Tag Archives: food

Blogs, Socials, Non-fiction, Poetry

On the West Side of the Red Sea

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I started reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road this week, and I’m having a hard time flipping over to the bright side of things. That’s where I’m going to lay the blame anyway.

He pushed open the closet door half expecting to find his childhood things. Raw cold daylight fell through from the roof. Gray as his heart.

We should go, Papa. Can we go?

This year, as was last year, is going to be filled with difficult news. I’m asking myself, on which side of the Red Sea am I going stand, the west side or the east? Will I ask, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness” or say, “The LORD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation” (Exodus 14:11; 15:2 ESV)?

I’m on the west side today, but I can see the east bank from here.

Let’s move on.

Ukraine: “Talking with Ukraine’s own ‘Generation of Fire’ who came of age during the past decade of Russian aggression against their country reveals a keen understanding of the hand they’ve been dealt, despite moments of despair or near disillusionment.”

“We’re faced with paying for the mistakes of previous generations,” Serhiy, a 21 year-old from Chernivtsi, lamented.

From the Shadows: Gina Delfonzo reviews the paintings and stories found in Tears of Gold: Portraits of Yazidi, Rohingya, and Nigerian Women by Hannah Rose Thomas. “I am so happy. I have never held a pencil in my life before, and this is the first time I have been able to write my name and even to draw my face!”

Poem: Here’s a poem that could be plucked from a fairy tale by Marly Youmans (via The Palace at 2:00 a.m.)

Real Food: Advocates for the environment need to wake up and enjoy the bacon. “They strive to protect bees from suffering by embracing policies that will extinguish all bees; they embrace no-animal policies that in the name of animal welfare will end all livestock animals being alive—and with them, the manure upon which plant agriculture has always depended will vanish.”

Photo by Jamie Hagan on Unsplash

Authors, Blogs, Socials, Bookselling

So Am I as the Rich?

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Some people can tell you their favorites easily. They seek them out often. Their favorite shirts are the ones they wear all the time. Their favorite meals they eat several times a year, or if that’s too expensive, at least annually for a birthday. I’m the type who doesn’t wear his favorite shirt so that it will last longer. I wear lesser shirts that can wear out. A favorite I’ll don for special occasions. It’s not the same for meals. I would eat favorite foods often, but I like many different things. Sure, that cake you made for my birthday was delicious. You made it last year too, and it was great. Maybe this year we make a different delicious cake.

So, like the speaker in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 52, I don’t frequent my treasures often “for blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.”

“Blessèd are you whose worthiness gives scope,
  Being had, to triumph, being lacked, to hope.”

What links do we have today?

Shelby Steele: Author Shelby Steele and filmmaker Eli Steele discuss their ideas on power, race, and America with City Journal. “We have wealth; now we want innocence—that’s where power lies at the moment. So much of our politics and culture really come out of this struggle with innocence,” the author states. By innocence, he means the moral justification for authority and the exercise of power.

Book towns: Richard George William Pitt Booth MBE (1938-2019) said libraries couldn’t keep up with today’s publishing industry, and thus “the future of the book is in book towns,” such as the one he inspired in Hay-on-Wye, Wales. Bloggers Sophie Pearce and Sophie Nadeau both visited and took photos for their travel sites.

Ugly Buildings: “There is nothing so obvious that it cannot be denied.”

Spam: “The nostalgic valances that stem from that salty, pink block of luncheon meat go way back for some of us, not least because it represents a very specific experience: what it was like growing up in America with immigrant parents.”

Poets: Irish poet Maurice Scully died last year, “a true original in the world of Irish poetry, quietly and patiently doing things his own way for several decades.”

Photo: Newman’s Drug Store in New York, 1976. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Coffee, Tea, Drinks, Non-fiction

A Grand and Splendid Feast from History

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And now for something completely different, “grand and splendid entertainment in two courses” from a 200-year-old cookbook.

Food scientist Anne Reardon worked through the recipes recommended a couple centuries ago for an entertaining meal and shares her family’s opinions on them. It’s impressive, historical, and sometimes gross.

Reardon’s YouTube channel is excellent for exposing silly or dangerous food hacks in other videos and explaining how to bake things well.

Blogs, Socials, Fiction, Reading

Who Gets Hurt, The Scandal of Holiness, and Norman Lear

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I was reading some introductory sociology texts recently, and in trying to encourage students to critique their own biases and lay aside their cultural preferences, the author brought up infanticide as an example. Other cultures practice infanticide for their own reasons, and while it would be easy to condemn them for it, who are we to judge? The author didn’t actually say we should not condemn this cultural difference. She said it would be easy to believe we are right to condemn it, in the context of paragraphs on being open-minded and meeting diverse people where they are.

