Choice Bites 3.12.2013

If anyone has any doubt that Gordon Ramsay is a flaming narcissist, check out a partial list of his enemies, which include Jamie Oliver, Mario Batali, and Marcus Samuelsson. He's also talking smack about former NY Times critic Frank Bruni and Bobby Flay. Read the whole article here.

Sure, Tony Bourdain is a married man, but if you've ever wondered what he considers to be the sexiest foods, check out the list at the end of this Cosmo article.

What do you think? Does the prevalence of High Fructose Corn Syrup in so many products lead to an increase in Type 2 Diabetes? Seems reasonable to me, since HFCS is used in products that might not necessarily contain sugar because it improves mouthfeel, particularly in low-fat products.

Would you wear a dress made from bacon? My dog would love it.

The best restaurant in the world has issues, too, especially when its food makes 67 patrons sick in one week.  "Noma"virus, anyone?

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Choice Bites 2.27.2013

According to a Food Network press release, the most recent winner of Food Network Star, Justin Warner, is slated to debut his show on 3/30. "Food Network Star season eight winner Justin Warner hits the road in search of unique culinary rule-breakers in the one-hour special Rebel Eats, airing Saturday, March 30th at 10pm ET/PT on Food Network. Armed with $300 in his pocket, a beat up car and a passion for unconventional food and eccentric people, Justin travels the back roads of the South to try everything from moonshine and bacon beer to BBQ in a jar and jelly fish pasta. Along the way, Justin meets the cooks and proprietors who, like him, march to their own beat through the world of food."

Disappointingly, it sounds like a variation on $40 a Day/Diners, Drive-ins and Dives/Appetite for Adventure/Taste in Translation/any of the now legion Food Network and Cooking Channel shows where the host is just that - a host. Call me old-fashioned, but I still like cooking shows. This is why PBS rules.

Has anyone been watching The Taste, that crap cooking competition show on ABC? We watched the first episode OnDemand about a week or so after it initially aired and were sorry we wasted our time. Ordinarily, Ludo, Bourdain, Nigella, and Malarkey can be entertaining, but when combined in a format that's like The Voice meets Iron Chef, they are annoying.

Bourdain has officially become a sorry old fart, in it for the money.

Not surprisingly, the latest spokesman for Heart Attack Grill has died. Of a heart attack. Nobody can say truth in advertising doesn't exist anymore.

BBQ Pulled Pork Cinnamon Rolls. 'nuff said.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Choice Bites 10.9.12

Grant Achatz' team at Chicago's Alinea recently spent five days cooking at Eleven Madison Park in New York. And vice versa. All of the advance prep work that needed to be done (since Alinea's menu and servewear is so famously complex) is rather fascinating. NY Mag's Grub Street has the scoop.

Bravo's Top Chef is so popular, they've opened a restaurant. An extended pop-up, Top Chef Kitchen sold out within an hour (I know - I tried to get a reservation within minutes of receiving the press release). Food Republic has a bit more on the concept, plus links to the official Web site.

Elvis Presley's daughter has a food truck. Sorta. Does it serve deep fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches? Nope. Fish and Chips. Which isn't exactly more healthy.

Have you read the horrible news that there may be a shortage of pork products in 2013? How will we get our bacon fix? Some say not to worry - it's not true. (Besides, the world is going to end in December of 2012, so we won't need the bacon anyway.)

For the prurient among us, Neil Patrick Harris has a food-porn-only Twitter account @NPHFoodPorn.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Choice Bites 8.15.2012

Even though the next season doesn't premiere until November 4th, the Food Network has already released the names of the participants in the Next Iron Chef competition. As with Project Runway and Top Chef, it's an all-star season of sorts, with seven losers from past seasons coming back to compete once again (Nate Appleman, Amanda Freitag, Eric Greenspan, Jehangir Mehta, Elizabeth Falkner, Alex Guarnaschelli and Spike Mendelsohn). There will all be two first-timers to the contest - former Top Chef Masterstestant Tim Love, and the annoying Marcel Vigneron.

Taking another page from the Top Chef book, there will be a tenth competitor who will first battle it out online before joining the ranks. Among them are former Iron Chef wannabes Duskie Estes and Robert Trevino, plus newcomers Lee Ann Wong (Top Chef season 1, plus various shows on Food Network) and "renowned competition chef" Madison Cowan, who won the first season of Chopped Champions and bested Jose Garces on Iron Chef America, as well as participated in the BBC series, No Kitchen Required.

Don't know about you, but I think the web series sounds more interesting than the tv series. I'd love to see either Lee Ann or Madison win the whole thing and become the next Iron Chef. What do you think?

