life in these Long Island cities

it's the last one mate…

the last hurrah…

the final summer Friday as decreed by our heads of state here at the house of dead animals. 

and the bastard was NOT about to pass up the opportunity to pull off one last  off the books burger to round out the summer. 

so I decided to hit the new place…

the woodbines…

the home of black ipa from Astoria…

the bastard has made a discover about the new dining in these long island cities…

it's like this…

my last stop before bed in a drink night is the bar behind my home…

my complex last stop that I have difficult feelings for…

because of the meatheads from the new towers, I often hate the place but not because of the place…

I just hate the meatheads…

that and perhaps my neighbors wife when she shouts down from her balcony because she saw a meathead friend and the decided to go down to the back porch to brag relentlessly like a goddam donkey all evening. yeah I hate her too. her husband is aight though. I'll spare him my scathing rebuke. 

but they always shit down the racket at the time they promise to…

and that shit is lauded by your humble bastard…

a man's word is his bond and when he lives up to it, the hosts of heaven open up and say, 'I couldn't possibly call bullshit on that guy, he's straight up with the hood and won't smite him this good day'…

true story…

I've heard the host of heaven and they like to call bullshit often on folks. keeps the squares out of heaven. 

but I'm here at the house of black ipa today for my last stand for two reasons…

well three…

for one… bars in this area has discovered that the place of complications ain't cheap and if you lower the price of your food and your brew, you have a fighting chance here

for two… the place ain't open for lunch. they ain't cheap and it's a down economy

and lastly… that place is right behind my apartment yo.

it ain't a off the books lunch if all the players in your life are I'm the know. 

so…

it's been a good summer…

I'll see your ass next year

—the bastard

smoke em if you got em…

the bastard's stomach hasn't gotten back from vacation yet…

so as the wife goes out with her friends, he decides that last night was the night to order takeout from john browns smokehouse.

what's a john browns smokehouse guy?

well jerkface, it's the closest BBQ to the spaceship I live in that delivers.

who shot who in the what now? smoked meats delivered to your front door?

you heard it right jerk...

smoked meats door to door.

and it was majestic.

my cardio vascular system is going to hate me one day

—the bastard

this just in…

guy fieri may be a black velvet painting of Elvis crammed into an awfully dressed fat man with a bad dye job

but…

he has steered me towards more interesting places to eat than any other fat man ever will.

I will go to bachi burger when next go I to Las Vegas for the gun show.

—the bastard

rough night, yo!

you ever have one of those commutes?

you know the ones where you leave work late because shit totally blew up in your face…

and your washing egg off of it…

only to find that the seven train isn't running…

so you take the 6…

to the E…

to the G…

and them limp home in time to see that the seven train is running again?

yeah me too.

I made a manhattan and got a double cheese burger with bacon to make up for the heavens fucking me over for the last 48 hours.

what's your plan for cosmic bullshit?

—the bastard

…on the salt

…and the fat

when we first mulled moving to the q borough, my wife entrusted the bastard to be the bellweather of what neighborhood in queens would be suitable for someone who lived in manhattan for her entire adult life and what just be too much queens for her.

it had to be new construction was one of the things that was a deal breaker for her.

or rather the deal maker.

but we landed here in the liquid city and it's been good for this last year

but,

my backup was always going to be sunnyside. it would be more neighborhoody than she would have been used to

but

it's because of the ever changing landscape of queens that we arrived at a restaurant called salt and fat

yes… you read it right

SALT

AND

FAT

and as a new American with a great deal of Korean flourish, the bastard had fantastic mussels with Korean snack sausage in the brine.

pork belly buns with sriacha hoisin

twice fried chicken served with sriacha and pickled daikon.

and rice crispy treat.

yeah, it's just that good. right on queens Blvd. it'll knock your socks off and into next week.

happy birthday to me.

