The begining of the end

These are truly sad times. French Quarter chef Paul Prudhomme talks Gulf seafood.

For the love of nuts

Is the recent Chinese craving for our nuts bad for us?

"“We are now at the highest prices ever in the history of the pecan industry for pecan meats and yet we have one of the largest supplies ever,” said Mr. Zedan. “All because of China.”

Mr. Zedan said the higher prices had not yet been felt strongly in American supermarkets, partly because many large buyers bought pecans last year on contracts negotiated at lower prices, before the market soared. That could change later this year. Mr. Zedan said higher prices might eventually lead ice cream makers in the United States to skimp on the nuts in butter pecan ice cream. And pecan pies might be selling at a premium this fall."

It's a winner!

Since I'm in the video business I had to post this Emmy Award winning opening for Eric Ripert's PBS show. It's simple and tasteful.

"Remember the crazy awesome opening sequence for chef Eric Ripert's PBS show Avec Ericthat was nominated for an Emmy? Well, it won for "Outstanding Achievement in Main Title and Graphic Design"!"

Yum... fermented meat and poultry

Thinking of delving into the wonderful world of fermented meat and poultry? Me too. For a mere $191.99 (marked down from $239.99) this book can get you started. You better hurry up, there are only two left, and I just bought one.

Strawberry, baked bean, Mixed Plate!!!!

I'm not a fan of Tech N9ne (a local rap artist) but this song is the best! On his upcoming release he has a song about Gates BBQ! No lie, check it out here. I can't understand a lot of the words so maybe I'll ask Lisa Paris to translate for me. O.G. = Ollie Gates I figured that much out.

It's alive!

Someone (no one knows who) has burst on the scene as a cross between Ruth Reichl and Anthony Bourdain. A Franken Foodie! The funny thing is they both love her, him it. Whoever's doing this is genius! Here are few famous folks taking note.

"It is kind of genius. I love it. I'm a total addict. I'm hooked already and, frankly, flattered and disturbed in equal measure."
Anthony Bourdain, Host, "No Reservations"

"Hilarious . . . very clever."
Ruth Reichl, Author, former Editor-in-Chief, Gourmet Magazine

"You are a shining star out there in [the] twitterverse."
Tom Colicchio, Chef, Craft

"You are truly a scary creation."
Michael Ruhlman, Author

"You're offal cute: the drag-queen love child of Fergus Henderson and Alice Waters. Meant as a compliment."
Frank Bruni, New York Times

"I don't know what's more disturbing: the avatar, the tweets or the whole damn idea."
Daniel Patterson, Chef, Coi

"I think i might be in love with u."
Kelly Choi, Host, Top Chef Masters

"Wow. This is so gross, it's sexy."
Brenna White, Twitterer

"In the world of foodies, there is a new, enduring mystery: Ruth Bourdain, who art thou?
Cross the evocative world of former Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl with the scowl and crass sarcasm of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain and, voila, you have one Ruth Bourdain."

Here is an article from WSJ.

Here's it's tumbl.
Here's it's facebook
Here's it's twitter

Here's a story about your meat

Not my meat, yours. I like mine cooked just passed the mooing state.

This article reminded me of a time when a friend and I were making homemade sausages. We had seasoned and ground 4 types of pork sausage. We had the meat in trays on the table and we were getting ready to stuff the casings. As we worked, another friend stopped in to say hi and have a beer. As we discussed the sausage, she reached over, picked up a fork, and took a HUGE fork full of the raw Italian sausage into her mouth. Yack. My sausage making buddy and I just looked at each other in disbelief as she took several more GIANT raw bites.

She's still alive to talk about it. In fact, today is her birthday. Happy birthday Victoria!

Randy Taylor is pissed at Jimmy Dean

He's not mad at him for dying, he's mad because they quit making the 16oz. rolls!

"How am I going to feed 5 people on 12 ounces of sausage and a couple dozen eggs?"

