Pretzels, strawberries, and bananas do their share of bathing in chocolate, but bacon? These indulgent strips are a new item at Marini's Candies in Santa Cruz, California, brought to our attention by Serious Eater Fast Food Critic. Do we consider this pushing bacon's limits? Or accentuating its beauty?
Yet another sign that bacon is taking over the world.
We are plagued by water hang-ups: bottled water obsessing, bottled water loathing, and recently, fees for filtered tap water. Eater SF reports that Millennium Restaurant in Nob Hill will soon charge guests a buck for water filtered through a nifty Natura carbon and UV filter.
In case you're wondering where that dollar is going, Millennium Restaurant explains that it's for fancy filters, visits from water filter technicians, and the UV lightbulb maintenance.
When you spend twenty bucks on beautiful restaurant scallops, only a fraction of that money actually goes to the food cost. There's labor, rent, and that classy plate on which your scallops lie. Not to mention last week's emergency dishwasher repair, the air conditioning, and the linen service that delivers napkins to the restaurant. (But you don't need to hear all that; the bill will suffice.)
This charge applies the same philosophy; but is it fair for water? Should Millennium Restaurant just eat the cost? Er, drink.
Boccalone Salumeria in San Francisco makes their proscuitto cotto with provolone panini out of an inverted baguette, allowing the tender inner part of the bread to get crisp and creating "more textural interest with its chewy crust melded to the melted cheese." Like I needed even more reason to want to eat a sandwich filled with thinly sliced pork and molten cheese. [via Eater SF]
Related
In Videos: Chris Cosentino at 'Boccalone'
A Bicycle Built for Sausage
Because a majority of my food comes from the farmers market, I am often tied to the schedule of farmers markets around the Bay Area. I missed my home market twice in a row due to scheduling conflicts in recent weeks, but I made up for it by visiting the brand-new Divisadero Farmers Market and the Napa Farmers Market. I was in Napa for the unbelievably great Taste3 Conference and snuck out between speakers to visit the small, but extremely friendly and adequate, downtown market.
Cruising the markets, I noticed a proliferation of plum and apricot-like stone fruits: pluots, plumcots, apriums, plums, and apricots. It wasn't until I came home and perused the Internet that I figured out the differences. Pluots and plumcots are the same—a hybrid mix of a plum and an apricot—but the pluot is a trademarked version of a plumcot. They tend to resemble plums more than apricots and are usually sweeter than traditional plums. Apriums are a hybrid between plums and apricots that are more like apricots than plums. For a more specific history of plumcots, pluots, and apriums, check out this article from SFist.
Corn from Underwood Family Farms
Weaving your way through the crowd at the Hollywood Farmers' Market most Sundays takes an athlete's focus and precision. It's hard to pull your gaze away from the teeming piles of Santa Rosa plums, citrine-colored nectarines, and beckoning un-husked corn that line Ivar and Selma Avenues long enough to watch where you're going. And watch you must—the traffic is like a pedestrian version of the 405 at rush hour, complete with Mercedes-like strollers and impatient drivers. Started 17 years ago by Sustainable Economic Enterprises of Los Angeles (SEE-LA) the Hollywood Farmers' Market has grown from 25 stalls to include approximately 90 farmers, as well as artisans and food vendors. SEE-LA also operates smaller markets in the city including ones in Echo Park and Atwater Village.
Santa Rosa plums.
Summer is raging full-throttle here, unfettered by clouds (or cooling breezes, unfortunately) with the mercury holding in 90s, which makes the refreshing array of fruits particularly appealing. The peaches, nectarines, pluots, apricots, and plums that had just begun to hit the stands when I wrote in the beginning of June are now ubiquitous. Yellow and red raspberries like those available from Nipomo's Pudwill Farms are sweet and tart and perfect out of hand, on yogurt or in any number of summer desserts. The blueberries from Underwood Family Farms in Somis are firm and flavorful. Cathy Dominguez, who was working the stall today, also mentioned that blueberry lovers can pick their own Pacific Blues out in Somis for a couple more weeks.
