Wondering what Marco Pierre White has been up to since The Chopping Block ? For starters, he got his drink on as the host of spirits brand Diageo’s Bartender of the Year 2009 awards in London. Aristotelis Papadopoulos from Thessaloniki beat 18 finalists from as far as Korean and the Cayman Islands
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Booze News: Diageo Names Bartender of the Year; Starbucks to Serve Booze
A Drudge Report story about the government spending millions of stimulus dollars on pork products has earned itself an angry rebuttal from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who said that some 760,000 pounds of ham were for soup kitchens and homeless shelters. [ NY Daily News ] French fries at New York McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and White Castle restaurants have 98 percent less trans fat and 10 percent less saturated fat since the trans fat ban. Switching to trans fat-free oils reportedly didn’t increase costs, nor did it cause supply problems or have any other negative economic consequences.
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Feds Say Hams Were for Homeless; New York Fast Food Fries Lower in Fat
Korean pop group Wonder Girls performs the English version of their hit song “Nobody” at “The Wendy Williams Show” on Monday (July 21), which is said to be the girls’ American TV debut… To be frank I’m not sure who Wendy Williams is, but it’s a national TV show… can’t be bad in terms of exposure. Check the official clip on Wendy’s blog if the video above is not working [video via chanesechic@youtube] Wonder Girls made US TV debut on Wendy Williams Show from YeinJee’s Asian Blog
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Wonder Girls made US TV debut on Wendy Williams Show
Photo courtesy of Serious Eats We’re a little late to the party on this one, but last week, Serious Eats ran a step-by-step on how Michael White creates his fusilli with octopus and bone marrow, a post so detailed and gorgeously shot that reading it is almost as good as eating the dish–and if you’re ambitious, makes it possible to cook an approximation of the dish at home.
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Why Octopus and Bone Marrow Get Along So Well
As anyone who’s attended Community Board 3 ‘s SLA/DCA Licensing Committee meetings over the last few months knows, these things tend to have less in common with actual meetings than Pay-Per-View cage matches. Tonight’s event, scheduled to kick off at 6:30 at the Jasa/Green Residence on East Fifth Street, promises some smackdowns of its own. As Eater noted , residents of East Fifth — who have in the past mobilized against establishments ranging from Sasha Petraske’s Mercury Dime to the sky-high middle finger known as the Cooper Square Hotel — have already made clear their intent to protest a sidewalk cafe application from Thailand Cafe
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At Tonight’s CB3 SLA and DCA Licensing Committee Meeting…
Is there a more perfect summer food than a freshly grilled burger? (Um, perhaps. But it probably can be vastly improved by an accompanying grilled beef burger.) Bill Peet, executive chef at Aretsky’s Patroon shares the recipe for his Certified Angus Prime Beef Burger, as well as a few tips on how to grill a mean burger.
x-eyedblonde/flickr An article in yesterday’s Times discussed efforts to expand the implementation of a paperless food stamp system in farmers markets around the country; while food stamps have been accepted at farmers markets for awhile now, the relatively high expense of operating the electronic transfer terminals (and the dearth of farmers who can accept debit cards) has curtailed the program’s reach. New York’s Greenmarket program is also hoping to increase the number of farmers markets that accept EBT, says Sabine Hrechdakian, the Greenmarket’s special projects and publicity manager. “We have pretty much the the largest farmers market EBT program in the country,” she says
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New York Farmers Markets Also Hoping to Increase EBT Access
Speaking of cupcakes , Guinness Book of World Records staff was on hand this Saturday at the Mall of America, to check out what might be the biggest cupcake in the world. The 100-pound, 2-feet tall, 3-feet wide behemoth clocks in at 131,000 calories. It’s stuffed with fudge and frosted in yellow in honor of Sponge Bob Square Pant’s 10th birthday
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Oh, America: 100-Pound Cupcake Displayed in Mall, Fed to Hogs
More farmers markets are equipped with terminals allowing them to accept food stamps, which have now gone paperless since the government replaced the paper coupons with debit cards in 2004. The state of New Jersey started giving the terminals to farmers this month
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Save Yourself from Salmonella: Overcook Your Meat; This Summer, Do a Pizza Crawl or a Hot Dog Schlep
boliston/flickr Gather all ye lactose faithful: This Sunday, ice cream impresario Ben Van Leeuwen will team up with chocolatier Fritz Knipschildt for an ice cream social at Murray’s Cheese. Van Leeuwen, who tells Fork in the Road this will be his first ice cream social, will be serving chocolate, vanilla, and espresso ice creams, which will be crowned with Knipschildt’s dessert sauces and further embellished with whipped cream.
