A Full Belly

avocado news

The latest avocado news, courtesy of Girlhacker. I want to try the Don Gillogly STAT!

Al fresco in Brooklyn

NYC Al fresco dining options in Brooklyn

Hamburger hamburger

The 20 hamburgers you must eat before you die. Peter Luger makes an appearance at #2.

gimme pancakes!

If you love pancakes and waffles, you should probably join or at the very least subscribe to the new Flickr group Pancakes and Waffles, full of lovely photos of, what else, yummy pancakes and waffles. It's brought to you by the most adorable of food bloggers—trust me, I've met her—The Girl Who Ate Everything.

If you don't love pancakes and waffles, I don't want to know you! That's just wrong!

SPAM-ku!

SPAM-ku is an archive of thousands upon thousands of haiku inspired by that that humble lunch meat we all know and love. It's been online for ten years, which probably means that cans of SPAM produced when it first went up are still sitting on people's shelves, ready and waiting to be opened and eaten. I particularly like this spam-ku by Froggie:

I envision a
world where all mankind shares SPAM
and none go without.

Beautiful! If that moved you, you might want to considering getting the companion book put together by Spam Haiku Archive Master John Nagamichi Cho, Spam-Ku: Tranquil Reflections on Luncheon Loaf.

The Wikipedia SPAM entry is short but makes for great reading: A Hormel official once stated that the original meaning of the name SPAM was "Shoulder of Pork And haM" —the SPAM Lite variety contains both pork and chicken. Other explanations of the origin of the term include the acronym "Specially Processed Assorted Meat","Spiced Pork And haM", "Specially Processed Army Meat", and "SPAre hAM"; there are also some less-than-serious explanations, such as "Synthetically Produced Artificial Meat" or "Stuff Posing As Meat". The current official expansion is the SP and AM were taken from "SPiced hAM" to win a $100 prize.

christie's jamaican patties

NYC After reading yesterday's New York Times paean to the thing of wonder that is the Jamaican beef patty, Island Flavors in a Yellow Envelope, I decided to have one for lunch. Lucky for me I recently moved to Brooklyn and live within walking distance of one of the best Jamaican patty places in all of the city, Christie's.

My $3 dollars bought me a beef patty engulfed in sweet fluffy coco bread and an ice cold can of Coke, a deal so wonderful it made sitting in a rickety plastic chair on dirty old Flatbush Avenue watching the cars speed by as I ate feel like a blast. If you don't like beef, they have chicken, pork (jerk options available for both), goat and of course, veggie patties; their fridge is stocked with Jamaican sodas like Kola and ginger beer besides the usual sodas and Snapples.

Christie's
334 Flatbush Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11238-4302
(718) 636-9746
Q train to Seventh Avenue, 2/3/4 to Grand Army Plaza.

NYC Eater

NYC Our friends at Curbed and She Loves NY bring us Eater, a new weblog covering the food and drink scene in NYC. Hot!

American sous-vide

Why American Chefs have taken up sous-vide cooking. Sous vide is the practice of cooking food at low temperatures in vacuum-packed plastic bags.Food cooked via this super slow method is full of flavor and exceptionally tender.

NYC Shake Shack goes beyond the call of duty

NYC Not only does Danny Meyer's Shake Shack serve some of the tastiest burgers in the city, the level of service is the same as any of his restaurants--outstanding. Need proof? Read this.

The Egg and Muffin Toaster

The Egg and Muffin Toaster can simultaneously  1) toast the bread, 2) cook an egg (poached or steam-scrambled), and 3) warm a pre-cooked slice of ham or sausage…or any combination of these three functions, in addition to boiling up to four eggs. I can't decide if this a terrible or brillant idea, but I think I want one.