Los Angeles residents can get their freshly roasted coffee fix at the recently opened Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea. How do you know it's good? The head of research and development at Intelligentsia, Kyle Glanville, won the 2008 US Barista Championship, if that means anything. Just watching this video tour of their coffee bean stash and roasting process may not be enough to keep you alert, but coffee lovers may drool a little. Check out the video after the jump.
Blackberry sorbet made with blackberries from Burkart Organics.
For a former New Yorker there's a lot to get used to about Southern California life. For the first eight years I lived here I felt like a winter kale wilting in the summer sun. It took leaving and moving all over the country before I figured out that there's something truly special about Southern California. Rest assured it's not Lindsay Lohan.
While to most people California is a postcard of beaches and palms trees, much of the Golden State is actually farmland, a fact that is reflected by the more than 50 certified farmers' markets in Los Angeles County alone. Perhaps the most famous of these markets is the one held on Wednesdays in downtown Santa Monica, where you can spot the city's top chefs picking through dandelion greens and squash blossoms.
Pigs from Clark Summit Farm.
You may know about community-supported agriculture (CSA) dedicated to providing locally grown produce, but how about locally raised meat? San Francisco Chronicle reports on the meat CSAs of the Bay Area that provide households with "monthly boxes of steaks, stew meat, pork loins, lamb chops, whole chickens and sometimes goat, all raised by Northern California farmers and ranchers, mainly on grass." If you're interested in joining a meat CSA, you can sign up through these websites:
If you live in San Francisco and love cupcakes, make sure to attend Cupcake Camp this Sunday at Citizen Space. You can bring in homemade cupcakes, buy them at a bakery, or just eat them. There will also be a competition to determine which cupcakes are the best. Check out more details at Upcoming.org and prepare yourself for an afternoon of cupcake gorging and sugar comas.
Photo of the Day: Robot Cupcakes
Super Mario Cupcakes
How to Eat Cupcakes
Photo of the Day: Vampire Cupcakes
Reason.tv host Drew Carey takes a look at the illegal bacon hot dog trade in downtown Los Angeles. Selling bacon dogs without county-approved equipment can result in fines and jail time for vendors, creating an illicit black-market trade by unlicensed vendors. Video after the jump.
When it comes to living an environmentally friendly lifestyle, the consumption of spirits & cocktails is a definite bump in the road. But as Jonathan Miles wrote in last Sunday’s New York Times, there are a few bars and bartenders who are trying to step lightly when wielding the cocktail shaker.
Miles covered Bar 44 in Manhattan, which is trying to reduce its environmental impact by using regional ingredients for some drinks, including a micro-distilled gin made from organic ingredients in Philadelphia. But Bar 44 isn’t alone; in San Francisco there’s Elixir, certified green by the city and serving drinks made with organic spirits and mixers in energy-efficient surroundings. And like Bar 44 and Elixir, many establishments, especially on the West Coast, are sourcing fruits and herbs for their cocktails from local farms.
Los Angeles District-1 County Supervisor Gloria Molina is not on great terms with her cilantro-loving community right now—they've rallied against her proposed elimination of taco trucks. New rules require mobile taquerias to actually be mobile, moving at least every hour, or else they'll run the risk of a $1,000 fine and six-month jail sentence. No more walking up to the same street corner to sniff the same meaty smoke clouds. Your friendly carne asada dealer might be a few blocks away. Why all the hate for a vehicle hawking folded maize pockets of deliciousness?
We asked Taco Bandini of the popular L.A.-based blog The Great Taco Hunt, who has been documenting and scoring taco experiences on his five-point scale since 2005, for his opinion on the street food mood swings.
Does the name Rosscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles in Chicago sound a little too similar to that of the long established Roscoe's House of Chicken 'n Waffles in Los Angeles? Just a tad, perhaps. Besides the extra "s," other similarities include their logo designs and names of their menu items. The Chicago Tribune says that the original Roscoe's is sueing the Chicago imitator and gives some of the history behind the chicken and waffle restaurant.
