Gary Allen's Blog, page 18

Flashback

Some forty-five years ago, I—along with some five hundred thousand of my closest friends—attended a remarkable party on a farm in New York’s Sullivan County. Some time later, in reminiscing about that momentous blow-out, I wrote the following account:



By the Time I got to WoodstockOn the first of “four days of peace, love and music,” we packed ourselves into a Dodge Dart and drove from New Paltz to Bethel. OK, somewhere near Bethel—we got to within nine miles of the festival. After an immobile hour or two, my Dart-borne companions were ready to turn back.Not about to miss this historical event, I climbed out, hoisted a sleeping bag onto my shoulder, and started walking past the endless line of stopped cars. After walking forever in the August heat—when I was perhaps half-way to the festival site—heaven smiled on this weary traveler. It began to rain—no mere sprinkle, but a hippie-soaking downpour.Imagine the scene: thousands upon thousands of wet, tired, hippies (many with wet tired dogs) along a twenty-mile-long parking lot. Somewhere in the middle of this fragrant jamboree, a tall skinny guy, wearing white bellbottoms, a shiny purple rayon shirt (with puffy sleeves—good lord, what was I thinking?), trudged along, somewhat stooped under the weight of a water-logged sleeping bag.Did this pony-tailed guy give up? No freakin’ way!Not then, at least—the next morning was a different story.I had spent the night cuddling up, beside someone I should never have been with, in that very wet sleeping bag. Did I mention that it was lined with some cheesy yellow-dyed flannel—and that, at the first sign of moisture, it released that yellow dye all over the enclosed hippies? Did I mention that the sleeping bag was, itself, half submerged in the re-hydrated fecal matter of generations of Max Yasgur’s dairy cows?Enough was enough. I shuffled back down that same highway, and—when I reached some traffic that was moving—hitched a ride to New Paltz.The white bell-bottoms—stained by god-knows-what-all was living in the mud of peace, love and music—were never white again.  No amount of bleach was to have any effect on them. I had to dye them a nearly fluorescent shade of magenta.What can I say—It was 1969, and it seemed like a good thing to do at the time.




This week-end, I revisited the site of those events. The times they’ve been a-changing there. The long dirt road from the highway to Max Yasgur’s farm has grown into a paved two-lane road. A fancy museum and performance space now perches atop the hill. Inside, a gift shop overflows with peace, love, and trinkets—both cheap and not-so-cheap.



The museum’s exhibits did a great job of putting the weekend’s events in historical perspective—but that, of course, is one of the things that museums are supposed to do. They attempt to contextualize a collection of images and objects in order to help us imagine what it was like to be among them when they were current.
Unfortunately, museums can never really succeed because the moments they try to describe were filled with countless other things and sensations: things that are uncollectable, sensations that were taken for granted in the moment, but distinguish actual life from dioramas. No doubt, all historical museums are up against similar problems in trying to recreate the je ne sai qua of temps perdu.
Certainly, the Museum at Bethel Woods showed ample photos and film of healthy young people joyously frolicking in mud… but do museum-goers smell that mud? Do they feel it oozing between their toes? Do they feel the grit of drying mud—in their hair, their ears, their very eyelashes—upon waking, before they even realize where they are? Can it help them to envision being deeply uncomfortable, but simultaneously oblivious to their discomforts because they were trivial compared the bizarre joy of rising amidst half a million equally uncomfortable but ecstatic friends? Do the photos capture the profound funkiness of half a million unwashed and mostly unwashable bodies, bodies that were more closely packed than in any time in human history? Might there have been a moment, onstage, when Ravi Shankar said to himself, “Odd… this smells a bit like the India I tried to leave behind when I came to the West?”
Revisiting that oh-so-clean homage to a moment in our history, with its glass cases filled with sanctified detritus of half-century-old everyday hippie life, and carefully re-created versions of things that were abandoned ages ago, I am reminded that, while we might—occasionally—find a spot where we were once, nothing about the spot will be the same. That the moments we remember, or even imagine we remember, are not what we believe them to have been. Inexplicably, words from a Kenneth Rexroth poem—in which he envisioned an amorous moment shared by Antony and Cleopatra—form in my head:

…taking off

 Their clothes of lace and velvet 

 And gold brocade and climbing

 Naked into bed together

 Lice in their stinking perfumed

 Armpits, the bed full of bugs.

_________________

On the way home, we stopped at a nearby restaurant, where our twenty-something waitress asked us if we had been to the festival. When I answered in the affirmative, she followed with, “Do you remember anything?”
Now I don’t know, for a fact, that her question implied a suspicion of illicit activities at the festival. Perhaps she merely assumed that I was suffering from senile dementia. Either way, it was a damned good question.

Food Sites for December 2014

A wintry feast of apples for wildlife—in one of the many orchards near New Paltz, New York.

With December, residents of the northern hemisphere enter winter. It’s the season for rich desserts and hearty foods, slow-cooked dishes that ooze calories and luscious saturated fats and make us forget there will ever be a time when we might consider wearing something more revealing than a down parka. 

Self-deception can be glorious when served in over-sized portions.

Speaking of over-sized portions, this issue is simply bursting its buttons with tasty new sites for those of us who cogitate (and/or pontificate) about all things gastronomical. Think of it as an extended cocktail hour preparing you for the holiday feasts to come (or a last chance to kick back and relax before the frenzy of festivities consumes us all).

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. In honor of the dinner party season, last month it served up “Too Hungry for Dinner at Hate.” November also saw Dr Sanscravat’s annual Thanksgiving ravings. This time, however, hiding behind the alias “I Am Curious: Orange,” it showed up in Roll Magazine.
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. 

