DELAYING MY PROCRASTINATION

Argument with an angry Vegan over tofu. Apparently, because "tofu is a meat substitute", what I cook with tofu is unhealthy and karmically bad. I don't bother countering that with any logic because I don't seek to convert her but merely sneer at her and her entire lifestyle.

In Mapo tofu with meat sauce, the meat substitute is NOT a substitute for meat. The meat sauce, unlike "fish flavour sauce" or "fish fragrance sauce", actually contains the substance for which it is named. As well as ginger, garlic, Szechuan pepper, hot bean paste (辣豆瓣酱 'laat dau baan jeung'), sugar, ricewine, and reduced chicken stock. Plus chili paste.

Beancurd wedges stuffed with fatty pork, garlic, shrimp paste, then dredged and deep fried, substituting tofu for a tortilla.

Tofu spaghetti sauce has ground beef and tomatoes in addition to the tofu.

See, it's that bad karma that makes it tasty.

麻婆豆腐

At the restaurant where I worked three evenings a week we tried catering to the vegan lifestyle, offering tofu masala for several months. Nobody ordered it, because no one goes to a North Indian restaurant to eat that crap. We ended up throwing away the rest of the tub.


Some white people (vegans) should NEVER have been told about tofu.


General Tso's Tofu is an abomination.


At a Hunan restaurant to which the Parsee with whom I used to work and I sometimes go, one of the most delightful dishes is tender slabs of extremely fatty pork on top of tofu, with chilies and black bean sauce. The tofu gets drenched with hot meat juices and grease.
It is orgasmically delicious.



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COMPOSTABLE AND VERSATILE

Something yesterday reminded me of a little story I wrote four years ago. It's one of my better stories, which I reread with wonder (I really wrote that? Golly!), and it prompted me to consider whether there might be any market for Vegan Chinese Pastries? I rather think not, as the audience that loves Chinese bakery items is, of course, largely Chinese. Who, especially in this city, tend to be Cantonese, and realistic about what tastes good. Adventurous, but not crazy.

Why compete with the white people on that?

We Caucasians are so good at it.


EIGHT LEGS CAFE 
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2015
Short story in which flaky charsiu turnovers play a role.

To many Cantonese, an immensely important aspect of food is textural. Mouth feel can make or break a dish, more than presentation or visual appeal. Which are also very important. That, probably, is why broccoli has become such a popular vegetable. It's so nice and green!

The fact that broccoli tastes like broccoli hasn't quite registered.


Imagine a happy little Cantonese girl, at the dinner table, with bright eyes scoping out the steaming platter of fatty pork curls and broccoli. It looks so beautiful! Fresh, verdant, and jade-like! And moistly glistening!
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!
Fragrant steam rises, mingling with the other vapours: sesame oil, reduced superior stock, garlic, the subtle incense-like perfume of ginger ....

She can't wait to try it. She's never had this before!

Her chopsticks fairly dance in her stubby little hand.
First her parents, then the older siblings.
And finally, it's her turn.

That first bite.

Crunch.




"What the bloody hell is this crap?!?!"

[呢啲係乜樣嘅死鬼垃圾吓？！？]




Really, it's a darn good thing that little Cantonese girls are "tactful" and forbearing at an early age. As well as, usually, not entirely fluent in your and my English.
And furthermore it's just as well that I was never a little Cantonese girl, because I would be awful at it. Also, my first exposure to the horror that is every Caucasian Vegan's favourite boiled vegetable didn't happen till I was an adult, as my parents never tortured me.
I can still remember visiting some friends one evening, and wondering what that peculiar odour was. It turns out they had cooked broccoli.


Anyhow, please read Eight Legs Cafe (linked above), and remember that pork and duck and chicken and lobster and fish are all delicious.


They'll make any meal a feast.





This post brought to you by The Crusade Against Lettuce©.
Which is also opposed to broccoli.
And lima beans.



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RAW IS FOR HATERS

One of my readers, who undoubtedly enjoys jabbing at hornets' nests and setting fires, requests that I write a post about a Vegan diet plan called "raw till four", meaning that the victim consumes only raw foods till tea-time, and only afterwards enjoys cooked food. He provided a link to the blogpost of a pretty Dutchwoman who may have lost her marbles.

Sample daily menu:

Breakfast
Smoothie of eight bananas, plus some kind of healthfood sugar or sweetener, and water.

Lunch
Four pounds of fresh peaches and figs.

Dinner
Three pounds of potatoes, baked, and half a head of lettuce.

Eating like this, apparently, makes you a super fly.


Firstly, all of that needs chilipaste, and secondly, your bowels will have a field day. And apparently a plate of boiled brown rice as big as your head may be substituted for the potatoes.


Here's my own sample menu, being what I've eaten today.

Breakfast
Large strong coffee at home, with milk and sugar. Almond pastry at work.

Mid-day snack
Crackers with Sriracha.

Lunch
A small Italian cold cut sandwich, with Sriracha.
A drinkable yoghurt.

Dinnner
A mini quiche, with Sriracha.
Cheesy bread, with Sriracha.
Plus two butter cookies.

Note that yesterday was substantially the same except for dinner, that being curried mustard greens pepped up a bit with fatty pork, duck liver, fresh chilies, and Sriracha, served on top of toasted sourdough bread.

I had five or six cups of tea at work, and when I got home I fixed myself a cup of coffee first thing. Both days.

Honestly, I should have eaten a healthier dinner today, but there were no more vegetables in the crisper other than a week old tomato, a shriveled cucumber, and a packet of salt-pickled spicy turnip. And the only animal protein I have at present is Chinese Sausage. Plus canned pink stuff.
The nearest restaurants are Mexican (mmmm, Carnitas!), nouvelle Japonaise, Korean meat mountain, and donut. Oh, and some quasi Vietnamese that's so precious you'll imagine you're in Saigon.


