Surströmming is one of the world's foulest-smelling dishes. Thank you, Sweden. When the can of fermented Baltic herring is opened, all smell breaks loose. It's probably more myth than anything else that the cans explode a lot, though they do expand as the fermenting takes place. In any case, the airlines, again sensibly, will have nothing to do with it. We've never seen it in New York, not that we've looked that hard. For some reason, there isn't much demand in these parts for canned fermented herring. When we mentioned to someone at the Swedish Consulate that we wanted to track down some surströmming, he said, "Oh, I don't think that's a very good idea."
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Surströmming - Manhattan User's Guide
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Martin Luther's Unbirthday, But Not Mine
By the Episcopal calendar, my saint is Martin Luther. Good. Like many Episcopalians, I love irony.
The distinctly not-sainted Martin Luther lands on the Episcopal calendar by virtue of the Protestant elements of the church's Anglican heritage, in accordance with which all Christians together comprise the Communion of Saints; saints aren't limited to those deemed to be saints by pointy-hatted types in Rome. We have our own pointy hats, thank you. And there's no afternoon "riposo" in Canterbury! Thus, Anglicanism begets an empire upon which the sun never sets; popery begets an Italian building complex with a post office. But the wallpaper is great, I admit.
Luther was kind of a jerk. He declared, "women and maidens are all bold and coarse in their speech, in their demeanor wild and lewd." He penned Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants, and On the Jews and Their Lies, which had nothing to do with the falsehood that gefilte fish is good. He spent hours at a time on the crapper. This is probably because beer consumption dehydrates. He also called God a "bulwark." I don't know what that means, but it sounds pretty bad.
(Learn more here without cheek or my tongue stuck in mine.)
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Mr. Colombia, An Angel in Queens (PHOTOS)
Seven days a week, 365 days a year, Jorge Munoz serves 140 hot dinners to day laborers in Jackson Heights, Queens.
"When I see these guys in the street, it's like seeing me when I came to the U.S.," Munoz said, explaining his motivation for helping the immigrants, most of whom are homeless. "I had nothing."
The crusade of this 46-year-old Colombian-American bus driver who earns about $650 a week is largely self-financed. The food is prepared in his family's home in Woodhaven, Queens, by his 70-year-old mother and his sister, Luz, with the occasional help of volunteers.
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Brown’s Celebrated Indian Herb bitters bottle made in 1868 realizes $36,960 at American Bottle Auctions
An outstanding, mint condition Brown’s Celebrated Indian Herb bitters bottle, patented Feb. 11, 1868, sold for $36,960 in an Internet and catalog auction held Oct. 29-Nov. 13 by American Bottle Auctions.... It was the 51st auction held by the young firm, which has become synonymous with vintage bottle collecting.
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Inflation: It's what's for breakfast
The consumer price index rose just 1.1% annually at last count, but that fact might be hard to swallow at the breakfast table these days. Prices for many of New York's favorite breakfast ingredients are soaring at double-digit rates, pinching purses at home and profit margins at restaurants and food companies.
The article looks are price rises for OJ, milk, bagels, coffee, bacon, eggs, and maple syrup. Breakfast cereals' prices are rising, too:
A scorching summer hurt harvests around the globe, fueling higher feed prices that have spiked the costs of breakfast meats. And the Russian wheat crisis will soon make bread, bagels and cereal noticeably more expensive.
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176th Oktoberfest - Sept. 18, 2010
Oktoberfest begins tomorrow when the mayor of Munich, currently Christian Ude, taps the first keg at noon. (He'll declare, "O’zapft is!" -- "It is tapped!”)
It's the world's largest fair. The total seating of the 14 main tents is about 100,000. In 2007, about 6,940,600 litres of beer were served, 142,253 pairs of pork sausage, and 38,650 kg of fish.
A litre of beer will cost €8.30–8.90 this year.
The official website: Oktoberfest.de.
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Lion Stout
I had a pint of this Sri Lankan stout this summer in Atlanta. It's not as smooth as Guinness, but very tasty, a bit more chocolaty. I assumed I'd never encounter it again. Last night, I suddenly spotted it in West Side Market--the original one on Broadway near West 77th Street--a 6-bottle carton. Obviously, I bought it. I would be inclined to speculate that the distributor is taking something of a gamble with this one. But, they've probably tested various markets, run their numbers, and decided it's worth a go in the Big Apple. So, I expect to see it sooner rather than later on the menu of some restaurant I'm at.
Such a handsome critter on the label, too. I'm a sucker for big cats.
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HKFM's 2nd Gourmet Food Truck Bazaar
SUN 8 FOOD TRUCK FEST
The Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market welcomes a convoy of mobile eateries for this food-truck bonanza. Arrive early to beat the inevitable lines for vendors such as Go Burger and Jersey City’s the Krave, which serves tacos and burritos filled with Korean BBQ staples. Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market, W 39th St at Ninth Ave (hellskitchenfleamarket.com). 11am–4pm.
HKFM's 2nd Gourmet Food Truck Bazaar....
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At P. J. Clarke’s, Meet the Bartender of Your Dreams - NYTimes.com
He filled beer mugs without watching what he was doing. He could apparently tell, by the weight of them, when to stop. He plucked bottles from their perches without pausing to check labels. He apparently had, in his head, the whole liquor layout at P.J. Clarke’s, on the East Side.
And he remembered what my companion and I were drinking, even though we had ordered just one round so far, and there were at least 35 people clumped around the bar on this early May night, and he was dealing — alone — with all the tickets from all the servers in the adjacent dining rooms, and he wasn’t writing anything down, not that I could see.
“Another?” was all he asked, and a half minute later I had a Hendrick’s gin martini, up, with olives and jagged little floes of ice, just like the martini before it. My companion was sipping a second Manhattan with rye, not bourbon, per his initial request. Mr. Quinn works quickly, and he works without error.
It is legend, this efficiency of his. I learned of it one night at PDT, a faux speakeasy in the East Village — secret entrance, abundant taxidermy — that’s about as far in spirit (and spirits) from the blunt, timeless rough-and-tumble of P. J. Clarke’s as you can get. I asked Jim Meehan, the cocktail shaman there, whom he and other celebrated young mixologists of the moment looked up to.
Without hesitation he named Mr. Quinn, 42, and not because Mr. Quinn had pioneered some clever infusion or paired two ingredients no one had thought to pair before. Mr. Quinn, he said, did right by the classics and could handle (and coddle) a teeming crowd. He had speed, stamina, dexterity, personality and an awe-inspiring memory: the essentials of bartending, without which the cheeky chemistry is meaningless. Mr. Quinn was the bartenders’ bartender.
via www.nytimes.com
A man worthy of his new New York Times fame
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