Fried Chicken Blues

the ebb - pork cracklins

2010-03-30T20:24:00.002-04:00

I learned my culinary lesson of the day from Kroger - never buy those dry-ass, mealy, greasy pork cracklins in the crinkly 99-cent bags - ugh. The only other time I had had pork cracklins was from a Mexican grocery store somewhere on Buford Highway, direct from the butcher. I've had them on my mind lately, probably from watching too many Anthony Bourdain shows, but I cracked at the grocery store today - cracked for cracklin. Ugh, never again will I buy it from a non-ethnic grocery store!!!

In other culinary news, I had to go to my comfort fallback of making a load of won tons to stuff in my freezer. I threw out about a gallon of beans I made at the beginning of my unemployment (good lord, in January, maybe?) that I never touched once they entered the freezer because they turned out crappy before I froze them and I thought I would be able to revive them and zhuj them up with some better seasonings of something. Sometimes you have to give up, and I needed to reclaim the tupperware it was occupying, so to the trash they went.

Unemployment has caused me to eat compulsively all day long as I surf the interweb looking for jobs. I've started working out in the morning to counterbalance the five meals a day I'm eating so we'll see how that goes.

DC Metro food holiday

2010-01-02T17:12:00.003-05:00

I'm still in Maryland after about two weeks on vacation at my parents' house. I have eaten twice my weight in all kinds of food. The most noteworthy place I've eatren was at The Birch & Barley/Churchkey in DC on 14th Street (Logan Circle). This apparently just opened and is hard to get into and my friends that took me had made previous attempts. The hostess told us it would be an hour and a half so we scooted up to the bar (Churchkey) and got some cask beers. The Cheesecake Factory-style pager went off after about 10 minutes and we got primo seating at the chef's counter. I had an appetizer of tagliatelle with rabbit and an entree of skate. The rabbit was extremely tender and well-seasoned. The skate was actually a little on the salty side for me. Dessert was an apple-filled beignet and multiple sorbets. We also had beer for dessert, of course. Recommended but I wouldn't actually wait an hour and a half for this place. There was a nightclub-style line out the door when we left.

The best meal I've had so far, actually, was at Michael's Noodles in Rockville, about 5 miles from Rockville Pike. This is Taiwanese style food and it is well done. Highly highly recommended. And cheap, which is always good and recommended. If you're ever in the area. We had the tea-smoked duck (crispy and not too greasy served with bao-style buns), salt and hot chili pork chops (this would make me give up fried chicken), and spicy beef noodles (Taiwanese-style pho). Their dumplings are also freshly made and fantastic.

If you are ever in Rockville, please visit Maxim Supermarket (I think it's also called Maxim's Gourmet Oriental Store, or something lame). It used to be really grimy, as all Asian supermarkets traditionally have been. Lately, it's gotten some stiff competition from another Chinese supermarket behind it. They've cleaned up their act big time. There is a cafeteria-style hot bar that does roast duck, crispy pork belly (which they've been doing way before the current pork belly craze), and all kinds of familiar hot Cantonese-style dishes. I always crave the Cantonese goodies that I grew up with - like black bean hopia and rice cakes (I couldn't spell the Cantonese pronunciation of what it is if I tried). I've looked all over Atlanta and the 'burbs and have not found these particular items or other Cantonese delights that I crave every so often. Maxim is close to my parents' place, once again, and almost makes me wanna move back (not really).

More later as I have to leave for my umpteenth dinner out with family...

So Ba in East Atlanta

2009-12-21T20:39:00.002-05:00

Woo!! Finally a real-ish Vietnamese place in East Atlanta! Not Soba but So Ba (I can't do the little symbols over the vowels but it's two words) - this is in the old La Casita space. They don't have their liquor license yet but the place has been re-done in dark wood and a soothing jade green with minimal decor. There is a physical bar that has no contents yet but it acts as a really cool looking centerpiece for the dining room. The menu is limited to broken rice, pho and bun but what else do you need? Some have complained about the lack of banh mi and true vegetarian options, but to me, this makes it more authentic. It's not a Vietnamese bakery so it wouldn't have the banh mi anyway. They are currently only open for dinner but are open until 2am on weekends!! Yay!!! I had the bun with the shrimp, cha gio and pork and it was as good as anything I ever had at Bien Thuy. My friend had the pho and she said the quality of the meat was better than what you usually get at Buford Hwy pho places.

