Cooking With Ideas

Really Good Stuff in the Finger Lakes

Ok, I got wild looking for related blogs and came across several that list local purveyors of really good stuff.

First: a list of local cheesemakers. Hurrah. It has been on the typelist to your left for a bit, but it's worth checking out so this highlight today?

Ditto. (Do you think today's youth have any idea where this term/word comes from? Remember the purple ink, the lovely smell, the stains?) Anyway, this one is a list of local chocolatiers. No, the cocoa beans cannot possibly be local, but still. . . Who turns down chocolate?

Want more information on the Finger Lakes? Here's a more general travel site on the Finger Lakes, sometimes with food (or drink) related items and the Finger Lakes Travel Maven.She too occasionally focuses on foodie related themes.

And, finally, one more just for fun: A Food Experience is subtitled "Exploring the Flavor of the FInger Lakes" and last time I was there -- well, it is always good to see Cooking with Ideas pop up! 

And thanks to earthobservatory.nasa.gov for the picture of the Finger Lake region.

In the Kitchen with Monica Ali

This is a bleak book. Perhaps it is my occasional sense of the senselessness of everything that made me finish it, but this is a bleak book. Written by Monica Ali, the protagonist (if that is what you can call him) is a chef, with aspirations to opening his own kitchen. We watch him, to be blunt, as he disintegrates. Death, trafficking, economic change, mental health issues, family trauma, human indecency (and occasional decency) all drift together to make a bleak, inexplicably grey world. There is a brief section where the main character ponders his own actions, uncertain whether he thinks and then acts or merely acts. In some ways this was entrancing, as I often wonder this, and it is, perhaps, the theme of the whole book filled with its not so likable characters, deterioration of the UK, and kitchens one would, perhaps not want to know about.Or, perhaps, the section where the chef discusses the collapsing economy -- is it collapsing or not, he asks a low level politician? His father is clearer -- it is turnign into what seems a derivative economy. Hmm. Familiar?

I, perhaps, am the only person who has read this book who never read her first (apparently controversial) novel, Brick Lane. But I did buy this because it a) said kitchen in the title; b) indicated Brick Lane was nominated for the Man Prize; and c) had a vague memory of reading a review of it.

Do I recommend it? Well, bleakness is a key, perhaps, to modern life, it is a swell portrayal of a life falling apart in some ways, and there are occasional sentences that sing. And I felt bleak, hopeless, awash in loss and sadness with no respite, when I finished it -- is that what the author intended?Or is it just me?

Click for a Washington Post review called "The Cuisine of Death." Prefer the Telegraph? Try here. Or the Observer? Here.Prefer audio? Here's NPR

More Magazines

I know, I know, Canada is magazine land. And I have not been to Canada recently (at least when I wrote this). I have though, discovered two new magazines, and want to point you toward them.

First, a local-ish magazine, Rochester Magazine. The July-August 2009 issue is entitled "The Food Issue." And cover stories include a focus on gardens, restaurant dishes, local food trends, and red wines. Located here on the web, I would probably not have bought it except for the fact it was the "Food Issue." One particularly interesting piece focuses on cookboks with a Rochester connection, including the Junior League of Rochester's Applehood and Mother Pie which I have seen all sorts of places (and so have you if you look in cookbook sections nearby. And it is find-able at Amazon as well. The article also looks at the Rochester Hadassah Cookbook. (Don't know what Hadassah refers to? Click here for some insight.) In addition, you can read about a photography exhibit on the Rochester Public Market (and see some examples), read about a business in which two young people come to your yard and install a veggie garden, and see pictures (yes, read short snippets about as well) of "seasonal" dishes at local restautants. While there is a bit of a tone of "let's advertise by appearing to provide feature stories" to the whole thing, isn't that what part of the food lit revolution is all about? The commodification of food? Of pleasure? No politics here. Or. . . at lest the pretense of no politics here.

