Feeling Blue About Bleu — Cheese, That Is

January 30, 2009

roquefort

This will be one of my shortest posts ever, and hopefully, this idiocy will soon end.  The Bush administration imposed a 300% duty on Roquefort cheese, the real Roquefort from France, making it essentially unaffordable.  They did this because of French resistance to import US beef laced with hormones.  Oh, and they imposed other ridiculous, but lower, duties on French truffles, Irish oatmeal, Italian sparkling water and foie gras.

Frankly, this is just a silly, childish bully tactic.  Over food.  Yup, nothing like childlike politics.  Hopefully the Obama administration will fix this craziness.

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Posted by Varmint

CWC Fallout Continues: Enoteca Vin Closed

January 27, 2009

vin1Jedidiah over at New Raleigh reports that Enoteca Vin has closed.  Vin is co-owned by Chrish Peel, owner of Carolina Wine Company, which suddenly shut its doors earlier this month.  The demise of Vin has been confirmed by other restaurateurs, as they started to receive applications from Vin’s former employees yesterday.

The closing of Vin, one of the Triangle’s top restaurants, is a very sad event.  Vin is the first home of Lantern’s Andrea Reusing and Poole’s Diner’s Ashley Christensen.  I had one of the best meals ever at Vin when Ashley cooked a special dinner for the benefit of the eGullet Society of Culinary Arts and Letters.  The restaurant always seemed to do well, despite its location, and it had a strong following.

There’s a lot of grumbling about the closing of CWC, but it appears that in this economy, everyone is struggling.  Let’s hope that the closing of Vin is an anomaly, and not a sign of more things to come.

9 Comments | chefs, General, Raleigh, Restaurants | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Varmint

Man v. Food in Raleigh on Wednesday

January 26, 2009

adamrichmanYou have a chance to be on television if you head down to The Pit on Wednesday, as the Travel Channel’s Man v. Food show will be filming there.   The crew is supposed to arrive around 3:00 PM, hanging out with Ed Mitchell and his staff, and then they’ll try to get a feel for the place as Mitchell hangs out with customers around 6.  In honor of this special filming, The Pit is offering two specials:

  • a double combo with Carolina Ribs and Chopped Hog  with two sides for $14.99 (normally $19.59)
  • all you can eat Chopped Hog and two sides also for  $14.99 (not normally offered)

Host Adam Richman and his crew will also be at Mama Dip’s and the Roast Grill — where Richman will be eating 15 “hot weiners” along with 15 buns, a half pint of mustard, one pint of chili sauce and three drinks (small bottles of Coke, I presume).  The show is scheduled to air at 10 PM on March 18.

7 Comments | Barbecue, Chapel Hill, chefs, Events, Raleigh, Restaurants | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
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Carolina Wine Company is AWOL

January 22, 2009

cwc-sign

Carolina Wine Company, one of the largest wine retailers in the Southeast, has been closed for nearly a week now, purportedly to address problems with its phone and ordering system.  There seems to be far more to the story, however, as wine wholesalers have gone unpaid, employees have left the company, and customers can’t contact anyone associated with the store.  I went by CWC early this evening and took the crappy photo of the sign on the door.  The phones are indeed down, as is the CWC website.  There is almost no wine in the front room.   As I was headed back to my car, a salesman from Turner Wines was hanging around and told me that he was trying to get his product out of the place.  According to a local wine merchant who has spoken to CWC employees, some wholesalers had been requiring CWC to pay in cash over the past several months.  Rumors have been running rampant on the Robert Parker bulletin board.   Their Charlotte store has been closed for some time now.

I don’t like to report on rumors, but the fact of the matter is that CWC is currently closed, and several people with whom I’ve spoken have not been able to contact anyone associated with the store.   I have also tried to call CWC owner, Chrish Peel, but he has not answered nor nor returned the calls.  Peel is also a co-owner of Enoteca Vin, which remains open for business is now closed, too.

I invite anyone associated with CWC to let us know what is going on and when the store might be expected to reopen.

Update on 1/27/09: Vin is now closed.

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The Barbecue Song

January 21, 2009

My friend Kathi Purvis sent me a link to this wonderful, and quite accurate, song about barbecue.  Yeah, it was part of an Alka-Seltzer ad campaign from last summer, but it’s still cool.  I think I’ll have Rhett and Link, the front men for this song, come to the next pig pickin’ I do, as they are from North Carolina.

5 Comments | Barbecue, General, Southern food, Southern Food Culture, Video | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
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Greg Cox’s 2009 List of Triangle’s Best Restaurants

January 20, 2009

Greg Cox, the News & Observer’s restaurant critic, released his list of top restaurants last Friday, and I think I may be in nearly complete agreement with his choices.  He selected Andrea Reusing’s Lantern as the restaurant of the year, and when you consider the national acclaim this Chapel Hill establishment received this past year, along with the fantastic food Reusing puts out, this honor was well deserved.

He only had 20 restaurants on his list last year.  Dropping out were Jibarra, which closed and then reopened downtown, Red Palace (closed), Jujube and Second Empire.  New to the list are Allen & Son, China Palace, Dos Toquitos Centros, Il Palio, J. Betski’s, Margaux’s, Panciuto, Saint Jacques, and Zely & Ritz.  Panciuto and J. Betski’s were on last year’s “Top Newcomers” list.

He also chose Poole’s Downtown Diner, Ashley Christensen’s one year old baby, as the newcomer of the year.  As you know, I’m certainly biased towards Ashley, as she’s a good friend, but the food she puts out continues to be superb (and the service is actually quite decent).

