Like Sushi? Me Too… Get Acquainted…
Posted by: sksoze on: 04/08/2009
- In: Food
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I love sushi.
Not in the hipster, won’t eat if it it doesn’t come with chop stick’s kind of way – you know if you’re eating sushi at a real sushi joint when the sushi chef dips the fish in his own pre-concocted mixture of wasabi and soy sauce so you don’t fuck up the raw meat he’s worked so hard to cut and give you in a way in which you’ll really appreciate just how good a natural creature-of-god fish is, and he doesn’t even know what “omakase” means if he never saw you before — but in real… this is exactly how it’s supposed to be done regardless of your expectations and tastes, kind of way.
That said, I present to you an older, but no less relevant WSJ look on exactly where some of the best sushi places get their frozen fish, in the hopes that we might source our own frozen premium fish and not act like the tuna in front of us was caught earlier that morning but in fact was caught a week ago in Maine, flash frozen, sent to and bought back from Japan before we got a chance to get our chopsticks around a room temperature piece of palate art.
I wish it was in reality like this, the fish having been breathing an hour ago — because then my sushi would be divine — but it’s not. So this puts that same fish — it being frozen — within our grasp.
Here’s the article, and some links…
“To see where sushi’s most important raw ingredient comes from, we asked 50 top sushi restaurants in 10 cities where they get their fish. Here’s a sampling of what we found. — Jessie Knadler”
I have to say, I’m glad to see I get regular visitors to the site.
I’m not sure why (I get regular visitors), but I do.
There is some sort of reaffirmation to that. That I can put something down, like this, and have it still be valued. There’s an audience for anything I suppose. Even though I think most people run into this site like a person runs into a glass door and I think they spend no more time here than one does after they rub their face and struggles to exit the room they’ve now embarrassed themselves in, I see a fairly solid number of you actually navigate the blog in a way that shows you’ve stuck it out and invested yourself. Clicking deep links & c.
I appreciate the company while I find my feet; and believe me my feet aren’t easily found.
Today as I stood alone slumped in a library in a school pretending to be but surely not a student of; studying the right way to go about things but not quite getting it amidst the cell phones, music, whatever else that inhibits the air around 18-25 year olds, I’ve felt I’ve been growing in a way which both of us will surely benefit from.
Wish me luck because if this doesn’t work out I’m fucked and you’re no better for it.
Aged Meat and I Need to Strengthen our Relationship
Posted by: sksoze on: 02/18/2009
- In: Food
- 2 Comments
One aspect of food I, and from my observation others as well, haven’t had the opportunity to indulge in half as much as I would like is charcuterie.
From www.marriam-webster.com
- Main Entry: char·cu·te·rie
- Pronunciation: \(ˌ)shär-ˌkü-tə-ˈrē\ Function: noun
- Etymology: French, literally, pork-butcher’s shop, from Middle French chaircuiterie, from chaircutier pork butcher, from chair cuite cooked meat
- Date: circa 1858
meat.”
Wattle or Waddle or Whatever… Eating Hogs in an Underground Scene…
Posted by: sksoze on: 02/09/2009
- In: Food| Writing
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I’ve always enjoyed multiple accounts of a singular event; the contrast of opinions and experiences, highlighting the collective good and bad of an idea and often doing a better job of capturing the whole rather than the half.
I came across two pieces, covering the same underground dinner, by two respectable food writers. Although these two accounts aren’t vastly different nor are they comprehensive enough to really get a feel for the event, they work well together and their of a convenient size.
They both wrote about eating at an underground supper club, where a heritage breed of Red Wattle Hog–not “Waddle” as far as I know and they’ve written–was raised and slaughtered for this very dinner.
I could continue talking of an event I didn’t attend about a food I’ve never eaten, but I don’t believe I will. With that said, here are the articles, enjoy…
A ‘Pre-Industrial Pig Dinner,’ Imported to Brooklyn - Emily Weinstein @ Bitten Blog
Where have I been? Helicopters and marinated mushrooms… Notepads and lectures… Two countries to Top it Off…
Posted by: sksoze on: 02/07/2009
All seven of you have been wondering where I’ve been.
Why have I gone longer than normal in between posts. Am I going to post a larger piece than usual because my absence is a result of focused work?
No.
I’ve been traveling across two countries, and my girlfriends now half a world away.
I’ve been studying a new language, Photoshop, and story structure as applied to both normal and fantastic articles.
If I want to make this sound better, I’ve been engaged in bilingual study and exploration, learning and applying color hypothesis in context of digital technique and theory, and deconstructing articles to the atom; from plots, to paragraphs, to sentences and words.
