Food & Drink 61 | ***Dave Does the Blog

More incredible food? Shocking!

(Yet another boring rendition of things we did in Faerie. Feel free to move on.) Friday was supposed to be another work day for me, but I decided to play…

(Yet another boring rendition of things we did in Faerie. Feel free to move on.)

Friday was supposed to be another work day for me, but I decided to play hooky instead, signing in long enough to clear timesheets and check critical e-mail. My folks came down with my nephews, Rob and Sean, to swim and play with Katherine (tremendous fun), and then the folks left with Katherine, leaving us on our own.

Margie and I ran off to Fry’s, always a dangerous experience. As it worked out, most of what we found was what we came for — an extra battery and SD chip for Jim’s camera, and a major memory upgrade for the Ks’ PC. On the way home, we were advised to swing past a local K-Mart that was going out of business, and thus had major clearances going on. We found a few things there, too.

The secret part of the day’s plans, though, had to do with dinner. After the grand scheme to deceive me the previous night at Club 33, the plan was go surprise Margie with dinner at The Hobbit. That plan was slightly complicated when Mary showed up (we’d known she was coming, but Margie had talked with her last and had not confirmed, or passed on, that she was arriving Friday afternoon rather than Saturday day); given the Hobbit’s tight seating and reservation regimen, we were fortunate to be able to take her along (kudos to Ginger for swinging that).

Continue reading “More incredible food? Shocking!”

Surprise!

(First of some reports from our trip to Faerie …) I knew something was up Thursday evening. I was working in the office in Pasadena while Margie was off spending…

(First of some reports from our trip to Faerie …)

I knew something was up Thursday evening. I was working in the office in Pasadena while Margie was off spending time with her folks. I’d been told that we were going out for dinner, but the details were not forthcoming.

I call Margie as I leave the office in Pasadena. In point of fact, she calls me. On her cell phone, not from her folks. “Great, glad you’re leaving. You should probably take the 5 down.”

WTF? I-5 is the worst-traffic freeway in the LA Metro area, which is saying something. Perennially under construction, it’s perpetually jammed. “Um … the 5? What, down the Pasadena into downtown?”

“Or the 57. Whichever.”

“I … was thinking of taking the 210 to the 57 and on down. The way I usually go.”

“That’ll be fine.” She sounded very perky. “Give me a call when you get below the 60.”

“Oooookay.”

Something, obviously, was afoot.

Continue reading “Surprise!”

Goblets they dropped there for themselves …

I like ceramic goblets, which has turned into a minor collecting hobby for me whilst on vacation. So I was particularly annoyed when, last night, I carefully set down my…

I like ceramic goblets, which has turned into a minor collecting hobby for me whilst on vacation. So I was particularly annoyed when, last night, I carefully set down my favorite goblet (picked up in Britain two trips back) on the edge of the counter, then knocked it over as I withdrew my hand.

Ah, well. At least it wasn’t Jackie breaking off the handle of another coffee cup. It’s been a bad month for ceramics in our house …

Coffee, OCD, and Me

I have been in this building, and this wing of the building, and using the break room in this wing of the building, since December 1999, when we moved in….

I have been in this building, and this wing of the building, and using the break room in this wing of the building, since December 1999, when we moved in. (In a brilliant confluence of planning in advance and unfortunate lease agreements, we ended up moving in over Christmas weekend. Not only that, but it was, as you’ll note upon consideration, a week before Y2K. But I digress …)

So I know how things go. I know how things are arranged. I know how things are meant to be set up.

Like the coffee carafes.

We have insulated jugs that slide under the coffee maker and then keep the coffee amazingly warm for several hours afterward (meaning no burnt coffee as the pot sits on the hot plate — very nice). There are four of them, and since time immemorial (or at least since 12/99) they have been, from left to right next to the coffee maker:

Costa Rican (a light brew)
Vanilla Nut (my preference)
French Roast (dark, and made darker by brewing 1½ pouches of coffee)
Decaf (feh)

We dabbled briefly with a fifth, European Blend, but it never quite caught on …

So, that’s the order, as decreed by tradition and God.

Except …

There have been some changes in the building arrangement over the last few months. The business unit whose wing this is has been decreasing in size, and our engineering group has been expanding. So there are now strangers on the floor.

But, still, they’re engineers, y’know? So respect of order and existing arrangements should be their cuppa.

Evidently not. The coffee carafes have gotten all higgledy-piggledy, turning up in pretty much any random order you can imagine.

