The Escoffier is the English title for Auguste Escoffier's Le Guide Culinaire, a book you probably should have in your bookshelf for many reason. One is that it looks very impressive, all leather bound and big and French looking. Escoffier. Say it out loud. Es-kaw-fyey. Come on. That sounds impressive. You can convince your friends you're not just a purveyor of gastronomy, but also a scholar of important books.
More importantly, many consider Le Guide Culinaire to be the authority on haute French cuisine. Originally published in 1903, it contains thousands of recipes in a nice streamlined format.
The latter might be a curse for some, as you are expected to either know quite a bit of food lingo or possess the know-how to find definitions yourself. This was probably more of an issue in 1903 than it is now, seeing we have the web on our hands. Plus a large portion of expressions and techniques are described somewhere in the book.
There are two versions of The Escoffier floating around (possibly more): a translation of the original 3,000 recipes book and one of the newer 5,000 edition. Currently the former is easier to obtain and, from what I can understand, it's more than enough for most of us, perhaps even a bit overwhelming.
Even if you have no interest in cooking yourself, The Escoffier makes a fine reference book. Flip through it now and again, and you're bound to find some cool information. You're a Better Taster, and you owe that to yourself.
If you like drinking, traveling, and comedy, you can't go far wrong with Zane Lamprey's Three Sheets, currently running on the Travel Channel. Soon, his new show, Drinking Made Easy, will be premiering on HDNet, and Lamprey is currently on a comedy tour in promotion of the show. On Thursday he will be performing in Spokane, which could potentially be all kinds of awesome.
About $30 for a ticket, including fees, how can you go wrong?
The Tomb of Sammun-Mak is the second episode of Sam & Max season three, The Devil's Playhouse. If that means absolutely nothing for you, here's the lowdown: Sam & Max is a comic book series with a, shall we say, rather bizarre style of humor. It was later turned into a tamer Saturday morning cartoon, and has over the past five years been turned into episodic series of video games, now in its third season. They're adventure games, meaning they're focused on story, dialogue and puzzle-solving instead of action. Think fully interactive movie. Got it? Good!
With episode one, The Penal Zone, the duo rid the world of a power mad space gorilla, and Tomb… starts where the previous game ended. Surprising to some, maybe, this game barely involves Sam and Max, but is rather an "origin" story where you play their grandfathers in search of the Devil's Toybox. Yes. It's all probably a bit odd, and when you throw in Molemen, a Twilight Zone style narrator, a Eurotrash vampire, and a pre-Santa-gig Kringle, who's a psychotic sweatshop toy factory owner… "Bizarre" might be a better word to describe it.
It's a good type of bizarre, however. The game is hilarious, with excellent dialogue and great locations. It's hard to fully explain the humor, but if you like the quirky non-sequitur style of, say, Monty Python, then you should be good with Sam & Max.
Recommended beer pairing A strange game requires a strange beer. Dogfish's Raison D'extra definitely goes well with the humor.
The episode takes roughly five hours to play through, which is comprable with the first game in the season. Some of the puzzles can be tricky, but there are always amusing dialogue options and background interaction to play around with while thinking.
I found The Tomb of Sammun-Mak to be another hilarious entry in the ever-growing Sam & Max saga. The season is around $35, and is available in digital format for the PC, Mac, PS3, and iPad, with the second episode being released some time today.
And if a video explains it better than I can, the trailer might make sense.
We love ourselves some Murder, She Wrote here at Team SpoCOOL Towers. Not in an ironic way or anything, but in a true, honest to Obi-Wan fanboy/fangirl fashion. It's easy to dismiss the show, of course, but it truly is well shot—watch the intro sequence around the 25 second mark and see how brilliantly Hitchcockian the push-down-the-stairs scene is filmed (this might have been a veiled commentary on old people falling down stairs a lot)—and the roster of actors is impressive.
Angela Lansbury and Tom Bosley aside, you get names like Olivia Hussey, Leslie Nilsen, Milton Berle, any actor that ever appeared in M*A*S*H, and, my personal favorite, John Saxon. The fact that many of these appear in multiple episodes, even though they have previously appeared as murder victims, seems to be of no concern to the producers.
As the people over at 2birds1blog found out, Murder, She Wrote lends itself perfectly to drinking games. The real question is, what does one drink with such a classy show? Pimm's definitely comes first to mind. You probably know the drink from your grandma's liquor cabinet. Another favorite is the Campari, but that should only be enjoyed when an edgy actor appears on the show. Like Mickey Rooney. If you're really feeling frisky, make it a Gibson.
And the game, well, I don't think there's a better one than what 2birds1blog came up with. Here are a few excerpts; make sure to read the whole entry. It's worth it.
- Drink when Angela Lansbury / Jessica Fletcher says:
"Tonight on 'Murder, She Wrote…'"
"Oh, no. I'm afraid this was no accident. No, it was murder."
