Epifurious

Because We Are Very Lazy

...aaaaaaaaand we're back!

Ulrike and I work in Midtown Manhattan, which is a magical part of a magical island that is nearly devoid of edible food.  Well, that's not exactly true, but when it's summer and the tourists are swarming, one doesn't always want to leave the office at lunch.  And oft-times, we have both neglected to bring a lunch. 

What to do?  Well, there are a couple of options.  One is to make a "lunch" out of candy from the vending machine.  Though an alluring option, my new NO HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP EVER diet prevents me from eating almost everything from the vending machine.  Another option is to starve.  This option is terrible.  There is ordering from Green Symphony, which is one of the most delicious restaurants ever, full of tasty, healthy, mainly vegetarian lunch items and healthful smoothies.  They are nice, and they take cards.

But this last option, the most enticing of the bunch, still has a problem:  you have to talk to a human.  Now if you are like me, you try to minimize all human contact.  What with the iPhones and the IMs and the Facebooks, you can carry on a whole life's worth of communication without ever actually using your precious, easily strained voice box.  Save that for singing! 

And now, thanks to the power of the Internest, it's possible to order food without ever talking.  Yes, that's right.  SeamlessWeb, this invention is called.  Basically, you go online and type in your zipcode and then it tells you all the restaurants around you that are available through their site.  You order your food, specify options and so forth, and put in your credit card.  Swiftly, food is on its way.  And no bothersome cash or cash tip. It's all automated, what with the credit cards and the e-mails and such.  Easy!

If you are in Midtown West, I'd suggest Vizio's bison burgers, or Akdeniz's almost anything.  Delish.

Yay for futuristic robot computer website internet!

Lesson From The Past

Don't Drown Your Food!

The Cutest Men In the World!

Bittman and Batali! Watch the adorable video.
Also, maybe risotto is worth making after all.  Who knew?

Laid-Back Risotto - New York Times.

You've Got a Friend

Is your MySpace profile kinda lonely?  Just hanging out with Tom, a couple of people from high school you never were actually friends with?  Me neither.  I've got hundreds of my dearest, closest, most accomplished friends lavishing me with wonderful testimonials and uploading adorable pictures of me doing cute things.

But if you are looking for a very special friend, check this out!

The Arepa lady!  She may not have a phone, but she has a MySpace page!  Showtime synergy!

Ceci-Cela: Not So Much

As part of my new “I’m a writer” campaign, I’ve purchased a new laptop (the old one was just so full of memories, and had no battery life besides), and have been carrying it around for “writing sessions” after work.  My house, after all, is a formidable opponent to accomplishment.

Last week, I went to Falai Panetteria, a tiny Italian café.  It was empty and allowed me to linger for hours, nursing the same cappuccino and panino.  They even refilled my water, which was a kindness almost too much to bear.  I read the next day on Gawker about their notorious bad service.  I told Cesar Chavez, who had suggested the coffeehouse on the corner of Rivington and Clinton about my great experience there.  “No, I said it was near Clinton and Rivington.  You went to Falai?  Yum.  But they let you sit there??”

In any case, I thought briefly about returning there, but all the reports of surliness made me nervous that my halcyon writing session had been anomalous, and I would return to a sour-faced waitress tossing a check onto my computer before the foam had cooled on my coffee. I decided to venture farther afield.
After work, I asked Ulrike where I should go to write. I had previously decided to settle on the Starbucks nearest my work, since it would not have free internet and was close to the subway.  This now seemed bleak. 

JONATHAN GOLD -- PULITZER FINALIST!!! DEVELOPING...

                                                               

We had to put up the siren here at Epifurious, because it's been leaked that one of our favorite food writers is a Pulitzer finalist.  The man who taught Los Angeles how to eat is rumored to be among the Pulitzer finalists honored on April 16th.  This news was met with some strong reactions around the office.  "That makes me want to eat something RIGHT NOW.  Like just grab a vietnamese sandwich and jam it in my face,"  cried one elated fan.  "Counter Intelligence was like Leaves of Grass for Los Angeles in the early 2000s," another opined.  "Suck it, Sietsema,"  was all one surly LA ex-pat needed to say.

Our Continuing Program To Educate You For A Future of Quality Foodservice

If working at Wendy's isn't quite your speed, there's always McDonald's!
Surliness with a Scowl, circa 1972.

Don't adopt a "don't care" attitude to this wonderful clip! Second part after the jump.

Be careful! Courtesy is more contagious than the flu!

"Crap" Puffs and Other Delights

So, now that the election seems like a distant memory, I'm finally getting around to writing the post about it. I have so many excuses. Good ones, too! I went to a wedding. I wrote many papers for the grad school I like to pretend I'm not attending. I had a lot to drink on at least four five occasions (election night included). I went to the Harvard Club (so many old men in one place! I thought I had died and gone to heaven). I wrote an etiquette column. I had to recover from some angry letters about said etiquette column. I played Scrabble. I read The Truth About Diamonds. I feel a little ashamed about that last one, but it's true. I was stuck in an airport! I had no other options, save a textbook about archiving practices. You would have done the same. So, as you can see, I've been rather busy. But now I'm back, ready to regale you with tales about the Bushes and the Mondales, and their terrible (but sometimes frighteningly delicious) ideas about food. After much debate, and the discovery that it's impossible to find chow mein noodles in New York (at least the La Choy, "Chinese" chicken salad kind, which is clearly what the Mondales had in mind), we put together a menu.

Clownin' Around

I don't know quite what to say.  Almost seems too easy:

HOMEGOODS - KITCHEN - BUTTER BOY.

Walter "Fritz" Mondale, Pimento Lover

In the spirit of vintage food photos, and election season, I think it's time to pull out the Mondale Family Cookbook. Come Tuesday, it will be going head to head with the Bush Family Cookbook in an election night bakeoff/extravaganza. We've carefully selected recipes from each book, and though our partisan leanings may have influenced our choices, we'll try to make it a fair fight.

Walter Mondale may have been too good for us, what with his honesty about taxes and his choice of running mate, but his cookbook (and I really hate to say this) leaves a lot to be desired. Written by his wife, Joan, and published in 1984 as part of his presidential campaign, it starts out so nicely:

What a LOVELY cover. The vegetable bounty is inspiring. And I like how they've tried to hide the turkey behind a mountain of cabbage and green beans. "Look!" they're saying, "We read Diet for a Small Planet too!" Most of all, though, I love the disaffected, patrician children. The son on the left looks positively sinister. But the recipes, oh the recipes! In their defense, it was 1984. In 1984, I was eating ramen with hot dogs, and mandarin oranges from tins. But did they really have to include the recipe for "Fettucine a la Pimento Mondale," or the "Creme Brulee" that calls for instant pudding mix? After the jump, the Mondales redeem themselves, slightly.