A Full Belly

sustainable agriculture and barbecue

Bitter Greens Journal on sustainable agriculture and barbecue.[thanks, rcb!] The July 2005 issue of Gourmet includes a profile of Ed Mitchell, famed NC pitmaster, who is "now working with small-scale African-American pork farmers in his area to identify a pork breed and develop a raising protocol that can produce pork worthy of the smoking pit." Unfortunately, Mitchell's restaurant closed earlier this year as he faces multiple felony and misdemeanor tax charges.

Ice cream machines reviewed

Which machines whip up the best ice cream? Not too surprisingly, the most expensive one--the Musso 4080 Lussino Dessert Maker. She's a beauty, but at nearly $600, I'd have to make A LOT of ice cream and ice cream lovin' friends to justify the purchase.

SF 4th Street's mini-restaurant row

SF It's official: 4th Street's mini-restaurant row is back. Bizou has been reborn as Coco500 and Cafe Monk as Zuppa. Both are open for lunch and dinner. I snapped a photo of Coco500's menu (click on the image to the left for an almost legible view),and peeked in a full (and loud) Zuppa last night. Plans to dine at both soon...

goodbye to good cheap food

NYC Yesterday's Special: Good, Cheap Dining. In a nutshell: high-quality neighborhood restaurants are fast becoming a thing of the past in Manhattan because of painful rent increases. *cries*

assam double wall ice tea glass

Assam Double Wall Iced Tea Glass. Gorgeous glasses that keep your drinks colder for longer and won't sweat in weather that's got you drenched. Ah, science. $40 for a set of two. [via A Whole Lotta Nothing]

mmmm, lobster

After reading about it on Chowhound, I visited the recently-opened Black Pearl on Avenue A with friends last month to check out their Tuesday Night Lobster Special: $14.95 buys you an entire lobster + a load of tasty fries. We also really liked the seafood platters and steamers, can't go wrong with those, and the bar they share space with, Julep, is very low-key. It's a good place to have a meal and then drinks with people and not have to worry about any sort of scene.

Black Pearl's specialty is lobster rolls but at $20 a pop, I haven't gotten around to trying them yet, and maybe I'll hold off for a while since despite being deathly allergic, the Village Voice's Nina Lalli has put together a great list of places to have lobster rolls in the city: To Die For: It's Lobster Roll Season in New York. My belly appreciates her courage in the face of danger.

cream puffs

Cream puffs rise to meet demand. USA Today piece on how cream puffs are making a comeback nation-wide, powered by two Japanese chains. I'm personally crazy about Beard Papa's—I'd have a cream puff every day if my wallet (and body) could afford it, but there is no real point in any of the special flavors, the original is by far the best. I imagine the green tea cream puff would sell so much better if it was strongly flavored, instead of barely. [via amuse-bouche]

threadless submissions

Super awesome t-shirt company Threadless lets users rate designs others have submitted for possible production and sale. Here are a few current submissions I think A Full Belly Readers might be interested in:

• Get In My Belly!
• I Can't Believe I Ate The Whole Thing
• la crevette
• Hardcore Sausage
• Mmm... eggs!!
• Math is Yummy

Get In My Belly! is one of my life mottos, but I think Hardcore Sausage is the one I'd be most likely to wear around.

sausage champion

Kolbász Bajnok ("sausage champion") is a blog dedicated to sausage, written completely in Hungarian. [via randomWalks]

Burritoeater

SF Reason 1,543 I love the internet: Burrito Eater has saved us the trouble of tracking down the best burritos in the city and the accompanying indigestion that comes with visiting  over 150 San Francisco burrito shops and trucks. Each taqueria visited by Burrito Eater receives an "OMR," Overall Mustache Rating, and burritos are rated on 12 key elements, including "burstage abatement." See the list of top taquerias.

"hip gringo" strategies

The original chowhound, Jim Leff, shares his "hip gringo"strategies for navigating a large Chinese menu with East Bay Express' Jonathan Kaufmann:

Leff offers three tips. First, do the perp walk: Before you sit down, meander around the room. "Anything you spot on three or more tables, order," he says. "If you're not sure what something is, ask a waiter. This would be frowned upon in some cultures, but Chinese waiters and customers are total foodies, and will be delighted to help with this. Just act eager and happy." He adds that you shouldn't only scout Asian Americans but serious-looking eaters of any ethnicity.

