House of Dioxin

beer goes very good with beer

2008-07-03T22:41:25Z

Another entry in the cool-things-which-don't-quite-exist-yet dept. (Durm division, this time): Fullsteam Beer. Hooray, local beer! Eat at Joe's has some more info. I must admit, I'm a bit alarmed by the idea of a pomegranate saison. But I'd at least try one in the spirit of local solidarity...

stay a while and listen

2008-07-03T04:21:54Z

OMG! And other expressions of delight. Blizzard has announced Diablo 3. No release date yet but, hey, lotsa jobs available if you're a game developer.

dig your own grave and save

2008-07-01T23:47:56Z

I should give up on speculating on future weeks of NFNS as I've been wrong every time. So, no, this was not the big redemption week for Adamski. More on that later. FN personality o' the week was Cat Cora. First challenge was to take a pic-a-nic basket w/ 6 ingredients and create a dish in 30 min. Everyone gets savory items except Aaron (still too boring for a nickname). The back half of the challenge is to describe the dishes on camera. Of course, all assume they will be describing their own dishes. Psych! In easily the most brutal (and brilliant) switch-up of the season, they all have to describe someone else's dish. In 90 seconds. Without being able to taste it first. Savage! Sure, it's mostly a giant "gotcha." But it also tests them to see if they've been learning, oh, anything, about confidently presenting to camera. First big surprise is Young Shane. He had good energy and nailed a lot of specifics. K-bot was okay but lapsed into generalities and mis-identified habañero compound butter as citrus compound butter. Adamski was also okay, altho he screwed up by sticking a big honkin' piece of cake in his mouth near the end of his time and losing his wrapup. Ro is now getting K-bot's critiques from a few weeks ago -- that she's reading as fake or forced on camera. Aaron was brutal. Used most of his time tasting and still couldn't come up with anything interesting to say. And, of course, Boring Jen was boring. Plus she kept calling udon noodles linguini. I think she managed to get thru w/o apologizing for anything but she gave not the slightest hint that she knew what she was talking about. Almost as bad as Nipa and the squid.
Since the challenge was all about description, they don't really spend any time telling us who made good or bad food. But it seems like everyone did a pretty good job.
(more below the cut)

