Old wine, new bottles?
The L.A. Times blog "Daily Dish" today described a meal at a very trendy restaurant with a twist: it's based on recipes from the original Fanny Farmer cookbook.They blog: "It's sort of comforting to know that the woman also known as 'the mother of level measurements,' who published her cookbook in 1…
Alice's Cookies
Fashion and Nourishment

The Thoughtful Dresser by Linda Grant explores both the dark side and the light side of clothing and fashion. In many ways she makes the point that the attraction of fashion and beautiful clothing is not rational, but is based on pleasure. She says: "... we do not choose to eat, say, a chocolate ecl…
Food Photos taken more seriously

I read that the Getty Museum in L.A. has a show "Tasteful Pictures" about food photography. From the Getty website: "Spanning the period from the mid-19th century until today, the images highlight important technological and aesthetic innovations as well as matters of taste. "I was fascinated by a…
ANOTHER article on food blogger photos

Last week the New York Times wrote about food bloggers photographing every bite: From the New York Times Dining and Wine Section. The L.A.Times can't be left behind. See today's: Dinner is the theater as food paparazzi converge.Upside/downside: "In some ways, the culinary world brought this on itse…
"The Lacuna"

Barbara Kingsolver's recent novel The Lacuna is a fictional biography of a fascinating man, Harrison Shepherd. Several dimensions of Shepherd's life were particularly interesting to me. Shepherd was born in 1916, and the book begins when he was around 8 years old, and continues for about 30 years.Fi…
The Anatomy of a Twinkie

"Twinkies' buttery flavor provides the richness we expect from cake and likely also helps to mask their oiliness. Since due to cost and rancidity issues there's no room in a packaged cake like Twinkies for fresh butter, artificial butter is the answer. ... The most surprising thing about it is that …
Why some people hate cilantro

Harold McGee has done it again! The newest "Curious Cook" column -- "Cilantro Haters, It’s Not Your Fault" -- provides a neuroscientist's explanation for why many people deeply hate the smell and (if they get far enough to taste it) the taste of cilantro. He cites Julia Child, for example, as saying…
Mashed Potatoes

I'm impressed by this article: "How to make amazing mashed potatoes" in the Salon.com food section. The article includes a long discussion of mashed potatoes with a seven-step recipe for what most people consider a no-brainer. It has a long description of various potato types and their starch conten…
Good Chinese Food

After all my reading & talking about Chinese food, we went with our friends Alice, Byron, Abby, and Peter to enjoy some of it. We all wanted hot-sour soup, which the restaurant no longer serves in large quantities, just individual servings -- so we ordered six bowls of hot-sour soup. We then had six…
Cultural Chop Suey

In writing my recent lecture titled "Who won the war between gefilte fish and chop suey?" I learned just how much of an icon chop suey once was in America.For over a century, "chop suey" was synonymous with Chinese food. A Chop Suey House meant a Chinese restaurant. Other dishes were there for the …
From today's New York Times Dining and Wine Section

Trends! Sometimes the papers say blogging is obsolete, replaced by some other social medium. Twitter, maybe -- those tiny brief recipes. Or maybe something I haven't heard of. Today in the Dining and Wine section, blogging is back. People who photograph their food. This doesn't mean I'm a trend: the…
Happy Twinkie Day!

Thanks to Louise, I'm aware that this is the day Twinkies were invented in 1930. The funny thing is that I remember thinking they were new when I first ate them as an elementary school child. That was long after 1930. Actually, I liked them. And I bought this package of 10 individually wrapped Twink…
What did Mao Eat?

"Chairman Mao adored red-braised pork," Fuchsia Dunlop learned from the dictator's distant relative -- also named Mao. She found Chairman Mao's native village of Shaoshan to be full of such relatives. They still profit, she observed, from a lively tourist industry of Chinese visitors who revere the …
Mona Peepsa on the Web -- Happy Easter!

This is Peeps Day among other things, and Peeps belong on this blog because they are edible and some people even view them as food. So I searched the web for Mona Peepsa. Here are a few web gleanings. (There are also a lot of dead links to past Peeps contests.) I enjoy looking at the winners of the …