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it’s not a long list, but this Kid Sister video is currently at the top. Big ups to Super Dawg!
There once was a thing called “Meatopia” (If I was a radio DJ I would be punctuating with air horn blasts the spaces between paragraphs, so imagine one sounding off now if you will.)
Don’t believe the hype. DON”T BELIEVE THE HYPE. I’m speaking for the little guy here. If you read a good thing about this farcical festival of food, you read an untruth.
Mista Bee buzzin with a review of the first annual “Meatopia” a so called food festival.
You’ve never seen a bee, a little flying bee, wait in a line of people to get some food before have ya? But wait I did in several lines, waiting for a meaty morsel patiently, waiting waiting, and then as each food vendor ran out of food, you read that right, (food vendors out of food?) I was told along with all the people in line waiting “sorry we’re out of food.”
As each of the 30 “Meatopia” food vendors ran out, so on it went each line getting longer, and before a taste of food the vendor would inform the line “sorry all out.”
For two and a half hours I waited and was not fed a scrap. The bullshit of it all was the food was pre-paid for, I’d paid 45$ for 6 tastes. I thought innocently “Meatopia…six tastes…hamburger…hotdog..ribs…pulled pork…lamb…maybe some meat i’d never tried like rabbit?Yumms! I’d bought a ticket online and I showed up hungry and with 3-4 hours left of this so called Meatopia. I expected to eat, heck I’d spent 45$, anybody living in Cleveland can feed their two kids for a week on that much cash. TRUE.
I’d say there was a hell and I was in it if I wasn’t a bumble bee.
Sad and Hungry, if it was Meatopia I’d witnessed the fall of it.
Final notes, I’d like to say damn Meatopia’s creators, kiss my bee hind now and in the next years to come jerks, and I’d also like to thank Meatopia for ruining my afternoon. lucky I don’t sting ya.
A couple of weeks ago while trying to enjoy myself in the Lower East Side a friend of mine and I went to get some post drink snacks at Mikey’s Burger, the latest offering from lower Manhattan’s leader of Vietnamication, Michael “Bao” Huynh, the guy behind Baoguette and Bia. A smallish, tiled greasy spoon, Mikey’s Burger just sells burgers, hotdogs, fries and shakes, mixing in elements of Southeast Asia with the classics of American fast food.
My friend Steve and I, after glancing over the menu, decided to go with the The Mikey, which is a burger topped with onions, corned beef, and pickled mustard seed. We perched ourselves on two stools by the fryer and watched as the cooks took out and shaped fresh hamburger patties and cooked them to order on the grill. I also took note that the precooked fries were kept oiled in a tray before they hit the fryer, which, while I dont know much about frying, struck me as a pretty interesting approach as I always assumed blanching was the way to go when making fries. Either way if and when I ever decide to make my own french fries, I might give that approach a try, but then again we didn’t get the fries so I have no idea if they were any good. Anyways, after about 5 minutes, we got our burgers, served in little paper tries. I proceeded to pour some Sriracha on the burger and dig in. The first thing I noticed was that the burger itself was juicy and thick, as they went with the more patted down ball of meat approach as opposed to the patty. But beyond that I didnt really taste the corned beef or the mustard seed. All in all it wasn’t a bad burger, and it really hit the spot at 3AM, however it’s a tad bit pricey ($5.50…I guess it could be worse), but when you’re drunk at 3AM, everything seems like a great idea.
So online I stumbled upon Dr. Carl Winter’s website Food Safety Music. This guy is great! Essentially he does food safety themed covers a-la Weird Al.
The Elvis of Ecoli
With songs like “Who Left The Food Out”, “Fifty Ways to Eat Your Oysters”, and my personal favorite ” I Will Survive”, where he basically breaks up with salmonella, this guy is a real class act.
Hey guys! Who wants to know what kind of food I’ve been eating? Well I don’t know, it’s the usual crap. BUT soon I WILL be eating the plentiful product of today’s pickling party with Peter van Hyning. Today we made dilly beans, pickled carrots, pickled garlic, and pickles. Justin Stewart was here too.
