HI,

Chicago Tribune food section today featured Forgotten Thailand on:

Unknown to foreigners and neglected by many countrymen, the northern region of Lanna bursts with bold flavors

This article was written by Robyn Eckhardt and photographed by her husband David Hagerman, who produce the Web site Eating Asia (eatingasia.typepad.com).

Robyn posts occasionally on LTH and long ago extensively on CH as FoodFirst/Robyn. Robyn is an American living in SE Asia due to her husband's job. They have lived in Thailand, Vietnam and currently in Kuala Lumpur.

Robyn will be a guest speaker for the Chicago Foodways Roundtable on Sunday April 15th. She will be in town for the International Association of Culinary Professional's meeting. She will discuss palm sugars with information on how they are processed in various countries and their use. If there are no issues with border control, then there will be tastings of these different palm sugars.

Hoo-Hah, at long last, Trixie Pea/Kristina Meyer's overview of Chicago's take on the Most Important Meal of the Day is in this week's Reader: http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/restaurants/070216/

David "Goat Lover" Hammond

Both David Hammond and Alan Lake (Jazzfood) currently have quite interesting pieces on Gapers Block

Hammond

Alan

An interesting reference from Grant Achatz on Chicagoist today:

C: What food-related websites or media do you keep an eye on, for ideas and feedback?

GA: I do it a lot less now, but I used to be really into all the blogs, like eGullet, LTHForum, all of those. I don’t read them so much anymore, I don’t know why. I feel that some of it is that they’re losing some credibility. There’s a lot of good, honest material there, then there’s a lot of … bullshit. You know, where, at the beginning (of these sites), there was a lot of useful information, honest information. Now, somehow, I feel that maybe it’s a lot of people using it as a microphone to hear themselves. Then it becomes less credible. But what I’ve always enjoyed about it is it's the voice of the guest.

Link here.

The The Depot gets some Chicago Reader love in a terrific article by David Hammond

G Wiv wrote:The The Depot gets some Chicago Reader love in a terrific article by David Hammond

In addition, one sees where the hearts of LTH/Reader capsule reviewers lie, as about half of this week's selection of diner reviews are authored by LTH'ers, including a review of Edna's by Seth Z that I quite enjoy...

Seth Zurer wrote:The pork-neck lady looked over as I picked at my sweet potatoes: "You stuffed? Edna, she stuffs you, that's how she gets you," she said. "Now you're hooked, just like me."

Contrast this representation during the week when the capsules were selected from "vegetarian and vegan friendly" restaurants.

Our own Vital Information is one of the "foodies and Chinatown experts" helping Monica Eng compile an essential guide to Chinatown in today's Chicago Tribune. (Back page of the At Play section, for those who prefer a paper copy.)

Amata wrote:Our own Vital Information is one of the "foodies and Chinatown experts" helping Monica Eng compile an essential guide to Chinatown in today's Chicago Tribune. (Back page of the At Play section, for those who prefer a paper copy.)

Also in today's "At Play" section, GAF is quoted in a brief segment about special occasion reservations. (Second half of the article about Vie's new black chef's clothing--I can't find a free link to it online).

Best,
Michael

Thanks for bringing that to our attention, Amy. What I've always thought is so wonderful about this community is the varied backgrounds that everyone brings to this forum. The range of knowledge and, indeed, expertise is often mind-boggling. Even so, it's still possible to be caught offguard by people we thought we knew. Imagine my surprise, for example, to learn that Vital Information even played for the Cubbies (in his somewhat younger days)!

Gypsy Boy wrote:Thanks for bringing that to our attention, Amy. What I've always thought is so wonderful about this community is the varied backgrounds that everyone brings to this forum. The range of knowledge and, indeed, expertise is often mind-boggling. Even so, it's still possible to be caught offguard by people we thought we knew. Imagine my surprise, for example, to learn that Vital Information even played for the Cubbies (in his somewhat younger days)!

But with stats like these it's probably a good thing that he turned in his glove and picked up a fork.

He looks better now without that silly uniform, though.

On the other hand, how come Gary gets quotes and a mention for his blog, while all Rob got was a mention for some of his favorite restaurants - oh wait, that is better .

Interesting, as always, Hammond penned Xni-Pec/Xel-Ha Beyond the Burrito in the Reader this week.

LTH,

Watched the current Diary of a Foodie, Avant Garde a la Carte, Chef Cantu and Chef Achatz are featured, Achatz interviewed by Louisa Chu, a very interesting show. Louisa has quite a bit of face time in the Avant Garde episode.

Nicely done.

