July 14, 2008

Christopher’s Defends “Boston’s Best Chowder” Title

Posted in Pro-seminar assignments at 11:07 pm by shhville

There are few things that Bostonions take as seriously as their sports teams, and one of them is arguably their clam chowder.

 

This past Sunday, July 6th, marked the 27th annual Boston Chowderfest – the traditional finale of the Boston Harborfest – where thousands of people pay to sample local chowders and render their verdict. The Boston City Hall Plaza was packed with over 12,000 people earnestly debating the merits of the various chowder selections. They stood in lines up to 50 people deep as a small brass band played and a stilt-walker in revolutionary era garb mingled with the crowd. 

 

Christopher’s of Maynard (51 Main St., Maynard) successfully defended their 2007 title of “Boston’s Best Chowder” with a light, creamy creation laden with rosemary and pepper. Parker’s Restaurant at the Omni Parker House Hotel (60 School St., Boston) came in second with the richest of the bunch – a chunky chowder so thick it was almost the consistency of soft butter and packed with grit-free clams. Third place was awarded to Farmer Brown’s (210 Maple St., Middleton) for a sweet and chunky, but otherwise unremarkable, chowder that for all we could tell could have come from a can.

 

The rest of the four chowder selections ranged from should-have-won to widely reviled, the best coming from The Daily Grill (105 Huntington Ave., Boston) which offered Trappey’s Louisiana Hot Sauce and fresh cracked pepper to compliment a hearty, sage-infused soup. An almost perfect chowder, it lost points for grit content.

 

At 2 p.m., with four hours left to go, the chef of the Daily Grill, Daniel Greenough, looked out over the 100 or so people waiting in front of his booth and said, “I made 300 gallons. I don’t think it’s going to be enough.”

 

The Oceanaire (40 Court St., Boston) served up a hearty, creamy chowder with a sharp cheese flavor while the Daily Catch’s (323 Hanover St., North End, Boston) was sweet, bready, and occasionally gritty. As the afternoon progressed, word rippled through the crowd that The Chicken Bone (1260 Boylston St., Boston) booth should be avoided.

 

“It’s like drinking salad dressing,” said Emily, an angular blonde in her early teens.

 

The one non-restaurant competitor of the bunch, the USS Bataan – an amphibious naval assault ship currently docked in Boston Harbor – served something resembling dish water with bits of fatty bacon floating in it. Luckily for the latecomers, the Bataan ran out of chowder around 3 p.m.

 

The Harborfest, a “celebration of Boston’s colonial and maritime history,” is a six-day event featuring musical acts and family activities.

Jezebel on Ryan Lizza, New Yorker Washington Correspondent

Posted in Geek Out at 11:28 am by shhville

From Jezebel:

SPENCER: honestly, this doesn’t seem like a manufactured controversy, since the New Yorker doesn’t have to gin up gimmicks to sell magazines
plus they probably see themselves as above that
did you read the story? Written by Ryan “Snitch Bitch” Lizza?
MEGAN: They’d have to gin up a controversy to get me to buy it, but I’m the world’s worst person at buying magazines.
I keep trying to read it, but the narcolepsy kicks in.
SPENCER: yeah, i didn’t either
because NO ONE should trust a single thing Lizza writes
not his editors
not his factcheckers
not his readers
not his friends
not his family
MEGAN: Well, Ryan Lizza’s trustworthiness aside, Ryan Lizza doesn’t seem interesting enough as a person to be the secondary focus of the piece.
It’s like, do I really need to read about Ryan Lizza talking about Ryan Lizza researching the story.?
SPENCER: fun fact: in Shattered Glass, the movie about Steve Glass & TNR, there’s a hyper-obnoxious intern who keeps trying to butter Glass up
that dude is based on Ryan
wait, does Lizza talk about how he researched his own piece in the middle of the piece itself?
because if so, i wish there was a loud cackle function in HTML
MEGAN: It’s all like, XYZ told me this, and Obama talked to me about this.
it’s all written in the first person, I find it really annoying and I write constantly in the first person but not about how I met Barack Obama and everyone that’s ever known him talked to Me.
SPENCER: (Yeah, but magazine editors make you do that, so you can signal to your readership that They could never do what Famous Glossy Writers do — it’s the most anti-punk rock thing in journalism)

Read the rest here.