TK's Recipe of the Week: Guinness Beef Stew

Well, actually vegetable-beef-Guinness stew, but who's counting.  Beef stew is awesome for the winter but yesterday it was 70 degrees out.  I made it anyway.  I cobbled this recipe together from a Guinness Brewery recipe booklet I got somewhere and another beef stew recipe I got somewhere else.  All beef stew is built on the same premise - throw a bunch of beef and vegetables and broth in a pot and simmer for 2 hours - so it's not like I invented cold fusion over here.  Anyway, enjoy.

1/4 c olive oil
1 1/2 - 2 lbs stew beef, cut into 1-inch pieces or however you big you want
6 large garlic cloves, minced
4 c beef broth
4 c vegetable broth
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp dried thyme NOT 1 TABLESPOON BOY WAS THAT A MISTAKE
1 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp butter.  Or more.  You can always go more butter.
3 pounds russet potatoes, peeled, cut into like 1-inch pieces, or bigger
1 large onion, chopped
2 cups chopped peeled carrots
Sale and pepper as needed
1 4-pack Guinness in cans with the thing that goes PSSSSSSSSSST when you crack it

Open one of the Guinnesses and begin drinking it.

Heat oil in large heavy pot over medium-high heat.  Add beef, salt and pepper it, and saute until brown on all sides.  Add garlic and saute 1 more minute.  Then add all the broth, tomato paste, thyme, Worcestershire sauce, and bay leaves.  Stir it all up and bring it to a boil.  Then reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for about an hour, stirring occasionally.

Open another Guinness and drink it.

Chop up the onion, potatoes, and carrots.  Melt the butter in another big pot over medium heat.  Add the potatoes, carrots, and onions and saute until the potatoes are golden, about 20 minutes.  Add vegetables to the beef stew.  Open another Guinness and pour that in too.  It'll foam up a little, but that's normal.  You're normal.  You're fine.  Now simmer the whole thing uncovered for about 40 minutes. 

Put it into bowls and eat with some crusty bread.  It will be fucking HOT at first, so let it cool down, you idiot.  There should be one Guinness left, so go ahead and have that with it too.  Or red wine, whatever.

Delicious, and it reheats like a champ.  I just had some!  It kicked fucking ass.

Email Habits of the Tightly Wound

Hey, help me figure out if I'm way off here or what.  I never can tell with these kind of things.  I'm so sensitive that when the BART guy in the glass cube is a little rude to me when I ask him something I always go away like "Why does the BART guy hate me so much?  What did I do?" 

So today's problem in navigating our Strange and Complicated World has to do with emails and texting.  I know these people - NOT YOU, OTHER PEOPLE - who are what we might call Bad Responders.  That is, they're not so great at responding to emails and/or texts.  So I'm not sure if they're just not living up to my extremely demanding standards or if they're just being rude and I have to get used to it.

Let's baseline this thing first.  Here's my rule: if you email me, and the subject line isn't something like FWD: FWD: FWD: RE: RE: RE: RE: STATIC ELECTRICITY CAN KILL, I will most likely respond.  So EXAMPLE let's say you send me an email that's something like "Hey, check out this video of a cat watching a video of another cat."  Even if it's inane, which is totally is, and even if I've seen it before, which I assuredly have, I will still take 23 seconds and email you back and say 'That video is whack. You have to check out this video of an anteater watching a video of a marmoset, that shit is dope."

These people I'm talking about are at the other end of the spectrum.  Unless your email or text is something like "HEY WERE YOU ABLE TO GET THAT KIDNEY DONATION FOR ME I'M SCHEDULED FOR SURGERY IN 1 HR", it's likely that they will not respond. NOT 100% OF THE TIME, just most of the time. Sometimes they surprise me and respond. Life is mysterious.

So let's run through some scenarios and you tell me if a response is warranted or not.

SCENARIO #1: I email you and attach an article that is highly relevant to your interests and say "hey, whilst perusing the Internet I came across this article that is highly relevant to your interests and thought I'd pass it along."  MY RULE: I at least say "Hey, thanks."  Is a response called for in this situation?

SCENARIO #2: I email you and say "You're not going to believe who I ran into this weekend.  Our mutual friend Z.  He asked after you and I told him you were busy preparing for your backpacking trip through Ecuador/playing Call of Duty/maintaining your heroin habit. He's doing well."  MY RULE: Email response along the lines of "Huh, interesting, glad to hear Z has pulled himself together."  Is a response called for in this situation?

SCENARIO #3: I email you and say "I'm heading out to the bake sale/beer party/poetry slam on Saturday, if you want to come along."  MY RULE: This demands at least a "yay" or "nay."  Is a response called for in this situation?