As usual, we assume that too much is never enough, so this month’s issue is piling on additional comments appropriate to the gorging season (from On the Table’s culinary quote collection):

Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody. Samuel Pepys 

FEAST, n. A festival. A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy person distinguished for abstemiousness. Ambrose Bierce 

Contemporary societies have lost the sense of the feast but have kept the obscure drive for it. Umberto Eco

GaryDecember, 2014


PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs -- or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed (as has my friend Cynthia Bertelsen) -- 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 suggested sites -- 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 ----
aashpaz
(“a history of Persian food through the ages”)

Afternoon with M.F.K. Fisher, An
(Paul Levy’s article in The Wall Street Journal)

Amazing Ribs.com
(“the science of barbecue, grilling, and outdoor cooking”)

Apples
(Anna Lovett-Brown on the history and mythology of Malus pumila)

Ben Franklin’s List of 200 Synonyms for “Drunk”: “Moon-Ey’d,” “Hammerish,” “Stew’d” & More (1737) 
(not necessarily more useful than a thesaurus, but definitely more entertaining)

Bread of Affliction, The
(Lindsay Eanet, in McSweeney’s Monthly, on sandwiches)

Community of Lush: Wine, Alcohol, and the Social Bond, The
(Dwight Furrow on what goes on at wine tastings)

Fake-Tongue Illusion, The
(Nicola Twilley on how the perception of foods is altered by our expectations; in the New Yorker)

Food
(blog, recipes, and archive of food programming on PBS – for those outside of the US, that’s our Public Broadcasting Service)

Food and Drink
(food-themed articles selected from Aeon magazine)

Food & Gastronomy: Media and Writing
(eclectic site of Dr. Len Fisher, who studies food, biophysics, and nano-engineering—not necessarily in that order)

Food Stories from Gascony
(southwestern France described by photographer Tim Clinch and writer Kate Hill)

Green Revolution: Curse or Blessing?
(report by Peter B.R. Hazell, posted by the International Food Policy Research Institute)

Happy Apicius
(articles on food and culture from the Bibliothèque Municipale de Dijon; in French)

Image Gallery: Supper Clubs
(Jan Whitaker recalls more restaurants – swanky or not – but mostly perdu)

In Vitro Meat Cookbook, The: Recipes as Design Fiction
(an artistic and philosophical discussion of meat that doesn’t come from animals; a review of a whimsically and graphically lovely book)

Interview with Dwight Furrow, An
(the philosopher talks about his reasons for thinking about food)

Little Food History, A
(Nanna Rögnvaldardóttir on the food of Iceland)

Nietzsche’s Angel Food Cake 
(Rebecca Coffey’s deliciously deicidal recipe, in McSweeney’s)

Pen & Fork
(recipes, cookbook reviews, tips, links)

Shut Up and Eat: A Foodie Repents
(New Yorker article by John Lanchester, author of The Debt to Pleasure)

Symposion Journal
(“...a website devoted to things cultural, aesthetic and intellectual about food”)

Weiser Kitchen, The
(Tami Ganeles-Weiser – anthropologist and chef – creates modern variations on dishes from around the world in her Kosher kitchen)

What’s the Most Ethical Way to Eat Snack Mix?
(Dan Pashman allows several philosophers to weigh in on this... ummm... weighty question)

Why Civilization Rests on that Roast
(Dwight Furrow -- a professor of philosophy who often writes about food and wine, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics -- considers the social meanings of food)

Yesterdish: Rescuing America’s Lost Recipes
(a project that salvages old family recipes, often from spattered index cards, and often comparing them with contemporaneous published recipes)


---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers ----
Amazon’s Crowdsourced Publishing Venture Kindle Scout Goes Live

Back of the House: Writing this Blog

Editing Checklist For Writers, An

Ethical Author

Leave Me Alone

Looking for Inspiration? Open Your Eyes…and Get to Work 

Merriam-Webster Apps

On All the Ways to Write a Recipe

Passive Resistance

Platforms Are Overrated

SelfControl

Smashwords


---- yet more blogs ----
5 Second Rule

Cooking in the Archives

Coorg Table, The

Culinaria

Culinary Bro-down

Cultured Grub

Eat. Drink. Think.

Elizabeth Minchilli in Rome

Foraging & Feasting

Former Chef

Historical Cooking Project, The

History’s Just Desserts 

Hortus

Hungry Dog, The

In Search of Taste

Kitchen Historic

Life’s a Feast

Lost Past Remembered

Monsoon Spice

Parla Food

Pen & Palate

Plated Stories

Revolutionary Pie

This Cook Book Life

Thyme & Temp


---- 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 (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books) will earn a commission for this newsletter.

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)
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 #170 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) 2014 by Gary Allen.

