Category Archives: Food

Food

Good Eats.

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I do not have expensive tastes when it comes to food.  I have eaten in the finest of restaurants, and I’ve eaten food prepped by the finest chefs.  And quite often I find that I would rather be eating something else… something simpler, and something more ordinary.  My Death Row Meal – Will be one of these:

Hot Dogs.  Good old fashioned dirty water dogs with steamed buns.  Top that with mustard and kraut and I could eat that all day.  Mustard and ketchup and chili… give me three and I can call that a meal.  Love hot dogs.  The simplicity of them, the versatility, all delicious.  If you don’t like a good hot dog – there is something wrong with you.  Best Dog?  Anywhere, but if I’m buying for me – I’ll buy Smithfield’s cheese filled dogs and some good spicy brown mustard.  (Classic yellow French’s if I’m doing a chili dog)

Burgers.  The Bacon Double Cheeseburger is the pinnacle of the Burger, but there are so many variations you could eat burgers for the rest of your life and never have the same one twice.   It’s such a broad spectrum that Burgers are it’s own food group.  The best Burgers?  The Buffalo Burger at the Bohemien Brewery in Salt Lake City.  Can’t get that? Five Guys.

Stew.  Beef Stew, Chicken Stew… whatever stew you have, I’ll have some.  I’m not talking Soup.  Soups are good – but Stew is a whole new level and they can be absolutely exquisite when done right.  The best stew?  My wife’s.

Tacos.  Now, the taco has some controversy to it.  Flour or Corn on the Tortillas.  Well, there is no controversy – it’s Corn.  And if you think flour – you are wrong and should fix your nasty self.  Take a flour tortilla and FRY IT.  Don’t microwave it.  Fry it.  Throw some meat on it, some diced onions, cilantro, some salsa or hot sauce… maybe some cheese and tomato, that’s fine.  But keep it simple.  So delightful.   Especially if you get them from some place that is not Taco Bell.  Now, those T-Bell Crunchy Tacos… That’s fine if you are in the mood for the crunch, but they do not hold a candle to the pure joy of a hot corn tortilla filled with spicy meat. I could eat tacos every day.  The best Tacos?  My wife’s.

Fish and Chips.  English Style “Fish and Chips”.  Beer battered, doused with Malt Vinegar. Maybe a little black pepper and salt on the chips.  Any time there is Sea Food or Fish on the Menu – I look for the Fish and Chips.  I want thick fillets, with a fried crust that’s golden brown.  And I don’t want anything else.  The best I had – was at a little Roach Coach in Richmond, VA.

Enchiladas.  If you like flour tortilla enchiladas, we can’t be friends anymore.  Corn, again.  And Fried.  Never green sauce unless it’s chicken.  Do not – DO NOT put green sauce on beef enchiladas.  Ever. Red.  Red sauce on everything – even chicken sometimes.  Lots of cheese.  Oh man… That’s Sunday Dinner stuff.  But the problem is that they take too long to prepare and there are never enough left overs.  If you make any – make 4 pans worth.  At the least.  2 pans – you are way short.  Only 1 pan – Why do you hate your family?  You only made enough for me.  The best Enchilada’s  Mine, when I make them.

Pizza.  There is Pizza, and then there is “New York Style”.  New York Style is fine… But I prefer a little bit thicker crust – like a “Hand Tossed” Papa John’s crust.  I don’t like the thick bready crusts like Pizza Hut – those oil sponges.  And I like toppings.  New York Style is too dang thin.  I needs a lot of toppings.  I like lots of flavors that work together – vegetables and meats have to harmonize.  A Spinach Pizza can be wonderful.  The most important element in a Pizza, after the foundational crust – is the sauce.  You can have everything else right, but if the sauce is lame – you have lame pizza.  And you have to have enough sauce.  I hate the pizzas that have almost no sauce on them.  They are missing out.  And I also hate the pizzas that lay down the cheese and then the toppings.  If you are going to do that – lay down some more cheese to hold the toppings on!  I don’t like just a pepperoni pizza.  That’s tired.  I need more to it… and less grease, please.  Default favorite? Papa John’s.  And I get the pepper.

