Gary Allen's Blog, page 14

Food Sites for Augaust 2016

Oregano blossoms (Origanum vulgare)
With this issue, we begin our seventeenth year of publishing these monthly updates to The Resource Guide for Food Writers . What started as a way to keep one book up to date has become a place where hundreds of food lovers (amateurs, in the best sense), scholars, and professional scribblers have shared some of their favorite food-related links.
In other news: Roll Magazine has posted “Mayo on a Burger,” a culinary rant, simultaneously firing up the grill and self-righteous indignation,  and Modern Salt published a bit of anthropophagic levity: “What’s Eating You?”.
Finally, our latest book’s ( Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods ) is out. To support it, epicurious published an interview, “A Dry, Bitter, Salty History of Food Preservation”. By a strange coincidence, we were also interviewed by Atlas Obscura , for part of a larger article on sausages.
In related news: if you’re going to be near Kingston, New York on Thursday July 28th, there will be a reading and book-signing at the Barnes & Noble store on Ulster Avenue, at 7 PM. Stop by and say hello!
You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook, and Twitter.  Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
This month’s quote (from On the Table’s culinary quote collection) celebrates our most recent roadtrip (and, atypically, comes with a photo of its own):

In Baltimore, soft crabs are always fried (or broiled) in the altogether, with maybe a small jock-strap of bacon added. H.L. Mencken

GaryAugust, 2016
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we‘ve missed—please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those of you who have introduced us to sites like the ones in this newsletter (such as Jonell Galloway), thanks, and keep them coming!
PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.
---- the new sites ----
Biryani is Better than Americans Know(Urvija Banerji, at Atlas Obscura, on the quintessential South Asian rice dish)
Bread Lovers, Like Wine Connoisseurs, Now Have a Chart to Describe the Flavors of a Loaf(Meredith Goad, in The Portland Press Herald, on recent work by Certified Master Taster Michael Kalanty)
Cookbooks and Home Economics(digitized books in the Research Library Department of Special Collections of UCLA’s Bancroft Library)
Cooking with Gas(Jan Whitaker, on how and when restaurant kitchens switched from coal to gas)
Cooks Without Borders(international food, via recipes, blog, stories, cookbook reviews)
Demystifying Terroir: Maybe It’s the Microbes Making Magic in Your Wine(Carolyn Beans, at NPR’s The Salt, on recent research into the biological reasons for similar wine’s differing flavors)
Diners Are the Bad Boys We Aren’t Supposed to Love(is anyone more qualified to write about diners than Michael Stern?—an epicurious article)
Edna Lewis and the Mythology Behind Modern Southern Food(Cynthia Bertelsen, in Modern Salt, argues against popular—and probably overly-simplistic—notions about the origins of cooking in the American South)
Feast for the Senses, A... and the Soul(Dorothy Willette, at the Biblical Archaeology Society’s site, on the function of meals in Ancient Israel)
Frugal Housewife, The(“dedicated to those who are not ashamed of economy”—online text of Lydia Maria Francis Child’s 1830 book; at Feeding America’s archive)
How Chewing Gave Humans Flat Faces, Little Teeth and Wimpy Jaws(Lauren Young, at Atlas Obscura, on how the most rudimentary food prep has altered our evolution)
How the South Cornered the Soda Market(Robert Moss, on the history of soft drinks, at Serious Eats)
Hungry for History: Collard Greens(Donna Battle Pierce, decries Whole Foods “discovery” of the southern staple, in Ebony)
Kentucky BBQ(Wes Berry, at the Southern Foodways Alliance, on the complicated flavors of Bluegrass BBQ)
Molli Chamoy Sauce: Go Figure(a Rachel Lauden multicultural adventure in etymology)
Moon of the Faith: A History of the Apricot and its Many Pleasures(an excerpt from Joel Denker’s The Carrot Purple and Other Curious Stories of the Food We Eat)
Most Contentious Meal of the Day, The(The Atlantic’s Megan Garber faces breakfast)
Regional Barbecue Sauce Styles, Explained(Brenna Houck slathers a geography of sauces at Eater)
Roots of Hand-Made Sour Mash, The: Appalachia and the Scots-Irish(Gary Gillman, at Beer et seq., on the ethnic origins of—and techniques used to produce—moonshine)
Short History of Nutritional Science, A: Part 1 (1785–1885)(provided by Kenneth J. Carpenter, in The Journal of Nutrition;
Part 2, 1885–1912 ; Part 3, 1912–1944; Part 4, 1945–1985)
Sichuan Cuisine, Imperiled by Success(Chris Buckley, in The New York Times, on fears about the survival of traditional fare)
Smelling a Rose or a Rat(Ruchira Paul examines the nature of scent at 3 Quarks Daily)
University of Toronto Mississauga Professor Discovers New Origins for Farmed Rice(Scienmag article on recent discoveries, in China, by archaeologist Gary Crawford)
What is Brettanomyces and What is it Doing in my Beer?(Emily Bell, at VinePair, on a yeast genus that is becoming popular among brewers, and drinkers, who want to bring on the funk—and sourness—in their beers)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) site for writers/bloggers ----
5 Tips on Post-Conference Relationship Building
17 Grammar Mistakes You Really Need to Stop Correcting, Like Now
25 Quotes That Will Make You a Better Freelancer
Art of Plating, The
Blog Mistakes That Can Make You Lose Readers
How to Crop Your Food Photo
So You Want to Write a Food Blog
Terms Food Writers Probably Shouldn’t Use
There’s (Almost) No Such Thing as Writer’s Block. If There is, This’ll Cure Ya.
Ultimate Legal Guide for Photographers, The
What Kind of Writer are You: Cook or Baker?
Why You Should Aim for 100 Rejections a Year

