Serious Eats, national food website par excellence, has finally released their guide to the foods of Boston written by none other than Boston Magazine's food editor Amy Traverso! Although we have a few minor quibbles (there's no steak in the city better than that at Rialto and we would have loved to see J.P. Licks included in the list of best ice cream), we're delighted with the list overall: anything that acknowledges the greatness of Santarpio's Pizza is more than fine by us.

Serious Eats City Guide: Boston [Serious Eats]

Do you have a spare $250 lying around? How about a decent knowledge of wines? Apparently that's all you need to get an Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator. No actual restaurant necessary. Robin Goldstein, author of The Wine Trials, made up a restaurant and sent in an application to the magazine, in a sort of experiment to see exactly how they come up with these awards.

As part of the research for an academic paper I’m currently working on about standards for wine awards, I submitted an application for a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence. I named the restaurant “Osteria L’Intrepido” (a play on the name of a restaurant guide series that I founded, Fearless Critic). I submitted the fee ($250), a cover letter, a copy of the restaurant’s menu (a fun amalgamation of somewhat bumbling nouvelle-Italian recipes), and a wine list.

Osteria L’Intrepido won the Award of Excellence, as published in print in the August 2008 issue of Wine Spectator. (Not surprisingly, the Osteria’s listing has been removed from Wine Spectator’s website since I posted this.) I presented this result at the meeting of the American Association of Wine Economists in Portland, Oregon, on Friday, August 15.

It’s troubling, of course, that a restaurant that doesn’t exist could win an Award of Excellence. But it’s also troubling that the award doesn’t seem to be particularly tied to the quality of the supposed restaurant’s “reserve wine list,” even by Wine Spectator’s own standards. Although the main wine list that I submitted was a perfectly decent selection from around Italy meeting the magazine’s numerical criteria, Osteria L’Intrepido’s “reserve wine list” was largely chosen from among some of the lowest-scoring Italian wines in Wine Spectator over the past few decades.

What does it take to get a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence? [Osteria L'Intrepido]
The Wine Trials [Official Site]
Wine Spectator [Official Site]
The Wine Spectator has some explaining to do [Accidental Hedonist]

For the second year in a row, a Hub chef has been named as one of Food & Wine Magazine's best new chefs of the year. This year, the magazine has honored Tim Cushman of O Ya. Congratulations are in order for Chef Cushman who, at 55, is the oldest of the ten chefs so honored. Between this award and the restaurant's recent acclaim from the New York Times, it is shaping up to be a very good 2008 for Chef Cushman.

Meanwhile, last year's local Best New Chef winner, Gabriel Bremer of Salts, was hailed as an up-and-coming celebrity chef by Forbes Magazine. Congratulations to Chef Bremer as well! It's a good day to be a Bostonian foodie, no?

Best New Chefs 2008 [Food & Wine]
O Ya [Official Site]
O Ya [New York Times]
In Pictures: Up-And-Coming Celebrity Chefs [Forbes Magazine]
Salts [Official Site]

[Photo: Kinmedai at O Ya, Flickr: jkaw]

We imagine our parents laughing while reading New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov's article over whether or not to let his 16- and 17-year-old sons drink wine with dinner. He consults experts, some of whom tell him to give them sips, others who advise enforcing a strict no-alcohol policy until 21. (One even wishes the drinking age were 25!)

This was one issue that our parents never thought twice about, which is why, perhaps, Asimov's hand-wringing seems a little silly. Alcohol was never forbidden; if we wanted a sip of something, we could have it. For as long as we can remember, we had our own wine glass at dinnertime — it was just a lot less full than the other glasses. We were never offered beer or cocktails until we were 18 and had returned from college.

The other MenuPages editors had similar stories. MP: Boston's Leila was allowed a glass of wine with dinner throughout her teenaged years. Adam of MP: San Francisco was still in elementary school when he started taking sips from his parents' cups, although he didn't begin drinking wine or beer with dinner until he was 18. Neal of MP: Philadelphia was 14 when he was allowed a glass of wine on holidays and special occasions, and Adam of MP: Chicago wasn't all that interested in wine when he was first offered it at 14 or 15, but by 17 he was drinking wine with dinner and by 20 was sharing scotch with his parents.

So it's not exactly a representative sample, but it's telling that none of us has had any real drinking problems. Sure, we all drank more than we should have in college (didn't everyone?), but there are no stomach-pumping incidents or DUIs to report. Just a few bad hangovers. Which makes us think that Asimov should just chill out and let his kids have a glass of wine.

Can Sips at Home Prevent Binges? [New York Times]

Photo: gakrid [Flickr]

Hey, remember in February when we were so excited about the plethora of Boston-area chefs on the longlist of potential nominees for Beard Awards? Yeah, about that...on Monday, the shortlist of nominees (also known as "the actual nominees") was announced and somehow, the Hub suffered quite a blow. While Boston-area chefs and restaurants received thirteen nods on the longlist, the shortlist contains a mere three.

While we offer our very sincere congratulations to Patrick Connolly of Radius, Michael Leviton of Lumiere, and Marc Orfaly of Pigalle, we're a little sad that talented food folk like Oleana's pastry chef Maura Kilpatrick and restaurateur par excellence Christopher Meyers got the shaft. Oh well. If there's one creed we Bostonians hold sacred, it's this one: next year will be our year.

2008 Nominees [James Beard Foundation]
Radius [Official Site]
Lumiere [Official Site]
Pigalle [Official Site]
Oleana [Official Site]

We're truly embarrassed to admit that until last week when The Kitchn ran a piece about it, we had no idea that Edible Boston existed. The magazine, which is part of the Edible Communities network, celebrates the foodways of the greater Boston region (Cape Cod and Rhode Island have their own magazines).

