Kevitivity » food

The Grilled Cheese Truck

kevin — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 22:52:26 +0000

The Grilled Cheese Truck makes a stop in Pasadena. Posted to Flickr.

Chowhound’s dumb moderation tactics

kevin — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 23:22:02 +0000

Chowhound has a long internet history as being a great place for people who love food to gather. And as a longtime user (over ten years now) I’ve contributed many posts as well as helped spread the word about this site. One down side to Chow, however, has always been the overly militant and inconsistent moderation tactics which have an effect of alienating us users – something that’s deadly for user driven sites.

I’m not the only one to complain about this – A simple Google search reveals just how widespread the problem is. Often, posts are deleted by mods without any word as to why. Sometimes, and most egregiously, Chowhound moderators will forbid users from even mentioning restaurants with no reason given, as was the case with Jujube and Napa and Co.

What makes this all the more maddening is how terribly inconsistent the mods are, deleting one users posts while preserving anothers.

Some moderation is necessary, obviously, but this is starting to get ridiculous. My recommendation? Use a truly crowd sourced site like Yelp.

Continue reading: Foodie Fight, Chownhound Board Nazis, Whats the big deal w/CHOWHOUND?, Deleted posts on Chowhound, Banned on Chowhound

The Original Pantry Cafe

admin — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 07:28:06 +0000

I drove Emily into downtown LA so she could pick up some tickets to the up-coming Glee Live show. Even on a Saturday the traffic back into Pasadena was heavy, so we decided to cool our heels and have dinner before heading home.

The Pantry is much more famous for it’s long LA history than it’s food. It was opened in 1924 and is currently owned by former Mayor, Richard Riordan.

Pesto Pizza (pre-oven) needs more cheese

kevin — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 03:59:04 +0000

Last weekend I made fresh pesto with linguine for Emily. We decided to use the leftover pesto this weekend with some shrimp, baby roma tomatoes and toasted pine nuts for a pizza. Also got some fresh pizza dough. In the end, it was ok… I think I may have over cooked it, and it needed more tomatoes. Everything from Trader Joe’s, including the fresh basil in the pesto. Those baby roma tomatoes were really perfect and sweet…

Basic traditional Pesto – it’s a simple recipe so you *really* need to use good ingredients.

* 2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
* 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (use real real Parmisano Reggiano!!!)
* 1/2 cup Olive oil (the best extra virgin oil you can find/afford)
* 3 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted.
* 3 (or more) garlic cloves, finely minced

Blend until smooth. Salt to taste.

If you use the real deal, fresh “Parmisano Reggiano” (the king of cheese), you may not need to add much salt.