Another week, another installment of my Bacon Quest – the search for Vancouver’s undiscovered bacon. You can download the original PDF HERE (or grab the full newspaper HERE,) or just keep reading (the unrated version) below.

Bacon Quest – the search for Vancouver’s undiscovered bacon.

Episode 3 – Bacon vs. Bacon

In the past couple of weeks, we’ve discussed the finer points of one of the greatest inventions known to man, bacon.

Sadly though, although it’s a simple food, it’s up to the cook to really make it outstanding.

My favourite method of bacon preparation is to pan fry extra-thick cut pieces straight out of the package on medium heat, flipping when necessary until crispy and brown then finally resting the little strips of happiness between paper towels.

I’ve heard of such atrocities as flash frying bacon – typically used in restaurants to boost their efficiency.

In my books, that ain’t bacon and I could rant and rave about the process, but today as Thanksgiving has just finished, our eyes turn to the less fortunate.

That’s right, our Hebrew, Halal and Pescetarian friends.

The Vegans and the Vegetarians, we can’t help you yet, but get this: a fellow that goes by the name Alan Axler, proprietor of the Springfield Smoked Fish Company in Massachusetts has come up with BREKFISH, salmon bacon that isn’t that far from the real deal.

So good that it’s Orthodox Union Kosher and Ifanca Halal certified.

Upon receiving my sample, I put it to the ultimate test and prepared it side by side with regular bacon.

BREKFISH plays well with other foods – a BLT or maybe even wrapping scallops.

On its own, you can still tell the difference but again, with its similarity to real bacon, it has the power to heal millions and can ultimately bring peace on earth.

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Raj Taneja is part technologist, part entrepreneur, part social media thought leader and part foodie. He runs urbanmixer.com, publishes a miscellany of his musings at raj.jp.

On Friday, 24hrs News published yet another episode of my Bacon Quest – the search for Vancouver’s undiscovered bacon. You can download the original PDF HERE (or grab the full newspaper HERE,) or just keep reading (the unrated version) below.

Bacon Quest – the search for Vancouver’s undiscovered bacon.

Episode 2 – Porkbelly Beer House

Can you keep a secret? Well the Koreans certainly can. For years I lamented at the possibility that while there were dozens of great steak houses to choose from, nobody had ever decided to venture in creating a restaurant that celebrates bacon. Was I ever wrong! In fact, at the time of writing this article, I’m on the phone to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and putting my money where the meat is. As soon as the word’s out, the price of pork belly futures are on a rocketship to the moon.

Here’s the backstory: while stumbling through the West End one night, a beautiful scent filled the air, but to which cooked meat it belonged I had no idea. I investigated and what I found was a discovery more monumental than what conspiracy theorists call the New World Order. I observed a pair of Korean men perched on the patio of a restaurant cooking strips of what appeared to be bacon on a portable gas-powered grill. It turned out to be love at first sight and her name was ‘Samgyeopsal’. The restaurant was aptly named ‘Porkbelly Beer House’ and as the owner explained, uncured strips of pork belly, cut in quarter-inch slices are put on a gas-powered griddle and cooked. The customers at the restaurant cook their own meat and then eat directly from the grill, usually wrapping the delicacy in lettuce stuffed with a soybean paste, kimchi (Korean pickles), fresh garlic slices and green chilli. Since that fateful day, we’ve come together on many occasions and I’ve enjoyed my forbidden love. Now that the word is out, I’m keeping my eye on those futures.

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Raj Taneja is part technologist, part entrepreneur, part social media thought leader and part foodie. He runs urbanmixer.com, publishes a miscellany of his musings at raj.jp and is probably the least qualified person in the world to ask for financial or investment advice.

Well muddle me this – you get a shot glass, a muddler, a pair of Mexican thumb wrestling masks and other assorted goodies in the mail… what does it all make you want to do?

That’s right, drink Sauza’s new flavoured tequilas and have Mexican wrestling thumbwars all night long, baby. Oh yea, giggity.

So what did Sauza have in mind when they sent me all this stuff? Elementary my dear Watson, they wanted me to drink, of course. Get some great recipes, after the jump.
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24hrs News recently published the first episode of my saga to find Vancouver’s undiscovered bacon – Bacon Quest. You can download the original PDF HERE (or grab the full newspaper HERE,) or just keep reading for the unrated version.

Bacon Quest – the search for Vancouver’s undiscovered bacon.

Episode 1 – DB Bistro Moderne

To those that are allowed to even indulge, bacon is a many-splendored food. Doug Larson is quoted as saying “life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.” Who are we to argue? That guy was an Olympic medalist!

In the upcoming six week adventure, we’re going to go for the gold and discover what only few mortals have ever dared – we’ll take you to places where the bacon’s even more special than it already is (if that’s even possible.)