Second, start by ordering an insider's dish, something that demonstrates you're familiar with the cuisine and not going to be a picky gringo. (Leff uses "gringo" to indicate anyone who doesn't share the ethnicity of the restaurant's staff.)

But the third -- and possibly most important -- tip is to treat your waiter right. "A restaurant is not a one-night stand," he says. "You're building a long-term relationship. Win over your waiter. Tip him well. And never, ever show the slightest sign of disdain, even if you are served something you deem icky. By the third visit, you'll have achieved 'hip gringo' status. Proud Cantonese restaurateurs respect nothing more than a hip gringo."

Ode to Chaxiubao

Food blogger Chaxiubao post lyrics to a early 80's Mandarain smash-hit song called "Chaxiubao." An ode to dumplings makes perfect sense to me, and if you have to ask, I'm with the Shanghai gang. Anyone know how I might find an mp3 of this song?

mcsweeney's fish names

McSweeney's: Fish Names That Sound Like Unfortunate 7th-Graders. My favorite is, of course, "striped mullet". [via Dogbowl]

jean-georges vongerichten

Superstar chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, he who reinvented the city's approach to food and dining out (not to mention nouvelle cuisine) over two decades, has the cover of New York Magazine all to himself this week, plus a lengthy piece written by Jay McInerney, author of quintissential 80s New York novel "Bright Lights, Big City".

From Jean-Georges Is Seeing Stars:

The backlash might seem inevitable, from the outside. The guy, after all, has had nothing but hits, and until recently he’s made it look easy. He’s rich: Prime Steakhouse in Las Vegas, just one corner of his empire, did $16 million in business last year. He’s earned not just one but two four-star ratings from the Times and won seven James Beard awards. He just moved into a beautiful apartment overlooking the Hudson in the most talked-about residential complex in the city, a project in which he was a partner. He has a beautiful young wife, former Jean Georges hostess Marja Allen, the mother of his 4-year old daughter, Chloe. He doesn’t seem tortured like Thomas Keller, nor wacky like David Bouley. What’s not to hate about someone this successful and seemingly well adjusted?

If he was ever complacent or distracted, he’s definitely not feeling that way now. One of his most likable qualities—and he is a very likable guy—is his willingness to take criticism to heart. He thinks of himself as a host, and he hates to see his guests unhappy. “Maybe I was stretched a little thin last year,” he says in his melodic, mumbling English, flipping an omelet in the spotless kitchen at Jean Georges while he watches two sous chefs plating an order. “I open four restaurants. But I love creating new things. It’s difficult to be creative once a restaurant’s open. People want the same dishes. For me, the creativity is in opening a new place and starting a new menu.”

Vongerichten is opening another restaurant this week, his eighth in New York: Perry, in the West Village, a 60 seater. According to the piece he's been struggling with his partners in V (the steakhouse he opened in Columbus Circle's Time Warner Center) and will make the decision whether to leave it or stay after this summer. So if you haven't been and have been wondering, as McInerney put it, "Do you need a chef of Vongerichten’s magnitude to cook a steak? Isn’t that like hiring Cy Twombly to paint your house?", this is the time to go.

the foie gras controversy

The Controversy Over Foie Gras - Does a Duck Have A Soul? "The controversy has arisen not over the mere slaughter of poultry but over the way foie gras is, and by definition must be, created. (Literally, the term means “fattened liver.”) Foie gras is that most Catholic of delicacies: paradise attained through suffering." [via kottke.org]

pizza vans

Super Fast Pizza not just about a quick buck. In Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, you can order a pizza and have it be cooking in the van en route to you. “Within five or six minutes, we usually see them right around our house and they’re cooking the food. Maximum 15 minutes, they’re at the door with the pizza.” [via what's in rebecca's pocket?]

make yer own root beer

Zatarain's Root Beer Extract. "This concentrate comes with directions for old fashioned bottled preparation, or easy preparation by the pitcher. Thick and creamy, kids love it and so will the kid in you!" If you have an ice cream maker, I guess you could make root beer floats completely from scratch! So good with a grilled cheese sandwich on a hot summer afternoon.

