Eat All About It

I’m blogging on food books over at The Christian Science Monitor, and this week I took a (virtual) stab at the Alinea cookbook. The short version is that I couldn’t wait to take a look when I first hauled home my copy. I even thought I knew what I was getting into: Hey, I can hold my own around words like “spherification” and “tapioca maltodextrin,” and I thought The French Laundry Cookbook made good bedtime reading. But after just a few pages, I knew this book was something else. What, I wasn’t sure — I had to connect with some specialists. First came art critic Regina Hackett, who has a flawless talent for talking about art in a way that makes sense to people both in and out of the professional fishbowl. I thought she might have some thoughts on whether Alinea should be considered art. (Certainly, it’s beautiful.) And then I went on to see the good-hearted guys at Spur, the ones who put the “gastro” in “molecular gastronomy”, to get their take.

The full story is here. If you want more of the details I couldn’t fit into that post, they’re after the jump here. And, after the initial blog post ran, the folks at Alinea sent a thoughtful and classy note, letting me know that they had debated these issues when writing the book, and made their choices deliberately. They also made me want to eat at the restaurant. But I am still no Carol Blymire.

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If you’ve ever wondered what Anthony Bourdain and Pim Techamuanvivit have in common — or, fine, even if you haven’t — check out their respective lists of the world’s best food experiences. Both tip a hat to Washington state. Bourdain, as you might have guessed from his love for the Batali family, includes Salumi in his account of “13 Places To Eat Before You Die” in Men’s Health. “Anything cured, anything braised, any of the limited hot specials . . . in fact, anything the Batalis make is worth grabbing with both hands,” he wrote.

Meanwhile, Chez Pim picks “a dozen ultimate food experiences from around the world” for the Times of London, including crabbing for our beloved Dungeness. In season, she wrote, “practically all you need to do is dip your shiny bucket into the water and you will pull up a few. Build a fire on the beach, steam or boil the crabs, and eat them with your fingers.” (Pim, have you been hanging around with Jon Rowley?)
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Yes, yes, you could be voting on America’s best bathroom, but why not take the time instead to cast your ballot for America’s best farmers market? The non-profit American Farmland Trust has a contest going here for the title of the country’s best small, medium, and large markets. Caveat: The site is clunky to navigate and seems woefully incomplete — market managers must sign themselves up to be included, and few have so far — but voting is open through Aug. 8, which gives them (cough — U District! Ballard! Edmonds! Bellingham! Manzanita!) time to get involved.

My review of Michael Perry’s “Coop” is up now on the Christian Science Monitor’s books page. The book is subtitled “A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting,” which covered a remarkably large percentage of my own interests in seven words.

Perry’s website calls him a humorist, and the publicity materials stressed the book’s slapstick elements — or they seemed to me to be stressed; anytime you talk about things like getting bitten in the rear by a pig, I suppose they’re going to seem outsized. The book turned out, though, to have a hefty thread of seriousness and sadness running through it along with all the jokes and pleasure and joys. That would make it a lot like real life, just more self-aware and sharply observed than most. It’s worth a read even if you’ve never craved a pen of backyard chickens. Full review here.

Trophy Cupcakes/David Dickey photos

Something like, oh, five minutes after Trophy Cupcakes opened in Wallingford Center, customers started asking for auxiliary branches in their own neighborhoods. It took a little while — two years — but Trophy #2 is now a frostings-breadth away from opening its doors in University Village, with the grand opening set for June 11. Here’s a sneak peek, from a party earlier this week. Cupcakes will be frosted and decorated in the shop’s generously-sized back room; the best spot for a sit-down cupcake fix is just outside the front door, watching kids play in the frog fountain that spouts enough water to rinse their sugary, satiated hands.

Trophy Cupcakes

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Korean taco condiments/Photos by David Dickey

In the hidden vertices of Seattle’s food world sit our friends Kye Soon Hong and Eric Vigesaa, generously sharing their good taste, specialized knowledge, and outsized endowments of kitchen curiosity. One week might find them setting up a blind tasting challenge for the city’s best croissants. Or maybe organizing a sukiyaki dinner at Kappo, or introducing friends to the addictive pleasures of Chicky Pub or the cold Korean noodle soup called mul naengmyun, or comparing the two major varieties of Chinese-Korean noodles, a divide that has strained lesser marriages. Not long after we had a wistful conversation about our envy of L.A.’s Kogi Korean taco truck they outdid themselves with a homemade Korean taco party, the marinated meat and toppings so delicious I begged Kye to quit her day job and open her own business. (She wouldn’t. Luckily, Marination Mobile is stepping into the breach later this month.) Now they’ve been outed nationally, with Matthew Amster-Burton writing  about their tacos for Gourmet.com, recipes included.

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