I'll never look like that pretty Dutchwoman, so I'm not even going to try.


Not going to dabble in gender reassignment or veganismo.

Besides, I am slightly allergic to bananas.

I need a small bowl of ice cream now.





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WITH A LITTLE WINE

There's a video on the internet of a winsome young lady making the case that meat eaters need to shut up, feel guilty, and admit their sins. The most offensive of which is making her as a Vegan feel very sad.
Yes, interspersed with the usual Peta pictures.
Because carnivores are subhuman.
So unenlightened!

Okay...

Bacon!

Lovely thick applewood-smoked bacon, covered with, heck just drenched in deliquescent melted Cheddar, oozing in a golden cascade all over it. On top of poached gefilte fish quenelles, napped with a Thai coconut green curry sauce, on a bed of halved cherry tomatoes.

I think we can all get behind that, can't we?

Sop up the juices with crusty french bread.

For the second course, a choice of gehakte leber on buttered toast, or lovely tandoori lamb chops with a mint yoghurt dip.
And fresh buttery naan.


Jouw luchtkussenboot zit barstens vol paling, liefje. En het kan mij niets schelen dat je niet van spek houdt ...... Ik zal nooit met een Veganist omgaan of zo'n persoon zelfs uit eten vragen.



I am currently thinking of other sexy things on can do with bacon, many of them involving chilies, rich meats and fish, cheeses, and pasta. And baking with butter.
For instance, egg-fried rice covered with chicken chunks, a few slices of juicy fried linguiça, potatoes, and chilies, liberally augmented with a mild coconut curry sauce, one or two rashers of bacon added, plus a generous sprinkle of cheese, and the whole thing shoved under the broiler till bubbly. A richer version of baked Portuguese chicken rice (焗葡國雞飯 'guk pou gwok gai faan'). Plus of course the Cantonese substitute for salad. That being 蠔油芥蘭 ('hou yau gaai laan'). Because one must have a vegetable. It's good for the digestion.
For some lovely pictures of food, paste the names into image search.
It will bring up lovely, lovely food porn.
Gosh, beautiful.


Crispy-fried bacon strips as a substitute for chips with dips.
Try it with ranch, salsa picante, or guacamole.
Or instead of celery sticks.
Dee-lishus!




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RESPONSE TO A VEGAN

Steak, bacon, and foie gras. Delicious!

See those teeth? Those right there?

They are meant for meat.



I didn't approve your comment.



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NO PLACE FOR VEGANS

If I ever go to Iceland, I have to try einn með öllu. Apparently it is very darn tasty, and may well be the best there is. But the jury is limited, though.
It consists entirely of people who live in or have visited Iceland.


I know what you're thinking. But no, it is NOT Icelandic bee-honey.


EINN MEÐ ÖLLU!

Ever since returning to the States I have had a love affair with hot dogs, which are nature's most perfect junk food. Especially grilled and slightly charred, with spicy mustard. I have tried the Chicago dog -- a rather pallid item dolled up with various odd salad-like substances, including artificially coloured pickle relish -- as well as several iconic dogs from places that no longer exist. The best that can be said about them is that the entire package is not by any means gluten-free.

Vegans and other hysterics cannot enjoy them.

The convenience store near where I work also serves dogs. My experience, based on one experiment, tells me 'no'. But I was desperate, just like the last time I ate at McDonalds. Low blood sugar is a bitch.
Tell me, why are Mickey Dee's fries iconic?
They are crap. Horribly nasty crap.
Feh your childhood memories!


Ein með öllu contains ketchup, remoulade, and both raw and fried onions.
In concept it sounds not too dissimilar from the Mexican streetvendor dog offered late at night on Polk Street after the bars let out, minus the bacon and chiles en escabeche. Which is so, so good.

This item is available at Bæjarins Beztu, on Tryggvagata near the city centre. Former president Clinton ate there before he blew a gasket, and Anthony Bourdain liked it. Of course, it was the middle of winter, and by then he had swallowed all kinds of local substances.

Including lots of brennivín.

Which is like tequila.

But better. Much better.


I have it on good authority that Tom Cruise is a short little fella, and you might want to stay away from the shark. But the plokk fiskur (codfish, potato, onions and béchamel sauce) is nice.

[Plokk fiskur: geplukte vis.]




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FRY IT IN MEAT GREASE FOR EXTRA GOODNESS

Thanks to Social Media, I now know that one orthodox rabbi among my friends likes Heavy Metal music, another one takes photographs of cats, and a third makes atrocious puns. To put it differently, social media shows the all too human side of rabbis. That is a good thing!

My most recent Facebook posting shows that I am somewhat food obsessed: "Corn tortillas, bacon, tomatoes, chilies, Sriracha, cheese.'
It's what I had for dinner instead of a Vietnamese sandwich.
We've got the fundaments of a civilization right there.

[The Vietnamese sandwich place closed early today.
I really would have preferred the sandwich.]

My previous status questioned the acceptibility of "all natural and vegan" non-GMO Hunan dumplings. To real people, that ain't hardly edible.
To Chinese, that's white folks food.


My favourite rabbis could not eat at my house. They would have to operate under the presumption of a chezkas treifus. It is also quite likely that they would raise their eyebrows at all natural non-Gmo vegan Hunan dumplings, because there's just too much crap going on right there. If you are calling it "Hunanese", and it is blatantly and demonstrably so far from Hunanese in any way that even would make sense to a Hunanese, it cannot possibly be named Hunanese anything. So that is a lie. What else are you lying about?

If you deceive the public about what it is, you can also be assumed to be untruthful about ingredients and methods of preparation, as well as whether the kitchen where this weird shiznit was constructed was ever kashered.

If the label says "vegan" "no Gmos", and "Hunan dumplings", at least one of those things has to be hogwash.


The container also says "ready to eat. Serve warm or cold."


How about instead 'serve not at all'?


It's unfit for rabbis.





