Foodborne Chillness

Chicken Long Rice Soup (ProTip: there's no rice in it - the name comes from the 'cellophane' noodles) is a Hawaiian favorite, or so I am told. It seemed like the perfect cold weather treat, but after getting all my ingredients together, I discovered that the recipe I found was, frankly, a disaster, with scattershot directions and some pretty inefficient methods. I decided it was worth fixing, though, so my pain is your gain. Ingredients: 2.5 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs OR about 3 pounds chicken leg quarters 3, 32 ounce cartons of chicken broth 1 half-inch piece of fresh ginger root 1 large sweet Maui onion 1 package of bean thread noodles (typically 6-8 ounces, also sold as cellophane or glass noodles) 1 bunch of green onions 1 small head of bok choy Hawaiian sea salt and cracked pepper to taste Directions: In a large pot, put your chicken in with the broth. For convenience, it's hard to beat frozen boneless, skinless thighs, but if yo...

Sorry it's blurry. I need a new phone. Tri tip roast is a southwestern staple, but it usually is made in the oven. Cooking it in a sous vide bath is a game-changer in terms of texture, and unlike everybody else on the internet, I'll just get to the point without telling you my life story. Here's what you need:

This is NOT a good thing... So, my local Facebook "community talk" groups have been clogged the last few days with one post after another asking the same question: "When is the new Cheescake Factory going to open?" People are treating this event with the same crazed enthusiasm that went along with our bucolic little valley getting its first Golden Corral buffet restaurant (and the same total lack of the ability to search to see if the question has already been asked and answered dozens of times.) For a chain restaurant to inspire this kind of foaming expectation, they must be doing something right. Viewed objectively, it's a little hard to pinpoint what makes them successful. First of all, the Factory takes pride in their enormous, encyclopedic menu that encompasses more than 250 items at any given time. They make a big deal about the fact that their dishes are cooked (mostly) from scratch, but let's face it - it's impossible to have Thai lettuce...

Scotland has a complicated relationship with food. They've given the world haggis, Gordon Ramsey, and Scotch whisky, so it's hard to really classify their national contribution to cuisine in terms of friend or foe. But as a culture with a legendary reputation (deserved or not) for 1) enjoying a wee dram, and 2) being willing to eat just about anything, I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that one of the world's greatest "I'd have to be super-drunk to eat that" foods, the so-called Pizza Crunch, is popular in the UK's hat.  In the video we bring to you today, we see the process of making a Pizza Crunch from start to finish, and unless you already have a cocktail or two under your belt, it's unsettling. It begins with removing a small, frozen pizza (in this case, apparently plain cheese) from the freezer, and without even taking it out of the plastic bag, portioning it into two halves.  Dude, seriously. I know it's a crappy Zyliss serrat...

There's a saying - "Never order a taco at a burger place, and never order a burger at a taco place..." While the general idea is sound in that you probably shouldn't expect a restaurant that specializes in one kind of food to do a good job with a very different style of cuisine, is it always true that you should forgo cross-cultural menu items? Recently, National Cheeseburger Day and Taco Tuesday fell on the same date, so I thought I would take on this timeless question. Can a burger place make a good taco? Can a taco place make a good burger? To find the answer, we're going to look at two popular semi-nationwide fast food chains that offer both. In the "Mexican" corner (and I use that term loosely) we have Del Taco . Founded in 1964 in the thriving metropolis of Yermo, California (a former wide spot in the road between Los Angeles and Las Vegas that more or less evaporated when it was bypassed by the I-15 in 1968), the chain metastasized beyond its ...

In a quirk of fate, I happen to live within a mile of both a Sizzler and a Golden Corral . I've driven past the former hundreds of times in the three-plus years since I moved to Murrieta, California (City motto: " What was that loud boom? ") and the latter opened about a year ago, much to the excitement of the local social media community groups. Up until a couple weeks ago, I'd never set foot in either. Say what you will about the Temecula Valley in general and Murrieta in particular, but you can't claim there aren't plenty of interesting places to eat, so neither of these two chain restaurants held any appeal as anything other than a punchline. Recently, though, spurred by semi-fond memories of Sizzler back when I was in my 20's, on a tight budget, and without a way to cook for myself, combined with my girlfriend's new keto diet, I thought I'd give these two popular, populist restaurant chains a visit. Here's how it went down: Golden Co...