Mister Peet

RIP, Alfred Peet

 

If you love coffee, this man should be one of your culinary heros. He’s one of mine.

Ever wonder where the funders of starbucks got the idea? From Alfred Peet, that’s where. The guy who founded Peet’s Coffee – the guy who pretty much started america’s current love affair with quality coffee. Odds are, if you’re not from the Bay Area, you’ve never heard of Peet’s; but next time your drink your extra-hot-no-whip-de-caf-fat-free-soy-milk-uber-grande-complicato, thank Alfred. Cause he started it all.

I won’t buy any beans but Peets, and their short-pull espresso has spoiled me for anyone else’s. No one else does it right.

Thanks, Alfred.

How to eat…

Ok, so the ‘how to eat sushi’ part is all well n’ good. But how fucking cute is the girl? I’m tellin’ ya. Only, why don’t they show me more of the sushi actually goin’ in to her sweet little mouth? That’s what I wanna see*. (props to R for the find – you know […]

Ok, so the ‘how to eat sushi’ part is all well n’ good.

But how fucking cute is the girl?

I’m tellin’ ya. Only, why don’t they show me more of the sushi actually goin’ in to her sweet little mouth? That’s what I wanna see*.

(props to R for the find – you know what i like)

* ok, i admit it, that’s not quite what i wanna see.

Steve, don’t eat it!

I was talking to an old, old friend and trying to ‘splain blogging. I didn’t do that well, but I figured, I’l just show her. I was gonna direct her to my blog, but then I figured, no, wait, i need to start her off with a good blog so I went with Waiter Rant. […]

I was talking to an old, old friend and trying to ‘splain blogging.

I didn’t do that well, but I figured, I’l just show her. I was gonna direct her to my blog, but then I figured, no, wait, i need to start her off with a good blog so I went with Waiter Rant.

She then did me one better by following Waiter’s link to Steve, Don’t Eat It!, a feature of The Sneeze.

Holy christ, this is funny.

On Potted Meat Food Product:

Okay, here we go– Pulling back the lid (not recommended) lets loose an odor that punches you in the nose like a stinky fist. If you’ve ever smelled a can of dog food, it’s just like that. Only imagine you are opening the can while your head is wedged in a horse’s ass.

On Pickled Pork Rinds:

While perusing the “Good Lord, NOOOO!” aisle of the supermarket, I came across the atrocity known as Dolores Brand Pickled Pork Rinds. These are not the crunchy pork rinds you’ll often see over by the chips. These are their grosser, soggier, potentially botulism-ier cousins.

The label says “Ready to Eat.” They left off “By Dumb-Asses.”

On home-made prison wine:

Through some miracle, it actually tasted nothing like it smelled. In fact, there was very little flavor other than sour, watery alcohol. It’s hard to believe this started out as a bag of fruit snacks and grape juice. Yet somehow these ingredients went from sweet and child-like to harsh and alcoholic quicker than Lindsay Lohan.

Oh my god, I’m gagging and laughing at the same time. I love this guy.

V

Yesterday, on very short notice my boss decided to take my whole team out. I guess we’re at quarter end and he had budget for something that went away next week. The result was the sort of day that works out perfectly with no planning whatsoever. One of my co-workers is from Ethiopia, and he’s […]

Yesterday, on very short notice my boss decided to take my whole team out. I guess we’re at quarter end and he had budget for something that went away next week.

The result was the sort of day that works out perfectly with no planning whatsoever.

One of my co-workers is from Ethiopia, and he’s introduced us to what may be the best Ethiopian restaurant in the bay area; it’s certainly the best one I’ve ever been to and I’m a huge fan of that cuisine

http://www.zenirestaurant.com/

An absolutely wonderful meal. For those who don’t know, Ethiopian food consists mostly of stew-like dishes; it’s both served on, and eaten with, a unique soft, spongy flatbread called Injera which has a flavor (faintly like sourdough) and texture unlike anything else I’ve ever eaten.

You don’t get plates. You don’t get forks. You get a platter covered with Injera, with the various meat, veggie and salad dished dolloped directly on the Injera. You then tear strips of the bread and use it as your utensils.

In flavor, it’s akin to Morroccan, with certain dishes having an almost indian character; red pepper, cumin, cardamom, gigner, and coriander are prominent spices.