"Jimmy Dean sausage is for southern people to eat for breakfast with their fried eggs and their t-bone steaks!"

Obama says the seafood is fine

GTFO! 

"Let me be clear: Seafood from the Gulf today is safe to eat," Obama said, after eating lunch in Gulfport, Miss., during his latest oil spill inspection tour, according to USA Today. He even pronounced it "delicious."

Food Gone Bad

I know that all of you must think that being a food reviewer is a sweet gig. You get to chow at great places and then review them for the millions of people that view our blog every day (or the six people that view it everyday... whatever).

Recently I paid the price for my food reviewer ways. I went to The Brooksider in, well... Brookside. I wanted to check out some sports, drink a cold beer, and have some good pub grub. Everything started pretty well. Great service... Check. Cold Beer... Check. Good Food... Uh Oh!

The pretzels we had were probably good two weeks ago when they were made (probably bought). Not so good on the day I visited. The Philly sandwich might have been good had it not been clearly covered in two separate spots with green mold. Seriously. Our server/bartender apologized and said they had some fresh bread they could use for their second attempt at our Philly. Oddly enough he then left out the front door for a few minutes (maybe a run to the grocery store next door?).

Anyway, I'd love to give The Brooksider a honest review. I just can't. You served me moldy bread. You lose. I've had good meals in K.C. and bad ones as well. But this is the first time I've been served moldy bread (was Ray Charles the cook? This thing was clearly green.).

On the bright side I can cross off one more place to grab food in K.C. The list was getting kind of long anyway.

Raw veganism is the dizzope? Huh?

According to Lisa Paris, Raw Veganism is a total party scene. She uses all sorts of hip, street lingo to convince you of such. Who talks like this? Raw vegan white girls from the means streets of Portland that's who. Suckas!.

"Most peeps think of raw and veganism as lackluster fruit and vegetable shenanigans but oh snap- there is so much more!"

"....the beauty is you don’t have to get all hardcore super raw gangster to experience the amazing benefits."

"I believe there are two key factors in attaining this state of raw dietary dope-ness"

"There is a majorly cool world of info out there and it is our pleasure to get you hooked up-phat."

And finally she has a "crazy hook-up" that is going to "blow our minds!" Aw Yeah!

 Ready? Here it is, straight outa the Kitch!!!

Straight from the Raw Beets Kitch:
The Parisian Love Crumble
Makes 1 Beautiful Crumble
Ingredients:
1 ¼ cup raw almonds
1 cup walnuts
1 lb. strawberries
¾ cup pitted dates
¼ teaspoon sea salt

"Make a million friends with this tasty crowd pleaser…"

If I served this to my friends at a party I would expect them to punch me in the face. Don't let this little white chick from Portland, Oregon scare you off with her straight-dope street speak. Check out her website here.

Best restaurant name ever?

When choosing a name for your restaurant, make it a good one. Fatty 'Cue in Brooklyn did just that. The menu looks terrific. Asian freshness and heat paired with smokey, fatty, BBQ goodness. I guess some folks call this "fusion". I call it a great idea.

Could something like this fly in KC? I'm not sure if this city would embrace such an exotic rendition of their beloved BBQ. We folks, are BBQ snobs, and we don't like people messing with our cherished pastime.

"Fatty ‘Cue is an effort by a few of the members of the Fatty Crew to bring to Brooklyn a little Southeast Asian fermented funkiness and a whole helluva a lot of smoke. Local and humanely grown/raised/fished products are subjected to our unique flavorings, scrubbed and rubbed, perhaps dropped in a salty-sweet dip pool, and then lovingly treated to low temperature smoke “baths” all for your dining pleasure."

I'm in. You?

Look... it's a book review... sort of

The folks at Workman Publishing Company asked if I would like to review a copy of Steven Raichlen's new BBQ cookbook Planet Barbecue. What a book! This thing weighs 3 pounds, it's an inch and a half thick and it's full of glossy pictures of delicious food!