Too Hungry for Dinner at Hate

Rembrandt Peale's 1805 portrait of Thomas Jefferson
Every year or so, someone has an original idea – the exact same original idea that many other writers have pitched to magazine or newspaper editors. Surprisingly, the idea sells itself (again, and again, and yet again) – it’s nearly as predictable as each year’s crop of “new-and-exciting-ways-to-prepare-that-holiday-turkey” articles. It’s the tried-and-true “what-if-you-could-throw-a-dinner-party-and-invite-anyone-from-history-to-attend” trope.I don’t know who started this notion, ‘though I suspect it might have been Steve Allen (who was no relation, if that makes any difference to you). He had just the sort of intellectual curiosity and wide-ranging interests to make the concept work. He certainly was the first to invite Thomas Jefferson, who now shows up on almost everyone’s imaginary guest list. This despite the fact that TJ, while brilliant, was not especially sociable or talkative – even after a few glasses of the Bordeaux wine he called “O’brien.”I don’t think I could ever assemble one of these unlikely groupings of historical celebrities. For one thing, I wouldn’t know what to cook for them. How could I reconcile their unknown allergies, dislikes, and politically-incorrect foods with my plans for a menu? How could I face the looks of disgust and disappointment on the faces of long-dead heroes? Think about it – would Socrates be thrilled to be dragged from the Elysian Fields, only to face an overcooked noodle casserole? What if the guests didn’t get along, wouldn’t speak to each other, and just sat there, despondently pushing grayish pieces of limp broccoli around their plates, desperately wishing to return to their graves? I don’t even want to think about making up a dream guest list. I could, however, make a list of people I would never want to have at my table.First, without a doubt, would be Leviticus. There may never have been such a person (no doubt Moses just made up the name so it didn’t look like he was padding The Torah with his own stuff), but whoever wrote Leviticus 11:1-47 was one mean-spirited, self-important, know-it-all gastronomic buzz-kill. Just to play safe, I’m not having Moses at my party either. It’s bad enough when guests don’t want to eat the food you lovingly prepared for them, but when they get all high-and-mighty, claiming that Yahweh himself told them that everything on your table is unclean, that you and your other guests are unclean, and that it’s an abomination to eat the dishes that make up whole sections of your favorite foods list – that’s just plain rude, don’t you agree? Really, Leviticus – no lobster rolls? No billi bi? No scampi, let alone snails, afloat in garlic butter? No rabbit terrine? No frog legs Provençal? But locusts are OK? Are you kidding me?I’m willing to go along with him on vultures, owls, and bats – well maybe not the bats (I might try them; they’re sort of like flying dormice, and Ancient Romans loved their dormice). But is he serious about no bacon, ever? Not a smidgen of prosciutto, even when melons are at their most fragrant best?It’s just too much. The Leviticus invitation is definitely off the table. The same goes for any other puritanical proscribers of pleasure – like Sylvester Graham. Some might call this father of veganism a tad over-zealous, but zealotry implies at least some form of passion. He wasn’t a fan of most forms of passion, expressly prohibiting anything that might potentially provoke excitement or lust. Meat, dairy, alcohol, and spices were forbidden. That pretty much eliminates anything I would consider serving at a dinner party. Inconsistently, Reverend Graham also forbade the consumption of white bread, which (to my way of thinking) is an unprovoker of lust if there ever was one.Sharing a pepperoni-topped pizza “and a nice chianti” with Graham is clearly out-of-the-question. Hell, sharing anything with this guy is out-of-the-question.No dinner invitation for him.Then there was John Harvey Kellogg, who founded a masochistic empire based on Graham’s bizarre beliefs. He believed that illness resulted from meat rotting in our intestines. Alcohol, a provoker of lust, was forbidden. Dairy was OK, but taken primarily in the form of an enema. I don’t know about you, but extended talk of enemas is not especially welcome at my dinner table. Kellogg did, however, recommend a diet that was rich in nuts. That particular idea, in Kellogg’s case, borders on autocannibalism – and that’s more than enough for me to scratch his name off my list of dinner invitees.Sister Ellen G. White was another of the nineteenth century’s extreme vegetarians. Unlike Dr. Kellogg, who thought that spoiling our meals for the sake of our physical health was a worthy goal, she wanted more; she wanted to save our very souls by keeping God’s other creatures off of our plates. She also said that we eat too much even of healthy foods (that is, foods of which she approved). OK, she was right about that over-eating business, but it’s harder to swallow her claims that just because our sinful forbears ate meat, God caused The Flood. However, since that same flood wiped out everything else that was edible, Noah’s family had to start eating the Ark’s other passengers. She “explained” the result:After the flood the people ate largely of animal food. God saw that the ways of man were corrupt, and that he was disposed to exalt himself proudly against his Creator and to follow the inclinations of his own heart. …[God] permitted that long-lived race to eat animal food to shorten their sinful lives. Soon after the Flood the race began to rapidly decrease in size, and in length of years.Sorry Sister, but the inclinations of my own heart are that my guests and I should be able to eat any damned thing we want. Our sinful lives may be short, but they’ll be happier than long ones filled with your self-righteous sermons. Don’t bother checking your mailbox for dinner invitations from me.While it is true that my main reason for rejecting potential dinner guests is their rejection of my omnivorous appetites, it’s not the only one. Even in as permissive a dining room as mine, certain standards of etiquette must be observed. Horace Fletcher was obsessed with poop. He was constantly telling folks to sniff their excrement, to check for tell-tale signs of digestive failures (by which he meant “bacterial decomposition,” something I prefer to call “digestion”). I don’t want to hear any of this at my dinner table.Equally bad was his insistence on chewing every bite of food thirty-two times, very quickly (in under twenty seconds) would replace informed and civil discourse with the sounds of machine-gun mastication. Sorry, Fletch – no dinner party should resemble an onslaught of rabid beavers. Horace Fletcher will never receive an invitation to dine in my house.If I ever do host one of these silly imaginary dinners, I plan to begin with this soup from Craig Claiborne. It is rich and seductive enough to provoke lust (at least for dinner). What’s more, it violates just about every rule promulgated by the irritating people I’ve banned from my table. Not only that, it doesn’t have to be chewed – not even once.
Billi BiServes 4Ingredients2 lbs. mussels
2 shallots, coarsely chopped
2 small onions, quartered
2 sprigs parsley
salt & freshly ground black pepper
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1 cup dry white wine
2 Tbsp. butter
1/2 bay leaf
1/2 tsp. thyme
2 cups heavy cream
1 egg yolk, lightly beatenMethodScrub the mussels well to remove all exterior sand and dirt.Place them in a large kettle with the shallots, onions, parsley, salt, black pepper, cayenne, wine, butter, bay leaf, and thyme.Cover and bring to a boil.Simmer 5-10 minutes, or until the mussels have opened.Discard any mussels that do not open.Strain the liquid through a double thickness of cheesecloth.Reserve the mussels for another use or remove them from the shells and use them as a garnish.Bring the liquid in the saucepan to a boil and add the cream.Return to boil and remove from the heat.Add the beaten egg yolk and return to the heat long enough for the soup to thicken slightly.DO NOT BOIL.Serve hot or cold.This dish may be enriched, if desired, by stirring two tablespoons of hollandaise sauce into the soup before it is served.
Source: Claiborne, Craig. The New York Times Cookbook . New York: Harper & Row, 1961.

food sites for November 2014

A bushel of winter squash at a farm stand, Palenville, New York

November is the start of our annual marathon of holiday over-eating or, as we like to call it, “La Grande Bouffe.” With any luck -- sometime in early January -- we’ll shove back from the groaning table (and even more groaning chair) in better condition than the leading characters of that French–Italian exercise in excess.

