Hell's Kitchen

8:52 AM

As I watched the finale of Hell's Kitchen last night, I couldn't help but notice that the cooks just weren't that good. Not only did most of the food stuff I would expect from The Olive Garden or The Cheesecake Factory, it was stuff that seemed to hard for the cooks to prepare. So they planned boring meals, that their crews couldn't cook. Not very smart. Of course, that got me to thinking. What would I have done? As far as I could tell, they each needed to have three courses with three options for each course. So I came up with my own little menu.

For the first course I'd make butter poached prawns with vanilla bean buerre blanc; a sweet corn terrine with pea, corn, and cherry tomato salad; and a chicken satay with peanut sauce and coconut rice cake. Now that all sounds impressive. But it's really not. The buerre blanc, terrine, salad, rice cake, peanut sauce, and poaching liquid can all be prepared during prep. For service the only things that actually need to be cooked are the prawns and the chicken.

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Two More Weekends

9:50 AM

It's been a busy but satisfying summer so far. After our trip to Yakima, we decided to have a BBQ for the solstice parade. In anticipation I purchased a new cooker. It was finally time to retire the flower pot (it now has a tomato plant growing in it. This one was much better and allowed me to cook two whole pork shoulders and two racks of ribs at one time on my first overnight smoke. Because the smoker was going, I didn't actually make it to the parade. Thankfully, Kathrine took some great pictures. The BBQ went off without many problems, and a good time was had by all.

This weekend we intended to take things easier. We ran some errands Saturday, and ate lunch at The Steelhead Diner. I must say it is excellent. Great prices and portions sizes as well.

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Rattlesnake Hills

1:11 PM

This weekend Kathrine and I took a trip to the wine country around Yakima. More specifically we toured the Rattlesnake Hills AVA. It was a good trip. We had a lot of fun and bought/consumed too much wine. We drove over on Saturday morning with the intention of seeing three wineries and then eating a picnic before checking into our hotel. We went to Sagelands Vineyards, Bonair Winery, and Paradisos del Sol. Unfortunately, the weather was not cooperating. It was in the low 70's with very light rain off and on, so we decided to hit one more winery, Hyatt Vineyards, before going to the hotel.

The hotel was nice, but nothing special.

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I Win Again

11:05 AM

This win wasn't so big. It was only $70. I also just got smacked over the head with the deck. I felt like Jamie Gold. In a 2.5 hour tournament I had AK 5x, AA's, KK's 2x, QQ's 2x. Hard not to win when you get those cards. Because I got such great cards, there is not a lot to analyze. There really was only one key hand for me.

The blinds are at 100-200 and I have about 10,000 in chips. The button folds and the small blind makes it 600 to go. He has about 12,000. I look down at Q-9 of spades. I decided he would raise with any pair, any suited Ace, or A-10 or better. The pot odds of 2-1 plus the implied odds if I hit big made it an easy call. Plus I was pretty confident of my ability to outplay him after the flop. The flop comes down 9-7-2 all diamonds. He checks. He could be trapping, but I need to figure out if top pair is good here, so I lead out 600. He calls. His call gives me tons of information. I know he doesn't have an over pair, so I have the best hand.

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Why the French have it right

2:31 PM

As I was walking to lunch today I got to thinking about terroir. If you've spent anytime tasting wine, you will soon come to realize that although it may be the same grape it tastes different depending on where it is grown. A riesling will always taste like a riesling, but in general you can pick out whether it was grown in Washington, California, Germany or France. All of Europe seems to recognize this. Which is why we have Sancerre versus Pouilly Fume and Tinto Ribera Del Duero versus Rioja even though they use the same grapes. It goes beyond grapes though. We have Asagio and Parmigiano cheese, Bresse chicken, Dijon mustard, etc. Europeans are very comfortable with this concept. And it makes sense. Evolution and human selection make it obvious that over time you can breed animals and agricultural products to best suit the environment. They've also had almost 2000 years of agricultural experimentation to get it right.

My question is this.

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Big Winner Here

1:51 PM

I won a big home tournament this weekend and took home $315. I thought it might be fun to post a few of the big hands. I played a very good tight aggressive game and avoided going on tilt after some really bad beats.

Early in the tournament blinds are still at $25/$50. I'm in middle position with two limpers in front of me. I look down at queens and make it $300 to go. The button and both blinds both call. I didn't really want to see the flop 6 ways, but oh well. The flop comes down Qd-7h-2c, Gin! It's checked to me I make it $600. Everyone folds but the big blind who calls. The turn brings an 8d. It's checked to me and fire out $1500. The big blind calls. The river comes 9d. Not a great card for me, especially when the big blind fires out $2000. If he made a runner runner straight or flush I'm going to be mad, so I just call. He shows Qc-9h, and I rake in a big pot.

My first bad beat (if you can call it that) happened just a little later. I've got a stack of about $10000, far and away the chip leader at my table.

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Better Late Then Never

9:03 AM

So, it has been a long time since my last post. I actually have a good excuse this time. I had holiday plans and a trip to Oklahoma that took up most of my time until the new year. And then I wanted my next post to include my best of lists. Unfortunately, like always, there are a ton of movies with January release dates that I wanted to see. I felt bad making a list without including at least some of them. I didn't see that many of them though, and felt I could no longer put it off. So, here it is, My Best of 2006.

Just so you don't think I'm totally lazy, I have been doing something else. I've developed an interest in wine and have started tasting and collecting quite a few bottles. I've developed a second site/blog devoted entirely to that. I unveil to you The Seattle Wino. Clever name, don't you think?

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I'm a bad blogger

9:41 AM

I'm trying to write something for this site, but I don't have much to say. I guess I live a pretty boring life.

I recently read The Omnivore's Dilemma and it really made me think. I feel like I really should start eating better. I've been trying to make a real effort to buy as much local food as I can and avoid factory and processed food. I don't know how successful I will be in the long run, but so far so good. We joined a CSA program from Full Circle Farms. We hope to get the majority of our produce from them. We've also been buying our meat from Skagit River Ranch at the University Farmers Market.

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Lazy Bastard

12:17 PM

Okay, I'm a lazy bastard. Very lazy. So lazy in fact that I don't do any housework, just sit on the couch and watch TV, and can't even be motivated to update my website. I'm pretty much worthless. Of course, no one reads this anyway; so it's not like it's a big deal.

Summer's almost over and I really haven't got much to show for it. Kind of like the Mariners. I really have finally adopted the Mariners as my team. They've replaced the Mavericks. I'm sure it was only a matter of time. I'm a baseball fan much more than a basketball fan. I just could never get into the Rangers when I lived in Texas. Even thought I was always a fan of the Mets growing up, it's really hard to follow a team seriously unless you see them play A LOT of games. Well, with the Mariners on TV just about every night, I watch a lot of games. We also have three of the best baseball blogs around (USS Mariner, Lookout Landing, Prospect Insider) that I read non stop.

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Long time no see

4:11 PM

Okay, I'm a bad person. It's been forever and one day since my last post. You may have thought I was dead. I was not. I've had other things on my mind.

The NBA playoffs have started. Which means I'm in a constant state of nervousness about my little Mavericks. NBA games literally make me feel like my heart is going to explode. I don't know why I watch.

Baseball season has started so I'm reading and posting on U.S.S. Mariner and Lookout Landing. Unfortunately the Mariners haven't been doing as well as I'd like. And for some reason firemikehargrove.com is still available.

If that wasn't enough, now that we have nice weather, I'm trying to actually do things. Like attending ball games, going to tulip festivals, visiting the zoo, and planting flowers.

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