mizducky

Now, on to this afternoon's explorations... Yes, I have gotten the message that a lot of you in colder climes are pining for some glimpses of sunny SoCal splendor, so instead of investigating more inland strip mall heavens today, I headed over to my personal favorite of San Diego's beachside communities, Ocean Beach. Each of the San Diego beach communities has its own unique flavor, and OB, as everyone calls it, is the one that's distinctly hippy-dippy. Wednesdays also happen to be when OB's farmer's market happens; because traffic and parking is usually murder on farmer's market days, I have yet to get to one in my 3.5 years of living in this town, but as it was still earlyish in the afternoon I decided to try my luck and see how close I could get. I took my favorite shortcut, through the backside of Mission Bay Park: Mission Bay Park is this wonderful network of lagoons and green space wedged in behind Pacific Beach and Mission Beach. SeaWorld occupies one corner of it, but it also incorporates all kinds of boat ramps, bathing beaches, fishin' holes, RV parking, and just wide-open green space like this. People are always hanging out, picnicking, bicycling, kite-flying, and just loving the space. It's one of the most terrific pieces of urban park planning I've ever seen. Anyway, I slip around the park, past SeaWorld, and into OB ... and wonder of wonders, I find a disabled parking space a half-block away from the site of the farmer's market! (Yes, I have a disabled driver placard; it's a godsend to my creaky knees.) I've arrived almost an hour before the official start of the market, and people are still setting up, so I have some time to kill--a pleasant prospect on OB's main drag, Newport Avenue, which is lined with antique shops, beachware emporia, headshops, cafes and bars. I decide to make a beeline to my personal favorite hang in OB: Jungle Java is a combination smoothie/latte bar and garden shop, and very very OB-ish. I order a mango/strawberry smoothie: ...and proceed to hang out in the lovely part-outdoors/part-indoors courtyard: I still have time to kill before the market gets underway, so I decide to pay a visit to my favorite burger joint in San Diego, Hodad's: A "hodad," as the joint's menu informs you, is surfer-speak for a non-surfer who hangs out on the beach trying to pretend he is a surfer--in other words, a poser. Hodad's the joint is no poser, though--they are an authentic throw-back hippy-surfer feeding and watering hole. Witness their signature vehicle in the lot next door: The interior of the place is even more drenched in local flava: Yes, that is an actual front end of an old split-windshield VW bus sticking out of the wall there, complete with half-a-surfboard on top. It has a dining booth inside. Here's a closer look: I order a single bacon cheeseburger basket with everything: Now *that's* what I'm talkin' about, bay-bee! ... Erm, not the blurriness of the shot; the bigness of the burger. Can you just imagine the size of the double burger?!? This thing has got on it big rings of raw onion, a big slice of tomato, slices of pickle, and shredded lettuce. The burger patty is crunchy-charred on the outside and juicy-red on the inside. The big seasoned fries are crunchy on the edges and nice and fluffy on the inside. This whole deal costs $6.75. And for that princely sum you also get to read all the crazy license plates on the walls and hear music over the PA that you haven't heard played in public in decades. They were playing Emerson Lake and Palmer's "Karn Evil 9" when my order arrived, a tune of great significance to my teen years--ah yes, "welcome back my friends to the show that never ends, I'm so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside...!" Suitably burgered up, I at last find the farmer's market ready for my inspection. As often happens with these things, there are more booths selling non-food items (crafts, jewelry, gewgaws, etc.) than selling food, but there are still many nice offerings, such as aguas frescas: Citrus and avocados: Cucumbers, strawberries, tomatoes, butternut squash: I bought some tomatoes and cucumbers from this lady. She seemed bemused but pleased that I wanted to photograph her booth. At this point, my knees are begining to complain, so I hobble back to my car. Before I depart OB entirely, I decide to drop by the food co-op, where I have a membership: The OB People's Organic Food Market is a lovely little co-op in a building they had specially designed to be environmentally friendly. They have terrific produce: Plus a goodly stock of other organo-groovy groceries: It was getting time to be heading home, but I knew I needed to get you folks just one more shot, so that I could end with: ... as the sun slowly sinks into the west, we bid a fond farewell to the Fine Fantasy Freak Republic of Ocean Beach.

