Aug 12
Ok, I'm breaking my August silence to mention a story I have on Metromix about oddball frosty treats in NYC. It's hot enough today to warrant them. I could even ignore my self-imposed sugar-free mandate for a Colombian cholado about now.
I'm a little surprised at the backlash that has begun over the Julie half of Julie & Julia, a film for which I’m probably an intended target but have zero interest in seeing. I was one of those people who kind of groaned over the blog to book deal way back in the ancient days of 2003 before bloggers got book deals for compiling photos of food emailed to them. I scoffed because I'm a bitch who often begrudges the (undeserved) success of others, but what I didn’t realize was how bitchy the general public had become.
Jealous much? Hater. Ick, I keep seeing that catty shorthand in comments (not here, I don't garner comments) when anyone is critical of anyone online. For me, at least, that's not usually the case. I can separate loathing and annoyance from jealousy. And I can admit when I'm envious. That's why I never read the Julie/Julia Project.
We often hate in others what we see in ourselves and the Julie reminded me of me. We were about the same age, lived in crappy outerborough neighborhoods (Sunset Park for me), drank too much, had dull dead end jobs (I was unemployed/temped through much of the early '00s—though I was spurred to go to grad school, which landed me a slightly better paying, slightly more stable, slightly more satisfying career that I sometimes enjoy but am certainly not passionate about), were fairly domesticated (though I would never marry in my 20s, heck, I'm still not in my late 30s even though a ten-year dating anniversary is only a month away) and we both blogged about food and our personal lives, she with the focus of a single-minded project and me in the same rambling scattershot fashion I still can't shake.
She struck a chord with the public and for that I was jealous. Not in an all-consuming way, certainly but it crossed my mind. Cooking has a way of doing that, though. I'm always surprised at the number of comments, sense of camaraderie, rah rah-ness, and sharing I see on recipe-centric blogs (at least the popular ones) compared to restaurant-ish sites full of douche-slinging insults. I wonder if it's a female/male divide. Writing about cooking has never my thing, I only dabble in it occasionally, though there are plenty of meals from scratch in my household—I’m not trying to make Michael Pollan cry.
Cream rises even if that cream is now being derided as a talentless hack.
"Her writing is hollow, narcissistic, and unforgivably lazy—qualities so foreign to Julia that it’s not at all surprising that she once said she couldn’t abide Powell’s work…The idea of Powell as a contemporary heir to this personal and culinary epic is absurd."—Laura Shapiro, Julia Child's biographer
“Flinging around four-letter words when cooking isn’t attractive, to me or Julia. She didn’t want to endorse it. What came through on the blog was somebody who was doing it almost for the sake of a stunt. She would never really describe the end results, how delicious it was, and what she learned. Julia didn’t like what she called ‘the flimsies.’ She didn’t suffer fools, if you know what I mean.” — Judith Jones, Julia Child's editor
"I also read the Julie/Julia Project blog and for a time…Good for her, I thought. What an undertaking. But one day she made a comment implying a recipe being wrong for roast chicken. I honestly don’t remember what it was, but it struck me as being so disrespectful, completely without deference to Julia Child, that I stopped. What the hell did she know about food? Had she even heard of poulet au Bresse? Didn’t go back. No malice. Just didn’t want to follow anymore."
" The incredible proliferation and self-indulgent blabber of many food blogs has given people the freedom to hallucinate, 'I can type and I eat, therefore I am a food journalist'!"–Virginia Willis, writer/blogger previously unknown to me
Wow. Time change things. I'm now able to appreciate Julie's success more (especially since I embody emptiness, narcissism and laziness) and feel a little sympathy over the growing animosity. I can also appreciate the following she amassed using just words, no photos. It’s hard to imagine anyone reading a blog without pictures now. I felt like a latecomer not having a digital camera until 2006 but that was then the norm.
And apparently the foodie intelligentsia have come to the conclusion that she's all that's wrong with the world and an insult to Julia Child's memory. Even I, who never actually read the blog or the book, don't think that Julie saw herself as an heir to Julia. That's the movie's problem. Actually, I think it's an old person's problem and this is coming from someone who just turned 37 (old!). The cranks all seem to be middle aged women, I'm afraid. I do think there still is a print/online generational divide, though it appears to be shrinking with the mainstreaming of blogging. Ruth Reichl immediately comes to mind as a woman who has a good grasp on both print and social media (heck, television, too).
