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2010-12-14T01:23:00.001-08:00

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Reminder about your invitation from Adam Lee Cutsinger

2010-05-12T10:12:00.001-07:00

This is a reminder that on April 27, Adam Lee Cutsinger sent you an invitation to become part of his or her professional network at LinkedIn.

Follow this link to accept Adam Lee Cutsinger's invitation.

https://www.linkedin.com/e/doi/1256259159/S8Kc9pNR/gir_43626464_1/EML-inv_17_rem/

Signing up is free and takes less than a minute.

On April 27, Adam Lee Cutsinger wrote:

> To: [muffaletta.thenakedonion@blogger.com]
> From: Adam Lee Cutsinger [muffaletta@gmail.com]
> Subject: Adam Lee Cutsinger wants to stay in touch on LinkedIn

> I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.
>
> - Adam Lee Cutsinger

The only way to get access to Adam Lee Cutsinger's professional network on LinkedIn is through the following link:

https://www.linkedin.com/e/doi/1256259159/S8Kc9pNR/gir_43626464_1/EML-inv_17_rem/

You can remove yourself from Adam Lee Cutsinger's network at any time.

--------------

Hot-Cold Autumn Hiking in the Schitty

2009-12-09T14:53:00.000-08:00

It's amazing how much wearing layers matter when you're living in the Schitty. It's a very vertical town, with its hills and its buildings, staircases and slopes. And microclimates. And seabourne winds and clouds.

The three-block walk to the bus stop can be Washington's freezing Valley Forge, but then when you get on the bus the commute metamorphoses into Marley's sweaty Trenchtown Rock. One is constantly zipping up or unzipping, wrapping scarves or unwrapping, buttoning and unbuttoning, wearing and then carrying their clothes and then putting their clothes back on again, in public places and crowded spaces.

A whole lotta the beautiful and ugly from all over, smushed up together and hung from a bau with a boe by the bay. That's SF in a nutshell. But autumn here is special. Like the leaves, the people all turn up on the street in many rich shades, and the sidewalks, parks and plazas never looked so pretty.

Madsen Cycles, Urban Cargo Bikes

2009-08-26T11:10:00.000-07:00

Enter to win!

Cracking Cheesecakes Podcast

2009-07-22T15:09:00.000-07:00

	Chef Adam - ChefsLine@5

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

2009-06-14T16:27:00.001-07:00

2009-06-13T10:41:00.001-07:00

2009-05-19T19:23:00.001-07:00

Catch Your Friends:Porn Catcher

Powered byTheirtoys.com

Chef Giant

2009-03-11T13:57:00.001-07:00

Abe Books

2009-03-11T13:51:00.001-07:00

Adam's Plaxo Page

2009-03-10T13:28:00.001-07:00

p i c s

2009-03-05T22:04:00.000-08:00

WannaLearn

2009-02-27T23:09:00.001-08:00

click here if you wanna learn something > > >

Thumb up my blog, dude.

2009-02-14T20:11:00.001-08:00

CREDO

2009-01-28T13:48:00.001-08:00

They'll pay your terminations fees at your current phone company and throw in a helluva deal on a nice phone. And they're green.

A.D.A.M.

2009-01-24T16:18:00.000-08:00

Get Your Cyborg Name

Get Your Monster Name

Get Your Sexy Name

Zombie Harmony

2008-12-30T18:02:00.001-08:00

Created by Mingle2.com (Dating for non-zombies)

Created by Mingle2.com (Dating for non-zombies)

For a cop-out food reference - rare beef or fried chicken. A little too much.

Muffaletta's Reddit Widget

2008-11-11T21:14:00.000-08:00

Browse these articles and vote up the ones you like.

