It's not about growth, but refinement.

 

"It takes all kinds to make this world", or so the saying goes.

...Yes. But that doesn't mean what most would think it means. The charitable reading is "Everyone has something to contribute". The codicil that's often ignored is "...but most of those things are cautionary tales."

Society requires all its participants to have a given development floor, and the greatest barrier to a successful one is the failure to define and uphold the requirements for it. Finding and removing the extraneous and hazardous through research and experimentation is a task of near-endless repetition and research. Once the provably unnecessary or unacceptable is isolated and expunged, the accompanying data and evidence, the how and the why, are best archived in clear, open reference as examples of what is Wrong and how Not To Do It. 

Just because they do exist doesn't mean they should. Mistakes worth dying over need to result in death. Clean the mess, mourn the dead if you must, but identify those errors and make sure no one makes them again.

That's what the legacy of the inadequate is supposed to be. Not coexistence, not comfort, and absolutely not continuation.

Friends

 The various marginalized communities have had to find all sorts of different ways to communicate under the radar in order to protect themselves.

Over the last century, many of us have gone from:

"Friend of Dorothy"

to 

"Friend of Frank-N-Furter"

to

"Friend of Garak"

and even

"Friend of Bluey".

What does that say about how the community chooses to face the world?

Taxes

I don't mind them at all. In a civilized society, they're not a problem. They are, in brief, the price the individual pays for being part of that collective, for maintaining the framework and structure of that civilized society. It makes your schools, hospitals, roads, railways, bridges, ports, wilds*, and plenty more besides.

No small number of Americans just... don't really get that. They think all the money just goes into other people's pockets. (To be fair, they're not completely wrong. There is a degree of waste in U.S. governmental spending, but it's never in the places most people bitch about.) Another problem comes with the taxation system as it exists. It's needlessly complex by design, creating a problem specifically to more readily sell you, the citizen, a solution: Pay Someone Else To Do It. (Apropos of nothing, fuck you Intuit.) Wouldn't be inherently bad except for the all-encompassing flimflammy ethos of American "self-reliance". Those concepts are at cross purposes, leading the LCDs to get confused. And when people are confused, the easy solution is simply Pay Someone Else To Sort This Out- and there goes some of the hard-earned money. 

Instead of a system designed to be simple, efficient, and effective, it's deliberately difficult. It results in a fully fabricated field of finance, largely loopholed into irrelevance by those with wealth, widening the gap between the Haves and the Have-Nots. The richer you are, the easier it is to avoid having to pay a valid and acceptable share of taxes. On top of that, many administrations' worth of government have actively hamstrung things like the IRS specifically to make that problem the norm- largely due to the ease of fostering influence between money and power.

Get the thousand wealthiest American citizens to pay a fair share of the tax burden, and cut the tax code down to size. That's a solid place to start.

*Yes, even the wilds- Humanity has cemented itself as the most intrusive and harmful impact since... Chicxulub, give or take. Got to do something about that.

A question worth asking

But a question I don't necessarily want to ask:

"Did you give them the new position as a trap, so they'd screw it up badly enough to get fired?

If yes, then why?

...and if no, then why not?"

"What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas"

 

It's hard to explain the importance of something like this without sounding extremely suspect. But that's all right, even when I shouldn't be I'm used to being something of an outlier in my outlook. So.

There are concepts that intermittently wander in and out of the collective psyche of the general populace. As abstract concepts, they're not inherently bad. As active methodology? They're terrible.

Keep that firmly in mind when I say "enthusiastic consent" is arguably the biggest red flag possible in terms of any sort of potential intimacy.

Consent is rather like a Lovecraftian eldritch horror.
-The more active attention you give it, the more dangerous it gets.
-In any given place, the more you think it needs mentioning, the less likely you belong there.

Comfort is founded on approval. "Yes" is not something to be granted- it's the default. "No" as a concept is something more dangerous, which means it's obliged to have requirements. Those requirements vary widely in scope, scale, and urgency based on circumstance, but the possibility of going from "Yes" to "No" requires the approval of all involved. 

Currently, there is a widely held erroneous belief that it's the other way around.

