pepitas, pie, ravioli, seed oil, tempura, halawa yaqtin...

So, I don't normally carve jack-o'-lanterns for Halloween, but for the sake of my lovely girlfriend, I decided to give it a shot. Here is the the result of my labor:

What is it, you ask? Let me enlighten you (would "illuminate" have been too cliche?):

It's-a me, Mario!

stuff I have to write about at some point in the near future.

-making gyoza
-making gazpacho
-judging a cooking competition at SDW&CC
-eating at Arterra

also, one of my friends and I have decided to take the "KFC $10 Challenge"; that is, we're going to attempt to make a 7 piece fried chicken dinner with a side (mashed potatoes and gravy, macaroni and cheese, corn on the cob, cole slaw, etc.) and some biscuits for under ten bucks.

Worse Than a Cat in a Roomful of Rockers

So, the little lady and I went to Claim Jumper a while back and I decided to chronicle the wondrous adventure for the world. Now, I realize that Claim Jumper isn't the "nicest" of restaurants (the words "high-class Denny's" may have been thrown around), but I'd never been there before and I hadn't heard anything bad about it, so I decided to expand my culinary horizons and check it out.

Now, for those of you not familiar with CJ (that's what the cool kids call it), a lovely history can be found here.

When we got there, there was a short wait (10 minutes or so), so we sat with our pagers and pieces of paper with old-timey prospector type language on them. To be honest, I can't remember exactly what they said, but I remember they were definitely interesting. I didn't know why we got them, so I asked and I was told that it was in case our pagers didn't go off, they could call us by our "names" over the intercom. Paging Calamity Jane to the host station. Yeah. Awesome.

So we sat and I finally got to gaze upon the menu in all its glory. They actually have a pretty big and extensive menu with a decent amount of variety. I'm not quite sure how everything fit into the whole Gold Rush theme, but I guess prospectors could have possibly dined upon buffalo wings, cabernet-braised beef short ribs and Jamaican sweet potatoes.

I wanted to try to get a feel for the whole menu, so we decided to order some things and split them. After being seated, no one really paid any attention to us for the next 10-15 minutes, which was a bit odd since we had to wait to sit down and we were put in a relatively empty section. Maybe they were understaffed that night, but I digress.

Our server appears like a phantom and we get about to ordering. For our app, we started off with something that (it would appear) is somewhat of a CJ specialty: crispy shrimp taquitos. Shrimp wrapped in corn tortillas and then fried. It came with 2 dipping sauces. Interestingly enough, the menu didn't say what the sauces actually were. Using some crack sleuthing, we determined the sauces were something in the way of a vague citrus sauce (I'm guessing citrus juice, maybe vinegar, cornstarch... I'm not entirely sure) and the second sauce was an oddly-spiced avocado ranch-y type thing. We definitely preferred the citrus-based one. All in all, it was a decent dish. Not something I'd expect to get in a fine dining restaurant, but this was decidedly not that type of restaurant. This is something I'd want to make for a picnic or barbeque. Thumbs up on this course.


Oh, yeah, they also came with what our server called a "spicy asian slaw". I didn't really get any "spicy" or "asian", but it tasted good. I likened it to a pile of shredded cabbage mixed with pico de gallo.

Next we had to decide between a salad or soup. None of the salads were that exciting (bleu cheese and iceberg wedge, "asian" salad, caesar: pretty standard fare), so we went with soup. The missus isn't a very big soup person, so although I initially wanted the French onion since I haven't had it in a long time and wanted to see how they went about making it, we ended up deciding on the baked potato cheddar soup. It was decent, if not a little... chunky. It was a fairly thick "broth" if you could call it that. It was almost like a heavy bechamel. Also, there were pretty big chunks of potato in the soup which got a little cumbersome to deal with. I have no problem with pieces of potato in a potato soup, but these were verging on the ridiculous. Bigger than the spoon that came with the soup. The soup was garnished with "baked potato crisps" which appeared to be a fancy way of saying "french fries." Not that it was bad, per se, but I don't think it's something I'd order again.


Naturally, entrees came next. They had a pretty big selection, but for some reason I didn't really feel like having a real "entree" type of a dish. Nothing like the roast chicken, ribs, sauteed fish or scallops really seemed to appealed to me that night. They had a nice selection of burgers and sandwiches, and for some reason that page seemed to be calling my name. The first thing I saw was a chicken-brie panini that looked good, but then I saw a tri-tip dip and well... I love beef. Oh man do I love beef. If there is anything on this Earth as perfect as beef, I have not found it.

