As a devotee of the "more is more" school of sandwich making, this picture of the "Parmageddon" sandwich makes me drool. Two potato and cheese pierogies (Slavic stuffed dumplings), a greasy tangle of grilled onions, sauerkraut, and a slab of cheddar cheese, squeezed between two thick slices of grilled bread.
The photo comes courtesy of writer-photographer David Lay, who captured this beast at Lakewood, Ohio's Melt Bar and Grilled. Melt specializes in a psychedelic variety of grilled cheese sandwiches - smoked turkey, kraut and gouda; beer battered walleye, tartar sauce, American. The Parmageddon was featured as a reader's favorite in Esquire's "Best Sandwiches in America." Now, if I can just get my Polish grandmother to teach me to make her potato pierogies, I'd be all set.
According to an AP report, two women were hospitalized after a New Zealand cafe mistakenly served dishwashing liquid as mulled wine. I'm not a wine expert and rarely bother with the whole sniff and swirl before drinking. I'm assuming these poor women also neglected that step. Are you even supposed to do that with mulled wine? Anyway, ewww!
When I was kid, I once killed a plant by pouring window cleaner into it instead of water. At least these women wisely stopped drinking after experiencing a burning sensation on the lips and mouth and thus lived to tell the tale.
Have you ever made a regretful liquid mix-up or perhaps drank wine that was so bad it tasted like dish soap? Share your story in the comments.
If you read one magazine article this week, definitely check out the New Yorker profile of Chicago chef Grant Achatz. The wunderkind behind the molecular gastronomy mecca Alinea, Achatz is currently running the show without a sense of taste. In what must be one of the worst cases of irony ever, the 34-year old was diagnosed with Stage IV tongue cancer earlier this year. Though he refused the standard treatment that would have involved removing most of his tongue, radiation therapy has nonetheless zapped, at least temporarily, most of his taste buds.
Still, Achatz presides over the Alinea kitchen, guiding his employees in the creation of his trademark outrageous confections - desserts of strawberry, olive, and violet essence; squab candy bars; pea and smoked salmon lollipops. Slowly, his sense of taste is returning - he can now taste salt and sugar again, and expects regain the ability to detect more subtleties as the months pass. He even hopes the experience will make him a more creative, edgier chef. Though coming from the man who served dehydrated bacon suspended from a silver scaffold during opening week, I'm not sure what that means.
Are wine-lovers pretentious, easily-manipulated fools who can't tell Two-Buck Chuck from a pricey Napa cabernet? Eric Asimov inquires.
Urban farmers: now selling at your local farmer's market.
The myths and realities of organics - Curious Cook Harold McGee looks for some real information and comes up kinda empty-handed. Seems everyone has their biases.
The Minimalist does crustless quiche, in cute little ramekins. OMG, the one with sauteed mushrooms sounds so good!
I'm not a big fan of the book Eat This, Not That. It purports to tell you which foods you should be eating in restaurants instead of other foods. Sometimes the comparison is good, but other times it just seems to save a person 100 calories here or a few grams of fat there and doesn't seem worth the bother (and sometimes the "eat this" choice has more carbs or salt). But I guess it's good to have the info.
Now Men's Health editor Dave Zinczenko exposes some restaurant secrets. Why don't some chains want us to know the nutritional numbers of their foods? What foods are often cooked with other foods in the kitchen? Do some fast food chains actually have healthier options than sit down restaurants?
I love aimless walks in the park, but some of my favorite walks involve trips to local restaurants or ice cream shops. It's about a 20 minute walk from my house to somewhere with decent food - just enough time to build up an appetite, but far enough that I sometimes (OK, often) get lazy and ask a friend to drive me home.
Walk Score is site that determines "the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc." According to Walk Score, our house has a rank of 52: "Some stores and amenities are within walking distance, but many everyday trips still require a bike, public transportation, or car." That sounds about right.