No babies were harmed in the recovery of this burrito. [via photobasement]
San Franciscans, get Funk N Chunk to cater your next backyard barbecue and not only will you have bourbon coffee pulled pork, stuffed Niman Ranch steaks, fresh local oysters, corn-on-the-cob, and more to stuff your belly with, but also an endless stream of hip-hop funk from live DJs to help ease the digestion. A funk-less barbecue would just be wrong. [via SFoodie]
This video really made my day. Improv Everywhere, which stages synchronized outbursts of surrealist performance art, recently organized a musical in the food court of a Los Angeles shopping mall:
We used wireless microphones to amplify the vocal performances and mix them together with the music through the mall’s PA system. We filmed the mission with hidden cameras, mostly behind two-way mirrors. Apart from our performers, no one in the food court was aware of what was happening.
Link: Food Court Musical
"Is San Francisco ready to embrace technique-based cooking?" the blog Gastronomie asks. "Ours has long been a culture of ingredient-driven food, and with good reason—just stop in at any farmers' market and you can see why. But in that process, we've effectively denied our restaurant kitchens the opportunity to develop and cultivate the use of creative techniques, styles, and flavors."
Photograph courtesy of Peter Costantinidis
With about a dozen banquette seats sandwiched between flame-red walls, and with just as many hot chocolate flavors (American-style dark chocolate, Venezuelan chile spice, coconut curry, Chinese five-spice, passion fruit, raspberry, citrus, peanut butter, hazelnut, mint, mocha, and espresso), the new Christopher Elbow Artisanal Chocolate shop is open for business in San Francisco's Hayes Valley. Christopher Elbow flew in from his home base in Kansas City, Missouri, to open the doors just nine days before Valentine's Day, with a lineup featuring his signature Peanut Praline with Pop Rocks bon bon and a special-edition Absinthe Ganache candy, named for the restaurant across the street.
At Caltech's recent Olive Oil Festival volunteers picked olives from the campus's 130 olive trees, most of which were sent to the Santa Barbara Olive Company for pressing. The remaining olives were crushed on campus using a human-powered device invented by Ricky Jones and Dvin Adalian, the students who garnered attention for pressing oil from the school's olives last year.
Tableau Vivante took photos of the festival, including the crushing machine, accompanying olive-centric dinner, and freshly picked olives. Check out more photos in the accompanying flickr set. [via Tastespotting]
Need to find a taco truck in California? Yumtaco.com is your answer. A handy Google map of a hundred or so trucks from Northern California to Southern.
The folks behind New York's restaurant-obsessed blog Eater have planted a flag in San Francisco with Eater SF:
It's taken us a while a to get here, in part because, we'll be frank, San Francisco is a serious place when it comes to restaurants. We don't half-ass the eating here, so we didn't want to half-ass Eater either. (So, for those that have been waiting, we thank you for your patience.)
The site's editor is Paolo Lucchesi, who, it seems until recently, served as editor of Menupages SF. Eater SF follows the debut earlier this year of Eater LA.
Good luck, break a leg, and bon appétit!
Don't blame us, say U.S. ethanol makers, in response to the high price of food. [Washington Post]
Meanwhile, European food prices surge, too. [Reuters]
A new foot-and-mouth scare in England. [The Telegraph]
French couple raises the country's only certified-organic snails. Vive le free-range escargot! [The Telegraph]
In Japan, fast-food chains jump on the trans-fat–banning bandwagon. [Asahi Shimbun]
And China and the U.S. reach a food-safety agreement while Chinese officials plan to use GPS to track and safeguard Olympic food shipments. [Voice of America; AP]
Back to the U.S., and there are more recalls on canned food. This time it's green beans. [Detroit Free Press]
File under "obvious": For pre-schoolers, flashy packaging more important than flavor. [Fox News]
Your RDA of Levity: A mountaintop hot dog cart celebrates its 25th year in business at the junction of California highways 9 and 35: "[John] Hagen [pictured] works seven days a week and said his constancy has earned him the endearing nickname of 'mustard' from family, friends and customers."
Two of San Francisco's glossy local magazines, 7x7 and San Francisco, published their food issues this month, and you'll find plenty of culinary spots to try (or rediscover) among the pages.
San Francisco offers a trio of diversions: Writer Josh Sens describes the most sublime tastes he's experienced in the past year. Then, a more dire piece on how new San Francisco legislation is making the restaurant business harder than ever.