winter and comfort food

2009-12-10T19:50:00.004-05:00

Ahh, butternut squash and hazelnut lasagna - cheesy, warm, sage-y, surprisingly light, this is my favorite lasagna recipe ever. Cook butternut squash with onions, butter, garlic, toast a cup of chopped hazelnuts and toss in some chopped sage and parsley. Roux with 5 cups of milk, a bay leaf and garlic, cooked down until creamy, layer with mozzarella/parmigiano-reggiano cheese mix (about 5 cups total) with lasagna noodles and the butternut squash mixture - cook for 25 minutes with foil on, 15 minutes with foil off at 425. So so so good. I ate three huge pieces tonight before I forced myself to put it away. I also made a traditional banana pudding - yum. It probably doesn't help that I watched the Top Chef finale and Gordon Ramsay's F Word that I've had on TiVO for a while all day.

poor food

2009-12-04T09:37:00.004-05:00

Alrighty, haven't blogged in a while because I was very busy at my real job and life but now I don't have a job so I'm a full-time jobseeker/blogger/tweeter/facebooker. Excellent. Sometimes, I manage my life better the poorer I am, and I'm ready to get back to having fun. In my six years at this last job I've been pretty miserable in my personal life, to be honest. Maybe not miserable, but in a rut. Excitement was getting to stay home and clear off the TiVO.

Most recent food and drink activities have included doing the Les Dames Escoffier...Afternoon in the Country at Serenbe again (thanks to a friend's generous ticket), Decatur Beer Festival, Thanksgiving, and making chocolate souffle. Afternoon in the Country is a giant meat-wine-chocolate fest. That really is what it boils down to. I had some pretty amazingly simple but delicious brisket with sunchoke slaw and my friend had a date wrapped in prosciutto stuffed with blue cheese that she loved. Otherwise, I wasn't all that excited. I did purchase some honey from one of those little shops in the main village-y part of Serenbe. I just ran out from my unbelievably delectable bottle from last year so it was perfect timing.

Decatur Beer Festival was cold and rainy-ish this year for the beginning part. We had fun because my friend made pretzel/breath mint necklaces for us that others were mucho jealous of. Memorable beers? It's all a blur weeks on but it is always a good time.

Chocolate souffle - the simplest recipe in the world: 3 egg yolks and melted chocolate (pick a good chocolate), 6 egg whites, 1/3 cup sugar. It is to-die-for and super-easy. Bake for 45 minutes at 350 F. Don't leave any leftovers or they will concrete themselves into your souffle dish.

food books

2009-08-29T10:11:00.002-04:00

I have not been all that hungry all summer. I am not a hot weather person so I am in pure misery in Georgia from about June to October. Popsicles this summer have been the name of the game. I've found quite a few that I don't like. I think the only ones worth getting are either fudgesicles or the "real" fruit ones. All the others don't have enough fruity flavor/tartness. Fresh pineapple and cherries have also been really good this summer. I had one good batch of peaches and a lot of bad batches.

Although I haven't been eating much exciting food, I have been reading a lot about food. Michael Ruhlmann has been good summer reading. I read The Making of a Chef, The Soul of a Chef and The Reach of a Chef. The first one is about what it takes to make it through the Culinary Institute of America (as of the early '90s). The second starts with profiles on folks trying to become certified master chefs and moves onto how three different types of chefs handle their business and their approach to cooking. The third is more about how we've gotten to where we are as a culture with the Food Network, food blogs, etc. I was mainly familiar with him from seeing him on Anthony Bourdain's show and he seemed a bit bland but his writing pulls you in and the fact that he basically got the C.I.A. training while writing his book and then worked in restaurants gives him good perspective on his subjects. Also check out his blog.

I'm not much of a cook (mainly due to laziness) and have no desire to work in a restaurant but I feel like I have a new appreciation for the really hard work it takes to run and work in a restaurant.

My next food-related reading is on the life of Antonin Careme by Ian Kelly. Recommended: anything by Calvin Trillin, Bill Buford, Ruth Reichl, John Thorne.

depression eating

2009-05-17T13:40:00.002-04:00

OK, I'm not really depressed but at the same time I haven't really felt like eating. I've been pretty busy but not that hungry or motivated by food. I have been eating too much fried chicken which always indicates lack of imagination since it's my fallback. I even accompanied co-workers to KFC on Oprah Grilled Chicken giveaway day and was completely disgusted by the KFC "crispy" chicken. Ugh, even their mashed potatoes were completely disgusting. I don't understand how they stay in business or why Oprah has aligned herself with them.