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VEGANS AND PIZZA

Now hear this: unless that is real dough, and real cheese, that is NOT a pizza! And no, we do not wish to cater to the spoiled brat slacker contingent with their "I'm so special" fussiness. Real Italian food uses gluten, eggs, and dairy products like there is no tomorrow. Anything without at least one of those ingredients had better be meat.

If you are in Berkeley, San Francisco, or Marin, there maybe some culinary whore who will cater to your sneering entitled self.
Elsewhere, not so much.

Berkeley is filled with your type, in San Francisco there are far fewer, and Marin is somewhere in between.

One place in Sausalito, desperate for dough, offers Vegan Italian.

Obviously they are pimps and have no pride.


This morning on Facebook I joined a discussion about a Vegan who made a half hour(!) video tape of himself sanctimoniously lecturing while devouring "pizza". Two thirds of the way in he discovers that there's cheese in the sauce (which is then confirmed over the phone by the pizzeria), and forcefully flings his cellular device against the wall in fury.
Not only is he pretentious, silly, and boring.....
He's also a class "A" dillwad.

He ends by whining.
Petulant.



This being the time of year when more Americans visit San Francisco, naturally Chinatown is awash with special needs folks, often overweight (morbidly obese), who all ask stupid questions about dough, meat, condiments, and why don't y'all have food I can eat damn you?

Well, real people don't have so many hang-ups is why.
Most Cantonese people really like meat.
As well as crustaceans.
Plus gluten.


A phrase I overheard while I was orgasming over a sumptuous pastry with whipped cream at a lovely place to which I often go sums up the entire entitled food-phobe gestalt.

"This bakery puts gluten, cheese, and peanuts in EVERYTHING!"

Oh you poor traumatized wussums! You forgot entirely about the animal shortening! It makes everything flaky super good!
Maybe they don't want you here?


Look, sweetie, the clientele of this establishment is overwhelmingly Chinese, because most waspy types are scared to try anything out of the norm, and putting even further limitations on what you will consider eating makes you even less a part of their target demographic.
They do very well; they've been in business for over twenty years. Considering that your type does not shop here, unless you want to use the bathroom, because you drank too much sugar-free soda, ice-tea, or expensive bottled water while waddling around the neighborhood and can't figure out that there is a giant free clean place to relieve your precious self in Portsmouth Square, perhaps they're on to something. Look around you: Chinese labels on food and other products.
If you didn't want Chinese stuff, go to Fisherman's Wharf, the Cannery, or Pier Thirty Nine. It is one hundred percent certain that you can find gluten free cheese free nibbly-doodles at a place with an extra-wide re-inforced porcelain bucket for your refined squatties.
They cater specifically to tourists.


Side note: why ARE all you Mittel-Amerikaner so effing fat? Is it all that corn? You don't have to slather grease or caramel on it; try cayenne and lime juice instead. And get some exercise why don't you?

Waddle waddle waddle waddle waddle waddle!

Cartman.


The demographic that makes needy demands is too small to constitute a significant market segment. There are rather few Vegetarian and Vegan restaurants in the urban Bay Area plus one or two macrobiotic holes, and all of them worry about making the rent. For equally goofy diners there are maybe two dozen New York or Chicago pizza places in all of Nor-Cal.

Nit-picky requests do not pay the rent.

Pizza has cheese. And gluten.

Chinese eat animals.

Piss elsewhere.


Special pest.




If I owned a pasticceria / panetteria, there would be a large sign over the doorway that said ""This bakery uses gluten, dairy, eggs, AND LARD, in everything! And we have peanuts."





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THERE ARE KITTEN PICTURES!

Immediately after a hilarious video about Vegans (Nicole Arbour), I read an article about a leopard seal trying to teach a human how to eat penguins. Which naturally restored my faith in carnivores.
Of which I am one.

I would have tried to eat the penguin.

You do NOT want a large nurturing animal to feel depressed because you are too stupid to eat penguins.


Except for weird molds, lard-free bean dip, and lentil patties cooked by pasty white people, everything Vegan can be improved by the addition of bacon or cheese. Sometimes both.

Apparently penguin tastes like tinned cat food mixed with a soupçon of cod liver oil. And either veal chops or herring. You can see where the addition of bacon and cheddar would nicely round that out, can't you?
Especially with some pickled Jalapeños.
And tarragon cream-sauce.


I don't know about you, but I'm thinking Sunday Dinner right now. The all-American family tradition: roast bird, potatoes, a bottle of ketchup, and a medicated elderly relative waffling something about Jesus.

I eat meat at least ten times a week.

But I refuse to eat Vegan.

Too alkaline.





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SOFTSPOKEN AND DIPLOMATIC IN PERSON

Why blog? Because I'm tongue-tied. It's a rather Waspy thing. It is, far too often, easier to say what one feels by writing, than by conversation, and it is even better if it is semi-anonymous. Especially when one desires to say something either incisive or downright brutal.
Even then I seldom give vent to such tendencies, although I really enjoy making nasty comments about several people, for whom, were they in the flesh, I might have nothing but the warmest fellow feeling.

Like Vegans and Republicans, for instance.

Some of my best friends are Vegan.



Yeah, I suppose one could read a certain passive-aggressive tendency in the blogging process, as well as bloated self-obsession. That may indeed be there, but isn't penning essays far better than being the "charming" loudmouth at every party?

And even though I do not mind attention (understatement), when it happens among a group of other people I always wonder if there's a tear in my pants or drool down my shirt that everyone else sees but to which I am stupidly oblivious, even worse, a mental defect is plainly apparent to everyone but me.
Not an actual nose zit, but a karmic pimple of immense proportion, or my shadow casting daemon wings on the wall behind me.

Add to that the fact that I often realize that certain habits are not endearing when they become repetitive, such as softly singing The Internationale in German whenever a notoriously amoral Republican of my acquaintance enters the room, because I know it bugs the heck out of him. At that point, posting gibberish and recipes in a seldom visited corner of the internet becomes a very attractive option.

