EPISODE VI - THE HUNT (for red meat in) OCTOBER!!!

WOW!  It sure has been a few ticks since the last episode of FRIDAY NIGHT BITES!!!  Over a year has passed, and a loinsworth of shanks have transpired during that piping heap o' time.

Rather than go back over every morsel consumed, let me just say that:

meat is good, 
it is better grilled, 
and grilled meat with friends will leave one thrilled.  

Iambic Pentameter?

THRILLED is what I was to have everyone back on the patio last Friday Night.  The LA weather had finally gone from Sweltering to Chilly, and was much more suitable to our mid-October timestamp. 

Early arrivers J-Mart and Tyler used the office here at Future Street Studios to ink their first feature film movie deal.  Here is a photo of me capturing their magical moment.  

Fancy picture deals aside, it was time to fire up the grill.  And with meatless bellies a'rumblin' we did just that...

It wasn't long before we were consuming RED RED RED meat in great abundance.  The ravenousness with which our group tore into the crimson flesh reminded me of a great sea battle (more on sea battles in a bit).  Here is a RARE shot of the kill just after leaving the grill, and only seconds til' experiencing human digestion.  

Now, it is well know across this fair planet that eating and movies go together like steak and more steak. Thus, the newest addition to the Friday Night Bites experience is none other than a DIGITAL MOVIE PROJECTOR.  HOORAY!  

But what film would most perfectly compliment the mass consumption of red meat on a frosty night in October?  Red? October? hmmmm.  

DUHHHHH!  That would be THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, you silly goose!

This one has been a classic dating back to my time served in the Russian/American Cold War, as a child of the 1980's.  John McTiernan's thoroughly masculine interpretation of dudes chasing other dudes beneath the North Atlantic ocean whilst firing torpedos at each others afts, sits atop the mountain of submarine movies.  Runners up would be Crimson Tide, and U571.  

THFO pits a young Jack Donaghy versus a crustier version of James Bond, in a battle of wits, moris code, and the ability to distinguish the difference between a thermonuclear submarine equipped with advanced caterpiller stealth turbines, and the fucking of whales (one must be fit with an acute sense of hearing for this task)...

Also, there is a sketchy cook played by Tomas Arana.  

So yeah, hopefully you've seen this film, and if you haven't then this blog post should serve as a semi spoilerific dose of snoozing and losing.  

Alright, so thats all for this episode.  Much more to consume in the future.  Thanks to everyone who made it out last Friday.   Please check out our friends at the Uncle Slavko Blog for updates on their most mutilatinous monster movie, which is nearing it's final stages of post production.

BYE!

-ben

Episode V - Everything has run aFOWL

 We're honing in on this Friday Night Bites thing.  That is, the format for what has almost become something of a bi-monthly ritual is beginning to take shape.  In our last episode the name of the game was aquatic life.  On Friday, September 23rd in the 2011th year of our Lord we made it our mission to gather and grill fowl.


The crack team at dictionary dot com refer to 'fowl' as "any of several other, usually gallinaceous, birds that arebarnyard, domesticated, or wild, as the duck, turkey, orpheasant."   


Yeah, but what happens when you subject the dead version of those birds to an exceedingly hot, charcoal-powered fire?  Mr. Mike Skvarla was more than eager to conduct said experiment.

Ok, so that pic was obviously shopped (it took me hours to place Mike's image into the original picture of the dead and skinned chicken that float-hovers curiously about 5 feet above my doorstep).  


Mike actually brought a trio of game hens.  Here is one.

In fact, everyone came through LIKE A BEAST for this episode.  Check out Matt's typically out-of-box offering of quail.

The Brothers Martinez showed up with some killer shrink-wrapped action. I think it was turkey...

As we were sorting through all the cookables in the prep room, Matt was able to steal a pensive moment for himself outside by the grill.

Oh, I forgot to mention that this serendipitously became our most alcohol-heavy FNB.  

Lost of finely crafted local California brewz.  Enough so, that apparently I felt comfortable spilling/breaking some of it.

Later in the night the smell of cooked birdies attracted a wild dog.  Mike Skvarla named him Bruno and took him home for life.

Seen here is a ziploc'd sack o Asian-marinated chicken wings, courtesy of Nipa and Jeremy (who BTW, drove out all the way from Marina Del Rey).  Thanks guys!  These wings ended up being my favorite dish of the night.

Matt's quails' cooked away while he and the friend group pretended not to notice in the background.

Now, normally Matt takes the ubiquitous "best photo of someone mid-bite" award with the kind of ease Tim Duncan experienced whilst dismantling his opponents in the NBA circa 2003-07.  This time however, Matt was presented with a worthy challenger.  You decide.  

I got my money on photo 2, depicting the young upstart ruffian out of Tucson, James Martinez.   


