Wednesday is food day, and not only because "Top Chef" is on. It's also the day the food sections in some our favorite publications come out.Frank Bruni, the purple-prosed prince of sybarites at The New York Times, has returned from his Italian vacation with an ode to the pig. In the spirit of the piece, we illustrate this with an item from last Sunday's lunch, a rather nice queso de puerco, or head cheese, obtained from one of our local carnicerías.
Bruni, asking "Just How Good Can Italy Get?", answers his own question by praising his "kind of pig heaven," which "looks a lot like Bologna’s fatty heart." He then tantalizes us with the usual quasi-pornographic descriptions of prosciutto di Parma and culatello.
A little farther west, Auntie Irene at The Los Angeles Times reviews BLD, a breakfast, lunch and dinner place blessed with brioche French toast, "each slice easily two fingers high and wearing a ruffle of eggy batter," ricotta blueberry pancakes, "big crumbly buttermilk scones dotted with currants, cinnamon buns swirled with butter and cinnamon, and a wonderful Breton pastry called kouign amann." However, she's also got pig on the brain, praising "the cured pork products from Paul Bertolli at Fra' Mani, a new salumeria in Berkeley from the former Oliveto and Chez Panisse chef." Coincidentally enough, she also wrote about the glories of Italy and pigs last month, describing her dinner with Dario Cecchini, "the most famous butcher in Italy."
At the LA Weekly, Jonathan Gold extols the glories of duck fat and finally gets around to reviewing the uniquely Angeleno craze for Pinkberry frozen yogurt, "as pure and smooth and white as the Carrara marble from which Michelangelo carved his David, a perfection probably attained through the use of powdered nonfat milk, which is a Korean obsession. If you are what you eat, Pinkberry may be the ideal food."
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