Archive for January, 2010

This Bear’s Been Naughty…

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

Wow wow wee wow. You know, this blogging thing is pretty easy. I mean, look at this! My THIRD post in just as many days! My guess is you may be questioning whether or not you like the fact that I am invading your mind so often. Shhhhh! Don’t question! Just let it happen.

Before you start searching for Janet, hoping she’ll save you by posting something cute or by banishing me, you should know she’s at a conference in the City of Sin for the next few days. It’s probably why I’m in here writing about random things all willy-nilly. Just bear with it for a few days and breathe your sigh of relief when Janet gets back.

Speaking of bears (see what I did there? so clever.), I’d like to bring your attention to an upcoming game titled Naughty Bear, brought to us by 505 Games and Artificial Mind and Movement. Slated for the PS3 and Xbox 360, it is about a scorned teddy bear going rogue and subsequently terrorizing the other teddy bears. Sounds like just the kind of sick and twisted premise that we here at MTFB love to revel in right? Right! And since this blog is about More Than (a) Food (Blog), I think it’s high time we got the “More Than” in here.

Here’s the first trailer, pretty tame:

Aaaaaaand here’s the second:

Brilliant. Dark. Twisted. Cute. We have so many things in common, this game and I. It is set to drop some time this year, but I recall seeing somewhere that it may even be the first or second quarter of 2010 “Twenty-dime.” If all this isn’t enough to get you interested, let me hit you with this screenshot from the comment section of this post over at Kotaku, where bear puns were running rampant. I’ve (poorly, using MS Paint, no access AGAIN to Photoshop) circled and underlined the more important parts if you don’t get it the first time around.

It’s an intersection of video games, making fun of bears, and the social phenomenon known as Cougars. What more could you want?

If you’re looking for a way to not so subtly get out your anger at when your kids or siblings leave their toys around or if you have been waiting for something like this to express and channel your rage at your poor toy selection as a child, keep an eye out for Naughty Bear, he might be just what you need.

Posted in Games, Random, hate | No Comments »

What’s Cookin’? Stuffed Bell Peppers

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

Yesterday I got a text from R2 just as I arrived at the office. It said: “R2 says: Blog!” and was accompanied by a menacing picture of him with his arm poised as if to backhand me through my phone all the way from SF. I would include the picture but I don’t want R2 (or the New Avengers) to come back at me for revealing his identity, so I’ve done this quick mock up/picture mash up in MS Paint, utilizing David Tennant (whom I think R2 looks remarkably similar to) and a cut out of R2′s actual arm. If you can figure out his real identity from his arm, well then you deserve it. Anyway, you see the final result above, with apologies for not having access to Photoshop.

This is all just to explain this sudden onslaught of posts from me (two posts = onslaught right?) so that you don’t get scared that you are in an alternate universe. Jumping to the subject of today’s post:

Stuffed Bellpeppers! Unbeknownst to me, I had decided to whip up these tasty creations on the same night Janet and R2 were living their (nom-tastic) Alembic nightmare. To make matters worse, I had sent Janet a photo of the finished product. Good times!

Here’s what these babies are packing (in Recipe form).

STUFFED BELLPEPPERS

Ingredients:

  •  4 large bellpeppers
  • 1 lb of lean ground turkey
  • 1 fire-roasted poblano, diced into quarter inch pieces
  • 2 hothouse tomatoes, diced
  • 1/2 yellow onion, chopped
  • 2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1/2 cup fresh spinach, chopped
  • 1 1/2 cup cooked brown rice (you can substitute minute rice if you want to save time)
  • Also: black pepper, salt, cayenne, basil, oregano, and some balsamic vinegar for seasoning. Done to taste.
  • Optional: 1 oz each of Pancetta and Spicy Capocolla, sliced thinly

You will also need:

  • Mozzarella cheese for the top
  • 3/4 Cup ketchup
  • 2 Tbsp of worstershire
  • a dash of Tapatio
  • 1/2 Tbsp of balsamic vinegar

Okay, now you have all that stuff right?

