Two (two!) Philadelphia restaurants just made Condé Nast Traveler's 2008 Hot List. The lucky winning restaurants? Rae and Tinto. So kudos to misters Stern and Garces... but what did the Conde Nasties have to say?

Rae: "He wants its flavors to be strong, adventurous even—how else to explain smoked rabbit nachos for lunch? The weekday atmosphere is buttoned-down bonhomie, especially at the row of microbrew taps at the bar, but by evening the lights soften and the regulars move in. The flavors remain intense throughout, whether in the skate with fettuccine and clams or in the riff on the beloved Philly cheese steak, made here with venison and truffles."

Tinto: "The energy-filled upstairs has counter-height tables and an open kitchen, but the downstairs lounge with plush booths is the best way to enjoy the Basque small plates: generously marbled jamón ibérico; tender baby squid in lush ink gravy with crab Bomba rice (a cult brand of grain from Spain); and lamb loin and eggplant skewers wrapped in bacon and served standing upright in shot glasses of sherry jus (pinxtos, $4–$24)."

Rae [MenuPages]
Rae [Official Site]
Tinto [MenuPages]
Tinto [Official Site]

The legal status of absinthe in this country is still kind of up in the air, but we now have two producers of the spirit: St. George's Distillery in Alameda, Calif., which began selling it last December, and now the newcomer Sirene Absinthe Verte from North Shore Distillery just north of Chicago. The latter hit the market just this month after debuting at WhiskyFest. Chicagoist has some tasting notes from the event:

The 110 proof white absinthe has a sharp, herbal bite to it. the 124 proof green absinthe is, oddly, smoother than the white. It also has an amazing mouthfeel. With absinthe shaping up as the year's new hot spirit, this should sell well.

Until just last year, the importation of absinthe was prohibited, and the only way to get it was to very carefully hide it away in your luggage and hope that no one in customs felt the need to verify your declaration. In 2007, a few brands were approved for sale, but they had to meet the FDA's ban of thujone in consumable products.

Thujone's the bad guy here, the one that's been blamed for all of the evils supposedly brought about by absinthe consumption. It can wreak havoc on your brain and nervous system if consumed in large quantities. But by the time you've drunk enough absinthe, which can be up to 75 percent alcohol, to experience any effects from the thujone, you're dead from alcohol poisoning.

We're not exactly running out immediately to try absinthe — we've never been particularly fond of anise-flavored foods — but we love the ceremony involved with drinking absinthe. The special spoons, the cube of sugar, and the precise way of pouring the ice cold water over it.

Introducing Sirene Absinthe Verte [North Shore Distillery]
St. George Spirits [Official Site]
Absinthe [Wikipedia]
Sorry, Absinthe Trippers: Scientists Say You're Just Really Drunk [Wired]
Chicagoist at WhiskeyFest [Chicagoist]

Photo: diana.lundin [Flickr]

It didn't take long, once the new Grand Theft Auto IV was released yesterday, for foodie/gamer/blogger Adam Kuban to take a virtual tour of the game's eateries. He found that many of the spots bear a striking resemblance to actual New York establishments. That's not surprising, as Liberty City is basically supposed to be a virtual New York.

What is surprising is the level of detail with which the game portrays its fictional Big Apple. Unlike previous versions, which included major landmarks, such as the Golden Gate Bridge and Capitol building in GTA: San Andreas, GTA IV gets right into the neighborhoods to portray actual local foodie faves. They've also got hilarious take-offs of other local institutions such as the musical Banging On Trashcan Lids For An Hour (Stomp) Check out the screenshots over on New York Eats.

It's just too bad the virtual world doesn't (yet) include smell and taste. Of course, that would make games such as Cooking Mama a lot more fun, too.

The Real-Life Restaurants in New York City from 'Grand Theft Auto 4' [New York Eats]
GTA: IV [Official Site]
Cooking Mama [Official Site]
Adam Kuban [Wikipedia]

Legendary Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster/beer writer Garrett Oliver (pictured) is hosting a special $100 per person "100 percent pork dinner" at Osteria on Tuesday, May 20.

The prix fie menu will include (among other things) snails with fava beans and black pepper salami, ramp ravioli with pigs foot ragu and roasted baby pig with patate al forno and toasted fennel seed. In other words: You need to go. More info can be found over at Foobooz.

Osteria [MenuPages]
Osteria [Official Site]

We just added several new restaurants to MenuPages. Here are today's new selections:

• Newly opened Fishtown/Port Richmond scenester pub Memphis Taproom.

• Logan Square's Tower Bistro.

• Popular Drexel Hill pizzeria Goodfella's.

• Ardmore Japanese spot Harusame.

• Northwest Philly restaurant/bar Liberties Manayunk.

