Buenos Aires Goodbye Dinner

Last night myself and a few friends dined at Bogota, http://www.bogotabistro.com/ , a Latin Bistro on Park Slope's illustrious 5th Avenue. I had never been to Bogota before, but a former roommate of mine, Celeste, works there and had recommended it to me many times as a good place to go. I wanted to find an appropriate place to go before my trip to Buenos Aires, and there food is pan Latin. I also noticed that Wednesdays they had happy hour all night and live music. This seemed like the right place to go.

All I can say is...wow. The food and the atmosphere was great. When I got there, a few people were already at the bar making use of the happy hour and eating appetizers



I brought my new camera. It's the Pentax K10D, http://www.dpreview.com/articles/pentaxk10d/, an awesome new 10 Megapixel camera. I am still trying to figure out how to use it correctly, so even though I took a lot of photos, there were only a few that were worth posting (sorry I wasn't able to get everyone). It's difficult using this camera without a flash in a low lighting situation, but I will definitely figure out how to do it.






Everyone had a great time and really liked the food. I was drinking a strawberyy and guava mojito. Nice.

After all the goodbyes were said, Kat and I went back to my place and played with my roommate Courtland's dog, Mia, for about a half hour.






Fuck this dog is cute :)

So I am catching a plane with my friend Ezra tonight to head off to Buenos Aires. This is where we are staying http://www.stayinbuenosaires.com/pringles1200_e.htm . I got a call this morning telling me it won't be available for the first night we're there, so they will be putting us up in a bed and breakfast. Boo hoo I guess.

The next time I post, I will be in South America, probably hung over.

Till then...


P.S.: Anyone who wants me to send them a postcard from BA should email me their address at M_Drumm@yahoo.com.

The Turducken Factor

There are many things that go into the creation of a perfect Thanksgiving feast. Often times it's a combination of things like a juicy turkey and creamy mashed potatoes, Sometimes it's a succulent ham with candied yams, and other times it's a good selection of wine, conversation and merriment. Well, we had all those this year, and it was great. But what made the ultimate difference was what I like to call "the Turducken Factor". This is a scientific term that plots a graph where one axis measures the tastiness of a Turducken and the other measures the amount of fun had on Thanksgiving. I have put an example here from Science Weekly.



As you can plainly see, the amount of fun had at Thanksgiving is directly related to the tastiness of a Turducken. All I can say was our graph was off the charts this year. It was juicy, succulent, and tasti all wrapped up in a multi-meat and stuffing adventure. Here are some pictures of the creation of this years Turducken.

First you start with 1 raw chicken, duck and turkey. The turkey is the biggest and ours was about 24 lbs. The next largest is the duck and ours was 6-7 lbs. Our chicken was 4-5 lbs. You must completely debone each bird (except for the turkey, where you leave the leg bones). This is not an easy process, as you have to keep the bird intact, especially the skin as you remove all the bones. To do this, you must cut down the spine of the bird and begin to seperate the meat from the bone while trying to keep the meat together in one main piece.

Note: These pictures are not for the faint of heart.









Success!





Once you've deboned all the fowl, you lay them out and put stuffing on each one.







We had an andouille sausage stuffing for the turkey, a cornbread stuffing for the duck, and a shrimp stuffing for the chicken.

Then came time for the fun part. We closed the chicken up with skewers



Then we put the chicken in the duck, and closed the duck around the chicken, then skewered that shut as well



Then we put the chicken and duck inside the turkey, where yours truly then sewed the turkey shut





And then VOILA! You have Turducken



The next day, after cooking for 9 hours, we pulled it from the oven



Oh so tasty brown! We then remove the skewers from inside and cut it open. As you can see, each piece has three layers of meat with a different stuffing between each



And then time for the feast. The chart proves correct again and science prevails as there are nothing but happy faces






So what have I learned from all this? If there's birds for the pluckin, and fingers for the suckin, then you had better make a Turducken.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Three Chefs!



Coming up next:

Buenos Aires Goodbye Dinner and off to South America!

Thanksgiving Menu

Ok, so here is a menu I have made for our Thanksgiving feast. You'll notice there are little people next to some of the dishes. This is will tell you who's making what.

I know this looks like a lot of food, but we're expecting around 18-20 people this year, so I think we'll make a sizeable dent in it.

Shopping for this has been a multiple day affair.

Bocceriffic

So I took my family to play bocce the other day at the oyster shell courts down the street. Here are some pics:



My sister steps up to the plate.



My Dad surveys the scene.



Too close to call.



Nothing like a little form.

We've been there a few times now. I'd say my family is hooked. My dad was even thinking of putting a court in by the side of the house.

It's good to have Miriam home with us. She adds that extra topping of cheese to our family's pizza.

Off to California

I arrived in Oakland California on Thursday. I slept through my alarm, so I about 5 minutes to pack when the car arrived. Thankfully I got everything I needed and managed to perform some AM duties in the process.

Here's a pic of me with my Dad's ridiculous license plate.



So I did some research and found out that there are 8 outdoor bocce courts literally down the street from where my parents live. I conviced my Dad to get a set of balls and we hit the courts.



I had never played on an outdoor court before, but seemed to do well regardless, much to my Dad's chagrin. I certainly didn't make it easy for him. But I think he's caught the bocce bug and will be ready to play any time I'm out here.

My sister flies in tomorrow. She was supposed to come Tuesday, but I convinced her to come earlier. My whole family's excited.

Stay tuned for the making of the Thanksgiving feast which includes a fully functioning Turducken.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turducken

Welcome

Welcome to my Blog. I am starting this to chronicle my trip to Buenos Aires this December, but I might as well make use of this forum so my friends can know what's up in my life.