The Amateur Gourmet

In case you are as amateur as I and are not aware of Wednesday's status as "Food Day" allow me to enlighten you: on Wednesday, almost all of the nation's papers publish their Food & Dining sections yielding thousands of scrumptious articles to wade through in your down time. I will therefore attempt, each Wednesday, to post links to the ones I find most meritorious. I hope you find them meritorious too.

- I really enjoyed Marian Burros's review of David Burke & Donatella in today's New York Times. The food there sounds crazy: "Crisp and angry lobster. 'Bronx style' filet mignon of veal. A cheesecake lollipop tree with bubble-gum whipped cream." My favorite part was her description of the "smoking room": "a stretched stretch limo — white, of course — with the motor running and the heater on, parked right outside the front door."

- John Kessler on BBQ. Maybe I'll make a BBQ driving trip one of these days.

- A really excellent piece by Bruce Cole of Saute Wednesday on salt. "Salt?" you say. "Yes," I answer. Apparently, salt is the core component of cooking: "Nothing disappoints me like an under-seasoned dish, or more to the point, the lack of salt. Especially, if it's a dish I’m paying for it. Potatoes, without salt? Come on, that's ridiculous. Steak minus the salt, is nothing but a waste of good meat. Broccoli sans the salt? Sorry, that’s for salad bars."

COMING TONIGHT: Janet Jackson Breast Cupcakes (ETA: 11ish).

Dear Amateur Gourmet Reader,

First of all, let's be clear. Fame hasn't changed me. I am still the same Amateur Gourmet that you know and love, despite all the ornaments of my newfound success. Yes, maybe now a bathroom attendant pumps my soap when I wash my hands, but how else can I keep the strange man in my bathroom occupied?

Today at noon a CNN crew arrived at my door. There were four of them: a microphone guy, a camera guy, a producer guy, and a woman in a hat. They stormed the apartment and surveyed the surroundings.

"Let's shoot in the kitchen!" the producer guy said.

The microphone guy wired me up to the microphone; the camera guy put his camera on his shoulder; the producer guy told me to look at him when I answered the questions; the woman in the hat just watched.

"Ok, so tell us," said the producer guy, "why a Janet Jackson cupcake?"

I took a moment.

"Well," I said, "because I thought it would be funny."

"Mmhmm," he replied.

An awkward pause.

"OK," he continued. "Now show us how you make them."

I took him through the process, trying to avoid the words "nipple," "aureole" and "icktheologist" (because it's hard to say).

"Very good," he said.

A few more questions; a few more shots; and then they were off, four gift cupcakes in tow.

"Well," I said to Lauren, "that was pretty painless."

"Yes," she agreed.

Lolita, the cat, meowed.

* * * *

Meanwhile, a whole new wave of celebrity has been washing over my site. Since posting my Janet Jackson cupcake piece two days ago, I have had 18,000 hits. The site has been featured in many disparate places including:

A popular directory of wonderful things.

A popular pornographic website.

The Guardian.

And, of course, A popular site for breastfeeding.

Yes, it seems my life will never be the same. One day a pathetic law student with a website and a cat, the next an internet celebrity whose fame is based on a pastry resembling a breast. Ah, the American dream.

It seems, though, I'm not a pastry-breast-making-pioneer after all. Check out this picture a fellow Georgian e-mailed me this morning:

Those gazongas would eat my cupcake for lunch.

And for all you Thursday Night Dinner song fans who are hissing and booing my failure to meet your demand, fear not: I am at work on an unprecedented masterpiece, to be posted shortly,

Sincerely,
The Really Really Famous Amateur Gourmet

Indeed, I have been slack in my promise to bring you the best and the brightest from the Wednesday Food Day food sections that I gleefully read through each and every week. But slack I shall be no more. Here are the articles / columns / reviews I found noteworthy from today's food sections:

1. Amanda Hessler reviews Hearth today in The New York Times and gives it two stars. While her review did not, necessarily, motivate me to my phone in order to make a reservation for Spring Break (I leave tomorrow!), I found these two quotes particularly funny:

"A dish of hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, direct from Craft, could not be better. The mushrooms are roasted and served on a solitary white plate. Have your fork ready when they arrive; even good friends will betray you."

"The main walls are covered with thick panels of white felt, affixed with gigantic copper staples. They look like big bandages, actually. Big cozy bandages. Just like home, if you live in an infirmary."

2. NYT Dining Corrections: "A picture caption last Wednesday with an article about chefs who salt meats in advance of cooking, sometimes days ahead, misidentified the cook shown at Zuni Cafe in San Francisco. She was Alyssa Peddy, a line cook, not Judy Rodgers, the chef." [I think it's funny that they felt the need to add "sometimes days ahead" as if that were relevant to the correction.]

3. NYC Eats does its usual helpful Review Roundup. Today, featuring: Chestnut, Geisha, Bivio, Les Enfants Terrible, Asiate, Natchez, Tapajos River Steak House.

4. If you like cheese (and who doesn't?) (oh wait, me and my entire family) (but I'm working on it!), check out Clotilde's post at Chocolate and Zucchini on
the Salon du Fromage. (I don't speak French, but I believe that translates as: Hairdresser of Cheese).

5. And the AJC doesn't seem to have anything new up in its Restaurant section today, but check out John Kessler's review of Blais from last week. He gives it 3 stars which is definitely unusually high for the normally star-stingy Kessler. (Which doesn't mean Kessler has bad taste. In fact, I don't mean to brag, but a certain someone--ahem--may have received a certain e-mail from a certain food critic involving a certain lunch invitation and a certain article/profile to follow. That's all I can say at this time).

And that's certainly all for today's Wednesday wade-through.

Today's wade-through begins with a tour of New York cheesecakes from the New York Times. I really enjoyed the internet-only audio guide that showcases the seven best cheesecakes in the city.
Click here, you won't regret it. (The one I most want to try is the ricotta-marscapone cheese cake at Cesca).

One more from the NYT: I have to say that I'm beginning to love Amanda Hessler's reviewing style. Today's review is of Montrachet in TriBeca. It almost doesn't matter. I enjoy her writing so much that, like Anthony Lane in The New Yorker, I'd be just as happy if she only reviewed soap. The fact that Montrachet has personal significance for Hessler only makes the piece better.

