Broadcasting from Beaujon Acres this morning, where a cold has laid me out flatter than one of Tim Carman’s jokes. But I’m not too sick to link!

• Does anyone else find this kinda poignant and sad? Also kinda related: Post computers drive tech writer to cloud.
• Ruth Samuelson corner: 1) Now that’s “getting” Results! 2) Madness in Capitol Hill: Is it Acker Place NE or Acker Street NE? Please help us out if you can. Amanda Hess corner: CP sex columnist accidentally sets Coeur d’Alene ablaze on her way out.
• Doing more with less: famous people reduce cup sizes.
• Throwing a hot dog down Middle America’s hall: “Hipster Grifter” Law & Order episode planned?
• My wife is British, and her family members complain, often justifiably, all the time about the NHS. It is a royal (fnar) pain in the ass, you have to schedule OB/GYN visits a year in advance, you don’t get private rooms in hospital. BUT: I for instance pay about $800/month for my employer-”provided” health care. And when my kid got sick last time we were over, they treated him no questions asked. Health care, like roads, is basic infrastructure stuff, one of the few things government can do well. So I’m with the Brit Twits here.
• Nats lose. And Redskins prepare to embark on another wacky season. Hey, why’s there a Michael Vick Skins jersey for sale? It’s the curse!

Washington City Paper food critic Tim Carman’s piece “How Not to Hire a Chef” (5/22) has been selected for inclusion in Best Food Writing 2009. It is the second year in a row that Carman’s work has been chosen for the anthology.

Carman’s piece examines, or maybe more precisely spatchcocks, local restaurateur Andy Shallal’s Top Chef-like contest to choose a toque for his new eatery, Eatonville. Reached in line at the drugstore, where he says he was picking up prescriptions to help him “overcome my lack of palate,” Carman says that Shallal maintained “radio silence” after the piece. “He sent me an email after the Marion Barry cover saying he should consider himself lucky that it wasn’t any worse for him,” Carman says.

Yesterday I took a bread class at CulinAerie, the sort-of new cooking school near McPherson Square, and was totally impressed. And not just because TV stars like Top Chef’s Carla Hall Lyons and our own Tim Carman teach there.

The founders of this place, Susans Holt and Watterson, did it right. They created classrooms that are for teaching, not showing off (see Sur La Table for evidence of the latter); the classes are hands-on instead of mostly demo; and, if my class is an indication, they’ve hired engaging, knowledgeable instructors who make you want to go home and cook your ass off, or in my case, knead it.

Cookbook author and lecturer Amy Riolo, who specializes in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cooking and food history, taught my class. About a dozen fellow food nerds and I (in two separate groups) made focaccia, simit (sesame bread rings that look like bagels), fougasse (Corsican olive bread), and semolina griddle bread. Three of them were total winners (the semolina bread, a bit bland, needed a bowl of beef stew to make the effort worth it). All in all, it was the best cooking class (of a whopping three) I’ve taken in my lifetime and I felt like a better yuppie for having spent my Sunday learning yeast is not the enemy.

Recipe after the jump.

Read More “Yuppie Cooking School Is Off to a Great Start” »

If you haven’t yet done so, swing on over to Young & Hungry to read Joe Englert rail against Tim Carman for following him around all day and writing about it.

Should I be flattered that Audrae Erickson, president of the Corn Refiners Association, took time to read Tim Carman’s piece on bagels and then left a thoughtful comment about it?

Why no, because Carman’s piece barely touches on high-fructose corn syrup. Closest he comes is quoting someone else saying bagel quality has declined since many bagelries went to “cheaper (and sweeter) agents like sugar or high-fructose corn syrup” instead of malt syrup.

He doesn’t talk about the way that nasty crap is turning children into blobs or how rogue outfits like the Mayo Clinic encourage you to avoid it. But just to be safe, Erickson, who assures us she’s not a robot by admitting HFCS “may have a complicated-sounding name,” tells us we can learn more about the “misunderstandings” about HFCS at sweetsurprise.com.

Or you could just eat food that doesn’t have HFCS in it, like Carman’s bagels, which may have been baked in lies but were really, really good. Best I’ve had since I left New York (if I find out La Bagel Delight uses HFCS, I will slit my wrists).

Holly Hughes, editor of the much-loved Best Food Writing anthologies, has discovered what we here at City Paper have known for some time: Tim Carman is doing great work when it comes to telling food stories.

We also have to agree with Hughes that Carman’s Young & Hungry column in defense of fat and the processed food he dares to love is among his best. “Fat’s What I’m Talking About,” which ran in the March 28 edition, will appear in Best Food Writing 2008.

Here’s a sample:

Ever since that Crisco cookie, I’ve reconnected with some of the foods, or some of the places, I used to like before I felt the need to squirrel away my pedestrian eating habits. You know what? I still really like the Burrito Supreme at Taco Bell, particularly when the pimply kid pumps the sour cream evenly across the beans, shredded lettuce, cheddar cheese, ground beef, and diced tomatoes. I also can’t believe how much I drool over the crumbly biscuits at Popeyes; they’re even tastier after you slather them with strawberry jam squeezed from a packet. And I swear that some days the cracker-crust pizza at Stained Glass Pub in Silver Spring tastes better than any of those boutique pies—especially when you can play Buzztime trivia while eating.

The book, out in the fall, compiles the best writing from newspapers, magazines, and, in recent years, blogs. Past editions have included well-known food writers Ruth Reichl, Jeffrey Steingarten, R.W. Apple, Calvin Trillin, and Todd Kliman (former columnist at City Paper and current dining editor at Washingtonian), among others. We’re delighted that Carman, who has been writing the Y&H column since March 2006, is in their deserving company.