Finally, you'll find the obligatory reader picks roster, which runs down the top three selections in traditional categories such as "Best restaurant," "Best new restaurant," "Best cheap restaurant," as well as only-in-California "Best eco-friendly restaurant" and only in 2007 "Best white-linen hamburger." The picks look solid, judging from what I know, what I've heard, and the general buzz around town. Perhaps a little bit of a surprise stand-out, tiny Mission eatery Maverick won mentions in both the "Best weekend brunch" and "Best restaurant" categories. Must be the fried chicken.
A head-to-tail dinner thrown at San Francisco's Incanto by chef Chris Cosentino was documented in glorious multimedia detail on Hungry Magazine by Michael Harlan Turkell. The children of Fergus Henderson (the original head-to-tail chef) are popping up at restaurants all over Europe and the U.S., and, from our vantage point, that is indeed a good thing.
The San Francisco Chronicle's Sunday Magazine cover piece on women chefs is available online, as is a video round-table discussion with chefs Traci Des Jardins (Jardiniere), Nancy Oakes (Boulevard), and Loretta Keller (CoCo 500), as well as authors Ann Cooper ("A Women's Place is in the Kitchen") and Joyce Goldstein ("The Mediterranean Kitchen").
If you're a fan of ruminating over the differences between men and women in the kitchen, you'll definitely find something here to chew on.
Salinas Street Food [Google Maps]
More news of street food under attack. The roving taco trucks of Salinas, California, are in the crosshairs:
Citing safety and health concerns, along with cries of "unfair competition" from brick and mortar restaurants in the area, the City of Salinas is considering an outright ban on "mobile vendors" or a severe restriction on their business. In January, the city set a cap on the vendor permits at the current count of 31 and no new permits will be issued causing a gradual fade-out of taco trucks in Salinas. Next week, an as-of-yet unpublicized proposal is scheduled to go before the city council that will further restrict the taco trucks. The proposal could include possible time restrictions instructing taco trucks to only operate between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m., could require that the vendors move their trucks every 15 minutes to one hour, or could cause taco trucks to have to move off of public streets and on to private property zoned for the business.
The image above comes from a Google map listing the city's trucks, the recommended dishes at each, and the vehicle's route, where known.
California, long used to exporting fruit, is buzzing about a certain import: mangoes from India have arrived in SoCal. And blogger (and Serious Eater) Marvin has a great comparison, in words and pictures, between regular Mexican-grown variety and the Kesar mangoes from more distant lands. The imports are more than three times as pricey. Marvin's advice:
You should also find some buddies who are mad for mangoes and go in on a case with them, that way it's cheaper. My wife and I will probably eat one or two more of the dozen that I bought, and I will probably give the rest of them to my parents, who enjoy eating mangoes with white rice -- a simple, tasty, and very Filipino preparation.
Bonus: An '80s flashback courtesy of The Last Dragon.
Remember the story from early last month about the high cost of culinary school? How cooking schools were being accused of playing up the celebrity chef thing to attract students? How those folks were graduating into a field whose starting salaries often aren't enough to pay off student loans?
There's another, longer, more depressing story in SF Weekly about that topic, and this one talks to two former admissions counselors who describe the questionable practices they were told to use:
... the admissions counselors tried to make the program seem worth its exorbitant price tag by giving students the impression that the school was selective. "We were advised to tell the students that because it's such a prestigious school, Cordon Bleu recognized, yadda yadda, you have to tell me why you should be accepted," [said former admissions rep Jennifer D'Ambrosio].
The article is equal parts hard-luck story mixed with the peculiar history of the CCA, and details how the school's once-prestigious reputation has been tarnished by a sale to a for-profit education corporation and the subsequent quadrupling of enrollment.
Google maps + donuts = this.
Bruni also failed to mention the place mats at Mozza. One is an attempt to teach the unwitting Mozza customer how to speak Italian in seven not-so-easy hand motions, as this video shows.
Frank Bruni weighs in on the Mozza phenomenon today, but he's just a little late to the party. Serious Eats was on it in January. I do appreciate the butterscotch budino recipe, which is one of the best desserts I have had in years. If you do go to Mozza, have the gelati as well for dessert. You won't be disappointed. This is Nancy Silverton's restaurant we're talking about here. She is merely (for my money at least) the greatest pastry chef in America.
