Cynthia D. Bertelsen's Blog, page 10

“Stoves & Suitcases” Best in the USA winner in Food Writing: Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2022

I just learned that Stoves & Suitcases won Best in the USA for Food Writing for 2022, given by the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, under the auspices of Edouard Cointreau, a member of the Cointreau family of French liqueur producers. Scroll to page 32 of this .pdf to see the other winners in this category.

Rendezvousing with a Wooden Spoon and a Cup of Cream: French Cooking

It’s parka weather in North Florida now. At the moment, saying “the sweats” refers to pants and hoodies, not the moist high-summer insecty trickle, when walking to the mailbox seems like an audition for a wet T-shirt contest. Colder days and nights invite a certain degree of nostalgia for winter and cold-weather, stick-to-the-ribs types of … More Rendezvousing with a Wooden Spoon and a Cup of Cream: French Cooking

Happy Thanksgiving!

I wish you all a lovely, happy, food-filled day. Despite the challenges of the last several years, there’s still a lot to be thankful for.

Retro Thanksgiving: Musings Amid Vintage Menus

I yanked the last of the two dozen buttermilk-potato rolls from the baking sheet, yelping a little as the steaming, fluffy bread burned my fingers. The cornbread for the cornbread dressing cooled on a rack across the kitchen. And my spiced cranberry sauce gleamed, ruby-red under the lights I’d just installed under the cabinets. Thanksgiving. … More Retro Thanksgiving: Musings Amid Vintage Menus

The Mysterious Allure of Savannah: Midday in the Garden of Meat and Three

There’s a place where I feel free to be me. No, it’s not Paris, although I feel free to be me there, too. It’s the historic district in Savannah, Georgia. A place exuding a vivid sense of the past, which I love. There, Spanish moss hangs like lace curtains on nearly every branch and wire … More The Mysterious Allure of Savannah: Midday in the Garden of Meat and Three

Midwest Book Review on “Stoves & Suitcases”

My newest book garnered the following review from Midwest Book Review:* Stoves & Suitcases: Searching for Home in the World’s Kitchens should be in the holdings of any collection strong in culinary biography and history. What began as a search for home and roots evolved into a culinary exploration, as Cynthia D. Bertelsen documents in chapters that … More Midwest Book Review on “Stoves & Suitcases”

Cordon Bleu, Paris

The lobster just wouldn’t die. Neat black-and-white drawings in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking fail to tell the whole story. Nothing there about squirming bodies, queasy stomachs, and misplaced stabs to crustacean heads. “While professionals simply cut up the lobsters with never a qualm nor a preliminary, you may find this difficult.” … More Cordon Bleu, Paris

Halloween: Art

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Saints, Souls, and Haints: More Soul Cakes

Trick-or-treating may well have originated in the old custom of “souling,” as people went from house to house, begging (“mumming”) for “soul cakes,” actually prayers — in sweet form.  Sir James George Frazer wrote about this practice in The Golden Bough: a Study in Magic and Religion, a classic in anthropology, first published in 1890: … More Saints, Souls, and Haints: More Soul Cakes

Saints, Souls, and Haints: Honey Cakes

Some interesting comments from 1845 about All Souls’ Day, by Charles Knight in Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (!), Volume 14, p. 441: To do a Tarentella as it ought to be done requires room, and although the palaces of the nobility and gentry be large (in ninety cases … More Saints, Souls, and Haints: Honey Cakes