Gary Allen's Blog, page 27

Something from an Old Journal

This was written almost forty years ago this week, during the faltering presidency of Richard Nixon... but it's still the same story today.

___

Just when the arrival of robins and redwing blackbirds has convinced us that Spring has arrived as well; when woodchucks stand bolt upright in the middle of the broad meadows, taking in the new season's illumination; when every night reveals Orion dropping lower in the western sky; just then Winter drops its last heavy load of snow.

It is almost as if Winter decided that a show of power was in order, but the nature of the display points up the season's waning strength. The snow is thick and wet, smelling more like Spring rain than anything else. The snow seems a cruel trick to play on the robins, but the birds show no concern.

They do not confuse contrary weather with the steady progression of the seasons.

Food Sites for March 2011

Sage, snow-bound in the Hudson Valley.



Don't let Eliot pull your leg -- April is NOT the cruelest month, at least as long as February and March are allowed on the calendar. We had ONE day of spring-like weather (just enough to fool a couple of croci into showing a tiny bit of greenery), then immediately more snow. It is satisfying to know that Winter's days are numbered, though -- and, since rumors of Spring's impending arrival have been floating about, we've posted a little something about certain Mating Habits, just to arouse (that is the polite word, yes?) you from your late-winter torpor. Don't get your "hopes" up prematurely -- the article is G-rated.

We recently attended IACP's Regional Conference in NYC, and got to meet many folks with whom we've been corresponding, and whose books and sites we've been reading, for years. It was a real treat. While there, however, it became painfully obvious that our inner luddite was no longer working for us. So, we finally entered the twitter world -- we're @sanscravat now.

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 sent automatically. We understand that many (OK, most) folks have better things to do with their time than wade through countless unwanted e-missives, so we won't add ours to that pile. However... should you feel an inexplicable craving for exactly the sort of self-indulgent claptrap we periodically post, feel free to satisfy that urge at Just Served.

Leitesculinaria is still in the process of reposting -- sometimes with shiny new updates and edits -- some of our older articles. The entire list of our currently-posted LeitesCulinaria articles is available here, along with several other articles on food history & science.

For hard-core addicts of our palaver (it's hard to imagine such beings exist, but ya' never know), Marty Martindale's Food Site of the Day has a slick new design, and has returned to posting A Quiet Little Table in the Corner -- an index of our writings on the web.

Here's a selection soon to be added to On the Table's culinary quote pages. It's the success secret for which you've long been waiting:

"'If you lived on cabbage, you would not be obliged to flatter the powerful.' To which the courtier replied, 'If you flattered the powerful, you would not be obliged to live upon cabbage.'" Diogenes

Gary
March, 2011


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, go here .

PPPS: 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, frankly, baffled by the fact) 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 infested with these updates again. You can unsubscribe here.


----the new sites----

Agriculture & Natural Resources
(from the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences' Cooperative Extension)

Andrea Lynn
(a selection of her articles… many from Chile Pepper magazine, where she's Senior Editor)

Dairy and the US Congress
(an archive of documents concerned with "...legislative issues relating to dairy such as milk pricing, subsidies, and oleomargarine")

Dana's Market Basket
(cookbook author Dana Jacobi's site)

Food Security in Asia and the Changing Role of Rice
(C. Peter Timmer's paper from The Asia Foundation; in PDF format)

Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food
("a USDA-wide effort to create new economic opportunities by better connecting consumers with local producers")

Museum of Culinary History and Alimentation (MOCHA)
(site of the museum in Middlesex, UK)

New Orleans Dining & Restaurant News
(the food section of The Times-Picayune)

Nora Maynard, writer
(foodwriting and photography)

Periodic Table of Meat, The
(one of many such tables of food)

Wild River Review
(the food section of this online magazine)


----changed URLs----

Poor Man's Feast

RUSSELNOD.com

Tom Volk's Fungi



----how-to blogs----

Blog posts about blogging -- and writing, design, photography, promotion, and ethics -- can help us become better, and possibly more successful, writers (i.e., having more people read our scribbles). Here are a few recent favorites:

Food Blogging

Food Photography Through a New Lens

Most Book Deals Originate with Publishers not Authors, Says Cookbook Agent

Will Write For Food, Payment Preferable



----still more blogs----

Artful Gourmet

Cooking in Mexico

Indian Simmer

Jeffrey Morgenthaler

Kitchen Tantra - Tease Your Palate

Poor Girl Gourmet

Rambling Epicure, The



----that's all for now----

Except, of course, for the usual legal 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:

Our books, The Resource Guide for Food Writers, The Herbalist in the Kitchen, The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food and Drink Industries, and Human Cuisine can be ordered through the Libro-Emporium .

Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...

...for the moment, anyway.

____________________________


"The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #125" 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) 2011 by Gary Allen.

The Mating Habits of Coconuts

Be prepared for a long and, at least to me -- 'though probably not to the coconut -- tedious affair.

