Lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, cheese, bacon, and a hotlink.
You can only get this at the lovely, locally owned Silver Fork.
Local is better. You cannot get it at Applebee's. I don't even like Applebee's.
I guess that makes me a food snob. Maybe Laura will pat my head and talk about her poop.
Here's something for you to think about: corporate hegemony is ethnic hegemony. Discuss.
Yes, my friends, the San Patricio Limerick Festival has been over for days. I promise that eShamrocks will be awarded soon, as soon as the distinguished panel of judges... the judge... well, just me, so.... as soon as I get a chance. Right now I have to grade storyboards. So keep your shirts on.
Do you teach high school Spanish literature? Consider a storyboard project. Or consider it as a step in your video project, especially if your videos are turning out horribly.
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Did you hear Tom Delay today on NPR? He chuckles when Dick Army criticizes him for endeavoring to create a permanant Republican majority in American government. I know it's not illegal, but to me, trying to ensure a permanent majority through ways other than, say, satisfying the voters with just and visionary government, is totally contepmtuous of the idea of representative constitutional democracy.
Or is it just me? Elected officials are supposed to serve at the pleasure of their constituents. Working actively to loss-proof your party through redistricting and other devices procedures, which were meant to guarantee fair representation in the first place... Does it seem right to you?
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In other news in my life, I've recently been introduced to scotcheroos; I had never experienced them before. My students assure me that it is a "white thing."
I've lived in this country, among the white people, for all of my 34 years, and I am still discovering their culture. They are a complex and mysterious people.
Happy St. Patrick's Day! It's almost time to close the Limerick Festival! Please don't be shy to post your last-minute masterpieces!
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Some of you may have been wondering about the purple yam and cheese ice cream you saw me refer to here and here.
Well, I found a picture of the purple yam ice cream over at TulipFleurs (thanks!); she also has a lovely picture of her riceless longganisa and egg breakfast in that post.
Purple yam is called "ubi" or "ube," depending on how maarte you are, and it's really good. Really.
If you want to know what ube tastes like, try ordering a taro-flavored bubble tea, and then imagine that it's purple. To me, the flavor is rich and sweet, almost chocolatey in it's complexity.
And that's why we put it on top of our halo halo. Mmmm.....
What am I doing watching a show called Bizarre Foods?
Dear Anthony Bourdain,
I find your vocabulary and your crass commentary entertaining. It's fun to watch you piss on tourist-bureau traps, eat lips and assholes, and be impatient with boring people. It's good tv.
Here's a question for you.... Why can't white people learn to eat with their hands? All over Africa, the Middle East, South East Asian, Mexico, etc... people eat with their hands.
Clean hands! It's a technique! In fact, the shape you make when you're eating with your hands is the EXACT SAME shape you Western chefs make when you chop vegetables: you pull your fingers together, and you push the food under your fingers so that it meets the blade.
To eat with your hands, pull your fingers together and then use your thumb to push your food into your mouth! It's not hard! Just remember a) wash your hands, b) cut your nails short, and c) remove your jewelry, watches, etc.
So why, Anthony Bourdain, does it seem so hard for white people (like when you went to Malaysia) to eat with their hands? Are you kidding? Your friend is sitting next to you, doing it correctly; you sloppily pick up the food with the sides of your fingers, food falling into your palm, rice falling all over your face?
What is your problem?
First you complain that it's hard, and then you DON'T DO IT.
You know, not knowing how to eat makes you look like an ass. Sorry. We do have patience for beginners. However, willfully refusing to learn when someone is showing you? That is inexcusable. Learn how to eat. It matters. I'm not sure why they didn't start beating you right then and there.
So the Accidental Hedonist is posting about bacon now, so I have to chime in.
When I was in Ann Arbor, I ate at Pizzeria Uno's two or three times. (What's with the obligatory apostrophe-S on restaurants? I find it gringoriffic.) Usually I ordered something called the Spinaccoli, because spinach and broccoli are good on pizza, even to this carnivore.
