Killjoys

I noticed this sign at a supermarket I occasionally stop into on my way to work:


If I can't crack open a beer and pop some pills while shopping for groceries, why bother going?

Squeezable

Anyone got a ketchup packet?

Northwest pipeline needed

For my birthday, my sister sent me an assortment of canned tuna from Oregon. Yesterday, a co-worker brought me some bottles of the awesome Rogue Imperial Red, which he picked up on his family's vacation to the Northwest and Canada. Today, one of the food boards I read had a discussion about Pacific salmon and oysters, which made me hungry and upset that my suspected shellfish allergy has been confirmed by a doctor. And I've been longing for Rainier cherries and Mount Hood strawberries every time I'm in the produce section at the supermarket.

It's a good thing I'm going to be in Oregon next month, otherwise I'd go a little batty thinking about all of the Northwest food I've been missing.

Dietary restrictions

A couple of months ago, I was sitting at my desk at work, scratching my arms through the final several hours of my shift. It wasn't until I got home and changed out of my work clothes that I noticed my arms and upper body were covered in hives.

I hoped they would go away and went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, a good number of the hives on my upper body had gone away, but new ones were on my legs. As the day progressed, the hives returned to my chest. Concerned, I went to the urgent care clinic, where they determined I was most likely having an allergic reaction to something I ate. I'd never had any sort of food allergies, but I recalled the itching started a few hours after I had eaten dinner -- pad see ew with chicken and a side of fried calamari.

I was given doses of steroids, antihistamines and antacids and sent on my way. So the meds did their stuff and I later consulted with my physician, who thinks I've probably developed a shellfish allergy. I think I'll see an allergist to see if this can be confirmed, but I'm going to be really pissed if that's the case. I guess things could be worse -- I recently spoke to someone who developed a wheat allergy when she turned 30 -- but it kind of sucks that I've been able to enjoy shellfish for all these years and might be forced to give it up. (But I did just realize this might be a continuation of problems I've had since my 30th.)

And just the other day, I was joking to my sister as we prepared for a family picture that it takes me a good 30 seconds to get my body to sit down on the grass.

In the meantime, I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to have just a teensy serving of shellfish to see if I can without having another allergic reaction. Because although my last incident wasn't at all life-threatening, it was mighty uncomfortable. I still have most of the necessary medication (alas, I'm out of the 'roids), so I think I'd be OK.

But I'd really rather not die.

Ye Olde Cheeze Whizze

Spotted at one stand at a Renaissanse faire I attended (don't ask) over the weekend: nachos (in peasant and royalty varieties).

I will say the knight battles were impressive, though I was sorely disappointed we could not find the trebuchet.

Hey, two posts in one day!

Washington's Chinatown, which consists of such authentic eateries as Chipotle, McDonald's, Legal Sea Foods, Ruby Tuesday and so on, along with quaint shops including CVS, Urban Outfitters and Bed, Bath & Beyond, has been much more accurately described as Chinablock. And even that might be a bit of a stretch.

Thus, it's nice to go to New York's Chinatown, even if the traditional neighborhood -- like its counterparts in Toronto, San Francisco and Vancouver -- is a shadow of its former self, with much of the population gone to the outer boroughs and the suburbs.

Before I headed up to New York, I found what looked to be a gem on Chowhound. The camera phone shot doesn't do it justice, but this steamed pork bun was about 50% larger than what you'd get at your standard dim sum place. Plus it was filled a pretty impressive portion of barbecue pork, and not the bright-red variety found in most buns.

The absolute best part? The buggers cost 70 cents each, so I had two. (Interesting side note: There is, sigh, a Starbucks down Canal Street from this place, so I decided to brave the tourists and go in there to sit and snack on my buns. This Starbucks does not attempt to make a nod to its Chinatown location -- I don't think the one in D.C.'s Chinablock does, either -- but I did note that one large bank in Chinatown has broken from its corporate color scheme and put up a giant red sign, red being the color symbolizing good fortune in Chinese culture. Someone in marketing is up for a bonus, methinks.)

Anyway, as part of my trip to New York I had decided to cram as much food down my throat as possible, so I hit up a burger joint in the West Village I've read a lot about and been dying to try since it opened last fall. For fancy-pants burgers, I have long been partial to this one in Portland, which had the bonus of being available across the street from the office. The Pinesburger also is hard to beat. I really, really like BLT Burger a lot. The burger I had could have used a touch more seasoning, and the bun is a bit wimpy. But damn, the meat is good. Plus, the bar snack is this ridiculously amazing spicy, cheesy popcorn, which the bartender said they make in-house. Toss in a couple of Brooklyn Lagers, and I was quite content.

