Where it sort of all began August 30, 2010
Posted by Eli in : Uncategorized , add a commentFeeling sentimental today.
Here’s a picture of Max and I cooking together at Camp Tavor in Three Rivers, MI circa 2004. Probably not the best idea to give two 20ish year olds control of a $60k+ food budget for an entire summer but we turned out the best food the camp has ever had. 180 campers and staff. 3 meals a day, two snacks. That’s trial by fire right there.
I love that max is wearing a duct tape kitchen survival belt that he actually made and used all the time. That wasn’t for show. That was fully functional folks.
Crime doesn’t pay for slick criminals. August 27, 2010
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The Santa Monica Daily Press has let me know that there is a new deviant running wild on the streets of Santa Monica. It is no longer safe for me to take my industrial sized used oil receptacle for casual walks on the promenade or to the pier. Why you ask? Because people are: STEALING USED COOKING OIL, FILTERING IT AND RE-SELLING IT FOR A PROFIT!
According to Sgt. Jay Trisler, a spokesman for the SMPD “Once it’s filtered, the used oil can retail for a couple of dollars per gallon, making large restaurant receptacles potentially lucrative targets.”
Now embark with me on a math journey. Let’s say there is 100 gallons of used oil behind a Carl’s Jr. Some dudes show up, transfer the oil into another container,load it into a car, drive it back to Whittier, remove it from the vehicle, filter it, then sell it as Bio-fuel. And for all that, they are clearing $150 each max?
I’m looking at this two ways…
1) These dudes are savvy businessmen. They love the environment and have found a great “green” business model doing the fast food chain, area residents and the world a huge favor by re-purposing used cooking oil. (Don’t people get grants for doing things like this?)
2) These same guys are idiots. a) This sounds messy as fuck. Have you ever emptied used oil into a receptacle behind a restaurant? It’s a slippery, meat stink, hotel pan balancing nightmare where no on hears about success but failure haunts you for life as you re-emerge in the kitchen covered in sick smelling cooking grease holding an empty hotel pan cursing “give me a mop, screw you, I hate my life.” Now consider these guys trying to empty used cooking oil receptacles quickly and without getting caught. b) It’s not like this stuff is black gold. I mean…a couple bucks a gallon? These guys roll back to Whittier with massive jugs of used cooking oil sloshing around in the back of their 1998 Nissan Maxima. They pull up to the “safe house” where people are cutting cocaine and these guys are on the other side of the warehouse slumming it for $3.02 a gallon.
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-”I made a few hundred bucks today”
- “but you made it in a sleazy way. Sellin used cooking oil as bio-fuel to the (progressive) kids (driving a prius)”
- “I gotta get paid”
- Well hey that’s just the way it is”
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Original article here: http://www.smdp.com/Articles-c-2010-08-25-70193.113116_Alleged_cooking_oil_thieves_nabbed.html
“Don’t tease me bro! Don’t tease me” Teaser Post August 26, 2010
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Some potentially awesome stuff is coming down the Sussman Brothers pipeline. But first, to bring everyone up to speed on the east coast news, Max is now cooking at the wildly popular Roberta’s in Brooklyn (http://www.robertaspizza.com/) He’s excited, I’m excited, Brooklyn’s excited. And we’re having a big party in Brooklyn to celebrate. Everyone’s got mustaches now! We’re all getting sick calf tattoos! I’m typing this on my iPhone4 while swimming in a dumpster pool while episodes of Xena Warrior princess are projected onto an abandoned building and bartenders wearing suspenders are taking 15 min to make cocktails using 1920’s techniques and talking extensively about the process!
Ok, snooze button on the jesting. We’ve got 2 other big announcements but we aren’t really prepared to make them yet. Note the name of this post: Teaser Post.
For now, I want to let you know that I’ll be MC’ing the VIP stage at the LA Times Celebration of Food and Wine. One of the major beneficiaries is Share our Strength which is a charity we continuously support.It does incredible things across L.A. to help end childhood hunger.
Please buy tickets here: http://events.latimes.com/foodandwine/
AND if you come to the VIP area, please say whatup.
Check back soon for our 2 BIGGGG updates on things for 2011. Hopefully be able to announce both in the next two weeks.
Microwaved toaster baked potato chip fries August 10, 2010
Posted by Eli in : Uncategorized , 1 comment so farI’m the exact opposite of Justin Bieber lately. I am so not on the global grind. I just read in New York Mag that the little Canadian plays like 3 shows a day, has a 20 person entourage (including his pillow-fight starting lead guitarist who describes himself as JB’s camp counselor…um what?) and is too busy sometimes to eat or even go bowling. Being 16, looking 14 and sounding 12 sounds like super hard work! Whatever the opposite of LOL and 
are, I’m sending them him way.
Well, it took me longer to type that JB intro and the title of this post than to actually make the super healthy side dish described above. After finding out I’m allergic to eggs and egg yolks (shit), I’ve had to phase American style potato salad out of my repertoire which is wiggity wack, because P-salad is ma’fuckin Da-lishious (even more than Flava Flav’s ex-boo).
So here is a awesome baked fry/potato chip to fill that void on my lunch plate.
When making fries at home I usually slice them super thin, toss them in olive oil, salt em and than broil till they crisp up (appx 5min). But at my office, all we have is a microwave and a super old toaster where you have to hold down the button to make it work. So I had to improvise.
I sliced the potato straight down into round potato chip like slices. Then I microwaved them for 1.30 sec. As any normal human being knows, microwaving uses radiation to heat water and excite the polarized molecules in food which allows uniform heating.
After that, I popped the cooked slices in the toaster, held down the button and bang-a-rang : crispy delicious, totally fresh baked potato chip fries made using no oil, no fry spray,no salt and only good ol fashioned safe microwave rays and a 20 year old toaster.
Try making these while tweeting at your fans on your private jet to Japan JB. Yeah…that’s what I thought.
Top Ramen, Eat Your Heart Out August 8, 2010
Posted by Eli in : Uncategorized , add a commentSometimes, great recipes just come together. Any chef will tell you “it’s all in the ingredients.” This dish is a true celebration of that statement.Here are a few rules for executing this dish. It’s quite emotionally laborious (you will need to face a lot of demons to make it) so that’s why there are a few pre-requisites.
1) You must be in an insanely lazy mood. I mean, so lazy you do not even want to google a restaurant to deliver food to you. Driving is simply out of the question. You are in a “Barely able to change the channel off the Sat night TNT movie” mood.
2) You must be kinda to very broke. The idea of spending $10+ on delivery is literally sickening.
3) You have to have basically ZERO groceries in your house. I mean, you have to be able to see every single inch of the back wall of your fridge. The weird circle ring stain from the soy sauce bottle is about the only think separating your fridge from it’s original factory specs.
4) You don’t even have time to make real rice. Correct. You only have instant rice. (who even owns instant rice? Ahh yes -the super delegates of the lazy party).
5) You don’t even have any meat to add to the dish. You only have 5 baby carrots from a basically empty veggie platter that may be like 2 weeks old.
RECIPE:
1) cook instant rice in tupperware. Cook 3 min or until fluffy.
2) cut up old baby carrots and add to the instant rice.
3) cover in soy sauce/Hoisin sauce.
4) serve with cup of tap water.
Congrats you are either the poorest SOB alive, the laziest SOB alive, or just trying to push the boundaries of really using everything up before going grocery shopping. Either way, you are a true food connoisseur.
