Category: Links

Keep an eye on this: Cancun on Foot

Back in New York now, after wrapping up the whole Mexico Adventure. The last night I was there, I had dinner with Jules Siegel and his wife, Anita Brown. The great privilege of being a guidebook author is that it gives me license to just email people on the pretext of “research” and demand to meet them.

Jules is the author of the Cancun User’s Guide, a really excellent book that singlehandedly changed my attitude of Cancun, by gently reminding me that Cancun is barely 30 years old, so of course it’s not pretty or historic, so just get over it–there are plenty of other great things, real Mexican things going on. Jules has been shopping a book called The Real Mexico for a while, which, ironically, he can’t seem to sell because no one can grasp the idea that some guy wearing a hard hat is more real Mexico than a guy wearing a sombrero. Which of course is the point. Sigh.

Anita takes photos, and she’s put a few of them up online. Like Jules, she has an affection for Cancun and an eye for the things that make it a whole, functioning city–not just the crazy resort Xanadu that exists in most people’s imagination. There are only a few pics up now, but check back–and while you’re on the site, read more about Jules’s book, or buy it online.

Witchel Watch: Refreshingly Normal

You know how it is in blogland: if you can’t say anything nasty you don’t say anything at all. That’s why I’ve been slipping on hard-hitting analysis of Alex Witchel’s column in the NY Times Dining section.

See, her last essay, striking out at all the bartenders who give her weak pours just because she’s a wee lassie, was perfectly palatable and actually had me saying, “Too true, sister” by the end.

And then this week’s, about the tyranny of leftovers–whaddya know, also readable and almost entirely free of the worst markers of upper-class tedium. I don’t have sturgeon going to waste in my fridge, but I can appreciate how Nova lox could be like George Hamilton.

And get this: she admits to reheating and enjoying–and not dying from–food that’s more than a week old! I have to admit I’ve made myself sick from leftovers (only once), but I got right back on the horse. And I have proudly told people that really, you can just scrape the mold off the top of that salsa. So it makes me glad to see someone go public with this. Alex Witchel, I hear ya.

“Kitchen Cuts” on eGullet

Thought-provoking essay on eGullet about the best music to cook by, followed by spirited discussion, and a nod to this bizarre YouTube concoction. Reminded me and Tamara cranking the Zep recently, then pouring ourselves glasses of Lillet, and getting down to work.

But this was under the gaze of a video camera, so then, for syncing reasons, we had to do the whole thing again without sound. If you’ve never mimed rocking out to a classic guitar riff, I can tell you it’s a little awkward. I guess I just need to practice.

Putting on the music in the kitchen is Step One in getting into the mindset I like better than any other: getting ready for a Huge Party. I honestly like the getting-ready part much better than the party itself. Everything’s relatively calm, you can concentrate on one task and let your mind wander to later possibilities…

And you’ve usually got the place to yourself, or relatively, so you can blast (and sing along to) whatever music you like, which isn’t always the case at the party itself. That’s when all the loud guitar and rowdy lyrics and heartbreaking country twang comes out–you can get the party started right then and there, without having to go through the obligatory mellow-background-for-the-first-hour phase. Gang of Four, for instance, Loretta Lynn at volume loud enough to obscure my own terrible voice, Brian Eno…

One of the huge selling points of working at Prune was the top-volume David Bowie; one of the massive drawbacks of working at Dish was the mind-numbing top-40 radio (how many times can a body hear “It’s Your Birthday”?).

And then I hate it when I’m almost done cooking and I realize I never took the time to put on music–such a waste. Random play can produce pleasant surprises, but starting with a musical plan guarantees much better results.

Peter’s got “Freaks Come Out at Night” on right now, and dinner’s just done. Gotta rock and run…

UPDATE: Hey, the essay author is right: The Pretenders’ “Tattooed Love Boys” is a great song to cook to fast!

Summer pics

Still haven’t dealt with sea urchins, but in the meantime, Fotaq has our photos from Lyon and Mytilene.

The Lyon series unfortunately does not show the three-foot-tall gag pepper mill we endured for one dinner, nor the pounds and pounds of pain au chocolat consumed (nor, for that matter, Estela’s catchy song entitled “Pain au Chocolat”). Oh, and for the record, that’s not my kid.

