Japanese Month

I realize it's been like four solid years since we've posted on this fuckforsaken blog, but, to our credit, we were hungover and lazy. Actually, I guess a lot of things happened. Recently, a think that happened was us remembering we had this blog.

Well, we're back and we've decided to branch out from being SO FUCKING WHITE and try some new recipes and styles of cooking (which is, in itself, pretty fucking white).

September is Japan.

Ryan has some experience cooking Japanese food, and I have some experience eating it. What could possibly go wrong? Stay tuned. Or don't.

Wine Review: 2014 Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy

We are drunks so we opened another bottle of wine tonight. The first of many, I'm sure. This one was purchased from Club W, which is actually pretty fun if you think $13 per bottle of wine is a cool thing. Depends on the wine, right? I'm not swimming in $13 bills, you know? And if I were, I might have some serious issues with the Treasury Department and/or a severe learning disability.

Tonight's bottle is the ignominiously-named "2014 Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy," made by what I'm sure are very nice Hobbits in New Zealand. Of the three bottles we got from Club W, we chose this one first because, well... I think it was the easiest to reach. Our wine rack is up kind of high, and we are also Hobbits.

Here is Crystal's video review:

In which she discusses the actual flavors present in the wine. You know, like in a review.

Here, by contrast, is Ryan's review, which for some reason involves dicks:

Because of course it does. 

Overall, three out of five lemons. Or dicks. Whichever. 

MILK MILK LEMONADE ROUND THE CORNER FUDGE IS MADE

Wine Review: Husch 2013 Chenin Blanc

I know pretty much nothing about wine, and nothing about making videos. So I drunkenly decided (after months of joking about it) to combine the two. Witness my failure. Witness my embarrassment. Witness my having a good fucking time and getting drunk on shit I like.

Let's keep it simple, shall we?

Our first featured wine is Husch 2013 Chenin Blanc from Mendocino, CA. We picked it up on vacation and found ourselves too drunk to consume it while on vacation so it came home with us. 

Tonight, after a drink - I mean - dinner at Revolution Wine, we came home with a hankering for more wine. Wine. So we shoved this in the freezer for twenty minutes and then poured it into plastic Joe's Crab Shack cups because - and never forget - we are white trash. 

Here's my uneducated stupid fucking opinion.

Ryan didn't have much of an opinon because I think he was less drunk than I was.

Stay tuned for the next episode of us wasting decent wine on our hideous fucking faces.

Shitty Food in Review: TJ's Shells with Brie and Asparagus

I will never understand why Ryan allows me to go to the store hungry, but to his credit, I'm pretty much always hungry. Especially after something that burns a lot of calories like driving, playing Words With Friends, or blowing raspberries on my dog's belly. Long story short, we went to Trader Joe's, I was hungry, and I ended up going down the frozen food aisle (ahem, FROZEN FOOD WONDERLAND OF LET'S EAT ALL THIS STUFF) and buying this. Actually, that is the long version of the story.

 

 

It is made my "Trader Jacques," who I can only assume by the name is some kind of up-and-coming French chef. Plus is has brie in it and shows the dish being served in a bowl with a handle, so it's basically like dropping $100 a plate on a nice dinner out. Pop some Two-Buck - excuse me - Two-Dollar-And-Fifty-Cents-Chuck (hm, doesn't have quite the same ring to it anymore) and you've got a romantical evening of romance (or a lunch at your desk job that might make your day 2% less shitty). Plus, the box boasts that it is "sinfully rich and worth every bite" so by eating this I get to throw some shit in the face of Christians for all that sinful stuff I love AND people who think money is better currency than bites - HAHA! SUCK IT!

 

Side note: why THE FUCK can't I drink wine at work?

 

Preparation was simple. The situation is - crack a corner open, nuke for three and a half minutes, loiter in front of the microwave and pretend that the microwaves are aborting whatever possible hideous fetus may have defied my birth control, and then open the lid and stir. Now that's what I call cooking. When I opened the lid though, I was actually a little taken aback...

