Call it a hunch...

I have this very strange feeling that Katie is going all the way to the end.

Okay, stop laughing.

Seriously, here's why: apparently, she's been either at the bottom or just missed being there pretty much every friggin' episode. The woman has - and I mean this in the least mean way possible - a cockroach-like ability to stick around. I think the producers have had it planned all along that they want a nutrition-y show on the network (to counteract all that other, fattier food they reguarly feature).

So my hunch is that, unless she breaks out a katana and slices Tuschie's head off, the producers have decided that she's untouchable.

Okay, crazy I know. Yeah, I'm probably wrong and she'll probably go home - in fact, this weekend I will probably predict her demise. But if I'm wrong, and she survives next week - and the following week, and the following week... - well, y'all heard it here first.

Food finds I haven't gotten around to posting...

Just a few odds and ends - things that have gotten away from me over the last month or so. I meant to write about 'em but I never bothered.

1. Poorman's Mess

You remember that little old lady who kept talking about Depression-Era cooking on YouTube? I made Clara's recipe for Poorman's Meal. It really doesn't taste very good. But hell, are you gonna care about that if you're living through a depression? Considering that, it's damn near haute cuisine!

2. Kroger's Deli
The Cincinnati-based Kroger's food chain spans much of the Midwest and South. The one in Hinesville, GA, has just about the best ready-to-eat food of any spermarket deli counter I have ever ordered from. I got three BBQ ribs (which actually amounted to six), mac & cheese and Western fries. I could only finish half of it.

3. Southern BBQ done right

My sister and her husband introduced me to the delicious BBQ at the Clubhouse in Rye Patch in nearby Ludowici.

The fried pickles were definitely different from those you might find at Sonic: saltier, lighter, picklier, a little less greasy. This is the type of thing that I would eat all day, even though I know it would kill me.

Their sampler plate was very filling, and again I could not finish half of it (I left for home before I could finish it, and James finished the rest for me). The meats really outshone the sides - the cole slaw was tasty and had a flavor I can't quite place, though the mac & cheese was okay. I just can't begin to describe the ribs, sliced butt and chicken. Soooooooo good.

4. Mrs. Holmes' Boiled Peanuts

You can find these at convenience stores all over Georgia and South Carolina, in the same type of hot containers you might find nacho cheese. Margaret Holmes' Boiled Peanuts - I got a small container for about $1.50 in several places. Available in original or Cajun. Oh good Lord, I feel like I'm shilling for peanuts now.

5. In-N-Out

We may not have a Sonic closer than 50 miles to Baltimore, but we could one day. We will never have an In-N-Out anywhere near us. For my last meal before setting foot on the plane to BWI last month I had to stop at the Ontario Mills In-N-Out, the fabled hamburger place that makes everything from scratch and to order, and makes the BBQ ribs I got from Kroger's look like health food. Some of you may know that In-N-Out serves three value meals, and that's it: the hamburger, the cheeseburger and the fabled "Double Double" (two patties). By default, each comes with tomatoes, lettuce, thick onion slices and "special sauce" (it's Thousand Island Dressing). It comes with fries that are cut on site from actual potatoes, and a drink that is either soda or milkshake. Their milkshakes are fabled, too.

What's perhaps as famous is their "Secret menu" that isn't listed on their drive thru menu. Instead, you have to be a local "in the know." Or else find it online, either on In-N-Out's website or listed by others (such as this compilation from Badmouth.net). I didn't get too secret-menu-ish, and merely order the burger "toasted" - that's a regular burger on a toasted bun - with "light" (underfried) fries. I wasn't too crazy about them.

I wanted to order the Animal Burger - a patty with mustard mixed into it, and extra sauce. But I forgot the name so I didn't want to sit there for five minutes trying to remember, holding up the drive thru line and missing on dropping off my rental car and, from there, catching my flight.

I devoured the burger in the airport, plus half of the lackluster fries (I'm not a fry person anyway). And you should've seen me suck down that milkshake, since they wouldn't have let me take it through the security line. Ice-cream-headache-induced painful bliss, that's all I can say.

You should've seen the milkshake-related pun I was going to use to segue into the next bit...

6. Gay Pride Block Partay!!! (and Parade)

Unlike most major cities, Baltimore's Gay Pride Parade is kind of, um, (What's the word I'm looking for?) low-scale. Though I did get pelted by paraders throwing both Mardi Gras beads and Tootsie Rolls in festive rainbow-colored papers. Was I the only one who thought it strange that Chipotle had a float? Ah well, at least we're in the age when corporations are more likely than they used to be to even show their faces in a gay pride parade! And you gotta love that slogan - yes, the guy's T shirt does say "¿Homo estás?"