Like the cover states, it has 309 recipes from 60 countries. Most of them look awesome and I'm dying to try them. This is the guy from the show BBQ U,  that tremendously boring show with the soft-spoken, anal retentive fella on PBS weekend mornings. I admit he does great food, but to watch him cook is like watching a pot never come to a boil.

The book is all about his food, without the boredom of him. Get a copy already! You can get it on amazon for like 12 bucks. This is a lot of book for $12.

Please pass the margaritas

Damn. I meant to type, "Drive passed Margaritas!"

It was Sunday and I wanted fried tacos, so I went down to the Blvd to get some. La Fonda was closed, damn, as were a lot of the restaurants. I kept driving, thinking I would hit up Rosedale BBQ, then I saw Margaritas.

As I pulled in the lot, there was a family of  7 piling out of the place. Damn, I thought, now I remember why I don't eat here. Margaritas is the Denny's of Mexican food. I took a seat at the bar. The barkeep was behind the bar entering information into the touch screen. For about 10 minutes I stared at her awesome neck tattoo proudly displayed below her ponytail.

There are people with neck tattoos, and then there are the rest us. Eventually, I received a menu and a can of Tecate. "Last one!", she says, as she digs it out of a lukewarm tub of water from under the backbar. "Last one?", I said  "Did you have a run on Tecate today?". "No, that's left over from Cinco de Mayo." Damn, I thought, almost a month in that tub? I picked up the menu as I put down the beer.

I stared at the Dennyesque menu for the next few minutes. While looking at the pretty pictures of food I realized this place has free entertainment. The bartender and a server were fighting over a ticket! A lost ticket, that reappeared! In front of the Tēteoh and everyone they fought!

As soon as the entertainment ended, I decided it was time to leave. I asked the bartender for my check but she didn't acknowledge me. Instead she turns toward her friend the touchscreen. After several minutes she leaves the touchscreen, and the bar. Damn. I had no entertainment, I couldn't drink the warm beer, and I couldn't pay my way out.

She returned a few minutes later and started putzing around behind the bar. I asked her what I owed for the Tecate and she replied, "He's looking it up." WTF? Looking it up? Who is looking it up? It's a can of warm beer, not a gold watch. I asked, "Will 5 dollars cover it?" She said, "I don't know, some of our imports are $5.50". F this place! I thew 7 bucks on the bar and left.

MexiDenny's does not have their shit tight stuff together.

She folks, was a loser. Just another loser with a neck tattoo. From the moment I first saw the super hip neck tattoo, I knew not to expect much from her. She, just like all neck tatted people, lack certain things most of the rest of us possess, common sense and job skills.

I would like to bag on Margarita's Dennymex food, but I couldn't get that far. Maybe you can.

And the oysters shout with glee!

You heard it here. The fine peoples at BP have decided that drilling two more wells, that intersect the broken one, is the solution.

"But the best-case scenario of sealing the leak is two relief wells being drilled diagonally into the gushing well — tricky business that won't be ready until August."

Oysters love oil and dynamite?

That's right folks, as far back as 1960, scientists (hired by oil companies) have proven that oysters like oil, oil drilling mud and dynamite.

"Don't believe it? Check out the evidence for yourself. Skip ahead to 9:17 in the video, or watch the earlier segments... all brought to you by the unbiased documentarians at the American Petroleum Institute."

I love the comments.
"I like how it cost them 2 million dollars to watch 3 tanks filled with oysters for 6 months."

Sea water, hold the petro please

I've inadvertently consumed plenty of sea water while swimming, diving and rescuing dolphins, but never thought to cook with it. This guy is selling purified sea water to chefs to enhance the flavor of their creations. Don't worry, he's not scooping it out of the Gulf of Mexico, it's coming from the Outer Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland.

According to the Japanese you can pump it up from the deep, desalinize it, and sell it as drinking water. Minerally goodness!