let's rap about brownies

in the alternative:


how did alicia keys keep a straight face? hilarious.

once you pop...

wow, you really can't stop.

don't have a cow, man

c4ts, sugarpockets, avert your eyes: this post focuses on pork. well, david chang, who specializes in making pork-related korean-esque dishes. in the interest of full disclosure, i've been to momofuku noodle bar and i think the pork buns are fantastic. it's fine if chang isn't trying to make authentically korean dishes or whatever and that's not what annoys me. people fall all over themselves praising the noodle dishes, while i find them to be...lacking. what can i say? there is a korean word that describes the taste, which can only be translated to, uh, "meaty." there is nothing offsetting the overwhelming pork-y flavor and the noodles lack the nuance and balance that i think a good meat-based dish should have. i haven't tried his ssam bar because, well, it's pretty impossible to get a seat there.

anyway, chang's a skilled chef and he has some innovative ideas on how to run a restaurant, but holy cow is he overrated. in his new yorker profile last week, he came off somewhere between earnest/likeable and psychotic/self-important. i'm sure he's some of both, as most people are.

apparently he's a james beard award finalist? and proving that bloggers know nothing, listen to this ignoramus's opinion on who should win:

Steve Plotnicki, Opinionated About Dining: “Chang: I'm torn between him and Dufresne, but Chang's Bo Ssäm, which could be the single greatest casual dish ever invented by an American chef, tips it in his favor”

hey moron, korean people have been eating the dish for years and it's offered by many other korean restaurants. chang didn't "invent" it, he just made it that much pork-ier.

while we're on the subject, frank bruni managed to make it out to park slope to try out moim, a korean restaurant. he wrote a fairly glowing review, but the menu made me pause: what kind of self-respecting korean restaurant charges for banchan? $4 for kongnamul! my mom would weep. not to mention, what are these "korean desserts" they serve?

lunchables

i was in montreal recently visiting my sister (and renewing my visa - did you know that you can transport a banana from canada into the US but not an orange (or any citrus fruits)? oh the things i learn from customs officers), who introduced me to this website.

now, i'm all for a nutritious lunch, especially one that is visually pleasing. not to mention that i start to salivate every time i go on this webpage. nonetheless, doesn't this seem a little psychotic? my sister seemed very inspired by it, which surprised me. i half-joked to her that she's setting her daughter up for disappointment bc that little girl is going to realize one day that eggs are not actually shaped like cartoon characters and that seaweed comes in rectangular sheets and not shaped like cartoon cutouts. then i thought, am i crazy for thinking this is a little indulgent? is my sister right? maybe this is just a way for a mother to show affection for her daughter and feed her well?

who knows, but as my korean friend said, "i never thought my cheesy korean side would say this, but making things tiny only becomes cute until a certain point. " amen to that.

anyway, in her defense, the woman running the website primarily uses leftovers, but just packages them to seem more palatable. and look at this lunch! jeebus.

snackalogical warfare

c4ts, i know you have a blog entry fermenting in that fecund mind of yours, so i will keep my kobayashi- related post rather brief.

does he or doesn't he have jawthritis? even though he said he can barely open his mouth, he has vowed to compete next wednesday. omg...the suspense...

some choice quotes:
The Associated Press reported on Tuesday from Tokyo that “The champ may not be able to chomp.”

“All my friends and family,” he said, “they’re all saying, ‘Don’t pay any attention to it.’ But it doesn’t make sense. Why would anybody say, ‘Oh I’m going to compete, but I’m hurt’?” Mr. Chestnut sighed again and thought out loud: “He’s never gone into it as an underdog.”

Mr. Kobayashi, he said, “could come to the Fourth of July with his jaws wired shut, and I’m sure he could still do all right; he’s that good of an eater.”

“I tell myself that there’s nothing solid inside of me,” he said, “so I can put 14 pounds of food inside. It’s a mental thing, to be able to convince your body that it can do this.” He added, “My body says, ‘Hey, I’m hungry.’ There’s a reason to eat this much food.” [Ed. note: i say this to myself pretty much before every meal.]

most delicious article ever?

the dining & wine section of the times often annoys me, with its references to pickled ramps and its decision to feature the $25 and under column only every other week, but i guess that's what you gotta do to rise above the hoi polloi.

sure, the juvenile graphic above looks like something that i could've made on a commodore 64, but this article is so damn appetizing that i can't stop thinking, nay, dreaming about it. i mean, c'mon:

He took his mother’s recipe for veal, beef and pork meatballs, and tweaked it heavily, tripling the meatball’s size to that of a softball, coring it like an apple and stuffing the cavity with whipped ricotta and Parmigiano-Reggiano (leaving a beret of the mixture on top), and giving it a smoky finish in a wood-fired oven.

congratulations!!

sugarpockets and c4ts: congrats on being done!! i'm eating spicy dried mangoes from sahadi's and thinking of you.

there ain't no doubt i love this land

i, too, have a food product to tout. i've been dying to try this and i was finally able to procure a pint. it sounds like a flavor they've already made (vanilla ice cream, waffle cone pieces covered in fudge, caramel swirls). no matter. it is delicious.

Sugarpockets introduced me to Sharffen Berger's 41% cacao chocolate. It's the greatest packaged food-related thing ever to happen to me. If all my teeth rot out and I gain 50 pounds and turn into some bizarro--and obviously more attractive--version of Jennifer Connelly's character in Requiem for a Dream, you'll know why.