Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Yakitori Triad

Three Japanese restaurants, a single concept: food on a stick. Let's skip the clevernesses and dive right in.

Number one, with a bullet: Kokekokko. 203 South Central Ave., downtown LA. Incidentally, "Kokokekko!" is the Japanese version of the sound a rooster makes.

First of all, click on the link. See that guy with the scissors? He is a super-badass. He's also the head chef; the Sensei. This is a man of few words--he's like a Japanese Dirty Harry who serves chicken skewers. I can only imagine what would happen if you got on his bad side. Remember: this is the man who prepares your MEDIUM-RARE CHICKEN PARTS. More on this in a sec.

From the moment you enter, you sense the real-ness, the authentude, the genuinity of Kokekokko. I've been to Kokekokko half a dozen times, yet every time I enter, I'm asked and told the same things: First time here? (No.) You know only chicken? (Yes.) No sushi? (Got it.) You sure? (Enough already.) Only then do I get to sit (or wait, depending on the night). Rough-hewn wooden tables surround a bar, which dominates the place, and behind which the Sensei and his minions toil away making your dinner. Like at many Japanese spots, sitting at the bar is the clear way to go, unless you have a large party. (In addition to the bar and tables, there are a few private rooms, the insides of which I've never seen.) Even sitting in this place is not for the meek--the barstools are basically stumps with the thinnest of cushions lying on top, and dinner always lasts a while, so stretch out and be ready.

You sit. You bow your head to your designated minion, or to the Sensei, if he looks your way. You order a sake from their small but pretty worthy list of sakes--make mine Harushika or Otokoyama, nice and cold, with that saucer to catch the extra they always pour. Then you glance at the menu, and you order. This is a yakitoriya, so you order yakitori--skewers. Here, you have basically two choices as far as process: you can order a "set menu," which gives you a good overview of the chicken, or you order by the piece (minimum 5, at about $2.50 a pop). I used to do set, now I do piecemeal, since I know what I like. What do I like? I like gizzards, neck, cartilage (knee, I think), heart and liver. And I like the breast meat, provided they'll do it medium-rare, which makes it like chicken sashimi.

Everything at Kokekokko is done perfectly. The organ skewers are perfectly moist and funky and impeccably fresh (when they run out of something, they're out of that something--no day-old stores of anything for backup), and are served with the perfect condiments--mountain salt (a revelation in itself) for the gizzard and neck, hot mustard for the hearts and livers. The breast-meat gets freshly grated ginger and wasabi. The cartilage stands alone and absolutely rocks my world. Even the legs and thighs and wings and white-meat-and-veggie skewers are good. Oh, and the skin is great--and I don't just mean the skin on the items listed above: you can have an all-skin skewer, and what could be better than that?

Things come out when they're ready, so be prepared--you might have to wait a while even once you're seated, and then there may be spates of orders coming together. It ain't L'Orangerie, but that's a good thing. If you're starving, order some tsukemono, or another sake, or both. Just don't forget where you parked. Among the yakitoria sampled in this article, Kokekokkowa ichiban desu.

Number two: Yakitori-ya. 11301 West Olympic #101, West LA.

First of all, Yakitori-ya is on Sawtelle, not Olympic. If its proprietors want an Olympic address, that's fine, but it does confuse things a bit. Anyway.

Yakitori-ya is fine. I mean, it's totally fine. It's just not great. Its decor is standard; its counter is in the back and seats fewer than 10 in a straight line (as opposed to Kokekokko's 25 or so, in a U-shape). The cooks are still behind the counter, but its all kind of shunted out of the way. The floor is dominated by tables, and not of the rough-timber picnic-table variety--just tables.

The food is by no means bad, but after Kokekokko, it's unmemorable. Oh, except for the PREMATURE CHICKEN EGGS discussed in the piece directly below this one. Yeah, Yakitori-ya has the unfortunate distinction of being the place that served me these international-animal-rights-violations. I swear that this has not affected my feelings about the place overall, but it does bear mentioning. Ok, so they even warned me off of them and I insisted, but still. The problem is that with middle-of-the-road offerings otherwise, the p-m.c.e.'s were what stood out, and not to anyone's benefit. Add to this that Yakitori-ya is a bit too expensive, and that the whole vibe is just less cool, and you've got a utility meal plus. If you must have skewers and are on the westside, it'll fill the bill.

