Meet The Team / Robert Sietsema

President Obama spent four years of his childhood in Indonesia in the 1960s, and recently made an official presidential visit to the southeast Asian archipelago. But what excited the most public attention in Jakarta were not any diplomatic initiatives he proposed, but what he said he missed from his time there. And what he missed was bakso.

Bakso (a.k.a. bakmi) is Indonesia's premier street food, a soup that can contain any number of things, but always includes meatballs -- which are also called bakso. Confused? This soup is sold from stalls in the street, from trucks, and, most memorably, by vendors who ride bicycles that have a bakso-assembling set-ups attached to the front, complete with little steam-table tubs heated by Sterno flames or charcoal.

The meatballs themselves are usually made with finely ground beef, but can also be composed of chicken, fish or shrimp. Sometimes, they're formed from bovine variety meats like tendon and liver. But the quintessential feature of these orbs -- which can be as small as marbles or as large as tennis balls -- is that the meat is extended with tapioca flour, which gives the meatballs a bouncy consistency.

It used to be fairly common for restaurant reviewers to receive notes penned by chefs after a review came out. If the review was favorable, the handwritten missive would be polite and congratulatory. If the review was negative, sometimes the chef -- perhaps oblivious to his posterity -- might unleash invective.

Later, of course, the pen dried up in favor of email as the medium of choice for irate chefs to write to critics, and the practice has continued. In my work with the Village Voice, I personally have received angry emails from chefs, though polite thank-yous still predominate. The waters have further been muddied by the ascendance of blogs as a medium of review, and the rough-hewn quality of criticism they often exhibit. Many chefs have commented, both in public and in private, of their distaste for blog reviews, which often occur just days after a restaurant opens for business, and are hence deemed unfair by the chefs.

Restaurateurs and chefs have decided to fight back. New York chef David Chang banned food photography in his restaurants, in an apparent attempt to keep bloggers from taking pictures of food and posting them with reviews. In a 2008 roundtable discussion conducted by the Chicago Tribune, chefs Graham Bowles and Bill Kim expressed irritation at instantaneous reviews of their restaurants that appeared on foodie websites like Yelp and MenuPages, igniting a debate in the Windy City that continues today.

Diwali is a five-day Hindu festival that this year begins today (November 5th). But the enjoyment of the festival worldwide goes well beyond the circle of observant Hindus. In India , Sri Lanka , and among Indian immigrants to the Caribbean, the U.S., Australia , and Southeast Asia , the gala event is celebrated by individuals of many religions, including Sikhs, Jains, and Zoroastrians. The holiday is becoming popular among non-Indians, too, in places like the Richmond Hill, Queens, neighborhood of New York City, where everyone is swept up in the excitement of the nonstop street festivals and parades.

As with many holidays, Diwali commemorates a broad range of events in Hindu scriptures, most prominently the marriage of Lord Vishnu and Lakshmi (not Padma, but the goddess of wealth and prosperity). Some make the elephant-headed god Ganesh the center of attention, while others celebrate Kali, the goddess of strength. The precise focus of the shindig is thus up to you. The climax of Diwali occurs on the third day, the Festival of Lights, marked by fireworks and the lighting of candles and diyas, which are clay lamps with cotton wicks, traditionally fueled with ghee (clarified butter).

In common with most religious holidays, there are foods associated with the festival, mainly snacks and sweet treats, which vary according to group and geographic location. On the BBC website, blogger Cyrus Todiwala, a Zoroastrian, provides a thumbnail guide to the foods of Diwali, which include puran poli (a flatbread stuffed with sweetened crushed lentils), karanji (a round pastry filled with coconut), chiwada (beaten rice cooked on a griddle with things like nuts, chiles, and fried vermicelli), and badaam paak (almond fudge). (Links to recipes for the sweets are also included in the BBC story.)

"Top Chef" judge Tom Colicchio has written in the current issue of Saveur of his love for Parker House rolls, an American classic invented at Boston 's Parker House Hotel in the late 19th century. This being the 21st century, his version is smaller and less flattened than the original, and the top is sprinkled with salt, but he serves them every evening at his eponymous Colicchio & Sons restaurant in Manhattan, and reports that guests often eat three or more. It got us to wondering what other breads have become associated with renowned chefs.

Here, and after the jump, a half-dozen cooks and their favorite breads:

David Chang, who founded the Momofuku restaurant mini-empire, where Asian-American fusion is the rule, is a big fan of northern Chinese bao – puffy and pale steamed flatbreads that can be folded over a variety of ingredients to make little sandwiches that at Momofuku he calls ssams. The most popular is made with pork belly, but the same bread is served on the side with the entrée of pork shoulder and raw oysters at his East Village restaurant Ssam Bar.

A Michigan couple who got up early one mid-October morning to prepare special food for a sick dog got more than they bargained for. Tim and Marty Hoffman told Today that they were going about the sorts of chores most couples routinely pursue as the sun comes up when Tim -- who was in the bathroom at the time -- heard his wife scream bloody murder from the kitchen, where she was getting food ready for their dog Zoey, who needs a special diet due to allergies.