Hot dogs are as ubiquitous as Ray Bans this summer, with all-beef franks gracing grills at backyard BBQs and gourmet versions making cameos on restaurant menus. But a hot dog coddled in bacon is a rare treat.
These bacon-wrapped dogs were captured by our friend Fork This at a Hot Dog Cookoff before being placed in buns and topped with crushed almonds. Though we have mixed feelings about the crushed-almond topping, these look good enough to eat straight off the grill.
Aptly called Dog Date Afternoon, the heart-attack-inducing treats sadly didn't take home top (or any) honors, but it's pretty likely there were none left for their maker to take home, either.
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
How can one be "sympathetic" to, um, beer? Well, in this very straightforward good guy versus bad guy documentary, the Big Three (Miller, Coors and Anheuser-Busch/InBev) are set up as the Goliath to the microbrewers' David, including Dogfish Head's charming Sam Calagione.
Of course, the Big Three are now just the Big Two, but that small detail didn't stop this Brooklyn audience from engaging in a rowdy shout-down over the course of the film -- a distinctly one-sided vehicle with a chipper bespectacled narrator. Vintage ads and interviews with "Bad Beer" millionaires in polished boardrooms are interspersed with folksy, homey interviews with Calagione and Rhonda Kallman, the woman behind caffeinated brew MoonShot. Various microbreweries also snagged cameos. (Pennsylvania's Yuengling received rousing cheers).
The most telling parts of the film came when the camera zoomed into the refrigerated aisle of grocery stores and placed big red boxes around beers clearly dear to audience members' hearts. It was with a collective gasp that suds-lovers realized their beloved Stella was connected to Anheuser-Busch.
"What happened to the rats on your property?" someone asks urban farmer Novella Carpenter.
"I have a theory that my pigs ate the rats," Carpenter says. Realizing that her audience has been munching on slices of said pig's hindquarters, she laughed. "So enjoy some delicious prosciutto!"
Farmers are reputed to have a tough streak. They step over piles of excrement, battle gargantuan hogs and, of course, have to earn a living. Carpenter, author of "Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer," seems no exception. She lives in the city, not the country, "so I can get Chinese food at 2 a.m."
The two 300-pound hogs she raised in what she calls the Oakland, Calif., "ghetto," also enjoyed Chinese takeout. She read about her adventures in urban farming on a Brooklyn, N.Y., rooftop adjacent to a 6,000-foot, 30-crop rooftop farm built by Goode Green and tended by farmers Annie Novak and Ben Flanner.
Dumpster diving, fish guts and the cost of rooftop farming, after the jump.
Classic French drinks at Brooklyn's Bastille Day. Photo: Alex Van Buren
Bastille Day is tomorrow, but in New York City the party started as it so often does -- early. From an uptown street fair in Manhattan featuring the decadent pastries of Francois Payard to a boozy, New Orleans-like outdoor fete on Smith Street (often called Brooklyn's Restaurant Row), the city was awash in stripes of red, white and blue.
Those wondering how to pay homage to that long-ago storming of the Bastille prison via gastronomical decisions tomorrow, not to worry: We've got a classic Provençal recipe and a few Francophilic cocktail ideas coming your way tomorrow.
Meantime, after the jump, a recap of the Brooklyn event (more pictures here) from moules frites to the peculiar triumph of anise-tinged Ricard.
The taco may be the perfect food. Portable and unassuming, not to mention affordable, it proffers fuss-free enjoyment for most everyone. This Slashfoodie's recent move to Austin, Texas, after residing in the taco mecca of Sunset Park, Brooklyn for three years has led him to sample Lone Star State tacos whenever possible. Naturally, a mano a mano Austin versus Sunset Park contest was inevitable.
Austin's taco scene skews toward what some might call "gringo fancy," characterized by the prominence of flour tortillas and nontraditional ingredients like bison and basil -- and fish, which is found infrequently in Sunset Park.
Brooklyn tacos, on the other hand, pay homage to one of the neighborhood's main demographics, Mexican immigrants, with tacos wrapped in two corn tortillas. They typically contain nothing more than a meat filling -- goat, lengua (tongue) and cabeza (brains) are among commonly selected options -- minced raw onion, cilantro, a spritz of lime and an optional flurry of queso fresco (white cheese).
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.
Margaritas are lovely, yes, but sometimes the liver needs a break. And Mexico, of course, is no one-trick culinary pony. In fact, while ambling through the famously taco- and torta-laden neighborhood of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, last weekend, a compadre proselytized wildly about a maple-walnut popsicle right before running into traffic to lead us to the deli where it lived.
Traditionally no friend to the walnut unless it is candied, we were inclined to pass. Then we noticed that in this popsicle, walnuts were a minor player relegated to the stick end of the treat. We politely accepted a small bite. And then another.
And then we turned on our heel and ran back to the deli to rummage frantically through the cooler gleaming on the sidewalk: mango-lime, pistachio, egg nog. Egg nog?! Walnut! Where was it? Pops flew everywhere as, like a dog frantically chasing a mole burrowing underground, we went shoulder-deep into the icy cooler. Thank the stars, a lone, innocuous "nuez" pop remained.
Some brews, such as Guinness, shine in colder weather while others are more suited to the beachy crowd (ever seen a Corona commercial?). As per American craft beers, plenty of breweries have a summer seasonal in their arsenals, but these eight feature a whole slew of suds to keep you refreshed despite the heat waves (we listed our faves alphabetically).
8. Abita - Maybe it's the local swelter in which they were created, but Louisiana's Abita brews seem well-suited to any hot day, especially Purple Haze, Restoration and Strawberry Harvest -- as fruity as it sounds.
7. Bell's - Some say that spring isn't actually here until Bell's Oberon is released (a notion we far prefer to a neurotic groundhog) and their Two-Hearted Ale may be the best summer IPA in the biz.
