November 29, 2005
In which I wants nae skinking ware
No haggis-based cocktail yet exists (horrors!), but apparently haggis season (as legitimate a holiday as any, I suppose. Any reason to have a pint!) is nigh. Th' other sort of haggis I have actually celebrated once or twice. I also celebrate the wikipedia. While some people cheerfully get away with hunting down platypus-like Highlands creatures, and others skedaddle with boiled sheep's heart, lungs, and liver stuffed into a scoured-out stommick, others are pulling stunts closer to home: If I did this [Lengthy quicktime download], I'd get in trouble. How did the filmmakers clean up afterwards?... Read more
November 17, 2005
In which it is hard to stick to principles
After yesterday's debacle, during which I consumed approx. one-half bottle, Advil, between the hours of 7 ack emma and 7 pip emma, only to belatedly realise that I had not had *any* coffee, I grimly broke my one-cuppa rule and had back-to-back double espressos at the counter of Blue Bottle Coffee in Hayes Valley. For the second cup Mr Travis Crawford joined me, and told the amusing story of how he had once ordered a cup of coffee, wandered over to the nearby expressway Hayes Green, and then realised, "Wait! I didn't pay for this" because he is so accustomed to procuring fine espresso drinks at our office, where they flow plentifully and without denting the wallet. The Blue Bottle Coffee Blog is quite amusing, and well-illustrated with yummuy photos of coffee, crema, and all things foodish. Today the barista, raffish as ever, was grinding beans from five days ago, well outside their proudly-stated goal of only using 48-hour old beans at oldest, but, hell. Yesterday evening I used beans that have been sitting in our 'fridge for nigh upon a fortnight.... Read more
October 14, 2005
In which I am under the volcano of flowers
This morning I waited, inadvertently, until almost 9.30 to have my cup of coffee -- one per day has been my motto since resuming full-time work (wow, almost three years ago now); every now and again (34 times so far this year, according to my records, I find that I have a cuppa in the morning and then another in the afternoon, but on the whole the extent of the coffee is a double espresso early in the ack emma. Today's cup was delicious: twenty-two seconds, the legendary time for a double-shot, and with a nice thick crema. (more great coffee photos and articles at Coffee Geek). The Fire Show's riveting and too-smart "Under The Volcano of Flowers" album goes very well with espresso, I find.... Read more
October 06, 2005
In which we drink the lemonade
Alleluia, La Moone has returned! After the restaurant closed in March, they have hosted a series of small dinners at other local restaurants, and now they return with catering menus for special events. Yum. Any time I eat La Moone food is a special event.... Read more
October 04, 2005
In which I pine for blueberries
Last night marked the return of Jen (and Max, although he was off at band practise), which we celebrated by hearing stories of the blueberry-laden hike through the Olympics, the pig roast and barn party in Ohio, and hiking in the shadows of grizzlies at Yellowstone. Jen said that she did not much care for blueberries before this recent hike! to which I thought, heavens, more for me. I have been putting back a pint almost daily since I discovered how luscious and sweet these berries are.... Read more
September 15, 2005
In which the logalyser makes a brief appearance
After some especially delicious pâte, I remembered that I needed to sort out the good ol' logalyser (some might call it a 'food blog'). The code is crufty beyond belief -- it dates about six years! -- and currently is only un-broken for the current week's menu. The pâte was outstanding. UPDATE: Oh, yes: for some reason it does'n't work on Safari, but does on Firefox. And the pâte was outstanding.... Read more
July 13, 2005
In which I'm really too exhausted
I nodded off in front of the computer screen this evening: quite some time has passed since that happened. I am not quite sure why, but this week felt draining even on Monday. I missed the regular (-ish) wings night that jimg and I usually enjoy, although Monday night's dinner (Ethiopian) was quite tasty and with excellent company. I have no tbeen spending much time on the bicycle, nor have I enjoyed much opportunity to read. Excelsior, and enough of complaining.... Read more
July 10, 2005
In which I write in praise of Mitchell's Ice Cream
Mitchell's ice-creams delight. I love creamy, rich ice creams, and this venerable San Francisco shop at San Jose and 29th (do'n't forget to take a number as you walk in the door, or you wo'n't get a cone!) never fails to satisfy my ice-cream craving. Now that Greg is gone from Rick's Rather Rich Ice Cream, the best bay-area ice cream is a toss-up: sometimes I am happy to head over the bridge to Piedmont's bustling (and renovated) Fenton's; I am always happy to visit Mitchell's. Five years ago, the San Francisco Chronicle's Scott Ostler decided to write about one interesting tit-bit of San Francisco each week over the course of a year, finding the one story for his weekly column in each of the city's forty-nine square miles. A good conceit, but it never came to fruition. His piece about Mitchell's omits my favourite aspect of the place: that you can have absolutely any cone dipped in chocolate. Yum.... Read more
July 07, 2005
In which the promise of pizza overwhelms me
Although I have become old and crotchety about donuts, I still succumb to the promise of pizza. Something sublime in that scent of melting cheese and toasted bread. Still, in the six months so far this year I have eaten pizza (whole or a slice) on two dozen occasions. Notably, however, on my most recent trip to New York City I had not a single slice. Ditto Chicago.... Read more
June 29, 2005
In which I am a pain in the arse, Or, piffle
Think about everything I eat, and consider its origin. eat nothing from a plastic bag eat nothing containing corn syrup, high [-] fructose corn syrup eat nothing from GMO fruit, grain, or meat eat no meat that is not organic eat greens every day eat no fish caught by a net... Read more
May 31, 2005
Doughnuts for dog-faces
June 3rd is Donut Day. Not merely some advertising exec's dream to drum up business, this tradition has its roots in The Salvation Army. Donut Day was established in 1938 as a means to raise much-needed operating funds for The Salvation Army, and also as a tribute to Army 'lassies' who made and served donuts to thousands of soldiers during World War I. While the spelling of doughnut has shortened to "donut" over the years, the popular donut has been the trademark of The Salvation Army ever since WWI. While Donut Day was observed fairly extensively, especially following WWII, by The Salvation Army throughout the United States, the Army in Chicago has the longest continous and most successful tradition.... Read more
May 30, 2005
Ashes to ashes
The left-overs from today's double order of wings went into the silky compost bag endorsed by the Biodegradeable Products Institute for use in the San Francisco residential composting program. The bags degrade quickly, and contain no plastic, but rather bio-polymers made from sustainably-farmed agriculture.... Read more
May 24, 2005
Useful in treating sewage and for roasting nuts.