Building an environment where everyone understands the ebb and flow of the people and things in it? Where understanding and trust are the order of the day, but also that accepts duty, obligation, the possibility of conflict, and of allowing resolution within it? Not terribly difficult- if the components have also been built correctly. So of course, the real problem is flawed foundations. 

Build your microcosm, your networks, and your happiness. Your education, expertise, ethics, and empathy.
But don't neglect to build your armor, sword, and shield.

Work? Nah.

 

I don't really like my primary job. It forces me to do things I really should never be doing, and doing them on behalf of people that mostly should never have existed in the first place.

To be fair though, I've only ever held one job I enjoyed enough to justify staying even if something more lucrative or stable came along- and then the plague killed it.

Plus, it's not like I've ever worked for an operation or company where I wasn't qualified to run the whole thing- and I've worked for some Very Big Companies in varying capacities. Hand off a c-suite to yours truly and long lasting success is almost inevitable with how easy it would be, so long as the underlying purpose is valid. Not that there are many valid businesses out in the world these days. All but a precious few are designed specifically to fabricate a need rather than fill one, and then sell a service that undoes the harm the company itself provided. It's recursive, wasteful, and full of fakery.

The "I know a guy" world

 

This is something I know better than most. Not only is it how I grew up, it's how what passes for my career and my life remain some degree of stable.

My family is poor, and so am I. No getting around that. Most of us barely scrape by, some not even, and we're deep into lots of blue-collar miscellany. Construction. Landscaping. Architecture. Transport. Education. Moving. Thing is, we talk to each other, and to our coworkers. Most of us have high-level skills and specialties in different areas, but we also have our blind spots. When one of us runs into a problem we can't solve, we probably know a guy that might be able to help.

If my mom has a car problem, we call a friend who's a gearhead. If the car guy thinks he can help, he might come over and fix it- save us a few hundred bucks for a tow and an auto shop. If he can't fix it, he might know the best local mechanic that can. Or maybe he'll know where we can get a loaner ride on the cheap till the car's fixed. 

This is where the I Know a Guy economy becomes more cyclical and asymmetrical. We owe him a favor now. Repaying that favor is a question of fairness and facility. It usually isn't extreme, but it tends to be something unrelated. The Car Guy might not take any money from us because he knows we're broke. But he might take us up on it if he gets asked to stay for dinner. Or he might need something else down the road. Maybe he'll ask us for a ride to the airport at the end of the month because his wife won't be home from work yet that day and can't take him. It's still useful, it's still time and effort, and there's an opportunity to chat and catch up a little.

One of the strong but fading bastions of that in the wider world is the restaurant industry.

You line up a good restaurant's staff, and what do you see? Cooks, chefs, servers, bartenders, managers, porters, cleaners... but there's a whole lot more besides. Most of them might also be welders, contractors, farmers, mechanics, landscapers, teachers, translators, plumbers, electricians, paralegals, or any number of a hundred other things... because at some point they've had to be. They often can't afford to live like real people on what their vocation provides, so instead they find other ways to try and make it work. Together.

Favors done, favors repaid, favors remembered. An effective barter system, built slowly and deliberately on a foundation of trust and expertise. Those are valuable currency in times of uncertainty, and those times are certainly here. Have been for a while.

What that methodology doesn't work with, though, is most of modern corporate culture, especially the 'hustle' mindset. You really can't build relationships like these if you're too busy trying to monetize every last thing in the short term, as so many pretty much have to. There's not enough time to build that bank of trust and reciprocity, to truly develop into what might become a community.

Worse still, the majority of those who make these I Know A Guy economies work are... aging out. Most of them are in my parents' generation. They're getting too old to help like they used to, or they're starting to forget a thing or two... any way you slice it, the communities they built together have grown frail with the passing of years. It'd be nice to have a new generation, and it's there... more or less. But the contemptible contemporary corporatocracy we're all stuck in pays us too poorly and works us too long and too cruelly.

No physical security, no financial security, no communal reassurance.

There's not a lot of hope left in the world these days.

Quite the busy while.

 

Lot of worries. 

Lot of troubles.

Lot of questions.

Mostly, I have answers.

