Category: Links

Mange du Kebab

I think I’m in love.

I know it sounds silly, but I’m a sucker for French rap. Especially goofy French rap from the counter of a kebab joint! (For those who may not be instantly charmed by a Turkish guy dressed in kitchen whites and wielding a sharp knife, I’ll point out that there are also some adorable French girls featured in the video.)

Lil’Maaz is a Turkish guy (real name: Yilmaz Karaman) who has been rapping his way through his job at a kebab place in Paris, and some customers helped him produce the single and the video. Good article here (the Independent via Syria Comment; scroll down), avec a little translation.

Mission Burritos in NYC

AV sent me this:

The Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel

Like her, I am not sure what to make of it. Especially because Mission-style burritos are not readily available in NYC, unless you consider Chipotle legit, which I’m sure purists don’t. So it’s not only faux-history, but faux-present.

But who can resist the marvelous thoroughness of this description?

Past the Colorado border, however, the temperature of the surrounding rock exceeds the Curie point of iron and the burritos must slide on their bellies in their nearly frictionless Teflon sleeve, kept from charring by pork fat that slowly seeps out of the burritos as they thaw. By the time the burritos reach Cedar Rapids (traveling well over a mile a second) they are heated through, and anyone who managed to penetrate into the tunnel through the Cleveland access shafts would find them ready to eat.

I’m now frustrated and hungry for a burrito, but I love the authoritative diagrams and photos, as well as the website’s motto: “Brevity is for the weak.”

Reports from Air Koryo

Oh goody–someone is blogging with obsessive detail about his flight to North Korea! After my Air Cubana flight, which was, to quote Heidi, “the fastest bus I’ve ever been on,” I’ve been curioius about the world’s more marginalized airlines. Curious–but not enough to actually fly them.

Meanwhile, Paul Karl Lukacs on Knife Tricks is reporting thusly:

Air Koryo is a flying circus featuring strangely coifed, vampiric flight attendants who work in a cabin straight out of a 1970s’ airport movie while travelers read palpably insane propaganda as they jet to an isolated dictatorship which is officially governed by a dead man.

He just got back from the trip, so presumably more detailed reports from the ground to come as well.

Dave Prince has done it again…

I am so happy to know someone who is so excited about the opening of major grocery stores that he takes nearly 150 photos of the occasion. I only wish he’d call me and tell me. But I guess the big day for the fantabulous Whole Foods on the Bowery wasn’t any secret.

See his beautiful photos here. By about page 8 of the flawless stacks, you will find yourself in a restful, trancelike state.

After that, you can look at equally beautiful photos from Mercat de Sant Josep in Barcelona. The stacks of severed, skinned lamb heads are also soothing, somehow.

(And, in case you missed the first time around: opening day at the Red Hook Fairway.)

I love groceries.

The Mangoes Are Here!

mangoesOh boy! Best bit of diplomacy of recent years — actually, probably the only good diplomacy recently: About a year ago, the US made some deal with India to share nuclear technology…AND MANGOES!

Now, finally, everything is in place, and the first shipments are arriving.

I’ve never had an Indian mango–wait, Peter reminds me I did, in Amsterdam, and it was fucking delicious–so this is extremely exciting.

There’s a whole article in the NY Times: “A Luscious Taste and Aroma from India Arrives at Last”.

The Indian mangoes arriving on our shores are of the Alphonso variety, it turns out. I had one of this kind in Mexico a couple of years ago–it was memorably sweet and creamy, but not so memorable that I could be certain of the name when I got back here (I never know when I hear something in another language, even if it is a proper name). Over the years, I’d nearly convinced myself it was an Ataulfo, even those weren’t quite as tasty, but I could at least get them in the store.

The bad news: The Indian mangoes are irradiated (I don’t know how I feel about this, really). And they’re ten times the price of your regular mango. Yipes. That’s what happens when you fly the babies halfway around the world.

I’m still excited. I’ve got five dollars, a sharp knife and a super-absorbent napkin for wiping my chin.

Home Cookin’

Tal just sent me a link to what looks like a very promising new website: The City Cook.

It speaks particularly to people with small kitchens, and anyone who prefers a home-cooked meal to nightly takeout–so far it’s not totally bursting with content, but what’s there is very helpful. (And actually, it’s kind of nice to have a limited quantity of info–easy to absorb, so then you can keep up with it each week.) It won me over with the big picture of artichokes, but there’s a lot more…

On the same theme, Melissa Clark has been writing a really excellent column in the New York Times, every other week or so. Called “A Good Appetite,” it presents a dish and the thinking–often extemporizing–that went into creating it. This week’s is particularly good, because she talks about how she ruined a soup, how she fixed it, and how she made it better the second time. Here it is, though you’ll have to register to read it: “A Soup with a Difference, Born of Adversity and Error”.

The fact that many of the columns are based on her being hungry for a particular something, then going on to figure out how to make it, is one of the more convincing arguments for learning how to cook.

Suicide Food

I’ve been mentally compiling a collection of images of animals eating themselves, all in the name of stoking your appetite. But now it looks as though someone has been actually doing it. And front and center is an especially ghastly–yet adorable–image I already had in my brain file from months ago. Classy.

Et voila: Suicide Food.

Peter found another to add to the portfolio while biking around New Orleans.

NO pigs wide

Adorable. In fact, so adorable, let’s zoom in a little and take a look at those piggie-wiggies.
NO pigs zoom

This does beg the question: Is it really ethical to roll your little pig children off to be eaten? It’s not suicide food in the typical sense. But if getting made into barbecue is so much fun, why would you deprive the wee ones? Especially when you know they’ll taste so delicious!

Too bad this restaurant — Elizabeth’s, in the Bywater — was closed. Next trip.

[Thanks, Polenblog.]