Every chef should be a scientist too. How so? Cooking changes the chemical and structure of food. Therefore, understanding these changes would help a lot when perched in front of the stove, whisk or wooden spoon in hand. Over the last several weeks, I’ve watched more episodes of the popular American TV program, “Chopped,” than I…
Category: Food News
Mushrooms on My Mind, Naturally
It’s hard to imagine another form of earthly life that has affected human beings as much as the kingdom Fungi. Seeking the taste and perceived medicinal benefits of mushrooms,human beings followed a path from superstition to science: from foraging to farming, from medieval old wives’ tales to modern clinical trials, and from food eaten to…
The Grocery List: Color, Primates, and Food Selection
I always take a shopping list with me to the grocery store. But I rarely stick to it, because those marketing experts working for the big chains know just how to entice me into buying things not on my list. That’s probably why most people I see in the grocery store don’t shop with a…
Julia Child’s “The French Chef, ” by Dana Polan
“a history of early American television telescoped through the persona and history of Julia Child. . . . fascinating . . .” When you walk the streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts, you can’t miss the lingering traces of heroes and history. From the names of the men who brought you the Boston Tea Party to the…
Advice for Food Writers
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…
War. Cook. Eat. Love.
Annia Ciezadlo, author of Day of Honey* (Free Press, 2011) , isn’t the first person to cook her way through trying times. Nor will she be the last. But the makeshift kitchens where Ms. Ciezadlo peeled purple eggplant or stirred onions caramelizing for Mjadara Hamra (Lentils with Bulgur Wheat) happened to be in a couple…
The Roger Smith Cookbook Conference
Just a reminder that you will be able to see some 10 of the 28 sessions live and for free on Friday and Saturday, February 10 and 11, 2012. See schedule of free sessions below. To brighten up a dreary February in 2011, a group of food scholars and cookbook writers started a cookbook conference….
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 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…
Michel de Montaigne: “Literally” an Ancestor?
Great article by Sarah Bakewell, on Paris Review site from November 2010: What Bloggers Owe [Michel de] Montaigne Don’t forget that Michel wrote about cannibalism, relating it to ethical issues. Read his essays in translation HERE. A taste, if I may be so bold: I am not sorry that we notice the barbarous horror of…
