That Which Makes Me Happy

Meet Ernie!

Ernie is my new Heirloom Tomato plant. I bought him today for $1.50 at the farmers market.

The dude their said that if I am nice to the plant and if it is happy enough, it might produce a dozen or so tomatoes.

So I bought one and named it Ernie. Ernie makes me happy and reminds me of my Mom's garden.

I kinda feel like Jean Reno in "The Professional" with his best friend, the fern.

Then on my way home from work today I stopped by the liquor store and loaded up on some king cans of beer!

Not that crappy "Budweiser" that you get at German World Cup matches either ! (heh heh heh...)

Got a few Warhammers, Bitburgs, Low-End Brau (Lowenbrau), and a Czech Pilsner.

Then as you can see, I made a BEER-A-MID!

WooHoo!

This has been a presentation of the first two installments of "That Which Makes Me Happy".

Somebody Got a Hurt, Real Bad

A week ago, we went to catch Russell Peters in concert here at the Air Canada Centre.

If you haven't heard of him, he's an Indian Canadian comedian who got popular on You Tube. So popular that he became a phenomenon and started getting on TV and international tours.

Actually I first heard of him a couple of years ago when my buds in Vancouver showed me clips off of the net.

So last week, we all grabbed tickets to see his show, as Russell was just finishing up his comedy tour around the world.

Damn, he was funny. Perfect for me as I was having a tough couple of days on the job.

So we kicked back at the Air Canada Centre and laughed it up for about 2 and a half hours. Russell's great at doing accents and making comparisons between different racial groups. As long as you remember that he isn't being serious, you can enjoy the funny bits of life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qtrAMK7_Qk&mode=related&search=

The Mighty Warhammer Beer

Behold: My new favorite beer: Warsteiner

Up until coming back from Asia, my favourite beer was Carlsberg. A good beer and faithful friend through many nights (and days) overseas in Asia.

But recently I picked up a few king cans of Warhammer (that's what I call Warsteiner when I've had a few and can't be bothered to pronouce Warsteiner), and found it to be crisp and sweet.

An Excelent match with seafood and barbeque items. Truly awesome.

Better still, Warhammer comes in can, king can, bottle, and the Thunder Keg. Go get some. Now!

The Mussels from Brussels

This is the famous Belgian dish called "Moules et Frites". Essentially it is sauteed Mussels with French Fries. Yum!

Had it a couple times in Montreal and the number of recipes and variations on the sauce are many. But all of them are delicious.

So last night we picked up some good beers, white wine, mussels, potatoes, bread, and cheese for a non-stop gorging.

So check it out: Spicy italian style Mussels with home made fries, wasabi garlic mayo, crusty bread, and fruilano cheese!

Here we have some sliced celery, shallots, minced garlic, and finely cut chilis.

The most important ingredient aside from the mussels is of course the pancetta. Pancetta is a delicious salt cured italian bacon that is not smoked. By frying the diced pancetta you create a rich meaty, buttery component to the sauce and it is uncomparable.

You could of course use smoked bacon, but it wouldn't be the same. Actually it might be better. Depends on your taste.

So saute the pancetta first, then the vegetables, then add your mussels with a cup of white wine, pepper, herbs, and too much butter.

Remember to use too much butter. Just enough or less is not tasty.

Cover the mussells for about ten minutes. That's when the mussles are all opened and ready for eating. Eat immediately because when they get cold, it is a bloody shame.

Don't forget to have some bread on the side because the mussels will have a gorgeous sauce for dipping. I am saving our leftover sauce to make a heavenly pasta sauce the next day.

Serve with cold beers and fresh made fries and you are a king.

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women

So I was on Bayview and Eglington last weekend enjoying the sunshine and checking out the neighborhood. I got a bit of a sun tan while ducking in and out of cool shops and eateries, exploring this neighborhood which I've never been to before.

To tell you the truth it was quaint in a waspy kinda way, and it seemed every woman there was either pregnant or pushing a baby stroller. Not to mention that the official uniform for yuppy women trying not to overstyle on a Saturday, is the yoga pants. Don't even get me started on that crazy cult Lululemon...

So anyways we are walking down the street when I spy this crowd of people on the sidewalk in front of this gourmet food store. As I get closer I see that there is this table set up with a line of colourful bottles of chili sauces, bowls, and a pile of corn chips.

Working the table was this young kid and with him was this old dude.

Have you ever seen "Justin Wilson's Louisiana Cookin"? It was this 80's cook show with this old dude name Justin (pronounced "Joooostaan") who would cook cajun food while telling rambling stories about people named "Shorty Beauchamp" or "Little Froggy Sinclair".

Those stories never ever made sense or went anywhere. But Old Justin was happy to tell them while making soup out of sausage or re-creating a truck stop desert made of saltine crackers and strawberry jam packets.

