Grylt: attempt 3

Two pictures, because neither worked out very well:

Some of the issues I had last time were resolved this time.  They did seem to have a better line established, with one person doing side and veg, another handling protein, and a dedicated cashier. This kept things going well.  They've also minimized the crowd of people not working they had last time, with everyone looking like they had a job.  The logistics are clearly improved over last time.

However, you may notice something about those potatoes, especially if you compare them to the previous instances.  These seem to be a shapeless mass, due to the fact that they're way too wet.  I like fairly stiff potatoes, and I assume most people like them more solid than a porridge.

The other issue is that again, the ahi didn't seem to portioned the same as before.  I understand that fishies aren't simple boxes, so it's hard to divide it evenly every time.  Still, this was definitely less than the first visit, and I kind of think it was less than the second.  It was a single slice, and it was then cut in half to fit better.  It's a more central cut, so it's wider, but still seemed smaller.  My thought here was that if there were scales, like they have in BBQ places, then it'd be clear that all the servings are the same size (that would also probably  help control the yield).

The taste was good again, but I'm still somewhat hesitant about the whole thing.  If they can't ensure things are made consistently, is it just a matter of time before the taste starts to fall down as well?

Wednesday: Spending three wasted minutes plating,

only to discover afterwards that your phone has decided that the camera button means "take a picture if you feel like it, but if not, that's cool too."

Tomorrow will be the same thing, but in leftover form, so it'll be easier to get it made.  The construction of today's BLT (it's BLT day, BTW) was:

• Top toast
• Quick smear of mustard.
• Three slices of heirloom watermelon tomato. This was the juiciest tomato ever in the history of tomatoes.  it was leaking all over the place for the entire meal.  I'm hoping the other half dries out by tomorrow's sandwich, otherwise I'll have to come up with a way to dry it out.  I don't really want to salt and drain it, as I want to avoid adding lots of salt.  I'm thinking about putting the slices on a rack, and quickly baking them for a few minutes.
• Three leaves local lettuce.  This, on the other hand, was perfectly dried, after being sent around the salad spinner for about five minutes.
• Three strips of delicious bacon. I pan fried, but I should have just baked it, as that would have been easier to deal with.  WF seems to slicing the bacon extra thick these days, and this batch was a bit extra fatty, so that might have caused some problems since I don't have a baking sheet with a lip.
• Slice of cheese.
• Bottom toast

Super tasty, but I should have had everything but the bacon ready to go, so I could have a good temperature gradient across the sandwich.  As it was, everything reached a moderate "cool" temperature. Still tasty.

Also: box mac&cheese, because I wanted an easy side that would put a smile in my tummy.

Tuesday: Somedays you have to change the plan

Especially when an idea that just sounds delicious comes up.  The original plan was for BLTs, but the tomato soup/grilled cheese combo was simply a better dinner.  Yes, I stole the idea, but I tend to steal like 99% of all my dinner plans.  I think I had a bit too much soup (as seen by the mess on the rim), but I can never gauge how filling it's going to be.

Tomorrow will have to be BLTs, and I have at least enough to last until Thursday, and maybe even to Friday if I really wanted.

Monday: This fucking episode of Star Trek: TNG

This one. The basic idea is that Dr. Douchebag wants to take Data apart so he can figure out how he works.  He pulls strings to get Data transferred to him, and Capt. Bitchy Judge initially rules that he's property of Starfleet.

Ok, WTF?

He's a commissioned officer of an organization that has the main purpose to "Seek out new life and new civilizations."  I'm not going to bother looking up details, but I know that at this point, they've probably fought the Borg, random ugly aliens, and a pile of fucking space clouds.  Judging from that baseline of "anything that shoots at us is some sort of new life," how exactly does Data not quality as some sort of new life?  I think the best defense Picard could have come up with would be to just shout the opening credits at the court.

"DUH! DA-DA-DAAA DA-DA-DAAAAAA!  BA-DA-DADADA DA! DA! DA! DADA-DA DA!"

Besides that, if he's property of Starfleet, where is their purchase order? Even in this utopian no money world, they can't just steal shit and claim it's there. Did they put one of those stupid barcode sticker things all the universities use on him?  If they didn't buy him, but let him willingly go through training and follow the standard commissioning process, then they've clearly already determined that he was life of some sort.

Oh! Even better solution!

"Mr. Worf, are those Romulans next to this new station next to the neutral zone?"

"Um...yes, I believe they are, Captain."

"Well, Mr. Worf, fire photon torpedoes. Be sure not to blow up the new station."

"Yes, Sir. Oops, Sir."

