Are these even real missions?

Note: The 2010 scavenger hunt is over (a concluding post will come soon) and we got first place out of 121 teams! This is a series explaining the background and thinking of our missions of the SF Street Food Scavenger Hunt 2010!

There were two missions that seemed broken.

One was just…labeled…”Ian”. No description. Nothing. Except for a link to upload a photo or video. Good thing that I had something in my back pocket for the Yummy in my Oratory mission.

It was intended to be like the Last Supper (a la Lost or even better a la Battlestar Galactica), but we didn’t have enough people. It said Epic Scene. But could you even see the cupcake with the colors of our other friendly guests.

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It just didn’t work out and the video of me stuffing a cupcake in my face seemed to work much better. Especially with our own rendition of the 2001 Space Odyssey.

And there was another mission called Choco Reax. Oh really? It was also labeled at the top level Chocolate Whole Foods. So I had waited in anticipation for a whole week…wondering if the description would be posted. But it was not.

So I took it upon myself to do SOMETHING about it. And that I did…it was…a horrible day…I was super exhausted. But oh chocolate…oh chocolate…the Nutella unfortunately had been around for more than 3 years. But who cares, right? It’s chocolate. I only wished that Chris stocked more milk fattening chocolate for my non-coca appreciative self.

Chocolate REAX

Mission #9: Showcase the Forager

Note: The 2010 scavenger hunt is over (a concluding post will come soon) and we got first place out of 121 teams! This is a series explaining the background and thinking of our missions of the SF Street Food Scavenger Hunt 2010!

Mission: There are _____ days in a year and one place that sells them all canned, bottled and delicious. Go there, and find your favorite of these local products. Your creative challenge here is to make your own commercial for the local goods.

Thanks to Cynthia, I realized that there are 365 days in a year. And there’s only one store that sells THEM in the city.

As an aside, I was annoyed that my gift card from Bloomspot didn’t arrive in time for my hasty shopping spree at the Noe Valley location.

Chris helped me craft the story. Which was completely zany and out there. Many people told me later that…they didn’t get it. But that it was still hilarious.

If I had more time, I would have made it a la Don Draper with intense emotional insight. Ideas like: There are 365 days in a year, but there is only one birthday. Don’t miss it. OR Good food brings lovers together.

I shot the video twice. The first time I didn’t have my handy cameraman—he was obsessively working—so I filmed it by myself which didn’t work that well. Then the second time, I filmed the first part by myself and he directed the second part (the long shot). I created the video quickly. Minus the first attempt, the time that it took from original concept to gathering props to a video on you tube? About 3 hours—1 hour for shopping, 30 minutes for set up, 45 minutes to film, 30 minutes to edit, 15 minutes to upload.

Apparently, I forgot to turn off the HD option, thus the black bars.

The video concept was this:
Looking through the kitchen, finding a lot of foods labeled with 365. Realizing that something doesn’t feel right. Realizing that I AM LABELED “364”! Wake up and relived that it was a dream.

And now I present the video!

Mission #8: Kitchen Battle

Note: The 2010 scavenger hunt is over (a concluding post will come soon) and we got first place out of 121 teams! This is a series explaining the background and thinking of our missions of the SF Street Food Scavenger Hunt 2010!

Mission: Imagine your own kitchen battle reality TV show, name it and then create an advertisement for it – something that would look fierce and intriguing inside of a gourmet magazine. Like Braveheart meets Top Chef or Gladiator combined with Martin Yan’s China. Props, war paint, costumes and photoshop highly encouraged!

The weekend had been rapidly ending and with little time, we needed to come up with an idea. Perhaps this one was the least thought out, because my creativity was nearly at zero.

But we looked at the equipment that my roommate had on display. KitchenAid mixer. Blender! My sodastream! Surely something amazing!?

So we decided that it would be some version of appliances vs. appliances.

We took multiple pictures, looking to have it layered.

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Yes, it was totally organic as the idea formulated itself on the spot. It was the idea that there would be two teams. One team that hated hated hated appliances. One where the appliances loved and the feeling was mutual.

Was it executed well? Not quite sure! But my creativity was NIL.

But our lovely Cynthia made the final product!

I would not exist without the Internet

With a few friends recently considering or…actually…deactivating their Facebook accounts, the thought just occurred to me:

At what point, do we suddenly cease to exist if our digital versions of ourselves…disappear?

Quite frankly, I am roped in. A recent survey of Americans ranked Facebook at the same level of cable and mobile phone providers—that achievement of ambivalence. We live it, because we can’t live without it, but we absolutely hate hate hate it. Until the moment it brings a small minuscule moment of happiness into our lives.

