Ah, blog tagging! I’d forgotten about such a thing, paddling way over here in my little Queens tidal pool. But the excellent Conner of Here Is Havana just reached out and tagged me for this 7 Links round-robin. (Here are her selected links–all pretty great reading if you’re curious about Cuba.)

So hop into the way-back machine with me, and let’s check out some goodies:

1. Most beautiful post:
I’ve got 845 of the buggers. I can’t find the one that used to make my throat constrict and tears spring to my eyes. Can’t even remember what it was about. So instead: How I learned to cook, via Madhur Jaffrey.

2. Surprisingly successful post:
Just scrolled down to see what was charting as my most popular post. What?! New Mexico #4: All Aboard the Rail Runner? This warms my heart, because I guess this means I’m not alone in loving trains.

3. Most popular post:
Technically, second-most-popular: Car Insurance in Mexico: My Experience. This is my most straight-up, just-the-facts-ma’am post ever. So I just ignore the fact that it’s popular, because that might imply that my lyrical wordsmithing and my deep, deep thoughts might not be the reason people read this blog. La la la, I can’t hear you, stat counter.

4. Most controversial post:
My commentary on the flap around Thomas Kohnstamm’s book about his first gig as a Lonely Planet author. Stupid Yahoo killed my comments in that era, but eesh, I got an earful by email. I stand by it all, though I take even fewer freebies than I used to–not worth the trouble.

Runner-up: I complained mightily about Pistilli, Astoria’s worst developers, in Why Astoria Will Never Be Cool, and it pulled out all the love-it-or-leave-it Queensians who didn’t get the tone. Again, no comments thanks to Yahoo, but there were some gems. Years later, I’m channeling my Pistilli loathing into Astoria Ugly.

5. Most helpful post:
I set up this blog back in 2004 to record the details of our pig roast, because at the time, I couldn’t find anything similar online. Turned out the pig rocked, and we did a lamb for good measure. And in the course of writing the specs down, I also wrote a long story. And years later, that story got turned into a section of Forking Fantastic!, and then people read that and did their own. So by that definition, that single post has likely helped the most people.

Runner-up: Cancun bar bombing: not a tourist issue. I woke up one morning and was dismayed to see people freaking out on Twitter about an explosion in a bar in Cancun. I used Twitter then to spread the word about the bar’s real location. I hope I helped some people feel less freaked about traveling to Cancun.

6. Most underappreciated post:
A whole set of them, the ones I wrote about Robert Farrar Capon’s book The Supper of the Lamb. Rereading them (start here), I can’t say they’re really bursting with my best writing, but I feel like they’re underappreciated because not every. single. person. has written to say “Thank you thank you thank you for introducing me to this book!”

On the other hand, come to think of it, maybe these posts are how I came to know A Thinking Stomach? In which case, I’m completely satisfied.

7. Post that I’m most proud of:
I think this one about the Momofuku cookbook, line cooking and copy editing. After seven years of blogging, I think I’m finally getting better at controlling my urge for digression. This one is focused and doesn’t gallop off by itself.

Now time to pass the hot potato. I tag:

A Thinking Stomach: I live vicariously through her garden.
Killing Batteries: Fellow LP author, master of the miserable/hilarious trip diary.
Food Bridge: All the nuances of Israeli food. Which I have not yet eaten, and it kills me.
Hudson Line Rider: Beautiful smartphone pics of an NYC commute.
Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking: Kate the Great, bursting with tips and thoughtful words.

Carry on, and happy blog exploring!

A couple of days ago, I peered into the shelf where we keep the sheets and towels, and something looked odd. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

A tiny act of domestic order, courtesy of Kate Payne

And then I realized: That light-blue duvet cover was folded properly!

How could this have happened?! I searched back in my brain, back back back, till…last week, when Kate Payne was visiting. Yes.

Kate is the eponymous Hip Girl, and she’d been here for a couple of days in the early stages of her press tour for the magnificent new Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking, a splendid book that I’m just having the pleasure of getting to know.

Kate is one of the best things to come out of writing Forking Fantastic!, because she saw the book and decided Tamara and I were just her sort of people, and tracked us down, and she was completely right. The first time I went to her apartment, I realized I was in the presence of greatness, because she’d managed to make a basement in a Bed-Stuy row home look like a palace, and she’d only been living there a matter of months.

By contrast, when people come to our house, where Peter and I have lived for five years, they often say, “It’s so…lived-in!”, which is a euphemism for “It’s so…dusty, and why is this coffee table so sticky if you don’t even have any children?” Due to steady work and lots of travel, we’ve lost the thread on a lot of the domestic arts, so the HGGH couldn’t arrive at a better time.

Kate’s book is so full of tiny bits of wisdom (how to manage your compost, how to hem your pants, how to make bread) that I’m getting that feeling that everything is possible. Even folding my sheets properly, so they give me that sense of peace and order when I look at them, instead of a feeling of panic.

So I’m dog-earing pages and making lists and looking at my laundry with a fresh eye. And I’m completely loving Kate’s approach–that managing your home life is empowering and makes the whole rest of your life better. And while Kate may have more natural talent for rigging up ingenious things with clothespins, she’s also just a super-enthusiastic beginner who’s tenacious enough to stick with things until she learns how to do them. Or until she realizes that maybe perfect isn’t the goal, and that good enough is just fine.

Just at the moment, I don’t have free time to improve our whole house, I’m just briefly setting the book in the various trouble spots, ritualistically, hoping its magic will rub off and start to instill order. In our bedroom, which is a pit of organizational despair. Or over by the pile of half-finished sewing projects. Oh, or there, on that shelving that’s the catch-all for crap on the second floor.

So I heartily recommend this book, which is a joy to read. And this isn’t even because Kate gives a big shoutout to FF! in it. It’s because I realize how much I need this book, even though I thought I was reasonably domesticated. Which means pretty much anyone setting up a home anywhere needs this book.

If you’re in the NYC area tonight (May 9), you can nab your own copy at Greenlight Books. I’ll be there. Even though I probably should be home folding my sheets.

Finally, all in one place, with photos, my thoughts on why Cancun is not a place for smart travelers to flee, but a place for them to challenge their ideas of authenticity, and what it means to have fun:

Cancun Is the New Tulum, in this month’s issue of Perceptive Travel.

(And honestly, this has nothing to do with the climate change conference happening there now. For better or worse.)

Crap, and I didn’t even mention the shrimp tacos with the Doritos garnish! Well, you’ll just have to buy my Cool Cancun & Isla Mujeres iPhone app for that…

I’m just back from Mexico and catching up on a lot. Happened to read this truly excellent essay at Perceptive Travel about getting conned in Cairo–and the surprising value in it. Cairo is really a test of travel skills–if you keep your guard up too much, you miss the good stuff. In this situation, I think I probably would’ve missed out on the author’s experience.

And by happy accident, the author, Jim Johnston, lives and blogs in Mexico City, where I’m headed in January, and am all fired up to read more about. Thanks, internet, for hooking me up…

By the way, on this Mexico trip, I finally finished David Lida’s First Stop in the New World–it was slow to get into, but wound up covering all kinds of fascinating aspects of the city.

Stay tuned for more meaty posts and photos from the Yucatan in the next few weeks. I finally got myself a snazzy camera, so there’s a lot to sort through.

My brother, Casey McFarland, is in Chile right now. He’s a wildlife tracker and the author of Bird Feathers: A Guide to North American Species which is released today. In Chile, he’s supposed to be tracking mountain lions, though it sounds a lot more like he’s taking 20-mile hikes in armpit-deep snow and seeing everything but mountain lions.

I’m a little hazy on the details because I’m a city mouse; Casey’s a country mouse. It’s very thoughtful that Casey thought to put his wilderness experience in Chile in even terms I could understand. He sent me this photo:

He writes:

super rad little place on the “highway” from coyaique to cochrane- a 300 km stretch of rutted, potholed dirt road through the mountains.

run by a really nice gal- a wood stove and the griddle heats the place… two buses welded together. she made a mean “churasco completo” which is the chilean hamburger, more or less. but it’s just a big slab of meat on pan, with mashed avocados, sliced tomatoes and a little mayo (or sickeningly massive amounts if you’re not careful). pretty damn good.

spring seems to be here- some flamingos showed up the other day- funny to see them standing in the bleary, high grassland mountain lakes with snow covered peaks all around.

Funny, that’s exactly what I thought about the bus–something so tropically colored in a totally wrong environment, like it took a hard left somewhere in Colombia and just eventually got stuck in that snowbank.

Casey’s still in Chile, even as Bird Feathers: A Guide to North American Species is released. Spread the word to all your birder friends!

He and his co-author worked insanely on it–there are some great candid shots of them elbow-deep in feathers at the book website.

I was dismayed to check the news today and see headlines about a bar getting bombed in Cancun–this is tragic, no matter what. My additional worry was that some nightclub full of tourists has been blown up. But it’s not the case. The bar, the Castillo del Mar, is well out of any area tourists would go.

Here’s a Google map I made. The approximate location of the bar is marked in red. Tourist zones are highlighted in green. Even my very adventurous app guide to Cancun doesn’t go farther than these green areas.

View Cancun bar bombing in a larger map

The bombing apparently had something to do with organized crime, and it hit staff, not customers. Of course this doesn’t mean a complete guarantee of safety for tourists, but it is extremely unlikely a tourist would get hurt in Cancun, and no one should change their travel plans based on this event.

I’m especially peeved about the news item on Momento 24, which calls the Castillo del Mar a “bar of tourists,” which is patently not the case. Fox News is almost is bad, because it IDs Cancun as a “resort area” and never explains where the bar is. And surprisingly, BBC is also flaky, as it never locates the bar either.

CNN is much more responsible, as it explains the location of the bar.

And the Diario de Yucatan coverage (the moderate Merida paper, the biggest in the region) doesn’t mention tourists at all!

MSNBC initially reported that the bar was in a tourist area (Twitter post was “Mexico Violence in Tourist Area of Cancun”), but issued an update on Twitter later and posted an updated story.

UPDATE: Per a comment below and several online news sources (including a corrected Diario de Yucatan story), I’ve moved the location of the bar. Guess what? It’s even farther from possible tourist zones.

Check it, guapos! Your Cancun vacation just got a million times better!

With Sutro Media, I’ve just published my collected wisdom on Cancun and Isla Mujeres in the form of a snappy little iPhone app, Cool Cancun & Isla Mujeres.

It’s got more than 100 listings. Because it’s me writing, of course it’s a little food-obsessed (shrimptacosshrimptacosshrimptacos!!!), but there’s also practical advice on how to choose hotels there, which beaches are best, how to navigate Cancun transportation, etc.

And for now, the price is just 99 cents! Snap it up now, and you get free updates for life. (And you know I’m obsessed with updates–you’ll get information in the app that’s as fresh as I can make it!) And if you do buy it, I’d love to hear your comments directly, or in a review in the iPhone app store.

How to induce cognitive dissonance: read Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals, then go to a pig roast. Where the hosts are playing Guns N’ Roses.

That’s how I spent my winter vacation in Bali, and I wrote about it for this month’s issue of Perceptive Travel. You can read the whole thing here: Eating a Personal Pig.

I also liked Jim Johnson’s story about Morocco–specifically, about a guy visiting his octogenarian mother who’s volunteering for the Peace Corps in some Berber village. Ah, squat toilets. They somehow make me happy.

There’s also a far more charitable review of Chuck Thompson’s To Hellholes and Back than I would’ve written. I know he said all that stuff about Muslims just to enrage sensitive flowers like myself, but, dude, those pushy, money-grubby kids in India are not pushy and money-grubby because they’re Muslim. The fact that you nearly got ripped off doesn’t merit several pages of anti-Islam screed that just shows you’re kind of ignorant.

BUT I was interested to read about the Congo, so that chapter’s worthwhile. And of course I’m happy to read anything about how great Mexico is, even though people are freakishly afraid of it. (Man–I just read some random review of a hotel in Las Cruces, NM, that mentioned the guy had stopped there for the night instead of El Paso, because of the violence in Juarez. Uhhhh, what?!)

