weier.net

Lime Drop, ****

nospam@example.com (he) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:32:17 -0500

Ingredients

1 1/2 oz fresh-squeezed lime juice
1 oz simple syrup
2 oz vodka
rimming sugar

Shake the lime juice, syrup and vodka over ice. Wet the rim of the martini glass with the squeezed limes and rim with sugar. Fill.

Pittsburgh Blue (Part 2)

nospam@example.com (he) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:09:00 -0500

100 years ago now it seems - well, OK, 3...we ate at Pittsburgh Blue during their opening week (man, am I embarrassed that I somehow ordered Thousand Island on a wedge salad with bleu cheese.) ...and we finally just went back. Not because of any fault of the restaurant, necessarily - we just had other places to be in a city this big.

Actually the main reason we went back - they have added a patio since they opened. It was a nice day and we thought we better cash in - and it was near. The patio is very well done, even within 100 feet of 2 roads and 500 feet of I-94 you really feel secluded in the pergola-ed, evergreen-ensconced surroundings. Sadly from about 6PM until 7:30ish every night it is also extremely busy - like every patio in MSP. So by the time we got out there it was a bit past the prime patio hour...BUT....still... thumbs up.

Must Have
-----------
+ Prime Rib French Dip

Very Good
------------
+ Sidecar Cocktail
+ Steakhouse Wedge (this time, with bleu cheese dressing )
+ Parmesan French Fries
+ James River Raw Oysters -- served with lemon, cocktail sauce, (and pickled onions?)
+ Blue Point Raw Oysters -- served with lemon, cocktail sauce, (and pickled onions?)

Good
----------
+ Table Bread / Butter
+ Greyhound cocktail
+ Cape Codder cocktail

Take It Or Leave It
----------

Probably Not
----------
- Pecan Crusted Walleye -- well, this isn't foul. But only order it if you like your walleye to taste like french toast. (ie: pay attention to the small print that says "with maple rum butter".)

Moscow Mule, *****

nospam@example.com (he) — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 10:43:51 -0500

This recipe is technically the "Minnesota Mule" - due to the use of Minnesota's Prairie Organic Vodka - as created by Haute Dish.

Ingredients

2 oz - Prairie Organic Vodka
2 oz - Regatta Ginger Beer
1 oz - fresh-squeezed lime juice
splash - simple syrup
garnish - candied ginger

Mix ingredients in glass over ice, garnish on the rim of the glass.

Aviation, ****

nospam@example.com (he) — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 21:22:48 -0500

Aviation

2 tablespoons (1 ounce) fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup (2 ounces) gin
1 tablespoon (1/2 ounce) Maraska maraschino liqueur
1/4 teaspoon simple syrup
1 cup ice cubes

Garnish with maraschino cherry or pitted fresh cherry

El Diablo, *****

nospam@example.com (he) — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 19:44:20 -0500

Fabulous....5 star...perfect for summer. (Need to keep around more ginger beer.

Ingredients

About 1 cup ice cubes
1/4 cup (2 ounces) reposado tequila
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) ginger beer or ginger ale
1 teaspoon crème de cassis
1 lime wedge

Preparation

In 11-ounce highball glass, combine ice and tequila. Top with ginger beer, then slowly pour in crème de cassis (it will settle to bottom). Squeeze lime wedge over, then drop wedge into drink and serve.

Someone Needs This

nospam@example.com (he) — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 14:35:55 -0500

bro #2 tshirt selection

LäraBars

nospam@example.com (he) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 06:20:00 -0500

We have been on a buying spree of these things...so thought I would do the standard ratings on them:

Must Have
--------------
+ Cherry Pie = tastes just like tart cherry pie from grandma...well, maybe not quite...but still durn tasty.
+ Tropical Fruit Tart = mmmm...piña colada-y...with nuts.

