Tag: food

White people can’t admit that kimchi is just good

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Inquirer: US government includes kimchi to America’s list of gut health-friendly foods

Seeing as how I’m the only person in my household that actually likes and eats kimchi, sometimes it’s a struggle to eat all the kimchi in the amounts that they’re sold in.  For most of my life, kimchi was a dish served solely with Korean foods, rices, stews, bbq or anything that would constitute as a ‘Korean meal.’

But one day, I had this idea of just adding some of this aging kimchi to a sandwich.  I didn’t have any mustard, I was out of pepperjack cheese, and my house is generally pretty sparse when it comes to condiments, and turkey, I saw this great meme about how it’s the meat that is the equivalent of a human being who doesn’t drink enough water even though they know they should, and I had this idea of adding kimchi to my sandwich to help elevate a mundane turkey sandwich.

I felt like I had just invented fire, based on the sheer life that it had injected into my entrée.  And then I had one of those moments where I had to stop what I was doing and process the door I had just unlocked and opened up, realizing that I could add kimchi to a whole new world of foods out there to try and enhance them.

Kimchi in sandwiches.  Kimchi in curries.  Kimchi in very specific tacos.  Kimchi on burgers, hot dogs.  Kimchi as a side to steak or chops or fried chicken.  Kimchi no longer needed to be restricted to accompanying solely Korean food, it was a revelation that I had way too late in my life.

The point is, kimchi is a wonderful food, and it’s cringeworthingly bittersweet that the United States government is recognizing it on a federal level.  And it’s clear that it’s a very white people tactic of trying to push kimchi to the American people, by instead of just letting people come to their own conclusions about the food, they wrap it in a cornucopia of science in declaring it a gut health food, so that people might eat it out of health conscientious instead of branching out their tastebuds into food other than chicken tenders or bougie doughnuts.

All the scientific jargon seems legit to me, but aside from it all, kimchi is just a food that tastes great.  And the thing is, like most of the Korean language, the term kimchi is so broad and subjective, and encapsulates a lot varieties other than the napa cabbage version that whitey is probably thinking is the only form of kimchi that exists.

Whatever though, as critical as I may be by the tactic, I always do like when Korean things get recognized on a more global scale.  Except if through its exposure, it causes all of the greedy merchants of the world to see justification to raise their prices and make it less economical for me to get my motherland’s staple.

Dad Brog (#159): PSA to parents of students

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is probably a little bit of a stretch as far as classifying this as a dad brog, but my kids are students and have teachers, and obviously mythical wife is a teacher and deals with kids and whatever, this is a dad brog, fucking deal with it

But back to the subject of this post, this is a PSA to all parents of students, specifically those who wish to get holiday gifts for their children’s teachers:

Stop buying mugs and candles.

Unless your children’s teacher is celebrating their very first holiday season as a teacher, it’s safe to assume that they already have no less than four holiday mugs and three scented candles, most likely from Yankee Candle or Bath & Body Works.  Otherwise, multiply these numbers by the number of years in which said teacher has been teaching, and that’s how many fucking mugs and candles exist in their homes.

And if the teachers are anything like mythical wife, they have no earthly idea on how to remove them from their domiciles, so they end up accumulating and taking up space, and I, as a teacher’s spouse, end up creeping closer and closer to a breakdown from our house slowly descending into becoming an episode of Hoarders: Buried Alive, covered in so much cliché crap that is pawned off onto my wife under the guise of being in the spirit of the holidays.

This goes quadruple for my wife, who has the olfactory abilities of Wolverine, so she’s extremely sensitive to scents and therefore doesn’t like 80% of the candles given to her because they’re wonky and smell weird or bad, and they never get used, and currently just exist in a giant stack behind our Keurig.  And she doesn’t drink or even like coffee, so any mugs that comes with a coffee mix or a Starbucks gift card is pretty much lost on her, even though I like it when she bequeaths any Starbucks gift cards to me, the accumulation of yet another mug makes it not worth it.

Yes, I understand that any form of gifts to teachers are voluntary and are given with the best of intentions, and I’m not trying to put a kibosh on my wife from getting free shit with thoughtful intentions.  It’s just I’m challenging all other parents to be better and be aware that the teachers of their kids more than likely have a ton of fucking mugs and candles, and they are probably long past no longer welcome, even if they’re not allowed to say it.

