http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMXTfiNB9tg
This video is of Mark making Galician Style octopus. It's a great video to watch and learn from.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Feature on Mark Bittman: In the name of better eating everywhere
My father first showed me a Mark Bittman video and accompanying article on his blog, “Bitten,” when I was 17. Sure, I was growing out of my picky eater phase by then, but I was certainly not a foodie. I loved the act of eating well before I started thinking about how whatever I was eating was created, and Mr. Bittman was certainly a force in changing how I thought about food forever. Mark Bittman’s wealth of culinary knowledge and no-nonsense writing style has made him more than just a food writer. Bittman is a teacher who comes from the same position as most Americans who cook, which gives him the hard attained ability to inspire people to care about food.
Though it might be my own increased interest in food that brings this to light, people across this nation and across generations appear to be thinking about food more. There is no definitive origin of this, but the heightened awareness about environmental degradation’s impact on food supplies and the attack on high fructose corn syrup might have something to do with it. There are more local food cooking classes, farmers markets, and home-cooked meals from scratch have returned to countless dinner tables after being neglected for so long. Bittman has been a home cook since the sixties, and is committed to making that experience creative and not a chore.
Bittman has been writing about food since 1980. In that decade, he worked his way up the ladder to become editor at Cook’s, the magazine that would transform into Cook’s Illustrated. In the year of my birth, 1990, Mark began writing for the New York Times. His weekly column, “The Minimalist,” showcases recipes from around the world, slightly modified for the home cook, all of which are simple in practice, but do not compromise quality or flavor in exchange. Even with recipes and accompanying videos on more exotic cuisine like Galician-style octopus, Mark makes food that may not be viewed as simple or even pleasant to most of his readership’s palettes, accessible and enjoyable.
Bittman writes on his website, “I am not a chef, and never have been. . .I’ve never had any formal training, and I’ve never worked in a restaurant. None of which has gotten in the way of my mission to get people cooking comfortably, simply and well.” What sets Bittman apart from so many other food celebrities (Jamie Oliver and Michael Pollan) is that he equips his readers with chef-like skills that get people back to eating real food that rivals the flavors of any five-star chef. For Bittman, it is not just about cooking easy, simple dishes. It is about breaking down some intense barriers that have been built up for many years about what can and can’t be cooked by any given person.
With his bounty of knowledge in the name of better eating everywhere, comes a need for a variety of media for teaching and sharing with the audience -- a weekly recipe column of 300 words or less (excluding the recipe) is not enough. Mark, then, turned to books.
Twenty years after coming to the New York Times, his bestselling, groundbreaking, franchise-starting, book How To Cook Everything has celebrated its tenth anniversary, and is in its second edition. The sheer girth of these books, How to Cook Everything has just shy of 1,000 pages of recipes, and about 40 pages more of index and tips and tricks, is representative of the time and effort Mark has spent just learning. This attention to detail and striving towards comprehensiveness makes How to Cook Everything appealing to go back to -- his pages forge a deep bond of trust between Bittman and his reader. It was the best 19th birthday present possible.
The supplemental books to How to Cook Everything, including How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and the 6 other books that have some word or phrase following How to Cook Everything show that Mark’s goal is to never stop learning and continue the discussion about food that is as nourishing, and as necessary, as eating.
Most recently, his appetite for knowledge has filled the pages of his latest book, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating. This book not only presents Bittman’s findings about the links among eating habits, certain diseases, and environmental degradation, but also lays out strategies for how to improve our situations not only for our health, but also for the sake of the planet. In the shadow of acclaimed food writer and de facto authority on sustainable food, UC-Berkley professor Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food), Bittman’s Food Matters picks up on the theory that Pollan championed, and gives us recipes to make the next step. Rising to stardom during the largest boom in food celebrity since Juila Child, Mark Bittman is not just an activist for simple cooking and good food, he is an activist for a better world through food.
In all of his texts, Bittman gets right to the point. He uses specific cooking terminology, like the names of various cuts (julienne, chiffonade) but not to the point that he’s writing in another language. He does not merely teach his readers how to follow recipes, instead, he empowers them to make their own culinary decisions with confidence. Be it his nonchalant attitude towards cooking times and measurements (he eyeballs just about everything), or his frank calls to action in Food Matters, Mark Bittman bites off what could normally be a bit too much to chew and serves it up in accessible portions that make his readers want more. Mark Bittman is not a chef, he is a man who cares. It is only by caring that there can be a hope that others will care as well.
