Posts for December 26, 2012

Late-Night Ramen at Hanjan; Coffee Talk at the 92Y Tribeca

By Grub Street

• Join U.S. barista champion Katie Carguilo and Jesse Kahn of Counter Culture Coffee Friday, January 11 at the 92YTribeca for a caffeinated talk about sourcing, roasting, and all things beany. Food, cocktails, and cups of coffee (of course) will be served. Tickets are $30. [Grub Street]

• Writers and food policy specialists Anna Lappe and Danielle Nierenberg pen a post-holiday editorial for The Wall Street Journal that surveys not only the massive amounts of food waste in the U.S., but also the 1.3 billion pounds wasted annually, worldwide, that might otherwise feed 868 million people. [WSJ]

• Mario Batali's business partner Joe Bastianich ruffled a few feathers with his memoir Restaurant Man, released earlier this year. He's set to ruffle a few more, Eater reports, because the book is being turned into a TV drama produced by "a major cable network." Go, Joe! [Eater National]

Read more »

7-Eleven Going Healthy, Still Pissing Off East Village Residents

By Sierra Tishgart

Big Gulp.

Since 7-Eleven conveniently found a loophole in Bloomberg's soda ban, it's surprising that the convenience chain is now focusing on healthier food options. The company announced that by 2015, 20 percent of its sales will come from fresh foods (up from 10 percent). New menu offerings include snack packs of hummus and pita, crudité, yogurt cups, and even hot Cuban sandwiches. While this move is vaguely morally conscious, it's certainly financially motivated. The markup on fresh foods is hefty, and 7-Eleven's got to compete with Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks (which is now serving booze!).

Read more »

Lower Manhattan Will Soon Have More Heirloom Tomatoes Than You Can Shake a Stick At

By Hugh Merwin

The new Pier 17.

If you needed any indication that the structure of traditional food markets has been drafted into helping create the shopping mall of the future — call it the "Eataly effect" — look no further than downtown Manhattan. The Times takes a look at the Howard Hughes Corporation's plans to remake the rundown, trinket-addled mall at Pier 17 in the Seaport district into a place where you'd actually shop. What that means is that those $7.99 foam Statue of Liberty crowns everyone loves so much will someday soon be replaced with $18 lobster rolls.

Lots of chefs with spoons, but where's the broth? »

Food Trucks to City: Hey, You Forgot Our Change

Hundreds of street vendors are due to be reimbursed an average of $500 each because the city charged them too much in fines, the Post reports. Sean Basinski of the Street Vendor Project tells the paper that vendors were gouged for code violations, like setting up too close to a sidewalk, in at least 569 summonses during the last six years, to the tune of $230,000 total. That's a lot of falafel. [NYP, Earlier]

Kentucky Basketball Coach Challenging NCAA’s Food Restriction Rule

By Sierra Tishgart

The Hunger Games.Photo: Joe Robbins/Getty Images

You may not know that NCAA regulations limit college athletes from eating free food whenever they're hungry (which is always). Schools are only allowed to feed players one complimentary "training meal" a day, which must be eaten at the training table. So, if someone wants to skip out on the group binge-eating and take a snack to eat later at the dorm, it's considered a violation. Some scholarship athletes are permitted to receive three full free meals a day if they opt for a university's formal meal plan, but that still isn't enough for players who share Bigfoot's shoe size. They need to eat constantly to compensate for the thousands of calories they burn during practice. What to do? John Calipari, the University of Kentucky's men's basketball coach, is now challenging the NCAA's rule, and he's got the support of the Collegiate & Professional Sports Dietitians Association.

Should colleges give student athletes unlimited meals? »

The Good Fork in Red Hook Is Reopening in Five Days

By Hugh Merwin

Get your noisemakers together and make some noise for the Good Fork.Photo: Kenneth Chen

Ben Schneider and his wife Sohui Kim built the Good Fork, their scrappy and elegant Red Hook restaurant, from the ground up and opened on Van Brunt Street in March of 2006. Since Hurricane Sandy, the couple has been working around the clock to rebuild and reopen their damaged restaurant. The Good Fork's kitchen crew has kept their knives sharp with a temporary residence at Skylark in Park Slope, and now Kim and Schneider say they're almost ready to reopen. They're offering a $90, four-course menu with an optional wine pairing on New Year's Eve. You can call 718-643-6636 for a reservation, and if you can't make it, keep in mind that the restaurant has raised $53,888 of its $50,000 goal, but is still accepting donations and will hold an open house on Saturday for all of those who've helped them rebuild during the last two months. Party on. [Good Fork/Twitter via Pete Wells/Twitter]

2012: The Year in Made-up Food Words

By Hugh Merwin

White Alba truffles: Cloudy, with a definite chance of flurries.Photo: FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/Getty

