GASTRONORMOUS

Clothilde over at Chocolate & Zucchini writes about her experiment with molecular gastronomy; she makes roasted flour sablé cookies (recipe included!)

There is a story at the Diner’s Journal that discusses the culinary dishonesty (at best–at worst, plagiarism/copyright infringement!) of Cindy McCain (wife of John McCain). It seems she word for word copied recipes from the Food Network website, but represented them as her own “family recipes.” Whoops. The page has been taken down, but shh, you can look at the cached page here.

A soup of stinging nettles [via The Kitchn]? Admitting I have never eaten nettles (though I have been stung by one!), I can’t imagine it is worth all the effort. Reminds me of the fiddle-head ferns I once prepared. Those look like hairy, curled up asparagus, and are toxic unless thoroughly looked. I found the flavor to be indistinct, and not worth the expense, bother (de-hairyizing) and stress (of worrying that I might poison myself if I didn’t cook them properly)!

I have never watched Gossip Girl (well, I sort of tried to once after hearing so much about it, but it bothered me to see 16 year-old characters acting like 30 year-olds), but I will take the sandwich apparently inspired by the show any day. It costs fifty dollars, but just look at it! [via Grub Street]

I love butterscotch! Luckily, Michael Ruhlman does too.

The first time I visited New York (before moving here a year later), an Ex-Pat New Yorker I worked with had given me suggestions of things to do. One thing he told me I had to do was go to Florent in the Meatpacking District. But, he told me, you have to go at 3:00 in the morning. That is the only time to go. This was fifteen years ago, back when the cobblestone streets were still bathed with blood from the industry that gave the nabe its name. Food from Florent was the only thing other than sides of beef and whole pigs being peddled in the area at the time. I followed his advice, and I remember thinking, sitting there eating frites amongst drag queens and strung-out rockers in the middle of the night, “this is the coolest thing I had ever done.” Ha! Sadly, Gothamist food blog reported about Florent closing, but they are going out in their own quirky fashion.