the humble potato

Potato: Definition and Much More. "In Russia, potatoes met with initial suspicion: the people called them "the Devil's apples" because of folklore surrounding things which grow underground or which have associations with dirt."

getting fussy kids to eat

Bananas, Maybe. Peas and Kale? Dream On. When I was two (after having been forced to eat boiled unsalted mashed carrots) I refused to eat any pretty much any vegetable that wasn't a potato and stayed that way till I was 16. A friend of mine grew up not liking food because he was always forced to clean his plate, whether or not the food was any good or if he was already full. Coercion doesn't work, people! As my pediatrician eventually told my mom to get her to back off, kids won't starve themselves. Meals should be happy and loving, not stressful.

make your own ginger ale

My next kitchen science project: make your own ginger ale.

cooking steel cut oats

Handy: How to cook steel cut oats in a thermos.

expiration dates

Surprising Expiration Dates. After the apocalypse, the only things left standing will be roaches, Cher and... honey? [via Waxy.org]

amateur gourmet does peter luger

NYC Excerpt from an email I sent to a friend today: "If you're giving meat up for reals you really should give it the proper send-off. Like at, say, Peter Luger (scroll down 3/5ths). P.S. I dream about their bacon still, six months after having had it."

Previously on A Full Belly: Peter Luger.

we heart robert sietsema

NYC Backgrounder: Robert Sietsema. The Village Voice's food critic has eaten things you wouldn't even think were edible, and that's only one of the many reasons why we think so highly of him. The real crossroads of the world isn't Times Square, it's in his belly.

c&z readers' guide

NYC Chocolate & Zucchini Readers' Guide to NYC. Clotilde is in town visiting for a few days and put together a page out of her reader recommendations. It's a solid if fairly predictable list with lots of very safe hits (i.e. no Sietsema-ish adventures into cheap or ethnic eats—you can guess the C&Z reader demographic), but still well worth looking over even if you already live in the city.

I heart burritos

Burrito Blog is selling "I heart burritos" t-shirts. Burrito Blog is based in Boston, surprisingly enough. We hope they make it out to San Francisco to get a taste of some real burritos soon.

red wine & burgers

Reach for a lively red. To pick the best match between wine and burger, the Good Eating panel ordered several Rosebud Steakhouse burgers, cooked medium-rare, topped with Cheddar cheese but no condiments. Tasters marveled at the 12-ounce beef patty's juiciness, the high dark dome of the pretzel bun and how the burger managed to survive the cab ride from the 192 E. Walton Pl. restaurant to Tribune Tower with all of its gustatory pleasure intact. Tasters used the skinny french fries served alongside as palate cleansers." [via The Morning News]

politicians and ice cream

NYC Election scoop: Mayoral hopefuls vote for fave ice cream spots. The reason why Brooklyn Rep Anthony Weiner likes Uncle Louie G's mint chocolate chip so much is a classic New York story: "His dad would try to cheer him up with a bowl of ice cream after every Mets loss when he was growing up," says Anson Kaye, Weiner's director of communications. "So he wound up eating a lot of ice cream as a kid." [via Gothamist]

hifi, you are dead to me

NYC While we're discussing negative reviews, I might as well say that the latest establishment to make itself dead to me is the bar HiFi, on Avenue A. Went there with friends recently during Happy Hour and the charmless bartender served me the absolute worst pint of Guinness ever—so flat and nasty that it made people wince to taste it, so awful that it made the most disgusting beer I'd had previous (a Rheingold) seem drinkable in comparison. It was so bad it put me off of drinking for the night. A friend took it back to the bar to swap it for a Coke and the bartender didn't taste it to check what was wrong or even try to apologize. Nice booths, a pool table, and the best jukebox in the East Village? Whatever. HiFi, you are dead to me.

update: Kathryn tells us that HiFi's regular Happy Hour bartender is a) probably away on tour and b) a total doll. I will give him the benefit of the doubt—but stay clear of the bar till he get back!

