H IS FOR HUNGRY

score

2011-10-23T18:33:00.001-06:00

sunday morning all you can eat breakfast buffet at the poplar pub $9.70.

stick it in my pie hole

2011-10-12T13:44:00.003-06:00

so i think i found my favorite pizza joint in slc. pie hole. downtown salt lake. near a buncha bars and is open til 3am. $1 pbr cans. by the slice. as you all know (or fucking should) my benchmark for a pizzeria is the cheese and pepperoni. both of which rule at the pie hole. i scored a few fresh slices of both the other night and holy shit, it did it for me. while i'm sure people will argue with me that este is better, i really jive with this pizza. the crust has the right amount of chewy-ness. i don't find that in este's pizza. pie hole pizza is just a tad bit thinner than nicolitalia, and a tad bit thicker than este, which makes my little belly very happy. food aside, pie hole hasn't gotten quite as pretentious as este, which gives them a big leg up. i could eat pie hole pizza at pie hole in sweatpants and no one would look at me as if i had broken some rule i didn't know about. the staff are quite friendly and will chat with you. which i value quite a lot. they are vegan friendly for those who need it, and they use their own home-made nutritional yeast based "cheese", which is very tasty for those who've never tried it. for real, go to this pizzeria and have a blast.

http://pieholeutah.com/

more salt lake finds

2011-09-25T11:15:00.002-06:00

guess who is going to be keeping super busy with finding new places to eat in salt lake? this guy. my buddy chaz is also a food dork, and he, along with his better half, melody, have done a lot of the leg work here in salt lake for me. the other night we hit up the HAPA taco place downtown across from sette bello. i got some carnitas tacos. killer. the tiniest amount of crisp on the carnitas were oh so awesome. they came with pinto beans and rice on the side. i love me some pinto beans. i also tried out their $5 margarita. it beat out the twilight's margarita by a long shot. HAPA will be where i go get margaritas. i had 2. people kept getting pissed that the kitchen was closed and as we were paying one guy stormed in and shouted the fuck word a lot at the staff. we all decided that was dumb so we gave our server a bigger tip. turns out he knew the guy.

yesterday we hit up koko's kitchen, a little japanese sushi bar downtown right off 6th south. i got some chicken katsu curry (brown curry) and it ruled. pparently the pot stickers are quite killer but the big deal according to meoldy is ramen. i will be eating ramen next time i go.

i can't believe how excited i am about all this. wait, yes i can.

lucking out

2011-09-07T13:18:00.000-06:00

so i started working at graywhale's main store in salt lake city, which i'm beyond excited about. for a few reasons.

1. i'm working at the main store, which has a soooo much fun stuff to listen to. like if you're into jazz or world music, you'd be a fool to not peruse. sadly there ain't much wax in the racks. i've found some fun punk and a lot of the garage bullshit i like, some indie stuff too. makes alphbetizing very plesant, and fun. i know my abc's so much better now too.

2. i live very close to the store, so i can walk. it's up hill, so that means i'm gonna have a nice tight ass here in no time.

3. there's this little greek run burger joint RIGHT NEXT DOOR. their gyros rival greek souvlaki #1, mainly because the pitas are toasted and their tzatziki is loaded with dill. just throwing that out there. not to mention they roll out a pretty tasty burger. and the buns they use aren't the typical lawn turd white bread bun. they'r kinda chewy. good fries too. i'm hooked already. the place is called B&D. i have't tried their shakes because i don't care about shakes.

salt lake city: watch your ass

2011-09-04T12:49:00.002-06:00

so, i'm in the process of moving to salt lake. bet you thought that'd never happen, but the time has come for me to leave provo behind. sorry provo, i know you're gonna miss me. i'm actually sad about a few things as i think about moving away. here's three of them. you already know what they are because i talk about these three places incessantly. i guess this is my final ode to them.

1. pete's lunch. by far pete's was my favorite place to eat in provo. i never felt more at home at a diner than when i was at MY table at pete's. i wish i could uproot that whole little microcosmic community built up around pete's and take it with me wherever i go. i'm confident i'll find similar diners in salt lake, and i'm sure the fare will be good, but i have a hard time believing that i'm going to find another waitress as good as julie, or chicken fried steak/hasbrowns/toast/2 eggs over medium as perfectly made as the way pete did it. call me nostalgic, but goddammit, for my money no one has ever made me breakfast as good. and guess what, his burgers are up there with the best of them. so is is meatloaf. so are his omeletes. there are a few people who might disagree with me, but they are few and far between. and i usually ignore them. i'm trying not to get too nostalgic over this, because i'm hoping some dumb hungry kid with a little extra cash wanders in pete's, who is kinda shy and makes his way over to the west wall, stops to check out the old prospector (stinky pete) painting and sits down at table 9 so he can get a commanding view of all the other tables and so he can watch a happy chinese guy do what he's been doing with perfection for eons, fall in love instantly with the waitress, and hell, the whole scene and never wants to go eat anywhere else. then he gets his food and it seals the deal.

2.el salvadoran. el salvadoran only comes in second because they don't have pete cooking. i fell in love with salvadoran food because a guatemalan classmate insisted she make me pupusas one night. she made them from scratch, which wasn't hard because she'd grown up making them. thanks karla! it was a while before i had the craving for a pupusa after that, but i was making my way down center street once and peeked in the window and saw what everyone was eating. so i went back a little while later and got myself some, i hate to say it but el salvadoran's were better than karla's pupusas. i kept going, and i became friendly with joe, the really big guy who looks really scary. he isn't. his name is joe. i'm going to miss el salvadoran because of joe, and the little grandmother who makes all the pupusas and tamales. and everyone else who works there and eats there. el salvadoran doesn't need me to keep their business going, they have a strong community of people who go there because they know they'll see other salvadorans.

3. nicolitalia pizzeria. no brainer. my heart is tied to this place in the weirdest ways. i love nick. i love nick's pizza. i love how he does everything wrong and yet, still manages to get everything right. the place is one of the conundrums of the universe. if and when nicolitalia pizzeria goes out of business, the soul of utah county will go out with it. you'll never meet a more honest businessman than nick dellacioppa. you'll never eat better hand tossed pizza, you'll never be more annoyed ordering it, you'll never laugh harder waiting for it, you'll never want the music to change more, and you'll never forget the time nick innocently mispronounced your name, got your order wrong or remembered who you were as you walked through the door.

fuck you provo, you broke my heart. i'll still come back for the food, though.

hello salt lake, just got here, still figuring everything out, but so far you haven't disappointed. i've been frequenting a littl indian market down the road from where bryan and cassie live. they sell a indian soda called limca. it is lime flavored. it is delicious and very refreshing. i've also discovered their pakoras and potato patties and spinach paneer triangles to be totally killer. big daddy's pizza is the best $5 pizza i've ever had. i'm fully expecting my adventures in food to be varied and fruitful. here's to whats coming, y'all!

spice grill, or don'tcha know...

2011-06-02T15:44:00.004-06:00

a few weeks ago me, boobsie and bonesy walked over to spice grill, where the rooster place used to be, past all the other happenings downtown, i got a sampler plate and boobsie and bonesy got something else. it was great. most of what i got was fried, which (no brainer) i loved. what initially struck me as odd about spice grill was the overabundance of things on the menu that weren't indian food. burgers, fries, GYROS, and some other stuff. if you know me at all, you'll know the gryo is one of my all time favorite foods. there aren't many places in utah county to get a good gyro (imo the best in SLC is greek souvlaki #1). the tangy tzatziki is a great compliment to the savory lamb "stuff". much to my surprise spice grill has their own approach to tzatziki. they add sugar to the recipe. honest, i've never encountered a sweet tzatziki. also, i'm trying to type tzatziki as many times as possible in this post for a few reasons:

1. so i can remember how to spell it

2. muscle memory?

3. its tastes good

4. because if you're a fan of greek food in the slightest, i want you to go try a gyro from spice grill.

ok, back on track: like any new/small/unhyped resturant in provo spice grill is still working out all the kinks with their business, but you know me, nothing is more important than how good their food is. and theirs is good. really good. they aren't afraid to be inventive without sacrificing a traditional/homemade menu. kudos to them.

they're on facebook

please "like" them!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Spice-Grill/105253749559556?ref=ts

i wonder if i can talk them into making a pizza pakora...

surprises

2011-05-03T10:46:00.002-06:00

the other day cassie was surprised that i made breakfast for bryan and myself.

"you're not the only one who cooks for bryan" - me

also, i made breakfast tacos that day.

updating things

2011-04-30T13:58:00.001-06:00

i need to update my photo for this blog. any suggestions? i can't make decisions on my own anymore.

taking a big slump.

2011-04-30T12:59:00.003-06:00

geez, what a drama queen i turned out to be. reminder: this is not a forum for whining. sorry for the whining. things are working themselves out. hope i didn't scare anyone too much. went to pete's this morning with cassie and newlin. got my old standby. it was super busy today and pete was lookin sharp. saw some familiar faces and got full. super excited for the toga party tonight, it's been a while. i think i'm coming out of a big slump. good for me. good for you. party time.

a culmination of sorts.

2011-04-17T21:59:00.002-06:00

dunno why i'm posting this here. i guess its only people i like who read this and only them who probably care at all about whats going on with me. this post doesn't have so much to do with food as it does my shortcomings as an adult. it indirectly involves food i guess, since my financial state dictates my food choices. and here it is: i'm broke. like, really broke. i think i can look back over the last couple of years and see the downward spiral to the place i am now. i guess i kept thinking i could stave off financial responsibility until i got my degree. nope. doesn't happen that way. i've fucked myself financially and i have only myself to blame. i haven't finished college and i don't know if i ever will. i want to, but i don't know if i'll be able to afford it any time soon. i party waaay too much. my friends have all kinda slowed down, but for some reason i felt like it was a great idea to keep pushing myself. dumb. i think i knew this was coming for a while but was too scared to try to deal with it. i've kinda destroyed my body with partying and eating tons of bad food. don't know how to quite recover from it, because lets be honest, i'm good at making bad decisions. also, i'm the master of procrastinating important things that come back to haunt me. and haunt me they do. relentlessly. i ate too much shitty pizza today and i still feel sick. instead of dealing with my problems, my problems have dealt with me. now i have to abandon or sell things that are very important to me and i don't want to. thanks for reading. thanks for being my friend. thanks for the recommendations and taking recommendations. wish me luck

dear fried egg sandwich

2011-04-17T00:38:00.000-06:00

you are simple and pure. and digesting.

jambalaya etc

2011-04-11T15:02:00.004-06:00

made jambalaya for the first time in a while last night. most of you know about this from tweets and FB and whatnot. what you don't know is that i set the stove on fire during this undertaking. i spilled a little pat of butter on a red-hot element and realized as soon as it happened i realized it was futile to try to save the butter. nothing happened immediately. but a minute or two later i saw flames coming up from underneath the element. in this situation i could have:

1. freaked out

2. looked for a fire extinguisher i know doesn't exist.

3. tossed a towel over the flames

i did none of these. instead, i took a photo with my phone, sent it to a couple of people and then blew the flame out.

i did a few things differently (not completely on purpose) for this batch of jambalaya; mainly i used some rip-off andouille sausage that is supposed to be gourmet and shit. do not buy aidell's andouille if you want andouille. you're better off using polish sausage instead. (sautee the sausage in butter and cayenne. still isn't real andouille, but is better than the crap i bought.) i didn't have rosemary in this batch either. i forgot to look in my spice cab before i went to the store. i can tell the difference, but i don't think anyone else can. all in all this jambalaya turned out pretty good. cassie liked it and she's my benchmark. it was a happy evening at the compound.

i don't think cassie is going to let me be lazy about cooking much longer.

