Michael Phelps' 12,000 calories a day notwithstanding, I'm dubious that the US Olympic teams are marching en masse to the Beijing Mickey D's for their pre-event chowdown. Still, that shouldn't stop you from pole vaulting on over to Facetheglory.com to download a coupon for a free Southern Style Biscuit or Sandwich today. Come armed with a hearty appetite and a color cartridge, 'cause the coupon is valid from August 15th through September 1st, and only if it's printed in color.
Yeah, I know that the analagous Chick-Fil-A sandwich tends to be the crowd favorite 'round these parts, but really, are you gonna look a gift chicken in the mouth?
*A reader just brought to my attention that a medium or large drink must be purchased to receive the freebie. I highly recommend the Sweet Tea.
I'm posting images of sausage counters the world over each weeknight (and occasionally weekend) witching hour until I run out. Please use the comments section to post links to your Flickr or personal site faves, and perhaps you'll see 'em posted here late some evening.
Think you can tell cotto salami from Dutch loaf or summer sausage? Prove you're not just full of baloney with AOL Food's Cold Cuts ID Quiz, then come back to share your score.
Preserved meat counter at an Ipercoop supermarket in Italy. From Flickr user cary b's Flickr.
I'm posting images of sausage counters the world over each weeknight (and occasionally weekend) witching hour until I run out. Please use the comments section to post links to your Flickr or personal site faves, and perhaps you'll see 'em posted here late some evening.
I'm posting images of sausage counters the world over each weeknight (and occasionally weekend) witching hour until I run out. Please use the comments section to post links to your Flickr or personal site faves, and perhaps you'll see 'em posted here late some evening.
Yes, proceeds from the sales of Nutrish will indeed go toward funding no-kill shelters and awareness campaigns, and it's not as if she's the first media-centric chef to go to the dogs -- or cats (remember Rocco DiSpirito's Fancy Feast Elegant Medleys?). Still, I'm continually shocked by the branding stretches some of these folks are making.
(Aaaannnd I've just run across Paula Deen's Butt Massage. I know it's likely a handy and delicious mix of herbs, spices and faerie dust, but still. Ew.)
Telegraph.co.uk reports that the world's oldest bottle of Veuve Cliquot Champagne was found in a sideboard at Torosay Castle on the Isle of Mull. Chris James, the current owner, long curious as to the contents of a locked sliding door in the dining room engaged the services of a locksmith. He was rewarded with a perfectly preserved 1893 bottle, complete with trademark yellow label. The bubbly, now considered priceless, is on display in Veuve Cliquot's visitors' center in Reims, France.
In other news, I was really excited to find a half-full bottle of Tito's vodka I'd forgotten about in my freezer last week. But then again, I don't own a damn castle.
Our pals at Epicurious's Epi-Log pointed us to this lusciously awkward Today Show cooking segment wherein Sam the Cooking Guy shuts Kathie Lee's cakehole not so much with cake, as with a heaping helping of STFU. It's no doubt soured his relationship with the show, but makes for some mighty sweet TV.
Is this the most deliciously cringe-inducing in the history of food television, or can you dredge up any others? Post your thoughts and video links below.
Gourmet's Ian Knauer has bacon on the brain ever since a fateful foray into one of Greenpoint, Brooklyn's omnipresent Polish groceries. The specimen in question is double-smoked, non-brine injected belly meat, has roots in the former Eastern Prussia, and is sold in Germany as Geräucherter Speck. Looks insanely delicious, no?
Mr. Knauer is also pretty certain that one's personal selection thereof over all other bacon formats is a potential indicator of, well, he's not entirely certain, but if nothing else, this meat-based emotional indexing is a lot yummier than the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator or the MMPI. Mmmm...delicious psychological profiling.
Over the past few summers, cherry-based cocktails have become something of a signature for me, to the point whereupon being proposed to in mid-July a few years back, I immediately began pulping and freezing cherries for use in our wedding cocktails the following October. Fresh cherries have a cruelly short season, and I do my best to make the most of every phase from sour to Rainier to Bing. Each has a distinct level of sweetness and depth of flavor and is complemented by different suites of ingredients. Rich, dark Bings stand up to wood smoking and full-bodied lemon and limeades, but tender, young sour cherries seem a natural fit for a subtly refreshing sweet iced tea. Oh - and booze.
