Bad Boy Burgers (Review)

When I first got the idea to combine my love of food and my love of writing into this blog, one of the most appealing aspects was the fact that I could finally review restaurants.  I've always been slightly jealous of food critics (and critics in general, really.)  Getting paid to go out to eat?  Sounds too good to be true.  Of course, at this point it is too good to be true, because apart from the few cents provided whenever anyone is kind enough to click on the advertisements clogging up the corners of this page I don't make anything; if I made enough money at my real world job to do itemized deductions on my taxes I could probably start claiming going out to eat as a business expense, but at this point restaurant dining is just a loss. 
Which isn't to say that it doesn't have its advantages, the biggest being that it helps me in the great going out to eat debate.  It's hard to argue with Wife the merits of new and unpredictable versus familiar and safe when money is tight, but if it's for "work," well, we can't just go to Los Betos all the time.  Then again, if our experience at Bad Boy Burgers (7000 Fairview Avenue, Boise ID 208-373-0020) is any indication, maybe we should. 

Happy Halloween!

Quick and Easy Chicken Wraps

It was just last week that I was telling you how much of a struggle it was to get Wife to go to Asian restaurants with me, but it wasn't always that way.  When we were still just boyfriend and girlfriend, we had many more opportunities to actually go out to eat.  She had a better paying job than she does now; our kids didn't need separate bedrooms, and as such we paid less in rent.  When going to a restaurant wasn't a rare treat ethnic cuisine still wasn't at the top of her list, but it wasn't out of the question. 

A Taste for.....Blood?

Catfish's Dishes is a food blog, as food is the only thing in my life that I have a desire to write about on a continuous basis, but it's far from my only interest.  I like craft beer (still technically fair game for food writing, I guess,) nerdy stuff like Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: The Gathering, comic books, camping, live music and horror films. 

It is, of course, the latter that I wish to address today.  An unhealthy love of top ten lists, combined with my disgust at our local school district's choice to not allow children to come to school in costume has inspired me to take a break from writing about food and instead offer my top ten horror films as an appetizer for your Halloween celebrations.  If buckets of gore aren't your thing, or you're simply a stickler for actually finding a recipe when you open up a food blog, head on over to Macheesmo; it's the best food blog online.  But if you like a good scare or want to debate my picks in the comments below, please continue reading.

Stir Fry with Peanut Tofu

There aren't many aspects of my marriage I have an issue with.  I think it's a testament to exactly how good I have it that, when thinking of areas of contention, something this trivial comes to mind.  We don't have big blow out fights, don't run around on each other or even (six years in) spend much time apart.  But whenever Wife and I go out to eat, there is an elephant in the vehicle. 

She doesn't like Asian food. 

She doesn't like Chinese.  She doesn't care for Thai.  She's not terribly fond of Vietnamese. 

It's not that she hates these foods.  On occasion she'll be in the mood for "the broccoli beef from that one place," and she is satisfied after eating a bowl of pho.  If she were to have a say in this blog, if we were to put the food debate on trial, I'm sure Wife would say that it isn't that she doesn't like these foods, it's that I like them entirely too much.  Both of us would look at a typical conversation on the trip to the drive-through to state our case. 

Wife:  Wanna go out to eat?
Me:  (Looks at dirty dishes.)  Sure, why not. 
Wife:  What should we get?
Me:  In the mood for Chinese?
Wife: Not at all.
Me:  Whatever you want, I guess.

On being a lazy parent:

We've all been there.  It's time to feed the children, but there are a thousand other things you would like to be doing than cooking.  Maybe the game is about to start, maybe it was a long day at work and you just want to sit down; it could be practically anything.  The point is that pretty much anyone-even those of us who enjoy cooking so much they feel like writing about it-don't always want to get stuck in the kitchen. 

Take this morning.  Boy and I had just returned from dropping off Wife at work.  He wanted to hop onto Netflix and finish watching "Garfield's Pet Force."  I wanted to do some prep work for the stir fry I was going to make for dinner.  Spending half an hour to make something fancy was out of the question.  Still, I didn't want to resort to cereal, cold or hot.  Our eggs were already claimed for other things.  It was a similar situation to the one that caused me to make the breakfast ramen I wrote about earlier.  This time, however, I didn't come up with any new ideas.  I turned to a cheat.

Quick and Easy Faux Asian Breakfast Ramen

Wife and I have very different strengths in the kitchen.  I got my culinary training, such as it was, from Job Corps.  Wife learned to cook from me.  This leads many people to think that, should they need advice in the kitchen, I am the one to call.  I am not. 

Perhaps it's a poor idea, when trying to establish a cooking blog, to talk about one's inadequacies in the kitchen.  However, it's the truth; I am very bad at the technical aspects of cooking.  I double check "The Joy of Cooking" to get the proper cooking time for baked potatoes.  I prefer it when Wife makes the rice.  Her skills lie in, well, skill.  When she found a roasted chicken recipe she liked she memorized it, and apart from minute changes in seasoning, she makes the same bird each time.  Mashed potatoes, gravy, and a small rotating selection of veg follow as if created on an assembly line.  This analogy may make the food sound uninteresting, but it's not.  Everything is tender, flavorful, and perfect.

Fish on Fire

I love cooking shows.  I love the brainy ones that actually teach the in's and out's of cooking like Good Eats, America's Test Kitchen, and Barbecue University.  I like contests of skill, like Top Chef, Iron Chef, and Chopped.  I even like sensationalized "reality" cooking like Hell's Kitchen.  But there is one show I just can't get into.

Man Vs. Food.