Eating My Way Up Harlem's Eighth Avenue (Maybe)

I remember reading that Jonathan Gold, the Pulitzer Prize-winning restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times, who died last year at age 57, ate in every restaurant along Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles and wrote a review of each restaurant. (Pico Boulevard is a very long street.)

I thought about doing something similar as an experiment here in New York, eating at and writing about every restaurant along Eighth Avenue (aka Frederick Douglass Boulevard) in Harlem, from 111th to 145th Streets.

If I decide to do it (and that's a big IF),it would be an enormous gastronomic feat involving details about each restaurant, the quality of the food and service, as well as some historical information about the ethnic and/or regional cuisine.

Not only would this project cause my waistline to take a hit but it would also take a big bite out of my wallet (concerning the latter, I would have to try to talk some publication into agreeing to underwrite my project, an iffy proposition because many newspapers and magazines have become cash-strapped lately.

Speaking of food, today is National Pizza Day. So pizza lovers, celebrate!

Anthony Bourdain, A Man Worth Knowing

R.I.P. Anthony Bourdain (1956-2018), chef, author, journalist, TV host.

After reading articles about Anthony Bourdain online and in print, I regretted not having the opportunity to meet him. Or interviewing him about the restaurant business for a newspaper or magazine article. It would have been a thought-provoking, possibly life-altering, experience.

Now I intend to read his books as well as look on YouTube for episodes of his television programs. (I love watching food shows.)

I do recall hearing Bourdain being interviewed by talk show host Leonard Lopate on New York's WNYC-AM when his restaurant tell-all book, Kitchen Confidential, came out in 2000. Maybe that interview, and others, are also on YouTube. I hope so.

Sarah J. Jackson, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston, in an article she wrote for the Sunday New York Times (June 10, 2018) stated that Bourdain "was not just curious about food and the world. He was aware that injustice and inequality are systemic issues, and he never shied away from pointing that out."

Another writer, Jonathan Gold, a restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times, reported in that paper (June 8, 2018), that "Bourdain was most interested in the intersection of food and culture, and a shot of a fish on a plate would usually be preceded by an exploration of the people who had cooked it, sold it in the market or landed it on their boat."

Such a man was worth knowing and being given our full attentions.

A Book For Foodies

I recently found a hardcover book entitled Holiday Book of Food and Drink (Hermitage House, 1952), a collection of articles that were originally published in Holiday magazine in the 1940s and 1950s. While browsing through the book's 22 chapters, I found articles on such food items as coffee, pasta, beer, cheeses, and ice cream. A few of the contributors to this anthology are familiar names to me--Budd Schulberg, Roger Angell, and Elizabeth Janeway.

The book contains a few recipes, food history, and food facts. Although I'm sure some of the information is outdated that shouldn't be a huge barrier to enjoying what the writers have to say or make it insignificant from an historical standpoint.

I'm looking forward to reading the book from cover to cover and writing a review of it for this blog.