A Full Belly

kitchen secrets: bill buford with mario batali and anthony bourdain

New York City food nerds, alert! Mark June 21st off on your calendar and take out your credit card, you are about to buy a ticket to see former New Yorker fiction editor Bill Buford talk at the NYPL with two of our most favorite chefs ever, Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain, in the latest installment of the Kitchen Secrets series.

I haven't gotten around to reading Buford's new memoir Heat yet but now I'm definitely going to have to before the 21st, because parts of it detail how he came to quit his job at the New Yorker and start apprenticing at Babbo under Batali himself. As for Bourdain, not only is he Amazon's featured guest reviewer for Heat (subtitle: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany), but his latest book The Nasty Bits just came out two weeks ago, so I guess I'll be picking that up too—just as soon as I finish my current read which is, coincidentally enough, his infamous Kitchen Confidential.

P.S. Heat's been getting reviewed left and right, but here are two I particularly enjoyed reading: Will Work For Food (Julia Reed, NYT) and Eating Out (Jason Epstein, New York Review of Books). If you read only one, then for your own good choose the latter as Epstein does a marvelous job with Heat in the first part of the article and an even more spectacular one with Julia Child's My Life In France in the second!

disaronno amaretto commercial

If, like me, you've been hating Disaronno's ubiquitous "Pass the Pleasure Around - Ice Cube" commercial since it first aired in 2003, you should know that no one hates it as much as my friend Skot:

Anyway, she closes her eyes as she sucks on the phallocube. And here's where the commercial truly knocks it out of the park. Because right then they cut back to ghoul, who is again totally rooted to the spot watching this wanton display of oral gratification. He's stunned! He can't believe this chick! And then he smiles the most alarming, simian smile ever caught on video. The smile slowly starts at the corners of his mouth and crawl horribly up towards his terrible face. It really is impossible to describe; in overall effect, imagine how the Tall Man from the Phantasm movies would look if he were very slowly getting an erection. It's the kind of face that says, "I sure would like to date-rape you . . . but I don't think I can wait that long!"

Bad ad aside, Disaronno is tasty stuff and has long been the most popular of amarettos. Amaretto happens to be my favorite liqueur but I didn't know till just now that it's possibly the oldest of them all, dating back to 1525 when Bernardino Luini, a painter from DaVinci's school, was commissioned by a wealthy businessman to create a fresco of the Madonna for a church in Saronno, Italy. Luini's search for a model ended when he found a beautiful innkeeper, whom he of course ended up having an affair with; she created amaretto as a gift for her lover. "Disaronno" means "from Saronno" and supposedly the recipe hasn't changed since 1925; the famous beautiful square-cut glass bottle is not original but was designed by a craftsman from Murano.

History lesson aside, kind AFB readers, please feel free to buy me an amaretto sour or two if we're ever in a bar together. I thank you sincerely in advance but note that I reserve the right not to do untoward things with the ice cubes!

 

how to eat spaghetti

How to Eat Spaghetti. "Many non-Italians don’t know how to eat spaghetti. This is true even for the U.S. in spite of the large Italian community." You think you know but maybe you don't! [via Growabrain]

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).

100 Best Italian Restaurants

Village Voice food critic Robert Sietsema has compiled his list of 100 Best Italian Restaurants in New York City. An impressive feat considering there are an estimated 2,500 Italian restaurants citywide. Sietsema writes:

From humble hero shops up to restaurants of the trattoria level, this list represents my ranking of New York's greatest Italian dining establishments. Culled from an estimated 2,500 Italian eateries citywide, every place on my list possesses excellence in one form or another. In creating it, I paid particular attention to the unsung heroes of the local food chain, the pizza parlors. One afternoon, huffing and puffing on my bike, I visited 17 in upper Manhattan, hoping to find a place as unpretentiously good as DiFara's (#13). I think I almost did: George's (#64). How can a lowly neighborhood pizzeria be better than a destination bistro that gooses its linguine with porcini and truffles? Try a lasagna slice at San Cono (#5) or the tripe and peas at Lodomini's (#9) and find out!