  1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.
  2. If you haven’t already, start cooking your brown rice.
  3. In a skillet or large wok, fry the pancetta and capocolla (or use some olive oil) until you get a bit of the fat rendered down. This will add an extra layer of flavor when sauteing the onions and spinach.
  4. After the pancetta has rendered a bit, add in the onions and spinach and saute until onions are limp but not quite clear.
  5. Add in fire-roasted poblano and continue cooking for 1 minute.
  6. Add in the ground turkey and cook until brown. Drain excess oil.
  7. Season turkey with your choice of seasoning (or use the suggested ones in the list of ingredients).
  8. Mix in cooked brown rice and diced tomatoes and set aside.
  9. Wash the bellpeppers and cut off the tops, roughly 1 inch from the top. Remove seeds and submerge in salted boiling water for 2 minutes. After 2 minutes remove, drain, and run under cold water to stop the cooking process.
  10. In a small casserole dish, pour 1/4 cup of water.
  11. Carefully spoon turkey/rice mixture into peppers, distributing evenly. Place stuffed peppers in casserole dish, stuffing facing upward.
  12. In a small bowl, mix ketchup, tapatio, balsamic vinegar and worstershire with 1/8 cup of water. Spoon resulting sauce over the tops of the stuffed peppers.
  13. Place dish with stuffed peppers in oven for 25 minutes.
  14. After 25 minutes, turn oven to 400 degrees and sprinkle cheese over the top. Return to oven for five minutes or until cheese is completely melted and slightly browned.

And voila! Meat and veg literally exploding with flavor in your mouth. (Hehe.)

I served mine with a light spanish rice, but any starch will do I suppose. This recipe is a rough outline, so feel free to experiment, and let me know how it turns out!

Posted in Food, Recipes | No Comments »

Tweet is back!

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Remember Tweet? R&B artist who produced this song?

She was also getting her hair “did” in Missy Elliot’s Work It music video. Yeah, her. Anyway, she has nothing to do with this post. I have no idea if she’s back or not. But I am!

Here I am a whole four months ahead of schedule, so I guess if you took me up on my bet that you would have a baby before the next time I posted, well, I think you just lost.

On to the business at hand, keeping it short and tweet (ooooo, see what I did there? Lulz):  Janet and I have finally worked out the kinks and administrative junk with our twitter accounts, so I thought I’d put up an updated post with the appropriate linkage.

Alas, the victim here is the short-lived @NomYerFace, which Janet dumped unceremoniously for the sexier and younger @MTFBinSF. Here’s a pretty button to click if you don’t like plain old links:

Follow MTFBinSF on Twitter

More good news! I’ve taken on @MTFBinLA so as to tweet the good stuff in Los Angeles AS IT HAPPENS. Amazing right? Janet’s and my chirping together should be that hit you SF and LA addicts need to tide you over until dinner. You can follow me (please?) individually by clicking on this equally handsome button:

Follow MTFBinLA on Twitter

Aaaaaand for those Twitter savvy folks who are saying, Why not just make a list with these two in it? We’ve got you covered too. The widget at the top right will update with both accounts for your viewing pleasure. And if you just want to add a list to your apps on your smart phones, here’s the final linkage for that (sorry, no pretty button) More Than A Food Blog.

That’s it for this one folks. Don’t hold your breath for the next post from me, it probably won’t come out before you exhale or pass out. Just sayin.

Posted in Interweb | 2 Comments »

Alembic

Monday, January 25th, 2010

Some things you eat once and you dream about them ever more (“she said that”).  For some it’s caviar, for others it’s a sugary donut.  For me it’s…a pink egg.  A mini pink egg.  Times 3.  For a mere two buckaroos.  All of those things combine into the sublime at… Alembic.

“Hey R2, I’m bloggin’ Alembic.  Any thoughts on it?”

“…Can I REMIND you how Alembic ended???”

Anyway, I’ll get to that.  But first – Alembic is a cute little bar with great great food, nestled amongst the crusties with their fucking CUTE doggies (how do they do it?  where do they find them?  it’s so unfair!) on Haight street.

We were seated by the most pleasant of greeters in a cute table toward the back.  We were promptly served with one of their many cool cocktails with fun names and equally fun descriptions.  We had a Gilded Lily (described as “there are things in life that require little adornment, but we are never ones to shy away from a bit of grandeur. so we’ve decided to bring a touch of sparkle to a dark and cozy barroom. this baroque number mixes plymouth gin, yellow chartreuse, orange flower water, and sparkling demi-sec and drop in a little flake of gold leaf. shine on.“), a Vasco Da Gama (described as “we don’t take any” well actually if I cut and paste all of these then this post will be Bible-lengthed), a Poop Deck, and a Pisco Sour.

And I ordered two orders of…the EGGS.  The hallowed pickled quail eggs.