Gift cards are always welcome, even if weirdos like mythical wife don’t drink coffee, thus making Starbucks ones pretty useless, but places like Target, whatever grocery chains are nearby, or even the American Express ones that nobody likes to buy because they’re usually an activation fee included on those.  Chick Fil-A, or whatever chain joints are around the area are welcome, and of course, Amazon.

Baked goods, be it completely homemade, or shit purchased from the local grocer or commercial bakeries are always welcome.  Snacks or treats in general are pretty welcome, but always a risk, not knowing what dietary restrictions the teacher may or may not have.

Failing all else, holiday cards, with just nice messages or greetings are welcome and superior to moar mugs or candles.

The point is, please please please stop buying teachers mugs and candles for Christmas.  It makes me think that these are cruel re-gifts, or were add-ons from larger purchases, that these parents are cleverly disguising as unique gifts for the educators of their children, with passive hopes that getting in their favor will prove beneficial to their children in the future.  Obviously I’m not the teacher in my house, but if I were, and I sniffed out a potential re-gift, yeah, it might influence my attitude towards their kid; but not in the way that they had hoped for.

Just like my attitude towards gift giving over the recent years, if you can’t give a thoughtful gift with genuine intention, don’t feel obligated to get one.  It’s better to give no gift, than a shitty thoughtless one, and I’d personally rather receive nothing, than receive something that contributes to the existing clutter in my home.

Happy Trails, Roy Hobbs

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

AP: Actor and activist, Robert Redford dies at the age of 89

Throughout the long history of the brog, I’ve been saddened by the passing of many notable figures and shared my words and thoughts for those whom have meant the most to my general existence.  I’ve stated numerous names, of individuals who really had massive imprints on my general state of life, those whom help mold, shape or have a permanent residence at the forefront of my brain.

Guys like Sonny Chiba, Dikembe Mutombo, Kevin Conroy emerge quickly, as people for whatever reason or contributions to the shit I’ve seen in my life, always maintained permanent resident status in my head, and even to this day, guys whom I’ll make references to or think about when it comes to the countless analogies and metaphors and comparisons that I make when thinking about things around the world.

Well, Robert Redford is up there on that echelon of individuals in the world that left an indelible mark in my life, and I’m feeling melancholy about hearing about his passing.  I can’t really say that I’m so much sad about it considering he was 89 years old and had clearly lived a full and prosperous life, but for those that will miss him the most, my heart goes out to.

However, I should be more specific, that my general fandom and appreciation for Robert Redford stems from a role he played in a film, based on a book that also left an indelible impression in my life, which is The Natural by Bernard Malamud.  After falling in love with the book, the movie was enjoyable, which really opened my eyes to who Robert Redford was, as he was portraying the intrepid Roy Hobbs, the former pitcher turned old rookie wunderkind, crushing home runs all over the place with this homemade baseball bat.

And although the film didn’t portray it like the book did, Roy Hobbs was a human vacuum cleaner of a legendary eater, prompting one of my oldest friend groups and I to use his name as inspiration for whenever we wanted to destroy buffets all across Northern Virginia and eat like Roy Hobbs was trying to fill the void left in his heart from the early baseball career he never had.

Furthermore, Roy Hobbs became something of a pseudonym for me through a variety of online endeavors, like the pen name I wrote through on Talking Chop and a variety of other Vox websites, and was usually my go-to when it came to utilizing an online handle on gaming platforms like Xbox Live or League of Legends.

Regardless, through Roy Hobbs I learned Robert Redford, and although Roy Hobbs was but just a single role played in a legendary career, whenever the thought of Roy Hobbs emerges in my brain, it’s Robert Redford that I see, and for that alone, made me a fan of Robert Redford.

It’s funny, because as learned of his existence was I made aware of just how much work he’s done in Hollywood, for Hollywood, and the film industry in general, but it wasn’t until really reading several obituaries and tributes to the man did I realize just how much more he did, as far as his support for independents beyond just Sundance, as well as his activism, trying to make the world a lesser pile of shit than it is on the regular.

Robert Redford was truly an extraordinary human being, and it’s like I discovered him in a reverse order sort of fashion; gravitating towards him on account of a singular role, but then learning more about him after the fact, as opposed to the other way around.

It’s a sad day in Hollywood, film and even literature to hear about the passing of Robert Redford, but at least as far as I’m concerned, he’ll always be relevant and worth mentioning, if for anything at all, being the guy who was Roy Hobbs.

