- SNOPES AND TACO BELL

Snopes is one reason I love the internet

Taco Bell is disgusting.

To begin with, I had a great sushi dinner Saturday night in CT for a friends birthday party. We had spicy crab, tuna, and sweet potato tempura rolls, all excellent. The following day we did a lovely brunch at Adriennes, a New Englandish type restaurant up in New Milford Connecticut. The meal was accompanied by a basket of fruit and freshly baked muffins and breads. The chef came out during our meal to say hello and see how everything was. A fine experience it was.

Then for dinner we decided to take 10 major steps backwards in our culinary adventures for the weekend and stopped at Taco Bell. I haven't eaten at Taco Bell in literally a decade, and I remembered why last night. We ordered some of these newly devised food products like the Chulupa and some strangely enclosed quesedilla type thing. Also we got an order of nachos (and 2 diet cokes which were the best part of the meal by the way).

As we were eating in the car Jordana mentioned how everything tasted exactly the same..from the nachos to the chalupa things. Then she asked, "Is this real cheese?" I lied to her and said, "Yes of course." I honestly didn't think it was but didn't want to gross her out.

We both ended up feeling sick for the rest of the night. That food could have been mushed together in a tube and squeezed out onto a spoon and would taste exactly the same. I think it will be another 10 years before I eat there again.

Today I looked up Taco Bell on google, hoping to find some good stories but couldn't find much. I did however see a few things about their meat being "Grade D, fit for human consumption" and promptly went to my favorite fact checking website, snopes.com

Snopes if you're not familiar with it, is a great site to check up about those emails you get from random people about some Russian diplomat wanting to wire you a million bucks, or some crap like that. They have pretty much every urban myth you can think of and let you know the origin and how much is true.

Anyway they basically give a rundown and presented the information about Taco Bell and McDonalds not having "Grade D meat" but then again it isn't the same meat you get in restaurants..I'm sure some of it is pretty nasty (as is evident when eating it).

Anyway Taco Bell is fucking gross. I wish I hadn't eaten there. It's almost 24 hours later and my stomach is still making noises.

Gross.

- HUMMUS RECIPE

A friend asked for my roasted red pepper hummus recipe today so I wrote it up in an email. Now I'm sharing it with the world. If you don't like red peppers (like my girlfriend) you can omit them and just add a bit more water.

Serve with veggies and PITA squares from Damascus on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. If you can't make it there you should move to Brooklyn, or just buy some PITA and put it in the oven for a few minutes.

ROASTED RED PEPPER HUMMUS!

Hummus is pretty tough to make until u do it a few times, then it's really easy. The key is consistently. Well consistency and not fucking it up.

Depending how much you're making this should be a good estimate of a recipe:

4 cans of chick peas drained of their water
3/4 cup of tahini (add a little more if you think it needs it)
juice of 1 small lemon
2 tablespoons of salt
fresh black pepper to taste
1 cup of water
5-6 pieces of roasted red pepper (buy the canned kind they are the same as trying to roast them yourself which makes a fucking mess at least for me it does)
1 head of garlic
1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
1 large white chefs hat

- So first you should cut the head off the garlic, about the top 1/4 I would say, pour some extra virgins on it, partially close it in tin foil and bake in the oven at about 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes until the cloves start to get soft so you can squeeze them out by hand (after it cools off course don't burn your cute lil hands babe)

- you need a food processor and you need to work in small batches. Take one can of chick peas (after draining it. you can rinse it as well with cool water) and put them into the processor.

-add a few scoops of the tahini
-add a few cloves of the squeezed garlic when it's cooled down..Make sure the skin is off..The garlic should poop right out of the skin when u squeeze it. Don't burn that shit though.
-add 2 tablespoons or so of the water. Start to blend it. If it gets stuck because the chickpeas are too dry, add a little more water but only enough to get it going. Then towards the end when it starts to smooth out..
-grind some black pepper over it and..
-add some salt, then..
-add a few slices of the red pepper. Actually I changed my mind..Add the red pepper in at first. This will act like a lubricant and get the mixture moving and grooving.

- The key is to make it smooth..Not too many lumps. Add a little bit of the extra virgins afterwards to help smooth it out more and give a little extra flavor. This all takes some practice. Make your first small batch for yourself and see how it comes out. I usually make 3-4 batches and put them together in a big bowl. Then I stomp on them with my feet like Lucy did with the grapes at the Italian winery.

- Feel free to call me if needed. You don't have to use all the garlic it just goes to taste..I would say 2 cloves or so per can of chick peas.. Remember the taste of roasted garlic is much milder than raw.

may god be with u

- FILM CRITIC

I just saw the Sea Inside. It was a truely emotional film and overall just really brilliant I thought.

My quote to Luke, my friend who suggested it was, "Made me weep like my balls were caught in the spokes of a bicycle wheel."

If that isn't film critique I'm not quite sure what is.

- The Argentine Way

Well I've been back for awhile but haven't blogged about my trip although I did post a lot of shots to flickr with little stories. I'm re-inacting that here with this numbered mosaic.

