Tokyo House in My House

If you are from the Youngstown area than you know about the restaurant Tokyo House. It is the best restaurant if you want japanese hibachi. It doesn't even compare to any other hibachi restaurant for one simple reason, orange sauce. What is orange sauce you say? Well, you might be familiar with shrimp sauce a common condiment at hibachi restaurants, but this shrimp sauce, or orange sauce as it is called there is unlike any you will ever taste. You pile it on your rice by the jug, there is no such amount as too much orange sauce. It is like heaven on rice, and in a former pot smoking life it is also amazing on just about anything else, from ham on toast to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to Krispy Kreme donuts (yes I've tried it on many a food, but other factors were also at work in those days.) There was probably a 2 or 3 year span where I went to Tokyo House at least once a week and sometimes twice. Yes, it is an amazing place.

I've cooked hibachi style dinners for myself and my brother but never really thought to make my own orange sauce. I thought it might be almost sacrilege to try and make it one my own, but my trips to the Tokyo House are becoming farther and farther apart, so I guess I need to figure something out. So this week I finally looked up a recipe for shrimp sauce to see how it would compare to the famed orange sauce. I found it on allrecipes.com, a great website for recipes by the way. It had the same consistency and look to it however not quite that obsessive inducing flavor that the one at the Tokyo House has. It was good but nothing thats going to keep you up at night with grease smeared lips and bloated stomach wondering when the next time you are going to eat it will be. I will certainly work with the recipe because I do think it is close, however it was definitely too sweet. So here is the recipe and I'm sure I will mess around with it and update at some point with what I come up with, and try it yourself if you're in the mood.

Shrimp Sauce (for now, orange sauce to come)

1 cup mayonnaise

3 tbs white sugar

3 tbs rice wine vinegar

2 tbs melted butter

3/4 tsp paprika

3/8 tsp garlic powder

The Coolest Gadget Ever

The iPad has to be the coolest thing I've ever seen. I need one! Yes it might just be a giant iPod touch but it's amazing and I am obsessed with it. I need one!

Portabella and Roasted Red Pepper Sandwich w/ spinach and bacon pesto

Last night I made one of the best sandwiches I've ever eaten. I got a food processor for Christmas, since then I've made a couple of pestos. I couldn't believe how expensive it is to by pesto from the store so I figured why not just make it myself. The first one I made was way to garlicky, but the next one was pretty well balanced. I wanted to do something different for the next one and I thought of the bacon jam Kevin, a contestant on the last season of Top chef, made. The idea of a jam made out of bacon just seemed so good I figured why can't I add bacon to a pesto. One of my favorite combinations of toppings for a pizza is spinach and bacon, thats why I decided to use spinach as the base for the pesto. I figured the pesto would work well with portabellas and roasted red peppers, so I decided to combine them all into a sandwich. On Wednesdays my brother just eats a big salad, he was certainly looking at my meal with envious eyes. Its actually a very easy recipe to make and is very tasty, give it a try if you think it sounds good.

Portabella and Roasted Red Pepper Sandwich w/ spinach and bacon pesto

1 large sandwich

1 large portabella mushroom

1 red pepper

2 slices of provolone

3 c baby spinach

1/4 c basil

1/4 c parsley

2 garlic cloves

3 slices of bacon

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

1 handful of pine nuts

1/4 plus 2-3 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Roll the red pepper in 1 tbsp of olive oil, season with salt and pepper and place on a baking tray. On the same tray lay the slices of bacon. Cook the bacon for about 10 minutes or until they are crispy. When you take the bacon out rotate the red pepper, continue to cook the pepper for about 30 total minutes rotating about every 10 minutes. When the pepper is done set it aside to cool, then peal away the skin, which should come off somewhat easily.

For the pesto toast the pine nuts over low to medium low heat for about 10 minutes making sure they don't burn. Then put the garlic, spinach, basil, parsley, pine nuts bacon and cheese into the food processor. Drizzle the 1/4 cup of olive into the mixture as it works in the food processor, you might not need all of the olive oil. It is done when it is similar to a paste.

