I wrote a review of my toaster oven on Amazon. You should probably read it and definitely buy it, if you are a fire enthusiast or prefer your toast to look like this:

I still have not found a good toaster oven though. It’s been really hard, you guys. Life is, like, so hard. Sniff.

The second issue of White Zinfandel is out now! The magazine combines food, culture, art, and fancy people doing fancy things and being fancy. I wrote a piece in there about people who take photos of their food. The piece includes VISUAL AIDS, and I don’t mean, like, getting AIDS in your eyeballs. I mean graphic organizers. I’d say the tone of the article would be best described as “enthusiastically enraged.” So, if you are a person who takes photo of their food (and I know some of you do because we’re fwendz on Facebook and I see your feed, don’t you dare hide from me, you coy little bastard), then you will either feel mildly embarrassed or enthusiastically enraged. Just know that I still love you with all my heart, of which there is very little left because my parents have more or less eaten it. As you know, Koreans will eat anything. They will ferment it first though.

New Yorkers: You can get the issue at the New Museum or Project No. 8.

Everyone else: Look here.

Today I honor the memory of an incredible genius.

His name is Arch West and he is the inventor of Doritos, easily the most important snack to be developed ever in the history of flavor. Where would I be without Doritos? Probably the same place, but I’d be much less happier.

So Arch West died at 97 and his daughter buried him–along with some DORITOS. Listen, if I fucking invented Doritos, I would definitely want to be buried with them. The afterlife probably has shitty snacks. The dead don’t understand fucking snacks so you have to take them with you. The ancient Chinese were buried with horses and the Vikings were buried with entire ships–you know, because they’ll need them for the afterlife. They’ll be riding their horses and ships wandering around but OH WAIT WHAT they are hungry I guess they will STARVE because they did not think to take Doritos with them. They will be sad, they will think, man I wish I had something salty and crunchy and loaded with awesome nacho cheese or cool ranch or ZOMG TACO flavor, and instead they will eat, I dunno, celery sticks. I hate celery. That is a bullshit snack right there. Even nacho cheese can’t help celery. A lost cause, just like the war on drugs.

How awesome would it be to have a dad who invented Doritos? Like people at school would be like oh what does your dad do, and people would be like oh my dad’s a lawyer, my dad’s a dentist, my dad works for the Long Island Railroad, OH YEAH? COOL, MY DAD INVENTED DORITOS. And then everyone would be like HOLY SHIT YOUR DAD INVENTED DORITOS and you’d be like IT’S PRETTY COOL, I GUESS, you know, trying to downplay how fucking BADASS your dad is. And you’d be the life of the fucking party because you’d have unlimited access to Doritos and including some secret flavors and for the record, jalapeño Doritos, totally delicious. Also, for the record, my dad is an asshole because he did not invent Doritos.

Hey friends!

Check out White Zinfandel, which came out this week. I have a piece in there. Looks hot right? Right?

The concept of the journal is this: take a menu (in this case, it’s Food, a restaurant by Gordon Matta-Clark in 1971), assign dishes to a bunch of people, and see what they come up with. Then, have a fancy ass dinner somewhere fancy ass with a fancy ass chef and fancy ass people. Let me tell you, my ass is fucking fancy as shit. The item assigned to me was corn and flour tortillas. Yes, this was apparently on the menu. Just corn and flour tortillas. My friends Marco and Lizzie got “velvet chicken.” The fancy ass chef was Jonathan Ory from Momofuku Ko. He did not make velvet chicken. Or tortillas, in case you were wondering.

White Zinfandel is available at really really really hip and styley and trendo places, which, surprisingly are not in Brooklyn, but in Manhattan: New Museum, Creatures of Comfort, Project No. 8. Probably places online too, I’ll update it here when I figure that out! Woo hoot!

Oh hai, it got a little holla from Interview magazine.

I’D LIKE TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING. THIS IS A PICTURE OF THE WATER COOLER IN MY OFFICE.

I think it’s juice? Tea? I have NO idea. What makes that color even? It looks like the water cooler had its PERIOD all over the place. It’s disgusting. And whoever did it is certainly NOT going to clean it up. Especially since I just yelled at the entire floor for being fucking disgusting. So no one’s gonna own to that. Not after me going OH MY FUCKING GOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? FUCKING CLEAN YOUR SHIT UP.