(I'm giving you fair warning:
you are about to be exposed to some highly technical botanical concepts)

After all the floating, bobbing and whatall that passes for courtship, the coconut has to find a suitable nesting spot. It heaves itself up on some distant beach and waits for just the right mood to set in. It then has to construct a tree, drawing nutrients from the soil, and energy from the sun, until large enough to bloom.

This takes quite a bit of time, so I generally go to the kitchen for a sandwich or two.

Once the adolescent tree can develop flowers, it immediately switches to high gear (honestly, most of us would not notice that much was happening). Nonetheless, pollen and stuff get mooshed around together in a mutually satisfying manner, and the (to us) insignificant flower starts to get all bulgy, and then...

...a new coconut is born.

Not exactly a bodice-ripper, is it?

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Food Sites for February 2011

View across Rondout Creek after recent ice storm.



It's Groundhog Day, and those of us who of us who have been enduring a particularly nasty winter are especially relieved to hear that Punxatawny Phil has granted us an early Spring. To show our gratitude, we will not post any recipes for woodchuck this year.

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 sent automatically. Last month, for example, we posted an article, "Enlightened Carnivory," a mutant sort of excerpt from one of our books-in-progress. We understand that many (OK, most) folks have better things to do with their time than wade through countless unwanted e-missives, so we won't add ours to that pile. However... should you feel an inexplicable craving for exactly the sort of self-indulgent claptrap we periodically post, you can satisfy that urge at Just Served.

Leitesculinaria is still in the process of reposting, sometimes -- with shiny new updates and edits -- some of our older articles. The entire list of our currently-posted LeitesCulinaria articles is available here, along with several other articles on food history & science.

For hard-core addicts of our stuff (assuming such unlikely beings exist), Marty Martindale's Food Site of the Day has been completely redesigned, and has returned to posting A Quiet Little Table in the Corner -- an index of our writings on the web.

Here's a selection from On the Table's culinary quote pages. This month, it's a little advice for anyone interested in starting a food blog:

"Try being entertaining. Try being didactic. Stop being angry. If you're an angry person with too many cats and a grudge against The New York Times, maybe you shouldn't be blogging." Anthony Bourdain

Gary
2 February 2011


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, go here.

PPPS: 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 can unsubscribe here.


----the new sites----

Africa: The Dark Side of Chocolate
(modern-day slavery strips the sweetness from candy)

Andhra Telugu Recipes
(traditional Indian dishes from the state of Andhra Pradesh)

Asian Food Regulation Service
("…a database for food regulations across Asia… from Pakistan to Japan, from Mongolia to Timor")

Biology of the Goat, The
(just what it says it is)

Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table, 1500–2005
(online "catalog" of a 2006 exhibit at NYC's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum)

Food Environment Atlas
(USDA data for every county in the US: access and proximity to grocery stores, availability of food stores, availability of restaurants, expenditures on food at restaurants, food assistance, food eaten at home, food insecurity, food prices, food taxes, health, local foods, physical activity levels and outlets, and socioeconomic characteristics)

Free Cuban Food Recipes
(appetizers, desserts, drinks, main dishes, soups)

Global Table, The
(history of Roland Foods, the largest food importing company in the U.S.)

History is Served
(18th century recipes from Colonial Williamsburg's Department of Historic Foodways)

Know Your Pig
(April Bloomfield's article -- on cuts and culinary uses for all parts of the pig -- in New York Magazine)

La Cocina en su Tinta
(an exhibit at La Biblioteca Nacional de España; in Spanish)

Native American Culinary Association, The
(a forum on "The Research, Development, Refinement and Preservation of Native American Cuisine")

Redcliff Mycological Research Institute
("…unearthing the cultural, culinary and philosophical potential of fungi")

Vidalia Onion Museum
("…the history of the Vidalia onion and the growing region that has made it so famous. …exhibits illuminate the sweet onion's economic, cultural and culinary significance")

World Carrot Museum

(carrot history, nutrition and trivia)


----how-to blogs----

Blogs about blogging -- their writing, design, photography, promotion, and ethics -- can help us become better, and possibly more successful, writers (i.e., having more people read our stuff). Here are a few recent favorites:

Food Photography: Shooting Smoke, Steam and Flames

Top 10 Blogs for Writers 2010

When Good Food Looks Bad: A Styling Post

Writing a Strong Lead Is Half the Battle

And something to provide a little balance:

New Rules for Writers: Ignore Publicity, Shun Crowds, Refuse Recognition and More


New Year's Resolution to Restore an Author's Sanity, A



----still more blogs----

Beer and Butter Tarts

Cured Meats: The Art and the Craft

Eye in Dining, The

Kitchen Scraps

Pickle Project, The


----that's all for now----

Except, of course, for the usual legal 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:

Our books, The Resource Guide for Food Writers, The Herbalist in the Kitchen, The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries, and Human Cuisine can be ordered through the Libro-Emporium.

Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...

...for the moment, anyway.

_______________________________


"The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #124" 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) 2011 by Gary Allen.

Enlightened Carnivory

Back in the Sixties, I was, for a time, a vegetarian. Today, we might call it Politically Correct or Globally Responsible--but back then it was just the thing to do. It was cool. It was hip. It was cheap. A craving for meat was regarded as a sign of spiritual underdevelopment. A craving for red meat indicated something approaching depravity. It implied a callous disregard for the sanctity of life.

It was not cool.

However, being old enough to make my own decisions in the Sixties meant that my tastes were formed in the Fifties. I liked red meat. I wouldn't eat it, of course, but there was no way to avoid thinking about eating it.

After some deliberation, it occurred to me that much of my objection to meat was associated with the unnatural banality of plastic-wrapped meat. How could people buy that stuff, having no idea of its source? It was hard to accept the notion that most consumers actually preferred the anonymity of the foods they ate. How could they eat those chemically enhanced, cruelly raised slabs of unrecognizable protein—and do so without a second thought? Being rather self-centered, this perceived aversion to truth was incomprehensible. It did, however, suggest a way out of the carnivore/herbivore conflict that was consuming me.

What I needed was a way to eat meat consciously and responsibly.

First, I would have to be an active participant in the meat-eating cycle. No saran-wrapped Styrofoam trays of half-frozen meat for me! Second, I could not eat some product of the agri-business/chemical industry. Perhaps I could live without organic meat, but there was no way I was going to chew my way through the culinary equivalent of toxic waste. Third, I could not condone the lifelong abuse of some dumb animal so that I could fill my face. I was cool. I was aware. I would do the right thing.

I would learn to hunt.

Really, how hard could it be? I'd spent thousands of hours in the woods as a kid, and even more time reading and rereading the Tarzan books and the Bomba the Jungle Boy series. I had participated in thousands of mock hunting expeditions, sneaking through the woods with great intensity. I'd been a fanatic fisherman since age eight, and after all, wasn't hunting just fishing writ large? This was going to be a snap. There would be nothing to it.

All I had to do was buy a rifle. And learn how to use it. And take the required hunter safety course. And get a license. And find some unposted woods in which to hunt. All very simple steps. Unless the hunter-to-be was a hippie with a holier-than-thou, know-it-all attitude.

Before I could hunt, I had to be willing to eat some metaphorical crow.

In order to pass a hunter safety course, I had to actually take that course. Hippies were not comfortable with guns, generally--but before this hippie could hunt, I had to enter the belly of the beast. I had to spend some time at the local Rod 'n' Gun club.

Now, as you might recall, longhaired freaks didn't spend a lot of time at Rod 'n' Gun clubs in the Sixties. I was sure that they were filled with right-winged, red-necked old birds who didn't know that the character of Archie Bunker was a parody. My adventure in culture shock included, almost as a rite of passage, a kind of enforced fraternizing with the enemy. The supplicant was obliged to do a certain amount of kissing up to the most unfamiliar of bedfellows.

The hunter safety course was just that: It was about developing habits that would decrease my chances of shooting myself or another hunter. There was an admirable logic to it all, and I was grateful that such lessons could be learned by other than trial-and-error. I could see that those rednecks knew how to handle guns (the fact that they were still alive was proof enough for me).

The course, however, did not contain a single fact about hunting. This gap in the transfer of knowledge was puzzling (after all, these supposedly unenlightened hunters did "get their deer" every year), but I assumed that the actual hunt must be instinctual, natural.

When the time came, when I needed to know, I would just know.

I managed to complete all the preliminary requirements to hunting: rifle, target practice, safety certificate, license, and permission to hunt in a particularly promising piece of forest.

I was ready.

So it was off to the woods. I jumped out of the pick-up, pulled on my day-pack, listened to the satisfying click of brass against steel as I slid cartridges into the .22, inhaled the cool, wet-leaves smell of the October afternoon, and plunged into the wilderness in pursuit of the elusive Eastern Gray Squirrel. I felt a sense of purpose, a rightness, a completely-in-tune-with-nature joie de vivre.

The only catch was that there were no squirrels to be found.

That was because I was a clumsy--but well-armed--jerk in a fluorescent orange vest, crashing through the woods. Every squirrel within a mile knew I was there. Frustration only increased my clumsiness. An objective observer might think I was rehearsing for a low-budget film of the D-Day invasion. Aside from my own frantic thrashing, the woods were strangely silent.

Eventually, with exhaustion and disappointment, I slowed down. I stopped making so much noise. I started looking at the woods as they were, instead of how I imagined them to be.