Though it might be my own increased interest in food that brings this to light, people across this nation and across generations appear to be thinking about food more. There is no definitive origin of this, but the heightened awareness about environmental degradation’s impact on food supplies and the attack on high fructose corn syrup might have something to do with it. There are more local food cooking classes, farmers markets, and home-cooked meals from scratch have returned to countless dinner tables after being neglected for so long. Bittman has been a home cook since the sixties, and is committed to making that experience creative and not a chore.
Bittman has been writing about food since 1980. In that decade, he worked his way up the ladder to become editor at Cook’s, the magazine that would transform into Cook’s Illustrated. In the year of my birth, 1990, Mark began writing for the New York Times. His weekly column, “The Minimalist,” showcases recipes from around the world, slightly modified for the home cook, all of which are simple in practice, but do not compromise quality or flavor in exchange. Even with recipes and accompanying videos on more exotic cuisine like Galician-style octopus, Mark makes food that may not be viewed as simple or even pleasant to most of his readership’s palettes, accessible and enjoyable.
Bittman writes on his website, “I am not a chef, and never have been. . .I’ve never had any formal training, and I’ve never worked in a restaurant. None of which has gotten in the way of my mission to get people cooking comfortably, simply and well.” What sets Bittman apart from so many other food celebrities (Jamie Oliver and Michael Pollan) is that he equips his readers with chef-like skills that get people back to eating real food that rivals the flavors of any five-star chef. For Bittman, it is not just about cooking easy, simple dishes. It is about breaking down some intense barriers that have been built up for many years about what can and can’t be cooked by any given person.
With his bounty of knowledge in the name of better eating everywhere, comes a need for a variety of media for teaching and sharing with the audience -- a weekly recipe column of 300 words or less (excluding the recipe) is not enough. Mark, then, turned to books.
Twenty years after coming to the New York Times, his bestselling, groundbreaking, franchise-starting, book How To Cook Everything has celebrated its tenth anniversary, and is in its second edition. The sheer girth of these books, How to Cook Everything has just shy of 1,000 pages of recipes, and about 40 pages more of index and tips and tricks, is representative of the time and effort Mark has spent just learning. This attention to detail and striving towards comprehensiveness makes How to Cook Everything appealing to go back to -- his pages forge a deep bond of trust between Bittman and his reader. It was the best 19th birthday present possible.
The supplemental books to How to Cook Everything, including How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and the 6 other books that have some word or phrase following How to Cook Everything show that Mark’s goal is to never stop learning and continue the discussion about food that is as nourishing, and as necessary, as eating.
Most recently, his appetite for knowledge has filled the pages of his latest book, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating. This book not only presents Bittman’s findings about the links among eating habits, certain diseases, and environmental degradation, but also lays out strategies for how to improve our situations not only for our health, but also for the sake of the planet. In the shadow of acclaimed food writer and de facto authority on sustainable food, UC-Berkley professor Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food), Bittman’s Food Matters picks up on the theory that Pollan championed, and gives us recipes to make the next step. Rising to stardom during the largest boom in food celebrity since Juila Child, Mark Bittman is not just an activist for simple cooking and good food, he is an activist for a better world through food.
In all of his texts, Bittman gets right to the point. He uses specific cooking terminology, like the names of various cuts (julienne, chiffonade) but not to the point that he’s writing in another language. He does not merely teach his readers how to follow recipes, instead, he empowers them to make their own culinary decisions with confidence. Be it his nonchalant attitude towards cooking times and measurements (he eyeballs just about everything), or his frank calls to action in Food Matters, Mark Bittman bites off what could normally be a bit too much to chew and serves it up in accessible portions that make his readers want more. Mark Bittman is not a chef, he is a man who cares. It is only by caring that there can be a hope that others will care as well.
