This. Is. Amazing. And so much better than Turducken.

The NYT reports on the Bacon Explosion, a roll of bacon-sausage formed by making a bacon lattice that holds groundup sausage.

Check out the article here, which contains how-to-make instructions and photos, if my confusing summary didn't help.

It's time for a chorus of "Sweet Caroline": "So good! (so good)..."

I need my Taiwanese food fix

What you do with thirty-six hours before a midterm:
1. You blog.
2. Or you go to Taiwan and eat.
3. Or you wait an extra week to hit up Winterfest: Taste of Taiwan during midterm season.

"Cultural imperialist guilt"...

...is the best line in this article from the NYT.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, the L.A. Times reports on shiso, a herb that's recently become trendy in the States. The article's courtesy of Mr. Sohovich, who asked if I had ever heard of it; I hadn't, but I've definitely eaten it: Korean restaurants include it as part of their banchan, the set of small dishes that accompany a typical meal. It's marinated and eaten leaf by leaf, and unfortunately, I'm not a fan. From what I've heard anecdotally, it's a love-it-or-hate-it herb.

Food: The Lit Review

What Hilary Eats, Hilary Gets

We all know Mike Huckabee can pull off the barbeque bib, but can Hilary?

Hopefully, all the candidates will each get a gastronomic profile...not that it would sway my vote.

Keep Your Laptop in the Kitchen

This Strib article refers to online cooking communities and bloggers, but emphasizes how most people share recipes: over the Internet. I can't say I'm surprised - and I definitely can't say that I'm unhappy about it. Comparing uploaded recipes to handwritten family recipes is like comparing the Kindle to a well-read copy of The Great Gatsby: no one can replace the latter, but technology opens up these ideas to a whole new demographic. I'm incredulous at what you can do with it - for example, we improvised homemade salsa for my sister's Super Bowl party, but were able to cross-check the ingredients online.

Chocolate doesn't have that much caffeine...

so I don't feel as guilty posting an NYT article about it here that discusses milk chocolate's recent comeback against the yuppie dark chocolate trend. No longer declasse, it's gourmet. Admittedly, I was one of those percentage snobs (as you can see in a previous post), but since then, I've been working my way back to milk chocolate. That said, it's difficult; although I know that milk chocolate has a "better" texture than the brittle bitter, sometimes I find it too rich (and occasionally too saccharine). Not saying that dark chocolate can't be rich (case in point: Burdick's), but the bitter almost buffers that overwhelmingly one-dimensioned taste.

And seeing as I can't participate in the sponsored wine-tastings here, I guess I'll have to settle for describing chocolate with "hefty bouquet" terms.

(Last two articles were graciously provided by Mr. Sohovich.)

"I'm sorry, I can't make out with you..."

...when you have steak breath." (Courtesy of Tara.)

If you clicked on the NYT link above, then wonderful; if not, go back above and read it. The gist is that vegan-omnivore couples have to accommodate each others' dietary preferences, but since people have different standards, it makes for easily-make-and-break relationships.

A few particularly interesting snippets from the article:

Vegans, who avoid eating not just animals but animal-derived products, take it further, shivering at the thought of kissing someone who has even sipped honey-sweetened tea.

See post title above. Also, I vividly remember a similar sentiment from a previous article about searching for vegan relationships...
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Judging from postings at food Web sites like chowhound.com and slashfood.com, people seem more willing to date those who restrict their diet for health or religion rather than mere dislike.

Typical sentiments included: “Medical and religious issues I can work around as long as the person is sincere and consistent, but flaky, picky cheaters — no way” and “picky eaters are remarkably unsexy.”

If we do a "shallow text analysis" of this, we can see that being vegan is linked with infidelity, thanks to the juxtapositions of "picky cheater." Also, unsexiness.
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Could it be that pickiness stems from a person's unwillingness to change? And what does that say about my removing cilantro from everything?

To defend myself, I would say that taste is subjective and that I've also been exposed to cilantro for most of my life. The acquired taste clearly hasn't kicked in. I think you could make the same argument with simply picky eaters, as long as they're not declaring moral superiority as their sole reason for going vegan.

