A Backyard Wedding Courtesy of Style Me Pretty

An article in Tuesday's New York Times titled "With This Burger, I Thee Wed" chronicles an (economy-fueled) trend away from lavish, over-the-top weddings and towards the seating of guests comfortably in a backyard. Whether the yard belongs to a family member or is an old, rented-out estate, the fare being served at these weddings is reminiscent of a backyard barbecue: comfort food with simple flavors that aren't complicated or pretentious.

While I agree that the backyard reception is becoming trendy -- across class lines -- I think it started before the economy took a turn for the worse. Some of my favorite wedding blogs, such as Style Me Pretty, a go-to for many brides (especially DIY brides), have been stressing the importance of having a wedding that truly reflects the couple's personality.

A shiny, fancy affair may still be the Cinderella dream of many, but for others, it's a dream transformed into something lower-key. In the eyes of many, the more comfortable the wedding, the more fun is to be had.

Frank Bruni is leaving the New York Times dining section. And food bloggers are freaking out.

In a world where restaurants live or die by the awarding of Bruni's stars, blogs like Eater declare this no less than an "Apocalypse." Bruni will be turning his attention to his new memoir come August, and will be a writer at large for the New York Times Magazine.

Now the hunt (and speculation) begins to locate a food critic with the ability to carry Bruni's swagger: Ryan Sutton at Bloomberg, one of the few fairly anonymous critics left in town? Perhaps the L.A. Times' S. Irene Virbila is waiting by her phone, since the Times has pulled from our rival city to the west (a la Ruth Reichl) in the past. Grub Street wonders if (gasp) a blogger will be chosen. And does anonymity, so hard to preserve in the Internet era, matter any more to Pete Wells, the dining editor at the Times?

Perhaps the most curious quote in Bill Keller's announcement is that Bruni "will be turning in his restaurant-critic credentials." Uh, could someone get us a copy of those? Is there, like, a laminated round of foie gras passed from critic to critic? Frank, just drop us a line and let us know.

[Via Diner's Journal]

On one of the first gorgeous Saturdays of the spring, did Brooklyn foodies run to the park for picnic lunches or line the bars for springy cocktails?

Sure, some of 'em did. But 3,000 others, according to organizers, crammed the multicolored '70s-esque hallways of John Jay High School, aka P.S. 321, for a day of workshops, eats, panels and vendors called the Brooklyn Food Conference, promoting what a bright-yellow pamphlet trumpeted as "Local Action for Global Change."

Food world celebs roaming the halls included chef Dan Barber, speaker and TV host Anna Lappé and author-activist Raj Patel (whose classroom was so stuffed a volunteer had to turn fans away). Some attendees, all of whom attended for free, were a bit starry-eyed over certain sustainably-minded speakers. About Patel, local CSA organizer Meredith Modzelewski sighed, "I'm in love with him now."

Find out more and see photos after the jump.

Note: this post comes with a glossary.

"Twecipes¹" are the moment's micro-obsession and we ♥ the New York Times' Dining staff -- certainly active and useful Twitizens² themselves -- for flying into the eye of the storm in conjunction with today's profile of Twitter's marquee recipe condenser Maureen Evans, aka @cookbook. Still, must all prose now be condensed for optimal Tweetability³? Yup, it's been an addictively (though ADD) good time watching the 140-or-fewer-character Challenge responses stream into #nytrc⁴:

@betaphen Prep chokes w/lemon. Stuff w/zest, crumbs, parm, parsley, r-mary, garlic, carrot, capers. Roast in veg & liquid, covered @ 400 for 90

@rorycberger clean chokes stuff:lemzest/breadcrumbs/Parm/parsley/rosemary/garlic/carrot/capers/s&p. braise w/wine,carrot,onion,evoo @ 400 1.5 hr

We soundly applaud (and ever so slightly fear) their efforts, but our response was this:

@kittenwithawhip Sometimes the answer is just "Go here: http://bit.ly/bhf92" Not all recipes need be tweetable.