Another victim of California's voter-driven legislation: warning labels on foodstuffs that contain acrylamide. According to the FDA testing, arrowroot cookies have high levels of acrylamide. ... so do potato chips, butter crackers, and french-fried potatoes.... Read more
May 22, 2005
What part of a horse is that, anyway?
A day-old baguette and a soft cheese constitute my dinner. The cheese container had a label in French, German, and Dutch, but I couldn't make out the flavour from any of those (and am not quite sure why I bought it, other than the illustration on the sticker looked appealing). Now I know that raifort means* 'horseradish' and that is a very odd thing to put into a soft cheese. I do, however, fondly recall a horseradish cheddar I ate a few years ago. From Wikipedia: It has been speculated that the word is a partial translation of its German name Meerrettich. The element Meer (meaning 'ocean, sea') is pronounced like the English word mare, which might have been reinterpreted as horseradish. On the other hand, many English plant names have "horse" as an element denoting strong or coarse, so the etymology of the English word (which is attested in print from at least 1597) is uncertain. *(Oddly, Google could translate from the French into the German, and from the French into English, but not from German into English.)... Read more
May 14, 2005
What is wrong with schmetterling?
In my quest for the delicious warm croissant with ham, gruyere, and butter -- mustn't forget the butter! -- I have discovered Kerry Gold, a magnificent and sweet Irish butter. The German expression alles ist in Butter ("Everything is in butter"): everything is in order. It is based on the fact that in the Middle ages, fragile articles were transported using butter as we use thermocol today. For this for example tableware was inserted into warm liquid butter. The butter solidified itself as it cooled down and so protected the fragile goods. At the destination, the butter was again liquefied and poured off. The English word "butterfly" has its origins in the medieval superstition that witches transform into butterflies in order to steal farmers' cream or butter.... Read more
May 11, 2005
Frosty insults
Last week I discovered that the local Ben & Jerry's ice-cream parlour closed, but my pain pales compared to that of the boy who got punched-out by a Pittsburgh ice-cream vendor. Not only does this boy have the label "pudgy-faced" forever attached, but he's suffered nightmares about push-carts and frosty treats ever since the incident last May. A Good Humor man was served 18 months' probation Tuesday for losing his cool with a foul-mouthed teenager. Nazzareno Didiano, 44, stopped dishing out peanut butter bars and Blue Bunnies last May 12 and began pummeling a pudgy-faced Bloomfield teen during a meltdown. The teen, now 14, told Allegheny County Judge John A. Zottola during a brief trial that Didiano grabbed him by the arm, yanked him from his bike, punched him in the face and slammed him into a wall. The attack came after the boy berated and cursed Didiano over the cost of his cones. "I wanted to tell him I didn't appreciate being talked to like that," said Didiano, who denied punching the boy. Zottola ruled he did not believe Didiano and convicted him of simple assault. In addition to the probation, Didiano must take anger management classes and reimburse the teenager $20 for damage to his bike. The teen giggled as Didiano recounted the obscenities directed at him. Didiano, who worked for Paul's Ice Cream Co., served up his own frosty insults. "I told him he didn't need any ice cream anyway because he's fat," said Didiano. The teen, about 5-foot-5 and 140 pounds, responded by calling Didiano a "bald (expletive) ripoff." Didiano later attacked when he found the boy sitting on a bike two blocks away. Assistant District Attorney Dan Regan presented photographs of a red-faced victim with a cut inside of his mouth. "He instigated the whole thing," said Didiano, who is looking for a new job. The teen's mother said she's satisfied with the verdict, but complained that her son is now self-conscious about his weight. "This has been a nightmare," she said. As for the closer-to-home cold an' creamy: the Castro St. Ben & Jerry's was run as a non-profit by Juma Ventures, but nary a word appears on their web site, nor on Ben & Jerry's. Alas! for their other shop, on Haight St., lacks atmosphere and outdoor seating. Phooey on Haight-Ashbury.... Read more
May 04, 2005
It is not easy (eating out-of-doors)