---- still more blogs ----
Oyster’s My World, The
VinePair

---- that’s all for now ----

Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
Some of the URLs we provide may link to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advantage of them). We do not receive any compensation for listing them here, and provide them without any form of recommendation (other than the fact that they looked interesting to us).
Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose—ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs: 
Want to support On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it?
It’s easy. Whenever you want to shop on Amazon. Com, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there will earn a commission for this newsletter without adding to your cost (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books).
The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Paper)(Kindle)
(these newsletters merely update the contents of this book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries
(Hardcover)  (Kindle)
Human Cuisine
(Paper)(Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Sausage: A Global History
(Hardcover)(Kindle)
Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods
(Hardcover)(Kindle)
Terms of Vegery
(Kindle)
How to Serve Man: On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating
(Kindle)
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
______________
The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #190 is protected by copyright, and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author‘s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.
Copyright (c) 2016 by Gary Allen.

Food Sites for July 2016

Great Spangled Frittillary (Speyeria cybele) on Spotted Knapweed (Centaurea maculosa). It must be summer!
Since our last issue, we’ve been hiking and photographing (not to mention eating) our way across New York’s Adirondacks and Finger Lakes regions—and yet, we’ve found time to put together a summer issue of these updates.
In other news: Roll Magazine has posted “St. Even’s Challenge,” a culinary adventure story. Modern Salt has published another gastronomic saga: “Fat Lady Burrito,” one with a moral of sorts (or at least what passes for a moral around here). 
Inscrutably, our latest book’s ( Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods ) release date has been changed to July fifteenth. Perhaps the powers that be are waiting for the book to complete its fermentation (either that, or US Customs noticed a strange smell coming from the shipment of books from England). We have received our author’s copies, so we know they exist...
You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
“Sumer is icummin in” and this month’s quotes (from On the Table’s culinary quote collection) can “sing cuccu” with the best of ’em:

The nectarine and curious peachInto my hands themselves do reach;Stumbling on melons, as I pass,Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass. Andrew Marvell 

Around here, grillin’s grillin’ and barbecue is, well—sigh, sweat’what dinin’ in heaven's got to be all about. Jane Garvey 

When one has tasted watermelon he knows what the angels eat. Mark Twain

GaryJuly, 2016
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those of you who have introduced us to sites like the ones in this newsletter (such as Fabio Parasecoli), thanks, and keep them coming!
PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.
---- the new sites ----
Art and Politics of Eating, The(Zev Robinson’s exhibit of paintings, food, film, and wine at the London Cooking Project)
Brain vs Stomach: Why Dieting is so Hard(Dean Burnett, in The Guardian, on why the various parts of our bodies can’t seem to agree)
CB on the Road: On the Yerba Mate Trail(Paula Mourenza, at Culinary Backstreets, on the ritual, historical, and botanical aspects of Ilex paraguariensis)
“Data-Cuisine” Chefs Serve Another Round of Informative Treats(John Metcalfe, in The Atlantic, on a banquet of foods with a message, served in Gembloux, Belgium)
Guide to the Barbarian Vegetables of China, A(how Western plant foods became Chinese mainstays; a contribution from The Cleaver Quarterly’s to Lucky Peach)
Guide to Hot Dogs of the World, A(Chris Ying’s “global look at the tube steak”—via Lucky Peach)
History of Pho, The(Andrea Nguyen dishes on the quintessential Vietnamese rice-noodle soup, at Lucky Peach)
I Cook to Talk About Some of the Things We Don’t Want to Acknowledge(Nigerian chef Tunde Wey, thinking about race and assumptions in the food industry and elsewhere; article in the Boston Globe)
Making Italian Espresso, Making Espresso Italian(Jonathan Morris’s paper addressing the “...material history of espresso that can be read alongside that of the socio-cultural conditions that have occasioned its success”)
Short History of Gumbo, A(Stanley Dry stirs the pot at Southern Foodways Alliance)
Sorry, There’s Only One Legit Kind of American Barbecue(Chris Fuhrmeister, at Eater, waves a red flag in front of a lot of Texas longhorns)
There’s More to How We Taste Sweetness Than We Thought(Ria Misra, at Gizmodo, on new research from the famous Monell Chemical Senses Center)
Who Invented the Brownie?(Erin McCarthy seeks an answer at Mental Floss)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) site for writers/bloggers ----
Editors Tell All: What Subject Lines Work Best?
I Earn a Living Because of My Blog, Not From It
Publishing in Food Studies Journals: An Index
What it is Like to Like: Art and Taste in the Age of the Internet

---- still more blogs ----
Anne Bramley
Chanko Food 
Clarissa Leon
Nancy Harmon Jenkins
Writing in the Kitchen

---- that’s all for now ----

Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
Some of the URLs we provide may link to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advantage of them). We do not receive any compensation for listing them here, and provide them without any form of recommendation (other than the fact that they looked interesting to us).
Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose—ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs: 
Want to support On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it? 
It’s easy. Whenever you want to shop on Amazon. Com, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there will earn a commission for this newsletter without adding to the cost of whatever you purchase there (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books).
The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Paper)
(Kindle)
[these newsletters merely update the contents of this book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book]
The Herbalist in the Kitchen
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries
(Hardcover)(Kindle)
Human Cuisine
(Paper) (Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Sausage: A Global History
(Hardcover)(Kindle)
Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods
(Hardcover)
Terms of Vegery
(Kindle)
How to Serve Man: On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating
(Kindle)
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
______________
The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #189 is protected by copyright, and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author’s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.
Copyright (c) 2016 by Gary Allen.

