To polish rocks, nature uses water, sand and motion.
To polish ideas and identities, we use the same approach
— a mix of inspiration, grit and energy.
It's never too early or too late for a snack, so crank up that volume on your computer.
Legendary child star Shirley Temple Black died on February 10, at the age of 85. Some of her most memorable movie songs (and our favorites) were about food, like Animal Crackers in My Soup.
"Animal crackers in my soup
Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop
Gosh oh gee but I have fun
Swallowing animals one by one"
our favorite finds from the front lines of food
Camel Milk Cheese? Why not. ''We have a rich culture of [consuming] fresh camel milk so the cheese could be a way of adding value to the product and valorizing pastoral cultures.'' (Fine Dining Lovers)
The Seeds of a New Generation Some Midwestern farmers who have been growing feed corn exclusively are switching over acreage to fruit and vegetables, and increased demand for local produce is making it possible. "While an acre of corn is projected to net average farmers $284 this year after expenses, and just $34 if they rent the land, as is common, an apple orchard on that same acre will make $2,000 or more, according to crop analysts. A sophisticated vegetable operation using the popular plastic covers called high tunnels, which increase yields and extend the growing season, can push that figure as high as $100,000. Until recently, farmers in the nation’s heartland could only dream about such profits because there were so few ways to sell their produce locally." And did you know the Department of Defense is helping with DoD Fresh? We sure didn't. (New York Times)
Georgian chocolate-making kitchen uncovered at Hampton Court Palace "Chocolate was an expensive luxury. Having your own chocolate maker, chocolate kitchen and chocolate room filled with precious porcelain and silver – all this, just for chocolate – was the last word in elegance and decadence." (History Extra, BBC)
Tweet For Your Supper—And Handbag: Brands, Customers, And The New "Social Currency" What is the value of a tweet? And will kick backs devalue that? (Fast company)
With lobsters in mind, legislator proposes ban on some pesticides “Too many Mainers’ livelihoods depend on having a healthy lobster population not to act.” (Bangor Daily News)
California Is So Dry, Some Diners Won't Get Water Unless They Ask "The entire idea of 'auto-items' is a huge generator of waste in North American restaurants, and it is often associated with 'good service,' " (NPR)
Women chefs, not just a cute side dish: "They are chefs. Not sexy chefs. Not cool chefs. Just chefs. They should be respected for what they do, and the mass media should be challenged to diversify its coverage of the food industry and when it talks about women, do it in a way that honors their work not their looks." (Foodie Underground)
Happy Chinese New Year! A look at some amazing sugar artistry with dragons on a stick in the video above.
Here's why some Peruvians are giving up jobs as lawyers and accountants to become chefs: "Julio Hevia, a psychologist, says Peruvians embracing their cuisine is about more than just the food, or even cultural diversity. 'It's a way of compensating, of escaping, of disconnecting,” Hevia says, “of inhabiting something like the Matrix — a parallel reality. I've always felt that in our culture we have a sense of a parallel reality.'"(PRI / The World)
Startup Brings Fresh Food to Chicago, One Vending Machine at a Time (Modern Farmer)
Seaweed is such a hip ingredient that it's now hitting the mainstream food press destined for middle America. (Bon Appetit)
RIP Pete Seeger. He was always an inspiration and will be missed. In keeping with his support of folk ways, here he is singing about making maple syrup.
It's never too early or too late for a snack, so crank up that volume on your computer.
Lord Kitchener sings the Calypso classic Take You Meat Out Me Rice.
