General Thoughts


Charlito’s Way with Sausage

February 16th, 2012 Tweet Facebook Digg Stumble Reddit

Anthrax for sure

Last week, an unexpected parcel arrived. I immediately suspected anthrax and was ready to detonate it in the street when I noticed it was from my future brother-in-law. For some, this may be further reason to suspect anthrax, but Dustin has never me reason to believe he’d want me dead. I opened it up and found a pair of sausages with an awesome letter welcoming me to the family. Truth be told, had I known sausages were in the mix, I’d have popped the question long ago.

The letter also informed me the sausages came from a friend of a friend of his in New York who had recently started up a sausage company called Charlito’s Cocina. I was excited to try them and although it took me a few days to get to it, I was safe knowing the dry-cured sausages could handle it. But aside from being dry-cured, what kind of sausages were these? The answer is Trufa Seca, which means they were full of black truffle. Aside from that, these were pork through and through with sea salt as the final flavoring ingredient. According to the website, the pork was a heritage breed and pasture-raised, which made me feel even better as I sliced off my first bit. Continue Reading»


Unvegan Top 20 for 2011

December 30th, 2011 Tweet Facebook Digg Stumble Reddit

‘Tis the season for “Best of the Year” lists, so I thought I would join the party and put in my top 20 new restaurants from 2011.  By the way, this means the restaurants were new to me, not new to LA.  Please note that I am only including meals in the Los Angeles area.  As much as I loved the food on my travels, you can check any of those places out pretty quickly by clicking here.  So, without further caveat, here’s the best that 2011 had to offer for the unvegan:

20.  Cobras and Matadors

This tapas place in Mid-City is everything tapas should be.  From bacon-wrapped dates to a variety of cheeses, there is really something for anyone looking for a delicious meal.  Just beware, while tapas can be kept to a moderate price, when you throw a big group in with small plates, there are bound to be some people who don’t get their money’s worth.  But keep the group small and Cobras and Matadors will send you home full and happy.

19.  Steingarten

Dishing out delicious sausages, including a few of the exotic variety, Steingarten also offers up a pretty stellar beer selection.  If you’ve ever wanted to eat alligator in sausage form, Steingarten won’t disappoint, but they also serve a wider range of foods, including some pretty delicious burgers.  Their sausage execution, though, could use a bit of improvement, which pushed another sausage joint further up on the list. Continue Reading»


Selling My Soul for Juice

November 28th, 2011 Tweet Facebook Digg Stumble Reddit

I got juiced.

While you all know I have a vast hatred for vegetables and strong love of meat, you may not realize that I am also a huge fan of fruit.  I know, it doesn’t exactly fit into the meaty mentality, but fruit is simply delicious.  So when a fruit juice company called Juiceology contacted me to try their products and write a review, I figured it was worth a try.  And it didn’t hurt that they were going to send me free samples. Continue Reading»


Digesting Your Vitamin B12 (and Other Goodies)

November 13th, 2011 Tweet Facebook Digg Stumble Reddit

Mmm delicious B12.

There are more than a few things lacking from a vegetarian diet, many of which are more essential than tastiness. Needless to say, carnivores who enjoy a balanced diet not only benefit from all the pleasures only a medium rare rib-eye with all the trimmings can bring, but by proxy we don’t need to worry about the nutrition we could be missing out on by having selective diets.

Of course, the science behind it all is fairly fascinating. For instance, vegetarians are always taking pills to top up their vitamin B12 levels…but why do we need vitamin B12? What the heck is B12, anyway? Continue Reading»


Nothing Inferior About Superior Meats

July 6th, 2011 Tweet Facebook Digg Stumble Reddit

So much bratwurst.