 

This motherfucker has an actual good-sized slice of brie in it! I was not aware that you could 1) freeze brie, 2) microwave brie, or 3) stir brie into pasta. When I read "brie" on the box, I assumed it was some lump on processed cheese-shit. Brie has long been the stinky cheese that I linger around at parties, scooping awkward globs onto crackers. Apparently brie can exist in many forms and is as versatile and useful to the human body as water. 

 

Staring down into the cardboard box of dreams, I was momentarily transported to some awesome fantasy-reality where I have made $10,000 because I patented cheese-infused water. I would rehydrate on gouda-water and ride my unicorn through the streets to a fountain whose center is just a giant piece of swiss cheese with water squirting out of it. The crowds would sing songs in my honor and shower me with handfuls of feta and flaked parmesan. It would be so beautiful.

 

This is sad for a lot of reasons, least of which is the fact that I consider $10,000 a fortune beyond any I will ever possess. Did I mention I like cheese? Cheese.

 

Returning to reality, I managed not to end my life right then out of disappointment and instead stirred the cheese, asparagus, and shells around as instructed. This created an actually not terrible looking dish, which I of course added a bunch of black pepper to because it keeps the demons away. It smelled good and the texture wasn't so goopy that it was fighting for control of the fork. So far, so good.

This is easily one of the better frozen meals I've had. It was the perfect amount of food, the taste was good, and the only hiccup I ran into was one or two pieces of asparagus that were too chewy and should have been hacked off and disposed off. I was able to deal with this because by then I was thinking of this frozen meal as a neat group of friends I got to hang out with (and eat), and in any group of friends there are a few that should be hacked up and disposed of.

Preparation: Super simple if you can handle stirring up brie.

Cost: I think this was like $3, which is kind of high for frozen food but not bad if you like eating something that is slightly above the normal frozen dog shit you usually find.

Taste and Quality: Not bad. Would buy again.

Healthiness: Fuck you, okay?

Overall Rating: 5/5 Unicorns with Asparagus for Horns and Frozen Brie for Hair

Bad Food Review: Some Kind of Udon, I Don't Fucking Know

So a long time ago, I used to think Udon was like a fancier version of Ramen, but then, a long time ago, I believed lots of stupid bullshit. This was before the proliferation of upscale Ramen places in the city I live in, which for all its progress has historically been about as cosmopolitan as the menu of a Claim Jumper.

Until then, Udon was a neat soup you got at Japanese places with big fat noodles, and Ramen was the stringy bricks of carbohydrates pooped out by questionable factories directly into the mouths of People Who Just Need Food Right Now. That their respective noodles are of different size and consistency seemed to me more a matter of pragmatism than of a true culinary divergence. Spaghettios are probably round because that shape is easier to force through whatever mechanical anus creates them, right? Stick with me, here. I said I was wrong.

Also, Ramen came in flavors like Beef, Pork, and the enigmatically simplistic "Oriental," whereas Udon broth had Japanese names like Tonkotsu and Shoyu. Turns out you can put anything in these, but again, I was wrong. How many times? Jesus.

This was also before the much more enjoyable spread of Asian/World food superstores through the greater metropolitan area, which has afforded me access to ingredients to interesting recipes I could never have attempted before. This has also exposed me to about a hundred new brands and flavors of Ramen. And, to my now relatively marginal shock, the same abundance of shitty, packaged Udon.

This is one of them. It is FLAVOR: BEEF, like many of it's dried-noodle counterparts. And since this specimen is indicative of its kind, I'm going to review this based on how it compares to the Ramen of my youth. And adulthood. The shitty kind, I mean.

"Serving Suggestion" translates to "If I wanted to cook I would've fucking cooked" in every language.

The brand name is "Myojo," which I've never heard of, but that's hardly surprising considering my native culture and language affiliations. I looked up the word, and all I found out was that a shocking number of people post comprehensive reviews of instant noodle soup (shout-out to my favorite, http://www.theramenrater.com/), and that from 1900-1908, Myojo was a Japanese literary journal published between 1900-1908. If this brand name is a tribute to that publication, then that fact was lost in translation.

Anyway, here is the back, with the standard abbreviated English directions and dubious description of origin.

Notice the calorie information is under the package flap. THAT'S HOW THEY GET YOU.

I ripped the thing open kind of clumsily, so I still don't know how many calories this thing has.