Patricia Unterman, proprietor of the stalwart Hayes Street Grill (which was known before "Hayes Valley" was happening), author of the Bay Area dining-out Bible, San Francisco food critic-about-town, has written up a half-dozen of her "choice spots for outdoor dining". She tips her hat to Zuni, B-44 of Belden Place, and to Fourth Street in Berkeley (maddening difficult to get to, at least from San Francisco) -- but does not ask the question: Why is outdoor dining so difficult to find in San Francisco? I have long kept a small, secret list of "places to sit outside and have someone bring me food" -- I prefer table service to the Squat-and-Gobble cafeteria-style setup. For as vibrant and verdant a city as San Francisco, we have precious few outdoor rest.s. A dearth of sidewalk space, congested main roads, and odd zoning (a separate license is required to serve alcohol outside!) all contribute to a decided indoors eating experience in San Francisco. Oh, and the weather: tempestuous and mercurial, from one day to the next one doesn't know which way the wind will blow. I have eaten at Zuni's sidewalk patio, and it's disgusting: buses and cars slowly driving past, belching fumes; a bicycle lane a few feet away from my plate of food; and mendicants seeking a sip of my drink. Not the most conducive atmosphere to digestion. On the other hand, a plate of ribs in the beergarden at Zeitgeist , neatly set back from the road (even as the new Central Freeway passes above), is a pleasure. But it's not sit-down dining. Even Belden Place, with its assortment of Iberian and Gallic cuisine, becomes chill and dank in the evening; during the day, it's a alley for deliveries.... Read more
May 03, 2005
From what tree came this fruit?
An iconic portion of my diet, the doughnut, is again getting a bad rap. With the Food and Drug Administration's recent update to the "food pyramid", the slothful among us are encouraged to eat more fruit and veg, and more of the whole grain, rather than refined. I wasn't especially pleased when Cookie Monster, of childhood staple Sesame Street, changed his tune (literally) and suggested that his namesake is a "sometimes" food.... Read more
April 22, 2005
In which I get old and crotchety
For perhaps the first time in my long, happy life, I stared down a box of donuts today. Usu. I look longingly on the deep-fried and glazed, but today the pink carton (why are pastry boxes always always pink?) held no appeal. This may be a long-term effect of my anti-corn-syrup stance. I'm still working on anti-soy-lecithin, but, thanks to David Kessler, we know what's what in foods. I recently started a "no-food-from-a-bag" policy, so I'm not eating crisps or pretty much anything processed. It's okay if I put the food in a bag myself: salad stuff, for example, or almonds. Or thin slices (lonchas) of dry-cured ham from the butcher on the corner. I do have high esteem for Sammy's donuts, who advertise their ingredients and methods. And keep a tidy, pretty corner shop.... Read more
April 12, 2005
A wing and a prayer
jimg and I have a newfound ritual: Burgermeister wings each Monday (half-price!). Although on occasion we are stymied: we arrive too late, and others have devoured all the wings. This time we were momentarily adrift, and walking south'ards across Market, when we decided to jump in a cab and head to Giordano Bros., where we enjoyed Pittsburgh-style sammiches and reminisced with proprietor Jeff about all the greasy-spoons and bars we knew in Da Burgh: Chiefs, Silky's, Denny's (jimg's favourite), Mitchell's, and the late, much-lamented Chiodo's.... Read more
April 11, 2005
Blanxart xocolata negra
Liz sent a bar of the most delicious chocolate from the city that makes the most fantastic chocolates. A bar of Blanxart xocolata negra came in the post, and I carried it with me everywhere. At the café, the man sitting at the adjacent table asked if the beautiful wrapper was letterpress; I don't know, but it certainly has that look. Yum. And yum.... Read more
March 26, 2005
In which I found outstanding donuts
Sammy's Donuts has amazing, light and fluffy rasied donuts. A previously-impossible combination of Chinese food and donuts (ubiquitous in San Francisco's Nob Hill, especially this unnerving stretch of Hyde St.), Sammy's sells delicious donuts. 70¢ in a light and clean corner shop at 6th Avenue and 12th. The coffee actually accompanies the donut well if served black. I wish I'd eaten more than one (chocolate raised), but earlier in the day a flirtatious pushcart vendor had foisted several cake donuts on us.... Read more
March 24, 2005
A trip to Little Star
Well, the wings were not deep-fried, but dinner at Little Star was nonetheless outstanding. After all, we were there for the pie. After weeks of anticipation, I waded into both the Chicago-style deep-dish and the New York-style thin: each was yummuy, with really good crust. And the wings? Although baked, they were hot and spicy, just not dripping with Durkee's and butter. I think I'll stick to Burger Meister for their wings, quite probably the best in town. The atmosphere at Little Star was overwhelmingly cool: a mix of retro-80s pop and current hipster tunes on their jukebox, four great beers (including Racer 5 on tap a nd obligatory PBR in $1 cans), and found-object art on the walls.... Read more
March 19, 2005
Of doughnuts and the Red Cross
Ethnic Fried Food Around the World, their history and variety. Hurrah! American Red Cross personnel followed the invasion forces in Europe and the Pacific. Clubmobile Service operated in the European Theater of Operations. Its courageous members often carried coffee and doughnuts to soldiers for many miles over roads too rough for regular travel. Doughnuts became closely associated with the American Red Cross: the organization purchased enough flour between l939 and l946 to make 1.6 billion of them. Red Cross women served doughnuts at the rate of 400 per minute during the years l944-46.... Read more
February 26, 2005
How many pounds in a gallon?