I’ve been out of the loop here for a week because my dad and my brother were visiting. We made pumpkin pie on Sunday. It was kind of funny when both my dad and I were squinting at the recipe on the Libby’s can, and talking through how we usually modify it (1.5X spices, cream instead of evaporated milk, big glug of brandy, and I add nutmeg).

Which leads me to these totally realistic instructions for making pie crust. This Sunday, I decided to follow some Cook’s Illustrated instructions, just to see. Not a substantially better crust, and eight times more a pain in the ass. Of course.

And, in other news, Tamara and I will be on The Brian Lehrer Show every Thursday in December–that’s FIVE times, people! Start thinking of your holiday-entertaining-related questions (like, “How do I not have a nervous breakdown?”) now!

Last week, I rolled back into town and right back on the wee rec-room stage at Word to talk about travel writing.

This is basically a big shout-out post. But since there’s so little community among travel writers (we’re always, um, traveling), it’s nice to wallow in it a bit.

Great night! Although I was rather long-winded, as I’d gotten accustomed to entertaining bookstore crowds for 30 minutes, while riffing only off one other person. At Word, we had a panel of me, AnneLise Sorensen (who was my editor at RG for a bit) and Sarah Hull (who I can’t find a link for, but I don’t think is a Hawaiian Tropic swimsuit model on the side–but maybe?).

All moderated by the ever-delightful and sharp-dressed Katy Ball, who gets mad props for steering the discussion off the usual rocks of freebies-or-not, local-or-not and wow-your-job-is-awesome that ring the island of guidebook writing.

Aaand it was all sponsored by Jauntsetter, a website/email newsletter/blog that is so up my alley (I’m a woman; I live in New York; I travel) that I’m embarrassed I didn’t know about it until a couple of months ago, when Katy put this whole thing together. It’s great to see something allegedly for the ladies that is not pink and decorated with silhouettes of handbags and high heels. In fact, it would not horrify a man to read the site either.

In other travel news, I went into the corner 7-11 for the first time ever (WTF–why do we need 7-11 in NYC, the capital of corner bodegas?), just to look at the little Domo coffee cups. I wandered around the place like I was in another country, ogling all the weird food products in there. Did you know they make Sour Gummi Bright Octopuses now? Also, I’ve seen squirt cheese before, but never squirt chili. There were two little paper plates under the pump dispensers to catch the drips. There were many obscene-looking drips.

But the real kicker: cheeseburgers shaped like hot dogs! Sitting there in the little rolling hot-dog grill! I couldn’t actually see any cheese, so I assume it’s in the center and squirts out when you bite in. Shudder.

I was so shocked by it all that I didn’t even buy my Domo coffee.

A comment on a recent Mark Bittman NYT blog post:

“ I love to hear that I’m not the only one spending my commute home thinking about how to best use what’s sitting in the bin of my fridge. I’ve thought about that as a form of culinary sudoku.”

Here we are!

I think I was meant for radio. I can’t seem to keep my eyes open when I talk. If that’s not really a symptom of autism, it probably should be.

Behind-the-scenes gossip: We spent five hours taping this. Who knows how long they spent editing it. Result: two minutes. It makes me feel much better about the rate at which I write.

We were! Laughing like loons, but there we were…

Here’s the segment page.

I’ve been talking about constraints and creativity and cooking off and on for years, especially after I came out of the theater from The Five Obstructions, leaping with glee.

Now Lars von Triers’s devilish little setup has finally been applied to the Brooklyn cook-off sensibility, in an event called The Food Obstructions. I face the five obstructions (at least) nearly every night in my kitchen, and I’m not one for competition, but this does look like fun. I’ll be out of town on the book hustle, though. Perhaps I can recreate the hilarious scene where Jorgen Leth is lying on his hotel-room bed in Cuba, sweating and panicking about his ridiculous challenge…

Thanks to Eat Me Daily, I am celebrating my completion of my guidebook work in style. Love that ’16 tons’ is shoehorned into the lyrics. And I want one of those Saran Wrap setups.

I don’t have time to do it, but I feel like someone should (and credit me with the brilliant, so-au-courant idea):

Look at This Fucking Bacon, the blog.

First entry could be this.

Except, of course, I really like MEM’s blog. And I think I would be very happy to eat bacon jam. (I realize it’s not his original idea, but I am too lazy to track down the source. But the photo is very pretty. Which makes it perfect LATFB material.)

Another problem: my very own cookbook has a recipe for candied bacon. To be put on top of a cake, even.

I do wonder if people will look back and think of bacon as a food fad, like sun-dried tomatoes….

PS: Someone I know said the first time she looked at LATFH, she scrolled down and saw her ex-boyfriend. In a love connection, no less. Oh, and wielding a knife.

OK, I’m on it.

Me, here.

Forking Fantastic! here.

Not that I’ve tweeted anything. But when I do–watch out, kids! It’s gonna be trenchant.

I may be complaining bitterly on a daily basis about how much freakin’ work I have to do before the cookbook comes out, and how I am crushed under pesky admin and promotion tasks, etc., etc.

But one of those tasks was trawling the tubes for like-minded bloggers. What fun! I found some bitchin’ gals in St. Louis and a charming fellow traveler in Seattle, among others.

And then I found Cook to Bang. Recipes to get you laid! Duh! Of course! I mean, that’s really the whole point, on a Darwinian level, no? And the best part is: the food is great! This is not your standard bachelor angle, talking down to you and telling you how to transform Doritos.

I had the pleasure of meeting Spencer while he was visiting New York. While I sucked down a Bistro burger, he told me about his upcoming book (spring, St. Martin’s!) and his plans for world domination. Totally wunderbar. Trust me, come spring, you will be thinking what a fabulous coolhunter I am, already knowing about this guy. (Except, er, his blog has been going for quite some time…)

Very much looking forward to meeting other bloggers as we traipse around the country in October!

The Forking Fantastic! website is here!

Check it out for funny photos, more about the book and our events schedule in October. And you can even download the introduction to the book!

Oct 6, kids. Oct 6. Getting closer…

Judith Jones, who’s just about the queen of cookbook editors, has written a little book I’m very much looking forward to picking up. It’s called The Pleasures of Cooking for One.

I’ve been preaching this pleasure for years, but since I am not the queen of cookbook editors, I haven’t had quite the same impact this book will likely have. But truly, truly, truly, take mine and Judith’s word for it: cooking for yourself is one of the simplest ways of improving your day.

And you’re probably thinking, “But you’re married! It doesn’t count!”

Oh, but it does. Yes, there is someone else in my house, who often eats what I cook. And, to be honest, I have never lived completely alone. But I have enjoyed many, many solitary dinners, where I’ve had the satisfaction of cooking just exactly what I was hungry for. Developing the ability, and the inclination, to do this has been one of my great accomplishments. A good meal gives a perfect calm point to my day, and I suspect my life would be a shambles without it.

If you’re not sold on the book, you can listen to the eminently sensible Ms. Jones in a podcast here, at The City Cook. She shares a bunch of good tips for setting up a solo kitchen and the like.

Bitchin’ in the Kitchen with Rosie: A new tome for the archives: Forking Fantastic

An actual review from an actual stranger! I feel so proud! And relieved that more of “our kind of people” really exist out there, and get our jokes.

Seriously, I was faintly worried that we were writing for an audience that we had just conjured up in our imaginations. “Who’s coming to dinner? Well, Mr. Fox–he loves to swear. And Barney Squidgems–he loves ham. And Miss Violet–she lives in a tiny apartment, but actually does want to cook for people, even though she doesn’t know it yet.”

(I think I had an imaginary friend who was a fox when I was little–the others, I just made up on the spot. I swear.)

I could just bookmark this, as it might be the answer to an elusive Irish-pub stew from my grad school era. But it’s a hilarious post, and if you’re even vaguely considering a slow-cooker, this might put you over the edge. Robot-monkey-arm, indeed.

Read:My:Back: Fear Not the Slow Cooker

(PS: I do not have a slow-cooker. Does this worry me? Not in the least.)

Lonely Planet just posted a portion of the guidebook I worked on a couple of summers ago: DIY Cairo: streets to stroll.

We were told to add more “DIY” travel–places to wander, rather than specific sites to see. I was really happy with my writing on that book, and this section was one of the pieces I liked best–so it’s nice to see it posted. (Although they cut my advice to accept tea or soda from someone, at some point, in one of your strolls. I stand by it!)

(And that’s one of my own photos from Cairo wandering.)

Thanks to Syrian Foodie, I am now starving. But starving in the way only a plane ticket can fix.

Syrian falafel rocks the house. No mucky tahini to make things heavy–just really tart yogurt and tons of fresh mint and tomatoes. And the really skilled sandwich makers (I assume this guy too, though he’s working so fast I can’t see) break up the falafel a little bit, so it’s in crumbly pieces in the sandwich.

And I can I just add how great it is that Syrian men seem to love the camera? And they’d better not change that movie poster before I get back to Aleppo! How else am I going to find the place?

When I was in Mexico, I got desperate for some English reading material by the end of the month, so I plunked down US$10 for a copy of the newest issue of Dwell, which I was surprised to find in a bookstore on Cozumel.

And what a fine investment! In the back were samples from the new travel mag Afar, which I’d heard whispers of back in the spring. As soon as I got to the Miami airport, I bought myself the full issue.

It’s so refreshing to read a magazine that isn’t explicitly gunning for a particular market segment. Street food and fancy treehouses, fancy French knives and Berber villages… Check it out, if you have a chance. And you should have a chance, because it’s quarterly–just about the pace I can handle for magazines.

With Perceptive Travel, though, I’ve almost completely lost the thread since it jumped to monthly! Fortunately, I did drop in recently and catch “A Dollar and a Dime in Vietnam,” by Richard Sterling. What starts out as just general commentary on the function of small change in many countries turns into a specific story, with a specific moment, the sort of which (for me, at least) is one of the main reasons for traveling.

Even though the odd moments of kindness can happen at home (and Sterling does live in Vietnam), I suspect you’re more open to them as a traveler, when you’re coasting on guest etiquette, as opposed to resident habits. And if you’re lucky, that attitude will persist a little too, after you get back and before you’re back in your rut.

Specific to odd kindnesses of taxi drivers, I just realized that the fact that Egypt was the first place I really traveled has colored everything since. Because Cairo is a hideously polluted, overcrowded city where everyone is out to grossly overcharge you or feed you food that will make you violently ill, well, every place after has seemed positively hygienic, courteous and completely uncorrupt.

And I’m of course grossly overblowing the Cairo stereotypes, but that has a benefit too. When I returned to Cairo in 2007, after nine years’ absence, the stereotype had built up so horribly in mind that I was pleasantly surprised and touched at nearly every corner, when people were polite and not grabby and quoted me an accurate price on a bottle of water.

Still, though, no cab driver ever did what Sterling’s motorbike guy does in his story…

So, as of this moment, I still have not seen my appearance on Jamie Oliver’s show about the US. But now I have seen a couple of clips from it, thanks to Eat Me Daily.

And here’s the post about it.

“Scary inner workings” of the halal butcher? Maybe I’m in too deep, and way too used to going there, but…it’s not that scary.

Perhaps it is not the gleaming vision of stainless steel and bright white tile in which people fantasize their meat is being slaughtered. But nowhere is. And certainly not a Midwestern meat packer that supplies your supermarket.

No, it is not photogenic. But it is not a filthy place. And I (and thousands of others) have happily bought meat there and served it to other people. And they’ve all said, “Mmmm, delicious! This chicken tastes so good!” And they didn’t die.

I wonder if Raphael’s disgust at watching this clip came not so much from the seemingly unsanitary setting, but from the proximity of live animals to dead ones. This is not something we see often in the US. Only in the last decade or so have food magazines begun to show live, gamboling lambs on one page, then a plated rack of lamb on the next–and that was a huge, contentious step when Saveur took it.