The Bus

Early one morning—lying in that half-dreaming, half-waking state where one can imagine things and also watch oneself imagining them—I saw myself driving to a reading I was to give. Writers often do them, partly to inform the public about the literary life, partly to promote the sales of their work, but mostly because the writer gets to listen to the sound of his own voice blathering along, largely uninterrupted for an hour or so. Twain described such events as “dignified insurrections.” In my dream, an insurrection was to be fomented before a group of students from some previously unknown school. One of the things writers get to indulge, when giving these talks, is a bit of self-aggrandizing about the writerly life. Of course it’s all self-aggrandizing but, specifically, we get to prattle on about the sources of our so-called “inspiration,” and creative urges in general. It’s all a load of equine excrescence, but we can’t help ourselves. Anyway, I was driving along, attempting, without much luck, to pry open a few imaginary oysters in search of pearls of wisdom to include in my opening remarks. Soon, without realizing it—as is so often the case in dreams—I arrived at my destination. I reconnoitered the scene, looking for a good parking spot—one that offered a quick escape in the event that the proceedings turned surly.Just outside, I saw a bus.A little bus.You know what I’m talking about, right? I don’t have to resort to a bunch of un-PC remarks about the sort of students who ride those little buses, do I? There are words that insensitive people use to describe them—words that I would never use—words that distinguish them, rightly or wrongly, from all the “normal” children who ride bigger buses.It was a little bus. Having already leapt to all the inappropriate conclusions about the audience I was about to address, an entirely different notion popped into my head. It was how my potential audience was strangely à propos, after all. My realization, upon seeing the little bus, was that I, and the riders of the little bus, had so much in common. I don’t mean to say that writing doesn’t require some degree of intellectual acumen. One does need to know how to string words together in some sort of coherent order, and have some degree of familiarity with the rules of grammar, for example. However, intellectual considerations only apply to the “how” of the writing process.They don’t address the “why.”That’s the locus of our obvious shared feeble-mindedness. How, otherwise, can we explain the fact that we’re willing to spend years of our lives poking away at a keyboard (in my case, with just two fingers), for practically no money? Non-writers often ask, in supposed innocence, “How do writers do it? Where do the ideas come from? How can they face, not just one blank page, but reams of blank pages?” I used to answer, in equally bogus modesty, that writing is easy: just be willing to sit in one place, for a very long time, without being tempted to find something more useful to do.After seeing that little bus, I know the real answer. 
Being a writer is only possible for those who never ask, “why do it?”—or, at least, be sufficiently addle-pated to disregard the obvious answer. Everyone knows Einstein’s definition of insanity, but we continue because it’s also the definition of our chosen career.

Food Sites for June 2016

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale).
Every Spring, they arrive—like herring—by the millions, ready to be served: raw as salad, cooked as potherbs, or brewed into a coffee substitute or old-fashioned wine. While some people struggle to maintain uniform green lawns, we don’t care a bit. We welcome the dandelion’s  appearance each year.
June is, as the song says, “bustin’ out all over.” It’s as apt a description as one could want. We’re nearly overwhelmed by the proliferation of lush greenery and flowers, a cacophony of birdsong and buzzing insects, trout leaping in the brooks, and new fawns frolicking in their polka-dotted finery.
In other news: Modern Salt has posted “Enlightened Carnivory,”  a newly revised version of something from one of our Kindle books ( How to Serve Man: On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice & the Nature of Eating ). Drexel University’s magazine, Taste Matters, includes “The Colors of Cheese.” Finally, at last, our latest book ( Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods ) will be released on June 15th!
Regular subscribers to our updates newsletter receive these updates from our blog, Just Served,  directly—but there is much more at the blog that isn’t delivered automatically. You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner. 
This month’s quotes (from On the Table’s culinary quote collection) celebrates foods, like dandelions, that are free for the taking:

My fare is really sumptuous this evening; buffaloe’s humps, tongues and marrowbones, fine trout parched meal pepper and salt, and a good appetite; the last is not considered the least of the luxuries. Journals of Lewis and Clark, Thursday, June 13, 1805 

A white truffle, which elsewhere might sell for hundreds of dollars, seemed easier to come by than something fresh and green. What could be got from the woods was free and amounted to a diurnal dining diary that everyone kept in their heads. May was wild asparagus, arugula, and artichokes. June was wild lettuce and stinging nettles. July was cherries and wild strawberries. August was forest berries. September was porcini. Bill Buford 

The kind of crabbing my wife likes to do is to return from an afternoon’s swim or sunbathing session, open the refrigerator door, and find a generous plate of crab cakes all ready to cook. Euell Gibbons