Big Bubba, a 22-pound lobster, made his sensational appearance at Wholey's. Whoah. Pinchy, the lobster on the right, is a normal dinner-sized turf part of a night out. Each of Bubba's claws is about the size of a whole eatin'-sized lobster. UPDATE: Turns out that Wholey's are looking for $500 to take this centarian arthropod home. Horrors!... Read more
February 13, 2005
A seemingly healthy alternative to butter
"You can flash-fry a beefalo in 40 seconds!" (sic). A front-page story in this morning's New York Times discusses the importance of avoiding trans-fatty acids in everything (and I thought it was just a hip song by Lamb). McDonald's, amongst other chains (shudder), do not want to invest in the slightly healthier fats, which would cost it some several millions more annually. What's wrong with charging more for fast food? Perhaps paying more for the commodity will encourage people to think even slightly carefully about what they're stuffing down their gullets. Avoiding packaged and processed foods should keep you mostly clear of the pernicious fat. I wonder if bakeries such as Arizmendi and Citizen Cake (warning: irritating all-flash web site) use partially-hydrogenated fats or what in their ever-so-delicious pastries. I don't care as much about Tartine because both their pastries and their web-site are second rate.... Read more
February 04, 2005
Do you have any dry ice?
After some wrassling with the shipping agents, I received a huge package of Graeter's ice cream this morning. I did some significant damage to several of the pints, which probably ruined my dinner. Hurrah!... Read more
January 29, 2005
Regular is as regular does
I spent a lot of time during high school at the formica tables and long counter of a certain Dunkin Donuts . One of the more fascinating minutiae of the operation was the mechanism used to make regular coffee: somehow, in the few seconds between dispensing the drip coffee into a styrofoam cup (or massive plastic mug) and passing it across the counter to me, the person working the counter would swing it under a cream dispenser and a sugar-adder. For me, regular coffee means different things. If I'm in the 212, it's a Greek paper cup with the legend "We Are Happy to Serve You", two sugars and a half-inch of cream. Invert once or twice, with finger covering the steam vent, and it's delicious. In the 415, regular is a small mug of espresso with a little hot water on top. The donut shop itself was a treat: open 24 hours, far enough away from home that I needed to drive (and once locked myself out of the car while parked there, middle of the night, my parents out of town). The clientele were esoteric in an urban way, despite the suburban location: Manny, the card-trickster and math genius (who later showed up at the late lamented Greenhouse in Shadyside); Bob, the sometime employee and occasional lunatic; others may come to mind, eventually ...... Read more
January 19, 2005
Dancing with the goat
Alleluia, I drank coffee today. After five days (!!) of not, not because I didn't want to (boy oh boy did I), but because my stommick hurt too damn much to permit it. And it tasted good. The early-morning shift at the café made a nice watery espresso ("americano", everyone pointed out) for me, and it went down wonderfully.... Read more
January 15, 2005
... a cup each of mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, relish
... nobody had finished the big burger in the three-hour time limit since it was introduced on Super Bowl Sunday 1998 - not even competitive eater Eric "Badlands" Booker. The 420-pound Booker - who has eaten such things as 49 glazed doughnuts in eight minutes and two pounds of chocolate bars in six minutes - tried three times to eat the burger and finally did on his third effort. But it took Booker 7 1/2 hours. The burger takes 45 minutes to cook, and those who try to meet the three-hour limit must use no utensils and eat all of these fixins: one large onion, two whole tomatoes, one half head of lettuce, 1 1/4 pounds of cheese, top and bottom buns, and a cup each of mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, relish, banana peppers and some pickles. I thought I had written about this earlier, because the pub's web site had a great photo of the now-vanquished burger. But a cursory examination of the archives turned up nothing.... Read more
January 08, 2005
December 21, 2004
peppered spiders
Spider mustard, , is my new favourite salad green.... Read more
December 16, 2004
No mayo? Then it's health food.
Now, if the world weren't already small enough already, a sandwich shop in North Beach sells "Pittsburgh-style" sammiches. I found this out because I sat on the bus next to a woman who said, "hey, I met someone who knows you. A white guy. From Ohio, maybe. Did you grow up in Ohio?" After we nailed down the Pittsburgh part, we puzzled it out as she added more clues. And then the sandwiches came up. Hot damn!... Read more
Literally.
