I sometimes wonder whether the chicken or the egg came first when I’m reading a recipe that calls for beaten egg whites. Then I eat an omelette, and I feel better.
I also think a lot about waffles, but I can’t decide.
Once a stranger asked me, “what’s your favorite restaurant?” I don’t really have a joke for this one; it’s just a very challenging question for me.
My understanding of the current science is that dinosaurs were closely related to birds. I don’t know about you, but I’m not cool with a 3-ton chicken, unless it’s been portioned correctly, and even then… damn.
Did you know that there are over 3,000 bands with names that involve food? It’s almost certainly true, particularly if you count Fiona Apple and Blue Öyster Cult.
Did you know that the Blue Öyster is native to Switzerland, and that it is very difficult to insert an umlaut over an “o” in MS Word if you do not know how to insert special characters? These are the things that keep a diligent food writer up at night, and me too. Though in my case it could also be my chronic insomnia.
Little known fact: orange juice is named for the fruit, and you shouldn’t eat grapefruit if you take medication for high blood pressure. If you take medication for high blood pressure, you may have more to worry about than avoiding grapefruit, of course, including the fear that you may be trapped in a remote area if you take a wrong turn from Kenton’s, and must claw your way back to civilization armed with your wits alone.
Remember when I got press tickets to Jazz Fest? Me neither.
My wife has begun composing “rage-ku,” which she translate as haiku written in the traditional 5-7-5 format, but which use words like “hip hop.”
Dryades Market is pretty much fully going as I write. It’s been a pretty neat thing to see the place grow over the last few years even if I’d have preferred to spend that time shopping at the market. I like the folks who run it, I like the space, and I like what they’re doing in both the prepared foods and grocery markets. Go check it out.
That last bit wasn’t a joke, of course, and neither is the following excerpt from a press release I received last week:
Chef John Besh will be hosting a special Crawfish Boil at his home in Slidell on May 7 from 1-5 p.m., in order to raise funds and awareness for the John Besh Foundation.
Chef will open his home to the community and offer guests a chance to learn more about the two arms of his non-profit: Chef’s Move!, which provides scholarships for New Orleans minorities to go to culinary schools and pairs them with world-renowned chef mentors, and Milk Money, which offers micro-loans to farmers and also pairs them with business graduate students to help them obtain the business acumen to grow their brands. Several Chef’s Move! alumni will be in attendance at the event as well as industry and chef friends of the Besh Restaurant Group.
All food and drink is covered in the cost of admission – members of the Foundation can get a ticket for $50; general admission for non-members is $75. Children under 12 attend for free.
More information on the Foundation can be found at johnbeshfoundation.org, and a link to get tickets is here.
I’m pretty sure I’m forbidden from attending the above crawfish boil, since not even chef Besh’s camp reacted all that well to my behavior following the 2007 Next Iron Chef America taping. In retrospect, I could have behaved better; the “Ruhlman is a box of suck” t-shirt was inappropriate, I admit, but then again Michael Ruhlman is completely insufferable.
Seriously, do at least one search for the guy and click on the first video that comes up. If you can watch Ruhlman and still have an appetite, you’re a better person than I.
And on that note, I am going to continue eating strawberries. I hope your night is equally satisfying.