You know what marginal group of tens of millions of people are being put at risk for poor nutrition by the global surge in food prices? American's school children! Back in the salad days of 2006 when money grew on houses, glowing accounts abounded on plans to revamp the way kids eat at school, trading the fattening and soulless frozen pizzas and burgers that fueled the childhood obesity crisis (remember that?) for the new religion of local/seasonal/organic.

Now that reality has set in, schools are swapping fresh for canned, seeing higher demand for subsidized lunches, and wondering how they'll cope with 30% to 50% cost increases while the federal per-meal subsidy remains static at an unrealistic 23 cents. Probably not all that well! Our youngest citizens have been historically poor budgetary advocates for themselves, so when their slice of the pie shrinks, that's generally the end of the story. Federal law will see to it that students are provided with a minimum number of calories each day, but that's also true for prisoners.

In this rapidly shifting environment for school meals, you have to wonder, just what are the children eating? Thanks to the wonders of the internet, hundreds of cafeteria menus are available for our inspection. Here's a sampling from around the country of what's being served for lunch today:

• Wicomico County, Maryland — Pork dippers with dipping sauce and dinner roll or hot dog on bun and potato rounds, cole slaw, pears

• Fulton County, Illinois — tortellini, pork tenderloin/bun, baked potato, salad bar, uncrustable PBJ, garlic bread, tossed salad, pineapple chunks, shape up in cup

• Fond du Lac County, WIsconsin — Grilled cheese, chicken noodle soup, raw vegetables and dip, mandarin oranges

• Pinellas County, Florida — Cheeseburger, Cuban pork with yellow rice, cheese stick munch and dip, potato wedges, beans, broccoli, Cuban toast

• Tate County, Mississippi — Salisbury Steak w/Gravy, Baked Chicken Nuggets, Fruit and Yogurt Salad, Ham & Cheese on Bun, Black-Eyed Peas, Straight Cut French Fries, Seasoned Cabbage, Chilled Peach Slices, Mixed Fruit, Fruit Juice, Central MS Cornbread, Rice, Saltine Crackers.

Illuminating! Almost everyone is eating pig products for lunch, and there also seems to be a preponderance of dippable items. Regional themes are clearly in play, like the Cuban toast in Florida and the intriguing "Central MS Cornbread" in Mississippi. It's heartening to see that, however unhealthy the dishes and low quality the ingredients, there's still a nod to culinary heterogeneity. Every school seems to be offering fruit and vegetables in some (unexciting) form, but that's a legal mandate; and besides, one of the articles mentioned that broccoli is now cost-competitive with flour!

But even as our school lunch program is stymied by high costs and crappy product, at least we don't have massive food poisoning outbreaks at our nation's cafeterias! For now, anyway.

Economic crunch seen in school lunch rooms [Bradenton Herald]
Food Crisis Forcing Cafeteria Managers To Try New Menus [AHN]
Food prices take bite out of school lunch menus [Star-Ledger]

[Photo: pingnews/flickr]

Eric Ripert, the legendary new-to-Philly chef behind NYC's Le Bernadin and the Ritz-Carlton's brand new 10 Arts, knows how to get around the media.

In the above clip from the PSFK marketing/trendspotting convention in NYC, Ripert discusses how he gets inspiration for both his food and business. It's well worth watching.

10 Arts [Official Site]
Eric Ripert on Finding Inspiration [YouTube]

With grain prices skyrocketing, corn doing double duty between the gas tank and the table, and beef still reeling from that gigantic recall back in February, the American food industry seems strained, to put it lightly. This might be a good time for a new, more streamlined meat product to start making inroads in the market.

And, according to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article re-printed in Restaurants and Institutions, that's just what's happening with goat meat. Would you call it the soccer of meats? Maybe:

"It's the No. 1 consumed meat in the world," said Scott Hollis, a goat specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "It's very popular - except here."

But that's changing. As more immigrant groups create demand for the meat and farmers realize there's money in it, more and more domestic farms are producing goat.

Goat is especially popular with Muslim, Hispanic and some Asian communities, particularly around certain holidays, such as Greek Easter, which was Sunday, Cinco de Mayo, and the end of Ramadan, which comes in the fall.

Until recently, though, it was difficult to find American goat meat. If shoppers found goat in stores, it was likely to be imported frozen from New Zealand or Australia, the world's largest exporter of goat meat.

That is starting to change as American farmers get into the meat goat biz - which, as it turns out, doesn't require all that much.

Goats aren't expensive to buy and don't need nearly the land that larger livestock does. That means more small-scale "hobby farmers" have gotten into the business as word of new demand has spread.

That also means that, on a large scale, goat is more efficient and less harmful to the environment to produce. Additionally, it's often slaughtered at small-scale halal operations, which for some reason makes us more comfortable than the giant, industrial slaughterhouses run by, say, Westland/Hallmark.

