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So we survived the Turkey Holocaust, only to confront you, dammed reader and your voracious desire for news, culture and food entertainment this week. We gotta admit, our performance this post-Turkey Day week was a bit lackluster. So let's get trashed on Vicodin and tequila and forgot all about it, shall we?

Welcome to Your Friday Morning Pre-Party, I'm your host, Web Editor David Downs.

First off, this pre-party needs a coked-out, disco muppet vibe. So click on this youtube embed of the Brooklyn sex-funk 18-piece Escort, who play Mezzanine this weekend.

Feel that disco funk? Damn, that's stanky! Now, looking back on this week, we raise our pimp cups to :

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Parents, take note: tea parties are a thing of the past now that kids have pretend espresso cafés. Behold Target's "Le Café Play Structure," play tent thingy, featuring a striped awning and roll out patio with room for eight kids and countless stuffed animals sipping make-believe soy mocha lattes.

Something about this just seems wrong, but I can't quite put my finger on it -- oh wait! I remember: caffeine isn't good for kids. Happily, however, the old rumor that it stunts kids' growth isn't true. Still, the last thing I want to hear is a bunch of tots jacked up on espresso (or merely pretending to be) steaming make-believe milk in their play café. And do you really want your kid to end up like Tweak? (via The Grinder)

-- Brian Bernbaum

Using axes and chainsaws to chop through the front of the restaurant, firefighters knocked down a fatal, early-morning fire at Star of India restaurant in Russian Hill today. The one-story building was fully engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived and damage was heavy in the kitchen area where the bodies of two men, as yet unidentified, were found in a partially-collapsed loft above the kitchen. Nearby Moroccan restaurant Pasha also suffered some smoke damage from the blaze and will be closed for a few days.

There's no word on what caused the fire, but the San Francisco Arson Task Force is handling the investigation, which may or may not say something about the direction the probe is going to take.

Star of India by Fallopian Swim Team D. on Yelp

-- Brian Bernbaum

City officials are considering whether to order late-night pizza parlors Cable Car Pizza and Broadway Express Pizza to start closing early (by which I mean 2:00 a.m.) in North Beach in an effort to reduce drunken frolicking (by which I mean fighting) in the streets after the area bars and clubs close. I don't know when the last time the city's Planning Commission got wasted and hung around North Beach in the middle of the night was, but if they gave it a shot, they might realize a few of the cardinal rules of drunkenness:

1. Hungry drunks are quicker to anger.
2. Food, especially greasy-ass pizza, soaks up booze and often soothes the savage drunk.
3. Standing in line at a pizza parlor increases the time between your last drink and your drive home.

Pizza Pizza by roy.wagner on Flickr

-- Brian Bernbaum

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Colin Stuart, the self-proclaimed Pied Piper of Booze. He was the subject of Tuesday's flash-mob-esque social experiment in drafting random San Francisco tourists and 9-to-5ers into joining a roving, daylong drinking binge, all the exploits of which were meticulously recorded in frequently-updated video segments on microblogging site Zannel. Sound confusing? Well, it sort of is.

Suffice to say, Stuart's ingenuity and handy plastic flute were enough to lure a handful of people to the bar crawl's final destination, the Black Horse London Pub in Union Square (see the video above). Not exactly the "hundreds" Stuart predicted, but hey, it's all about the travel vlogging journey, right? (via Eater SF)

-- Brian Bernbaum

Dear reader community, similar to the Onion, this publication is a one-way conduit for information, we appreciate your lack of daily input.
However, we occasionally amuse ourselves with your reactions when they penetrate our calloused, evil media hearts.

Here's our faves of the week.
—David Downs

We say, slacker guys and striver girls shouldn't date, or something:
billy says,

Well if this the best story EVER in the SF weekly then it just goes to show the sad state of journalism in this City. Fluff, fluff, and more fluff, hipster nonsense. It reads like some yuppie chicks Teen People mag and it is just as important and relevant.

I really enjoyed this article. I used to depend too much on my girlfriend, and I didn't see how it was hurting her. Now I work a lot harder to be supportive on all levels. Thanks for bringing the issue to the surface.

We say, the moped gangs of SF are angry and silly!
john doe says,

You are a total hack. Fuck you and your paper.

You're scum. SF Weekly is scum. Not only is this REALLY OLD news (as in your a year too late!), but your throwing peoples names into a paper where anyone can read it when they clearly said they didn't want to be featured in your stupid little article.
Lame.

