Purge.

So the cleaning and separation goes on, and it was tonight that I finally
hit the pantry, which brings something into context (and an excuse to post)

Thus far, I'm being good. Anything sealed that I know I won't eat (short of
the box I put together for the girl on her way out), I'm throwing in one bag
for the possibility of a food bank. But most of what's left is opened,
half-stale crap. A 1/4 cup of french fried onions. Only used in a green-bean
casserole that I've found I'm abivalent over: Enter the concept that when
you aren't living through your own nostalgia, or living vicariously through
someone else's, honesty sets in. Trash.

A half-eaten sleeve of Ritz crackers: Even if I liked 'em, they're so far
beyond stale (we're talking years) that it ain't worth it. Trash.

A mouldy half-eaten bag of dried cranberries. Should've been better sealed.
No question.

Just about anything improperly sealed: gone.

Several year old candy of various origin: gone.

Jello: Fuck, I've got no interest in either the gelatin dessert or the
instant pudding. Couldn't quite bring myself to toss them though, so if I'm
not willing to give it a shot in the next few weeks, to the food bank they
go.

Pasta: Holy shit, I'm up to my neck in it. I think I'm going to live frugal
the next few weeks and burn all of this stuff off, the fancy nights just
meaning I can post something as I get creative, the shallow nights, living
off jarred sauces.

A purging is clearly in order if I'm going to be able to continue this blog.
It's high time I go rediscover my own culinary interests

A glimpse into the rest of the time....

So I tend to write about the highlights of what I eat, but here's today's
consumption in the name of contrast:

Woke up, got my usual morning coffee (three shots of espresso over ice,
topped off to the 20oz mark with iced coffee) It's the iced version of one
of those coffeehouse nonstandards, sometimes referred to as the Red Eye, Eye
Opener, Shot in the Dark, Sledgehammer....I call it breakfast.

Lunch was spent at the company cafeteria. I've discovered that the salad bar
there is the path of least discomfort (after trying most things. It didn't
earn its nickname of "vomitorium" for nothing) and I've found the best value
is to get the small cup of soup and small salad, so today's eatings was a
cup of terrible vegetable soup (I think they took last week's leftover
vegetables and boiled them until it vaguely resembled something broth), but
the alternative was the (costs nearly twice as much) chili, which had a
considerably nauseating greyish hue to it today, so I went with the
sucks-less choice. Under normal circumstances, I usually go half and half on
the salad plate with cottage cheese and whatever pasta salad (also
chock-full of leftovers, typically), but being monday, they had no pasta
salad, so it was an all cottage-cheese day. Truly, none of this sounds
appealing, but I could tell you horror stories about that place (the time I
wrung out the oil of the mini-churro that came with the mexican special
plate ought be enough to get anyone to swear off fried food.)

Dinner was of the frozen microwaveable style. It was the Lean Cuisine
"Sesame Chicken". Granted, I think that "lean" tv dinners are mostly a bunch
of hooey, but it was on sale, and when scanning the frozen dinner aisle at
my local grocery store, the criteria is usually "what's on sale" first, with
"what at least attempts to be healthy" second. The specialty organic tv
dinners (such as the "Amy's" brand) almost never go on sale, so Lean Cuisine
tends to win on weeks that they've got the price down.

I know, I should cook more for myself, reaping the benefit of leftovers as I
can, but I've been so fouled up lately that I just can't find the
motivation.

-transiit

Sophia's

So a cow-orker and his wife invited me out last night to grab dinner and go
watch the new X-men flick. After a half hour of sitting on their driveway
trying to figure out where to get dinner, we finally jumped in a car and
pulled out. Scant seconds went by before it was asked:
"So, where are we going, anyhow?"
"To get food", I replied.
"Yeah. Where?"
"I don't know. The food hut?"
"You like greek?"
"I like greek. I can get my some lamb."

So we went to Sophia's in Placentia (they don't seem to have a website, but
here's the info: 1390 N Kraemer Blvd, (714) 528-2021)

We got some sort of fried sausage thing for an appetizer (I don't know that
any of us were terribly impressed by it.). Randy got the calamari steak,
Leslie got the halibut, I got the gyro plate. Everybody seemed pretty happy
(well, except the "So this is greek beer, huh? Tastes like Heineken"
conversation)

And for reasons I never understand, whenever I go get food with them,
service speeds slow down to glacial.

As for the film, if you're a fan of either the comics or the first two
flicks, you can probably skip this one without feeling incomplete.

Seattle.

This one's a couple days late, but hey, life happens.

So I was up in Seattle this week on business, and we hit one of those
fancy-schmancy restaurants while we were up there: Salty's (on Alki Beach).
I can only presume that Alki beach has some reference to a basic Alkaline
nature, and not alcoholism, but I'm not an anthropologist.



So I got the "Pan Seared Eastern Scallops", which as their menu describes
comes with a Yukon Potato-Blue Cheese-Leek Gratin, Bacon-wilted Spinach, and
a Lavender Beurre-Blanc sauce. And that it was. Pretty darn tasty, as I
almost always love my scallops.

