Shrink in the Kitchen

The Boston Globe

1.  A delightful interview with Kim Gorton, conducted by Bella English, in which Ms. Gorton talks about fish.  She notes that the annual International Boston Seafood show will take place March 15-17.  If you haven’t been, you ought to go: Booths of producers, purveyors, and high-tech doodads for restaurants and industry chock full of lively, funny characters.  I reported on the event for public radio, back in the day.  http://www.bostonseafood.com/10/public/Content19221.aspx

2.  Meat loaf recipe.  Intended for people who: A) Do not have access to the Internet.  B) Have access to the Internet, but do not know how to google, “meatloaf.”  http://www.tastymeatloafrecipes.com/

3.  A piece on what makes the best butter.  No criteria are listed, such as: Taste, texture, and appearance.  The judges are anonymous, except for the author of the piece.  Bizarre piece of reporting.

4.  Review of East by Northeast, a new restaurant that sounds good in East Cambridge.  For some odd reason, the chef, Philip Tang, is compared by the reviewer to chef David Chang.  It’s odd because chef Chang is the owner of  highly regarded, exclusive restaurants in NYC.   Momofuko Ko, for example, offers extensive, complex tasting courses that rock your senses.  Chef Tang has a nice, new storefront place that’s pretty straightforward.  (I wrote Chef Chang up in Robb Report in 2009 as one of the best restaurants in the country.)  Are they compared by the reviewer because both men are Asian-American?    (Chef Tang is Chinese-American.  Chef Chang is Korean-American.)  Wow, exotic Asians!  What a big world we live in.

The New York Times

1.  Great short piece on a panel discussion to be held about Joe Baum on March 16 at the Theresa Lang Community and Student Center of New York at 55 W. 13th Street, 212-229-5488.  For $5, you can learn about how to run a successful restaurant.  Mr. Baum was the creator of Windows on the World and The Four Seasons, among other places, and his knowledge of the business informed current leaders like Drew Nieporent and Danny Meyer.

2.  Coffee Town.  Do we really need  three full pages on how NYC is now, “A coffee town?”  The pieces mention “java hounds.”  I don’t know about you, but if I see a java hound coming towards me, I’m running the other way.    Besides, when was NYC ever not a coffee town?  What?  You never heard of Porto Rico Importing Company?  Best coffee in the universe: http://www.portorico.com/store/index.html

3.  Nice small blurb on Gastronomica’s new book compiling many articles: http://www.amazon.com/Gastronomica-Reader-Darra-Goldstein/dp/0520259394.  I hasten to add that I’ve reported for them on: The psychology of chefs, sous vide cooking, and chef Andrew Carmellini.  Chef Carmellini is just like chef Mario Batali and it’s not what you think, it’s not because they are both Italian-American.  There are other reasons.  Really, I mean it.

Not your mother’s meatloaf: