Bear with me. This is gonna meander a bit.
The word “presentiment” is a weird one in the English language. It’s one of “them fancy college words” that no one’s used outside of their philosophy dissertation. I first learned the word because of Chrono Trigger, a very special video game to me. A lot of other people, too.
Presentiment is the name of the title screen song that plays just before the game begins. You turn the game on, no splash screens, no clumsy load times, and you see an old lyre pendulum from a grandfather clock swinging. The clock ticks, and the short song starts. It’s just a piano arpeggio, a timpani, and three simple chords.
With those three chords and the piano trailing off, this song presents more questions than answers and embodies its name. Presentiment. It’s sometimes mistranslated as Premonition, but that doesn’t really fit the mood it’s trying to set. Yasunori Mitsuda wanted to convey a deeply complex feeling. A foreboding sense of dread mixed with an anxious uncertainty. Curiosity heeding to an awakening dreamscape. A gut feeling that leans either good or bad, left or right, forward or back depending on your perspective. Maybe that perspective would change once you got to know the characters, the world, and the story, and your gut feeling would either be proven or disproven. The music sets the stage.
But wait, what’s all this about video games and music? This is a food blog, not a music appreciation course. What the hell, man?
Don’t worry, I’m getting to it. Gut feelings are why we’re here. And like all good games, you need a lead-in to whet the appetite before the story starts. You can think of Presentiment as the lead-in song for this little experiment I’m running on myself. More on that later.
Food is Connection
You probably like food. I like food, too. I’ve been eating it my entire life. I don’t have a favorite food, or even a list of favorite foods. I have a veritable Rosetta stone of favorite foods from different cuisines, different preparations, for different times of day, for every mood, and most importantly, depending on who I’m with. In a big group, I have a different favorite food than if I’m with only one other person. And my favorite food is usually unique to that person.
Like a good book, movie, or game you keep going back to, you know you’ll get the same experience, the same emotional impact, and the same sense of satisfaction from going home to the things you love. Think of Lord of the Rings. The Jackson trilogy. Extended editions. They’re my home — one of many, but still home. They make me cry. They make you cry, too. Don’t lie.
A big bowl of pasta, usually penne or ziti or rigatoni in a marinara sauce with crumbled italian sausage, a little pesto mixed in, some parm on top. That’s home. Pizza, wood fired and smothered in various melty cheeses and ricotta. One of my favorite foods with one of my favorite people. The carne asada fries from my favorite Mexican restaurant, sadly closed down for a few years now, felt like home. Jose, I miss you bud. You and your mom made my favorite meal. The coccoli at Pizza Rock in Vegas, Tony Gemignani’s incredible restaurant, lives rent free in my brain. Make a little sandwich out of those puffs of fried dough with some arugula, prosciutto, and burrata. Dab of balsamic reduction on top. It’s heaven. It’s home. Another favorite food with another favorite person.
It’s never the food itself that brings you back. It’s always the memories and the people you’re with. But at the same time, don’t those memories always, always involve food?
Whether it’s your own kitchen with your special someone on a romantic night, or you’re out with a big group of friends at a crowded restaurant ordering apps for the table, or you’re at an amusement park with family eating corn dogs and kettle corn, you’re making memories. And they always seem to be centered around food in one way or another, don’t they? Food might not be the star, but it’s usually the impetus. And if not the impetus, it’s on everyone’s mind. What’s a movie without dinner? What’s a weekend morning without brunch? What’s a beach day without cold drinks and salty snacks? What’s a summer day at Disneyland without spending nine bucks on a Dole whip?
There are quite a few ways to say “I love you.” Those three words themselves are probably the most important in all of language. There’s also “I miss you,” “how’d you sleep?”, and most importantly, “nice butt.” But what about, “have you eaten?” or “what do you want for dinner?” or “let’s get lunch”? It’s astounding how we bake (hah) love, whether it’s romantic, platonic, or familial, into the words we use daily.
Food is love. Food is comfort. Food is home. And buried in all three of those are the connections we share with the people that are important to us.
So I say again, food is connection. Let’s celebrate that.
So what’s the deal with this website?
One sentence: Let’s get some noms.
My job is to connect with you around food. You have to eat, and I have to eat, so we might as well eat together. No, not literally. I’m not buying you lunch. There’s too many of you. Although if you wanna buy me lunch, I’m obviously not gonna say no.
We’ll be diving into four types of noms in particular.
Nook Noms – We’re gonna review restaurant food. I’m talking local institutions all over the western United States. We’ll hit up Denver, Boise, Vegas, Salt Lake, Los Angeles, Seattle, and maybe take a few trips to Mexico and Canada just to find the best little nooks for noms that the Pacific Ocean and Rockies have to offer. Mom and Pop Shops (MPSes), extravagant Vegas buffets, the finest of osterie, and everything in between. We’re gonna find the holes in the wall with flavors that’ll punch you in the mouth and leave you waddling the next the morning. All possible innuendos intended.
Pop Noms – Reviews of popular chain restaurants, like a lot of Youtubers are doing nowadays. I’m gonna figure out why the hell Applebee’s has such a bad wrap, and I’m sure I’ll be savage about it. Go to Texas Roadhouse and walk out with gout, cinnamon butter dripping through my beard. See if Panda Express actually puts real panda in their orange chicken. I’m 96% sure they don’t.
