http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/34/other-other-topics/cooking-good-steak-836907/
I cooked the steak a la Ramsay method.  I tried the 1hr salt method yesterday and it came out too salty.  Doesn’t help that I couldn’t find unsalted better (got one that said LOW SODIUM instead).  This time I just salt, peppered, put some olive oil, let it sit for 30 mins.  Fried both sides, put in some butter as it was finishing along w/garlic, basted it, let it rest for a couple, and bit in.
It tasted great however what I don’t like about using butter is that despite it tasting pretty delicious, I feel like the butter overpowers the steak.  I can’t find a cast iron pan…I guess I could just cook it next time with oil+salt/pepper and no butter but that seems a little too plain no?
Texture was awesome.  Nice and juicy, perfect resistance, not too soft, crispy outside, just about the right amount of salt, yes!  <3 Argentinian beef.

on the side: easy homemade Garlic Dijon dressing, it wasn’t bad, salad needs more, but chicken salad + steak seems like protein overload.

the damage so far

what the fuck do i do.

Going to enforce a stop loss from now on.

Weekend so far after the earlier post. Unfortunately the majority of my dwindling bankroll (ftp+ub don’t count at this point) is stuck on Stars. Pokerstars is the only site that will not unlock my account. They stubbornly need a bank statement. FedEx came by last week, I didn’t answer the door, they supposedly left a slip, though I never saw one and neither has the housekeeper, they didn’t give my bank a tracking number, and I’m somehow supposed to be able to call FedEx in broken Spanish and figure this all out.

What’s really painful about all this is I’m getting beat even in hunl, by people who are far worse than I. Just played a guy today who was terrible, we 2-3 tabled, He’d jump up 4 bi, I’d grind him back even, then he’d jump up 4 again, I’d get 3 back and he’d sit out. It seems like everyone I’m dueling, which is mostly fish, is running really hot against me. I’m starting out most matches winning like 20-30% at showdown for the first 1-200 hands, this shit really kills you, especially when it seems to happen over, and over, and over again.

It’s a terrible test of patience. I’m pretty exhausted mentally, I don’t even have the energy to be angry anymore. I don’t thinK I can play poker today though I really want/need to. It’s a mixture of both. I want to win, I want to succeed, and I want to accomplish my goals. I’m doing neither and it’s taking a toll on my psyche.

played like 4 different sessions today. I was proud of myself. My PLO game is def. shaping up. I have a very good coach who cares about my game. I showed him my high point which was about 3k on the day, then put in two sessions tonight that just wiped that out.

I’m not angry, but I’m definitely sad. This is really not fun. Over half the bankroll has been wiped out from the government, immediate 20k+ loss hitting the tables this month at lower stakes…ugh.

I can be positive or negative about this, and I choose to be the former but it is difficult. I’d prefer it if none of my friends spoke to me this week. I’m going to be grumpy and in the mood to just work through it.

Drank some haterade today, it’s been a tumultuous month.  Life is still great as always.  Poker playing for me tends to lead to a sometimes chaotic/polarized lifestyle.  I am curious to know how many of my peers actually keep their head up throughout their insane swings.  Personally I think I do pretty well with tilt, anger management, and all that stuff, but I have let my fist pound the table a couple of times followed by a pairing of awesome expletives. There is something deliciously satisfying about delivering a well timed fuck you both literally and/or figuratively.

I had more control today than yesterday, def. tilted a little, esp. towards the end. It’s time to take the night off and start anew tomorrow.

Some pictures I took from my Mexico trip:

It’s pretty frustrating and hard to stay positive with everything going on right now, but there is no choice but to be positive. It was very cool. Spoke to my buddy Brandon today and he asked how the poker was going, I told him it’s shitty and whatnot, and he replied “well I know it’s something that you can handle” etc. It’s a really great feeling when your best friend who doesn’t play poker has faith in you. How can I let not only myself but him down as well?

I’m dropping 5/10 plo for awhile and am only going to play up to 5/5 until I have more confidence in my game as well as a bigger bankroll. Thank you so much DOJ for raping all of us.

It’s annoying that’s it’s hard to get hunl action. My game is starting to sharpen up again but with the state of the games and the little action I get, it’s kind of like trying to sharpen a knife using pebbles, but I am getting my rhythm back and I’ve only felt challenged a couple times playing hunl.

aww I had a nice king high call that went something like this:

I raise k6o, villain calls. I bet a q95 flush draw flop, he c/r’s, i 3bet, he calls. Turn is a blank, we check, river is a 7 I think, he bets, I call and shows T8. fuck you buddy!

