"Jeffery Steingarten" news and stories

If ever it seemed like they stack the decks over at the "Iron Chef" kitchen stadium, last night would have been high on the list. With the capable and mostly humorless Bobby Flay as your defending champ, are you really going to throw him a softball like avocado as the secret ingredient? Mr. Mesa Grill himself, denizen of all things spicy and southwestern?

It'd be like giving Morimoto seaweed or Mario Batali basil. Luckily, while the ingredient the producers chose wasn't much of a threat, their opposing chef was something of a curve ball: Floppy haired, unshaven Canuck Michael Smith, seen in the intro hiking around a field in a sun hat, plucking fruits from the vine like some sort of former draft-dodging hippie who decided he liked Prince Edward Island too much to leave.

Smith's casual demeanor belies his Beard-award-winning skills. We knew we liked him from the start, when he cut through the usual overwrought "Iron Chef" choosing-ceremony b.s. by goofily bulging his eyes and gesturing in the direction of Flay like a madman. Finally, we have someone to combat the imported histrionics of The Chairman with a healthy dose of irony!

It's common knowledge that dogs will, er, dog just about anything. I've never had a dog and I am by no means a "dog person," but I hear that they're known to feast indiscriminately upon table scraps.

In my limited exposure to dogs, I've known canines with particular affections for people food. I once lived with a woman whose boxer had such an appetite for bread from Italian restaurants that we would always save her a doggie bag from the bread basket. I liked to refer to her as "pure-bread."

And I've had the pleasure of meeting Jeffrey Steingarten's golden retriever, Sky King, who is reported to have a discriminating palate when it comes to all things barbecue.

But I've never even conceived of canines craving vegetables until a friend sent me this snap of a dog chowing down on cukes at his master's farm in Japan. In case you're wondering, it's not a case of the dog chasing after green bones, he really does enjoy cucumbers. Does anyone else know of dogs that dig farm-fresh produce?

Allow me to preface this post by saying that I like ketchup. However, I cannot profess to love the red stuff as much as Jeffrey Steingarten who kvells, "To my mind, ketchup stands in the top tier of the world's cold or tepid nondessert sauces."

I  have dear friends for whom the smell of ketchup on an egg sandwich in an enclosed space, oh say a car, is abhorrent enough to provoke a threat of physical violence. My friends might think they have it bad, but apparently two sisters in Scotland have it far worse. Nonetheless, they remain open-minded.

Despite an aversion to ketchup so fierce that they say the mere sight of the condiment is "an absolute nightmare",  Kirsty and Linsey Miller, want to overcome their phobia, which is so strong they can't abide the tomato-based staple in their flat.

 Maybe their urge for self-improvement has something to do with their parents predilection for tomato sauce at meals. Who can say? The sisters seem to have no problem with recent varieties of green ketchup.

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