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