]]> Part the second takes us uptown. Working in teams of 2, they have to update a classic dish. Specifically, take one with an insanely long prep time and create a 45 min. version. Winning recipe gets published in Bon Appetit. Dishes they have to choose from: coq au vin, beef wellington, turducken. Because Young Shane won the first challenge he not only gets choice of dishes but also gets to assign the remaining two to the other teams. It's still unclear to me how they chose these teams, but they use the same pairings as in the first challenge. Which means Aaron (who shall have no nickname until he shows me something TV seriew worthy) and Adamski, Ro and Boring Jen, K-bot and Young Shane. Which means (and this can't come as any surprise if you've seen a minute of this season) that Young Shane and K-bot's recipe for updated beef wellington will be running in BA this summer. Let's see... one team has 2 recent culinary school grads... perhaps they might have an edge. Their recipe wasn't all that risky or adventurous but it clearly was good. The only bad thing they got anyone saying on camera was that it wouldn't photograph well. I'm pretty sure BA has a food stylist on staff to take care of that. Plus they presented well. K-bot got dinged for talking about culinary school & undermining her expertise. Which I don't think she does that much more than Young Shane. But it wouldn't be the first time FN dinged one contestant for the same thing they praised another for. Plus, they're always yammering on about how they want to get to know the "real" people. But you tell a story or two about your real experience in culinary school and they bust you for it.
Adamski and Aaron basically recreate their train wreck on the train. Aaron, who is supposed to run a hospital catering operation, defers to Adamski (who by this point in the show its clear he knows squadoosh about professional cooking) on whether to use bone-in or boneless chicken breast. I believe that it's possible to grill a bone-in chicken breast in 45 min. but Adamski can't pull it off so they have to switch to boneless. They end up crunched for time, their plates are a hot mess, and what the dish has to do with coq au vin remains mostly a mystery. Presentation-wise, Aaron was nervous and Adamski was funny. In other words, nothing new was revealed.
Aayah! Ro and Boring Jen and turducken was every bit the disaster you'd expect. Ro's utter contempt for Jen was apparent throughout. Of course, it didn't help that Jen, trying to open a glass bottle of juice, tapped it against the edge of the stove causing it to explode sending broken glass all over the flat-top. They had to completely trash her side dish plus a leg of duck confit that was supposed to go into the deconstructed turducken. Oh, and Jen decided that the sauce was "too herb-y" and wasted so much time dinking around with it that they couldn't get it onto the plates. Ro, altho she's taken to robotically adding some version of "beautiful basics" into almost everything she says, managed to carry over her improved public speaking persona from last week. Boring Jen, however, had another crash & burn. Started off fine but then went into a long and painful over-explanation of all the problems they had in the kitchen. Admittedly, it was a tough room. All the judges plus the editorial staff of BA. But, still, it was clear that she was never never ever gonna be able to get past whatever nervous tic was turning her into a babbling twit on TV. So she's gone. Aaron (maybe now that Jen's gone I'll call him Boring Aaron) once again got dinged for his lack of personality. Adamski once again got dinged for his lack of cooking skill. In fact, they said to his face that the only reason he was still there is cos he's good on camera. I don't know why they think he's gonna suddenly learn to cook in the last 3 weeks of the show. Maybe they figure if he gets marginally competent seeming they can slot him onto the Guy Fieri/Marc Summers hosts-who-can't-cook job track.
K-bot I still can't see winning, unless they're worried that Rachael Ray might leave the network and want to groom an even perkier replacement. That might become clearer after next week's show, which will feature the noted terrorist donut sympathizer. But I don't expect her to reach the final two because it's a fan vote for the winner and she would crush any other challenger. Hands down, not even close and I think FN wants more suspense out of the final vote than that.
Ro says several times tonight that she knows she needs to be more approachable on camera. As long as she's working the "dominatrix chic" look, that's gonna be tough to pull off. But she's got a big personality and she knows how to cook. If she comes off as a bit of a rich girl pretending to be a chef, well, so do Nigella and Giada.
My hunch for now is that it'll be Ro v. Young Shane in the final. After that, who knows?
Fun fact: cooking in the second challenge was done at Cafe Grey which is in the Time Warner Center, which is also home to Per Se, and a Whole Foods where I'm pretty sure they were doing their ingredient shopping. WFM is clearly not a sponsor so they were framing the shots to keep logos and such off camera. But I've been in that store. Plus I've got a pretty good idea what the current gen of WFM stores looks like.
Line of the week, from Young Shane: "She is striking and she wields a powerful knife."

it's so different from the wrrld i'm living in

2008-07-01T02:28:39Z

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 29 jun 08)

Made in Dakar :: Orchestra Baobab
Wild Animals :: the Pinker Tones
Bokoor Beats :: various
Merengue Tipico from the Dominican Republic :: la India Canela
A Tribute to Gonzalo Asencio: Tio Tom, 1915-1991 :: Orlando "Puntillo" Rios y el Conjunto Todo Rumbero
Gal :: Gal Costa
Nigeria Rock Special :: various
Radio Myanmar :: various
Saracen :: Jef Stott
Bollywood Steel Guitar :: various

this week's video feature: Orchestra Baobab

the president's neck is missing

2008-06-30T01:24:30Z

Hey, it's time for another installment in the never-ending series "stupid people saying stupid things" :: Noel Gallagher doesn't think Jay-Z should play Glastonbury. For those who just came in, Glastonbury is a big UK festival/concert, Jay-Z is a rapper/mogul/owner of the NJ Nets, and Noel Gallagher is guitarist for Oasis/wanker. I'm kinda surprised that: a) anyone in 2008 cares what Noel Gallagher thinks about, oh, anything; b) there are still people who cling to the delusion that guitar-based rock & roll is objectively superior to all other music; c) Joe Strummer hasn't risen from his grave to kick NG's ass.
BTW, if you thought NG's remarks were the height of wankery, I advise you to stay out of the comments thread where there are way too many people expressing some version of the belief that "they" should stay away from Glastonbury and keep "their" music in Brixton (that's in between their wounded bleatings about how dare anyone say that NG is being racist).
I need a drink.