Some would say…WHAT, yes you can live without Facebook. My statement of yesteryear in 2004 is unfortunately true: If the Internet was not here, I would not be here.

Because quite clearly, we would without Facebook:
Forgotten for various event invitations
Birthdays would be forgotten…NAMELY yours
Friendships would fade fade fade away (because someone can’t as easily poke you)
Your face would be forgotten
Getting photos? Impossible.

Of course, this applies only my oh-so-digitally-connected world. I just can’t imagine life without this very platform. To think, I lived in 2003 without it. But back then, I had AIM. And if you didn’t talk to me on AIM, you didn’t exist.

Sleep is an addiction

Louis CK made a very good point last Friday.

Sleep. It is like taking drugs.

When you wake up, it’s like a horrible withdrawal. You really don’t want to get away, but you should. Because…you just should. You want to crawl back into this black deep…comfortable zone. That stupid stupid alarm…you want to throw it away.

Many mornings you let yourself be selfish a bit. Just a few minutes. Just a little longer you say aloud to yourself with your eyes closed.

I am not a morning person.

Then there’s that one BEAT that pounds you awake.

Ok OK! And you pounce. You miss it already. Desperately missing it, but regretting it because now you have to push the gas, you have to run. But you look so forward to it…it’s only in 15 hours. Or maybe 20 hours.

Soon it will be yours again and you won’t treat it so badly this time.

Mission #7: Hat of Meat

Note: The 2010 scavenger hunt is over (a concluding post will come soon) and we got first place out of 121 teams! This is a series explaining the background and thinking of our missions of the SF Street Food Scavenger Hunt 2010!

Mission: Make your favorite Bay Area butcher proud and bring him YOUR best meat helmet. The person to please the butcher the most with their creation will win a delicious prize…

Annoyingly, the clue above was a result of going to a chow page which we agonized for days, until our bright member began clicking everything leading us to the Hats of Meat page. (Note this is before the Lady Gaga nonsense.)

Hats of MEAT? Seriously? Chris first response in our email thread was:
Quick note:

I have no qualms about wearing large quantities of meat on my head.

That is all.

We had a winner.

And of course, we would ask our favorite butcher at the Mission Meat Market. For the last 4 years that I have lived here, I would only buy my meat from him. Despite being located in the Mission, the Mission Meat Market—a block from my place—employed all Asians, specifically Cantonese. They reminded me a lot of the butchers my mom would take me to in Chinatown. Nostalgic, but never wanting to embarrass myself—I always spoke in English. But this time oh yes this time.

We saw that another team made a hat out of lunch meat. But to us, that wasn’t sufficient. Come on, a hat of bacon! Or something similar! But then I insisted that we should reflect our Asian-ness. Perhaps use chicken feet. And thus the crown of chicken feet was conceived. We struggled with my lack of rubber bands (I had a puny collection of rubber bands collected from newspapers and fruit bags—aka a total of 5). But what else could we supplement with the chicken feet…but of course pig’s feet!

Obviously, we knew that we were going to offend members of PETA and vegetarian/vegan friends. But I hoped that this was the only offensive one of the lot. After all, we were all about WINNING.

So we first bought the meat, chatting up the butchers. Then we went back to my place to assemble the crown—we put rubber bands after the fortunately frozen chicken feet. Chris got into his straight-jacket (not obvious from the pictures). And carried the pig’s feet in a separate bag.

Cynthia and I ran ahead to the butcher…trying to arrive early so that we could tell him (in my broken Cantonese and Cynthia’s good Mandarin…but the butcher’s inability to speak Mandarin back) about our intentions. As Chris and Jeff walked by Beretta, several yupsters muttered WTF as they saw a pair of BOYZ carrying a plate with a circular formation of chicken feet. WTF indeed.

We caused a lot of ruckus when we arrived, but we got the photos. Jason, the head butcher, seemed quite amused and gave us a biz card to send him the photo. Oddly enough, we got more looks on Mission Street, but when we returned to Valencia (besides the initial yupsters outside Beretta) we got nothing.

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Hats of meat accomplished. But later it turned out that this very photo…despite being hilarious, over-the-top…would cause the most disruption of all.
Final Hat of Meat

By the way, yes I made chicken feet soup the day after.

Mission #6: Pepto Pep Talk

Note: The 2010 scavenger hunt is over (a concluding post will come soon) and we got first place out of 121 teams! This is a series explaining the background and thinking of our missions of the SF Street Food Scavenger Hunt 2010!

