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The Ten Most Recent Posts By Kristina

From Talk

The Shady Rest - Owensboro, KY

Posted by Kristina, May 13, 2006 at 6:06 PM

Owensboro, KY is a mini-BBQ mecca that we try to get to once every couple of years, and the Shady Rest is our favorite spot there. It's the type of place that the locals go to and is the least touristy out of all the already not so touristy Owensboro BBQ joints (except, of course, Moonlite BBQ).

Our last visit was a bittersweet one...

When we arrived it was dark so we didn’t notice the For Sale signs plastered all over the building. So we dined happily. Comfortable in our ignorance, we ate expertly smoked ribs and pork shoulder. Accompanied by mashed potatoes, mac-n-cheese, gray green beans, coleslaw, and burgoo—the smoked meats were as we had remembered them, except better.

Better, I think because, since our last visit, we have become better home BBQ’ers, eaten in such hallowed halls as Black’s, Central Market in Luling, and Smitty’s, as well as Carolina institutions like Allen & Son. And so with all that new experience in tow, you hope that your memories of greatness hold up, but it is easy to be skeptical. So when I took my first bite, I knew that I had nothing to worry about. We had never had the “sliced pork” before, usually opting for the spare ribs. Smoked Boston Butts are pulled into baseball sized hunks and drizzled with their pork dip. In my estimation this is how pork shoulder should be served up. The Pork Dip gets is name from the fact that this vinegar based dip receives a large amount of its flavor from pork drippings. The other glass bottles on the table contain ancient pieces of masking tape with faded print, “mutton” and “hot.” I’m still not sure what kind of animal drippings get mixed into the “hot,” but I suspect it’s a little bit of everything. All the dips come to your table warm and in varying shades of glistening murk. If Crayola made a crayon the color of this dip, it would be called “Spiced Grease.”

On the way out we took the opportunity to talk to the co-owner Frank Cecil about the For Sale signs. Turns out, he’s just ready to retire. Simple’s that. While he was sawing through a rack of spare ribs for us, we asked him if he thought he’d still be here in the summer. And while no one knows for sure, he thought there’d be a pretty good chance.

The Saturday before the Fourth of July is Frank’s annual BBQ Church Picnic. It’s apparently quite the event in Owensboro—it’s when all of the BBQ mavens come out to show off. A small group of us from Chicago are going to go down this year to join the festivities and hopefully get a chance to eat at the Shady Rest one last time.

1 Comment | Tags: Kentucky, Owensboro, The Shady Rest

The Ten Most Recent Comments By Kristina

From Serious Eats: New York

Why do the French Fries at Blue Smoke suck?

I'm usually too occupied with the hush puppies & jalepeno jelly to worry about the fries. Actually now that you mention it, I can't even remember ever eating fries there.

Kristina at 8:06AM on 11/02/06

From Serious Eats

STEINGARTEN AND I HEAR THE DINNER BELL!

Is there a difference between a food writer and restaurant critic?

I think there is a real difference. One is a subset of the other. As in:

1) Writer

.........i) Food Writer

.................(a) Restaurant Critic

Just because a person writes about a restaurant in grand detail, doesn’t make that person a critic. And usually restaurant critics, who are constrained by a word limit, do not have the luxury to wax philosophical unless they are really good--in a Confucian sort of way.

Though the characteristics of a great food writer and a great restaurant critic bleed into each other, I think a critic must possess some rather unique traits.

A great restaurant critic has:

*an eidetic taste memory

*a biologically great palette

*a sense of humor (anyone who disagrees with this, show me one great restaurant critic without one)

*a bottomless pit instead of a stomach, or at least the ability to supress the satiation response

A great restaurant critic is:

*a great writer

*obsessed with food

*a good home cook

Kristina at 3:50PM on 10/31/06

From Serious Eats

WIN DINNER WITH ME AND A FAMOUS FOODIE!

I don’t believe that the greatest restaurant critic lives in Chicago, but I do think that in order to critique a critic, you must at the very least, eat what they eat. So with that in mind, my vote is for Mike Sula of the Chicago Reader

Who?!

Sula’s an obsessed foodie, who pays no attention to the celebrity of chefs. He eats and writes with a fearless wit and has a distinctive point of view that includes a sense of value, both monetary and aesthetic. He refuses to drag his readers through the mundane and loves to highlight the weird.

