Tag: food

Dad brog (#102): We’ve reached the picky eating stage

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I busted out a dad brog; the last time I had a daddy bitching session, it was because of stage of life in which kids inexplicably decide that biting each other seems like a great idea.  Not much has changed since then, #1 is still biting her little sister and unfortunately #2 has learned how to bite just as #1 had learned from shitbag in her pre-K, but at least I can take solace in the fact that there haven’t been any biting incidents at school that requires mythical wife or I to have to sign any waivers of acknowledgement of said bitings.

No, today’s daddy bitching session is going to be about how my kids have entered a picky eating phase, to which if I’m writing about it, means it drives be bonkers.  And I unfortunately use the terminology “kids” as in plural, as in both my kids, because both of my kids are being picky, by virtue of #1 is the one truly having entered the picky eater stage, but #2 being the younger sibling that copies just about everything her big sister does, has decided to be picky about certain foods too.

It makes little sense to me too, because prior to entering this stage, #1 was a voracious eater whom I applauded being good at eating just about everything other than eggs, products with egg in it, because she’s intolerant, and bell peppers, which are the foods eaten on the same day with eggs to which she’s mentally deduced are just as bad as eggs are, which I can understand because there’ve been foods in my life that I’ve avoided from a bad association.

But she would eat just about everything else we put in front of her; meats, veggies, dairy, American, Korean, Italian; there was little limit to what she would not be willing to power through at least one meal.  As most parenting resources state, variety isn’t just the spice of life, it’s also the building blocks to prevent kids from getting picky, so they don’t fall into the pigeon hole of where they’ll ultimately only want to eat chicken tenders and pizza.

Now though, over the last few weeks, I’d say about 66% of the food I make and present to my kids is usually met with disgust, disinterest, and usually the words “I don’t like this” before #1 decides to eat slower than a Galapagos turtle or just not eat outright, with her little sister soon to follow regardless of how she actually feels about the food herself.

I’m sure this is a shocker, but let me tell you just how infuriating this is to me.  I bust my ass and spend a lot of time in my life cooking and making food for the girls.  I don’t cook for myself or mythical wife a fraction of what I cook for the kids, so when they turn their nose up at most everything I make, or refuse to eat something without trying something, it basically makes my head explode.

And when they’re sick, which is often, then the things they touch and pick at or spit out, I can’t save this stuff, and then I have to throw it out.  For a person who’s as anti-food waste as I am, this kills me every time I have to do it, and I’m left feeling ragey and pissed at my kids for making me have to waste food.  I know it’s not their faults and this is a phase that the vast majority of children go through, but it doesn’t make it any less maddening for those who have to go through it.

All I can really hope is that this really is just a phase, and will eventually pass.  Because I’m developing a complex at meal time, because my kids pretty much hate everything I make for them, where any successful meals feel like scoring a goal in the World Cup, but the vast majority of the time, the reactions are tepid and leave me feeling rejected and inadequate as a parent, which is kind of a metaphor in itself of raising kids.

H-Mart* is where people act like the pandemic never ended

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The other day, I took my au pair to H-Mart.  She could see what an Asian market was like, we could take the girls out of the house to stave off their boredom, and I could introduce her to some of the more unique foods in the food court.  Plus, ever since I discovered Bibigo’s ez-Korean stews, I wanted to get some more to stash for a rainy day where I’m jonesing for some Korean stew.

We get there, and while we’re walking into the store, I couldn’t help but notice that the majority of the customers headed inside, were all masked up.  This was confusing to me, because usually when I’m out and about, I’m usually the only one who still wears a mask in public places.

Sure, it’s finally gotten cold in Georgia, which means it’s the usual cold and flu season on top of the fact that COVID is still all over the fucking place, but that’s never really stopped anyone from arrogantly going into Publix or Target without a mask on these days.  The news can literally mention a new variant or a spike in infections, and people still parade around like it’s 2019 again.  White people, black people, men and women, young and especially old people, just can’t be bothered to mask up anymore these days.