Oscar gone Wilde: The Story of a Literate Glam Rock THE REWRITE
In the 1970s, “bisexual” was the word. It was thrown around during interviews and press conferences to describe just how edgy and different this generation was from the ones that came before. The music that accompanied this era of sexual revolution is the subject of Todd Haynes’s film, “Velvet Goldmine.”
Written by Haynes and James Lyons, the film follows a young British expat journalist Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale) as he tries to write a story about his childhood hero, the fallen Glam Rock star Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers).
As his mind begins to wander in the interviews he conducts about Slade, Stuart visually relates to the audience the story about his sexuality, and his ostracism growing up listening to the music that ultimately drove him from his childhood home.
The stories his interviewees tell him through voiceover add context to Stuart’s own tale, highlighting the power of a musical movement to save souls like Stuart’s from the harm of conventional society, and the music industry’s willingness to finance the stars’ insanity, making an organic revolution something corporate.
Stuart’s subject, Brian Slade, is the paragon of this destructive insanity. Slade, who perpetually quotes Oscar Wilde, is obsessed with, and ultimately ruined by, extravagant spectacle. Slade, unmistakably based on David Bowie, uses his bisexuality as a tool to both offend and empower people across Great Britain and the United States.
As the raw, and sexually awkward, film carries on, Slade partners with American bad boy rocker Curt Wild (a hyper-sexual Ewan McGregor), to put on a tour reminiscent of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust tour, complete with promiscuous, otherworldly costumes, that all the while plays with the music’s history as these artists lived: fast, and loose.
Including music by The Stooges, T. Rex, Lou Reed, Brian Eno, and original music in the spirit of the genre, the film runs the gamut of epic hits from the era in a manner that precariously straddles jukebox musical and impressive reinvention of classic songs.
Toni Collette’s simultaneously stunning and decrepit Ameri-Brit accented Mandy Slade put it this way in her interview when asked about Wild and Slade: “They weren’t people, they were ideas.”
Despite this apt claim, Haynes adds a tremendous amount of realism to the film by mixing in grainy, faux archival documentary and concert footage with the crisp cinematography of the main plot footage, making this a film more about the industry than a fairy-tale Glam Rocker.
To make this relatively believable story even more complex, still contains some fantastical elements, namely an emerald that Oscar Wilde, a homosexual whose career was ruined by being outed, receives as a young boy from outer space.
The emerald is passed from Glam Rocker to Glam Rocker, weaving an oddly literate fellowship among pop idols who seem to have no regard for books. Perhaps though, it is this fame-giving relic that inspires them to stand strong in the face of bigotry, and confirms for these otherworldly rockers that there is a glimmer of reality and history in their otherwise entirely fantasized world.
Written by Haynes and James Lyons, the film follows a young British expat journalist Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale) as he tries to write a story about his childhood hero, the fallen Glam Rock star Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers).
As his mind begins to wander in the interviews he conducts about Slade, Stuart visually relates to the audience the story about his sexuality, and his ostracism growing up listening to the music that ultimately drove him from his childhood home.
The stories his interviewees tell him through voiceover add context to Stuart’s own tale, highlighting the power of a musical movement to save souls like Stuart’s from the harm of conventional society, and the music industry’s willingness to finance the stars’ insanity, making an organic revolution something corporate.
Stuart’s subject, Brian Slade, is the paragon of this destructive insanity. Slade, who perpetually quotes Oscar Wilde, is obsessed with, and ultimately ruined by, extravagant spectacle. Slade, unmistakably based on David Bowie, uses his bisexuality as a tool to both offend and empower people across Great Britain and the United States.
As the raw, and sexually awkward, film carries on, Slade partners with American bad boy rocker Curt Wild (a hyper-sexual Ewan McGregor), to put on a tour reminiscent of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust tour, complete with promiscuous, otherworldly costumes, that all the while plays with the music’s history as these artists lived: fast, and loose.
Including music by The Stooges, T. Rex, Lou Reed, Brian Eno, and original music in the spirit of the genre, the film runs the gamut of epic hits from the era in a manner that precariously straddles jukebox musical and impressive reinvention of classic songs.
Toni Collette’s simultaneously stunning and decrepit Ameri-Brit accented Mandy Slade put it this way in her interview when asked about Wild and Slade: “They weren’t people, they were ideas.”
