Adam D. Roberts's Blog, page 147

Pot Roast

When I think pot roast, I think Americana, I think 50s sitcoms and a beleaguered housewife who intones: "Oh, darn it, I burnt the pot roast!"

It's not a dish that I ate much growing up, eating--as we did--most of our meals out. My first real pot roast memory, actually, comes from Atlanta. I ordered pot roast at one of my favorite, kitschy restaurants there--Agnes & Muriel's--and got very sick afterwards. I don't blame Agnes & Muriel's, but I did blame pot roast. I avoided it for years.

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Steam-Scrambled Eggs

Those of you with cappuccino makers, may I have your attention? I have a weekend project for you. When you make your scrambled eggs this weekend, instead of melting butter in a pan, beating the eggs with a fork, plopping them into the foamy fat and stirring them round and round, why not find inspiration in the picture above? Those eggs, you see, are the work of renowned New York chef Jody Williams. I ate them last Sunday with my friend Jimmy at her lovely little restaurant, Gottino, and...

Lunch with Lidia Bastianich (and my dad)

It's my fault, really. My parents were in town and my mom asked me, early in the week, if I'd babysit my dad for lunch on Tuesday while she met some of her friends. I said, "Sure." Then, the day before, I received a confirmation e-mail from Lidia Bastianich's publicist reminding me of a lunch scheduled at Lidia's restaurant Felidia the next day. I'd RSVPed for two (I was going to bring a more talented photographer friend (why? see picture above)) and so, after some clever thinking, I...

Pork on Fire (The Spiciest Dish in New York?)

On Friday, I sent out the following e-mail to my pork-eating friends:

Dear Friends,

Today I was reading the New Yorker profile of the only food critic to win a Pulitzer Prize, Jonathan Gold. In it he says of a spicy Thai food dish: "It was glowing, practically incandescent. You bite into it and every alarm in your body goes off at once. It's an overload on your pain receptors, and then the flavors just come through. It's not that the hotness overwhelms the dish, which is what people who d...

Arnold Schwarzenegger at Le Pain Quotidien

My friend Tom snapped this picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday at Le Pain Quotidien in Santa Monica. Says Craig, in his Arnold Schwartzenegger voice: "Hasta la vista roast beef with caper mayonnaise, diced tomatoes and scallions!"

MIchael Symon's Spicy Tomato & Blue Cheese Soup

At the end of yesterday's video podcast with Michael Symon, you may have heard me sheepishly express doubt about adding blue cheese to tomato soup. For some reason, I thought the result would be grainy and gloppy and just kind of gross. Instead, this tomato soup was absolutely the best tomato soup I've ever had--and the best part about it is you'd never know that blue cheese was what was making it taste so good. It adds depth and creaminess but it doesn't taste funky and you don't notice the ...

A Video Podcast with Michael Symon

Yesterday I had the opportunity to chat with Iron Chef Michael Symon outside the Standard Hotel in New York's meatpacking district. Chef Symon's in town to promote his new cookbook, "Live To Cook" which he co-wrote with this blog's good friend Michael Ruhlman. Here's our lively chat edited down to just 4 minutes:

As for the tomato soup I mention at the end, I made it later that night and it was so fantastic I'm going to share the recipe in a separate post (look for it tomorrow). And if...

Floating Away

DeNiro did it for "Raging Bull," and now I've done it for this month's banner. That's right, check out the new plus-sized me floating up there in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Once again, kudos to Lindy Groening for another stellar illustration, and to Justin for puffing the air into all those balloons.

Where To Buy Ethical Meat?

My friend Rob wrote me the following e-mail yesterday and because it's such a good question, I thought I'd answer it right here on the blog.

Hey Adam, I was reading reviews of [Jonathan Safran:] Foer's new book "Eating Animals" on being a vegetarian and renewing my pledge to only eat "humane" meat -- free range, cruelty free, local, organic, etc. But I cannot for the life of me figure out which places are "approved." Is there any way to figure this out? Would this make for a good blog? It...

How To Make Doughnuts

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who can delay gratification and those who can't. The following video, our latest from Food2.com, explores this subject with two recipes for doughnuts; one for those who like slow authentic doughnuts (recipe courtesy of Emily Isaac from Trois Pommes Patisserie in Park Slope) and the other for those who like 'em fast and dirty (recipe courtesy of our friend Krisse, my director Josh's wife (you can see her making them in an old post here))...