Sent to me by Jen, brilliant archivist at the St. Louis arch (friends in high places!): On the aptly named Not Martha website, instructions for making bacon cups.
I especially appreciate an effort in which the author has to say her kitchen filled with smoke, there were open grease fires and it took three hours–AND it was totally worth it, and everyone should try it. Danger is welcome!
Every time I read anything about Alice Waters and how much she relishes local, adorable, fresh-garden-soil-strewn, covered-in-a-hand-knitted-cozy produce, I want to fucking strangle her.
One perfect peach for dessert? Thanks for the tip, lady.
Your little pig that you fed on nothing but green garlic shoots, and then when you ate it, it tasted like garlic? Well, isn’t that niiiice.
But I live in the real world, not California, and transforming supermarket food into something tasty for dinner takes more than slicing it in half and putting it on a plate and garnishing it with fairy dust.
But then…then I actually read a nice interview with the nice lady. She’s pretty freakin’ infectious. I agree with her 100 percent when she says food should be the No. 1 issue in the presidential race. And of course Edible Schoolyard is what we need more of.
Here’s the link: Go Ask Alice (on Slate.com).
Oh, to be in Californ-I-A. I ate some kale tonight. Does that count?
The New York Times magazine this week has a short interview with poet laureate Charles Simic. About whom I had no opinion until now:
What advice would you give to people who are looking to be happy?
For starters, learn how to cook.
Also, recently read in the NYT book review, Michael Pollan articulating my concern with current food media:
On NPR’s “Talk of the Nation†a few weeks ago, Pollan deplored the “heroic†cooking on many food shows. “They make it look really hard,†he said. “You know, it’s like watching too much pornography. You think that that’s how sex is done, and it’s kind of intimidating.â€
I’ve been meaning to write a little essay on that very problem, but have not gotten to it. I think I’ve been stuck on identifying the culinary equivalent of the Brazilian bikini wax. Thanks, Pollan, as usual, for being succinct and smart.
The Onion turns its brilliance on gift-giving: Gotcha Gift Box: Pro Whisk Set.
This would’ve made the holidays so much better!
This is totally shady: The NYT has a new column called “One Pot,” with a recipe for some international stew. This week’s was for a Spanish stew called a cocido. I read the column, and spent a lot of time on the first two paragraphs, confused, because there was no transition between the use of the word ‘cocido’ and then an explanation of a new term, ‘olla poderida’. It seemed like something had gotten lost in the editing.
Turns out it was the TRUTH that got lost in the editing. I was alerted by the ever-trusty and -geeky Language Log, which pointed out that the term should be ‘olla podrida’, which really means ‘rotten pot’…in a good way. When questioned, the writer freely admitted she had just made up ‘olla poderida’ (‘strong pot’) because she thought eaders would be creeped out by the word ‘rotten’. Read the whole expose here, along with more details on ‘rotten’ food.
This is kind of shocking, no? I mean, it’s a newspaper. It’s supposed to be factual. I feel betrayed.
I think Elaine Louie should go back to her little Weddings beat, and if the editors can’t give enough space to a story to properly explain something (‘rotten’ can be used as an emphatic, along the lines of ‘filthy rich’–that wasn’t so hard to take, now was it?), then it just shouldn’t run the story. I hate to think what’s happening to the real news.
While you’re waiting for me to tell you what I ate Down Under (yes, there was Vegemite), read this brilliant bit of culinary swashbuckling:
Mmm.
This isn’t shameless self-promotion: Weirdly, I didn’t make the list. There’s always next year to become a one-woman phenomenon.
In the meantime, head over to queens.about.com and vote for the best things to happen to Queens this year. Ali of the Kabab Cafe appearing on No Reservations makes the list, but he’s lagging in the polls! I suspect there’s some ballot-stuffing coming from Jamaica’s art community (um–if it’s not at the public library in Jamaica, then I don’t know about it!).
While you’re there, you can also vote for the worst of Queens 2007. Living in my blissful utopia in central Astoria, within the glow of two 24-hour produce stands, I also have never heard of any of these terrible things. La-di-da.
Happy new year!
Hot on the heels of off-topic discussion of the Thighble and the Pentaturkey comes Christvertising–not just a genius portmanteau word, but a hot new marketing movement!
I am so out of touch with the rest of America–that scary part of America that’s taking Huckabee and Romney seriously, according to all the godless news sources I follow–that I found myself believing this was a true service. Never mind that I received the link from Mr., er, Dr. Van Pelt himself. But it’s not so far-fetched that he would take a job as a spokesman for a Christian marketing service. I’d better get out more.
The Good (and I can’t believe I’m saying this): Alex Witchel’s column in the New York Times yesterday (“To the Things That Remain”). A lovely ode to the vanishing lifestyle of smoking-with-dinner, via a time-warp steakhouse in Chicago. The accompanying recipe, however, made me not want to eat there: iceberg lettuce with salami and shrimp? I can feel the nasty texture in my mouth right now.
The Bad (c’mon, really, this is why I bothered to write this post): the new issue of Cook’s Illustrated, in which the reader’s tips reach a new low. I can no longer be shocked by any tip involving profligate use of Saran wrap, but I was appalled to read a suggestion from Ari Wolfe of Princeton, NJ. When he found himself without mini marshmallows (an “important garnish” for hot chocolate), he got out his kitchen shears and spray-can of PAM and got to work on normal-size marshmallows.
Let’s just pause while we contemplate the complete idiocy of this, shall we? I hope also that during this pause, Ari Wolfe is googling himself and discovering that at least one person in the world is giving him a reality check.
Not only did he see a lack of mini marshmallows as a problem and then concoct an overly complicated solution to that problem, but then he felt compelled to write to Cook’s Illustrated and tell them about it.
Dude. I hope, I pray you are also doing something good with your time, like adopting profoundly deaf orphan children with leprosy and speech impediments.
Now I’d better get back to constructive, world-saving work. But maybe I need a mug of hot chocolate to get in the mood…
Thoughtful Tal, who bought me the bacon Band-Aids (ooh, I used one! It made my whole finger look like an open wound from far away, but up close it was cool), just sent me an email with this subject heading, and this link: Bacon Exotic Candy Bar. Fascinating.
I had the most delicious chocolate chess pie sprinkled with sea salt at the Queen’s Hideaway last night (the only restaurant I’ve ever eaten pie in where it actually tasted as good as it does when made at home–Millicent kicks serious pastry ass). As one of my fellow diners pointed out, ending with the salty finish makes you feel surprisingly satisfied–and not like you have to scour the plate for the last bit of sweet treat.
So a bacon candy bar is the next logical step, I suppose. Can I put it on a sandwich with lettuce and tomato? That would be the ultimate…