A squirrel appeared, not forty feet away. I froze, but not before he saw me. He was up the back of a small oak tree in a second. I lifted the rifle, sliding off the safety as quietly as I could. Now was the time--if the squirrel showed itself, I was ready. I thought a bit about what I was about to do. This animal was about to die so that I could feel better about eating meat. The process seemed more silly than noble at that moment.

The frosted tip of a bushy tail flicked nervously on the right side of the tree.

I did nothing.

The squirrel chattered crankily, trying to force me to reveal my location.

I did nothing.

I noticed a bump on the left side of the tree--the squirrel's head--trying to spot my response.

There was none.

The squirrel repeated his angry chattering, trying to force me to make a sudden movement.

There was no movement.

Just the shot.

The squirrel leapt from the tree, frantically kicking in the dry leaves. Oh God, I wounded the poor thing--what a stupid, selfish, thing to do. But no, it stopped. I ran to the spot where the dead squirrel lay, a few brown oak leaves sticky with its blood. I thought about what I'd read about primitive hunters--how they honored and respected the game they killed. I whispered, under my breath,"I'm sorry."

Truly, I was sorry--but guilt was only a small part of what I was feeling. I had known that I would have had to do something like this to be able to accept my carnivorous nature. I'd been confident that I could do it when the time came.

I hadn't known that I would like it.

I lifted the squirrel from the leaves, surprised at its weight. I suddenly recalled that its viscera would have to be removed, or the meat would spoil. I had cleaned many fish, finding the process messy but not difficult--but now I was uncertain. What lay within the white furry abdomen? Were there hidden musk glands that must be removed? If I accidentally punctured something, would the meat be ruined, diminishing the squirrel's death to a selfish and meaningless exercise? Worse--was my indecision wasting the very time I needed to complete the job satisfactorily?

There was nothing to do but to start. Poking the point of my knife through the unexpectedly tough skin of the lower abdomen, I pulled the edge of the blade up and through the thin ribcage. The entrails sagged out, hot and sticky, steaming in the cool air, onto my hand. There was no wave of revulsion. I looked at them, recognizing in an instant all the organs I had memorized in high school. They were essentially the same as my organs, organs I could never see, part of the hidden mysterious inside of us that we know of, but can never know.

This was not a fish.

It was myself reflected.

I started to think about the meals I had eaten in a much different way than I had ever imagined possible. The original decision to hunt had been an ethical choice--now it was something else. Kneeling in the woods with a handful of steaming entrails, I began to see carnivory as a dialog between the eater and the eaten.

Meat eating became extremely personal.

Memory and Medusa

As writers, we live in our memories. From the outside, we often appear to be doing nothing at all, staring into the void, seemingly oblivious to the outside world -- and, in a sense, we are. We are absent, in the same way that an aborigine, on his walkabout, is absent from his community. We leave for much the same reason as our hypothetical aborigine, for the internal journeys we take are how we create ourselves and, in turn, the writing that is us.

There's a famous passage in Moby Dick, called "The Try Works," where Melville describes the furnaces, on the Pequod's deck, where whale blubber is rendered. At a certain point in the process, there's no need to consume precious wood to keep the fires going -- the whale's bones themselves become the fuel used to extract the desired whale oil. At that moment, Melville chooses to quote John Webster, a playwright who was one of Shakespeare's contemporaries. He wrote, "Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust."

That is what we do with memories -- whether they are our own, those of our friends, or from past readings. The dust we use to cut and polish ourselves, and our writing, is no more than ourselves, the stuff we've stored away in our brains. In our internal try works, we turn our memories over, again and again, slowly stewing them 'til they have reduced themselves to pure oil.

However, a curious thing happens to the memories themselves in the rendering. Like Melville's blubber, they cease to exist once the oil has been extracted. Memories remain alive because every time we revisit them we add tiny bits of experience we've accumulated since our last visit. A memory exists, as a memory, specifically because it is malleable, transforming itself along with us. Once it has been written down, it is no longer our memory -- it is now writing: static, unchanging, even if not literally carved-in-stone.

Like the gorgon, we lithify memories with our stare.

As writers, we feel a twinge of remorse at the loss of our memories, as they are no longer the vibrant living things that attracted us to them in the first place. Ironically, the memories we capture in our writing -- no longer alive for us -- can now become part of the living memory of our readers, where it is once again free to transmute itself endlessly.

Caviar, Friend or Faux

Throughout history, people have tried to turn lead into gold, either in actuality or metaphorically. When we think of Welsh Rabbit (melted cheese), Bombay Duck (dried fish), or Scotch Woodcock (chopped hard-boiled eggs and cream on toast), it's usually a rare or expensive ingredient replaced ingeniously by something more plebian. Sometimes this is done with larcenous intent -- but that's outside the scope of this article, somewhat depressing, and hardly in the spirit of the holiday season.

Instead, we're going to look at some whimsical substitutions for one of the rarest and most expensive of comestibles: caviar.

