Photo: Sara Bonisteel
Also on bookshelves this month, Jessica Amason and Richard Blakeley's "This Is Why You're Fat: Where Dreams Become Heart Attacks."
See our favorites from both tomes after the jump.
'Cake Wrecks,' 'This Is Why You're Fat' - New Food Humor Books
Also on bookshelves this month, Jessica Amason and Richard Blakeley's "This Is Why You're Fat: Where Dreams Become Heart Attacks."
See our favorites from both tomes after the jump.
Continue reading 'Cake Wrecks,' 'This Is Why You're Fat' - New Food Humor Books
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How to Cook a Cow Head in New York City
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| Cow head in banana leaves at Hill Country. Photo: Kat Kinsman |
Well OK, not every girl's life -- but at least those of a troika of squeam-free dames including Hill Country's executive chef and cookbook author Elizabeth Karmel, Homesick Texan writer Lisa Fain and lucky, lucky me. And it all happened because of Twitter.
See a step-by-step barbacoa making slideshow and read a description after the jump. Warning -- it's not for vegetarians or the faint of stomach.
Continue reading How to Cook a Cow Head in New York City
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Cans Across America
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| Pickles. Photo: Kat Kinsman |
Upon tremendous response to her re-Tweet of an Ethicurean post about a canning party in San Francisco and subsequent suggestion that Seattle and other cities follow suit, O'Donnel asked interested home canners to contact her. Thus Cans Across America was born. On the weekend of August 29-30, cities across the nation will host classes, can-a-thons, canning meet-ups and raise awareness of this retro-haute preservation method.
More about the nation's can-do attitude after the jump.
Continue reading Cans Across America
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Smoked Lemonade and Other Summertime Libations
I'm stingy with my smoke.
Not in a "don't bogart that can, man" way. Just that if I'm going to go to all the trouble of stoking a hardwood lump charcoal fire, obsessively monitoring its low-'n-slow-ness for a goodly chunk of the day, feeding its greedy gut with beer-soaked mesquite and hickory chunks at half-hour intervals all for the sake of an albeit fabulous brisket or pork shoulder, I'm gonna want a bit more return on the investment.
Here's where foil pans of salt, cherries and lemons come in.
Continue reading Smoked Lemonade and Other Summertime Libations
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Ritz Mock Apple Pie
No apples were harmed in the baking of this pie.
Perhaps at some point in the distant past, it was possible for a person under the age of 50 to whip up a mock apple pie, hold the irony. Now in an age wherein slowstainable locaheirganic produce is de rigueur in many circles (not mine, but then again, I pour cherry soda all over unsuspecting hams and eat brains from a can) it seems almost viciously retrograde to dump lemony simple syrup on top of a pile of mushed-up crackers and pass it off as fruit.
So don't do that. Just enjoy it for its bizarrely satisfying damp cracker heft. Use, I dunno, heirloom leaf lard in the crust or send a tithe to Michael Pollan if you feel you need to, but really, this pie is in no need of apology.
Get the Ritz Mock Apple Pie recipe after the jump.
Continue reading Ritz Mock Apple Pie
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20 Questions with a Slashfoodie - Rebecca Flint Marx
Do you have a personal blog?Sort of. It's in the works. Ask me later.
What is your day job, or rather, what do you do when you're not food blogging?
I write about food for other publications like Time Out New York, Gourmet and Metromix. I've also written for places including The New York Times, Interior Design, ELLE, New York Magazine and Salon. And I was a baker in a past life before attending the French Culinary Institute for formal training.
How long have you been blogging with Slashfood and what is your favorite post?
Less than a month. If we're talking about a favorite post that I've written, I'm partial to my post about cooking an ostrich egg.
Continue reading 20 Questions with a Slashfoodie - Rebecca Flint Marx
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20 Questions with a Slashfoodie - Alex Van Buren
When new bloggers join the Slashfood team, we like to make sure they get a proper introduction to our readers. Meet the latest addition to our team, blog editor Alex Van Buren. Do you have a personal blog?
