Taste of the Lowcountry

My article, in May 2007 Chile Pepper magazine.

 

New Dehli: Go Now Before Street Vendors Are Banned!

NEW DELHI (Reuters Life!) – Hawkers in New Delhi will be banned from selling their famous street food that is cooked in front of customers, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Across the capital, hundreds of people from suited businessmen to rag-swaddled migrant labourers wait for their samosa to cook in a hawker’s vat of hot oil or pick up a spice-dusted baked sweet potato.

Guidebooks direct tourists to Parathe Wali Gali in the historic Old Delhi neighbourhood to sample flash-fried parathas as a quintessential part of the Indian experience.

But these culinary traditions could be threatened by a ban soon to be imposed by the Supreme Court as part of new hawking and squatting regulations, the Times of India said.

As part of the authorities’ effort to transform Delhi into what they call a modern, world-class city, food vendors will be allowed to sell only in small, regulated pockets of the city, and only then cold, packaged food they have prepared at home.

Critics say the ban will be difficult to enforce. Extracting bribes from street vendors is seen as a job perk for New Delhi policemen, they say.

“Food vendors pay thrice the bribe that other hawkers pay,” the Times quoted activist Madhu Kishwar as saying. “This will just make it worse.”

cookbook*ing: leave no page unsplattered.

 

coast to coast: a handful for the road

If you’ll be anywhere near Traverse City, MI this July 1-8 you should find yourself at the National Cherry Festival and dripping with ruby deliciousness.

Over at Mighty Foods, a celebration of cherry season:

• Rice Pudding Cake with Cherry-Apricot Compote
• Fresh Cherry Preserves
• Fresh Summer Cherry Sauce
• Cherry Pie with Chocolate Lining and Almond Streusel

Out west, the LA Times has some fresh ideas about leafless salads.

On the road again, with Jane & Michael Stern. I will have these books at my side for the next week as I roadtrip from San Diego to Austin!

If you can’t make it down south, Cook’s Illustrated rates bottled BBQ sauce.

Over at D magazine, the D is for Dallas, the hunt for the perfect burger is the cover of their May issue. Declaring all chains ineligible, they focused only on local talent. Triumphing over 39 contenders, Wingfield’s Breakfast & Burgers (above) was declared champion. 2615 S. Beckley Ave., (214) 943-5214

Happy summer!

cookbook*ing: leave no page unsplattered.

 

strange fare: US food festivals

Three cheers for local festival food! Plan a year of seasonal travels with this fantastic food festival roundup from Frommer’s.

If you are a regular reader of Frank Bruni’s, you can probably count the times you’ve been to Alain Ducasse more easily than your visits to Burger King, but The Critic turns the tables on us in his coast to coast tour of this great fast food nation.

cookbook*ing: leave no page unsplattered.

 

wwwednesday: only in america

Who needs Disneyland when you have the grocery store? “The latest shuffle of the American lifestyle menu has produced a new weekend diversion: trekking to ‘destination supermarkets,’ or grocery Disneylands, where, yes, tons of food is sold, but there is sooooo much more.” Click here for the full story from USA Today.

Dolly Parton has a new cookbook out, Dolly’s Dixie Fixin’s. The singer explains how to make her banana pudding and more than 125 other recipes in the book, which will raise money for her Imagination Library, which provides a free book a month for children from birth to age 5.

Turn your Cadbury Creme Egg into a Fabergé Creme Egg with Pimp My Snack. via The Food Section.

cookbook*ing: leave no page unsplattered.