Fearless Leader Is Dead

Assuming the news reports are true about Fearless Courageous Leader Kim Jong-Il, we will never get to see silly photos like this pop up anew ever again:

It's Kim Jong-Il looking at a soft drink!  From the fun new Tumblr of the day, Kim Jong-Il looking at things.  I love the photo of him looking at rice.  Look the hell outta that rice, Jong-Il.  Go on.

@Cookbook

It figures: I find out about something inextricably linked to new social media by going to the library and picking up a print-bound cookbook. But that's just what I did the other day, when I found Eat Tweet by Maureen Evans (@cookbook on Twitter; her secondary, recipe-free handle is @cookbookmaureen). If you know Twitter at all, then you can imagine what this is: complete recipes in 140 characters or less. And it's not just the mundane stuff that I've tried to describe in as complete a sentence as I could. Maureen has very complex recipes, boiled down to their grammatical abbreviated essence. Take her October 27 recipe for Beef Wellington:

Beef Wellington: sear,chill 4filet/2T buttr. Brwn 2c mincdshroom/s+p/T oil; simmr9m+⅓c wtwine/¼t thyme; top4puffpastry,wrap filet. 30m@400℉.less than a minute ago via webMaureen Evans
cookbook

Embeddable Tweet courtesy of Blackbird Pie

As you can see, the lingo makes it possible to write a rather long recipe in Twitter format:

"Sear, then chill four filets and 2 tablespoons butter. Brown 2 cups of minced mushrooms, salt & pepper, and at tablespoon of oil. Simmer for 9 minutes, add 1/3 cup of white wine, 1/4 teaspoon thyme. Top with four puff pastries, wrap filets. 30 minutes at 400°F." And she has to find special characters that take up as little space as possible ("1/3", "1/4" and even "°F" all exist as one character each apparently). It doesn't take too long to figure out, and she has a key in the cookbook if you get lost. And now that I have the cookbook (again, library) I can scroll through the recipes even when I am off line!

Airline Meals!

I wish I had known about this site during the scary meal I had on IcelandAir that one time I flew from Baltimore via Boston and Reykjavik to Amsterdam.

Where The Locals Eat

I'm now on the Baltimore blog section of Where the Locals Eat (hence the little HTML blurb on the side that says "Where the Locals Eat Featured Blogger"). Thanks, Brian! I'll be pouring over the best restaurants for Baltimore soon, and for other cities that I hope to visit this summer not long after that.

Urbanspoon? What is this Urbanspoon?

You may start to see older and upcoming posts followed by the curious little picture you see above this post. This is the "Urbanspoon" website. Yes, it's one of many, many restaurant review sites for us in the proletariat. But this one is kind of cool because it links to all various reviews of specific places, plus it leaves an area for bloggers to link to their reviews of the same places, getting us extra links to our own sites. I have just linked my Exit 30A Snackin' post to their page about Godfrey's (I, like 64% of all voters, liked the place), and will be linking to a few reviews of individual restaurants.

MMMM. GOURMET CHOCOLATE..

I just heard the most wonderful thing on NPR's Diane Rehm Show this morning. Ms. Rehm, who recently featured an hour of Paula Deen (isn't she popping up all over the place these days? Seriously), had the perfect guest for this or any season: Clay Gordon. You may have no clue who this guy is, and before 11:00 today, neither did I. He's the author of the book Discover Chocolate, which I will be going out to buy at some point in the near future. He spent all hour talking about, as stated on Rehm's website, "the intricacies of buying, storing, tasting, judging and, most of all, savoring the world's most heavenly chocolates."

And he's not just talking about Belgium and Switzerland. A true chocolate gourmand, he waxed over the subtleties of flavor in chocolate from Mexico, Peru, Cote d'Ivoire and Papua New Guinea, not to mention Belgium and France. And here's something one caller got him excited about: chocolate and beer pairings! We hear so much about chocolate and wine pairings, and he's a big avocate of that, too. But he mentioned that some beers can complement chocolate even better, as they aren't overpowered by it the way most wines are.

Did I also mention that the New York-based author runs the Chocophile website and sells chocolate on it?

