I like it, but this guy really really loves it.

Recent Heathen fave neighborhood restaurant Feast has just bagged some national press from NYT’s Frank Bruni. How cool is that?

Someone made a Taco Town taco. Yes, the one from SNL. With “a taco in a taco in a gordita in a pizza in a blueberry pancake in batter, deep fried.” Yep.

Oh god.

If you, in the course of the holiday season, were to be gifted with some fine Imperial-pint sized beer glasses by certain Jackson-area attorneys, and were then to, after a post-holiday period of abstention, acquire some fine, fine beer to enjoy in said glasses, two things might come to mind:

1. “Goodness me! This beer is actually much better in the pint glass, owing probably to the greater ability to smell the beer!”; and

2. “Why, as God as my witness, it seems a crime against humanity and Christendom that modern beers are served in such paltry 12-oz bottles; my fine Imperial Pint glasses have room for much more beer than that!”

That is all.

Ladies and Gentleheathen, I give you the Bacon Explosion.

Whoa. I think I had a little heart attack just reading about that.

The Foodie at Fifteen blog’s most recent entry recounts the author’s third trip to Per Se, wherein he blew the last of his summer job money.

Dude. All I bought was a guitar and some weed. Also, I didn’t eat any of Keller’s food until I was 30. Go read this; it’s delightful. And not at all overdone; if Per Se is on par with Keller’s other kitchen, if anything this kid undersells the experience.

Whoa.

Who knew there was a BaconToday web magazine? Its hard-hitting coverage of the Turbaconducken earns it a bookmark on our desktop for sure.

Compared to Jeremy Clarkson’s Top Gear V-8 Blender, at least.

Via Joe, we find this excellent snapshot, clearly taken a long, long way from where Bob got that T-shirt.

In 1998, Corning sold the Pyrex brand to World Kitchen, and it appears that around then Pyrex sold in the US stopped being made out of borosilicate glass; instead, now it’s conventional soda lime glass. Borosilicate composition is the sine qua non of Pyrex; Pyrex was Pyrex — which is to say, able to go from oven to cooktop to freezer with no danger of breakage — because it was borosilicate, not normal tempered glass. Pyrex made form conventional glass just isn’t the Pyrex we all came to know in the years prior to 1998.

It’s a worse problem, actually, than the obvious, i.e. a sudden drop in quality. People buy Pyrex pan with the expectation that they can bake a chicken in it, but the new Pyrex pans just might spontaneously shatter (with some force!) under such heating. Needless to say, both Corning and World Kitchen would very much like everyone to shut up about this, but thankfully Consumer Affairs hasn’t, and won’t.

Bottom line: Do not buy Pyrex. Find a supplier who actually make borosilicate glass if you want what Pyrex used to be.

Apparently, Satan dwells in Google’s kitchen. I can’t imagine how this fits in with their famous corporate motto.

(Via Mrs Heathen)

Apparently, in NY, you can get ostrich eggs at Whole Foods.

Let’s say you love pizza. I mean, you really, really love the stuff. But suddenly you move away from your favorite pizza places in NYC, and find yourself in Atlanta, and what’s a guy to do? It goes without saying that non-northeastern ‘Za is simply unacceptable, so clearly you embark on a wild and obsessive pursuit of awesome pizza made at home.

I’m not talking about the shallow end of the pool, either. This guy’s got strong opinions on flour types, on the fermenting of dough, on kneading technique, on blenders, and, most significantly, how to modify your home oven so it’ll go to 800 degrees, since cooking pizza at 475 just won’t cut it.

(Confidential to Mrs Heathen: I remain perfectly happy getting ours from Dolce Vita or Pink’s. I have no need to modify the Jennair.)

No one can hack a Chemex. I don’t have one, but was frankly just before getting one when Mrs Heathen gave me my Bodum vac pot.

Chicago has abandoned its wrongheaded foie gras ban.

“Maple Bacon Lollipops.”

How about a canned cheeseburger?

The Edible Martini.

We note with annoyance that as yet, no one has given us any absinthe. Please rectify.

On December 5, 1933, Prohibition ended when Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment.

We have fruitcake.

Via Frank, enjoy the tale of the St. Sixtus monks and the best beer in the world.

The meddlesome state of Tennessee may destroy a cache of vintage Jack Daniel’s on account of its nebulous tax status.

Damned revenuers.

“That was a dumb move, wasn’t it?” Yes, Rob, eating a million-Scoville Jolokia raw does probably qualify you for some sort of Darwin award, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to grow some of our own.

That’s really the only conclusion we can make from this item, forwarded by PDX Heathen Bureau Chief Rob:

Hardee’s on Monday rolled out its new Country Breakfast Burrito — two egg omelets filled with bacon, sausage, diced ham, cheddar cheese, hash browns and sausage gravy, all wrapped inside a flour tortilla. The burrito contains 920 calories and 60 grams of fat.

and

In 2003 the chain introduced a line of big sandwiches, including the Monster Thickburger. The 1,420-calorie sandwich is made up of two 1/3-pound slabs of beef, four strips of bacon, three slices of cheese and mayonnaise on a buttered bun.

more

“We don’t try to hide what these are,” [Hardee’s spokesperson Haley] said. “When consumers go to other fast-food places they feel like they’ve got to buy two of their breakfast sandwiches or burritos to fill up. This is really designed to fill you up.”

The government’s Center for Nutritional Policy and Promotion recommends a daily caloric intake ranging from 1,600 calories for sedentary women and older adults to 2,800 calories for teenage boys and active adults.

Jebus.

BoingBoing shows us how to bake cookies in your car. Amusing note: you can’t visually check for doneness, since the lower car temperature won’t caramelize the sugars and turn the cookies brown.