Edible Boston's Winter 2008 issue is currently available for free (!!!) at specialty stores and restaurants around the city, and it's an excellent read. We're especially fond of the recipe for mayonnaise-free deviled eggs, a piece about women over 50 who started food businesses, and an article about local food history. We strongly recommend picking up a copy. You can do so at UpStairs on the Square, so why not treat yourself to a nice meal while you're there, you local foodie, you.

Don't Miss This! Edible Communities and Edible Boston, Winter 2008 [The Kitchn]
Edible Boston [Official Site]
UpStairs on the Square [Official Site]

For the past three weeks or so, occasionally-controversial New York Times food critic Frank Bruni has been counting down the ten best U.S. restaurants outside of New York and the way he's done it has been fascinating. When he announced the feature, Bruni named the ten best restaurants but declined to give their ranking. Ever since, he's been spooling out the rankings, a few at a time.

We've been personally excited about Bruni's list since it was announced and we noticed that O Ya was on the list. Now, things are getting even more exciting for Bostonians as Bruni has announced his tenth-fourth favorite restaurants with nary a mention of the Leather District haute sushi spot. This means that O Ya is definitively in the top three. Could it be number one? We'll be waiting anxiously to find out.

Coast to Coast, Restaurants That Count [New York Times]
O Ya [MenuPages]

[Photo: Flickr: jkaw]

• Kroger, nation's largest grocery chain, stymied by food inflation [Tribune]
• Viral videos the new gold standard for animal rights activists [NYTimes]
• Did you know: high alcohol beers illegal through much of the South? [LATimes]
• The newest thing in wines is pairing to your taste bud profile [WaPo]
• Vietnam, bereft of McD's & Sbux, charts its own fast food course [WSJ]

The folks at Zagat, have teamed up with Buonitalia Spa, an organization whose mission we totally cannot comprehend, to compile a list of the 1,000 best Italian restaurants in the United States. You know, just for fun. The restaurants garnered points based at least partially on their resemblance to "the authentic Italian food experience": "the art of using simple and original cooking to bring out and highlight the excellence of Italian ingredients."

The full list of restaurants honored isn't available online (although you can order a free copy), but The Epi-Log has posted the highest-scoring restaurant from each city. The Hub's winner? Waltham's La Campania, which received scores of 27 for food, 25 for decor, and 25 for service, each out of a possible 30. Congratulations to the restaurant!

Zagat [Official Site]
Buonitalia Spa [Official Site]
America's Best Italian Restaurants [The Epi-Log]
La Campania [Official Site]

As we mentioned last week, Radius came in first at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival's Burger Bash. Now, some rival burgers' proprietors are calling foul. According to New York Magazine blog the Daily Intelligencer, voting irregularities occurred, causing dozens of attendees to vote twice. Florida! Get it together! Anyways, a spokesperson for New York's Burger Joint has gone so far as to demand a recount, but we're partial to Shake Shack's general manager's sentiment that anyone could have capitalized on the extra votes. Don't hate, Burger Joint! Learn to love the Boston burger!

Radius [MenuPages]
Radius [Official Site]
Boston Burger Bests Shake Shack [Daily Intelligencer]

We were just looking over the list of nominees for the Phoenix's 2008 Best of Boston reader poll and we noticed a few puzzling exclusions. To wit:

•Radius may be the winner of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival Burger Bash, but it doesn't get a nod from the Phoenix.
•For shame, Phoenix! A Best Mexican Restaurant nomination for Chipotle, but none for Tacos Lupita or Angela's Cafe?
•The fact that this category is titled Best Middle East Restaurant and not Best Middle Eastern Restaurant makes us suspect it's a lock for The Middle East, but we're sad not to see Shawarma King on the list. People, he is the king of shawarma!
•Given the love they both receive elsewhere in the survey, it's a little odd that neither La Voile nor Myers + Chang was nominated for Best New Restaurant.
•Really? O Ya isn't nominated for Best Sushi?

What do you think? Were you surprised at any of the nominations? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Michael Schlow of Radius has taken the top honors at the Burger Bash at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival. We've never gotten a chance to try Radius' burger (mostly because we can't quite wrap our head around a $17 hamburger), but according to Chowhound, "Schlow's whole shtick (Schtick?) is to cook everything at a low temp, so I think they brown both sides, then shove it in a low oven for 20 minutes, so it just gently rises to the temperature you order. Comes out unbelievably juicy, and you kinda trust the med-rare meat. Served on a toasted bun with just four things: the meat, some melted Cheddar (the aged stuff, so it separates nice and greasy), a huge mound of frizzled onions (think a greasier, slightly softer version of that French's casserole topping), and a creamy horseradish sauce."

It sure sounds delicious, and god knows, any burger that triumphs over Shake Shack and Burger Joint must be pretty stellar, but we have to wonder: is Radius' burger really as good as those at Bartley's Burger Cottage? Tips are, as always, appreciated.

Radius [MenuPages]
Radius [Official Site]
Burger Bash [2008 Food Network South Beach Food & Wine Festival]
Radius Burger Wins Top Honors [Chowhound]

The long list for the nominees for the James Beard Awards has been released. "Long list? What do you mean?" you ask. Basically, this is the list of people nominated to be nominated for Beard Awards. As you might recall, last year, Todd English won for Best Food Special for his program Food Trip with Todd English and Frank McClelland was named Best Chef: Northeast. Who is in the running towards becoming a nominee this year? Let's take a look:

•Christopher Myers of Myers + Chang, Radius, Via Matta, and Great Bay for Outstanding Restaurateur.
•Patrick Connelly of Radius, Andy Husbands of Tremont 647, Steve Johnson of Rendezvous, Michael Leviton of Lumiere (and very soon, of Persephone as well), Tony Maws of Craigie Street Bistrot, and Marc Orfaly of Pigalle for Best Chef: Northeast.
•Maura Kilpatrick of Oleana for Outstanding Pastry Chef.
•Hamersley's Bistro for Outstanding Restaurant.
•Pigalle and Radius for Outstanding Service.
•Jim Koch of Sam Adams for Outstanding Wine & Spirits Professional.
•Myers + Chang and O Ya for Best New Restaurant.