And it’s not like I am naturally all tough and jaded and carnivorous. The first time I bought a chicken there, in 2002 or so, I had to say, “Can I do this?” to myself. And still every time I go to that butcher, I have a momentary twinge.

But if I’m going to continue to eat meat, I figure it’s the honest, upfront thing to do: look that animal in the eye. And then go home and cook every last scrap of it into something really delicious. And serve it to people you love.

Anyone curious about this place? I am happy to answer any questions, or even take people there on a tour. Seriously, I love it, and I think it’s one of the best sources of well-taken-care-of meat in the city.

Cheapness and creativity converge in two great posts I just read:

Conner’s nitty-gritty on substitutions required for cooking in Cuba reminds me of every expat kitchen I’ve kept and visited. None quite so rough as Conner’s situation, though Cairo required a certain savoir faire. That’s where I foraged for basil in vacant lots. (I just made that pasta, what I call Cairo Noodles, again a couple of months ago–creamy cheese, basil, tomatoes, garlic and loads of olive oil. It stood the test of time, even though I didn’t have the signature buffalo-milk ‘feta’ from the Parmalat box.)

I would love to see a photo or video survey of expat kitchens all over the world, where treasured ingredient X is always squirreled away in the cupboard, and getting ingredient Y calls for a party. I imagine people giving little tours of their kitchens and pointing out all the treats and various little bounties and clever workarounds.

Meanwhile, over at the Frugal Traveler blog on nytimes.com, Matt Gross interviews Lauren Weber about her new book and the virtues of cheapness. The first answer is the most concise reason I’ve ever heard for being generally cheap (and I’m always looking for justifications, as I often need to push back a lot here in NYC, the city where everyone pretends to be wealthy).

And I like her point about how travel becomes boring if money is no object. Whenever I’m visiting fancy resorts for work, I think of that. Sure, it’s fun to go hang out there for a night or two, and imagine that lifestyle. But if I really lived it? Totally boring. Challenge and constraints are good, both in cooking and travel. There’s a whole damn world out there to visit and eat, and frankly I don’t trust my own taste/instinct entirely to take me into the best stuff. Sometimes I need to be forced there, whether it’s due to a shortage of basil or an uncooperative train.

And then, well, this is just funny. Oh, and this, about accents. Love the Pakistan clip at the end. Hooray for Bajira, the new Blanquinou!

Tamara and I are going to be on the New York episode of this show, to air in Britain September 15. Spread the word to your mates across the pond!

And we haven’t seen the final cut of what we taped, so who knows how we come across? All I’ve been told is that I get to say, “I fucking hate restaurants.” Which means this will never air in the US, alas.

In the meantime, I’m trying to track down the earlier episodes, to see what the show is looking like. Eat Me Daily has a clip from the Wyoming episode that aired this week. Hilarious. I think we’re in good hands…

I don’t always think about food. I have other interests. Like fonts and Venn diagrams. How nice when they converge!

Here’s a Venn diagram of the languages spoken by Lower Manhattan street vendors. Heh. (Thanks, Eat Me Daily.)

What?! A YEAR has passed since I last ate at Sripraphai? Where is my life going? Soon I will be dead.

Well, anyway, I stuffed the panic back down inside and soldiered on to update the incredibly fruitless Sripraphai Database.

Fruitless not only because I will of course be dead soon, but also because they changed the menu, and all the numbers on it! My world is unraveling before my eyes.

First, can I just say that it’s total bullshit that the only person who got to say ‘fuck’ in Julie & Julia was Stanley Tucci? I applaud Julie Powell for bringing female profanity to the bestseller list. I didn’t realize what an issue this was until mine and Tamara’s cookbook got its cover profanity euphemism (not even real profanity) cutesified, while men continue to get to write On Bullshit and Drink, Play, Fuck. (To be fair, though, at least inside the book we still swear plenty.)

And those of you who know me know that actually, I don’t swear all that much. Only when I’m really fucking pissed. Or excited. And occasionally when it might be funny.

Anyway, on to the matter at hand: Forking Fantastic! (nee F-ing Delicious) is in my hot little hands! A solid month before the proper release date.

That means you still have a month to trot on over to Amazon and preorder your copy. You know you want to. By the time it comes out, the weather will be good and autumnal, just right for baking the bad-ass ham we have in there.

And can I point out that this is almost certainly the only book on the market to use the phrase “like potluck, but for your ass”? Thank you, thank you, for your appreciation of my contributions to the English language. A check is most generous.

And finally, on the same profanity trajectory: There is going to be hella more Momofuku in my life! Not only is David “Foulest Language Ever Documented in the New Yorker” Chang’s cookbook coming out, but a new Momofuku is opening in midtown, in the Chambers Hotel, with a Vietnamese slant, no less. That is conveniently right on Peter’s commute back from John Jay and a dangerously short hop from Astoria. Expect us to weigh twice as much this time next year.

(BTW, in our cookbook…we have a bastardized version of David Chang’s miso butter. I’m just saying bastardized because it’s fun to say, but really…I think it’s a much better way of making it. Serious.)

Four years ago, Peter and I were in a car in Nevada, driving through the driest wastelands imaginable and listening to the horrible news on the radio: New Orleans engulfed in floodwaters. It was riveting and awful to listen at such a remove. I think the only time we laughed was when they interviewed a Dutch hydrologist, who, in typical Dutch fashion, just simply could not understand how the Americans could fail to keep their lowlands dry.

Eventually our radio signal petered out, as we arrived at the gates of Burning Man. We spent the rest of the weekend wondering if New Orleans would still exist when we finally left our desert party.

Barely. And of course the news had only gotten worse by then.

We visited New Orleans in 2007, with friends who had the wisdom to get married in such a fine city. People were still traumatized, of course. But the spirit of the city was there. And very few people, driving very few cars, made it a wonderful place to ride a bicycle. Also because the people on foot weren’t shy about flagging you down to give you restaurant recommendations or ask, “You get that hat at Meyer’s?” (Peter’s hat, alas–not mine.) I wrote this then.

All a lot of preamble to say: read fellow Lonely Planet writer Adam Karlin’s essay in World Hum, “Yeah You Right: A New Orleans Manifesto.”

That should then spark your appetite for something a little meatier, and you should run to a bookstore and get Dan Baum’s Nine Lives. Dan (I can call him that, because I admit, I am friends with him and his razor-sharp editor of a wife, Meg Knox) has an excellent ear for New Orleans linguistic detail, and tells a beautiful story. The book isn’t so much about Katrina–it doesn’t get to that till near the end of the book–as about what makes the city so remarkable and resilient.

Even if you don’t buy the book this instant (though you should), click over to the Amazon page and look at his author photo. Yes, he got that hat at Meyer’s!

And for more on the flood itself, watch Trouble the Water. I was lucky enough to see this with the directors in attendance, along with the woman who shot so much of the footage on her video camera during the flood. And her boyfriend. And her baby. It’s gripping, and even though it documents a shocking failure and tragedy, has an amazingly positive outlook.

And perhaps after all that, you should buy yourself a plane ticket, especially if you’ve never been. And eat a po’ boy at Parkway for me.

There, I said it. I really have never been at all swoony over Julia Child and Simone Beck’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I don’t typically bring it up in public, because then people shoot bloody daggers out of their eyes at you for speaking ill of Saint Julia, and they also then assume that you cook nothing but tuna-noodle casserole.

So let me be clear: Julia Child is perfectly delightful, and did a world of good for this country and its food culture. My father still speaks in hushed tones about the bad old days in the supermarket, when the only mushrooms you could buy were in a can. And I know and appreciate that the French have a fantabulous culinary heritage, and we should all learn to eat and drink in such a thoughtful way.

But MtAoFC is just not all that. I have never, ever flipped through it and thought, “Ooh, I’ll cook this.” In fact, I think the book has only served to reinforce my prejudice against French food, and how annoyingly special it seems to consider itself. Whenever I read a recipe in MtAoFC, I find myself thinking, “C’mon–really? Is all that shit necessary?” And you know I am not a dump-and-stir Rachael Ray type. I like spending time in the kitchen, and look for reasons to do so.

So it was interesting to read this little Julia Moskin book review in the New York Times today.

Moskin points out the fundamental problem with MtAoFC: it’s restaurant cooking. Child studied at a school for professional cooks (Le Cordon Bleu), and that’s what she relays in the book. As Moskin says, and I have said, restaurant cooking is wildly different from home cooking. Restaurant chefs prize consistency, perfectly velvety sauces and manically regularly cubed vegetables, and they have an army of people and gear to make that all happen.

Because of this, I have always been deeply skeptical of all restaurant cookbooks. But I guess I just don’t give enough of a crap about French food to ever have noticed that’s the same reason why MtAoFC rubs me the wrong way. I mean, sweet Christ, I have only peeled pearl onions once in my life, for a Greek stifadho, and I think that just might be enough.

And of course it’s great that the country is currently in the throes of Julia love, and people who’ve never cooked are inspired enough to march out to buy fatback and red wine and all that.

But how many people are going to get halfway through the boeuf bourguignon recipe, with every pot and pan dirty and no more counter space left and dinner still hours away, and say, “This is what cooking is?! Get me the hell out!” (Or, heaven forbid, they’ll cook the aspic.)

Moskin in the Times reviews a different French cookbook, I Know How to Cook, which focuses on home cooking skills. Totally hateful title, and ghastly chick-y cover, but even so: this one might finally get me on board with the whole French food thing.

Oh, and OK–I feel I should admit that in mine and Tamara’s forthcoming cookbook, there is a recipe for cassoulet, perhaps the pinnacle of ridiculous overrated Frenchiness. And the recipe references MtAoFC–which is, in fact, a very good reference…which is not the same as a very good book to cook out of. (I think we can safely say that whatever French business is in that book was Tamara’s idea.) But we worked hard to make sure the cassoulet isn’t just blindly following some overly complicated restaurant-y procedure. And as a result, I will probably never eat cassoulet again…

Thanks to Google Alerts, I found out about this far superior use of our almost-book-title:

Animals. Foodstuff. Gratuitous profanity.

For those who want a little more edge in your lolcat.

Returning from Mexico today. I will be sad when Google Calendar no longer tells me what’s happening ‘mañana.’

Back in the New York orbit on Sunday, finally. Gingerly dipping my toes in the current news.

Why does this not surprise me? I have long suspected food allergies were way overblown, especially for kids. File under Things I Have Always Believed to Be True, only because the Told You So file is already overstuffed, and nobody ever seems to read the stuff I put in there.

Mexico photos to be posted shortly…

I’m still in Mexico, and will be posting about that in a bit (once Peter leaves and I’m left to my own devices in the evenings).

In the meantime, don’t miss yet another fantastic article by Michael Pollan: Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch.

As usual, he manages to say everything I’ve been saying, but without ranting or getting depressed. The real tragedy of the current state of home cooking, in my mind, is that people who now want to learn to cook have virtually no home cooks to learn from–only fancy chefs. Home cooking is a very different skill set from restaurant cooking, and not nearly as intimidating as TV cheffery makes it seem.

I also love his point early on about the transubstantiation that’s central to cooking. It is a small art, and a small miracle, to transform ingredients. I talk about this a bit in the early parts of mine and Tamara’s cookbook, Forking Fantastic! (out Oct. 6, as if I’d let you forget).

More practically, cooking is perhaps the best arts-and-crafts project you can undertake–it’s done in an hour, and you don’t have the results cluttering up your house. But you still have the satisfaction of having completed something substantial, of having made something–which unfortunately is a feeling that’s very rare in a lot of our workdays.

In advance of my impending trip to Cancun, I’m glad to see that Mexico is taking some serious steps.

Mexico Builds Border Wall To Keep Out US Assholes

And speaking of the wall, here’s a good cartoon from a Mexican blogger/political cartoonist. The caption reads “Bad Mexico, bad!… It’s cut with cornstarch.”

OK, I got back last weekend. But per usual, am under the deadline gun (5 min to write this before my official noon work hour starts).