HEALTH

2011-04-07T10:05:00.002-06:00

i've been trying to eat healthier the last week or so, and i'm failing at it. i feel like shit all the time and i know i know i know it's because i don't eat well or exercise or do anything right. this isn't a post where i proclaim to the world how dedicated i am to eating healthier and making better food and lifestyle decisions. being healthy requires a lot of work. i hate work. at the current rate i'll probably be eating healthier by 2016. and it would help if my friends wouldn't bring over cheddar jalepeno cheetos. wtf! have you had those? so good. i should probably buy a bag of apples next time i go to the store, but i will probably instead buy chips and salsa. or a frozed pizza. oh what to do.

if you wear fancy pants

2011-04-01T23:14:00.002-06:00

you should totally try out nordstroms sandwiches and shit. their coffee is very mediocre, but them sandwiches more than make up for it.

rice king noodle house

2011-03-27T17:01:00.001-06:00

go.

holy cow!

2011-03-25T01:14:00.002-06:00

i discovered a very versatile condiment today: the chik-fil-a "chik-fil-a" sauce. i believe it is a honey mustard/bbq mix, heavy on the honey mustard side.

i put it up there with nick's house dressing. no joke.

ethical considerations: mountain west burrito

2011-03-22T23:27:00.005-06:00

the other day a handful of us hit up mountain west burrito. myself, cass, wiems, gheybin, greg, other meg, and brit p all crowded around a table in a room adjacent to a convenience store (read: smokeshop & beer). for some reason the owner chose that location to open where other tiny resturants had either closed, fled, or bailed completely (lookin at you taco r.). the near steadfast rule in opening a resturant is to never open where another had just failed seems not to deter the owner (haven't quite gotten on first name basis, which everyone should at their fav food spots), who goes about happily greeting, serving and cleaning.

somehow i think he knows what he's done.

here's why:

first he's a good looking white dude, and very affable. the picky locals are drawn towards pretty white men. and he smiles at everyone. he oozes the good kind of confidence.

second, he seems quite business savvy. i've had a couple of conversations with him about previous endeavors and he's helped start and may still be involved with a few similar operations, didn't get that far in convo with him. he's opened places like these in other college towns and he seems to be banking on their model in provo. not such a bad idea.

third, he's smart enough to buy locally, and organic when available, another selling point to the picky locals, not because its more healthy, but because its a buzz they can all understand. either way, we all win, because: his food is killer. it definitely is not autentico mexicano. but it is so good. which brings me to my last point: the staff.

the food at this joint is good because his staff respect and appreciate that he respects them. i don't know if i've ever seen an owner treat his guys with such dignity. the first time me and cassie ever tried him out he was sitting out in the dining room with one of his guys playing dominoes. i'll never forget it. the owner took our order while the other guy made his last move before he got our food ready. to see latino worker treated as a person and not a commodity gives me just the tiniest bit of faith in people. it's really all i need to help keep this place going.

cornel west made this statement:

"A Leftist looks at the world through the lenses of those who are dominated, subjugated, devalued, demeaned and marginalized...."

when i first read it i felt its meaning throughout my body. whether you subscribe to leftism or not, we can find places run by businessmen who believe in helping the marginalized maintain dignity as people, and we should support them.

hey folks, it's been a while.

2011-03-21T10:21:00.002-06:00

i noticed the last post was part one of my tour "diary". fail. i don't even remember the rest of tour, so suffice it to say i had good food in portland.

for a second i thought blogger was gonna delete all my stuff because some "thing" changed with the internet and i don't know what goes on inside the internet so i don't know how to describe it. but i guess everything is cool.

the last 6-7 months or so've been pretty strange/rough.

i don't really wanna talk about it. some ups, lotsa downs, lotsa wasted time and money.

i got a new job. so i don't work at nicolitalia any longer. i barely made it through that. graywhale is my new home. i like my new job. i like my co-workers. i like my superiors. i wish it wasn't at the mall.

which brings up my first point:

i have a love/hate relationship with mall food. you can only get chick-fil-a at the mall here. they have pretty good biscuits and gravy. iceberg makes an "ok" burger (the buffalo chips are worth it). free refills all day. i can really only stomach sbarro's cheese slice. charleys subs are very mediocre. i will not pay $2.39 for a hot dog at orange julius. when the chinese food is fresh it is killer. mixed veggies 4 lyfe.

now on to my second point:

i don't really get out much anymore. except to go to petes. pete's and el salvadoran are about the only 2 places i want to eat any more. usually i go to pete's.

which brings me to my third point:

i have my own table at pete's lunch. he called me back into the inner sanctum and asked me what my last name was. had me write it down. next time i came in, there it was. come sit with me at my table sometime.

the 4th and maybe last thing i wanna say:

self loathing is rampant in provo. maybe the world. i can only see its effects in provo. i see it mostly in women, probably due in large part to the self loathing in men, projected onto the women they're around. 2 things can save us. food and music. i think long and hard on these two things on a very frequent basis. the histories of the worlds cultures can largely be documented by their food, their wars, and their cultural output, but not how they treat women.

ok, the 5th:

why the fuck do i know so many women who are scared to eat? i think i know. you know too. if you don't know, it's likely you're a part of the problem, so please stop.

sorry to get serious. i'm meeting my buddy mel for pete's soon. i'm looking towards a new phase in my life and i love you all.

Tour Diarrheas part 1

2010-07-02T13:17:00.005-06:00

just kidding. actually i'm not. so broken spells went on tour, from june 19 til the 29th. we played in CO/NM/AZ/CA/OR/ID. i think we killed it just about every night, except in tuscon which doesn't matter, and our show fell through the cracks of the pot addled minds of our friends in seattle. from the beginning i had great plans for this tour, at least in terms of food. like, i got started before we even left. chazzy needed a burrito and we hit up del taco on the way out of town, i got a breakfast burrito and a milkshake. seemed like a great idea. it goes without saying that deltaco is very very mediocre. it kept me good until we hit green river, and picked up maria and hayley who work at epicenter. on the way to grand junction they kept talking about how much they wanted to stop at chick-fil-a in GJ. i had no problems with this. so we finally get to GJ and stop in at the c-f-a to grab a bite. no one else in the band was that hungry, and to be honest, i wasn't so hungry myself, but couldn't resist. so i got a chicken sandwich, those waffle fries and another milkshake. i'm not sure what i did to piss him off, but fecelious, the great god of feces decided to take vengeance upon my asshole. and of course everyone had to make fun of me for taking such a long dump, but i couldn't help it, it wouldn't stop. until it did, and then i felt horrible. ususally after such a huge purge i feel great, lighter on my feet, etc. but not this time. we made our way over to the house where we were playing and a buncha kids were already there partying and whatnot. like 5 minutes after we got there, hayley and maria both were starting to get sick. i dunno what c-f-a did to us, but it was not nice. i didn't think i was gonna be able to play the show, like i sat down in the back of the living room and almost passed out a few times. i tried to drink a buncha water, but nothing helped. sure enough, though, as soon as we took the "stage" i started feeling better and somehow my bowels were plugged by the power of rocknroll.

doughnuts

2010-05-22T10:16:00.004-06:00

i love doughnuts. always have. when i was a kid we'd go to howards donuts on summer avenue in memphis, best smelling donut shop on earth. memphis has tons of doughnut shops. right up there with pawn shops, churches and hot wing joints. sadly i no longer live in memphis, and the clowns in UT don't understand the idea and the profitability of donut shops. someday if i can get a sugar daddy or wealthy benefactor i'm gonna open my own. for now though, i get my donuts at the fresh market (ex-albertsons). i usually stop in before work and grab a few plain glazed and a blueberry cake donut. i've realized this is beneficial in a few ways. 1. i am eating breakfst. 2. they're suprsingly very good doughnuts. 3. nicola dellacioppa loves donuts too, and now we all eat donuts at work and it puts nick in a good mood. you can't go wrong when you put your boss in a good mood first thing in the morning, plus he usually chips in a buck or two. eat more donuts folks.

bryan gomm

2010-05-16T13:57:00.002-06:00

i'm about to go get some pupusas at el salvadoran, but before i got, bookmark this new blog i'm doing, its as many of the flyers and drawings i can find/get a hold of by bryan gomm.
http://party-time.posterous.com/

dig it!

RED DELI?

2010-05-10T17:07:00.003-06:00

I'm giving it a thumbs up. its worth it for the bread. its also dirt cheap. you do have to listen to sublime and bob marley while you're there though.

burrito rollers

2010-04-02T17:35:00.002-06:00

i just discovered these little gems the other night. i was hungry and only had a coupla bucks so i walked over to the 7-11 and grabbed a snickers ice cream bar and instead of a hot dog, likei usually get, i decided that i wanted to try one of these. oh man, what a surprise. it actually tasted good. AND CHEAP! i might go get one right now. or 2. my favs are the chicken and cheese ones.

SLAB PIZZA: i'm still not convinced

2010-03-03T14:42:00.004-07:00

there was a discussion on my facebook page a few weeks back about slab pizza, its a little place over by BYU campus that caters to cheap BYU students. first off, i'm not a fan. at all. tho, a few friends (ernie and vegor) really like it, and while i will disagree with them on the merits of this pizza i will grant that i haven't tried everything on the menu.
in defense of my stance i will say that my criteria for a pizzeria is their cheese pizza and their pepperoni pizza. the logic i follow is pretty simple: if the cheese pizza sucks, i'll still try the pepperoni. if the pepperoni sucks, i'm done with the place. if a pizzeria can't get either one of those two pizza right, it doesn't make me want to spend time and money on anything else.
that said, slab pizza's cheese pizza sucked. so did their pepperoni. their employees also weren't wearing gloves or hairnets. strikes 1,2, and 3.
don't get me wrong, i tried really hard to like this pizza, but it was just too flavorless. the crust was bland, as was the sauce and cheese. it seemed like no thought at all went into the recipes. i felt like i could have gone to smiths and gotten a prepackaged dough mix with a jar of "pizza" sauce and some hormel pepperoni and gotten the same thing.
i will give props to them for using a brick oven, but for some reason they put a screen underneath the pizza instead of putting it right on the brick. it doesn't seem like they understand the reason for using a brick oven when they cook pizza that way. seems like everything there is kinda backwards.
granted, nicolitalia is one of the most backwards places on earth, but they get the essential things right.
i can understand going cheap on some of the ingredients, that is fine, but why be lazy about a recipe? it won't affect cost margins too much to develop a better sauce or dough recipe when the main cost on a pizza is cheese. if they spent a little extra money on decent cheese and threw a few spices into that pizza sauce it wouldn't be so bad, because at $3.75 for a quarter slice they can still make money, and have a better reputation.

nick on the history of nicolitalia

2010-01-22T15:25:00.001-07:00

thanks to the utah peoples post.
http://www.utahpeoplespost.com/news/one-in-120000-nick-the-pizza-guy

loser casserole

2010-01-10T12:34:00.003-07:00

so, i'm still eating pretty frugally, occasionally i'll hit up petes on a saturday morning with vegs, ernie, mel, grady and a few others or do some el salvadoran if i got a f ew extra bucks. but lately i've tried to make food more than not. and i include pizza in this, because, you know, i make it. at work. but last night i did something that newlin might actually be ashamed of.
i made a loser casserole.
you might not know what that is, and its cool, because i just made it up.
caveat: i started cooking food for ned. and i usually make him rice, carrots, chicken/chicken stock or some other protein source. he eats better than i do.
so i took some of this rice i made for ned and mixed in some broccoli. then i put some cream of chicken soup in it.
i finished it off with chicken nuggets. i know. i've reached the bottom.
it didn't taste bad, but i was ashamed for the entire 15 minutes i was eating it.

went to pete's today. got some great news.