We're going to reserve full commentary until the short list of nominees is announced, but we will say now that with no less than four nods for his restaurants, Christopher Myers is probably having the best week ever.

[Photo: James Beard Foundation]

Originally posted on May 9, 2007. We're very excited for the imminent return of Top Chef.

Our earlier post about Todd English and his new television show got us thinking about food on television. Like many food-lovers, we have a love/hate relationship with the Food Network. We have a total crush on Dave Lieberman and we find Paula Deen inordinately fascinating, but Effing Rachael Ray drives us CRAZY and we're pretty sure that what Sandra Lee does cannot be legally called "cooking." We do, however, love television in general and television about food specifically. Because we also love you, here are three food shows worth the space on your TiVo.

•Good Eats (Weeknights at 7:00 and 11:00, Food Network): Minute for minute, the most charming show on television. Alton Brown is by turns silly, informative, brilliant, and hilarious. Unlike the vast majority of cooking shows (and television shows in general), you feel smarter after watching an episode of Good Eats. Or a marathon, for that matter.
•Iron Chef America (Sundays, 9:00, Food Network): We didn't want to like Iron Chef America. We're totally obsessed with the original Japanese Iron Chef and we're really not sure what makes Cat Cora an Iron Chef on par with Mario Batali and Masaharu Marimoto, but we started watching because of Jeffrey Steingarten and we kept watching because it makes us sit on the edge of our couch and yell things like "Don't make a foam! They never like foams!". Good times. Good times.
•No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain (Mondays, 10:00, Travel Channel): We make no bones about the fact that we love Anthony Bourdain. He's profane, irreverent and hilarious. His legendary bitterness, however, is not what keeps us tuning into No Reservations every week. What keeps us hanging on is his open heart. Unlike some food television personalities who look down on cuisines that many love (we're talking to you, George Duran), Bourdain will try anything. What's more, he'll be appreciative of the time, effort, and thought that went into it. It's absolutely the right attitude for an eater-traveler to have and, besides, watching him eat a still-beating cobra's heart (as he did in Vietnam) is truly great television.
•Top Chef (Wednesdays, 10:00, Bravo): Yeah, it's derivative of the best show ever, Project Runway. Yeah, the first season was better than the second. Even with all that, Top Chef is one of the most reliably enjoyable food shows on television. Tom Colicchio is the Simon Cowell of food competition: cranky, kind of mean, and absolutely correct 99% of the time. Rumor has it that former Queer Eye star Ted Allen will be a permanent judge this season, which can only up the awesomeness. Watching contestants pull together gourmet tasting plates in under thirty minutes (as they frequently do in the Quickfire Challenge in each episode) is truly awe-inspiring. All in all, an excellent weekly hour of television.

[Photo: Epicurian]

We recently learned that Wendy's will soon be dropping their red wig ads (one of which we discussed here) in favor of a new campaign with the dubious slogan of "It's w-a-a-a-ay better than fast food. It's Wendy's." This is dumb, mostly because Wendy's is, clearly, fast food. We suspect these Wendy's ads are going to be legendarily terrible and it got us thinking about some of our least favorite fast food commercials of all time. Because we believe in spreading the pain around, we're sharing them with you. Sorry.

Burger King, "I Am Man"

This ad is just so grossly over-the-top sexist. "Chick food"? Really? You can't do better than that? Not only is this not especially funny, but it's just inaccurate. Girls like Whoppers and boys like quiche. (This particular chick would take a bacon cheeseburger over a leek quiche any day of the week.) We accept that it's supposed to be satire, but as the comments on the YouTube page show, a lot of viewers took it at its face value, which is pretty gross.

Quiznos, "Bob the Baby"

To be fair, all the Quiznos ads featuring Bob the Baby were incredibly weird, mostly due to the completely unnatural Photoshopping of the baby's mouth. This one, however, also has an adult woman hitting on a baby. Creepy!

Domino's Pizza, "Fudgem"

Our deep disgust with this ad should be obvious: Fudgem looks like a giant poo. And then the little girl hugs him. And is covered in poo. You know what this ad does not make us want to do? Eat. Ever again.

What about you? What fast food ads do you hate? Are there any you love?

Wendy's To Set Self Apart As 'W-a-a-a-ay Better Than Fast Food' [Marketing Daily]
I Am Man - Burger King [YouTube: feeteh]
quiznos baby [YouTube: djagreeable]
Domino's Fudgems Commerical [YouTube: commercialfan]

It's no secret that we have something of a food crush on Jamie Oliver, the so-called "Naked Chef." Not only is he incredibly cute and British, but his cookbook Jamie's Italy is one of our kitchen mainstays and his shows never fail to entertain us. Recently, Oliver won an even larger segment of our heart with his program Jamie's Fowl Dinners. On this show, which aired on the UK's Channel Four last Friday, Oliver attempted to educate the viewing public, along with an audience made up of guests ranging from fast food enthusiasts to representatives of Britain's major grocery chains, about the true cost of "cheap" chicken.