—the bastard

the meats

this just in…

the bastard likes himself a burger

and since moving here…

the bastard has been sampling the local fare.

you see…

the corner bistro opened up it's only outer borough outpost here in L.I.C.

and I wanted to see how it stacked up to other places.

behind my home is alewife who's owners come here from b-more

and so far…

their short rib and brisket burger served on a pretzel roll has them all beat.

but at 8 bucks lic's corner bistro has an edge on price by over 50%.

so the bastard almost has to give it up on just economics.

but that wouldn't be fair.

i'll keep digging around here.

there are other contenders…

and I aim to try em all.

hooray meatses

—the bastard

chinese food by the landfill

make no mistake…

the bastard is not a fan of the forgotten borough…

the shao Lin…

the kills…

the port of Richmond…

every trip I ever took to staten island was in some way, shape, or form, a frikkin slog…

and I never really dug on it.

don't get me wrong I like seeing my family there…

and when I see them, it's good tiles I'm air quotes…

but it's a slog…

last weekend, the bastard brought the wife on said slog so she could chill out with her past.

this added up to an art show and I use the term loosely.

the upside being that I discovered that there is a rich soundtrack of ska in the landfill that made the evening tolerable.

but what made it great.

and there are few things I would associate the word 'great' with the landfill save for

jade island.

which may well have been the best Americanized Szechuan the bastard has every tasted.

I will come back and not because an episode of no reservations was filmed there.

i will because I will need their general tsos chicken in the future.

—the bastard

…on good neighbor policies

so we used to run this place like a hotel.

a service rented like 4 apartments that hadn't sold yet as air bnb short term rentals.

this stopped shortly after 15 washed up sorority girls rented the two bedroom on the 10th floor and proceeded to get drunk and shout at 3am.

now three units on the fourth floor are going to house the cast of 'the next food network star'

and the food network promises that their peeps with stay the hell quiet.

the bastard ain't holding his breath.

cause chefs like to enjoy theyselves.

and I?

I like thinking about hitting assholes in the grill with lead pipes.

so at least we'll have stuff to talk about at some point.

and may the best chef win… er… not get hit in the grill with a lead pipe

—the bastard

the bastard made a frikkin meatloaf last night

yeah that's right jerks.

he made a frikkin meatloaf

and you know what it was Fulla?

frikkin MEATS

and it was EXcellent

—the bastard

…so my wife is gonna hate me

its a down economy you know.

so to do his part, the bastard makes lunch.

and he does it well.

so well that the wife's boss wants me to hook her up with a sammich.

but it's like this.

I also do the grocery shopping as well.

and normally, I'm a by the numbers kinda guy.

but with a hurricane (read: late summer sprinkle) coming last weekend, I went a little off mission.

bought some ribs.

bought a pack of bacon.

and we made the whole pack on Sunday to celebrate NOT dying in a flood (read: HAH) with the notion that whatever bacon we don't eat we'll "save".

this is not currently happening.

OK SIDEBAR: this is how he bastard throws down a sammich. straight up on the economical tip. what you do is buy a bag of trader joes ciabatta rolls because it's the most rolls you get for the money (8). I get a bag of pre cooked chicken breast from the self same store (because it's easy when you shop for everything at the same place).


I buy some cheese for filler. I used to get lo fat Swiss but the bastard is currently not in the business of giving a shit these days (read: DEMONS) so I've been getting pepper jack for me and fooling the wife with the lo fat Swiss (did you catch the name of the blog?).


lately I've gotten my hands on some barbecue sauce and that has been the spread of choice (side note: the wife gets pesto).


now what I do is rely on the toaster ovens in the mystery science kitchen area as they have the best toaster ovens in all the land. and I toast that bitch up.

there it is.

ANYWAY: The bacon. I have been feeding it into the sammich recipe this week. there will be no bacon leftover. and I will have some splainin to do Lucy when she finds out. but I can live with that. because… you know… bacon.

oh look. there is a glass of whiskey beside me. BAI!

—the bastard

you know… I take that back

enough with the maudlin.

this afternoon, the boy and I were headed to the park to hang out.

since he got here, I wanted him to get the chance to play with kids and we've had no luck.

and by no luck, the bastard means that mouthy hard luck kids have been coming down from rougher parts of town to get all 'street' with my wide eyed son from the southwest and he comes away wondering why they assholes.

anyway, we're crossing the street and I see the waffle truck.