A second magazine, also purchased locally, is JamaicanEats which also has a web presence. I love the tone of this magazine, which is upbeat and cheery in a kind of sunshine in the Caribbean way, even though saying that makes me feel a combination of colonialist, touristy, and bad. A real treat, the issue I have (March-July 2009) proudly says "Obama's Caribbean Kitchen" on the cover. Everything is related to Obama, right? There are recipes, pictures, ads for culinary tours (hmmm) and. . . Because of the Jamaican diaspora, the magazine is international -- with letters to the editor from the UK, the US and Jamaica itself. Not to mention an article entitled "Irish-Caribbean and World Class." And the magazine does feature some other island cuisines as well.  All in all a fun find. And I may even make Red Snapper Meuniiere.

A Blog We All Need to Know About

Once in a while, we just need a little fun in our lives. And a little fun with a little politics is even more fun. So, for September, here it is: Obama + food = fun. 

The picture? Thanks to chewonthat and, more specifically, their entry called Obama Food from November 2008. And yes, the image is of cupcakes.

The site: Obamafoodarama.

Check it out. His approval ratings may be going down, but this will still make you giggle and think, or think and . . . 

The Meaning of Food

My usual time of year for obsessive movie watching is really not the summer. Usually it occurs when I should be grading, or when I am exhausted from work. But this summer has been a bit unusual in itself, so yes, I am watching more movies than usual. And finally, I am getting to some netflix dvds that have been collecting dust waiting. (They have been waiting so long I had to downgrade my netflix account.) (Meanwhile, thanks to techdigest.tv for the picture.)

So: "The Meaning of Food" is a PBS series (copyright 2005) and comes as a single dvd with three episodes in it. (As a side note, there is apparently a book that goes along with it. Who knew?) Each is composed of a series of vignettes, focused on various American food practices and groups. Episode one focuses on food and life.  Episode two focuses on food and culture. And episode three focuses on food and family. Produced by film maker Sue McLaughlin, and also associated with some Pacific Island producers, this three part documentary  is mainly from Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Marcus Samuelson chef of Aquavit (which also has locations elsewhere) and Ringo is the narrator of the series. (For a wikipedia entry on Samuelson, click here. For a bio, menus, and related information, check this out. For a review of Aquavit, with links to other material try here.)  Born in Ethiopia and adopted by Swedish parents, Samuelson's smile and enthusiasm help carry the shows. His cuisine, though not featured at all in "The Meaning of Life" is truly international -- mingling African, Swedish, and others into his own unique approach. If you read it through what he has to say in these episodes, it is all about bringing people together. 

Here are a few of the things represented -- through interviews and visuals: a Samoan funeral, an Italian American wedding (in Southern California), EID ( the Muslim feast ending Ramadan), . . . And, a few more. Particularly moving were a vignette about a cookbook created by women in a concentration camp (the book is In Memory's Kitchen, reviewed here ), a Native American whale hunt in the Pacific Northwest which took place for the first time in more than 70 years (and the only time) for the Makah, a group whose culture centered (and centers) on whale harvesting (for their view click here), kitchen discussions among Gullah (or Geechee) (in this case African American) women (including film maker Julie Dash) from South Carolina whose culture focuses on rice (for a related article, click here), the making of (shockingly beautiful obento lunch boxes for Japanese American children, and Booya. Booya is, in some ways, the oddest -- a sort of testosterone all night cook-off, not the interjection that I thought it was. . . sort of a combination of hooray and who knows? Turns out the word has many meanings (look here), one of which is a sort of soup/stew. Cops versus fire fighters.

Not quite up to the standards of the food network at its best or the classics of Julia Child PBS. But still, a distraction worth entertaining. And this despite the somewhat strong emphasis on heterosexuality as an unintended consequence (I Hope) of some of their themes. (Yes, there are a few instances of -- gasp -- non-heterosexual families!)

For information on "The Meaning of Food," including material for educators, click here.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

This book is in airports. It is in real bookstores. It has been on the NY TImes bestseller list. It is in my hand. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a quick read, and I wanted it for some time and then got it as a present. No, it is not a cookbook. No, it is not a murder mystery. It is a swell novel, written in epistolatory form (that means as a series of letters for those of you who don't know; want to pursue more on this? Check out this piece. ). As a set of letters the book is by turns wry, heartbreaking, invigorating, and, overall, it most definitely filled with lovely characters. (The back cover cites some reviews that worry that terms like charming might lead one to think the novel precious. It is not precious; it is, though, warm-hearted.  Indeed, I so identified with the protagonist that I too wanted to go to Guernsey and investigate. And I too wanted to be part of the title's literary society -- though I think I might have to be what is called in virtual circles a lurker for quite some time). What is perhaps unsurprising is that, though a society that is fictional, it has its own website.