Over the course of the program, Oliver visited factory farms and egg-laying institutions. He found a system where chickens were treated absolutely inhumanely and the quality of the food suffered tremendously. In one especially moving segment, Oliver showed how male chicks born to egg-laying chickens are routinely suffocated in oxygen-free chambers. At the show's end, Oliver, who recently became licensed as an approved slaughterman, electrocuted and drained the blood of a chicken. The entire program (which can be found in short installments on one YouTube user's page) was profoundly affecting and made a strong case against factory farming. We strongly recommend watching the program: it's not for the faint of heart, but it is interesting and, thanks to a series of segments featuring Ricky Gervais, quite funny.

Jamie's Italy [Amazon]
Jamie's Fowl Dinners [Official Site]
Jamie Oliver Shows Chicken's Egg-to-Plate Hell [Telegraph]
peacepeacepeace123 [YouTube]

[Photo: Jamie Oliver]

Slashfood recently alerted us to an amazing story in the LA Times about Google employee Thunder Parley. It seems that Mr. Parley, in addition to having a totally awesome name, is something of a food guru. Parley works as a computer programmer at Google's Mountain View, California headquarters, a site that has an astonishing seventeen cafeterias (in contrast, MenuPages has exactly zero cafeterias). He takes it upon himself to post reviews of certain dishes on an internal email list and tries to visit at least three cafes per day (in contrast, we make a trip to the microwave and water bubbler area of the office at least three times a day). Chefs apparently compete to lure Parley to their cafeterias, as his words are "as influential to the company's hundreds of chefs and culinary staffers as the Michelin and Zagat reviewers are to restaurateurs." Awesome.

In case you weren't jealous enough, here is a brief list of Google cafeteria dishes mentioned in the LA Times article:
•"a brined, slow-cooked beef daube"
•"a particularly well-prepared quail dish"
•"one cafe's homemade ice cream, sorbet and frozen yogurt."

Google, please actually open a large office (with a cafeteria!) in Cambridge. We don't even need to work there ourself (blogging aside, we have no computer skills whatsoever), but we would certainly enjoy having tech-savvy friends with whom we could get some lunch.

Google's Most Famous Foodie [Slashfood]
Techie Dishes on Google's Grub [LA Times]

The "food world" is "abuzz" over the news that Zagat Survey is "on the market" for a possible "sale." This move could net founders Tim and Nina Zagat a "hefty" two hundred million dollars.

The Times and Eater have both been "speculating" about who, exactly, might be "interested" in purchasing Zagat. "Multiple parties" have been "mentioned", but the consensus seems to be that "this is a job for Barry Diller" of IAC/InterActiveCorp. Indeed, Zagat would be a "good fit" with IAC's current holdings.

We'll be "watching eagerly" to see how this "develops." And yes, we know that the "quotation mark" joke has already been "done to death", but it's a "cliche" that we "just couldn't resist."

Zagat Family Is Putting Guide Empire On Market [New York Times]
Zagat Survey [Official Site]
Zagats Ready to Cash Out, Whole Shebang Can be Yours for $200M [Eater]
IAC [Official Site]

As you might recall, shortly before Christmas, we became aware of a mighty confusing press release from the Food Network that stated that they were planning to return Anthony Bourdain's 2002 series A Cook's Tour. Although the press release was referring only to reruns of the show, it was worded in such a way that a lazy (and/or feverish, which is what this reader was) reader could interpret it to mean that A Cook's Tour was coming back with new episodes, which would have been rather hypocritical of Bourdain, given the many, many occasions on which he's made scathing remarks about the Food Network over the past few years.

Now, several weeks later, Bourdain has issued a response and oh! It's a doozy. In his new blog on the Travel Channel's website, he rails against the Food Network's decision to rerun his show, comparing it to "being unexpectedly groped and publicly slipped the tongue by the ugliest girl at the prom. You're flattered by the attention - but frankly ... embarrassed." He goes on to further lambaste the Food Network, mentioning everything from "the look of sheer...terror" in Paula Deen's eyes to the fact that Food Network executives are, at this point, openly admitting that they have little idea about where the channel is going. All in all, it's the best swift takedown we've read in quite some time and we highly recommend reading it. It will totally spice up your post-lunch doldrums.

Notes From The Road...Hawaii [Anthony Bourdain's Blog]

[Photo: Serious Eats]

We fully realize that it's 2008 now and that year-in-review lists are so passe. We even wrote one ourselves. Even though it's really probably too late for this sort of thing, we would be remiss if we didn't call the Saveur 100 to your attention. We happen to love Saveur Magazine: the stories are always interesting and the recipes have rarely steered us wrong. The Saveur 100, however, kind of cracks us up. The list is meant to be "a vivid snapshot of the wide—very, very wide—world of food" and to that end, it honors trends, places, gadgets, drinks, and dishes that make the world of food so exciting. It's a lofty goal and a fascinating idea, but in practice, the list reads a little bit like a Jack Handey sketch on Saturday Night Live ("Best Vampire: Dracula. Best Candy Lips: Wax Lips."). What other list contains entries on both the Swiss Army Knife and honeybees? We suspect that the Saveur 100 is wholly idiosyncratic and, for that reason alone, we highly recommend it.

The 2008 Saveur 100 [Saveur]
My Best List for 2001 by Jack Handey [SNL Transcripts]

Originally posted on April 18. The Edwardians still hasn't aired on BBC America!

Although Americans certainly have a well-deserved reputation for gastronomical excess (see: "Super Size Me" or any all-you-can-eat buffet), our friends abroad have a history of going overboard with food as well. A terrific article in last week's London paper, The Times followed restaurant critic Giles Coren as he spent a week eating in the style of an Edwardian gentleman. Coren ate four meals a day and...well, they weren't exactly small plates. On the first day alone, Coren consumed porridge, sausage, curried eggs, grilled cutlets, kidneys on toast, macaroni gratin, ox tongue, three different potato preparations, two kinds of cake, coconut cookies, oyster patties, steak, celery, goose, a vanilla soufflé, and what we are willing to bet was well more than a loaf of bread with butter. Although Coren gained a mere pound, his body fat went up by 10% and his cholesterol skyrocketed from an already-high 5.8% to 6.6%. Just an occupational hazard of being a restaurant critic, we suppose.