Phelps County probably smells delicious right now

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The Hill: tractor trailer carrying 40,000 lbs. of ribeye steaks catches fire on I-74 in Missouri

Normally, I don’t bother writing about trucks full of food stuffs catching fire or overturning unless they happen in Georgia, but every now and then there are a few examples that pique my interest to the point where I can turn the clock back and write about truck carnage at the expense of delicious foods.

But headlines talking about a truck full of steaks catching fire got my attention, and specifically the fact that they weren’t just any old run of the mill steaks, but forty thousand pounds of ribeye steaks specifically that caught my attention.

The devil is in the details.

Sure, there is a time and place for every cut of steak, and sometimes I’ve just been in the mood for a good New York strip, sometimes a big ass porterhouse.  Sometimes just the filet is sufficient, if I want to luxuriate in all the other sides and courses.  But for the most part, there’s seldom a time when a good ribeye isn’t a viable option for a steak, and learning of this truck disaster where several tons of ribeye steaks went up in flames definitely got my big back attention.

Naturally, I’m long past the first person to probably make the joke about how delicious I-74 in Missouri must smell at the idea of all this succulent beef going up in flames, but it’s probably not wrong.  The whole region with a multiple mile radius probably smells like an incredible barbecue is going on, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about Missouri is that the state knows how to barbecue, apparently even on the physical highways itself.

However, I do have to question the quality of the steaks, if they’re in a parcel of 40,000 lbs of other ribeyes.  I have to imagine that they were probably of the frozen variety to begin with, and probably nowhere near high-end restaurant quality cuts that most people fantasize about when they’re thinking about a good steak.  As I said, the devil is in the details, and I’d be curious to know if these were like Dollar General hockey puck steaks, or if they were closer to like Outback Steakhouse steaks.  That’s the intel that separates a ho-hum run of the mill truck disaster from one that people talk about for years to come.

Either way, congrats to Missouri for having a truck catastrophe that sounded so grand and probably smelled so good, to where it warranted words to be spouted on my little slice of the internet.

MLB Speedway Classic: great success not

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

FTW: MLB’s Speedway Classic at Bristol Motor Speedway featuring the Atlanta Braves vs. Cincinnati Reds turns out to be massive failure for attendees, sparking comparisons to Fyre Festival

There was a moment on Saturday with the weather being all wet and crappy, where I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be ownage if the Speedway Classic got rained on and the game couldn’t take place?

That’s always the inherent risk with an outdoor sport like baseball, and trying to coordinate a singular, special event game; the one absolute thing that cannot be controlled – the weather.  And almost if I prophesized the event, the weather did come into play at the Speedway Classic, and no matter how much MLB tried to stall, delay and wait out the weather, they only managed to get in a single inning of game in before they threw their hands up and suspended the game, proclaiming the game would be resumed the following day; on what was supposed to be a rare Sunday day off for the Braves and Reds, on account of them altering their schedules to accommodate a special event game.

So, owned.

To the fans in attendance who were probably hoping to watch the game, and either skip town and or make a trip of it on Sunday – also owned.

Television rights having to adjust for the unpredictable schedule change – owned.

However, all this ownage aside, on the ground level, as among the alleged 90,000+ attendees who descended onto Bristol Motor Speedway, hoping to be in attendance for a supposed special event of monumental proportions, there was apparently a whole lot more ownage, which as the angst and frustration grew, many were more than eager and willing to vent to the internet.

And as much as I’m the type of fan who loves baseball so much that I hate it, few things make me arrogantly smirk in satisfaction than whenever MLB fucks things up, which is precisely what happened with how they handle the ground operations at the Speedway Classic.

Most notably, the sheer lack of preparedness when it came to handling the event at the stadium level, with countless gripes about there being inadequate or not enough food available to attendees, primarily summed up by a photo montage of nachos without cheese and hot dogs without buns, with there being some very quick comparisons to the photo of a shitty sandwich that became the photographic embodiment of the notorious Fyre Festival shitshow.

Fans who aired out their frustration were immediately combatted by mostly people who weren’t there who for whatever reason feel the need to defend MLB, the event or venue, but it just leads to an absolute clusterfuck where nobody wins and people like me just want to sit back and watch the carnage like the Michael Jackson eating popcorn gif.

But aside from the debacles revolving around food, there were many allegations of them running out of food and merchandise all before the game even got under way, and lots of piling on to the flop of the logistics of an event scheduled well beyond a year ago, despite the fact that it was at a NASCAR venue which holds multiple races a year without breaking a sweat, and the general consensus that it’s massive egg on MLB’s face for such horrendous planning.