However, we’ve learned, from long -- and often humiliating -- experience, not to make any rash promises.

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. Also, our stuff frequently appears in Roll Magazine, and last month’s article was on Beechnuts -- which, against all expectations, does not once mention chewing gum.

You can also, should you desire to, follow us on Facebook, and Twitter -- and even a cursory glance at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner will reveal links to entirely too much of our online logorrhea. 

Pre-empting the gorging season, On the Table’s culinary quote collection waxes fat about fat:

American consumers have no problem with carcinogens, but they will not purchase any product, including floor wax, that has fat in it. Dave Barry 

I have a great diet. You’re allowed to eat anything you want, but you must eat it with naked fat people. Ed Bluestone 

America is now the fattest country in the world and getting fatter every day. unnamed H.J. Heinz Co. executive 

It’s OK to be fat. So you’re fat. Just be fat and shut up about it. Roseanne Arnold

GaryNovember, 2014

PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs -- or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed (as does Elatia Harris, who is always finding great sites) -- 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 suggested sites -- 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. There are links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.



---- the new sites ----
Austerity Kitchen, The
(Christine Baumgarthuber’s food history columns; archive of older postings here)

Chef Stories
(a collection of six profiles -- Grant Achatz, Mario Batali, Anthony Bourdain, David Chang, Julia Child, and Alice Waters -- in The New Yorker)

Cooking
(thousands of recipes from The New York Times)

Early Chinese Food History
(Jacqueline M. Newman’s article in Flavor & Fortune)

Food Snobbery Explained
(some embarrassing self-revelation from Snobsite.com)

Frugal Housewife, The: Or Complete Woman Cook
(scanned facsimile pages, and PDF version, of Susannah Carter’s 1803 book)

fruitsinfo.com
(tropical, exotic, accessory, and hybrid fruits; plus fruit news and recipes)

Gareth Jones Food
(website of a self-described gastronome – and food consultant, cook, traveler and educator)

GMOs are Old Hat. Synthetically Modified Food is the New Frontier
(Eliza Barclay reports of new technologies that produce artificial foodstuffs by fermentation, rather than by less appealing, or environmentally-less desirable, methods – such as from petrochemicals)

Gourmet
(selections from the magazine’s archives: 1940s-1970s & 2000s)

Great Hog-Eating Confederacy, The
(Christine Baumgarthuber on the place of pork and corn in the historical diet of America’s southerners)

History on the Half-Shell: The Story of New York City and its Oysters
(article by the New York Public Library’s Carmen Nigro)

Honey, Food is All About Power
(dialogue, between Bani Amor and Thy Tran, on false assumptions about “ethnic” food writers, the imagined audience for their writing, and the ways food writing is used to reinforce stereotypes about race and ethnicity for profit)

How to Prepare a Sauce for the Lords and How Long it Lasts
(recreating a sour twelfth-century recipe that features sweet spices)

In Search of Taste
(quarterly magazine “…dedicated to examining gastronomic cultural traditions [of] the symbiotic affinity between simple food and wine…”)

Information is Beautiful
(infographic on compatibility of flavors)

Joanne Chang Brings the Sweet Science of Sugar to Harvard
(Eater National account of her lecture/demonstration)

Mad Feed
(food for thought via articles and TED-like video presentations)

Magical Tour of Yotam Ottolenghi’s Cookbook Collection, A
(an interview with the author of Plenty )

Morsel
(another aggregator of food articles)

Museum of Food and Drink, The (MOFAD) 
(New York City’s future museum, “… about the culture, history, science, production, and commerce of food and drink,” where one will be able to smell and taste the exhibits)

Myth of Togetherness Around the Table, The
(apparently -- in England at least -- it didn’t exist before middle-class Edwardians decided it should)

See It, Want It: Window Food Displays
(Jan Whitaker, on restaurants’ use of their windows to attract customers)

Seven Moles of Oaxaca, The
(from Mexican chef par excellence, Zarela Martinez)

Tea if by Sea
(Dan Jurafsky’s history of tea, with an emphasis on linguistics)

Wine Snobbery Explained
(“Wine snob. Isn’t that a redundancy…?” more embarrassing details from Snobsite.com)

Zythum: An Egyptian Precursor to Beer
(food safety microbiologist Peter Olsen blogs about an ancient brew)


---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers ----
Book academy

Getting Started with Social Media

So You Want to Be a Food Writer

Writer, The


---- yet more blogs ----
Botanist in the Kitchen, The

Draughts Are Deep, The

Edible Arts

Edible Legacies

Fork Tales

Language of Food, The

Morsel

Odd Pantry, The

Plate, The

Ruth Reichl

Shepherd and the Olive Tree, The

Taste of History with Joyce White, A



---- 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 (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books) will earn a commission for this newsletter.

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)
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 #169 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, 2014 by Gary Allen.