Yes. It's where I post recent articles and scribble about various New York City food discoveries.
What is your day job, or rather, what do you do when you're not food blogging?
I am a full-time food nerd. I'm the new editor of Slashfood, have written for Gourmet, Martha Stewart Living, In Style and Time Out New York and am the co-author of "Clean Plates NYC: The Healthiest, Tastiest Restaurants in Manhattan," which published last week.
How long have you been blogging with Slashfood and what's your favorite post?
Here are my faves from each of our great writers during the month I've been editing here: Cheese. Beer. Julia. Egg creams. Cheap wine. Chickens. Croque monsieur. Ostrich eggs. Greek cuisine. Starter cookbooks. Bread pudding ice cream. And let's not forget the flaming bacon lance of death.
As for me, I loved eating dinner in bubble almost as much I enjoyed seeing more than 700 of our readers defend their favorite "bad" beers.
Continue reading 20 Questions with a Slashfoodie - Alex Van Buren
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How Key Is Planning Ahead?
Last night on a subway halfway under the East River a quick purse excavation confirmed what we suddenly feared -- a distinct lack of house keys on our person. The day's lunch of leftover Easter ham and homemade challah bread satisfied our epicurean side but was woefully inadequate when it came to blood sugar maintenance -- hence the walking away, the leaving the keys behind and the "aw, crap!"
We panic a tad in moments like this and scramble right to our happy comfort place -- mentally cataloging the contents of our fridge, flipping the pieces this way and that until they interlocked and a picture formed.
The ham, gotta get through the ham. Well it could go with the red cabbage ... no, no ... the scallions. And eggs, oh right! We remembered to buy eggs. Tortilla espanola? Oh wait, got it -- still have that puff pastry left over from the Eccles cakes and that makes ... sacre damn bleu! We've got the makings for a serious quiche -- if we can actually get into the house.
By some strange miracle (we like to think it's The Secret, of course) our beloved husband materialized on the same train car two stops before ours, and in lieu of a civilized "Hi honey, how was your day?" we collapsed into him sighing "We'regonnahavequichetonightpleasedon'targue." Once in the house, we made a beeline for the Julia Child to verify proportions, and got to rolling, chopping, whisking -- grateful not to have to think, just to act. Half an hour later, there was a ridiculously delicious quiche in front of us, without single extra cent or second spent at the grocery store.
Perhaps y'all are more forward-thinking than some of us, but when do you actually decide what's going to be for dinner that night? Do you cook it all up on Sunday, and apportion throughout the week? Do you daydream about what's on hand and pick up any extra ingredients on the way home? Or do you stand in front of the fridge, staring, and make do with what's in front of you?
Get the Ham and Gruyere Quiche recipe after the jump.
Continue reading How Key Is Planning Ahead?
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Slashfood vs. the Volcano
We can't swear to it, but we suspect that this Momofuku Milk Bar Volcano was sent here from Planet Chang either to teach us or to enslave us. We can't be certain of its purpose, but what we do know is that all the breakfast food bravado we've flaunted up to this point -- Brooklyn deli egg and cheese bombs, full-on Irish black and white pudding spreads, Meatnormous® BK sammies and half-sow Bellagio Buffet crepes laid waste to in short order -- meant diddly squat as we stood at the Volcano's lip and by God, were afraid.
Chef David Chang's co-conspiritor Christina Tosi works the sweet end of the Momofuku Ssam Bar's East Village space at Milk Bar, turning out scrumdiddilyumtious sun-dense cornflake-chocolate chip cookies, dentist-scoffing Crack Pie and soft-serve cereal milk ice creams by the bucketload. We thought we had her all figured out, and there she had to go tossing out double-dog-dare words like "savory" and "volcano." Dang.
