Friday Links & Hijinks

[Illustration: Biodiversity Heritage Library]

You did it! Another week down!

We're putting up a post very much like this one every Friday afternoon, to celebrate the fact that the week is done.

We think of this series as something of a send-off for the week, giving you the option of a brief interlude for your Friday afternoon. Of course, if your workweek is just starting or if you're still in the thick of it, think of this as a pick-me-up for your personal hump day, or as a nice way to kick off your weekend shifts.

We hope to provide a short mix of mostly silly, mostly food-related, mostly entertaining things to look at, listen to, and read, and we hope you'll find it amusing, and maybe, sometimes, edifying and enlightening. We also see it as an opportunity to go over some of what's new on the site, which you, dear readers, may have missed.

If you have feedback, or if you run across any interesting/oddball/totally crazy stories/podcasts/images/videos during the week that you think may be appropriate for this little collection of miscellany, email us! We can't guarantee that we'll use it, but we will 100% appreciate the effort.

What's New on Serious Eats

You can, of course, browse all our content in reverse-chronological order. But here are just a few highlights:

• Daniel gave some pointers about how to devise your own-sheet pan meals (along with a bunch of recipes).
• It's Oscars menu planning time! (Like a Parasite! Like a leech, oh yeah!
• Daniel also organized our thought on the different ways you can cook steaks at home.
• Sasha's Big Duck Project arrives at its glorious end: a roasted, dry-aged duck crown, you know, like the kind fit for royalty.
• Seoyoung Jung published her recipe for gimbap, the eminently portable (and delicious) Korean rice-roll snack.

Our Favorite Comments of the Week

From "Oscar Nom Noms: The 2020 Academy Awards Menu, Parasite Edition":

STARTERS

The Irishsodabreadman (using Stella’s Irish soda bread recipe)

Joaquin Phởenix (Using Kenji’s Phở Ga recipe)

Croquetteman

MAINS

Torte vs. Ferrari – Not a traditional torte, it’s an herbed summer squash and potato torte

Stir F-rian Johnson (using Emily and Matt Clifton’s Lo Mein Noodles with Pork and Vegetables recipe)

Scarl-étouffée Johansson (Using Daniel’s recipe)

SWEETS

Pain (au chocolat) and Glory

Al Cap-puccino Fudge Cheesecake

From "The Food Lab: The Best Goulash (Hungarian Beef and Paprika Stew)":

My brother lived in Hungary for about 25 years. When I visited him once, I wanted to cook for a dinner party & wanted to make something really American. Gumbo! Perfect! As I was making it, I started thinking hmmm, onions, peppers, garlic, stock, chicken, sausage… all totally standard Hungarian ingredients (of course some things – dark roux, shrimp – were totally NOT Hungarian). It was very well received, and virtually all the compliments were along the lines of “Hey man, right on. This is some first rate goulash.”

From a commenter (who we are frankly quite worried about) on Facebook, in response to our recipe for gimbap:

rice rolls

A Brief Book Break

There were some truly exceptional tastes to be tasted, too, especially in seafoods. Nothing in the world could beat a soft-shelled crab from Chesapeake Bay, eaten preferably inside a crusty roll on a street corner downtown. Incomparable oyster stews were prepared at the Grand Central Oyster Bar by Viktor Yesenky and his thirty-six oystermen. Louis Massan's waterside restaurant on Fulton Street, beside the fish market, offered its customers (sitting at communal tables) five kinds of roe, tongue of cod, sturgeon's liver, squid stew and the cheeks of cod and salmon.

The trouble began with the dread word 'gourmet.' It was odd but true that the bourgeoisie of Manhattan, the most cosmopolitan city in the world, knew very little about foreign food—the menu at Kirby Allen, a smart restaurant on Madison Avenue serving the carriage trade on cook's night off, included such items as "Lasagna, a Very Interesting Italian Dish." Few diners-out took their food at all seriously, and the best-known food guide of the day, Lawton Mackall's 'Knife and Fork in New York,' was not very urbane either—"eminently okey-dokey" was among its categories of commendation.

From Manhattan '45 by Jan Morris.

Food Numbers, News, and Hijinks

• "Bon appétit, assholes."
• 117: Number of emojis that will be added to the emoji lexicon in 2020, which includes the pinched-fingers emoji, variously interpreted as "are you hungry," a dumpling, or, when flipped, the universally recognized hand gesture for "a pinch of salt."
• "MSG is neither terribly dangerous nor perfectly fine"
• 10 million+: Number of nudists in the United States, according to a 2011 study, all of whom presumably cook sometimes.
• The artist behind "Mr. Peanut Devouring His Son."
• The toy stoves of yesteryear.
• The subtle magic of restaurant design.
• "Wow! It was another great year for the McGingerbread Hell Gingerbread House Competition!"
• How fruits would move.

Have a wonderful weekend, everybody!

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