imposter sandwich

this post is about shortcomings. we all know that no one is perfect, so when i decided to recreate curly's santa barbarella sandwich, i knew not to expect the real thing. the approximation, however, was ridiculously good.

it consisted of inglehoffer sweet hot mustard, mesclun mix, monterey jack cheese, morningstar fake bacon, broccoli rabe sprouts, red onion, and tomato all on seeded wheat bread.



i may not have pumpkinseed pesto or whatever other things they use to make their sandwich so delicious, and i may not be able to figure out how to rotate this picture, but this sandwich was pretty good.

*edit* picture rotated

Asparagus Fail

So sure, I love asparagus. It stands to reason that a food that perfectly compliments such classy meals as burgers and pierogi would make a very sophisticated late-night snack.

NOT SO, MY FRIENDS.

Especially when you cover it with shredded cheese (which seriously doesn't make any sense, for a lot of reasons) and dip it in a measuring cup full of melted butter. I dirtied no less than 5 dishes for this disaster. Sad stuff.

Crab Fiasco

I used to really love crab, which my parent's neighbor somehow knew when he (seemingly) thoughtfully delivered king crab legs in honor of my homecoming. So I was pretty thrilled upon sitting down to dinner with fam and the MOST GIGANTIC CREATURE REMOTELY EDIBLE.
This is an Alaskan King Crab. Basically, it's a dinosaur. Eating this beast, turns out, is the most horrifying and revolting thing you could imagine.
We spent a few minutes trying to convince ourselves this was acceptable, until my sister compared the meat to a skinned human arm. At this point, we decided to bust out the wine and start de-shelling the crab for future use (although I'm pretty sure none of us will be able to eat seafood again).
Here's the meat:and the shellage:Sooo thanks across-the-street-neighbor, for making my hands smell like sea-monster for the rest of my life.

Cup o' No

Sad news: my number five has reached its end. Greenpoint's own Cup o' Joes closed down recently to make way for some sort of pie shop. Pie is good, I like pie, but I can't help but feel like this is the end of an era. I also claim a little responsibility, as I hadn't been there in while which I'm sure hurt their bottom line. Best of luck to the guys who ran the place, who made it a true neighborhood establishment.

Goodbye to romance

Well, it's official. I am over massaman curry. Not over in the sense that I hate it or even that I'll never order it again. I only mean that it is not my favorite Thai dish any longer. It was my first favorite and I feel a little torn about seeing it go, but moving on with things is rarely bad. I'd been wondering if I was for a while. It's been over a year since I've had one that I really loved and everytime I try it I find it too sweet. I love potatoes (OMG THE TEXTURE OF THEM IN THIS CURRY IS SOOO GOOD, AND THEY ALWAYS ABSORB SO MUCH FLAVOR MMMMMMMMMM. bUT SERIOUSLY, THAT TEXTURE, THE WAY IN YOUR MOUTH IT BREAKS FROM A HUGE PIECE TO SEVERAL SMALL PIECES TO THIS ALMOST PASTEY THING); I love onions; I LOVE the idea of those being the main thing going into my curry, but in the end I always think "It wasn't as good as (x)". This isn't an incongrues transition for me. I am no longer the fan of highland scotches that I once was on account of their sweetness as well. I think sweet and I are on the outs a little.

Still, I think I ought to explain the death of the love. It certainly did not go gentle into that good night. I was making it at home with the canned stuff by the same people that make the panang paste that has been used in two sweet potato curries since the start of SPF (good lord!). We couldn't do chicken so I got some tofu. After several attempts now I have a tremendous ammount of respect for places and people that can do their tofu right. I am just miserable at it. No matter how long I fry it the result is the same: too soft and falling-aparty. In any case, I did the usual garlic, ginger, tofu, curry paste, fry fry fry, potatoe, milk, potato, milk, potato, milk, onion, peppers, fry, fry, fry, and then, I have no idea what came over me, i decided it would be good if it was a massaman paneer. This was a mistake, though not quite an abortion. (To be perfectly honest, I kind of liked it, but I can tell you for certain I was wrong to. Do not try this at home, or anywhere else, ever.) I quickly chopped up some mozzarella and threw the cubes in after it was done frying. I didn't stir them in hopes that they wouldn't melt. That failed. It became awfullly melty and made scooping the curry onto the plate difficult. There will be no pictures of this monstrosity. Still, it was enough like Massaman for me to know that it's time on center stage of my thai menu had passed.

Any candidates for new favorite thai dish?