Maybe it's a bit of a stretch including this here, but she IS after all a Spice Girl. Scary Spice will be taking over the part of Mimi in Rent on Broadway. Jonathan Larson's spun over so many times in his grave at this point (Joey Fatone played Mark last year) that he might as well still be alive. I wish he were: Scary Spice couldn't be any less Bohemian if she brushed her teeth with a Prada toothbrush.

Anyway, in other news, The Simpsons are now selling soda. Wal-Mart will be carrying Bart's "Ay Caramba! Root Beer," Homer's "Mmm... Cola," Lisa's "Magnificent Lemon-Lime Soda," and Maggie and Homer's "Ahh! Yes! Orange Cream Soda" faster than you can say "D'Oh!"

I'm making a concerted effort not to be negative on this site (hence the removal of a gripe against a former employer), but it would be criminal not to point out the maddening fluff of today's NYT Dining & Wine section story: What He Ate: A Food Diary From New York. This is an article about a 35-year old man who has taken a picture of everything he has eaten. Sounds interesting, right? A suitable feature story about a man who compulsively documents his food. How long has he been doing this, you ask? A decade? A year? No; since January.

This is the fascinating tale of a man who has documented his food for three months. Hello, if that's all it takes to get into the NYT Dining & Wine section, why aren't they knocking at my door? And he doesn't even put his pictures on the internet. He just saves them. Where did they get this story? It's maddening, I tell you, maddening!

I really enjoyed the first part of this 87 part thread, namely because of the vibrant debate that went on. Keep in mind that you really can't offend me with a dissenting opinion, as long as you stick to the issue and don't make it personal. (Unless of course you're William Shatner in which case it will ALWAYS be personal. I'll get you Captain Kirk!)

For a really well crafted dissenting opinion, check out Trey Given's "The Glorious Luxury of Food" in which he picks my piece apart. I wish I understood political and economic discourse better, because it seems the terms of that debate are beyond my ken. (I better get the ken back, though, before my Corporations final Thursday!)

Suffice it to say that I am that cliched breed of privileged liberal satarized so well in John Guare's "Six Degrees of Separation." I decry the corruption of corporate America while reaping it's benefits. I'm like Meadow Soprano: fighting the good fight for the disenfranchized while daddy kills people. It's all very ironic.

What I don't like about my original post is that it's very paternalistic. "I, the wealthy white male, know what's good for you, you downtrodden minorities. Here, let me tell you what to eat."

It's a rather smug proposition. But I don't mean it that way.

I feel like discovering food is like discovering sex or music or art for the first time. It's this wonderful thing that's always existed but that you never really noticed. The transition from "eating to live" to "living to eat" is an exciting one. It is to truly appreciate what it means to be alive.

And that's why I find America's food situation so discouraging. You get the illusion of freshness without actual freshness (Subway: "Eat Fresh.") You get the illusion of authenticity without the authenticity (The Olive Garden). You get carbon copies of food culture without actually having a food culture. Which is why so many food critics, when they're asked what they eat when they don't want to spend a lot of money will tell you "ethnic food." That's because it's the only "real food" that's left that doesn't cost you an arm and a leg. Ethnic food is the one place in American culture where the excitement and beauty of food preparation (check out John Kessler's James Beard nominated piece on the Dekalb Farmer's Market) is a thriving enterprise. The trouble is that its merit is precisely due to the fact that it's NOT American.

And I should point out that I'm not so concerned with health as I am a quality food culture. And by that I mean a food culture like you'd find in Italy or Spain or France, that's indiginous to the land and a huge part of the experience of living in those places. Italians PRIDE themselves on their food. Do you pride yourself on Appleby's? I rest my case.

I'll leave you with lyrics to a new Ben Folds song that's right on point. (Well it's on point from the first thread, but not so much this one which moved in a new direction, but I still like the lyrics). Let's keep the discussion going!

All You Can Eat

Just so everyone can see
We've eaten all that we can eat.

I really enjoyed this sneak peek of Anthony Bourdain's profile of Ferran Adria. For those not in the know, Ferran is the chef and founder of El Bulli in Spain---perhaps the most important food innovator in the world today. For those who read The New York Times Magazine Section he was on the cover a few months ago with his carrot foam. My birthday dinner at Blais was frequently in the style of El Bulli, particularly the condiments served in an eye dropper:

Anyway, if you do watch the videos, be sure to watch the third one where Bourdain samples Adria's pastaless pea ravioli. His reaction is priceless.

I enjoyed William Grimes's piece today in the NYT Magazine Section in which he addresses the issue of spending lots and lots of money on a meal.

"How could you? In a world where millions of children go hungry, where famine haunts broad swaths of Africa and Asia, where the $200 spent on a bottle of Bordeaux could go far to alleviating a destitute family's misery -- how could you?"

His answer, I think, is intelligent and helpful. It has two parts. You should read them.

My favorite paragraph comes at the end:

"That urge for the little extra, the luxurious touch that separates apple pie from pie a la mode, leads me to the other part of the moral argument against high living. It is not just the rich who indulge themselves when it comes to food. Everyone does. Millionaires may be the exception, but almost anyone can make a millionaire's pie, an old-fashioned dessert I ran across in a small-town cafe in Louisiana several years ago....Food is a convenient way for ordinary people to experience extraordinary pleasure, to live it up for a bit."

Frank Bruni, the new New York Times restaurant critic, is doing a wonderful job so far in his new role. He immediately won my favor when he reviewed, for his first review two weeks ago, my favorite restaurant in the world Babbo. I shared his sentiment when he wrote: "Among the restaurants that make my stomach do a special jig, Babbo ranks near the top." The line he draws between three star and four star dining--differentiated by service and ambience (the music at Babbo rocks a little too hardcore for Mr. Bruni) seems fair enough. I, of course, sit gladly on the three-star side of that line, but his explanation helps me understand what places like Per Se and Charlie Trotter's are going for in their approach.

Today's review of Bouley knocked it from four-star status to three. I've never eaten there, so I can't weigh in, but I thought Bruni's final sentence was wonderfully evocative: "[Bouley] feels like an echo, or like embers: pleasant, warm and inviting, but without a crucial flame."

Keep up the good work, Mr. B.

Ok, this was too funny not to link to: CHEESE CHICKEN!. It all started when I linked to this story (in which famed Italian cooking expert Marcela Hazan eats at the Olive Garden) on Metafilter. Enjoy!

