Tag: Food
Cohan, Bourdain in T Style Magazine: Travel
by Michael Yessis | 09.25.06 | 7:05 AM ET
The latest issue of T Style Magazine: Travel in the New York Times features a couple of noteworthy stories. “On Mexican Time” author Tony Cohan immerses himself in the rejuvenated city of Guanajuato, Mexico, and globetrotting chef and television host Anthony Bourdain eats his way through Singapore. “There’s a fever-dream quality to Singapore, particularly if you’re a foodie,” Bourdain writes. “Outdoors, the heat is smothering. In the ubiquitous megamalls, the air-conditioning could frost a bottle of beer. Everyone, it seems, when not shopping for Prada or Armani, is feeding their faces.”
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Yahoo! BuzzThe World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Pool Crashing, Soda Pop and “Pizza Jason”
by Michael Yessis | 09.15.06 | 8:04 AM ET
After last week’s end-of-summer blues and 9/11 remembrances, seems like travelers and armchair travelers are in a happier mood, ready to eat and drink and crash some pools. Where? Looks like the world’s classic destinations are still in style. Here comes your zeitgeist.
Most Viewed Story
World Hum (this week)
* Jason Wilson: One Traveler, Three Dishes Named “Jason”
Most Blogged Travel Story
New York Times (current)
* Los Angeles: Galco’s Soda Pop Store
Destination of the Year
PlanetOut Travel Awards (2006)
* Spain
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
* Rory Stewart’s The Places in Between
Most Viewed Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
* The Art of Pool Crashing in Las Vegas
Cover Story From a Glossy Travel Magazine
Conde Nast Traveler (September issue)
* Insider’s Guide to New York City
Favorite Country for Holidays
Conde Nast Traveller UK Reader’s Poll
* Italy
Most Viewed “Travel & Places” Video
YouTube (this week)
* “Welcome to Aggieland”
Most Popular Site Tagged “Travel”
del.icio.us (current)
* TravelPost’s Airport Wireless Internet Access Guide
The Google “I’m Feeling Lucky” Button Travel Zeitgeist Search
* A happier place than the happiest place on earth
Got something that deserves to be included in next week’s World Hum Zeitgeist? .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Anthony Bourdain’s Beirut Show to Air
by Jim Benning | 08.09.06 | 4:10 PM ET
We’ve written about Anthony Bourdain’s recent experience in Beirut— the globe-trotting chef was there taping an episode of his show No Reservations when fighting broke out. (He was safely evacuated.) At the time, he wasn’t sure whether the episode would ever air. Now comes word that it will indeed be broadcast on the Travel Channel Monday, Aug. 21 at 10 p.m. ET/PT. Remarked the Travel Channel’s Pat Younge, “This special is not about a celebrity chef in peril, but an opportunity to show unique footage of the Beirut that existed before the hostilities broke out—an unfinished portrait of the Beirut that Anthony wanted to show the world.”
Napa Valley, California
by Ben Keene | 08.04.06 | 3:35 PM ET
Coordinates: 38 30 N 122 20 W
Area: 754 square miles (1,953 sq. km)
Bavarian beer baths are fine for some, but the more sophisticated may prefer a Chardonnay massage—a truly intoxicating way to de-stress. Popular among the Parisian upper class in the 18th century, the
long relaxing soak in a barrel of wine once thought to reduce the effects of aging has now become an exfoliating rub-down in the 21st. And California’s Napa Valley, famous for its Mediterranean climate and abundance of wineries (roughly 300), happens to be one of the few places where such a spirited spa treatment can be found. A narrow valley that stretches almost from Mount Saint Helena to San Pablo Bay, Napa Valley actually produces only about 5 percent of California’s total wine.
—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.
De-Politicizing the French Fry
by Terry Ward | 08.03.06 | 9:48 PM ET
Francophile that I am, I was glad to hear a short snippet on the NBC Nightly News yesterday evening mentioning a menu change on Capitol Hill. “Freedom fries” and “freedom toast”—so dubbed on congressional cafeteria menus when tensions rose between Washington and Paris during the looming invasion of Iraq in 2003—have quietly reverted to their original monikers, French fries and French toast. A USA Today blog noted that, back in 2003, Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, angry about France’s anti-war position, “wielded his legislative authority over the House cafeterias and mandated a change of menu, which had been suggested by Republican colleague Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina.” The blog goes on to say that there are no official comments from the hill on the decision to re-Frenchify the names.
