https://kateskitchensfca.com/14685 (Unfortunately, this is as official as it gets for their web-site.) Place: Kate's Kitchen Location: 471 Haight Street (between Fillmore and Webster Streets) Hours: open Monday at 9:00am, Tuesday - Friday at 8:00am, and Saturday & Sunday at 8:30am Meal: Meat Omellette[ sic ] (no Glen Bacon Scale points are ever taken off for mispelinks, Tori) ~ smoked bacon (no relation to the aforementioned "Glen"; of course, this item was duly 86-ed), avocado, red beans, carmelized[ sic ] onion, yellow squash, roasted tomato, pepperjack cheese, served with home fries and choice of toast (I wisely went with the choice of homemade [well, Kitchen-made] Cheese and Green Onion Biscuit); and, to drink, a large (16 oz) glassa fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice
("But... but, Brian... why did you not use Sir James' 'Ram On' song?" Do you even get the idea behind mojo-ocity and sports intimidation?) In an effort to provide as much extra mojo on my end as I could, I returned to Kate's Kitchen (see last 'blog-entry from Saturday, March 3rd, 2018) for breakfast this morning. Last year on Super Bowl Sunday, I ate at some other joint... and we all know how that game turned out. However, exactly two years ago, I did eat at Kate's Kitchen (see previous 'blog-entry from Super Bowl Sunday, February 5th, 2017), and the New England Patriots were mightily victorious. I am not saying that they won the game entirely because of me, but it is best not to mess with this hoodoo-stuff. There were also a few other interesting ideas this morning: Mindy's Hash Browns~ hash browns folded with scrambled eggs, bacon (which would also have been 86-ed, Glen), and Cheddar (this was initially gonna be my pick off their printed menu, but I kept changing my mind once I saw what they had to offer on their Specials-board); "Veggie" (uggh!) Scramble ~ marinated artichoke, roasted eggplant, carmelized[ sic ] onion, pesto, roasted tomato, Mozzerella[ sic ] (all of these "sick" mispelded words were handwritten and can not be blamed on any incorrect spell-checkering functionality); or the Aggie Sando ~ avocado, Cajun cauliflower (which sounded very interesting), spicy onion, roasted tomato, mixed greens (bka: "rabbit-food"), chipotle aoli, Cheddar.
I went with the meaty ommellette option because I liked all of the other ingredients in it better'n what they were offering in their "Veggie" (uggh!) Scramble this weekend (which woulda probably been my choice otherwise). I especially liked that the tomatoes were actually roasted; you could easily see that they were cut into thin wedges/thick slices and oven-roasted. However, in my opinion (and this is my silly li'l 'blog-thing, after all), there were not hardly enough red beans inside it; as this was one of my major deciding factors in ordering the dish, I was a little bit disappointed in that. No biggie. I still enjoyed the entire dish a lot. On all the tables, I only saw Tapatío®Salsa PicanteHot Sauce available for use as a condimentary supplement, but my waitress/server-lady person told me that they do have a few other bottles in the back on a shelf if requested. This really did not matter, as always, I had come well-equipped packing some of my own bottles of hot sauces, and used a little (well, a lot, 'cause it really is not spicy in the least... or the most) Emperor's Revenge Teriyaki Hot Sauce (Thanks, Mom!) on the potatoes and a little (well, also a lot; this one is a bit hotter'n the other, but still not that very hot for me) H*ll's KitchenSmoky Bourbon Hot Sauce (Thanks again, Mom!) on top of the ommellette. Well, I have done all that I can do in my powers today. Now it is up to that Tim Bradley-dude and Bob Billicheck-guy (and the rest of the boyos) to bring back #6 to Foxboro. Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Meaty Ommellette~ 6.9; (Super Bowl Prediction) New England Patriots v. Los Angeles Lambs ~ 34-30
https://www.strawsf.com/ Place: STRAW ~ Carnival Fare Location: 203 Octavia Boulevard (near the corner of Page Street) Hours: "Brunch" is featured under the Big Top Saturday & Sunday at 10:00am Meal: Seasonal Salad ~ roasted beets, mixed greens (aka your basic rabbit-food-stuff), goat cheese crumbles, candied pecans, honey dijon-apple cider vinaigrette, with two over-medium eggs laid (well, placed) on top; and a glassa (Mason jara, actually) Strawberry-Basil Lemonade
