I've Gone Away . . . But Here's Where to Find Me

I'm sorry to inform visitors that I am suspending posts on this blog, but here's the silver lining. My time is increasingly being absorbed by another food-related blog -- the one connected to the book that I co-wrote with my brother. The book is called "What the Great Ate," and it has earned nice reviews from The Daily Beast, The New Yorker, The Washington Post and other media.

Each week, my brother and I post amusing new tidbits about the eating and dining habits of the famous and infamous. Click here to check out the "What the Great Ate" blog.

To learn more about the book or to purchase a copy, click here.

I have also blogged about food and dining trends for The Huffington Post, and I hope to be writing more posts in the months ahead. Click here to check out the posts I've already written.

Divine Dessert

A friend of mine made this dessert for New Year's Eve dinner. It was a recipe for pear clafoutis by Ina Garten, and it was fantastic.

This is a classic French dessert, and it's usually made with cherries. But this version was a tour de force. Try it. You won't be disappointed.

The 15 Best Dishes in NYC

Sam Sifton, the N.Y. Times' food critic, lists the 15 best dishes he tasted in the city during the year 2010. That previous hyperlink has a photo montage of the 15 dishes, and here's the article that accompanies the photo list. Based on his choices, I'd say he has a passion for Italian and Spanish foods.

One of those dishes is called Devil's Chicken, and it looks like an entree worth trying the next time I happen to be in NYC.

One of the dishes is called "Guacamole de Frutas." Although I love guacamole, I'm skeptical of whether this version improves on the traditional recipe. Diced apple, pear and cranberries are in this dish, as well as (sigh) the annoyingly trendy pomegranate seeds. This dish is prepared at a Mexican restaurant in mid-town called Toloache, whose interior is pictured above.

A Buffet of Bugs

The photo you just glanced at (above) happens to be a grasshopper taco. Some people are urging societies to promote the eating of insects as a way to ensure mass sustainability during future periods of famine, war or other types of upheaval. And there's at least one cookbook out there that provides recipes for cooking and eating insects.

Angelina Jolie can actually tell you what insects taste like. As this book confirms, the actress has eaten a Cambodian cockroach and bee larvae.

However, one doesn't have to travel to the Third World to sample insects. There has been at least one restaurant in New York City (operating for a few years now) that serves a grasshopper taco. So what does grasshopper taste like? Mike Peed, a food critic for The New Yorker, reviewed the restaurant Toloache in 2008, and the final sentences of his review offer his blunt assessment:

Inquire about a grasshopper taco and hear (the chef say), "I was born in Oaxaca. We used to catch them in our backyard by the handfuls. They are delicious!" Curious, lifelike, not delicious.

She Has Issues . . . Food Issues

Gilbert Sewall wonders if food allergies, tastes and quirks are enough to discourage anyone from hosting a dinner party. On a San Francisco Chronicle blog, Sewall writes that in California . . .

. . . everyone has a Food Issue. It's becoming a signature there, like a car, a statement of who and what one is.

. . . I knew something was up over lunch when I brought out the spaghetti. A guest I had never met before let out a strange little gasp. I can't eat wheat, she said. A dear friend then announced he had a big problem with refined sugar. And, he said firmly, anything that might include it.

Epicurious Joins the "Apps" World

More foodie websites are capitalizing on the high interest in new "apps" for smartphones. The latest site is Epicurious, which is one of my favorite websites.

Epicurious just contacted its list of registered visitors to alert them to its app for the iPad and iPhone, which allows users to "sync your personal recipe box to your mobile device!"

It's interesting timing because NPR's "Morning Edition" aired the final part of a series today that essentially said that cookbooks (the actual physical beasts that take up bookshelf space) are likely to survive the digital area. The view is that people will look online for specific recipes for special occasions, but that they enjoy browsing through cookbooks when they have no particular culinary agenda.

Adams Morgan, Culinary Wasteland

I have lived in or adjacent to this neighborhood of D.C. for 20 years, and I have heard a whole lot of people talk through the years about Adams Morgan's "renaissance." But a stroll down 18th Street reminded me of what a restaurant wasteland this area is.

With the exception of Perry's, La Fourchette and Napoleon Bistro, there really isn't any place I can think of worth eating at in Adams Morgan. And that's probably why the latter two eateries are often full up (so prepare for a wait).

There was a time in the mid-1990s when Cashion's Eat Place was actually a destination restaurant. Stunned to learn that? It's true. But the competition from other neighborhoods and downtown has definitely improved . . . and, well, Cashion's has not. I ate brunch there the other day, and that was a big mistake.

Stale rolls were brought to our table. I waited 10 minutes after ordering for my (lukewarm) latte to arrive. The cornmeal waffles were bland, and what accompanied them was an apple mush.

