FoodWords Between Deadlines
Friday, December 21
New FoodWords just published!
Okay, it was a few days ago. But if you'd like to read all (or most) of the food stories that appear here in the blog, please subscribe to the newsletter. It'll save you time, I promise. It goes out every two weeks or so, when I remember and have the time. Just click here: Subscribe me!
posted by Unknown10:29 AM
One Hazard of Restaurant Criticism: Foie Gras Blockage
Speaking of daunting prospects (see the London-dining story below), how would you like to be responsible for bringing critical food news to a city full of picky eaters? That's William Grimes' lot in life as a New York Times restaurant writer. Trust us, folks: it's not all foie gras and freeloading. This piece, excerpted from Grimes' daily diary posted on Salon.com, details the joys and challenges he faces every day, including "suffering from severe foie gras blockage (and) the profound fatigue that comes from the social demands of eating out."
posted by Unknown
London Dining on a Budget
This story from the International Herald Tribune describes the "daunting" quest to find good, inexpensive foods at London's better restaurants and profiles "Harden's Good Cheap Eats in London 2002," a London dining guide which, "while covering many of the places that are listed in London Restaurants, approaches them in a very different way, focusing on inexpensive lunch or dinner menus, giving much more detail on choosing individual dishes and wine to allow you to stay around the £20 limit." That's about US$29. Cheap, therefore, being relative. The guide's publisher does have encouraging news for people who still think the concept of good English food is an oxymoron: "When we started 11 years ago, it was universally acknowledged that eating in a pub was a grim and sad experience," Peter Harden says. "There's been such a transformation that pubs now offer some of the best cheap eats in London."
posted by Unknown
Monday, December 17
Baking a real pot pie
Now here's real comfort food: a creamy, brothy chicken pot pie. Not the puny things under a concrete crust you find in the frozen-food section but the real thing. Just the right food for a cold night. This article from Flak magazine is so descriptive, you can practically feel the steam tickling your nose as it snakes up from under a delicate pastry crust. I can even forgive the snide comment the author makes linking Swanson pot pies and cold Wisconsin nights.
posted by Unknown
Friday, December 14
Report: Baby Boomers Boost 'Nutraceuticals' Market
Does this surprise anybody?
posted by Unknown
A Return to Intelligent Restaurant Food?
This report, by the impeccable Patricia Wells writing in the International Herald Tribune, hails the "era of the quiet' chef. Thank goodness, all that stacking and fireworks and dishes with 1,000 misplaced ingredients are beginning to be behind us. This is the day of food that is sensible, subtle, understated. And when it is done well, it is simply delicious." She's talking about dining at San Francisco-based chef Gary Danko's self-named restaurant, and she gives him a rave review.
posted by Unknown
Thursday, December 13
Analysts Say Supermarkets Are Set for Price War
Don't know if this will be good for shoppers or not. It could definitely drive smaller shops out of business, in a sector that has seen plenty of consolidation already. Some might even say too much.y
posted by Unknown
Tuesday, December 11
IHT: South Koreans Defend Their Canine Cuisine
It's true: dog meat is a popular ingredient in Korean cuisine. If you're a dog lover in the U.S., France, Britain or just about anywhere else in the Western world, the idea of Fido done to a turn is repugnant, but does that make it wrong in South Korea? The American reliance on eating beef in all forms most likely turns the stomachs of observant Hindus, but at leasat they're polite enough not to demand that we change our ways before they'll do business with us. I'm not defending man-eat-dog dining, just trying to find the point at which cultural imperialism goes too far. This story in the International herald Tribune does a nice job in putting the whole issue in context.
posted by Unknown
A 'Stone Soup' Fit for FoodTV
It was inevitable. Some foodie couldn't leave well enough alone and got her hands on "Stone Soup," that classic tale of creativity in the face of selfishness. This story first appeared in Metroactive, which circulates in the hyper-PC counties north of San Francisco. Curiously, though, this "culinarily correct" reworking leaves a few politically incorrect stones unturned: The hungry travelers are soldiers (a symbol of the bankrupt global military-industrial complex?), the selfish villagers who are tricked into sharing their hidden wealth are mostly women (a reinforcement of outmoded gender stereotypes?), and the resulting savory stew contains meat, "bones and all." Where's the cake of silken tofu? Where's the textured vegetable protein?
posted by Unknown
How to Avoid Dehydration While Drinking
Another answer to a pressing life question: "Alcohol causes dehydration. How does it do this and how much water do you have to drink to compensate for the effect? When drinking a gin and tonic, does the water in the tonic compensate for the effect of the alcohol, or does the fact that it is mixed with gin make it act differently in some way?" Tune in to NewScientist.com for the answer, before you go out and buy the right Champagne.
posted by Unknown
A Family, a Feud and a Six-Foot Sandwich
There's no way I can improve on the lede to this New York Times story, so I shan't try:
"Here in post-tragedy New York, there has been no shortage of heartwarming stories about long-feuding families setting aside their differences in an inspirational repudiation of strife-mongering in a war-torn world. This is not one of them."
posted by Unknown
"How does a rice cooker know when to turn off?"
