THE GURGLING COD

Achtung, baby

Evidently, Bono has been hanging out with the other Paul O'Neill (he is Molly's bro, of course, and like every other NY based food critic, she wrote a memoir*).  A mixup of the volatile ex-Red and Yankee with the former treasury secretary is the best explanation I can find for this rant from Bono:

Not content with having staged a fashion launch without a single piece of clothing in sight (not even one of the shapeless "One" t-shirts), Bono then came back onstage to make some closing remarks, rattled on for a minute or so and then, tired of having the whispered conversations of a handful of party-goers rasp cruelly on his sensitive eardrums, roared to the emaciated throng: "YOU KNOW WHAT? FUCK YOU AND YOUR FUCKING FINGER FOOD!!! WE'RE TRYING TO DO SOMETHING HERE AND ETC ETC ETC"

If there are ever TGC t's, I think they might have to say FUCK YOU AND YOUR FUCKING FINGER FOOD on the back.
*I read the thing, and keep meaning to write about it. Much more of a Dagwood sandwich than most of the Reichl bandwagon.

Walter Monheit Lives!

And he got his hands on a bunch of pills:

The stunningly beautiful and realistically curvaceous brunette has long been a popular food icon both in the United Kingdom and in the United States (I think she takes in even more territory than that) with four cookbooks and three cooking shows under her belt. At long last the Food Network has managed to strike a deal (or come to their sluggish senses) and will be carrying the new show, Nigella Feasts, in the fall. Described by The Palm Beach Post as a “[h]ottie food expert” who makes “cuisine that will blow away our taste buds,” Nigella’s displaying her media savvy as well by releasing her newest cookbook at the same time her show premieres. This could mean only one thing: Hold on to your pesto, Giada—there’s a new fooductress in town.

Not only "stunningly beautiful" but also "realistically curvaceous." Don't try these platitudes at home, fellas. To boot, Nige is a  veritable Kasparov of the media, what with the concurrent cookbook and TV show.  But for me,  "fooductress" is a bridge too far. Sounds like the shunt they put in your esophagus when you drink too much Blue Nun.

Non-dairy Cremaster

New York mag has a new eye on food, in the person of Mr. Cutlets. Grub Street (a title which I imagine has a few folks doing a "why did I not think of that" heel of hand to side of head) promises:

Grub Street will be updated hourly, covering everything from the cult street vendor, nameless yet venerated, to the latest temple of gastronomy, awash in renown. You'll find out which in-demand tables are available each night, where you might discover an overlooked lunch spot, what's worth reading elsewhere on the Web, and what Matthew Barney orders at Balthazar.

Personally, I had not lost much sleep to the Barney @ Balthazar question, but I do think that "what Barney orders" is only half the question, because what he orders and what he gets are two different things. I imagine that it goes something like this:

"May I take your order, sir?"
"Yes, bring me a crown of eels."
"Very good sir. And you, madame?"
"Boron salad, please"
"Certainly."

In due course, beets and skate emerge from the kitchen. Feeding them would be a lot like feeding children, really.

Shhhh....

A frozen pizza for "Chief Osceola."

Jumbo Veal

Keen-eyed correspondent Rose's Lime sends along some interesting news out of Tufts:

Dr. George Saperstein, a large-animal vet from Tufts Veterinary School, partnered with Dole & Bailey, a family owned Massachusetts wholesale-food supplier. Together, they’ve created a line of veal that diners can feel good about eating. The meat is pinkish rather than stark white, because the animals are permitted to frolic in the sunlight, sipping milk, eating grass and corn, and doing other fun things that keep their blood circulating. The brand name of the new veal is Azuluna, and while you can’t yet buy it yourself at the market, the product is starting to become available to restaurant chefs in our area.

Azuluna veal is raised on local farms, it’s delicious, and if the concept flies, it will offer struggling family dairy farms a revenue stream for what used to be considered a waste product. Sorry, boys, but dairy farmers have always considered male calves “waste products.” Why? Male dairy cows don’t get pregnant (duh) and therefore they don’t produce milk (double duh) — and milk, after all, is the primary revenue source for a dairy farmer. Secondly, given the natural profligacy (or efficiency) of males, one dairy bull can easily service many females. From the dairy farmer’s perspective, extra males are annoyances — expensive boy toys with big appetites who are a distraction to the girls. Traditionally, farmers have separated the surplus male calves from their moms and shipped them off to veal Valhalla just days after taking their first wobbly steps.