The Breakfast Burrito.  The Holy of Holies of Breakfast foods and one I could eat at every meal.  I want the Burrito to be fat and heavy.  The filling – no RICE, damn it.  I hate burritos that have more rice than everything else.  That’s cheap.  That’s a dodge.  That’s a half-assed attempt at a Burrito.  The Breakfast Burrito should be filled with eggs.  Going in there with the eggs, some hash browns, some sausage, and some cheese.  Maybe some jalapenos. Maybe some tomatoes.  The tortilla here can be flour.  But it needs to be thin and chewy, not thick and bready.  It’s got to be strong enough to contain the filling.  I don’t want it breaking open mid bite.  I also don’t want to be chewing a mouthful of tortilla.  So the size of the tortilla verses the filling must be in balance.  I’ve studied the art of the Breakfast Burrito for decades.  And I’ve had it all across the country.  You know where the best one I’ve had was?
Just off I-95 at a Sheetz.  I was in Breakfast Burrito Nirvana.  I ordered 3 for the road and the only regret I have on that decision was that I only ordered 3.

Chili.  Like Burgers – this could be it’s own topic.  A good Chili is a work of art.  You can argue Beans or No Beans… But if you don’t have beans in your chili – you have Hot Dog Sauce.  Other than that, there are so many ways to make a chili, and none of them wrong.  All good. Unless you screw it up.  First off, it needs to be thick.  It needs structure.  It needs to be able to hold a spoon straight up.  Anything less and you have soup and should be beaten.  Thicken it up and live.  A good chili can be hot, as hot as you like.  But don’t make it sweet or tangy.  It needs to be spicy.  At the very least it should warm your mouth.  At the most – maybe causing spontaneous human combustion is too much.  My last chili – I made women, children, and shaved men cry.  It was heroic chili.  It was chili for bearded men only.  It was the best chili I had ever made.  The best chili I had ever had someplace else?  I had a bowl of chili at the Pelican Lake Cafe 15 miles out of Vernal Utah.  That was some fine chili.

Automotive, Food, Weapons

Live Radio

4 Comments

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So this weekend I drove to Atlanta Georgia to do Armed American Radio live in the studio.  Normally I call in, but there were people to meet and we’ve been wanting to do this for some time.  We’ve been doing AAR for 5 years now and damnit, it was time to be in the studio.

I got there Saturday afternoon… and Mark, being a Pro-Level “Pit Master” had his smoker up to temp with Meaty Goodness ready to go.    A whole smoked, beer can chicken.  Smoked to a deep red color… just beautiful.  Perfection.  Then he treated me to two unusual items.  One, was a Smoked Meatloaf, dubbed the “AAR Gunsmoked Meatloaf”.  Guys, this is freaking legit.  I’d order this in a restaurant and not ask the price.  It’s that good.  I watched Mark’s preparations for this carefully.  I will be making this myself.  Then the other thing was a surprise.  Bologna.  Smoked Bologna.  Forget everything you know about Bologna.  Amazing food.  Mark truly is a Pit Master.  He could open a restaurant.

Being in the Studio is a whole new dynamic to doing the radio show.  It was a fantastic experience and I learned a lot.  I learned some from the radio station in Vernal, Utah… but this was a whole new ballgame.  I really enjoyed the face to face interaction which makes the conversation flow naturally and improves the whole vibe.  This was the best episode of AAR that I’ve done.  The feedback was very positive and I would love to do this again, and look forward to the next chance I can get.

Listen to it here:  AAR SHOW ARCHIVES. Look for each of the three hours of the 1-26-14 Show.

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Mark drove me around in this Camaro SS.  A real SS.  The car is BADASS.  Borla pipes, big bore V-8, torque enough to skin Godzilla.  It’s a monster.   Rolling around Hotlanta in a murdered out SS… Fun as hell.

We popped some rounds through a few guns, had a great time at that.  Mark wanted to break in his SIG 938 pistol and now he is convinced that I am right when I say that the SIG 938 is the best pistol that SIG makes.

Food

Sloppy Joe’s Suck

18 Comments

I freaking hate “Sloppy Joes”.  Sloppy Joes… Meat’s Epic Failure.

Look, you have a pound of ground meat… and you just ruined it.  You could have had Tacos.  You could have made it into a couple good burger patties… But you didn’t.  You made Sloppy Joes.  Don’t give me that Manwhich bullarchy.  You ruined it.  Admit it.  It’s kinda like saying you are going to make an Omelet, and then cocked it up and made Scrambled Eggs instead, and then cleared your sinuses into them.   That’s what you did with the ground meat… same thing.

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Toss some chili powder on them… some taco seasoning on the ground beef or whatever and make some Tacos.  Tacos are always win.   ALWAYS WIN.   Don’t have some tortillas, well, you are wrong and you are living in Kitchen Fail… but hey, you can always make a pot of chili out of it.  And that’s damn fine eating.

