Goodies First

Chickening Out

After my less than convincing experiment with farmers' market chicken this weekend, I was pleased to read Pete Wells' Cooking With Dexter column (which I normally ignore because I can't handle the foodie kid theme), "The New Chicken Economy." Apparently, a $35 chicken has sent him fleeing for the supermarket. I've been there along, good times or bad.

Perhaps even more notable was his mention of a pay cut in the publication that cut his pay. If the six-figure salaried think greenmarkets are expensive, what hope is there for the rest of us?

At least no one has resorted to chicken in a can yet. 

Photo from I Hate My Message Board

It Takes Two

The world is converging. Today both The Village Voice and Epicurious are bemoaning food writing clichés. I’ve had a few thoughts on the matter, myself. I’ll admit that toothsome really doesn’t bother me that much. Sinful makes me want to hurl.

 Then I was vindicated on two food dislikes. I know I recently said that the only foodstuffs I hate are melon, edible flowers and stemmy leaves, however, there are two that I don’t exactly hate but would prefer not to eat: green peppers and honey. Turns out I am not alone. Thank you Ruth Reichl and Sarah DiGregorio.

Sandwiched

I could eat a banh mi every day of the week, but still, you have to admit the city has become oversaturated in the past few months. I can play devil's advocate, check out my banh mi alternatives in Metromix.

Since I wrote this, two new contenders have already sprung up: Aamchi Pao and Asia Dog. Long live Asian sandwiches of all stripes.

35 Is the New 35

Rarely do I find a blog I get excited about. Don't get me wrong, I skim through what seems like hundreds of feeds every day (and then hit another slew of  e-commerce/internet marketing ones for what I’m actually being paid to do all day) and I wouldn't if I didn't find them enjoyable. They just don't always speak to me; I don't shop at greenmarkets, eat cupcakes or hot dogs, I've only eaten at Momofuku Ssam once (Ko once, too, I guess) and don't attend Brooklyn cook offs. I like to eat, though.

I also like to drink and I loathe being the oldest lady in the room. Single women in their mid-30s should not be made to feel elderly (and if I hear one more woman in the age range of Drew Barrymore being referred to as a Cougar I will claw their eyes out like a real wildcat). I will neither rub shoulders in frat holes or with kids wearing '80s accoutrements, nor resign myself to Brooklyn happy hours surrounded by toddler-toters.

That's why I was happy to read about 35Saturdays, where two 35-year-old women (with the same name) search for Age Appropriate bars (caps, theirs). This is a blog concept I can totally get behind.

Heat of the Moment

What if you were a person with such fervor for an obscure dried pepper that you were compelled to embark on a pilgrimage to glean all there is to know about this hallowed chile, ultimately writing about it, then the very same month your journey is published you read another tale of regional dried pepper obsession?

Gourmet’s John Willoughby travels to Turkey to learn more about his beloved Urfa and Maras peppers, resulting in a feature titled “The Heat of the Matter.”

In the pages of Saveur, “Sweet Heat,” (you can’t read the actual article online; they’ve always been very piecemeal about posting content) chronicles Francine Prose’s quest for Peperoni di Senise in Matera, Italy.

If I were an editor, I would’ve opted for "Heat of the Moment" but maybe I’m just feeling nostalgic for Asia videos.

If the two authors don’t already know each other, they totally should. There’s serious BFF potential here.

Borderline Offensive

I just saw this supposedly controversial Burger King ad for the Texican Whopper while in Madrid (yes, I watch lots of TV on vacation just like in real life, but Rock Star and Ghost Whisperer are learning experiences when en español) and didn't realize is was specifically a Spanish product. I assumed it was a silly American-made commercial. It's not terribly offensive unless I'm missing something, though I've never been the most culturally sensitive person. I'm certainly not alone; read a real Texican's perspective on Guanabee.

I'm not sure about the Texican Whopper but if time had permitted, we would've tried the "gourmet" ciabatta-based McDonald's burger being advertised like crazy (but not so advertised that I can remember the product name). Cheddar and emmental? Nuts.

On the fast food track, I was shocked and excited by the presence of Guatemalan fried chicken chain, Pollo Campero, in Madrid. We planned to stop by after seeing Watchmen (really not my thing but it surely beat Hotel Para Perros) but post-midnight on a Sunday is slim pickings (I still don't get Madrid's reputation for being a night city—bars close at 2am) and the gates were already down. Instead, we opted for Vips, the only nearby eatery still serving, and I ordered a strangely charred yet not fully cooked quesadilla with salsa so mild it verged on tomato puree. That was sort of Texican-inspired, now that I think about it.

I swear we had a chain along the Oregon Coast in the '80s called Vips that had a rabbit mascot. Could it possibly be the same company?

I Don't Even Eat Bananas

If Denny’s is anti Nannerpuss, who needs them. We don’t have them in NYC, anyway. More importantly, where can I find a restaurant that serves an octo-banana atop a pile of pancakes?

Wow, I love this mom who rigged up her own Nannerpuss. (Heavens, it’s completely SFW.)

Yes, it’s taken me a while to digest some of those Super Bowl ads.

Check, Please

If you believe what you read in trend pieces, separate checks, perhaps the ultimate in dining gaucheness, is apparently becoming more acceptable in Chicago. Will this “I only had water while you downed five $15 glasses of wine” craze hit NYC?

While I think separate checks are juvenile, I have never found equal check splitting to be fair. I don’t think it’s tacky for everyone to pay for what they consumed and only what they consumed. And I still can’t believe that the only polite and socially acceptable way to handle a group birthday dinner is for the guest of honor to treat (must be the same people who have second homes and destination weddings. I don’t know these people). At least according to the Times, who irked me by not only disallowing comments on the Social Q's column but removing all old comments--there were originally quite a few in favor of the host as benevolent payer.  Serious Eats commenters seem split on the concept.

Group birthday dinners are an awful beast worth avoiding at all costs anyway, and yes, I’ve had a few. I’ve literally ended friendships over them.

Image from a 1985 review on Relive the 80s

A Porpoise-Driven Life

Are you a chef if you don’t cook? I keep seeing headlines like “Dolphins are Talented Chefs” detailing recent findings that porpoises meticulously prepare and clean cuttlefish before eating them. Yes, it’s impressive that they are smart (and finicky) enough to remove ink sacs and tenderize flesh. But that’s more like being a prep cook than a chef, don’t you think? Raw foodists and ceviche-makers may beg to differ.

Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide

I don’t generally promote products (I don’t even talk myself up), not so much because I’m ethical but because no one asks me to (fyi, I do tend to shy away from companies that claim God is their CEO, and no, I'm not making that up). However, I do have a soft spot for Asian cuisine (I’m tentatively planning a Singapore/Malaysia trip for November, my third foray to S.E. Asia) so I don’t have a problem mentioning The Miele Guide, a new antidote to Western-focused restaurant best-of lists that’s planned for publication in October 2008.

Voting is open to the public until July 31st so if anyone has strong opinions about the best restaurants in Asia, you should pay a visit. I’m going to vote as soon as I figure out a way around the Visa cardholder requirement (Visa is a sponsor—no, they don’t charge your card). I have like six Mastercards, though I may have a Visa hiding somewhere.

Singaporean super-blogger and tastemaker Chubby Hubby, has the back-story. It’s kind of his project. 

