I’m one of those people that’s on my iPhone all the time checking Facebook, playing Words With Friends, scanning through tweets, etc. Most of the time it’s the rhythm of my online addiction that causes me to pull out my phone and start rapidly swiping and pushing on my touchscreen, sometimes not knowing where I actually want to go or what I’m trying to find. On Twitter, I’m following so many people that staying current with my Twitter feed is a real challenge. But last Sunday, amidst the river of tweets I watched speed past my eyes, this tweet interrupted my flow…

I assumed the worst when I first read it, but my gut reaction wasn’t confirmed until Wednesday when I saw that Gluten Free Girl retweeted Jennifer’s tribute to her husband Mikey.

I don’t know Jennifer very well at all. We first met at BlogHer Food 2009 when we sat at the same table for lunch. It wasn’t my first food blogger conference, but I remember being really intimidated about being at my first BlogHer event because I am, after all, a man. :) Both Jennifer and Gina von Esmarch immediately made me feel at ease, and we suffered (and laughed) through the trainwreck of Rocco DiSpirito’s keynote lunch presentation (where conference sponsor Bertolli thought serving a room full of food bloggers their line Frozen Classic Meals at the St. Regis Hotel was a good idea). After that, just like with many other bloggers I’ve met, we’d exchange random thoughts via Twitter every once in a while. A year later, I ran into Jennifer in an elevator at BlogHer Food 2010. I stuck out my hand to greet her and reintroduce myself and she said she remembered me, as well, which I really appreciated.

Of course, you don’t have to be directly connected to Jennifer to understand the devastation and grief she and her two young daughters are experiencing following Mikey’s death — you merely have to have a heart.

Last month, my cousin Moses died suddenly. Like Mikey, he was only 51, which is far too young, especially with three beautiful daughters, grandkids and an extended circle of family and friends that are still reeling from his loss. I met Moses for the first time in March—he was a lot closer to my parents—and found him to be as funny and magnetic as my mom always said he was. I wish I met him sooner because he was a fun guy to be around.

Moses with his daughters Faith, Hope, and Joy.

Jennifer said Mikey loved her Creamy Peanut Butter Pie, and she posted the recipe in her tribute post with one request:

For those asking what they can do to help my healing process, make a peanut butter pie this Friday and share it with someone you love. Then hug them like there’s no tomorrow because today is the only guarantee we can count on.

So here’s my pie for Mikey. I’d like to think that Moses would’ve liked this too.

I pretty much followed the recipe to the letter, but I swapped out the 8 ounces of chocolate cookies with 4 ounces of Annie’s Chocolate Bunny Grahams and 4 ounces of Newman-O’s sandwich cookies (sans creamy centers, of course.) When I got home from the store with all the ingredients, I realized that I forgot to buy peanuts, so I harvested some from two individual-sized packs of Costco trail mix that we have in the house. :P

Creamy Peanut Butter Pie
adapted from Jennifer Perillo of In Jennie’s Kitchen

Serves 10 to 12

4 ounces Annie’s Chocolate Bunny Grahams

4 ounces Newman O’s sandwich cookie pieces (repurpose creamy centers at your peril)

4 tablespoons butter, melted

4 ounces finely chopped chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/4 cup chopped peanuts

1 cup heavy cream

8 ounces cream cheese

1 cup creamy-style peanut butter

1 cup confectioner’s sugar

1 – 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

Add the cookies to the bowl of a food processor and pulse into fine crumbs. Combine melted butter and cookie crumbs in a small bowl, and stir with a fork to mix well. Press mixture into the bottom and 1-inch up the sides of a 9-inch springform pan.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave. Pour over bottom of cookie crust and spread to the edges using an off-set spatula. Sprinkle chopped peanuts over the melted chocolate. Place pan in the refrigerator while you prepare the filling.

Pour the heavy cream into a bowl and beat using a stand mixer or hand mixer until stiff peaks form. Transfer to a small bowl and store in refrigerator until ready to use. Place the cream cheese and peanut butter in a deep bowl. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low and gradually beat in the confectioner’s sugar. Add the sweetened condensed milk, vanilla extract and lemon juice. Increase speed to medium and beat until all the ingredients are combined and filling is smooth.

Stir in 1/3 of the whipped cream into the filling mixture (helps lighten the batter, making it easier to fold in the remaining whipped cream). Fold in the remaining whipped cream. Pour the filling into the prepared springform pan. Drizzle the melted chocolate on top, if using, and refrigerate for three hours or overnight before serving.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Tocino and Blue Potato Hash
• Six Hours in Boston
• Puto Bumbong
• Thanksgiving Turkey with Kikkoman & the Sous Vide Supreme
• Tocino Sliders with Atsarang Mangga

It’s been a long time, huh? I’m still around but took a little break from blogging (as you might have noticed). :) I fully intend to start writing again, and I’ve been working on some things that I really want to share with you. But before we get to that, l’m currently on vacation in London, and we head to Paris for a few days next week. I vowed before we left that I would use the trip as a vehicle to start writing again, so Inuyaki is going into travelogue mode for the next couple of weeks.

Our outbound trip consisted of two consecutive redeyes—one of from SF > Boston and then Boston > London. There was a 12-hour gap between these two flights, so we decided use that time to explore Boston’s colonial heritage, as well as some of its more modern treasures.

