Meet the King of All Cheeses - The Brie Cheese

Meet the King of All Cheeses - The Brie Cheese
(Lee Dobbins)
If you are a true blue cheese-lover through and through, then just saying 'brie' would excite your taste buds. Perhaps you would even salivate. Brie cheese, with its rich history to back it up and a...

Bring the Payne's in Memphis

Bring the Payne's in Memphis

Even in a Southern city like Memphis, there's plenty of variation in the barbeque experience. There are joints for northern rubes, high-class barbeque restaurants, chain barbeque spots and pretty much anything else you can imagine. Clear through all the clutter, though, and you'll soon be craving something else: an authentic barbeque experience. To find that in Memphis, you'll have to go to Payne's.
Payne's is down-home in a way that's hard to even comprehend. It's inside a former garage, and the interior has a few tables, though the huge garage doors remain. They make ribs and smoked sausage, but the real treat is the chopped pork sandwich for $3. It's hand-chopped to order, then piled atop a tiny WonderBread bun with slaw. The slaw is spicy and much closer to relish as most northerners know it. Payne's has no knives, forks, dishes, or straws: only sporks and paper plates. The 'cue itself is tender and on the sweet side, though plenty smoky. However you attempt to eat it, it should be considered one of the best BBQ sandwiches in the nation.
Payne's BBQ [MemhpisDining.com]
[Alexander Basek]
[Photo: Cerifiedfool/Flickr]
Previously: Mustache Maintenance in Memphis, The Elvis Suite, Memphis in May, Memphis and Nashville Music Tourism, NYC Cracks Fattest Top Ten

Meatloaf Stuffed with Spinach and Red Bell Pepper

Meatloaf Stuffed with Spinach and Red Bell Pepper
from Simply Recipes by Elise

We love meat loaf in this house. My father found this recipe in an old issue of Bon Appetit and made it it the other day. It was really quite good, and pretty too (as pretty as meatloaf can be) with the stuffing of red bell peppers and green spinach.

NYC Tourists Get More Neurotic

NYC Tourists Get More Neurotic


Perhaps trying in a meta way to turn NYC tourists into your dime-a-dozen NYC neurotic , the city's tourists have recently been under a barrage of criticisms and nagging from the overbearing press about what not to do. The most recent example comes from AM New York whose front page featured the html-unfriendly hed: They [heart] NYC. Turns out NY has seen more tourists this year than ever before, an approx. 44 million.
Among the exhortations given in the ensuing coverage is the one found above by Chuck Bennett. This, however, is but the most recent onslaught of to don'ts offered. Recently, the NYT's Seth Kugel warned tourists where not to go while Lonely Planet recently advised tourists to mask their maps in classic New York books like Catcher in the Rye.
It's only a matter of time before true New Yorkers will be approached on the street by panicky tourists asking, "Did I do this right? What about this? Is my bag to big? Do my shoes make me look like a tourist?" and on that day, any difference we fancied distinguished us from them, will have been thoroughly and irrevocably erased.
Previously: London in NY, Queen's Hideaway: Wha' Happened?, Pic of the Day: Red Hook Farm, A Royale Pain

Key West -- Island Bike Adventure!

Key West -- Island Bike Adventure!
(D. O. Christian Rieger)
Key West -- Island Bike Adventure! Bring your t-shirt, shorts, sneakers and a camera . . . and take home memories! The Bike Tour of Key West, www.keywestbikeecotour.com, takes guests into the Key W...

What are ten ingredients to always have on hand to cook a good meal?

What are ten ingredients to always have on hand to cook a good meal?
from Megnut by meg@megnut.com (Meg Hourihan)
What are ten (give or take a few) ingredients that are handy to always have on hand to cook a good meal? Looking for suggestions over at Ask.Metafilter.com.

Chicken Marinara

Chicken Marinara
from Simply Recipes by Elise

Chicken pieces coated with Parmesan and bread crumbs, fried and covered with a tomato basil marinara sauce, and topped with melted Mozzarella. My mother made this chicken marinara for dinner tonight and it was fabulous. She uses chicken thighs because they are more flavorful, but you could easily use breasts.

Sausage Brunch Casserole

Sausage Brunch Casserole
from Simply Recipes by Elise
Updated
I think this recipe is based on one from a Jimmy Dean ad. I got it from my friend Heidi, and we've both made it several times for brunch gatherings. If you want you can make it ahead the night before and just put it in the oven for an hour right before you want to serve it. Eggs, Italian sausage, bread, milk, cheddar cheese - yum!
Continue reading...

Dorset Drum English Farmhouse Cheddar igourmet.com

To Construct the Perfect Meal, Imagine a Restaurant Crawl

To Construct the Perfect Meal, Imagine a Restaurant Crawl
from Dining by FRANK BRUNI
Joël Robuchon finally took Manhattan. Mario Batali traded in his rock soundtrack for a piano. The Little Owl made room for a big pork chop, and Will Goldfarb made Room 4 Dessert.

