Eddie's: April 2004 Archives

Todd has some opinions on America's celebrity chefs competing on Iron Chef:

Shame on me for thinking they'd make it a bout for the ages. Walking through the subway the other day, I noticed a series of large ads for Iron Chef America with Bobby Flay, Wolfgang Puck and Mario Batali prominantly featured. As you can see, each is armed with the blunt intrument of his choice (Flay's monster-sized meat tenderizer is hidden behind the logo).

Where I made my mistake was thinking that it'd be entirely American chefs competing against one another. I was already rubbing my hands in glee envisioning Emeril Lagasse hitting the mat from a body blow delivered by Batali or Tony Bourdain. Alas, it's not to be as Flay, Puck, and Batali will be pitted against the same old Iron Chefs that always do battle in Kitchen Stadium. After a preview I saw late on Friday night, the whole thing looks pretty tired and Bobby Flay looked impatient to pick up his paycheck as he took down Iron Chef French with some oversized lobster.

Oddly, the Web site lists Alton Brown under the "Bio" section. Could there be a surprise appearance by the Good Eats host? I'm skeptical how well he'd do. By the time Iron Chef Japanese was finishing off his menu, Alton would just be getting back from the hardware store with a collection of MacGuyver-ized cooking implements.

I just wanted to apologize that I haven't posted lately. I've been so sick and food is the last thing I want to think about. Gatorade and soda crackers do not really make an interesting entry.

The Fresh Direct (home-delivery grocery service) arrived on my worst sick day, Sunday. Piles and piles of food that I don't even want to look at, let alone prepare. Some of the nonperishables are still sitting on the kitchen table, waiting for me to find a place for them.

Here's my impression so far: The bananas came at the perfect stage of ripeness, that early stage so we had a few days to eat them. The strawberries were not good, which only means that Fresh Direct can't work miracles and produce tasty strawberries in April. The dried fruit was good, moist without being sticky, not too sweet, with the flavor of the fruit intact. The broccolini looks lovely but I haven't cooked it yet (I'm just excited to find it somewhere). I gave my coworker, Julie, a Yonah Schimmel's sweet potato knish I had ordered, so she'll have to report on that.

I think I'm beginning to get my appetite back, finally. I've been bereft without it.

The phone rings at 11:30 last night, and again at 9:30 this morning. It's an automated call from Fresh Direct, letting us know our very first order will not be delivered today because of a power outage and that we need to re-place the order. The timing of the calls makes me think they wanted to make sure to get us out of bed, whether we're early to bed or late sleepers.

It was pretty easy to re-place the order, though. We'll see if the delivery goes smoothly. I've been waiting so long for them to get to my neighborhood that I won't believe it worked until they arrive on my doorstep. (When the service started, they said six months. Needless to say it's been longer. I'm still excited about it, though.)