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by BS

R.I.P. Gourmet Magazine: 1940 – 2009

Sad day for those of you who prefer your food journalism in dead tree form. Beleagured publishing giant Conde Nast has announced they’re pulling the plug on Gourmet magazine after nearly seven decades in print.

Gourmet’s impending doom had long been rumored, but highfalutin foodies held out hope that Conde Nast would shutter Gourmet’s more downmarket sibling Bon Appetit instead. Personally, I’m glad to see BA survive (at least for now), as it offers more content for run-of-the-mill food lovers while Gourmet was a little too focused on Paris wine bars for my taste. But it’s still sad to see such a longstanding food world authority fall by the wayside.

The November issue of Gourmet will be the magazine’s last. Fortunately, Gourmet’s recipes will live on via the Interwebs at Epicurious.

What say, you ESers? Will you mourn the death of Gourmet?

in Personal 12 comments

by BS

Breaking Gossip: Padma Expecting Mini-Padma

Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah. Stop the presses. Or whatever the online equivalent is. Keep the presses going, I guess.

Grub Street points us towards the “Moms and Babies” section of US Weekly’s website (yes, it’s an entire section), where the latest item is about close friend of ES PADMA LAKSHMI. Yes, it’s what you’re thinking:

Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi is pregnant, her rep confirms.

So much to discuss! What does this mean for her sitcom deal? When will the Top Chef-testants have a “cook for pregnant Padma challenge?” Where is she registered?!?

Oh right, the gossip part. US goes on to call Padma’s pregnancy “nothing short of a medical miracle” due to her endometriosis (unclear exactly how much of an exaggeration that statement is). But furthermore:

The baby’s father has not been revealed. Online reports have speculated Manu Nathan is the dad, but her rep denies that, telling Us he’s Lakshmi’s cousin.

Weird! I had no idea Padma was dating her cousin. Or that she was back together with Rushdie! Or that the baby is Bourdain‘s!

Feel free to continue unsubstantiated rumor-mongering in the comments.

(Photo: Us)

in Celebs / Personal / TV 5 comments

by LC

Mary Had a Little Lamb. Roast.

It’s officially Fall and getting chilly. I know some families make hamburgers and hot dogs to celebrate the end of summer. We, on the other hand, put a lamb on a spit and roast the shit out of it then invite neighbors and co-workers over to get completely inappropriate, courtesy of my uncle G. In keeping with ES’ other end-of-summer post, I think this might count as food on a stick but more…I don’t know…pornographic?

I’m sure you have a lot of questions: where do you even buy a whole lamb? How long do you have to cook it for? How do you cook it? What parts of it do you eat? What parts are the best? What does it taste like? I The actual chef will reveal the secrets of the lamb after the jump…

in Lists / Personal / Red Meat 7 comments

by BS

Miracle Berry Tripping: Live Blog

Good friend of the blog Sara is celebrating her birthday this evening, and she made the very wise decision to do so the miracle fruit way.

Long-time readers will remember I first starting blabbing about Miracle Fruit nearly two years ago: the gist is that these tiny African berries have the effect of numbing your tongue’s sensors so that everything sour tastes sweet. Sour cream becomes vanilla frosting, tequila tastes like candy, sour patch kids are just patch kids.

I wanted to try these things so badly that my older brother even bought me a miracle fruit tree for Christmas! Alas, it turns out Brooklyn winters are not quite the same as tropical African ones, and my miracle plant withered before bearing any fruit. But now we’re giving it another try. Sara has purchased 10 miracle berry tablets for her party, and we’re about to finally find out what all the fuss is about. Read on, if you dare.

PS – No, mom, they’re not drugs. I swear.

8:27 pm: The Feast

Laura: It looks like someone got high and wanted all really healthy food.

Adam: You all are fucking gimmicky.

8:45pm: Sara breaks out the mBerries

Looks kinda small. Hope we didn’t buy too much food.

in Personal 15 comments

by gansie

Flowering Ideas

When I was home for Rosh Hashana last weekend I climbed into DAD GANSIE’s garden and captured a bagful of tomaotes. Some green, some greenish red, some bursting red.

The cucumbers had long been pickled. The carrots weren’t ready to be plucked.

But I wanted more to take home.

And then all of a sudden, I started talking about my mom’s flowers. And how they looked delicious. I’ve seen edible flowers on menus before. I didn’t know much about them. Like all things in life, a quick google search showed me what flowers I could munch on. Luckily, marigolds fit into that category.

We performed some taste tests before I made my mom mine her entire plot. My mom, dad and I (my sister refused) each tried a bite. It was bitter, but not terrible. I went in for a second taste, this time with a petal dipped in salt. Like all things dipped in salt, it became much more enjoyable to eat.

With my mom hysterically laughing, clipping flowers from the backyard, I am now in possession of some seriously beautiful marigolds. Currently, the stems lay in water, in a proper vase, pretending they’ll wilt to their death right there. But my stomach knows better.

I will eat these little bursts of orange. Of course, I have no idea how to incorporate them into a meal. And I refuse to wuss out of this and toss them with greens.

Perhaps in a pasta salad with herbs and feta?
Baked into an egg dish?
Stirred into guacamole?

Ideas please!

in Personal 10 comments

by Lyndsey

Endless Contests: Small Kitchen Stories

Surely I’m not the only one here who complains about the size of their kitchen. Moving a few months ago from Delaware to New Jersey, we went from a duplex that had a remarkably large kitchen to a rowhouse with a ridiculous tiny kitchen, almost an afterthought in the 100-year-old home. I have lived in apartments and homes that have had small kitchens before, but our new kitchen takes the cake in terms of function and feng shui. When we moved in, there were only cabinets and counter space on one side of the kitchen, and those were all quickly filled up with only a tiny fraction our kitchen-ware. The microwave and dish drainer took up the minimal counter space. We added metal shelving and a kitchen island on the other side of the kitchen, and that island now serves as our one and only prep surface.

Generally speaking, the size of the kitchen is not a problem if we I’m whipping up something quick. However, when I am feeling ambitious and want to make something like enchiladas, or even Indian food, which require a lot of ingredients, I have developed a few methods to keep myself from losing my mind:

in Contests / Personal 8 comments

by Russell Warnick

An Outstanding Dinner in the City…Er, Field

A quiet Sunday in late August on a nondescript corner of Manhattan’s Alphabet City. The corner is walled by the branches of a decades-old willow tree and an array of urban flowers, and a sign sitting on the sidewalk reads “Farm Dinner.” A hundred-odd people have gathered for a dinner experience that has traversed the country and rests at this location for only two nights. The location is La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez Community Garden, the chef is Josh Eden of Shorty’s 32 and the host is Jim Denevan, founder of Outstanding in the Field.

Denevan and his Outstanding in the Field team travel the country in a bright red bus offering a roving five-course dinner with a simple concept: source your ingredients locally (including the wine), find a chef who is celebrated regionally, then invite all of your closest friends. OK, so the last part I ad libbed. The elaborate event was more like a wedding where everyone was giddily excited but no one knew each other. Fortunately, no one was seated at the kiddies table. After a glass of wine or two, it wasn’t a problem — we were all old friends catching up over a great meal. I was fortunate enough to be seated across from the photographer of the OITF website and cookbook, who was a host of knowledge on the food, which made my experience ever more fascinating.

More on the OITF menu, and some drool-y food shots, after the jump.

in Personal / Photos 0 comments

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