2009-12-11T13:08:00.003-07:00

so we all know how much i love pete's lunch. honestly, its the best breakfast in utah, hands down. no one does it like pete. i took mel and grady this morning because i was off work and i'd been bugging mel to come hang out. since the snowstorm she'd been worried about driving grady around on the typically unplowed UT roads, understandably. so today was super nice, sunny, and a little warmer so we agreed to meet up at pete's for breakfast. we got there around 11 and got my normal table (#9) and ordered. mel got an omelette and i got eggs toast hashbrowns and bacon. grady got milk. i always love the reaction of first timers when they take the first bite, and its usually the same:
"OH MY GOD"
mel was no different. i've yet to find someone who isn't wholly impressed by pete's culinary prowess. so we were eating and today helena was our waitress, but julie happened to be there and walks by and says hello and we chat a bit, and she say, oh, here, you might be interested in this, we're going to be OPEN TIL 7:00 PM NOW, AND WE WILL DO TAKE OUT ORDERS, SO YOU CAN CALL US ANY TIME BEFORE 7:00 AND WE'LL DO IT TO GO.
i almost had a heart attack, not from the food, but fromthe news that now i can get PETE'S FOR DINNER.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i'm as happy as a little girl.
i'm still working on him to get sundays open.
i'd like to think that maybe in some small way i've helped get him a few more customers, enough to warrant this exhilarating news. even if it wasn't me, i'm still happy beyond belief.

HUH? I HAVE A BLOG?

2009-12-05T18:55:00.003-07:00

howdy folks, seein as its been about 14 years since i wrote anything, i decided i'd take a break out of my busy schedule and "pen" a few words about some vittles i've had recently.
across from nicolitalia in that little shop that used to be hires big h, and the guanojuato mexican place and probably a few other forgettable restaurants, there is now a greek place, sadaf greek souvlaki. they gots the normal greek fare and big giant beef ribs. pretty damn good. i, of course, only got the gyro because lets be honest, its the benchmark food for small out of the way greek places. it did not fail to please. i'd take it over the other greek place on state street any day. for me its up there with greek souvlaki #1 up in salt lake. the dudes who run it are pretty ok dudes too, which is a plus, i hate goin to places where i can't talk to the owners.

i got made fun of by a girl i used to like for my grocery shopping decisions.

2009-10-24T15:16:00.002-06:00

it was pretty humiliating. i had some mac and cheese, loaf of bread, bologna, some ground beef, assorted canned soups, and some cheap steaks. for my part, since i don't do much grocery shopping, i was pretty stoked on the deals i had found, and i got all my shit for under $25 bones. i stopped being stoked when this girl i knew, and liked, (and blew my chances with a few years ago) looked down in my basket and started laughing at my stuff. its pretty tough to play that off, and i'm not quick or cool enough to side step that. i did, however, snag a ride home from the grocery store with her and got a few laughs out of her. after i got home i looked at what i had and said to myself "fuck it" and made biscuits, steak and eggs. and washed it down with oj.

grief stroganoff

2009-10-15T01:03:00.002-06:00

so, when i'm broke (which seems to be frequent these days) i need to be creative with the food i eat. i gotta make my dollar stretch like its elastic. the other night i whipped up a serious meal of rice, sage breakfast sausage, chicken tenders, and cream of mushroom soup. it was pretty tasty. tonight though, i had some ground beef and ramen, and i thought to myself, hey this might taste ok with some more cream of shroom.
i cooked the ramen, browned the beef, and mixed in the shroom soup, and well, came up with the title of this post. it isn't the best thing i've ever eaten, but it isn't the worst.

I.E.M. is a kuh..kunt...kkuh...a kuh kunt...

2009-10-05T20:35:00.002-06:00

a continual source of inspiration. andy posted the companion videos for his latest piece on tortas and it again prompted me to go grab another torta. instead of making my way over to chungas, as i was inclined to do, i decided to try out taqueria vaquero. "where the hell is that?" you might be asking. it is in the same little strip mall place as laser assault across from the rc willey outlet on 1st west in provo. very nondescript place, but holy jeebus. i got a carnitas torta and like 6 bites in i got the itis. this may be the first time i got the itis from mexican food. usually it's brought on by ribs. i'm hoping mud butt is not a result of this round of the itis. any way, i'd really like to talk about inhuman eating machine some more. after seeing the clips of the session it made me realize what a pussy i really am. if i had tried to eat another bite of another torta i probably would have gone into a coma. even at the time of this writing, probably an hour after my ONE torta i'm feeling pretty sluggish and can't speak in complete sentences. andy is a god among men. like the videos coupled with the blog is like the goddam videodrome of gluttony.

grocery shopping

2009-09-27T14:34:00.003-06:00

more often than not, i do not buy groceries. bad habit. at the time of my last paycheck, however, i decided i needed to be a bit more frugal with my $$ because i got too many things to pay for and not enough $$ to pay it with and i realized i spend all my $$ on foodz and recordz. so me and newlin went grocery shopping and i bought all kindsa great stuff:
velveeta
chips
frozed pizzas
rotel
loaf of bread
bell peppers
andioulle
rice
milk
b-fast sausage
cans of beans
cans of tomatoes
and more stuff
the idea was to be a little more domestic. i figured since i'm not in school this semester i can afford to waste time cooking all day. and listening to records. (i'm pretty proud of myself, i've only purchased one record since i've gotten paid: scat rag boosters st/lp)

since that shopping trip i've made:
brazillian fish stew
jambalaya
turnip greens/white beans/cornbread
a few sandwiches
handfulls of chips
ned drool

i kinda like doing this for a few reasons:
dishes are in heavier rotation
dishes get cleaned with more frequency
i'm saving a shit ton of dough

it doesn't mean i haven't gone out and bought food. erin is still my food partner in crime and so we still go grab stuff from time to time:
chungas torta
mahi mahi at mcgraths (splurge)

even still, i think i'm saving money.

singapore noodles

2009-09-19T21:23:00.003-06:00

so, i was at rice king the other night with jesse and charley, after neighborhood zero practice, and charley ordered a dish called Singapore noodles, which she, apparently, always orders. i had never even seen it on the menu. she let me try them. i was hooked. imagine a sweeter type of curry (i think i tasted some egg and some cinnamon...). and the noodles are about the size of angelhair pasta. shredded snow peas, chicken, shrimp, maybe some beef? carrots? i can't remember everything that was in it, but i love it now. it isn't too heavy like a lot of their other stuff, but still pretty filling. i totally recommend this. it gets my fat ass seal of approval. just kidding, i don't have a fat ass. or do i...

cassie s has a blog

2009-09-15T22:00:00.000-06:00

she likes to cook. yup. 'nother food blog.
http://egginthehole.blogspot.com/

got the munchies last night

2009-09-15T15:15:00.002-06:00

here's what i had:
7-11 hotdog.
bag of cheetos.
corned beef sandwich.

i slept pretty good.

MADE SOME TURNIP GREENS THE OTHER NIGHT.

2009-09-12T23:12:00.004-06:00

because i'm poor, i have no qualms about accepting charity. case in point, cassie said she found some turnip greens at the sunflower market in orem, and if you really know me, you also know i love turnip greens with just about everything i got. to me, there isn't much better than some greens with northern white beans and cornbread (yes, i use jiffy, fuck you). so i asked her if she wanted me to show her how to cook them right ( she was gonna saute them with butter or something. i know. heresy) and she said that she had plans that night but i could have them. and of course i accepted her generously charitable offer. she also let me use her stockpot.

here's some of the problems i encountered as i was cooking this shit up:
1. i didn't have an egg for the cornbread mix.
2. there ain't a damn ham hock in a 200 mile radius of my house. well, least none i know about.

here's how i solved said problems:
1. i talked april b. into letting me have one of her eggs (like chicken eggs, yall, not her personal ovary stash) with the promise of eating with me (who can actually resist my cooking? no one).
2. we found some pork neckbones at smiths. for like a dollar.

even though it wasn't fatback or a jowl or a ham hock it seemed to do the trick. i can't believe they don't sell salt pork around here. well, i take it back. i do believe it. buncha crackers runnin shit. (health food is dumb BTW, tho, the irony is, you can really only find greens at health food stores. wtf. i really miss "easy way produce". god bless you, barry carter).
so we got back and i already had the greens going, yes, without the neckbones in, and the house was starting to smell good. poor ned was going out of his mind. the trick with turnip greens, and i can't remember who i learned it from, possibly my great-grandmother, is to soak the greens in super cold water with a buncha sugar dumped in over the greens. not sure why this works, but it definitely makes them way less bitter. but not sweet. after they soak for a good hour or so you toss them in the pot, i always throw a bit more sugar on when i throw them in. now, if anyone in my family reads this next part i'm probably gonna get in some trouble, but, i like to dump a whole bunch of onion powder, garlic powder, salt, some butter, a tiny bit of black and crushed red pepper, and some celery flakes into the pot with the greens. i was kinda bummed because all i had was turnip greens and no curly mustards. thats always a good mix, also i didn't have any turnip to throw in, but hey, i'm not picky, this shit was free. this whole time april b was hanging out but had forgotten about some plans she had made, so she had to bail, good news for me, i get all them greens. once the greens had boiled down i started making the other stuff, open a can of white beans and make the cornbread. heat them beans up with a little water, salt and onion powder (can you tell i'm addicted?) and bring it to a slow boil. i'm not talking about the cornbread because its a box mix. you don't need me for that. but i do squirt in a good amount of honey in. after all this stuff was done i sat to eat. and filled myself up. twice. i wish i had more because it rules.
from my understanding of southern culinary traditions, this meal would constitute as "soul food". i'm not quite sure how to explain that concept to you, dear reader, except that if you don't like food like this, i probably don't like you.

the poor man's h-is-for-hungry: FOOD FEED

2009-09-10T17:04:00.001-06:00

just kidding, i'm shit ass broke right now, so i think i'm the poor man's food feed. its meg (not wiemer) and jared (not soper) doing a similar thing to what i like to do, but they have a little ratings system and they like presentation and ambience and stuff like that.
if i ever stop doing this i guess they can have my spot in your heart.
http://thefoodfeed.wordpress.com/

the night before payday

2009-09-02T23:52:00.002-06:00

and all i had was a head of newlins cabbage, one of newlins potatoes, and some fresh bratwurst cassie s brought me. i decided to cook it all up. i cut up about half the cabbage and started boiling it with a bunch of salt/pepper/onionpowder/garlic/celery flakes threw in the potatoes also put a sprinkle of some crappy cajun seasoning. not a fan of that shit anymore. i let this stuff boil down for a while. as it was boiling i listened to the tards blood visions lp. still one of my favs. anywho, i cut up the bratwurst and basically made bratwurst meatballs and threw them in withthe cabbage and potatoes. kind of a tasty broth i had going. i accidentally put too much pepper in, but cabbage is pretty sweet so it wasn't too bad. when everything was cooked down i squeezed a buncha mustard on top of everything. very tasty. i'm kinda tempted to figure out a way to make like a cabbage mustard soup with bratwurst balls. i think i would have to shred the cabbage and have more broth than solid items. i think any way i did it would taste pretty good. those ingredients are kinda hard to screw up. super simple, super tasty. who knows, it may end up in someones little diner or donut shop sometime.

way to go ABG's!