Now I've Heard Everything

Is “selling/carrying coal to Newcastle” a common phrase? I’d never seen it used in my life until this morning when I spied it twice in an hour:

Once referring to KFC’s attempts to sell Chinese food in China (I didn’t seen anything particularly Chinese except egg tarts when I popped into a Beijing location).

And a second time in regards to Americans sending rice to the Philippines because it’s become so costly on the islands.

Hmm…I guess that would be like Domino’s selling “Brooklyn Style Pizza” to uh, Brooklyn?

Who Knew Cake Was Seasonal?

Yes, I was confused by the “Nothing Says Summer Like Icing” headline in today’s dining section, but then the Times always makes declarative statements that mean nothing to me.

I guess cakes can be summer food if you want them to be, but the paper is going to have an awfully hard time convincing me that twentysomethings making $60,000 a year are struggling.

I do love a layer cake, though. And the more garish, the better.

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Order Bloomin' Onions

What was the most brilliant article in today’s New York Times? No, not the one about treating gang violence like an infectious disease nor the creepy piece about parents tracking their children’s grades and attendance in real time.

No, it’s "Déjà Vu Dining," an earnest in-depth review/round-up of suburban chain restaurants by their “in the region” writers. I could’ve written the whole thing myself, and with great pleasure.

I have no idea who these writers are but one can only imagine. The overall Manhattan-centric Times always seems woefully out of touch with reality, and I can’t understand how their bedroom community counterparts appear to be equally removed from the scary dietary habits of regular folks. The article gives the impression was that these restaurants were their first encounters with chains. 

At least that’s what I gathered from statements like, “in the league of the best Italian restaurants” in regard to a Long Island Olive Garden. All that says to me is that the state of Italian cuisine in Massapequa is sad and that independently owned has no correlation to quality despite the common perception.

And only someone who feeds their kids gluten-free chicken nuggets and whole grain French bread pizza would say “my teenage daughter is a fan of spicy food, so she was enthusiastic about a visit to Chili’s in East Haven, Conn.” Or maybe I’m the naïve one because I had no idea that Chili’s was known for piquant flavors (though the chain does exist in heat loving Kuala Lumpur) But compared to an Amy’s burrito, Southwestern eggrolls probably do seem spicy.

I wonder if this is meant to be a nod to recession-fighting tactics. While the rest of the nation is supposedly subsisting on 99-cent frozen dinners and Manwich, tri-state denizens are dallying with stuffed potato skins and chocolate lasagna? If so, I’m all for this cost-saving plan.

Here's a real penny-pincher; make your own 3,148-calorie battered onion treat at home.

A Pint of Mayo A Day Keeps the Doctor Away

I don’t celebrate Passover (or any religious holiday, really), have zero interest in Earth Day and have never understood the allure of outdoor dining in NYC (or anywhere, hence my fascination/revulsion with Gourmet's perpetual alfresco porn. April's issue contained an Italian maritime doozy, which I haven't had the wherewithal to analyze) so there’s like nothing food-related on the internet to properly distract me today. Boo.

However, I will admit I’m fascinated by the German man who eats 12,000 calories a day and can’t gain weight. A pint of mayonnaise a day?!

Not so much the financial analyst fast food stunt. Uh, this was already done in like 2005 when it was timely. Oh, and by this guy, too. But what would this city be without rich people thinking every idea they have is original, genius and worth exploiting for profit?

Remind Me, Why do Goldfish Need to Wear Sunglasses?

Pepperidge Farm Partners With Natural Food Chef, Bethenny Frankel, To Debut Baked Naturals Crackers and Encourage People to Take Back the Snack!

Funny that they don’t mention her current role as the single Real Housewife of New York City who can’t get her boyfriend who already has three children to commit to her and make more babies.

Instead, Pepperidge Farms has played her up as the “break-out star” from a 2005 Martha Stewart Apprentice spot (the gal clearly loves her camera time).

I suspect it’s because it’s hard to sell the concept of  taking back snacks when the woman subsists on lychee martinis and air. I keep waiting for her to eat something, one little nibble—she’s a “healthy foodie,” right? But no, just cocktails.

On last night’s episode Bethanny was bragging about her friend’s restaurant Table 8 in Miami and the whole scene filmed there was her sitting at the bar drinking and getting a lecture about her eggs no longer being fresh (admittedly, someone talking about my eggs like they’re a farm product would make me want to slam a few oranjitas, myself). What’s the use of pals with restaurants if you don’t get free food?

But you seriously think I’m going to read a book called, Gain 25 Thin Thoughts. Lose 25 Heavy Habits and Be: NATURALLY THIN! written by a drunkorexic?

Screw You, Too

Some time ago, during a hellish meal at Montreal’s Au Pied de Cochon (service was some of the most sophomoric, assholiest I’ve encountered, which isn’t entirely unusual with restaurants foodies love) James found a screw in his pork chop. At the time we speculated about how it would be reported in a New York Post headline and imagined it would involve the staff having a screw loose.

Well, we finally got our answer thanks to a disgruntled bacon cheeseburger eater in the Bronx: “Wendy’s Got a Screw Loose: Suit”

Back on the Chain Gang

Who knew that it was even possible to blow $300 a pop on Boston Market? Or that you could pay for fast food with checks.  I guess you do what you have to for rotisserie chicken and chipotle meatloaf.

I kind of prefer the sheer idiocy of the Indiana woman who scored $57 worth of Applebee’s food after finding worms in her salad…then left her purse behind with a container of worms. At least it wasn’t a human finger.

Even though I didn’t think it wasn’t true, I was kind of scared by the inexplicable ‘80s urban legend that Wendy’s put worms in their burgers. (To this day, I still believe that Rod Stewart had gallons of antelope semen pumped from his stomach, so these myths are persuasive.) The second I heard chain restaurant and worms in conjunction with the above story, I automatically assumed it was about Wendy’s.

Wendy’s seems to have a lot of trouble. Just off the top of my head I can think of two shooting incidents involving the chain, one recent, one not.

Nature's Candy

I love this article, “The Myth of Fruit” from Wednesday’s Guardian. This quote sums up what I’ve thought for some time. And I can get all cranky on the subject and presumably not rile up freaks on the internet, assuming the public is less passionate about fruit than food allergies, their appearances on Jeopardy! and wine bars in Williamsburg (scroll to comments for warm fuzzy fun).

“If you believe the nutrition industry, every week produces some new superfood, often a fruit: blueberries, pomegranates, acai berries. The fact is that fruit consists of water, sugars (normally about 10%), some vitamin C, and some potassium (thought to be good for controlling blood pressure). And that's kind of it.”

I’ve always hated fruit (though I love vegetables) and feel like it’s a chore to eat. The mandarin oranges (I can’t call them clementines—is this an East Coast thing?) Granny Smiths and bananas I’ve been lugging to work the past few months have been killing me.

Fruit juice feels like a total waste of calories and smoothies seem like a joke. Melon is flat-out disgusting and the only food in the entire universe that I won’t eat (well, there’s malta, but that’s a beverage). Minus melon, I don’t mind tropical fruit every now and then, but that’s all. And maybe my problem is that I was raised on bland grocery store produce, though I doubt it. People are always raving about Honeycrisp apples, but to me an apple is an apple and they’re boring.