THE MOTHER EFFING WAFFLE TRUCK

I ran, not walked to the truck and the boy had no clue what just came over his old man as he said, 'boy, you don't understand. it's the mother effin WAFFLE TRUCK'

so I split a waffle with him and a hot chocolate and we ate it at a table by the gantries.

and that was my birthday present to myself. because it was the first time I had waffle truck with the boy. and it was the first time the boy had real Belgianesque hot chocolate.

and that was pretty special to me.

so whadda ya want. more whining? I van only muster up so much. go to sleep now jerks

—the bastard

…on winging it

the bastard has some generous friends at the office.

and once in a great while some wild game falls into his lap.

sometimes it's just being in the right time and place for it too.

this time around, I had some pheasant I needed to get out of the freezer before it became a thing. which would then become a thing wasted.

and the bastard hates wasting things.

so when I found a recipe for pheasant banh mi in the "other" magazine's February issue I decide this was how the pheasant going to get done.

truth to tell it was more prep than cooking.


took some meats. don't get squeamish on me jerks. meaT isn't something that comes in a styrofoam container all the time.


added a jalapeño but I would have preferred a scotch bonnet.

zip zip zip. scare the crap out of the baby with the sheer screaming power of the food processor

make patties.

30 minutes at 300° and it's all good in the hood.

I also hooked up a sriacha mayonnaise to go with. 3-5 tablespoons to a half cuppa mayo.


and boom goes the dynamite. turns out that this bird while short on meat was the gift that kept on giving in the portion department.

on a side note, i've been keeping up with Sherman since the korilla truck day and I think I'm going to be picking his brain about food things asian with game. might be an inneretsing endeavor

the bastard is thinking about venison bulgoggi now. tah

—the bastard

there is a place in our fair city...

…where the bastard found himself a frikkin elk burger



yeah

that's right bitches!

while walking to dukes the other night the bastard came across an awning he had never seen which promised three things the bastard loves that aren't whiskey

burgers

shakes

beer

so he said to himself, "self, we will eat lunch there right fucking soon".

so in his sooner than expected fashion, the bastard came home too drunk to make lunch.

such is the style of drinking with the old hood.

so next day there he was reeding up a bacon cheeseburger with onion rings.

and then he heard the magical words

"what kind of meat do you want?"

"what?!?"

"what kind of meat do you want guy?"

overtaken by options of this magnitude was almost too much for my dukearita riddled head to handle

"whatcha got", hoping to hell human wasn't an option as I might have taken it

"beef, bison, lamb, ostrichch, turkey, elk…"

"that one"

"what?"

"that one. and a black and white shake", cause if you don't go big, go the hell home.


and it was glorious.

elk is a magical meat that doesn't taste like chicken.

it tastes like elk.

it's kind of like beef…

but not like beef…

and better.

it's the bastard's favoritest of all the meats.

that and caribou.

go out and get some. now. not later.

—the bastard

get in the van…

…in which our hero raises his own bar on street meat




ok, here's the situation,

may parents went away for a weeks vacation.

but I digress. the bastard has gotten into paying attention to food again.

mobile food.

street meat.

part one, piqued: this comes from checking out no reservations after it had gotten popular.

the bastard didn't like it first time around. it seemed too forced and I though the "a cooks tour" show that food network dropped was a littler more sentimental at the time.

and at the time, the bastard wanted sentimental, not forced lou reed of the food set stuff.

but these days, I was looking for something else in this age of crap economics and lack of vacation fun.

and bourdain spoke much about street food.

part two, the seed: there's this guy I went to junior high school who I'm friends with on foursquare.

he kept checking in at this truck called korilla BBQ.

at the time, I had been going to the wafel truck and have been loving it. but I needed to see about this korilla truck.

Korean BBQ.

no.

Korean BBQ burritos my friend.

picture this. Korean BBQ pork on a wrap with

bacon kimchi fried rice

with veg, cheese, sauce.

and that's your burrito.


part three, opportunity: another old friend of mine from small times was working in manhattan this week. Sherman. and he did some time on the Korean peninsula. and he has three kids to show for it.

we were looking to meet up anyways so I suggested the korilla truck so we could at least chat while online.

hashed out some smalltalk while waiting on a line that ran around the corner on park and 24th until it was our time to get our repast… the porkinator.

it was glorious.

so much so, I burst into my editor in chief's office over it.

we haven't had big talks of late but he was there so he looks up mildly curious and inconvenienced and asks what's up.

"totally unrelated to the book, I just had the greatest burrito ever".

now he cracked a smile because he was on board with this.

and I told him of my lunch.

and apparently, he's a big fan of kimchi.

asked me to let him know if I was going next Friday and to hit him up for it.

hell, not a bad way to kick off the weekend.

—the bastard

…needs to be done

the bastard is on a budget.

so he's been in the bidness of brown bagging it.

so when he ran out of foodstuff, he decided to rock it at carl's.

don't get me wrong. I like to not spend money but when I do,

the bastard likes himself a cheesesteak.

and sometimes it needs to be done

—the bastard

…on faith

flashback: it's pissing out and the bastard is happy to arrive at the office.

not dry but, not soaked so it's ok.