Enjoy,
Gary

LTH got props for raising awareness about Xni-Pec in the newest addition of Chicago Magazine's e-update, DISH:

********
A Restaurant Worth Checking Out
The smart folks on LTHforum.com have been raving about Xni-Pec (5135 W. 25th St., Cicero; 708-652-8680), a one-year-old 80-seat Yucatecan restaurant owned by Antonio Contreras, whose family hails from Maya, so we gave Contreras a call.

D: First of all, how do you pronounce “Xni-Pec”?
AC: “Sh-KNEE pec.”

D: What does it mean?
AC: It’s a salsa, made from habanero. The meaning of the word is: “pec” is dog, “xni” is nose. So when you eat a lot of hot peppers like habanero, you start to get a hot nose, your nose starts to run. Dogs always have wet noses.

D: How is Yucatecan food different from other Mexican cuisine?
AC: Mainly the cooking process. For example, when you make a tortilla, after it puffs up, you open it and you put some black beans on it. This is the Mayan way. Then you fry the tortilla and put chicken on top. The chicken has been marinated overnight with achiote; then it is grilled. Then you use the chicken in an onion soup to give extra flavor to the chicken. Finally you shred the chicken and put it on the tortilla, top it with red onion and some orange juice.

D: How about desserts?
AC: We do truly Mexican desserts, like cold sweet potato with piloncillo [Mexican brown sugar], cinnamon, orange, and Mexican pumpkin. On the side we put a glass of hot milk so you mix it.

D: Are you the chef?
AC: None of us are chefs. Our recipes are from my homeland, my mother, and my grandmother.

D: Why have we not heard of Xni-Pec?
AC: Until now we felt that we weren’t ready to show the true meaning of our dishes. So we have been quiet, not talking too much about the restaurant.

D: But you’re ready now?
AC: Yes.

I was interviewed on a NJ radio station this morning, and when they asked how to find out about food in Chicago and how to find out about where to eat outside Chicago, my answer was the same -- check LTHForum.com. Lots of fun to be able to have this is a resource!

Cynthia wrote:I was interviewed on a NJ radio station this morning, and when they asked how to find out about food in Chicago and how to find out about where to eat outside Chicago, my answer was the same -- check LTHForum.com. Lots of fun to be able to have this is a resource!

Thanks Cynthia for the props.

Dish also had a bit of wonderful news about an African place opening in April in N'ville: Masala Yangu (43 E. Jefferson Ave., Naperville; 630-922-9999). I am terribly excited.

Much thanks to Dropkick, et al.

Cynthia,

Any chance that was Francis and Mark from the Restaurant Guys?

They're one of the best food related podcasts out there. I've eaten in their restaurants I've hinted to Francis once about getting them to talk more about food blogs and forums like this one.

dicksond wrote:

Cynthia wrote:I was interviewed on a NJ radio station this morning, and when they asked how to find out about food in Chicago and how to find out about where to eat outside Chicago, my answer was the same -- check LTHForum.com. Lots of fun to be able to have this is a resource!

Thanks Cynthia for the props.

Dish also had a bit of wonderful news about an African place opening in April in N'ville: Masala Yangu (43 E. Jefferson Ave., Naperville; 630-922-9999). I am terribly excited.

Much thanks to Dropkick, et al.

D,

Just by chance a few weeks ago I met the chef/owner of Masala Yangu. At that time they were planning on opening the second week of April. It's my understanding that they are planning on serving primarily North African cuisine. I forget which country she is from, but she seems truly focused on that region.

FYI - If people don't recognize the address. They are renovating the old Tea Room next door to Quigley's Irish Pub.

Flip

Flip wrote:Just by chance a few weeks ago I met the chef/owner of Masala Yangu. At that time they were planning on opening the second week of April. It's my understanding that they are planning on serving primarily North African cuisine. I forget which country she is from, but she seems truly focused on that region.

I believe Dish said it was to be East African, which would be pretty cool as we have a fair amount of West African, some North African, but to my knowledge very few if any East African places around these parts.

Only if you don't consider Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia to be in East Africa... I had some nice meals in Keya and Tanzania long ago, though they were in Indian restaurants. Zanzibar doesn't count. I think this has comeup before, with Zim having some good info...

JeffB wrote:Only if you don't consider Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia to be in East Africa... I had some nice meals in Keya and Tanzania long ago, though they were in Indian restaurants. Zanzibar doesn't count. I think this has comeup before, with Zim having some good info...

You're right, of course, was forgetting about Ethiopia (oddly, as there are probably more African places serving Ethiopian food in Chicago than any other African cuisine). Guess I still consider it part of Italy ( ).

Hammond

David Hammond wrote:

JeffB wrote:Only if you don't consider Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia to be in East Africa... I had some nice meals in Keya and Tanzania long ago, though they were in Indian restaurants. Zanzibar doesn't count. I think this has comeup before, with Zim having some good info...