2009-08-25T18:27:00.004-06:00

so last night at around 11:30 or so i got a craving for a cheeseburger. and as per usual, nothing was open so i kinda felt like a cheeseburger wasn't going to happen. like,i kinda avoid sammys as it is now overrun with the worst sorts of people. you know, the kind who you've never met and who say things like this to you "so, how have you been lately". scumbags. its also way too bright in there, and i usually have to listen to top 40 BS. too many negatives. so i was complaining to johnny k and he was like, "dude, try ABG's. their burger is pretty good". so i went to go over, and i'd heard that they get pissy if you order too late (misinformation BTW) so i walked quickly. i showed up and ther were a few folks playing pool, and goth jason was working, nice dude. very nice dude. and i told him i'd like the double cheeseburger with fries ($6!) and that newlie was heading over and we;d be staying. so newlie got there, we chatted for a bit and jason brought the burgers over. super flavory burgers baby. fries were kinda spicy but not in a shitty way. so me and dave hung out there a while and had a few, and some drunk fool was offering to buy everyone int he bar a drink, so i looked up and asked the other bartender to grab me a harp lager. will probably never see that guy again, but i will get another burger. maybe even tonight.

one thing

2009-08-20T16:43:00.002-06:00

the mahi mahi coconut korma at india palace is out of this world. i made myself sick eating it last night.

found a decent little bbq shop in springville

2009-08-06T21:41:00.002-06:00

its called charlie boy's pit bbq. its a carolina style bbq, but the sauce is a little more tomato-y than normal carolina vinegar stuff. pretty good. saw the pit in the back. the slaw is ok and the beans are pretty good too. me and bryan, erin and dave benson went and checked it out after a little skate session at the sprinville skatepark. fun day. charlie boys is where brand x burgers used to be.

oh beto's, or: how the mighty have fallen

2009-08-02T19:10:00.006-06:00

so, as i like to do sometimes, i went to betos around 1:30 am to grab a texano last week, bret, johnny, jut and sean were there (sean actually put ketchup on a burrito. wtf) and we all ate our burritos and like since beto's usually uses dark meat for their chicken i didn't think anything of what i was eating. well i should have. i'm pretty sure i ingested quite a bit of uncooked chicken that night. what followed the next day i won't really go into, but you can imagine. funny thing is, i've never heard people tell of body aches from food poisoning. and also i've never actually felt my kidneys throb before. and i have to agree with jesse rex that since changing their name and moving to a new location the quality of beto's has changed, or dropped off the face of the planet. i have no other choice but to call beto's the only thing i can think of. rancherito's. a new, lesser version of beto's. sorry dudes. that burrito ended like a 7 year love affair. you can take your new name and shove it up your ass with that raw chicken i spewed. i don't know what i'm going to do. i still may have to get the breakfast burrito from time to time. there isn't much chance of raw chicken in that one. still. i need to warn brimstone howl because beto's, er, rancherito's is one of the main reasons they come to town. i guess i'll have to go to the hospital for late night snacks from now on. bummer.

shameless plug for a new blog

2009-07-27T18:56:00.003-06:00

today as i was gnawing on my fingernails and chatting online with cassie s. i realized i need to make a music blog. so i did. thanks to blogger for making it easy for numbnuts like me to make as many blogs as possible:
http://compoundearwax.blogspot.com/

a few things have become apparent lately

2009-07-26T01:41:00.002-06:00

1. i still really like hot dogs
2. a lot of people have me on their google readers*
3. ned needs a bath
4. morning star garden patties left in my freezer are handy when i'm poor.
5. i'm not afraid of charity. take me out to breakfast dinner or lunch.

*dear google reader fans, please like make me aware of who you are. i was mentioning to my buddy alicia today that if i thought i had more readers i'd probably be more faithful at posting. i know you are all pretty busy and don't really look at the blog per se, but click the link (http://h-is-for-hungry.blogspot.com/) and follow the blog so i can have a better idea of how many folks are actually reading.
thanks!

woops...

2009-07-22T17:26:00.003-06:00

looks like i've forgotten about my blog again. sorry. i'm sure there;s things i've eaten that have blown me away recently, just can't remember what they are.
i do know that elsalvadorans's breakfast (served all day) kicks ass. huevos rancheros with beans, crema and plantains for like $5.50 is one of my fav breakfasts right now, tho i'm really too poor to eat out.
unless you decide you want to spend a meal with me and pay. which i doubt.

gorblivians reunion weekend in memphis and the road trip there and back

2009-06-27T14:36:00.002-06:00

so as you may or may not know, i went to memphis last weekend. it was for the oblivians and gories reunion show at the hi-tone. i really dig both bands. both bands for me are good reference points as to where someone would look as a way to get into the garage rock revival of the late 80's-90's. not to mention they're both good resources for finding out about great garage punk from the '60's. since this was a trip to memphis it was also a trip to eat. sorry, but the two (rocknroll & food) are intrinsically intertwined. dunno why, just are. so, on this trip my good buddymarni went with. she's gonna sing for me, jesse and charleys new project : neighborhood zero. we set out kinda late on june 18th because i had some setbacks with cashflow. i decided since i was going to be bombarding my body with crap for 3 days i needed to eat kinda health on the way there. so at gas stations i only ate like bananas and granola bars etc. road food and truck stop food is a killer, and it makes eating good food a little less pleasureable. i think we hit a dairy queen or two (inbetween memphis and provo there are about 45 million dairy queens.) and some other unmemorable places. it took us about 26 hours of driving to get there. i love doing this trip. any way, we got in to memphis at about 8:30 pm on the 19th, shot the bull with my greandmother for a bit, rested up for a bit, then headed out. we were half trying to get in the show for friday night (we only had tix for sat) and kinda got tired of waiting around in the heat. oh, yeah,last weekend in memphis sucked. i don't remember ever being hotter in my life. and i heard a few folks say that exact phrase. sucked. so we decided to grab some food. we hit up the lamplighter. if you've been to memphis and haven't gotten a cheeseburger there, you're probably an idiot. or an asshole. i defy anyone to find a better burger made in a bar in the mid-south. alex's tavern on may be close. they're always perfect., i've never had a bad experience eating one of miss shirleys burgers. oh, and when you go, don't swear or she'll kick you out. for drinkers, they have pabst in a can, bottle, or pitcher. your pick. oh, and don't forget fries. her fries kick ass too. while we were there we ran into a few friends form the goner-board, dutch hercules, and useless eater. we chatted them up for a while and then we all went over to murphys to see some crappy hardcore bands play. i mentioned them in my previous post (you know, the inspiration for the logo). it was only fun because the bands blew so hard and there was a bunch of idiot skinhead/ sXe wannabe shovematching going on. after that we went on home and crashed. got some good sleep and decided to get out kinda early (read: noon thirty) and we headed over to bryants breakfast. i have to admit., i was kinda let down. everyone talks up bryants. it was good, don't get me wrong. very tasty food, but you know, i have a tough time finding breakfast thats better than pete's. this is saying alot for me. i will more often than not privelege a southern resturant over most of what i find in provo. pete's is the exception. so after we were done at petes we headed over to the goner record store to see what was doing there. i only spent about $100. i'm patting myself on the back for having more restraint than normal. got some good stuff, passed on some good stuff. marni grabbed a few records too. i dunno why it is lately (the past year), but i've mostly been buying 45s. i like them. while we were at goner, i ran into joe dixon, another goner board amigo and he was saying he and his friend elspeth were thinking about going to gus's or payne's. can't remember, but the mention of food didn't sit well after just having a bunch of greasy breakfast food, so we passed, but we did head over to murphys to check out the day show that was going on. get this: $10 to see twinkle van winkle, magic kids, lover, perfect fits, and the mighty cococoma. all the bands killed it. one of the more fun shows i've been to in a while. got to see a bunch of memphis folk and out of towners as well. and once again, it was hotter than hell. we found a coupla cool spots in the bar to hang out so it wasnt too bad. we hung out a little more with joe and elspeth, billisa, scott and gina, joe and heathurr, and more folks i cant remember now. afterwards marni and i made the trek out to my dad's BBQ resturant and picked up my mom along the way. it was good, marni got the brisket and i got some ribs. i can always count on a good meal there. the ribs were way good, fell right off the bone. and as usual, the brisket was perfect. oh,. i also had a salad. i figured i needed some vegetation in my body. afterwards we headed bck to my gradnams for a bit to "unload" and grab cameras and stuff for the big event. we showed up about 10 minutes before the gories went on. so cool to see them play. i'm with a lot of folks, reunion shows are kinda dumb, but theres always exceptions. they were pretty faithful to what i've heard were gories shows. and then the oblivians, of course, brought the house down. one of the most fun bands i've ever seen play. its all about fun for those guys and everyone should take note. its my main goal anytime i play a show. make it a party for everyone. if people are bored, we quit. if they're into it, we keep playing. after the show, we were allfeeling good and danced to the dj's and got all sweaty all over again. we met back up with joe and elspeth and decided to hit up the pancake shop for a late "snack". it usually the place i like to go after a show. me and joe got bacon chip pancakes and marni and elspeth watched us. none of us were tired so we decided to find somewhere else to go hangout. so we got jack stands to take us over to alex's tavern and we ended up staying there the rest of the night. haha, when we walked out the sun was up. such a good time. we said our goodbyes because joe and elspeth were headed back to chicago and me and marni went home and crashed. this was the 20th. fathers day. so somehow we ended up hanging out at my momshouse laterin the day waiting around for a few hours for my dad to get ready to eat. we went to this crazy buffet called grand pacific. i'm pretty sure its based on the same model as the "i"buffet in provo. (coconut shrimp). i ended up eating mostly sushi. nothing else really looked that good. we then went back to the folks place and hung out with the folks, my sis her husband and her kids. we decided to get in kinda early so we could get a good start on the trip back. after a pretty good night's sleep we got up around 6:30 and were out by 7:30. not too much to talk about except we stopped at the cadillac ranch in amarillo. we ate at this one dairy queen in texas. i promise this was th wierdest dairy queen on earth. the kid running the register was half crazy and talked to himself while he took the orders. he also probably hadn't washed his hair in a good week. kinda killed my appetite. and i found a good little diner in new mexico called the kiva cafe. really good breakfast food there. it in a little town called grants. theres clouds painted on the ceiling with wolves and owls and horses and snakes painted into the clouds. pretty hilarious. there wasn't anything really notable until we went to rays tavern in green river. they got pretty good cheeseburgers there. after that we were basically home. can't wait to go back to memphis in sept for goner-fest and have more time to eat a bunch more delicious food.

a logo?

2009-06-25T12:27:00.004-06:00

so on the drive back from memphis (i promise i'll post something soon) i kinda thought up a little logo. its kinda like the old straight-edge thing, the big x with the first letter of the scene name inside the x. i got the idea after seeing this really bad band in memphis and one of the kids at the show was wearing some crappy straight-edge band shirt and on the back was a crossed monkey wrench and like a hammer or something. when i saw it, i thought to myself, woah, straight edgers are really starting to fix things. that absurd image (really, how many straight-edgers are really workers? like, worker workers? unionized pipefitters or framers or carpenters or plumbers or electricians or machinists or any other real unionized labor force. record store employees don't count) got stuck in my head and i was like, there is nothing more absurd than my blog. so i decided to exploit that old tried and true scene identifier. i feel honest about this because i work in the foodservice industry and i write a blog about eating. and just like any straight edge scene (or even productive hardcore scene) theres only about 15-20 people who are part of the h-is-for-hungry crew. in due time i'm going tmake some shirts. i'll probably make a stencil and spray paint them on white shirts, because lets be honest, they're cheap and you can see your food battle stains better. i may make some stickers to put up at the places i eat and talk about. the first one is definitely going up at pete's. the 2nd one is going up at nicolitalia. hope you like it.

a dude who can eat more and write better than any of you

2009-06-17T19:27:00.002-06:00

the inhuman eating machine

pizza overload?