GaryJune, 2016
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those of you who have introduced us to sites like the ones in this newsletter (such as Cynthia Bertelsen), thanks, and keep them coming!
PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don‘t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.
---- the new sites ----
50 Shades of Shakespeare: How the Bard Used Food as Racy Code(alas, despite so many of Shakespeare’s phrases becoming essential parts of modern English usage, “hide the salami” was not among them)
Baking with Insect Flour(Catherine Lamb baked four creepy-crawly tollhouse cookie recipes for Lucky Peach readers—so we don’t have to)
Boston Hostess Reveals Her Supper Secrets, A(Stephen Schmidt, of Manuscript Cookbooks Survey [see below], has a good look at upscale dinner-party planning of the mid-nineteenth century)
Brain Food: How Neurogastronomy Will Soon Alter Your Perception of Flavor(Jessica Firger’s article in Newsweek)
Digestible Bits and Bites (online monthly newsletter of the Culinary Historians of Canada)
Gastropod(well-abstracted podcasts, from Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley, on food science and history)
Guide to Chinese Dumplings, The(descriptions of 37 types, by The Cleaver Quarterly and Lucky Peach)
Guide to the Regional Cuisines of Mexico, A(Nils Bernstein’s quick survey, at Food Republic)
How French Fries are Grown(Blake Lingle’s Lucky Peach article on the history and technology behind frites/chips/fries)
Oil of Toads and the Perishable Arts(on accessing recipe manuscripts, digitally, at the American Antiquarian Society)
Stop Thinking and Just Eat: When “Food Adventuring” Trivializes Cultures(Ashlie Stevens joins in the discussion, at The Guardian)
What’s the Difference Between Jam, Jelly, and Marmalade?(Sean Timberlake explains all at About.com)
White Bread and Densuke Melons–Plants as Luxury Foods(Stephen Forbes on the historical and sociological reasons behind the changing status of certain fruits and vegetables)
Without Fire?(article, in The Economist, examining recent research on the effect of early food processing on human evolution)
WUD(searchable database assembled by Europeana.eu and the Digital Public Library of America in conjunction with the Medicine and Society chair at University of Fribourg; a search for “food”—68,620 hits, “cooking”— 19,110, but “dessert” garnered just 757)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) site for writers/bloggers ----
10 Pet Peeves of a Cookbook Copy Editor
Problems with Food Media that Nobody Wants to Talk About, The

---- yet another blog ----
Be the Hero of Your Own Kitchen

---- that‘s all for now ----


Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
Some of the URLs we provide may link to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advantage of them). We do not receive any compensation for listing them here, and provide them without any form of recommendation—other than the fact that they looked interesting to us.
Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose—ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs: 
Want to support On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it? 
It’s easy. Whenever you want to shop on Amazon. Com, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there will earn a commission for this newsletter (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books).
The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Paper)
(Kindle)
(these Food Sites newsletters merely update the contents of this book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries
(Hardcover)(Kindle)
Human Cuisine
(Paper)(Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Sausage: A Global History
(Hardcover)(Kindle)
Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods  (pre-order)
(Hardcover)
Terms of Vegery
(Kindle)
How to Serve Man: On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating
(Kindle)
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
______________
The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #188 is protected by copyright, and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author‘s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.
Copyright (c) 2016 by Gary Allen.

On Turning Seventy

Turning seventy is treated as some kind of accomplishment, even a notable achievement. Perhaps it is, of sorts—but only in a negative sense. It means that, for a very long time, mismanagement of my affairs and fairly continuous application of bad judgment have failed to put a stop to whatever it is I do on this planet.
I’m generally uncomfortable when receiving compliments, as they carry the burden of reciprocation. This is awkward, since—in general—neither I nor the other person are deserving of any particular praise. I’m especially uneasy when I know for a fact that the encomia are unearned. Acknowledgment of intelligence is as unsettling (aside from being utterly mistaken) as being noted for height or eye color. Not one of these qualities is the result of any effort on anyone’s part.
Being feted for accumulating seven decades of existence is much the same. So, now that the big day is upon me, I feel only the urge to hide.
What, after all, have I accomplished? A largish number of days have passed, without the slightest bit of help from me. Roughly twice as many as Mozart or Jesus accrued, who—by any reasonable measure—accomplished somewhat more than have I.
An overabundance of days should not, in itself, be cause for celebration. All those days represent is a number of complete circuits around a rather ordinary star, a star notable only for its nearness to a relatively insignificant planet. The total number of those solar circumabulations—purely by an accident of evolution—seem noteworthy to us because we imagine they have some numerical significance. However, that significance is utterly arbitrary. No number, by itself, means anything—and the fact that one is an even multiple of ten (a number that gives the impression of being meaningful only because we have ten fingers, making it easier for counting than some other number) is an anthropocentric illusion.

If turning seventy signifies anything at all, it is that it’s occasionally possible for one to acquire a degree of perspective (perspective that would have been more beneficial—and saved everyone from a lot of embarrassment—if developed much earlier).

Food Sites for May 2016

Atlantic Herring (Clupea harengus harengus).Every Spring, they arrive—by the millions, from the ocean, ascending the Hudson River, then up tiny feeder streams like Black Creek in West Park, NY—to spawn.
May is the “sweet of the year,” as mentioned in Taste Matters, below. It’s far too perfect to stay indoors, but if a rainy day happens to prevent you from picnicking—or just sitting outside with a glass of something cool and decadent—there’re a lot of goodies to be sampled in this issue.
Regular subscribers to our updates newsletter receive these updates from our blog, Just Served, directly—but there is much more at the blog that isn’t delivered automatically. For example: Modern Salt has posted “Dream Dish,” a tale of adolescent food lust. Roll Magazine has also published “How to Decide?” — an essay that could be considered a form of fudging, except that it has nothing to do with fudge. Also, Drexel University’s magazine, Taste Matters, includes some Spring-like speculations called “Knocking Trout off its Perch.” 
Oh yes... one more thing. Our latest book ( Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods ) comes out on May Fifteenth!
You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
This month’s quotes (from On the Table’s culinary quote collection) acknowledges my impending achievement of a life-long goal—surviving three score and ten—and having an excuse to steal from my literary idol’s comments when he did the same:

The seventieth birthday! It is the time of life when you arrive at a new and awful dignity; when you may throw aside the decent reserves which have oppressed you for a generation, and stand unafraid and unabashed upon your seven-terraced summit and look down and teach—unrebuked. You can tell the world how you got there. It is what they all do. I have been anxious to explain my own system this long time, and now at last I have the right. Mark Twain 