If I want sweets, I would rather eat real desserts (poached pears and baked apples will not cut it). Nature just doesn’t make candy; that’s as sad as calling graham crackers cookies.

Bad fruit image from Lunacy Beads

The Land of Lean Beef

The term beefcake (as opposed to cheesecake, I suppose) always seemed funny, unsexy and early ‘80s like Chippendale’s dancers and referring to asses as buns.

Beefscapes, on the other hand, are the most awesome food art since that guy started painting on tortillas (and they certainly beat Sandra Lee’s tablescapes). Canyons and valleys of meat? Maybe the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board's new ad campaign is working on me because I’m not a huge beef eater, yet I still find these carnivorous dioramas creepily mesmerizing.

Just get a load of that eye-popping Crumb-Crusted Top Sirloin and Roasted Garlic Potatoes with Bourbon Sauce.

via The Grinder

Booked Solid

I had this bright idea during my two Christmas days off that I would actually read books in 2008. So, I put a shitload of hardbound printed matter on hold at the library, assuming they would slowly trickle over to the Carroll Gardens branch (it took months for my requested The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao to show up and when I went to pick it up someone had taken it from the holds shelf. There is a place in hell for patrons who “steal” others’ reserved items). But now I’m freaking out because they’re all coming at once and the tomes are laughably enormous.

I’ll never be able to get through 753-page American Food Writing: An Anthology: With Classic Recipes, 582-page Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink and 614-page Tree of Smoke in my allotted three weeks. I don’t even know where to begin.

Thinking about books got me to playing around with Shelfari, a social networking tool that seems fun yet ultimately as useless to me as MySpace, Facebook and the rest. I started adding all of my cookbooks that were available and quickly realized that I have hundreds of cookbooks and pamphlets, yet probably only cook from about ten on a regular basis.

Great, in 2008 I could start cooking from all the books I’d bought for one reason or another, mostly reasons having little to do with good eating. For instance, Girl Food (an old zine pal made ziti from this for Robert Crumb--and wouldn’t you know it--she got laid) and The Madison Avenue Cookbook (which is poo poohed in this 1963 Time article that does give the nod to new book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking with no mention of one of the now legendary authors). It would be fun.

Except that Slashfood practically started doing the same thing, I recently stumbled on Cooked Books which champions gems from NYPL, the kitchn just started a book club and now Eat Drink One Woman has a guest blogger also talking up old cookbooks. Whew. Never mind, then, I'll keep my cookbooks to myself.

Um…because everything else I write about here is so original. No matter, I do foresee some tweaking and revamping in the immediate future. I just don’t think it will involve cookbooks (or god forbid, viral videos).

New Levels of Nuttiness

I’m not really about newsiness, if you haven’t noticed. I much prefer writing about things of little importance than current events. But I swear I’ve been channeling the New York Times dining section for the past two weeks. Last Wednesday they had the article about creating an indoor market in NYC when I had just been talking about the very thing (mostly an inner monologue) after visiting Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market.

Today, they tackled a pet peeve that I was actively researching for no purpose whatsoever last week: food allergies. This was prompted by a woman sitting at the table next to me at beerbistro on New Year’s Eve who made a point of asking if the desserts had peanuts in them because she was allergic. But she didn’t seem truly concerned, especially since she’d already taken a bite. I imagine if you were genuinely prone to goober-induced anaphylactic shock you would be more diligent than that.

I’ve always been very suspicious of people who claim allergies because I think with adults it’s just a way of legitimizing food aversions and quirks. A former coworker used to mention her chocolate allergy whenever treats were brought into the office, and I was convinced it was just a mental thing to keep from eating desserts. With kids it seems more the domain of neurotic overeducated, wealthy-yet-not-working mommies who have no real problems to fixate on. Seriously, according to the CDC only twelve people died from food allergies in 2004 (their most recent data).

Too bad I’m not a Harper’s subscriber because I’d like to read this month’s article, “Everyone's gone nuts: The exaggerated threat of food allergies.” “Are the dangers of childhood food allergy exaggerated?” provides a scholarly UK perspective.

So, I was a bit relieved that today’s article, “Food Allergies Stir a Mother to Action” painted Robyn O’Brien as somewhat of a crackpot. I do think it’s notable that children are increasingly allergic to food and I don’t doubt that manufacturers play some role with unnecessary chemicals and additives. But I just can’t take a grown woman seriously when her arms are smaller than her single-digit-aged daughter’s. Intentionally emaciated limbs ≠ person possessing sound reasoning.

 

Move Over, w00t

While skimming New York’s Where to Eat 2008 at the gym (sure, it’s borderline grotesque to ogle steak photos while on an elliptical trainer) I was less dismayed at not having dined at a single best new restaurant of the year than by Adam Platt's rampant use of the word raffish.

I’m the last one to scrutinize repetition; my own bloggy vocabulary is extremely limited. Yet somehow, what seems forgivable online can feel egregious in print. I thought I might’ve been mistaken at first because I wasn’t taking in every word (my blood pressure prescription has run out [yes, my health is on par with an elderly male thanks to some shitass genes] and I genuinely feared I might have a heart attack or stroke while peddling). But now that I’m nice and sedentary in front of a computer I can see that I was correct: raffish was used four times in one—to be fair, long—article.

So, who was raffish in 2007?

The Waverly Inn

To gain access to the pleasingly raffish dining-room sanctum occupied by Carter and his chums, you’ll need a special phone number or e-mail address, or you’ll have to show up personally, then get on your hands and knees and beg.

dell’anima

Whenever I’m ambling down Eighth Avenue in the West Village, I like to duck into the raffish new bar-restaurant dell’anima for a stack of the crunchy house bruschette before proceeding to Centro Vinoteca…

Allen & Delancey

The raffish, deceptively stylish restaurant has a candlelit bar area up front, where you can buy all sorts of advanced mixological creations.

Death & Co.

If I can still walk after that, I’ll stagger a couple of blocks south, to the raffish new cocktail hangout Death & Co., to dine on sophisticated bar snacks like lamb sliders, and quesadillas stuffed with braised duck…

That’s a lot of freaking raffishness for one year. I’m hoping for a rash of rakish eateries in 2008.

Dear Diary

I only found it mildly strange seeing/hearing Steve Buscemi as a gingerbread man in that AT&T Go Phone holiday commercial (whether or not it’s funny is debatable). I still think seeing him in Shanghai was weirder.

But just spotting James Urbaniak in a Domino’s ad was truly strange. We won’t discuss the fact that I happened upon it during Tyler Perry’s House of Payne.

Though, I’ll have to say that the strangest thing of all is that Mr. Urbaniak maintains a LiveJournal site. With all the Tumbling and Twittering occurring, I didn’t think anyone, let alone minor actors, did online diaries anymore.

Poster Children

Please tell me that using blog as a synonym for blog post isn’t standard parlance. It took me years to come to terms with using the word blog, at all, and this bastardization is making me feel icky all over again. I was hoping it was exclusive to dolts like Rosanna Scotto and/or the elderly but it’s cropping up more and more.

A good friend even used it recently, as in, “I read your blog on…” First, I was like, “Really? Someone actually reads this?” Then, I was jarred by her word usage and had to remind myself that this is someone who didn’t know who Tim Gunn was and doesn’t understand why Zach Braff is even grosser than the word blog.