I get in the elevator and a woman says to me in a big voice, "isn't it a great day? isn't it just glorious outside?"

"it sure is something out"

another gets in and she pipes up again, "isn't it a great day? isn't it just glorious outside?"

"yeah…great"

and we ride up the elevator and when it stops on her floor this big voiced woman whispers, "thank you Jesus" and steps out.

the bastard feels sheepish mocking her earlier words because to a woman of faith, every day is glorious.

flash forward: today was not a good day.

shit is bringing me down professionally and personally

and on top of that, baby's first plane trip is this morning.

the bastard had to pick up some 11th hour stuff for the baby for the trip.

on a whim I got onto twitter to see if the waffle truck is near union square. and fortune finally smiled upon me in her fashion.

I wanted a pick me up and I know like alcohol, food is never to be used as a crutch

but, fuck you.

my day has been wave after wave of negativity which bookended a really pleasant conversation about gundam I had before going once more into the breach.

so i got a waffle and I think it dam near saved my life tonight.

and that's about as much faith as I can muster these days.

—the bastard

off mission…

parenting is one of life's great equalizers

it is also one of life's great ironies.

you're always told that you're going to grow up to be just like your mother or your father.

and the bastard doesn't know which one he falls more in line with.

because neither of his parents grew up to sit alone in the dark while drinking whiskey and watching anime and complaining to the Internet about the whole lot of it.

my brother would tell me I'm more like my mother because I'm more of a reactionary.

more full of gesture and loud talk over others.

more in you business…because…well I'm in your business.

make your peace with it. the bastard has.

but I was thinking how my own kids will turn out for starters.

you see, the little girl has become an early riser.

a demander of things.

this doesn't sit well with my late night whiskey drinking and truth to tell is the young lady has to start sleeping in more often or shit's gonna go badly

mostly for me.

but on Sunday it was raining.

and the wife and I are in the midst of a big move

with big paperwork

and 350 square feet makes for big cases of cabin fever.

so upon her highness' afternoon nap I explain to the wife that I was going for a walk because if I don't shake off my cabin fever, there was going to be fucking murders.

so I set out into the pour.

which let up actually for my hour outside ( I set a time limit to be fair).

and I went in search for lunch.

now when cabin fever sets in, the solution to what ails me is always comfort food.

you see, by and large, the bastard gave up cigarettes and he doesn't use booze as a crutch.

he uses it as a tasty beverage instead.

so he relies on comfort food to take the blues away.

or the blahs.

or the "I'M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU ALLs"

so headed to dukes and without a menu I got me blackened chicken sandwich and a dukearita.

because that's what the bastard finds comfortable.

my time on this rock is growing short and I know I can come back any time to enjoy these things

but it won't be the same for me as I can't just roll out of bed in the middle of the night and get a banh mi sammich ( unless of course I find a place that has) from my local spot.

so I'd like to spend this remaining time enjoying these simple things I like about the rock I live on.

clocks a tickin' shiteyes, make the most of your time.

—the bastard

lissen mistah tuhkee…

thanksgiving came to Brooklyn early this year.

and the chairman was serving it up; good eats style.

complete with lattice apple pie.



and missile attacks



and a good time was had by all.

this is a good thing.

it's like getting an extra bit of turkey before the main event.

except I feel like hell because I'm full of food.

good show chairman. good show.

—the bastard

…on old crows

perhaps it was the two "good" bourbons on ice the bastard had last night,

or

perhaps it was the two beers in retrospect one realizes that one doesn't need to chase down a beverage one likes.

or perhaps it's because the creative director of ordered it in the way someone English would order it.

you see

he says a name like basil like one would say "bah-zill".

so when he says, "ah think ahll have ah glass a old crow", I think it sounds like a great idea.

and the bastard won't really know for sure until he has himself a clean pallette.

but I walked home last night after a fine evening of bourbon drinking

and it was good.



so was the mcrib I had for dinner.

—the bastard

more things the bastard bought at a Japanese big box store

for your consideration…






…ultraman lemonade

the bastard bought this because it looked like a robot. the builder told me what it's contents were.

I will leave all urine related discussion about the contents of this can of lemonade to the mad Russian.

because it's a goddam gimme.

—the bastard