Slip Sliding Away

You read my mind … I was going to post this, but I had work to finish up. I wonder if this experience will cause less stupid shit to stream from his mouth.

Never heard of this douchebag.
But speaking of waterboarding, a Rhode Island state rep sent a letter to Bush, Cheney, and Condi Rice offering to donate to the charity of their choice $100 for every second they can handle waterboarding. The comments board on the SF Chronicle were filled with “I’ll throw in another 20 bucks per second” type comments, but the most recommended comment was “I’ll chip in an extra $100 if they manage to extract any intelligence from Bush.” Tee hee.

And speaking of douchebag radio hosts, Mayor McDreamy Goodhair had to return a $25,000 donation from the son of Michael Savage (nee Weiner), who is a member of the far wingnuttia Paul Revere Society, and oddly enough, is the owner of RockStar energy drinks along with his mom and dad. So tell all the gheyz at the clubs drinking Vodka RockStars that they are putting money into Michael Savage’s pocket.

The scariest part of this video to me is the guy who cheerfully performs the waterboarding. Our super duper military is brainwashing people like this every year who would happily torture you and your parents and your children and laugh through the whole process.

Wonder if Fox News will be showing this video any time soon.

@Dave H: I didn’t think he was scary. I just figured he was playing head games with the guy. Totally saw the early count trick coming.

@blogenfreude: That would be the “stay tuned” — after I’m done with my Moral Orel marathon, I’m planning on checking a few sites later tonight to see whether this got any action among the loonies.

@SanFranLefty: I don’t keep a roster of Air Wingnuttia, but apparently Mancow is or was a frequent guest on Fox & Friends. And from what I’m hearing about his previous statements, he certainly has wingnut cred.

Oh, and Mlle. Cheney was on Today this morning claiming again that Daddy didn’t torture, and waterboarding doesn’t count. Hitch beat Mancow to the demo by a couple of years, but this may freshen up the debate. (Or “debate,” I should say to be consistent…)

A bit on Mancow:

The 42-year-old radio host is no stranger to controversy. In 2005, he was maligned for saying that then-Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean was “vile,” “bloodthirsty,” “evil” and “should be kicked out of America.”

@Dave H: I think the guy is cheerful only because he knows it completely voluntary and the victim can stop it at any time, and also because of what he has probably seen so many times, how people go into it thinking, “ah, I can take it,” and they all instantly give up and they all completely change their minds about whether it is torture, immediately, when they experience it.

I don’t think he is enjoying “torturing” people, I think he is enjoying educating people, making them see that their notions about it being nothing much are so wrong.

Update: We opened up at noon. I was so far in the weeds we did not have most of the items on the menu ready. It was slow, people don’t get to the island until tonight for their vacations. Thank God. But as the day went on, I caught up, got all the dishes out on display, and had a ball, offering people samples of some of the things that many people have never had.

People Loooved the thai chicken salad. They liked the chowders. They love simple grilled chicken dishes. They loved the thai green curry chicken.

I was expecting a lot of people later in the afternoon, I did not realize people don’t get in to the island until late. When I left at 8, and drove over the bridge home, there was almost bumper to bumper traffic still heading east onto the island. Tomorrow will be the real crunch, good that we had a slow day.

@Promnight: So does that mean you need to stay open late on Friday nights for all the people from Philly and NYC stuck in traffic and who are starving and dying for something quick and easy to take to the beach rental and their cranky kids are bitching in the back seat and nothing is open but the 7-11 and they’re going to have to feed their kids gross bean burritos? I think that might be a future selling point for you – open until midnight or 1 am on Friday eves….

@SanFranLefty: I have never considered giving my kidz 7-11 bean burritos, no matter how cranky. A woman of solid central European stock, Ma Nabisco always travels with a feedsack of comestibles from the kitchen as if we were settling in for the siege at Antietam.

OTH, rolling in late and dad-cranky to some thai green curry would be fucking awesome.

Mad props on the soft opening, Prom. Hang a Stinque flag in the window and offer the Tommcatt Salad as a free side dish on Memorial Day.

ADD: I heard this Mancow critter recently on the AM dial. They jumped my FOX sports radio in the early AM with his bile, in no way softening up the audience that would otherwise linger for Dan Patrick at 9. Now if I need Sport I dial into ESPN drivetime.