Very Good
--------------
+ Lemon Pie = tastes like Hostess Lemon Pie...me likey.
+ Apple Pie = tastes like Hostess Apple Pie with more cinnamon in it.
+ Key Lime Pie = accurate to reality...with a bit of a distraction from the nuts.

Good
--------------
+ Pecan Pie = tastes like eating uncooked crisp (for apple crisp)...which I like, ymmv...but I would rather have pecan pie.
+ Coconut Chew = coconutty...not really sure what is going on here.
+ Chocolate Coconut Chew = does taste like haystack cookies....but with nuts mixed in. Good but the nuts diminished it for me.

Take It Or Leave It
--------------
? Peanut Butter = meh
? Ginger Snap = tastes accurate, if not more potent ginger....but it just isn't my thing.

Barrio / La Grassa / Solera / Smalley's BBQ / La Belle Vie Financial Ruckus

nospam@example.com (he) — Fri, 4 Jun 2010 16:08:57 -0500

Wow...big breaking news with the Metro's upper-crust restaurateurs:

Financial Mismanagement at Barrio, La Grassa

With our recent chatter about Smalley's (on Facebook - but the basic jist of the conversation was that "this restaurant should be better than it is" - much like in my dining notes about Smalley's on here.) this makes sense needing to funnel money off to that place to keep it going through dry spells.

Tompopo Noodle Shop

nospam@example.com (he) — Wed, 2 Jun 2010 14:49:26 -0500

Never have been able to figure out what people see in Japanese food. Yes, I have enjoyed a couple pieces of hamachi nagiri in my day - and we had a bowl of ramen that blew out minds in Tokyo. But on the whole I find it under seasoned and the flavors that are brought forward are not that appealing. But still I (and Coolleen!!) try.....

So take this review with a grain of salt in that I am not a fan of this food in general - if you are, maybe you will love this place.

Must Have
-------------

Very Good
--------------

Good
-------------
+ Chicken Wings in Soy Ginger Sauce - nicely breaded and crispy...lightly sauced. Nice.

Take It Or Leave It
--------------
? Beef Udon -- flavorful beef slices in broth, green onions, onions, wakame and - of course - udon noodles. I could eat the 1 oz of beef all day long...but the fishy flavor of the wakame permeates all the other items. Combine that with the rubbery consistency of the noodles and any luster this dish might have had is lost on me.
? Edamame -- Unsalted...meh. Had better a hundred times.

Maybe I should try soba....but....this visit took the wind out of my sails for a couple months at least.

Hypermiling, Part the Second

nospam@example.com (he) — Mon, 17 May 2010 17:01:40 -0500

Well, the last 4 tanks I have filled (or if you want to slice it differently: 1.5 months, 1950ish miles) I am now averaging 35.98 mpg.

Which means I am getting an improvement of 31.9% over my pre-hypermiling mpg. ...which means every 3 tanks of gas I buy - I get a 4th one for free. NICE!!!!

Chimborazo

nospam@example.com (he) — Thu, 13 May 2010 19:02:47 -0500

In our second visit to get Equadorian food at Chimborazo, I finally got off my dead ass and took some notes.

NOTE: Chimborazo isn't going to be a speedy dine. This time was probably about 2 hours - not that we were in any rush. But the first time there were some problems in the kitchen where plates were coming out one at a time...so we literally were served 10 different times. (On the other hand they gave us 50% everything for the wait - so it is always about the customer here...no worries, as long as you don't have somewhere to be.)

Must Have
-----------
+ Chaulafan -- This is probably the go to dish here - essentially fried-rice with shrimp, beef, pork and chicken - and carrots, peas, peppers, etc. Fab. u. lous.
+ Hornado Con Patas -- A giant pile of roast pork served with llapingachos (and hominy - booorrrring...just ignore that). The magic of this is the pork drippings everywhere on the plate - the (potato) llapingachos soak it up -- unbelievably good.
+ Lomo Saltado -- stir-fried beef, peppers, onions, potatoes in a spicy/vinegary sauce.

