Nice Job Otto

Just sat back, sipping Mai Tais, and watched Otto on the Food Network. He did an excellent job of explaining the tiki culture to everyone....and you get to see his awesome pad too!! If you missed it, they are rerunning it at 9:00 PM Pacific time tonight and Sunday the 25th at 11:30 AM Pacific. Don't miss it!!

I second that! Get ready for the phones to start ringing!

I am sitting here logged on wasting time until it airs at 9 pm. That's the good thing about low-rent cable channels: they always re-broadcast stuff 3 or 4 times. Great for something like this, not so great for Comedy Channel "Weekend at Bernie's" 6 times on a Sunday!

Could be worse, I could be watching Ashleigh Banfield. Ahhhccck, run away run away, it's the monster Banfield! One of these days the townflok will get together, gather up some pitchforks and torches, do away with that terror for good.

midnite

And it was good to see Hans and Sven of Trader Vic's. They are real friends of tiki.

Great job Otto, you really represented the world O' Tiki well.

Great job Otto and Baby Doe. But hopefully, you are busy baby proofing that apartment. Little tiki-toddlers just love to pick stuff up...and throw it down.

Kudos! a very nice segment. Well done, to be expected when they use Otto, the guys from TV, and BOT for images. Stellar!

That's the kind of mass-market exposure I can welcome. Good sources, well done...no cheesy stuff, and no painfully loud rap music. That was a flashback from last week's visit to Taboo Cove.

midnite

Nice job Otto, quite the room, TIKI artifacts o plenty. Exellent advancement in stateside Tiki culture.
At least Vander Vegas has proof, Baby Doe in the bar while baking in the oven. That kid is going to be awsome!

I'm glad to see that the segment was so long. There was alot of exposure for tiki.
At least on the east coast, "The Teen Choice Awards" were airing the same time on Fox TV. The sets were Hawaiian-themed, including a large tiki behind the award presenters and two tikis with video screens in their open mouths projecting footage of waterfalls. The winners were announced after the presenters cracked open a coconut with the name hidden inside. Too bad teen pop stars make me really sick.

Nice pad, and wonderful job. Ever thought about hosting your own show?. Anything is possible in "TIKI LAND" . TheTikiGuy (Angelo)

So who else would enjoy going to a cocktail-making class? Sounds like a lot of fun! I only wonder who drove the students home :wink:

But what kind of class teaches Mojitos to be blue?

Being such a "cocktail snob" I have to comment about that cocktail "class" on the show. The instructor said you should shake cocktails because it gets them colder than stirring. That's ridiculous, one shakes a drink to mix it better AND to chill it, especially if it contains juices or syrups. Stirring will get a drink plenty cold if it's stirred enough! Anyone who's had a cloudy martini with ice pieces in it or a manhattan with bubbles floating on top will prefer them stirred. It has nothing whatever to do with bruising the gin or James Bond. Sheesh, the instructor should have known that!

I liked the tiki part of the show but the rest was BS. Margarita mix, gimme a break! And who ever saw a blue mojito before the show? They pushed cocktail awareness back 20 years.

Otto was good, especially in describing tiki culture's origins. But I think they took his comment about the moai mug being worth $70-100 somewhat out of context. Otto editorialized about the dangers of Ebay driving up mug prices years ago in Tiki News so I bet he was giving an example on the show. He certainly didn't pay that and probably never would.

I especially enjoyed the Trader Vics scenes. They captured the beautiful setting of TV on the bay very well with the sunset shots and such. The tour inside by Hans was very nice, the way he was pointing out his favorite tikis.

On 2002-08-20 13:36, TheTikiGuy wrote:
Nice pad, and wonderful job. Ever thought about hosting your own show?. Anything is possible in "TIKI LAND" . TheTikiGuy

That's an interesting suggestion, indeed. As cool as it COULD be, there's a greater chance it would end up as some screechy MTV show that's all style and no content. Some awful producer would inevitably muck it up. My big question is, Would this be good or bad for tiki culture? The chances for severe mis-representation are huge.

Commercial network prospects aside, it would be great to see a self-produced show with Otto as host, and they could have "Sven's Corner". The possibilities are fun to consider.

BTW, great job on the show, Otto!

The Teen Choice Awards was the perfect example of tiki gone MTV. It was completely bizarro to have it on at the same time as Otto's excellent presentation.

On 2002-08-19 20:33, midnite_tiki wrote:
Could be worse, I could be watching Ashleigh Banfield. Ahhhccck, run away run away, it's the monster Banfield! One of these days the townflok will get together, gather up some pitchforks and torches, do away with that terror for good.

midnite

Only if they burn Ann Coulter along with her...

On 2002-08-20 14:50, manic cat wrote:
The Teen Choice Awards was the perfect example of tiki gone MTV. It was completely bizarro to have it on at the same time as Otto's excellent presentation.

