Five flavors for my birthday... And burpees are the answer

My birthday celebration on Saturday involved plenty of ice cream, which I shall review in due time. It is fair to say that what I viewed as failure, others appreciated. Perhaps I should just fail at everything, since people either like my failures, or are too courteous to say that my failures are indeed failures.

The flavors:
1) Buttercream mint
2) Mojito sorbet
3) Chocolate brownie
4) Strawberry balsamic cardamom cream
5) Basil

Hit the jump for more.

Run for the hills

Not too many hills involved. Just posting it here for uh... posterity.

250 meter run
20 snatches (l)
250 meter run
20 snatches (r)
250 meter run
20 burpees
250 meter run
20 thrusters (l)
250 meter run
20 thrusters (r)
250 meter run
20 jump lunges
250 meter run
20 kettlebell swings (l)
250 meter run
20 kettlebell swings (r)
250 meter run
20 jump squats
250 meter run

This is one of my favorites. Variations are cool too.

Coffee, or tea, or be with me?

I return from my blogging hiatus to post this little video.

And to help others understand the intricacies of Lisa Gail Allred's conditions, I made the diagram below.

I hope this helps clear things up. Have a good day.

National Burger Month 05/11/2011: Inside-Out Salmon Cheeseburgers

Oh man. Too much beef. I don't know if I can keep on doing this. But I'll do it today at least. Today I decided to do salmon because... too much beef.

National Burger Month 05/10/2011: Ugh

Had to take a break today. Exhausted.

I did have one of em grocery store fish burgers to prepare...

National Burger Month 05/09/2011: Veggie Burger with Beef Topping

This is a veggie burger from Trader Joe's:

National Burger Month 05/08/2011: Lamb Burger with Harissa and Yogurt

Mmm lamb. Cute lamb.

National Burger Month 05/07/2011: On Repeat

Nothing major today. I had a new burger planned, but it will have to be delayed because for lunch I decided to do a repeat of the previous night's chorizo burger with pico. As a result, I was incapacitated for the rest of the day. Had to skip a real dinner and was content to have just some yogurt and dried fruit.

National Burger Month 05/06/2011: Chorizo Burger with Pico

I was originally going to do this burger on the fifth of May, for obvious reasons, but I ended up getting my act together the day after.  This was inspired by a comment my cousin Jon left on my Facebook page about a burger he made for a bunch of his friends.

National Burger Month 05/05/2011: Taqueria La Cabaña

I post now for the sake of the two or three people who read my blog, hoping that they did not think I gave up on Burger Month. Not yet.

I was planning to make a burger on the fifth, but a friend asked if I could go to dinner, presumably to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. So I agreed to go out after ensuring that there would be burgers wherever we went. We ended up at the Taqueria La Cabaña on Mission Street in Santa Cruz.

National Burger Month 05/04/2011: The Basics

Every year since I've done Burger Month, I've ended up with a burger recipe that I deem my burger standby.  In previous years, they've been simple (just the grass fed beef chuck with salt and pepper) and they've been a little spicier (shown in the link, underneath a layer of prosciutto).

But I think one of the best parts of burgers are that while I could go all out and do something with ground lamb, topping it with a bunch of feta or something, in the end the burger is just as good in its basic utilitarian unit. There is something to be said about the efficiency with which one can prepare a great sandwich, with the least amount of prep work.

National Burger Month 05/03/2011: Hotdog

This is a hotdog. Really. Or at least, this is what a hotdog would look like if it decided one day it wanted to dress up as a burger.

National Burger Month 05/02/2011: Cheeseburger with Extra Stuff

This burger is hiding something.

National Burger Month 05/01/2011: Teriyaki Beef Burger with Grilled Pineapples

I'm still unsure if I should keep on doing this. As recently as a week ago, I was like, "burger month? I think it's a bi-annual thing." This could be just for today, but last night I was equivocating again.

After a recent vacation to the Philippines, I had grown a couple of pants sizes larger. I can't help it if I can get a buffet and a massage for $15-- I was like a human wagyu cow. In the ensuing months, and after a couple weeks of riding my bike everywhere, I have gotten back to wearing my pants without suffering from belt line bruises at the end of the day. But National Burger Month is here and it is a dangerous thing. And it's so tiring to think of a new burger a day.