Doing so shows social polish.


For your reference:

DIE INTERNATIONALE -- SAMMEN SINGEN
[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXKr4HSPHT8.]


Go ahead; belt it out. If any American rightwingers even know what it is, that will be a miracle. The only reason why my bozo acquaintance recognizes it now, is me.

{You could also sing it in Dutch ("De Internationale - Stem Des Volks") but quite honestly, English-speakers trying to pronounce the noble Netherlandish tongue are a torture no one can endure.]


Actually, I seldom avail myself of the freedom to make nasty comments about Republicans and Vegans, despite the fact that Veganism is one of the most pretentious and idiotic dickhead affectations anyone can have. Nothing says "first world" more than complaining about food.

Not that it tastes bad, but that it is ideologically incorrect and spiritually deficient, and that one is personally too holy and caring to touch it.


Hypothetical Yelp review: "We went to Rupert's Steakhouse because a friend recommended it, and they refused to serve us quinoa! Can you believe it! Such a horrible attitude! And when we asked if there was gluten in the complimentary dinner rolls, the server pretended not to know! Earthmaiden and I will NEVER go there again!"


The other nice thing about a blog is that people in very many different places might read it. It's nice to have an audience, even if some of them only come here for zebra recipes, the forlorn search for porn, or positive observations about Lithuania.




Semi-anonymous internet attention is ALWAYS better than encountering passive-aggressive Vegans in the flesh.
That, really, explains everything.

One my days off, such as today, I avoid Vegans.

Non-Vegans are far sweeter people.



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AUSTRALIAN VEGANS SQUEALING LIKE PIGS

A commercial by a company seriously committed to the sale, purchase, and delighted consumption of animal protein, has managed to upset a shockingly high number of people down under.

Australian vegans are offended by an 'action movie-style advertisement campaign to promote Australian lamb', produced recently by Meat & Livestock Australia.

Angry complaints have been registered.


"In one scene, a SWAT team smashes into the home of a man in New York saying "C'mon mate, in a few hours you'll be eating lamb on the beach", to which the the bearded man responds: "But I'm a vegan now...".
The ad later cuts to a shot of a flamethrower-wielding SWAT officer burning a bowl of tofu on the vegan's table."

[SOURCE: Aussie Vegans upset -- BBC.]


Frankly, I think that's pretty goldarn funny.

Perhaps the Vegans should just suck it up.

Tofu drenched in Vegemite sounds like it should be incinerated, and the world is too full of self-obsessed food-neurotics to take any of them, or what they eat, seriously.


FURIOUS VEGANS!


To quote the words of a Cantonese American mother confronted by her daughter's vegetarian white boyfriend, "just eat around the meat". What she probably thought, but regrettably didn't voice, was "silly bugger, the world does not revolve around your requirements, stop being such a drippy pain-in-the-neck, you pretentious dingo, dammit".

She should've said it too.


People who obsess more about animals than the injustices visited upon their fellow humans need to re-align their heads and check their privilege.
At the very least they need to take their heads out of their rectums, and pay far less attention to their colonic karma.


Lamb, by the way, is one of my favourite meats. Along with pork, duck, and a well-marbled cut of beef. Or juicy sausages. I like lamb.




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PETA, GET LOST!

In a striking victory for culinary free-speech, foie gras is finally back. Yesterday U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson ruled that the ridiculous California prohibition against foie gras encroached upon the regulatory turf of the Feds.

Predictably, the twisted gits at P.E.T.A took offense.
Lets not talk of their criminal tendencies.
Or threats against scientists.
Past behaviour.

P.E.T.A. now stands for the full enfranchisement of geese.

And against cuisine in all its forms.


"IT GOES ON THE MENU TONIGHT!"


PETA attorney Matthew Strugar pretty much blew his gasket. Or shat his pants. He may have been the only one gnashing his teeth instead of drooling, as chefs and restaurateurs all across the Bay Area uncorked champagne and prepared for a new golden age.

Quote:
"Wednesday’s decision was based on the federal Poultry Products Inspections Act, which regulates the sale and distribution of birds and expressly prohibits states from imposing certain conditions on food. Wilson said California’s foie gras ban had done just that."

SOURCE: California foie gras ban struck down - SF Gate.


For those who are curious, foie gras is about forty dollars per pound, and worth every penny.


PASTY FACED COOKING

The reason why you never see foie gras paired with wheatgrass, tofu, or quinoa, is that those things taste like sh*t when cooked by white people. Why waste good stuff on a forlorn hope of making muck taste edible?

Folks, let's toss that slop into the garbage pail of food history, and celebrate our new freedom.

I'm thinking bacon, veal, and braised Bambi.
With a puree of green mango.
And buttered toast.
Yum.



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FIRST AND ONLY VEGAN RECIPE ON THIS BLOG

The tough he-man cowboy dismounted from his stallion, fixed himself some chamomile tea, and, once thoroughly refreshed, set to work preparing his favourite meal; a butch manly meal of epic taste!


TEXAN TOFU AND CORN CHIP CASSEROLE!

One eighteen ounce bag of vegetarian blue corn tortilla chips.
A sixteen ounce container of mild lime and jalapeno salsa.
Four cups vegetarian cooked pinto beans.
Two onions, chopped.
One TBS ground cumin.
One TBS chili powder.
One TBS cornstarch.
A pinch of nutmeg.
One pound of extra-firm tofu, cut into large cubes.
A 12 ounce bag of shredded soy "cheese".
Half a cup of soy "bacon" bits.
½ cup cilantro leaves for garnish.