Here is his Top Twenty:

1. Lupa, 170 Thompson Street, Manhattan
2. Roberto's, 632 East 186th Street, Bronx
3. La Villa, 261 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn
4. Max, 51 Avenue B, Manhattan
5. San. Cono, 303 Graham Avenue, Brooklyn
6. 'ino, 21 Bedford Street, Manhattan
7. al di la, 248 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn
8. Grimaldi's, 19 Old Fulton Street, Brooklyn
9. Lodomini's Taste of Italy, 871 Third Avenue, Brooklyn
10. Via Emilia, 240 Park Avenue South, Manhattan
11. Otto, 1 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan
12. Maffei Pizza, 688 Sixth Avenue, Manhattan
13. DiFara's, 1424 Avenue J, Brooklyn
14. Giorgione, 307 Spring Street, Manhattan
15. Malatesta, 649 Washington Street, Manhattan
16. Gino's Focacceria, 7118 18th Avenue, Brooklyn
17. Trattoria L'Incontro, 21-76 31st Street, Astoria, Queens
18. Fratelli's Pizza Cafi, 404 Hunts Point Avenue, Bronx
19. Joe's Restaurant, 66-53 Forest Avenue, Ridgewood, Queens
20. Totonno's, 1524 Neptune Avenue, Brooklyn

See the complete list here.

New York Pizza, Part II

Inspired by a recent viewing of the Travel Channel's excellent Food Wars: Pizza, Slice's excellent pizza coverage, and a couple of trips to my favorite New York pizzeria, Grimaldi's, I decided to do some reseach on the history of pizza in New York City and share my findings with you. In case you missed it, here is the link to New York Pizza, Part I.

Pasquale “Patsy” Lancieri was another New Yorker to master the art of pizza-making at Lombardi’s and then go on to open his own coal fired brick oven pizzeria, Patsy’s Pizzeria, in 1933 in the then largely Italian East Harlem. Patsy’s was instantly popular, and continues to be today. In 1974, Patsy Lancieri died, and his widow Carmela, took over the business, eventually selling the restaurant and the name “Patsy’s” in 1991.

New York Pizza, Part I

Inspired by a recent viewing of the Travel Channel's excellent Food Wars: Pizza, Slice's excellent pizza coverage, and a couple of trips to my favorite New York pizzeria, Grimaldi's, I decided to do some reseach on the history of pizza in New York City and share my findings with you. Here is New York Pizza, Part I.

Early History
Pizza most likely evolved from the flat, round, un-leaven breads eaten by the ancient peoples of the Mediterranean region, and the introduction of the tomato into European cooking and recipes in the 18th century. Pizza as we know it today is most often attributed to Raffaele Esposito, who is credited with combining pizza crust with tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and basil in 1889 to honor Queen Margherita. At the time he was considered Naples' most popular pizziola (pizza chef) and at the request of the visiting King and Queen, he prepared three kinds of pizzas: one with pork fat, cheese, and basil; one with garlic, oil, and tomatoes; and another with mozzarella, basil, and tomatoes (in the colors of the Italian flag). The Queen liked the last kind of pizza so much that she sent a letter to Esposito to thank him saying, "I assure you that the three kinds of pizza you have prepared were very delicious." This letter has been preserved and is on display in Naples' oldest pizzeria, Brandi, open since 1780.

Pizza arrives in New York City
New York City is the undisputed birth place of pizza in America. But the history of New York pizza is in itself, one big dispute, beginning with who was the first pizza maker.

Hot Grimaldi's Pie

Grimaldi's Pizzeria
19 Old Fulton St., Brooklyn
718-858-4300

Hearth's Manifesto

Fantastic meal last night at Hearth. We finished the meal with tea, the teapot set on the coaster above; the text is the Hearth Manifesto.

Hearth
403 E. 12th St. at 1st Ave.
(646) 602-1300
Reviews: AOL City Guide, NYMetro, NYTimes

al di là expansion?

Amy Langfield snapped this shot of what appears to be work on an expansion of Park Slope's popular al di là. Does anyone have the inside scoop?

al di là , 248 Fifth Ave., Brooklyn
(718) 783-4565
Reviews: Citysearch, NYMetro, NYTimes

Thanks, Amy!