Open Source Government and Flights of Apéritifs and Hors d'œuvre

2008-10-23T11:27:00.000-07:00

I suggest an open source government. A true democracy that will automatically adhere to the design developed by anyone willing to actually participate. Real time amendments. Laws popularly accepted. Illegitimate choices immediately corrected by multitudinous declaration and reason.
Conflicts between points of view create violent reactions and harmful chasms between people when all that are required, or desired, are really just healthy analyzes of cause, effect and the perspectives of the sum of individuals, in order for society's government and the social contract that government is set up to uphold to continue to function productively.
It's a truly pluralist tack, for a decidedly pluralist populace. And it is potentially very stressful, because of the contradictions, hypocrisies, and inconsistencies that, like foam, rise to the top of every creed and system of beliefs.
So, like a family holiday gathering, where people who didn't necessarily choose to be in one anothers' lives are obliged to spend time together and make the very best of it, let us do it potluck-style. Bring a wine and/or a snack, and let us set them all up together, symbolic of our diversity, but also of how the distinctions, when viewed (and consumed) en todo, create a party. The real kind, not the political kind. Dig in. It's your party.

Practical Optimism, a Lemonade Stand, and an Omlette

2008-10-14T12:46:00.000-07:00

I just read an article which speaks to my parsimonious side. I relate it to food, as I do so great many things within my scope. I re-invoke the omelette.

Two buttered saute pans: one for the unsalted egg and milk mixture, and the other for the onions and (then) spinach.

When the eggs are perfectly medium rare the grated, crumbled or chopped cheese goes over the center, the hot veggies and/or meat over that, and a flip-flop-slide onto the plate.

Accompany with a piece of good toasted bread and butter. When cheap is delicious and nutritious, the consumer is thrice rewarded.

I am often referring to the old, overiterated adage about when life hands you lemons. And if there are enough lemons coming your way, you may want to think about setting up a lemonade stand.
Take it from me. I'm not complaining, or insinuating that I got more lemons than the next guy (I am sure it just seems like it).

But I'm like, hell, we got a whole bunch of 'em... just working with what I got.

The worst case scenario ought to involve a fermenting heap of the rotted lemons rinds, pulp and juice I couldn't sell. Let the lemon compost heap act as a double metaphor for both the grotesqueness of the realities we face in life as well as the growth potential derived from the fertilizing properties of that heap.

Which reminds me of something else I read, about life spawning from death, as Aristotle wrote about flies and crocodiles. I would like to think, regardless of what it means, that it will all lead to something.

Apartments and Anchovies

2008-04-13T15:59:00.000-07:00

It's time to move. There are 2 1/2 weeks left before we and all our shit gotta be outta here, with pug in tow, and we haven't found a place to move into yet, much less saved up a secure number of dineros for anything even modestly considered to be decent. Ah hell, nothing like the impending deadline to light a fire under your ass, no?

What we DON'T want:

to live in the Outer Sunset, Outer Mission or the Tenderloin, or any of the other subdistricts within the relative vicinities, unsafe and/or too far out.
to live in a shared rental, because my girlfriend has certain needs that go beyond my own.

Add to those criteria our need to find something affordable and which will accept Romeo, our beloved troll-of-a-pug-dog, and you may see what I see, an increasingly stressful scenario, problems identified, needs isolated, but solutions... to be discovered. It is one of those times when I have to tell myself, don't worry, there is a door opening somewhere, we just can't see it yet. There is also a skeptical voice in my head, however, that keeps reminding me that I do not have much faith, other than that in the sincerity of my own motivations. Just thinking and saying that there is a solution, a door, a plan, whatev, does not mean that there is actually one of the above available to us in anything resembling a timely resolution.

When we first moved to the City a few years ago, I was immediately made aware of the potential consequences of failure: the homeless peeps all around us. We were trying to live among a new peer group, single professionals sharing a warehouse-turned-apartment complex in SoMa (none of whom we still know today), who were all surfing on the relatively easy money of the newly-deceased dot-com era and other highly technology-business-ended endeavors, while we were trying to actualize our earned-degree-implied careers for essentially the first time, on money we had only just recently accumulated by selling our shit and, sadly, our Jeep CJ5 - all hard steel, all primer-gray, soft-top-roof, removable doors, one-size-too-big brand new tires; the Jeep that could tell Jeep Wrangler owners who may have incidentally pulled up beside us at the red light, "You are just never going to get it." Wrangler owners are not in the know, but it's not there fault. The Jeep Company it to blame. They ceased production of the CJ series after the CJ7, I believe.