Preheat oven to 450F. Dump the corn chips in a casserole and set aside. large baking dish, and set them aside. Put beans and salsa in a large saucepan, and heat them over medium heat, stirring, till quite hot. Set them aside. Sauté onion in a skillet till golden, for about 5 minutes. Set aside.
Combine cumin, chili powder, and cornstarch in a large bowl, dust the tofu all over with this mixture. Fry tofu cubes on all sides until crispy and fragrant. Remove from heat.
Ladle the bean and salsa mixture evenly over the cornchips, and sprinkle the soy "bacon" bits over the top. Add the tofu and onions on top, and layer the shredded soy "cheese" over all.
Bake in the oven till the "cheese" melts. Remove from oven, and garnish with cilantro before serving.

This is about as macho as it gets.

And totally Texan vegan!

Shiveringly!


I had to wrestle a hysterical Republican housewife to the ground for the recipe, which she got from a rabid coyote, who bit the specimen of ultra-mascu-woo Texan manhood to death.
He died most painfully.
But replete.


ADD SOUR CREAM!

Being a total wuss, I would replace the tofu with ground fatty pork, the soy "bacon" and soy "cheese" with real bacon and real cheese, and the blue corn tortilla chips with boiled buttered noodles. Then add half a cup of Sriracha hotsauce (or more) plus lots of freshly chopped jalapenos.
A lime squeezed over, and everything served up sloppily.

I am not bloody-minded enough to be Vegan.

Nor in any way like a Hobbit.

It wouldn't work.




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TOFU-SNARFING FREAKS AND EARTHMOMS

It's been very long since I spent any time in Berkeley. The place has changed enormously since the eighties, at which time it was already becoming precious and insufferable. At present I do not know anyone there. Unless that's where Vikas lives, but I thought he lived in the city.

I can thoroughly understand why so many e-commerce yuppies want to live in San Francisco; the Eastbay is basically a toxic sludge-pit of tepid mediocrity and shallowness. Good lord, there is no "there" there. From the distant wastes of Hayward and Fremont to the shooting gallery of Richmond, it's all Oaklandish sprawl.


Other than the fact that the University has a splendid library, there is nothing positive I can say about the Eastbay. Oh, and the Berkeley Rose Garden; it's rather nice.


AN UNCIVIL PLACE

I do not miss Berkeley. When I left during the eighties, it was still a fairly nice college town, verging in some ways on innocent cosmopolitanism.
By the nineties it had become a vain, self-centered, bigoted cess-pool, overflowing with smarmy correct thought, food cults, and pretentious quasi-intellectualism.

Parts of the area are still beautiful.
Unfortunately, occupied.

Just saying.




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TEATIME? FULL OF BEANS!

The other day I had a splendid lunch at Hon's Wun-Tun House down on Kearney Street. The place was nearly filled at one o'clock on a Monday afternoon, but thank heavens hardly any white people. Mind you, I like white people. Some of my best friends are white. And I, also, am white. Whiter than that you cannot get. But white people, by and large, talk funny and eat with trepidation. In addition to asking irrelevant questions like "is the rice stick noodle made with brown rice?" and "do you have any wheat and gluten free vegan dishes?"

Then they'll bellyache about the soy sauce or something.

Real food does not change its colours for neurotics.

Which many white folks nowadays are.


洪記麵家 "Hung Gei Mien Ga"
HON'S WUN-TUN HOUSE (CA.) LTD.
648 Kearny Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
415-433-3966


Most of the patrons were middle-aged Chinese (Cantonese) people, whose clothing and language indicated that they came there by choice rather than mere convenience, and many of them did so habitually, because they had known the place for years.

Realistically, the reason to go there is won ton noodle soup (雲吞麵), stewed pigs knuckle (南乳豬手), stewed brisket (牛腩), beef tendon (牛筋) and seui gaau (水餃). They also do other things, but NOT vegan kibble, brown rice crap, or gluten-free muck. If you want any of those last three items, maybe you should eat elsewhere. There's always someplace that caters to your kind, even when you are away from your ethnic enclave (in the suburbs). There are several restaurants that exist exclusively to welcome problematic nutballs in other parts of the city.....
I've reviewed a number of them: eat vegetarians!
I hope that's helpful.


Hon's Wun Tun House.

It's good. It's cheap. It's got meat.


I had the chasiu wonton with rice stick noodles.
叉燒雲吞粉。

Ate with gusto. Broth, noodles, dumplings, and barbecue pork.
Departed happy as a clam (譁，蜆笑噉開心㗎！).

Which pleasant mental state lasted till I got to Safeway, where the sour oppressive atmosphere of hatchet-faced old folks from the condo tower above the store left me drained and enervated.
There's just something about vicious about elderly middle-classes.
It's that cannibalistic aura that many of them have.
They got theirs, screw everyone else.

Maybe they're just related to too many people who have wheat and gluten allergies, avoid meat, and demand brown rice or vegan crap.
Family dinners must be really frustrating for them.
Probably gives them constipation.
That, or the prunes.



I had fully recovered by tea-time, in case you were wondering. Felt like smoking another pipe, and going out into the public thoroughfare to blow noxious fumes at people's children and pets. Boo.




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FISH -- A LUMINOUS FOOD!

Not everyone is as enamoured as I am of my favourite subjects. Many come here for only one purpose: FISH. They are fascinated by fish, they cannot get enough. Fish are warm and fluffy.
Little else interests them.

Over the years I have mentioned fish a number of times, but till now had not thought much of the matter.


Now there is a clickable label: FISH


Readers who are consumed by fish may scope out all articles on that subject that have been posted on this blog. Or at least the ones I think they should read; their questions will be answered.

There ARE other fishy subjects here; good luck finding them.

And no, fish does not automatically get associated with Cantonese women, no matter what you heard. Even though a large number of them are very fond of fish. Other people also like fish.
English people -- who do not grasp the difference between mackerel and herring -- Scandinavians, Scotsmen, and sundry Pacific islanders.

And the Dutch.

Who may do odd things with fish, if they cook it all.