2009-06-14T13:22:00.003-06:00

it didn't seem possible, but i think i overdid it yesterday. for lunch i made myself a pizza with alfredo, chicken, ham and broccoli, then later last night me and marni, jesse, charley jared, and marnis crazy ass friend went back up to nicolitalia and i got the same thing again. i also helped marni eat her cannoli. nick was experimenting with a new pizza, like a mandarin orange chicken sesame sauce pizza. he of course didn't listen to our protests that we were all pretty full so we got a free pizza that way, it was pretty tasty, but i wish i hadn't been so full. it probably would have tasted waay better. any way, i'm feeling 50 pounds heavier as a result of last night. i dunno if i want pizza again for a day or two.

i drink my smokes

2009-06-08T11:13:00.002-06:00

i've posted this everywhere else, so i may as well post it here too. so last night after a full day of watching season two of lost i decided to go grab some food, i was hoping BK was still open so i could get a whopper but they weren't so i went through wendys drive through, after the manager was kinda short with me (i realize his job blows, but who's doesn't) taking the order i got my food, held my tongue and drove home. i ate my crispy chicken sandwich and my double stack and my baked potato no problem but my drink kinda tasted funny. i chalked it up to a bad mix, it happens, but it wasn't like there was too much syrup in the coke or not enough, just a strange flavor i couldn't put my tongue on. almost minty, yet bitter. so after a bit i decided to take the lid off and i see all kinds of little black bits on the ice and on the straw and was like wtf are these coffee grounds? nooly juliette and dave moore were standing around while i did this and they all looked in too and were just as skeezed out as i was. so i shook the cup around a little to get a better view of the bottom and to my genuine surprise (shock, disbelief etc) THERE WAS A FRIGGIN CIGARETTE BUTT IN THE BOTTOM OF MY CUP. sick sick sick. i don't smoke, never have, so i feel it was a natural response to feel sick. how does this slip by? i mean he manager took my order? aren't they the folks who get hired to check over shit like that? so i called the wendys and the mangaer answered and i told him what happened, and yelled a little. he said none of his workers smoke, and they may not, but whatever, what i want to know is how someone missed an entire butt?he said he was going to buy me lunch today. i don't really know if i want to go back. i wonder if i can get him to buy me lunch somewhere else.

wondering why its been so dead at nicolitalia

2009-06-04T11:39:00.002-06:00

i don't get it. every one i talk to or run into has really good things to say about the pizza there. we just one an award for best in state. so i'm pretty sure it isn't the pizza. i wouldn't work there if it wasn't amazing pizza. so what is it? i know we aren't the best at advertising and promotion, but usually a place with food this good (elsewhere) can get by on reputation alone. i don't get it. it really bums me out to see this happen. nick is saying he may close down before the summer is out. i hope this doesn't happen, A) because i'll be out of a job, B) because utah valley will lose one of the best pizza joints around. with the exception of a place like pizzeria 712, all the other pizza joints are trash (IMO). go ahead and shout conflict of interest. doesn't bother me. i applied to get a job here because i love nick and i love his pizza. so, if anyone has any suggestions (we're pretty serious, no joking aorund) we'd love to know. nick doesn't want to go out of business. please read and repost wherever you can. one of the better businesses in utah valley could use the help.

coons on the wall

2009-05-30T01:49:00.002-06:00

so, there's yet another little burger joint on center street in provo. this one is called stumpy burger. i guess these folks hail from missouri (southerwestern) and they are raccoon themed. like, coons everywhere. there's even a real dead coon on the wall. the staff all have a coon tail on the back of their aprons. pretty funny. me and dave went the other day and tried it out. pretty damn tasty. they have fresh strawberry pie, though they had run out by the time we got there. so, logically, we went back the next day. this time with charley, and we hapened to show up at the same time as dj kidd widd and katie G. we all basically got the same thing (quarter lb chbrgr), except dave, who got the fish sliders. the only two people who would regularly buy fish sandwiches are dave and jesse rex. i don't get it. anyway, everyone agreed stumpys was a pretty damn good little spot. they got these huge fresh cut fries that have the best potato flavor i've had in a while. i dig stumpys and give it four thumbs up.
also get their strawberry pie.

demae-space

2009-05-26T19:23:00.003-06:00

i went today. i don't usually go there or any sushi place really, i usually like to go to osaka if i'm downtown to get sushi, but jared and jesse were already there so i walked over. i wasn't too hungry, so i got some philly rolls and some crispy rolls. i digg the crispy rolls the most. FRIED SUSHI. duh, its a no brainer. i may hafta go back for some more of those.

DON'T COOK CABBAGE OR IT'LL MAKE THE HOUSE STANK

2009-05-24T23:36:00.003-06:00

or so says king louie.
i'm gonna do it soon.
also, me and nooly are trying to cook at home more. last week i made some turnip greens and white northern beans and cornbread. super delicious. i'm gonna keep making more stuff like this. only problem is i gotta find a good source for greens. i found some canned stuff that wasn't too bad, but i'd rather have fresh ones. also, i gotta find a good source for ham hocks.
come on out to joey's soul food kitchen.

fancy pants pizza

2009-05-20T23:52:00.002-06:00

my and yet another new food buddy cari went up to slut lake the other day because we had the day off. she wanted to take me to this pizzeria called settebelo. i'm usually against fancy pants pizzeria places because i'm a giant fan of joe schmoe pizzerias and snotty people in nice clothes eating pizza is kind of a joke to me. however. this was really good pizza and i can completely appreciate the high end gourmand stuff. i got a pizza with prosciutto and kalmata olives and basil and a crushed tomato sauce. it didn't seem like the sauce was seasoned with anything more than a bit of salt, which may have come from the prosciutto, and the saltiness was balanced very well by the tang of the olives and the sweetness of the basil. they had a pretty tasty crust too. they use a wood fired oven there that i can also appreciate. surprisingly it wasn't too expensive, i was expecting to pay more than i did, but for what we ate it was more than reasonable. service was fine, nothing to complain or rave about. all the dudes working the oven seemed to be italians, which is a plus. i think its always a good idea to have the folks cooking be from the place where the food comes from, i.e., mexicans cooking indian food is always a bad idea. after we ate we had a bit of time to kill so we headed over to randys records for a sec, i met cari because she buys records too, so we spent about 45 mins in randys (and about 60 bux) and headed back to the brovo. was a pretty good outing.

sonic

2009-05-12T23:55:00.003-06:00

the other night after dave's hippie show at the girl house, he and me and juliette went to sonic to grab some foodz. i ain't been to sonic in a while but we were all stoked on it so we rolled up to that sonic and got some eats. me and dave got the chicken toaster thing and juliette got some breakfast whatnots with no meat. dave decided to get an order of the cheese bites. and i decidded to partake of a few of them. goodness gracious. those little fried cheesy bits of heaven were delicious. i could eat probably a gallon and a half of those. without any kind of dipping sauce. they were that good. it isn't often a fast food joint can make a lil treat like that that tastes so good. i'm gonna go again soon and get some of my own.

why i sometimes like downtown provo a lot.

2009-05-07T15:08:00.002-06:00

so last sunday i woke up around 11:00 or so and wanted to get out of the house. i couldn't decide if i wanted to eat, but i was getting stir crazy and needed to get out. i also wanted a little bit of a wake up. so i took a shower and wandered over to juice and java. on the way i saw big dane outside ABG's opening shop so i walked over to say hi, we chatted for a bit, dane's always good for a chat, and since i knew i wouldn't be at juice and java too long i offered to grab him a cup of coffee. when i got to juice and java there was a small group of folks outside and no one inside. i felt like reading and it was kinda breezy so i stayed inside. got me a lil cup and sat down to read an old slug mag. not my fav mag. they try to hard to be tough. after i finished off my cup, i grabbed anotherone for dane and walked back over to ABG's and dane was still hanging out in the shade. he thanked me for the coffee and we chatted a bit more. i decided i was hungry so i walked down to el salvadoran, which is always open sundays (i got my fingers crossed that pete will come through and start opening on sundays), to grab my usual 2 loroco pupusas and chicken tamale. when i walked in the door there were 2 customers. most of the crew were on break, but when i walked in, i got some big smiles, and a "hey amigo!". i had to chuckle. i don't know if they really were excited to see me or just bored with a slow day and excited to see anyone. either way, i got my food in record time and chatted withthe big guy who works there. the food was good as always and in the course of my meal a few more folks walked in and got about the same reception, but they weren't white folks. they were regular salvadorans. here's my point. that little diner is such a great model for how a marginal group can exist in a very entitlement oriented place like provo. i hesitate calling it a hub for salvadorans, but it does serve as a place for salvadorans to exist as salvadorans, on their terms, without any sort of pressure from outsiders to "be" salvadoran. since i'm always there, usually by myself, the staff recognize me and i get the kinds of hellos not usually reserved for white people. don't think i haven't noticed how they treat larger groups of white kids. and don't think i haven't noticed how larger groups of white kids treat them. the thing going on at the salvadoran is indicitave of the successes and the failures of downtown provo. when i can go in and (on a very tiny level) be seen by the staff as something other than a paying customer it opens an entirely new level for the possiblity of erasing some kind of boundary. those boundaries are the failures of downtown provo. and they are everywhere. simply taking interest in buying food isn't enough. the successes that happen downtown usually aren't based in economics, they are a result of people finding ways to disrupt and re-orient the things that are ideologically given. when i'm in the salvadoran on a sunday, i'm usually the only white guy, i'm the outsider, i'm marginal in that space. but not for long. people recognize people. when people recognize you they talk to you. when people talk, boundaries are blurred. when boundaries blur the world gets a tiny bit better for somebody. this may be getting more touchy feely for me, but i really love alot of the people i run into downtown. victor from rice king, usually has a wave and a hi, pete will usually stop and chat about business or the weather or whatever, dane will always stop and chat. there needs to be more of this thing going on. it bugs me how much of a huge disparity the city has created by trying to bring in big corporations downtown. those people don't communicate with the "locals". downtown doesn't need that. put that stuff somewhere else. it kills what little vibe downtown has. and you can put your money on provo choosing a big corporation over the little shops and diners that make provo charming. i'd bet my free speech provo would rather tear down all those buldings and put in a slew of chain resturants and shops. fuck that. its soulless. but its nearly inevitable with the way things have been going lately. and if/when it does happen, it will be the biggest failure of all. if anyone from provo city sees this, take note: someone is paying attention.

cheap ass pastries

2009-04-22T00:09:00.003-06:00

so, i walked over to diegos tonight to hang out with marni and kamyrn and connie and some dudes they know and got some delicious carnitas tacos and one shredded beef taco. with a mexi-coke. duh. if they sell it, i buy it. so i chomped those tacos quickly and sat around til everyone left on their bikes, and i was still hungry and i had contemplated cooking up a frozen tombstone pizza with sausage and pepperoni, (i think i'm in love. tombstone is the king of shitty frozen pizza. totino's? suck it.) but i wasn't sure i could handle a whole frozen pizza after the tacos. as i was walking back to my house i passed the lazer assault and i saw that juanitas was still open. newlin had brought some of that stuff home before and it was good, but newlin has the ability to pick out the wierdest thing on the menu. i usually work the opposite way, i'll go for the standards and see how they stack up and if i trust those i'll take a chance on the not so popular stuff. well, i walked in and the cute little latina lady (maybe this was juanita? she can be my god-grandma) smiled at me and i wanted to buy everything. yes, ok? i'm a sucker for little old ladies. i don't really know the names of the pastries i got so i'll approximate what i got to what i know:
1 wierd pineapple sundae topping turnover
1 puffy air pastry with like a apple butter creamish filling (mostly air though, but still very tasty)
1 raspberry zinger cake roll without twinkie filling.

all three were good. and i got all three for under 2 bucks. and they were all pretty good sized pastries. thank you latino for not trying to rip everyone off during these times of woe and want. i really want to go back every day and buy something different. some of it looked really sketchy, though i recognized it because it was the shit newlin had brought home before but i still may buy it because of that little old lady.
the downside is that when i got home i realized my milk was past date. can't do it. even if its a day or so.
now i'm hungry again, and i think i'm gonna bust out one of those tombstones now.

zagat?