Entertain yourselves with the new Cooking in Real Time episode, all about…whoo-hoo, sloppy joes!

And re: the book title, I am crushed we didn’t think of Ducking Felicious in time. This is why I need Josh and Larra on speed dial. (I was explaining the dilemma to a British couple in Spain, and that was their first suggestion. The Brits–they are a little wittier.)

Forking Fantastic it is, and I got the galleys a couple of days ago. The cute factor with the new title is a little high. Somehow, Forking Fantastic thong underwear does not have quite the same appeal as F-ing Delicious underwear. A whole marketing angle lost…

11:59. Spain pics in a few days.

Ooh, very promising: Fellow Lonely Planet writer, native New Yorker and generally perceptive gal Conner Gorry has finally started a blog about daily life in Havana:

Here Is Havana

Peter and I and a few other friends went to Cuba in 1996, I think it was. (Surely it’s OK to say this, and the statute of limitations has run out by now?) We were so mentally unprepared, it’s comical in retrospect. At the time, though, it was an extremely rough trip.

We didn’t fully grasp, for instance, that it would be impossible to get more money once there…and we didn’t know quite how expensive it would be. It was very difficult to get off the “official” tourist track, and the attendant 1-to-1 exchange rate. But even if we had, well, there wasn’t anything to buy with Cuban money anyhow. Our second week, we got by on one meal a day, and we rolled up to the airport with nothing but our exit tax in our pockets.

The situation was grimmest when it came to food. I still shudder when I think about the creepy, greasy fish we were served at the one restaurant we found where we could pay in Cuban pesos. My sentimental attachment to Communism was pretty well chipped away on that trip, when I realized that the system truly just failed at feeding people, much less giving them the real, simple pleasure that can come from delicious things to eat every day.

I hope this has changed a bit in years since. When we visited, farmer’s markets were just starting up, as a very controlled experiment. The few times we got fresh produce, it was fantastic. But, whoa, that was so not a trip about kicking back on the beach and eating fresh pineapple. Still, when I returned to the Dominican Republic, I was appalled at the slums and the advertising everywhere…and I really appreciated the pineapple on the beach.

So, looking forward to reading Conner’s reports, as it sounds like various policies have changed since I visited. I especially want to know about the food!

I mentioned it back in the fall, but then I was just guessing at how enjoyable it would be. Now I know The Upper East Side Cookbook, by the lovely Parsley Cresswell, is the next volume to add to your shelves.

Poor Miss Parsley. She feels herself losing her toehold in the society of the Upper East Side. And I think, in these troubled economic times, we can all relate to that. Just yesterday, downward mobility was the subject of breakfast conversation.

Miss Parsley is inventive, though, and cooks and forages to save money, as well as to cheer herself up. And the recipes in this book are all quite accessible and delicious. But that hardly does the book justice–it’s really a wonderful document of NYC life, and I feel proud to have had a very small hand in it. (I know Parsley’s alter ego, and provided light copy editing services.)

Your copy, printed on demand, is available here. Or you can pick one up at The Corner Bookstore (91st and Madison) or Kitchen Arts & Letters (on Lexington).

Maybe it’s just the thing for Mother’s Day? You know, just to show that even though you’re actually not doing quite so well as your parents, you’re still managing to feed yourself…

I leave for Syria on Wednesday, for a week of dining with Anissa Helou and a gang of other people who think this is a delicious idea. It is my third trip to Syria, and I cannot wait. I’m looking forward to green almonds, buttery sweets, passing kindnesses and maybe the elusive desert truffle. I will probably be too stuffed too blog regularly, but believe you me, I will let you know in the end.

In the meantime, you may content yourself with SALTS: The Society for the Appreciation of the Lowly Tinned Sardine. The helpful folks sent me a link months ago–I’m finally leaping into action. I’m a huge canned sardine fan, having been raised on them enthusiastically enough that I thought it was normal to take them for school lunch. No one ever wanted to swap with me, but their loss.

Also, if you need some more home-cooking inspiration, visit Cathy Erway at Not Eating Out in New York. If you’re not hopelessly out of the Brooklyn food loop like I am, you probably already know about her. But it is great to see someone take the leap to home cooking (especially in NYC), and rock it in such a short time. Totally coincidentally, she has a book coming out this fall, from the same publisher as ours and Tamara’s. And I like that a lot of her food skews Asian-y, because I don’t cook that way much.

And in that same vein, yowza, thanks Eric Gower, aka The Breakaway Cook! His food is the kick in the pants I need–I’ve got a pantry full of spices, condiments and assorted syrups, and a lot of days I do precious little with it. His blog might also be the way I break into Japanese food, which I’ve failed with before because I can’t get the underlying rules. I promptly ordered his cookbook, and am very excited to see it.

Between that and my Syria trip, this summer, it’s gonna be hot in my kitchen, for sure.

Check out the book cover on Amazon!

Preorder a copy for Mother’s Day, perhaps?

OK, I found something genuinely entertaining, and not something that exists in a weird I’ve-heard-this-is-cool universe: The Amateur Gourmet shorts.

I haven’t been a big fan of the Amateur Gourmet online because…I dunno. He’s not enough of a wise-ass or something. I admit I gave him about one chance, about five years ago.

But in person, he’s actually kind of adorable. And there is just enough to weirdness to make me not feel like a tool for watching food TV.

(Clip after the jump, to stop the autoplay annoyance.)

And this actually made me want to go make fresh pasta, which should be the point, really. (6-6-1-1-1!)

(The second episode, the omelette one, is also entertaining and wonderfully weird. I love the woman. But the technique is ALL WRONG! Since when do you flip an omelette? Or beat the eggs that long? Or even cook it that much?! Showoff chef dudes…whatev.)

This is interesting. Food2, a new online arm of the Food Network empire, is on the march.

One of the things I’ve been waiting for is a (for now) online-only show called Kitchen Conspirators, which basically takes the supper club idea and gives it the reality-TV treatment.

I think Tamara and I might’ve even put our names in to be the “underground chefs” on this show–I was out of the country last summer when there was some back-and-forth with the Food Network.

So it makes it doubly funny to watch some of the episodes and sort of see my experience reflected in it. It’s what I imagine having your life adapted into a movie must be like. There’s more mainstream music; there’s a narrative arc that you never quite noticed at the time; there are wacky montages.

But let’s just say that after a little brainstorming session, I do not turn to Tamara and propose, “Let’s go to band practice and rip out those Scorpions covers.”

(To be fair, it looks like the mustachioed guy barely managed to say that with a straight face either. Er. I mean, I hope? I get lost in the layers of hipster irony.)

I guess FN is holding out the option of putting this on TV, because it’s still edited for a 30-minute time slot (although broken into smaller “episodes” for the web). I’d really like to see a more self-contained, short version. And I’d also like to see the party! That’s a weird let-down at the end…and that’s coming from someone who generally likes planning the parties much more than the parties themselves.

Embedded clip after the jump, so it’s not auto-play cacophony here on the main page.

I’m curious–what does this look like to you who don’t know the supper club scene? I’m in too deep to see anything but my so-called life in it.

Check it, if you’re not already on the Cooking in Real Time podcast tip:

Cooking in Real Time Episode 7: Pad Thai and Cucumber Salad

Wherein I only barely remember all of the damn ingredients that go into pad thai. And wherein I utterly fail to make a joke about pad-casting–wasted opportunity!

But really, if you’ve been meaning to kick the takeout habit, this is a good place to start.

PS: If you like the podcast, I’d hugely appreciate reviews/mega-tons of stars on iTunes. You can review without subscribing, even.

Last week, Peter sent me a link to this lunatic op-ed in the NY Times. Short version: foodies are all wrong in promoting free-range meat, because it will surely kill them. Factory farming is so much safer. Or I guess that’s what he was saying. It gets pretty loopy at the end.

I read it, thought about it, sputtered a little and did not really have time to articulate what was so totally wrong with the guy’s thinking. In fact, I read it, and then went out and had a piece of toast with tasty free-range jamon serrano on it for breakfast, along with my fresh-squeezed orange juice. Call me a foodie, whatever–I’m sure I’m eating better than this ass in Texas.

Fortunately, while I was digesting, the incisive Ms. Julie Powell came along and wrote something sharp about it for me, and noted the addendum the Times had to print. Que sorpresa. (That’s Spanish for “no doy.”)

As usual, Mark Bittman is succinct and encouraging, in a blog post on nytimes.com.

And that difference between TV cooking and real cooking is, may I remind you, why I started my podcast, Cooking in Real Time. Check it out!

Off-topic from Spain, but just read this wonderful recipe for panuchos (tasty Yucatecan snack) on Yucatan living.

Where am I going to get a second daughter?

More on Spain shortly. Have I mentioned? Internet access in Spain sucks. But everyone seems too busy eating seafood to care.

Because my long-ago ranting about the f-ing Pistilli development by the park (oooh, it’s called Riverview! Posh!) is still my most popular post ever, I feel obliged to pass on this hilarious tidbit:

Pictures of The Oddity that is Pistilli Riverview East Co-op at 19-19 24th Ave in Astoria (via Curbed)

The photos are pretty shocking. Back before all my old comments got wiped (boo, Yahoo), a few people were kind enough to post their impressions of the interiors. But even the most graphic descriptions don’t quite conjure the heinousness like a couple of random hallway snapshots do. I think Pistilli buys that curlicue font in bulk.

Meanwhile, Pistilli is installing green glass on the monster tower rising in front of my house. I bet that’ll look real classy, with that beige-y-gray brick they’re using. Novel, even.

It’s all over the news, so I’m sure you know: The Obamas are planting a vegetable garden. Fan-fucking-tastic! (This is not gratuitous swearing.)

Meanwhile, Hook Echoes is revived! Also fantastic. Jefe, teller of many stories, is in Austin, and I am so envious of his general problem-solving and gardening skillz.

And further meanwhile, I’m about to head to Spain, and I’ll be, by the serendipity of Craigslist, meeting up with and staying chez Heather Coburn Flores, the author of Food Not Lawns. Excellent.

And while I’m doing that, my friend Deb will be planting wildflowers all over Bedford-Stuyvesant. Check out the plans for Bed-Stuy Meadow at 21st Century Plowshare. If we had more actual earth in Astoria, I’d suggest we do it here. But we’re pretty paved over. If you live somewhere with even a little exposed earth, toss some seeds in there. You never know what might happen.

Happy spring!

So, Heather over at Gild the (Voodoo)Lily was having some qualms due to her blog stats skyrocketing over some damn bacon-egg-cheese sandwich, when her far more inventive and interesting stuff causes nary an online ripple.

It’s because, sadly, hungry women (and men) are sitting at their desks, or up late at night at the family computer, staring moonily at food they’ve decided they can’t eat. And even if they did, they’d never have the gumption to make it themselves.

People, they call it food porn for a reason.

Staring at pictures of inaccessible food gets you all titillated and salivating. But when you click away, you feel empty inside.
To understand the true insidiousness, let’s look at real porn. (No, wait–not yet! Click back here, you!)

Real porn does not help you get laid. No one ever jumped up from watching a porno and said, “Gosh darn it, I’m going to a bar, and chatting someone up, and telling my best jokes, and then having terrific sex!”

No–they just shuffle off to bed, where the not-dirty-enough-to-wash clothes need to be swept off to one side, and the magazines are piling up.

Likewise, anyone watching the Food Network for more than ten minutes is not going to leap up and start cooking dinner. No, they’re going to sit there, glum, eating Frosted Flakes. And then shuffle off to bed.

“Maybe tomorrow I’ll cook,” they think. “I’ll cook something fresh and healthy, but also really satisfying–something kinda Giada, not all Paula Deen.” Yup, just like the avid porn consumer wakes up the next day and meets the hot chick of his dreams, who’s smart and sweet but just a little nasty.

And just as porn fashion has inspired boob jobs and merciless muff waxing, food porn has given every would-be cook the idea that what they make has to be artfully plated and garnished with edible flowers.

