that ring of confidence

The 'Ham'burger at Fiamma Burger

While on our honeymoon in New York Lydia and I fell in love with The Shake Shack and their Shake Stack burger. Sadly New York is on the other coast and it's going to be awhile until we get back. Thankfully the second best hamburger joint that I've ever been to is just across the border in Bellingham WA.

Along with Lydia's former roommate we went to Fiamma Burger last weekend where I had their special 'Ham'burger. I'll admit I'm a sucker for a burger with an egg on it, and so adding egg, ham and fried potato shavings to one of their great burgers was the perfect way for Fiamma to win back my heart and stomach.

I'm so glad I don't live in Bellingham otherwise I'd be far fatter than I am.

Cooking apple stuffed pork chops

Lydia is fond of the show Chef at Home.

It's a show on Food Network Canada about a chef named Michael Smith who cooks a meal at home for his family.  While getting ready to run some errands yesterday I was watching the show and he was making pork chops stuffed with apples, bread and sausage.  It looked very good and actually almost manageable, though we didn't stick around for the entire show so I never got to see how it turned out.

It turns out that watching the full episode of a cooking show is kind of important if you try to go out and without doing any research make yourself the same thing that the television chef was making.  For starters I did not realize that the pork chops would end up topped with an apple/mustard pan sauce and since I had no intention of ever making the meal I did not remember that apple juice was required.  I did remember that the recipe called for onions, but since the onion was invented and breed by Josef Mengele [wp] I wisely decided that I did not need that Nazi vegetable anywhere my meal.

The real proper recipe can be found on Chef Michael Smith's website [cms].

But who cares what a proper chef might do?

You're much better off listening to the advice of someone who watched half an episode on the making of apple stuffed pork chops and then went off on his own with his wealth of experience making Kraft Dinner and pouring milk on breakfast cereals.

I began by browning the sausages in a pan, and then once I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to get any diseases from them being uncooked I added in the apples.

After cooking the mixture until the apples were mushy I added four slices of toast that I had cut up into small bits and then cooked all of that until the bread had absorbed all the water and moisture from the pan.  Prior to this I was supposed to add apple juice but my fridge is currently stocked with about 173 litres of orange juice so we have no apple juice.  I was also supposed to add onions to this mixture but again... Nazis.

Once the bread had done its job and absorbed everything it was time to cut a pocket into the side of the pork chops.  This pocket was where I was now going to stuff the mixture of apples, sausages and bread.  It turns out that I had way more stuffing than I could fit inside the two pork chops that I had bought, so unless you're particularly adept at stuffing things into meat then I'd maybe cut back the amount of stuffing.

This is as far as I watched in the episode so at this point I had to refer to the website to see what to do next since I've never cooked pork chops.  Following the directions I pan seared them on each side for three minutes, added salt and pepper and then left them to cook in a pan on low heat with the lid on for another five minutes.

Now it's true that Lydia would totally tell me I made something good, just to avoid hurting my feelings.  She hates it when I weep especially in front of the cats.  So her judgment is certainly not to be trusted.  I mean she clearly loves me, a fact I discovered when I saw our wedding photos and realized that I looked a lot like a man trying to smuggle a family of Berliners through Checkpoint Charlie by hiding them in my suit.

"No, no kind East German security man, there's nothing odd about me, I'm just ginormous."

Which probably has something to do with eating things like this.

As Tracy Jordan says, "Meat is the new bread."

Zipang Sushi is your new master

I was blogging about wanting sushi the other day [jks], so Lydia and I went out for sushi.  We wanted to try a place on Cambie she had heard about, but it was closed for the evening by the time we arrived.  So we hit Main Street and went to Zipang Sushi [dh].

It was pretty damn awesome.  I'm planning on doing a full review on Metroblogging Vancouver [mbv], so check there in the next day or two for my full thoughts.  The quick review is that I might have just found a new favorite sushi place in Vancouver.

Having a sushi craving

The last few days I've really been craving some sushi. There's always Toshi's at 16th and Main Street, but I need to find some superior sushi downtown Vancouver. Any suggestions?

Oh Ketchup Chip, we stand on guard for thee

Americans don't just want to invade Canada for our water and our Paul Gross, nay they also want our Ketchup flavoured potato chips.

The idea that Canada has a fattening, unhealthy bit of food that has yet to make it big south of the boarder seems kind of counter-intuitive.  These people, Americans, will deep fry something then smother it in gravy and cheese and then top that off with more deep fried things just to sell it as a value meal. 

So a few years ago when I discovered that save for a few regional or specialty companies Americans do not have ketchup chips, I was shocked.  Well "shocked" might be too strong a word for it, more accurately I was mildly surprised.

