spicetart

Bloggers Meat and Eat

Others took pictures, so I wouldn't have to.  Yea!  Go and read what they wrote, and yes I'm lazy.

A big thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Biggles for the hosting and the fantastic meats.  It was a ton of fun to put faces to names and blogs, and to see some friends that I have sorely neglected in the past few months.

One important question: Who made the peachy crisp type dessert?  I must know.  I kiss you.

Wedding planning is going along as it ought to, full of "yeah, my budget is less than half of your proposal" and "Holy crap I gotta find a strapless bra".  The most important part has been planned though, and paid for, the honeymoon Four Seasons style.  Yes please, I would like an Evian spritz on my pale, exhausted body, thank you.  5 more weeks.

New Wave Food Bloggin

If you haven't already heard of the cool new publication by some famous (and infamous) food bloggers, you got to check it out.

Order a copy or 4 and support that blog thing we do.

Here's the scoop:

"Digital Dish contains the freshest, most original food writing of the year from ordinary people writing regularly online in food blogs. It is an honest and alternative look at the world of food and cooking from over 20 different contributors around the world. Digital Dish's authors have been written up in publications like Goumet Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, Le Monde, The Guardian and The New York Times. They are part of the new wave of food writing and cooking."

New wave???  Now that's fancy and IMPOSSIBLE to pass up, people!!  And you can get it signed and meet some of the authors THIS WEEKEND!

May 21st from 11:30 at the Berkeley Farmer's Market - author reading and book signing.

May 22nd from 4:00 at the Lafayette Bookstore, 3795 Mt. Diablo Blvd. in downtown Lafayette

Go. Go now. Run. Be a part of this popular, sweeping, new wave trend!

Suckling at the TypePad Teat

I was fortunate enough to be selected by TypePad as a Featured Weblog for the  past month.  This is a result of a long lost friend showing up in my email one day...anyway, I digress, that's a story for another day and a lot of wine.  So, anyway, if you went to the TypePad homepage, you'd see a picture of my little blog there.  My little blog!  On the TypePad home page!  Me! Mine!

It was great to see the hits flooding in, as people took a glimpse of my little food nerd life here in the SF Bay Area, it really was pretty exciting.  And we all know that good things must end, even if it happens kicking and screaming "No, TypePad, feature me some more, pleeeeease!  I neeeed those hits, NEED THEM DAMN YOU!"  Alas, as the hits dwindle and the viewers forget my URL and fade off into Internets anonymity, I have but only the sweet traces of the hit average slowly decreasing to remember them by.  Goodbye TypePad Featured Weblog hits, I really will miss you and all your varied and unique visitors with comments such as this from the ever provocative Rankin' Rob:

That is the stone cold sexiest picture of radicchio I've ever seen on the net. Just found this site through TypePad's front page. I may come back and unload the Southern-Sweet Tea-Banana Pudding p.o.v. on your exotic vegi NoCo self. Now excuse me while I visit the obscene dessert item below.

Oh my.  And here I thought food blogging was good, clean fun.  Thanks Rob!  Go check out Rob's site for an unabashed viewpoint on current events and Nascar.

On another blogging note, it's time for the first ever:

You'll Never Guess How People Found My Site This Month

Yes, ladies and gents, this is the first post in this series, where I get to share the beautiful search referrers that bring the abundantly creative public to my site.  If anyone can explain how "naked midgets" pointed someone to my site, please feel free to comment.  Other fine search referrers were:

• will dry mustard make you vomit (if you have to ask, you really should try it and see what happens)
• Molly naked (I imagine they were disappointed at the results: beets!)
• why am I doing it (Aw, hun, I just don't even know)
• I don't have a rolling pin what else can I use (great question, answer: wine bottle)
• Asian meat porn (yummmmm...)
• sexy hunting magazines (note to self: take down sexy hunting pictures from hidden blog)
• fancy name for meatloaf (Loaf a la Meat?)
• dork pork (the other nerdy meat)
• Chinese hells (ah yes, this is The Hell of Blurry Photos of Beets)
• girls pissing (I don't think they were searching for this post)

Woah

For those of you who are not regular visitors to Pim's blog, you should really take a look at her slideshow of her dinner at El Bulli in Spain.

El Bulli is arguably (and people do argue) the best, if not most innovative restaurant in the world, run by the infamous molecular gastronomist, Ferran Adria.  Regardless of what you think of these cutting-edge restaurants, you can't deny the utter oh-my-god-ness of those pictures.  I have never seen anything like it, absolutely the most beautiful presentation I have ever seen.  I am again amazed at the limitless nature of food and of people's imaginations.  Check it out.

