Canadian astronaut extraordinaire Chris Hadfield gives us the lowdown on food in space. As we've learned to travel farther and farther away from Earth, we've also greatly improved our snacking capabilities. In Zero-G, it turns out, nothing quite hits the spot like a peanut butter and honey sandwich on a tortilla. Plus, dude uses space scissors! Check it out straight ahead, but please save room for astronaut ice cream.
Huang, the subject of a recent New York Diet, has plans to come to Boston next month to guest chef at Empire. The opinionated Baohaus chef, who has been called "bigger than food" by none other than Anthony Bourdain, will visit on March 14. Dinner, cooked with chef Kevin Long, is $50 per person. He'll also sign copies of his new memoir, Fresh Off the Boat, which is very nicely included with the price of dinner. On the menu: Chairman Bao, the Uncle Jesse Bao and Coffin Bao Fried Chicken with spicy tingly condensed milk; oxtail soup with heirloom tomatoes and mung bean noodles; and pi dan tofu. Call Empire for reservations. [Earlier]
Feed it.Photo: Corner Bakery/FB
Grub Street gets word that the panini-soup-n-saladish Corner Bakery, based in Chicago, has plans to expand to Boston. A rep says that "Corner Bakery Cafe and Boston are a perfect match,” because "neighborhoods are an important part of the Boston community." Their motto, FYI, is "feed the day," like seize the day, if the day could snugly fit between two pieces of warm crusty bread.
Why aren't any of these people smiling? (Ludo's grin does not count.)Photo: Craig Sjodin/ABC
Andy Greenwald writes an essay for Grantland that basically tries to sink the unsinkable Anthony Bourdain and excoriate all of the benignly conspicuous conceits of ABC's show The Taste, described as a "a bland, underseasoned mess" that's overrun with "yoga-bowing amateurs" and "deluded Capoeira instructors who make 'food for awesomeness.'" (Greenwald also comes out here, it should be noted, against dessert as a legitimate dinner course.) The show is predictably awful, he writes, though Nigella Lawson is great, and, also, no one will ever dislike Nigella Lawson. Meanwhile, co-hosts Ludo Lefebvre and Brian Malarkey are nonstarters who don't do much to offer culinary expertise or entertain viewers, but worst of all is Bourdain, described here as a once-great "knight-errant of good taste," depicted "on a garishly lit soundstage, defanged like an aging circus lion" and a shadow of his former self up high atop a pyramid scheme of supreme boringness.
"Why do you come here? And why do you hang around?"
How's this for a high-maintenace rider? The British singer and animal-rights activist has requested that the Staples Center in Los Angeles not sell any meat during his concert. The arena will close McDonald's for the night, and offer special meatless food concessions such as vegan sushi and Sloppy Joes. Because that's exactly what people want to eat while swaying to songs about doomed relationships. "I don't look upon it as a victory for me, but a victory for the animals," says the artist behind the album Meat Is Murder. [Reuters]
Go on a movie date with Jamie Bissonnette!Photo: Brian J. Lapseritis
The Revere Hotel kicks off a dinner-and-a-movie series called Reel Chefs: Inspired Gourmet Pairings of Food & Film, starting on March 19. Launching the series is Toro and Coppa's very own Jamie Bissonnette, who's selected his favorite cult childhood film: When Marrow Attacks The Goonies. He'll also craft a menu to go along with the flick.
The fateful tome.
Boston chef Brian Poe goes on the record in his Boston Herald blog insisting that some people (such as, ahem, author Scott Haas, who gave a slightly cutting interview comparing Craigie on Main rising star Tony Maws with superchef Daniel Boulud) need to stop it with the New York lust. The Haas piece rankled Boston's chef community, who really hate those nudging reminders that Boston isn't New York and never will be. Kudos to Poe, who is talented and honest, for spotlighting this relationship, ambivalence topped with indignation and a twist of hometown pride. We have just one issue with his post. He writes: "I believe that Boston is on the cusp of breaking into the label “food city.” Can't we quit it with the labels? The more people jump all over themselves insisting that Boston is just fantastic the way it is, the more it seems like those countering opinions actually, you know, matter. Didn't high school teach us anything? Didn't Guy Fieri?
The ever-growing horse meat crisis in Europe is no doubt disturbing for those involved, but it's also the kind of story that's given a lot of fodder to comedians. The latest: Jon Stewart, who points out that even though things in the U.S. seem bad, at least our meat supply (probably) isn't tainted with rogue horse DNA. Then again, as Stewart himself says, What kind of a world do we live in where we can no longer trust the product purity — the regulatory oversight — of Transylvanian meat slaughterhouses? Check out the full clip, straight ahead.
Is the Hobo Lobo Bordello Slam Jam fresh tonight?Photo: Guy's American Kitchen and Bar
"Guy Fieri didn't register his restaurant's domain name," a Brooklyn-based programmer named Bryan Mytko tweeted yesterday, "so I picked it up. I think this new menu look great." Indeed. The fake menu that's now parked proudly at the spoof site Guy's American Kitchen and Bar now proudly offers "Panamania!," a boisterous entrée of deep-fried snake that comes with a "a printed out picture of David Lee Roth stapled on it and a sparkler sticking out of each eye," not to mention a "side of Bud Light you have to wring out of a Hawaiian shirt." It's sort of like the greatest thing ever. Also, it's a little more than depressing.
“Cookin is gooood!”
I'm picky about meatball subs so when I say is good it's really good
“Awsome food and drink”
After spending all your hard earned dollars in the Pru enjoy a few cool one here before you take the T home.
“Absolutely Amazing”
Having worked at Olive Garden for 3 years I guess I never really knew what REAL Italian food tasted like.