As will number three: Nanbankan. 11330 Santa Monca Blvd., West LA, really close to the 405 underpass if you know where that is.

I could link you to several glowing reviews of Nanbankan, all of which I read on the same day and which sent me there that same night. Ever have that thing happen where you read the review and all of a sudden it's like the entire rest of your day becomes about getting to that restaurant? That's what happened. I actually drove home to Hollywood from work and BACK TO THE WEST SIDE just to eat there. That's when you know things are serious.

But serious they did not remain. I sat next to Moe, a Persian diamond merchant, who dines at Nanbankan three or so times a week. Moe was great to talk to, which was a good thing, since it took my mind off the food, which was mediocre in the extreme. Hearts and livers? Nearly indistinguishable in their dried-out greyness and chicken-livers-from-an-omelette-at-Roscoe's lack of flavor. Neck? Greasy and non-descript--completely lacking the crunch of Kokekokko's. Tail? Sadly, same--and I had never had chicken tail, so I was really looking forward to this. The only stand-out was the breast-bone cartilage, which was genuinely excellent in its unique, meaty crunchiness. I really love cartilage, and this was no exception--although at $4.50 a pop, it was among the most expensive skewers on the menu (they were out of regular cartilage that night). But I was never offered any salt, any mustard, any anything, to go with the different meats. Not that good meat always needs an accompaniment, but mediocre meat sure does. No wonder the white folks outnumber all others at Nanbankan by like 4 to 1--it's just chicken on a stick, and not much else. (Bear in mind that I did not order the "much else" on the menu, which included sushi, maki and other Japanese generalities from which I should've gleaned this place's true nature from Jump Street.)

My dinner at Nanbankan did teach me that Moe thinks Persian men are not hardwired for monogamy, that he thinks this downtown renaissance will be the one that works, and that the universe is premised on opposites. Good, solid food for thought, to make up for the lack of good, solid food. I'll try Nanbankan again if someone else is paying, and driving. As I said above, others have raved about this place, and I don't hold a grudge, much.

Final score is above, reflected by the order of the reviews, top down. Live on the Westside and now despairing? Downtown is not that far on the 10. Tell you what: I'll even meet you there. Seriously: anytime.



Monday, April 25, 2005

Foods Even I Will Avoid

I think of myself as a fairly adventurous eater. One of my favorite types of experience is eating something new and having it surprise me with taste, or texture, or whatever else makes it different from what I had eaten in the past and from what I expected. Others have been known to recoil from foods I seek out. But there are things which I will not happily eat, and these are them:

1. Eel livers. Not "eel liver," because when one orders these, they come many to an order. Many too many. I have to admit that I've only tried them once--at Decibel in Manhattan, one of my favorite spots--so I may return to eat my words (and I'm always happy to cross something off this list)...but I'm doubting it right now. Mealy only begins to tell the story, compounded by a musty flavor that is hard to choke down because of the texture. A small bowl beat me--I couldn't finish. I ate at Nanbankan two nights ago and saw eel livers on the list of specials. I did not order them. If anyone has had a different experience with this particular eel part, I would be happy to hear about it, and it might persuade me to give them another go. If I get no such stories, I'll take it as a sign.

2. Premature chicken eggs. Premature chicken eggs. Premature eggs. I really don't have to go any further, do I? I mean, i'm going to, but the name alone does the job of telling why I will cross the street to avoid this item. I've done 'em twice, and both at yakitori joints. Both times, my server looked at me funny, and it wasn't the regular "but you're a white guy" funny--it was more like they were disgusted with me. When I got the things, I saw why. It's like you're eating a poultry abortion. The things won't even stay on a skewer, so they have to be served in a bowl. A bowl of aborted chicken foetuses. I'm not trying to be gratuitous; I just need to convey the badness of this dish. Grey-green orbs with purple veins running around them, that sort of half-crunch, half wetly explode in your mouth. And those are the good ones--the others that didn't hold together while being cooked, and you get treated to a visual of unborn chicken viscera and even a little face if you're lucky: well, those are the bad ones. There is nothing redeeming about this dish, except as a fraternity hazing ritual.

3. Testicles.

4. Anything combining Jello and raisins. Ditto Jello and any dairy product that's not whipped cream--think cottage or cream cheese and you'll get the idea.