One thing I loved was the water taxi service from Logan Airport to Rowes Wharf. It was a clear day and we had a great view of downtown Boston from the boat. There are several water taxi services available, but we picked Rowes Wharf Water Transport because they were the only water taxi service I could find that offered luggage storage.

Downtown Boston from our water taxi.

After disembarking, we headed straight for Flour Bakery for breakfast. A couple friends recommended Flour Bakery to me, but it was my old Asian American studies professor Emily Lawsin who let me know that it was owned by Joanne Chang and that she beat Bobby Flay in a sticky bun Throwdown. That information was good enough for us, but this picture is pretty convincing evidence, as well.

Flour Bakery’s famous sticky bun.

We also ordered one of Flour’s bacon, caramelized onion and bleu cheese biscuits and a couple glasses of milk, and afterwards, we really needed to go for a walk, so we headed towards Boston Common. There was one specific reason I wanted to go up there, and it wasn’t to enjoy the park. It was to pay tribute to the movie “Glory,” a movie that my wife and I both love. “Glory” tells the story of Col. Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the first all-black regiment to fight in the Civil War. There’s a monument dedicated to them in the northeast corner of Boston Common, and we had to check it out.

“I love the 54th.”

We continued walking west on Beacon Street because there was a place I just had to go. A place “where everybody knows your”—nevermind. ;)

“…and they’re always glad you came.”

We continued through The Public Garden and we had a little fun taking pictures of the George Washington Statue.

We were going to hop on the T and go to Fenway Park for a tour, but we decided keep walking. We walked down Commonwealth Avenue and admired the neighborhood, and then we worked our way past the Boston Architectural College and the next thing you know, we’re in front of Berklee College of Music. Fenway was close and in sight. We trudged along, walking down Boylston Street and then Ipswich until we saw the back of Fenway Park. Now, I’m not a Red Sox fan, and I’m not even the best baseball fan in the world (especially with my Dodgers in a state of disarray), but I still love baseball history and Fenway’s full of it. My wife could care less about baseball, or sports in general, but she’s been a great sport after dragging her on a tour of old Yankee stadium and now Fenway.

This sign is on a wall near the back entrance at Fenway.

The tour guides at Fenway lay the Red Sox propagand—er…history on thick, and they’re not shy about taking shots at the Yankees either. I don’t remember the Yankees stadium tour guide ever mentioning the Red Sox, but when you think about it…why would they? :) Rivalries aside, if you love baseball and remember the feeling you got the first time you walked into a baseball stadium and saw the field, those feelings are exactly the same when you walk into Fenway.

And the view from the The Green Monster is pretty sweet, too.

After the tour, we were starving and hopped on the T to Boston’s North End to have Lobster Rolls at Neptune Oyster. We had one hot with butter and one cold with mayo dressing. They were both really good, but we preferred the cold lobster roll…probably because it was 86F and muggy outside.

Lobster Roll (hot with butter)

Lobster Roll (cold with mayo dressing)

Our last stop before heading back to the airport was Mike’s Pastry for cannolis. This place is crazy busy and their cannolis are gigantic. We had a limoncello and a chocolate ricotta cannoli. I liked the chocolate ricotta better, and it was also the better of the two pictures I took, so here you go…

Chocolate Ricotta Cannoli

I really wish we had more time to explore Boston, but I think we did a pretty good job considering our time restriction. I hope we make it back to Boston soon with more time to really experience it. And maybe next time, I’ll make it more interesting by wearing Lakers gear around town. :)

Possibly Related Posts:

• A Pie for Mikey…and Moses
• Eating London – Day 2: Dinner by Heston Blumenthal
• Eating London – Day 1: Fryer’s Delight and St. John Restaurant
• Inuyaki Gets Mentioned on Smithsonian, LA Times Blogs
• Bourdain Rocks the “Land of Lechon”

It’s been an interesting week at Inuyaki. It started on Tuesday when I noticed an interesting trackback on my previous bread entry that led me to a post written by Amanda Bensen on Smithsonian.com’s Food & Think blog. Ratio-based Bread Baking details Amanda’s varying degrees of success trying to make the basic bread recipe in Michael Ruhlman’s latest book, Ratio. Her second attempt was more successful than the first, and in the last paragraph, she says:

The result? A delicious success (though browner on bottom than top, which I blame on my strange little oven — the Inuyaki blogger got much prettier results)! I feel like doing a cartwheel, but, well, one thing at a time…

I’m always amazed that people read this blog in the first place, but the Smithsonian? That’s too cool. I guess it helps that Amanda and I are beginning bread bakers that were exploring Ruhlman’s new book at around the same time.

Then yesterday, I got a direct message on Twitter from fellow food blogger Burnt Lumpia about the LA Times Tech Blog using my picture of some Kogi BBQ sliders on their Around the Web column for May 18. They found the picture on my Flickr account, where I house most of my food porn, but you can read all about my Kogi BBQ experience, as well.

The picture accompanied a link to an Ad Age article about small businesses that use Twitter to promote themselves, and Kogi is one of the Twitter pioneers for mobile food vendors.

Where will Inuyaki end up next? It’s hard to say, and I’m not expecting a huge surge in traffic to the site because of these sightings. But it’s always nice to be recognized. :)

Possibly Related Posts:

• A Pie for Mikey…and Moses
• Six Hours in Boston
• Korean BBQ Tacos
• Ruhlman’s Basic Bread (Dutch Oven Method)
• Kogi Korean BBQ-To-Go: The Twitter Chronicles

I called my mom about 5 minutes before No Reservations: Philippines was going to air in California, and instead of greeting me, she said, “Are you watching No Reservations?” It wasn’t airing in Hawaii, where I was on vacation, for two more hours, but I did call her to make sure she was watching.

