It sounds like an easy question to answer, but sometimes even I have a hard time remembering where Blake is half the time (Don't even get me started on what time zone he lives in). I can only imagine what casual readers might think. In the past three years we've both lived in a combined total of 9 or so apartments, which doesn't include Blake's month of couch surfing, which might bring...
Though I once promised an Irish waitress that I'd never compete in a chili cook-off, I've decided to officially break my oath. I am in the running for the top prize at the 2009 Time Out Chicago's Chili Cook-off at Martyr's ( 3855 N Lincoln Ave ). It's all happening this Saturday, Janurary 24th from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
This is my first competition, and in typical Paupered Chef fash...
You know the burger obsession is going off the deep end when semi-serious discussion takes place over the burger making skills of a cartoon . Please stick with me. This cartoon happened feature J. Wellington Wimpy, the burger-loving sidekick of Popeye. Hamburger America author George Motz found this clip and was there to comment on Wimpy's burger making skills: "Notice how even in...
I've moved to Tartu, Estonia with Elin, where she is doing research, and I'm now neck-deep in a deeply confusing language which has no prepositions, word for "he" or "she", no future tense, and three different Os -- o, õ, and ö (ask me to pronounce them in succession: it sounds like I'm trying to lift a piano). And of course, I'm learning to cook in this new place. Good food is frighteni...
My last post about the Fulton Street Fish market covered its history, including corruption and mob connections, leading up to the 2005 move from lower Manhattan up to Hunts Point in the Bronx. This post is about our actual experience in the market: how it functioned, what Hunts Point is like today, and a few good eats in the area. While in Hunts Point we met a few fish buyers, ate in 2...
If you walk around Manhattan, it often seems like more than half of the stores are restaurants, most of them busy and stuffed with people. It doesn't take much thinking before one wonders how all that food gets into the kitchens to feed them all. And not just the dining-out set: what about grocery stores? And bodegas. And butchers. And fish mongers. The sheer quantity of food moved...
It took me almost a month and calls to half the butchers in New York before I could get my hands on a pair of pig jowls. Here’s the problem: they want you to order the whole head. And while I had a wonderful time watching pot-roasted pig heads go ferrying by my table at the Spotted Pig , when it was under the tutelage of British chef Fergus Henderson , the thought of lugging a 40...
Grinding meat may seem like an exercise for those with too much time on their hands, or those overly devoted to doing things from scratch--which I am. But I'm here to argue that there are more compelling and more logical reasons for doing so: for one, the meat will taste better. You'll also know where it omes from, unlike with a styrofoam tray from the grocery store, which is likely the su...
My favorite passages from Bill Buford's Heat are set in the Babbo kitchen, when he describes with fear and awe the wonder that is a busy restaurant kitchen at dinnertime-- tickets flying, steam vaporizing, oil popping. Orders arrive faster than they can be made; you are perpetually behind. The heat, of course, is unbearable-- like a shimmering wall when you enter the kitchen. Sweat...
I hadn’t been to New York since my exodus in July and I returned with a plan. I wasn’t going to waste any moment visiting attractions, or seeing a Broadway play. I lived there for two years, so it felt right to walk back in and get to what I spent most of my time doing: eating. And with the Paupered Chefs reunited for the first time in half a year, it really wasn't that hard for ou...