Anger Burger

Hi.

I haven’t been cooking this last week.  Southern California has been experiencing a “heat wave”¹ and more often than not that translates to “video games and take-out food” in the Anger Burger household.  Bloggers; they’re just like you!

My dad picked up a new oven mitt at a yard sale that had this tag on it.  I suspect it wasn’t made in the US, because in America we tend to avoid combining the words “Challenger” and “Flame Retardant” and “BBQz”.  BBQz?

It cooled down enough last night that I cooked some whitey-ass gai pad krapow made especially inauthentic by the addition of fresh pea shoots.

The pea shoots were a lucky find at the Asian market – they taste like fresh peas, but act like bean sprouts.  You don’t want to cook them as much as allow them to get warm in whatever it is you’ve already cooked.  In this instance, I turned the heat off on the turkey and then stirred in a few big handfuls.  They wilt almost instantly, but the stems stay a little crispy and they taste fresh and vegetal without having much personality of their own.  I mean this in a good way.  It was delicious and we overate before collapsing into another round of Dragon Age: Origins.

It’s hard out there for a wimp.

¹ Wow, who knew Angelenos were such pussies? First of all, the summer of 2010 has set a record for being the coldest in over a decade. Do you understand? It’s been unusually cool and comfortable here. Then! The temperature slowly ramped up to normal heats, spiking in the 100′s in the usual places where only scorpions and Vietnam Vets live and keeping around 90° here in regular ol’ Los Angeles. THIS IS NORMAL. And 90° in Los Angeles is pretty tolerable — it’s dry and cools the fuck off at night. I never thought I’d say this as a born-and-bred pasty white Pacific Northwestern newt-lady, but if you can’t take the heat then get out of the MOTHERFUCKING DESERT.

In the ongoing discovery of things I do poorly, we can now solidly list “speaking.”  Luckily Brian Salvatore at the Enthusiasts’ Radio Hour and his bechamel voice make things a bit more auditorially palatable.   I suspect we were a bitch to edit.  Also: Dell laptops?  Not the best microphones in the world.  Take note.

To wit: myself and contributor Aaron Leva were interviewed for Mr. Salvatore’s charming and well-produced podcast in an episode called P B and O, named after yours truly (you’ll have to hear why).  It’s a long podcast — almost an hour and a half long and we make up only a portion of the whole show– but you won’t regret listening to the whole thing.  It’s all about food enthusiasm!  You remember enthusiasm, don’t you?  I barely do, but the podcast helped me recall bits and pieces.  Also I name-drop Apelad.

If you don’t want to download the show from the link above than you can listen to it online at Mevio.  Well!  How exciting.  And further thanks to Brian for overflowing with compliments and having that masterful “podcast voice” that makes you feel like you’re on This American Life.

Go!  Listen!

I asked Melody, who won the coffee Kit Kat bar, to share her thoughts on it, and she did so at her blog.  Hooray!  Never before in my life have things gone as smoothly as planned.

Except!  It appears her bar was a little melted somewhere in transit, though where it got hot enough to melt between Washington state and Sweden I can’t imagine.  Maybe the cargo pilot set the package on his dash.  I mean, that’s how I’ve melted chocolate before, so I just assume.

Anyway, it was sweet of Melody to turn candy into homework, so go have a read for me.  For her.  For me.

Well what have we here?

Talia, I believe you’ve been acting up again?  Please report to the front office for your punishment.  And you, C Fierce!  I truly expected better from you.

You head up to the office too.  And no running!  Your parents are going to be so disappointed.

Back in December I bragged about a batch of fudge.  Remember this?  And in the comments my friend Dan — who is also Anger Burger’s Master Tech Geek and therefore invaluable to me in a way that borders on weird, mostly in that I haven’t even updated to WordPress 2.9.2 because I don’t want to bother Dan if the site breaks –  told me that he made a mean fudge himself and that I’d have to try it.  I blasted off some comment about why didn’t he send me some.  I think I may have ruined the punchline of this post, but I’m sitting around yesterday all lah-te-dah, when the mail arrives.

What is this?  I have no idea.  Why the hell would Dan mail me something?  Is it a bill for the site?  Is the bill really so big that he needed to USPS Priority it to me?