(Just a coupla "Carney"-related songs for today's breakfast destination, Art. [I am just sad that I could only include one P3 song, though.]) Because this weekend is the 40th AnniversaryCarnaval San Francisco, I thought it fitting to head back to STRAW ~ Carnival Fare (see last 'blog-entry from Saturday, June 17th, 2017)... nah, actually, I was already planning on going back to this particular restaurant this weekend, anyway, and saw somewhere that San Francisco's Carnaval just happened to be this weekend also. I was lucky enough this morning and parked just around the corner (legally, even) on Page Street. Once again, I sat outside in one of the four two-seater sidewalk tables: 1) 'cause it was nice enough this morning to do so, and b) 'cause I could (I was the second person/group waiting in line). STRAW does not really have that many items from which to choose on their "Brunch" menu, and by now I have had each at least once. My back-up plan (in case I did not like the sound of the seasonal ingredients for the salad) was going to be a re-do of Hanky Panky ~ cornmeal Belgian waffle, two fried eggs, maple-glazed bacon (which would have been 86-ed again, of course), Cheddar & Jack potato croquettes. (not really such another) Strange Coffee Interlude This morning I made sure to get over to Hayes Valley about an hour before STRAW opened to get me another cuppa at Ritual Coffee (this time at their Quonset hut[1]-kinda shop across the street from Patricia's Green[2]). I just got what they were offering as their standard prepared Coffee, which happened to be La Soledad (another Guatemalan bean). Now, this was a good cuppa (as are alla their cuppas, and their Ethiopian roasts/blends are usually phenomenal, but they did not have any of those offered this morning), but I did not like it quite as much as yesterday's cuppa. While I was enjoying my cuppa, I saw several pupsters (with their human tag-a-longs) in the park and met one really cute little feisty girl (her humans told me that she was a Cairn Terrier-Schnauzer mix[3]... possibly... ). https://ritual.myshopify.com/collections/coffee-beans/products/soledad-guatemala
So, this was a salad with a coupla eggs on top. Not much to describe there. I would have rather had my eggs to have been poached, but I was told they do not prepare any poached eggs (no room in their kitchen in which to prepare them or something). The honey dijon-apple cider vinaigrette was really very good. One thing I might have done differently if I were making this salad myself (yeah, right), I think that pistachio seeds[4] in it would have been a much better flavour-combination and a bit more original (everyone always does salads with either beet-walnut or beet-pecan variations). STRAW only has Crystal®Louisiana's Pure Hot Sauce for use as a condimentary supplement, which they have transferred into cruet-shaker-pourer things on each table (at least that was what they had in them the last time I ate there; I really did not bother to ask which hot sauce it might still be today). I just used some of my own Punch Drunk™Chocolate Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce (Thanks, Sean!) on top of the eggs. Surprisingly, this hot sauce mingled (mangled?) very nicely with their vinaigrette, too. Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Ritual Coffee - La Soledad ~ 6.5; Seasonal Salad ~ 6.4 (I gave this an additional 0.2 GBS points each for the roasted beets, goat cheese, and very tasty vinaigrette; it was just a salad, after all) ___________________
1. a) How many of you were aware that these prefab-buildings were named after a U.S. Naval Station where they were first designed and built? http://varnumcontinentals.org/2016/04/the-quonset-hut-a-rhode-island-original/ b) Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day: The place name/word "Quonset" is from a southern New England Algonquian language and perhaps means "small, long place". 2. This smallish local park (only two blocks long and about a quarter-block wide) is named Patricia's Greenfor Patricia Walkup, a local activist who volunteered her time for many years to fight neighborhood crime, and co-led a campaign to tear down the remaining part of the Central Freeway that once ran through Hayes Valley. http://sfrecpark.org/destination/patricias-green-in-hayes-valley/patricias-green-in-hayes-valley-picnic-area/ 3. Which got me to a-thinkin'... if a Cocker Spaniel-Poodle mix-breed is called a "Cockapoo", a Pekingese-Poodle hybrid is a "Peekapoo", and a Labrador Retriever-Poodle crossbreed is a "Labradoodle", what the heck would the AKC call this little muttster? I threw out "Cairauzer" and "Schnairn" to her human escorts, but they did not seem to cotton to (nor polyester to) any of my intelligent suggestions. (I was gonna say they "poo-poo-ed" my ideas, but that silly joke would have only made sense if this little girl had any Poodle in her.) 4. As I have mentioned many times before, you would have to be nuts to think that pistachios are true botanical nuts. They are actually the seeds of the plant. And here is an extra freebie pseudo-horticultural pointer of the day: the pistachio tree is a member of the cashew family (and cashew "nuts" are not botanical nuts none neither).