It’s a cuisine for people who are not afraid to get elbow-deep in a meal. It’s also a cuisine I tend to avoid eating too often because, once started, I tend to eat until ready to absolutely explode. It’s a sensual experience, rich, spicy, aromatic buttery flavors, and food experienced by touch as well as taste, smell, and vision. I can imagine taking a date (not, however, a first date) to such a meal, and feeding each other morsels of exotic-spiced meat while sharing a flask of Tej, Ethiopian mead.

It could be an awkward meal with co-workers. Luckily, my team are a bunch who like to eat, and who know each other well enough that we’re not afraid to wear some food in from of each other.

After the meal, Bossman treated us to a quickly-chosen movie (based on when it was playing more than anything else); luckily also my first choice of a movie.

V for Vendetta.

Now let’s say up front, I’m a huge Alan Moore fan. No disrespect to Gaiman or Frank Miller, but to my mind, Moore is the inventor of what we today called the graphic novel. He’s the man who took a lame muck-monster comic, Swamp Thing, and turned it into possibly the best comic ever published. He’s the guy who re-invented both comics in general and the superhero genre with Watchmen. And he’s the man who wrote a bold, frightening, bizarre comic about a terrorist who dresses as Guy Fawkes.

I read V for Vendetta when it was new – I don’t think I ever finished it, I can’t recall why. Maybe it was one of those times when I gave up comics like one gives up smack; I have a problem with just buying one, so from time to time I have to go cold-turkey. But whatever it was, I’ve been waiting for someone to do something with that comic ever since.

Typically, when I heard it was going to be a movie, I was both afraid and excited. I hate, hate a holywood ruing of something important. *cough*Ask the Dust*Cough. But some things just cry out to be done right, and given the guys in charge (the Matrix brothers, Andrew and Larry Wachowski), and given the source material, I was hoping, just maybe, they nailed it.

Ok, so Alan Moore disowned it. But he’s Alan Moore. Look at him, you can see the guy’s a couple inmates short of an asylum. I haven’t found the details on what he objected to, but in the end, you gotta look at the movie, like Kubrick’s The Shining and say, forget the book, did they make a good movie?

They did. And fuckin’ how.

This isn’t an easy movie to make. To start you have a plot that depends on some idea of who the fuck Guy Fawkes is any why The Fifth of November is important. Not an easy sell in the USA. Then you have a lead who never takes off his mask.

It works; part of it’s due to the incredibly charismatic, sexy presence of Natalie Portman, with whom I’ve been in love since I spent all of Phantom Menace thinking about her mouth. She turns in what is certainly the performance of her career thus far (though I’m betting she’s go lots of brilliant performances ahead of her). A girl who manages to look that intensely sexy while sobbing on a prison floor is someone I could watch all damned day.

It works despite the dead plastic face Hugo Weaving wears all the way through it; he does a great job in what’s almost completely a voice gig. He resists the temptation too over-do the physical performance, to over-do the voice. He’s a man in a mask, but he just plays it, and by the end of the movie when he’s asked to take off the mask and doesn’t, you’re rooting for him not to. You don’t want to see what’s under it, you want him to be what he is, an enigmatic presence with no face and no name.

James McTeigue, who was an assistant director for some or all of the Matrix films, avoids the major pitfalls of so many sci fi epics; he doesn’t try to make things look far away and futuristic. He doesn’t overwhelm us with special effects or elaborate makeup or bizarre technology. This movie doesn’t play as sci-fi, it could be any time, now, the late 90’s (the date in Moore’s original comic), or it could be 2020. He lets the characters and ideas run the story, not the special effects.

This is a story about ideas. It’s easy to simply say it’s a movie about today’s american government, and to be sure, you can’t escape that idea. This is where we’re headed if our current regime is taken to it’s ultimate conclusion. The hitler-like figure played so effectively by John Hurt is scary because you can hear echos of today’s politics.

But it’s not as direct and simple as that. Moore’s story is about anarchy vs. fascism, not about republicans vs democrats. It’s about the extremes in both directions. It’s about fighting a fight that will kill you and drive you mad.