For the portabella, wipe the top with a damp paper towel to clean it off. Over medium heat place the remaining tablespoons of olive oil. Saute the mushroom for 6-8 minutes on each side or until it is tender. Season with salt and pepper when it is almost done cooking. If you season mushrooms with the salt early in the cooking process it could draw the moisture out of them and dry them out.

To put the sandwich together I bake the bread for about 2 minutes with nothing on it. Take it out of the oven and spread some pesto on each half. Slice the mushroom and pepper into long pieces and place them onto the bread, alternating mushroom and pepper slices. Put the 2 slices of provolone on the half of bread that doesn't have the mushrooms and peppers then put the sandwich back into the oven to bake until the cheese starts to melt. When the cheese is melted take it out of the oven put the halves together and enjoy!

Kansas City Patriots

Another Chiefs coaching vacancy another Patriot old boy is hired. Romeo Crennel defensive coordinator for the Patriots during their 3 super bowl wins in the early part of the '00s was just hired to take on the same role for the Chiefs. So in one years time the Chiefs have hired the Patriots old GM, Scott Pioli, and both their defensive and offensive coordinators. I like the move and am very excited to see what these coaches can do in Kansas City. If you're going to model your team after another one the Patriots aren't a bad one to choose.

Contra!

Just go get it. Vampire Weekend's second album Contra is out today and I've already listened to it twice (it was available for download yesterday on itunes). I started listening to their first album two summers ago and haven't stopped since, it tops the most played list on my ipod by far. It might be the beginning of January but this will definitely be one of the best albums of the year. Did I mention to go buy this now!

No Reservations!

The new season of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations starts up tonight at 10:00 PM, in Panama, on the Travel Channel. I'm very excited, its one of my favorite shows on tv. Bourdain is a badass and I could listen to him talk all day. He offers up good insight and shows you places and people you probably wouldn't go to if you were to be luck enough to travel to the places he does. If you've never watched and aren't doing anything at 10 tonight give it a try.

Worst Weather

Yesterday while watching the football games we were talking about how bad the weather is here in the Youngstown area. Its been snowing and cold for what seems like the last month, so obviously we are going to start complaining about it. Yeah I'm sure people all over the place think they have terrible weather, but I made the statement that we have the worst weather out of anywhere in the country that you would actually live. So that means like the Dakota's, Montana and those other weird northern states don't count. Well I heard a stat on the news last night that proves my statement. Yesterday was only the third day since November 14, that we had sunshine. Yes, I typed that right. We only had sunshine November 14, December 12 and yesterday, just awful isn't it?

Only in a dream

Girls are From Somewhere Farther Away than Venus

I bought this movie with some extra christmas money on the recommendation from my sister. I saw the previews when it was in theatres and thought I would like it but she saw, and said I should get it, her recommendations are usually good so I did. We actually sat down as a family, the five of us in our family room, to watch it. My dad on the ground grumbling because there was sure to not be anything blowing up or gun fights, my brother on the couch just happy that he won't have much interest in it so he could fall asleep easily to wake up at the crack of dawn to study, my mom and sister on the chair together giggling, but always on the verge of tears and a fight, and me in the back on the Lay-Z-Boy almost nervous to watch because I knew this movie would stir up some bad memories.
As most of the reviews I read about the movie state it is a story that has been done over and over, boy meets girl, boy loses girl, but what makes it different from I think all the romantic comedies I've ever seen is the boy loses the girl and gets his heart broken, it does happen and not always because he cheated on her or did something stupid. It was refreshing to see this take because rarely do we ever see this point of view or hear stories where this happens, its always the guys fault. As stupid, idiotic and crazy guys might be girls are at least twice as much, and this movie proved. I was in an eerily similar relationship as Tom, the main character of this movie, and was able to relate to almost everything (especially the expectations, and reality scene) he went through. Even though for me it was like three years ago this movie was still able to stir up those emotions and I really felt for Tom. There might not have been a classic happy ending, but is there ever? Overall I thought this movie was really well written, had great acting and was told in a interesting way. What else can you ask for? It is well deserving of the praise it got and I would say give it a shot if you're in the mood for a quirky, different take on a rom-com.