Despite this apt claim, Haynes adds a tremendous amount of realism to the film by mixing in grainy, faux archival documentary and concert footage with the crisp cinematography of the main plot footage, making this a film more about the industry than a fairy-tale Glam Rocker.
To make this relatively believable story even more complex, still contains some fantastical elements, namely an emerald that Oscar Wilde, a homosexual whose career was ruined by being outed, receives as a young boy from outer space.
The emerald is passed from Glam Rocker to Glam Rocker, weaving an oddly literate fellowship among pop idols who seem to have no regard for books. Perhaps though, it is this fame-giving relic that inspires them to stand strong in the face of bigotry, and confirms for these otherworldly rockers that there is a glimmer of reality and history in their otherwise entirely fantasized world.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Crazy Heart: getting it right on the first try
In what many have claimed is the role of Jeff Bridges’s life, Bad Blake is Crazy Heart’s protagonist: a washed-up, chain-smoking, alcoholic country singer. Bad drives from town to town across the cinematographically stunning American Southwest playing shows to a small, aged, and inexplicably dedicated fans.
Bitter from his falling out with his incredibly successful protégé Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), Bad refuses to change his ways or write new songs despite his agent’s nagging. Short on money, Bad caves, though, into opening for Tommy’s amphitheater concert in Phoenix.
Before that, Bad plays two nights in Santa Fe, and agrees to an interview with local journalist Jean Craddock (an incredibly beautiful and convincing Maggie Gyllenhal). Making a not-so-long, or unusual, story even shorter, Bad and Jean fall madly in love. Homebound due to injuries he sustained in a bad car crash, against the stellar New Mexico landscape, and in tight-framed shots indicating their immediate closeness, Jean and Bad sink into a family life with Jean’s son Buddy in Santa Fe, that exudes the very laid back, mind clearing essence that is the Southwest.
There is a common joke about country music: if you play a country song backwards, you get your dog back, you get your wife back, you get your house back, and you get your job back. Until it’s all lost again to the demon of alcoholism.
Screenwriter-Director Scott Cooper, and novelist Thomas Cobb before Cooper, rip it all away from Bad when Jean and Buddy visit him in Houston after Bad heals and goes home. Bad loses track of Buddy at a mall, and does not get a second chance to make it right. He transforms himself, sobers up, and is still denied in a tragically realistic and intense exchange between him and Jean back in Santa Fe.
Like any real country singer though, Bad returns to Texas and writes about it. The original song and theme for the film, that Bridges himself sings in part, “The Weary Kind”, is the catalyst that springs Bad beyond a sober, but stagnant, life into a life of recharged creativity and a restocked bank account. Tommy, who despite outshining Bad still admires him to an almost perplexing extent, begs Bad to write songs for him, and Bad sends off what he describes to his best friend, and former bar tender, Wayne (Robert Duvall) as “the best song I ever wrote.”
Brigdes has played the addict, the drunk and the deadbeat. Never, though, has he portrayed a lowlife so full of feeling and with so deep a problem. In a nod to his forever defining role as The Dude in The Big Lebowski, Cooper briefly sits Bad down at the bar of a bowling alley, before throwing him on a journey through the Zen garden that is the Southwestern desert where the visually and literally wide-open end scene is a subtle victory for Bridges’s subdued genius. Not to mention, Jean finally gets her full interview.
Bitter from his falling out with his incredibly successful protégé Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), Bad refuses to change his ways or write new songs despite his agent’s nagging. Short on money, Bad caves, though, into opening for Tommy’s amphitheater concert in Phoenix.
Before that, Bad plays two nights in Santa Fe, and agrees to an interview with local journalist Jean Craddock (an incredibly beautiful and convincing Maggie Gyllenhal). Making a not-so-long, or unusual, story even shorter, Bad and Jean fall madly in love. Homebound due to injuries he sustained in a bad car crash, against the stellar New Mexico landscape, and in tight-framed shots indicating their immediate closeness, Jean and Bad sink into a family life with Jean’s son Buddy in Santa Fe, that exudes the very laid back, mind clearing essence that is the Southwest.
There is a common joke about country music: if you play a country song backwards, you get your dog back, you get your wife back, you get your house back, and you get your job back. Until it’s all lost again to the demon of alcoholism.
