The sport of picking winners is a lot like hamburgers.

Both have European origins. Both can be enjoyed when done simple and quick or with freakish obsession and rigid self-discipline. Both are awesome.

If you want a quick tasty burger, check out Whataburger. If you want a fun football pick’em league, check out Yahoo. Just between the two of us... I nosh on a Yahoo from time to time.

Are you drawn to the exotic? You can find plenty of high stakes “Vic & Anthony’s Burger Friday” type leagues. Those are exquisitely delicious.

Just the mention of hamburgers in the blog title evoked a Pavlovian slobber, didn't it? Pickem-Football.com is that perfect soft and juicy patty with a crunchy exterior. We are the perfect combination of toppings. We are those toppings that you have loved since childhood along with the ones you've added as an aspiring foodie.

A truly great hamburger only needs a few things. Flavor. Texture. Moisture. And the ability to freestyle. We have that.

Rulebooks are great when they are used to keep your city safe or to keep Roger Clemons’ ego in check, but hamburgers don’t need but a few rules.

And why do hamburgers always end? Do you know what is better than a hamburger? How about FOUR delicious and unique hamburgers!

Don’t get me wrong – The recipe for Pickem-Football.com took years to perfect, and it is by no means perfect. However, after a decade in the game, we certainly don’t serve hockey pucks.

RECIPE:
Follow these steps for an incredibly tasty football season

The Meat:

We can debate in the comments, but a great burger must have some kind of meat. Here is our blend.

• 15, College Football Games per week. Picked against the spread. Odds provided for each game.
• 14-16 (all), Professional Football Games per week. Picked straight up (no spread).

Notes on seasoning: On each week’s card for NCAA and NFL games, we will have optional bonus question(s). While these won’t increase your Pick’em score, they are collected and used in the post season games. Bonus points are given to weekly winners, for pay your entry fee early, and for some other random stuff we make up along the way.


The Buns:

With so much emphasis on the meat, the bun seems to have become the forgotten ingredient. Our buns are so good that you could eat them by themselves. Good luck finding delicious buns at ESPN.

• 35 (all), NCAA FBS Bowl Games. Picked confidence pool style, straight up (no spread).
• 11 (all), NFL Playoff Games. Picked week-to-week against the spread, against the spread.

The Accoutrements:

Pickem-Football provides you with the intensely savory flavor and the seasonings, garnish, and condiments are all up to you. This is not your typical stuffy fancy-pants burger or generic corporate burger. We build our masterpiece through a blog, spreadsheets, and email. If you have a last minute submission, then we accept picks by text. We make this stuff up as we go along, folks. Each week will feature bonus opportunities, casual blog posts, smack talk, incomplete sentences. (example from 2011)


How to Order:

If you are ready to take a bite, get your fingers to the Official Registration Form. The cost is $25 for the entire season, which is a bargain considering that you'll be eating the Pick'em burger for five months. That's feeding yourself for something like $0.16 a day! I encourage you to check out the official recruitment blog post over at the league's website: Pickem-Football.com. Or, check out how I predicted that we'd be here together almost six months ago. Destiny.

Heck, if think you might have a hunger pang in the next five months, then I strongly suggest you take a bite of the registration link. Pickem-Football will give meaning to each of your weekends this football season. Fulfillment guaranteed.

Ranked listicles are to the blogosphere as SirRon is to Eating Our Words. (Second most "liked." Who would have guessed?) We looove lists here at The Ferm. We also eat pizza. You see what we're getting at?

To keep you away from that dreadful hot dog stuffed crust thing from Pizza Hut (j/k PH. Call me, boo), we proudly present to you...

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Houston's Ultimate Top 3 - Pizza

If there is anything more widely debated than how to solve our nation’s health care problem, it is where to find the best pizza pie. How funny because -- well, we don’t want to spoil the fat joke by giving you the punch line. If we told you once, we told you in a tweet and in our last Top 3 listicle; Grimaldi’s in Sugar Land serves up the best pies in the Houston metro area. Despite being but a suburban franchised copy of the real Grimaldi’s (located under the Brooklyn Bridge), during your visit you will most likely forget you have those three kids, two dogs, and that Chinese dwarf hamster when you get a mouthful of sausage and roasted red pepper pie. But more seriously, if we didn’t have such a drinking problem, we’d only need one place on this list. Luckily, La Vista makes a great, relatively inexpensive pizza AND they are BYO. I’m just saying, when we B our O, we B the good stuff. Sometimes we stay at the "office" a "little late" though, and it is those days that we are glad someone invented fourth meal. Taco Bell’s Mexican Pizza not only represents the only remnant of the glorious Taco Light shells, but they also probably started the fusion cuisine movement. Wikipedia will probably confirm.

As always, comments are appreciated. Ladies, please use my soft taco recipe post to leave your digits. Live Más.

EDITOR’S NOTE: WE AREN’T SURE VAUGHN IS TAKING HIS FOOD WRITING ASSIGNMENTS FOR THE BLOG SERIOUSLY. FOURTH MEAL!? WE ARE ALL IN THE SAME GANG AT THE FERM, SO last but not least, we can’t leave these joints out – we know three at least, we need to point out – we’re not trying to tell you what to do – but we care what you eat is not poo poo – first off, Bombay’s pie, my oh my, is can’t miss – the cilantro-mint chutney will grant bliss – (“oh I just can’t bear the smell of curry!”) – get your picky self to Pizaro’s, hurry – it’s BYO, and so is our last – this one you can eat on your grass – Totino’s, we keep a stock in our Subzero – take notes and you’ll be indeed...... a pizza hero. /mic drop

So I'm reheating an oh so good leftover steak fajita enchilada (with a few spoonfuls of refried beans and guacamole on the side) and life is good.  Good, until that is, when I go to make a small bowl of chips and salsa.  Chips...check.  Salsa in fridge...almost out, that's okay just go the pantry.  Wait, where's the next jar of salsa.  Seriously, it's gotta be here.  It's salsa.  And I live in Texas, dammit.

No salsa.  Not behind the pasta sauce, not behind the soup, not behind the cereal, not behind whatever those flys are swarming around.  Screwed.

 

Has anyone seen me???

What happened.  I briefly considered that one of the following scenarios:
1) Wife hid salsa as a prank.  Viable b/c she was frustrated at nearly running out of syrup for her frozen waffles (note, I am the pantry stock manager).
2) Someone broke into my house and stole the jar of salsa (but nothing else).
3) Zombies

Another viable solution is that the last time I moved salsa from the pantry to the fridge, I somehow convinced myself that it was too soon to buy more salsa and I should wait.  This is dismissed as salsa does not last that long.

Some sort of failed ops plan at the grocery store is a more likely scenario.  It was on the list and missed?  My handwriting is bad.  One time I came home with Cheer detergent instead of cheese.  I remember thinking "I've never bought Cheer before, but it's on the list, so I must have been thinking I need it" (in the cart it goes).

Then I think, I live in Texas dammit, maybe there are "salsa trucks" that drive the neighborhoods for just this situation.  After waiting a few minutes, this doesn't seem to be the case.  However, the light bulb goes on.  WHY DOESN'T ANYONE DO THIS!!!!!

So here's the business model, you can take it and run with it, but it can't miss.  Salsa/Tortilla truck.  Drive the neighborhoods with a full stock of salsa and fresh tortillas.  Seriously, we have stopped into Taco Cabana before just to buy tortillas.  Usually when HEB runs out (or the machine is broke, like last week).  This is opportunity knocking.

I realize that Taco trucks are on the path of this, but they usually aren't mobile.  At least down my street.

Book it, the future of Texas cuisine.  Salsa/Tortilla trucks.  You've been told!  I live in Texas Dammit!

Part 1: In which we get a brief introduction to a multi-part blog series (that will probably be abandoned after one post).

Good day to you, my friends. Today I'd like to take advantage of the skeleton crew that is left around here during football season to bring you a new blog series: "Dude, you going to teach that?" 

The premise is nearly almost self-explanatory. First I present to you a piece of work from the Internet, and then I dissect it. Hopefully, some sort of lesson emerges.

Part 2: In which we get the syllabus.

Instead of teaching you how to make delicious stuff to put in your mouth, today I will present a discourse on Deductive Reasoning. 

To truly extrapolate significant intelligence on this topic, we must consult the work of masters. The rise of social media has spawned a renaissance for pundits and curmudgeons. Just a quick aside, with this plenitude of enlightenment to be found on the Internet, I fully expect "street smarts" in the future to refer to the Information Superhighway and not actual streets. Fortunately, the Internet gives us access to an array of veritable savants on all things ever whispered in mankind's own collective head. 

Our featured post is titled "Houston's Diners", published on the highly-respected Internet outlet for eating thoughts, food.DrRicky.net. Since this class is real-time, I will present the text, unedited and in its entirety, in the body of this lesson.

In terms of my particular qualifications as a professor, I'm certainly no doctor, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Just kidding, I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, but it wasn't last night. Just kidding, I only showed up in the lobby that morning for those delicious cinnamon rolls. 

At the very least, I have read the work cited in this syllabus. I also have a thesaurus open so I can appear really, really sharp astute. 

Part 3: In which we break down our subject piece.

Any doctor worth his proverbial salt wastes no time getting to the point. 

In a recent survey by Zagat (now a property of Google)

*sigh* The Googlization of America continues. At least Yelp retains its credibility by remaining independent. I Bing'ed the details of the Zagat acquisition, and I think it is possible that Google merely took over the lease at Zagat's vacated office space. It was also not clear after my research whether the "recent survey" was a Google Doc form.

revealed that Houstonians dine out more often than any other city in the US. 

YEAH!!

Some seem to think that this is something to be bragged about.

Oh, um... For the record, that "some" refers to Eater Houston, a blog dedicated to all things dining related in Houston. Even though this is precisely the kind of news I would expect to see on Eater, let's do a quick sanity check.

1. It ain't bragging if it's true
2. The Zagat survey proved* Houstonians dine out more often than any other city in the US.
3. Therefore, Eater was reporting fact and not bragging.

*probably needs reference, but

Why is that?

Doc likes softballs. 

If there's anything I've observed about local dining out habits is that these diners tend to go to the same narrow range of restaurants, all of whom tend to offer very similar dishes.

We will break here so you can wrap your heads around this astute observation. 

Diners eat what they like – AND – Diners go to restaurants that serve what they like.

Curb those feelings of self-doubt and let those ideas marinate while I toss a few more things on the fire. Diners also all drink similar beverages (always Diet Coke or Bud Light). These diners also all tend to wear similar clothes. When is the last time you saw a 3-piece suit at Applebees? I rest my case.

Moreover, people tend to order the exact same dish with every visit. I believe the latter part is true of most American restaurant patrons.

Except Houstonians order a lot more combination fajitas and frozen margaritas with salt than the average American restaurant patron. Fact.

These habitual systems fuel the burgeoning monotony of the dining scene in Houston.

Really? Fajita jokes aside, everything about the statement above is completely invalid. The reality is that Houston is home to a world-class dining scene. Houston offers both traditional and progressive interpretations of Texas Gulf Coast cuisine, Tex-Mex cuisine, and a plateful of restaurants that represent Houston's melting pot of cultures.

If diners in Houston go to the same restaurants serving the same food, then how do restaurants in areas along Airline, Washington, Bellaire, Long Point, or Westheimer survive? How does Houston even have five great food streets/districts? Furthermore, why can I easily find someone who would duel to the death over replacing one the streets mentioned above with their favorite food street?

Our diversity stems from the number of different ways one can put toppings on a hamburger, or the minutiae of smoking brisket.

Dr. Ricky is thoroughly connected to Houston's food scene, so this smarmy, faux intellectual statement must be leading us to some sharp-witted deduction.

Ubiquitous blogging idioms be damned!!

And at the end of the day,

Eh. Never mind.

familiarity often trumps flavor at the checkout receipt.

The assertion here is that things that taste different taste better? Whoa there, el doctor. 

Let's take a moment to review. Dr. Ricky has established that the average Houstonian diner does not meet his culinary imprimatur because she isn't adventurous enough. Caught in the blast zone of that bombshell was Eater Houston, a website dedicated to dining that "bragged about" Houstonians eating out more than any other U.S. city -- according to a Google study.


What are the details of said study? I'm glad I asked. (I like softballs too.)

Zagat's recently released its 2012 America's Top Restaurants Survey for their newest guide. The survey was based on the votes of over 156,000 "food lovers" dining out in 45 major markets. Just for reference, the Houston metropolitan area alone has almost 6,000,000 residents, so the survey was far from comprehensive and most likely not very scientific (e.g. votes from "food lovers"). The study concluded that the average food lover in these top 45 markets ate 3.1 meals that came from a restaurant per week. These results do not differentiate between type or time of meal, as far as I could make out. 

Texans were the Charlie Sheen of this survey, with four cities locking down the top slots of the survey for meals eaten from a restaurant per week: Houston (4.0), Austin (3.8), Dallas/Ft. Worth (3.6), and San Antonio (3.5). 

With that inscrutable science, we continue with the post.

But the necessary consequence here is that Houstonians tend to cook less often at home.

OK Stop. The deductive argument presented here is that since Houstonians eat out (or get take out) more than the average American, than they are cooking less at home. The statement sounds reasonable on the surface, but let's evaluate the significance of that logical statement. Ignoring the most important meal of the day, the Taco Bell 4^th Meal, a monotonous diner eats 21 meals in a week. The average Zagatian fooder eats nearly 18 of those at home. The average Houstonian Zagatian fooder, with his burgeoning waistline eats only 17 of those 21 meals at home, a difference of less than 5%.

• Math check: 5% > 0%
• Therefore, the doctor's conclusion seems sound.

But is there an important lesson to be extracted from those numbers? Once again:

But the necessary consequence here is that Houstonians tend to cook less often at home. And this should be recognized as a sad matter.