But the big one remains.

When they begin to forget me, what then?

I'm used to being invisible. Damn good at it, even when I don't try to be.

But that talent, so carefully cultivated, turns upon itself when others' memories start to go.

Recipe Dev: Tom Collins Twists

 

I'm not usually a big shortbread person most of the time. When I want a cookie, I usually just want a cookie- not a cookie alongside other things. Be it coffee, tea, cocoa, fruit, or something else entirely, most of the shortbreads I know are designed to be eaten accompanied.

So my research went wider, trying to make one that was just fine on its own.

I don't thiiiink this counts as a shortbread any more, but it's really nice!

It's an eggless shortbread-adjacent cookie that's soft enough to verge on being a batter. It's extremely easy to work with, too. I actually pipe these, and if you're nervous about working with a piping bag, this cookie is a fantastic place to start. Using a wide star tip creates plenty of plausible deniability for how it looks, and the glaze will hide anything more egregious. They're not fancy, but they look fancy, especially with the icing.

Tom Collins Twists (makes 30-36)

Equipment:

Mixer (I use a hand mixer for these but with enough vigor it's easily doable by hand)
1x Large Bowl
2x Medium Bowl
Silicone Spatula, Large
Piping Bag / Piping Tips
Whisk
Scale
Measuring Spoons
Fine Strainer (In case of dry ingredient clumping)
Sheet Tray (Ideally two)
Parchment Paper
Oven (Preheat to 350F / 180C / Gas Mark 4)

Ingredients: (All at room temperature- extremely important to ensure a smooth, workable dough)

8oz / 225g Unsalted Butter
8oz / 225g Cream Cheese**
1 1/2 cups / 180g Powdered Sugar
1Tbsp Vanilla
Zest of 1 lime and 1 lemon (about 1 Tbsp in total)
3 Tbsp Lime Juice

2 3/4 cups / 400g APF
1/2 cup / 75g Cornstarch
1 tsp salt

Powdered Sugar
Gin

Process:

Preheat the oven, line the sheet tray(s) with parchment, and prepare the piping bag/tip.

Going down the list, combine all the ingredients up to but not including the lime juice in the Large Bowl.
Using the mixer, beat till smooth and well combined, 1-2 minutes.
Add the lime juice and mix for 5 seconds or so, then set aside.

Using the Scale, weigh out the APF, Cornstarch, and Salt in the Medium Bowl.
Add the contents to the Large Bowl, and mix on low till just combined, then finish mixing by hand with the Silicone Spatula to ensure minimal gluten development.

Load the Piping Bag with 15-20% of the dough, and pipe in squiggles, making vaguely rectangular shapes about 1.5" x 3". With a standard large star tip this will be five back-and-forth sweeps.

Approximately 15-18 will fit on a standard baking sheet in a 3x5 or 3x6 configuration

Bake for approximately 15 minutes, then remove from the oven and allow to cool for another 15 on the tray.

While cooling, prepare the glaze by whisking together ~1 cup powdered sugar with 2-3 Tbsp of gin, adjusting till you have a thick but pourable result. Add a squeeze or two of lime juice too if you like.

Gently drizzle the glaze over the cooled cookies. Allow to set for at least an hour afterward just in case.

-----------

So, the tricks in the recipe are as follows

-It uses APF as its primary structure, but it's somewhat heavily cut with cornstarch to make it resemble cake flour, so a bit more delicate. 

-There's no granulated sugar, only confectioner's sugar (which also has some cornstarch in it).

-The dough includes cream cheese**

-The glaze is made with alcohol, ensuring faster evaporation and drying with less danger of rendering the cookie soggy.

Even when you really don't care about making them look good they're still not bad! See?

**I picked this notion up from Daniela Galarza's Apple Tassies recipe several years back. Can't lay my hands on the recipe right now -it was two laptops and two desktop towers ago- but if I remember correctly, the ratio for that one was something like 2 parts butter to 3 parts cream cheese to 4 parts APF. You get the binding, the dairy, the fat, and the tang. For something like this where the primary flavor is citrus, it works wonders to round the flavor out.

In what world are the untrained, unskilled, and unfinished this absurdly self-important?