6. Brooklyn - Sure, they offer a Summer Ale, but with year-rounds including a nice Weisse, a baseball-adorned Pennant Ale and a refreshing Pilsner, summer in Brooklyn is secure.
5. Harpoon - Harpoon has an aptly named Summer Beer made in the Kölsch style, but their UFO Hefeweizen garnished with a touch of citrus is one of the most drinkable American wheats on the market. The light, crisp Harpoon IPA is only mildly hoppy and is another winner.
A lot of people think New Yorkers live in their own little bubble.
Well, you know, sometimes it's a big bubble.
A friend called Saturday morning to ask if we knew about the pop-up restaurant opening in Brooklyn -- "you know, in the giant, see-through bubble." We sat straight up in bed, ran to our laptop to see the link he sent us and gasped.
It was called the "Spacebuster," and we challenge you to find the child of the '80s who could resist such a thing. A team of German architects-slash-artists have been hosting events in the billowing plastic beast -- its goal is to create spontaneous communities in urban landscapes -- since 2006, and this is her virgin trip to the U.S. (local Slashfoodies can meet her at a formal reception on Tuesday).
The Eighteenth, a roaming underground monthly dinner club, was in charge of a menu that included endive, a bone-broth soup, polenta and anile flotante. We brushed off the $27 fixed-price menu without a second thought. What is money in a bubble? We pictured a night free of the elements New Yorkers continually battle -- pollution, traffic, stench -- short of major natural disaster, nothing could touch us in a bubble! Upon realizing the evening would be staged in the quiet courtyard of a Gothic can factory, we were sold.
While you may never be able to own an actual kitchen gadget from Julia Child's kitchen (the Smithsonian has the complete contents of her Cambridge, Mass., kitchen on display here), you might be able to grab a set piece from the new Julia Child movie "Julie and Julia" -- if you happen to be anywhere near the New York metropolitan area this weekend.
The movie is Nora Ephron's melding of Julia Child's memoirs with those of Julie Powell, a Queens, N.Y., woman who blogged through "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" over the course of a year.
The prop masters for Columbia Pictures are liquidating the set for the film -- starring Amy Adams (as Powell) and Meryl Streep (as Child) -- from a warehouse in northern Brooklyn, N.Y. this weekend. Slashfood popped in this morning to peruse the gadgetry used to fill seven kitchen movie sets, including the famed cooking school Le Cordon Bleu.
More pictures and the sale location after the jump.
A weekly look at the draft selection at beer-friendly bars across the country.
What does it take to be a great beer bar? Some things are obvious: A rotating lineup of interesting, hand-selected draft beers that covers a variety of styles is a good first step. But other factors play into the equation.
I'm a huge fan of bars that regularly update their draft list online. Give a big check to Brooklyn, N.Y.'s Barcade. Right on the front of their Web site they post their own What's On Tap column. And they do you one better: Click on any beer in the list to be taken to its BeerAdvocate review page, meaning you can create your own scouting report before even leaving home.
Friendly knowledgeable staff is also a plus. Score another point for Barcade's bartenders who show a lot of passion for beer and keep their cool even on the bar's busiest nights.
But Barcade also knows it never hurts to have an ace up your sleeve, and at this Williamsburg neighborhood drinking hot spot, that means vintage arcade games. Whether dodging traffic on one of their most popular machines like Frogger, or trying your hand at some "lost" classics (if you can call games like Ludy Bug, Pengo or Sinistar "classics"), Barcade may be the only establishment in the country who's selection of dozens of vintage arcade games rivals the uniqueness of their draft list. (And speaking of rivals, the bar posts the all-time top scores for their machines. Take down the champ and your name goes up on the wall.)
Luckily, though most of the arcade machines come from the 1980s, the beers on draft are all fresh. Let's take a look at what Barcade is currently serving after the jump. ...
As of now, it's Pomegranate located in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. The 20,000 square feet of shopping space includes aisles full kosher gourmet foods. An article from New York magazine calls Pomegranate a "kosher gourmet megastore." The supermarket seems to be a cross between Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.
Unlike other specialty markets, Pomegranate caters to the thousands of Orthodox Jewish families living in New York City. The store has three kitchens: dairy, meat, and parve (fish, vegetables, fruit and grains). Each has its own on-duty full-time rabbi. Customers can choose from a rich selection of freshly baked challah and homemade cheeses to aged prime beef-rib steaks to an olive bar and sushi bar. The gourmet food market is an obvious business trend. Is the kosher version of Whole Foods the new trend?
I live in Brooklyn, not far from Pomegranate, and I see several smaller gourmet kosher markets on Kings Highway. The prices are not cheap. So, I do not think that Pomegranate will have a hard time competing with existing stores. You can now visit the supermarket that's located on Coney Island Avenue at the corner of Avenue L.
Gourmet's Ian Knauer has bacon on the brain ever since a fateful foray into one of Greenpoint, Brooklyn's omnipresent Polish groceries. The specimen in question is double-smoked, non-brine injected belly meat, has roots in the former Eastern Prussia, and is sold in Germany as Geräucherter Speck. Looks insanely delicious, no?
Mr. Knauer is also pretty certain that one's personal selection thereof over all other bacon formats is a potential indicator of, well, he's not entirely certain, but if nothing else, this meat-based emotional indexing is a lot yummier than the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator or the MMPI. Mmmm...delicious psychological profiling.
Sopressata at Esposito & Sons in Brooklyn, NY from Flickr user j bary's Flickr.
I'm posting images of sausage counters the world over each weeknight (and occasionally weekend) witching hour until I run out. Please use the comments section to post links to your Flickr or personal site faves, and perhaps you'll see 'em posted here late some evening.
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