Frankly, I don’t even really know why MLB wanted to do this in the first place.  My guess is that it’s a veiled temperature check to see how the region supports MLB, because between Nashville and Raleigh, there’s always rumor about possible MLB expansion, with that general mid-Atlantic region being considered.  But also MLB doesn’t need any reasons for doing anything other than the fact that they’re greedy cocksuckers who are trying to make money by any means necessary, and holding special events seems like an easy cash grab, no matter how poorly they execute it because fans are gullible and easy to manipulate into forking over their dough.

Make no mistake, this was entirely MLB’s fault for such poor planning, and such poor execution.  And I love to see it, especially since I’m so far removed from my baseball fandom that I was nowhere remotely close to experiencing it.  Maybe a decade ago when I was still pretty hard into my fandom, I’d be tempted to be a part of it, but I’m really fucking glad that I’m where I’m at now, and had no interest in it.

And of course, the Braves won the game, in spite of them giving up a run in the one inning they played on Saturday.  Which kind of stinks from the standpoint of that the Braves will hold onto this meaningless win and inject as much meaning into it as possible amidst a horrendous season, and I don’t want them to have any wins to celebrate, because this team will never truly ever get better unless they hit a bottom that really makes them try to rethink the way they operate.

But whatever, massive lol’s on my end, for all the sheer amounts of ownage that was doled out over the weekend on account of MLB’s pathetic fuck ups.

Las Vegas sucks now, plain and simple

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Every time I come across posts or articles about the general downward trends of Las Vegas tourism, I just scoff and remind myself to hold my tongue and save it for the brog, because I think I’m in the minority now about my feelings and attitude about Las Vegas.

But as the subject of this post says, Las Vegas sucks now, and is a far cry from the place that I used to go to multiple times a year, and it makes me sad to see just how much it’s changed and how I just now have absolutely no desire to go back any time soon.  And like I said, I think I’m in the minority here, especially among my friends who all seem to think the place is still good, regardless of if they acknowledge the changes or not, and as to not be the Debbie Downer, I more often than not, keep my feelings unspoken since I don’t want to be accused of peeing in the pool.

But yeah, Las Vegas sucks now, and I fully understand why their tourism and revenues are trending downwards, and feel little opinion other than the euphemism that this is the bed they made, and they have to lay in it.

Sure, COVID had a lot to do with their state of collapse, as a city so reliant on tourism was absolutely decimated when the whole world was encouraged to stay put, but the whole city didn’t do themselves any favors once things started to return to normalcy.  It’s like the whole place went into this determined recoup-mode, and decided to up the cost of just about everything in sight in order to make up for lost dollars from the pandemic, and as often the case whenever any business raises costs to justify something, once that something has been justified, they grow so used the revenues that they make no attempt to revert or reduce, and as is the case with Vegas, they actually doubled down and kept increasing the cost of everything to further push people to see how much they can get away with.

See, the Vegas I remember and loved, it wasn’t $Fuck you.99 per night to stay anywhere on the Strip, and there weren’t Ticketmaster-amounts of resort fees every night.  Parking was often free, which justified getting a rental car so we didn’t have to get taxis everywhere, and could occasionally explore the city beyond the Strip.  Food, sure, had its upscale joints where you could feel like a baller, but there were also plenty of options where you could get a cheap meal or just enough to satiate hunger, and it not be an automatic $100+ bill.

Every resort had a buffet, and I can say that I’d been to almost all of them at various points of my life, from the Riviera’s, Aladdin’s, MGM’s, Mandalay Bay’s, and my guiltiest of pleasures was the Rio’s Carnival World Buffet, where on two different times, separated by years, I managed to get the same server who had this creepy, Igor-like demeanor, but was still nice and did his job well.  But, they’re all gone now, with to my knowledge, the only ones truly left and worth a damn, being like Caesar’s Palace, Bellagio and Cosmopolitan.

Drinks were plentiful, and thankfully is still the case, free as long as you’re gambling, but for when you weren’t blowing all your money away, a domestic beer didn’t cost $20 plus a tip.

Which brings us to gambling, where across the board, the cost to play has risen to where the last two times I went to Vegas, I was basically done after a single day’s gambling.  I used to be able to bring $500 in cash, and manage to have a pretty fun long weekend; I could be lucky enough to play with some house case from time to time, and when the trips were over, be able to come back with a little left.  Now, $500 can’t get me through a single day, which was almost literal when my last trip was just 24-hours, with gambling time being less than four of those hours.