My lovely companion ordered the "widow maker burger" which was a standard burger (lettuce, tomato, onions) with bacon on it. They give you a choice of different sides. I went with a green salad (I really don't eat enough salad at home, so I figured I had to sneak it in there somewhere). She got "grilled" mashed potatoes, which were actually croquettes.


To be honest, I don't think you can mess up a steak sandwich. You just can't. And neither can Claim Jumper. It wasn't the best I've ever had, but... well, it was beef. There were caramelized onions, chiles and gouda on top of the meat. It came with jus (beef stock, basically), a pickle and a giant, forest-sized bunch of kale.

Here's a question, does anyone eat the piles of curly parsley or kale that comes with their food? I've heard of some people chewing parsley at the end of the meal as a breath freshener.. but the kale? I've yet to meet the man who truly dives in and devours that lovely green.


The sandwich was good. The salad was good. Overall, it was good. Not great, but acceptable (and pretty cheap at $13). As I don't eat bacon (yes, let the verbal bashings begin), I didn't try the burger, and the mashed potato cakes weren't anything spectacular, but given the setting... the entrees were good enough.

We both wanted to try a dessert, but we were pretty full by this point. Luckily for our gluttonous mind-sets, they have a small desserts section on the menu. For the entirely reasonable price of $2,95, we split a single red velvet cupcake. On the first bite, we both thought it was a little dry, but then for some reason, any hint of dryness went away and was overtaken by a wave of delicious deliciousness. It was a really good cupcake. And the size was spot on for what we wanted.


After everything was said and done, the total for our lovely 4 course meal was barely $50. I think this would be a good place to bring a family or a date (if you're broke... or 16), but I don't know that I'd make this one of my usual stomping grounds.

Note: pictures are from a camera phone. i apologize. i'm seriously considering taking photography courses and investing in a decent camera. as always, feel free to contribute to that endeavor in a financial sort of way.

my mom says I'm special

So, I ran an appetizer special tonight at work and it worked out better than I expected.

What did I make, you ask? Well, let me tell you. The dish had, including the garnish, 4 components:

-slipper lobster ravioli
-cognac shellfish bisque sauce
-candied onion jus
-blue lump crab and chive

I made everything from scratch myself, which took me like 2 hours (which was about an hour longer than I thought it was going to take). Thankfully, we had an extra person on the line and he helped set up my station so I could work on the special.

I ended up making 48 pieces total, which made 16 portions (3 ravioli per order). Normally, a special on the weekend (this particular day was a 400 reservation Saturday) would get about 30 orders, but I didn't have enough product. Still, 16 is a decent number. Except for one thing: we sold out an hour after starting service. Now, while this does kind of make me look good because people ordered my dish, I also heard quite a few "you didn't make enough" comments throughout the night.

Either way, I heard that the guests reacted to the dish positively and I get to run the special again, so that's pretty rad. It's been over a year working there and while they've used my ideas on certain menu/dish components, I've never had a dish that was all me (line cooks don't really get to add anything to the menu; it's mostly the sous chefs).

SDW&CC

So, aside from working the line at a seafood restaurant, I from time to time do special events at the San Diego Wine & Culinary Center. Depending on what a client wants/needs, there are a number of different things that we do. Most of the events that I'm involved with are corporate team-building exercises. Classes usually are centered around one of the following activities:

-A cooking demonstration: I cook. They watch. They eat.

-"Iron Chef": They receive mystery baskets and have to come up with creative dishes.

-Cooking competition: Teams make the same series of dishes and are judged on a number of criteria.

-Hands-on cooking demonstration: I show them how to cook a series of courses, then they (both individually and as a group) re-create the dishes and eat them with wine pairings.

That's what I did recently: taught a hands-on cooking demo.

This particular class: 18 female attorneys.

Alright, I'm done with colons. That didn't sound right.

Aaaanyway, the dishes we prepare for these events aren't usually all that complicated. First off, there are time restrictions and some things just cant be made on the fly. Secondly, rarely do the participants have any experience in the food industry and it probably wouldn't be a great idea to make them tourne carrots and then sous vide them.