@SanFranLefty: Funny you should mention that, my partner, my nephew, Jamie, his real name is James Joseph III, after his father and my father, James Joseph Cox, was so excited he stayed there all night, sleeping for a few hours in our little office, which is all set up as a man-cave, with internet and TV. He was up at 1:00 am when the bars closed, and he said several people walked in, because the lights were on, and he gave them free food, and he has come up with an idea of opening up for an hour right when the bars close, to sell “afterparty food,” chicken wings and sandwhich platters for those who are going to keep the party going. One of the biggest bars on the island is across the street, and people do love a slice of pizza at the end of the night.

There were about 20 people who came in and poked around, and they bought a little, but what was cool was, they were so happy we were going to be there all summer, I showed them the food and offered samples, and universally, I got people saying, “Oh, this is great, we are coming here, we are going to buy this, I am so glad you are in our neighborhood.”

I was disappointed that not too many were excited about the tobouleh, but I was surprised that so many who had never had larp, thai chicken salad, were totally amazed and loved it.

I got in trouble for loudly calling siriracha “cock sauce,” my wife had to loudly correct me, “thats rooster sauce.”

I think we are going to create a little niche, and create some fans for some foods they never had, it was a great day.

Oh, and anyone commented before how absolutely adorable Roxanne Siberius is? That is all.

Hey, here’s Mrs. Prom’s update she sent to friends and family, it has links to a bunch of cool photos from today:

Hi everyone. Here is a link to photos I took today, our opening day:

http://islandfusionmarketdeli.shutterfly.com/

We will add more as the days go on. Feel free to pass the link on.

The place looks great. Considering we did NO advertsing whatsoever, we had a nice little crowd of walk-ins from the neighborhood. Traffic onto LBI tonight was promising and we are open for breakfast tomorrow. The top dish tasted today was the Thai Chicken Salad followed by the Thai Curry Chicken. The New England and Manhattan “Chowdas” (LBI favorites and the stars of the annual Chowder Fest in October each year) showed great promise. And take a look at those personal lasagna tarts – truly a special presentation which will have many different variations. A really good “soft” opening.

Many thanks to Beth and Tara for their help today. Please pass this on to the rest of the Cox clan.

A special note of thanks to Marie Natale – the artist who took Patrick’s sketch of the beach scene and turned it into our logo background. Her fabulous paintings capture the Southern NJ shore. See her website at http://www.marienatale.com.

Finally, to my Cox men – Patrick and Jamie: Wow dudes, you are both so totally awesome. No two of us could have done this alone. And you both know what a humbling experience it was for me, Ms. Corporate Chick, to have to call the cash register company customer service rep and present myself as a total incompetent when it came to programming the register. The gal thought I was a complete idiot – so much for that law degree. I am completely out of my element here so you guys will be carrying the ball – and quite well I anticipate. I am not worthy.

Stay tuned for more details as the days move along.

This Mancow creature is such a typical Republican chicken-hawk. He lasted maybe four seconds when the torturer said the average was fourteen. I think pasty intellexual Hitch did better than that, yes?

KSM got this, what, 183 times in a month or something like that? They didn’t even strap this guy down properly. EPIC FAIL.

Not that I’m volunteering for even four seconds of that shit. But I do hope Hannity sees this and grows enough of a ball to make good on his promise. After all, it would be for a Good Cause.

@Promnight: Funny you mention Sriracha, did you see this profile of your cock sauce in the NYT? I just happened to read it earlier today!

Congratulations Promnight, this sounds like it could be a contender!

@Nabisco: Nabisco, we got your postcard of congrats right at the moment we opened, and thank you so much, your thoughts, and encouragement, were wonderful and bucked us up at a point when we were panicking about being ready to go. If you follow the link to the photos in my post above, you will see me posing with your postcard. Thanks, dude.

We are one block from the ocean, all day, bikini clad women walk by, they don’t know it yet, but I have the food they can eat and retain those figures, they will learn.

@Pedonator: I am going to make buffalo wings with cock sauce, I swear, I am going to call them “cock wings.” Siriracha has a completely different flavor from the usual Lousiana hot sauces used in hot wings.

