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13 Dec 22:54

The Worst Michelin-Starred Meal Ever

by Tim Carmody

Four people laughing and befuddled at a terrible meal

Geraldine DeRuiter, aka The Everywhereist, documents a high-concept fine-dining meal that, for reasons yet unexplained, went all kinds of wrong.

It’s as though someone had read about food and restaurants, but had never experienced either, and this was their attempt to recreate it.

What followed was a 27-course meal (note that “course” and “meal” and “27” are being used liberally here) which spanned 4.5 hours and made me feel like I was a character in a Dickensian novel. Because — I cannot impart this enough — there was nothing even close to an actual meal served. Some “courses” were slivers of edible paper. Some were shot glasses of vinegar. Everything tasted like fish, even the non-fish courses. And nearly everything, including these noodles, which was by far the most substantial dish we had, was served cold.

Even forearmed with this overall description, some of the individual moments in the meal play like (bad) theatrical surprises:

“These are made with rancid ricotta,” the server said, a tiny fried cheese ball in front of each of us.

“I’m… I’m sorry, did you say rancid? You mean… fermented? Aged?”

“No. Rancid.”

“Okay,” I said in Italian. “But I think that something might be lost in translation. Because it can’t be—”

Rancido,” he clarified.

Another course — a citrus foam — was served in a plaster cast of the chef’s mouth. Absent utensils, we were told to lick it out of the chef’s mouth in a scene that I’m pretty sure was stolen from an eastern European horror film.

Not just bad. Memorably bad. Award-winningly bad. Which is, as DeRuiter writes, something of an achievement in itself.

Update: You can scroll down to the end of this piece to read a “Declaration by Chef Floriano Pellegrino” that responds to DeRuiter’s review.

Being able to draw a man on a horse does not make you an artist

Update: DeRuiter wrote about her post going viral and the response from Pellegrino.

But a restaurant is not a museum, or an art gallery. If anything, the stakes are even higher, because you aren’t simply creating, you are creating something for someone. Every meal that comes out of the kitchen at Bros. is for a paying customer. It is for someone who has a minimum expectation of what a meal should be. A meal might be innovative, or cutting edge, or require a great deal of technical skill (and indeed, many of the dishes at Bros. were). But if it is insubstantial, or contains something that the customer is allergic to, or it simply doesn’t taste good, then what the hell does it matter if the chef thinks that he’s created art? He’s still failed at being a chef.

But beyond that, it’s a baffling sort of gatekeeping, to tell someone that the reason they didn’t enjoy a meal is that they didn’t understand art. That the reason the meal was awful was because we don’t appreciate the avant garde. It’s a sort of culinary gaslighting.

I have been lucky enough to have eaten at a few restaurants whose food & dining experience could be considered art and the one thing they all had in common was that they were able to ask tough questions of the diner and deliver some of the most surprising & delicious food I have ever tasted.

Tags: Floriano Pellegrino   food   Geraldine DeRuiter   Italy   restaurants
31 Dec 18:08

Run Long Distance in the Morning, Harder in the Evening

by Melanie Pinola

Sometimes you might want to go for a long distance run and other times go for a hard speed run. There are better times of the day to do each of these different types of runs.

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31 Dec 17:40

This Chart Can Help Diagnose and Prevent Snoring

by Eric Ravenscraft

Snoring is a hard annoyance to prevent. The only time you do it is when you’re too unconscious to realize it. This chart can help diagnose snoring problems, as well as offer a few creative solutions (without a doctor visit).

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03 Jun 13:47

Google Maps Begins Showing Live Public Transit Info

by Eric Ravenscraft

Google Maps has already been pretty good at providing public transit info. The one problem is that it only went on typical schedules. If there was a delay or a particular route was canceled, Maps wouldn’t let you know. Now, that changes with the addition of real-time transit info.

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25 Mar 20:40

The Psychological Effect That Explains Why You Suck at Parties

by Esther Inglis-Arkell

The Psychological Effect That Explains Why You Suck at Parties

Have you noticed a little problem at parties? You get introduced to groups of people and immediately forget all their names. There's an effect that explains why things like this are such a problem.

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03 Jan 15:28

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Little-Known, Gorgeous Art

by Maria Popova

An important side of the beloved writer, who was as much an artist of pictures as he was of words.