The Mytilene series starts with photos from the cafeineon (coffe house) in Megalochori, a little mountain village with delicious spring water. We wouldn’t have really noticed the water, except that it was all the sisters who ran the cafeineon could talk about, in between slipping us plates of sausages, french fries, salad, and some very intense cheese. So afterward, we did walk over to the springs, and they were lovely and refreshing, and I wish I had some of that water right now.

As for the lunch, we were afraid to thoroughly clean our plates, lest they come dish us up more. See, we hadn’t ordered any of it, and we knew there’d be a struggle over the bill when we left–and not the way you think. Because of course they’d insist we shouldn’t pay them anything, and we’d say that’s ridiculous, and then Peter would buy the guys at the table some ouzo, and sneak in a few euros extra, and the ladies would say OK, fine, and we’d still go away with tears in our eyes that these total strangers were willing to spot us lunch.

So, there were a few snippets of cheese and ends of bread on one plate, and the one woman comes over to clean up, and she sees this. And she gets a napkin and ties all the cheese and bread bits up in a little bundle, and presses it into my hand. Aw. They even do takeout.

And I won’t link directly to this, but for the curious: photos of our wedding in Eressos, also on Fotaq. Nowhere near the hijinks of last year’s baptism, in part because the priest’s ne’er-do-well sons weren’t there, doing silly dances in their swimsuits. Word on the street was that they were grounded for setting their friend on fire. It’s hard to be the priest’s sons, I guess.

Tasty Link: The Ethicurean

I, too, am a little disappointed that when I say “tasty link,” I’m not talking about sausage. But the savvy Ethicurean makes me feel a little better. They have a cute picture of a pig in a bib. They have a clever acronym for eating responsibly. And they have good newsy bits about eating responsibly (this, so far, seems to be their major usefulness).

It also again makes me envious of all those lucky foodie people cavorting out in San Francisco, where not a day goes by that something delicious isn’t coming into perfect ripeness. Of course eating locally is much lovelier when you don’t have to subsist on turnips for half the year.

Welcome!

Phew–you made it. I was a little worried there. Thanks for schlepping over to the New Improved Roving Gastronome, and make sure to update your bookmarks.  Mwah.

G.L.O.G: Gorgeous Ladies of Gastronomica

Karine and I are famous! Well, famous at least to the 200 readers of Gastronomica, an excellent semi-academic food journal published by UC Berkeley Press.

A while back I sent them a little letter about human salad bars, and mine and Karine’s experience with them back in the Olde Days at Terrace Flaming Club–namely, we were the humans, in this case swaddled in green and blue Saran wrap to simulate mermaid-dom.

My letter’s arrival coincided with the editor’s plans to publish a separate story about Barton Rouse, the chef at TFC, so she was happy to also include my nostalgic rantings.

Anyway, there Karine and I are, splashed on practically the first page you see (though Karine isn’t named, which is a shame but I guess protects her reputation). And the article about Barton, by a Terrace alum (before our time) named Lisa Harper, says all the wonderful things about him that I’ve never gotten around to writing. I recommend you seek out this issue, as there’s also a story that incorporates the words “Would you eat a retarded pig?”

Here’s a short refresher on Barton, from last year.

Le website nouveau est arrivee!

Roving Gastronome is redesigned, and it goes down easier than a bottle of Georges DuBoeuf!

That means this blog will someday soon be changing its URL. Start imagining change now, and it won’t seem so awful when it happens.

Also, I’m setting up dedicated blogs for each of my travel guides, so that I can post updates as I learn of them. Because the guidebook author’s horror is always the adorable little cafe that shuts its doors immediately after your book publishes, and then all your readers hate you for getting their hopes up; this is still purely hypothetical in the case of Moon Handbooks Santa Fe, but I fear it, I do. Also bad: hurricanes that wreck the Yucatan Peninsula, one right after Cancun & Cozumel Directions hits stores, and one right as The Rough Guide to the Yucatan comes out. Brilliant. The blogs aren’t quite functional yet, but they will be shortly, as I already have quite a bit of info to add to each.