Wait, should it?

Irrelevant conclusions < Tim Tebow < Sound Logic 

Maybe Dr. Ricky's premise would be sound if every meal eaten at home was a home prepared meal. What if I make a frozen pot pie for dinner? Ramen noodle? How sad is that? What if I bought a bowl of pho at a local restaurant and my neighbor made a PB&J? 

Does this make Dr. Ricky cry?

Back to the Zagat study, can we even make the assumption that the average diner eats at home for 17.9 meals and the average Houstonian eats at home for 17.0 meals? 

The study only addresses meals away from the home, not the balance of the other meals. Do the people in the study eat only two meals a day? Did they eat at Dr. Ricky's house? It is simply not sound logic to assume that the number of meals the participants in the study cooked at home. Remember, we are talking about less than a 5% difference between Houston and the average for these other meals. All the study states is that, based on the votes of over 156,000 food lovers dining out in 45 major markets, Houstonians responded that they ate out on average 4.0 meals a week compared to 3.1 for the average of the entire survey. Where in the survey does it address cooking at home?

There's a true and essential skill to cooking - it's the art of finding flavor amidst compromise, a balance of knowing enough of the science of chemistry and microbiology to apply heat and time to raw ingredients, to bring forth a transformation worthy of one's palate, discriminating or otherwise.

What a fascinating bit of misdirection and sophistry here. A Criss Angel just got its wings. 

In the first part of his post, Dr. Ricky scolded diners for not eating adventurous enough when they ate out. Now, we are being scolded for not understanding the art and science of cooking in our homes! Nice one.

But wait, there's more…

And above all, it's about taking responsibility for the outcome, something that Texans, and all Americans, for that matter, are supposed to take pride in. And even the humblest of cooks are better equipped to appreciate the vision and efforts of a fellow cook by their very exposure to the craft.

What the smell? And this is how the doctor's little game of inception ends. I'm convinced that Dr. Ricky wanted to chastise Houston diners, wrote this revelation, and just backed into the fluff at the beginning. Certainly he didn't have logic over for dinner that night.

Perhaps I got lost in the "essential skill" of this confusery and don't know "enough of the science" to be "discriminating or otherwise," but at its best, Dr. Ricky's post served a proper outlet for him to unleash his distaste for Eater Houston and the average diner. 

At worst, this is a shipload of scrap. 

Part 4: In which we are presented a completely unrelated anecdote.

The other day I was driving in the museum district around midday. After a slight bend in the road, about 100 feet away, I noticed an oncoming car. The driver, a soccer mom in a Chevy Traverse, was in the midst of a huge face contorting yawn. 

I understand there to be many theories on science of yawning. However, if there's anything I've observed about yawning, it is that they are terribly contagious. If a person even hears a yawn, they often have to yawn themselves. The theory even holds true with animal yawns.

So you won't be surprised to read after that car passed me, I too began a monster, eye squinting yawn. As I was completing my yawn, a car passed me in the same direction of the Chevy Traverse I originally spotted.

Then it hit me. Had I passed through a mysterious zone, a perpetual field, fueled by the invisible power of the yawn? Did I pass my yawn to the new car? Had cars been passing that yawn back and forth for hours before I drove through that area? How long did the perpetual yawn zone stay alive? Could there be other similar perpetual yawning zones in the city? The World? The Universe? Was this discovery significant? 

I'm no philosopher, but probably.

 

When I discovered recently that The Ferm got a shout out on Eating Our Words, the Houston Press' food blog, I was like -- WHAT THA H!?!

Quote-unquote avid readers of The Ferm are probably familiar with SirRon's sobering attempts at getting published on Eating Our Words. But if you are not, after reading my post (of course), try to figure out which story is more affecting, the first or the second.

Vaughn S. Gregg has higher aspirations than just being the internationally recognized creative chef on an obscure drinking blog with absentee leadership. Yes ma'am I do. But instead of a clichéd harangue against the city's only major news and entertainment weekly as brash and freewheeling as Houston itself, I've decided to share with you guys the pieces that I actually wrote and sent to the Houston Press offices. I'm all about good food and not so much about copyrights and statutes of limitations. However, our big stick here at The Ferm is a lawyer, so Mr. Smokeypants can just apply the strike-through tag on this post if he feels I've broken any blogging laws.

The first piece I sent earlier this year was on the Top 3 chain restaurants in Houston, TX. Comments are appreciated. Ladies, please use my soft taco recipe post to leave your digits.

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Houston's Ultimate Top 3 - Chain Restaurants

1. Sweet Tomatoes
2. Grimaldi’s
3. Chuy’s

What a treat to have the opportunity to opine above the comment section level, an opportunity that is no doubt the culmination of our hard work down there (and a possible sign of the apocalypse). We should celebrate with a margarita from Chuy’s. We can love this place and not feel like we are part of the cult. When we want to feel like family, we get a pie at Grimaldi’s. If we close our eyes, the franchised version tastes almost exactly like all those pies we ate under the Brooklyn Bridge, except we don’t have to pay in cash in the suburban replicas. Sometimes we eat healthy, but only sometimes. At Sweet Tomato, it is your choice. We can tell you your life story by reading the salad you built. Grab a monthly BOGO coupon and we’ll be your plus one. You can figure us out too, that is if you can see our salad behind our four soups, two pastas, and muffin pile.

Grand plans are noble, although also a grind. I intended to use today’s theme to challenge myself to create some food pairings for the beer I selected (intended = it didn't happen). But excuses are for losers. To preserve my masterplan, I'll do my best to churn out a few relevant paragraphs on beer and food pairings. And I'll still be drinking. So except for the possibility that I didn’t get raptured today, I’d say I’m still winning.

The rise of craft beers, miles apart from America’s industrially produced light lagers, has recently spawned a trend of beer and food pairing. Breaking into the mainstream has been slow. Wine is the sovereign food partner of fine dining. Every respectable restaurant has a wine list. Selections and quality of sommeliers can make or break a great restaurants’ reputation. Wine's place with food is based on its acidic, strong, and complex flavors. However, I question if the myth that wine is a superior food companion is not largely based on legacy.

Wine, crafted with arguably a superior ingredient -- the grape, is a one-dimensional beverage. All wines taste like fermented, aged grapes. Beers while crafted with more pedestrian ingredients -- grains and hops, are multidimensional beverages. Brewers craft their beers by tweaking the balance of malty sweetness and hop bitterness. Furthermore, flavor complexity is tailored using different types of malted grains and limitless amounts of adjuncts. Both wine and beer can utilize either naturally occurring or cultured yeasts to covert sugars to alcohol, but the yeast in beer making plays such a large part in the finished product’s flavor profile it can act as an important of an ingredient as  the malts and hops.

As a quick example, Saint Arnold Brewing Company recently replaced its lowest selling beer (Texas Wheat, an American-style Wheat) with an altered version of one of its more popular beers (Fancy Lawnmower, a German-style Kölsch). The brewery now has two beers with the exact same recipe, but fermented with two different yeasts that yield very different tasting beers. In a recent newsletter, Saint Arnold reported selling as many kegs in a week and a half of the new replacement (Weedwacker) as it did of Texas Wheat in a whole year.