You know Bourdain was in the real Philippines because it said BAWAL UMIHI DITO
(translation: don’t pee here) on every wall. :)

If the Pacquiao/De la Hoya fight was the Filipino equivalent of the Super Bowl, I think this block of television devoted to the cuisine of the Philippines might have been our NBA All-Star Game. Granted, 44 minutes isn’t nearly enough time to do justice to the diverse cuisine of the Philippines, but I thought the show did a good job highlighting some of the great things about the Mother Islands. Bourdain is also a self-described history nut, and he had a lot of great questions about the cultural and historical influences on the Philippines.

I’m not going to recap the whole episode, but it was nice to see Bourdain fall in love with sisig and lechon, and then later declare that the Philippines is No. 1 on his “Hierarchy of Pork” on his Travel Channel blog.

The street food section that opened the show was good, and I was glad Bourdain got to try Pancit Palabok—even though he didn’t think it was “the greatest thing ever”—and the shout out to kalamansi in the segment was nice. Oh…I also want Ivan Man Dy’s Adobo T-shirt.

Where do I get this shirt?

Claude Tayag was Bourdain’s host during the Pampanga segment, and he was great. He started with goat four different ways, which was right up Bourdain’s alley, but a porky love connection happened when Claude introduced him to sisig, the fried pork face dish that might never have been invented were it not for the surplus of pig heads that Clark Air base used to give away in the 1970s.

Sizzing Sisig!

I was chatting with my cousin who lives in Vermont (the state, not the street in L.A.) and she got instantly homesick and hungry during the sisig segment. It must suck to be Filipino in Vermont.

Claude brought some snarkiness to the mix by touting the superiority of Pampanga (big surprise) and saying that “You cannot be Filipino unless you become Pampanga first.” Of course, when his wife corrected him, he immediately clarified that you had to know whatever region you’re from first in order to be Filipino, a sentiment Bourdain related to since he considers himself a New Yorker first and an American second.

Claude also made an observation that has frustrated me since I was a kid.

“We’ve always been bypassed by foreign writers. Even in cookbooks—you buy a Southeast Asian cookbook—we’re marginally on the sides,” he said.

Back in the day, every time I picked up an Asian or world history book or cookbook, the first thing I always did was look in the index for any references to the Philippines, and if there were a couple pages, I considered myself lucky.

Food blogger and lechon master MarketMan of MarketManila.com anchored the Cebu segment. The hand-turned, spit-roasted lechon was a sight to behold with its perfect crispy caramel-brown skin that you could tell was delectable, even on the crappy 19-inch TV at my in-laws house. If you’ve ever been to a party where lechon is being served, people are always scheming to get the first crack at that pig skin.

“Best Pig Ever.” – Anthony Bourdain, 2.16.09

MarketMan’s tour of the fish market was great, especially his explanation of the Suki system of doing business. I also loved that he said the clarity and freshness of the first pressing of fish sauce was analogous to the first pressing of olive oil. Basically, MarketMan was dropping knowledge left and right and definitely picked up the slack for Augusto, whose lack of knowledge was glaring and a bit distracting.

See, I can relate to Augusto’s Fil-Am experience almost exactly, and I had my share of identity issues when I was growing up. However, I never would have put myself up as a representative of the Philippines or its cuisine—especially on international television—and I’ve spent more time there than him. Don’t get me wrong…Augusto deserves a lot of credit for making this episode possible, but as a guide, he was ineffective. It was the exact opposite of the Korea episode where Bourdain’s assistant Nari, while American, had strong ties to Korea and the food, as well as a truly compelling family story.

The show works around this deficiency by framing the narrative around Augusto and his ongoing search for his roots, but in the end, I thought it painted young Filipino Americans as lost souls. But Augusto’s Fil-Am experience is essentially the same as thousands of American-born Filipinos, including me, and as Moonie at PinoyLife noted, the fact Bourdain even brought up this topic “made this episode more historic in the realm of Filipino identity in America.”

As Bourdain himself observed:

It occurs that however badly he wants to be a Filipino, to reconnect with his roots, however hard he’s worked to make that happen—practicing the language, reading up, cooking the food, digging up family memories—he’s still American and to some extent, still new to this part of the family. Not a stranger like me, but an outsider of sorts just the same.

Although I would have preferred that the episode focus more on the food than Augusto’s search for his culture, Augusto deserves a lot of credit for actually wanting to learn more about his culture, especially when it would have been easier for him to ignore it. Of course, Augusto’s story did set up Bourdain’s insightful take on Filipinos and identity that closed the show.

“If there’s anything smart I can say on the subject of national or ethnic identity in general, watching Filipino American Augusto with his Chinese American wife, and—I guess these days—a typical American baby, I think maybe the whole concept is getting quaint and kinda outdated. Who are we really? Increasingly…wherever our hearts are.”

Overall, I thought Bourdain and his crew did an excellent job of showcasing the Philippines without being sensationalistic or cliché, but that’s what he’s done for every other country or region he’s visited. A visit to the Philippines was long overdue, but the wait was worth it, and I hope he goes back for more.

Thanks Tony for shining a light on Philippine cuisine and for giving the Cebuano Lechon the title of “best pig ever.”