The New York Times ran a tidy little article on deep-frying, replete with recipies.... Read more
December 14, 2004
Where wheat begins and where wheat ends
Deborah Koons Garcia screened her documentary, The Future of Food over a meal yesterday evening; she's been showing it around the country -- and the world! -- to political activist groups, food-action collectives, and at the Castro Theatre, as a benefit for Slow Food. (The lovely and many-talented Sara Maamouri narrates, produces, and did much of the video research for the film. Andy mentioned that a Native American group would once consider all of their decisions unto the seventh generation. Deborah said that the US Congress recenlty passed, by virtue of a quiet rider attached to another bill, legislation subjugating Iraq to US patent law. Having destroyed their crops (isn't the Fertile Crescent where homo sapiens first cultivated wheat?), we will now destroy their nutrition.... Read more
December 07, 2004
Pizza (for your) pocket
Slice (which touts itself as "America's Favorite Pizza Weblog!") is available for your iPod. Characteristics of a good slice: available within 3 minutes available as close to 24-hours-a-day as possible within a five-minute walk of where you happen to be (home, bar, school) pepperoni foldable... Read more
September 20, 2004
Can't touch this (yo)
Foods you cannot eat because the US goverment doesn't permit it. This include jamón iberico. Dammit. I'm going to Barcelona.... Read more
August 14, 2004
... from the palace of Sennacherib to the markets of San Francisco
An article on dates in Yemen and Coachella features a familiar local face.... Read more
August 04, 2004
Everything is better with Bacon
While reading online about our friend Eadweard, I found that he had inspired Francis Bacon. I dug out my unread copy of "Anatomy of an Enigma" and got a few pages in to it, but did sneak a look at all of the pictures. The San Francisco Bay Guardian ran a story on Oaktown doughnuts, which omits the fine counter full o' fried offerings at Ozzie's, properly in Elmwood as well as the phenomenal Kingpin in Berkeley. But without straying from the Oakland theme, the author could have found a few ethnic varieties of fried dough. And didn't. My turn!... Read more
July 23, 2004
Have your cake and drink it, too
Krispy Kreme take their donut to the next level. Thanks to Ozé for pointing this out.... Read more
June 10, 2004
Clock-watching
BROOKLYN, N.Y. (Wireless Flash) -- The official organization that organizes food eating contests will unveil a wall of big eaters later today (Jun. 10) on Coney Island in New York. The 50-foot by 70-foot Hot Dog Eating Wall of Fame will showcase heavy hitters Mike "the Scholar" DeVito, Ed "the Animal" Krachie, Takeru Kobayashi, Krazy Kevin Lipsitz and Hungry Charles Hardy, who are all winners of the International Hot Dog Eating Contest which takes place every July 4. The wall will also include a clock which will count down the days, hours and minutes until the next hot dog eating contest. International Federation of Competitive Eaters President Rich Shea says, "The Football Hall of Fame is in Canton, Ohio, and the Basketball Hall of Fame is in Springfield, Mass. I have never heard of a Super Bowl being played in Canton or a Championship Series being played in Springfield." But the new wall will sit on the location where the Hot Dog Eating Championship takes place. He calls the new wall, "The Mount Rushmore of competitive eating."... Read more
June 07, 2004
A deep-fried love affair
I had a burger and fried pickles for lunch today. Typically a southern specialty, I've previously enjoyed them at State Fairs. Elvis came across these in pickles at roadhouses outside Memphis; fried pickles are the perfect accompaniment to beer. They are believed to have been invented at the Hollywood, a roadhouse originally in Hollywood, Mississippi.... Read more
May 10, 2004
Everything comes together this summer
The San Francisco Chronicle issued a warning about "licker" shock: the rising price of ice cream. Blame it on bad timing. A combination of political unrest and natural disasters overseas, and fluctuations in the dairy industry in this country has left ice cream manufacturers grappling with higher prices for key ingredients including milk, vanilla and cocoa. For instance, a pint of Ben-and-Jerry's is going to cost eight percent more. And a multipack of Klondike bars will cost about ten cents more. Massachusetts-based Friendly's ice cream chain cut its half-gallon tub from 64 ounces to 56 ounces earlier this year ... and it just increased its retail prices by five percent.... Read more
May 03, 2004
March 19, 2004
Pulpo fiction.
Anar's "landlady", thrilled to hear that I enjoy the eating of the sausage, gave us a big rope of homemade chorizo. She applies the chorizo to many household tasks, including greasing the pan for pancakes. From a row of Turkish cafes, I supped at Gallipoli, drawn in part by the "grilled garlic sausage" item on the menu.... Read more
March 06, 2004
Pittsburgh news is always the weirdest.
David Warnes, 37, of Bethel Park, was terminated from his bagging job at the grocery chain's Village Square location for taking a doughnut off a shelf and eating it in January 2002. Last October, the U.S. Department of Labor honored the grocery chain with a New Freedom Initiative Award under a program started by President Bush for "outstanding employment practices toward people with disabilities," according to a news release.... Read more
Punctuate this burger!