Listen to the entire hour's worth of choclate-ness here (scroll down to "Clay Gordon" and choose either one of the audio options - either RealAudio or Windows Media File).

Automatic Cake Decorator

Look what Geisha found: Automatic Cake Decorating Generator!

Maps of Food for the Children of the U.S. Americans

Many people in the webiverse have by now heard of the unfortunate plight of poor Miss Teen South Carolina and her, um, infamous speech about why Americans do so poorly in geography. Apparently, she isn't alone. Too many Americans don't know much about geography, or know where the US is on a map! Maybe that's unfair, and I would like to see some hard data. But to hear about one woman, who wanted to fly to California to take the train to Hawaii if it was cheaper (!) - well, I hope she and Miss Teen South Carolina are in a lonelier boat than people say they are.

One person's answer to our geography crisis: Mapsforus.org, to which map users can upload any map of any kind.

So why are Americans so bad at geography? It can't just be Miss Teen SC, right? Oh, but too bad it isn't.

I had nothing food related to add to this, so I thought I'd find a foodie map! This isn't on Mapsforus.org (yet).

Above is a map* from Calorielab of just how fat Americans are. The leanest state? Colorado, where almost 18% of the population is obese. The fattest? Mississippi, where almost 31% hold that distinction. Yikes!

* I linked directly to the graphic at first, but they replaced it with some strange advertisement. So I copied the actual graphic and inserted it from my computer. It's copyrighted by CalorieLab and not mine at all.

I kind of like this Flickr thing

I am quite the technophile, and yet there are a few things on the web I have never tried, nor even bothered with. I do not now, nor will I ever, have a MySpace or Facebook account. I haven't downloaded anything from iTunes. And I keep on seeing photos all over the web tagged simply as "Flickr" but never thought to investigate it.

Well, I just investigated that last one. And this Flickr thing is kind of neat. Not to make this come off like a free commercial, I'm sure there are other photo-sharing sites out there that are just as good. I just happened to stumble upon the one they call Flickr.

And I have just uploaded some photos from my recent trip to New York (Manhattan and Queens) as my first entries, geotagged and everything to show the approximate places I snapped 'em.

Baltimore - Washington Area Food Board

I got this message a few days ago (some fellow foodies did as well) about this Don Rockwell food forum. They're compiling a Baltimore and Annapolis board and asked for contributors. While I'm actually a little thinly-spread, I thought I'd mention it for people who are interested. One thing I have to object to - Baltimore and Annapolis are listed under the DC Suburbs. Hel-lo! We're not suburbs of DC! Silver Spring, Rockville, Fairfax, Arlington - these are suburbs of DC. Baltimore, Annapolis... um, these cities were around before DC ever existed. Sorry, I just get a wee bit touchy about that.

A Wicked Good Lobstah Roll Video

Those of us by the beloved Chesapeake Bay find it anathema to boil a crustacean. Then again, we think of crustaceans solely in terms of crabs (okay, crabs and shrimp). So watching a video about making a lobster roll is quite educational.

When Adam the Amateur Gourmet is the one making it, it becomes funny, too (made by Serious Eats)!

(I tried to embed the video, but Blogger won't embed videos from Typepad's non-YouTube format. Rrrrrrrrr.)

Honfest Link

Just added: a convenient new link to Honfest's website. Cuz who wants to type all dem letters, hon?

Caveat Cenator *

This recent page from the Hungry Girl website warns the wary weader - er, reader - about foods that sound healthy and lo-cal, but are secretly disguised diet busters. And this one is almost as disturbing, depending on which link you click.

Then again, is it just me, or does one really not go to Bob Evans if he's trying to eat healthy? It isn't just me, is it?

* Caveat cenator = Eater beware. At least that's what it should mean if I remember my college Latin.

Thanks for the recommend, Fairfax

I came, I surfed, I indulged. What a yummy site!

Too bad we can't get See's Candies out here. They are yummy. I indulged in a few once a long time ago (oh, about 10 years ago) after I lost a brief part-time job. Chocolate really is comfort food, no?

This is very postmodern...

I post a lot of links to Wikipedia when I'm discussing obscure food items or even not-so-obscure ones that still merit some background. I love it. Despite the recent controversy, I still love it.