dead to us

"Certain establishments have offended us in such a manner that they are, and will forever be... DEAD TO US. If it's an accident, we always forgive. If it's deliberate, we never forgive." Dead To Us is a relatively new food blog with two main features: 1) they only run negative reviews, and 2) they take submissions. Currently all the reviews are in or around Seattle but perhaps they'll run stuff about restaurants from other cities as well?

negative reviews aren't fun to write

On Dining: I take no pleasure in negative reviews. Penelope Corcoran of Seattle's Post-Intelligencer: "Sure, words can flow more easily when they're fueled by a sense of outrage. And, yes, endeavoring to describe comically bad experiences for others has its entertaining moments. But, do I wish I was writing about some place I had liked? Absolutely. For one thing, I wouldn't have had to endure three meals in a restaurant flawed by weak food, poor service, lousy ambience or some combination of the three." [via buffoonery.org]

office candy is good for you

Dishing the office candy: Desk sweet bowl is a management tool and gossip magnet. Remind me to have a candy dish out the next time I work in an office. [via Salli Vates]

dumpling resolution

NYC Peace in the Middle East (Village). Curbed reports that Plump Dumpling has changed their logo, it's no longer the blatant Dumpling Man ripoff it was before. Great, but what I really want to know is if Plump Dumpling's offerings are going to be any better than Dumpling Man's, or if the status quo (of having to trek to Mandoo in the West Village if I want good dumplings) will be maintained.

big tips retro candy box

Big Tips Candy Collection is basically a curated retro candy box with fifteen candy bars selected from different regions of the US, like Mallo Cup, Bun Bar, Goo Goo Cluster and Sky Bar. $20 on their website or from fredflare.com.

questioning teflon

Nonstick pans are a boon to cooks, but are there dangers lurking beneath the surface? Interesting tidbit: "Anyone who assumes that professional chefs wouldn't deign to cook with anything but their well-worn, lovingly seasoned stainless steel or cast-iron frying pans should guess again.Not that all chefs use them. Of the five chefs The Chronicle spoke to, three give thumbs-up to nonstick; the other two  thumbs-down." [via The Food Section]

coffee cantata

J.S. Bach's Coffee Cantata.  "Father, don't be so severe! If I can't drink my bowl of coffee three times daily, then in my torment I will shrivel up like a piece of roast goat."

big apple bbq block party review is coming

I'm still recovering from the wonderful meaty madness that was this past weekend's Big Apple BBQ Block Party so you'll have to wait a little bit longer for my review, but I was there both days (plus Friday's pit set up and VIP party) and shot a lot of photos, here are five to tide you over in the meantime:

Garry Roark of Ubon's "Champion's Choice". (Friday)

Beef brisket and sausage, Michael Rodriguez' of The Salt Lick. (Saturday)

Ed Mitchell of Mitchell's BBQ and some pork waiting to be pulled. (Saturday)

Baby back ribs, Mike Mills of 17th St Bar & Grill. (Sunday)

Pitmasters, hanging out. (Sunday)

If there's anything you particularly want to see photos of or hear about in my review, or you have something to share about your BABBP experience, please feel free to leave a comment!

nyt on restaurant week

The Times discusses NYC's upcoming Restaurant Week: For 20 Bucks, Is It Worth It?

David Waltuck, the chef and an owner of Chanterelle, said he uses ingredients that are "maybe a little less expensive" like chicken or salmon during the Restaurant Week lunch rush. "I wouldn't do calves' liver or tripe or a strong fish," he said.

But Akhtar Nawab, the chef at CraftBar, might. "We kind of try to show off that week," he said, offering dishes plucked from the regular menu, like orzo in rendered bone marrow and sea urchin tagliatelle. Portions, he said, are slightly smaller.

Other chefs do not change the portion size but may skimp on costly ingredients. "It may be the amount of fresh morels," said Kerry Heffernan, chef at Eleven Madison Park, referring to his signature English pea flan, one of five appetizer options.

Devi, the new Indian restaurant in Chelsea, may be too young to know any better, but dinner customers can pick any three dishes from its lengthy menu, including Jamison Farms' tandoor lamb chops, which usually cost $29.

Some chefs say it is worth the financial blow if participating customers return, and research compiled by NYC & Company says two-thirds of them do.