2009-04-19T15:53:00.004-06:00

so someone posted a review for nicolitalia pizzeria on the zagat user site, and if enough people put user reviews up, zagat will send out an actual reviewer, so, if anyone likes nicolitalia to write a tiny review, go here:
http://www.zagat.com/Verticals/PropertyDetails.aspx?VID=8&R=100485970#reviews

2009-04-15T10:33:00.001-06:00

Testing? Testing? Testing? Check? I wish the bus had complementary continental breakfasts.

why the deerhunter is better than any other bar on earth

2009-04-12T13:35:00.004-06:00

first off, when broken spells and burnt reynolds play there, they let us do whatever the hell we want. which is pretty good. like last night was kind of a mess in terms of how shows are supposed to go, like our stuff kept coming unplugged. it was pretty funny, but it isn't too much fun when you're into a song and all the amps turn off. we thought like the owner would get bugged at us but he was laughing and had a blast with the other 8 people that were there. after burnt reynolds i had a chance to work some magic with duct tape and keep everything working. i found some zingers previous to the show at johnny's house and stole a box, for the express purpose of "sharing" them with the DH crowd. like most times the broken spells set devolved into me dropping my guitar and falling into the drums or the crowd, this time it was the drums. i don't know how many songs we screwed up, but it didn't matter, know why? because that shit doesn't matter. us having a good time with everyone, regardless of dropping things or stuff cutting out or screwing up songs completely, everybody was there to party, and we had a party. then, james, the owner, made us dinner. wtf? nobody has ever made our bands dinner for playing the show. he felt bad there wasn't a bigger crowd, but we didn't care, we had a good time. still it was great, he made spaghetti and garlic bread and some salads. such a cool vibe, we got a chance to BS about shows and stuff. was really a good night. i'm stoked about the folks that came out, and especially jared for helping us take gear since my van broke.

good BBQ in UT valley??

2009-04-09T20:45:00.004-06:00

remember a few weeks back when i was talking about that BBQ place up in lindon? well, i've decided to finally write about it. its called the smoking apple.
first lets start by me outlining a few things that bother me about the BBQ i've found here so far:
1. we aren't in memphis.
2. no one knows how to make a rub or a wash
3. no one know that to make brisket correctly it needs to be cured (very quickly)
4. no one knows that chopped shoulder is much better than "pulled pork"
5. no one know that to make a shoulder right it needs a good bark (like a tree, not a dog)
6. no one has figured out ho to make a decent sauce. argue all you want, i won't listen.
smoke house BBQ blows. lons blows. wanna know why? because their sauce blows. and they don't offer their sandwiches with cole slaw. both places are making MIM style BBQ but neither are making the sauce correct. it tastes either like ketchup or sugar. lame.
its different at the smoking apple. they have close to what i would consider good sauce, and mind you, memphis style vinegar based sauce isn't my fav. i'm kind of more into the southern arkansas east texas molasses/vinegar combo. and these dudes are the closest so far. when we ate there the shoulder was chopped (even though they called it pulled) but was a little dry, but it didn't bother me so much because it had a good flavor, they apparently know what a rub is, and it had what looked to be about a 1/2 inch smoke ring on the inside of the bark, which means the introduced smoke about an hour after they started cooking. to make a shoulder look that way takes a lot of practice, and these guy know what they're doing. they've only been open now for about a month and a half, but just by looking at the presentation of the meat i can tell these guys have been smoking for a while, maybe even competitively. i didn't see or smell smoke when we first walked up but the smell was strong once we got inside it was present, this also leads me to believe these guy are using pellet cookers, which is a good move since pellets are cheap and, depending on the wood type, you get a very good smoke flavor with them. the pellets themselves are basically swept up wood shaings and compressed. best recycling ever.
so. go check out smoking apple. i'd reccomend going earlier in the evening to make sure you get a fresher cut. also get their fries. those are pretty good too.

i ate a 1/2 lb burger last night

2009-04-08T19:59:00.003-06:00

and i shouldn't have. this new little diner opened on center street and i been dying to get down to it. me an bret finally went last night, or i guess yesterday evening. they close at seven, which blows. its called cape may grill. they got greasy burgers and cheesesteaks, i haven't really memprized the menu just yet, but those seem to bee the main atractions. i think i also saw a turkey melt and steak sandwich (which is totally different than a cheese steak). so, we ordered from a kid wearing a goofy hawaiian shirt that we were sure he didn't choose to wear. poor kid. oh well, i tipped him good. so yeah, this 1/2 lb burger was great. it had 2 slices of cheese a buncha bacon grilled mushroom and tomatoes letuce and onions, i opted out on the onions...and the fries, holy shit, were seasoned fries. that they make there (i think). the only problem i had with this burger (aside from being a dumbass and eating a 1/2 lb of beef) is the same problem i usually have with burgers around here. they cook the beef straight. no salt, no onion powder, no garlic, no pepper. i'm telling you, the first place that realizes its worth the extra few bucks a month to cover the price of onion powder will have the best burgers in the state. otherwise its one of the best burgers i've had in a while. its easily up there with petes and joe vera's. i've taken sammys out of the running because its a pretty bland burger. i don't know wht kind of cheese cape may uses, but its some kinda crazy american cheddar hybrid that was almost fake. i dig it. the bacon they used wasn't too thick and wasn't wimpy, wasn't over cooked. brets cheese steak was covered in what looked like cheesewiz, score for authenticity if so. it smelled really good and i wanted a bite but bret is a dick and doesn't share. i didn't even bother asking. another good thing abut cape may is they have breakfast all day. me and juliet went this morning and i grabbed a breakfast burrito, southwestern style. it was tasty. they used what seemed like pace picante as their heat source in the burrito. it also had hashbrowns in it which was good. it was cheesy and eggy and salsa-y. wasn't too bad. juliets breakfast looked good and i had a piece of her toast. i'm definitely going back. its pretty reasonably priced. its open later than pete's but not as late as betos or sammys. i talked to whoat seemed to be the owner this morning and he seemd keen on the idea of staying open later once business gets going. which is good because they're right next door to shitty limits and those drunks need a place to get a burger after drinking buckets of beer. i'm eventually going to try most of what they have on the menu but i need to space out my visits because i'm still suffering from the burger.
this place is right across from that crappy covey arts place on center street, and you can sit out on cape may's patio and make fun the shitty design while you eat one of the better burgers in provo.

burrito adventure kids

2009-04-03T14:38:00.002-06:00

last night after nobunny destroyed the compound me and bryan and cassie and bill from rocknroll adventure kids went to betos and scored some tasty burritos. hit the spot. i puked in betos grass to make room for my burrito. too much sangria. anyway, last night was one of the best nights of my life because broken spells kicked ass johnny and bret and steve and bens new band kicked ass, rocknroll adventure kids warmed everyone up nicely and kicked ass and nobunny came down from heaven and blessed us with his love. and by love i mean he kicked ass. never before has the compound rocked so hard. hopefully we can keep up the pace. get ready.

i'll be your pastor

2009-03-31T21:06:00.002-06:00

just kidding, you really don't want that, but, you should go to chungas and eat their al pastor. perfect mix of salty sweet and hot. like al pastor should be. they're on freedom blvd in brovo next to the 5 buck pizza where swagat used to be. i'm really glad swagat went out of business for two reasons.
1). they sucked at making indian food.
2). so chungas could open and make me the best al pastor i've had in a long itme.
i also got some fried bananas with sweetened condensed milk that is gonna put me in a coma here pretty soon.
newlin got something that resembled a torta but wasn't, but was really really tasty. i;'m gonna get one the next time i go in, which will be very soon.
also the folks working were nice beyond comparison. they need your business, so go give it to them. don't let another really good mom n pop place go under just because it isn't a chain.

the good thing about a sick day

2009-03-25T12:34:00.001-06:00

you can usually con someone into bringing you soup. cassie brought me some chicken/carrot/pea/dumpling/celery coup. mighty tasty. i' gonna have another bowl soon. also i got the forbidden tigers lp and demons claws first lp in the mail. ripping into that right now.

my body and its strange ways

2009-03-23T09:57:00.003-06:00

so i'm sleeping soundly and dreaming a nyquil induced bliss dream last ninght when all the sudden i look out of the window and i see a giant nuclear bomb drop and theres a huge explosion, and i think to myself, oh man, thats a really big bomb. so i try to go back to sleep, but then i see three more gigantic nuclear bombs dropping and i say to myself, hey, it might be a good idea for you to get out of bed and get the hell out of here. then i really wake up and wonder to myself why i was having dreams of a nuclear holocaust and i suddenly realize i'm about to piss all over myself.
point: i hate getting out of bed to go pee.
moral: don't force your body to scare the shit out of you with dreams of nyquil induced nuclear holocaust before you'll heed your body's natural functions. and don't drink so much water before bed.
and if there is ever a nuclear holocaust, don't take time to pack up your records. that was in my dreams too...

i don't know what it means to be hungry lately

2009-03-20T15:34:00.001-06:00

i'm copying corrine when i say this. i've been eating so much food that my body hasn't been able to keep up. i need to take a break, but it seems i've always got somewhere to go and theres usually food and i can't resist eating. last night erin and bryan and me decided on the spur of the moment to go try that BBQ place that just opened in lindon. i'm not saying anything about it just yet because i'm gonna do a formal write up on it. after that i went to the DH and there was bowls of pretzels. couldn't not eat them. then of course, i had to have betos at 2 am. this morning i went with marnie on a little walk with ned and i got some gelato (roasted almond) and then i had a slice of pizza that dave left from little caesars. this has all been within less than 24 hours. the hell.

preventative maintenance

2009-03-16T15:09:00.001-06:00

wanna avoid a hangover? eat a betos steak and potatoes and eggs breakfast burrito at 2:00 am.

pokizza

2009-03-13T14:43:00.003-06:00

so last night, me, jut, johnny k, and sev had a poker nite with a $5 buy in. ton of fun. we got some pizzas from nicolitalia. i got tired after about 45 hands and went all in with a pair of 3's on texas hold 'em. totally lost my $5. i ended up staying up til about 2:30. i should be tired, but i'm not. wierd.

osaka nosucky

2009-03-11T16:49:00.004-06:00

so me and grabs and cassie s went to osaka last night after watching inauguration of the pleasure dome and simon of the desert at beat nite, both films together kicked more ass than i've seen and thought about in a while. grabz and me debated the necessity of rhetoric and hated on lame ass "philosophers" we don't like. cassie shook her head at us most of the time. so, i got some sort of fried pork and curry dish that ruled. the curry warn't too hot and it had some sweetness in it. i totally dug it. their miso salad was tasty too. i kinda like that place because its dark and was mostly empty aside from two dudes who were wanking on all the pop culture/avant-garde words they knew. that was pretty annoying. all their dilemmas and questions were answered by benjamin years ago. why can't anyone read around here?

ho-made bread

2009-03-10T10:33:00.002-06:00

c. made some bread yesterday and left a loaf in the van. i swiped it and made a sandwich at midnight. peppered turkey and corned beef and provolone with grey poupon. i polished it off with a few episodes of battlestar galactica. good midnight snack.

