Chris Cognac

We had a great dinner at El Gringo in Hermosa Beach...he is also a really nice guy, it was kinda funny though cause everyone kept looking at us!...I almost felt like a celeb!

Here is my dinner companion for this evening!...maybe you will recognize him!

The shirt is part of my "thing"...right now I have one on with Chips, Salsa, hotsauce and margarita's....there is a small company out here that has some amazing designs and i wear them for my food things... That shot of Juan and I ran in the article I wrote....We both eally dug on it, its a giant wisk...he is a pastry chef and used to make giant batches of stuff, hence the giant wisk! Now my mission is to get him on Iron Chef America as a challenger (he said he would do it)!

Chef Juan-Carlos Cruz? Calorie Commando? Man that was too easy....I was hoping to drag it out a bit! He is a super nice guy, I think we are going to be roasting a pig in my backyard at the end of summer...he builds the oven and all that from scratch....mmmmmm roasted pig!

Nope, although I am going to dinner with him tonight, gonna show him what good California mexican food is like! This guy is not a big celeb yet, but what a super nice guy, real down to earth...I will give a hint so we can make this fun. The name of his show, is kinda like the name of my newspaper column!

He might be coming on the 11th!

no, not gonna be on TV....its was just and unexpected "dinner", but fun none the less. Yea, I am "sort of" a food writer....at least I think I am at times....my avatar shows what I "really" do for a living!

Well, I was minding my own business at home working on my dinner when I got a call from an "unnamed" chef with a show on food network, whom I had written about in the past. he wanted to stop by my house and drop off some t shirts....anyway to make a long story short, he ends up staying for dinner...My wife was mortified, the kids were screaming and the whole bit...I had to call my wife out of the den to come and speak with this guy....Luckily the chef had stumbled into one of my "tapas" nights and I was ready with 7 different dishes...So we ate, I drank martini's and promtly spilled them all over myself like a full on slob and my kids squirted him with water guns (its hot out at the moment)... So, messy house, children of the corn, drunken slob host (me), but great food and a fun time with great stories on how his show got started and the inner workings of filming etc...he had a great time and so did we....But, wow what an unexpected suprise...he stayed for 2 hrs! So, you never know whats gonna happen in life, so be prepared with some great tapas!

I am still partial to " I"m the ill'est mother-f... from here to Gardena" , Gardena being the city just north of me and home to the world famous "Gardena Bowling alley coffe shop"...home fo the best aloha food in town!

I have wanted to go for years and am really thinking about it this year...but its a ling drive from L.A. and with 2 kids...I dont know, but then again I LOVE garlic so much!

I made this for dinner last night....Jack, Mozzarella and sliced sopresetta salami...with italian spices and olive oil on the outside of the bread.....man it was great!

I took my sample of "keto" low carb dough to my fav pizza place this weekend. We made 2 exact same pizza's but one with the low carb dough. It was "ok" in taste but did not "crisp" like the regular crust.I will say that it might be do to the cooking and could be "tweaked"a bit with temp and time....I am going to try more experiments with calzones,breadsticks etc using low carb dough and see how it turns out...I will take some photos too...

What about the other SJSU fav's...Snoopy's for the 99 cent breakfast and Supertaquria....on 11th or 10 st I think...man those Carne Asada quesadilla's were the bomb...and not to far from Allen Hall by skateboard either!

Sonia's Kitchen for great steak sandwichs...I went to SJSU and lived on them when I lived in the Frat house!

My wife is making "low carb" helper for dinner....we will see!

you have made the Haj...I am in awe of you sir!..What a wonderfull post..I actually had a "cheessteak" dream last night...which I find pretty scary...I need to make the Haj soon..

I love Helper...except the tuna one....nasty...I always put soem veggie and extra's into the mix...Just use the helper as a base...works great...also good with ground chicken and turkey too!

More pics...lets see what everyone looks like!

Juan Carlos Cruz aka Calorie Commando on Food Network makes a nice little pizza using the mushroom cap as a base..

I have the cannon Rebel SLR and am very pleased with it...check out these!

Just got a hold of Keto and the stuff is on the way...I will have to take photo's and have a tasting....

When I was at this years Pizza Expo (amazing if you can ever go) in Las Vegas I noticed several companies were touting "low carb" pizza dough....has anyone had some of this stuff, if so how does it taste...I wrote the Keto company and asked for a sample of the dough for a test....what are your thoughts on the subject...I think that if it works well, it would be a good seller and a nice way to cut carbs..

Dont knock it till you've tried it....Not that I have ever tried it...but hey, might work for her.

kinda funny, tthe city I work for with a population of 90,000 has no chains except for Denny's and would have killed for an Applebee's.....you can only have so many taco stands in one town!

Well,I ended up with some fat new yorks that I just added some dry steak rub too and they were awesome...I also did a shrimp skewer w onion and red peppers...covered in that costco chipotle rassberry glaze....mmmmm....plus HUGE baked russets with chedder,sourcream and butter....oh yea.....it was great...nice sunny day,good steak and cold beer in the yard....doesnt get much better than that.