• All posts tagged with "food"
New York is known for many culinary treasures, but some just aren’t our turf. Jason Santa Maria, a top-notch designer and Philadelphia expat now residing in New York, took it upon himself to find the perfect cheesesteak in New York by organizing the NYC Cheesesteak Crawl.
Although not from Philly myself, having grown up just a hop away in northern Delaware, I still know a thing or two about soft pretzels, water ice, and cheesesteaks.
So, needless to say, I spent five and a half hours last Saturday hoofing it all over Manhattan consuming heart-stopping quantities of greasy meat, cheese, and bread (and, of course, ranking them). It was epic.
And the results are in! I was glad to see that my top pick took home the gold, and even more glad because it’s approximately a two minute walk from my apartment. Oh, and they have $3 Yuengling on tap. What’s not to love?
The rest of the rankings differed slightly from my other picks, but there was still a general consensus for which spots pulled it off and which sold nothing but trash seasoned with tears and regret.
Be sure to check out the Flickr pool, and please excuse me while I go eat a giant salad.
ם Things I Saw Today…
Posted on September 12, 2007 at 5:00 pm
In one of my classes, the same kid always sits in front of me. We’ve only had the class three times so far, and:
- Day 1: He’s eating a banana, but has this strange wrist-flipping technique that un- and re-sheathes the banana in its own peel between bites. A little strange, but nothing to comment on. Until…
- Day 2: He’s eating an orange. Okay, so he likes fruit. No big deal—but what’s this? Hmm… he’s not sectioning the orange and eating it like, well, an orange. No, instead he’s eating it like an apple, taking direct bites right out of the side. Weird.
- Day 3: Today, he’s got an apple. But does he eat it like an apple? Of course not! No, instead, he’s peeling it with his fingers as if it were an orange.
Seriously, what gives?
ם I’m… Lovin’ It?
Posted on August 18, 2007 at 12:08 am
I haven’t eaten fast food in roughly five years 1. This wasn’t so much intentional as just… common sense? Why on earth would anyone want to eat that molded and deep fried offal?
Well, tonight, for the first time in five years, I ate McDonald’s.
Please, let me explain.
So Deb and I were riding the 7 train (I know, right? The seven train! The 7 is one step above a myth), and next to us sits this young-ish girl, roughly our age. She’s holding a Burger King bag, and whips out this big, beefy, very-powerfully-scented heap of a burger. Oh man, that fragrance. It just filled the train, and our mouths salivated. We didn’t want them to salivate, but boy did they.
I don’t know how the fast food chains do it. My brain didn’t want that food anywhere near me, but my stomach was jonesin’ for it.
I had to have it.
I dropped off Deb and set out to find me some of that beefy goodness. I figured that of the “Big Three” (McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s), Burger King and Wendy’s were waaaaay better than the Golden Arches themselves. Our friend on the train was eating BK, so I figured I’d try for that. A quick Google search revealed that there wasn’t one within thirty blocks. Alright, Wendy’s it is then. Score, Google says there’s one right down the street! My quest begins.
I head to where this Wendy’s is supposed to be, and there’s nothing but a café, a theater, and a bunch of red-brick apartments. No red pigtails anywhere in sight.
By now, I’ve got the shakes and I’m scratching my gums. I need me some of that hamburgery lovin’. Off in the distance, I see through the haze… the soft glow of The Golden Arches. At this point I’m desperate, so I hang my head, avoid eye contact with anyone who might judge me for my sin, and head inside. I buy a big beefy burger with some sort of forgettable yet trademarkable name and a small order of fries. Almost as quickly as I pay, it’s bagged and ready for me.
I didn’t overly want to eat in a hard plastic booth in a dirty McDonald’s, so I elected to just walk the five blocks home so that only I would have to see my shame. But just knowing what I held in my hands, I could barely take the walk. It was the longest five blocks of my life!
Finally home, I unboxed my burger and bit in. It was greasy, fatty, salty, damn near nauseating…
…and delicious.
Tonight I was buying some food, and the cashier was whistling a familiar tune.
“Monty Python?” I asked. He told me I was the first person all night to know that, so he gave me a free box of Ritz crackers.
Hooray free crackers! Monty Python, you’ve saved me again.
If I kept a food journal, my entry for yesterday would make any nutritionist faint:
Breakfast: Spaghetti.
Lunch: Oreos.
Dinner: More Oreos.
I desperately need to go grocery shopping.
ם Happy Pi Day!
Posted on March 14, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Happy Pi Day, everybody! Hope you have a splendid one. As a Pi Day present, I’ll share with you my favorite approximation of pi: Buffon’s Needle, where pi can be reasonably approximated by throwing small sticks over one’s shoulder on a hardwood floor.
I’m still in sunny Madrid, but today was my last full day. I had some wonderful paella right off the Plaza Mayor, then saw all the typical touristy things. I leave first thing tomorrow morning, and fly back to a job interview. Eesh!
ם Madrid, Pt. II
Posted on March 13, 2007 at 8:37 am
I’m still in beautiful Madrid, enjoying the 65 degree days (far better than the single digits going on in New York, I assure you).
I’m staying with my best friend from high school, the illustrious Chris Perella. He teaches English to the locals twice a week at the university, but last night his teaching partner bailed. So last night I spent an hour teaching English to a group of middle-aged Madrileños (N.B.: I don’t speak a word of Spanish). It was a hoot.
For lunch yesterday, Chris and I had a giant plate of meat. We went to a nearby restaurant (a sort of French fry bar) and got a huge combo platter comprised of a gigantic heap of fries covered in six different kinds of meat (all exquisite) accompanied by sixteen different salsas/sauces (all also exquisite). It was delicious.
Late last night, we went to a cave-themed bar. What an awesome theme.
More later, plus pictures.
ם My Fridge
Posted on January 28, 2007 at 11:26 pm
I went grocery shopping yesterday, and thought I’d share with you this piece of my life. Please meet the contents of my fridge:
My food.
Ah, Diet Pepsi and eggs. Pretty much the essence of my at-home eating, and as such, I buy in bulk. So that is in fact a 36 pack of the DP, and two boxes of 2 and a half dozen eggs.
What can I say, I like my food like I like my women… In packages of 2 and a half dozen.
Also, don’t be fooled by the milk sneaking in on the right hand side. I’m painfully lactose intollerant, so that’s my roommate’s, not mine.
ם What’s Noka Worth?
Posted on December 30, 2006 at 4:15 am
Noka is a Texas chocolatier that sells “luxury chocolate” at a luxury price. DallasFood takes them to town in an excellently written (and lengthy) exposé on the price of their chocolate.
My favorite revelation: Noka chocolate ranges from $309/pound all the way up to $2,080/pound. Other gourmet chocolates range from roughly $30 to $85 per pound. In fact:
To make some “apples to oranges” comparisons, Noka chocolates cost more than:
-Foie gras — $50 per pound
-Domestic sturgeon caviar — $275 per pound
-American Wagyu and Japanese Kobe beef — $100 to $300 per pound
-Sterling silver — $170 per pound
-Marijuana in El Paso — $350 per pound
-A fat stack of dollar bills — $454 per pound
That’s right, Noka chocolate costs more per pound than money. Well, $1 bills at least.
All the best to you and yours.