Oh ya, one more thing, Jenny Beckman, she is a bitch.

The Fupa

Congrats to Charlie Weis. This fine physical specimen is the new offensive coordinator of the Kansas City Patriots, I mean Chiefs, my favorite team. He might not have done so well at being head coach for Notre Dame, but he definitely knew how to coordinate an offense with New England...I wonder what Romeo Crennel is doing these days?

Top Movies of the 00's

So I saw this list Richard Roeper made of his top 100 movies of the post decade.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/roeper/1967980,roepers-best-films-of-the-year-010110.article

Not a bad overall list but I definitely have some problems with it, especially the top ten. If you know me then you would know I am into the whole kung-fu/martial arts genre of movies. I've seen both Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers more than once, while I do really enjoy them and think they are good movies, putting both in your top ten of the whole decade is kind of crazy.

Slum Dog is also a really good movie but to put it in the top ten of the decade is also quite a stretch. Then to compare it to the Usual Suspects is just strange, where does he even get that comparison from. I haven't seen the Usual Suspects in a while but from what I remember it doesn't really have much in common with this movie.

Definitely the craziest movie in this top ten is his number one choice, The Departed. Yes, it was a good movie, but I'm not so sure I would call it really good, and it certainly is not great. Don't get me wrong it is a very enjoyable movie, when I walked out of the movie theatre after seeing it I thought I just saw a good movie, but certainly not the best of the decade. It was somewhat predictable, it's basically a standard cop movie with a couple twists. Also, to call the cast of this movie, the greatest ensamble cast since the Godfather is maybe one of the most ridiculous claims ever. Leo is a great actor and is always good as well as Matt Damon. It seems all of a sudden people think Alec Baldwin is some kind of great actor, do people remember that he is a Baldwin brother. That is a family of bad actors, except Stephen's performance in Bio-dome. How many of them are there? How do you tell them apart? Why do they all look the same? They're not even twins!...maybe. Just because he is good in 30 Rock does not make him a good actor. I don't like ripping on Jack but he was good but I think he's lost a little bit as of late. And, maybe my view is a bit tainted but if youu've ever seen I <3>

It was nice to see Memento in the top five, I couldn't disagree if it was number one, because that is an amazing movie. He does do well describing this film, because the first time you see it you're just completely blown away and confused all at once. Then you watch it again and you're still just as blown away but not as confused. If you haven't seen this movie drop what you're doing and go buy or rent it and watch it.

As for the rest of the list, I don't see how a Wes Anderson film didn't make it into the top 100. The Royal Tennembaum's and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou are definitely two of my favorite movies of this decade and of all time. Also if he's going to include comedies in this list how did Anchorman or Old School not make it, definitely two of the best comedies of the decade. Probably the biggest omition of the entire list is not even including The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert (Brad Pitt had in his contract he would not do this movie if they shortened or changed the title, I know you were wondering why it was so long). When I'm asked my favorite movie of all time that is my answer. I can't describe exactly what it is about it that I like so much, there is just a feeling to the movie that I relate to. I mean the story is great, the acting is spot on and it is the most satisfying ending to a movie I've ever seen, but the feeling of it is what I really like. After you're done with Memento, watch this movie you will not be disapointed.