Perhaps this is not your burning question of the day. (There used to be a great, offbeat talk show on the Lifetime Channel that featured a Burning Question of the Day. I have forgotten the woman's name who hosted the show, but she does a beat-the-clock show on Food TV now.) But if you have a child age 0-10, and a rice cooker, your odds are better than average that this question will come up. Or, perhaps you just wanted to know. Well, the answer is ... no, you find it out for yourself.
posted by Unknown
"How Food Works"
Finally! A plain-spoken explanation, free of cant or finger-shaking, about how food works in your body. If you want to find out how fats, carbs, vitamins and the like behave in your body without taking your degree in nutrition or food science, this is the place to go. It's on the "How Stuff Works" Web site, an excellent resource for school projects or just general information.
posted by Unknown
Which Champagne to Choose?
Encore! Beaucoup de good information about deciding which Champagne to choose for holiday celebrations. As this article in the Aujourd'hui ("Today"/lifestyles/features) section of France's Le Monde newspaper says, you'll receive "(une) petite leçon d'histoire et d'œnologie avant les fêtes." (a little history lesson and wine-ology) before the holidays" and a Flaubert quote or two. You might even find one or two of the wines mentioned in U.S. shops, more in UK wine shops.
Read this French-language story using the online traduction - translation - service, which you'll find listed under "Outils" (Utilities) on the left-hand navigation menu.
posted by Unknown
Monday, December 10
'Ministry of Gastronomy' Uses Food to Build Interfaith Community
Sharon Kugler, a Roman Catholic layperson and the chaplain for Johns Hopkins University, uses food to lure non-Christians to her home to demonstrate the Christmas spirit! No, it's not a conspiracy to evangelize with her famous "Chaplain's Chili." It's an annual event in which Kugler invites JHU resident assistants of other faiths to her home to experience the more spiritual side of Christianity. This link takes you to a nicely written university press release and thence to Kugler's biography and the link for her Chaplain's Chili, a black-bean chili you can make with or without meat.
posted by Unknown
Not-So-Darling Clementines: USDA Bans Importation to Contain Medfly
Here's a follow-up to last week's note about Florida supermarkets sweeping imported clementine oranges off their shelves because larvae of Mediterranean fruit flies were found in some fruit. The USDA had initially decided against halting imports even though larvae were also found in Maryland and North Carolina, because all those clementines came from a single shipment. The ban came after officials found the larvae on fruit in Louisiana, which came from a different shipment.
posted by Unknown
The too-fat chicken
British animal-welfare activists and scientists are up in arms about research that speeds up broiler-chicken growth beyond the bird's capacity to deal with it.
Here's the lede:
"Picture a six-year-old child weighing 286lb, or more than 20 stone (130kg). That, says a senior research scientist, is the reality of life for Britain's broiler chickens – and it is about to get substantially worse.
Think of a six-year-old with a body weight of an even more monstrous 24 stone and then imagine it trying to walk. Hideous and cruel for a child – but the near future for a broiler."
posted by Unknown
Friday, December 7
Marinara Madness -
Now, here's an excuse not to do any hard work for a few days: come up with the definitive jarred pasta sauce. I used to do this, too, when I was a food editor, in the old days, when I was single and worked for a paper that offered some editorial support. This article from Slate goes deep into the jar, farther than you ever thought you'd want to do, with a double-elimination tournament of sauces. The top brand, of course, was a pricey restaurant brand, but the runner-up surprised all the sophisticated palates; the author calls it "the inspiration for countless bad TV commercials." Lots and lots of information in here, plus links to more information.
posted by Unknown
Thursday, December 6
Subscribe to FoodWords!