I don’t take specific issue with chef Traci Des Jardins or Epi Log, but it was the first sentence of her first ever post today that made me question the evolution of English, and I could really give a rat’s ass about grammar and purity of language  (obvs).

Mr. Belvedere was Edgier

First I was repulsed by this gay-for-yourself Dolce & Gabbana jewelry ad. I was less bothered by self-on-self make out sessions than by the glossy juvenile style, like they’d let a gifted 12-year-old homosexual create the commercial of their dreams. It left me with that “it can’t be for reals” feeling that Sarah Jessica Parker’s stumper of a perfume ad induced.

Then on Thanksgiving I started getting barraged by these Terry Richardson Belvedere Vodka ads with Nolita gargoyle Vincent Gallo crouching under a table. Eek. And they're frustratingly absent online as of this writing. It almost makes me long for the Art Institutes’s simplicity.

Now I’m waiting to see Dov Charney somehow involved with Dove’s Campaign for Real Women, and not just because they share three letters in common.

Wurst Ad Ever

It’s times like this where YouTube fails me. And I'm not savvy enough to make videos from DVRd television, so a still will have to suffice. A few weeks ago I started noticing a commercial for what appears to be a new international culinary program at the Art Institutes. Never mind that AI lacks the cache of CIA, the problem is that they use German cuisine to win over the viewer. Apparently, the students’ cooking is so authentic that they start to sprechen Deutsch. The secrets to bratwurst and kuchen revealed? Sign me up.

What I’m trying to figure out is if the Art Institutes are hopelessly out of touch with gastronomic trends or if they’re cutting edge. Based on the following tidbits from the past month, I declare the Art Institutes eerily prescient.

November 5th: Gridskipper maps out Berlin’s haute culinary haunts.

November 14th: the New York Post posited that a schnitzel revival is underway.

November 18th: The New York Times devoted nearly 3,000 words to neue Deutsche küche, a.k.a. new German cuisine.

November 21st: Eater predicts the lamb schnitzel at newcomer The Smith will be removed from the menu due to being “absurd.” A backlash already?

Someone has to put an end to the whole Spanish avant-garde thing, right?

As American As Mock Apple Pie

I don’t think that I’ve spoken much about my job since starting it back in February. It’s definitely not a case of “if you have nothing nice to say…” but more of a “don’t I already bore the blogosphere enough as it is?” situation.

A good deal of my time is spent monitoring subjects like e-commerce, travel and IT as they relate to internet marketing. Consequently, I have RSS feeds up the yin yang (I really don’t know what that phrase means but I’ve always wanted to use it). For no particular reason keep my personal feeds on Bloglines and my work ones on Google and del.icio.us. The two paths should never cross. But every now and then while sorting through dull but relevant and dull yet useless stuff, I stumble upon something of moderate non-professional interest like “American Food Top Choice for People When Dining Out.”

Shocking, Americans prefer American food. Um, what is that anyway? I’m not the only one asking. Hot dogs, hamburgers, chili, buffalo wings…Chatham cod, Berkshire pork, Walla Walla onions, Maytag blue cheese?

I don’t analyze, I just research, but I’m sure that plenty of conclusions could be drawn from this data. For instance, those wretched Gen Xers only prefer American food over Mexican by one percentage point (25% vs. 24%). I can’t help but think it has something to do with a slacker/stoner affinity for nachos and burritos. Taco Bell seems quintessentially Gen X to me (and I can’t wait to see how “tacostadas” play out in Mexico) .

I have no explanation why Italian is tops with Echo Boomers (I can’t decide if that’s grosser than Millennials) but I’d love to blame Olive Garden.

Most of my favorites are Other, and I’m sure I’m not alone. 

I'd Rather Eat Molten Lava

No, I never talk Top Chef. I hardly talk TV at all, lest you think I watch hours and hours a night (I turn it on at 7pm and it doesn’t usually get turned off until 1am, I’m not really ashamed). But it’s the finale and all I cared was that the too-young-to-be-so-‘90s, poor man’s Jennifer Aniston didn’t walk away a winner.

But first, I couldn’t get past everyone calling foie gras “foie.” Gross, how hard is it to say the extra syllable?

Then, I nearly lost my shit when Hung (my favorite because he’s so unabashedly un-nice, yet proficient) went molten cake for his wild card. I hated how last episode it was all about who cooks with soul and how Hung isn’t in his food (like an Asian must fish sauce, tamarind and coconut it all up to get respect—which is exactly what he did to win). But after I saw those chocolate cakes coming out of the ring molds, I understood the true meaning of soullessness. So, so wrong, and so straightforward. I’m surprised he didn’t continue on the proving myself to be warm and cuddly through my heritage route by spiking the dessert with five-spice powder, ginger, pandan or something seemingly exotic.

No matter, it’s quite a feat for a chef to pull off a victory in spite of such a lame dessert. But seriously, chocolate molten cake?

Photo from Kraft, which tells you all you need to know about chocolate molten cakes.

Machismo, Page and Screen

It’s the first day of fall and I’m using air conditioning. Just thought I’d briefly share my 90% humidity sadness. On to oh-so-serious matters...

I think I was recently complaining about food writing. I say, I think, because I’m not sure that I was all that concerned with writing but more the voices that accompany so much of it. On the one hand, weirdly confident married men with children who do stuff that they think is brilliant, on the other hand, an often female bounty-of-the-earth worshippers, paying homage to home cooking and the wisdom gleaned from humble but all-knowing grandmothers.

Macho food writing? I hadn’t really even considered it as an irritant because I wasn’t aware that it was a rampant genre. But British food writer Paul Levy has been stirring the pot with his Slate article that takes issue with the likes of Anthony Bourdain and Bill Buford, to name two.

I don’t have a problem with “coarse” descriptions, and the author comes across as a bit of a persnickety relic, but I don’t completely disagree with the tiresomeness of needing to be extreme. I’ve always thought it was strange that Bourdain has developed such a cult-like following by being opinionated, balls out (hate that phrase as much as the visual image) and culinarily open-minded.

I don’t begrudge his success; what I’ve been curious about is why there is no female equivalent. Why aren’t there any women doing the foul mouthed gourmand shtick (because they have better sense, some might argue)?

Judging from TV, you have to be sexualized (Giada, Nigella), accessibly girl next door (Rachael), or frumpy and unintimidating (Paula, Ina). Ok, that’s Food Network, what do you expect? But as contrast, they just picked up that bumbling yet personable smartass from drinking with locals, Three Sheets and gave him another travel show. That’s what men get to do on TV.

Women travel too, of course. I had the misfortune of catching part of Samantha Brown: Passport to Latin America in Belize. I don’t even know who this blah, late-in-life-mom type woman is (I can’t find an official bio anywhere but her fan wiki claims her favorite book is Atlas Shrugged. Strange, I was just reading about Ayn Rand and her influence on modern businessmen) but she made a huge fuss over cow tongue in a soup that was presented to her. She wouldn’t even try one bite, which was an instant turn off.

Sorry, now I’m meandering towards TV and away from writing, different and more physical. However, it would seem that there’s wide open opportunity for even vaguely interesting female food TV personalities. Or does the public enjoy what’s currently on offer?