Madness takes its toll... please have exact change!
https://www.matchinghalfcafe.com/ Place: Matching Half (Café) Location: 1799 McAllister Street (on the corner of Baker Street... no sh*t, Sherlock!) Hours: open Monday-Friday at 7:00am, Saturday & Sunday at 7:30am Meal: Breakfast Sandwich ~ scrambled eggs & Cheddar on brioche (bun), bagel, or bed of greens (which would be a silly choice and not even a "Sandwich" ~ "Breakfast" or "otherwise") w/ avocado; a homemade (well, bakery-made) Blackberry "Pop-tart" from Black Jet Baking Company; and another mighty-fine cuppa (pour-over style) Andytown Coffee RoastersEthiopia Bedhatu Jibicho https://www.blackjetbakingco.com/ http://www.andytownsf.com/purchase/ethiopia-bedhatu-jibicho
(Luckily, we will not have to do any unnecessarily imposed time-warping again until Sunday, November 4th.) I came across Matching Half (Café) last weekend after breakfast as this little corner neighborhood coffeehouse is located just across the street from green chile kitchen. I suppose you could say "... it's just a jump to the left... and then a step to the riiiiiiight!"... (Well, you could say that if you happened upon a creepy Frankenstein-place late one night.) Because of the evil "time-warp" inflicted upon us this morning, I was able to find a decent parking spot right in front of the joint. There really wasn't much customer-activity the entire time I was there (from 7:45am-ish to 8:30am-ish), anyway. (Conclusion: Just because our time-pieces [both wall-adorned and wrist-wearing] state "7:30am", our bodies are still clinging hopelessly to the fact that it is actually "6:30am".) My main reason for heading back that-a-way so soon again is that I noticed that Matching Half served Andytown Coffee Roasters as their house Coffee! Any food-stuff that they might provide thereafter would just be icing on the cake (or "Pop-tart"). Not only did I like that they offer Andytown Coffee Roasters, but they also give you several of their Coffee options (blends/roasts) from which to choose, too. Me (to barista-dude handing me my cuppa): "So, what does 'Matching Half' mean/stand for?" Barista-dude: "I think it is some kinda Greek mythology reference." (Okay. Whatever that means. I left it at that.) I really have to give kudos to both the barista-dude and the counter person-lady that took my order, they put up with a lot of inane questions (and by "a lot", I mean I bored the h*ck outta them with A LOT of stupid questions) from me about everything Coffee-related (from my unbridled exuberance for Andytown Coffee Roasters [in my opinion (and my opinion is all I care about, anyway), these guys are easily the Best Local Coffee Roasters ~ and I do not mean just "local" as in "San Francisco-local", but "local" as in "Northern California-local", and quite possibly the entire "Golden State-local"]... to Ethiopian Coffee [especially Andytown Coffee RoastersEthiopia Natural Banko Fuafuate ~ which is truly exceptional, and currently my favourite local blend/roast]... to Snowbird Coffee [the barista-dude told me that one of their other workers also works at ★ the ★ Richfield part-time]... to Contraband Coffee... etcoffee) and baked goods-related (from Bakers of Paris for most of their bread/sandwich items... to House of Bagels™, which is where they get all their bagels [it truly is one of the better New York-style bagelries in town; even though I have actually only been to New York City just a handful of times, to me, this is what a New York bagel should taste like]).
