Nine years ago, I decided to poke a toe into the world of food blogging. I settled on the name, “Gherkins & Tomatoes,” based on a painting by Luis Meléndez, a tribute to the period of history known as “The Age of Exploration.” Faced with a blank screen demanding something, anything, the first words that…
Tag: England
Beatrix Potter and Me
I came late to Beatrix’s work. Sometimes it takes a while to recognize patterns in a life. Sometimes the patterns never become clear. Sometimes the only way to glean the message is to catch a glimpse of someone else’s life. That’s when the “Eureka” moment pounds through the thickness of one’s skull. And that’s how…
Elinor Cooks the Christmas Goose
[Note: This is a portion of a larger work in progress.] Elinor waited until Daniel and Julian left the tavern’s kitchen. Then she tightened her apron and turned to the large wooden worktable facing the hearth. The white goose lay in the market basket, its neck tilted at a squared-off angle, its sightless eye pointing upward,…
Blah and Nasty and Bland? Nah! Or, Why You Should Love British Cooking (and You Do)
Before I dive into the meat of the matter here – a very brief celebration of Colman Andrews’s newest book, The British Table (2016), the impetus that brought me to the page this morning – I’m going to share a few words about how I perceive British food vis-a-vis the United States. Perhaps you’ve thought that I’d…
Day 2: Oysters – Celebrate American Food History
Jonathan Swift once quipped, “It was a brave man who first ate an oyster.” And an even braver one who pried open the shell without special gloves and knives. Actually, it’s more likely that our hero (or heroine) used a rock to smash into the mollusk. Oysters kept people alive in the early days of colonial North America,…
