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So here I am, watching the Food Network Chopped All Stars and I find myself (not alone) irritated by Chef Penny, the self-described Persian Princess. But I’m not irritated with her because she’s a bitch (that would be hypocritical of me). I’m irritated with her because she’s either stupid or ignorant of the most basic geographic facts; these would be annoying enough, but she is also ostentatiously pretentious about mistakes these failings lead her to make.

No, Penny. You may not “bring Middle Eastern flavours” to the table with your Moroccan spice mix. You were born and raised in California; had you actually lived in the Middle East, you would perhaps be aware that it is about two thousand miles east of Morocco.

Now go tell half the menu writers in the world.

This one thanks to Celebrity Chef and Gourmet Ginger Bobby Flay.

Had an amazing dinner last night at Girl and the Goat in ChiTown.Gorgeous place, amazing food. Pork shank was off the chain.

April 19, 2012 4:10 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@bflay

Bobby Flay

He’s a New Yorker, in case you couldn’t tell.

20th Century review: “Piquant, with lingering notes of…”

21st Century review: “Off the chain.”

Sometimes I do, too, but I can’t make it like Jiro can. Living National Treasure Jiro Ono is the world’s greatest sushi chef, and also the subject of Jiro Dreams of Sushi, the next movie that I absolutely must view! Just watch this trailer to see for yourself just why. WAIT: get yourself a snack first, or you just may leave gnaw marks on your monitor.

JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI – Official Trailer – Magnolia Pictures from Sundial Pictures on Vimeo.

In the basement of a Tokyo office building, 85 year old sushi master Jiro Ono works tirelessly in his world renowned restaurant, Sukiyabashi Jiro. As his son Yoshikazu faces the pressures of stepping into his father’s shoes and taking over the legendary restaurant, Jiro – san relentlessly pursues his lifelong quest to create the perfect piece of sushi.

It’s available from Amazon, too,for those who can never get enough visual stimulation.

Thanks to Brett Blair on Twitter for the tip!

@raincoaster it’s a great movie….do go to Tojo’s before, or you will be drooling throughout the film! if not, be sure to go right after!!

April 20, 2012 12:23 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@brett_blair

Brett Blair

Lady Gaga just threw something together

When I saw an article called 20 Ways to Fake Being a Foodie, I poured myself a cup of something strong (I think it was Irish Breakfast) and settled down to enjoy some 100% organic, free-range snark. Imagine my disappointment when the article itself turned out to be a poorly-scrambled hash of How To Fake It and How To Buy More Expensive Stuff; indeed, the article seemed designed to earnestly foster the breeding and nurture of exactly the kind of pretentious know-nothing that has given foodieism a bad name.

Leaving, of course, a gaping hole in the Snark-O-Sphere. This is like waving a red flag made of alfalfa hay and cow hormones in front of a bull, so you know what I did next: THIS!

Douchebag

Twenty Ways to Fake Being a Foodie: by raincoaster

1. Take pictures of everything that you eat, no exceptions. That means everything from your morning coffee, which you will refer to as “petit café” right through to the last shot of rotgut you take before passing out in front of the tv. Bonus points for doing it with an SLR rather than an iPhone. Double bonus points if you change lenses first while your food gets cold.
2. Instagram that shit so nobody can tell what it really looks like anyway.
3. NEVER refer to a food, even English food, by English words. And don’t use Italian words when you can use French or Japanese. It’s not zucchini; it’s courgettes. Bookmark Babelfish for the purpose: SO handy for translating “Cream of Wheat” into Icelandic and tweeting out the result.
4. Cross-post all these pictures to every social media platform under the sun. Do not add anything new to any of the cross-posts. If someone wants to follow you on Twitter and be friends on Facebook, it must be because they want to see these things repeatedly, amirite? Have a blog; that should go without saying.
5. Claim to have originated the recipe for things which need no recipes, and put those recipes into blog posts which are then shared to all platforms in number 4. A good example would be a post that starts with, “I’m often asked by my [imaginary] friends for my killer recipe for ‘Sandwich à beurre d’arachide avec la confiture,’ so after much prodding I’ve decided to share the secret…”
6. When dining with others, physically interpose yourself between them and their food until you’ve composed and photographed it to your satisfaction. They will feel special.
7. Namedrop chefs who’ve appeared in Vogue, but not those who’ve been nominated for James Beard Awards.
8. Describe your groceries as “hyperlocal” because you buy them at the Safeway down the street.
9. Describe your groceries as “organic” because, hello, they’re not made of noble gas compounds, are they?
10. Describe your dinner party hors d’oeuvres of white toast and Cheez Whiz as “brushetta.”
11. Spell it like that.
12. Ostentatiously disdain and abuse one restaurant that you will never be able to afford. In advance. That way you don’t have to come up with excuses when you get invited there with friends.
13. Buy one bottle of super-premium olive oil. When it runs out, refill it with cheap olive oil bought because it was a similar colour.
14. Serve cheap wine in expensive glasses. Be sure the napkin around the label doesn’t slip. When someone questions the wine, say it hasn’t breathed enough, but you wanted to share “something really special” with your friends.
15. Don’t forget that time is precious when preparing for a dinner party. Pick up the stuffed loin at Costco and pretend you slaughtered the beast yourself “on Papa’s ranch.” That Papa’s ranch is the Rancho Vista Senior’s Center need not concern your guests.
16. Introduce yourself to the staff whenever you go out. Follow them into the kitchen and introduce yourself to everyone there. It’s so endearing, and they will never forget you.
17. Tip 10%. It keeps people on their toes.
18. Refer to the time you spent bagging groceries in high school as “my early culinary training.” Better yet, upgrade it to “doing a stage with Famous Chef.” He need never know. He probably wouldn’t remember your name if you had.
19. If you really, truly, cannot make any palatable food whatsoever, but people are coming over expecting to be bowled over by your cuisine (because you’ve been following tips 1 through 18) buy a metric shit-ton(ne) of fruits and green, leafy vegetables, bung the lot into a blender, and serve in milkshake cups, explaining you’re “over the macrobiotic thing, and really into Living Foods juicing now.”
20. If you have accidentally invited any actual raw vegans, fold immediately, you have met your match in pretention. How can you tell a raw vegan? Oh they’ll tell you!

