The Hungry Donkeys

Echoes of the Scream

2011-04-08T13:49:00.001+08:00

Like Santa's birthday on Christmas, Spring Scream happens only once a year and it comes and goes faster than you can say, "LOLZ". We prepare our gigs, our stalls filled with savory snacks, our silk-screened garments, our spazzed out costumes for on stage and off, our frozen portraits of Spring Screams past..and we slog through the time-stretched, torpid week leading up to this unique and

Of Soup and Love, The First is Best

2010-07-28T10:35:00.001+08:00

You've made it past the get-to-know-you coffee sessions, you've gone out for dinner, held hands at a movie--maybe exchanged a kiss--and now it's time to cook for them. First off, don't get the wrong idea about my rather old fashioned dating progression listed above. It doesn't matter if you're living in the 50s, or you've already snorted every powdered letter of the alphabet off their birthday

The Truth May Be Out There...

2010-07-27T10:54:00.001+08:00

There's been a lot of talk this year about governments releasing--or disclosing--their classified UFO files. And according to the milliards of sites devoted to the subject...it could be any day now, as it has been for years. Whether you're a believer or a skeptic, one thing remains to be seen: convincing evidence. Go to any ET or UFO website and your bound to be confronted by a similar scene:

Things I don't need to know about you on Facebook

2010-07-26T15:51:00.001+08:00

I'm sure that most of us can admit to spending a little too much time scrolling up and down on facebook. For a fairly simple social networking site, with not all that much happening, it still eats up quite a bit of time. My use of facebook is pretty simple; share the odd photo, put up a video I think my friends would like, check out what's going on in town, and once in a while get turned on to

A Medicre Discovery

2010-07-23T11:31:00.002+08:00

I don't know what it's like in the rest of the world--but here in Taiwan--it blows. I'm talking about both The Discovery and National Geographic channels. It seems as if their programming standards have fallen into an intellectual void, trading quality content for half-assed amateurish schlock. If you're going to watch the tube once in a while, it's a hell of a lot better to watch something a

Some News is Good News

2010-07-22T15:43:00.001+08:00

I hate politics. I use newspapers for the crosswords, and I only watch teevee news to find out whether or not I get a day off work due to a typhoon. That said, I will not waste your valuable time with some redundant rhetoric about how news is evil, or mention Big Brother (though he is watching) or any other such nonsense. However, two sites have recently caught my attention. The Real News

Nobody Knows what to Do--And It Will Happen Again

2010-07-21T10:49:00.000+08:00

For all the botched efforts, an angry president rocking his jaw about responsibility and the environment, the media's response, the cries of outrage from residents and those watching from a distance; oil spills will happen again...and again. And the most likely candidate--once again--will probably be BP. When this whole shitstorm went down, there was a part of me that almost rejoiced at the

Pisstaking the Bloodsuckers

2010-07-20T16:20:00.001+08:00

Out of all the monsters and mythical creatures at our creative disposal, none has been more used in the last few decades than the vampire. There have been occasional cameos from prehistoric creatures, a few zombie movies, but for some inexplicable reason, vampires have once again won the blood-pumping hearts of the youth. I'm here to explain the hows, the whys, and essentially--the who gives a

The Donkey Rides Again

2010-07-16T14:02:00.001+08:00

From grave to grange, the ass ascends from the ashes like the phoenix...like a baked potato left overnight in the coals, like one of those melted beer bottle ashtrays your uncle used to make by the campfire on May two-four weekend. Okay maybe that was my uncle... For this new era of the donkey, we plan to widen our landscape a little; sure it will always remain a food blog in its conception, but

How Hipsters and Trendazoids Fuck with my Favorite Foods

2010-07-16T11:52:00.007+08:00

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Micheal Rubenstein photography

2010-02-22T11:31:00.000+08:00

A few great images of seafood from photographer Micheal Rubenstein. These are from the series 'I Love Nippon'. Rubenstein's recent work focuses on portraits and urban landscapes from Mumbai.

Dog food

2010-02-11T13:02:00.000+08:00

In response to the problem of abandoned stray lap dogs roaming the countryside, the government has promoted a more humane method of dealing with unwanted pets to coincide with Chinese new year banqueting. Several manufacturers of kitchen appliances have quickly capitalized on this new niche market. From engrish.com via Tall Karl at chewin in the chung.

