Feasting, Friends & Memories
Lured by peanut-butter sandwich inside, black bear clambers into unlocked Toyota, takes a ride
By Phil Gast
CNN 2010-07-24
Attempt to fry egg on sidewalk of New York City during 100-degree day meets with slight success
By Andy Newman
The New York Times 2010-07-07
In ecological success story against grim history of over-fishing and pollution, Chesapeake Bay's iconic blue crabs make comeback
By David A. Fahrenthold
The Washington Post 2010-04-15
Essay: Impending sale means purging the kitchen of old equipment, memories of meals
By Pete Wells
The New York Times 2010-01-10
At farmers' market, legendary fruits, memories return
papayatreenursery.com
Persian mulberry trees grow to about 15 feet and bear juicy, high-sugar fruits that turn purple-black when ripe.
Behind mystique of California's Circle C Ranch and its famed produce (now returned to Hollywood Farmers' Market) is family drama. Kim Blain, both beloved, feared at markets, wouldn't sell to customers who displeased her; orchard was her passion. She defiantly planted heirloom, home garden varieties - muscat grapes, duke cherries, greengage plums - that few other growers would try. And: In early 2000s, orchard's Persian mulberries sparked friendly competition between chefs Sherry Yard and Nancy Silverton (click 'See also').
By David Karp
Los Angeles Times 2009-06-24
For an Obama dinner, pizza from ... St. Louis?
Some deep-dish pizza aficionados miffed after learning that Obama's recent dinner for 140 featured pizza from Pi restaurant in St. Louis. President's choice must come from lack of experience, says Marc Malnati, 30-site pizzeria owner in Chicago. 'I like his economic policy--I think he's going to get us out of trouble. I like his foreign policy--he's making friends around the world. His pizza policy is going to have to change.' And: Obama's love of Pi (click 'See also').
By Vikki Ortiz and John McCormick
Chicago Tribune 2009-04-10
With schawarma from rickety grill, promise in Baghdad
As meat fat melts and drops over coals of a grill, scent of schawarma, with its flavors of lemon, vinegar, pepper, tahini and yogurt, fills the air, luring customers from all corners to a still-dangerous neighborhood of Baghdad. Cart owner will be back the next day, and the next - he plans to open a restaurant across the street.
By Anthony Shadid
The Washington Post 2009-03-18
Internet hit for grandmother's Depression recipes
Chris Cannucciari
Italian matriarch finds fame on web with cooking lessons from the Great Depression. In one episode of 'Clara's Depression Meals,' (click 'See also') she makes fried peppers and eggs while telling of grease-stained lunch bags holding pepper-and-egg sandwiches, schoolmates begging to trade, and the spaghetti sandwich she received. It was a disappointment, she recalls.
By Michelle Miller
CBS News 2009-03-04
Employees donate workday at pancake house, tips follow
At pancake house, 17 employees donate day of service, so owner, who sometimes meets payroll from his own pocket, could trim costs. They saved him about $700. Saying they wanted to lighten load, lead server cited tough times. 'Everybody here knows how much a sausage link costs, what the water bill is, how much it is to lease this building. We don't want to waste even a napkin if we can help it.' Customers left $800 in tips.
By Susan Harrison Wolffis
The Muskegon Chronicle 2009-01-26
Homesick author's menu is American food at its best
John J. Audubon/'The Birds of America'
The 10 million prairie hens in Mark Twain's day have dwindled to 300 birds.
Mark Twain's fanciful 80-dish Thanksgiving dinner menu drew on wild bounty. Now, some foods on his list are extinct and others are known only by hunters, fishermen. Preserving or restoring wild foods begins with joy of marshes, mountains, lakes. We must learn from his premise: Losing a wild food means losing part of the landscape of our lives. And: Observing the prairie hen, by John J. Audubon, in 'The Birds of America' (click 'See also').
By Andrew Beahrs
The New York Times 2008-11-26
Cooks go local for Thanksgiving in the Garden State
Karla Cook/thefoodtimes
Sherry Dudas, of Honeybrook Farm CSA, will dig turnips from the farm fields and steep home-grown lemon balm tea.
From heritage turkeys to homemade lemon balm tea, New Jersey cooks see Thanksgiving as chance to grow their own, or buy it from nearby. Either way, they're celebrating the bounty of the Garden State.
By Kelly Feeney
The New York Times 2008-11-16
Opinion: Food writing and gentle voyeurism
Food is a prism of understanding. Grandma's pot roast, Daddy's salad dressing, the meal you ate when you first fell in love: we each have our own stories and they're more interesting with recipes. Food writing is a gentler, lovelier voyeurism that links our humanity. How better to know other families, other love stories, than through meals people share?
By Luisa Weiss
Tufts Magazine 2008-06-21
Opinion: Of respect for animals and childhood on farm
www.bird-friends.com
Proposition 2, which would ban factory farms in California from using small pens or cages, brings to mind childhood on Oregon farm. Of animals raised for food, two provided pause: Pigs, with their characters and obvious intelligence; and geese, many of which could overcome panic at slaughter time to step away from flock and comfort a doomed mate.
