I don’t like to eat too many processed foods - they make me feel icky. However, I do like my trashy bachelor chow type foods. Especially after dealing with fine dining cuisine all day. I can now understand how Hugh Grant, when going out with the hottest broad in the world just wanted some nasty sex from a dirty prostitute. So I was way stoked to find Annie’s mac ‘n’ cheese. It tastes exactly like Velveeta, except it’s doesn’t have any chemicals or ingredients you can’t pronounce. Today I made some for lunch and noticed the box was kind fucked up. I went to pour the pasta into the water and whatthefuck I get two cheese sauce packets! Whoa! It totally made my day.

Unfortunatly, it does not contain any rabbit meat. 

Xmas Day. I’m away with Matt at his family gathering in a suburb of Philly. My brother is staying at our apartment in Carroll Gardens, hanging out with the Xmas miracle known as Pokey. He sends me an early morning text message that says, “Your pepper grinder kicks so much ass you should name it Chuck Norris.”

Lo and behold, the Unicorn Magnum Plus Pepper Mill (voted best pepper mill by Cook’s Illustrated Magazine)! Expensive, yes, but it will last you for years and grinds like no other pepper mill. (Kinda like if you want to buy the ultimate cookware that will last three lifetimes, you buy copper and cast iron.) No constant fiddling with screws for desired coarseness. If you are serious about black pepper, then, fuck yeah, it’s worth it. If you think it’s retarded to spend that much on a pepper mill, then fuck you, you loser, you are shitty and I hope you are content with being mediocre for the rest of your life, making your mom cry out of disappointment.

Are you white dudes intimidated? 

My grocery habits have drastically changed since I started working in a restaurant. I don’t have time to cook except on the weekends. It used to be I’d go to the store almost every day, now it’s more like once every two weeks. I used to go with a list of things to pick-up for a specific dish. Now I just go to stock-up on snacks, because when I get home at midnight after working for twelve hours with no break, the last thing I want to do is stand and cook more.

So here’s what I bought at Fairway last night:

1.) Whole milk.

2.) Juice aka Arizona to you n00bz.

3.) A delicious cereal that is good for you and tastes delicious. The perfect balance of sweetness and crunch. I don’t like breakfast, so it’s hard for me to find a cereal that I like that isn’t going to give me cavities and diabetes and also won’t cut up my gums. I wish I could live in Health Valley. I bet everyone would be all friendly and give you presents all the time and sign for your packages and not steal them. Though, I don’t think they would let me smoke and drink there.

4.) Raw macadamia nuts for snacking.

5.) Some Fig Newton type dealies I bought to try.

6.) Eggs.

Chips are very important. People who don’t like chips are either communists or stupid women who are scared of getting fat so they sacrifice deliciousness for vanity. I like a thick cut (chip, not woman) and preferably dark russet. I don’t like many flavored chippos, but Kettle’s Cheddar Beer is effing amazing - it combines three of my favorite things: Cheese, beer and chippos. The Herr’s I bough to try out because I usually get Utz’s dark russet flavor. The Island Jerk was new, so I decided to test it out.

Yogurt pyramid. I like Wallaby’s because it’s organical and I think the packaging is neat. Plus it’s always on sale for $.85. It’s “Australian style”. I don’t know what the fuck that means, but it should say “Delicious style”. The Pokey-looking guy on top is sheep’s milk yogurt that I bought because I’ve never had before.

1.) I fell for Bean Cuisine’s ploy: Just jam some dried beans and spices and herbs in a sack and a tie with a ribbon and charge $3.50 for it when someone who isn’t lazy or stupid could put it together with Goya products for $.50. Damn you, Bean Cuisine! Damn yous!

2.) Cashew Butter is delicious.

3.) Rick’s Picks Windy City Wasabeans: Pickled green beans with wasabi and garlic and soy sauce. I have no idea what it has to do with Chicago.

4.) Italian artichoke and olive oil puree spread. The people who make the signs in Fairway are very wordy and it’s starting to piss me off. Cut to the damn chase, assholes. I’m hungry and overwhelmed by your products and the fact that your aisles are too small and you want me to stand around staring at signs? The sign for this job said something about the NYTimes but all I really got was the first line that said, “This stuff will kill you.” Done and done!

