Who were the Cooks? What We Know (More or Less) about Kitchen Servants (1)
While studying The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook (Steel and Gardiner, 1888), I found the instructions concerning servants a fascinating …
Category Archives: American Cooking
The Ancient Sin of Gluttony: What’s Really Behind the Shunning of Paula Deen
We need strategies that do not drag us back to the dispositional focus of the Inquisition’s witch-hunts, that propelled the …
And to Think it all Started with a French Cookbook: Forty Years of Chez Panisse
Alice Waters often said that Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking started the whole thing, meaning Chez Panisse the restaurant. And of …
Thomas Jefferson: The Francophile Who Became the First U.S. “Foodie”
Thomas Jefferson. President. Scientist. Writer. Man of many passions, some hidden, some not. In his writings and in his actions, …
From Velouté to Casserole: A Question of Green Beans, Amandine, and Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup
I didn’t mean to write about Campbell’s soup. You see, I started out pondering a super French soup recipe, Velouté …
The Potager of Thomas Jefferson: A Kitchen Garden in Photos
Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, that amazing genius and inventor, and — according to the late food writer, Karen …
MORE THAN MEETS THE PIE
The other day I saw another sign of autumn: a smashed pumpkin lying along the side of the …
Is Cooking Necessary?*
No, it’s not. That’s your immediate answer, isn’t it? After all, you’ve got more important things to do, don’t you? …
Ladies of the Pen and the Cookpot: Elizabeth David
Foxed, spotted, acid-rich, the paper crackles under the slightest touch of my hands. The book’s an old Penguin paperback, worth …
Ladies of the Pen and the Cookpot: The Other Mrs. (Lydia) Child
Events constantly reinforce the old saying, “History repeats itself.” Like the other Mrs. Child (Julia, that is), Mrs. Lydia Maria …
