The Bar 2014 Edition

[^Rhino!]

Greetings - - - love, light, and laughter is wished for all of you.....well, maybe a dusty day every once in a while to keep Simon happy.

[goathead]

It's Friday

[gyre]

I think you're getting enough coffee!

[AntiM]

Larry had pork chops in a Waffle House for his birthday dinner. With all the heart stopping extras, eggs, grits, biscuits and gravy. He knows he can get away with it all the way across country from me. Heh.

[ygmir]

*wanders in, makes CCC*
Hi AntiM! ......yeah that lucky Larry™, eating all the things and still stays slim.
Hey GH!! How's things at the plant?

well, I"m "off to the Hof" to lay some brick and work on the wood stove today.....wish me luck!

[Aurelia]

Good Morning All !

Chilly beginning.. for the ride to the Hof we send you warming love

today I need to think pumpkin soup

xoA.

[AntiM]

Mmmm. I'm going to make a crockpot full O' beans today. I can't have tomatoes, so I use canned pumpkin as the "body". Yummers.

[OregonRed]

Good morning, beautifuls!

The purging illness may finally be gone, which is awesome, but I feel weak and tired from days of not being able to keep nutrients in my body. And since my tolerance is likely low, now it a great time to drink, right?

I have to confess that I don't much care for pumpkin. I'm sure that it's un-'Merican, but, while I love the spices that one uses in pumpkin baked goods, the texture of pumpkin makes my stomach turn.

It's going to be 80 degrees here today, so, I'm thinking something light and delicious for dinner tonight... I dunno, maybe fish? Any suggestions? This is the time of year that I would normally be making stew and heavy winter meals, but it seems inappropriate here so, I need ideas to keep the menu entertaining for me...


*off my brain meds currently. My posts could possibly be a bit ADD...

[Ratty]

Chicken pot pie and salad. OR Chinese Chicken salad. OR Carne Asada burritos with beans and 'spanish' rice. Spaghetti noodles with a can of clam chowder over it. Yummie. Sourdough bread too.

[VultureChow]

Gazpacho with some good crusty bread and butter.

Beer for your stomach. When I had food poisoning in Israel, it was one of the first things, food or beverage, that I could keep down

[OregonRed]

No bread. No beer. No flour. I have Celiac Disease so, nothing with gluten. It can be a challenge to find new recipes...

[VultureChow]

Okay I can work with this.

Do you prefer hot or cold. Coming off a stomach upset, I usually prefer cold so...

Cold: I'm going to agree with Ratty. Some sort of asian style salad with grilled chicken or shrimp. I like a peanut dressing myself, tossed with broccoli slaw, sunflower seeds, diced apple, grilled chicken. (I could also do a ceviche, but not everyone is in love with raw fish as I am)

Hot: Grilled shrimp or salmon, lemon pepper, with rice. Throw some sliced zucchini on there as well, or any other vegetables. No grill? Bake in parchment paper or foil with some gluten-free soy sauce, orange slices on top, baby bok choy or spinach underneath. Serve over rice.

Pimm's cup to drink. Gin based aperitif with sprite or sparkling lemonade. Very soothing to the stomach.

[OregonRed]

Thanks, VC! Grilled salmon sounds amazing...

[trilobyte]

I say take advantage of the geography and start exploring Mexican cuisine. Forget the standard stereotypical fast food stuff (tacos and burritos), and go for the home-cooked type stuff. If you're looking for restaurants, I think Ernie's (on Lankershim in North Hollywood) comes to mind, but I'm sure there are others. There are zillions of nice, unassuming places there. Want to cook it yourself? There are plenty of great, fun recipes online to experiment with. If you're like me and don't like the hot spicy food, just tell them no peppers please or ask for very mild, and of course when making your own you can always cut down on or eliminate the spicier stuff altogether. They have lots of dishes that don't use flour/gluten and it's a whole culture that knows how to eat well even on a hot day. Plus you've got some of the best fresh fruit and veg growing in your backyard, take advantage of that while you can.

I'm glad to hear you're feeling better. Of course, hearing about Larry's meal has me jonesing for Waffle House now hehe...

Today's going to be a busy day of tech junk. I've got to do some "exotic hardware testing" which basically means running a battery of tests, shutting the machine down, opening it up and changing out a card and making other hardware changes, then powering it back up and running the same battery of tests, rinsing and repeating a few times. Then I've got to upgrade the drives in my primary system. That will make for doing a bunch of maintenance work on three of the four drives in there, and then when that's done I'll take the drive that's coming out of my primary system and use it to upgrade the RAID setup we have backing up my girlfriend's machine. I also need to finish up my Burn2 installation stuff, but that's nearly done. The third batch of limoncello needs to get started today too, hopefully I can get to that after the geekery and before figuring out dinner.

Have a great day at the Hof, Ygmir!

[Elliot]

Regarding the various comments on my barn.... Wheels in strange places, nakedidity.... It is actually much "worse" inside.








And it's almost Halloween too.









Definitely ready for a barn dance.








If I can only clear some floor space.

[Martiansky]

Set up the bar under the car lift.... piano man..... ready and playing!
You're ready to DANCE!!!

[Elliot]

That Cadillac Patrol Car is not sitting on a lift. It is hanging from the rafters.

(It's a pedal car.)

[Savannah]

Best picture ever!

