It's been quiet

On the food-front, it's been a little calm around here. Last night I made brownies. From a box. Shame! Actually, the box brownie mix from Trader Joe's is pretty good. It is very chocolate-y and has chips in it.

The biggest excitement here is the arrival of our black and shiny brand new Weber grill. We got a charcoal one not gas. We still have to get the proper fire extinguisher (required by NYFD for rooftop grilling) before we can grill. We've waited years to get a grill and we can wait a little longer. Besides, it's been raining here for days and the first day with grilling weather is Saturday or Sunday. The rest of our grilling implements - tools, holder, cover, chimney, brush - arrives today. We already purchased a charcoal container so we can keep the bag outside without it getting wet in the rain. Now we need the charcoal.

I can't wait to grill. I think we'll do hamburgers for the inaugural meal.

In case you missed it, the Beard Awards were announced this week. The Flavor Bible picked up Best Reference book. Congrats to Andrew & Karen! I think it's lame that the revised 10-year anniversary edition of Bittman's How To Cook Everything won an award. Duh, didn't the original edition win a Beard award, too? I have the original edition and have not looked at the new one but I guess there was enough new content in the new version to qualify it for the awards again.

As I looked over the restaurant and chef winners, I saw that almost all of them went to NYC restaurants. This only says to me, "Sorry rest of America, you're food sucks and NYC is the snobby food capitol of the country!" C'mon! There are very good restaurants outside of NYC. I know, I've eaten at some of them. Seattle is full of excellent eateries and only one was on the Beard list. Chicago? San Francisco? Miami? DC? TEXAS???? New Orleans? Boston? Hello? I would have liked to see more geographic variety in the winners. Of course, they do pick several best regional chefs, but that seems like a token representation of the talent and food available outside of NYC.

Alright, that will do it for today. Laundry and work awaits.