Endless Simmer - A Food Blog

While you may think star-commenter JoeHoya (or affectionately, JH) may simply spend all of his blog reading time with ES, you’d be shockingly mistaken. JH actually writes for the *rival* food blog, DC Foodies. And as I never really read other food blogs (unless he/she comments on our posts and leaves a link to their blog) I have neglected JH’s hard work elsewhere. So, here, JH - our official ES tribute to our first and favorite non-friend commenter. (Actually, you know what that stinker first wrote on our blog - he corrected a misspelling of mine…) Anyway, enjoy our GOP foe boy, JoeHoya.

Investigative Reporter [JoeHoya]

Disgruntled Cheese Plate Eater [JoeHoya]

Exhaustive Restaurant Critiquer [JoeHoya]

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Wow. I have to admit this comes as somewhat of a shock. Your Eater of the Year and Tastiest Man-Chef, Anthony Bourdain, is currently getting his ass grilled by a bunch of vegans.

In our second Who Cooked It Better? contest, Bourdian is losing to Hezbollah Tofu by 70 percent to 30 percent. It’s not over yet, but unless Bourdain can pull a Hillary and change up the rules in the middle of the game, that margin is gonna be awfully hard to overcome.

Voting continues through Monday at Midnight.

Check out the original post here

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Those of you who read Endless Simmer regularly know our goal is to provide you with informative, witty and timely posts about eating and the food world. But you may also know our real goal is to eventually sell out to the man. You see, the only thing that convinces us to get out of bed every morning and post religiously is the hope that this thing will really take off and some rich sap caught up in the Web 2.0 bubble will buy us out for millions. Unrealistic perhaps, but do you have a better idea? And don’t say working.

So when gansie got an email out of the blue from an Outback Steakhouse PR flack, offering us a free gift certificate worth $25 in the hopes that we would blog about their fine dining establishment, you can imagine how excited we were. I mean, it’s not exactly a takeover bid from Rupert Murdoch or Nick Denton, but every corporate whore has to start somewhere, right?

Of course, half of us just wanted to hop in the car immediately and head to the nearest Outback to devour a greasy and delicious bloomin’ onion followed by a scrumptious thunder from down under brownie ice cream treat. But the half of us with more business sense decided to offer it to you, our loyal readers, as a lure to sign up for our brand new Weekly Simmer email update, promising that the 50th person to sign-up would win the gift card.

Apparently, this may not have been the most enticing prize of all time, as it took us almost two weeks to get to lucky number 50 (and there are about 5 times more people than that in my family, so that’s really not saying much).

Anyways, after much cajoling, we found a lucky winner. Congratulations are in order to Sara from Centreville, Virginia, a loyal ES reader who has promised to regale us with stories of the Centreville dining scene and her kids’ love for Jamaican jerk seasoning. Sara, your prize winnings are in the mail.

Stay tuned to ES for more contests (and yes, the prizes will only get better). For those of you who didn’t sign up because you were afraid of winning the gift card, you’re in the clear now:

Photo: Grow a Brain

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In last week’s Who Cooked It Better?, Giada De Laurentiis put some serious smackdown on Rachael Ray. With more than 340 of you weighing in, Giada’s prosciutto-wrapped scallops are preferred to Rachael Ray’s by a whopping 86% to 14% margin.

Speaking of RayRay, she may be on the market for a new nemesis, because her frequent sparing partner, Mr. Anthony Bourdain, has a powerful new enemy.

You may remember that Bourdain earned the ire of the vegetarian/vegan community with this quote:

“Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, and an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.”

Well the folks over at the new Hezbollah Tofu blog are putting their money where their morals are. They’re cooking their way through Bourdain’s classic Les Halles Cookbook, in an attempt to prove that his fatty, meat-y, extra cheesy recipes can be just as tasty sans the animal products. Hezbollah Tofu’s first challenge is one of the Les Halles mainstays: French onion soup.

Bourdain’s version, on the left, starts with a meat-heavy broth that calls for both chicken stock and bacon. Complicating life for the vegans is a whopping six ounces of butter. This delectable mess is topped with crispy baguette croutons and grated Gruyere cheese. (Real, imported, Gruyere, obv.) If that’s not enough food snobbery for you, the recipe calls for a Bouquet Garni (that’s chef-speak for parsley, thyme and bay leaf). Complete recipe here.

It obviously won’t be easy for Hezbollah Tofu to top Tony B’s gooey bowl of goodness, but she gets downright creative on Bourdain’s ass, losing the bacon and subbing in black trumpet mushrooms blanched in a sherry/vegetable stock mixture. And this is no bland, tofu-based fake cheese - tahini, nutritional yeast, lemon juice and more go into this delicate un-cheese. In a final attempt to out-fancy Bourdian, the vegan FOS is topped with toasted almonds. Complete recipe here.

So, dear readers…

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Photos: Chowhound, Hezbollah Tofu.

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Now here’s an ES fan who is all talk and all action…

Yesterday’s discussion of Kerrygold Irish butter inspired quite the passionate response, with readers weighing in from the Emerald Isle to Oklahoma. But the most exciting response came from MissGinsu, who promised a “premium butter throwdown” and then backed it up with a nine-way butter battle royale, detailed over on her blog.

Miss G. sampled the nine best premium butters she could find (and yes, she does feel a little ill now). She’s still not completely sold on the Kerrygold bandwagon “most of what I’m tasting is salt,” but she was blown away by the French entry - Elle and Vire - and even discovered a high-class butter made right here in the good ol’ U S of A, Pennsylvania’s own Krowka Maslo Wiejskie.

