Grub

Oh, so it really IS pronounced taMpopo in Japanese? I thought it just sounded like that because the consonant immediately following the N uses the same uh, "mouth/lip position" as M (ie P)? When pronounced, it's just about impossible to tell the difference between taMpopo and taNpopo; teMpura and teNpura; shiMbun and shiNbum because of the following P and B.

I just watched Tampopo (again), and I just noticed that the word Tampopo is spelled TA N PO PO in Japanese. How come it isn't translated as Tanpopo in English, rather than Tampopo?

Quick question: Does the term "Foodie" primarily mean people who enjoy eating food, as opposed to cooking food?

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Great link Melissa, thanks!

I don't get it... Joooost keedin... That had me laughing my ass off, dude. Good one. I wonder if that was Sandra Lee's initial title for her show?

That ain't no fruit -- that's one of them face-clingers from Aliens! Someone call Ripley!

Not exactly a side dish, but it is commonly offered as an appetizer in Indian restaurants: Seekh Kebabs: And again, not a side dish, but here's a demo on Tandoori Chicken done on a grill, with the method of plain 'ol Beer Can Chicken: Beercan Tandoori Chicken.

You're right... The link is no longer active. I must admit I was surprised about that blog, since afaik, reality show contestants are normally required to keep mum until the last episode of the show is broadcast.

Hah, that's some excellent, aggrevated writing. She needs to break her text up with a few more paragraphs here and there, though. But damn funny. "...reaffirm that someone at Bravo is getting blowjobs from..." Oh boy, oh boy. Wahahaha!

Salmon with a parm, orange and ginger crust, sauteed asparagus with prosciutto, and creamed carlic potatoes with chives: The prosciutto looks real iffy -- but the salmon, man, salmon's not supposed to look like that... This wasn't a planned meal, but mostly knocked together with left-over ingredients from a meal I never got around to making. Still, it sounded really good, in theory... The creamed taters are just mashed, but done with an Evinruude. They become very glutinous, which isn't to everyone's tastes, but taste good. The asparagus was just sauteed, and then I followed that up with a failed attempt at wrapping them in prosciutto -- I realized the salmon might be getting overcooked, and prosciutto is about as user-friendly as phyllo dough when you're in a hurry. Wut a mess. The color of the prosciutto doesn't look good at all. But it tasted fine. Can't miss with pork products. The salmon, oh boy... I cook salmon fillet in the oven all the time: touch of salt and pepper, and some olive oil, bake at 450 for 10 minutes and hit it with the broiler at full heat for a few minutes to get a nice, darkened crust (if the fillet is thin, you can just go with the broiler all the way through). I've thought about grating some parm cheese on top for the longest time, but this was the first time I tried it. It didn't work out very well -- it seems the oil and the parm just created a big gooey, liquidy mess from the baking. By the time I caught it, and turned on the full-heat broiler, it was too late. I completely overcooked the salmon, and still only got a little bit of brownage. Ick. Ugh. Tasted fairly good, but looked like crap. But I did learn something -- if I'm going to create a parm crust on the salmon, I'd better hit the broiler halfway through the cooking process -- and possibly, use only a little, or no olive oil.

This episode was definitely a better one... Maybe the idea was that they'd be stuck with silly cooking challenges until the final few episodes, when the field is narrowed down to the top contenders, worthy of the good stuff? The preview for the next show, where all the previous contestants were brougth back looked fascinating -- in a devestating, train-wreck sort of way. One shot showed them breaking into a goddamn scuffle, like they were a bunch of Glock-wielding, low pants-riding gangstas -- and another showed the angry Irishman just screaming like a madman.

Okay, well -- there's a scene in From Dusk Till Dawn where Salma Hayek pours booze down her leg, and some lucky dude laps it up as it comes off her toes... Of course, she turns into an angry, violent vampire the next minute, and starts killing everyone, but heh, I still consider the guy a very lucky dude indeed. And of course, there's Titus -- where Hopkins found his Hannibal, and Chiron & Demetrius ends up in a pasty ...Hark, villains, I will grind your bones to dust...

← Well, fuck me bugger me gosh, that's news to me! I didn't know that. Well done on Ms. Ray. Did I miss a memo? I'd hate being considered a culinary luddite or reactionary, so I guess I'm gonna just have to start cooking dinner left-handed from now on. "...radically changed the way America cooks dinner..." I'm lost for words. All I can think of is, Wesley Snipes in Blade: "Motherfucker, have you lost your damn mind?!

"...I made a peanut sauce from thick coconut milk, peanutbutter, some lime juice, soysauce and tamarind... Food blogs are awesome -- I love 'em. There's so much to be learned. I never thought of using tamarin, soy sauce, nor lime for peanut sauce. Great stuff. Excellent blog. Beautiful. Keep it up.

Damn dude, ain't that how John Belushi snuffed it?

C'mon, the dude managed to get people to admit they liked brussel sprouts. That feat makes him a culinary superhero, damnit.

Having a positive attitude, and being friendly and kind towards your fellow human beings is a wonderful thing, in a theoretical way -- but I've always found it a little more practical to simply assume everyone's a damn idiot, until proven otherwise. This isn't a cookery-related problem. That fancy-pants, multi-million dollar computer system is fubarred because of gremlins, pixies, evil spirits, or possibly because my instructions were incorrect -- because you sure as hell followed those instructions to the letter, right? Right? Argh.

