THE LIFE VICARIOUS

Payoff.

Insane we have a full slate of stories planned for the next six months, this state writes itself. And we got our first paycheck from a newspaper today, so crazy to actually see someone pull buy the paper from a machine on the sidewalk or read it on the PATH train. And even if this was our dream ever since we first saw the opening credits of Perfect Strangers growing up, who would guess we'd be a photographer too? (DSLR best investment we ever made!) Phew. This is not the easiest thing to break into you know.

You can follow all our stories here.

Local and obscure sweets at the Fancy Food Show.

We spent a few days at the Fancy Food Show this week, smaller than years past but not without its curiosities. Wafels & Dinges is now selling jars of its Spekuloos gingerbread spread (and the booth next door, Choc-o-Lait, now offers speculoos hot chocolate sticks.) Fatty Crab's Fatty Bars were at the Tumbador Chocolate table right beside Trump Chocolates which might explain the former's minibar-high prices. And we spotted Durian fruit coffee downstairs where there's usually a more expansive third world pavilion. The person behind the booth spoke no English other than to acknowledge it doesn't smell and inform us it's sold nowhere in the United States. However he gave us a taste and it was sweet like Vietnamese coffee.

KAWS at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.

UPDATE: Our recap of KAWS' exhibition at the Aldrich including a slideshow is now up on NJ.com.

Today we visited the Aldrich to write a follow-up piece to our post on NJ.com last Friday, highlighting KAWS' New Jersey roots. Fortunately covering the event meant we were allowed to take pictures without hindrance - unlike the NYC Food Film Festival Drive-in yesterday where FDNY fire marshals insisted we delete pictures of them enjoying themselves on duty. (We faked it.) A look at the Aldrich show and the marshals below. (Sorry, we're saving all the best pics for the paper!)

On the demise of Eat Me Daily.

It should never be this hard to contribute to a worthy cause.

We're writing over at NJ.com now.

Just like this blog but with quotes and pictures and for money! And they appear in newspapers thus taking us from the ranks of blogger to reporter. Sweet deal. Food, film, art, crime, politics, all that fun stuff. We still get to write in the first person plural. We get along with our editor. It's all a pretty sweet deal.

New posts on Gridskipper.

Red penguin courtesy Louisville's 21C Hotel. Bathroom sink our own.

Slowly but surely we're getting around to blogging the highlights of our recent road trip over on Gridskipper. The last part first, here's a look at the best of what's bad for you in Louisville.

New posts on Eat Me Daily, Gridskipper.

This past week we reported from the red carpet and backstage at this year's James Beard Foundation Awards. Here you can find Part I and Part II of our coverage on Eat Me Daily. We also took a look at Red, the new play about Mark Rothko's murals meant to adorn the Four Seasons restaurant.

Over on Gridskipper we presented an introduction to this year's Gumball 3000.

Is Paul Johnson Calderon a real life Paul Poitier?

So we're watching the season finale of High Society and has no one made this comparison before? Never?

Six Degrees of Separation is a play and film about Paul, a gay young black man who pretended to be the son of a the actor Sidney Poitier to infiltrate New York society. But once inside he couldn't help from embarrassing himself, committing petty crimes, picking up strange men and laving his lovers worse off than he found them.

High Society is a CW reality show about Paul, a gay, young, "moorish" playboy who pretended to be from the Johnson & Johnson family to infiltrate New York society. But once inside he couldn't help from embarrsing himself, committing petty crimes, picking up strange men and leaving his lovers worse off than he found them.

Recent posts elsewhere on the web.

On Eat Me Daily, a look at the celebrities at last week's Brooklyn Ball and the artistic inspiration behind the evening's dinner. Also, Stephen Colbert's take on trading chickens for health insurance.

On Gridskipper, Shepard Fairey hotel packages and a look at this year's Hoboken International Film Festival line-up.

Taste New Jersey over and over and over and over again.

Tickets will be available at the door for Thursday's Taste of Hudson supporting Hudson Cradle. For $100 you can come up to the roof of 77 Hudson and indulge in tastes from Edward's Steakhouse, Light Horse Tavern, Liberty House and more than a dozen other local restaurants.

This weekend Crystal Springs Resort hosts the 2nd annual New Jersey Food & Wine Festival which brings together some of NJ's best known chefs but undermines them when it comes to the fancy $400 wine pairing dinners where Le Cirque's Craig Hopson, Corton's Paul Liebrandt, Gramercy Tavern's Nancy Olson and Maialino's Nick Anderer will do all the cooking.

Tickets are also now on sale for July's Atlantic City Food & Wine Festival. We're not even going to pretend we're not excited to go back for a weekend of good humored debauchery at Harrah's. This year's festival has upped its game partnering with Conde Nast Traveler and the Food Network and brings to town Anne Burrell, Ted Allen, Guy Fieri, and The Neelys who are not characters on The Cleveland Show.

And on Monday tickets go on sale for June's Great American Food & Music Festival at the Meadowlands. Do you like Paula Deen and Buckwheat Zydeco? Or Duff Goldman and Duff Goldman's band? Then, well, this one's a stretch. And tickets go up to $1200 for an all access all you can eat pass. Do you know what you can eat in New Jersey for $1200 a person?