deangold

Not that it helps, but Mike Chen's YouTube food channel just has a trip to a grocery store in Seattle that was full of case stacks of exotic flavors and a huge {maybe 16'} section of kit kats. My blood sugar rose just watching. The Kit Kat porn begins just after 11 minute mark and there are there is a second diplay of Kit Kat a short time later.

Italy. One in Venice. One in Tarquinia at the Etruscan tombs.

Continuing the things, we are close to thru with our over-shopping from last week. Crabcakes were the star of the night. Lump crab, about 10 oz, a small handful panko, 3 tablespoons homemade roasted garlic mayo, salt, peppepr, grotto spice rub. We made these last night and let them firm up inthe fridge. Pan fried in olive oil till brown, flipped, finished in the Breville oven, then returned to the pan which has homemade ramp butter in it and turned to coat, with the remaining drizzled on. Given the coloring, you cant see the ramp butter because I let it brown inthe skillet, Sides were asparagus and spring onions on the cast iron grill, olive oil, salt, pepper, grotto spice rub & new potatoes steamed, sliced and browned on the cast iron grill, with ramp butter. Drinks: I started with an afternoon Pimm's. This is just about the last of Andrew's Pimm's from last year. My batch this year is just about readdy to bottle so good timing.Juice of half a lemon, 1/2 oz Gordon's gin, splash of ginger ale. Kay had one too as we cooked dinner while I had a Jake Parrot Inspiration: old overholt & Cocchi americano bianco. 50/50 on the rocks w/ a few drops lemon juice, a splash of soda. Quite refreshing and delicious. With dinner we enjoyed a cenatiempo bianco gran tiefo which is made from Campanian aglianico. Delish!. Spot enjoyed a leaf of catnip from our brand new garden. He was suspicious then he licked the leaf. Then he dropped it. Then he fell over and nibbled on it. The he had a fight with the air {I think he won} and another with the carpet {looked like a draw to me} Another couple of fights with air and carpet respectively, then a wobbly trip back to bed. We opened his can of pizza and he came out rapidly if unsteadily and devoured part of it, took a nap and came for the rest. He is still stoned off of his considerably reduced butt. His musical selections tonight: "CatDad, can you move faster on that pizza?" and "GIVE ME A GREENIE CATMOM!" had a certain wobble to his notes. But like Charlie Parker's famous Parker's Mood when he was strung out an heroin, it had a poignant beauty,

H Mart in Fairfax has some unusual flavors. I am not a big fan so I really don't remember how long ago, just that I thought that is unusual.

It looks like I have a source for crabs for next Sunday. The base price for the crab is around $6 +-$1. I would bring them to Little River Turnpike and 395 for pickup. Cleaning or local delivery can be arranged at a fee.

Saturday night we go thru our refrigerators and try and use up everything from last week's farmers market. This last weekend, we were careful to only preorder what we could use in exactly one week. It was a perfect plan until we got to the market: Oh, two bags of cukes, I mean it's just two bags. A box of potatoes? Sure. A box of Sweet potatoes? Of course. Tomatoes look so good and they are healthy. And I mean those spring purple onions are adorable. Did I mention the green and yello ball zucchini at Barajas? So tonight we had lots of stuff to move through and we got to about half of it. Chard two ways: The leaves we sauteed with lots of microplaned garlic and a splash of lime. The stems got steamed and then put in a cast iron oval topped with crab pasta sauce {cream, leeks, spice rub, tamari} panko bread crumb, ramp butter, parmigianno reggiano, All baked till bubbly and browned on top. This was outstanding and I am sure it was healthy as heck. Zucchini and yellow 8 ball zucchini sauteed in olive oil, mint and garlic with lemon juice and roasted sichuan peppercorn. mint & garlic olive oil. Purple Broccoli from Lind Vista was broccoli raab style. I peeled and steamed the stalks. Then I pan fried them with garlic, ginger & green onion, Thai fish sauce, soy sauce, lime juice, potato starch and hon dashi slurry. I put the veggies in a dish, deglazed the pan with a little water to get up all the potato starch burnt bits and let it thicken and then returned the raab to the pan to make a glistening coating. Baby red potatoes steamed, sliced in half and grilled on the yaki niku grill with the left over scallion greens. Topped with homemade ramp butter. Asparagus rubbed with olive oil, grotto spice rub, salt & pepper, ten grilled on the yaki niku grill. Kay made Negroni to start: Gordon's gin, Luxardo aperitivo Americano {aperol knockoff,} Cocchi Vermouth di Torino, bitter truth celery bitters. Kay had Gordons, Luxardo bitter {campari equivalent,} Cocchi rosa, Bitter truth cucumber bitters and Bitterman's orange cream citrate bitters. Finished our bottle of Schofitt Pinot Blanc Auxxerois Cuve Catherine 2001. Dinner! Chard stem gratin, red potatoes. purple broccoli, zucchini, red chard Chard stem gratin, purple broccoli Asparagus on the Yaki Nikku Asparagus cooking, wine, chard stem gratin Schoffit 2001 Cuvee Catherine