Casinos hardly bother with fluctuating table minimums anymore, and the lowest on the Strip is like $15, which is a perfectly uneven number to where anyone who wants to play a hundo, has almost no possibly way of playing an exact amount at $15 a hand or spin of anything without having an embarrassing remainder, or need to buy back in, and it makes me think of the New York MTA and how their fares are mathematically strategized so that it’s almost impossible to zero out a fare card, and the city rakes in millions a year on forfeited remainders.

The bottom line is that Las Vegas has completely abandoned even remotely trying to cater to anyone that isn’t at the very least, upper class, or can at least pretend to be for the duration of a trip.  Middle-class and lower schmucks like me can no longer afford to go there comfortably, much less have a good time, when we’re being gauged left and right, having the city wishing they could charge us to breathe.

I’m of the belief that there’s way more money to be made in catering to everyone, and my favorite stories in business are always ones where companies have embarked on such strategies and have found immense amounts of success in doing such, like sports teams that lower their tickets, concessions and accessibility and then they make record profits.  Apps that are released for free, but then rake in millions on ad revenue and in-game micro-transactions.  Look at Wal-Mart, whose last time I checked was #1 on the Fortune 500 for the last 30 years, because they cater to the lower class, and they make fuck numbers of profits every year in doing so.

And Las Vegas turning their back to those under the upper class line, screams of elitism, catering to the wealthy and those arrogant enough to demand exclusivity, I enjoy reading and seeing things about how their numbers aren’t doing as hot as they probably wish they were doing.  I love reading comments full of shade and criticisms from people who feel similarly to how I do, abandoned and resentful, and pining for a Las Vegas that they once loved so much, they used to “joke” with their friends about exploring looking for a rental property.

Like I said, this is the bed that they made, and it’s what they have to lay in, and I hope that one day, Las Vegas can get back to closer to being the city I once loved and hopefully in time for me to have some more memorable trips with my friends and my family.

If my life were different, I would live above a Costco in about two months ago

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Better late than never: ground broken in south Los Angeles for a Costco that will have 800~ apartment units above it

I saw this query on my theFacebook feed about if people were willing to live above a Costco should there be a Costco that had residences above one, and my knee-jerk reaction was pffh, absofuckinglutely I would live above a Costco if my life were different, and I didn’t have a wife and kids.

I could only imagine how much money I’d save if I did, knowing that at any given meal of any given day of any given week of any given year, if I were hungry and didn’t want to think about it, I was a literal hop skip and a jump from going downstairs into Costco, and grabbing a hot dog and soda I probably wouldn’t even drink or swap it for water, for a buck-fifty. 

That’s $4.50+tax a day for a food budget, and extrapolate that of the course of a year, and I’m spending like $7K a year on food.  Sure, undoubtedly I wouldn’t be eating a glizzy and soda for every single meal in a year, but that’s still a tremendous savings from what my general food budget is now in comparison, not even factoring in the kids and everyone else I have to carry.

Or I could alternatively meander downstairs, grab a $5 rotisserie chicken and probably fill up a series of cookbooks of all the different things I would do to the meat in order to mix things up, but that might also jeopardize by $7K annual food budget but maybe not if I’m getting multiple meals out of a $5 chicken.

Or, I could be the ultimate shithead and just wander downstairs, pretend to be shopping but really going around and being one of the degenerates who just wants to snag as many free samples as I could, and try to fill up best on free shit, and call it a meal.

Either way, I really don’t see any drawback at all to living above a Costco, other than maybe automotive traffic issues when at their peak times, unless there’s a separated residential means to get in and out of the complex.  Also, cholesterol, if I planned on having the bulk of my meals being hot dog+soda, but human bodies can adapt, and I’m sure someone like me who has the innate ability to never get sick of things would rewire my body do solder through.

I like how a membership is included with the lease agreement, as if a $79 annual fee is really that huge of a benefit when you’re most likely going to be paying like $2100 a month since it is in the greater Los Angeles area.  It’s the equivalent of when Costcos try to sweeten the membership by throwing in a free chicken.  Small, but amusingly meaningful.

Honestly, when the day comes that I become an empty nester, I wouldn’t turn my back on the idea of living above a Costco.  I think it would be pretty incredible to have that kind of convenience just downstairs, but I guess it really depends on how much the cost of living is get into one of these units, and if these things will ultimately begin to migrate to other parts of the country and world.

But to answer the original query, emphatic yes, I would live in an apartment on top of a Costco, without any hesitation.