Back to work.

First day and I’m excited I’m staring at the Rio from my hotel room.

the set up when I use a “desk”:

I’m staying @ The Vdara. It’s pretty nuts, I love it. It’s classy, really well priced for Vegas ($150/night total average including weekends+weekdays). It’s pretty funny. I didn’t think I’d get to play the Main this year. I’m 25 years old, I’m a quarter century old and I have never ever ever played a WSOP event. I’ve got a little less than 100k online available to me. My dad would flip a shit if he knew, but what the old guard doesn’t get is that there are so many experiences that are just above money. My friend and I were talking about how sad it is that there are people who don’t know how to vacation right. Resorts are cool but I think where traveling is at is getting to know the heart of the city and its people. The more you try to do that, the more fun you will have, I promise. Starting to go off on a tangent…

This is about ME, My Event, the Main Event. Whether I bust, lose, or win, I’m going to have an amazing time. Please give me someone fun at my table. I saw Gus Hansen yesterday. I’m not into the whole poker scene but I really wish I introduced myself. He had a cool hand that I remembered afterward that gave me a little aha moment. Next time Great Dane.

I’m at a really great place in my life right now. I’ve got amazing friends, an amazing lifestyle, an absurd amount of confidence building inside as a result, and I’m finally starting to reach that point where I am above money, where that noise, that part of my life doesn’t affect me anymore. I can make money if I need to, the money game makes sense, and as a result, that’s one part of my life that I no longer have to worry about. From now on it’s all about life, mine, yours, and ours. It’s all about amazing experiences from here on out.

and to that special girl, thank you for that vote of confidence, you are incredibly beautiful.

Which means I’m finally in the green this month!

Oh wait, but let’s look at how much I’m up WITHOUT UB winnings

so I’m essentially breakeven, I’ll take it!

Online poker just took another huge hit as well as I.
http://www.egrmagazine.com/news/1673787/breaking-news-alderney-suspends-full-tiltsoperating-licence.thtml”The Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) has suspended Full Tilt’s licences, requiring the poker room to suspend all operations from the jurisdiction with immediate effect.”

It’s been very hard to stay positive lately. I’ve just been getting fucked in the ass left and right by “friends”, poker sites, and my own government (DOJ/Black Friday) — which btw, I am obligated to pay taxes on my poker winnings to. It’s pretty weird to see over half of your net worth disappear just like that. For example, I had $40,000 on FTP. Well, that basically just died. If FTP can’t pay it back, then it’s gone. Nothing I can do about it.

I could spend a lot of time being angry at everyone, but I’m pretty tired. I only see one choice and that’s to keep grinding, increase hours, and play my A game.

Funny that I’m leaving today for Mexico. It’s a well-timed vacation. It is extremely relaxing to go to a place so remote you feel removed from civilization.

How ironic that the game of poker, a “gambling” game, is the only world that makes sense to me. It’s the only thing I can rely on, and more importantly, it is fair to everyone.

Anyway, PLO is NOT shitting on my parade right now. I’m just so grateful to play poker again. I’m really good at the game and poker is a big big part of who I am. I think poker is an amazing world, it’s FAIR. Everyone knows the rules, everyone knows what’s up, it’s all on the table. You can be the biggest delusional douchebag and I will gladly sit with you in the game if I have a good edge vs. you, and I will let you believe that you are a much better poker player than I am, because who cares much shit you can talk, it’s all about walking that walk and in poker, if you are a true poker professional, you put your money where your mouth is.

I’m an idealist. I don’t consider shit-talking to be part of the game however there is an art to the needle. See Sauce123′s Blog. Not only is he one of the best to touch NLHU online imo, he’s also a really great writer and a great person. I was fortunate enough to play squash with him last year, and whenever we talked poker, which btw if you’re not a poker player – please be very sensitive this, I do not fucking care about you losing a $20 hand, I don’t care about your results in any way, why would I? Write a blog if you need to talk about bad beats, I am not your audience, but what I will do for you is give you the illusion that I’m paying attention and respond with “yeah, lol, sick, ugh, ocol, awesome, whee”

You know who you are

Anyway I went on a tangent. Every time Sauce has talked poker with me, even when he points out the seemingly trivial stuff, he just blows my mind with how he sees the game.
———————

Poker results! Graphs! wheeee, images!

