Sunday, February 27, 2011

Poker Update

     Despite the wonderful winter weather, the poker five managed to get themselves together for an enjoyable evening of last Friday.  We were playing at BP's place, so we had to leave early Thursday, to make it for Friday night.  Despite our lengthy journey, we arrived hungry and ready for some jocularity and fair play.  Needless to say, things are always interesting at BP's.  We began with some delightful subs that I managed to fuck up by putting on what I thought was mayo-nase, with turned out to be horse radish.  More like horse-shit, if you asked me.  WTF?  Who the fuck discovered eating that foul root in the first place?   I managed to choke that down and made damn sure I stayed clear of that condiment for the rest of the evening.
     The poker was reasonably fun, mainly because I managed to win the last game of the night, despite the creative play of our host, who seems to always think that his 'nothing' is better than everyone else's 'nothing'.  This leads him to going all in when he has SFA, and then he wins, much to his delight.  He beat Pete and myself with this 'brilliant tactic' and chuckled gleefully in our faces.  However;  Pete ended up being the big winner for the night, defeating the group twice, while I defeated the 'mohel' in the last round.
     We did learn an interesting new poker hand this time.  Apparently JS thinks that you can have a full house, when you come close to having a full house.  He needs to learn that a full house involves three of a kind and another pair.  Not just two pairs.  Either that or get his eyes checked.
     BP did mutter the quote of the night, when late in the proceedings, and having had his ass handed to him repeatedly (despite his fucking brilliant play of going all in with nothing - twice and winning), he said, "I guess I shouldn't have started drinking at noon." Duh!
     All in all, another night of shits and giggles.  Can't wait for the next one.

DDDD
     The last few nights have been delightful, if I must say so myself.  Friday, MDW made Ravioli with shrimp in an Alfredo sauce.  My only complaint is that I never know if I should cut the ravioli in half or just scarf them down whole.  My gluttonous ways usually have me doing the latter.  Alfredo sauce is wonderful, isn't it?   Devilishly delicious.  The shrimp are just icing on the cake.
     Saturday was another day of Thai cooking for MDW.  I really like that she is taking a Thai cooking coarse.  The Pad Thai and spicy chicken stir fry was fabulous.  Steamed rice tops it off and the Thai sticky rice is quickly becoming my favorite dessert.  MDW made herself some Thai mushroom soup with coconut milk, which I don't really care for.  There are few things that MDW makes that I don't eat and this is one of them.  She knows I don't like coconut milk, so her feelings were not hurt.  There is a Ukrainian saying that I can not write, but the gist of it is: The more for me!  MDW laid that one on me.   It sounds much better in Ukrainian.
   Sunday was a snow day, with horrible winds, that resulted in our staying in for the entire day.  You know what that means: cooking, cooking, cooking, for MDW and dishes, dishes, and more dishes for me.  People often ask how MDW manages to cook such good meals each night and one of her tricks is to cook something big on Sunday and use the left overs for several different meals during the week.   As usual, I did my share by taking a large chicken out of the deep freeze (is there no end to what I do?) on Saturday night.   MDW cooked it Sunday morning (after pancakes, of coarse),  and then made three different meals out of it for this week.
     The meal that we had for today was marinated chicken BBQ'ed on skewer sticks, with a Thai salad and peanut sauce.  I loved the peanut sauce and I didn't loath the salad.  Tasted a little too fishy for me, however;  I did eat it without complaint.  MDW had time to make delicious peanut butter cookies to nosh on for dessert.  Tomorrow, chicken cacchiatore.
     Treadmill, don't fail me know!



  