Every Day with Rachael Ray - Tuscan Cacciatore Risotto

Every Day with Rachael Ray - Tuscan Cacciatore Risotto
from Every Day with Rachael Ray
This recipe is featured in the December-January issue of Every Day with Rachael Ray.

Dark chocolate helps fight fatigue

Dark chocolate helps fight fatigue
from Chocolate: See what people are saying right now on Technorati
Dark chocolate beats fatigue, study NutraIngredients 12/20/06 "Eating a small amount of dark chocolate each day can help combat the symptoms of...

Warm and Fuzzy Holiday Wishes

Warm and Fuzzy Holiday Wishes
from Chocolate & Zucchini by clotilde

May your celebrations be joyful, the company lovely, the food delectable, and the gifts few but thoughtful. Joyeuses Fêtes!
[The little guy above is a Petit Choo Farci -- a pun on petit chou (a term of endearment) and chou farci (stuffed cabbage) -- by French-Japanese artist Ketty Sean. I bought it at the gallery/store L'Art de Rien and it now lives at my friend Laurence's apartment.]

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Cycling in Italy Can Be Fun

Cycling in Italy Can Be Fun
from GoArticles Travel Category (Alastair Hamilton)
With the advent of the World Wide Web, it's easier than ever to do research into those vacation spots that you've longed to visit. With the cost of travel these days, it's important that you do as muc...

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
from Chocolate: See what people are saying right now on Technorati
INGREDIENTS: 2 sticks butter, softened 1 c. firmly packed sugar 1/2 c. granulated sugar 2 eggs 2 tbsp. milk 2 tsp. vanilla 1 3/4 c. flour 1 tsp...

Good Eating: Nouveau Riches
from Dining by Compiled by KRIS ENSMINGER
Today the area around Lincoln Center and the southwestern corner of Central Park is home to some of the city’s most highly regarded restaurants.

CARAMEL-PECAN BUCHE DE NOEL
from Epicurious.com: the World's Greatest Recipe Collection
Recipe from Bon Appétit

Cheddar Melt Chili
from Betty Crocker Recipe of the Day
This ground beef dish gets its heat from three different sources-salsa, beans and chili powder. Hamburger Helper® dinner mix makes it easy.

New Food & Wine Matcher from Natalie MacLean
from Gourmet Food - Cooking, Recipes, Reviews, Entertaining & Travel
With thousands of wines on the market, picking the best wine to go with dinner can be tricky business, even for the experts. Award winning wine-writer Natalie MacLean has...

Menu for Hope III: 3 days left!
from Purple Liquid: a wine and food diary by Catherine Granger
Hunger and malnutrition are still the number one risks to health worldwide. 852 million is the total number of undernourished people worldwide: 815 in developing countries, 28 million in countries in transition and nine million in industrialised countries. Today, one in nearly seven people do not get enough food to be healthy and lead an active life, making hunger and malnutrition the number one risk to health worldwide — greater than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. The Menu for Hope campaign will be running for three more days so if you're thinking about participating and help UN World Food Programme , there is still a little bit of time but do it soon! So far, we have more than doubled last year's record of $17,000, and have raised over $35,000! Thanks to all of you!

Technorati tags: wine food & drink

Restaurants: Tastes of Russia, but One Without Borders
from Dining by FRANK BRUNI
After a four-year hibernation, the Russian Tea Room stirred to renewed life in early November with a seriously gifted chef, Gary Robins, in charge of the kitchen.