Mission: Take a video of yourself eating a lot food, taking Pepto, and your recovery

(the instructions were originally in unreadable BRIGHT PINK)

When I first saw this mission, it was easy enough. Because my sister was in my town, my parents was trying to schedule a lunch or a dinner with the entire family. And I eventually agreed to Sunday lunch. My parents wanting to try something new—but not too new to my grandparents—decided on a buffet that my mom constantly heard about on the Chinese radio and newspaper. Not to mention, buffets were often easy choices for my family—no language is needed to pick the food. You just go…and get it.

And so, we were booked for Moonstar (be wary of the website—it’s totally Asian!). And surely, this would fit the bill of the Pepto video.

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Having told my parents and my sister the plan, we attacked the buffet. Plenty of options. Our plan was to put Chris as if he was eating all by himself.

But then came the hard part. Our plan was to stack up the dishes as high as possible so that we could have a good picture of all the eaten food. We had to swat away servers constantly who were kindly trying to take away our dishes. Not knowing how to politely say that we were trying to take a picture, we all just said, “No sorry, we’re not done yet.”

At some point, we caved and took the picture. My sister suggested using a crab leg as a toothpick.

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And my sister wanted a picture too. I am glad that she’s as shameless as us.

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When a server finally approached to take away the dishes, we finally admitted our reasoning. She admitted that she thought that we were going to ask for a box for all the remaining food. That would be too Asian.

And mind you, we weren’t the only ones at the table.

The scene behind the scene

Later we took video of Chris doing the pepto dance. (Yes, there is a pepto dance.) And yes, he was in Guitar Hero boxers.

Mission #5: Joie de Vivre

Note: The 2010 scavenger hunt is over (a concluding post will come soon) and we got first place out of 121 teams! This is a series explaining the background and thinking of our missions of the SF Street Food Scavenger Hunt 2010!

Mission: Even this guy would agree that this mission is awesome, baby!

First of all, we need you to find the place in San Francisco where our loud friend from the video most likely stays when he comes to San Francisco. Once on location, we need you to use your surroundings, use props and use your natural acting ability to show us what brings you joie de vivre.

Easy. Dick Vitale or better known as Dickie V. And Hotel Vitale of the well-worn fancy dress. Since David was en route to a wedding, he had his suit with him.

We hastily decided to drive and parked the car in the meter. I hastily ran into the restroom where my sister helped me quickly changed. The hotel concierge happily agreed to let us shoot a video—there were a few teams already here

So we shot it. In silence. Because surely we didn’t want the hotel guests to be disturbed by some San Francisco hipsters screaming in…who knows. We took several shots with Chris directing the photography. I played the part of the other woman. David was Mr. Phantom and my sister was Mrs. Phantom. Somehow the Phantoms had a baby that looked like Toad.

Then we dubbed it later in Audacity with the soundtrack. And thanks to David, we have it all brilliantly captured in HD!

Mission 4: Dinner Party – Part II

Note: The 2010 scavenger hunt is over (a concluding post will come soon) and we got first place out of 121 teams! This is a series explaining the background and thinking of our missions of the SF Street Food Scavenger Hunt 2010!

Mission: It’s time to host a dinner party, but not just with YOUR friends, but with another team playing the game. You will have to hunt down a secret ingredient and make a dish with it to be shared with the other team at a dinner party in a location of your choice.

In a dinner party planned in less than 48 hours….

Secondly, what is the secret ingredient?

I immediately spammed my team with the riddle:
1. Currently in-season
2. Between 35 and 40 calories
3. The “unluckiest” colony.

And fortunately, Jeff T. knew the answer immediately. Peach.

Perfect. I already had planned a tomato and peach salad inspired by Mark Bittman’s 101 Simple Salads. But that seemed too simple. Perhaps something that represented our namesake? A deep fried twinkie (with my newly acquired fryer from my parents) certainly? With some kind of peach topping—grilled?

A healthy and unhealthy contrast? Yes!

I sent out an invite to the LMS team and my team.

To a sinking realization, the number of people attending from LMS was low. So low. The main blog owner was out of town. Unknowingly, that weekend was a special food event taking up most people’s time. I braced myself for the worst…and three hours before the dinner—I got a call that only one person could make it. Ok, that works. I rushed home and started the meal preparation. Then halfway through…no! He called to say that he wasn’t sure—he was tired—could we reschedule to say another weekend?