Real caviar is the roe of various fishes, the most precious of which is Beluga -- the lightly salted eggs of mature sturgeon from the Caspian Sea. As only 100 of these antediluvian creatures are harvested each year, the price is understandably high. While most of us won't be bellying up to big bowls of Beluga as part of this New Year's Eve festivities, there are a number of alternative caviars to tempt us.

Kaviar is a Russian surrogate made from soybeans, while a Japanese manufacturer (Hokuyu Company) makes Cavianne. The most convincing of these fakes is made in Canada: Kelp Caviar comes in several flavors (truffle, salmon, chile and wasabi). The tiny "eggs" are made from agar-agar-rich powdered kelp that has been flavored, cooked and stabilized as a thick gelatinous liquid. The liquid then drips into a solution of calcium chloride that causes it to form smooth firm-surfaced "pearls" -- a process that molecular gastronomers call "spherification."

Our own recipes are somewhat less high-tech, and don't require any odd chemicals or weird-science lab equipment.

Ajvar

In Turkish, havyar is "salted roe," a name clearly related to "caviar." Havyar is also connected, etymologically, to Ajvar -- a beautifully-colored, and fragrant, paste made of roasted red peppers and garlic.

Serves 6 to 8 as an appetizer

Ingredients

6 lbs. red bell peppers

1 large eggplant

1/2 head garlic, peeled and chopped

olive oil

vinegar, to taste

salt and pepper, to taste

hot paprika or cayenne, to taste

Method

1. Roast each pepper, under broiler or over a flame, until skin is blackened. Place peppers in a bag or covered bowl to steam for a few minutes, then rub off blackened skin.

2. Split eggplant lengthwise, score the cut surfaces lightly, then rub cut surface with olive oil and a sprinkling of salt.

3. Roast eggplant in a hot oven for about 20 minutes, or until soft.

4. Scoop the cooked eggplant from the skin, which can then be discarded. Combine eggplant, garlic, and two tablespoons olive oil in a food processor. Pulse to chop only -- the mixture should not be completely smooth. Set it aside in a large bowl.

5. Remove stems and seeds from peppers, then pulse in a food processor until they are coarsely chopped. Combine eggplant and peppers, and adjust flavor with salt, pepper, vinegar, and hot paprika (or cayenne), to taste.

6. Serve with toasted slices of baguette or wedges of pita.

Almost Chinese Beluga

This counterfeit caviar looks a lot more like the real thing, and even bears a slight (and totally unexpected) resemblance to the briny sea-taste of caviar -- but with an Asian twist.

Serves 6 to 8 as an appetizer

Ingredients

1/2 Cup uncooked tapioca pearls (not instant)

1/4 Cup dark soy sauce

1 Tbsp. Chinese black vinegar

1 Tbsp. sugar

1 tsp. dark sesame oil

1 scallion, sliced thinly on a diagonal, for garnish

Method

1. Cook the tapioca pearls in two quarts of boiling water until translucent, with just a tiny opaque spot in the middle. Drain and drop into cold water to stop cooking.

2. Prepare marinade by combining remaining ingredients.

3. Mix tapioca with marinade in covered container, and set aside in refrigerator for at least four hours, mixing gently from time to time.

4. Serve in Chinese soupspoons, garnished with a few tiny pieces of scallion.

Texas Caviar

This offering looks nothing like caviar, and has flavors one would never encounter around the Caspian Sea, but it is called "caviar" by the folks who make it in their home kitchens. They've been making it, in various forms, so often that it's become a party standard. How it got its name is a little mysterious, but the natives of the region do have something of a reputation for tall tales, exaggeration, or downright mendacity (at least when dealing with those of us who come from places north of the Red River).

Serves 4-6 as an appetizer

Ingredients

1/2 lb. dried black-eyed peas, cooked, cooled and drained

2 medium tomatoes, seeded and diced 

2 jalapeño or serrano chiles, seeded and minced

1 small onion, diced

1/2 red bell pepper, seeded and diced

1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

6 Tbsp wine vinegar

6 Tbsp olive oil

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp oregano

1/2 Tbsp cumin, toasted and ground

Tabasco, optional, to taste

salt & black pepper, to taste

Method

1. Combine all ingredients in a non-reactive bowl. Cover and place in refrigerator for at least 4 hours.

2. Adjust seasonings to taste, with additional vinegar, Tabasco, salt and pepper, as needed. Serve with tortilla chips.

____

This article appeared, in slightly different form, in Roll Magazine.

The Final Food Site Update (of 2010)

Here, at the very end of the year, with all sorts of holidays to occupy our attention, there's no time for procrastinating. We either get the update newsletter out, now, or continue setting a bad example for ourselves by sending it sometime in January.

While it seemed, not long ago, that our appetites would never return -- they have, just in time for one or two more gastronomic onslaughts. In the interest of seasonal good will, we offer this little bit of advice: The Science of Your Hangover, in which Kate Hilpern explains the how, why and escape route from post-holiday hell. It won't help you recover from all of the season's over-indulgences, but it may minimize the after-effects of one of them.