they came to burgle carnegie hall

2008-06-28T02:46:44Z

This just in: Devo suing McDonald's. Altho it doesn't show up in the Serious Eats comments, in other places I've been surprised by the number of people who don't seem to get that Devo have the right to sell or not sell their music (image, services, whatever) to who they want. And to not sell to people they don't want to. It's not like they gave up all rights of refusal when they first sold ad rights to anyone. Casale really does have the money quote: "plus, we don't like McDonald's." That's all they have to say. Their not required to have a deeply philosophical or political rationale for who they do or don't want to license to.
And anyway, McDonald's is just ripping them off. I hope they get into them for some major cash.

if a cow ever got the chance, he'd eat you and everyone you care about

2008-06-27T02:29:16Z

So I never got around to writing up our dinner last Saturday. We had a delayed anniversary celebration by going to Dinner on the Porch at Elodie Farms. They raise goats, make goat cheese, and host a monthly dinner with a local chef. The chef on Sat. was Amy Tornquist of Watts Grocery and the food was amazing. Looking at some of the other menus, Tornquist's maybe wasn't as goat cheese centric as some. But it did make excellent use of local produce, inc. corn, tomatoes and peaches. We started with a shrimp and Stilton salad, with pickled Jerusalem artichokes. Then a corn, tomato and chevre salad. Rack of lamb with corn pudding (I think there was some goat cheese in the corn pudding). And a shortcake with berries and peach ice cream. Plus we were sitting on the porch, looking out at goats, a horse, a donkey. There were some chickens wandering around. Every once in a while some peacocks (never did see them) would do their freaky screaming. Towards the end of the meal the fireflies started coming out. Sarah said she thought she saw bats flying around. A bit of a splurge, yes, but absolutely a wonderful night out.

phony tornado alarms reduce readiness

2008-06-26T01:22:34Z

It's network time-killer time again: virtual jello fun, Altho I never imagined that jello would sound like a theremin, it kinda works.

Also, undead fun, or zombie kickball! Y'know, every year XDU plays a kickball match against XYC (the UNC-Chapel Hill radio station). I'm going to have to suggest that next year's match be in zombie kickball.

brains...

christmas ape goes to summer camp

2008-06-25T04:46:33Z

It's not just fun, it's online, Simpsons-referencing fun: Troy McClure Film or Actual Terrible Movie?. Found via the always entertaining and informative Scrubbles. I was somewhat disappointed to only get 12/15. Actually, I found I was on firmer footing with my knowledge of crap movies. I recognized a few of the Troy McClure's but on a bunch of them I felt like I was just guessing.

get some confidence, stupid...

tryin' like hell to not blow my cover

2008-06-25T01:18:17Z

Turns out I guessed wrong on where NFNS was going in Sunday's episode. They were not cooking for the Navy but rather the Coast Guard. But before they got to that, there was another TV challenge. Tyler Florence showed up to give them the set-up: 1 minute on-camera demo of a basic culinary skill. Everything from shucking an oyster to cleaning squid to opening a coconut to frenching a rack of lamb. Pretty much everyone ran out of time. Several failed to master the talk while working and even most of those who did forgot to look up at the camera. Kelseybot was the winner. She didn't do the greatest job on her lamb but she clearly knew what she was doing and also managed to dial her personality down to only-slightly-more-terrifying-than-Rachael-Ray levels. I expected Shane (the other c-school grad to do well) but he only poked one hole in his coconut so no water came out (need second hole to let air in). But he presented with a lot of authority. Not sure if that's cos he was faking it well or because he thought it was going to work. Over on the epic fail side were Boring Jen (who spent most of her minute not shucking an oyster while apologizing that she'd forgotten how to do it because she was allergic and oysters made her sick) and Nipa (who announced that she had no idea how to clean squid and then amply demonstrated the completeness of her ignorance). Boring Jen is clearly having a nervous reaction to being on camera that's causing her to apologize, back-pedal and basically try to disappear every time she has to talk. Hardly the best trait for someone who wants to host a TV show. And Nipa -- where to even start? What the hell network did she think she was auditioning for?
For the second half, hosting duties were taken over by Michael Symon (and his crazy laugh). The ridiculously complex challenge: select 1 kind of fish plus 1 wacky Kitchen Stadium style ingredient (marshmallow fluff, froot loops, grape jelly, white chocolate, coffee, cola or caramel); create 2 dishes (one basic w/ just the fish and one Iron Chef w/ the fish and the secret ingredient). They had to create 30 servings w/ cooking to be finished later at a location TBD. Fun starts right up when Nipa says that she's never touched a fish. Or had to pick up a fish. I'm unclear as to whether she meant she'd never had to pick up a whole fish or had actually never touched any fish at all. So many questions... I mean, two weeks ago she was chopping up lamb -- why is a trout any different? Even if it never entered her mind that, y'know, at some point in a cooking contest she might have to work with fish, you'd think that she'd at least suck it up and get on with it. But, no, she put on a display of squealing and icking and carrying on the likes of which are usually only seen in cartoons when housewives jump on tables to get away from mice. Symon was good-naturedly teasing her ("pick up that trout!") but you could tell the other contestants were not amused. Then she had to filet the whole fish for at least one portion (the rest were provided pre-fileted). Which of course she couldn't do. I don't know that I've ever fileted a whole fish. But then, I'm not trying to get a show on Food Network. After hacking out one miserly hunk, she took the mangled remains of the fish and dumped them in the trash. More on that later.
(rest of the recap below the cut)