And though I may sound critical of him in this post, a big thanks to Augusto for being curious and proud enough of his culture—even if he didn’t fully understand it—to take the initiative to send in his entry and remind Tony that the Philippines was always right under his nose.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Tocino and Blue Potato Hash
• A Pie for Mikey…and Moses
• Six Hours in Boston
• Puto Bumbong
• Pulled Pork Adobo Sandwich at Cafe Gabriela – Oakland, CA

I know I’m probably the last Filipino food blogger to mention this, but the much-anticipated Philippines episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations is airing on the Travel Channel tonight at 10pm EST. For a preview, check out his travel itinerary.

Don’t pee here, Tony!

On his Travel Channel blog last October (on my birthday, no less!), Bourdain said this upon his arrival to the Philippines:

Of all the people who watch NO RESERVATIONS, it’s been Filipinos who have been consistently among our biggest fans and most vocal about our having yet to film in their country.

“You’ve been all over Asia,” I hear again and again, “…so WHY haven’t you come to the Philippines?!”

Well…I’m here. And the pressure is on…

…

All I can say is “Don’t worry. We’re NOT doing balut. Been there. Done that.” And privately think to myself, “Don’t screw this up … don’t screw this up … don’t screw this up.”

It’ll be nice to see a show that highlights Philippine cuisine without featuring balut because it’s such a cliche for “adventurous” eaters. Also, It looks like the silog segment got cut, but you can watch it here.

Even though I’m in Hawaii right now, it’s family dinner night so we’re staying in, and I’ll be in front of the TV watching. Will you?

Possibly Related Posts:

• Tocino and Blue Potato Hash
• A Pie for Mikey…and Moses
• Six Hours in Boston
• Puto Bumbong
• Pulled Pork Adobo Sandwich at Cafe Gabriela – Oakland, CA

Loco Moco is a classic Hawaiian plate lunch offering that’s made up of hamburger patties smothered with gravy, topped with two eggs and served with rice and mac salad. If you’ve never seen it before, it looks like this:

Loco Moco (picture from Dakine’s BBQ in San Francisco)

We had dinner at Alan Wong’s Restaurant last week, and one of the menu items that jumped out at us was the “Mini Loco Moco” appetizer. The menu describes it as “mochi-crusted unagi meatloaf, sunny-side quail egg, wasabi kabayaki sauce,” and we just had to try it.

Alan Wong’s “Mini Loco Moco”

Breaking it down, the mochi crust takes the place of the rice, the unagi meatloaf is the hamburger, quail egg replaces the hen egg and the wasabi kabayaki sauce replaces the gravy. It’s a perfect way to bring the loco moco concept into a fine dining setting, and it was excellent.

On the other end of the spectrum is Beard Papa and their Loco Moco Puff. It’s part of the Japanese cream puff chain’s localized Hawaii menu that also includes Breakfast Puffs, Creme Brulee Puffs, eclairs and pita sandwiches. Beard Papa describes their Loco Moco Puff as “two slices of oven-baked meat loaf, a fresh egg, sunny side up, onion-mushroom gravy with a dash of furikake on our signature puff shell,” which is more straightforward than Alan Wong’s. Basically, it’s an open-faced sandwich with the puff serving as the bread.

Beard Papa’s Loco Moco Puff

The finished product looked good and tasted like loco moco, but the puff really didn’t contribute anything to the dish and would have been fine without it. What was a bit disturbing was watching them assemble it. Without a proper kitchen, all of the cooked elements were microwaved right in front of us, and even then, I’m still not sure how they cooked the egg properly. I guess if you were on the run, this might be decent alternative, but I’d still rather have an Egg McMuffin.

Nothing could ever replace the traditional preparation of loco moco, especially since I love the side benefit of mixing the warm gravy with the cold mac salad. However, I always like to see if classic dishes can be modernized or deconstructed without diluting its essence. While Alan Wong’s radical take on loco moco might look foreign to traditionalists, the end result was delicious, refined, and reminded me of the original.

Possibly Related Posts:

• A Pie for Mikey…and Moses
• Six Hours in Boston
• Pulled Pork Adobo Sandwich at Cafe Gabriela – Oakland, CA
• Eating Downtown Oakland – Cam Huong and Battambang
• Ted’s Bakery – Sunset Beach, HI

My homegirl Alfie has been experimenting with lumpia lately and recently started wrapping them in bacon. Yes, that’s right…bacon-wrapped lumpia. It started with turkey bacon, but Alfie was apprehensive about whether or not real smoky pork bacon would work or not. I told her to go for it since I don’t acknowledge the existence of turkey bacon (I feel the same way about turkey SPAM also).

Yes…that’s bacon-wrapped Lumpia.

Anyway, I wish I was back in L.A. to be one of Alfie’s tasters, and the more you read about Alfie’s Lumpia Project, you’ll wish you were one too.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Tocino and Blue Potato Hash
• A Pie for Mikey…and Moses
• Six Hours in Boston
• Puto Bumbong
• Thanksgiving Turkey with Kikkoman & the Sous Vide Supreme

Another Christmas has come and gone and the deep-fried short ribs and “dismantled” prime rib were big hits.

The short ribs were cooked in a 135F/57.2C waterbath for 48 hours and then deep fried in 360F vegetable oil for a few minutes to crisp up the skin.

We had cookies and apple pie for dessert, although no pictures of those because we were so full that we couldn’t really move. Apologies also for the lack of prep pictures. It’s hard to think about stopping to taking pics when you’re focused on the task at hand. I’ll try and do better next time.

