New posts added below!

But first, watch this:

Grouchy-Cold

Houghton, Michigan -

Today's high: Ten degrees.
Average yearly snowfall, 2000-2007: 18+ feet




This is the hotel's lakeside deck.

It's not so cold at first...












... but it's not as much fun after the first few minutes.











Houghton has an annual snow sculpture contest/festival.


















Amazing!






This is our drive from Houghton to Grand Rapids, MN.












Britt considers joining the Yoop branch of the Hell's Angels.













Grand Rapids, Minnesota: MINUS TWENTY-ONE DEGREES.

Brrr...

Green Bay, WI

They are serious about football here.

Madison, WI

We stop and say hi to Dr. Mike and Chandra!





It's cold here.











To keep ourselves warm, we try some Madison snacks.

The highlight: Michael's Frozen Custard!














Their specialty: the turtle sundae. Vanilla frozen custard, hot fudge & caramel sauces, and warm, salty, roasty whole pecans.

Mmmmmm...

Chicago, IL

In Chicago. Lots of snow...

































... and two dogs, belonging to our hosts, Elaine & Ron.





Jamie!

















And Einstein.

Noshville, TN

Lots of good snacks in Nashville. The local thing to have is a "meat 'n three," which is a meat (fried chicken, bbq, ham, whatever.) with three sides (usually a veggie covered in bacon fat). Yummo.

Since we're here for a whole week with a light schedule, we do lots of exploring.

Country Music Hall of Fame!



Anyone recognize that?

Grandpa Jones was my favorite.







I wish I had my own brand of flour...


















The snacking highlight of our Nashville stay was our trip to Monell's.



If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing. So instead of finding a meat 'n three place, we find a meat 'n twelve.
















Everyone sits at large tables, and the food is served family-style. All the home-cookin' you can eat! Fried chicken! Pot roast! Ham! Biscuits and cornbread! Cheesy potatoes and creamy mashed! Vinegary cukes! Corn pudding!

It was good. So good, we went twice...






















... and ate a little too much. So we head here:
















Go to Nashville and go to Monell's!


The snacking lowlight: White Castle.

I've never been to one of these. Thought I should give it a try.






It was terrible. Wet, tasteless little burger-things.

Bah.






To make it even less appetizing, look what's on the menu:





Exactly what part of the chicken is the ring?

Greensboro, NC

Snacks from both Carolinas:








Biscuit from Smith Street Diner.













Cheesy grits, eggs, & bacon from Ganache Bakery.

This was awesome. Nice, thick-cut wheat toast and salty, cheesy yellow grits.








Stamey's Carolina BBQ.

So Carolina BBQ seems to be primarily smoked, chopped pork shoulder, served with vinegary sauce on the side.

Good. Different.

Stamey's had great hush pups.

Return to Greenville

Ten-ish years ago, when I was still attempting to tweet for a living, I played one season with the Greenville Symphony. I also got runner-up for a spot in the Knoxville Symphony around the same time, so I was on the sub list there. The plan was to move to Atlanta, commute once a month to Greenville, and to freelance in Georgia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee.

But I realized that the south was not the place for me, and as it turned out, neither was the depressing, insanely competitive classical music scene. The odds of getting an orchestra job is about the same as an actor getting a gig, except an actor doesn't have to practice four hours a day, every day. I'm glad I hung in there as long as I did (hey, at least I won an audition before I decided to quit), and I think I could have been moderately successful, but going to culinary school in Boston was much more fun, as is the world music - er, world.

So there it is. Had I zigged instead of zagged, I might still be in the south, or even worse, stuck in New Orleans (that story is much too long and boring to tell).

Anyway - the food:

Ten years ago, Greenville was not nearly so diverse. There are quite a few pho, sushi, and Mexican places, and Alex and I just saw quite a few Asian people at the Whole Foods, and there was even a Japanese woman at the Petco, who had a crazy-cute Jack Russell puppy dressed in a rhinestone-studded green hoody. But I digress...

Island Blend Jerk & BBQ Grill, downtown Greenville - a mom & pop hole-in-the-wall Jamaican lunch place; mom was front of the house, pop was back. The beans & rice had a nice kick, the jerk chicken was yummy, and the beef patty was salty, HOT, and awesome. It was crowded, and the regulars were quick to recommend their favorites. Loved it. Would totally go back.

Sticky Fingers BBQ, downtown Greenville - a chain, but yummy. Unremarkable but solid eats.

R.O.'s BBQ, Gastonia, NC - 50+ year old local institution, the type of place that Alton Brown would go to on his motorcycle tours. Great onion rings, but the hush pups were a little dense. The bbq was just chopped pork (no rub or sauce) with a pickley, mayonnaisey, ketchupy sauce on the side. We got there at 11:30, and the parking lot was already filled with pickups. And one Prius.

Whole Foods, Greenville - the shrimp & grits from the prefab food bar is by far the best thing I've had here. More butter than grits, and with sausage, to boot! I would've taken a photo, but the WF people get angry if you take pictures in the store (really, they do).

Photos later (but not of the grits)...

Food. And a dog.

Loyal readers will have noticed that there have been no photos posted of our Santa Barbara performance. And by 'performance', I mean 'food'.

So here are some:

Cinnamon roll from Tuttini Bakery, downtown Santa Barbara.

