Gear Reviews, Tech & Photography
I have not updated the blog in a while so I figured I would post an update showing some of the cooking I have done recently. Below is some Chicken Marsala I made for the first time last night. It turned out great, considering it was the first time I tried making the dish.
Tonight was the Transit of Venus. This is where Venus comes in line between the Sun and Earth. As a result you can see a small black dot appear on the sun. This is Venus. This will be the last time this happens in any of our life times with the next one happening in year 2117. After work I stopped by the observetory to look through a telescope and had kind of given up at trying to photograph it but after a bike ride I decided to give it a go after someone on twitter asked if I had any photos. I am glad I did because the results turned out pretty well for the equipment I have.
I shot these with a Canon 7D and Sigma 70-200mm lens. I used live view on the 7D so I would be looking at the LCD to not damage my eyes by viewing the sun directly or through the magnification of the lens. The results are what you see below.
Clicking on each image will load a larger version that allows you to see Venus better.
Today was the Annular Eclipse. Lincoln did not experience a full eclipse, because the sunset before it was complete. I was pretty happy with the results I got with my 7D and 70-200mm Lens.
Friday I packed my lunch and intended on eating it at work, but that all changed once I smelled coworkers warming up things in the microwave. Browsing my stream on Google+ I noticed Brian’s postabout a great Friday burger deal from Greta’s Gourmet here in Lincoln. Since this was fairly close to work I decided to give it a shot.I walked in and ordered the Greta Burger, which was the house ground beef patty with bleu cheese crumbles mixed in with the meat, seasoned with KC Steak seasoning. This was served on a toasted gourmet bun with tomato, onion, and mixed greens. I am a bleu cheese fan and have had several other bleu cheese burgers around town, but this one tops them. It was very flavorful; every bite had a great bleu cheese flavor to it. It was a juicy patty that was cooked perfectly, with a hint of pink in the middle. It was seasoned nicely and the onion was a great addition. One of the problems with other restaurants bleu cheese burgers is that they are always messy. Sometimes they crumble from too much bleu cheese or the bleu cheese just falls off the top. Since this one was mixed in it had none of these problems. I had Sweet Maui Onion kettle chips, which were similar to a more subtle sour cream and onion flavor. They were a good fit for the Greta Burger.
The atmosphere of the shop is nice. It is a butchers shop so the cafe takes second place, but there are tables up against the window and some nice butcher block tables in the center. It reminds me of a kind of deli that you would see in a place like NYC. It has a good lunch spot vibe.
For a total of $6.40 after tax I got a good sized gourmet burger, kettle chips, and a large iced tea. I thought this was a pretty good deal. It was cheaper than “Value” meal choices at the chain fast food places and much better food. Compared with other gourmet burger places in South Lincoln, for what you get it was a great deal. I plan on going back to try the other things on the menu. They have a lunch special every day that ranges between $5-6 and chef specials on the weekend that they post to their Facebook and Twitter pages.
Update 10/05/12: Since this original post I have been back to Greta’s probably a dozen times. The Greta Burger (Blue Cheese) is my favorite. The balsamic burger is my second favorite. It really is the best burger in town in my opinion and the opinion of many people I have brought with me. The potato salad is a great side, and the baked beans are to die for. They are more of a cowboy bean with several different types of beans, and small pieces of meat. I also recommend getting their house Iced Tea. It is a black tea, but just a great blend. Nothing fruity just great simple Iced Tea. The specials on many of the other days are very good as well. You really can’t go wrong with anything at Greta’s.
WOW! is the one word way I would describe my experience for lunch on Sunday at Lincoln’s newest food truck. I found out about GUP Kitchen from friends and social media (both Twitter and Facebook). Their location hasn’t been convenient for me in the past, but on Sunday it did and I knew I had to give it a try.