So where to start? Unlike fine purveyors of steak, the thought of a ‘bacon house’ is only a dream. Being thought of mostly as a breakfast food, the mind immediately shifts to Vancouver’s myriad of breakfast places. There’s omletteries, waffle shops and even an International House of Pancakes but nothing that immediately screams out bacon. One place though, is what I’d call THE place for brunch, DB Bistro Moderne in Kitsilano. If anything bumping into the Chef de Cuisine Stephane Istel on his day off was a sign. The fact that he was donning a t-shirt that says ‘lardons give me hardons,’ sealed the deal, so I put him to the test and what I got was completely amazing. Two types of bacon sliced thick, the regular kind we’re all familiar with prepared sous-vide, and a Chinese-inspired variety, roasted, spiced, dipped in brine and braised. Both types made for a magical dining experience and a good start to the Bacon Quest.

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Raj Taneja is part technologist, part entrepreneur, part social media guru and part foodie. He runs urbanmixer.com and publishes a miscellany of his musings at raj.jp.

At home (Downtown Vancouver), I subscribe to Novus Entertainment’s basic cable service which in my mind, is a mixed bag. Customer service and technical support is a bit of a drag and they’re a bit more expensive than SHAW (especially given SHAW’s latest promotions) but their Internet speeds are unsurpassed – better than Telus and SHAW, hands down and that portion of the service is cheap.

The other day, while trying to figure out where the HD channels on my TV came from (thinking that I was receiving ATSC over-the-air digital programming coming from Mount Seymour), I unplugged the cable from the TV and momentarily lost service.

So what’s the deal? In the end, after some experimentation and long channel scans and some handy work with the help of Peter Near (HERE), I was able to get free SD and HD content for a few channels via ClearQAM from my Novus cable feed without a digital cable box. Here’s the list – happy HDing:

QAM 112-2 or 112.2 – Global BC HD – CHAN – Analog 11
QAM 123-121 or 123.121 – KVOS SD – KVOS – Analog 12
QAM 126-4 or 126.4 – KSTW SD – KSTW – Analog 14
QAM 126-5 or 126.5 – CityTV SD – CKVU – Analog 13
QAM 126-5 or 126.5 – KING DT – NBC Affiliate
QAM 126-8 or 126.8 – CBS SD – KIRO – Analog 15
QAM 127-11 or 127.11 – CBC French SD – CBUFT – Analog 7
QAM 127-12 or 127.12 – OMNI SD – CHNM – Analog 8

All of the above appear to be modulated with QAM256.

There’s also music channels 84-12, 84-17, 84-18 and 84-32.

For further reading check out an old thread on the topic HERE, Peter Near’s blog post on enabling ATSC and QAM (you still need a QAM capable tuner) HERE and an FAQ HERE.

It’s no secret – twitter has taken the world by storm – major brands have embraced twitter as an opportunity to promote their wares one 140 character ‘tweet’ at a time. Being somewhat of a tech guru, it’s interesting to see that sometimes twitter isn’t the most elegant tool and, with a little work from their development team, it could become much more.

Keith Ferrazzi, author of  “never eat alone” and “who’s got your back” cites one of his mentors in the latter, defining what elegant means: “Elegance is putting the least amount of energy for the greatest return! What could you relax and perhaps do better?” – via twitter.

So what about elegance? Well if you look at major brands (well, all brands) you’ll see sometimes that the brands themselves have multiple twitter accounts for different reasons. Starbucks has their standard twitter account but then they have the StarbucksLive account to convey up to the minute updates of Bumbershoot.

One opportunity I see with twitter, being a web service means that the limitations just don’t stop at twitter.com/username. Imagine sub-usernames and the opportunities they could create for both brands and the revenue they could create for individual users. Example… My name is Raj Taneja. The twitter username “raj” is taken but if twitter would allow sub-usernames, I could negotiate with the owner of “raj” (maybe some cash involved) for the sub-username “taneja” so ideally, twitter.com/raj/taneja could come into existence. Starbucks wouldn’t have to own both the Starbucks and StarbucksLive accounts anymore, live could reside under the main Starbucks account as twitter.com/starbucks/live and that could definitely be elegant.

On that thought, there could be a bunch of options for aggregating statuses upwards etc. but that’s for the future.

Twitter. Thoughts?

Actually, well, more like iDTGV hates us and by us, I mean Canadians.

For those that don’t know, iDTGV (not affiliated with TGV) is a train service in France that I keep calling iDTVG for some reason. Seriously, though, iDTGV is an interesting train service because it caters to my demographic – you know, the one that doesn’t appreciate screaming freaking kids running amok while you’re trying to enjoy some quiet time, a baguette and maybe a bottle of wine en route to Nice from Paris. They have train cars that cater to a number of needs – iDzen for the traveller who may want to chill out or sleep, iDzap which has a jovial and engaging atmosphere, a bar that feels more like a real bar / cafe and iDNiGHT which is the overnight dance party train with DJ and liquor service.

Pretty cool huh?

Sadly, on a recent trip to France, I wasn’t able to actually experience iDTGV. You see, despite booking some reasonable tickets online and being assured everything is copasetic, hours later, the system would tell me that my credit card has been refused. After what seemed like hours on the phone to my credit card company, they noted that no authorization was attempted, so I was like WTF?!