I’m telling you, the food porn is soul-killing. You must switch off the TV set now. You must stop idly surfing the twee, pretty-picture food blogs and flipping through the glossy mags. Put it all away, and just go into the kitchen.

Real pleasure of the culinary kind is going to be dull and a little hard to begin with–and, like sex the first few times, it will seem messy and maybe not worth all the trouble. But trust me, it gets a lot better.

And if you happen to have overlapping needs–you’re not getting laid and you’re not eating well–this is actually handy. Not having sex means you have plenty of time to learn to cook. And learning a new skill like cooking makes you confident–hence sexy, hence more likely to catch someone’s eye. (Also, you’ll probably give yourself a couple of burns or scars–also pretty damn sexy.)

And when you cook up a hot meal for that someone–straight ticket to the sack.

What you can do

This is all leading up to: my new podcast! It’s been a long time coming, but the wheels are finally in motion over at Cooking in Real Time. There’s just a little intro post there now, explaining the premise–give a listen, subscribe and get ready for next week, when I actually cook something.

And you can too–once you put away the porn.

Dear readers! You can probably barely remember when I used to write guidebooks. Neither can I!

Not since last August have I complained, exulted or otherwise ranted about guidebook writing, because I’ve been sitting at home, all domestic-like, writing the cookbook.

But now I’m heading out on the road again, very shortly. Too shortly: the 24th. The amount of stuff I have to get done between now and when my plane takes off for sunny Andalucia is keeping me awake at night.

I’d go into more detail, but Leif Pettersen has deftly summarized the arc of a guidebook gig.

Read that, substitute Andalucia for Tuscany, deduct total sexiness by 10 percent due to my not having practiced my hot lisping Spanish accent, and you’ve got my upcoming gig. Oh, and did I mention my mother is coming?

Brace yourself for on-the-road posts involving ham, ham, sherry and my mother. And if you have any recommendations for me (Granada and Almeria provinces are my beat), let me know in the comments.

Funny, I was just wondering whatever happened to Louisiana’s attempt to promote the eradication of nutria through eating it.

Apparently, it went belly-up, as it were. Now people are just encouraged to shoot them on sight–as I learned from Showdown at the West Esplanade Canal, a piece by Darrin DuFord in the new issue of Perceptive Travel.

Once you get past the gunfire, there’s a bit of info in there about the earlier attempted culinary makeover.

I don’t think I’d be too grossed out to eat nutria; and I think I’ve eaten a big rodent before, and it didn’t taste so bad. I’ve eaten pigeon, which many consider one step away from rat, and it was damn delicious.

But then I don’t have to live with nutria every day. And in the right light, they’re not so much ugly ratty vermin as otter-cute. The twin poles of inedibility, in a single animal. Confounding!

Wow, I know what gadget I’m getting to prepare for my trip to Spain:

iJam 5Js

Playback is supposedly 35 days. I can tell you from personal experience that if you’re judicious, you can stretch that out to six months.

And definitely download the manual–there are some key troubleshooting tips.

(Thanks, AV.)

Good story in the Economist: What’s cooking? The evolutionary role of cookery.

Richard Wrangham of Harvard proposes that the development of cooking is what enabled people to evolve to where they are today–it’s the “killer ap” that enabled people to get more energy from food, and thus fuel their brains.

And, because it’s the Economist, they don’t treat the raw foodists gently.

The segment from the show is up here.

Or listen here:

And if you’re inspired to share some lunch tips of your own (or learn a few new tricks), post them on this page of crowdsourced culinary wisdom at WNYC.

My friend Dan Baum’s new book, Nine Lives, is fantastic.

It’s a social history of New Orleans since 1965, up through and past Hurricane Katrina, as told through the stories of nine city residents. There are so many beautiful details in here–about what makes New Orleans so special, from food to language to economy.

If you’re in New York, you can come see Dan Baum read tonight at the Barnes & Noble at 82nd and Broadway, at 7pm.

Incidentally, Dan Baum is a giant food freak–which is how I happen to know him. I bet if you come to the reading tonight and ask just one random question about po’boys, you’ll derail the whole evening into a heated discussion of New Orleans cuisine.

Which is a great idea. But you should also read the book.

I am deeply suspicious of any kind of cooking that involves countdown clocks, secret ingredients, yelling men or arbitrary rules. Top Chef is absurd. And I’d even say it’s a bit damaging to the watching public, which has come to think that every meal must involve some incredible hurdle to be overcome.

For anyone who feels comfortable cooking, though, the only major hurdle is our own laziness, and maybe the fact that someone else ate that cheese you were planning to use for dinner.

When I finally roll myself into the kitchen, though, I find myself doing a small form of the same stunt cooking that defines Top Chef. No one is yelling over my shoulder about the chiffonade, or insisting that every dish contain cauliflower, but I am working under some constraints: That half-can of tomatoes needs to be used up, and the only meat in the house is bacon. My vegetarian friend is coming for dinner. I’m ravenous and whatever I do needs to happen in the next half-hour.

And the fact is, I love these constraints. They are actually freeing, as they screen out a lot of options and help me focus on what I have. It’s a genius dynamic in which constraints force creativity. And you don’t have to be a Dogme filmmaker to appreciate it. It’s a small art to create something delicious out of a few ingredients. And anytime you live on a tight budget–as I and most people I know have done for long stretches–you’re being a little creative every day. The absence of constraints can actually be paralyzing. (There, that’s your pep talk for surviving the recession…)

This is all getting around to an article on Gourmet.com, Highway Hiking with Michael Hebb. I’ve never met Michael Hebb, though I’ve swapped a couple of emails with him. By all accounts, he’s a charmer and a thinker. He may be some more negative things, and this article points to some of them (like, perhaps he is indeed “a crazy man”). But I appreciate that he’s definitely a big-idea guy.

His idea, in this case, is hiking across Los Angeles and foraging for food (on fruit trees and at Albertson’s), and then cooking dinner on a camp stove in an island on the I-5 freeway.

He presents it as an art piece. I’m not in a position to judge, but it veers dangerously close to stunt cooking. But the food–which I think is the best, most honest way of separating the posers from the ones who really put their heart into it–sounds like it was really good. But almost anything tastes great after you’ve been walking for two days. And does it only count as art if others are watching?

Hebb comes across as a little bit of a lunatic in this piece, and not in a lovable-freak way. That might have something to do with the writer getting in over his/her head in terms of actual physical exertion. But I envy the experience Hebb created for himself.

Would you hike across LA and look for food? Would you go on Top Chef?

(By the by, the kicker of the story involves the very fear I have of people using those white-gas bottles for water! I feel vindicated.)

My mother has a blog! Check it!

She’s also on Facebook, all of her own volition.

And she thinks F-ing Delicious! is a great title for a cookbook.

Also, in case you missed Chapter 2,452, that was about how my dad now has email.

2009 is shaping up to be a great leap forward.

One of the side effects of having more than three readers on this blog is that people now email me about all kinds of exciting opportunities.

Once I sift through the ones about increasing my manhood, I don’t wind up with much. But this doesn’t seem like a bad deal at all: Food Service Warehouse is giving away $1,000 worth of knives–and if a whole collection of super-sharp knives doesn’t increase your manhood, I don’t know what does.

No catch. The knives are Dexter-Russell–pretty reliable, sturdy, used in a lot of restaurant kitchens. This might be a great chance to try out a new, odd kind of knife that you wouldn’t otherwise spend money on. (I’m curious about santoku blades, for instance, but not enough to throw down and clutter up the kitchen.) Oh, and I see my favorite knife–the boner–is in the package. Can’t say no to that, can you!

Here’s the link: Cutlery Contest and Restaurant Supplies at Food Service Warehouse

Enter before the end of the month!

(OK–there’s a small catch. The entry form requires a bit more information than savvy web users might be happy supplying. FSW doesn’t resell the info, but it does look like it will send you a newsy email of its own once a month or so. You can always unsubscribe. And I guess I should say that now that I’ve put that link up, I get a kickback if you win. Viral, baby, viral–with sharp knives!)

Quick, before January is done: Sidle on over to Perceptive Travel and read the new issue. I particularly liked Edward Readicker–Henderson’s piece on Mongolia, which asks the question “Can we ever stop thinking in comparisons, and simply let a place be itself?”

Making comparisons while traveling is a bit tedious–especially to those you’re with, who probably think it’s all pretentious place-name-dropping. But there’s also a satisfying trick to letting your brain float free and make the most abstract comparison possible…and having your travel partner understand the reference. The great thing about traveling is that with every new trip, you get to expand the references for the game.

On the subject of Mongolia, though, it does sound like a relatively incomparable place. Especially when you consider the food, as this rather terrifying Slate essay on Mongolia by Tim Wu makes clear.

Sample quotes:

“Camel’s milk, I shudder to recall, is musky and feels like drinking bottled smoke.”

“This is like a horror film, except I am eating the special effects.”

Now those are some useful comparisons.

So, first of all, we’re feeling very suave around Winslow Place because we now have an honest-to-god island in the kitchen–just like they have in the ‘burbs! Granted, it’s only, like, 2 feet by 2.5 feet, but there it is, in the middle of room:

(I see you looking at the crusty bottom of my yellow enamel pot. What? C’mon, do you really scrub the outsides of your pots? Although, I have to admit I was a little sheepish when I toured Georgia O’Keeffe’s house, and saw that she had the exact same pot, and it was spotless. But she had hired help.)

Second of all, I was reading a friend’s post today about kitchens of the future–or, really, the 1960s vision of kitchens of the future, and laughing my ass off. Oh, truly delightful. I love that computer-punch-card font.

Then, by happy coincidence, I got an excellent book in the mail: America’s Kitchens, by Nancy Carlisle and Melinda Talbot Nasardinov.

I cannot wait to sit down with this for a long stretch, because it looks like a giant issue of Gastronomica, what with all its intriguing historical bits and social consciousness (“It’s only since men have been cooking that you can justify the $275 knife,” is one sidebar quote I just happened to see).

I’m feeling a little dizzy with glee just flipping through, looking at all the pictures of vintage hutches, little piglets snuggling under wood stoves and goofy 1950s ads for “modern” kitchens. And was this book written just for me? There’s even a section on New Mexican foodways…and a discussion of the emergence of the kitchen island!

And, what luck, Ms. Carlisle herself will be appearing this Saturday at the excellent Brooklyn Kitchen–1pm sharp! I highly recommend. You’ll probably see me there, coveting the secondhand cast iron and clutching my excellent new book.

And since I am so fabulously cool, I guess that’s why I haven’t done it.

But I just spent 10 minutes composing a post about how you should nominate me for a Bloggie. I mean, Roving Gastronome, the blog, has been around for five years, officially, as of today! (As opposed to Roving Gastronome, the dinner party, which some of you may remember. Listen up, young whippersnappers–I’ll tell you about a supper club!)

And then I realized that in those 10 minutes, the nominations had closed.

Classic. Well, think fondly of me, please, and next year you can nominate me for “best-kept secret weblog,” and for the freakin’ lifetime achievement award. This year, I miss the cutoff date for that (starting prior to Jan. 1, 2004) by less than two weeks.

That makes me feel a little old. Whippersnappers–you still there? Let me tell you about blogging by dial-up! And the snow in those days! Oh, wait, the Victrola needs winding…back in a sec…

I’ve had a hankering for those little potato-y buggers recently.

And then I read this! OMFG!!! Genius!

For real, that’s a Portland phenomenon, and not just her stoner creation?

And is it just a coincidence that last winter I ate the best nachos (with regular chips) in recent memory at a Portland bar? And how do they make the food taste so good there?

Listen to it at the show page (where you can also download it as an MP3).

Or just listen right here and now:

(BTW, Parsley Cresswell couldn’t drop in because we were too squished for time! Alas! But she’s supposed to be on later in the week–keep an ear out!)

