eats

Cory Doctorow and his daughter, Posey, have a regular sushi date. “Every week or two, we visit a different sushi restaurant, usually near our place in Burbank, and have a (usually) fantastic meal. We bring along a little notebook and take notes and keep scores on everything we try, and then (usually) we give the restaurant an overall rating.” They call it the Sushi Chronicles. What a cute idea.

Boulder, Colorado: America’s Foodiest Town

According to Bon Appétit, this years award for the foodiest town goes to Boulder, Colorado. The criteria for the award are as follows:

Our criteria for the annual report on “America’s Foodiest Town”: Small (fewer than 250,000 people), quality farmers’ markets, concerned farmers, dedicated food media, first-rate restaurants, talented food artisans, and a community of food lovers.

Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Portland, Maine were the winners of the 2008 and 2009 awards respectively. Boulder restaurants mentioned in the article include:
Dish Gourmet
The Kitchen
Salt
Frasca Food and Wine
Pizzeria Basta
Mateo
The Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse
Leaf
Café Aion
Kim & Jake’s Cakes
Happy
Sushi Tora
Boulder County Farmers’ Market
Mountain Sun Pub & Brewery

The Twitter Of Recipes

Mark Bittman has another “101” recipe list out. This time it’s 101 Fast Recipes for Grilling.

These recipes are excellent for their simplicity and ease. You’re not going to open a restaurant or win any cooking contests with these recipes, but they they will satisfy your taste-buds, tummy, and busy schedule. Previous 101 lists from Bittman:
Simple Salads
Head Starts on the Day
Inspired Picnics [previously]
Simple Appetizers[previously]
Quick Meals (10 more) [previously]

If you enjoyed any of the recipes linked above, I have been told that Mark Bittman’s “How To Cook Everything: Simple Recipes For Great Food” is a worthwhile cookbook.

15 Delicious Wine Pairing Suggestions

Wine rules are more like the pirate’s code: more of a set of guidelines.There’s considerable room for experimentation and expression of your own personality in pairing food and wine. The rules for wine pairing have relaxed a bit, but the fact remains that certain flavors of food and wine mix better together than others. Remember, rules are meant to be broken and the best pairings are the ones that bring you joy.

Syrah: Matches with highly spiced dishes
When a meat is heavily seasoned—like Asian-Spiced Pork Shoulder and Cumin-Spiced Burgers—look for a red wine with lots of spicy notes. Syrah from Washington, Cabernet Franc from France and Xinomavro from Greece are all nice choices.

Grüner Veltliner: Pairs with dishes that have lots of fresh herbs
Austrian Grüner Veltliner’s citrus-and-clover scent is lovely when there are lots of fresh herbs in a dish. Other go-to grapes in a similar style include Albariño from Spain and Vermentino from Italy.

Pinot Noir: Is great for dishes with earthy flavors
Recipes made with ingredients like mushrooms and truffles taste great with reds like Pinot Noir and Dolcetto, which are light-bodied but full of savory depth.

Dry Rosé: For rich, cheesy dishes
Some cheeses go better with white wine, some with red; yet almost all pair well with dry rosé, which has the acidity of white wine and the fruit character of red. This makes it the go-to wine when serving a wide range of hors d’oeuvres, from crudités to gougères.

Sauvignon Blanc: Goes with tart dressings and sauces
Tangy foods—like Scallops with Grapefruit-Onion Salad or Sour-Orange Yucatán Chicken—won’t overwhelm zippy wines like Sauvignon Blanc, Vinho Verde from Portugal and Verdejo from Spain. The bright, citrusy acidity acts like a zap of lemon or lime juice to heighten flavors in everything from smoked sablefish to grilled salmon.

Zinfandel: For pâtés, mousses and terrines
If you can use the same adjectives to describe a wine and a dish, the pairing will often work. For instance, the words rustic and rich describe Zinfandel, Italy’s Nero d’Avola and Spain’s Monastrell as well as Creamy Chicken-Liver Mousse.

Pinot Grigio: Pairs with light fish dishes
Light seafood dishes, like Seafood Tostada Bites, seem to take on more flavor when matched with equally delicate white wines, such as Pinot Grigio or Arneis from Italy or Chablis from France.

Malbec: Won’t be overshadowed by sweet-spicy barbecue sauces
Malbec, Shiraz and Côtes-du-Rhône are big and bold enough to drink with foods brushed with heavily spiced barbecue sauces like Chicken Drumsticks with Asian Barbecue Sauce

Chardonnay: For fatty fish or fish in a rich sauce
Silky whites—for instance, Chardonnays from California, Chile or Australia—are delicious with fish like salmon or any kind of seafood in a lush sauce. Try Sizzling Shrimp Scampi or Crisp Salmon with Avocado Salad.