My car is making me depressed as the "Check Engine" light has now been on for over two years. How? do you say? How did you pass your emissions last year? Somehow by the skin of my teeth, apparently. Because about a week after I passed last year (after over $600 in repairs), the "Check Engine" light returned and has haunted me since. I've had it looked at by my trustier garage of several years and they found it was the same problem as last year - a faulty valve that costs $100 and is a piece of plastic doo-doo. This thing lasted 116 miles before it caused my "Check Engine" light to go back on this time. I'm just about out of money to be spending on my car right now.

I am eating egg salad because I don't feel like eating anything because of this bullshit. Ugh!!!!!

La Oaxacena, Jonesboro, go!

2009-04-19T20:04:00.002-04:00

OK it would be helpful to take a Spanish speaker with you but the menu is in English. The only person at La Oaxacena, off of Mount Zion Road right below where it splits at I-75, is pretty damn authentic. The corn tortillas are handmade, the carnitas are for real, the carne asada is for real, real chorizo, and almost nobody else but Latinos. I went with a Cuban and a gringo and we created immediate diversity by walking in. Very friendly service, cheap, really good menu. Cheryl and Eric raved about the melon fresca. The soups come in gigantic bowls. They also serve breakfast, real flautas, and some odd corn-cob-on-a-stick-covered-in-lard-parmesan-cheese-and-cayenne thing that negated any health benefits from the corn. The salsa bar has cactus, mole, guac and regular salsa. This is not Tex Mex - closer to Baja, but probably even closer to the real Mex.

eels

2009-03-08T11:19:00.003-04:00

No I haven't eaten eels this week. That would have been the healthiest thing I've eaten if it were true. I ate at Zaxby's, Popeye's, Los Arcos (twice!), and Chick-Fil-A this week. Ugh. One night I had a smoothie and popcorn for dinner. That was probably the healthiest dinner I ate all week. blech. Very busy week at work, dogs are getting friskier coz the weather is nicer and my allergies are kicking in something fierce. Yard work is kicking my butt this weekend but I also managed to take down my old, sparky fan in my living room and buy a new one. I found a giant dead roach in the fan so that may have been what was causing the sparks. Also, gross.

Eels refers to the band headed by Mark Oliver Everett. I just watched the documentary Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives in which he got to explore his quantum physicist father's past professional life after not really knowing much about him while he was alive. His dad died when he was 18 or 19 and wasn't the most communicative of people. Apparently his dad was a super genius in the world of quantum physics and came up with the Many Worlds theory which, even after watching the documentary which gave the most basic, layperson way to explain it, I still can't paraphrase. Anyway, it was very interesting and he seemed like a cool guy so I looked him up and bought his book on line, Things the Grandchildren Should Know. Aside from his dad dying when he was young, his older sister committed suicide not long after their father died and their mother died of cancer around the same time. One of his cousins, a flight attendant, died in the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon. He was buddies with Elliott Smith. But he has an interesting perspective on it all. Any one of these things would have killed me. I will probably die a long slow death from bad cholesterol. If I'm lucky.

breakfast

2009-02-08T10:01:00.002-05:00

I ate cold Popeye's fried chicken for breakfast. It is now only 10:03am.

Egg salad and nostalgia

2009-02-01T18:54:00.005-05:00

Nostalgia has been the name of the game this year. I blame this mainly on finding elementary and high school friends on Facebook but also on the New York Times.

Today was a beautiful day so I grabbed all the newspapers in the house and dragged them to the backyard to sit out and enjoy the unusually warm-for-January-even-in-Georgia weather. I came across an article about malls failing in the horrible economy and they mentioned a website called deadmalls.com.

I got online to check it out and was transported back to all kinds of bizarre retail memories. I also got wind of the fact that many people are obsessed with old retail. Lots of blogs devoted to old malls, old discount chains, Howard Johnsons, strip malls, grocery stores. My favorite blogs that I've found so far have been
mallhistory.com, labelscar.com and mallsofamerica.blogspot.com.

I learned some interesting info about the history of malls in Atlanta, where I live now, but I also checked out info on malls in Maryland, where I'm from. I desperately tried to register at groceteria.com so I could answer somebody's question on the message board about where a Memco in Rockville used to be located. I loved Memco as a kid. My parents felt safe enough to leave me and my brothers in the toy or record sections by ourselves while they went grocery shopping. It was a wonderland of furniture, clothes, groceries, toys, etc - really similar to Wal-Mart but not as tacky (in my hazy, rose-colored memories, it was a wonderland but it probably was just as tacky as Wal-Mart).

Anyway, dead mall internet surfing led me to some websites on old tea rooms which led me to desire tea sandwiches and tea - thus, egg salad on toast for dinner. I suggest raspberry tea with Serenbe honey (in the unmarked jar, available at Serenbe, pay whatever they ask - it is that good).

