January 2008 Archives

Damn. Gourmet.com's shmancy party made me feel like a gauche-ass freeloader. The fete was thrown at Bar Boulud, with Daniel Boulud himself holding court for a gathering of chefs, writers, editors, and buttoned up bloggers. Patés galore (my favorite being the guinea hen), a line snaking through the stainless steel kitchen, a succulent boudin noir, and enough chefs to program PBS for five straight Sundays. By the end of the night, they were practically pouring the syrah down our throats. The blond wood and fish-scale covered railroad space was quite comf and roomy. I'll have to check out Bar Boulud for pre-Met nosh.

As someone who's worked in online for almost ten years now (yikes), I've lived through the days of Aeron chairs for all to being treated like the flowers in the attic. These days, attention is being paid to dotcom, and this party seemed to say, quite clearly, Gourmet.com is Gourmet. Obvs we are not enjoying the same economic boom we were during the first internet bubble, but the bloggers are being taken very seriously. By now, I see a lot of familiar faces at these things and I wonder -- if I started this blog in 2007 instead of 2004, would I still be able to get my name on this guest list? Ten years from now (hell, three years from now), will I be supplanted by the pepper sprouts in some uncharted new medium?

Meanwhile, they kept running these clips of David Pasternack pulling the foreskin off a giant penis.

Here are some pics before I go to bed.

I'm back! A trillion thanks to Janet for keeping the seat warm! These last 12 weeks have been rough. But, in the last week, I did manage to meet up with Tanya, an EDOW reader who's a sculptor in Barcelona. (How did I accrue such a cool readership? Only you know the answer to that one, my friends.) We met up to share a bottle of Sauvignon Collio 2005 Ronco dei Tassi, a nice, acidic, full white from Friuli, over a plate of fritto misto. (Enoteca I Trulli -- very civilized for an after-work glass of wine.) Our reason for meeting up? She managed to smuggle a package of jamón ibérico de bellota from Spain for me.

How gorgeous is that? A queen among hams, bellota meat is maroon, dark like bresaola, not heavily streaked with fat. She recommended letting the refrigerated ham sit out for two hours to come to room temp so you can really taste the acorns in the fat, then serving atop slices of good baguette rubbed with ripe tomato, with fat arbequina olives and a glass of rioja or Iberian wine on the side. Obviously we're a long ways away from ripe tomatoes, so I may have to skip that part, but I'm really excited about digging in. I'll let you know how it goes. Apparently, in Spain, you just keep a leg of the jamón covered on your counter and carve thin slices off using the jamonero whenever you get hungry. I've promised to harass Tanya if I ever make it over to Spain. I gotta go to a country whose people know how to keep a pork leg on the counter for a year.

Jamón ibérico de bellota was only recently legalized in the States. If you're not going to make it to Spain anytime soon, you can get on a waiting list at Tienda.com.

Name: Allan Roth

Occupation: Political Science Graduate Student

Borough: Manhattan

Relationship status: Single

What did you eat today?

Turkey, egg, and cheese breakfast wrap.

What do you never eat?

The kimchi my roommate brings home.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Flour, butter, eggs, sage.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

Chef’s knife.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Sitting? Deluxe. Standing? Roti Roll Bombay Frankie.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

Boiled crawfish. Pecan pie. Abita Amber.

Visit Allan's blog at rattlemycage.wordpress.com.

So this is not-Ganda, which is to say, it's Janet here with a story of love and baking.
I met Kperl's brownies before I met him. A mutual friend invited us to her pot luck New Year's Eve party last year, and he showed up with two pans of his brownies (with nuts and without). Brownies are pretty much my favorite dessert ever, but I'm EXTREMELY PICKY. Not too fudgy, not too cakey (I think that was a cover line from Cook's Illus.) Not too sweet. Very chocolatey, with at touch of salt.
So I go to this party where I'm supposed to meet this guy and I'm kind of avoiding it because it's awkward, but suddenly on the food table, wedged in next to spinach dips and cheese boards and bowls of hummus, are two pans of really moist, dark, beautiful brownies. I dig in. I take one bite. I look at Sari in wonder and say, "Who made these?" And she points across the room at Kperl, and says, "him."

La Doug and I strongly believe that if you buy the ball gown, the party invitation will come. That's why, over a very fancy tasting menu dinner, he can encourage his father to go ahead and order that glass of wine. His reasoning?

DOUG: Look, a glass of wine at a bar is, what, $10? A glass here is only $15 more, really.

And I nod my head in agreement, despite the fact that that is some Alice in Wonderland econ. But fuck it, we got to discover a gorgeous cab blend from Ridge. I know, I know, all you Francophiles are aghast that anyone could love a Cali red. I think the 2004 Ridge Santa Cruz Mountains is soft, inky and curvaceous, like licking a dark chocolate truffle. Considering how pauvre the dollar is, I don't think it's a bad idea to pour some lovin' on the hometown juice.

(I'm not officially back yet, just taking a break from working. Hi! I miss you! )

Hello. Well. I am, uh, a little nervous to be blogging on Ganda's site. It's kind of like going to see PJ Harvey and having her say, "Hey, Janet, want to come up on stage and sing a few numbers in front of my enormous, passionate fan base?" So I'm thrilled to be here and yet feeling tremendous self-imposed pressure to be Ganda-licious. And I don't know how to upload images. Just managing your expectations.

My friend Janet's going to pinch hit for me while I've got my nose to the grindstone at work. Please be kind to her.

Lemon out.