It was noted by many, including my KC, that I seemed to be driven to find success and make money more than was precedented, but I can't help but feel like, especially these days, that that drive is merely the reality of life burning a hole in my eye and then lighting up my ass, so to speak. My urgency is more appropriately described as a fear than a drive. There is a fine line between great success and the most dramatic of failures, especially in places like SF, Manhattan, etc.

My blog has been food oriented, so, in order to comply with the original theme, let me reference food here. Anchovie, mushroom and garlic pizza with red wine. You could make it yourself, like I sometimes do, or order it, like I also do, living like next door to Giorgio's. The pungent flavors and alcohol will be enough to pull your concentration into the moment, and separate you for that moment from the many things you need to be doing in order to leapfrog your life to the next positive stage, and to remove, for a moment, the fear of failure, and jumping straight into a pile of shit.

Italian Flag Pesto Dip

2008-03-21T13:37:00.000-07:00

Dip. It's what's for dinner. Er, whatever, but I can fill up on it, if it's good. I eat all day anyway, if I have my way, so a dip with dimensions and some good crunchy-type things to dip into it will always appeal to me as a snack food.
First of all, it's hella easier to make a dip than to top crostini, bruschetta, or other fuori d'opera, individually (I want to take a language class at City College, but then again I wanna get my masters and maybe I could take language classes then, but like, when the hell does anybody have time to go to school and work in the 7X7?).
Plus, it you make a dip along the basic principle of, say, a seven-layer dip, keeping some of the ingredients separate and distinct from one another, you get a delightful plurality in your bite, bite after bite after bite after bite...
And when I'm working (such a cursed blessing, work: gotta work, glad to have it, hate it, don't wanna do it, miss it when it goes away), I can eat while I work with relative convenience.
Regarding this recipe, I love the sweet cranberries alongside the savory whatever else, but they're optional, and I like a little heat, but the peppers are also optional. And you can also take out the salt and the garlic, and the herbs, and cheese, and go to McDonald's, they got double cheeseburgers for a buck. Get me one.
Oh the inanity! I do go on.

Italian Flag Pesto Dip
1 oz fresh basil
1/4 bunch fresh cilantro
1/4 oz fresh mint leaves
1/4 bunch fresh parsley
1 tsp crushed red pepper
2 tsp sea salt
2 cups ricotta
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup pesto alla genovese
1/2 cup sun-dried tomato pesto
Candied dried cranberries and pine nuts.
Combine the first 8 ingredients in a food processor or in a bowl with your hands. Drop a dollop of each of the pestos and the ricotta mixture and with simple movements swirl them with a rubber spat[ula]. Don't over mix it! You want it to look like Aquafresh toothpaste, 3 distinct wavy colors. Top it with the candied craisins and pinions. Eat it with crostini "chips" made from a baguette, ciabatta, focaccia, whathaveya.
Beware, you need some fiber in your diet, so don't eat dip dinners more than four or five times a week.

Everyone's a Chef

2008-01-07T17:25:00.001-08:00

It wasn't long after I moved to San Francisco, where one chef put it, "chefs are treated like royalty," that I began to realize that my culinary experience in no way made me special. In a world rapidly becoming populated by self-proclaimed "foodies," (as well as those whose interest in food has yet to lead to such sort of self-characterization), much like an invasion by body snatchers, you can't throw a pork chop without hitting someone who knows 6 ways to cook it and a couple dozen options for sauces, sides and seasonings. The City is a foodie capital, and that's saying a lot, since, as far as I can tell, foodyism is an international phenomenon.

What is a chef anyway? Prescriptivists demand that only the cook who is in charge of all of the aspects of a restaurant's performance is a chef, or the "chief." The French word means just that, after all, and the French translation of the song "The Leader of the Pack" goes, "le chef de la bande."

Of course, contradictorily, those same prescriptivists might also argue that anyone who has graduated from culinary school has earned the title. And what about personal chefs?

I take the word pretty loosely. Like the word punk, as in punk rock. I grew up with some pretty hard line punks who insisted that bands like Green Day were definitely NOT punk, thereby graduating the word from a noun to a qualifying adjective (i.e. "he's more punk than me"). To me, chef is like that. If you demonstrate cooking prowess, I may not say that was very chef of you, but I will refer to your chef-like qualities by nicknaming you "chef." Ironically, because of my personal rebellion against the brigade system in professional kitchens, I prefer to refer to actual professional chefs by their first names.