So I'm certainly not making a whole list of 100 but if I was going to make a quick top eleven in no particular order it would be:

1. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

2. Gangs of New York

3. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (in my book they should be considered as one movie)

4. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

5. Lost in Translation

6. Vicky, Christina Barcelona

7. Memento

8. Signs

9. Blow

10. V for Vendetta

11. Catch Me if you Can

Guido Guido Guido

I've been excited to see Nine since my sister showed me the trailer over our thanksgiving break. I like musicals and Chicago was one of my favorites, so with Rob Marshall directing this and the cast that he got to play in it I couldn't imagine this movie was going to disappoint. It seemed that leading up to the release of this movie at least one cast member was on some tv show promoting the film, each day. I watched as much of them as I could, especially whatever Penelope Cruz was on, continuing to increase my expectations. By the way, is it possible to make an argument against Penelope Cruz being the hottest woman in Hollywood, without a doubt top three, I mean with that accent alone... Alright back to the review, so my sister and I made plans to see the move together over the Christmas holidays and took in a matinee at 11:40 AM, I didn't even know the theatre opened that early, and surprisingly we weren't the only ones under 65 years old in the theatre.

The movie is about Guido Contini, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, a great Italian director set to direct another highly anticipated movie, but cannot figure out what it should be about. He is troubled by his relationships he has with the ladies in his life, both in the past through flashbacks of him as a child and in the present. The paparazzi are also causing him great stress by trying to get answers from him about the new film. Daniel Day-Lewis couldn't have done a better job and is very believable as the troubled Italian director, but who would expect anything else from one of the best actors of this generation. From the opening shot and song I knew this movie was not going to disappoint. All the songs were great, my feet were tapping to each one. Each of the women in the movie were also as impressive as Day-Lewis, the singing, dancing and acting all great. I was nervous about Dame Judi Dench having a song, but to my surprise her number was actually really good and one of the better ones in the movie. I could go on and on about each song and actress' performances, but they were all so good, I don't think my descriptive skills would do them justice. We actually sat through the entire credits just to hear some the songs again that were being played as the credits rolled.

The film was shot beautifully and choreographed just as well. Each song had it's own style which helped to make them all very different and each one great. The movie takes place in various cities in Italy, and definitely made me wish me and my brother spent more time traveling through Italy while we were in Europe. Another, kind of small thing, that I really liked about the movie was the amount of smoking some of the characters did, especially Daniel Day-Lewis'. It seemed he constantly had a cigarette in his mouth and often as he was smoking he was asking another character for another. It seems you really don't see smoking much in movies anymore, but I think it helps to make it seem more real. It's weird the last two movies I saw both had main characters that smoked, this and Avatar.

I had very high expectations for this movie going in to it and I would say it exceeded them all. I will definitely be hoping this movie gets recognized during this upcoming awards season, and it was probably the best movie I've seen this year. I would certainly recommend this to anyone who likes musicals, if you don't enjoy the genre but just like good music and movie I would still give it a try, and if you never got in to musicals this is definitely a good place to start. Hopefully you see it and enjoy it as much as I did.

Back To School...

A new year, a new decade and back to school again. As I look back over this past year it easily is the best year of my life. I did a ton of traveling (Europe, NYC, outer banks, camping) and completed my first year of pharmacy school. As i look back over the past decade its kind of crazy to think just under half of my life was spent in 00's. January 1, 2000 I was a cocky 13 year old 8th grader who thought he knew everything and did not need help or advice from anyone, 10 years later, I think I've learned a thing or two, sometimes the hard way (it seems more often than not), still in school but at least now its professional school (pharmacy) and I think I can see a light in this tunnel of academia, it's just a pinprick but I'm pretty sure it is a light.

I actually got slightly enthused about school while sitting in my first class of this new decade because the class we started up will actually last until I am done with actual class and enter my fourth year of pharmacy school which is just 10, 1 month rotations 40 hours of week in pharmacies. So for the next year and a half I have one class where I will finally learn things I will actually need to know when I become a pharmacist. After what, 16 or 17 years of school I finally start learning things I actually will use in my job!

Well I should have been studying while I was writing this, the first week of school after christmas break and we have a quiz everyday this week and a midterm next monday, exciting I know. One of my new years resolutions is to post more regularly, but I've said that before, so we will see what happens. For now it's dinner time, the best part of the day and it's monday so that means angel hair, meatballs and garlic bread is on the menu.

A little bit of the inspiration that keeps me plugging along

(my backyard in two and a half years)