Walk Score, however, does admit that their model isn't perfect. They don't take walking paths into account or safety of the streets. Clearly, you need to try to walk places to know for sure how walkable a place is, but Walk Score is a good starting point.
What's your score? Do you agree with it? Do you take advantage of food you can walk to?
Fugu, or pufferfish, is a Japanese delicacy whose intrigue has to do as much with its potential hazards as with its actual taste. Fugu liver contains a potent neurotoxin with no known antidote, so licensed fugu chefs must undergo years of rigorous training to seperate the toxic bits from the rest of the flesh. Consuming the liver is completely forbidden. Still, several people die every year from eating improprly prepared fugu - victims remain conscious while becoming completely paralyzed.
Now, Japanese fish farmers have bred a non-poisonous fugu and are trying to get the right to serve its liver, which is said to be even tastier than foie gras. But they're meeting resistance from government officials, who claim it may not be safe, and angering traditional fugu aficionados who say without a risk of death, eating fugu is just no fun. Which frankly, seems like a dumb argument to me. My father and brother ate at a renowned fugu restaurant on a recent trip to Japan, and reported that, while delicious, it was nothing extraordinary. As in, nothing worth dying over. So why not allow toxin-free fugu and get your kicks skydiving, or disarming land mines, or wrangling crocodiles?
I assume that all you readers are familiar with Dr. Seuss's first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street? Well, I'm not sure where the good Doctors' Mulberry Street was, but I like to think of it as the one that shoots from NY City's Chinatown, up through Little Italy and SoHo, and ending in Greenwich Village.
I've been traveling on business all over the country for most of April and just made it home late last night. One of my favorite things to do before going on the road is put together a list of food and beverage destinations for every town I visit. This is so important to me because then I know that I can have something good to eat during or after a long day of meetings and events. Many of these events are centered around food and are usually excellent. But some are a little on the meager side food-wise when they are focused on libations.
The past week was an intensive exploration of NY City's cocktail and spirits world with a few stops here and there for some great food in between. I had just finished taping a radio show discussing artisanal spirits and modern mixology when I was feeling a mite peckish. Being a part time resident of NY, I hadn't done as much research as I normally would, relying on my good friend and fellow blogger Joe Distefano to be just a quick phone call away. I drew a blank about places I had heard of and gave him a call for some suggestions. Of course it was one of those days when each place was closed or too busy to grab something quick. I finally ended up for a long session of dim sum at Jing Fong in Chinatown.
Chili's, The Cheesecake Factory, Outback Steakhouse: they're as considered bland, middlebrow, as totally, tackily suburban as comb-overs and high-waisted mom jeans. Their menu items are ridiculed for their cheesy names (Bloomin' Onion, anyone?) and absurd calorie content (1,700 calories for a Chinese Chicken Salad!). For a certain stripe of self-considered sophisticate, a date suggesting dinner at Olive Garden would be a bigger deal breaker than a heroin habit.
But is the food at the mid-range franchise restaurants of America really bad?
The New York Times sent testers out into the suburban wilds (intrepid!) to find out, with very mixed results. T.G.I. Friday's goopy ribs disgusted even to a 12-year-old; Chili's buffalo wings were cloyingly sweet. The Cajun lime tilapia at Applebee's was nicely grilled and flavorful. Bertucci's had a surprisingly good list of microbrews.
I, for one, have always been a big fan of the fried mac n' cheese balls at the Cheesecake Factory (what's not to like?) and the "Shanghai street dumplings" at P.F. Chang's - hefty, golden buns filled with savory pork and scallions and topped with sesame seeds. I was sad when they took them off the menu in my neck of the woods. What about you? Think mid-range chains are unfairly maligned? Have a favorite Chili's dish we should all go try?
If you're a bargoer, you know the feeling. At 1:30 every morning, the bartender bellows, "LAST CALL!" and a collective groan erupts from the hangers-on, as they order their last round. The lights go up, and everyone stumbles out.