Anniversary - Yuzu Style

I learned three things last night:

1) food bloggers are EVERYWHERE
2) uni is better than I thought it would be
3) sushi chefs do terrible magic

We decided on a stay-close-to-home anniversary celebration, so we cancelled our reservations at Aqua and made our way down to the delightful Yuzu Sushi and Grill.  I had read great things on Chowhound about Yuzu and knew that they were the sister restaurant to arguably the best sushi in the Bay Area, Sakae Sushi.  I had read that to sit at the sushi bar, you really should make reservations, but when we got there, it was mostly empty.  Shocking really, I guess the word just has not gotten around yet how much this place rocks.

Which leads me to explain number one on my list of things learned last night.  A couple were seated just after us at the sushi bar, and I notice them taking pictures of their food.  Food bloggers always give themselves away.  Sure enough, when asked, it turns out the lovely Alice has started her own food blog, Epicurean Debauchery, a detailed and enthusiastic blog that you really ought to check out.  She in turn was speaking in Japanese to the lone gentleman next to her, and laughing, explained that he too had a food blog, Franklin at Filbert.  It is only in Japanese but the pictures are nice!  I foresee Yuzu getting a lot of good publicity from last night.  Crazy food bloggers are everywhere!

On to the food.  I say this cautiously because, well, I always have something to complain about, but, not one misstep.  Everything was perfect.  Possible? Go and see for yourselves.  We ordered a tempura appetizer, because tempura is a good test of a kitchen I think, do they make it crispy and light or oily and soggy?  Of course, it was perfect, light and crispy, even the broccoli was good and didn't have the batter in the nooks and crannies all soggy and uncooked.  We then had a chef's choice sashimi platter, which included Maguro, Aji, Hamachi, Conch, Albacore Tataki, Hirame, and Sake.  It was beautifully presented and each piece was melt-in-your-mouth delicious.  I enjoyed the Aji so much that we had some more sushi, with HUGE pieces of fish on top.  This place has cured me of my pickiness over sushi.  I put myself in the hands of Chef Yoichi Arima and trusted everything he served me.  I even tried Uni.  Yes I did.  And despite my squeamishness, I liked it, and was not expecting it to be so delicate and creamy.  Chef Yoichi explained that it was special uni, from Japan and that normally they get it from Santa Barbara but that the recent runoff from the rough weather there has meant they need to import the Uni from Japan, so it was very special.  Hey, you tell me something is special, love it or hate it, I'm going to try it.  We also had the HUGEST pieces of Blue Fin Tuna Toro, and oh my, next time I'm getting the sashimi (even for $29).  It was that good.

Throughout the evening, Chef Yoichi gave us some special treats, one included Sea Bass roe in ponzu with some green onions and blanched snapper skin (that info came from dear Alice).  Again, my squeemish brain said, uh oh, but I ventured forth and it was good, nutty and salty.  The roe was in a ball and was firmly held together, so there was no squishiness like I expected.  Next time, I hope to try more new things and have more of that Blue Fin. Wow.

To drink, we started with the sake flight, and then chose a bottle of Ginban that they had unfortunately run out of.  Chef Yoichi explained that there was a sake that he was sure we would really like, and so we ordered that and enjoyed the whole half bottle of that, which we shared with Chef Yoichi, so, he of course, in turn, shared some other sake with us.  So much sake was had, which brings me to why we enjoyed number 3 so much.

Magic tricks!  Really bad magic tricks with folding and bunching up paper, but really fun magic tricks.  I mean how  can you resist the best sushi, yummy sake and wonderful company AND magic tricks by the chef!?  Check it out.

Yuzu Sushi and Grill
54 W. 37th Ave.
San Mateo, CA 94403
(650) 358-0298

Hot or Not

I finally got around to checking out my January Bon Appetit, and was pleased to see that Food Blogging is HOT according to page 20.  For once, I'm actually doing something while it's hot rather than one or two years after.  Although, this article was likley mentioned in Food Blogs nationwide a month ago when the January issue first came out, but better late than never.

The short article mentions Saute Wednesday, a Bay Area blog I read regularly that is really fantastic and features some great writing about unique topics (something to strive towards), as well as Vinography, another Bay Area blog, this one about wine, that blows me away with all the incredibly detailed information about wine and wine events of all sorts.

I'm usually not a fan of the whole Hot-or-Not, In-or-Out kind of thinking, but in this case since I'm HOT (WOOT! WOOT!), I'm ok with it...