As for the top 25 restaurants, I can’t really quibble with any of the places on the list (and I love that he included Allen & Son.  I’m thinking that we need to come up with a top 25 “cheap eats” places that would be separate from the high end establishments.  Gret did something like this last year with his list of Best Bargains, but we need to expand this list to 25 places.  Or maybe an assortment of a top 3 “Best in Class” for each type of place.

Anyhow, and this may shock many readers, but I’m in agreement with Cox’s list.  It’s really hard for me to think of Margaux’s as one of the best places in the Triangle anymore.  It’s good, but not good enough.    And Saint Jacques can’t keep a cook longer than a couple of months.  Other than that, however, strong work, Greg.

Greg Cox’s Top 25 Restaurants in the Triangle — 2009 Edition

Lantern

Allen & Son

Bin 54

Bloomsbury Bistro

Bonne Soirée

China Palace

Dos Taquitos Centro

Elaine’s on Franklin

Enoteca Vin

Fairview

Fins

Four Square

Frazier’s

Il Palio

J. Betski’s

Magnolia Grill

Margaux’s

Maximillians

Nana’s

Panciuto

Saint Jacques

Saffron

Vin Rouge

Vivace

Zely & Ritz

Top 10 Newcomers

Poole’s Downtown Diner

Globe

Hayashi

Maximillians Pizza Kitchen

Mint

The Mint

Rockwood Filling Station

Posta Tuscan Grille

Savoy

Watts Grocery

9 Comments | Best Of the Triangle, Restaurants | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Varmint

One More “Diet” Post

January 14, 2009

washboardYes, I know that The Mint has a new menu and new investors from DC.  Yes, I heard that Herons has a new chef, too, and that Jibarra is open.  I’m also noticing that everyone is including a “poached egg on top” as one of the food trends for 2009 (I’m way ahead of the times).  But seeing I do this blog for me — ME, I SAID — I’m going to bore you with another item on how we eat.  And I make one simple statement:

When you keep a food diary, it’s somewhat hard to eat 2,000 calories a day, but when you don’t, it’s easy to eat 3,000.

Huh?  Well, I’ve now been keeping a food diary for 9 days (if you are really bored, you can access it here).  This diary also tracks your exercise and subtracts the burned calories from those ingested.  I’ve set my daily net calorie target at 1900 per day, and frankly, it’s sometimes hard to meet that target (the goal here is to get close to the target).  Yesterday I had a piece of toast, 3 egg whites and a pear for breakfast.  I had a big salad with an egg and some steak tartare for lunch, with some bread, too.  I had a couple of small pieces of chocolate for a snack.  I then had stir-fry for dinner — and I weighed out how much rice and chicken I ate — and finished stuffed.  But I still had over 600 calories left for the day!  So I had a small bowl of ice cream and ended up with a 400 calorie deficit.  On my public diary, it shows that I ate 1,702 calories, and frankly, I err on overstating my caloric intake.  I also burned off about 230 calories from a morning venture on the treadmill.

There’s no way in hell I’ll meet my “target” today, as I’m playing basketball tonight.  If I play for 75 minutes, at my weight, that’ll burn nearly 1,000 calories.  Although if you’ve seen me play, I don’t move so well, so maybe only 500!

The bottom line is that keeping the food diary and weighing out my food has really made me more conscious about what I eat.  The biggest differences are that I don’t snack as much (or when I do, I snack healthier), I eat a lot more fresh fruit and vegetables, and I’m not drinking as much alcohol.  For some reason, I’m feeling sated more quickly.  I don’t have as many cravings, as I’m quite full (fiber overload, perhaps?).  But it’s really hard to eat more than 1900 calories, even before I subtract the exercise allotment.

I had a rapid weight loss of 6 pounds, but that was mostly water.  I’ve now leveled off at 5 pounds, and am looking for the slow burn of fat.  But frankly, this has actually turned out to be somewhat fun, almost a sort of a game.  And as long as I can keep that attitude, I’ll be all right.

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Posted by Varmint

Weighty Issues

January 6, 2009

scaleFive and a half years ago, I realized I was fat.  Way too fat.  So I wrote about it on eGullet, and with the help of my fellow eG members, I managed to trim a few pounds.  In 2003 my weight had reached 228 pounds before I decided to change things.  Yesterday morning, I stepped on the scales and couldn’t see the numbers — my belly was too big — so I leaned forward and read aloud “TWO THREE EIGHT.”  Quite simply, 238 pounds is obese.

But as y’all know, I’m a bit obsessed with food.  So how do I fix things?  And believe you me, I need to fix things.  Both my parents have had bypass surgery.  All four of my grandparents developed heart disease (my paternal grandmother, who didn’t smoke a day in her life, dropped dead in her 50s).  All of my paternal aunts and uncles have had heart disease and one of my maternal uncles — a marathon runner — died of a heart attack while hiking in the Rockies.  He was in his mid 60s.

I take medicine to control my cholesterol.  I take medicine to control acid reflux.  My blood sugar levels are in the “pre-diabetic” stage.  I tried to go for a run yesterday and it was too hard on my knees.

I’m a mess.

And if I don’t take control of this, I won’t be around much longer.

And so, I ask you, my faithful readers, to help me with this process.  Ask me “How’s it going?”  Ask me about what I ate and how much I’ve exercised.   Go ahead and drop me an email at dmccord AT gmail DOT com.

I’m not going to change the focus of this blog, turning it into one of those annoying “look at how I’m taking control of my life” sites, but you’ll probably notice some minor changes.  And occasionally, I’ll post something on my progress.  And if you want more, just ask.  The only way I can succeed at this is to be transparent, to have you pressure me.  I’ve already proven that I can’t do it alone.  Your help is greatly appreciated.

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Posted by Varmint

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