How today went, first I slept in and then Peter and Justin went to the store to buy the vegetables, garlic, and cans for pickling. In addition to finding the necessary pickling parts, they met a beautiful and enchanting pickling goddess. So lucky they were to bump into her before she left the city this very night to pickle and can at an enchanted and beautiful farm upstate. Justin got her number. She knows everything about pickling and canning and had some great recommendations for them about pickling today. I personally don’t know what those recommendations are, I’ve heard only of her beauty, not of her practical pickling knowledge.
Anyways, in the meantime I went to buy dill flowers at the farmers market and I filled out a survey on sexual assault in Williamsburg in exchange for a hotdog (a ho hum hotdog). I also got a shit ton of vinegar. Peter and I then went to a Polish deli to get some pickling spices. As far as i can tell the Polish pickling secret recipe is mustard seed, coriander, bay leaves, whole nutmegs, and crushed cinnamon sticks. We also tossed in the dill flowers, a clove of garlic, and some crushed red pepper. Right around this time Justin Stewart left. To contemplate the beauty of the picking goddess in the privacy of his own home, I assume. I had a lunch of canned fish and Peter ate cheese and crackers.
So when you pickle you have to boil everything except the food and spices. You boil the cans and the lids. You boil the water and the salt. You boil everything after it’s sealed. But never the vegetables or seasonings. It’s totally wild. It’s like opposite cooking. Another opposite thing we did was like Peter was talking out of his ass. How very BACKWARDS! fun! For dinner we made a tuna noodle casserole and Peter spent my money on Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk. Soon we’ll watch The Fireman’s Ball. I think it’s funny that the porno version would be The Fireman’s Balls.
(I’d also like to add that this was actually LAST week’s activity but I was missing my camera cord and we just can’t post a blog without a visual hm? What I’m getting at is that those pickles are f*cking delicious. So flavorful. Now for the pictures…)
So a little while ago there was a big buzz in the fast food world about KFC’s Double Down sandwich, which if you don’t know is a sandwich where fried chicken is the bun and bacon, cheese, and some mystery sauce is the filler. However it was then revealed that it was only being sold in select markets and those of us not in those markets were left with only our imaginations as to what this monstrosity could taste like and just how many of them we could eat before dying.
Well, what was also sort of causing a little buzz, granted only in the midtown lunch world, was Midtown Lunch’s Sandwich Challenge. Sort of a competition, the idea was for midtown lunch spots to come up with a sandwich under $10 that is, in Zach’s words, “Bold. New. Unhealthy. Wrong (but oh so right.)”. Some entries included a Mexican Cheesestreak from the El Rey del Sabor cart, a Fried Calamari Hero from Lazzara’s, and a Duck Pastrami Sandwich from Free Foods. Sadly enough, a lot of these places are a little too far out of my jurisdiction here in midtown east (the El Rey Del Sabor near me didnt have it), so I didnt get around to trying any of them…until now. And which one did I try? The winner of the Midtown Lunch August Sandwich Challenge, The Colonel’s Heart Attack from Cer Te.
Located a little bit of a walk from my work, Cer Te is a place Id been meaning to check out for a while due to the many entries about on Midtown Lunch. So with today finally being a slow day here in magic TV land, me and my usual lunch companions Phil and Delancey made the trek and got 3 Colonel’s Heart Attacks to go. Oh what’s that? What’s a Colonel’s Heart Attack? Well I’m glad you asked. It’s 2 pieces of boneless fried chicken breast, topped with mac & cheese, and collard greens sandwiched in a biscuit with a side of gravy. How can you go wrong? Well first off, upon ordering the guy told us they were out of collard greens, but they had sauteed spinach. Ok, fine, even though I would’ve rather have had the collard greens. And then we ended up waiting for honestly at least 15 minutes. Ok, whatever. Like I said, it’s a slow day at work. And it’s a $9.75 sandwich. Look as long as it fills me up and is good, fine. We get our sandwiches after slowly depleting their supply of free brownie samples and made the trip back to the office. Everything looked good, it was a good size, and I dug in. Shit was crumbly. Crumbs were flying all over the place so I switched to a fork and knife. Still crumbs, so I put it on a paper plate and went to town. It was good, but I noticed that it was also somehow a tad bland and dry. But no problem right? They gave us gravy on the side…no they didn’t. It turned out to be a little container of cole slaw and some bullshit pickle (I hate pickles). But whatever, I dumped some hot sauce on and finished that thing.