Merry Christmas! (if this applies to you! :-P)

Possibly Related Posts:

• Tocino and Blue Potato Hash
• A Pie for Mikey…and Moses
• Six Hours in Boston
• Thanksgiving Turkey with Kikkoman & the Sous Vide Supreme
• Tocino Sliders with Atsarang Mangga

]]>

I’m in charge of Christmas dinner again, and I’m still a little torn on what I should make. The adventurous part of me wants to take a rib roast and separate the cap meat (i.e. calotte, deckle) from the actual ribeye…kinda like this:

From left: ribs, eye, cap.
Picture from Ideasinfood.com

Then I can cook the cap meat sous vide to a nice medium rare in attempt to partially recreate this dish:

The French Laundry’s Calotte de Beouf Grillée (12.08.08)

For the center cut, I would oven roast it to medium rare and end up with a sort of deconstructed prime rib cooked two ways.

The other part of me wants to go old school and roast a nice beef tenderloin or standing rib roast. I’ve been successful with rib roasts before but have never tried a tenderloin. But as old school as a tenderloin roast might sound, I’d probably endup cooking that sous vide anyway.

Aside from the main courses, Yorkshire puddings are definitely on the agenda, and I think my wife is going to make her garlic bacon mashed potatoes. I am extremely tempted to make this Macaroni and Gravy recipe by fellow food blogger Lainie as a second entree, and I know my cousin Cristy, who hosted Thanksgiving, has something up her sleeve.

If you’re looking for some Christmas recipes, you might want to give these a try:

• Prime Rib with Jus — my own hybrid of Lawry’s and Cook’s Illustrated’s recipes
• Yorkshire Pudding — from Cook’s Illustrated…a lot of fun to make
• Thomas Keller Oreos — made these for Christmas presents last year
• Sweet Potato Pie — an easy recipe that I’ve been using for years

I’m not sure if I’ll be posting again before Christmas, but if I don’t, I hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday season!

Possibly Related Posts:

• A Pie for Mikey…and Moses
• Six Hours in Boston
• Thanksgiving Turkey with Kikkoman & the Sous Vide Supreme
• Ad Hoc Block Party on Oct. 9 to Benefit Clinic Olé
• Know Your Ribeye, a.k.a. New Year’s Eve at Ad Hoc

I picked up the latest copy of Saveur mainly to drool over the cover story about filet mignon, but as I was thumbing my way to page 87, I caught a glimpse of a roasted pig on a spit and immediately stopped. As I started reading, I discovered that it was part of an article called “Days of Feasting” about the Christmas season in the Philippines, more specifically in the city of Arayat in Pampanga, an area known for their outstanding regional interpretation of Filipino food.

The author, Robyn Eckhardt of Eating Asia, stayed with the family of her friend and colleague Marc Medina during her stay in Pampanga, and she was introduced to the annual gorgefest that occurs all over the Philippines during the holidays. Eckhardt’s main connection to the cuisine was the Medina’s family cook, Lucia Mallari, who prepared most of the meals during her stay. Overall, it’s a good read and I suggest that you pick it up while it’s on newsstands since the article isn’t available online.

Four recipes accompany the article, including an Adobong Manok (chicken adobo) recipe that doesn’t include soy sauce (Mallari claims her recipe is the “real” one), Pinakbet (Philippine vegetable stew), Ulang sa Gata (prawns in coconut milk), and Ensaimada (Philippine-style brioche).

Seeing these recipes in Saveur, especially with their Tagalog names listed first, was really heartwarming because Filipino food hardly ever gets any attention from the “mainstream” culinary media. I’ve always thought that Filipino food could hold its own against other Asian cuisines and have often wondered what’s holding it back. It’s even more amazing when you consider that in America, Filipinos are one of the largest Asian populations in the country (approx. 4 million), but I’m willing to bet more people have eaten Thai food in their lifetime than Filipino food and there are only around 250,000 Thai people in the U.S.

Maybe Manny Pacquiao’s newly claimed worldwide superstardom is going spill over into food, and this Saveur story is just a happy coincidence that will ride the Pac-Man wave.

Gratuitous Manny Pacquiao cameo.

Then again, Manny did eat at Nat’s Thai Food in Hollywood almost every day when he was training, which I thought was an odd aspect of his regimen, but I guess we have to give Thai food its props for helping power the Pacquiao Express.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Tocino and Blue Potato Hash
• A Pie for Mikey…and Moses
• Six Hours in Boston
• Puto Bumbong
• Pulled Pork Adobo Sandwich at Cafe Gabriela – Oakland, CA

I don’t post about it much, but SPAM is treated with reverence at inuyaki.com. “SPAM is good food” is still the default tagline for most of my online profiles and my Yelp avatar was a SPAM can before I started using the Inuyaki dog logo. I even wore a SPAM T-shirt to Slow Food Nation in San Francisco earlier this year.

Our personal SPAM shrine.

As the economy worsens in the U.S., Hormel looks like it will be one of the few companies that weather the storm as American demand for SPAM increases. SPAM sales are on the rise as Americans look for alternatives to more expensive cuts of meat.

From today’s New York Times:

Spam “seems to do well when hard times hit,” said Dan Bartel, business agent for the union local. “We’ll probably see Spam lines instead of soup lines.”

Even as consumers are cutting back on all sorts of goods, Spam is among a select group of thrifty grocery items that are selling steadily.

