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mmmmm……[drool]….. 🙂

From Ibuki –
The Ramen Rater

site: The Ramen Rater

I guess this is one way to guarantee you get ALL the cake, kitty! 🙂

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started reading Diesel Sweeties lately – an amusing nerdy comic, done in apparently 8-bit pixelated format although I have no idea what the name means. But the author posted about these mugs being avail. too – hilarious!

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interesting…….!

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Got to enjoy Anthony Bourdain at The Paramount for the second time last night.  This time he was here with Eric Ripert, another famous chef and friend in the business.  We saw him come to town with Mario Batali a couple years ago in 2009 (brief crowd video from that here), that talk was moderated by Luke Burbank (of Tbtl and NPR fame) and was very entertaining.  This time was just mano-a-mano, just the two of them.

They started by having Bourdain ‘cross-examine’ Ripert on a folding chair at the front about his restaurant, some of his career past, his interactions with other chefs and industry people, and some choice anecdotes obviously meant to skewer him in a friendly way.

Then Ripert becamse the ‘cross-examiner’ and started peppering Bourdain with questions – and here there was much more to skewer, as Mr. Bourdain’s mouth often proceeds him in the public venue.  But to his credit, he’s honest (sometimes brutally so) and isn’t above accepting a few shots based on his past statements where people disagree with him.  But naturally the recent ‘Paula Deen scandal’ was fairly amusing to hear retold – and I have to agree with him – while she seems to have managed the situation pretty well, she’s a pretty big hypocrite when the whole story is told, even if he’s over the top about it.  Ripert pressed his advantage on this one and similar stories, trying to determine if Bourdain was a ‘hater’ or not – fairly entertaining to see the answers here.

There was also a later anecdote where Bourdain told a story of his wife being annoyed with him for maligning Grant Achatz’ Alinea restaurant in Chicago – he said she then bought a plane ticket to Chicago, dined there, loved it and said so publicly – he said to ultimately ‘give him the middle finger’ 🙂

After the sessions with the folding chair – they retired to a couple lounge chairs and debated other topics of note – Sustainability (Bourdain largely played devil’s advocate on this one, especially with his largely hyperbolic Bluefin Tuna example); GMOs (was very glad they brought this up) and the subject of which has the most adverse impact on the food industry – chicken or foie gras.  After some more chat, they opened it up to the floor for questions for about half an hour until they called it a night.

Like before, there’s a definite contrast between Bourdain, who to me is very knowledgable on many levels but also relishes his public role as industry curmudgeon – in some ways he’s a sort of Howard Cosell – just ‘telling it like it is‘.  Ripert by contrast seems to be one of the nicest guys out there – although Bourdain did skewer him on the topic of Gordon Ramsay – and seems more an ambassador of the profession (think Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, etc. – willing to share their knowledge and help nearly anyone).  They took definite pains to show Ripert’s efforts to make the profession ‘nicer’ in the kitchen, believing that the old-school way of chef training via abuse and humiliation has become obsolete and is counter-productive.  It was also interesting to hear how intimidated AB was by Martha Stewart – too funny.

All in all, a great show – as we already get our regular quota of A.B. via his TV shows, it’s nice to see him in a somewhat different situation where he’s not controlling *all* the dialog, and getting to see him debate other equally (if not more) respected industry people like Ripert.

As per usual, a great time and….she made all the food!  Plus thanks to everyone for coming, special shout outs to maria, dawniel for all the kitchen help!

Happy birthday, babe.

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In the past couple days over our wussy Seattle ‘snowpocalypse’ the backyard birdies are still hanging in there. Today I got pics of a certain fat robin that hangs out by one of our holly trees, and of a swarm of bushtits that periodically visit the suet feeders. I have seen chickadees zipping around too, besides the usual seagulls and crows (there are a pair of crows that usually hang around too, but haven’t seen them in the past week)…

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Well, it was a long time in planning, but the big event(s) finally happened this past weekend – Kerewin‘s big 4.0 bday. And I am VERY happy to say everything was a big success and she had a great time. And there were even a few surprises along the way, which is always nice to pull off. Two of karri’s best friends came in from WAY out of town (NYC and AZ) and my sister from Boise, ID. Other friends trekked down from BC and all four corners of the Puget Sound area. For Portland, we had friends coming in from as far away as Hood River as well as the greater Portland area. THANK YOU to all for coming! 🙂 🙂 🙂

We had the first party here in Seattle on Sat. night at Kenyon Hall in West Seattle (great venue if you are looking for one for an event of your own). It was catered by the always-amazing, nearby Buddha Ruksa (best Thai in town!) and the Shiftless Layabout(s) were our band for the night. Hopefully both gained a bunch of new fans – the guests were constantly praising both all night and after.

Sunday am, we all piled in the car and blasted down to OR for the second party Sunday afternoon the 6th.

There are 4 pages of pics here – and even a couple MP4 movies – enjoy!

happy bday, Kerewin – love ya!

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