What do you think, Internet?  Thanks for helping to calibrate my neurosis.

Brief reviews of a few things

Lincoln is a movie about ex-Raider OT Lincoln Kennedy and his rise to fame on FOX Sports.  No, not really, it's actually a film about people talking in poorly-lit rooms.  Most of the film is Abraham Lincoln telling amusing anecdotes.  Daniel Day-Lewis plays Lincoln and is already a mortal lock for the Best Actor Oscar, and I have no idea who else will even be nominated, doesn't matter, he's like the five dollar bill came to life and started chatting.  When other actors heard DDL was going to play Lincoln they were probably like "Well fuck that, I'm just going to cruise through a romcom with Reese Witherspooon and pick up a check this year instead of doing that film where I play a retard whose Dad died.  No sense wasting Oscar bait this year if Daniel's playing a historical figure and/or someone with a grave disability."

But seriously, it's really good, even if it is a bit hagiographical.  Is that a word?  I guess that's a word.  Only one brief mention of Lincoln suspending habeas corpus and nothing about him, say, executing 39 Native Americans after show trials, but hey, nobody's perfect.  (And also the first scene is kind of a groaner, but let's overlook that.)  (Oh, also, the guy who plays Lena Dunham's boyfriend on "Girls" is in one scene and that was a bit of a record-scratching-sound moment for me. Luckily, unlike in "Girls," he wears his shirt pretty much the whole time.)

The Tee Off is a bar and grill on Clement Street across from the Lincoln Park golf course.  We had dinner there Saturday evening at the suggestion of some people we were meeting up with.  I didn't realize it when we made the plans, but the TO was featured on Guy Fieri's show on Food Network.  (Here's a video of the episode someone made by pointing a camera at the TV. In it, Guy Fieri uses the word "macerates.")

Anyway, it's got your usual semi-dive-bar clubby vibe.  The bartender and server were both super nice.  In fact, when I was having trouble deciding which beer to have next, the server brought me little shot glasses of a couple of beers she thought I might like.  That's pretty good service.  The food was fine-ish.  I had the fish & chips, and the fish had a nice crispy crust but it was pretty mushy in the middle.  The fries were excellent, though.  Also, it was $100 for four people including dinner and multiple drinks, so try beating that, French Laundry!

Last night was the half-season finale of Walking Dead (link contains spoilers, so LOOK THE FUCK OUT).  I have a love-extreme nervousness relationship with Walking Dead.  The disclaimer at the beginning - that some material may be too intense for some viewers? - that's me.  I'm some viewers.  Anyway, I can't stop watching, and this season has been a vast improvement over last season. (Side note: when did we start having half-season finales? Is this going to be our new reality now? Do we just have to live with that?)

I guess I can't say much about last night without spoiling it for all you people who haven't seen it yet or whatever, but I think the takeaway from this season so far is that if last season was like an extended therapy session, this season has been more like testing how much disgusting shit people can handle.  Saddam Hussein would watch this season and be all like "Ugh, that is REVOLTING, get that shit off the TV."  Anyway, it's a must-watch in our house.  There are still a lot of flaws, but it's always interesting.

Rain is a naturally occurring climatological phenomenon that causes local TV news reporters to don silly-looking gear and go outside and report that it's raining.

Another boring post about how bad rents in SF have gotten

I know, it's been a while!  I missed all you guys a lot, but I was busy flying all over the US and having Thanksgiving and whatnot.  Nothing bad happened on any of the flights (except for one jackass slamming his seat into full recline 12 seconds after takeoff and essentially eliminating half of my usable space [Incidentally, we should just agree, as a society, that we can no longer recline our seats. The airlines have fucked us on that one by making the seats way too close together. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is.  If you recline your seat into the lap of the person behind you, you are now a total asshole.  Them's the breaks.]), to which I credit the tender mercies of Frontier Airlines, my longtime favorite airline.

Also, every Frontier flight just about goes through Denver, and Denver has one of the last airports with multiple bars you can smoke in without leaving the airport.  I quit smoking a while back but that was nice to have when I needed it.

WAIT I'VE GOTTEN COMPLETELY OFF TRACK. WHAT WERE WE SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT.

Oh, right, rents in SF!  Crazy!  Not long ago I happened onto this post on Curbed about what you can rent for $2000-$2500 a month and was SHOCKED to see the STUDIO across the hall from where I used to live on Frederick is going for $2,250!!!  HOLY FUCK.  That is a STUDIO.  Now, it's a big studio - I should know, I've been in it - and it has a nice big separate kitchen and all, but come the fuck on.