With an unrestricted amount of flavor profiles, beer is unmatched in potential flavor pairing combinations with food. Beer can also leverage its carbonation to lift aromas and clean your palate between samples. Wine is challenged by spicy foods, pickles, asparagus, etc. Your local wine merchant may have thousands of wines to choose from, but only a small handful of them would even be acceptable for that coconut-curry Thai dish.

My first beer pairing education came from a session by the Texas Culinary Academy in 2005. The chef giving the seminar demonstrated the three C’s of beverage pairing: Cut, Compliment, and Contrast.

Cut: Spicy foods can be cut by malty sweet beers, like an English Pale Ale or a German Marzen. The richer the food, hoppy beers can clean the creaminess or fattiness from your palate. Dry stouts can even cut through the richness of a sweet chocolate dessert.

Compliment: Beer really shines as a food pair in this category. While wine basically enhances foods with acidity, beer can provide a subtle compliment to a food’s flavor. Belgian beers spiced with orange zest and coriander provides a great compliment to salads. Japanese beers brewed with rice are perfect companions to pieces of sushi.

Contrast: Like wine, any food that is enhanced with acidity can be adjusted to provide a good contrasting food pair (imagine something that tastes good with a lemon squeezed on it). Fish and white wine is a good pair, as is a light-bodied pilsner. However, no contrasting pair may be as sublime as a raw oyster and a dry stout. I first had this pair at SAVOR in 2009, where the Choptank Oyster Company was shucking fresh oysters. I made several trips through the line with samples of some of the best stouts and roasty porters in at the event.

Whether beer or wine, food pairing promotes the kind of creativity that I love when cooking. It also encourages a more thoughtful and enjoyable eating experience. In the end, my originally planned post probably would have been more enjoyable for me than it would have been for you (kind of like beer reviews, eh?)

Day 6
May 21, 2011
Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Namaste (Milton, DE)

Website/Bottle Information:
"A Belgian-style White made with dried organic orange slices, fresh cut lemongrass and a bit of coriander. This beer is a great summer quencher.
Namaste was originally brewed at our brewpub in with our friend Leo from Birra del Borgo in Italy as a tribute to our friends at 3 Fonteinen brewery in Belgium, who had devastating production loss (1/3 of their annual production!) at their brewery in 2009. You can read more about the original brewing of this beer here on Sam's blog."


Serving: 750mL bottle
Style: Witbier
IBU: 20
ABV: 5.0%

He Said:
I haven't poured a beer from a 750mL bottle with as light and fluffy of a head as this one in a long time. The beer is very effervescent. All the carbonation really carries up aromas of the lemongrass and coriander that the beer is brewed with and some musty funk that it probably wasn't brewed with. I'll admit that if I hadn't used it in several homebrewing recipes, I wouldn't know coriander's aroma though. Some citrus is detectable, but it seems to be more from the yeast and not the oranges used in the brewing of Namaste.

I am always impressed with the incredible balance of each Dogfish Head beer. Even their hoppiest IPAs have a malty sweetness to perfectly balance the bitterness. Namaste is no different. Hops are present in the perfect amount to balance the beer and keep the flavor profile dynamic from start to finish.

Namaste is lemony, light, and refreshing. If I had attempted to craft some food pairings, I think this would have gone great with a salad incorporating some citrus. It would have also gone equally well with a chicken quesadilla.

I generally attribute the term "Namaste" with yoga or new age-type activities. Tonight this beer was enjoyed while bathing two little children, which is probably the furthest from that lifestyle. Translated, "Namaste" means greetings or good day. I think I'd say this is a pretty good day.

She Said:
Color - Golden

Carbonation - Very bubbly

Smell - Citrusy, Belgian

Taste - To be fair, I have tasted this beer before and enjoyed it even more the first time. The lemongrass and citrus flavors totally shined through in my previous tasting. This time those flavors are present but aren't as powerful (aging? storage issues?). I still enjoy Namaste's light bubbly taste that doesn't stick to your palate. The beer is a cool and refreshing treat for a hot summer day. I recommended this beer to friends after the first time I enjoyed it and would do the same now.

7/20/11 Update:

Recently in the Houston Press, esteemed food commenter "Bruce R" called these the Coors Light of tacos. Comparing my soft tacos to one of the best selling beers in the United States is an amazing honor. Thanks Bruce!! If commenters were news anchors, you'd be Isiah Carey.

Now that all the Corpse Flower mania has died down around here, I think I'm ready to deliver a follow-up to my smashing debut. But despite all the toiling with slumpbusters I've been doing recently, you should expect the inevitable sophomore slump.

Have I lowered your expectations enough? Let me be even more honest. This post almost never happened, because I seriously considered retiring after my first ever blog post.

My Spam® Crackle recipe got a mention on the definitive online source of Houston news and entertainment, The Houston Press, as well as gained the attention of Hormel's Spam® itself. I may be new to The Ferm team, but I think I've already vaulted Mr. Smokeypants, who filed a drunken live-blogging of an Astros game in his debut.

This rousing return to food blogging began a few weeks ago while I was destroying a T4 combo at the local Taco Bell/Long John Silver's franchise, which by the way goes together like money and bank. OMG, the taco is much, much greater than the sandwich! As I sporked up the last of my Mexican pizza covered in eight Fire packets I couldn't stop thinking how I'd love to find me a Latina mami that would make me delicious tacos every day. Mmmm, we'd get married, make little meximelts together, and raise them in some border town with "Nuevo" in the name. Aye, que rico!

I'm just saying, show me a great sandwich shop and I'll show you four taco trucks that are better. Plus, just try to put that corned beef with Russian dressing in your pocket. Case. Closed.

I knew my next (how you say) entrada en el blog had to be taco post.

Tacos... It's On!

Mimicking the course of my professional peers, I began by going to an expert for advice, which in this case was my Mexican friend. Readers, if you don't have a Mexican friend, get one. Seriously, what are you, racist? I also suggest having an Asian and a gay friend, but that is advice for another post. My friendo Mexicano suggested I keep it simple: Ground beef, onions, peppers, and cheese. This sounds right in my wheelhouse. Let's do this.

No fancy name this week. I'm calling this recipe Soft Tacos (partially because I don't know the Spanish word for "soft").

You are going to need this stuff:

• 1 lb Ground Beef
  Select the percentage of fat based on your own percentage of fat. Note that the grocery never sells ground beef in 1 lb packages... feather puffers.
• 1 Large Sweet Onion
  Or anything round-ish and labeled onion in the produce section.
• 1 Bell Pepper
  If have a favorite color, go with that one.
• 1 Garlic clove
  I'm assuming clove means a piece. Right? What I'm saying here is don't use the whole garlic. Pop off a chunk, wrestle it out of the skin, and use that piece.
• 2 Serrano Peppers
  Or any pepper if you want to be adventurous. Or, don't bother using peppers… that is if you are a wusslepuff. Heat Scale: 0 serranos = I'm a pansy, 1 serrano = I like tasty heat, 2 serranos = I like to feel a little burn, Any combination with seeds = clown posse crazy.
  

