Adam D. Roberts's Blog, page 36

The Ultimate Food and Musicals Quiz

Jonathan Gold is the only Pulitzer Prize winning food writer in history and, as far as I’m concerned, I will never do anything in my food writing career that comes anywhere close to what he’s been doing for the bulk of his. Except for this. You see, the other day Mr. Gold, who writes a regular quiz for The L.A. Times, posted a “Food and Musicals” quiz that was a lot of fun to take. I got 9 out of 10 right. But the quiz left me feeling like Gold favors a specific brand of Broadway musical, heavy on the Lerner and Loewe. Also, there was an Oliver question which seemed a little too obvious to me. So last night, in a heated moment, I began constructing my own Food and Musicals quiz. It goes from the esoteric (Falsettos) to the extreme mainstream (Wicked) with various diversions along the way. There are 30 questions. I could’ve done more. Some are very hard, some are pretty easy; mostly, though, this is my favorite thing I’ve done on my blog ever. Let me know how you score in the comments!

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Our Skeleton Twins Sundance Adventure

When I first laid eyes on Craig, it was in the spring of 2006 at Joe on Waverly and he was with a guy slightly shorter than him working on a screenplay. I didn’t know they were working on a screenplay; mostly, I wondered if they were a couple or just friends. When Craig went to get water, we made eye contact. A few weeks later, totally randomly, he looked at my Friendster profile (remember Friendster?) and I sent him an e-mail. We went on a date. And another date. And now we’ve been together for almost eight years. And that screenplay he was working on with his friend (who turned out to be Mark Heyman who’d later go on to write Black Swan and to marry my good friend Diana)? It became a movie–The Skeleton Twins–that just premiered to wild acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

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Cold-Killing Chicken Soup with Ginger, Chili Paste and Soy Sauce

The first time that I made a really good chicken soup (documented here), it felt like I’d translated an ancient Jewish text–the Dead Soup Scrolls–and that the resulting soup was irrefutable, everlasting, not-to-be-tampered with. Then, over time, I began to realize that the recipe, which is really just a formula for a very concentrated chicken stock, flavored with root vegetables, and freshened up with more vegetables and dill at the end, was really just that: a formula. A guideline. You could play around and the Jewish police wouldn’t arrest you. So, a few weeks ago, when I had the start of a pretty nasty cold, I decided to integrate some of the flavors that make ramen so curative when colds start to hit hard. And the results were tremendous indeed.

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A Nifty New Interactive Banner

You didn’t think I’d let my tenth anniversary pass without updating the blog’s banner, did you? Well this new one’s a doozy. It’s a totally interactive, deliciously clickable banner–featuring my most popular/significant posts from the past ten years–created (and coded) by the remarkable Lindy Groening. And this is as good a time as any to salute her work, which has given this blog its identity for almost a decade: check out her previous banners here. And thanks for all your kind anniversary wishes, yesterday! You guys are the best.

Ten Years A Food Blogger

Dear Me of Ten Years Ago,

Let’s see if I can remember the moment. You’re in your room of the apartment you share in Atlanta, Georgia with your friend Lauren, avoiding the stack of law school homework on your desk, and trying out potential blog names on Typepad. A week earlier, you posted a question on Ask Metafilter: “How do I become an internet phenomenon?” You asked that question in a manner that was both tongue-in-cheek and sincere. In a few months you’ll graduate law school, and then what? A career as a lawyer? Litigating toxic torts for the law firm where you spent your previous summer in L.A.? The folks on Ask Metafilter offer advice, but this nugget from Aaorn stands out: “Having a single, narrowly-focused topic (assuming it’s an interesting single topic) will draw people more consistantly than a hodgepodge of random things that interest you.” Until you read that, you considered just doing an Adam Roberts blog with bits about musicals and books and the occasional recipe; but, really thinking it over, you realize that food–a subject that’s fascinated you ever since, two years earlier, you started watching Sara Moulton and Mario Batali on the Food Network–is something you’d enjoy blogging about on a regular basis. You type the words “amateur gourmet” into the HTML box and hit publish. A few minutes later, you write your first post–“The Birth of An Amateur Icon”–and send it out into the ether. You then frantically wait for your first comment. It comes from your friend Josh who, along with his wife Katy, urged you start the blog in the first place. Katy, I’d soon learn, would be my first troll, with comments like: “OMG!!!! You are HILARIOUZZZ!!! Are you singel seriously because I LOVE GUYZ WHO ARE FUNNY AND ALOS I LOVE FOOD!!!!”