I have achieved my seventy years in the usual way: by sticking strictly to a scheme of life which would kill anybody else. It sounds like an exaggeration, but that is really the common rule for attaining old age. When we examine the program of any of these garrulous old people we always find that the habits which have preserved them would have decayed us. I will offer here, as a sound maxim this: that we can't reach old age by another man’s road. Mark Twain 

In the matter of diet—which is another main thing—I have been persistently strict in sticking to the things which didn't agree with me until one or the other got the best of it... Mark Twain

GaryMay, 2016
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we‘ve missed—please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those of you who have introduced us to sites like the ones in this newsletter (such as Dianne Jacob), thanks, and keep them coming!
PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.
---- the new sites ----
Big Business: Food Production, Processing & Distribution in the North 1850-1900(well-illustrated online exhibition from the American Antiquarian Society)
China Onlys, The(Xianfeng Luo, “Seeking authentic Chinese cuisine in seven regions;” in Drexel’s Table Matters)
Cooking Class(Christine Baumgarthuber’s account, at The New Inquiry, of the history of food writing, from a class perspective)
Edible Art: Springerle Cookies(Sharon Hudgins on those classic German molded cookies; originally published in Gastronomica)
Global Circulation of African Food, The(Fabio Parasecoli, at Huffington Post, on some of the complex issues raised by the popularization of an “ethnic” cuisine on another continent)
Hot on the Trail(Thomas A. P. Van Leeuwen on the history of Alexis Soyer’s magic portable stove and other inventions; in Cabinet Magazine)
Menu Collection(searchable database of menus in the Los Angeles Public Library’s Rare Book Room in the Central Library)
Modern Peanut’s Wild Cousin, Thought Extinct, Found in Andes(Andrea Small Carmona, in Scientific American, on how—and when—two peanut ancestors managed to form the hybrid we can’t stop eating)
Next Big Thing in American Regional Cooking, The: Humble Appalachia(Jane Black, in The Washington Post, on “America’s own cucina povera”)
Odd Restaurant Buildings: “Ducks”(Jan Whitaker on restaurants, from the 20s & 30s, that look like anything but restaurants)
Pastrami on Rye: A Full-Length History of the Jewish Deli(Kenny Sokan’s report on PRI—Public Radio International)
Real North Carolina Barbecue(BBQ brings out strong opinions, and Judson Carroll’s, at Reclaiming Southern Food, is as adamant as any)
Recipe Books(a digitized “collection of 16th-19th century domestic recipe manuscripts,” at London’s Wellcome Library)
Regency Servants—Kitchen Staff(Sharon Lathan explains what it was like in “the kitchen areas of a Regency house”)
Smell of Apples, A: Sense Memory and Anosmia(Nicola Miller’s elegant explication of aroma and memory, with just the right amount of salt)
Very Brief Tour of the Brooklyn Museum Through Food, A(Edible Brooklyn‘s Sarah McColl on some aspects of food in art: sexual, political, and social; more about food in art at the Whitney Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Why Illustrate a Cookbook?(Deborah L. Krohn, of the Getty Research Institute, on the illustrations in l’Opera di M. Bartolomeo Scappi)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) site for writers/bloggers ----
Anne Lamott on Writing and Why Perfectionism Kills Creativity
Blogging for Authors
Book Cover Design
Creating Author Websites: The Definitive Guide
Eat Sleep Instagram: How Photographer Liz Clayman Gets the Hero Shot (And 20 More)
How Does A Recipe Mean?
How to Craft the Perfect Amazon Book Description
Literary Agents, Query Letters, and Book Proposals
On Writing and the Permission to Succeed
Things We Do to Promote the Books We Write, The
Three Things to Do Before You Write a Book
Ultimate Guide To Getting Published In A Literary Magazine, The
Ultimate Writer’s Guide to Success, The (Infographic)
When it Comes to Supporting Authors in Marketing Efforts, no Publisher has it Right Yet

---- more blogs ----
Food in the Public Square
Fork Tales
In my Iraqi Kitchen: Recipes, History and Culture, by Nawal Nasrallah
Turin Mamma
---- that’s all for now ----
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
Some of the URLs we provide may link to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advange of them). We do not receive any compensation for listing them here, and provide them without any form of recommendation (other than the fact that they looked interesting to us).
Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose—ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs: 
Want to support On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it? 
It’s easy. Whenever you want to shop on Amazon. Com, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there will earn a commission for this newsletter (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books).
The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Paper)
(Kindle)
(these Food Sites newsletters merely update the contents of this book; what doesn't appear here is already in the book)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries
(Hardcover)(Kindle)
Human Cuisine
(Paper)(Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Sausage: A Global History
(Hardcover)(Kindle)
Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods (pre-order)(Hardcover)
Terms of Vegery
(Kindle)
How to Serve Man: On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating
(Kindle)
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
______________
The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #187 is protected by copyright, and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author‘s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.
Copyright (c) 2016 by Gary Allen.

Food Sites for April 2016

Mustard greens (Brassica juncea)Before the days of long-distance groceries, they provided something fresh after a winter of root vegetables
April may—or may not—be the cruelest month, but our April issue is especially large this year. If that seems cruel, sobeit.
Regular subscribers to our updates newsletter receive these updates from our blog, Just Served, directly—but there is much more at the blog that isn’t delivered automatically. Modern Salt has posted “Give Me Insurrection or Give Me Indigestion”  and another piece (or two) will be coming along soon. 
You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
This month’s quotes (from On the Table’s culinary quote collection) is a heavy-handed attempt to acknowledge the opening of a new season of baseball in the form of a culinary coda:

