Couldn't swing a trip to Food & Wine Magazine's Classic in Aspen this year? S'okay -- we've got you covered. Kick back with a glass of bubbly and some schmancy nibbles, bookmark this post and keep on checking back for real-time Twitter coverage from the event. Keep up with pictures from the red carpet and around the festival here.
Another day, another list. This time, it's Anthony Bourdain's "13 Places to Eat Before You Die," which appears in the June issue of Men's Health. Bourdain's article shouts out restaurants and stores across the globe, from New York's smoked fish shrine Russ & Daughters to Spain's gourmand ground zero, elBulli.
Bourdain acknowledges that as "any seasoned traveler can tell you, the 'best' meals on the planet are the result of an ephemeral confluence of circumstances," and makes convincing arguments for each of his picks, which also include Kansas City, Kan.'s Oklahoma Joe's Barbecue, Tokyo's Sukiyabashi Jiro and London's St. John.
But even with the disclaimer and rationale behind Bourdain's choices, plenty are as likely to find fault with his logic (and apparently abundant frequent flier miles) as they are with a list proclaiming, say, the best pizza places in the U.S. We have the text of the article so you can weigh in on Bourdain's hits -- and misses -- after the jump.
"Loco for locavorism" might sound like some bizarro play on an old TV ad, but the phrase carries some heft these days, if the crowd at last night's Brooklyn Uncorked was any indication. The sip-and-nibble-fest in honor of local goods was jam-packed with tipsy oenophiles clutching wine glasses and munching on local pickles (garlicky!), rosé sorbet (brilliant!) and buzzed-about turkey meatloaf (by the time we got there, gone!). Dozens of local restaurants, wineries and producers were on the premises: as one sign bragged, no vinos were made more than a two-hour drive from Brooklyn.
Hyperlocalism isn't local to New York City, either. Edible Communities, whose Edible Brooklyn hosted the tasting, boasts more than 50 publications from Missoula, Wash., to Santa Fe, N.M. All feature the same bright, minimalistic food-focused design touting "local foods, season by season." If you believe that New York hearkens nationwide trends, well, like the Brooklyn Food Conference before it, this event was sold-out and about as crowded as could be.
We'll be live-Twittering tonight's James Beard Media Awards and Monday's Restaurant Awards, so follow along @slashfood. Meanwhile, snack on these links to the nominated articles, recipes, reviews, food sections, sites, blogs and books.
Journalism Awards
For articles published in English in 2008.
Newspaper Feature Writing About Restaurants And/Or Chefs
Yeah, it's a teensy bit Inside Baseball for the fooderati, but we got a big kick out of seeing our favorite Gourmet staffers (Wuzzap, Terrebonne? Lookin' fresh, Knauer and Houghtaling!) in a cute 'n campy Gourmet.com video sending up Editor-In-Chief Ruth Reichl's '90s tenure as an undercover restaurant critic for the New York Times.
Reichl's penchant for wearing outlandish disguises to protect her dwindling anonymity was the underpinning of her 2005 memoir Garlic and Sapphires, but somehow we doubt even she would have the quenelles to stomp into the Four Seasons' Pool Room wearing quite this much codpiece.
As if molecular gastronomy wasn't sci-fi enough, Dwell magazine now ponders the kitchens of the future, with engrossing photos and interviews. San Francisco chef Daniel Patterson envisions a place where sous vide coexists happily with medieval touches like an open fireplace and a root cellar, whereas designer Scott Hudson foresees "unified systems" instead of unrelated bits and pieces (no hodgepodge appliances and fixtures for him!).
It's a fanciful and fascinating survey of ideas, and while we're wowed by the idea of laser-carved countertops and Pacojets, we're warmed by architect and interior designer Antonio Citterio's insistence that a futuristic kitchen shouldn't be a cold and clinical one: "To cook is to make a mess," he says. "Life is messy!"
We'll tip our tomato sauce-splattered caps to that.
You do follow our Twitter @slashfood, don'tcha? The Food & Wine Magazine's Best New Chefs festivities commence at 6:30 p.m. on April 1, and Food & Wine Editor-In-Chief Dana Cowin has been dropping devilish little hints about the winners via Twitter all day long. First person to solve the mystery wins two tickets to tomorrow night's event.