"A Bajan and a Trinidadian
Dyin' for starvation
The Bajan said, 'Look Trini
Leh we make a cook
I put the rice, an' you going put the meat
Den we going both have something to eat'
But when the pot was ready to done
The Bajan decide to pull a fast one"
Honey Bees get wired: Australian Researchers Attach Tiny Sensors to Honey Bees to Track Their Movements (Laughing Squid)
A Change in the Kitchen discusses the rise of women in US restaurant kitchens and says that in many leading kitchens a full third of the cooks are women. It's been a long time coming. Now if we can only speed up their track to media coverage and broaden the popular imagination of who chefs are... (New York Times)
Big in Japan: Farming Via Webcam It could be a great way for city-based restaurants and the farms they buy from to connect. (Modern Farmer)
Attention Food Nerds: Classic Southern Cookbooks Now in the Public Domain Fancy a recipe for antebellum pineapple beer or turn-of-the-century succotash? (Garden & Gun)
Wealthy foreigners buy up swaths of UK farmland and country estates Estate agents report rising interest from China, Middle East and Scandinavia with sporting estates 'top of Christmas wish lists' "It's a tangible asset – people can live on it and walk on it," he said. "It's a popular product and we're not making more of it." Ouch. And: "The agents said buyers are also attracted by the increasing array of money-making opportunities from land ownership, which now extends to rent from wind turbines and fracking as well as traditional farming activities." It won't stay lovely with fracking. (Guardian)
You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love a Kosher Prison Meal "Airplane passengers, for instance, have been known to order kosher meals, even if they are not Jewish, in the hope of getting a fresher, tastier, more tolerable tray of food. It turns out that prison inmates are no different." (New York Times)
Small-Batch Distilleries Ride The Craft Liquor Wave "Wherever you live, you're probably not too far from a local microbrewery making beer. Now, the latest trend is the spread of what you might call "micro-boozeries." Craft liquor distilleries are springing up around the country like little wellheads spouting gin, whiskey and rum." (NPR)
We went into the history vaults for this week's image: Atomic Whiskey. "This whiskey of the future now" the label brags. "Aged 30 days by radiation...This is the world's first whiskey to be aged by atomic materials. It's 30 day process is equivalent to 40 years of standardized 19th century aging." Distilled in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (home of the Manhattan Project). I'd love to see the guys on Mad Men get this account.
French government endorses Burgundy vineyards, Champagne for UNESCO status "'We are different... 'It's not because we are French, it's because of our geology, our climate and centuries of knowledge.'" (Decanter)
A Degree in Beer, Wine, and Kombucha “When I tell people that I'm doing fermentation sciences, they're like, 'Oh, you're just drinking beer.'” (Atlantic)
Artisan toast — now how much would you pay? The $4 slice of toast, a trend started in San Francisco, was probably due for some international mocking. "Is pricey toast a symbol of everything that's wrong with a trend-obsessed food culture? Or are well-made basics worth paying for?" We eat DIY artisan toast in our own kitchens all the time. And if a baker can get people with disposable cash to pay up... (Guardian)
The headline Bringing sexy (cabbage) back flashed in our inboxes this week. Talk about turning basics into hip food. Maybe it's time for trendy kale to take a seat. (Tasting Table)
Meat Atlas Shows Latin America Has Become a Soy Bean Empire (Guardian)
The home brewing trend has left cooks with a new ingredient. Spent But Not Worthless: How to Cook with Spent Grain (Food52)
3D-printed pasta – the shapes of things to come? Italian food giant and Dutch researchers working on technology for rapid production of custom-designed pasta shapes. (Guardian)
Spain Tightens Rules for Bottled Olive Oil attempting to use compulsory labeling as a way to boost the country's image as a producer. “It now also gives Spain a chance to ensure every visitor goes home with a clearer appreciation of our oil." (New York Times)
Food truck clusters making quickie urban development: SoMa StrEat Food Park in S.F. "We've created an oasis in a food desert." (SF Gate / San Francisco Chronicle)
Although from a few weeks ago, this issue came across our desk again this week. China's ban on Pacific Northwest shellfish that's left an industry stranded is an important reminder to not put all your export "eggs" in one basket. (Olympian)
And this one was too awesome to not run: there's a small but growing trend for subdivisions with a working farm at their center. There are more than 200 of them across the country. (NPR)
Converting Old Dutch Tourist Boats Into Floating Greenhouses (above) It's a plan that perfectly suits its location. "The project’s name is Boatanic, a play on boat, botanic, and the Titanic — a reference to the global eco-crisis O’Sullivan sees on the horizon. It’s still in its planning phase, but when completed he foresees a combination of CSA, dockside sales, and wholesale deliveries." (Modern Farmer)
France's national library of grape varieties under threat "The current sandy location protects the original rootstocks against disease such as phylloxera, meaning most of the vines are non-grafted. But, according to INRA, the site is under threat from rising sea levels, meaning potential damage to the vines from salt water flooding." (Decanter)
Long live our seasonal obsession! Le Festival Du Cookie in Paris (Food Arts)
How a Chest of Ancient Grains in Sweden Changed Baking History “A farmer today isn’t free,” says Niklasson. “Farmers are dependent on the seed distributors and since the modern seeds don’t have the right resistances, they are dependent on pesticide producers, and since the pesticides kill the healthy microbes in the soil, they are also dependent on the fertilizer companies. At Gutekorn we are some of the last free farmers.” (Modern Farmer)
The Ceramic Canvas — a look at plating. "To illustrate and explore the current state of the plate, we asked 11 New York City chefs to put together a dish that exemplifies their visual style, and to explain the inspiration that went into each. Their answers ran the gamut. " Complete with fancy slide show. (New York Times)
It's never too early or too late for a snack, so crank up that volume on your computer.
