Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Here in Long Beach, CA, we have a ton of Banh Mi joints but most of them have this peculiar Khmer twist due to the large Cambodian population. They're not classic banh mi but they sound a whole lot better than the joints mentioned in the article.

Heretics! Raisins in chorizo sounds bizarre. Maybe delicious?

I'll brown some chorizo, mix in some refried beans and serve it with two sunny-side up eggs for breakfast. I'm with Kao on this one-charred tortillas are not optional.

If it's a peanut treat, nothing beats a Mazapan. It's a little pale brown puck made of ground peanuts and an assload of sugar...has a rose painted on the outter wrapper. It's bliss.

Fresh, home-made pico de gallo is sooo easy to make, why would anyone bother with jar'd stuff?
If I had to choose, the spicier the better. The mild and medium salsas always tasted like jazzed up pasta sauce to me.

It can imagine the "pizza" taste: tomato puree and oregano.

My bf makes a crazy compound butter with chipotle chillis in it.
It makes any boring steak sing.

Soda.
"Pop" sounds quaint, in a backwoodsy kind of way.

I have a friend that is stuck in a struggling college student mentality. Homegirl is almost 30 and she still does things like ordering a very pricey full dinner and only eating the sides so she can save the main course and milk 3 more meals out of that at home. And when the bill is ready she "only brought a $20". It wouldn't be so irritating if I didn't know she made insane money as a PR agent and had cute shoes she bought at Nordstroms. Her excuse was that she was driving me around town...even if our dinner destination is down the block.

It got to the point where I decided I would treat her to a drink and tell the server upon being seated that we would be doing split checks.

Tear off the bandage. If this person's a good friend, they'll get the point.

Something Spanish.
I like those little balls of goat cheese balls rolled in crushed nuts with the walnut half or fig confiture inside.

You've got to be a real elitist jerk if you dislike Spam.
It's part of the holy trinity of breakfast meats: bacon, sausage links and luncheon meat.

Achiote oil!
Sautee annato seeds in REALLY LOW heat with either olive oil or clarified butter until it turns a beautiful red. Toast rice in this oil and simmer as you would plain white rice.
The annato gives it a beautiful color and perfumes the rice, too.

Service charges are added to hotel restaurant checks and I can safely say the servers don't get insurance coverage either. Sure, they have the option to purchase overpriced healthcare, but it's definitely not included.

Can't we all just put our bullshit aside and let Obama's bill pass? I mean, really. Come on, now.

I didn't realize pink boxes were strictly a west coast thing.

My favorite donut shop in San Pedro, "The Donut", uses those grey boxes that fast food joints like In N Out use as to-go boxes. The grease stains on those boxes are very unforgiving. They're an embedded guilt-trip.