This is not easy, mind you. The carafes sit on little stands. Only one can be brewing at a time. To get them mixed up, you have to have one under the coffee maker, take another one down, put the newly-filled one up in the wrong spot, and put the to-be-filled one under the coffee maker.

This is, evidently, what is happening. And it is driving me absolutely buggy.

I mean, these this isn’t rocket science, folks! There is an order to things, and there’s no particularly good reason to change that order, and every reason to keep it consistent. To wit, the carafes are identified by little velcro-backed laminated tags describing their contents. But, given an order, nobody actually looks at the tags. They look at the coffee level in the small gauge along the front, but not at the tags.

Which means, if the pots are reshuffled, who knows what you might get.

I tell you, is this any way to run an engineering firm?

As I was making a new pot this morning, I noticed one of the tags on the side of the coffee maker was out of place. There are seven rows for the “day of the week” tags (so you can tell if a pot was made today, or is left-over from yesterday or over the weekend). There’s also a miscellaneous row for extra flavor and “1½ bags” tags.

I fixed the one that was out of place. Then noticed another. And another. And another.

Folks had just been putting them back at random. At random. Are they mad?

As I was doing this, one of the new engineers started to chuckle at my efforts. “That’s what we like to see, someone who likes to organize.” I grinned wanly.

As I left, he chuckled some more. “It’s just too much effort to put those all back where they belong.”

An engineer said this. An engineer.

Rrg.

Diet Coke floats

No, I’m not talking about a diet ice cream drink (shudder), I’m talking about what’s demonstrated at this site: cans of Diet Coke will float in water; cans of Regular…

No, I’m not talking about a diet ice cream drink (shudder), I’m talking about what’s demonstrated at this site: cans of Diet Coke will float in water; cans of Regular Coke will sink. It’s all in the sugar (which both adds weight and adds weight, so to speak).

Of course, Diet Coke tastes like crap, but that’s another topic.

(via J-Walk)

A slice o’ geek

Interesting site called Cooking for Engineers which presents lots of interesting-looking food and recipes, but uses its own idiosyncratic recipe format … … which actually looks pretty useful, except that…

Interesting site called Cooking for Engineers which presents lots of interesting-looking food and recipes, but uses its own idiosyncratic recipe format …

… which actually looks pretty useful, except that it doesn’t render well in Firefox (which probably means it uses something non-standard in IE). Which doesn’t seem very engineer-friendly …

(via Widgetopia)

Party time, excellent

Is Margie Gras putting Denver on the map? Well, no, not really. But neither are we doing much to achieve our (unstated) goal to get the freezers cleared out ……

Is Margie Gras putting Denver on the map?

Well, no, not really. But neither are we doing much to achieve our (unstated) goal to get the freezers cleared out …

Grilling

I’ve started up a new Food & Drink category here, which seems to have been a terrible oversight until now, given the nature of life at our house. It’s relatively…

I’ve started up a new Food & Drink category here, which seems to have been a terrible oversight until now, given the nature of life at our house. It’s relatively unpopulated (I have a lot of category maintenance to do), but here’s something that will fit right in: Everything You Thought You Knew About Grilling Is Wrong.

Flip Early, Flip Often. This is the big shocker. It was hard to imagine doing this at first, and when I told people, they thought I was crazy. Think about it this way: you want a juicy steak, right? Or juicy chicken, or hamburgers, or whatever. The juice is nothing more than the blood in the meat. When you put the meat on the grill, there is more heat below the meat than above. The heat forces the liquid up, through the meat. Ever see a big pool of liquid on top of the steak when you lift the cover off the grill? It’s been on too long. You don’t want it to come out of the steak, you want it to stay in the steak. So you flip every four or five minutes. Sometimes I flip every two or three, depending on what else I’m doing. Flip it before any liquid has a chance to escape out of the top. Repeat often. Flip, flip, flip. It really works. And if you think this takes a lot of time and concentration, you’re right. There’s time enough for socializing later. Do you want to grill an excellent steak or not? Okay, then. Concentrate.

I’ve actually long been an over-flipper, and only in the last few years have I tended to go the other way, both from Received Wisdom and laziness. That’ll larn me.

Good stuff.

(via J-Walk)

Wining

I’m fortunate enough to live in a state that, despite having its own wine industry, places no restrictions on the import of wine from other states. (We still can’t buy…

I’m fortunate enough to live in a state that, despite having its own wine industry, places no restrictions on the import of wine from other states. (We still can’t buy wine on Sundays, but that’s another matter.)