Like I said, all of those microwaveable things--the Lean Cuisine, the mini-pizzas, the Eggo waffles, etc.--all belong to Fearless Housemate and his girlfriend. Once or twice since I lived here, when I was hungry and it was way late at night so I didn't feel like going out, have I "borrowed" one of those Lean Cuisine dinners--and found them so unpalatable that I pretty soon was cured of any further borrowings. I'm sorry, but those things are *nasty*! Only a fellow blogger can truly appreciate such a brazen money shot, eh, Ellen? I feel like it's about to explode, Mr.-Creosote-like, into the camera.... What the hell is in that thing? Details, woman!! ← Oh god, what *isn't* in there? Again, a lot of that stuff is Fearless Housemate's: the milk (a few different containers, because he has a bad habit of forgetting he already has some and buys more); the little flavored yogurts, some assorted packs of supermarket-grade fresh tortellini, some deli meats. The jars of pickles are fair game for everyone. Any left-over takeout is usually FH's, though since he almost never actually eats leftovers those are considered fair game also. There are assorted different salsas and pico de gallos (picos de gallo?) of varying degrees of hot (FH likes 'em hot; I like 'em mild). The six-pack of Diet Hansen's pop, FH bought for me--we often pick up little favorite items for each other. (He usually asks me to keep my eye out for Diet Plumagranite flavor Snapple, as that flavor's nearly impossible to find. Yes, FH is a total Snapple fiend--he even created this humorous webpage celebrating the little "Real Facts" messages inside the Snapple caps--note that when he built that page, his favorite flavor was Diet Peach.) What else is in the fridge? Of my stuff, there is almost always a big 2lb block of supermarket cheddar and a package of whole wheat pita (two of my basic subsistence foods); some kind of peanut butter; a big container of plain unflavored yogurt (more smoothie fodder); assorted basic veggies (onions, carrots, celery, garlic, etc.), and a whole bunch of condiments (several types of mustard, assorted Asian condiments, though most of those that don't really need refrigeration have migrated to my pantry cabinet). Oh, and right now there's a half-bottle's worth of dry vermouth (back-up cooking wine). And that's pretty much it. Nothing special or glamorous, really. It just looks like there's much more in there than there really is, because it's all gone higgledy-piggledy from random people just shoving stuff in any old where. Once in a blue moon I get all anal-compulsive and re-arrange everything neatly--heh, that lasts maybe a couple of hours before it's all wacko again.

Thanks again for the luv. All of you. Okay, I've gotten enough work-type work done to not feel guilty about buzzing off to do the labor-of-love-type work of collecting more info for y'all. And after the early morning chill and haze, it's turned into a bright sunny Sandy Eggo day. So--off to see who I can scare with my little camera! See you soon...

My current abode is about five miles inland--though I'm also within a mile of all the lagoons of Mission Bay Park. But I'm also up on the seaward side of a little mesa--the neighborhoods with "Mesa" in their names aren't called that for nothing--plus there are various intervening ravines and canyons, all of which geographical features tend to catch and hold the cold air from the breezes blowing off the ocean. And then when the sun goes down, the temperature does its dramatic drop thing--even in the summer, though less dramatically than in the winter. San Diego has lots of little microclimates like this, where the temperature can be a good ten to twenty degrees cooler than the rest of the city. It's actually a godsend in the summer, when our inland neighborhoods and towns like La Mesa, El Cajon, and Santee can shoot up into the high 90s. Alas, I suspect I will be a little more toasty this summer in my new digs in Mission Valley--which really is a valley, a very broad east-west one containing, along with a lot of shopping malls and the I-8 expressway, the San Diego River and a sizeable recreational/greenspace park. Y'know, that's exactly what it is--has "Magnaware" stamped right into the bottom. I can't ever remember what I paid for it, but I can tell you it was probably ridiculously cheap. Whoever I got it from obviously didn't realize what they had.