]]> Aaron was doing cod w/ cola and Ensign Ro was using arctic char & coffee. They had the easiest road for the IC combos. But Aaron overcooked his cod and did a lackluster presentation to the Coast Guard and found himself in the bottom 3. Ensign Ro did an arctic char/hoisin/etc glazed char which found favor. But for some inexplicable reason, she did a tartare-style presentation for the Red Lobster part of the challenge. Which she was rightly dinged for. I mean, yes, more people are eating raw fish. But not at Red Frikkin' Lobster. Her presentation was actually pretty good. Probably cos she was flustered and wearing half her sauce after wiping out in the kitchen. Altho that only partially mitigates her insistence on mentioning that the sauce-spilling accident ruined her Pucci shoes and $300 blouse. If she's stupid enough to dress like that in a kitchen, she deserves to have her gear ruined.
Shane and Kelseybot both got good notes for food and performance. Shane added fluff to a parsnip puree under some panko coated fish and got particularly praised by Symon. Kelseybot won the Red Lobster challenge, altho actually for her IC dish, which had a white chocolate beurre blanc accompanying the fish.
To the bottom, then. Adam did a crepe w/ caramel-garlic sauce on the fish for his IC dish. When Symon told him he'd spit it out, Adam (bizarrely) said "that's amazing." To which Symon could only reply "no, it was disgusting." Plus he started his presentation to the Guard members by doing a pratfall thru the doorway into the mess. Totally bombed. As Tushman put it, he completely undermined any sense that he had authority as a chef. Since his final quote on camera was something about how he wanted to be funny but didn't want to be a joke, I won't be surprised if he wins one or both challenges next week in a big redemption episode like Kelseybot got this week.
Boring Jen did the same thing again -- got halfway thru her spiel and started apologizing for how bad her IC dish (she ground up the froot loops to make a crust for the fish but didn't cut it w/ any bread crumbs or anything so it was sickly sweet). The FN people keep talking about what a great personality she has and how much the camera loves her but I swear I haven't seen any of that from her so far. She actually was not in the bottom 3 but I'm writing her up here cos I think she deserved to be.
It was actually Aaron in the bottom 3 (along w/ Adam and Nipa). I pause here to note that, contra Tom Hanks, there is a hell of a lot of crying in this season of NFNS. Kelseybot busted out bawling last week. Boring Jen broke down at least twice this week. Ro's had a couple of teary-eyed moments. And Aaron started choking up trying to relate a personal story about his son who's run away from home and how he wanted to make his family proud. I know I tagged Aaron as a fave to win it all last time but he's not showing much growth in his ability to perform on TV. As a cook, there's no question that he's one of the best still in there. But I'm starting to have doubts on his ability to go all the way.
And then there's Nipa. Symon raked her for throwing out an entire fish. He was clearly offended, as anyone who ever worked in the food business would be. Her tandoori trout actually got some decent notices, altho no one liked her attempt to work grape jelly into her IC dish. I will give her props for busting out some Bollywood dance moves during her presentation to the Coast Guard (judges were also there for the meal, obviously). It didn't really go over all that well in the room but I thought it was a nice little "nuts to you" for the FN. You want ethnic? I got yer ethnic right here. Dishoom!
But when it came down to her and Adam, it was clear she was gone. No way they were gonna keep someone who can't even pick up a fish or understand the basic principles of food costs.