Storytelling icon J.R.R. Tolkien (January 3, 1892–September 2, 1973) was also among those rare creators with semi-secret talents in a discipline other than their primary realm of fame — but while his original sketches for the first edition of The Hobbit have seen the light of day in recent years, few realize that Tolkien, who self-illustrated many of his famous works, was as much an artist of pictures as he was of words. Unlike other famous authors who also drew but only as a hobby or diversion, including Sylvia Plath, William Faulkner, and Flannery O’Connor, Tolkien approached the visual medium with as much thoughtfulness and imaginative rigor as he did his stories. J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator (public library) collects more than 200 color reproductions, many previously unpublished, of Tolkien’s surviving art in watercolor, pencil, and ink, spanning sixty years of his life — from his childhood drawings to his illustrations for his books to his final sketches, as well as the drawings he created for his own children, his obsessive calligraphy, and his imaginative maps of Middle Earth.

Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull, who edited the volume and who ventured to England to find the exact locations where each of Tolkien’s drawings was created, write in the introduction:

We have long felt that Tolkien’s art deserves to be as well known as his writings. The two were closely linked, and in his paintings and drawings he displayed remarkable powers of invention that equalled his skill with words. His books have been read by countless thousands; most of his art, however, has been seen by only a very few.

Fortunately, a wealth of Tolkien’s art survives, for the beloved author seems to have had “an archivist’s soul,” as Hammond and Scull aptly put it: He kept nearly everything he drew, down to the scraps of paper filled with spontaneous doodles, and carefully tucked his most prized creations into special envelopes which he opened periodically to add captions and inscriptions years after the drawings were made.

'They Slept in Beauty Side by Side' | Pencil

Tolkien drew this in early 1904, when he was twelve, when his mother was hospitalized for diabetes and he had to stay with her younger sister, Jane, in Sussex. The drawing depicts Jane and her husband Edwin, and the title was likely inspired by a line from the popular 19th-century poem 'The Graves of a Household' by Felicia Dorothea Hemans, which goes: 'They grew in beauty, side by side / They fill'd one home with glee.'

'Untitled (Two Boys at the Seaside)' | Watercolor, pencil

'Water, Wind & Sand' | Pencil, watercolor, white body color.

Tolkien drew this in early 1915 for 'The Book of Ishness'

'Moonlight on a Wood' | Pencil, black ink, watercolor

'Gandalf' | Pencil, colored pencil

One of the most fascinating sections of the book, titled “Visions, Myths and Legends,” explores Tolkien’s drawings for abstract and psychological concepts like wickedness, weirdness, thinking, and time — something on which he had strong opinions.

'Wickedness' | Pencil, colored pencil

'Afterwards' | Pencil, colored pencil

'Thought' | Pencil

'Undertenishness' | Watercolor, black ink

'Grownupishness' | Black ink

(Curiously, Tolkien made the above drawing shortly after turning twenty-one, that special “grownupishness” rite of passage.)

J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator is a treasure trove in its entirety. Complement it with Tolkien on fairy tales, the psychology of fantasy, and why there’s no such thing as writing “for children.”

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13 Dec 16:12

Netflix’s ‘House of Cards’ Season Two Gets a Release Date & Trailer

by Justin Page

Netflix has released a teaser trailer for the upcoming second season of their original political drama series House of Cards. Season two will be available to stream starting February 14th, 2014 on Netflix.

Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) has masterfully maneuvered his way into the Vice Presidency, but his ascension faces threats on all fronts… Investigative reporter Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara) is inching closer to the truth about Frank and Peter Russo (Corey Stoll) and will stop at nothing to break the story. And Frank’s wife Claire (Robin Wright), the newly appointed Second Lady, must deal with the bright glare of the spotlight and how the intense scrutiny eats away at their once private existence.

House of Cards Season 2

video and image via Netflix

12 Aug 15:02

IF ONLY: ‘The Walking Dead’ with Lightsabers [Pic]

by Lauren Berkley

I already watch The Walking Dead religiously, but I would watch the hell out of this.

(Governor vs. Rick lightsaber duel, anyone?)

TWD_lightsabers

[via I Waste So Much Time]

05 Aug 03:57

Alice on a ladder, reaching for a book tattoo

by Cory Doctorow


No idea where this Tennielesque back tattoo featuring Alice on a ladder confronting a higgeldy-piggeldy tower of books came from (do you know?) but it's magnelephant.

ink (via That Book Smell)

    


16 Jul 00:22

Is PBS really bringing back Carmen Sandiego?

by Meredith Woerner

Is PBS really bringing back Carmen Sandiego?

Looks like we're all about to find out Where In The World Carmen Sandiego has been. AMIRITE?

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