PeteWells - Articles and Posts from Slashfood

Posts with tag PeteWells

'Craig Claiborne's Southern Cooking' - Cookbook Spotlight

Posted Jun 17th 2009 2:00PM by Kat Kinsman
Filed under: Books, Cookbook Spotlight

'Craig Claiborne's Southern Cooking'
Craig Claiborne with foreword by John T. Edge and Georgeanna Milam
University of Georgia Press -- 2007 (originally published in 1987 by Clamshell Productions, Ltd.)
Buy it on Amazon

"It is not a question of chauvinism, but I have always averred that Southern cooking is by far the vastest and most varied of all traditional regional cooking in this country," wrote Craig Claiborne in the foreword to this pan-Southern paean to the cuisine of his childhood.

While Claiborne fled the physical South -- and his legendarily smothering mother, Miss Kathleen -- in favor of a stint in the Navy, hotel school in Switzerland and a multi-decade tenure as food editor of the New York Times, his palate remained staunchly attuned to the servant-cooked colloquial fare he'd enjoyed at his mother's boardinghouse.

What we tested and whether the book's worth buying after the jump.

Continue reading 'Craig Claiborne's Southern Cooking' - Cookbook Spotlight

Frank Bruni Leaves New York Times Dining Critic Post, Upending Food Bloggers' Lives

Posted May 14th 2009 2:00PM by Alex Van Buren
Filed under: Restaurants, Newspapers, On the Blogs, Food News

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]

New York Times Throws Down a Twecipe Challenge

Posted Apr 22nd 2009 11:30AM by Kat Kinsman
Filed under: Recipes, Newspapers, On the Blogs, Food News

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]

Bottle Service -- Reborn

Posted Dec 9th 2008 5:30PM by Kat Kinsman
Filed under: Wine, Beer, Restaurants, On the Blogs

The NY Times' Pete Wells reports in today's Diner's Journal that spanking new SoHo boite La Cave des Fondus will be a faithful recreation of its namesake Paris outpost, right down to its innovative bottle service. That'd be baby bottle service. Nope, nary a Similac sommelier in sight, but rather an assortment of house vino and brewskis administered via rubber nipple in glass baby bottles. The serving practice began in 1966 when, according to rumor, Parisian restaurateurs realized that wine service in "biberons" was a way to circumvent a city tax on wineglasses -- not to mention a play on the word "biberonner," meaning a bit of tippling.

The titular meat and cheese fondues are the centerpiece of the food menu, but really, who isn't going there to nurse their curiosity 'bout seeing a bunch of grown-ups getting together to have a nip?

Will it be a formula for success or just a big bust? Share your thoughts in the comments.

[via: Diner's Journal]

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