The Tart Little Piggy

Reading: “Study: Early humans loved to eat brains”

Madara — Tue, 07 May 2013 13:06:15 +0000

“Our evolutionary ancestors were hungry for braaaiiins — antelope brains, that is.”

Reading: “5 Incredibly Charming Illustrations Of Comfort Food”

Madara — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:52:11 +0000

“This new series from Brooklyn-based illustrator Monica Ramos shows people taking comfort in food in more literal way than usual. Ramos said she was inspired by Maurice Sendak’s “In the Night Kitchen,” one of her favorite books as a kid.”

Reading: “The Power of Food in Quentin Tarantino’s Films”

Madara — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:06:42 +0000

“Few living filmmakers have proven as able to spin their obsessions into cinematic gold as Quentin Tarantino.”

Reading: “Tsukiji Fish Market Vendor’s Tuna Model Better Than Any Other Food Toy Ever”

Madara — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:36:46 +0000

“No disrespect to the wonderful and vast assortment of food play sets that allow kids to plate pretend omelettes or experience the thrills of teatime, but this maguro model, which guides whoever yields the maguro bōchō through the process of butchering a whole tuna, is really just the best.”

Reading: “Students Protest at Culinary Institute”

Madara — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:06:38 +0000

“HYDE PARK, N.Y. — About 90 students at the Culinary Institute of America walked out of classes Tuesday to protest what they called a weakening enforcement of educational standards, including a requirement that applicants have experience in a professional kitchen.”

Recipe

Madara — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 02:41:11 +0000

This is a dish my mother made fairly often. I’ve been listening to Lynn Rossetto Kapser’s The Splendid Table lately and I find her advice to be pretty sound and her conversations with guests are always interesting. She has some advice on her website regarding “How to Spot a Good Recipe”

One bright red flag is the extremely short recipe. It looks so easy and it can betray you in a nanosecond. That brevity often comes from cutting out the specific information you need to know to end up with something worth eating.

Here’s the rest of the list:

   Does the recipe tell you what you can prepare ahead?

   Does it tell you how to store the food and for how long?

   Are the ingredients specific — not “1 pound beef,” but “1 pound well-marbled beef chuck”?

   Do the instructions tell you …

·What kind of pot and utensils to use?
·The level of heat and/or the timing needed for each step?
·What the food should look like, sound like, and/or smell like?
·How to know if it’s done?
·How to serve?

Turns out, most of the family recipes I have don’t meet these criteria, but I suppose this is the beauty of foodways as they’re passed down in families. So much gets lost in translation once we try to fit a recipe onto a 3×5 card. I rarely write into a recipe that I sautee most of my vegetables in a cast iron skillet on glass top stove in coconut oil, but I have no doubt these things shape the quality of the food that comes from my kitchen. My failure to make the Danish Grandmother’s poppy seed cake serves as a good example of the inadequacy of brief recipes without the subtle details that might allow us to genuinely recreate a family dish.

I had an argument with a friend a while back about whether one needs a detailed recipe to make bread. This friend insisted that I needed to get a scale and use one of Julia Childs’ complicated bread recipes in order to do it right. I took that as a challenge to learn to bake bread without all the scales or recipes or even measuring cups. At this point, I can actually make a damn good loaf of sourdough without any of those things. However, I discovered that trying to share my methods with someone else poses a problem. In order to allow someone to recreate my bread, I’d have to provide the same complicated level of detail in a recipe that I have such a revulsion for.

I prefer mixing and shaping ingredients in the same way that I mix and shape paint: intuitively, spontaneously, without too much regard for tradition, and a preference for novel results. The recipe for this grits casserole is pretty spare. So here is my attempt at recreating this recipe and you should

Reading: “Final Word On Battle of the Spoons (w/Creme Anglaise)”

Madara — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 20:22:07 +0000

“The television personality and cookbook author Ted Allen stirred up a shit storm this week by calling me out on my hatred of the round wooden spoon, which he apparently has the hots for.”

Reading: “Food Markets In The Aztec Empire”

Madara — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 20:22:00 +0000

“As in pre-colonial Africa, common women ran local food markets in the Aztec Empire and thereafter.”

Reading: “From Vine To Pen: When Your Drink Is In The Ink”

Madara — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 18:52:07 +0000

“Sure, we all know alcohol has fueled plenty a writing session. William Faulkner — who once said, “civilization begins with distillation” — was known to have kept a bottle by his side while he typed away throughout his writing career.”

Reading: “HAPILABS introduces HAPIfork (and spoon) smart utensils, brings metrics to your mouthfuls (hands-on)”

Madara — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:39:02 +0000

“Las Vegas, NV – January 7, 2013 – HAPILABS, a company aimed at helping individuals in the 21st century take control of their HAPIness, health and fitness through applications and mobile connected devices, today introduced the HAPIfork at CES, the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.”