Other folks, though, are less fortunate. New York and Texas, among others, both restrict mail-order wine from out of state, despite allowing it within the state. This blatant protectionism is finally made its way up to the Supreme Court. Todd Zywicki over at Volokh has put up a couple of good posts on the subject, demonstrating how the “public good” arguments put forward by these states are bogus …

Does this mean that minors will be buying Pinot Noir over the Internet? Probably not. The FTC surveyed liquor enforcement officials in several states that permit direct shipping and they reported few, if any, problems with direct shipping leading to increased underage access. This is not surprising, of course, as intuition tells us that minors are not likely to get a hankering for a perky Merlot, swipe their parent’s credit card, order wine on-line, and have it shipped to them for arrival several days later, and to make sure that there is some adult at home to sign for the package when it arrives.
In fact, the actual experience of state liquor officials confirm this intuition. They point to several reasons why minors are unlikely to buy wine over the Internet. First, Gallo, Blue Nun, and other cheap perennial favorites of 20 year olds are cheaper and easier to get at 7-11; because of shipping costs, only more expensive wines are cheaper on-line. Second, there are substantial inconveniences associated with obtaining alcohol on-line as opposed to a traditional seller, such as needing a credit card and being forced to wait several days for delivery of the product. Finally, many states have implemented safeguards that can reduce the danger of underage access to alcohol, such as clearly labeling the package and requiring an adult signature upon delivery.

… how it leads to substantially higher prices (and lower selection) for residents of those states …

Because shipping costs do not vary with the wine’s price, consumers experience the greatest savings on expensive wines, while brick-and-mortar stores may offer better prices on less expensive wines. The McLean study suggests that, if consumers use the least expensive shipping method, they could save an average of 8-13 percent on wines costing more than $20 per bottle, and an average of 20-21 percent on wines costing more than $40 per bottle.

… and how it really isn’t Constitutional …

So the Court has held that notwithstanding the specific mention of “importation” in the 21st Amendment, it does not repeal the “Import-Export” Clause, and notwithstanding the mention of “transportation” it does not prohibit the transportation through New York for delivery to a duty-free shop at the airport (the facts of Hostetter). In short, notwithstanding the initial impression that the plain language of the 21st Amendment gives the states the power to do whatever they want to, the Supreme Court has not interpreted it that way and it is absurd to think that Congress intended that meaning.
Whatever the 21st Amendment does, therefore, there is no evidence that it was intended to overturn one of the fundamental purposes of the Constitution, which was to eliminate internal trade barriers that plagued the country under the Articles of Confederation. As James Madison stated, the Commerce Clause “grew out of the abuse of the power by the importing States in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves.”

In reality, as is true with so many Blue Laws, it’s the forces profiting from the status quo — local wine producers and liquor stores, in this case — that is behind many of these discriminatory/anti-commerce laws. I look forward to seeing how the Supremes address this.

But does it taste good?

From the same city that invented the Deep-Fried Mars Bar, I give you the Stonner: A new 1,000 calorie kebab has been dubbed the most dangerous fast food in Britain….

From the same city that invented the Deep-Fried Mars Bar, I give you the Stonner:

A new 1,000 calorie kebab has been dubbed the most dangerous fast food in Britain.
The Stonner is a pork sausage wrapped in doner kebab meat coated in batter and deep fried.
It contains 46 grams of fat and is double the calories of a Big Mac.

Well, if they’d wrapped it in bacon, too, I might have been interested …

(via the Flea)

Notes for a future Margie Gras

So how much gold is actually in a bottle of Goldschlager? (via the Flea)…

So how much gold is actually in a bottle of Goldschlager?

(via the Flea)

Where will it end?!

The standard retort (rightly or wrongly) to claims that the economy is improving, jobs are increasing, and outsourcing is actually good for US employment, is that the jobs that are…

The standard retort (rightly or wrongly) to claims that the economy is improving, jobs are increasing, and outsourcing is actually good for US employment, is that the jobs that are being generated are, in fact, cheap, low-wage, “McJobs.”

Well, even those McJobs may be in horrible danger.

