Aug 19
Note - this one may offend those with delicate sensibilities.
Tags: Food, gordon ramsay, humor
Jun 08
So I know you all are clamoring for more of cute guy #2 around here - so I’m obliging you all with the second Noah update in only a matter of days. The last few weeks we have finally ‘gone solid’ - well, if you can call solids mashed sweet potatoes, peas, carrots and other pablum. But after an initially reluctant start (his first feeding is captured above and in this slide show) he has taken to it like a champ. All you parents out there know that this means changes on the other end as well (uggh), but it’s a necessary step.
Speaking of steps, I also wanted to include some photos of Noah hanging out in his exersaucer. He *loves* that thing, and it lets him get his ya-yas out - he’s such a bouncer it’s crazy. There was this lovely light coming into the house late one afternoon, and I just love these photos - the image above is my favorite photo of Noah to date. Full slide show is here.
Finally, there is this photo I shot while testing my new camera (more on that separately). I swear it looks like Noah is delivering Shakespeare in this image. This, by the way, is his new pose - he hasn’t quite handled sitting up, rather he has adopted this ever-so-casual ‘Joe Namath lean’ as we’ve come to call it. Cuteness personified, I tell ya!
Jun 29
Wanted to pass along this nation-wide recall of what I know is the fave snack of a lot of the toddlers (and their parents) - Veggie Booty, produced by Robert’s American Gourmet. In a note from Robert (PDF, Adobe Acrobat required) says that they have decided to temporarily stop all manufacture and sale of the Veggie Booty product. They have more detail on this page as well. Per this story in the LA Times today,
Robert’s American Gourmet Food Inc. recalled all its Veggie Booty snacks across the U.S. and Canada because the mix might be contaminated with salmonella, regulators said Thursday.
Veggie Booty, which include both kale and spinach, seem like a sneaky way to make sure the little ones are getting vegetables when they snack, has been the subject of controversy in the past. Back in 2002, a Good Housekeeping staffer exposed their labeling as being inaccurate, reporting only a third of the actual fat content of the treats. They have also run afoul of other labeling around their Fruity Booty being ‘mostly’ fruit. Turned out that wasn’t entirely accurate either. Anyway, our just-opened bag of Pirate Booty (in the cheese flavor), another of their products, is going into the trash now, until we hear more.
Tags: Food, recall, salmonella, veggie_booty
Jun 24
From a recent batch of sugar snap peas we enjoyed at dinner.
Tags: Food, foodporn, peas, Photography, vegetables
Jun 24
So I was in NYC in mid-June for (what else) more meetings. I did manage to attend some interesting business dinners, first at Jeffrey Chodorow’s Wild Salmon (NYMag review, official website) and the following night at Mario Batali’s hoity-toity venue Del Posto (NYMag review, official website). The food experience at Wild Salmon was disappointing - the set menu for our group of Interactive Advertising Bureau members didn’t offer the restaurant’s namesake fish - salmon, wild or otherwise. The Yellow Eye Rockfish with heirloom beans and lacinato kale was yummy enough, as was the Pacific Northwest nuts & berries salad. I probably ate too many of the oven roasted rosemary garlic fingerling potatoes served family style on the side, but that combo is a major weakness of mine.
The following night was a client advisory board dinner for clients of DoubleClick at Del Posto. During cocktails before dinner, folks were talking about the fact that Paul McCartney was playing a ’secret’ gig around the corner - giving me momentary pause to consider abandoning dinner to see one of my idols. But the wine, cocktail morsels like buttery chopped liver, chunks of aged parmesan and other tidbits all helped to keep me there. The most delicious part of the dinner in the private downstairs dining room was the agnolotti dal plin with truffle butter. Really just enough for a tasting, these were divine. After fish the prior night, the sirloin with smoked polenta and vegetable sottaceto was my choice - fine, but nothing to write home about. By the time the crostata di cioccolato arrived with coffee, I was ready to pack it in and caught a cab back to midtown and my hotel. Hence I missed the group that headed out soon after and caught the last four songs of McCartney’s set. Bad choice on my part.
Tags: batali, chodorow, del-posto, doubleclick, Food, iab, mccartney, nyc, restaurant, wild-salmon
Jun 07
Yesterday was a fabulous day. Yes, I am a year older, but it was really nice to hear from so many friends from near and far. The day began on a high note with Sam singing ‘Happy Birthday to Daddy’ from atop our bed. Soooo cute, I tell ya! To cap the day, Amy begrudgingly went along with my idea for dinner at local gourmet spot Quinones , which turned out to be a three-hour extravaganza that had to be one of the best dinner’s I’ve had in the A-T-L (the Dining Room at the Ritz or the now-defunct Seeger’s runs a close second). And Amy LOVED it! The room is far more intimate and romantic than parent restaurant Bacchanalia upstairs - with softer settings, real linen tablecloths, lovely pink water glasses, and a generally much less uptight wait staff than Amy and I had experienced in the two dinners we’ve had upstairs. So if we can find an excuse, we’ll head back again! There’s the cute touch of the stools for the ladies’ purses, the very comfortable banquette where we sat, and then, of course, the seemingly unending stream of beautiful tastes of heaven that the kitchen sent to our table.