This is goodbye land o’ lakes - I am officially a butter snob.

Link: Miss Ginsu

Photo: Pennsylvania state government, and yes, that’s an 800 lb. Ben Franklin butter statue.

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Good news for those of you still down in the doldrums about effing up your NCAA pools (aside: I don’t care if you did pick all four number one seeds, that was a wuss move and you don’t deserve any credit). But my point is, you have another chance to be a winner, because we’re still looking for that lucky reader who’s gonna get a free gift certificate to the Outback Steakhouse worth $25.

All you gotta do is be the magical 50th person to sign up for The Weekly Simmer, our email newsletter bringing you ES highlights, updates, bonus features, and much more (OK, maybe not that much more).

No cheating of course, but let’s just say we’re getting veeeeerrrry close to a winner.

PS - Here’s a fun fact from the OS: Actor Kevin Costner is such a fan of Outback and the Bloomin’ Onion that he put the Outback Steakhouse Airship in his upcoming Disney Touchstone movie, “Swing Vote.”

OK, fine. Maybe that wasn’t that fun. Just sign up for the email. Please.

Photo: Querocomer

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It’s come to our attention here at ES that despite all these food blogs, there are only so many things a person can actually cook. I mean, it takes a lot of hard work to come up with an original, tasty combination of ingredients, and even when you do, chances are someone’s already thought of it before anyway. Just ask Jessica Seinfeld. So what’s a snarky food blogger to do? Why, judge others of course. On that note we introduce our newest feature: Who Cooked It Better?

Inspired by Us Weekly’s in-depth examination of celebrity costumery, Who Wore It Best? we’ll be browsing the food world each week to bring you a head-to-head match-up in which you, the readers, get to decide Who Cooked It Better?

It’s only fitting that our first culinary clash is a fishfight between the Food Network’s two sultriest chefs. Anyone can wrap a simple broiled scallop in bacon and make it taste pretty great, but not everyone can produce the beautiful succulence that is emitted by Rachael Ray and Giada De Laurentiis on a daily basis.

Pictured in the left-hand corner is the entry from our first cheftestant, the New York-born, former Macy’s candy counter clerk and aspiring queen of all media, Rachael Ray. Thankfully, RayRay resisted the urge to make an entreetizer or stoup this time and went semi-classic with her scallops, which are marinated in Teriyaki sauce, wrapped in thickly-sliced bacon and served on a tantalizing toothpick. Rachael gets creativity points for adding a slice of water chestnut and piece of pickled ginger to each scallop. Full recipe here.

In the right corner is our challenger, Rome-born, Hollywood-raised brand new baby mama Giada De Laurentiis. Giada went for a refreshing take here, blending up a tomato-basil-olive oil rub for her scallops, and kicking it up a notch by wrapping them in prosciutto. These scrumptious shellfish look pretty gushingly gourmet on their bed of fresh arugula, although perhaps a little hard to handle. Full recipe here.

So, dear readers, your thoughts please…

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The Internet is fun and all, but it can be so difficult, right? I mean, all that clicking and typing and backslashing - it’s like having a second job!

We here at Endless Simmer recognize that you don’t have all day for us, and that’s why we’re very pleased to announce The Weekly Simmer - the very best of Endless Simmer, delivered direct to your email inbox, once a week.

Of course, most of you loyal fans will still check Endless Simmer 5 to 6 times a day for updates, but for those of you who tend to (gasp!) forget about us from time to time, we will handpick the best of ES for you once a week. Just pop your email address into that little box below and you’re on your way (you will also have to respond to a confirmation message).

Now - here’s the really exciting news. Because we’re so excited about The Weekly Simmer, we’re offering a FREE $25 gift certificate to the Outback Steakhouse to the 50th person who subscribes to the Weekly Simmer - so don’t be shy!

Oh, and of course we won’t spam you or sell your email addresses or any crap like that. What kind of people do you think we are, anyway?

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Editors Note: Our favorite and most knowledgeable commenter, JoeHoya, got a sneak peak of Mr. Bobby Flay, right here in DC. Below he shares his brush with Food Network fame.

About three weeks ago, local blog FrozenTropics informed readers that the Food Network would be filming a piece at Granville Moore’s, a Belgian beer and mussels place that describes itself as “A Gastropub with a Healthy Belgian Fetish.” According to the network, this would be a profile of Chef Teddy Folkman and his mussels and frites for an upcoming show called “America Eats.”

Why choose such a new and relatively low-profile locale instead of heavy-hitter Robert Wiedmaier’s Brasserie Beck? Hard to say, but Teddy submitted an audition video to the Food Network– over the top, to be sure, but a great insight into his personality and the enthusiasm he brings to the restaurant – and they liked it enough to come calling.

On Monday, they shadowed Folkman as he shopped for fresh fish for the evening’s special, prepared mussels, and served the first few folks who came into the restaurant that night. Though it had been billed as a full night of taping, the crew had packed up and left by the time I arrived at 6:30.

Food Network fans smelled something fishy, and the abbreviated taping wasn’t the first clue. Nothing about “America Eats” could be found on the network’s site, and they asked Folkman and his staff to plan a party this afternoon at which Teddy would tape another demonstration of how to make his mussels with blue cheese, bacon, spinach and shallots. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to smell a Throwdown in the making.

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