Large supermarkets and pharmacies will have to use cornstarch-based plastic bags or recyclable paper ones:
Under the legislation, which passed 10-1 in the first of two votes, large markets and pharmacies will have the option of using compostable bags made of corn starch or bags made of recyclable paper. San Francisco will join a number of countries, such as Ireland, that already have outlawed plastic bags or have levied a tax on them. Final passage of the legislation is expected at the [Board of Supervisors] next scheduled meeting, and the mayor is expected to sign it.
The pink plastic bags seen around Chinatown are safe for now.
In response to the success both Burger King and Carl's Jr have had with their Angus burgers in recent years, McDonald's will be rolling out three new Angus burgers of their own next Monday to 600 restaurants in California as a test before possibly going national:
One of the creations McDonald's is debuting next week is the Angus Deluxe, a "backyard style" burger with crinkle-cut pickles and red ring-shaped onions, as opposed to chopped onions and flat pickles served on other burgers, Frisbie said.
A new sesame seed "bakery-style roll" was also developed for the burgers by Brea-based Fresh Start Bakeries Inc., a longtime bun supplier to McDonald's.
The other two burgers are mushroom and Swiss cheese and a bacon cheeseburger. All three burgers sell for $3.99, on par with other fast-food chains featuring premium burgers and about $1.60 more than a Big Mac.
Winemaker Ernest Gallo passed away yesterday, at age 97. He and his brother Julio borrowed $5,900 and used a recipe from the Modesto Public Library to found the E.&J. Gallo Winery in 1933, turning a $30,000 profit in their first year and eventually becoming the world's largest wine company. "My brother Julio and I worked to improve the quality of wines from California and to put fine wine on American dinner tables at a price people could afford," Mr. Gallo told The Modesto Bee on his 90th birthday. "We also worked to improve the reputation of California wines here and overseas."
Fred Tasker of the Miami Herald on the long history of American wine's most influential brothers, Robert and Peter Mondavi: "Forty years after their legendary fistfight and breakup over how to run their father's winery, after decades of shunning each other while building separate wine empires five miles apart on Napa Valley's legendary Route 29, the two have reconciled. And this weekend, they will come together to accept lifetime achievement awards at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival."
The An family runs three restaurants in California: Thanh Long and Crustacean in San Francisco and another Crustacean in Beverly Hills. Each restaurant has a a Secret Kitchen, "a completely enclosed kitchen within the main kitchen, off limits to all employees except An Family members. Here, Chef Helene and the Ans prepare their secret family recipes: An's Famous Roasted Crab and Garlic Noodles. These dishes are the key to the restaurants' success." I'm sure the dishes are delicious, but is it just me or is the whole secret kitchen thing a little nutty?
Photograph by Adam Kuban, Serious Eats
Chinese New Year and the year of the pig according to the Chinese zodiac, begins this Sunday, February 18. Because Chinese New Year is tied to the lunar calendar, it falls on a different date every year, usually between January 19 and February 23. It begins on the second new moon after the winter solstice and ends 15 days later with the Lantern Festival. According to tradition, the celebration gets under way on New Year's Eve with a family dinner hosted at the eldest family member's home; it is considered the most important annual family tradition. Family members travel from near and far to attend. A family's given menu will vary by region, but here are some of the more popular dishes and their symbolism:
"The avocado industry says it's expecting football fans to buy 53 million pounds of Hass avocados this week for Super Bowl Sunday, rivaling Cinco de Mayo for the day of the year when the most guacamole is consumed. The question is, after January's big freeze, will growers be able to meet the demand?" The SF Chronicle says California growers will do okay despite losing about 25% to 30% of their harvest due to cold fronts, but their avocados will be available for raised prices to California consumers who will also have access this month to avocados from both Chile and Mexico.
Oh, and make sure to read all the way down to the end of the article for five guacamole recipes from Bay Area chefs—plus one from a SF Chronicle staffer, who created it with a childhood friend when she was 9.
I said as much in my longer piece in the Serious Eats features section, but the pizza pantheon definitely has a new member, Mozza in Los Angeles. Finally, the City of Angels has pizza worth a detour.