Food Sites for October 2014

Ain’t no frost on these punkins yet, but it’s just a little ways off. Some are destined for jacks o’lanterns, some to be smashed in the street, but around here they’ll find their way into pie shells, bread pans, and – a personal favorite – ravioli (with brown butter, crisp-fried sage leaves, toasted pecans, and crumbled gorgonzola). Winter’s coming, we shouldn’t be overly concerned about calories, right?
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.
If you are so inclined, you can follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. Not all of the blather we post there is about food, but there’s usually enough to provoke literary dyspepsia. Knock back some omeprazole before visiting the links to all of our online scribbles posted at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
We’re all supposed to consume things that are in season, hence these excerpts from On the Table’s culinary quote collection (no guarantees that they’re locally grown):

My favorite word is “pumpkin.” You can’t take it seriously. But you can't ignore it, either. It takes ahold of your head and that’s it. You are a pumpkin. Or you are not. I am. Harrison Salisbury

What calls back the past like the rich pumpkin pie? John Greenleaf Whittier

Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie. Jim Davis (Garfield)

GaryOctober, 2014
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs -- or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed (as does Cara DeSilva, who is always finding great sites) -- 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 suggested sites -- 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 ----
1,000-year-old Middle Eastern Recipe Book Claims to Have the Ultimate Hangover Cure(article about Nawal Nasrallah’s translation of Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq’s Kitab al-tabikh)
Ancient Famine-fighting Genes Can’t Explain Obesity(the simple, elegant – and commonly- accepted – theory doesn’t stand up to scrutiny)
Archaeological Evidence for Peach ( Prunus persica ) Cultivation and Domestication in China(Yunfei Zheng, Gary W. Crawford, and Xugao Chen, on development of peach varieties, ten thousand years ago; in PLoS ONE)
Brown Ale Redux(Jaime Jurado’s article in The BREWER International)
Cheese Course, The(an archive of Janet Fletcher’s columns in The San Francisco Chronicle)
Cookbooks(a large archive of posts by Cynthia D. Bertelsen)
Cool Culinaria(reproductions of vintage menu art, signage, and ephemera, and guide to other collections)
Cooking in the Archives(“Updating Early Modern Recipes (1600-1800) in a Modern Kitchen”)
COUSCOUS: The Tunisian Variations(Paula Wolfert’s article in the Los Angeles Times)
CuiZine: The Journal of Canadian Food Cultures (“A peer-reviewed e-journal published by McGill Library,” in English and French)
Desperately Seeking Authenticity(“But…” Rachel Laudan asks in the Los Angeles Times, “…what would an ‘authentic’ cookbook really look like?”)
Dictionary of German-Russian Food Terms(these culinary terms are neither quite German nor quite Russian, which makes sense since they’re from “two German colonies located near the Volga river”)
Early Modern Recipes Online Collective (EMROC)(a group of scholars working to improving free online access to historical archives of recipes)
eatocracy (online food magazine from CNN)
Experiencing the Past Through the Oven(“Worcester’s American Antiquarian Society puts historic recipes [hand-written pages] online”)
foodwritingencyclo(something like an annotated index of interesting food writing, with samples and links to complete texts)
Francesco Tonelli(article about food photographer Tonelli, in Digital Camera Magazine)
gastronomicalibrary(video reviews of international cookbooks)
Georgian Recipes(not Ray Charles’ Georgia, but the spice section alone will keep this Georgia on my mind)
Getting Started in Food History(Rachel Laudan on what to do and what not to do, the whys and hows, and supporting resources)
India: Pantry Guide(illustrated explanation of ingredients; from Saveur)
Internet Archive Book Images(2.6 million copyright-free illustrations, from 500 years of publishing)
Joy of Cooking, The?(sociologists Sarah Bowen, Sinikka Elliott, and Joslyn Brenton on why a healthy home-cooked meal is not always an option)
Just Don’t Call It Turkish Coffee(Maxim Edwards on Armenian coffee traditions, heavily-infused with history and politics)
Meat Prophet of Peru, The(Nicholas Gill’s article, about Renzo Garibaldi, that will have you thinking a lot about aged meats)
NAL Catalog (AGRICOLA)(searchable directory of holdings in the USDA’s National Agricultural Library)
Roads and Kingdoms : Food(e-zine about regional foods of the world)
Serious Eats Guide to Shopping for Asian Noodles, The(Kevin Cox, on pastas made from wheat, rice, and other starches – such as beans, sweet potatoes, and yams)
Serious Eats Guide to Whole Grains, The(Niki Achitoff-Gray on the science, properties, and preparation of many grains, even those that are not grasses – such as amaranth, buckwheat, and quinoa)
Snooth Eats(recipes that pair well with wine)
What's the Next Quinoa? Farmers, Foodies Revive Heritage Grains(Andrea Stone tells, in National Geographic, why “ancient grains and ‘orphan crops’ like fonio and amaranth have advantages for farmers and consumers”)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) site for writers/bloggers ----
How to Publish a Food Book: Part One, The Right House

---- yet more blogs ----
Cooked Books
Fornacalia
Neil Cooks Grigson
Oxford Symposium
Recipes Project Blog, The
Why'd You Eat That?

---- changed URLs ----
Culinary Historians of Canada
(formerly Culinary Historians of Ontario)
Culinary Historians of Southern California (CHSC)

Is Food the New Sex?

---- 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 (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books) will earn a commission for this newsletter.
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)
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 #168” 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) 2014 by Gary Allen.

food sites for September 2014

“A Colonel of Corn,” from Terms of Vegery


With September, harvest kicks into high gear, the nights grow cooler, and we begin to feel more like cooking and -- as the old timers said -- “putting food by.” This summer has been frantic, busier (and stranger) than any in our memory. Frankly, we’ll be happy to return to a slower life, with slower food, and maybe a few more calories than we’ve allowed ourselves. As Leslie Newman said, “As the days grow short, some faces grow long. But not mine. Every autumn, when the wind turns cold and darkness comes early, I am suddenly happy. It's time to start making soup again.” 
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.
While you’re waiting for the happy little popping sounds that indicate that your home-canned foods might not actually give you a mid-winter case of botulism, you can follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. Still more links to our online scribbles are posted at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
Not corn, this time -- but another member of the Poaceae tribe -- in this month’s excerpts from On the Table’s culinary quote collection:

Rice is a beautiful food. It is beautiful when it grows, precision rows of sparkling green stalks shooting up to reach the hot summer sun. It is beautiful when harvested, autumn gold sheaves piled on diked, patchwork paddies. It is beautiful when, once threshed, it enters granary bins like a (flood) of tiny seed-pearls. It is beautiful when cooked by a practiced hand, pure white and sweetly fragrant. Shizuo Tsuji