Bourdain in Salon: “Watching Beirut Die”
by Michael Yessis | 07.29.06 | 12:04 PM ET
On Wednesday, Anthony Bourdain fielded questions at the Washington Post about his recent experience in Lebanon—he was filming his Travel Channel show “No Reservations” when the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah began. Friday, he wrote a terrific essay about it for Salon. “It’s not what I saw happen in Beirut that I feel like talking about, though that’s what I’m doing, isn’t it?” he writes. “It’s not about what happened to me that remains an unfinished show, a not fully fleshed out story, or even a particularly interesting one. It feels shameful even writing this. It’s the story I didn’t get to tell. The Beirut I saw for two short days. The possibilities. The hope. Now only a dream.” Bourdain’s story has stimulated a flood of letters from Salon readers.
Bourdain: “I’m Feeling a Little Pessimistic About the World These Days”
by Jim Benning | 07.26.06 | 12:40 PM ET
Globe-trotting, show-hosting chef Anthony Bourdain, back safely from Lebanon (where he was filming a Travel Channel show when the conflict began) fielded questions online this morning from Washington Post readers. Asked if a No Reservations episode was in the works based on the trip, he replied: “We’re trying to figure some way to show how beautiful and hopeful Beirut was before the bombing, how terrible a thing it is that happened, what we’ve lost, the pride and hopefulness and optimism that was smashed…It will not be a regular episode of No Reservations.”
Taco Travel is Big News
by Michael Yessis | 07.22.06 | 3:17 PM ET
There’s chaos in the Middle East, heat still grips much of the U.S. and Europe, and Tiger Woods leads the British Open. And at 4:30 p.m ET today the most e-mailed story at the New York Times is ... Chasing the Perfect Taco Up the California Coast. Never underestimate the power of the taco.
How to Find Good Gelato in Italy
by Valerie Ng | 07.21.06 | 6:41 AM ET
Photo by David Turner. No trip to Italy is complete without savoring a little gelato, but all gelato is not created equal. Valerie Ng reveals how to find the best and avoid the mediocre. (Hint: don't let bright colors fool you.)
Anthony Bourdain Evacuated from Beirut
by Jim Benning | 07.20.06 | 5:11 PM ET
Whew. Reuters caught up with the host of the Travel Channel’s Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations on a U.S. Navy ship, where he was reclining on an army cot among hundreds of other evacuees. As we noted earlier this week, the globe-trotting chef was in Beirut with a crew to shoot an episode of his show when the violence began. Bourdain left a very different city than the one he found when he arrived just days ago. “It was paradise, sort of the western dream of the way we’d all like the Middle East to be—enlightened, progressive, multi-cultural, and multi-religious,” he told Reuters. No longer. “I was in love for two days,” he said, “and had my heart broken on the third.” He added: “I feel this awful sense of regret that we were never able to show Beirut as it was. To see everyone’s hopes die and watch the country dismantled piece by piece was very painful. I’m very angry and very frustrated.”
Stefan Gates: “Cooking in the Danger Zone”
by Frank Bures | 07.18.06 | 6:46 AM ET
Food writer Stefan Gates has a stomach stronger than most of us. For his new BBC series Cooking in the Danger Zone, “a series of culinary travelogues filmed in crisis zones around the world,” Gates eats everything from yak penis to scorpion kebabs to silk worm larvae to deer penis juice (not very nice, he says). So far, the show has gotten raves across England. Clips can be found on Gates’ blog and the BBC has some photos. The show starts tonight in the U.K. at 8:30 p.m.
Happy Bastille Day!
by Michael Yessis | 07.14.06 | 3:33 PM ET
I’ll be commemorating the beginning of the French Revolution tonight at a French restaurant here in D.C. with a three-course prix fixe meal that’s an excellent price for so many reasons. That price? $17.89.
Why Am I Searching the World for Mexican Food?
by Jim Benning | 07.10.06 | 6:19 PM ET
I enjoyed seeing a few letters in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle in response to my recent story about eating Mexican food in France. In the piece, I (courageously, I think) came clean about my Mexican food addiction and complained about the curry-flavored fajitas I was served in Lyon. But at least one reader, a Mr. Brown, was not sympathetic to my plight. “If Jim Benning is searching the world for Mexican food, I understand you can find it in Mexico,” he wrote. “Personally, when I go to a foreign country, I try to eat what the locals eat.” Believe me, Mr. Brown, I am not searching the world for Mexican food. I enjoyed many fine French meals in France. The trouble, you see, is that I am a Mexican food addict, owing in large part to my upbringing in Southern California, where seriously excellent taco shops can be found on almost every corner. Now, as an adult, I am powerless when confronted with Mexican food, especially when I’ve gone without for a few days, and even when I know it will be awful. So when I stumbled upon El Sombrero restaurant in Lyon, in I went. And that is when the trouble began. Alas, I suspect this is something only fellow addicts can understand. You are a lucky, lucky man, Mr. Brown. If you suffered from my condition, I know you would be more sympathetic.
