"craig laban" news and stories

• What's better during these hot days of summer than a popsicle? Well, how about a popsicle with alcohol in it! Strictly for adults, they have low alcohol content and cool you down quickly.
• At $.69 an ear, Mirai isn't bargain corn. However, it is sweet, crisp and delicious, bringing back memories of the corn of yesteryear.
• In the Market Basket, we've got Australian olive oil, crisp bread and tasty turkey burgers.
• At this time when tomatoes are perfect, use them as the staring component in a bread salad.
• In Table Talk, Michael Klein dishes on a new brewpub in Mt. Airy, a white tablecloth restaurant in Fishtown and Capogiro moves to University City.
• Looking for ways to use of leftover take-out rice, Joe Yonan elevates his fried rice.
• In the Cheese of the Month column, Craig LaBan features Cypress Grove's Fog Lights.

One of the things I've always wished for was to live someplace (be it apartment building or neighborhood) where I really knew my neighbors. I'd love to have people in close proximity with whom I could have dinner, or drop by with a baking project gone right. Unfortunately, I've yet to find that.

Craig LaBan, the restaurant critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer lives on a close, friendly block (just like the one I would like to find for myself). In yesterday's food section, he writes about how his family has teamed up with two other families on the street to take turns cooking dinner once a week. It started because they all had kids on the same swim team and would arrive home on Monday nights exhausted and with nothing on the stove. They determined that each week, one family would make enough for all three, so that the parents would get a break from cooking two out of every three weeks.

The project has had benefits beyond simply providing dinner. It has exposed their kids to a variety of foods that are not typically found in their home kitchens and has brought the families even closer together. While they don't eat the meal together (I imagine no one has room for three families to sit down to dinner together), they all acknowledge that they shared meal experience has made them less like neighbors and more like family.

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We all know that dark, leafy greens are good for us, but they often get a bad rap when it comes to actually getting prepared for the dinner table. However, they are really tasty and can be prepared in a number of ways.

Wine School of Philadelphia instructors taste some Austrian whites and give you the lowdown on what to look for and some sure bets (video content).

Rick Nichols reviews last weekend's Philly Craft Beer Fest, tempts readers with the upcoming Beer Week and offers a remembrance of beer expert Michael Jackson (no, not that Michael Jackson).

Philly Inquirer restaurant critic Craig Laban lists his top taps in town.

In honor of Beer Week, Joseph A. Gambardello gives us the definitive history of local and craft brewing in the city over the last two decades.

Karen Heller profiles Sam Calagione (local brewer of Dogfish beers) and Marnie Old (wine expert) and their book, called He Said Beer, She Said Wine. This article offers the best line of the entire section, when Heller states, "It's a Dogfish and pinot show."

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Back in July, I wrote a post about how Craig LaBan, the food critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, was being sued by a local restaurant for libel. They claimed that he had incorrectly identified a cut of meat in an article, thus giving them a negative review that they hadn't deserved. The real big brouhaha about the whole thing was the fact that if the case when to trial, LaBan's secret identity would revealed, making it impossible for him to do his job effectively, as he would then always receive special service from the restaurants in question.

Well, LaBan's days of anonymity are now over, not because of the lawsuit, but thanks to Philadelphia Magazine who ran a picture of his face along with an article about the case in their September issue (as far as I can see, the picture is not available online). Folks have been buzzing about this decision, especially since Philly Mag editor Larry Platt has for years respected LaBan's choice to keep his appearance concealed. For further discussion about this latest installment in restaurant critic outing, check out Philafoodie's recent post.

Hamburgers have been in the food news a lot lately. I started noticing it back in May when Craig LaBan (the same one who is being sued by a restaurant he negatively reviewed), the food critic at the Philadelphia Inquirer, went searching for the best burger in Philly. He was so moved by the experience that he wrote and performed a love ballad to the cheeseburger.

It was seemingly quiet in the burger world for a while, but then this last Wednesday, there was that burger recipe competition at the Rare Bar and Grill in New York City that whittled over 400 burger recipes down to a manageable four. The cluster of recipe finalists were prepared by the chefs at the Rare and presented to an illustrious panel of five movers-and-tasters. Adam Kuban of Serious Eats was one of the judges (along with food critic Ed Levine) and he wrote up a thorough blow-by-blow of the experience.

Just today, I learned that this weekend, Akron, OH will be hosting the National Hamburger Festival. They will be offering a variety of events, including Bobbing for Burgers (in a kiddie pool of ketchup), a Best Burger Competition and a Miss Hamburger Festival Contest (for which, at the ripe old age of 28, I am too old to enter). If you live in the Akron region, you should know that tickets cost $5 a day and are still available (kids under 7 get in for free).

Thanks to Vanessa PR for the pic.