Kristina at 6:35PM on 10/23/06

From Serious Eats: New York

Smokin' Smoked Sausage

AUTHOR: Kristina
EMAIL: trixiepea@gmail.com
IP: 68.253.254.191
URL:
DATE: 06/15/2006 11:14:19

Kristina at 11:14AM on 06/15/06

From Talk

Papaya King

AUTHOR: Kristina
EMAIL: trixiepea@gmail.com
IP: 68.251.64.240
URL:
DATE: 05/26/2006 10:17:01

Kristina at 10:17AM on 05/26/06

Responses to Comments by Kristina

From Serious Eats

WIN DINNER WITH ME AND A FAMOUS FOODIE!

By that measure, in my experience -- and I've followed his taste recommendations in both New York and San Francisco, in high-end restaurants as well as holes-in-the-wall -- the best food writer I know of is Ed Levine.

Glad to hear someone ackowledge that reviewing food is something that should be accible to the other 95% of restaurant goers, not just those who like to feel superior. A review of a meal that only 5% of your viewers would ever consider eating is just forgetting your audience or perhaps just appeasing yourself over them. Reviewing food in your mind is for the chef, reviewing it in your words is for readers.

ELECharlotte at 3:32PM on 02/05/07

From Talk

Papaya King

A few years ago I went to New York to sample hot dogs. Three of the places I went to served the same recipe Sabrett all beef dog; Papaya King, Gray's, and Katz's. That particular day the Katz's dog didn't spend enough time on the griddle, Gray's dog was fine, Papaya King's dog seemed fresher and better. This past summer, I went to New York again with the Newark Star Ledger. This time, all 3 were equally as good, except the bun at Papaya King fell apart. I would go with Gray's since they are cheaper. But all 3 use the same recipe dog; the Papaya places use a 10 to a lb dog, while Katz's is slightly bigger. But the exact same recipe. I have this on authority of several Sabrett distributors as well as the person in charge of private label at Sabrett, now owned by Marathon Enterprises.

I prefer the spicing in these dogs to the natural casing Nathan's in Coney Island. But all 4 are excellent. For an all beef dog that surpasses these, I suggest making the trip to N.J. to go to Syd's. They recently moved from Union to Springfield. The dog served is a 5 to a lb natural casing dog from Best Provisions that is simmered in water, then charbroiled. The result is a dog that was named best in Jersey by the Star Ledger (we went to N.Y. as well) and a bus load of hot dog fanatics that attended my 3rd annual New Jersey Hot Dog Tour. Did you know that Sabrett, while considered by many to be the quintessential New York hot dog, actually began in New Jersey. On Cole and Henderson St. in Jersey City, until the company was sold to Marathon in East Rutherford N.J. The dogs are produced at the Stahl Mayer plant in the Bronx. They also make a beef/pork dog that is used by The Hot Grill, Callahan's, and The Windmill; all New Jersey hot dog joints.

hotdoglover at 3:39PM on 12/04/06

From Serious Eats

WIN DINNER WITH ME AND A FAMOUS FOODIE!

My favorite restaurant “critic” is the Zagat guide. While the consumer-based surveys are not sophisticated, they give me a sense of the restaurant’s food, service and atmosphere. I’ve consistently found their reviews to be on target and I like being able browse by ratings, top lists and location. Whenever I travel, I use the Zagat guides to orient me to the restaurant scene and give me ideas of places to try and places to avoid. Everything I want is accessible, easily read, easy to interpret, relatively trust worthy, and is contained in one very portable little red book.

progers at 3:28PM on 11/06/06

From Serious Eats

WIN DINNER WITH ME AND A FAMOUS FOODIE!

I love Trillan, Apple and the Sterns, but they don't write about restuarants I eat at, so my favorite food writer is...me! That sounds cocky, but I honestly feel I'm a damn good writer. I know about food, I'm always learning about wine and I love my job (one of the food writers for "The Tucson Weekly").

Local food critics at other publications don't share the passion, talent or knowledge I bring to my work. I've done other food related work and people always tell me that my articles make them hungry. What better compliment for any food writer?

rconnelly at 9:35AM on 11/06/06

From Serious Eats

STEINGARTEN AND I HEAR THE DINNER BELL!

