The Rachael Ray Burger Bash (at least that’s what I call it. The actual name is the Amstel Light Burger Bash, but it will always be the Rachael Ray Burger Bash to me) happened Thursday night, as you probably know. It gets bigger and bigger every year, with more and more publicity. This year’s People’s Choice prize was won by Michael Symon, the Cleveland-based chef whose “Fat Doug” burger — basically a pastrami burger — moved the awe of the crowd. The judges (and don’t think it doesn’t pain me that I wasn’t one) awarded their laurels to Michael Schwartz,...

I once had a plan for an all-meatball restaurant. It was going to have nothing but meatballs on the menu — Italian meatballs, Swedish meatballs, Japanese chicken meatballs, Szechuan “lion’s head” meatballs, Vietnamese purple meatballs. And, best of all, the restaurant would have been shaped like a meatball. That got me most excited of all. That tells you how my mind works. This plan, like so many others, never came close to fruition; I rarely even bring it up at cocktail parties any more. But two other guys had the same idea and just opened a meatball restaurant on the lower...

It might surprise you to learn (I know it surprises me) that I have family in New Orleans. They’re not bookish gluttons, quivering in their nooks, either. My cousin is a sweet-tempered, lovely young mom married to a handsome lawyer. They both went to school with Payton Manning; Ben caught passes from the young star, and Rebecca was in his same year at Isidore Newman, the progressive private school all three attended. I went down for Ben and Rebecca’s super bowl party, and you can imagine what the night was like afterward. Hoo hoo! Some time! Doctor, what’s that itching...

Katie Lee Joel likes mayonnaise. Why wouldn’t she? The luminescent egg whip is her birthright as a gentile, a southerner, and the consummate personification of American domestic purity. She’s impossibly likeable and flawlessly pretty (which is one reason she’s so likable.) But let’s be honest: she’s no Vongerichten when it comes to the ingredients in her recipes. Neither of her cookbooks require anything you couldn’t find in a well-stocked convenience store. Which is OK with me. But I was a little uneasy about the mayonnaise. Here’s how the Mayonnaise Moment came to pass. I was at Katie Lee’s West Village...

My life is weirdly reversed: cooking is a rare luxury, and eating out is my daily grind. I don’t complain. The circuit of barbecues, shawarma stands, slaughterhouses, butcher shops, trattorias, chow mein joints, Michelin starred temples of gastronomy, burger stands, and delicatessens which make up my weekly routine leave me bloated and exhausted, a dull-eyed Hollow Man with as little animation as a Moslem protest effigy. But eventually the food gets digested, and my body processes it into hope and knowledge. Last Wednesday was a case in point. I got in my car and drove to a deli in Gowanus I...

One of the best things about being a food writer — aside from all the hot groupies, of course — is the fact that you’re invited to so many cool events. Just this past weekend I was called upon to judge a meatball contest, on one night, and then a cassoulet contest on the next. Both were in funky foodie spaces in New York, areas where bloggers and cooks congregate, the kind of spaces that didn’t really exist ten years ago. And I was gleeful to have been invited to judge both. The meatball contest was at The Meat Hook, a...

I didn’t get too much in the way of useful advice from you guys. Is this a one way street? Here I wrote movingly of the challenged I faced over my girlfriend — now fiance’s — questionable cookery skills. And nobody told me what to do. Still, the way it worked out was instructive.  I’m sure all you fellows have been through the same drill. What do you say when called upon to say how good your wife or girlfriend’s cooking is? In my house it’s an especially loaded question. It was a variation of the old “does my ass...

Let’s say you cook. Let’s say you’re good at cooking. Let’s say you live with somebody who cedes you the cooking, but considers themselves good at it, too, even though they’re not. How is this not a recipe for discord? Cooking is an intensely personal act; being criticized for its is not unlike having your lovemaking put down. I’m not going to say it’s emasculating; but it’s something like emasculating. Happily for me, my girlfriend isn’t steeped in feminine culture, to say the least; she doesn’t consider cooking an especially female activity, nor does the tending of the hearth rank...

The Ozersky household isn’t too unlike your own this time of year. I eat too much, feel bad about it, and get fatter. How can you not? You’re not working, you’re not walking around outside, and everyone you meet is trying to give you pudding and cookies all the time. For me, it’s even worse, because my friends are all weird food fetishists, chefs, and ostentatious gluttons who spend every minute planning elaborate meals. So as a result, I am on a cleanse this weekend. I am not going to eat any food at all today or tomorrow. But I’m...