Friday night: A former Grotto customer got in touch with me to cook him 8 orders of crab pasta, some to eat last night and some to put in his freezer. Profish just happened to have the first of season crab that wasn't stupid expensive. So I made him his and made a little extra crab sauce which is leeks {chinese from H Mart} sauteed in butter & olive oil, heavy cream, salt, pepper, grotto spice rub, tamari, double golden fish brand sriracha. We got about 3 cups worth out of the batch and had 1# 5 oz of lump crab. We made crab pasta grotto style. Not having a pasta machine any more, we used Opera brand pappardelle. I cooked the pasta just short of al dente while I heated the sauce. As the pasta was ready, I blended in a cup of pasta water and added the 5 oz lump crab and let the pappardelle finish cooking in the sauce 3 minutes. We licked the bowl. Well, I used my finger and my more refiens wife used a bit of bread. Negroni: Me: Del Maguey Mezcal Vida, Luxardo Aperitivo Americano {aperol equicalent}, Cocchi Vermouth di Torino, Bitter truth Choclate bitters, Jerry thomas bitters. A home run! Kay: Gordon's London dry gin, Luxardo bitter {Campari equivalent,} Cocchi Vermouth di Torino, Bitter Truth celery bitters, Angoustera Orance bitters. 2 glasses of Schofitt Pinot Blanc Auxxerois Cuve Catherine 2001

Friday: Romaine Salad w/anchovy, balsamico & olive oil dressing. Saturday: Romaine salad w/Genoa brand yellowfin tuna, marinated artichokes w/green olives, black olives. lemon and olive oil dressing. This was one massive head of Romaine from Barajas. A great $3.00 purchase!

We entered in a spot with just a few distantly spaced gates. "We came up for this?" But then we followed the path we were on and then there were more and finally we came into an open field and there were massive numbers. Seeing people just turning around with looks of wonderment on their faces.

I think I'd like a Madeleine right now.