Inside H-Mart, it looked like it was March of 2020 again, with everyone masked up, except there were way more people packed into the store, which was a colossal pain in the ass considering I had a shopping cart and a double stroller for the girls.  But make no mistake, the vast majority of shoppers in the store were masked up, and it wasn’t lost on me the ones that were rocking the heavy duty KN95s instead of more casual cloth or surgical masks.

It didn’t take long to consider what the outlier was, which was the fact that we were at an Asian grocery store.  Sure, forget that H-Mart corporate is based out of New Jersey, and most of the produce they procure is from the same suppliers as most commercial grocery chains in America.  The narrative now begins to feel like the fact that it’s an Asian business with a bunch of chinks and gooks all over the place means that China Virus is clearly wafting around in the air, and all the non-Asian folk will be damned if they are going to risk getting it.

I mean, they could just, not shop at H-Mart, but I suppose their low-priced produce and Korean fried chicken are far too tantalizing to resist, and for these people, it’s worth risking their lives and looking like passive racists.

But hey, if you’re exasperated with people arrogantly not masking up, start going to H-Mart to shop for your groceries instead of Publix or Kroger.  If you’re not Asian you’ll look like a racist, but at least you can shop somewhere where most everyone is finally being careful for a change.

*and presumably any other Asian-run business that non-Asian people like to patronize

David Chang has apparently gone full Gusteau

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last week or so, I’ve been getting inundated with ads for David Chang’s (endorsed) air-dried noodles, which effectively has taken David Chang from being a well-known restauranteur and into the arena of an actual home cooking brand. 

I have this love-hate opinion of David Chang, because when I first heard of him, I thought he was this weeb that sold out his Korean heritage by opening a restaurant called Momofuku.  But then I learned that not only did he grow up in the same area I did in Virginia, one of my cousins has classes with him in high school, adding to the parallels I felt I had with him in this self-loathing manner.  But then I really did enjoy his first Netflix series, Ugly Delicious, because it was a well-produced series that had a lot of heart and soul in it.  But then anything he did afterward turned into this cringey star-fucking humblebrag, because of his increasing celebrity, so I’m mostly at this 60/40 scale of thinking he’s uncool, because anonymous people on the internet’s opinions totally matter.

Never mind that the product is about the whitest alternative to instant ramen there possibly could be, and their marketing pitch strategy that seems to think people are choosing to eat these 17¢ pucks of freeze dried noodles in pure salt water because they have a financial choice, and that “at ~$4 a meal” buying Momofuckyou air-dried noodles are a superior alternative.  Or that we’re supposed to believe that Chang himself was actually involved in “ten years of flavor research” when the guy is a few years older than I am, which would imply that he actually had any time at all in his early 30s to give a fuck about how to make a more white people friendly version of instant ramen.

It’s that by entering the world of producing DIY home cooking products, David Chang has basically turned into Gusteau from Ratatouille, spring-boarding his restaurant brand and celebrity status into a cheesy food brand.  Sure, it will in all likelihood make him richer beyond my capable dreams, but on the less-significant and internet coolness side of things, make him kind of a lame sell-out. 

Obviously I’m of the belief that such is always the goal of those who achieve fame, because securing the financial freedom for your family and possibly the generation(s) beyond you is always more important than what strangers think of you.  But I really wanted to make the comparison of David Chang to Gusteau, because it’s what I think he’s on the cusp of doing. 

Sure, Gusteau is dead [spoiler-alert] and it’s his crooked sous chef selling him out, but if Chang decides to go beyond noodles, and starts trying to sell DIY Indian food or soul food or Caribbean food, then he’s basically a real-life Korean Gusteau, worthy of having a series of tasteless cardboard cutouts of him wearing stereotypical garb of various nationalities.

