SALON

Friday, Feb 4, 2011 5:02 PM UTC

A peek into the thrilling, exotic diet of a food writer

Or: Everything I ate in the past week. Which is normally a snoozefest, but hey, it's Chinese New Year!

By

Topics: Food traditions, Food,

A peek into the thrilling, exotic diet of a food writerFrancis Lam, all decked out for Chinese New Year

And today, from the Department of Narcissism, here is a recount of almost everything I’ve eaten in the past week — a feature of New York magazine’s Grub Street blog. I’ll be honest: my diet is not nearly as interesting as you might think a food writer’s should be. Many, many nights it’s takeout on the couch while watching reruns of The Office at 11pm. Happily, though, they interviewed me during the much more culinarily-interesting week of Chinese New Year (or the Lunar New Year, so as not to denigrate the many other millions of people who celebrate the holiday but who aren’t, you know, Chinese).

In the interview, you’ll find tidbits of wisdom like this:

Sunday, January 29

I went to lunch with some friends at Hotel Griffou, which is way “cooler” than anyplace I would ever normally go. But my girlfriend is Portuguese, and they started doing this Portuguese brunch. We had the rissois de camarão, which are shrimp turnovers; the pasteis bacalhau, salt-cod fritters; the kale soup; pork and clams; and the baked eggs with chorizo. There was something weirdly delicious about that dish.

Not that I’m suggesting it was frozen food, but it had this fro-mami quality about it. You know, that deliciousness you only associate with frozen food, like when you go to a [crappy] pizza place and get the eggplant parm sub and you know they’re just pulling it out of the freezer, but it’s delicious anyway. That’s fro-mami. I think the food at Hotel Griffou was well prepared, but there was something to it. I had coffee, too. Black.

That night was the Pro Bowl. Watching the Pro Bowl is really admitting your addiction to football. So I was at home, watching the goddamn Pro Bowl. On the stove I had chickpeas stewing in a little bit of wine, soy sauce, kale stems from the other day, carrots and a bunch of other vegetables, and dried shrimp roe, which is another really awesome ingredient.

And

Tuesday, January 31

That night was supposed to be that incredible ice storm of 2011, where you’re stuck inside and you find out all these awful revelations about your girlfriend and you break up. So to prepare for that, my girlfriend and I stayed near home and went to Frankie’s. She had the braised octopus salad — far and away the best thing they have. I had the pork braciola and polenta. Totally great. And they have these prunes. They’re stewed in red wine and come with mascarpone. Totally delicious, with this cinnamon-y red-wine reduction.

Then we went home and waited for the ice storm and the revelations, but neither really happened.

For more of this inanity — and what one eats for Chinese New Year — check out the full story here.

 

Francis Lam is Features Editor at Gilt Taste, provides color commentary for the Cooking Channel show Food(ography), and tweets at @francis_lam. More Francis Lam.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 5 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations