Blogs : Food Media
Food Media CHOW's roundup of food-related news from blogs, newspapers, magazines, cookbooks, and film.
Solo Dinners Reveal Horrible Secrets, Sexy Creations
When your lover/kids/housemates/spouse is gone, what do you make for dinner and where do you eat it? A can of anchovies scarfed while logging onto Second Life? Strawberry jam on a tortilla? Or spaghetti carbonara while watching old episodes of Deadwood?
Cookbook writer Deborah Madison and her husband, artist Patrick McFarlin, investigated the issue in their new book What We Eat When We Eat Alone. Based on interviews with strangers of all ages and walks of life, the book is an interesting and voyeuristic peek into one of our most private moments.
Turns out folks make stuff their spouses don’t like (okra!), because they can. Or they eat weird food combinations because nobody’s watching (Wonder Bread flattened, covered with butter and sugar, then frozen briefly so it becomes a kind of sugar cookie). Most people drink more wine than they typically would, and men swig whiskey. A surprising number of people in all parts of the country “turn to some combination of chiles, tortillas, salsa, and cheese,” write Madison and McFarlin.
The book includes plenty of simple, homey recipes that are adapted from what the interviewees said they ate. My “to-trys” include: soft avocado tacos, and polenta smothered in braised greens.
CHOW sat down with the couple at the Nob Hill Grille in San Francisco.
What inspired the book?
Patrick: We took these trips in the Mediterranean in the 1990s, through the Oldways preservation and food trust. I got in the habit of asking the other people on the tour, many of whom were professional chefs, what they ate when they ate alone, then sketching them. It was a good icebreaker
Deborah: I found the drawings when we were moving, and thought: “This would make a good book.” We did new interviews and collaborated on the writing.
Did peoples’ answers surprise you?
Deborah: I expected to get a lot of answers like “peanut butter sandwich”, but it was all over the map. I’m happy to say there was not one “boneless skinless chicken breast.”
What was the most disgusting thing you heard that somebody ate?
Deborah: Margarita mix poured over bread.
Where there any themes that emerged?
Deborah: Crisp things in liquid, like oyster crackers in coffee or saltines in milk. This sounds kind of disgusting, but it might just be that people don’t have the language to talk about why they like something. When I was in Rome 25 years ago, I read Chéri by Colette, and made a note of this dish she made, where she put milky coffee in a bowl, covered with chunks of bread, with butter and sugar, then put it in the oven so it became kind of caramelized. That sounds good. Maybe if people were writing more about what they were eating, like Colette, there would be magic there in [the question of] “why do you like it?”
Patrick: There’s a whole chapter called “Men and Their Meat.”
Deborah: Patrick interviewed this bartender at a Cuban bar, who liked to take a flank steak, wrap it up with bacon, cheese, and mushrooms, and grill it. We include a recipe for that, but we added spinach.
What other gender stuff came out?
Deborah: Women are more into comfort. Men would never admit that they curl up on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate.
What do you two eat, when you eat alone?
Deborah: I make a fried egg sandwich when I come back from yoga.
Patrick: I make panini in my studio with spinach and tofu.
What do you eat when you eat alone?
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Tagged with: deborah madison, solo dining, eating alone, media, patrick mcfarlin, what we eat when we eat alone, dining solo
Around the World in 20 Lunches
Here’s some fascinating visual food for thought: An extensive collection of straightforward photos of school lunches from around the world. My vote is probably for the Japanese bento box, but there are a couple choices from the USA that don’t entirely disgrace the country. And then, of course, there’s “Tater tots, chicken nuggets, fruit, chocolate milk and ketchup.”
All in all, neat stuff, even if a lot of the planet is under-represented. What’s for lunch, for example, in the countries that make up the rather large and wildly diverse continent of Africa or the Middle East…?
Image source: flickr member firepile under Creative Commons
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Tagged with: school lunches, media, photographs, images, comparison
New Cookbook Roundup
A quick look at some of the most interesting cookbooks being released around now.
Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It: And Other Cooking Projects
Karen Solomon’s book is good for beginners who want to dive into the DIY trend. Homemade toaster tarts? Hell, yeah.
Almost Meatless: Recipes That Are Better for Your Health and the Planet
Pollatarian and meat-light recipes that utilize less animal but don’t come off as hippie fare.
Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everday Cooking
Michael Ruhlman, of kick-ass Charcuterie book fame, teaches you the basic ratios for common foods (e.g., pie dough = 3 parts flour, 2 parts fat, 1 part water). Then he tells you how to riff on the basic preparations. (You can see him in action here.)
The authors went around the country to their favorite barbecue joints, snapped great travelogue-type pictures, and recorded both recipes and histories. The Blue Cheese Bowl Appetizer from Ridgewood Barbecue in Bluff City, Tennessee, is haunting our dreams already.
Noodles Every Day: Delicious Asian Recipes from Ramen to Rice Sticks
Recipes for light meals with interesting flavor combinations using noodles familiar and exotic, like wheat noodles with five-spice cabbage sauce and crispy pork, or stir-fried sweet potato noodles with vegetables and beef. Includes mail-order sources.
Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey: Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth
For when you fall off the master cleanse: Over-the-top recipes like Cinnamon-Donut Bread Pudding, White Trash Panini (croissant, peanut butter, Hershey’s kisses, and marshmallow fluff in a panini press), and Dark Chocolate Soup with Pound-Cake Croutons.
Check out Chowhound’s Cookbook of the Month and join the discussion.
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Tagged with: cookbooks, food and cooking, media
Coffee Shop Mayhem
Most people pass through a coffee shop quickly; they grab a latte and they’re out of there. Others linger. Funny or Die has a line on those lingerers with “Six Coffee Shop Regulars,” a tour through such personalities as the buff gay couple, the AA sponsor and sponsee, the hungover poet, and the moody screenwriter: “The moody screenwriter has been at the coffee shop for four hours. He wears glasses and works on a Mac. So do you though, so don’t be a dick about it. You can’t see what’s on his screen—do you think he’s working on his copy of Syd Field’s ‘Screenwriting Workshop’ or staring at the iTunes visualizer?”
In other coffee shop news, a topless coffee shop in Vassalboro, Maine went, um, tits up Wednesday morning as a fire burned it to the ground. Officials say the blaze was arson. Guess someone didn’t like the boob-view that came with the cappuccino at Grand View Coffee Shop. The owner didn’t have insurance, but says he may reopen in a mobile trailer on the same site.
Image source: flickr member dailylifeofmojo under Creative Commons
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Tagged with: media, coffee shop, funny or die, topless, cnn, coffee shop regulars, vassalboro, maine
How Local Is "Local"?
Are Lay’s, the potato chip brand of the PepsiCo-owned Frito-Lay, “local”? Yes, if you consider Earth-made chips “local,” as opposed to, say, those manufactured on Io or Nereid. Otherwise, Slate’s Dan Mitchell has a point: Major food companies are trying to cash in on buzzwords to which they don’t have much claim. As Mitchell writes, “‘locavores’ will be the first to tell you that keeping food local is just one part of creating a sustainable food system. If local food is grown using nasty chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, its localness is beyond irrelevant.”
Image source: flickr member michael_aaron_abbate under Creative Commons
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Tagged with: monsanto, pepsico, terminator seeds, lay's, potato chips, local, media, slate
Drive-Thru Musical
Inspired by the awesomeness that was the fast-food freestyle, comedy duo Rhett & Link sing a folk song at Taco Bell with some unexpected results:
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Tagged with: media, youtube, rhett, link, rhett and link, taco bell, freestyle, folk song
