"Salon" news and stories

How does a man with a price tag on his head -- or at least his face -- keep from having his photo snapped by fellow partygoers or folks out for a hefty reward? Former New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni explains the art of ducking the spotlight in this Skype video from Salon's Kerry Lauerman.

[Via: 'Binger turned food critic' at Salon.com]

First things first. Salon's Diary of a turkey killer is decidely not the daily musings of someone who works in a slaughterhouse. It's a thoughtful piece by a former vegetarian turned carnivore who decides to raise and kill her own bird. The author is also quite an engaged gourmand. She grows her own heirloom tomatoes, and thus chose to purchase a heritage bird. A Heritage Bronze, like the one pictured here, to be specific.

The author details the high and low points of raising Harold the turkey from chick to tom, including the death of his significant other, Maude. Inevitably the article ends with Harold's slaughter and the subsequent feast. What's interesting about the piece is how the writer deals with slaughtering a live animal as an eater who was intimately familiar with the PETA party line.

Given how much I love meat, I also found the following quote pretty cool, "...despite a vocal minority of die-hard vegetarians and vegans, it's carnivores who are chic." But I shouldn't even be allowed to write that. First of all I'm hardly chic, and, unlike the intrepid author, I've yet to come to terms with my killer instinct. One of these days I'll watch or help slaughter an animal, not that it's something I look forward to. But I'm sure it will give me a more profound understanding of how meat comes to my table.

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Today Salon.com features a decent interview with Anthony Bourdain. Some of it is fairly amusing--most accounts of eating marginally butchered warthog generally are. Still, some might find other parts of it a little tired, as many of the questions seem geared toward coaxing forth the extreme views that Bourdain is known for. Not that I didn't enjoy hearing him call Rachael Ray a "bobble-head."

I guess maybe I'd just rather watch or read about him out doing his thing, eating "squeezle" in Vietnam, than talking trash. Still, he has is eloquent moments, talking about the best and worst meals of his life, and how women had to forge a path into high-end restaurant kitchens. All in all, it's an entertaining interview. For even more Bourdain, Megnut has short piece about his 50th birthday party, written by Michael Ruhlman.

Salon.com currently features an interview with Ryan Nerz, author of Eat This Book: A Year of Gorging and Glory on the Competitive Eating Circuit. The book chronicles Nerz's experiences and observations from having emceed several eating contests over the course of a year. What's even better is that there's another book out on the subject, entitled Horseman of the Esophagus. Incidentally, both have hot dogs on their covers. In the Salon interview, Nerz talks about some of the more hotly contested subjects in the world of competitive eating, namely the "belt of fat" theory, which tries to explain why thin people have better luck in eating competitions than larger folks.

Salon.com recently featured a an interview with food politics writer and frequent NYT Magazine contributor Michael Pollan. The discussion focused mainly on Pollan's new book, The Omnivore's Dilemma. Like Pollan's The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore's Dilemma appears to take a few core examples—in this case, four American meals—and discuss them in great detail. Pollan breaks down the the economic and political components of meals from McDonald's and Whole Foods, as well as  organic farms and foraged materials. In the Salon interview, he outlines some of his views on big agriculture and big organic farming, misleading labeling at stores like Whole Foods, and shifting hardwired cravings for fast food.