Inside it looks like Ramen. There's a single flavoring packet, as opposed to some of the more interesting varieties of instant noodles.

Braaaaaaaains

The nice there here is that instant Udon is generally refrigerated, so the noodles are "fresh" instead of a dried, matted-pube mess like instant Ramen noodles, which are often also flash-fried in lard. Vegans, take note. Then Shut up, already. Damn. We get it. Fresher noodles seem so much more appetizing.

'Seem' being the operative word.

They're entombed in a shrink-wrapped plastic bag that you have to open with actual scissors, though, so that's kind of annoying. No, really. If I have to use more to prepare this foodthing than the utensil with which I plan on shoveling it into my mouth, then I'm basically cooking, And if that were the case, I would put more effort into it than this.

This should be enough. The scissors are slightly out-of-frame, out in cootieville, like they should be.

Anyway, following the directions, which called for a suspiciously small amount of water, I grabbed my trusty Ramen-sized pot and got to work. Turn the stove to MAKEWATERGOHOT, wait for bubbling to ensue, and then drop my noodle brick in there. Aw. Well, shit.

Of course, this is my fault.

The brick loosens up nicely, unlike its Rameny cousins, and actually starts to look like food.

Protip: Metal chopsticks are great at conducting heat right into your fingers.

Somehow at this point, though, too much water had evaporated, or been absorbed, or both, and by the time I was supposed to add the mystical flavor dust, I was left with less a soup and more a pile of hot noodles.

Behold: ESSENCE OF BEEF! Oh wait, no, that's something else.

So, much like standard, twenty-five cent bricks of regret, you have to adjust the directions a little bit according to preference and practicality. No one I know who's had Ramen more than a few times ever follows the directions precisely. Some people like it a little crunchy, others rendered into a paste-like pile of goo; I've seen Ramen enhanced by Sriracha, blasphemed by ketchup, and once even thoroughly misunderstood by the addition of cheddar cheese. So a little modification is fine.

Not that this is good, or anything.

Far from being different animals all together, Ramen and Udon are both traditional noodle soups from Japan, usually accompanied by all manner of vegetables, meats, garnishes and condiments. The instant versions of either one, it would seem, are essentially the same. I like the big floppy Udon noodles better, but for under a dollar, you pretty much get what you pay for.

Bad Food Review: Dollar Store Frozen Breakfast Hell-Shit

For the most part, I'm not so snooty or wealthy that I can look down my nose at food from the Dollar Store. Sure, they carry brands I'm pretty sure originate from a parallel universe, frozen entrees that may have been switched at birth ($1 lasagna tastes like an enchilada, but $1 enchiladas taste like lasagna), and I would definitely caution against $1 mayonnaise, some parts of me more vociferously than others. But for the most part, processed food is processed food, so buying a Hot Pocket for a buck or paying three times that at <some store that's upscale but presumably still sells Hot Pockets> is mainly a matter of what you like to waste money on. Me, I prefer beer.

That being said, I should probably have been more cautious when approaching this monstrosity: Red Baron Bacon & Cheese Mini Scrambles. Which, at least in its description, is a mouthful.

What does a WWI fighter pilot have to do with pizza or breakfast? Or, you know, anything at all?

While I've never had anything called a "scramble" (also known as a "omelet that got fucked up but is otherwise delicious") that came with a delivery vehicle made of pastry instead of like, a plate, I wasn't properly suspicious, for a few key reasons:

1. The Brand - Red Baron is a shitty pizza manufacturer of legendary renown, and has never caused me anything but mild intestinal duress.
2. Breakfast Things - When I'm in the mood to make breakfast, I will go all out and make something awesome, but I'm not in the mood, I'm really not in the fucking mood. I think most people feel this way. Hence, things like Pop-Tarts.
3. Morbid Curiosity  - Maybe I was feeling self-destructive, or hadn't seen a horrific car accident in a while, but the same impulse led me to buy this. Like I couldn't not buy it. 
4. VALUE!  - It's only ONE dollar but has THREE things? That's a good deal, I guess, based on the totally arbitrary exchange rate of not knowing what those three things even fucking are. By Grabthar's Hammer, what a savings!