Turns out the steaming, softball-sized item is essentially a knish stuffed to rumbling with potato gratin, Gruyere, Benton's bacon, caramelized onions and a good 20 or so minutes off the average human's lifespan. No worries -- contrary to today's New York Times' $25 and Under assessment, we found its hefty, tangy slather of Mornay sauce to be more than adequate compensation for the latter.
We're not ashamed to admit that we were bested and could not conquer the Volcano in one sitting, or even without assistance from concerned colleagues, but we learned and we grew as people (or perhaps that last part was just our thighs.)
No matter. What we'd like to know is this -- how much can you manage to chow down in the morning? Are you after daybreak fare that sticks to your ribs or does coffee alone keep you fueled until lunchtime? Take the poll, and as always, comment away.
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Stained Cookbooks
I'm not gonna lie -- I'm rough on my books. There's a school of thought treating the physical manifestation of the written word as a sacred object, and I fully respect that. However I, for one, shove an old copy of "How to Cook a Wolf" into the bottom of my bag with the notion that at some point it'll sustain me on an overextended subway ride. I read "The Devil in the Kitchen" in the bathtub, A.J. Liebling over a lunchtime reuben, and good gosh a-mighty are my cookbooks covered in schmutz.
But hey, it's thematic goo; "Molto Italiano" is spattered in tomato sauce, "Pie" -- seen above -- is all a-smear in lard, "Charleston Receipts" in Otranto Club Punch and "Staff Meals from Chanterelle" slicked with a fine mist of rendered rind bacon. To my mind, these books are being honored, used, proven. Should these books at some point have a subsequent owner, they'll know what's been tested, made and made again.
Still, am I dishonoring the object or the authors when I'm getting the books all mucky? I posed the question to Matthew Lee (whose book "The Lee Bros. Southern Cooking" I've doused in all manner of pickling brine), and he noted that he and his co-author, his brother Ted have debated pre-mucking-up copies of their book to nix the blank canvas factor. The recipes therein are warm of heart and humble of origin, so it's not out of character, but would, say, a gellan-gumming of Grant Achatz's "Alinea" be a crime against the rather expensive and exceptionally lovely object?
Do you keep your cookbooks in pristine condition, or do you just accept page stains as collateral damage?
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Biscuit Mission '09 - A Progress Report
Two and a half months in, I can see through the Biscuit Matrix.
When I embarked upon my trawl toward biscuit perfection at the dawn of aught-nine, it was from a flat, sad, bitter place, indeed. Rather than crispy-footed, larded puffs of sweetly steaming layers reaching -- straining ever heavenward, my oven yielded depressing, molar-cracking pucks I refused to inflict upon my entirely un-picky dogs. Now my biscuits rock, and I'm pretty sure it's a matter of methodology rather than recipe.
Here's what I've learned after a couple dozen batches, and plenty of advice from Slashfood commenters, Facebook friends, cookbooks and Southern grandmas:
- Store the flour in the freezer, and sift it before measuring, even if it says "pre-sifted" on the bag. This has a direct effect upon the density. An overall low temperature keeps fat from heating, so use every opportunity to bring the chill. 3 1/2 - 4 cups of flour scooped straight from the bag can yield 5 cups after sifting. It makes a significant difference. Thus far, Southern Biscuit Self-Rising and White Lily All-Purpose have been very good to me.
- Whisk dry ingredients together, rather than stirring, in order to maintain airiness.
- Don't skimp on the salt, and even if it's not called for in the recipe, toss in a pinch of sugar to aid with a crunchy crust.
Continue reading Biscuit Mission '09 - A Progress Report
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Interview with Marco Pierre White
Legendary chef Marco Pierre White was kind enough to share some time with Slashfood earlier this week. Grab a little taste here, and read the complete interview at AOL Food. His new show, The Chopping Block, airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. EST on NBC.
Watch more Marco Pierre White for AOL Food videos on AOL Video
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Culinary Degradation, Part III - Deep Fried Horrors
A couple of months ago, I wrote a post in which I tried to touch bottom in the pantheon of disturbing cuisine. While I stopped short of nightmarishly horrifying food, like rotten cheese and duck embryos, I explored what I imagined were the worst fried foods imaginable.In retrospect, I was incredibly naive.
