Monday, February 21, 2011

Foods I don't get. Part 2.

1. Overcooked, boiled vegetables. Can someone tell me what is enticing about cooking sliced carrots until they have no flavor and have the consistency of baby food? Same with any other vegetable.

2. Pho. The name itself puts me off for some reason, maybe because it's pronounced faux, as in fake, as in not really good food. Yes, I have tried it. My daughter likes it as do other people I know. I just don't get the rice noodle.

3. Rice pudding. Can we talk? Anything that looks as nasty as rice pudding or its cousin tapioca can not taste good. I don't care how you trick it up.

And the worst of them all one more time: chicken pot pie -- yes, I have talked about this before but I have to bring it up again because my wife just heated one up and I took a look inside. Gooey substance, green peas, carrots and an occasional piece of overcooked chicken. Unless I'm starving on some deserted island, there is no way I'm eating that.

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Friday, February 18, 2011

Carmel at Lightcatcher Winery & Bistro

Friends of ours are performing at Lightcatcher Winery & Bistro this Sunday. Lightcatcher features jazz musicians at their Bistro's bi-weekly, Jazz Sunday.

Carmel is performing Sunday, February 20. Carmel sings and plays a mixture of Soul, Blues, and original Jazz. Samples of their music can be found on their website here: Nightwork Jazz.

Details
-> Carmel at Lightcatcher Winery
-> Sunday, February 20, 2011
-> 4 pm - 7 pm
-> See Lightcatcher Winery & Bistro website for directions. It's 12 miles north and west of downtown

Lightcatcher website

Carmel on Facebook

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After attending comments: the music and setting were fantastic. Comments on the wine were mixed. The bistro's cheese-meat-crackers plate was good but for $20 it should be.


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Tuesday, February 8, 2011

My Life with Pizza

I love Pizza. In all its varieties.

As a young boy, I remember the cold, square-sliced pizza of the Three Little Bakers. The pie was rectangular, cut into squares and had no cheese -- just thick bread topped with a sweet, light marinara sauce. A nickel a slice.

Picture of an authentic Neapolitan Pizza Margh...                                                Image via WikipediaI graduated to more sophisticated pizza as I grew older. My father would bring pizza home every once in a while for a Friday night treat.

We would eat pizza while dad taught us how to play a card game like poker, or black jack, or pinochle. The pizza was New York style, thin-crust, cheese, no toppings. He usually bought it from "Lou's" (name changed). Lou's sold pizza and assisted select customers with investments in horses, football teams, and such.

The pizza at our high-school, Friday night football games was the cheap over manufactured, synthetic kind, but I liked it.

I lived in Hammonton, New Jersey for a while where Bruni's had as good a pizza pie as I have ever had. Speaking of Hammonton, Marian and I met and were married there -- and we stopped for pizza not long after we left the church and the reception. It sounds funny now, but seemed perfectly normal back then.

Pizza at the beach was Grotto's, for me. I loved Grotto's back in those days, and still love sitting at their boardwalk bar with a couple of slices, a diet-Coke, a book, and an ocean view. My sister, at the age of sixteen, was the first waitress hired at Rehoboth Beach's Nicola's Pizza speaking of the beach and pizza. Nicola's and Grotto's are still thriving.

It didn't take long to find good pizza in Fort Worth. The Meadowbrook area was fortunate enough to have Charlie's Pizza, a Saturday night family favorite for over twenty years. Charlie retired a few years ago. I miss him, his family, the many friends we made there over the years -- and the pizza. It was the best.

Brick oven, Neopolitan pizza is popular now, and I like it. Cavalli's and Il Cane Rosso, are two good examples in the area, but they are popping up everythere these days.

If an evil food god insisted that, for the rest of your life, you could only eat one of the following three: pizza, hamburgers, or tacos, which would you choose?

I'd take pizza. No question about it.
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