Hacking Food

How Fine Dining Can Survive the Recession (Part II) - Zagat Presents

by Bruce Watson, Posted Feb 16th 2009 @ 9:00AM

In some ways, it's probably not a great time to be Zagat. Although the review service covers a wide range of restaurants, it's pretty much a requirement for fine dining. After all, while one might be willing to take a chance on a $10 meal, when it comes to spending serious bucks, it's a good idea to get some insurance. At the end of the day, Zagat is a pretty good tool for ensuring that the big meal isn't a big disappointment.

The thing is, when the economy is down and everybody is trying to cut back on expenditures, expensive restaurant dinners are often the first things to go. As the restaurants go, so do the restaurant guides, and one has to imagine that Zagat is feeling the pinch. Luckily, the publisher has had an online site for a few years; for a small fee, users can take advantage of pretty much every scrap of information in the Zagat universe, including thousands of restaurant reviews from cities across the country.

To sweeten the deal (and help some fine eateries weather the recession) the company now offers Zagat Presents, a series of discussions, tastings, and previews at several of the guide's rated restaurants. The events, which are often priced at below market rates, offer Zagat.com members the opportunity to enjoy a night on the town even when they are watching their pennies. Moreover, Zagat ensures that the evenings will be unique by working with chefs and restaurants to design off-menu meals that showcase the restaurants' versatility and potential.

Filed under: Business, Hacking Food, Raves & Reviews, Books, New Products

Mmm ... meaty Mona Lisa

COMMENTS 1

by Joe DiStefano, Posted Oct 24th 2008 @ 9:59AM

Take a good look at this reproduction of the Mona Lisa. Don't worry, you're eyes aren't playing tricks on you. Those are slices of various sausages and luncheon meats in the background. In fact, the whole painting is made of meat. It was part of a show put on by six Russian artists to celebrate the 100th birthday of Tavr a meat processor located in southern Russia.

The artists spent three days fashioning the meaty museum of classic paintings, which also includes reproductions of Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers and Pablo Picasso's Girl on a Ball. They used 40 pounds of meat to create these canvasses fit for a carnivore. Visitors to the show were offered fresh Tavr sausages.

What's it like for artists to work with meat? Well, Aleksandr Solomko likes ham as a medium because it's soft and flexible. "The biggest trouble was to stick the sausages to the canvas. Gelatin turned out to be the best solution. It's perfectly natural and doesn't affect the taste. However, we had to rework some parts of the picture, when it started to darken after the meat spent some time in the air."

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Filed under: Hacking Food, Food Oddities, Ingredients

Use a canning jar with your blender

COMMENTS 2

by Marisa McClellan, Posted Mar 5th 2008 @ 5:05PM

Those of us who follow food blogs are well acquainted with Elise of Simply Recipes. Her recipes are always dependable and she seems to have cooked just about everything in creation, which means that her website is something of a definitive resource.

However, if you haven't been following her for a long time, you might have missed a particularly useful blender tip she offered nearly three years ago. Lucky for all us internet readers, those eagle-eyed editors at Lifehacker found this particular tip and have brought it to prominence for our edification.

She suggests using a canning jar in place of your blender carafe when mixing up small batches of things. Apparently, most blenders are designed so that their bottom blade contraption will screw onto a standard sized canning jar. This way you can blend or chop inside a jar, remove the blender blade and store easily by popping on a regular old jar lid. It's like the predecessor to the Magic Bullet.

[via Lifehacker]

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Filed under: Hacking Food, On the Blogs

Not Martha makes bacon cups

COMMENTS 5

by Marisa McClellan, Posted Feb 28th 2008 @ 12:00PM

Remember the bacon mat that swept the interwebs last summer? That intrepid food/craft/knitting blogger Megan at Not Martha has taken the basic idea of the bacon mat (it is the premise that bacon, if given the proper support, will bond to itself and hold shapes as it cooks) and turned it into bacon cups! Is there anything that bacon can't do?

She designed them as a breadless BLT, using them to hold small salads of lettuce and tomato. The commenters on her site have run with the idea, suggesting other uses for the crisp, porky vessels. How would you fill them?

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Filed under: Hacking Food, On the Blogs, Ingredients

Ernie Kovacs' 'Kitchen Symphony'

COMMENTS 1

by Joe DiStefano, Posted Jan 20th 2008 @ 10:05AM

Ever since discovering The Ernie Kovacs Show on video, I've been a fan of this 1950s comedic genius who Jack Lemmon characterized as "always 15 years ahead of everyone else." Thanks to poking around YouTube last night I learned that he was ahead of his time in other ways. The chicken puppetry set to music that leads off the brilliant Kitchen Symphony predates Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer video by more than 20 years. Granted Gabriel's chicken was raw and danced to decidedly funkier music.

Kovacs' roasted chicken sets the stage for a musical meal in which every item in the kitchen, including water taps, sardines, cutlery and egg slicer dance to a lounge lizard rendition of Cherokee by Juan Esquivel. Vegetarians may wish to turn away during the explosive salad sequence.