A lot of the time, the participants of these classes are from out of state and aren't always super excited to attend, since it's technically a work-related activity. A combination of me being extremely witty and charming and copious amounts of wine tend to change most people's attitudes. The majority of the fem-torneys were pretty willing to learn and seemed genuinely interested in what was going on. All-in-all, the class went smoothly and as planned. Our menu was the following:

First Course- Grilled Hearts of Romaine with Blue Cheese Balsamic
Second Course- "New Orleans Style" Shrimp with Grilled Baguette
Third Course- Parmesan-Panko Crusted Paillard of Chicken
Fourth Course- Classic Creme Brulee with Faux-Macerated Berries

Like I said, nothing ground-breaking. All the dishes turned out well, though, and a lot of techniques were new to many people there. Not many people had grilled lettuce before. And surprisingly (to me), almost no one had made a vinaigrette before. I really like teaching people fundamentals they can really use, so that was cool. The shrimp dish was a saute of shrimp and vegitation mixed with a sweet and spicy spice mixture (there was literally like 18 ingredients in it), that was deglazed with wine and vinegar and then mounted with butter to form a sauce. I'd never made this exact dish before and was pleased with the result. The chicken was a pan-fry, and was a basic dredging. We served it with a locally-made strawberry-based barbeque sauce. Simple, but still new to some people. Lastly was the creme brulee. I showed the technique for properly brulee-ing (aka burning) sugar and we made the berry topping by mixing fresh berries with wine and sugar and tossing. Not quite maceration, but a decent facsimile in 30 seconds.

Sadly, I forgot my camera that day, so I didn't get to chronicle everything, but hopefully my words are a literary masterpiece and you can see it all in your heads.

After the class, we cleaned down and I was hungry, so I did a pantry raid and found a couple random things (arborio rice, chicken stock, roasted red peppers) and we had a decent amount of leftover shrimp from that course, so I made the staff of SDW&CC shrimp risotto. I'm pretty sure I scored points with that one. I'm trying to do a lot more events, mostly because then I'll make more money, but also because I really like working one-on-one with people and working the line 5 days a week can drain your energy pretty fast.

So, if anyone wants to sponsor a cooking class or wants to do a dinner party, I'm the guy to go to. Help a brother out.

Random: I went out to eat at Arterra the other day with some friends and had one of the best meals I've had in a long time (foie gras, bone marrow, beef short ribs and sweetbreads... in one course), but my camera wasn't taking the best quality pictures, so as soon as I get some of the pictures my fellow diners took, I'll be writing a quite lengthy post about that. Stay tuned.

Gotta Catch 'Em All!

Here's a random thought:

You know that card game/videogame/seizure causing cartoon Pokemon? Where a kid goes around catching all these different animals with different elemental powers and then battles them against other peoples pokemon?

I've never heard of a regular cow or chicken mentioned anywhere... so do they eat the pokemon?

Do they have bbq's and make pikachu burgers?

Also, do the wolf-like pokemon attack and devour the bovine pokemon?


Think about it, people.

Grant Achatz is a sick bastard.

In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya: Let me 'splain:

Grant Achatz is a chef from Chicago. He was formally a sous chef at The French Laundry, then he went on to be the chef of Trio in Chicago. After some time at Trio, he opened his own restaurant, Alinea. Alinea is known for being heavily involved in "molecular gastronomy" and related food preparations. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, it's basically a way of using science in order to understand how food works and then changing the way it's prepared to come up with new results (things like fruit "caviar" and flavored foams and instantly-frozen sorbets and ice creams). It's not necessarily all that easy to do and it requires a lot of specialized ingredients and equipment. Adding to the complexity, Alinea offers a 28 course tasting menu daily.

Anyway, he recently wrote and released The Alinea Book.


This book is ridiculous.

I mean that in a good way, but with just a hint of negativity. First off, it weighs six and a half pounds and it's over 400 pages. That's a lot for a book, especially a cook book. Even for the Encyclopedia Britannica that's a lot.

Let me say that I own nearly all of the different chemicals called for in the book (things like sodium alginate, tapioca maltodextrin, agar-agar, xanthan gum and soy lecithin), and I still wouldn't be able to recreate even a quarter of whats in there. Mostly because he uses custom-made, highly expensive equipment to achieve very precise and refined results. I don't own an immersion circulator, pacojet or anti-griddle and I can't think of anyone else I know who does either. I don't even know of any restaurants that do (except for those specializing in this type of cuisine).

Don't get me wrong, the book is beautiful. The photography is exceptional. There's 400 different recipes which chronicle individual steps as well essays by many people (including the chef himself) explaining the ideas and processes behind the food, but I think it just makes me a sad deep down inside to know I'll probably never be able to create most of the dishes in the book. [Although there is a woman who is going to attempt to make every recipe in the book, cover to cover. That'll be interesting to follow.] Incidentally, on Amazon, it's only $30, which is an awesome price for what you get. if nothing else, I figure I can use it for reference.