Last week, the Food Section took the appropriate steps to make sure no one forgets about butt-chugging and pink slime in 2013 with its roundup of this year's stand-out neologisms and other food terms, which got us thinking: It's been an exceptional year for food words. The Times gave broader circulation (and immortality) to the words "Donkey Sauce" and "bleu-sabi" when it published its now-famous negative-star review of Guy's American Kitchen last month, so much that Pete Wells might as well have chiseled the Guy Fieri's menu onto a solid gold record and launched it, with a message from the U.N.'s secretary-general, into deep space, à la Voyager 1. While butt-chugging and Donkey Sauce were getting all the play, no one noticed that sriracha made it into the Oxford English Dictionary.

Farmwashing, foodhazing, and faux-raging. »

Computers to Satisfy Food Cravings and Take Over the World

The wizards over at IBM are developing a computer to create healthy recipes that excite taste buds. Now, nobody needs a high-tech device to tell them to eat more kale. The technology is based on the flavor-pairing hypothesis: When foods share key flavor compounds, they go well together. Informed by psychology and information theory, the computer will suggest recipes that incorporate combinations such as blue cheese and dark chocolate, bell peppers and black tea, and turmeric and black currants. The scientists hope that they can use the machine to come up with school lunches that kids actually enjoy. Sit tight; this crazy cognitive computing monster won't be available until at least 2017. [NPR]

Damage Control: What You Should Be Binge-Eating When You’re Drunk at Three in the Morning

By Sierra Tishgart

Smile, you're preventing a hangover.Photo: Corbis

Everyone's been there: It's 3 a.m. and you're stumbling around smelling like booze and bad choices. Well done. But now you're starving and your decision-making skills are in rough shape (especially if it's New Year's Eve). The idea that a greasebomb meal will completely prevent tomorrow's inevitable hangover is, sadly, a myth. But we talked to a bunch of professional nutritionists to see what someone can actually eat if they don't want to cause too much more damage and hope to soften the blow the next morning. And don't worry: The advice isn't all wheatgrass and beet juice. Even the pros know that late-night binge-eating should be satisfying.

Grilled cheese, cereal, and cherry pie. »

The Bourgeois Pig in Brooklyn Is Closed for Renovations

By Hugh Merwin

Freshening up?Photo: Hugh Merwin

Almost one year after opening its doors on Court Street, Brooklyn's Bourgeois Pig outpost has closed for renovations. The boudoir-meets-boudin restaurant covered its windows with butcher paper earlier in the week and put up signs announcing the changes. We've got an e-mail out to the Pig; meanwhile, we're hoping that the red-neon-lit restaurant, one of the few late-night spots in the neighborhood, reopens with rarebit fondue in time for cold weather season. [Earlier]

Grimaldi’s and Juliana’s Will Now Make Pies (and Hopefully) Peace

By Hugh Merwin

High time for pie time.

The injunction filed in court in September by Grimaldi's owner Frank Ciolli designed to prevent coal-oven pizza rival Patsy Grimaldi from opening his brand new Juliana's may have had extra pepperoni, a judge in Queens County Supreme Court ruled last week, but had little merit. Ciolli paid just $500,000 for the rights to the Grimaldi name back in 1998, and that included a preemptive agreement with Patsy Grimaldi barring the pizza magnate from opening a new pizzeria within three miles of Ciolli's businesses. Ciolli, or course, spun Grimaldi's off into an empire, but his noncompetitive clause with Grimaldi expired in 2008, DNAinfo reports. Ciolli had argued that Juliana's opening in the former location of his business — and virtually next door to the current Grimaldi's — was a violation of his "commercial goodwill." But now Juliana's is up and running, and in his ruling, Supreme Court Judge Augustus C. Agate said the proximity of the rivals' shops is actually just "healthy competition." [DNAinfo, Earlier]

Andy Ricker Is Opening Whiskey Soda Lounge in Brooklyn

By Hugh Merwin

Ricker has new plans.Photo: WILL RAGOZZINO/Patrick McMullan

Columbia Street's ever-popular Pok Pok Ny will close from January 1 through January 17 for its first annual tuneup and deep clean, but in the meantime, Andy Ricker has confirmed to the Times that he will indeed open a Brooklyn outpost of Whiskey Soda Lounge, his Portland cocktail bar, at 115 Columbia Street. Diners unnerved by the long lines they may encounter at Pok Pok will soon have the option to ease their minds with tamarind whiskey sours and small plates in the new space, which is just a few doors down from the full-service restaurant. Expect lots of snacks, cold drinks, and, of course, fish-sauce-fried chicken wings this spring. [Diner's Journal/NYT, Earlier]

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