Developing: It's 2011 National Burger Month

If I do this, there's no backing down. It's a commitment for 31 days. Oh boy...

Previous National Burger Month burgers.

list of things i ate this past weekend

No photos (of food).

My weekend started on Thursday when L took me to the airport. And it is still going on right now, so I may add stuff to this list. I tried to make it go in chronological order. I may have misses some stuff from Sunday due to the sheer volume.

1. Grilled squid at Tribu Grill, San Bruno
2. Adobo rice
3. Pork sisig
4. Frozen brazo de mercedes
5. Chocolate chip cookies (homemade)
6. 2 eggs over easy, bacon and homefries at the Palace Diner, Flushing
7. Organic grapefruit purchased at Trader Joe's Santa Cruz, eaten in Kew Gardens
8. Roast pork bun at Fay Da Cafe and Bakery, Flushing
9. Taro bubble tea
10. Sweet crusted bun with kaya
11. The best frozen lemonade ever (the person who claims she made it said there was lemon zest) at the USTA Center in Flushing


That's Roger Federer in the foreground during his practice session in the Louis Armstrong Stadium at the USTA Center in Flushing, tuning up before the US Open

12. Green tea mochi from Fay Da, eaten in Kew Gardens
13. Chunks of fried pork, yellow rice and red beans at a Cuban restaurant whose name I can't remember, for the life of me, in Union City
14. Churros
15. Cafe con leche
16. "Greek breakfast" at Cafe Lala in the upper west side
17. Cafe au lait
18. Grilled chicken tacos I made in Edison
19. Some pico de gallo I made in Edison
20. Herr's Smoked Baby Back Ribs flavored ridged potato chips
21. Roasted Sweet Ajicito peppers I grilled up in Edison
22. Corn with butter and soy sauce I grilled up
23. Corned beef, sinangag and an egg, over easy in Edison
24. Pancit something or another
26. A bunch of beer
27. Pork bbq skewers
28. Edith's pork sisig
29. More pancit something or another
30. Dad's paella valenciana
31. Layni's chicken inasal
32. Some fried blue fish
33. Tita Oyette's empanadas
34. Edith's lumpia shanghai
35. More beer
36. Tita Patsy's mocha cake from a Filipino bakery
37. Farah's blueberry pie from Whole Foods
38. Edith's Ginataan halo halo
39. Dad's Ghirardelli chocolate brownies
40. Some plums
41. A little coffee
42. An orange cream cream ice from Rita's
43. A little coffee
44. A little pancit
45. Peeky toe crab salad at DBGB, LES
46. The tunisienne sausage, which is DB's take on the merguez
47. Iron Hill lager, which is an unpasteurized lager. It was nice and summery. But since it was unpasteurized, it still contained some live cultures of yeast. And I think it's celebrating a party in my stomach right now.
48. A little bit of Ria's tiramisu ice cream cake that she ordered at DBGB
49. A nine dollar lemon and tarragon chicken wrap on the old Virgin America.
50.... hmm. we'll see.

Summer means chocolate ice cream with chocolate chunks and mint chocolate swirl

Damn. It's summertime already and it's time to break out the ice cream maker. In my two year relationship with my ice cream maker, I haven't ever made a non-fruit based ice cream. I've done strawberry and blueberry variations (strawberry cardamom is dynamite) and i've done peach and apricot ice creams (apricot ginger!). And I've done a pretty good mojito ice cream. That was pretty much like making a cocktail, but it was mostly fruit. And I can't believe I haven't ever done chocolate. I think mostly it was my fear of failing at the most basic of ice creams that kept me from making chocolate. Man, I love chocolate.

So this is a chocolate ice cream with chocolate chunks and a mint chocolate swirl. The recipe is a pretty basic ice cream recipe. I took a cue from Alton Brown's recipe-- my experience with his work has been pretty good. I think his secret is just that he keeps everything no nonsense. In his version, he uses a mix of half and half and heavy cream. I skipped the heavy cream on my take (not because I think it's too heavy, I do... but because I was absent-minded and forgot about it).


summer summer summer time!