The best part about studying for the bar exam (and that's not a sentence-starter you hear very frequently) was reading Amanda Hesser's "Cooking For Mr. Latte." The Starbucks where I study at is located near a Chapter 11 book store and one day, during an over-extended break, I ambled over there and perused (as I usually do) the food book section. I was happy to see that "Cooking For Mr. Latte" came out in paperback and since I'd enjoyed Amanda Hesser's interim reviews at the New York Times I decided to scoop up a copy to read in between practice tests and flashcards.

At first, the chapters were so short as to feel insubstantial. Here I was memorizing the elements of defamation and looking forward to my food book break and when it finally came it only lasted 8 minutes. Hesser's chapters are extraordinarily short. And compared to the other major food authors--Jeffrey Steingarten, Calvin Trillin--they seem at first glance to be mere trifles, like mini-quiches on a passing waiter's tray. That's all very well, but I came for dinner.

Dinner comes in the aggragate. The book builds steam as it progresses. For those not in the know, it tells the tale of Hesser's courtship with New Yorker writer Tad Friend. They met on a blind date and Friend takes Hesser to the equivalent of a TGI Fridays. He drinks a latte after dinner. This will not do.

What I admired most about this book was Hesser's fearlessness in portraying herself truthfully. By that I mean she doesn't always come across as--well--likeable. There are parts where she chastizes her grandmother's eating habits in Italy or fights with Tad over silly food minutiae. But in the end you feel like you know her intimately, even though the thrust of the book is food. Sounds familiar, no? That's the basic premise of this website.

The ultimate selling-point, though, is that each chapter ends with recipes and the recipes pertain to what you just read. So when Amanda meets Tad's mother and his mother cooks a fabulous feast of Ginger Duck (which truly sounds terrific) there's the recipe greeeting you when the chapter's over. There are many great recipes in this book that I will attempt for you in the near future.

One of my favorite chapters deals with dining alone. This concept still terrifies me. Sure I'll eat a bagel or a burrito accompanied only by a New Yorker magazine, but I've yet to go out to a nice dinner all alone. Apparently that's a fine dining right of passage. What I like about Amanda's take is that she starts out declaring as much--"In the same way that you should get massages and take naps or meditate, you should, everyone should, make a point to eat out by yourself from time to time"--and then falters. Well, her primary destination is closed and then the next spot, Pastis, is "too packed with loud, beautiful people." Eventually she winds up at Pearl Oyster Bar and has a blissful meal; but I enjoyed the process. Here was an accomplished food writer going through the same bouts of self-awareness we mortals go through. It's like Michael Jackson singing "You Are Not Alone," except less creepy.

Like Fox News, I must be fair and balanced. There were parts of this book I didn't like. I didn't like some of the food snobbery, like when she goes to Craft with friends and dreads sharing food: "When I go to a restaurant, I do not like feeling as if I'm at a buffet. I like to construct my meal thoughtfully and then eat it. I don't want to pass plates and I don't want someone plopping a slab of his skate in my lamb jus." My reaction? Why not! Amanda's answer? "It's disrespectful to the chef, who tries to create dishes that entertain your palate from the first bite to the last." I don't agree, though---doesn't it tell the chef that all his food is so great and you want to try it all? "And it's greedy. If you must taste other things on the menu, come back another time." Well then!

Oh but back to the positives---Amanda is great at the closing zinger. All her chapters end on a perfect note. Like for example, when she starts feeling unhappy in the relationship--like she's becoming her mother because Tad abandons her all day while she cooks and cleans and runs errands, her anger grows and culminates after a dinner party when Tad leaves the dishes greasy. Before the party she asks Tad to put a special bottle of Champagne in the freezer to chill quickly; the chapter's closing paragraph reads: "The next morning, the dishes were clean but Tad was barricaded in his study. I opened the freezer to find the bottle of Champagne--a Bruno Paillard that I had saved for several years--shattered. It was just how I felt."

That last example perfectly illustrates Hesser's gift: she fuses the personal, the emotional and the visceral in short, deft brushstrokes. "Cooking For Mr. Latte" may seem like a light read, but by the end you've been to a 37 course banquet. And there's still room for more.

The Food Network is what got me hooked on food to begin with. Before the Food Network, I can't even say that I gave food more than a passing thought. My allegiance lies with Sarah Moulton whose maternal whimsy made cooking seem an easy worthwhile prospect; I watched her show "Cooking Live" loyally every night at 7 pm until it was yanked from that slot in favor of Atlon Brown (who I like) and Mark Summers Unwrapped (which I hate). Since then, "Molto Mario" (another favorite Food Network show) is conspicuously missing from the 5:30 slot while Emeril Lagasse and Rachel Ray (thunderclap) take over the network. Something's rotten in the state of Denmark and I'm going to do something about it.

So today (it's 12:35 am, so we're talking Tuesday) beginning at 9:30 am when "Paid Programming" goes off the air, I will watch the Food Network non-stop and blog a review of every show I see. How long will I do this? 12 hours is my pledge. I am doing this for you, the consumer, protecting you from the tyranny of bad programming. Plus, my car's in Florida and I have more packing to do. Will I survive such a formidable task? Or will I implode quicker than "Dweezil & Lisa"? Stay tuned.

First of all, check out my mad Photoshop skillz:

Second of all, ahoy! Welcome to the newest sensational project from your sensation-loving gourmet. This one should prove to be a lot of fun. Unless I get sued, in which case it will cease immediately.

Here's how this works:

1. We will (hopefully) get a good cluster of interested participants.

2. Each week there will be a challenge. The challenges will be broadly interpretable and therefore will only be as expensive and time-consuming as you make them. You can't buy your way to victory here! Unless you send me a personal check for $1000, in which case you are the winner. (E-mail me privately for details).

3. The challenges will be varied and will not be cook only. For example, I might challenge you to "eat something daring." Then you will go eat something daring and come back and report on it.

4. Oh, this is a good time to mention that digital cameras, while not required, are much encouraged. How else will we be able to judge your efforts? So if you don't have one, maybe borrow one from a friend?

5. Eliminations will be made (as they are on Survivor) each week by the Survivor participants, who will e-mail me personally who they want to eliminate. However, Amateur Gourmet readers will be able to immunize a particpant each week too. This will be done in the comments section for that week's entries. That way everyone gets to participate.