But that didn't mean I didn't grab a slice of pepperoni before hopping on the train home.

0-for-3

To the right you see a plate of shrimp scampi with linguine, which is what I wanted for dinner tonight. I ordered it at a Maryland outpost of a restaurant I have liked for many years. I did not get to enjoy a plate of shrimp scampi tonight, however.

Instead, I was first served a plate of chicken with linguine, which the bartender (I was eating at the bar) immediately recognized as incorrect and whisked away.

Several minutes later, someone I did not see (I was watching TV) put a plate of fettucine alfredo with shrimp in front of me. I hadn't eaten anything all day, and it was hot and tasty, so I dug in. A few bites in, the bartender wandered past and, noticing I was eating the wrong dish, insisted on taking the plate away, ignoring my (somewhat feeble) protest that it was fine.

A few more minutes (and one free pint) later, he returned triumphantly and set a third dish in front of me with a flourish. It was shrimp fra diavolo with spaghetti. But at this point I wasn't going to give any indication that anything was off, and I just ate my food.

I should note that everything was very good, just not what I ordered. And the bartender certainly gets at least a B for effort. The kitchen, on the other hand, might need a wee bit of a refresher.

RIP

I have been a little -- how shall I say it? -- lax about cooking for the past month or so, so I discovered just yesterday that my poor rice cooker got all smashed in during my latest move.

It was a model I had owned for quite some time -- the only rice cooker I've owned, actually, and my mom ordered it from Taiwan for my first summer away from home, I believe, after my junior year of college.

It's the only brand I ever saw in my parents' house, and pretty much everybody in Taiwan has a rice cooker made by Tatung, which is one of those Asian conglomerates that manufactures a wide, seemingly haphazard line of products. Their massive headquarters is not far from one of my cousins' houses, so I saw the building quite a bit when I was in Taipei earlier this year.

Anyway, when I went online to look for a replacement rice cooker, I found several models, but the one I wanted seemed to be available only -- oddly enough -- through a site that sells primarily computer equipment. And they were out of stock. So, since I still had some credit at Amazon, I went there and, after some very thoughtful research (read: looked at a couple of pictures and read one oh-so-helpful user review), I settled on a Panasonic, a decision my mother would certainly Not Approve Of if she was here. And if buying a Japanese rice cooker was not bad enough, she would Doubly Not Approve Of my selection of an electronic model.

But if I'm going to break from tradition, I might as well go all the way, right?

I just hope my experience with this thing is better than the one I had with those high-tech toilets.

Presentation leaves a lot to be desired

I've always thought that even at their best, a lot of fast-food ads don't do much to make sure their food looks, you know, appetizing in TV ads. Examples: Carls Jr., KFC's bowl thingy.

Now there's a site that proves these meals look even worse when you order them.

As an aside, I went to a highly touted local burger joint yesterday and was once again disappointed because it suffered from thin-patty syndrome. You know, the burgers that are the thickness you might find at a fast-food joint or in one of those packs of 20 in the supermarket freezer.

The burger tasted decent enough (it was "Virginia Kobe," whatever that is), but I was reminded of a similarly exalted place back in Portland that suffered from the same problem. I guess some people enjoy their burgers on that scale, but I prefer the ones that you almost need a fork and knife to eat. (But you must NEVER actually use utensils to eat a burger.) Actually, I have a whole thing on burger rules that I really need to get to one of these days, but I won't bore you with that right now.

Hope you're not hungry

Seeing as nothing interesting happens here -- well, we did get actual snow last night, though it wasn't much -- I figured I'd keep posting about my trip until I ran out of material.

Anyway, the biggest letdown upon returning was definitely coming back to the lackluster dining options around here. Pretty much every meal I had in Taiwan was excellent, and it's kind of ironic that the most expensive dinner I had also was the least satisfying. (Though it wasn't bad ... just not nearly as good as I had hoped.)

I had some amazing meals in, of all places, the gigantic food court in the basement of a vast medical complex. People in Taipei fill most of their leisure time with eating (or shopping), so there were plenty of choices. I have pictures a couple of meals, because in most cases I immediately stated eating when I got the food.

Also, the "fast food" meals are cheap. And I don't mean "inexpensive" or "reasonable" like travel guides might declare. I mean cheap. The pictured meals each cost less than $3 U.S.

As you can see, it's not high cuisine, but it's pretty damn good home-style cooking. And during my trip, that's pretty much what I was looking for.

There's also some pretty amazing stuff to be had from street vendors, but I didn't get shots of any of that stuff, either. Sorry, I'm a lousy travel blogger.

(If you're wondering, the first dish is noodle soup with lamb, and the second dish is beef and rice.)