The more things change, the more they change. Eighty years later, The Joy of Cooking has a new website. Nostalgia aside, it’s a great online rendition that is run by the “Joy family” — though in daily blog post time that means primarily Irma Rombauer’s great-grandson, John Becker, as well as Megan Scott.
Continue Reading...If you are considering what to make for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in June (You are planning an elaborate tea party to celebrate, yes?), the Detroit Free Press has an excellent suggestion: Lamprey Pie. But even if you don’t care to make the circa 1672 recipe, the article that accompanies it is full of fantastic little chewitts (small Stuart-era meat pies used as garnishes).
Continue Reading...If you’ve ever found yourself completely devoid of compelling reasons for a friend to meet you at a museum on a gorgeous, beer-on-the-beach sort of Saturday (the dark galleries are at least air conditioned, the tram to the Getty is sort of fun), you have new food fodder: The Getty Restaurant is serving up multi-course meals coinciding with the museum’s Herb Ritts: L.A. Style exhibition on view through August.
Continue Reading...A “pre-Hispanic snackeria.” That’s what Monica Martinez of Don Bugito calls her small food business that, as she describes it, creates “amazing dishes that simply happen to have an unexpected ingredient.” The unexpected ingredient? Bugs.
No — wait. If your image of bugs as food remains comfortably plated in the novelty realm — grub worm lollipops, chocolate-covered ants, Anthony Bourdain popping a few grasshopper snacks here and there — you really need to meet Monica.
Continue Reading...The imbibe-worthy bonus of the current craft-everything movement is we are starting (I’d say “sip-by-sip” but then you’d require a stiff drink) to get back to that pre-Prohibition craft spirits mentality. And the likelihood there’s a little guy (or maybe a big guy, depending on his apple pie girth) who likely now makes moonshine right down the street that is great.
Continue Reading...If you live in Southern California, no doubt you have been to the Huntington Library. If not, you really should make a leisurely day trip out of it. The museum, in its luxury former (Henry E. Huntington) estate form, dates to 1903, but the San Marino property was originally a 600-acre working ranch with citrus groves, fruit orchards and various other crops. Today, it is still a 200+ acre canvas for inspired recipes.
Continue Reading...At a moment in our culinary history when even our everyday weeknight dinner focus — or fuss, depending on your recipe perspective — is on (more) sustainable, farmers market-friendly, nose-to-tail cooking, we were curious what we might find among the pages of a modern Betty Crocker cookbook. Slow-cooker pig trotters with Weiser Farm potatoes? Right. But surely, at least no more powdered mashed potatoes?
Continue Reading...A 900-year-old Song dynasty ceramic dish has sold at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong for $26.7 million. Now that’s an expensive bowl of cereal.
Or cup of tea, as what we consider bowls were often used for beverages in China. Or maybe it’ s neither, as The Washington Post called it a dish first, then a “flower-shaped bowl.” Ah, semantics when you’re dealing with $26.7 million dollars of history.
Continue Reading...“Pink slime” has long been in plenty of things we’ve eaten over the decades (fast food burgers, most grocery store lean ground beef). Now the meat product made from processed beef trimmings has suddenly been facing online outcries typically reserved for presidential candidates. [Actually, that sounds pretty much how every political firestorm (candidate?) evolves over the years. Case in point: When pink slips recently became the outcome at beef processing plants, Rick Perry offered up his pink slime support.] But we were talking about pink slime history.
Continue Reading...A few months ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lowell Novy, a veterinarian who owns Novy Ranches. At his Northern California ranch, he produces grass-fed beef at fantastic prices (he recently turned the retail corner). As we chatted, he offered up some fantastic nuggets about the grass-fed beef industry, the commercial side of the cattle industry equation, and what approaching a food business the old fashioned way has meant for him:
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