Lions and Tigers and Goats?

I know that posts have been few and far between recently, but I want to announce a couple minor changes – some temporary, some permanent.

First, Jill will be taking a leave of absence from the site, focusing on the last 49 days of her collegiate career. So if you want your Northampton food fix, you’ll just have to hop a flight to Bradley and rent a car – it’s probably worth it.

Since my restaurant visitations have been down as of late, I will be adding a weekly feature to the blog: post Iron Chef America commentary. It’s a show I never miss and one that deserves a weekly feature.

I’ll say it upfront: I usually root for Mario and Bobby – however, I was kind of excited to see Jose Andres, the mastermind behind Jaleo, Zaytinya, Café Atlantico, and Oyamel win against Bobby Flay in last night’s battle goat.

Bobby, now at 15 wins, 6 loses and 2 ties, just wasn’t on last night. As Jeffrey Steingarten so eloquently pointed out, Flay’s first few dishes could have been any variety of meat – instead of obviously goat. Bobby tends to win his battles by getting near perfect scores on taste (30 out of the 60 points) and just barely keeping up when it comes to plating and originality.

Andres, who was lucky enough to train under arguably the world’s best chef, Ferrán Adria of El Bullí, was able to best Flay on all counts – from his goat tartar sushi to his goat frozen yogurt on a bed of small gelatinized reduced red wine spheres, Andres showed why he’s one of the best chefs DC has to offer.

Next week’s recap will be a bit more in depth, and I hope that I can write a bit more frequently over the next few weeks.