You don’t get to the food until the end of Babette’s Feast, the 1987 Danish movie based on a short story by Isak Dinesen, but it’s worth waiting for the elaborate dinner scene that occupies the final third of the picture. I’d seen this movie years ago and long since…
“He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart.” — C.S. Lewis…
A new online site called the NuVal Nutritional Scoring System gives you the skinny on your favorite fatty snacks, using an easy 1 to 100 scoring system to rate those Pringles and the YoCrunch cookies and cream Oreo yogurt you’ve been stuffing your face with lately. It’s all done with…
Obama is speaking in Cairo, even quoting verses from the Qur’an, glad-handing Arab leaders, and no doubt settling down for intimate talks with King Abdullah II over a pot of Turkish coffee and some sticky pastries loaded with pistachios. And here’s Hillary Clinton, touring the Middle East wearing a headscarf…
El Autentico Sabor de la Comida Dominicana,” reads the menu at this Pompano Beach hole-in-the-wall. And it’s authentic Dominican Republic fare, all right. Homemade specials at Latin Conga! change daily, but once they run out, forget your craving for fried chicken chunks or seafood soup. It pays to show up…
Fish has become the food issue of the decade, as contentious and controversial as farm-raised chicken or foie gras was in the ’90s. The doomsayers claim world fisheries are collapsing; environmentalists wring their hands over the damage done to both the Earth and local economies by shrimp and salmon farms;…
Ambrosia Some folks have been crowing about Ambrosia’s pizza for 30 years, as long as the restaurant has been in business — so the huge “Best Pizza!” sign on the door reminds anybody within squinting distance. Not much has changed at Ambrosia in all that time, least of all the…
“What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?” ~Lin YutangBonus vocab word: “Globesity.” Coined by the World Health Organization…
Plagiarizing from our colleague Robert Sietsema up at the Village Voice, we’re initiating an irregular feature based on the Voice’s recurring food blog item “Things We Hate.” Only we’re not nearly so genteel as our cousins in Manhattan, and we’re feeling ugly enough to hurl a stiletto if anybody so…
“I don’t think anybody gives a rat’s ass whether I am about to eat a tuna sandwich. I don’t even care. Some of it is so inane and narcissistic and bizarre I don’t quite get it. I don’t know why anyone would want to read it, much less why I…
The well-heeled boomers who live in the swank Mizner mansions behind the new Joy Noodles & Rice are already steering their Benzes and Beemers into Joy’s cramped parking lot for carry-out cartons of Thai noodle soups and Philippine egg rolls; and they probably don’t demand a whole lot in the…
I just ran across a whole website devoted to great meals to seduce somebody with, seductionmeals.com. And whaddaya know, there’s a recipe for oyster po’ boy sliders right on the first page (po’ boys are also known as “the peacemaker,” a factoid I’d never heard before. But makes sense, right?…
*Ed. Note: Sometimes even Twain can be a fool. Maybe he should have asked the Turks how to drink it. “Of all the unchristian beverages that ever passed my lips, Turkish coffee is the worst. The cup is small, it is smeared with grounds; the coffee is black, thick, unsavory…
Hollywood’s oldest Turkish restaurant, Istanbul, has been in this same dinky location for 19 years, a small room that opens to ocean breezes and classic views of kids flying kites on the beach. And they haven’t changed a thing from the plastic chairs to a menu of kebabs and Turkish…
“Gourmet /n./ Anyone whom, when you fail to finish something strange or revolting, remarks that it’s an acquired taste and that you’re leaving the best part.” (source unknown)…
Dear Insufferable Know-It-Alls:Grilling fresh local fish outside on the old Weber is my own private Waterloo, except unlike Napoleon’s humiliating defeat by Wellington and the Prussians, mine keeps happening over and over like a recurring nightmare — the only thing that changes are which guests are witnessing the battle and…
“If you are not feeling well, if you have not slept, chocolate will revive you. But you have no chocolate! I think of that again and again! My dear, how will you ever manage?” — Marquise de Sevigne, February 11, 1677…
Pissed off at Publix? Think you just can’t choke down one more slice of gummy, supermarket-nuked bread? Le Petit Pain in Lantana, run by Gaelle and Thomas Tcherniavsky, a gorgeous, elegant young Parisian couple, turns out a French baguette ($2.25 for a long, thin loaf) unrivaled in all details: a…
Here’s what I get for being a snarky little bitch. I get to eat my words, one at a time, sandwiched between rounds of buttery brioche and a layer of juicy Kobe beef, washed down with a designer “Las Olas” martini made of gin, agave, and elderflower liqueur. This all…
The Center for Science in the Public Interest has just released its report “Xtreme Eating 2009” detailing the nine worst restaurant foods, and three of them, a full one-third, come straight from The Cheesecake Factory. By “worst,” I mean those “appetizers” and entrees that pack the equivalent or more of…
You OK grilling burgers and steaks but still afraid to toast that $22 fillet of fish over open coals? I suffer this complaint myself: My fillets routinely get stuck to the grill and fall into fragments when I try to pry them up; or I get nervous and undercook my…
“A good cup of Creole Coffee! Is there anything in the whole range of food substances to be compared with it? And is there any city in the world where coffee is so delightfully concocted as in New Orleans?” — The Picayune’s Creole Cook Book (1901)…