5. Spleen. The meat that masquerades as a mushroom. I encountered spleen in sullongtang at Han Bat (4163 W. Fifth St., Los Angeles). The soup itself was quite good--mild bone-broth with some various meats--tripe, liver, brisket, tongue--and some noodles. But the spleen was nasty. And, like I said, I thought it was a mushroom at first, until I...well...realized it wasn't. It was like this half-offal, half-vegetal awfulness that managed to be at once dry and slimy. I strenuously object. Spleen, consider yourself vented from my diet hereforward.

6. Intestines. So these aren't really the worst thing in the world--they're kind of rubbery on the outside (and not in a good way, like octopus or squid) and pasty on the inside. Now, pasty on the inside is not something I seek out in an organ that transports what these do. But again, they're not terrible when done well--cooked quite a lot over charcoal, like at Soot Bull Jeep, would be my preference. No, what I object to most about intestines is that they're served to me WHEN I DON'T EXPECT IT. To wit: Soot Bull Jeep treated me to gigantic two-foot lengths of ropy intestine in a bowl of water, when I had ordered tripe. That is usually how it happens--certain people define "tripe" differently, and some define it as intestine. I think of tripe as stomach lining, and specifically as "honeycomb" (which I have since learned is "mino" in Korean) or "book" tripe. I can't really complain about this communication gap, since I'm as wrong as anyone in the equation--even my favorite taco stand (see post below) serves intestines when I ask for tripe, too. You just don't want to be snuck up on with intestines, is all I'm saying.

There's the list. It leaves off things like Wonder Bread and well-done steak and crap that is not bad in its platonic form but is just badly prepared or of poor quality, since those are no-brainers and anyway feel different in kind from the things I've talked about here. As for the list, though, you've been warned--if you bring any of these things over for a dinner party, I may not eat them. Or I may give them another try. Except the testicles. You can have those.

Saturday, April 23, 2005

The Best Unreviewed Taco Stand in L.A.

FADE IN.

EXT. VINE ST. EVENING.

DWG stands on the sidewalk in front of CACTUS MEXICAN FOOD, an unassuming corner taco hut. Several other PATRONS stand with him, all waiting patiently for their orders. A metal cart filled with various accompaniments--salsas, radishes, carrots and jalapenos--sits quietly. From behind the hut's window, GABRIEL appears.