Can't say that I ever had an Ollie Burger at any outlet. But I remember the Lumsburger of my youth but I could not tell you anything about it. My youthful burgers of nostalgia are three: The Hawaiian Hut: a little old fashioned burger stand taken over by a heavily tatooed ex-fireman who chain smoked as he slapped burgers down on the grill. Hand formed, maybe 3/4 or 1" thick. There was a totem pole out front and the patio was overed in thatch. He wore Hawaiian shirts. And there was that cigarette, the ash always threatening to fall on your burger but never doing so. He would shake his "secret seasoning" out of a dredge which every kid there knew to be Lawrey's seasoned salt. He knew everything about you and he knew your mom from her shopping across the street at Gelson's. They tore the hut down for a gas station expansion. Today is is a luxury car lot. Woody's: first discovered one day going to a UCLA or Rams game at the LA Coloseum. Huge crowd and we were hungry. You got into a line and chose a large or smaller burger {still large} that were thin pressed and grilled crisp. No rare, medium rare, medium or medium well. Burnt was it. You could get bacon, grilled onions and cheese added. Then you went to a long condiment bar and you could load up as much as you could fit on your tray. Despite all the USC paraphernalia, it was amazing. They later tried to create a chain and it was not the same. There is a huge difference between pulling a burger off a grill just as its outside is perfectly charred and caramelized and just starting to actually burn. It was perfection and their 3 old black guys on the line knew how to do it perfectly. When they went to a chain operation, they were just burnt. And cooked by teen age white kids who didn't give a eff. They went bankrupt. But the burger of my youth, the non-jewish deli sandwich of my youth was The Original Cassel's. if you didn't go when Alban Cassel himself was running it, you did not have a Cassell's Burger. It was at 6th and Rampart {not positive about Rampart and maybe it was 3rd.} in Downtown LA. There was a smallish shop for the line to order, the salad bar and the cookline. Alban was on the cash register. There were four older black guys who rotated between the order station and cooking. Alban was a perfectionist and he designed his own grill. There was a flattop on top for toasting the buns and grilling the sandwiches. Then there was a pull out grill on the bottom with a broiler on top of that under the flattop. The burger artisan could move that contraption up and down and in and out with a handle with a lever on it that let the grill swing free. When you got in line, you had to decide what to order. The entire menu: Burger Ham Tuna Salad Egg Salad The sandwiches were served on thin slices of either rye or egg bread, made especially for Alban, by a local bakery. When I spoted the name of the bakery making its very early daily delivery, I went there because they had to be master bakers. They weren't. Their bread was worse than super market bread but the stuff they made for Alban was custom and it was his recipe. The slices were 16" by 9", sliced thin on a deli slicer. The burgers came in two sizes, 1/3# and 2/3# served on the same eggy bun, always toasted perfectly. The entire time for making a sandwich from start to frying it on the flat op in a pool of butter with a flat weight pressing it down, the weight sized to match the bread perfectly, was maybe 3 minutes. The burgers were cooked top and bottom simultaneously so ordered medium rare, they took 3 to 5 minutes. They had their meat custom grown in Colorado to spec. They used only the chuck, delivered in the morning every day they were open and ground on site. When I was really accepted as a regular, Alban even told me the restaurants that bought the rest of his cows for fancy $30 steaks. This is 1973 so $30 was a big drop of green! But a 2/3# Cassels with the salad bar and a big lemonade was about $5. My mom took me there once before I turned 16 and when I got to high school and had friends who had cars, we would cut school to go to Cassell's as it was open Monday thru Friday 11 am 'til they ran out. But the real genius was the ordering system. The gruff guy taking orders would point and say 'whatta ya have?' It was more an accusation than a question. You had to answer with no hesitation or be pushed aside for a regular to explain the system to you. Each item was numbered. 21 was a plain 1/3# burger and 31 was 23. *2 meant Swiss. *3 American. And so on. You knew you were a boring regular when the guy taking your order would say you are always 31 medium. Live a little! They all knew I ate most everything but American cheese and egg salad, so I would be greeted with 'here comes trouble' but I never messed up my orders so I was allright. Sandwiches came on an oval platter. Burgers on a square one. So when you ordered, you got a plate put down on the counter. There were strips of hand cut butcher paper in boxes and the rest of your order was coded. If you had a burger, the temp was pink for medium rare, blue for rare, brown for medium. I believe there was a graveyard out back for anyone who ordered their burger more than medium. If you did, you got medium rare no matter what. The strips went on one side of the plate for 1/3# and the other for 2/3#. Cheese was at the back of the plate, pink for Swiss and blue for American. Everything needed for burgerperfection with a plate and 2 strips of paper. For a sandwich, on one side of the platter, it was pink for ham, blue for tuna. I assume that brown was egg salad but I never saw one ordered. If you wanted your sandwich grilled, you got a pink strip on the other side. Bread was indicated by a paper strip at the back of the plate. No strip was rye, the only real choice. Burgers were stacked separately than sandwiches. When the grill was empty, the cook would come and collect a stack of plates. The oldest order was on the bottom. So he would put his hand on top of the stack and and flip it so all the plates were face down and the oldest was on top. Say the burger grill was empty. He could count out the burger strips and know how many 1/3 and 2/3 he needed on the grill. He knew the temps again by counting another part of the pile. The grill tilted so rare was at the front, medium rare in the middle and medium at the top, closest to the upper flame. A shake of salt and pepper mix out the dredge was all that touched the burger except the cheese added half way thru cooking. All the burgers cooked at the same time, no matter what temp you ordered because of the design of the grill. When the grill was just about fully cooked, the cook guy spread out the plates with the paper and everything was offloaded in perfect order. I never got something other than what I ordered. Not once. And nothing ever was less than perfect. I think any cook who made a mistake after their first day got shot and put out back in the cemetery along with those who insisted on well done burgers. They called out your number and temp and you grabbed the plate or platter for a sandwich. And then you went to the salad bar. iceburg, sliced onions, none of this grilled onion shit. Yellow mustard made from powder every day. But the star, the best of all was homemade potato salad. it was creamy, spiked with chopped pickle and a ton of horseradish. It brought tears to the eyes like a bottle of Gold's at Passover. Drinks were bottled soda and homemade lemon aid and iced tea. They prepped in the morning starting at 5 am {you could go by to see the process, we would go after all night poker broke up, pass by Cassells to watch before going for Chiu Chou noodles in China Town. When they ran out they ran out. If you went late, say 3 o'clock and were standing in line you might hear the mournful cry, no more 2/3# burger and you were eating something else. They would cut off the line when the ends of the prep was in sight. And when everyone was thru ordering, there would just be enough left for family meal. There was a patio and an indoor dining area. When your food was ready, you would go out and wait for a spot to open. There were two Latina's with brooms and trash bag to clear and clean spots as they opened. if you lingered you would get told to move your culo in Spanish once, then poked with the broom. More than once, the Cemetery. but the whole operation was set up so that your seat magically appeared as you came with your food. Alban was a genius. And I don't ever remember any staff quitting. Alband rules: Never had fries: They are a world of their own. Never had ketchup. Nothing ever changed. Nothing. Except Alban grew older as time went by. Downtown redevelopment closed the Original Cassell's. The original Cassels was actually his second place. His first, just Cassels had to move as his legend grew. He said that was it, no more. A few years later someone convinced him to reopen on Beverly in a more high falutin' neighborhood. But Alban couldn't recreate the magic and the black guys took over the business. They recreated the magic but I guess the money part was too hard to make a go of it. Instead of lines with 50 or 100 people waiting {that would take no more than 30 to 45 minutes to clear} they had lines of 10 at peak hours. They sold to their developer for funding and he had visions of a chain. The 4 black guys took their money and left after a very short time. Apparently they did well for themselves. The new place closed in ignominy with people asking what is the deal with Cassel's. It's just a burger! Sort of like people asking what's the big deal with this Mikey Angelo guy.. Didn't he just pain ceilings and walls?

