Culinary Memoirs: What’s the Point?
They usually start by describing a kitchen from that vast desert common to all of us: memory. Filled with nostalgia, …
Author Archives:
Becoming a Writer
It’s funny how things work out. You pick up a book in a bookstore or a friend presses you to …
Recipes from the White Hart Inn: An 18th-Century Cookbook for Today’s Cook
The writing of cookbooks often becomes fraught with injured egos and accusations bordering on the libelous. William Verral’s Recipes from the …
Pilgrymes, Passing to and Fro: Chaucer Got it Right
Springtime stirs up feelings of wanderlust in me, banishing the tiresome plague of cabin fever. I want to throw a …
An Imam in Paris: Al-Tahtawi’s Visit to France (1826–1831) by Rifa’a Rafi’ al-Tahtawi, Translated by Daniel L. Newman
“For readers interested in early encounters between European and Arabic culture, An Imam in Paris: Al-Tahtawi’s Visit to France (1826–1831) provides an alluring …
La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life: Explaining the French
In celebration of the 2012 French elections … “. . . your best bet for understanding the French would be …
La Tour d’argent poinct ne leurre*, or, Pressed Duck, Blood and Guts and All
What is sauce for the goose may be sauce for the gander but is not necessarily sauce for the chicken, …
Hog Butchering Time with Harry Crews
I came within ax-handle length of hog butchering only once. And that was enough for me. My grandparents lived agrarian …
War. Cook. Eat. Love.
Annia Ciezadlo, author of Day of Honey* (Free Press, 2011) , isn’t the first person to cook her way through …
Prometheus Unbound: New Evidence on Humans’ Early Use of Fire
I woke up this morning fully intending to end my two weeks of silence on this blog – due to …
