What happens when the best French and American chefs of the moment converge on New York City for a weekend of casual culinary madness, all in the name of charity?
It's called Le Fooding D'Amour Paris-New York. The two-day event took place in Long Island City, N.Y. at the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center and included tasting stations by David Chang (Momofuku), Wylie Dufresne (WD~50), Yves Camdeborde (Le Comptoir du Relais), Sean Rembold (Diner), William LeDeuil (Ze Kitchen Galerie), Christophe Pelé (Bigarrade) and more.
Slashfood attempted to try as many of the dishes on offer as possible, considering the long, snaking lines and lack of lighting at the outdoor venue.
Chorizo tacos at Austin's Arandas #3. Photo: Jessica S. Ralat
A whopping 69 percent of poll respondents told this recent Brooklyn-to-Austin transplant that the Lone Star State's tacos were the best in the nation and relayed some excellent suggestions. We were able to sample some 40 tacos around Austin, setting them against the closest Sunset Park, Brooklyn, counterparts we could find. Here's one taster's subjective opinion. (Austin is growing on him.)
6. Austin's Arandinas (suggested by Slashfoodies Lacey and LP) pork taco vs. Brooklyn's Matamoros cabeza taco: Arandinas' juicy, eminently scarfable pork taco went head-to-head with Matamoros', uh, cow head -- and triumphed. Winner: Arandinas, Austin.
5. Austin's Mi Madre's Restaurant (suggested by Jodi and others) Pork Adobado vs. Brooklyn's Matamoros Enchilada taco: Anticipating a chili steam engine from this red-sauced breakfast taco, we instead found spiceless goop in a flour shell ill-matched to its flurry of onions and avocado slices. The slightly spicy red enchilada taco at Matamoros is still the one we hold dear. Winner: Matamoros, Brooklyn
Early in our relationship, whenever I told my husband I was headed to a cupping, he (a coffee lover but not a fanatic like me) would imagine something, er, otherwise-related. Now that he knows cupping as a coffee-tasting ritual he might be disappointed -- or relieved -- but at least he understands why I'm a bit jittery when I come home from one.
The cupping process traces back to the 19th century, when beans were graded basically on a "yes" or "no" scale: Too many defects (like disease or mold) earned an ix-nay, while just about everything else was considered acceptable.
Today, cupping serves several different purposes: At the coffee's point of origin it allows farmers, importers, brokers and roasters to test the quality of a crop; after roasting, the roasters themselves will cup coffees for consistency, flavor profile and to detect the effects of aging; and at the consumer level, coffee cuppings are the rough (and fun!) equivalent of wine tastings, and are becoming widelyavailabletothepublic.
Kyle Spencer, 23, and Xiao Yu, 24, are barely of drinking age and have been brewing beer for less than a year, but nonetheless wear their ambition, literally, on their sleeves.
"Brewing for a living is something we both wanted to do," says Spencer, promoting his nascent brand by wearing a gray, short-sleeved Beta Beer T-shirt alongside partner Xiao Yu. Despite his expert presentation, Spencer is nervous: For the first time his product will be tasted by "actual people who have beer backgrounds."
This kind of fledgling enthusiasm was par for the course at the Brooklyn Beer Experiment, a new cook-off in a city obsessed with cook-offs, part of the groundswell of our nation's craft-brewmania and a first from competitors turned co-organizers Theo Peck and Nick Suarez. "We were cook-off rivals," says Suarez, "and decided we could do this as well as anyone else could." Sunday afternoon at Brooklyn's the Bell House -- a space primarily used as a music venue -- more than 25 chefs infused their eats with beer, and local homebrewers like Spencer and Yu hawked their wares.
Last week, we discussed the possible financial benefits of homebrewing. After last night's Extreme Beer Homebrew Challenge at Jose Pistolas for Philly Beer Week, I was reminded of one of the other major advantages of homebrewing: The ability to experiment.
The event brought out some of Beer Week's finest: Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head was anointed the "Uber Joe Pro" and happily dropped by to help serve up his Palo Santo Marron and Red & White. Though not offering up brews of their own, Lost Abbey's Tomme Arthur and Avery Brewing's Adam Avery were also a few of the notable names who showed their support.
But clearly, the night belonged to the dozen plus homebrewers who proved that though they might not be "rock stars of craft brewing" like their previously mentioned contemporaries, they are certainly on the frontlines when it comes to making small batch experimental brews that only a homebrewer would have the balls to try. And though these guys might be lawyers and IT professionals during the day, many of them have superhero-like secret identities as certified beer judges and casual creative consultants to their big-name counterparts.
"I have a quote for you," said Green Flash Brewing Co.'s Brewmaster, Chuck Silva. And when the man who hand-crafted one of your favorite beers in the world tells you he has a quote, you listen. "The harder you work, the luckier you are," said Chuck in response to my query of how Green Flash has managed to have such great success in such a short amount of time. "It's not that we've been lucky, it's just that we work hard and we've had good fortune."