Pull off U.S. Interstate Higheway 55 near Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and into the drive-through lane of a McDonald’s next to the highway and you’ll get fast, friendly service, even though the person taking your order is not in the restaurant – or even in Missouri.
The order taker is in a call center in Colorado Springs, more than 900 miles, or 1,450 kilometers, away, connected to the customer and to the workers preparing the food by high-speed data lines.

So next time it sounds like that order-taker at the drive-thru doesn’t speak English as their native language — it’s now even more possible.

Well, probably not. International circuits and latency — plus accuracy issues — would make it unlikely for the local Wendy’s to outsource the order line to Bangalore. But for domestic consumption, so to speak … well, it’s still kind of an odd development. You have telecomm costs on the one hand. On the other hand, you have supposedly improved accuracy and throughput (and, though unmentioned, the eventual efficiency of balancing “rush” order periods across multiple time zones).

It’s a bizarre idea, on first blush, but it makes enough sense that, someday, it may seem perfectly natural.

I always enjoyed working drive-thru …

(via GeekPress)

Java jive

Once again, coffee-drinkers can rejoice: Though the virtues of coffee drinking may have been debated in the past, now there appear to be new reasons to rejoice over java. More…

Once again, coffee-drinkers can rejoice:

Though the virtues of coffee drinking may have been debated in the past, now there appear to be new reasons to rejoice over java. More and more studies have linked coffee consumption to a number of health benefits, including a reduced risk of diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, gallstones, colon cancer and potentially heart disease.
“Coffee has much more in it than caffeine,” said Dr. PeMartin, director of the Vanderbilt University’s Institute for Coffee Studies, which conducts medical research on coffee and is funded by a grant from a consortium of coffee-producing countries. “It’s a very complex beverage that contains hundreds of compounds, including many with antioxidant effects.”
Though the tea industry has been touting its antioxidants, turns out coffee may contain even more–specifically polyphenols. One of the most potent antioxidants in coffee is called chlorogenic acid, which is partially responsible for the coffee flavor. Some reports estimate that more than 850 compounds are packed inside the humble bean.
Martin said that the roasting process appears to change the structure of the compounds in coffee–boosting the potential disease-fighting benefits. Martin, who is also a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Vanderbilt, is looking at the potential use of coffee compounds to treat addiction and depression. Past studies indicate that coffee may help lift moods, reduce anxiety and depression, and even reduce the risk of suicide.
Some of the strongest and latest research may be the connection between coffee drinking and a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, a growing health epidemic that is closely linked to the rising rates of obesity.

And it perks you up! Huzzah!

(via Instapundit)

DAMMIT!

REFILL THE FRELLING COFFEE POT WHEN IT’S EMPTY, PEOPLE!!!! I MEAN, WHAT ARE YOU? BLIND? STUPID? OR JUST SELFISH, INCONSIDERATE SONS-OF-BITCHES WHO CAN’T BE BOTHERED TO TAKE THE EXTRA THIRTY…

REFILL THE FRELLING COFFEE POT WHEN IT’S EMPTY, PEOPLE!!!! I MEAN, WHAT ARE YOU? BLIND? STUPID? OR JUST SELFISH, INCONSIDERATE SONS-OF-BITCHES WHO CAN’T BE BOTHERED TO TAKE THE EXTRA THIRTY SECONDS OUT OF YOUR FRELLING BUSY LIFE?

(And, no, I don’t need to consider switching to decaf. Dammit.)

Seeds of doubt

Y’know, if there were a God, He’d set it up so that if I make a pot of coffee, and put another pot on when I go back to pour…

Y’know, if there were a God, He’d set it up so that if I make a pot of coffee, and put another pot on when I go back to pour my first cup, there’d still be some frelling coffee left when I went back for seconds.

Dammit.

Your Diet Lesson for Today

If you get a nice, relatively healthy Jamba Juice for lunch, and put in a “Burner Boost” which is touted for “increasing metabolism, burning fat, and suppressing hunger while providing…

If you get a nice, relatively healthy Jamba Juice for lunch, and put in a “Burner Boost” which is touted for “increasing metabolism, burning fat, and suppressing hunger while providing energy and great nutrition,” you will, on the way back down from the incredible vision-blurring caffeine high, get such incredible low-blood-sugar munchies that you will be forced to buy a bag of M&Ms from the vending machine at the office, thus blowing any caloric advantage to getting a nice, relatively healthy Jamba Juice.

You have been warned.