I devoured hot-dogs in Baltimore ‘way back in 1886, and they were then very far from newfangled...They contained precisely the same rubber, indigestible pseudo-sausages that millions of Americans now eat, and they leaked the same flabby, puerile mustard. Their single point of difference lay in the fact that their covers were honest German Wecke made of wheat-flour baked to crispiness, and not the soggy rolls prevailing today, of ground acorns, plaster-of-Paris, flecks of bath-sponge, and atmospheric air all compact. H.L. Mencken

Americans can eat garbage, provided you sprinkle it liberally with ketchup, mustard, chili sauce, Tabasco sauce, cayenne pepper, or any other condiment which destroys the original flavor of the dish. Henry Miller

Dibbler could find a use for bits of an animal that the animal didn’t know it had got. Dibbler had worked out that with enough fried onions and mustard people would eat anything. Terry Pratchett

 GaryApril, 2016
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those of you who have introduced us to sites like the ones in this newsletter (such as Janet Clarkson), thanks, and keep them coming!
PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.
---- the new sites ----
18th and Early 19th Century Cookbooks: Searchable, and FREE(Kevin Carter, of Savoring the Past, on using Google Books to access rare culinary texts)
Are You Ready for a $15 Cup of Coffee(Dwight Furrow, at Edible Arts, on caffeinated reverse snobbery)
Cheese Anthology, A(Edward Behr’s introduction to cheese, in The Art of Eating)
Decoding Umami, The Food World’s Favorite Buzzword(Jaya Saxena, at First We Feast, wonders why Westerners have such a hard time understanding the “fifth taste”)
Dining with the Grahamites(Jan Whitaker on Sylvester Graham’s ideal meals—which, apparently, did not include graham cracker piecrusts)
First Foods: Learning to Eat(Amy Bentley, Bee Wilson, and Annie Gray discuss the way we teach our children to eat; a little less than an hour at Gastropod)
Food Companies Distort Nutrition Science. Here’s How to Stop Them(Julia Belluz, at Vox, on Marion Nestle’s work to reveal the connection between food industry’s marketing and some questionable research)
Gastronomy of Genius: History’s Great Minds and the Foods that Fueled Them(an NPR story about, in a way, smart food)
Grits on the Menu: A Short Treatise on a Global Favorite(Cynthia Bertelsen explains things for puzzled Yankees)
Historical Roots of Kashkaval, The(Altin Raxhimi on the diasporic history and etymology of a classic Balkan cheese)
History of Bread, Yeast and Wheat, A(“500 years of bread, yeast and wheat history in 200 pictures,” with a bit of introductory text)
How the US Army Influences Almost Everything in the Supermarket(Anastacia Marx de Salcedo tours a supermarket for evidence)
How to Taste Wine and Seem Like You Know What You’re Doing(a guide from Wired magazine)
Indomitable Spirits: Prohibition in the United States(thirteen turbulent years covered in a virtual exhibit by The Kentucky Digital Library and the Digital Public Library of America)
Magical Thing Eating Chocolate Does to Your Brain, The(The Washington Post’s Roberto A. Ferdman reports on recent research showing that the consumption of chocolate improves one’s cognitive ability)
Mysteries of Mustard, The(“...with Thanks to the English;” history and recipes from Cynthia Bertelsen)
No Place for Discontent: A History of the Family Dinner in America(Mackensie Griffin’s report, at NPR’s The Salt, rethinking our nostalgia for the good old days)
O Mosey Quince – A History with a Few Recipes(Nicola Miller’s rhapsody to an under-appreciated fruit)
Out of the Shadow of Aunt Jemima: The Real Black Chefs Who Taught Americans to Cook(Lisa Hix, at Collectors Weekly, provides an in-depth look at Toni Tipton-Martin’s The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks)
Salumi 101: Your Guide to Italy’s Finest Cured Meats(Niki Achitoff-Gray gets serious about Italian preserved meats, at Serious Eats)
Taste of Umami, The(two articles by Dwight Furrow)
Testosterone Takeover of Southern Food Writing, The(Kathleen Purvis rightfully complains, at Bitter Southerner, about gender imbalance in a particular genre of foodwriting)
This is Your Brain on Faux Foods(Noah Charney, at Lucky Peach, explains how and why we like being fooled by food)
Vast Bay Leaf Conspiracy, The(to bay or not to bay... a number of different responses)
West Meets East(looking at Chinese-American Restaurants, 1896-1926, through their menus)
When Chocolate was Medicine: Colmenero, Wadsworth and Dufour(Christine Jones, at The Public Domain Review, on the early history of chocolate in Europe)
Where are All the Women Chefs?(Margot Henderson, at Lucky Peach, discussing the differences between male and female chefs)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) site for writers/bloggers ----
Chained to the Stove: What It’s Really Like to Write a Cookbook
Dangers of Nostalgia at the Stove, The: A Critique of Modern Food Writing
Food Photography Course
My Cookbook Collection Needs to be Slimmed Down. But How?
Start Here! Resources for Writers and Authors

---- more blogs ----
Millers Tale, The
Oyster Aficionado

---- that’s all for now ----
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
Some of the URLs we provide may link to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advange of them). We do not receive any compensation for listing them here, and provide them without any form of recommendation (other than the fact that they looked interesting to us).
Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose—ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs: 
Want to support On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it? 
It’s easy. Whenever you want to shop on Amazon. Com, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there will earn a commission for this newsletter (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books).
The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Paper)
(Kindle)
This Food Sites newsletter merely updates the contents of this book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book.
The Herbalist in the Kitchen
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries
(Hardcover)(Kindle)
Human Cuisine
(Paper)(Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Sausage: A Global History
(Hardcover)(Kindle)
Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods (pre-order)(Hardcover)
Terms of Vegery
(Kindle)
How to Serve Man: On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating
(Kindle)
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
______________
The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #186 is protected by copyright, and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author‘s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.
Copyright (c) 2016 by Gary Allen.

