Shott On Location

Your regular mild-mannered reporter at large - food, fashion, fine autos - @chrisshott

[chrisshott-blog]

The Meyer lemon is a specialty-citrus sensation. Its history is a fascinating window into the sweeping transformation of the entire U.S. food system. The lemon is named for USDA explorer Frank Meyer, who discovered the unique citrus in China back in 1908. His extraordinary life and mysterious death would make a great movie. Imagine the actor Ryan Gosling in a full beard and bearskin hat!

Love this illustration by Natalie Nelson. Read my full story about the explorer and his now-famous lemon on TASTE.

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The chef, Benicio del Toro, has outdone himself.

Comic Ari Shaffir, host of Comedy Central’s standup series “This Is Not Happening,” on our dinner at Mario Batali’s newest NYC spot La Sirena

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Hey Cookie Monster, if you were a cupcake, would you eat yourself?

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[foodrepublic]

"If they try to make a jerk rib in Ayden, N.C., at the Skylight Inn where my good friend Sam Jones operates, they’d hang him up by his shoe strings,” says Hometown’s Durney. "We’re really proud of the fact that we have no rules. We don’t have to cook whole hog because our granddad or greatgranddad was a hog farmer….Here in New York, we can essentially do whatever we like. We don’t have to adhere to any legacies.”

Read more about the New York City BBQ Boom here: http://bit.ly/1sGr1Z9

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'A What? Globo?' Derek Jeter Strikes Out On The Dodgeball Question

Retiring New York Yankees Captain Derek Jeter made lots of great hits over his storied career. But I'll never forget him striking out on the Dodgeball question...

Read More: "A What? Globo? My Interview With Derek Jeter"

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Sausage, peppers and mushrooms - worth the wait @ Emmett's

"[E]very New York pizza lover should try this stab at Chicago authenticity at least once"--Robert Sietsema/Eater

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Mezcal mogul Ron Cooper sources his small-batch, high-end hooch from remote villages in Mexico. The job takes him over some pretty interesting terrain. On one adventure, the founder of Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal is steering his jeep along some back roads in Oaxaca when he and his...

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Villard Burger ($26) at Villard Michel Richard NYC: "essentially the same burger that Richard serves at his Central restaurants in Las Vegas and Washington, D.C.

"Only at Villard, Richard’s burger costs $8 more. (D.C. and Vegas versions start at $18.)"

READ MORE: "Tuile of Fortune: Michel Richard Drops A Ritzy Potato Chip Burger On Manhattan" @foodrepublic

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Get Some High-End Ham In Your Clay Cup

Leave it to the hams at José Andrés' ThinkFood Group to find a way to add fancy Spanish pork to just about anything.

Read more: "This Mezcal Made With Jamón Ibérico Could Make You Squeal" [Food Republic]

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Chinatown, the original Flavortown

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'I'm Like A Drug Dealer': The Truffle Tsar

“I’m like a drug dealer when it comes to these truffles,” said importer John Magazino, as he prepared to head out for a round of deliveries, making stops at esteemed New York restaurants Daniel and Le Cirque, as well as the private residence of a prominent Upper East Side billionaire.

“I’ve got a cooler bag, I’ve got my digital scale, I keep a little counterbalance weight in my pocket,” he said, adding, “I don’t use plastic baggies, though—it’s not good for the truffles.”

“We go in, we do the transaction just like a drug deal. Put the goods on the scale, everybody sniffs it a little bit.”

Read More: "I Can Get It For You Wholesale" [NYO] #TalesFromTheClips #Flashbacks

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Andouillette: 'the French word for, basically, intestines stuffed with more intestines'

As defined by Doug Sohn - as in, the Doug, of Hot Doug's, Chicago's most glorified sausage stand. The Windy City weiner spot is famous for its duck fat fries and tube steaks of all kinds, including various types of wild game.

"The only kind of sausage we couldn’t sell," Sohn says of Andouillette, "and that was mostly me talking people out of it!"

"This was a long time ago. And I would ask people, 'Have you had this?' And they’re like, 'No.' I’m like, 'Yeah, you don’t want it.'

"It’s funky! I might do it again at some point, because things have changed."*

*Excerpted from an earlier interview

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Here's How Mezcal Finds You

Mezcal mogul Ron Cooper sources his small-batch, high-end hooch from remote villages in Mexico. The job takes him over some pretty interesting terrain. On one adventure, the founder of Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal is steering his jeep along some back roads in Oaxaca when he and his crew rumbles into a lush canyon - "with the most beautiful wild agaves, growing straight out of vertical walls," he recalls.

"All of sudden, there are eight Indians with rifles, right in front of us. And these two guys [in the Jeep] scream. I go, 'Namaste. Take it easy, take it easy...'

"The first thing I do, I roll down the window and I say in Spanish, 'Hey, what’s the name of that agave growing up there?' And this Indian walks up to me and goes, 'You like agaves?' I go, 'Yeah, I like  mezcal.' I always have a clay cup on the center console of my Jeep, so I hold it up and I ask him, 'Have you ever heard of Rio Minas?' And he goes, “I’m the maker of mezcal in Rio Minas.” And he mumbles to his buddies in their Mixtecan tongue and one guy shakes a water bottle, brings it up, opens the bottle and pours me a sip of his incredible elixir.

That’s the perfect embodiment of 'You don’t find mezcal, mezcal finds you.'"*

*Excerpted from an earlier interview

Read the full Q&A here.

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The Raw Truth About MILF Juice

"My partner doesn't like the name, any more," says Marcus Antebi, CEO of Juice Press, the rapidly expanding NY chain of raw juice joints, about his most dubiously named organic beverage blend. "I love the name! But he's actually right. He's like, 'This juice contains every great ingredient that you'd want to feed a kid, [but] what mother is going to hand their kid a drink called MILF?'"

Antebi has considered bottling the same beverage twice, with two different names: both MILF as well as a more G-rated label. "I think MILF is funny," he says, adding with a chuckle, "The original acronym for MILF was, ‘Man, I like fruit.'"

RELATED: Green Is The New Gold: The Raw Facts About How Juice Is Taking Over Our Lives (Food Republic)

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Micah's take on the traditional Cuba Libre, served in a sawed-off Coke bottle, at Bar Pilar.

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My boy Meat's second attempt with a New York slice, immediately skinning the entire layer of cheese off the top...