Regular subscribers to our updates newsletter receive these updates from our blog, Just Served, directly -- but there is much more on the blog that isn't sent automatically. We understand that many (OK, most) folks have better things to do with their time than wade through countless unwanted e-missives, so we avoid adding ours to that pile. However... should you feel an inexplicable craving for exactly the sort of self-indulgent claptrap we periodically post, you can satisfy that urge at Just Served.

Leitesculinaria is still in the process of reposting, sometimes with shiny new updates and edits, some of our older articles. The entire list of our currently-posted LeitesCulinaria articles (some twenty or so) is available here.

For hard-core addicts of our stuff (assuming such unlikely beings exist), Marty Martindale's Food Site of the Day has been completely redesigned, and has returned to posting A Quiet Little Table in the Corner -- an ever-changing index of our writings on the web.

As always, we conclude our monthly peregrinations with some presumably appropriate selections from On the Table's culinary quote pages. This month, alas, is no exception.

"There is a remarkable breakdown of taste and intelligence at Christmastime. Mature, responsible grown men wear neckties made of holly leaves and drink alcoholic beverages with raw egg yolks and cottage cheese in them." P.J. O'Rourke

"In my experience, clever food is not appreciated at Christmas. It makes the little ones cry and the old ones nervous." Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

And, as any writer will tell you,

"Do give books for Christmas. They're never fattening..." Lenore Hershey

Gary
January, 2011


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, go here.

PPPS: 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 can unsubscribe here .


----the new sites----

20 Great TED Talks for Total Foodies
(these tasty twenty-minute talks range from insectivory to sustainability to urban planning to the versatility of pigs)

2,400-year-old Soup Found
(Chinese archaeologist Liu Daiyun found bones and soup in one bronze pot, and a wine-like liquid in another)

Chinese Noodle Dinner Buried for 2,500 Years
(archaeologists discovered noodles and moon-cake-like baked goods among ancient grave goods)

City's Food History on Exhibit
(restaurant memorabilia, from 1849 to 2010, an exhibition at San Francisco's Main Library)

Classical Cider
(Rachel Laudan muses on cider, Puvis de Chavannes, and the institution of Frenchness in France)

Divided We Eat
(Lisa Miller's Newsweek article on class differences in American eating habits)

Food & Foodways
(an index of available titles from the Center for the Study of the American South, at the University of North Carolina)

Foods, Most of Them Scary
(another site that proves that our nostalgia for foods of the past is terribly mistaken)

Guide to Spanish Cured Meats, A
(an annotated slide show from Saveur)

Historic Restaurant Photographs
(an archive of over 700 pictures compiled by The Museum of the City of New York)

In a Nutshell
(Noreen Malone's "brief history of nutcrackers," in Slate)

Kapeleion
("Casual and Commercial Wine Consumption in Classical Greece," Clare F. Kelly-Blazeby's PhD thesis; a PDF)

Maple Recipe Collection
(amassed by the University of Vermont)

Menus: The Art of Dining
(a digitized collection, history of menus and restaurant, the artists who created the menus and the technologies involved in their production)

New Front in the Culture Wars, The: Food
(article by Brent Cunningham and Jane Black, in The Washington Post, on how food choices are being used as political fodder)

Nuts…Their History
(part of the website of the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum))

Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, The (FFA)
(a clearing house for everything concerning the fishing industry in the region)

Wijnanda Deroo: Inside New York Eateries
(press release for an exhibit of photographs at NY's Robert Mann Gallery)

World of Breakfast, A
(article, in Saveur, comparing breakfast traditions in several countries, and some of the historical reasons for them)


----how-to blogs----

Blogs about blogging -- their writing, design, photography, promotion, and ethics -- can help us become better, and possibly more successful, writers (i.e., having more people read our stuff). Here are a few recent favorites:

3 Thanksgiving Cookbook Authors Dish on Their Craft

10 Things Every Cookbook Publisher Should Know

Food Blog Alliance

Food Blog Forum

Food Bloggers Unite

Let Your Story and Identity Shine Through, says Cookbook Publisher

Ten Blogging Mistakes I Learned in Year One



----still more blogs----

Another Wine Blog

Appetite

Creole Notes

Dining Alternative, The

Drankster

Drinkster

Hosemaster of Wine

In the Kitchen and on the Road with Dorie

Jane Black

Nectar Tasting Room and Wine Blog

Restaurant Club

Suburban Wino

Sweet Beet, The


----that's all for now----

Except, of course, for the usual legal 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:

Our books, The Resource Guide for Food Writers, The Herbalist in the Kitchen, The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries, and Human Cuisine can be ordered through the Libro-Emporium.

Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...

...for the moment, anyway.

___

"The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #123" 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) 2011 by Gary Allen.