I'm not going to reprint Brown's recipe here. Just follow his, which I think is an excellent chocolate ice cream recipe. I will say that I used really good quality cocoa. In this case, it was Scharffenberger unsweetened cocoa. I also used pretty good chocolate for my chunk mix-- a 71% Valrhona.

For the swirl part of this ice cream, I took two tablespoons of dark chocolate spread (kind of like Nutella without the hazelnut) and two teaspoons of mint extract and microwaved it for 15 seconds, mixing right after.

Right when your ice cream is almost all set (about 20 minutes into churning in the ice cream maker), toss in about 1/4 cup of rough chopped chocolate and drizzle in the mint chocolate swirl. Try to get the drizzling into the center of the mix. I miscalculated a little bit and started throwing the extra stuff into the ice cream maker before the ice cream was consistently frozen enough. Once you disturb the mix with foreign objects like chocolate bits, the temperature of the custard rises and the ice cream starts to melt. I had to quickly finish my additions or ruin the whole bunch. Unfortunately, I didn't get enough of my mint chocolate swirl in there. Perhaps next time I'll try mixing the chocolate-mint sauce first, and then toss in the solid ingredients. Next time, next time...

But the final result was delicious. I'm about to take it to a barbecue.

Gifts: The Bacon Press and the Sloppy Joe

A little late with this blog. A little late with everything.

Last weekend was a good old time. It was graduation weekend and several of my friends came back to Santa Cruz to a) graduate, or b) celebrate with people who graduated. There were plenty of parties to go to. One of which featured the world premiere of Lindsey and my tribute to Lady Gaga at the karaoke at Coasters. That one was dedicated to our dear friend Becky, who walked the next day.


t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-telephone

I also ran into Jim and Jessica at Jessica's reading for A New Cadence Poetry Series, which Jim facilitates. Jessica didn't read poetry. She read one of her excellent stories because this was the first installment of A New Cadence Poetry Series's A New Cadence Poetry Series Summer of Fiction. Later on, during the weekend, I met up with them at their place because our dear friend Alexis was back in town for Chris's graduation. They also gave me this:



It's a bacon press. I never knew these existed. The bacon press is a hefty piece of cast iron, with a wooden handle. Apparently, they're supposed to be placed on top of bacon on a skillet so that the bacon doesn't shrivel up while it fries. Jessica said they found it at a thrift store and thought of me when they bought it. Thanks, Jim and Jessica! Once I clean the rust up, it will be put to good use, helping me enjoy my bacon. Jim also suggested that perhaps I should start a publishing company called Bacon Press, and this can be my imprint.

And one more gift. I had a slow start to my Saturday. Had a late breakfast at 11:30. It wasn't that extravagant, so by 5PM I was pretty darn hungry. Hopped in my car and drove to my new favorite burger place in Santa Cruz, burger. Since burger. has opened, they've gotten better and better. Last night I found out that their beer license was granted and their taps are on and they have a pretty good selection of beers on tap. I predict that this place will be my favorite place this summer. And they have a few more things in store that have yet to come online-- a jukebox, movie nights, games... How exciting. Can it be that for the first time in forever, a restaurant will actually survive on the corner of Mission and Bay?

So I was sitting at the bar, having my usual Dude Burger (bacon, cheese and avocado), with garlic fries and a mint chocolate chip milkshake, when the guy behind the bar approaches and sets a plate in front of me. "I want you to try this," he said. "It's a sloppy joe."

Do they know the way to my heart or what?

Already I was kind of full from the burger and garlic fries extravaganza in front of me, but the sloppy joe was a new menu item and I had to give it a taste. I haven't had a sloppy joe since my time at P.S. 152 in Woodside, Queens. I remember that it was kind of a comfort food. Burger.'s sloppy joe was zesty. I think I tasted a little roasted red bell pepper in there, so it wasn't just a mess of meat in tomato sauce. If I hadn't already eaten 1/3 pounds of grass fed beef from Humboldt County, I would've scarfed the sloppy joe down and licked the plate. Oh man, that was good.

I then proceeded to walk around for the next four hours in food coma bliss.

Like whoah. What a great week for gifts.

National Doughnut Day 2010

Last Friday, 4 June was National Doughnut Day. Apparently, it's been practiced since the 1930s. It was started by the Salvation Army to honor a bunch of people who sent some donuts to American soldiers in World War I. And according to this article, some Canadians are envious of this American holiday.