Tamara has the photographic evidence over on her blog. Really-o, truly-o, we cooked for Jamie, and he loved it. It’s good to see the food documented–I kinda forgot about that part…

Just a note to all you loyal readers who have very lazy mornings: I’ll be on The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC tomorrow (Wednesday, December 17) from 10:40 till 11am, preaching the gospel of home cooking.

My fellow guests and I will be addressing the unique pain in the ass that is cooking in a standard NYC kitchen–and how to get yourself motivated to kick the takeout habit, and save some cash while you’re at it. (Yes, every dollar you save can go directly into the cocktail budget!)

I’ll be on the air with Kate McDonough of The City Cook, and the divine Parsley Cresswell, author of the forthcoming Upper East Side Cookbook.

Tune in…and call in! Softball questions appreciated–maybe along the lines of, “So, Zora, can you just elaborate on how exactly home cooking will utterly transform my life? Thanks!”

If you wake up late and miss it (or you have to, what’s that called?, work?), it’ll be posted online and available as a podcast–check out the show page for details.

Another something to file in the Advice I’m Not Qualified to Give, But Will Anyway folder: You absolutely must teach your children to cook!

(Say I, who has no children. But I was let into the kitchen at an early age, and I am grateful for it! The scars hardly show anymore!)

If you’re looking for inspiration or guidance, check out the lovely Tribeca Yummy Mummy blog. Cate writes the recipes with instructions for mini-chefs and Big People. Which doesn’t mean you, the Big Person, can’t do the recipes all by yourself. (There’s one in the recent posts that I’m definitely doing this weekend–hell, maybe tonight. Guess which.)

Please tell me this is a hoax.

www.whoppervirgins.com

(Sorry–embedding didn’t work. Fundamental flaw in the viral-ad-campaign plan… So open that up in another window, watch a few minutes, and come back and tell me what you think.)

Because the only thing more condescending and creepy-imperialist than dreaming up this ad would be going out and actually doing this.

Several thoughts:

• I guess I’m a prude, but I hate the use of the word “virgin” in context like this (ie, all non-sexual contexts).
• Romania is really that out of the loop?
• Lugging that Burger King broiler contraption into Greenland seems very Herzog-ian.
• Did the film crew have moral qualms about this project?
• The food around 6:30 looks delicious, although I’m afraid I’m meant to think it’s nasty-looking.
• The credits say thanks to “all the people who took us into their homes and fed us.”  Which made me almost weepy.
• Watching this, I feel like I’m listening to a horrible fairy tale I already know the ending to: the Whopper is the poison apple.
• The sad thing is, I kinda like Whoppers.

(Thanks to Peter for the link.)

If you’re like me, you only ever hear about people’s cooking school adventures until they’re halfway through, and acting all suave about their sabayons and stuff like that.

Here’s your chance to get in on the ground floor: Bookmark or subscribe to Brian Goes to Cookin’ School and follow the adventures of one Brian Jones as he does the intensive weekends-only program at the Institute of Culinary Education…starting any day now.

In just another stroke of fine Astoria luck, I met Brian a couple of weeks ago when he came to the Jamie Oliver dinner as a surprise guest. That was the producers doing a bit of reality-TV setup on us, but fortunately Brian is no [insert name of hateful reality TV person here--there are so many I can't begin to choose]. He’s delightful and enthusiastic, and already knows a lot about food–and he lives in Astoria, so you know he has excellent taste.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what he goes through in school, since I chose the guidebook-writing route over the culinary-school route back in 2002, and my brain has definitely missed the intensive learning experience.

Good luck, Brian!

Not that financial hardship warms my heart, but it does make me glad to read an article like the one Marian Burros has in today’s New York Times: From Dining Out to Cold Turkey.

It’s about damn time people started cooking again. There are some smart, enterprising people quoted in the article (love the woman who put up more than 700 jars of canned goods from her garden), and overall the outlook is positive, even in the face of tough economic times.

But then there’s the woman who, even though she knows how to cook and her own parents were caterers, lets her kids make her feel bad about cooking instead of going out to restaurants. Eating canned ravioli and whining when their mom makes pot roast? Somebody get those little brats in line!

Now I sound like a total I-survived-the-Depression crank, but can I say honestly? Cooking and feeding myself at home has been one of the most consistently rewarding things I’ve done with my life. And damn, but it has also saved me a ton of cash.

It is such a life-changing thing, in fact, that I’m borderline evangelical about it–I almost want to go around knocking on people’s doors, asking if I can help them get their kitchen set up (and maybe asking if their refrigerator’s running, while I’m at it).

That’s why I’ll be starting a new, more structured website dedicated to home cooking, and how to get better at it–look for it in the new year, especially if your resolution is to save a little money by not eating out so much.

Oh sweet Jesus–this is brilliant! I wish I’d made these. But I just don’t have the puppeteering skills, for one, and I look wretched in anything puff-sleeved.

Thanks, AV, for the tip.

In an op-ed called No Chefs in My Kitchen, Marcella Hazan is in fine form: concise, pointed and just a tad crabby.

First she takes issue with the growing tendency to call home cooks “chefs”–it would be just quibbling over words if she didn’t also point out that “chef” suggests a field “where food is often entertainment, spectacle, news, fashion, science, a world in which surprise — whether it’s on the plate or beyond it — is vital.”

This ignores the value of a good home cook, who feeds and nourishes family and friends, often with the simplest food. And the ascendant “chef” also points to an increase in eating in restaurants–to the detriment of our health and bank balances.

Her kicker is something I’ve been thinking for years, but have never managed to express so concisely:

Like other forms of human affection, cooking delivers its truest and most enduring gifts when it is savored in intimacy — prepared not by a chef but by a cook and with love.

Actually, Barton Rouse said it more concisely: “Food = Love.”

Have I mentioned? Book publishing is impossibly slow. It makes my life as a guidebook writer infuriating, knowing that the book I worked so hard on is deteriorating as it sits at the printing press, and then bobs its way back here, on the slow boat from China. And yes, publishers are now actively choosing cheaper presses, in China, even though it slows down the production process.

In my life as a cookbook author, the slowness of publishing is not really such an issue. It’s only a little dispiriting to think that my book won’t be out for almost another year. The only time-sensitive issue in the book is the title–with my luck, profanity will be totally outmoded by fall 2009.

To counteract the slowness of the production process, there’s the deadly swiftness of the promotion period. Basically, you get about three months to make a splash, and then you’re done–this is true of guidebooks, cookbooks and any other kind of book you can think of. Except maybe The Chicago Manual of Style.

This is all maddening, when you consider that the Internet is an instant outlet for new information, and also an infinitely deep archive.

Anyway, what I’m getting to here is Cookstr, a website that will hopefully solve a very small portion of the greater book publishing problem.

Starting yesterday, Cookstr publishes recipes excerpted from cookbooks new and old. The one way in which book publishing is excellent is that for the most part, anything that’s been published in a book has been seriously vetted. (Yes, egregious examples to the contrary pop to mind. But fortunately, nothing in the cookbook field.) So Cookstr–which is run by longtime book publishers–should have an excellent database of higher-than-usual-quality recipes. No more googling “cassoulet recipe” and getting directed to the Kraft-sponsored version involving hot dogs.

Another great feature of Cookstr is the filtering capabilities–you can sort recipes by difficulty, budget and time, as well as ingredients, occasions, etc. I think this is a sign of maturity and wisdom on the part of Internet companies–people are way over the “Gee whiz, there’s so much stuff on the Internet!” phase, and on to the “I want one succinct answer, thanks” phase.

So check out Cookstr. This sounds like such a ringing endorsement, you’re probably wondering if I’m in cahoots with them. I’m not. I’m just happy to see such a smart confluence of books and the Internet, finally. And maybe, when our cookbook is finally published, you’ll see our recipes there too.

That’s what Tamara called her old galley kitchen. I had one too for a while. It turns out Mark Bittman also has an awful tiny kitchen. Living proof that you don’t need fabulous stuff in order to cook well.

Like Bittman, who says he takes a little pride in the difficulty of it, I like the challenge of an odd space. One summer in college, the place I was living was having the kitchen overhauled. So we cooked on a folding table with an electric skillet, a rice steamer and a gas camping stove. It worked surprisingly well.

Small kitchens can actually be much handier to work in than large ones. A small kitchen, well organized, is like a cockpit: Everything’s in arm’s reach. I had a great kitchen like this when I lived in Cairo–we had the rare apartment where the kitchen seemed to have been built for regular people, not housekeepers, to use, and so actually had a counter and shelves and other handy details. But I could stand in one spot in front of the stove and reach over for spices, pots and dishes, and turn behind me to drop things in the sink. The gecko clicking away by the window was a bonus.

I do think one mental hurdle people with small kitchens face is the idea of getting the space dirty. If you live in a tiny apartment, a mess in the equally tiny kitchen is going to seem like a huge imposition. But, as usual, the answer is just clean as you go. It keeps the grease from building up. And more immediately, you have to make room on the counters.

And counter space…it’s like money, or free time. As soon as you get some, you just want a little more. Live with what you’ve got.

Excellent online travel mag Perceptive Travel has a new issue (and it’s going bimonthly now, up from quarterly). I’ve been so buried in food talk right now that tales of exotic travel seem like a mental stretch.

But Darrin DuFord’s Subdued by Street Vendors is a good transition, praising the street-snack culture of Nicaragua.

I also appreciated The Backpacker’s Pilgrimage: Ko Phangan, by Joel Carillet, because it makes me feel less lame for 1) not traveling to Thailand this January and 2) not wanting to party on the beach anymore. Back when I lived in Cairo and went to Dahab for the weekend, I realized the folly of my hedonistic dreams: Sure, I’d love to go lie on the beach and smoke pot. I just don’t want to do it with lots of other people who probably want to do it even more than I do. I try to remind myself of this whenever I start feeling like I should go to more reckless-abandon kind of events; now Carillet’s essay is a good reminder too, complete with morning-after pictures.

And on a more serious note, I also liked Stephanie Elizondo Griest’s Officially a Woman in Mexico, just as a little anthropological interlude. I think I need to take some dance classes…

Tal forwarded me this Straight Dope column about circus peanuts. I do not like them. They are a disturbing texture and just plain taste bad.

Buried in the middle of the column is this:

“Over the years the best-selling item has been orange in color, banana in flavor, and peanut in shape.”

Banana flavor? I never would’ve identified it as that, being misled by the color and the shape. But now…yes, banana. I guess that’s what it is.

No wonder I dislike them. “Banana” is perhaps the worst of the artificial fruit flavors, with “lime” coming up not far behind.

Yesterday’s New York Times had a good long story about the in-house butchering at a group of Brooklyn restaurants.

I got to see the group’s butcher, Tom Mylan, hack up half a pig at The Brooklyn Kitchen a couple of weeks ago. It was illuminating, and I came home with many pounds of meat.

I knew things were off to a good start when Tom introduced himself and said, “I just came from work, so I’m about half-drunk.”

Aw, I miss the energy of a pro kitchen.

I like how the head is just hanging out there in front--oh hai!

Tom had forgotten to bring his bone saw, so he said he’d have get all “Old Testament” on the beast.

And you shall feel my wrath!

Much, much hacking and slicing later–I don’t envy anyone having to hack bones with a cleaver (while half-drunk) in front of a crowd–the pig was laid out in all its glory.

Pig, deconstructed

It looked deceptively easy, and while he was doing it, I felt all the knowledge crystallizing in my brain in a very satisfying way. Today, however, I cannot remember a single thing. Except! I never realized how much a kidney really looks like a kidney bean. And also, we ate the kidney at the end, and it was delicious–the first time I’ve eaten it and it didn’t taste like pee!

We drew numbered ziplock bags, then took our pick of meats in order–like the NFL draft, but for pig parts. I drew 10–out of 10–but fortunately no one took the jowls before I got there. I also got a big shoulder roast, and some smaller shoulder part I cannot recall the name of. Also, some ribs, some leaf lard, and a big piece of skin–Tom suggested wrapping a rabbit up in the skin and roasting it. Delightful!

