The Hangover Pt III chronicles Brett Martin’s journey through Tokyo with with Aziz Ansari, David Chang and James Murphy (from LCD Soundsystem). Crack a beer and take some time to follow the escapades of a true wolfpack.
We are not accustomed, here at GQ, to acting as a celebrity Make-A-Wish Foundation. But something about this tweet captured our attention. The grouping was unlikely, yet it made an instant kind of cosmic sense, as though you had been waiting for the picture long before it appeared. The Venn diagram of their fame might have a small overlap—I found that most people knew two of the three—but that intersection was a particular pocket of smart, inventive, forward-looking cool. The destination, too, made a certain intuitive sense, Tokyo being both a fun-house mirror of pop-culture iconography and a place where generations of Western seekers have gone to feel both reverently awed and gloriously disoriented.
Scanwiches (via Subtraction). There’s a book coming out in the fall. Now I’m hungry.
From Chasing Perfection by Francis Lam.
It was astounding how something so commonplace, so elemental, could have so many variables. You just have to learn to see all those variables, to recognize what effect every moment of heat, every motion of the hands has. To get back to that thing I tasted, I would have to know exactly what to look for and nail it every step of the way.
Three eggs, salt, pepper, and a little butter. That’s all there is in a classic French omelet, but it’s enough to keep reteaching me this vital lesson: Things are only simple when you’ve stopped asking the right questions of them, when you’ve stopped finding new ways to see them. Because what you find, when you learn how to find it, is that even simple things can be wonderfully, frustratingly, world-openingly complex.
Ninjabread Men cookie cutters from Fred, available at Think Geek
McDonald’s has somehow managed to screw-up oatmeal.
Others will argue that the McDonald’s version is more “convenient.†This is nonsense; in the time it takes to go into a McDonald’s, stand in line, order, wait, pay and leave, you could make oatmeal for four while taking your vitamins, brushing your teeth and half-unloading the dishwasher. [...] Incredibly, the McDonald’s product contains more sugar than a Snickers bar and only 10 fewer calories than a McDonald’s cheeseburger or Egg McMuffin.
Take a fast and healthy staple, pump it full of sugar and chemicals, serve. Sounds like the rest of the breakfast cereal industry, or just pre-processed food in general.
The Ultimate In-N-Out Secret Menu Survival Guide, including some super-secret options. I need to plan a trip to the American west-coast at some point.
A visualization of the American soft drinks industry. Despite the apparent abundance of choice, three firms control 89% of the market.
How to make brownies, Pentagon style. The 26 page specification, also known as MIL-C-44072C, is available for your perusal.
Michael Ruhlman writes that with all of the prepackaged food and simple recipes in a box that are available, people start to believe that they’re too stupid to cook. He goes on to outline the world’s most difficult roasted chicken recipe, which I’ve reproduced.
Turn your oven on high (450 if you have ventilation, 425 if not). Coat a 3 or 4 pound chicken with coarse kosher salt so that you have an appealing crust of salt (a tablespoon or so). Put the chicken in a pan, stick a lemon or some onion or any fruit or vegetable you have on hand into the cavity. Put the chicken in the oven. Go away for an hour. Watch some TV, play with the kids, read, have a cocktail, have sex. When an hour has passed, take the chicken out of the oven and put it on the stove top or on a trivet for 15 more minutes. Finito.
After you’ve finished with the chicken, you can throw the carcass in a pot (with a touch of vinegar to make the meat fall of the bone), add some carrots, celery, onion and salt, simmer it, and you’re left with stock. Then make some delicious soup.
For sushi at home, skip the fish. Sushi really isn’t that hard to make, as long as you don’t mind the odd fail piece. Chicken teriyaki and breaded prawns are also good to throw into the mix.
