Word: orzo
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...Thai noodles, fried chicken and--this being Virginia--smoky barbecue. But some of the biggest crowds are gathered around David George Gordon, a cheerful 58-year-old writer from Seattle. Gordon isn't cooking anything that complex--just some pasta, prepared on a hot plate--but scattered among his orzo like tiny six-legged meatballs is a show-stopping ingredient: crickets. The author of The Eat-a-Bug Cookbook, Gordon considers Orthopteran Orzo his signature dish. He scoops the pasta into paper cups and begins handing out samples to the more adventuresome onlookers. That includes me--I have a deep...
...threat of agricultural apocalypse still seems a long way off. But if the entomophagists have yet to win many converts, they've definitely earned the curiosity of the crowd, which huddles beneath a tent to watch Gordon and Gracer in a bug cook-off. Gordon serves his crickets orzo with tarantula tempura, which he makes by frying a fist-size arachnid. (I skip the spider. I like my job, but not that much.) It's Gracer who takes first prize, however, with a series of dishes, including a tasty salad with Queen Atta ants, stinkbugs and, best of all, waxworms...
Dinner arrived in five boxes the other night: one for the ribs, one for the orzo, two for the carrots and the last for the tiramisu. The boxes were ordinary, and the lumps of vacuum-packed frozen food inside looked anything but appetizing, but no matter: the meal for two I created with them a few hours later was divine. Divinely gourmet, to be precise...
...didn't go near a microwave to make either entree. For the orzo with lobster ($29.99) from French Laundry in Napa Valley, Calif., I simply boiled some water, plopped three vacuum-sealed bags into it, let them sit for 25 min., slit open the bags and arranged the ingredients on a plate. (I admit I did saute the lobster in a bit of butter for a few seconds, but it was worth it.) The tamarind barbecue pork ribs ($19.99) from the Coyote Cafe in Santa Fe, N.M., were even tastier and cheaper than the lobster, and they required a mere...
Thomas Keller uses more quotation marks than a contract lawyer. His menu has "bacon and eggs," "chips and dip," "coffee and donuts" and even "macaroni and cheese." But this mac and cheese consists of orzo in coral oil with mascarpone topped with lobster and a parmesan chip. As intricate and deliberate as Keller's cooking is, he's desperate to ward off the gravitas. "Coming to a restaurant like this can be intimidating. And that's the last thing I want," he says. "I don't want people to come here afraid, like it's some kind of temple...