How to Spend Your Day Off

1.  Have an Irish breakfast for lunch

2.  Sample a 60¢ Rocky Road cookie from C.R.E.A.M.

 2.  Ultimately stick to the classics and go Chocolate Chip, even if it is only half-baked.  Correction: especially if it is only half-baked.

3.  Buy porkchops.

4.  Make Tonkatsu at home for roomie.

5.  Make chili at home for self.

5.  Serve Hawaiian-style in a 2:1:1 starch, veg, protein ratio.

6.  And next time?  Do NOT serve with Foster's.

Otaez Takes a Hit

Otaez Vs. La Penca Azul- Round I

-Beverages-

$4 "Beer of the month" - Pyramid Hefeweizen

($5 La Penca Azul Pale Ale)

Winner: Otaez

Can't comment on the Piña Colada as I didn't try it, but cute as hell.

-Atmosphere-

Mostly families towards the front, with the rowdy over-40 club just within earshot over at the bar.  

(La Penca Azul:  Sorry, WHAT?!!)

Winner: La Penca.  At Otaez it's just too easy to think you're going to run into your former gym teacher, or worse, that the woman cackling loudly at the bar is your mom.

 -Veggie Burrito- 
Less about the value, more about the burrito itself.  Strikes 1, 2 and 3: spinach tortilla not mentioned in description on menu, apparently hot pico de gallo counts as a "vegetable" here, cold unmelted cheese.

(La Penca: grilled vegetables in a flour tortilla with a *gag* whole wheat option marked clearly on the menu)

Winner: La Penca - but only by about a mile.

-Grilled chicken taco-

 Looks beautiful, but no comment.

-Cheese enchilada Mexicana-  

Strikes one and two: completely lifeless raw cabbage and Jack cheese instead of traditional Oaxaca or even Panera would have been nice.  Homeruns: incredibly garlicky red sauce drenching a beautifully flash fried corn tortilla, porky delicious refried beans.

(La Penca: flacid, soggy tortilla blanched in watery red sauce and filled with the same standard Jack).

Winner: Otaez.  Dining companion can be quoted as saying, "Best goddamn enchilada I've had in this country."

-Chips and salsa-

Chips: the chips definitely didn't have the same "just fried" temperature and texture as the chips from La Penca, but I'm counting the smaller portions and less frequent refills as a point for the joint.  

Salsa: while Otaez' is definitely thinner, what it lacks in body it more than makes up for in spice level and flavor.  The smoky background obviously comes from charred vegetables, I also think that it's made in smaller batches because there was just the slightest bit of inconsistency between the bowls that we got, which I loved.  Great citruisy highlights, very top heavy in terms of heat.

(La Penca: deep red, almost maroon-colored salsa made of charred onions and tomatoes, with a smooth chipotle background.  Thick, chunky and bottomless.)

Winner:  La Penca, can't get this stuff down fast enough.

La Penca wins this round 3/5.

Cater 2 U

 What to do with a day-old donut (i.e. that "extra" donut that super nice lady at Golden Gate threw in the bag).

 What to have the next time you find yourself at Blue Bottle.

 How to hold your Chiapas PROISH.

 Where to stand for maximum irony.

How to eat peas.

Catering Dinner Parties (Pt. II)


Don't...
-do anything you've never done before
-use fresh eggs for a soft boil
-cut/burn yourself the day of


Do...
-taste as you go
-prioritize seasonal/local/sustainable/organic (in that order)
-accept compliments

Carrot, jicama, asian pear salad topped with egg and avocado sphere, fried rice noodles, crispy salmon skin and citrus-soy reduction.

Friturday

What an epic day.

7 AM gym

9 AM breakfast at The Pretty Lady with Padre

11 AM second breakfast with roomie

1 PM on the open road

2 PM Golden Gate Donuts

3 PM IKEA

4 PM 50-cent IKEA hot dog

5 PM Bay Street

8 PM Naan 'N' Curry to-go

9 PM N'N'C dinner* at home

*Charred panir naan filled with soft scrambled egg. 

10 PM research/planning for catering/dinner party on Sunday

11 PM post

12:12 AM post

Hello, Friturdunday.

Lonches

When any day begins with a light breakfast followed by an hour and a half of hardcore gym-time, you can be sure that by the time 11:00 rolls around, what began as a gentle pang in the pit of your stomach has turned into an all out angry growl.  This means two things: whatever you're having for for lunch had better be a.) delicious, and b.) sitting in front of you before you start eating empty cereal boxes in an act of sheer desperation.

This is how the days usually go for the roomie and I anyway.  Which means lunch is always the highlight of the day for me.  It's creativity under a pressure cooker, it's inspired, it's done.

One such example:

Izzy's veggie pizza with roasted crookneck squash, grilled onions, Amber heirloom tomatoes and ricotta salata.

My pizza margharita (sans basil) plus ricotta salata.

The real kicker here is that both were made with a homemade pizza dough (and a 24-hour starter, low and slow baby, only way to go).  I really think I'm in danger of becoming a pizza purist here; what with tomato season already hitting some incredible high notes, and great, fresh local cheese from Farmer Joe's, doing anything more than a quick flash in a crazy hot oven just seems ludicrous to me.

Dinner?

Banana smeared with peanut butter...semolina made with coconut atole and homemade soymilk...one naked frozen waffle, toasted.


Let me put it this way: when you spend three hours working on brown butter red lentils and a Mediterranean lamb stew with root vegetables - seasoning, tasting, browning, tasting, adjusting for salt, tasting, reducing, tasting - all you really yearn for at the end of the day is anything reliably comforting and un-messed-with.

To a Degree of Separation

Itching to see Off the Grid take its first steps tonight in Berkeley.


Not itching to dine alongside 4,000 other hipsters, food snobs and baby boomers from North Berkeley.


Oh well, maybe when it's not freezing.


Speaking of B-Town, received this Groupon this morning for drinks at the Albatross Pub in Berkeley.


In a failed attempt to get an idea of the place's price range, came across this super kitschy, super awesome blog: Urban Sketchers SF.  Just check out this sketch of a typical night at the Albatross:

"Albatross Pub - at the bar." - artist unnamed

Above is a link to the Bay Area division, but the group Urban Sketchers is actually a much larger "network of artists from around the world".  So large in fact that it's become a 501(c)(3) "dedicated to fostering the art of on location drawing".  Just check out the manifesto:

1. We draw on location, indoors or out, capturing what we see from direct observation. 2. Our drawings tell the story of our surroundings, the places we live and where we travel. 3. Our drawings are a record of time and place. 4. We are truthful to the scenes we witness. 5. We use any kind of media and cherish our individual styles. 6. We support each other and draw together. 7. We share our drawings online. 8.We show the world, one drawing at a time.

It's a flash mob for compulsive doodlers!  The site is brilliantly organized both by country and correspondent, with links to artist blogs and flickr photos.  Thought you knew your planet Earth?  Maybe it's time for a fresh perspective.

"Javier" by artist lapin (les-calepins-de-lapin.blogspot.com/)