Roasted carrots with yogurt and cilantro sauce. 

Picture by Bags. 

Bob.

Over at the New York Review of Books, Frank Rich weighs in on Richard Zoglin’s new Bob Hope biography:

When Bob Hope died in 2003 at the age of one hundred, attention was not widely paid. The “entertainer of the century,” as his biographer Richard Zoglin calls him, had long been regarded by many Americans (if they regarded him at all) “as a cue-card-reading antique, cracking dated jokes about buxom beauty queens and Gerald Ford’s golf game.” A year before his death, The Onion had published the fake headline “World’s Last Bob Hope Fan Dies of Old Age.” Though Hope still had champions among comedy luminaries who had grown up idolizing him—Woody Allen and Dick Cavett, most prominently—Christopher Hitchens was in sync with the new century’s consensus when he memorialized him as “paralyzingly, painfully, hopelessly unfunny.”

Zoglin, a longtime editor and writer for Time, tells Hope’s story in authoritative detail. But his real mission is to explain and to counter the collapse of Hope’s cultural status, a decline that began well before his death and accelerated posthumously. The book is not a hagiography, however. While Zoglin seems to have received unstinting cooperation from the keepers of Hope’s flame, including his eldest daughter, Linda, he did so without strings of editorial approval attached. Hope’s compulsive womanizing, which spanned most of his sixty-nine-year marriage to the former nightclub singer Dolores Reade (who died at 102, in 2011), is addressed unblinkingly. And with good reason—it was no joke. At least three of his longer-term companions, including the film noir femme fatale Barbara Payton and a Miss World named Rosemarie Frankland whom Hope first met when she was eighteen and he was fifty-eight, died of drug or alcohol abuse.

[AP Photo via NPR]

Serious Eats does Sichuan Dry-Fried Green Beans.

Photograph by Blake Little

It’s Monday. Shake it.

[Photo Credit: Isabel Munoz]

Couple of fun mixes from the one and only Prince Paul to keep you warm:

Prince Paul's " Its Not the size of your Mix Its how you use it " Mix Tape Vol 1 (Obscure Series) by Prince Paul on Mixcloud

Prince Paul's " Its Not the size of your Mix Its how you use it " Mix Tape Vol 2 (Obscure Series) by Prince Paul on Mixcloud

Picture by Bags.

Drive, he said.

[Photo Credit: Justin Thomas Leonard via MPD]

Degas

I’m no great fan of Babka but damn, this looks good.

[Photo Credit: Maren Caruso]

If you are ever in Carroll Gardens stop by Esposito & Sons. I lived in that neighborhood from 1996-2000 and was a regular at Esposito’s–their pickled eggplant alone is worth the trip. Plus, John and George are Yankee fans.

I was happy to see this:

Esposito’s Pork Store, Brooklyn from Brinda Adhikari on Vimeo. [Photo Via: South Brooklyn Post]

Picture by Katsuhiro Otomo.

Work it out.

[Painting by conjunto universo via This Isn’t Happiness]

Celery root salad. I’m so going to try this. 

Crumb.

These Michael Caine impressions are funny.

The great Saturnino Orestes Arrieta, aka Minnie Minoso, is dead.

One of my favorite players in history, he was bona fide even if the Hall snubbed him.

Thank you, Papi.

Rest in Peace, Holmes.

Man, listen:

[Painting by Arturo Samaniego]