INGELEGDE VIS
[Steeped Fish]

Two pounds salmon fillets.
Two cucumbers; peeled, seeded, and sliced.
One carrot, thin coin cut.
One onion, sliced thinly.
One cup vinegar.
Half a cup of water or fish stock.
Quarter cup of lemon juice.
One Tsp. sugar.
Quarter Tsp. cayenne.
Pinches of salt and pepper.


Mix, spread plastic wrap over and press onto the surface, and set it in the refrigerator for half a day. Take it out when ready to eat.
Heat to a boil, then let cool to room temperature.
Garnish with minced parsley.

Serve as a first course, with some buttered brown bread from a dense loaf.

You should drink sherry or chilled genever with this.



NOTE: Fish should be shared. But finding someone to share it with is not so easy. Many Americans come from backward cultures which do not like fish, preferring instead to eat Spam, Chef Boyardee, or tuna in a can. Correcting their culinary misapprehensions is a Sisyphusarbeit of monumental proportions; daunting and well-nigh hopeless. The exceptions to this are Dutch American women, Cantonese American women, and Vegans (who eat none of the above).
Plus Belgians and Italians.

Probably due to several of my own peculiarities, I have not been able to find a Dutch American or Cantonese American with whom to dine.
Even in a city filled with Dutch and Cantonese people!
And I am completely uninterested in Vegans.
Esurient or otherwise.



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WHALE STEAKS, WALRUS CÔTELETTE, AND SEAL CHOPS IN A PORT WINE REDUCTION

One reader has chastised me for frequently being negative about veganism, and noted that I seem to have a bad attitude about both Sea Shepherd (the notorious eco-terrorists of the South Pacific) and various other good causes. She or he writes: "you probably have NO sympathy for the Green Peace activists currently being held under APPALLING conditions in Russia either, do you?"

Well, the dingbat who wrote that is right.
No frikkin' sympathy whatsoever.
Gulag their green asses.

However, not wanting to lose anymore readers, no matter how drippy and wussily fruitcake they may be -- they are all infinitely precious to me, especially in this age of decreasing literacy and logic -- it might behoove me to cater to their sensitivities.


"YOU PROBABLY HAVE NO SYMPATHY FOR THE GREEN PEACE ACTIVISTS BEING HELD UNDER APPALLING CONDITIONS"


Oh, the poor babies. At least they're eating well. Russian food, though heavy at times, is on the whole a wonderful and educational gustatory experience. Not only caviar, smetana, and blinis, but Chicken Kiev, many smoked fishes (including whale), refined cabbage dishes, fried appetizers, and sundry savoury meat stews: elk, bear, reindeer, otter, mink, wild boar, and commissar.

[They no longer do serf and turf, by the way.]

And the good news is that all of these can be adapted to tofu.

I'm sure the Kremlin's jailers are considerately providing a wholesome all-vegetarian diet to the imprisoned ecomaniacs. Why, they're probably in better condition than they've ever been! All lean muscle.
Plus plenty of heart-healthy aerobic exercise.
And language classes!


As for Vegan Food, it isn't that I in principle disapprove. It's just that the combination of a sanctimonious holier than thou attitude with appallingly miserable and apathetic cooking usually leaves me infuriated.

Capsule reviews of Vegan and Vegetarian restaurants:


VENUS RESTAURANT
Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley.

Not all Vegan, not all edible. Sometimes bland and disappointing.
On the whole, a typical Berkeley experience that left the diner feeling vaguely insulted, like not having been up to the high standards of a West Oakland streetwalker. Will not go a third time.


HERBIVORE
Divisadero Street, San Francisco.

An excess of garlic does not make up for a lack of taste. Bland white people should not do anything Latino or Asian. I hate Honky burritos.


ANANDA FUARA
Market Street, San Francisco.

Stringy white chicks in saris. Over-priced yoghurt and dal. Attitude.
Having worked for many years in an Indian restaurant, my patience with the artistic and meaningful element is at an all-time low.


LOVING HUT
Stockton Street at Vallejo, San Francisco.

Best fake charsiu ever. Unbelievable! Service is quite good too. The only drawback is that one of the people at the table will have a view of happy happy joy joy cult videos at all times on the big screen teevee, unless their sneeringly dispassionate cult leader is giving an endless lecture in Mandarin.
I do NOT need to see documentaries about sick-in-the-head Eurotrash at some ashram or Buddhist retreat in Amsterdam being all spiritual while I'm eating fabulous fake meat.
Loved the place, but sunglasses are required.
Or blinkers; whatever works.
No MSG.


JUDAHLICIOUS
Judah Street, San Francisco.

Oh frick, be real. Precious, hip, and insufferable. Apathetic service, and more vicious white folks burritos. Too much juice gives you gas.


THE PLANT CAFÉ ORGANIC
Steiner Street, San Francisco.

Overpriced, unimaginative, and slow. And there's that damned saintly hip attitude again. Perhaps I look too much like a decent middle-aged white guy to be treated nicely.
I'm beginning to hate veggie burgers and juice.


GREENS RESTAURANT
Fort Mason, Building A, San Francisco.

Best location and best service of the lot. The food is excellent, and, remarkably for a place that does vegetarian stuff, it has soul. A bit expensive, indeed, but this is the place to take your rancher uncle and his ghastly wife Mabel when they visit; they'll waddle out happy as clams, and with a different opinion of San Francisco than they had.
Probably also a splendid place for a date.
But only if she likes food.


ARIZMENDI BAKERY
Mission Street, San Francisco.

Great pastries, great breads, and dynamite pizza! Even their muffins are excellent, and I hate muffins. Arizmendi Bakery is a class act, and a city treasure.
Worth hiking over to Mission for.



FINAL NOTE: All of the places I listed, except Greens Restaurant and Arizmendi Bakery, would benefit from the serious inclusion of bacon in everything, and the wan drips who work there would be happier too.
Greens and Arizmendi are doing something right.
Good places. Great food.
Wonderful.