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Speaking of Top Chef...it's looking more and more like the next season of Top Chef will be Top Chef Pacific Northwest. Not only have Tom, Padma, and the gang been spotted in Seattle, but I also received an email with a tip that they were spotted on a Vancouver-to-Alaska cruise. Apparently the cast and crew left the ship in Juneau, where, presumably, they had another challenge. Hopefully none of the reality-show-whoring Palins will be making an appearance.

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I won't be going back to Chik-fil-A anytime soon, so this recipe for a home-made version of their sandwiches might come in handy. However, I have read before that they marinated their chicken in pickle juice, which is what gives it its je ne sais quois.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Choice Bites 7.24.2012

Taco Bell has revamped part of its menu with Chipotle-style burritos and whatnot designed by America's Next Great Restaurant and Top Chef Masters' chef Lorena Garcia. Nice try, but apparently it's not that good. Still, it's probably really tasty to those folks who routinely choose the dog food of Taco Bell over Chipotle.

Grub Street has a short but amusing interview with BFFs Tony Bourdain and Eric Ripert. Ripert has a new "show" on YouTube - watch the promo here.

Speaking of Bourdain, his wife is an animal. I wouldn't want to run into her in a well-lit alley, much less a dark one.

And speaking of animals, McDonald's employees in Paris are nuts. Beware what kind of eyeglasses you wear in their stores or you may be assaulted.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Choice Bites 6.28.2012

On Friday, July 13th, Chick-fil-A is promising a free meal (entree/side/beverage) to anyone who comes into one of their restaurants dressed "head to hoof" as a cow. For those not bold enough to go whole cow, there's a free entree for those wearing at least a few spots. Check out cowappreciationday.com for more details.

Has Paula Deen really lost 30 pounds, or is she wearing a bigger wig?

Threadless' "Omnomnominvore" t-shirt is the cutest!

Tony Bourdain wrote a comic book--Get Jiro!--that's coming out July 3rd. Order it from Amazon, and check out a sneak peek here.

Tom Colicchio and Padma Lakshmi have been spotted in Seattle. So I guess we know where Top Chef season 10 is being filmed. That's been the general consensus

Apparently it's the in thing for chefs to design shoes. Yes, shoes. And I don't mean Mario Batali's Crocs. Mozo currently offers shoes designed by Marcus Samuelsson, Chris Cosentino, and Aaron Sanchez, and they'll soon feature a line by Cat Cora. Would you wear them? I think Sanchez' are kinda ugly in an interesting way.

Vanity Fair has a "food porn" page on their Web site featuring cell phone photos of food taken by famous chefs. Check out cool pics by David Chang, Eric Ripert, and more.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Choice Bites 2.24.2012

I was fascinated by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's account of living as a vegan for a month. Not that I have any plans of joining him, but I think it's definitely do-able for short bursts. Have any of you omnivores tried veganism? Would love to hear your experiences.

Want to know the identities of 2012's 17 hottest chefs? Hot as in...hot. (No telling if thse folks can actually cook.) Surprised that Baltimore isn't one of the 17 cities? (I'm not.)

Have you heard the story about the child whose home-packed lunch didn't meet USDA guidelines and was forced to eat oh-so-healthy chicken nuggets? Apparently, it's not entirely true.

Back in the early 90s, I had never heard of celiac, or a sensitivity to gluten, until I found out that the son of one of my employers had the disease. Now it seems that everyone has it...or maybe it's just in the news all the time. There are more and more "gluten-free" products on the market, so these unfortunate folks don't have to completely give up bread or pasta or beer...but what exactly does "gluten-free" mean? The FDA doesn't really know, either.

James Beard Award-winning food writer Josh Ozersky thinks Jewish food sucks. Really? Maybe his grandma was just a lousy cook?

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Choice Bites 10.20.11

Playboy's got a new interview with Anthony Bourdain in which he discusses Haiti, celebrity chefs, and makes some interesting insinuations about Ronald McDonald.To save you the trouble of rifling through pages of T&A, it's also online.

Eater has another interesting interview with Christina Tosi, of Momofuku Milk Bar. Her first cookbook is coming out next week, and I, for one, am interested in getting my hands on a copy.

Guy Fieri - nice guy, or douchebag? I've always gone with the latter, and after reading this article, I stand by my opinion.

Serious Eats is a site I check literally every day. It's full of good food-related stuff. And just in time for Halloween, they have an article on pumpkin-carving. Props also to their chat board, which is full of ordinary people talking food. No elitist super-food-snobs there. ...well, not many.

Hopefully it will soon be cool enough to eat soup on a daily basis. Here are eight delicious-sounding recipes from super-chef Marcus Samuelsson. I particularly want to try the carrot with star anise.

Salon.com's short-lived food section seems to have disappeared, but Francis Lam is still cranking out some interesting stuff for Gilt Taste.

Posted by theminx on Minxeats.com.