My friends were right, though - the Block Party is better than the following day's festival, which I didn't even bother with. After flitting back & forth between the Hippo and the Central Station, with some quality time in Minato for supper - I didn't even want to bother.

Mind you, the food was pretty lackluster at the Block Party. I mean, LGBT pride events aren't exactly known as culinary meccas. But this one sign was just too strange to pass by:

What famous Thai Mexican Food do they mean, anyway? Much better was the gelato I got at Marie Louise Bistro (I'm glad I gave them a second try), though their mimosas were pretty watered down for my tastes.

7. Stuff what was shipped to me from California

Because it wouldn't fit into my luggage, I had to mail some food back to Baltimore. Most of it was from the Chinese-American supermarket chain 99 Ranch and the British-based supermarket chain Fresh & Easy.

My last day in SoCal last month, I went crazy with non-perishable groceries in the Fresh & Easy. I haven't had a chance to try any of these goodies yet, but I did score some brownie mix, raspberry-chipotle and peanut sauces, chai and chocolate black teas - all Fresh & Easy brand - and Singapore Noodles from the Sof'ella Food Company, whose products I have never seen this side of the Mississippi River. I look forward to trying them all, especially the brownie mix. I had an actual brownie from Fresh & Easy, and if it's from the same ingredients then the mix should be good.

From 99 Ranch, I picked up some loose tea in a lovely decorative jar (Gil already had some and made some for us at his place). I also picked up two cans of Chaokoh coconut milk, a highly recommended brand, before realizing that you can, in fact, find this brand in Maryland after all. I also got some desserts. One was a confection of taro paste covered in white chocolate. It tastes better than it sounds. Actually, it tastes pretty good.

The other thing I got was a heart-shaped plastic container filled with - you won't believe this - candied olives.

Yes, candied olives.

In a moment that I can only describe as Andrew Zimmern-esque in its bizarreness, I bit into the candied olive, an uncured olive coated in sugar, with the pit still in it of course. I can proudly say that I tried it. I can firmly say that I not only will not be eating this again, but I that I could not even finish the one olive I bit into, and threw it and the rest of the container away - but only after spitting out what little was in my mouth. I mean, yeeeeekhkh.

Soylent Feet Is Chicken!!!

This at Giant: for the shopper that isn't quite sure if chicken feet are a meat product:


Wonder no more.

One Night in Raleigh Part 2: Chocolate and Cha Chiang

Before heading back to Bawlmer, I wanted to see what downtown Raleigh had to offer during the day. Since I am a museum person, museums were the logical option. And Raleigh has a few nice museums in their downtown area, plus a public parking lot that only costs $1 an hour, max of 8 hours. Two of your best options are the state history (which I had no time to check out) and natural history museums. I swear, out of all the state museums I have ever seen, the North Carolina Museum of Natural History is one of the best in terms of its layout, subject matter, location and exhibits. To wit: the massive skeleton of the whale hanging from the ceiling of their North Carolina coastal life exhibit, or the recreation of a woodland mountain habitat that you can see taxidermied animals staring out from! (The Oklahoma Museum of Natural History in Norman also has similar exhibits, but I liked NC's just a wee bit better. Does Maryland have one, or do we just use the Smithsonian as ours?).

Perhaps their keystone exhibit - similar in focus to the Smithsonian's elephant in the rotunda - is the skeleton of Acrocanthosaurus, the celebrated "Terror of the South," having freshly attacked a life-size model of a Brachiosaurus. One mother had to coax her kid into the exhibit (this one under a four-story tall glass rotunda room). Press one little button, and the injuries that felled this most complete specimen of Acrocanthosaurus magically light up!

Beware, kid!

Of course, I came because they had a special exhibit on Chocolate! They wouldn't let me take any photos, as is the case in so many special exhibitions of stuff.

This was the only thing they would let me take a picture of. Wow.

This was all for the best, as I would never have been able to figure out what to photograph first. So here are the highlights of this very cool exhibit (all text was in English and Spanish):

• life-size model of a cacao tree with dissected model cacao pods
• the ancient history of cacao, highlighting the importance and prestige of drinkable chocolate to the Maya (especially in the first millenium) - that includes replicas of Maya chocolate drinking vessels, and a verybrief introduction to Mayan hieroglyphs (basically, that they represent actual words, which I knew, but hey, not everybody does)
• the more recent history of cacao, including how the Aztecs used the beans as money, how the Spaniards exported it to Europe, how chocolate (as prestigious to Europeans as to Mesoamericans) profitted from the African slave trade, and how it finally became available to the masses.
  