Despite the unruly punctuation of Phyllis' Giant Burger, they make a fine mushroom bacon burger.... Read more
February 27, 2004
93 pounds per day.
Bestow blessings upon venerable Neldam's Danish Bakery, where 75 years of kringle-eating, cake-devouring, and cake-making all add up to a delicious community. Within a few miles each of the other, the East Bay boasts such luminaries such as Piedmont's Fenton's and Berkeley's 300-lbs-of-lard Kingpin Doughnuts. And who of the early-risers amongst us can forget Johnny's Donuts in Lafayette?... Read more
February 14, 2004
Raised to a new height.
I have long said that the only commerical enterprises lacking in this neighbourhood (The Lower Haight) are a donut shop and a bookstore. The two Eritrean women behind the counter told me that the Haight Donut Breakfast opened yesterday. Although the donuts are baked offsite (the Mission somewhere?), the several (ahem) I ate tasted fresh and warm. And delicious: none of the tired All-Star or Inga Donut action here. The Haight Donut Breakfast occupies the storefront on Haight next to The Top, once home to Botana, and is open from 7 ack emma to 10 pip emma.... Read more
January 05, 2004
Donut deception.
Subject: eats doughnuts and leaves http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/05/books/05GRAM.html Despite Best Efforts, Doughnut Makers Must Fry, Fry Again Low-Fat Version of the Treat Proves Hard to Roll Out; Mr. Ligon Lands in Hole BySHIRLEY LEUNG Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Robert Ligon, a 68-year-old health-food executive, is scheduled to begin serving 15 months in a federal prison Tuesday. His crime: willfully mislabeling doughnuts as low-fat. Exhibit A: The label on his company's "carob coated" doughnut said it had three grams of fat and 135 calories. But an analysis by the Food and Drug Administration showed that the doughnut, glazed with chocolate, contained a sinfully indulgent 18 grams of fat and 530 calories. =A0 Mr. Ligon's three-year-long nationwide doughnut caper -- which involved selling mislabeled doughnuts, cinnamon rolls and cookies to diet centers -- began to crumble when customers complained to the FDA about how tasty his products were. "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is," says Jim Dahl, assistant director of the Office of Criminal Investigation for the FDA. The skinny on low-fat doughnuts, he says: "Science can do a lot of things, but we're not quite there yet." The low-fat doughnut is the Holy Grail of the food industry. Food companies have been able to take most of the fat out of everything from cheese to Twinkies. But no one has succeeded in designing a marketable doughnut that dips below the federal low-fat threshold of three grams per serving. Doughnuts typically range from eight grams of fat for a glazed French cruller to more than double that for a cake-like doughnut. Perhaps no other bakery good is so dependent on fat. After the batter is shaped into rings and dropped into hot oil, the deep-frying process preserves the shape, gives the doughnut a crust and pushes out moisture, allowing for the absorption of fat. The fat itself is responsible for most of its flavor. A doughnut contains as much as 25% fat; the bulk of that is the oil absorbed during frying, according to the American Institute of Baking, a research and teaching outfit funded by the baking industry. The low-fat doughnut, declares Len Heflich, an industry executive at the American Bakers Association, is "not possible." That hasn't stopped almost everyone in the approximately $3 billion doughnut industry from trying. In the late 1980s, Dunkin' Donuts briefly offered a cholesterol-free doughnut that contained no eggs and no milk. It went nowhere. During the 1990s, Entenmann's Bakery offered a doughnut with 25% less fat but poor sales forced the company to shelve it. Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. has explored low-fat or low-calorie options but has yet to roll one out. Some bakeries sell "baked doughnuts" that are low in fat, but doughnut-makers say that's cheating: If it's baked, it's a cake. Scientists are also trying to put the doughnut on a diet. U.S. Patent No. 6,001,399 claims that replacing sugar with polydextrose -- a low-calorie synthetic sweetener commonly found in ice cream and frozen foods -- can reduce the doughnut's absorption of frying fats by 25% to 30%. U.S. Patent No. 4,937,086 says that injecting polyvinylpyrrolidone -- which normally keeps pills in packed form -- into the doughnut=20 batter reduces fat by 30% without a "pasty or greasy taste." In an article entitled "Development of Low Oil-Uptake Donuts" published in 2001 in the Journal of Food Science, scientists at the USDA Agricultural Research Service wrote that adding rice flour to the traditional wheat-flour-base doughnut mix lowered fat by 64%. Fred Shih, a chemist who helped author the study, says the doughnut that resulted was tasty, but he doesn't expect to see it on grocer shelves anytime soon. "It worked in a lab," he says, but "it may not be so easily converted into commercial operation." (One kink: short shelf life.) Despite its no-cholesterol-doughnut flop, Dunkin' Donuts, the nation's largest doughnut chain, continues to push ahead in the quest