PJ got this and was very, very pleased. It was buttery, perfectly flaky, and had just the right amount of cinnamon and sugar.






Nutella and peanut butter panino on brioche.











Tuttini is awesome! It's tiny, homey, and the food is amazing. I had a glass of freshly squozen Granny Smith apple juice, and it was just fabulous.



Luna, the Lobrero Theater dog! Every theater should have a dog!

Reminded us of a certain other bull terrier/lab mix.









Snacks from a recent catering gig:


Crudite with white bean & garlic dip, roast beef, arugula, & fig mayo on baguette, balsamic couscous & hummus on english cukes, and crab salad with chives in mini-pitas.



























Those are Meyer lemon tarts and fruit tarts on butter cookies (no, those aren't Ritz crackers, and yes, of course I made them). Because I was too lazy to make tart shells.

Hm. Should I post recipes?

Watching material

African American Lives (parts 1 & 2) is one of the most amazing documentary series I've ever seen. I miiiiight even say that this one tops Frontier House. Watch it!

Also - coming soon! Food news! I promise!

Reading material

New favorite blog.



I must confess I didn't like Kitchen Confidential, but I looove his show.

VOTE

Happy Super Tuesday!













Now go vote.

Happy New Year!

Happy Year of the Rat!
















Okay, so that's a dormouse, not a rat. Buy how cute is it?

On a lightner note

See. Other people go to Cute Overload, too.

Okida Hall nearly burns to the ground

Loyal readers will remember our former studio, Okida Hall, located conveniently in the heart of Japantown and across the street from my apartment building.







Sadly, we had to move to another space back in August.













Tonight, the old wooden building that was behind Okida burned to a crisp and very nearly took Okida Hall with it.






























Okida Hall itself didn't catch on fire, but there's going to be a lot of smoke damage and maybe some water damage. If we were still in there, we would've lost a lot of stuff.






Firemen broke down the front door and took hoses into the building. It hurt just a little bit, watching them hack at the door with a giant ax.






Can you imagine how beside ourselves we'd be, if our drums, costumes, and everything else we own were all still in there?

Oy...



UPDATE:
One person died in the fire.

Sad...

Happy Turkey Day!

So Cal

LA: the tail end of our Fall '07 tour.

Our final concert was at the JACCC's Japan America Theater in Little Tokyo. Since there was also a North American Taiko Conference Advisory Committee meeting the following day, there were an awful lot of taiko people in from out of town. All at the concert. No pressure.

Yurika, workin' hard:


Of course, the lovely people at the JACCC spoiled us rotten with tons of wonderful snacks.



My favorite: the chocolate mochi. Fudgy! And locally made!


An even bigger treat: the newly published cookbook from Senshin Buddhist Temple!



Church cookbooks aren't usually all that, but this one is gorgeous. Lots of recipes (including the chocolate peanut butter mochi from Maui Specialty Chocolates) and fabulous photos. This would be a great addition to any cookbook collection, especially if you're in the biz and need to poach recipe ideas from a different cultural demographic! (Becky? Joanne? Adam R? Hello?)

The concert was okay. I tried not to look directly at the audience, since it was filled with taiko folks, and the last thing I needed was Shoji or someone looking at me cross-eyed during the out-of-tuney parts of Kin.

The next day, we stop by Rob's studio for our second visit this year. Loyal readers will recall our first visit to his super-schmancy studio back in May. This time, we had more people and actual drums with us, so we played around a bit with his equipment. And Adam just about had a stroke when he found out that Rob wrote the score for his favorite show (Buffy, final season).

Yurika cleaning poo from her shoe outside Rob's studio:

Franco plays with Rob's toys:


In a few weeks: Monterey!

I had no idea...

... that writers don't get paid for web content, because it's all considered to be "promotional."

Every time I watch Heroes episodes online, I have to sit through many commercials.

Promotional? Hmph.

Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica): "... the studio's position was they didn't want to pay anyone to do it (webisodes) —they considered it promotional material. They weren't going to pay any of the writers or the actors or the directors to do it, which we thought was crazy. We refused to do it, and eventually came to an accommodation where they said they would pay us, but then when we were almost done, they decided they weren't going to credit anybody... Ultimately, that's why we're here, because that's just wrong."


On a completely unrelated note, the Cook's Illustrated Holiday Baking issue includes two of my recipes that formerly ran in 2002/3. And no, I don't get paid for stories they reuse.

Hmph.

Napa recap

Saturday, October 27 - we play at the Napa Valley Opera House.

The concert goes pretty well. But how were the snacks, you ask?

Well, we are in Napa...

We tried to have dinner Friday night at Mustard's, but it was full. So we went next door to Brix.




The food was lovely, but the desserts were amazing, with simple, seasonal ingredients and not too many flavors on one plate. Trish and I split the apple/currant tart with vanilla gelato. There were also flights of creme brulee, gelati, and sorbetti.











On Sunday, we went to Bouchon Bakery!





Trish has been here (and to the restaurant) before. Ask her how much she likes the Bouchon chicken.



Have I adequately expressed my love of good bakeries?




Everything is beautiful and exquisitely planned and constructed.

And unbelievably tasty!!!


































We had quite the pastry binge...















... as you can see.










Go to Yountville, and go to Bouchon!

Tomorrow: leaving for LA...