of another very favorite group of mine, Steely Dan:

Carving... Plating... Tasting: the rub really did its work--the pork doesn't really need a dipping sauce after all (which is a good thing, because I kinda ran out of steam on making one). However, I still need some work on the skin bit--it's crunchy alright, but it's also a bit too hard. Ah well, if I hadn't had a brain fart about slashing the skin... But like I said, it's a learning experience, and it still tastes terrific. And the chopped salad came out nice too. In fact, I think it's time for seconds...

Oh yeah--I have a few pictures from my supermarket run this afternoon that I thought would be fun to share. After striking out at my first two markets, I wound up at the local Albertson's: This place has got one of the more haphazard layouts I have ever seen in a supermarket. It's as if they're trying for marketing cool, but in a rather odd and semi-amateurish way: Nothing says Superbowl party like a humongous wall of Pepsi : Just what the world needs: a bunch of pre-cut stewing vegetables all glommed together in their own vacuum-sealed bag: I am so not ready to be hit over the head with huge displays of cheap Valentine's Day candy: But this store does have some very redeeming features, like significant amounts of ethnic food products: Hey torakris, are you following along? Look--Pocky! Anyway, enough fun and games--I hear a piggy belly calling my name ... back in a flash ...

The belly has spent 20 minutes at 450 deg. F, followed by 50 minutes at 400 deg F -- actually that latter was more like 380 deg F according to my oven thermometer, but with this Heisenberg oven (any temp adjustment sends the internal temperature careening off in some other unpredictable direction), I count a 20 degree difference as close enough for folk music. Before and after photos: The belly just before going into the oven: Just after coming out of the oven: Notice how much shrinkage happened. Also notice that I got most, but not all, of the skin to crisp up. No doubt it would have done better if I had remembered that bit about slashing the skin so the fat layer below could have percolated. I probably could have also run it under the broiler for a few minutes to force the crisping ... but it's getting on towards 10pm here, and I'm getting *hungry*. So--a learning experience for next time The belly is now resting (and pining for the fjords? Sorry, couldn't resist--a misspent youth watching way too much Monty Python). Soon will come plating, and devouring!

Okay, back again. Also took the opportunity to check on the belly in the oven: the skin seems to be crisping up nicely, and the entirety of it appears to be cooking okay too. I also started a potful of rice cooking--with any luck they'll finish cooking at about the same time. Back to the chopped salad: The cucumbers from the OB farmer's market were incredibly yummy--best cukes I've tasted in awhile. The skins were clean and unwaxed, and I happen to like the skins, so I cubed 'em skin and all: At the last minute I decided the remaining OB farmer's market tomato was better off being kept as a slicer (possibly for another breakfast), so instead I cubed three Roma tomatoes I'd bought right before the blog started and chucked those in: Then a bunch of cilantro, minced (including the stems, which I like), the juice of a couple of limes, a sprinking of salt and a glug of olive oil, and mix well: I covered it and put it into the fridge to mellow together a bit. And now we're just waiting on the piggy, which may well be done in another 15 minutes or so.

As a duckling who loves to eat duck, I have an especial appreciation of the metaphoric cannibalism in the above lyric. Whenever you try out a new recipe, or worse, start improvising from recipes, it's a bit of an experiment and a gamble. When you cook when you're a little on the tired side, as I am, the stakes get a little higher. This is all by way of saying you'll be witnesses as to whether I manage to screw this up or come out sailing. I type this because I just now realized, as I'm sitting here with the pork in the oven, that I left out a step or two in the process I was following. Oh well--I think this is probably going to work okay anyway. But we'll all see that together, now won't we? Okay, so what I've been doing for the past hour or so: Here's my chunk of pork belly: 2.2 pounds, could have a bit more fat layers to it but this will do, skin-on ... and yes, that is a nipple protruding from the skin at the right. Hey, they're mammals, y'know? I vaguely recall reading that the Chinese, in their usual poetic way, call a piece of pork belly that has five nipples on it Five Blossom Pork or some such. Certainly does sound less ... clinical that way, huh? The method I wound up going with is actually pretty darned simple, which is a good fit with my energy level at this point. First you pour a potful of boiling water over the pork skin--I put the meat skin-side up in a colander and poured away. Then you rub the skin with a tablespoon of salt and leave it to sit uncovered for 45 minutes. (Editorial aside: I had originally mistyped "20 minutes" here--I indeed let the salted pork stand for 45 minutes.) My understanding is that these steps help make the skin crisp up. Then ... well, you're supposed to score the skin, and poke several holes in it with a skewer. But, as Steve Martin used to say, I forgot! Moving right along, the next step is to apply a rub of 1 tablespoon soy sauce and 1 teaspoon five-spice powder to the meat side of the piece of pork belly. I decided to augment this rub with a big clove of garlic, minced fine: The meat gets covered in plastic wrap to sit and marinate for an hour. Meanwhile I got on with making my pico de gallo-esque chopped salad. First, a single jalapeno, cleaned of all seeds and white fibrous bits--that's where the bulk of the heat resides: Then a couple big cloves of garlic, minced, and three scallions, sliced: Hmmmm ... the rest of that series of photos didn't upload for some reason. Excuse me while I attend to this ...