I was allowed to take whatever I wanted from the exhibition store, so long as I paid for whatever I took. I bought some locally-made chocolate caramels (25¢ each), some chocolate-covered cacao beans from Nahualli Trading Co. ($9 - how's that for po-mo redundancy?), and locally manufactured "HOT South of the Border" bon bons from the Carrboro, NC-based Miel Bon Bons ($4 for a bag of two). The ckeckout person noted that I was adventurous. These were chocolate bon bons coated with pineapple and chili pepper, and they were chewy, soft and spicy all at once. These were very good bon bons, and I would get them again. Miel Bon Bons also makes a habanero bon bon, which I would've tried had they had any. I wonder if they do mail order? As for the rest: I could've stuffed those caramels in my mouth all day, and the cacao beans were what I expected, even though I had never eaten a cacao bean before: bitter coated with sweet.

Afterwards I had a few options for lunch. There was one BBQ place I wanted to check out - where else but in Raleigh can you find both types of North Carolina BBQ, the sparse vinegary whole-hog pork BBQ of the East and the sweet tomato/ketchup based shoulder-only BBQ of the West? But I wanted to walk, and this was not in walking distance. I had choices of sandwiches, burgers, Pan-Asian, Chinese, sushi, Southern, deli, Irish - the choices were dizzying. One place, the Duck & Dumpling, continued to pop up in small adverts everywhere I went (the hotel, the museum, etc). When I found that I was only a few blocks away I hoofed it on over.

Duck & Dumpling is a very sleek, very stylish Chinese-Vietnamese restaurant with snappy service (the regulars next to me got their cashew chicken almost immediately). It has a small yet eclectic menu styled by Chef David Mao. What specifically drew me in was the $12 prix fixe lunch menu. Let me say that again: $12 prix fixe lunch menu. What a great, frugal find for a guy who just wasted $40 on a motel room he didn't even use! I was all up for that.

As with most restaurants in our own Restaurant Week (coming up in early August, by the way), Duck & Dumpling offers three courses (appetizer, mains and dessert), with your choice of one of three to five dishes for each course. For the first course, I could have had a salad with ginger dressing, but the waitress described a most intriguing edamame hummus (probably the first time you have ever seen those two words in the same sentence) with taro chips.


The chef simply made a hummus out of edamame instead of chickpeas. I was too curious to pass this up, and I'm glad I got it. It tasted surprisingly more like hummus than the waitress described it, and it was substantially thick. I've never been that crazy about edamame, but this was good.

For the main course, I ordered the only noodle dish on the prix fixe menu, the cha chiang noodles: a savory dish (Savory noodles? Go fig.) of thick noodles covered in ground pork and finely julienned cucumber slices.


I asked for spicy sriracha sauce on the side. The pork was indeed savory and slightly salty, which I liked, and the cucumber pieces gave a nice, refreshing contrast to all the savoriness. I kept on dipping my chopsticks into the sriracha and mixing it around in the noodles, to slightly spice things up.

I originally wanted flan for dessert, which they had run out of. So instead I ordered a Kahlua chocolate souflée. I waited a while for my dessert when my waitress comes out and tells me the chef just made more flan! But I stuck with the souflée, and it was a good choice.


From every place that I stuck my spoon, piping hot choclate sauce oozed out into the soft, moist cake. It was a delicious way to end my meal, and strangely appropriate considering the Chocolate! exhibit I had just spent half an hour not taking photos of.

The meal came to only $12 plus tax, and the sweet tea (they also offer unsweetened - which I normally order and then dump a whole lot of artificial sweetener into it anyway) was apparently part of the cost. Either that, or they forgot to charge me. Anyway, it was a good way to prepare for the mammoth 5 hour drive back to Baltimore, towards which my GPS sent me via US 1 to I-85, not straight up I-95 as I expected. It was more scenic, I must admit. Plus I got to stop in a Food Lion and buy another six pack of Fat Tire!

Other photos:

Yep, they have these guys, too

And this is what they look like when they're babies. They're baby blues!

Don't look up!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

Unsuspecting dinosaur, you have no idea what that Archocanthosaur is gonna do to you...

REALLY don't look up!

Er, don't look down?

for Duck & Dumpling

So I missed The Next Food Network Star...

Catch the recap that's much funnier than just watching it through the first time.

Photoshopped graphic courtesy of Minxeats, home of the aforementioned recap.

