Here we go....

Well, here I am, at YVR waiting at gate D58 to board my flight to Hong Kong and then off to Kathmandu. This will be the longest flight that I have ever been on, almost 14 hours, but I am super stoked beyond belief. It is almost midnight as I am typing this and my flight departs and 220 am, so I still have a little bit of time to wait. The waiting area is still sparsely populated, but I am sure it will pick up in the next hour or so. The next time I will post will probably when we arrive at our hotel in Kathmandu, around 11 pm local time on February 3rd. Wish me luck.

Until next time.

Eli

Tick, Tick

The clock is winding down fast, I leave for Asia tomorrow. Well actually I technically leave on Thursday at 2 in the morning, but we leave Nanaimo tomorrow. I still have some packing to do, and by some I mean all of it. I sure am a master of procrastination, at least all of the clothes I am bringing are washed already. My excitedness is definitely starting to pick up at a rapid pace as the day swiftly approaches. I just wanted to write a little post today to keep myself in the habit of updating this blog, we shall see if it sticks. Now, where's my damn Tilley hat...

Until next time.

Eli

Remember when.....

Remember back in October of '10 when I said I would post on my blog everyday, of course you don't cause no one reads this thing. None the less I am going to start blogging again, mainly because I will be leaving for Asia in three days and I am sure that some interesting stories will come out of that. I am not going to make some arbitrary promises about when and how much I will post, I will post when I have something to say and that's all you need to know. Thanks to Sam and Michelle of http://downtofundtf.blogspot.com/ for inadvertently getting me to write this again. Now, if you will excuse me I have some packing to do.

Until next time.

Eli

Variety cuts? More like "lack of variety" cuts?

As I strolled by the meat department in Safeway I became aware that the displays of meat were lacking certain components. I am referring to the total absence of variety cuts and offal meats amongst the more desirable cuts. To be clear, I do not expect that a large mainstream supermarket would carry an enormous selection of said animal parts. However, I do think that it is completely fair for these large chains to carry the "friendlier" or at least the more well known variety cuts. Maybe I am mistaken, but I usually see at least baby beef liver nestled away in the corner by the stewing beef and the soup bones, but not at this particular store. I normally do not specifically look for the nasty bits at a grocery store meat counter, but this time their complete absence really stood out for some reason. It seemed to bestow the meat department with a very sterile, unwelcoming and almost austere aura. This feeling made me realize that I need to personally make more of an effort to track down and to start consuming more organ meats. I also urge you, my intelligent and good looking readers, to do the same. Someone has to eat the tongues and assholes, might as well be us.

Until next time

Eli

Let's give this another try, shall we?

Hello internet. I realize that I have not posted anything since May, but I am going to put some serious effort in trying to revitalize this pathetic sham of a blog. I could go on and on making excuses why I haven't been keeping up with my blog (like how my summer was really, extremely busy, which it was by the way) but I say, fuck it. I am going to start anew, phoenix rising out of the ashes and all that clichéd shit. As it is almost 1 in the morning, I am going to have to end this post here. But do not fret children, I WILL post tomorrow and the next day and the next day etc., until I become filthy rich and no longer feel the need to share my experiences and thoughts with the shambling masses of the world wide web.

Until next time.

Eli

Fettuccine alla "Pork and Beans"

Hello all, this will be my first food post so I hope y'all enjoy it.

I decided to make dinner for my dad, bro and I after my dad received his grocery delivery from Quality Foods. For some reason he ordered some smoked pork jowls, so I decided to make a pasta dish with some of the jowls as well as some ground pork, romano beans and some other items. I started by rendering out the fat of the jowls and then following that up with some roughly diced red onion. After the onions and the jowls got acquainted enough I added some garlic and fennel seeds and let it all sweat together for a little longer. The heat was then cranked up and I added the ground pork and got that all browned off. Finally I added some canned roma tomatoes and some canned romano beans and let that simmer for a bit to develop flavour and or thicken it up slightly.

This is the "Pork and Beans" sauce simmering away.

I decided to serve it with fettuccine because it was the widest long pasta that we had available in the cupboard. This is a pic of me loading up my bowl of pasta with some Parmigiano-Reggiano.

And here is the final, delicious product of my slaving in the kitchen (not really, I was only doing actual kitchen work for about 20 minutes!). In the end it was quite delicious and both my dad and brother liked it, not like that is a surprise as my dad will pretty much eat anything.

That concludes my first "meaty" post, so to speak. I hope you all enjoyed it and I will post again soon.

Until next time.

Eli

First Post

So..Umm..Yeah. This is my first blog post ever, so bear with me if it is a bit drab or boring. The main reason for me starting this blog is so that I have a place to present the plethora of ideas that float around in my head ,as well as a place to vent about things in general. As the title of my blog may suggest I consider myself a pretty nerdy person, but I am first and foremost a cook and lover of food. So if you are at all interested in culinary dabblings, epicurean expeditions, and/or of course nerdy goodness then I hope that you will enjoy my ramblings.

With that said, I now embark on a TasteFull voyage of discovery around the seven seas of the blogosphere.

Until next time.

Eli