Todd Kliman, food and wine editor
• Slate with a pizza lecture. Thin dough, good toppings, fresh mozzarella. Um, yeah. You’re Doing It Wrong: Pizza
• Think popcorn is some space-age snack? Think again. Researchers have discovered it dates back to at least 4700 BC. Study suggests ancient Peruvians “ate popcorn”
Jessica Voelker, online dining editor
• In February’s Vanity Fair, Bob Colacello revisits the Manhattan of past decades, when the city’s most fashionable women whiled away the afternoon over endless lunches at restaurants like the Colony and La Côte Basque. It’s a shame they wasted all that lovely food (no one really ate, apparently), but the Chanel suits were pretty great. Here’s to the Ladies Who Lunched!
• Fuel Pizza opened its first DC location this week and offered free pizza every week for a year. Meanwhile, in NYC, Steak ’n’ Shake opened its first New York location . . . and offered free burgers every week for a year. Bright Lights, Cheap Burgers
• If you haven’t yet read New York magazine’s “Workplace Confidential” cover story from earlier this month, do yourself a favor and get on that. Such fun reading. One anonymous account comes from a Per Se waiter, who has some good news for germaphobes: “Spitting in the food doesn’t happen. . . . At Per Se, the cooks work 70 or 80 hours a week and make next to nothing, but they work because they want to cook. And to do that to something, to spit in prep work that someone has spent eight hours of work on—blood, sweat, and tears, and all—it’s just not done.” The Per Se Waiter on Diners Who Vomit Up Their $500 Meals
Sophie Gilbert, associate arts editor
• I’m fascinated/mildly obsessed with David Lynch, thanks to Twin Peaks and his utterly bizarre Twitter account. So this, in which he opines for HuffPo Food about the joys of java, is almost a dream come true. Obsessed: Coffee
• NPR road-tests Burger King’s new home-delivery service and isn’t all that impressed. Bringing Home the Fries: Fast Food Comes By Delivery
• Bon Appétit continues its celebrity/food fusion experiment. In this edition, Andrew Knowlton plays fanboy with his “friend Dan” on a food/rock road trip. NBD, you guys. He’s just more rock than you’ll ever be. Eating Nashville’s Best With the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach
• The AP asks how long urban Chinatowns can last as inner-city real estate prices cut many Asians out of the market. Washington’s own Penn Quarter is one obvious example. Urban US Chinatowns wane as Asians head to suburbs
Anna Spiegel, assistant food and wine editor
• Just in case you were out of the loop: Like icing, planking, and Tebowing, cell phone stacking in restaurants is now a “thing.” Or not. Regardless, there’re rules you may need to know. Yes, Cell Phone Stacking Is Now a Thing
• And just in case you were planning on eating McDonald’s and/or processed chicken products this weekend—don’t. No, really. Don’t. Chicken Nuggets Are Made From This Pink Goop.
Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
