Hey loyal readers—my friend Nate would like you to take this Zoomerang survey. It’s mostly about your TV viewing habits and your opinions of the Food Network. Please take it if you have a moment.

Prepare to be surprised followers of Gourmet Survivor 2004. I know I was!Let’s start at the beginning. A week and a half ago I assigned Michelle, Andrea and Nick their final challenge: prepare some kind of baked good (or anything that won’t spoil) and ship it to me. I will eat it and judge it.…

Two times I have felt a cold coming on since I’ve moved to New York, and both times I’ve sought out the same treatment: matzoh ball soup at the 2nd Ave. Deli.New York has its fair share of delis. Uptown there’s Carnegie and Stage, downtown (on the Lower East Side) there’s Katz’s (home of New…

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…

Cookbooks are strange things. Some sit on your shelf for years ignored (my Nigella Lawsons, my Julia Childs) and some beckon to you like harpies on a heath. (Harpies on a heath?) (It makes sense in my head.)One factor that determines a cookbook’s harpiness (oi, harpiness) is its tract record. Of the recipes you’ve cooked…

We all want a place where everybody knows our name. Where mailmen and fat guys drink beer and Shelly Long dishes with Ted Danson about Rhea Pearlman’s perm. And Woody Harrelson plays a character named Woody.The charm of “Cheers” I think is that there’s the sense of propriety—this is OUR bar. Our secret spot. We’re…

Great

See, even my tastebuds are liberal: Teresa Heinz Kerry’s Pumpkin Spice Cookies appeal to me more than Laura Bush’s Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk cookies in The 2004 Family Circle Cookie Cook Off.

This website has served me well regarding the sway I hold over my parents in determining where it is we are going to eat. Pre-website, our conversations went something like this:Mom: Where should we go to dinner?Me: Let’s go to an elegant four-star restaurant!Dad: Let’s go eat steak.Mom: Steak it is.Me: Fools! Unsophisticated oafs! I…

Nick, Michelle, Andrea,This is the challenge I’ve been waiting for, the secret challenge I’ve kept stashed in my pocket for a special moment. That moment has come.I want each of you to prepare something that can be shipped through the mail. (A baked good would seem the likeliest option). And then, quite simply enough, I’d…