While goat burgers may not appear on the menu at McDonalds any time soon, we're glad to see a more worldly, eco-friendly meat treat gaining popularity. A brief internal poll revealed MP staffers overall like the stuff in curries, Jamaican jerk-style, in burritos and whole on the bone. MP Chicago editor Adam Peltz remembered a particularly transcendent cut he ate in Lima: "so i got this amazing leg of kid — so succulent and flavorful for juvenile meat."

As for us, eight years of vegetarianism stunted our meat discovery growth, but just as it is gaining fans in the American marketplace, goat is on its way to the top of our meats-to-try list. Now, if we could just find a local restaurant that serves the stuff...

THE OTHER RED MEAT? Goats find way to U.S. plates [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]
The American Meat Goat Association [Official Site]
Largest Recall of Ground Beef is Ordered [NY Times]
Photo: Mark Verner [Flickr]

Although we still miss the old days when The Khyber served burritos, the new menu kind of rules. Hamburgers, hot dogs... that whole thing. But we haven't gone there early in the day often enough to sample the whole menu.

That's why we're happy that Philadining tipped us off to the Khyber's pretzel dog: A hot dog wrapped in freshly-made pretzel dough at a price that makes the mall chains look like a bunch of punks.

Meanwhile, another Philly indie rock institution does good things with fried food... even if we don't have their menu. You see, Johnny Brenda's features a constantly changing chalkboard menu. But one of the constants on the menu are the awesome french fries, which Foodzings recently paid tribute to. Crisp, salty, perfectly fried... these are some good french fries.

Also, as far as live music... The Kills are playing Johnny Brenda's on Saturday night and Starkweather will be at the Khyber on the 11th. Do the right thing and go.

Bread Based Snacks [Philadining]
The Khyber [MenuPages]

More Food at Johnny Brenda's [Foodzings]
Johnny Brenda's [Official Site]

[Image via Philadining]

• Rice: food crisis caused by 1) demand 2) distribution difficulties/costs 3) biofuels [IndiaTImes]
• UN: don't forget about commodities speculators! (and the craptastic dollar) [CanadianPress]
• Senate wants to add $200m to the $350m already requisitioned for food aid [NYTimes]
• Following Mars-Wrigley's megadeal, small candy members disheartened [Tribune]
• PM of Thailand, a former cooking show host, to personally make dinner for PM of Myanmar [AP]

Comcast is one of the economic engines that drives Philadelphia. They also, of course, just built themselves a brand-spankin' new skyscraper.

So where are Comcast employees going to eat when they're not hitting the streets?

The Philadelphia Inquirer just filled us in on the Comcast company cafeteria, called Ralph's Cafe:

Lunch choices range from macaroni salad and sandwich wraps to crispy-crust pizza with goat cheese. A sushi chef starts tomorrow on the second floor of Ralph's, which one employee compared to the city's glitzy Stephen Starr restaurants - except that this one is for only Comcast employees and their guests. Partially inspired by Google Inc.'s cafeteria, along with one at the New York law firm where he has negotiated cable deals over long hours, the cafeteria is the most important space in the building, its heart and soul, Roberts said. It will bring employees from different floors and division together, he said. He named it after his father, Ralph, 88, the company cofounder and a board member. Ralph is a dapper and formal man, his son said. "He didn't really think this was the most gracious gesture. I had to say, 'Trust me, Dad.' "In an e-mail Friday, Ralph Roberts said he thought his son had made a good choice. "I wasn't sure I wanted my name on the cafe," he wrote, "but now I am thrilled."

Sounds like it might be time to call up some of your permatemp hipster Comcast friends. Goat cheese pizza = a good thing.

Taking a walk in the clouds [Inky]
Ralph's Cafe Now Open... [The Illadelph]

[Image via Inquirer]

It's time, folks: Take a long lunch, get your car/bus/train fare together, buy a magazine or two for the wait. Ben and Jerry's Free Cone Day is tomorrow, and the lines will be phoenomenal!

Nah, we're just being dramatic. It's great. Ben and Jerry's feel-good ice cream company has been giving out free cones since it's one-year anniversary in 1979. Now, on it's dirty 30th birthday, the secret has somehow gotten out. Expect a bit of a wait, but it just may be worth it. You can find participating stores here, and a fun little B&J history lesson here.

No, they're not bribing us with any more free ice cream than you get.

Ben and Jerry's [Official Site]
Photo: Cresny [Flickr] Free Cone Day 2007

Add this shocker to the list of things we have in common with Drew Carey: A love of bacon-wrapped hot dogs. During our long tenure in San Francisco, we developed a late-night affection for the singular street-treats while stumbling home from bars in the Mission district.

The pork masterpieces are available from carts in many U.S. cities, as well as all over Mexico, so we know it's not just a local cuisine. Who wouldn't want a grilled, bacon-wrapped hot dog smothered in grilled peppers, onions, salsa, crema and sometimes even guacamole?