The punchline for every recipe was that he'd somehow work a bottle of Louisiana Hot Sauce into it. Then he'd have a taste and shout "Whooooooo weeeee! Dat is darned good! I gare-rawn-teeee y'all!" Then he'd get a paycheck from the makers of Louisiana Hot Sauce.

So anyways, back on Bayview, this old dude working the table looked just like Old Justin. Same overalls, suspenders, and country accent. He sees me coming and asks me if I like it "hot".

So I says, "Yeah I like it damn hot".

So he goes into his schpeel about his different sauces and offers to let me try them.

I says,"Gimme your hottest".

He says," Yeah? You don't want to start with a mild one and work up to the hottest?"

I says, "Nah. I want it damn hot".

"Ok. This one is my hottest. It's 1400 Scoville heat units. Be careful."

So I take a giant scoup of the sauce, sniff it, and eat the chip. The heat was mild...about 5 seconds before feeling even close to being hot. The old dude is watching me and getting dissappointed that I am not suffering.

I ask him," Do you have anything hotter? Do you have some Dave's Insanity Sauce in the store?"

He says," Dave's? Yeah....I am familiar with Dave's. Maybe they have some in the store..."

So we go inside and I don't see Dave's Insanity Sauce. When I come out the old dude is gone. That's when I realize that he wasn't working for the store, and that he was out selling his own home made sauces. WoW! I totally disrespected his sauce by accident!

I didn't see him the rest of that day. I think he went home in shame. Possibly hunched over his sauce pot adding gasoline to try to make it spicier. I Gare-rawn-teeee!

Comedy Basics

When you want a cheap laugh, you gotta go back to the basics.

Surfin the YouTube, I found this crazy video. As far as I can tell this is one of those infamous gameshows that punish the ignorant with pain and humiliation.

Basically you have to recite a Japanese tongue twister as fast as possible. Otherwise if you screw it up, a mechanical whip shoots up and slaps you in the testacles.

Yeah I know this is crazy, but damn it if I don't chocke laughing whenever I see it.

Keep your eye on the guy in red. He spends the whole time watching others take a shot in the nuts and freaks out before his turn.

Thank the heavens for the YouTube. I was getting tired of watching exploding mentos/coke bombs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_0kCSYBWZs

The SkyDome is my Office

Check it out: The Sky Dome.

Yesterday my office cleared out in the afternoon to see a baseball game at the Sky Dome.

Ok, ok, ok....it's now called the Rogers Centre, but I remember when it was first built it was called the Sky Dome. A much more dramatic name. That's the way it was back then, and we liked it!

So it was my first time seeing the Toronto Blue Jays play and the first time I was in the SKY DOME. So how was it?

Well being in the nose bleed section is awesome when you are sitting right at the railings. You really aren't going to get tagged with a run away baseball to the head.

Beer. You gotta love the 20 oz beer, but man what a scam! Your choices are Bud or Bud Lite. That's like having a choice between getting punched in the mouth, or kicked in the stomach. The choice is yours.

Worse yet, it's $9.50 a beer! I've never had to pay that much for a Bud in my life! I bet even Strip Club owners are reddening with shame.

Ah well. Drunk on a beautiful summer afternoon, watching a ball game, and eating street dog with my co-workers instead of at the office is a fair trade for $9.50 Buds.

Phil's BBQ in Hog City

Last night we watched "Restaurant Makeover" on the Food Network and saw this restaurant.

Although the "makeover" was crap, we saw how delicious the bbq looked. That and the owner Phil Nyman seemed like a really nice guy.

So today we went over to investigate.

Sure enough the inside of the restaurant was just as the makeover TV show had designed it, and it was crap! Also the special "additions" to the menu were no where to be seen. Not surprising since they sucked. Usually Restaurant Makeover really does a nice job of redesigning lame restaurants and improving the menue, but they really didn't do much for Phil's. Phil's was perfect before they redesigned it.

Anyways, on to the food.

Dammmmmmnnnn! It was the best restaurant ribs I ever had. They were slow smoked for four hours and seasoned with love and spice. Other restaurant ribs I've had were overkilled with strong bbq sauces or were tough or had that gross porky taste from being under cooked.

Phil's ribs were soft and moist on the inside, but crisp like bacon on the outside. The spice was tasty without over powering the flavour of the pork. The homemade sauce was a nice touch, but the ribs were tasty enough without it. Delicious. If you don't believe me, then believe the line up out the door the whole time I was there.

To go with the ribs there were baked beans, coleslaw, fries, hush puppies, slow smoked pulled pork, and an ice cold beer. Awesome.

Problem now is that I ate too much pig. I ate like a pig. Now I am a pig. Oink, oink, snuff, squeeeeeee, squeeeeee!