New Yorkers may remember back in January, 2009 (and in ’05, ’06, ’07 and ’08), there was this mystery plaguing our city. The watercoolers in Midtown offices were buzzing with workers asking the question, “Why the hell does our city smell like maple syrup?” Even our ridiculously rich mayor couldn’t figure out what was going [...]
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Posted in America, appetizer, British, Christmas, embarrassment, family, hazelnuts, manwich, top five, tradition, winter on Dec 7th, 2008
Not your average Christmas meal… We couldn’t let this month go by without doing some sort of “holiday themed” post. We were scratching our head trying to come up with this months “Top 5″ contest thinking of such winners as, “Top 5 Most Friggin’ Annoying Christmas Tunes” and “Top 5 Christmas Sweaters Your Mom Owns” [...]
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Posted in butter, Canada, cornichons, cream, death, dining, eating, embarrassment, Food Commentary, French, fried, fritters, indulgent meal, Montreal, mushrooms, offal, Restaurant Review, spinach, tongue, tourism, travel, trotter, unhealthy, vinaigrette on Oct 21st, 2008
Gentle readers, please sympathize with me, for I, like a man who’s been dining exclusively on centipedes, have the bitter taste of defeat in my mouth. That this humiliation and defeat arrived, to twist a metaphor, at the hands of nothing more sinister than a pig’s foot, has only served to exacerbate these feelings of embarrassment and self-loathing. Those of [...]
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Posted in baking, blood orange, cake, dessert, embarrassment, flour, frosting, icing, important details, juice, martini, orange juice, oranges, Recipe, Recipes, strawberries, strawberry, sweet, sweets on Apr 1st, 2008
I tried… after my first failed attempt at baking a strawberry cake in order to use up some nasty-looking, dying strawberries (that I bought hungry and on sale… natch) in my fridge, my ego was so bruised I didn’t think I was up for it again. You see, stupid me kind of forgot one ingredient [...]
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Posted in embarrassment, Food Commentary, healthy, hearty, important details, Jeffrey Steingarten, medical, obesity, safety, unhealthy, weight on Mar 31st, 2008
As regular readers will already know, we are gourmands, and not necessarily gourmets. [For those of you who aren't sure of the technical differences between these two terms, a gourmet is a connoisseur of fine food and drink, a gourmand is a person who is fond of good eating, often indiscriminatingly and to excess.] And, [...]
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Posted in Blogroll, butter, culture, egg, embarrassment, indulgent meal, Italian, Italy, Olive Oil, other regions, Pasta, radicchio, Recipe, Recipes, sauce, tourism, travel, tuscany, vegetarian, watercress on Mar 15th, 2008
Ever since we bought our Kitchen Aid Mixer (kneel down, bow your head in a moment of silence, please), I have only used it for one thing – making pasta. I am not a baker. I can not even pretend to be one. In fact, the other day, I thought I’d be cute and also [...]
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Posted in alcohol, alcoholic drink, appetizer, Asturias, beans, beverage, blood, chops, Chorizo, embarrassment, Europe, fabada, Food Commentary, indulgent meal, lunch, Madrid, morcilla, offal, pigs, pork, sausage, Spain, tapas, tourism, tradition, travel, unhealthy on Mar 7th, 2008
“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” – William Blake Have you ever thought, as you sit red-faced, breathing shallowly, “just… one… more… bite”? Have you ever then taken that extra bite and thought to yourself — in your blood-starved brain — “maybe, after all, I could manage another one”? And, finally, [...]
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Posted in alcohol, alcoholic drink, Asian, British, culture, drink, easy, embarrassment, England, ginger, history, honey, hot toddy, juice, lemon, New York City, Pub, Recipe, Recipes, red bush, rooibos, rooibosh, South Africa, sugar, tea, tradition, water, weather on Jan 22nd, 2008
It’s freezing here in New York. Freezing! Yesterday, it didn’t get above 26F/-3C. Just the kind of weather when you need something to warm (as they say in London’s East End) the cockles of your heart. Years ago, on a freezing January day I took a walk with a friend around Alexandra Palace in north [...]
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