Back at home, I got down to business with most of the meat. I rendered the lard per tossed-off instructions in the class (stick in the oven at 350), but might’ve done better following The Homesick Texan’s instructions, as I think my lard got a little toasty. Still–lard–what’s not to like?

I’d picked the jowl because I really wanted to make my own guanciale. Again, tossed-off instructions in class: cover jowl in fennel, cloves and pepper, then pack in salt with garlic and fresh thyme; leave in fridge for 4 or 5 days, then brush off and keep in fridge in waxed paper. (It’s not yet cool enough out for me to hang stuff in the pantry, alas.) I used allspice instead of clove, and since that seemed Syrian to me, I also sprinkled on the last of our Aleppo pepper.

Guanch, y'all!

Texture shot:

Flesh + Spice = Fab

An aside about the bowl I’m using: My friend Amy brought it over, saying, “My mom was throwing this away–it seems like something you might use. It’s for berries?” It’s a bowl with holes in the bottom, and comes with a matching small plate. I resist super-specialized kitchen devices, and this one seemed dangerously twee.

But it’s become the Surprise Kitchen Hit of 2008. Among many other uses, it turned out to be just the thing to hold a salt-packed piece of pork that was going to ooze away a third of its weight in liquid.

It also left behind a UFO-landing-pad pattern when I moved it to its proper plate:

Not just functional, but pretty too

I swaddled the guy up in salt.

Pork jowl in occultation

After I got that done, I rested a couple of days. My pork shoulder sat in the fridge, waiting, hoping. On Friday, I pulled the guy out to roast him. He needed a little cosmetic adjustment first.

Now where did I put my Bic razor?

I won’t show the picture of the skin after I cut off the hairy part, because somehow it’s even nastier looking.

I poked holes in the roast with a knife and shoved in whole garlic cloves. Then I browned him up nice in my enameled casserole, and tossed in a few canned tomatoes and a whole lot of wine. I added some rosemary I’d snipped off my neighbor’s front hedge, and threw in some languishing green onions and a couple of olives, in vain hope of cutting the fat.

Ready for a long stay in a slow oven

I packed the guy into a 300 oven for maybe four hours. Near the end, I tossed in half a pound of sauteed mushrooms. Then stowed him in the fridge overnight. The chilling was good because I was able to scrape off all this fat from the top–not to throw away in horror, but to save for frying eggs and potatoes in at some later date. It’s bright orange, and smells of rosemary (and pig).

We ate the roast the next night. Through poor planning, it was just me and Peter and a whole lotta pig.

Blurry with excitement--sorry

Plain old potatoes (from the CSA) boiled in a ton of salt (so much they float, like people in the Dead Sea) were all we needed to soak up the winey-mushroomy goodness. And I guess we ate a green veg, but whatever.

Waiting for the photo op to be over

Then I forgot all about my pork for a while. Many more than 4 to 5 days after I’d stuck the jowl in the salt, I remembered to pull it out.

Withered, yet delicious

It looks good. There was a wee bit of mold where one of the garlic cloves had squashed against the meat. I just cut that off and hoped for the best.

I’m so porked-out now, though, that I can’t quite face cooking with the guanch yet. (I didn’t even get into the smaller piece of shoulder, which I brined per Fergus Henderson, and then slow-roasted in the oven with a garlic-mustard-brown-sugar crust. I did it up with “dour” lentils, again per Fergus.) But I’ll let you know how it goes–unless, of course, the mold kills me. In which case, Peter should report.

I was feeling a little grumpy at the class because there was a crew of three people from the same household (and one of them was just passing through town), and they took all the pork chops and belly. But getting some of the odder pieces made me do a lot more interesting stuff–so I guess it was all a positive learning experience. And I haven’t even gotten to the bunny in a pig jacket–looking forward…

Thanks, Tom, and the folks at the Brooklyn Kitchen!

Not that you were missing my Sisyphean Thai-dining adventures, probably.

I know I wasn’t–I’d totally forgotten about it in the whole server-move shenanigans, and it wasn’t till I went to write a new post that I realized it had been abandoned, like a 3-year-old accidentally left behind in the mall during the Christmas-shopping chaos.

So it’s back, safe and sound, and there’s a new post, even.

I’m at a job in an office, waiting for work to come my way, so I’ll actually do one of those things that office-job people do: a clever meme post!

From the British Very Good Taste blog, here’s a list of 100 things any good omnivore should’ve tried. A few years ago, I thought I’d aspire to taste everything possible. Now that kind of accomplishment makes me feel a little tired–maybe if every flavor of the world were brought to me on a little platter, while I reclined on the couch? (Maybe with a bucket next to me, for when we got to the balut.) I would also consider being whisked via first-class Asian airline to the source of the flavor.

In the meantime, here’s at least what I have eaten, in bold:

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison Shot by a friend, put out of its misery by my husband.
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros* Practically the official state food of New Mexico.
4. Steak tartare In Dutch, this is called toost kannibaal. My mom remembers when there used to be street carts selling it in Amsterdam.
5. Crocodile — Er, I don’t think, buy maybe I’m forgetting?
6. Black pudding Made by a French Canadian in the Dominican Republic. Of course.
7. Cheese fondue* En Suisse, and en Indiana. Very different experiences, as you might imagine.
8. Carp — perhaps? Isn’t that what all generic white fish is, deep down?
9. Borscht*
10. Baba ghanoush* Seven years of Mid East Studies were good for something.
11. Calamari*
12. Pho*
13. PB&J sandwich*
14. Aloo gobi*
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream One day I got a scoop from Australian Homemade, and it was so mind-blowingly good, I was walking down the street wanting to tell someone about it. And on the very next corner I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in ages. Serendipity from a scoop.
21. Heirloom tomatoes* Best: in Bulgaria. They were pink. Do they count as ‘heirloom’ if that’s just what grows naturally in a place? At any rate, I also grew some heirloom guys on my balcony one year. They weren’t all that sensational.
22. Fresh wild berries Strawberries outside Oslo, blueberries in New Jersey, blackberries by the side of the road in Spain.
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans*
25. Brawn, or head cheese A sample from Astoria’s now-lost Hungarian grocery, alas. Too bad it bounced in my mouth like a rubber ball, and I had to smile gratefully.
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche*
28. Oysters*
29. Baklava*
30. Bagna cauda*
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl — Never with the sourdough bowl. Although I did eat spinach dip out of a sourdough bowl. Surely that counts for something?
33. Salted lassi*
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float*
36. Cognac with a fat cigar Ah, college.
37. Clotted cream tea I’m assuming this means clotted cream on top of some scone-y business, with tea? Because clotted cream in tea would be vile.
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O Ah, college.
39. Gumbo*
40. Oxtail*
41. Curried goat*
42. Whole insects — I tried, in Montreal, but was foiled.
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more Ah, investment banker friends.
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala*
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut Straight outta the glaze waterfall and into my waiting gullet. Hot now, motherfuckas!
50. Sea urchin Straight outta the sea and into my waiting gullet.
51. Prickly pear Did you know this is the one fruit that will seriously constipate you? Handy info, sometimes.
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone It’s black. I didn’t realize.
54. Paneer*
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle*
57. Dirty gin martini*
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips Thank god that was a passing 70s fad.
61. S’mores*
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs — I feel like I have, but you’d think I’d remember such a thing…
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake* How can anyone not have eaten this? Isn’t fried dough a universal?
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain*
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette Chitlins, good; andouillette, I’m still sorry about.
71. Gazpacho*
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe — Is Louche a brand? Ah, who cares–I’ve drunk homemade absinthe, and did not go blind or crazy.
74. Gjetost, or brunost Yummy. Candy cheese!
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu — Count me for half, as I’ve drunk soju.
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail*
79. Lapsang souchong*
80. Bellini*
81. Tom yum*
82. Eggs Benedict*
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare — I guess not hare, but I did once buy a whole rabbit at a market in Barcelona. They crunched its little walnutty skull in half with a pair of shears.
87. Goulash*
88. Flowers
89. Horse — Not for lack of trying. Our Dutch connection failed. Can I substitute whale*?
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab*
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish*
95. Mole poblano*
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta*
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Total score: 83 (I think. I got distracted by a workplace discussion of hugging parties. See what happens while people are “at work”?)

*I should get extra credit for having actually cooked a lot of these things (marked with an asterisk above), including the non-listed whale. (Well, not a whole whale…) I didn’t count sweetbreads because I cooked those in a restaurant kitchen, under orders–not of my own volition. (Though now I know how–the power is mine! Mwa-ha-ha!)

If I had a regular office job and time to kill between showing off yoga poses (for real! that’s what’s happening now!), I would go ahead and make the Omnivorous Home Cook’s 100 Fabulous Accomplishments list. Item No. 1: Whole roast lamb.

Any other ideas?

RR gets interviewed for a NY Times’ blog on the subject of teaching kids to cook, and I actually found myself agreeing with it. (Not that I have kids, but I sure have plenty of advice, especially on how not to raise them.)

I’ve long said that knowing how to cook is the next most important life skill after literacy. RR (also short for “aRRgh, you’re so perky my eyes are bleeding!”) is smart to identify the sense of empowerment kids (or anyone) can feel when they cook a meal for their family. And I really appreciate that she has started an organization to give low-income kids cooking lessons.

I just wish it weren’t called Yum-O!

I also wish she weren’t so into hot dogs and cheese sauce. But wishin’ don’t make it so.

I am intrigued at the idea of Rachael “Pre-Grated Cheese” Ray being on the same panel with Alice Waters on October 12. Won’t the collision of culinary worldviews create some kind of black hole?

Driven by financial hardship, a friend of mine has been forced to work for a living. The divine Parsley Cresswell is penning a handy tome called the Upper East Side Cookbook, to share all the knowledge she has gained while foraging for food in Central Park and Dumpster-diving behind the finest gourmet purveyors.

You’re laughing now, but just wait till Mccain gets elected. Then you’ll be wanting your very own copy, just in time for a very merry Depressionary Christmas. (Follow the link for ordering info.)

The New York Times ran a nice little piece on a live-poultry-and-more joint in the Bronx. I’m a big fan of these operations, so it’s nice to see some positive coverage about them, and with a ‘here’s a normal part of the neighborhood’ tone, instead of the ‘what is that mysterious place at the end of the block?’ tone you get in the few other articles that have been published.

Gourmet’s July issue also had a great story about getting a live goat from a halal butcher. Well, it wasn’t alive in the end, obviously, but you know what I mean. The butcher says something to the effect of “Hopefully Americans will come to understand Islam better by enjoying this meat.” That would be great (Ramadan kareem, btw). The article isn’t online, but here’s some info about a documentary on a halal butcher, posted by Ian Knauer, who wrote the original story.

I recently came across (OK, no, Peter forwarded me the links) two blogs doing reviews of Astoria restaurants.

Every Restaurant in Astoria seems like the more promising, if only because its authors recognize the sheer foolishness of their endeavor: “like Sisyphus, but with gyros,” as they put it. I like their moxie, and their attitude comes through loud and clear in their review of Sparrow, which pretty accurately gets at the hipster/no-hipster dilemma of Astoria.

I also appreciate that they’re willing to try some of the creepy old-school Italian joints (including one I’d really forgotten even existed), and the strip-mall Italian place that I’ve always been curious about. But I’m afraid they’re going to founder on the rocks of the cheap Chinese joints (couldn’t they have just written their ground rules so as to not cover them?). I wish them the best of luck…

The cleverly named New York Knife & Fork doesn’t seem quite so substantial. The reviews are a bit glibber and involve a few more food-writing cliches than I would like. Actually, maybe that’s not quite true–at least, I did a search for my hot-button hate phrase, “[X] was a revelation,” and I didn’t hit anything. I think what makes me skeptical of the reviews is that she speaks with incredible authority, but I can’t tell what that’s grounded in. Like, what’s her expertise in Southwestern food (uh, does that mean Texan? New Mexican? Arizonian?) that allows her to say “Best Enchiladas Ever” at Mojave?

