The Chef at 15
Flynn McGarry designs eight-course tasting menus and interns in three-star kitchens. Now he wants to open the best restaurant in the world.
The Chef at 15
Filtering by Tag: nytimes
The Chef at 15
I swear summer isn’t over and I’m going to keep the grilling going far into the fall!
Welcome to the Post-Marinade Era of Grilling
Forget about marinades, at least on the grill.
That may sound like backyard apostasy, since common knowledge holds that grilling and marinating go together like … well, fill in your favorite eternal twosome here. You can’t open a cookbook or look at a restaurant menu without seeing them paired.
It may be due at least partly to the fact that a “tequila marinated grilled flank steak” sounds more enticing that just a plain old steak. But there’s also a well-rehearsed rationale for the partnership.
Marinating, it’s said, not only adds flavor and moisture that will stay with the food through the rigors of the grilling process, but also tenderizes whatever you’re about to put over the coals.
I love all the new, exciting foods coming out of Iowa and our country overall. Amazing time to have a love affair with American food and the natural, healthy, organic American food business.
Some Prosciutto Fans Turn to Iowa
NORWALK, Iowa — The decision came down to this: Would people buy prosciutto from a guy named Herb from Iowa?
“It was a crazy idea, but we didn’t think it was a stupid idea,” says Herb Eckhouse, the Herb from Iowa who spent some anxious years weighing that question. Racks of raw pork rolling into the refrigerated chambers around him suggest the answer.
It is Wednesday, salting day, so Mr. Eckhouse is preoccupied with the central task of making his prosciutto: coating the carefully trimmed hind leg of a pig with sea salt. “This is kind of the key time, so we want to make sure it’s done right,” he says. READ MORE
Awhile back I posted another New York Times article about Carl Edgar Blake and his award-winning Iowan Swabian Hall Pig. He also showed up on the Colbert Report with a couple of his little piglets. Stephen Colbert holds a piglet and eats prosciutto at the same time!
This is a fascinating little piece in Eater about how restaurant critics go about trying to get a REAL interpretation of the food and service at a restaurant. It’s quite difficult when they know who you are!!
New York Times Critic, Pete Wells, Drops DANIEL to 3 Stars, Uses Decoy
In this week’s review, New York Times critic Pete Wells took a star away from chef Daniel Boulud’s 20 year old flagship restaurant, Daniel. (The last time Daniel was reviewed by the Times it got four stars from Frank Bruni back in 2009.) In his review, Wells finds fault with both the food and the service at the long-time four star restaurant. In a sneaky move, Wells — who’s not exactly anonymous — used a decoy. He dined 15 minutes apart from one of his more anonymous colleagues and compared his experience to that of a standard diner. His findings were informative. READ MORE
Paella Contest
Love this!!!!!!
Westport, Mass. — It all began innocently enough. “Valerie and her sister make the best paella ever,” my friend Ihsan Gurdal said. Even though Ihsan happens to be Valerie’s husband, no one who had ever tasted her paella had any reason to doubt him.
But our mutual friend (and my frequent collaborator) Chris Schlesinger was listening. And Chris has a well-demonstrated knack for turning what might be considered work into fun, very often by making it into a competition. READ MORE
By John Willoughby at the New York Times
Paella Contest
Love this!!!!!!
Westport, Mass. — It all began innocently enough. “Valerie and her sister make the best paella ever,” my friend Ihsan Gurdal said. Even though Ihsan happens to be Valerie’s husband, no one who had ever tasted her paella had any reason to doubt him.
But our mutual friend (and my frequent collaborator) Chris Schlesinger was listening. And Chris has a well-demonstrated knack for turning what might be considered work into fun, very often by making it into a competition. READ MORE
By John Willoughby at the New York Times
Fascinating little story in the NYTimes today about a boatload of wine that the owners’ can’t get their hands on after Hurricane Sandy.
More Than a Flooded Cellar. A Vintage Mystery.
Via New York Times By: Charles V. Bagli
WineCare marketed itself as a high-security cellar that stores, catalogs and cares for 27,000 cases of wine in the basement of a Manhattan warehouse, charging substantial fees to safeguard collections worth tens of millions of dollars.