Food Sites for March 2016

Hama Hama oysters, from Washington’s Hood Canal, just one of the good reasons to invite ice indoors.
(This is still one of the months with an R in it—even if that old rule no longer applies—and oysters are always welcome around here.)
The last full month of winter is about to end (and not a minute too soon if you ask us). With March, we hope to see signs of Spring’s approach—which is not always a sure thing, no matter what the calendar says. Meanwhile, boeuf bourguignon and such-like slow-cooked dishes provide a good excuse to avoid going out in the cold.
Regular subscribers to our updates newsletter receive these updates from our blog, Just Served,  directly—but there is much more at the blog that isn’t delivered automatically. February has been rather hectic around here, plus I’m starting work on another book, so no new stories have been posted...  but Modern Salt will put up two—that haven’t been seen in a long time—in March. The first will appear on March second, and the other a few weeks later. You’ve been warned. 
You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner. 
This month’s quotes (from On the Table’s culinary quote collection) indulge, literarily, our love for Crassostrea gigas: 

If you don’t love life you can’t enjoy an oyster; there is a shock of freshness to it and intimations of the ages of man, some piercing intuition of the sea and all its weeds and breezes. Eleanor Clark 

I asked the waiter for a dozen Portugaises and a half-carafe of the dry white wine they had there ... As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I ... began to be happy and to make plans. Ernest Hemingway 

I am ready to defend the right of the tasty crab, the luscious oyster, the noble rockfish and the incomparable terrapin to continue their part in the penitential practice of Friday. Lawrence Cardinal Shehan, Archbishop of Baltimore 

You are eating the sea, that’s it, only the sensation of a gulp of seawater has been wafted out of it by some sorcery, and are on the verge of remembering you don’t know what, mermaids or the sudden smell of kelp on the ebb tide or a poem you read once, something connected with the flavor of life itself. Eleanor Clark (on oysters) 

It is proved by experience that, beyond five or six dozen, oysters certainly cease to be enjoyable. Grimod de la Reyniere 

Oyster: A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat without removing its entrails. The shells are something given to the poor. Ambrose Bierce

GaryMarch, 2016
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those of you who have introduced us to sites like the ones in this newsletter (such as Jim Chevallier), thanks, and keep them coming!
PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.

---- the new sites ----
Brief History of Confit, A(Jonell Galloway on the various ways the French preserve, and intensify, the flavors of foods)
George Washington, the Whiskey Baron of Mount Vernon(Michael Beschloss, in The New York Times, on the first president’s second career)
Love Letter to Greenwich Village(Ruth Reichl waxes nostalgic while reading an unusual community cookbook)
Oaxaca’s Native Maize Embraced by Top Chefs in U.S. and Europe(the old ways may not fare well against modern agriculture, but they often lead to much tastier food)
Old Regime Cheese(Les Leftovers serves up part 1 of  “the lost cheeses of Medieval France;” part 2, “What, no Camembert?” )
No Food is “Healthy”(Michael Ruhlman on why “American food shoppers are confused”)
Viking Foods(detailed overview, replete with recipes and bibliography)
What Gives Jasmine and Basmati Rice Their Fragrance?(Hint: it has something to do with pandan)
Why the Best Part of a Pot of Rice is at the Bottom(the article doesn’t actually answer the question, but provides links to recipes that produce that crunchy layer)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) site for writers/bloggers ----
7 Mistakes You’re Making With Your Author Blog And How To Fix Them
Do the Copyright Thing: Your Use of Origin Images to Sell Coffee May Be Unlawful

---- more blogs ----
Bites of Food History
Eat Something Sexy
How to be the Hero of Your Own Kitchen!

---- that’s all for now ----
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose—ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs: 
Want to support On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it? 
It’s easy. Whenever you want to shop on Amazon. Com, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there will earn a commission for this newsletter (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books).
The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Paper)(Kindle)Our Food Sites newsletters merely update the contents of this book; what doesn't appear here is already in the book.
The Herbalist in the Kitchen
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries
(Hardcover)(Kindle)
Human Cuisine
(Paper)(Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History
(Hardcover)(Kindle)
Sausage: A Global History
(Hardcover)(Kindle)
Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods (pre-order)(Hardcover)
Terms of Vegery
(Kindle)
How to Serve Man: On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating
(Kindle)
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
______________
"The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #185" is protected by copyright, and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author‘s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.
Copyright (c) 2016 by Gary Allen.

Food Sites for February 2016

Female House Sparrow, Passer domesticus, well-chilled.
Well, winter has finally caught up with us. Not musch in the way of snow, but bitterly cold. The prospect of picnics and out-door grilling is not as pleasing as it was a few months ago. Sparrows, cardinals, and chickadees are the only al fresco diners around here. 

Every day, a neighbor’s cat sits patiently under the bird feeder, but—so far—there’s been no picnic lunch for him either.

Regular subscribers to our updates newsletter receive these updates from our blog, Just Served, directly—but there is much more at the blog that isn’t delivered automatically. “Doors,” a new year’s message that is sort of about food, appeared on there last month. “The Perception of Perception” also showed up on the blog (but it has absolutely nothing to do with food, so why should I even mention it?). We also posted “Rite of Passage,”  a tale of lust (for food and other things), and “Gatherin’ Mequite” at Modern Salt. 

You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner. 