At the end of the post, I asked my readers to submit their own choices for worst possible food, promising to do a little more research and write longer pieces about them. I got a fair bit of responses, which led to a fun post about beer floats. However, Guinness and vanilla ice cream only represented the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, and it seemed inevitable that I would return to further explore the wonders that make up the culinary wasteland.
Many of my readers shared tales about their favorite fried food joints. Museum Mouse, for example, turned me on to the joys of Scottish fried cuisine. Having had my fair share of haggis and cock-a-leekie soup, I thought that I had experienced everything that Scotland had to offer. I was wrong. For example, one popular treat is the Stonner, which is basically a sausage wrapped in gyro meat, battered, and deep fried. In Scotland, "stonner" is a euphemism for an erection, which seems ironic, given that coronary occlusions can lead to impotence. Still, I guess we all find our excitement in different places...
Continue reading Culinary Degradation, Part III - Deep Fried Horrors
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Fried Bologna - The West Virginia State Sandwich
In a recent marketing campaign, Oscar Meyer proclaimed that its "Deli Creations" flatbread sandwiches were "blogworthy."I beg to differ.
Nobody likes to be manipulated, and I would argue that bloggers like it less than most. There's something about spending a few lonesome hours a day cranking out content that really ups the curmudgeon quotient and makes us a mite persnickety about our production process. While other blogs, including Gawker, might not be too picky about where they get their tips, I tend to get mighty cranky when multimillion dollar corporations tell me what is and is not blogworthy.
With that in mind, here's something that really is blogworthy: fried bologna sandwiches. For anybody who hasn't tried this backwoods delicacy, the concept may sound a little questionable. However, the combination of bologna and heat produces a dish that is incredibly delicious and startlingly different from a basic bologna sandwich.
Continue reading Fried Bologna - The West Virginia State Sandwich
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Bacon, Bacon Everywhere...And, Oh My Pants Did Shrink!
What is the deal with bacon lately?Admittedly, it's not as if the delicious fruit of a smoked pig's belly was ever all that obscure; stlll, over the past few weeks, it has been gaining a fresh, and sometimes repulsive cultural relevance. A little over a month ago, Marisa McClellan covered The Bacon Explosion, a spicy, smoked, barbecue-basted brick of pure pork. Truth be told, the explosion is kind of like a bug zapper: terrifying and vaguely dangerous, yet attractive and deeply compelling. Worse yet, for those of us who don't have a meat smoker, the explosion's creators have put together an oven recipe.
As if this wasn't enough, over on RiffTrax Blog, Michael Nelson has announced his intention to eat nothing but bacon for an entire month. As he has struggled through February, a reader has produced a bacon effigy, dubbed FrankenBacon, to demonstrate the aftereffects of too much pork. For those of us who are sometimes haunted by the ghosts of our meat, FrankenBacon is actually a little scary.
Meanwhile, in my constant quest for the best boutique bonbons in New York City, I recently came across an article about Roni-Sue's Chocolates, a company in New York's Essex Street Market. Although Roni-Sue's carries a wide array of truffles and candies, I was immediately drawn to their pig candy. Basically crispy-fried bacon dipped in chocolate, this hearkens back to the sugar-crusted pig candy that my wife and I used to make.
Meanwhile, I'm getting that old carnival feeling--the same one I have when the halcyon call of the deep fryer draws me in with its promise of batter-fried Oreos and funnel cakes. Must...resist...the call...
Who am I kidding? I'll probably hit Roni-Sue's this weekend. On the bright side, maybe it will make it easier for me to resist the siren song of the Bacon Explosion!
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What Can I Get You Folks? - Server Revenge
Reality-Show Celebrities Serve Up Chef Curtis Stone's 'Hundred-Dollar Burger'
Foods Celebrity Chefs Hate