If anything, the Nora Ephron rom-com has created a new younger audience for Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Sure, the movie tie-in wrap around dust jacket is corny. But the book is selling. It's as of this writing, the fifth bestselling book in Amazon's Cooking, Food and Wine section, behind the bizarre two versions each of Omnivore's Dilemma and Hungry Girl: 200 Recipes Under 200 Calories. Americans are clearly conflicted.
Maybe I'm burying the lede in this jumble, but for the month of August I will be taking a break from being whatever it is that sits at the bottom of the bottle refusing to rise. Is that milk? And I like to think I know about food. Anyway, a lot has changed since the early '00s. The world, specifically my world, NYC, is now deluged with food blogs. I can barely keep up with my RSS feeds and skim at best. It's hard to care about what hundreds of strangers are eating and cooking every day and in turn I can't expect anyone to care about what I write here. If I never read about another food truck, pig roast, $100 fried chicken dinner or DiFara again, I’ll…well, I’ll be fine.
So, I’m taking August off from food blogging and as ridiculous as it sounds (though slightly less so than juicing fasts or lemonade cleanses) I’m also going completely sugar, bread and alcohol-free. A little detoxing never hurt anyone and even though I already limit my sugar and starch as it is (and so far it has successfully kept my diabetes at bay) I feel like I could be tougher. I’ve slowly let bagels, fries and ice cream to creep back into my life but I don’t want them taking over. Thirty-one carbless days never killed anyone, right?
See you in September.
I completely missed Gourmet.com's Another Offal Monday series that began in June when recently surveying the sudden proliferation of organ worship on the web. So far, they have four diverse entries: Mexican tongue tacos, southern-fried sweetbreads, dim sum-style spicy tripe (pictured above) and dowdy American classic liver and onions Spanished-up with a little sherry vinegar. I'm liking these recipes very much.
They'd better be careful, though, with all those international flavors or they're going to get more angry letters from the crackpots like Marlynn Marroso who don't want unpatriotic food in their July issues, or any issues for that matter. Who knew that adobo and black beans could muster such ire?
Oh right, we did know after all the letter-writers equating a love of tacos, pupusas and pollo a al la brasa with glorifying illegal immigration crawled out of the woodwork after Gourmet published its September 2007 Latin American food issue.
I love a nice bowl of tripe-laden menudo and grilled intestines (Argentine a la parilla or Sichuan chong qing, preferably) as much as the next gal, so I’m not exactly complaining about how out of nowhere three blogs have taken up the offal cause. Is it the economy forcing us to take a closer look at cast offs or has nose to tail eating reached a tipping point?
Fork in the Road: Organ Recital
To date, they have eight entries focusing on duck feet, tripe, sheep intestines and trotters, calves liver, pork cracklins, blood sausage, (specifically kiska), liver pudding and head cheese that started back on April 7. The focus is on where to find these delicacies around the city. Relevant to me, perhaps not the rest of the world.
Eat Me Daily: Offal of the Week
Logically helmed by the author of Nose to Tail at Home, one of those pesky cook the book blogs (has Julie & Julia paved the way for Ryan & Fergus?), this weekly series began April 10 and has quickly covered many classics: liver, trotters, sweetbreads, pig tail and ear, heart, marrow, tongue, kidney, brains, blood and tripe. Each entry includes a bit of history, personal experience and links to recipes.
Serious Eats: The Nasty Bits
So far they only have one entry dated June 29 about lamb’s neck stew and a simple accompanying recipe from The River Cottage Cookbook. I will have to reserve my judgment until I have more to go on.
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
Forget all this dude cooks like a lady gender in restaurant kitchens business. What about eating like a girl? I was bemused to note that in Ed Levine's recap of a recent Bay Area excursion, he mentions throwing out Bi-Rite Creamery ice cream”
"I ordered a large cup with scoops of salted caramel, roasted banana, malted vanilla, and some hot fudge. It was insanely, seriously delicious, rich and creamy, and vividly flavored. It took all the self-control I could muster to throw most of it out."
How girly of him. Or not.
I've always found the concept of normal eating totally confusing, meaning that I don't know what normal is. And food blogs have only added to my uncertainty. I've always associated behavior like throwing food in the trash or sprinkling Drano on irresistibles with bingey (maybe purgey) women…and possibly Frank Bruni, which I’m sure we'll learn all about in his memoir. I'm still disturbed by a scene in Heroes from seasons ago where The Cheerleader makes a big batch of cupcakes with her mom, and then they throw them out. Seriously? People do that? Who does that benefit except freegans?