All of it true; I’ve also been not smoking, neglecting coffee, drinking well and playing with an RC Helicopter.
I regret nothing.
Taking a Glimpse at the Web… Food Wise and Other Wise…
Posted by: sksoze on: 01/20/2009
- In: Food
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"HE CUTS HIS WAY François Simon, a food critic in Paris, protects his identity." - Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York Times
Tired of eating chicken and turkey? Mark Bitten shows us how to roast a duck in under an hour, while Emily Weinstein walks us through the quesitonable and inevitable of learning how to store and cook mussels. Eric Aimov takes a shot at Nixon and at dinner hosts at the same time while contemplating the idea of serving guests swill while drinking better. François Simon, the sometimes hard to swallow Paris food critic, cooks to get critiqued. Giles Coren in California and AA Gill puts us in our place with another worthy read of a review. Gourmet has a short piece on our now president Obama’s chef in the White House. The Well Fed Network is taking votes for the 2008 Food Blog Awards and Bush has imposed a 300 percent increase of tariffs for France’s Roquefort cheese.
Pride and Poop
Posted by: sksoze on: 01/20/2009
Here is a copy of an e-mail I sent back in November that I think is relevant to today’s inauguration.
Barack Obama… My Dogs Not the Sharpest… A Day Outside Turned Lovely… Shit…
Yesterday afternoon, the weather outside was so perfect that I tore myself away from the room I go hermit in, and forced myself to rake leaves just to enjoy the fresh, fall air.
Normally in early November, Connecticut weather is gloomy and cold. It becomes uninteresting, wet and unfriendly. But yesterday… yesterday there was something different.
Birds were in the bare trees around me singing as I gathered huge piles of amber, brown and yellow leaves, under which lay long, rich and full neon green grass, and the air was so warm and fresh with sunshine, every breath was an exercise in righteousness.
This is strange I thought to myself, it’s nice but it’s strange. What had happened here? The few days of disgusting and impersonal weather had eerily receded to what could now only be described as a Disney movie. Could it be global warming? Probably so, but if that’s the case than Al Gore has a tough hill to climb trying to convince me it’s not for the better. Golden leaves dropped softly around me as a warm air gently caressed my cheek as if mother nature herself was leaning in to give me a kiss.
Gorgeous, I thought, but why?
After a long thoughtful pause, I considered that the 15 glasses of shady green tea I drank and had bought at China Town in Montreal the month before might not be green tea at all, but some form of new highly developed and genetically altered marijuana. If that’s the case, I might be headed for a major freak out.
The irony in that! Such a glorious day gifted to me by the green Gods of nature, and taken in one fell swoop by the same hand that giveth not less than two hours before.
As I waited, I concentrated on my work, trying to decide what the hell was actually happening. Was it indeed a nice day? Yes, yes that much I could tell. Were birds really singing in the trees? Well I could hear them, but as I squinted into the naked branches I saw nothing. Plausible I thought. Was the grass really green and soft? Was I outside raking? Was this even my own yard?
All of it seemed to check out after close inspection. So the only thing that I could think of that might have contributed to all of this, was Obama getting elected the night before. The youth of the United States, my generation thought mostly as no more useful than the mud inside a car rim, had actually taken the power back from the old generation. A generation that had fouled things up so much, that us twenty-some-odd-year-olds took to the street, after saving our video games and finishing our beers, and made an impact.
A power structure that has held dominant control over the government, had the power taken forcefully away from them by a bunch of slackers, and put into the hands of the person we think represents progressive politics. It was like having to take the car keys away from your grandfather.
“Thanks grandpa, but I have to take these away from you now, we just don’t trust you behind the wheel anymore, we don’t want you to… hurt yourself or others, understand? You had a good run old man, but now it’s time to rest.”
All of this unfolding, and probably Obama’s charisma, has turned my neighborhood into Disneyland. I knew the guy was good, but I didn’t know he was this good.
So to celebrate I decided that I would put down the rake, pick up my dog, and throw her into the leaves… gently. We ran around the yard wrestling, and I tricked her 25 pound wiry frame into jumping full force rat face first into a pile of leaves at least 15 times bigger than her merely by holding a stick in front of it.
Obama may have been able to change the weather, but not even he’d be able to make my dog smart.
As she disappeared into this huge pile of brown fluffy leaves with a puff, she dimpled the face of the pile in a way that immediately turned this huge pile of leaves into an abstract Jabba the Hut. A big wide grinning mouth where the dog had recklessly penetrated like a crazed black and brown missile. The pile was so big compared to her that as she tried to jump out of it, she didn’t even come close, and the pile just jiggled and shook and smiled at me, until she violently burst out of his ear blowing his insides all over the lawn.