Behold: thick lumpy congee! I'm just finished off my last jar of fermented tofu, so today's congee condiments are dark soy sauce, sesame oil, and furikake: I understand from various eGullet threads that the amount of furikake I just dumped in here would make a good Japanese mother go *tsk* at her offspring. But I love those little fishy flakes, yes I do. Heh. The looks of this stuff may be worthy of our Gallery of Regrettable Foods: I kinda miss having the fermented bean curd to put in, but it's still hitting the spot--especially since my tummy's still a little tender from too much hot sauce with last night's mini-tacos. Okay, now I have to concentrate on a little actual paid work (one of my great struggles as a work-at-home freelancer is to stay focused). But I'll keep checking in ... and then this afternoon I plan to head out with camera to document a little more San Diego Cheep Eatz territory for y'all.

A bleary-eyed good morning from this so-not-a-morning-person type gal. It's been unseasonably chilly here in SD the past several days, especially at night--okay, I can just hear some of you in harsher climes going "yeah, right!" And having lived through a bunch of winters in Boston as well as New York, I know I've got it really good here. Still, since a lot of houses here (including this crackerbox) are built with no insulation or weatherstripping to speak of, and heating the drafty old thing can cost a small fortune, it can get a bit nippy at night. This is a desert climate after all--an extremely artificially irrigated desert, but desert nonetheless--and so when the sun sets in winter the temperature can drop a good 20 to 30 degrees F or more. So I'm making myself a nice warming pot of what I call pseudo-congee for today's breakfast--"pseudo" because I don't get very elaborate with it, and don't cook it for anywhere near as long as some recipes I've seen out there, and am probably doing other things that Chinese cooks would no doubt shake their heads and "tut-tut" at me for. But it works for me, and I find it much more satisfying than most standard American breakfast cereals, so apologies to all readers who grew up making this stuff as I expose my goofy Caucasian way of doing it. Today's basic breakfast products: No, the green tea isn't going in the congee--I'm not *that* goofy! That's to drink while I'm waiting for my congee to conge. Erm. So to speak. Behold one of my favorite cooking utensils: I have had this unsightly-looking saucepan for what seems like forever. I can't even remember where I got it--probably at some thrift shop or something. My mom had something very similar--a heavy cast-aluminum pan with Bakelite handles whose equally heavy lid guaranteed a good seal. I vaguely recall reading that these kinds of pots were once marketed as "waterless cookers"--you were supposed to be able to put vegetables in them with just the water clinging to the veg after washing, slap the lid on and cook them without boiling away any of the vitamin content, or so the theory went. Anyway, its heaviness makes it a terrific cookpot for rice. I just try to remember not to cook any acid foods in it, because I think all that gray is just discoloration rather than any kind of anodized treatment. So--into this pot I simply put four cups of water (rather than broth), and maybe a generous third of a cup of raw rice (I like my pseudo-congee thick), bring it to a boil, then back it off to low, and let it go for an hour or so. While I'm waiting on my congee, let me give you a mini-tour of the soon-to-be-ex-kitchen: It's a bit of a shame actually--this is a huge kitchen space with a lot of potential. But our benign-neglect landlord couldn't be bothered to keep it in good repair, so all the appliances are wacko in one way or another. At least the rent's really low for this area, especially for a house big enough to hold FH's studio as well as himself, girlfriend, and (up to this point) me, so FH doesn't make waves about the disrepair. Oh, and we haven't had any Traditional Inside-of-Fridge shots in the past blog or so that I recall, so--brace yourselves: it's the Chaos Fridge! All those microwaveable things in the freezer belong to FH and his girlfriend: The huge bag of frozen strawberries, however, is mine--for whenever I get the urge to make a smoothie. Off to check on the pseudo-congee...