 

Two-thirds! Wow. I wonder if the return rate is different at places that offer cheaper, off-menu items as compared to those that treat Restaurant Week as a loss leader (like I talked about in my Taste of Chinatown review), not to mention the satisfaction rate for the second visit.

(I've reservations with friends at Blue Smoke and Artisanal for Restaurant Week, but now I'm thinking I should be checking Devi out for those tandoor lamb chops and Butter just because I like the chef's attitude about making a good first impression.)

market manila

Market Manila. "A food weblog that talks about ingredients, food, food stuffs, recipes, restaurants and markets here in the Philippines and around the globe." Well-written and easy on the eyes, I've only just discovered this site but it's now easily my favorite Filipino food blog. The writer is currently visiting New York and discussing food here, but going through the archives really makes me miss Manila.

clinton rumors

Bubba Forsakes All BBQ? Salon's Rebecca Traister on rumors Bill Clinton is going vegetarian: "Bill Clinton not eating meat? A man whose very name brings to mind the word "pork"? Who has never met a nitrate he didn't like? Whose all-night bull-and-barbeque sessions were sent up hilariously in "Primary Colors"? The man who once, after having consumed a 3,300-calorie lunch with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1994 that included meats, cheeses, seafood and veal-stuffed ravioli, ordered a piece of chocolate cake to go?" (If I ever thought about giving meat up, people would be writing much the same about me.)

galatoire's

Galatoire's. You'll have to scroll down the page a bit, but Chuck Taggart's story (and photos!) of dining at the hundred year-old New Orleans institution that the James Beard Foundation recently named Outstanding Restaurant in America is worth it.

nyc bread scene

All hail the new upper crust. Regina Schrambling in the LA Times on how bread-loving New Yorkers are more spoiled than ever: "This city has always had an embarrassment of yeasty riches, especially with the rise of artisanal bakeries in the last 10 years, but now the bread scene feels extraordinary. While most of the rest of the country has to settle for squishy Italian or "baked on premises" La Brea in supermarkets, here, in what is virtually a European satellite, we can walk into Dean & Deluca and take our pick from no fewer than 17 bakeries. Or we can sit down in a good restaurant and face more choices in bread than water." [via The Morning News]

N.B. I love Schrambling's Gastropoda. On its best day Gawker would be lucky to be half as tart.

taste of suburbia

NYC A Taste of Suburbia - Chain Restaurants that are Hard to Find In or Near New York City. For those of us who brunch at Sarabeth's and love good gelato but wish the nearest IHOP and Dairy Queen were not in Harlem and New Jersey, respectively. And that we didn't have to hop on a plane to get to In-N-Out Burger!

dessert, la-style

Los Angeles Dessert Tour. Kelli of dessert blog Lovescool visits three bakeries and one chocolatier in her hometown. "One final note about going on a dessert tour in Los Angeles; be prepared to feel full, very full. Nobody walks in LA, even after eating cupcakes and marshmallows."

the bottom feeder

The Bottom Feeder is a great new blog dedicated to trying out all sorts of strange products and recipes. Would you eat Thai Orchid Lychees in Heavy Syrup purchased for 99 cents? "When I opened up my semi-fresh-looking can of lychees, the first thing I noticed was their visual appeal. They have none. In fact, they looked like a bunch of pickled pigs' knuckles in a can." [via The Girl Who Ate Everything]

Do a good thing

While you're surfing through your favorite food weblogs today and planning your next meal out or recipe to try at home, take a moment to click and help someone less fortunate. The Dannon Company has joined with America's Second Harvest to help feed America’s children. In honor of National Hunger Awareness Day, you can go to Dannon's Fighting Hunger in America page and click the graphical "giving" button. For each click, Dannon will contribute $1 to America's Second Harvest (up to a total of $75,000).

What does one dollar do?  For every dollar donated, America's Second Harvest secures and distributes 20 pounds of food and grocery products such as cereal, soap, fruit, bath soap and diapers. According to the USDA Thrifty Food Plan, an average meal is 1.28 pounds of food.