One thing that might have swayed a less-savvy bargain shopper was this little piece of clever package design:

Keep frozen, but cook thoroughly? How do I do both? I WILL COOK IT WITH FREEZER BURN.

That's right. Surely this ambrosial breakfast scramble what-the-fuck is a holy trinity of flavor, balanced nutrition, and value if its packaging recommends I begin each new precious day of my increasingly finite life shoving it into my mouth. However, had I even noticed this happy, lying little clipart flag, it probably would've scared me off entirely, as it sounds less like a genuine testament of quality and more like a state-mandated subtitle on the label of Victory Gin.*

Nevertheless, I bought it, so I was going to eat it. Onto the cooking!

From past experience, I know most products like this can usually be prepared in either one of the appliances generally available to the majority of Dollar Store patrons. They can be microwaved to a half-molten, soggy mess, or burned to a crisp in a (toaster) oven. I prefer the crisp, so I dutifully turned the package over to find relevant times and temperatures.

Also available in Spanish-speaking microwaves

No such luck. There are only microwave instructions. There is, of course, a third way to heat up these kinds of things, which is to place them directly on the hot engine block of your 70s muscle car, but if  you're that kind of guy, you clearly have your shit together, and don't need instructions about fucking anything.

Undeterred, I plunged ahead. Surely the included "Crisping Strip" will prevent any sogginess, right? I remember being baffled by "Crisping Sleeves" many years ago, and though they didn't and still don't work for shit, perhaps the problem was too much mysterious reflective material. Then it was a simple matter of placing my three (!) weird little hockey pucks on the strip, and putting that whole mess on a microwave-safe plate, which I assume always means a paper plate, a paper towel, or a torn-off sheet of the Pennysaver. I went with the plate.

That looks like cheese, but how the fuck do you freeze eggs?

After microwaving for 2-3 minutes, which is charmingly vague, I was supposed to make sure the product was cooked thoroughly: presumably I would know if that were the case. However:

Wait, wasn't there supposed to be bacon?

Is that done? I don't even know. It was hot as fuck, so... I guess?

Some conclusions, in bullet-point form, because I'm lazy:

• It didn't really taste that bad. It tasted like salty fat, which makes sense given a cursory examination of the nutritional information. 
• The Nutritional Information, by the way, was hidden inside the package. Well played, Red Baron. Well played. 
• Whatever the crisping thingy is made of, it's probably just non-biodegradable garbage, because if there was one thing these sad, retarded quiches were not, it was crispy. Here are some words that are far more applicable: Chewy, tough, spongy, regrettable, suicide, etc. 

This is not, by any means, the worst frozen food item I've ever had, but unless a dystopian dictatorship actually requires it, I will not be starting each and every day with Red Baron Cheese and Something Garbage Tarts.


* Read a fucking book.

Deviled Eggs: An Exercise in Fat

A lot of people don't like hard-boiled eggs, it's true. Some people simply don't like the texture, which is sad, because their lives are incomplete and they'll never really be happy. Most often though, people complain about the cholesterol and fat content, which is why deviled eggs are so great, since they let us expand on the existing fat and cholesterol content by adding additional fat and cholesterol. Oh, and salt.

First, of course, you need to make hard-boiled eggs, and while I assume anyone who spends any time in their kitchen who isn't a pontificating vegan knows how to do this, I'm including a method anyway. It is foolproof, because all methods for making hard-boiled eggs are foolproof. They're fucking hard-boiled eggs, not fucking demi-glace.

What you will need:

7* eggs**
A saucepan with a lid
A stove
Running water

* Since one will most likely get fucked up somehow, this leaves you with six, for a dozen deviled eggs.
** It is best to use old eggs for this, since they peel more easily. This is science.

Put the eggs in the pan and cover them with about an inch of water. If there isn't room for an inch of water, get a different pan - continuing to fill past the volume of the pan will not help.

Incorrect

Put that on the stove and turn it to high. It's going to take a while for the water to boil, obviously, so go do something else for a while. That way, you'll be halfway through the next episode of whatever you're watching on Netflix these days and suddenly you'll say "oh shit! Those things have been boiling for who knows how long!" This is the appropriate amount of time. When you run into the kitchen and see the water boiling, turn the burner off, and cover.

