foodvents #1: heinz-falutin'.

hey, so real quick...occasionally, i find myself at food events & eat a bunch of stuff & would love to give said gluttony a writeup now & again, but the tale doesn't usually fit into any of my existing columns. sayonora to that worry. the upside for you is that you get to enjoy this TOTALLY NEW, TOTALLY EXPERIMENTAL new column, where i go to food events & eat food & vent & yeah...FOODVENTS. [rim shot].

...so last week, i was kind of a high roller. i'm not really one who goes to press events & all but a kind blog buddy named amanda (read her blog yeah you're welcome or die, bitches) turned me on to a TOTALLY EXCLUSIVE heinz ketchup event going on in the city. i was all "hellz yeah. i love me some heinz ketchup." plus, eat!drink!snack! has NOT been giving ketchup its propers. three plus years & one ketchup post (about herr's ketchup chips) prior to this one? unacceptable. anyway. next thing i knew, it was an early evening on a thursday & i was knee deep in ketchup & ketchup-related items.

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nosh nook #99 - thursday, july 30, 2009

the lump sum: washington's best crab cakes (link)
07.29.09 - the washington post - by jane black

ok. true confessions time. in my handful of trips to the d.c./virginia area (still haven't seen baltimore other than from the highway & on the wire), i've still yet to try the area's crab on any of my visits. no steamed crab, no crab legs, no crab cakes. maybe one day i will. i probably should. i hear it's their regional dish & all. funny...during my entire recent trip to chicago, i didn't have a single hot dog either. what's my problem (other than the obvious)?

since they apparently love a challenge, jane black & the washington post food section tried twenty-five different crab cakes as part of a search to "define and discover the best local examples." the most well known ones typically feature lumpy sweet crab with "old bay seasoning, lemon juice herbs and a binder such as eggs, mayonnaise or bread crumbs" for flavor, but there are obviously variations.

of those they tried, the better ones were the ones with jumbo lump meat like those at blacksalt, kinkead's & johnny's (the "more refined" places) & those at jerry's seafood and at g&m (both "more rustic but equally impressive"). these were all relatively straightforward takes on the crab cake, but little variations like the minced jalapeno at blacksalt made for nice additions.

it turns out that the crabs at a lot of these aren't even from the area. the chef at kinkead's gets maryland crabmeat "about eight months a year" & a lot of places get their crabmeat from the gulf coast or the carolinas. those at jerry's come all the way from venezuela, which you'd think would be blasphemy, but both chefs & the post tasters agreed that it's still cool. what was most important to the post tasters? that "they should always taste good." um, i could have told you that.

phew. i made it through that whole thing without making a "got crabs?" joke.