#1: The SF Weekly is a locally owned/run paper that often prints stories that the corporate rags don't or won't.
#2: This is a FREE paper. If you don't like it, don't pick it up or surf to it (no brainer)
#3: The words 'Moped' & 'gangs' should NEVER, I repeat, N-E-V-E-R be used together (unless it's a joke)
#4: Men/boys don't look cool on a moped in the US -EVER

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Tags: kings of commenting

How are you feeling San Francisco? You look a little worn out. Working too hard perhaps? Yes, I thought so. Hey, here's an idea: give yourself a break, and have a nice dinner out. No, not tonight. On Tuesday, Dec. 4th -- that's when Home Cookin' is in effect, a benefit for the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation. If you dine at one of these restaurants, not only will you be helping yourself, you'll also be helping some of our city's lowest income residents, and god knows there's a lot of them. So go ahead, pig out. It's for a good cause, and it's the holidays anyway.

-- Brian Bernbaum

Normally, the collision of food and crime make for some hilarious stories. But not this time. Police are describing the appalling and senseless murder of a Pizza Hut deliveryman in the Richmond on Monday night as a possible "robbery gone bad," because after shooting 38-year-old father of two Thanh Thach dead, the assailants fled without stealing anything. Not the pizza, not the money.

Frankly, this story is just too sad to make any jokes about good pizza going to waste. Plus, I mean, Pizza Hut kind of sucks, but that's neither here nor there. If you're going to rob somebody, why a pizza deliveryman? How much money could he possibly have to take? I hope the police catch these bastards and make a nice pizza pie out of their faces. Seriously.

-- Brian Bernbaum

Chef Mark Dommen, of the recently Michelin-starred and shamefully scarlet-boxed San Francisco restaurant One Market, tells the Examiner that molecular gastronomy may be the next big trend in Bay Area restaurants:

"Bay Area is starting to embrace molecular gastronomy, cooking at low temperature. That’s starting to gain more popularity here because it allows you to be a little more creative. It helps you produce a more consistent product and higher quality."

So, what the hell is molecular gastronomy, and why would you want to eat it? Basically, the term refers to the application of scientific principles to cooking, along with some nifty new substances and techniques. Most notable technique-wise is Sous-vide (French for "under vacuum"), which involves cooking food (usually meat) very, very slowly in an airtight plastic bag in water at very low temperatures. The airtight seal and slow poach are renowned for producing more flavorful and supremely tender dishes.

On the substance front there's the rising popularity of Guar Gum, literally the ground endosperm of guar beans, often used in place of cornstarch as a superior thickening agent and binder in dairy, dressings and sauces.

An handful of popular chefs have made their names in part by championing and pioneering molecular gastronomy techniques, including Ferran Adrià of Spain's legendary El Bulli restaurant (named as the world's best restaurant this year by Restaurant Magazine) and Wylie Dufresne of New York City's wd~50.

So now you know!

Fried Chicken (sous vide) by arndog on Flickr

-- Brian Bernbaum

This Japanese "Consommé Punch" potato chip commercial features a sad school boy and a scary-in-a-David-Lynch-sort-of-way dog. Thankfully a commenter at Serious Eats offers a thorough analysis:

"The little boy got 0 on a test and is depressed. The dog tries to cheer him up by holding up obscure cultural reference signs. The first one says '7:3 split'. The second says 'Vice-Principal'.

Next the dog dresses up as a farmer (not necessarily a granny) and does a "dojo-sukui" motion (scooping loaches, which are sort of like freshwater eel with whiskers). Dojo-sukui wearing a funny conical mask thing is a Japanese Comedy Touchstone.

When that fails, the dog takes the boy to the store where they get a bag of Kalbee Consommé Punch potato chips. It's not supposed to make any sense."

(via seriouseats)

-- Brian Bernbaum

We did absinthe once in college. It made us mean drunks, and the assault charges have finally fallen off our record.

So when we heard through the Ex last week that the Feds have legalized the green, wormwood-laden liquor, we were like, "What The Fuck! You can't smoke a joint in this country, but you can guzzle 100-proof crazy juice laced with hallucinogens?"

From the AP's Absinthe, inspiration for poets and painters, makes U.S. debut By JULIANA BARBASSA:

Since its approval by the federal government in May, two brands of the high-proof liquor, Lucid and Kubler, have been introduced to the U.S. market. Both made according to original recipes, they are fueling a revival among the inquisitive and quenching the thirst of cultish devotees. ... And an excess of wormwood can indeed be deadly, Conrad said. But the chemical reputed to carry the hallucinogenic qualities is present in such low quantities in both the current versions - as required under the federal approval - and the alcohol content so high at more than 100 proof, that the consumer would die of alcohol poisoning long before being seriously affected by thujone, Conrad said. That was also true of 19th-century absinthe, he said.