Rice is born in water and must die in wine. Italian Proverb 

Eating rice cakes is like chewing on a foam coffee cup, only less filling. Dave Barry 

GarySeptember, 2014


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 suggested sites -- 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 ----
American Food Roots(four journalists “dig up the roots of American food”)
Archivegrid(database of archived materials, worldwide – a search, using keyword “food,” found over 29 thousand archives)
Beer Styles: Wheat Beer: Hab Mir Mein’Weizen(article by Jaime Jurado)
Cooking the Books(“…website for all things associated with the Historic [Tudor] Cookery Team at Hampton Court Palace”)
Dining Out: The Food Critic at Table(Adam Gopnik on the nature of food writing, in The New Yorker)
Gastrodiplomacy: Cooking up a Tasty Lesson on War and Peace(NPR story about a course being offered at Washington DC’s American University)
Hampton Court Chocolate Kitchen to Reopen after 300 Years(a taste of luxury from the time of George II)
In Defense of Food Writing: A Reader’s Manifesto(article by Eric LeMay, in Alimentum)
Munchies(an aggregator of interesting food articles from around the world)
Oldest Pottery in the World Found in China(spoiler alert: the pots are older than agriculture)
On Food Writing(Michael Ruhlman’s blog post on the subject)
Prehistoric Aurochs BBQ Leftovers Found in Holland(article does not specify if a dry rub was used, nor what style of sauce was served)
Render (“Feminist Food & Culture Quarterly… that aims to disrupt the canon of mainstream food and cooking magazines”)
Standing on Ceremony: The History of Tea Sandwiches(article by Tamasin Day-Lewis in Saveur)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers ----
10 Biggest Mistakes New Authors Make, The
Authors! Your Cover Font Is Killing Your Book
Finding the Right Publicist for Your Next Book
Lesson in Entrepreneurship, Perseverance and Publishing from Iconic Chef Julia Child, A
This Column Will Change Your Life: How to Think about Writing
Why Being a Good Writer is No Longer Enough…

---- yet another blog ----
Cooking the Books (not the same as the forum above)

---- 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 (it needn’t even be one of our books) will earn a commission for this newsletter.
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)
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 #167” 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) 2014 by Gary Allen.

REMEMBRANCE OF PETS PAST

Yesterday, I said goodbye to Smokey, the cat who spent the last thirteen years of her alloted span of twenty with us. It's been a long time since I've had to go through the experience--but, today, I recalled that I had written about it, ages ago. 
It's not for the squeamish.________________
It is no easy thing, living the life of a literary cliché, but there’s no avoiding the fact that I am a writer who lives with cats. I have always lived with cats. There is little doubt that I shall continue to live with cats. Individual cats are inextricably tangled in all the threads of my experience. I have measured out my life, not in coffee-spoons--as did Eliot’s Prufrock--but in deceased cats.My first cat, Frosty, died of classic altered-male-cat-urinary-problems. He was an ugly, mean-spirited gutter cat who spent his last miserable days soaking all the rugs and furniture with his dribbling excreta. Thus, he guaranteed that we would remember him--not so fondly--whenever the weather turned dampish, for years afterwards.My mother vowed never to get another cat. A week or two later, our next-door neighbor handed her a little gray female kitten. Twinkie (short for Twinkle Toes) was--fortunately--everything Frosty was not. She was charming, loyal, companionable--walking me to the school bus-stop in the morning, waiting for me in the afternoon. She would even follow me fishing--‘though it meant negotiating a half-mile of swamp, hopping from dry spot, to rotten log, to weedy tussock, to floating board to be with me. When she was hit by a car, in front of our house, I was convinced that my knowledge of science was enough to prevent her demise. I explained to my father that she was merely wounded. I was eleven or twelve, and full of confidence in the invincibility of knowledge--but she was furry and dead.I cried for six or seven hours, partly for her loss, partly for mine. We buried her in the backyard.In college, I continued co-habiting with cats. One lovely--but dim-witted--tortoiseshell, was named George C. Scott because she always wore what appeared to be an oddly knowing sneer or twist of her upper lip. Her sister was Peggy Sue, a smart and sexy calico. They shared my house with a sweet motherly tabby named Jane Goodall--the first of several “Jane cats.” After a summer spent on a commune in New Mexico, in 1969, I arrived home to find a feverish George sitting in the kitchen sink with cold water dripping on her head. She died of distemper at the vet’s a couple of hours later. Some years, and many cats later, I was given a huge, peach-colored, altered male named Cicero--as soft and floppy and comfortable as a well-loved toy. One day, he didn’t come home. A stranger came to the door to tell us he had been hit by a car. He was in bad shape, but alive, at the vet’s office. We went to see him immediately. His head had been crushed and he looked like he should be “put to sleep.” My girlfriend couldn’t even look at him. I stayed to comfort him, petting whatever parts did not seem too bloodied, and he seemed to respond. Day after day, I went back, and each day he got a little stronger. When we took him home, he could barely walk. The only way he could get around the apartment was to lean against the wall, and shuffle along edge, circling the entire room to reach the opposite end of the threshold from which he started. We nursed him back to near-health, and he was as grateful as a cat can be. One day, as I was leaving the house, for something that seemed important at the time, I spotted him between two parked cars across the street. When he saw me, his eyes lit up with joy. I yelled for him to stop, but he ran towards me, across two unbroken lanes of traffic.He was hit two, maybe three, times, his body twisting and lurching involuntarily on the double yellow line. I grabbed him from the moving lines of cars, trying to hold his thrashing body close to me.I have seen his terrible, trusting, blissed-out face, across the road, thousands of times since then. Still more years, and more cats, passed through my life. I had four cats: two city cats who moved to the country (Alice and Electra) and two country cats (Sebastian and Jane). The city cats were wimpy non-entities but the country cats were wonderful. Sebastian, huge and black, as gentle and kind as Cicero. Jane, another tortoiseshell, was sweet, soft, with golden eyes. Jane, one hard winter, drank some water that contained Drano or antifreeze (we’d had terrible plumbing problems that year) and developed a wheezing cough. I was about to drive to Florida to visit my parents, so I dropped her off at the vet. I made him promise to call us about her condition.He never called. A couple of days after Christmas, I called him. He told me he “did what he could but... .” He asked what I wanted done with the body. Very calmly, I told him to keep it ‘til we got back and I would take care of it.After returning to my cabin in the Catskills, I chopped a Jane-sized hole in the frozen soil, then drove to the vet’s office. When I arrived, the receptionist seemed uncomfortable, and tried to avoid making eye-contact. She called for the vet to come out to the waiting room. He explained that there had been a mistake, that Jane had been hauled off for disposal at some anonymous pet disposal center. He apologized profusely, and handed me his bill. I paid it and left. A half mile down the road, I had to pull over because I couldn’t drive through the tears.When I got home, I buried my soggy hankerchief in the grave I had dug for Jane.