More reactions to Paul Levy’s Slate article (my original focus):
The Grinder
Word of Mouth

My Babybel

I can’t tell whether Babybel is going for the bizarre foreign type humor intentionally or not. Every time the ad with the parachuters jumping out of a plane for the tiny wax covered cheese wedges comes on, I’m unable to tear my eyes from the horribly unfunny spectacle on screen.

Unfortunately, I can only find the UK version online, which is shorter and more restrained. The US one has the Rusty Griswold-looking kid making expressions a bit more manically and the song rocks out with more emphatic shouting at the end.

I don’t want to live in a world where Sally Field’s censored Emmy acceptance speech and a man on an elephant being attacked by a tiger are all over YouTube, yet American Babybel ads are nowhere to be found.

Livin' la Vida Local

If I have to read about one more NYC’er living off the land, I will hurl up locally sourced bile. I wish that I could care about all this stuff (I did make it about 80% of the way through The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I don’t see Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in my future) but I can’t. And being deep into my freezer scavenger project, you know I’m not living la vida local.

The New Yorker usually scares me but I was bored enough in the airport last weekend to pick up the annual food issue (and then I was still bored). I felt like a douche brandishing some “my state is better than yours” periodical badge even though obvs New Yorker readers don’t all reside in New York.

Adam Gopnik had the requisite urban locavore article, complete with precocious quips from his author’s children. Lucky for you, “New York Local: Eating the fruits of the five boroughs” is one of the few articles freely available online.

Today I was treated to the New York version of this hot earthy trend, except Manny Howard isn’t so much sourcing as doing it himself. Good for him.

There are universals in these tales. Up-for-anything male narrators, an exasperated yet understanding wife, and if at all possible small children. (I know I’ll invoke foodie wrath but I’ve never found Calvin Trillin [as well a currently high profile, self-promoting, accurately monikered blogger that shall remain nameless—what am I? Regina Schrambling?!] as hilarious as others do [plus he stole my fantasy/idea of creating a hawker center in NYC for his New Yorker piece on Singapore. He’d put his on the Hudson River while I think the waterfront along Red Hook or Sunset Park would be better suited but I suspect both suggestions are selfishly based upon proximity to the idea generator’s home]. It’s the foiblesome guy coupled with straight-man wife that fails to grab me, kind of the Larry David wife as comedic foil M.O. except that I do like Curb Your Enthusiasm. Maybe I’m more disconcerted by so much female food writing centering around nostalgia, family and recipe-driven life lessons.)

Oh, and despite never having written for The New Yorker, as his bio points out, I'd also like to add "Alternadad" Neal Pollack to the mix. Just because.

At least the New York writer lives in Kensington and not classic brownstone Brooklyn, making me sick farming in his quaint $2 mil home. In fact, it looks like he paid $830,000  for the little eight-bedroom house in 2003. Or rather his wife did, as the title appears to be in her name, which is completely unsurprising. Someone’s got to subsidize a freelance writing career in NYC.

Ok, I wasn’t going to actually read the article, but you can’t get mildly cranky over a cover a magazine without at least skimming the text. Ok, it’s actually kind of creepy. There’s a lot of accidental animal death, so I guess you could call it the story of a Brooklyn family of bunny and duck killers. Dark comedy or not, god invokes his wrath on the city slicker by sending a rare, inexplicable tornado to destroy his fecund patch of land. Now, it all makes sense. We have Manny to blame for the freak weather incident last month.

If I have to agree with one sentiment, it’s the final sentences:

“It wasn’t just a matter of buying regionally, or seasonally, or organically—the important thing was to consume responsibly. ‘I’ll never be as wasteful,’ she said. ‘We throw away more food than we eat.’”

That’s a lesson I don’t need to learn from growing my own food, and it’s exactly why I have to eat all the crap stored in my freezers. There’ll be no waste (or bunny or duck maiming) in this household.

*Hilarious non-New Yorker cartoon lifted from CartoonStock. I wish I knew who Dave was.

Putting Burritos to Shame

I was vaguely aware of the tortilla artist (yes, tortillas) Joe Bravo, but was re-reminded of his existence via Guanabee yesterday. Strangely, he’s not alone. There are a lot of folks who enjoy messing with tortillas.

Roundaboutly speaking of tortillas, I couldn’t find any outrageously staged al fresco photography in September’s Gourmet. I was confused for a spell. While doing an initial flip through, I saw an article on Salvadoran food in L.A., another on taco trucks in unexpected cities and a recipe for Dominican sancocho. My, how multiculti.

Duh, then I realized it was the Latin American issue. A welcome enough theme. They managed to make a spread on Puerto Rican food look romantic (nothing against the cuisine, but in NYC it’s hard to think of it minus fluorescent lights, formica and steam tables). The closest thing to an outdoor shot is a little girl inspecting a roasting pig head on a grill, illustrating an article on Cuban Miami. That, I like. No zany lighthouses or idyllic farms in sight.

Moz photo from The Great Tortilla Conspiracy on Flickr

Interblog Mingling

I’ve been so preoccupied the past few days with work work and impromptu trip planning that I forgot to mention my guest post on Gowanus Lounge. My finger isn’t quite on the pulse of new Brooklyn developments (I never know what’s going on even in a three-block radius from my own apartment). Luckily, others have that covered so I can spend more time on the mundane and me-centric.

Raising the Steaks

Breaking news: women eat meat. Who knew? Next thing I know, you'll be telling me that females are wearing pantaloons and driving horseless buggies. I thought all ladies were subsisting on Wish-Bone® Salad Spritzers™ and fro-yo (oh boy, that's an even fouler word than clot). If it weren't for the Times's style section I'd never be privvy to such universal absolutes, “Everyone wants to be the girl who drinks the beer and eats the steak and looks like Kate Hudson.” You think she means "fat" Kate Hudson?

Green Around the Gills

Apparently, I had a little (they chopped it in half) eco-friendly round-up, “10 Best Websites to Get You Started Going Green” in Friday’s New York Post. It’s online but I didn’t see it (or any of the other eleven “green” articles on their site) in the paper so it’s a mystery to me when and if it ran. I do feel the need to mention it, regardless.

Can You 'Stand' One More?

Last month I was convinced that the last thing the world needed was another Red Hook ball fields article. Or so I thought until I was asked to write one (actually the second for the same publication but whatever). Allow me to present you with “Stand and Deliver” (I’m not putting their quotes around Stand). Ok, I’ll be the first to admit the round up breaks no new ground (I wrote way more than what’s included and the photographer took hundreds of photos). But short and snappy is what the ol’ New York Post is known for, so no surprises.

Make it a True Daily Double

(Paraphrasing because I was only half-watching) “Which section of the New York Times allows critic Frank Bruni a $350,000 annual budget for expenses?” (And my own question, who's flying him first class to Moscow?)

No one on this evening’s Jeopardy knew the answer (ok, Tim Abou-Sayed from Florida did eventually come up with “what is restaurants” as a sheer guess, right at the buzzer and after a miss from the ultimate winner Monica Lenhard of Michigan answered, “theater”).

Not that Jeopardy contestants are representative of the nation at large (more informed yet more socially retarded) but it relieved me that clearly no one outside of New York reads the New York Times dining section. I like to be reminded that NYC is not the center of the world, even though I admit to feeling anxious and out of touch with local media when I’m out of town (which is why I was reading “Off the Menu” on vacation in ’05 and learned about Fatty Crab. This was pre-food blog glut by the way, when I relied on print for restaurant openings. I swear I’m not obsessed with hating/loving Fatty Crab—I think I just like typing the word fatty).

