Due to a red-wine-potato-pizza-pork-rhubarb-
ice-cream-chocolate-induced food coma last night, I neglected to write a real post before passing out cold in my snuggly warm bed.
In lieu of lip-smacking pictures, I am posting this because I thought it was so cool! If you don’t think it’s cool, then I don’t think we can be friends anymore.
Non-profit Panera cafe in St. Louis puts human nature to the test
Filed under Miscellaneous
Dear friends,
This weekend I’m taking off and I’m leaving my computer behind. I’ll be back on Tuesday with brilliant posts about Garbage Plates and sweet cheese Belgian waffles (you can hardly stand the wait, right?) but in the meantime I leave you with this list of things that I would be doing if I was staying in town this weekend. So…
Why Don’t You…
Get your drink on all sneaky-like at a speakeasy like Dutch Kills
(27-24 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City) or
Please Don’t Tell
(113 St. Marks Place).
Or, opening this weekend and offering free hot dogs (I said FREE HOT DOGS! Go people, go!) in the old East Side Company Bar space on the Lower East Side, Painkiller. 49 Essex Street at Grand Street
Take a culinary vacation from impending rain, use whatcha got, and pretend you’re in Australia while you eat Fairy Bread in bed whilst watching Young Einstein .
Feed your sweetheart little dollops of heaven via chopsticks at Blue Ribbon Sushi . 119 Sullivan Street
Watch Food, Inc. or Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations , both available instantly on your Netflix .
Bask in the lusciousness of a $26 pre-fixe lunch menu at Nougatine by Jean-Georges (1 Central Park West); none of the wallet strain, all of the succulent flavor that this famous French chef is known for.
Nurse your Sunday morning hangover with a stack of sour cream pancakes, heavy on the syrup, at Bubby’s (120 Hudson Street). Just don’t look too ragged. It’s a notorious celebrity hangout and you wouldn’t want to miss your chance to woo Justin Timberlake, now would you? Thought so.
Happy weekend, kiddies!
Filed under Chefs, Miscellaneous, New York Restaurants
I can’t help but be completely fascinated by all of the attention being placed on schools and school lunches lately. Michelle Obama is the biggest advocate with the White House Garden, followed closely by Jamie Oliver’s six-episode Food Revolution (all episodes available on Hulu right now!).
So while it’s still a year away from materializing, FoodCorps really, really excites me. A project of the National Farm to School Network, FoodCorps will focus on lending a hand to schools in need of assistance, in the form of lunch room aid, nutrition education, garden planting, and other tasks relating to bringing a healthier lifestyle to schools across the country. It’s in the same vein as AmeriCorps, which provides service to communities in need in the form of recent college graduates.
If I wasn’t so old, I’d join up myself but if you’re interested, keep your ears and eyes peeled for more info. You can join their mailing list here.
Filed under Miscellaneous
photo c/o MilkMadeIcecream.com
During the summers of my youth in lovely Rochester, NY few sounds brought greater joy to my little heart than the ringing bell of Skippy, the ice cream truck (was he called Skippy everywhere? Or is this another local word that I’m unaware of?). I remember begging for a dollar and then chasing that truck down the street, hoping for some sickly sweet frozen dessert that would promptly melt down my forearm because I ate so freaking slow.
Nowadays, there is an easier and way chicer way to have ice cream delivered to you, and it’s called MilkMade. This brilliant company will deliver handmade ice cream to your door, once a month for three months at the low, low price of $50 (I know, it seems a little steep but with flavors like Coffee and Donuts made with Crop to Cup‘s Uganda Bugisu coffee and REAL Doughnut Plant donuts, I’d say: worth it). Their focus is on using products from local companies and creating stellar combinations of flavors you won’t find in the grocery store.
If you’re outside their limited delivery area, you can also find them at the Greenpoint Food Market. The next market is May 22. See you there? That’s what I thought.
Filed under Miscellaneous
Allow me a completely self-indulgent moment to be a full-on geek. Last night I attended a poetry reading by one of my absolute favorite poets, Seamus Heaney. When he read this one aloud, I was immediately reminded of why I love to write, and why I specifically love to write about food. This poem is as much about food as it is about history and conquest, but like all poetry… the reader can take what he will. I promise, tomorrow I’ll be back to photos of sweet and/or cheesy goodness.
Today we feed our brains.
Oysters
by Seamus Heaney
Our shells clacked on the plates.
My tongue was a filling estuary,
My palate hung with starlight:
As I tasted the salty Pleiades
Orion dipped his foot into the water.
Alive and violated,
They lay on their bed of ice:
Bivalves: the split bulb
And philandering sigh of ocean
Millions of them ripped and shucked and scattered.
We had driven to that coast
Through flowers and limestone
And there we were, toasting friendship,
Laying down a perfect memory
In the cool of thatch and crockery.
Over the Alps, packed deep in hay and snow,
The Romans hauled their oysters south of Rome:
I saw damp panniers disgorge
The frond-lipped, brine-stung
Glut of privilege
And was angry that my trust could not repose
In the clear light, like poetry or freedom
Leaning in from sea. I ate the day
Deliberately, that its tang
Might quicken me all into verb, pure verb.
Filed under Miscellaneous
After the unbelievable support from WordPress on Monday, I got a surge of confidence. I am surely bound for stardom, either as the smaller, cuter, slightly-less-off-putting Guy Fieri (taste testing diners for a living? YES PLEASE) or as the smaller, cuter, slightly-less-off-putting Rachael Ray. Today my horoscope told me that I’d meet someone who would help further my career. And the Food Network happened to be filming a segment at the Treats Truck parked right near my office. I figured I’d bump into a producer, pitch my idea for the best new food show ever, and be on TV in a matter of weeks.
The Food Network's Adam Gertler filming a segment on 38th St and 5th Avenue in Manhattan
I’m not famous… yet… but it was cool to see them filming. And I figured, “Heck, while I’m already RIGHT by the Treats Truck… might as well give them some business.” I purchased the Kitchen Sink Crispy Square, which I have to say was SLIGHTLY disappointing. It tasted like there was peanut butter mixed into the marshmallows holding the crispies together, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but I think I was hoping for something like Momofuku Milk Bar‘s Compost Cookie, which has potato chips, coffee grounds, and probably some angel’s tears mixed in. It is heaven in cookie form. This crispy treat was “meh.” But lovely looking, no?
See the Whopper? Beautiful.
Filed under Chefs, Miscellaneous, New York Restaurants
I once knew a girl… we’ll call her… Laura. Yeah, Laura. Every once in awhile, Laura would get an insatiable craving for fried chicken. One day after high school she drove half an hour to the closest KFC and ate fried chicken all by herself because no one else wanted to join her. One time last winter she went to Popeye’s and ran the 8 blocks home because it was freezing outside and she didn’t want her chicken to get cold.
I know. She’s gross. Gross Laura.
When Laura saw this, she was neither intrigued nor tempted to visit a KFC to try it out. I believe her first reaction was to gag, then look away, then look back in utter disgusted fascination. WHO IS EATING THIS MESS DISGUISED AS A MEAL?! 32 grams of fat. 1380 mg of sodium. 540 calories. Somewhere Jamie Oliver is crying himself to sleep.
Sam Sifton’s review for the Times is perfect, and Eater’s creepster coverage of Sam Sifton eating the monstrosity is even better.
Filed under Miscellaneous