Once, when I was particularly homesick, I called them up to order a Hawaiian pizza. For those of you who are not blessed to be from the Washington, a Hawaiian pizza to us means Canadian bacon and pineapple. However a Google Images search and a Wikipedia article seems to indicate that the use of Canadian bacon is not universal. Here in Washington, it's always Canadian bacon and pineapple.
Yes, I know many of you out there who cry blasphemy putting fruit on pizza. You should email someone about that.
Anyway, I was homesick in Ann Arbor, and I thought a good old fashioned Hawaiian pizza would be comforting. So I called them up, and they had never heard of a Hawaiian pizza.
The difference in Pacific Northwest English and Midwestern English is not apparent to others, but to me the difference is huge, usually in vowels. But we also have different lexical items (i.e., parking garage vs. parking 'structure'), and most shocking to me at least were the variation of cultural artifacts. For example, people who live east of Montana have never seen or heard of a maple bar, that gross bloated fried raft with a maple glaze.
Hawaiian pizza is another one of these cultural artifacts that was unknown to the guy I was ordering pizza from. No problem, I'm a linguist, I will circumlocute.
"I want a regular cheese pizza with Canadian bacon and pineapple."
"Um..., we have pineapple...."
"And do you have Canadian bacon?"
"Um..., we have bacon, I don't know if it's from Canada..."
First of all, my name is not 'um.' "Listen, do you have ham?"
"Um..., yah, we have ham..."
"Ok, I want you to make me a regular cheese pizza with ham and pineapple."
(Skeptical) "Um... ok, one pizza with ham and pineapple..."
So apparently these people don't say "Canadian bacon." They might well have called it something else, but I didn't stick around long enough to find out. I wanted out of that flat, bland, creepy town that white people seem to adore.
They don't know about Canadian bacon. They don't know about maple bars. They certainly don't know about espresso.
To be fair, they did have something I had never heard of, a "yeast ring." Or even a "chocolate yeast ring." It's a kind of doughnut, that to me sounds itchy. To me a yeast ring looks like this:
A few years ago, I had a part time gig on the Eastside (shudder) and I had several friends who were born and raised in Nebraska. One of my friends often asked me cultural advice; she lived and worked on the Eastside and was terrified of the "wierd people" in the city.
You know what she's talking about. Nouveau-mohawks. Lesbians. Bikers. Metrosexuals.
I told her, newsflash: the "wierd people" in Seattle are not from here. They came here from all over All Over America to escape, well, you. And to a certain degree, so did most of us. But let's be clear; the "wierd people" you speak of came from rural and suburban White America. And no, we do not fear them. Like them, we fear you.
Anyway, another thing she asked me once.... she was very curious about sushi. Curious and skeptical. How do you know its fresh? How do you know if it's gonna make you sick? What about parasites?
I told her, you can tell when fish is fresh. Its something you learn. A good indicator is if there are Japanese customers in the restaurant.
She was skeptical. Yes, JP, but how can you be sure?
I don't know, sweetheart. How do you know if the hamburger and fries you order is not gonna make you sick? And don't say "because it's cooked" because a whole bunch of people got sick in Seattle in 1993 from cooked hamburgers. How do you know that any of your food is safe?
Oh, guess I never thought of that.
Well, the reason I flashed back to this conversation is because today for breakfast I went to a Tony's Deli and ate something delicious. Some delicate, wide noodle with ground pork folded into them, topped with toasted garlic, fresh herbs and sprouts, and then drizzled with that orange fish sauce. Topped with three thin slices of some Vietnamese deli meat, it was the bomb.
Of course I don't know what it was called, so I googled it and got this lame... maybe "lame" is too strong, I got this pedestrian review from a food blog in LA. You know, I'm sure asian food is just not her strength, and I don't fault her for it, it's a big world, and knowledge is a journey....
So no matter where you are on the spectrum of sushi knowledge, I want all of you to know what some of us just thought was common sense: NO FRESHWATER SASHIMI.
In English: if it came from a river or a lake, COOK IT.
Seriously, kids, diversity is a safety issue. We'll talk later about eating foods on a dare. Hmph.