The Vanishing Restaurant Owner-Host

I've always found something incredibly charming about a restaurant owner who doubles as the host, welcoming you as you enter and/or stopping by your table to check on how your meal is going. As the N.Y. Times notes, this owner-host situation is increasingly rare.

Noting the death of one such person (restaurateur Elaine Kaufman), the Times explores the rapidly disappearing joint role of owner-host in this article. By the way, Woody Allen was one of the regulars who dined at her restaurant, Elaine's. In its article, the Times writes:

... the notion of the host as the most important person in a given restaurant’s success is wavering.

Chefs are the draw in this modern age, and the more famous and customer-accessible, the better. Former line cooks now walk dining rooms like kings, celebrities from television, whose every utterance is recorded on blogs.

The business of restaurants is no longer so dependent on the presence of an owner in the dining room to dispense favors or act as gatekeeper to a private club. (Let us not forget: For every person who recalls Ms. Kaufman’s kindness at Elaine’s, there are others who remember her rudely barring the door or telling someone to get out.)

Powdered Sugar? No Thanks

What is this strange love affair that so many restaurant chefs have with powdered sugar? You can't go to brunch and order pancakes, French toast or waffles without seeing your plate arrive with a thorough dusting of powdered sugar. Yuck.

I have nothing against sugar, but there are so many better ways to enjoy the sweet stuff. Granulated sugar, brown sugar, honey, maple syrup and molasses all provide better, richer tastes and more interesting textures than powdered sugar. Besides, given that diners who order pancakes or French toast are already planning to pour syrup over them, powdered sugar is superfluous.

In my view, the only reason to buy powdered sugar is to make cake frosting.

Food Safety Bill Coming to a Vote

In Sunday's New York Times, Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser co-wrote this op-ed urging the Senate to approve the proposed FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. Here are some excerpts from their column:

The bill would, for the first time, give the F.D.A., which oversees 80 percent of the nation's food, the authority to test widely for dangerous pathogens and to recall contaminated food. The agency would finally have the resources and authority to prevent food safety problems, rather than respond only after people have become ill.

The bill would also require more frequent inspections of large-scale, high-risk food production plants.

And if you believe food safety worries are a thing of the past, consider this egg scare, this nut scare and this beef scare -- all within the last 18 months.

The Right Pies to Make

I am on "pie duty" for Thanksgiving, so I need to figure out which pies I will make.

Someone else is planning to bring an apple pie, so that base is covered. My plans for the moment are:

• cherry pie
• pumpkin pie (it is Thanksgiving after all)
• lemon chess pie

But I have never made lemon chess pie before. Sure, I understand that it's pretty easy to make one, but I'm finding different recipes that call for varying amounts of corn meal or lemon juice. There is this recipe from AllRecipes.com, and then there is this one from the Food Network. Even the amounts of sugar are different.

Decisions . . . decisions.

Turkey Tips

In this New York Times article, Bobby Flay and other celebrity chefs offer some tips for Thanksgiving Day cooking. One of Flay's tips is incredibly simple:

Have an abundance of chicken stock on hand, bubbling warm on the stove all day. "You slice the turkey and put it on a platter to serve it," he said, "and then right before you go out to the table, you ladle some stock over the top to warm it and give it a little moisture, too. You do the same for the stuffing. You make the gravy with it. You go through a lot."

Sounds like a smart approach to me.

Who Does Paula Enjoy Cooking for the Most?

This is from a column that Paula Deen wrote for Esquire magazine in September 2009:

Men use food to try to outdo one another. It's okay for a man to say, "I ate that whole damn pie." Now, a woman isn't gonna want to say that, but for a man it's a badge of honor: Look how tough I am. It's almost like an attack thing, the way they eat.

I'll tell you what it comes down to for me: I would rather cook for a man than for a woman on any day. It's those noises [men] make.

... men dive in without guilt and enjoy their food like there's no tomorrow. And that feels good when you're the one who cooked it.

Triple Berry Muffins Don't Taste the Same

Both Au Bon Pain and Caribou are coffee chains that sell something called the Triple Berry Muffin. Both advertise that their muffins are low-fat.

But does either one of these muffins taste good? In my experience, the answer is "yes." Au Bon Pain's Triple Berry Muffin is quite tasty. But the version of this muffin sold at Caribou is terrible. Last week, I tasted Caribou's version for the first time, and it was pretty inedible.

A Better Cranberry Condiment

Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away, and it's time to think about the cranberry options we cooks and diners have. I agree with this writer at Serious Eats who much prefers cranberries served as a thick or chutney-type consistency, instead of the gelatinous "cranberry sauce" that comes out of a can. SE's Kerry Saretsky admits that the latter is "iconic Americana" but the former is tastier.

His observations are followed by this recipe for cranberry chutney with crystallized ginger.

