Things Learned @ Starbucks @ 6 AM

Should you find yourself at Starbucks ordering a triple venti latte to try to wake up for your 10^th 16-hour day in a row while working on some work emergency, here's a heart attack of a tip:

At least at my local Starbucks, the button that permits the barrista to make an odd number of shots is broken. They can only draw espresso shots in twos. Thus, be friendly and your sympathetic server will ask you if you want that extra shot.

Lest you think that four shots of espresso is just too much caffeine, it's still less than the Starbucks brewed grande coffee.

Yet Another Sign that the Economy is in Dire Straits

The number of people arriving at this blog after searching for something like Find Velveeta in Grocery Store has skyrocketed since the start of the year.

11/10/04: Find the Velveeta

Bûche de Lardon

Speaking through his character Lord Henry Wotton in The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde remarked that "The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties." Softy that I am, I disagree. However, there's no denying that your spouse being away awakens a part of your personality that slumbers when they're around. Guy Time is what happens when my family is out of town, and as my friends get married off, I find it's the same with them.

Take Dan, for example. My friend Dan is married to a wonderful woman named Sita who is a professional raw vegan chef. Dan is an amazing combination, equal parts hippie and South Philadelphia, and he is the kind of guy who I imagine gladly gobbles the awesome and healthy cuisine that is a part of the daily life of someone who lives in a raw vegan household.

Still, I know that Dan wasn't raised on nut milk and cashew cheez, so the following IM exchange last Thursday came as no surprise to me:

Dan: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/dining/28bacon.html
Me: Tempted. You?
Dan: I think maybe its important that we try it just once
Me: I think your spouse would have a hard time being present.
Dan: She's gone saturday ... ...

(. . . many instant messages and roughly 7 hours later)

Me: Operation Bacon Log is a go.

And so it came to pass that Dan and I cooked a Bacon Log (or, across the pond, perhaps a Bûche de Lardon) this Saturday. For those of you who are as yet uninitiated, the Bacon Log (called by some The Bacon Explosion) is a veritable pigstravaganza. It is all the swine you would ever want to eat . . . in convenient log form. But why simply describe Bacon Log when we have pictures? Gaze upon the glory:

Bacon Weave
The log starts with a tightly woven mat of raw bacon. I swear I couldn't have gotten these any tighter if I was using a loom. I'm confident this mat could have held water. Those sprinkles are a garlic & onion rub.

The Enbaconing
Atop the bacon weave, you place a roughly 1" thick layer of sausage. On top of this sausage, you sprinkle some crisp cooked bacon — the delicious innards of the log. This crispy bacon will absorb the "juice" as the Log cooks. Yeah. It's "juice."

Pig Sushi (in a way)
Dan has completed the initial roll, trapping the crispy bacon in the middle of a raw sausage roll. Note that the bacon weave is still flat. At this point, it occurred to us that this is a lot like rolling a giant sushi. A GIANT SUSHI FULL OF SWINY GOODNESS, THAT IS!

Initial Roll
Dan is preparing to roll the sausage back over the bacon mat. Tip for those of you keeping score at home: Use aluminum foil, like we did. It'll make if vastly easier to get the bacon to wrap tightly around the sausage without any unaesthetic slippage. No one wants bacon slippage. No one.

The Completed Log
Dan applies the finishing touches to the log, preparing it for the long journey that awaits it.

The Baking
Ever wonder why they call it bacon when it's almost never baked? Well, at this moment Wikipedia tells me that bacon "is derived from the Old High German bacho, meaning 'back', 'ham', or 'bacon'." So bacon is derived from another word that also means bacon? I must say that I'm shocked.

2 HOURS CRAWL BY

Fresh from the Oven
If you look closely, the juice is attempting to escape from the log. The orange hue of the juice indicates that it is laden with Vitamin C. Yep. You heard it here first. The Bacon Log is loaded with all the nutrients and minerals that a growing body needs. My sources tell me that it contains enough Vitamin C to last a normal adult a full year.

Still Life with Bacon Log
This is the finest picture ever taken by a camera. Go ahead. Let the tears come. It's hard to be in the presence of such greatness.

The Carving
Dan carved the log with all the care of a vascular surgeon. I think all these years of living with a vegan has made him more sympathetic to the plight of those animals that become our food. His careful carving honored the pig(s) that had become this feast.

Oh, in the back of the picture you'll see a flask of "juice." I'd like to tell you we each did a shot of this. We did not. Well, there's always next time.

Plated with Salad
It was delectable. I scarfed down my plate and a second, and contemplated a third.

We brought the ample leftovers back to my house, where Steph's mom shared some with me the next day. She was awed at how tasty it was, especially with a baguette (as, I'm told, they eat the bûche in the old country). We agreed that it was perhaps the perfect food for watching a brunch-time football game on a fall day.

