The Important Recipes

This might seem like it doesn't fit this blog, but I recently read an article about the Food Network (food) in the WSJ (finance). It really wasn't a very worthwhile or newsworthy article, so spend your time reading something better, but I was struck by something the author said while reviewing the show "Barefoot Contessa." Here's the excerpt:

On one "Contessa" program that recently aired, devoted to the couple's 40th anniversary, ... it was no surprise to receive ... details of Ms. Garten's recipe for her own happy marriage -- namely, that she wanted Jeffrey to be happy and he wanted her to be happy. Moments do arise when a brief time out from the Food Network may feel compelling.

Excuse me? A couple has had a successful 40 year marriage and you're not in the least bit interested in how they did it? What's more important, the recipe for the Italian Wedding Soup that she made for one meal or the recipe for a successful marriage? If we had more people like the Gartens and less with attitudes like Ms. Rabinowitz, we would have far fewer problems in the world, and a lot more truly happy people.

Cooking Fresh

If you're interested in cooking fresh, which is indubitably better, Mark Bittman has a recent article with some tips on must-have pantry items. When you read something like this, you get a clear picture of how cooking fresh doesn't have to be difficult, time-consuming, or costly. A worthy New Year's resolution for us all. (And, if nothing else, please do toss that fake parmesan and purchase some real Parmigiano-Reggiano. It's really not that expensive for how much you get out of it, it's incomparable in flavor to the green can or anything pre-grated, and it lasts forever. You can get large chunks of it at Costco for decent prices.)

Redeeming Madoff Investors

James Stewart's "Common Sense" column in the WSJ had a recent article titled "The Lessons to Be Learned form the Madoff Scandal." While the lessons he suggests are informative, perhaps more important is the following:

The lesson from such criticisms, I suppose, is that we should all turn ourselves into forensic accountants. I find that preposterous, not to mention distasteful, given that some of these people have lost their life savings. After all, consistent returns in good and bad markets are the selling point for nearly every hedge fund. There are plenty that have reported much larger annual returns without raising eyebrows. Indeed, Mr. Madoff's returns were good, but not so spectacular as to raise undue suspicion. As for his vague explanations, they were no vaguer than those of many other hedge-fund managers and even mutual-fund managers.

True, some potential investors examined Mr. Madoff's operation and declined to invest. The same could be said of nearly every other hedge fund. In 2006, one potential investor actually branded it a Ponzi scheme and took his suspicions to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC investigated and gave Mr. Madoff a clean bill of health after he corrected some minor issues. How that could have happened remains one of the big unanswered questions of this affair. Nonetheless, Mr. Madoff's victims can surely be forgiven for relying on what is supposed to be a watchdog agency.

When the news concerning the Madoff scam broke, I was shocked. As I learned more about how ridiculous it was, I found myself no longer feeling sorry for any who had lost money since it was so ridiculous. Plenty had decided to not invest because they saw things they did not like. I don't feel that way after reading this. I think there were plenty of ways one could have chosen to invest in Madoff's fund instead of another legitimate hedge fund in the same way that many chose to invest in one legitimate hedge fund over another.

For those interested, but not enough to read the column, the lessons Stewart suggests are:

• Make sure the hedge fund has a reputable auditor
• Diversify
• Don't believe anyone who tells you that you can earn higher returns while assuming a lower risk
• Don't rely on middlemen
• Don't lose your faith in human nature

As a final note, I do not feel sympathy for someone who did not diversify and had all of their holdings in the fund.

Live-Blogging the Big Three Bailout Hearings

Being the genius that I am, I, with amazing forethought, included finance in the name of this blog so that I could put up links to things like this Live-Blogging the Big Three Bailout Hearings transcript. Not only is it informative, but it is quite humorous and entertaining.

The Red Iguana? I don't wanna.

Since eating at the hands of Mexicans in their homes for two years, I have a high standard when it comes to Mexican food. Meeting that standard in my native California is almost as easy as finding an unemployed software engineer (almost because not everything there is spot on.) It's a different picture altogether in Utah, so after hearing good things about The Red Iguana for the past few years, I was excited to go to that North Temple landmark.