Thursday, February 24, 2011

The Fat Man Returns

    The 'Fat Man Review' has been on hiatus for the past couple of years.  Diet and all that... you know!  Well I decided it was time to make a comeback in the food critic game; as I see 'The Skinny Man' has made a triumphant return recently and I don't want him to be the only voice of fine food and dining in the greater Edmonton area.  I mean, he's skinny; what the fuck does he know about food.  He's like the Ethiopians,  the only thing he knows, is that with his obvious pencil thin figure; he doesn't have enough (do you see the venom that comes from one losing night of poker?).
    I have been trying to give you a little glimpse of MDW's daily cooking, however;  on the odd occasion (like any day with the word day in it), we dine out.  Last night MDW had not one, but two 'things'; so we decided to try the Thanh Thanh Noodle House.  It is located on 101 St. and 107th Ave, basically kitty-corner from the Brick.  My esteemed colleague; 'The Skinny Man' is a big fan of the Thanh Thanh and highly recommended it to me.  His last recommendation was the Boualong Laos and Thai Cuisine, which is simply the best Thai food in the city in my opinion.  So I figured that the Thanh Thanh would be another winner.  Not so fast skinny boy!
    To begin with, trying to park on 101st street at 5:00 sucked.  We ended up parking in the back at a pay parking lot.  I don't mind paying for parking, however; the area scared the hell out of me.  Being out of the bubble is always a little nerve wracking for me.
   Now, I will admit that there is nothing wrong at all about the Thanh Thanh.  The food was good, tasty and plentiful.  The restaurant itself was very nice and spacious.  The service was excellent as the waitress was prompt, friendly and helpful.  The food was cooked faster and served to our table faster than any restaurant that I have ever been to.  It was amazing.  And you all know that I have 'time issues'.  I don't like sitting around chit chatting and leisurely drinking a carafe of wine.  Come to restaurant, sit down, take my order, bring food, eat, pay, leave.  That's my idea of a great meal.  That is what is was like at the Thanh Thanh.
   We started with spring rolls and they were the same as the spring rolls I cook in my french fry maker.  Not great, but fine.
  Diana had a vermicelli bowl, with chicken and shrimp. The bowl was full, however; it was a smaller bowl than the usual Vietnamese restaurant which we frequent.  The vermicelli was good, probably as good as the same dish at the other place.  I ordered sizzling chicken and onions, with steamed rice.  It was good, but not anywhere near as good as the sizzling dishes I order at the Ninh Kieu Restaurant.  The sauce that the sizzling dish came in was not overly tasty.  There was lots of chicken and lots of rice.
    The main difference between the Thanh Thanh was in the price.  As I said, Diana had the vermicelli bowl and the cost was comparable, however; it was a considerably smaller portion.  My sizzling dish was much more expensive than my usual order.  I usually order sizzling seafood and I get rice included, for about $15.  The same sizzling dish at the Thanh Thanh was $22 plus $2.50 for rice.  My sizzling chicken was about 3-4 dollars more than I pay at the Ninh Kieu.
    Now, money is not always a big deciding point for me.  How good the food is, is much more important.  In this case the cost of the food, plus the fact that the food did not blow me away, leads me to be not all that enthralled with  this establishment.  Would I go again?  Perhaps, depending on the circumstance. Would I make a point of going? No, probably not.

DDDD
    MDW BBQ'ed a wonderful hamburger on Tuesday.  She always cooks them on the Big Green Egg and the smokey flavor really comes through.  On the burger we had the usual toppings: fresh tomatoes and onions, bacon, lettuce, cheese, BBQ sauce, mustard and relish.  It was fantastic.  I did my part by peeling, and cooking french fries in the; basically, oil-less cooker.  I LOVE THESE FRIES.  Cooking four big potatoes in one tablespoon of oil is great.  Burger and fires: can't beat it.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Knob Update

    I started taking a Renewable Energy coarse recently and I quickly found that there was an enormous knob in the class.  You know the kind; someone who is such an asshole than everyone in the class would just like to strangle.  I wrote about this asshole a couple of weeks ago and luckily for me and the others, he missed the second class.  This gave us all a reprieve but our joy was short lived.  Last night, 'he' returned.  What a fucking knob.  That is all I can say.  Let me tell you about his performance.  
- Comes late. Everyone else manages to get there on time but he comes fifteen minute after the class has begun.
- Despite being tardy, the knob manages to ask 48 questions over the next 2.45 hours (I kept track!). This was about equal to the questions asked by the rest of the 28 people that were taking the coarse.  Inquisitive little fucker isn't he?
- Despite coming late, the knob has to get up and walk across the room and go to the bathroom after about a half hour and doesn't shut the door.  He pretends that he trying to be quiet and not disturb anyone, but of coarse it is all a ploy for everyone to look at him.  The instructor has to go shut the door due to the noise in the hallway.
- Now the knob comes back and doesn't shut the door again, even though the instructor had closed it.  The instructor needs to tell him to shut the door.  What a knob!
- As the session goes on, he realizes that he didn't get his handouts, so across the room he tromps to pick up the papers needed to follow the instruction.  He; of coarse, is sitting as fas as humanly possible from the handouts, so it was the usual production for him to do this. 
-  The knob loves to asks questions that are about stuff that hasn't been covered yet, leading the instructor to tell him repeatedly that we will get to that.  Over and over and over ...
-  Then he asks questions about things that the instructors isn't going to cover in an attempt to show everyone how much he knows, even though it has nothing to do with what we are learning
- Of course he tries to be funny, after all that is why we are there isn't it?  To listen to his clever little jokes.  FUCK!
- As we learned in the first class, he can't sit due to falling off of a roof (I believe more than ever that someone pushed the bastard) which means he is constantly getting up and walking around : look at me, look at me!
- While the instructor is instructing, the knob  talks to neighbours when he should be listening and he talks fucking loud.  I think we can't modulate his voice level.  I believe Will Farrell did a skit about that on SNL.
- After the break, in which he is the last one back in the room again; he returns with some kind of ice cream treat which he proceeds to eat.  The wrapper of the ice cream treat was wrinkling and crinkling and making so much noise that you could barely hear the instructor. Couldn't get a chocolate bar or some other snack.  No, he has to get something that takes forever to eat and he has to crinkle the noisy cellophane  wrapper for fifteen minutes. 
   As you can see, my short attention span is tested mightily by the knob.  How am I ever going to concentrate on renewable energy when 'he' is grinding my gears.  Lucky there is not exam in this coarse.  I don't think I'd do so well!  