Kind little rituals seem to go a long way toward making marriage work, so almost every weekend, I make my husband some sweet tea. He's a Southern boy by birth (Brooklynian by marriage), and having a big ol' pitcher easily grabbable in the fridge seems to right any Mason Dixon imbalance he might be suffering at the time. I've got it down to a science, proportion-wise, but this past weekend, his itch for a sugar fix kicked in while I was at the grocery store. What he made tasted divine, but there was just too much for one pitcher, and not enough refrigerator room for a second.
If nothing else, the nuns at St. Scorpacciata instilled in me the mortal fear of wasting food, and seeing how I'd been at the store to buy milk (which neither of us usually drink) for a Bolognese, I decided sherbet would be what saved our souls from eternal damnation. I suppose we won't know for a while if that worked, but it did taste pretty damned delicious.
I'm always a fan of booze-based kitchen pyrotechnics, and a sucker for a good technique demo. The twain are meeting in this video from Gourmet.com's The Test Kitchen video series. In this particular installment, Gourmet's test kitchen director Ruth Cousineau talks her way through a flambé of sirloin pan juices, olive oil, and a goodly lashing of whiskey, outlining her strategies for forestalling danger along the way. Fire pretty. Video handy. Me hungry.
Other useful video tutorials include methods for measuring honey and flour correctly, coring apples, cleaning herbs, and general behind the toque tips and techniques from their staff's seasoned kitchen pros.
In some sectors, it's practically de rigueur (and awfully hilarious) to rip on the rarefied findings of NY Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni, but I've gotta say I tend to dig his indignation as expressed through the fewer-holds-barred medium of the website's Diner's Journal. I certainly jibe with his notions of the judiciously applied dress code and the diner's right to doggie bags, but I'm almost irrationally delighted by his use of the bully pulpit to call out the stealthy price jabbings of high-end restaurants.
He specifically cites the same outrageous charges (his boiling point is $7, mine was $6) for postprandial tea that I'd kvetched about a while back. Nothing falutin', not a monkey-harvested Pur-eh or shade-grown sencha -- just in his case a mint T-brand tea (which tea purists would prefer we refer to as a "tisane" rather than a tea as it's actually an herbal infusion, but I digress) which at $17.95 for 1.76 oz tin, retail, would surely produce, uh, more than 2.56 cups. Yes, service, water heating, cups, rent, etc. don't come for free but still, the whole enterprise is quite crabby-making in this strained economy.
Mr. Bruni, we salute your foray into the consumer advocacy front and will be following the "That Costs What?!?" series juuuust as soon as you get that pesky RSS tag fixed ravenously.
Philadelphia Magazine writer Jason Fagone spent one year profiling some of the most divinely outsized personalities in the world of competitive eating. While Akron house painter Coondog O'Karma makes a midlife grab at glory via rapid-fire pizza consumption, Bill "El Wingador" Simmons attempts to reclaim Wong Bowl supremacy from 90lb Sonya "Black Widow" Thomas, and day trader Tim Janus dons the mantle of the mysterious Eater X, it all comes down to one shared hunger. They all want to win the Mustard Yellow Belt of International Hot Dog Eating Supremacy back from the Japanese who'd dominated the Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog-Eating Contest nearly every year since 1997.
Back in July of 2001, that would mean beating the record of 25 1/8 set the previous year by Kazutoyo "The Rabbit" Arai.
Behold the Whatafarm burger, which according to alanbeam.net, via about.blank is "a burger ordered from the Whataburger chain and includes chicken, egg, cheese and bacon. 2 parts cow, 2 parts chicken, 1 part pig."
I'm all for the orgiastic multi-species chow down, what with my penchant for Kentucky burgoo (2 formats of cow -- old and young, lamb, pig, and chicken) and applaud the orderers for their gastronomic gumption. If I were being all harrumphy about it, I could note that the menu offers pig in sausage form and a fish filet as well and they opted for neither, but hey - Michelangelo didn't knock out the Sistine Chapel on his first jaunt up the scaffolding.
We salute you with all hooves, claws and trotters up!
Michael Phelps' 12,000 calories a day notwithstanding, I'm dubious that the US Olympic teams are marching en masse to the Beijing Mickey D's for their pre-event chowdown. Still, that shouldn't stop you from pole vaulting on over to Facetheglory.com to download a coupon for a free Southern Style Biscuit or Sandwich today. Come armed with a hearty appetite and a color cartridge, 'cause the coupon is valid from August 15th through September 1st, and only if it's printed in color.
In response to the unleashing of 
Kind little rituals seem to go a long way toward making marriage work, so almost every weekend, I make my husband some 
In some sectors, it's practically de rigueur (and 
Chocolate-stuffed bananas on the grill
Tyler Florence welcomes new daughter
Beware kids' menus!
