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Philadelphia-cookbook Kraft and whomever else can put ads on every page corner of Bon Appetit for all I care—they lost me months ago. Gourmet loyalists have already proven that they won’t be won over the by the BA, and at least now there is no pretense of publishing a sophisticated food magazine. Let it all hang out.

One of my only concerns with Taste of Home, my latest subscription, is their rampant abuse of cream cheese. Philadelphia cream cheese is the anti-raw milk Époisses. I happen to like both, but please don’t make me puree the soft white block into a pesto. Thanks.

When Taco Salad Won’t Do

Taco salad My June/July Taste of Home couldn’t have come at a more fortuitous time. A chunk of family I rarely see (aunt, uncle, cousins, grandma—ok, I did see her last year) will be visiting over Memorial Day weekend. I suggested they come out to Brooklyn Sunday afternoon since it seems like it would be easier just to cook than to deal with a large group in a neighborhood that's not big on taking reservations (Lucali would be ideal but I can't even subject myself to that nightly pileup) and offers little more than Italian-American food (I already acquiesced on Little Italy for Thursday!) within a reasonable walking distance for car people.

Not everyone has relatives that would enjoy Jean Georges, Scarpetta, Pulino's, The Modern or wherever else it is that blogs and magazines often recommend you take adult out-of-towners. Two-starred as of a few minutes ago, Prime Meats, is the closest restaurant to my apartment but cramped, two-hour-wait eateries staffed by "a crew of handsome men and women dressed as if ready to ride horses back home to Bushwick, where they trap beaver and make their own candles" just isn't going to fly even with these visitors from The Beaver State.

But now I am mildly, only mildly, concerned because I know when people say “oh, I’ll eat anything” that is absolutely untrue. And frankly, I have no idea what this crew likes to eat. You never know what will give someone pause. In the past it has been cilantro and banh xeo (I know, I know, but it’s just an omelet filled with vegetables and meat). I am not saying they are yokels. One West Coast peculiarity is an affinity for wine even if you’re not a foodie type—they are bringing wine from a friend’s vineyard—but American flavors are probably a safer bet, cuisine-wise. I will temper my love of the fishy, fermented and mouth-burning.

And this is where I look to Taste of Home for guidance. So, what does America like to eat? I’m baffled by a taco salad recipe that is to-the-letter what we’d eat on a regular basis 25 years ago, the only difference being something called Western dressing instead of Catalina (I thought that maybe they were the same, but I’ve been schooled). I only turn into a food snob when I think about things like taco salad–Americans should not be eating like this still.

A search for taco salad on the Taste of Home site brings up 176 results, including a taco salad waffle, tater tot taco salad and the pictured patriotic taco salad. Readers undeniably score high marks for creativity.

Amidst the enchilada lasagna and chiles rellenos casserole, there is also a recipe for flour tortillas. Impressive, and more labor-intensive than I would expect from a weeknight cook. On the other hand, there’s nothing remotely spicy about the Thai chicken salad, all full of sesame-ginger dressing, peanut sauce and chow mein noodles.

I also couldn’t ignore the Cooking for Grandma contest featuring a 10-year-old boy who loves to fry (doughnuts and fried pickles are his two specialties). He came up with a recipe for Mexican ice cream (vanilla rolled in crushed cornflakes, sugar, cinnamon and honey). What’s up with all the Mexican-ish flair?

I almost went down that vague path myself; the grilled leg of lamb with ancho chile marinade in the new Bon Appetit jumped out at me (yes, I quickly eschewed Taste of Home for Bon Appetit). But lamb? Not always a crowd-pleaser. Ancho powder seems benign, as well, but who's to say.

Tunisian chile sauce is no one’s taste of home either, but I am leaning toward the harissa-marinated top sirloin tips from the same issue. Everyone loves steak, right? Well, they’re going to, dammit. Now, I just need a few sides that don’t involve cream cheese.

It’s Always Cheesy in Philadelphia

I always look forward to my copy of Taste of Home. It only comes every other month and brings me a different joy than Saveur, which I intend to read but rarely get through, Bon Appetit and Food & Wine, which are skimmers or Cooking Light, the only magazine I regularly cook from even though it’s the least exciting.

Taste of Home’s foundation is every day meals, nothing wildly exotic or labor intensive with no fear of cans or packages. I could imagine the chicken & vegetable stir-fry or the apricot-glazed pork tenderloin ending up on my table if I were a child today.

I’m only on my second issue, but I’m already seeing themes emerging.

So bad it’s bad: alfredo sauce and cream cheese where they don’t really belong. In fact, there is a full page Philadelphia ad advising readers, “Make your pasta more primo when you stir in ½ cup of Philly.” There is a section on the Kraft Foods site called, “i never thought i could add Philly to..” The lowercase is supposed to make putting cream cheese in Cajun, Thai and Latin dishes to make the spice more palatable, seem innocent? And I just saw a TV ad where Paula Deen is encouraging the abuse of cream cream cheese, too. Actually, it’s a contest—I’m now going to think up the most inappropriate placement of cream cheese in a foodstuff. Caesar salad? Baked beans? Barbecue sauce?