I have become a Talking Rain aficionado in the last month. I found some at Target in North Dakota and Sam's Club - then got back home to find them at Costco (called Ice something in the club stores). If they have them here, they're sure to have them down your way. ← Okay, two mentions now to look for Talking Rain at Costco. And now I'm going "D'OH!" -- of course Costco would have it, their headquarters are in the Seattle area, after all. So now I have a reason to renew my long-lapsed Costco membership so that I can pick up this golder elixer. Yeah--both those ideas have definite possibilities! I am reminded of a wonderful moment towards the beginning of the one-woman play "The Belle of Amhearst," in which Emily Dickinson explains her celebrated brown bread recipe--as this is a formula for making a bazillion loaves all at once, the quantities are huge, and the image this evokes of this little (seemingly) mild-mannered spinster-woman wrestling with this huge vat of raisin-and-molasses goodness made the whole audience break out in a fit of giggles. If I can get that kind of giggle-fit out of people with gravy or meatballs, I'd count the piece a definite success. I was still digesting my supper. I love those spicy beef tendons at Grand Sichuan, but I have to keep in the front of my mind that they really don't love me. In the end, I suppose I got about 45 minutes of sleep in the morning before teaching from 9 to 3 with an hour's break for lunch. Saturdays are often like that for me, and I usually manage to teach well, anyway. And Sunday is pretty much a day off, so I sleep in.Getting back to my stomach, it tends to have trouble with really high-fat things like pork belly. Are you also Miz Iron Stomach, or do you have to do anything to counteract the effects of the fat? ← Alas, while I used to have a cast-iron stomach, that too seems to have deteriorated as I proceeded through my forties, culminating in my first GERD attack about five years ago. In fact, the main reason I pretty much gave up coffee was it was majorly aggravating the situation. Fortunately, fatty foods per se don't seem to give me a lot of trouble, but spicy foods unfortunately do--which is a damn shame, because I adore spicy food, used to be a total fire-eater in my 20s, and I just can't get away with that the way I used to. So I just ration my indulgences sparingly, take my prescription proton-blocker med religiously, and keep a good supply of Maalox and Tums on hand for when I stray over the line. It's helped a lot that I've learned a whole lot more about how to cook with chiles--in fact, you'll see in a little while how I modulate the heat in a fresh chile so I get the flavor and lose a bunch of the heat. Okay--I just returned from a semi-frustrating supermarket run--had to hit three different places to find a market whose electric scooters were (a) not all in use by other customers, or (b) not sitting there broken down or un-charged. But the third time was the charm, and now I'm going to start cooking (and documenting) dinner so I hopefully don't wind up eating at midnight. Feel free to keep those comments coming, and I'll keep checking back as things progress.