You will also need this stuff:

• Corn Tortillas
  Yellow corn tortillas. White corn tortillas are for fouchebags.
• Cheese, shredded
  I'm going to say Cheddar here, mostly because I cannot pronounce most other cheeses, and if I can't pronounce it, I don't trust it. Just saying. And don't buy that pre-shredded stuff guys.
• Sour Cream
  You know what is awesome about sour cream? It almost literally can't go bad. It's already soured y'all!
• Louisiana Hot Sauce
  Correction, one drop does *not* do it.

STEP 1: Chop Chop.
How are your chopping skeelz? You'll know after taking care of these vegetables. If you've been using the results of that ARD you had in 4^th grade as an excuse to stay out of the kitchen, then consider utilizing some chopping tools that include safeties. Better safe than bloody. That's what I always say.

STEP 2: Sauté the Vegetables.
Does the word sauté scare you a bit? Don't sweat it. Let me hold your hand. Toss some oil (1 tbsp) or butter in a pan, set the heat at mid to mid-high, transfer your veggies to the (preheated) pan, sprinkle some salt on top, and give those guys an occasional stir. Keep this going until they all look soft (these aren't crunchy tacos, amigos). Once your onions and peppers look good (~10 minutes), pitch in your garlic and peppers (1 minute). Stir into the veggie mixture and grab your meat.

STEP 3: Brown the Beef
Assuming your meat is pretty fresh or you didn't buy it at that grocery store chain that rhymes with a giant who likes to eat human beings (hint: think Shrek), your next step is to make your beef brown. Shove your veggies to one side of the pan and chuck that meat in there. Did you salt and pepper your beef? You should have. Don't you watch the Food Network? Use your cooking utensil to break that meat ball up, and then start mixing in the veggies. After everything looks sufficiently happy and you've neutralized all the e coli your butcher tried to kill you with, turn your heat down to low and let's go get those tortillas ready.

STEP 4: Prep the Tortillas
If your Mexican friend is as smart as my Mexican friend, he would have told you that dipping the corn tortillas in hot oil is the way to go. And if you are reading this post, I'm guessing you probably make pretty good use of your microwave already. Let it rest tonight. Dipping the tortilla in hot oil softens it, but the oil also helps keep the fragile tortilla from breaking. Genius. More fat! That is why his people will take over the world in the not so distant future… that and their strict code of tacos before gringos.

Pour an eighth to a quarter inch of oil into a small frying pan, and turn the heat up to medium-high to high. When the oil is hot but not smoking like an Indonesian baby, carefully dip each tortilla into the oil (with tongs, not your fingers). When the tortilla begins to puff up a little, flip and wait a few moments, then take it out and lay it on a paper towel. Don't keep it in the oil for too long or you'll be having tostadas tonight. Repeat for the rest of your tortillas.

STEP 5: Assemble the Taco
You've made it this far, now follow these steps to success.

1. Line up 3 tortillas on a plate
2. Scoop the beef mixture in each one
3. Douse with Louisiana Sauce
4. Sprinkle cheese on top
5. Add a dollop of sour cream to each taco

As I'm typing this very sentence, I know what you are saying to yourself. It is almost as if I'm sitting right behind to you and we are exchanging thoughts by means of a Vulcan mind-meld. You are thinking, "I didn't make the Spam® Crackles, and I'm not making these tacos." Relax, open a Tuesday wine, and let this FAQ ease your reservations.



The Aimless Chef's Soft Taco FAQ:


Uh-Uh mijo. ¿Are jue keeding me?
These tacos are good, senor. Sure, they certainly aren't my future Latina mami's tacos, but I'm super styked at the results. So while mi amor is all deeply rooted in tradition and probably laughing at my dish with that sexy Latin accent, I'm not ashamed of my soft tacos. Plus, I think it is good for lovers to have some differences anyway. For example, I'm not really in to cleaning.

Tacos are all about the garnish. Where the heck is the garnish?
When I prepared the dish for this post, I invited my Mexican friend, Asian friend, and gay friend over for taco night. Only my amigo showed up. Whatev dip switches. So my new best buddy says something like, "You forgot the bell pepper, homes!" Not so fast my amigo, I chopped it up and put them up in the meat. Did I make a mistake? I prefer to call it a trivial alteration, or more self-righteously, a revolutionary discovery. Yeah, my head is enormous, but it's not nice to make fun of someone's literal or figurative appearance. What's next?

¿¡Louisiana Hot Sauce!? Gringos *sigh*
Put down your chilies chicos, Louisiana Hot Sauce goes with these soft tacos just like those little Jack in a Box sauce packets pair exquisitely with their tacos. Don't question. Just put it on there. ¡Mira! I'm white and grew up in burbs of Houston, TX. Louisiana sauce is like my gravy. And "gringo" means foreigner anyway, so who is the gingo in my casa, eh? Usted.


On second thought, I'm starting to think this mind-meld FAQ section was a really bad idea. All I'm trying to say is that these soft tacos are something between good and life changing.

Remember that moment in the mid-nineties when you heard Stone Temple Pilots' Interstate Love Song on the radio and it changed your whole outlook on love?

These are the Interstate Love Song of soft tacos.

Ladies, I'm single, leave your digits in the comment section. Good appetite my amigas. ¡Coma Usted!

Hello! Welcome to my exciting blog series of recipes that you probably haven't thought of before. Prepare to embark on a marvelous journey through the world of brazen combinations of common foods without leaving the comfort of your home. If reading recipes, grocery shopping, or preheating the oven isn't your proverbial cup of tea, then I feel you buddies. I'm pretty sure I had measuring spoons at one point, but when I think about it, I haven't cooked anything that needed that kind of precision since I got mixed up with the wrong crowd in college. (Parents: Who your kid draws as a roommate in college makes a difference!)

I'm not sure what is required for a blogger introduction, but let's skip lame introductions for the moment. I already have to worry about my Facebook profile being published without my consent. Plus, someday I'll be able to post a FAQ with all the questions that I imagine all you glass souls are thinking in your head.

Not being super skilled with the vocabulary or this blogging platform, I'll try to give you guys pictures in lieu of excessive wordage in these columns. And if you have any questions… tough kiddies. Eat wit and pie!
(The Aimless Chef is just playing, readers. If you haven't noticed, my sense of humor often gets mistook for d-baggery, but I am unapologetic, just like my insane/asinine recipes. And if you think about it, what is worse: This here column of delicious nonsense or the insufferably dull crap going on at the blog of that free paper you pick up at the bus stop?)

Enough about me...

Today I bring you something that is sure to amuse your bouche. I call these Fire Crackles.

You are going to need this stuff:

• Can of Spam
  It's pork shoulder and ham y'all!
  