Gwyn wins

We were flipping through the channels the other day, which means mostly looking at the Food Network, Comedy Central, and wishing there was a Booze Network. We came across this show hosted by the Sandwich King, as he styles himself, Jeff Mauro.

He was doing two sandwiches on this show, the Greek Taco, which I have yet to try, and what he called a Chicago Steakhouse Sandwich. This sandwich turned out to be awesome. The first time I made it, I used his exact recipe, but did three things wrong, or weakly. First, I forgot the bleu cheese in the dressing, I used too little red pepper in the spinach (and I had thought I used a lot) and I did not get the garlic chips as crispy as I needed to.

The second time I made the recipe I used LOTS of red pepper, remembered the bleu cheese, but I used a nice grilled, lightly marinated tri-tip. This was less greasy, but still had great flavor and the sandwich was AWESOME. The only thing I would have done differently is maybe cooked up the spinach just a little closer to serving the sandwich, instead of 10 minutes before. It was just a bit too done. Should have done it closer to the serving time and also just a little less.

So, here is just a great sandwich recipe. Easy, quick and super tasty. Try it, you will not be disappointed. Kudo’s to the Sandwich King. And here is the link to his recipe, while below is almost exactly the same with just the recommendation of the tri-tip and a couple of small things like a much more generous amount of mustard.

CHICAGO STEAKHOUSE SANDWICH

To make the sandwich, layer meat, followed by spinach. Place garlic chips evenly about the sandwich and pour dressing on the sandwich. Eat and marvel at how tasty it is.

Finally, I encourage you to follow Jeff Mauro, Sandwich King on the Food Network. His show is great. Check your local listings for times.

This is what I call a drop-dead dessert.

Vinny Garcia is a hardcore Doctor Who fan as well as a talented cake designer, and you just know how those people are: gotta cross them streams, unite those worlds. No doubt it started with an undergrad in the sixties, baking John Pertwee-faced cookies to the sounds of the Merseybeat, and the next thing you know, this exists.

From BBCAmerica:

“I’ve seen Dalek cakes made here and there, but I just felt like nobody really captured the essence of the Dalek and the complexity of the design,” he explained. “Somebody went through a lot of trouble to design every nook and cranny of this thing, and you never see it. I thought, ‘Everyone always thinks the conical shape when they think Dalek,’ so I decided to go that extra mile to get to the difficulty level. And to be able to make this Dalek in the way that I wanted to make it, as cheesy as it sounds, it’s a dream come true.… Having made the Dalek, I naturally want to make Davros,” Garcia revealed. “I’d also like to make a three-foot tall cyberman or even The Doctor himself. I’d love to make a Tom Baker with a giant scarf and a little K-9, oh that would be so awesome.”

You can keep your molecular gastronomy, boys and girls. THAT is true food nerdism.

What the HEY-ELL?

One finds the strangest things, one does, when surfing the internet looking for virtual presents for other bloggers (don’t ask). One of those things is this: the confetti bedazzled winebottle fishnet thingummy, which really should be on Regretsy, except it appears also to be mass-produced, because I guess the masses want their booze to look more Kardashian.

When one puts “wine” together with “confetti” the above is not acceptable (unless, of course, one is gifting someone to celebrate her victory at America’s Next Top Ecdysiast). The following IS:

A handblown Italian wineglass. It’s just special enough to make an al fresco afternoon a little more exciting. And I like a fairly substantial glass for drinking wine outdoors. It just feels more medieval to me, as if Jonathan Rhys Meyers or Alan Rickman might show up on a horse and join me for a glass. And what is the point of being outside if they’re not going to, I ask? Rhetorically, of course: they wouldn’t show up without a proper invitation…now, do any of you have their emails?

Speaking of bad manners and bad ideas and wine, we present the following, tangentially-related video, one of a very amusing series on YouTube called My Drunk Kitchen. If you’ve watched every Sandra Lee show ever aired and are pining for something even more Out There, why, this girl has got you covered. Personally, I suspect that more than two bottles of bubbly were involved in the production of these “cookies,” and I’d like to know since when does YouTubing pay that much, but that is neither here nor there. Nor over there either.

So, here:

When your cooking project requires a spotter for safety reasons, maybe it’s time to order in.

My god, simply EVERYONE got an invitation. If it hadn’t been laundry day, I’m sure I would have made it as well.

Paula Deen and Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie at the royal wedding

Oh look, she brought a plus one. And you know, that’s what that hat needed: more butter!

By the way, my favorite ridiculous tea accessory (and there are a LOT from which to choose, including my mechanized sugar picker, which reminds me of the claw in that Pick A Toy machine at the Legion) is this delightfully pointless set of Royal Family Hot Tubber Teabags. Pun away!