The classic hot wing sauce is chicken wings, naked and unadorned, deep fryed to within an inch of their lives, then basted in a mix of butter and louisiana style hot sauce. The hot wings sold by many bars and chain restaurants are an abomination, the wings are breaded, there is sugar in the sauce, they are greasy and nasty. The real dish is very simple, and the one key is the frying of the wings. NO ADORNMENT. Its plain chicken wings fried till the skin itself is crispy, nothing should be added to add crispiness, because anything you add, flour, breadcrumbs, will turn to sludge when the hotsauce-butter mixture hits it. The wings have to be fried in furiously hot oil, which turns the skin into something similar to pork rinds, a light, crispy, crunchy texture. When they are fried right, and almost noone does tis right, this crispy skin remains crispy even when soaked in the hotsauce and butter mixture.

But I am all about the fusion, too, and it just occurred to me, fry the wings right, and then, instead of louisiana hot sauce and butter, toss them in a mixture of Siriracha and sesame oil. Wow, I am thinking.

Thats what fusion should be, taking a great standard recipe, but substitute the alternate version, from another of the world’s cuisines, of one of the basic ingredients, but an alternate that has the same effect, just different, a twist, a fusion.

So much fusion is just the juxtaposing of recipes from different cuisines, for novelty sake, which do not really work, or which do not really preserve either side of the original dishes.

Its like poetry, its subtle and hard to express, the difference between when a novel combination works, and creates something different, but still true to both of the combined cuisines, and when it is just a mitchegotch, there is a yiddish word I simply cannot spell for what I am talking about.

Yiddish is a great model for a great fusion, hebrew and german, combined and creating a real, living, amazingly expressive language.

@Promnight: Unless there’s some Jersey law against staying open late, you totally should (re)open for the 1 am-3 am crowd. If nothing else, you’re doing a public service by putting food in those stomachs before they drive home drunk. And since 90% of U.S. ‘Merikans aren’t like me or Ma Nabisco and travel with enough food to feed the battle of the bulge, anything you can do to cater to the harried Berks County/Essex County/Manhattan/Brooklyn late Friday night arrival crowd would be good.

Oh, and I think you should call your Cock Wings the Lefty Wings since I was the one who first alerted you to the NYT article about my favorite condiment. Speaking of my favorite condiment, try mixing the Rooster sauce with a dab of mayo, a dab of pure horseradish, and chopped up hard-boiled eggs with chopped up green onions, a dash of cracked pepper, red pepper flakes, and kosher salt on top. I don’t know what to call it, but that is my total go-to side dish. Vietnamese-Jewish egg salad?

@Promnight: Umm. Hey. Let me get that drool off my shirt. So I just checked out Mrs. Prom’s photos.
First of all, can I just say that I had no idea the Jersey Shore was so beachey and almost pretty. I figured it looked like Newark or Elizabeth.
Second, what are those little tarts of lasagna crack-o-licious goodness called the “personal lasagna tart” that are around photo 17 and how do I get one of those delivered to me???? I am probably going to be in DC this summer for work, now I really think that MellBell and I will have to jump on an Amtrak up to A.C. to eat your food for a weekend….

@SanFranLefty: SFL, one charming thing about Long Beach Island is that it has a free “drunk bus,” that stops at all the bars, and transports people to and from, all free.

Its a narrow barrier island, with one main road running its length, 18 miles. The island is about 1/4 mile wide for most of its length, most everyone is at most 3 blocks from the main road. The free drunk bus cruises the main road, and noone was to walk more than a couple of blocks.

I am wondering if I can get the bus to make us a stop, after closing, and then I can sell “After party munchie platters.”

I have been using cock sauce for years and years, my friend. I don’t need no stinking NYT article.

Remember the King of the Hill episode when the Asian country club was courting Hank to be a member, because they needed more caucasians? The country club president was supposed to be the owner of the company that made the hot sauce with the “chicken” on the label.

I will try your recipe, though, sounds yummy.

@Promnight, @SanFranLefty:

How about Left Nut-Wingeries?

Would tempt me to taste chicken again after lo these many years!

@Pedonator: The secret is in the sesame oil. Cook it in that, and you’ll eat poultry again, my little veggie friend. I’m still amazed that you and Mr. Pedo went to Argentina and you didn’t start eating meat. My 15 year red meat/pork moratorium ended when I arrived in Buenos Aires, and frankly I haven’t looked back.