In this wonderful planet that we live in, there are few greater meccas of meat than Northern Wisconsin.  After all, you’re not going to survive that winter on lettuce and kale.  Yet, while shrines to meat are all over this mecca, the true Kaaba of Northern Wisconsin is Superior Meats.  Located in the heart of Superior, Wisconsin, on Tower Street, the place is not in the most ideal location for someone like me looking to grill at Amnicon Falls, but like any meat pilgrimage, the journey to Superior Meats is well-worth it. Continue Reading»


Getting Physical

June 13th, 2011 Tweet Facebook Digg Stumble Reddit

Perfection

Sometimes I wonder if people truly understand how amazing life is as an unvegan.  They think, “Eating meat and not vegetables is awesome, but it will destroy my health.”  And they are wrong, for if you give that picture to the left a little click, you will see that my physical from May 18, 2011 resulted in normalcy.  This may be all good and well in the medical world, but I wanted more. Continue Reading»


Behold! A Speech

May 11th, 2011 Tweet Facebook Digg Stumble Reddit

That does not make me hungry.

Last week I gave a speech at Toastmasters.  It was about food.  But not toast.  Here is the transcript:

Right now it’s about lunchtime, but if you’re anything like me, you’re probably wondering what you’re going to eat for dinner.  When looking for a good dinner, I have a set of criteria to help me determine whether the place is worth my while.

First – I don’t want the same old thing.
Second – I’m looking for something creative.
Third – I want meat.
Fourth – The price is right.
Fifth and finally – The meal should give me a good story.

So what restaurant fits that bill and should be your dinner tonight?  Continue Reading»


To the Salt Stick, With Love

July 1st, 2010 Tweet Facebook Digg Stumble Reddit

It may be phallic, but it's the best kind of phallic.

To many people, the bagel is the king of breakfast.  It’s like an evolution of toast, similar, yet greatly superior.  And the best of those who love the bagel bow down to the salt bagel, the king of all bagels.  It adds a perfect amount of flavor that goes great with cream cheese, especially strawberry cream cheese.  But why strawberry cream cheese?  Well, combining the sweet of the cream cheese with the salt of the bagel creates a perfect balance unparalleled by any other food in the world.  Ever.

But is the salt bagel perfect?  No, far from it.  While bagels are delicious, they have one major flaw.  That flaw is obvious to anyone who has ever attempted to shmear cream cheese across the surface of the bagel.  The hole.  This hole sucks up perfectly good cream cheese, rendering the bagel an imperfect medium for shmearing.  Enter the Salt Stick.  Continue Reading»


Exposing The Vegetarian Myth

January 28th, 2010 Tweet Facebook Digg Stumble Reddit

Essential reading.

What do you get when you mix a huge dose of recovering vegan with liberalism and some over the top feminism?  No, not Roseanne Barr on Atkins.  You get The Vegetarian Myth, by Lierre Keith.  Flashpoint Press was nice enough to send me a copy of this eye-opening book and although it took me a few months to get through, it has been an enlightening read.  In it, Keith combines her own personal experiences with some good hard data to help debunk the vegetarian myth as we know it. Continue Reading»


Big in Japan

October 12th, 2009 Tweet Facebook Digg Stumble Reddit

Looks like the Japanese found my site and review of Kobe beef and loved it.  Check it out here in Japanese:

http://news.searchina.ne.jp/disp.cgi?y=2009&d=1012&f=national_1012_001.shtml

Or the loose Google translation here:

http://tinyurl.com/ykw4opu


Going Global at Plan Check

Fries of the world.

A couple of weeks ago, The Backyard Bite invited me to The Burger Culture Clash, sponsored by Stussy (which apparently still exists) and Plan Check. Plan Check, by the way, is a sort of new (since February) restaurant in West LA with Chef Ernesto Uchimura of Umami Burger fame. As my love of burgers, especially those of the umami variety, I jumped at the opportunity.

Although I arrived alone, I was not the only lone eater. Just next to where I was seated, I met e*star LA and we decided to share a meal called loneliness, because it’s better than eating alone. We made quick friends over our respective blogs and Midwestern roots, then got to work at dissecting the special menu, which Plan Check will be featuring for the next month if anything tickles your fancy.

Continue Reading»