b. brought me back an amazing book from her recent European travels titled "Made in Italy Food and Stories" by Giorgio Locatelli, the chef at Locanda Locatelli in London. It's a cook book, but that's selling it quite short. Between recipes he writes at some length about Italian history as it relates to both ingredients and techniques. So you end up learning how and why various food stuffs as well as specific dishes are the way they are.

For example, there are some risotto recipes, of course, but also a couple of pages describing all the regional variations along with some remembrances from his childhood in the north. And then a couple more pages on the different kinds of rice, going into the history of their cultivation as well as some scientific explanations of what happens to the rice as it cooks. Then more pages on the history of Parmesan and Grana Padano. And only then comes a discussion of risotto technique. And only after all that are a few recipes offered.

By far the most interesting "cook book" I've ever read. Really informative. Highly recommended.

Arrested Development

The Ten Most Wanted Resys in New York City Friday, September 18, 2009, by Eater Staff 1) would love too 2) ditto 3) no thanks 4) show up at opening and eat at bar, or stay home w/ take out 5) no thanks 6) ditto 7) walk in when they open 8) would love too but there is lots of great fried chicken in nyc 9) gramercy any day in the front room walk in 10) is the food any good??

kinda dumb dear owner and bikini girls

sounds good

Civetta
98 Kenmare St
New York, NY 10012
(212) 966-9440

Seltzer Man Is Out of Action, and Brooklyn Thirsts

flashback

woke up to 3/4" of water on 1/4 of my kitchen floor. dont know how to solve that equation. fortunately i tracked down my landlord before he set out to atone for his sins. not sure if god is trying to tell me something but ive started to construct an ark out of flexible straws and duct tape just in case. i might not be able to save myself but at least the mice will survive to reset the evolutionary process.

in other news i was given a ball that rafael nadal used at the us open this year. no provenance or signature to verify the claim though. so, i got that going for me.

Microsoft has some helpful advice for throwing your own Windows 7 launch party. Most painful video ever?

Ate at Manresa. Delightful. Familiar ingredients in unfamiliar preparations and combination.

caught district 9. (un)pleasantly adult science fiction film, or as one equally uncreative mind put it in a review, the thinking man's transformers. (available online for those that want to find it.)

Thinking about a new phone.

new season of curb your enthusiasm starts tonight along with intriguing series premiere of bored to death starring jason schwarztman. also read somewhere that tonights madmen is best of season. emmys on cbs and giants v cowboys at inaugural game at new dallas stadium.

In various Brooklyn neighborhoods, one such meal has been served roughly twice a quarter for the better part of 10 years. A restaurant-style dinner for work-crazed urban professionals, it is as steady and simple as it is elegant and rich. It features pork chops grilled and glazed in a reduction of maple syrup and balsamic vinegar, served with soft apple slices coated in same beside a mound of polenta lightened with goat cheese and fragrant with rosemary, beneath a dusting of Clinton-era nostalgia: chopped pecans and candied ginger.

That last bit is what marks the dish as restaurant-style fare, worth aping at home: candied ginger is an inexpensive gild, the sort of marker that allows a chef to charge $21 a plate instead of $17. The man who devised this one is Matthew Kenney, the once-white-hot celebrity chef who opened (and saw close) a gaggle of popular scene-restaurants in the 1990s and early oughts: his Matthew’s, on the Upper East Side, begat, among others, Bar Anise, Mezze, Monzu, Canteen, Commune, Commissary. They are all gone now.

“I probably had it on the menu at Commune,” he said of the pork in a telephone interview from Oklahoma City, where he was in the process of opening a “living foods” restaurant and education center called 105degrees. Now a kind of raw-food entrepreneur, Kenney is a partner in the organic Free Foods cafes in Midtown Manhattan; he has helped develop restaurants in Madrid and Winter Park, Fla. He hasn’t eaten meat in a long time.

Now is the time to snip those basil leaves off of your plants, whip up some pesto, and freeze it. That way, you’ll still be eating local even if you can’t get to a farmers’ market during the winter months. Most cooks have different methods of making and freezing pesto. Some rinse the basil leaves first while others swear it will turn them brown; some omit the cheese before freezing while others omit the garlic. There is no magic formula; however, after years of making and freezing pesto, I have settled on a few tricks that work for me. I hope they work for you too.

Russ Meyer tribute on TCM tonight. (He died 5 years ago today.) Faster Pussycat at 2 AM EST and Mudhoney at 4 AM EST.

highly anticipated + chevy chase = ?!?



tonight @930 after season premiere of the office.

and much better than i can draw an elephant

new movie by helvetica documentarian - objectified

interview

Monetize the hate.

some crazy soccer action this afternoon via directv (461-469), fox sportschannel and setanta. 8 qualifying matches simultaneously @245 for the uefa champions league.

Dynamo 20:45 FC Rubin Kazan
Internazionale 20:45 Barcelona
Liverpool 20:45 Debrecen
Lyon 20:45 Fiorentina
Olympiacos 20:45 AZ
Sevilla 20:45 Unirea Urziceni
Standard 20:45 Arsenal
Stuttgart 20:45 Rangers

Official Badness

RIP Jim Carroll.

busy night of tv.

hour long series finale of king of the hill at 8.
season finale of true blood at 9.
chicago bears vs. greenbay packers @ 830.
womens us open finals at 9.
mad men at 10.

iphone ocarina