GABRIEL
Four Mixed Tacos, three chorizo tacos, para llevar!
DWG
Thank you, sir. And may God smile on you always.
FADE OUT.
Some version of this scene occurs in Hollywood, at least once a week, and sometimes as often as three times a week for weeks on end. Everyone in Los Angeles has "his" or "her" taco stand. The one that you wake up in the middle of the night and wonder if you can get to before they close. The one your car could make the trip to without you. For me, it's the Cactus. And since I have never read a review of it, I still consider it "mine." Mineminemine. Ok, so it appears in the opening scene of "Heat," but that's not because of the great carnitas.
Carnitas, in fact, seem like a fine place to start. One somewhat older and admittedly inspirational yet now-too-cantankerous-and-a-bit-complacent food writer seems to hold a platonic ideal of carnitas as "pudding-like." My ideal carnitas, on the other hand, are ropy with burned bits, yet still somehow not dry. These are the carnitas of the Cactus. They're like a blend of thick, Irish back rashers, roast pork, and sauce-less barbecue. They may be the perfect taco meat. Where others automatically think of carne asada, I think of carnitas at the Cactus.
For a dollar, one can get any one of the Cactus's several types of meat--carnitas, carne asada, pastor, chicken, chicharron, chorizo (sausage), lengua (tongue), a few others (no longer buche (pork stomach) or tripa (tripe), since mad-cow became a concern) on a soft taco. But why stop there, when for 50 cents more, you can add a second meat, for tacos mixtos? It's been explained to me, by Gabriel himself, that one receives less of the second meat than one would, were one to order a whole second taco, but that's not the point. The point is that total of some meat pairings is greater by far than the sum of their parts in two separate tacos. For me, the ideal pairing is carnitas and chicharron. Chicharron isn't for everyone. It's pork skin, plus a small layer of fat beneath, sometimes with some bits of meat attached. It's truly one of my favorite expressions of pig, and it provides the perfect set of complements to carnitas--carnitas is lean, chicharron...um...is not; carnitas is somewhat spartan, chicharron is gooey and complicated and decacent. Don't make me wear out the adjectives--just try it. And try it at the Cactus, since chicharron would not seem so well-matched by the puddling-like carnitas of others' dreams. On top of the mix: either salsa verde (which can vary wildly in heat from one night to the next) or the excellent thick, brown chipotle salsa.
The other three tacos in my order: chorizo, by itself. Bright red, oily, crispy at the edges and at places in between. Garlicky and tart. Able to be eaten in a single bite, if you're so inclined, although people you love might look at you funny.
The asada is all right. I get it sometimes. I hear the chicken is fine. The pastor is way too chewy--actually gristly. I like this quality in a chicken-knee yakitori, but not in a pork-based taco. Skip tacos al pastor at the Cactus. I've never had the baja fish tacos. I'd say maybe next time, but I'd be kidding myself--one of the things that is "yours" about "your" taco stand is "your" order, which usually changes only in the amount of each favorite ordered on a given night.
Lastly, the cart. After 7 p.m. or so, the cart comes out, allowing you to wooden-spoon yourself as much of any of the Cactus's four salsas as you like. There is the green and the brown, and also a red (less spicy than you might expect...most nights) and a habanero orange. I recommend taking little plastic cups of each home your first few times, to figure out your own personal heat index, and also to try different salsas with different meats. Everybody's different, after all. The cart also has a bin of radishes, which are the perfect way to offset the smoky, oily heat of the meat and salsa--there are also sliced cucumbers, which do fine after I've snarfed all the radishes. Also, a pile of onions and cilantro, some limes and lemons, and the carrot-jalapeno encurtido, which is an awesome way to burn your mouth, lips and face, if you go in for that sort of thing (I do). The carrots are yummy and, like the salsas, can be mild one night and searing the next; the jalapenos are pretty consistent and indelicate.
Horchata? Good. I'll do it if I'm not feeling like beer. Service? Always friendly, usually pretty quick, although sometimes crushingly slow (maybe if you ordered an asada burrito instead of mixed tacos, it wouldn't be, homes). Hours? I think they close at 2 in the morning, and I have no idea what time they open--probably before you're thinking tacos, but I can't read your mind. Parking? Lot and street.
I was tipped to this place by a friend. When did it become "mine" then? The first time I went there. You know when you've found one of your places as quickly as you know when you're in love. When I asked how much their t-shirts cost, they gave me one free. Mine.
Cactus Mexican Food. 950 N. Vine St., north of Melrose, east side of the street.

Side-by-side Taste Test: Ambien vs. Valium

How many times has this happened to you? It's 4 in the morning, and you've got this craving--not just for sleep, but also for a tasty sleep-aid to get you there. Too often, I think, we just slot pills into our mouths without slowing down to experience the flavors of what we're eating just then. Well, no more. Here, readers, are the results of the 4 a.m. Ambien versus Valium taste test.

We'll start with Valium (5 mg). Mother's Little Helper. The little yellow pill. In fact, though, owing to the longevity of this miracle drug, I will not be consuming "Valium" per se for this test, but rather its generic equivalent, Diazepam. Same diff--trust me--except that it's not yellow, it's a sort of light brick-pink. One of the problems I have with Valium (I will refer to it by its commercial and more recognizable and mellifluous name) is that you're just never sure how well it will work. This, perhaps, is because it's not technically a sleep-aid at all, but rather an anti-anxiety med. When my doctor explained this to me, I told him as calmly as I could that my sleeplessness stemmed from anxiety about not being able to fall asleep, and he agreed with me that this might call for recategorization, at least in my case.

On to the tasting!

Like many things from the 70's, Valium tastes bold but clumsy. In fact, let's be honest, it tastes terrible. One morning, about 10 years ago, I found myself on the floor of a then-popular Manhattan nightclub. When I realized where I was, I simultaneously realized that my mouth was open and that I COULD TASTE THE CARPET. This was an experience I swore I would never repeat, but lingering over a Valium really comes close. The taste is like the inside of a footlocker full of books and old photos, kept in the attic for 50 years--assertive, musty, not to be savored. Unfortunate, really, since one sometimes has to ingest several of these little buggers in order to drop off, and their extreme porousity makes them stay attached to your tongue as if they were clinging for their very lives.

Overall score: 4, and only that high because of its special place in my heart.