Either way, I’m sure the internet and their endless parade of algorithms will know that I’ve got any opinion of David Chang at all, and when he inevitably releases Momofuckyou’s DIY chicken tikka masala, I’ll be ready and waiting to photoshop his head on Dhalsim’s body for an I-told-you-motherfuckers-so brog post.

Someone pinch me

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

No freaking way: Wawa convenience stores to begin opening stores in Georgia starting by 2024

Man, if anyone were to tell me that in the mid-2020s, Georgia would have Buc-ee’s, Tim Hortons and Wawas, I’d tell them that they were out of their minds.  Buc-ee’s is Texas’s thing, Tim Hortons is all of Canada’s thing, and Wawas were like this VA/MD/PA and central FL thing, and there was absolutely no reason to believe that any one of those companies would have any business coming to fucking Georgia, in the southeastern United States of ‘Murica.

And yet, here we stand where by 2024, the humble state of Georgia, run by Yosemite Sam, and on the cusp of having a braindead former football player be an actual senator of the state, will be home to some of the most dominant brands in convenient road food in the western hemisphere.

Like seriously, is there anywhere else more fortunate than Georgia is going to be once Wawa gets here, when it comes to being a place to be able to get beaver nuggets, iced capps and gobbler hoagies?  Florida has Buc-ee’s and Wawa.  Pretty sure Tim Hortons left PA, which means all they have are Wawa.  But for Georgia to be privy to all three of these cult-status brands?  Pretty incredible.

It’s like every time I get slammed in traffic, and I curse the state and ask why I live here?  I’ll have to hope I live somewhat reasonably distanced to all three of these businesses to where I’ll have my immediate answer to why I still live here.  Hopefully closer than Buc-ee’s is, and it’ll be a jump ball if both Wawa and Timmy’s are nearby.  When the day is over, the iced capps will probably be my most frequent purchase, but I’ll be damned if Wawa doesn’t become an immediate routine meal option if there’s one within remote convenient distance.

It only took a year (and change)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

But I finally have my Montgomery Kimchi cap.  Ever since I found out that the hicks in Montgomery, Alabama aren’t all racist shitheads and decided to have some Korean heritage nights, complete with renaming the Biscuits the Kimchi for a night, complete with new branding and identity, I knew that I didn’t just want to have a Kimchi cap, but that I needed to have a Kimchi cap.

Leading up to the event, I was eventually appalled when informed that there would be no ballcaps available.  “Next year,” is what I was informed when reaching out.   I was crushed, but settled on a Mr. Kimchi mascot t-shirt that was available, in very sparse and limited quantities.

Obviously, short of me setting up a long-in-the-future Google alert or something, it didn’t occur to me to keep an eye out on the Biscuits’ schedule for the 2022 season, but a KBO group on theFacebook that I’m a member of posted something about the Montgomery Kimchi a few months ago, and it jogged my memory to quickly check.  Sure enough, there were Kimchi caps for sale, but by the time I started looking at them, they were basically wiped out, and most definitely my NewEra size of 7 1/2 were all gone.  One again, I was disappointed, but I figured that once the 2022 Korean heritage night rolled up, there would probably be more stock, hopefully.

Except upon further digging, I found out that Korean heritage night had already passed, with the Kimchi emerging (and losing) way the fuck back in April.  I was mortified by this, because surely there was little reason for the team to go out of their way to restock merch for an event that had already passed.  And then the tab I kept open for the specific item eventually turned into a 404, and it seemed very apparent that my window to get the cap that I didn’t want but needed, had closed. 

Funny thing is though, I didn’t close the tab on my phone.  And one day, after a restart of my phone, I noticed that the tab’s thumbnail wasn’t the 404 page anymore, and upon refreshing the actual page, it turned out that Kimchi caps were suddenly back on the table once again.  Unlike 80% of the time I see something I want, but don’t pull the trigger, I didn’t wait at all to get my wallet out.  Furthermore, they still didn’t have a 7 1/2, but I wasn’t willing on taking any chances and risk missing out again, so I actually got a size up at 7 5/8.  A few minutes later, and my order was confirmed – I was finally going to get the Kimchi cap that I needed.