Won't you Tweet with us? If we're really lucky, we'll even post some red-hot guest chef David Chang or "Top Chef" winner Harold Dieterle cell-phone camera action.
Twit-tip: Follow all Best New Chefs posts using #BNC
Writing on Spirits, Wine, or Beer: Jon Bonné (San Francisco Chronicle), Jay McInerney (Men's Vogue), Alan Richman (GQ)
Food-Related Columns: Dorie Greenspan (Bon Appétit), Corby Kummer (The Atlantic) and Laura Shapiro (Gourmet.com)
Nutrition/Food-Related Issues: Barry Estabrook (Gourmet), Mark Adams, et al (New York Magazine), Rachael Moeller Gorman (EatingWell)
Restaurant Reviews: Jonathan Gold (LA Weekly), Adam Platt (New York Magazine) and Tom Sietsema (The Washington Post)
Magazine Feature Writing w/o Recipes: Alan Richman (GQ), Patricia Sharpe (Texas Monthly), Monique Truong (Gourmet) Magazine Feature with Recipes: Edna Lewis (Gourmet)*published posthumously, David Dobbs and John Ash (EatingWell), James Peterson (Saveur)
Magazine Feature Writing about Restaurants and/or Chefs: Ruth Reichl (Gourmet), Alan Richman (Departures), Anya von Bremzen (Food & Wine)
Newspaper Food Section: Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and The Washington Post
Newspaper Feature w/ Recipes: Rebekah Denn (Seattle Post-Intelligencer), David Leite (New York Times), Kathleen Purvis (Charlotte Observer)
Newspaper Feature w/o Recipes: Monica Eng (Chicago Tribune), Kristen Hinman (Riverfront Times) and Craig LaBan (The Philadelphia Inquirer) Newspaper Feature about Restaurants and/or Chefs: Monica Eng/Phil Vettel(Chicago Trib), Katy McLaughlin (WSJ), Tom Sietsema (The Wash Post)
MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award: Celia Barbour (O, The Oprah Magazine), Aleksandra Crapanzano (Gourmet), Alan Richman (GQ) Restaurant, Cookbook and Media Awards nominees are after the jump.
Making buttermilk mashed potatoes can easily go wrong. The buttermilk can curdle, and too much butter can obscure the buttermilk flavor. Check out these easy tactics to prevent such problems.
"Bloody poop" anyone? The toilet aesthetic is nothing new in Asian restaurants. We have a post, from a few years back, about a toilet-themed restaurant where people actually sit on toilets at a table. Recently, Time magazine had an article about a Taiwanese restaurant chain that's opening up restaurants in China and other parts of Asia. Modern Toilet serves dishes, with names like "green dysentery," in toilet-shaped plates. Food is presented in the shape of excrement.
Modern Toilet interestingly combines the vulgar, the obscene, the scatological with the high-end. As the Time article states: "Every customer sits on a stylish acrylic toilet (lid down) designed with images of roses, seashells or Renaissance paintings." In this way, the restaurant is enticing patrons and receiving positive feedback. Jennifer Finch, an American who dined there, described the experience as tasteful and clean.
The cuisine is an eclectic mix of Asian foods, including curries, pasta, fried chicken and Mongolian hot pot. Patrons comment that despite the disgusting descriptions, the foods are great. Apparently, China's comfort with (and interest in) toilet creations beyond the bathroom are not new. Time points out that a flush toilet was found in a tomb of a Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C. to A.D. 24) king. The Chinese invented toilet paper in the 6th century! But, while toilet dining may be less shocking in Chinese culture, Westerners seem to be gravitating to these restaurants as well.
Opening the fridge, you're most proud of your collection of: (a) mustards (b) butters (c) gins (d) home-rendered fats
Your travel plans: (a) are followed by a dig through for restaurant recommendations in the area (b) are usually based on the quality of the food in the region (c) revolve solely around food and restaurants (d) come only once you've confirmed your reservations and made sure the hairy crab are biting.
Answer these and a dozen or so other question's from Australian Gourmet Traveller to find out whether you are a "food tragic" - someone whose life revolves around food to such a degree that they simply cannot get on an airplane without a baggie of organic Marcona almonds and a mini bottle of St Estèphe, and misses out on dinner party invitations because their Anton Ego-eque level of discernment frightens their friends. Cute.