Dan had to ventilate the apartment before Sita returned, but I doubt he's in trouble for introducing such a quantity of swine into their abode. After all, she got that cooking sheet specifically for him to cook bacon on. See, Mr. Wilde, it's no life of mutual deception after all. Even the raw vegan chef knows that sometimes her man must answer the primal call of Bûche de Lardon, The Bacon Log.

Durian: The gift that keeps on giving

The majority of the posts on this blog could be classified as "ramblings." We see something odd, unusual, captivating, or just shiny, and we post about it.

I'd like to use today's post to provide an important public service announcement....about durians. A few months back, Andy introduced Sauntering readers to the durian. His post doesn't do justice to just how terrible this fruit is, the fruit that has been most accurately reviewed as tasting like like the musty crotch of Satan himself. My roommate purchased one of these in our local asian market, where it can be found deep frozen in a special freezer wrapped in plastic wrap. This should have been a give away. That and the weird, flexible thorn-like things covering the outside of it.

The smell and flavor of this thing have been well described elsewhere. What they don't tell you is that these things seem to be pressurized. That opening them releases a burst of terribleness that probably gives a fair taste of what tomb raiders would have encountered. You can also fire directional bursts of durian smell as visiting guests if you are handy with a nail and a hammer.

What they don't tell you is that after eating durian, you will burp durian for hours.

What they don't tell you is that if you vomit durian, and you may, your vomit will also taste like durian, causing more vomiting until you lie, depleted, currled like a child at the base of your toilet.

Its been three days. My fridge smells like durian. The patio smells like durian. Oh, oh God, this is terrible. Who thought this was a good idea? Even the raccoons aren't eating the leftovers.

These Buffaloes Are Ready for the NFL

Staying ahead in business requires constant innovation — finding new ways to make money before the other guy beats you to it.

For the mob, sometimes this means finding new illegal things to do to help the Don's bottom line. For the Camorra mafia, this means feeding buffaloes with steroids to produce more milk for making mozzarella cheese.

Chinatown Ice Cream Tip #5

If you decide to show off in front of your co-workers and order the durian-flavored ice cream, know that any burps you have for the rest of the day are going to smell a little bit like carrion.

That said, Chinatown Ice Cream Factory does a great job with durian, a fruit with an odor compared variously to "civet, sewage, stale vomit, skunk spray, and used surgical swabs."

Not to Be Misread as Player Sold for Meat. I'm Pretty Sure that'd be Illegal

Romanian player sold for a chunk of meat

We think you're a great player, Regal Horia, but that ribeye just looks delicious.

Canada: Our Ballot-Hungry Neighbor to the North.

I'm just a little surprised that the question Is someone allowed to eat a ballot? appears on the Frequently Asked Questions page of the Elections Canada website.

Is someone allowed to eat a ballot?
Eating a ballot, not returning it or otherwise destroying or defacing it constitutes a serious breach of the Canada Elections Act. These rules are part of a system of unobtrusive checks and balances that are intended to protect the integrity of the voting process and Canadians' trust in the integrity of the electoral system. The relevant procedures provided by the Act are summarized below...

Elections Canada On-Line | Frequently Asked Questions

Thanks, Roger!

Patxi's Pizza: Soy Cheese Challenge

My friend Scott eats at Patxi's Pizza quite a bit. Born with supernaturally low cholesterol, Scott eats enough Chicago deep dish pizza to fell a lesser man.

Scott's miracle biology aside, the good folks at Patxi's still thought it wise to begin weaning Scott from standard cheese filling to a potentially healthier alternative.

Last week, unbeknownst to Scott, they gave him a Chicago-style pizza filled with soy cheese.

Scott is easily the most finicky eater I know, so I was taken aback to hear that he barely noticed the difference between soy cheese and Patxi's standard issue cow curd. Since a more thorough investigation had to be immediately conducted, four of us descended onto Patxi's last night for a more rigorous scientific evaluation. We ordered one pepperoni with regular cheese and one with soy cheese.

We began dining without knowing which pizza was loaded with cow and which pizza was slathered with beans.

Both pies arrive.
Slice 1: Soy Cheese Slice	Slice 2: Standard Cheese Slice
Judgment. I am the only diner to incorrectly guess which pie had soy cheese instead of standard cheese.

I'll save the detailed comments for my dining companions. I don't have the most refined pizza palate, so I had absolutely no idea which was which. I incorrectly guessed that the regular cheese pizza was the soy cheese pizza on the theory that it tasted just a little bit too much like cheese.

Until soy cheese is proven to be bad for you, I'll be ordering soy cheese from here on out.

A Waste of a Perfectly Good Internet

How do you know when you have a fetish? Well, one clue is that you're taking pictures of your airline food and posting them to Airline Meals.net.