For my sandwich, I went with the brioche bun choice (a wise choice, as it turned out to be ~ why the h-*-c-k would I choose the d*mn rabbit-food option?). This was a very nice bun, too. Aside from the fact that these scrambled eggs were made nookular-style in a microwavable cooking unit, this was a pretty decent sandwich (and those clowns at Mickey-D's could take a pointer or two here). It included an entire half (because the term "a whole half" is as confusing as trying to "save an hour" of sunlight) of an avocado in the sandwich. The Blackberry "Pop-tart" was made with puff pastry from what I could discern. They offered several other flavours: Brown Sugar (which would have been a very good choice with today's meal, too), Jalapeño (let's just see Kellogg's® try and market that flavour to kids), Strawberry, nutella®, and even a PB&J one. Now the cuppa was another truly fine output from Andytown Coffee Roasters. While this might not have been as stellar a find as their Ethiopia Natural Banko Fuafuate, it was definitely recommendation-worthy and better'n a lotta the tasteless brown-swill that is being served now-a-days at many purveyors of Coffee-joints. For being just a neighborhood corner coffeehouse, Matching Half actually had a decent array of condimentary supplements. They had bottles of Tabasco®Brand Pepper Sauce (Original Red Sauce), Tapatío®Salsa PicanteHot Sauce, Huy Fong Foods, Inc.Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce, Valentina® Salsa Picante, and the Pepper Plant® (Original California Style Hot Pepper Sauce). I did not notice all of those hot sauces until after I had finished eating and had bused my plates, though. So, I just used some more of my own Palo AltoFire Fighters XXX GhostPepper Sauce (Thanks, Brian!) on half of the sandwich and some Dancing DragonCayenne Pepper Sauce (Thanks, Mom!) on the other half. You don't have to be a sweet Transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania to know that any place that serves Andytown Coffee Roasters is andy with me, Jake! Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Breakfast Sandwich ~ 6.4; Blackberry "Pop-tart" ~ 6.6; Andytown Coffee RoastersEthiopia Bedhatu Jibicho ~ 7.3 (keeping in mind that Andytown Coffee RoastersEthiopia Natural Banko Fuafuate comes in rocking the GBS at about 8.0-8.2)
Tamales ta-day! Mr. XV Pay-It-Forward Memorial Weekend #8 (continued)
http://www.greenchilekitchen.com/ Place: green chile kitchen Location: 1801 McAllister Street (on the corner of Baker Street) Hours: open for breakfast Monday - Friday at 10:00am; "Brunch" available Saturday & Sunday at 9:00am (now why they call the early morning meal that they serve during the week "breakfast" when they open an hour later than on the weekends is beyond me) Meal: Migas ~ eggs, crispy tortilla strips, green chile, tomatillo avocado salsa & cotija w/ black beans; one Cheese Tamal (see, the correct singular form of this word en español is actually "tamal"; consider that a freebie stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day); and a large glassa Horchata[1]
(Okay, sorry, but the completely un-PC-ocity of the first song notwithstanding, it did fit nicely into the whole EweToobular[2] juxtaselection of "tamales"/"tomorrow"for me. [Are Mexican Liberals that are easily b*tt-hurt called "Copos de Nieve"?]) Because I wanted to "wrap it all up" (corn husks or not) nicely this weekend with "tamales", etc. (see yesterday's silly li'l 'blog-entry-thing for that explanation), I made a purposeful decision to go back to green chile kitchen (see last 'blog-entry from Saturday, March 18th, 2017 ~ almost exactly a year ago... well, if "almost exactly" means give-or-take a week or two). This is such a great place for desayuno ("Brunch"-ayuno, whatever)! (Why did it take me nine years to "discover" it, though?!) If I lived in the Haight (or Lower Haight or Western Addition), this place would easily be in my Breakfastary Starting Rotation; it is just that good and tasty. I have not had one bad meal there yet (granted, it has only been four visits thus far, but even in Baseballese, that is still batting, like, .400 or such, right?!) and there are still a few more dishes that I want to try; ferexample: Eggs & Greens(¡Pero no jamón, Sam, yo soy!) ~ scrambled eggs, sautéed greens, brown rice, avocado, & pico de gallo (add chicken / pork 2, add steak 3... ¡No, gracias! to all of those for me); Healthy Breakfast Bowl ~ scrambled eggs, beans, chile, lettuce, guacamole & pico de gallo (add chicken / pork 2, add steak 3... again, ¡No, gracias! to all of those for me); Huevos Rancheros ~ corn tortilla, 2 fried eggs, chile, cheese & crema, served w/ refried beans; Flat Enchilada Plate ~ housemade (well, kitchen-made) corn tortillas, eggs, meat, chile, cheese & sour cream served w/ posole & beans (this one intrigues me the most, and if it can be made vegetarian-friendly [I am sure they can always omit any dead, decaying animal flesh, but I am not sure how they make their posole], I will most likely order this on my next visit... hopefully not in a year [or fifty weeks] from now).