One Night in Raleigh Part 1: Burgers, Beer, Best Western

I (and, thankfully, my car) got back from my mammoth road trip from Georgia yesterday. Mind you, the trip took a detour overnight in Raleigh, a reasonable midpoint between Baltimore and the greater Savannah area. I rolled into North Carolina's capital city on Sunday night - later than I had expected. Things went even later after I checked into my scary-as-hell Motel 6, packed back up five minutes later, and went across the street to the Best Western Raleigh Inn & Suites on New Bern Avenue (plus, I had one of those free coupon books you get at the rest area, lucky me!). Apparently this Best Western used to suck, but I was very satisfied with the room I had, which was very nice - a real bargain with the coupon I got (NB: even if you booked somewhere, ALWAYS PICK UP THOSE COUPON BOOKS!) If ever you are in the Raleigh area, don't go to the Motel 6 on Maitland. The clerk was nice, but that's the only plus. I've never been worried for my safety in a motel before - and that includes some real dives I stayed in Mexico and that horrible hotel in Amsterdam last year. I'll never see those $40 I spent at the Motel 6 again. It was a pricey lesson. Make sure you do research on your lodgings before you book!!!

By the time I got settled in, it was 9:00. Pretty much everything that wasn't fast food was closed except for the Waffle House across the street. So it was settled: quarter pound cheeseburger with hash browned potatoes for dinner!*

This is what I was working through while I was watching Life After People: The Series instead of The Next Food Network Star.

To commemorate the Stonewall Anniversary, I stopped in a small and friendly little gay bar in the downtown area (which like most downtowns in most cities, including our own, was pretty much dead on a Sunday night). Flex, like many Research Triangle gay bars, is technically a "club" but I was able to get in anyway (I doubt they would turn anyone away). All I will say is that people will happily chat with you there (this is more Raleigh's answer to our Phoenix than to our Central Station), one bartender joked with me about how many cards I had in my wallet, and a regular offered me some hummus and pita that he couldn't finish. And yes, they have Fat Tire! But since they ran out, I ordered a Carolina IPA which was nice and hoppy. Oh for future reference: don't follow up a Guinness with a Newcastle, or the latter will taste like feet. I told several people this while I was there, to prevent any future beer mishaps.

Coming up: chocolate, cha chiang noodles, and the dinosaur those museum folks call the "Terror of the South"...

PS - Oh I forgot: after I told the bartender about my Newcastle discovery, a guy from across the room bought me a Magic Hat #9. It went down much better after that Newcastle.

* By the way, here's a creepy statement about the state of the internet today: just on a hunch, I decided to see how many Waffle Houses there are in Maryland (not many). I clicked on their "Advanced Search" link, expecting to see a list of states or a map of the US. It instantly showed me three Waffle Houses in Frederick and one in Dumfries. Okay, so we have Waffle Houses in Maryland - but I didn't tell it my zip code. Big Brother much?

Georgia on My GPS Part 4: On to Raleigh

As you are reading this, I am heading back to Baltimore (I love auto-scheduled publishing). I wanted to go to Atlanta, but I've been hemming and hawing for a while because I wasn't sure I'd have the time or the money, or that my car would be able to take the extra driving (this trip pushed it over the 150K mark). That, and Atlanta is too fabulous a city to devote just one quickfire night to exploring - and I'd rather have seen it on a Friday or Saturday night when more bars are actually open!

So Atlanta is off my itinerary for this road trip. But it'll still be there when I get back (since Cathy's moving down here at some point, that isn't too far off), and I can spend a good few days in the ATL. But I've already planned for when I do get back. I asked Leslie at the Southern Social blog what is best to eat in Atlanta (thanks, Leslie). She quickly recommended a favorite Chinese restaurant off of Buford Hwy., Chef Liu. From the photos I've seen, this place looks like a dive from the outside (as many good places do), but serves delicious authentic Chinese - think more Mandarin Pork Cakes and Soup Filled Dumplings, and less General Tso's Chicken and Crispy Orange Peel Beef. Atlanta's Blissful Glutton blog corroborates Leslie's recommendation, in this post from four years ago. Since this place has been making damn good food for a while, and since it was recommended to me, it'll be the first place I stop when I finally do get to Atlanta.

But alas, I am instead heading back up the 95. I had already planned a stop in Raleigh - ATL trip or not. Raleigh is about a half hour off of I-95, but it's the perfect place to stop for the night since it's about halfway between Savannah and Baltimore. Besides, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences has this amazing looking exhibition about chocolate that I would be a damn fool to miss.

Note about NFNS5 Live Blogging tonight

Because I don't know what my internet access, Food Network access or nightly activities will be this evening, I cannot promise that I will be live-blogging The Next Food Network Star 5 tonight. Check back around 9. If I'm live-blogging, great! If not, you know why. In that case, just do what I'm gonna do and catch Minx's recap tomorrow.