Chuck Silva has been Brewmaster with Green Flash for approximately four and a half years now. In that time, Green Flash has grown from a small San Diego brewery to one of national prominence and availability. It's hard to believe, but Mr. Silva wasn't even Green Flash's first Brewmaster (they existed for two years without him), which just shows how instrumental he has been to their success. I was lucky enough to be able to accost Chuck during a Philly Beer Week event at the P.O.P.E. (fully known as the Pub on Passyunk East, which, as a bar, is post worthy in it's own right, but I'm going to stay on task for the time being), and he was polite enough to answer a number of questions regarding his brews.
Being a beer writer isn't as fun and easy as it looks. Most weeks I spend more time staring down a computer than a pint. I do say "most weeks," however. This coming week will not be one of those weeks.
From Friday, March 6th through Sunday, March 15th, Philadelphia will be host to Philly Beer Week 2009 -- a 10 day extravaganza featuring over 650 events from well over 100 participants, including dozens of different breweries and brewers crashing the city limits and some points beyond.
They've tagged the event "America's Best Beer-Drinking City," and though that title can certainly be debated, the official Philly Beer Week website lays out some compelling evidence to back their claim. A quick look at the event map makes you wonder if there's anywhere in Philadelphia not involved in Beer Week and the list of events is nothing short of overwhelming.
I'll be in town tomorrow (Friday) until Wednesday, March 11th, blogging about events along the way. My first stop will be the Opening Tap if you want to come follow me around. But better yet, check out phillybeerweek.org and see what strikes your fancy. As a former Philly resident, so many of these amazing bars have a special place in my heart, I wouldn't even know how to start playing favorites. You'll probably see me everywhere, because almost anywhere you can get to is worth the stop.
This year is the 10th anniversary of Open That Bottle Night, an evening invented by Wall Street Journal wine writers Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, and they invite you to participate.
What exactly is Open That Bottle Night? It's an excuse to open a bottle you've been hoarding and saving for a special occasion (that never seems to roll around). It's a night where you can savor an incredible wine all by yourself, with someone special, or with a big group of foodie friends. It's a night where you have a reason to Open That Bottle.
As a confirmed wine hoarder, I love the idea. I tend to save special bottles and then never open them because it's never the right time, or I don't think the occasion warrants it. OTBN is about letting go of those packrat tendencies. I've gone through my wine and can't decide what to drink. I'm leaning toward the 2005 Fort Walla Walla Cellars Treaty, a gift from my parents and a truly amazing wine, but then again, it's supposed to be good for another decade or longer, so maybe I should hold off. I've got some unique wines like Norton from Missouri, and a bunch of South African Cabernet.
The important thing is to open something. And this year, you can Twitter about it. What will you be drinking on Saturday for OTBN 10?
So, I know I can be a little East Coast centric with my beer posts. That's what living on the East Coast for the past 7 years or so has done to me. But this only makes me all the more excited to be able to promote SF Beer Week which begins in the San Francisco Bay Area tomorrow.
Running from February 6th through to Sunday, February 15th, more than 100 San Francisco breweries and pubs are participating in around 150 events intended to celebrate the early roots of the modern Renaissance in artisan beers.
With the relatively recent explosion of craft beers and microbreweries across the entire country, it's easy to forget that San Francisco was one of the major forefathers of the brewing revival. Legendary beer writer Michael Jackson went so far as to state in his seminal book The World Guide to Beer, "The rediscovery of American beer began in the West...not in trend-addicted Los Angeles...but in and around San Francisco." He often spoke affectionately of the Anchor Brewery and references Fritz Maytag's involvement with the company as a major turning point in American brewing.
When Maytag became involved with Anchor in 1965, no more than a couple hundred active breweries existed in the U.S. -- maybe less. Today, the country boasts over 1,400 craft breweris, and as SF Beer Week reminds us, "Northern California alone has more breweries than most states and enjoys an unrivaled reputation for the quality and diversity of its craft beer."
Additional info and event listings can be found on the SF Beer Week website at www.sfbeerweek.org.
April may be the cruelest month, but January is surely the coldest. It's the perfect time to break out big, robust red wines that warm your body and soul. And what better to eat with a big red wine than a big steaming bowl of chili?
This weekend we had about a dozen people over for a blind tasting of six Carmeneres, all from Chile (the country--don't get Chile and chili confused!). Carmenere is Chile's signature grape, brought over from Bordeaux in the late 19th century. The wine is deeply dark and full-bodied, and in Chile can have a somewhat vegetal flavor, though it can also be quite fruity and spicy.
The six we tried ranged in price from $10 to $47. Chile is known around the world for its value wine, and it definitely delivered in our tasting. When the bags were pulled off, it turned out that several of us put the $10 wine in our top favorites. Surprisingly, everyone from the least- to the most-experienced tasters felt that all of the wines were good, and comparable in their quality, even though the prices were not.
