a labe of squab

The thursday night prix fixe at the Waterboy was delicious as usual. The only SLIGHT disappointment was that contrary to the usually verging-on-too-slow three hour pace of the meal, I think they had a ton of reservations before and after us, so our four course meal clocked in at about an hour. We weren't rushed exactly, I was just enjoying myself so much I wanted the experience to last longer. Man, Rick Mahan has an undying dedication to serving squab which I admire. Especially since it's a somewhat difficult meat. He served our tonge-shaped (well, OK, it looked more like a labia than a tongue) portions of squab breast rare as hell. I went there with him because I trust him, but the people on the awkward date next to us did not seem pleased. He served it on top of toast which contained a mixture of foie gras and squab liver! Smiller overheard the people on the left of us namedrop security guard Bill from the Tower, which was cool. I might go to Tuli Bistro today for lunch. JM, any verdict on it yet?

see you next year

All right, Aioli, you've messed with me for the last time! I'm sick of you never having all the wines by the glass that you list (despite the list being relatively short), which is really no big deal, but what makes me mad is that each server invariably suggests something that's not at all like what I just ordered. It's like they think they can shove any old crap my way. They do this every time. Then, when we ordered white, he just poured it into the giant red wine goblets that were already on our table rather than bring us other glasses. Our server last night was brusque and condescending. He tried to bust our chops because the four of us ordered a bottle of wine and three plates of food. This was at nine o'clock and his tables weren't exactly all full, so what does he care? He almost elbowed one of our party in the face. He gave us the bum rush before the restaurant was officially supposed to be closed. I guess I'm making us sound like a bad table and that I'm being picky, but anyone who eats at Aioli knows that they have some rotten apples with their servers. It's too bad because I like the place.

Man, the Taylor's market meat counter is crazy around the holidays. They have duck, goose, capon, rabbit, pheasant, and many more exotic creatures. I've been ending up at Taylor's like every day recently and I love it there. Everyone is so friendly, especially the wine guy. They really need to get a numbering system at the butcher case, though, if you're not on your toes some fat cat will cut in front of you in a second.

I won't be around much until next year, so see you then!

grandmas, rejoice!

The Bananas were ON FIRE MUY CALIENTE yesterday at the elegant Silk Bar in Del Paso heights. Do not miss your chance to see them on New Years because like a fine wine, they just keep getting better, and like an aged cheese they just keep getting moldier rinds (not to mention the occasional whiff of ammonia).

I hesitate to share this with you because I want to be the sole guardian of this secret so that I can impress people with my pie crust, but I am by nature a person who cannot keep a secret, so I have to share with you that the soulless robo-cooks over at Cook's Illustrated have for real, created a recipe for the easiest to work with and flakiest and best pie crust ever. The secret ingredient is vodka! Cuz you know how pie crust is a war between moisture and tender flakiness? I personally will always err on the side of flakiness, usually by adding very little moisture and not mixing very vigorously, and subsequently I have ugly pies that are a real trauma to roll out. When I read this recipe I was sooo skeptical. Making pie crust in a food processor? Grandmas everywhere are gnashing their teeth. But they swore that the addition of vodka eliminates the problem of too much water making it tough and they are totally right! It's amazing. The dough is so nice to roll out, it really is like playdough. No stress, beautiful pies and the crust has big shattery flakes. My modifications would be to take out the sugar and double the salt, because I like a salty crust. Here's the link.

un-break my circle, say you'll love me again

Sorry, dudes that I don't have much exciting stuff to write. Did you know the Bananas have a show tonight at Gilman? It's the Abi Yo Yos last show. They played with the Bananas at their first show many moons ago, and they requested that the Bananas play their last show. May the circle be unbroken. There is also a somewhat funny show on sunday in Del Paso Heights. It's supposed to be from noon until eight. It's light-rail friendly. It's Crime, a band partially made up of kids of the guys in Crime (there's that unbroken circle again), the bananas, the four eyes, no admission (singer-take my advice and stop singing like that), and others.

thumbs up

I give Control the thumbs up. This is a clip from Tony Wilson's TV show that was recreated for the movie. On the youtube page for this people were saying that the Killers version is better! There are so many great, influential songs in the movie and then Anton Corbijn blows it at the end by including a Killers cover of a Joy Division song! Anyway, tonight's the last night it plays.

favorite scene

The Werner Herzog ranking over at Moviecityusa reminded me of Cobra Verde, which reminded me of my favorite part of it, and because we live in the internet age this scene can be found quickly on the internet. Well, part of it, it goes on a for quite a while longer, but there's some bare-breastedness involved. Check out how badass this singer is.

whose interest? whose community?