Food Sites for August 2014

“A Bronx Cheer of Raspberries,” from Terms of Vegery  


August is fast upon us -- and that means sweet corn is readily available. It also means we have an endless list of corny puns about corn that could be foisted upon you, but we’ll spare you that (just this one time).
In other news, our big herb reference book, The Herbalist in the Kitchen is now available in Kindle format -- which means it's much more affordable and is easily searchable. That's handy, because a truly functional index would have required a second volume of an already expensive book (and the University of Illinois Press would never have agreed to that). So, if you ever need to find out about hbok or oba, the answers will be literally at your fingertips.
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. If you are so inclined, you can follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. Insomniac gastronomes can also find links to all of our online scribbles posted at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner. 
I know, you thought you might get out of here without corn puns, and you were almost right (this time) – but sweet corn seems to make writers wax nostalgic, so we‘re serving up these amaizing excerpts from On the Table’s culinary quote collection:

Nothing rekindles my spirits, gives comfort to my heart and mind, more than a visit to Mississippi... and to be regaled as I often have been, with a platter of fried chicken, field peas, collard greens, fresh corn on the cob, sliced tomatoes with French dressing... and to top it all off with a wedge of freshly baked pecan pie. Craig Claiborne

Hunger makes you restless. You dream about food -- not just any food, but perfect food, the best food, magical meals, famous and awe-inspiring, the one piece of meat, the exact taste of buttery corn, tomatoes so ripe they split and sweeten the air, beans so crisp they snap between the teeth, gravy like mother's milk singing to your bloodstream. Dorothy Allison

In the light of what Proust wrote with so mild a stimulus, it is the world's loss that he did not have a heartier appetite. On a dozen Gardiner's Island oysters, a bowl of clam chowder, a peck of steamers, some bay scallops, three sauteed soft-shelled crabs, a few ears of fresh picked corn, a thin swordfish steak of generous area, a pair of lobsters, and a Long Island Duck, he might have written a masterpiece. A.J. Liebling 

It is not elegant to gnaw Indian corn. The kernels should be scored with a knife, scraped off into the plate, and then eaten with a fork. Ladies should be particularly careful how they manage so ticklish a dainty, lest the exhibition rub off a little desirable romance. Charles Day

GaryAugust, 2014
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 suggested sites -- 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 the Smörgåsbord, A(Anita-Clare Field’s post about the classic Scandinavian groaning board)
Does Israeli Cuisine Exist?(“Queen of food writing” -- Dalia Lamdani, in an interview in Haaretz -- “serves an answer”)
Eating, Dining, and Snacking at the Fair(Jan Whitaker remembers the food at the World’s Fair, fifty years later)
Little History of Sushi, A(another historical nosh from Anita-Clare Field)
Meaning of Soul Food, The(an interview with Adrian Miller in The Times-Picayune)
Neanderthal Meal, The: A New Perspective Using Faecal Biomarkers(archaeological evidence about the real paleodiet)
New Flavors for the Oldest Recipes(Laura Kelly recreates ancient Mesopotamian dishes; in Saudi Aramco World)
Next Breadbasket, The(Joel K. Bourne, Jr. on the corporate take-over of arable land in Africa; the first of a series of articles on food in National Geographic)
Nonya Cuisine of Malaysia, The(Eric Hansen, on the “fragrant feasts where the trade winds meet;” in Saudi Aramco World)
Swamp Cabbage and Sunshine(Cynthia Bertelsen on the “craziest-ever hearts of palm salad [that] sums up Florida’s food history”)
These Savory Bites Recall Earlier Times In England(Elisabeth Luard on a culinary tradition that is barely a memory today; at Zester Daily)
Why 10% of the Population Hates Cilantro and the Rest Doesn't Know Any Better(Nacho Caballero explains the science behind the phenomenon)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers ----
5 Research Steps Before You Write Your Book Proposal
9 Words We All Really Need to Stop Using When Talking About Food and Drinks. Please.
CRAFT THOUGHTS: Why You Should Edit As You Write
DIY: How to Pitch Book Bloggers(requires subscription to Publishers Weekly)
I Was a Digital Best Seller!
I Want Your Job No. 19: Cookbook Editor
Penflip
“Phantom” Receipt Found? Yes, but…
Why I Left My Mighty Agency and New York Publishers (for now)

---- yet another blog ----
Flourish

---- 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 (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books) will earn a commission for this newsletter.
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)
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 #166” 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) 2014 by Gary Allen.

food sites for July 2014

Summer: a time when real men sacrifice heroic chunks of animal flesh on the altars of grills or smokers (and others just bake quiche).