That pastry chef thing is starting to get to me -- it seems to be a recurring theme in these reality shows... In his writing, Anthony Bourdain expressed a number of opinions -- more often than not, not very favorable -- about cooks, chefs, restauranteurs and whatnot... But he made a specific effort of pointing out that not all chefs are mad. Not all chefs are drunks, junkies, thieves, nor buggering bastards. To make his point, he described a specific establishment where food was prepared without screaming, arms-dealing, or chefs giving the bride-to-be a good rogering over the dumpster in the back. Now, this place was apparently so good, because the chef was so good. And what made him so good, was that he had the patience to serve under the best chefs in the country. That is, he focused on developing his culinary skills, rather than accepting lucrative positions that entailed mad cash, fame, and nookie. Then, after all that -- once he had become so skilled, knowledgeable and respected that he surely could have landed the most rewarding cash-fame-and-nookie cookery job in the world, the nutter went back to school -- to learn how to become a pastry chef. Methinks very few people would ever take such a route. Carême started out in a patisserie, but his circumstances were unusual, to say the least. I've baked (uh, or rather, attempted to bake) a few breads. And I can totally understand why such a big deal is made, about the difference between "regular" chefs, and pastry chefs. Why the hell isn't this recognized on these "reality" shows?

This isn't a bad show -- in fact, it's really quite decent (when you consider the alternatives on that network). He's got some of that ole' on-screen charisma. I'm being a nerd here of course, but just in case: The word "ham" (in the world of theatre, movies etc.) means bad acting. Hamming it up, eating the scenery and whatnot. A good cooking show contains three things -- I desire two of them, but could take or leave the third: information, inspiration, and entertainment. The entertainment part of a show is just a delivery vehicle for the important bits. Thus, I would normally hate it since it is predominately an entertainment show -- but it does offer some eye-opening bits of information about taste and appearance. That's pretty cool, in an Alton Brown sort of way. Of course, who knows how the corporate suits will deal with his persona... Currently, he is definitely being promoted as a Wild and Crazy Guy! -- according to his FN bio, the one thing that differentiates him from other FN hosts, is that he cooks without underwear, and also likes nude stamp collecting. Har har, oh, how funny. I sort of get the impression that he might know how to cook.

Re. What happened to... Better go clickey-clickey on yer Tivo. They got Bourdain in their 4AM slot quite often. It's from his Cook's Tour book, and it's a lot of fun to see the resulting TV show for his book, seeing that while he enjoyed writing the book, he wasn't always too pleased with the TV crew that followed him around. Good fun.

I'm glad Stephen finally got dumped, rather than Lee Anne -- after all that talk about Miguel and "Top Sous Chef..." It seemed completely contrived that Lee Anne was the other head on the chopping block -- she WON the challenge of selling the menu, right? She did better at that, than any of her competitors, but her reward was that she was held responsible when it went bad -- only the real reason why it went south didn't seem so much to be the contestants, much less Lee Anne. It was the contrived nature of the challenge itself (serve it the next day, and get everything out of a supermarket), which the contestants were only made aware of after the menu had been picked. Talking about contrived, what the HELL were the judges smoking, talking about the standards THEY were used to in wedding receptions for the Rich and Famous -- I don't think Billy frikkin' Joel had his wedding catered out of a supermarket, in 24 hours... Some of this stuff just really escapes me.

Well, I'm on a roll... Salad Niçoise -- I was so looking forward to this one. Even managed to figure out how to pronounce it (Ne-swaz -- man, English is messed up, with pronounciations that bear little correlation to letters and syllables, but other Germanic languages aren't that crazy... Is it the French influence on English? Is this where the madness came from? Hm) This is a really nice salad (unless you serve it to people who don't like olives and anchovies, duh). String beans and tiny new potatoes boiled and chilled. Hardboiled eggs, tomatoes, olives, a can of salmon (ugh, I'm not freaking using any more canned salmon -- those things are nasty, and have bones and skin in them, wtf is that stuff about?), a special(?) Niçoise dressing of white wine vinegar, olive oil, a touch of honey, salt, pepper, and some fresh terragon. Plate over lettuce leaves and sprinkle with terragon and anchovies. It sounded so nice. And it ended up looking like THIS: It looks like something a bear might puke up after raiding a dumpster. It didn't taste bad, but it just didn't "work" for me.

The Burger from Hell: This picture doesn't do justice to the beast -- except for the size itself. The thing nearly covers a freakin' dinner-plate. This just got way out of control. I started out by grinding about 1 lb of chuck, along with some bacon (for a "squealer") and onions. Initially, I shaped this into three reasonably sized burgers, in spite of the fact that I was cooking for two -- but then I changed my mind and said, "to hell with it" and made two big, half pound patties instead. I realized I'd never be able to finish that, so I finally reshaped them into one normal sized thing, and one really big one. This is the big one. Then, since I was baking my own buns, I decided against doing them on the grill -- I'd just sauteed them in a pan. Bad mistake. They were greasy and nasty. I can't believe how big a difference it makes. A burger (or a steak for that matter) always benefits from some nice, caramelized onions -- yellow onions, that is. I only had red ones -- not the same stuff at ALL. Emeril sez you shouldn't just use red onions for salads; you can cook with 'em -- that may be, but for this purpose it doesn't work at all. Then, the buns... I bake so rarely, I've just never gotten into a "groove" with it. It's like a big mystery every time. Can't get the dough to rise when I want it to, so it ends up being far too dense. In this case, it started rising like mad during baking, in spite of me patting them down really, really flat. In fact, I ended up cutting out a big piece from the middle of the bun: Even so, between the greasy burger and the dense bread, I don't think I wanna see any more red meat for a couple of weeks. Oh, and I like cheese on my burger, but forgot it -- that's at least one mistake I'm grateful for. Ough.

Onions being sautéed. Doesn't really matter what comes next -- you smell those onions, you just know it's gonna come out tasting great. Of course, you can't really beat the smell of freshly baked bread...