Articles about Dining
Local Newspaper Editor Forced to Eat Crow
Photo by Chris McGathey
In the May 2012 edition of D Magazine, I wrote a column about the political scene in North Oak Cliff. The column was inspired by how shocked I was to see that City Councilman Scott Griggs had endorsed Domingo Garcia’s bid for Congress, as opposed to the bid of Griggs’ pal Jason Roberts. I wrote that Garcia had shown me who was truly running things in North Oak Cliff, and I closed with a prediction: Griggs would lose his May 2013 showdown with fellow incumbent Delia Jasso.
Well, we all found out Saturday how wrong I was. Not only did Griggs cruise to victory, but so did incumbent DISD Trustee Eric Cowan, who faced two opponents, including one who was hand-picked and financially backed by Garcia. So I’m getting out of the predictions business … in about 30 seconds. I have one more to make.
Given that the URL for Griggs’ website is “scottgriggsdallas” and his Twitter handle is “scottgriggsdal,” I have a sneaking suspicion that a run for the mayor’s office is in his future. You heard it here first, folks. But I’ll hang on to that crow, just in case I’m wrong.
Have We Seen the Last of the Snuffer’s Ghost?
I didn’t even know that the Snuffer’s on Greenville Avenue, which was torn down earlier this month and will be rebuilt, was supposedly haunted. Which raises the question (at least according to the Lakewood/East Dallas Advocate), was the ghost destroyed in the demolition?
They asked Alan King of the Dallas Area Paranormal Society to weigh in:
[King] says it depends on what the spirit(s) is haunting. If it’s haunting the building, then probably not. If it’s haunting the ground, then we might see our ghostly friend again. If it’s haunting a piece of furniture or object, then it’ll depend on whether or not said object makes it into the new building.
If it is haunting the ground, we might begin to hear about curious things happening at the construction site, King says. So keep your eyes peeled!
Best of Big D Readers’ Choice 2013: Vote Now For the Best Eating and Drinking in Dallas
I mentioned this on Friday, and now it has begun.
Our Best of Big Readers’ Choice: Food and Drink survey is already collecting votes. Cast your ballot daily through March 31 if you want to see your favorites recognized in the August issue of D Magazine.
Seriously, get on it. Now.
Vote For the Best Food and Drink in Dallas Beginning Monday, March 18
Round two of this year’s Best of Big D Readers’ Choice voting gets started on Monday. This time we’re asking for your favorite spots for dining and imbibing in North Texas.
As before, you’ll be able to vote once per day on your desktop, laptop, or mobile internet-connected device. Unfortunately, we no longer support ballots sent via carrier pigeon.
Votes can be cast over a two-week period, ending March 31. Yes, on Easter Sunday we’ll expect you to break away from your family’s annual picnic and egg hunt to spend a few minutes deciding who makes the best French fries in town.
We’ve added new categories this year (Food trucks! Fried chicken!), so there’s plenty more to make you hungry as your peruse our nominees.
Jump for a full list of the survey questions (after you set a daily reminder on your calendar to vote, of course.)
Megan Lucas, the Hofmann Hots Hottie, Was Busted for Weed
Megan Lucas, you’ll recall, is the lady who has gotten herself caught up in the lawsuit filed by Phil Romano and about 20 other plaintiffs against Frank Zaccanelli. The plaintiffs claim that Lucas was Zaccanelli’s mistress, which is why he was using Hofmann Hots money to pay her rent, something she denies. If you need to catch up, we can help. Anyway, when I asked Lucas about her arrest early this year, she told me it was no big deal. She had thrown a cigarette butt out her car window and had been pulled over for littering. Then the cop found an outstanding warrant for a previous moving violation she had not taken care of. This much is true. But it’s not the full story. Lucas’ traffic stop for littering went far more pear shaped than she let on. From a Syracuse, New York, TV station (the suit was filed in Syracuse, where Hofmann’s operations are based): “Upon pulling her over, police discovered that she had outstanding traffic warrants in Dallas County, Dallas City, and Arlington, Texas. After she was arrested, police discovered the marijuana.”
Hey, marijuana isn’t crack. So I don’t want to case aspersions. I just want to watch the video above, starring Megan Lucas (probably NSFW).
Two Truck Drivers Risked Their Lives For Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies This Morning
From the Morning News’Â Scoop Blog:
No injuries were reported, but fans of snack food were in for a scare overnight after an 18-wheeler carrying thousands of Little Debbie snack cakes caught fire on Interstate 35E near the American Airlines Center in Dallas. Two men were driving the truck from Arkansas to San Antonio when the check engine light came on shortly after midnight. The driver pulled over to find the truck’s cab was on fire.