MORE TO CHEW ON
Pizzeria Mozza [official site]
Mozza's Pizza is NOT Pizza! [Chowhound.com]
The Greatest Pizza in the World (Maybe) [Serious Eats]
Week in Review, Part 2: Can't Stop the Mozza [Eater L.A.]
Hot spot? Mozza is on fire [L.A. Times; Grr: Registration required]
MORE EDIBLES
Quotations from Chairman Bruni [Tuesday, January 30, 2007]
Jamba Juice [Monday, January 29, 2007]
Sour Sunny Bears [Friday, January 26, 2007]
Scarfin' the Scharffen Berger [Thursday, January 25, 2007]
All Edibles
"I have seen rock and roll future" is how, many years ago, Jon Landau began his review of a Bruce Springsteen concert in Boston. (Interestingly enough, Landau went on to become Springsteen's manager—a position he still holds to this day.) Well, last week, I might have seen (and eaten) pizza future at Pizzeria Mozza in Los Angeles.
I don't say these kinds of things lightly. How could I when I share an office with fellow serious eater Adam Kuban, the creator of pizza blog Slice, when I'm the guy who ate a thousand pieces of pizza all over the United States and Italy researching my book, Pizza: A Slice of Heaven
We've already waxed melodic about how much we enjoy farmers who write.
Here's an expressive gem of an essay from Andy Griffin about hunting feral pigs in Carmel Valley.
"One day Jimmy watched the host take a whiff of cocaine, mount a polo pony, and chase a boar with a lance."
California proposes a bill to label cloned foods, which under current statutes can slip into the market incognito. Meat and milk from cloned livestock could reach the shelves by this spring, so senator Carole Migden argues that consumers have the right to know what they're eating.
I love the picture, especially the green mustache on the kid!
US Food Policy Blog gets into the meat of the matter here.
THE RUSSIAN TEA ROOM | New York
In New York magazine this week Adam Platt gives the new Russian Tea Room (150 West 57th Street, New York City; 212-581-7100) the gentle spanking it deserves. Best line: “…And I had to agree with the lady next to me when she declared that the buckwheat pilaf, which accompanied her decent portion of glazed duck, tasted like “my grandmother’s socks.” My question: Were those socks clean or dirty?
Rating: One star.
Conclusion: It’s a skip unless you feel like overspending to bathe in gilded nostalgia.
We asked our friends Jane and Michael Stern over at Roadfood.com to give us their top five hot dog picks. Here are their choices, with tasting notes.
SUPER DUPER WEENIE | 306 Black Rock Turnpike,
Fairfield CT 06430 [map]. 203-334-DOGS. superduperweenie.com
Formerly a mobile truck selling hot dogs by the side of the road, Super Duper Weenie is now a stationary restaurant with indoor seating. As you might suspect from its name, the house specialty is a hot dog. It is a firm-fleshed, locally-made weenie that is split and cooked on the grill until its outside gets a little crusty but the inside stays succulent. It is sandwiched in a lovely fresh-baked roll and adorned with utterly amazing condiments -- homemade condiments, including relish made from pickles that Chef Gary Zemora has himself made from cucumbers! The sauerkraut, the hot relish, the meat chili, the onion sauce are ALL made from scratch. (Gary used to be chef at the esteemed South Norwalk Italian restaurant Pasta Nostra. When his passion for hot dogs brought him to Super Duper Weenie about eight years ago, he lost none of that restaurant’s perfectionism.)
Non-dog lovers who find themselves at this jolly joint can get good hamburgers, a sausage and pepper sandwich on a Portuguese roll, a cheese steak, or a grilled chicken sandwich. Amazingly, S-D-W even accommodates vegetarians with a tuna salad sandwich or a veggie burger.
Whatever else you get, you must get French fries. These are beautiful, fresh cut twigs of potato that are utterly fresh from the fry-basket and made extra-delicious by a perfect sprinkle of salt AND pepper. Dine indoors at the always-crowded counter, where you cannot help but feel part of the counter-culture kibitzing that never ends; or choose a picnic table by the side of the eatery, which is also always crowded! Originally reviewed by Michael Stern on Roadfood.com
Last week saw the launch of Eater LA, sister site to NYC-based Eater. Hitting the ground running, the LA version has already rolled out many of the features that make the original so damn entertaining:
"Oh what a fun packed week we've had! Not only did we officially launch, but we gave you a taste of several good things to come, including The Dish, The Deathwatch, The Mail Bag, and now… drum roll please… Plywood Reports! With Plywood, we offer news on restaurants that haven't quite made it to their soft openings yet. Seen something brewing in your neighborhood? Email along your report; bonus points for attaching digital photos."