WAIT A GODDAMN MINUTE!  I mean, actually, my very first thought was What the hell? because I didn’t remember about the fudge.  And then I actually shouted out loud (I have a witness) “I HAD A MEMORY!”  And indeed I did!  Dan said he’d mail me fudge!  And then he did!  I swear, if I didn’t already feel like I take advantage of this guy, I certainly do now.  Well, in a moment, because I’m going to make a bold claim: Dan, it’s good.  But can it go head to head with mine?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  We both know the two words that come next.

FUDGE.  BATTLE.

I don’t know when.  I don’t know how.  But Fudge Battle is coming.  It’s unavoidable.  And afterward, I hope you’ll still fix my code when I break it beyond repair.

As a thanks to Dan, I want to send him something.  A pack of gum.  But not just any gum.  I haven’t yet written a love letter to Black Black, the best gum in the world, and that’s a shame.  If you’re the kind of person that spits out an Altoid for being too hot, you’re going to hate Black Black.  It’s like having a -15° winter storm come into your room while you’re sleeping and kick you in the face.  Your eyes water uncontrollably.  People around you gasp for breath and cry out for help.  Flowers drop petals.  Cats hiss.  Planes 30,000 feet above you experience turbulence.  And you’re asking, how can this possibly get any better?  Like so:  it’s also caffeinated.

I’m sending Dan a pack of this miracle, and while I’m at it I’m going to send a pack to TWO OF YOU AS WELL!  Two lucky bastards other than Dan will have the wonderment that is Lotte’s Black Black.  You should know the drill by now, but in case you don’t:

1) You may only comment once.  If you comment more than once I will delete all but one of your comments.  To be perfectly clear: you will not be disqualified, you’ll just have all but one of your comments deleted to ensure you get the same chances as everyone else.

2) I don’t care what you say.

3) Contest closes at 8pm PST on Tuesday night – any comments made after 8pm will not qualify.

4) Anyone may enter.

That’s it!  And then off in the mail it goes.  Don’t thank me.  Thank Dan.

***CONTEST CLOSED!***

Stand by for results!

I forgot to take a goofy photo of myself posing with MELODY’S BRAND NEW COFFEE KIT KAT BAR!

But I did take a screen-grab of her win.  I hope you all aren’t too disappointed.  I mean, I know you aren’t, Melody, but everyone else is pretty much hating randomized number algorithms right now.

However!  As I previously mentioned, I have a few more things to give away but I want to do a normal post or two first.  There’s just some things I want to get off my chest.  I hope you all understand.  Don’t worry, no one’s in trouble.  Also, I ate way too much cheese and avocado quesadilla for dinner and now I’m kind of urpy.

Okay, let’s try this again.  WITH DELICIOUS GODDAMN COFFEE.  This is probably also something strange I’m missing like “espresso with Hokkaido double cream” but as far as I know it’s just coffee.  C Fierce, are you listening?  I hope you are.  I’m pulling for you.  And by “pulling for you” I mean “treating you like a random number.”

So anyway, yeah, I bought one of these and I want to give it to one of you.  I think we can all agree that we hope Alice doesn’t get it this time, though of course she’s welcome to try.  And then if she does win it, I think we can all agree that god is a vindictive jerk.  Anyway, as with the green tea one, I ate one of these myself and have to say with authority: it’s pretty damn good. The first real bite is intensely sweet, like holy mother of Jesus, my throat is burning, but then!  Then it’s coffee!   And we’re not talking girly coffee, but truly bitter, coffee-grounds coffee.  It’s the most surprising transition.  I actually kept nibbling it just for the wonder of bitterness with each bite.  I can’t help but make comparisons to Western candy that doesn’t manage nearly as mature a flavor while still clearly being sugary junk food.

Here’s those rules again:

1) You may only comment once.  If you comment more than once I will delete all but one of your comments.  To be perfectly clear: you will not be disqualified, you’ll just have all but one of your comments deleted to ensure you get the same chances as everyone else.

2) I don’t care what you say.

3) Contest closes at 8pm PST on Friday night – any comments made after 8pm will not qualify.