To be honest, I was unaware of it (!!) when I woke up in the morning. But I did go to the Ferrel's Donuts for a little pre-work snack. They make a pretty good chocolate old fashioned and a pretty good glazed buttermilk.

That evening, spurred on by newly acquired knowledge of National Doughnut Day, I got a bunch of people together for some deep fried dough. This is the third year I celebrated NDD. In 2008, I made two kinds of beignets: one from scratch, and another from a Cafe du Monde mix. In 2009, Bettina made doughnuts using her grandmother's recipe, and I made some potato donuts from the Joy of Cooking. This year, I decided to go back to the beignets.


Beignets with hearts

After having two Ferrel's donuts in the morning and a bunch of beignets in the evening, I needed to go for a long bike ride on Saturday.



This was the first half of my bike ride. And then my phone ran out of batteries, so the GPS couldn't track the rest of the ride. We went up about 50-100 more feet in altitude, and about 2 hours longer in time.

Here's an approximate map of our route (taken from an earlier ride).

View Wilder Loop in a larger map

Of course, all of that work went down the drain after doing a little drinky drinky pre-Pride celebration later that evening at the 529 Madhouse. Oh well.

National Burger Month 05/31/2010: Sourdough Grilled Cheese Sandwich Burger with Bacon and Tomato

Yes. It is the final day of National Burger Month. Once again, I cannot wait to not have to come up with a burger-like thingie every night, after having eaten burgers or burger-like thingies for much of the month. Oh, but we had some good times. I liked breaking out the classics again, like the Juicy Lucy. And I liked playing dress-up with food that would otherwise not be in burger form, pretending to be burgers for an evening.... Steamed halibut burger, I shall miss you dearly. Spam Musubi burger, au revoir. As Julio Iglesias once sang, "To all the grills I've loved before... they travel in and out my door..."

I wanted to finish out the month with something kind of traditional, but with a twist. My favorite burger blog, A Hamburger Today, first published their Hamburger Fatty Melt a couple of years ago. Their version was just two grilled cheese sandwiches sandwiching a burger patty. They stuck it pretty traditional: white bread, Kraft singles and a burger. They have since updated their creation with the introduction of the Bacon Burger Fatty Melt. That's a nice burger. The Bacon Fatty Melt is a tribute to excess. I think they went with multiple layers there. They stack as follows:

• Bacon-stuffed grilled cheese sandwich as bun top
• Cheese
• Bacon
• Four-ounce beef patty
• Bacon-stuffed grilled cheese sandwich as interstitial bun (a nod to the Big Mac)
• Bacon
• Cheeese
• Four-ounce beef patty
• Bacon-stuffed grilled cheese sandwich as bun bottom

Nice. But not really my style. I went with a little more subtlety on my version.

My stack goes:

• Sourdough grilled cheese sandwich with cheddar cheese, mayo and tomato
• Four-ounce beef patty with 1/2 tsp minced shallot, salt, pepper, and a few drops of Tabasco
• Sourdough grilled cheese sandwich with cheddar cheese

It's not that I have something against Kraft singles. I find them useful for specific applications. And I'm not a food snob since I am not averse to white bread. But I think sourdough went so well with good extra sharp New York Cheddar. And they do make a good sourdough here in the SF Bay Area. The burger itself, with the shallot (inspired by the steak tartare burger), was so fragrant, so moist. I also cut rounds out of grilled cheese sandwiches so the bread to burger ration wasn't wack.

So there it was. Oh yes, I used mayo inside the grilled cheese. Some people are dogmatic about grilled cheese sandwiches. But this burger isn't about burger dogma. None of this month was, so I think changing up the grilled cheese part of the puzzle was apt. I think that tossing a slice of tomato and spreading some mayo on at least one of the pieces of bread makes the grilled cheese sandwich so much creamier and fuller.

This was definitely one of the highlights of the month. I think it could've been the best burger I made all month. It was simple. It wasn't too fancy. And it was comfort food on top of comfort food (literally). The resulting sandwich was so juicy, so tasty. I sat there, post-burger, thinking that I couldn't have ended burger month better.

K. I'm done with this month. I'm Audi 5000.