Genuinely fun

I didn't get to get all cobrasnake on this party because I ate some spiked dessert and got really forgetful and sleepy. I did manage to get in a few photos of the ultimate party animal, Pony.






Girls went wild for Pony.


Ned Flanders was not interested in Pony.


The Shroud of Turin told Pony to eff the eff off.

Party was fun. I should have gotten there earlier, but Frida couldn't decide if she wanted to make another appearance. That bitch ended up going, but not until way late. I pretty much left when Whitey got there.

Fall time

It's finally starting to feel like Fall. The trees are dumping leaves, it's chilly in the mornings, it's getting darker earlier and A&P has Frambozen!! I love A&P.

Regrets, I've had a few.
Like the regret I have for having written an internet novel on croutons. Now for something that will completely melt your heart like ice cream left in the refridgerator by accident.



Yesterday, I came home to this dogurrito. Too presh!

Prepare to be bored
It's rainy outside and I'd much rather be at home working on my new comp and a pot of chowder. Instead, I'm here in the office and maybe that's good because I'm really busy. I'm always really busy. So...because I have a reputation to keep up of being almost totally boring, let's talk about croutons.


I know this sounds crazy, but I'm really into croutons right now. It's safe to say I'm crouton crazy and I'll probably never buy croutons again because these homemade ones taste so good. I learned how to make them from an ex-Paragary's cook.

Here's the rough recipe:

A round loaf of sourdough from Bernardo (they bake fresh loaves every day, but see if they'll sell you a day old one, because think about it. They might even cut a sweet deal or what the eff, it's just croutons anyway and that's just little bits of baked bread anyway.)
Olive oil
Ground salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Cut the loaf in half so that you end up with two narrow domes. Slice the crust off with a nice, sharp bread knife. Set the crust aside to save this for crostini later, or throw them out. Take the peeled, white bread and cut into chunks no smaller than dice. Throw them in a bowl and drizzle some olive oil all over. Throw on some ground salt and pepper and toss it all up with your hands so everything gets coated just nicely. Lay these little dudes on a cookie sheet in a single layer and bake at 350 until they start to get firm. Turn them over once and pop back in until they get a just a touch golden.



Done. This is my second batch, made from foccacia.

You can make the crust into crostini by treating them the same way with olive oil, salt, pepper and heat.

Leon said that I should have a seperate cooking blog. I think he's just trying to tell me that no one wants to read about my exploits in the kitchen. Whatever dude! I don't make any promises to entertain. In fact, I never meant to share this site anyhow. Actually, after writing all this, I am starting to feel really embarrassed for taking pictures of croutons last night.
Who has ever taken a picture of a crouton for the express purpose of posting it on a blog? I can't believe myself.

That cow is at it again


Cow met John Van Hamersveld this week (the guy who did some classic rock album art). He also put his profile on myspace so I don't have to keep posting his activity here.

Atomic Cow on Myspace.

More wedding pictures


One of the cakes.



Two parts of one of the bees.


Magic people.


Peter Pan.


A young Christopher Tolkien.

Joel & Hilary's wedding and costume ball


They didn't register for this, but I know they're going to love it. A 48 piece, stackable food storage system on a lazy susan.


A young Chris Tolkien weeps after the ceremony.


Everyone came together to celebrate. Cowgirls...pirates.


Santana was there, too.


Frida Kahlo came.


Bee Gay kept trying to provoke Frida by telling her that she looked Portugese.


Diego Rivera finds a place for his drink.


Most bubbly costume.


Most judicial costume.


I was almost positive that the oldest dude in the world was going to die at the wedding, but he lives on.


The Michael Jackson and Peter Pan mutual admiration society.


Saint Frances and Disco Lady cut it up.


Bands played.


F.D.R. toasted the newlyweds.


The groom.


The bride.


The end.

My dinner with Andre. Uh, I mean Katy.
We finally got dinner club back on track. Everyone's schedules lined right the hell up. It was my turn to cook this time.


Here's the first plate. Figs with goat cheese and secret recipe crostini.


Here's the second plate. Stacked tomato salads.


