How does a man with a price tag on his head -- or at least his face -- keep from having his photo snapped by fellow partygoers or folks out for a hefty reward? Former New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni explains the art of ducking the spotlight in this Skype video from Salon's Kerry Lauerman.
"I believe that food that rhymes is almost always better than food that doesn't rhyme, don't you?" he says in the outtake released to the press, in which he calls a reporter "namby-pamby" for ordering a soft-serve ice cream cone instead of his own adventurous "South of the Border" choice.
Who knows if new national critic Sam Sifton will have Bruni's talent with one-liners, but we do know that, after reading this morning's (very accurate) description of the dinner review process, we will miss him: About a woman who "fumed" if her steak arrived at the table already cut, he writes, "People are as strange about eating as they are about love. They want what they want."
Perhaps our favorite description, though, is of those who just don't eat. One friend demanded that they order a fatty porterhouse with fries, and then "She commenced such frantic knife and fork movements that a veritable cloud of dust rose around her -- I was reminded of a Road Runner cartoon. When the dust settled 15 minutes later, I took a close look at her plate, and almost nothing was missing. The food had just been reconstituted and rearranged, a Picasso of its former self."
If this is the stuff of his new memoir, we'll be reading it.
We've opined long and hard about our most hated foods here on Slashfood, but we like the twist that newish website Tweak Today, a photo- and mission-oriented oriented site, has chosen as today's topic: "What's something you don't like that everyone else loves?"
Though a few responses are cultural markers ("The Princess Bride," Elton John, Michael Jackson), we are seeing a slew of food-related numbers pop up there, from shrimp to melons to coffee to oysters. So now's your chance. Pop on over and express your loathing in pictoral form. Maybe grab some coffee first. Or don't, if that's how you roll.
Each week, we round up the top food articles we've spied Web-wide. This week, a special edition of our own bloggers' primo pieces from elsewhere on the Web.
To the seriously food-obsessed, anything can seem like a snack. For example, yellow sponges can evoke thoughts of Swiss cheese, and tennis balls can inspire dreams of green apples.
But there are some inedible objects that really are meant to resemble food, including these buildings that our buddies at Urlesque rounded up. Why? Well, uh, who wouldn't want to enter a building that looks like it was made of a wall of bacon? See more food-inspired architecture at Urlesque.
Eggplants. They just hang out in the farmer's market like they own the joint. Big, fat, smug and kingly purple.
And we can't resist them. In an attempt to partake of their charms without heating the heck out of muggy apartments, we were pleased to stumble upon this recipe for Tortang Talong, a traditional Filipino recipe that brings egg and pork into the eggplantian universe.
Yup, egg. No big surprise to see it sneak into the equation, since it's had cross-cultural starring roles in pork-vegetable dishes from Japanese ramen to Korean bibimbap. But watching this video somehow still floored us: "Tortang Talong!" Who doesn't want to brag to her friends that she's whipping that up for dinner? Check it out and let us know if you give it a go.
Summer leaves seafood lovers craving lobster in some incarnation, whether it be tucked into a buttery roll, scattered throughout risotto or luxuriating in the butter-cream bath of lobster Thermidor (thought to have been a favorite of Napoleon).
However you like your lobster, getting to its tender meat can be nightmarish, with spiny claws and juice flying everywhere. Not so in this excellent Howcast video, with a demonstration by chef Marc Murphy of New York City's Landmarc, who knows his way around the leggy critters. Who knew you could either snip open or crush those dastardly knuckles? Or crush the tail under a towel?
We reported back in May, along with the rest of the food blogosphere, that Frank Bruni, dining critic for the New York Times, was departing his beat as perhaps the most powerful journalist in the national restaurant scene.
Blogs like Eater, Grub Street and Gawker covered the departure obsessively, and their sadness at the departure of the man some called the Brunz -- or when feeling particularly tender, "King Brunz" -- was palpable.
Now Sam Sifton has stepped into the spotlight and, as editor Bill Keller's memo notes, up to the treadmill. (Bruni wrote about his rigorous workout routine for Men's Vogue). Food writers are already apoplectic about the newcomer: Eater has given the casual "Sifty" a shot, whereas Gawker is far more interested in finding a proper costume for the not-at-all-anonymous Sifton, who has long been the Gray Lady's Culture Editor. No doubt the suggestions of Gawker commenters, which range from Harry Potter to Lenny Dykstra to Anna Wintour, will prove helpful to the new critic.
Of all the ink spilled about last week's notorious Beer Summit, in which President Obama, police sergeant James Crowley and Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates gathered at the White House for a brewski, none have been more hilarious than this Washington Post recap. Writer Dana Milbank not only sums up the media's "tipsy" coverage of the affair but suggests our commander in chief take a cue from American beer names to address other diplomacy issues.
To wit: Sen. John Ensign would be welcomed to the White House with a quaff of Horny Devil, a California brew, whereas "if a certain former Alaska governor tries to challenge Obama in 2012, he can pour her an Arctic Devil Barley Wine." An equal opportunity satirist, Milbank also takes down "hot-tempered chief of staff Rahm Emanuel" by suggesting he indulge in Permanently Pissed Off Pilsner.
How do you feel about President Obama's choice of Bud Light -- a brew owned by a Belgian conglomerate -- for sipping?
We don't know. We're asking. At least our sibling site Asylum.com is.
Intrepid food bloggers and writers, here's your chance to help them out by nominating the restaurant you think is the manliest, most dude-friendly, or just an excellent joint to which you'd take a visiting Viking or poet-lumberjack if he were visiting from out of town.
Asylum.com needs your expertise. They're not just looking for steakhouses that serve 3-pound T-bones, but also those joints guys love -- like JUJU Cereal Bar in LA and Texas Wieners in Philadelphia, where they'll drop feta on your tube steak, just for the asking.
If they use your nomination, they'll bestow greatness upon your blog from the hallowed pages of Asylum.com. Readers will be voting on your nominations, and much like Miss America, there will be one winner, but many awards along the way.
E-mail your blog and nomination to johndevore@asylum.com.
'Julia and Julia' author Julie Powell. Photo: Sara Bonisteel.
Former Julia Child editor Judith Jones found herself in the spotlight Monday after Publishers Weekly quoted Jones saying that Child said of Julie Powell -- the blogger and author whose story is half of the movie adaptation "Julie and Julia" -- "I don't think she's a serious cook."
The magazine quotes Jones as saying of Powell's blog, "She didn't want to endorse it. What came through on the blog was somebody who was doing it almost for the sake of a stunt ... Julia didn't like what she called 'the flimsies.' She didn't suffer fools, if you know what I mean."
We caught up with Jones at her Vermont home and she elaborated, which she tells us is the last time she'll speak about the blog (though she promises a review of the movie is forthcoming at her own blog).
There's a canning revolution going on and Kim O'Donnel -- former food writer for the James Beard Award-winning Washington Post -- has brought it to a boil.
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.
Aside from some handy tips about locating a good café (something our own CoffeeMeister has ably covered), Latourell opines about the different coffee cultures across America. The chain's Venice Beach, Calif., shop is (no surprise) "laid-back," whereas Chicago coffee culture is a bit more "9 to 5." Latourell also gives credit to San Francisco for re-starting the modern coffee obsession with the opening of a Peet's in the 60s.
So we have to ask: What American city has the best coffee culture?
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