Coren undertook this mission for a BBC Four program called The Edwardians, but, tragically for those of us stuck Stateside, it doesn't appear that BBC America plans to air it any time soon. In the meantime, if Coren's article whets your appetite for Edwardian excess, try some of the recipes offered by period food expert Ivan Day. Mmm, roast mutton with oysters.

Appetite for Excess [The Times]
Edwardian Supersize Me [BBC Four]
Recipes [Historic Food]

[Photo: Virtual Tourist: sunshinejo]

Originally posted on April 4. We're still pretty into cookbook history.

Any Bostonian worth their lobster bib can tell you that Julia Child lived in Cambridge for over 40 years, but did you know that almost 80 years before the divine Ms. C.'s show debuted on WGBH, Boston residents were influencing the way Americans cook? In the late 1870s, the Women's Education Association of Boston founded The Boston Cooking School. One Mary Lincoln began teaching at the school and in 1884 published Mrs. Lincoln's Boston Cook Book: What To Do and What Not To Do In Cooking. The cookbook, which was the first to be meticulously organized and detailed, was phenomenally successful, staying in print for over 40 years. It also spawned a follow-up, the still-in-print The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook by Fannie Farmer, who had been Lincoln's student. Farmer's recipe book was the first to call for level measurements rather than vague descriptions. Both books were wildly successful, bringing traditional New England cuisine to a national audience. Now, who said we never taught you anything?

Mrs. Lincoln's Boston Cook Book [Feeding America]
The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book [Feeding America]

Photo Courtesy of eGullet.

A startling announcement was made last week: it seems that Anthony Bourdain will be returning to the Food Network. Yes, we're talking about that Anthony Bourdain, the very same one who famously wrote that Food Network star Sandra Lee was "pure evil" and called the network's executives "seriously crack-brained, rapacious, and evil." So...it's going to be a fun company holiday party, yeah?

Bourdain's new Food Network show is actually just a continuation of an old one. A Cook's Tour originally aired for two seasons beginning in 2002. The format was in many ways similar to Bourdain's Travel Channel series No Reservations: Bourdain travels to an exotic locale, meets with various local resident, and eats. (A Cook's Tour is the show where he famously ate the still-beating heart of a cobra.)

We love Bourdain and will look forward to watching any show he's on, regardless of on which channel it happens to air. All the same, though, we must admit to being a little uneasy about Bourdain's decision to go back to a network he has so openly mocked. We can only assume that this must be a win/win situation. The Food Network gets to look progressive and hip (and like they're cool enough not to hold Bourdain's words against him) and we can only assume that they backed a Brinks truck filled with cash up to Bourdain's door. Really, we're most curious about what Rachael Ray and Sandra Lee, the two most frequent targets of Bourdain's ire, must think about all this. We bet they're not too happy...

UPDATE, 12/18: As two intrepid commenters have pointed out, we made a very large error while reading the press release from the Food Network. The press release says that "Anthony Bourdain, returns to Food Network with a Christmas Day Marathon, airing four back-to-back episodes on Tuesday, December 25th from 9-11pm ET/PT. The series will then join the primetime lineup in its new timeslot on Tuesday, January 8th at 10:30pm ET/PT." As a more observant reader than us might notice, that says nothing about new episodes. Rather, the Food Network will simply be re-airing episodes from the show's original run (we're still going to TiFaux the Vietnam episode). We apologize for and regret the error, although in our defense we would like to note that the post in question was written while rather feverish.

[Photo: Serious Eats]

We love all the classic holiday TV specials. Rudolph fills us with deep joy (what can we say? We're a big fan of Yukon Cornelius) and you'd have to be made of stone not to be touched by A Charlie Brown Christmas (which is, incidentally, the genesis of all of our dance moves). Even though we adore the classics, sometimes we want a Christmas special that's a little more...adult. Enter A Bourdain Holiday, a Very Special Episode of our very favorite food show, No Reservations. Well, maybe it's not a Very Special Episode per se. Unlike most VSEs, we suspect this one is extremely unlikely to lecture against say, the evils of drinking. Nonetheless, it is somewhat of a deviation from the No Reservations norm, as the episode's destination is no more exotic than Bourdain's brother's house in Connecticut.

Why are we so excited for this particular holiday special? Well, aside from the fact that we'd probably watch Bourdain read the phone book (it would be so entertainingly sardonic!), we're very intrigued by the special guests for tonight's episode. Queens of the Stone Age will be stopping by and, by the looks of it, they'll be wearing super-cheesy holiday sweaters. We rather like Queens of the Stone Age and think that their presence would make any holiday special better (they could back up the Burl Ives snowman on Rudolph or teach Schroeder some new tricks on Charlie Brown!). We furthermore strongly suspect that a combination of Anthony Bourdain and QOTSA frontman Josh Homme will be nothing less than incendiary, or, at the very least, incredibly tall and good-looking.

A Bourdain Holiday airs tonight at 10pm on the Travel Channel and don't worry: MTV posts its shows online almost immediately, so you can totally watch the season finale of The Hills immediately afterward.

Anthony Bourdain's Holiday Special [Travel Channel]

The food blog world is abuzz over the news that Emeril Lagasse is leaving the Food Network. Well, sort of. The appallingly named Essence of Emeril will continue production, but production on Emeril Live will be discontinued.