Juice

2010-02-10T15:00:00.000+08:00

Image: Benjamin Siegel via flickr One of the great things about living in Taiwan is the plethora of fresh juice stands. For 30nt ($0.94) I order up my favorite: carrot-apple-lemon-ginger, hold the sugar. More adventurous drinkers should seek out the bitter melon-cucumber-celery-carrot-honey. If you're looking for something more substantial, check out the avocado or papaya milk (hold the sugar).

Hagoromo canned tuna does gay disco Star Wars

2010-02-09T13:54:00.000+08:00

Circa 1978, via Pink Tentacle

Mr. Zhang's mud oven

2010-02-05T15:47:00.000+08:00

The Zhang family's mud oven My good friend Ron Rose recently had the opportunity of participating in a unique Taiwanese culinary tradition. To mark the winter rice harvest, some farmers continue the ancient tradition of constructing a mud oven in their recently harvested fields. The oven in the picture was created by Mr. Zhang, the soon to be father-in-law of said Rose. This oven is used once

Plan D for your viewing pleasure.

2010-02-04T16:15:00.001+08:00

Alister Cookie

2010-01-30T18:43:00.000+08:00

Here in an ode to fine baking, high-brow English television, and the surreal visions of David Lynch, we have Alister Cookie presenting the strange and disturbing 'Twin Beaks'.

The History of Chinese American Food

2010-01-30T17:15:00.000+08:00

Good to see Kinger's doing well ... Ahem. In the following video lecture from the TED Talks series, Jennifer 8. Lee, author of 'The Fortune Cookie Chronicles', expounds on the history of Chinese American food. We are given the origins of chop suey, fortune cookies, and general Tso's (Cao's) chicken. A more detailed explaination of the general Tso's chicken story can be

Don't Drink and Derive

2010-01-29T20:21:00.000+08:00

GI Joe was wrong when he said, "knowing is half the battle." Knowing is the problem, in fact. I went a wee ways too far last weekend. Consider this entry not about food, but food for thought. I was invited to my friend's country home for a night of curry, poker, and basically a thousand friendly beers. Unfortunately, for me (a little), and for my friends (a lot)--I shat the bed all over the place

Sympathy for the Grilled Cheese or, If this Sam Needed a Bodygaurd, I'd be It.

2010-01-28T19:24:00.000+08:00

There are days when I willingly spend hours in the kitchen, lovingly laboring over as many courses of food as I have ingredients in the fridge, and creativity in the mind box. But lately, my cooking frequency has been about as equal to the spare change amount of entries I've put up on the blog. I make no excuses, as I have none to conjure up. I have neither lost interest in cooking food, nor in

Food in the films of Wong Kar Wai

2010-01-27T15:30:00.000+08:00

Nothing captures the particular flavour of Hong Kong coolness like the films of Wong Kar Wai. If you have ever wondered why someone would abandon North America for a life in Asia, watch Chungking Express and its pseudo-sequel Fallen Angels. Both of these films are early examples of the now formulaic structure of portraying the lives of several unconnected people whose paths cross in unexpected

The Ginsu

2010-01-27T12:28:00.000+08:00

Kinger enlightened us on the ins and outs of buying knives in an earlier post. Funny he never mentioned the Hotari Hanzo of cooking knives. Thousands of years of samurai culture and craftsmanship distilled into a single all powerful blade (and a few precision steak knives). Meet The Ginsu.

Five Easy Pieces: Tomatoes instead of Potatoes

2010-01-23T20:00:00.000+08:00

Funny. In my hot-headed youth, I put a ban on a restaurant in Montreal (the name of which now escapes me ... Duffy's?) for the exact same thing, refusing to substitute potatoes for tomatoes with my cheese omelette. I don't believe I stormed out of the place with the same degree of poetic wit that Jack displays here.

Authentic buffalo wings

2010-01-23T17:47:00.001+08:00

Taichung restaurateur, Patty Coultard weighs in on the trials and tribulations of dealing with employees in a foreign land. One of the misconceptions about the restaurant business is that you just make good food and everything will fall into place. Most restaurants don’t close due to losing too much money. They close because of flat out exhaustion. One of the elements that will bring you

Japan's Dark Secrets Revealed in "The Cove"

2010-01-21T17:01:00.000+08:00

If you haven't seen this movie, you should. There are some documentaries that are meant to rock our little worlds of selective understanding and empathy. This is probably one of the hardest hitting of them all. I will not give away too much, because it wouldn't make any difference if I did, considering the shock value of this very important film. I will only suggest it in the same way a friend