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July 11, 2005

One cup at a time

Until last winter I was in the fortunate position of having an industrial espresso machine available for my morning cup of coffee. However due to some bureaucratic principle that says all enjoyment and hot steam must be removed from the workplace it is gone. I've fallen back on the old standby. The one cup coffee filter holder. I'm posting it here because many people see me filling it up with hot water and have never seen one before.OneCup.gif
It has numerous advantages. It is small, light, cheap, easy to clean, resistant to electromagnetic pulse attack...
Just throw in a filter, coffee and add hot water. For those who suffer from bad coffee at work or at home pick one up anywhere coffee is sold.

August 22, 2005

Already Eaten

Haliotis rufescens (red Abalone) and Strongylocentrous franciscanus (red sea urchin) awaiting consumption by a group of ravenous humans.
abuni.JPG

Apparently the urchin does a lot of damage to kelp forests. I found these lurking on the edge of a kelp forest at Fort Ross this weekend. I estimate you get about an ounce or two of edible roe (AKA Uni)out of each.

January 27, 2006

Japanese Beer Pouring Machine

Alice has pictures and description of a Japanese beer pouring machine up on her site. Apparently it was a bright spot during the recent Narita Airport shutdown which left thousands of JAL customers stranded.

Guaranteed perfect pour

"Just as the glass is about to get full, the machine tilts one more time. This time, foam comes out of the right spout, and voila~! A perfectly poured glass of beer with a lusciously enticing foamy head!"

February 9, 2007

Mmmmmm... Peet's Coffee and search logs

As I fixed myself a big mug of Peet's Sumatra coffee I took a break to check my logs. One of the first things I saw was that someone arrived here via this google search:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Peets+Coffee+and+Tea+employee+dissatisfaction+Blog&btnG=Search

Most searches which bring people here are rather mundane and consist of a word or two so I get curious when I see something with more depth than "Free PMBOK" coming across the wires. "Peets Coffee and Tea employee dissatisfaction blog" has some intrigue about it. I wondered if there was something going on behind the bar that I was not aware of, after all Peets has gotten more commercial and bigger in the 20 years since I stood outside their shop on Walnut and Vine. The more you grow the more likely someone in the organization is not happy.

Then I wondered where this search might be coming from. Is it a Peet's employee having a bad day and looking for someone to commiserate with? Well actually no. A quick check on the IP shows:

OrgName: Starbucks Coffee Company
OrgID: STARBU
Address: 2401 Utah Avenue South
Address: Mailstop: S-IT7
City: Seattle
StateProv: WA
PostalCode: 98134
Country: US

Hey Starbucks guys, put down that half-caf non-fat toffee-mocha-peppermint-peanutbutter frappuchino and have a cup of Peets. You'll feel better!

March 27, 2007

Sunday Dinner

Sashimi-saba-maguro-hamachi.jpg

This is what I put together for dinner a couple of days ago. In the front you see some maguro (tuna), then some kaiware (daikon/radish sprouts) then shiny blue-silver saba (mackerel). The rice is a departure from typical as it is brown rice with plum vinegar. Not shown is my favorite hamachi (yellowtail). Just use a sharp knife and a good pair of tweezers to pull bones from the saba and you are all set.

May 25, 2007

Saucy

From the world of Finance comes the news that Bull-Dog Sauce Co. is a take-over target (see quote below). It is not a surprise to me. It is not management though which is the problem. It is the products themselves. A look at the label of Bull-dog tonkatsu sauce shows that it is composed of high-fructose corn syrup.

Yuck.

The rival brand Kagome lists:

トマト、にんじん、たまねぎ、りんご、レモン、にんにく

(tomato, carrot, onion, apple, lemon, garlic)

Yum.

Is it any wonder?

In general, companies with a specific profile are an easy target for corporate M&As: Their stock is priced relatively low in spite of their technical capabilities; they employ overly optimistic corporate strategies; they do not make effective use of their assets; or they have much retained earnings.

An example in this mold is Bull-Dog Sauce Co., the nation's leading sauce maker, which has become the target of a takeover bid by U.S. investment fund, Steel Partners Japan Strategic Fund. To avoid such a situation, management should properly tackle difficult tasks, such as implementing management reforms, improving corporate value, increasing the aggregate market value of shares and preparing measures against buyout attempts. Source: The Daily Yomiuri

tonkatsu

Image borrowed from Alice's Tonkatsu blog entry

January 14, 2009

Yaki Imo - Roasted Sweet Potato

yaki imo truck in tokyo

That truck has fire shooting out the back because it is a Yaki Imo truck and is roasting sweet potatoes. This one happened to be driving around Tokyo so you don't see the man standing outside his truck hawking them with a characteristic Yaki Imo cry. If you google Yaki imo you can probably find an audio file of it. The yaki imo truck is pretty similar in concept to ice cream trucks except that they serve something hot rather than cold and their product is more rustic and hand-made.

Roasted sweet potatoes are quite delicious. You can see a pile of the raw reddish/purple ones just in front of the oven (under the scale). They also are an illustration of the reverence that Japan has for food. I don't think in the US that they would allow this sort of truck with open flames driving around the streets, and even though Japan is in many ways more safety conscious than the US, they appear to make exceptions where food is involved.

I'll have more and better examples of some of the variety of Japanese food as I work my way through the photos I took in the last few weeks, so treat this one as just a snack or a warm-up

About Food

This page contains an archive of all entries posted to Project in the Food category. They are listed from oldest to newest.

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