Sometimes I wish I didn’t know things, the kinds of things in the New York Approval Matrix. I don’t want to know who The Splasher and Boerum Hill Crapper are (ok, maybe the crapper is alright), yet I do. Why? The person I live with has no knowledge of any of this non-importance (though it’s not as bad as the sixth grade dropout boyfriend raised in an orphanage who had never watched TV in his entire life. Honest to god, he had no clue who Tom Cruise was and that’s a hard one to avoid). Easily 85% of the people I come into contact daily for business and pleasure are not familiar with useless New York-ish pop culture talking points. Should I stop reading self-referential blogs for sanity’s sake? It’s not like I impress anyone with witty, informed banter. In fact, I often go all day without uttering more than a sentence or two, which likely contributes to my urge for spewing nonsense here.

Last night I saw an ad for a job I’d be perfect for. Not a cool job, library work, but definitely not hip as all (northern) Brooklyn librarians apparently now are. It involved food marketing. But it was in Virginia. I’ve seen Chicago ads and seriously think, but Virginia? Uh uh (it doesn’t help that James’s parents live in that state and would kill for him to live closer to home). It’s really out of the country or not at all.

Saturday I was informed that Manila might be in a business trip future. I’d love to go to the Philippines and have been interested in the country (well, the food) since I was a teenager. Shanghai was also tossed out as a possibility for the fall, maybe both. Could I stop reading the New York Times and placeblogs, whatever the fuck those are, for at least a few weeks?

Last month everyone (in the blogosphere, duh--my god, it’s worse than I thought) was doing the let’s live on food stamp allotments challenge (I had food stamps in college and ate quite well--$112/month for a Northwestern 19-year-old in ’91 was a lot of extra money. That doesn’t seem right considering that same state’s average allotment appears to be less sixteen years later). Boring. Maybe I’ll do the same with regional periodicals and blogs. You know, doing without, living like the poors. But then, I’d miss the rare, cool non-NYC-centric chain restaurant article like this one appearing in tomorrow’s print edition.

It’s not like I’m moving (back) to Oregon anytime soon. Wild west or not, the rugged individualist state probably isn’t all that welcoming of outlaw chefs. Jason Neroni will only luck out because no Oregonian has any inkling or interest about what goes on in NYC. God bless them.

Culture Club

I was just struck by the cleverness (usually not a good thing) of the Fage Yogurt ad on the first page of the new New York (do others get their copy on Monday? Mine never comes before Tuesday and last week it never showed up at all). It took me a while to figure it out, too, which I’m hoping is merely due to the extreme heat hurting my brain. Initially, I thought the two pages just mirrored each other coincidentally.

It’s more impressive full-sized because you can see the texture of the yogurt and the phase, "ridiculously thick yogurt," but I don’t have the energy to scan the thing. Ad Rants’s version is sufficient.

Ham on Wry

I don’t want to end up one of those cranks who constantly finds fault and starts writing letters to the editor (not emailing, writing—that’s when you know you’ve lost it). I’m more of a stewing and festering, then forgetting type.

But I was a little baffled by Time Out NY’s bit on jamon (by their new staff writer) that I read last night (I’m actually reading rather than skimming now that I temporarily have no internet or TV to entertain me into the wee hours). They get all gushy over the hand-cut serrano ham at Stinky Bkln. I like the place, nice enough people, but they can’t cut jamon to save their lives. This isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned their mangling.

I was excited to see the meaty hooved leg around Christmas-time and had to get a pound. I ended up with a pile of chunks and stubs. I’m absolutely no Spanish expert but I have bought bellota in Barcelona and the cuts were invariably long and paper-thin.

I hoped my first Stinky Bkln foray was an aberration and tried again a few months ago. After watching the hip young man slicing off pudgy squares in a painfully slow fashion, I became nerved out and was like, “just give me a quarter pound.” It was unbearable to watch even for a few minutes. I’m trying to imagine shelling out $400 for three hours of this pleasure.

There are a lot of things I stay out of because I just don’t feel fit to judge. Barbecue and wine are two that immediately come to mind. Serve me swill and Dallas BBQ slop and I’ll hardly know better. But I do have a grasp on Spanish ham and there’s something wrong here.

Suicide food painting courtesy of lukecheuh.com

One Show at a Time

You know how Mork would occasionally (ok, maybe it was once) show up on Happy Days for no good reason? And I’m pretty sure Laverne & Shirley crossed over too despite the shows being set in different decades. It was misguided and wrong, characters need to stay in their own settings. I recently experienced the foodie equivalent.

Eh, I guess there wasn’t any time travel/messing with eras in this circumstance. Maybe it was more like when you were a kid and you’d see your teacher at the grocery store. That was always unsettling. It was getting late, a little past midnight on a Sunday and I was trying to prepare for a new Monday earlier rise. We were watching a recording of One Plate at a Time and Rick Bayless was in the Yucatan talking about his friend Jacques and how he has a condo in Playa del Carmen and great things happen when Jacques around, and I was like who is this Jacques douche. And then Rick answered my question, "Jacques is, well he’s your other favorite public television chef, Jacques Pepin."

WTF?! I seriously thought I was hallucinating. I'm not sure if it was because I was tired, but this was seriously the most laugh out loud funny thing I'd seen on TV in a long time. Jacques is supposed to be in Connecticut cooking fast food his way, not wearing a tunic and a dude necklace and eating nopales. The cross-breeding was just bizarre. I almost expected Ming Tsai, who’s also fond of the dude necklace, to show up call everyone “guys” and work some east meets west magic with black beans and fermented black beans. Ok, now I’m totally being a public television food geek.

I've never associated Bayless with Pepin, though a commonality is that they both have/had shows and books where they cook with their red-headed daughters—no one seems to remember Cooking with Claudine from the mid-‘90s. Somehow both One Plate at a Time and Fast Food My Way have developed into our favorite DVRd food picks, though. I’d never thought about Pepin one way or the other, but James is hooked on his show and I’ve been getting sucked in. I was never crazy about Rick Bayless either, we kind of started watching him as a joke because he's so stonerish, but his grown up hippy style has grown on us and now I’m gung ho on going to Mexico.

Hope Things Turn Around for U Soon

A Tuesday New York Post with some Braunstein nonsense on the cover has been sitting on my coffee table for a few days but it wasn’t until this afternoon that I actually scrutinized it. Despite being home sick, I was filled with vim and vigor after eyeballing the photo of his victim’s mirror that he had scrawled on before leaving.

“BYE - HOPE THINGS TURN AROUND FOR U SOON” written on a mirror (the same cheapo mirror/medicine cabinet that I have and also had at my previous dwelling. I think 90% of NYC apartments have that tri-paneled, ugly thing with white trim) after chloroforming and performing unseemly acts for 13 hours is like the funniest, flippest thing I’ve ever seen. So upbeat, and a great sentiment for many situations, big and small.

The caring message could apply to high profile crap like the mean daddy Baldwin call or the Virginia Tech rampage or it could be used to smooth over asinine NYC-centric problems.  “Sorry you were outbid on a condo—bye, hope things turn around for u soon,” sorry you’re 41 and can’t conceive, sorry you can’t get a table at Waverly Inn. Or better yet, sorry your mom died because the crowds at Waverly Inn blocked her ambulance. Braunstein’s the new Hallmark.