5.) Fairway fresh baked crusty baguette. Yes, I live in NYC and I have to buy my fresh bread from a supermarket. I live in an Italian neighborhood, so the bakeries don’t give a shit about French breads.

6.) Sausage and cheeses.

1.) Annie’s mac ‘n’ cheese. It tastes just like Kraft, except it’s not processed nor does it contain chemicals. Usually Matt will eat all of these before I can get to them.

2.) 1/2 pound of coffee.

3.) Ice creams. Fairway has a shitty selection of ice creams. They don’t even have 5 Boroughs. I usually don’t care for Ben & Jerry’s as most of their flavors contain choco. Come on, you fucking hippies, can’t you come up with some ice cream combination flavor that doesn’t rely on chocolate to sell it to middle aged chocolate whores who read Cathy comics and buy Yankee Candles and read novels with embossed titles?

4.) Brita Filtas because I hate tasting chlorine in my water and buying large quantities of bottled water is stupid and wasteful.

1.) Unfortunately, I don’t have time to make my own stocks anymore. It’s also hard since I don’t have a microwave to defrost frozen stocks. I like how this brand felt the need to put the word “cooking” on the description.

2.) Canned San Marzano tomatoes.

3.) “Garnishing Oil” which is roquette (arugula) flavored olive oil. I’m hoping it’s not just a gimmick but I really think it’s just a gimmick.

4.) Bread, which is really just a vehicle to get the cashewnut butter into my mouth.

5.) Cheddar cheese.

6.) A pound of sablefish aka black cod - it’s tastes like if a white fish mated with a stick of butter.

7.) Ass wipes. I take pooping very seriously. I think it goes hand-in-hand with eating. And I like having a squeaky clean butthole. Anyone who doesn’t use baby wipes is gross. Though I don’t care much for the pedophile porn on the packaging. They should have a photo of me with my hand down the back of my pants and a big shit eating grin.

You’ve probably noticed a lack of produce in my purchases. It’s for two reasons. One being that I get my veg from the CSA right now, which is a communist-style share of organic, local produce. Number B is that, as I’ve bitched about before, the produce at Fairway is shitty. It’s inconsistent and unreliable. I mean, if you are gonna sell wilty cilantro, don’t expect me to buy it fat normal price and not bitch about it to the dumb rube standing next me who was just about to buy it anyway because he’d rather buy shitty produce than buy nothing or having to make two trips.

1.) Unripe bananas. I don’t like ripe, overly sweet, mushy bananas. Once I bought some organic bananas from Whole Foods that didn’t ripen even after three weeks! Organic my ass. Thems freak ‘naners.

2.) Grapes.

3.) Honeycrisp apples.

4.) 3 for $1 fruit jerky.

5.) Instant miso. I keep a pack of this on my station at The Restaurant.

My new chef’s knife:

A Kikuichi Gyuto Western style 9.5″ chef’s knife. It came with a wooden sheath and a box wrapped in delicate origami-type paper, tied with raffia. I think I’m gonna name her Cutty. Me so happy.

My old knife, Stabby, works better on zombies.

My friend Mechanic writes:

dear chewy at chew food?

what is the difference between chinese soy sauce and japanese soy sauce? or for that matter, all soy sauces from different countries? are they all the same? are they very different? i don’t get it. if i get soy sauce with my sushi can i put it on chinese food?

please let me know,

soy confused

Oh, sirry lound eye! There are many different kinds of soy sauce, made with slightly different ingredients.

I’m not gonna lie: I looked it up on Wikipedia for you. But I will give you the ADD version here.

Japanese soy sauces often contain wheat (thus making it not friendly with those with gluten allergies), whereas Chinese ones contain mostly soy and little or no other grains.

There are different colors and sweetness levels of soy sauce. You’ll often see in recipes that cook’s recommend tamari, or Japanese dark soy sauce. Tamari is wheat free, darker in color and richer in flavor. I try to keep both regular Kikkoman and a bottle of tamari in my cupboard. You taste the normal soy sauce and you go, “Oh! That’s soy sauce!” and then you go and taste the tamari and you go, “Oh! That’s fucking delicious soy sauce!”. Japanese soy sauces generally are made from equal amounts of water and soybeans, which makes it sweeter and gives it a higher alcohol content.

