Meathead's Blog:
Thought for Food
My blog "Thought for Food" appears irregularly and covers a wide range of topics, from food, cooking, drink, and barbecue, to politics. Don't get me started. Or I'll blog on you.
2009-10-16 Who Killed Gourmet Magazine? The beloved 68 year old grande dame of culinaria, died on October 5, 2009. And the obits say I killed her. Here's a thorough autopsy.
2009-07-21 Behind the scenes with a real iron chef. We follow Candy Weaver as she throws down against some of the top barbecue chefs in the Illinois State Barbecue Championship.
2009-04-30 The Air Force paid $328,829 for a portrait of Air Force One. Here's how they could have done it for $6.
2009-03-24 Thirty years after Three Mile Island, a lesson for today's economists. I remember March 28, 1979 and its lessons vividly. 30 years after the near melt down of a fail-safe nuclear power plant, there are lessons for economists and regulators at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
2009-03-20 US vs. EU food fight is Obama's first foreign policy test. Seems the EU started a food fight and now Obama has to finish it. Apparently they have a beef with our cattle because most have been given hormones, so they EU won't let it be imported. So, as a final shot in the foot of his legacy, on January 13, President Bush decided that he'd hit them with a 300% tariff on French Roquefort cheese and a 100% levy on Belgian chocolates, Irish oatmeal, Polish fruit juices, truffles, foie gras, many bottled waters, and a shopping list of other gourmet goodies nobody can afford to buy anymore anyhow. The Bush taxes were to take effect March 23, but last week Obama gave them another month to chew it over with his trade reps.
2009-03-01 Something is beeping (from the Huffington Post). It is 3 a.m. and something with a battery somewhere in the house is crying out for a change like a child with dirty diapers.
2009-02-17 Best hot dog gone (from the Huffington Post). The best hot dog in the town famous for hot dogs, perhaps the best hot dog in the nation, Best's Kosher Franks, has been chewed up and spit out by the conglomerate that swallowed it whole.
2009-02-15 Save Mr. Beef (from the Huffington Post). Another Chicago icon in danger.
2009-01-22 Obama's To Do List (from the Chicago Tribune). I am filled with optimism and dread for the Obama presidency. All our hopes and expectations riding on those skinny shoulders! How can he accomplish it all? How can he help but disappoint? Think of all that we want him to do. The list is impossible. We all have our lists. Here's mine:
2009-01-08 No Meat for a Month? No way! (from the Huffington Post) Chicago's health commissioner, Dr. Terry Mason, wants everyone to join him in going vegetarian for the month of January. First city officials tried to ban foie gras, then trans fats, and now another one wants us to lay off meat for 8.3% of the year? Not this Meathead.
2008-12-28 Lessons From Marley. There are two powerful teaching opportunities in the new movie "Marley & Me" and the film gets a PhD in one and flunks the other. Read this if you want to bring kids or if you have an incorrigible dog.
2008-11-30 An open letter to charities (as published in the Chicago Tribune). I give money and time to charities. And I'm fairly generous with both. But when I give money it is on my terms. Click here to read my latest rant from the Chicago Tribune, "An open letter to charities."
2008-10-30 Italian Culinary Trends (as published in Restaurant Hospitality). I have just returned from two weeks in northern Italy. Since Italian culinary concepts have touched practically every cook in North America, I looked for what was new that might find its way into our repertoires. I was also interested in what is changing in the way Italians dine.
2008-10-28 A simple request for Christmas. Dear Santa: Since Christmas comes soon after the elections, I'm hoping that you'll deliver my gift a little early this year. I only want one thing, but I have a very specific list of features it must have: I want a good president. That means I want a president who...
2008-08-19 How will Chicago top Beijing's Olympics (as published in the Chicago Tribune)? Easy! Here are some ideas for how we might show the world what Chicago culture is all about.
2008-07-22 Just stay home if you're that persnickety (as published in the Chicago Tribune). So the City of Chicago has demanded that the actors in the hit musical Jersey Boys stop smoking on stage, no doubt to remind the world of the time we busted Lenny Bruce for using naughty words and when we fined chefs for serving foie gras.