I still think either Katie or Teddy is doomed, though the way they edited the ad it looks like any of these remaining seven yahoos have a lot to worry about tonight.

Now THIS is just wrong...

A purported Burger King ad made by an ad agency in Singapore is raising people's ire here. It irritates me, too. Or maybe I've just gotten too puritanical lately (which would surprise my friends). But people wondered if it was, in fact, a joke.

The joke?


I'm not sure what icks me out more: the not-so-subtle (the understatement of the year) sexual imagery, or the fact that this thing probably has enough calories to feed a small village for two days.

Georgia on My GPS Part 3: Moon River Brewing Company / Savannah Candy Kitchen

Today we finally got out to Savannah. We weren't there long - we had a late start. My brother-in-law offered to bring me back late but I wasn't sure I'd be up for it.

Still, with this short visit there is much to mention. Too much. It's not a fun city to drive around, that's for sure, especially when you get stuck behind the minivan that's afraid to drive down the bumpy brick-paved River Street anywhere faster than, oh, 2 miles per hour. It is indeed a fun city to walk around, despite the heat and humidity (no, we have no idea what that's like back home). And it's a lovely city to look at - at least the downtown historic area, which is where most tourists end up.

My sister and her husband sprang for dinner and let me choose. I went with the Moon River Brewing Company, Savannah's only microbrewery. It may not be the fastest service, but it had a very impressive sampler of 7 of its microbrews. Most were very good, but I had my favorites: the IPA and the chocolaty stout. My brother-in-law James also got it, and had much the same opinion. They also had one they created for an employee who just got married. He should hope his marriage is not as forgettable as that beer. One particularly unforgettable brew, however, was aged in wine barrels. It tasted and smelled like whiskey, and was about as strong as any beer I have ever drunk.

Microbrews Parts 1...

...and 2

For appetizers, we got a standard quesadilla and some crinkle-cut sweet potato fries. The fries came with a cinnamon-chipotle dipping sauce that was wonderful. I will need to figure out how to make this at home because it went quickly. It was a favorite of the meal.

Sweet Potato Crinkles

For our entrées, we went in different directions. I saw crab cakes on the menu, but I knew these would not be the type I am familiar with. Two tenets of seafood in the Chesapeake are that you never boil anything, and you always put the breading inside the crab cake, not outside. Lowcountry cooking dispenses with that first tenet, though Old Bay is still quite popular throughout the South (Did you know that Old Bay makes a seafood boil bag?). That second tenet is pretty much thrown out the window as soon as you get a reasonable distance away from the Chesapeake Bay, north or south.

These are not in the running for "World's Biggest Crab Cake"

The blue crab cake platter ($17) threw both tenets out the window and into the Savannah River. These three small crab cakes were accompanied by Carolina cole slaw and Lowcountry rice, along with a roasted red pepper salsa. The flavor of the delicious special crab meat (who says you always have to use lump? I don't - not as sweet) was creamier than a typical Maryland crab cake, because - again - the bread was on the outside. The coating, a cornbread-type coating, was firm and flavorful and was a nice addition. Would I take this over a standard crab cake back home? No, of course not. But for what it was, it was still a tasty crab cake. The long grain rice was kind of a dirty rice, and I could eat it all day. Same with the slaw, though I have had as good slaw elsewhere.

On the way out, I stopped in the Savannah Candy Kitchen. Most people will only be able to see it in the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport (the busiest in the world). With four locations in Georgia and South Carolina, it is a damn dangerous place, because you will spend money there. Lots of money, on delicious candy. That goes quintuple for their pralines, freshly made on the premises (Do they do that at the airport? I would suppose not). And yes, they give out free samples. One praline is pretty big, so you will either eat just one for dessert, or break off pieces and eat them here and there (like me). Today they offered a free 1/2 lb of pralines (or 1 lb of taffy) for every 1 lb of pralines bought. So I went in on that deal: 1 lb of regular pralines, plus and extra 1/2 lb of chocolate ones (sssssssiiiiiiinnnnnnnful). Total so far: $17. Then I got an extra 1/2 lb of fudge (also $17 per lb). Grand total: $25. But I don't usually get down here to buy this stuff, so it was excusable.

Free samples!!!

Oh, did I mention that Savannah Candy does mail order?

Epilogue: You may be wondering if I saw Paula Deen's restaurant. Yes, we did drive by it. It was about 4 PM, and there was no line! That was soon explained by the big sign saying "Sorry - We're booked for tonight."

Yup, they're all full up, y'all.

Big shocker there.