Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Spent a night some 25 years ago drinking these and my head still hasn't forgotten. The only place to drink these is in a Tiki themed bar.

Surprisingly, only 14 and I'd like to give back the night of the Zombie.

It's been 14 years but I remember Corsino's in Montgomery to be the best pizza in the city. Much better to take out than eat in the restaurant, which had the ambiance of someone's basement in serious need of remodeling.

Thought Ludo would go for chicharones - the "street" folks would have recognized fried pork rinds immediately. Thought Wilo's offering was good for the crowd but not for the judges as the beef heart was buried among more traditional sandwich meats.

This was the first episode where the staging by producers just jumped off the screen. Not even one person in the crowd was shown turning their noses up at offal. Obviously a herded group during a cold day at a theme park. The Bayless/Ludo conflict seemed contrived as well.

The offerings in the public schools my kids attend is horrific. Hot dogs, hamburgers, processed pizza, processed chicken and "breakfast for lunch" are the typical menu choices. The sad thing is that my wife volunteered in their lunchrooms and said the kids would throw away the healthy portions of the lunches (carrots, green beans, basically any vegetable) so what they're eating at school probably reflects their poor diets at home.

That being said, our sons take packed lunches almost every day.

Anne Burrell needs to stop making the "muppet" voice no matter what show with which she's involved. It's "brown" Anne, not "BRRRROWWWNN!" We get it, FN is trying to give her a trademark, like Paula's "Hey Y'all" which is like nails on a chalkboard. Knock it off.

As for Corwin, saw the pilot and his mind was blown by an entire cooked pig, gnawing on its crackled skin so I'm guessing he's not a vegetarian.

FN, please do away with the awful "Throwdown" show - can there be one cook left who doesn't see the challenge from Bobby Flay coming?

Wise Cheez Doodles > all Cheetos products.

Early Sunday morning, late on this topic, but I'm game anyhow.
1. After learning how to cook, I learned my mother wasn't a very good cook.
2. My day must start with coffee made from fresh ground, dark roast beans. I often go to bed thinking about waking up to that coffee.
3. I have a friend who hates both mushrooms and olives - like it's a blanket statement. Adults who aren't willing to try foods irritate me.
4. My grilled bone-in rib-eye is often just as good as what you'd find at a high end steak restaurant (and cheaper).
5. I distinctly remember restaurant meals from childhood. (Frog legs in St. Louis, Mama Leone's in NYC in mid 70's among many)
6. Anything called a "bagel" that doesn't include boiling should be illegal.
7. I had to give up smoke house almonds.
8. I now snack on wasabi peas quite a bit.
9. My 10-year old wants to be a chef and it makes me regret my career choice since that's what I want to be as well.
10. My appreciation for good sushi grows each time I have it. All three kids love it too.
11. My wife is a good cook but often under seasons her food and I get to doctor it. Never enough salt.
12. Eating well and properly is expensive so people who make the "look at how fat they are" comments about poor people are irritating and uneducated.
13. I still love Captain Crunch.
14. Cooking eggs properly should be where every new cook begins.
15. I love most kinds of potato chips but had to cut them out for the most part. Potato chips are the devil's food.
16. I worked at Wendy's as a teenager and loved the rush of a full lunch crowd and 10 cars in line at the drive thru.
17. My wife gets annoyed that I rarely use recipes and just cook especially when it turns out really well.
18. We have at least 20 cookbooks but rarely use them. Watching food shows and the internet has taught us technique and basic flavor building.
19. I know quite a few people who insist on completely separating the food on their plate. Weird to me.
20. Sometimes nothing else will do but a Frisch's Big Boy and onion rings.
21. I usually put peanut butter on top of ice cream.
22. Ketchup on hot dogs is an abomination against humanity. Seriously, you're a man, leave the ketchup for the kids.
23. One can only imagine the contamination that used to be on the Burger Chef works bar.
24. Spending a week in New Orleans was easily the best week of eating in my life.
25. One raw oyster made me as sick as I've ever been. That incident did nothing to deter me from eating them again and again.

Toby seemed to get some coaching to adjust from what he thought the producers wanted to some actual food criticism. I think we'll see less WMD type lines in the future. (I hope, we have enough of the stereotypical snarky British judge on other shows.)

The judging during the quick fire was pointless - the French chef only used the word "interesting" or said nothing. From Toby's comments on his blog on the TC site, it seemed the producers paired them because of Toby's harsh criticism of Novelli on a UK cooking show and the subsequent banning of Toby from all of Novelli's restaurants.

As for the eliminated, the judges got it right. Raw fish tacos on a cooking show? Melissa seemed like a fodder chef that had stayed longer than expected as did Euguene, who is too inexperienced.

This season's chefs couldn't hold a spatula to the best chefs of seasons past. Richard or Stephanie from last season would blow every one of these chefs out of the water.

Cheddar, mustard, tomato, grilled please

Bone-in ribeye

A few months ago, my son and I enjoying thick cut bacon from Kroeger and Sons in Cincinnati's Findlay Market.

We oven baked the slices, a flavor combination of intense bacon and ham that needed a knife and fork. Awesome and worth the wait over frying. (I did fry some other slices and they were very good also.)

We also bought some Chicago style coarse ground sausages on the same trip and they were terrific on the grill.