Getting Your Jollies

Joel Stein is like a less wry Mo Rocca (I can’t help but mention at any mildly opportune moment that he sat directly in front of me en route to Chicago in February) laced with a touch of good ol’ fashioned Dave Berry. In a word, douchie. And apparently Time magazine has deemed him fit to write a food column. I hate voices of my supposed generation on any topic…but food? Really? It’s much better when they stick to two-liners on I Love the ‘80s.

Foreign fast food chains are a topic near and dear to my heart so I couldn’t help but peek at his first foray into culinary commentary, "The Hungry American." Uh, and maybe I’m misinterpreting his interpretation, but he seems to be of the mind that chains set up in America to try to appeal to us and get it all wrong. That might be the case if he were talking about Pret a Manger overdosing the U.S. with mayonnaise. Yet the examples he cites are California-centric, for one, but inaccurate since they are primarily restaurants catering to expatriates.

Minus the Jollibee burgers, this isn’t really “foreign American food.” I don’t think this Filipino chain is trying to entice the general public with gusto, and if they are then spaghetti topped with ketchup and sliced wieners is a charming yet off kilter business plan. I don’t know that the businesses in his commentary are trying to resell our culture back to us as much as that they’ve interpreted fast food for local audiences and are reaching out to immigrants who’ve settled in the U.S.

I don’t think Guatemalan Pollo Campero, at least in NYC, had made an effort to attract non-Central American customers. In fact, the one in Sunset Park went out of business for that very reason, the neighborhood was more Mexican and Puerto Rican and didn’t identify with the brand. Practically all cultures like fried chicken, we don’t own the concept.

And for Stein to posit that Beard Papa is interpreting donuts for Americans is insane. They’re not mimicking our fried dough, they’re making cream puffs. Japanese (and Asians in general) love French shit. I had great pastry in Hong Kong and Singapore.

And his conclusion is frighteningly self-revealing: “To them, it seems, we're a happy, efficient, fun bunch of guys, even if we act like total jerks when it suits us. They've figured it out: we're frat boys. And we like to eat like them.” Yikes. I wonder how those crazy Filipinos might re-create the beer bong, don’t you? And Nicaraguan jello shots? Just a matter of time.

Emergen-C Isn't Food

I have a very poor sense of portions and what’s normal, which is why I’ll never be wispy. I hate depravation. This morning I finally got around to skimming this week’s New York and became fixated on a few industry types’ eating diaries during Fashion Week (I was on the toilet while reading this, mind you, it was number one not number two. There was just something appropriate about expelling waste while reading such crap).

I was kind of appalled by the Elle editor’s regimen, but then I was like well, maybe that’s typical. I don’t really know, that’s not my world (though even the model ate some onion rings and rice krispie treat), I guess that’s how you stay thin. But only eating two ounces of ceviche (and knowing that you’d consumed two ounces) completely creeped me out.

I eat ceviche when I’m trying to be restrained and it’s lime-marinated fish instead of something fried, breaded or starchy. Like last night I was at Sofrito and skipped empanadas (which I might normally lean towards but I’d already eaten half a Margon cubano for lunch) in lieu of octopus salad. But I know I downed more than two ounces of the chopped cephalopod and I wasn’t bothered in the least. I proceeded to drink four glasses of Pinot Noir and then I cared even less.

So, I was very relieved when this afternoon I noticed Gawker and Gothamist had both called out this woman’s minimalist approach to dining. I can’t believe I’m relying on  blogs as a window onto acceptable eating habits. Ok, so this style of eating is weird?

I actually do record (almost) everything I eat and drink because I’m one of those nasty point counters. Today was atypical because I stayed at home (since I start a new job Monday I thought I’d take off Thursday and Friday and be lazy and take care of odds and ends around the apt.) and I eat differently than if I was in an office. But so far I’ve had the other half of my leftover cubano from yesterday (I swear, it wasn’t as huge as a standard style Cuban sandwich so I didn’t feel so bad), ¼ cup white rice topped with chile radish, a handful of wasabi peas, two corn tortillas with a couple avocado and tomato slices and lots of black coffee and water. I guess I would call that a day if I were in the fashion industry but it’s only 6pm.

Around 9pm I’ll make Chairman Mao’s Red-Braised Pork (using ribs instead of belly) the cover star from my new Hunan cookbook and eat that with more white rice and leftover black bean chile Chinese broccoli from Tuesday night, while watching DVR’d Ugly Betty and The Office. And believe it or not, if I keep the pork to about six ounces I’m still within my point limit (I spent an hour on an elliptical trainer and lifted a few free weights so I could eat fatty pork). So there. If I’m lucky I’ll shed .25 pounds this week. No, the pound a month approach isn’t ideal.

Is There an M&M Inside of You?

In the junk email realm, PBTeen, Ann Taylor LOFT, Macy’s, Newport News and Spiegel all implored me to shop their Presidents’ Day sales. There does seem to be considerable leeway on the proper name of today’s holiday, but I’m convinced that it’s Presidents Day, plain and simple, no apostrophe before or after the s. Wikipedia backs me up on this, though they’re not the most definitive source in the world (and they include an apostrophe in the URL). George Washington and Abraham Lincoln do not own Feb. 19, there’s no possession. It’s just a day for presidents.

Phew, I had to get rankled about something today. I’ve been trying to come to terms with old songs, indie songs, whatever being used willy-nilly in ads. A friend mentioned that she’s more upset by old song misappropriation, loathing M&M’s recent use of The The’s “This is the Day.” I’m more offended by the notion that we all have an M&M inside of us. I most definitely do not.

But I finally found an example of repurposing a lightly obscure song from the past in a genius way. Juxtaposing The Buzzcocks’s "Everybody's Happy Nowadays" with fogey-ish AARP was a brilliant move. Instead of focusing on aging they’ve put the spotlight on birthdays and make getting older seem downright fun.

NYC, We Have a Problem

I realize that over the years my focus has shifted. Lately, I write much more about food than I do about people and that makes me mildly sad. It’s harder to be candid in 2007 than 1997, and I don’t know if that’s a result of maturity or the evolution of the internet. Too many eyes, but there’s also more at stake. People just don’t appreciate bat shit behavior the way they used to, and NYC is surprisingly unforgiving of unprofessional quirks. Stalking and obsessing over humans is a surefire way to lose credibility yet scooping a new chef’s opening night menu or semi-scamming $320 dinners at Alain Ducasse is perceived as plugged in or hilarious (this New York Times article completely exemplifies why blogging about restaurants, particularly in a NYC milieu is so ick. Their whole M.O. is so not what I’m about that I don’t even know why I’m dwelling. It makes sites like Not Eating Out in New York even more relevant).

So, as I progress into object lover and lighten up with human fixations I’m thrilled to see that the delusional and lovesick still thrive in the rest of the country. I love today’s story about Lisa Nowak, a married astronaut who drove 900 miles in an adult diaper and disguise to kidnap the love interest of a fellow astronaut she believed she had a more than routine relationship with. Women like Lisa Nowak give me faith that the world hasn’t gone all effete and by the rules. Lisa Nowak could give a shit whether or not a restaurant is serving American prosciutto.