 

"SF restaurant to temporarily close after influencer says she left crying"

Is this place's management out of its mind?! Is everyone online just on the lookout for a dogpile?

Well, at this point the latter seems like a given. But that's what happens when you give voices to those incapable of deserving them. 'The Internet', everyone.

For someone to have "alleged that the owner treated her disrespectfully, saying her TikTok following of 15,000 was inadequate to represent the restaurant" after presumably being taken seriously enough to be in the running for a potential collaboration tells me that this... make-believe member of online media... sold a flagrantly false bill of goods to the restaurant re: utility and value, then got rightly called out on it.

The absolute absurdity to pay any attention to the voice of an underdeveloped, overvoiced "~iNflUeNCer~" has me genuinely staggered. But what's worse still is the fallout.

The resultant temper tantrum from this has resulted in an avalanche of utterly irrational and false negative reviews, and a massive overreaction from the restaurant's management. The chef's gone. The restaurant's closed, albeit "temporarily". A former restaurant is buried in negative press too!

When someone's life is seen by vast numbers before they're qualified for that privilege, problems are inevitable. People with actual value suffer.

This mess probably just killed two restaurants and dozens of livelihoods because a counterfeit collaborator couldn't stand to be told the truth- that their contributions weren't worth the trouble. 

Way to go, you thin-skinned, petty peasant.

 

I realized that I've basically become Uncle Iroh.

One who tries very hard to be good. 

One who did right by his family, even when they betray the principles they taught. 

One who serves as a mentor, a guide, and a surrogate parent to any number of others.

One who is still, despite the passage of time, an absolute demon in a fight.

One who (perhaps offscreen) absolutely Fucks.

Almost all of that is fine.

What bothers me, though, is the paradigm shift to Mentor/Guide.

I don't want to do that. Certainly shouldn't have to. But circumstance and betrayal have left it my only recourse. 

To do everything exactly right and suffer anyway. So many opportunities I was first promised, then owed, and always denied.

Now... all I have left is to do what I can for others, to help them prepare as much for similar fates as to avoid them.

Considering additional income sources

 

One friend says things like OnlyFans. He's silly. I'm... okay, he does have a point. I'm probably very appealing to no small number of people. But I'm also an experience that doesn't really translate well to picture and video. Much better to appreciate up close- and those who so know me would likely agree.

But then there are things like Patreon. I have a vast amount of knowledge and experience. I'm a world-class expert in no small number of largely disparate fields. Like my blurb on the side says- if you have a question, and I have an answer, you can trust it. People might well pay for that. Even just for reliable access to that.

I'm also a storyteller. My life experience has given my perspective and analytical utility a depth that is vanishingly rare. Those experiences could, if properly revisited, be of enormous entertainment and development value to any number of knowledge seekers.

On the other hand, there are already tons of people out there (substantially inferior in quality, but more visible and more aggressively productive) who are desperately flooding the visible world, on and offline alike, with their own better-off-hidden miscellany.

Do I go for it anyway?

...Do I have anything to lose?

Book Review: "Baking Across America: A Vintage Recipe Roadtrip", by B. Dylan Hollis

 

I’ve read A Lot of cookbooks. Whether because I’m researching, reviewing, or even just bored, there’s always something that separates the better and the best. It’s not usually the recipes, the pictures, or even the quality of the volume itself- it’s the theming. A solid modern or contemporary cookbook shows itself best where every page leads organically into the next. Where each recipe has its place both in the section, the book, and even the genre. While I know a good number, it’s still not a common thing, and so I always make a note.

That damn TikTok twink did it twice in a row!

In an impressive first publication, B. Dylan Hollis debuted with Baking Yesteryear, in which he offers a rich historical account of 20^th century American food decade by decade alongside no small amount of recipes from each- including a hilariously awful Worst Of The Worst chapter at the end, because where there are recipes, there are inevitably bad recipes, and whoooo boy did he ever find some clunkers.