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East Coast vs. West Coast Porchetta

On a cold December day in New York, I took the 6 train down from the Upper East Side to the Astor Place stop with porchetta on my mind. No, not Sara Jenkins’ glorious Porchetta sandwich served at her sandwich spot so devoted to porchetta it’s called, well, Porchetta. This time I was headed to Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria to try a porchetta sandwich that made a bit of a splash when it first appeared a year or two ago. Now the New York food media has moved on, as it tends to do, and that sandwich continues to be served with slightly less fanfare. I knew I had to give it a try before it disappeared entirely.

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Scrambled Eggs with Lamb, Onions, and Feta

Sorry for the slow posting this week, folks; we had to take a California Driver’s Test yesterday and, based on everything we’d heard, we had to really study for it (a very smart friend, who shall remain nameless, failed the first time he took it). As we went into the written exam, Craig said: “Whoever does better will be the ultimate victor of our relationship forevermore!” Turns out, we each passed with only two wrong. We are both victors, which sounds like an Oscar Wilde play in the making. Needless to say, no time for big, thoughtful posts; but I did post those lamb burgers on Tuesday and here’s something fun you can do with the leftovers, should you make those burgers this weekend.

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Lamb Burgers and Greek Salad

My cooking life has been a weird one. Most people start out making things like burgers and mac and cheese; me, I started with braises and roasts and only now (almost ten years later) have I started getting comfortable making the stuff that most people make at the beginning of their cooking careers. Burgers are a good example. I had only cooked burgers once before in my life and it was in the oven. Never had I shaped a patty, plopped it on to a grill or into a cast iron skillet and lifted it on to a bun. And, true to form, even last week, when I finally did this thing that most cooks–most American cooks–do all the time, I didn’t just make normal burgers. I made lamb burgers and I served them with Greek salad.

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Mac and Cheese with Chorizo, Cotija and Aged English Cheddar

Every time I make a mac and cheese I declare it the best I’ve ever made. There’s a reason for that. I grew up hating mac and cheese (also lasagna) because my dad hated cheese. So if a friend’s mom made it for dinner, I’d move it around on my plate and feign a sudden bout of appendicitis. It wasn’t until I got older and started eating cheese with my cheese-loving friends that I came back around to mac. As I started making it myself, and understood what it really was–a white sauce with lots of cheese melted into it, spread over noodles and baked–I could appreciate it as a way to put obscene amounts of cheese on a plate and call it dinner. I’ve made many an obscene mac and cheese since then (one with three cups of cream, one with blue cheese, Gruyere and cheddar) but the most obscene–and delicious–of all may be the one I just made from my friend Garrett McCord’s new cookbook Melt. It’s a mac and cheese for the ages.

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The Salty Turnip Omelette of Your Dreams

It’s a new year, folks, and as the weekend approaches, it’s time to ask yourself some serious questions, specifically about how you start your day: are you tired of eating the same thing over and over again? Is it possible that your boredom reflects a boredom with your life itself? Is it time for a new job? A new spouse? A new child? Well, before you make any hasty decisions, might I suggest that you start with breakfast. Here’s one that I created based on a dish that I love at Ruen Pair (my favorite Thai place in L.A.) and, as nervous as I was to make something that I didn’t fully know how to make, the results were so astonishingly delicious, I nearly toppled my kitchen table over with my enthusiasm. We’re talking, of course, about a salty turnip omelette–a strange concept, yes, but follow my directions, and you’ll be so blissed out, you won’t even realize how much you hate your life.

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