Sound Off

I thought podcasts and user generated content were all the rage (and stating that only reinforces how behind the web 2.0 revolution I am) but Fox 5 just discovered blogs this month. Except that they don’t quite seem to know what blogs are exactly. Perpetually brain damaged Rosanna Scotto (which reminds me—how old is Toni Senecal? Her face looks abnormally smooth and taut, while her neck is two shades darker and heading into wizened turkey territory. Sometimes when the light hits her at a certain angle she resembles Michael Jackson. Her age is suspiciously absent from her New York Times wedding announcement, too. And her currently being pregnant means zilch since the elderly are getting knocked up in 2007.) makes me violent every time she says, “send your blogs” during their Sound Off segment, which recently has covered very important topics like the sexy Harry Potter pics and whether The N Word should be banned (how it's possible to ban a word is beyond me). Two weeks ago sending viewer feedback via an email address was called, um, emailing. Last night I noticed they’d even designed a new graphic to reinforce this misguided concept. I work for Newscorp and I’m a researcher, perhaps I should get to the bottom of who decided that hitting send in Hotmail constitutes blogging.

On to print media. I’ve never understood why when you subscribe to a new magazine they invariably send you an old issue as your first. It’s now February so I don’t find it terribly useful to read about Christmas gifts, cute as they may be, in my recently received ReadyMade. I suspect this is an American bungling because I got my first copy of Olive, February issue, all the way from England in early January. Then again, I’m lucky if 60% of my subscriptions even make it into my hands. Sometimes I forget that Time Out New York isn’t bimonthly because I don’t think I’ve ever received four in a month.

With a (back)Side of Bacon, Please

I was captivated by the photo used to illustrate today’s New York Times review of Porchetta. (I have no idea why I knew from a glance that the guy in the center is a writer/blog fixture because I don’t enjoy that sort of information. That’s what NYC will do to you.) What I was really trying to understand why they chose to use a picture featuring a girl with pants off her ass and an exposed thong. This restaurant is just a short walk from my apartment and has been on my mental to-try list for a few months, but now I’ve completely re-thought the whole thing. If I wanted copious amounts of human flesh with my meal, I’d go to recently opened Hawaiian Tropic Zone.

Backfat's nothing. It's the backside I'm concerned about.

Also, the irritatingly erudite (no, I didn’t have to look that one up) Times once again caught me with a vocab stumper: chilblains. What the hell? And the writer who used it was once my boss for like five months. Clearly, I learned nothing from that stint.

Civic Lesson

I swear I don’t love beating dead horses (even though I’m mildly equine averse) but just a few minutes ago I heard Go! Team blaring from the living room TV while in my bedroom. Lordy, what could they possibly be selling? I guessed car, it’s often autos. It was Honda Civic. Frankly, I’m surprised their bouncy, upbeat sound hadn’t been used in a commercial yet (ah…apparently, Nike and McDonald’s attempted it). I’m totally beyond the whole indie sellout label. Who cares as long as curtails ‘80s worship.

I expect that sort of thing from a car ad, but sports elude me. Sunday afternoon I was trying to tune out some NFL pre-game show but I couldn’t ignore the background music during a montage. You know how you know a song but out of context you don’t always identify it immediately. They were using Voxtrot’s “Missing Pieces.” Yeah, I guess they’re popular. I can’t gauge what’s mainstream anymore, though from flipping through radio stations in the car I can definitely say Voxtrot is not playing in NYC. I hate to admit that even the National Football League knows better than to blast Nu Shooz.

$38.10 Worth of Thanks

Being the last Wednesday before Thanksgiving where you can do actually something about what you’re being told by food sections, it’s been a turkey barrage. I’m not turkey crazy in the least but I’m starting to feel the bland, meaty tug, especially since last year I went out for dinner and ended up missing picking at leftovers over the three-day weekend.

At work we were trying to find historic turkey prices and I was moderately surprised by the statistics coming from the American Farm Bureau. They’ve pegged the cost of this year’s Thanksgiving dinner for ten at $38.10. That is totally doable if you have simple tastes but otherwise it’s kind of a sad meal. They’ve broken it down by individual items so you can see how they’ve arrived at the figure. I’m thrifty as hell and yes, New Yorkers tend to be out of touch spending-wise (I don’t need to re-remind you about New York magazine’s cheap $500 holiday party for eight do I? Ok, I do.) but come on, a 59-cent relish tray of carrots and celery?  That’s dietetic and depressing.

$1.86 for a 30-oz. pumpkin pie mix and $1.89 for two pie shells…eh. While there’s no way in hell I’m coughing up $28, you can still make a quality dessert from scratch for under $5, ten dollars if you live it up. And no, most people including myself, don’t use fresh pumpkins for pies but a home made crust likely uses ingredients already in your house: flour, eggs, shortening, butter, salt, sugar, water or some variation of these. Extras like nuts or whipped cream add to the price, but only marginally. Even if you’re tempted to buy a ReadyCrust (I used to totally covet the chocolate crusts in the store when I was a kid. I could so imagine a green misty grasshopper pie in the preformed shell) read what the New York Times has to say about crust perfection.

So this year I plan on cooking some basics but probably not until Saturday and likely only for myself (Thanksgiving proper I’ll be working so no prep time and that evening I’ll have a few holiday orphans over for a turkey-free slumber party). I envision a small poultry item, stuffing of some sort, a green vegetable and possibly a potato-based dish and that’s it. I might even forgo dessert because there’s already enough sugariness in the house. But I suspect I’ll still overspend the $38.10 average.

I was just looking at heritage turkeys you can order through Fairway and even a small one, at $5.99/lb is around $70. People have been heritage gaga for the past few years. I’d like to give in to history and wild birds but this isn’t the year for financial risk. Maybe I’ll get my taste of Bourbon Red or Standard Bronze in 2007. It’ll be an antibiotic-free free-range vegetarian fed turkey for around $25 and I’m guessing I can put the whole meal together for less than the price of one heritage turkey, tasty as it may be. I’ll add it up next week and see.

Home Turf

File this under Who the Hell Cares or Just Plain Petty, but I couldn’t help myself. I’m not community minded, particularly when it comes to cyberspace. Lord knows what most bloggers do in their real lives because I’m not friends with (m)any. And it's probably for the best that I remain in the dark because often the more I know, the less I like. Sometimes I do wonder with food blogs when the authors consistently visit high-end restaurants. I assume they’re either in the industry, well connected or just plain wealthy. Of course, for every L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon and Gordon Ramsey at The London (Ok, I’ve seen very little on that, give it a few weeks) chronicle there are countless praises for pizza and hot dogs.

Some would say that’s what makes this city great, something for everyone. Uh, the wonderful (financial) diversity. Fine. Maybe my taste is plebian and irrational but I don’t relish reading the food musings of someone who owns property worth $37.5 million. I’m not saying that multi-million-dollar homeowners are hideous folks whose opinions don’t matter, I would just prefer to read other things instead. It’s not envy; it’s nothing in common. Like is drawn to like. It’s not exactly a secret that Manhattan is filled with people who do quite well for themselves but I’m more drawn to people who struggle to pay triple digit rent. Ok, I’ll broaden my horizons because those paying $999 and under anywhere in the city are few and far between.

As a cranky aside, is $500 for an eight-person holiday party really cheap?