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LET US EAT

The other day an attractive woman accosted me. Now, bear in mind that I have been without an amorous interest in my life for ever so long, and consequently am far more vulnerable than the average man, who watches sports on the telly, which satisfies all of his animalistic cravings oh boy big time, so the occurrence of conversation with a member of another species gender is always enjoyable.

And I'm adept enough at reading the signals that I knew she was keenly interested in my hot old dessicated corpse. Adds a new dimension to the concept of 'jumping them bones'.
Except it stood NO chance of happening.

I may be single, but I have restraint. And some common sense.
At fifty-three years of age I am not a teenager.

I cannot get involved with a busty Vegan.


Now, concerned friends may criticize, saying "for crap sakes, man, you're a somewhat presentable fifty three year old AND superficially rather dashing, stop limiting yourself by being so damn picky and blinkered! So what if she's got crazy ideas about food! Find something else about her to like! We're sick and tired of not being able to invite you out on couple's night!"

Or something like that.


But food, you must understand, is the great social lubricant. And if nothing else a deep and abidingly intriguing subject for conversation. In that regard it is often far better than pipes and tobacco, Talmudica, and the history of the late mediaeval Netherlandish butterfly.
Imagine, if you will please make the effort, that I am on a date with a brilliant petite bio-chemist, who has excess IQ points coming out of her ears, reads Sartre for giggles, and does the Sudoku in ten seconds flat. She's cute, thoughtful, and super intelligent. We may have zip-diddly in common, and I'm withering inside from her sheer adorable genius.

Then I mention roast duck.

"Oh I just LOVE roast duck", she will exclaim, "do you prefer it from Gourmet Delight (新凱豐燒臘店) on Stockton, or from Kam Po (港新寶燒腊小食), near the tunnel?" And mere fractions of a second later we are deeply, intensely, animatedly, in conversation.
Within minutes, one of us will suggest "let's go eat... RIGHT NOW!"
Before you know it, it's several months later and we have discovered an enormous range of interesting facets we either have in common or in contrast. Despite my knowing nothing about astro-physics, that French scribbler, and the numbers game.


Aside from the obvious problems, discussing food with a Vegan might be impossible. In addition to culinary rigor mortis, she assuredly also has mental bugs that get her upset over eating anything that originated in the animal kingdom. Even cheese. Now, if she was merely lactose intolerant, that would not be much of an issue. There are substitutes, and I can always refrain from consuming VAST quantities of fromage in her presence lest it make her envious.
But man is by nature meant to be omnivorous. The question you should ask yourself upon seeing a new creature is "is it edible?"
And usually, if the beast is mostly or entirely vegetarian in its diet, the answer is "yes".

Vegans are completely the exception.
Not edible, despite vegetarianismus.


I like women. I like food.


Despite her size, I could only wonder how that busty Vegan had managed to grow so big. Had she mainlined protein supplements? Did she eschew animals and hunt man? Was she, in secret, a member of some twisted coterie of beandip snarfers? And besides the Veganismus, what else was wrong or missing?


What on earth would dinner together be like? Probably an insufferable exercise in self-righteousness, wailing, and bizarre haranguing.
Rather than the joy-filled flight of chopsticks and flashing forks it is meant to be. Everything I cook is wrong, and I should use sustainably green safflower oil to slow-seethe tofu to the hardened plank stage, with no fishpaste, no garlic and ginger, NO MEAT ELEMENTS WHATSOEVER!
It's amazing what you can do with raw cattle feed.
Spiritually uplifting, too.


A meal together without sharing food is romantically a waste of time, and the alternative is purging Roman Orgy-style afterwards, followed by gorging on multiple bacon cheeseburgers somewhere else. While trying to scrub the green planet kittens and Bambi's mother twaddle from your mind with alcohol.


Anyway, she's new to the city, working as a chef and going to culinary school. She loves it here, it's SO different than Maine or Upstate, where she's from, she drove across country huffing American Spirit cigarettes, drinking Starbucks, and sleeping in the desert with scorpions, and her sign is one of twelve.

We did not exchange phone numbers.


I would've been utterly wrong for her.
She seemed like a nice girl.
I wish her well.



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KILLING PUPPIES FOR CHRIST

As some of my friends know I spend Sunday and Monday in Marin County, baby-sitting people who are too old for a bottle, and too young for a luxury retirement village. Most of them smoke cigars.
And when I say "smoke cigars", that does not mean that they are in any fashion mature adults. You know that most cigar smokers are not really grown-up. They live in a never-never land where the sun is always shining, and the grass is ever green.
At times it's like being at a summer picnic in a lovely frock.
Other times, more a re-enactment of Lord of the Flies.
Multiple 'F' bombs, and vile temper tantrums.
I swear they want to bite each other.
Growling, snapping, snarling.
All teeth & claws.

Oh the humanity!

Cigar smokers.


It's because there is no decent food in Marin County that they must act so. They lack for protein. As will without a doubt fail to surprise you, the natural diet of cigar smokers consists of puppies.
Fluffy lovable puppies.
Marin County is where Veganism started, and still thrives.
Consequently, Safeway there sells no puppies.
Nothing but tofu and wheatgerm.
People are starving.

Marin County, like much of Northern California, is so uber-sensitive and green-minded, downright soft on nature, social-consciousness, and sustaining Gaia, that high school kids there no longer dissect frogs or pig-foetuses. They dissect tofu.

It's a miracle of epic proportion that there are cigar smokers there.
But consequently, there are no puppies.
Somebody ate them all.


This blogger, being NOT a cigar smoker, and only a visitor there besides, does not feel their loss and their pain. I do not thrive on puppies -- unclean and gamey meat, dammit -- but feed instead on well-seasoned curries, fresh green chilies, and other ingredients in judicious combination.
Such as I did mere moments ago.
It was an early lunch.

