Um. Huh?

A big "WTF" shout out to Adam Roberts, AKA The Amateur Gourmet. Roberts posted a very cute, cartoon-style celebration of the fourth anniversary of his blog...claiming he wrote The Elements of Cooking. Can someone solve this mystery? The only credits I've found are for Ruhlman and Bourdain, and I'm pretty sure the Bourdain thing is in a consultant capacity only.

Also? Not digging the Britney Spears motif, Roberts. Kind of tacky to make fun of nervous breakdowns on a food blog, don't you think?

Update: Apparently Roberts was being "silly" on the book thing.

News: Oh, Bother

I haven't commented on the whole scandal with Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook. I realize this is a pretty big story for this lovely little niche I call home, and I think that it brings up important questions. I also don't really care. The recipes sound pretty gross, to be honest, and also, I'm kinda of disturbed by the idea of hiding the healthy food inside the kid-friendly food. How does that do anything other than teach kids awful, awful habits? That lettuce on your hamburger ain't a salad, friends. This book doesn't meet my whole "Does the world need this particular cookbook?" requirement, so I give the whole controversy a resounding meh.

Bubbles

Is it weird that I'm absurdly excited about the fact that Yellow Tail is launching a sparkling wine?

I have that Din Ho post and a post on beginner cookbooks on the way. I swear.

GOPNIK!

See here! Adam Gopnik has gone and written an article for The New Yorker about food and books and stuff.

While Gopnik has some interesting things to say about the connection between cooking and the writing process—the section on shelling beans is beautiful—I don't think he's contributing anything new to the discussion. (See Maya Angelou's forays into the subject.) He's on the mark when he declares the growing presence of recipes in novels a symptom of the American gourmet epidemic, but I wonder where on earth he got the idea that you can't think while you cook.

What does he think people who work in the food industry do all day, go into some sort of trance? Apparently.

This article made me hungry for bouillabaisse.