Here in his second book Baking Across America, however, we have something very different yet also very familiar. "Baking Across America" does exactly what it says it does. It’s a journey through the U.S., region by region and state by state in search of what might be called the Defining Specialties of each and every one. Now how Dylan went about this is both very clever and very appropriate. Hundreds upon hundreds of cookbooks from every nook and cranny of every last place, and as local as can be- you name the obscure or local organization, he probably found something. Then to scour each and every one looking for recipes and concepts in common, narrowing things down with some quite thorough historical research until there was little if any real doubt about the notions.

There are some (even many) recipes that might raise an eyebrow at first look. My home state of New Jersey is, for example, poleaxed via the alchemical marvel that is the Tomato Soup Cake. Yes, really. And yes, it’s actually rather tasty. No, don’t ask me to explain the why of it here, the chemistry is complex and exhausting. 

BUT! 

The research bears out most each and every recipe ultimately featured here- they’re eminently defensible. Of the ones I couldn’t vouch for offhand, I even did some digging of my own to be sure. Each is introduced with an air of playful, generous fondness. All throughout this book, the recipes are portrayed as so much more than lists of ingredients and instructions. They’re comrades; they’re guides into myriad communities of all shapes and sizes as much as they’re tributes to those who came before and brought those recipes to the modern day one generation at a time. It’s a comprehensive collection that speaks to any number of cultural backgrounds, niche ingredients, and historical minutiae.

If I had a complaint about anything at all in this book, there’s really only one thing that jumps out... or, rather, shies away. For a book so massive, so bombastic in its method, pictures and prose, the text itself is what I found troublesome- the font’s just too damn small! Nearly every recipe fits neatly to a single page, and every last iota of additional space is chock-full of fantastic, brilliantly colorful, largely timeless photographs. While they absolutely do their job highlighting most every facet of every region of the US, I can’t help but wish for a few fewer photos and a larger, more legible font. Now I suppose that if you, like myself and many others, can hear Dylan reading the text aloud in your head as you peruse the thing, it’s going to be more than loud enough to make up the difference. The book’s story is told in no small part by the pictures- America is a bright, colorful, diverse, and VERY BUSY place. The endless array of excellent and nearly overwhelming photography works to emphasize precisely that, and does so while riding the edge of being gratuitous… but not going over.

So, to recap: gorgeous book, rock-solid concept, and superbly executed; but the font is small enough to make rapid read-throughs and referencing more difficult than a cookbook of this caliber ought to be. If you like the concept, the food, or the man himself, you’ll have a great time with Baking Across America. If you want fantastic photos, a plethora of well-researched history lessons, or even just a really pretty coffee table book, you’ll love it too.

I’ll recommend it without reservation.

For the first time in a while...

I went into SF the other day to go meet up with a twink I'd made an appointment with. 

No, not quite like that. 

Though that would have made me modestly legendary, since I'm talking about the frenetic B. Dylan Hollis of food TikTok stardom. He was in San Francisco as a stop on his book tour for his second cookbook, Baking Across America: A Vintage Recipe Road Trip. I'll probably be reviewing that later this week now that I've got my hands on a copy. But back to the day with the man himself.

One of the more pleasant things about meeting a media figure in the flesh and up close is the chance to see what's underneath. While the vigorous enthusiasm and bombast is very much still on display, the frantic edge disappears to reveal a much more nuanced and contemplative young man. The event itself being held in a church may have done a bit to temper some of the more robust ribaldry, but Dylan's also a musician- so adjusting to venue is familiar, and he surfed that wave like a proper Bermudan.

Throughout the meet-and-greet were all manner of interesting questions that yielded intriguing insights, many of which matched my own past analyses. One that has always pleased me very much was the comparison of a recipe to a piece of music. They share a great many attributes, of course. They're guidelines and specifications, constructed in a way that evokes a given time, place, and circumstance. They're also precise in enough ways to create a Usual Way To Do It, but vague in others so as to allow for interpretation, arrangement, variation, and occasional amusing disaster. Good on him for figuring that one out. 

Much was also made of the making of the book itself, which often involved photoshoots in awkward places and all sorts of unexpected bystanders. I won't spoil anything in case any of you are catching a spot somewhere on the tour, but I have to say this: I wish they'd had a film crew too, because that blooper reel would be absolutely brilliant.