GUP, stands for Ground Up and is a concept for both the food and way of making it. It comes from the idea that you should know where your food comes from; “literally from the ground up.” The reality is that everything you will eat is seasoned with hand-ground and custom-blended spices and sauces. Chef and Co-Owner, Erik Hustad studied Culinary Arts at The Art Institute of Seattle and came back to start GUP with cousin and co-owner, Gabriel Lovelace. http://eatgroundup.com/the-story/
GUP is a modern take on a food truck. It is actually a large trailer pulled behind a pickup truck. The white outside is decorated with their logo, website, twitter address, Facebook, QR code, etc. The menu is on a flat panel monitor too, pretty neat. From word of mouth I had heard that the Cuban Spiced Pork sandwich was fantastic so that is what I got along with the Mac n’ Cheese (More on that in a minute). Ordering was simple and quick.
From the first bite of my Cuban Sandwich I knew it was going to be good. The sauce makes this sandwich stand out from your average Cuban. There is a reason GUP calls it awesome sauce. It was a mayo based sauce with some unique spices. I could taste garlic, a little sugar, some citrus, and other flavors I could not really pick out distinctively, but that doesn’t matter, because it was amazing. The pork meat was very tender and juicy. It also had onions, lettuce, and small sweet peppers on it. I was a little surprised not to find pickles since this is pretty traditional on a Cuban. All of this goodness was served on a ciabatta roll from Le Quartier. I happened to eat this at my parents house and my dad wanted a bite. His response was that it was as good of Cuban Sandwich as he has ever had. I have to agree.
I had originally ordered Potato Salad with my sandwich but at the last minute decided to go with the Mac n’ Cheese because it had bacon in it. Typically Mac n’ Cheese is not something I order. It is never something I crave, but this was pretty good. This was a rich Mac n’ Cheese made with cheese, onion, and bacon added in. The bacon added something but not quite as much as I was expecting. With bacon the more the better right?
Service was fast and I enjoyed talking with the guys in the truck as they assembled my meal. They explained that it is tough to find locations where they can operate (Private Parking lots) because Lincoln’s laws do not allow them on public property or on in a parking place on,say, O street in Downtown Lincoln. Prices were very reasonable for the amount and quality of food I received. I paid $6.95 for a sandwich and it must have included a side as well because I was not charged for the Mac n’ Cheese. Portions were good, not huge but not small. I would put the value ranking higher than other “Fresh Local” food places in town with expensive overhead (Review of that place to come someday).
In conclusion I hope these guys continue to have success. Going in to the dark months of winter won’t be easy but their food is worth a trip into the cold outdoors to get. The food is outstanding, and I am happy to support young entrepreneurs in a family business venture. I will be going back and trying the Chicken Salad for sure and some of the other sides. I encourage everyone to find these guys (social media is the best way) and try them out.
GUP Kitchen Facebook Page
GUP Kitchen Twitter Page
GUP Kitchen Website
Today was the first major snow storm in Lincoln. Predictions called for up to 4 to 6″ but in the south part of Lincoln we only got about 2-3″. I made a timelapse video of the storm and of me scooping the driveway. I took about 750 individual frames totally 8.5gb to make this. The music is Emancipator – First Snow (Ooah Remix).
Make sure to watch this in 720P or 1080P at full screen!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh6cNPKYcng?hd=1
On 11-22-11 I visited PepperJax Grill (2801 Pine Lake Road, Lincoln NE) with my family at 6:30pm for dinner. This is a new Philly sandwich place very near my house. I would call it custom made to order fast food, similar to the way Chipotle makes their burritos. The line was long, way past the queuing area, past the front door and bending into the dining section. There were roughly 64 people in front of us when we got in line. To be honest I am surprised we waited, as there are other good options nearby (Crave review to come sometime soon I hope). It took about a half hour to get up to the first station where you place your order.
The Food:
Your choices at the beginning are your choice of meet (beef, or chicken), single or double meat, and then your choice of vegetables that are grilled along with the meat (onion, mushroom, green pepper). Your food is grilled in front of you as it moves down the assembly line. At the end they slap some cheese on the meat and pile it into a slightly toasted 12” hoagie roll.
The sauce table follows the cash register and is filled with lots of great stuff. They had several liquid sauces such as Au jus, mushroom sauce, and creole. Then they had toppings/sauce such as Spicy Ranch (my personal favorite), ranch, hearty steak sauce, bold steak sauce, salsa, mustard, ketchup, and many more.
