Big Pickles

Quick, what's the first thing that pops into your head when someone mentions cooking and NPR? For me, it's a certain dessert--which shall remain nameless because my mother sometimes reads this blog--made famous by Alec Baldwin on SNL's Delicious Dish. If you're familiar with this particular sendup, you know that the humor lies in the fact that cooking segments on NPR can come across as a little, well, bland.

So it's with great surprise that I find myself seduced by an occasional guest on the station, Nigella Lawson. I've heard her talk about her cooking a few times before, and after this morning's segment, I finally decided to find out more about her.

You know that episode of Scrubs where J.D. asks out a girl stuck in an MRI machine without ever seeing what she looks like, and then rejoices when he finally sees that she is smokin' hot? That's sort of how I felt when I saw a picture of Nigella Lawson. I was already smitten by her voice, but I imagined her to be much older and look like Julia Child or something. Maybe because she speaks the Queen's English, I expected something closer to the queen. Anyway, let's just say I was presently surprised.

Labels: food, radio

There is a Hyatt Regency hotel at the DFW airport that used to be an Amfac. When I was a kid our family went there for an all-you-can-eat buffet. It must have been some kind of event with my dad's work.

I was probably about seven or eight, I just know that I had recently discovered shrimp. My parents used to dump a couple of pounds of shrimp in a big bowl of ice and eat shrimp cocktail while watching TV. They would share with us kids, but I could never get enough.

That buffet was my chance to eat all the shrimp I wanted. And I did. I ate so much shrimp that I spent the car ride home curled up in the fetal position, afraid that each bump would make me barf. I felt so sick. But I'd do it again, because I love shrimp.

This guy knows what I'm talking about.

Labels: food

It's amazing how we will do stuff in the context of a game--especially video games--that would just be work in real life.

To wit, How To End Childhood Obesity.

I'm sure it would work, too. My mom has these Crystal Light drinks with "immunity" on the label and my kids go nuts for them. Because it's like something a video game character would drink.

Labels: food, games

Clive Thompson compares the Weight Watchers diet to Role-Playing Games (games like Dungeons & Dragons, The Legend of Zelda, or World of Warcraft). In those games, and similar games like The Sims, you spend a lot of time doing menial, repetitive tasks in pursuit of a larger goal, and that's kind of like what counting calories is like. Plus you get better at learning strategies to maximize your fullness per points and stuff, just like a game. I can totally see it.

Incidentally, the reason I don't do WW is the same reason I avoid online RPGs like WoW. The games can be addicting, and I find that WW causes me to obsess about food to a degree that seems--I don't know--unhealthy.

Labels: food, games

Very interesting (and long) piece in the New York Times on food and the advent of "nutritionism."

Unfortunately, the bulk of my diet is comprised of highly processed items that, in Michael Pollan's estimation, hardly qualify as food.

"There are a great many foodlike items in the supermarket your ancestors wouldn’t recognize as food (Go-Gurt? Breakfast-cereal bars? Nondairy creamer?); stay away from these."

Oh well, there's always Lean Cuisine, right?

"Avoid even those food products that come bearing health claims. They’re apt to be heavily processed, and the claims are often dubious at best... When Kellogg’s can boast about its Healthy Heart Strawberry Vanilla cereal bars, health claims have become hopelessly compromised."

Oh no!

Labels: food

I want to try this recipe but I don't have one of those big soup pots.

Labels: food, fun

This guy collected samples of all different kinds of food in 200 Calorie portions, took pictures of them, and then posted them in order of Calorie density. Nothing we didn't already know, of course, but it's an interesting visual.

Labels: food