I like that their tamales (which is the pluralization of "tamal") are made with blue corn and this one had a nice surprise of a New Mexico green chile in the middle, kinda like a New Mexican version of Twinkies® (well, if Twinkies® were made with corn and cheese and not some kinda plastic with silicon filling)... I would normally go with a side order of potatoes, but wanted to make sure and order some kinda tamales side-dish for this specific weekend.
This was also made with blue corn tortilla strips. While this is not exactly the same dish as Chilaquiles, it is close enough for this gringo (See? My b*tt never aches when someone calls me a "Gringo!"... besides, I have to laugh and tell them I am not of Greek ancestry.[3]) and I liked it mucho. Surprisingly, even with the addition of the tamal, this was just about the right amount of food for me. I had thought of also ordering another one of their Vegan Sweet PotatoTamal(which I had on a previous visit and really enjoyed), but that probably would have "exceeded the limit, sir!" for my appetite. For condimentary supplements, green chile kitchen offers just Tabasco®Brand Pepper Sauce (Original Red Sauce) and Tapatío®Salsa PicanteHot Sauce. Not that it really needed it (and I did not know ahead of time that it had the surprise filling of a green chile in it already), but I used some of my own Palo Alto Fire Fighters XXX Ghost Pepper Sauce (Thanks, Brian!) on top of the tamal. Additionally, I used the last amount of their tomatillo avocado salsaon it, too. I left the rest of the meal unencumbered (Have you ever heard of anyone "encumbering" something?) with superfluous additions as their standard green chile salsaon the Migas was plenty tasty enough without me m*cking-it-up in any way with unnecessary modifications. Mr. XV Pay-It-Forward Memorial Weekend #8 (continued) Interlude For today's paying-it-forward activity, I gave away two boxes of Girl Scouts Cookies. They were still selling them in front of a local Safeway and I decided to buy two more for myself. While I was inside, I had the great idea to use these as my "random acts of kindness" for the day. (Well, knowing that I still had about 6-1/2 boxes left over from the nine boxes that I had already purchased over the past three weekends. Sure, it is illegal to sell drugs in a school-zone, but how do Girl Scouts get away with selling these addictive treats in front of stores to unwitting dupes like me?!) Anyway, after doing my weekly grocery shopping, while at the check-out counter I asked the cashier-lady if she would like a box of cookies and she accepted one (I gave her the choice of either s'mores or do-si-dos, she wisely went with the s'mores). I then asked the bagger-guy if he would like the other box, but he politely declined. (Who passes up on free Girl Scouts cookies?!!!) No worries, I figured I would just have to "suffer" and bring them home to eat myself. As I was leaving, I could not resist picking up yet still another box (for anyone keeping count, this made my twelfth box of cookies from these street-side baked-goods pushers!) of s'mores for myself. Then I saw a homeless guy on the sidewalk in front of the store and asked if he would like one of the boxes of cookies. He wisely (for me, at least) chose the box of do-si-dos (leaving me with another box of s'mores all to my ownsome! Yay!). As for yesterday's paying-it-forward activity, I simply gave $10.00 to the barista/counter-person-lady at one of the Andytown Coffee Roasters shops and told her that the next two or three drinks were on me. ("$10.00, Brian? But wouldn't that pay for more like four to five Coffee drinks?" Trust me, that may barely pay for two or three drinks there. I love Andytown Coffee Roasters drinks, but they are NOT cheap.) http://www.andytownsf.com/ Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Migas ~ 6.6 (this is factoring in the side of black beans and their really tasty tomatillo avocado salsa); Cheese Tamal ~ 7.3; Horchata ~ 7.0 ___________________
1. ¿Qué? Now here is where I could go into a long, boring "stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day", but that would probably take several days and cost thousands of lives. So, instead, I am just "borrowing" this explanation from from the friendly folks at WikipediA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horchata In most Mexican restaurants (well, at least most of the ones here in San Francisco that I have frequented), Horchata is generally made of rice, water, sugar, and cinnamon. (Sideways-note, to anyone suffering from Spring-Summer cravings: Horchata makes for a very tasty hot beverage on a bitterly cold Nor'eastery kinda night.) 2. Okay, so just exactly when did EweToob change the looks of their logo? Also from the friendly folks at WikipediA: "On August 29, 2017, EweToob launched a new logo, typeface, color scheme and other changes to the appearance of its desktop and mobile app." Well, I don't care, I am sticking with the older version as it looks cooler to me. 3. I wonder if people in Greece say, "It's all Spanish to me!" (Look it up yerd*mnself to get that stupid joke[?]!) (Hmmmm?! On second thought, maybe I shouldn't oughtta have used a "b*tt-ache" reference in the same sentence as "Greek" above.)