Having grown up in a world with ketchup chips, it's natural to think of the combination as the most obvious flavour for chips there is.  BBQ?  Phshaw, who barbaques their french fries, and aren't potato chips just another form of the fish's favourite friend the french fry?  Potato chips are like the television to the french fry's movie, they're not quite the same thing but things do transfer between them well like the acting skills of Alec Baldwin or the taste sensation of ketchup.

And while American chip companies have yet to catch on and start marketing the ketchup flavour south of the Canadian - American Border, some enterprising Canucks are.  There are a few online services like Canada Only [co] that sell Canadian products to Americans.  Whether it's our teas or our chips and hams they'll send Canadian goods down to Yanks in need.  In need and with a credit card.

 

Photo: Selva Morales on Flickr.

Gingerbread houses at the Hyatt

 

The other day we went to see the gingerbread houses at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Vancouver [tet].  This particular "house", a eatable map of Canada, was made by the Vancovuer Community College Baking & Pastry Arts Department.  That's Lydia's department, and a few of her friends worked on it.

Sometimes it hurts my tongue

Your favorite blogger in Chewing Gum Shock Horror Disaster!

Altoids are something that I've been using for quite sometime now. I tend to keep a tin of the mints in my car, and they're good as an after-meal breath freshener.

A few months ago when we were down at a Trader Joe's in the US, I picked up this Altoid's gum. It's a cinnamon flavour similiar to the candy hearts that you get around Valentine's Day, except in gum form. It's quite good, and since when I have gum in my pocket I tend to chew it all day, I was getting quite a bit of use from it.

Where the trouble came is that the very strong cinnamon flavour ended up making my tongue all raw, seemingly wearing through a few layers of skin. I put the gum aside, hoping that my tongue would heal, but after about half a week it's still raw and I think I've killed off a good number of my tastebuds.

The one where I whine about not being able to hold my liquor

back in the days of my youth, before I was fast approaching 30 and when I could hold my liquor, I rarely if ever drank.  Well I rarely if ever drink now, but I'm more likely to have a social beer with dinner if I'm out with friends.  Those halcyon days saw me be able to drink pretty much anything and awake the next day feeling brand new, no matter how much I'd drank the night before.  These days that's not the case. 

A few weeks ago I stopped in at White Spot on my way home from work because the sky had opened up and unleashed a downpouring of rain upon me.  Unprepared for the rain I was in danger of not only soaking myself but the unprotected iPhone in my pocket.  Already looking like I had been picked up by my feet and dipped head first into a swimming pool up to my waist, I ducked into White Spot dripping wet.  Ordering a burger and a beer I waited out the storm.  The next day though that one beer had kicked my ass something terrible.  Even though I'd only had one beer, and had eaten food at the same time, I felt as if I was coming down from a three week bender.

Last night Nathan and I went to the Library Square Pub for drinks.  I hadn't eaten so I had food and a single bottle of Stella Artois [wp], and Nathan just nursed a beer.  After that we went home and watched Iron Man [jks] and played Rock Band 2 until one in the morning. 

Today I feel like someone hit me in the head with a shovel.

As we prepare for Las Vegas

there are only two more sleeps until I go to Las Vegas. If you do the math right, and don't count afternoon naps and the times I fall asleep watching the evening news, that means that I'll be on a plane and leaving Canada for the City of Sin and Celebrity Chefs on Thursday. Though Lydia [iatl] is going for the shopping and a meal at Bouchon Bistro [bb], I'm excited to go to the new Star Trek Experience. (I'd link to its webpage but apparently it's down which does not bode well for getting to have a drink in Quark's bar).

I've got a little money, but I doubt I'll be doing much gambling. The fact is the house always wins eventually and I'm not blessed with enough luck to make up for the fact that I can't be arsed gaining the needed skills. I might play some Blackjack since that's about the only card game that I feel like I've got enough knowledge of to make a game of it. Poker I can play on my iPhone that's about it. I don't understand most of the other games, and as far as I can tell there's no money and no fun to be had from playing the slots.

Apart from Lydia I'm going with the rest of my immediate family. My parents are heading to see Jay Leno, because apparently his nightly appearances on television have not been enough to convince them that the man is painfully unfunny, and Neal and his girlfriend MC are also coming. I don't think they're going to see Leno, so maybe they'll nerd it up with me at Star Trek.

Or maybe not.

One night we're also going to go see the Cirque Du Soleil show Love, which is the one that uses all the Beatles music. I'd been to one of their shows in Vancouver back in 2006 [mbv], and it was pretty impressive. I think the addition of the Beatles music will make it a bit more enjoyable for me. I mean I liked the last one I saw, but I didn't love it.