As consulting chefs for ChefsLine, the Culinary Hotline, my colleagues and I take a certain amount of cheesy pride in our slogan-promise, "We bring out the chef in you."

And look at that TV show "Take Home Chef." If that guy owns a restaurant or keeps an executive chef position somewhere, I don't know about it. On that note, however, I guess it's fair to say that most of the celebrity chefs on TV can indeed be linked to at least one successful restaurant. Or magazine? Or whatever food and cooking organism qualifies to have an executive chef slot to fill (Cat Cora is executive chef for Bon Appetit Magazine, for instance).

On a side note, the same chef I mentioned above, who said San Francisco treats chefs like royalty, told me that Bon Appetit magazine and the Bay Area-based Bon Appetit catering company used to be managed under the same roof, but shortly after their mutual inception their link was reduced to the name only. [shrug]

I define chef as fancy cook, plain and simple, even if said chef only graduated from, to quote another chef I know, "the culinary school of hard knocks," and has never even actually been in charge of an outfit. As for me, I have been in charge of a few restaurants and bakeshops, but I never went to culinary school. I learned everything I know about cooking on the clock, and at home, and have opted instead for a classical education in letters and literature.

Good thing I still got my day job. { ; ~ o >

Chocolates for V-Day

2008-01-03T16:25:00.000-08:00

Is it just me, or is Valentine’s Day a totally different experience for boys than it is for girls? Does V-day put women and girls into a state of natural and easy reverie, while men and boys find themselves embarked on an onerous quest to prove their love worthy?

Last year, after seeking as much candid council as I could from my significant other, I decided that I would impress upon her the level and intensity of my devotion by cooking her a five-course meal, each course containing some form of chocolate.

My rationale was, admittedly, a little bit type-A: at the time, she worked in a chocolate confectionery; therefore, not only could she provide the chocolates I would require for my love feast at a discounted price (and thusly fulfilling her end of the Valentine’s Day-gift-exchange), but I could attempt to feed her the chocolate in such forms as she would never have access to at work. It was the perfect plan, making the absolute most of the chocolate theme already inherent in the Valentine's Day experience. And hell, we would probably even save money on going out.

By my third trip to the store I realized that wasn’t going to be the case. The booze alone accounted for nearly half of my expenditure, and some extra groceries were simply going to be required in order to make this dinner different and special. I still had the idea in my head that she would walk in the door to our humble apartment after a long day at work (selling last minute chocolates to procrastinating Romeos) to a beautifully set candlelight dinner, and I would make for her her first cocktail, with the second soon to follow. Then I would delight her with one after another course of sweet and savory chocolate-inspired dishes, titillating her to a giggling culinary culmination by the time we got to dessert. I even imagined silver covered platters for each dish, and we don’t even own anything like that.

Needless to say, I bit off a little more than I could chew. By the time she got home I had just managed to hurriedly set a table for two, I hadn’t yet lit candle one, and I hadn’t even started on the first two courses. In fact, I even had yet another trip to the store on the itinerary, but I soon decided to make due without it. In the end, my five-course extravaganza turned into a four-course marathon, and ultimately dessert was omitted entirely due to over-filled bellies from over-sized portions.

Sometimes, however, we find success in failure. The sheer enormity of my undertaking was enough to satisfy my beloved that I was really into her, and watching me work frantically let her see that dedication for herself. If the romantic dinner for two could be a metaphor for my love, then it was clear that my love for her was a little more than I could handle.

So what was the menu? Aside from chocolate there were two things I knew my girlfriend appreciated: alcohol and hot spicy foods.

My original idea was to purchase a couple of bottles of vino for the occasion, but after I ran across a recipe for chocolate martinis, wine was out the window. Instead, I bought a half gallon bottle of good quality vodka.