What is easy to believe is that this example of cultural differences is a stand-in for abortion. If the example were honor killing or the less lethal shunning, would the author be willing to simply roll with it? In both cases, the natural remedy to work toward would be to work against the social groups who accept these things. Because two of these things are evil and the third can be.

Is this where our current secular mindset takes us, the belief that we are above all morality and everything is mere difference of opinion? I keep thinking the reason this sociologist is willing to dismiss infanticide as a mere social difference is she isn’t the one getting hurt.

Reading: In The Scandal of Holiness, Jessica Hooten Wilson argues for reading fiction to see God at work in the others and expand Christian imagination. Reviewer Justin Lonas found this true for him. “The Holy Spirit used those who influenced my learning to read literature and poetry to protect me from making a shipwreck of my faith.”

Comedy: Norman Lear, the comedy writer who gave us shows such as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, turned 100 on July 27. He drove America’s morality to the left, Albert Mohley writes, “by creating the stories that made America laugh … and sometimes cringe. In any event, Americans watched Lear’s television shows by the millions. They could hardly avoid them.”

Brisket with the Best: This article on eating at the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest is remarkably funny and goes in an unexpected direction while keeping its feet on the ground.

Noting: I try to read my books gently–as few wrinkles as possible, but I also am fairly ready to grab a pen or pencil and mark them up. Here are reasons for writing marginalia.

Gothic Novels: British historian Jeremy Black is written a literary series of series. The Age of Nightmare is coming in November. “The true interest of the Gothic novel is more remarkable than it is grisly: the featured darkness and macabre are not meant to usurp heroism and purity, but will fall hard under the over-ruling hand of Providence and certainty of retribution.”

Photo: McDonald’s, Azusa, California. 1977. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Authors, Coffee, Tea, Drinks, Fiction

Everyone Loves Food

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“While I was writing The Lost Family, I cooked a lot—to meditate on the day’s writing as well as to kitchen-test all the recipes I then featured on the book’s menu. Some of my favorite lines for the book would bubble up that way, as if from a Magic 8-Ball, and one of them was ‘vegetables have no language.’ I revised this slightly for the novel, but it means that food is universal. The produce and spices will vary from country to country and cuisine to cuisine, but if you love food, you have a vast family out there. We can all communicate about how our beloved dishes are different—and how they are the same.” – Jenna Blum, The Lost Family

Crystal King, whose book about Vatican chef Bartolomeo Scappi, The Chef’s Secret, came out this year, quotes eleven authors on including food in their writing.

“Writing, in a way, is an extension of my cooking, and vice versa. Cooking taught me how to create, that I needed to create.” – Phillip Kazan

Photo by Jonathan Borba from Pexels

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Did Gingerbread Houses Come from Fairy Tale?

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Our family has made gingerbread houses since we were married. We can’t remember whether we made them every year in the beginning or what year my wife worked up a chocolate version. We have made one most years since the kids were born (The photo above is from many years ago (temporarily unavailable). This year’s house was much softer than usual, even though my fist still hurts from busting it last night.

Some people are saying gingerbread houses were inspired by Grimm’s fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel,” but that story was published in 1812. While it may have popularized family gingerbread house-making, Germans were making these cookie houses for a couple hundred years already as a Christmas tradition. Tori Avey of The History Kitchen offers many more interesting details from the history of gingerbread.

Gingerbread arrived in the New World with English colonists. The cookies were sometimes used to sway Virginia voters to favor one candidate over another. The first American cookbook, American Cookery by Amelia Simmons, has recipes for three types of gingerbread including the soft variety baked in loaves:

Soft gingerbread to be baked in pans.

No. 2. Rub three pounds of sugar, two pounds of butter, into four pounds of flour, add 20 eggs, 4 ounces ginger, 4 spoons rosewater, bake as No. 1.

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The Only Right Feeling Is Guilt

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Writing from the British Isles, Brendan O’Neill describes an old man he remembers from his childhood neighborhood, one he says he in every neighborhood. One who is friendly and racist. What reminded him of this man is Lena Dunham’s support of an argument against sushi being prepared and served by white college kids. Because Asian food should not be made, served, or, I guess, eaten by non-Asian people due to the sin of cultural appropriation.

‘Barbecue is a form of cultural power’, says a writer for the Guardian (where else). It’s a tradition of ‘enslaved Africans’ and you insult those people when you peel the pork off a pig belly in some Hackney hangout. Eating, like everything else, is racism. Even tea is under attack. It’s a ‘boring, beige relic of our colonial past’, says Joel Golby, a writer for Vice, the bible of Shoreditch bores. You can’t even have a cuppa without being induced to feel colonial guilt.

