Wish List: AK Ice Tray

So, browsing around the blogs, more specifically, SlashFood, I came accross this sweet ice cube tray sure to make people talk at your (or my) next party. *want*

via: find me a gift.com

Wishlist: Kenny Shopsin's Cook Book

If you are unfamiliar with Kenny Shopsin then I fear for your life in the culinary world.

He is the most ridiculous, loud, and hilarious hi-octane philosopher and culinary personality I have come across yet.

He runs Shopsin's in New York, part diner-part heaven, and serves from what could easily be the most ambitious menu I have seen with mine own eyes. Not leaving out the fact that if it's not on the menu, and he has the ingredients, he will make anything for you. Providing he likes you, of course.

Should you need a crash-course into who and what Kenny Shopsin is, you should definitely take some time out of your day and check out "I Like Killing Flies". A chronicle and documentary of Shopsin's coming-of-age story, featuring his family and friends who have over time helped this establishment be everything it is today.



Aside from being one of the greatest people ever invented, he is no also an author and has come out with a grand cook book full of insight into his cuisine and recipes for the hungry-hearted.

Serious Eats did a great write-up on it back in August (just now getting around to reading it and writing about it) and they've been posting random one-off recipes from the book, which are interesting enough to make even the worst grilled cheese maker want to throw down on the burners.

Ostensibly, Eat Me is a cookbook, but it's also equal parts memoir and philosophical tome. [via Serious Eats]

'My Sliders'- makes one set of 3 sliders -
Adapted from Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin by Kenny Shopsin.

Ingredients:
1 big yellow Spanish onion, thinly sliced
5 ounces chopped meat (20 to 30 percent fat)
Salt Butter for the rolls
3 Martin's dinner rolls, or any soft rolls about the size of Parker House rolls, cut in half but leaving them attached to one another if possible
3 slices American cheese

Procedure:
1. Fry the onion slices until they're brown and crispy (Kenny slices them very thin and throws them in a pot of hot oil until they are charred).
2. Divide the meat into three equal-sized balls. Preheat a griddle or large cast-iron skillet over high heat until it is searing hot. Place the balls of meat on the griddle or in the pan and press them down with a heavy spatula or bacon weight to form patties about 1/2 inch thick. Season them with salt. Place a bacon weight or heavy lid on top of the patties to keep them smashed down and cook about 2 minutes per side, until they are cooked through.
3. Meanwhile, butter the insides of the rolls and toast them in whatever way is most convenient for you. Place the patties so they are all in a row, butting up against one another. Put the fried onions on the patties, and then top each patty with one slice of the cheese. On top of the cheese, place the tops of the buns and on top of the tops, the toasted bottoms. Then, on top of everything, place your bacon weight or a lid and cook for 1 minute to melt the cheese and steam the bun.
4. To serve, place the bun bottoms on a plate. Carefully slide your spatula under the three patties to lift them up in one piece and place them on top of the bottom buns. Serve at once.

There's no sex in your violence. Breakfast.

Although my headline was probably no better than the ones Gizmodo listed, my excitement about owning one of these does not decrease. The guns are definitely going on my wish list.

[Laughing Squid]
As with everything else, where there's guns, there must be sex. I believe that's a direct quote from the unwritten book of Bad Ass (ancient religious text). The not as popular pick for your significant other, or your boss. These I could probably do without.



[Blushing Buyer]

Drafting up ideas

Adding to the list of investments and goal achieving tools, I will be investing, within the next two weeks, a couple of hundred dollars in a drafting table, although also going on the wish list in case anyone's feeling generous enough to donate to the "Help a Mexican Better His Life" fund.

[DraftingTables.com]
I have some jobs that need finishing:



[Biomechanics]

[DC Riot]

Good ol' double standard

[Su Ropa] $19.99
Three of my favorite things. Fashion. Food. Humor.

Undoubtedly this will only be funny if you speak Spanish, but if you do you probably cracked a smile or two. This site is full of these AND they carry NACO. Browse it. Buy me stuff.

My birthday's coming up in February! *hint*

Kitchen not-so-confidential

One of my favorite reads of 2006, was definitely Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. Lent to me by a fellow who, as me, thoroughly enjoys the methodology behind the act of eating.

I had seen Anthony Bourdain on television, but it wasn't until I read the book, that I realized how big of a bad-ass this guy is.

One thing that stood out through his preface and some of the chapters, was his adamant dislike of the Food Network. Hilariously enough, in an updated version, he talks about his meetings with some great chefs of whom he had spoken not too kindly in his book, being completely nice to him and inviting him out to dinner, some even cooking for him!

Well today, through Serious Eats, I came across a blog entry of his where he monsoons down upon the FN once more. I find it highly entertaining.

They have nothing newer, or fresher or better - after all that time - than my first, stumbling, nascent attempts at making travel/food television? They don't have any material from anyone else - like from someone who doesn't make constant rude and obscene suggestions about their stable of "stars?" Surely they haven't reached so far down the bottom of the archives as to want ME back?! [Serious Eats via Eater]

On his blog entry he goes on to describe his conspiracy theories, of why the Food Network would be rerunning his old series "A Cook's Tour", right as his Travel Channel series No Reservations is about to air.

They're not putting the show back on because they like it. They're trying to destroy me!" I theorized. People will surely comment on the striking - even horrifying - decline in my appearance since those few years ago - and will wonder why they would still watch someone who is clearly dying of some hideous hair whitening, skin puffing, tropical bloating disease. Or maybe they're putting it back on as a deliberate strategy to break off and confuse a segment of potential audience who might otherwise be tuning in to the exciting new season of NO RESERVATIONS (the vastly superior and more expensive series on TRAVEL CHANNEL)! Maybe ... maybe it's vengeance for some of the Rachael Ray cracks. [Anthony Bourdain's Blog]

This is exactly the kind of stuff that made Kitchen Confidential such an entertaining book for me. Well, that and his massive sexually-charged, drug-hazed, violent kitchen tales that make me want become a chef. Check out his book if you get a chance. If you're not really the reading type, check out his cook book (which is going on my wish list) and cook something up.

If you so desire, I'm always down to go check out the D.C. version of his fantastic NYC restaurant Les Halles.