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DRINK: LangeTwins' Aaron Lange On Sustainable Wines + The Winery's (Habitat) Evolution
What exactly is a “sustainable” wine? Easier answered back in the make-your-own backyard wine days. Like so many food and beverage products today, the definition varies depending on who is writing up the label. Aaron Lange over at LangeTwins broke down the organic, sustainable and bio-dynamic barriers for me recently, and talked about the family winery’s commitment to going a step farther – native wildlife habitat restoration. On a winery. Where a couple acres of grape-worthy land can cost more than the average home. Supporting the past, in real (drinkable) time.
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COOK: Le Creuset, Then + Now (And That Little Warranty Issue)
Like many young cooks, I learned to cook with a Dutch oven by my side (here, always and forever, Le Creuset). We learned to sauté onions together. We simmered Better Homes' spaghetti meat sauce after school. On weekends, we watched tough cuts of beef magically morph into tender stews and stroganoff when those Junior League cookbook dreams of righteous recipe perfection came true. But even when they fell short, it didn't really matter. Better to learn now.
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MEET: Magnificent Chickens, Past and Present
When we read about something we eat, it often comes with a warning -- unhealthy, inhumanely raised, antibiotic-filed, (un)fairly traded. The Magnificent Chicken, a follow-up to Tamara Staples' out-of-print book The Fairest Fowl (2001), accomplishes so much more by focusing on the (truly) magnificent side of poultry. Flip through the photos, and you'll have too much respect for farm foul to buy anything but those raised in happy coops.
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A Feast of Weeds: Foraging Lessons From The Pre (Blueberry) Obesity Years
Notice how many foraging books have been making the rounds of late? (A favorite: Matsuoka Wong and Eddy Leroux's field guide and cookbook, Foraged Flavor -- lamb's quarters meatballs!). The latest, from UCLA professor of Italian and culinary history Luigi Ballerini, is A Feast of Weeds: A Literary Guide to Foraging and Cooking Wild Plants with recipes by Ada De Santis (translated by Gianpiero W. Doebler).
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MEET: Theo Stephan of Global Gardens, A "Real" Olive Oil Story
What's in your olive oil bottle these days? It's a trickier question to answer than back in the days when pantry ingredients came from the grove down the street. In December, the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) held a public hearing to launch an investigation into the olive oil industry. At issue: Whether many of the imported olive oils on our supermarket shelves are truly first-press extra virgin olive oils or blends that are being falsely advertised as such.
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MEET: Who Is An Artisan Today?
How do you, how does anyone, define the term artisan today? The answer, less than five years ago, was an independent food crafter of various genres, ages, types and vastly different production yields.
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READ: Saving Lives; Smoke Pollutants From Traditional Cookstoves
"Making dinner shouldn't be fatal. But four million people in the developing world die each year from illnesses linked to smoke spewing out of crude stoves -- a scourge that has frustrated experts for decades."
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READ: What's Cookin' At Special Collections
What to bookmark this week:Virginia Tech archivist Kira Dietz's blog, What's Cookin' at Special Collections, sharing her discoveries as she ferrets through recipes housed at the University Libraries.
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