This unanswerable question's answer is Calvin Trillin. A man who lures his daughter back from California with bagels, who enlists his wife's Chinese students to decipher the Chinatown menus, who refuses to ever dine at "le maison de la casa house", who taught us how to pack a proper airplane meal, is a man who deserves his place in the Pantheon. He discovered American cuisine while it was learning to crawl. Nothing has been the same since.

In a time when food writing is bursting with more talent than the '27 Yankees, we must honor the Ur-men: Ruth. Escoffier. Trillin.

smalera at 10:59PM on 11/05/06

From Serious Eats

WIN DINNER WITH ME AND A FAMOUS FOODIE!

I’d like to mention a food writer who has set higher standards for fearless honesty in the medium I work in, the internet. In Regina Schrambling I trust. She knows how to cook and it shows. She’s not afraid to call out a naked emperor when PR flacks are trying to sell us new clothes. She answers the simple question those of us who don’t have bottomless expense accounts ask: Will I go back? No florid sycophantism, no tenuous metaphors, just a sense of place, service, and taste in a pithy package.

ganda at 6:52PM on 11/05/06

From Serious Eats

STEINGARTEN AND I HEAR THE DINNER BELL!

In spite of both my foodie and former New Yorker / food industry-insider status, the NY Times restaurant reviews always made me feel like an outsider. So the hiring of Frank Bruni by the Times was long-overdue fresh air. He’s a fantastic, entertaining writer, though to me his success is because he writes like someone with a regular person's palate. He loves both high-end and low-end food. His words aren’t high-falutin, they’re real. As a reader, you sense he's one of us, not above us. As such, he's made fine dining suddenly accessible to all. That's why he rocks.

mdawn at 6:21PM on 11/03/06

From Serious Eats

STEINGARTEN AND I HEAR THE DINNER BELL!

Last year, I moved to New York shortly before my birthday. It proved to be a truly awful birthday - I had to wake up at 5 am to dress up as the Pillsbury Doughboy (no joke!) for a temp job. Coming to New York seemed like the biggest mistake of my life: what city could be worth the humiliation I'd just suffered through? Then my roommate gave me a birthday present - a copy of Robert Sietsema's Food Lovers Guide to the Best Ethnic Eating in New York City. I started flipping through the chapters, and I think I just about read the whole thing cover to cover that night. Sietsema introduced me to the city as a collection of edible jewels, to be sought out and prized, there for the brave diner to seek out and enjoy. I found several listings for eateries in my own neightborhood of Crown Heights, and a few days later I made my way to AA Bake & Doubles to try the cheap Trinidadian chickpea sandwiches known as doubles. Thanks to Sietsema, I knew I that "doubles" applies even if one is only buying a single sandwich ("I'll have a doubles, please"), and I felt at ease in the tiny storefront even as I stood out like a sore thumb. But on a larger scale, I knew that I was in the right place, that the sacrifices I would make to survive in New York would be well worth it. A year later, whenever I feel frustrated or dispirited by a crowded train or the sight of another Starbucks, I pull out that slim yellow book and set off, in person or in my mind, to try the best dish I've never heard of.

mysteryshi at 11:07AM on 11/03/06

From Serious Eats: New York

Why do the French Fries at Blue Smoke suck?

Megnut is absolutely correct. In-N-Out fries are amazing, especially when eaten out of the same box as the burgers. In your car. That glorious aroma spreads throughout the whole interior, and lingers long into the next day. Too bad they don't make a car deodorant in that scent!

vidadulce at 6:47AM on 11/03/06

From Serious Eats

WIN DINNER WITH ME AND A FAMOUS FOODIE!

Linda Bladholm writes about global cuisine for The Miami Herald with a sense of adventure, and she expertly uses language to convey the sense of the restaurant, the feel of its menu and ambiance, and the taste of its food. Her warmth jumps off the written page and her columns are extremely compelling.

I have been to several restaurants that she reviewed and found her reviews to be right on base. She is knowledgeable about the cuisine of the restaurant, and in terms of the larger context, how that cuisine fits into the uniqueness of Miami.

progers at 5:17PM on 11/02/06