After trying to reach the company, pacing around, trying every credit card in my arsenal, losing my reservation and the likes, I took it upon myself to visit a train station that purports to have an iDTGV booth. Guess what…. it was a freaking Internet kiosk with no people in sight! After making several enquiries, I was told that in most cases, there are no iDTGV staff at train stations except to manage departures. GREAT!

BTW – while I was out on my escapade, and thanks to SFR’s 3G+ internet service, I received the following reply from iDTGV:

From: Service Clients iDTGV [mailto:reclamation@idtgv.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 5:51 AM
To: Rajesh Taneja
Subject: <Ref3688321> Question sur le paiement

Dear Sir Taneja,

We acknowledge receipt of your message on the payment of your order.

Please note that for security reasons you can only pay by credit card French, European or American.

We remain at your disposal for any additional information you consider useful.

Best regards
Nadège
Service Clients
Une question sur iDTGV ? Consultez la rubrique « Besoin d’aide » de notre site !
www.idtgv.com
Du lundi au vendredi
de 09H00 à 18h00
(sauf jours fériés)

<rant>So what? In France, Canadians are chopped liver? What about Vimy Ridge, Juno Beach, Operation Overlord and the Battle of Normandy? Haven’t we paid our dues? If it weren’t for the Canadians’ presence in France, I suspect that Nadège might’ve been Wilhelm and French would be an elective in secondary school.</rant>

After the whole excercise, we wound up at the SNCF booth and booked to be on a TGV train to Cannes the following day, screaming children in tow *sigh*.

All this heat here in Vancouver’s got me thinking… what about Japan?

In 2005, The Japanese Ministry of the Environment (MOE) began advocating the Cool Biz campaign as a means to help reduce electric consumption by limiting use of air conditioning. According to the Environment Ministry, central government ministries were to set air conditioner temperatures at 28°C until September… (more at Wikipedia, HERE.)

People in Japan were encouraged to wear moisture absorbent clothing and sweat it out!

Fast forward to 2009, someone’s figured out that there’s something really wrong with this. (Other than the stench of dead animal emanating from good ole Watanabe-san in the cubicle next door.)

From Terrie’s Take #527:

-> ‘Cool Biz’ hurts economy

A former economist for the Dai-ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo, fed up with having to work in an office whose air conditioning was set to a sweltering 28 degrees per the Cool Biz guidelines, has found that the high temperature in offices rather than helping the economy, is actually hurting it. The researcher found that high office temperatures are reducing office worker productivity nationally by about JPY653bn (US$6.9bn) a year, or 0.13% of the nation’s GDP. According to the researcher, the ideal temperature to save energy and yet suit the wearing of cool biz-type clothing, and which is used by the United Nations, is around 25 degrees. The researcher discovered that for each degree the air conditioning is set above 25, worker productivity drops by 1.9%. ***Ed: Cool biz ain’t so cool after all.** (Source: TT commentary from bloomberg.com, Jul 23, 2009)

Here’s the LINK to the full story and don’t forget to check out Terrie Lloyd, HERE. Oh yea, and stay thirsty, my friends.

Want free business advice? Listen to your customers! – or at least that’s what Richard Branson says.

Wish Nokia had done the same in the release of their most recent E-Series flagship, after all, isn’t the E-Series set of phones supposed to be made for efficiency? They did drop the ‘enterprise’ label for ‘efficiency’ recently but with the E75, they fall squarely on their face.

So, I’m three phones in now… the first E75 was smashed in frustration, the second and third, gifts from contacts that live in the dark underworld of mobile phones. Third time’s a charm, right? Well, I’ve certainly learned to cope, that’s for sure. (more after the jump)
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Man! What a conundrum! The other day I powered down my laptop (Windows 7 installed) in frustration and boom, upon rebooting, the poor thing decided that it needed to run chkdsk to fix parts of the hard drive.

Well, I guess the worst part is that a recent software package (in this case, likely a Windows update) seemed to be interfering with the install, so I got the following message:

Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS
Volume label is OS.

One of your disks needs to be checked for consistency. You may cancel the disk check, but it is strongly reccomended that you continue.
Windows will now check the disk.
Cannot open volume for direct access.
Autochk cannot run due to an error caused by a recently installed software package.
Use the system restore feature from the control panel to restore the system to a point prior to the recent software package installation.
An unspecified error occurred (766f6c756d652e63 3f1)

SO… I tried using system restore but sadly it wouldn’t run due to a corrupt disk, so I was trapped in a circular issue.

At this point, I figured my options were limited – recover data off the hdd and reformat and/or try to use an offline version of chkdsk. I chose the later, since it presented the best opportunity for getting back to work.

RESOLUTION: I insterted the Windows 7 installation DVD and booted from it. Went through the repair system motions, opened up a command prompt and ran:

chkdsk /f /r c:

Five hours later (yup – a super slow process), the chkdsk completed and Windows was stable again. After that, I removed some of the most recent packages on the computer with system restore (just to be safe) and voila, I was back at it.