Eat Like a Man chronicles Pizza Hut's horrifying, calorific history. Image via Shutterstock.
Foodie Foolishness
The restaurant industry has a great sense of humor, particularly the self-effacing kind. Eater National compiles a roundup of April Fool’s pranks across the nation. House-made water, “No Appetit,” and artisanal air this way. [Eater National] —Anna Spiegel
Well, here’s one way to get fired from a Waffle House. [Gawker] —Jessica Voelker
Joe Englert talks rats, freebies, and other fun aspects of owning a bar. Illustration by Josue Evilla.
Talking Shop
This is really fascinating, mostly because it shows how insanely cheap Trader Joe’s is. Chow compares TJ’s own items to other grocery store staples to try to figure out who’s supplying them. [Chow] —Sophie Gilbert
Oddly Mesmerizing Video of the Week
BuzzFeed investigates what that ambiguous “2,000 calories” on dietary labels actually looks like in food. [BuzzFeed] —Anna Spiegel
Everyone’s least favorite vegan gets a pass during artichoke season. Photograph courtesy of Shutterstock.
Newsy Fare
Twenty gang members in LA have been accused of extorting money from food truck operators—not the ubiquitous taco/pizza/cupcake ones, but the hot dog and coffee food trucks at construction sites. [LA Times] —Sophie Gilbert
How much would you pay for Twinkies? [King 5] —Jessica Voelker
Photograph courtesy of Shutterstock.
Banning Together
A judge ruled that New York mayor Michael Bloomberg cannot ban large sodas. Headline writers responded on cue. The winner: Daily News with, “Suck It!” [Daily Intel] —Shane HarrisChicago representative Luis Arroyo is pushing a ban on lion meat in the city. Guess someone forgot to explain to him the concept of hakuna matata. [Grub Street] —Tanya Pai
As New York City quibbles over the soda ban, Bon App rounds up other food bans around the country. Who knew margarine was illegal in Wisconsin? [Bon Appétit] —TP
Ripped From the Headlines
Dunkin’ Donuts employee in Florida is ridiculously awesome, thwarts an in-store burglary by throwing hot coffee at a robber. She also shouts, “Go run on Dunkin’.” Make this woman a brand ambassador, like, now. [HuffPo] —Sophie Gilbert
Looking for more bad news about bees? Grist has more bad news about bees. [Grist] —Jessica Voelker
Bumblebee Tuna recalls several batches of canned fish because of “loose seals,” and I recall that it’s still two long months until Arrested Development season four comes out. [Grub Street] —Tanya Pai
The Chain Gang
Chelsea Welch, the waitress who was fired after posting a receipt on Reddit, shares her lovely experience working at Applebee’s. [The Guardian] —Todd Kliman
A year after her Olive Garden review went viral, Marilyn Hagerty revisits the land of unlimited salad and breadsticks. [Grand Forks Herald] —Ann Limpert
Last fall, cocktail historian and Washingtonian Philip Greene published To Have and Have Another, a historical account and collection of drink recipes based on the life and work of Ernest Hemingway. It’s a fascinating look at how the author incorporated drinking into his prose, and offers Papa devotees a way to delve deeper into those hauntingly evocative scenes—by making the drinks as the characters might have enjoyed them.
You can catch Greene on Thursday, February 28, at the Watha T. Daniel-Shaw Neighborhood Library, where he’ll be talking about the book and signing copies (a volume is included in the $50 ticket price). There will also be an open bar with two cocktails based on Greene’s research. The event benefits the DC Public Library Foundation. See more details on the Museum of the American Cocktail’s website, and read on for our conversation with Greene about his research process and what Hemingway’s favorite Washington bar might be.
I hear you’re a descendent of Antoine Peychaud of Peychaud’s Bitters, the guy who supposedly invented the Sazerac. True?
In the ’90s my uncle gave me this very cursory family tree, and I ended up finding out that my great-great-grandmother’s name was Marie Louise Peychaud. [Marie Louise was a cousin of Antoine’s.] I sort of became an expert on Antoine. This really gave me the tour into cocktails and got me introduced to the people who run Tales of the Cocktail and the people who were putting together the Museum of the American Cocktail. It was really good timing.
And how did you get into Hemingway?
I’ve been a Hemingway buff since high school. For many years I would read Hemingway, and I would notice the drinks that were mentioned. In 1989 I read Islands in the Stream, and I noticed he was talking about a drink with fresh lime juice, coconut water, Angostura bitters, and gin. I was visiting my girlfriend at the time (now my wife)—her folks have a place down in Florida, and they had a coconut palm tree and a lime tree, and they had gin. I made the drink.
From that point on I just started collecting in my mind and my memory whenever I read a Hemingway book. You know, “Okay, The Sun Also Rises, what’s a Jack Rose?” And then I’d figure out how to make it. In 2008 I did a seminar at Tales of the Cocktail on the drinks of Ernest Hemingway and that made me think: Why not a book?