6. The winner will receive a gift from our corporate sponsor. Who's our corporate sponsor? Good question! If you run a corporation and would like to sponsor Amateur Gourmet Survivor 2004, please contact me directly. Otherwise, the winner will surely receive something nifty---Fruit of the Month Club membership, maybe?

7. Finally, participants should be amateurs only. No accomplished chefs allowed! The more amateur you are, the more you will be rewarded for participating.

So, in conclusion, sign up in the comments section below if you're interested! This promises to be a lot of fun. Include your name, location, and cooking/food experience. Sign-ups will last for 24 hours and then tomorrow (Wednesday) I will announce the first challenge. Participants will have until Sunday to e-mail their contributions and then voting happens Monday. If too many people sign up (which I sincerely hope they will), we will do a mass elimination. But let's cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we?

Until then, welcome to the next chapter of the Amateur Gourmet experience.

The New York Times >Read it here, folks. (I still liked Jean-Georges better...)

I definitely relate to the Sore Thumb status of young people in a fancy restaurant (see my Charlie Trotter review). Still, Kottke does an excellent job of whetting my palate for Daniel. Anyone want to sponsor me?

Awww, Martha. You can take the guru out of the kitchen, but you can't take the kitchen out of the guru. Well, maybe during the strip search...

Last summer (as in 2003, not 2004)--is that the summer before last?--I went through a huge Chowhound phase. I was living in LA at the time, working at a law firm, and many an hour was spent clicking through the huge message boards trying to discover new and interesting hole-in-the-wall places to eat. Along the way, I purchased Jonathan Gold's "Counter Intelligence"--a book with a Chowhound-like ethos--and drove with my friend JC to strange, obscure locations to eat chili cheeseburgers and chicken mole.

At the end of that summer, I came to New York for 8 days to stay with my friend Lisa. (This was when I still lived in Atlanta.) Before I came, I went on Amazon and purchased this:

[NOTE: (1/9/04) Since posting this link, Jim Leff himself has contacted me and asked me to remove it. He says this book is way out of date and that no one should buy it. So don't buy it! (I'll do a larger post above on this...)]

What is it? It's "The Eclectic Gourmet Guide to Greater New York City" by Jim Leff, founder of Chowhound. I flipped through its pages eagerly, excited to eat at obscure hole-in-the-wall New York eateries no one knew about it. Then for some reason, I don't think we really used this book in those 8 days. I think we went to some pizza place in it and Lisa had an allergic reaction to the olive oil. I left the book at Lisa's and forgot about it.

Fast forward two years, and I'm in Lisa's apartment and I ask: "Hey! Remember that book I bought a few years ago? 'The Eclectic Gourmet Guide to Greater New York City'?"

"By Jim Leff?"

"Yes."

"Founder of Chowhound?'

"Yes."

"I think it's over here."

Lisa dug under her bed. It was under there.

Now that I have my hands on this book, I've created a new category for this site: LEFFING NEW YORK. Meaning: I am going to let Jim Leff guide me through the city and then blog all about it. Fun fun fun!

I started on Monday, with Pepe Roso To Go. This place isn't so obscure or strange--my classmate Ian always raves about this place. He says it's the best Italian food in the city, hands down. Jim Leff says, "Pepe Roso does profound, unpretentious Italian homestyle cooking."

I could hardly wait. So I went:

It's basically on the corner of Sullivan and Houston in the Village. It's right next to "Once Upon A Tart" (which I will blog about momentarily). There are four tables inside, and a kitchen with more people working than there are people eating in the restaurant. There's a counter and a huge menu overhead. A sign says: "Do we look like your mama? Bus your own table!" (Or something like that.)

Most of the tables were already taken. A jovial man behind the counter asked for my order. I remembered Jim Leff's recommendation: "a sandwich of air-cured beef (bresaola), goat cheese, arugula, and tuffle oil.... [it conveys] Deep Ideas via the extraordinary balance of these few ingredients."

Sounds good!

And, indeed, this sandwich was perfect. Earthy, pungent, fresh-tasting. The bread was crusty, the goat cheese was goat cheesy and the bresaola was thin and savory without being obnoxious.

As I was eating, Chloe Sevigny walked in with a director. More people piled in. This place is popular. No longer a secret, I imagine.

But I'm definitely going back. I loved it! Let the Leffing begin!

Clotilde recently asked me in an e-mail: "How come you don't participate more in IMBB?"

My response was simple: "Because I never know when they're about to happen and it's too late."

Her response was direct: "Well it's about to happen. Beans. Do it!"

And so I did. I dug through my cookbooks for bean recipes. I settled upon the one that looked most promising: Patricia Well's winter bean soup from her Provence cookbook. It involved two kinds of beans and one type of wheatberry---cranberry beans, kidney beans and wheatberries:

But there was something peculiar about this recipe. EVERY recipe I read that involved dried beans--from Mario Batali to Chez Panisse--said: "Soak them for at least 12 hours before using." Every one! Except Patricia Wells didn't say that. It was peculiar indeed.

Her only instruction was to put the beans and wheatberries in a sieve and run cold water over them. That I did. And then they went into a pot with a bit of olive oil, salt, and Rosemary (and, in my case, thyme, since I didn't have enough Rosemary):

Then you add 1 28-oz can of tomatoes pureed in a food processor and 2 qts of water. You let it simmer for 45 minutes and you get this:

Looks good enough right? And the broth was fine. A bit watery, but acceptably flavorful.

But the beans had a snap to them that I didn't enjoy. My guest said she didn't mind them but my guest was recently labotomized.

Here's the thing: maybe I don't like beans? I mean, when I think about it: when was the last time I ate beans just because I like beans? When it comes with something: sure, fine. Like in a burrito. Beans are fine in a burrito. Or with rice. Beans and rice. That's a standard bean dish. And it hits the spot, but I don't love it. They're just beans.

But maybe beans are deservedly underappreciated. I mean what do beans taste like anyway? Air? Earth? Sky? Water? They don't have any taste. I mean, they pick up the taste of whatever you cook them in but how lame is that? That's like the person at the party that has no personality but suddenly emulates the loud person. Or Jennifer Jason Leigh in Single White Female.

I had a bit of a bitter bean breakdown. "I hate beans!" I declared loudly. My labotomized guest shushed me.

I put the bean soup in the fridge and began to sob with pain and regret. "WHY BEANS! WHYYYYY!"

Then 24 hours passed and I reheated the soup. Amazing: soaking overnight, the beans softened and the flavors melded. The soup tasted good. I ate two bowls.