The moral of the story: conceptually it was a good idea, but, but what I think this is an issue with a lot of these Frankenstein Foods is that as you start to combine all these foods, shit just gets too convoluted and next thing you know you’re not really tasting one thing or the other. And in the case of the Colonel’s Heart Attack, not only did flavors blend into each other, they blended into each other in a bland way. I mean right now it feels like I just ate a biscuit and spinach sandwich that had some crusty stuff and yellow glop in it. Now before this ends with me sounding like I’m damning the Colonel’s Heart Attack, I still want to commend Cer Te for making a creative sandwich, and I will definitely consider going back to check out some of their other sandwich specials such as the Thanksgiving Dip (I’ve always wanted to open a year round Thanksgiving restaurant that just served Thanksgiving food), as well as what looked like quality desserts.
It’s also summer 2.0 outside, so you should just do yourself a favor and go for a walk regardless.
Enjoy!
I am an ally of ice cream. I support it in all seasons and for all occasions. A few days ago I discovered Laloo’s goats milk ice cream at my local food co-op and promptly bought a pint of Black Mission Fig. I was curious about how the earthiness of goat product (their meat has that same goaty dirtiness that the milk does) would work with the earthiness of the figs and I was left with wonderful feelings. My first bite surprised me because the fig flavor is so strong that the ice cream almost seems more like something that should exist in a small, sassy dollop and not the main event. It begins on a creamy caramel note and ends in an almost savory, goaty, mushroomy funk. It brings to mind a scene- the dead and the living feeding overripe fruits to one another on a velvet picnic blanket in an autumnal graveyard. Then the dead devouring the living and fashioning the picnic spread into a crude gown. Tawdry, unlikely, and pretty goth, but in the end it was a good time and I have gained a wealth of calories while expanding my palate to undead extremes. You should try it!
Nocturnal Yum Yum
If you need more figgy things in your life, I highly recommend this black fig soap crafted by and indie soap-making company called Savor. Find it here (they run out of it periodically, but I think it will come back):
This week Shawn the BF and I went to support my pal Melissa from Pastries Not Potatoes in the 4ourth installment of Iron Cupcake: Chicago!
sugar sculptures
first a bit of history: Iron cupcake is a fun time. It is headed up by Colleen of Beautiful Cakes who put the whole thing together. But there is a whole bunch of bakers and chefs who have been doing the “cupcake as a genre” thing for a while. The contest was actually started in Milwaukee by the Milwaukee Cupcake Queen and her pal when they decided to challenge each other to a bakers duel. The gauntlet was thrown by the pal then known as the Unknown Baker; as is covered here on the blog prehumously named No One Puts Cupcake In a Corner. Things started when said baker presented the Queen with a Marlboro Cowboy Coffee Cream Cupcake With Starbucks liquor chaser. So rowdy! This dude steeped tobacco and then made a batter with it. So then the heat was on, and iron Cupcake Milwaukee was born, then Iron Cupcake: Earth, then spin offs including Iron Cupcake :Chicago.
The challenges so far:
Iron cupcake Chicago has been ramping up. The first challenges were pretty tame, including citrus and something else. But the last two themes were actually interesting because of the open-end-ed-ness of them. Savory, which provided the obligatory bacon cupcakes. and most recently candy. This is the one i attended.
Ok! Let me start by saying all of the cupcakes were very tasty, but some were better than others, AND only two of the contestants were actual chefs, most of these ladies were just badass moms and grandmoms looking for kicks and bragging rights.
Entries included, M&M’s (which were sort of boring),
Mounds (which were definitely boring)
Candy corn which was good, but had a strange aftertaste not unlike eating actual candy corn.
there were two snickers entries… and like highlander their can be only one, and it was true!
snickers2
actually the lady with the superior snickers called them SINkers, and they involved a hollow cupcake, filled with snickers filling, and topped with a ring of caramel creme. these ROCKED US.
One of Melissa’s entries was cany dots cupcakes, which were flat pieces of fondant topped with piped candy dots. I really enjoyed this. However, similar to the actual candy dots of yore, this was fun to eat, but not terribly tasty to eat. Mostly because of the fondant,because fondant tastes gross.