Gosh they are good.  They aren’t fatty or sweet (maybe a little bit sweet) or any of those things that people normally associate as crave-worthy.  They are tiny and tart and smooth and leave the best taste at the back of your tongue.  You can’t have just one!  Just like small, round, cold, eggy, sour potato chips.

We then proceeded to order the most decadent series of dishes ever.

But first, from the chef, some free poppycorn with butter, sugar, salt, and shichimi.  I MUST do this at home and impress all my guests!  ”[tinkling throaty laugh] Yes, well, shichimi is a seasoning we use in Japan, actually, and I thought it might be lovely on some sweet and savory popcorn.  Cheers everyone.”

Decadent dish #1 was cauliflower bisque, with smoked potato, sea urchin, and tarragon. (no photo because my camera doesn’t know where to focus in white soups so it didn’t turn out.)  Lovely presentation, starting with a big white bowl with the uni in the middle and our server (a most attentive and nice gal) pouring the thick but silky soup over it.  Briny + creamy is, believe me, awesome.  Hmmm.  Maybe with the popcorn, and if I strike it rich, I’ll serve uni mashed potatoes!!!  OMG brilliant.

Decadent dish #2: pulled pork sliders. (“smoked coke barbeque, celery root-apple slaw“)

Such a wee little thing, and yet, as if from a black hole in its middle, rivulets of juice.  And can’t you see the gorgeosity of that puffy bun?  You bet your ass it was warm, too.

Then, decadent dish #3: bone marrow (pictured top).  With caper gremolata and garlic confit.  It came out crackling and oozy and redolent of garlic.  We used our spoons to scrape and scrape and scrape the shit outta those bones.  We could have done with double the number of toast points, but didn’t want to get called out on our inability to handle the decadence of the meal we were constructing, so we didn’t.

“I’m still hungry.  Are you still hungry?”

I didn’t even wait for the answer and went ahead and ordered one of their two specials of the day – decadent dish #4: crispy fried sweetbreads, on a bed of butternut squash puree and topped with pickled onions and tart cherries.  I’d never seen such a gigantic cut (? are they cuts?  or are they just, like, one thymus per serving?) of sweetbreads, and I would have appreciated it just a skosh more crispy, but the sweet and savory rich PUNCH was cut through just perfectly with the sharp onion.

A verrry foodie meal.  One of the best of 2009, though blogged too late to make it into the Top 10.  Everything from the service to the food to the cocktails were exciting and delicious.

My stomach also found it exciting in the way that watching a horror movie is exciting.  As soon as the second mouthful of sweetbreads hit my tum, something was wack.  We drove home with me doubled over in pain, and as soon as I got to my apartment I collapsed into bed and started sweating.  I resolved to vom several times but couldn’t fathom traveling the seven meters from my bed to the bathroom.  I just wallowed in my agony while a concerned/amused R2 listened to my lamentations (“There are hedgehogs in my tummy and they are leaning against the wall of my stomach and rubbing their quills up and dowwwwwn.”)  In the end I didn’t yak though I was cleaned out  from the other end the following day.

It could have been anything.  It could have been the egg white on my Pisco Sour.  It could have been the bloody marrow.  Or the sea urchin?  Or an egg pickled too long in some sort of bacteria.  Or an undercooked sweetbread.  Who knows.  Probably the egg white since R2 escaped unscathed.

UNTIL SIX AM THE NEXT DAY!  At which point he was shooting liquid out of both ends (if you know what I mean.  I know I’m being vague.).

I sent an email to them, and this is what they wrote back:

Hi Janet,

Thanks for your kind words and praise despite what must have been a very uncomfortable situation for you.  I am very sorry to hear of your experience and I have begun to investigate all possible causes, in the event that it was caused by something at Alembic.  We are very proud of our ingredient sourcing and food preparation and I’d hate to think that something slipped through the cracks on our end.  Serving food to the public is a serious responsibility and we definitely don’t take it lightly.  I can say that thus far, I have not discovered any other complaints or similar/related issues, which is a relief, but not much consolation for you.  I will continue to look into the issue, though, and will let you know if I discover anything.

I really do hope you will give us another chance!  Please don’t hesitate to write back if there is anything I can do at this point to make you feel better.

Cheers,

Dave McLean

Owner, Alembic

So.  If there’s any restaurant that is THAT GOOD that someone would return despite food poisoning, it’s Alembic.  I cannot stay away from those eggs.

