RIP Gourmet

THE NEW YORK TIMES is reporting Condé Nast will close shop at Gourmet magazine — which began publication in 1940. Although the cut is reportedly due to economic conditions and related drops in advertising sales, I can’t help but wonder if food blogs aren’t also contributing to the decline in magazine readership.

My own home library contains hundreds of cookbooks and dozens of past issues of Gourmet as well as other food magazines like Saveur. Yet my personal recipe sourcing has changed dramatically in the last decade: More often than not I search the internet for inspiration.

I will certainly hang on to my copies of Gourmet, and hope some of the magazine’s best features will find new homes in other publications. Perhaps Condé Nast’s Bon Appétit (which was spared the axe) can pick up gems like Jane & Michael Stern’s Roadfood column which has fueled my own food-travels for many years.

La Cave des Fondus

Get it while it’s hot!

1. Maloney & Porcelli — Gourmet magazine’s “Best Business Lunch in NYC” — features expensive menu offerings including a $39 Jumbo Lump Crab Cake appetizer which any financial officer would hardly label a “best” price. The Huffington Post reports the restaurant now also offers it’s expense account-using customers a way to get around those nit-picking bean counters — behold a web tool that creates bogus business receipts: Expense-A-Steak Headquarters.
2. In the Guardian, the British Beer and Pub Association reports that four-to-five percent of the countries pubs are closing each week. Yet there is an up-side to this economic nightmare: According to the Good Pub Guide 2010 many pub owners are reducing costs by turning to healthy local food products as well as growing their own vegetables and raising livestock.
3. In this depressing economy, we all need to babied once in a while, but do we really need to be served vino in an actual baby bottle? New York City’s La Cave des Fondus is hoping a few sips of $8 Le Biberon Rouge will soothe the pain of paying $21 per person for a shared pot of Swiss, Gruyere & Comté with bread. (According to NBC news, the baby bottle fad began in France to avoid taxes related to the use of stemware — but La Cave’s patrons seem to be more interested in an opportunity to get quickly soused.)
4. If you’re trying to save money, but still want to dine out, Brian J. Foley has a (humorous?) Money Tip for Pre-Eating at Alexander Cockburn’s Counter Punch. If you’re not ready to follow Foley’s suggestion to save $12 on your tab by bringing an Evian bottle filled with Grey Goose vodka to the table, why not try saving by using online coupon sites like Restaurant.com or Groupon?

Always dreaming about food & travel...

BACK IN JUNE I wrote about a dozen dishes I’ve eaten and continue to crave.

Well the summer vacation season is over and I’m still craving great food in locations I just can’t get to.

I’m stuck with window-shopping on the web at sites like Dishola where I can learn about what others are eating — with little damage to my own pocketbook (and waistline).

Since “A Dozen Dishes I Crave: Part II” is really about foods I haven’t even tasted –  perhaps this entry should be titled:

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12 Dishes to Drool Over Online

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1. Poutine in Montreal (not the fancy stuff with foie gras as served at Au Pied de Cochon, but at one of the places that offers hot cheese curds, sauce and French fries 24-7).
2. Din TaiFung’s Xiao long baos (小籠包) (thin skinned dumplings filled with a soupy broth).
3. Fried Green Tomatoes with Smoked Ham & Corn Succotash at Austin’s Moonshine Patio Bar & Grill.
4. Taiwan’s shaved Ice Monster topped with exotic fresh fruits.
5. Cheesy Welsh Rarebit — served, perhaps, at London’s St. John Bar & Restaurant?
6. A slab of hickory smoked pork ribs splashed with BBQ sauce at Arthur Bryant’s in Kansas City.
7. Molly Moon’s strange combination of two of my favorite flavors into one Pomegranate & Curry Sorbet.
8. Cincinnati 4-Way Chili (a pile o’ spaghetti, chili, onions and cheddar cheese served at a local joint like Skyline).
9. Custard-filled Boston Cream Pie — covered with chocolate icing — at the Omni Parker Hotel.
10. Squash blossoms stuffed with quesillo served in tomato broth at Puebla Mexico’s La Purificadora.
11. Suckling pig, stuffed and pit roasted — served with homemade mashed potatoes and smoked bacon — at Art Nouveau-era Bouillon Racine in Paris.
12. Lamb tagine with sugar baked tomatoes served on the terrace at Le Riad Monceau in Marrakesh’s Medina.