Thanks, Matt!

The Bryce Special @ Patxi's Pizza

Since my blog appears pretty high up in the Google search results for Patxi's Pizza, permit me to abuse that power.

The Bryce Special needs to appear on the printed menu. The world has waited long enough.

Find the Velveeta

Based on Monday’s post, you might think that I’m intentionally avoiding a discussion of politics, eschewing it for lighter fare. In a way, you’d be right. During Democratic Party Introspection Month™, I’ve found my political itches scratched by Talking Points Memo, Andrew Sullivan, Eschaton, Daily Kos, & Wonkette. If you’re unfamiliar with these politoblogs, I highly recommend checking them out.

In the meantime, I’ll be sticking to the namesake of the blog: Commenting about things I encounter while sauntering, whether it be sauntering online or about the town.

Today, it’s cheese. Well, not really cheese. Velveeta.

Velveeta is the most difficult item to locate in the grocery store.

I challenge you: Go to any unknown grocery store. Locate the Velveeta.

Took forever, didn't it? Why the confusion? Well, Velvetta is the un-cheese. Cheese is not an ingredient in Velveeta; however, people use it like cheese. Before it’s opened, Velveeta doesn’t need to be refrigerated. You could put in anywhere in a grocery store. In my experience, those stocking the shelves do stick it anywhere.

The Mollie Stone’s store near me dignifies Velveeta. They place Velveeta on a shelf near actual cheese. Separate but equal. It's a yellow-orange neighborhood.

The nearest Safeway slanders Velveeta. They place it in the cracker/chips/snacks/bad-for-you section, next to the squeezy cheese. Velveeta may be a lot of things, but it is not cheese from a can. C’mon. People actually cook with Velveeta. (By people, I mean me. By cook, I mean make nachos).

Another local Safeway actively tries to hide the Velveeta. Since oils are the primary ingredients in this loaf of cheezy endurance, the shelf stockers plop the Velveeta amongst the oils. Olive Oil. Canola. Velveeta. Incredibly odd.

Election Central -- Patxi's Pizza

I've set up Presidential Election camp with Garth Patil at Patxi's Pizza in Palo Alto. We look like Princes of Dorkdom.

Don Hoffman, Scott McKissen, and Steph are due soon. Only then will our grouchy, liberal quintet be complete...

Yuck ...on so many levels

These days, without starting your own religion, it's hard to hit it big financially in the religious game.

On the other hand, diet business is big business, with companies like Atkins Nutritionals earning money hand over foot.

In an effort to bring some of these diet dollars under his steeple, Rev. George Malkmus has started the Hallelujah Diet. Malkmus follows in the footsteps of Dr. Don Colbert, author of What Would Jesus Eat? and Jordan Rubin, who penned The Maker's Diet.

Now if only low carb manna would fall from the heavens.

When I Think of Utah, I Think of Jazz

Where's the first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant?

Salt Lake City, Utah, of course.

...well, it was there until it was demolished yesterday to make way for a KFC museum.

...because the world needs a KFC museum   ...in Salt Lake City.

If Only the Cameras Had Been Rolling the Whole Time

Bobby & Whitney finally wise up a realize that, as long as your lives resemble a reality TV show, they just as well should actually be a reality TV show.

I have almost no interest in watching reality TV; however, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's account of what would be one of the first episodes piqued my interest:

The couple dined Monday night, as cameras rolled, at the Palm Restaurant in Buckhead, ordering multiple plates of Clams Oreganato, a 6-pound lobster and a 24-ounce porterhouse steak, according to Jimmy Logan, a waiter at the eatery. Their 10-year-old daughter, Bobbi Kristina, had her own 3-pound lobster. Even the family dog, a small tan canine named Doogie, supped on steak tartare (Houston dutifully picked out the capers from the dish).

The article didn't mention any channel affiliated with the project, but I'm pretty sure that the Food Network would pick it up.

Days of Burritos, Days of Bacon

I was cheered mightily when local gourmet Hoff set up Sibilous last week, a chronicle of his Bay Area food experiences.

Part of Hoff's inspiration comes from baconpilgrim's Journal, the story of one man's journey through the world of sliced and smoked meats.

Be wary, ye four-legged dining companions

Hawaiian state senator Fred Hemmings wants to allow Hawaiians to bring their dogs with them into restaurants.

During the 19th century, Hawaiian Poi Dogs were much loved by Island families, but were also eaten to extinction.

Just be careful, Foofy. Just be careful.

Chunk Doobiest (?)

With ready access to marijuana via cafés, teens in the Netherlands are probably the dopest. US teens, however, are proving to be the fattest.

TV Gut Bomb

I wouldn't normally link to a food review, but UGO's review of
Swanson's Hungry Man All Day Breakfast is hysterical.