And here we are.  After a year and some change, I’ve finally got one of the greatest ballcaps to my collection.  The funniest thing is that the more prestige I put onto a cap, the less I’ll actually wear it, because I don’t want to risk them getting grungy and dirty or rained on, thus defeating the purpose of caps in the first place, but the most important thing is that I got it finally, and I’ll wear it with pride and joy; whenever the conditions are optimal for me to actually wear it.

Imagine if your existence was to one day become a chip?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I saw this bag of effectively, chicken chips at Sprouts, and I had to stop and examine the bag.  10 grams of protein from chips?  Servings per bag, two?  So I could effectively get 20g’s of protein by crushing this bag of chips made from chickens? 

But then I was like mehhhhhhh because I had no idea what to expect from a taste and consistency standpoint of chips made out of chickens.

But then I had to pass by the display again on the way to the register and they were 2/$7 and next thing I knew, I had bought two bags.  The other one is chili lime.

Honestly, they’re not that bad.  Crunchy like a potato chip, and frankly they taste kind of like Pringles.  And I get 20g’s of protein, which is always important to people who exercise and lift weights.

Really though, what I really thought about, and what served as the impetus for this post, was the sheer thought that a chicken, a living, bleeding bird, was somehow reduced to becoming, a chip.  Not a potato, not corn, not some other vegetable.  A chicken.

And then I got to thinking about what humans would feel like if we were ever overtaken by a more intelligent species that also was higher on the food chain than we were, and decided to one day reduce humans as a food source to not just any food, but chips.  Like I imagine a person getting one of those cheese slicers taken to them to carve out thin, malleable slices of their flesh, and they’re deep fried to become chips for creatures who eat people want to eat.

Fucked up to think about sure, but this is what my mind wandered off to while I was indulging in chips made out of chicken.  Better them than us, I suppose.

Oh, Atlanta #577

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these but obviously, it’s the same old song and dance that I just don’t have the time.  Honestly I feel like if I ever wanted to do one of these every day, I’m sure I could find a story absurd enough to warrant a post.  But there are days like today where the story came to me for a change of pace, and upon seeing it, I knew it was inevitable that I had to write about it:

Deadly shooting occurs at a Subway; over too much mayonnaise being put on a sandwich.  I really can’t make this shit up, even if I tried.  But to expound on the unfortunate situation, basically a Subway employee put too much mayo on a customer’s sandwich, they became irate, and then words began being exchanged, and the next thing you know, they’re opening fire into the restaurant and killing the employee.  The manager on duty promptly returns fire because of course they’re packing too, and the whole thing ends with the shooter arrested, an employee dead, with the employee’s sister who also worked there, also shot and in critical condition.

Also, the 5-year old kid of one of the women struck was there and watched their mom get shot.

Typically, these kinds of posts are dripping in sarcasm and are more of a you’ve got to be kidding me in an ironically judgmental funny way, and I’ll be honest that this is how I felt when I started writing about it.  But honestly, it’s nothing really funny about it is as much as it’s just fucked up and sad that there are people out there that genuinely felt that the best course of action to resolve the dissatisfaction at getting too much mayo on their fucking Subway sandwich is to pull out a gun and start shooting like Yosemite Sam.

I know this particular Subway, and where it is, and it is very much not in a particularly good part of town.  It’s riding a line where everything east of it is touched by the magic gentrification fairy, and are in a period of where there are people hoping to cash in on rising property values and get paid, but on the west side of the thoroughfare is basically still the Jurassic Park of ghettos.  So it’s not really any surprise that this kind of incident happened at this part of town, but it’s still tragic and fucked up that there’s literally a person dead over mayonnaise on a sandwich.

Guess all that’s really left for me to say is that I’m sure glad I don’t work or really have any business being in the city proper anymore, because I’d sure hate to get in the crossfire of any sort of altercation over shitty fast food.