for a low-fat doughnut. The company's doughnut technologists have all but ruled out tinkering with its closely held, 26-ingredient batter, which contains little fat. The chain, a unit of London-based Allied Domecq PLC, has tried frying dough in a fat substitute but feared its digestive side effects would leave a bad taste. At its product laboratory in Braintree, Mass., on a recent morning, researchers in white lab coats tasted and prodded their latest prototype: a chewier-than-average doughnut that is not fried, but made on a machine that resembles a waffle maker. The result weighs in at 150 calories -- half the amount of its full-fat cousin -- and fewer than three grams of fat. Still, this doughnut fails to meet Dunkin's standards of texture, taste and something called "mouth feel." "We would love to be able to offer a great-tasting doughnut that is low-fat," says Joe Scafido, chief menu and concept officer for Allied Domecq's quick-service restaurants, "but I'm not sure we're going to get there." The criminal files on doughnut-related fraud thickened in the 1990s after new federal laws required more-detailed labeling of food. The FDA's Office of Criminal Investigation says that about a quarter of its cases involve food, most related to tampering. About 20% of those food cases are related to "misbranding" of food, such as false labels or misstated country of origin. Mr. Ligon, who is scheduled to begin his sentence Tuesday, was not the first doughnut derelict. In 2000, Vernon Patterson, president of Genesis II Foods Inc., an Illinois bakery, pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud for passing off three varieties of doughnuts as low-fat. According to federal court records, customers helped build the case against Mr. Patterson by raising questions about his suspiciously tasty low-fat treats. Mr. Patterson served one year and one day in a federal prison. The doughnut ring of Mr. Ligon, a former weight-loss-center franchisee, began in 1995, the FDA says. That's when he started a weight-loss product company, Nutrisource Inc., to sell protein shakes, nutritional bars and baked goods to diet centers. According to Rudy Hejny, the... Read more
December 31, 2003
See me upside-down.
357 gallons of water; 168 double espressos; 55 cappucinos, with all that foam; 10 caffés latte. 136 shots of bourbon; 3-plus gallons of whisk(e)y, and a daily Imperial of beer; 15 occasions on which I drank a quart* at Zeitgeist; and a sobering 22 Bloody Marys. * or several. 279 bananas (but never more than one each day); 68 snacks with brie; 128 days (!!) on which I ate pizza. Roasted chicken, potatoes (russet, Idaho, red, purple, gold, and new), tomatoes, red peppers, garlic, cashews, portabella mushrooms, eggplant, peanuts, shiitake mushrooms, veal, fennel, almonds, sunflower kernels, sunchokes, zucchini, lamb ribs, muscovy duck, shallots, clams, beef tenderloin, squash, pecans, goose. Mango hot sauce, pickle, chutney, jerky, sorbet, smoothie, guacamole, sushi roll, hot sauce, salsa, cheesecake.... Read more
December 18, 2003
Eats donuts, shoots, and leaves.
I'm predictable: Aram sent me this link, writing "The first paragraph made me think of you." There's a classic bit o' humour involved.... Read more
November 27, 2003
America's fastest-growing sport (Pun intended)
Perspective on competitive eating: The IFOCE hosts official eating contests and tracks the world's top eaters, like record-holder Oleg Zhornitskiy, who downed four 32-ounce bowls of mayonnaise in 8 minutes. This year's Thanksgiving Invitational eating contest attracted talent from all 'round the competitive eating circuit, but petite (106-lb) Sonya Thomas took home the turkey statuette after downing almost 8 pounds of turkey and trimmings in 12 minutes. Bookie money was on either the Chili Champ or the Donut Dominator. And from Sonya's profile: There is an century-old prophesy (sic)(no pun intended) within the competitive eating community, dismissed by most, that foretells the rise of the “One Eater" ... She can down a gross of chicken wings in ten minutes. Yowza. I mean, yowza. UPDATE: The Travel Channel ran a one-hour special on eating contests, told from the perspective that these were "epicurean" contests in places that would be fun to visit. Terrible.... Read more
November 15, 2003
October 19, 2003
In training for the doughnut decathalon.
Arshad drew my attention to an informal and ongoing doughnut-eating contest at our old haunt, Voodoo Doughnuts. If not an art form, Voodoo Doughnut has at least turned doughnut eating into a sport. I never realised that doughnut eating had entered the competitive arena of, say, oyster eating. People really take pride in putting back ridiculous quantities of often-terrible food; I recall the time I was cycling through Wisconsin and one of the friendly hammerheads I was riding with suggested we stop at a pub for lunch. I ended up taking a tshirt away with me from State St. Brats in Madison for having consumed the "Big-Ass Burger" in under 30 minutes (they sat me at the bar with a huge photo timer and a bunch of people watched. In admiration? In disgust?) I have since learned never to eat food requiring me to sign a disclaimer.... Read more
October 01, 2003
40 seconds? But I want it now!