Carmen Miranda, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis give Song of the Enchilada Man the full movie musical treatment.
"I've got a guy
All over town with a song goes the enchilada man
Come gather round for the song of the enchilada man
And for a treat good eat there's nothing better than
Enchiladas so nice and hot
Enchiladas I got I got"
weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food
Moët & Chandon focuses on novelty with a Champagne vending machine. But when they fall through the machine does it make the champagne foam up?
Take that Yeo Valley — UK young farmer pics that are NSFW. It's for charity, of course.
The new anthology The Hungry Ear, food and poetry is out. As the blurb copy points out: "Food and poetry: in so many ways, a natural pairing, from prayers over bread to street vendor songs....And we all know food is more than food: it's identity and culture. Our days are marked by meals; our seasons are marked by celebrations. We plant in spring; harvest in fall. We labor over hot stoves; we treat ourselves to special meals out. Food is nurture; it's comfort; it's reward." Poets featured in the anthology include: Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost, Allen Ginsberg, Langston Hughes, Frank O'Hara, Sharon Olds, Mary Oliver, Adrienne Rich, and Gertrude Stein
Drinks to Get You Through a Marathon Meal — and that work all season long.
Alas, it's not all cocktails, poetry and naked farmers. The sad news: Canada approves production of GM salmon eggs on commercial scale
weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food
We've gone dark on the blog for the past few weeks as we got ourselves ready for a re-launch. Take a minute and look around our new digs.
Dining out on canned seafood? Why not? High-end canned goods make a great upscale bar snack, no real kitchen required. “We’ve become really obsessed with this stuff and realized it’s an underrepresented food product in the United States so we’ve been reaching out directly to canneries in Portugal and Spain....Because they’re so simply packaged, people have one at the bar and ask if they can take one to go. It was kind of the next logical step for us to offer these things.” (Seafood Business)
WineVision New in Harpers UK looks at social media success (or lack of it) in beverage brands: "The reason why most beer brands are doing a better job than wine in communicating and interacting with consumers is that they are more likely to ask their customers 'how their day has been' rather than feel the need to educate them about their products." (Harpers UK)
The Great Greening Of The Global North: The fall crop is in, harvested. But the map of what we grow, where, is changing, with climate change. A (audio) look at the new map of North American food production. (OnPoint/NPR)
In 'Original Local,' Thanksgiving Recipes From The First Americans (think native) (NPR)
Insect eating creeps on to Paris menus "So on the one hand there's the whole question of finding new sources of food to feed the world. And on the other there's the challenge of making it look and taste good....The implication is that they are miserable people so they deserve miserable food.But it's pejorative. If you prepare them properly, insects are excellent food." (BBC News)
What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets: A new book profiles people from around the world and what their daily calorie and food intake looks like, from a Massai herdswoman, to an American soldier, to a Tibetan monk. (Brain Pickings)
It's never too early or too late for a snack, so crank up that volume on your computer.
Elvis and his shrimp boat band sing a Song of a Shrimp:
"He showed his mama and papa, the shrimp newspaper he read
An invitation to all the shrimp and this is what it said
Free ride, New Orleans, stay in grand hotel
Meet Creole gal who help you come out of your shell"
In a Halloween edition of Sing Along Snacks, ZZ Top sings of TV Dinners in a vintage 80s video. Scary....
"TV dinners they're goin' to my head
TV dinners my skin is turnin' red
Twenty year old turkey in a thirty year old tin"
weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food
weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food
It's never too early or too late for a snack, so crank up that volume on your computer.
Our love of craft beer is spilling over into Snack selections with the Beer Bottle Boogie by Ko Ko Taylor.
"Well I don’t like beer when I’m goin too fast
I don’t like foam in a muggy glass
You put out s’more and let the beats come on
I drink good beer when I go home"
weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food
weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food
It's never too early or too late for a snack, so crank up that volume on your computer.
Lou Reed rhapsodizes on the classic New York treat, the Egg Cream (which contains neither eggs nor cream).
"When I was a young man, no bigger than this
A chocolate egg cream was not to be missed
Some U Bet's chocolate syrup, seltzer water mixed with milk
You stir it up into a heady fro, tasted just like silk
You scream, I steam, we all want egg cream"
weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food
