I love me some Anthony Bourdain

People is quoting Anthony Bourdain's attack on Rachael Ray in Outside magazine. Apparently Ray is now a spokesperson for Dunkin Donuts? Who knew? Not the girl without television reception, but that's a bitterness for another day, anyway, this is part of what Bourdain had to say . . .

I'm not a very ethical guy. I don't have a lot of principles. But somehow this seems to me over the line. Juvenile diabetes has exploded. Half of Americans don't have necks. And she's up their saying, 'Eat some [...] Dunkin' Donuts. You look great in that swimsuit – eat another doughnut! That's evil.

Man, I love this guy. Of course, I also love a good donut now and then . . .

Cambodian Food Update!

As it happens, the "Mekong River" is one of the cultures featured at this year's Smithsonian Folklife Festival (along with Northern Ireland and Virginia). So, if you want to try Cambodian food, you can do so until July 8th.

How Can I Put This?

There's an article in Salon today asking whether Cambodian food will ever catch on in America. Having recently spent 10 days there, I think I can safely say not anytime soon.

It's not that the food was really bad, but that it just wasn't particularly distinctive. Befitting its location, it was sort of mix between Thai and Vietnamese food. We ate a lot of fried noodles and other kinds of stir fries. The only two meals that stand out were (1) something that our guide was eating on Chinese new year in Anlong Veng that involved dipping cooked beef and raw vegetables into a fermented fish paste that tasted sort of like blue cheese, and (2) something called lok lak (basically stir fried beef with tomatoes in a lemon grass flavored sauce) in a cafe in Phnom Penh. Another meal that stood out: the dish of stir fried chicken necks that I was served for lunch one day. I would tell you how it tasted, but I couldn't really figure out how to eat it. (Holt was with me, so maybe she'll correct me if I'm forgetting something.)

Probably, this was largely our fault. Our guide book made a point of saying that Cambodians will eat anything, and I suspect that most restaurants have figured out that a lot of things won't appeal to Western palates. See fermented fish paste and chicken necks; we also saw a street vendor selling roasted crickets. But I don't think that would be any different here in the U.S. than it was in Cambodia. That being said, maybe I'll try the recipe in the article.

This stands in stark contrast to Vietnam, where the food was spectacularly good, and a real highlight of the trip.

I note that Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide, the bible for ethnic restaurants in the DC area, does not even list Cambodian food as a category. Of course, this could just reflect the relative lack of Cambodian immigrants in this area.

Life Imitates Art

When I work out at Chez Isaac, I tend to watch Seinfeld DVDs. The show is perhaps the funniest of all time, and it just holds up so well. As I have seen each episode several times, I also enjoy watching it with "Notes About Nothing," the written commentary that accompanies each episode. So last week I watched the Soup Nazi Episode which is also the Schmoopie episode. (For those who don't remember, Schmoopie is the nickname that Jerry and his girlfriend call each other much to the consternation of George and Elaine.) Well, thanks to Notes About Nothing I learned that Schmoopie was played by none other than Alexandra Wentworth, i.e., Mrs. George Stephanopoulos.

So Mrs. Bartender and I decide to have a date night on Friday at BLT Steak. (The food was unbelievable but, be warned, the meal will cost you a fortune.) And who is sitting in the restaurant, but George and Schmoopie. I was so tempted to say "Hi, Schmoopie," but I managed to hold myself back.

Wolfgang Puck: Champion of animals?

I am so impressed with Wolfgang Puck. Yesterday, he announced that he is taking on an initiative to make his restaurants (relatively) cruelty-free, serving only eggs that come from chickens that have lived cage-free, banning foie gras (which is so inhumane that it is illegal in the UK), serving veal that comes from calves allowed to roam, ensuring their lobsters were removed from their traps quickly (avoiding super-crowded holding tanks), and serving only sustainable seafood.

Is this perfect? Of course not. Lobsters will still be cut in half while alive. And veal, which comes from baby cows, is still being served. But it is a huge step. Very few restaurants make an effort to serve humanely-handled animal products, and I can't think of any with the name recognition of Puck's that have. When combining his fine-dining establishments, smaller airport-like restaurants and catering outfits, Puck owns well over a hundred restaurants. So this is a really big deal.

Perhaps more importantly, he is bringing some publicity to the issue of how inhumanely most of the animals that eventually are served to American diners (and bought at grocery stores) are treated. There are a lot of people who simply don't think about, or know about, how the food they are eating was handled prior to getting on their plates. So hopefully this will make more people aware of the atrocities of factory farms (where many animals--including pigs, which are more intelligent than three year old children--are in such small spaces they aren't given enough space to stand, eventually making their legs totally unusable; where chickens are in such tight quarters that there claws eventually grow into the soil, making them unable to move; and where terms like "cage free" are slapped onto a carton of eggs even if the chicken was only allowed a few minutes of being outside of a tiny cage a month). I really believe that more people would care about how the animals they ingest are treated, if they were simply made aware of the current reality.

And as a vegetarian, I am also happy that he is adding more vegetarian meals to his menus. I'm sure Puck, who is not adverse to self-promotion, will make sure he gets a lot of publicity for this. Which is great, because it brings publicity to an issue that doesn't often get much.

Cupcake Wars

After the movie yesterday, I stopped by Baked & Wired to check out their much-discussed cupcakes. Oh my gosh! Now, I've been a defender of CakeLove, because while it's true that their cupcakes don't have much flavor if you eat them straight from the fridge, they're really good when you let them get to room temperature. Also, they are conveniently located about 4 blocks from my house. But the Baked & Wired cupcakes would beat them hands down.

Yesterday, they had 3 varieties on offer, and I tried 2 of them. (Yep, a nice nutritious dinner.) The carrot cake was moist and fluffy, and I didn't notice any gross raisins or other fruit, and the cream cheese frosting was delicious. The red velvet cupcake was also really good, although I have never really understood the point of red velvet cake. It seemed to have the same cream cheese frosting. The third option was coconut, which I didn't try. So, no chocolate on offer, which was disappointing. I really would like to try a chocolate or vanilla cupcake with buttercream frosting for a head-to-head comparison with CakeLove.