Normally I get up between six and seven, forsake breakfast for coffee, followed by tea, and a few nice healthy bowls of tobacco, smoked in one of several pipes which radiate good taste, gravitas, and an overwhelming love of puppies.

Lunch -- the first meal of the day -- is usually right around tea-time. That being four o'clock in the afternoon. Which is when I regretfully deplete the food-supply, thus taking away protein that could have sustained an adorable little puppy.
Who probably goes to bed weeping, because he is so hungry.
I profoundly feel for the furball, not being a cigar smoker.
Lunch was delayed as long as humanly possible.
I tried, little fellow, I tried.


Lunch today was a plate of bami goreng. That being more or less Dutch soul-food. It was meaningful as well as nutritious, Marin County and the cigar smokers would surely have approved. Fried rice-stick noodles, chicken, chilies, ginger, fish-paste, hot sauce, and egg.
With a bit of cilantro, and a squeeze of lime juice.
No puppy meat; the cigar smokers, you know.
I now feel an urge to smoke a pipe.

It is time to head over the hill for a cup of milk-tea.
Which they don't have in Marin County either.
I blame the Vegans and cigar smokers.
SF is a far better place.

Milk-tea. Rice-stick noodles. And pipe-smokers.
Not a sustainably green Vegan anywhere.
Very few cigar smokers either.
It is wondrous.




IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

Contrary to what you might presently think, I actually love puppies!

Puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies!


Evenso, if Jayzus came back from the dead and demanded a puppy sacrifice, I'd gladly slaughter a container-load of them.




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FILL YOUR FACE WITH FOOD!

One of the most attractive personality traits a person can have is culinary curiosity, a willingness to explore and experiment. What does it taste like? Is it interesting? What on earth IS it? Sadly, such inquisitiveness is not common. If you mention fishballs, bitter melon, and dried oysters, for instance, to most people, their little faces will scrunch up in childlike anguish or totally blank moo expressions. They have never heard of it, it sounds NASTY, and they refuse to even think of trying it!
"Do you have burgers?", they will ask.

Or, if they've got issues, "do you have veggie burgers?"

[Opus the Penguin in Bloom County might request a herring burger instead. Extra mayo. Considering that he is a waterfowl, this is natural. And herring is godlike.]

Some of my best friends are indeed vegetarian, but their issues are primarily kashrus-related, and involve avoiding treif as well as the unnecessary cruelty to farm-animals for which agri-business is known.
And given that notably the European food industry does not seem to grasp the difference between pork, lamb, beef, or horsemeat, a certain amount of caution is not unjustified.
Anybody with kashrus or halal concerns is probably better off heading into vegetarian territory anyway, and the same goes for existential penguins.

Which, in Chinatown, may be difficult. Even those restaurants which serve vegetarian dishes will usually have vast scads of pork on the premises.
The pig, to the Chinese, is a marvelous beast.
Like ancient Celts, Cantonese people consider hogs magical.
A very fundament of civilized life.

[Little etymological note: the Chinese character for family (家) shows a pig (豕、豖) under a roof (宀). As graphemes go, it is extremely telling .]

By Chinatown standards, a restaurant that doesn't serve meat ('pig') is not really a restaurant. It's probably a place for white folks and Buddhists.
Or even white Buddhists.
What an extremely silly combination!


LET'S EAT!

The very idea of going out to sup with other people suggests variety. Chicken, duck, meat, seafood, and at the very least a textural dish comprised (mostly) of vegetable matter to round out the taste spectrum and complete the mouth-feel range.Definitely a starch of some sort, and perhaps also a soup and something deepfried.
And food must be shared; what's the point of everyone hogging their own plate and not at least tasting something else?

It has been a long time since I went out to eat with others. The last time was with folks from the office (which closed in November), and we had burgers.
Some people had vegan burgers.
No herring.

It's hard to get everyone on the same page as regards eating together, let alone the same plate. perhaps the best that can be hoped for is just one other person. Someone with a quirky willingness to try something new.
If I knew of a place with squid burgers, I'd definitely want to find someone else to invite along. That way we could also order a plate of salad in case the "meat" was not what we expected.
Or head over to Chinatown for some real food.


Just thinking at random, there's quite a lot of it.
And it can be happily shared.
See anything you like?

咖喱魚蛋、涼瓜豬肉、燒豬肉河粉湯、南乳豬手、椒鹽炸雞翼、叉燒、姜葱腰花、蠔油生菜、燒乳鴿、蝦醬芥蘭、咸菜炆豬肉、蒸海參扣、蒸滑雞、燒鴨、蝦球帶子粥、梅菜扣肉、咸魚肉餅、雪菜肉、排骨蒸飯、蔥花炸蠔、雲吞湯麵、炒肉絲、蒸五花腩、燒鵝、蒸水蛋、蒸魚、咖喱魷魚、薑蔥龍蝦、滷水鴨、豉油雞。

Heh.
I don't think they have squid burgers, though. That's strictly a white thing.
Much like vegan food.


慢慢食,吓。



NOTE: The Chinese term for fishball is 魚蛋 (yü daan), bitter melon is 苦瓜 (fu gwaa) or 涼瓜 (leung gwaa), dried oysters are 蠔豉 (ho si). The hamburger becomes 漢堡包 or 漢堡飽 (hon bou bau), that being a 'Han fortress bun'.
Kosher is 符合猶太教教規的食物 (fu hap yau taai gaau gaau kwai dik sik mat), "according with Judaic customs edibles". Halal is 符合清真教教規的食物 (fu hap ching jan gaau gaau kwai dik sik mat), "according with Islamic religious regulation edibles".
Respectively 猶太潔食 (yau taai git sik) and 清真食 (ching jan sik) for short.

Veganism, besides being quite ridiculous, is 純素食主義 (suen sou sik chu yi), "purely vegivorous ideology".



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