I understood that wariness of attending an event, super-exhausted. But no! This was the last weekend before the deadline. I could do a weekday, but the rest of my team couldn’t…and me rushing back by 7 pm to prepare a feast was almost impossible. Could you come for 10 minutes? I asked. Then I felt guilty as he was coming all the way from Berkeley. Whatever you want to do, but I promise you a feast and good times.

He did make it And it was a feast. And more than good times…it was incredible.

dinnerparty

Not only did I manage to get nearly my entire menu, but we managed not to bore out honored guest to death.

We had:

  • cheese plate
  • corn casserole
  • braised whole chicken
  • tomato and peach salad
  • gazpacho
  • guest provided bread
  • then for dessert…deep fried twinkies with grilled peachs
  • and the game…What else can we fry?!
  • The "inappropriate" Twinkie shot

    Notable moments:

  • Meeting us meek asians…is really not that intimidating
  • Or at least having Chris around makes everything easy, because he relates to everyone
  • No matter what we did, there’s no way to make a photo with twinkies and halved peaches NOT inappropriate
  • It was the first time that I actually finished cooking “on time” so that I could actually eat with people
  • My rice cooker from my parents does not work
  • If you put cream cheese on a plate, most people will ask about it, especially wondering if it’s a creamy version that they never had before.
  • Goat cheese fully packaged and sealed is still good more than a year later
  • Peaches are a great ingredient
  • Fried Coke is good
  • Grapes dipped into batter and fried is incredible
  • The same with maraschino cherries
  • And deep fried twinkies never cease to amaze everyone who touches it
  • A good question: do vegetarians eat twinkies?
  • Mission #4: Dinner Party – Part I

    Note: The 2010 scavenger hunt is over (a concluding post will come soon) and we got first place out of 121 teams! This is a series explaining the background and thinking of our missions of the SF Street Food Scavenger Hunt 2010!

    Mission: It’s time to host a dinner party, but not just with YOUR friends, but with another team playing the game. You will have to hunt down a secret ingredient and make a dish with it to be shared with the other team at a dinner party in a location of your choice.

    Ok first. What team?

    Another team playing the game? I scanned the list of the teams that were playing the game. Ok, what now? Do I try to play with the team that was at the top? Strategy. Strategy. Last year, I was able to find contact information for the teams since the photos were linked to personal sites. This year, it was all hosted on thegogame website. I decided to go for the most obvious one—Lick My Spoon. I knew that they made a writeup last year about the game…and I immediately sent off an email to Stephanie, the primary author of LMS.

    Then I found Michael M whose team was Michael Eats SF. He was the first place winner of the 7×7 100 Big Eat SF Foodspotting Scavenger Hunt in February. I had been dying to ask him about his strategy of eating at 100 places in less than 2 weeks. Fortunately, I remembered his twitter name since it was all over foodspotting. Plus he used his full name as part of the twitter account. I looked at his website and confirmed that it was him…since his Japanese wife’s unique name was both present at the Go Game site and his personal site. Email sent.

    Granted at this point, I had not even asked my team. I had low expectations, not certain whether anybody in the team had the desire to host the dinner party or know who to ask.

    And most importantly, I hosted dinner parties in the past. I always thoroughly enjoyed cooking, serving and hosting people. And certainly didn’t think anybody else on my team would have that much energy.

    A day later, I got a response from Stephanie and she CC’ed the rest of the LMS team. I was nearly jumping for joy at my desk at work. Secured! People! Guests!

    In between client work, I quickly listed out several dishes that I had successfully made in the past, intended it to tempt the palate and to encourage attendance to dinner with strangers:
    Corn casserole
    “Boiled” water
    Braised beef
    Avocado tomato salad OR tomato peach salad with red onions
    Gazpacho
    roasted grapes and meatballs
    Vermicelli with grilled chicken, cilantro, and kimchi?
    Goat cheese with lemon juice, pepper, rosemary
    freshly made soda water!

    I quickly dashed out the email to the Lick My Spoon team and cc’ed my team. To my horror, someone replied who they loved the menu. Then another praised my incredible menu.

    Then I paused…if everyone showed up from LMS and my team, there would be over 11 people. The biggest dinner party that I had served was only 4 people including myself. And it was because I had tons of leftover ingredients from a weekend party.

    Would I have enough food? Better yet, did I have that much room in my apartment? I decided that Chris and I could sit out if worse came to worse.

    I wondered if I was getting ahead of myself by hosting a dinner party on a short notice. I had less than 48 hours to get something ready. And there would be no way that I would stoop to store-prepared food—everything had to be made from scratch. At least most things.