Well, Fearless Housemate is not only housemate, but dear friend, and also one of my employers (I do various web-geek and administrative tasks for his music biz), and he has many redeeming qualities that more than make up for this area of finickiness. Plus, even though he doesn't care for cooking (either doing it or smelling it), he does have his own gourmet streak--he's taken me on some fabulous sushi feeds. Still, yeah, it will be nice to be able to get funky with the garlic without worry of blowing someone's mind. Yeah, in hindsight I'm not sure what all the noise about Spicy City was about either. Tell ya what--next time you're in town, let me take you to Ba Ren--that place totally blows Spicy City right out of the water (and I'm not just talking about the spiciness of some of their hotter dishes either). You'll love it. Heh. Believe it or not, I'm not all that big a fan of pastries. I mean, I'll certainly eat them with gusto when they're available, but when I get hit with a craving for something, it's much more likely to be for savory than sweet. Still ... I do indulge occasionally, so let me see what I can track down ...

Well, usually I'm a total nightowl, but because I was so adrenalinized about starting this blog, I got up much earlier than usual, so I'm gonna go crash now. So--tawk among yourselves. Seriously, if anyone has any further suggestions of cheap-eats-related things they'd like me to check out around San Diego, let me know--I'm not sure I can get to everything, but I'll try to fit in something that's at least somewhat related. G'night, all!

And now, going from the sorta sublime to the fairly rediculous, here's what I'm drinking right now: True confessions time: I drink this kind of diet swill by the gallon--almost literally. By doctor's orders, I'm supposed to drink a minimum of eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day and preferably more like twelve glasses--in other words, two quarts to three quarts daily. And I have the damnedest time keeping up with it, because I find just plain water ... boring. And somehow I never get around to making something healthy like herbal sun-tea, or even slicing up a damn lime to perk up all that water ... so my compromise is to buy these diet pops. They taste okay, and Von's is always putting them on sale. But don't let the pretty fruit pictures on the front fool you, these things are completely and totally artificial ("natural flavors" my Aunt Fanny!). Oh well. My kidneys may eventually start glowing in the dark, but at least they'll be *very* well irrigated.

Aw shucks! Everyone is being so incredibly flattering, it really does my heart good. Hell yeah, let's start the Tightwad Gourmand Club! Epicureanism on a shoestring! A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, lolling on the beach with the left-over hippies and the new-crop beatnik slackers! Now I'm *really* glad I subtitled this blog "Moveable Feast"--I'm not much of a Hemingway scholar, but somehow I suspect that Papa would have definitely approved.

Y'know, kalypso, I've been intrigued by the name of this joint ever since you so provocatively let it drop, so of course I had to do the Google thing--and this is what I found. Other than the possibility that the scene there might be a tad more "straight" than my usual speed, this sounds like it could be a helluva fun time to this dive-bar-lovin' chick. I'm not sure if I'll get in to check it out before the end of this blog, but I'll certainly check it out sooner or later. And yes, you will indeed get a full report--especially if I succeed in making a karaoke fool of myself there.

Ah, Pacific Beach! Land of carefree surfer dudes and dudettes--the latter given to wearing shorts with Ugg boots because, like, it's *winter*, y'know. Wending my way through the traffic on the nearly always busy Garnet Ave (main drag of PB), I made my way to one of my favorite taquerias, a little joint known as Taco Motion: I can't claim to be any kind of expert on taco-shop fare, but one of my rules for sussing out whether this kind of joint is on the ball is whether they offer offal, and if so, how many varieties. This place caught my attention right away because they have tripas (tripe/cow's stomach), buche (pig's stomach), and cabeza (beef head/cheek meat), as well as menudo--not just as a weekend special, but every day of the week. So far, I've always ordered the burrito de cabeza because I like it so much, but because I'm still not too hungry after that big lunch (even though I brought half that meal home in a doggy bag), and also because I've got spectators, I decide to do something different. I consult the sizeable menu: ...and decide to get four mini-tacos, one each of buche, tripas, cabeza, and al pastor (al pastor is marinated pork grilled on and sliced off a vertical spit, much like gyros meat). I arrive home with my prize: Whoa, even though each of those tacos is supposedly "mini", together they're still a lot of food. But they're so purty! They're not perfect. The tripas is just a hair on the mushy side; the al pastor is just a hair on the dry side. The buche is quite nice. But the winner, once again, is the cabeza--moist, tender but with just a little chewiness (I'd never consciously realized this before, but I really do have a major fondness for that tender-but-chewy mouthfeel thang). None of the meats are particularly spicy on their own, but they're nicely accented with a little sprinkling of cilantro and pico de gallo, and come with a really good hot sauce--not just raw hotness but with a bit of flavor too. They also came with extra corn tortillas--they're really fresh, but I kinda wish they had toasted them on a comal, or at least a griddle, rather than steaming them or whatever they did, because that left 'em a bit rubbery. Ah well. This was a good change of pace, but I think next visit I'll be back to getting the burrito de cabeza. Unless I'm hungry enough to do justice to a big bowl of menudo.