Very good
----------
+ Camarón Encocado - if you are a curry person, this yellow curry over perfectly-cooked shrimp and white rice
+ Llapingachos - potato pancakes, chorizo, eggs and peanut sauce over rice...tasty but not motivating. Llapingachos are ssooOOOOooo much better with the Hornado con Papas.
+ Pescado Frito - whole fried tilapia with yellow rice, beans and patacones (fried green plantains).
+ Empanada de carne
+ Ceviche de camarón -- GIGANTIC shrimp in here...probably too big...can't get it to stay on the plantain patacones. The tomato chunks are also huge and hard to manage. But once you get it in your mouth you don't mind anymore.
+ Negra Modelo

Good
-------
+ Churrasco -- grilled flank steak with rice and fried egg with sides of beans, sweet plantain and fried yucca. Just doesn't quite fire on all cylinders.
+ Pacifico Claro

Take it or leave it
---------------
? Muchín de yuca -- blandish, gluey...not that one should expect much from yucca. The dipping sauce is magic. (Maybe salt could have saved the day?)

Izzy's Cutting Edge Technology

nospam@example.com (he) — Mon, 10 May 2010 23:32:00 -0500

It was hot technology news all over the planet that Izzy's Ice Cream had installed a new RFID system to auto-update the available ice creams in their St. Paul storefront. Time to get back over there.

http://flavorup.izzysicecream.com/flavor-grid

We had to go reward them for this cutting-edge improvement to modern society, no?

PS: Julio Ojeda-Zapata's Tech Blog

The Barbary Fig

nospam@example.com (he) — Mon, 10 May 2010 23:13:00 -0500

The people who participate in our workplace weightloss contest gave me a thank you gift certificate to The Barbary Fig for administering the contest. (PS: Thanks y'all!) So we went and cashed it in for some northern African food.

Must Have
---------------

Very Good
----------------
+ Chicken Cous Cous
+ Special of the Day: Chicken Bisteeva
+ (warm) French Bread
+ Hummus -- actually hummus, feta and tomato-ginger chutney

Good
------------------

Take It Or Leave It
-------------------
? Grain Belt Premium

Plastics Recycling, Part the Second

nospam@example.com (he) — Sat, 8 May 2010 14:05:03 -0500

Well, the plastics recycling at the Eastside Coop we told you about seems to be running stronger than ever - in fact it is a war zone trying to get into the parking lot during the plastic recycling window.

However, I need to post to list off the changes to the recycling program. It had been a month or so since I have done a dropoff - so maybe these changes have been in effect for a while...but....

They now accept #3 and #7 plastics.
#1 plastics now have to be separated into clear and colored.
#2 plastics now have to be separated into clear and colored.
#3 thru #7 plastics no longer need to be separated from one another...they all go in one bin.
Still open Saturdays: 10AM-2PM and Thursdays, 3-7PM

PS: No, they haven't updated their website to reflect what I witnessed today...not sure what that means.

Penchant for Duplicity

nospam@example.com (he) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 08:19:19 -0500

This morning on the way to work my iPod played "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" by The Jayhawks, back to back - one copy from their Smile album...the other from the Dawson's Creek soundtrack. I was startled by this, thinking an error had happened - not even knowing I had two copies of it. Turns out I do...in a playlist of 2256 songs. So the odds of that happening are .04%.

This iPod (an ancient 3nd Generation, OS v2.3) has quite a penchant for doing a "double shot" of artists. Obviously with some of the artists we have where we have about 100 of their songs it is not that surprising...but it seems to have an amazing skill of making this happen on artists where I only have one album.

I have read articles from world-class statisticians discussion this issue where they said it is purely human perception that iPods do not pick randomly...but that that is just the human mind's need to create patterns....AND I know from statistics class that given enough time, the improbable becomes the probable...........but....it just seems too weird.