You do have a lid, right?

Then, with the aid of the timer-enabled device of your choice, let the eggs sit in the water for exactly eighteen minutes. Any longer and they will explode; any shorter and they will cause nightmarish diarrhea. Because of this, you're going to want to watch the timer verrrrry closely.

Sure, it went down one second, but that's no guarantee of anything.

That is all bullshit, of course. But eighteen minutes seems to work pretty well. After the allotted amount of time, give or take, carefully pour off the hot water while simultaneously running cold water into the pan. This is a great way to waste water and cool the eggs at the same time.

If you're really worried about it, and you're one of those super-rich people who has an ice maker, you can waste water that way instead. Anyway, the goal here is to stop the eggs cooking, not stop all Brownian motion, so they can still be a little warm. Then put 'em in a bowl and chill 'em until your fridge reeks of farts.

Seriously your fridge will smell like room-clearing dogfarts.

Now the fun part.

First you have to peel the eggs. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to do this, despite the heartfelt attestations of about a million YouTube video creators. Go ahead and look. Try whatever you want. It's just a pain in the ass and you get better at it with practice. Do your best. If some of the whites come out a little janky-looking, remind any critics that they're eating eggs stuffed with eggs, and maybe they should shut the hell up.

And if any are broken completely, asshole dogs like this one will be happy to dispose of them for you.

What You Will Need Now

6 Peeled, Hard-Boiled Eggs
2 1/2 tbsp Mayonnaise*
1 1/2 tbsp Fancy-Pants Mustard
1 tsp Dried Dill
Paprika
Celery Salt
Salt
Pepper
An unspecified amount of Sour Cream*

* Many people don't like mayonnaise or sour cream, so I use a little of both. So if someone says "Oh, there isn't mayo in here, is there?" I can say "It's mostly sour cream." And vice versa.

You can use whatever mustard you want, but the fancier-pantsier, the better, so long as it is not Dijon. I don't know how that would turn out, but I bet it would be disgusting. My fancy-pants mustard of choice has Peppadew peppers in it, which only grow in a particular part of South Africa, and the consumption of which probably somehow contributes to horrific, ongoing, institutional racism in that country. But damn, they're tasty.

Our slimy ingredients. Today we're using Crema Mexicana because the sour cream was expired and had mold in it. Hooray!

Our spicy things. Yes, the celery salt is some handmade, artisanal bullshit. We bought it at a farmer's market in a cute little town on the North Coast of California, and the label is printed in fucking Papyrus. We are dicks. The salt is just salt.

Before you get started, you're going to want to get out your handy deviled egg carrier, as it's useful for preparation, transportation, and presentation. Wait, you don't have a deviled egg carrier? What are you, a fucking peasant?

You don't actually need this. We do.

Cut the eggs in half and squeeze all the little yolky bits into a big bowl, like bigger than you think you would need. Don't worry if they have infamous "green ring" around them, since they're going to be all squished anyway. Start smooshing the egg yolks and keep going until they're essentially a a coarse powder. I like to use a fork for this job, but feel free to use whatever tool you're comfortable with.

There are a variety of options.

More smooshed than this, so this picture is useless.

Add the mayonnaise and mustard and keep smashing until you've made a rough paste. Then add the spicy things. the salt, pepper, paprika, and celery salt (douchy or otherwise) should just be a pinch or so each. You can always add more later. Keep smooshing until the paste is smooth.

Smoosh, smoosh. Notice the fork.

At this point, keep adding something (like the Crema or sour cream) until you've about doubled the volume of the original yolks, and the filling is creamy. This will give you enough to put heaping servings of the filling on each egg half. For this job, I usually just use a spoon, but again, you have options. If you have a pastry bag, and really want to wash egg yolk and mayonnaise out of it, then by all means, pipe that stuff in there instead. It will look prettier, but it won't taste any better. 

Not a pastry bag.

After that, you're pretty much done, but I like to do a final shake of paprika on the whole lot of them, because it looks fancy without having to wash three kinds of fat out of a pastry bag. Did I mention that using a spoon is just fine?

Paprika is the happiest spice in the world.