WHY DIDN'T THEY CALL ME?!

 

Boss Fight Books: Dance Dance Revolution

WHAT THE HELL, PEOPLE?

I need to find out exactly who they tapped for this because I am A Little Upset that I wasn't on the list.

There are innumerable DDR players. But there are very, very few like me. I was a tournament competitor and occasional champion for *decades*, very much one of the best players on the planet. No exaggeration there, I have gameplay world records that stand even today, several hundred tournaments under my belt, and enough prize money won to basically zero out what I spent playing. My time spent learning the game happened at one of the best-known independent arcades in the country, that hosted the east coast version of EVO for a dozen years and more, and later on the most competitive music game tournaments anywhere in the US and probably the world at large.

But skills aren't everything in a book like that. You need history, you need perspective. Again, stalwart of 8 On The Break. I knew basically every major player in the US off the top of my head via the DDRFreak and AaronInJapan forums. I watched communities all over the country and over in Japan form, grow, squabble, compete... everything. 

When the first regularly updateable scoretrackers like TeamGwailo and OverTheMonkey showed up, I held my own on the leaderboards and watched the shifts in player development in close to real time, with those who knew one another sending challenges and pictures to spur one another on. 

When the first two In The Groove cabinets appeared, one went to the Break. The mighty regulars, all manner of visiting competitors, and I all worked together to do a whole bunch of the beta testing as the game evolved, through Roxor, Andamiro, and the battles with Konami. Hell, my picture is still in the credits if you can find an ITG2 cabinet that hasn't been tweaked harder than Florida Man.

I should expect to see a great many names I recognize in the acknowledgements of this book when I finally get my hands on it, but... if I don't? Rest assured there will be Yelling.

Goodness gracious, can this get any more amateurish?

I'll start with a quote from a recent article:

San Francisco Chronicle food critic MacKenzie Chung Fegan dropped a bombshell of a story about visiting the three-Michelin-starred restaurant the French Laundry, wherein chef Thomas Keller asked her to leave. This is, of course, one of the cardinal sins of a business built on hospitality, especially if the diner hasn’t done anything worthy of getting 86’d other than existing as a restaurant critic.

Let's take it from the top. Fegan is a B-tier, underqualified critic that elbowed her way in via Bon Appetit and serves as a perfect example of what happens when a publication doesn't actually care about putting someone who has expertise in a position that mandates a vast amount of it. Now as I mentioned back when she first took the position, I expected a subdued but steady degradation and eventual failure, much like her predecessor. Not being terribly aggressively online, as well as preoccupied by the overbearing and perpetual sense of impending disaster that seems to refresh as readily as someone's Facebook page, I haven't bothered to keep terribly tight track of that over the past two years. But to discover tonight that the article referenced in that quote probably helped seal the win on a James Beard Award? I am, to put it mildly, appalled. 

Hospitality is rather more nuanced than most would be comfortable understanding. It is the foremost duty of a host and their environ to curate the experience for all those permitted entry. If someone is where they shouldn't be, that's a problem. Calling the use of a privilege, duty, and burden as essential as that a 'cardinal sin' should be grounds for a flogging. "...especially if the diner hasn't done anything worthy of getting 86'd other than existing as a restaurant critic." Well, if they shouldn't exist as a restaurant critic, maybe that might have been a clue. 

Maintaining the balance of what goes through a restaurant's doors is a delicate dance, and the steps are more subtle the higher the stakes, something I know quite well. While I don't have a 3-starred restaurant in my background, I've worked in 1-starred places before and had the head chef of a 2-starred place offer me its head pastry chef job half an hour into preparing for a demonstration class together. Nowadays it's very easy for someone noisy and shameless to get a thoroughly wrong message in the eyes and ears of hundreds of millions of people, so giving someone the boot is not actually a problem- nor should it be. 

That, however, is weighed against perceived public image. The French Laundry- a fantastic restaurant but one reliably overhyped. Years of steady media attention crafted a legacy it's never felt quite worthy of- rather like Chez Panisse, another inexplicably iconic California spot. I'm not talking out my ass here-  a friend went for dinner there over the weekend, so my most recent intel on the place is as fresh as it gets. When something awkward and controversial happens such places often suffer in the courts of public opinion, and those at the center of the discord often reap the benefits. 

