johnnyhongkong says…

well hemingway didn’t last. the issues – which Lee-Roy cogently delineated – began eating away at me. i liked the idea of hemingway but until her issues get solved, i just couldn’t see myself living with her. The fluttery honeymoon stage only lasted a mere 24 hours. Hemi, it wasn’t you, just your design. Here’s a parting shot for those of you who missed her:

And for those of you who miss New Zen, here’s a screen grab from the old theme:

So this is what we have. It’s a theme called Theorem designed by Oliver Beattie. Like I said, I may as well be wearing wigs with this whole theme switching, so this still may change. Have a look around. This theme uses widgets in the sidebar. I’m not exactly sure how to get some of them to work but for the time being, you guys from China and Japan who get here by (g)oogling “hong kong sexy girl fuck video” you can now read the blog in your state of frustration thanks to the translate widget in the sidebar which supports 10 different languages!

We’re multi-culti friendly here at jhk.

if you’re one of the few people who still visit the site as opposed to gettting the jhk-freshness through an rss reader, you’ll notice that we got a “haircut.” we tried to get ultra hip with kiwi and canvas but they proved too farm fresh, kinda like how the mullet has been back for years now but there’s only one Phillipino dude who’s high fashion enough to rock it properly.

so this is what we got. for now. it’s hemingway for those who dig it and who run wordpress. it may change. who knows.

Rick Dobbs, who is “saving the world one drink at a time” at Martini Lounge, commented on the Consumerist post about my Whole Foods Rotten Fruit Percentage:

Whole Foods does not throw out fruit that is about to rot in respect of their feelings and the rejection they may feel by being thrown out. This policy will continue until there is unflinching proof that fruit cannot feel rejected and will not need post-rejection therapy.

I wonder if Whole Foods will spring for my post-biting-into-a-moldy-ass-piece-of-fruit-food-poisoning hospital bill or more likely, the therapy bill for the PTSD I have from waking up and seeing my tangerines overtaken by mold after only a matter of 10 hours. It’s truly frightening; it’s like a mogwai turning into a gremlin even though you’ve followed all of the rules.

Oh, that’s right, they don’t care about me because I’m not a fucking lobster…

In the event you’re interested, on on this day in history (June 27th) from http://www.infoplease.com/:

1844

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints founder Joseph Smith was murdered by a mob in Carthage, Ill.

1898

Joshua Slocum became the first person to successfully circumnavigate the earth alone when he landed his sloop Spray in Newport, R.I., a 46,000-mile trip.

1922

The Newbery Medal for children’s literature was first awarded.

1950

President Harry S. Truman ordered the Air Force and Navy into the Korean War.

1954

The world’s first atomic power station opened at Obninsk, near Moscow.

1969

Police and gays clashed at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, fostering the gay rights movement.

1985

The legendary Route 66, running from Chicago to Santa Monica, Calif., was decertified, the victim of the Interstate Highway System.

2003

The national do-not-call registry, formed to combat unwanted telemarketing calls and administered by the Federal Trade Commission, enrolled almost three-quarters of a million phone numbers on its first day.

what about 2004? Helloooo?

* Here’s a better list, but still no entry for 2004.

Salon has a great interview with globetrotting, celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, who I had an affinity for even before I found out that he too “misspent” his youth at Vassar (at least he got out).

You’ll need a subscription to read the article or you can watch a brief commercial to get the Day Pass but it’s worth it as Bourdain lets loose with his usual searing frankness on Rachael Ray, being proven wrong, rude vegans, the problems with food safety, and still other stuff he gets salty about.

In light of the posts on my battle with Whole Foods and my ongoing struggle with Carmen Santa Rosa about veganism, here’s a little amusee trio for your hungry yeux:

You’ve never had much love for vegans, and that doesn’t seem to be something you’ve revised your opinion on.

Never. They’re rude! People’s choice to become vegan, from people I’ve spoken to, seems motivated by fear. Like, “it’s possibly toxic, or ungroovy, or poisonous, or loaded with chemicals or some kind of harmful things that’ll make me less healthy.” I certainly don’t see that as a good reason to do anything, certainly not a good reason to be rude to your host.

