Camping

Heading up to the Yuba river. This is one of my favorite places on earth. We head up to a spot about half an hour outside of Nevada City. When I say camping I mean we pull up a car and pull out a ton of food and hang out around a fire pit. The real reason we go up there is the river.But that you just have to see for yourself. Ok the real reason we go up there is to drink and hang out, which I guess we can do any where but for some reason this place just makes things taste better.

Some people say i am a little bit of a control freak. It seems that it manifests it's self mostly when dealing with food and large groups of people. Well this weekend it is only a group of ten but non the less i ended shopping any way. In the past i have gone a little over board with food. (but in my defence some people didn't show up) I also wanted every body to be happy and have plenty of choices. So this time I made a real effort to not go crazy. I just have to throw this out there, I am a COSTCO lover. So I was in COSTCO and saw the Adel's sausage counter, I gave them a taste for the first time. I have to be honest they weren't that good. They needed a lot more salt and they weren't over flowing with flavor. I then tried Sausage by Amy. I tried the chicken with Gouda cheese. These things were awesome. They where full of flavor sweet and savory and could be eaten on there own or with all kinds of condiments. Any way that takes care of the first night. The second night is going to be steaks. i picked up 6 organic New York strip steaks. These things look great. Any way I did them in a marinade of;
Citrus olive oil
Thai red chili past
Giridelli coco powder
and a little teriaki sauce.

I think they will grill up real nice. I kinda wish i put in some ground coriander though.
I hope people like the grub. If not we are miles from the nearest store so... screw'em.

Haven't been shopping in weeks

Well it's summer time and my schedule has been crazy. My parents where here for a 4th of July family reunion, my wife's birthday was in the middle of the month and all in all i have not had time to go shopping. On an up note i have come up with some great things to "cook".

I'm not proud of this dish but it is great back up for when your fresh ingredients run thin.

Tuna and Rice

My brother taught me this one. It may have manifested it's self in his collage days. I was skeptical at first but now I crave it all the time. This is a great adaptable recipe. My version is definitely skewed toward the Japanese flavors, it is like a big bowl of spicy tuna role. The other great thing is you can't screw it up, the whole thing is based on personal taste.

1 can of chunk tuna( i like it in water)
1 cup rice(I like jasmine rice)
2 table spoons mayonnaise(there is only one mayo, Hellman's)
2 to 3 teaspoons rice vinegar
half table spoon Dashi(dry Benito flakes. I get the ones that come in small pellets, it looks like mustard seed)
2 teaspoons Sriracha hot sauce
a full sheet of dried seaweed toasted and crumbled into small pieces.
1 table spoon black sesame seeds
pepper to taste

Bonuses:
1 small tomato diced
a quarter cucumber diced
half an avocado diced

cook rice how ever you do it.
i do it in a rice cooker with a ratio of 1 cup rice to 1.5 cups water(this is for Japanese rice)

remove rice and add all ingredients except tuna and mix thoroughly. I find that i usually have to add extra vinegar at the end to get the right tang.at the end add the tuna and mix in.

This recipe is not rocket science or gourmet but you will see once you get it the way you like it you will eat it once a week. I sometimes serve with a bunch of salad on top. when your alone just try it i bet you'll like it.

SOMA shopping triangle

As most San Franciscan's I am annoyed with my shopping options. My local gig is the Safeway at Church and Market. If you have ever been there it is one of the most depressing places i have ever shopped. Besides the lackluster grocery section and the non-existent butcher counter the worst part are the crazies that you have to wait for to count out 45 cents in change for there pack of Little Debbie's. I don't need to rail on Safeway in this blog, anyone who shops there or has ever set foot in one knows the downfall of Safeway. I am here to shine some light on the SOMA shopping triangle, well it is more of a diagonal line. Recently I have been using three stores to fill all my shopping needs. I start at Rainbow Grocery, the place just makes me feel healthy. I pick up a lot organic fruits and vegetables along with supplements, bulk maple syrup and peanut butter. I then move on to Traders Joe's for bottle drinks sauces, snack foods and juice, oh and pre-made pizza dough. I finish of the shopping spree at Whole Foods. You just can't beat there meat(hehehe beat there meat) and fish counter. If you go and buy what ever is on sale you won't break the bank. They often have very good deals on whole chickens and lamb.

I can't keep up this schedule every week but I try to make this trip once a month. I actually really like doing it alone and just wondering through the isles and see what is out there. But I may be a weirdo who really likes to go food shopping(when I am not rushed).