This is like only marginally better than the Lady Who Pees All Over the Seat. The big difference, other than urine, is that the LWPAOtS doesn’t work in the same office. This MYSTERIOUS PERSON WHO PUT THE WATER COOLER ON THE RAG is someone I see every day. Dude. I’m going to scream.

Maybe it’s Haterade.

You want to know something? Yes?

I love soup. I fucking love fucking soup. I will fucking eat the shit out of fucking soup. Yes, that’s right. Soup. Just soup. So flexible and giving, so endlessly supportive, and always humble, though never the star of the table. Soup is like the quiet best friend of the hot guy/girl. Soup is the sibling of the wildly famous and success one. Soup is like Brad Pitt’s little brother, forever answering the question “So, uh, is Brad around?” Soup is Batman’s Robin and a drag queen’s hag. It is the Barbara Hershey to Bette Midler.

What do you do want you’re sick? Do you say “aww, sniffle sniffle, I really wish I had some tuna tartar right now”? NO. Do you say “oh I feel like shit, I really want a giant steak with mushroom cream sauce”? No, of course not. When you are sick and feeling like doody, you want fucking soup. Fucking soup is there for you even though you’ve been ignoring its ass the rest of the year. When you want a grilled fucking cheese, who do you call? Fucking juice? No way. You call soup. Fucking soup. It’s fucking awesome.

So today I made some fucking soup. I made fucking carrot and tomato soup. If you like carrots and you like tomatoes, then you will love this fucking soup. If you don’t like carrots, then you’ll only like half this fucking soup.

Here is the recipe. This recipe is so easy even I can make it. That’s saying something.

Fucking Carrot and Tomato Soup
4 small to medium carrots, chopped 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 med onion, chopped
1 large can of whole tomatoes
1/2 pint of cherry tomatoes (or grape tomatoes)
2 cloves garlic, minced
chili flakes
oregano (fresh about 2 tablespoons or 1 1/2 tsp dried) (you can also use thyme or basil)
olive oil
salt and pepper

Mix carrots, onions, olive oil, chili flakes, 1 clove minced garlic, salt and pepper and roast them in 375 oven. I dunno maybe 15 minutes?

Put whole tomatoes (reserve the juice) and cherry tomatoes in separate roasting pan with garlic and oregano, also in the 375 oven. (I like to cut the cherry tomatoes in half). Salt and pepper. Also about 15 minutes. It’s not a science here.

When carrots and onions are roasted/dark brown/burntish, put it in a large pot (dump the contents of the whole pan in there, oil and all). Then dump the tomatoes in there too. Add a little of the reserve tomato juice (depends how runny you like your fucking soup). Simmer over low, covered. About 5-6 minutes.

Then puree in a food processor or with an immersion blender or a regular blender. To loosen it up, add more reserve tomato juice or a little water. Simmer another few minutes.

You can add a 1/4 cup of whole milk or half and half for extra awesome. Or not.

Personally I like to put aside some of the carrots and leave them unroasted. Then I throw them into the pot when everything gets dumped together and let them simmer and get soft (but not mushy). So when it gets pureed the whole thing is a little grainier and not as smooth as typical tomato soup. I like it with more texture because I am tough as fucking nails.

If I don’t use whole milk or half and half, I’ll put a dollop of plain yogurt or sour cream on top.

The whole thing has very little fat, not that I care, and is gluten free, not that I care. And it is kosher, not that I care. And it is/can be vegan, not that I care. And it’s vegetarian, which I do care.

Yes, I’m sure you can add bacon somewhere in here.

Dude today sucks. Both Korea and USA got eliminated. Sad emo tears are streaming down my face right now. In addition, my belly is full of beer.

For those of you who want to follow along at home, here’s the list of winners and losers. As you’ll notice, I am one of the losers.

