Dining Etiquette

I've seen too many dining follies in fancy restaurants not to let this visual guide go unnoticed.

Dining Etiquette 101.  It's an illustrated guide to all of these inane and nuanced eating rules which I like to follow because I'm a pretentious snob.   This is a pretty rudimentary visual guide, in that I don't think it's using the full potential of the internet (if there were links to the origins of these eating rules, it'd be pretty cool, albeit completely unnecessary), but it also looks like a .pdf uploaded from something physically printed in the Sun Sentinel. Or maybe I'm just spoiled by the clean visuals from Information is Beautiful, and this dining etiquette guide just looks like some shitty Photoshop job I could've done in 7th grade.  I'm not even sure why I'm going off on this tangent because it's the content which is pertinent to this blog, not the visuals, and I have nothing to say about the content, and maybe I just like to bitch a lot.

But I digress.  By which I mean I'm going to bed.

100 College Recipes

I'm sorry, did someone call?

100 Delicious, Dirt-Cheap Recipes for the Starving Students

Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

NYTimes

I've seen one video by Mark Bittman prior to this week, and I had either StumbledUpon it or I found myself there through the NYTimes website.  Considering the amount of time I spend dwelling/fangirling over NYT and also the sheer percentage of time I spend thinking about food, it's surprising that I haven't cavorted around the Dining & Wine section of the site yet.

To make up for lost time, I've been wasting most of my time watching food videos on the NYT website.  I've only seen two people consistently host shows: Mark Bittman and Jill Santopietro.  Mark Bittman (pictured above) seems like the primary food guy on the NYT website.  His column, the Minimalist, updates weekly, and it usually includes a little history, context and postulation about an ingredient or method of cooking or something to that effect.  As the name of the column suggests, it's all about cooking with few quality ingredients without using super complicated processes.  (Note: Don't mistake minimalism with cheap, easy and affordable - this man uses prosciutto with reckless, delicious abandon.) Sometimes, there's a video to accompany the column, and videos are really awkward but charming. The intros are so cheesy, and Bittman will say something kind of weird and off-kilter, but it won't be edited out.  There's really only one example I can cite, and it's in the pizzocheri video where they tried to make a witty, self-deprecating joke about the ridiculous transition effects they use in editing the video, but because it backfired, it made it funny instead of miserably pathetic (video here, and the edit is at 2:15).

Jill Santopietro also occasionally has a video up for the New York Times Magazine, originally called Tiny Kitchen and now called Kitchen 4B. She's not a regular columnist, and according to the videos, she's a "New York Times recipe tester, stylist and writer," but the gist of her video series is that she makes all of this food in her tiny, New York City apartment - something which strikes near and dear to my tiny Squirrel Hill kitchen.  She's younger than Bittman, and she's also quirky and engaging in a way different than Bittman, though she's just as charismatic.  Again, very unedited, silly, error-ridden and realistic.  Not all of us can be Giada De Laurentiis (try as we might) and/or have a kitchen like hers (wish, dream and pine as we might), and Santopietro demonstrates that realistically.

What I like about these food video series, other than the defining facts that it's (a) about food and (b) done by the infallible New York Times, is how pragmatic they are.  The Minimalist shows that you don't have to use 2348230 ridiculous ingredients or spend hours in the kitchen perfecting delicate culinary processes in order to have some spectacular, gourmet food.  Kitchen 4B demonstrates how to make a fantastic and impressive meal with extremely limited space and culinary capital (pots, pans, etc...though she did have an ice cream maker in the sorbet episode, and that made me jealous).  And because these shows are down-to-earth in their nature, their production is without frills and doesn't feel compelled to fit that cookie-cutter mold (no pun intended) that most cooking shows do.  It also makes me smile because NYT, a publication know for its esteem and pretentiousness, is able to produce these error-ridden, quirky videos about food.  It's not laden with snobbiness - in fact, it aims at the people who can't always (or ever) afford to sup at the Russian Tea Room and eat foie gras and caviar.

All in all, these videos are fantastic. The hosts are engaging, the food is delicious, and I'm sad I didn't find this sooner.  I say farewell to another sliver of productivity.

Oh my God

Look at this:

You need to look at the entire process of making this crab and avocado salad. I'm serious - this isn't just some link you can gloss over as some reference for a blog. Click this god damn link and check this out.

http://luxirare.com/imitation-of-nature/

Lord, some days, I wonder why I'm still going to college and not culinary school.

