As much as ELV would love to have you believe he is the be all and end all in all things culinary, occasionally he is forced to recognize excellence far beyond his mortal skills.
Just such superiority in food photography hit ELV like an udon noodle in the face when he gazed upon the amazing pictures on this website.
As for the blogger/photographer’s food knowledge…well, as you’ll read, the guy simply doesn’t know what he’s talking about…
This Labor Day weekend, the Slow Food Movement, that began in Bra, Italy in 1986, will invade San Francisco for three days of ponderous preaching, locavore lectures, esoteric eating, and sustainable agriculture.
It couldn’t have picked a better place than that bastion of food snobbery and imperious attitudes about all things culinary. While the Slow Food Movement pretends to be about getting back to the land and savoring life, it’s pretty much been adopted by elite restaurateurs and purveyors of expensive vittles as a way to strut their stuff.
Our buddy, Steven “The Fat Guy” Shaw. founder of www.egullet.org, perfectly encapsulates the criticisms of this “movement” when he equates people who attend Slow Food events with “…the guys in college who go to protests just to meet girls. They couldn’t care less about the ideology.”
Guilty as charged.* What’s your point Steven? I mean if you get that many food snobs in one place, something tasty is bound to happen, right?
Read more about this future weekend of dilettante delights in this New York Times article.
As for me, I subscribed to the Slow Food Journal a few years ago, and decided the whole concept was just about trying to make rich white people feel good about themselves (sorta like Whole Foods, only with denser prose.)
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* On both counts. Attending anti-war protests in the early ’70’s was my standard MO to meet hot, hippie chicks…although my chinos, Topsiders, and polo shirts (not to mention the Nixon/Agnew button I proudly sported) usually made them less than enthusiastic about having casual sex with me.
Shhhhhh…Don’t tell anyone (let’s just keep this a secret between ourselves shall we?), but two mega-fabulouso chefs are coming to Las Vegas.
Pierre Gagnaire is close to (or has) inked a contract with MGM-Mirage’s CityCenter to open an outpost in the Mandarin Oriental slated to open there next year. Gagnaire is the chef-owner of his eponymous, Michelin 3-star restaurant on the Rue Balzac in Gay* Paree. He also runs outposts in Tokyo and Hong Kong where late last year he fed us the most expensive lunch we’ve ever had atop the Mandarin Oriental in that amazing city….a place where the name just seems to fit a bit better, wouldn’t you agree?
Terrance Brennan of Picholine and Artisanal fame (two of our faves in NYC), will be coming to the Echelon project – probably the Shangri-La.** Brennan has been instrumental in the resurgence of artisanal cheeses in America, and Picholine (as in olive), his Michelin-starred restaurant on the Upper West Side of Manhattan has been a foodie mecca since the mid-90’s.
In honor of these announcements, this might be a good time to explicate on what makes Gagnaire’s food so fabulous. Click here for my article – written for www.JohnMariani.com – on my meal at Pierre TT (don’t ask me what that funky TT means – a “P”? Pi? A pie? – but’s it’s on all the matchbooks) in Hong Kong. The article is also Part Three of a travelogue I did on my memorable meals in that strange and wonderful city.
Click here and here for Parts One and Two of Eating Hong Kong.
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* As in: excited with merriment and delight
** All prophesies made by ELV come with the Easterbrook Guaruntee: All predictions true or your money back!