Jacques of all Trades

The many faces of dinner time

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latimes:

The story behind Sriracha

With a distinctive bottle taste, Sriracha has gone from an unpronounceable challenge to a staple sauce for many Americans. In the U.S. alone, $60 million worth of the sauce was sold last year alone.

But it wasn’t always such a prevalent item on store shelves. David Tran, the man responsible for popularizing the hot sauce, had a long journey beforehand:

When North Vietnam’s communists took power in South Vietnam, Tran, a major in the South Vietnamese army, fled with his family to the U.S. After settling in Los Angeles, Tran couldn’t find a job — or a hot sauce to his liking.

So he made his own by hand in a bucket, bottled it and drove it to customers in a van. He named his company Huy Fong Foods after the Taiwanese freighter that carried him out of Vietnam.

Read more via our profile of Tran, and his beloved hot sauce.

Photos: Gina Ferazzi, Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

Great take by Tran on refusing to take investor money to increase production: “If our product is still welcomed by the customer, then we will keep growing.”

DC Culinary Adventures — a whirlwind of a weekend!

Getting through Monday by thinking about our amazing weekend of culinary adventures; starting with dinner at The Pig with our friend, Matt, on Friday (Hugo enjoyed the macaroni and cheese and the wild boar ragu, though we decided the porchetta might have to wait another few months)! 

On Saturday, we swung by Stachowski’s Market to pick up some amazing sandwiches for a Gravelly Point picnic with friends — including the colossal 4-meat grinder, a crowd-favorite meatball sub, pastrami, and turkey club, each of which fed 2-3 people. 

Saturday night, we got a sitter and grabbed a quick drink at Graffiato (my Gin Blossoms was nice, but Liz’s Tony Starr 3.0 was the jackpot as the smoky mescal and charred lime played off the blood orange and other citrus flavors nicely). Later, we met up with Sarah and Adam to check out the new izakaya on the second floor of Daikaya. So many dishes to recommend, including the crispy Brussels sprouts and pork belly (pictured), the wasabi octopus, the fried garlic, the deceptively simple grilled avocado filled with ponzu sauce, and other delights.

Yesterday, we finished off the weekend grabbing brunch at Poste with my cousin. While Hugo managed to eat a little bit of everything while simultaneously dropping it on the floor, the wait staff was amazing, and he was a big hit with the other diners. We started off brunch with their fantastic (and apparently award-winning) maple-bourbon glazed doughuts, in honor of this being doughnut week in DC. (We did not make it out to the newly-opened GBD or Astro Fried Chicken and Donuts, but we’ll probably burn off some calories before we venture out to those. 

Last night, we detoxed, with a nice grilled chicken salad at home, taking advantage of some veggies we picked up at the Dupont Circle farmers market. We plan to eat a lot more salad in the coming days, as we love when “seasonal vegetables season” approaches each year.

Picnicking at Gravelly Point with good friends and Stachowski’s sandwiches. I love spring!

30 Delicious Things To Cook In April 

(via miss-malllla:haygirlhay:buzzfeedfood) 

Weekend culinary highlights: Guadalajara has a lot of tantalizing street food, but these were two of my favorites—not complicated, not healthy, but delicious and interesting tastes or textures:

- As we walked out of the wedding, several food vendors had set up shop outside of the church. This guy was selling hot, delicious churros, as well as these potato chips drizzled with hot sauce, salt, and fresh-squeezed lime juice. So delicious, although by the time you get to the bottom of the bag, a bit soggy.

- This fried delight was crispy (resembling the texture of Indian papadum, but likely made of corn or wheat flour), and covered with either honey or an agave syrup. (According to mermaidcomplex and cynthiahasatumblr, they are bunuelos. And again, I’ll say, they’re delicious).