Oct 30
I’ve been going through this week’s New York Times travel section featuring Latin America, specifically an awakened Chile, colonial Colombia, 36 Hours in Montevideo, Rio hot spots, Peruvian restaurants, and rejuvenated Mazatlán. Travel exhausts me but its a fun read.
With this week’s release of Florence Fabricant’s Park Avenue Potluck Celebrations: Entertaining at Home with New York’s Savviest Hostesses, The Naptime Chef is hosting a virtual potluck dinner featuring a slate of great food blogs. With proceeds to benefit The Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, this new release feeds more than your cookbook addiction. I recently spent time with a friend whose son was being treated at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and was awed by the love and care the nurses and doctors showed, not only their patients, but their parents and siblings, during countless hours of treatment. It’s wonderful to find another way to support their work.
I watched the coverage of last week’s Fiesta Latina celebrated at the White House with sincere but vague interest. Though I was happy that it went well and proud as always for the recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month, multi-cultural events at the White House have become frequent enough that you don’t expect any real surprises. That was before I came across on of my favorite food writer, Maricel Presilla’s account in “Cooking at La Casa Blanca: Behind the Scenes with the Fiesta Latina Guest Chef” in the Miami Herald.com. Click here for the for complete article.
I’ll be taking a few days off to update my site, do some research, catch-up. I wish I were taking a few days off to get a haircut, ride a Vespa with Gregory Peck, eat gelato, and smash a prop guitar in a barge brawl. So while I’m away, I thought I’d leave you with these images. Arrivaderci!
I was as shocked as everyone else when I read this morning that Condé Nast was closing Gourmet magazine. Well, possibly a little more shocked. Even though I read the rumors on different sites, I thought the magazine could struggle on in some form till better days. Unlike other embattled titles in the internet age, I felt a a real attachment to my Gourmet magazines. Despite the growing piles, I couldn’t bring myself to throw them out. A few weeks ago, in an Ikea-inspired organizational fit, I brought home magazine folders and finally stored them away. It was obvious the magazine had gone on a reluctant diet. Lined up on my bookshelves, you could literally see it disappear as their ad sales dwindled. A few weeks ago, I came across an old issue in a thrift store from January 1961. It was their twentieth anniversary edition and included an article about champagne, quotes from Voltaire, a recipe for peacock, and Bach themed feature on preparing chicken breast in between vintage ads. Of course, I could find most of Gourmet’s old recipes online, but only if I already know what I’m looking for, and then they’ll all look the same. I thought this quote from the publisher, taken from the inaugural issue and reprinted in 1961, prescient:
To those who would like to share a gourmet’s joie de vivre, GOURMET will speak that Esperanto of the palate that makes the whole world kin…good food, good drink, fine living…the universal language of the gourmet.
-Earle R. MacAusland, Publisher, Gourmet Magazine, 1941
I have to admit that like most people, I’ve always had a romantic view of the gaucho’s life in the Argentinian plains. Naturally, I was very interested in this article by Juan Forero, “Day of the Gaucho Waning in Argentina”, for the Washington Post, about how traditional grass fed beef was giving way to U.S.-style feedlots. I was surprised at how pragmatic the people interviewed were about the changes: Read more
Sep 15
Pastryscoop.com, sponsored by the French Culinary Institute, has opened registration for their fall 2009 conference to be held on Sunday, October 18th at the International Culinary Center where I’ll be helping out. For one day, they open their kitchens for top pastry chefs hold two hour demonstrations, workshops and tastings. I’m always amazed at how generous the chefs that take part are with their time and most importantly, they’re secrets.
I spent the day at the Brooklyn Book Festival at Borough Hall wandering in and out of readings and seeing friends. With little time to cook, I thought it would be right to end the day with Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda. In his Elementary Odes, he writes to wine, tomatoes, maize, large tuna, chestnuts, artichokes, lemons. Here the salt sings back. Read more
Aug 31
Some books seem more alive than others. I found this 1949 copy of James Beard’s The Fireside Cook Book today in a used book store. Banged up and worn through, it was love at first sight. Opening with description of prehistoric man enjoying a salad, he then compares the caveman’s roasting of a saber-tooth tiger to the modern housewife making Sunday dinner. The illustrations by Alice and Martin Provensen – turtle troubadours, snatches of music, lobsters taking swigs from wine bottles, foxes teaching hen school, devils and angels – keep pace with the text. I’ll have to read it cover to cover to find out why those clams in booties are attacking that chicken with pitchforks. While his love of the old world is evident, his Whitman-like enthusiasm for new world American pulses throughout. Everything about this book makes you smile. Read more
Aug 21
I still remember seeing the “Cookies” sign for the first time. Just off the corner of Smith Street, I was drawn to the bright blue storefront realizing with disappointment that they were closed for the night. Peering through the grating into the store (it was pretty sad), I knew I’d be back. I reasoned that if an entire bakery was dedicated to just making cookies, they must be really good cookies. If the same cookies were displayed lovingly gift wrapped, they must be uniquely great. I’ve been scratching at their door ever since. Read more
Finalist for the 2015 James Beard Foundation Award in the International Cookbook Category for The Cuban Table
hungry sofia 