Adam D. Roberts's Blog, page 49

Fall 2013 Cookbook Preview

Eater’s Fall 2013 cookbook preview is SO epic, it’s divided into two posts: one for American cookbooks, one for International cookbooks. There are so many books I’m excited for, especially Daniel Boulud’s collaboration with Bill Buford, The Gramercy Tavern Cookbook, The Roberta’s Cookbook, Suzanne Goin’s A.O.C. Cookbook (her Sunday Suppers at Lucques is one of my all time faves), Anne Quatrano’s Summerland, The Pok Pok Cookbook and Anne Willan’s memoir.

The Clean Plate Club, Episode #4: Ruth Bourdain (Josh Friedland)

We’re shaking things up this week with an exclusive one-on-one interview with the infamous/notorious/outrageous Ruth Bourdain, the brainchild of The Food Section’s Josh Friedland. In this exclusive one hour, in-depth interview, Josh opens up about Ruth Bourdain’s genesis, from avatar to book deal to James Beard Award to the front page of the New York Times. It’s a pretty terrific story and I thank Josh for taking the time to share it with us. If you want to listen in iTunes (like, in your car or at the gym), you can find it here. (While you’re there, take a moment to review the show, wouldya?)

Oh and if you’re curious about the farro salad that I make for Craig at the start…

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Deviled Egg Salad

After mastering April Bloomfield’s recipe for Deviled Eggs, I woke up the next day–a Saturday, as a matter of fact–and thought about the ingredients I still had on hand from the previous day’s venture: homemade mayo, eggs, those same pickled chilies. I also saw English muffins. What if I made a Deviled Egg Salad and put it on the English muffin? Wouldn’t that be a treat?

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The Russian Vodka Boycott

A pointed op-ed by Mark Lawrence Schrad in today’s New York Times argues that boycotting Russian vodka because of Russia’s horrendous policies toward gays is an ineffective form of protest. Most “Russian” vodka isn’t made in Russia; more importantly, a boycott from the west fuels the Russian conservative fire, “Its gay community will be seen as only more alien — the opposite of tolerance and integration.” Still, there’s no denying the symbolic pleasure of thumbing one’s gay nose at images of the Kremlin on bottles of the clear stuff.

Brian’s Red Beans and Rice

My newsletter readers (you do know I have a newsletter, right? Another one’s going out later today: sign up here!) went nuts last week when I shared a picture of my friend Brian’s red beans and rice and didn’t offer up a recipe. “Can you get the recipe?” one replied. “Where’s the recipe?” wrote another. “You owe $15,000 in back taxes,” wrote the U.S. government. I e-mailed Brian and he said he couldn’t help with the taxes but he’d gladly write up a recipe.

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Look, I Don’t Know How To Tell You This, But My Cake Stand Is Also A Punchbowl

Sometimes you invite people over to your house, and you sit around and have a pleasant conversation while sipping lemonade or iced tea or maybe a combination of lemonade and iced tea which is called an Arnold Palmer, named after a golfer who my dad admires. Other times, you invite people over to your house and they TOTALLY BLOW YOUR MINDS.

The latter happened to me this weekend when Todd and Jessica, who gifted me with the chimney and lighter that got me started with grilling, gave me a gift far greater than any gift any houseguest has given me before: they told me that my cake stand is also a punchbowl.

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Perfect Deviled Eggs

Any time I’ve ever made deviled eggs, I’ve basically spooned a gloppy mayo-yolk mixture into floppy egg whites and masked the ugliness with either smoked paprika (see here) or weird garnishes (see my Deviled Eggs Three Ways). The problem was always that filling: never stiff enough to pipe, always wet enough to spoon. This time around, I decided to change my game by deferring to a master chef’s technique; that would be April Bloomfield’s.

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The Lobster Glut

The New Yorker’s James Surowiecki explains why restaurants aren’t lowering the price of lobster even though lobster is more plentiful and cheaper (as little as $2.20 a pound) than it’s been for years. The logic makes sense, especially in terms of human psychology–Craig and I always go for the 2nd cheapest bottle of wine (and not the cheapest) for reasons explained in this article.

How Do You Eat Corn?

At last night’s BBQ bonanza (wait, am I allowed to call it a BBQ?) I noticed a funny thing. Craig ate his corn by rotating the cob and leaving his teeth stationary; I ate mine by chomping across and then rotating the cob. So the plate above is Craig’s and you can see how he worked it. Below, you’ll see mine.

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Pasta Perspective

There’s a good rant on Michael Ruhlman’s blog by Stephanie Stiavetti about boxed pasta and how bad it is. I use boxed pasta all the time, but it’s hard to argue with: “Large-scale pasta operations produce their wares in huge factories, and these factories need to be fed enormous amounts of wheat to churn out 734,387,632 pounds of noodles a day.” She goes on to recommend better brands to buy (Rustichella d’Abruzzo, Cipriani, and Baia) and urges you to make your own. It’s worth a read.