"¡Hoy tú, tamales yo!" or Mr. XV Pay-It-Forward Memorial Weekend #8[1]
http://kateskitchensfca.com/14685 (This is not really that much of an "official"-type web-site, but it was all that was currently available.) Place: Kate's Kitchen Location: 471 Haight Street (between Fillmore and Webster Streets) Hours: open Monday at 9:00am, Tuesday - Friday at 8:00am, and Saturday & Sunday at 8:30am Meal: Orange Spice French Toast ~ French bread sipped[ sic; it actually is misprinted that way on their menus and it also appears that way on-line; go digure ] in orange-spiced batter, then baked and sauteed with butter; a side of homefries; and a large glassa Ruby Red grapefruit juice
(Today's 'blog-entry thing just happens to be my Nine Hundred and Tenth such item... or maybe them mop-topped Scousers just happened to be big fans of French toast and homefries, too.)[2] I returned to Kate's Kitchen (see last 'blog-entry from Sunday, February 5th, 2017) for a milk, bread, and eggs breakfast this morning. (Coincidentally enough, I did eat at Kate's Kitchen on the very first Mr. XV Pay-It-Forward Memorial Weekend back in 2011, too.) I specifically planned on ordering a French toast dish if they had a good choice from which to choose (and they had several good choices from which to choose today) as an homage to my friends and family weathering another beastly Nor'easter up in Massachusetts and New England. There were still other good ideas this morning: French Toast Orgy ~ orange spice French toast (they don't specify whether or not this one is "sipped") topped with fresh fruit, yogurt, granola, and honey (if I had ordered this, I probably wouldn't have had room for the side o' potatoes, too); French Toast (simply enough named) ~ whole wheat Texas bread w/ strawberries & bananas; Pumpkin French Toast w/ Chocolate chips & whip cream (I have had this disgusting[ly good] version of French toast before on a past visit and would not mind retrying it again); Cranberry & Chocolate French Toast ~ w/ strawberrys[ sic; they did not seem to have a problem spelling strawberry in the plural in the French Toast description above, though ] & Chocolate butter(this one also sounds about as disgusting[ly good] as their Pumpkin French Toast and is definitely gonna be on my short-list next time I visit if it is still available); Veggie (ugggh!) Scramble ~ avocado, Cajun cauliflower (I was told that this is much like standard cauliflower, but just with more of an Acadian attitude and pronounced to sound funny), spicy onion, roasted tomato, cilantro, pepper Jack, topped with chipotle aoli, eggs (this last ingredient seemed to be added as an afterthought, though); or Flanched Farney Garney ~ the original flipped egg and cheese sandwich with home fries (which I really need to try one of these days; I am not sure if I have ever tried it in the twenty-plus years that I have been eating at this restaurant).