Like a saint among the sugar-deprived, the driver disconnected the trailer, pulled the cab forward down the highway and attempted to extinguish the fire himself, but soon required the help of Dallas Fire-Rescue after the cab was fully engulfed.
Get those men some medals.
Can the Twinkie Be Saved by Fan Art?
Nailed the eyebrow. Source: Facebook
No, it can’t. The Irving-based treat can be saved by corporations, that’s it. One woman in Reno, Nev., though wants the Twinkie legacy to live on. From the Associated Press:
Shortly after Hostess Brands Inc. announced plans to go out of business last year, [Nancy] Peppin was among those who joined the rush to stores to fill shopping carts with boxes of the spongy cakes. But unlike others, she didn’t buy 12 boxes with 10 Twinkies each to turn a profit on eBay or Craigslist.
“I needed art supplies,” said Peppin, who uses Twinkies and their packaging to create some of her pieces. She also features renderings of the snack cakes in watercolor paintings, mixed media, prints and artwork. Her works include her “Twinkies in history series,” which portrays how scientists such as John James Audubon, Charles Darwin and Leonardo da Vinci would have sketched and written about Twinkies in journals or books.
Catch the rest of Peppin’s work on her Facebook page.
George W. Bush Library Director Attempts to Draw Crowd by Promising Free Chicken Pot Pies
“Hey, BE COOL! There’s plenty of pot pie for everyone.” Photo: Marion Doss
This is really too good to mess with, so:
Highland Park Cafeteria will host the Director of the new George W. Bush Presidential Library, Alan C. Lowe, who will give an exciting visual presentation to all Highland Park Cafeteria diners on Sunday, January 13 at 5 p.m. in the main dining room. This event will be free and open to the public. Â All attendees will receive a free entree of chicken pot pie, one of President George W. Bush’s favorite dishes. In addition, a limited number of Presidential Library memorabilia will be given away to attendees.
The emphasis was included in the email. For more information, visit Highland Park Cafeteria’s website.
The 10 Most Popular D Magazine Blog Posts of 2012
Can you imagine where you’d be today without blogs? Sure, you might be 5 or 10% more productive at work, but then the world would have been denied that brilliant double entendre you got into a comment on the latest FrontBurner post about the will-they-or-won’t-they, passive-aggressive fight between the Nasher Sculpture Center and Museum Tower.
Yep, everybody got a good chuckle from your outlandish suggestion of just what the tower could do with the Nasher’s “Walking to the Sky,” where they could put it, so to speak. See, it was funny because when isn’t the anthropomorphizing of inanimate objects funny? Which reminds you, pretty sure Clint Eastwood is a FrontBurnervian; bastard clearly stole some of your material for the open-mic night at the Republican National Convention.
Anyway, here are the 10 most popular blog posts of 2012 from DMagazine.com. Not sure if any of your comments are still on these posts. If not, it’s probably because Tim or Brad deleted them. Bastards.
Denton Considers Smoking Ban
Back in September, the Denton City Council sent its proposed smoking ban to committee, eliciting the opinions and remarks of 20 health-care professionals, business owners and other community members. The goal was to craft laws that were both health-conscious and business-friendly. What they came back with was a strange package that bans smoking nearly everywhere, except for bars, the Denton Record-Chronicle reports. But that stipulation doesn’t include bars that serve people under the age of 18.
Bars, that admit patrons under the age of 18. That means restaurants that turn into bars right? Or is it bars that illegally allow 14-year-olds to drink?
The full council will take up the measure Tuesday, but Councilman Kevin Roden took to Twitter last night to suss out his constituents’ thoughts:
Hostess’ Ding Dong: ‘Everybody Forgot About Me’
When the news of Irving-based Hostess going out of business broke last month, most of the media attention was focused on whether junk food junkies would be denied their beloved Twinkies.
But what about Ding Dongs? To my mind, they are clearly the finest of the Hostess products, and yet our own Bradford Pearson left them off his laughable list of the company’s finest offerings. (Orange cupcakes? Huh? Never heard of them.)
Well, over the weekend, in the only decent bit on Saturday Night Live, Mr. Ding Dong broke his silence. His back-up plan if Hostess products do indeed disappear from the Earth? Â He’s going back to the rap game.