Last night I went to the deli to buy some beer and the deli-man is this old Korean guy who makes the same joke over and over again. When he gives you the total, say $8.99, he’ll say “THAT BE EIGHT THOUSAND NINETY NINE DOLLAR!” So last night he makes the joke again, and then says, HOLD ON A MINUTE, are you Korean? And then he got all proud of me for being Korean because obviously that’s quite an achievement, and said that I shouldn’t be drinking alcohol, but that I should be eating raisins instead. Then, he gave me a box of raisins. Which I am eating right now. You know how there are kids who hate raisins and then they grow up to be adults who hate raisins? I’m not one of them. I fucking love fucking raisins, man. They are delicious little rabbit turds. I mean goji berries? Acai berries? Whatever, man. Raisins, this is what I’m saying. When I got them in my Halloween sack (which was my Empire Strikes Back pillowcase, which I still have by the way), I totally ate them. I ate them way before the candy corn. Dude, candy corn is gross. It’s like sugared wax. Why should I eat that when I could be eating dried grapes? You know what else is gross? Necco wafers and Smarties (the American ones not the British ones which taste like M&Ms and are delicious despite the fact that they come in lame Easter egg pastel colors and therefore inferior to M&Ms though I do not approve of those stupid blue ones. I want the tan ones back!). American Smarties taste like vitamins and chalk combined. All of the sudden this blog became about candy. Curious.

Ok so I guess I’m rooting for Argentina now. In a related note: I don’t know anything about Argentinian candy.

Today is Memorial Day. I have been memorializing all weekend, let me tell you. Yesterday, friends and I went to the park, and I memorialized JoMo’s trip to Modell’s to purchase a badminton set, and memorialized JoMo’s seemingly simple and yet overly complicated set-up of the badminton net, and then memorialized Marco and JoMo’s game of badminton and then memorialized Lizzard and Stephanie’s badminton game. It was a lot of work, all that memorializing. I was so busy memorializing on the picnic blanket that I didn’t have time to play badminton, with all that bread and cheese and strawberries I had to eat. Really tough work, you guys. So tough. I should get a medal for all the work I did. You guys should be memorializing me because honestly, I really ate the shit out of those strawberries. I should get credit for that. A medal even. A certificate of participation. Anything.

Anyway today is about memorializing my shitty apartment and cleaning the shit out of it. So, I cleaned the windows. The last time I did this, we had a different president. Anyway, I realized a few things.

1. Windows get really dirty. I know this comes to a surprise to many of you. Hah.

2. When you clean windows everything in your home looks a lot brighter.

3. When you clean windows and these windows happen to be in a shitty apartment, it makes your shitty apartment look even shittier.

So my conclusion is this: if you live in a shitty apartment, don’t clean your windows.

Finally, I’m memorializing the horrible event that unfolded on Friday. I was making simple syrup-that’s when you take equal parts sugar and water and then simmer it. Well, I set the pot on the stove, turned on the burner, AND THEN LEFT THE HOUSE.

FOR ALMOST TWO HOURS.

The pot did NOT catch on fire and my shitty apartment was not burned to a crisp. However, my apartment still smells like burnt sugar. Now you might think: but burnt sugar smells nice, like a candy shoppe! The kind of candy shop that spells it “shoppe,” you know, to be cuter. After all, isn’t caramel just burned sugar?

NO. It does not smell like this. Maybe after five minutes it smells like a candy shoppe. But after ALMOST TWO HOURS it smells more like burning hair. Fact. If you do not believe me, come over and take a whiff and you will be like “dude, are you baking a hair pie?” and I will laugh because “hair pie” is really funny wink wink but then I will tell you NO it is BURNT SUGAR and also ask WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU IN MY HOUSE? And you will say BECAUSE YOU INVITED ME YOU PSYCHO BITCH and I will be like shit you are right, I hate it when you are right.

I took this picture in Berlin last fall. Specifically this was taken at Checkpoint Charlie.

Yes people, that says Snackpoint Charlie.

So when like people were like trying to escape the war and the death camps and all that boring shit (zzzz), they totally made a quick stop to get an eggplant parm and a chicken lo mein. It was crazy! They were like holy shit, next time we should come here for dinner instead of waiting in line for soup. And everyone was like for realz, Fraulein, pass me the soy sauce these egg rolls are da bomb and then everyone laughed because you know, saying something is da bomb is particularly hilarious during WWII. Then they opened their fortune cookies and did that thing where they end the fortune with “in bed.” So funny, even back then. Fact.

And another photo: My friend and I were walking around Wall Street area just for the goof as they say, and we happened upon the Wall St. bull.

Here is a person touching its balls. Rubbing them for luck, I presume. I don’t know who this person is, but I am positive this person is going to have really good luck just like everyone else on Wall St. I should note that there was a group of tourists WAITING IN LINE TO TOUCH ITS BALLS. And, in addition, people taking picture of said balls. I suppose I would fall into the second category.

But seriously dudes check it out. The bull has gigantic balls. And he is a lucky bull because there are many people who want to touch its balls. Note how shiny its balls are. They have been touched many, many times.