"Here's your extra-large helping of carbs for the day!", as said to me by my waiter/server-person-guy when he placed my plates in front of me. I told him that you can never have too many carbohydrates. Besides, they make some really good homefries, anyway; they are made with lots of green bell peppers and white onions, and all are nicely caramelized and charred to crispy-crunchy perfection. This was served as five slices of French toast. That is always a good start. I liked it a lot (probably not as much as their disgusting[ly good] Pumpkin French Toast, but it is definitely worthy of a recommendation and a return taste all on its ownsome). It was just about as much food as I could eat comfortably along with the side of homefries. From what I could see on all the tables, Kate's Kitchen now offers only Tapatío®Salsa Picante Hot Sauce for use in condimentary supplementation. I used some of my own homesweet homegrown®Punch Drunk™Chocolate Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce (Thanks, Sean!) somewhat light-handedly on the potatoes, and just because I had brought it with me (and because I could), I used just a little H*ll's Kitchen® Smoky Bourbon Hot Sauce (Thanks, Mom!) on one of the slices of French toast (Don't hate me because I have beautiful tastes! ~ it actually wasn't half-bad in tastaposition with some of the maple syrup also on it). Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Orange Spice French Toast ~ 7.0; homefries ~ 7.3 ___________________
1. Right before I headed out for breakfast seven years ago on Saturday morning, March 5th, 2011, a friend on defacedbook had posted a very heart-warming story. (Thanks, Gene!) I am relaying it again here for anyone wanting a good, happy cry: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/magazine/06lives-t.html?_r=1 Now, this story had put me in such a good mood that I had to make sure to do at least one thing nice for someone else that day. I think I may have just paid for a few people's Coffees that were behind me in line or something simple enough like that. I explained it thusly on that particular 'blog-post: "I usually like to inflict 'random acts of kindness' on people, anyway; it serves two purposes:
1) as I am normally a fargin' bastage in person 95% of the time, I figure it can't hurt karmicly to pretend to be nice the other 5% of the time;
and most of all
2) it totally messes with people when you are nice to them for no reason whatsoever… well, I guess I may lose karma points for that, but it's still fun." I highly doubt that I would have ever made "Pay It Forward Weekend… or bugger off!" an annual event (or even continued it on to the next day, Sunday), but for one other defacedbook encounter that very same day. I was still in such a good mood after breakfast and all day long; however, when I checked in to the funny pages of defacedbook later that afternoon, I received some very sad news that a friend (whom I had never actually met personally, but had known via the Intro-Net virtually for several years from both defacedbook-land and MLB.com( 's Fan Forums Message Boards ~ specifically those of the Boston Red Sox and some other team from da Bronx) had died suddenly. His real name was Scott Pearson Haviland, but he was known fondly as "1523202"* (which was his sign-on moniker with the MLB.com( sites), or "Numbers" to others, or as I liked to call him "Mr. XV". Sure, I had never "met" him before, but I had "spoken" with him daily for several years running (even though he was one of those Y*nkees-type fans) and the shock of hearing that he had passed away suddenly really struck me (and we are the same age, too). (C'mon, how many of you cried when Old Yeller died? And he was just a Dog in a Disneylandia movie.) Thus, every year around this time in memoriam and remembrance of Mr. XV, I try to carry on the tradition of inflicting random acts of kindness on complete strangers (Have you ever met a "partial stranger"?). So, don't be a tire iron, be a tamale (just like Mr. XV would have wanted you to be)... and this weekend (or whenever the feeling takes you) pay-it-forward... or bugger off! *(The specifics of the "1523202" is a Y*nkees-thing, of course: Number "15" was worn by Thurmon Munson, who was Scott's all-time favourite Y*nkees player; Number "23" was worn by Little Donnie Baseball; Number "20" was worn by Jorge Rafael Posada Villeta; and I am not sure which Y*nkees player may have worn the Number "2", but I bet that he must have been pretty cr*ppy to get saddled with that one.) 2. I have also been doing this silly li'l 'blog-thing for about nine years now (give or take a week or so). Knowing me and my AADHD, I honestly thought that I would have gotten bored of it in less than six months. Of course, I would still always go out for weekend breakfastary fare, but just not bore anyone else with the details here. (And if'n any of youse wants to complain about my starting this 'blog in the first place, please forward your concerns to one James Turner [he's only about 6'3" and 240 lbs] who encouraged me to start it. Thanks, JT!)
