nosh nook #171 - monday, november 9, 2009

'save the deli: in search of perfect pastrami, crusty rye, and the heart of jewish delicatessen' by david sax (link)
11.8.09 - l.a. times - by rich cohen

other than one time a few years back, i've never been into any of the famous jewish delis here in nyc. that one time was when a couple of friends came to the city to visit & we spent most of the weekend walking around the city drinking & stopping for food when necessary. one of those stops was at katz's, a landmark deli in downtown nyc. if my memory serves me correctly, both friends got the pastrami on rye, a sandwich of extraordinary magnitude priced somewhere around $15. i passed, as that's far too much $ and meaty sandwich for my tastes.

katz's is all famous & has been around for forever, but according to david sax's book on jewish delis, "save the deli: in search of the perfect pastrami, crusty rye, and the heart of the jewish delicatessen," it isn't the best jewish deli in the country. that honor goes to junior's (in l.a.). sax's book, which came out last month, has been getting quite a bit of press lately. npr, the ny times..."respectable" stuff. yesterday, the l.a. times' rich cohen decided to take a look at the book, which details sax's cross-continent study of jewish delis, their history & their traditions. for the most part, cohen seemed to enjoy the book & even referred to it as "deeply satisfying" at one point.

i asked this one friend of mine who's totally jewish & he insured me that jewish delis are a pretty big thing. "institutions" he called them. they've got tender, smoked meats that people go wild for, but as the times notes, sax found that they're sort of in decline. rent & meat prices are rising & lack of interest in jewish culinary tradition is waning. as a famous jew once said, "the times, they are a changin." from cohen's review the book sounds like an interesting read, "organized by region, each section opening with a quick history of the local jews, a kind of encyclopedia entry that has the not unpleasant effect of attaching the story of the hebrews to the story of their delis." so yeah, if you're into food & culture & reading about LOTS of smoked, tender meats, it sounds like this book is right up your alley.

nosh nook #170 - friday, november 6, 2009

liz hurley's guilt-free beef jerky (link)
11.6.09 - the guardian - by marina hyde

liz hurley...liz hurley. which one is she again? oh yeah. i remember now. british actress. she was hugh grant's girlfriend when he got caught with a prostitute back in 95. the one who's graced us with her acting skillz in two austin powers films & well, nothing else really. in fact, she hasn't acted in a film since 2006. instead, she's been spending her time posing for magazines & prepping for this month's launch of elizabeth hurley food, a company that grew out of the fact that she has a 400 ACRE FARM in the english countryside. she used to just use it "as her weekend home, somewhere (she) could escape to when she needed to get out of the city." must be nice. over time she decided to turn it into a farm & elizabeth hurley food was born.

the first products they're rolling out are a line of guilt-free snacks, led by a totally guilt-free beef jerky. like, if you have no real reason for being famous other than being hot & british, you don't have to feel guilty about it. as the guardian's marina hyde notes on her "lost in showbiz" blog, it's "the most ludicrous celebrity product of all time." i couldn't agree more. hurley's a ridiculously ludicrous celebrity. it's even more ludicrous that she now has a "naturally low calorie beef jerky" with her name on it.

hyde explains that the beef jerky goes on sale this week, featuring packaging with "a drawing of elizabeth lying on the ground in a black cocktail dress, kicking her bright-pink wellington boots coquettishly." since i couldn't say it better myself, i'd like to leave you with ms hyde's final thoughts on elizabeth hurley's beef jerky. "the product is billed as 'a guilt-free snack'...and yet, is it? is it really? is there not something about being the type of person who would spent £1.95 on a small dried meat snack purveyed by the star of passenger 57 that would engender the most debilitating feelings of shame and bad conscience in anyone?"

nosh nook #169 - thursday, november 5, 2009

7-eleven is getting into the value wine business (link)
11.4.09 - msnbc - via a.p.

about a year back, they put a 7-eleven amongst all the locally-owned bodegas & delis in my neighborhood. since there are enough bodegas as it is in nyc, there aren't that many 7-elevens round these parts. i have to admit that since they're such a rare bird, when the one in my hood initially opened, i was pretty excited about the opportunity for late-night 72 oz mountain dew slurpies & questionable crispy tubes filled with meats & veggies & cheeses and heated on a wheel. if nothing, 7-eleven at least fills my needs for 3am scratch tickets, babe mags & run-of-the-mill beer.

