Perpetual Carouse

It's been called the greatest sandwich on earth (ok, it was me that called it that, but I don't really get much argument there...), and now you can make it at home: Bakesale Betty's Fried Chicken Sandwich.

Apparently, Disney is backing out of their plan to sell Ratatouille-branded wine. According to Consumerist, Disney and Costco (the proposed retailer) are under investigation by the Alcoholic Beverage Control for attempting to market to minors.

The idea that Disney would be marketing booze to minors seems a bit of a stretch to me. More likely, their target was nerdy adult fans of the movie (myself included) eager to drop some coin on Ratatouille-related merch. Speaking of which, I was in Disneyland recently, and there was nary a Ratatouille product to buy. Had there been, I surely would have come home with a lot of it.

And, by the way, the food sucks at Disneyland. All of it. I wasn't exactly expecting Thomas Keller, but really, would it kill them to have something decent? At least you can get a microbrew in California Adventure... which after two days of walking around in the sun was just about the best beer I ever had. Nearly 8 bucks a pop, though.

I've long been fascinated with food photography. I drool over food porn magazines monthly; I buy cookbooks and spend more time looking at the pictures than actually cooking from them. I've even been known to carry a camera to the farmers market in order to take macro shots of tomatoes and pluots and whatever else catches my eye. I've even stopped in the middle of making a sandwich to grab a few shots.

One area food photography I find particularly amusing is menus at chain restaurants. The burgers and salads always look so perfect and luxurious and are almost always a far cry from what eventually lands on your plate (or paper wrapper). Consumerist has a great comparison shot of Chili's Awesome Blossom. You'd think in an arena where consistency and standardization are paramount above almost everything else, they'd at least try to make the fantasy and reality a tiny bit closer together.

Since I'm on the subject of photography, check out the freakishly weird faux cocaine decoration Michael Bauer's got on his blog.

A fake bowl of cocaine makes a splashy party centerpiece, but there's also plenty of the real thing in the restaurant industry.

Bauer rolls with an interesting crowd. I've been to some crazy parties in my day, but damn!

The post itself is somewhat boring, with some stats about drug use in the industry. No big revelations, especially for anyone who has worked or hung around with people in the industry. What is interesting are all the comments from people insisting that there's no way drugs are present at their favorite restaurant.

The East Bay Express has an interesting article this week about a plan to build a Ferry Building-style food emporium at Jack London Square called Harvest Hall. I've been hearing whispers about the plan for years, but like many things in Oakland, whispers are still all there is. The author suggests that the plan might be nothing more than a smokescreen to allow developers to take over the area at cut-rate prices, but I'm not entirely convinced. Some of the evidence is compelling, however.

As much as I'd love to see the Harvest Hall idea take off, the plan has plenty of flaws. For one, I seriously doubt that the neighborhood can support artisinal producers in the way that San Francisco's Ferry Building has. Frankly, I don't even think the Ferry Building would have succeeded in another SF neighborhood. The Ferry Building's location onthe Embarcadero, the nexus of virtually every form of transit in the city, spitting distance to the Financial District and its proximity to touristy never-never lands ensures a constant stream of visitors and locals from SF and other Bay Area cities.

Jack London, on the other hand, is 12 long, depressing blocks from BART, and being on the other side of downtown from the rest of Oakland and the entire East Bay, it's not exactly a friendly destination for drivers or bus riders either. The only convenient transportation is the ferry... which originates at the SF Ferry Building. No one would ever pass up the SF Ferry Building in order to come shop in Oakland. Plus riding the ferry is about $7 a pop, one-way.

I don't have terribly high hopes, but I certainly hope they can make it work. If anything, it's clear that something needs to change at Jack London Square. As much as I've tried to love it over the years, I never could. Despite the killer waterfront location, I (and most others, judging by the ghosttown-sized crowds) never really liked the collection of chains and shitty over-priced restaurants. It always feels kind of manufactured and fake. Kind of like Disneyland, but in a bad way where it's dirty and people are rude and there's nothing interesting to do, look at, or buy.

I hate most grocery stores. Maybe if they turned my local Safeway into a ride, I'd enjoy it more.

What happens when you miss something you really need?

According to Consumerist, the Center for Science in the Public Interest has determined that "100 Calorie Packs" of various snack foods are a total ripoff. Turns out those little bags of crackers and cookies have a per-ounce cost two to three times higher than the same thing in larger packages.

Does this surprise anyone? Really?

The processed food industry runs on a system of taking extremely cheap products, adding some sort of "value" to them, and re-selling them at a huge markup. The real story here is how much money got wasted by the CSPI to "figure out" that buying in bigger packages saves money. These 100 calorie packs are just another way for the processed food industry to charge a premium for the lowest-possible-quality product. As a bonus, in packaging them by calorie content, GiantFoodCo also gets to bask in the glow of appearing to do something healthy for the consumer, while simultaneously feeding us more high fructose corn syrup.

If you're around San Francisco this Thursday and hankering for a cocktail, check out Stop AIDS Project's Bar AIDS charity event.

Bars around the city will be donating a percentage of their proceeds on August 23 to the Stop AIDS Project. Mix on 18th St. is donating 100% of their sales, and several other bars are donating 25 and 50 percent of their sales. Check the list of participating bars, then go forth and drink!

The Times had a story this weekend about trans-fat-free fried yummies at the Indiana State Fair. It seems the fair has banned trans-fat in their fried potatoes, corn dogs, oreos, elephant ears, Snickers bars, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Oh, and fried Pepsi, too.

Mmmmm... fried Reese's. Deep-fried Twinkies totally sucked, but for some reason, fried chocolatey peanut butter goo sounds really good.

Less laughing. More bacon!

Chow.com and Square One vodka are hosting a cocktail competition. Amateurs and pros alike are invited to submit recipes for pitcher-sized cocktails using Square One vodka and organic ingredients.

Winners gets a $300 set of bar tools and a trip to San Francisco to pour drinks at an Iron Chef-style battle to determine -er- whose cocktail reigns supreme.

Unfortunately, due to some California booze laws, if you live in California and you win, your prize will be awarded to someone else (but you'll still be able to come to the final event, provided you pay for your own transpo and a ticket to the event). So yeah, you basically get nothing, other than the opportunity to work at a ticketed event for free.