Dec 02
We visited Portland for the first time since the pandemic last week. We had three missions: A visit to Powell’s Books, one of the P’s of Portland that I blogged about previously. Sadly, Pok Pok and Paley’s Place are no more, victims of the Covid-19 plague. A visit to a couple Julian knew from Ithaca …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2023/12/02/a-trip-to-post-pandemic-portland/
Aug 07
Diana Kennedy, the British-born author of several books on Mexican cuisines, died last month. Her New York Times obituary is here. Her death caused me to think about cultural appropriation in the food world: how newcomers or foreigners become authorities (authentic, such as Kennedy, or self-appointed) on a particular cuisine. One of Diana Kennedy’s books …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2022/08/07/maybe-its-all-cultural-appropriation/
Jul 04
Some cookbooks and magazines will try to convince you that a particular recipe is perfect or ideal. I’m dubious of such claims. The old adage, to each their own, applies to cooking and baking. A few examples: Tastes change. For years my mother and I would make a particular zucchini bread recipe every summer, which …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2022/07/04/a-perfect-recipe-nah/
Apr 11
We landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport around noon on Sunday. We took a cab to our rental apartment on Ile St. Louis. The apartment is small, but serviceable for the two of us. The biggest drawback of the building – no elevator, and we’re on the third floor. The stairway is in a semi-spiral …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2022/04/11/paris-days-one-and-two/
Feb 05
When we’d visit Julian’s dad in Miami years ago, the question of what to have for dinner would inevitably be asked. Lenny’s stock answer: “Pasta fazool.” He liked the sound of the dish. There was also an Olive Garden a block away from his condo, although he didn’t like pasta fazool when he tried it. …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2022/02/05/pasta-fazool/
Nov 13
I admit that often I don’t have the foresight to make artisanal breads for every occasion. This week I’ve had to do some revisions for a quarterly submission and get ready for a course assignment that’s due next week. So when our former neighbor invited us to dinner last night and I offered to bring …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2021/11/13/cuban-bread/
Sep 22
One of the few upsides of canceling the trip to Europe is that we’re able to see our friends Bruce and Laurie, who moved to Michigan six months ago and are in town this week. Bruce had hoped to accompany us on the trip, but he needed back surgery over the summer. We hosted them …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2021/09/22/pear-chocolate-cake/
Jul 20
I’ve done more than my share of cookbook-reading over the years and have developed strong opinions on the genre. I gave my strategy for adding a cookbook to the collection in this post. Even if the recipes and other content are first rate, some cookbooks have layout and other issues that reduce the chance that …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2021/07/20/cookbook-critiques/
Dec 12
Julian made a pot of borscht last night. He used a recipe out of Anya Von Bremzen’s Please to the Table. Borscht takes as many forms as there are Eastern European grandmas. There are light, summery borschts and heavy, wintery ones. This version was a hybrid. The broth wasn’t thick, but there were plenty of …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2020/12/12/the-borscht-that-keeps-on-giving/
Sep 15
Back in the 1980s I bought several booklets from Garden Way Publishing, now a part of Workman Press. Garden Way specialized in increasing self-sufficiency. Not only did it publish cookbooks and booklets, but it published gardening and animal husbandry titles as well. Now that Yeast Mode has a prominent place on my counter, I’ve utilized …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2020/09/15/an-oldie-but-goodie/
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