2008-07-07 Touring the Austin BBQ Belt. Barbecue is king in Texas, and if you haven't experienced it first hand, you have nooooo idea. Texas barbecue is as different from Kansas City, Memphis, and Carolina as a cow is from a steer. This article takes you for a photo tour of the Austin BBQ Belt.
2008-07-07 BBQ Diplomacy at LBJ's Texas White House. Barbecue has been used as a tool in American political campaigns for more than a century, and will no doubt be employed extensively this summer, especially by John McCain, who has been known to brag about his skill with the grill. But no politician ever used the conviviality and informality of cooking and eating outdoors than the 36th President, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who stepped away from the Oval Office 40 years ago.
2008-07-07 Stopping the email lies (as published in the Chicago Tribune). In the past year email hoaxes have forced me to tell two dear friends that I never want to hear from them again. Both seem compelled to send sham news to me and everyone else they know. Although they do not own mainstream broadcast networks, they are broadcasters, a fact they do not seem understand, and their emails contain a form of computer virus that, instead of destroying files, destroys the truth.
2008-06-07 Coalition of the Weeding (as published in the Washington Post). I have adopted the Bush Doctrine. I am planning pre-emptive attacks against an adversary so insidious that it menaces not only my own home but threatens to destabilize my entire neighborhood.
2008-05-16 Robert Mondavi, the art lover. The thing that always impressed me about Bob was that you could talk to him about anything, art, music, politics. So many winemakers know only winespeak. And, in fact, on the numerous occasions we met, we rarely talked wine.
2007-12-11 Food and the flicks. Every Tuesday my wife and I go to the movies with her brother and his wife. Afterwards we go to dinner. For years I have dreamed of a film festival devoted to movies in which food and drink take leading or supporting roles and after the movie is screened, we will eat the food in the film! Here are some of my faves.
2007-07-20 Funny food at Moto. I have just had some of the most amazing smoked pork I have ever tasted. And it was not at Memphis in May or served on butcher paper south of the Mason Dixon Line. It was at a cutting edge restaurant with a Japanese name in Chicago.
2007-05-01 Meathead makes the College Football Hall of Fame. Meathead has been named the chief judge of the Kickoff Riboff and he reminisces about his brief career as a linebacker at the University of Florida.
2007-03-12 Fie on foie gras bans. State Representative Robert Molaro (D-21st) has proposed a ban on foie gras in Illinois. Apparently he has not paid attention to the the fallout from a similar ban in Chicago or the facts that have been revealed in the debate surrounding it. He is either gullible or just publicity hungry, in which case, he should not force feed his silliness on the citizens of Illinois.
2007-03-09 Ernest Gallo: A conundrum. Ernest Gallo died March 6 at age 97, but when I had dinner with him in 1978 he was at the height of his powers, running the largest wine selling machine in the world, and, after a long dinner, in one telling sentence, he demonstrated why he was such a conundrum, why he was both hallowed and hated.
2007-03-06 Sending the illegals home. A letter-writer to the Chicago Tribune, Leon Crews, said "Send all illegal immigrants home." Why didn't I think of this sooner? Obviously I'm not listening to the right talk shows! I think I've figured out how this can work.
2007-02-26 Struttin With Some Barbecue. Just what was Louis Armstrong singing about in his classic tune? Not pulled pork!
2006-10-24 South Carolina contrarians. In South Carolina they do things differently.
2006-05-26 Kansas City road trip. A quick summary of my expedition from the National Restaurant Show in Chicago through Southern Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa.
Product Reviews and Meathead's Hot Stuff Awards. Meathead's Hot Stuff Awards are highly recommended products that I have tested personally or that have been tested by reliable sources. Awards are based on features, quality, and value. Rest assured that when I recommend a product, it is really because I like it, not because someone has paid me to say so or because the company is an advertiser or sponsor. I purchase most products I review although occasionally suppliers send me samples.
With a $15 donation he'll send you a very cool embroidered iron-on patch.
or the 
from Amazon.