Without knowing more about where this chick is coming from, I’m not sure I’d go anywhere on her recommendation, but I will read her review of the places I already know, for entertainment–sort of the same way Roger Ebert’s reviews function for movies.

Last time I visited, there was at least a good snarky post about the joys of Queens, but it seems to have been deleted. Odd. Well, I reprint it here:

I have often suffered the misguided criticisms of elitist Manhattanites (you know, those kids who just graduated from University of Michigan). “Oh, you live in QUEENS?! Isn’t it dangerous and God it must take you forever to get home.” So dumb. Corrections: Queens is not far, its actually closer to some parts of Manhattan than other parts of Manhattan. Additionally, Queens is still the real NYC, not the parody, caricature that Manhattan has become

Oh, snap.

Spotted this video on deboning a pig’s head on Gourmet.com, but was too distracted to watch it. Handily, one of my informants passed me the link yesterday. I’m glad I didn’t miss it.

Oddly, the only thing I found heebie-jeebie-inducing was the part where he cleaned out the ears. Ew.

Good prep for the pig-butchering class I’m taking next week. Care to join me? I’ll bring the disposable razors.

Since last week was Blog Black Hole Week, I’m only now catching up….

There was an article, “The Anti-Restaurants,” on bad-ass supper clubs in the New York Times last week.

Initially I was miffed that Tamara and I didn’t get our due for five long years of culinary cool (we were roasting whole lambs on spits when those boar-butchering brats were in diapers!). As usual, as the media usually tells it, all the action is in Brooklyn. Whatev.

But then I got to the very end of the story, and read this:

As she was packing her knives, Ms. Lombard, the professional caterer, gave the dinner a grade of C-. She came as a friend and unpaid helper to learn molecular gastronomy techniques but instead wound up doing everything from washing dishes to taking out the trash. “When this last course comes out,” she said toward the end of her 12-hour shift, “I’m going to go to McDonald’s and get a Big Mac with extra pickles.”

So, basically, Brooklyn’s underground supper-club scene is totally freakin’ rad…but the food sucks? Interesting premise.

Now I’m relieved Sunday Night Dinner (Sometimes on Saturday, or Friday, or Even Wednesday) was not mentioned at all. Not the greatest company, you know? Because SNDSSFEW does A++++ food, goddamnit, and we don’t make Jell-O out of pot liquor (see earlier in the story for this particularly vile idea).

Just sign me,

Keepin’ It Real in Queens

Even two weeks after my guidebook marathon, my brain feels like a little sponge that has been wrung out completely dry. I can barely form sentences.

While I continue to recover from my writing trauma, please take these entertaining diversions under consideration:

Frappe Nation: Summer is the season for frappe, the best iced-coffee treatment ever. Unfortunately, my stomach is so jacked up from this last period of intense stress that I’ve had to go off the caffeine (and, horrors, the booze!) until everything heals up. It nearly killed me when I saw the adorable little how-to-make-a-frappe video on the site. Only use Greek Nescafe, and drink one for me, please.

Thursday Night Smackdown: Since I can’t currently get it up to do anything more than stare into space and eat wasa bread, please enjoy this other expert home cook and cusser. Scroll back to find the super-hideous Paula Deen smackdown. I’m still shuddering.

All I can say is, thank the sweet lord for the CSA, or I would’ve died of malnutrition weeks ago. Not only am I not the least bit inspired to write, but planning any kind of meal has been beyond me. There’ve been a lot of omelets recently–good omelets!–and lots of salads, but anything that requires specific shopping…I can’t really muster going to the store, because that would require a list, and that would require…writing.

Anyway, talk amongst yourselves. I’ll get it together again soon.

The Onion strikes again, with the news that there’s a terrible mayonnaise-borne viral outbreak!

How is its food coverage so trenchant? I particularly like the quote, “I don’t want a dry sandwich. That’s no way to eat.”

Finally ate at Sripraphai again, so I could make, whoo-ee, the third post ever on my biting-off-more-than-I-can-chew Sripraphai Database project.

I think maybe the Sripraphai Database should be a wiki. It needs more mouths than I can provide.

Oh, Onion, stop! I can’t breathe, I’m laughing so hard!

Chef Cooks Dream Omelet seems innocuous enough…until you get more of the details of the dream. The reference to teeth falling out is especially resonant.

Later today I’m doing a little cooking demo for our CSA. I’m very, very tempted to take it in this direction.

Oh, you clever Onion, confirming everything I know to be true: Domino’s Scientists Test Limits of Human Consumption.

I don’t know why the image of a pizza covered with miniature hamburgers makes me laugh out loud, but there it is.

It was a good day browsing. I found:

Vegetarian Duck, by Mark Morse, who lives in Amsterdam and happens to be writing about not only the kind of food I like to eat when I go out (and would like to add more of to the guide I’m working on), but also what I’d like to be cooking in my own kitchen here in A’dam, but am a bit too uninspired by Albert Heijn to pull off

Mexico Cooks!, which I found through Veg Duck, and which I haven’t burrowed into yet, but looks super-enticing

Actually, there’s a third good one, but only in Dutch: Klary Koopman’s Alles Over Eten. This will be the blog I subscribe to to keep my Dutch reading skills up…

Nice to have new troves of info on two of my guidebook beats… Now I’m off to cook myself dinner with my Albert Heijn groceries. Damn–I’d been looking at tinned sardines in the store, and for some reason didn’t get them–and here’s Veg Duck’s perfect reason.

A few months ago, Marla Garla tipped me off to Elyse Sewell’s LiveJournal, which has now become my guilty-pleasure blog. I only call it a guilty pleasure when I’m recommending it to someone, because it sounds bad to say you’re reading the blog of someone who was on America’s Next Top Model. But hey, I also kind of enjoy working at Us Weekly–I’m not proud. And she was the smart one on ANTM, so there.

But never mind the modeling. What is fucking fantastic about this blog is that this woman takes pictures of all the bizarro stuff she sees in grocery stores in Asia, and of all the sometimes-alarming stuff she eats on the street. This is great, because it’s exactly what I do when I travel–anthropological insights on Aisle 9. But since I still haven’t been anywhere in Asia, it’s all completely new, and it only stokes my mental image of the other side of the globe as this dazzlingly strange alternate universe.

What’s finally making me link to her blog is this post: Bourgetto. The horrific pastry detailed in this post made me laugh out loud.

And it also made me ponder the universal appeal of that magical substance we call mayonnaise. In so many cultures, mayonnaise appears to be the first baby step toward “Western” food and culture–and once people get a taste of that lovely white goo, there’s just no going back. Next thing you know, you’re hankering for meatloaf, and then pretty soon you’re test-driving SUVs. (I’m not making the meatloaf thing up: documented instance of meatloaf being seen as “exotic” in Mexico–scroll down.)

I have previously documented the Mexican fixation with mayo (here and here, to start), and the Japanese are total converts (mmm, okonomiyaki), but I wonder how mayo plays in, say, Kenya, or on the steppes of Mongolia? (Tell me in the comments! Oh, sorry, no–still broken. F***ing Yahoo.) I know it’s an integral ingredient in salads at “fancy” dinners in Cairo–it’s just a matter of time before it trickles down.

I am extremely pro-mayo, so I find this delightful: “See? It makes your sandwich/taco/bun/peas-and-carrots slide down your throat like nothing at all!” I feel like saying to everyone I meet in other countries. My father, on the other hand, probably has the allover heebie-jeebies at the thought of mayonnaise infiltrating the deepest Amazon rain forest.

All that said, I don’t know if I’d be able to handle Elyse’s nightmarish “blueberry streusel brioche with a filling of mayonnaise, tomatoes, cucumbers, and raw onions.” (She forgets to mention the corn kernels–also hilariously European, like a crappy Dutch salad.) Here I thought I had to worry about fertilized duck eggs in Asia, but now I see I’m going to have to deal with some far more insidious flavors.

I think I’m strong enough…

(Oh, what’s also genius about Elyse Sewell and her blog: she’s from Albuquerque too. Between her and Neil Patrick Harris–with whom I went to theater camp, let me just name-drop–the Duke City has some real celeb cred.)

My pal Josh, who I know through my guilty-pleasure freelance gig (rhymes with Gus Freakly), also writes about cheap and delicious food for various rags around town. He is the original Dumpling Man, in my book.

Now he just published a column (his regular NY Press gig) about discovering homemade, hand-delivered-to-drunks-in-bars fried chicken in Brooklyn.

Brooklyn is cooler. Damn.

Wonderful story in the NYT about the president of the Greater Astoria Historical Society. He’s a doorman! Who knew? And he rides his bike to work. We even own some of his books.

Great story in the New York Times yesterday about preserving obscure native foods of the US: An Unlikely Way to Save a Species: Serve It for Dinner.

The main source for the story, Gary Paul Nabhan, raises Churro sheep (an old variety brought by the Spanish, used by the Navajo, but one that fell away when merino wool and associated weaving techniques arrived with later Europeans) and has written a book about Bronx grapes, Datil chiles and Makah ozette potatoes.

He has also divided North America into regions based on their most indigenous flavors. East Coast: Clambake Nation, yo! Though I of course can’t forsake my boyz in Chili Pepper Nation. (Except, uh, Gary, it’s Chile Pepper.) Who knew there was a Sonoran white pomegranate? And I do feel a simple sentimental attachment to Crab Cake Nation. Who’s gonna design the T-shirts?

Just added to the links list: Notes from the Slippery Slope, which we cognoscenti know better as The Friday Afternoon Update. Naomi has been making me laugh every week via my email inbox for, eesh, years now. She made the move to a blog format a little while ago, but because I still get the weekly FAU email I’ve only just remembered about the newfangled approach–now, for everyone’s enjoyment! The recent post about First Man Bill Clinton was a goodie.

Peter pointed out this nice essay in the NY Times by Kate Stone Lombardi: The Joy of (Still) Cooking.

She’s practical–talking about the fun of listening to music while you cook, and of using up all the leftovers–but I think I like this bit best:

I equate feeding my family with love, which is why I cannot imagine stopping now. What would that say to my husband? What would it say to me? I have a friend who opens the freezer every night and selects a Lean Cuisine to microwave for herself and her husband. They seem very happily married, which remains a complete mystery to me.

Yes, the idea of being a nice wife and cooking a nice dinner for my lovely husband makes me gag. But the practice of it is actually quite enjoyable. Just one of those postfeminism disconnects. And of course it helps that Peter does the same for me.

Not me doing it, fortunately–and it’s more like a reasoned argument against, even if it is from someone who went through it and now teaches.

I’m only mentioning it here because that’s how freakin’ insidious grad school is! I quit ten years ago (and mentally checked out before that), but it still galls me to think about it. I feel like I have to tell the world NOOOOOO! Fortunately, someone else can say it a little bit more rationally than I can.

And hey, I’m married to a professor. Maybe that should be the real advice: marry a prof, and then get a job that allows you too to take summers off.

Oh wait, no, here, this is better: Do two years of grad school with a grant from the government (for Arabic–and the funding was cut! Before 2001! You fucking idiots!…ahem…ten years ago….breathe deep). While you’re in those two years of grad school in the ass of nowhere, TEACH YOURSELF HOW TO COOK. This will get you through the lean years after you quit grad school and have no idea what else to do–you will not only save crazy amounts of money and be able to afford living in New York as a “freelancer,” even after 9/11, but you will be healthy, both mentally and physically. Then, eventually, after cooking a lot of meals for one and loving it, eventually give in and marry a professor.

I am exceedingly grateful. But academia: suck it. But thanks for the cooking classes! It really did change my life.

This is totally brilliant! Thank god it’s animated–no french fries died in the making.

I like how the falafel is a suicide bomber. Genius. Although…are those sausages supposed to be Austria? Those are definitely not Vienna sausages. But thank god for that too. I think I might throw up if I saw chunks of Vienna sausage, animated or no.

(Cheat sheet here.)