Texas’ State Fruit — the Grapefruit — Is Under Fire
Photo: Rachelle King
When I first moved to Texas two years ago, I ate so much grapefruit that my now-wife had to force me to stop. I was getting sick, but I couldn’t get over how cheap the fruits were (four for $1 last week at Sprouts). Even the grapefruit juice was cheap, defying all of Ocean Spray’s supply-chain economics. I would eat a grapefruit for breakfast, and wash it down with a glass of grapefruit juice. Scurvy didn’t stand a chance in that apartment.
I’d send photos of grapefruit prices to my dad with pithy comments like, “Bet you wish it was this cheap in New York!” and he’d text back something like “You really need to get a life.” I defended grapefruit to everyone, and loaded my cart with them every week.
Now Slate seems to think they’re the worst fruits ever harvested, a scourge on our stomachs and stockings. From their completely off-base piece this morning:
This killjoy has already invaded our breakfast routines. Its baleful pink, white, or red flesh shines from thousands of tables. Its pulp gets stuck in our teeth. Its juice stains our clothes. And now, we are asked to inflict the scourge on our relatives, shipping it off in packages of 12 or more in order to demonstrate our love?
No. Grapefruit is unwieldy, disgusting, and in some cases dangerous to eat. It is indisputably the worst fruit anyone has ever put on a plate.
No, you’re unwieldy, disgusting, and in some cases dangerous to eat, Katy Waldman. (I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. Truly. You’re probably lovely. I’ve resorted to playground tactics.) She goes on to explain that the compounds in grapefruit inhibit the proper processing of some medications, meaning grapefruit is literally killing you. This, no. The same warning is on the side of every bottle of pills I’ve ever seen, and it’s never stopped me from washing down an antibiotic with a beer.
She also mentions grapefruit tastes disgusting and is impossible to eat. Erroneous! Erroneous on both counts! The truth is, when properly ripened, grapefruit is delicious, and, with two minutes of time, easy to eat. Get it together, Waldman!
Judge Suggests Union Mediation; Twinkies Live?
At this point, either live or die, Hostess. I’m tired of all the yanking around.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a bankruptcy judge in New York has suggested mediation between the company and one of its largest unions, the incredibly named Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International.
So, for now, a stay of execution.
Want a Twinkie? That Will Be $5,000.
Mashable just found possibly the greatest example of price-gouging in the history of capitalism: the Twinkie Curve. Well that’s what I’m calling it. Due to the impending end of Twinkies – save a last-minute buyout by another company – the price of Twinkies has gone through the ceiling on eBay.
A single Twinkie is selling for $5,000, and the starting bid for a box of Twinkies is $10,000. That box is marketed with the tagline “ATTENTION ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ preppers.”
Someone else is selling a full box, and the bidding starts at a reasonable $10. Fine print: “Hostess Twinkies Box of 10, however I got into them this morning…4 individually wrapped golden sponge cakes actually.”
Should We Shoot, Sell, and Eat Dallas’ Feral Hogs?
According to Jackson Landers, author of Eating Aliens: One Man’s Adventures Hunting Invasive Animal Species, YES.
From a recent interview with Grist.org:
There are so many people right now who have meat-eater’s remorse – people who eat meat and feel kind of bad about it, but they’re not actually going to stop. Or they’re vegetarians and their bodies actually crave meat. But there’s so much awareness about what’s wrong with the mainstream food system – and they haven’t known what to do about that. The beautiful thing about hunting, especially invasive species, is it’s a way of dropping out of the mainstream meat paradigm, where so many of the ethical and health problems associated with eating meat arise.
Specifically about feral boars and hogs, which have recently begun their descent into North Dallas and the suburbs:
Q. Local and federal agencies seem to be divided on this issue. How is conservation reconciled with food safety? For example, should we hunt species like feral boar rooting in spinach fields?
A. The [U.S. Department of Agriculture] doesn’t really care if hunters are out in spinach fields shooting feral boar. The [Food and Drug Administration] has more of a problem in that regard. Because whenever federal regulations come into play involving the sale of meat across state lines, it has to be slaughtered and processed in an approved slaughterhouse – which is kind of ridiculous. In Europe, wild game can be killed in the field, brought to the butcher, cut up, and sold. It’s not like big E. coli or brucellosis outbreaks are happening; they’ve been doing this in Europe for over 100 years with good science behind it. There’s no special food safety danger with regards to selling the meat of animals that have been killed in the field, which is to say on a hunt.
Texas has more feral hogs than the rest of the country combined, and the state began hosting its “Get The Hog Outta Texas” competition in 2010. Maybe they should also let people bring a fork and knife.
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