For starters, the Los Angeles Health Department, according to this fine piece of reporting by Drew Carey for Reason.tv. Take a look at the saga of an intrepid street vendor and her struggle to give the people what they want. And then try to walk away from this and not stop for a package of hot-dogs and one of bacon on the way home. Bet you can't eat just one!

Food Fight: Battle of the Bacon Dogs [Reason.tv]
In Videos: Drew Carey in 'Food Fight: Battle of the Bacon Dogs' [Required Eating]

The Ugly American, the six-month old Pennsport gastropub, just got LaBaned this weekend. So... here's the deal. The Ugly American is located on Front Street not too far away from the Wal-Mart, the Riverview and the whole Souf Philly Columbus Boulevard strip. Foodwise, it does regional American cuisine (muffalettas! garbage plates!) and a mean homemade hot pocket. So what did the good man of the Inky have to say? It's less about the food and more about the waitstaff:

"Our server certainly had that genuine friendly Philly-ness. Where else can a waiter expound upon the fine points of beef butchery, his position against the Barnes Foundation move, his high school and art school pedigrees, slip us his Jersey Shore Realtor's card, mention his contacts in the local porno biz, and offer solid cabernet recommendations all in one visit? (Did he just name-drop Ginger Lynn?)"

Oh yeah. The beef-on-weck (or "wick") is good and so are the toasted ravioli. However LaBan wasn't keen on the duck nachos, which he said used poorly fried chips.

The Ugly American [Inquirer]
The Ugly American [Official Site]

• UN calls meeting with 20 organizations to strategize about food crisis [BBCNews]
• Rice rationing in Vietnam much more serious than Costco's fake rationing [Reuters]
• Sweetened up by Warren Buffett, Mars buys Wrigley's for $23 billion [NYTimes]
• Fat activists working to pass size non-discrimination laws [Tribune]
• 400 lb man slims to 300 lbs in jail; files lawsuit claiming malnutrition [AP]

•The new Clover machines make sure that Starbucks coffee doesn't taste like soil. [MP: Boston]
•The last paragraph of this post contains probably the raunchiest joke ever made on MenuPages. [MP: Chicago]
•No matter how much you love Obama, it's probably unsanitary to purchase his half-eaten breakfast. [MP: Philadelphia]
•OMG, San Francisco has a chain called Pizza Orgasmica! [MP: San Francisco]
•Eating on the sand seems precarious. What if the wind blew it into your food? [MP: South Florida]

America's most exclusive restaurant? It's not what you think. Not Le Cirque or Momofuku Ko or the French Laundry. Nope, the single-table Talula's Table, in tiny, historic Kennett Square, PA, about an hour outside Philadelphia, only accepts reservations one year in advance, and you have to be damned lucky to get one at all.

An upscale market by day, they convert to a restaurant after hours and do one seating a night for their renowned tasting menu. NPR reporter Alex Chadwick visited recently and reports:

A single farm table becomes center stage for one of the country's most exclusive dining experiences. A dozen lucky people gather around it to share an eight-course meal that runs from egg custard with Jonah crab to osso bucco made from pork, all prepared with local ingredients by husband-and-wife proprietors Bryan Sikora and Aimee Olexy.

Because of the restaurant's popularity and its single nightly seating, [proprietor Aimee] Olexy has devised a special system for selecting diners. Though the phone often begins ringing with requests at sunrise, she does not pick it up until 7 a.m. on the dot. The caller is then offered a reservation exactly one year later. Requests for earlier or later are denied, as are attempts to play the VIP card to skirt the procedure entirely.

Talula's: The Toughest Reservation in the U.S.? [NPR: Day to Day]
One restaurant, one table, and a year-long waiting list [Slashfood]
Talula's Table [Official Site]
Photo lifted from Hypsography

In case you haven't heard, Saturday is National Pretzel Day. Philly Pretzel Factory is offering three free pretzels to all customers on Saturday and numerous other local pretzel joints are getting in on the holiday as well. And, while they aren't Philadelphia-style pretzel chains, both Auntie Anne's and Pretzel Time are getting in on the holiday as well.

Philly Pretzel Factory [MenuPages]

[Image via Roadfood]

Damn. It.

Wawa is officially cashing out of Center City. The venerable Center City West Wawa at 20th and Chestnut will be closing on Tuesday and the 17th & Arch Wawa will close at the end of May. According to Johnny Goodtimes:

"Wawa is leaving the city. The Wawa at the corner of 20th and Chestnut is going to be closing at the end of the month, and I have it on good authority that the others will close when their leases expire. Which means that a) they are turning their backs on some of their most loyal customers and that b) the spokewoman I spoke with a couple of months ago when I did a story on the Rittenhouse Wawa was less than truthful with me and in, turn, Philadelphians when she said that they weren't leaving the city."