Looks as if it's about time for me to push subscriptions to the FoodWords newsletter again, so here we go: If you'd like to get FoodWords in your mailbox, kindly click here. You can see a sample by clicking on the archives at left. Choose the Nov. 25 archive. Do join us!
posted by Unknown
Almond Market Bottoms Out
Were you aware that the almond market was in trouble? Record crops in past years torpedoes growers prices, which had sunk below production costs in previous years. Things are looking up this year, as long as growers don't haul in another bumper crop, according to this press release from Blue Diamond. So, it doesn't cost as much to amandine everything this year. Go forth and purchase!
posted by Unknown
Tuesday, December 4
(Le Monde interactif : Six siècles d'art culinaire (Six Centuries of Culinary Art
How's your French? Not so hot? Grab une dictionnaire (a dictionary) or use the traduction on ligne (online translator) to read this account of two new exhibitions in Paris, at the French national library and the Musee d'Orsay retrace the history of gastronomy. (There, I just translated the first paragraph for you.)
posted by Unknown
Monday, December 3
Florida Pulls Clementines From Shelves
Dead medfly larvae were found on clementines imported from Spain and sold at a Gainesville grocery store, according to the Associated Press.
Medflies are considered among the most destructive pests in the world. Its eggs grow into maggots in fruits and vegetables. Several thousand containers of the small, deep-orange fruit, a Christmas staple, were distributed.
The story didn't say whether other states also jumped to pull the fruit. The medfly poses a special danger to Florida's fruit- and vegetable- growing industries.
posted by Unknown
Friday, November 30
Al Gore Says He's Now Restaurateur in Tennessee
What? Al Gore is running a Shoney's? Say it isn't so!
It isn't so.
It was all a mistranslation. Somebody in Nigeria misunderstood. Whew! Another Internet hoax busted.
posted by Unknown
Cooked Breakfast Leads to Cancer?
Hot off the ether from the BBC: The morning fry-up has been linked to cancer of the esophagus in British women. Bad for you: eggs, bacon (AKA eggs 'n bake), sausage (AKA bangers), and a hot cuppa tea. Better for you: cereal and fruit. Guess those fabled English breakfasts are on their way out. The photo accompanying the story shows what from this American perspective is an unappetizing combination of cooked meats on buns. Apparently, esophageal cancer is more prevalent among British women than among their European sisters. As bad as the cooked breakfast can be, the worst thing you can do is to skip it altogether and gulp down a steaming cup of tea, because the hot tea damages the esophagus' lining. As I read it, the culprit isn't necessarily the morning fry-up but the hot tea that accompanies it more often than it goes a light, cold breakfast.
posted by Unknown
Tuesday, November 27
The Price of Cheaper Coffee
Coffee prices have swung wildly over the years: way up when a freeze wipes out the crop, way down when overplanting produces a surplus. That's what's happening now around the world: a glut of cheap coffee from elsewhere in the world is threatening the livelihoods of Brazilian coffee growers. One could gloat a bit, I guess, because cheap Brazilian soybeans help keep down U.S. soybean prices (spoken as one whose mom grows soybeans in Illinois), but we're talking about poor people who will have even less to live on. Read this story from the November 27 BBC daily email.
Juan Valdez: Another Victim of the Coffee Crisis
The coffee glut has hit hard in Colombia, too, so much so that Juan Valdez, the symbol of Colombian coffee, has been laid off. This New York Times story has a bit of fun with the idea but also reminds readers that the Juan Valdez commercials countered the image of Colombia as a cocaine-riddled nation. (Too bad the story is datelined "Medellin")
posted by Unknown
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FoodWords is a free digest of great food stories from all over the
Web. To subscribe, click here or there:
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"Shut up and bring on the food!"
-- Audrey Junior
"Little Shop of Horrors"
FoodWords
Volume 1, Number 3
November 26, 2001
Today's Specials:
o Letter from the Editor: The No-Calorie Food Feast
o The Buffet Table
o Announcements
o Subscription Details
Dear FoodWords readers,
Is it too soon after Thanksgiving to start thinking about food
again? A big part of my Christmas giving is food gifts - bread,
cheese spread, party mix, pies, etc. - but I'll kick off the
season with my son Evan's school bake sale this Friday. I am
holding my nose and going along with his request to make
"Confetti Caramel Crunch." It has Trix cereal, brown sugar and
corn syrup in it. So sweet it makes my teeth hurt just to think
about it. (See Item No. 3 concerning regrettable food.) But, it
will be a guaranteed best-seller. Won't the town dentists love us!
In the meantime, here are some great food stories I've been
saving (and saving and saving) for you all. No calories or fat
grams to count, either.
Let's go to the smorgasbord!
