Binaca, cologne, sweet nothings, and now skillets. Men have many tricks for seducing women, but the gastrosexual will braise pork and caramelize onions for his loved one. According to the Daily Mail, chefs such as Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver have boosted the macho-man appeal of culinary arts. Oliver even encourages women to refrain from bedroom activities if their special someone doesn't cook.
Posted by Adam Kuban, July 8, 2008 at 5:30 PM
Paul Boutin at the Valleywag blog is a man after my own heart. He's geeking out over the new words being added to Merriam-Webster's 2008 edition, due out September 1 (but online now), and got a sneak peek at "the 25 most populist of the new entries as a teaser." Among them:
edamame noun (1951) : immature green soybeans usu. in the pod
pescatarian noun (1993) : a vegetarian whose diet includes fish
phytonutrient n (1994) : a bioactive plant-derived compound (as resveratrol) associated with positive health effects
prosecco noun (1881) : a dry Italian sparkling wine
soju noun (1978) : Korean vodka distilled from rice
Related
Food Words for Thought: 'Locavore' as 2007's Word of the Year
Ms. Glaze, an American female chef working in a 3-star restaurant in Paris, gives the hilarious French lesson you never learned in high school: how to talk like a French chef. Just don't practice this lesson outside of the kitchen—it involves a lot of expletives. [via Elise]
The New Oxford American Dictionary has named locavore the 2007 Word of the Year. "Locavore" may be applied to people who choose to eat seasonal, locally grown foods, preferably within a 100-mile radius, instead of going to a supermarket to buy foods that have mostly been shipped from far away.
Posted by Robyn Lee, July 24, 2007 at 4:55 PM
The English translation of Chinese menus are sometimes straightforward (beef and broccoli, beef and snow peas, beef and [insert other vegetable]) but may also be very confusing and unintentionally obscene. To be on the safe side, brush up on your Chinese menu ordering skills at How to Order Chinese Food, where U.S. expat Ben Ross lists the the names of common Chinese characters with their English translations and gives their pronunciations in pinyin (numbers refer to tones). The dishes are helpfully organized by main ingredient and region of origin and most are accompanied by a photograph. The website is still in its infancy; if you have any suggestions, leave a comment on Ben's blog.
For a comprehensive guide to reading the characters on Chinese menus (not so much how to pronounce them), go to Mei Wah: How to Eat in Chinese.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, May 1, 2007 at 8:00 AM
Remember all the drama that ensued from Frank Bruni of the New York Times giving restauranteur Jeffrey Chodorow's steakhouse Kobe Club a zero-star, start-to-finish smackdown back in February?
Well, Chodorow's latest venture is in London—Suka, which serves Malaysian fusion cuisine created by the New York-based Zak Pelaccio of 5 Ninth and Fatty Crab—and this Sunday it received a review from the Observer's Jay Rayner that begins thusly:
"It takes a special kind of incompetence to create a restaurant with dysfunctional tables. At Suka, a new hipper-than-thou joint in London's Sanderson Hotel, which does to the noble culinary traditions of Malaysia what the Romans did to the Sabine women, they have managed it."
Ouch. Still no response on chod-o-blog, but maybe he'll buy a ad in the Observer first, just like last time? [via Gulfstream]
N.B. Suka means "to like" in Malay but, as you'd expect from a disyllabic word, means different things in other languages. In Polish, it means "bitch"; in Tagalog, it means either "vinegar" or "vomit" depending on pronunciation.
