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Monday, October 5, 2009
Alton Brown brings blend of weird science, cooking to Whole Foods
To celebrate the show’s 10th anniversary, Brown has published “Good Eats: The Early Years,” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $37.50) which chronicles the first 80 episodes with recipes and tips written in Brown’s signature funny-man style.
From 1 to 4 p.m. on Oct. 18, Brown will be in Austin to sign copies of the book at Whole Foods Market, 525 N. Lamar Blvd. To get books signed, they must be bought from BookPeople, which will sell them at its store at 603 N. Lamar Blvd. and inside Whole Foods during the event.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Cookbooks, Playing with your food
UPDATE: Cake Wrecks event at BookPeople, Jester beer tasting canceled
UPDATE: Due to illness, the Cake Wrecks event last night was canceled due to sickness.
Also, if you were planning to go to the Jester King beer tasting at the Draught House on Thursday, it also has been canceled.
If you thought the first birthday cake you made for your mom when you were a kid looked goofy, check out the disasters posted on Cake Wrecks, a photo blog of cakes gone awry.
Jen Yates, founder of the site, just published a collection of the worst of the worst, “Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong,” and will host a talk and cake contest at 3 p.m. on Oct. 4 at BookPeople, 603 N. Lamar Blvd.
To enter the contest, bring in a “wreckplica” of a cake gone wrong on a cupcake. RSVP for the event here.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Playing with your food
Hot Links: McDonald’s in the Louvre, ‘Top Chef’ casting in Dallas
McDonald’s strikes not once, but twice. Last week, the fast food chain was one of hundreds of Texas restaurants who participated in the Go Texan Restaurant Round-Up, which touted eateries’ use of Texas products. Texas beef may have been on the menu, but Cake Austin wasn’t fooled by this very mixed message.
And what better than the golden arches to complement the Louvre’s iconic glass pyramid? This fall, McDonald’s will open a restaurant in an underground shopping complex within one of the most famous museums in the world.
Everyone from Robb Walsh to Corby Kummer is chiming in on the loss of Gourmet, the National Geographic of food magazines. A stunned and sad Ruth Reichl and staff have 48 hours to pack up and leave. “Sorry not to be posting now, but I’m packing,” she tweeted. Tyler Florence hints that he thought the magazine was “too Gourmet.”
Bravo announced its seventh season of “Top Chef,” with a Dallas casting date of Nov. 11 at Abacus.
By now, most of you have probably recovered from the three-day madness that is the Austin City Limits Festival, but have you gotten over all that bad beer you probably drank? Liquid Austin blogger Patrick Beach did his part to try to convince the organizers of the event that 65,000 people a day deserve better than Lone Star and Tecate.
Austin food photographer Penny De Los Santos’ gorgeous South Austin home, whose light-filled kitchen was designed specifically for food photography, was featured on Design Sponge last week. Don’t overlooked the recipe for spicy radish salad, an incredible dish from Austinite Rachel Lomas.
Did this Los Angeles waiter get fired after tweeting about celebrities’ orders and bad tipping habits?
To promote their new national food blog, Eater offered $25 to the first 25 food bloggers to quit their blogs. Nothing like alienating your readers, Eater.
To curb childhood obesity, New York City schools put a stop to bake sales at schools. Forty percent of elementary and middle school kids in that school district are considered overweight.
“Whip It,” Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut, was a flop, according to Statesman movie critic Chris Garcia, but WastedFood.com writer Jonathan Bloom is more upset at the amount of food wasted in this food fight scene.
McDonald’s photo illustration by Eat Me Daily. Radish photo by Penny De Los Santos.
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After 68 years, Gourmet magazine to close after Nov. issue
What a day for food news.
The New York Times is reporting that Gourmet magazine will cease publication after the November issue. After 68 years as one of the best food magazines around (the most recent 10 years with food powerhouse Ruth Reichl as editor), this news is a sad reminder of the changing times.
Yes, the economy is bad, but magazines have been struggling for a while. Ad sales are down. Subscriptions are down. Free content is everywhere, but you can’t find the quality of photography and articles published in Gourmet just anywhere. Especially in Bon Appetit, the “other” food magazine Conde Nast owns.
Few in the industry thought that Conde Nast could continue to publish two food magazines for much longer, but many put their bets on the less-prestigious (and to me, less engaging and enjoyable to look at) Bon Appetit. But when you look at the other food publications out there — Cooking Light, Eating Well, Saveur, Food + Wine, Every Day with Rachael Ray and even the Food Network’s magazine — readers want quick bites, tips, low-fat recipes and dinners they can cook in less than 20 minutes.
Gourmet just released “Gourmet Today,” a collection of more than 1,000 new recipes for “how we cook today.” A great concept and a fine book, I’m sure, but I haven’t seen it. Budget cuts must have forced them to reduce the number of review copies they sent out. (We haven’t received review copies of the magazine in a long time, but I subscribed anyway.)
It’ll be interesting to see what Reichl, a former New York Times restaurant critic, does next. She has a series on PBS that is supposed to air this fall and has had success with her memoirs, but what do you do after 10 years at the helm of the world’s most elegant food magazine?
UPDATE: It appears Gourmet will continue in book publishing and television programing. From an e-mail quoted on LA Observed:
Gourmet magazine will cease monthly publication, but we will remain committed to the brand, retaining Gourmet’s book publishing and television programming, and Gourmet recipes on Epicurious.com. We will concentrate our publishing activities in the epicurean category on Bon Appétit.
As if the news of Gourmet closing wasn’t enough to digest this morning, the Federal Trade Commission announced that starting December 1, bloggers must disclose freebies or payments they get from companies in exchange for reviewing their products.
From AP: “It is the first time since 1980 that the commission has revised its guidelines on endorsements and testimonials, and the first time the rules have covered bloggers. But the commission stopped short Monday of specifying how bloggers must disclose any conflicts of interest.”
This is an interesting ruling that will without a doubt affect the food blogging community. Violators could face up to $11,000 in fines, but I’d really like to know who is going to be perusing the millions of blogs to find out who is breaking the rules.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment Categories: Chewing the fat, Food in the news
