chez pim

Pairing Wine with Thai Food

Days late, real life is taking over blogging life again, but hopefully still ok. Alberto and Lenn, creators of two of the most infectious memes in Food Blogosphere, Is My Blog Burning and Wine Blogging Wednesday, joined forces to host a food blog meme to end all memes, where food bloggers are supposed to blog about wine, and wine bloggers to talk about food.

Well, I fully intended to join, but other eventful events caught up with me and so I am days late....not that's my being late is new or anything. Anyway, here is my entry for Fabulous Favorites.

Instead of recommending one particular wine with a specific dish, I'm going to take this opportunity to answer the most frequent wine question from Chez Pim readers: what wine to drink with Thai food?

Frankly, Thai food –with rampant spices, out of control heat, bitter herbs, cloying sweetness, sometimes all of those qualities in one dish- makes for a rather tough match with wine. But don't despair, good matches are not beyond the realm of possibility. I mean, if Tom Cruise can make a baby, then anything is possible, no?

Megnut has *really* gone food blog

Earlier this month I posted a link on Bite This! (look on the right sidebar) joking that Megnut has gone food blog. Her recent content has mostly been about food. Then imagine my surprise when last week I went to Megnut and found that she really has gone food blogging!

She announced a relaunch of Megnut, now all food, all the time!

For those who don't know, Meg is one of the founders of Blogger, and one of the cool kids whose trail I followed into blogosphere years ago. Welcome to the strange little world of food blogging, Meg. You're going to have so much fun here!

Alan Richman goes to Chicago

Alan Richman goes to Chicago and pronounces it the 2nd city no more.

"Something is happening in Chicago, where most of us believe nothing unexpected ever takes place. It’s revelatory and special, a likely new direction for American food."

Check out his article, it might inspire you to take a flight to Chicago for a meal or two, or three.

And what about me, you asked? Well, I'm packing my bag for Paris, leaving in just over a week.

Frankly, I have no opinion on the three restaurants Mr.Richman wrote about: Alinea, Moto, and Avenues. I remain curious about Grant Achatz's Alinea, though still haven't managed a meal there yet. I ate Grant Achatz's food at Trio and had a lovely meal. Reports from friends who have been to Moto are mixed, but I am a little curious about that place too. I'm completely agnostic on Avenues.

P.S. Joy and Fatimeh went to Alinea and both went gaga over Grant's food, by the way.

The Fabulous Girls' Guide to Eating Local

If you're a regular reader on the food blog circuit, I'm sure you've heard an earful about this month's Eating Local campaign. I know just what you think, who needs the crunchy granola types telling us how to be fabulous?

No worries, fabulous girls of the world, Chez Pim, the poster child of shallowfabulousness, is coming to the rescue. No, I'm not going to tell you to eat local to save the environment, support local farmers and artisans, or reduce our dependant on oil. None of that boring altruistic stuff I tell you.

Yes, yes, of course, eating locally grown or produced foods will do all of that good stuff, but it's hardly helping us, is it? No, girls, I'm telling you to do this out of our straight, unadulterated self-interest. Trust me on this. It's going to be so, well, fabulous.

.......

This post continues at the Eat Local Challenge blog.

tag(s):food|Eat Local

This day is without food blogs: participating food bloggers

Here's a list of food bloggers who have joined up to make today the day without their food blogs.

Accidental Hedonist
Farmgirl Fare
David Lebovitz
Becks and Posh
Tigers and Strawberries
Lucullian delights
eatstuff
Kalyn's Kitchen
Away from Home
Cooking 101
Fresh Approach Cooking
The Wednesday Chef

This day is without food blogs

The sky is falling. Yes, I'm not just being Chicken Little. The sky is falling. And hardly anyone is looking. That's what kills me.

A huge change is brewing in the US Congress, fueled by lobbyists from large telephone companies and service providers. If these lobbyists are successful then the face of the Internet that we know and love will change forever.

From the NY Time's Editorial Desk May 2,2006:

"One of the Internet's great strengths is that a single blogger or a small political group can inexpensively create a Web page that is just as accessible to the world as Microsoft's home page. But this democratic Internet would be in danger if the companies that deliver Internet service changed the rules so that Web sites that pay them money would be easily accessible, while little-guy sites would be harder to access, and slower to navigate".

But access to the Internet is not exactly equal now, is it? People pay for varying speed of connection to the Internet, dial-up, DSL, T1, etc. Those with more money can access the Internet at much faster speed than those with less. That's what you think, yes?

What fish is this?

It came from Portugal. Line caught. Six kilos in all. It took less than 48 hours from the time it came out of the water to its arrival at Manresa's kitchen door. Shipped in a special cool container, it never had direct contact with ice. That would have been ruinous to the delicate, precious flesh. Chef broke it down and cooked every single piece himself, on a pan, slowly basting with plenty of butter.

That simple. That's the glory of this fish. It hardly needs any intervention.

Two pieces made it home with David tonight. This is not exactly fitting in with my Eat Local campaign this month, I know, but I never said I'd eat exclusively local. And there's not a chance I'm turning this thing down. What is it? Do you know?

'Le Making' of Chop Talk, or Chez Pim in Style

Taking a page from Pascale and Le Making of her cookbook, I'm doing a little post on Le Making of Chop Talk. Oh come now. Don't give me that line about tooting my own horn again. It's not every day a girl finds herself all prettied up in the T Magazine. So pardon my glee but DID YOU SEE ME THERE IN THE NY TIMES??

Wild speculations in the hinterland known as food forums go from the silly to the absurd. Even notes of congratulations here and elsewhere want some questions answered. Why was it in the Style section and not the Dining section? Are those people really your friends or are they models? Was that devil in the blue dress really me or someone hired for the occasion? So, here are your answers.

It all started one day in early January, Christine Muhlke from the Times asked if I'd be interested in doing a little entertaining for her paper. It'd all be pretty simple, she said. None of that overstyled [insert food magazine here] business, she said. Of course I said yes. Yes, Please, actually. (Might I repeat is THE NY TIMES?)

So we picked a date that's convenient to them, less so for me as we were in the middle of moving purgatory -but it's for THE..ok you got the picture- so we moved the location to Gary's über stylish house perched atop the Berkeley Hills.

Chez Pim in..umm..the New York Times!

The best pig roast - bar none

Ingredients:
One 100-pound pig on the spit
One enchanted garden
One breezy Santa Cruz evening
One Pacific ocean shimmering just over there
Friends, old and new

Mix all of those together and what do you get? The best pig roast ever. Well, o.k., the best pig roast ever in my very limited pig roasting experience.

The day before the roast, the two hosts Chris and Hugh drove thirty miles up the gorgeous California coast to Half Moon Bay to pick up the pig from Bar None Ranch. (It's May and it's Eat Local month, remember?) They chose a gorgeous black Birkshire pig from the line-up, and the people at the ranch did the rest. Hugh called her Henrietta.

They took her back to Hugh's cottage on the coast, stuffed her with Chorizo, got her tied up for the spit before rigor set in, and put her in Hugh's bathtub full of ice to wait for the party the next day. Can you imagine going to the bathroom with a dead pig all tied up in your tub? Emily, Chris's wife, said it was quite a scene from a horror movie. Lucky the guy with a ski mask and power saw didn't come crashing through the door in the night.