"Of course!" or "Oh, how silly I've been!" followed by running off to
check something.
"X could not have known that the victim would be at the shooting
range. But you could."
- Drink when there's a guest star that went on to be famous for another show (Lucille Bluth, the host from "Unsolved Mysteries," Jerry Orbach, the mom from ALF, Goerge Clooney, etc.)
- Drink when there's a guest star that used to be famous (Tab Hunter, Dorothy Lamour) but has aged and now does guest shots on prime-time family crime dramas to pay the bills.
- Drink if the motive is hilariously obscure. Double if it involves an inheritance or revencge for something that happened many years ago.
- Drink if Jessica is involved because of a nephew/niece/cousin/old friend/old friend's niece's nephew's cousin who is either in danger or accused of murder.
- Drink whenever Jessica has to deal with a wacky subculture, like theatre people, pornographers, or the DAR.
Make tonight a Murder, She Wrote night!
Books are one of the best gifts, they are great for people of all ages and interests. If you have any travel or food lovers to buy for, you should check out the National Geographic coffee table style book titled, Food Journeys of a Lifetime: 500 Extraordinary Places to Eat Around the Globe. It is on sale for $22.00 on Amazon and I am sure you can find it at Auntie’s Bookstore – next to Sante. The book includes beautiful photos of the best food regions in the world. Culinary traditions are explained and recipes are provided.
A few employees at Hooters in Brooklyn are suing the food establishment for the mandatory purchase of their $20 uniform and the costs for dry cleaning it. I know state laws vary on whether or not employers have the right to make the employees pay for uniforms, but do you think it is right for employees to pay for work uniforms?
I had a few jobs that required uniforms. One place provided all employees with one shirt with logo that needed to be worn during every shift. They offered more shirts for sale for $5 each that we purchased direct from the vendor and not from the employer. Another job I had required a specific shirt, that the establishment provided and cleaned so we would grab a new one for each shift. However, we were required to purchase pants, these could be from any vendor as long as they were black. Employees were not reimbursed for this cost. Some of my cousins worked for a clothing company. They were not required to wear a specific uniform, however they had to wear a full outfit purchased at their place of work.
Have you ever purchased a uniform for work?
Another fun Spokane connection to Top Chef.
Nurse Kendra was one of twenty people in the USA to meet with Fabio from Top Chef Season 5 this past week. Kendra works as an RN for a Spokane Cystic Fibrosis (CF) clinic. She was flown to Minneapolis to participate in a conference on the disease. While in Minneapolis, Kendra was invited to watch Fabio demonstrate and provide tips for feeding children with Cystic Fibrosis.
You can help Kendra and others raise money to support fighting CF by watching out for the Spokane Great Strides walk that will take place at Gonzaga University, Jundt lawn at Jundt Art Museum on May 29, 2010 at 10:00 AM.
After last season’s, shall we say, diverse field of contestants, it came as a happy surprise to see a strong showing almost across the board from Top Chef season six’s competitors. And that former Luna-chef, Kevin Gillespie, is doing well makes this season even more interesting for many of us.
It’s nice to see Gillespie doing well in the show. After having dined at Luna during his tenure, it also comes as somewhat of a surprise, as I don’t have particularly fond memories of my meal there. Sufficient to say, his contributions to Top Chef looks to exceed my expectations. (Looks. Obviously I can’t taste it.)
With that said, here are my two favorite “cheftestants” thus far:
Kevin Gillespie! Hey, I will support a “local” boy, no matter how much he tries hide the fact he was a chef here. His contributions look inspired, too.
Jennifer Carroll! Other than the fact that she seems to be a very good cook, she has something most chefs on this show seems to be lacking: leadership skills. During the airforce episode, she definitely held the rest of the contestants together really well through guidance and thinking on her feet.
Top Chef is on Bravo, Wednesdays at 10pm.
And here is Kevin, from his Spokane days!
Mark, a Spokane, WA resident, aka @route140 has been traveling the country meeting up with people and companies who use Twitter. Check out his video entry of Steve @tykerman1 a farmer from “the middle of nowhere”, Nebraska.
We love ourselves some Three Sheets here at the ol’ SFB, and were all happy about last night’s season four premiere at the show’s new network, FLN.
For those not familiar with Three Sheets, it’s basically a travel show with emphasis on local drinking cultures. Hosted by comedian Zane Lamprey, the show is (subject matter taken into consideration) surprisingly PG and always funny.
Season four, now on FLN after MojoHD closed down, kicked off in New Zealand, and (thankfully) very little has changed from the previous seasons. The show is, all humor aside, informative— who knew there was so much to Kiwi whisky?—and there are plenty of interesting people and local drinking game to check out. And obviously Pleepleus is back.
Sixteen more episodes are coming up, Mondays at 10pm, so make sure you set your DVR. I believe it’s on Comcast channel 204.