I'd like to see something more in the style of Mr Rogers Neighborhood. No, really! Mr Von Stroheim's Neighborhood! Just' hangin' out, talking 'bout Martin Denny, mixin' a drink....Hey! It's our friend Sven! Whaddaya have for us today, Sven?
Today ve vill be tall-king about Witco, Ott-toe.

APE would be the house band and in an ode to "reality" shows, we'd follow King Kukulele on the road.

Tiki-bot

"In the future, everyone will have 15 minutes of privacy"

[ Edited by: tiki-bot on 2002-08-20 19:46 ]

So, in the Land of Make Believe, would there be a hand puppet of King Kamehameha?

On 2002-08-20 18:50, chefgrey2 wrote:
So, in the Land of Make Believe, would there be a hand puppet of King Kamehameha?

Yes, but he doesn't look anything like The Rock :)

On 2002-08-20 19:47, Tiki-bot wrote:

On 2002-08-20 18:50, chefgrey2 wrote:
So, in the Land of Make Believe, would there be a hand puppet of King Kamehameha?

Yes, but he doesn't look anything like The Rock :)

It will look like Barbara Eden's husband. :)

Awesome!!!Seeing and hearing about tiki anything just makes me so crazy happy!!!The segment was just super!! Real love of the tiki culture is so inspiring....Now I gotta get my bamboo split for my tiki2 room!

[ Edited by: tikiluvgirl on 2002-08-20 21:27 ]

Huge Ann Coulter fan here...

I'm another Coulter fan. But, again, why the need to insert political doctrine on a cable TV thread?

[ Edited by: mrtikibar on 2002-08-21 00:53 ]

Did anyone else notice the painting of Otto behind the bar? Wonder who the artist is? Looked like a velvet painting too.

Yee-Haw & Aloha,
Tiki Kiliki
http://www.tikikiliki.com

[ Edited by: tiki_kiliki on 2002-08-21 10:05 ]

On 2002-08-20 14:17, thejab wrote:
Being such a "cocktail snob" I have to comment about that cocktail "class" on the show. The instructor said you should shake cocktails because it gets them colder than stirring. That's ridiculous, one shakes a drink to mix it better AND to chill it, especially if it contains juices or syrups. Stirring will get a drink plenty cold if it's stirred enough! Anyone who's had a cloudy martini with ice pieces in it or a manhattan with bubbles floating on top will prefer them stirred. It has nothing whatever to do with bruising the gin or James Bond. Sheesh, the instructor should have known that!

One positive of shaking is that it greatly increases the anit-oxidants in the martini, but as for making it cold, stirring works better. If you shake it, you are mixing warmer air and hitting warmer surfaces. Stir and you cool the entire thing much more efficiently, which can be clearly seen by the condensation on the mixer outside surface.

That Margarita mix might as well have been about how to make a great Margarita on the cheap with Kool-Aid. Yuck!

The Otto/tiki section was in sharp contrast to the cheap cheese-ball sections before, and after. I plan to record over that ending sectiona and try to erase it from memory. At least he didn't say "Yeah baby, Yeah!"

I read somewhere that if you used a swizzle stick with savage efficiency, you should be able to create frost on the outside of the glass. I think that had more to do with a proper wooden swizzle stick, though.

Anyway, you know your drink has been cooled well when ice appears on the outside!

Trader Woody

I usually won't pour my Manhattans until I've stirred it enough that frost has formed on the outside of the metal mixing cup. A lot of ice helps.

I think that coctail teacher was continuing an old drinks tradition: Passing along opinion as fact. As for that weirdo green Mojito...I wonder if the drink shown was misidentified. Besides the odd color (maybe they made it with creme de menthe) it looked to me as if it had been strained into the glass, not on the rocks.

The painting is one by SHAG back when he used to do portraits for his summer job at Knotts Berry Farms. It is about 17 years old!

Ok so I am lying! Disregard the above-too much coffee!!

The Mojito shown looked more like a blue hawaiian, which is usually a blue-green color, just like the water in hawaii (aahhh).

I thought it looked like a Blue Hawaiian as well, but they floated mint leaves in it.

I tuned in late to the cocktail class segment...Did they say it was in Seattle? If so, someone tell me the name of that dame teaching the class (and/or where it was taught) and I'll call her up and ask "Hey, what was the deal with that creepy Mojito?"

The show was great. I love the SHAG paiting with Otto and Doe in it. I was talking with a friend and we decided, when you're the subject of a SHAG, that's when you know you've made it.

My favorite bit on the special was Doe hoisting a drink to a toast while being very, very pregnant. I know, I know- I'm sure she didn't drink it, but I'm a little suprised they showed that. And if she did drink it, I'm sure it only made Vander stronger.

(this is only meant in jest. please don't attack me. My mother drank while I was in the room and I'm fine I'm fine.gfskld,@..)

(also in jest)

-martin