NJ Share Our Strength Taste of the Nation 2008

The New Jersey Share Our Strength charity event is right around the corner. If you haven’t been to one of these before, it’s a great way to taste a whole lot of dishes from some of the region’s best restaurants all at once, and help out a great charitable cause, the fight against child hunger. Plus, most of the admission fee is tax deductible!

The New Jersey event (click for details) is to be held this year at the Birchwood Manor in Whippany, on May 5 at 6PM. Over 40 of New Jersey’s top restaurants will be featured. To purchase tickets ($85 in advance, $95 at the door) call (973) 772-4474.

Podcast #45: Whole Hog at The Pit with Ed Mitchell

The Pit Authentic Barbecue
328 W. Davie Street, Raleigh NC
(919) 890-4500

Web Site: http://thepit-raleigh.com

Click Here to Listen to the Ed Mitchell Whole Hog Podcast

Click Here to see a short video clip of the Whole Hog BBQ Smoking Process

Related Post: VarmintBites — The Pit Is Great, and They’re Open for Lunch!

Related Multimedia: Ed Mitchell A/V Presentation at Raleigh News and Observer

Click Here for a Hi-Res Slide Show of The Pit Restaurant in Raleigh, NC

Podcast #46: Momofuku of the South — Charlie Deal and Jujube Restaurant

Jujube Restaurant
1201-L Raleigh Rd, Glen Lennox Shopping Center (next to BIN 54)
Hwy 54 at 15-501, Chapel Hill, NC 27514
(919) 960-0555

Web Site: http://jujuberestaurant.com/

Click to Listen to the Off The Broiler Podcast

Charlie Deal, Northern California transplant and Chef/Owner of Jujube Restaurant in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

A sampling of Jujube’s eclectic Asian Fusion cuisine.

Click Here to view a Hi-Res Slide Show of Jujube Restaurant

Triangle Dining: Pho 9N9

Pho 9N9 Vietnamese Cuisine
2945 S Miami Blvd, Durham, NC 27703
(919) 544-4496

It’s no secret now that I’ve been staying in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area for the past several weeks, traveling back and forth between my home in New Jersey on a four month project. The RDU/Triangle area, while not as ethnically diverse as say, San Jose and the Silicon Valley, is of equal importance to our nation’s high tech industry, due to the presence of many large technology companies in the Research Triangle and surrounding areas. And as we all know, you can’t feed computer geeks without having decent Asian food around.

The weather is just starting to turn warm here, so I’ve been in the mood for light cuisine. I was pointed towards Pho 9N9, a small Vietnamese pho shop that is on the outskirts of Durham, by my old friend, fellow foodblogger and native Triangle resident Varmint.

Pho 9N9 is located in a rather non-descript and rather industrial looking strip mall, which houses mostly commercial businesses. That’s just fine with me.

Serious Pho in the Triangle. Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.

Rest in Peace, Reiser4

Read the rest of my commentary on ZDNet.

Discuss this article on Slashdot

TasteTV New Media Tastemakers Summit, San Francisco, May 2nd 2008

If you’re in the San Francisco area TasteTV is having a New Media Tastemakers Summit, the first of its kind.

“A first-of-its-kind gathering of 300 of the most important Digital Media, Traditional Media and Web 2.0 producers and platforms specifically focused on the lucrative & highly influential Lifestyle categories of: FOOD & WINE, FASHION & DESIGN, AND REGIONAL/CITY SITES. Powered by the techniques and technology of New Media, these categories are not only required daily reading and viewing by tens of millions of consumers and businesses, they also have the ability to begin or end major trends, make fortunes & careers, and thrill & delight advertisers.”

Off The Broiler is proud to be a Media Sponsor of this event. For registration, please visit http://www.newmediatastemakers.com

Jason Perlow, Consumer Advocate: High Octane Antiperspirant

As some of you have learned by now, I am currently on a longer-than-usual assignment in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina this summer. Because it is a four month engagement, and it necessitates that I sometimes need to stay down here for two weeks at a time, I’ve rented a small apartment so that I can live more comfortably and do cooking for myself and store items over the weekends when I need to go home. This has forced me into a bachelor-like lifestyle where I have had to actually take care of myself, something I haven’t really had to do for like, I dunno, 13 years.