I just can't throw good food away or not take substantial leftovers to go (I was kind of shocked yet happy to see a waiter at Kevin's during my rare brunch foray, asking a customer if he wanted his food wrapped up. It was seriously like three bites of blueberry pancake. And the guy said yes.) and maybe that's what's keeping me from losing those 13 pounds that will get me to my "goal" weight (not my goal, but BMI standards) a number I haven't been since my teens. Clearly, tossing non-essential food is working for Ed. I see the benefits of strictness and self-discipline but it's tough. Me, I wouldn't have ordered an ice cream in the first place, knowing I shouldn't eat the whole thing.
Then I get all conflicted when I read many food blog maintained by young women, that give the impression they eat junk food, rich fatty food and/or sweets every day (then again, people think I eat out every day because I blog, when realistically I only go to restaurants maybe twice a week). I'm genuinely curious if they eat whole portions, if they share or if they throw a bunch in the trash. Maybe it's simply the difference between mid-20s and mid-30s, a decade ago I ate whatever I felt like too (um, and maybe that's why I have troubles now). I'm not supposed to eat sugar at all, though I do drink alcohol and splurge on sweets every couple weeks (Amish sticky buns and gelato in Philadelphia two weekends ago), and maybe that's why I'm so hyper-attuned to the eating habits of others. Because I’m freaking sugar deprived. I had to turn down mini Crumbs cupcakes at work today and it pained me despite my scorn for the whole tired cupcake trend. I'd eat Crack Pie and Concretes (I've still never been to Shake Shack) on regular basis if I could. And no, I wouldn't throw one bite in the garbage.
Write what you know? How about write what you hate? It’s not really fair to say you don’t like something if you haven’t even done it, but sometimes scorn is contagious and irresistible. At least to me. So, this Saturday I vowed to be open minded and actually experience popular food-related activities before making any judgments. Opposite Day wasn’t really that painful.
Brunching and trying Stumptown coffee would be easy to accomplish at the same time in 11231. I feel like I cheated a little bit because instead of heading into the maw of the beast, a.k.a. Smith Street, or just walking the three blocks to Prime Meats, we drove to Kevin’s in Red Hook. A true Opposite Day would involve biking the short distance but procuring a new means of transport was too much on short notice. Oh, if I were doing this full force I would’ve found a venue with sidewalk seating, that’s the worst. I’ll sit in a backyard if it’s not crazy hot and humid but there’s nothing less appetizing than dining all exposed on an NYC sidewalk.
Kevin’s was suspiciously mellow, just a few occupied tables, a same sex couple, single diners, not a stroller in sight, completely trauma-free. I never ever go out to breakfast or brunch because I don’t like getting up early, and yes, to me being somewhere at noon is getting up early. If I truly wanted to experience what I think I loathe I would’ve woken up around 8am and walked a dog, gone for a run and/or bike ride. None of those things will ever happen (I’ll jog, but only indoors). Other non-food related activities that are likely to never happen: yoga, mani/pedi, paying to have my laundry done and bikini waxing.
A rich cheddar cheese and bacon-filled omelet was just what I needed. The bacon was soft and fatty, which I prefer, but if you like crunchy doneness you might be disappointed. The toast was buttered within an inch of its life, soaked through and through. The potatoes were ok, though I’d like a little more char on the edges. I would never cook food like this for myself in the morning, but I do appreciate the break from my dull weekday packet of oatmeal or Kashi bar.
I’m by no means a coffee connoisseur, despite how it may appear Northwesterners are not born with an exacting coffee palate, I drink a pre-ground brew from Trader Joe’s. I was expecting this coffee to be stronger, however it was subtle, low in acidity and very smooth. I wouldn’t say there was anything unique about the coffee but the large pot for $5 seemed fair. It turns out I don’t really have any problems with Stumptown or brunch as long as they are consumed a non-populous neighborhood.
Next stop, the Grand Army Plaza greenmarket. Rationally, I don’t issues with fresh produce and meat from humanely raised animals. I just don’t like crowds and I happen to be very cheap. For a little over $30 I picked up random odds and ends that included: pea shoots, snap peas, sourdough bread, Cato Corner Farm Hooligan cheese, half a dozen eggs, half a chicken, mesclun, peppermint. It was ok, and definitely didn’t kill me but I doubt I’ll be back any time soon. I am trying to look happy in my photo but I'm not sure if I'm succeeding.
My original plan was to go to Hapa Kitchen at BKLYN Yard, which is completely walkable from my apartment. Asian female food bloggers cooking greenmarket sourced food, the Treats Truck and DJs? Can it get any more Brooklyn? No. And I took a pass.
