This is what you get when you turn unicorns into sushi.
April 30, 2012
April 22, 2012
Bonus Sunday Food Porn: Tanqueray Cake
I want the recipe for that! For too long have the unholy duo of rum and brandy enjoyed a baking hegemony. Equal recipe rights for clear spirits! Solidarity in Booze!
Wait…what? What do you mean it’s not actually made with gin? The cake is a lie???
THIS cake, a gin and tonic cake, is real. And, apparently, delish. I’m no baker but if I attempt this, I shall report back.
April 21, 2012
Sunday Food Porn: Soup of the Day
I’ll have a double helping!
Tea Time Rap
T r srs bns.
Just ask Doc Brown, British rapper after our own heart. Rage is fundamental to rap, and this man connects to it in a powerful way, letting it out in a stream of impassioned poetry dedicated to that greatest of beverages: TEA, motherfucker!
Which reminds us of that great classic, the UK Narnia Rap with its great chorus.
By the way, Doc Brown’s rant about the milk in first deserves some explication. “Milk in first” is a coded class signifier, meaning downmarket, low-class, tacky. Where does this come from? Why, I’m glad you asked. It comes from the fact that in the old days, poor people couldn’t afford the freshest milk, and if you put milk-that-is-going-but-not-quite-sour-yet into a cup of hot liquid, what you get is cottage cheese floaties. If you put the same milk in an empty cup and add hot water, stirring the whole time, the milk does not curdle. Handy to know when you have a) some iffy milk and b) no witnesses.
And now, to conclude our lesson on the Greatest of Beverages for this afternoon, I present to you a little ditty that was presented to me on Twitter, in response to a cri de coer from moi upon sipping my first good cup of tea in AGES. Thanks, Blenz, for some really good English Breakfast and thanks to the author, whose name has been lost in the mists of time. If it’s you, @ me or comment, so I can give credit where credit is due.
https://twitter.com/#!/raincoaster/statuses/174392798408224768
April 20, 2012
Jiro Dreams of Sushi
Sometimes I do, too, but I can’t make it like Jiro can. Living National Treasure Jiro Ono is the world’s greatest sushi chef, and also the subject of Jiro Dreams of Sushi, the next movie that I absolutely must view! Just watch this trailer to see for yourself just why. WAIT: get yourself a snack first, or you just may leave gnaw marks on your monitor.
JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI – Official Trailer – Magnolia Pictures from Sundial Pictures on Vimeo.
In the basement of a Tokyo office building, 85 year old sushi master Jiro Ono works tirelessly in his world renowned restaurant, Sukiyabashi Jiro. As his son Yoshikazu faces the pressures of stepping into his father’s shoes and taking over the legendary restaurant, Jiro – san relentlessly pursues his lifelong quest to create the perfect piece of sushi.
It’s available from Amazon, too,for those who can never get enough visual stimulation.
Thanks to Brett Blair on Twitter for the tip!
https://twitter.com/#!/brett_blair/status/193404634239467520
April 8, 2012
Sunday Food Porn: Bacon Sammich Edition
This looks like the BLT to end all BLTs, and it looks bloody good to someone not too recently off a hunger strike.
April 3, 2012
Hunger Games
Long have I suspected the universe to be a malevolent, capricious place, and now in my possession are three digits which unequivocally prove this to be the case. Forgive the emo outburst in Victorian-tinted prose, but I cannot help myself, for I have now been on the Enbridge Hunger Strike for 33.5 hours and I have, according to the bathroom scale…
gained three pounds.
I mean, I’ve been drinking plenty of water, but bitch, please. None of those people at Gitmo who got waterboarded gained any weight.Swearing off the San Pel and switching to low-salt tap water, on general anti-water-retention principles. A friend on facebook suggested I put lemon in the water if I’m worried about water retention, and since I’m out of lemons but have grapefruits and Shahee is always going on about the healing and cleansing properties of grapefruit, I will slice some of that up and put it in my tap water.
Things had been going well. I’d fought through the initial hunger pangs, distracting myself with work and many, many glasses of San Pellegrino water, and worked right through for 20 hours so by the time I got to bed there was no question about being too hungry to sleep. All was well once I’d woken up, and the afternoon and early evening went just fine, with actually fewer hunger pangs than yesterday and an amazing realization that if you don’t eat, your teeth stay shiny and clean even while you sleep, even if you brush your teeth before bedtime. That was an interesting piece of trivia: starvation=no morning breath.
As for bitchiness, well, that is definitely one department in which I demonstrated my native talent, this time unrestrained by any sugar comas or protein hangovers. I posted a ban-worthy comment at Gawker and a possible-suspension-worthy one at WordPress.com. If I weren’t me, I’d think I was obnoxious; well, I am obnoxious but I am also me and both Gawker and WordPress seem to find I’m worth keeping around for at least a little while longer.
From the department of TMI comes news that a hunger strike is much easier once you’ve cleared out the bowels. For whatever reason, having food in your system, even old food, makes you hungrier. That tickbox checked, things are much easier to bear in the hunger pang department. Right up until…
9pm. The neighbors downstairs cook up some fried chicken.
Fried. Chicken. FRIED CHICKEN. FRIED CHICKEN!!!
As my friend Rich said on Facebook, “Fried chicken recipes would have made the Mahatma fall off his hunger strike.” I split the difference between cheating and not with a vegan granola bar, which I am reliably informed counts as a Tic Tac if you’re a regular meat eater, as I am. So, thanks, veganism, now I probably lost weight because of all the gas in my colon causes a slight hover/Hindenberg effect when I step on the scale.
Then I watched three hours of Food Network. Sorry, Guy, I love you, but when you showed us the double Harvard burger with the fried onions, bacon, cheese, and fried peppers with barbeque sauce, I had to shut it off. Somehow Iron Chef is easier to bear because who in hell eats that stuff anyway? It looks like show-business food, because it is show-business food, and if you doubt me, think back to the last time your mouth watered at television competition food. See?
It is beginning to look like I can tough it out till the end, which is 4pm today. I still have 8 hours of sleeping to do, after all, and I’m not one of those Adderall addicts who sleep eats. Sure, I have a business meeting in a pub at 2pm tomorrow, but hey! Gin is a clear liquid, right? RIGHT?