We hear that the 10th & Arch Wawa will be the latest remaining Wawa in CC to remain open... But that even they will be shutting down at the end of their lease.

Thoughts?

Screw Wawa [Johnny Goodtimes]

• Ban Ki-moon laments global food crisis for the bazillionth time [AP]
• The stalled farm bill contains much-needed relief for poor families [Tribune]
• Reuters has two detailed writeups on the food crisis that review the causes and recount the latest woes, of which there are many [Reuters, Reuters]
• Our pretend cousin Nelson Peltz just bought Wendy's for $2.3b [NYTimes]

Psst. Ever wanted to have you own hot dog cart? Maybe you've entertained dreams of making your own dirty water dogs. Maybe you've read A Confederacy of Dunces one time too many. Or maybe you're just a rich person with too much free time on your hands.

Either way, Hammacher Schlemmer is here to help. We just got word that their catalog now features an "Authentic New York Hot Dog Vendor Cart. Here's the word from HM:

"Made of durable food-grade 18-gauge stainless steel, the cart rolls on two 20" pneumatic wheels and a locking caster with two handles that provide easy maneuvering. It has three removable 360" cu. stainless steel steamer trays that can each hold up to 20 hot dogs or sausages. The front of the cart has a storage ring and hook-up for a propane tank (not included); propane provides fuel for the dual burner assembly housed in the rear interior of the cart directly under the three steamers; burners may be individually controlled by knobs in the cart's rear. A top-loading 3,000" cu. ice cooler keeps your beverages and meats cold; a drain plug on the bottom of the chassis allows you to drain meltwater. The front of the cart houses a two shelf storage or display area for drinks, buns, or condiments; additional storage area is located underneath."

The best part? The cart can be used to make Chicago-style dogs as well.

The Authentic New York Hot Dog Vendor Cart [Hammacher Schlemmer]

There's a very enticingly titled post from Tuesday on Bon Appetit's editor's blog. It's called How To Start A Cooking Club. That sounds like a great idea. We (densely) never even thought of it before, but it's a club where a bunch of friends get together and cook interesting stuff. Fun, right?

While the body of this particular blog entry doesn't specifically outline instructions on cooking club formation &mdash rather a series of jealousy-inducing photos of the author's own cooking club's latest accomplishments &mdash the author sends readers to the extremely handy Bon Appetite Cooking Club page, which does feature pdf downloads on the basics of starting and organizing a cooking club, as well as monthly menus, including recipes and a game plan.

This is definitely the season for getting out of the house, sipping wine on the fire escape, lollygagging with your friends in the park and destroying the kitchen with way-too-ambitious recipes. Get out there and do it, folks!

How To Start A Cooking Club [Epicurious/BA Blog]
The Bon Appetit Cooking Club [Epicurious/BA]
Photo: Aftermath, by Dishevld [Flickr]

• Chestnut Hill's newest Italian restaurant, Bocelli.

• Lots of new restaurants as well.

• A new, corny movie.

• Philly's sexiest dishes.

• Oak Lane's most popular bakery was founded by a pair of ex-actors.

• Ric Romero goes to cooking school: Did you know chicken can be subdivided into thighs, legs and breasts?

• The new restaurant menu calorie law. Who knew an Egg McMuffin only had 300 calories?

• New Center City cajun Les Bons Temps is officially open.

• Creperie Beau Monde is ten years old.

• Our little Sam's Club rice sales limit tagged as "food rationing" [Guardian]
• Japan's butter shortage initiated by dairy cow cull two years ago [Salon]
• More countries (Uganda this time) telling their citizens to garden [AllAfrica]
• FDA to animal feed manufacturers: no more mad cow prions in the mix [Reuters]
• Farm bill, still unresolved, is increasingly out of step with reality [NYTimes]

Yesterday, we're proud to say that Stephen Colbert discovered the cheesesteak. Watch, kids, as we silently curse how Philadelphia has become known for one.damn.sandwich.

Comedy Show On (No Way! Cheesesteaks) [Philadelphia Will Do]

Just as the country has finally re-embraced carbs after the whole Atkins nightmare, now we're all going to be forced onto low-carb diets by rising food prices. First, wheat. There's the worldwide rice shortage that will soon be seriously affecting us. Now beer prices are increasing because of the scarcity of hops and barley.

Two ingredients — hops and malted barley — are behind much of the price increases.

Hops produce the chemicals that give beer its distinct flavor. Some varieties are used to bitter the drink. Others impart its floral aromas. Most commercially grown domestic hops come from Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

After water, malted barely is the next-biggest ingredient in beer. It provides the sugars that turns into alcohol when the beer is fermented.

Barley prices have risen because of worldwide demand for grains, including wheat, corn and rice. Philip Sutton, owner of Skyscraper Brewing Co., a small brewery in El Monte, said the price of a 50-pound bag of malted barley had jumped to $22, or 57% higher than a year ago.

