Partying with Daisy Martinez

Last night Rachel and I were privileged to attend the launch party for Daisy Martinez’s new cookbook, Daisy: Morning, Noon and Night: Bringing Your Family Together with Everyday Latin Dishes.

This book is a bit of a departure from her previous and excellent cookbook, Daisy Cooks! in that the dishes are more oriented towards entertaining and she’s really put a serious creative spin into it. The previous book was more of a foundation or introductory type book to Latin American cuisine — this one really makes it take off like a supersonic jet blaring reggaeton music on its way into the stratosphere.

The party occurred at Don Coqui, a brand-new and massive  high-end Puerto Rican restaurant in New Rochelle, New York owned by Jimmy Rodriguez, who is among the most prominent Latino chefs and restauranteurs in the country. Jimmy has opened several Latino restaurants over the last ten years, including Sofrito restaurant in New York City. Rodriguez has now devoted his energies entirely to Don Coqui, and rightfully so.

I never thought a Puerto Rican place would be a destination restaurant in the burbs of the New York metro area, but there it is. It’s also got an entire floor and kitchen dedicated to catering, so it’s a great place to have parties.

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Check out Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, 10PM March 8th, 2010 “Obsessed” on the Travel Channel

Episode Synopsis: Anthony talks to chefs and bloggers whose obsessive love for food drives them to noteworthy feats.

If you’re a fan of Off the Broiler and have been following my activities for the last 10 years, this is an episode you don’t want to miss. There’s a bunch of familiar faces in this one, including eGullet’s Steven Shaw and Opinionated About’s Steve Plotnicki.

Updated: Here’s a video clip exclusively for the web where we discuss anonymity in restaurant reviewing.

Promo 1

Promo 2

We Officially Terminate our Oath of Fealty to Insane Greatness

Ah, Adobe. Poor Adobe.

Things between Adobe and Apple used to be just peachy. Indeed, almost from the very day the company formed in 1982, it was destined to be the premier supplier of content creation software for the Macintosh, which launched only two years later, in 1984. We all remember what happened in 1984, at least those of us who aren’t Milennials.

Click Here to read the rest of this article at ZDNet Tech Broiler.

Poke Me, Friend Me, Any Way You Want Me

Earlier, I spoke about my first experiences with Google Buzz and how I think end-users might run into trouble with the new social networking service. Part of that discussion was talking about the behavior of Twitter and FaceBook, and how it compares to Google Buzz.

Having given this some additional thought, it occurred to me that Social Networking as a paradigm has become overly complex and baroque in its implementation.

Click Here to read the rest of this article at ZDNet Tech Broiler.

Oy with the Buzz!

So yesterday I was anticipating, with much excitement, of getting “Buzzed”. After watching the demo and reading everyone’s coverage of Google’s social media features for GMail, I was ready to jump ship from Twitter into possibly something better.

But as with the Google Wave hype of 2009, that excitement faded very quickly into frustration. In Buzz’s case, it morphed into full blown anger and rejection.

Click here to read the rest of this article at ZDNet Tech Broiler.

(UPDATE) NJ Dining: Picnic Caterers

Chef Christine Nunn announced some Good News / Bad News last week. First the bad, Picnic in Emerson will be closed for lunch effective immediately. They will still be doing catering out of a professional kitchen, so all scheduled parties will not be effected, and you can continue to book parties as well (call the number, below). This is all to make time in Chef Nunn’s life for the GOOD news: Picnic, The Restaurant, will be opening at the Radburn Building in Fair Lawn, hopefully in June. Stay tuned for more about Picnic, The Restaurant, as Off The Broiler learns about it.

Picnic Catering
(201) 321-3213

You’ve heard my praises about Christine Nunn and her wonderful little catering operation in Emerson before (click for podcast and previous photos). However, as of last week, Christine and her merry elves at Picnic have been doing dinner take-out orders. I recently had a chance to sample some of the dishes, and if you’re not inclined to cook for yourself this evening or some night in the future, but you want a restaurant-style meal to take home that will knock your socks off, get a good look at some of these:

Picnic’s Chef Christine Nunn, with an abundance of chanterelle mushrooms.

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Kindle Applications? Really? Now?

So, Bezos, lemme get this straight. You waited TWO YEARS to launch a Kindle developer program, a week before Jobs launches iPad/iSlate/Jesus Tablet?

Talk about too little, too late.

Read the rest of this article at ZDNet Tech Broiler.

Gear Up for Montclair Restaurant Week

To launch Montclair’s second-annual Restaurant Week, organizers have planned a kick-off event for Sunday, Jan. 24, from 5 to 8 p.m. at Halcyon Restaurant, 112-114 Walnut Street, Montclair.

Special guests for the event are Montclair’s own TV-star chefs – Michael Carrino of Passionne’, winner of “Chopped” and “Iron Chef America” contestant Marcell Veiga of Giancarelli’s Cucina. The chefs will draw the winners of the Restaurant Week online contest, featuring three, lavish “Night On The Town” prize packages.

The kick-off evening includes hors d’oeuvres, tastings of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey, fine wines and Egan’s microbrews, live entertainment by Eveleth Jazz and a dessert cupcake bar by Love My Cake bakery of Montclair. The cost is $31 per person.

Ten percent of the proceeds will be donated by Halcyon, via the Rotary Club of Montclair, to Restaurant Week beneficiaries The Salvation Army Food Program, Human Needs Food Pantry and Toni’s Kitchen.

All guests will receive gift bags and have the opportunity to bid on exclusive auction items – “Table Hop For Charity” – a progressive dinner for four at three celebrated Montclair Restaurants, and a spa treatment at the Bangz Wellness Spa in Montclair.

Montclair Restaurant Week 2010 begins on Jan. 25 and runs through Feb. 7. To make reservations for the kick-off event, enter the online contest and for more information, visit www.gotomontclairnj.com.

I want Medeco locks installed on my GMail account

The fallout from Google’s recent Chinese cyber-attacks which may cause them to cut their ties with the communist nation raises a number of questions as to what sort of data protection and security the company should provide to its huge customer base of GMail and Google Office applications.

I don’t know about how everyone else is feeling, but as a GMail and Google Apps user I’m starting to get that creepy feeling that the front door of my house is wide open and the bad guys are waiting to walk in and grab all of my stuff while I’m away.

Click to read the rest of this article at ZDNet Tech Broiler.

Chin-O, get off my Tivo

The TV Network scheduling conflicts, ratings wars and analysis methods of the last five decades will be made obsolete by DVR ubiquity and On-Demand viewing technology.

With one of the worst natural disasters in modern history claiming untold amounts of human lives unfolding in front of us all over the media, it seems trivial if not completely callous to talk about the petty time slot scheduling differences between late-night television hosts as determined by network programming executives. But I promise, by the end of this blog entry, you’ll understand why I chose this subject today.

Click Here to read the rest of this article at ZDNet Tech Broiler.