1) The first meal upon arrival may have been the best. We had lunch at:

EL TRAPICHE
Paraguay 5099
Palermo
Buenos Aires
Tel: 4772 7343

just giving you some info in case you're ever in Buenos Aires (and you should be if you haven't been). Be prepared to spend about $12 for a nice meal...and that's for two people. We both ordered the sirloin/chicken skewers and fries. It was really the first moment of settling ourselves, sitting down to relax and biting into some of the most tender perfectly cooked pieces of steak I've ever had. It was one of those unforgettable dining experiences, our expressions of pure joy were apparent upon each bite.

2) Fidel Krieger. This was actually taken on the last day of our journey. Two cigars were purchased from a small smoke shop in the San Telmo section of Buenos Aires. The proprietor tried pushing some cigar from Switzerland on us but we insisted to smoke something made locally. I hadn't smoked a cigarette in a few weeks at that point but decided to have a cigar anyway (and haven't smoked anything since). It tasted ok but nothing special. This photograph taken by Jordana is much cooler than the actual smoking of it was.

3) Despite some wise ass comments I wasn't shooting this old woman's breasts..I was just trying to get a cool shot which I think I did with this. I love the lighting here. Jordana was talking with this older woman at a market while I was sitting on a bench surveying the scene, shooting a bit. Locals are called "Portenos" there so that's my title of this one.

4) Mate is a potent tea drink which is quite popular in Argentina and apparently other parts of South America. The process of preparing mate is an arduous task but the final product is worth it. Shown here are the cups used to drink the Mate. The stuff is like crack as we found out, with locals carrying around their cups and thermos filled with hot water during the day to feed their habit. I'm drinking it right now as I'm writing this actually. To learn more about Mate go to Argentina..or a quicker way actually might be to read this.

5) Uruguay for a day. If you do make it down to BA I suggest taking a day trip to Cologna, Uruguay. A three hour boat ride (similar to the three hour Gilligan tour but we actually made it there) took us to this small beautiful but beaten down village where we did a few things. So here's a little list within a list.
1) Rented a Ninja/Vespa type vehicle that I promptly crashed us into a sidewalk a few feet away from the man pictured here. We ran into him again (no pun intended)later in the day and he directed us to some out of the way local architecture to check out. He was a sweet old man who told us if we needed anything just stop by his home and he/his wife would take care of us.
2) We ate this massive meal named Chivito which consists of ham, steak, and fried eggs served over a bed of french fries. It was a bit much for Jordana but for a professional eater like me it was smooth sailing. She actually ordered it without ham (to my chagrin) but they managed to slip on some ham steak regardless..those slippery Uruguayans.
3) We got a back massage at this resort in town which seemed like a great idea but halfway during mine a large group of businessmen there for a conference got into the pool outside of my massage room and started making so much noise I couldn't enjoy it. They were kinda short and stocky so I think it may have been a chiropractors conference. I actually got off the massage table, put my clothes on, and walked out to the main desk and basically demanded my money back. It was hard to speak to them until they got a guy who spoke English so ole Danny-one-language could verbalize my fury. They gave me 10% off which was bullshit. Jordana enjoyed her massage so I wasn't as upset as I would have been. Still though.
4) At the end of the day we went to return of the ninja/vespa/moped the place looked closed. Finally the guy who ran it came running up asking why we were so late? We looked at my watch and said "What it's only 7:30?" which is when it was due. He corrected us saying, "No it's almost 8:30," which is when our boat was leaving, which was the last boat of the day. I had forgotten to correct for the one hour time difference. We had no clothes there, no room, nothing. We would have been pretty screwed. We started running for the dock. We barely made it on the boat and got a few firm headshakingsat, But we made it!

6) La Boca, a South American version of Disneyland. A tourist area if we ever did see one while down there. Obviously not our favorite portion of the journey but they did have some amazing colors as can be seen on the houses.

7) Uruguay again. This was an old car overlooking the ocean. Jordana and I ran took a lot of shots in this area. This version isn't the greatest because it was cut off but you can see the original here.

8) Jordana at a large outdoor flea market in San Telmo. We both purchased a mask and a few other great items hand made by this artisan. He had this great serenity about him as many people there did. The product of his labor was beautiful and each hand made mask was priced between 3-5 dollars. Can you believe it!??!?!

9) A kiss on the beach. Me and my lady.

- Tic Tac Gum

I think Tic Tac should come out with a gum. I just had a piece of gum in my mouth and popped in a few tic tacs without realizing it and wasn't entirely disappointed with the outcome.

Gum Tacs? how does that sound? a little bit crunchy in the gum they are but in a good way. and bursts of peppermint and shit blasting in your mouth. bitch!

- OFF TO ARGENTINA

Yeah no shit.

Out of nowhere I'm off to South America to vacation for a week. I'm pretty psyched as I haven't been anywhere warm for vacation since going to the Bahamas with my parents in like 5th grade. My brother and I insisted on bringing our Nintendo and customs almost arrested us thinking it was some kind of explosive devise. The best memory on that vacation other than seeing the set where Thunderball was shot (a James Bond movie for you women) was me winning my dad a few hundred bucks in some electronic horse race game. My pops gave me a roll of $20 for my efforts. Talk about getting the shaft.

I'm leaving tomorrow morning with Jordana because she just got this super sweet new job as a culinary writer starting on the 13th. We have a few days to kick around so decided on Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Good photos and stories to share soon.