Blog Page

For one of the most feared men in London these days, the writer A. A. Gill looks incongruously relaxed. Perched at the dining table of his Fulham apartment ? easily found thanks to a Mountain Dew-colored Bentley parked out front ? Mr. Gill, who looks a decade younger than his 50 years, is answering the charge that he is, hands down, London’s most vicious restaurant critic.

“I take issue with `poison pen,’ ” said Mr. Gill, known as Adrian to friends and enemies alike, a devious smile flickering across his face. “I care an enormous amount about restaurants and food, and I get very angry when they’re bad. But I don’t close down restaurants. Bad food closes down restaurants. Rude service closes down restaurants. All I do is notice it.

“Americans got a glimpse of Mr. Gill’s rougher treatment this summer, in the August issue of Vanity Fair, when Mr. Gill eviscerated 66, Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s TriBeCa restaurant. In his review, Mr. Gill likened the shrimp and foie gras dumplings at 66 to “fishy, liver-filled condoms” and called them “properly vile, with a savor that lingered like a lovelorn drunk and tasted as if your mouth had been used as the swab bin in an animal hospital.” While many American readers were stunned by Mr. Gill’s dyspeptic prose, to the English, the writing was as ordinary as pot roast for Sunday dinner.

Read the full article in the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/fashion/09LOND.html

Have a craving for Le Cochon dOr smoked ham from Cap-de-la-Madelene in Quebec? How about some Yarmouth Island lobster hors d’oeuvres or Mama Africa’s Zulu lemon, garlic, jalepeno relish?

Those and thousands of other regional specialties are now being offered by online bookstore giant Amazon.com in its latest move to diversify from its core business of selling books and music.

Amazon launched its gourmet food store this week, offering more than 30,000 regional food items from about 300 merchants, including foods from most states and ethnic offerings from many countries. There are more than 700 different cheeses alone.

[Read more…] about Amazon.com launches new gourmet foods store

Campbell Soup Co. is targeting active Gen X and Gen Y-ers with a line of energy juices called Invigor8, marking the brand’s first entry into the $1 billion energy-drink segment. The single-serve juices, Invigor8 Energy Boost and Invigor8 Nutrition Boost, will be backed by an estimated $15 million outdoor and radio campaign breaking in the first quarter of 2004. The work will bear the tagline, “Positively charged.” WPP’s Young & Rubicam in New York, handles the account.

“At 7-Eleven’s new “hot beverage stations,” customers will have a choice of more than 1,300 combinations. A minimum of five varieties of coffee, four flavored syrups, seven different tea bags, five toppings, creamers, sweeteners and all types of milk will be available at each station. 7-Eleven’s customers will make the drinks themselves, guided by store suggestions, thus avoiding waiting in line to order. The drinks will cost about $1 per cup instead of the typical coffeehouse prices hovering between $3 and $4.” [Read more…] about Hot beverage stations, with a choice of more than 1,300 combinations

Alcohol flavoured popcorn is to be sold at late night screenings of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on Halloween.

Sambuca and Irish Cream flavoured popcorn will also be available at Odeon cinemas in Kingston-upon-Thames, Newcastle, Leicester, Glasgow, Southampton and Coventry.

The chain says a standard box of the popcorn will contain less alcohol than a single liqueur chocolate.

Spokesman Richard Storton, said: “Feedback from customers was that they’d like more choice of popcorn flavours and alcohol flavoured popcorn turned out to be a popular request. We’ll obviously only be limiting it to 18 certificate films, strictly for adults only!”

If the popcorn proves to be a hit, Odeon says it will consider trialing other popular alcoholic flavours.

In addition to alcohol popcorn, customers were asked what other flavours they’d most like to try. Among the favourites were fish and chips, pesto, vanilla and strawberry cheesecake flavours.

Source: https://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_833466.html?menu=news.quirkies