I'll keep working on this one...
What I'm a snob about
Hey readers! .... all three of you!
I am disabling anonymous comments because of some cheap shots taken by an anonymous commenter on a post that no one has read in years.
Basically, has a beef against Dr. Mary Lou Ridinger of Jades SA of Antigua, Guatemala. Is the beef legitimate? Who knows. Maybe! But the commenter posted anonymously, and rather than accusing her of anything, the anony-mouse insinuated that Dr. Ridinger was hiding information, and that her product was junk. What a coward. This is the internet, man. If you've got something to say, then say it. "Dr. R is a crook because of X, Y, and Z." It's a question of cojones. Especially if you're gonna be anonymous; if your position is so weak that all you can muster is an anynomous insinuation, then maybe you should ask your mommy to give you a pillow, so you can lie down and cry into your pillow.
So for the moment you all (all three of you) will have to get blogger IDs if you want to leave a comment. What if ass-nonymous just gets a bogus ID? Well, I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.
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Today there was a crazy freak rainstorm, with hard, crazy rain and wind. More wind, and ten minutes later it was sunshine and blue skyes. More wind, and the ground was dry.
I finally went to the secret Korean restaurant for mool naeng myun. It was a converted highway Denny's just off the freeway. So it wasn't much of a secret. But when I went in to the (very nice) dining room, there were only two other customers, both Korean. It's a family establishment, and the Mom brought me a nice salad before my mool naeng myun hit the table, with six panchan. It was good! With shaved ice! But they forgot to put in the meat.
Afterwards, I discovered Pal-do Korean Supermarket and bought two packs of ice cream novelties. One is a sweet coffee-and-creme push up, and I don't know why I have to go to a Korean supermarket to get such a nice dessert. The other ice cream novelty is like a dove bar. Yum!
Later, I met S and company for happy hour drinks and tapas at Peso's. I had a mojito. We sat there and yapped in Spanish for hours, as beautiful people came and went. L's friend P theorized that the waitresses were hired for their looks, since they didn't have a lot of chops as waitresses. In fact, he went as far as to suggest that they were exotic dancers. P is a bartender himself, at a pretty prestigious martini bar for old people and stressed out financial advisors who come to him for their martini lunch of shame.
Came home, ate some potato salad from Pal-do, practiced my guitar, .... reset my blog to disallow anonymous comments. And now it's time for bed.
Another anonymous commenter called this blog a scatterbrained vanity website, which is not so far off the mark. It's my journal, and I am the thematic thread. So what? I don't write for a wide audience, although a wide audience is certainly welcome to read. But please do remember, kiddies, you don't have to read.
You love to. Admit it!
Breakfast: roast eggplant, li'l smokies, hard toast rubbed with garlic.
Lunch: Italian Kaiser, 1/4 lb. jojos from the Hop In Market Deli, Dave flavored Jones Soda. This sammich was 6 inches tall; an inch of pepperoni, and inch of salami, two inches of shaved ham, lettuce, provolone, italian dressing on a soft kaiser roll with cornmeal crumbs. I love cornmeal crumbs! Afterwards, S brought cherry double chocolate muffins to a meeting and yes, I ate one.
Dinner: Hotwings (from frozen) and rice. Crystal Lite lemon tea.
Here's J's thesis on Korean-style Chinese food.
In Seattle, Korean restaurants can be sorted into two categories: teriyaki restaurants, and Korean enclave restaurants.
The teriyaki restaurants are most often bulgogi and cater to white folks--i.e., saucy, cheap, and huge portions. These restaurants are all over the place. Mexicans love bulgogi. Did you know?
The restaurants in the Korean enclaves are more mysterious to me, because they tend to be way out in the sprawl, or in Tacoma, so I don't get out there often. There are a few Korean grill places; I don't get to go to those usually unless I get a group together, which invariably means my parents. They might be secretly Korean.
I spend my days also looking for a Korean lunch counter like Steve's in Ass Arbor. I had a cold, cucumber soup once there that I still dream about.