[Elliot]

We had fun staging it, that's for sure. 2010, I think. The cart outside was used on Playa that year to haul one of those pianos around. May or not be the piano in the earlier picture of a real piano player. I think we took this picture right about this time of year, with Halloween on our minds. And I had just barely finished building the barn, so we were kind'a celebrating. My buddy kept snapping, and finally he got a good one, with my right hand blurry with motion. I've posted it before -- maybe in Bar 3. I feel rather silly when I see it, so I figure it may be good for a Bar laugh every few years.

Gotta go -- lunch over. I'm cutting and welding today, literally.

[Martiansky]

That Cadillac Patrol Car is not sitting on a lift. It is hanging from the rafters.

(It's a pedal car.)

A full sized pedal patrol car?! Hangin' from the rafters?! WHOA!!
Sturdy barn you got there, EL!
(PlayaPatrol worthy it seems to me!!)

[Elliot]

That's the Counterfeit Cadillac. It was built roughly around 1988 by one George Stevens, who fabricates movie props for a living. He took a mold off a real Cadillac, then made this one out of the mold. The body is wafer thin and very light -- and not very strong. The chassis is entirely hand-fabricated, essentially similar the ones I build. The Counterfeit Cadillac was sky blue.

It was raced in the Kinetic Sculpture Race for a few years, then donated to a museum. In 1995 it was borrowed by a group of California Highway Patrol officers and dispatchers. They painted it black and white and installed CHP logos. They had to push it thru most of the race, but they had fun. Then back to the museum.

Around 2002 the museum building was sold, and the Caddy evicted. It sat outside with blackberry brambles growing up thru it, until I rescued it in 2008. It needed a lot of work, but we managed to run it in four or five races that year. Then up in the rafters, awaiting major restoration. It will never go to the Playa, because the body is so fragile.




Circa 1990.





2008. In Corvallis, Oregon, most of the crew were ladies, and I mostly coached. Sharp turns were difficult, but it was all a blast.

[fernley1]

My first visit to the bar.
Its looking pretty nice in here.

Elliot, love the pictures.

[^Rhino!]

I say take advantage of the geography and start exploring Mexican cuisine. Forget the standard stereotypical fast food stuff (tacos and burritos), and go for the home-cooked type stuff. If you're looking for restaurants, I think Ernie's (on Lankershim in North Hollywood) comes to mind, but I'm sure there are others. There are zillions of nice, unassuming places there. Want to cook it yourself? There are plenty of great, fun recipes online to experiment with. If you're like me and don't like the hot spicy food, just tell them no peppers please or ask for very mild, and of course when making your own you can always cut down on or eliminate the spicier stuff altogether. They have lots of dishes that don't use flour/gluten and it's a whole culture that knows how to eat well even on a hot day. Plus you've got some of the best fresh fruit and veg growing in your backyard, take advantage of that while you can.

Trilo, buddy, you hit one of the proverbial nails straight on the head with a sledgehammer. Mexican cuisine is a great thing to experiment with. We're all so accustomed to Tijuana-style Taco Bell hi-calorie garbage that we're not as healthy as a nation as we could be.

Imagine if you will one of my personal favorites.....tequila marinated grilled shrimp served with corn and finely diced zucchini, and then pour crushed raspberries over the corn and zucchini. Oh, and if I marinate, I use Patron Silver OR BETTER to get a really great taste. Jose Cuervo? I gunned him down the minute he tried to step into MY kitchen.

[Elliot]

*goes back to computer with welding mask on head*

Neglected to mention: In 2008 we called it the Counterfeit Bluesmobile, complete with Illinois license BDR 529. The ladies wore Elwood and Jake outfits.

[Ratty]

Wow!

[Aurelia]

Plain pumpkin soup is used for nutrition..,
celiac, crohns control.

Is the "Lucky Lou" still under the freeway ?
got my first taste for the way to eat south of the Border there .
And that was after years of growing up from Spain conditioning

Loved your pictures Elliott !
Sexy YOU
.

[tinymystic]

Love the new place! Needs a little ART on the walls. My contribution to the new bar!

[trilobyte]

Welcome aboard, fernley1!

Garbage or not, Rhino, I still like the fast food type stuff. And in a town like SF, even that stuff gets elevated to wonderful cuisine at a lot of places. SF/Mission burritos are a class unto themselves, and in a foodie town there are a lot of amazing variations and fusion mashups that will blow you away.

[theCryptofishist]

Of course, the burrito is a San Francisco invention. Along with the latte. And the Martini is from Martinez.

Anyway, I'm back to work. Tomorrow's payroll. It's going to be darn easy, much more trouble doing two weeks' ago than this pay period. Of course, next paycheck is going to suck--2 days' pay. Still, ... um... Yeah, complicated feelings. And I'm beat.

[AntiM]

Chin up, Fishy, it could be worse. I finally do not have a worried tummy ache upon waking today.

Nice art, Tiny M. I loves me some green men.

Elliot, Counterfeit Bluesmoblie? Swoon.

Howdy, fernley1. Welcome.

I used to get monster burritos for a buck with my food stamps in the Mission. Back in the 70s, so I have no recollection of what the corner market with a Mexican hot foods counter was called. But one of those burritos was two meals for me. $50 of foodstamps a month was luxury to me, until I was also feeding the little girl of the woman who let me live in her loft for free as a full time baby sitter. I always wondered what became of little Sam.