Gluttons Club

This is a classic example of how to treat alcohol in society. Mr de Croo likes to drink beer with meals. How civilized. He gets castigated for it by muslim guests. How rude. He cancels lunch since to him, it isn't complete without beer.

Good for you, parliamentary de Croo!

My calendar says Wednesday, my heart says Tesday.

NYT: Oooh, the wine section talks about American pale ales...shouldn't they rename it "beer and wine of the times?" They do beer often enough. Also, a number of the beers they list are from Colorado, a quiet-but delicious-brewing mecca in the US.

The overall theme seems to be outdoorsy food. Burgers from around the world, various condiments, pasta salad, tarts. The usual summer food stuff. Looks good but I doubt anyone will show up for a 4th of July bbq with a vietnamese meat kabob.

SF Chronicle: I'm confused...the lead article on urban potluck 4th of july parties is listed as in the sunday section. Huh?

For all you tech types, they offer podcasts of food articles.

I'm going to break tradition and mention a restaurant review here. There's apparently a north beach restaurant in the spirit of Joe DiMaggio. Cool.

Just in time for the 4th: an article about Greeks in England!

Wines section talks of a shortage of single malt scotch. Eeep! Cheese dish is an italian antipasto cheese in oil. And the tastings are suavignon from lesser sonoma appelations.


Screw it, no guest paper today. Everything is 4th of july bbq food anyway. Same article, different paper.

Tests Confirm Second Mad Cow Case in U.S. - Yahoo! News

Ah crap.

mmmmm, pancetta...



mmmmm, salami...

Wouldn't it be great if one could enjoy these two great tastes together...

Wait, wait! What's this?! You can! Behold the salami wrapped with pancetta:



See the site (in italiano) for details: http://www.baldosalami.it/it/sp_spancettato.htm
Which roughly (and comically) translates to:
"The BIG SALAMI PANCETTATO is a product of high gastronomy.

It is obtained from the making of a bacon that act as from intestine, replenished with mixture of Samos Milan.

The period of hard maturazione about 70 days.

The finite product presents a shape cilindrica, a white slice color rosy to the outside, red more marked one to the inside to typical grain of laughter of the salami Milan.

The bacon to the outside one maintains the soft product to the palate, the flavor is specially sweet."

I am in awe of this product.

Wednesday already? sheesh.

NYT: Hee hee, there's a writer named 'Marian Burros' this week. that's funny to me. Burros. Ha!

Anyway, a restaurateur with the slightly less comical name Chodorow has opened his 24th restaurant. That's a lot, even for NYC. Asimov analyzes wine feelings. Mini-malist makes korean salad. South African food is best in the bush. Gross candy is best. Something about smithsonian food folk. And Bobby flay makes food to match the decor. I didn't know he was gay.

SF Chronicle: Speaking of gay, let's move to the SF Chronicle now. Sorry, that was a cheapshot.

So the headline is about taking kids out for food. At first I was going to make a snide comment but after half a thought, I realize its actually important for kids to have exposure to good food and dining out etiquitte so they don't grow up to the be type who orders the chicken and asks for water with a lemon wedge at a restaurant.
Below the fold we have recipes for puddin', cold cucumber shrimp soup, pickles and rauch. Wait, what? I just read the rauch article. It's a great piece of barfly writing. Go read it: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/16/WIGFFD8LTB1.DTL#rauch

Moving along to the wine section, Pinot grigio is the focus of the lead. Chilean Cabs is the featured tasting. A lamb shoulder accompanies the cab and french bleu is the cheese course.

Sac Bee: The guest paper for the day doesn't get too far from SF, its the Sacramento Bee! Bzz.

The focus this week is on olive oils. Apparently the region is producing more quality oils as of late so its a good time to reasses this staple of the kitchen. Articles discuss what makes it virgin, local labels, other oils and the best of the best. Elsewhere, nice, ripe melons...

On wine, Dunne, as he/she is known, remarks on the bogusness of labels in their portrayal of the region.

It's not a very big section but good for the size of the paper it serves. The articles, or at least the headlines and ledes, are original. I give it my highest praise: I will make a point to try and return to actually read the articles later.