Stuff @ Night -- junior sibiling to Newbury St.'s paper of record, is not the be all and end all of food writing in the middle oughts -- generally life on a dairy farm is described  less like a circuit party than as seen above. But it will be interesting to track the fortunes of Azuluna:

The verdict was positive and powerful. “It’s exactly the kind of product my Cambridge customers would love,” Chez Henri’s Paul O’Connell says. Everyone agreed that the flavor was wonderful yet unique — without the blandness of traditional veal that is a foil for any sauce, but not strong enough to fight with any classic recipe."

I am always about repping the 02140, but "exactly the kind of product my Cambridge customers would love," may actually earn Paul O'Connell an award for damning with faint praise -- does he mean "this is the kind of product that  my customers, who frequent my Cambridge-based restaurant, will enjoy"? Or does he mean "among my customers, only the indigenous trustafarians with cowrie shells braided into their armpit hair will order the pink veal, while my core constituency of Harvard Law School  students continues to pound down the eight dollar periodistas at the bar"? And would you want something you cooked described as  "wonderful yet unique"? It's the kind of verbal jujitsu you'd expect from a Junior Leaguer at a potluck in Augusta, GA.

The stuffness of the article aside, this sounds like a positive development.* Veal tastes good, and I'm a fan of things that taste good being rasied conscionably.  I'm eager to hear tasting notes from anyone who has tried the Azuluna veal.

*Confidential to the copy crew: "Call off the PC police"? Do you still have a VCR and listen to Soundgarden on your Walkman, or is this some kind of early 90s nostalgia thing?

What to expect when you're expecting an op-ed about eating in New York restaurants by Nora Ephron

Read it it and weep.

A fair question

Mommy, why is there a goblin on the Wheaties box?

Like Brit Brit says...

...huh? Burros drops a variety of science in today's Eating Well, as well as the following:

Et tu, Ben & Jerry?
First Chicago banned the sale of foie gras. Then Whole Foods stopped selling live lobster. Now Ben and Jerry’s has pledged not to use eggs that come from a farm that the Humane Society of the United States has accused of being cruel to its laying hens. Animal rights activists are on a roll. While they pursue high-profile cases they are also signing up farmers who, in exchange for taking a pledge to treat their animals humanely, are permitted to label their products “Certified Humane.”

In its latest efforts on behalf of animals, the Humane Society has shamed Ben and Jerry’s into changing to eggs from cage-free hens by calling the company hypocritical for criticizing “giant industrial farming operations” on its Web site.

Meanwhile, back in Chicago, the Illinois Restaurant Association, along with other interested parties, has sued the city to halt enforcement of the foie gras ban.

And Whole Foods is reportedly building special housing to make lobsters more comfortable in its stores so its customers won’t have to go elsewhere to buy them.

Granted, this is Burros rounding up the un-fun-what's bad for you food news, rather than breathlessly chronicling the do-si-dos of chefs and restaurants -- enjoy that latte, by the way* -- but this item does not really make what one likes to think of as "sense." The lede dusts off the good old slippery slope, (basically: "If they take our foie gras/AK 47/2 Live Crew cassettes away, then they will come for our salmon/hunting rifle/Ulysses) but the item itself describes one step in one direction, and two half steps in the other. Those zanies at the Humane Society have encouraged Ben & Jerry to use cage free eggs (not what it sounds like, BTW), and emboldened by this victory for animal welfare, um, the foie gras ban is under legal attack,  and, er, WF is revisiting the lobster question. If Burros had covered the 1924 Army-Notre Dame game instead of Grantland Rice, one imagines it would go like this:

Outlined against a blue-gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. They combined for 83 yards on 26 carries, as Army held off the Fighting Irish, 10-7.

*Evidently, that caffe mocha with whipped cream has more calories than a quarter pounder w/ cheese. I kind of love the thought of salarymen and -women pouring off the subway and into the office in the morning, absently nibbling on a QP.

Fuck, no

The time of their life

Mr. Longlunch got Italian beef and reports from the Touch and Go Silver Jubilee. What are you looking here for?