Greek Salad is a classic way to make the most of end-of-the-summer produce….and a great way to highlight these beautiful heirloom tomatoes! I add whole wheat pasta to a traditional Greek Salad to make a more satisfying meal, without adding too many calories.
Bryant Simon, author of Everything but the Coffee: Learning about America from Starbucks
Anyone laboring under the delusion that Starbucks exists to feed the hungry and solve the world’s problems will learn from Simon’s book that Starbucks is just a company, out to make as much money as it can by providing customers with what they want. [Read more →]
This Grey Goose Mango Lemonade is my favorite summer cocktail. It is so refreshing and goes down nice and smooth. But be careful, it will sneak up on you! [Read more →]
I’ve read David Foster Wallace’s essay “Consider the Lobster” in the book of the same name
But carnivore or otherwise, and maybe for reasons that are not clear to me, there is something disturbing about the Lobster Zone game (pictured below) at Benny the Bums, a little seafood joint in Northeast Philadelphia. [Read more →]
Finally summer is officially here, and for me that means that even though its hot in my kitchen, all I want to do is cook! The Greenmarkets are bursting with ripe, local produce…the time to get in touch with your inner Chef is now!!
One thing that a serious home cook needs is a clean and organized refridgerator. When I open that fridge door, I should immediately be inspired by possibilities. I want to see vibrant colors and the beauty of fresh produce. Here is a little snap shot of my fridge today…..
CSPI has threatened to sue McDonald’s if it doesn’t stop offering toys with its Happy Meals. According to CNN:
“McDonald’s is the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children,” CSPI’s litigation director, Stephen Gardner, said in a prepared statement. “It’s a creepy and predatory practice that warrants an injunction.”
That CSPI has a “litigation director” tells you most of what you need to know about the organization. That it compares a business to a child molester — for offering a free toy with its chicken nuggets — tells you the rest. [Read more →]
I am a die-hard New Yorker and when I travel I rarely think, “I could live here”, with the exception of Seattle and Philadelphia. I just love Philly. It’s a lot like Brooklyn, but (dare I say), better…
Everyone knows when you go to Philly you eat cheesesteaks… but Philly has so much more to offer. My first night there my husband and I had an Amazing meal at Tinto… A pintxos bar and restaurant, meaning small Basque dishes served family style. We had the Chef’s Tasting Menu ($70 per person).
With one annual exception, I rarely spend much time watching reality shows on television. That exception has arrived this month, as I feast upon a slew of food- and cooking-themed programs.
[Read more →]
I know y’all have seen the new V-8 commercial on the Tube these days. There’s a 20 something out walking past a store front window (I think it’s a gym), and he pauses, pulls out a V-8, cracks the sucker open and gulps that bad boy down like he’s in some frat party’s “Who can shotgun a beer the fastest?” contest.
It’s the most truth-in-advertising we’ve seen in a long while.
I can barely go 70 minutes without eating. So the possibility that there is a person out there, however yogified, who claims to have gone 70 years without eating OR drinking…well, that simply blows my mind.
Even if there is some cosmic explanation behind the condition of Prahlad Jani, the 82-year-old in question, he’s been missing out on some really spiritual experiences. Chicago deep dish. A top shelf burger in New York. Shoot, I frequently bring up my first foray into ethiopian food, which I certainly hope wasn’t the last because I loved every scoop of it. Yes, there is indeed a type of ethiopian cuisine. While every bite of food isn’t memorable, we all likely remember when and where we were when we tried something special.
It’s not too late for Mr. Jani though. At full growth, he could probably smuggle an entire Juniors cheesecake in his beard.
I work, I travel, I eat. That’s what I do. Last week I spent three days in Boston (my first trip to Beantown) and I believe I may have eaten at the best Steakhouse in the country.