Food Sites for December 2010 (almost, anyway)

It's the very end of November, not one of our favorite months -- even though it does include the National Day of Overindulgence (the pleasure of which, alas, is immediately canceled out by interminable football games suffered in dyspeptic silence). As many of you will be similarly occupied, we thought it might be a good idea to send this newsletter out early.

We're realists: The odds are against any of you wanting to read about food for quite a while.

Last month, Let Them Eat Crepes (edited by Melissa Doffing and Susan Koefod) was published. It contains several homages to those wonderful French pancakes -- including one, "A Bunch of the Boys Were Whooping It Up," by yours truly. Please don't hold that against this lovely little book, or keep you from ordering a copy here or at the book's website. [a disclosure of sorts: we have no financial stake in the sales of this book; our sole involvement was in writing the aforementioned essay]

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 sent automatically. We understand that many (OK, most) folks have better things to do with their time than wade through countless unwanted e-missives, so we won't add ours to that pile. However... should you feel an inexplicable craving for exactly the sort of self-indulgent claptrap we periodically post, you can satisfy that urge at Just Served.

Leitesculinaria is still in the process of reposting, sometimes with shiny new updates and edits, some of our older articles. The entire list of our currently-posted LeitesCulinaria articles (twenty, so far) is available here.

For hard-core addicts of our stuff (assuming such unlikely beings exist), Marty Martindale's Food Site of the Day has been completely redesigned, and has returned to posting A Quiet Little Table in the Corner -- an index of our writings on the web.

As always, we end our monthly sermon with some selections from On the Table's culinary quote pages. This month, a month that contains a superfluity of superfluity, when excess exceeds all reasonable limits, clearly requires no more -- hence there is but one quotation:

"SATIETY, n. The feeling that one has for the plate after he has eaten its contents, madam." Ambrose Bierce

Gary
December, 2010


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, go here.

PPPS: 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 can unsubscribe here.


----the new sites----

15 Food & Cooking Myths, Busted
(a selection of ideas from Harold McGee's Keys to Good Cooking)

Food in the 'Hood
(food history articles by Joel Denker, author of The World on a Plate: A Tour Through the History of America's Ethnic Cuisine)

Food Science Central
("…free articles on many topics in food science, food technology and nutrition")

In Praise of Fast Food
(Tom Philpott's essay, in Grist, on the omnipresence of fast food throughout history and across cultures)

Market Assistant
("Containing a Brief Description of Every Article of Human Food Sold in the Public Markets of the Cities of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn; Including the Various Domestic and Wild Animals, Poultry, Game, Fish, Vegetables, Fruits, &C, &C. with Many Curious Incidents and Anecdotes;" complete text of Thomas F. De Voe's 1867 book)

Nourish
(site of an organization whose mission it is to educate the public about our food systems)

Science Behind Why We Love Ice Cream, The
(Wall Street Journal report on work being done at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia)

Wessels Living History Farm, The
(site of a museum of 1920s farming, with sections on later periods, and various resources -- including podcasts on different aspects of farm life)


----how-to blogs----

Blogs about blogging -- their writing, design, photography, promotion, and ethics -- can help us become better, and maybe even more successful, writers ("success" being a relative, and highly-variable, notion). Here are a few of our favorites:

As Pretty as Egg Salad: a Food Styling Post

Authors, Social Media and the Allure of Magical Thinking

Food Photography: How to Shoot Ugly Food

How Right is the Customer who Blogs?

Should I Tweet?

Social (Marketing) Network, The: Can an Analog Girl Thrive in the Digital World?


----still more blogs----

Afghan Cooking Unveiled

Ecocentric

Edible Geography

Edible Living

Jefferson's Table

Lucid Food

menuism

Vintage Cookbooks


----that's all for now----

Except, of course, for the usual legal 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:

Our books, The Resource Guide for Food Writers, The Herbalist in the Kitchen, The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries, and Human Cuisine can be ordered through the Libro-Emporium.

Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...

...for the moment, anyway.

___________


"The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #122" 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) 2010 by Gary Allen.

Food Sites for November 2010

Gill Farm, Hurley, NY



By November, the last of the harvests are in (at least here in the Hudson Valley), and those who practice certain outdoor sports turn their minds from fishing to the pursuit of other game. The time for light salad-like repasts is over, and we crave hearty, slow-cooked, deep-flavored dishes -- and light amusements give way to more substantial pastimes. Some of us actually read.

Books, even.

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 sent automatically. We understand that many (OK, most) folks have better things to do with their time than wade through countless unwanted e-missives, so we won't add ours to that pile. However... should you feel an inexplicable craving for exactly the sort of self-indulgent claptrap we periodically post, you can satisfy that urge at Just Served. Last month, we added "Carbonara" -- the apotheosis of bacon, but feel free to choose something from the archives -- such as the seasonally-appropriate "Thanksgiving (Special Holiday Report)."