Kay thinks that she can complain to HR about her new colleague being asleep on the job and shedding all over her favorite sweater. When he heard about her plans, he suggested.... well I don't think I can reproduce his language here. He has an open complaint with HR about being chased out of his workspace, not enough food, not enough greenies, getting brushed when he doesn't want to, not getting brushed when he does want it, getting scratched behind the ears or on his head to the point where he reflexively pushes his head up and back, not getting scratched behind the ears or on his head to the point where he reflexively pushes his head up and back, disparaging remarks about his bathroom habits and finally, lack of wonderment at his butthole. HR has asked him to send them an email and they will open an investigation. Here is his first attempt: kmlghbvbiokp,lhfytuas-0=24sdvmop c90-dvsl q24[]p ksdvf-0ifewm;kl'ewf [pko0]34 ;lm3r l; ,qwe I don't think he could have captured his anger any better. He, of course, went off to sleep so he needs to finish it. I can't wait to see him try and hit send!

Well except Liquor Barn, Hamburger Hamlet, Minnie Pearls, Lum's, Bennigans, Kenny Rodgers, Steak and Ale, Wimpy's, Chi Chi's, Marie Callenders {the restaurants are gone aad bankrupt, the pies are still for sale at your local chain grocery except Lucky's.} Think of it the next time you stop off at Tower Records or Blockbuster Video!

One of my bywords was "The Assholes always win."

I cant begin to tell you the 1* yelp reviews that had the former servers. "1* and I know bad {choose from food, service, racism}" usually surrounding cutting people off for being intoxicated. Something like 50% of the time we refused service, we got a 1 star review and invariably I received a lesson in how bad my restaurant was from the former server involved. Funny, we never had an issue with a former cook or bartender. I remember one time we had to catch a young lady falling down the stairs and we first cut off the young lady. Then her friends poured her a drink and we had to cut off the table. We took the wine and did not charge for it even as it was half drunk. We got 3 DIFFERENT 1* reviews from that one. Oh yeah, I left out one detail: she puked in our bathroom and didn't tell anyone. I am so glad to be out of the business on so many levels.

