Editorials | Gherkins & Tomatoes

Remembering the Magic and Wishing for Peace on Earth

December 16, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

I dedicate this post to the children and the parents, everywhere, especially Newtown, Connecticut. Every year, in December, a marvelous thing happens. At least I think it’s wonderful. And not for the reasons you might think. Christmas comes around, bringing with it a sense of magic in the air, some thing that I felt as a child. And lest you think me not sensitive to the cultural experiences of those who do not celebrate Christmas, I say that no matter […]

Categories: Christmas, Editorials, Festivals, Photography • Tags: Children, Christmas, Gingerbread, Magic

Advice for Food Writers

June 14, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

The buzz not long ago came from the keyboard of Amanda Hesser, a former food writer for The New York Times, who proved with a click of the mouse that controversy gets people reading, Tweeting, Facebooking, and just plain screaming. Or sniffling. Ah yes, that last one. I hate to say, is what almost happened to me. What a tear-jerker! If Amanda Hesser now struggles to be paid for writing about food, where does that leave the rest of us […]

Categories: Books, Cooking, Critic's Corner, Editorials, Food Columns, Food News, Food writing • Tags: Amanda Hesser, New York Times, Trish Deseine

The [Fatal] Flaw*: What’s Wrong with [Food] Writing Now

June 8, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Writing is not about the “me,” it’s about the “not me.” This is always true, even in personal essay and memoir. ~~ Michael Ruhlman Something seems wrong these days with food writing in America. And, to be honest, not just food writing. What is the problem? You’re probably getting ready to hit DELETE. But hold on, hold on, please. The other day, trying to come to grips with some rather negative feelings about being a writer and the way the […]

Categories: Books, Critic's Corner, Editorials, Food writing • Tags: Confessions of Nat Turner, Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong, Kate Christensen, M. F. K. Fisher, Nobel Prize in Literature, Toni Morrison, William Styron

When it Comes to Writing, Define Your Terms

June 5, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

There is communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk. ~~ M. F. K. Fisher With every story ever told, there’s usually a beginning, at least in an ideal world. The reader progresses toward a soft plump middle, where the real action occurs, like a jelly doughnut harboring cherry filling. And, if the author is a considerate sort, the ending makes sense, too, recalling the finale of any satisfying meal. That’s the definition of writing, […]

Categories: Cooking, Critic's Corner, Editorials, Food Columns, Food writing • Tags: Adam Gopnik, Elizabeth David, Gourmet, Joseph Wechsberg, Ludwig Bemelmans, M. F. K. Fisher, New Yorker, Ruth Reichl

Becoming a Writer

May 23, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

It’s funny how things work out. You pick up a book in a bookstore or a friend presses you to read something, “Hey, I KNOW you’ll love this.” You read the words on the page and suddenly you’re soaring above your bedroom ceiling, your sorryass childhood forgotten, your past mistakes and your current cares evaporate, like rain splashing on a steaming hot summer sidewalk. You learn about a larger world when writers release their words into the Universe. As I […]

Categories: Bibliographies, Books, Editorials, Food writing • Tags: Food writing, M. F. K. Fisher, Writing

The Ancient Sin of Gluttony: What’s Really Behind the Shunning of Paula Deen

January 26, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

We need strategies that do not drag us back to the dispositional focus of the Inquisition’s witch-hunts, that propelled the notion of the “Satan Within,” when much good and evil is the product of situational and systemic forces acting on the same ordinary, often good people. ~~ Philip Zimbardo It’s been with a great deal of amazement that I’ve watched the reaction to the American food-media celebrity Paula Deen’s announcement of her Type 2 diabetes diagnosis three years ago and […]

Categories: American Cooking, Cooking, Critic's Corner, Editorials, Food News, Food writing, France, French Cooking, United States • Tags: Culinary History, Food History, Gluttony, Paula Dean, Southern cooking

Just Exactly What is Worthwhile About Food Writing?

August 10, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Hot as an oven outside, sweltering with 87% humidity; if it were any hotter, I might consider baking a loaf of crusty bread inside the hood of my black Toyota pickup truck. Instead, I lie in my black leather recliner, sipping icy water, contemplating the nasty, brutish, increasingly egotistical business of food media, especially food writing.* Thinking about food writing in all its permutations, I came up with a lot of old questions, still trying to make sense of this […]

Categories: Cooking, Editorials, Food writing, Methods • Tags: Culinary History, Food History

Pass the Nostalgia, and Nix the Organics

April 14, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

I’ll be blunt: I like my food with a heaping handful of nostalgic romanticism. Yes, there are those who claim that the present food landscape sparkles with the dreamy hue reminiscent of rose-colored glasses, that the perfume of nostalgia permeates too much of present-day “discourse” on food. And then there’s the flip side of that discourse — I hate that word, so pompous, nay, plump with the moral sensitivities of a Cotton Matheresque preacher — the self-righteous guilt-producers crusading to […]

Categories: Books, Cookbooks, Critic's Corner, Editorials, Food writing, Paintings • Tags: Alice Waters, Cooking, M. F. K. Fisher, Michael Pollan, Organics, Tangerines

Scaling Back, Nothing Fishy About It!

November 17, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

To all the wonderful readers of “Gherkins & Tomatoes”: I would like to let you know that starting this week (11/16/2009), I will be temporarily posting two times a week — likely on Mondays and Thursdays, with a picture or a new food book announcement on the weekends when pertinent. Due to a very large and ongoing writing project, my time just doesn’t stretch as far I would like it to. And so, to continue providing you with material worth […]

Categories: Editorials, Food News

Slapdown Corner: For the Love of Food!

July 22, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Like a pot of water heating on the fire, the “meaning of foodie” conversations percolating out there come to boil at times. And at times the heat gets turned off and things simmer down.* Until the next finger-pointing pundit comes flying out of the air. Frankly, it gets tiresome when people exercise their index fingers and sneer out the word “foodie” as if you were a secret sinner, hoarding peccadillos like so many bags of rice. Which was for all […]

Categories: Editorials, Mexico • Tags: Foodies, Ibn Majah, Mexico

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