I am totally digging my new chicken recipe. I use Wegmans Parmesan Italian Dressing and Weber’s Garlic and Herb spice. Cooking is a pretty macho things these days, think about it — look at the guys on TV — Bobby Flay, Emeril, Guy Fieri, and Alton Brown. Well, 3 out of 4 ain’t bad. I would like to think I am a pretty decent cook — and love cooking on the grill. Since the weather has turned, I have grilled practically every night. So I got this stuff from Wegmans and added in the spice — then rubbed it all over the chicken and basted it while it was cooking. Wow, was it good. The local potheads came floating towards my house like zombies when they smelled the amazing aromas coming off of my overworked grill. Most importantly, the girlfriend gave it the seal of approval. Sadly, the potheads are all still milling around in my backyard waiting for me to make the chicken again. [Read more →]
I recently gave up caffeine. I haven’t had caffeine in about a month. I only rarely drank coffee anyway — it sometimes upset my stomach, so I usually avoided it. Instead I often drank green tea in the morning, and at some point during the day, Coca-Cola. In a typical day I would drink one or two cans of Coke, or some or all of a 20-ounce bottle. [Read more →]
If I were King, I’d decree that no restaurant could put Swiss cheese on anything without noting so prominently on the menu, in bold type in at least a 14-point font, and without also notifying the customer placing the order, just in case the customer didn’t see the warning on the menu. Each restaurant or deli would have to tell any customer ordering a sandwich that had Swiss cheese, “By order of the King, I am required to inform you that this item comes with Swiss cheese. Are you sure that you want Swiss cheese?” In my kingdom, no one would ever have to scrape melted Swiss cheese off of a panini after they got home and discovered the offending fromage.
Also, if I were King, olives would only be permitted to be included in a menu item if specifically asked for by a customer. Olives would never appear, without warning, all chopped up in anyone’s salad, in tiny pieces that can’t be fished out.
My kingdom would be a humane, truly just society. So let it be written. So let it be done.
Pea shoots, asparagus, and dandelion! Sorrel, kale, and chives! Ramps, bok choy, and mesclun! Looks like we made it! Spring is here and I can mostly avoid the local supermarket for another 8 months. Our neighborhood Greenmarkets will get a lot greener in the coming weeks with bountiful produce (and pretty flowers too). This is where my year really begins and I fall in love with food all over again.
I am currently digging Chocolate Cheerios. In the 1980’s, when crack cocaine was tearing apart our nation’s inner cities, Coco Puffs were having a similar effect on the O’Connor household. They became a banned substance after my mom caught my siblings and I doing lines of the stuff you found on the bottom of the cereal bag that we called ”Coco Dust.” After rehab — we were confined to boring, healthy cereals like Kix, Rice Krispies, and Chex. But now I’m an adult (kind of) — I have a mortgage, I pay bills, and I do the shopping. And I can buy Chocalate Cheerios — which are allegedly sort of good for you (at least that’s what I keep telling my girlfriend). They are delicious and I just hope my mom doesn’t catch me relapsing on my Coco Dust addiction. [Read more →]
I am a Julia Child fanatic. I feel so cheated that she died before I had the chance to meet her and become her best friend (oh trust me, it would have happened!). Generally I couldn’t care less about the Oscars, but this year Julia is involved (albeit against her wishes). I will be preparing Julia’s Classic Roast Chicken to munch on while we watch the Oscars, followed by her most famous dessert, the Apple Tarte Tatin. Here are a few more of my favorite J.C. menu combinations and recipes.
Enjoy the Oscars tonight and Bon Appetit!
Every now and then we’re reminded that, despite the state of the economy and lots of people struggling to make ends meet here in the United States, we’re still fortunate. Beyond fortunate, compared to many parts of the world. On the local news last night was a story of homeless people at Ridge Avenue shelter in Center City Philadelphia organizing a donation effort to help people in Haiti. As one of the homeless men noted, unlike many in Haiti, he had clean drinking water. [Read more →]
America loves pie. The American Pie Council (yes, that seriously exists) recognizes this and has created National Pie Day (this Saturday, January 23) to promote it. I have come up with a set of Pie Day rules that I advise you to follow. If you do not follow my rules, you obviously hate America.
I’d like to start this post with full disclosure. I still eat beef occasionally but I struggle with it and I am working towards a meatless diet. I have come to accept that consuming four legged animals is quite simply bad for our health and bad for our environment. In terms of environmental pollution, the meat industry is worse than cars, planes, and all other forms of transportation put together. A 2006 UN Report says that raising cattle for human consumption is the greatest threat to our climate, forests, and wildlife. I feel pretty ridiculous going through the motions of environmentalism (recycling my plastics and newspapers, changing my light bulbs, carrying around a cloth grocery bag, limiting how much I use my car, etc..), while still committing the greatest sin of them all…eating beef.