Routine shopping has become a new pastime for me. Oh, Rachel and I shop all the time, but I tend to ignore the mundane aisles, such as the personal hygiene products, because I tell Rachel usually to buy a whole bunch of something at COSTCO or get whatever is on sale. I don’t care — as long as I don’t stink up the house or walk around with a foul odor on me that my co-workers might notice, it makes no difference to me what product I use. So I have no cultural frame of reference for what is actually going on with that industry.

Maybe I have been so out of the routine shopping thing for so long, but these products caught my eye on a shopping trip to Kroger yesterday:

Maybe these have been around for years, but It appears there are now “Pro” and “Clinical” strength antiperspirants. This seemed like a particularly good idea to me, as the weather in Durham is approaching 90 degrees already and I have been taking half mile walks between the buildings that I need to work at. And we big guys tend to reek when we get sweaty.

I was about to grab 2 or 3 of these to test out, until I saw the PRICES.

WHOA! Eight bucks per stick? That’s more than twice the price of their regular brand!

Okay, I want to be All Day Fresh or Arctic Clean, but not at these prices.

Even the “loss” leader in this category, Right Guard, is still more than twice the price of their volume product.

So I looked at the back of these boxes and peered at the actual label. Like all other deoderants and antiperspirants, besides fragrance, the primary active ingredient is Aluminium Zirconium Tetrachlorohydrex Gly. All the “Pro” versions seem to have it in a 20 percent ratio whereas the regular products have it around 14-16 percent. At four to six percentage points difference, is this really going to make you sweat less and smell less stinky on a super hot day? And even in milder climates, is it really going to help, at more than twice the price? And is Aluminium Zirconium so expensive that a minor percentage increase in formulation will vastly increase manufacturing costs for companies like Gilette, Procter & Gamble, Mennen and Unilver to justify such a large price increase for these products?

Do any of you actually go out and buy this stuff or do you agree that it is a total ripoff?

New Orleans Dining: Lüke

Click For Hi-Res Slide Show!

Luke Restaurant
333 Saint Charles Ave, New Orleans, LA
(504) 378-2840

Web Site: http://www.lukeneworleans.com

I noticed that fellow Fat Packer Ed Levine is in New Orleans this week and is lamenting about how his current diet is being affected by the local cuisine. This made me laugh, because I completely feel for what he is going through. I’ve probably put more pounds on in the last year eating in New Orleans restaurants than in anywhere in the US — the city is known for its excess, and boy did I indulge in it on my last trip there, back in August of 2007. But if I had a milestone weight loss that I wanted to celebrate, and say “to hell with it” for a day, and if I had to make a Sophie’s Choice of what one restaurant in New Orleans I should make that cheat at, John Besh’s Lüke would probably be very high on the list of candidates.

Be it as it may, It recently occurred to me that I had completely forgotten to post about my August 2007 experiences at the restaurant. Ed’s current trip to the city during the 2008 IACP conference gave me the impetus to drag out my photos (and I shamefully apologize to Chef Besh who had Todd Price, Rachel and myself as his guests at this meal that was never chronicled) which have been collecting virtual dust on Flickr until now. Fortunately, the menu has stayed effectively the same, so contextually, the food should be nearly identical to what the restaurant serves now.

I hope this post serves to motivate the IACPers and other travelers who are heading to the city this spring to try this wonderful restaurant, because God knows I won’t be eating there again or eating like this for a while.

Ready for a trip back in time to OTB Classic? Click on “Read the rest of this entry” link below for some artery clogging Beshy hofbrau goodness.

Jason on Computer America Radio

Last night I appeared as a guest on Craig Crossman’s Computer America syndicated radio program, courtesy of Linux Magazine. Inevitably, the conversation shifted to food — the great unifier of all geekdom.

Click to listen to the first hour (MP3 format)

Click to listen to the second hour (MP3 format)

I plan to return once a month to discuss Linux and all things Open Source. Hopefully, my voice modulation and radio decorum will improve with time!

Low-Karb Veggie Kugel

by Rachel Perlow

This veggie kugel was a big hit at our Passover Seder last night. Knowing it was low carb and low fat, everyone took seconds of this instead of the Potato Kugel. When we made it yesterday, I used 4 boards of matzo and 20 oz of egg product, but we found the results a little too starchy tasting. So, the proportions below use less matzo and more egg. I am hoping to achieve a more quiche or souffle like texture on our next attempt.

It’s not just a Passover dish, it’s a St. Patrick’s Day dish too! Green Kugel is made of PEOPLE!!! It’s made of PEOPLE… oh never mind.

Does the Veggie Kugel frighten you? It should, because it’s damn tasty. Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.