If you don’t know the history of SPAM, this passage breaks it down succinctly.

Spam holds a special place in America’s culinary history, both as a source of humor and of cheap protein during hard times.

Invented during the Great Depression by Jay Hormel, the son of the company’s founder, Spam is a combination of ham, pork, sugar, salt, water, potato starch and a “hint” of sodium nitrate “to help Spam keep its gorgeous pink color,” according to Hormel’s SPAM Web site.

Because it is vacuum-sealed in a can and does not require refrigeration, Spam can last for years. Hormel says “it’s like meat with a pause button.”

During World War II, Spam became a staple for Allied troops overseas. They introduced it to local residents, and it remains popular in many parts of the world where the troops were stationed.

Thanks to the U.S. military, Filipinos have a long history of SPAM consumption, as well as canned corned beef and Vienna sausages, all of which I ate regularly as a child. But as I got older and tried to be “healthier” (whatever that means, haha), SPAM faded from my consciousness, although I do remember being introduced to SPAM musubi when I was in college.

About six years ago, SPAM reentered my life when I started working with a bunch of guys from Hawaii, where SPAM consumption is the highest per capita than anywhere else in the world. Then I met my my future wife, who is also from Hawaii, and SPAM became part of my life again.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t eat SPAM regularly—that would be crazy. But I don’t fear SPAM (like Bizarre Foods’ Andrew Zimmern), and there’s a sense of comfort that arises from a bowl of SPAM fried rice or a plate of SPAM and eggs that can’t be duplicated by anything else.

Breakfast of Champions, although I probably ate this for dinner. :)

I’m glad that SPAM is experience a renaissance, but it would be nicer if it wasn’t because of such dire circumstances. Maybe the economic downturn will help people truly appreciate SPAM instead of loathing it.

Possibly Related Posts:

• A Pie for Mikey…and Moses
• Six Hours in Boston
• Inuyaki Gets Mentioned on Smithsonian, LA Times Blogs
• Inuyaki.com Featured on Kababayan LA
• Bourdain Rocks the “Land of Lechon”

Our first meal in Chicago wasn’t on my list, but it wasn’t entirely unwelcome either. I’ve always been intrigued by the White Castle hype, especially since the burgers don’t really look all that appetizing. My friend Maria mentioned that there were several White Castles near her South Loop condo, so we stopped by for a little snack on the way back from the airport.

The impromptu White Castle visit also coincided with the season premiere of Bravo’s Top Chef, and we made it back to Maria’s condo just in time to watch it from the beginning. Can there be a greater juxtaposition to White Castle than Top Chef?

I really don’t understand the appeal of these burgers. The buns are soggy, the meat is mushy, and for something so small, they kinda just sit in your stomach like a big grease bomb. I think they’re easily outshined by something as mundane as McDonald’s regular hamburgers. Why do people like them so much? Is it the nostalgia? Or do you really have to be high to enjoy them?

As far as Top Chef is concerned, the chefs seem pretty boring compared to previous seasons, although there are a couple Filipinos in the mix this year. Gene is looking like the anti-Dale (temperamentally speaking) and Leah definitely has potential. The two cocky Euros (Stefan and Fabio) should be make the show interesting though.

Possibly Related Posts:

• A Pie for Mikey…and Moses
• Six Hours in Boston
• Pulled Pork Adobo Sandwich at Cafe Gabriela – Oakland, CA
• Eating Downtown Oakland – Cam Huong and Battambang
• Cook the Book: Ad Hoc at Home – Asparagus and Steak

(Hat Tip: Andrew Sullivan)

Possibly Related Posts:

• A Pie for Mikey…and Moses
• Six Hours in Boston
• Puto Bumbong
• Ted’s Bakery – Sunset Beach, HI
• Inuyaki Gets Mentioned on Smithsonian, LA Times Blogs

This weekend’s New York Times Magazine is an all-food issue and features an an open letter by Michael Pollan (An Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food) to America’s future President detailing the fundamentals of 21st Century food policy. The current instability in the U.S. and world economy has had a ripple effect on all industries, but food policy seems to be the last thing on people’s minds.

The crux of the Pollan’s argument is that while health care, energy independence, and climate change are hot-button campaign issues, progress can’t be made on any of those issues without considering the impact of how America grows, process and eats food.

For example, on the issue of greenhouse gases, Pollan says:

…the 20th-century industrialization of agriculture has increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the food system by an order of magnitude; chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food.

Put another way, when we eat from the industrial-food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases. This state of affairs appears all the more absurd when you recall that every calorie we eat is ultimately the product of photosynthesis—a process based on making food energy from sunshine. There is hope and possibility in that simple fact.

Pollan’s letter outlines his three-pronged plan to help stabilize and reenergize American food policy and culture. Excerpts include:

I. Resolarizing the American Farm
Your challenge is to take control of this vast federal machinery and use it to drive a transition to a new solar-food economy, starting on the farm. Right now, the government actively discourages the farmers it subsidizes from growing healthful, fresh food: farmers receiving crop subsidies are prohibited from growing “specialty crops”—farm-bill speak for fruits and vegetables. (This rule was the price exacted by California and Florida produce growers in exchange for going along with subsidies for commodity crops.) Commodity farmers should instead be encouraged to grow as many different crops—including animals—as possible. Why? Because the greater the diversity of crops on a farm, the less the need for both fertilizers and pesticides.