Do a good thing and click!

eats around the flatiron

NYC Hot New York Minute. Teresa Nielsen Hayden on good cheap eats around the Flatiron. (The comments are worth reading through, as is usually the case on Making Light.) [via BoingBoing]

black widow eats popcorn too

Black Widow Wins MTV Movie Awards World Popcorn Eating Championship. Sonya Thomas packed away "an astounding 9.5 large boxes of popcorn in 10 minutes. Thomas was challenged by Rich 'The Locust' LeFevre, who pused the contest to 2 one-box overtimes." Did they even chew? Yikes!

Chocolate Revolution

Jonathan Kauffman on the American Chocolate Revolution

SF Chocolate: The Exhibition

SF Chocolate: The Exhibition opens this weekend at the California Academy of Sciences.

NYC Cheap Chow Now

The Village Voice's Robert Sietsema, perhaps our favorite New York restaurant reviewer for his keen sense for all that is good, cheap, and ethnic when it comes to dining in any of the boroughs, has compiled his annual 100 Best. This year's format, cheap chow now: "absurdly cheap eateries where you can down a humongous meal, often for $5 or less." My favorite kind of eats! The top twenty include:

1. Memo, 1821 Kings Highway, Brooklyn
2. Hummus Place, 109 St. Marks Place, Manhattan
3. A & A Bake and Doubles, 481 Nostrand Avenue, Brooklyn
4. Philoxenia, 26-18 23rd Avenue, Queens
5. Karihan ni Tata Bino, 71-34 Roosevelt Avenue, Queens
6. Ko Hang Soft Tofu, 137-40 Northern Boulevard, Queens
7. Taam Tov, 46 West 47th Street, Manhattan
8. Dosa Hut, 777 Newark Avenue, Jersey City, New Jersey
9. Alsalam Restaurant & Meat Market, 7206 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn
10. Spicy & Tasty, 37-09 Prince Street, Queens
11. Zabb, 71-28 Roosevelt Avenue, Queens
12. Tulcingo del Valle Grocery, 665 Tenth Avenue, Manhattan
13. Down South Café, 349 Lewis Avenue, Brooklyn
14. Tapajos River Steakhouse, 28 Wilson Avenue, Newark, New Jersey
15. Khushie, 139 Essex Street, Manhattan
16. Momofuku, 163 First Avenue, Manhattan
17. New Bai Wei Gourmet Food Inc., 51 Division Street, Manhattan
18. Upi Jaya, 76-04 Woodside Avenue, Queens
19. Mabat, 1807 East 7th Street, Brooklyn
20. Tripee's, 887 Nostrand Avenue, Brooklyn

View the complete list on the Village Voice website.

Might we suggest filling up your metro card, putting on your walking shoes, and venturing somewhere new-to-you to fill your belly cheaply.

The 3rd Annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party

Barbecue lovers in the city already know that the 3rd Annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party is this weekend. The rest of you, mark your calendars!

Last year's event drew enormous crowds and long lines thanks to the combined effects of good weather, good barbecue, and poor event planning. I only had enough patience to wait for Mitchell's, and was not disappointed. Thankfully, it sounds like a lot of lessons were learned and this year's event will be bigger and better coordinated. According to event organizers, here are some the improvements you'll notice:

Last year the food was at 26th Street between Madison and 5th Ave. This year the food will be on Madison between 23 and 26th Streets. This means more space for pitmasters and more organized lines.

Last year there were 6 pitmasters. This year there are 10.

Last year you had to buy coupons at one booth, then buy your food at another, which meant waiting on two different lines. This year, you can purchase your food by credit card or cash when you buy your food at the pitmaster tents--no coupons necessary!

At last year's events, New Yorkers  consumed:
500 lbs of hot links
20 whole hogs
1200 racks of spare ribs
1500 racks of baby back  ribs
2100 lbs of pork shoulder
4700 lbs of brisket
24,000 sandwich rolls
800 lbs of cabbage
37,500 bags of potato chips
1800 slices of watermelon

Things get started this Friday when the pitmasters will start firing up their smokers. Saturday and Sunday line up for your barbecue between noon and 6:00 p.m. For more information, go to Big Apple BBQ.

behind the scenes at shake shack

NYC Shake Attack: Behind the Scenes at Shake Shack. Andrea Strong of The Strong Buzz worked at Danny Meyer's Madison Square Park outpost for a day and kept a journal:

10 a.m. The staff arrives. Gary Burkhart, a soft-spoken guy with rosy cheeks, is setting up all the mix-ins for the concretes, warming the caramel sauce and hot fudge, filling whipped cream canisters with heavy cream and powdered sugar, and dumping quarts of milk in the milk machine. Just before 11 a.m., he puts on a neck-to-knee plastic apron that resembles a giant tarp. As I will learn later, the custard station is a merciless war zone of milk, hot fudge, and frozen custard. Protective gear is essential to survive.