Welcome, Christine! Y'know, I don't actually know what is the customary way to eat those onion pies. I just tore them in big strips, rolled them up a bit, and munched away. I think I used a bit of them to mop up the sauce from my noodle dish. Anybody with more knowledge want to chime in here? Meanwhile, it is time for me to contemplate dinner. I'm thinking a trip down into the outskirts of PB (that's Pacific Beach to all you non-San Diegans) to one of my favorite little taqueria finds. Back shortly ...

Heh. I know there have been certain blood relatives I have wanted to divorce because of their mortifying behavior in restaurants.

Heh. You have no idea how huge a temptation it has been to strew this entire blog with food-related Zappa quotes. Food items definitely seemed to appeal to his sense of humor ... but alas, I don't want to run too far off-topic or off-fair use guidelines, so I'm going to content myself with only the occasional topical epigram here and there. Meanwhile, as to my Tightwad Gourmand rules--actually, I don't have rules so much as a general heuristic (now there's a computer geek-atroid term!) with regard to having fun with food on a budget. The guiding principle is: of course you can produce incredible results in the kitchen with high-grade ingredients and professional-quality equipment, but it's important to realize that pretty much all the world's great cuisines (as John Whiting pointed out in his cassoulet missive) started out as dishes made by poor people making do with whatever oddments they could not afford to let go to waste. So, as a self-styled 21st century urban peasant, po-mo bohemian variant, I give myself permission to explore the possibilities of bargain basement ingredients, gear from Target, and other declasse stuff. The magic, at base, is in good technique--if your technique is crap, the finest ingredients and gear in the universe will not save your dinner. (This is not to say that my technique is sterling--far from it--but I'm no slouch if I do say so myself...) Likewise, behind many of those unpromising-looking mom'n'pop storefronts are excellent cooks transforming humble ingredients with fabulous technique--all it takes is an adventurous soul (and a cast-iron stomach) to seek them out. This is one of many reasons why I am also a huge Tony Bourdain fan--because he gets all the above and celebrates it. That, and he also celebrates offal--a related concept, as offal traditionally has been poor folks' food. Oh yeah, and it doesn't hurt that he vaguely reminds me of Lou Reed ... Hauling this further back on topic: all the above does relate not only to the food joints I'll be showing y'all, but also to what I'm thinking of cooking Saturday night. I'm not planning to get particularly spendy on the ingredients for that session. In fact, I'm thinking of trying out another of the dishes from the Chinese home cooking pictorials of our esteemed specialist Mr W.K. Leung a.k.a. "hzrt8w". Either that, or if I discover that pork belly's on special at the local 99 Ranch, I'm going to have myself a little oinkfest a la Daniel.