This recipe is another one of my favorites -- cranberry sauce with dried tart cherries. (You can use canned tart cherries if you can't find the dried variety.) The cloves in the recipe add a nice twist.

Eats in D.C.'s Atlas District

Last weekend, I visited Washington, D.C.'s H Street corridor -- a neighborhood in the N.E. quad known as the Atlas District. The area is definitely gentrifying, and the city has committed to run an electric streetcar down H Street. But my reason for visiting the area was to check out a few new eateries that I'd heard about.

First, we had brunch at the Liberty Tree, on the north side of H Street between 10th and 11th Streets. It was cozy, and they had an awesome selection of beers on tap. If wine is your thing, they've got it, but the choices are fewer. They serve a brunch on Saturday and Sunday that runs until 3 p.m. That's a nice option to have: sleep in and eat whenever you want.

The food at Liberty Tree was good -- nothing fancy or refined, but good. I had the lobster benedict, and it was quite tasty. My friend had pizza, and he gave it a grade of B-.

For a sweet conclusion to our brunch, we walked a few blocks east and then across the street to Dangerously Delicious Pies, located at 1339 H Street, N.E. This place sells entree-style pies as well as dessert pies. The dessert pies include multiple kinds of chess pie (chocolate and coconut, for example) and the other standards: apple-crumb and pecan, for example. They also sell quiches. You can buy any of these by the slice or by the entire pie.

Although most of the buzz about Dangerously Delicious Pies has been positive, one of the knocks against the place is the prices. It's true that $6.50 per slice of dessert pie is on the high side. But the pecan pie I tried was excellent. The savory pies (entrees) are $7.50 per slice, which is the same or less than what you'd spend to get lunch at a Cosi or Au Bon Pain.

And here's a piece of good news: Dangerously Delicious Pies is open 7 days a week for those of us who need to regularly get our pie fix. If there is one gripe I have about DDP, it's that they should have at least 1 or 2 more fruit pies to choose from. From what I've seen and heard, pies such as blueberry or peach don't seem to be on the menu. Maybe it's a seasonal thing or maybe I've been looking at the wrong times.

The Pizza Penalty

Joseph Jacobbi, who operates a restaurant called Casa-di-Pizza, gave a judge an opportunity to deliver a one-of-a-kind verdict.

In the wake of Jacobbi's conviction on sales tax fraud, a state supreme court judge ordered the Buffalo, N.Y. pizzeria owner to provide 12 free pizzas once a week to a homeless shelter in the city. And to keep providing the gratis pizzas for one year.

"I will leave the choice of toppings to you," the judge told Jacobbi.

Not Just for Breakfast Anymore

No, I'm not talking about a glass of orange juice.

Scrambled eggs are the dish that I'm dishing about. I've enjoyed them for dinner a number of times, and I never felt like I was slummin' when I devoured them. As this article reveals, the New York Times' Martha Rose Shulman also thinks scrambled eggs make for a tasty supper.

I'm particular about how mine are cooked -- "exactly 30 seconds beyond salmonella," my spouse sarcastically declares. That's an exaggeration, but I do want my scrambled eggs to be moist, not as dry as the Sahara desert. I hate it when I get served eggs that are dry.

Fresh chive and tarragon are marvelous herbs to add. But pick only one of them.

Chefs Don't Earn Impressive Salaries

With fewer Americans eating out at fine-dining establishments these days, it's not easy for people to find jobs as restaurant chefs. And even those who already have those jobs may not be doing all that well financially.

The website Chow produced this bar graph listing the average salaries of three workers -- a school bus driver, a trash collector and a chef de cuisine. The chef's estimated salary ($56,868) looks pretty decent. Until, that is, you divide that salary by the total number of hours that a chef de cuisine works.

Yikes! This has me feeling more sympathy for the executive kitchen staff at such restaurants.

Review: Bistro Cacao

This week, I finally got around to trying Bistro Cacao, located on Massachusetts Avenue in D.C.'s Capitol Hill neighborhood. On the whole, I was pleased.

The menu offers many of the entree choices you'd expect in a French bistro. The menu isn't large, but my fellow diner and I enjoyed everything we tried. I ordered the onglet (hanger steak) with a shallot and wine sauce. The beef was of a high quality and properly cooked, and it was superbly complimented by the sauce. The wine list is large enough without overwhelming a diner. Bottles are priced fairly; some are expensive, but most are within reason.

The ambience of Bistro Cacao has a Victorian style without being too frilly. It's especially nice for people who are taking someone out on a date. Couples can dine seated on nice wing chairs from tables flanked by classy red curtains. One complaint I have is that the restaurant's menu is choices are not accessible via its website.

The bistro has plans to open a wine bar soon, although it's not clear to me where within its current premises, the wine bar would be situated -- so stay tuned.