Another year has gone by, and with this issue of the updates to The Resource Guide for Food Writers, we have completed fourteen years of continuous publication. Some of you might even remember the earliest incarnations that went out via e-mail (or possibly strapped to the backs of rodents who were trained to scurry through the Intertubes). We had no idea, starting out, that we’d still be doing this – after 165 postings. In recognition of this anniversary, we’ll offer the usual clichés: “slow and steady wins the race,” “all things are possible,” and – most apropós –“ignorance is bliss.”
In other news, due to scrupulous attention to portion sizes, there is 20% less of your correspondent than there was at our last anniversary issue. We suspect that many people will be disappointed to learn that this information merely reflects 20% less avoirdupois, not verbiage.
As we can certain the bard never said, “Ya’ gets whatcha’ pays for – and, sometimes, not even that.”
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.
If you are so inclined, you can follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. If that does not sufficiently addle your pate, links to all of our online scribbles posted at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.  Roll Magazine recently published an expanded article on Black Cows Redux, the roots of root beer floats (with a few summer-appropriate recipes).
We’ll conclude this month’s introductory remarks with a self-referentially-consistent excerpt from On the Table’s culinary quote collection: 

[A] quotation is a handy thing to have about, saving one the trouble of thinking for oneself, always a laborious business. A.A. Milne

GaryJuly, 2014


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 suggested sites – 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 ----
25 Amazing Food Infographics, Drawn From 49,733 Recipes(Cliff Kuang’s article, in Wired, features some very interesting ways to look at food data)
Author Looks for Truth About Early Food Editors(Nancy Stohs reviews Kimberly Wilmot Voss’s The Food Section: Newspaper Women and the Culinary Community for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
Chemistry of Fish, The(Harold McGee, at Discover Magazine)
Civil Eats(“promoting critical thought about sustainable agriculture and food systems” daily)
Gluttony: The Good Eater(“never trust the lean and hungry,” warns Emily Toth – and Shakespeare)
Julia Child's List of Discarded Titles For Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Rebecca Onion‘s article on Slate)
Miracle of Feeding Cities, The(how urban food systems work, world-wide; site maintained by The Food Lab at the University of Texas, Austin)
Mustard Manual(“Your Guide to Mustard Varieties” from Serious Eats)
Put a Fork in It(Mark Vanhoenacker examines how – and why – Americans hold their eating utensils the way they do, and why they need to change)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers ----
7 Outrageous Requests to A Food Blogger
America Has Stopped Cooking, and Here's How Our Recipes Are Suffering for It
Ladies of the Pen and the Cookpot: M.F.K. Fisher

---- yet more blogs ----
Eat This Podcast
Food and Geography
Herb Journal, The
Spice House, The
Well Preserved

---- 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 (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books) will earn a commission for this newsletter.
The Resource Guide for Food Writers (Paper) (Kindle)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen (Hardcover)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries (Hardcover) (Kindle)
Human Cuisine (Paper) (Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History (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 #165” 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) 2014 by Gary Allen.

Food Sites for June 2014

When life gives you lemons... or it just feels a bit like summer...

Oh frabjous day! The manuscript for our latest book, Preserving Food, Preserving Culture, was sent to the publisher (Reaktion) ahead of its due date. Which means we hardly know what to do with ourselves.
Well... there is the kitchen to re-do. And yet another book peeking over the horizon. And then there are those thirteen articles to write for Oxford University Press’s Savoring Gotham by July.
Speaking of which, Savoring Gotham still has a number of topics in search of authors – if you’re the sort of caped hero (or heroine) who can swoop in to write for this new encyclopedia of New York food, let us know, and perhaps there’ll be a match made in Metropolis. I promise to avoid making any other comic-book allusions (but only because neither DC nor Marvel have published a series on The Scribbler: “mild-mannered super hero by day, unrepentant wordsmith under cover of darkness”).
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 so inclined) follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. You can also find links to all of our online scribbles at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner. Leitesculinaria has reposted twenty-two of our backlisted (and vaguely historical) LC pieces here.
To celebrate glorious spring -- fully arrived, foreshadowing the better parts of summer, and none of its drawbacks – a few items from On the Table’s culinary quote collection:

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of each. Grow green with the spring, yellow and ripe with autumn. Henry David Thoreau

In the vegetable world, there is nothing so innocent, so confiding in its expression, as the small green face of the freshly-shelled spring pea. William Wallace Irwin 

You needn't tell me that a man who doesn't love oysters and asparagus and good wines has got a soul, or a stomach either. He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed. Saki

GaryJune, 2014

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 suggested sites -- 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 ----
Do Emigrants Create National (or Regional) Cuisines?(Rachel Laudan looks at the way foods – and cooks – travel)
Everything but Rats and Puppies(Scott D. Seligman’s article on the early days of Chinese food in America; in Beijing’s The Cleaver Quarterly)
Fictitious Dishes : Elegant and Imaginative Photographs of Meals from Famous Literature(a review, with photos, of a book by Dinah Fried; posted in BrainPickings)
Is Reintroducing Acorns into the Human Diet a Nutty Idea?(Dawn Starin’s article in Scientific American)
lthforum.com(“the Chicago-based culinary chat site”)
Maangchi(Korean recipe site, with cooking videos and ingredient information)
Pacific Herring(everything you might want to know about Clupea pallasii)
Pike Place Market Centennial(an online exhibit from Seattle’s City Archives)
Recipe Recommendation Using Ingredient Networks(a paper -- by Chun-Yuen Teng, Yu-Ru Lin, and Lada A. Adamic – that analyses the way choice of ingredients does, or does not, predict the success of a recipe; in Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Web Science)
table matters (online magazine on food, drink, and culture, from Drexel University)
Why Don’t We Eat Swans Anymore?(Monica Kim thinks about the unthinkable, in Modern Farmer)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers ----
Cite This For Me
I Self-Published a Cookbook, Despite it All
Truths from the Other Side of Publication
Yale College Writing Center

---- yet more blogs ----
Cooking in Theory and Practice
forager/chef

---- 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 (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books) will earn a commission for this newsletter.
The Resource Guide for Food Writers (Paper) (Kindle)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen (Hardcover)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries (Hardcover) (Kindle)
Human Cuisine (Paper) (Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History (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 #164” 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) 2014 by Gary Allen.