Thank goodness it’s lunch time.

Sometimes you get lucky with fast food...

BELIEVE IT OR NOT, I haven’t had much of an appetite lately. The fears that come with unemployment have put a damper on my enthusiasm for most things nosh-able.

Yesterday, however, after sitting through four hours of “career counseling,” I was famished and dashed down to the deli on the office building’s first floor.

I ordered what I thought would be safe: a simple, warm chicken breast sandwich.

Inexplicably, the sandwich was served with harsh ball park-style mustard slathered all over the bun.

What kind of tasteless person came up with such a combo? (It looked as disgusting as it tasted.)

I wiped off most of the yellow junk and ended up with four tiny bites of food to fill my growling stomach (at a price of six bucks).

In our busy world, fast food may be a necessary evil, but does it have to be so bad for us?

At least in the world of Fancy Fast Food, what is so bad for us is looking great: www.fancyfastfood.com

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More fun with fast food

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Home Delivery

Feeling Sociable?

Could’ve Had a V-8

Parts is Parts

Big Buns

Picking Up Zsa Zsa

Kosher-style Beef @ Supreme Dog

ON FRIDAY our hometown hero, Joey Chestnut, successfully defended his title in the Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest’s first-ever sudden death overtime (New York Daily News).

I was so excited that I ran over to Top Dog/Supreme Dog — where Joey trains — and ordered ONE beef Kosher-style Frankfurter!

As I write this, I’m even noshing on a home dog (Bar S brand — 69-cents a pack at FoodMaxx), the breakfast of unemployed champions!

EAT IT UP: More News About Joey Chestnut

• San Jose’s Chestnut Wins
• Chestnut Sets Hot Dog Eating Mark
• Chestnut Wins Again!
• The Best to Ever Walk the Face of the Earth
• Competitive Eating 101
• Death by Cheese

Who doesn't love hot dogs? *Frankly,* that would be un-American!

As the Fourth of July approaches, I can’t stop thinking about hot dogs — possibly because the annual Nathan’s pig out is this Saturday.

My love affair with the link is nothing new. I even run a Flickr group dedicated to world-wide weenies of all shapes and sizes: Hot Dog.

It seems that I am not alone in my obsession.

Way back in the 70′s, Mettja C. Roate wrote a cookbook devoting half its pages to tube steaks. Roadfood.com has a forum on hot dogs, sausages and brautwursts (you have to register to access the lively discussion). Hot Dog Chicago Style has a searchable database of restaurants located across the country. In addition, the opinionated HollyEats.com has a Hot Dog Page listing close to a hundred different joints located across this great hot dog loving nation. (Oh, and did I mention The Frankfurter Chronicles?)

I have a list of my own old favorites and “dying to try” establishments:

• American Coney Island
• Pink’s
• Flo’s
• Puka Dog
• Top Dog
• Superdawg Drive-In
• Caspers Famous Hot Dogs
• The Varsity
• The Happy Hound
• Papaya King (Julia Child’s favorite)

Before dining at any of these or any other fine dawg-serving establishments, I suggest a study of Hot Dog Etiquettte. (Unless, of course, you’re heading to the white trash trailer, ahem, restaurant, Hillbilly Hot Dogs: www.hillbillyhotdogs.com.)

Just as in the great depression of the 1930s, reds hots are, well, red hot! So far I haven’t seen a “Depression Sandwich” offered on menus (hot dog & fries for a nickle — or four cents if that was all you had — as served at Fluky’s in Chicago).

Today we have “designer dogs” and restaurants serving “Lobster Dogs.” We even have recipes for lobster corn dogs with truffled hollandaise sauce, with, perhaps, an order of duck fat fries on the side…

With all the money the weenie industry is making, I think I should join the ranks of the honorable hot dog cart vendor. The cost of running a profitable weenie stand may be high, but I would be doing something I loved. I could even prepare for my new career by simply changing degree programs. Goodbye SUNY-Empire, hello Hot Dog U: The Harvard of Encased Meats!