Then there’s that Chinese soy sauce that derives it’s amino acids from old human hair! I think rich Western white women try to eat this to get thick, lush, shiny straight hair.

Other countries that produce their own versions of soy sauce are Malaysia, Taiwan, Korea and Indonesia.

There’s also a trend to produce more low-sodium or light soy sauce, which tastes like crap and will make your food taste like crap. You might as well just dip your sashimi into urine.

Can you use the soy sauce that you get from a Japanese restaurant on food you get from a Chinese restaurant? Probably. Most of them use Kikkoman brand anyway. Unless it’s a low-end Chinese joint, where they often use some salty brown liquid that isn’t made from soy at all, but from water, salt, msg and brown. But it does have a cute panda on the packet! Like Alton Brown says, it’s always important to read the ingredient list on your soy sauce.

You could always go get a brick of ahi tuna, make some steamed veggies and purchase a dozen bottles of various soy sauces (which are available in any Chinatown grocer for about $1.50 a bottle) and have a soy sauce tasting party.

This kind of soy sauce contains 5% Dolemite.

I’m a sucker for new chip flavors. Today at Fairway, I found Doritos’ new flavor, X-13D. Marketed in a mysterious black bag and so titled because you, the consumer, can win the chance to name it. I thought the “X” stood for eXtreme, as in eXtreme flavor. The “13″ was probably picked picked because someone thought it was a cool number. “D” is for either “Dorito’s” or “diarrhea”.

I’ve read that they are supposed to taste like a cheeseburger. Maybe if you are on Miracle Fruit or smoked a lot of weed. These things are disgusting. Without reading any of the propaganda on the package, one bite and I could identify the “mystery flavor”. Mustard. Mustard flavored Dorito’s. Imagine mustard powder mixed with garlic powder. Wash it back with a Coca-Cola Blak and you can ensure vomit. Actually, I’ve had vomit that tasted better than this. And vomit is free, but these things cost me $3.50. I wish I had never tried them. That’s how bad they are. They make my mouth sad.

Another blogger described the flavor as “ass dipped in mustard and relish”. That pretty much sums it up.

Doritos X-13D are not vegetarian friendly, as they contain beef tallow.

ChewFood grade for taste: F-
ChewFood grade for marketing: F-

Now THESE are eXtreme Doritos!

Wanna send a generic gift that requires no thought or effort? Can’t decide whether to send flowers or a fruit basket? Well now you don’t have to choose! Edible Arrangements is here for you!

If you haven’t heard about it before, Edible Arrangements are fruit bouquets. They are carved out of fruit to look like flowers. Kinda like flowers. I guess. Not really.

This is one of the smartest ideas ever. Seriously! The profit margin! The bouquets range from about $50-$200. For fruit! Fruit that probably costs them $5. And I bet it’s shitty fruit. And it’s not like they even do crazy fancy fruit carving like the Thai do:

Totally worth $2oo.

Totally not worth the diarrhea.

This is more my style.

Sorry I haven’t been posting as much lately. I’ve been working about 60 hours a week at The Restaurant. Here’s something to tide you over:

Twenty way to use vinegar.

Vinegar: Not just for douchebags. 

I had a large spike in the number of hits on my blog one day last week. Google analytics told me it was because of referrals from stumbleupon.com. Download the plug-in for your browser, set your preferences and go. I have mine set only to food and whenever I click “Stumble!” in my tool bar I get a random food related page. Today I got something worth blogging about. Not since Squagles (audio link) has a food product been so eXtreme.

What do you think this dealie is?

Chia Pet? Garlic keeper? Lawn ornament? Some sort of pagan love device? Wrong, broham! It’s a novelty egg separator!

It costs $7 from this place.

This is something someone would give me for Xmas and say, “Hey, you like to cook and you have a good sense of humor – I thought you’d get a kick out of it!” And then I’d almost feel bad about throwing it out on December 26th. Almost.

Don’t you just wanna crack an egg onto his head now?

Full vegetable share from the Carroll Gardens CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Clockwise from left: Pea shoots, radishes, mixed greens, Boston lettuce, red Russian kale (I’m pretty sure this vegetable is a communist), bok choi (also a communist) and asparagus.

Pokey does not appreciate organic greens nor communists.