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Van Leeuwen Readies for Sundaes on Sunday, New Trucks, and Cinnamon Ice Cream
The Museum of the City of New York is getting in on the speakeasy craze with an outdoor speakeasy every Wednesday, set in a newly opened section of the museum that overlooks Central Park. Tell Them Jerry Sent You features drinks from the Prohibition era, although the point isn’t to have a secret bar, but rather to make historically accurate cocktails. [ NY Times ] New Orleans-themed restaurant Lucy Browne’s opened in the space formerly occupied by Steak Frites in the West Village.
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Open & Closed: Say Hello to Lucy Browne’s & Goodbye to Smith’s
Paul Lowry/flickr It’s been a busy summer at the Street Vendor Project . Both a recent spike in new-wave vendors and a New York Times article about vendor permit fraud brought increased attention to the group, which advocates on behalf of its 750 members. “We’ve been contacted by a lot of radio stations and newspapers,” says Richard Krebs, the project’s legal intern
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Street Vendors Will be on Governors Island Tomorrow, Along With the Street Vendor Project
The Stella saga continues: According to a report yesterday in Crain’s New York , the union representing workers at the Stella D’oro factory has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board to try to halt the Bronx factory’s planned closure. After going on strike last August, the factory’s 136 workers came back to work last week following a judge’s ruling that the company had violated labor law.
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The Latest in the Stella D’oro Saga
The Atlantic Food Channel has an interesting piece on crustacean rights that comes just weeks after Fork in the Road posted a recipe for barbecued lobster , which sparked a lively debate over just how humane it is to grill a sea creature alive. According to the Atlantic, New Zealand may have already included lobsters in its animal rights laws, but scientists are still at odds over whether crustaceans feel pain
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Do Lobsters Feel Pain? Let’s Hope Not. But Let’s Not Boil Them Alive Anymore, Just in Case.
According to Jon Shook, the motivation for him and Vinny Dotolo, his co-chef at L.A.’s Animal , to do their upcoming pop-up restaurant at Montauk’s Sole East was pretty simple. “Both Vinny and me are from Florida, and we grew up surfing, skateboarding, and hanging out on the beach,” Shook says. “Even though we live in L.A., we never get to the beach
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Oh, Those Animals! Jon Shook Looks Forward to Surfing (and Cooking) in Montauk
Fork in the Road has hit the cocktail trail at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans, from which regular dispatches will be posted this week. The scourge of the extra dry martini has started to abate, what with the growing popularity of the 50/50 martini . And vermouth is starting to make a comeback as a key ingredient in cocktails.
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Tales From ‘Tales’: Vermouth Makes a Comeback, and Gets a Spot of Tea
Tomorrow Our 10 Best will feature Chinese restaurants, most located in one of the city’s six Chinatowns (Manhattan, Flushing, Elmhurst, Sunset Park, Homecrest, Bensonhurst). All types of establishments are being considered by the Fork in the Road staff as you read this–from humble Fujianese noodle shops, to Sichuan food-court stalls, to sit-down restaurants that might be described as fancy. So tune in tomorrow morning, and see how our list compares with yours, plus get a valuable list of Chinese places you may want to visit or revisit
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Tomorrow: Our 10 Best Chinese Restaurants
As you may have heard, we’re giving away a copy of Andrew Coe’s Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States . We spoke to the author about what drove him to write about Chinese food and our relationship, as Americans, to the cuisine. The dish that the book gets its title from is hardly still served anywhere in the various Chinatowns of New York.
Following a Daily News article on poor New Yorkers catching toxic fish to feed their families, the city has announced plans to install 250 new signs warning would-be fishermen of the dangers of eating locally caught fish, namely PCB contamination and high levels of mercury. [ NY Daily News ] Dole is now suing the makers of the film Bananas! for slander. The film documented a 2007 trial involving Nicaraguan farm workers who claimed the company was aware of a chemical used on the crops that could make the workers sterile
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Dunkin’ Donuts Goes Canadian; Dole Goes Bananas Over ‘Bananas!’
File under worth reading: In Salon today, Sarah Karnasiewicz’s deconstruction of the crafty, urban homesteading trend –she deftly points out that, unless you have a giant garden, this is not your grandmother’s thrifty canning, but actually a luxury hobby. Because the truth no one tells you is that while canning and pickling and curing your own (locally grown, organic) food may be many things — rewarding, sustainable, health-conscious, creative and challenging, even — one thing it ain’t is cheap
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Salon on the DIY, Urban Homesteading, Canning, Pickling Craze