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Yummy Links: From Top Chef's Finale to Spanish Chorizo

partysugar — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:50:08 -0800

The finale of Top Chef Vegas was recently filmed in Napa Valley. - Eater
The New Yorker get to know Los Angeles restaurant critic Jonathan Gold. - Grub Street NY
Ubuntu, Napa's vegetarian darling of a restaurant, may start serving meat. - SF Foodie
Thirteen individuals who are making waves in the food industry. - Chow
One Houston restaurant critic has dropped his anonymity. - Eat Me Daily
What your beer says about you. - Serious Eats
Spanish chorizo adds a richness and flavor to everything it touches. - The Epi-Log

Photo courtesy of Bravo

An Influential Meal at Ubuntu

YumSugar — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 05:50:12 -0700

Earlier this year, I made the trip up to Napa, CA, to visit Ubuntu, a restaurant that's garnered national acclaim for a new kind of vegetarian produce-driven cuisine. The food is radical for many reasons, like the fact that executive chef (and Food & Wine Best New Chef) Jeremy Fox grows much of the produce in a biodynamic garden near the restaurant. It's also that the focus of the menu is not so much on the absence of meat as it is on vegetable courses that are so substantial they'll change any notions you may have about vegetarian cuisine. Even my meatatarian boyfriend loved it! To learn more about this transformative meal, read on.

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All the News That's Fit to Eat - Feb. 25, 2009

YumSugar — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:50:47 -0800

Even pizza delivery chains are proclaiming this year to be the worst they've ever seen. - Wall Street Journal
The rib-sticking recipe for this Latvian cabbage pie has traveled around the world. - Boston Globe
Harold McGee answers the question: How much water do you need when cooking pasta? - New York Times
Chef Jeremy Fox of Ubuntu in Napa, CA, is paving the way for vegetarian cuisine. - Washington Post
In a taste test of canned tomatoes, find out which variety came out on top (not San Marzano!). - San Francisco Chronicle
Learn the secrets to making sensationally crunchy vegetable chips at home. - Chicago Tribune
Now that slow cookers have gotten a makeover, they've become instrumental in a new movement. - Los Angeles Times

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Possibly the Geekiest Veronica Mars Clip Ever

GeekSugar — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:10:27 -0800

Veronica Mars may be over and out, but my girl Kristen Bell keeps on geekin' on with "her" website on geeksugar fave Gossip Girl. And of course, in these days we have YouTube and DVD box sets, so when a show goes off the air, we can keep loving it over and over again, thank the gods. Anyway, watch as two of Veronica Mars' geeks debate the merits of Ubuntu vs. OS X. And you gotta love Veronica's contribution to the conversation!

Daily Tech: Dell Inspiron 1525 Gets Ubuntu Linux

GeekSugar — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:15:37 -0800

Dell has just added the Inspiron 1525 to their Ubuntu 7.10 lineup and it is set to arrive in the US later this month. - Gizmodo
Is it true? Is there finally a way to completely delete your Facebook profile? - The New York Times
The best PSPhone mock-up design has been unveiled, and it looks glorious. - Kotaku
The cute, little green-and-white OLPC laptop was actually spotted in the hands of someone riding the subway in NYC. - Consumerist
Apple has cut the price of the shuffle from $79 to $49 for the 1GB model. Stay tuned for a 2GB model, which is set to be available later this month for $69. - CrunchGear
Seven Mary Three's Jason Ross talks tech with AOL's Switched. - Switched

Golden Girls Can Still Get Their Ubuntu On!

GeekSugar — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:00:09 -0700

Dear Higher Power, please, please, please let me be like this woman when I grow up.

Mamas, grandmamas, let this lady be a role model for you. You do not have to be technologically impaired!

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Do You Know Anyone Like The Goode Family?

TresSugar — Wed, 27 May 2009 09:00:00 -0700

An extremely politically correct cartoon-family is coming to a television near you. Mike Judge of King of the Hill and Beavis and Butt-head fame has created a new show - The Goode Family - which premiers on ABC tonight.

The Goodes are many shades of green. They use reusable shopping bags (not the ones made in sweat shops), drive hybrid cars, recycle, and ask themselves: what would Al Gore do? In addition to being environmentally conscious, they're also socially aware: they're vegans, have a dog named Che, and they even adopted a little boy from Africa. (Once they adopted Ubuntu, they found out he was actually born to white Afrikaans parents in South Africa. They still have him wear traditional African dress.)

The premise sort of reminds me of the South Park episode all about smug people in San Francisco. In that episode, the "smug" (smog) from preachy, hybrid car owners ends up causing an environmental disaster. Despite the similarities in using progressives as their targets, The Good Family does treat the earnest clan a little kinder than South Park would, making it apparent that the characters have genuine intentions.