That was disgusting, I really better have another look at that green tea I thought to myself.
We frolicked and played and it was lovely for a long time until I stepped in shit.
It was bound to happen. It was a mine field out there, and that is the harsh reality of this wonderland. It seemed so perfect, so right, and so squishy and slippery under my foot.
Obama will eventually step in shit as well. We all will. He may have the power to make the birds fly north for a day to be my personal choir while I rake, or clear the clouds away for the warm and smiling sun, but he didn’t have the power to keep me from stepping in shit. We don’t have that power either.
So it wasn’t perfect, it’s never going to be, but it was a lot better than the day before when it was chilly and cold and wet.
I didn’t have to stay inside, it felt good to go out. For the first time since I can remember, I felt proud to be an American, glad to be out.
The Decanted… Me and Jeans… No One Lost a Hand… A Nice Night Out
Posted by: sksoze on: 01/19/2009
- In: Travel| Writing
- 2 Comments
Photo taken by Elida @ http://elidaphotography.com
The room half-heartedly laughed as the sommelier struggled to open a bottle of Moët & Chandon Brut Impérial Rosé by chopping at it with large knife. He was using a technique called “sabrage,” and it was a celebratory way of opening a champagne bottle, originating somewhere in the ranks of Napoleon’s cavalry, or so I’ve heard.
I vaguely remembered seeing it being done before but I clearly recalled it taking less than 2,000 attempts. As he struggled, I wondered if the pressure had gotten to him. He stood on a stage in front of a room full of, what appeared to be, older sophisticates and socialites. His hands looked somewhat shaky and unstable from the numerous failed attempts and possibly even the champagne we had been drinking. As he uncomfortably hacked away at the pressurized glass container with a very large and increasingly inaccurate blade I imagined the possible outcomes.
The sommelier focusing no further than the bottle, the glass refusing to give in and lose this battle of will; he determined to win by any means, hacking at it with increasing force until finally lopping the top off and sending someone home minus an eye. Perhaps the bottle might have been shaken one too many times resulting in it exploding like a hand grenade, turning the front of the room into a bunch of well dressed casualties. Or maybe he’s so desperate to make the trick work for us that he loses focus for one second and chops off his own hand instead.
I sipped my champagne. What a horrible way to celebrate I thought.
Photo taken by Elida @ http://elidaphotography.com
We were on our third bottle at the “Decanted Series,” a champagne tasting in Montreal. Normally this isn’t my scene, but a friend invited my girlfriend and me to celebrate a birthday and it was the night before New Years. Besides, I had never been to a tasting of anything before. Well, that’s not entirely true. Depending on how you look at it, this was my third.
The previous two tastings I had been to were an olive oil and a cheese tasting. It occurred at the Jean-Talon market. As I was walking through, I passed a station where different olive oils were being offered on small pieces of bread, and next to this, another tasting to show off the local artisanal cheeses of the region. As I was leaving, I helped myself to both and made a tiny cheese sandwich for the road.
So there I was at my third tasting, seated in a room full of people purposely not wearing blue jeans, painfully conscious of the ones I had on, thinking I could get away without the tucked shirt, but the jeans, well, those just made me look like a cretin.
I had thought the place was fancy because it had a coat check, and then people arrived in full suits. When I was waiting to give them my snowboarding jacket, I almost turned around and walked out when two women in front of me took off their large coats revealing their ballroom-like-gowns and replaced their shoes with stilettos before entering.
I felt out of place and terribly under dressed. Wearing salt stained sneakers, I imagined how I must look to them, some simple creature with head cocked back and to the side, breathing heavy through an open mouth littering my chest with drool, not sharp enough to realize the implications of my appearance, aggressively assaulting the eyes of everyone with the decency to dress well when going out. It was a champagne tasting genius, I thought, not beer. I should have known.
We sat at a table with six others. Two people I knew, who introduced me to the four I didn’t. They were all extremely nice and outgoing, taking me about 15 minutes to shake that “new guy nobody knows” feeling. Good people.
No sooner did we finish the introductions when the host of the evening took the stage of the 1930’s style Cabaret Lion D’Or. Like most of the public events I have attended in Montreal, he split the speech between French and English equally, as he detailed the rest of the evening.