Perhaps it's terribly 2008 to think this way, but there's a near visceral joy in the reading of Melissa Clark's Stuffed Artichokes with Lemon Zest, Rosemary and Garlic recipe in its original form. The title alone (55 characters) vividly evokes the action and sensory experience of crafting, then savoring this dish in a way that spare, if technically correct Tweets can not. It makes for excellent editorial muscle flexing -- like a digital lipogram -- and it's an efficient way to circulate links, but we can't help but hope that Nigel Slater and his ilk of culinary poets never sign up for an @ handle.

Oh - and @pete_wells, serial tweets are for wusses.

1. Twecipe: 140 character recipe
2. Twitizen: Participant in the Twitter community
3. Tweetable: Expressible in a 140 character Tweet, or Twitter message
4. # : Hashtags are added in front of terms to make Tweets including them more easily searchable.

[via: New York Times Dining @nytimesdining on Twitter]

The folks over at Grist, an environmental watchdog blog, have taken Mark Bittman -- a cook and food writer for The New York Times whose work boasts a huge, passionate following including the Grist blogger himself -- to task for listing red snapper, a fish many consider endangered, in one of his recipes. A fascinating conversation follows in the comments section including a response from Bittman (aka The Minimalist) himself. Check it out -- but maybe not over a fish dinner, as you may lose your appetite.

A look at the banh mi craze currently sweeping Gotham, with young Vietnamese chefs interpreting the classic sandwich in non-traditional ways.

Critic Frank Bruni visits Feast, a Houston restaurant whose British ex-pat chefs turn Texans on to the unexpected joys of offal.

Twenty-five percent of Newark, N.J.'s population is of Portuguese descent. Here's what they're eating.

Some bars and restaurants are storing their by-the-glass wines in kegs and serving them as though they're beer.

More about our beloved Momofuku Milk Bar; a writer weighs in on the tooth-bendingly sweet treats.

A lot has changed over the last 102 years, both in and out of the kitchen, and nothing makes that hit home more than this gem, published in the New York Times in 1907. It's a letter to the editor, written by Gabrielle Stewart Mulliner, entitled: "Women Enjoy Cooking, A Pleasure, Not a Drudgery, Once the Art is Acquired."

Gabrielle was inspired to write her letter after reading an article that discussed training women in the art of domestic service -- you know, cleaning, cooking and doing all those other house things for your man.

Her claim: Women wouldn't hate cooking and serving men if they were trained properly. Man, if only men knew this ... they could have quashed that annoying Women's Lib movement in a blink! It wasn't about liberation, but an organized outcry of mediocre frustration! They just needed to learn how to do it right.

I'll let you read the letter in all its glory yourselves, but here are a few highlights:

"As long as the race exists, men will have to eat, and some one will have to do the cooking."

"Housework done intelligently is not drudgery."

"Anything a woman can do well, she enjoys doing."

2009 suddenly has a wonderfully sweet ring to it. 1907 can stay well in the past.

The Times delves into the world of goat meat with an "I ♥ Goat" essay by a man who uses the term "sexytime" with his butcher.

It's almost time for Passover (it begins at sundown on April 8) and the Gray Lady offers a slew of recipe ideas from the archive as well as a meal with a Mexican accent.

The Times gets jiggly with the British jelly mongers -- men of letters who prefer to work in the gelatin arts.

Dissecting why "The Chopping Block" got chopped from the NBC lineup.

Macao Trading Co. gets one star for Chinese-Portuguese fare that's a little mixed up.

Rieslings return, the Minimalist tackles Spanish seafood tortillitas and hummus parlors -- or hummusiot -- pop up all over town.

As several media sources have noted, there has recently been a surge in vodka sales. While these increases have occurred across the board, there has been a particularly large spike in so-called "value" and "popular" brands, which cost less than $9 per bottle.

In addition to the obvious price benefit, there is also the matter of flavor. As The New York Times noted, the premium vodka fad was largely an artificially created phenomenon, and the cheap stuff often tastes just as good as brands that cost five or six times as much.

Of course, as the comments in last November's Top Shelf Vodka post demonstrate, Slashfood's readers have known this for quite some time.

While you may not want to resort to Popov, as the Times seems to suggest, it's worth noting that Smirnoff, Luksusowa and Svedka are all outstanding, low-priced tipples. And, just in case the Times decides to copy us yet again, remember that you heard it here first!

