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| Resistance is futile... | Dominic Armato |
Since the food crowd here in Phoenix seems to be pretty heavily Twitter-based, it looks like it's time to make a leap that I'd long hoped I might somehow avoid.
We'll try this on for a little while and see how it goes. If the feed on the sidebar looks broken to anybody, give me a shout.
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| Shrimp, Chicken and Andouille Gumbo | |
No, not sitting in a corner weeping over my El Bulli rejection... just been a busy couple of weeks. Should be back at it shortly.
In the meantime, making a little gumbo for Mardi Gras. It's kind of a moral imperative, isn't it?
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| "The demand has again surpassed... we regret... blah blah blah..." | |
You know how publicly posting your college rejection letters is supposed to be kind of cathartic?
I'm not sure what it says that I'm taking this harder than my college rejections, but... here it is.
*sigh*
One more chance next year...
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| Ma Po Dofu @ Lao Sze Chuan | Dominic Armato |
Anybody in the Phoenix area up for a little ma la this weekend?
It turns out we live pretty darn close to the Chinese Cultural Center, which I noticed while driving to the airport last week. So I buzzed through, did a little shopping at the market and checked out the three restaurants there. I haven't had good Sichuan since my Baltimore farewell dinner seven months ago, and Szechwan Palace looks like the real deal. But my ladylove doesn't do spicy, the strength in numbers rule applies threefold to Chinese restaurants, and I'm anxious to meet some fellow food nerds in our new town. So anybody want to join me?
I'm thinking a late-ish lunch... maybe 1:00 or 1:30... on Saturday or Sunday, depending on when folks are free. Standard chow outing rules apply. We order way too much food, share everything and split the check. And at least for this visit, let's call the Americanized stuff off-limits.
Hope some folks will be able to make it. Drop me a line if you're interested!
UPDATE : We're officially on for 1:00 PM on Saturday the 30th. Last-minute additions totally welcome... just drop me an e-mail!
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First thing's first, congrats to Michael. Not the least bit troubled by that win. He provided some of the most striking and exciting dishes of the competition, and whether or not he rubs you the wrong way, you can't deny the guy's talent. I'm very, very happy for him and happy with the result.
On the flipside, I'm possibly more pissed at the elves than I've ever been tonight. You need to throw twists into the finale? Fine. Add a dish. Have a mystery box. Send Mom in to judge. But don't send one of the people who's fought through 13 episodes into the final gunfight with a knife. Forget fair. It's just cruel. Doesn't matter who got the shaft. It could have been any of them (or none of them). But it's just a lame, lame, lame coda to an incredibly strong season with contestants who deserve -- who have EARNED -- better.
Footnote to the late-developing Bryan as favorite crowd... the breaks went his way. Heck, the mystery box was even centered on a fish that's enormously popular in Maryland. And it seemed as though he executed everything the way he wanted. But he still couldn't overcome a flawed performance by Michael. We'll see what the blogs say, but the guy's food, wonderful as I'm sure it is, has been inspiring more admiration than passion, and I suspect that just didn't cut it when it came time to handing out the title.
I was running way behind everybody else, so I need to do some catching up. I've swept all of the liveblog comments into the postmortem thread, here, so it's all in one place.
Talk amongst yourselves, and I'll jump in either late tonight or tomorrow afternoon.
UPDATE : Forgive the cheesy metaphor, but I can't think of a better way to express it. In a Kevin/Michael/Bryan finale, the TC producers were given the gift of a beautiful, incredibly marbled piece of beef. It's a damn shame they chose to toss it in a pot of boiling water.
UPDATE II : Season postmortem tomorrow!
UPDATE III : Er... um... make that Monday. Got a little tied up today. With apologies...
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| The Desert | Dominic Armato |
Boston, we hardly knew ye.
With apologies, again, for the coy references, it's official. We're on the move yet again, and right around the 1st of the year (exact date TBD), Skillet Doux will be relocating to Phoenix.
Yes, yes, we know, we just got here. But though the position wasn't available when we came to Boston, my ladylove's employer knew that we wanted to be with family, and they were generous enough to move us as soon as something opened up... even if it happened a lot faster than anybody expected.
With family in the city, it looks like we're finally planting roots for a little while. And while this tour of the eastern seaboard has been fun, from a blogging standpoint I'm looking forward to sticking around somewhere long enough to dig deep and really get into the food scene. Stylin' restaurants abound in the Valley of the Sun, but I have a hunch the hole-in-the-wall joints are more abundant than cursory internet research would suggest.
High or low brow, however, let's do this one more time... if you have any Phoenix intel, send it my way and we'll hit the ground running!
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| Potatoes, Broccoli, Stuffing, Turkey | Dominic Armato |
We were unable to spend Thanksgiving with family this year, so we decided to keep it simple. Some roasted potatoes with bacon and sage, my father's pureed broccoli with an obscene amount of butter, cream and parmesan cheese, a no-frills stuffing, and a roasted turkey breast with gravy. Still enough to feed 2-3 more people than we had, but that's kind of the point, huh?
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody... hope yours is happy and delicious!
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| Mortadella Sandwich | Dominic Armato |
New favorite lunchtime sandwich:
Mortadella with Asiago, Roasted Garlic Jam and Hot Chinese Mustard.
Currently awesome, but I'm thinking it's a crispy fruit or vegetable away from being perfect. Whaddya think? Thin slices of Honeycrisp apple? A handful of arugula? Maybe some shredded fresh basil? I'm open to suggestions.
UPDATE : I ended up trying both apple and Asian pear, with and without arugula. Pickled onion held some momentary fascination, but I think that'd be a little to sharp for this sandwich. Anyway, I think the arugula was key, and I preferred the Asian pear to the Honeycrisp (thanks, Zyfsv!). The Honeycrisp was a bit of a scene stealer. The Asian pear, though, gave that bit of crunch, a subtle bit of fruitiness, and it blended right in.
Now we'll see how many of these I can eat for lunch before I get sick of 'em.
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| Ragu Bolognese | Dominic Armato |
The best kind of Sunday.
UPDATE : As requested...
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| Dominic Armato | |
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| Taiwanese Style Fish at Grace Garden | Dominic Armato |
Any Boston-area folks interested in a little Taiwanese this Saturday?
Short notice, I know, but I'm meeting a friend at JoJo Tai Pei for dinner at 9:00 on Saturday. I'd love to meet some local food nerds, and these types of outings are always better with a crowd.
Standard chow gathering rules apply. We show up, we order way too much food, everybody shares and we split the bill. Drop me a line if you're interested!
(NOTE: Taiwanese fish pictured above not actually from JoJo Tai Pei. Haven't been there yet, so no photos!)
UPDATE: A tasty dinner (post soon), but more importantly, great company and a warm welcome to Boston. Thanks to the folks who came out, and for anybody else in the area who wasn't able to make it tonight, we'll do this again... soon!
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