Thanks for the warm welcome, kalypso, not to mention all that useful info! I have gone to Seisel's Meats and was quite impressed, which was part of why I was so excited to see how near I will soon be to their original biz. And I'd been eyeing that vegetable stand--I hope to capture it for this blog later on in the week. Heh. If I can be sure I can get back up off the ground without screwing up the Creaky Knees, I will most certainly do so. Ah. Doing a Khyber Pass run is definitely tempting, but as you saw on your visit, parking in that stretch of Hillcrest can be a royal pain. But I will see what I can do ... Oh, most definitely! Stand by for an upcoming post ... Dude! It was supposed to be a surprise, after all! Yeah, the San Diego MTA is a real bear about people eating on their pretty little trains. But, especially as the brand-spankin' new elevated trolley station is right near my new apartment, it will probably at least wind up in a location-establishing photo in a future post. The darn thing really is quite glitzy--you'd love it. WaWhaWHAAT??? I beg you to reconsider! ← Oooooooh ... I dunno ... I just *know* that Frank's childhood food fave must have involved canned corn, and after many childhood summers of savoring New Jersey truck farm butter-and-sugar corn on the cob, I just can't seem to get excited about the canned stuff. Maybe if I made an upscale version with fresh-off-the-cob corn and freshly made garlic mashed potatoes on some kind of artisanal bread ...

I am now the proud owner of an Olympus FE-100, a basic little 4.0 megapixel jobbie that will be more than adequate for my relatively simple photographic needs. I then took my new toy over to the aforementioned Convoy Street in search of lunch. San Diego used to have an actual Chinatown, in the area now known as the Gaslamp District--back in the day, that whole area was known as the Stingaree and was basically the red-light district. But since then it's been all the way down and then back up as a gentrified tourist area, and all that remains of Chinatown are some lovingly restored buildings, a museum, and maybe a couple of active businesses. The Convoy Street area isn't really a proper "Chinatown" in that there's little actual housing here--just block after block of strip malls jam-packed with restaurants, groceries, and other businesses catering to a variety of Asian ethnic groups, interspersed with a few Anglo-American businesses and a bunch of auto dealerships (and the occasional adult bookstore--the more things change, as they say...) My destination for today's lunch was a joint I had noticed but not actually gone into before--I was alerted to its potential by mmm-yoso's most excellent blog. Jamillah Garden is a Halal-certified Islamic Chinese restaurant; while it tries to cover all the bases of various Chinese cuisines on behalf of San Diego's sizeable Muslim community, if I was remembering Kirk/mmm-yoso's recommendations correctly, the dishes to really check out were the specialties that actually hail from the Northern Chinese Muslim community. So: here's the joint itself: ...and here is what I ordered: "Green onion pies" "Lamb dough slice chow mein" These are both dishes to which Kirk gave the thumbs-up, and I agree. The green onion pies were served fresh off the griddle--the flavor was extremely mild, but the texture very pleasant, flaky and toasty and slightly oily like parathas. The "lamb dough slice chow mein" (that's what the English says on the menu) requires a little more explanation. These noodles are handmade, apparently sliced off a roll of dough right when the order is fired--and they're wonderful, soft yet chewy, very freeform. The noodles are then incorporated into what seems to be a nicely done, fairly standard chow mein dish--only with lamb, apparently a favorite meat of the Northern Chinese Muslims. The lamb was pleasant, but alas for this lamb-lover it didn't taste particularly lamb-like. Also in the dish were generous bits of scrambled egg, slivers of scallion and carrot and other assorted veggies, all bound together in a well-flavored mild brown sauce. All in all, a terrific comfort food dish, as the relative simplicity of the flavors was more than made up for by those fabulous noodles. After a few more work-related errands, I'm now back home, and drinking some of this: Pure cherry juice is the gouty carnivore's friend! I try to have some kind of real cherry product around at all times, because even with meds the little crystals try to gang up on me, and while I've cut my meat consumption radically I'm just not willing or able to go totally vegetarian.

Okay, I lied--one more quick answer, and then I'm off: The new kitchen, while smaller, is a bit more modern and much better maintained, and has a proper ventilation system. Also, my new roommate loves to cook, and isn't afeered of major cooking smells. Not sure yet how we'll work the kitchen-sharing, but as I work at home and he works in a store, plus is another musician with rehearsals elsewhere two nights a week, I'll have huge blocks of kitchen time all to myself--bwahahahah!!! Okay, now I'm really off (as if you didn't know that already...)