Our feelings on this are somewhat mixed. While Emeril has never made us go to an Amanda Hesser place, we've never cared for his shows, mostly because the food just doesn't look very good. Although we've heard that his New Orleans restaurants are consistently great, we've never been, so we can't say much for sure. On the other hand, between this and the cancellation of Molto Mario, it seems that the Food Network is slowly forgetting about the chefs who made it what it is today. To our great horror, we've found ourself coming around to Rachael Ray, but it still seems rather unjust that she should be the most recognizable Food Network personality. Say what you will about Emeril, but at least he has restaurants. How many other Food Network hosts can say that?

What about you? How do you feel about Emeril's reduced circumstances? As always, we crave comments.

Last night's battle in Kitchen Stadium was Michael Symon's first as an Iron Chef and it was a doozy. The challenger? Ricky Moore of Agraria, which, as near as we can tell is some sort of haute barnyard restaurant in DC. In a result that surprised no one, Symon's cuisine reigned supreme, but the challenger put up a hell of a fight. Let's take a closer look, shall we?

•This episode was the annual Iron Chef Fall Classic, during which the Chairman chooses a traditional autumn ingredient as the secret ingredient. Far and away, the episode's highlight was a montage of the Chairman announcing past Fall Classic secret ingredients, to wit: "APPLES!" "TURKEY" and "squuaaaaaash."
•Last night's secret ingredient? Thanksgiving. Oh, we're sorry. We meant "ThaaaaanksGIVING!" The secret ingredient table was piled high with fixings for a Thanksgiving dinner: turkey, apples, pumpkins, potatoes, etc. This is, as secret ingredients go, pretty dumb, a fact which Alton Brown did not seem particularly interested in hiding, although it did give him an excuse to discuss what was and was not eaten at the first Thanksgiving in great detail.
•The secondary highlight of the episode? The whiplash sound effects that occur every time the Chairman moves his head.
•We are unapologetic in our Michael Symon fandom and are not ashamed to admit that we cheered a little when he appeared in his new Iron Chef uniform, even if the turtleneck made him look like the captain of some (admittedly badass) chess club. During the cooking, Alton commented “I have to say, this is the first time I’ve ever seen Michael Symon in long sleeves.” Symon responded with a cheery "It's killing me!"
•The dishes themselves looked marvelous on both sides. As we've mentioned before, we hate turkey. Even we, however, were very interested in Moore's hot-sauce-marinated deep-fried turkey, as well as his potato/turnip puree and his bacon-wrapped loins of venison. On the Iron Chef's side, our favorite dish was undoubtedly the "turducken": potatoes topped with a poached duck egg, pureed chicken livers, and turkey cracklings.
•The judging panel was unusually strong: Ted Allen, Alex Guarnaschelli (of New York's Butter) and Jeffrey Steingarten. Serious eaters, all. (NB: That should not be confused with Serious Eatsers, although for the record, we totally think Ed Levine should be a judge.)
•This is probably the last recap we'll write until another Boston chef shows up on Iron Chef America, but it has been a pleasure large enough to redeem The Next Food Network Star. Thanks, Iron Chef!

Iron Chef America [Food Network]

The excellent Honor over at Boston Chefs pointed us toward this fantastic Craisglist post. It seems that one Mr. Gordon Ramsay is looking to profile a Boston restaurant for the American version of his show Kitchen Nightmares. As we've mentioned before, we really really hate Hell's Kitchen Ramsay's other American show. We've never caught the US version of Kitchen Nightmares (probably because it airs at the same time as Gossip Girl...yeah, we said it), but we're more than a little obsessed with watching the British original on BBC America. We like the show, because, unlike on Hell's Kitchen where he's just a jerk, Ramsay's purpose on Kitchen Nightmares is to help people and restaurants in trouble. Sure, he swears a lot, but it's totally tough love.

If you're a restaurateur thinking of participating, you can send an email (to an AOL address, really?) with the issues you'd like Chef Ramsay to address...anything from overly high food costs to a bad location. If you get cast, please do send us and tell all.

There was a very short-lived thread on Chowhound, but sadly, a discussion of failing Hub restaurants proved to be too hot for the site and it was taken down. It's tricky to think of places that fit the criteria: subpar performance, hurting for customers, and open at least seven months. If business is that bad, restaurants usually shutter by that time. We promise not to shut down any suggestions in the comments, so do post away.

Casting-Fox TV's KITCHEN NIGHTMARES is BACK [Craigslist]
Kitchen Nightmares [Fox]

The Next Iron Chef has completed its incredibly short season. What will we do with our Sunday nights now? Answer: probably not work. Unlike last week, we didn't lose our notes from this week's episode, but we did have a dinner party involving several glasses of wine right beforehand, which may or may not have lead to us shouting that Andrew Knowlton and Bobby Flay should shut up before they'd even opened their mouths. What can we say? It's all class all the time at our apartment. Our own tipsiness aside, this was another excellent episode of TNIC, and one that left us wishing that the season was just a few weeks longer. Let's take a look at the highlights.

