This Halloween: All guts, no whoring

I’ve never been particularly fond of Halloween. Even as a child, I found the holiday tiresome. I was pained by the process of coming up with a costume cool enough to showcase in my elementary school’s Halloween parade, and would dread the inevitable moment when my classmates would ask me what I was doing that night. My cheeks would turn bubble gum pink as I’d sheepishly admit that I was going trick-or-treating with my mom as opposed to friends, or, ideally, with those large gangs of sugar-crazed kids who’d run from house to house like they were competing to set the record for the fastest trick-or-treaters in the world. I hated those kids, hated the aggressive, greedy spirit they cast into the air. I was perfectly content to spend the evening meandering through the neighborhood with my mom before retiring home to sort my candy by type while my parents watched “The Commish.”

Today, I approach Halloween with similar indifference. I don’t dress up like a prostitute, I don’t seek out the hottest Halloween parties and I don’t binge on fun-size candy bars – or fun-size alcoholic beverages, for that matter. But there is one thing I do: I make pumpkin seeds…

The return of the Pumpkin Spice Latte

It was September 14th at approximately 11:43 a.m. when I saw it: the sign announcing the return of Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte. I stopped dead in my tracks, my mouth stitched into a tight, horrified “O.”
“Hell no,” I exhaled. “It’s still summer… for another 9 days!”

I was furious. I couldn’t bear the thought of pumpkin hysteria returning so soon – robbing me of those final, precious days of stone fruits, sweet white corn and zucchinis the size of my forearm. “How dare Starbucks suck the final breath out of Summer?” I thought as I stomped past the coffee shop, fully cognizant that the very same sign was inspiring a wholly different response in the rest of population – which, incidentally, is probably the reason that the latte was returning so early in the first place…

Film in 4D at the New York Food Film Festival

Mistura’s intense bread baking competition.

This past weekend I went to check out the New York Food Film Festival, four nights of food-related screenings served with a tasting menu of some of the items cooked up in the films. It’s like cinema in 4D, and using all of your senses to experience a film is kind of overwhelming. I went on the Peruvian-themed night, which meant I was offered a traditional Pisco sour the moment I walked in the room. Having recently spent several weeks in Peru, eating traditional, local food cooked by traditional, local people, I felt like I was a pretty well-informed attendee, and I wasn’t sure if the South American cuisine would come off as well Stateside. But one sip of the bartender’s much stronger and thankfully less sweet Pisco sour and I knew it was going to be a good night of food and films…

BROKEDOWN PALACE: the definitive guide to Thailand

Welcome to the Zach Golden’s Guide to Thailand, the definitive companion to a country I’m pretty sure is in Southeast Asia. Despite never having visited Thailand, or as the locals call it, Vietnam, I’m uniquely qualified to write about such a majestic place because I occasionally eat Thai food and once got a massage from a woman I’m pretty sure was Thai (or maybe Korean).

All you really need to know about Thailand is this: if you’re an impressionable, young teen whose post-high school plans involve a summer in Hawaii with your equally impressionable teen friend, but at the last minute you decide to nix that in favor of Thailand where you and aforementioned impressionable friend meet a hunky Australian guy with a generic sounding name who asks you to smuggle some heroin into Hong Kong – don’t. Just don’t do it. Because chances are that hunky Australian guy (all Australian guys are hunky, you’d be hunky too if everything in your country was able to kill you) is in tight with some corrupt motherfuckers in the Thai “legal system” and you’re going to take the fall for being an impressionable young teen/effective drug mule…

The wurst German ever

“You need to finish that,” she said, cocking her eyes towards my still half full liter stein in front of me. I looked up at my friend Ashley with pleading eyes. “I can’t!” I said, clutching my stomach as if the physical gesture would help plead my case to the girl I’ve known since college. “I’m so full!” I hadn’t wanted all of it to begin with. When our waitress presented me with the stein of Hofbrau Oktoberfest, I practically choked on my pretzel. “I can’t drink all that,” I shrieked. “I can’t even lift the darn thing!”

Ashley laughed as I dramatically clasped both of my hands around…

Bring on the food porn: The NY Food Film Fest

Even though there’s a specific, Food Porn event at NYFFF (that’s the other film fest, the food film fest), let’s face it – with a tribute to the taco and cheers to burgers and beers (picture close-ups of melting cheese oozing out over a perfectly grilled patty poised on a nice, buttery bun), it’s allll food porn. And with four days of tastings cooked by a line-up that includes Dos Toros, Rockaway Taco, Dos Caminos, Di Fara’s Pizza, An Choi’s Banh Mi, Ovenly’s Beer Cupcakes and Peruvian celebri-chef Gaston Acurio – that’s not a bad thing…