"Oh well, I'm sure we all tried our best. It was a sticky situation."

Then they can go get ice cream.

This "force Dr. Douchebag to define a term, and then make him show how that does or does not apply to Data" tactic seems way less effective.  If Picard was mocking Dr. D, that would certainly help.  Maybe a "I guess you aren't as smart as a crazy old man, are you?"

It's about damn time you cite the "new life" clause.  Maybe you should have started with that one.


Also: I had fish again for dinner:

These chips had delicious fake cheesy dust on them.  Om nom delicious fake cheesy dust.

Baby Whale

This happened:

And then the space ghetto did these:

Sunday dinner

The salad is just a Roma tomato and some local lettuce, with a quick dressing of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and tomato and garlic pastes.  It's a bit richer than I expected, so maybe tomorrow I should dilute it with something.  Also: parmesan shavings on top.

I decided to turn the Mahi Mahi into a sandwich. A quick dusting of sea salt, pepper, and cayenne, and then sear sear sear until cooked through. The hot dog bun isn't very fancy, but works well.  I added a bit of Dijon, and the combo of the cayenne and mustard was tasty.

Also: chips (which pointed out that despite the richness of the dressing, it was lacking in salt).

Sunday: Honolulu Academy of Arts

Today's plan was to get to the Honolulu Academy of Arts, since I've not been, and it's close enough to my apartment that I could probably walk to it (if it wasn't hot out with a burning Day Star shining down death rays).  It's not open a long time on Sunday, just 1-5, but it's also not so giant that it requires a multi-day trip to see everything.  I skimmed a few of the galleries (some parts of the world don't make art that I'm that fond of; also: some recent decades), but I think I caught everything I wanted to see.  Since they have a strict "no photography" rule in place, I'm going to have to share via:

And after drawing and arranging things, I discover that the art I was thinking of are available on the HAoA webpage.  Oops.  Links to the originals as appropriate.

First, Rabbits in Grass Under the Moon:

I liked this one because the accompanying text describes the myth of the rabbit making mochi on the moon, and suggests that the smiling bunny is wishing he could return to his "ancestral home."  I like the idea of astronaut bunnies.

Second, Guanyin:

Clearly, mine is more smiley than the original. You'd think enlightenment would make you a bit happier.

Third, a combination of Nathaniel Allen and The Actress Elizabeth Younge with Bust of Shakespeare:

My idea on this one was that almost all of the European portraiture depicts grumpy looking men in dark clothes in front of a dark background, all of which is made darker by the effects of aging.  In the actress webpage image, you can barely see the bust of Shakespeare on the left, and in real life, it's even less obvious. There was also a print by Rembrandt that mentioned a lion in the shadows.  Similarly, my crayon drawing shows a dragon flying above as well as a miniature marching band in the foreground, obscuring the lower half of the subject.  Unfortunately, I drew all of that in black, so it's a bit hard to see.

Ok, this one is technically "postcard theater." This is Tavernier's "The Volcano at Night," which seems to have been the first of this kind of setting.  The Hawaiian art gallery then had two or three knockoffs that had almost identical design by different artists.  I can't find this on the webpage, so no link here.

One guess as to the artist here. You can all make your own jokes, you don't need me.

This is the...wait a minute...

I've been there!

Saturday: Wait, what? How is it 9PM?

It turns out that falling asleep on the couch for two hours means you miss regular dinner time, so you just make a sandwich and some nachos (to use up the increasingly stale tortilla chips).  Also, it's a good idea not to have your arms in wonky positions when sleeping. Ouch.

Today I was finally able get up early enough to make it to Nico's before they closed.  A nice thick slab of freshly caught fish fried up with some chips.  Om nom nom nom nom.

I did get groceries, and since I slept too much, I'm going to have to shift everything back a day. So, the plan for this week should be:

• Sunday: Mahi Mahi, prepared somehow.  Also: salad.
• Monday: I have another piece of Mahi, so I have two days of it.  Also: more salad.
• Tuesday: I picked up some bacon, so I'm thinking BLTs. This should help use up the tomatoes I keep buying and not eating.
• Wednesday: Yeah, so I wasn't very creative at the store, so BLTs again?
• Thursday: I'll need to get lunch stuff by this point, so I'll replan the end of the week then.

Storytime

Since the BBC reminded me of it yesterday:

Ten years ago, I was driving home from grad school along Haslett Road just past Hagadorn road. I had just gotten gas at the station on the corner, and was listening to All Things Considered on NPR.  The main news story of the day was that reports were coming in that the Lion of the Panjshir, Ahmad Shah Massoud, had apparently been assassinated.  I'd read about him in the NY Times many times in the previous four or five years, as he was the leader of pretty much the only major faction to oppose the Taliban.