Janet Roberts
Editor
Comments? Click here
_________________________________________________________________
THE BUFFET TABLE
1. Americans Eating More Meals at Home
(Restaurants and Institutions Magazine)
Food editors, did you catch this little item in the news a while
back? A study by the research firm NPD Group found that Americans
are spending less time in the restaurant and more time in the
kitchen. Because the study was published on October 1, a little
over two weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, some
publications interpreted it as a reaction to the attacks. However,
the research was done well before then. Instead, the company
attributes the decline both to the economy, which is faltering in
many sectors, and to the rise in "meal solutions," those all-in-
one dinner kits that have sprung up in the boxed-dinner, frozen-
dinner and fresh-meat sections of the supermarket.
2. Another Review of Safe Holiday Eating Practices
(Not including "Don't Drink the Eggnog if the Dog Beat You to
the Bowl")
(Locateadoc.com)
It's a standard story for the holiday season, but it bears
repeating every year: how to prepare foods that won't send your
entire dinner party to the emergency room. This story has
much of the usual information (wash your hands, don't thaw the
turkey on the counter for three days, hot-foods-hot/cold foods
cold, etc.), but it also has useful advice for mailing food
gifts and getting every dish to the table at optimum
temperature. The only flaw in the story is that it doesn't factor in
enough time to work dinner around the TV football schedule. You're on
your own there.
3. The Gallery of Regrettable Food
(Lileks.com, via The Spike Report)
One of the chief frustrations of being a food writer is seeing what
people do to perfectly good food in the name of marketing.
Some truly awful foodlike objects crossed my desk in my food-
editing days (the lowest of the low was a short-lived attempt to
recreate the "S'more" of camping days with a cookie composed of an
ersatz graham cracker, marshmallow fluff and a piece of chocolate).
Here's a collection of "bad food" - screenshots of cookbooks from the
'40s, '50s and '60s and ads or commercial recipe pamphlets from food
manufacturers of the same era. Taken in context of the times, I
don't think everything in this food-snobs' comic paradise is as
awful as billed, but some of the comments are priceless. "Lileks"
is James Lileks, a columnist for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune
("The Strib"), whose Web commentary includes the Institute
for Good Cheer, "where we bring pop culture history back to life so
we can beat it to death again."
4. Hot News for Hot (Food) Lovers
(Gourmet News)
Speaking of keeping hot foods hot, here's a list of the newest
Scovie Award winners. The Scovie Awards, named for the Scoville
units of heat in chili peppers, in turn named for the scientist
who first quantified that measurement, are presented annually
to hot and/or spicy foods that are judged to be best in their
respective classes. The list of winners is a readymade holiday
shopping guide for chiliheads who pride themselves on their heat
tolerance or seek out the newest barbecue sauces, dips, salsas,
snacks and sweet-but-hot temptations.
5. Finally! The Proper Appreciation for Junior League Cookbooks
(Los Angeles Times)
American cookbooks seem to veer between the homespun and the
haute. Either they're high-fashion packages hot off the press at
high-quality houses like Stewart Tabori & Chang, or else they're the
homely little comb-bound books your mom's Woman's Club or church
circle is selling to raise a few bucks. Right in the middle, a
happy combination of home-tested recipes dressed up with a little
style and panache, are the books published by Junior Leagues around
the country (but especially in the South, where those women really
know how to put a good cookbook together). This story from the LA
Times gives these cookbooks the attention they deserve.
Thanks for reading. See you soon! Remember to visit the Weblog
( http://foodwords.blogspot.com/ ) to see what kind of quirky,
short-shelf-life, bizarre or breaking news I have posted that
day.
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To change your email address, unsubscribe by clicking on the "leave"
link and then resubscribe by clicking on the "join" link.
Comment? Suggestions? Got a favorite source to share?
I'm all ears: Comments
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posted by Unknown
Monday, November 26
Coming soon: Latest issue of FoodWords!
I'll post the newest issue in a day or so. If you were referred here from Netterweb, you can request a subscription by clicking here . Topics in this issue: food safety, Regrettable Food, hot-food winners and much, much more.
posted by Unknown
Wednesday, October 17
Bread for the World
Better not be too hungry when you read this article. The main story talks about Lionel Poilane, a leading French baker. It's interesting from a business-news point of view, also well-written. Your downfall will come if you click on the link to Poilane's bakery. Yes, you can buy his breads on the Internet. You can practice your French if you click on the French-language version of the Web site. They're not cheap, however: A loaf of bread and a box of punishments ("punitions," or
butter cookies) would cost the U.S. equivalent of $84 at today's franc-to-dollar rate of exchange. However, the recipes are free, including one for Grandma's omelette, which the site notes is "amusing to prepare."
posted by Unknown
Bomb Them with Pop-Tarts!
