Food (Section) Fight!: Week 22

Food (Section) Fight! is my weekly look at The Washington Post's Food section and The New York Times' Dining section with my verdict on which section had the better content for the week.


Washington Post


Spirits columnist Jason Wilson, one of my favorite Food section writers, takes center stage this week with an article about tasting rum. He argues that although wine tastings are common--few people spend much time tasting spirits, apart from Scotch on occasion. I, for one, would not last long at a spirits tasting, and judging from his descriptions, they tend to get somewhat raucous after awhile. Sounds like fun, actually.

I also really appreciated David Hagedorn's The Process column on making meat stock sauces. It's a very time intensive process, probably not one many of will ever attempt (although I'd like to at some point, just for the experience). I raved about this column when it first appeared in mid-April, and I'm still quite excited about it, if he's going to continue exploring subjects as interesting as this.

The Food section was rather slim today at just 6 pages, and I wasn't really into many of the recipes, save for the Corn Bread-Encrusted Black Grouper that accompanied the article about how the Zac Brown Band likes to eat well with fans while on tour.

New York Times

The Dining section was also just 6 pages today (c'mon advertisers, step up!), but managed to pack in quite a few stories and recipes I found interesting. Chief among them were the two articles about recent efforts to legislate what we eat: Jesse McKinley's story about California's new law that will ban foie gras as of July 1, and Julie Moskin's story about New York City's efforts to ban large-size sugared beverages. Both stories were nicely balanced, providing the perspectives of restauranteurs, food activists and legislators alike.

Also loved Jeff Gordinier's story about the upstate couple who makes small-batch pesto, which sounds delicious.

Both page 2 recipes are in keeping with my current interests. I've been experimenting with green garlic this week, which I picked up at my farmer's market. The Times wrote about it 2 weeks ago and now it appears again in Melissa Clark's Seared Pork Cutlets with Green Garlic Salsa Verde. Even better is David Tanis's recipe for Green Gnocchi with Peas and Fresh Sage Butter, which sounds like something I will have to make real soon.


Verdict


The New York Times. Although short, The New York Times managed to pack in quite a lot of good content this week.

Score


The New York Times: 12
The Washington Post: 10