The moral?

Maybe I don't hate beans after all.

[P.S. Thanks Cathy for doing this! It was fun!]

I am SO Martha Stewart.

Lauren and I are having our traditional psychic twin birthday bash this Friday (for those late to the game: we were born 3 hours apart in the same hospital and didn't meet until college) and with 16 people already RSVPed and other late bloomers, I felt I better get cracking on food ideas. So I decided to make 5 different dips. Dips are good party food because you and your conversation partner can have a shared visceral experience--the lowering of the arm, the scoop, the lift, and the bite. Dips bring people together.

At my party, though, hummus eaters will be forced to stick together---there's so much garlic in here, they'd have to suck a mint tree to ever make themselves kissable again. But check out the contents of my hummus: (well not my hummus, The Barefoot Contessa's hummus--all my dips come from her cookbooks! She's the ultimate party food go-to person):

I made this picture really big and clickable because (a) I really like the way it came out and (b) it tells you everything you need to know about the BC's hummus. Here's what goes in it. Just take all the following, throw it in your food processor and process and then you have it:

2 cups canned chickpeas, drained, liquid reserved
1 1/2 tsps kosher salt
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/3 cup tahini (sesame paste)
6 Tbs freshly squeezed lemon juice (2 lemons)
2 Tbs water or liquid from the chickpeas
8 dashes Tabasco sauce

That's it!

Now when I tell you this hummus is packed with flavor, I mean it more than Seal means it when he sings: "I'VE BEEEN KISSED BY A ROSE ON THE GRAVE." (What does that mean, anyway?) It positively crackles with lemon and garlic and tabasco--but in a great way. In fact, I'm scared I barely made enough for the party. I think this is going to go WAY fast. I better buy more chickpeas tomorrow.

(Then again, I have 4 more dips to go. Well the Eggplant spread is done too---let's talk about that now.)

Eggplant spread. This is the healthy dip. (It's not a dip, it's a spread.) Quiet, they don't know that. (Respect your audience, punk.) Sorry.

This one's also really easy to make. You cut up vegetables, roast them, and put them in the processor. Since I'm feeling generous, I'll give you the specifics.

1 medium eggplant, peeled
2 red bell peppers, seeded
1 red onion, peeled
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 Tbs good olive oil
1 1/2 tsps kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 Tbs tomato paste

(OOH SHIT I FORGOT TO ADD THE TOMATO PASTE AT THE END THAT'S WHY IT DIDN'T COME OUT TASTING RIGHT I'M A TOTAL IDIOT)

Umm.

Ok. With that said, you preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Cut the eggplant, bell pepper, and onion into 1-inch cubes. Toss them in a large bowl with the garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. Spread them on a baking sheet.

Roast for 45 minutes, until the vegetables are lightly browned and soft, tossing once during cooking. Cool slightly. Place the vegetables in a food processor fitted with a steel blade, add the tomato paste (SHIT I TOTALLY FORGOT TO DO THAT) and pulse 3 or 4 times to blend. Taste for salt and pepper. (I DID THAT.)

Well here's the pretty result, minus tomato paste. I think it tastes really good. Maybe I can work the tomato paste in there somehow before the party:

And those are tonight's dips. What dip will I make tomorrow? Well, if I can find cayenne pepper somewhere in my day (I have a busy day tomorrow) it will be pan-fried onion dip. Then, the day of, I'll make sun dried tomato dip and guacamole. And maybe an almond cake. I'm the most generous party thrower ever. (Well, I have a reputation to uphold! Now everyone's like "You have a fancy food website, let's see you cook, cookboy!" So I have to do it. I must. Ok, it's late. I'm off to bed.)

P.S. I forgot to include this picture in the above post, but at Gristedes tonight there was this crazy corn puppet show that took place over the produce. Lisa was terrified by it:

The corn came alive and said "Eating fresh vegetables is part of a healthy diet!" How and when and why this was thought up, I have no idea, but it's really--umm--quirky marketing. David Lynch meets Walt Disney by way of Orville Redenbacher.

First the review.

Then: the first two paragraphs needlessly set to music.

Here they are so you can follow along.

Confessions of a Reformed Sushi Eater
By FRANK BRUNI

Then again, there wasn't an abundance of exemplary sushi or expert sushi chefs back then. All too often the fish, overly chewy, and the rice, needlessly clumpy, didn't deserve gentler treatment. At Gari, a new Japanese restaurant on the Upper West Side, they do. I would never drag Gari's sushi carelessly through a salty, spicy murk.

Blogging about what you eat and having a doting mother who reads everything you blog about what you eat is a dangerous combination. Lately, mom's been on my case.

"I can't believe some of the stuff you're eating!" she said to me this weekend. "Chocolate chip muffins in the middle of the night! And those cupcakes! All that butter! It's not even that you'll get fat, it's your arteries. It's so not healthy. Even Oprah tells you not to eat at night!"

This health intervention in combination with the vast amount of food we consumed this weekend (scroll down to see the carnage) plus the fact that spring's approaching which means SPEEDO TIME, I decided yesterday to turn over a new leaf. Here is what my new leaf entails:

* Exercise!
* Better eating habits!

Specifically, I'm going to return to my Body for Life routine. Two summers ago, Ricky turned me on to Body for Life. The concept is 12 weeks to Ultimate Fitness. You exercise 6 times a week (alternating cardio and muscle training) and eat 6 small meals a day. Well I never did the 6 small meals a day thing, but I did do the 6 days a week of exercise. I actually enjoyed it because at most each session is 45 minutes and doing it every day helps you build it into your lifestyle easier than twice a week where it's easier to skip.

So yesterday I did 30 minutes on the eliptical and burnt 330 calories! (Is that a lot? I have no idea.) And today I worked my upper body while listening to The Clash's "London Calling" on my iPod. (Yesterday it was The Scissor Sisters--which is awesome to work out to.) (What's your favorite workout music?) While at my parents hotel, I weighed myself and I weighed 160. I just went to an "ideal weight calculator" online and apparently for someone of my height (5'7) I should weigh 148. So I have to lose 12 pounds!

Now, for anyone who has been reading this site, I don't think it'll be hard to point out what habits have to change. No more burnt butter cupcakes at 2 in the morning! No more endless feasting when my parents come to town! I'm not going to change my diet to the point of being unhappy or hating food. (Oh, and Body For Life gives you Sundays off, so I can eat whatever I want!) I'm just going to be smarter about how I eat. Which is where Kathleen comes in.