• Bag of Ruffles
  How was "Ruffles have ridges" ever an effective marketing campaign? What is wrong with people?!
  
• Ketchup/Catsup
  America… English language experts… Can we agree on a single spelling and go forward? It is the twenty first century for diced sake.
  
• Tabasco
  A sauce so important that I was taught it in my Louisiana History class in Middle School.

STEP 1: Pop the top on the Spam.

Oh, the sound of the Spam coming out is unique and wonderful.

STEP 2: Slice the Spam.

Cut the loaf in half crosswise from the top. Rotate the two pieces to lay lengthwise on the cutting board and slice these crosswise. Don't sweat the size, just don't make it too thin or too thick. I ended up with 20 square-ish Spam pieces.

STEP 3: Pan fry the Spam.

Raw Spam tastes like crap. You need to cook this stuff. Find a pan and (if you are like me) clean it. Spray the pan with Pam, toss some butter in there, or drop a little oil in the pan if you want. I used half a cap full of veggie oil. Flip your stove's knob to something between full blast and halfway. Lay your Spam slices down and brown both sides (1-2 minutes per side depending on your heat). Be sure to get a good crust on the slices. When you start to see the edges dry up, they are getting close. My pan fit 10 slices, so I cooked the Spam in two batches.

STEP 4: Lay out your Ruffles.

Give all the chips a healthy few dashes of Tabasco.

STEP 5: Assemble Fire Crackles.

Lay Spam slice on each chip.

STEP 6: Garnish!

Garnish is normally for haughty food freaks. In fact, garnish and Spam may not ever have been put in the same sentence. Show some pride and blob a bit of ketchup on top of each of these. If you want to take it up another notch, dash some more Tabasco on top (The Aimless Chef suggests Chipotle Tabasco). Whatever you do, don't be condiment a snob. The sweetness of the Ketchup is essential to this recipe.

A meal this special deserves a great beer. I went to my beer fridge and pulled a Saint Arnold Divine Reserve 3 (Double IPA) from my lagering shelf. Something bold and hoppy will pair nicely with Fire Crackles.

Six simple steps, that's all you need. Six simple steps and you will succeed. Good appetite my friends.

Peep this how I freaked that in the slide show below, yo.

We've been listening to our readers' Google searches, and when you surf, we are trolling for the details. Based on our study, we have decided to add a new focus to our mixed bag of drinking posts about nothing.

Beer reviews! Nah, just kidding. Seriously guys, please use Beer Advocate and Rate Beer for beer reviews (or ask you IRL friends... friends are good too). However, if you want to know who we would try to be if we could muster up the drive and discipline to write beer reviews on this blog, check out our friends at Dos Beerigos. They are good people whose beer reviews don't read like a movie review where the person only summarized the plot.

In an effort to keep our collective finger on the pulse of the blog reading public, we have actively pursued the idea of including food as a topic here at The Ferm. The food blog business has been around since Jane Websurfer found free online blogging sites (I saw Julie & Julia), but it really seems like the industry is exploding now. In our opinion, the best part about the food blogs is that in aggregate, the big winner are you guys that like to tinker in the kitchen or unknown eateries that rely on word of mouth for advertising. Drinking a particular adult beverage, on the other hand, is somewhat of a subjective experience. The consumer can't tinker with the preparation of that beverage (mixologists excluded) or choose from a menu of items that fit his preference. In fact, government regulations keep the majority of the beverages you read about off the shelves of your favorite grocery or liquor emporium.

After an admittedly uninspired search for a quality food blogger, we have recently extended an invitation to an individual. He has very little blogging experience, much less food blogging experience, but I believe in the American dream y'all. I believe in the little guy. I believe that in this World you should take every opportunity to stick it to The Man (within reason obviously… I have kids and Daddy doesn't want to do any jail time). Plus, I can always reset his password.

Please welcome to The Ferm: Vaughn Shehorn Gregg

Funny name... Funny dude. It is my understanding that his first offering is already in the works. If his posts are anything like his emails, you guys are in for the treat. His sense of humor is on another level… like sometimes I didn't even know what he was saying.

We. can't. wait.

Last week an unexpected email showed up in The Ferm’s Inbox. Eating Our Words, The Houston Press’ foodie blog, was hiring again and I apparently caught the interest of one Catherine Matusow, who ended our last exchange with “we are looking for people with a more general interest in food.”

Hopefully I’m not ruining it for the reader, but this story doesn’t have a happy ending either. Thus, I considered naming this post after its predecessor. But my first Houston Press failure post gets so many hits (mostly from Googlers), that I decided to not sponge off its success. Sequels are usually not as good anyway. Plus, this post does not have the levity of the first. Absent in this post is the harebrained self interview, and only bitterness and scolding based on false impressions are to be found. Who is pumped for the story now?!

For a generally shy individual such as me, the Internet opens doors that I would never even dream of turning the doorknob in real life. When Cathy posted yet another job opening to write for Eating Our Words, I fired off an email without hesitation. I had nothing to lose. Two days later, Cathy responded.

Could you give me a more concrete idea of what you'd like to write for us? You may be aware of this, but we have a blogger named Mike Morris doing beer coverage. How about a list of ideas?

I was aware of Mike. In fact, Mike seemed to appear mere weeks after Cathy blew off my first offer to contribute to Eating Our Words (was he the other candidate?). Despite Mike providing the same content I had previously offered for the blog, I found it great to see Mike’s posts on Eating Our Words. Mike is someone who has taken an interest in beer and is a journalist. Make no mistake, in my mind regular beer topics on Eating Our Words is a huge step for thirsty craft beer enthusiasts in the city of Houston, no matter who is providing the coverage.

It would probably be an exaggeration to call Mike and I friends, but we have conversed back and forth through the comment section of his posts and through various personal emails. After his first post, I sent a few emails with ideas and some details on beer styles. More recently, we have tried to organize a get together to discuss determining esters in beer flavors (esters are the by-product of yeast during fermentation detectable in many ales). We still haven’t had that beer together, but I still have a folder of things I printed for him in my car.

Imagine for a moment if I had proposed to write a series on molecular gastronomy and a blogger with personal experience with the craft came along. Could both of us not exist harmoniously on a single blog? Does the Houston Press’ Eating Our Words not have more than one blogger covering the bar beat? Cocktails? Maybe beer itself carries a stigma that it is not worthy of standing with the foodie counterculture. This is one reason I am grateful for local beeros Kevin Floyd and Ben Fullelove, who are doing more to advance craft beer awareness in Houston than those of us that only write (beer+hero, I may have made up another word! If so, beero™). But I digress…

So the answer is yes Cathy, I’m aware of Mike. I’m a beer and wine enthusiast that enjoys writing, and I am passionate about sharing what I have learned through homebrewing and my beer travels. I don’t think I would be stepping on Mike’s toes at Eating Our Words (neither does he, but I won't speak for Mike here), and I expressed that in my response. We would have no doubt written posts on different topics or with different approaches. I mentioned my “relationship” with Mike in my response, as well as delivering a bunch of post ideas consisting of food, wine, and beer topics. I won’t copy my 774 word response in this post (yet), but apparently mentioning Mike was my big faux pas.

