Shamanjoe

I went to the meat counter at Whole Foods the other day and had him grind me equal parts each beef chuck and sirloin flap steak. He looked at me like I was crazy, but went ahead and ground them anyway. They made such juicy and flavourful burgers, very light in texture. One 1/2 pound burger fills you up nicely.

You can get one of those, for only $700 or so. It's called the lazy bartender, and it looks like a medusa's head. I find it laughable that anybody would get it, not to mention that 1)it pours all liquids in sequence 2)they go straight into the glass, and are "mixed" by virtue of the pour itself, and 3)it looks only to make rocks drinks, nothing shaken. I'd just skip it altogether in favour of real craftsmanship.

Nothing fancy, just a sandwich made from a loaf of Costco's roasted garlic bread with some chipotle roasted chicken breast sliced deli thin and some slices of pepperjack cheese (done up in the microwave instead of the broiler because I made it at home and took it to work, where sadly, we have no broiler).

This was a great post. The only thing I've slaughtered before was a duck, and that was an interesting experience in itself because I had no idea what I was doing (Though the duck didn't suffer, most of the ineptitude happened in the slaughtering/de-feathering stage). It's nice to see something like this, because like most Americans before the duck, I had no clue how animals got to the grocery as meat. And I love all the "finished product" pictures as well.

I had garlic-fried rice (day old rice from the rice cooker, added to fried garlic and onions and cooked, then a couple eggs added to one side of the pan and scrambled into the rice a little at a time, with a heavy dash of sea salt), pan-fried toast and a Pepsi with crushed ice. Mmm.

I have to agree with the spearmint lovers. I have a large herb garden, and have tried many different types of mint, but spearmint is the only one that seems to taste any good in a cocktail. All the others are too green, or so high in menthol that it just kills it for me. On a side note though, for a period of almost a month, anywhere I went to buy seeds only carried Peppermint! Finally I ended up finding one lone package of spearmint seeds nestled behind a large pack of peppermint. Now that I have it of course, there's an abundance of all the different varieties

Cachaca is in no way interchangeable with Pisco. Cachaca is much more robust and less refined than Pisco, not to mention that Pisco is a type of Brandy made from grapes while Cachaca is a type of Rum made from fresh sugarcane juice. As far as brands of Pisco go, Pisco Vargas is one of the best brands I've ever had from Peru. I haven't had any from Chile, but I've been told by my Peruvian friends that while Chile has some good ones, they aren't nearly as refined as Peruvian ones. Hope that helps.