Bombs aren't the only things Americans are dropping on Afghanistan. Leaflets and humanitarian meals also are raining down from the big planes overhead. Surprisingly, you can tell which is which, according to this story in the Washington Post, in which an enterprising reporter sampled some of the culinary delights we're sending overseas. They include peanut butter, lentil stew, Pop-Tart-like and Fig-Newtonish desserts, a spoon and a moist towelette. Vegans/vegetarians take note: Despite Americans' reputation for culinary imperialism, no animal products were used in preparing these meals.
posted by Unknown
Thursday, October 11
Blame It on the Terrorists: Less Fish in NY, More Beef Elsewhere
The terrorist attacks last month affected American foodservice in more ways than just demolishing Windows on the World, the restaurant that once sat high atop one of the Twin Towers (see item below). The Fulton Street Fish Market was located near Ground Zero of the New York attacks and had to be relocated to a not-so-nice neighborhood in The Bronx. Quite the change of address. Also, the National Cattlemen's Association says that the decline in air travel and hospitality has led to a temporary surplus and a depressed beef price.
posted by Unknown
Wednesday, October 10
October 11: Another Reason to Go Out for Dinner
Here's a great reason to go out to eat tomorrow night and run up a big bill: Restaurants around the U.S. plan to donate 10 percent of their proceeds to the Windows of Hope Family Relief Fund to benefit the survivors of Windows on the World workers who died in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center last month. You also can donate at the site.
posted by Unknown
Monday, October 8
Julia Child Returns to Smith
Okay, it's a press release, I'm sorry. But it talks about Julia Child returning to her alma mater, Smith College and all the fun stuff and hijinx to follow. It also gives me a chance to plug her biography, Appetite for Life (Noel Riley Fitch, Doubleday, 1997). You might not think it of her now, but Julia was quite the racy dame in her salad days. See what dear old Smith has up its very correct sleeve here
posted by Unknown
Quote for the Day
If you wish to make an apple pie truly from scratch, you must first invent
the universe. -Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)
You'll find that in the next issue of FoodWords, which goes to press sometime this week. Don't have a subscription? That's easy enough to fix.
Just click here
posted by Unknown
Monday, October 1
Are You a Kitchen Slut?
Jeez, I hope not. According to iVillageUK's Food site, I'm more Queen of Cool. However, this slut-or-not quiz also discovered a dark side to my personality hiding behind the canister of dishwasher-soap tablets under the sink.
"You scored 60% Queen of Cool
You’re in control (no one’s likely to be poisoned in your kitchen) yet, somehow, it seems to happen effortlessly. So what’s your secret? Natural efficiency – coupled with a sense that there are other, more pleasurable things to do with your time. So you
tackle what needs to be done, with the minimum of fuss. And then you do something more interesting."
"You scored 40% Wannabe Slut" (I'm 44; what do you expect?)
"If only you were more organised. You always assumed that, one day, you’d suddenly become a proper grown-up – with dried goods stored in labelled jars and a sparkling, well-stocked fridge. That day has yet to arrive. In the meantime, you try to maintain a façade of togetherness – fighting a growing sense of inadequacy as you boot dropped toast crusts under the cooker. It’s time for a switch in attitude. Accept your chaotic surroundings – or call the dust-busters."
Well, it's not that bad. No toast crusts under the stove. Maybe a dust bunny or two. Take the quiz and see whether you're a slut, a Queen of Cool, a SuperSlut, or the worst of all possibilities: a Jiffy-Cloth Supremo, (we're guessing that's bad, although we don't know what a Jiffy-Cloth is and probably wouldn't use it if we did) with a shiny kitchen and no friends.
Late-breaking update!
Our good friend Mark Brownlow, an expatriate Brit living in Vienna, of all places, tells us that a Jiffy-Cloth is a well-known brand of dishcloth, red and white, perhaps? and something that brings back bad memories for him, so we shan't push for details. Ta!
posted by Unknown
Sunday, September 30
******************************************************************
FoodWords is a free weekly digest of great food stories from all
over the Web. To subscribe, click here or there
******************************************************************
"In Taiwan, one sentence that was often repeated when friends
greeted each other was 'Ni ch'ih pao le, mei yu?' ('Have you
eaten yet?'). Clearly, I had come to the right place."
-- Nina Simonds
Gourmet magazine
January 1979
FoodWords
Volume 1, Number 2
September 30, 2001
Today's Specials:
o Letter from the Editor: Read Any Good Cookbooks Lately?
o The Buffet Table
o Announcements
o Subscription Details
Dear FoodWords readers,
This issue is a week or so late, for which I apologize. Just
couldn't work up the enthusiasm for putting the newsletter
together. However, today is a beautiful fall day in Green Bay,
Wisconsin -- the sky is a deep blue, the leaves are beginning
to turn color, and the guard hairs on my cat Tia's thick brown
fur are shot golden with sunlight. Today, I want to think about
food! Hope you do, too.