In New York, it's different. Most bars don't close until 4 a.m., dragging the ruckus and partying late into the night. Turns out, not everyone is a fan of the late-night revelry.
Brad Linder, journalist and writer for sister site Green Daily, recently reported on this issue for NPR. He spoke to one woman who lives in the NOHO district and is a member of a community board that's trying to get liquor-licensed establishments to close at 2 instead of 4.
Community boards like hers now have so much pull that many bars and restaurants must ask permission before staying open 'til 4, like teenagers asking to extend their curfew.
I'm sure we'd all rather not experience loud arguments and car alarms at 4 a.m. But at some point, isn't the noise and general hubbub part and parcel of living in a trendy NYC neighborhood? If you don't like the scene, shouldn't you just...move somewhere else?
Is there a less appetizingly named food than the 'Hot Brown?' Louisville, Kentucky's culinary claim to fame doesn't look like much either - an open-faced turkey sandwich topped with bacon and smothered in Sauce Mornay (Béchamel with cheese), it resembles nothing so much as a junkyard covered in a layer of dirty snow, bits of this and that sticking out from the off-colored drifts.
The inelegant Hot Brown was born at downtown Louisville's thoroughly opulent Brown Hotel, supposedly whipped up from kitchen leftovers after a 1920s dinner dance, when hungry flappers fell upon the chef like a pack of wolves. If you're looking for an easy treat for your pre-Derby lunch, check out the original recipe on the Brown Hotel website. Feel free to substitute ham for the bacon, or add tomatoes, onions, etc.
It's a good weekend for attending a food festival if you:
a) are a hipster of the American Northwest b) love wine c) have never attended a crawfish boil d) are hungry
If you, like me, find yourself nodding emphatically at these criteria, read on! This weekend offers food festivals sprinkled across the country, promising some of the most interesting and delicious foods I've seen in a while.
We might start feeling the squeeze on savings accounts, but we all know that there's an entirely separate account for ice cream!
Even still, Baskin Robbins is reducing the price on its single scoop tonight from 5-10 PM from whatever $1+ price it is (it's probably different everywhere) to a mere $0.31!
The 31 Cent Scoop Night is to honor America's firefighters, so grab your change purse, hurry over to your nearest Baskin-Robbins, and order a scoop of Jamocha Almond Fudge (that's what I like, but you order what you want).
Effective immediately, a federal appeals court says that all New York restaurants must post their food's caloric information on menu boards, and should begin no later than tonight at midnight.
The bill will apply only to restaurants with 15 establishments or more, and demands that the calorie counts be printed in the same font and size as normal menu information (even if this means making the rest of the menu's text teeny-tiny).
Fines will be instated beginning July 18 if restaurant owners do not comply with the new law.
Restaurant owners will fight out the case again in court on June 9, when the showdown will likely begin again.
It sits alone and untouched at the end of a long buffet table -- a bowl full of apples and bananas, maybe a seedy orange tossed in as an afterthought. Don't let your fruit salad meet this awful fate, spruce it up instead!
I'm not a big fan of the book Eat This, Not That. It purports to tell you which foods you should be eating in restaurants instead of other foods. Sometimes the comparison is good, but other times it just seems to save a person 100 calories here or a few grams of fat there and doesn't seem worth the bother (and sometimes the "eat this" choice has more carbs or salt). But I guess it's good to have the info.
I assume that all you readers are familiar with Dr. Seuss's first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street? Well, I'm not sure where the good Doctors' Mulberry Street was, but I like to think of it as the one that shoots from NY City's Chinatown, up through Little Italy and SoHo, and ending in Greenwich Village.
It's a good weekend for attending a food festival if you: 
We might start feeling the squeeze on savings accounts, but we all know that there's an entirely separate account for ice cream! 
The feature story this week is on restaurateur and 
Creating the ultimate Mother's Day gift for the carnivorous mom
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Gifts for the vegetarian (or vegetable-loving) mom