I had the 1-bedroom across the hall from 1992 to 1996.  We paid $895.  According to my handy inflation calculator, that's $1432 in today's dollars.  That's for the ONE-BEDROOM, not the studio.  Since the ad is still up, I guess that means that it still hasn't been rented.  I hope they never rent it at that price. 

Similarly, as I've mentioned in the past, when I first moved to SF in 1990, I lived at 350 Union, in a furnished studio that cost $685.  Same studio today is $1939.  Inflation calculator says it should be $1212.  That's still a lot, but it's not $1939.

I'm not going to launch into another one of those what-happened-and-what-does-it-all-mean articles like this one, except to make one small observation: when rents are this ridiculously high, it greatly restricts the kind of people who can move to SF, and that's a bummer.  I certainly doubt I could have afforded that studio in 1990 for $1095 (i.e., 1939 in 1990 dollars), so I would have been effectively kept out.  I'm not saying that I've been some kind of magical addition to SF or anything, but I'm lightweight worried that cool people who don't make six figures are being kept out and who knows what we're missing out on. 

That said, I have no idea what the answer is.  I get the objections to the micro-apartments that have been approved, but doesn't it seem like a reasonable compromise?  If I was 23, I'd live in one, for sure.

Holiday travelers, shoppers brace for busy week

[ED. NOTE: Are you a beleaguered and probably hungover metro reporter who has been assigned the busy shopping/traveling story this week?  Stay in bed, turn on the TV, and file the following story.  Simply select the best options, where provided, for your local area.]

As Thanksgiving approaches, (Tri-State/Quin-city/area) travelers have little to be thankful for. From long security lines at local airports to rising gas prices, the road to Grandma's house may be more challenging than ever this year.

"We're driving this year," says local resident (Stephen Janeki/Jesus Moreno/Tufui Ai'i).  The way that airline fares are right now, we couldn't afford to fly."  His family may find that local roads are (clogged with fellow travelers/remarkably empty thanks to the hantavirus/filled with idiots).

At (Clarence C. "Bud" Shapiro/Eisenhower/Marco Rubio) International Airport, long security lines greeted frantic flyers, many of whom bore Thanksgiving treats that prompted extra scrutiny.  TSA officials remind travelers that (baked goods/liquor/cash) will likely be confiscated, so please do not argue with any of the nation's valiant, brave TSA officials.

Meanwhile, employees at the (Shady Tree/Value Village/Hiddenbrooke) Mall braced for an onslaught of Black Friday shoppers seeking deep discounts.  "It's gonna be crazy," said (J.C. Penny/Hot Topic/Animal Attic) employee (Stacee Robledo/Marcia Spoon-Withers/"Dave").  "We're opening at 10 pm on Thanksgiving night, to accommodate the crowds of (anxious shoppers/drunk people/soulless dead-eyed automatons)."  At the (Computer Cabana/Toy Shoppe/Wal-Mart), employees expected that (cheaply made Korean laptops/Touch Me Elmo/multiple baby baby formula) would be a big seller.

But many area residents paused during this busy time to remember those less fortunate.  At the (Salvation Army shelter/soup kitchen/downtown library), some families volunteered their time to help the homeless and hungry.  "It warms my heart, man," said (Jed Johnson/"Porkchop"/Andy Dick), who said he ran into trouble when (his house was foreclosed/he tried Four Loko/he had a show on the CW).  "These people giving their time to help out someone like me."

(Giving back/helping others/a 50" plasma flatscreen), it seems, is the best present of all.

Urban etiquette: Let's go to the grocery store!

It's almost Thanksgiving!  That means record numbers of Americans will enter a grocery store.  Or something.  I mean, a lot of Americans go grocery shopping every week.  Like me.  Here are some tips to help you be less of an asshole while you're buying dry goods and/or Nutella.

1. Your dog doesn't want to go grocery shopping with you.

I love dogs!  I have one.  Everyone I know has one or two.  They're the San Francisco version of children.  They're especially San Francisco because you can bring them into some bars.  Anyway, your dog doesn't want to go grocery shopping with you, so don't bring him/her.  I swear, I see a lot more dogs in grocery stores these days.  I'm starting to get used to it, which is worrying.  If you need me to explain to you why you shouldn't bring your dog grocery shopping, we have already given up as a society.

Look at the dog! With his little shopping cart! That's ridiculous. (Photo stolen from Darf Blog.)

2. Hey bitch, you're blocking the aisle with your cart while you mindlessly jabber away on your cell phone

This phenomenon, part of the broader problem of inconsiderate cell phone use, seems to be more prevalent at - HERE COMES A SHOCKER - the Marina Safeway, in my experience.  Anyway, try to be at least a little mindful of the people around you? Okay?  We can't see the Smuckers selection through you.