My month so far, I’ve just moved into Argentina, thus the lack of hands for now:

How’s NL going?

AIEV “Luck”

PLO Results

Organized by Stakes:

And how do I feel? Pretty fuckin ecstatic. People are still really bad at hunl and I’m going to crush them, or at least make a pretty good living this year. I’m very confident in this. If you think I could use some humility, let me just point out that you don’t know me, you can’t ever know me through the Internet, so why are you judging? I have never felt this confident about my game EVER. I’m really looking forward to playing again. I’m going to be playing a lot of regs this year because I truly believe I’m one of the better players, I should be fighting at 25/50+ so it’s put up or shut up.

Thanks for reading, buen dia! need an accent over the I, trying to learn how to spell properly, Spanish writing is a little tough : /

p.s. It’s pretty funny that I forgot about this but I mean how awesome is my job, it’s really easy for me these days, the whole time I was on an important skypecall and pretty much just auto-playing w/out thinking too hard about it because I knew at least for nl, I was profitable playing the way I was. I wonder if I come across delusional. It’s not everyday you see someone this enthusiastic and confident despite posting a losing graph and month. I strongly believe in playing only your A game but, it’s v. cool to be able to multi-task your job and maintain a sick hourly

The occasion for going tothe Danish capital was a reservation for 9 at the restaurant Noma, which has been ranked as the best restaurant in the world two years in a row. The name is an acronym of the two Danish words “nordisk” (Nordic) and “mad” (food), and the restaurant is known for its reinvention and interpretation of the Nordic Cuisine.

I was supposed to drive from Oslo to Copenhagen with Ingjerd & Jan (two very close family friends; known them and their daughter since I was 2 years old), and I had to be ready by 11:30 am on friday, which I thought should be no problem even though I went out for some late drinks the day before. It turned out to be easier said than done, however, with me waking up at 11 without having packed and showered, so I did both somehow at once, throwing a bunch of clothes into a bag and running around half-naked for 20 minutes super stressed. It turned out ok though, and after 6 hours of driving we got into the Danish capital and met up with Ingjerd & Jan’s daughter Ida-Sofie, who’s one year older than me, and her boyfriend Even. After some champagne, beer and snacks in their apartment we headed out for sushi at a place highly recommended by people who’ve been there alot and it didn’t disappoint. With wine and plenty of food we paid somewhere around 60$ each which, compared to Oslo, is pretty cheap.

After dinner me, Ida-Sofie and Even headed out for some more drinks at a few places before we at around 3am somehow ended up in a strip club that was about as shady as a random brothel in Somalia. It was kind of a fun experience, even though I managed to pay 120$ for two beer and one drink… Note to self: do not be too drunk when you pay for drinks in shady strip club.

Anyway, skipping right to the Noma part:

At 7pm on saturday we arrived at Noma, which is located in an old warehouse on the waterfront in the Christianshavn neighbourhood of central Copenhagen. In other words, from outside it doesn’t really look like the restaurant that it is, if you compare (and you should) it to the 3-star restaurants in Paris, London etc:

Once you enter a staff of around 57 chefs (the restaurant rooms around 45 guests; do the math) await to greet you; it was a pretty surreal experience just entering the restaurant. Every single member of the staff (only made up of top chefs) that I met looked me right in the eye with a welcoming a smile greeting me, wishing me a nice evening. Since we were 9 and the maximum number of guests at normal tables is 8, we  were given ”the staff room” on the floor just on top of the restaurant – with great views to the Copenhagen Harbour. The facilities are furnished and decorated so they suit both the needs of noma’s staff as well as guests. This gave it a very personal and quiet atmosphere compared to on the lower floor where theres obviously other guests and more lively.

After we had all seated, our sommelier for the evening, Martin, a top Norwegian chef, welcomed us with a glass of very good champagne, before giving some info about the restaurant, the food etc. After about 3 sips of champagne later, he said we’d start off with some snacks, and that our first snack was the branches that were placed on the table… What?, was my initial reaction, not sure whether he was joking. It seemed he wasn’t, so I took one of the branches and dipped it in one of the, well, dips, that were there also. It was really, really good. Blew my mind. They had somehow made a branch taste brilliant. How? I don’t know, but they had. The sommelier did explain how they had prepared it but I just sat there surprised at this whole experience so I didn’t follow.  This was the only thing I didn’t get a picture of since I was so baffled by what we were served, so onto our next… weird snack:

..Shallow fried reindeer Moss with crème fraiche. The moss was deep fried and dusted lightly with cep powder. Dipped into crème fraiche, the moss smelt fragrant and was surprisingly quite delicious, just like our first snack.