•The episode smartly followed the format of an Iron Chef America battle, albeit one where the Chairman and Alton were wearing tuxes. The secret ingredient? Swordfish! We can't honestly remember the last time we had swordfish, but we're now quite sure that we've never seen the creature at full size. Those things are gigantic! My (our?) stars!
•Both competitors seemed oddly laid back about the challenge at hand, which made us do some thinking about what, exactly, the stakes are here. Obviously, attaining a place in the pantheon of Iron Chefs elevates one into the upper echelons of celebrity chefs. However, we'd also be willing to bet that simply appearing as a contestant on TNIC will boost business significantly for all eight chefs and certainly increase their national name recognition. To a large extent, both Besh and Symon had already won by making it this far into the competition.
•Both chefs came across very well. We've picked on Besh throughout the season, but we must admit that he acquitted himself very well with all his dishes and came off much more as much more likeable than he has in previous episodes. Symon continued to be adorably Midwestern and create delightfully clever dishes. We especially enjoyed the obvious camaraderie between the two men. They kept up a steady and pleasant patter throughout the challenges and as soon as time was called, they hugged.
•In a "shocking twist", the chefs' dishes were judged by Bobby Flay, Cat Cora, and Masiharu Morimoto (this would seem to confirm that Batali's reign as an Iron Chef is, tragically, over) rather than Ruhlman, Arpaia, and Knowlton. Although we cannot stand Bobby Flay, he was fairly charming in this context. (We especially enjoyed his comment after tasting Besh's smoked swordfish: "I'll be stealing this dish." Bobby Flay is the Carlos Mencia of the food world, guys.) Cat Cora proved to be the harshest critic, which made us like her more even though we're still peeved that she doesn't actually have her own restaurant. It was Masaharu Morimoto, however, who stood out as the most likeable. He made drawings of each dish! He giggled a lot! He made our favorite remark of the night, in reference to Symon's progression of dishes: "You are coming little by little. Punch! Punch! Punch! Punch!”
•No matter how much Iron Chef we watch, the beauty shots of the food never cease to drive us insane. We haven't seen focus that soft since those "inspirational" stories of athletes that air repeatedly during every Olympics.
•In the end, Symon was revealed as the titular Next Iron Chef in a move typically used on America's Next Top Model. The Chairman pulled a curtain to reveal a giant picture of Symon. Besh seemed fairly unhappy, but was gracious. Symon was just giddy. It seemed to us that, while Besh's food certainly looked delicious, Symon's was simply more creative. We're looking forward to watching (and recapping!) Symon's first battle next Sunday.

The food blog world is abuzz with the news that Meryl Streep has been cast as Julia Child in the film adaptation of Julie and Julia. Now. We may or may not have mentioned this here before, but we grew up acting. We went to Boston Arts Academy. We minored in theatre in college. We worship Meryl Streep like the goddess of acting that she is. All that being said, Meryl Streep is 5'6 and has a delicate-looking face. Julia Child was 6'2 and delicate is one of the last words we'd use to describe her features. We understand that camera tricks and prosthetic features can do wonders, but really, we think that Streep would be more believable as an actual child than as Child.

Leaving aside the fact that Streep seems woefully miscast, we're a little confused as to why Child is even a character in the film. The book is about Julie Powell (who will be played by Amy Adams, an actress who has what is probably the prettiest hair in Hollywood) and her quest to cook every recipe in Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Powell's story is interspersed with vignettes of Child's life, most of which take place before she learned how to cook. This seems like it will be tricky to represent on film without running the risk of the Child portions looking like E! True Hollywood Story reenactments. We're clearly going to see the film version of Julie and Julia, but we must admit to being more than a little skeptical of the enterprise.

What do you think? Can Meryl play Julia?

Julia Child on the Big Screen [Mouthing Off]
Julie and Julia : 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen [Amazon]
Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume One [Amazon]

[Photo: if:book]

The Globe recently released their list of the 25 most stylish Bostonians. Although we were, of course, terribly disappointed not to make the list (note: we are currently wearing a dress from H&M's Fall 2006 collection and a sweater we've had since junior year of high school), we were pleased to see two major Boston restaurant figures in the line up: Alex DeWinter, wine director at Grill 23 & Bar and Esti Parsons, one of the forces behind Radius, Great Bay, and Via Matta.

Perhaps predictably, both DeWinter and Parsons were asked how they feel about the way diners dress today. Less predictably, both expressed quite a bit of dismay over the fashion sense of Boston diners. DeWinter seemed especially exasperated: "They're so underdressed. It's terrible. You can be casually dressed and not be sloppy but we often get guys who come in wearing jeans. When I grew up, going out to dinner was a special occasion whether it was a place like Grill 23 or a local Chinese restaurant. You didn't go out in jeans. No one should ever be uncomfortable in a suit in a nice restaurant. But now, I think it's changed. It's too bad." While we find his "when I grew up" a bit disingenuous (DeWinter is 29), he does have a point. While we certainly don't get gussied up for a trip to a neighborhood spot, we do think that it's nice to get dressed for dinner when you're going somewhere posh. We don't necessarily "get all fancy and go out on the town, with gowns, jewels and gloves, the whole nine yards" as Parsons suggests, but a nice skirt or even a good pair of jeans with heels and a nice top goes a long way. Dressing for a meal out shouldn't be stressful, but there's definitely something to be said for looking appropriate for the occasion. In other words, don't show up at L'Espalier or Clio in your house clothes.

The 25 Most Stylish Bostonians [Boston Globe]

[Photo: Art 4 Charity]

We've already beseeched you, our wonderful readers, to get out there and represent our fine city on The Next Food Network Star. Perhaps you read that post and thought "Oh man. I'd love to be the next Food Network star, but Las Vegas and Minneapolis are so far away, and I don't have a camcorder." Well, hypothetical friend, your time has come. Per Bostonist, The Next Food Network Star will be holding open auditions tomorrow at Flat Iron from 11am-4pm. The show's casting team will be looking for cooking know-how, a "personality that pops", and teaching skills.

What are you waiting for? Get organized and call in sick to work tomorrow, ye food bloggers, home cooks extraordinaire, and people who compulsively narrate their actions as they cook. Email the casting team with your name, age, phone number, e-mail address, a brief summary of why you want to be on the show, occupation, and a picture of yourself. Get onto the show and then tell us all about it.