Meet Kathleen and her book, "Cooking Thin":

[If you follow that link and buy it I make mucho dinero! But I'm not urging you to buy it, I'm just saying that if you are going to buy it anyway do it through that link.]

I bought this book for my mom after watching her show on the Food Network. Even though she betrays a Rachel Ray like cheesiness, I liked her message and her method. She basically tries to maximize FLAVOR and visceral enjoyment out of food while still keeping it healthy.

Naturally, my mom never lifted the book--she doesn't cook. So when I was home most recently, I swiped it off her night stand and took it home. Tonight I cooked from it. I made swordfish and the recipe was simple and everything came out dynamite.

First you need swordfish:

Kathleen says to buy 1 lb but I think that's if you're feeding more than yourself. I bought 1/2 lb which was plenty.

She says it should be 3/8ths of an inch thick (what kind of measurement is that!) and as you can see from the photo above, this is way thicker than that. So I butterflied it--yielding two pieces that were about 1/2 an inch thick. Make sure to sharpen your knife first.

Now then: the flavorings. It's really simple but it comes out delicious. Sprinkle with kosher salt and pepper. (Make sure to get enough on there, it makes a difference.) Then grate a lemon and sprinkle the lemon zest over both sides of the fish. Take a quarter a cup of flat-leaf parsley and press that into the fish too. It should look something like this:

Here's where I overdid it a bit. She says 2 tsps of olive oil in a skillet. I did a little more than that and it was TOTALLY not necessary. (It's just that the 2 tsps wasn't covering the bottom.) You heat the olive oil on medium high heat until it's hot but not smoking. Then add the fish. Cook for 2 minutes on each side and you're done! It turns a beautiful golden color. (I should tell you here that cooking this fish set off my smoke detector, terrified Lolita, and forced me to leap into the air to hit some kind of button to turn the screeching noise off. We were all ok, though.)

Here's the end result. I served it with Amanda Hesser's Arborio Rice salad (Recipe Here):

I know it looks oily in this picture, but I wanted to show you how beautifully golden it got and how crisp the edges are. It had amazing flavor---the salt, pepper, lemon zest and parsley really worked their magic. And it tasted so buttery: and there was no butter! I can't believe that THIS is dietetic.

I also set out to make pumpkin cranberry bread tonight. (That's in Kathleen's book too.) I purchased the cranberries, the dried cranberries, flour, etc. I preheated the oven. I prepared the pan. I sifted the flour. Then I realized: no pumpkin. Brings to mind the great proverb: "It is difficult for one to make pumpkin cranberry bread without the pumpkin."

Let's hear it for the newer, hotter me! Will I stick with it? Stay tuned...

I enjoyed this R.W. Apple article on circus food especially the bit about the food tent in the old days--157 cooks? That's crazy!

Man Delivers Pizzas After Being Shot: "TAMPA, Fla. (June 8) - A robbery attempt by a masked man and a gunshot wound to the leg didn't stop a pizza delivery man from making his rounds, pies in hand." Thanks to John for sending this my way!

This lead story in today's NYT Dining Section paints the perfect picture of why I loved living in Atlanta for the seven years that I went to school there. It's a profile of Watershed (read my review!) famous for its fried chicken and owned by Emily Saliers of The Indigo Girls. This paragraph says it all: "Sometimes fried chicken is just about the chicken. In the South, where paradoxes live next door to each other and race, class and sex clash with particular complexity, it can be about much more. At Watershed, it's about families broken and mended, unlikely friendships, and redemption." What a beautiful story--makes me miss my life as a Geogia Peach

"Why do the wrong people travel, travel, travel
When the right people stay at home?
What peculiar obsessions
Inspire those processions
Of families from Houston, Tex,
With all those cameras around their necks?
They will take a train
Or an aeroplane
For an hour on the Costa Brava,
And they'll see Pompeii
On the only day
That it's up to its ass in molten lava!
Millions of tourists are churning up the gravel
While they gaze at St. Peter's Dome,
But why oh WHY do the wrong people travel
When the right people stay at home."
- Noel Coward, "Why Do They Wrong People Travel?"

I am high right now and not on life or illegal substances but on something I hadn't considered particularly euphoric in the past and that's travel. Oh yes, my friends, travel has flipped my worldview on its head and made me appreciate life in a new way. I went to bed last night at 9 pm and woke up this morning at 6 completely invigorated. At my daily coffee shop, my urge to order a latte was nearly trumped by a new desire for an espresso. (The latte, I must say, won. But there was a real battle, I tell you, a real battle.) Mostly, though, I'm just kind of buzzed: I'm sitting here right now and I feel worldly-wise. Or just worldly. It's a great feeling.

There is so much I want to tell you and I keep stalling and stalling because I don't know where to begin. In the past two and a half weeks I chased pigeons in St. Mark's square, climbed the walls of Dubrovnik, survived the rough seas of Sardinia and won a battle with pink eye using expired eye drops my mom had with her. There were celebrity encounters (how could there not be?!), fabulous lavish meals and wonderful quiet moments in places I never dreamt of before. (Santorini, I'll say right now, is one of my new favorite places.)

Cruising is not my ideal or recommended way of seeing the world. My parents like it because of the convenience---it's a floating hotel and each and every port brings the promise of a familiar bed and no unpacking. For my taste, I prefer to really plant my feet in a city and experience it in every way possible: the language, the customs, the hotel bedding, what kind of cereal they serve at breakfast. Immersion would be my preference but, then again, I wasn't paying. And with this cruise (we were on the Crystal Serenity, a beautiful ship albeit an expensive one!) we went to many places that I can honestly say I'd probably never have gone to were it not on our itinerary (Rhodes, Dubrovnik, Santorini, Sardinia.) I think of cruising now as a tasting menu for life's four-star restaurant (hey it may be cheesy but it's apt!): you try a little of everything, a little Croatia on a piece of toast, and you see what you like and what you don't and you'll know what to order next time you go.