Weight update

Remarkably enough, besides going 150% calorie-wise while the Big Boss was out visiting (and may I recommend Luke’s – A Steak Place in Wheat Ridge? A faboo steak house in…

Remarkably enough, besides going 150% calorie-wise while the Big Boss was out visiting (and may I recommend Luke’s – A Steak Place in Wheat Ridge? A faboo steak house in a strip mall. Who’da thunk?), and not getting some of my exercise to boot, I still dropped a little this week, down to 216. Huzzah!

Next few weeks should be more normal, and more amenable at lunch to walking. I’ve found a more interesting route to take, so that will help. I’ve also discovered, on hot days, that a full-sized Jamba Juice is as refreshing and filling as a Tokyo Joe’s rice bowl, and a few hundred calories less, so I’ll be doing some of that, too.

I’ve decided, though, to do weighings on Tuesday and Friday, not Monday and Friday. The last two Mondays my weight has spiked up a few, and been back down by Tuesday, so I think this will help smooth the graph a bit.

Sooner or later I know things will plateau, but I’m enjoying the coast downhill just fine while it lasts.

No, this is disturbing …

Burger King is pushing chicken. And they have this “Have It Your Way” campaign. Put it all together, and you have BK giving us the Subservient Chicken. Or, as BoingBoing…

Burger King is pushing chicken. And they have this “Have It Your Way” campaign. Put it all together, and you have BK giving us the Subservient Chicken.

Or, as BoingBoing points out, a great site for “furry submissive fetish poultry” lovers. Yeesh.

And someone’s started a Wiki to list all the things the Subservient Chicken will and won’t do …

“Because making someone cross the street is a damned shame.”

Starbucks unveils aggressive growth plan. The long-term plan is to have about 25,000 stores worldwide — more than triple the nearly 8,000 stores the coffee retailer has right now. And…

Starbucks unveils aggressive growth plan.

The long-term plan is to have about 25,000 stores worldwide — more than triple the nearly 8,000 stores the coffee retailer has right now. And even that amount seems a little “light,” according to Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz.

Doyce has further insight into their master plan.

Meeting minutes

After about three days of intense meetings, the mind does sort of begin to wander in self-defense. Lunch today was (ta-daaaah!) sushi. Yum, yum, yum. Everyone was eager for sushi….

After about three days of intense meetings, the mind does sort of begin to wander in self-defense.

Lunch today was (ta-daaaah!) sushi. Yum, yum, yum. Everyone was eager for sushi. Yum! And it was such a nice, pretty sushi place here in Valencia. Yum!
Except, of course, that my ancestors evolved out of the ocean explicitly to avoid having to eat fish, let alone cold fish of dubious cookingness.
Ah, well. The sukiyaki was good.
Dinner was at an Italian place called Sisley. Very, very good pesto pasta. I thought I would be exceedingly clever and order the pesto pasta without chicken, thus saving on plenty of calories, leaving room for dessert.
I’d forgotten, of course, that pesto sauce (which was both tasty and copious) is basically olive oil with basil for color. Not exactly lo-cal, or even moderate-cal.
But it was good. And we didn’t have dessert. So I was only a bit over-budget calorie-wise.
Growing up, Valencia was the spot along I-5 (er, “the 5”) where Magic Mountain (a/k/a “Six Flags Magic Mountain” a/k/a “Six Flags California, Magic Mountian”) sat. The rest of the place was kind of a sun-bleached fringe bedroom community for LA. Food was the smattering of restaurants right outside the park.
Well, the place has grown up amazingly, and now there’s this big mall/restaurant row/fancy townhouse/retail center in the middle of it, full of lots of good places to eat. Actually, a pretty good place to stay.
And the boss was quite nice about opening up his house to our meeting. It was very comfortable, well-stocked with coffee and soda, and he’s been a very nice host. So I went to a very nice liquor store a couple of blocks away and picked up a bottle of wine for him.
Speaking of wine, the original plan was that we’d do some meeting tomorrow, then head on over to the Santa Barbara wine country. But time-wise, particularly with the Friday commute, that seemed pretty sketchy. So, instead, we’ll meet until Noon, then head home.
My boss says his secret to success in business is: “Find something that’s important for the company, that nobody likes to do, and do it well.”
My corrollary to that? “If you take meeting notes and annotate the various documents that are being reviewed, and do it well, not only will people appreciate the output, but they’ll appreciate that they didn’t have to do it.”
And the boss might suggest that everyone owes you a lunch.
And you might be able to tweak the notes to favor some of the positions you held, too …

And now to do my homework …