Screenwriter-Director Scott Cooper, and novelist Thomas Cobb before Cooper, rip it all away from Bad when Jean and Buddy visit him in Houston after Bad heals and goes home. Bad loses track of Buddy at a mall, and does not get a second chance to make it right. He transforms himself, sobers up, and is still denied in a tragically realistic and intense exchange between him and Jean back in Santa Fe.
Like any real country singer though, Bad returns to Texas and writes about it. The original song and theme for the film, that Bridges himself sings in part, “The Weary Kind”, is the catalyst that springs Bad beyond a sober, but stagnant, life into a life of recharged creativity and a restocked bank account. Tommy, who despite outshining Bad still admires him to an almost perplexing extent, begs Bad to write songs for him, and Bad sends off what he describes to his best friend, and former bar tender, Wayne (Robert Duvall) as “the best song I ever wrote.”
Brigdes has played the addict, the drunk and the deadbeat. Never, though, has he portrayed a lowlife so full of feeling and with so deep a problem. In a nod to his forever defining role as The Dude in The Big Lebowski, Cooper briefly sits Bad down at the bar of a bowling alley, before throwing him on a journey through the Zen garden that is the Southwestern desert where the visually and literally wide-open end scene is a subtle victory for Bridges’s subdued genius. Not to mention, Jean finally gets her full interview.
Friday, March 12, 2010
The 82nd Academy Awards: Records Set, Barriers Broken.
Hosted by the champions of awkward, inside, and generally poor jokes, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony was as much an event for the people whose entire careers culminate, as a show for viewers at home. It was a night of firsts and sixteenths.
Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia) was nominated for the sixteenth time for Best Actress, and Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side) won her first Oscar ever in the same category. For Sandra, it was a dream come true. For Meryl, it confirmed that she has nothing to prove to anyone. Her nomination made her a record-holder, solidifying her immensely talented self in film history.
Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart) won his first Oscar as Best Actor after six nominations. In pure joy, his Dudeness laughed the whole way through his acceptance speech, humbly thanking, and attaching the suffix “man” to, everyone that helped him along the way.
The actors and actresses nominated for their performances in leading roles were praised by their friends, directors, and costars in one of the most honest and meaningful sections of the evening, showing that this event is not just for the home-viewer’s pleasure, but is also a night that people dedicate their entire professional lives to attending.
In this celebrity obsessed era, these performers, and the people who give these actors films to act in are honored for their work in the film community. Despite the tuxedos, makeup, and designer gowns, this section of the evening showed off an especially human side of the Academy.
In stark contrast to the longer, heartfelt presentation of the best actor and actress awards, Tom Hanks got right to the point when he presented the award for best picture.
If ears could blink, it would have been possible to miss the award entirely, and that blink-fast award went to The Hurt Locker. Director Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman to receive the award for Best Director, and war correspondent-turned-screenwriter Kevin Boal received the Oscar for best original screenplay. The film picked up three other Oscars in Editing, Sound, and Sound Editing, to cap off this film’s rather surprising run.
In her acceptance speech, Bigelow thanked the investors who took a risk on the film, which goes to show that what makes a good film is not the box office charts, but the collaboration and deep passion that each person on the set brings to the table.
Bigelow and her team dedicated the film and the award to people in all types of uniforms everywhere, and thanked them for doing what they do so that she and the rest of the filmmaking industry could write about it, film it, and honor their work on the screen.
With someone receiving their first Oscar in almost every category, a slew of first-time nominees, and gender barriers broken, the film industry enters a new year: a year for taking risks and keeping those new faces around for a long time.
Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia) was nominated for the sixteenth time for Best Actress, and Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side) won her first Oscar ever in the same category. For Sandra, it was a dream come true. For Meryl, it confirmed that she has nothing to prove to anyone. Her nomination made her a record-holder, solidifying her immensely talented self in film history.
Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart) won his first Oscar as Best Actor after six nominations. In pure joy, his Dudeness laughed the whole way through his acceptance speech, humbly thanking, and attaching the suffix “man” to, everyone that helped him along the way.