3. I am a real person with thoughts and feelings

True story: I am at the Church & Market Safeway selecting red peppers when a guy LITERALLY gets DIRECTLY in front of me and starts manhandling all the peppers.  Like I was Patrick Swayze in Ghost.  At first I thought he was joking and then I was just like "I'M NOT IN YOUR WAY AM I" and he looked up all startled but even this little bit of Public Shaming didn't deter him from his Rude Pepper Grasping. 

So if someone is looking at some produce you want to look at too, WAIT FOR THEM TO MOVE AND THEN YOU CAN LOOK AT PRODUCE NEXT.  Fuck.

4. I gather there are all kinds of different rules transgressions at Rainbow, but I practice basic hygiene and eat meat like a normal person so I never go there

If you have some juicy Rainbow breach of etiquette stories, post them in the comments, hippie.

5. The Whole Foods at Franklin and California is a vortex of misery and general dickish behavior.  Don't ever go there.

6. Here's the big one: 15 ITEMS OR FEWER

You know who you are, you evil little shit.  You count all boxed goods as one item or you think "Eh, 16, close enough."  NOT CLOSE ENOUGH.  Here's the rule: if it's all in one container, it's one item.  Otherwise, it is MULTIPLE ITEMS.  12 apples in a bag?  Cool bro, one item.  4 cans of Dinty Moore beef stew?  FOUR ITEMS. 

Needless to say, if you get in the 15-or-less line with more than 15 items, you are irredeemably evil and there is no place for you in society.  Quit your job and go live under an overpass with the other sex offenders, you writhing piece of human garbage.

PROGRAMMING NOTE: As is our wont this time of year, we are off to the Old Country on Monday to Thanksgive with the extended fam.  Blogging may be sporadic.  In the meantime, enjoy the Thanksgiving Schedule I threw up in 2010 and which is still mostly true except I don't think we drink as much anymore.  The Wife sure doesn't, what with the foetus and all!  Anyway, have a nice whatever it is you do.

Movie Tuesday

I don't do a lot of movie reviews because God knows that is well-trodden Internet ground, but once in a while a movie comes along that is so annoying and pretentious that I am moved to say a few words about it.  Save the Date is just such a movie.

You would think that post-Mumblecore, the world would be ready for the astutely-made, three-act conventional structure hipster romantic comedy. I think that's what they might have been going for here, although who knows really. Unfortunately, unlike airplanes, movies don't come with a black box so you can analyze the data after a crash and see just what the filmmakers were trying to do and whether anyone ever yelled "PULL UP! PULL UP!" during production.

Basically, the movie is about a pair of objectionable sisters played by Alison Brie and Lizzy Caplan.  Alison Brie is about to get married and is freaking out about gift bags and invitations in a very cliched way while her put-upon fiancee with scraggly hair and a beard just wants them to have fun like they used to.  Lizzy Caplan is, I gather, some kind of Williamsburg/Los Feliz sex symbol with the big dumb eyes of a slow loris and a self-consciously quirky post-Zooey Deschanel vibe.  She's also rail-thin like everyone else in this movie.  In the film, she is some kind of artist, although her "art" more closely resembles primitive cartoons or doodles in the margin of notes she took during classes at Oberlin.  After her boyfriend, who is the lead singer in a band and looks not unlike Marty Feldman in a wig, proposes to her, she dumps him and takes up with a marine biologist named Jonathan who is so twee and fey that the first time they kiss, he begs off because you "know what kissing leads to" and flaps his arms like a bird and flees Lizzy Caplan's apartment.  What she sees in him is never adequately explained, unless she is looking for an 11-year-old boy in a cardigan and attempt at a beard. 

Nothing really happens in the rest of the movie.  People show up drunk to each other's apartments and it's awkward.  People without any visible means of support occupy warehouse lofts in LA that must rent for $3000 a month.  The same joke about bands with "wolf" in the name is deployed twice, landing flat both times. There is one plot twist that I won't spoil here but is so obvious and pointless you can see it coming a mile away and still don't give a shit. 

I would really like to see a smart, modern romantic comedy that's not afraid to play with the conventions a little bit and features characters that somehow resemble people you actually know, instead of Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston.  Maybe that's what they were going for here.  I don't know.

(We saw this on Comcast On Demand last night and I gather it's not in theaters yet so heads up, you've been warned well in advance.)

On the other hand, Cloud Atlas was great and you should definitely see that.  It's big and sprawling and somewhat confusing but it's so interesting and thought-provoking that all else is forgiven, even Tom Hanks being somewhat miscast.  Just the idea of translating that megalith of a book into something you can fit on the screen in a little under three hours is amazing to me.  Hats off to the screenwriter for pulling that off.