Many thanks for your encouraging words, folks--I truly appreciate it. I currently live in Clairemont Mesa, which for those of you not very familiar with San Diego is north of downtown, inland (east) a little ways from Pacific Beach, and just south of MCAS Miramar. It's also just west of Kearny Mesa, with its major agglomeration of (mostly) Asian restaurants and shops on and around Convoy Street. (I assume MCAS Miramar used to run convoys down that street, thus the name.) I will soon be moving to Mission Valley, just east of that lovely landmark Qualcomm Stadium, in a little neighborhood known as Grantville. One of the major food features of that neighborhood that I'm especially excited about is Iowa Meat Farms, one of the few independent butcher shops in this town, and a place with an excellent reputation. Hopefully I will have at least pictures, and maybe even some product, to show you from this joint. As to the Acai energy bowl--wow, I hadn't even heard of that place, but when I looked where it was located I wasn't surprised--it's right in the middle of the Pacific Beach strip, which I usually avoid like crazy due to the usual tourist conjestion. But offseason in the middle of the week, I might actually find parking down there, so I'll see if I can swing by there. Okay, I have done battle with circuitcity.com and have been told my new camera awaits me, so off to start my errands. See y'all shortly ...

Okay, and we're already off to a bumpy start: by Murphy's Law, my elderly digital camera (an obsolete model of the Nikon Coolpix) just decided to go on the fritz, so this blurry-ish photo of my breakfast this morning is courtesy of my camera phone: I am usually not much of a breakfast person--in fact, back when I was a Seattle-based coffee fiend, breakfast was usually a big latte at most. However, for medical reasons coffee has had to become an occasional treat at best, so if I drink any hot beverage at all in the morning, it's usually some kind of tea. Today it's an organo-groovy yerba mate concoction from a local natural foods store. Accompanying it is one of my lazy/non-morning-person's breakfast specials: a pita full of melted cheese. Today's whole-wheat pita is courtesy of the local Trader Joe's; the sharp cheddar is standard supermarket issue (Von's). I'm really not much of a cold cereal fan; occasionally I'll do hot cereal; once in a blue moon I'll make a smoothie or an omelette. Otherwise, unless I'm specifically going out for a voluminous brunch, this is about as elaborate as breakfast gets for me. The death of the old camera dictates what one of my morning's errands is going to be: buying a simple but serviceable replacement of some sort. I already had my eye on one at Circuit City; hopefully my next post or so will be pictures with the new puppy, as a couple of my other anticipated errands includes lunch, plus an initial overview of the local cheap eats troves.

