The latest and greatest news about celebrity chefs, served up buffet style.
– Learn how to cook like former Top Chef-er Spike Mendelsohn. Whether or not you wear a jaunty hat while in the kitchen is completely up to you.
– Padma Lakshmi is not just awkward in prime time — she’s awkward in late night, too!
After the jump…a food fight, the fishermen’s plight and my new channel don’t look right.
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In case you haven’t noticed, 80 and I took a two week vacation to Japan and Korea. In those glorious days of no work I didn’t cook a damn thing. In fact, it shocked me how much I didn’t miss the kitchen.
But now we’re back. I spend my days tapping on slate colored keys, knowing exactly what I’m doing and where I’ll be. I no longer need Lonely Planet guiding my days. Outlook dominates my hours once again.
Because I must get back into, well, being back, I bought something that would force me into the kitchen, but also force me to experiment with the flavors I found so delicious. I bought a big tub of miso paste. (Actually, it’s the only thing in my fridge at the moment.)
I’ve never played with miso paste before, but I have a feeling I’ll be able to find a billion uses for it. At this point, though, I’m very unclear on what those uses are.
Before we left for vacation, 80’s mom sent me Japanese Food and Cooking by Emi Kazuko and Yasuko Fukuoka, to prepare me for the craziness ahead. I’ve spied a few recipes I’m excited to mess around with—Fried Aubergine with Miso Sauce, Pot-Cooked Udon in Miso Soup (with a broth-poached egg!), Broccoli (stem only) and Cucumber Pickled in Miso—but I also want to try a clean miso soup. If anyone knows where I can find: dried wakame, second dashi stock, shichimi togarashi or sansho – let me know!
And if you have other, less terrifying miso included recipes, comment here please.
A special ES Local series, The Candidates Cookbook profiles each of the 2010 D.C. Mayoral candidates — from a foodie’s P.O.V.
Running as an independent, Jason Anderson refers to himself as an “enigma.” Reflecting this, the underdog candidate chose not to provide a photo or campaign logo for this story. He did, however, have plenty to say about food.
The D.C. Food Desert
“Food is a business, and the first priority for businesses and corporations is money,” laments Anderson. “Making money is more important [to corporations] than healthy living, which is a major contradiction, so it is more profitable to serve unhealthy foods and have people be unhealthy.”
This, explains Anderson, is why many D.C. neighborhoods are packed with fast food options but after 7pm have no healthy alternatives, “which plays a crucial part in obese Washingtonians.” As mayor, Anderson hopes to enact policies to diversify what he calls D.C.’s “food desert,” by making it financially viable for D.C. residents to open independent, healthy restaurants.
Back to the Farm
Anderson calls the “Healthy Schools” legislation a good start and says “a second step would be to teach students agriculture and introduce them to the farms. Youth only know the grocery store. Connect them with the food — not just the corporate connection.”
One organization Anderson points to as “important to the culture of learning,” is Heal Our Hood, a local initiative that provides nutritional and political education, including urban gardening, to the African community in DC. As mayor, he would work to expand similar programs throughout the school system.
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There are fucking fish everywhere. At my last meal in Japan at the Narita airport I knew that I had to ask if the vegetable udon soup was vegetarian, because there’d be a good chance it wasn’t. It could easily contain slices of pork, but this soup instead was based in a fish stock. That just wouldn’t happen in the United States. A menu reads vegetable soup, it’s made with vegetable stock.
I still was shocked, however, to see these dark, circular eyes peering out from my miso soup. It’s not that I overlook miso in the US, I just don’t think much of it.
Broth is always rewarding, so warm and comforting. But when I’m on a sushi bender, I’m concentrating on the raw fish, not the accompaniment (although sometimes tempura battered vegetables steal some of my attention0n.) In Japan, though, broth is the first thought. So even while I’m letting tuna melt on my tongue, the salty liquid is on my mind. Not because I don’t want to choke on prawn’s head, but because of the dimensions of this not so simple side soup.
I’m not known for leaving food on my plate. Or, when it comes to meat, on the bone. Whether it’s a fried chicken drumstick or a hearty pork chop, I can always be counted on to clean those bones clean before sending them back to the kitchen. But apparently, this is no longer good enough. Now you’ve got to eat the bones, too.
Not sure how many of you made it all the way to the end of our most recent epic comment of the week, in which reader Niki suggested this fun, very un-veggie snack:
ALSO, If this is something that interests you, some good fish bones fried are equally delicious! Find a good quality fish and clean/filet it. Leave some meat on the bones, then fry it as you would the shrimp! Mmmm…
I might not have given this a second thought, except that it happened to be the second time in a few weeks that I heard mention of chowing on fried fish bones. A recent edition of Tasting Table NYC noted that fried fish bones are posed to become the city’s latest haute snack du jour:
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Tiring of kimchi, the fiery fermented cabbage side dish that is served at every single meal in Korea, we decided to try another cuisine on one of our last nights in Seoul. We thought Thai would be a good choice: how does one Asian country create another Asian country’s food?
Dilemma ensued. When trying something familiar in a new setting, does one (a) choose something they’ve never had before, something one cannot get in her country of dwelling or (b) choose a favorite dish to see how it differs? I choose (a) and 80 choose (b).
At Pattaya I didn’t love my super spicy (did they sneak kimchi in there!) vegetable-packed noodle dish (the fettuccine looking noodles were flavorless, which is an uncommon occurrence compared to the rest of my meals in Japan and Korea), but 80’s red curry was creamy with an appropriate amount of heat. I should have went with my fav, Pad See Ew!
Because we took such a long time deciding, the waitress dropped off our drinks (Soju!) and then never came back for the rest of the order. It was late and all of the other tables had eaten, which we found to be the case most nights. We didn’t find a place for dinner until after 8:30 or later and I think every night we were the last to order. Guess they haven’t been to Barcelona.
Anyway, we were waiting and waiting and then I see this granite looking block on our table. It’s not a salt shaker. It has Korean writing on it and then says the word “Mic” over a button.
Are we mic-ed? Can they hear our conversation about the slow service? Should we push the button?
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