The Emily Blog » food

Um, Tony? We have a few reservations about this one…

Emily — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 09:05:01 +0000

In the Hawaii episode of No Reservations, Anthony Bourdain’s slightly addicting food and travel show, he visits a little place in Waikiki called Puka Dog. After watching this, Frans and I got all excited. We’d never BEEN to Puka Dog, never even heard of it! And Tony went there! And they have cool hot dogs that they stick in a toasted chunk of bread with a hole in it (“puka” means hole) and squeeze in delicious tropical sauces!

After a few weeks of meaning to go find the place, we finally got our butts in gear and biked into Waikiki for an evening of puka goodness. The store is right on Kuhio Avenue, not far from the International Marketplace. It has shiny, colorful signs. Nice clear menu. Cute tables. Cool Puka Dog coffee mugs. So far, so good. We got in line and ordered our puka dogs (veggie dog with mild garlic sauce and papaya relish for me, polish sausage with spicy garlic sauce, mango relish, and lilikoi mustard for Frans) and some lemonade, and sat down to wait for our glorious meal. Just like Tony had.

The food showed up, we each looked down at our dogs, took a big bite, and looked back up at each other, chewing cautiously. “The bread’s not that great.” “It’s actually kind of . . . bland.” “I’m not so sure about this sauce.” “Not the best veggie dog I’ve had.” “It’s the bread. The bread is awful.” That said, we finished the dogs in near-silence, with Frans eyeing the cheesesteak place across the street the whole time. We both wanted to like the puka dogs, but it wasn’t really working.

I think Frans actually enjoyed the food more than I did. He didn’t like the bread at all, but I was icked out by the whole thing. On our way back to our bikes we stopped to look at the Ono Cheesesteak menu and were surprised to find the four burly guys who had been in line in front of us at Puka Dog sitting happily around a table, munching on cheesesteak sandwiches. On real bread. One of them waved us over, holding up his sandwich. “You guys here too? This is what a real sandwich should look like.”

How to Cook Things: Bread!!

Emily — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:17:32 +0000

How to Cook Things: Bread!! from Emily Albarillo on Vimeo.

Episode 2: How to Make Bread the Really Easy Way
in which…
Emily wears an outfit that definitely does not match
Our wonderful assistant makes soup on the side
A mysterious second batch of dough appears but is never mentioned
-and-
Excellent bread is created! The really easy way!!

Links:

The Minimalist: No-Knead Bread: Not Making Itself Yet, but a Lot Quicker

Recipe: Speedy No-Knead Bread

How to Cook Things: Okra!

Emily — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:28:46 +0000

Rather proud of my first little video creation:

How to Cook Things: Okra! from Emily Albarillo on Vimeo.

I’ve already got a long list of things I’ll do different (better??) next time. For now, though, I’m happy that I made it, and I feel like it’s a step towards more interesting undertakings.

Food photos

Emily — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 05:09:24 +0000

Pork kebabs at a spontaneous grill party Friday afternoon.

Tiniest apples, found at Star Market. For all their cuteness, they really didn’t taste that great. A little mealy.

Brown rice has become our staple rice now. It’s easy to make in the rice cooker if you just add a touch more water than for white and soak it fifteen minutes before you turn the cooker on.

Food down the street: Magoo’s pizza wagon; local veggies at Long’s

Emily — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:09:22 +0000

I finally got a photo of the Magoo’s pizza wagon that parks next the the 76 station just a few blocks from our apartment. Magoo’s (the bar) closed down a year or two ago, causing much sadness among the graduate students of UH’s Department of Linguistics. It was immediately replaced by the Varsity, which has been deemed too loud, too expensive, and generally lacking in edible food. The Magoo’s pizza wagon survived, though, and just a few weeks ago I picked up a chicken and pepper pizza to give it a try. Yum!

Yesterday I picked up some – surprise! – fresh local veggies at Long’s Drugs. Maybe not quite as cheap as the farmer’s market, but certainly convenient. Who knew you could find fresh Hawaiian-grown cucumbers, tomatoes, and eggplant at the DRUGSTORE? Made my day.

Scottish breakfast tea

Emily — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 07:12:08 +0000

I just bought some of Revolution Tea’s Organic Scottish Breakfast Tea (it’s about halfway down the page I’ve linked to) – I shouldn’t have, since a package from Twinings is on its way, but the packaging is so nice and it’s in those little pyramid-style tea bags. And hey, Scottish breakfast tea? Never hear of it. Might as well give it a shot.

15 tea bags for $10 – a little pricey, but it gives me something to look forward to trying in the morning.

Teas to always have on hand

Emily — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:21:04 +0000

Evaluating my tea stash today . . . this is the list of what I would ideally always have in the house.

1) Tazo Om. It used to be my favorite. I still really like it but don’t know if it’s my favorite now.

2) English Breakfast tea.

3) Something else black. Earl Grey probably.

4) A green tea, preferably with jasmine

5) Something herbal, maybe peppermint.

6) Something foofy, like the nice teas my sister buys me.

More tea

Emily — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 09:31:16 +0000

I’m alternating daily between Tazo Om (blended green and black tea plus peach and cucumber) and Twinings Earl Gray. For me, these two represent the height of grocery-store-level teas, and about as good as I can do on my budget if I don’t want guilt issues. I’m always excited to find Om in stores; realizing that Long’s Drugs sold both it and Twinings made me extremely happy.

Mentally

Emily — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 02:18:30 +0000

Mentally, I’m totally preparing to leave. Even if there aren’t boxes hanging around yet, I’m already making lists in my head, sorting through stuff to keep, stuff to toss, stuff to go to Goodwill. It’s certainly affected our eating habits – now that I’m hell-bent on using up all the food in the apartment in the next four months (it sounds easy until you consider how much we buy in bulk at Sams Club), I’m finding all sorts of weird food combinations, and eating and drinking stuff I usually don’t get around to eating and drinking. The other night I made Lasagna Surprise Roll-ups, which turned out, surprisingly, quite nice. The sketchy mint ice cream we never finished was attacked with gusto after dinner yesterday. Again, it was pretty good. We’re drinking beer we discovered in the back of the closet (and – oops – supplementing it with more beer from 7-11). I feel like wherever we live next, I’ll be smarter about actually cooking and eating the things we buy. But I’m sure we’ll end up with more weird shit in the back of the pantry. That’s just how it goes.

Dinner last night: vodka penne

Emily — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:13:08 +0000

I was going to use a friend’s famous Curry Salmon Chowder, P. Diddy Style for dinner last night, since we had a ton of salmon left after a little salmon-and-deep-fried-beer-battered-veggies party we had a few days ago. But then someone ate all the salmon before I could get to it! Not to point any fingers. Frans.

So I gave Penne Alla Vodka a shot (heehee) instead. And it was REALLY good. Nice and spicy, probably more spicy than it should have been, but nobody complained. We had two friends over, and between the four of us we finished off the entire pan of penne, a loaf of fresh bread, and most of an enormous salad.

This is what life should be like. Cooking, not homework, taking up most of the evening. School starts next Monday, but it will be my last semester. Ever. Bring it on!