Category: Gnews

If you've got $1395 to spare (and who doesn't), spend an October weekend with the fifth annual Gourmet Institute. Experience cooking demos and seminars with such culinary luminaries as Ruth Reichl, Thomas Keller, Grant Achatz, Eric Ripert, Colman Andrews, Drew Nieporent, Masaharu Morimoto...and me.

What?

Shhhhh....I know. It's sort of batshit crazy. I've been asked to be on a blogger panel. Here's the description from the website:

Eat the Web: Blogging's Effect on the Food World

Tyler Colman (DrVino.com)/Ben Leventhal (Eater.com)/Ed Levine (SeriousEats.com)/Ganda Suthivarakom (EatDrinkOneWoman.com)

Blogging is a new and powerful phenomenon. In this discussion, four of the most respected bloggers share their thoughts and insights on topics such as: How does one start a blog? What makes a blog a blog? What does the food-blog world look like? How is the Internet changing the restaurant business and how bloggers are shaping food trends. Ruth Reichl moderates.

Shut up! Stop laughing! What the hell am I going to talk about? Who wants to hear from a blogger panel?

I feel a little bit like I did when I was a freshman in college. My buddy Julian and I desperately wanted to see our favorite Brit pop bands (shut up! stop laughing!) play down at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco. The only problem was that I was 17 and she was 18, and Bottom of the Hill is 21+.

So -- very sneaky -- we would take the Bart to 16th and Mission and walk many, many blocks to the club. Once we got there, which was usually around 5pm, there was never anyone checking IDs at the door so we'd sneak in, go to the back garden and just pretend like we belonged there. The bartenders would be setting up, it would be fully light out, and if we were lucky, we'd catch a bit of the band's soundcheck. The only problem was that the bands didn't actually go on until about 11pm. So we would basically get there and hang out in this tiny club for SIX HOURS.

I mean, clearly we did not belong. But nobody kicked us out once we were in. I'm just hoping the gatekeepers at the Gourmet Institute turn a similarly benevolent blind eye and let a fangirl squat in the telephone booth. Maybe next to the Andrew Carmellini white truffle station.

My friend Etsuko at Soy is participating in Unicef's Tap Project. Pay $1 for your tap water tomorrow. That money goes to Unicef to help provide safe drinking water in places where it's not so easy to come by. Here's a list of all participating restaurants. If you go to Soy, I recommend the spicy tuna and avocado.

Take the N R or W to 57th St.

If you do it on February 3, you can see me perform with David Byrne in a concert version of Here Lies Love, his multimedia song cycle about the life of Imelda Marcos. THE Carnegie Hall. With David Byrne. About Imelda Marcos. Written by David Byrne with musical contributions from Fatboy Slim. If it's like the premiere we did in Australia (which you can read about here and here), it'll be three singers and David's 4-piece band. Three singers as in David Byrne, Joan Almedilla (the woman who's going to play Imelda Marcos), and me.

[!!!]

It's a great show -- multimedia, disco lights, archival footage, worldbeat, kick-ass band (including my Miho Hatori bandmates Mauro Refosco and Thomas Bartlett). I had so much fun with David and his band in Australia. This will be the U.S. premiere of the music.

I hope you can come. It's Carnegie Hall! It's once in a lifetime! Tickets are selling really well already. You can check for available tickets on Carnegie Hall's website. Here's the Stern Auditorium seating chart (main stage, holla!). And if you've got good eyes, you might just spot my adorable Mae in the audience.

Read David's journal entry, Carnegie Snowball

David Byrne: Songs from Here Lies Love

Saturday, February 3, 2007 at 8:00pm
Carnegie Hall
Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage
$21-$70

David Byrne, Vocals and Guitar
Joan Almedilla, Vocals
Ganda Suthivarakom, Vocals
Mauro Refosco, Percussion
Graham Hawthorne, Drums
Paul Frazier, Bass
Thomas Bartlett, Keyboards

David Byrne and his band perform selections from his new multimedia song cycle written in collaboration with DJ Fatboy Slim—Here Lies Love. The songs invoke the life of Imelda Marcos, the former First Lady of the Philippines, and the servant who raised her.

Me me me me me. Cooking With Amy shouts out EDOW for Blog Day! Did you know there was a Blog Day?

I'm off to Columbia, Missouri for a wedding this weekend. The meals are generally accounted for, but I'm looking forward to a mini-break.