It’s about terrorism; but we’re seeing it from the side of the terrorist, the man who fights an ideological battle with bombs and murder. It’s about a monster fighting a monster system. There’s no clear high moral ground he stands on; the enemies are evil, but are they any worse than our hero?

There are flaws. It’s a comic-book style story, so some of the plot logic doesn’t hold up to intense scrutiny. V’s hair, which made sense in the comic, winds up being dorky rather than threatening in real life. I kept thinking bad wig. And some of the plot developments late in the movie seem to happen to abruptly without adequate explanation (I’d explain but no spoilers).

But the quibbles are small. The movie looks great, it’s well cast, well acted, well paced for such a long movie (2.5 hours). The dialog is well written (I will have to get the graphic novel, I can’t recall how much of this was direct from the comic and how much was written by Wachowskis). It works well as pure escapist, and as political commentary. And it’s got some choice dialog I’ll be quoting until you all get sick of it.

And oh my god is Natalie Portman hot with her head shaved. Holy christ. I want her.

Can’t do nothin’ with a dull knife

I own a lotta knives…. Finnish Pukko knives.

,

I’m a knife geek.

I own a lotta knives. All sorts of knives. Pocket knives. Hunting knives. Balisong/butterfly knives. Switchblades. Bayonets. Finnish Pukko knives. Tactical folders. Skean Dubhs. And kitchen knives. Way more than I need. French, german. At least four serious chef’s knives (wait, no, it’s six). Several paring knives. Couple fillet knives. A butcher knife or two.

One of the key things is, I keep them fucking sharp. If they’re not close to being razors, what’s the point?

My all time favorite is the carbon steel french knife from Thiers-Issard. It takes an incredible edge, and like the knives I grew up using, it goes black with age. I love this knife.

But one of the facts is, you use knives, you’re gonna get cut. I got my first knife when I was six, and then made my first trip to the emergency room for stitches shortly after. Cooks get cut all the damned time.

Tonight I was making dinner; I grabbed the carbon steel knife, picked up my sharpener to freshen the edge (one of those ceramic deals with two rods in a big V). As usual, I hold the sharpener with my left hand, the knife in my right. Tonight, I missed the rod and whacked down hard enough on my hand to make an audible thunk.

Ow, thought, and then went on. It just felt like a whack. But then I realized how sharp this knife is. I looked at my hand, and there was a razor-thin red line. Then I bent the knuckle.

That’s gonna bleed a lot, I said to myself.

The thing with cuts on that hand is, they’re hard to bandage by yourself. After about three tries, I was about to call a friend to come help me. But the thing is, I don’t have the fucking patience. So I went for the biggest damned bandaid I could find, slapped it on, and finished dinner.

All this is, of course, only an excuse to try my new iSight camera out. But here’s the result.

Really though, I’m good with a knife. Damned good. I’m just not so good with bandages.

[made with ecto]

Waiter Rant

Ok, Ray pointed this out and then Andie demanded I read it. Waiter Rant rules. Why oh why do people like Dr. Zamir think it’s ok to do the sand-in-the-vaseline trick to thier servers and then ask for special treatment? Special treatment is for special people, and unless you’re god or the president or the […]

Ok, Ray pointed this out and then Andie demanded I read it.

Waiter Rant rules.

Why oh why do people like Dr. Zamir think it’s ok to do the sand-in-the-vaseline trick to thier servers and then ask for special treatment? Special treatment is for special people, and unless you’re god or the president or the hottest celeb in town, special means people who treat servers with respect.

Say please. Say thank you. Say thank you to the busboy who cleans up your fucking mess. Say thank you to the food runner who carries all that heavy shit to your table. Say thank you to the cocktail person. Say thank you EVEN IF THEY FUCK IT UP.

Servers work fucking hard. It’s a rough job.

Read more “Waiter Rant”

Stock

No, I’m not talking about IPOs or dotcoms. Nor am I talking livestock. Not taking stock of oneself. I’m talking about cooking. Specifically, one of the most basic, core ingredients; something that goes into almost every sauce, stew, soup. Stock.

No, I’m not talking about IPOs or dotcoms.

Nor am I talking livestock.

Not taking stock of oneself.

I’m talking about cooking.

Specifically, one of the most basic, core ingredients; something that goes into almost every sauce, stew, soup.

Stock.

Read more “Stock”