So, next question: would I date a vegan? The answer is no. I'm not going to use the "different cultures" argument, because to say that would undercut the importance of learning from others and even diversity. But if we do consider veganism to be a lifestyle - or even for some, a religion in its own right - then it makes sense to not date a vegan if our value systems - and not simply cultural backgrounds - are incompatible.

New York, Day 2

After a late breakfast, we headed to Times Square, followed by the Whitney Museum. By that time, it was 2:30, and we were craving a late lunch, so upon a recommendation from my brother-in-law, we tried to find Momofuku (171 1st Ave/New York, NY 10013/212.475.7899). The 1^st Ave address implied that it was near the United Nations, so we spent a twenty blocks’ walk looking for this noodle house, finally calling it twice. But no one picked up to confirm, and we ended up heading to Grand Central Station as a consolation prize, disgruntled. (It looks like something’s wrong with its directory entry – it may be closed?)

Grand Central Station had a huge food court with smaller versions of “unique New York” (try saying that fast) culinary establishments. I shared and quickly gobbled down a tomato and parmesan foccacia from Zaro’s Bread Basket ($4.95), only made better by the temporary heat from the panini grill. I imagined it as an yeasty, herby upgrade of a pizza.

We then headed to Rockefeller Center and picked up pseudo-lunches from ‘wichcraft, in the basement. The gourmet fast food sandwich bar was pricey, though the sandwiches were good. Plus, points for presentation.

The slow-roasted pork sandwich ($8.50) with red cabbage and jalapeno had enough – if not too much – of a spicy kick. While the grilled fontina ($9) was fairly small, the makers had the great idea of including chewy black trumpet mushrooms (I am fairly certain these are the mushrooms labeled “black fungus” in Chinese supermarkets) and truffle oil on the moist-but-crisp white bread. A better choice was the soup ($4) – pureed cauliflower that was only apparent in the aftertaste, with colorful chive oil on top. It came with two thin, crunchy breadsticks to dip.

A quick stop for Dean and DeLuca’s coffee was next – we had been looking all afternoon for one. The coffee was hot and pungent – while the scent did indicate its bitterness, most of the aftertaste evaporated quickly.

On to Pinkberry! We searched online for the nearest location – and it happened to land smack-dab in the middle of Koreatown. Given my fondness for Berryline, I was eager to compare Pinkberry to it. Perhaps that is somewhat irreverent, however: Berryline is actually a Beantown knockoff of Pinkberry. As a result of the recent froyo craze and the fact that Starbucks is actually putting a little of their brew into Pinkberry, it seemed that Pinkberry was a little paranoid. I was yelled at for taking photos in the crowded space, which looked like an internet café meets teenage-girl Starbucks.

And what do I think about Pinkberry’s froyo? To some extent, it might have been Berryline withdrawal (I found out that they had mango – plus Oreo – while I was gone), or simply the factor of being first, but I found Pinkberry to be refreshingly good. Other customers walking out of the store called it “yogurty,” and that was indeed the case. It was also surprisingly creamy – I had expected something icier. The fruit – I ordered raspberries, blackberries and mango – was for the most part, fresh. My mango was unripe (another point for Berryline!) and green tendrils were protruding from one blackberry, but the raspberries were ideal.

During our brief stay at Pinkberry, we planned out the remainder of this non-stop noshing day. Our original plan was to eat at the Peking Duck House in Chinatown but we were sidetracked by the Korean eateries. (Incidentally, the NYT published an article about the Koreatown that same day, which we only found later that evening.) We finally settled on Hyo Dong Gak (51 W 35th Street/New York, NY 10001/212.495.7167), a few blocks' walk from the center of Koreatown and the recipient of a few favorable online reviews.

Upon walking into the restaurant, we waited for seats to open. The restaurant looked comfortable, in a good way…but so did the menu, in a bad way. I scanned up and down the pages, but all I saw was “sweet and sour pork,” “Mongolian beef,” and more of what looked like to be generic Chinese take-out dishes. Not that I’m morally against “sweet and sour pork,” I just prefer to eat it only when necessary. (And by necessary, I mean once a year.)

