A new place to eat in Point Reyes catches Deborah Madison’s attention.
Piper Davis, of Grand Central Baking Company, shows how to make luscious puff-pastry cookies.
Our July blogging contest is underway.
Hank Sawtelle introduces us to a new kitchen gadget: Fish-bone tweezers.
#followfriday #foodies @Janet Rudolph @ChefMark @ZenCupcake @inuyaki @fritters @NutritiousFeast @kittenwithawhip @winerecipes @SFoodie
Here’s the recipe for my previous post!
http://www.olindaridge.com/Recipe-Ideas/Meat-Poultry/Chicken-and-Vegetable-Paella
After experimenting a few times, I’ve realized it’s not that difficult to enjoy a paella right at home! Great for summer. Now I have to try it out with other ingredients.
I made some herby flatbread for dinner. Good b’fast too. www.poeticappetite.blogspot.com
Cookus Interruptushelps you heat up your next picnic. Made with molasses, dijon, chipotle chili powder.
Anybody ever made Lynne Rossetto Kasper’s coffee concentrate? I’ve got beans someone brought me from Guatemala, and I’m going to give it a shot.
with a bit of rum added for, you know, oomph.
have you ever make pesto without basil? It’s possible and good! Here’s my parsley, almond & Parmesan pesto.
Bowl, brownie, ice cream and toppings. And a spoon. Dessert = done!
Absolutely Perfect SteaksJudging the doneness of steak is not as much science as it is technique and feel. |
Cookbook FridaysT.G.I.F. for cooks: book giveaways | OpinionThe new foodieOne man’s call for creative thinking | ReviewsFood titles for gradsThree books for recent graduates | Local FlavorsQuelites loveA green of many names |
The Culinate 8Blogs and books, togetherPros use both | Table TalkTable Talk: June 25Meals that contain no meat | Ask HankThe fat of the duck, or of the henA how-to | Opinion“Pro Food is . . .”A food entrepreneur defines a new term for eaters |
Just in time for the holiday weekend: On Salon, Garrison Keillor’s reminding us all to make our own dang potato salad, instead of eating “yellowish muck bought at a convenience store.” And just in case we potato-salad-makers need inspiration, Mark Bittman’s got a grilled potato salad that would be fine alongside sausages on the barbie.
Richard Wrangham’s new book, Catching Fire, has gotten press lately for its argument that our ability to cook is what, largely, makes us human. But also noteworthy is Wrangham’s assessment of how cooking may have divided us along gender lines; as the New York Times review of his book quoted, “Cooking created and perpetuated a novel system of male cultural superiority. It is not a pretty picture.”
A quick trio of recent posts we enjoyed on Bitten, Mark Bittman’s blog: a look at a new book about the food industry, a nod to Marion Nestle's assessment of organic food, and a graphic on which companies own seeds. Food for thought, all of it.
The most recent beef recall, which was issued on June 24 and increased on June 28, includes 421,000 pounds of beef processed on April 21, 2009. The recalled meat, tainted with E. coli 0157:H7, comes from JBS-Swift, of Greeley, Colorado, and was shipped nationally and internationally.
(For one analysis of JBS and its meat, read Tom Philpott’s lengthy skewering of the company over at Grist.)
The blogging world has reacted to the recall with advice: “Avoid Beef Like It’s The Plague: Massive Class 1 Recall of Beef Products — 421,000 Pounds” warned Obama Foodorama. Sam Fromartz, of Chews Wise, offered other good suggestions:
Follow government advice and cook burgers until 160F (like a hockey puck?) or reduce risk by getting hamburger from a butcher who grinds meat in the shop.
That last idea, to entrust your butcher with the job of grinding your burger, is worth considering, and is repeated by cookbook author and blogger Jeanne Kelley in this video from the new site Good Eats; for her burger, Kelley buys a chuck roast and has it ground to order.
Everybody loves lists, right? The current issue of Bon Appétit magazine has a top-10 list of health foods most Americans don’t usually think of as health foods, including bacon, whole milk, and duck fat. Fry on.