i changed the name of my band

2009-03-08T16:05:00.002-06:00

we used to be called split reactions. now we're called The broken spells. i did this while eating some delicious tamales and pupusas from the salvadoran. we had some big lineup changes and are sounding a lil different lately. we thought it made sense. we'll put up some new songs soon.

the hot dog king is a queen

2009-03-08T01:08:00.002-07:00

i'm sorry, i can't get behind that place anymore. like the food is ok but way overpriced and you gotta wait over 10 minutes for a damn hot dog. like i dig local businesses, but give me a break. i went tonight for brittni b's b-day party and it was cool to kick it with peeps i know. too bad that guy can't have better service. if the food was super good i wouldn't mind the wait or the price, but it isn't. sadly, ikea and 7-11 still get my hot-dog business.

village-in

2009-03-06T10:33:00.003-07:00

kinda like a sit in, but at village inn. we held court last night after the burnt reynolds show at kilby. kind of a wierd show, burnt went on first, and i think our brand of dip-shit-core was confusing to all the xpunkHCpunkx that were there for the other bands. we did win a few heads tho, couple of folks took tapes and dropped them in the parking lot. so after the show we tried to find dee's, but google kept failing and we settled for villiage inn. someone spotted a new menu item called the chicken and biscuit. i had to try it. because it came with gravy. so we all got our food and when mine came i was sure how i was supposed to eat it. it was like 2 lil chicken sandwiches on biscuits and a bowl of gravy. do i dip the sandwiches in gravy? i mean i like the idea of gravy as a dipping sauce but it was wierd tasting, so i gave up and dumped the gravy on the biscuits. it was marginally better. i kept trying to drink enough water to keep up with how dry the chicken was too. the plastic carafe gave out after about 5 minutes so i started drinking other people's water. i don't think i've ever had chicken that dry. or biscuits that hard. and gravy that flavorless. jesse's french toast looked good though.

lasagna of the masters

2009-03-04T17:08:00.002-07:00

had this last night. no idea if it exists outside of cassie. pretty friggin good lasagna. totally veggie too.

wendell berry

2009-03-02T15:59:00.002-07:00

is doing a reading this thrusday in salt lake at the masonic temple. dude loves to talk about food. he's got a reception at ken sanders from like 5-6 as well. if you dig food and are in salt lake that night go check him out.

burger shots

2009-03-02T00:10:00.004-07:00

so apparently the fine folks at burger king think we're all dummies. THE BURGER SHOTS ARE NOTHING NEW. when i was in 7th grade they were called burger buddies. you had to tear them apart so it was kinda like how cinnamon rolls were, you know, you pull them apart, or like jut's monkey bread, they're connected so you pull them apart. i haven't had the burger shots yet so i don't know if they are the same, but the old burger buddies you had to pull them apart. if they aren't in the pull apart style i guess its fine if they call is something else, but if you do have to pull them apart, then THEY NEED TO BE CALLED BURGER BUDDIES. please burger king, don't be stupid. because we, your loyal customers, are not.

i'm a proud glutton

2009-02-23T10:03:00.002-07:00

though not an epicurian one. yesterday i think i had about 10 slices of pizza. six at erins house that abi made and then like 4 at home that dave made. well, dave didn't make them, the red baron made them. we ate the shit out of them though. abis pizza's were all homeade, crust etc. first one had pear and gorgonzola, muy tasty. had about 2 slices of that, the next had a bunch of like broccoli and onions and green peppers, the next has spinach and lil grape tomatoes and stuff and the last had atrichike haerts and peppers and onions and shrooms. come to think of it , i need to up the count. i probably ate 10 slices just at abis and annother 6 or 7 at home. so probably had 16-17 slices of pizza yesterday. this is good because its supposed to get cold and i need a better layer of blubber. after we ate pizza at erin and abi's we watched the oscars. there isn't much to talk about. fancy people trying to be funny. sadly enough jack black was the funniest person on the show last night. i know, right? he really isn't that funny! will smith made a joke about av nerds and then called benjamin button a garden gnome. wolverine and etta james really screwed up a musical number and the sound guy for the whole show should be fired. and the saddest part was for half the show we watched it in non HD and it ruled because all the women were curvy and had had nice nornal wide hips. i was so excited and started having some faith in hollywood. then someone remembered we could watch it in HD. lame, all the women went back to being bony and skinny. i'd rather have non HD curves.

pizza diet

2009-02-20T16:34:00.000-07:00

kinda back on it. 3 times this week so far. no signs of slowing.

salmon wednesdays

2009-02-13T16:18:00.002-07:00

so ryan cason gets this deal on salmon somewhere up in alpine. he brings it, i cook it, everyone eats it. the salmon club has begun. wednesday nights. if you wanna come bring some extra food. get in touch if you wanna know what to bring. i'm gonna try to change up the way i cook it every week. i think this coming wednesday its going to be indian. (dot not feather)

jambalaya

2009-02-08T16:37:00.001-07:00

about 20 feet to my left is a pot of jambalaya of my own make. i haven't made it in a while. i think its about time. and i made it with shrimp this time, because, certain whiny people wouldn't eat shrimp when i used to make it. those people can kiss my ass now.

travelling chef

2009-02-06T15:53:00.002-07:00

from time to time i turn my house into a makeshift venue. we host bands of all sorts from all different places. it gives me an excuse to have a band and it gives other local bands a place to play in an unpretentious forum. a few days ago some dudes from omaha nebraska rolled through town on their way to california. they're called the box elders. this is the second tme they've played at my house. they came back because apparently they had a good time. the night of the show we all went out for pizza at nicolitalia, which is always a treat for any band. nick loves travelling bands and hams it up a little more than usual. we got some pizza and wings and breadsticks and salad and pasta. everyone loves nicks. so we get back and everyone is happy and full and we get everything set up for the show. from start to finish the show was a blast. all good vibes and everyone had a party. and those who wanted to party harder did. and it ruled. after the show we had a low scale dance party and everyone hung out all night. the next day the dudes kicked it at the compund resting up from the show and long drive from NEB and gettng ready to head out to sacramento. i called them around 3:00 that next day to see if they had left, but to my surprise they'd decided to hang around one more night. it was cool with me so i was like, yo dudes, lets make dinner, and i started thinking of things i could make that the box elders would dig. so i got home and dave, the drummer/keyboardist was, like , hey , i'm making dinner for everyone. wordz. so we hit up many lands market and got fixins for pad thai. and the box elders got to talk to the crazy man who runs the place. i love that guy. he's so wierd. he was complaining about james taylor, wondering why he kept being a singer since he was so horrible. we then went to smiths to get the veggies etc we needed. after we got back dave goldberg got to work on some appetizers: spring rolls. delicious. everyone dug on them. even ned. then he went to work on the pad thai. my house hasn't smelled that good in a while. and it tasted just as good as it smelled. everyone got enough and we all set up to chill the rest of the night. the dudes left this morning and i can't wait to kick it with them again soon. best dudes ever.

taking back the kitchen

2009-02-03T11:21:00.002-07:00

so i got this little roomate kid who is always making food. he doesn't know how to cook, always making like ramen and soup and stuff you only make when you can't figure out how to put a few things together in a pot or skillet and make it taste good with your favorite spices and seasonings. one of his favorite things to make is eggs. apparently no one has ever told him about what happens when a raw egg hits hot metal. to be able to eat most of the egg when its cooked requires some sort of lubricant, which he never found out about. so, we usually end up with about 5 or 6 skillets with a few eggs worth of crusty leftover egg. i don't know if he keeps cooking new eggs over the old eggs or what, but me and dave got tired of it. so, we cleaned the kitchen and washed dishes, in the past we didn't care, but after a while we kinda gave up because his dirty dishes were so overwhelming, but now we're taking the kitchen back with a vengeance. if he leaves dirty egg crust in any more skillets, hes sleeping with them. hopefully he'll get the message. for his sake. so as part of our reclamation project, i decided to start cooking again.
sunday i decided i wantd to break out the old crock pot and make apot roast, which i did. but as i was buying the stuff for the roast i realized my crock pot wasn't big enough so i upgraded. now i gots two crock pots. dual crocking. i found a pretty good marbly roast on sale and got some red potatoes because russets are flavorless and bland. i also threw in an onion and some carrots. i was gonna use celery too but smiths decided not to have any, so celery flakes were used instead. also included were some of my staples:
red wine vinegar, fresh garlic, granulated garlic, onion powder, bay leaves, greek seasoning, and rosemary in varying porportions.
it was super tasty. i ate it with dave and jesse and charley and bryan and jen and cath. fun time.
i decided i was on a roll and i that i needed to cook again, and for anyone who doesn't know, the only question i have about food is this:
DOES IT TASTE GOOD?
i could really care less where it came or who made it or what, none of that matters. if it doesn't taste good i don't wanna eat it.
so, my buddy ryan was telling me he had gotten a hold of some fresh salmon and wanted to cook it up, and we planned to meet on monday and cook that shit up. which we did. and guess what, it tasted good. marni came over too and ate some with us. on the salmon, i grilled it in my kick-ass cast iron skillett (which i had to re-season because some dumbass don't know how to use a cast iron skillett).
most people really like salmon with lemons, but guess what, lemons on salmon suck. i use lime. lime on salmon is good because it doesn't have the shitty lemon aftertaste and it still kills the fishy taste that seems to turn most people off to salmon. so i start by taking a fork to the salmon fillets (no steaks, the steaks usually got bones in 'em and i don't do fishbones) and poking a ton of holes in it then squeezing the lime in and rubbing the juice and pulp down into the meat fibers, then i seal it off with some olive oil (which blends pretty well with the lime juice). after that i hit it with my favorite spice blends, usually some basil and greek seasoning (its my seasonall) and black pepper garlic and onion powder. i pretty much use the same compliment on every thing i eat. but guess what? it all tastes good. so by this time my cast iron skillet was piping hot and it was oiled nicely and i put the salmon scale side down, get the nice salmon fat hot and let it hang out for a bit then flip it. after i flip it i get the butter i'm gonna put on it all melted. once i flip it, the seasonings are nice and crusted and then i brush butter over the top and let the butter hang out with the crustieez and the lime and olive oil. by this time the fillets is pretty much done. if you over cook salmon it gets mushy and no one likes a mushy salmon fillet. when you eat this salmon you can pull the fibers apart layer by layer and while the outside is grilled and buttery, the inside is steamed with lime. so tasty.
i even tried some of the scale. it was pretty good too.
so later on monday night i was getting hungry again, and dave was around, so we decided to hit up smiths and find some snacks. we decided that for our late night snack we needed some bacon cheeseburgers. so we got some black angus patties and some pepper bacon, cheddar and a tomato and i bought some sweet bread and butter pickles. dave thinks he knows whats up, but he don't like sweet bread and butter pickles. sucker. so we busted the cast iron skillet back out and whipped them cheeseburgers up. talk about a winner. hit the damn spot y'all.
i guess what i'm trying to say is that i'm gonna be cooking all the time and if you suckers want some of it get your ass to my house and eat up.

dear burger king

2009-01-29T18:53:00.002-07:00

tonight i had to stop by and say hi, and i'm glad i did because i love you. alotta folks call you murder king. well, if murder is what it takes to keep the flames broiling, then murder away. you slay my taste buds every time. one thing though, on my double whopper with cheese/no onions, the lettuce javier used tonight tasted like shit. please wash it better.
all my love,
joey

hmm

2009-01-28T14:55:00.002-07:00

i haven't posted in a while, because i haven't been eating any food thats been too exciting because i was sick. like, here and there i had things that were ok, but nothing i'd care to write about. hopefully in the coming days i'll be back to my normal eating habits. i'm still kinda off. i will be back on soon.

