Monday food links - June 21, 2010
Come to the linkfarm and check out the bounty, today running the gamut from universal delights to bizarrely-hued oddities and everything in between!
The BP “I Hate to Clean Up” cookbook from The New Yorker is hilarious. “Another Thought from Chef Tony: Who wants to slave over a hot stove all day? Call Morty’s Deli. They deliver. Don’t you want your life back?” Ooh. Bazinga.
Yale University confirms what all parents probably knew all along: kids think food tastes better when there are cartoon characters on the package.
One thing you don’t see a lot of? Blue food. Usually, there’s a reason. The AP reports that there is a rash of blue mozzarella showing up in Italy. Yummy?
The Stir, via Huffington Post (I tried searching for the source post on their site but found none), has delicious photos of five new candies coming out soon. Dark chocolate KitKats are already available in Italy (Japan has an absolute smorgasbord of flavors as well) and I’ve seen an ad for the Twix Java, but I’m personally most excited about the cocktail-flavored Jelly Bellys.
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The AP has a riveting look at the World Beer Pong Tournament. Most interesting tidbit: the tournament is played using water so the players don’t get completely wasted. It comes as no surprise that this is a very male-dominated “sport”; the only women around were mostly hired to be like cheerleaders, or women cheering on their boyfriends.
Hummus has caught on in America—it can be found at pretty much every area grocery store and sales of hummus totaled over $325 million last year—but at the expense of being pure hummus, according to a New York Times story.
As Top Chef season 7 begins (check out the recap of the first episode here), check out where the other winners are today.
Doug Lansky of the Titanic Awards (celebrating the worsts in travel) lists the 9 countries with the worst cuisine. Britain takes the top spot, but America comes in second. (Our own Besha Rodell might be upset to hear Australia is on this list as well.) Related, though from last year so it could’ve changed: Which country makes the world’s worst beer? In the top spot? Good old US of A!
This is either the worst or the best thing ever depending on your outlook: colored bacon. Literally, a graphic designer bathes bacon in dye baths (or so it appears; the creator is “keeping it secret” but there are photos on the page, for heaven’s sake), like on Easter, and comes out with a rainbow of bacon.
Sandra Lee, of the Semi-Homemade Meals fame, has been dating New York’s attorney general Andrew Cuomo for a while. (My friend in New York constantly jokes that if Cuomo is elected governor, Lee becomes the first lady of the state!) Cuomo’s mother does not like Lee’s lasagna recipe, so some New York Times food writers decided to try it and see for themselves. Now, I’m no lasagna purist, but Campbell’s soup and cottage cheese is just gross. Even the photo looks nasty. (Mrs. Cuomo has yet to divulge her recipe, though.)
NYT also profiles a truly universal treat: variations on icy desserts. Atlanta has a NOLA-style snoball truck over on Ponce and Briarcliff/Moreland and an Asian icy dessert place (or, places) in the new SunO franchise. Waikikie Hawaiian BBQ does a fairly good shave ice, but having been to Hawaii and sampled their shave ice, it’s not an exact copy.