I’ve eaten at both of Grant Achatz’s Chicago restaurants, Alinea and Next, so when the Chef tweeted about a crying baby that was making other diners mad, I definitely had an opinion.

And as I just learned from my daily perusal of the foodie site Eater, that opinion appeared, albeit edited, on this morning’s edition of Good Morning America. (My truncated tweet and my Twitter icon appear at the 1:26 mark.)

What appeared on the screen wasn’t my actual tweet, but rather (as you’ll see below) the final few words of my third tweet on the subject. (more…)

Ever since Family Meal unveiled its Smith Island Roll on Twitter and Facebook New Year’s Eve eve, I’ve been wanting to drop in and try it. I even considered stopping by as we headed to Range, another Bryan Voltaggio restaurant, to celebrate New Year’s Eve, but that seemed a bit much, even for me.

Last night, though, on the way back from a dinner with Jay Lake, Jay’s Dad, Lisa Costello, and Peggy Rae and John Sapienza at which the company was superb but the food was merely adequate, I thought—now’s my chance.

Why the sense of urgency around a Smith Island Roll, Voltaggio’s tweaking of the official dessert of the state of Maryland, the Smith Island Cake?

During our second visit to Family Meal in August of 2012, just a month or so after the restaurant opened, I ordered a slice of Smith Island Cake, and it was a wonder. But then … it was gone, no longer on the menu during any of our subsequent visits to Family Meal. (more…)

As I told you earlier, I probably won’t get a chance to experience the new incarnation of Next due to a major life change … which means I’m counting on you to go and then let me know all about it.

Next released its latest video today, this one promoting “Chicago Steakhouse,” hoping to persuade us to check out its latest blink-or-you’ll miss-it menu. As you’ll see below, this time around it’s more about the mood than the food.

Next: Chicago Steak from next restaurant on Vimeo.

Sure wish I could be at that card table, though I don’t know that my bluffs would work on those guys.

Now where’d I put my double-breasted suit and that fedora?

Though I visited Chicago for all three Next restaurant meals last year—The Hunt, Vegan, and Bocuse d’Or—I sadly have no plans to return in 2014. That has nothing to do with a lack of desire, but rather, a recognition that with my recent change in employment, some things had to go, and travel to Next, while resulting in lifetime peak meals, was one of those somethings—especially since we won’t be canceling our trips later this year to either Easter Island or the London Worldcon.

But that doesn’t mean I’m still not intensely interested in what Grant Achatz, Dave Beran, and Nick Kokonas have in store. The next Next menu—Chicago Steak—is currently being served to friends and family in advance of its debut to the public, and yesterday Achatz teased us by tweeting a pic of the menu.

First time serving actual food. FOH training night. @dcberan @mknorth @JTomaska pic.twitter.com/eyDJqZAg2R

— Grant Achatz (@Gachatz) January 4, 2014

He followed that today with a pic of the steaks as they’ll be presented to diners. (more…)

Last year, we celebrated the end of 2012 by flying to Vienna, watching Die Fledermaus on New Year’s Eve at the Wiener Staatsoper, and eating lots of goulash, Wiener Schnitzel, and apple strudel mit schlag. Our plans to say farewell to 2013 were much less ambitious, and this time didn’t require passports.

Our favorite local restaurant, Bryan Voltaggio’s Range, was turning itself that night into a supper club at which you could buy a table from 9:00 p.m. until 1:00 a.m., plus they were importing the Blue Vipers of Brooklyn for entertainment.

This was their announced menu.

As we were to learn on New Year’s Eve itself, there were other dishes not revealed in advance.

We wrangled three other couples to join us, rented a hotel room at the Embassy Suites which shares the Chevy Chase Pavilion location with Range, and looked forward to a fun night … which as it turned out, marked more than just the change of one year to the next, but also ended up demarcating a major change in my life after more than thirteen years.

And our expectations were fulfilled. It was a fun night. See? (more…)

I often share about food here, and I often share about my early years in comics, but I don’t think I’ve ever before shared anything at the intersection of those two topics. It isn’t a Venn diagram with much, if any, overlap, so this may be a first.