Christopher Walken, celebrity chef. No, really. Via Rob.

Shockingly, we don’t think we’ve had any of these, though Mrs. Heathen noticed Ommegang Hennepin on tap at Kramerbooks in DC last weekend. (We’ve certainly had beers from some of these producers — Dogfish, Rogue, Full Sail, Sam Adams — but not these specific offerings.)

Employees communicate with condiments.

Tony Bourdain smacks the Food Network chefs. We agree.

The NYT discusses really, really, really fresh eggs.

Mr. Barber, the chef and an owner of Blue Hill in Greenwich Village and Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills in Westchester County, had just been introduced to the wonders of eggs that are described, with varying degrees of delicacy, as immature, unborn, unlaid or embryonic. In plain English, these are eggs that have not been laid and are sometimes discovered when an elderly laying hen is slaughtered.

David Chang of Momofuku Noodle Bar in NYC takes no shit from the veggie hordes:

Back before Momofuku Noodle Bar was a certified hit, before it won widespread critical acclaim, before there was a rabble of foodies parked outside its door every night at 5:30 sharp, clamoring to get in, Chang remembers receiving a phone call. “It was a lady who said she was a vegetarian,” he says, “and that she got something to go, and there was broth on the side, and she drank it.”

“I said, ‘We don’t have any vegetarian broths,’ and she said, ‘Well, you should, and anyway, somebody said it was,’ and I said, ‘Well, that must have been a miscommunication.'”

“You can’t do this to the vegetarians!” the lady bellowed, before threatening to sue Chang and put Momofuku Noodle Bar out of business.

“I got so pissed off,” says Chang.

So pissed off, in fact, that the very next day, in a public-relations gambit that would give Danny Meyer night sweats, Chang and his co-chef, Joaquin Baca, removed every vegetarian dish from the menu (back then there were still a few) except the ginger-scallion noodles. (Emph. added.)

“We added pork to just about everything else,” says Chang, giggling like a schoolgirl.

“We said, ‘Fuck it, let’s just cook what we want.‘””

Word.

Heh. The DallasFood web site takes on a firm claiming — fraudulently, as it turns out — to be actual chocolate makers.

Noka had hoped to establish itself as a superpremium confectioner, with prices far, far north of folks like Godiva (hundreds of dollars a pound). They intimated they actually “made” the chocolates, but it turns out they’re just buying and remolding another brand (Bonnat, which is good chocolate, at leaest). This is what chocolatiers do, and is a recognized trade, but it’s not being a manufacturer, and doesn’t command superpremium prices. Also, they aren’t even very good at that: “Noka’s truffles and molded chocolates are exactly what one might expect from a pair of accountants with limited experience and no formal training.”

Nevertheless, they got on shelves at Niemans and Dean and Deluca and the like, though this 10-part series may well put the kibosh on that, even in Dallas.

Seriously, it’s ten parts, but it’s great. Read all 10. DallasFood.org is definitely getting a bookmark based on the strength of this and their chicken-fried steak coverage alone.

Following up, if you, like us, want some of those bastards, here’s a couple links:

• DorsetNaga.com, which leads us to the home company…
• PeppersByPost.biz, who say they’ll sell seeds to US customers in 2007.

Enjoy.

A pepper grower in Dorset has managed to create the hottest chile ever, based on a pepper plant from Bangladesh. The Dorset Naga, as it’s called, weighs in at nearly a MILLION Scovilles. For comparison’s sake, pepper spray is only 5M, and a “normal” habanero is about half a million. (A jalapeno is a paltry 2500 to 8000, depending.)

We sort of want some. Sort of.

BoingBoing reports that the solid/liquid barrier has been breeched, and that as a consequence deep-fried Coca-cola is now possible.

See The Nickel Burger, by Robb Walsh, Houston Press, 10/31/2002. The title refers to a popular nickname of the neighborhood, not the price of the burger.

MMmmmmmmmmmm, meatcake!

Argentina on Two Steaks a Day. Mrs Heathen, can we go?

At least according to Restaurant Magazine, which provides this handy list of the 50 best restaurants in the world. Number 1? El Bulli, in Spain. The top US spots include The French Laundry (Napa, no. 4), Per Se (NYC, no. 8; Keller therefore has two of the top 10), Jean Georges (NYC, 16), Daniel (NYC, 18), Chez Panisse (Berkeley, 20), Charlie Trotter’s (Chicago, 26), Le Bernardin (NYC, 32), and Gramercy Tavern (NYC, 45). We can vouch for the awesomeness of the Laundry, the Tavern, and Chez Panisse (which is easily the best buy among the US spots). As for the rest, we reckon it’s time for another few nights in NYC, plus a rendezvous in Chicago with the Legal Department.

… then go read this. It’s entirely likely that you’ve never actually had the good stuff. We think a quest is in order. (Via BoingBoing and Warren Ellis simultaneously.)

How ’bout some of these Russian Roulette Chocolates anyway?

Pikachu Hors d’oevres, made with brie and play-doh equipment.

Find some other molds and we’ll talk.

It has come to our attention that there exist not one but TWO “Bacon of the Month Club” offerings on teh Intarwub. To Wit:

• The Grateful Palate; and
• Zingerman’s

You know, a traditional gift-giving season is upon us; perhaps you should show your appreciation for certain snarky web sites by sending us bacon.

Michelin is now rating New York restaurants, but apparently that’s as far into the US as they go. This is probably the only way that the US could have four three-star restaurants and have none of them be the French Laundry (though Keller’s NYC outpost Per Se gets the three-star nod).

Mmmmmm, Bacon.

Update: Mr Tendentious informs us that, when he and his bride lived in Miami, they were able to get bacon flavored with juniper. Mmmmm, gin-bacon!