Right before I went, I was telling my sister about my favorite new Mexican place I found in California over the summer. I liked it so much because they have amazing mole. As I told her, the way to tell if a Mexican place is good is to try the mole. Mole isn't easy to pull off and its as authentic as you can get. If you can do it well, everything else comes with it, and you know everything is real. I was pleased to hear from her that what the Red Iguana is known for is their mole. I was already liking the place.

If you plan on going to the Red Iguana, it's good to know that this place gets packed. We went on a Friday evening and, if it weren't for the fact that my nine person party had me along, they would have been waiting for over an hour for a table instead of 20 minutes. Also, if you're looking for atmosphere, this isn't the place. Unless the atmosphere you want is hole-in-the-wall Mexican, which isn't to say that it's a negative thing, it's just what it is.

Without question, I already knew what I would be ordering--the mole negro. Even the menu calls it the king of moles, and as I mentioned before, if this is a winner, I'll support everything else the establishment has to offer.

Well the mole finally arrived, and from the get go I began to be suspicious. The mole negro I'm used to is just that--negro (not literally black, but pretty close to it.) This one had a reddish-brown tint to it, but I decided to put the colors aside and try it with an open heart. The sauce was definitely complex, but it was off. It's one of those things where you can't really describe what right is, but when you've had mole that is right, you know it from then on. And to make matters worse, the chicken in my dish was overcooked and rubbery. If the sauce is the most complex and difficult part of the dish to get right, then the easy things--chicken--better be perfect. Needless to say, I was disappointed.

I tried bits of a few other dishes, and there was nothing I could rave about. It just seemed like every dish was trying so hard--too hard. The beauty of good Mexican food is its simplicity. A few extremely fresh and flavorful ingredients prepared so that each one shines and melds with the others. When this happens right, it simply is beauty. However, these dishes were overdone. Give me a tortilla, perfectly done beans and rice, a nice piece of carne asada, and a simple salsa and you would eat better food. I've come to learn that a million ingredients doesn't make a dish, it kills it. However, the horchata I tried was fairly decent, but that shouldn't be enough to drag you here.

As a reviewer on Yelp said, "So this is the number 1 restaurant in SLC per Yelp and number 2 per Zagat? My goodness, I feel really bad for the people living in this city that enjoy good food."

So in case you ever feel like asking me, "Red Iguana?" Well, I just don't wanna.

Business Is Busyness

My life has been more busy than ever before (minus the ten weeks while I was at Lehman this summer--that's hard to top.) Unfortunately, 99.9% of it is school. I get up, go to class, do work between classes, meet with groups, meet with professors, read and work and read more late into the night. So since it's been a while and i've been receiving various messages such as "go write on your blog", "So when is food(and finance) gonna get its 2nd post?", "You haven't posted on your blog for a long time", etc., I thought I would do just that--write on my blog and make a post. Here's to you. :)

My Blog

So I had a blog back in the summer of 2005. It only ever had one entry about how I got kicked out of BYU for the second time. It's really not that cool of a story because I didn't get kicked out in any bad sort of way. But since I deleted that post a month or two ago, you'll never know the story (wait for my autobiography in a few years).

Before I post a real post, I thought I'd let you know what I plan on doing here. Like I said, I've had a blog since May of 2005, so I'm not really a newcomer at this. The problem is my blog only had one post. After that I didn't have anything to write about. That just goes to show how boring the reason I got kicked out of BYU is. If it had been something exciting, my life after being readmitted would have had some pretty cool things to put in a blog.

Anyway, my blog lacked purpose. As friends started blogs, I would get jealous and think about writing stuff like they do. I finally realized what it is I want to write about and share with other people: food (and finance). Anyone who knows me knows how much I like food. Whether it be cooking, reading about cooking, reading about food, eating other people's food and, especially, going to good eating establishments.

So it is I declare the purpose of this blog: to write about food (and finance).