OK, one last photo. I recently took a look at a West Village apartment. The dude tells me, listen it’s on the ground floor, but it still gets light. So I go take a look because I am curious.

That’s the front window. As in facing the front. Yes those are stairs blocking the window. Yes the apartment isn’t technically ground floor. It is more like basement floor. Which is to say lower than the ground, or, if you will, underground. It is also a very small apartment. So it is a perfect apartment if you do not like light or space. It is also a perfect apartment for those who love to spend money on rent. If you like the smell of trash, then it is perfect because the building’s trash cans are conveniently located outside your window. Rats and heat are free though, which is nice. Oh, also, the other windows face the air shaft. So it is also a perfect apartment for those who do not enjoy air, or enjoy air that has been in one place for a long time.

I am currently cleaning THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF MY APARTMENT. It’s a big Korean/Asian thing to clean THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF YOUR HOME to usher (Usher!!!) the New Year. Since I’m leaving for California tomorrow, I have to clean THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF MY APARTMENT now before I leave.

I have made…some archeological discoveries whilst cleaning, I will share them with you because I love you all and I think it’s important that you understand what I have discovered because they are pieces of history and they are valuable and will make me very, very rich.

-A bottle of ketchup. It looks like regular ketchup. Heinz brand. Because Hunts brand really does suck it, I don’t know why anyone bothers to get anything else but Heinz. Seriousy. Don’t be a prick, spend the extra dollar and get the Heinz. Anyway it is ketchup. It is red, it is thick, it is ‘chock full of lypoprene’ which sounds like something my bathing suit is made out of or something baseball players put on their junk because it itches. The only problem with my ketchup is that IT EXPIRED IN TWO THOUSAND AND FIVE. That is (nearly) FIVE YEARS AGO. HALF A DECADE AGO.

-A can of Campbell’s Vegetarian Vegetable Alphabet Soup. I rarely eat canned soup, unless I am very, very desperate. Like when I was in grad school and had $5 in my bank account. What can $5 get you in NYC? Well, it gets you a can of soup and a bagel. It does not get you salad, however. You know how people reminice about their “salad days”? Well clearly they did not live in NYC because you cannot afford salad here. Lettuce costs more than $5. Anyway the point is, my “salad days” were more like “soup days”. I happen to like soup, it is kind of like drinking a food pyramid. Kind of convenient. Anyway, this can of Campbell’s Vegetarian Vegetable Alphabet Soup expired in TWO THOUSAND AND FOUR. Which is when I was in grad school. SIX YEARS AGO. SIX! HALF A DOZEN YEARS AGO!

-I found a bag of what might be brown sugar, but it looks more like a brown brick that is ROCK SOLID. If I had a thousand more of these, I would build myself a wood-fire pizza oven. A PIZZA OVEN, PEOPLE. Everyone likes pizza, am I right? Just say yes even if you don’t agree. Pizza is like advanced phD level toast. You know how much I love toast.

-I also found the following:
Godiva Chocolate Liquor, a third of a bottle
Frangelico, almost finished. Maybe a few tablespoons left
Kahlua, half a bottle
Amaretto, three-quarters of a bottle
Triple Sec, quarter left

I should make some kind of adult beverage out of this business. Like an adult milkshake. But probably not with the triple sec, that stuff is kind of weird. Is there such thing as Double Sec? I mean maybe triple is just too much. Maybe I just want double? You know, I’m trying to moderate more. Triple just seems extreme. Double is fine, thank you.

-I FOUND A TRASH CAN. A REAL TRASH CAN. Tucked away on the pantry floor. Holy shit. A garbage can. I can see why I hid it away. it is a real piece of shit. I wanted to throw the garbage can in the garbage can. I’m not sure how to do that, so I just gave it to my neighbors.

-A box of 3-hole-punched paper. Curious. I have no idea how it got here, nor do I ever remember needing it or using it or buying it. It is a gift from Santa. On his days off he works at Staples. It’s a recession, everyone’s taking on more responsibilties.

-I found a pair of binoculars. Nice. It was in my pantry, next to a can of chile peppers in adobo. Because that is where one keeps binoculars.

I found some other stuff too, all historical artifacts that will make me very very rich. I’m going to the Natural History museum tomorrow to sell all this stuff, I am sure they will be very happy. If not, I’ll give it to the Met. I hear they’ll take anything.