II. Reregionalizing the Food System
A decentralized food system offers a great many other benefits as well. Food eaten closer to where it is grown will be fresher and require less processing, making it more nutritious. Whatever may be lost in efficiency by localizing food production is gained in resilience: regional food systems can better withstand all kinds of shocks. When a single factory is grinding 20 million hamburger patties in a week or washing 25 million servings of salad, a single terrorist armed with a canister of toxins can, at a stroke, poison millions. Such a system is equally susceptible to accidental contamination: the bigger and more global the trade in food, the more vulnerable the system is to catastrophe. The best way to protect our food system against such threats is obvious: decentralize it.

III. Rebuilding America’s Food Culture
Changing the food culture must begin with our children, and it must begin in the schools. Nearly a half-century ago, President Kennedy announced a national initiative to improve the physical fitness of American children. He did it by elevating the importance of physical education, pressing states to make it a requirement in public schools. We need to bring the same commitment to “edible education”—in Alice Waters’s phrase—by making lunch, in all its dimensions, a mandatory part of the curriculum. On the premise that eating well is a critically important life skill, we need to teach all primary-school students the basics of growing and cooking food and then enjoying it at shared meals.

…

Our agenda puts the interests of America’s farmers, families and communities ahead of the fast-food industry’s. For that industry and its apologists to imply that it is somehow more “populist” or egalitarian to hand our food dollars to Burger King or General Mills than to support a struggling local farmer is absurd. Yes, sun food costs more, but the reasons why it does only undercut the charge of elitism: cheap food is only cheap because of government handouts and regulatory indulgence (both of which we will end), not to mention the exploitation of workers, animals and the environment on which its putative “economies” depend. Cheap food is food dishonestly priced—it is in fact unconscionably expensive.

The article is very long, but like all of Pollan’s writing, it’s eye opening and well worth the read.

Possibly Related Posts:

• A Pie for Mikey…and Moses
• Six Hours in Boston
• Inuyaki Gets Mentioned on Smithsonian, LA Times Blogs
• Bourdain Rocks the “Land of Lechon”
• Watch Bourdain Eat the Philippines on No Reservations

I got an e-mail from Gourmet.com’s online photo editor this morning asking for permission to use one of my pictures for an article on beating the summer heat with cold Korean noodles. Here’s the picture as it appears on their Web site (the photo credit is at the end of the article):

She said that she found the picture on my Flickr account, which is where I store most of my food porn. What’s funny about the picture is that I didn’t recognize it at first, but as I was going through my pictures, I found the original:

Notice how pale and washed out it is compared to the delectable bowl of soup that Gourmet.com published? Photoshop is great, isn’t it?

For the record, this bowl of naeng myun was taken at Korea House in San Francisco’s Japantown.

Possibly Related Posts:

• A Pie for Mikey…and Moses
• Six Hours in Boston
• Korean BBQ Tacos
• Inuyaki Gets Mentioned on Smithsonian, LA Times Blogs
• Kogi Korean BBQ-To-Go: The Twitter Chronicles

I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it to any of Slow Food Nation this weekend because I had family in town, but I managed to convince my wife and sister-in-law to trek down to the Civic Center on Saturday afternoon to check things out.

Our original mission was to get some ice cream from either Bi-Rite Creamery or the Ici Ice Cream booths since we had already eaten lunch before coming into San Francisco. We couldn’t find Ici’s booth, which bummed us out because we’ve heard so many good things about it, and by the time we got to Bi-Rite’s booth, all they had left were some pluot popsicles. The popsicles were good but weren’t exactly what we were looking for.

What we did find was Three Twins Ice Cream, an organic ice cream company based out of San Rafael, CA. It was late in the afternoon and a lot of the flavors we wanted to try were already sold out. Plus, scoops were $4 and pints were $6, so we ended up buying a pint of their Milk and Cookies and a scoop of orange sherbet.

Three Twins was located in the farmer’s market section of Marketplace, so we ventured over to the other side of the plaza to the Slow on the Go section to visit the food vendors. We tried some really tlacoyos (stuffed masa cakes) from Primavera (left), a nice grilled sausage and peppers sandwich from Fatted Calf. Now we were really full.

We headed for a stroll in the Victory Gardens, an impromptu garden of fresh vegetables that was set up in the middle of the Marketplace. I loved this display because it always good for people to see how their food is actually grown. I honestly think that there are scores of people, especially kids, who don’t know (or remember) that their food is grown in dirt since they only see it in supermarket displays.

Possibly Related Posts:

• A Pie for Mikey…and Moses
• Six Hours in Boston
• Pulled Pork Adobo Sandwich at Cafe Gabriela – Oakland, CA
• Eating Downtown Oakland – Cam Huong and Battambang
• Cook the Book: Ad Hoc at Home – Asparagus and Steak

Sorry for not getting these up sooner, but I wasn’t able to get to it until yesterday, when I did some more pulled pork. I was inspired a couple blogs when I was figuring this out, but especially Dave Naffziger’s instructions for getting the heating element controls out of the smoker.

I picked up a 20-inch terra cotta pot at Plant and Pottery Outlet in Sunol, CA, which is just down the freeway from me. Their selection of terra cotta pots is much larger than anywhere else I looked (Home Depot, Lowes, OSH), and the pots they carry are much thicker, which helps them retain heat a lot better. I got a 20-inch bowl to serve as the lid. Total cost: $56.00.