Hops prices are soaring even more. Sutton paid $3.40 to $4.70 a pound for hops a year ago. The least expensive hops he has found this year were $12.63 a pound, and he's paid all the way up to $22.45. But that's only if he can find them.

"The hops that we like to use just aren't available," Sutton said. That has forced him to substitute other hops in some of his beer recipes "and that makes a different beer. It's still good but isn't what we would ideally have," said Sutton, who has raised his prices 20% to 30%.

Rising beer prices hard to swallow [Los Angeles Times]
Asia limits rice exports as prices and uncertainty rise [Christian Science Monitor]

Photo, of barley: Shandchem [Flickr]

After reading yesterday's item in trade mag Restaurants and Institutions about a drive-through dispute that resulted in a double stabbing in Texas (!?), we got just curious enough to Google the term "fast-food rage" (but without the quotes).

Turns out there are all kinds of examples of idiots wailing on one another while in line or in the parking lots of fast food restaurants. Usually, it seems to have to do with vehicular disputes, more like road rage that happens to be taking place in the parking lot of a McDonalds, though there is this one case in Georgia back in August where a woman got so mad at perceived line-jumping inside the store that she tried to run down a couple outside. Yikes!

But none of these fights seem to stem from the one behavior in fast food restaurants that makes us seriously consider throwing a punch: the jerk who takes too long at the self-serve coffee machine. Seriously, if you don't drop that cream in and mix it as you're walking away so the rest of us can get our fix, we think manhandling you out of there should be a viable option.

But a Google search for "coffee rage" (with and without quotes) turned up only this incident in Boston, to speak of, where a couple of customers got into it in the drive-through of a Dunkin Donuts. Again: road rage, not coffee rage.

People, here this now: You're spinning your wheels fighting each other over French fries and drive-through windows. If a state of terror existed around the self-serve coffee dispenser, the world would be a better place.

Fast food drive-through rage leads to double-stabbing [Restaurants and Institutions]
Fast food flare-up: Possible road-rage at McDonald's [KTVB Idaho]
Angry Woman Gets Revenge At McDonald's [Associated Press]
Food Fights Across Boston [Universal Hub]
Photo: Coffee Rage album cover, lifted from Mad Blasts of Chaos

• The PW's take on Ansill's offal-happy menu: "There might be three things, tops, the average eater would consider weird. If this little blond kindergartener at the table next to me can put away the lamb osso bucco sandwich—buttery tatters of braised baa-baa, piled on a raft of toasted brioche, and capped with a button of toasted marrow—believe me, you can too."

• South Street's Eight Days of Eats festival is kicking off next Tuesday in the Headhouse Shambles with a $10 AYCE fest.

• A field guide to Philly's best food trucks.

• PETA offers paltry $1m for construction of artificial meat lab [AP]
• Bad press forces meat industry to support banning downer cows [PE]
• Another cause of the food crisis: structural adj. programs [AllAfrica]
• Congress mad at USDA for sucking, in wake of herapin scandal [VOA]
• In sign of times, McD int'l sales way up, US sales way down [Tribune]

Indian pizza is one of our guilty pleasures. Bred in the corner pizzerias of Jackson Heights, Queens, it's a spicy fusion of pizza topped with cheese, masala powder, onions and lots of hot peppers. Mouth-searingly delicious? Hells yeah.

We first noted its arrival in Philadelphia back in January, when we found "Bombay-style Pizza" on the menu of Great Northeast joint Royal Pizza. Now we're equally pleased to have found, thanks to our latest Northeast Philly menu runs, that it's also on the menu at Villagio Pizza and Salvito's Pizza Palace. Northeast Philly pizza has officially gotten arond 10,000x tastier.

Royal Pizza [MenuPages]

Villagio Pizza [MenuPages]

Salvito's Pizza Palace [MenuPages]

[Image via Heckasac]

A torrent of articles from around the country have made certain what we noticed anecdotally the other day at the supermarket: America is in the grips of a severe matzo shortage. While there was just enough to go around for seders on Saturday and Sunday nights, observant Jews are scrambling to find supplies of the unleavened bread to sustain them for the rest of Passover, another five or six days of dietary restriction.

Theories for why this is happening this year abound, but are ultimately limited in scope. The aforementioned articles have pointed to recalcitrant retailers like Trader Joe's who have declined to carry matzo this year, stymied suppliers like Manischewitz that couldn't make Tam Tam mini-matzos because of equipment failures, and cantankerous consumers who didn't plan ahead and rushed to buy the limited cache of matzo all at once.