Hot Dog Eating Competition, San Jose CA

FINALLY, a sport I can get behind with major league enthusiasm: Competitive eating! And I’m proud to be from the same home town (San Jose, California) as world champion Joey Chestnut!

I started thinking about competitive eating earlier today when I dug up this video of a workplace Oreo eating competition at Inside Zappos. (Zappos looks like a fun place to work. I wonder if they’re hiring?)

Of course I had heard about Nathan’s yearly hot dog eating contest and I’ve seen the Big Texan’s 72-ounce steak challenge with my own eyes. As I dug deeper, I found that competitive eating has become such big business that there’s a new Wii game devoted to the subject. There’s even an International Federation of Competitive Eating!

Who knew that eating 17 pounds of cow brains could bring you fame or that a tiny, 105-pound woman can eat 11 pounds of cheesecake in one sitting and live to tell the tale?

As for myself, although I did eat three kinds of ice cream today (Brown Butter Pecan and Salted Caramel at Bi-Rite and Blue Bottle Vietnamese Iced Coffee at Humphry Slocombe), the only competitive eating contest I can image entering (and winning) is Boston’s annual bacon eating extravaganza.

In-N-Out Burger Wins Zagat Survey

Fast food sales are soaring along with the unemployment rate.

Even Zagat, where the focus was formerly on upscale establishments like Per Se, has released a Fast-Food Survey.  (Unsurprisingly, In-N-Out Burger tops the “Best of” list.)

With all that money flowing into Ronald McDonald’s bank account, it is interesting to see that things are not entirely well in the world of fast food. Customers are angry and the competition is getting downright nasty.

Free Meals Ain’t Gonna Work

In Minnesota, Ariel Wade is “madder than fish grease” after a White Castle burger stand refused to serve her at the drive-thru window. Ms. Wade drives an electric mobility scooter and she’s planning to sue the chain for discrimination.

El Carne Loco

In California, the 418-unit Costa Mesa-based El Pollo Loco chain is at war with the big guy: Colonel Sanders. The Colonel’s global business recently launched a new “grilled” “chicken” offering that threatened El Pollo Loco’s business and turns out to be partly made of rendered beef fat and beef powder. As El Pollo asks in its new commercial, “how the heck do you get beef powder?“

I also continued my research, going back to Anthony Bourdain’s great Typhoid Mary to refresh my memory about life for women in the kitchen at the turn of the last century.

Bourdain notes that then, as now, “one finds oneself being defined by one’s job.”

So, how do I define myself when I have no job?

In my soon-to-be jobless state, I’m temporarily grounded, but I can still search the global internet for tasty examples of what people are eating.

1. In Paso Robles, the ladies at Cowgirl Cafe are serving up a breakfast platter of potato skins and eggs: http://www.cowgirlcafe.net/CowgirlCafe_Menu.pdf
2. At Louisiana’s EAT, diners bring their own booze and order sides of Butterbeans with Shrimp: http://www.eatnola.com/
3. Over at the Preparedness Pro blog, believe it or not, Kellene Bishop is eating nine-month-old eggs: http://preparednesspro.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/10-things-i-wish-i-had-known-about-food-storage-10-years-ago/
4. At Atlanta’s Alon’s Bakery & Market, we just missed the Mother’s Day Special — a chocolate purse filled with a dark Valrhona mousse: http://www.alons.geomerx.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product&productID=1190
5. Conde Nast’s Gourmet magazine has a Peruvian recipe posted on their web site (Chicken in Chile Sauce (Aji de Gallina) and I’m fascinated by the spice pastes used: ají amarillo or ají mirasol. I’ve located an online source (‘Inca’s Food’ Aji Amarillo Molido), but would love to find a local vendor. Any ideas?

Now I’m really hungry, so I’m going to dig into a homemade peanut butter and cherry jam sandwich before I head off to Tony Bourdain’s lecture at Flint Center: http://events.mercurynews.com/cupertino-ca/events/show/86287840-anthony-bourdain. If I can sneak a few photographs, I’ll post them later tonight!