The crazy boys of FFFF did Benihana, here's a slideshow with videos! (when the slideshow shows you a video icon - click it and it will open the video in a separate page)

Sunday was our second Animal Playground gathering. After a brief meeting we did Show & Tell. Everyone brought some of their favorite gear to share and discuss. We also watched a video of the Fox Hunt. It was a lot of fun! Woof!

11.08.09

Werebear took me out for Sunday Bunch at the Old Town Cafe. The Bellingham Biscuits and Gravy Project continues!

Old Town Cafe *** out of *****
316 W Holly St
Bellingham, WA 98225
(360) 671-4431

Biscuits and Gravy at the Old Town Cafe
(Part of the Biscuits and Gravy in Bellingham project http://www.yelp.com/list/biscuits-and-gravy-in-bellingham-bellingham )
Mushroom and Tahini gravy? Not something one would normally expect to find on Biscuits and Gravy! The gravy is meatless, so the mushrooms take the place of the sausage. The consistency of the gravy is good, but without the salt and spices provided by the sausage, the gravy lacks much "kick," and has a more delicate, sweeter flavour imparted by the Tahini. The biscuits are homemade, though a little bit rubbery -- but in Old Town's defense, I was eating them at 2 in the afternoon, so the biscuits are probably fresher in the morning.
The B&G at Old Town are unfortunately not served in a full order (2 biscuits), but in a half order (1 biscuit) served with eggs and home fries or black beans. Because of this, the price is a little higher than at other restaurants ($6.75), but for that price, you're getting homemade with local and organic ingredients. And it's nice to know that if I ever want to eat vegetarian, I can still get my biscuits and gravy!
(Full review: http://www.yelp.com/biz/old-town-cafe-bellingham#hrid:hQTm2QSXIjMUZy9gAY9Wlg )

Biscuits and Gravy in Bellingham

What's this?

I started a monthly gourmet group with my Houston area friends on Facebook.

Eat adventurously
Try new things, new countries, new cultures.
Dine at a dinner hour, lunch at leisure.

Share your dish with others.
Savor, don't bolt.
A bite of this won't kill you, try it.

According to St. Anthony Bourdain, Tuesday through Thursday are the best nights to dine - best for chefs and fresh food (especially fish) and Sundays are the best day to lunch.
Fridays and Saturdays are for dates, romance, and weekends in the countryside.

Wine is a food.
Strive to eat sustainably and seasonally.
Be open about your "finds" - a successful restaurant helps families sustain themselves and prosper, and encourages other restaurants to get better and provide good value.

Eat together like a family and split checks evenly, because separate checks or nickle and diming at the end of a meal is a crashing boor. If you don't drink alcohol or eat a particular animal protein, then order an extra vegetable dish or another dessert to try.

Thou Shalt NOT Flake. If you can't keep your dinner commitment you short everyone else of a round of dishes to sample. The very least you can do is send a replacement or perhaps a call to the restaurant to put a sample of dishes on your tab for the others to try. (I'm not kidding about this.)

Thou Shalt NOT Be Late. On time means 5 minutes early actually. If you're over 15 minutes late you owe everybody a bottle of wine or a couple of appetizers or desserts. (I'm really not kidding about this.)

Thou Shalt NOT talk about work or weather in depth unless you are a Super Spy or Super Vilain, or the weather includes hurricanes or rains of frogs.

Thou Shalt NOT be so high or tipsy that you fail to be charming or attentive. No dozing or fisticuffs at table.

Dinners are scheduled to last 2 hours. Sunday lunch 3 hours. No bolting your food and twiddling your thumbs for the check. Gourmets do not rush.

No icky facial expressions - if you do not appreciate Tail of Jabberwocky keep your distaste politely private.

We expect to be seated with 2/3rd of a party has arrived.
We expect to tip 20% for service in restaurants in the USA or other countries where waiters can not rely on being paid a professional salary, unless the waiting is absolutely egregious.
We expect that the chef would enjoy making something especially creative for us all, if we ask politely.

Couples should ideally be separated at table to provide more interesting conversational gambits, perhaps a bit of intrigue, smouldering looks, and harmless flirtations.

 I goofed off all weekend. But that's ok... I came across this quote from that resonated with me:

When from our better selves we have too long
Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop,
Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,
How gracious, how benign, is Solitude.
~ William Wordsworth

pulling and spreading and pulling



...should be some good BBQ

I may have missed Devo by going to Tampa, but turns out the Genitorturers were playing a block from my hotel. WIN. Almost 20 years after I first heard them they have only gotten better, and hearing their cover of I Touch Myself made me tingle. The new stuff is outstanding. I know they would kick Devo's ass if they ever got into a physical altercation without even mussing one of their black electrical tape X. Forget Devo, give me a band with balls, even if half of the balls belong to the women. I textd 50PoundNote during the show just as he was heading into Devo, never heard how they were. Hope he had at least half as much fun as I did.

Yes, it's another post about my damn air cleaner.

The JB-STIK didn't work; it's too rigid and brittle to hold on the flexible polypropylene impeller, as it turns out.

So I resorted to a primarily mechanical fix: I used a piece of wire to "tie" the break together, then used some silicone glue to cover that - on the off chance the wire breaks, the glue should keep the wire from slinging off and becoming a problem of its own even though the glue's adhesion to the polypropylene is nowhere near enough to repair it by itself. Wire, of course, is easily measured, so it was simple to create a proper counterweight.

The air cleaner's been running for hours now on "turbo" speed - far longer than any of the other repairs have held, so here's hoping this will last. Of course, it'll take a while for the unit to re-clean the air in here, and it'll take a while after that for my allergy symptoms to improve, but at least things are headed in the right direction.

If this doesn't hold - I think I'm going to have to take henare's idea and figure out what Whirlpool (the apparent OEM) model is the equivalent, and see if they offer this as a repair part.

Assorted stuff around the property.







This last one is a rock and wild grape vine thought by our neighbors to look something like a crouching dragon:

It's kind of hard to miss the Pulse/Benjamin Blak underwear store on Lovejoy and 19th thanks to forty strands of blinking christmas lights arranged as disco-homosexually as is mathematically possible. And once you get up there, it's kind of hard to leave because you'll be staring at this video and the stuffed-crotch mannequins. How can so much boy-cut gayosity fit in such a tiny storefront?