Among the best lines to open a novel in a while, here's how the book begins:

    "Dear Sydney,

    Susan Scott is a wonder. We sold over forty copies of the book, which was very pleasant, but much      more thrilling from my standpoint was the food. Susan managed to procure ration coupons for icing     sugar and real eggs for the meringue." (p. 3)

If you are a sloppy reader as I am, you will have used these sentences to figure out the approximate date and location for the novel's present, something about the protagonist, and several themes of the book. Yes, post-WWII and in the UK. Yes, the letter writer (here the main character among many other swell letter writers, recipients, and persons portrayed in letters), is an author. (Why do I say sloppy reader? Because for much of this information, it would be easier to look at the top of the page where the letter is dated and where the addressee is identified as living in London, but hey, what really sucked me in was the entanglement of food and books. Not to mention meringues.) Hurrah.

So where is Guernsey? Turns out this is what is called a "channel island" and these days their tourist bureau is interested in enticing you (and me). According to their "where we are section of the website" they are 45 minutes by air from London. Put another way, Guernsey is closer to France than England, but loyal to the crown (yep, I swiped that main point from their site though it is evident in teh novel as well). It is self-governing. Once home to Victor Hugo, Guernsey was, according to the novel under review here, occupied by the Nazis in WWII which turns out to be historically accurate. When you google "guernsey nazis," first you get the wikipedia article on the Nazi occupation and then the novel under review here (which tells you they are smart marketers. As an utter side note, or if you really are convinced to explore history by the novel, click here for a occupation era Guernsey newspaper. )

When I imagine WWII and the UK, I think of London blitzes. I did not know (or perhaps had forgotten) that these islands were actually occupied by the Nazis in anticipation of an invasion of England. Nor did I know that there were slave labor camps on the island and members of their resistance died in more famous camps. I did not know about a lot of this history. And this is a book which makes the poignancy of the war every day. It roots it in food and books, and the ways these became luxuries and became community building rather than community destroying for some. The ache of sending children off island to places that were (they hoped) safer, and the lack of information both echo through the letters collected here. That decency might have been a characteristic of some Nazis, that religion might get entangled with class and lead to inhumane responses to moral complexity, that the sea is beautiful, isolating and dangerous, are all found here in amongst the characters who appear. That recovery from the war might take generations is also evident.

So: sometimes NY Times bestseller means, to me, schlock. Especially when the book seems in some ways to be marketed as chick lit. But this is emotionally wrenching in some ways with a focus on teh everyday in ways that chick lit can be without being chick lit at all. It's worth a read for a reminder that war -- includig those the US is involved in every day -- is wrenching and heartbreaking,

For another blog review, click here or try clicking here (for a site which focuses on Judaism).  For an NPR interview with Annie Barrows, click here. Want to see an internet piece on an occupation era secet sociey newsletter regarding Hitler's death? Click here. for another book on a related topic, try here. On the slave labor in Guernsey per se, and concentration camps there as well as the sending of Gurnsey people to such campus elsewhere, try clicking here. For a first person narrative of liberation and related matters, try here.