You're right, of course, was forgetting about Ethiopia (oddly, as there are probably more African places serving Ethiopian food in Chicago than any other African cuisine). Guess I still consider it part of Italy ( ).

Hammond

I salute you, Il Duce

Mistakes happen. I can't spell Kenya, let alone Djibouti.

David Hammond wrote:

Flip wrote:Just by chance a few weeks ago I met the chef/owner of Masala Yangu. At that time they were planning on opening the second week of April. It's my understanding that they are planning on serving primarily North African cuisine. I forget which country she is from, but she seems truly focused on that region.

I believe Dish said it was to be East African, which would be pretty cool as we have a fair amount of West African, some North African, but to my knowledge very few if any East African places around these parts.

You are correct sir! I just remembered that they had a website, and it does state East African. Now, if I could only remember which country she is from. I'm thinking it's either Kenya or Uganda, but I could be wrong, again.

Flip

kiplog wrote:Cynthia,

Any chance that was Francis and Mark from the Restaurant Guys?

They're one of the best food related podcasts out there. I've eaten in their restaurants I've hinted to Francis once about getting them to talk more about food blogs and forums like this one.

Yep -- it was The Restaurant Guys. They must have been paying attention when you dropped that hint, because the main topic was about Hungry Magazine, a magazine/blog for which I write. (And here I thought they were enamored of my food histories. Sigh.) But it was a lot of fun -- I got to say some nice things about LTHForum, Chicago, and Hungrymag, and the guys were a real pleaure to talk to.

They must have been paying attention when you dropped that hint, because the main topic was about Hungry Magazine, a magazine/blog for which I write.

Nah, I doubt they listened to me, and it was months ago. I couldn't even get them to stuff my stuffed veal chop when I went about a year ago. They've had lots of authors on who keep mentioning food blogs, and they've discussed the subject with Andrea Strong. You can't talk food writing today without acknowledging the interweb.

Actually, the whole Restaurant Guys gig has been a little confused -- but perhaps that's because Hungry Magazine and I are both relatively unknown, at least compared to Ruth Reichl and some of the other luminaries they interview, so they really weren't sure where to go with the interview. Anyway, they originally asked me to talk about food history, especially the histories of Rum and Coffee that had recently appeared in Hungry. But when it came time for the interview, we talked mostly about Hungry Magazine, it's concept, how it gets its writers -- the kind of stuff I figured they should have been asking MJN, not me. But I wasn't going to tell them that on the air.

Well, now, at last, the podcast version of the interview has been poasted on their website, and it looks like they must have lost the food-related bio I sent, and they just went to my website and picked up some background from the educational publishing side of my career. So it looks a little odd -- "She's all about food, but here are all these non-food things she does."

But it's not the kind of confusion that makes the tabloids, just a little bit of too many directions to go. I'm not going to complain, however. For a freelance writer, publicity is a good thing.

And the Restaurant Guys are smart and funny, and I had a good time talking to them, even if we did go places I didn't expect. (And if you're interested in food info, they have a lot of great podcasts on their site with just about everyone involved in food, from writers to chefs to scientists. So it's a god site to know about.)

if you're interested, I do mention LTHForum a couple of times.

http://www.restaurantguysradio.com/sle/rg/

Cynthia,

I found your interview most enjoyable and have made a personal commitment to shoot a shot of yak vodka as soon as possible. (You didn't bring any back by any chance, did you?).

One thing that I find most odd and compromised about the Restaurant Guys is that they (as the title suggests) own restaurants. Now, I believe one can be objective and still be "in the industry," but there was mention of both their places in the context of the conversation, and that just seems....odd (glad we were spared updated news reports from News Brunswick).

Cynthia, thanks for the valient effort(s) to inject LTH into the conversation -- when I buy your book, I hope you will sign it for me,

David

Yeah -- they do mention their restaurants a lot. But if one looks over the list of folks they've interviewed, it doesn't seem to affect who they invite to talk (lots of chefs from other restaurants), and the few podcasts of theirs that I have listened to seemed to really focus on what the person had to say, though the ads were all about their places. Perhaps just having them be so up front about the fact that they own these restaurants helps free them up to not have the programs just be about them. Who knows. I do agree that in most cases it wouldn't work.

As for the vodka -- sorry, no, I didn't get to bring any home. Trying to make vodka from milk might be an interesting experiment for some ambitious LTHer, however. (I had camel milk vodka, sheep milk vodka, and horse milk vodka, so apparently it's not something that's limited to any particular type of milk -- and if nomads living in felt tents in the Gobi can do it, I'm sure someone here can do it!)

And I'll gladly sign my book for you when it's out. Thanks!

I am truly excited that LTH will soon rank very well in google for the lucrative term "horse milk vodka".