Entries tagged with 'obituaries'
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It's a sad day for D.C. residents and half-smoke lovers everywhere: Ben Ali, co-founder of landmark greasy spoon Ben's Chili Bowl, passed away last night. As DCist points out, "the chili, half-smokes, cheese fries and shakes that have made Ben's Chili Bowl famous since it opened in 1958 are still prepared the same way today as they were when Ben first started."...
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Irving Penn, "Frozen Food (with String Beans)" 1977. Photographer Irving Penn died yesterday morning in New York City, where he lived and worked. Though Penn became widely known at first for his fashion photography for Vogue magazine starting in the 1940s, he later gained entry to the fine-art world with his striking still lifes of cigarette butts, sidewalk detritus, and animal skulls. But perhaps the one image I think of almost immediately upon hearing Penn's name is this 1977 photograph, "Frozen Food (with String Beans)," which lends the icy blocks of fruits and vegetables a certain elegance you'd never imagine they'd have. Every time I open my freezer and see a package of frozen vegetables sitting there, I imagine...
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"She introduced me and millions of others to capers and balsamic vinegar and crème fraîche." Julia Moskin has a pretty good obituary about The Sliver Palate's Sheila Lukins in today's New York Times. What is your favorite Silver Palate recipe? Mine is her puréed broccoli with creme fraiche, which my wife just loves. I can't say I knew Shelia well. I would see her at parties and restaurants and exchange small talk. But when we first met, I told her my wife and I still used the Silver Palate cookbooks on many occasions, especially when having company over for big meals like Thanksgiving. She seemed to appreciate that, though I'm sure she had heard it a million times from people....
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How much of a serious eater was Brass? Well, some of you might remember this photo of Brass doing the dishes at our friends' house in Connecticut. Brass obviously hated to see one single morsel of seriously delicious food go to waste, so he became the first dog we had ever seen volunteer to do the dishes.
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We were sad to hear about the passing of Michael Jackson today. After learning about his cardiac arrest, only to find his death confirmed shortly thereafter, we listened to some of the pop king's hits and found this video of him organizing a food fight after filming Black or White, a short early 1990s film inspired by the hit single. Jackson wanted to pay the director John Landis some thanks for all his hard work throughout the taping, and clearly pie projectiles were the best way to do that. Jackson and a young Macaulay Culkin (also in Black or White) planted stink bombs in the pies, which were all lined up on a very long table, and had Super...
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Will van Overbeek/Houston Press Matt Martinez Jr., the "King of Tex-Mex," died on Friday. He was 63. Martinez and his family owned the Dallas restaurants Matt's Rancho Martinez and Matt's No Place as well as a stake in Matt's El Rancho in Austin, the restaurant his father founded. Robb Walsh, on his embrace of the term: Matt Jr. was attending a cooking class taught by Englishwoman Diana Kennedy, who spoke derisively of Americanized Mexican food."She said she only did authentic Mexican food, not Tex-Mex," Martinez fumed in the introduction to his book [Matt Martinez's Culinary Frontier]. "I was so insulted." To defy Kennedy and those who belittled his heritage, he decided to abandon any claim to "authentic Mexican" and...
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Creative Commons In memory of the amazingly prolific writer and critic John Updike, here are some favorite lines from a piece he wrote for the New Yorker last year on one man's satisfaction glugging down a glass of water each night: The bliss goes back, I suppose, to moments of thirst satisfied in my childhood, five states to the south of this one, where there were public drinking fountains in all the municipal buildings and department stores, and luncheonettes would put glasses of ice water on the table without your having to ask, and drugstores served Alka-Seltzer up at the soda fountain to cure whatever ailed you, from hangover to hives....
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Photograph from vnoel on Flickr In 1971, Mahmut Aygün became the patron saint of drunken sustenance. The Turkish immigrant birthed the beautiful concept of pita-swaddled street meat at the “City Imbiss” snack shop in West Berlin. But at the age of 87, after battling cancer, Aygün has died. We've already seen one man this week touch so many, but Aygün was a less-celebrated figure of hope—hope of a fuller stomach and diminished hangover the next morning. Rest in peace, buddy. This squirt of yogurt sauce goes out to you. Related: Cooking with Kids: Toy Doner Kebab...
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It is with sadness that I write these words. Ricardo Montalban died this morning at his home in Los Angeles. He was 88. I have fond memories of Mr. Montalban's work—Fantasy Island, where he played the suave Mr. Roarke; Star Trek, where he brilliantly played the villian Khan ("KHANNNNN!"); and—who could forget?—all those commercials in which he touted the "rich Corinthian leather" of the Chrysler Cordoba. He also did a commercial for Maxwell House Coffee, which, of course, is overshadowed by his greater roles. But we thought we'd take you down memory lane with it. It appears after the jump. And we found a small bit in the 1953 movie Sombrero, the first part of which has several food references....
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Continuing The Year That Was with a remembrance of some wonderful people who left us in 2008. Sadly, we said goodbye to some wonderful folks in 2008: Jean-Claude Vrinat, Herb Peterson, Robert Mondavi, Frederic J. Baur, George Carlin, Sherry Cermak, Bernie Mac, Isaac Hayes, Don LaFontaine, David Foster Wallace, Robert Steinberg, Paul Newman, Carmen Rocha, Lou Dorfsman, Briana Brownlow....
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