i didn't think it was physically possible

2008-06-24T15:22:10Z

38 minutes and counting down... Apparently not only does Time Warner Cable suck locally, they actually suck globally. In fact, if you type "time warner cable sucks" into Google you get links to several youtube videos about how much TWC sucks. Plus this story about a CA city fining them $25K for excessive and ongoing suckitude.
And I want to retract any vaguely complimentary things I might have ever said to anyone, anywhere about TWC customer service. Bad enough that we've had to go thru multiple rounds of calls (and one previous visit) and they still haven't fixed the problems w/ our DVR. And that I had to wait on hold for a half hour on Sunday just to get this appointment today (thank Grom there was a futbol match on TV to watch while I was waiting). But, dammit, if I'm burning vacation time to sit around here and wait for the motherfucking cable co. to show up, they could at least have the decency to show up.
To sum up, then: Time Warner Cable sucks.

ETA: okay, while the overall customer service experience still sucked, I must say that when the techs finally showed up (just after 11, altho they did call before 11), they were very nice and very efficient. They swapped in a new DVR and provided a tip on how we've got our hardware configured that might be causing some of the problems. So at least one segment of the event went wells. Kudos to them. And yah boo sucks to everyone else.

the breathless wrrld of elegance and charm

2008-06-24T01:15:44Z

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 22 jun 08)

Wild Animals :: the Pinker Tones
Bokoor Beats :: various
Made in Dakar :: Orchestra Baobab
Sonidos Gold :: Grupo Fantasma
Nigeria Rock Special :: various
Saracen :: Jef Stott
Radio Myanmar :: various
Two Faiths, One Voice :: Gerard Edery and Maria Krupoves
the Best of Lydia Mendoza :: Lydia Mendoza
Anatomy of a Coup :: Sacha Silva

this week's video feature: Lydia Mendoza

the occasional cow on a motorway bridge

2008-06-22T23:54:55Z

Just wanted to add my late in the game plug for Toast in beautiful downtown Durm. We had lunch there yesterday after trekking out to the Raleigh Farmer's Market. And damn was that some good eating. Sarah had the soppressata panino and I had one w/ egg, tallegio & chive. There was also some nice ricotta involved as well. Which I consider a positive addition, since a little tallegio can go a long way. But this was just the right mix of mild cheese & funky cheese w/ scrambled egg. So good. After I'd ordered I noticed that the special crostini was one w/ house-cured lardo. Didn't want to fill up by adding that onto my order. Hopefully they'll have that again sometime when we go back.

it's just this little chromium switch right here

2008-06-21T13:08:06Z

Thanks to Jason0x21 for this comment about Netflix, which pointed me to the this Consumerist post. I'd received the email about Netflix getting rid of the profiles feature. But after spending several minutes poking around the site, I wasn't able to find any way to email them a complaint. Just a phone number, plus a widget on the home page helpfully informing me that the current wait on the phone was 20 min. Yeah, right... like I have nothing better to do with my time than wait on hold to make a complaint that will most likely be ignored. So I was glad that the post on Consumerist mentioned how to contact Netflix online (click "Contact Us" and then "Suggestions"). Honestly, if it's true that only 2% of users have taken advantage of Profiles then they probably will scrap them. And that will suck because I'll be getting less service and a lower quality Netflix experience for the same money. Will I cancel my subscription? No, not right away. We'll just go back to re-arranging the queue every time one of us returns a movie. It's doable. We did it for years. But for Netflix to pretend (as I feel they are in their rather patronizing email) that nothing major is changing and this is only a minor disappointment, well that's bullshit. They're decreasing functionality and not decreasing price. Like Jason0x21 says, Netflix's apparent willingness to lose a small percentage of the customer base raises concerns about other future "improvements" to the service they might have planned.

sharks patrol these waters

2008-06-20T02:14:24Z

I've said it before but it bears repeating: you'd best keep your wits about you out there. That way when you're driving home and suddenly find yourself slamming on your brakes not quite in time to keep from rolling into to some car (one that, inexplicably, remains nosed out into your lane as you screech to a half), you'll have a better chance of actually stopping in time to prevent most major damage. Could have been so much worse. Altho (since I was already planning to take my car into the shop tomorrow) I'll only be able to definitively make that statement in about 24 hours. And there was no one behind me. Jeebus, that would have been bad. As it stands now, it's just the end of a very long day. But I'm fine. Lying down and thinking about falling asleep as soon as I'm done posting this.