Macarons Maïs Violette
from Chocolate & Zucchini by clotilde

If you are still trying to get your act together about what homemade edible presents to give out this holiday season, I'm here to tell you that you are not alone. I myself have done precisely zilch about it, but that's okay: today is Tuesday, Christmas eve is this Sunday, and that still gives me plenty of time to pick a recipe, buy the ingredients, and get started, right? Right? Thank you.
I would hate to spoil the surprise for the usual recipients of my food gifts, who happen to read this blog every once in a while -- especially just before they see me so they can pretend they read it more faithfully than they probably do --, so I can't tell you exactly what I'll make, but I will gladly point you to a few recipes I'm considering (but haven't tested yet):
~ Jenjen's Maple Brandy Snaps,~ Monica Hayden's Havreflarn, as recommended by Marie,~ Nolwenn's Dried fruit biscotti (in French),~ Pascale's Chocolate caramels (in French),~ Bulle's Guimauves, the French marshmallows (in French).
Add to those twelve gift-worthy favorites from the C&Z archives (a selection you would have received in your mailbox three weeks ago if you were a happy subscriber of my monthly newsletter):
~ Very Ginger Cookies,~ Shortbread, ~ Chocolate and Cacao Nib Cookies,~ Green Tea Cat's Tongues,~ Chocolate-dipped Apricots,~ Dried Pears (which you can chocolate-dip, too),~ Mendiants,~ Florentins,~ Spiced Chocolate Peanut Butter,~ Wine Jelly,~ Almond Lemon Curd,~ Pear and Cacao Nib Jam.
And a bonus recipe, that of the cornmeal macarons* I've come up with a few months ago: I was hoping to create delicate two-bite numbers that would make good teatime companions, preferably with a lightly crunchy crust that would yield into a soft, nubby heart. I tinkered and stirred and trusted my instincts, and I was quite pleased with what I got -- pleased enough to make a few more batches since then (it is such an easy one-bowl, scoop-drop-'n-bake recipe), in different flavor incarnations: violet, citrus zest and pepper, or simply vanilla.
* See here for more on the use of the word "macaron".
~~~
Just as a reminder, you have until Friday to make a donation in our Menu for Hope fundraiser and get a chance to win some of the cool prizes; my sincere thanks to all of you who have already donated with such generosity.

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30 Second Wine Advisor: How long can you keep leftover wine?
from WineLoversPage.com
We run a simple experiment to test the conventional wisdom about keeping wine in an open bottle.

30 Second Wine Advisor: Say "cheese"
from WineLoversPage.com
Playing with my food during a fancy dinner at a NYC culinary temple, I reinforce a theory about matching red and white wines with artisanal cheeses

Wines of The Times: Panned on Screen, Merlot Shrugs and Moves On
from Dining by ERIC ASIMOV
“Sideways” may have done a favor to a wine not much loved.

Top 10 Drinking Chocolates
from Gourmet Food - Cooking, Recipes, Reviews, Entertaining & Travel
Winter always makes me think of hot cocoa. Maybe it's a childhood thing or maybe I'm just searching for an excuse to have more chocolate! As an adult,...

Wines of The Times: What Goes With Turkey Again?
from Dining by ERIC ASIMOV
The Dining section’s wine panel held a blind tasting with a typical Thanksgiving meal and decided which ones went best with the food.

The Talk: Dining Finds in Buenos Aires
from Dining by OLIVER SCHWANER-ALBRIGHT
Palermo Viejo, the city’s hippest ‘hood, is also the best place to chow down

It Takes Over a Village
from Dining by MAGGIE BARRETT
Every fall, when harvest time rolls around, the entire town of Buonconvento, Italy, picks up a fork and digs in.

Nov 20, 2006 10:39 AM
Early to Market in Bisceglie
from The Food Section: Press Sighting: New York Times by Josh Friedland


The drive from Bari's airport to Bisceglie is deceptive. The landscape is marked by an incredible amount of modern development: big box stores, a giant outlet mall, and huge cranes building new apartments. But, peel back a layer of the Apulian onion, and you'll find along the coast the old whitewashed towns with narrow streets that wind their way up out of the Adriatic.
I got up early on my last day in Bisceglie and walked along the water into the old city center, where there was an incredible market. The fishermen head out early from the town's small harbor, pushing colorful wooden boats against the tide, and return with a jaw-dropping bounty of seafood -- octopus, squid, clams, oysters, and silvery, glassy-eyed fish. Adjoining the fish market was a vegetable market teeming with fresh produce -- bright fall persimmons, puntarella, pears, olive dolci (fresh, uncured olives), and green and purple artichokes with stems as long as your forearm.
Below is a slideshow of photos (click directly on the photo to advance; refresh your browser to return to the beginning):

Featured Recipe: Cheese Blintzes
from For Food and Wine Lovers - Epicurean.com
Blintzes remind me of French crepes, although they're Russian in origin. They can befitted with savory or sweet mixtures. Children have great fun mixing up the filling and stuffing the "pancakes." Serve these hot with sour cream topping, sliced strawberries, or stewed rhubarb (sweeten to taste or combine with canned crushed pineapple), or with applesauce on top of a sour cream dressing for additional garnish.

Changing The Palate Express Hotelier - Mumbai,India... as India becomes a global destination for travel and various ... spirit are being sketched over the food landscape all ... for Indians and a few wine societies have ...

Parmesan Polenta News 14 Carolina - Raleigh,NC,USA... After the polenta's cooked for 10 minutes or so, add about 1 cup of grated parmesan cheese and stir that in until it's well incorporated. ...

Afuega'l Pitu is a very ancient cheese made in the valley formed by the rivers Nalon and Narcea.