Here's the side. Roasted sweet potato fries with rosemary.


And here's the main course. Pesto stuffed portobello mushrooms with secret recipe, seasoned bread crumbs.

Super company and the flavors of fall on the palate. I do love cooking.

Cow meets Dee Snider

You can barely see him, but there he is. Totally chilling with Dee Snider. Dee Snider, the man who insists on still not taking it after all these years.

I swear I'm busy today!

Whatever dot com!

Almost forgot! I went to this product presentation last night. Free beers, veggie pizzas, CDs and DVDs. I won this Rhino box set called Whatever: The '90s Pop Culture Box. It includes '90s songs I haven't thought about since 1995. Like "Three Little Pigs" by Green Jelly, "Gepetto" by Belly and the god-awful "Here and Now" by Letters to Cleo. In a lot of ways, the '90s were just as bad as they were good. Listening to disc 1 right now, I feel compelled to make snarky comments about each song, as if I'm on VH-1's I love the '90s show. "But why IS the groove in the heart?!"

Among piles of other stuff, I also picked up some Trina perfume samples (come on, who wants to smell like Trina?), HR Puff N Stuff DVDs and a sampler to Rhino's Girl Groups box. Overall, good take.

Wishin' and hopin'

If I reached over to rub my coffee mug and a genie popped out, I would wish for the following three wishes:

1. This week's winning lottery numbers
2. The day off
3. Three more wishes

Okay, for my three more wishes I would wish for:

1. A new career
2. A veggie burrito from Pescados circa 1997
3. World peace and all that

Shine a light

This photo is from Friday night. Fun, so fun.

Sunday was such a nice day because the weather was just perfect. I did some cleaning, visited with my parents a little. My dad was born in Sacramento like yours truly and his mother before him. Every once in a while, I ask him things about Sacramento from his days growing up downtown and in Old Sac (when it was like skid row). He's always so stoked to share stories about him and his brothers daring eachother to explore the tunnels under downtown or other mischief they used to make. Last time he was over, I showed him a book I picked up at Tower about the history of East Sac, so this time he brought me some really old Sacramento postcards showing the amtrack station, the capitol and the Tower Bridge.

I also went over to Beers. For some reason, I hadn't been there since they moved, so I decided to take over some old books I found while I was cleaning. You know, check out the new place. It was so nice to just browse for a little while. I picked up the Greens cookbook, which I think is a little bit beyond my cooking abilities, but seems to have some really yum recipes. Can't wait to try out the potatoes and garlic roasated in parchment paper.

Cow that flew to Philadelphia

One day this small, stuffed cow appeared in the office kitchen. I threw it into the cubicles as a joke. Cow kept appearing the most random places all over the office. Like a secret prank. You'd been cowed if you came back from lunch to find the cow on your chair. Poor Cow. So homely. I decided to give him the opportunity of a lifetime, a flyaway trip to Philadelphia. I had the intern box him up in a package en route to one of our stores there. After a few weeks, Cow started sending me pictures of himself canoodling with celebrities. Suicide Girls (see above), Dar Williams (see below) and George Clinton (one below that one).





Oh Cow. Be careful and come home soon.

Extreme Food Challenge: update!

We're trying to not eat out this week. Instead we're getting creative with the food we have left in the house. It's been a long road, lined with homemade pizza, burritos and frozen vegetables. Overall, it hasn't been so bad. Sure, we ran out of bread and some other staples, but here I am on the last day of the challenge thinking about delicious food that is NOT pizza, burritos or frozen vegetables.

FYI, best pizza deal in town is the bag of 99 cent dough from TJs. Just roll it out and top with sauce, cheese and fixin's you probably already have. Dollar pizza, everyone. Dollar pizza.

It's true!

I love a Levy and I'm not jewish either.

This may not be kosher, but eff it

Take a look at Heylove's famous litter mate, held here by Richard Grieco, also known as the guy that uses the same Boston Terrier breeder as me. Oh, and as the guy that replaced Johnny Depp on 21 Jump Street. I checked him out on IMDB and didn't really recognize any of the movies he's been in lately.