Cathy responded the next day.

Greg, I am going to say no. We've never presented Mike as an expert but a curious beer drinker who is experimenting. I don't like the way you've spoken of him here, and neither does my boss. So good luck to you.

Whoa! Well at least she wished me luck. I pointlessly replied:

These things are something I would say to him too, and I don't think he'd take offense. Like I said, we are friends. You probably misunderstood my tone. I figured we should have met first, but such is the nature of the Internet.

Let me be very honest here: I don’t let a lot of things in life bother me. My wife often mistakes this attitude as carelessness and has told me it bothers her, but she has learned to live with it, mostly because I’m so awesome. But Cathy’s response did bother me. I reread my email to her. To me it still read the same. No regrets. What really went wrong?

Am I an a-hole?

I emailed Mike, “Just checking... you don't think I'm an a-hole right?”

Mike promptly responded, “Absolutely not, I do not think you’re an a-hole at all whatsoever. On a related note, I am still interested in having that beer.”

I checked with my wife, “Yeah, you come off as an a-hole. And don’t think you are just going to leave me with the kids while you go have a beer with this Mike fellow.”

But I still love her, and I still love you Houston Press too. Eating Our Words luminary Katharine Shilcutt is arguably one of the best bloggers of any kind on the Houston scene. But while I will not be contributing with Mike or Katharine, you can bet that I’ll be filing another one of these next time a job opens up at Eating Our Words. Stay tuned...

Before kids, my wife and I traveled a few times a year on cultural/foodie/beer-cations. After our first few trips, we became obsessed with creating the perfect itinerary which maximized our time. This quest for perfection often had us repeating destinations (often portions of longer road trips) in order to relive the best moments of previous vacations.

New York is one of our favorite destinations, and not just because it is one of the greatest cities on Earth. Our familiarity stemmed from two separate season long work assignments I had on Long Island. Through this time and from our semi-frequent visits, we compiled a list of favorite things to do on a weekend trip to New York City.

I'm going to lay these out here as recommendations despite the expected disapproval from cranky locals and the dreaded blog commenter "Anonymous." But first, I offer a preface with some qualifiers and explanations...

This article contains our "worth it to go to" places when you only have a few days in the city... I'm leaving off many things that we've done at one time or maybe wanted to do at some point. This is a list based on places that made our personal "must visit to when in NYC" list. For example, I've been up in the Empire State Building, but while some tourists may want to go and say they did it, I would never go back (or recommend it to others who haven't seen it, but I digress).

And for the food... There is a lot of great food to be found in the city. My issue with NYC restaurants (and those in the Northeast in general) is that prices are sometimes way out of whack with respect to quality. I enjoy well presented food, but a lot of time it seems like style is overvalued while substance suffers tremendously (my eating experiences in California are similar). My wife and I have struck out at a lot of eating establishments in the city. You will see from the list that I eventually targeted a lot of "common" foods while crafting my "best of" list, since again there are too many places with overpriced stylish foods (this even includes delis and diner-like places... how do these places survive in Manhattan?). Furthermore, I'm not as impressed when a nice restaurant prepares expensive items and sells it to me for $40+ a plate as I am when someone cuts a potato, puts it in hot oil, and somehow serves it like no other place around. Above all, the "experience" often is the determining factor in overall rating of a particular destination.

If you happen to disagree with me, I'll be happy to debate with you over a pint or I'll just drink and few and type you a response in the comment section.

NOTE: "*" indicates places that I would not miss, even if I only had 2 days in the city.


Recommended Best "Experiences":

Best Hot Dog Experience: Gray's Papaya* When I first heard these hot dogs described as "crispy yet juicy" I laughed at the preposterousness of such a statement. This phrase is now in my vernacular, especially whenever I need to describe something that has the texture of a Gray's Papaya hot dog. Don't mess around here folks... get the Recession Special (2 dogs and a drink for $4.45), prepare your dogs all the way - sauerkraut and that onion sauce stuff), and get the papaya juice. Failure to do so is like getting one chance to go to Pascal's Manale and getting Fried Shrimp instead of the BBQ Shrimp (if you are unfamiliar with the analogy: 1. Trust me here, and 2. Get to New Orleans and enjoy the city for something other than Mardi Gras).

Recommended Gray's Papaya Experience: (assumes you are starting in Midtown) Start this path in the late morning. I like to grab a dog around 10 AM-ish and call it breakfast. Take the 1, 2, or 3 to 72nd and you'll see Gray's when you come up to ground level. Order the recession special, squirt a line of that NYC mustard (it is hard to find that stuff in the southwest), eat the dogs standing up (take a moment to sense the crispy *and* juiciness of the dogs), then take off east down 72nd while sipping your papaya juice. When you get to Central Park*, you'll get to see where John Lennon was shot. Say something like "what is wrong with people?", "that really sucks!", or start pondering what you think things would be like if he was alive. Shortly after entering the park and still while you have the Beatles on your mind, you should be able to find Strawberry Fields. From here, try to go mostly straight across to the east and a little north. I always try to just follow the paths and enjoy the Park. If you veer off a bit, correct yourself after you exit the park and get somewhere between 79th and 85th. You'll now be in the shadows of The Met*. Don't try to see the whole thing. The museum is much too big and you'll get bored after a while. Leaving The Met ends my Recommended Gray's Papaya Experience.

Best Pizza: Grimaldi's Pizzaria*
Long before Grimaldi's began franchising itself in your favorite suburbs, I fell in love with this pizzeria located in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge. Legend (and their website) has it that Patsy Grimaldi learned the art of pizza making from his uncle, which is fortunate because someone named Patsy may have been less successful in football or construction. Patsy's uncle is none other than the man credited with opening the first pizzeria in America, circa 1905. Aside from great ingredients and notable craft, the real secret is in the charred, smoky flavor you get from the coal fired ovens.