The actors and actresses nominated for their performances in leading roles were praised by their friends, directors, and costars in one of the most honest and meaningful sections of the evening, showing that this event is not just for the home-viewer’s pleasure, but is also a night that people dedicate their entire professional lives to attending.
In this celebrity obsessed era, these performers, and the people who give these actors films to act in are honored for their work in the film community. Despite the tuxedos, makeup, and designer gowns, this section of the evening showed off an especially human side of the Academy.
In stark contrast to the longer, heartfelt presentation of the best actor and actress awards, Tom Hanks got right to the point when he presented the award for best picture.
If ears could blink, it would have been possible to miss the award entirely, and that blink-fast award went to The Hurt Locker. Director Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman to receive the award for Best Director, and war correspondent-turned-screenwriter Kevin Boal received the Oscar for best original screenplay. The film picked up three other Oscars in Editing, Sound, and Sound Editing, to cap off this film’s rather surprising run.
In her acceptance speech, Bigelow thanked the investors who took a risk on the film, which goes to show that what makes a good film is not the box office charts, but the collaboration and deep passion that each person on the set brings to the table.
Bigelow and her team dedicated the film and the award to people in all types of uniforms everywhere, and thanked them for doing what they do so that she and the rest of the filmmaking industry could write about it, film it, and honor their work on the screen.
With someone receiving their first Oscar in almost every category, a slew of first-time nominees, and gender barriers broken, the film industry enters a new year: a year for taking risks and keeping those new faces around for a long time.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Rustica: Worth More Than a Gamble
The restaurant business is fraught with risk, especially in Kalamazoo. Occupying the space of two failed restaurants, one of the city’s newest eateries, Rustica, defies economic depression starting at 5 PM Monday through Saturday.
Just shy of three months old, Rustica serves “rustic European cuisine” with mostly local ingredients, Turkish extra-virgin olive oil aside. Situated in Kalamazoo’s quasi-urban center, across from an upscale tapas bar, several higher-end hair salons and a fair-trade clothing store, Rustica’s fare and atmosphere are well-suited for midwestern sensibilities in a slightly more refined setting.
Rustica’s narrow, low-lit dining room surrounds the open kitchen where Chef Adam Watts and his team prepare dishes in a style consistent with the principle goal of rustic cooking: making guests comfortable and welcome.
One indicator of Rustica’s hopefully continued success is its attention to its clientele, not only in the generous portions that it serves, but in the prices that accompany its dishes. All main courses are between $14 and $19, and are easily shared between diners, and many first courses are quite filling by themselves.
The massive antipasti plate offers a variety of flavors that work on every region of the tongue ($6). With grilled yams (served cold), a savory olive medley, sweet and spicy nuts and intensely acidic house-pickled vegetables, not venturing away from the “firsts” section on the menu might provide a satisfying meal.
The next appetizer could be a terrific one-person entree on the cheap, and may inspire selfishness. The duck confit ($9) is fruity, sweet, and better resembles braised duck leg than a traditional confit, though rustic cuisine can get away with playing fast and loose with tradition. The meat’s apple-celery chutney was refreshing and palate clearing.
Anything on the main course menu could have been satisfying, and the long ribbons of papardelle pasta ($15) with hickory smoked chicken and pecorino cheese in an arugula-walnut pesto were no exception.
Brought to the table by one of the restaurant’s genial waitstaff, the thin, but peppery, sweet, and citrusy pesto danced across the tongue, and invited the sweet-smoke umami of the chicken to play with it.
Despite being shared, this meal required boxes -- even for the sweet ricotta cheese cannoli ($5). The accompanying espresso-sized mug of hot chocolate with cinnamon and cayenne gave a sweet-spicy finish to the meal that cleared the senses, but not the checkbook.
From entrance to exit, it seems like Rustica has it right. Rustica stands among a select group of new restaurants in Kalamazoo whose openings represent a commitment to revitalize this city. As co-owner Bill Weier demands on Rustica’s website, “Give me some crusty bread, simple food, good friends and a bottle of wine. . .now that is a meal.” Kalamazoo citizens should enjoy that meal and ensure civic revitalization at Rustica.
