The Village Voice's Nina Lalli on our very own head honcho, Ed Levine: "When we asked him to paint us a picture of his perfect last meal, we weren't surprised not to hear the words "foie" and "sous vide." But we wonder whether, in his giddiness, he just forgot to include bacon and pastrami." Ed Levine's Last Meal calls for the cosmic oneness of perfect fried chicken.... More

Yesterday we linked to Michael Ruhlman's response to Anthony Bourdain's Food Network rant, today we point you both to the return of serve from New York Magazine's Josh Ozersky in defense of Rachael Ray: "We don’t think this mandarin hauteur has any intellectual basis. Aside from the fact that it is unbecoming for a privileged and educated man to sneer at his own countrypeople, even by the standards of practical gastronomy his complaint doesn’t hold water. Rachael Ray and Sandra Lee are culinary lightweights, as they would be the first to admit, but they’re a product of — and engine for — people’s love for food. (...) For an amateur, taking tips from Rachael Ray is no less legitimate than... More