Updates

[One of my photos has been published at a blog owned by NBC and written by chef Ariane Duarte. Check out the entry here!]

Hello, people of the interwebs! Sorry for the lack of updates in a while. I’ve been pretty busy lately, mostly with work, eating, and taking pictures.

I still need to blog about my trip to Taiwan (amazing), Hong Kong, and Macau.

I’ve eaten at Le Bernardin since I last blogged, as well:

And this past Monday, I had a life-changing meal at Thomas Keller’s Per Se.

Lately, I’ve been cruising the Montclair restaurant scene, collaborating with local restaurants to get some food photography done. I’m not making any money doing it — I’m just doing it out of a bit of boredom and a desire to collaborate and help grow some of these businesses. Thanks go out to David Hobby at the Strobist blog for getting me off of my lazy keister. I’ll let you know when some of these pictures make it up onto their websites. In the meantime, if you’re from around my area, definitely check out CulinARIANE restaurant and Mesob Ethiopian restaurant.

The photo of the Jonah crab at the top of this post was shot for Oceania Seafood company, in New York (check my Flickr photostream for more pictures). They’re building a website, and I’ve been working very closely with an awesome IT support company called “Blue Lion Solutions” to help Oceania Seafood company grow its online seafood shipping business.

So, if you need the freshest seafood around, contact Oceania Seafood at 917-662-8028 (website coming very soon!)

And if you need web hosting services, IT support, and boatloads more help from tech-savvy types, contact Blue Lion Solutions (or just click here).

Tollhouse Cookie Dough Recall: E. Coli

The FDA found some E. Coli in batches of Tollhouse Cookie dough. Try not to eat the dough raw! For more deets, check the news.

EDIT: So, apparently it’s a voluntary recall. This means that there may or may not be an E. Coli contamination in these batches of cookie dough, so here’s an idea: BAKE THE DAMN THINGS INSTEAD OF EATING IT RAW. Dumbasses. . . .

And if you still want cookies, but you’re afraid of the store-bought stuff, you can make your own in just a few minutes if you have a few basic ingredients on hand. Check out Michael Ruhlman’s blog post about a chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream bowl for the recipe.

On a completely unrelated note, unless she really, really, really likes Tollhouse cookies (How’s THAT for a smooth connection? Segues can kiss my ass), check out The Art and Times of Diana Ho for info on shows and art galleries and such in the New York area (you can find her online portfolio here). I’ve been meaning to add her to my blogroll for a little while now, but I am a lazy sod — was reminded when I checked my blog stats and saw some traffic being directed my way from her blog. Quid pro quo. I love the smell of social networking in the. . . . damn, it’s already 3:30 in the afternoon!

Stuff in the pipes

Got reservations at Thomas Keller’s Per Se and Eric Ripert’s Le Bernardin. Will report back (hopefully with pictures!) once I dine. Gotta get my laptop fixed first, cuz borrowing computers to access the web is teh suck. At any rate, I’m on a mission to eat at Michelin-starred restaurants, starting at the top.

Discovered a mouse in my apartment. Not sure if it’s the same mouse my roommate and I found in the winter — we named it Teacup. Oh well. Time to hide the dried fruits that I suspect he’s munching on and break out the peanut butter. I’d like to build a better mousetrap, a la Jim Clark, but we’ll see how much motivation I have to do something so cool/geeky.

Finally, a word of advice: avoid cheap tongs. Trust me. I speak from personal experience. Despite owning numerous knives (including the super-sharp Shun Kaji 10″ chef’s knife) and sharpening them all myself with Japanese water stones, I haven’t cut myself in the past year or 3 — that is, until tonight: on a pair of tongs I bought from the dollar store.

Don’t ask. I don’t know how I did it, either.

Food TV

I missed the premiere of Next Food Network star. From what I could see from the commercials leading up to this season, no one I met at the open call in Philly made the cut (yes, I went out for the open call. Not sure why, but I did). Hopefully, I’ll catch a rerun.

Gavin Kaysen just beat Michael Symon in Battle Octopus on Iron Chef America. I knew he was a great chef, but arg! I really wanted John Besh to win, back during Next Iron Chef a couple years ago. Oh well.

Speaking of John Besh, he’ll be competing in Top Chef Masters on Bravo TV. Season starts this Wednesday. Tune in!

P.S. Really digging the new way they’re shooting the beauty plates on Iron Chef America. Might steal that look for a couple shots in the near future.

Borrowing a computer

Can’t blog for long — borrowing a computer to check in on the interwebs before I hop on a plane to Cali for the weekend to attend an old high school buddy’s funeral wedding.

Anyway, a Yahoo article about the WORST foods to eat on a date made me chuckle a little bit this morning. What’s wrong with Stilton and carpaccio???

