urbeatle interviews me

[rone]

Are there any other foods besides refried beans that you hate with an unholy passion?

Well, let's be clear.  I don't hate refried beans per se.  What i hate is their ubiquity in restaurants.  Refried beans are repurposed leftovers; it's what you do with old beans.  You mash them up and, duh, RE-FRY THEM.  You want to dine out and ask for that?  It makes a small amount of sense if you have a huge case of nostalgia for your mama's refried beans, but otherwise, it's just nuts.

Now, there are lots of foods that i hate with an unholy passion, but as for other foods that i hold in a similar regard to refried beans... i dunno.  Meatloaf, perhaps.  I mean, really, who the hell orders meatloaf in a restaurant?

You call yourself an "eight of all trades", which I understand completely, since I feel that way myself. Does it ever infuriate you?

It used to.  Now that i'm trying to get a new job, it's starting to infuriate me again, and i'm trying to take steps to remedy this.  I've come to the realization, as i look for a new job, that the year or two at Macromedia were too comfortable for me, and i didn't progress professionally.  That has to change this year, no matter what.

Are you going to start a wine war with Robot Terri?

You know, i first read that as "wine bar".  No, i would not start a wine war with twillis any more than the United States would start a war with Grenada.  No, wait, let me rephrase that.

Who is your favorite curmudgeon, and who would you like to watch getting the crapped kicked out of him by said curmudgeon?

I don't know.  Curmudgeons have such a short shelf-life; look at H. L. Mencken or George Carlin.  They're on top and suddenly everything goes pear-shaped for them and then they just suck.  Plus, i'm past the point in my life where i enjoyed that sort of negativity for its own sake.  Perhaps dr_strych9 is my favorite curmudgeon these days.  Naturally, he should be kicking the crap out of every single person who was at any time a part of the Bush Administration.  Yes, even good ol' Colin Powell, bless him.

Aside from your wife, what do you love the most about the U.S.?

Our nuclear weapons.  I can't wait till mine arrives in the mail.

Comments

[zadcat.livejournal.com]

Ben's got the same attitude to fried rice: it's something you might throw together in a Chinese domestic kitchen because you've got some leftovers and some cold steamed rice handy. It isn't something you'd order to have made on purpose as a treat.

Probably all major cuisines have things like this.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

In fact, i was thinking of mentioning fried rice, but i lacked the proper cultural referents. Hunan Taste is unusual in that they make their fried rice with fresh rice instead of day-old rice.

[ltempt.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I'd be surprised if many restaurants use day-old rice for that dish. They'd sell so much of it they wouldn't have the left-over supplies to keep up.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Hunan Taste used to have a San Jose Mercury News article on their wall that compared the fried rice from six restaurants. HT was the only one that used same-day rice.

They use a huge rice cooker. You could stew a toddler in it and have room for potatoes.

[ltempt.livejournal.com]

If one can stew a toddler in a rice cooker and have room for potatoes, why bother with rice at all?

[matrushkaka.livejournal.com]

You could stew a toddler in it and have room for potatoes.

Mmmm, deeeeleeecious, tender babies ...

[velvet-wood.livejournal.com]

Okay, the thing about fried rice is that you don't get the right texture if you use freshly cooked rice. Unless you let it get completely cold and sit for a few hours, it tends to stick together and be glompy and disgusting instead of fluffy and seperate. Good fried rice is rare, but excellent. Bad fried rice is inedible.

The same thing goes for refried beans. They're no more leftovers that 'twice cooked pork' is a leftover. The 're' just means that to get the product, you have to go through two distinct cooking processes. You boil the beans first, but not to eat them. They're cooked specificially for the purpose of draining them, letting them cool a little bit, and smooshing them up in a pan of sizzling bacon grease and grilled onions, adding ancho powder, chilis, tabasco sauce, maybe some poblano peppers, and a whole lotta cheese. They're not leftovers. You can't take the pot of 'black bean soup' or the 'red beans' that they serve on the menu, too, and make them into refried beans. However...most refried beans you find in restaurants are so awful that they might as well be leftovers. They're practically unseasoned, have no grease in them (hence, removing their right to call then reFRIED, IMO) of any sort, and have never seen a skillet. They're just unseasoned pinto beans that have been drained and run through a blender and maybe had a little cheese sprinkled on top. _Yuck_. Done right, they're much tastier, I promise, especially when accompanied by homemade chicken chimichanga in sour-cream sauce, or nice, hot tabasco grilled chicken fajitas. One day, I'm going to give in and start making my own tortilla's too...homemade is just so much better.

[ltempt.livejournal.com]

WTF is an "Eight of all trades"? Is that like a "Jack of all trades", but with a much lower value? Someone who hopes that one day they may rise to the dizzy heights of a "Nine of all trades"?

I don't think I've ever met someone who is a genuine generalist. I mean, my workload is pretty damn general - a typical day might involve Solaris, HPUX, Cisco stuff, running some ethernet cable, fighting with a Cyclades, soldering up some serial leads, dealing with storage arrays and then fixing an Alphaserver. That's pretty general. However, dealing with clustering/HA is niche enough it leaves me the "cluster specialist".

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Got it in one. Have a cookie.

I don't have a good, solid niche, just a bunch of shallow grooves that could become niches if i do a little digging.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

I do love our nukes. I purposely avoid using the phrase "nuclear option" to describe stupid things like congressional votes and contract clauses because I don't want to sound so stupid in retrospect as soon as I actually have some nukes of my own.

Also, homemade fried rice is a tasty receptacle for leftover vegetables. It's like trying to make a fritatta and shifting midcourse into paella territory.

Not that anyone asked, but the curmudgeon I love to hate is NPR's Daniel Schorr. I hate him, but I love the spelling of his name. I'd like him to kick the ass of all people listed on Nixon's Enemies List, starting with his own. On "All Things Considered," if possible, and if not, "Weekend Edition Saturday," to be followed immediately by one of Scott Simon's thumbsucking essay bits.

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

In other words, you're your own favorite curmudgeon?

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

There were times when i used to be, yes.

[eviltofu.livejournal.com]

Refried Beans Fried Rice.

[twillis.livejournal.com]

You know, i first read that as "wine bar". No, i would not start a wine war with twillis any more than the United States would start a war with Grenada. No, wait, let me rephrase that.

OK, I can be fair just this once and admit that our wine making and appreciation skills occupy very different niches. Like someday rone will preside over a fancy ass orchard and sell fancy ass whine to fancy ass yuppies for fancy ass prices, while I'll be more like Granny Clampett.

All I need is some "XXX" clipart to make my wine labels with.

[jwgh]

XXX clipart?

[twillis.livejournal.com]

Not that kind of XXX clipart, ya perv.

Don't you know that all proper moonshine jugs have "X X X" written on the side?

[cda.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way (re refried beans) about ordering pasta in upscale restaurants. (Except for fancy raviolis, which, well, maaaybe.) But to pay $17.95 for a bowl of spaghetti? I don't care how many clams you sprinkle on them. They're congealed flour and water. Please.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I make an exception for Mio Vicino's shellfish pasta, which is ultra-garlicky and has lots of prawns. But the last time i had it, it was fairly unsatisfying, so i might end up phasing it out of my rotation.

[opadit.livejournal.com]

Fried rice is one of my favorite foods to make at home. It's very "Michele" to use up leftovers like that.