I mean, hell, if you have to make Spaghetti with it.  Boil some pasta, and poor that over the stuff over those noodles.  You’ll be fine.

But to mix a BBQ type sauce into the meat?  Oh hell no!  Look if you want BBQ flavor… make a burger and put the sauce on top of the burger.   That’s a good burger.  A BBQ Burger… We can all live with that.  And be happy.

But to make Sloppy Joes with that meat… Oh my hell… That’s giving up on life.

Don’t give me that “You’ve never had my… whoever the hell it is Sloppy Joes”.  No… I never have.  And no, I never will.  You will never get me to try it.   I will just look at you with disgust and disappointment and walk away… Probably to my car so I can go find a 5 Guys or a Cook Out or a Sonic… or some places that knows what the hell to do with a pound of ground beef that isn’t blowing excretion into it.   Sloppy Joes Suck.

Food, Uncategorized

Long live the King?

7 Comments

Burger King, that is.   This morning I had too much blood in my caffeine and I was getting a headache from it.  Needed to fix that.  Closest joint was a BK.  So I stopped in, went inside.  I had a minute.  So I sit down with a large Coke on ice and pull out my Samsung Galaxy S4, which is awesome…   Check messages… Oh, they have free WiFi.  Well… Let’s just hop on that and use their bandwidth instead of my Verizon Miserly Minutes.  Because Verizon doesn’t do an Unlimited Data plan, I try to use WiFi whenever possible.

Check my emails.  Check my messages… Hmmm… What about any new comments on MadOgre.com?

THIS SITE IS BLOCKED.  REASON:  WEAPONS.

Burger King Blocks The Ogre.   Oh really?  So I check a few other Pro-Gun sites… and they are blocked too.  Uh huh.   Now, wait a second… If they are blocking me, undoubtedly for the children… they must be blocking – Nope… You can still pull up Miley Cyrus twerking that skinny little ass.   So Burger King thinks it’s okay for Hanna Montana to shake that flat little money maker, but I can’t check out a Pro-Second Amendment discussion site.

Really, King of Burgers?   That hurts me, King B.  That cut me.

At this point I walked out.   I don’t see myself spending any more of my money there.   Check our your local BK establishments.  See if they have free WiFi and if they are filtering guns too.  Maybe it’s just this Franchise.  Maybe it’s a Corporate thing.  I’d rather see this be a Corporate thing.  Because this Franchise was just outside of the main gates of a Marine Base.  And they are banning gun related content on their WiFi.  That’s just asinine considering all the Marines and Relatives that stop and eat there.  Just sad.   I was quite disappointed.

 

Food

Disappointing.

20 Comments

Breakfast Burritos.   I’m a huge breakfast guy.  The whole “Most Important Meal Of The Day” is a tradition that I follow.  Those are words I live by.  Yes, I live by those words.  And they have never failed me.  And of all the breakfast foods one could have, my favorite thing to eat in the world in the morning… The Breakfast Burrito.   Food of a Loving and Caring God.
And there are none to be found in this area.  I’m not going to say that North Carolina doesn’t know a good breakfast… they have that Southern Breakfast thing down.  Grits and Eggs, all that and then some.  But they don’t know a good Breakfast Burrito.  At least not that I have seen.
Now, I did hit a Sheetz gas station chain with the fancy touch screen menu that lets you pick what you want in the burrito – and that was good. Namely because I was able to pick what I wanted in the thing.  Other than that… Every breakfast burrito I’ve had in North Carolina, and Virginia for that matter, has been somewhere between Poor and Terrible.
Let me put it this way… they have been so bad here, that they make me miss the horrible breakfast burritos made at the IGA Deli behind Basin Sports in Vernal, Utah.  Because those, as nasty as they usually were… you could ever once in awhile get one that was just “MMMM!” and it was delicious and made right all the disappointments before it.   I’ve not had that in a Breakfast Burrito since I’ve been here.

Closest thing is Sonic.  You know Sonic… the red button and the car hops that bring the food to your car.  Yeah… they have their Super Sonic Breakfast Burrito, which is okay.  But the problem is that Sonic hasn’t embraced the BB. So they don’t care.  So they don’t fill the BB like they could.  They make them small and thin and filled with disappointment and regret and after eating one you are still hungry, but not enough to do a second one.  This morning I had one from Chic-Fil-A.  Now, they do make a good chicken sandwich, I’ll give them that.  But the just really need to avoid attempting a BB.  Because what I had this morning was probably the worst thing ever.  McDonald’s little cigarette thin things they call Breakfast Burritos, while just stupid, at least taste better than the shame Chic-Fil-A rolled into a stale flatbread.    And McDonald’s.  Just… stop.  No… I mean it… just stop it.

