Fall is one of the best times of the year because it is when I get to eat some of my favorite foods. So tonight, Kat and I made one of my favorite dishes for dinner. Baked cod with boiled yellow potatoes and sautéed brussel sprouts.

Oh baby!

Of course I forgot to snap a photo of my dish…
Photo taken by Bjava at http://www.flickr.com/photos/bjdavis/2423706359/

Soon.

I do not know how I missed this one, but GrubWith.us is a social dining website that lets you join a table of strangers at a highlighted restaurant. So, basically, you go to GrubWith.us, see a list of upcoming dinners at different restaurants, you can then buy a seat at any one that has a spot open, along with twelve other strangers. It is a really fun and clever way to meet new people.

Interview with founder Eddy Lu at: How Eddy Lu Of GrubWith.Us Makes Money Having Dinner With New Friends

I am partial to startups focused on food and I am loving the new services that are popping up around it. I would like to see more people working on startups around food, specifically around the idea of sharing or the making of food.

Here are a few that have gotten my attention recently.

CookItFor.us which launched at midVenturesLAUNCH on Tuesday here in Chicago. CookItFor.us matches people with recipes they want made with others who will make it for them. It’s one of those ideas that was hard to grasp at first, but I think it has huge potential if they focus and find a group of people who love trying new foods.

Forkly is in stealth, but the name and logo leads me to believe it is food related. That’s all I got on them

FoodSpotting.com – People sharing their plates of food, mostly from restaurants. Great way to see what restaurants actually make so you know if it is at least visually interesting.

Foodzie is a marketplace for artisan food makers. It is kind of like Etsy for foodies… You will want to buy most everything on here.

TasteSpotting.com is community driven recipe book. Effectively they collect recipes from around the web and display them in a beautiful recipe card format.

Any others I missed?

Kat and I had a great experience at 90 Miles Cuban Cafe this afternoon that I think is the perfect example of what a great work environment can do for a business.

We both recently went vegan so whenever we are eating somewhere new we always have a plethora of questions and today was no different. “Is there any dairy or honey in the creole sauce?”, “can we have our roll without any butter?”, “are the beans cooked with chicken stock?”, and so on.

He quickly picked up on the fact that we were vegan, genuinely offered some recommendations and then, believe it or not, came up with a dish for us on the fly. It was delicious!

How hard was that for him to do? Not very hard at all, but we rarely have such experiences. He just as easily could have mentioned the tofu sandwich and been done with it. But instead, since there were no instilled guidelines handed down from management, and he clearly loved working there, he actually got excited in coming up with a dish he knew we would love.

They now have two repeat cusomters for life simply by removing any guidelines and allowing their employees to treat the place as if it were their own.

In the middle of shopping at Whole Foods the fire alarm went off, freaking everyone out. It quickly was shut off and an announcement came on stating that it was just a test and that they apologized for the annoyance. Hmmm…. Ok.

So we went up to the garage to our car and this is what we found.

Watch the people’s reactions as a camera makes the rounds at a local sushi restaurant in Tomakomai, Hokkaido, Japan. – patora911

This is actually a very interesting video of someone who placed a video camera on a conveyor belt at a sushi bar; As the belt moves around, the camera records the diners. Some take note, making an interesting interaction between the camera while other chow unaware, forever caught in their ravenous state. The camera even makes its way into the kitchen…

It’s an interesting play on a style of documentary photography.

One of the things I hate most about ordering chinese food is the plethora of plastic utensils, napkins and soy sauce and mustard packs they give you. What do I need with eight knives, five forks and one spoon? It is as if I’ve ordered for a family of ten.

It is not so much that the waste bothers me, but plastic knives and forks are worthless and ineffective. I’m at home, I have plenty of utensils.

Well, I made my first online order through GubHub.com today and to my surprise there was an option to request that no plasticware be added to my order.

Thank you.

Ok. I just had one of the worst sandwiches in my entire life.

How hard is it to fuck up a chicken sandwich?

Who uses a quarter of a giant loaf of King’s Hawaiian Bread as sandwich bread?

$10!

Why do I buy sandwiches so often? They are the easiest thing in the world to make.

No. It is not just about plopping down some meat and condiments! Lettuce is more important than you think.

San Francisco sour is such the perfect everyday bread. It is almost too easy.

Cold-cuts should not be wet and slimy. Chicken meat should not be spongy.

Lettuce should compliment and add to the sandwich. With romaine, for example, cut the rib out. It’s just to watery. Shredding is ok, but it still dilutes the sandwich.

Pretty much all lettuce is fair game. Rocket is flavorful, thin and light so pile it on, maybe with some butter lettuce and romaine.

I’m simple. I like a little mayo and either some Dijon or English mustard. Mayo on top, mustard down below.

Cheese. Dublin cheddar.

I also make up a bottle of lemon vinaigrette to splash over the meat. (Olive oil, lemon juice and seasoning)

A Simple Turkey Sandwich

I am a muesli junkie and by far my two favorite “boxed” mueslis are Jordans Special Muesli and Alpen original.

So many mueslis I have tried are not toasted correctly, or not at all. They lack that right balance of oats, barley, wheat, almonds and fruits. Both Jordans and Alpen, while different, get it just right for their own blend.

I can’t find Jordans here in the States, but Alpen is available at a few grocers here.