I started this post with the lyrics from that Noel Coward song because (a) the lyrics are brilliant and (b) he has a really good point. Why DO they wrong people travel? As I made my way around the world, the throngs of gum-smacking American tourists yelling for McDonalds (and I'm not making that up: in St. Mark's square I heard several people excitedly tell their friends that they found a McDonalds) had me gasping at how much is wasted on the typical American tourist. These people are in Venice and they're eating fried kangaroo* meat! What gives! (*NOTE: my friend Derek once told me that McDonald's uses kangaroo meat in its burgers. We were in 7th grade and I think this was meant to gross me out but it merely had me wondering why McDonald's bothered to kill kangaroos when cows are much more readily available in America.)

The truth is, though, that eight years ago I was in Venice with my high school gifted program (yes, I was gifted---or, to use the correct term, "special." I rode a "special" bus.) and I was the kid who yelled gleefully to my friends: "Hey friends! I found a McDonalds!" And yes we ate burgers and fries with great enthusiasm in Venice. The idea of it now doesn't horrify me or make me gasp with elitist contempt. It actually makes me smile to see how far I've come. It's not about class or education or entitlement as much as its about openness. That's who the "right people" are when it comes to travel: those who are open to new experience, new ideas, new customs and new flavors.

"It's hard to make them accept a steak that isn't served rare and smeared with ketchup," writes Coward in his song. He's probably describing my dad who, it often seems, would gladly subsist on a diet of steak, Fritos and ice cream. Yet dad sat through a meal I forced upon him Dubrovnik at a small family-run restaurant even though he had a look of sheer terror on his face. By the end of the trip, he, my brother and I hiked down a busy highway in Sardinia to eat at an obscure restaurant populated completely by locals. Dad loved it. Well he liked it. He told my mom: "it was very good." Miracles can happen abroad.

All this is to say that before we get started on the journey (and there are over 200 pictures to share!) I want to inspire you as much as I can to get out of the country and see the world. I don't know your economic situation, your familial responsibilities, how demanding your boss is. All I know is that if you can find a way to go abroad you really must. If you've read this far, Noel Coward would agree: you're the right people. Go travel. Now on with the show!

Miss Clotilde of C&Z has asked me, your humble Amateur Gourmet, to participate in a meme called "Childhood Food Memories." My task is simple enough: share five food memories from childhood. Let's see what I can dig up, as I lay back on the proverbial couch...

(1) My steak mistake. As a youngster, my brother and I had two little yellow plastic tables that were placed on a shaggy gray rug in front of a big brown and silver television set. This was where we took most of our meals when mumsy and popsy were out on the town. This memory doesn't involve my brother (maybe he wasn't born yet?): it simply involves steak. Mom made me a steak and I didn't want to eat it. She said, "Eat all of it or you'll get no _____." (Some kind of threat like "food for a week" or "love in your formative years.") When she left the room, I brilliantly took all the steak and shoved it under that shaggy gray rug. Of course, I flattened it all out so there were no lumps and when she returned I proudly declared I was done. A few days later, a foul smell snaked its way from the floor in the den to my mother's nostrils. The steak was discovered and I was appropriately punished. Yes, the scar on my neck from the branding iron remains with me to this day:

(2) Pantsing. This isn't a food memory so much, but it's food-related in that it takes place outside of a restaurant. The Yankee Clipper, to be exact, on Long Island. My grandmother's cousin Bobby (who's no longer with us) was visiting us along with his three sons, whose names I forget. We went to our family's favorite restaurant, The Yankee Clipper, a fish-oriented theme restaurant on the water in Oceanside, Long Island. There was a wait and so we were out in the parking lot. Cousin Bobby says to me, "I bet I can blow your pants down from 10 feet away." I say, "No way!" He says,
"I bet I can" and I say, "You're on." So he stands about 10 feet in front of me and begins to huff and puff. "Are you ready?" he says. "Yes!" I insist, of course I'm ready. This guy's an idiot: he can't blow my pants down. "One..." deep breath "Two..." deep breath... "and THREE." My cousins came up from behind me and pantsed me not only in front of my whole family, but a whole parking lot of people waiting for dinner. To be even more explicit, they didn't just pants me they UNDERpantsed me and my--to use a Yiddish term--shmecky was exposed to the world. The saddest thing is that I was 16 at the time! [Just kidding, I was like 6.] [And for the record, and as a testament to my maturity, I threw a huge fit and refused to eat dinner and cried in the bathroom for an hour. But then they bought me a bike from a garage sale and everything was ok.]

3. Rainy Candy Halloween. I remember in 5th grade, on Halloween, I insisted that everyone was going to wear a costume to school. "Are you sure?" asked my mom. "Yes," I assured her after which I made her buy for me an elaborate Joker costume, complete with make-up, which was totally hip at the time because "Batman" just came out. Early in the morning, we began the transformation and I approached school with the same enthusiasm and excitement Carrie had the night of her prom.

Well of course, upon arriving at school, no one was in a costume. I got made fun of. And worse, it started raining. So after school, there was no trick or treating and I threw a huge fit. Mom put me in the car and began driving me door to door but it was no use. I came home, a wet, miserable Joker, candyless and enraged. I would one day get my revenge on the world: finding sweet things wherever I could, turning white rice into rice pudding. Soon, though, would emerge a nemsis, dark and cunning, in the guise of a doctor who'll test my cholesterol on August 29th at 10 in the morning... stay tuned...

4. & 5. Some happy memories... My food memories aren't all miserable. I remember mom making candy apples once on Halloween (another Halloween memory), melting little squares of caramel in a pot and dipping the apples in... I remember going to Wendy's with my grandmother and my grandfather at the time, Grandpa Joe, who always ordered a bowl of chili... I remember inventing "chocolate covered grapes" which involved a product you can still buy, Dolce Fruta, which is chocolate you stick in the microwave and then whatever you dip in it hardens and so I dipped in grapes, which I thought was delicious but other people thought it was disgusting... I remember trips to the Olive Garden, always lying and saying it was somebody's birthday so we'd get a free cake... I remember this place in Florida, when we moved there, called The Rustic Inn where they gave you hammers and buckets of garlic crabs and you'd hammer away and devour the meat...

Anyway, I'm sure I can come up with much more but that's enough for now. I'd like to pass this on to the new food bloggers who revealed themselves in the comments of my "How To Start a Food Blog" thread... AugustusGloop, Tara, Jennifer, Radish, Grommie, Nic, Joey, Mona, and Ruth. + Michael

The devastation in New Orleans has left many of us, foodbloggers especially, feeling a bit frivolous in the face of catastrophe. We can debate the merits of green risotto and the value of Amazon knife deals, but in the background 10,000 people have died and thousands more need assistance. Surely there's something we can do.