Food, Uncategorized

Comfort food

16 Comments

I hadn’t had any since I did Patrol work in Virginia.  But late at night, or more accurately, very early in the morning, I’d stop by a place in Richmond for dinner.
Sometimes we’d gather at Vito’s near the University for some zero hour Italian food.  Pizza, Stromboli, whatever was going down it was all good.  But sometimes the night was not a good one.  Sometimes bad things happened that would break your soul and your heart and you would lose your faith in humanity.  At those times… I’d get something different.
Chicken and Waffles.
The combination may sound like an odd one, off the cuff.  But it’s good food.  Good solid grub that can make you feel right enough to go back out and face the world again.  Simple fried chicken, done well, with thick waffles covered in butter and syrup.  You eat them together, or if you like chicken then the waffles.  It doesn’t matter… just get them in your belly.
It was a long time since I had the meal.
The other day my wife and I went to “Winger’s”.  I was told that they offered it, and that’s what I asked for.  It was good.  Filling, as the dish is supposed to be.  Boneless chicken breasts, fried to perfection… juicy inside.
This was some good soul healing food right there.  This was our New Year’s Day dinner… and it was good.  A good way to start off 2013.

Food

The Ogre Sandwich

15 Comments

Make a classic Philly Cheesesteak.
Stuff in yellow banana peppers, olives, and mushrooms.
Throw on some bacon.  None of that Canadian shit.
Dredge that in beer-batter made with Amber Boch, or Shock Top.
Deep fry till GBD.
Serve with a Gatorbull to wash it down.

Genius Level Grub.

Food

The Porch in Vernal

8 Comments

There is a new joint to eat in Vernal called “The Porch”. For the locals, it’s the new place that is occupying where “The Red Onion Grill” used to be. I was told this was “Cajun Food”, but it’s not. It’s “Southern Food”, and that’s not a bad thing, but it’s not Cajun. However they tried a couple Cajun things. Such as the Gumbo. Then a Po-Boy sandwich.
Let’s give you the run down. 20 minute wait to sit down, 30 minutes until food arrived. I ordered a cup of Gumbo and their Shrimp Po-Boy.
It was a tasty sausage soup… but it wasn’t Gumbo.
The sandwich though… Let’s just say that when it landed on the table, Jer, across the table looked at it and said, “Dude, I’m sorry.” It was an Embryonic Po-Boy… One that if it was left to come full term, could have grown into a Po-Boy, but as it was, it was just a sandwich. With 5 shrimp on bread not much bigger than Golden Coral’s dinner rolls.
A. This sandwich was 15 bucks. B. It wasn’t a Po-Boy.
It was a tasty sandwich if I had just ordered a 4 dollar shrimp sandwich. But I didn’t. I ordered a 15 dollar mother of all sandwiches called a “Po-Boy.” If you don’t know what that is… Watch this.   It’s huge.  It’s over-stuffed.  Normal humans usually can’t finish one in a single sitting.  You order one and you take half of it home with you – THAT is a Po-Boy.  That’s what I paid for.  But that’s not what I got.  And the last time I had a real Po-Boy, it was 7 bucks and they kept the drinks topped off without question.  5 Shrimps… Five.  WTF is that?  3 bucks per small undersized and overcooked shrimp.

So I left “THE PORCH” having dropped 23 bucks and the only real thing I got that I had ordered was the Sweet Tea.  They made a good Sweet Tea.

Now, I can cut The Porch some slack for being slow.  They were busy.  But the prices and the portion size don’t line up.  Dan ordered a Rib Eye.  It was half fat and gristle.  Fenris had a Shrimp stew, which looked just like the Gumbo but with more rice.  Jer had a big bowl of Gumbo… but again… it wasn’t Gumbo.  It was Soup.  Soup and Gumbo are two different things.  Gumbo is freaking Gumbo.  Saying Gumbo is Soup is like saying Chilli is Soup too.  This will get you a beating in some places.

Anyways… yeah… I’m not going back to The Porch.  If they don’t know what a Po-Boy is… and had the audacity to charge 15 bucks for it… No.  Not ever again.  This makes me said as I really wanted to like this place.  I went in excited about this place.  The disappointment was staggering.