In this issue, the soft cheese is called for in easy enchiladas, meatball sub casserole and pretty stuffed spring peas. Alfredo sauce shows up in a white chili (at least it’s not white from mayonnaise) and a chicken cordon bleu pizza invented by a teenage boy, so you kind of have to give him some props for experimenting in the kitchen.

Some things are put where they don’t belong but are genius. Yep, bacon baklava.

Peanutbuttertrifle So bad it’s good: peanut butter brownie trifle. This dish is simply mini peanut butter cups and brownies baked with peanut butter chips interspersed with layers of instant vanilla pudding and topped with frozen whipped topping, a.k.a. Cool Whip. Just as I didn’t know that wine coolers were malt liquor, I had no idea Cool Whip wasn’t a dairy product for many years. And I would totally eat a big bowl of this trifle right now and wash it all down with a Blue Hawaiian Bartles & Jaymes.

Fictional International Intrigue

I can only wonder if Hugo Reyes' fried chicken chain, Mr. Cluck's, is more Popeye's, KFC or Pollo Campero. Whatever style they serve, it's clearly a global hit in the alternate universe. 

Mr. cluck's paris
Baguettes not biscuits.

Mr. cluck's japan
You know they serve teriyaki-glazed chicken.

Mr. cluck's egypt
A halal bucket of chicken?

And It Tastes Like Home

Donut tree A Taste of Home is truer than I thought. I subscribed to the magazine on a whim. Could 3.1 million readers be wrong? In 2002 it was said to be the highest circulation food magazine in the country, and it still very well could be. An anti-Gourmet, one would presume.

And sure enough, there is not one single whimsical alfresco spread in the publication. The photos are about the food with an occasional thumbnail headshot of a reader who submitted a recipe.

Also of note, editorial assistant, Jane Stasik, shown sitting in a pile of mail (because she answers reader letters, of course) is clearly over 40. None of that young, striving Conde Nast business.

I was surprised at just what a taste of my home the recipes really were, good and bad. I haven’t encountered monkey bread in years, though we called the canned biscuit confection cinnamon pull-aparts. I’d whip up a batch right now if I kept biscuit dough around the house—mixing flour, water and baking powder, myself? No way.

I was not surprised how prominently ground beef is featured, it’s inexpensive and feeds a family. Plastic-and-Styrofoam-wrapped pink squiggles of meat always taste like compromise to me unless they’re going into a burger.

We were never served Italian shepherd’s pie, cream cheese and swiss lasagna or roadside diner cheeseburger quiche (second place winner in their Beef It Up contest) in my household but hot tamale casserole comes quite close to what I might’ve found on my plate. Not a taste I’d like to replicate. And sadly, only subscribers can access magazine recipes online, hence no links here.

On the other hand, there is an entire feature devoted to doughnuts from scratch. It’s quite possible that I’m just being wooed by the true blue–my favorite unnatural hue for food–doughnut topping their tree. 

Fruit Hunters

Gourmet’s Diary of a Foodie keeps showing up recorded with no description in my DVR. Every time I click, the episode turns out to be “Montreal: Cooking on the Wild Side” and now I feel like hate fucking Adam Gollner. That is all.

Stop, Thief!

Copycat Foodie cries of copying, imitation and more strongly, plagiarism, have been popping up faster than banh mi joints (or is it fried chicken? I can't keep up). I would understand if two people in a short time frame had written about a Ukranian vegan holiday meal at Veselka (surprisingly, the most e-mailed article in the New York Times last night, currently it is at number six). It's hyper-specific and not widely known.

But Seattle being a teriyaki town is not that much different than the ten million articles devoted to Philly cheesesteaks or on a smaller scale green chile burgers in New Mexico or lobster rolls in Maine. Not exactly secrets.

Is John T. Edge really copying a 2007 story by Jonathan Kauffman? You just don't hear about Seattle teriyaki much because no one gives a rat's ass about the Emerald City, a nickname not quite up there with the Windy City or The Big Apple. (As a native Portlander, the truth is even harsher; the average non-hip New Yorker has no idea where Oregon even is). Though, I imagine that when your under-the-radar regional specialty is acknowledged you feel possessive of it.

Same too, with General Tso’s chicken, it seems. I knew Francis Lam's warm, even-handed style would get him into trouble eventually (I was always surprised by the civility of Gourmet.com commenters). Yes, Fuchsia Dunlop is a recognized Western expert on Chinese food (and of course I made her General Tso’s recipe from Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook ) but it's not as if she owns all historical inquiry into Americanized Chinese food, which I guess is also Jennifer 8. Lee territory. Digging into a topic that's been previously written about does not make one a plagiarizer.

No one rips on Saveur's monthly "Classic," which briefly explains the origin of a dish then gives a recipe. But then, their website is so discombobulated that these columns are floating freely as recipes and not findable enough to comment. Maybe I should go stir up some shit over pavlova or chouchroute garnie. I’m quite certain someone somewhere has written about them before.