Filed under: Hacking Food, Television/Film, Food Oddities, Ingredients

Japanese bag of rice birth announcements

COMMENTS 2

by Joe DiStefano, Posted Jan 16th 2008 @ 2:02PM

For some reason these bouncing baby bags of rice make Western style birth announcements seem a tad impersonal. Talk about bundles of joy. These dakigokochi, or baby-shaped bags of rice personalized with a picture of their respective newborns, weigh just as much as the infants whose arrival the text announces.

Dakigokochi are far from being an age-old Japanese tradition. They were, ahem, conceived by Naruo Ono and his wife, Yukiko, who own the Yoshimiya rice shop in Kita-Kyushu. The popularity of the pair's wedding favor – a packet of rice, adorned with a picture of the happy couple – inspired them to create the unusual birth announcement. Even though their own son, Sota, is now four months old, the Onos haven't had a chance to send out their own dakigokochi. Guess they've been too busy fulfilling orders for other proud parents.

[via Boing Boing]

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Filed under: Hacking Food, Food Oddities, Ingredients

A Grape Reason to Go Back to College

COMMENTS 5

by Wendy Buckley, Posted Jan 4th 2008 @ 4:28PM

Vineyard

I have to admit, college and I were not the best compadres. I worked full time while going to school and frankly what I was learning and the cost accrued from said learning never did appeal to me. Now that I am established and a little bored in my career of ten years, it would take something pretty exciting to make me hit the books again. Imagine my surprise when I opened the Wall Street Journal this morning and discovered this article about the wine making program at a small community college in Walla Walla, Washington. It's a hands-on program that teaches everything from tannins and terroir to winery Spanish! How great is that?!

While I may not be ready to strap on a new back pack just yet; I'm going to at least order a few of their wines and review them here on Slashfood. Would you like to be in my study group? ;-)

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Filed under: Farming, Hacking Food, Drink Recipes

Cheddarvision's Wedginald up for sale on eBay

COMMENTS 2

by Joe DiStefano, Posted Nov 14th 2007 @ 12:30PM

Wedginald, the bouncing, or would that be rolling, baby farmhouse cheddar and star of Cheddarvision TV is up for sale on eBay with the proceeds to benefit BBC Children in Need. At 44 pounds the West Country Farmhouse Cheddar is quite a big baby indeed. Of course the only reason I refer to him as a baby is that he's not quite mature. West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers, small group of farmers in southwest England, says he should be ready to enjoy just before Christmas.

Way back when we first reported on Cheddarvision, Wedginald had yet to be named. While it's great that the little guy got a name, it's even better to learn that he's being auctioned off for a good cause. The auction ends on November 19 at 12:00 GMT. As of this writing, the bidding was up to £690 ($1,433.71). While I'm quite curious to see how much Wedginald fetches at auction the one nagging question remains. How on earth did the farmers figure out he was a boy?

[via: The Food Section]

Filed under: Hacking Food, Food Oddities, Ingredients

Newfangled treats at the 2007 State Fair of Texas

COMMENTS 17

by Joe DiStefano, Posted Oct 19th 2007 @ 3:25PM

A few weeks ago Wendy raved about the food at the Austin City Limits Festival, particularly Frito Pie. I too have become a fan of Frito Pie, albeit a version topped with BBQ chili. Recently I learned that one vendor at the 2007 State Fair of Texas has put yet another twist on this classic by relying on that age-old fair food technique of deep frying.

Fernie's Fried Chili Frito Burrito consists of a flour tortilla stuffed with chili and Chili Cheese Fritos and then deep-fried. I didn't even know Chili Cheese Fritos existed. I wonder if they're available outside of Texas. The Frito scoop came to my attention by way of a blog by Dallas Morning News reporter Katie Menzer who's covering the event until it ends Sunday. Appropriately enough her blog is called Our Fair Lady. Keep reading to find out about more newfangled fair fare.

Filed under: Food Porn, Hacking Food, Pop Food, Feast Your Eyes, Ingredients

Nicotine and Peppermint: Strangest gelato flavor ever?

COMMENTS 4

by Joe DiStefano, Posted Oct 17th 2007 @ 5:38PM

I've had the olive oil gelato at Mario Batali's Otto and found it quite good. And I've sampled the lox ice cream at Max & Mina's in my stamping grounds of Flushing, Queens, and found it to be interesting at best. Until the other day, though, I'd never heard of a frozen dessert quite as strange as nicotine and peppermint gelato.

The bizarre flavor created by East Hollywood gelato guru Tai Kim of Scoops isn't a smoking cessation device, although it is made with crushed Nicorette gum. Nicotine and peppermint gelato is part of a lineup of flavors created for a rock-and-roll tour of the Sunset Strip and "other places of subcultural importance, " hosted by Esotouric Tours.

Other flavors include Hemp Oil and Honey, Vanilla and Jack Daniels, Pomegranate and Poppy Seeds, Mint and Jim Beam, Nicotine and Avocado and Beer Sorbet. I've always thought that Ben & Jerry's should make a slightly more countercultural version of Wavy Gravy called Owsley's Orange Sunshine. But enough of my acidic wit. Here's what I'd like to know dear reader, what's the strangest flavor of frozen confection you've ever encountered?

[via Chicken Corner]

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Filed under: Hacking Food, Food Oddities