On to dessert!  I actually don't remember everything that was brung-ed,  but here is a photo of Erin and it.  

Ok, this pic is jogging the old memory bank... on the left that is a cut-up red velvet cupcake and a Guinness-flavored cupcake (AMAZING NIPA!).  On the right, you see a rum cake (and OH MAN was it inundated with rum) brought by Katrina from a super swell Cuban bakery in Glendale called Porto's.  And there in the middle....ummm okay i can't remember.  People liked it though, and it was frosting'd! 


We had like 13 humans show up for this episode of FNB.  It felt like an all out fiesta.  So grateful to everyone who made it out.  Such amazing (and I guess, hungry) friends.  


Lets sign off with a classic scene from Jurassic Park re-imagined by the venerable Derekh Froude.


Birds. Dinosaurs. Herds.  You remember.  


Love.


-b

Episode IV - 5 Star Dishes, Different Exotic Fishes.

F%*#'n RIDICULOUS!

So goes the chorus to Mr. Kanye West's song "So Appalled" featured on his critically-acclaimed album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

This would also be an apt description for the latest rendering of my own beautiful dark twisted fantasy, also known as, Friday Night Bites.

True to form, it was decided day of, to make this soiree a reality.  I gmailed the group around mid-afternoon, and sent them hunting for grill-able seafood.  I had no idea what I had unleashed with this request.

Haircut and I had kicked around the idea of doing a seafood-centric FNB the previous week, after discovering that the Eagle Rock Farmer's Market offers a panoply of freshly caught ocean meats.  And while I'm fairly certain no one ascertained their bringings from the ERFM for this episode, we still ended up having a a superb selection.

Matt arrived first.  He decided to walk over the hill from his house to mine, but forgot that route was mostly uphill, and upon his arrival, was in dire need of a glass of water... which I gladly provided... for a nominal fee.

He brought with him separate bags of various parts of a Loligo Opalescens.  No, he had not killed, cleaned, and dismembered the Greek god of seafood.  That is simply the scientific name for... well, take a look at the following pictures and SEA if you can deduce:

SQUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID!  Thats right.  Matt traveled to a secret subterranean Asian seafood market which exists below the Target on Colorado Street in Glendale.  While navigating those clandestine labyrinths, some evil madness took hold of him and he made the decision to purchase a bonafide squid.  At the very least Matt must have saved a few Sperm Whales from certain doom (squid eat them, right?).

The Grill lighting ceremonies were rewarded with the inferno-like talents of Mr. Mike Skvarla.  Already an accomplished writer/editor, Mike took to igniting the charcoal like Kurt Russell in Back Draft.  Kinda makes you wonder if the art world would be dealing in priceless 'Skvarla's had he lived during the Renaissance.

The Squid grilled up nicely.  You can see here that Matt skewered the tentacles, and then we just threw the hood parts and the 'halo' over the fire as if they were common steaks.

Of course, Haircut couldn't help himself from making reference to the great Dr. Zoidberg.

In my opinion the squid tasted like squid.  That is, it had a fishy, rubbery taste.  The smokiness of the grill added a nice component,  but I'm still taking mine in the form of fried calamari.  Matt did discover that the grilled squid served as a nice vehicle for condiments, i.e. dips, hot sauces.  Matt annihilated those tentacles.

Ok so moving on from the squid.  I should note that this was by far our most populous FNB to date.  We were graced with the presence several new team members.  Erin Lebre, Mikey Skvarla, Justin, and James Martinez all made it out for the Seafood episode.

In addition to the squid we had a couple fishes.  Matt brought Sole (Yes, we all tasted Matt's SOUL) and Haircut brought an exquisite cut of Salmon.

We also marinated and roasted in the oven (i know, i know...we went 'off-grill) a medley of fresh vegetables.

While working as a Jedi-Level Makeup artist during the day,  Erin is also a brownie Ninja.  She came through big time with a surprise dessert of amazing brownies.   I had also picked up some Vanilla Ice cream and a few Mexican pastries earlier that day.  Clockwork.

After dessert everyone looked sufficiently gorged.  Mike began to hallucinate and Matt received a massage.  Photo evidence?  You betcha!

If that wasn't enough, Justin (at 30 years old, the elder of the Martinez Bros.) was so overcome with confusion by his colossal food intake, that he attempted to grill a paper plate.

Life can be, sometimes, ridiculous.

One Love.

Los Angeles Taco Crawl - Mini Doc

About three weeks ago a bunch of friends and I got together here in LA and went on a Taco Crawl.  It was organized by my Friday Night Bites colleague, Gilberto Vega, a.k.a. "Haircut."

This was actually the second year in a row the LA folks had done something like this, but it was the first that I have had the pleasure of attending.