Alembic  |  1725 Haight St, SF CA  |  415.666.0822

Posted in Drink, Food, Vom | 1 Comment »

I prefer the term chirp

Friday, January 15th, 2010

Hola peeps.   (My first & last bird pun, don’t worry)

Now I’ll have you know I was on Twitter before anyone else was.  You can tell because some of my old tweets are very dated.

As evidenced by such tweets as (note the YEAR please people):

Done with Harry Potter…forever! WAAAAAAAAAA 10:25 PM Jul 29th, 2007 from web

[on day of Nevada primary when I was in Vegas] Woke up too late for my Obama Mama t-shirt to do anything. :( 1:09 PM Jan 19th, 2008 from PocketTweets

I was in a seminar today when Graft vs. Host Disease came up. I looked around and I was the only one giggling. Guess I was the only AD fan. 6:43 PM Nov 14th, 2007 from web

Tweets along clumsy/food themes:

Just dropped a bowl of corn on the ground. It looks like I murdered someone with corn for blood. 10:37 PM Sep 23rd, 2007 from web

I literally slipped on a banana peel left on the ground! Lulz 9:07 PM Jan 16th, 2008 from PocketTweets

WINTERMELON. Much yummier than hamster poo, which is what Cheeto is eating.11:26 PM Feb 28th, 2008 from web

Anyway, after it overtook my life I had to tear out the thingie like I’m an avatar Na’avi thing with a ponytail thingie from Twitter.

Fast forward now to 2010, when Daniel suggested we put it on MTFB, and so here we are.  If you fear change, DON’T look up in the right corner.

Oh, also, mtfb was taken, and morethanafoodblog is too long, so we went with… nomyerface. Enjoi~!

Posted in Interweb | 2 Comments »

Gold Mountain Dim Sum

Friday, January 8th, 2010

I’m sitting here in LA with Tinx and her new kittykins named Buttons, who is currently high-fiving my foot, which is making me remember that I still haven’t blogged Gold Mountain – a dim sum joint that Tinx and I went to while she was visiting.

Wanna picture of Buttons?  I know you do.  Here:

One of my faves.  <3 u Buttins.

Anyway, all I wanted was dim sum but the kind with the carts.  That narrows it down a lot in SF, despite its ginormous Chinatown.  The best rated was Gold Mountain, so that’s where we went.

With my deathly crustacean allergy, dim sum is like playing Russian Roulette with shrimp-shaped bullets.  They lurk everywhere, even when not visible as in the above picture.

My favorite is below – char siu pork bun.  It is sweet, BBQey goodness inside a softer-than-your-pillow bun.

Ok, well now fast forward to two months later, where I am no longer in LA but Tinx is coming up tonight to visit me, renewedly reminding me to finish this fucking post already.

Below is a picture of mango pudding – also off limits to hyper-allergenic Janet.  WTF, why did we order so much shit that I couldn’t eat?  Hate you.  Before, when I wasn’t allergic to mangoes (and lychees!  TRAGIC!), it was my favorite thing out of everything I ate when I visited Hong Kong.  So I was salivating as Tinx slurped away at her dessert.

We also ordere- ahh who am I kidding.  This post is just a thinly-veiled excuse for posting pictures of Buttonia, which is much more interesting anyway:

I love this one cuz you can see her one ginger paw <3

HINT: This is a great one to put as your iPhone background.

KNOCKED OVER BOWLING PIN KITTEH <3

SQUEEEE!

Imma nuzzle the fuck outta that neck, Buttons.

Posted in Cuteness, Food | No Comments »

Oh Nine Resolution VANQUISHED

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

[Singing] Jaa-anet, FUCK YEAH!  So today was the test of my 2009 resolution to do a pull-up.  To be honest, I didn’t really work all that hard towards this goal until around September, when my trainer, David Morris, put me on the assisted pull-up machine and I said offhandedly that I wanted to be able to to an unassisted pull-up by 2010.  That made a fire light in his eyes and he vowed that it would happen.

Here’s the thing you need to know about David Morris.  He totally rules.  In four months, I lost an inch off my waist and am at 17.59% body fat – something six years of my teaching spin, kickboxing, step, Hollywood Trainer, strength training, and Krank had failed to do.  Every day is different when he trains me – capoeira drills, handstand pushups, Indian clubs, crescent slap kicks.  He is my gold-chain wearing therapist, comedian, father figure, and sensei all in one.  He’s beyond a black belt in a trillion different martial arts, and even though he is close to seven feet tall, he moves faster than anyone I know, and can do crazy yoga balance moves like crow into a handstand.  Awesome.

