Yearly Archives: 2008

Postmodern pancakes

The one time I went to Shopsin’s, I don’t remember what I ordered except that it was exceedingly normal. It was for breakfast, and I got potato shreds, some kind of eggs, and maybe some kind of toast, and probably orange juice.

Before I talk about Kenny Shopsin’s book, here’s the background, courtesy of Calvin Trillin. Shopsin’s is a NYC cult restaurant with an encyclopedic menu that is like a cross-section of the brain of eccentric and foulmouthed proprietor Kenny Shopsin.

Anyway, Shopsin has a book out now. It’s called Eat Me, and I think it’s a classic. The food is good; the language is colorful; and it has personality out the ying-yang. I have only one big complaint about the book, which I’ll get to in a minute.

Kenny Shopsin thinks about food a lot. He doesn’t seem to care about anything other than whether it’s fun to make and tastes good. Therefore he reminds me a lot of myself, albeit an older and more psychotic version of myself. To make crepes, he dips flour tortillas in eggs and cream. I tried this and it’s awesome.

Shopsin’s serves like six dozen kinds of pancakes. Here is a list of them, recited by Iris:

[Pancakes](https://www.rootsandgrubs.com/podcasts/IrisOnPancakes.mp3)

Postmodern pancakes are pancakes with chopped up pancakes in the batter. Looking at the current menu, it looks like he’s added a whole category of pancakes with candy bar chunks in the batter.

Which brings me to my big complaint. Kenny recommends Aunt Jemima frozen pancake batter. It appears that this is a wholesale product and if I want some I have to buy a commercial quantity. I could be wrong about this. Anyone seen it in a store? I totally want to try it.

_Eat Me_ is not all breakfast. Kenny has many uncensored thoughts on burgers, sandwiches, salads, and other diner classics. This book is so much fun.

Mr. Clean

First of all, isn’t Mr. Clean an awesome corporate mascot? Like, I’m sure there are plenty of wacky mascots today, but they’re deliberately wacky. Although I just looked, and apparently Mr. Clean no longer wears an earring. Plus, the original Mr. Clean died this month at 92.

Anyway, In the same vein as my recent post about Asian cookbooks, I want to talk about cleaning supplies. Here’s what I use, and I’d be delighted to hear any upgrade recommendations.

**Orange Plus surface cleaner.** Works fine, smells great. Extremely cheap if you buy the concentrated refill.

**Windex.** None of the “natural” glass cleaners I’ve tried work as well on windows, mirrors, and especially chrome faucets.

**Method floor cleaner.** I bought this after Iris complained that Mop & Glo smelled terrible. It’s true. This stuff isn’t as shiny but smells infinitely better, and really, I just don’t care whether my kitchen floor is shiny.

**Swiffers.** The dry kind. Wasn’t this a great invention? Actually I use the store brand. I don’t use the mop or any other hardware.

**Magic Erasers.** Also the store brand. Nothing comes close for getting stains off walls. Also good for cleaning laptop computers, especially white ones.

**SOS All-Surface blue sponges.** I order these by the case. I know people say not to use sponges because you’re maintaining an unfriendly bacteria colony in your kitchen. Anyone have another idea for getting pots and pans clean? For general cleaning, I use large cellulose sponges that I buy at Walgreens, $4 for 30 sponges.

**SOS Tuffy.** The orange-and-yellow plastic scrubber pad. These things are so great.

**Planet Ultra dish soap.** See here.

**Ajax.** For the tub. It’s a harsh abrasive and will make the tub less shiny. Again, do I look like I care?

Meow

Today on Serious Eats:

Cooking With Kids: Edible Cats for Halloween

> “My corporate overlords at Serious Eats have demanded a Halloween post,” I told my daughter, Iris, 4. “What’s something we could make together to eat for Halloween?”

> “How about an edible cat?” she replied.

> “That sounds hard.”

> “We could use cupcakes.” This is her solution to everything.

A couple of Hungry Monkey notes

1. A [book website](http://www.hungrymonkeybook.com/) will be launching soon, so you don’t have to read book-related minutiae here and can stick to my observations on flank steak and the like.

2. Many people have asked me whether I’ll be selling the book directly. I won’t. Any way you buy the book will make me equally (very) happy. If you borrow it from your public library, that is also great. If you have to request that your public library buy it, even better. (But don’t request it now; it’s too early!) If you steal it, that is bad mojo, unless you steal it from someone really mean.