I haven't been to the Shake Shack yet this year (a travesty I know, and one I'm working on fixing) but I did go shortly after it first opened in 2004, you can read my review (and see my photos!) from then.

paninis for the rest of us

Desktop Panini 101. I'll have to break out my poor neglected George Foreman Grill to give this a try!

mama & the kiev

NYC The Kiev: Makes Me Wanna Challah. An ode to Mama, the former chef at The Kiev, and the way Eastern European food used to be in the East Village.

save a cow, eat a vegetarian

Save a Cow, Eat a Vegetarian. Carnivores can buy the bumper sticker, if they're so inclined; my apologies to the herbivores.

history of the microwave

“The Greatest Discovery Since Fire” "In the decades since 1970 the microwave oven has followed the familiar path from high-priced wonder to cheap, ubiquitous necessity. It has been incorporated in popular culture, with apocryphal stories of kittens or babies being dried off in microwaves." [via Kathryn Yu]

nyc restaurant week

NYC New York Restaurant Week. $20.12 for lunch and $35 for dinner off of three course prix fixe menus at some of the best restaurants in the city. Most of the places I want to try are only participating at lunch, boo!

new restaurants

NYC Manhattan User's Guide: New & Notable Restaurants. I see a trip to the new Bryant Park 'wichcraft kiosks in my very near future, Bouley Bakery and Yumcha somewhere further along the timeline.

boston eats under $30

30 Great Meals Under $30. Haven't been to Boston in, whoa, two decades, but I like the look of this recent Boston Magazine roundup.

competitive eaters

Getting paid to overeat. Great piece from CNN Money about the growing sport of competitive eating and the people who excel at it. Alaina loves Sonya "Black Widow" Thomas, Takeru Kobayashi is my idol but I must confess a soft spot for Carlene and Rich LeFevre. Carlene I love from seeing her compete at Coney Island last year, where she was jogging in place while eating daintily; Rich I admire because, well, he's eaten six pounds of Spam straight from the can in twelve minutes. (Does that make him honorary Hawaiian or Filipino?) [via Watch Me Eat a Hot Dog]

microwave safe containers

Microwave Safe Containers. The ever so thorough Cooking for Engineers lets us know what we can and can't safely put our food in to be zapped.

NYC The Dumpling War is on

NYC NY Mag reports on the East Village Dumpling War, Dumpling Man v Plump Dumpling. A little bit of competition is a good thing!

durian at chinatown ice cream factory

NYC Durian Ice Cream at Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. If you've ever been to Southeast Asia for a good length of time, your nose is probably familiar with the horrible terrible no good smell of Durian.

Just how nasty does this fruit smell? So bad that airplanes will not let you travel with it in your luggage, hotels have signs saying please do not bring it back to your room, and in Singapore it's actually illegal to bring it onto public transportation. And yet devotees like my own mother swear that once you've gotten a taste of the incomparable durian creaminess, you immediately stop noticing the odor. I can't imagine that ever happening to me, but if you consider yourself culinarily adventurous then by all means get yourself to the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory and try the durian ice cream out.