Mart Noms – Let’s hit up supermarkets, not-so-super markets, convenience stores, bakeries, outlets, and anything else that can call itself a grocer on its taxes. We’re gonna identify unique goodies specific to those businesses that might draw you in so you can bring them home, and we’ll try every type of product from your favorite brands. I’ll be spending $400 on every pre-packaged meal kit at Costco and buying every kind of Pepperidge Farm cookie so you don’t have to.
Gig Noms – Food-centric events, popups, farmers markets, fairs, and food trucks. George Carlin said it best — “If they got a zip code, I’ll ****in’ be there!” Aaaand I really shouldn’t finish the rest of that quote. Back on subject — state fair food gets me so hot. Churros slathered in chocolate sauce and funnel cake and DEEP FRIED BUTTER. JESUS. My arteries are throbbing just thinking about it. And let’s be honest, food trucks are where a ton of good restaurants get their start. We’ll hit ’em up and try everything.
On Some Noms, you’re gonna get honest reviews of every nom you see here, brought to you (mostly) uncensored and in my actual voice. Well, through my fingers. Typing. You get it. And if you think food reviews and harsh language don’t go together, you’ve never been to a barbeque at your uncle’s house. Consider me your uncle while you’re on this site. And not the weird one who smells like a honey bucket at Coachella and won’t shut up about birds being government spy drones. The cool one who gets you drunk in Vegas and also maybe believes birds are government spy drones, but at least he isn’t obnoxious about it.
Who’s the guy writing this, anyway?
I’m Joe. I go by Moog online. Like the keyboard. And the little fluffy dudes with the wings. Yeah, I know those have different pronunciations. I’m a writer, a game developer, a music lover, and a nerd. I dabble. I’m a dabbler. I wrote a book. It isn’t out yet. I’ll let you know when it is.
I’ve been a casual-to-professional writer and eater my entire life, and I think now’s a good time to put those skills toward something good in the world. Maybe share some insights that make my perspective worth hearing, and focus on this thing they call the #HumanConnection™. After all, what’s the point of life if you’re not sharing it?
Look, I should level with you. AI took my last career. I was in IT as a system administrator for twelve years, and I’ve been in tech for even longer. AI managed to take the human element out of technology and twist it into transactional soullessness. Not that IT wasn’t already soulless.
Nowadays, unqualified clients and even more unqualified employees are using ChatGPT to do everything. Because of AI tools removing the barrier to entry, the market competition has ruined payscales, and the only jobs out there now are for “managed service provider” companies that reduce fifteen years of experience and expertise down to a customer service role, because guess what? Expertise means jack all when ChatGPT has all the answers. Semi-accurate as they are. So a sysadmin who’s seen just about everything and can run figurative circles around LLM-addled college kids gets reduced to brown-nosing as a profession. I’m too jaded to think angry people deserve service (trust me, no one calls IT in a good mood), and I’m too crotchety to give it to them. I’m pushing forty, for god’s sake. You’re not gonna make me smile unless you show me pictures of your cat.
Speaking of, here’s one of my baby kitties.
Sorry, tangent. That happens a lot. 90HD. For when 80HD doesn’t go hard enough.
My last few years in tech made me realize I didn’t want to be 60 telling myself, “just another ten years of this garbage before I can retire” because by then, you know the retirement age will have gone up to 70. It made me realize that no one — not the 22 year old college kid, not the 31 year old superstar, not the 39 year old worn-out grunt, and especially not the 45 year old idiot CEO running his company into the ground knows what they’re doing.
None of us can predict the future. None of us knows for sure if the sun will rise tomorrow. And not a single one of us can say with certainty that the plan we’re following will work. We can only choose to proceed on course or veer off based on our own perceptions and judgments and let the wind take us where we’re hoping to end up.
That’s what it means to be human.
Current AI models can’t empathize. They can’t enjoy. Can’t feel. And mostly importantly, they can’t provide love.
AI is incapable of providing human connection. I will never use AI to replace human connection.
So that’s what you’re gonna get. You’re gonna get an actual human being giving you real human opinions written by human hands, because guess what? Robots don’t have taste buds. You need an actual person to be able to taste and smell and feel. And because of that, I think you need an actual person to put those things into words, too. There’s too much AI garbage out there when you go looking for food reviews and articles. Too many writers who mysteriously sound exactly like all the others, as if their thoughts and words were just copypasta’d from Grok. Minus Grok’s racism.
Along the way, I might overshare. I’m gonna have trouble filtering myself, ad revenue be damned. You’re gonna get more memes than selfies. More anime references than a Geoff Thew video. And if my 90HD will let me, hopefully you’ll get the content you’re looking for. I use the term content loosely. My original plan to make 10 or 12 minute videos with every post went by the wayside when I realized I suck at capturing footage. I’ll make do and get better along the way. We’re settling with shorts for now.
The best thing we can do in this age-and-day to combat the slop we see online is to be real with each other. And I’m gonna be as real as possible for someone who’s always lived online. The internet’s been my home practically my entire life, and I’m not happy with what it’s become the past few years. The world needs a little more compassion, a little more hope, and a little more connection. And I genuinely believe that nothing connects humanity more than food.
So strap in, cause we’re going for a ride. I said strap in. Jeez. Get your mind out of the gutter.
Check out the first actual review on this site here.
Let’s chill tf out and get some noms <3
Also if you thought I was gonna leave you hanging with my other kitty, you were sorely mistaken.