Shoo be boo bop de doo, wednesday food section coverage for youuuuu.

NYT: Skip badda wop doo doat, the lead article is about eating goat. Goat? In the Times? What are those latte sipping, sushi eating weirdos up to now? I've had goat, it's ok. Unfortunately, I think the goat I ate was one of the tin can eating type, not some fancy pants organic goat with highlights in its beard. What the hell am I talking about?

Um, shoo shoo do kachah, let's taste some Washington Syrah? ok, no more scat singing, I'm annoying myself. Apparently, the 2002 washington state syrah vintage wasn't very good. that's too bad.

Attention NYC types: Restaurant week is coming! take part.

Mr. Minimal uses cilantro to make his crabs more exciting. I don't like cilantro.

Nigella goes to scandanavia for cucumbers.

Some French guy made of white rubber reassesses restaurant reveiws.

SF Chronicle: Over to the other coast now. Whoosh. Here we are.

So non-stick pans are better but maybe not?! Flying, frying eggs!

People must not wear "I'm with stupid" t-shirts in fine dining establishments.

In wine: Feature on the carneros sub-region. Tasting of north-central coast pinots (ooooh!). And the cheese is a delicate flower.

Elsewhere, Alaskan salmon is taking over as local stocks plummet. I think we'll be seeing alot more articles like this in the near future.

Also, raspberry jam, lamb burgers and cooookies.

Detroit Free Press: Today's guest spot goes to the Freep. Mostly because I like saying Freep. They are a little tricky, putting their food section on tuesday. Who do they think they are?

Long list of articles but very little art to the layout. There is a wine section. Phew.

There seems to be no lead article so let's just start from the top with what appears to be a column called "cooking School". Poor layout makes it tough to figure out what's going on there. Just below is "A LEsson in Italian," seemingly another column. No, wait, the first article is just the recipes from the second. Who the hell designed this site?

Let's move on. Whoa! Alaskan wild salmon! Did I call that or what?!

mmmmm, pepsi lime.

Cuban cuisine that far north? You so crazy.

Wine: young reislings with excellent use of a line from "The Jerk".

I'd say not bad as far as coverage but holy crap could someone volunteer to format this page a lot better?

The Joy of Your Husband Cooking - Putting the big cookbooks to the test. By Sara�Dickerman

Came across this on Slate and thought you might like it. I stand by the joy of cooking as THE reference in the kitchen but like the cooks illustrated approach to revisiting methods and ingredients. My buddy the Minimalist has his book here too which is I guess good for this article but I can't imagine his book being particularly thorough. The others I am not familiar with. Overall, I agree with the assesment as far as I can comment on them. Anyone looking for a good gift for a grad or dad might want to consult this list.

...went to her cupboard and found it very well stocked indeed.

Molly, who just got a farm share and will have unknown fruits and veggies coming her way every week, wants to know what sort of things she needs to keep in her fridge and pantry so she'll be ready to cook when the unexpected beet, rutabega or dinosaur kale comes her way.

I'd begin with a couple of herb plants either in the garden or potted indoors. Basil, parsely, sage or rosemary are good and versatile things to have around.

Then, I'd focus on sources of protein and carbs on hand to accompany the veg and fruit that will arrive.

Proteins are easy. Get some meat and put in freezer. Wrap all meat in ziplock type storage bags to better maintain freshness and label the bags with type of meat and date so you'll be able to sort them easily. To thaw, put the meat, still in the bag, in a bucket of cold water. Pork or chicken can be thawed while being brined. It'll take longer to brine but you get both done at once. Freeze individual pieces separately for faster thawing or to have access to individual servings if need be. I like to keep sausages in the freezer at all times because they can go on the grill, in a pasta sauce, in a paella style rice dish, or with beans and rice. Chicken goes with nearly everything too. Deli meats, pancetta or dried sausages are good staples for the fridge but obviously won't last as long so take care of that.

If you don't eat meat, I guess you could have some canned beans on hand or something. But probably you may want to seek help elsewhere.