Ahh, I see. The modern stuff is less strong than licking the lining an old bag of shrooms. And that's the original recipe? Yeah right. I call bullshit on this story right now. Any absinthe afficionados fact-checking this fang-less craze? Tell me real absinthe can skull fuck you sideways with wormwood. Either that, or it shouldn't be called absinthe. —David Downs

The pay debate pitting chefs versus waiters, spurred most recently by the Chronicle's front page story earlier this month (along with a flood of reader reaction), continues unabated.

While I already know that waiters make a lot more money than most chefs in the same restaurants, and that those same chefs work longer hours, it's nice to hear it straight from a cook's mouth, unadorned. New York City legend-in-the-making David Chang, of the insanely popular Momofuku Ssäm Bar was named one of GQ's Men Of The Year, and he has a few choice words about the chef/waiter divide:

“I know nobody expects to make money as a cook, but cooks have to live, and they can’t live on $300 to $400 a week. It makes me mad that cooks are treated like shit and servers say, ‘Well, you choose your profession.’ Whatever you guys say, you don’t work as hard as cooks, so go fuck yourselves"

-- Brian Bernbaum

By now if your Thanksgiving leftovers aren't gone yet, you may be edging very close to cold turkey overload. The green bean casserole is probably looking worse for the wear and the sweet potatoes may have taken up permanent residence in the back corner of your fridge, resigned to stay there until spring cleaning. Don't let it happen again.

Bay Area Bites comes to the rescue with a few surprisingly palatable-sounding dinner reincarnations including Spicy Yammy Bacon Soup (for the sweet potatoes/yams/squash) and Turkey Pie (which covers potatoes and turkey leftovers).

Meanwhile the Chronicle keeps the laziest among us in mind with five variations on the turkey sandwich, along with a lengthy tip list for "making superior sandwiches" (is this really necessary?) Sadly, I could not find a leftover recipe that calls for three-day old green bean casserole. Putting the poor thing out of its misery may be the best option at this point.

green bean casserole! by jennifer_loring on Flickr

-- Brian Bernbaum

(Monotonix at the Knockout, by John Graham)

Welcome back from the holiday, turkeys. Our G-I tracts have shut down in protest of the weekend's overwork. We're backed up like the I-5 coming out of L.A. Our janitor will be earning his keep this week.

So today is "cyber monday," evidently; the day Americans waste $488 million in productivity buying crap online instead of working. We don't believe that figure from today's Examiner, but we don't care, cus you're wasting your time with us. Ha-ha! Welcome to the Hangover, I'm your web editor, David Downs.

Let's start with a quick distraction:

1) An Intro to Hip Hop Stats, by Oscar Pascual. Just in case you wondered how to graph the scientific fact that 'bitches ain't shit but hoes and tricks.'

Now that you've upgraded your grey matter, WTF happened this weekend?

Aside from the usual shootings and car wrecks:

-- Monotonix and Triclops! tore up the Knockout and John Graham has pics and the story.

--And "Let It Snow!" opened at the Phoenix Theater, for those into improv holiday theater musicals. (Four words that should never be out together, IMHO.) Ariel Soto brought back these shots.

On the schedule this week:

--Today: SF GovernmentInAction briefs you on everything NOT happening this week at city hall.

--And RaidersSuckNinersSuck tears local Bay Area NFL a new one.

-- MUNI sucks donkey dick. Joe Eskenazi explains how MUNI's boss makes more than his peers in New York or Chicago.

--Tuesday, BetterKnowAnSFBlog trolls the blogosphere for local delicacies.

--Wednesday we offer the week's Best In Comments! Yay! We hate you fockers.

--Thursday, we're figuring it out..

--Friday we Pre-Party hard with Circus Oz in Berzerk-town, ColdHotCrash, Comedians of Comedy, the Shooting Gallery and too much more.

And, of course, we will be at more great shows like:

--Pebble Theory at the Slims (Friday)

--Escort at Mezzanine on (Friday).

That's it, retards. Enjoy your cybersex Monday.

What better way to usher in the tortures of the holiday shopping season than with totally impractical gifts? Veering from genuinely funny to downright disgusting, Jones Soda, the Jelly Belly of the beverage world, has released its 2007 holiday flavors.

The Christmas Pack includes mouthwatering flavors like Christmas Ham, Christmas Tree, Egg Nog and Sugar Plum. And for your Hebraic friends there's a Chanukah pack featuring Latke, Apple Sauce, Chocolate Coins and Jelly Doughnut (Sufganiyah)-flavored sodas. Happy drinking everyone. (via laughingsquid)

-- Brian Bernbaum