DDDD
   MDW made some wonderful lentil soup yesterday, using a ham bone.  What a wonderful treat on a -25 degree winter night. I did my part by going to Cobb's Bakery and getting a Jalapeno twist: a delightfully hot bread that goes nicely with soup.  Who says I can't cook?
   Tonight MDW went out for supper at Cafe Da Ville in Sherwood Park with some school friends.  I has Chinese take out.  I truly believe that I could eat some kind of Asian food ever night.  Tomorrow: Ukrainian food. 











Wednesday, February 16, 2011

A Few Driving Gems

    Well it takes a couple days back at school to get my edge back.  Actually I have just been lazy about writing.
    As I traveled about our fair Hamlet, a few more driving 'situations' arose.  Does this bother you...?

1. People who take forever to get up to speed - WTF?  Why does it take some people two miles to get up to 80 KM?  I not asking them to spin their tires and fish tail across the road, but don't take two miles to get up to 80.  Just fucking go...
2. People who wait and wait and wait, at traffic circles and then go.  Let me explain.  For thirty years I have lived near a traffic circle and often I have to go around the circle to get home.  The situation that I am talking about is when you have a car coming up to the traffic circle and is in the outside lane (which used to mean that you had to exit at the first turn in the traffic circle, but of coarse that apparently no longer applies!) and there is several cars already in the traffic circle in the inside lane. The car waits, and waits, and waits and then goes and turns right at the first exit.  Why the fuck did they wait, and wait and wait ...?  It's like it took them five cars to figure out that it would have been ok to go with the first car.  I see this time and time again.  In fact, when I used to go home for lunch each day, I would see it every fucking day.  Who gave these people a driving licence?
3. People who drive half the speed limit. I understand that it is winter. I have bitched and complained about the roads all winter long, but just because the roads aren't great doesn't mean that you drive half the speed limit.  People driving forty when the speed limit is eighty, drives me fucking insane.  If you're afraid ... get a dog!
4. People who always drive below the speed limit.  I love people who drive 10-15 Km. below the speed limit all the time.  What's the problem?  Does your car not go a little faster?  Why would you drive slower than the speed limit on a regular basis?  The government has determined that it is 'safe' to drive a specific limit and they conveniently put up a sign to remind the dumb-asses who forget.  So why drive 85 when it is safe to drive 100?  Saving gas? ... Good for you! Not in a hurry?  Well, get the fuck out of the way because I am.  More than likely they are just fucking idiots.  Then when you pass them, they look at you like you're an asshole.  What's the hurry? they scream.  Get out out the way, I scream!
5. People who need an apple box.  If I can't see you above the steering wheel, you shouldn't be driving.  Like Seinfeld says, sometimes you can just see knuckles on top of the steering wheel.  If that is the case, get an apple box to sit on or maybe a tricycle.
6. People who do not signal while waiting at the lights and then put it on.  You drive up to one of the many, many lights of Sherwood Park and you are in the left lane.  The light changes and the moron in front of you turns on their signal light and you are fucked!  Thank you very much.  Planning people.  Think about where the fuck you are going and get in the proper lane, or at least show everyone behind you where you are going.
7. People who think that the left hand lane has an unlimited speed limit. I am pretty sure that there is no unlimited speed limit in the left hand lanes.  Let me check the driving manual... yes I am correct (I didn't actually check - that was sarcasm!).  People who bully you out of the left lane when you are driving over the speed limit because they want to drive faster can fuck themselves.  Just because I am not driving over the speed limit enough to satisfy you is your problem.  Go around asshole.  If I am driving above the speed limit, I can drive in whichever lane I want.

DDDD
    Sorry I haven't been updating our wonderful meals lately.  Busy... busy...busy!
Trust me when I tell you that MDW outdid herself last week with homemade pizza, vegetarian chilli, sweet potato fries, among other things.  We went out to Ernest's Grill at NAIT for their Friday Buffet.  It was good but I enjoyed the salads and the desserts best.  The entrees were ok, but not really my style.  My trailer park tastes again...  It was too gourmet for my liking.
    This week started off with BBQ ribs and french fries on Monday, a Thai stir fry yesterday and today she made pasta with tomato clam sauce.  I love this pasta.
    Tomorrow is another day.  Yum, yum!  Back to the treadmill.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME!