Cabernet Sauvignon: Is fabulous with juicy red meat
California Cabernet, Bordeaux and Bordeaux-style blends are terrific with steaks or chops. The firm tannins, the astringent compounds in these red wines that help give the wine structure, refresh the palate after each bite of meat.

Champagne: Is perfect with anything salty
Most dry sparkling wines, such as brut Champagne and Spanish cava, actually have a faint touch of sweetness. That makes them extra-refreshing when served with salty foods.

Rosé Champagne: Is great with dinner, not just hors d’oeuvres
Rosé sparkling wines, such as rosé Champagne, cava and sparkling wine from California, have the depth of flavor and richness to go with a wide range of main courses.

Off-Dry Riesling: Pairs with sweet & spicy dishes
The slight sweetness of many Rieslings, Gewürztraminers and Vouvrays helps tame the heat of spicy Asian and Indian dishes. In addition, when confronted with dishes like a fiery curried chicken or Thai stir-fry, wines that are low in alcohol keep the oils that make food hot from being overly accentuated.

Old World Wines: Are intrinsically good with Old World dishes
The flavors of foods and wines that have grown up together over the centuries—Tuscan recipes and Tuscan wines, for instance—are almost always a natural fit.

Moscato d’Asti: Loves fruit desserts
Moderately sweet sparkling wines such as Moscato d’Asti, demi-sec Champagne and Asti Spumante help emphasize the fruit in the dessert, rather than the sugar.

This was (mostly) stolen directly from Food & Wine and reprinted here so you don’t have to click 15 times to see it all. If you are looking for more specific pairings check out the table at Gourmet Sleuth.

The Food At Casa Bonita

You’re right, nobody goes to Casa Bonita for the food. But because buying a meal is mandatory for entrance, nobody goes to Casa Bonita without the food. Long heralded as the worst Mexican food in Denver, the dinners and lunches at Casa Bonita have become a legend in themselves. Below is a picture of the combination meal that I ordered a couple of weeks ago. Does it really look all that bad? Rest assured it tasted nearly exactly like it looks. Horrible.

Is It Really That Bad? The food at Casa Bonita

Other photos from my trip to Casa Bonita can be found in this flickr set.

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Brotherly Love

I was really impressed with Philadelphia as a city. I only spent a long weekend there but I felt like I got to see most of the sights and get a real flavor of the city (though that flavor was slightly greasy [in a good way]). As soon as I stepped of the plane it was straight to Johnny Manana’s for their giant griddle of melted cheese. The queso was excellent, the margs were horrible. I then got settled into my friend’s house who were hosting me for the week, at a yummy home cooked meal and washed it all down with a few beers at the Dark Horse in the city. The Dark Horse is a Philadelphia style Irish pub with strong roots, located in a 2 story colonial rowhouse complete with dark wood, exposed brick, and one of the oldest working fireplaces in the city.

We kicked off our first full day in the City Of Brotherly Love with Philly cheese steaks of course.

One of the people I was staying with was a highschool history teacher, and a native Philly who’s in love with his city. He was the perfect tour for all of the historical sights we visited on Saturday. We spent the entire afternoon seeing all the historical sights. The liberty bell, Independence hall, First national bank, The oldest residential street in the US, the National Constitution Center, and a bunch more. I think I might have been a little bored if it weren’t for the interesting anecdotes and facts provided by our good friend/tour guide.

Over There

For dinner we went to the tasty but slightly overpriced White Dog Cafe. A restaurant known for there social activism as much as their food. The atmosphere was cool and a little fancy. It made for a great “nice night out”.

Sunday I slept in and had a leisurely breakfast then went to the Mütter Museum. This has to be one of the most interesting museums I’ve ever been to. It was filled with biological/anatomical oddities – conjoined twins, casts of heads suffering from acute, a 30 foot colon, the soap woman, the Chevalier Jackson collection of over 2,000 objects swallowed and removed from the trachea, celebrity body parts, encased longitudinal slices of the head showing the brain. It’s all enough to make you gasp and then get a little queasy. Muffled shouts of “My God, look at that BABY MONSTER!” are often heard and quite appropriate.

Then it was off to the impressive Philadelphia Museum Of Art. I must have spent nearly four hours exploring this place.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres.

On Monday we spent the morning hiking around the Wissahickon Creek. It’s so great that Philly has a such a large, heavily wooded park right next to the city.
Thomas Mill Road Covered Bridge
In fact, Philly was filled with parks and was one of the many things I found attractive about it. Anyway, our trip ended shortly after with a flight back to Denver that seemed to take forever.

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