The service was also stellar - including the lovely touch of the maitre’d calling me on my cell a few minutes after we left and thanking us for being such nice guests, hoping we return, wishing us luck with baby no. 2, etc. You just don’t see that sort of personal attention too often. It may have been that business was slow - over the course of the evening we were only one of four tables occupied in the venue - leaving at least another ten or so four-tops open. One complaint, though - the odd couple who sat down next to us with the gentleman wearing shorts and a really ugly Hawaiian shirt seemed out of place - then again, the last time we were at Bacchanalia someone sat near us wearing running shorts. I guess folks just don’t dress up, even for the most expensive restaurants in Atlanta.
Anyway, for those interested in the gory details, here is the breakdown of the ten-course tasting menu (with eight accompanying wine pairings).
- Amuse Bouche of Spring Onion Soup with Marscapone and Fine Herbs Profiterole; Prosecco with Creme de Cassis
- Sweet Corn Custard with Roasted Porcini Mushrooms & Maine Lobster Salad; Gessami, Gramona 2005, Penedes
- Slightly Cured North Georgia Rainbow Trout with D’Avignon Radish & Preserved Artichoke; Sancerre ‘Les Baronnes’, Henri Bourgeois 2004, Loire Valley
- House-made Gnocchi with Roasted Morels, Summer Truffles & Chicken Juice; Marsannay Blanc, Domaine Charles Audoin 2004, White Burgundy
- Maine Halibut with Succotash of Hot House Tomatoes, Fava Beans & Maxibel Pole Beans; Chateauneuf-du-Pape Blanc, Les Sinards, Perrin & Fils 2005, Rhone Valley
- Breast of Moulard Duck with Spring Onions, English Peas & Straight-Neck Squash; Saint-Joseph ‘Offerus’ J-L Chave 2004, Rhone Valley Syrah
- Star Provisions Dry Aged Lamb Loin with Young Carrots, Local Rainbow Chard & Hakurei Turnips; Fisher Coach Insignia, Cabernet Sauvignon 2001, Napa Valley
- Sweet Grass Dairies ‘Constant Bliss’ Cows’ Milk Cheese with Candied Pecan
- Summer Melons paired with Summer Melon Sorbets in Honeysuckle Soup
- Warm Rhubarb Cobbler with Blueberry Ice Cream; Rosa Regale, Brachetto d’Acqui, Banfi 2006, Piemonte
May 21
If only Atlanta weather could stay like this all year ’round! The weekend has been so beautiful. Mild, almost crisp mornings, not too hot in the afternoons. Amy says it’s like Aspen in the Summertime. Of course, we’ll be seeing the 90s here soon enough. These photos summarize what this time of year is all about - Sam working in the garden, Dad marinating some flank steak and grilling it up along with super-fresh asparagus and squash, and just-planted tomato plants in all their fuzzy glory beginning to bloom. 65 days and counting till we have some fresh goodies for our salads. Yum!
May 06
Update Monday, May 7th: Well, a night in the fridge did nothing to help out the strawberry jam. We have a solid block of a deep purple substance I can only describe as being somewhat akin to hard candy. I’ll try again soon, but this time I’ll do some more research!
With all those berries, I had to cook something up. Above, you can see the good - a yummy strawberry buckle, a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated I modified from it’s origins as a blueberry buckle for the wonderful fruit just picked yesterday I had on hand. Below is the bad. I thought it would be great to try making jam - strawberries have so much natural pectin that it’s easier than most fruit. The allrecipes.com instructions didn’t highlight how carefully I’d have to watch this - and while chasing Sam around the house I managed to let the bottom stick and burn, essentially ruining the flavor of the whole batch. I’ll test it in the morning to see how it turned out, but I do not have high hopes. But the buckle goes into the recipe book as one to keep.
Tags: Food
May 06
With Amy pulling seven gigs in three days, I 
was Mr. Mom, and looking for things to entertain Sammy. On Saturday, we headed out with Sam’s future wife and his parents to a ‘u-pick-’em’ strawberry farm near McDonough, GA. With flavor you just don’t get from supermarket specimens, and at $8.50 a bucket (around 5 pounds worth), it was well worth it. And Sammy and Sophie had an absolute blast. There is a great website (Atlanta-area farms here) that catalogs all these self-picking farms across the country - we plan to hit the blueberry and fig farms later this summer. And maybe then Sam will get to see Old McDonald - he kept asking for him! We finished the day with a wonderful lunch (shrimp and grits, mmm) at a cute place in McDonough called Truman’s - well worth the visit. More photos of the outing are here. (Photo at right of Sam’s hand with a strawberry by my friend Joel Silverman, photographer extraordinaire. See his site here).
Apr 30
So what was by all accounts the best Japanese chef in Atlanta has resurfaced in New York City with the opening of his restaurant Soto later this week at 357 Sixth Ave. Chef Sotohiro Kosugi came to Atlanta from Japan to lead the cuisine at a now-defunct Japanese hotel where the Hyatt Buckhead now stands, and moved his show across the street next to Disco Kroger in an unassuming strip mall when the hotel changed hands. Now comes the news that Soto has landed in another sushi-hungry town where the competition is fierce among the two-syllable sushi destinations (Masa, anyone?). Anyway, I was always blown away by Soto before he closed the first time, and hope to visit on some future trip to NYC. New York Magazine reports that Architect Hiro Tsuruta, known for his sleekly minimalist designs of ChikaLicious and Momofuku Noodle Bar is behind the design of his new digs - a far cry from the strip mall from whence he comes.