It would be pretty obvious to you if you were there. They are almost always giant blue and yellow (swedish flag) warehouses just outside of city limits. You walk through a bunch of showrooms and all the furniture has funny names. It is kind of a day trip as it takes ages to get through the thing, plus I always seem to get stuck in the kitchen area... Actually there was a german website I saw once where they discussed the IKEA naming system. eg, the lamps always have boy names, bookshelves have girl names or whatever. ← Heheheh ... Fearless Housemate and his girlfriend jokingly say they refuse to go into IKEA ever again, because they wanted out about halfway through and couldn't figure out how to get off the showroom track and to an exit. Every time they'd get "helpful" directions on the shortcut out of the maze from an employee, they'd find themselves not at an exit but back at the start of the maze. Girlfriend said it was just like the movie Labyrinth. And see my comment about IKEA making me feel like I'm on one of those Disneyland rides where the cart whisks you past tableaux full of cheerfully singing animatronic critters. And I always wondered about the IKEA product naming system. While some of them do seem to be names, some--at least in the US--seem to be odd transliterations of English words. For instance, there was a sofa-bed I was looking at the other day named BEDDINGE--okay, is this actually a Swedish person-name, and thus a cute pun, or did they just make this one up?

HAH! I'm glad you said that first, Sandy! My warped brain was already getting set to start paging Dr. Freud to please pick up the white courtesy phone. Okay, I see several folks have already responded to this; I'll just add a shout-out to the massive popularity of fast-food street stalls in many Asian countries (which I've only been able so far to experience through book and film, alas, but boy do they make me drool). It does seem to be true, though, that the US is unique in the practice of people eating their treats while actually on the move. In fact, we have a whole class of foods, popular at state fairs, served on a stick for easy consumption on the move--i.e. if even a hot dog on a bun is not convenient enough, you can get the whole effect combined on a stick in the form of a corn dog. For some reason unknown to me, the Minnesota State Fair seems to be a motherlode of this kind of stick-ified food, as this webpage, among many others, humorously documents.

Hi, infernooo -- I like your eGullet nickname! I trust you'd already checked out "hzrt8w's" pictorial all about making congee. I also have a very simplified stovetop congee in my blog this week, starting at this post plus a couple more following. It's easy to cook congee on the stovetop--just make sure you have a really heavy-bottomed saucepan (or a heat diffuser for under your pot) to help protect it from scorching, with a well-fitting lid to help prevent too much liquid steaming away. As to the rice-to-water ratio: you can vary it as desired depending on how thick you like your congee. I like mine really thick, so in that blog post I think I did a generous 1/3 cup of raw rice in 4 cups of water. I've seen recipes do ratios like 1/2 cup rice in 5 to six cups of water, or even lower rice-to-water ratios than that. And I understand that some regions do a combination of ground/pulverized rice and whole raw rice to get a much smoother texture. Cooking time: you basically cook it, giving it an occasional stir, until it's the texture you desire--but count on at least an hour, and a good couple of hours won't hurt.

Interesting! I guess I hadn't really thought of how IKEA restaurants in other countries targeted their menus to different populations, though of course that makes perfect sense. I guess IKEA decided to focus on meatballs in the US because often the only Scandinavian foods most Americans have heard of are Swedish meatballs and lutefisk, and the lutefisk probably wouldn't go over all that well. (I myself have actually eaten lutefisk, at a Sons of Norway dinner no less, and not only did I live to tell the tale, but I actually rather liked the stuff. ) Now, Costco--there's where you go to get some mighty fine hot dogs in their cafes. Behemoth, I highly recommend grazing at Costco the next time you find yourself in the States--between the free food samples and the offerings at the cafe you can make a terrific lunch out of it. And as to the peculiar charms of assembling IKEA furniture--heh. There's a reason why I'm going to be paying the extra fee to have somebody come and put the damn things together for me. I may be a skinflint, but I also value my sanity.

Oh--one of the tomatoes from the OB Farmer's Market has already met its demise to make my brunch this morning ... ... topping a simple open-faced melted cheese sandwich. This is another of my lazy skinflint's breakfast dishes: the bread is one of the more granola-heady brands I see all the time at my local Von's, called Country Hearth--this variety is alleged to be stoneground wheat with hazelnuts, and it actually does have some impressively big bits of hazelnut embedded in each slice. The cheese is that supermarket cheddar again--I was unsure of the melting properties of the kashkavel, and besides I'm enjoying that cheese more just eating it au naturel (nice sheep-milky tang to it, interesting texture, just ever so slightly grainy). Back to this here cheese sandwich: the only things I did to it were to first toast the bread, then layer on the other ingredients, sprinkle some kosher salt on the tomatoes, and then run the lot under the toaster-oven's broiler until the cheese got all melty. Simple but gooooood.