Even with one of many ”are we really eating this?”-expression with the moss in his hand.

Snack number 3

This was sea-buckthorn leather with pickled rose hip petals. The leather is essentially berry puree that has been dried into paper-thin strips after days of preparation. The result is a tart, yet crisp film with a taste not dissimilar to asian haw flakes. The rose hip petals that accompanied the dish had been picked during the summer and pickled to be consumed during the winter months. The harmony between the flavours are no coincidence as both buckthron berry and rose grow side-by-side in Denmark where they were foraged.

Snack number 4, which was…

..Leeks deep-fried with garlic puree; stalks of baby leek which had been cooked only at the ends. We were instructed to take only a bite of the sweet leeks, which had been coated with a bit of garlic puree. The stalk was creamy and sweet and roots crispy fried. A perfect bite of food.

Snack 5

Savoury cookies with speck and blackcurrants. A biscuit tin was presented to us, which we were instructed to open up. Inside we found small savoury bite-sized cookies. The blackcurrant flavour was rather tart and speck layer smokey.

Snack 6

Pickled, smoked quail egg. One of Noma’s signature dishes, lightly hay smoked pickled quail eggs were presented to us in a ceramic egg resting atop a bed of hay. One of the biggest highlights of the evening was opening up the ceramic egg and taking in the smoky aroma. The egg itself was soft to the touch, richly runny in the yolks with just a slight smoky flavour.

Snack 7

Probably my favorite of the snacks. Herbs, flower and duck fat crisp. A thin wafer sandwich topped with herbs, flowers arrived next. We quickly discovered that the top layer was in fact a duck film made from fat in a duck broth. Crisp, fatty and just downright tasty, the skin was intensified by a rich smoked scallop roe emulsion that was squirted atop the herb scatter. Definitely one of my favourite dishes of the evening combining freshness from the herbs, richness from the duck fat and overall just delicate.

At this point we had already had a great experience with Noma; the staff were incredible, the food was nothing short of amazing and mindblowingly… revolutionary, in lack of better words, and the wine was of course as close to perfection as it comes considering it’s wine pairing. We’d only gotten through some snacks and it was already one of the best and most exciting dining experiences of my 21-year old life! The restaurant is so far ahead of its time, and I don’t mean this in a molecular gimmicky way. Rene, the man behind it all, has created a menu that truly highlights his ingredients by treating the product with the respect that it deserves.

Noma interior

Inbetween the snacks and the err, bigger meals (they weren’t really especially big; 12-course menu after all), we were walked through one of the kitchens by a really cool British chef who was around 30 years old, and had worked at Noma for 3 years or so. He explained that they have chefs from all over the world, speaking more than 30 languages in total – which is very handy when you have guests flying in from all over the planet just to eat lunch there. As I explained earlier, Noma’s food is extremely creatively made and we were told that they had their own department, located on a boat just outside the restaurant, where some of the most creative minds of the world of chefs sat day and night just experimenting, thinking, and brainstorming on what new dishes to come up with. Once they had come up with one they were certain would fit into the menu, they would come over to the actual restaurant, explain all the chefs exactly how it was supposed to be made, then head right back to the boat and start over with new courses.

After the snacks we were served bread with butter. Now let me just say that I am in no way a big bread or butter-guy, but this was ridiculously good. Unbelieveable.

Arriving in a petal felt basket, apparently the sourdough bread is baked twice-daily right before service and is served alongside the most satisfying ‘pork scratching’ butter. Not for the faint hearted, this butter is truly as rich as it sounds.

To short down on this rather long trip report I’ll just post a few more pictures of the courses without a detailed explanation of what they are. I also missed out on taking a picture of a the only course with actual meat in it, which was really, really good. Actually, everything was. A reservation at Noma has to be made 3 or 4 months in advance, but if you are planning a trip to Europe or live here and have the time and money to experience Noma, do it; it’s worth the money and the traveling.

View from our room in Noma

‘‘The staff room”

This site has been more of an experiment to see which direction to go with some of this travel information and I’m pretty excited to say that everyone will be really impressed with the upgrades that are going to come. I’m talking major site overhaul in terms of functionality and User Interface, big changes. So for now, enjoy the pretty pictures, feel free to ask any questions regarding traveling, and look forward to the big upgrade in the future

Mikey