It's interesting to me that Heyamoto gets her chops so busted for her column yet Anita Creamer can write about "gym rage" and all the comments are like "great article".

This article freaks me out. So Fargo was quoted as saying "this community wants to see more housing". Who exactly is saying that? Really, who? Presumably it would be people who want to move here but can't find housing? Are there people like that? I doubt if it's people who can't afford to buy a house cuz that's me and I can't afford nor would I want to live in any of the new housing, especially since it all seems to cost as much as buying a pre-existing house downtown. So if it's not people like that then it would have to just be developers who stand to make money from building the housing. Who are hardly the "community". How about the reporter framing the dissenting comments as a "parade of interest groups" taking "cracks at the development". That's not really neutral reporting language, is it? Isn't Thomas Enterprise the largest "interest group" of them all?

curse you, Davis

I have been sick and grumpy as hell. Eating one of the worst meals I've had this year last night at the Dos Coyotes in Davis sure didn't help. Curse you Davis! We needed to eat before heading to Winters for the Jonathan Richman show (should have just eaten in Winters) so I tried something that dos calls a "Ranchero burrito". Coldish tomato soup on your cold chicken burrito, anyone? What? No takers. Weird. Anyway, I'm glad I rallied and went to the show because it was rad.

Here are some cruddy pictures that I took just so you could see how cool the new Palms is. I didn't want to use a flash to take pictures of Jonathan Richman. What a wonderful venue! I hope there are more shows that I want to see there. J. Rich was in a great mood. He was probably stoked to have a crowd that wasn't yakking away the whole time. You could have heard a pin drop for most of it so he played and sang very quietly a lot of the time. He did a kinda medley of "corner store" and "old world" and now that he's a bit older (although still looking handsome) it really choked me up to hear him bid goodbye to the old world. He played for an hour and half and it really flew by. He's the best.

stocking stuffer idea

Please don't ask what led me here, but someone is auctioning off a K/S slash fanzine on ebay.

Boring day. I'm excited to see J. Rich. (no I will not call him jojo) at the Palms tomorrow. Yeah! No Ironsides crowd talking over his quiet songs! This man is a LIVING LEGEND. He deserves respect. Hopefully he will not play I was dancing at the lesbian bar.

Christmas jams

We went out into the pouring rain to buy our tree last night (at the savemart on folsom-we tried to buy from that local-owned lot on folsom but the trees were all like 85 bucks! this one was twenty), and I got into the Christmas spirit. So I know it's a little early, but I'm going to post videos of some of my favorite Christmas jams!

omg! Kate Bush looks batshit crazy in this one? I love how she gets all sexy even though it's a christmas song with no sexy lyrics. She's practically giving that chair a handjob.


I think I posted this one last year, too. I think when George Michael says "special" that just might be my favorite single word uttered in any song ever. It's my ringtone right now.

Unfortunately this one just has a fan-made slide show, but still, one of the greatest Christmas songs ever, even though I can't agree with the sentiment of wishing it was Christmas every day.

The most rockin' Christmas song ever. Man, that caveman guy in Slade is so crazy looking. He looks like a little kid who got ahold of the scissors.

The best part of this one is the synth riff and the nice sentiment. Simply having a wonderful Christmas time. No big deal.