gandolfos is on a slippery slope

2009-01-19T13:44:00.002-07:00

the one downtown in the basement, i mean. i got a meatball sub and the last few bites are looking up at me sadly because they know i'm not gonna eat them. lame. when did gandolfos start sucking? i swear i was there about a month ago and everything was fine. maybe its just that i shouldn't get the meatball sub any longer. dave got the bridgehampton and he said his wasn' that good either. maybe it was the kids working that just can't make sandwiches. i dunno. i'm kinda bummed and i don't want to go there for a while.

for what its worth

2009-01-16T12:26:00.002-07:00

i haven't followed the israel/ palestine thing very closely, but, i agree with old man jut: if jesus were to come back today he'd probably save the palestinians. and they'd all sit down and have a pork chop together.

the seemingly eternal fight

2009-01-15T16:24:00.003-07:00

i feel like i'm losing the battle to this cold. after a few advil cold/sinus pills i feel a little better, but my throat still feels dry and i know in a few hours my face is gonna feel all puffy. i imagine myself with enlarged nostrils and bloated cheeks (not unlike a butt) and i can't breathe right. i decided a soupish liquidy diet is probably best for me right now. so all i've been eating the past coupla days, well i guess lunch yesterday doesn't count, but after lunch yesterday all i've been eating is ramen and soup and drinking naked juice and lots of water. ok i lied. i had some more of daves crumb top coffee cake and a glass of milk. i can't resist it. when i get better i'm probably going to subsist on crumb top coffee cake. i don't know why i love it so much, but i do. basically anything crumb top i love. i had some "homestyle" chicken noodle soup for lunch today. i don't know whose home this was developed in but the developer sucks. and the soup sucked. way too salty. and not enough chucken and noodles and vegetables. i decided the soups at school are hit and miss, some days they're amazing and its all i wanna eat, then days like today i want to dump it out all over the floor and piss in the pot i just emptied. please can we find a happy medium? i doubt the health department wants UVU to serve my urine in place of soup. i mean my urine is fine and since i've been drinking so much water and juice its basically water. we could call it hot sausage water.

the best ways to avoid getting a cold

2009-01-12T21:40:00.002-07:00

1st, don't let your sick room mate snag a bite of your pizza and leave his infested mouth juice on your slice.
2nd, hole up in a warm room.
3rd, fuck winter.
i'm not sure how me consummating my hate of winter with an act of love is going to do anything, but i'll try if i have to.
today i tried a few things that i hope will alleviate this lame cold i got.
1st, i sucked on a cepacol on the bus on the way to school
2nd, i spit the cepacol out as soon as i was at school because it tasted like shit.
3rd, ate a hearty meal of meatloaf, veg-all and mashed potatoes, washed down with a naked juice intended for well being.
4th, snagged a few ibuprofen and alleve from errin.
5th, drank a latte with vanilla with meg at the museum
6th, had half a steak pizziola and some hot wings from nicolitalia.
7th, stole one of daves airborne tablets.
in a while, after some of this pizza digests, i/m gonna take a few night time cold gelcaps.
if i wake up tomorrow still feeling like crap i'm gonna cry.

CONGRESSMAN CHAFFETZ, what the fuck?!

2009-01-09T00:20:00.002-07:00

as i was walking through the doors to brets house i could hear the colbert report from hiro's laptop. there was a clips playing from the show with our "tolerantly challenged" congressman chaffetz. guess what, i'm not a fan of concentration camps. and guess what, neither are any marginal group. guess what else? nazi's did this. and guess what else? its ethically and morally wrong, even to suggest such an ignoble thing. to suggest its good policy to round up humans as if some arbitrary boundary between races and borders actually exists is to buy your own rose smelling shit. i have no idea what i'm saying because i'm so pissed. i'm constantly appalled by the intolerant attitudes people have in this state towards the ethnically marginal. especially this state. most of the ancestors of the people here were hounded all over the country for years until they decided to move to the desert so no one could chase them. what a bunch of hypocritical clods. not to mention the fact thatmost of the poeple here believe we're all children of god, and we need to love each other, but seemingly its conditioned upon everyone cordoning off their own little section and keeping everyon else who doesn't look the same out. i realize this is very sophmoric and a little juvenalian but i'm more concerned with making a lot of noise with the hopes someone will get annoyed and tell me to shut up. i keep thinking somone around here willbe ignorant enough to prove my point. i mean, lets be honest. i went on an LDS mission to Utah and when people found out i was from the south invariably the topic of racism would come up and everyone assured me they weren't racist. fat lie that is. i've met some of the most blatantly racist people i've ever met here. sorry, a few bigots ruin it for everyone. i can't trust Utahns to not eventually come out as racists. this whole immigration issue is bullshit to begin with. the rhetoric about jobs and the economy and how undocumented workers are making these huge impacts on the economy here negatively is another pile. THE ECONOMY HERE IS BASED ON UNDOCUMENTED LABOR. if the latinos left do you really think the kids here and the other unskilled laborers (and there are tons, i've had to work with a few of them. no skills at all) would be able to pick up the slack? hell no. i've never encountered a more inept workforce. the latino community is THE vital force in the economic base in utah. i'm sure its the same in most other western states. and what have we decided to do? a fucking witch hunt! then we put them in concentration camps. word to the wise: if you're brown, leave town. i doubt the fine congressman and his deputies can discern the difference between a salvadoran, guatemalan, peruvian, brazillian, columbian, andean, mexican, venezuelan or any other central or South american. and i'm willing to bet even if you have a visa or a work permit theres gonna be alot of revocation and hold-ups if this bullshit actually happens.
these were my thoughts as i was leaving brets house. i grabbed a handful of cashews on my way out.

cold.

2009-01-07T19:06:00.001-07:00

i don't have one, but the outside does. i've been making hot chocolate alot the past day or two and i've found i like it more if i swipe some of daves creme de menthe and put a few drops. never thought i'd be a monty hot chocolate guy. its also cinnamon flavored hot chocolate. i had some peanut butter flavored hot chocolate not too long ago and it was killer.

the international and a BLT

2009-01-04T10:30:00.003-07:00

so i've been bugging nick for months to make a BLT pizza but nick never has time for my zany ideas. yesterday i took the law into my ownhands and tried it out for myself. the dilemma i was facing was how the hell do you cook lettuce on a pizza without it gettin all nasty. well folks, i think spinach is an excellent substitute for lettuce. and instead of mayo, i used nicks house dressing. and instead of a pizza i made a calzone. so:
8" dough
3 ounces of mozzarella
handful of bacon
tomatoes
2 ounces of nicolitalia house dressing
hand full of spinach
nicks spice blend and some parmesean cheese

i folded it and threw it in the oven.
best calzone i've had in a while.
the bacon and the dressing mix well and the spinach and tomatoes are good together.
it couldn't fail. nick wouldn't try it because the dressing has mayo and he woun't touch mayo.
if he ever puts it on the menu, you can thank me.
now, secondly, i went to the international buffet with a whole bunch of folks last night; erin flynn, kiren, jesus, bret, phil, greg, abby, brooklyn and some girl named stouf. you walk in that place and it kinda smells wierd, don't let the smell fool you cuz the foods is really good. mostly asian, ther were some other "international" delights such as pizza and cheesy broccoli. the biggest surprise was the coconut shrimp. actually its a toss up between that and the steamed dumplings. i'm definitely going again because i hear the choices change all the time. and they have a $6.99 lunch buffet. lets just say i'll be frequenting the international buffet. come say hello from time to time.

starting the new year off right

2009-01-01T12:51:00.003-07:00

so last night burnt reynolds and his hot bones played a show in salt lake. in the days previous to the show i've eaten:
indian food
salad
gumbo
chocolate covered strawberries
alot of pizza
more pizza
and right before the show we all went to este pizza in salt lake, the new version, and dave benson and i shared a vegan meatball pizza, and everyone else got alot of other stuff. i was quite impressed with este's abilities in veganizing one of my favorite foods. after abot 4 slices, ie my half, i got taken by the dump spirit and unleashed a furious demon upon the world. the demon kept haunting me the rest of the night. i'm not sure exactly what created this demon, it could have been anything in the list above. it didn't help that the basement we played in smelled like stale puke, or that there were tons of fake hippies everywhere. it did help, however, that there was a ginat hole in the floor of the basement where we played.
lets think about this:

new years eve+stoned/drunk hippies+rock and roll+big hole in the middle of the floor= party for the sober kids.

i'm pretty sure theres a few peeps out there waking up this morning wondering how the hell their shins and knees got all bruised up.
it didn't help that the last band, the furs, had a fog machine. actually, it helped me laugh a lot.
happy new year to all those folks with bruised shins and knees.

merry christmas.

2008-12-25T14:19:00.003-07:00

while most of you assholes were sitting around being harassed or otherwise hassled by your family at a less than exciting christmas meal, i went to pete's this morning for breakfast. julie, who is usually working asked me if i wanted my regular table and after i sat she asked if i wanted my regular chicken fried steak with white gravy, over medium egg, hasbrowns, and whole wheat toast. to which i replied yes. to say pete was in rare form is to be redundant. i don't think i've ever had a breakfast from him that wasn't perfect. knowing this somehow made breakfast taste better on christmas day. best present i've gotten in years.
this also marks the 100th post on h-is-for-hungry. i found it fitting to talk about my favorite diner in provo, maybe anywhere. i hear alot of people go on about how they like to support local this and that (especially new hipster driven cafes), but somehow they've never ventured far enough out of their social scene to actually find local food. i think pete has had his place running for about 15-20 years? i could be wrong, but i don't care. the point is, all you idiots talking about how much you love to support local shit need to support pete. he's been around longer, his food is better, and he's nicer than any fucker trying to be cool ripping off wes anderson.
anyone who reads this with any sort of frequency, thanks. i'm not making money off this, just having a good time.
hope you come get food with me every now and again.

The Whopper...jr

2008-12-23T11:35:00.003-07:00

so me and gheybin and dave benson went to burger king last night around 11 or so after it took me like 4 years to get my van out of the snow. i actually tried to drive it up that stupid hill by the temple and kept spinning out about 15 feet from the top. i had some sympathetic souls help me push etc. any way after hanging out at gheybins for a while everyone got hungry, so we went to BK and i got 2 whopper jr's a spicy chick sammich and some fries. everyone else got the garden burgers. we went to my house and then ate. i realized one thing as i ate my whopper jr's. i really like whoppers. like, i remember loving them as a kid, and now i still love them. and burger king has done a pretty damn good job keeping the flavor the same. i'm not sure if the distinct whopper flavor is in the pickle juice (which i suspect it is) or if they've some how chemically engineered that flavor. i don't care. i love it.
i'm gonna have a whopper and chocolate pudding party soon. get ready.

white elephant madness

2008-12-22T02:55:00.003-07:00

so iwent out to bree's house tonight, all the way out in cedar fort utah. its on the way tooele. i rode with jesse charley and madalyn, jesses lil sis. we were going for a christmas party and we all had white elephant gifts in tow. i got a #10 can of chocolate pudding. anyone want some chocolate pudding?

chinese style spicy sausage pt. 2

2008-12-12T15:54:00.000-07:00

holds up just as well with "spanish rice"

chinese style spicy sausage

2008-12-11T20:00:00.002-07:00

remember how i said johnny gave me some of this for my birthday? well i finally busted some of it out today. i was making some pre packaged dirty rice crap and i i couldn't live with myself if i didn't have some form of sausage or other processed meat product in it so i decided, what the hey, i'll put some in. i've never had this chinese stuff before so i had no idea what i was getting myself into. best decision i've made all week. i fully endorse putting chinese style spicy sausage in crappy dirty rice mix.

possible dream job?

2008-12-10T16:02:00.000-07:00

i'm very tempted to submit a resume for this position