Also, if you haven’t done so already, check out this month’s copy of Men’s Health magazine. This month’s issue (the one with Ewan McGregor on the cover) is pretty food-centric (there’s an article about total utilization of a pig! Hooray!).

And if delicious porcine pleasures aren’t enough to get you to fork over the couple bucks for a copy of this excellent mag, I should tell you that that miserable old curmudgeon, Bourdain, has an article in it about the 13 restaurants you HAVE to eat at before you DIE. So, GO! Read up!

And make travel arrangements for your next culinary vacation.

I’m back

but my laptop has completely died. Once I get it fixed, I’ll start posting up some pictures and let you know about my trip.

Summary: it was AWESOME!

more to come!

Taiwan

See above. Be back in 2 weeks with lots of food updates. It’s places like Taiwan that remind me how much of a glutton I really am (e.g. “Oh man, I’m so full I think I’m gonna explode if I eat any more. Oooh, look! More food! *eats some more*).

*KAPOW!*

Just kidding. More tk.

Corner Bar & Grill, New Orleans, La

There’s a little bar & grill by the river, down in New Orleans.  It’s probably one of my favorite little places to go to eat lunch, because it’s laid back, they serve a large portion of rich, chicken gumbo with jambalaya in the middle instead of rice (two of my favorite things on this planet are gumbo and jambalaya), and they have crispy-on-the-outside, savory and tangy-on-the-inside fried pickles with a ranch dressing dip. Fried pickle chips are delicious. Just try it. You’ll like it. Now I sound like your mother!

So if you’re ever in the area and you want a cool little sports bar with plenty of big windows to dine at, check out the Corner Bar & Grill on St. Peter and Decatur. It’s a pretty relaxed place, so I wouldn’t suggest going there for a quick bite to eat if you’re in a rush to go somewhere. But if you’re tired from walking, if you want a place to sit down, and if you wanna grab a beer, some fried pickles, and maybe a sandwich or their signature “Gumbalaya,” this place is where it’s at. Prices are moderate but service (in true southern fashion) is admittedly slow. The food is a little inconsistent, but watching sports on any of their HDTv’s or people-watching are both fair game. But, you’re in the south. Relaaax. And let me know what you think!

Corner Oyster Bar & Grill
500 Saint Peter St.
New Orleans, LA 70116
(504) 522-2999
*get the fried pickles and share with friends
**try the gumbalaya!
***beware the gratuity added to the bill to avoid tipping them twice!

Honda Crave Contest

So, the competition is over. I submitted my savory dish for the competition, but I’m not too confident in how the picture turned out (Pictured above. Chipotle-spiked meatloaf. Roasted red pepper coulis. Smoky Chipotle BBQ sauce. Bacon mashed potatoes. Mac and Cheeses: cheddar, lots of freshly grated parm, and a habanero pepperjack. I know it’s cropped on the right. Still working on that / I have been too lazy to fix it. Click on it to see the full picture on my Flickr account). I was dumb and waited too long to make the dish, so I had too little time to remake it.

Also, I fell asleep/passed out on my bed last night when I should have been making an entry for the dessert competition. Molten Chocolate Hazelnut “Kiss” Cake. Orange-raspberry coulis. Tahitian Vanilla creme anglaise. I thought I was clever with the kiss part, but only because my body was sleep deprived and because my brain is addled.

I woke up this morning cuz the fire alarm went off — not because something was burning, but because I fell asleep on top of it (and all my freshly laundered clothes, which now have lots and lots of wrinkles in them thanks to my fat ass) and apparently, it detected carbon monoxide emanating from my nether regions. Just kidding, it was sticking into my back (I took it down last night when I was roasting peppers in the broiler and threw it on top of my bed).

I always do this. Procrastinate, that is. And I liked how the dessert picture came out, too. Sigh.

Moral of the story: I suck.

Also: I got a 38 dollar parking ticket because I fell asleep and forgot to move my car last night. Alternate side parking, FTL.

Ratios and Photo Competitions

I’m excited. I just got my copy of Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking in the mail. As I told him in New York, at the book signing event for Thomas Keller’s Under Pressure, a few months ago, I can’t stop reading his books.

For those who know me, yes, I know I wasn’t a big Ruhlman fan at first (I was just holding a grudge against him for seeming a bit harder on John Besh than on Michael Symon on the Next Iron Chef competition on Food Network a couple years ago), but the man can write. I can’t wait to dive in.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’m done. In the meantime, any food photography enthusiasts should check out the national skill contest hosted by Honda CR-V. You can submit pictures of sweet or savory comfort foods, and the best entry wins $2,500. Other prizes go to 2nd and 3rd places, too. If you’re interested, hurry up! The deadline is this Monday, May 4th, 2009. Check out the official rules here. Good luck!