Whiskey fan? No matter. An article in this month’s Wine Spectator, “American Spirit: The Whiskey Renaissance Continues in Bourbon and Beyond,” is speckled with enough American history and sippable lore to capture your late night attention. As author Lew Bryson explains, “It’s a rags-to-riches and all-the-way-around-again story.” Somewhat like cocktail hour, you might say. Only here, Happy Hour begins as a backyard brew before becoming the patriotic American tipple in the 1770s.
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19 Jan 2012, Posted by admin in MEET, 0 Comments
What happens when chefs become farmers? Not just for a week or two, but for an entire year? Big (kale) cost accounting changes. (Sheep) expense shearing. Heirloom (apple) management shakeups. But in that really good apple cobbler-crumble, roasted squash-apple salad, and chipotle-apple chutney sort of way.
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17 Jan 2012, Posted by admin in MEET, 0 Comments
A circa 1968 hard hat from the John Wayne movie Hellfighters, a couple of Prince’s rusty bed springs from his 1980 album Bedsprings, and heirloom potatoes. Or, the great history nuggets you get by shopping at your local farmers market.
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Fraise (or frawsey or froise) is “a Medieval term referring to something of the general nature of a pancake, made with batter and fried.” So begins Alan Davidson’s Penguin Companion to Food. And so begins the weekend.
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Is it just me, or is the number of new “artisan” food businesses of late completely overwhelming? Overpriced, celebrity-hyped and caked in way too much graphic design make-up, too. Particularly when we have so many longstanding food businesses to explore right around the corner….
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12 Dec 2011, Posted by admin in MEET, 0 Comments
Because we shouldn’t have to refer to some farmers as “old-school.” Because Big Ag culture — and flavor — has become one big rotten apple. Because we all could stand to walk in a farmer’s shoes just once to gain a lifetime of greater pear cobbler appreciation. Because people like Bill and Barbara Spencer of Windrose Farms are pouring their souls into a business that they believe in, and are doing it the right way. They are good to the land, good to the crops, good to the animals and good to the people who work on their farm.
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Years of recipe clippings, many more years of never using said recipe clippings, and the cleaning out had to begin somewhere. And it’s not even January yet. Or spring, that beautiful season of delicate flowers and dewy grass that seems forever destined to be associated with bleach. Blech. Bring out all of those old banana bread recipes now, please.
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Because food history doesn’t have to be boring…. a few of this week’s fun food history news bytes. Fine. At least they’re more interesting than most.
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Because seeing a Caravaggio exhibition at the Kimbell Museum got me thinking about Rembrandt (an excellent exhibition, incidentally, if you happen to be in Fort Worth in the coming weeks; The exhibition is heading to the National Gallery of Canada next). And then a press notice circulated about a new barrel-aged version of Genever, a spirit with 16th century roots. The Rembrandt connection? He purportedly settled his Genever bar bills with paintings on occasion. Well, in my mind, all of that makes sense. Somehow.
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Because I can imagine few things more miserable than stepping foot in any retail store on the busiest shopping day of the year… a new tradition: Baking Friday. Yes, even after all of those pies.
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