In the end, Melissa and the SINkers tied for best presentation, and the SINkers rightly won for best taste. It was really no contest on that front.
here is melissa right before the crowning.
mel and mom
BYE until next time!!
Shit will be going down.
Tonight, (Tuesday), 11:15pm on the Independent Film Channel.
Hello, everyone! This is my first post on Food Party ever, so go easy on me. Here I am in Iceland where I have been for the past year.
I recently went on a trip to Snæfellsnes where there is a tiny fishing village called Stykkisholmer. From here I took a boat around the islands in the fjörd. The boat tour was called the “Unique Adventure Tour” and we saw lots of cute birds and nests including Puffin (which I hear are very tasty), White-Tailed Eagles, Skags, and Eider Ducks. Aside from the variety of bird-life, the highlight of the tour was at the very end when the sailors drop the trawl and comb the seabed for fresh shellfish! Here are the highlights:
Pulling up the net/trawl
The catch
Grumpy sailor opening the scallops
A very confused scallop
The options include raw scallops, crab roe (EGGS!), and sea urchins with white wine to wash it down
Jess (the vegetarian) tries raw scallops for the first time. Mmm….salty!
WATCH THE SHOW TONIGHT ON CABLE TV ON IFC!!!
11:15 TONIGHT!!!!!!!!
11:15 TONIGHT!!!!!!!!
11:15 TONIGHT!!!!!!!!
11:15 TONIGHT!!!!!!!!
11:15 TONIGHT!!!!!!!!
AND EVERY TUESDAY AFTER THAT AT 11:15PM. ON CABLE! ON THE INDEPENDENT FILM CHANNEL.
So, you think you have what it takes to complete the Vegan Chili Rumble? You think your gizzards can handle the gut-grinding, seam-bursting effects of TWENTY FIVE different lightning bolts of pure chili? If so, then maybe you have what it takes – to enter the Chili Rumble Hall of Fame.
On May 30th, about a hundred and thirty of Cleveland, Ohio’s best eaters descended upon 1387 East Boulevard for the 2009 Vegan Chili Rumble, organized by my roommate Nina Sarnelle. If you convert that attendance (per-capita) into New York City numbers, that would be 2,935 people.
Sure, that’s a lot of people, but we live in Cleveland so our $280/month apartment comes with a bountiful 2-acre garden, all thanks to my landlady Julie Patton – shown here with Ryan, who manages a fancy Brazilian restaurant called Sergios. His Chili was Brazillian and featured tanning lotion and tiny swim suits.
Ryan and the other contestants brought their best crock of chili to be voted upon by a panel of Cleveland’s most discerning gourmets.
One of those gourmets was none other than Katherine Koenig, host of the Maximum Consumption radio show on WRUW, shown here with John G (famed local illustrator), and a tiny version of myself that I keep around as a decoy for mosquitos.
The chilis were all soooo good, it was hard to give any of them less than five spoons during the voting. Here is a woman named Tofu Cat and her Black Bean Chili. I gave it five spoons. Other chilis featured white beans, pinto beans, adzuki, great northern, black-eyed peas, and of course kidney beans.
This is Jennifer and Earl and Linda, and it looks like they’re feeding the sage bush, which is crazy because I just fed it a few days ago and it’s not supposed to eat that much chili.
And this is Judy. I’m putting her picture up because I keep forgetting her name, and putting her picture on New York’s most famous blog will help me remember that her name is JUDY. See, I already remembered!
Eventually the votes were tabulated, and Divya’s curry-flavored “Rajma Chili” took home the 1st place trophy (see recipe). She is from Chennai (formerly “Madras”), India, and came to Cleveland years ago with no idea that her D-E-S-T-I-N-Y was to win this competition.
That’s Nina in the red dress, she really did a great job of organizing this party, don’t you think so too? Of course you do! Feel free to move to Cleveland now, it’s really cheap and if you’re really lucky you can be roommates with Nina Sarnelle. My name is Ian Charnas, look me up when you move here and I will be your friend. Thank you and goodbye.
This isn't what I made, but it's similar.
Or should that be “Nachos: It’s What’s For Lunch”?
Anyways, prior to actually getting lunch today, I got the munchies and looked around to see what I had. And what I had was one bag of Corazonas Heart Healthy Hint of Lime Whole Grain tortilla chips. Don’t ask. I’ve snacked on these a couple of times on their own, and while they’re ok, they just aren’t tasty enough to legitimately snack on. But then it hit me: we have american cheese in the fridge. And a microwave next to the fridge.
