Writing about food since 2004.
Category
Essays
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How I Almost Appeared on Top Chef
At this point, you’re probably well aware that last night’s episode of Top Chef Miami featured Andrea Strong as the top-secret food blogger “plant” in the highly dramatic restaurant episode. What you probably don’t know is that I too auditioned to be there at that table with Andrea. I was called in last winter to…
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The Hell’s Kitchen Finale
Young chefs, take heed: reality television offers you two glimpses, this summer season, of chefs who have fallen so far off their pedestals it’s difficult to believe they were ever taken seriously. Rocco DiSpirito’s visit to Top Chef Season III was thankfully limited to one episode, but there he was shilling for Bertolli, his face…
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Objectivity, Subjectivity and Food (a discussion)
Last night I wrote a big essay about objectivity, subjectivity and food and then–perhaps ironically–Safari ate it. Maybe, though, that’s for the best. It was a bit long-winded. The truth is that I’d rather have a discussion with you, my readers, than rant and rave like a loon. The prompt for the essay was a…
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Don’t Make A Mess-o of Your Espresso
The man didn’t know what he was doing. I was at a Brooklyn coffee shop whose name is synonymous with donkey and I ordered an iced latte. The man (I’d call him a barista, but he clearly wasn’t) took a glass and filled it with ice. And then–this was the crucial error–he pulled two watery…
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“Ratatouille” & Jewish Assimilation (an essay, with spoilers)
The key moment in “Ratatouille” is not the creation of the title dish, a layered circle of sliced zucchini, eggplant, and tomato perfectly rendered by Pixar’s animators and lovingly sauced by Remy, the film’s protagonist. It’s not the climactic scene of judgment by the film’s primary antagonist, the food critic Anton Ego, voiced by a…
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In Defense of Food Blogging
A noted food journalist–one of my first mentors–got on the phone with me earlier this year to talk about my future. I told him that I wanted to get a regular job for a newspaper food section. What should I do? “Adam,” he said, “you’ve got to be kidding. What you’re doing right now is…
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How We Almost Ate At Ye Waverly Inn
&uot Dear Graydon Carter, Hi, you don’t know me, I’m just a silly food blogger who likes to eat out sometimes. For example, yesterday I went to a Mexican restaurant in my neighborhood (Los Pollitos in Park Slope) and it was very tasty. We showed up there at 7 PM, without a reservation, and they…
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Diner Food
Craig returns from the bathroom and I’m lost in thought. “What are you thinking about?” he asks, slathering mayo on to his turkey club. “Diners,” I respond. We are at the West Side Diner on 9th Ave. and we’ve just seen a three hour play about British orphans. “What about them?” I open one of…
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American Food Manifesto
The message was on the bag. The bag was from Burger King, the Burger King was in the San Francisco Airport. The message read: I was desperate. Starving, really. I sat at the Burger King near my gate and read that message and felt a pain in my gut. Then I ate this Whopper and…
