The Queen of Riblets: "Velvet Hammer" Julia Stewart, CEO of Applebee's and IHOP, talks about rehabilitating her chain restaurants. "'Don't get me started on the mozzarella stick,' she said." [NY Times]
Potluck: Portland Style: Can "meatless, wheat- and dairy-free" food be "lip-smacking good"? Apparently. [The Oregonian]
Anything But Plain: It's a dog-days-of-summer taste test to find the best supermarket vanilla ice cream. [The Boston Globe]
Southern Living: Dwight Garner has three short... Read Full Story
Wow. If IMDB is correct, it looks like the first Don DeLillo novel to be made into a feature film will be one of my top 10 favorite novels, End Zone. I don't think I can convey the groovy 70's slacker vibe, the exuberant play-by-play West Texas football action, the wacko psyche-up dialogue ("They're out to get us. They'll bleach our skulls with hydrosulfite.") and the nuclear war anxiety that go into making this book one of the funniest things I've ever read.
Unfortunately, I don't think a... Read Full Story
Too tired to fry up hamburger meat for dinner? Want 50 slices of bacon ASAP? Thanks to Gizmodo's "Ten Gadgets For Guys Who Hate To Cook (But Love to Eat)," you can find such gems as Cheeseburger in a Can, a tin of pre-cooked bacon, a steak toaster, an automated donut-maker, and a portable microwave (it plugs into your car's cigarette lighter, natch).
--AndreaLeigh Read Full Story
Seeds of Change is a cool new anthology edited by John Joseph Adams and featuring work by Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, and many others. A compact, small-sized hardcover from Prime Books, it's a work of art just in the design alone. The stories, which deal with social and environmental issues, are thought-provoking and strong. Recently, I asked Adams to give me a list of things readers can do in connection with the anthology, which is itself a call for being proactive in helping with some of the... Read Full Story
Center stage in rising star Tobias Buckell's new novel Sly Mongoose is the unpredictable planet Chilo. As the press release informs us, "Welcome to Chilo, a planet with corrosive rain, crushing pressure, and deadly heat. Fortunately, fourteen-year-old Timas lives in one of the domed cities that float 100,000 feet above the surface, circling near the edge of a monstrous perpetual storm. Above the acidic clouds the temperature and pressure are normal. But to make a living, Timas like many other... Read Full Story
New York Times:
Sunday Book Review cover: Walter Kirn on How Fiction Works by James Wood: "The heroes of this great artistic labor tend to be semimonastic introverts who, like Wood’s beloved Henry James and Gustave Flaubert,
toil with the doors shut and locked, in soundproof splendid isolation,
attentive to the subtle frictions among nouns and adjectival phrases.... For the vicarish Wood, sequestered in his
chamber, part of the fiction writer’s true vocation appears to be
acoustic... Read Full Story
It all makes sense. I mean, if you're going to have eggs and sausage, why not put them together? Thus, the Scotch Egg. According to Wikipedia, this delicacy was invented in London in 1738 by department store Fortnum & Mason. And, don't be fooled, this isn't a breakfast dish, but a picnic food to be eaten cold, alongside salads and pickles. You'll also find them at pubs in the US, and, apparently on a stick at the Minnesota State Fair! And, by the way, it's not too late to sample them--the... Read Full Story
In this week's roundup, we find some help for first-time school-goers, visit the intersection of kid lit and tattoos, and get some free Daniel Pinkwater:
"Back to school, for the first time." How do you help new preschoolers and kindergartners prepare for their first big day of capital-S School? The latest Horn Book newsletter has some great tips, including several recommendations for books that will help kids know what to expect--like Wow! School! and Kindergarten Rocks!. Read the... Read Full Story
Every other Friday, Omnivoracious will turn the spotlight on one or more graphic novels, with future installments also including news and special features. You can let me know who or what you'd like to see featured by commenting on this post. (In October, Graphic Novel Friday will return to its normal weekly schedule.) Ah, The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard--how well I remember you. Your acrobatics displays were such a fine fusion of geometric precision and untamed artistic angst. Your... Read Full Story
As both a foodie and a writer about food, I was pretty excited when my friend Rob Diament sent me a link to Im Cooked, the foodie equivalent of You Tube. A "web community for video recipe sharing," it's a one-stop shop for hours of cooking fun. Rob, of the UK band Temposhark, may be more at home singing on his award-winning music video, but also proves rock stars can cook on his own cooking video:
Check out his video for a demonstration of Risotto Al Funghi, and browse Im Cooked for more... Read Full Story