There are plenty of other great places out there to shop. I really like Falleties, it is really an enjoyable place to shop. I also love going through china town for odd items and an adventure. But I still haven't found the one place that houses good food, with a good selection at a good price. I hate the east bay but Berkeley bowl is tempting.(this is my favorite place to shop in the bay area.

SHE ATE F**KING DESERT!

I've been around vegetarians all my life, what can I say, I have hippie parents. Me I'm a meat eater. It's not the only thing i eat and I definitely don't need it every day but some good animal flesh really keeps me going. Now, i have no problems with vegetarians, in this day and age everyone knows one and most restaurants can accommodate them. The people i do have a problem with are vegans. First off, let me just say that I have only met one vegan who didn't make a big deal about it. This person brought food everywhere they went and never tried to make everyone else feel guilty for eating meat.This person is also the only true vegan I have ever met, only grains and fruit before noon with vegetables and protein added in the afternoon. I mean this person wouldn't even eat honey. They have also been on this diet for more than 15 years, Bravo!
Now let's deal with the rest of you so called vegans. My most recent interaction with vegans has come in the form of boy friends and girlfriends of friends of mine. Which means that if i want to eat with my friends we have to accommodate a vegan. This wouldn't bother me so much if they didn't make such a big f**king deal about it all the f**king time. It was always about them. And man don't ever try to eat spontaneously with a vegan. All quick food has had some sort of animal product near it or on it or in it. Eating with a vegan is a lesson in the hypocritical. I mean do you really think that the Boca Burger you ordered "Zeitgeist" really had no contact with the 40 burgers or 20 grilled cheeses on the stove. I mean as a meat eater I don't even think the cook washes his hands after he touches raw meat. I mean let's be realistic is the essence of cow really going to destroy the moral frame work of society, no!
The only thing I hate worse than vegans, is fake vegans! My friend dated this girl(lets call her M) she claimed to be a vegan. M would not eat any animal products. She would impose her will when ever she wanted to eat and was generally angry at everyone who did eat animal products. There was just one huge problem with M's vegan-ism; SHE ATE F**KING DESERT! lemon meringue pie, ice cream, brownies,chocolate cake, if it had sager in it she would eat it. She declared herself a desert-atarian. Well you know what, you can't have your cake and eat it to. This is the problem with most vegans. For what ever reason they choose to pass on some of the best things life has to offer like hot dogs, great cheese, and yes foie gras, but then they always have this one rule "if i pass In-n-Out burger on a Tuesday I'm aloud to eat it." Well sure your aloud to eat it and when I'm out with my friend and we want some dinner I'm aloud to say were going to "Tommy's Joint".

I guess all I am saying is, if you self impose all these rules on yourself then be happy about it. Vegans always seem so angry at everyone else for not taking them seriously, well you know what if you had some conviction people would be impressed, otherwise your just an angry person who has a sweet tooth.

Why now.

I am a traveler. My father loved cooking and ever since I can remember I have been eating. I used to be proud that i could eat two medium pizzas by myself. Now I'm proud when i don't order desert. I began noticing cooking when i was in high school and would come home starving(because my father loved to cook we had no snack food)I would open the fridge and yell "we never have anything to eat". Little by little i began to use the items we had around our kitchen. I remember trying to cook chicken and kept adding fresh lemon juice trying to make a sauce, not realizing that a sauce had other components other than lemon I just kept adding lemon after lemon(4 in total). It was terrible. I made the basic culinary mistakes early in life, now i take culinary chances (my wife would still call them mistakes, But without me she would eat scrambled eggs for dinner every night, she makes great eggs).

I Love fine dining and a good valued meal. I still have an appetite of a growing 12 year old boy, so I hate to leave a meal hungry. I also hate being over charged for something I can get someplace else cheaper and better i.e. expensive Mexican food. I will always order foie gras when it's on a menu and am on a never ending quest to find great buffalo wings on the West Coast.

I realized a few years back that my hobby is food. This is the reason I started this blog, I realized that most of my conversations where about food, where to eat it, how to cook it, or how I love it. I think there is no reason to be subtle with food if it's bad it can be fixed but if no one ever says it's anything than no one will ever fix it.

My wife tells me "opinions can't be wrong", well I have read a lot of opinions online and I normally wouldn't disagree with my wife but hey not all of us can live on eggs alone.