Super fun news. A few years ago, I tried to get into voiceover. Nothing came of it because I tend to sound like a 13 year old with a slight cold, as evidenced in my podcasts. But I got a call recently to audition for a role that required a Thai accent and, long story short, I got hired! I've overdubbed the speaking voice for Mali, a small character in the new Tony Jaa movie, The Protector! My girl's not the lead, but she's pivotal to the plot. I also redid the voice of one of the news reporters. (The actor's accent was fine but the writing was fresh off the boat.) Isn't that insanely awesome? The Asian nerd in me is super thrilled about having overdubbed a martial arts movie. I encourage you all to go see the movie and then go eat Thai food at Sripraphai or Zabb in Queens -- that's what I'll be doing. Opens in theaters across the nation on August 25! Incidentally, the original name of the movie is Tom Yum Goong, as in the soup. Of course I got hired to do voiceover for a movie named after a soup.

This feature has been sort of languishing in my server, waiting to be fleshed out. I realized, however, that what it needs is your help. So without further adieu, allow me to introduce you to Eat Me!, the Eat Drink One Woman guide to dining out in any situation. Help me flesh this thing out by submitting your dining/boozing needs. I'm here to help. And/or ridicule.

Welcome to my newly reconditioned and refurbished home! Some new things for you to check out:

• My new look, created with help from Jenny Feddersen. Don't I look good in pink?
  
• The Eat Map -- All my reviews in a convenient, chic interactive map.
  
• My ink and paper articles from real glossy magazines.
  
• Special guest Ruth Reichl (!!) is what she eats.
  

Special thanks to Vanessa Von Hessert for designing the cherries in the banner! Back to the business of eating and complaining, mi amor. A piece of advice from my friend Lynn's dad: Don't forget to buy a fifth on the third for the 4th!

xoxo,
Ganda

Eat drink one woman version 10.5.1 (or whatever) will launch this Friday! All of these features that previously only existed in my head have actually formed molecules and cells. I'm very excited to share them with you. Funny to launch on a Friday, I know, but that's because I have a VIP You Are What You Eat lined up. I can't tell you more without spoiling your dinner.

Apologies to you recent commenters. I just figured out where the comments live on this thing and finally got them published. Switching from Typepad to Movable Type has been like moving to Japan. At first I was totally frustrated because I barely knew the words for bathroom and water. But over the last few weeks, I've gotten over the culture shock and I'm making real strides in my conversational skills. I even had a normal transaction at the ramen place yesterday. It's a fascinating and beautiful place. I can't yet discuss the nuances of Noh drama, but I'm on the right trajectory.

I guess I'll take this time to point out some NEW and IMPROVED features on eat drink one woman:

1. Updated About page! Because there's no such thing as Too Much Information.

2. New e-mail address -- send all correspondence to ganda {at} eatdrinkonewoman {dot} com. Isn't that so professional sounding?

3. Category drop down menu, Monthly archives drop down menu, and Restaurant reviews in (mostly) alpha order! (You have no idea how long that took this techtard to figure out.)

4. A search box! Dig, poke and prod away, my friends.

5. Google Ads -- okay, not that exciting for you, but at least they're relevant, unlike the Kanoodle porn ad strip. Every click helps.

Construction will continue at its slow but steady pace, and I'll post whenever I'm not turning Japanese. I'm open for business all this month. On June 30, expect the launch of eat drink one woman's EXTREME MAKEOVER, with a whole new look, a few special features that have been percolating, and a You Are What You Eat interview with a Very Special Surprise Guest. Stay tuned!

I finished the chapter on Masa in Michael Ruhlman's The Reach of a Chef yesterday*, and now I can't stop dreaming and creaming over the day I'll have $420 ($350 + instant 20% gratuity) to fork over to sit at the hinoki wood bar with the Taisho.

But then I saw what may be the most disgusting review I've ever read in my life. I pray to God it's a joke, but you just never know in this town. I hope you didn't just eat a big lunch:

From Menupages:
Posted by Blair** on 05/20/2006
A great halfway point

My fiancé, myself, and a couple of our friends were doing this thing that we do every once in a while where we try to make it from Friday to Wednesday drunk. The rules are that none of us can cook or stay in our own apartments during the “binge,” as we call it, so we spend a lot of time in restaurants and hotels. Luckily, my buddy James had planned ahead for once and booked Masa for that Saturday without telling any of us. A brillant move. By then, we were about twenty-four hours in and the food really hit the spot. Needles to say, I don’t remember much of the evening, but I think the food was excellent, although I felt like we were there for days and plates just kept coming and coming. The sake was a bigger draw than the food– and let me say – the one thing I do remember is some drink like Cakonkou or Kakonnku or something. The waitresses came by and I just kept saying Cakonku and it kept flowing. We were loud, but no one seemed to mind; it was a pretty festive atmosphere, not this “temple” everyone was telling me about. Delicious stuff. It all came to $3500 or something, and my dad was pissed when he saw the AMEX that month, but all that aside it was worth every penny.

*Disclaimer: Yes, the people who employ me publish it. But I bought his first "chef" book when it came out and I wasn't working here.
**Blair! You can't make that shit up. Or can you?