While visiting a friend's house for lunch, I started paging
through the library copy of "Hot Sour Salty Sweet" (Jeffrey Alford,
published by Workman Publishing) which her husband had used to
create a Thai chicken soup the night before. It's a wonderful book;
As soon as I got home, I reserved it for myself. Better return it
soon, Don.
I've also been poring over Gourmet magazine's 60th anniversary issue.
I'm a fan of Editor Ruth Reichl, although I run hot and cold on
the magazine itself. However, the September issue is a treasure.
Today's quote came from it.
Thanks to everyone who subscribed to FoodWords' first issue,
which of course was riddled with errors. Welcome to our new
subscribers, and thanks to those readers who were brave enough to
come back for another helping.
Here we go!
Comments? Click here
1. Sushi in Paris? Worth the Wait and the Crowds
(International Herald Tribune)
One of the great services the World Wide Web affords fans of
terrific food writing is 24-hour access to Patricia Wells, a
cookbook author, newspaper food writer and a great person to
interview. (I met with her for more than an hour one icy Chicago
afternoon. Good writers can be awful interviews, but she was a joy,
and the interview wandered far afield before we concluded.) Today,
her pieces appear regularly in the International Herald Tribune,
published in Paris, her adopted hometown.
2. Trans-fat Labeling Standards Urged
(foodnavigator.com)
The Bush Administration has asked the Food and Drug Administration
to finish making food-labeling rules clarifying the presence of
trans fatty acids in food products. "Trans" fats are those that
have been hydrogenated - had an extra hydrogen molcule added, as
in partially hydrogenated vegetable oil - in order to make them
firmer for use in cooking and baking. "Trans" fats are considered
to be among the worst for heart health. Some food manufacturers
are resisting, although they acknowledge the new labeling results
are inevitable.
3. Bread in a Can, Man
(Flak Magazine)
I can think food that are much more unnerving than Boston brown
bread in a can (anything with the eyes left on, for starters), but
the concept apparently unhinged this poor writer. However, he
recovered long enough to do something creative with it. Perhaps too
many years of eating Vienna Sausages has inured me to strange food.
Or maybe it was those Pampered Chef hors-d'oeuvre bread tubes that
did it. Anyway: normal or not? You make the call.
4. Brazen Careerist: The Art of the Meal
(Business 2.0)
Penelope Trunk is the pseudonym for a woman who lives and writes
(and is trying to get her life back together) in New York City.
In this article, published before the terrorist attacks, she
describes, in snarky detail, how to eat your way through a
business meal without embarrasing yourself.
5. Emeril's Sitcom: Flat or Funny?
(New York Post, MediaLife Magazine)
Personally, I find Emeril Lagasse to be like cayenne pepper: a little
goes a long, long, long way. No denying he's popular with some of the
masses, however; so popular that - how could you have missed this big
news? - he has his own TV sitcom this fall. I don't know if it
has been on yet, but critics have been sniping for months that it's
as flat as a fallen souffle. Now that the delayed TV premiere season
is here, either the fat's in the fire or the proof is in the pudding.
One critic says it's ho-hum, the other says it's actually kind of
funny. You watch it and let me know.
Not so funny
Not so bad
6. The Brioche that Failed
(Troika magazine)
If you've never made or consumed really good brioche (a French egg bread,
indescribably moist, chewy and delicious when made correctly), you might
not understand the poignancy behind this writer's fate, to be so near and
yet so far from heaven, even if it does come from a baker with a temper
so foul he makes the Soup Nazi look like Mother You-Know-Who.
Thanks for reading. Look for the newsletter in another two weeks, or so, or tune in here every once in a while to see what kind of quirky,
short-shelf-life, bizarre or breaking news I have posted that
day.
posted by Unknown
Soup: The Wild Thing
Not for the folks at Soupsong are the tamed soups in the red-and-white can. No sir. They hearken back to the days when the ingredients in soup were just as wild as the surroundings. Want to walk on the wild side, souperifically speaking? :
Check it out
posted by Unknown
Tuesday, September 25
Time for Organic Wine?
Well, why not? If everything else you eat is certified organic, then surely the wine you drink should follow suit. My fervent hope is that the quality has improved since organics first made their debut more than a decade or so; this article from Alibi claims they have.
posted by Unknown
Friday, September 21
Still Here!
