The latest and greatest news about celebrity chefs, served up buffet style.
– You can be the proud owner of a Rachael Ray nude fantasy portrait. Be sure to rush for Christmas delivery!
– Eli’s coming. Time to update the handy Endless Simmer NYC Top Chef map.
After the jump…just a small bite for me, Sorvino gets saucy and Sandra sinks to new depths (!?!).
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The latest and greatest news about celebrity chefs, served up buffet style.
– Apparently, this is not a figment of your twisted imagination: Rachael Ray is selling a suitcase that will transport your lasagna.
– Alton Brown + Multitaskers + Bacon = five kinds of awesome!
After the jump…fresh fruit from a Food Network personality, Garces looks to exact revenge for the defeat of the Phillies and Tom C. goes On the Road.
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Editors Note: My neighbor Kashou Bennett who blogs at The Straight Torquer has been bragging about his garden for months. As we wrap up our outdoor activities, Kash gives us one more remembrance of warmer days.
The leaves are turning, the wind is getting chillier, and I have finally retired my garden.
I had harvested most of the vegetables a few weeks ago, but my basil plants this year just kept on kicking. It was a small garden, not difficult to keep weeded and tended to, just a tidy patch of tilled earth in the front yard of my house in Columbia Heights, Washington DC.
The reason I kept those last hardy basil plants around as long as I could was that the little group of plants represents more to me than just a place from which I can get a bit of food. My garden was a public statement — and when I say public, I mean front yard public — of organic living and self-sufficiency that I was inspired to undertake by Michelle Obama’s organic garden in the backyard of the White House.
Sure, I could have avoided some sidewalk casualties had I protected my pepper plants in pots on the back porch. Several times I rescued the fragile flora from incoming threats of various nature. From inebriated friends staggering through the yard and just not realizing what they were standing in (hey man, watch out!), to the daily assaults coming from the games of the kids who live on my block.
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My back hurts. Really hurts. I have no idea how chefs stand for that many hours in a row. I just finished my most recent catering gig. This was with 80P’s mom again. I conducted many, many brainstorming conversations (thanks: Maids, Romeo, El, WestCoast, BS, 80P…) but because I’m so used to Eating Down the Fridge (using up ingredients in my fridge/pantry and not shopping for new food) that I could only fathom working with items already in my possession, or ones I knew I could pick up while working at the farmers market.
Fortunately, I was recently in Philly for work and had some spare time before dinner (ate at Monk’s–mussels, fries and stout–with BroadAndPattison). I found this adorable nut shack: Nuts to You.
I’m not even kidding, I was in that place for 45 minutes browsing the 4 aisle store filled with nuts, dried fruits, grains and candies. I walked out with, and I’m still not kidding, FIVE pounds of food, which I then had to drag around as I wasted more time checking out Banana Republic, Lacoste, Williams-Sonoma (don’t get me started on their uni-tasker inventory; they have 6 instruments alone to peel and chop garlic) and this weird all-natural soap and lotion place with the perkiest staff of all time. Soap that smells like pine nuts and lavender, no thanks.
I left Nuts To You with: dried dates (pound), dried figs (pound), quinoa (pound), mixed bag of almonds, cashews, peanuts, hazelnuts and walnuts (pound) and cashew butter (pound). Yes, not peanut butter, but cashew butter. And I saw them make it. There was this crazy looking glass machine with some peanut oil in it and the salesperson dumped a pound of cashews into the machine and then out oozed cashew butter. No salt, no preservatives, no corn syrup. Just nuts and oil. A-mazing.
Anyway, with that in the cupboard, here is what I proposed to 80P’s Mom:
80P’s Mom selections after the jump.
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Is it just us, or do Halloween recipes get creepier and simultaneously more delicious every year? Halloween isn’t just about candy and Halloween costumes any more. Here are our top 10 favorite finds from around the web:
Canary Girl shaped her olive-topped eyes out of ground chicken, but suggests you can also use ground pork (or ground whatever you like).
Las Vegas Food Adventures is baking these bloody (and yummy) almond-topped cookies.
Woman’s Day deconstructs potpie, with some added body parts.
My Little Corner of Savings has a recipe for these crescent roll and hot dog creations. The little mustard eyes are a nice touch.
As the noted economist and Nobel laureate Steely Dan once said, “Times are hard…you’re afraid to pay the fee.” While Mr. Dan was not necessarily talking about our current economic downturn, the sentiment remains true.
When it comes to buying food, though, there are times when it makes sense to cut some corners and there are times when you just have to bite the bullet and shell out for quality. The smart shopper, however, knows the difference. There are some no-brainers out there. Never buy cheap gourmet ingredients like prosciutto. These types of purchases don’t come often, and when they do you’re usually happy to lay out some cash.
But what about the staples that form the backbone of your kitchen? How can you get the best bang for your buck without overspending for something that won’t pay off? Check out the list below for our top three best investments for your shopping dollars and the three items you can nab from the bargain bin.
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Brit, you might not want to read this…..
When I was gallivanting about last month, one of my main priorities (apart from saving humanity and all that) was to understand the cuisine of an obscure little country located on the island of Great Britain—a nation that once struck fear in the hearts of even the most stalwart champions of freedom: England.
This tiny little swath of land, located in the Northern Atlantic, shares land borders with better known Scotland and Wales. Apparently, the citizens of this country “England” were some of the first immigrants to our great nation. Yeah, who knew! Having sampled some of the traditional English fare, I understand why these Englishmen put off the massacre of the indigenous Americans until after they learned some culinary skills from America’s first people.
I found all of this out over a gruesomely disgusting meal of black and white pudding with famous English celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. That’s a picture of him pondering the quirks of the English palate above. More on that and some complimentary analysis of the cuisine of our former colonial overlords after the jump.
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