Choice Bites 11.18.10

Chef Ferran Adria has been in the news for years, but maybe not as much as he has been recently. There's been speculation that he is closing his groundbreaking restaurant, El Bulli, but apparently he's just changing the concept. Read more about it in Eater's two part interview with Adria. Part one is here; part two can be found here.

More on Adria can be found in National Food Examiner Dara Bunjon's article, which includes a video, "An Evening with Ferran Adria," and a slideshow.

To purchase Coleman Andrew's book, Ferran: The Inside Story of El Bulli and the Man Who Reinvented Food, mentioned in the articles linked above, click here. (I got a copy for my birthday. Woot!)

Choice Bites 9.22.10

Ever wonder how Jelly Belly invents new flavors for its jelly beans? Now you know.

Here's an interesting comment from Frank Bruni on restaurant noise:

 "...a lot of restaurants manufacture that amount of noise because people want to feel like they are at a 'happening' place and sometimes the easiest way for a restaurant to telegraph [the message] 'we're happening' is to be absolutely cacophonous." (Huffington Post)

Manufactured, eh? Well stop it! I couldn't care less about happening joints. I just want good food.

UK newspaper The Guardian picks the 50 Best Cookbooks of All Time. Find 1-10 here and 11-50 here. I only own six of them.

He may have come thisclose to becoming Top Chef on TV, but the food served at Ed Cotton's NY restaurant Plein Sud, has so far garnered nothing but derision from the critics: Village Voice; New York Times

Meat as fashion statement: so what beefy cuts did Lady Gaga wear to the VMAs?

Choice Bites 8.4.10

Gwyneth Paltrow has written a cookbook, called My Father's Daughter. Hard to believe someone so slim actually eats, much less cooks, but apparently she eats what she wants in between movies, and then diets and exercises her ass off to get back into shape. Read more about in this article by Jeffrey Steingarten.

One of my favorite blogs is Serious Eats. It's pretty all-encompassing, and much more than a mere "blog." It might be the only foodie site anyone really needs. Check out this "A Hamburger Today" post in which Kenji Alt displays a lot of dedication and attention to detail in sussing out the recipe for the rare and elusive (to us East Coasters) In-and-Out Burger.

Do you subscribe to Tasting Table newsletters? Well, you should! They always have at least one interesting tidbit of information or recipe per day, more if you subscribe to multiple editions, as I do.

Then there's New Asian Cuisine.com, home to everything relating to Asian cuisine. They have a newsletter, too.

Would you eat a tapeworm to lose weight? Apparently opera singer Maria Callas did. Find out 24 other odd facts about What the Great Ate here.

Choice Bites 9.14.09

I am fascinated with and love to read about Asian food and culture. One of my favorite blogs is Eating Asia, for its gorgeous photography and interesting information about the continent and its various cultures and foodstuffs.

Photo of Cholon, Saigon's Chinatown, from EatingAsia.typepad.com.

Anthony Bourdain has stopped wearing his ever-present thumb ring; he's also lost the earring. Bourdain claims he's deFierifing himself. He quit smoking a while back - what's next? Rehab?

Speaking of rings, it's worth noting that they're notorious hiding places/vectors for bacteria and thus frowned upon in food handling. With each added ring, a cook is increasing your chances for infection exponentially. When you eat food handled by a guy with four or five rings on his fingers, it's like the gastro-intestinal version of unprotected group sex: each added protuberance makes it that much more likely you're picking up something -- really nasty. You might consider that next time Guy Fieri makes you an order of wasabi meatballs.

Ugh. Now quick - to get rid of the thought of Guy Fieri and his balls, check out this cute stop-motion video about chocolate.

And now, back to Guy Fieri. It's even worse than balls.

How well do you know your cheeses? Or your fonts? Time to play "Cheese or Font!"

Chef Rocco DiSpirito is writing his latest cookbook with suggestions from his fans on Facebook and Twitter. Hunh. He still won't accept my friend request. Wonder why?

Choice Bites for August 26, 2009

I do a lot of browsing, especially of food-related Web sites. What can I say? I'm obsessed. :) I would like to share some of my finds with you. I'm thinking of making this a regular feature here at MinxEats. What do you think?

Yum Makeua Yao with shrimp, Thai grilled eggplant salad. Photo by eGulletteer BryanZ.

Photos like the one above of amazing Asian cuisine from Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, and Japan can be found in this eGullet thread. OMG delicious-looking stuff.

It's State Fair time again! Check out these lovely nibbles from Iowa. Well, they're not all lovely.

I'm a little obsessed with Banh Mi right now. Don't these burgers look delish?

Mastering the Art of French Cooking tops the NY Times best seller list! About time!

I love looking at the food photos on Photograzing and checking out the food blogs behind them. You'll even find some of my photos there.