EDIT [November 19, 1:42AM]

Holy shit.  Look at the rest of this fucking blog.  Luxirare. Holy shit.  If you don't look at the rest of it, it is your loss. You are missing out on something truly amazing.

It's a fashion and food blog, and it is ridicuous.  It is, presumably, written by a fashion designer in New York City.  She is also, evidently, a foodie.  She is also, probably, a trust-fund hipster.  And I want to be her SO BADLY.  UGH UGH UGH UGH.

From what I've seen, the blog is more focused on fashion than it is food, but the pictures are absolutely stunning.  I've never seen anything quite like this.  Also, the sheer fucking FUNDING it takes to make these dishes is outrageous (look at this), not to mention the time to make these dishes, and not to mention the added time of having to take pictures, and not to mention all of these props she happens to have also.  She cooks with ridiculous ingredients (black truffles, quail eggs), owns ridiculous gadgets (a Raclette grill, a Caviar box dispenser), and makes ridiculous displays of her food.  And she's in her 20s.  And she lives in New York City.  And she designs clothing.  I have no doubt in my mind that she is a trust-fund hipster.  God dammit, WHY NOT ME?!

Ugh.  I am getting no work done because of Luxirare.  This is my new favorite blog.

Free Pizza

I've been starving all day.  I had a packet of brown sugar oatmeal and I've been drinking hot chocolate from the TeleFact office.  I've learned not to eat for long periods of time because I was way poorer last year.  It's still hard to grow accustomed to again.

I decided to skip statistics today because I...usually skip statistics.  I went upstairs to the Honors College to do some reading instead, and who else do I ride the elevator with but the pizza man.  And where else does this man go but the Honors College.

Free. Fuckin'.  Pizza.  Thank you overachieving engineers for taking the FHEP seminar and not eating all of your pizza.  I would usually hate all of you, but for today, I love you.  Get more pizza next week.

A Dilemma

I lose things.  A lot.  I'm on my ninth pair of glasses (I've only been wearing glasses since eighth grade), my fifth Pitt ID card, and in the mail right now is my fourth debit card.  Because the closest Citibank to Pittsburgh is in Leesburgh, Virginia (157.42 miles away, fyi) and due to some safety policy, Citibank can't ship my new debit card to my Pittsburgh address, the only access to my bank account until Friday at earliest is my check book.  I have a $10 bill, a $2 bill (which I'm reluctant to spend), and $3.78 in change. This needs to last me for the week.

While I can't reasonably write a check for a $2.88 Veracruz quesadilla, I can buy a whole lot of groceries and just make food.  Problems: I have almost no time since I'm on campus from 12PM-10PM Monday through Thursday, so I don't have time to cook.  I also can't check my bank account online for those same security purposes, so I have no idea how much money I have.

I'm going to have to figure some stuff out this week to feed myself.  Good thing my appetite has been almost gone for a while, but I'm already starving today.

Baltimore

I took a little trip to Baltimore this weekend to visit friends, cure wanderlust, and escape the malaise of Pittsburgh.  Obviously, being in Baltimore means one thing: crab cakes.  Honestly, the two are pretty much synonymous to me. That, and outrageous crime rates and crippling poverty.  But, come on - crab cakes.  That kind of trumps the other two.

I was clear - perhaps insufferably clear - that I wanted crab cakes this weekend, but no one else shared the same sort of passion.  Instead, they were interested in ripping apart old cars in an auto yard (very cool) and going to a mall ridden with neon lights (significantly less cool).  Alas.

However, all was not lost.  This morning, we went to a kitschy, campy little joint called XS.  It...well, it's a sushi bar and a breakfast place and an espresso bar all at once.  Things were served on square plates and the silverware made no sense.  I felt very stupidly urban.  That's okay though because I got a gingerbread latte and a seafood omelette with home fries, toast and fresh fruit.  Listen to what was in this god damn omelette: fresh shrimp, fresh crab meat, gouda cheese, tomatoes, spinach.  May I emphasize the first two ingredients: fresh shrimp and fresh crab meat.  Hoooly shit.  That was hands down the BEST fucking omelette I've ever had.  I just...oh my god FRESH CRAB MEAT.  UGHGHGHGH KILL ME.  It was a $20 breakfast, but I don't even care.  That was just out of this world.