Food Blogs -

by Borracho

ES Haiku

standing in the yard
small hands hold giant slices
juice drips in the grass

I came across this cute little haiku the other day on Garden Path. It was a brief, nostalgic take on the ultimate summer fruit: watermelon. This led to a search of haiku meme and a few minutes looking at various haiku attempts by people all over the web. Most of the haikus I came across were simple and sweet, though I came across some snarky ones on Twitter called #twaiku. One of my favorite examples was by Twitter User MJ:

Black socks being shown/at the 4 seasons cafe/pure class man. Pure class.

These cheeky twaikus were more my style and so I decided to try a few of my own that were a little more appropriate for ES:

Cheflebrity Smörgåsbord: Welcome to the Rock

Let me start off by making something perfectly clear: I don’t give a rat’s ass who wins on any reality competition show. For the most part, I think the contestants on these shows are the equivalent of tissues — made to be used and discarded as quickly as possible. I don’t find these people in the least bit interesting and if your most impressive “skill” is your ability to get chosen to appear on American Idol, or that sewing show that used to be on Bravo, I have no interest in following your exploits after the season is over, even if you are the big winner.

And although I pretty much feel this way about Top Chef Masters, I’d say I only have about 99% apathy. Why? Because I totally want Hubert Keller to win this thing.

Two reasons:

He’s a PBS show host and I always like seeing those guys get props.
He looks exactly like Sean Connery at about the 14 minute mark in The Rock. After he washes off the prison grime but before getting the full make-over by the barber.

I figure this as good an excuse as any to root for him. Oh…brainstorm! We need a Michael Bay-directed food movie. Given his love of fire and slow-motion, that is going to be one AWESOME crème brûlée scene.

Enough silliness…on to the smörg.

– I pray to you, oh Flying Spaghetti Monster, let there be a reality show involved: Human Train Wrecks Rocco DiSpirito and Jeffrey Chodorow could hook up again?

– How can you tell that a controversial issue is reaching the mainstream? Shaq tweets about it. Er, I mean: When the folks in the industry embrace it. Chipotle will be screening Food, Inc. at locations around the country.

After the jump…the vocal stylings of Mr. Mario Batali, a link to a story that includes the words “Giada” and “testicles,” and confirmation that Food Network and a former Olympian are completely in on the joke.

Friday Fuck Ups: Not-So-Easy Mac

So I know you all have this idealized foodie image of yours truly that starts with me waking up each day and whipping up a perfect batch of eggs florentine with a side of thick-cut pork belly and a few slices of passion fruit. No? OK, maybe just an idealized version of myself. But believe it or not, there was a time in my life when I cooked way less and drank way more. That time was called college. Well, and a few years after college, to be honest.

Back in those days, my favorite-favorite hungover 11 a.m. breakfast was Easy Mac. Actually I always say Easy Mac but I should clarify that I was never pathetic enough to use the microwave kind; just the stovetop Kraft kind where you pour milk, butter and a scary orange cheese powder over macaroni. It’s disgusting. And amazing. There’s just something about fake cheese flavor that I can’t get enough of.

Moving on, a few Fridays back I awoke around nine to discover I was massively hungover after drinking something pathetic like four beers. WTF! Getting old sucks. I didn’t have much food around, but it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d had an extra batch of white truffle-hazelnut ravioli, because the only damn thing I wanted was easy mac…