But to me, this article on Wikipedia is just, well, very po-mo.

Bi-Coastal Cook

Just checking out my inbound links (those linking to me), and just found this relatively new blog. The Bi-Coastal Cook has a lot of good recipes and several photos of 'em. Like me, Charles (the Bi-Coastal Cook in question) is a Marylander who spent a good chunk of his life in SoCal (he was in San Diego, which is gorgeous; I was in the Inland Empire, which is, um, er, only two hours from San Diego). So we both have a romance with food from both Cali and the Chesapeake. Some comments: Love the recipes for lumpia and the artichote frittata with gruyère, dude! But I gotta admit that asparagus is not my cup of tea (unless it's covered in hot, crispy tempura batter, yum!). And that knife! Sweeeeeet...

Photos from Charm City

I just finished combing through all those London photos I took in December and January. Man, there were a ton. So, I've decided to start sharing photos on a photo blog. If you want to see some neat pix of, for now, my trip to the the Senator (London photos to follow), go to http://bmorephotos.blogspot.com/ and they are right there!

The Noodle Whore (?)

I was watching Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations: Los Angeles just now on the Travel Channel. He visited Thai Town in LA, and met up with a blogger from the San Gabriel Valley, LA, CA. He spoke to this one blogger who calls himself, simply, the Noodle Whore. How funny! When I visit SoCal this April, I may need to take some of his recommends for good Asian noodles. Mind you, his last entry is for September 2006, but hopefully most of these places are still open.

Sharp Bites

Fairfax brought this article to my attention. It's a New York Times article about food bloggers (no, not me or Rachel or Hungover Gourmet or any of the rest of us, just the ones up in New York). Money quote (to borrow the term from political commentator Andrew Sullivan):

There is a new food game in the city that never stops grazing. A proliferation of blogs treating every menu revision, construction permit, clash of egos and suspiciously easy-to-get reservation as high drama is changing the rules of the restaurant world and forcing everyone from owners to chefs to publicists to get used to the added
scrutiny.

Diners hungry for the next, the newest, the best, and with no patience to wait for the annual Zagat Guide, are benefiting.

I guess the folks up in New York are a bit less, well, civil than we are in Charm City. NB:

Unlike an earlier wave of food blogs focused on home cooking, recipes and basic restaurant recommendations, the new breed is gossipy and competitive; it trafficks in pointed restaurant criticism and tidbits of news — Craftsteak has installed a new stove! Emmerite beans have been added to the menu at Tasting Room! — and is unsettling the ground of the restaurant industry.

I didn't know it was such a proliferation! And apparently, these food blogs are truly having an effect up in the Big Apple. Not so much with the ones here, I guess (otherwise the Grill Art Cafe would've closed down long ago). But it does hit me (and this'll sound a wee bit George Clooneyish): we really do have the power, however small, to give Bawlamorons a heads up about a great place. At least for the folks who like to read our blogs. It's just like New York-based restaraunteur David Chang (of Momofuku Noodle Bar in Manhattan) notes in this same article:

“It’s instant marketing...[The bloggers] get the notice out there. It’s a more egalitarian thing.”

And no, I doubt I have the power to put anyone out of business, God forbid. But if we can warn somebody about an awful place, that's a good thing, too :)

BTW: Also see this related article, Where the Foodies Are on the Web, again specifically NYC-related. My favorite non-Bawlmer-based foodie, the Amateur Gourmet, is referenced in this bloglist.

Pigtown and TeaPigs

Fairfax, who recently moved back to B-more from Cardiff, Wales, UK, writes about TeaPigs in the Pigtown Design blog. TeaPigs is a tea company who offers exotic teas, including popcorn, chocolate flake and chili tea, plus what Fairfax describes as a "stunning-looking darjeeling Earl Grey tea." If these teas taste as good as they look then I either have to mail order pronto, or buy plane tickets back to London! Read about it here.

Funny thing about Pigtown, by the way: my grandmother (on my mother's side) was born and raised there - oh, waaay back in the 1910's and 1920's. Probably when there were still pigs running through the streets!