Inside the pot, I got a standard, 18-inch Weber cooking grate, which fits perfectly inside the 20-inch pot. To hold the wood chunks, I used a large deep-dish pie pan from a bygone Chicago-style pizza experiment. The pan sits right on the heating element, which is a deconstructed electric hot plate that I picked up for $10 at Walgreens.

One challenge of this setup is that adding wood chips or chunks becomes an issue because you’re bound to let out a lot of the heat when you remove the lid. I get around this by using only wood chunks, which don’t burn up as fast as wood chips. For meat that needs to cook longer, like pulled pork or brisket, you can simply finish cooking in the oven when the smoke dies down.

The main challenge is figuring out how to keep the temperature steady. I found that by turning the dial to medium high, I could get between 230–240F pretty consistently. From there you kinda have to baby it if you want cook at a lower temperature. I recently ordered a remote wireless thermometer with two temperature probes, which should help me both monitor what I’m cooking, as well as the temperature of the smoker.

Possibly Related Posts:

• A Pie for Mikey…and Moses
• Six Hours in Boston
• Korean BBQ Tacos
• Inuyaki Gets Mentioned on Smithsonian, LA Times Blogs
• Bourdain Rocks the “Land of Lechon”

I found this on Flickr, but don’t know its origins. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. Just click on the picture so you can read it.

It’s funny.

I swear.

Bacon Flowchart, originally uploaded by ChrisL_AK.

• A Pie for Mikey…and Moses
• Six Hours in Boston
• Homemade Pork Tocino
• Chicharrones (Fried Pork Rinds)
• Cook the Book: Momofuku – Pork Belly Buns

Some of you might remember my previous post on the infamous Cheeseburger in a Can. They’re sold by a company in Germany, and they weren’t taking direct orders directly from America. A couple months ago, my wife told me she had a friend in Germany that could order this oddity for us. I asked for two cans, and they arrived earlier this week. Why two cans? One was for our collection of weird food, and one was…to eat.

Here’s how the product looks according to the Trekking Malhzeiten Online Store:

Did the actual canned cheeseburger possibly resemble that picture? Not even close.

As you might expect, the lettuce, tomato, and cheese that appear in the promotional image are nowhere to be found.

How did it taste? I thought it was pretty gross. The meat didn’t taste like a burger at all and was more like a sausage patty in both flavor and texture. The top bun piece looked fairly normal, but when you removed the burger from the can, the bottom bun was soggy and disgusting. There was a fairly strong cheese-like odor, as well.

Overall, I thought it was like a really disgusting school cafeteria hamburger. It was so bad that I actually needed a beer…at 11am. I don’t normally drink, and when I do it’s not first thing in the morning, but I really wanted some alcohol to disinfect my mouth. Luckily, I had some leftover beers from a party still in the fridge.

(For the record, my wife didn’t think it was as bad as I did, but the general consensus was that it was disgusting.)

Here’s the full picture set:

 

Possibly Related Posts:

• A Pie for Mikey…and Moses
• Six Hours in Boston
• IFBC, Seattle Food Porn, and the iPhone 4
• Homemade Pork Tocino
• Eating Downtown Oakland – Cam Huong and Battambang

Picture from lataco.com

First, the bacon hot dog carts, and now taco trucks? What the hell is going on in L.A.?

Chowhound’s C. Thi Nguyen had an Op-Ed piece published in the L.A. Times a couple weeks ago detailing the new regulations passed by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors that would basically put taco trucks in unincorporated parts of L.A. County out of business.

From the article:

On Wednesday, the supervisors passed a harsh set of regulations for unincorporated county areas. Parking a taco truck in one spot for longer than an hour is now punishable by a fine of up to $1,000, or six months in jail, or both. Developers and restaurant owners, particularly in East L.A., are pushing for tougher enforcement too. These changes, say some truck owners, will probably put them out of business.

$1,000 or six months in jail? Not surprising when Downtown L.A. food cart owner Elizabeth Palacios spend 45 days in jail for selling a bacon hot dog.

Nguyen says:

This is a cultural disaster. Forget the Getty — it’s the taco trucks, and their crowds, that are the true culture of L.A. Attacking the trucks is like New York going after its hot dog stands or Memphis banning barbecue pits.

What’s the motivation for these new rules? Competition.

Ron Mukai, an East L.A. developer, says the trucks are unfair competition, edging out the “legitimate brick-and-mortar businesses.” But the county’s 14,000 registered catering trucks seem just as legitimate as restaurants — they’re just providing a different service. Restaurants provide meals, and a table to eat them at, and walls to eat them within. Taco trucks provide food, pure and simple. They charge less because they’re selling less.

If I’m looking for food on the run, I’m not looking for a sit-down restaurant. I want something good, fast, and cheap, and if that happens to be the neighborhood taco truck, I’ll be first in line. It’s a lot better option than fast food.

But class is also at the heart of this issue. Nguyen puts it best:

…these new regulations don’t just attack taco trucks, they hurt eaters, especially poor eaters. In a lot of places in town, it’s the only meal you can get for three or four bucks. And in some places, it’s a great meal for three or four bucks.

I’m not really sold on the effectiveness of online petitions, but if you want to sign one or are interested in more information about this fight, go to www.saveourtacotrucks.org.

Let this Cinco de Mayo be about FREEDOM!

Possibly Related Posts:

• A Pie for Mikey…and Moses
• Six Hours in Boston
• Puto Bumbong
• Street Cart Wars to Benefit SF Food Bank
• Korean BBQ Tacos