And there you have it. I had some nachos before lunch. The melted american cheese made the Corazonas 10x’s better and I ate the whole thing in about 2 minutes. But this got me thinking: why don’t more people eat nachos for lunch? Is it because it’s “unhealthy”? Or is it because it looks shitty and unhealthy (melted american cheese isnt the prettiest of the melted cheeses)? But come on, I mean, it’s totally easy and totally cheap.
That’s it. I’m still wondering why.
Oh and in case you didn’t know, May is National Burger Month. Act accordingly.
Smarties are a total mystery to me. They taste like very slightly flavored chalk, I have seen them for sale anywhere but the gaint bins of “assorted” gross candy you can buy at 95 cents a pound, and NO ONE LIKES THEM. Okay, okay. Before this gets a million comments (it will not get a million comments) about how some of you with no taste buds “like” Smarties, I will re-phrase that: “No one LOVES Smarties”. I have never heard anyone open the candy bag on Halloween and squeal: “Yes! Smarties!” (unless they have gluten issues.) This flies in the face of smarties.com’s bold claim that Smarties are “America’s Favorite Candy”. Uh, just because you make a billion of them and cheap grandparents and offices buy them en masse doesn’t mean they are a nation’s FAVORITE. However, it seems as though there is one thing they ARE good for: making yourself look like a total rebellious badass.
KIDS!
A few weeks after my birthday, a couple of my friends came into town, Scotty and Derrick (AKA Mullet Chad, AKA Mungee, AKA Derrick witch, AKA Nu Metal Craig). They are in a really great metal band called SKELETONWITCH; Derrick plays drums, and Scotty plays guitar. They also brought their friend Andrew with them, who owns a super awesome record store in Athens Ohio called, Haffas. Of course they didn’t come all the way to Chicago just to see me; they had a busy schedule of friends and events lined up around the block. The first big ticket item on their list was seeing CRADLE OF FILTH on Friday night. The next morning I had an unexpected (but not unwanted) day off, so I caught up with them at Scotty’s sister Stacy and our pal Moustache Derrick’s place around 11. I was just in time to see them shake off their hangovers and hitch a ride with them to Kuma’s Corner. As with many of Chicago’s institutions I had NEVER heard of it. It’s a pretty unassuming place at first glance; some wood paneling and some tee shirts, some ink drawings of leather-clad-blood-soaked-biker-chicks, the menu written on a chalk board above the grill. One look at the menu though and the truth is revealed. Kuma’s has all kinds of standard bar stuff: sandwiches and fries, some ribs an obligatory salad, etc. BUT the real excitement is their Metal themed burgers. There’s the MOTORHEAD, THE LAIR OF THE MINOTAUR, the CLUTCH (which has almost nothing but cheese on it) and the JUDAS PREIST (which has walnuts, blue cheese, cranberries etc… and is the GAYEST item on the menu while still being a burger).They even had a monthly special called the “Bleepin’ Blago-wich” which is: a burger topped with American cheese, yellow mustard, fried baloney and served on two grilled cheese sandwiches made with wonder bread (the price was negotiable).
I opted for the SLAYER, which is: a ½ pound burger served on a bed of fries, topped with chili, andouille sausage, jalapenos, cherry peppers, mozzarella cheese, and anger.
Did I finish it? Yes. Did I eat anything else that day? Yes. A pile of collard greens…five hours later.
All in all, the burger was good, and true to the name a real slayer. They also have some great local brews on tap, the one thing they don’t have is a SKELETON-WICH. To that end I have included what I think should, if not be immediately added to the menu, be run as a special the next time they play in Chi-town… the list of ingredients; ½ pound burger, white American cheese, whole wheat bun, jalapenos, weed, yellow rice doused with sriracha, the ketchup-ed blood of a virgin, and the souls of all those who don’t WORSHIP THE WITCH, and served with a Shirley Temple…because these boyz are classy.
Thu Tran
misslisa
sandrachi
eggerelias
doanbuu
davekrofta
erikaneola
petervh
zachariahdurr
vinald
iancharnas
Christine Kelly
mistabee
jessicalangley