If anyone out there wants to donate money to the "Help Nargi Buy Really Expensive Kitchen Equipment Fund" let me know and I'll point you in the direction of my bank account. Or maybe Grant will invite me into his kitchen. I suppose only time will tell.


For a more detailed account of the life and times of Mr. Achatz, I direct you HERE.

Also, his book has its own website.

Lastly, here's a really great thread about someone's dining experience at Alinea, complete with many photos. I belong to this "food community" (eGullet) and it's proved an invaluable resource.

The eternal sound of country music.

Last weekend I attended a wedding. The thing is, I didn't know a single person there. Now, I wish this could be a tale of Wedding Crashers-esque shenanigans, but alas, it was merely because it was a childhood friend of my girlfriend's. As I'm sure you can surmise, this was quite the experience. Since this blog is about food, I'll spare you the details of the wedding, and we'll head over to the reception.

The reception was held at the Lake San Marcos Country Club (a place in northern San Diego county). The venue was nice, if not a little small. Since we were all instructed to head to the reception well ahead of the wedding party (so that they could take pictures), there was a lot of people just sort of sitting/standing around. After finding our seats (and by that I mean we all just sat wherever the hell we wanted to), I noticed something pretty cool. Each table had it's own mini-cake. But I'll get back to that later.

After 15 minutes or so, I noticed a line forming for what I can only assume was food. After waiting and sort of spying on what people were carrying, I noticed it was sort of a snack tray area. They had simple things like assorted cheeses and crackers, fresh fruit, and mango salsa (which ran out very quickly). Not wanting to wait in a long line for crackers, I just sort of surveyed the area and one of the servers of the event brought me a drink.

Did I mention they had an open bar?

First time I've ever actually encountered that. It wasn't a huge variety or anything (domestic beers, "well" liquors), but still, it was free, son. So I nursed my scotch and soda while I waited for the line to die down. Once it seemed relatively short, I got up to grab some snackage and I realized... it was all gone. They assured us more would be coming soon and indeed it did.

After snack time, they announced the new couple... and said the wrong names, which was pretty hilarious. After everyone was seated, dinner began:

Wedding food, how I love thee not. Now, while I can't complain since it was free, I will say that this wasn't the most refined or imaginative meal I've ever consumed. Still, I am a man of artistic integrity and honesty, so I feel it is my duty to recount all of the many culinary nuances.

First course (of 3) was a salad course. Caesar salad. Soggy, overdressed Caesar salad. A girl at my table had probably dozen croutons. I had zero. Not the best way to start out a meal.

Did I mention they had free booze?

The entree came next, which was chicken. Oven-roasted chicken breast, with a sort of "piccata" sauce. At least that's what I assumed it was trying to be. It had lemon and butter and capers. So I'm gonna go with piccata. There were steamed, mixed vegetables (that were actually cooked quite well, if not actually seasoned. I added a lot of salt to this entire dish). The final component of the dish was mashed potatoes... from a box. Delicious and classy.

Once again: free. booze.

Alright, remember those cakes I mentioned? Those were actually pretty bad ass. Each table had a cake that was probably about a foot by a foot by a foot and to up the cool factor, each cake was different, in both outward appearance and filling. There was probably a good 20 tables and I can't remember seeing any duplicates. That was a nice touch. Here's ours:



And instead of a big wedding cake, the bride and groom had a cake similar to the others, except slightly larger with bride and groom toppers.


They went with the whole "ball and chain" theme.

I'm not quite sure what their cake was (flavor-wise), but I'm assuming it was probably some sort of a neutral/vanilla white cake, judging from when they smashed it all over each others face. Ours was a strawberry cream, which was outstanding. Talking to some other guests there, there was mocha, more than 1 kind of chocolate, and some mixes involved as well. I tried to find out who made the cakes for about 15 minutes to no avail and I didn't think it was all that classy to ask the bride and groom while they were carrying on with their wedding business.

Cake was eaten, toasts were given, and then came the dancing portion of the evening, which brings me to the title of this post. These people really, really liked country music. A lot. They played nothing else. It was not the highlight of the evening in my opinion. Still though, free booze.


Next up: a cooking demonstration I did for 18 female lawyers. Stay Tuned.

Burger King strikes again

Apparently, this is a somewhat common phenomenon (kids drive around and mess with Burger King signs). Either way, it's still funny.