Greetings and salutations from sunny San Diego! Any of my closest friends will tell you I am not one to be easily intimidated, but I admit it is a bit unnerving to be directly following such exemplary bloggers as John Whiting. But don't worry, I'll get over myself fairly quickly. I was originally going to subtitle this blog something like "Beggars Banquet," or maybe "The Tightwad Gourmand" (as in "you've heard of the Frugal Gourmet, now meet ... " et cetera and so forth). These titles were attempts to address the fact that, for various reasons, I live a pretty low-budget lifestyle, but still manage to have a damn good time enjoying food. In fact, I kind of revel in finding and enjoying good cheap eats, and this blog would be a chance to go on at length about that revelry with folks of like mind. For one of the many things about eGullet that has really turned me on is the great egalitarianism of food tastes here--I've noticed that many of the same people who contribute passionately to topics on five-star restaurants and rarified vintages also weigh in with equal vigor about sliders, barbeque, chili, and other "just plain folks" food. But as to the blog title I wound up with: by the serendipity of scheduling, it turns out that I will be moving at the end of this month to a neighborhood a few miles away from the one I currently live in. That means not only a whole different kitchen, and a whole different household with different tolerances about cooking, but also a whole new neighborhood of food resources to explore. So--one of the themes of my blog this week will be taking you all along with me as I get ready to move my personal food act across town. If I'm lucky and the fellow currently occupying my new digs vacates in time, you'll actually get to see my new kitchen and what I'll soon have to work with; but at the very least I'll take you with me as I start exploring the shops and eateries around my new neighborhood. There might even be an IKEA run in there somewhere--meatballs ahoy! I don't get to do big cooking projects in my current living situation nearly as often as I'd like, partly because my current household companion (who I've immortalized in various posts as Fearless Housemate) is really sensitive to food smells, and partly because this wacky house has a substandard kitchen exhaust fan that vents directly into FH's bedroom--YIKES! So I do try to spare the poor guy from being stanked out of his own room as much as possible. HOWEVER, Fearless Housemate will be out with his band on a gig this Saturday evening, so I plan to execute some kind of minor cooking extravaganza in his absence--the exact nature of which will be determined by what looks good in the markets, what feels good to me, my energy level by the time we get to Saturday, PLUS your input and suggestions. As for the bulk of this week's meals: I'm taking inspiration from Pan's foodblog, in which he demonstrated the dining, take-out, and delivery food wonders of his immediate neighborhood. Only I'll have *two* neighborhoods full of dining and take-out opportunities to draw upon--my new one as well as my current one, both of which feature a fabulous array of inexpensive ethnic eateries. In fact, the teaser photos for my blog demonstrated just a small sampling of the local riches in my current neighborhood: The above, in order of appearance: a bento box from Nijiya Market; a medley of cold Szechuan-style appetizers from my beloved Ba Ren; and the iconic San Diego takeout meal, a fish taco combo, this one from El Cotixan, the nearest 24-hour taqueria to my current abode. And that's just for starters; within a five-mile radius of where I'm sitting right now, I can also sample such cuisines as Vietnamese, Korean, Thai, Middle Eastern, Filipino, Indian, South American, Greek, Hawaiian, Jewish-style deli, several different styles of hamburger from national chains to one-of-a-kind monsters, and others cuisines that I'm still only just discovering after three-and-a-half years in this town. Oh, and one other little adventure: on Sunday evening, I'm going to be playing Mistress of the Church Coffee Reception. The congregation of which I am a member is going to be hosting a distinguished lecturer, and I volunteered to do battle with the social hall's brand-new high-volume high-speed high-falutin' coffeemaker. I'm told it's supposed to be easy, all the instructions are written out and taped to the beast. Ooooo-kay ... so how come nobody else volunteered for this task? I sense a potential for this to turn into something right out of an "I Love Lucy" episode, so I'll be sure to bring my camera along in order to record any coffee carnage. There will be other neighborhood adventures as well, depending on time, schedule, whim, energy level, and audience suggestion. About those audience suggestions: I do hope folks will chime in early and often with questions and comments as well as suggestions. As you may have noticed, I like to have a lot of fun while hanging on the board here, and it's so much more fun when I have accomplices to help bat the conversational shuttlecock around. P.S. Oh yeah--despite my fondness for Frank Zappa, there will be no corn sandwiches in this blog (shudder). However, there may well be some fried seafood of some sort, though perhaps neither oysters nor eels (not that I wouldn't mind that...)

Many thanks for a most elegant and instructive blog, Mr. Whiting, sir. I hope to be putting to use what I've learned here really soon.

Thanks for all that! LOL! I must remember what I am eating, the next time I am eating it!! ← Hey, it's all just a part of life in the food chain, y'know!

Oh, I know I'm losing some flavor when I get rid of that first batch of hamhock broth, but I have a choice of either doing that, or never being able to eat hamhocks at all for fear of my feet and ankles puffing up like little dirigibles (which they *will* do, as I've discovered from painful experience ). Fortunately, the hocks still seem to have plenty of flavor (and saltiness) left even after that first round of simmering.

Pearl River Bridge is a good reliable brand. They make a whole range of soy sauces--light, dark, and I think a mushroom flavored one, and probably others as well. "Light" here refers to consistency and intensity of flavor, rather than a "lite" soy sauce with, say, less sodium or something--the light sauce is what you'd want for most cooking tasks, though I really love the rich flavor of dark soy sauce as a condiment in congee and such. Edited to add: I should mention that these are Chinese soy sauces, so they have a different flavor profile from the Japanese ones.