More tasting notes and my "Chili for a Crowd" recipe after the jump.
A few years ago – which, if memory serves me, corresponds to "the Paleolithic era" when you're young – jaws dropped all around the oenophilic community when Jay McInerney was named wine columnist for House and Garden magazine.
McInerney has been considered something of a voice of a generation (read: mine), but I always thought he was unfairly freighted with mis-perceptions and even some guttersniping: a talented writer who writes about the social milieu can be misunderstood as having an attitude, and even if they do, it is the writing that should, and ultimately does, speak for itself.
It seems that many among the cigars-and-snifters crowd dismissed McInerney's wine writing as disdainfully as they would a box of Franzia, while many among the hipster-wine-bar set dismissed McInerney's wine writing as cloyingly as they would embrace the "irony" of that selfsame box of wine.But anyone so dismissing often so dismissed for no better reason than the fashion of scorning the 1980s, a critical posture that the decade itself certainly bears some responsibility for.I've actually read one reference to this best-selling – and, to my mind both as reader and writer, very talented – author as a "wine brat."
Zinfandel. It's so good, it has its own festival. Want to go? The public tasting, where you can taste Zins from 275 winereries, is Saturday, Jan. 31 from 2-5 p.m. at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco. I've got four tickets to give away, which I'll give away in twos. Post in the comments below and two people will win.
Since the timeframe is so short, please post by 8 p.m. Eastern tonight in order to enter, and I'll get tickets out first thing tomorrow.
Today is a special day for me. It is a special day for all spirit and cocktail enthusiasts throughout the state of Washington. For in a few hours, several of the nations premier absinthe producers and our own resident experts will gather downtown in a small artists loft for the first event produced by the Washington State Bartender's Guild.
This event will be the exclamation point on a long process that began last summer when I cornered Andrew Friedman, owner of a wonderful local bar named Liberty, and we began discussing how to form a collective of bartenders into a guild, similar to what the bartenders in Oregon had recently done. We recruited several talented bartenders and began laying the groundwork.
We started with a Mission Statement:
The WSBG exists as an organization of professionals and enthusiasts with an enduring mission to elevate the standard of bartending as a craft. The key to this goal is simple: we are a state- wide collaborative community dedicated to a heightened expectation of quality cocktails, spirits, wine and beer, the promotion and recognition of an excellence in service and an ongoing education of our membership.
It used to be that a trip to wine country meant trekking from winery to winery, tasting wine, cleansing one's palate with plain crackers, and then, stomach rumbling, heading over to a restaurant to satisfy the food craving. These days, plenty of wineries are trotting out more than just 1-ounce pours: they're putting out gourmet food, special events, and even live music to lure in and entertain customers.
For serious wine geeks, this trend no doubt annoys. Geeks would rather do what they do best--taste the wine, preferably covering as much ground as possible--and not have to consider that the cost of the live band has somehow worked its way into the case of Cabernet they just bought.
But for people who view wine-tasting and a visit to wine country as a social or romantic event, the wine experience can be a lot of fun. We're talking food and wine pairing classes; sessions with the winery's private chef, who may have been lured away from a top restaurant; music and wine pairings (and there's evidence to show that music does influence what you drink and how you taste it); and more.
I was in Texas in November for the San Antonio Food & Wine Festival, and while there hopped up to Becker Vineyards in the Texas Hill Country, an hour or so northwest of San Antonio, for a lunch and tasting.
Becker Vineyards is probably the best-known winery both within and without Texas. Even if you don't know a lot about Texas wine, you may have heard of Becker. The winery was founded by Dr. Richard and Bunny Becker in 1992, and they've been pioneers in Texas wine ever since, helping pave the way to credibility for Texas wine as a whole.
I only brought back one bottle of Texas wine from my trip: the Becker Vineyards Prairie Rotie, a Rhone-style blend of Carignan, Mourvedre, Syrah, and Grenache. The name "Prairie Rotie" is something of a joke. Cote Rotie, a Syrah made in the northern Rhone in France, translates to "roasted slope," because most of the vineyards are located on sun-drenched hills. So "Prairie Rote" means "roasted prairie," because Becker's vines are on the prairie, not steep, terraced hills.
Last week, we discussed the possible 
"I have a quote for you," said 
Being a beer writer isn't as fun and easy as it looks. Most weeks I spend more time staring down a computer than a pint. I do say "most weeks," however. This coming week will not be one of those weeks.
A few years ago – which, if memory serves me, corresponds to "the Paleolithic era" when you're young – jaws dropped all around the oenophilic community when 
Zinfandel. It's so good, it has its 
Today is a special day for me. It is a special day for all spirit and cocktail enthusiasts throughout the state of Washington. For in a few hours, several of the nations premier absinthe producers and our own resident experts will gather downtown in a small artists loft for the first event produced by the Washington State Bartender's Guild. 
I was in Texas in November for the San Antonio Food & Wine Festival, and while there hopped up to 
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