(I was there the other day and couldn't work up the nerve to try it, taking it as a bad sign that the durian wasn't stored up front along with the other flavors. But maybe I will be stronger next time.)

eating well in madrid

Top Madrid Chefs Draw Inspiration From a Catalan Star. Jonathan Reynolds visits Madrid and finds Ferran Adrià's spirit of scientific experimentation doing well in the city's restaurants, some of them run by his acolytes.

personal chefs

NYC The Industry: Artist in Residence. Luciano Lunkes is one of many personal chefs in New York, who shops and cooks gourmet meals in their employer's massive and fully kitted out kitchens. Lately I've been seeing flyers pop up for a cheaper alternative, people who will come to your apartment and cook a week's worth of meals of your choice for you and your family, that you can defrost at meal times. Which sounds great if you have children but on the other hand, this is Manhattan, the holy land of delivery.

toilet bowl restaurant

Restaurant serves food in toilet bowls. "For anyone missing the point, diners are encouraged to stir up mushy, earth-colored offerings like curry chicken rice and chocolate ice cream to conjure up—well, the real thing." I like poop jokes more than the average person so I guess I'll have to stop by Marton if I ever find myself in Taiwan.

egg rolls & egg creams

NYC This Sunday, June 5 from 12 to 4 p.m. check out the free Egg Rolls & Egg Creams Block Party being thrown by the Eldridge Street Synagogue: "Celebrate the two cultures, Chinese-American and East European Jewish, that make our Lower East Side block so dynamic. Experience the traditions of the Synagogue's founders, as well as the customs and crafts of the Chinese immigrants who are our neighbors. This family-friendly event features storytelling, craft demonstrations, hands-on art activities, great music and, of course, kosher egg rolls and egg creams!" It's events like this that really make you appreciate living in such a melting pot of a city.

Celebrate donut day

Celebrate Donut Day!

sloane crosley, vegetarian

Where's the Beef? Sloane Crosley discusses her journey from vegan to vegetarian to lazy vegetarian. "What can I say? New York is sushi city, and sushi is the one thing I've consistently craved over the past decade (besides the secret craving of every vegetarian: bacon). My education about the moral and environmental impact of eating meat is thorough, but my response to all the statistics has developed a major fissure called "sashimi.""

scotch ostrich egg

Scotch Ostrich Egg. Oy, my arteries are clogging just looking at the photos. And I say that with both admiration and affection. [via Holy Shitake]

5 borough pizza tour, part 1

NYC Special Feature - Pizza World Tour. Five pizzas, one consumed in each borough, all in one day! This is the first installment, the pies reviewed are from DiFara's (Brooklyn), Nick's Pizza (Queens) and Full Moon Pizzeria (the Bronx).

new stuff from krups

Grcic + Krups = Maybe I do need a sandwich maker!  The new machines are cool but perhaps styled a little too Darth Vader-y for my tastes. Someone please buy me the Hello Kitty sandwich maker?

jim leff, chowhound

NYC We Pledge Allegiance. Jim Leff of Chowhound showed up at Coliseum Books to promote the new book, Chowhound's Guide to the Tri-State Area, in a dog mask to protect his identity. And how much do I love the pledge he asked the audience to take?

local farmers' market highlights

NYC Fresh and Ripe for the Shopping. The NYT points out a few highlights from the various local farmers' markets. Can't wait to try Sue & Henry Smith's corn at the Union Square Greenmarket!

bars with grills

NYC Bars That Bar-B-Q (For Free!). Nice if extremely short round-up of places you can grill at. Note that the only BYOBBQ listed is Williamsburg's own East River Bar, a total pain in the ass to get to from Manhattan but worth the trip.

ben & jerry's pint lock

If you've ever worried a shifty roommate or coworker had designs on the Cherry Garcia you've got stashed in the freezer, Ben & Jerry's new pint lock is for you! Keep your tasty ice cream safe!

don't eat that!

Flickr: The Don't Eat That! Pool. "This group's for pictures of disgusting food and other things that you really wouldn't, or at least shouldn't, eat. It can be something nice that's gone moldy and fuzzy, or something awfully yucky that you'd never eat in the first place." This link is dedicated for everyone who has ever looked deep inside their fridge, found something they couldn't identify and gotten so terrified that they just shoved it further in. [via lightningfield.com]

the self-mashing potato

The Self-Mashing Potato. "Right now in Kafkaesque Labs (hidden deep within a pile of bok choy that has lain untouched in the Safeway produce aisle for over a year), tiny elves are at work isolating the mashed potato genome. Once the DNA strand for "wanting to mash yourself" has been isolated, I am confident we will have produced a potato that will be capable of self-mashing." 3 1/2 years later and this still cracks me up, as do redfox's illustrations of said suicidal potatoes.