But there was one problem: the cellar was just 100 yards from the Hudson River. And when Hurricane Sandy struck, the water came rushing in. READ MORE
Loving these little bits they have on summer concoctions!! Check it out.
Gin, Tonic and a Dash of Restraint
Sipping a good gin and tonic is like finding a 20th-century oxford shirt in the closet and realizing that you can still wear it downtown tonight without looking out of step with the century we’re stuck in.
Gulp
A week or so ago I posted an article by Mary Roach called the Marvels In Your Mouth about her trip to the Restaurant of the Future in Food Valley and how the mouth processes food. Well now she’s clearly on a press tour for her book Gulp and showed up on the Daily Show with John Stewart. Check it out - lots of discussion about cylindrical objects and how they work well for the body.
The Best Pig?
I posted a New York Times article a week or so ago about Carl Edgar Blake and his quest to make the perfect pig. He matched a Russian wild boar with a Chinese pig that he had read about on the interwebs - in 1821 King Wilhelm from Germany bred these two pigs and started winning contests with what was called a Swabian Hall pig. Now Carl is winning awards all over the country with his Iowan Swabian Hall pig.
Stephen Colbert holds an Iowan Swabian Hall piglet while eating prosciutto. Hysterical.
Gulp
A week or so ago I posted an article by Mary Roach called the Marvels In Your Mouth about her trip to the Restaurant of the Future in Food Valley and how the mouth processes food. Well now she’s clearly on a press tour for her book Gulp and showed up on the Daily Show with John Stewart. Check it out - lots of discussion about cylindrical objects and how they work well for the body.
(Source: http://media.mtvnservices.com/)
More info today about Marilyn….
New York’s her dish
America’s newest hot restaurant critic, Marilyn Hagerty, has been touring New York’s top eateries after she became an overnight sensation when her review of the new Grand Forks Olive Garden went viral. Marilyn, 85, wrote a charming review in her North Dakota hometown paper, the Grand Forks Herald, with lines including, “My first visit to Olive Garden was during mid-afternoon, so I could be sure to get in.” After it went viral with more than 100,000 hits, Hagerty flew here to be a guest on “Piers Morgan Tonight,” “Today” and “The Early Show.” Anderson Cooper booked her on his show as well and sent her for lunch yesterday at Crown, where she dined on chef John DeLucie’s beet salad, scallops and chocolate soufflé. Sources said she loved the food and asked to take her leftovers with her as she went to tape the show. Hagerty has also dined at four-star Le Bernardin and three-star Dovetail, and we eagerly await to read how she thinks they match up to Olive Garden. Hagerty, who will appear on “Anderson” with DeLucie on March 20, also invited the chef to join her at Olive Garden the next time he’s passing through Grand Forks.
Have you ever heard of North Dakota food critic Marilyn Hagerty? Me either. But I just followed a NYTimes piece about her. Apparently she became a bit of a sensation when she reviewed the local Olive Garden. Her son, James, writes for the Wall Street Journal and wrote an article about his mom’s new found celebrity. And this is the NYTimes piece about her recent trip to New York and her review of a hot dog from a street vendor. I think she’s damn funny!
Have you ever heard of North Dakota food critic Marilyn Hagerty? Me either. But I just followed a NYTimes piece about her. Apparently she became a bit of a sensation when she reviewed the local Olive Garden. Her son, James, writes for the Wall Street Journal and wrote an article about his mom’s new found celebrity. And this is the NYTimes piece about her recent trip to New York and her review of a hot dog from a street vendor. I think she’s damn funny!
I LOVE the look that these guys have!!!! Yum!!! And they have a tumblr!!
Pushing the Boundaries of Black Style
THE best posts on the style blog Street Etiquette find its principals, Travis Gumbs and Joshua Kissi, in motion. As opposed to the fascistically frozen street-style snaps of The Sartorialist and others, these pictures are styled and plotted fictions but also affecting ones, depicting a pair of young black men taking ownership not just of the body and what goes on it, but also of the environment it moves in. No one ever smiles on Street Etiquette: there’s business to attend to.