How can you travel? Before you’ve even left home, you’ve already decided, “I reject most of the world’s bounty and the expression of their hopes and dreams and culture.” Some nice, possibly impoverished Vietnamese rice farmer is nice enough to offer you the one chicken he can kill a month, or a week, and you say, “Sorry, I can’t”? It just seems antihuman. It’s antisocial.

And for anyone who says that everyone should eat like that — it completely ignores the fact that, well, we can’t afford to. We’ve got hungry people in this world. Go stay with the Bushmen for a week. Ninety-eight percent of their diet is meat. [Chuckles darkly.] That would be a funny reality show.

[snip]

You’ve spoken out against the recent bans on foie gras, but you’re also opposed to animal cruelty in general. Would you support banning other practices that are regarded as cruel, like those practiced by the industrial poultry industry?

No. It would be nice to think that people know the difference between a crap chicken and a good chicken. If you can afford a good-quality free-range chicken, it’s nice that you have options. A lot of people in the world can’t afford that.

I like the idea that we could live in an agrarian wonderland, where there are heritage animals wandering freely and making delicious farm-fresh eggs, but that ain’t gonna happen; there are too many hungry people in the world.

I love Whole Foods talking about lobster and clam cruelty, when people are being fucked to death, kidnapped, starved, bombed. [The grocery chain recently stopped selling some live shellfish on the grounds that the practice is inhumane.] There is so much cruelty to humans — so much cruelty to animals — in this world. And people are worried about a fucking mollusk. Unbelievable.

[snip]

You also suggest that the relentless focus on safety and sanitation in kitchens is a bad thing. Why?

I think fear of dirt is often indistinguishable from the fear of unnamed dirty people. There’s something kind of racist about it, about people who are hesitant to try street food in another country. [The food] is part and parcel of culture; it’s an expression of identity.

And I think the notion that the government or somebody owes you absolute safety and security in everything you eat is a destructive one, with cheese being the easiest example. With cheese having to be pasteurized or aged to a certain degree, none of us will ever experience a real brie, or how good that used to be. There are laws that you have to sign a release, or at least read a warning statement, before you eat a rare burger. I think we’ve slipped over into the twilight zone here. Does McDonald’s really have to label their coffee cups to say “Danger: Will cause burning if poured on genitals”?

I think it’s destructive to quality, and pleasure, and tradition. So I’m skeptical, to say the least, if not hostile to that kind of thinking.

word.

Researchers in Milan have found that cell phone signals excite the cells in the motor cortex of the brain but they stress that they don’t know if this is harmful.

Harmful or not, my guess is that this explains why people act so retarded when they’re on their cell phones.

Oh – while Mary Milan and I did pick up brochures to try to figure out plans and the like at our local cingular store, we are happy to report that as of today, we are still anti cell phone and cell phone-less mostly because we couldn’t figure out why they rake you over the coals in fees.

Proceeding with our declaration of Summer 2006 being the summer of Mint Juleps, Homemade Ice Cream, and Grilling, Mary Milan and I made our first batch of ice cream and mint juleps.

For the ice cream, we went with a basic super premium Vanilla recipe (Alton Brown’s 9, 8, 3, 2, 1 formulation) adding a vanilla bean in the scalding phase. Our product turned out tasting really good except that we had some trouble keeping ice crystal formation down to a minimum. It might be an issue with the consumer ice cream maker we used (thanks to Carmen Santa Rosa) or it might be that we churned for too long and therefore took too long before getting it back into freezer for it to set.

The ice crystals weren’t big enough to stop us from devouring it though.  Our 1 1/2 quart batch of vanilla bean is almost gone after 2 days.

Our first attempt at a classic southern mint julep didn’t fare as well. I don’t think it’s possible to make it in the mojito fashion (muddling mint and sugar at the bottom of the glass). I think, you have to go whole hog by making a mint and sugar solution and letting it steep for 24 hours before mixing with bourbon.

Maybe we are going about it all wrong. Any southerners out there have any secrets?

You can expect the official roll-out of Summer 2006 once we perfect our brand positioning.