I'm not quite sure what the blogging situation will be while I'm gone. I've got to find out if the hotel we're staying at has Wi-Fi and depending on that I may or may not bring my Macbook. I will bring my iPhone, but I really don't like blogging on it, especially given that the fancy drop caps that I've been starting every post with is a bit of an HTML workout and with no copy-and-paste on the iPhone I'd have to remember all of it which clearly is not going to happen. If I don't blog before I go, and I don't bring my laptop, I'll do a summary post for the trip when I get back.

Another apology

i t feels like every post I make these days is a post asking for forgiveness after another long period of this blog laying fallow. Each and every entry seems like it's asking for forgiveness for the length of time since I've last blogged and promising to be more attentive to you, my dear readers.  Does it feel that way to you?

Again I've been writing for The Georgia Straight [tgs] and though I haven't been working as much this past week I've been travelling with Lydia.  We took a long weekend and went to Vancouver Island to visit Tofino and Victoria.  Lydia blogged about eating on the island [iatl] and I guess I don't have a whole lot to say beyond that, so I'll leave you with the link. 

One of the things we did do in Victoria was look at venues for the wedding.  We checked a few places, mostly heritage homes and none of them seemed to work for us.  They were either not the right type of place, required us to use their expensive in-house caterers or had the overall feel of a bingo hall.  After already mostly eliminating Kelowna from our list of cities to get married in, it seemed like we were crossing Victoria off the list as well.

I don't know how it came up, but talk turned to the Heritage Hall on Main Street in Vancouver [hh], and since I had been to Curtis's wedding there I sent him an email asking for a rough estimate on how much he paid.  His reply was surprisingly inexpensive and so we booked a viewing for Wednesday and after looking at it and talking to the woman in charge of rentals we've booked the hall for August 9th 2009.

Which is a huge relief, since now that we've got a date and location everything else can slot into that.  I guess the last really big thing is the caterers, and once that's sorted we're just having to deal with a few minor details like the flower arrangements for the tables and whether or not we're going to ask people to sit through speeches or a slide-show or possibly both.  Lydia's for neither and I'm for both.  I figure if we're feeding people the least they could do is pretend to care about us for half an hour, even if they'd rather be watching a rerun of The Office.

The best merch ever

Radiohead Merch
Originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson

i am a sucker for a good bit of concert merchandise.  Give me a t-shirt with a cool logo on it and I'll gladly hand over $30 for something that costs ten times less than that to make.  Hand me a poster for $15 and I'll roll it up and stick it in my closet with big plans to use it to decorate the wall in the home office that I don't yet have and may never get.  Hoodies, love them.  I've got Matthew Good soccer jerseys.  I've got backpacks, pins and baseball caps.

My new all-time favorite piece of tour merchandise ever however is now the Radiohead Sigg bottle that I picked up last night at their concert at Thunderbird Stadium [mbv].  I'm a huge fan of Sigg bottles, and I use my two current ones almost constantly.  I took one around as my main source of water in Europe, and I try to avoid using plastic bottles or buy bottle water in stores because of the toxic chemicals that are meant to leak into the water from plastics.  Not only that but cutting back on plastic bottles is good for the enviroment, even if they're recycled.

$25 for a Radiohead Sigg bottle is a no brainer then.  It's metallic so the chemical issue isn't a factor, and its washable so it's not going to end up in a garbage dump anytime soon.

Three out of three agree, Fiamma burger is awesome

  Fiamma Burger 
  Originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson.

After my post about the joy of Fiamma burger [jks] in Bellingham two of my co-workers have since gone and they've both enjoyed it greatly.  I've been trying to come up with an excuse to go to Bellingham so that I can have another one.  I think I'm going to go with a need to buy cheap but high quality groceries at Trader Joe's is excuse enough.  So with this weekend (yesterday and today) booked up with Granville Island and Whistler it seems like I'll have to wait until next Wednesday for the wonder that is Fiamma burger.

If anyone wants to lend me a few hundred thousand dollars we could set up a Fiamma burger chain in Vancouver.  We'd be rich, richer than astronauts.  You know I'm right.

Let's go to Fiamma Burger

It's late, I should be in bed since I work early tomorrow morning at a new job, but I'm blogging about food.  Not just any food, the greatest hamburger you'll find around these parts.  Okay, sure it's in Bellingham but that's pretty close isn't it?  Fiamma Burger is a Bellingham burger joint and probably my favorite around.

That's right, better than Vancouver favorites like Vera's.  Using mostly organic and locally grown produce the meat is great, the drinks are great and the fries aren't bad either.  It's a most stop at for me now anytime I go to Seattle or venture into Bellingham, unless Lydia wants us to go somewhere fancier.