But these explanations ignore the reality that, while matzo is certainly a niche product, what this amounts to, more or less, is a bread shortage. As people around the globe are increasingly — and for many, painfully — aware, the price of wheat has DOUBLED in the past year. Matzo, as you may or may not know, is made of NOTHING BUT wheat! So it costs more to make, and less was made. We're merely implying causality here, but let's put aside our lack of hard evidence and consider the following:

All of a sudden, the people of the developing world are rapidly increasing their average daily calorie intake while the land, water, and energy resources used to grow food products are rapidly diminishing in quantity and quality. The wealthiest ten percent of the world has been materially unaffected by this imbalance, but billions are forced to sacrifice and hundreds of millions are on the brink of starvation. It is unfortunate that the richest decile of the world's population — the people who are in the best positions, politically and economically, to address the food crisis — have little in the way of structural incentives to make the sort of wholesale systemic changes to the global food/energy system that is necessary to ensure sufficient, reliable and equitable supplies of foodstuffs.

Earth Day and Passover are just the kinds of navel-gazing opportunities we need to encourage us to consider how to go about feeding ourselves in this new era of unprecedented high demand and low supply. While many await a technological panacea to rescue us from our present conundrum, no real solution is possible without a shift in attitude by the world's producing class (that, or we could start eating a hell of a lot less meat). The matzo shortage story may not exactly be a warning shot across the bow, but it's certainly a sign that no one's entirely immune to global commodities turmoil.

It’s Passover. Who’s Hiding the Matzo? [NYTimes]
Matzo in short supply for Bay Area Passover [SFGate]
Hit or miss with finding matzo as Passover looms closer [MercuryNews]
As Passover nears, matzo in short supply [Contra Costa Times]
Matzo shortage at many Reno stores looms for Passover [Reno Gazette-Journal]
Price Volatility Adds to Worry on U.S. Farms [NYTimes]
In Lean Times, Biotech Grains Are Less Taboo [NYTimes]
Rising Demand for Meat Takes Toll on Environment [NPR]

[Photo: no more matzo, in any language (missapril1956)]

N.B. Special bonus! There's also a shortage on Kosher-for-Passover margarine because farmers planted ethanol corn in lieu of cotton last year. Hope you like your flourless chocolate cakes dry!

The confluence of dining and the 2008 Presidential race is a curious one. Here in Pennsylvania, Barack Obama has been spending a heavy amount of time campaigning in both the fading industrial cities of Northeastern Pennsylvania and in rural central Pennsylvania (aka "Pennsyltucky.")

Too bad eBay's the newest variable in the equation. We just got word that Barack Obama's partially eaten breakfast of sausage and waffles from a Scranton diner has been put up for sale on eBay.

On Monday, April 21, Obama stopped by Scranton's Glider Diner, a 24-hour institution in the NEPA city, for a campaign breakfast. Shortly after, his breakfast turned up on eBay. Here's the description from the seller with typos intact:

"THIS IS BARAK HUSSEIN OBAMA'S BREAKFAST FROM THIS MORNING, 4-21-08 AT THE GLIDER DINER IN SCRANTON, PA. WINNER GETS HIS USED DINER PLATE WITH HIS USED SILVERWARE AND UN EATEN PORTION OF HIS WAFFLE & SAUSAGE LINK. IT WAS WRAPPED WITH SARAN WRAP IMMEDIATELY AFTER HIS DEPARTURE AND IS NOW IN THE FREEZER AWAITING THE LUCKY WINNERS BID!!! THIS IS 100% AUTHENTIC AS YOU CAN SEE HE WAS AT THE DINER BY THE PICTURE AND IT WAS ON ALL LOCAL NEWS STATIONS. THIS PLATE WAS WRAPPED BY THE WAITRESS THAT SERVED HIM. GUARANTEED AUTHENTIC, HIS DNA IS ON THE SILVERWARE. ALL PROCEEDS GO TO HILLARY FOR PRESIDENT!!!! HAHA"

Obama's breakfast is selling, as of 12pm Tuesday, for $76 with six days left in the auction. Seller dixpea has a 99.6% positive eBay rating.

As for the Glider Diner, food gurus Jane and Michael Stern recommend the hot roast beef sandwich with gravy.

Barack Obama's Campaign Breakfast [eBay]
Glider Diner [Official Site]
Glider Diner [Roadfood]

As America gets ahold of itself in the wake of Pope Benedict XVI's recent visit, the time has come for parsing and analyzing every little thing His Holiness did while abroad in our native land. Not the least of these is what he ate.

Last week, former Cardinal John Ratzinger visited the United States for the first time since becoming the Catholic church's 265th pope in 2005. While in New York City, celebrity chef, local restaurateur and cookbook author Lidia Bastianich, along with a team of high-profile chefs cooked for His Holiness. Bastianich emigrated from Italy in 1958, when she was 12, with the help of Catholic Charities. From the New York Daily News:

Bastianich was asked two months ago if she would like to cook for the Pope, and didn't even believe it at first. "I looked around behind me, to see if they were talking to someone else," she says. "The Pope even looks like my father, and I kind of feel as if it's my father coming to dinner. For me, it is an opportunity to welcome someone as family and make the Pope feel comfortable."

