Thornton out 1-2 weeks

Posted on January 25, 2012 by CoolDMZ in Miscellaneous | Leave a comment

The Kings are playing played Denver last night without guard and All Star candidate Marcus Thornton, who is out 1-2 weeks with a leg bruise. (Hi, Ziller!) Kinda makes me wish I hadn’t dropped Fredette from my fantasy squad.

This comes the same week that Kings fans got good news of a personnel loss, badda-bing!

In other Kings news I see from the team’s site that one of my old childhood sports pals, Devin Blankenship, is their longtime Media Relations guy! Maybe he can get me into box seats so we can reminisce about hopping the levee to play home run derby at Ciavarella Field in River Park…

SN&R on Concerts fiasco

Posted on January 24, 2012 by CoolDMZ in Miscellaneous | 3 Comments

News & Review’s Nick Miller posted another great roundup today on the recent firing of Jerry Perry as promoter of Concerts In The Park. Apparently people’s Facebooking has made the firing of a Sacramento legend even more controversial. Go figure.

I know I’m weeks late to the party on this but Perry’s firing really bums me out. This is one of maybe five people that come to mind when you think of the local music world. (I admit that this is mostly nostalgic, but I temper that by not being offended at his replacements.) I don’t know how the lineups in recent years could be any more local. It seems like the bookings have led to themed lineups, and maybe people want more eclectic slates? I don’t see that working; If a band I like is playing after a bunch of say, hardcore bands, I will either skip the hardcore bands or just not go at all. Who wouldn’t? Is that really what people are saying they want?

Continue reading

Know Bacon, Know God, No Bacon…

Posted on January 24, 2012 by sac-eats in Food & Drink | 1 Comment

But it seems like a good idea

Is there such a thing as too much bacon? I thought it a valid question after this weekend’s inaugural Bacon Fest. And while I didn’t have a chance to try every bacon offering throughout town, I did sample a few memorable dishes.

I love bacon. Honestly I do. Almost everyone I know (including vegetarians and PETA members) loves bacon. It’s a magical meat. It’s nearly perfect. But can you make a cocktail with it?

The folks at The Porch, K Street‘s new Southern-style eatery, would say yes. Emphatically yes. After all, doesn’t bacon make everything better?

The Porch’s stab at a bacon cocktail is called the “Southern Sunday.” It’s a mixture of bacon-infused bourbon, maple syrup, and fresh egg whites, shaken hard and served over ice. It’s definitely a curiosity, a novel attempt to create, what, a breakfast cocktail? After all it is made with eggs and bacon, and maple syrup to boot.

But would you want to drink it? Probably not. It’s a strange, salty glass of cheer better left to the imagination, and far inferior to the rest of The Porch’s cocktail menu which is overflowing with fresh ingredients and delicious combinations. Continue reading

Here’s a tip: Eat at El Forastero

Posted on January 22, 2012 by RonTopofIt in Food & Drink | 3 Comments
Tip jar at El Forastero's drive-through on Fair Oaks Blvd.

Not sure this is the best idea the folks at El Forastero have had.

The RonTopofIt family hit the drive-through at El Forastero Mexican Restaurant on Fair Oaks Blvd. at Walnut Ave. this afternoon for a quick bite. I had been meaning to give it a go since they took over the space previously occupied by Taco Ball back in October (a large chain being replaced by a smaller chain, go figure). Shocker, Yelp is all over the place with reviews. I went in with little research, however, and had never been to the other locations in Sacrament and Stockton (it’s been a few months, guys, time to update the website) so I was ready.

Highlight #1: Open 24 hours

Of course I’ll never utilize this feature, but it is nice to know it is there. If I was young and single, I’m sure this would be awesome after a late night of hanging out by myself watching Seinfeld reruns.

Highlight #2: Breakfast is served all day

I love me a breakfast burrito. Simple to make, but not always easy to make, especially at 2 in the afternoon when only bacon and scrambled eggs wrapped in a tortilla will do. Continue reading

No Bill’s what?

Posted on January 19, 2012 by RonTopofIt in Miscellaneous | Leave a comment
Sign at Subway in Natomas

Sign at Subway in Natomas

Red-placard smackdowns holding steady

Posted on January 18, 2012 by RonTopofIt in Food & Drink | Leave a comment

Don't be alarmed, this is only a sample.

Don't be alarmed, this is only a sample.

The Sacramento Bee published this story about food safety violations being down in Sacramento County today.

Under the new system, restaurants in the county get three inspections a year, while markets and produce stands each get two. Sacramento conducted 5,600 food inspections in 2004, before the red-yellow-green program started. Last year, it conducted more than 16,000. To carry out all that enforcement, the county has doubled the number of inspectors it employs, from 15 nearly a decade ago to 31 today.

I first wrote about this back in 2006, and I can’t think I’ve ever seen a yellow or red card around town.

The county handed out 680 yellow placards in 2010, compared with more than 1,100 three years earlier. Red-placard smackdowns have held steady at just over 110 annually.

With this information, I decided to test out the Sac Food mobile app that CoolDMZ wrote about in September. Continue reading

Kings players to blame for Kings failures?

Posted on January 11, 2012 by CoolDMZ in Sports & Leisure | 6 Comments

from Kings.com

I know it’s a bit out of left field, but is it possible that the Kings poor play of late is to blame for their recent spate of playing poorly? And not friction with the coach?

I’m being facetious of course. I get that a coaching change is partly aimed at getting someone who can click with the players and lead them to better play. The team is 1-2 since the coaching change and I can’t see them going better than 2-5 in their first 7 games under Smart. But the rush to boot a coach in midseason (which seems to happen much more in the NBA than in other major sports, though I don’t know anything about hockey) seems premature when everyone looking at this roster knows that it has some major holes. And those holes are management’s fault. Continue reading

KXJZ Getting Out of the Jazz Business

Posted on January 10, 2012 by sac-eats in Media | 7 Comments

I opened a letter today from KXJZ, 90.9, Capital Public Radio that is, letting me know that the last vestiges of jazz being played on 90.9 will be disappearing from the station as of January 17. Ok, disappearing might be too strong a word. Jazz programming is moving to 88.9 KXPR, and will be heard from 7-11, Sun-Fri.

Color me pissed. I’ve contributed to KXJZ for years, and never once been asked for feedback on programming. Not once have I been asked for my tastes or preferences or likes or dislikes. Instead, over the last two decades, KXJZ has gone from a 24-hour jazz station (and a damned good one) to a watered down jazz station (so much so that in 1999 it was featured in Downbeat (the only real jazz magazine left) as following the tide of stations more interested in “playing it safe” than playing jazz) to a jazz and news station, to most recently a news and “jazz” station (the “jazz” in question being a mashup of Brazilian bubblegum and adult contemporary detritus salted with a pinch of straight-ahead jazz for the apparently dying breed that actually like instrumental, improvised music), to, now, a 24 news station. Continue reading