This pizza may not be your favorite, but it is probably because you have bad taste in pizza. Alright, I admit, there is plenty to argue about when it comes to what type of pizza is the best... or who makes the best pie... or even just the best pie in New York. In my opinion though, this place is a must stop. I once missed a flight just to get one of these before going home.
Recommended Eating Under and then Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge Experience: Grimaldi's is located right under the Brooklyn Bridge... on the Brooklyn side. I don't know why, but it doesn't open until 11:30 AM. Usually a line forms on the outside before they open, so plan on arriving a little early. The Grimaldi's Brooklyn location kind of has that "we're connected" type of feeling, with the pictures on the wall to confirm and the potential tax avoiding cash only policy. When you make it in, the host will stuff you somewhere that you assumed there was no possible way of fitting, but the pizza is the payoff here anyway. Now, I'll excuse you if you order your pizza with your preferred topping(s) or decide to go with Grimaldi's excellent white pizza, but I need to pass on my strong recommendation for the sausage, roasted red peppers, and extra sauce. At some point during your lunch, visit the bathrooms*(yes, the bathrooms are *-worthy). The bathrooms of this small eatery are nothing special, but the best part about them is that they are one-holers. Stay with me here. Having to wait in line will give you a chance to get close up to see how a real New York pizza pie is made.After you finish up (with the pizza), head out to the Brooklyn Bridge*. You will have to backtrack a little to get up there. The walk is nice and semi-appropriate after that extra slice or so you crammed down because you didn't want to insult the spirit of Patsy by leaving any at the table. Once across the bridge, I suggest taking the time to swing through SOHO, then make your way to the NYU area, and end up at the landmark Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. If you end up hanging around the area for a while and are feeling snack-y, Pommes Frites is a place you won't find anywhere else. They have the best Belgian fries anywhere and so many dipping sauces that you'll feel you did as a kid when you realized Baskin Robbins would give you as many tiny spoon samples as you wanted, just a mayonnaise version of that experience. Trust me with this suggestion, no matter how tempting those "other" Belgian fry places are around town, try to save yourself for Pommes Frites. The only downside is its location is not in the path of any other real landmarks in the city, so you'll have to veer off a few blocks from the NYU area to get to this gem.

Other Bests:

Best TV Celebrity Chef Restaurant: Esca * (Mario Batali)
One word here: Crudo. For those that have not partaken of this Italian sashimi-like dish, listen up. Crudo is raw fish with oil, sea salt, acidic juices... and at Esca, it's exceptional. In case you are wondering what else to order, I would strongly recommend flipping your menu to the back and ordering the tasting menu paired with Italian wines... and add the extra crudo trays. The menu won't set you back nearly the amount that it sets you forward in memories. If you choose to not heed my strong recommendation, you must at least get the crudo. Not doing this is an act worthy of being put on my "dead to me" list.

I guess I should admit, my lack of an unlimited budget has not afforded me the capacity to name "The Best TV Celebrity Chef Restaurant" in NYC, but I would argue that this place has everything that you would want if you were seeking a celebrity chef owned restaurant. The service is also really good, which is definitely not a given in NYC. It is accessible, meaning the average person can get a table. It is upscale, meaning they will comp you a drink if you have a reservation and your table is not ready. One suggestion: If you find yourself at a bar before dinner, then you order a martini while waiting for your table at Esca, then you proceed to get the tasting menu paired with the wines, just accept the fact you may leave the restaurant acting a fool and potentially scare people coming out of their Broadway shows. Just saying.

Best Burger Joint: Island Burger
(Yes, I have now named the best hot dog, pizza, and burger joints in the biggest city in the United States.) Location and overall experience certainly factor in to the equation, but I can confidently say Island Burger is on my list of all time favorite burger joints. Here is the scoop: Several different types of meats, a half dozen types of bread, and half dozen types of cheese, and some sauce choices… all cooked great! The shakes are awesome, but there are no fries here. The rumor is that there is no room for a fryer. Don't get all caught up on the fries thing, because you should get your fix at Pommes Frites during the "Eating Under and then Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge Experience."

Best Brew Pub: The Chelsea Brewing Company
I wish I had discovered this place when I was working in New York, but I didn't hear about it until a few trips ago. However, it only took one visit for The Chelsea Brewing Company to be in my permanent rotation of places to go while in the city. Super view (the restaurant looks out on the water) and atmosphere (Chelsea Piers). The food is typical brewpub fare, but their award winning beer is outstanding. If you are in the Chelsea Pier area (and are thirsty), this is the place to go. Why would you be in the Chelsea Pier area? Probably just to go here, but it's worth the trip/walk anyway (no subway stops nearby).

Best Wholesome Looking Family Owned Snack Mix and Dip Deli-type Store: William Poll*
We found this place accidentally, but fell in love instantly. New York City is big, so don't just take my word for it. Citysearch.com editors describe the place this way: "Fresh, homemade dips and potato chips--made daily--have earned this more than 80-year-old shop culinary cult status." The people in here are super nice too. If you inquire about a few things, you'll not only get some samples, but they'll probably send you home with some free stuff. Oh, and please bring me back some of jalapeno dip and baked chips if you go. Thanks.

Best Lunch Spot That Everyone Knows About Because of the Movie But Is Still A Must Stop IMO: Serendipity3*
Even with careful planning, I bet you'll eat at one or two places that you'll think, "eh, compared to {wherever}, that was just a meal." This is not that place. For me -- Serendipity 3 --is a must see -- and if you go I guarantee -- that you will agree (even just inspired an impromptu rhyme!). Make a reservation though, and do it before your trip! Even for lunch, you won't get in without one. Also, check your calorie counter at the door. The portions are huge and the desserts are print ad perfect and practically cartoon-ish looking. Be sure to order the Frrrozen Hot Chocolate before your meal (it can be shared). Not ordering the Frrrozen Hot Chocolate is like going on a vacation to the beach and hanging out the whole time in the hotel room.

Best Spot to Have Lunch in NYC Like They Do in the Movies: Bergdorf Goodman
I suggest you arrive a little early in order to have lunch at this iconic cafe. If my "must see/eat" list hadn't grown a little long over the years, this would certainly have been a *'ed location. I'm not into the shopping experience or the super high prices, but the boutique layout of Bergies is pretty impressive and is a sight to see if all you are familiar with is the common mall department store.

Best Place to Shop Like a New Yorker (or maybe just the typical New York tourist): 5th Ave
Guys, send your ladies to Tiffany & Co. Ladies, send your man to Niketown. Also don't miss H&M, a mega-sized sort of European-style Gap.

Best Place to Try to Show Up On The Food Network: Chelsea Market
Chelsea Market is one of those places that would be a whole lot better if it was adjacent to some other city attractions, but it's not. Don't let this discourage your from heading over here. While you are there trying to see if a Food Network personality shows up downstairs (unlikely), you can check out the tasty treats at Fat Witch (brownies) or Elini's (hand painted cookies). You would think that a place called Chelsea Market Baskets would be a tourist trap, but I've bought stuff in that store that I actually use in my kitchen. My primary reason to visit Chelsea Market is usually to have breakfast or brunch at 202*. Since discovering this classy but low key half restaurant, half clothing ("lifestyle") store, I have made it a square that must be filled every trip. There aren't too many places in the city where you can dine amongst only a few other people.

Best Place to Wear Your Sunglasses Inside: Trump Tower
Maybe it's a tourist-y thing to do, but going to see the gold tower of power still feels pretty cool in my book.

Best Place to Pretend You Are Tom Hanks Playing a Giant Piano on the Floor: FAO Schwartz
It's more than a toy store... it's an attraction, and you can wait in line with a bunch of kids to hop on that big piano. Yesssssss.

Best Museums to Visit When You Have at Least Half a Day to Lose: The American Museum of Natural Science (simply awesome, maybe more than a half a day needed), The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA... for those that aren't into art, I should mention that modern art probably is not as strange as you are picturing in your head).

...and this ends Part 1 of my travel guide/ode to NYC.