That seems to be what happened here.

Perhaps the winds are shifting, and Thomas Keller's star has dimmed. The hungry and envious backing those in conflict with the French Laundry restaurant consortium have managed to sneak in an eye gouge here, and put an award where it really should never have gone. This undermines the James Beard Awards somewhat severely in my eyes. After all the hullabaloo a few years back and their supposed newfound attention to detail, I don't like this mess one bit.

Paranoia now is peace of mind later

 

That's the mantra for this week. Got three huge events over the next few days, and the windows in between them are dangerously small.

Set up for a practice graduation. Let that run, then set up for a Pride event that starts the next morning. Then Friday there's that, and fifteen minutes after it ends I have to have the same room set for the actual graduation. After that, it's time to set it anew for a completely different event that runs the entire next day!

Of course, this is on top of my usual daily stuff, which uses the same meeting hall as every single one of these events. I'm going to be in the walls!

As if I didn't have enough unqualified and overappreciated nonsense to deal with.

 

I was recently reminded of one of the most infuriating and degrading experiences of my life. Beginning, of course, with someone asking for my help. What they wanted was for me to acclimatize a friend of theirs to what might be experienced as everyday food in Japan. Apparently the subject was considering a trip. 

Then I found out who it was.

I'd introduced this same person to a variety of new foods in the previous months when they would drop by to visit my current housemates and dinner happened to be near. I was never told about incoming guests, of course, but an extra plate is nothing- there are always leftovers when cooking for a full house.

Now, when I say 'new foods', I'm not talking nonwestern exotics like Jollof Rice or Lamb Vindaloo.

I'm not talking Euro classics like a simple risotto or a baked Brie en croute.

We're talking things like... Oven-baked fish, topped with parsley and breadcrumbs.

Broccoli, gently roasted, with a pat of butter.

Corn. 

Corn.

The difference between dino nuggets and karaage was apparently already too much.

I gave it due consideration, and then flat out refused.

You couldn't possibly pay me enough to make it easier to inflict such a culinarily-crippled menace on Japan. For starters, Japan is in general... less than kind to individualists. "The nail that sticks out gets hammered back down" was a common turn of phrase in my East Asian Studies undergrad classes.  There is nothing about this person that could possibly thrive there. Something personal- it's a place I've been trying to go for literal decades, and have had the opportunity ruined for me many times over. I will absolutely not help someone enjoy a luxury they're not even capable of qualifying for when someone like me keeps getting snubbed and sloughed off.

The hazardous someone in question is an adult. Somewhere in their mid to late twenties, and that grew up here in the US- in the midwest, no less. Though "grew up" is one hell of a reach in a case like this. 

The approach and experience is infantile, and the timing decades out of date. How does one near thirty without awareness and comfort of basic fundamentals of a western diet? Stuff you see in the canned goods aisle and the freezer case all year round? Or that you see in most TV dinners?

That, and more, was what comes to mind when I saw this.

A new cookbook: "COLOR TASTE TEXTURE: Recipes for Picky Eaters, Those with Food Aversion, and Anyone Who's Ever Cringed at Food".

In some ways, to some people, it might be seen as a step in the right direction. Not to me. 

You're not supposed to make things easier for difficult people. You're supposed to make better people.

Somewhat surreal moment

The story begins mundanely enough.

We had somebody come in to do court-ordered community service hours

The center does get these on occasion, it’s whatever. We're on the list and it's a good place to get comparatively easy work hours, even if they're not always easy to schedule. We are, after all, open in the middle of the workday.

Yesterday I had to go do a delivery route, as often I do when drivers go missing. As I'm walking out the door, I notice there’s a Benz double parked almost right in front of the center.

That happens sometimes. This street is sometimes quite busy because we regularly have events and there are schools nearby. People do pick-ups and drop-offs all the time, and usually they're gone in a matter of minutes. I thought no more of it and off I went.