Just shy of three months old, Rustica serves “rustic European cuisine” with mostly local ingredients, Turkish extra-virgin olive oil aside. Situated in Kalamazoo’s quasi-urban center, across from an upscale tapas bar, several higher-end hair salons and a fair-trade clothing store, Rustica’s fare and atmosphere are well-suited for midwestern sensibilities in a slightly more refined setting.
Rustica’s narrow, low-lit dining room surrounds the open kitchen where Chef Adam Watts and his team prepare dishes in a style consistent with the principle goal of rustic cooking: making guests comfortable and welcome.
One indicator of Rustica’s hopefully continued success is its attention to its clientele, not only in the generous portions that it serves, but in the prices that accompany its dishes. All main courses are between $14 and $19, and are easily shared between diners, and many first courses are quite filling by themselves.
The massive antipasti plate offers a variety of flavors that work on every region of the tongue ($6). With grilled yams (served cold), a savory olive medley, sweet and spicy nuts and intensely acidic house-pickled vegetables, not venturing away from the “firsts” section on the menu might provide a satisfying meal.
The next appetizer could be a terrific one-person entree on the cheap, and may inspire selfishness. The duck confit ($9) is fruity, sweet, and better resembles braised duck leg than a traditional confit, though rustic cuisine can get away with playing fast and loose with tradition. The meat’s apple-celery chutney was refreshing and palate clearing.
Anything on the main course menu could have been satisfying, and the long ribbons of papardelle pasta ($15) with hickory smoked chicken and pecorino cheese in an arugula-walnut pesto were no exception.
Brought to the table by one of the restaurant’s genial waitstaff, the thin, but peppery, sweet, and citrusy pesto danced across the tongue, and invited the sweet-smoke umami of the chicken to play with it.
Despite being shared, this meal required boxes -- even for the sweet ricotta cheese cannoli ($5). The accompanying espresso-sized mug of hot chocolate with cinnamon and cayenne gave a sweet-spicy finish to the meal that cleared the senses, but not the checkbook.
From entrance to exit, it seems like Rustica has it right. Rustica stands among a select group of new restaurants in Kalamazoo whose openings represent a commitment to revitalize this city. As co-owner Bill Weier demands on Rustica’s website, “Give me some crusty bread, simple food, good friends and a bottle of wine. . .now that is a meal.” Kalamazoo citizens should enjoy that meal and ensure civic revitalization at Rustica.
NYT Defense: Alex Witchel: "Variations on a Beloved Theme"
Here is a link to the article I'm defending: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/dining/24feed.html
I was initially drawn to this article in last week’s dining section because of its teaser title, “Feed Me: The Chopped Meat Variations.” I love eating meat, so I was immediately intrigued, and the demanding and to the point tone of the column title "Feed Me" (a monthly column in Dining) suggested that this article would be written efficiently, with the express purpose explicitly of making me hunger for whatever type of chopped meat I was going to read about. I decided to write on this article for my defense when I realized halfway through the piece that Alex Witchel was impressively weaving personal narrative writing with recipe writing, restaurant reviews and a dash of social criticism. Her snarky comment about how Café Boulud’s number one seller is the arugula salad, “The Upper East Side is truly wasted on the rich,” was jarring, hilarious in context, I find to be a good example of her combining many different types of writing to write a successful food column. Alex is a novelist and a writer for the New York Times magazine who resides in New York City. Her husband, Frank Rich is an Op-Ed Columnist for the Times.
I was initially drawn to this article in last week’s dining section because of its teaser title, “Feed Me: The Chopped Meat Variations.” I love eating meat, so I was immediately intrigued, and the demanding and to the point tone of the column title "Feed Me" (a monthly column in Dining) suggested that this article would be written efficiently, with the express purpose explicitly of making me hunger for whatever type of chopped meat I was going to read about. I decided to write on this article for my defense when I realized halfway through the piece that Alex Witchel was impressively weaving personal narrative writing with recipe writing, restaurant reviews and a dash of social criticism. Her snarky comment about how Café Boulud’s number one seller is the arugula salad, “The Upper East Side is truly wasted on the rich,” was jarring, hilarious in context, I find to be a good example of her combining many different types of writing to write a successful food column. Alex is a novelist and a writer for the New York Times magazine who resides in New York City. Her husband, Frank Rich is an Op-Ed Columnist for the Times.
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