talking turkey

Wow, working hard is really hard. Hardly working is way easier. I was so busy yesterday I didn't even check Heckasac.  Had a good Thanksgiving, just us this year.  The bike ride was the same as always, fun, with the exception of the fact that it was big and slow this year and way less rowdy.  The traffic directing guys they have added are useless and actually make it more dangerous.  One pulled this move of trying to stop us at a green light and wave the cars through that had a red. He really had no authority to do that and both cars and bikes were ignoring him.

I bought a smoked turkey at Morant's this year and I am completely, deadly serious when I say I will never cook a turkey again.  This one was 53 bucks and totally worth it.  I gotta call Dirk and tell him, although it's hard to get that guy stoked.  You put it in the oven for and hour before serving and you get crispy skin!  The leftovers are supreme and don't dry out.

Plus, smoky gravy!  The meat is not overly smoked, hence not dry.

Thanksgiving dinners are ugly but oh well.  I think my cran is the best: rum, lots of zest and orange juice and this year the very special guest star of a tiny bit of cloves.  I wing my stuffing every year and every year it is too dry.  Really crappy, especially left over.  This has applles, pinenuts, italian sausage and thyme.

This is the amount of meat we had left!  Still not sick of it.  Oh yeah, the turkey was not fatty and made really good stock.

The end of turkey talk

do over

I hate last week's posts. Do over.  New karaoke rooms across from the Crest: awesome but deadly.  Full bar, and I get so excited about karaoke that I always go crazy.  Good idea: straight tequila.  Logic: the line for drinks is so long that I won't have to wait in line as often.  That place is a real clusterfuck as far as management, and it's drunken chaos in there.  It seems off the hook popular but I bet it could go under if they don't get it together.  Although the bar seemed to be making money hand over fist.

Yesterday I laid in bed crying and then in the evening watched the dust bowl documentary from Ken Burns.  Dust bowl: hellllsa dusty.  I maybe fell asleep for like 15 minutes of the whole thing, lulled by Peter Coyote's voice, but in general thumbs way up.

piece of crap

After a vaporizer session I foolishly left the room where smiller was spinning fresh reggae (do the kids still say fresh?) and went upstairs to watch the Sofia Coppola movie "Somewhere".  What a piece of garbage, and the worst movie to watch while stoned.  I would zone out on a long scene where he was smoking a cigarette and then zone back in and he would still be smoking it.  This guy was a piece of crap of a human being.  This entire movie was more boring than my most boring moment of my actual life.  And you are talking to someone who loved My Dinner With Andre and that boring Belgian movie that just follows a woman around her apartment for three hours and then she does something shocking in the end.

The Neighbor- I don't imagine you have any eggs, do you?  I want to start on a batch of aged nog and it would be awesome to do it with farm eggs.  I will probably have arugula to give you soon.

I pwned it

Not a very lively week here in ol' Heckasac.  And I do mean ol.  Can you believe how long I've been doing this?  I'd like to remind you that it was way before facebook came and ruined everything in the entire world for everyone.  Too strong?

 And no one has ever come close to matching the regularity of my posts.  Remember all the blogs that have come and gone?  The ones that started off strong and faded away?  Remember when Sac Rag was a big thing?  Oh wait, they are still posting! I'll have to go back to checking.  Although when SNR had a "best of" blogs category, I argued and will still argue that a "blog" with a whole roster of posters is really not a blog.  Remember when I used to start fights with everyone before I knew that people would find out about it?  Remember how through the kind attention of editors such as NM, OMF, AY, RD and RL I have been able to enjoy a successful freelance side line?  Remember that new yorker article about the first blogs? The people who started it were insufferable.  Thanks for sticking us with such a stupid name, you indie wimps.

What is the secret to my longevity, you ask?  Pretty much just saying whatever, good or bad, ego or id, scandalous or mundane, profound (ha!) and cliched, crazy or sane, funny or stupid, wrong or right.  I used to get super embarrassed about most things I posted but now it is such second nature to me. I never think about it.  I probably should.  I transferred my embarrassment to my freelancing.  Usually I can't look at it when it's published and then later I read it and I'm like, that's pretty good.  I was just laughing at my new thing in Edible.  That's right, LOLing at myself, which smiller was LOLing at me for.  Remember how LOLs probably didn't exist when I starting this, let alone ROFLMAO or pwned.

So, this is the end, my only friend, the end.

JK.  I just felt like a walk down memory lane.  Let the trolls spread their vitriol below!

I went to the open mic comedy night at Bows last night.  I enjoyed it greatly and am really drawn to the spectacle, discomfort and anger of those who are drawn to standup.  I saw two guys do their first standup ever.  One was like an angry car wreck and one pretty  much just read jokes off his phone.  If I was a heckler I would have yelled "do you just google "jokes" and read whatever comes up?"  Host Ray Molina is quite funny and the last guy did like a half hour and was super funny.  I wish I could remember his name.  He was from LA.  There was a donation jar but I don't think these guys could have made any money.  What a perverse thing to be drawn to.

The crowd was terrible, which I think is not typical.  There was mostly silence and then this dreadful table with a  woman who would compulsively laugh loudly, but often at what her table mates were saying and not at the jokes.  She would drown out the jokes and some of the comedians were pretty much forced to remark on it.  I wanted to KILL HER by the end.  Anyway, it's cheaper than a night of theater and pretty much as absorbing if you can stomach secondhand embarrassment.

mouth watering

 Kinda of a rippin it up weekend. Well, mostly Friday.  Flame Club! Yipes.

This is my favorite cocktail in Sac right now.  Hook and Ladder West Indies Sour.  It's St. Elizabeth's allspice dram (a Jamaican liqueur made with allspice berries, lemon simple syrup, and red wine.  It's like a nicely acidic mulled wine.  It has an interesting mouth-drying quality that maybe is an effect of the allspice.  They have a lot of other cocktails that sound good, but I've been there twice and just ordered this one.