By Nicholas D. Kristof
The New York Times 2008-07-31
Belly laugh: A grandma's foray into Indian food
When area grandmother's offer to make cold-cut sandwiches for everyone is rebuffed, she is persuaded by grandchildren to try Indian restaurant a couple of blocks from her home. There, a feast of new flavors assaulted her palate, The Onion reporters learn.
The Onion 2008-06-14
Cook-book club
Barnes & Noble
Culinary mysteries, for book club members, are bonbons with good recipes.
Books and cooking blend into dinners and convivial chaos for Dallas-area group. Though the group's members lean toward mysteries (the recipes are sometimes better than the improbable plots), they have read and cooked from non-fiction, including Frances Mayes' 'Under the Tuscan Sun.'
By Joyce Saenz Harris
The Dallas Morning News 2008-04-22
Say again?
With noise level the Number 1 complaint of restaurant-goers in Washington, critic decides to test the levels with a discreet loud-o-meter, then rate the racket in his reviews. Restaurateurs have called the phenomenon 'energetic' and 'exciting.' San Francisco Chronicle also rates noise in its reviews.
By Tom Sietsema
The Washington Post 2008-04-06
Race to seconds
Amazon
Barbecued turkey legs trot from Renaissance fairs to NASCAR tailgate parties, but they're just a fad. Race day fare is basic and includes pulled pork, chicken and beef brisket. Filling in the gaps: foot-long hot dogs with everything, giant burgers, Italian sausage, funnel cakes, Polish sausages and Philly steak sandwiches, or items from NASCAR's official cookbook, 'Race Day Grub.'
By Tom Wharton
The Salt Lake Tribune 2008-03-20
Baking globally
Barnes & Noble
In 'A Baker's Odyssey,' author Greg Patent cooks with immigrants, children of immigrants and their grandchildren to learn and record secrets of ethnic baking from more than 30 nations, including Italy, Nigeria, Austria and India.
By Daniel Zwerdling
National Public Radio 2008-01-27
Life's essentials
For this family, hunting, fishing and love of outdoors is a 50-year fest of togetherness, with mom, now 80, carrying her own gun afield in pursuit of ducks, pheasants, ruffed grouse and deer. This season, she just bagged her 52nd deer.
By Doug Smith
Star-Tribune (MN) (may require registration) 2007-11-10
Hot dog love
The smell of Chicago, and home - in a grilling hot dog - drew an overnight switchboard operator to the vendor at an Arizona hospital, and from there, a relationship grew, and now the couple is planning to marry.
By Sonja Haller
The Arizona Republic 2007-11-07
Hash browns and advice
At Anna's Coffee Shoppe in Michigan town, Marion Cosstick is dependable, resilient and always there in her white waitress uniform, filling coffee cups and platters with fresh-made treats that are the culinary equivalent of a warm hug from your grandmother.
By Megan Pennefather
Hometown Life (MI) 2007-11-04
Fish tale
In remote stream that leads to the Miramichi in New Brunswick, a taste for brook trout finally bears fruit after 903 casts on two days, and 118 on the third - but who's counting?
By Adam Clymer
The New York Times 2007-10-16
Opinion: Fasting food
In a culture centered around meals and eating, Yom Kippur demands fasting, and that makes one writer recall childhood, when he contemplated fast food instead, and whether salt counts as nourishment.
By Michael Rosenberg
Detroit Free-Press 2007-09-24
Winning chicken:
The promise of fried chicken and a movie moves inmates to compete in cleanliness contest at South Carolina jail (showers are the tie-breaker); the center, which moves 6,800 prisoners through each year, still has the original carpet, from 1992.
By Daniel Brownstein
The Island Packet (SC); The State (SC) 2007-08-30
Local, extreme:
For chefs with the ripe stuff, now's the season for them to luxuriate in too many juicy tomatoes, fresh herbs, zesty peppers and tender zucchini, and then serve up food that's as local as the the farmers' market.
By Beth D'Addono
Philadelphia Daily News 2007-08-23
Star power:
Like prima donnas, heirloom tomatoes wait an extra week to ripen, but these voluptuous misfits with the tawdry, nightclub-act names - Cherokee Purple, Banana Legs, Green Zebra, Hillbilly, Black Russian - have it in their power to hold us all in thrall for a good part of the summer.
By Tim Stark
Washington Post 2007-08-15
Icebox treat:
Remembering the good old days before electricity, when a porch was used and often held the icebox, which kept foods cool with an actual blocks of ice; what we once called icebox pies we now might call terrines.
By Sylvia Carter
Newsday 0000-00-00
Trout temptation:
Lake trout, a Rodney Dangerfield of fish, with its oil and sweet-tasting flesh, may not be a thrill to catch, but they do move anglers to buy homes that front the Finger Lakes and spend hours with fishing poles in hand, hoping for a bite.
David Wallis
The New York Times; Milwaukee Journal 2007-08-17
Tasting tomatoes:
In search of past glory, team of top-level scientists from Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station aim for the return of the tasty tomato, one that is nirvana with salt on a piece of crusty bread, one that isn't necessarily a good keeper.
By Dianna Marder
Philadelphia Inquirer 2007-08-14