My initial thought was, "Huh, that's a bad sign.  Eventually someone is going to have to do something about the Taliban."

:-/

Friday: The same as yesterday

Except I had more sauce today than yesterday.  Apparently I didn't divide it properly in half.  Also, I've just remembered I have a second cookie, and that that would be tasty in my tummy.

Om nom crunch.  :( It has gone hard since I bought it yesterday.

Hopefully I'll get up in time tomorrow to check out the new Ala Moana farmer's market.  I also need to plan out next week's meals.  I'm thinking fish at least one day.  Maybe I'll do that tomorrow and sunday.  Then...um...chicken?

I can has cookie!

The bakery was out of chocolate croissants, so I had to be satisfied with chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies.

Om nom nom nom nom!

Thursday: long ago leftovers

I noticed that I had a pile of frozen bolognese in my freezer this morning, so I set a bag to defrost in the fridge.  I figured that it'd make a good pair of end of the week dinners.  My pasta choices were spaghetti, penne, and ditalini, with the last winning out since it seemed like it'd mix in the best.  Add a chunk of bread and some parmesan, and om nom nom.

The picture is a weird size because my phone decided to update the software last night.  Android Gingerbread looks fairly snazzy, and things seem a bit faster and animate-y.  Still, it's kind of annoying that it reset a bunch of settings that it didn't need to touch.

Wednesday: Crap, where did Tuesday go?

It seems it got forgotten. I should have saved the buffalo pictures for it, as that was dinner then.

Blah.  Waking up feeling generally terrible isn't the best way to start the day.

Bratwurst today, after falling asleep on the couch for two hours.

Let's see if I have any cool pictures for today:

Yay! Dancing bunny!

Tuesday: I am a time traveller!

From the distant land of Wednesday!

Here's a picture of a bear using a rock as a pillow:

This kind of buffalo

I was going to do another Crayon Theater, but then I remembered that I actually have pictures of buffalo:

Not a buffalo:

Was once a buffalo (but is no more):

Whole bunch of buffalo:

There's a baby buffalo hiding in the background:

Buffalo jaywalk at night:

Also not a buffalo. Ninja fox. Seriously. This guy was just suddenly behind us being all, "Hey, I'm a fox. Did you hear me sneak up on you? Of course not. Oh, look over there!" Then, boom, gone. Ninja.

Buffalo also jaywalk during the day:

Labor Day: Eyes >>> Tummy

My first step today to get ready for Labor Day dinner was to half-caramelize two onions so I could have some to put on today's sausages.  I also soaked my corn in water for thirty minutes after removing the silk so that I could roast it in the oven.  I eventually stripped off the husk, and left it under the broiler while I cooked the sausages.

So, the menu was:

• Roasted corn. Nicely sweet, to the point where I didn't really need any butter or salt to make it tasty (I had some anyway. Just to be sure).
• Regular chips. I was going to make nachos and have salsa, but I was tired, and didn't want to bother with it.
• Buffalo dog hot dog.  Not buffalo spicy, buffalo the animal. It's here where things started to show a problem. This hot dog is almost certainly twice as big as any regular hot dog. I probably should have noticed this and scaled things back, but I didn't.  That meant when it was time to eat the
• WF meat case bratwurst, I was already pretty much entirely full (hence the title).  This was better than I was expecting.  Nice light spice, and a good greasy moistness.  This was also larger than most brats I've bought before, and was straight, preventing the "curved brats don't fit into straight buns" problem that I've had in the past.
• Loganberry drink, using the bottle of syrup shown in the picture.  Not quite the memory I was looking for, but it worked well enough.

I think I'm going to have to rework the menu for the rest of the week, since these sausages are twice as large as I was expecting.  I think that means that I freeze some of sausages, and have them at some point in the future.

Monday: Labor day

I didn't wake up early enough to make a proper breakfast.  However, it turns out that this cranberry/walnut bread makes perfectly fine regular toast, so the fact that I didn't French it up doesn't really matter.

Also, I'm disappointed that Viacom is so bitchy about things that I can't find a decent video clip of Hermes from Futurama talking about labor day.

Sunday: There and back again. Then back to there.

Due to the three day weekend, today totally felt like a Saturday.  That makes it grocery day, so I went out, and bought stuff to plan out a week of meals, and then came home.

This was the mistake, it seems.

