Well, those would have been up sooner, but I’m a doofis and couldn’t figure out how to use the silly program. All better now, just make sure to read the dates on my past several entries.
I went to a local Mexican place with a friend and his kids for dinner tonight and had a lovely meal. The service was fantastic (this is something many Mexican restaurants have in common, I’ve found) and the food was excellent.
I had the Fajitas Texanas, which is basically a combo fajita plate including chicken, steak, shrimp, and sauteed onions and peppers. It is served with rice, beans, and a guacamole salad. Mucho delicioso!
I’m writing this from a motorcoach en route to Montreal. We stopped in Niagra Falls for lunch and to catch the beautiful view of what we dubbed a “God-made and man-tweaked” wonder.
We ate at Pizza Pizza, whose tagline claims that it’s Ontario’s best pizza. Having not sampled all of Ontario’s pizzerias I can’t be sure, but darn tasty indeed.
I had a slice of “super,” or what we’d call deluxe in the States. I’d describe the quality as being a slice above Sbarro. I was very impressed.
For dinner I had a turkey bacon from Tim Horton’s, and then a cup of the best coffee I’ve had in quite a while. Delicious. Now another hour and a half on the bus til we reach our hotel.
More detailed blogging (and even photos!) when I’m at a desk with my laptop instead of on a bus with my iPod.
On Monday I’ll be boarding a bus to take Tri-C West’s production of Don’t Count Your Chickens Before They Cry Wolf to beautiful Montreal.
The itinerary contains the phrase “French restaurant” and the word “bistro” several times so I suspect there will be plenty of blog fodder north of the border.
I’ll be taking my camera with me as well as my laptop, so there should be plenty of pictures in the blog as well.
Hopefully the hotel has wi-fi.
I rather enjoy wine, but I know squat about it. I’m mostly a white Zinfandel guy, and I occasionally find other things I enjoy. I usually joke that I have all the discerning tastes of a six year old when it comes to wine.
Tonight I had a lovely dinner with my girlfriend and two of her friends, and for it I found a white Catawba from a local winery called Mon Ami.
Very inexpensive at around $7.00 a bottle, and doesn’t taste (to me, anyway) like a cheap wine. On the sweet end of the spectrum, and gives a nice warmth in the nose (I’m sure that has a piece of terminology associated with it, but like I said, I know jack about wine.)
Anyway, delicious!
We also had tortellini in tomato sauce and French bread. Fantastic meal.
And now for something completely different! I am now the proud owner of a new iPod Touch, so finding a blog subject and forgetting it by the time I get home should be a thing of the past! Updates to follow…
This one ended somewhere entirely different than I intended it to go, but it was tasty nonetheless.
I just some sauteed veggies (zucchini, mushroom, tomato, onion, garlic), and then simmered them in a cream sauce (roux, half and half, garlic powder, and a little cumin), and I served the whole shebang over rice.
The rice thing was a miscalculation on my part. Cream sauce is white, white rice is white. It made for a boring-looking (albeit good-tasting) meal. In retrospect I should have used some green linguine or one of the more colorful rices.
For Valentine’s Day I surprised my girlfriend with a picnic lunch at the Winery at Wolf Creek. It was still rather cold that day, so we ate indoors, but the lunch itself was picnicky enough.
Menu:
Portobello mushrooms, tomato, carmelized onions, and monterey jack cheese sandwiches on ciabatta.
I marinated the the portobello slices in a mixture of grape juice, grape jam, hot sauce, italian dressing, and lemon juice <—Sounds weird, but it came out really well. Then I sauteed them with onions and garlic.
Brie and crackers.
A bottle of White Lies, a delicious, sweet, grapey wine that they make at Wolf Creek. Hands down, my favorite wine.
For dessert, something I bought at the grocery store called a “Devil’s Delight Parfait.” Basically, it’s chunks of chocolate cake with whipped cream and a ridiculous amount of hot fudge sauce, with a cherry on top. <—-Delicious, but would have been better with more cake and less fudge sauce.
The atmosphere of the place is absolutely wonderful. The winery has both an indoor dining room (with plenty of windows, of course) and a patio which overlooks a beautiful lake at the bottom of a hill.
All in all, a very successful date. Travel was efficient, and everything went off without a hitch. Very romantic.
One of our Thursday night gatherings (which have now moved to Fridays) was a mac ‘n cheese themed evening. Not one of the healthiest of our gatherings, but certainly one of the most delicious. There were of course traditional mac ‘n cheeses, but other such fun options as Havarti ‘n Ham, Chicken ‘n Broccoli, Asparagus ‘n Pasta, and others that are escaping me at the moment.
My contribution was a Bacon Cheddar Mac ‘n Cheese. Shredded cheddar cheese, milk, sour cream, and butter made up the cheese sauce. (I didn’t measure, sorry. ) The pasta I used was medium shells.
What gave me trouble was the question of what to put on top to get all brown and wonderful. Inspiration came from a close friend and fellow foodie: Hash browns.
In general I’m not one to give myself too hearty a pat on the back when it comes to my culinary creations. That said: Holy. Freaking. Crap.
I can’t really take credit for it’s deliciousness, though, as I don’t see how any combination of pasta, cheese, sour cream, butter, bacon, and potatoes could possibly be bad.
Ok, this had to be addressed eventually. You’ve read the tagline of the blog. “Because good food is really, really good.” The thing I left out is that not-so-good food can be pretty good, too. I recently blogged about Aldi-brand instant mac and cheese. Don’t misunderstand. I love a good, homemade mac and cheese, but sometimes the bar is just lower. You’re hungry, you’re hungry now, and dammit, you just want something processed and bad for you.
This brings me to White Castle.
Oh, White Castle. Your steam grilled (And what the hell is steam grilling? Don’t ask me!) delights have satisfied many a craving. Yes, I love White Castle. (There! I said it!) And no, I still won’t give up my Foodie Card. I give you truth here: White Castle can be delicious, as long as you know and follow the rules.
In no particular order:
This may sound strange and worrisome, but never enter a White Castle with the intention of eating a cheeseburger (or a hamburger, or any other kind of burger.) If you do, you will be severely disappointed, and probably a little grossed out. White Castle’s strength has never been making burgers. White Castle’s strength lies in making insanely cheap snack foods that are vaguely burgerlike. If you go in expecting Sliders, you’ll be much happier.
I violated this rule once, and it was a very unpleasant experience. The closer you go to 3 a.m., the better. I don’t know why, but 3 a.m. is the absolute perfect time for eating White Castle. There’s a witching hour joke there somewhere, but I’m not brave enough to find it.
This one’s not so much a rule as a piece of advice. They’re the crinkle cut, frozen, dump the bag onto a cookie sheet and bake kind of fries. Less than stellar.
Please, please just trust me.
There comes a point where the rules just stop mattering. 9 pm, 9 am, noon, if you’re that hungry then just hang the rules and go nuts.
Just stick to the rules, and everything will be alright. On a side note, the clam strips are really good. And I don’t mean “White Castle good,” I mean normal food good.