You can take a look at the full menu on Serious Eats, as well as some recipes on ABC's website. There's also a website dedicated to the visit with a full roundup. We simply can't imagine the pressure Bastianich must have felt, but she seems to have pulled it off. Congratulazioni, Lidia!

Bastianich plans a meal fit for the Pope [NY Daily News]
Cooking for the Pope: Lidia Bastianich Comes Full Circle [Serious Eats]
Recipes: Cooking For The Pope [ABC]
United States Papal Visit 2008 [Official Site]
Lidia Bastianich [Official Site]
Photo: Nuncatrezeamesa [Flickr]

It's primary day in Philadelphia. The news trucks are all parked outside of Independence Park, the pundits are pontificating and everyone is kind of anxious to see how the election will turn out. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been holding PR blitzes for their past campaigns over the past two weeks...

But what we can't get enough of is the fact that Chelsea Clinton has become the Clinton campaign's unofficial emissary to the LGBT community. Moreso, that she spent Friday night doing a bar crawl of Philly's gay bars. With, err, Ed Rendell and Rob Reiner.

So here's the story. On Friday the 18th, Woody's and Bump hosted a "pub crawl through Philadelphia with Chelsea Clinton, The Governor, Rob Reiner, Dan O'Donnell along with Michelle Clunie and Robert Gant from "Queer as Folk." You know — an event to lure those all-important urban LGBT votes away from Barack Obama (making, we bet, Mark Segal real happy).

How did it go? NBC's Matthew Berger was there:

Led around the neighborhood by Gov. Ed Rendell, Chelsea was mobbed by local gays and lesbians, as she walked from one club to the next. They ran up to hug her, posed for pictures and certainly invaded her personal space.

“I grabbed her ass,” one young woman exclaimed to her friends after snapping a picture with her arm around the former first daughter.

“Chelsea, the gays love you!” one fan exclaimed, as she took the microphone at Bump, a restaurant and bar that was her first stop. “Oh, gosh, I don’t know if everybody loves me,” she responded.

Meanwhile, Bill Clinton ate at the Continental on Sunday night.

Woody's [Official Site]
Bump [MenuPages]
Bump [Official Site]

• Fast food calorie listing rolls out in New York to yawns [NYTimes]
• Food safety art project terror professor's case dismissed [TimesUnion]
• Federal crackdown on raw milk not sitting well with farmers [Tribune]
• WFP: 100m more people on food assistance than six months ago [BBC]
• Slow Food movement looks for a hook in Asia's fast lane [Reuters]
• Matzo shortage raises more questions than it answers [NYTimes]

see more crazy cat pics

Omg, lolcatz are soooo cute. You know who agrees? Jones Soda. They luv the little guys so much they haz contest for label! And you can vote!

For the uninitiated (anyone, anyone?) lolcatz are the hilariously cute photoshop jobs where people make "capshuns" of pictures of animals &mdash usually cats &mdash in lolspeak, "teh furst language born of teh intertubes." They come from the site icanhascheezburger.com.

Now the way hip marketing staff over at way hip Jones Soda (known for using customer-submitted snapshots on its labels) has this very fun idea to make lolcatz labels for its bottles. They did a call for submissions, and now there's a post up where you can vote on the favorite. It is, no surprise, getting a lot of hits, but the funniest part is the ire raised in hardcore lolspeakers posting comments about how their submissions didn't get picked:

i uhgri meh copeez have ben owevrluked. maybeh dis kitteh site needz mawr hutzspa awl mai cheezez neber make it wen i iz lauffin 2 much at mai own. theez wunz nawt sew hyoomoruss

• Ban Ki-moon issues his daily reminder on the direness of the food crisis [TPA]
• If the food crisis is bad now, what happens when there are 9 billion of us? [CSM]
• For starters, we'll have to give up our opposition to GM crops. Oh well! [NYTimes]
• Meanwhile, crop prices are wreaking counterintuitive havoc on farmers [AP]
• China's new food safety laws carry a maximum punishment of life in prison [Guardian]
• Gullible Australians believe the stupidest food safety myths [SMH]

We've just added a whole bunch of menus to MenuPages. Here are today's new selections:

• Joe Pesce — a Center City Italian/Seafood restaurant with a pun-tastic name.

• Independence Brewpub successor & conventioneer magnet Field House.

• Ambitious Pennsport New American Peppercorns.

• One of South Street's newest additions, the Miami Cafe.

• Beloved Essington hangout Lehman's Tavern.

1. It's primary season.

2. As the dominant city in the state that will make or break Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, Philly is getting all up in this jawn.

3. Restaurateurs are getting in the act. The picture above of a sign at Tangier