Oatmeal or other breakfast grains are good to have around for creative breakfasts with the odd fruit you'll get. speaking of grains; rice, couscous, polenta, etc. will last forever in the pantry and do well with nearly any veg/meat combination. Pasta is of course a must have. Stock a variety of shapes for whatever need may arise. Smaller shapes are good for the stone soup in the middle of winter while penne is good for everything from simple red sauce to cold pasta salad in the summer.

As for basic dry goods, you'll obviously need olive oil, vinegars, dry herbs, good salt, soy sauce, canned tomatoes, pepper in a grinder. Basic baking goods like flour, baking soda and powder, and sugar are handy for when the farm share arrives with both straberries and rhubard. Jars of stuff like roasted peppers, sun dried tomatoes, capers, duck confit, artichokes etc. are needed to match your tastes and desires. You never know when you'll end up with all the ingredients for, say, pasta puttanesca and boom, there's that jar of capers gathering dust in the back of the shelf. You thought you'd never need it but you were wrong.

Enjoy the farm share Moll, and good luck getting William to eat veg.

I know I'm forgetting some things here, feel free to leave other vitals in the comments section. Also, leave a clue as to who you are. The anonymous potato poster has me confounded.

Expert summarizing of important newspaper wednesday food sections.

NYT: I was thrown off by the lead photo of a horse but apparently you can picanic at Belmont park. I don't see why this is a lead article but then I'm not an editor at the Times, am I?
Mr Minimal treats rhubarbs like vegetables. Asian restaurants are trying to trick odysseus and his crew into forgetting about home. NYC chefs try bbq, a recurring theme in this section, frankly, I'm getting bored with it. A cali winemaker heads to south africa to do her thing. English cheese. Easy to miss but very interesting is an article about genever, a Belgian version of gin.

SF Chronicle: Due to time constraints, there will be very few verbs, modifiers or transitive phrases in this summary:
alaskan salmon, jams, lavender, walnut oil, sustainable vineyards, sheeps milk cheese, picking fruit.

No guest spot today, I have neither the will nor the desire.

Blah blah blah, wednesday newspaper food section review. I read the headline and lead graph, you get expert analysis.

NYT: Hey! continuing the gluttons club theme, an article on farmers markets! In related news, women are more increasingly becoming farmers, especially in the northeast. For the haute wine snob, a tasting of the 2001 bourdeaux vintage will help you plan your purchases if you haven't already arranged to buy futures. Mr Minimal tackles the prickly artichoke; ouch. Importantly, grass-fed beef cattle are becoming more and more popular (seriously, this is important--have you ever had grassy beef? delicious.) Speaking of cows, Nigella is back "raiding" cambodia for cultural treasures. Good to see the English haven't lost their touch.

SF Chronicle: Out with Boston, in with the Boston of the West, San Francisco. I'm gonna make the SF Chronicle the official second paper of Gluttons club. Its a better section and it doesn't require registration to access it.
Today their feature is on eating local goods for various reasons. I likey. It then sorta skips to the columns and so we'll follow. The wine section features fizzy reds from down under. The wine section cheese article, which I think is very clever, uses a very unfortunate pun to introduce the featured cheese from greece which goes by an unpronouncable name. Further on down, the food returns with an article about whole grain pasta; a topic in a different section last week I think. Finally, there's an interview with Chowhound founder. In the interest of not drawing readers away from this site, don't go to that site. Bad idea. You'll get shingles if you do.

WaPo: Today's guest paper is the venerable Washington Times. Recently they've been congratulating themselves over new developments in a story they broke more than 30 years ago. Woo, yay.
The Food & Dining is at first glance pretty thorough. There are a lot of articles and columns representing all the usual topics and categories. Another winner in the guest spot.
The top article is about baking bread. Not terribly exciting but its good to see they are covering the basics. Next is a restaurant review which is nice--if you live in DC. They've got a feature article about Moby, the bald and sensitive techno pop star and his vegetarian eating habits. How nice for him, but maybe eminem wouldn't pick on him if he ate meat. Let's move on and cover the rest in one sentence: The wine column covers spain, some lady collects salt, there's a book about blender cuisine (wait? did I just write "blender cuisine?"), we're running out of milk, there's a tea room, mangoes are versatile, a burger can be made in less than half an hour and Miss Saigon is pretty.