I devour writing about food much the same way a rescued frostbitten mountainclimber tears into his first meal on terra firma. And because I read many of the same publications over and over again I've come to know which writers I can trust about food. Adam Platt, Frank Bruni, Gael Greene, Ruth Reichl, and Alan Richman are all writers I read or have read regularly over the last ten years, so I know where they are coming from. I don't always agree with them, but I have come to know where they stand vis a vis my own point of view about food.
I read the Times Travel Section with relish this past Sunday from cover to cover. Mark Bittman is a writer, colleague, and casual friend whom I have eaten with a few times over the years, but I didn't find my experiences eating with Bittman necessary to know that I wanted to get on a plane immediately to eat the ham sandwich in Barcelona at Cafe Viena he described in his short piece. And if Bittman's decription wasn't enough to get me on the plane, the photo of all that beautiful patenegro tumbling out of that baguette did the trick.
Then I read Gregory's Dicum's piece on cheap eats in San Francisco. I have never heard of Dicum, but his writing made me pretty hungry. Then again almost anything makes me hungry. But since there was no little bio on Dicum, I had no way to make a judgement about whether I could trust his eating advice. So I googled Dicum, and it turned out he's written three books (one on coffee) and writes an online column for SF Gate. Dicum wrote about Delfina Pizzeria, one of the new chef-driven pizzerias that have cropped up in SF in the past year or two. My SF foodwriter friends have told me that Delfina is the least impressive (though by no means bad) of these new pizzerias (the others being Picco in Larkspur and Pizzaiola in Oakland). So I wondered just how reliable Dicum's eating advice is.
Finally, there was an interesting piece about Istanbul restaurants by Henry Shukman. His piece was very well written, and it once again made me hungry
Photo courtesy of The Great Taco Hunt
I don't know who Cindy Price is, but she wrote a great mouthwatering story in today's NY Times about her search for the ultimate taco along Route 1 between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Cindy hit 28 taquerias in five days. That's some serious taco eating. She started in LA, and hit my favorite taqueria there, El Taurino. El Taurino is a little scary (the last time I was there an armed guard kept watch over the dining room), but the tacos there are fantastic.
She headed up to Santa Barbara, where before she tried the late Julia Child's favorite taqueria, La Super Rica Taqueria, she posed the following question: "Do rich people eat tacos?" I actually think the question is a food rorschach test for rich folks. That is, if they don't eat tacos, they are only rich in a material sense. Anyone who doesn't eat tacos cannot be spiritually enriched.
But this is a question I would like everyone to ponder: "Do rich people eat tacos?"
In her story Cindy also mentioned the phenomenal taco blog
I'm exhausted. The night of the Beard Awards I end up hanging out at various after-parties until three in the morning. A couple of things I wanted to mention:
The Beard Awards were much more emotionally resonant this year because we dedicated them to New Orleans. The live music was great (for the first time), the recorded music they used to accompany the winners' stroll to the podium was all amazing old New Orleans r and b (think Louis Jordan's Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens), and the food (all from New Orleans chefs) at the reception was real, honest and soulful. I had way too much of Willie Mae Seaton's transcendent fried chicken, and I would have had seconds and probably thirds of Leah Chase's gumbo if I had the chance.
The Beard Awards are interesting for another reason. Unlike the Oscars and the Grammys, where admission is restricted to members, anyone willing plunk down the money can go to the Beard Awards. What you find if do spend the money is a pretty boring three hour ceremony punctuated by moments of real emotion, and a crowded reception in which you stand on-line for tasting plates of foods from a dozen or so chefs. But the fact that anyone can go means that real people get to hobknob with the greatest chefs in the country and the world. You can clink glasses with Thomas Keller or Tom Colichhio or Todd English.
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