Photo taken by Elida @ http://elidaphotography.com
We were to try three different champagnes; Ruinart Brut, Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Brut and Moët & Chandon Brut Impérial Rosé, all from the champagne region of France and according to the event folder on the table, all in the $70 range. The sommelier for the evening, Guénaël Revel, would explain to us what it was we were drinking; the history, production, and subtleties in flavor so they can fully appreciate the champagne and I can go home and pretend I know what I’m talking about.
“Oh, no, no, you savage,” I imagined myself saying to the family at holiday dinners, “you don’t open it like that. Give it to me. Does anyone have a sword on hand, maybe a saber? I’ll show you how to open and appreciate a good bottle of champagne because I know one when I see one, that’s for sure.”
My family very impressed and my father saying “You’re holding a bottle of Pepsi.”
The host had taken a poll to see who didn’t understand French. A few of us Anglophones raised our hands making it clear there were enough people in attendance to warrant an English presentation as well as a French one. Regardless, the only English he spoke the whole night was “Sorry, my English isn’t so good but I’ll try to remember to speak it.”
Under other circumstances I might have been upset–I know my champagnes as well as I know my sodas—but there was too much to see and do to be bothered by it all.
When it came time to open our bottles, we were encouraged to aim the corks far and high, shooting them into the walls or ceiling. Some corks came down gently, or not at all as they landed in the lights over head, while others were sent on terrifying head-level trajectories. I watched, waiting to see if someone was going to go home with a black eye, knowing somewhere in the back of my mind it could very well be me.
To my right sat a man who looked awkwardly like Antonio Banderas in Desperado, young and Spanish with long wavy brown hair, wearing a white pirate dress shirt unbuttoned at the top and cuffs open, a large soul patch on his chin and a probable owner of sleek cigarette yacht he frequently made high speed oceanic escapes in.
He had the air of a Bond villain; they all did. The old, the young, both male and female alike; they all looked as if they were attending an international underground gathering of connected politicians and super villains.
Then again, I drank three Coors Light—quickly–before we arrived at the event, so I don’t know if I had a flawed and narrow perspective from the start, but I do know I didn’t fly home in a private helicopter that night and retire to a secluded lair on some tiny island, and I suspect I was one of the few who hadn’t.
A Jazz band played later in the evening. Despite actually enjoying the music in some awkward and limited capacity, Jazz and I never really got along. I want to like it, and in public I pretend to, but I guess just haven’t taken the time needed to appreciate it. To me, it always sounded like a drunken argument between a piano and a saxophone in the back of a dive bar. However, that night, it all seemed to sound good and fit very well; so well that I actually wrote “good vibes feeling warm” in my notepad twice, completely and drunkenly independent of each other.
The bassist for the Jazz band was making the most brain sick and distorted faces I have ever seen in a musician—and that’s saying a lot–as he lost himself in the music. So irrationally passionate and intense were these expressions that I recorded seven minutes of just his face on my camera as he played.
There was something really enjoyable about it all, the art deco style of the cabaret, looking like an old gangster shoot out might happen at any moment, the engaging and intelligent conversation happening all around me, meeting new people and drinking champagne, it was all very nice and definitely something to be celebrated.
All of it was absolutely worthy of trying to chop the top of the last bottle of champagne off with a large knife to put an exclamation point on the night. Finally, he struck the bottle lopping the top off, making a clean cut, spilling champagne all over the stage while the audience cheered, along with me, who was happy to be there, and to see everyone go home with both their hands.
Automated Strawberry and Spice Growbox
Posted by: sksoze on: 01/19/2009
The CheapVegetableGardner has constructed an automated growbox to grow strawberries in his garage over the course of the winter. Blog post detailing how someone builds an automated box to grow strawberries in their garage over the winter time using a custom built computer and light bulbs for heat,a Playstation controller to monitor the temperature, and an automatic moisture sensor to automatically active a water pump to maintain appropriate levels of moisture for growing is worth a look.
Read more about it here : www.CheapVegetableGardener.com
Who Doesn’t Like Robots and Radishes? A Japanese “Powersuit” So You Know This is Going to Be Good
Posted by: sksoze on: 01/17/2009
- In: Food| Technology
- 1 Comment
A Japanese student demos the power suit while picking radishes.
We already know I like food and traveling, but lesser known is my love for technology. Damn near anything that combines tinkering, electricity and design to any degree gets my attention, like this DIY IKEA Wi-Fi Booster, anything at BotJunkie, the NYC Resistor Blog, and even Adam Savage’s regularly updated Twitpic page.
With that said I felt it apt to share with you Japan’s new farmer exoskeleton. It weighs around 55 pounds, is expected to cost in between $5,000 and $10,000 in two to three years and it’s designed to help the support the joints of farmers who hand pick.
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