TV Dinner

TV Dinner- Really good, the Verge was transformed.  It was super fun to see all the chefs working and bustling.  The servers were so excellent.  I was worried because they were volunteers and I know I would have botched.  I chose the easier job of pouring wine.  This crowd was voracious for white wine so that was hard to keep up and keep cold.  There was a miscommunication where some volunteer opened like 25 bottles of the cab franc, which were sort of hidden behind me so they were all left at the end of the night, open.  Somebody should contact live if they want some tasty cab franc.  The Verge is cold enough that it should be fine tonight and tomorrow.

The menu: based on Rawhide, a show that I oddly loved as a child, smoked chicharrones with the most bomb tartare imaginable piled on top.  I will eat anything placed in front of me so I quickly became the big joke of the dinner when I popped a piece of ash in my mouth, which luckily was not hot, and tried to eat the little crunchy snack I had found.  Then my mouth and face became covered in ash.  Oh well, someone's gotta be the joke.

Second course: green acres.  A lovely crunchy cale salad with roasted root vegetables underneath, and aioli.  There was some cardamom in there.

Thirst course: Hawaii 5-O.  Roasted pork and rice wrapped in banana leaves.  The rice was somewhat sticky and had that lovely tea-like flavor that banana leaves impart.  Scrumptious.  The pork was great and had big hunks of fat you had to wade though.  Our table scored two platters.

The dessert were gelatin-based (Mr. Ed) The carrot tartlets were big hit, they tasted like mini pumpkin pies.  The mint julep jellies were also good and minty.  I didn't like the green apple marshmallows very much. 

The bartenders whipped up a take on Tom and Jerrys.  Hot rum and brandy, spiced with Jamaican red tea (I think that's what they said) and with torched merengue on top.  A lot of the white hairs couldn't deal and ditched them on my dirty glass table, so I expected something overpowering, but they were mild and delicious.  But you have to admit, they were not white wine.

Speaking of the white hairs, an awesome white-haired couple met and then did some heavy petting in the house tableau.  They were the most scandalous and maybe in their 70s? Good for them!

OMG, KZAP is playing the most truly awful jam right now.

ramen

My campaign promise is that I will not post about politics today.

Went to Ryujin Ramen yesterday.  I liked it a lot.  I was mostly stoked that they had tako yaki (fried octopus balls), which I haven't had since I was in Tokyo.  These were maybe not as good, but I liked the pickled ginger with them, it added a little tang.  I also liked that they include the ginger in the spicy ramen, I like the whole egg, the chashu was great, the noodles were firm, which is cool.  I refuse to weigh in on the Shoki/Ryujin debate.  There is room enough for the both of them.  I did just talk to a volunteer from Tokyo moments ago who drives from Davis to Shoki all the time, so there ya go.

There are three good shows on Friday!! Too many.  Orca Team (Scott likes them)/Nacho Biznass at Bows.  The Nachos were really good on Saturday.  La Sera/Dreamdate at Midtown Village Cafe.  It's awesome there's a new good venue and I am stoked to see Dreamdate.  La Sera, meh.  Then, Alkali Flats 10 anniversary at the Torch Club.  That one may be the most fun of all! It starts pretty late and should go on for a long time, so I will catch that for sure.  Every member of the many who have been in the band over the years will do a guest spot. Hopefully they will all jam on "The Weight" at the end or "Knocking on Heaven's Door".

Porcupine Pie

Wow, these are my kind of young ladies. Perhaps there is hope for the youth.

juniper and rye

 I had to go back to Sac State so I could finally get my diploma sent to me (only 9 years after graduating) and it was a trip.  It's a cool/ugly/brutalist  campus.  This is the building where I spent so much of my time.  The funny thing is, the building I have worked in for almost 10 years is just as ugly as this, only with no windows. Sigh.  I should paint a window in front of me.

 I went to Apple Hill on Sunday, I think for the first time.  It's pretty cool.  It must rake in hundreds of thousands a day.  I probably dropped like 60-70 bucks total.

 This caramel apple was sick.   The caramel was really soft, unlike the fair.  It made my teeth hurt, which is weird because I don't think I have any cavities.

 gummi apple

 Apple beer. So funny, it is Coors Light and apple juice. It was not bad despite that combo.

 The famous Marilyn Thomas and her sour cream pies.  Liv Pointed out that she has everything imcluding a pitcher of ice tea that she will pour into your strawberry milkshake.  But strangely no pies.

 Scott went to St. George in Alameda and got me this gin brewed with juniper (of course), caraway and black pepper.  I need drink ideas.  It has an unusual flavor and does not do well in a gin and tonic at all.  It's not as smooth as some of their other gins so it isn't really good straight.

 I tried just gin and bitters, which was good but still too strong.  Anyone got a suggestion?  I think it would be good in a cocktail that traditionally uses rye, but you would have to account for the juniper flavor in there, too. 

Our neighbor brought us two teeny, beautiful trout she caught at Ice House in the morning.  I broiled them with thyme stuffed inside.  It was amazingly good.  The thyme really permeated the flesh, which really suprised me.  What an unexpected treat.

juice juice juice

I know I don't usually post on weekends, but I am avoiding writing a review.  I'm sitting here drinking a Sarasola Basque cider.  Gets the writing juices flowing.\

Speaking of juices, I hella deserved this letter, and I'm tickled to get one.  I actually knew that about early Americans (that they drank a lot because the water was considered untrustworthy) but I spaced.

I know some of you check on the weekend, so don't forget the San K., Nacho Business, Knock Knock show tonight.

P.S. I think Thiemann's dinner might sell out, so better get your tix