Next: Ambien (10 mg). The sledgehammer for a new millenium. Quick, aerodynamic, and not yet available in generic form. Dare I say that Ambien is everything that Valium is not? After all, it's been 40 years, and someone has clearly been doing his homework, beginning with the seemingly-obvious--yet in the case of Valium, clearly-overlooked--fact that oral medications are not suppositories. That's right, folks--these meds are eaten, and should therefore be fit to eat. Well, thanks to the good folks at Sanofi-Synthelabo, Inc. (?!), they now are. Ambien's flavor profile is simple--chalky, a bit sweet, but with a subtle and difficult-to-place minerally suggestion about it. It's too bad these pills are so much smaller than Valium, and that you can really only eat just one without your motor skills abandoning you in embarrassing ways even after the onset of sleep, because frankly, I can imagine lingering over a six-pack of these as part of a lovely picnic. Ambien, unlike Valium, would go well with any food set-up, really, acting as either amuse bouche or tween-course palate cleanser. It's the pharmaceutical industry's contribution to the world of granita.

Overall score: 8. Could even be higher, but I'm tired.

Unfortunately, this wasn't even close. Ambien is clearly the tastier sleep aid. In future, I'll broaden my scope to include more diverse offerings, and maybe even perform the tests blind (or double-blind!). Pharmaceutical reps wishing to have their products profiled in upcoming tests should send samples to me, along with dosage and drug interaction information. And now, to all, a good night. And sweet dreams.

Friday, April 22, 2005

White Chateauneuf-du-Pape

My wife brought home a bottle of this today. This seems as good a time as any to mention that there will be wine posts here, too. I'll review the bottle after I've--I mean we've--drunk it.

Later.

Mmmmm...wine...

Here's something interesting about white c-d-d'p: it's nose is exactly upside-down from its taste. The nose is heavy on steely citrus--assertive, crisp, very like a Cloudy Bay sauvignon blanc from the early 90's, but plus some melon undertones. In your mouth, it behaves exactly opposite: lots of soft flavors--canteloupe, dust, a little of that unfortunate flavor of fuel that marks the wines I don't love--but with s-blanc undertones: the flintiness, the stoniness, the lime and cut grass. It's like a wine that can't catch its balance--constantly teetering towards the chardonnays I can only take a single glass of, and the s.b.'s that I've drunk 3 bottles of on a July 4th or two.

Overall: a bit too flabby for me, but fine company for as long as it lasts. 87. Oh, for the persnickety: 2003 Domaine du Vieux Lazaret.

Why I Prefer Emeril to Anthony Bourdain

We all have guilty pleasures. My wife reads People. Some of my friends watch "professional" wrestling. I just finished watching an episode of Anthony Bourdain's "A Cook's Tour." Mine is the worst of the three.

In Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain's first work about Anthony Bourdain, he creates for his readers the character of Anthony Bourdain: leather-jacketed ne'er do well, self-loathing drug addict, Lou Reed with a ladle, and finally, zen motorcyclist chef who could still go off the rails at the drop of a toque. Bourdain does this pretty well. When I saw him on his book tour for Cook's Tour, I had never seen him in person, or even on television, but I knew exactly what to expect in terms of mannerisms, phrases, even his answers to my questions--and I was not disappointed (or rather, I got what I expected).

The problem is this: Bourdain's Bourdain does not exist. Much like Bourdain's New York does not exist. For a good cross-reference on the latter, listen to George Carlin's standup sometime--the newer stuff, where he talks about New York in his bogusly New York accent, as a place where cab drivers mug tourists for fun, and where no one is shocked by anything. Both men need to visit New York sometime soon. Listening to them talk about "the streets" is like listening to a new Rolling Stones album. (Here's a secret that I'm making up but I bet is true: the episode in Kitchen Confidential where the newlywed woman still in her dress leaves her wedding table to fuck the cook behind the restaurant did not happen.) But I digress. The problem with Bourdain is that he has himself convinced that, under the media chef that is now Bourdain, is still the sneering rock-n-roller who would as soon spit at you as know you. Here's the truth: that person no longer exists, if he ever did. Bourdain's true colors are shown by his petty pot-shots at other media chefs, and especially by those he takes at Emeril Lagasse. This bears a new paragraph.