(I wonder if Joel Golby is being honest there. He may just be griping over his own cup of tea.)

I was thinking that might leave us with a simple dietary rule: if your grandmother wouldn’t have made it, you can’t eat it. But even that doesn’t work. The sins of the past, if they cling to our food stuffs today, will never leave us.

There’s no logical end to this rationale. I saw Christophe Gans’s marvelous version of Beauty and the Beast this week. It’s a movie in the vein of Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella, though a step more edgy. If we apply to it this cultural appropriation logic, Gans was right to make his movie, because he’s and his actors are French and the original fairy tale was French, whereas Disney is a bunch of cultural thieves for making what may be the best animated movie ever and their new live-action edition is like a sushi taco.

I have a volume of the works of Chekhov behind me. It was printed in the US in 1929 by Black’s Readers Service Company. If I enjoy reading this book, am I guilty of taking from Chekhov’s culture? Is the publisher? Is the translator?

O’Neill’s point is that the old racist in his neighborhood is now the new racist in the college commons, both telling him not to eat that junk from another culture and stick with the meals his mama makes. And the old racist may being living by his creed, but the new one doesn’t have the time to think about it.  (via Prufrock News)

Coffee, Tea, Drinks, Writing

What We Eat Vs. Food Culture

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Nicholas Hune-Brown describes how foodie trends don’t reflect most of what Americans actually eat.

The gap between the food we cook and the food we talk about has never been larger. Culturally, it’s the same gap that exists between The Americans—the brainy FX spy show that seems to have nearly as many internet recappers as viewers—and shows like the immensely popular and rarely discussed NCIS. Breathless blog posts about the latest food trends can feel like certain corners of music criticism, pre-poptimism, when writers would obsess over the latest postrock band that was using really interesting time signatures while ignoring the vast majority of music people listened to on the radio. The food at Allrecipes is the massively popular, not-worth-talking-about mainstream.

This is another example of how the culture of media people or the culture of the places where most news writers work chafes with middle and small town America. I don’t think it has to be an uncomfortable chaffing, but writers should be aware of it. Food writers may love to write about what’s new and different and extol new theories of nutrition and flavor, but eating has many ties to traditions, personal comforts, family, and even ceremony. We don’t cook for critics; we cook to bless the people at our table (sometimes that just ourselves). And around the holidays, our family traditions (or a specific rejection of them) are like a fuming stew pot, filling the air with expectations. If food writers don’t share our traditions and comforts, if they have deliberately rejected them for personal or professional reasons, then they’re going to push us away from their table to some degree. We may still appreciate what they have to say, but when it comes to actually eating, well, we may ignore them more often than not. (via ArtsJournal)

Authors, Coffee, Tea, Drinks, Non-fiction

Alton Brown: Memphis Is #1 Town

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The Eater Upsell podcast talked to Alton Brown this month about his books, his road show, his Food Network shows, and his food philosophy. There are many highlights, but one that stands out to me is his big shout-out to Memphis, Tennessee.

Outside of Memphis proper is this doughnut place called Gibson’s, which makes not just the best doughnut in the United States but, as far as I’m concerned, if all the other doughnuts went away and I still had Gibson’s, I’d be okay. They’ve also got the best chicken, and maybe the best hamburger in the United States.

He also gives credit to Starbucks for being the “game changer” in American food culture. Now, many of us are willing to spend $4 on coffee and look forward to fancy third-wave brews.

What’s funny, though, is I think that we’re more sophisticated as eaters than cooks. You know, I know people that can detect the difference between whether we’ve made the bouillabaisse with, you know, Turkish saffron or Iranian saffron, but couldn’t cook the seafood in the bouillabaisse if you held a gun to their head, you know, so — we’ve become far more sophisticated as consumers. Whether we have as cooks or not, I don’t know.

Coffee, Tea, Drinks

Reading The Lord of the Rings as Spiritual Food

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“Why is the Lord of the Rings so good at nourishing the spiritual flame?” asks Professor Bruce Charlton. “I think the answer is metaphysical – in other words, it is related to the basic set-up of imagined reality which structures the story and the ancillary material.

When people say that Middle Earth seems real – realer, in a sense, than this earth – this is what they probably mean.

It is not convincing characters, nor detailed landscapes and maps, nor the specifics of languages and history that sets Tolkien’s mythic world apart from any other I have encountered; it is a step back from all that: the sense that everything fits together in a deep and coherent fashion.”