I fully embraced the speakeasy experience, though. Well, sort of. I think I was probably cheating again because I went to Dutch Kills, in the still no-man’s-land of Long Island City. Oh, and at 8pm so there were only two other groups of people and everything was running smoothly, lots of personal attention.
First I tried one of the chalkboard specials, the Water Lily. I will always try something using Crème de Violet, partially because I like the pretty lavender hue (which this didn’t have). The main liquor was gin and I think there was also Lillet and lemon involved.
Next, I asked for something citrusy (I prefer sour over sweet drinks) that uses Peychaud’s Bitters and was given a Pendennis Club, a riff on the Pegu Club that was made from lime juice, gin, apricot brandy, bitters and sugar syrup. It certainly looked girly with its rosy hue but the bitters keep the drink from heading into Sweet Tarts candy territory.
One more, I requested, “something like a whisky sour” and received my favorite of the night, a Silver Lining (rye, Licor 43, lemon juice, egg white and club soda). I love frothy egg white-topped drinks and the fruity-vanilla flavor of the Licor 43 was soft and creamy. I don’t know why vanilla, like pineapple or coconut, seem to make a cocktail seem trashy, there’s nothing wrong with any of those ingredients if they’re balanced. You never see a sophisticated bar using coconut or pineapple, though. Maybe I should ask, or better yet insist on Kahlua, and see what kind of reaction I’d get. (Ok, weird, a New York Times article on coconut cocktails just showed up in my feeds.) Here’s a Silver Lining recipe if you want to try one at home.
I can deal with $9 non-crappy cocktails, the going rate at Dutch Kills, because you can experiment a bit. Yes, they’re all dead serious about the ice cubes, the foam, the pomaded hair and dress suspenders, and old-timey vibe…and it didn’t bother me in the least. It might’ve though if I was paying $12+ and had to wait in line to get in. Go Queens!
Er, or not. After 10pm Opposite Day went off the rails. I took it upon myself to check out the new 18,000 square foot beer garden, Studio Square, in the same general area. This wasn’t Opposite Day material because I would drink beer and eat pretzels outdoors with no prompting. Yet, I was shocked at the mob scene and gruesome clientele. Maybe I’d spent too much time in the rarified dark woody interior of Dutch Kills, but yeah, this was a serious Queensy crowd, tanned, loud and in their twenties. The only bust of the day. I waited the snaking line to use the bathroom, then we left.
Starving after three cocktails on a now-empty stomach that hadn’t seen a thing since brunch ten hours earlier, food was a must. Roosevelt Avenue is a treasure trove but a startling number of restaurants close by 11pm. I started getting panicky and cranky, very much Normal Day not Opposite Day. James wanted to try Jollibee, but they were closing in ten minutes so he ran in and got two Aloha burgers to go. These we saved for Sunday. Now it’s Sunday and I’ve eaten mine (no, I'm not bothered by day-old fast food) so I can say that yes, I do love a pineapple ring on a cheeseburger. Pineapple seems to be a running theme.
Still with burgers in mind, we knew bars would still be serving food and headed up to the Irish part of Woodside and got a pint of Bass and an always awesome cheeseburger at Donovan’s. I hate steak fries, Opposite Day won’t change that, but the medium-rare burger was juicy and perfect with a gril-marked bun and two just-beginning-to-melt slices of American cheese on top and bottom. Donovan’s totally saved the night.
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.
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.
Photograph from schmuela on Flickr
No follower of the pastry scene, modern or historic, I wasn’t familiar with Austria’s iconic Demel until reading (ok, skimming) an article in the latest Saveur.
Now I know what the Frankie’s Spuntino Franks were referring to in their description of Café Pedlar, scheduled to open Wednesday.
Ignoring the superfluous apostrophe S for now, isn’t that a bit of hubris? I was beginning to soften on all those Brooklyn culinary artisans but what would make someone whose success has come from home-style Italian food believe that mastering Viennese pastry arts would be the next step?
Maybe I just limit myself with a chronic lack of healthy NYC-style confidence (and funding for pies in the sky). Why not just go for it? I have no formal Chinese culinary training but wouldn’t it be cool if I opened up a peking duck shop? I’m sure I could figure out how to source plump fowl, do that thing where you blow air between the skin and flesh, build a brick oven. Sure, I should apprentice with a master first, but my one beginner Mandarin class wouldn’t get me far.
Eh, who cares? There’s no limiting my desire to provide peking duck to South Brooklyn. It’ll be like a little Quanjude’s.
Linen Theme by The Theme Foundry
Copyright © 2025 . All rights reserved.
Follow