now they're taking it to the next level by adding store brand value wine to the mix. they already have a few $10 wines for sale, but according to msnbc, 7-elevens in the u.s. & japan will soon start selling wines "under the yosemite road label...the california wines, a chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon, will retail for about $3.99." that's slightly higher than trader joe's wine, but trader joe's ain't 24-7, yo. i mean, it's no wine in a can, but i haven't been making enough post-midnight wine impulse buys these days, so it'll at least help up that practice a bit.

i'm sure the wines taste WICKED AWESOME. msnbc notes that "the chardonnay is described as zesty with notes of apricot, peach and honey, and the cab as full-bodied with 'juicy plum overtones.'" how fruity! the description of the cab makes it sound like something from the rolling hills of boone's farm! i haven't had that stuff since some of my more shameful nights in college! with my 35th birthday less than two weeks away, it's prolly bout time i relive my college days anyhow. i'm pretty sure that once i hit 35 & officially enter that solidly non-college 35-44 demographic, i won't be allowed to have such collegial no-pants shenanigans without feelings of shame. hopefully 7-eleven gets their bargain wine in stores before that happens.

nosh nook #168 - wednesday, november 4, 2009

irish minister's raw garlic habit (link)
11.3.09 - bbc news

i have to be straight with y'all. i enjoy some nefarious tasting snacks. i've downed my fair share of crab chips, have been known to down mass quantities of hostess sno balls & am totally cool with anchovies. you'd think it'd have a negative impact on my breath, but other than occasional cigarette breath, i feel that i'm generally pretty make out worthy & that's not even taking my skillz into account! take that odd, smelly snacks. you are no match for the power of breath enhancing technology!

apparently, i'm not the only irish guy who enjoys weird snacks though. according to bbc news, brian lenihan jr (the irish finance minister) has a predilection for tasty tasty garlic. dude snacks on the stuff like he's popping m&m's. in 2008, david mcwilliams (an economist/tv personality) met lenihan & after the minister "pulled a bulb of garlic out of his pocket and started to peel it," he explained to mcwilliams "that the garlic gave him strength and kept him healthy and alert." the minister of state confirmed that lenihan "constantly chews garlic." then he made a comment about wanting to suck the reporters blood. actually, i made that last part up, so let's just pretend that it was "off the record."

i guess lenihan's read up on the benefits of garlic. the bbc explains that garlic contains a number of vitamins & good junk, but before they get to that they go into a bunch of historical reasons why it's all cool if lenihan's munching on garlic 24/7. first off, we know he's not a vampire. second, roman soldiers, greek athletes & the schlubs building the pyramids loved the bulb. those dudes got shit done ancient style! then there's the vitamin stuff. it strikes me as an odd half-hearted attempt to show that lenihan's not completely bonkers, but i'm going to let it slide this time. as long as lenihan doesn't try to make out with me, i say let him be.

nosh nook #167 - tuesday, november 3, 2009

scientists: junk food just as addicting as heroin (link)
11.2.09 - air america - by verena von pfetten

...so heroin's a pretty sweet drug, right? from what i hear, it sucks the life out of you, puts a bunch of holes in your arms & totally turns you into some sort of wiiliam burroughs type, but without the cool suit or hat or anything. if you haven't been able to be loyal to anything else in your life, believe you me, you'll be loyal to the H. oh that rush you'll get!...again & again & again. you'll be all like, "mmm junk" & then you'll notice that you've accidentally ashed on yourself again. it'll be totally selbyan.

apparently junk food is exactly the same as that or, according to air america, at least as addicting as that. as they report, "a recent peer-reviewed study by the independent and not-for-profit scripps research group" determined that rats who are addicted to heroin behave the same as those addicted to junk food. as if all the smack-addled rodents on our streets weren't a big enough problem, now researchers are getting them hooked on ho hos & bacon. awesome.

basically, they gave a bunch of rats a bunch of junk food & the more they got, the more they were all "squeak squeak" (gimme gimme). the researchers noticed that the "pleasure centers in the brains of rats addicted to high-fat, high-calorie diets became less responsive" over time, like would happen with heroin users. in fact, it got so bad with the rats that they didn't even care when the researchers would shock them because they were eating. oh researchers...is there anything you won't give rats? cigarettes? lottery tickets? attention? a treadmill? i wonder how many of those would cause heroin-like reactions. anyway, scripps...can't wait to see the results!