It ain't cheap, though, but at least they've got various metal sculptures of
sea creatures adorning their parking lot.

enter the mundane

So I've been eating frozen dinners and whatnot as I've just not had the
motivation to actually prepare anything of effort, but I came to a decision
tonight.

A couple garden burgers and a slice of gruyere on rye (with a little spicy
mustard and mayonnaise) is pretty darn tasty, even if it a bit of slapdash
microwave cookery.

hiatus?

So until a couple hours ago, this place was the landing spot for the
culinary adventures of Erik and Amanda, as written by Erik.

But now there is no "Erik and Amanda", there's "Erik", and there's "Amanda"

Suddenly it seems like writing about restaurants we visit is coming to a
screeching halt, what with there being no more "we"

And at least for now, attempting new and adventurous culinary
experimentation makes a lot less sense when I'm talking about cooking for
myself.

Blog off.

-transiit

My pizza stone doth rent in two

So the other night, a Trader Joe's Ham and Gruyere flatbread (ham and swiss
pizza, basically) was on the pizza stone and lo, did I hear a great "Ping!"

Nary a troubled thought at first, perhaps just one of the oven racks had
expanded from the heat.

But when the timer had elapsed, the girl called from the kitchen and spoke
"I think the pizza stone broke."

Yup. Shore 'nuff.

I'm going to have to noodle on this one for a time, because unglazed ceramic
should be able to take repeated heating and coolings with some ease. Maybe
next time I'm going to have to go with the more industrial route and pick up
the 99cent quarry tile instead.

-transiit

Chu's Wok In

And because I largely have not been cooking at home, here comes another
restaurant review.

Chu's Wok In in Orange. Maybe it's Anaheim. Who can tell?

Decent chinese place, sit-down or take out. Dark. Relatively inexpensive.

Potstickers (6)
House Pan-Fried Noodles
+Sizzling Chicken and Shrimp
= about 30 bones.

Unfortunately, my heart isn't in really into writing a review, so the only
anecdote you get is when the server was asking if it was ok to bring out the
potstickers with everything else (they take 15 minutes to make, apparently),
but doing so by pointing at it on our ticket. I think it was written in
kanji. Took a moment to figure that one out.

Ok, fine....two anecdotes. When they were cleaning up the dishes, the server
said "What you don't like vegetables? (we'd had a lot, but we were just
getting stuffed, so the chicken and shrimp tended to get picked out of what
was left, not quite enough to take home). You should tell us next time.
We'll make it with just meat."

I don't even want to think about the logical conclusion of that line of
thinking. Yeek.

Reviews you won't see

So I think I've decided that it's bad enough just reviewing restaurants, so
I'm going to keep it constrained to interesting ones.

That means that getting take-out from Claim Jumper tonight will not be
written about. I'm sure you can find a metric ton of various national chains
all over the place.

Dumpling

So in completion of the all asian cuisine weekend, we drove up to arcadia
and got dumplings at the Din Tai Fung Dumpling House

I'm not entirely sure what we got, because the waitress kept saying that
they were out of things and making substitutions. Seems like it was at least
one of the following:
Juicy Pork Dumplings (10pc/order)
Shrimp/Pork Shumai (10pc/order)
Shrimp/Pork Wonton Soup (8 wontons in broth)
Red Bean Bun (2pc/order)

Doesn't sound like much, but you can't just inhale these things. Handy
instructions were printed on chopstick wrapper:
1) Pour vinegar into the small saucer with the ginger
2) Gently lift one dumpling and dip it into the ginger vinegar.
3) Place it on your spoon
4) Take a nibble on the dumpling skin and sip the juice
5) Drizzle some vinegar and ginger slices on top of the dumpling
6) Now enjoy it!

These sound nice and friendly, but you must understand that the place is
overrun with Type-A asian ladies, and they're very directive about it. For
example, the hostess at the front calling out the raffle ticket numbers they
use for reserving seats ("Number 4! Number 4! Number 4! Party of two! Number
4!")

Anyway, it was tasty and filling, and we got out of there for under 40
bucks.

Update: I'd forgotten a couple notable points. One, when you put in your
reservation, they give you a quarter-size clipboard with your order
paperwork. Bureaucracy at its finest. Not many eating establishments give
you the chance to order well before you're seated, much less in
carbonless-transfer triplicate. Shock. Awe.

The second was the serious panache shown by our server as she smashed an
insect crawling next to our paperwork. Granted, it was a flying insect, and
they had the front doors open, so I'm not suggesting they don't keep a
hygenic place of business, but surely there's something cinematic about
watching your waitress obliterate pesky vermin against the onion-skin
carbonless paper (now only in duplicate, as one copy had been forwarded to
the kitchen department) of your order. Seriously, this should be the average
dystopian sci-fi nerd's wet dream.