Emeril. We all know Emeril. And if you're reading this, you don't like Emeril. Despite the title of this piece, I don't either. What's to like? He's flashy, he makes what looks like good airline food, and his audience is made up of frustrated housewives. Watching an episode of "Emeril Live!," you expect to see some poor thing swoon and faint every time the bloated man yells "BAM!" and throws such a pudgy fistful of rosemary into a pan of chops that some poor intern spent the entire night butterflying just right. But look at Bourdain on Emeril:

Emeril is a "fuzzy little" "ewok-like" "schlockmeister with . . . catchphrases like 'Bam!' and 'Let's kick it up a notch!'" and "his own line of prepared seasonings" but "who manages to hold American television audiences enthralled."

"His show is unbearable. . . . He's so sloppy and unattractive, and he's never lost the Mass accent" (this comes from an interview Bourdain gave to Gregory Cartier of AskMen.com (?!) and was actually meant as a compliment).

True enough, non? We watch Emeril, and we think those same things, don't we? Well guess what? Emeril doesn't care. Emeril knows what we think. Emeril wants us to think that. Emeril is just fine with Emeril. I have no doubt that he goes home satisfied with what he's done each day, thinking each "BAM!" neither brilliant nor worthy of ritual suicide. Not Bourdain. No, way, man. Bourdain goes home every day thinking both of the things Emeril does not. Bourdain thinks he's both brilliant and tragic, and more so of both for being each. And so he has to lash out at Emeril and Wolfgang Puck and whoever else seems satisfied with his or her lot as celebrity chef. This smacks of the concept-of-scarcity mentality that defines the truly insecure: if anyone else does what he does, it's insult-worthy (see him on any other celebrity chef); if anyone else considers doing it, a scary story gets trotted out (see his "reason(s) not to do network t.v." in A Cook's Tour).

Does it make a bit of difference that the others have their names or initials monogrammed on their whites? It does to Bourdain. It doesn't to me. Do Bourdain's winks-and-a-scowls make me feel like he and I get it, while the other suckers don't? Yeah, sure, for a few pages or minutes--I'm easy like that. But to pretend that that isn't the same cheap hucksterism as "BAM!" is ridiculous. In fact, let's call it "GRR!" Next time you watch Bourdain on t.v., I want you to imagine that every time he says something BadAss, he looks right into the camera and yells "GRR!" and throws a handful of, I don't know, fleur de sel into a pot-a-feu. I promise there will be more of these moments than you expect, and definitely more than there are "BAM!"s on an average episode of "Emeril Live!"

When I saw Bourdain read on tour, he started out by trying to defuse the bomb. The first thing he said--without any prompting from the audience--was "I know, I know. I sold out. I work for the devil. I know." He said it with a half-smile. He had to. But this was more of the same--the same bogus self-deprecation that I had come to expect from him having read Kitchen Confidential. Bourdain doesn't believe the jabs he makes at himself. Or he does, but he doesn't. Or he does just enough to convince himself that they're wrong. Whatever. At a certain point, it's just too boring. Kitchen Confidential, about halfway through, started to feel exactly like Permanent Midnight by Jerry Stahl, plus food. Reading both, I kind of wanted the writers to just die already, so I could stop hearing them whinge. Both Stahl and Bourdain are still alive, as of this writing. And, okay, I didn't want either to really die, but I was pretty exasperated.

Remember, though, that I said Bourdain was my guilty pleasure. Which means that in spite of all this, I have read two of his books and enjoyed them both, and watch him on t.v. when I have the chance. But a lot of this is true, too. I would think, not thinking about it, that I would rather have a beer with Anthony Bourdain than with Emeril Lagasse. But is that right? It looks right, but what are the two men really like? They're probably closer to the same than Bourdain would care to think. And I know this: after the second or third beer, I'd much rather be around a happy man than a self-loathing caricature. I prefer honest "BAM!" to fabricated "GRR!" any day of the week.

Welcome

Everything starts somewhere. This starts here. A Blow to the Head refers to what some consider the root cause of "Gourmand Syndrome," which is exactly what it sounds like: an obsession with good food. Apparently, one can go from utility-eater to foodie/chowhound/itinerant blogger in one swift bonk to the old bean. Well, when I was 7 or 8, I knocked mine pretty hard on the cement floor of a pool I happened to be skateboarding in at the time. There's not much more to say for now. This is about that. Not the head injury--the food. This is a blog about food. Not because the world needs another one, but because since that crack to the skull in the pool, I've thought about food a lot, and I need somewhere to write, and this is there.

Ok, so it won't all be about food. But the good stuff probably will be.