Here is a short video doc I made of the day's activities.

Episode 3 - Veggies in the Time of Grilling

Friday Night Bites took last week off as I came down with an awesome case of infected sinus cavities.  It felt as if the river of slime discovered in subterranean New York by Ray and Egon in Ghost Busters II had found its' way into my head.  Not many things will knock me off the grill, but this was unfortunately one of them.  My most sincere apologies.

When this past Friday (09.02.11) rolled around no plans had been made for any kind of grilling.  Around 4 pm Haircut texted me asking if I wanted to bust the Eagle Rock Farmer's market.  I agreed, and we proceeded to bust it.  Having arrived at the Farmer's Market we decided on the spot to take advantage of all the awesome produce available and do an ALL VEGGIES Friday Night Bites.

We came away with a couple ears of corn, a single bunching of asparagus, one yellow squash, a miniature basket of strawberries, a couple of peaches and a couple of plums.  All in all, a pretty solid hall of not slaughtered dead animal flesh.

Once we got back to Camp Patio Land (I've still yet to come up with a good name for my LA residence) it was not long before Haircut began to gorge himself on the 'ripe as ripe can be' strawberries.

The entire Veggie selection fit on to the 18-inch Weber grill like a strategically organized fleet in a professional level game of Battleship.

Haircut used a creative rub of olive oil, salt, pepper, and concho-chili rock lavender on the veggies.  They tasted spectacular.  The lavender came through particularly well on the corn, which on its' own was extraordinarily fresh and sweet.

Much to the chagrin of Haircut and Lela, I could not stop tasting these grilled veggies.

ALMOST FORGOT,  at the Farmer's Market I had purchased a container of what can best be described as S'more-Mixed Popcorn.  Basically its Caramel-dipped popcorn mixed in with little marshmallows and freshly melted (and then hardened) chocolate.  This stuff was absolutely tits, except Haircut needed to use his pocket-knife to loosen up the hardened chocolate.

We ate the S'mored Corn as an accompaniment to Coffee Ice cream with the aforementioned peaches and plums grilled and mixed in for desert.  SLAM DUNK.

So yeah.  BOOM. Yummy Yummy Veggies can work just as well as the protein-laden stuff!

And i should note that we are 3 episodes deep into season one of Friday Night Bites.  Still just the tip, but you can absolutely expect the penetration to continue as long as we have charcoal, fire, food matter, and our appetites.

See ya next time!

Friday Night Bites - Season 1 Ep 2

Last Friday night (08.19.11) marked the second episode of the grill'n-est blog show this side of the LA river.  We had a solid array of peeps and eats, with Matt & Katrina and Gilberto (haircut) primed to consume Spinach & Feta Cheese stuffed brats, a piling of marinated carne asada, asparagus, husk-on corn, and BEER-FLAVORED ice cream.

The 18 inch Weber grill was ignited at the tail-end of magic hour.

Haircut arrived with a very special beer in what can best be described as a Champagne bottle.  This celebratory beverage proved to be an appropriate addition, as Haircut's 32nd birthday happened earlier in the week.    

Haircut's Pro-Tip on grilling corn:  Make sure to soak the corn in some water for a while prior to landing it on the grill.  This helps to prevent the husk from catching aflame and starting a forest fire.  It also acts as a nice steamer cook for the corn.  Steamer...

Oh that corn was so sweet and juicy.  Check out Katrina.  She knows.

I let the asparagus marinate in my not-so-secret marinade for a quick spell prior to applying fire torture.  They may have suffered a bit too long on the grill as they were kinda limp/flaccid.  Their taste however, was a pleasurable trip.  I decided not to check my urine for changes in scent. 

I had made a conscious choice not to purchase buns for the brats as I was feeling rather burnt out on the hot-dog model food structure.  This choice was met with much cynicism and ridicule by the group of eaters.  We compromised by using some of Matt's corn tortillas and everyone was happy.  

Haircut was just happy to have a wiener in his mouth.

The carnitas meat was particularly tasty, although I'm not sure if grilling is the best method for cooking this type of protein.  It ended up being a bit dry.  Matt has recently been on a slow-cooking kick, and I think that would be the way to go with carnitas.  This style leaves them much more tender and juicy.  But again, they were still good and everyone was pleased.

The champagne of beers and a literal champagne bottle of beer.  

Unfortunately no pictures were snapped of Haircut's marvelous beer-flavored ice-cream.  You'll just have to trust your imagination on that one.  

After desert Matt and Haircut engaged in a Banjo-Off to help everyone digest their foods.  

So to sum it all up, our second episode of Friday Night Bites offered a bit more in terms of tastes and personalities.  We are very excited to see, taste, and meet anything and everything that our future installments might hold in-store.