Most days, the actual business of Mr. Kissi and Mr. Gumbs takes place in a work-space-cum-clubhouse on Bergen Street in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. With vintage sweaters hanging from the ceiling and art books lining the walls, this is the nerve center of the Brooklyn Circus, whose flagship store is just a few dozen steps away, and which is a key collaborative partner for Street Etiquette, which began as a basic beautiful-things blog in 2008 but is now one of the foremost online repositories of black style. READ MORE
Rachel’s Last Fundraiser by Nicholas Kristoff (New York Times)
Perhaps every generation of geezers since Adam and Eve has whined about young people, and today is no different. Isn’t it clear that in contrast to our glorious selves, kids these days are self-absorbed Facebook junkies just a pixel deep?
No, actually that’s wrong at every level. This has been a depressing time to watch today’s “adults,” whose talent for self-absorption and political paralysis makes it difficult to solve big problems. But many young people haven’t yet learned to be cynical. They believe, in a wonderfully earnest way, in creating a better world.
In the midst of this grim summer, my faith in humanity has been restored by the saga of Rachel Beckwith. She could teach my generation a great deal about maturity and unselfishness — even though she’s just 9 years old, or was when she died on July 23.
In the midst of this grim summer, my faith in humanity has been restored by the saga of Rachel Beckwith. She could teach my generation a great deal about maturity and unselfishness — even though she’s just 9 years old, or was when she died on July 23. Rachel lived outside Seattle and early on showed a desire to give back. At age 5, she learned at school about an organization called Locks of Love, which uses hair donations to make wigs for children who have lost their own hair because of cancer or other diseases. Rachel then asked to have her long hair shorn off and sent to Locks of Love. “She said she wanted to help the cancer kids,” her mother, Samantha Paul, told me. After the haircut, Rachel announced that she would grow her hair long again and donate it again after a few years to Locks of Love. And that’s what she did. Then when she was 8 years old, her church began raising money to build wells in Africa through an organization called charity:water. Rachel was aghast when she learned that other children had no clean water, so she asked to skip having a ninth birthday party. In lieu of presents, she asked her friends to donate $9 each to charity:water for water projects in Africa. Rachel’s ninth birthday was on June 12, and she had set up a birthday page on the charity:water Web site with a target of $300. Alas, Rachel was able to raise only $220 — which had left her just a bit disappointed. Then, on July 20, as Rachel was riding with her family on the highway, two trucks collided and created a 13-car pileup. Rachel’s car was hit by one of the trucks, and although the rest of her family was unhurt, Rachel was left critically injured. Church members and friends, seeking some way of showing support, began donating on Rachel’s birthday page — charitywater.org/Rachel — and donations surged past her $300 goal, and kept mounting. As family and friends gathered around Rachel’s bedside, they were able to tell her — even not knowing whether she couldn’t hear them — that she had exceeded the $47,544 that the singer Justin Bieber had raised for charity:water on his 17th birthday. “I think she secretly had a crush on him, but she would never admit it,” her mom said. “I think she would have been ecstatic.” When it was clear that Rachel would never regain consciousness, the family decided to remove life support. Her parents donated her hair a final time to Locks of Love, and her organs to other children. Word spread about Rachel’s last fund-raiser. Contributions poured in, often in $9 increments, although one 5-year-old girl sent in the savings in her piggy bank of $2.27. The total donations soon topped $100,000, then $300,000. Like others, I was moved and donated. As I write this, more than $850,000 has been raised from all over the world, including donations from Africans awed by a little American girl who cared about their continent. “What has been so inspiring about Rachel is that she has taught the adults,” said Scott Harrison, the founder of charity:water. “Adults are humbled by the unselfishness of this little girl.” Yet this is a story not just of one girl, but of a generation of young people working creatively to make this a better world. Mr. Harrison is emblematic of these young people. Now 35, he established charity:water when he was 30, and it has taken off partly because of his mastery at social media. (He’s not as experienced in well-drilling, so the wells are actually dug by expert groups like International Rescue Committee.) Youth activism has a long history, but this ethos of public service is on the ascendant today — and today’s kids don’t just protest against injustices, as my contemporaries did, but many are also remarkable problem-solvers. As for Ms. Paul, she’s planning a trip on the anniversary of her daughter’s death next year to see some of the wells being drilled in Africa in her daughter’s name. “It’ll be overwhelming to see Rachel’s wells,” she said, “to see what my 9-year-old daughter has done for people all over the world, to meet the people she has touched.” Rachel Beckwith, R.I.P., and may our generation learn from yours.