Some ninety minutes later I returned, and noticed it was still there. Now blocking a few cars' worth of traffic. I head inside and start asking. The front desk knows, the director knows, we’re all talking about it, and we start asking around. 

We get to the kitchen where the volunteer’s busy washing dishes. Goes “Oh, that’s my car.". Doesn't even blink. Casually meanders out to move it and find real parking. Been here for upwards of two hours, and blocking half the street the whole time. 

We’re all mildly aghast.

Then.

We find out the service hours are for reducing fines

…on a giant pile of traffic tickets.

Because what else would it be, right?

Jollibee - Not - So - Lovely

 

I've never been a fast food person, nor a chain restaurant person. When there's nothing else they'll do, but I'm much more likely to try something singular and slightly suspicious, even in a far off place.

But the other day, someone asked me how to make a homemade version of the Jollibee spaghetti. My response was, of course, "...What." 

Now, I knew about it. Jollibee is a quick-service Filipino restaurant chain that's trying to be slightly upmarket while still bottom feeding. The spaghetti is what gets people looking because who the hell expects a fast food chain to have spaghetti- especially one from Southeast Asia. Now apparently there are locations that have palabok pancit, which is Actual Filipino Food, but they don't have that at the one closest to me so my hopes of something tasty mostly went out the window. They did have pies though, and so all hope was not lost.

I discovered there's a Jollibee location out on Alameda island, which is close enough for me to make the trip as an experiment. Unfortunately I had forgotten how absolutely foul it is to get out there. I want to grind that place to gravel so I can rebuild it properly. Ugh. But it's not about the journey to and from, as dreadful as it was.

This may not be the norm since the storefront is in a plaza where everything is very uniformly sculpted, but the appearance is fairly mundane, though the logo is distinct. Were it not for that (and the definitively different intended demographics), you'd have a hard time telling the difference between Jollibee and Popeyes or Chick Fil-a. The amount of sheer product I could see from the far side of the counter was absolutely wild to me. Alto-shaams FULL of cooked chicken ready to rock, dozens of possible orders of food awaiting boxing and bagging, with probably ten employees back there all busy at one thing or another. And one single solitary cashier. That I get, because half the counter was labeled Online Order Pickup and the entire time I was on premises there was a steady stream of people heading to and from. Probably 2/3 of the orders never saw a table, including mine since after the struggle to get there I wanted to go home rather badly.

"Have a Jolli day!" said the cashier as I took my blinking buzzer-to-be off to a corner to wait. Cute and inoffensive, at least. A good twenty minutes later (continuing the trend of 'Quick-service' being very much Not That) I had a bag full of food, and a half hour after that I was home to eat. Because of course getting back was even worse.

I didn't get the whole menu because I'm poor and prepared food is expensive no matter how lousy it is. However, I did get a solid sampler of what they're known for and what they're trying to push.

Chicken: Solid. Somewhere between Wendy's and Popeyes in crunch, with both the regular and spicy being suitably flavorful. Gave my poor beau some terrible heartburn though.

Spaghetti: What. Exceedingly sweet, sauced with what might as well be ketchup (probably banana ketchup and a handful of other things) with fragments of what might be ground meat, little coins of hotdog, and some sprinkled yellow cheese. It's the Filipino version of Chef Boyardee or Spaghetti-Os as we know them today. It's a nostalgic flavor for someone somewhere, probably a vast number of people. But definitely not me. Yech.

Adobo Rice: Sucked. Almost nothing to it but a whisper of soy sauce and vinegar to color and flavor it, with tiny flecks of chicken here and there. I'd made actual chicken adobo earlier this week, so I just put some of my leftovers on top to make it taste like Jollibee pretends it does.

Macaroni and Cheese: Quite nice! Pasta is thick and soft, sauce is rich. It's essentially Stouffer's, if you've ever had the occasion to try it.

Pies: Two! Peach/Mango and Ube. Both extremely delicious. Easily the standout items and I'd happily eat either of them any time. Remember when McDonalds pies were fried and delicious? These make the Golden Arches' golden era look tame.

Overall Verdict:  D I A B E E T U S

It's supposed to bring Filipino flavors of home, but if that's home I totally see why people would leave... if they can manage to walk after all that!