• And The Winner Is…

    So, just to reiterate, the other day (Friday, in fact) I proposed a contest to eat adventurously this weekend. “The entry with the most outrageous, most creative account will win,” I said.And so our three entrants are as follows: Caitlin and her fiddlehead ferns, Lisa (not the Lisa I know) and her triad of entries…

  • Three Official Entries! Woohoo!

    Blessed be my readers—three of you have generously participated in my generous “Adventurous Food Weekend” contest. All the entries are great so far. I’m still waiting for the pictures from one entrant, so I’ll postpone the “judging” until tomorrow… but please know that I’m incredibly thrilled! If I could I would buy cookbooks for you…

  • Say It Ain’t So, New Yorker

    The perfect dining companion must be reliable, they must be engaging, and they must have the ability to traverse a wide variety of subject matter. My perfect companion, then, is constantly in my car, bound and gagged in the back seat, ready to go at a moment’s notice. Not only that, my perfect companion is…

  • Tierra is Verra Verra Good

    Piedmont Road is one of those connector roads in Atlanta: it connects you from Buckhead to Midtown and intersects, along the way, with Rock Springs (taking you to Emory), Monroe (taking you to Ponce) and Tierra–a funky yellow South American fusion restaurant that my friends and I went to tonight.Driving past, you wouldn’t necessarily think…

  • On Ironing

    Getting ready to go out, for me, involves many a process. There’s the plucking, the grooming, the showering, the shaving, the full body moisturizing compress. Selecting clothes takes several committees and seventeen models who strut past with different variations until I am completely satisfied. What going out does not involve, however, is ironing. I hate…

  • Make That A Margarita

    I took charge today at our post-PMBR lunch at Tacqueria Del Sol. I said: “Lauren, let’s celebrate being done with the PMBR. Let’s order margaritas.””Nah,” said Lauren, “I have to work on some papers.””Ok,” I said.The waiter came over. “What do you want to drink?” he asked.”Two margaritas,” I said, “frozen, salt.”Lauren laughed. “Ok,” she…

  • From Abstraction to Reality: A Half-Baked Essay on Food with a Generous Contest Offer in the Last Paragraph

    Picture a cake.Let’s say a yellow cake with vanilla icing. The cheap kind that comes in a box; the kind you would sell at the Chess Club bake sale. Picture it strewn with rainbow sprinkles; the large rectangle carved into equitable squares.Now taste it. Do you have the flavor in your mind? The cake with…

  • The Ew Department: Soy Milk

    Strong opinions abound here at The Amateur Gourmet.I’ve alienated my Atkins-lovers, my cheese eaters, and the Christian Right. And now I’m going to alienate the vegans.Tonight I sat innocently watching TV with Lauren. “Will and Grace” was on. We were decompressing from a full day of bar study and torture. I said: “How ’bout a…

  • I Want To Cry

    Oh my God. Cicada Cooking video via The Washington Post. You need RealTime to view it… and Valium.

  • …And Finally

    You’re probably as sick of hearing about carbs as I am sick of eating them! But tonight I was in Publix with my digital camera and I began snapping pictures of the low-carb products that seemed to be everywhere. Cereals, drinks, breads, bagels, pills… All stacked in giant displays appealing to the low-carb sensibility. And…