Food and W(h)ine Tries Damage Control; Plus: Leftovers

So.
After the kerfluffle yesterday over the Top Chef spoilers, Food & Wine today tried to do some damage control.

Yesterday, an intrepid reality tv fan found a Top Chef story on Food & Wine's server. Food & Wine prepared profiles of both Top Chef finalists in advance of the last episode so that we had a story on the winner ready to publish immediately after the season finale.
Food & Wine online

And with that, they linked the original article on (the apparent winner) as well as a questionable article on (the finalist who didn't have an article anywhere on F&W yesterday).
I won't comment on the questionable article save to say that a twelve year old could have come up with something more convincing for a creative writing class.

I will say that the the telling point here is the original URL of yesterdays "oops" article;
http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/bravos-new-top-chef-tells-all

Not bravos-new-top-chef-tells-all1 or bravos-new-top-chef-tells-all-(finalistname).
Just plain ol' bravos-new-top-chef-tells-all.
If F&W had prepared two stories ahead of time, the leaked one yesterday would have been named in such a way to differentiate between the two supposed stories.

Poor form, Food & Wine. Poor form. You should have just ignored the whole thing.

I guess we'll see what happens on Wednesday, but it isn't looking so good for one of the two youngsters.

(By this point, I'm sure everyone's already heard the news cuz this thing is everywhere now. Still, I omitted names in case anyone is actively trying to avoid any potential spoilers.)

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In other news,
with all the tasty ricotta cheese leftover from the weekend, I wanted to be sure to use it up before it went off. Considering the lack of preservatives and all, I wasn't sure how long it would last. And I didn't want to futz around too much in the kitchen, seeing as I was in the middle of cleaning it around dinnertime yesterday.

While I washed dishes, I put a stockpot on to boil and threw together a quick sauce of crushed tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, garlic, basil, oregano, a pinch of nutmeg, a bit of sugar, and some salt & pepper.
Then I mixed the remaining ricotta with a small handful of shredded parmesan, some basil and black pepper, and an egg.
When the water hit a boil, I tossed in a pack of manicotti tubes and let them go for 7-ish minutes. A quick bath in cold water stopped the cooking so I didn't get gummy pasta.

After that, it was just a matter of putting some of the sauce in the bottom of my baking dish, filling the manicotti with the cheese mixture, plopping them in the dish, topping with sauce and cheese, and baking them for about half an hour.

I felt the dish came out perfectly, to be honest. It was what it was - a simple, quick meal that required little effort but delivered lots of taste. The pasta was firm enough to hold its shape, just barely on the soft side of al dente. Kevin said he would have preferred the pasta boiled a minute longer, but I think he's crazy; I personally wouldn't have boiled it a second longer than I did.
Maybe I'll do an extra 30 seconds next time as a sort of compromise.

Still. He did lick his plate clean, which I took as a good sign.

Technorati: top chef : pasta : entree : The Bizarre Kitchen Incident