Leitesculinaria is still in the process of reposting, sometimes with shiny new updates and edits, some of our older articles. The entire list of our currently-posted LeitesCulinaria articles (twenty, so far) is available here.

For hard-core addicts of our stuff (assuming such unlikely beings exist), Marty Martindale's Food Site of the Day has been completely redesigned, and has returned to posting A Quiet Little Table in the Corner -- an index of our writings on the web.

As always, we end our monthly sermon with some selections from On the Table's Culinary Quote pages. This month is no exception (and, for some reason, they all feature a specific avian species):

"Coexistence... what the farmer does with the turkey -- until Thanksgiving." Mike Connolly

"It was dramatic to watch [my grandmother] decapitate [a turkey] with an ax the day before Thanksgiving. Nowadays the expense of hiring grandmothers for the ax work would probably qualify all turkeys so honored with "gourmet" status." Russell Baker

"On Thanksgiving, you realize you're living in a modern world. Millions of turkeys baste themselves in millions of ovens that clean themselves." George Carlin

"TURKEY, n. A large bird whose flesh when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude. Incidentally, it is pretty good eating." Ambrose Bierce

"Turkey is undoubtedly one of the best gifts that the New World has made to the Old." Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

"Turkey takes so much time to chew. The only thing I ever give thanks for at Thanksgiving is that I've swallowed it." Sam Greene

"TURKEY: This bird has various meanings depending on the action in your dream. If you saw one strutting and/or heard it gobbling, it portends a period of confusion due to instability of your friends or associates. However, if you ate it, you are likely to make a serious error in judgment." The Dreamer's Dictionary

"You first parents of the human race...who ruined yourself for an apple, what might you have done for a truffled turkey?" Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Gary
November, 2010


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, go here.

PPPS: 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 can unsubscribe here.

----the new sites----

10 Historical Figures Who Were Total Foodies
(expected ones, like Marcel Proust and Catherine de Medici, but also Charles Darwin and Nelson Mandela)

2500 Years of Caviar History
(a tiny taste of luxury foodstuff)

Amaranth
(Purdue University's factsheet on a new world plant that has provided grain and greens since ancient times)

Antique Gin Bottles
(multiple galleries featuring bottles, labels, seals and other ephemera from several collectors)

Appalachian Cook Book
(where else can you find a recipe for Stuffed Possum?)

Caviar, the Incredible, Edible Egg
(a detailed look at the subject, with information about recent advances in caviar production in the US)

Comprehensive Apple Variety List
(twelve page description and use chart)

Culinary Arts Colleges
(a descriptive guide to culinary arts colleges and universities in the US, with links to each program; alphabetical by state)

Examination of Front-of-Package Nutrition Rating Systems and Symbols
(an in-progress study conducted by the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences)

Greater Midwest Foodways Alliance
(site "...celebrating, exploring and preserving unique food traditions and their cultural contexts in the American Midwest")

Science of Menu Layout, The
(if you're in the restaurant business, you probably already know this -- or you should; if not, you'll never read a menu the same way again)

Squash Named from an Indian Word
(not just etymology, but a history of these New World vegetables)

Traditional Bajan Recipes
(a few recipes from Barbados)

UMass Cranberry Station
(site dedicated to protecting the cranberry crop, with the help of specialists in "plant pathology, entomology, environmental physiology, plant nutrition/cultural practices, weed science/integrated pest management, and floriculture")

Wild Game Cookery: Venison
(a PDF factsheet from the University of Minnesota's Extension Service)


----how-to blogs----

Blogs about blogging, and about the writing process in general, can help us become better, and maybe even more successful, writers (whatever "success" means to each of us). Here are a few of our favorite blogs for bloggers about the business, meaning, and process of food writing and photography:

Annoying Wine Words: Five Overused Terms That Tell Us Nothing About Wine!

Artificial Light Food Photography

My Food Writing Trap

New Rules for Judging "Quality" in Published Content, The


This month we're featuring several posts by Dianne Jacob (author of Will Write for Food and the blog of the same name:

Blogging Just For Love? No Way

Exclusive Offer! Only 1000 Food Bloggers Qualify

Is Lower Pay for Web Writing Defensible?

Outrageous Blogger Request, and the Outcome

Putting the "Free" in Freelance


----still more blogs----

American Menu, The

Ann Arbor Cooks

Barbara's Eastern European Food Blog

Cheese Is Alive

Cheese Poet

It's Not You, It's Brie

Kitchen Retro

Madame Fromage

Noshstalgia

Save the Deli

Wrightfood


----that's all for now----

Except, of course, for the usual legal 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:

Our books, The Resource Guide for Food Writers, The Herbalist in the Kitchen, The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries, and Human Cuisine can be ordered through the Libro-Emporium.

Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...

...for the moment, anyway.

__________________________________


"The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #121" 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) 2010 by Gary Allen.