I ate some deep-fried Oreos a few months ago, at Charlie Blair's Grill in Santa Clara, CA. I wandered in to the Grill looking for a burger, since everyone else wanted to get Thai food at some restaurant that a friend-of-a-friend recommended, and I just wanted a nice honest grilled piece of meat. Charlie Blair's was across the street from the shopping plaza with the third-hand Thai, and I stopped in and asked for some wings. As I was about to order the burger, I noticed a sign on the register that read "Try our deep-fried Oreos!" I asked the collegiate-looking young man behind the counter for one, and he said, "We only sell them by the half-dozen." Emboldended, I took the plunge. I walked over to the nearby house where we were meeting with our various foodstuffs -- for an outdoors screening of the Michael Caine version of The Italian Job -- and tried one out on the way. I arrived covered with powdered sugar and wearing a big smile: they were delicious. Everyone at the screening wanted a piece of the Oreos -- battered in funnel-cake mix and then briefly flash-fried. I dashed back to Charlie Blair's and ordered a dozen, but the counter quarterback said that they only had six left. I took 'em, and on the way out met Charlie Blair hisself: a 300+ pound Bostonian who could barely shift from his seat in front of the big-screen TV in order to shake my hand. There's a wire story about the deep-fried action at the Texas State Fair.... Read more
September 23, 2003
Beef: it's what's for dessert!
Wow. Deep-fried cheeseburger sticks. As a snack. For schoolchildren.... Read more
September 16, 2003
Where everyone knows your name!
Stopped in at La Mooné today for the first time in more than a month! That's a sure sigh that things are getting better. Matt made a delicious Milwaukee roll with his signature tempura flakes, and told us that he's still holding down three jobs.... Read more
September 13, 2003
Duct-tape voodoo.
Miss Mona is the name of the duct-tape artist whose art decorates the walls of Voodoo Doughnuts, a crazy little hole-in-the-wall snack-food-junkie purgatory of donut concoctions (and wedding chapel). Stoked with a pint of the best java, I picked up a pastry box with a dozen of their best (including an applesuace donut, but not an Arnold Palmer, the dough of which is made with powdered iced-tea and lemonade mixes.) Their hours, which I strongly suspect to be irregular, are 10 in the pip emma to the same in the ack emma. Wonderful! Perfect for a donuteria.... Read more
September 07, 2003
Oy, this caused a stir.
A Norwegian man has annihilated the world record for eating oysters by downing a stomach-churning 187 of the slippery molluscs in three minutes before polishing off a few pints of Guinness. Read more
September 03, 2003
Where the alphabet starts with Z.
Sitting at the Dopehouse writing code (duh) and half-watching tivo (duh!) and thinking about Sara's cooking (duh!!), and I hear the strains of Tones on Tail's "Go!". It's the backing sound for a commerical. However, since that song was also on the soundtrack to Grosse Pointe Blanke, it's not as surprising as sitting at the counter of Bob's Donuts and hearing a Nissan ad set to "Gravity Rides Everything" by Modest Fuckin Mouse. Do a Google search on "Nissan Modest Mouse" and you'll get a bunch of smart alterna blogs on this same topic.... Read more
September 01, 2003
Special-occasion donuts.
With a name like The Donut Pub, you'd think this place were heaven on earth. In a way, the establishment caters to exactly that notion: they cater wakes as well as weddings. But they don't serve any public-house function: there are only neat trays of deep-fried delicacy along the walls, no taps or casks in sight. No-one carded me as I walked in, nor could I order a "old-fashioned and an old-fashioned". The Donut Pub is also the ill-fated home to the donut croissant, a peculiar deep-fried brioche filled with third-rate jelly -- not at all like the delicious jelly donuts from the Donuts Luncheonette in Park Slope! Those are the most delicious jelly donuts I've ever tasted. I came upon the menu while I was going through the hundreds of old newspapers lying in neat stacks around the apartment, armed with a scissors and a glue stick. I am faced with the formidable task of remembering why I had set aside the paper in the first place. Now I have several dozen clippings which I need to scan, file, or send on to someone else.... Read more
August 31, 2003
"a belt of fat" theory
A survey of contemporary eating contests, with emphasis on the Fourth of July action at Nathan's on Coney Island, published in the Sunday Magazine of the New York Times. Not only does this bring to mind the "King-Size Homer" episode of The Simpsons ("... it's your window to weight gain!"), this underscores the weird disparity between the U.S. and Japan -- here enormously fat men train to consume more, but are routinely beaten by rail-skinny Japanese contestants. Belt-tightening music.... Read more
August 29, 2003
Diagnosis: delicious!
Thanks to a tip from an unexpected source, I headed over to the right side of the tracks in San Bruno and found Rolling Pin Donuts, a 24-hr extravaganza of donuts, deep-fried dough bars, crullers, and coffee. Aside: Donut Plant? Perhaps the most delicious double-chocolate donnut I've *ever* had. The chocolate was sublime (compare to the Donut Plant in the LES, where the $2 doughnuts are the talk of the town). Oh, and the Lisa The Vegetarian episode of the Simpsons is on (thanks, tivo). It's not just the "Yes, I'm going to marry a carrot" line, nor the "Buenas ding-dong-diddly-dias", not even the sublime "... it's tomato soup served ice-cold" nor the majestic conga of "You don't win friends with salad", it's the whole episode, which happens to be the finest Lisa episode ever.... Read more