Last year I ran a Gourmet Survivor which was a big hit with my readers (that's you). Much like the TV show, contestants competed each round to receive immunity and then proceeded to vote each other off. The winner--Miss Andrea--endured almost two months worth of challenges, intrigue and dirty politics. Her prize is still in the mail (wink wink, heh heh). (Wait, I did send her a prize, didn't I?)

This year we're going to run things much differently. Our focus is fundraising and fundraising we will do. Here's how:

(1) To enter the contest, each entrant must "pay" a $10 admission fee. Really, this is a donation to Katrina victims. I'll set that up as soon as I announce the scavenger hunt. (Yes, there's going to be another scavenger hunt!) More info to follow.

(2) To keep things simpler this year, we're only going to have four contestants. That's right, only four! And they won't be competing for immunity. What will happen is that each round they will be asked to cook something specific native to New Orleans. Then, based on how well they do, readers will vote for their favorites and here's the twist: to vote you must donate $5 to Katrina victims. Every $5 = 1 vote. So if you really love someone's entry, you can donate $100 to them and they'll get 20 votes. We're not concerned about democracy here, only fundraising. You can even buy your own victory because that kind of injustice helps those in need. Our ultimate goal is to raise as much money as we humanly can and this kind of set-up will make that possible. The player with the least amount of donations at the end of that round will be "eliminated."

If that seems unfair, remember: this is all for fun. And what makes it even funner is...(drumroll): celebrity coaches!

Each contestant will be assigned a celebrity food blogger coach. These are, in random order:

David Lebovitz!

Pim!

Jeremy!

(Sorry, Jeremy, couldn't find your picture!)

and

[This slot was filled by Louisa of Movable Feast but she can no longer do it. I'm working on a replacement right now!]

Their roles will be two-fold: (1) they will coach each contestant in the creation of their dishes for each round. This is no small thing since some of them have cookbooks and others received James Beard scholarships. You'll be in great hands! And (2) they will host your entries on their blogs. They'll be in your corner, rooting you on, and convincing their readers to donate money in your name. You'll be feeling the love hardcore.

And so that's how this is going to work. As for how we narrow it down to four contestants, that's where the scavenger hunt comes in. Tomorrow night I will reveal the new scavenger hunt list and you'll have 'til Sunday to take as many pictures as you can with the objects I assign. This year it will be mandatory that you use Flickr so please set up your accounts now. And, once again, you'll have to donate $10 to play---that'll get us off to a great start.

I realize that playing a game of "Survivor" while some are still struggling to survive may seem a bit callous, but we're playing in their honor and hopefully through challenges that highlight the great food of New Orleans we'll pay appropriate tribute to a great city in a moment of crisis. Let's do them proud!

This is an idea I've had for a while: I was saving it for Valentine's Day, but the holiday season seems just as appropriate. What is it you ask? Well you may not know this, but pinned to my shoulders are tiny wings: I am your Gourmet Cupid, here to make all your romantic dreams come true.

What am I talking about? Ok, so it's safe to say that all of you reading this blog like food. A lot. And many of you, despite your better qualities, are single. Hey, I can relate. So in this age of healthnuts and gyms it's hard to find a fellow foodie to fall in love with. Hence the birth of Gourmet Cupid, here to help match you with a potential mate.

How does this work?

Well I've created an e-mail address: gourmetcupid AT gmail DOT com. To participate, simply send me an e-mail with the following information:

Name:
Age:
Location: [please be a little specific here. "New York" is too broad; "New York City" is just right.]
Gender:
Sexual Preference:
Profession:
Favorite Foods:
Anything Else About You:
The Type Of Person You're Looking To Meet:

Attach a recent picture of you too, cause we'll use that later should we pair you up.

I'll keep checking that gmail account and if I get e-mails from two people, with lots in common, living in the same city I will e-mail them both and tell them they've been tapped by the Gourmet Cupid. They will then have the option of e-mailing the other person and going on a Gourmet Cupid Date which, of course, they will have to document with a digital camera and write about afterwards.

Isn't this fun? Won't it be great if we have an Amateur Gourmet wedding?! I feel like Alicia Silverstone in "Clueless." [Note: I am not responsible if you get murdered on your date.] Let's see those e-mails pour in!

My friends mock the way I say Florida.

"FLAH-rida," they tease when I tell them where I'm going for the holidays.

"How do you say it?" I protest.

And then they correctly pronounce it: "Floor-IH-dah."

After much examination, we've determined that mine is the case of the New York Jew pronouncing words through a Long Island filter. This make sense because I lived on Long Island until I was 11. Then we moved to FLAH-rida. There we eat ARE-enges (as opposed to ore-anges) and call the summer heat HARR-ible (as opposed to hore-ible.)

We also eat many meals when I visit and that's the segue we need to get us to the subject of our post. I was in Florida for four nights this Thanksgiving and in my time there I ate three meals I'd like to tell you about. Meal One took place at Ago in the Shore Club:

That's the inside of the hotel: it's very zen.

The other meals were at Cafe Boulud in West Palm Beach: (which I've written about before, but two times is a charm)

And, finally (and most interestingly) Norman's---called, by The New York Times, "the best restaurant in South Florida."

Are you ready to delve into the swampy marshes of my food writing? Press ahead!

It's Wednesday and that means the nation's papers published their food sections today. Normally, I let the aggregator blogs do the work of a Wednesday wade-through--linking to the best stories, etc--but today there's plenty to link to and talk about, so I thought I'd get into the game. Click ahead to join the conversation.

This was fun to do last week so I thought I'd do it again. As you all know, Wednesday is food day in the nation's papers. For your convenience, I will wade through everything (including food blogs too) to find the best for you to read today. Why? Because I like you!

Today's Wednesday and that means the nation's papers published their food sections, so it's time for me to wade through them and all the food blogs to share with you the tastiest bits. Those of you who read my piece a few days ago in defense of food blogs might find that hypocritical--"Didn't he say that mainstream media was dying? Why is he wading through it?"--but if that's what you took from my piece, you misunderstood me. There will always be a place for both newspaper food sections and food blogs--it's just that food blogs are becoming more and more relevant. And doing this wade-through proves the point: as you may have noticed in previous weeks (and perhaps today), only one or two links are from newspapers and the rest are from food blogs. Let's see what happens. A'wading we go!