jvictor930

I have been to Urban Spice a few times...great atmosphere, good food and the Indian friends of mine rave about it.

There's a little place called Murphy's Deli & Bar on Union Street. It's a hop, skip and a jump away from the convention center. It's been a while since I've been there, but it was good cheap eats downtown...it's probably not a must see, but it's good food and close!

I once worked for a restaurant that was rebranding from a bar (innocently named Jerry's) to a steakhouse. The "consultant", which was hired for an obscene amount of money came up with the name Cripple Creek Steakhouse. Cripple Creek, Colo. was the site of the largest gold lode in the US, as well as the subject of a song. However, this "consultant" didn't feel this could insult any folks who might be differently abled. Ergo, once the thought of the handicapped parking spaces beneath the Cripple Creek sign entered the minds of the powers that were in charge, the name was changed and the consultant was sent on thier way. One PR nightmare averted!

Wow! We have a couple of those guys in my building too! They even have a code for when one of them finds something, as most departments tend to have leftovers from catered lunches, etc... We joke with them about it, but it's serious business to them!

TripRewards, which is the loyalty program for Cendant Hotels (Howard Johnson, Days Inn, Super 8, Ramada, Travelodge, Knights Inn, Wingate Inns, and Amerihost Inns) offers the same kinds of rewards as well. In kitchen appliances, they range from 17,500 points for a knife set to 70,000 points for a 5qt KitchenAid mixer. I've never redeemed for merchandise however.

This is completely unscientific research, but I have found that electric ranges and ovens don't heat up the space as much as gas ranges and ovens. In my Fiancee's apartment (which has a gas unit) it gets much hotter when cooking than in my apartment, which has an electric one. The same thing can be said for my parent's house as compared to my old townhouse. Gas seemed to give off more heat than electric. Oh, in case there is a doubt about the validity of my homegrown research, this post has been sanctioned by the JVictor930 Institute for Gastronomy and BTU's.

Being someone who travels to the weirdest parts of the country at times, sometimes the only restaurants are fast food. For example, I pulled into a small town in Idaho at about 6:30pm and was told that the only restaurants open were the Subway and the Taco Bell inside the gas stations across the street. In these situations, when faced with the same old items or something new, I'd try a new item first. But again, it's only when the local flavors aren't open... So the answer is "only under duress of starvation."

You just need to make it yourself "Scrap Iron Chef" style using an old Gym Locker, a cast iron skillet, some wood chips, a computer fan and an A/C duct pipe!

A bottle of Seagram's 7 from 1986. It was my from my grandmother's retirement party and since no one in my family drinks it, it's been around ever since. I keep daring people to take a shot from it...there hasn't been any takers!

I was offered an opportunity to travel to France for a culinary competition, all expense paid. It was one general culinary student, one baking and pastry student and one hospitality management student. However, due to work commitments, I forgot to get the necessary passport so I could put a copy of it with the packet. There wasn't enough time to get one, so the university had to go with the next student down. To add insult to injury, I was laid off from my job the next week due to an economic downturn!

Oh, it should have been so simple, if you looked at the directions. My freshman year of college, my girlfriend at the time had gotten a new apartment and decided she wanted to cook for me. Considering she had the culinary IQ of a monkey with a lobotomy, I normally did the cooking as to avoid any, shall we say, incidents. When she would have these insane thoughts of actually cooking, my survival instinct would kick in and I'd usually give her a "that's ok, I appreciate the thought, but why go through the trouble?" This time, she insisted and I caved. This is the person that thought Gourmet food came from the Budget Gourmet, so how bad could it be? Oh, if I'd only known. So out comes the bag of Chicken Voila, which if you read the directions, you can't screw up, or so I thought. First of all, she didn't catch the "Just add chicken" labeling on the front, so this would turn out to be just Voila. Now, I'm sure Voila is supposed to taste like something other than bait, but I'll never know. So there was this bag of veggies and sauce to be heated, which should have been an easy enough task. Oh no, not for her! She decided to (and considering this was Emeril's old stomping grounds, I'll allow the reference) kick it up a notch. I'd rather she kicked me in the nuts. She added this mixture of spices that felt like I had eaten alum. Mind you, I wasn't allowed in the kitchen during this fiasco, so I don't exactly know what she put inside, but my digestive system began to churn from the first bite. I got through about a quarter of it and made the made dash to the bathroom. After I emerge from paying homage to the folks at American Standard, she wanted to know what was wrong. I just asked if this was supposed to have chicken in it. The response I got was "No wonder it tasted funny!" Maybe it was the lack of chicken, maybe it was the toxic conglomoration of spices she decided to add. We'll never know. However, as I was not feeling well, I excused myself, went home, and vowed to never let her cook for me again. Now, the ironic part. This was hotel school, and now she's a kitchen manager at a Macaroni Grill! And my friends wonder why I avoid the place like the plague. And I can't imagine why I'm now engaged to a fellow foodie!

Oh, it should have been so simple, if you looked at the directions. My freshman year of college, my girlfriend at the time had gotten a new apartment and decided she wanted to cook for me. Considering she had the culinary IQ of a monkey with a lobotomy, I normally did the cooking as to avoid any, shall we say, incidents. When she would have these insane thoughts of actually cooking, my survival instinct would kick in and I'd usually give her a "that's ok, I appreciate the thought, but why go through the trouble?" This time, she insisted and I caved. This is the person that thought Gourmet food came from the Budget Gourmet, so how bad could it be? Oh, if I'd only known. So out comes the bag of Chicken Voila, which if you read the directions, you can't screw up, or so I thought. First of all, she didn't catch the "Just add chicken" labeling on the front, so this would turn out to be just Voila. Now, I'm sure Voila is supposed to taste like something other than bait, but I'll never know. So there was this bag of veggies and sauce to be heated, which should have been an easy enough task. Oh no, not for her! She decided to (and considering this was Emeril's old stomping grounds, I'll allow the reference) kick it up a notch. I'd rather she kicked me in the nuts. She added this mixture of spices that felt like I had eaten alum. Mind you, I wasn't allowed in the kitchen during this fiasco, so I don't exactly know what she put inside, but my digestive system began to churn from the first bite. I got through about a quarter of it and made the made dash to the bathroom. After I emerge from paying homage to the folks at American Standard, she wanted to know what was wrong. I just asked if this was supposed to have chicken in it. The response I got was "No wonder it tasted funny!" Not feeling well, I excused myself, went home, and vowed to never let her cook for me again. Now, the ironic part. This was hotel school, and now she's a kitchen manager at a Macaroni Grill! And my friends wonder why I avoid the place like the plague. And people wonder why I'm now engaged to a fellow foodie!

My fiancee turned onto Daisy Cooks, with Daisy Martinez on PBS. She's a lot of fun, and the food's got a lot of flavor! Daisy Cooks!

My most memorable food related thing I said as a child was simple...I had gotten a play kitchen for Christmas when I was around 5 years old, and I loved playing with it. After a while though, I did need to ask "Mommy, how do you expect me to work with only 4 burners!"

I know I miss mine. I gave my KA to my parents because my roommate at the time had one. Since I've moved, it has been a missing part of the equation! However, I know it'll be on my wedding registry, and it may even give me a chance to find the one with the airbrushed flames like Alton Brown's!