I went down last week with Nathan, and it was great.  The fact that they have good beer, and good ice lemonade is a definite plus.

I feel like this is all really cheesy though right now, so I'd better get to bed before I end up as a parody.

Money and the lack of money

That's right, I'm going to be on Robson Street in a Mexican wrestling mask challenging people to arm wrestle for money this summer the way things are going.  Between the pay-cut at work, and the upcoming wedding I'm quite a bit poor.  My second job at the comic book store [jks] has yet to start, and I'm pretty much broke.  You know the sort of broke that when I reach into my wallet a moth flies out and tries to eat the shirt off of my back.

It's time to start living frugally, which means that driving is a luxury and public transit is my new pimped out ride.  It means that an eight pound bag of rice is my new lunch, dinner and desert while breakfast is an old box of Safeway house brand Grain Os' that I've been trying to eat.  That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but certainly I'm no longer eating at the food court while at work, and certainly not drinking Starbucks on a regular basis.  I'm even thinking of cancelling cable, and if it had not been for the return of The Office this week I would probably have been making the phone call very soon.

Meanwhile if any of you have a free weekend it would be most appreciated if you spent those free days sitting at your computer and clicking on my Google ads.

Dine Out Vancouver 2008

Lydia and I are using and abusing the Dine Out Vancouver deals that a whole bunch of restaurants have on this month. We've already hit two up and are going to be visiting a few more before the thing is over. I probably won't be blogging much about it here, but I've got some posts up at Metroblogging Vancouver about the whole deal and Lydia's writing full scale reviews over at Meal Max, which enters her into a contest to win $500. Below is links to my Metroblogging posts and Lydia's reviews. If you can vote for her reviews, and comment on my posts we'll both be grateful to you for at least a week and a half. I'll be adding new information to the bottom of the post as I blog more, or Lydia writes more reviews.

Aurora Bistro:
Jeffery's post [mbv]
Lydia's review [mm]

Bistro Pastis:
Jeffery's post [mbv]
Lydia's review [mm]

Turkey stash

I still have some turkey stashed in my fridge from Christmas. If you're good you can have some, it's still yummy with ketchup.

Cooking, a photo essay

I thought I'd start cooking more at home to help save money [jks].  I mean eating out for two meals a day can not be the most economical way of living.  Nor the healthiest, so after a trip to Safeway I whipped this up yesterday.

Step 1, boil some water and add a third of a four dollar box of pasta. At the same time, or if you only have two hands, open a can of $2 tomato sauce and begin to warm over low heat on the stove.

Step 2, add the beef loins that cost $3.75 to the sauce (after cooking the beef properly). Then add that to the now strained pasta.  Mix.

Step 3, plate and then eat while watching My Name Is Earl.  Place the rest in tupperware for lunch and stick that in the fridge. 

I'm going to start cooking

Lydia and I watched The Next Iron Chef last night after it sat on my DVR for a few weeks. The guy who looks like Brian Michael Bendis won, so I was happy. I think Lydia was cheering for the other guy, but what's she know about comic book writers?

Watching the series though got me to thinking that I'd probably better start cooking more. I can't afford to be eating every meal out, even if I skip meals, and it's probably not that healthy either. I've talked about making my own lunches before but this time by Gummby I'm going to do it.

Just you wait.

The best thing ever!

photo.jpg
Originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson.

I have fallen in love with / become addicted to the ice tea lemonade cocktail made by Starbucks. My Dr. Frankenstein like attempts to reproduce this tasty brew have all failed. I bought a jug of something very similiar at Trader Joe's when I was down in Seattle, but it's running out too quickly.

If I can figure out the right combination of ice tea to lemonade then I can make it at home for pennies a gallon, until that day comes I'm stuck either buying the bottles at the dollar store and trying to mix them while at work, or if I want the real magic going to the Starbucks and shelling out for the real thing.  I can't afford the real thing though, not every day anyway, so I need something that's even better than the real thing. 

Has anyone been able to make this drink on their own?  What's the secret?  Once again, where am I going wrong?  Is there some secret ingredient in the Starbucks drink, something like crack that keeps me craving it?

I am seriously thirsty

thirsty work
Originally uploaded by peterastn.

The goldfish bowl of the store that I work in has sucked all the moisture from my body. I'm seriously thirsty right now. All I need to do is survive another eight minutes and then I can book it to 7-11 for a nice cold beverage.

Lydia's on me to cut down on cola pops, so maybe I'll grab a lemonaid or an ice tea. You might say that I should get a bottle of water, but I might also point out that like the cat in the picture I can drink water from free from the tap. Not of course in the exact same way as said cat, but it's doable.

Six more minutes. So damn thirsty.