I experimented and found that my perfect mix that night was a bit of au jus, followed by some bold steak sauce inside, followed up with a bit of spicy ranch in place of mayo. This combination proved to be very messy but good. Probably not the best food choice for a first date, but it would be a fun date place because of all the different choices and things to try. I really enjoyed the French fries. They were thin, straight cut, and fried to a perfect crisp. Portions of fries were small by most places standards but with such a large Philly I found that it was about the perfect amount. All of the toppings/sauces were great for dipping too.
Decor and Atmosphere
The place had a nice feel with bright colors, stainless steel, etc. The décor on the walls was neat too. It was many historic photos of Lincoln from the 1950’s and older. It was neat to see the evolution of town while waiting in line. They also had flat screen TVs in a few places as well.
Value
This place is a good value. The sandwiches are large (See picture below) and could easily be split for 2 meals if you ate a portion size with some fries. I believe the cost was about $5.50 for the beef, fries were an additional $1.50 or so. I am guessing that this place will be busy at lunch because of the good value and large portions.
The Cons
There were a few things that do need improving though. This is a new place and it was obvious that staff was still being trained on what their responsibilities are, so I am really hoping these problems will improve with time. The lines were long, and slow, let’s hope that the hype of a new place dies down and the employees are trained. While the grill team had multiple people, it was essentially made one at a time. I think they will need to improve on the workflow to speed things up to reasonable standards (10 min). The floor was dirty, lots of crumbs, some used napkins, etc. Tables were relatively clean though. I am sure this is just because they were super busy.
To sum it all up, I enjoyed my time at PepperJax Grill. I really think they will smooth out the few problems and have a lean, fast operation up in maybe another month. The food was good for fast food, and a great
On my drive home from work today I was very surprised–when listening to Security Now episode #326 Steve and Leo answered the question I submitted to the show! Let me backup a little and explain things. Security Now is a weekly podcast on the TWIT network that discusses hot topics from the past week on all things security related, as well as fundamentals of computers, the internet, and security. In addition to security news, they also touch on Sci-Fi books and a few health concerns—recently the all important Vitamin D3. I have promised myself to write a big blog post about Vitamin D3 at some point this winter. If you are not a listener, I strongly recommend you listen to an episode or two (At least listen to the Portable Dog Killer episode, it’s not what you think it is at all) .
Question Setup
I am a big fan of Lastpass Password storage system after learning about it on Security Now and hearing why it was safe to use (Episode 256). I am also using the Google Authenticator on my Android phone(Also available for all other major mobile phone OS) for a second form of authentication when logging into my Google account because of how much additional security it provides, especially as this account grows more important. The question I asked below was simplified slightly (Probably due to me not thinking things out fully to get the answer I wanted) but the results were good and answered about 80% of my question.
My question was as read by Leo
“Leo: No. Question 7, Jon in Lincoln, Nebraska – another cornfield flyover – worries about giving Google too many eggs: Steve and Leo, I love the podcast. I’m a long-time listener, LastPass and Vitamin D advocate. I have the entire family well educated and believing now. Yay. Over the weekend I saw that now LastPass – as we mentioned in the news – supports Google Authenticator. This is great news because I currently use the app on my Android phone to get into my Gmail account. I also know how much more secure two-factor authentication is, thanks to previous Security Now! episodes. But it makes me wonder if tying so many of my services to Google is a good idea or a potential security problem. What happens if Google were to go down for a few hours? Any thoughts or opinions on this would be appreciated. Am I putting too many eggs in Google’s basket?”
Watch the video on Youtube of Steve and Leo answering my question below. Start at 1:30:00 goo.gl/kaJD5
Or read the answer http://www.grc.com/sn/sn-326.htm (About 5/6 down the page)
After hearing this answer I am feel reassured about my concerns and I am very glad it is independent and closed loop. My biggest concern was if my Google account was suddenly compromised/deleted/suspended etc that I would be locked out of my Lastpass too, but since it is independent and I have a backup of codes generated I know I won’t lose my Lastpass. Just in case I always have my local Lastpass Pocket standalone as a measure of last resort (No cloud).