4) Anyone may enter, dad.

5) Winning this one won’t disqualify you from another one .  You could – theoretically though improbably – win again and again.  Alice.

Good luck to you all, and thanks for reading Anger Burger.  Normal content will resume after this giveaway, but I’ve still got a few goodies I want to mail to someone, so don’t be gone too long.

***CONTEST CLOSED!***

Giveaway is over!  Stand by for winner.

Because you just won yourself a BRAND NEW CHERRY-BLOSSOM GREEN TEA KIT KAT BAR!

That’s right, with your BRAND NEW CHERRY-BLOSSOM GREEN TEA KIT KAT BAR you’ll be the talk of the neighborhood!   As an extra bonus gift, there’s an inaccurate American label on the backside that claims this is an azuki bean Kit Kat bar.  It is not.

Boy, aren’t you excited?  Here’s the number from Random.org in case the rest of ya’lls is in denial that you lost:

Now, this is admittedly sort of strange and hard to believe, considering that Alice and I already have a history of mailing each other candy.   In fact, it feels IMPROBABLE.  But that’s randomness for you.

Everyone else, sit tight, for tomorrow is another day.  And with a new day comes a new giveaway.  Stand by.

Alright!  You’ve twisted my arm with all your being attractive and grammatical correctness and whatall.

I’m going to give someone this GREEN TEA KIT KAT merely for COMMENTING.  From now until Wednesday night at 8pm, you are encouraged to comment once, about anything you’d like, after which I will use an online random number generator to determine the winner.  And then I will go to the post office and mail it to you!  Just like that!  To top it off, after this box of matcha Kit Kat is given away, there will be a different prize for you to enter for.  And then another one!  And then ANOTHER ONE!  Until I run out of items to give away!  I haven’t actually counted how many I have yet, but it is more than three.  And less than ten.

You should know that I ate one box myself already and it was delightful.  The strangest part is that the green tea was mild while a totally unexpected flavor of some love child of cinnamon and maple syrup came through a little bit stronger.  Super weird, but I truly and literally had a difficult time not opening another box and eating some more of them.

So once again, here’s the free candy law:

1) You may only comment once.  If you comment more than once I will delete all but one of your comments.  It’s not personal, but more than one comment will throw the odds of the random number generator.  AND THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE.

2) I don’t care what you say.

3) Contest closes at 8pm PST on Wednesday night – any comments made after 8pm will not qualify.

4) Anyone may enter, dad.

5) Winning this one won’t disqualify you from another one .  You could – theoretically though improbably – win again and again.

So there you are.  Winner will be announced Thursday sometime or another.  Yay, this is fun!

CORRECTION UPDATE: Apparently the pretty cherry blossoms aren’t just for design on the package, and the flavor is actually CHERRY BLOSSOM & GREEN TEA KIT KAT.  Holy shit!  Also: explains some of the beguiling cinnamon/maple flavor, which my brain can now just interpret as “floral”.

*** CONTEST IS CLOSED! ***

Stand by for results!

I’m just like Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles!  Except I forgot my own birthday!  And it’s not my birthday, it’s my website’s!

That’s right, it’s been a full year of the Burger, and look at what I have to show for it: a bill for server space.   Still, it’s been a busy year: I had some wisdom teeth out, got a job, lost a job, went back to New Zealand (and got to take my favorite Viking with me this time),  and got this thing:

The newest member of the Anger Burger family, Think Tank.  Also known as Tank, Thinker, Tankety Tank, Fatty, Bedbug, Laptop, Ragnarok, Sleepy McCuddlesly and Momo¹.

I was going to do a big 1st Birthday Bash and try to do some kind of giveaway that seems to be tradition or whatever, but I’m gonna tell you something: I’m lazy.  Really lazy.  So, instead, I say this: thanks for reading.  I get a gigantic kick reading your guys’ comments, and I hope to keep it rolling for another year.  And then another.  And maybe another.  But, one step at a time.

Cheers,

Sunday “Anger Burger” Williams

¹ Momo is my dad’s dog’s nickname, and we keep accidentally calling her Momo, too. But that’s okay.