I was out getting my Profish order. A former customer wanted me to make him 8 orders of fresh crab pasta and this was the first week I could get local crab for less than 2 times it's usual price. But on the way back I detoured a little to Lotte Plaza and got a gimbap and some jeon. I ate the jeon in the car and split the gimbap with Kay. Pretty good haul for under $10.

We loved the texture we got. We do a good cook til 190 to 200 degrees after the eggs are added so we get a firm texture. We are not using that much liquor and our blend is 50-50 milk and Heavy cream 40%. Next up we are making fresh strawberry with the strawberry syrup replacing some of the milk and offeset with extra cream and less sugar. We will use a little homemade Pimms in that. But if it is too icy or too soft, I bet your trick would help.

I put the pork roast into the oven for a low and slow roast to 140 degrees. it took far too long to get there so we instead settled for the last two sirlon steaks cooked on the yaki niku grill served with lime wedges, salt, wasabi and Tamari. So good even if I let them get a little too close to medium. Tomato salad w/fresh lump crab. Tomatoes from Barajas and spring valley, good for hot house but I need some grown in dirt tomatoes soon! A little sliced purple spring onion, olive oil and balsamico dressing, salt pepper and Grotto spice rub {we just finished making an 8 quart batch and have enough ingredients for 16 quarts more. We used to use this on practically everything at the grotto.} The last of the Atwater rosemary bread. The first of their whole wheat sourdough. A big bowl of Barajas strawberries with Dahi youngster, Solace beers: Juicy Lucy DIPA and hops out suns out IPA.

Wednesday lunch: Rice cooked in the rice cooker flavored with Thai fish sauce, ponzu, sesame oil. I added a handful of 13-15 shrimp from Restaurant Depot straight from the freezer. When I bought this bag, I did not know it was TSP added. They tasted great but shrank to the point where I thought them to be like 25-30s. TSP allows seafood suppliers to charge you shrimp pricing for water. I also sliced up a local eggplant we got from Spring Valley. The eggplant was particularly good that way. I had a couple of steamed eggs {8 minutes, then shocked in ice water, so the yolk was translucent and on the border of hving a liquid texture.} With salt, pepper and salt rub. I love keeping a container of cooked eggs in the fridge for a quick bite.These eggs were farm aggs and just too fresh as they stick like crazy. I will buy 2 dozen this week so I can age one for hard boiled eggs.

We have had some very rich dinners and breakfasts/lunches recently. Today's dinner was simple. We finished off the greens shoyu pickle. Soy Pickles of Jicama, turnip, kohlrabi, carrot Mugs of dashi broth. Bowl of local strawberries covered with Dahi yougurt and a few drops brown sugar rich simple syrup {for the flavor and not the sweetness. Cheddar from Atwater & Stone ground wheat crackers. Shot of Del Maguey Vida Mezcal, neat.

I am available for proofreading duties. Over the years Don Rocks has complemented me on my proofreading skills many a time!

Have not tried Sipsmith yet. Heard good things. It's on sale for $34.99 this month at the VABC. What is it like? What I drink most is Brokers by a long bit, as it is my choice for negroni, martinis and I like to play with it in other drinks. Then it is Bombay Sapphire for corpse revivers and the ocasional Martinez. Hendricks and Green Hat for a chance of pace. And really any gin can be used in a negroni if you just adjust you choice of campari-like element and vermouth-like element. We have not been drinking as many Negronis as usual lately. Have no idea why.

Atwater bread and Lebne.

We saw thier umbrellas in California which didn't read like much. The gates in Central Park were amazing and worth the trip to see them. at first, our reaction was is this really it? But as we saw m ore and more, it got breathtaking. Thank you to Chriso and Jeanne-Claude. And remember that they spent much more time getting permissions and fund raising than doing their art. The art of making art is a hard business.

Due to the huge breakfast, we had Shilla Bakery cookies, Atwater Cheddar and crackers. Anxo CIder mixed with local strawberry syrup Hops Out Suns Out Solacae IPA.