13 hours and 19 minutes of Star Wars

I spent all day yesterday, 13 hours and 19 minutes to be exact, in the good company of friends and food, watching all six episodes of Star Wars in sequential order. How I survived, I'll never know, but the marathon was fueled with omelets, green curry chicken, Sapporo, PINCH pizza, Starbucks coffee, and nachos.



What better way to spend one of the warmest and most unseasonable NYC winter days than indoors and on a couch. Read a more detailed play by play from Francis at The Pop Culture Manifesto.



PINCH - Pizza By The Inch
416 Park Ave South
Btwn E28th and E29th St
Phone: 212-656-5222
SliceNY review

Two-Buck Chuck moves in to Union Square

There has been plenty of speculation and whispering, even grabbing sneak peaks of raw unfinished space on the empty storefront on East 14th street between Third and Fourth Avenue, but the Times finally confirmed on Wednesday that Trader Joe's will be opening its first Manhattan location in Union Square in 3 months time.



Get your granny carts ready for cases of cheap wine and affordable gourmet and organic food products. The doors should open by the time Spring rears its head.

The Strike is ON

If you live in New York, the only news you've probably been hearing about is the potential NYC Transit Strike in the city, effectively crippling all Subway and Public Bus transportation in all 5 boroughs. Last night, talks broke down and a strike was called at 3AM.



And all these people are walking across the Brooklyn Bridge this morning to get into Manahttan. Do you see the temperature? It's 22 degrees. It's COLD - probably even colder if you're on that bridge.



Happy travels for all of you caught in this mess!

A Menu for Hope II - update #2

Photo credit for Menu for Hope logo: Heidi Swanson
Only 5 more days until the December 24th deadline to donate and A Menu for Hope II is still on a roll, this morning the total was over $8000! Sam from Becks and Posh has re-compiled and organized the list of prizes in light of the recent Typepad emergency that Pim had with her post. The list just gets longer and longer and more and more interesting! Can you believe you could buy a chance to shadow a Michelin-starred Chef in Paris for only $5? It's true!

Comprehensive list of prizes here.

A Menu for Hope II - update

Photo credit for Menu for Hope logo: Heidi Swanson
I've been periodically checking Chez Pim's Menu for Hope II donation total and it is currently over $6000 (*High-5 Pim*)! It's pretty amazing how fast the total is growing everyday and how generous the whole food blogging community is, not just with cash, but literally treasured possessions - check out this post by Barbara from Tigers and Strawberries about a cast-iron kadai and you'll know what I mean.

Thanks for everyone that has donated!

A Menu for Hope II

The author of one of my favorite food blogs, Pim of Chez Pim, has organized an online food-blogging charity event to raise funds for the victims of recent earthquakes in Pakistan and Kashmir. It's important that aid from the international community continue and these victims are not forgotten, especially in the light of recent victims of the Southeast Asian Tsumanis and the US hurricanes.

The donations are going to be funneled to Unicef and will be collected in the form of an online raffle - just donate $5 for a chance to win any one of a list of prizes from food bloggers including a $200 gift certificate to Manresa in Los Gatos, CA from Pim herself and a personalized food tour of Paris from Louisa of Movable Feast.

As a tribute to my newly found love of the ultra-thinly-sliced and waffle-cut potatoes courtesy of my new mandoline, given to me by my buddy Mike on my birthday, I'm offering up a brand new Benriner Kanekichi Slicer for the auction.

Go donate $5 for your chance to win an awesome prize!

From Chez Pim:


Recipe to participate:
1. Find the gift you would like on our menu.
2. Go to A Menu for Hope II donation page and donate $5 or whatever sum you could spare.
3. Tell us in the comment section of your donation form which gift(s) you would like have. Each $5 donation will give you one chance at winning the prize of your choice. (Yes, if you donate more than $5, you are allowed to specify more than one prize.)
4. That's it!


Our campaign will end on December 23rd, and the winners will be announced and the prizes sent to corresponding winners after January 1st 2006. 

Update on Chez Pim


Photo credit for Menu for Hope logo: Heidi Swanson

Jet-setting to Paris

Friday was quite an interesting day to say the least. It started out with a huge snow storm and UPS knocking at my door. As noon came around, the sun was out and the snow was mostly melted. By 2PM, I decided to go to Paris with my roommate Susana on a last minute trip and at 6PM I was on my way 35,000 feet in the air above JFK airport.

What did we go to Paris for you ask? I had no idea. What did we end up doing there? Eat, eat, and eat - a culinary adventure of sorts. I didn't go to a single tourist attraction there. The closest that I came to one was walking by the Notre Dame and Pont Neuf, but that's just cause it happened to be along the way home from our Saturday night dinner in a restaurant on Ile Saint Louis.

Here's how it all began:

This was suprisingly tastier than it looks. Having traveled extensively, flying 4 times a week for a period of over 2 years, I must say that this was probably one of the best economy class meals I've ever had, of course this is all relatively speaking. Stay tuned, in a couple hours time ti will be morning on Saturday in Paris...

Holy crap, gotta pack

I just booked last minute tickets from NYC to Paris and the flight leaves in 3 hours! Holy crap, I've always wanted to do those last-minute travel deals on http://www.travelzoo.com, but never thought I actually would! I'll be back on Sunday evening with a full report.

I don't even have time to think about what I want to do there yet...

An early Christmas

Santa came knocking at my door dressed in a brown pair of pants and matching brown button-up shirt delivering a slew of boxes from the North Pole (aka Amazon.com). If you didn't already know, Santa secretly works for UPS 364 days of the year. So the other day, actually it was just Wednesday, I went on a shopping spree on Amazon because my credit card company, American Express, gave me a 25% off gift certificate from American Express, finally giving me an excuse to get a Cuisinart and Kitchen-aid. 


Needless to say, I milked that gift certificate for all that it was worth - up to $150 off of $600. Check out the receipt - take off another $25 rebate from Kitchen-Aid and the mixer only set me back $104.58 and it only took 2 days even with Super Saver Shipping (aka hand-delivered by Sherpa and Mule). Be on the lookout for more Kitchen-Aid-aided pictures and posts cause I'm gonna be playing with this new toy for a while.

If you didn't think the Bush family was already weird enough..

Try this on for thought - Ariel De Guzman, personal chef of George Bush Sr and Barbara Bush, or in Al Franken's words: "The Enforcer," has published a book: The Bush Family Cookbook.


This is the most repulsive cookbook I've ever read about, with recipes comparable only to those found in the Sunday paper's coupon section - full of canned, pre-packaged, and frozen foods mixed in with massive amounts of butter, cream, and sugar. Read more here.

No wonder why the Bushes are so creepy.

By the way, I know its a little late, but congratulations to Filipina-American Cris Comerford, first woman to be Executive Chef of the White House. What's with all these Filipino's cooking for the Bush family???

On another note..


Kanye West: "George Bush doesn't care about Black people."
Mike Myers: ".."
Chris Tucker: ".."