Danny Crespi, who was Marvel’s assistant production manager when I worked there in the mid-’70s, gave me his recipe for spare ribs, which he said were “as good as the ribs as the Lotus Eaters.” Here’s Danny as he appeared in the 1975 Marvel Comics Convention program book.

Danny was one of the nicest guys in the world, even though when Mike Esposito, who was doing art corrections in the Bullpen back then, grandiosely said, “In six months, I’ll be running this company,” Danny quickly quipped, “Yeah. Into the ground.” (more…)

I know about Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox the way many people do. Meaning—it’s not from reading the original stories, but rather from the Disney cartoon, the Classics Illustrated comic, tales improvised by camp counselors around a fire, or just absorbing the inescapable pop culture references.

Of course, those original stories weren’t so original, as they were folktales long before they were written down, but since I’m not going to get a chance to sit at the knee of a French Canadian in the 19th century and hear them as they were first told, the works of James MacGillivray and James Stevens are the best I can do.

In any event, what this means is that it wasn’t until today that I got to meet Cream Puff Fatty and Hot Biscuit Slim, two of the greatest (fictional) chefs that ever were.

I’m sure you can figure out which is which in the illustration above. (I haven’t been able to track down the name of the artist responsible for that image. If you know, please speak up!)

I discovered them because for some reason, Irene and I got to talking this afternoon about parsnips, which led to us debating whether Paul Bunyan had died from eating poisoned parsnips, which led to me reading about Paul Bunyan’s Black Duck dinner … which introduced me to Cream Puff Fatty and Hot Biscuit Slim, two cooks so amazing that after they fed a team of loggers, not only were none of Bunyan’s team able to rouse themselves to appear for the following meal, but “for five weeks the loggers lay in a delicious torpor.”

What kind of meal could do that? An epic one! Read an excerpt below from the June 1924 issue of the American Mercury for one of the greatest fictional meals I’ve ever encountered. (more…)

So last night, when we realized we’d be cruising through Frederick, Maryland at around 8:00 p.m. without having had a chance to eat dinner first, we realized—hey, this is finally our chance to eat off Family Meal‘s dinner menu!

Irene and I have had many brunches and lunches there, starting last July right after they opened. But for a variety of reasons, dinner remained elusive. And so, as we neared Frederick on our way home from a day down county, we thought—gotta be Family Meal!

Turkey pot pie fritters

We’d had chicken pot pie fritters during our second lunch at Family Meal, but never the turkey ones. Glad I finally got to pop a few of these in my mouth. Best delivery method for pot pie filling ever. Better even than pot pies themselves! (more…)

A college friend of my wife’s was visiting her son in Ellicott City last weekend, and so we all planned to get together for dinner Sunday night. But where? What restaurant would have not just good food but also the right ambiance for conversation?

I knew nothing of Ellicott City, and while Yelp can help, I wanted a recommendation a little more personal—after all, I must know someone who knows someone in that area—so I threw the question out to the Twitterverse, and the Twitterverse replied—get thee to The Rumor Mill.

Based on its site, The Rumor Mill, operated by Chef Matthew Milani, offered an intriguing menu, and seemed like a good fit for folks who want to linger … plus the restaurant had just landed one of its desserts on the cover of Howard County magazine. So we were in!

The Rumor Mill is a small plates restaurant, with all dishes meant for sharing, and we started out with an assortment of olives, warmed in herbed olive oil, and sweet potato fries, tossed with cinnamon butter. I didn’t think to photograph these because, well, all olives and fries look pretty much the same, right? They ended up being excellent, but since no pic would have done them justice, missing out on the visuals doesn’t matter. The rest of the meal, however … (more…)

When Carol Pinchefsky and Keith DeCandido recently appeared on Jim Freund’s WBAI radio show Hour of the Wolf, the topic at hand was Doctor Who. However, I—along with my durian—also became a topic for discussion.

The durian discussed—along with a jackfruit—made an appearance at Readercon in 2011. And for those who don’t know what either of those fabled fruits look like, behold! Here are the very fruits which I stored in my hotel room while waiting for the Friday night “Meet the Prose” party to begin.

If you’ve no experience with either durian or jackfruit and are wondering about their size, here for contrast is a photo of me with one of the durian I brought to a Balticon several years ago. (more…)