Hey, everybody -- I'm still around but have not had the time or inclination to post any food stories for a while. Now, however, I am reading and raring to go, so please -- watch this space.
If you haven't subscribed to the newsletter yet, why donchya? The next issue comes out this weekend.
posted by Unknown
Friday, September 7
The Ethnography of a Neighborhood Cafe
Monty Python meets academia, and the result is the Journal of Mundane Behavior. In the June issue: You might think they're ne'er-do-wells hanging out at the Flaming Cup Cafe, but they're really researchers, taking everyday actions and turning them into complicated theses. Well, okay.
Here's the abstract: "Café society is something that many of us as customers and/or social theorists take for granted. Cafés are places where we are not simply served hot beverages but are also in some way partaking of a specific form of public life. It is this latter aspect that has attracted the attention of social theorists, especially Jürgen Habermas, and leads them to locate the café as a key place in the development of modernity. Our approach to cafés is to ‘turn the tables’ on theories of the public sphere and return to just what the life of a particular café consists of, and in so doing re-specify a selection of topics related to public spaces. The particular topics we deal with in a ‘worldly manner’ are the socio-material organisation of space, informality and rule following. In as much as we are able we have drawn on an ethnomethodological way of doing and analysing our ethnographic studies."
Hmmm. Well, you do get an interesting history of cafes and bars. You know what they say about tough jobs: someone's got to do them, and it might as well be academicians who have figured out how to write off the time they spent away from their offices and classrooms.
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The Brioche that Never Was
Here's a truly poignant story about being so near and yet so far from heavenly brioche, made even more precious because the French baker who makes them has a legendary foul temper. From Troika magazine.
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Crimenently! (as my mom would say)
I feel personally dumped on twice in one story, thanks to Sharon Noguchi of the San Jose Mercury-News. First, she makes some snotty comment about one daughter's tastebuds having a distinctly Midwestern bent because she builds her diet on "meat, starch, sugar, oil and salt." Like they don't eat meat and potatoes in California. Might I remind Miss California-style that a lot of the fruits and vegetables we get up here on the Frozen Tundra get shipped to us from agrifactories in . . . . CALIFORNIA!! The dirty little secret among California vegetarians is that they get to keep all the ripe-red, juicy-meat tomatoes, juicy-sweet watermelon, and lemons with considerably higher juice-to-rind ratios for themselves while they send us green baseballs and expect us to believe they're really tomatoes, and hockey pucks painted to resemble lemons. Huh!
Then, she goes on to praise the lunchbox-making art of Japanese mothers who lovingly pack artistic, nutritious lunches for their children. So, now I'm supposed to toss the Scooby-Doo lunchbox in favor of a wood-lacquered bento-bako full of sushi? Sorry - this okaasan has her hands full just getting the Little Prince out of bed and into the bathroom in the morning. Oh, here's the answer: I can BUY "obentos" -- sounds like the Japanes version of a Lunchable (and granted, those evil creations did come from that most Midwestern of all food-factories the Oscar Mayer Co.). I might not descend to the Lunchables level in packing my kiddo's lunch, but a humble peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich that gets eaten is better than a fancy obento that looks pretty.
Off to milk the cow in the backyard . . . Oh, I suppose you want the link too, eh?
posted by Unknown
But it still has anchovies in it . . . .
The winner of the 10th annual American Institute of Wine and Food's Caesar Salad Competition in Dallas made it after two previously unsuccessful tries. How different could it be? You decide; the recipe's included in this piece from the Dallas Morning News. We who can't bear the taste of those icky little fish on our unsophisticated palates will stand ready on the sidelines to hand you breath mints.
posted by Unknown
More chocolate!
Truly, I am not chocolate-obsessed (that just doesn't look right, spelling-wise, but no dictionary at hand at present), but here's another chocolate-related story:
The University of Chocolate in Paris. Or some such. The story is from The Age newspaper of Melbourne (I think!) Australia.
posted by Unknown
I garontee . . . . Justin Wilson, one of the kings of Cajun cooking, died on Wednesday. Love him for his folksiness and humor, loathe him for popularizing the concept of the deep-fried turkey.
posted by Unknown
Thursday, September 6
Chocolate AND peanut butter are good for you? It's a miracle!
This just in from ABCnews.com : If you can't stay on a diet, it's because you aren't eating enough peanut butter. We're not talking massive PB infusions, though.
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A potato chip with snob value? Flak magazine details the thinking behind Frito-Lay's introduction of Miss Vickie's chips in the Lower 48. Synopsis: They're average, but the French connection gives it cache. (That's "ca-SHAY," by the way.)
