May 7, 2008
This is probably the strangest news I've ever reported on this blog; but, it is with great pleasure (and disbelief) that I tell you, my readers, that this Friday, at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, as part of the Bon Appetit Uncorked Festival, I will be going head-to-head with Lorraine Bracco in the Masters vs. Rookies Culinary Pro-Am on the DCS Stage. Specifically, I will be paired with master chef John Church while Ms. Bracco will be paired with master chef Todd English and then we will do battle. The ticket information is here, but I am inquiring about getting some of you who left comments on my Vegas post in for free to root me on. Either way, this is going to be an exciting day in the life of an amateur food blogger. Could my life get any stranger? Wish me luck!
By the way, we leave tomorrow for Vegas; thanks to all of you for your tips on where to eat. I'll be liveblogging the trip from my hotel room, so stay tuned for updates the rest of this week.
Newspaper recipes don't excite me.
With their perfect margins, their definitive type, their antiseptic language, I very rarely open the Wednesday Food Section of The New York Times, read a recipe, and run home to make it. Perhaps it's a function of old media vs. new media, in that the old media feels creaky and irrelevant whereas the new media--by which I mean food blogs--are fresh and accessible and offer real recipes by real people with real personas that aren't whitewashed or edited, but vivid and alive.
Continue reading "Food Bloggers Have The Best Recipes (Luisa's Potato Focaccia, Molly's Chocolate Granola)" »
May 6, 2008
Anyone who grew up in the 80s watching "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" will recall a very specific phrase that kicks in whenever the characters decide to order a pizza. I feel like you hear this phrase in "E.T." when Eliot's brother has friends over for poker and maybe in an episode of "Facts of Life" where Blaire learns the perils of superficiality. Either way, the phrase is emblematic of its time, not something you often hear today. The phrase is: "Hold the anchovies."
Continue reading "Don't Hold The Anchovies" »
(1) Clear your cache and enjoy the new springy banner, a nice corollary to this week's FN Dish. Thanks Erin, Leah and Justin, once again, for your great work.
(2) My weekly features--Tuesday Techniques and Music While You Eat--will now be more sporadic than weekly. I'd rather do thoughtful posts every now and then than forced posts every week. Plus I'm leaving for Vegas tomorrow, and I need to practice counting cards!
(3) Those of you who will be in Vegas, stay tuned... I have an exciting event that all of you can come to. I'm waiting for permission to post about it....
(4) I just noticed my tags aren't working. Weird.
(5) Doesn't Cloris Leachman have a weird name? Who names their daughter Cloris?
(6) Sorry, that last one didn't have anything to do with food.
(7) Ok, time to start writing the next post....
May 5, 2008
You were probably wondering where the music was last week. Well, I had something up my sleeve: this week's episode of the FN Dish (click here) features a song written and performed by yours truly. Again, this week is a quirkier Adam-like episode so hopefully fans of last week's will enjoy this too. And if you love it, please link to it, e-mail it, embed it on your blog. Thanks!
May 2, 2008
This Food Network gig is wild, baby. On Wednesday, they're flying me out to Vegas to cover Bon Appetit's Vegas Uncorked, a culinary and wine festival featuring some of the most famous, important chefs alive (Wolfgang Puck, Daniel Boulud, Lorraine Bracco). The craziest part? On Saturday night I'm hosting a V.I.P. party by the pool of a flashy hotel and we have TWO extra tickets to give away. Are you or anyone you know going to be in Vegas next Saturday the 10th? Let me know in the comments, make sure to leave your e-mail address too, and you can glam it up with me and my posse by the pool. Meanwhile, everyone else: where should we eat in Vegas? Anything we should do off the beaten path? Your advice is much appreciated!
May 1, 2008
[Click to enlarge.]
Clotilde's Original Post.
April 30, 2008
I would like to begin this week's "Tuesday Techniques" column--a column which appears regularly on Wednesdays--with a discussion of the word "technique." I think people are intimidated by the word. It implies a "right-wrong" dynamic, something hammered home by Tom Colicchio on "Top Chef" when he criticizes improper technique. "You don't know how to cut an onion?" "You don't know that proper paella has a crust?" "You kissed Padma on the left cheek and not the right?"
This bullying has its merits. In a cooking school environment, in a restaurant kitchen, forceful drilling of proper technique produces top-quality chefs. At home, however, does it matter if you have a perfectly clear consomme? Not unless a perfectly clear consomme is something to which you aspire.
Most people, I'd conjecture, just want to make dinner. And that's why TV hosts like Rachael Ray and Giada De Laurentis are so popular. They make cooking look easy and fun. In fact, those words "easy" and "fun" are often in their show titles.
But why can't using proper technique, cooking on the level of a Tom Colicchio, be easy and fun? Why does Jacques Pepin's "Technique" book feel so much like a text book? Why does writing this column sometimes feel like homework? Why does this paragraph have so many questions?
Continue reading "Tuesday Techniques: French Apple Tart" »
April 29, 2008
I'm getting lots of ribbing at work because Gary Vaynerchuk from Wine Library TV is creaming me in the battle of hottest Food and Wine host at TVweek.com. Please help raise my social standing (and self-esteem!) by voting for me below.... thanks!
April 28, 2008
This week's FN Dish may be my favorite so far. First of all, it's the first one I actually wrote as a script--so it has a lot more of my voice in it, something that many of you may have felt was missing. Second of all, it features three of my favorite bloggers: Ed Levine from Serious Eats, Luisa Weiss from The Wednesday Chef and Amanda Kludt from Eater. Thirdly, we have a special celebrity guest from America's Next Top Model. Plus, you learn all about food blogging and starting a food blog. So make sure to click the link above or click here or just type in www.fndish.com and go that way. Once you're there: rate it, leave comments and if you love it embed it on your blog. And if you want to know more about starting a food blog, check out my essays: How To Start a Food Blog, More Blogging Advice, and How To Make Your Food Blog Popular.