Bush, Koizumi and Fried Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwiches for Everyone*
by Michael Yessis | 06.30.06 | 6:22 AM ET
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is such an Elvis fan he’s got to have a fried PB&J for lunch today, doesn’t he? It’s the day he and President George W. Bush say farewell to each other with a trip to Memphis to visit Graceland. Priscilla and Lisa Marie will be their guides. ABC News, among others, has details.
Hanoi Embraces the Colonel
by Terry Ward | 06.26.06 | 6:50 AM ET
Last week, American fast-foot giant KFC opened its first outlet in Vietnam’s capital city, Hanoi. It was a huge hit. “The line was so long Phan Huyen Trang, 26, had to wait 25 minutes for chicken, coleslaw and mashed potato and gravy,” according to a Deutsche Presse-Agentur report. “‘You have to wait for a longer time to have a KFC meal than to have pho,’ Trang complained, referring to the Vietnamese national dish of beef soup with rice noodles.”
Buford, “Heat” at the Post
by Michael Yessis | 06.20.06 | 11:53 AM ET
Foodie travelers can chat with Heat author Bill Buford today at 3 p.m. ET at the Washington Post. Before serving an apprenticeship with Mario Batali in the kitchen of his New York restaurant Babbo, Buford spent time in Italy studying to be a pasta maker and butcher. He chronicles it all in “Heat.” The book has received rave reviews from, among others, the Post, the Onion, Slate and the New York Times. The Los Angeles Times recently profiled Buford and recounted his unlikely journey from New Yorker editor to culinary student. Reported the Times: “[N]ot too many people would have walked out on his job at the New Yorker. Few would have traded such cachet—rubbing shoulders with writers and influencing the national literary conversation—for a set of perilous kitchen knives.” Buford told the newspaper: “These all turned out to be exhilarating experiences. Before this happened, I was on the outside looking in. But now I’m a participant. I feel like I’m part of a culinary tradition.”
Anthony Bourdain on Travel, Vietnam and his “Graham Greene Worldview”
by Jim Benning | 06.14.06 | 4:59 PM ET
Bookslut has posted a terrific interview with the Ramones-loving chef, traveler and TV host. Among the highlights, Bourdain talks about his love of travel in Vietnam and what he calls his “Graham Greene worldview.” He said, “To me The Quiet American is a happy book. I read it every year. It nails Vietnam. It’s still there, that Vietnam. It’s a perfect metaphor, he loves a woman who can never fully love him back. It is a perfect metaphor for colonialism and Western adventurism in the East. I don’t care, I just want to be there.” Elsewhere, he remarked, “Vietnam in particular ruined my whole life. My expectations for what I see when I open my eyes in the morning, or even little things like the condiments on the table when I sit down.” Bourdain is the author of the new book, The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones.
The Rewards of le Big Mac
by Michael Yessis | 06.14.06 | 8:15 AM ET
Rolf Potts’ Traveling Light column about McDonald’s over at Yahoo! has stirred up much conversation in the last few days. That’s what happens, I guess, when you tout the virtues of eating at the Golden Arches while traveling abroad. “Look closely ... and you’ll discover that (despite their placeless ambience) the McDonald’s in far-flung places are culturally discernible from the McDonald’s you’ll find in Modesto or Milwaukee,” he writes. “In India, for example, a McDonald’s serves chicken Maharaja Macs’ instead of Big Macs (due to Hindu and Muslim taboos against beef and pork), and a door-greeter is often available to assist the middle-class clientele. Moreover, as any Pulp Fiction fan will note, Paris McDonald’s offer the option of ordering a frothy beer with le Big Mac.”
Jason Wilson: One Traveler, Three Dishes Named ‘Jason’
by Jim Benning | 06.08.06 | 8:39 PM ET
Never mind his travel-writing accomplishments. Jason Wilson has a breakfast sandwich, a pizza and a dessert named after him in three countries. Go ahead: Be stunned. Jim Benning gets the inside scoop on this rarest of travel feats.
A Journey through “Transfatamerica”
by Michael Yessis | 06.05.06 | 4:53 AM ET
What happens when a big city restaurant critic drives across the country sustaining himself by eating only fast food? I missed Frank Bruni’s story about his trek when it first ran in the New York Times recently, but the International Herald Tribune has it up now and it’s a great read. “My sample period ultimately spanned 9 days, 15 states, 3,650 miles and 42 visits to 35 different restaurants (I hit some more than once),” he writes. “It bequeathed crucial knowledge and invaluable lessons.”