“pickled herring and animal innards are particularly pleasant”

 

To my tremendous surprise, this jiggly six-year-old corner of the internet has suddenly received more than its share of publicity this week. Some highlights:

• Time Out NYC – Apparently, I said that “pickled herring and animal innards are particularly pleasant.” WTF?! I mean, I did say something like that, but it’s funny to see it in print.
• Gothamist – I think I referred to fried food as one of “the finer things in life.” I might be bad at interviews.
• Reddit — Thanks to “mfairview”, who started this wave of attention.
• Trip Advisor – The guy who made comment #4 is a real dick. Oh, wait.

Thanks to the (totally undeserved!) attention, I’ve literally received more questions about the United Nations of Food project this week than in the past six years combined. The most common question: is the project dead, you lazyass food blogger?

Nope, it’s not dead. It’s been dormant, thanks largely to my laughable decision to attend graduate school. I simply haven’t had time to eat myself into blissful international stupors terribly often, and I’ve had even less time for food blogging. I have five half-written posts (Armenia, Costa Rica, Kyrgyzstan, Dominican Republic, and Peru) rotting in my hard drive, and just can’t seem to get them up.

Wait, that last phrase sounded funny for some reason.  *Shrug*

The good news is that graduate school supposedly doesn’t last forever, and I’ll have the freedom to clobber-oomph-ham-hock back into my usual gluttonous habits before too long. The bad news is that the remaining countries on my list are incredibly difficult to find.

So for any New Yorkers who have stumbled in here: my fantasy is that a wonderful, well-connected United Nations employee or ambassador will adopt me as a pet, and help me snag invitations into the kitchens of UN missions. At this point, United Nations of Food is an exercise in networking – home-cooked meals are probably my only hope of ever finishing the project. So if you can help with the networking, please drop me a line at unitednationsoffood@gmail.com.

Finally, a two quick shout-outs to amazing restaurants outside of NYC (full posts coming soon, hopefully):

• If you’re in Union City, NJ, check out our friends at Juana y Gloria. Great Dominican food and wonderful people.
• If you’re anywhere near the Miami airport, don’t miss El Pollo Inka. Everything is amazing, but try the Peruvian octopus-avocado-olive sushi, known as causa rolls. Don’t fear the purple.