Because upon arriving home, I realized that I didn't really want to eat anything I'd bought.  This prompted a drive back to the mall (that's where WF lives, for some strange reason) to find food that I didn't have to prepare.  I really should have planned this out a bit better.

Anyway, here's the plan for this week:

Monday: Labor day means pretend grilled food. So, bratwurst and buffalo meat hot dogs. I suspect those dogs aren't in natural casings, so I will once again be sad for the state of modern hot dogs. Also corn on the cob and salad of some sort.  Also nachos, because I have tortilla chips to get rid of, and I just bought some jar salsa, since I like that better than my own.
Tuesday: Pretty much the same thing.
Wednesday: This is where I change it up because I only bought two ears of corn.  I suspect the rest is the same, though.
Thursday: I kind of run out of stuff here, so it'll either be panzanella or something fish-based.
Friday: If I do the panzanella, that'll be here as well.  Otherwise...um...something else?

Also:

Monday BREAKFAST: I bought a loaf of cranberry walnut bread, and the thought is to convert that into french toast.  I have a couple left over sausages from breakfast-for-dinner week, so they'll join the team.  This will be completed either with hash browns or something eggy, although since I'm not a big fan of eggs, and haven't really made them, the hash browns seems more likely.


Things I was asked about while checking out at WF today:


Samuel Smith Organic Cider: Ok, but far inferior to other ciders I've had in the past.  If only we could get a reliable supply of woodchuck, things would be better. It's too harsh, and should come in a more useful size.

Clusterfluff Ice Cream: Delicious, and although it's strong like most peanut butter ice cream, it's not overwhelmingly so. Checkout girl: "I like peanut butter!" Bagger guy: "I like the name...clusterfluff...heh heh heh."

Saturday: Roadtrip!

Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to take pictures while driving. Therefore, today's post is told via Crayon Theater.  My plan was to drive to a place way up in Kahuku, after reading someone else's blog post about them having pastrami. According to google maps, this is a shorter distance than my last pastrami run road trip, but the times are about the same (assuming Hawaii traffic is magically vaporized and it doesn't take twice as long as google claims it will).

After getting to Kamehameha on the other side of the islands, I had a reasonably relaxing drive.  I saw this cow:

who was happily munching on the side of the road, screwing up traffic in the other direction.  A little further down the road:

Chicken!  Usually they run in packs, but this was a loner it seemed.

Horses! "Is that one horse smiling at me?" you may be asking. Yes. Yes he is.

Eventually I reached Kahuku.  Unfortunately, I found this:

Crap. Take out windows boarded up and closed sign tacked up.  I probably should have expected that midafternoon on the saturday of a three day weekend would be likely to be a day off in a small town.  Ok, I figured I'd just keep going.  When I was coming back on H-2, I saw this:

"Ok, now you're just fucking with me. Boss Hogg style horns on the front of a car?"

I am totally honest.

"Is that a fucking Pontiac emblem there?"

Yes it is.

"You have got to be shitting me."

Nope. And the smiles I've drawn can't even possibly show how cool this dumbass thought he was.

I got back to town, and stopped off at Burgers on the Edge, and got the usual:

It may not be completely clear from this picture, but there are two obvious flaws with the burger today:

1. Way too much sauce. It's delicious, it ties things together, it takes two napkins, a wetnap, and finally washing your hands up to the elbow to finally feel like you're clean again.
2. The spiral of apple slices is a great aesthetic touch, but it neglects a major flaw. Since that peak ends up in the same place as the slice of foie gras, any pressure is going to try to force the apples radially out from the center of the burger.  Since the whole apparatus is thoroughly lubed with sauce, each bite was kind of an adventure in trying to keep everything from blowing up in my face.

Finally, coming home, I saw this lady:

It's impossible to accurately describe her clothing via stick figure, but suffice it to say that she was wearing some sort of lime green spandex tube-top unitard thing that came down to her knees.  Also, bright red platform heels.

...

No further comment.

Friday: You know how you make not very good pizza worse?

Microwave it. I think the strategy for the last part is going to be to preheat my oven to 1e9 degrees, flip my cast iron pan over, and then throw the pizza on that.  My thought is that this will put a proper crispy crust on the pizza.

I'm thinking that tomorrow might be road trip day instead of grocery shopping day. I don't have much of a plan for food this week, other than doing something for labor day.  I'm thinking hotdogs or brats or something in the meat cylinder class of food. I've been craving panzanella again, and my thought that this crap pizza would solve that did not end up being true.

Hopefully I'll take pictures of something tomorrow. In the meantime:

What are you doing, squirrel? You're not a candy! Get out of there!