Adam D. Roberts's Blog, page 45

Summer’s End Pasta with Tomatoes, Zucchini and Dill

What you are looking at, in the above picture, is the best thing I can imagine eating right now. Mario Batali once said on one of his shows that the best time to eat corn and tomatoes isn’t August, it’s September. My trips, recently, to the farmer’s market confirm this: the tomatoes couldn’t look plumper or more colorful. And so it was, last week, that I bought a few red ones, a few yellow heirlooms, some zucchini and a bunch of herbs–basil and dill–and came home to make a pasta dinner that had my eyes rolling back in my head, it was so terrific: an edible “last hurrah” for summer.

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Four-Star Chickens

Considering the fact that I cook a whole chicken about once a week, I’m very curious about these high-end chickens that are being groomed for and by New York’s best restaurants. Apparently, Jean-Georges was on the verge of tears when he tried one and Daniel Humm, from Eleven Madison Park, ate a whole bird in one sitting. Still, it’s hard to avoid chuckling at: “The Per Se chickens will eat only Per Se peelings and bread; the diet of the Gramercy Tavern chickens will come only from Gramercy Tavern.” Portlandia is, appropriately, invoked. (Thanks, Rob, for sending this my way.)

Journey To Nicaragua By Way of Pico Blvd.

There are many cheesy, self-helpy things to say about going outside of your comfort zone and eating unfamiliar foods from unfamiliar cuisines as often as possible. Lately, though, I’ve come to realize that adventuring on the scale of Jonathan Gold and Robert Sietsema or, for that matter, Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern has to be in your blood; as much as you might push yourself, if you’re not drawn to experience new and exotic taste sensations, there’s not much that’s going to change that. Me? I’m somewhere in the middle. I like to break out of my routine, for those cheesy, self-helpy reasons, but would I prefer to eat a good roast chicken instead of drinking cobra blood in Indonesia? Why yes, yes I would.

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Why You Shouldn’t Go On Top Chef (Unless You Should)

As the 300th season of Top Chef looms, a few predictions: in the first episode, there will be an arrogant know-it-all who claims a superior set of kitchen skills, only, when asked to debone a chicken, he’ll crumple into a heap and cry, “My mother never loved me!” A duo of lesbian sashimi experts, formerly inseparable, will have their loyalties tested when one is told to pack her knives and go and the other is told that her knife skills surpass Morimoto’s. A down-and-out hard-on-his-luck dishwasher, who hosts supper clubs in his spare time, will bring tears to Emeril’s eyes when he recreates his grandmother’s gumbo, beating out a chef from a two-Michelin-starred restaurant in Napa for the final slot on the show.

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I’m Gonna Get You Socca!

It’s time to admit that my love affair with chickpeas has gone too far. Not only did I post about making a big pot of chickpeas a week ago, and also a salad of roasted beets, carrots and chickpeas that week, I already have another chickpea dish to blog about coming up–one with tomatoes, basil and zucchini. I need to be stopped. But what’s this I see at my local fancy supermarket? A bag of chickpea flour? Chickpea FLOUR? Oh my, I think I need to buy this. I think I need to make something with this. CHICKPEA FLOUR. I’m sold.

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Alphabet Of Foods That Will Kill You

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Cinnabon Story

Once upon a time (aka: this past weekend) I found myself in a mall, the Glendale Galleria, wandering around looking for patio furniture with Craig. Not that we have a patio, but we have a front porch at our new place and figured we’d get some cheap outdoor chairs and a table and sit out there while drinking coffee on weekend mornings or while sipping a glass of wine in the evening. Funny, though, the last time I went out there to soak in the scenery, I saw a fancy car pull up to the alley across the street. A man got out, he looked around (didn’t see me) and promptly peed on a dumpster. Still: we wanted patio furniture.

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The Clean Plate Club, Episode #7: Deb Perelman

This week’s Clean Plate Club guest needs no introduction: if you’re reading this and you haven’t visited Smitten Kitchen, you have your food blog priorities out of whack. Deb is the queen of the form, the sun at the center of the food blog universe. Don’t believe me? How many food bloggers can you name with tens of millions of readers a month, profiles in The New York Times, and a best-selling cookbook to boot? Deb is the real deal and I’m so lucky she agreed to talk to me over Skype, though we did get into a huge fight about photography. Let me explain.

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Windows on the World

There’s a terrific post on Eater NY right now by Greg Morabito all about Windows on the World, the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center which was destroyed on 9/11. I remember distinctly going there with my family the night that we saw Les Miserables on Broadway (that’s me in the glasses; I think my brother is rocking a better look). The meal itself is a blur, but I remember the breathtaking view and the pageantry and fanfare of the service. It was an exciting place to eat and a memorable night; no one could ever imagine that, two decades later, it would completely vanish.

The Speed at Which You Eat

We all eat at different speeds. Me? I wolf down my food a lot like my dad does, though I try to slow myself down. When my friend Diana eats dessert, she savors each bite like one of those people on chewing diets who count their chews 25 times before they can swallow. Craig, generally speaking, eats at a normal speed, unless he’s talking in which case his food might sit there in front of him getting colder and colder as he enthuses about the trailer for the new Alfonso Cuaron movie or the injustice of getting older. When this happens, I make sculptures with pieces of straw paper and balance chopsticks on little plastic containers.

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