The Next Food Network Star [Food Network]
Casting Call for The Next Food Network Star [Bostonist]
Flat Iron [Official Site]
Come Meet the Casting Team for The Next Food Network Star [Craigslist]

We have to make a confession right off the bat. Generally, we watch The Next Iron Chef every Sunday, taking copious notes as we do so. We then email the notes from our home computer and email address to our email address here at MenuPages. Somehow, last night's email didn't quite go through or rather, the email did, but the attached Word file with our notes did not. All that to say that we are working solely off our memory right now, so please don't judge us too harshly should we make any major mistakes.

Anyways! The Next Iron Chef continues to be excellent. Last night, the chefs flew to Paris where they were given two thousand Euros to concoct a three course meal for twenty American and French dignitaries. There was a madcap shopping montage, a dramatic Alton standing in front of the Eiffel Tower in the rain wearing a trench coat, and an exceptionally ill-tempered Andrew Knowlton. Let's jump into the thick of it, shall we?

•The contestants were instructed that their meal needed to showcase their vision of American cuisine, prompting Cosentino to remark "I haven't cooked American food in years!" and leading to a long conversation between my roommate and me about the definition of American food. Here at MenuPages, we have two categories for American cuisine: American (Traditional) and American (New). The first encompasses standard dishes like burgers, macaroni & cheese, and French dip. The latter focuses more on creative interpretations of standard fare (i.e. the horseradish crusted salmon at Metropolis Cafe). Despite the usefulness of these categories for MenuPages users, we feel that they aren't necessarily definitive guides to American food. In the end, the United States is a lot like France or Italy. While our country might have certain foods associated with it internationally (such as burgers), "American cuisine" is really a collection of many different regional cuisines. Chefs Cosentino and Besh certainly would seem to agree with this assertion: Cosentino, who grew up in Rhode Island, presented an explicitly New England based lobster roll as his first course, before moving a bit south to present his take on a Philly cheese steak. Besh focused exclusively on Southern foods.
•The parallels between the final three contestants on TNIC and those on Top Chef 3 are startling. Cosentino is obviously the Dale: clearly talented with occasional flashes of brilliance, but when he misses the mark, he misses it by a lot. Symon is the Casey: home-like flavor combinations with plenty of soul. Besh is the Hung: virtousic, with subtle and sophisticated dishes that are, undoubtedly, delicious, but perhaps not as much fun to eat as Symon's creations. Will next week's finale produce an outcome that mirrors that of Top Chef? We hope not.
•Andrew Knowlton's epic pissiness reached new heights in last night's episode when Donatella Arpaia criticized Cosentino's lobster roll, prompting Knowlton to interject: "Do you know what you're talking about? Do you?" Knowlton, however, missed the title of "crankiest person of the night" by a country mile. The French restaurateur (whose name we would know if we had our notes!) seated next to Michael Ruhlman was wildly dismissive of nearly everything put in front of him. Ruhlman consistently had an excellent "please get me away from this man" expression throughout the dinner.
•As we predicted before the episode began, Cosentino was a goner. His lobster roll had too much mayo, as Arpaia pointed out, his Philly cheesesteak didn't have enough cheese, and his moonshine and melon dessert was simply lackluster. We would, however, very much like to eat at his restaurant, Incanto, whenever we find ourself in San Francisco.
•Next week, Besh and Symon battle it out in Kitchen Stadium! We, for one, cannot wait.

A month or so ago, we wrote a response to Paul Levy's Slate piece in which he decried what he called the "macho food writing movement." In that post, we mentioned that we suspect that the reason that there aren't so many women writing like Anthony Bourdian is that there simply aren't that many major female food writers. Recently, we've been pondering that last point. Are there really so few women writing importantly about food and if so, why aren't there more?

For our purposes here, we're defining a major food writer as a living person (sorry MFK Fisher) who has written at least one well-hyped book about food. We're not including cookbooks (which unfortunately eliminates Claudia Roden, one of our food heroes) or simple restaurant guides (which leaves out Jane Stern). We asked the MenuPages City Editors as well as a friend who works in cookbook publishing and here's who we came up with: Gael Greene, Julie Powell, Ruth Reichl, Mimi Sheraton, Amanda Hesser, Molly O'Neill, and, preemptively, Phoebe Damrosch, Kathleen Flinn and Judith Jones, all of whom recently released their first books. The simple fact of the matter is that isn't a whole lot of names and none of those women, with the possible exception of Ruth Reichl, have name recognition or, for that matter, sales numbers, on a par with Anthony Bourdain or Bill Buford.

So why are there so few major female food writers? Honestly, we don't really know. Levy would undoubtedly say that the current trend toward bravado-filled food writing isn't female friendly, but we don't think that's true. Speaking personally, we certainly have no trouble reading or writing profanity-filled exegeses of meals and neither do writers like Julie Powell. We wonder if a parallel can be found in the situation of high-level female chefs. Is it possible that women are considered authorities on cooking (there have always been many female cookbook writers) but not eating? It certainly seems possible.

What about you? Do you think there are any major female food writers we missed? Why do you think there are so few? Comments, as always, are appreciated.

[Photo: MFK Fisher]

We know that it's totally Iron Chef day here at MP: Boston, but we just got around to watching Sunday night's episodes last night (thank you, DVR). In addition to our regularly scheduled Next Iron Chef viewing, we also checked out the most recent episode of Iron Chef America, featuring a battle between newly-minted Harvest chef Mary Dumont and Cat Cora. Girl on girl action, so to speak. Anyways, although Dumont sadly lost, we very much enjoyed the episode. Below, our thoughts:

•We realize that Dumont just started at Harvest a month or so ago, but we know for a fact that the episode taped on October 23, so why was her chef's jacket from her former restaurant? Was it simply a desire t