It’s not often that a television commercial has the power to send me into a white-hot rage. You know the ones to which I refer: skinny, cooler-than-thou hipsters stuffing their faces and singing their songs of youth atop the roofs of a land that responsibility forgot. I tuned them out at first, assuming that the scruffily adorable trust-fund babies were shilling for vodka or the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. Sure, they were annoying but they were harmless, right? Wrong. To my horror, I realized recently that these ads are for something much more soul sucking-ly lame than smart phones or American Apparel. These ads are trying to put a positive spin on something that is pure, unadulterated evil: Miracle Whip. And now I’m pissed. [Read more →]
I bought these bananas five days ago. They are just as green today. This has happened to me before — I buy green bananas and they stay green. What’s the protocol here? They’re defective bananas, refusing to ripen. Should I bring them back to the store and ask for a refund? Even if I should, and they would refund my money — they probably would, since it’s a supermarket chain and they want to keep customers happy — I don’t still have the receipt because I didn’t expect to need it five days later. And anyway, I don’t think I’d bother bringing the fruit back for the $1.30 or whatever it was I paid for three bananas. I guess purveyors of defective bananas are counting on that. If I did return them, what would I say? “I don’t have my receipt, but these bananas refuse to turn yellow.” It’s too much like a Seinfeld episode. And why is there a sticker of a masked professional wrestler? Is it there to scare people into buying the bananas?
10. “Run for your lives! The electric carving knife has a mind of its own!”
9. “I didn’t have to stuff the turkey; it wasn’t hollow!”
8. “John, when you said you were bringing your new soulmate, Terry, we just assumed she was female.”
7. “It takes me a whole friggin’ year to forget how much I hate each and every one of you!”
6. “I realize it’s called that by some people, but can’t you just call it ‘white meat’?”
5. “Sorry about the pies. One’s pumpkin and one’s mincemeat, but don’t ask me which is which.”
4. “Yeah, my flat screen TV’s busted….Hey! Where ya goin’? We haven’t had dinner yet!”
3. “9-1-1? How do you get someone out of a tryptophan-induced coma?”
2. “Me? I’m thankful Thanksgiving just comes once a year!”
1. “You ate so much turkey, your belly button just popped like one o’ them Butterball thermometers!”
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
Organic farmers are in crisis. After spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to convert their conventional farms to organic in the past few years, they are now faced with the shrinking organic market and a mountain of debt. The middle class are looking for ways to cut expenses as they deal with job loss or job insecurity, and forgoing organic products has been an easy way to save a few dollars. [Read more →]
Jacob Sullum’s article “The Perils of Palatability” in Reason magazine is about the efforts of David A. Kessler to tell the rest of us how to eat and to define restaurants as malicious and deceitful because they make delicious food and then have the nerve to tell us about it. In 2007, Sullum interviewed me about my novel Mean Martin Manning, which has a character Kessler might admire: Caseworker Alice Pitney. In the interview, Sullum asked, “Is it hard to write satire in a world that gets sillier every day?” The answer is yes.
Polenta is a ground yellow maize, meant to be cooked slowly over low heat, with lots of stirring. In this dish I combine rich vegetables and cheeses with a soft, creamy polenta to create a hearty vegetarian meal.
10. Good N’ Porky
9. Bit-O-Runny
8. Gutterfinger
7. Nazi Rolls
6. Smelly Belly
5. Gecko Wafers
4. Almond Soy
3. Crummi Bears
2. Feces’ Peanut Butter Cups
1. I Can’t Believe They’re Not Raisinets
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
I know what you’re thinking, “there’s no way making homemade gnocchi is an easy weeknight dinner”, but you’re wrong! If you have a food processor (and I realize not everyone does….but they’re on sale at Lowes this week so maybe you could look into it), then making these light and delicious gnocchi will take you about 20 minutes. And if you don’t have a processor, then save this recipe for a rainy weekend afternoon when you have an hour to kill and make them by hand.
Pico de gallo (or “Rooster’s Beak”) is a raw Mexican salsa of finely chopped tomato, onion, chile, lime, cilantro, and usually some type of fruit such as mango or papaya. I use it on everything and I always have some in my fridge. It will stay fresh in the fridge, in an airtight container, for several days.
Fried Catfish with Pico de gallo: Serves 4
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