Do you know anyone that tries a little too hard to do good(e)?

Frank Bruni Stepping Down as Times's Restaurant Critic

YumSugar — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:00:58 -0700

After five years as the lead restaurant reviewer of the New York Times, Frank Bruni is hanging up his napkin, the newspaper announced today.

As the restaurant critic at one of the nation's preeminent publications, in the last five years, Bruni has been arguably the most influential food writer in America, catapulting restaurants like Napa's Ubuntu to fame while sending others, like Jeffrey Chodorow's Kobe Club, to a controversial early grave. But come August - around the same time that his new food memoir gets published - he will step down from his position.

Despite the fact that his reviews have ignited as many haters as supporters, I'll miss Bruni's poignant and often hilarious reviews - although I am looking forward to learning more about him in Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-Time Eater. Are you disappointed to see Bruni join the likes of former critics Craig Claiborne, Mimi Sheraton, Bryan Miller, and Ruth Reichl? Who do you think should be his successor?

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Sugar Shout Out: 8 Great Recent TV Engagements

PopSugar — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 23:55:00 -0700

David Chang on Slow Food (and Fast Food)

YumSugar — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 03:00:08 -0700

On hand at this weekend's Slow Food Nation was Momofuku chef David Chang, whose self-described "vaguely Asian" New York restaurants have catapulted him to celebrity status in the past several years. In a guest appearance at the festival's Green Kitchen, Chang showed the audience Momofuku's twist on caprese salad. As he was prepping for his demonstration, he was kind enough to talk to me about slow food, fast food (Chipotle and In-N-Out are his favorites), future plans, and his latest infatuation. To read what he had to say, read more.

YumSugar: Why did you get involved with Slow Food Nation?
DC: Alice [Waters] asked me to be a part of it. I've gotten to know a lot of work that she does outside of Chez Panisse. I'm not affiliated [with Slow Food] . . . but they're trying to preserve certain traditions. At the very least, it's a really amazing opportunity for people to try new things.

YS: What do you think of those who see Slow Food as an expensive cause for food snobs?
DC: I understand both points. They’re not trying to hurt people. They just want to share. It's a byproduct of American culture - the fact that we don’t have a food culture - to enjoy food is to be elitist. To not eat fast food means that you’re in a different income bracket.

YS: Where will you dine while you're in town?
DC: I'm going to eat at Michael Mina and Quince. I want to check out Daniel Patterson's restaurant [Coi]. My good friend Ed Carew opened up the Cottage Eatery with his wife in Tiburon. Tonight I'm going to go to A16. Tomorrow we're going to Chris Cosentino's restaurant [Incanto], and then we're going to Napa. I always like Bouchon, and I'd love to check out Jeremy [Fox]'s new restaurant Ubuntu.

YS: What do you consider to be your greatest culinary accomplishment?
DC: I don’t know. Honestly, [the fame], it's absurd and comedic. I’m just that dude!

YS: Where do you eat when you're not working?
DC: I love wd-50 and Peasant. I love to go to Per Se, and Hearth is a great restaurant. I love all the Grand Sichuans and Oriental Garden.

YS: What's next for you? There's been lots of speculation.
DC: Maybe trying to unravel all of this? We’re doing lunch for Ko, renovating Ssäm Bar, and redoing the menu at Noodle Bar. We’re doing an expansion of soft-serve, bakery, and dessert at the Ssäm Bar. That's a lot. So while there’s all this talk about future projects, that’s certainly flattering, but we’re just trying to keep it running.

YS: I hear you want to start an Edible Schoolyard in New York, Alice Waters-style.
DC: I would love to. That would be really great.

YS: Noodles or rice?
DC: Rice. Right now I’m infatuated with rice. As much as I love noodles, it’s the year of the rice for me, for all of the [Momofuku] restaurants. Nobody knows anything about rice. Think about Vietnamese cuisine. How the hell do you make rice with no technology? It’s pretty impressive.

YS: Top Chef or Iron Chef?
DC: Neither. I’d like Iron Chef more if Alex Lee never lost. Alex Lee may be the greatest chef America never knew about - maybe the greatest chef America ever produced - and he lost, which is a bunch of bulls**t. Top Chef is great. I used to watch it, but once you start seeing people that you know on TV, the contestants, it's like watching a train wreck. I don’t want to watch it.

YS: Tokyo or Paris?
DC: F**k, that's hard. I'm gonna say Paris.

YS: Truffles or foie gras?
DC: What kind of truffles? We'll go with truffles - no, both. I want to have my cake and eat it too.

YS: Amuse-bouche or dessert?
DC: Amuse.

YS: Chinese takeout or pizza delivery?
DC: I love both! Chinese takeout.

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