Gourmet's Barry Estabrook investigates the plight of Florida tomato pickers. The following is an excerpt of his findings published on Gourmet.com.
A little slavery is okay, just not too much of it.
At this writing, that appears to be the official government position in the state of Florida, and it could explain why the fields of the Sunshine State provide such fertile ground for modern-day slavery. In the past dozen years, police have broken up and prosecuted seven slave operations there, freeing more than 1,000 men and women who were kept captive and forced to work for little or no money and threatened with death if they tried to escape. (For more on the plight of the Florida tomato pickers, see my article "The Price of Tomatoes" in the March 2009 issue of Gourmet.)
Late last year, two members of the Navarrete family, the operators of what has been recognized as the most brutal slave ring the state has seen, were sentenced to 12 years in prison; two others received lesser sentences. Justice having been done, it was an ideal opportunity for Governor Charlie Crist, who enjoys a very high approval rating, to spend a bit of that political capital to condemn the practice and announce bold steps to prevent it.
I believe that if you're going to indulge in something like a grilled cheese sandwich, you should go all out. Butter the bread, use plenty of cheese and make something you'll really enjoy. I wouldn't recommend eating one of these babies every day, but once in a while, it's a perfectly good treat (especially when dunked in a bowl of oven roasted tomato soup).
However, I know that there are lots of you out there for whom a once in a while grilled cheese just doesn't cut it. For you, SELF Magazine has put together an article in which they try to help you elevate your grilled cheese to a slightly healthier level (it is still cheese and bread though, so don't be thinking that it's a diet food) by suggesting the addition of fruits and vegetables in your 'wich (I'm a fan of some green apple slices in with cheddar cheese) and reminding you to swap whole grain bread in for the classic white.
I've always had a love/hate relationship with upscale cookbooks and food magazines. I enjoy flipping through them, ogling the stunning food images and imagining a life where I have the time and energy to create dishes that take 7 pots, 11 hours and 26 ingredients. However, it's that level of intensity that so frustrates me, as while those recipes are nice to look at, reality says that they aren't something I can tackle. It's one of the reasons that the only food magazine that I've consistent subscribed to over the last five years is Everyday Food (the recipes are just so darn accessible).
However, according to an article in today's New York Times, it appears that those more refined and haughty food magazines are changing their ways and including recipes that home cooks can make on a budget and in that window of time that exists between the end of your commute home and the start of the dinner (half) hour.
Gourmet is including a new feature in their monthly publication called "Cook Smart" that tries to help the folks at home with easy, budget-friendly meals that will produce leftovers and keep them from calling out for pizza in desperation. Other publications like Food & Wine and Bon Appétit are choosing similar paths.
As readers and consumers of food media (I'm guessing that at least a few of you still subscribe to some of the glossies), what are you looking for? Do you use the food magazines that land in your mailboxes each month? Would you appreciate it if those glossies started printing more useful recipes?
Just this week, Bravo announced the host and judges for the new series that's a Top Chef spin-off - Top Chef Masters. The host will be food journalist Kelly Choi and the judges will include restaurant critic Gael Greene (pictured on the right), culinary expert James Oseland, and food critic Jay Rayner. Unlike Top Chef, the show will feature 24 chefs that have already made it big.
These world-renowned chefs will compete against each other in a series of weekly challenges, and only one chef will win a prize for the charity of their choice. Their food will not only be tasted and evaluated by the judges, but also by a wide range of tasters for whom the challenge is aimed. This can include patrons at a five-star restaurant or a room full of hungry kids.
As exciting as it is to see Gael Greene, NYC food critic institution, star as one of the judges, I'm dying to know which chefs will be competing on the show. Entertainment Weekly predicts that the series will probably cast chefs, like Anthony Bourdain, who have guest-judged on Top Chef in the past. Who are some chefs that you'd like to see compete?
We can change the way we make eggs -- scrambled, poached, fried -- but what about changing the eggs themselves? Mix up your scrambling routine with quail eggs.
We'll be
Opening the fridge, you're most proud of your collection of:
Second Helping of Slashfood - June 19
Competitive-Eating Contest to Pit Humans Against Elephants
The Backyard Boom - The Hungry Bride