Why is there always an asshole in the group?
   I am taking a renewable energy class at GMac with a group of about thirty people, alleged adults.  It never ceases to astound me that when you get a group of people together, one person stands out as the biggest asshole, without question.  It is easy to pick out the asshole.  He/she knows everything, wants to show everyone he/she knows everything, knows nothing, tries incessantly hard to be funny and entertain the group, and by and large shows what an asshole he/she is in an almost nonstop manner.  Whether it is interrupting to ask stupid questions, or  ask questions to show his/her brilliance, to walking around like some fucking peacock, to blowing his/her nose loudly, eating and drinking loudly and other incredibly asinine ways to get people to look at them. 
   In this class there is one guy who is the obvious asshole.  By the end of the first class, I would have liked to kill him.  He asked at least a hundred questions, always interrupting the instructor.  He asks stupid questions that even I know the answer to and I know Jack Shit!  He tells the class his life story, when asked to tell about his experience concerning renewable energy.  Of coarse he is out of work and looking to maybe start a career in Photovoltaics.   
Apparently he fell off a roof (I am  betting that one of his co-workers pushed him), so he couldn't sit down.  This gave him reason to walk around, lean against the wall, shuffle chairs, get  coffee, eat chips, generally fuck around while he was supposed to be learning something new.  And all the while he was interrupting with his 'opinions' and asinine questions. What a fucking nob! Just shut up!  JUST SHUT UP!
   I have a hard enough time concentrating and now I got some guy grinding my gears and annoying me.  I am easily distracted at the best of time and here this fucking clown is begging me to look at him and here's me only able to concentrate on wanting to stick a fork in his eye, instead of learning what I came to learn.
   At university, in a history class, there was this 'asshole' who throughout the term continuously made dumb-assed comments, trying to be clever and witty.  The professor, an old American prof; finally got pissed off and shouted at him, "Mr. Smith, will you shut up?"  It was wonderful.  Blabbermouth didn't open his yap again for the rest of the term.  I hope the prof flunked the jack-ass.
   That is exactly what I wanted to yell at Mr. Roofing.  I don't understand why he doesn't just bring a can of lighter fluid and a pack of matches to set himself on fire so that everyone will look at him.  I will volunteer to help if he needs it. 
     

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DDDD
    On Thursday, we changed from having homemade pizza to homemade burgers and fries.  MDW enjoys making french fries in our fry maker, which deep fries the spuds using only one tablespoon of oil.  It is fantastic.  The fries are crunchy, golden brown and delicious - and only one tablespoon of oil.  You can not beat that.  She made veggie burgers and although beef burgers would always be better, the veggie burgers are healthier.  
   Friday night was a stayed at home and had Spicy Thai chicken.  We had this because some retired idiot forgot to take out the pizza dough and pepperoni from the freezer.  Oh, well.  I really like the spicy chicken dish.  MDW also made Pad Thai, an excellent combination of noodles, veggies, and shrimp.  She topped it off with Thai rice.  Although I was sorely disappointed about not having pizza, the spicy chicken and Pad Tai was great.  
     Saturday we will go out to celebrate my 56th birthday.  Happy birthday to me!  I have noticed all of you blog followers haven't sent your grifts yet… I'm waiting!

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

DDDD - Feb. 2/11

    It is easy to enjoy the wonderful weather and not write this fucking blog, but I guess I must.  Since Sunday I have had an interesting assortment of meals cooked by MDW.  Sunday we had duck and it was tasty, although I am not crazy about most fowl, other than chicken.  Along with the duck we had lazy cabbage rolls (I won't try spelling the Ukrainian name), garlic navy beans (a Ukrainian Christmas specialty), creamed buns (again I will not attempt the Ukrainian name), and peas.  For dessert we had to suffer through banana coconut cream pie.  I particularly like the garlic navy beans and lazy cabbage rolls.
    Monday brought baked ham, salad and scalloped potatoes.  I contributed somewhat to the meal by using the Mandolin that I bought MDW to slice the potatoes.  I managed to also slice my thumb, so I am sure that added something to the spuds.  Actually it was a minor slicing but Jesus that mandolin is sharp.
    Tuesday was an off night in that MDW had a hair appointment, followed by a beekeeping coarse.  She asked if I wanted to come along and I told her to buzz off!  Ha! Ha!   We had fast food.  Yum yum!
   Tonight was very interesting.  Using some of the baked ham left over, MDW made a Mediterranean pie.  It is composed of ham, cheese, red peppers, onions, spinach, all cooked in puff pastry.  It is very tasty and light.   I really enjoy this pie almost as much a banana coconut cream. Almost.
    Tomorrow homemade pizza.  Yahooooooo!