He also is full of weird information.  Topics that he’s enlightened me about in past sessions: motorcycles that have two wheels in the front instead of the back, prednisone, how to make friends, age of consent in different countries (Canada has the youngest, younger even than Thailand), the fact that Safeway was sold out of mineral water yesterday, grinding your own meat with antique meat grinders, people who piss in stairwells, Thai food, breakdancing.

He also has this habit of saying “-what” to elicit participation from whomever he’s talking to.  For example, he’ll say, “So this exercise is great because you feel it in your – what?” and I chirp “GLUTES!” and he says, “That’s right.”  Sometimes he doesn’t wait for you to answer, though, but it’s still the same thing.  ”We’re gonna work hanging crunches so that you can improve strength in your – what?  That’s right.  Core muscles.”  This vocal tic gets even more random at times.  Just today – “Flax seed is great when you mix it in with – what?  That’s right.  Bisquick.”  My favorite one is “I want to stay healthy and strong so that when I get old I can – what?  That’s right.  Pick fruit from my fruit trees.”  WTF???  He makes me laugh so hard.

Anyway, he is now taking new clients, so if you are anywhere near the bay area, hit him up!

Oh, I forgot to even talk about the fact that I did in fact succeed in doing a pull-up.  Four, in fact.  Me = BAMF.

Posted in Fitness | No Comments »

New Year’s Resolutions for Twenty-Dime

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

I believe we have all agreed on “twenty-ten” as how we will refer to the year 2010. R2 is on a mission, though, to start “twenty-dime” which sounds silly and a bit forced but also sounds just Mad-Men-ey enough to maybe be cool.  [I have never seen the show.]

Anyway, here are my akshully quite modest resolutions for twenty-dime:

1. Finish Dogs That Should Be Named Oreo post.  This has been a work-in-progress for over two years.  It got pushed (a) onto and (b) to the top of my resolutions list because I just met the most blatant violation of this – a perfect specimen of an oreo dog (black everywhere except its belly) named…Brownie.  So much wrong there. The fact that it was the quintessential oreo dog and you didn’t name it Oreo is just the beginning.  Why are you naming a black dog after an entirely different color??  Further, you got SOO close with the cookie/pastry-themed name, and then veered off into “Brownie.” WTF. My animal photography skillz will need to sharpen in order for this resolution to come into fruition, as will my charmingness skillz so I can go up to strangers and ask to take a picture of their dog (and, breezily and completely off-handedly, ask, “What’s its name?”)

2. Wake up when the alarm goes off.  Ever since I moved to SF, I have lapsed into a bad habit of hitting the snooze button many many times; to the point where I have to set my alarm a full 1.5 hours before I actually want to be anywhere in order to wake up.  Untenable. It’s because my apartment has the coziest of cozy sleeping nooks that puts me into hibernation mode every night no matter the season; and while I enjoy peeking out of the nook every morning and announcing “I’m a prairie dog!” to an empty apartment, it’s making me feel like a lazy person.  I could revert to cuteness like the Nanda, but I want to do this the hard, self-improvement way of using sheer willpower to do it.

I think that’s it.

How did I do on my 2009 resolutions? Let’s see…

1. Become a Locavore. Pretty much done!  (A) I got my CSA box, and (B) when I made strawberry cupcakes in the dead of winter it was associated with a large amount of guilt for not eating seasonally. Check.

2. Be able to do a pull-up. I have been working with a trainer exactly for this goal…next Tuesday is when we’re doing the big test of whether I can do it or not.  Stay tuned.

3. Spend less time online looking at cats. Epic fail.  Not only do I still do this, I’ve added several more cat blogs to my RSS feed, including Pokke (see below), who just slays me with his all-pupil eye action.

4. Blog at least 5 times per month.  Well, I count 72 posts in 2009, which is definitely in keeping with this rez, but the whole point was that Daniel would ALSO blog that much, giving our dearest darlingest readers something to read every three days or so.  Instead, Daniel blogs at the rate of once per 9 months, which is enough time make a fucking baby.  While blogging with charm and crass like we do at MTFB can be effortful at times, I don’t quite think it requires as much time as making a fucking baby.

Happy New Year!

Posted in Random, love | 1 Comment »