From the department of luscious food blogs: Gourmet.com contributer Giovanna Zivny recently posted about her father’s blog, Eating Every Day. Charles Shere, husband of Lindsey, a founding partner at Chez Panisse — and author of Chez Panisse Desserts — writes a simple food log that never fails to whet our appetite.
So the plastics industry, instead of embracing alternatives to bisphenol A for its products, has apparently decided to damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.
As the nonprofit Environmental Working Group recently reported, plastics manufacturers recently got together and decided that the key to keeping BPA on the market was to convince women (they do the shopping anyway, right?) that BPA was safe:
Their “holy grail” spokesperson would be a “pregnant young mother who would be willing to speak around the country about the benefits of BPA.”
As the EWG noted, “But who? What young mother will agree to tout a product that dozens of scientific studies have shown causes permanent damage to an embryo?”
Robert Kenner’s documentary film "Food, Inc." is the latest food-industry exposé, playing now at a theater near you. Kenner recently spoke with the Boston Globe about his work, and delivered some pretty devastating sound bites:
I feel like we’re part of an exploding movement. There are so many things coming to a head. On the one hand, there’s the financial crisis. People are realizing there was a credit Ponzi scheme, and we’re all paying the price. The government didn’t regulate it. The parallels with the food world are pretty identical. There’s a food Ponzi scheme going on. The system is totally unsustainable. It’s based on gasoline, based on pollution. Twenty to 25 percent of our carbon footprint is from growing and transporting food.
For a longer interview, read AlterNet's Q&A with Kenner. And for a recent list of other great food documentaries, check out the roundup from Fair Food Fight.
Do you know what pesticides are on that strawberry you’re eating?
A new Web-based tool for determining pesticide residues on various foods is available at What's On My Food? The site, sponsored by the Pesticide Action Network, breaks down the pesticides on given food items by type: “Known or Probable Carcinogens,” “Suspected Hormone Disruptors,” “Neurotoxins,” and “Developmental or Reproductive Toxicants.”
Strawberries, for example, show as many as 37 detected pesticides. The chart breaks out organic and conventional (when available), and provides information about the year when the food was tested.
It’s time-consuming to try to sleuth out what’s going on your food — and how unhealthful it is for you and the environment — but the idea of transparency and food is immensely appealing. Kudos to PAN for this tool.
(And a shout-out to the Environmental Working Group for its "Dirty Dozen" list of the most pesticide-laden produce items, and to Cindy Burke, for her book To Buy or Not to Buy Organic, which also examines which foods contain the most pesticides.)
Ann Cooper, the self-proclaimed "renegade lunch lady," has a high profile among those working to redo the American school lunch. Now, after several years in the Berkeley, California, school district, Cooper has moved to a larger district, this time in Boulder, Colorado. Writes Katrina Heron at the Civil Eats blog:
A lot of [Cooper’s] work will involve breaking the district’s dependence on the conventional school-food procurement system, which is administered by the USDA via the National School Lunch Program.
Incidentally, the same program is up for reauthorization this fall as part of the Child Nutrition Act, and, according to a recent article in the Chicago Tribune, there’s lots for legislators to scrutinize, including the reality of nachos for lunch — every day:
They are cheap and easy to prepare, which is important in school systems with dwindling numbers of working kitchens, minimally trained labor and only about $1 to spend per meal. The dish uses at least two agricultural commodities that form the backbone of the lunch program, corn and meat. And students will happily eat nachos daily — key in a system that financially rewards companies when kids choose to eat their food.
Wondering what all the lunch-related fuss is about? The unappetizing photos on the blog American Lunch Room might be all you need to see, with one exception: The lunch photo submitted by Ann Cooper herself, which looks pretty darned good.
| | Going with the grainGetting comfortable with grain saladsHere’s an easy quinoa salad to try. |
| | Table Talk: July 2A virtual Fourth of July picnicThis week’s Thursday chat is all about holiday food. |