pickled-fish-based orthography

This is an extraordinary day.

Tonight I will set the first Universal Record for Shortest Time to Spell “I ♥ PICKLED HERRING” in Pickled Herring and Then Eat It. This feat of pickled-fish-based orthography and consumption will take place at the Eighth Meeting of the World Record Appreciation Society, Wednesday, August 12, 2009 from 8:00 PM - 11:00 PM (ET), at the Crash Mansion, 199 Bowery, New York, NY 10002.

Read on for details…

My very special thanks to my herring sponsors, the great people at Russ & Daughters. If you don’t know Russ & Daughters, they are an NYC culinary institution, and the finest purveyors of smoked, salted, pickled, and otherwise preserved fish in the United States, bar none. They also happen to have the best chopped liver I’ve ever tasted. (They’re also on Twitter, as @LoxPopuli.) As you might guess, I used to go there a lot. That a diet rich in high-end smoked fish doesn’t usually square well with the $50/week plan is a daily pain in my heart. It is thus with the utmost sincerity that I can say that my sponsorship by Russ & Daughters this evening will be the proudest moment of my life to date.

No less worthy of approbation are Dan Rollman and the crew at the Universal Record Database, for organizing this great event. You may have seen URDB on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, or at Chicago’s Pitchfork Festival. That they’re doing their first food-specific event right here in NYC is as beautiful as it is inevitable. Tonight’s lineup includes such luminaries as pro-level cherry-pitter, new dad, and all around great guy Harry Rosenblum of The Brooklyn Kitchen; serial restaurant-denier par excellence Cathy Erway of Not Eating Out in New York; and SF-based mistress of meat-art Sasha Wizansky (with whom I went to high school) of Meatpaper. Though I can but gaze up at these stars of the foody firmament, I will do so will a smile on my face, pride in my heart, and pickled herring on my breath.

Buy your tickets here. I hope to see you there.

Oh, yeah… we also got written up by Glamour the other day. We’re all pretty psyched. Hi, Glamour girls!