Paris's Emerging Neighborhoods
from Gridskipper, the Urban Travel Guide
Just out from the Mairie De Paris is this map of the most deprivedareas of Paris, where they are investing in 211 million euros this year alone. Parisians pay high taxes but at least the money is being invested in the city and it's inhabitants, including the most needy 350,000.
Attached to each area, there is a list of the number of inhabitants, the percentage of those under 20 years old and the percent unemployed (chomage). The 24% foreigners we're not talking about foreign buyers but mostly African and Maghrebin (North African) immigrants.
You could use this as a guide of where to buy that will eventually appreciate rather than hold it's value like the more privileged parts of Paree. If you are on a limited budget and a real estate pioneer. Like other capital cities, at least London (see Brixton and New York (hipster-ville Williamsburg) Paris is gentrified up now and house prices in even places shown on this indicator like Canal St Martin, Belleville and Menilmontant have risen sharply over the years.
You could still choose the even dodgier parts of town that are left (and cheaper), batten down the hatches, bribe your friends to visit you and then sooner or later you'll see a macelleria selling over-priced Italian salami spring up on the corner where the drug addicts used to hang out.
In La Chapelle, Montmartre district, prices have risen by 21% between June 2005 - June 2006. It's here you find the quartier La Goutte d'Or where Zola's Nana was born - you can stil feel its web of Zola-esqe crime and destitution. There are some extremely run-down buildings and social problems amongst the most visible, drug addiction.
So before jumping in as a pioneer and buying your pied-a-terre or booking that funky new hotel in an "emerging" area, make sure you can hack it or will you feel unsafe coming home late at night. You may not be able to hang out in the local Cafe either (some are all-male enclaves with spit on the floor). Of course, when you're more streetwise you'll see all these areas are fabulous in their own way too - check out the fantastic Marché Exotique on the rue Dejean for an authentic Paris/Dakar vibe.
[Text+Photo: Suzanne Hollands]

30 Second Wine Advisor: Can you taste organic?
from WineLoversPage.com
Is the organic wine glass half empty or half full? It depends on who's looking

What to Drink with What you Eat
from Gourmet Food - Cooking, Recipes, Reviews, Entertaining & Travel
Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page have created a masterpiece of culinary work with What to Drink with What you Eat (Bulfinch Press 2006). This book is destined to be the...

Historic Delmonico Restaurant Reopens in New Orleans
from Gourmet Food - Cooking, Recipes, Reviews, Entertaining & Travel
After being heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina last year, Emeril Lagasse's Delmonico Restaurant finally reopened last week to much fanfare. The historic restaurant (named after the New York...

Sushi Milanese
from The Food Section: Press Sighting: New York Times by Josh Friedland

In New York, they call it crudo, but here at da Claudio Pescheria dei Milanesi, they call it sushi. Go figure.
Plus, rather than fetching the high prices you'll find in New York for Italian-style raw fish, at da Claudio you can have yourself a generous plate full of ultra-fresh thin-sliced fish, including tuna, salmon, shrimp, and branzino, among other varieties, for just 10 euros (and that's including a glass of wine).
You do have to eat standing up, but that's part of the fun. It's cheap, unpretentious, and delicious.

Bites: Reykjavik, Iceland: Saegreifinn
from Dining by MARK BITTMAN
The concoction, called humarsupa, is straightforward, traditional, glaringly honest, delicious and the first thing you should eat when you arrive in town.

Featured Recipe: Roasted Rack of Venison with Port and Red Currant Sauce
from For Food and Wine Lovers - Epicurean.com
This is a classic from England, where the autumn hunt has always been taken very seriously. Nowadays, unless you hunt, most of us eat farm-raised venison, which is not as gamy as some might expect yet still retains a pleasing, full flavor and tends to be nice and lean. Though it is traditionally served as a cold sauce alongside cold meat, our adaptation of Cumberland sauce is served hot with chops from a simple, elegant roasted rack of venison. This dish is great for entertaining; an eight-rib rack serves four perfectly. The goal with the lemon and orange zest is to cut matchsticks that will provide texture and flavor to the finished sauce. Use a small knife, vegetable peeler, or a specially designed citrus zester. In winter, serve the venison chops with blanched Brussels sprouts sauteed in butter and finished with bacon. In the summertime, the chops are delicious with buttered string and wax beans.

An Evening with Pernod
from For Food and Wine Lovers - Epicurean.com
A friend of mine once said that the reason humans began drinking alcoholic beverages early on is because life always sucked. This is undeniably true. But every now and then, a particular beverage (or brand) stood out for reasons beyond mere ossification. Mead for it honeyed sweetness. Champagne for its effervescent luxury and prestigious birthplace. Cognac for its smooth, velvety darkness. Then there's absinthe. Absinthe has a fascinating history, not so much for its flavor, cost, or even its origins. Instead, absinthe unwittingly claimed its stake in spirit history because of its purported effects on the brain. It was believed to cause hallucinations, epileptic seizures, and "madness." It served as muse to many artists and writers from the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Wilde, Poe, Hemingway, Degas, and Picasso. Eventually, it became the focal point for prohibitionists worldwide.

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