OMG! It’s Got MSG!

In my quest to make the best ever Spam Musabi, I picked up a bottle of traditional blend furikake at my local Japanese market. I showed my new acquisition to a friend who read the ingredients and quickly informed me that it contained MSG.

I thus did what any rational person would do, took the bottle outside and burned it on a funeral pyre dedicated to the healthy food gods. Continue reading

The Death of Yard Culture?

Today I wonder if we are experiencing a death of “yard culture” to the detriment of society. There is no escaping the fact that modern developments place oversized homes on postage stamp lots with little or no yards.

If you go back as ten or fifteen years. The yard was as integral part of any home design. Look at Sunset magazines and books from the 1960′s and 1970′s and one finds the height of yard design. Even city dwellers craved a small patch of land or even just a balcony to place a few tomato pots. Continue reading

Movie Review: Chef

Written and Directed by: John Faveau

This film follows Chef Carl Casper’s (John Faveau) voyage of re-discovery of the important things in life after his termination from an exclusive restaurant by the unimaginative owner Riva (Dustin Hoffman) and following dispute with a restaurant critic Oliver Platt (Ramsey Michel). Along the way we see Carl’s handling of relationships with his son (Emjay Anthony), ex-wife Molly (Sofia Vergara), her second husband (Robert Downey Jr.), friend (John Leguizamo), kinda girlfriend Molly (Scarlett Johansson), and others.

This is just a wonderful film and stands out in a day and age where so many films overlook good old fashion film making. Faveau’s artfully blends comedy and drama and wraps them up in a flaky road trip crust. Continue reading