Here's the only traditional one on this list. People like this for the novelty of David Bowie and Bing Crosby doing a duet, but it's actually a rad version of this pretty crappy Christmas song.

embrace thai thai

Happy Hannukah! I wish I could post a picture of my hannukah bling. Yes, I said bling, even though HC declared a moratorium on the term after her mom used it. I had a nice hannukah dinner the other night, and man, are potato latkes good or what? People should eat them all the time for breakfast, not just on holidays. Here's an awesome recipe, they're really easy (except for the frying, which is kind of a pain):

1 lb potatoes
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 to 3/4 cup olive oil
Accompaniments: sour cream and applesauce
PreparationPreheat oven to 250°F.
Peel potatoes and coarsely grate by hand, transferring to a large bowl of cold water as grated. Soak potatoes 1 to 2 minutes after last batch is added to water, then drain well in a colander.
Spread grated potatoes and onion on a kitchen towel and roll up jelly-roll style. Twist towel tightly to wring out as much liquid as possible. Transfer potato mixture to a bowl and stir in egg and salt.
Heat 1/4 cup oil in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking. Working in batches of 4 latkes, spoon 2 tablespoons potato mixture per latke into skillet, spreading into 3-inch rounds with a fork. Reduce heat to moderate and cook until undersides are browned, about 5 minutes. Turn latkes over and cook until undersides are browned, about 5 minutes more. Transfer to paper towels to drain and season with salt. Add more oil to skillet as needed. Keep latkes warm on a wire rack set in a shallow baking pan in oven.

the key is the wringing out with the towel, you have to get all the water out. wring out the onions, too. and keep the heat up pretty high, but try not to let the oil smoke.

I need to reiterate, if you haven't been to Thai Thai Express in Pacific Rim plaza on stockton blvd, you really need to go! Unless your go to dish is pineapple fried rice and you're not into branching out. Their pad thai is really good if that's your dish. The other day we got the Thai Thai tom yum, and it has beef liver in it, along with other meats. The beef liver was ground and seasoned and it was so good! Not scary at all. They also often have pork giblets in their soups, which just seem like regular pork and shouldn't keep you from ordering the dishes. I love their papaya salad so much. They put salted crab, dried shrimp, and roasted peanuts in it.

the 'tis' schnoz

I don't have a lot to say today. I'm in mourning because Ashley Tisdale got a nose job. Here's a funny video of Tyvek that I found on the American Apparel blog. Yes, I will stoop that low in my internet surfing. Well, it's not really Tyvek, it's Kevin and some dude, but they're wearing short shorts.

december 2007 (oh what a night)

The Finches have a new holiday song that's fucking great. They also have a show coming up in Sac.

Saturday night. Oy. I started it off at the Big Tomato press book release thing at Old Soul. There were a ton of peeps and I played a game trying to figure out if one of them was Mike Dunne. There was free local wine, and I hadn't really eaten anything and if you haven't noticed most local wines are so strong that they go straight to the dome. The revolution wines guy was there, and his zinfandel wasn't that bad. I told him that it was lighter than I expected. Then I tried a bogle wine that was like a cup of hot jam. Too much alcohol!
This is the lady who wrote the kids book on Delta and Dawn. It was probably too loud inside for the little kids to hear, but her book seemed to be selling the best after.

Then we went to the Bows and Arrows opening. I can't seem to keep my wallet shut when I walk in there, especially since I was less than sober, so I bought a dress that Olivia was trying to warn me was too large, and indeed it is. Drunken shopping! We got a couple of Coors out of the ice chest and headed to R5 for the midtown monthly event. I was excited to to see teen punks No Admission, but the singer ruined it for me with his precise, emo punk singing style.

The Four Eyes ripped it up except when they sang "Feliz Navidad" which is the worst song. They revealed their new theme song, which is "Rag Doll" complete with lots of scatting from Joel.
This short chick seemed to dig them.

Then it was off to the Distillery to see the Pizzas. Really, really good. So many pizza jokes, my favorite of which was "River deep dish, mountain pie". A super fun band. I sat there racking my befuddled brain for pizza jokes, and they don't come easy.

So, this night at the Distillery was the 27th annual (!) N-men christmas party. This is some local historical skating thing that I have never heard of?!? Can someone explain this to me? It's related to the Midtown Monthly cover story, right? I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but all the skater bros were browsing the issue. They had a band playing old punk covers and the singer was pretty rad but a pit developed quick and my foot got totally stomped out so I was like "lates".