Cooking With Ideas

Coming Soon to This Very Blog

(with thanks to simonsideprimary.org)

*A few upstate NY dining delights

*A few made in Bibliochef's kitchen delights

*One or more cookbook reviews

*Possibly a surprise interview 

Keep reading -- and keep spreading the word for me, please!?!?!?! 

 

Coming Soon

Hi folks! Welcome back.  Here are some things coming soon:

Multiple reviews of restaurants in Ottawa (that would be the capital of Canada for the less cosmopolitan of you) 

What I did with apricots this year 

A day spent with Hatch Peppers

Cooking with Google? A Few Recipes I have Discovered and Loved

And, of course, more! Please keep reading -- and I would be grateful if you would spread the word! 

 

 

Coming Soon

I admit it. I am tempted to find some sort of snazzy picture to attract your attention. And yet. . . I know you better than that. Please keep an eye out for: 

 

*Some reflections (very brief) on Ellen Hart

*A tiny bit more on Cape Cod Dining

*Mark Kurlansky on Milk

*Kirsten Weiss -- a master writer

And, perhaps, if I can finally sort some really annoying computer issues, more. . . 

Coming soon. 

 

Coming Soon

Thanks to downtownsantacruz.com for the image. 

Coming soon is both a way of telling you what might be coming along on this blog for you to read. And, it is a way to remind me to keep doing what I love, which is in part this blog. Life is, we all know, short -- and its main point is, I think, living in ways one believes worthy and that includes in ways one finds joyful. So, this coming soon balances loss and life because it is about serious matters as well as fun. 

What's coming soon? 

****A memorial reflection on Dano Hutnik of Dano's on Seneca - a major loss for our community. Danos likely never knew how important he was to my partner and to me. For that I am truly sorry. And, I will have more to say. 

And, less seriously, but also coming soon:

Ruminations on Death by Dumpling by Vivien Chien -- yes, a murder mystery! It seems to be the first of a series "The Noodle Shop Series #1" . . . If you cannot wait for my review, try this one at the website Criminal Element. 

Reflections on some NYC Dining -- including Bouley at Home. 

Coming Soon and Related Matters

(with thanks to code canyon.net for the image!)

Yes, this is a quick entry to let you know what to expect in the coming few weeks or so. 

1. Chocolate Beer.  Weird. Real. Yes. This appeared some time ago! 
2. Stan's in Waterloo is a terrific place (SPOILER MUCH?) and you should try it. See immediately below. (See, I was trying to fool you into thinking the review was upcoming but it was really a test of whether you are reading!) 
3. Reflections on Christmas from the point of view of food. (Yes, this is limited as I do not celebrate Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or. . . . I have a lingering sentimental nostalgia for childhood Christmases and am reading a book about Christmas).
4. Gossip about Portico (at del Lago Casino)
5. A film review of East Side Sushi
6. A review of Alice Waters' memoir
7. Reflection on a book about Paula Wolfert

Possibly coming eventually are a variety of previously announced interviews which I continue to dream of receiving -- and of you reading -- including from Kelby Russell, Samantha Buyskes and Katie MacIntyre. 

And, now a few additional news items: 

    1. I have changed my profile picture which means I am no longer exactly anonymous. I shall continue to go by the moniker Bibliochef here at Cooking with Ideas but . . . . it has been an open secret for a long time!

    2. I have "monetized" (when did that become a verb?) this blog as I have an Amazon Associates account now. This means I get a tiny bit of money any time you click on a book or other item shown on the blog and purchase from Amazon. I know, I know -- this is the slippery slope toward advertising. But hey.  .  . . 

Keep reading. And cooking. And eating. And . . . . 

Coming Soon to This Very Blog

*Interview with Dana Bickford Cree, author of Hello My Name is Ice Cream and James Beard nominated pastry chef (not to mention a wonderful person!) 

*Ruminations on cooking with Bostrom Farm products (including bolognese which turned out to be spectacular!)

*A return to foodie murder mysteries with a few new ones by Laura Childs and others (a kindle binge)

*A few restaurant reviews from the Finger Lakes region (have you heard of Stan's yet? And yes, I have now eaten several times at HJ Stead) 

*Potential interviews with a local vanilla extract producer, a winemaker and a nationally recognized local chef. . . 

So: coming soon . . . more! And, dare I hope for more comments? More traffic to this little blog? 

 

 

 

Re-Emphasizing the Biblio in Bibliochef! Coming Soon!

Coming Soon to this very blog, a few reflections on newish foodie books. Yes, I made a trip (For unrelated reasons) to Buffalo, and thus to a bookstore I have not been to for years: Talking Leaves. It is a great bookstore -- and so, yes, despite trying to downsize, we came away with books. Several feature food-related topics. So, my food-related reading habit is back and not just for the recipes I am seeking for sauerkraut and related fermented veggies! 

Here are two you can expect too hear about one of these days! 

Coming to My Senses: The Making of a CounterCulture Cook by Alice Waters. Though I had her sign a book for me when she was in Seneca Falls, it was not this one -- it was an older cookbook I owned already. So, this was a treat and I hope it is as dandy as I anticipate. 