@Promnight: Prommie, I don’t care who you have to bribe for this, but you totally need to make the Drunk Bus have your place be one of the stops – not just a stop, but someplace where they stop for five minutes. One of my marketing ideas (I know I still haven’t done your media plan) was to have palm-sized post cards or coasters printed up with your logo and address, with the call-ahead to-go number – slash – fax number – slash – website for the iPhone crowd. Truly, if you could set it up where people could call/email ahead and say “I’m going to be on the 11:50 pm bus and I want the Thai Chicken Salad and a side of Kettle chips” and then when the bus stops you’re out there with the to-go orders ready to go – you would have a money-printing machine.

@SanFranLefty: Those are basically a lasagna, but without the intricate layering, instead, I took crumbled sauasage, marinara sauce, little chunks of mozzarella, eggs, and ricotta, mixed it all up, and then mixed that all up with the pasta. For the pasta I used rigatoni that I cut up into smaller pieces. I cut up the rigatoni so I could put the mixture into the muffin molds in an extra-large muffin pan. I filled each muffin mold, and then baked it. I I let them cool a bit, and then turned them out, and covered each one with a slice of mozarella, and melted that over the top. I should have browned it a bit more, still working out kinks, but they are served over a pool of marinara, with marinara drizzled over the top. Personal lasagnas. I am still patting myself on the back over that, I made that up and then made it today.

My recomendation is a side of sauteed broccalirabe, precede that with a small ceasar salad, I will serve you all that for less than $10.00.

Just wait till I do the same thing with paella.

@SanFranLefty: Oh, and the Jersey shore is not almost pretty, its fucking beautiful, I will post some photos of our beach for you.

And unlike in Cali, the water gets nice and warm, its a pleasure to swim. The sand on the good beaches is pure white, the dune vegetation is beautiful, its really nice here, in the summer. Come visit, open invitation, spare bedroom, I will show you a goood time.

@SanFranLefty: Curiously, Mr. Pedo is a carnivore, but he only liked the meat in Argentina in a few select places. We were both impressed with the other food in general there, so it really wasn’t an issue.

Anyway, the only carne that tempts me occasionally is bacon — specifically, I sometimes miss peanut-butter and bacon sandwiches, and maybe BLTs. I was never a big fan of chicken even when I ate it, but I do imagine getting porked again sometime in this incarnation.

RE: The bus idea. Prommie needs an iPhone app! There’s an app for everything…except Island Fusion, yet!

@Promnight: Wow, that sounds incredible. You could definitely charge a bit more for that!

@SanFranLefty: Sesame oil is one of my favorite substances, its my secret ingredient in everything. I spent $100 to buy 2 gallons of it, and thats wholesale prices, and its worth every penny. I do grilled chicken breasts two ways, balsamic vinagrette, and the other is basted with soy, sesame oil, sesame seeds, and thai sweet chili sauce. You are a fool if you go with the balsamic. And Yes, I use Soy Vey, one of the greatest inventions known to man or woman, also, as well, too.

@Pedonator: Aren’t you or Nojo or someone a computer geek who could whip up the Island Fusion iPhone app? I could try to do it, but it will take me 4 days to figure out how to get to the app page. Prommie could link it to my friend’s cocktail database iPhone app and then figure out the meal and accompanying cocktail…

@SanFranLefty: iPhusion iPhone.

Here is a serious announcement: I need someone who is sympatico with my vision, who can do my website. And I am not asking for charity, I will pay the market price. I would like to see a lot of what I said tonight in the website. And the pictures. And I have tons more pics.

I want lots of text, with my philosophy included in the descrtiptions of dishes.

And history, too. I make my chowders from recipes my father wrote down in a steno book in the 1970s. He is dead now. I was working beside him at the age of 12 when he wrote them down. This is no bullshit about old family recipes, or learning at dad’s knee. I have been making chowder since before I could drive. I am going to scan these recipes in my dad’s longhand and I want one or two on my website. I want my website to combine reverent and serious love for cooking as a way to express love, create an evanescent art that is, well, consumed, in the act of appreciating it, to express a view of life that views deep appreciation and joy in simple things like the meals we all have to take to survive, as a spiritual act of thankfulness for one of the beauties of the world and life, but at the same time approach all that philosophical stuff with a joyful childish sense of fun, and not a stuffy intellectual seriousness.

I don’t want a catalogue, I want a story, a narrative, which ties the food I make into a story of life and living and enjoying life.

Thats not a difficult task, is it?

Anyway, I will pay for a nice professional-looking website with some element of this philosophy showing.

Anyone?