This site: victualling.wordpress.com has some interesting links to tearoom sites.

Celebrate Obama - real dinner on a Monday

2009-01-19T20:00:00.003-05:00

Monday night is usually scrounge something out of the freezer night but tonight I managed to roast up some ruby red potatoes, toss them with olive oil, rosemary and garlic and eat with lamb tips from Trader Joe's. Yum! BTW, this is the third or fourth meal I've gotten from one of those packages of Burgundy lamb tips from TJ's. You throw it in a hot pan, sear it for a few minutes, cook for another 5 minutes or so on each side, done. So easy and so good. Oh yeah, and I'm having apple crisp and ice cream for dessert. I NEVER eat dessert. And I already did the dishes! Hail Obama! I feel the change already

apple crisp for dinner and breakfast and possible dinner again....

2009-01-19T15:17:00.003-05:00

MLK Day confessions:
1) I got up early so I could check my work e-mail so I could re-check the 2009 holiday calendar to re-assure/piss myself off that I had to work today. Boo.
2) Last night, I made an apple crisp and had that instead of dinner. It was too ugly to be bloggable in a photo but it is quite de-lish.
3) I also had apple crisp for breakfast. Yum.
4) I bought vanilla ice cream at the grocery store at lunchtime so I can eat it with my apple crisp at home for dessert.
5) I'm glad I'm not in DC for the Inauguration but I'm sad I'm not in DC for the Inauguration. It's hard to get a sense of the enormity of the situation from down here in Atlanta.
6) I'm still thinking about my apple crisp. I think what makes it particularly good is the almonds I added to the topping.
7) I'm still mad at my dog Cosmo for eating an entire loaf of pumpernickel bread on Sunday. I left the house for an hour and he managed to pull the table cloth off of my kitchen table and consume an entire loaf of bread. I have bread up there all the time and he's never shown any interest. I don't know what gets into him sometimes (other than food!).

kitchen armageddon

2009-01-10T13:57:00.003-05:00

I am trying to psych myself up to clean the house but this involves moving lots of inert objects that I haven't thought about doing anything with probably since I moved here. I am sitting here thinking about the fact that I've just eaten my second meal of Popeye's fried chicken since the beginning of the year. Obviously, no New Year's resolutions have been resolved. One resolution is to eat fried chicken at establishments that are not Popeye's. This being Georgia, there are plenty of these places. I think Popeye's draws me back, time and again by, a) drive-thru convenience, b) combo meals, c) mashed potatoes and gravy. This is the only fast-food establishment I frequent where I eschew french fries for another side. The gravy at Popeye's is mysterious, full of pork, and irresistible. If it weren't for this, I might find my fried chicken craving satisfied elsewhere.

I've been threatening kitchen armageddon all week. My kitchen is being taken over by dishes, plasticware, skewers (why do I have hundreds of metal and wood skewers, yet no barbecue?), appliances, lids with no mates and containers of dog-related paraphernalia. To rectify this I feel like I need to empty containers full of crap I will never use (snowglobes? stationery I've owned since I was in kindergarten? receipts?) so I can put plasticware in them in an organized fashion. Why? Why?? Another issue is that this problem is endemic in every area of my home. The laundry room is full of half-empty (or half-full?) paint cans, cabinet doors that will never be used, a make-your-own-soap kit, orphaned clothing that I have tentatively (in my head) saved for "art projects" (ha!!!)

So more accurately, house armageddon is about to commence. I will reward myself with some delicious lamb later.

Ooh, I have to point out that the Doc Green's that closed up in East Cobb near my job has re-opened as a Willy's Mexican Grill - equally overpriced for mediocre food and even worse, inadequate seating. I've previously blogged about the head-scratching success of Doc Green's but watched with glee as the one near where I worked failed, which I don't understand since they were always packed. They will not get any more of my green.

empty fork

2009-01-02T11:13:00.002-05:00

I am starting this blog anew because I was sick of the old format and it's now 2009.

January 1, 2009 - first meal consisted of frozen tater tots and coffee.
- New Year's Day Gongora "pig" party eating consisted of cupcakes, yum yum cake (cakey cookies covered in powdered sugar), various snacks, chicken fingers, greens, corn pudding, homemade beer "pig". I wasn't able to stay for the pig to continue cooking at 4 degrees per hour to reach 187 degrees since I had to work today but I will return on Saturday to eat the cooked pig.
- dinner consisted of a can of cream of mushroom soup zhushed up with real portabello mushrooms and garlic.