Yes, I am all done shilling for the newsletter. Well, now I am.
posted by Unknown
Here's a riddle: How is eating fast food like going to church? Well, I don't think it is, even on Communion Sundays, but others beg to differ, like this guy. Still, he has a point 'r two. I found this story at Relapsed Catholic, a Weblog of religion news from the great to the goofy. The news stories are good, but author Kathy Shaidle's commentary is usually better, even when she makes no comment.
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Food waste in school lunch programs: This story from the Aug. 29 Miami New Times details the waste and inefficiency in the Miami schools' hot lunch program. How does your district's program stack up in comparison? Meal programs have always been an easy target for food writers, from a nutrional angle (the lack of it, specifically), because of product quality and the usual snipes at the flavor. However, it's a timely topic if you're looking for a local angle -- what are your district's statistics (it rhymes!) on free and reduced-price lunch requests this year compared to last? I hear it's up at my son's school -- sign of the times? Same for breakfast, whether it's full price, reduced or free:
This and other topics will be included in the next FoodWords free email digest of current food news on the Web, scheduled to go out on Sept. 9. Subscribe today! Thanks ever so.
posted by Unknown
Chocolate in the news again! Today's topic: How much vegetable oil can a manufacturer substitute for cocoa butter fat in chocolate? The issue is coming up at the next meeting of the Codex Committee on Cocoa Products and Chocolate in Switzerland (but of course!) This article comes from Gourmet News, a great trade publication covering the specialty-food market. If you're a food writer or editor, you need this magazine in your arsenal, and I don't say that just because its editor, Joanne Friedrick, is my friend and former co-worker. You might even qualify for a free subscription.
posted by Unknown
Wednesday, September 5
You know, some days it just doesn't pay to read the nutrition news.
First, the Yahoo!DailyNews has a story saying coffee is bad for you because it can cause temporary hardening of the arteries.
ah, but the very next story says coffee is good for you .
I still don't get it. Where's my powdered creamer and my NutraSweet? Maybe the lesson here is not to depend on Yahoo!DailyNews for my nutrition advice, eh?
Before I forget, subscribe to FoodWords!
Please? Thanks! Yeah, it's free, cheapskates. Yeah, you can forward it as long as you include lots of fawning remarks about how wonderful it is. No, "You get what you pay for" is not a fawning remark!
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Shocking news, kids: Chocolate might actually be good for you! Yes, it's all true: some professors at the University of California at Davis did research back in the 1990s that found chocolate has antioxidant properties -- good for your heart, keeps you young, etc. That's not really new news, but the news is that the researchers spoke at a press conference yesterday at Davis.
Here's the story that moved on the Infobeat wire Tuesday (not the greatest news
source, but we pass no judgment):
http://www.infobeat.com/articles/news_health_2_90401.html
Here's the original announcement from 1996:
http://www-pubcomm.ucdavis.edu/newsreleases/09.96/news_chocolate.html
and the original (and enlightening and easy to read) FAQ on the research:
http://waterhouse.ucdavis.edu/chocolate.html
and here's the bio on Alan L. Waterhouse, the Davis professor whose day job is wine chemistry but who apparently moonlights with chocolate. (Note the chocolate link):
http://waterhouse.ucdavis.edu
Who knew UC-Davis was such a foodie paradise? Here are a professor's odes to two of life's essentials, and two major research targets (you can't say Davis doesn't have its priorities straight):
An Ode to Chocolate:
http://listproc.ucdavis.edu/class/200101/nutrition20-w01/0018.html
Later on, we move to the hard stuff. An Ode to Wine:
http://listproc.ucdavis.edu/class/200101/nutrition20-w01/0019.html
Still not enough chocolate information for you? Here's yet another link, to
a past exhibit at the Exploratorium, a fantastic children's museum in San Francisco:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/exploring/exploring_chocolate/index.html
All these links came from UC-Davis sources. Okay, I found them while prowling around the site. Food pros take note: Davis is an excellent source for all kinds of food information. Seriously, kids.
posted by Unknown
Tuesday, September 4
subscribe to FoodWords!
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Sunday, September 2
Now, now now it's working! Yippee! I guess it just takes a long, looooooong time. whew!
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Hi everybody! Here's the new Weblog for FoodWords. Check here to see what tasty morsels I found while trolling the Net for work and pleasure. The inaugural issue of FoodWords was posted Sunday, Sept. 2. If you want to subscribe, click here:
mailto:join-foodwords@burst.sparklist.com . Thanks for visiting!
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