We’ll take what comfort we can from this month’s quotes (from On the Table’s culinary quote collection): 

No dish changes quite so much from season to season as soup. Summer's soups come chilled, in pastel colors strewn with herbs. If hot they are sheer insubstantial broths afloat with seafood. In winter they turn steaming and thick to serve with slabs of rustic, crusty bread. Florence Fabricant

 The height of luxury was reached in the winter afternoons … lying in a tin bath in front of a coal fire, drinking tea, and eating well-buttered crumpets is an experience few can have today. J.C. Masterman

When the girl returned, some hours later, she carried a tray, with a cup of fragrant tea steaming on it; and a plate piled up with very hot buttered toast, cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter running through the holes in it in great golden drops, like honey from the honeycomb. The smell of that buttered toast simply talked to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cosy parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one's ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the fender, of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of sleepy canaries. Kenneth Grahame

GaryFebruary, 2016
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we‘ve missed—please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those of you who have introduced us to sites like the ones in this newsletter (such as Dianne Jacob and Jonell Galloway), thanks, and keep them coming!

PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don‘t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We‘re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we‘ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.

---- the new sites ----
AJEats
(Al Jazeera’s food section)

Bacon Goes Kosher
(Erik Ofgang, in Tablet, on treyf-less strips of crisp-fried non-pork)

Cleaver Quarterly, The
(magazine about Chinese food)

Cooking with Pulses
(recipes and nutritional info from the USA Dry Pea & Lentil Council)

Medieval Mulled Wine
(Karen Schousboe, at Medieval Histories, traces the spiced libation from Apicius to today)

Michael Pollan on how America got so Screwed Up about Food
(hint: it’s the bizarre intersection of science, industry, and politics)

Noble Idea, A: Beer Without Hops
(James Sheehan, at Molotov Cocktail, on ancient beer styles that incorporated other botanical bittering agents)

Note on Peppers, A
(Hari Balasubramanian on peppers, Piper spp; and peppers, Capsicum spp.)

Problem of the House, The: Past, Present and Future
(Jack Self, in The Architectural Review, looks at kitchen design from several theoretical vantage points)

Sacred Khao
(an introduction to the foods of northern Thailand)

Science of Craving, The
(Amy Fleming, in The Economist, on the difference between desire and pleasure)

What is Bourgeois Cuisine?
(Jonell Galloway on the history of French cooking that is not so haute)

Why (Almost) Everything You Know About Food Is Wrong
(Julia Belluz analyzes the difficulty of getting accurate nutritional information)


---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) site for writers/bloggers ----
7 Book Marketing Trends Authors Can’t Afford to Ignore

10 Things We’ve Learned From Writing Cookbooks

Culinary Memoirs: What’s the Point?

How Do I Become a Food Writer?

How (Not) to Pitch

mdWordsmith

New York Public Library Makes 180,000 High-Res Images Available Online

On All the Ways to Write a Recipe

Restaurant Critic: Your Dream Job or Your Worst Nightmare?

Understanding Your Type as a Food Writer

Who Buys Cookbooks and Why?

Why Is It So Hard to Make Great Food Infographics?


---- more blogs ----
Erica Demane

Food Politics

Silphium


---- that’s all for now ----
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:

Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose—ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs: 

Want to support On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it? 

It’s easy. Whenever you want to shop on Amazon. Com, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there will earn a commission for this newsletter (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books).

The Resource Guide for Food Writers (Paper)(Kindle)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen(Hardcover)(Kindle)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries(Hardcover)(Kindle)
Human Cuisine(Paper)(Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History(Hardcover)(Kindle)
Sausage: A Global History(Hardcover)(Kindle)
Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods (pre-order)(Hardcover)
Terms of Vegery(Kindle)
How to Serve Man: On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating(Kindle)
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...

...for the moment, anyway.

______________
The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #184 is protected by copyright, and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author‘s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.
Copyright (c) 2016 by Gary Allen.

Doors

Janus—for whom our month of January is named—was a two-faced God who faced both forwards and backwards. Roman households often placed an image of Janus beside doorways. New Year’s Day is just such a doorway, and as we pass through it we often reflect on the past while speculating about the future.
After rising at a prudently late hour (considering the excesses of the night before), Markus, Betsy, Karen, and I decided that it was fit and proper that we go on a used-book hunt. You should understand that we never need much of an excuse, but why not invoke the holiday spirit? So, the Four Bibliophiles of the Apocalypse sped from the Valley of the Hudson to the Hills of the Berkshires. I don’t need to tell you that we found—and purchased—bulging cartons of wondrous things. We always do.


Book-hunting is intense, and it provokes an equally intense thirst and hunger—so we headed for Hudson, NY, where we knew good restaurants existed in pleasing numbers. Hudson, not coincidentally, also has a lovely used book store. We chose a restaurant in which we’ve eaten many times, and ordered a variety of soups, appetizers, and desserts that we could share.

Markus and I ate savory slices of chorizo, rolled into tortillas, smeared with guacamole, and festooned with jalapeños. Completely satisfied, we went out into the night and started for home with our treasures. 

A little way out of town, on one of the winter’s darkest nights, I suddenly realized that New Year’s Day was over—and that we had not eaten Hoppin’ John. This is an election year, and a slip-up like that could deprive us of not just one year without luck, but perhaps four grim years. Markus exclaimed that he, too, was risking bad luck by imprudently ignoring his family's traditional herring and lentils on this most important of days.

Of course, we don’t really believe in all this hocus pocus—but flauting tradition can’t be good, can it?


Sometime around five AM, on January second, we—at least Markus and I—learned the cost of our hubris. Unmistakable signs of food poisoning racked our bodies. Karen and Betsy were unscathed. We can’t be sure it was the chorizo, or the fact that Karen and Betsy were never as committed to the New Year’s Day rituals as we were, so were not judged as harshly. 

We do know that there is one door in Hudson that we will not pass through again.