My sister reassured me that “really, that’s the special thing about this place – they’re a Korean/Chinese hybrid restaurant,” but really, I struggled – and still do – with this conception.

(Warning: I am a moderate version of my friend Hank, who refuses to eat the (reputedly) “awesome” steak at Waffle House because he only eats waffles at Waffle House. That said, I do agree with him on the Cheesecake Factory – if you must, only get the cheesecake there. My take, however, is that the entrees there are not only generic but laced with sodium.)

Back to Hyo Dong Gak. I looked skeptically at my sister. First of all, the menu clearly stated Chinese restaurant. Second of all, one of the posted reviews on the restaurant’s bulletin board was from a local newspaper who championed the fact that their Japanese reviewer liked some sort of seafood delight. Awkward was an understatement, but just when I was about to leave, a table opened and we obligatorily sat down.

With a little help from Yelp, we chose our order: the noodles in brown sauce (called jajang-myeon - $5.95), an bowl of seafood noodle soup (with extra seafood), and tang soo yook, described on the site as a Korean version of sesame chicken. We looked around at all the other tables, and it looked like they ordered the exact same meal as well. Good call; we patted ourselves on the back.

The first thing that arrived was the tang soo yook. It did look like generic sweet-and-sour chicken, but it was surprisingly good. It had been deep fried in the same style, but the chicken came out hot and the oil tasted clean. Granted that when you bit into it, hot oil burst out, but it was quite tasty. The sauce was somewhat flavorless and the vegetables were definitely of the sweet-and-sour chicken genre (peppers, water chestnuts, snow peas), but the dish’s freshness made up for it. It wouldn’t be a repeat though; upon picking up the check, we found out that the chicken was almost double the price of the other dishes ($12.95).

The seafood noodle was tasty – the broth was flavorful, but also delicate, with a hint of ginger added to the seafood brew. The noodles were chewy, and there was a good deal of seafood in the bowl, which on its own, probably could have manhandled two of us. As for the noodles with brown sauce, it was my favorite dish. This traditional Korean dish – thick soy-based paste over diced pork, onions and other vegetables – is my mom’s favorite (and even has a Chinese equivalent) but the Minnesota restaurant rendition could not compare to this. The noodles were the same as those used for the seafood soup, and they complemented the sauce nicely. And oh, the sauce. It wasn’t salty and it definitely didn’t lack ingredients – rather, it had a bacony flavor that melded to and a thickness that clung on to the noodles.

So I ended up having to walk about fifteen blocks before my stomach felt less full…and that concludes my second day.

Before you visit Boston

You should read this NYT article for a quick hit...

and notice that Burdick's, among other Cambridge establishments, was namedropped. (Not Finale, though - though I'll have a comparison of Finale vs. Burdick's after finals.) Oh Burdick's...how I'm so glad that you are so close to me on a icy winter's day.

Though I can't really handle 5 ounces of your thick hot chocolate (literally chocolate) and might have to settle for the mini two ounce instead. And as we learned in our mandatory drug seminar in our dorm, two ounces is a larger size than 1.7 ounce. Actually, that's fairly obvious - rather, two ounces is slightly more than a shot glass.

So that would be a shot of chocolate.

Yep.

Fortune Cookies and Good Reads

I recently found Jennifer 8. Lee's blog, the Fortune Cookie Chronicles, and am loving it. She happens to be releasing her book (of the same name) in March, and it's about the history and role of Chinese food in America. Obviously, it's about food, but it's also about culture (example from the summary: "unique bond between Chinese food and American Jewry" - yes).

In any case, she recently wrote a piece for the New York Times about the fortune cookie's backstory, which my sister forwarded to me. Check it out - surprisingly, a historian argues the fortune cookie could have stemmed from Japan. And if I've told you about my return to Boston last week (where the annoying know-it-all across from me claimed fortune cookies were from China - more on him later) then this article seems to be in good timing.

For me and for him.