@Promnight: If you can get Nojo to wake up before 10 am Pacific time, I think he might be able to do it. If no Stinquer can do it, I know a couple of amazing graphic/web designers who are incredibly thoughtful and could capture what you want to do.

BTW, another surprise hit is the grilled whole baby bok-choy. And also from the asian market, baby collards, a sweet, beautiful vegetable, unkown to the western world, I treat it as I would Broccalirabe, but thats a bitter green, this is sweet, and it does even better when quickly sauteed with olive oil, garlic, some hot pepper flakes, I think this is another succesful fusion.

@SanFranLefty: I assume I could do it if I had the appropriate access to eeleet hipster Apple technology and spent a few days getting familiar with the development environment. We’d also need a good Island Fusion web site that could feed me up-to-date RSS or webservice data on what’s available on any particular day…

I do have theoretical access to Apple tech at my work…

Prommie, the first step would be getting a web site with an administrative interface where you would upload your menu data every day. Or however frequently. Do you have something like that in the works? I know that’s a bit much to ask when you’re just launching your venture, but keep it in mind…

@Promnight: Oops, I see you’re already thinking about that web site. I would offer to do it but I really work more on the back-end (rim-shot!) and I’m not a graphic artist or designer. But I like your concepts, I sit through many meetings with marketing people who really have no idea what they want, and you are already ahead of the game.

Some advice: don’t do your whole site in Flash. That kind of douchebaggery annoys me to no end, both as a web developer and as a frequent restaurant web site visitor (and as a worker-bee who sits through endless presentations by agencies hot to milk my company for hundreds of thousands of $$ for questionable benefit). And don’t pay anyone more than a thousand bucks to do “search engine optimization” — certainly don’t get suckered into a several-hundred $$ / month engagement with shysters like that. And don’t even pay the $1K up front if you don’t think web searching is key to your marketing plan.

Anyway, you probably want at least a few months to build by word-of-mouth and local promotion activity, while you fine-tune the operational aspect of getting shit done. But long-term, definitely consider an iPhone app, and I’d be happy to help you “architect” it, if not actually do it for you…

//adjusts SFL’s tin foil hat//

I am not liking the shift of narrative that the Republicans are attempting. I am no fan of Pelosi, but the finger pointing is a bit much. And while this looks like a win for the libruls, I can’t help but think that this is part of an attempt by the Republican party to shift the blame elsewhere.

//re-adjusts SFL’s tin foil hat and goes looking for the Shiraz//

@SanFranLefty: I’m happily riding out the Depression with a full plate, so all I can offer is advice…

Pedo’s recommendations are spot on, especially regarding Flash. Avoid it. All it does is flatter the client, with no effect on the visitor. It also doesn’t work on the iPhone, which may be a significant source of traffic for a joint like Prommie’s.

And besides, if you need something purty, you can always gin up a simple automated slideshow with crossfades in javascript.

I’d also recommend against an iPhone app right now, unless I’m missing something. There’s an excellent development system, but it’s still a major chore for a first-timer, you’re competing with a gazillion other apps for attention, and it sounds like you really want to grab the drive-by traffic — impulse diners. A website will serve that purpose just fine, especially if it’s designed with the iPhone in mind. (And you can always get fancy and create an iPhone-specific site that automatically displays instead of the regular version.)

back to waterboarding.
when did an illegal, federally endorsed war crime become a party game.
instead of outrage, there is a radio DJ and program manager somewhere, as we speak, who thinks this would be a great promotional feature.
so the dark lord doesn’t think it’s torture, huh? an insightful peek into his diabolical mind. and i’m giving barry slack for feeling his way through a new minefield, but i am disappointed in him playing dodge ball on this.

on a happier note….prommie, you are my idol, not many people have the guts to follow their dream. i’m so thrilled for you, but you know that.
ISLAND FUSION and your soul, have arrived!!!!

@Promnight: Mine should be the first of many, hermano. If we weren’t heading to other parts of the ‘tucky this weekend, we’d be gladdened guinea pigs (or audience plants) for the opening.

I wish I could do some graphicky stuff or otherwise help get the word out.If you get a flyer mocked up I can certainly print and post among all the state employee bulletin boards in Ho’burg.

Prommie,

The restaurant sounds great. I will try to look up some postcards sometime this week.

And those chicken wings… yum.

@baked: Now that’s an interesting mind picture. Playing dodge-ball in a mine field.