MEAT: A Love Story

(Thanks to find.myrecipes.com for the lovely grilling picture!) Susan Bourette wrote this nonfiction romance (hmmm) about meat, which I received a while ago from my main inspiration for blogging (as a gift). A good read, this is actually more negative about a lot of things than a) its title implies and b) much of the nonfiction memoir-ish stuff that's out there. And this despite the cover also reading as follows: "Pasture to Plate, A Search for the Perfect Meal." I like the negative tone of this book. The author seemed not to be fooled and/or sucked in - whether by the evil meat packing industry of Manitoba where she began her journal (as a journalist pretending to need a job who tries working there for a very very brief period) or even at famous foodie joints like Blue HIll Farm. She journeys to a whale hunt (and fails to eat blubber), to a Greenwich village butcher where (surprise) she is not very good at butchering, a Canadian (quite testosterone poisoned) moose hunt, and to a Texas ranch. For a Canadian (who formerly wrote for the Globe and Mail), there's an awful lot of US here. And I say that as an American. . . . There is some utter stupidity here as well. For example, why oh why, if you were working on a book like this, would you wear a too-small pair of borrowed boots (your brother's?) when on one of these jaunts?  Like readers were surprised your feet hurt. Every once in a while something like this intrudes -- and makes you wonder. Otherwise this is pretty interesting and reasonably well written.  Not Apples to Oysters, but pretty good. And, frankly, she is not a vegetarian, though she wants to be on and off, especially after her brief employment by the meat packing industry. (By the way, Bourette does note that while the ambience was distinctly less sophisticated, the lack of sincerity in persuading new employees of the wonders of corporations was not that different than other places she has worked. Hmmm.) Despite this similarity (with which I concur), Maple Leaf went way down in my already pretty darn low estimation (as did all meat packing factories)after reading the relevant chapters.

A few bits to think about:

(1) Is meaty-ness linked to religiousness? Here's what Bourette writes: "Meat has always had mystical, even magical. elements, circumscribed by the laws of man and the divine. How else, then, explain the close association between priests and butchers -- the need for a priestly presence in the slaughterhouse?" (p. 44). (In this regard -- and on the same page -- she sides with Levi Strauss against more recent Catching Fire author, Richard Wrangham, reviewed here.)In this regard, BOurette's discussion of Inupiat whale hunting and blubber eating also raises issues of cosmology -- especially regarding reciprocity and respect, citing Charles Wohlforth, author of The Whale and the Supercomputer. There's some pretty darn funny stuff about Laura Bush on the same pages. . . (See Bourette, p. 82 and thereafter.) On Mennonites and Amish hunters in Texas, see page 130. Who knew? Somehow I thought they might not travel to Texas to hunt. But. . . And if you want to be reminded that religion is everywhere, see Bourette's citation of Joel Salatin's self description as a "Christian-conservative-libertarian-environemntalist-lunatic" on page 162. Religion everywhere.

(2) Yes, gender matters. Thus, for example, she notes that women's roles in the whale hunt are key (citing here anthropologist Barbara Bodenhorn as well as the men and women with whom she lives briefly while concocting this book. (see p. 91 or so). It's possible this matters to her early employment at Maple Leaf too, though one of the best equipped for the job, she does note, is a young woman (earning money to support her pursuit of a Ph.D.) whose background includes gutting bears on her family's hunting trips.

(3) Has food always been global? Well, maybe not. But who knew that the cowboy and related myths I held dear about the slaughter of the bison had so much to do with England's lusty desire for beef. (See pages 110 and following.) Maybe you knew. I did not!

(4) Does everything relate to k.d. lang? Yes. (and thus, maybe everything related to LGBT issues as well. . . ) since Bourette's discussion of Lang's vegetarianism appears in some detail here.As a side note, everything also has to do with kids; the famous Dr. Spock was also a vegetarian. (See pp. 116-117.)

Yes, this is a book about "carnivore chic," and "meat is the new black." But hey, it is so much more.

For an interview with Susan B., try here. For a totally unrelated article she did for the Globe and Mail, try here.

Great Olive Oil Available Locally

Olive oil is not something that can ever really be local in upstate NY. I am certain of that. And yet this olive oil seems local. It is lovely -- so lovely, that I buy a bottle and voila -- it is gone. A beautiful yellow color (more yellow than, say, the green organic extra virgin of Spectrum I get in bulk from the Greenstar Coop in Ithaca), and a very distinct, if indescribably delicious, flavor. I get this from one of my favorite places, near the Rochester Public Market, VM Giordano Imports, Inc. This place sells lovely lovely cheese, and I can get thick sliced very lovely pancetta there as well. And, yes, it is here that I get this delicious olive oil. It is called Lucania and is produced and bottled by Giordano, a product of Basilicata, Italy. (On the Basilicata region, click here.) It costs $16 or so for 16 or so ounces and is worth every penny. 

It works great if you make a somewhat heavy pasta, with a bit of butter and this olive oil, and, yes, pancetta. A little toasted bread crumbs never hurts. Or just use it for everything.

Check out the link to your left if you want to look them up. Or, email them at [email protected]