California vintners defy tradition to make lighter, more delicate pinot noirs.

Food historian John T. Edge debuts his new series, United Tastes, which will explore changing American cuisine. This week he writes about the fabled Chinese cashew chicken of Missouri.

Michelle Obama champions healthy eating.

Those steak frites just got a little cheaper: Europe lowers their dining out tax.

A writer searches New York for an old-fashioned Irish pub, which he says is a rare commodity even in Ireland these days.

The Temporary Vegetarian makes mushroom and daikon soup.

The Minimalist makes emerald-flecked mashed potatoes, with dandelion greens.

A review of chef Marco Pierre White's new NBC cooking reality show, The Chopping Block. Just how will he crush the souls of his contestants?

My sister has gone through a number of different diet schemes over the years. First she was a vegetarian. Then she shifted to vegan (but missed cheese too much to go on). Then for a while, during some really lean times, she was a freegan, eating anything that she didn't have to pay for. These days, she distills her eating principle down to the basic phrase, "I don't eat things where the female of the species carries its young in a uterus." This means beef is out, but poultry is in.

I'm sure that there are lots of you out there who have equally quirky and specific dietary guiding principles and Michael Pollan, the man who coined the phrase "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." wants to know what they are. On Monday, he put a call out on New York Time's Well blog, soliciting these food mottos from readers. He's looking for something that is both poetic and appropriate.

So what's yours?

• Cube steak, that tenderized cut of meat that so many of us ate during childhood, has been making a comeback.
• Blog coverage of new restaurants, in some cases long prior to opening, is causing some concern that people will tire of the new spots, even before they can eat there.
• The organic label on foods has long made people feel like they were making the more virtuous choice, but does it actually mean that those foods are safer?
• Frank Bruni gives a sad, single star to L'Artusi, a new Italian restaurant, finding redemption only on the dessert menu.
• Want a more soulful breakfast? Check out this list of NYC morning spots that will fill your belly and leave you satisfied.
• California chardonnay has evolved since the early days and Eric Asimov rounds up some of the best from Santa Barbara.
• The Queens County Farm Museum has gone from a spot for agrotainment to a full-on working farm.
• Melissa Clark has found that there's nothing better than fish that has been gently poached in butter (or some other fat) for keeping it supple and delicious.
• Stop pairing beets with goat cheese and give this walnut-garlic puree a try instead, says Minimalist Mark Bittman.
• Elaine Loue introduces a new (albeit intentionally short-lived) column - The Temporary Vegetarian.

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?

• Brooklyn is the epi-center of a food revolution, where anyone with passion, dedication and a little know-how can become an artisanal producer.
• Harold McGee challenges the long-held belief that you need to boil 6 quarts of water for every pound of pasta you're cooking.
• The newest thing in California cuisine - the mobile Korean taco truck.
• Eric Asimov encourages ethnic restaurants to tend more carefully to their wine lists.
• Buttermilk Channel is one of the hottest restaurants in Brooklyn at the moment and Frank Bruni finds that it has much to recommend it.
• Julia Moskin makes new restaurant Seasonal sound homey and appealing.
• The struggles over the coat check, poor tipping and the general resistance people have towards checking their coats.
• There's little that's better than a soup made with long simmered stock from the bones.
  
• The Minimalist is enamored of a starter made from sliced oranges and black olive paste.

• Mark Bittman says put down those sweet breakfast cereals and instead try whole grains with savory flavors for your morning meal.
• More and more, those clever restaurant pastry chefs are turning to breakfast classics for dessert inspiration.
• The Upper East Side restaurant Sette Mezzo caters to the very well-heeled and in this economy, they seem to be doing fairly well.
  
• What the decor at the new Chinese restaurant Shang lacks in visual appeal, the food more than makes up for it.
• Eric Asimov samples a number of wines from the Côte Chalonnaise region of France and finds some true winners as well as some that should be avoided.
• Melissa Clark says she goes for odd combos when cooking alone, although this Roasted Cauliflower and Peas with Chutney Cheese Sauce doesn't sound anything but delicious.
• The Milano sisters all quit their corporate jobs to start a baking company and are now creating delicious cookies. With a name like that, how coul they not.