If you find yourself hungry in Rochester, seek out dogTown gourmet hot dogs & garbage plates [also, oddly enough, very vegetarian-friendly]. Never before have I had a hot dog served on hand-cut French bread or, for that matter, a hot dog garnished with a reuben [genius].

It's conveniently located right off 490 and well worth the detour if you're just passing through.

- Z

Public service announcement: you should not be frying with extra-virgin olive oil. Spend some dollars and buy a bottle of peanut oil. Then spend some other dollars and buy a pound of bacon.* Then use this recipe to get rid of those boneless skinless tasteless chicken breasts that you've been freezer-burning.

Catfish Fried Chicken
1. Eat the bacon. Mmm, bacon.
2. But save the drippings in a little glass cup in your refrigerator.
3. Thaw the chicken breasts. If you wanted, you could pound them flat. If you wanted, you could also make schnitzel and join the Luftwaffe, you Kraut.
4. Breading: one cup of corn meal plus one tablespoon of chili powder. Next time I make it I'll probably also put in some fresh ground black pepper. Use as much of this as you need.
5. Heat two tablespoons each of peanut oil and bacon fat in a cast-iron skillet. If you don't have both, you've totally missed the whole point. If you don't have bacon fat you can substitute goose fat, lard, or butter. If you don't have peanut oil, skip the rest of the steps and stick your head in the oven.
6. Roll the chicken all around in the breading until it's evenly coated, and slide it into the frying pan.
7. This step is going to take a while.
8. Flip them over. They should look delicious on the bottom, which is now the top.
9. This step is going to take a little while too.
10. Flip them over again. They should look delicious on the top and bottom, which are now the top and bottom again.
11. Put them on a plate. Realize that you forgot to make side dishes.
12. Put the chicken in your mouth and chew. Notice that it is both crunchy and moist. Notice the super-subtle smoky flavor from the bacon fat.
13. Put $20 in an envelope and mail it to (e:zobar)

- Z

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• The calculus of bacon.

1) Does thick-sliced bacon taste different than thin-sliced bacon? The answer is no. Buy thin-sliced bacon - there's more slices.
2) Low-fat bacon has more meat, but regular bacon costs the same and comes with a free half-pound of lard. Buy regular bacon and eat it twice.
3) Is a pound of bacon too much? Do you want to take your bacon Higher? Go to Spar's and they will give you exactly the amount of bacon you require, and it will rock your world.

What the fuck happened to my French toast?!



U Can't This

- Z

This is a jar of store-brand whole black pepper.



1. Why a shaker top? What kind of deranged individual shakes whole black peppercorns onto their food? I can think of two recipes* that call for whole black peppercorns, and when I make them I usually just pour them out of the top of the pepper grinder.

2. The copy on the label which is probably too blurry to read, says

These are the highly regarded Tellicherry peppercorns from India...

You don't mean the highly regarded Tellicherry peppercorns from India?! You mean the ones everyone has been talking about down at the Pepper Club? You mean the ones that won Pepper Spectator's most prestigious "Highly Regarded" award in 2003 and 2004? Wow, that must be some pepper.

- Z

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• Corned beef, and poached salmon.

You can make hot dogs in the Toast-R-Oven. If I'da known this ten years ago, college would have been very different.

- Z

OK, so I really need to get out of the house, so we decided on barbeque. I'm a Kentucky Greg's man but the place is a bit small and I'm feeling a bit cooped-up already, so. There's always Fat Bob's and although their sides are excellent I'm not a fan of their ...um... ribs. We'd gone to BW's once but my memory of it faded behind my memory of driving the hell around Blasdell trying to find it. So BW's it is.

In an effort to avoid getting lost again I looked up the turnoff from Rt 5 on Street View. On one side: an unmarked garage; on the other: an unmarked factory. Great. I backed up the street a little: A sign that says mumblemumble ... POGS? Zoomed in. Sure enough, ALL ADULT POGS.

What is the deal with Blasdell.

- Z

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ps. Yeah I know, it says 'All About Dogs,' but you can't stop me from believing there's an entire store devoted to selling fifteen-year-old porn-pogs.
pps. BW's ribs are cooked perfectly but KY Greg still wins on sauce.
ppps. All About Doug definitely looks like the kind of place that sells porn-pogs.

I made a meatloaf last night and it smelled like hot dogs. I don't know how something like that even happens. )-:

Natalie Dee is funny in a way that is difficult to explain.


'dead in the eyes and coming for you specifically'

- Z

Rice Krispie Treats!



Also: successfully nailing Jell-O to a wall.*

Conclusion: There is still good in this world.

- Z

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• Spoiler: Ramen noodles.

I admit it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I've just always thought bacon looked like Norway.

- Z

So suddenly I'm a poster-boy for size acceptance, go figure! A reporter from the Buffalo News discovered (e:dragonlady7,43746) where she goes on about size acceptance, which he is writing about but couldn't find any local experts. He came over to do an interview with B while I was working in the next room over. The topic of me came up, and he was kind of like har har he's so skinny. And I was like, dude: it would be extremely rude if somebody came up to you and said 'you're so fat, here have some carrot sticks.' But when somebody comes up to me and says 'you're so skinny, here have a milkshake,' it's totally acceptable! [For the record: it's not original and you're not clever.]

'Size acceptance' is not the same thing as saying 'So what if I'm fat?' Size acceptance is recognizing that it is possible to be healthy even if your weight is not within one standard deviation of the statistical mean. If your body is healthy and your mind is sane, is not worth risking your physical health with an asinine diet; your mental health by obsessing about every calorie; or your happiness with awful food. Not all fat people are overeaters, and not all skinny people are bulimic.

I'm sure he thinks I'm just playing the devil's advocate [and to some extent perhaps I am] but it doesn't make it any less true. Regardless, they're doing up some portraits of the two of us to put in the paper.

Edited to add:


- Z