Brave New World
Who knew the Special K diet involved bloodletting via the gums? [Grub Street]—Jessica Voelker
Whiskey Wars
The millennia-long rivalry between England and Scotland has reached a new battleground: whiskey. [NPR]—Sophie Gilbert
Famous Foodies
Why would human Chia pet Guy Fieri not register his own restaurant’s domain name? You snooze, you lose—and American wins with this fake website.—Tanya Pai
You definitely want to ready Andy Greenwald on the decline of Anthony Bourdain. Here’s how he describes the No Reservations host’s new role on The Taste: “Now he sits on a garishly lit soundstage, defanged like an aging circus lion, ginning up halfway constructive things to say to deluded Capoeira instructors who make ‘food for awesomeness’ when the only reasonable response would be laughter.” [Grantland]—JV
Inaugural Leftovers
What might a hungover First Lady have packed in Sasha Obama’s lunch box the morning after the inaugural festivities? [The Onion] —Ann Limpert
The Obamas’ post-inaugural lunch of lobster with clam-chowder sauce, grilled bison
with huckleberry reduction, and apple pie with sour-cream ice cream seems positively
restrained compared with the 250-foot table of pâtés, game meats, and cakes at
President Lincoln’s fete. [Smithsonian] —AL
DC Represent
The Brixton makes Details Magazine’s list of the best new bars in America, for its “Boddingtons on tap, antler chandeliers, and historical images decorating the walls.” Sounds just like Downton Abbey! [Details] —Sophie Gilbert
America’s favorite dueling men’s mags are all over the guys at ChurchKey/Birch & Barley.
Chef
Kyle Bailey shared his favorite local haunts with
GQ’s Short Order,
while beer oracle
Greg Engert chatted with
Esquire about the craft (by which I mean beer, not the 1996 film starring Fairuza Balk). [Esquire] —Jessica
Voelker
Squid, or something else? This American Life explores a disturbing rumor about everyone’s fave fried app. Photograph courtesy of Shutterstock.
Booze News
This sounds like a great idea! And not at all like a fire hazard! At Chicago’s Red Kiva, you can now freebase your alcohol via the Vaportini. “It’s warm, retains its flavor, and gives an instant, though brief, buzz.” [Time Out Chicago] —Sophie Gilbert
As alcohol levels in wine continue to go up around the world, some winemakers are banging the drum for the cause of “dealcing”—de-alcoholizing their wines to bring them back down to more companionable levels. [Palate Press] —Todd Kliman
Culinary Culture
The DC schools’ food director has left his job after clashing with chancellor Kaya Henderson. [WaPo] —SG
This reminds me of the Todd Barry bit about running into a friend who was heading off to chocolate school in Tahiti. No joke, folks—Gelato University, in Italy. Yeah, the final must be a bitch. [The Economist] —TK
If you missed the premiere of Soul Food Junkies, set that DVR: The PBS doc examines the two sides of an extremely influential cooking tradition. [Grist] —Jessica Voelker
Things are pretty complicated inside the seemingly simple world of kids’ mac and cheese. Smithsonian goes inside the Kraft wars. [Smithsonian] —Anna Spiegel
Culinary Pop Culture
In case you didn’t manage past the Soon-Yi-gives-me-hickeys part of Woody Allen’s essay on hypochondria, he goes on to talk diet: “I never smoke and I watch what I eat, carefully avoiding any foods that give pleasure. (Basically, I adhere to the Mediterranean diet of olive oil, nuts, figs, and goat cheese, and except for the occasional impulse to become a rug salesman, it works.)” [NYT] —Ann Limpert
Everything you've heard about Seattleites and coffee: true. A man there hit up Starbucks after colliding with a city bus. Photograph courtesy of Shutterstock.
Newsy Fare
What fracking is doing to our food. [The Nation] —Todd Kliman
Village Voice Media sells off SF Weekly and Seattle Weekly—pubs with two of the most on-point food writers in the country, Anna Roth and Hanna Raskin—to Black Press entities. [Romenesko] —Jessica Voelker
Meanwhile, here in Washington, the Post nixes the food blog All We Can Eat. Look for food coverage to continue on Going Out Gurus. [WP] —JV
Global Bites
Yo, all you tatted, bicep-flexing chefs who congratulate yourselves for studding your menus with so many offal-y dishes: Get a load at what an offal-laden meal in Japan looks like.[Foodsaketokyo] —TK
McDonald’s pizza in Italy? This may be the worst thing we’ve inflicted on the mother country since the Olive Garden set up that culinary school. [Reuters] —JV
South Carolina restaurant Taco Cid’s employee uniforms are in terrible taste—both for their racist message and for that horrible clashy orange. [Grub Street] —Tanya Pai