Copy Cat photo from Handheld Games Museum

You Could Already Be a Winner

Chainshirt So, the latest food-based reality show will center on personal chefs. All well and good but I’m still stuck on the tentatively named United Plates of America, a reality show competition focused on chain restaurant concepts.

Sadly, the window of opportunity for the chain I dreamt up in the late ‘90s: Totally Grubbin’ has long passed (a glass half-full blogger would call themselves a pioneer for having 11-year-old posts to refer to; I would use a different word to describe writing barely read nonsense online for over a decade). Now that it’s almost the 2010s I can't imagine there is a swath of America left that would be interested in anything tribal and Xtreme. For the modern consumer I might suggest an Ed Hardy theme restaurant.

Here are a few other concepts ripe for going national.

F.I.Y: fry-it-yourself fun where all tables are equipped with a built-in fryolator Korean barbecue-style. The restaurant provides the raw material and you simply batter and dip away. Does it get any fresher? There will be vegetable tempura for the dainty, fried chicken for the a la minute set, butter balls and Oreos for carnies and 10-patty cheeseburgers for the This is Why You're Fat crowd. Perhaps there will be a menu of batters to choose from. Ranch dip would most certainly be involved.

We must not let the Asians have all the fun. Sure, they’ve already taken the prison and hospital themes, not to mention a mayonnaise restaurant. And you thought eating from a toilet bowl was depraved? Please. Mixologists cover your ears, our bar will be called Douchebag, and yes, all drinks will be served in one. Who cares if the insult has been declared over or that just as with belted sanitary napkins, no one actually knows what a douchebag is anymore. Enemas? Now, that’s a concept for only a select few. I used to know people who would do wine enemas in public restrooms. The idea was to get drunker faster. I am sure there is a target audience for this somewhere in the US and I would love to be the one to introduce the idea on network television.

Gulp! If Rolling Stone can brand dining so can Yelp! and with a $500 million Google deal anything’s possible. Why not cut out the middle man and offer free food directly to Yelpers while providing handheld devices for instant reviews? Each week a different restaurant could have their fare featured in the cafe.

In a Nutshell will only serve allergens: peanuts, shellfish, gluten-rich foods. I see peanut-sauced shrimp over wheat pasta being a big seller.

In reality, I would like to see an American-style indoor hawker center like Food Republic in Singapore. I've always imagined that if I were an kooky rich person like Michael Jackson I would build my Neverland of chefs flown from all over SE Asia to pretty much accommodate me and guests of my choosing (who might just include a grown Macaulay Culkin). If I were really rich and eccentric I would devote my resources into creating a Stargate-type device that could transport me anywhere on the globe for a meal and then return me safely to my apartment. But minus any aliens or ethnically ambiguous people (him too).

The Future is Now

Flapsticks Just as I probably do every December and forget about it by the following December, I was going to say enough with the year-end foodie round-ups because I am old and perpetually crotchety.

Then I remembered that I’m guilty of contributing to the onslaught. I just covered fried chicken, banh mi, “rock star” butchers, pizza and a few other 2009 dining trends for Metromix.

I’m not much for predictions either. I wanted kalamansi to blow up for 2003, and well, I’m still waiting. I do think Peruvian will be the next big Latin cuisine, that Manhattan- Mex (Cascabel, La Lucha, Ofrenda) will continue to expand, goat meat will take off after we get through lamb and that mezcal (ok, I’m just on a personal kick) will have a heyday. Personally, I wish 2010 could be the year of the crab rangoon.

More on the near future:

Restaurants & Institutions favors pot roast, beer and eggs.

Chowhounders say food trucks for the non-L.A./NYC parts of the country, Korean as the new Thai and lots of stuff that’s already happening like home canning and American charcuterie.

I had to double check Epicurious’ pub date because their Top 10 for 2010 reads like trends for 2009. Ok, maybe just the fried chicken, babely butchers and lamb.

The National Restaurant Association’s “Chef Survey: What’s Hot in 2010” predicts the top trends will be locally grown produce (88%), locally sourced meats (84%) and seafood and sustainability (80%). True but boring. I like #77 traditional ethnic breakfast items (50%) and #157 mole (35%). Ack, #154 fiddlehead ferns, one of the world’s creepiest foods regardless of taste, came in one notch above mole.

Food & Wine foresees better frozen food, butter and artisanal breakfasts.

In “A Look into The Future of Eating” The NPD Group says Generation Z will see the largest increase in heat and eat breakfasts among all age groups over the next decade. Toddlers and their Jimmy Dean Flapsticks.

Thanks for Nothing

Sushisamba Part of me wishes I were in town for Thanksgiving because I'd like to try a fancy restaurant dinner this year, Eleven Madison Park maybe, but no matter.

Here are some non-traditional side dishes from restaurants around the city that I wrote about for Metromix.

Photo by Jori Klein Jacobs