Laura Shapiro's What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food that Tells Their Stories - is just what it says. I am looking forward to it because I think it will be in bite size chunks and thus readable by someone like me who is more than a tad distractible these days. I have read some of her other work and reviewed it here, so. . . yes, it seems just right! 

 

and probably more! 

Interviews Coming -- Who Knows When!

 

(with thanks to comingsoon.net for the image) 

No, I am not announcing the next full solar eclipse (hint: 2024. hint #2: Geneva, NY will be a site for totality that year!)

Yes, I am noting a few things that are coming up on this blog. I hope you will spread the word. I am not quite sure when they will occur, but they are all in the works. 

What I am highlighting here are upcoming INTERVIEWS!!!!

Kelby Russell is a winemaker whose work in the Finger Lakes is well known, in part because of his eponymous rose! He is winemaker at Red Newt. He will be answering questions posed by bibliochef! 

The folks at Spotted Duck have agreed to an interview and I am in the process of writing up their questions and getting them out. You may have read about Spotted Duck here on the blog! Do know that visiting them is a seasonal thing -- and you better get there soon! 

Michael Warren Thomas of Saturday radio fame in Rochester and devoted, long time foodie with an eye on the Finger Lakes, is someone I encountered one day on the radio (yes, I repeated that) while sitting in a parking lot in Rochester). His show that day was focused on some of the wonders of Geneva, NY so I wrote off to him and . . . eventually . . . there will be an interview here. Here's where to find him on line. 

Are you a foodie who wants to be interviewed? Please say so in the comments! I have interviewed food scientists and faculty who teach food related courses, mystery authors who focus on food and winemakers. And I hope to continue to do so. 

Keep an eye out here. And please, help me by circulating the blog on your twitter feed, your FB page, or otherwise. 

 

 

 

Coming Soon

(Thanks to blog.magisto.com for the image!) 

Keep an eye out for the following posts:

Do you know what a Spotted Duck is? Why does it have anything to do with this blog? 

Do you know what food and the National Women's Hall of Fame have in common (other than inductee Julia Child and soon-to-be inductee Alice Waters)? 

Do you know what rasam is and why it is peculiar to attach it to Ireland?

What might religion and food have to do with one another and how does that relate to . . . Seattle? 

Please comment and help us anticipate upcoming posts! 

 

 

 

Reading without Ideas?

Yes, I am back in Geneva and yes, I have been cooking like mad in between (a) unpacking and (b) trying to do some professional writing and (c) various supportive partner Seneca Falls women's rights type things involving the National Women's Hall of Fame. I have made very slow cooked scrambled eggs and a pea tendril salad.  I have made rasam (and truly enjoyed it). I have made a steak salad skewed toward the Vietnamese. I made (well, we made, a pizza involving duck confit and greens and pea tendrils and basil and home made tomato sauce, and . . .

And I have made more. Indeed, I am enjoying the kitchen. I can see outside into the lush Finger Lakes. I can see Seneca Lake and I can see cats and hear birds and I do not even worry. 

But I have also been reading some things -- including re-reading an old issue of the New Yorker on food. Dated November 22, 2010, I have no idea if I read it before. I think that is one of the mixed blessings of getting older; I can re-read something and it feels like reading it for the very first time. And, I will never know, in cases where I have not underlined or made marginal comments, if I ever read it before. Hurrah> A very inexpensive sort of recycling? 

So, on to the content: 

1. An article entitled Eleanor Roosevelt's Inedible Cuisine pointed to Eleanor getting revenge on FDR for his marital infidelities by supporting a truly awful cook as the White House cook. While represented sometimes as all about the matter of cheap nutrition during the depression and thereafter, Laura Shapiro (author of the piece and of several books at least one of which I read at some point in the past) seems to think the notion of near inedibility and utter grayness was revenge (served best cold?). I admit to having a bit of an Eleanor phase these days in terms of reading books (mostly fiction) that include her in cameo appearances. While the notion of the lousy food appears in those novels and of revenge, tying the two together -- not so much. Hmmm.
2. Fermenting Revolution is by Burchard Bilger. But what makes me find it most intriguing, besides it being a terrific romp, is the way the current guru of fermentation, Sandor Katz, author of The Art of Fermentation, appears in the article. It felt a bit like "well, this person who I treated like an out of the blue figure on my culinary universe has been there all along" -- nostalgic vertigo? 
3. The same thing happened in a piece on the Burger Queen, which is really about chef April Bloomfield, whose book I now own. Amazingly nostalgic vertigo? Or, we now know that people appear first in the New Yorker? 
4. In both cases #2 and #2 the articles are, but the way, terrific. 
5. An Immigrant Thanksgiving and a piece entitled "Root-Vegetable Romance" (by Jane Kramer) also made me happily hungry

I ought to say something more substantive I suppose. But, to be honest, I do not want to. I enjoyed the reading and the slowness of the words drifting past my eyes and the thought of how much these articles spoke to me. 

You might enjoy the issue. You might not. I did. Here's the link to the November 22, 2010 issue of the New Yorker.