The very first thing I “cooked” were chocolate ice cubes – chocolate, milk, water, espresso and blood orange zest. I put the ingredients into an ice cube tray, speared sour cherries onto toothpicks, and stuck one toothpick into each cube. When it came time to serve the drinks, the ice cubes were perfectly frozen, and melted slowly in the drinks for a nice effect, but if I had it to do over again, I would use less zest or none at all. In order to prevent another trip to the store, I went with coffee liqueur instead of crème de cacao, as the recipe had called for. So when I finally added a splash of cherry juice, the drinks became more accurately described as mocha cherry martinis. Whatever works.

The first course, an appetizer featuring one Bartlett pear, one Asian pear, bananas and raspberries seared in sugar syrup and dressed with melted buttermilk chocolate sauce, was pushed back to be joined with the ice cream and chocolate mousse dessert for sheer lack of time. Skipping that, it was on to course two: salad. I melted some chocolate and squeezed the juice out of my blood oranges, added salt, pepper and extra virgin olive oil, and presto: chocolate blood orange vinaigrette. A couple pinches of chopped basil, red lettuce, tomato, zucchini (I usually prefer them over cucumbers), broccoli, red onion, raspberries and a little feta cheese crumble made up the rest. I usually butter and bake a couple slices of bread for last-minute croûtons, and this time was no exception. As it was, the first course went over quite well.

Done with that and on to the next dish, I couldn’t help but be somewhat exhilarated with anticipation. It was only supposed to be a precursor to the main course, but would end up being the favorite for us both: chocolate chili. At first the idea frightened me, but, intrigued, I read up on the recipe and couldn’t resist.

My girl loves spicy foods. When I was at the market and asking questions in Spanish about the different fresh peppers and dried chipotle chiles to a grocery stocker who spoke zero English, he asked me if my girlfriend was latina. Upon learning that no, she was indeed una guera, his eyebrows lifted in astonishment that was very entertaining. Was it even possible? he seemed to be thinking. Yes, it is. My girlfriend prefers her spicy food to be registered with the federal government as a chemical weapon. My suffering in order to eat with her would have to be another test of my adoration.

Good chili, with or without chocolate, requires time for the flavors to synergize, but luckily, by the time I served it up, it was tastier than I could have predicted. The basic chili: browned meat (I used top sirloin), garlic, onions, small red beans, chiles and peppers (I used fresh jalapeños and serranos, and dried chipotle chiles of hot and hotter varieties, reconstituted in water), parsley, tomato paste, red wine vinegar, cumin, oregano, tarragon, salt, pepper and water, all combine with semisweet cooking chocolate to create a palette of flavors guaranteed to, as my girlfriend put it, “win any chili cook-off.”

Not to be out-spiced or out-chocolated by course two, course three really had to come with it, and it did: top sirloin topped with spicy chocolate mole sauce. Although somewhat similar to the chocolate chili, with the whole chocolate-meets-spicy-steak kind of thing going for it, this dish would differ in that the steak would be seared to medium rare and the sauce poured over it would be much stronger in flavor, including heat intensity. It really worked out well. The juicy meat was kept pristine from the chocolate and peppers of the previous course, so that it could then be reintroduced to those components one bite at a time, depending on how much sauce you wanted.

I just combined all of the ingredients for the mole sauce: extra virgin olive oil, garlic, onion, red bell pepper, chiles and peppers as per the last dish (although I used more of this and less of that chile in order to give the mole its own distinctive flavor), tomatoes, chicken or beef stock (I happened to have some homemade chicken stock in the freezer), cumin, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, sugar, honey mandarin orange zest, chocolate, salt and pepper, into a food processor (it all just barely fit), then transferred it to a medium-sized pot and let it cook slowly. I waited until it was time to serve this course to cook the meat, then poured the slow-cooked sauce over it and added a dollop of sour cream.

In all humility I must confess, by the time we ate this course, which went over quite well also, we had drank a few mocha cherry martinis, and optioned out of having dessert at all. The workload had been a bit much, so I wasn't too disappointed, and she was never much for sweets anyway. I would have done well to plan ahead a little more, and to have divided my workload into smaller, more manageable portions. As it was, our appetites were more than satiated, and dessert was redefined as brunch the morning after, but was delightful nonetheless.

All in all I’d have to say, sometimes you really can never have too much chocolate, and nothing says I Love You like a messy kitchen with chocolate all over everything.

The Naked Onion