Chicken – Empires, Cannibals, and Magic Fish Bones

June 28, 2019

Ramen Noodles In Their Rameny World With Plenty Of Noodleynishnishness And All Flora And Fauna Swimming In Their Brothy Waters.

Noodles, noodles, noodles. Ramen noodles. Food additives, sodium, saturated fat. No, not the healthiest nor tastiest choice on its own. Soba noodles. But I love the texture, the very noodleynishnish of ramen. Broth, broth, broth. Solids and liquids calling out for further architecture. China to Japan to the rest of the world. And then? Well, then … Continue reading Ramen Noodles In Their Rameny World With Plenty Of Noodleynishnishness And All Flora And Fauna Swimming In Their Brothy Waters.

June 27, 2019

My Life With Eggs Since The Beginning Of The Year. And A Walrus.

Like a golden eye slowly cooking in a sea of red. Yolk and whites slowly beginning to bubble in a paprika-rich goulash. Think Sauron. Think an Eye of Sauron Yule Log. For five hours. Eventually the egg cooks and rests in a bowl of peppery goodness grounded with a chicken stock. Think of the beginning … Continue reading My Life With Eggs Since The Beginning Of The Year. And A Walrus.

October 17, 2018

Cooking Houston

Cooking Houston has been a way of life for me the past thirty years, and now that I’m moving overseas I think it’s a good time to reflect over the next few posts on my kitchen, ingredients and loved ones. First loved ones. The hearth and all its cooking utensils exist to feed the family, … Continue reading Cooking Houston

September 10, 2018

Heraclitus On Smoke; Hervé Smoking.

Take a study of natural forces, add a healthy pour of figurative language and delicious fragments from the natural philosophers from the eighth and seventh centuries BCE throughout the Aegean, especially in the Greek letters of Heraclitus. Consider, Fragment 7: εἰ πάντα τὰπάντα καπνὸς γένοιτο, ῥῖνες ἂν διαγνοῖεν. Transliterated into our alphabet, and we read: … Continue reading Heraclitus On Smoke; Hervé Smoking.

July 9, 2018

Banquet World: “These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends.”

In the HBO series Westworld, androids also known as “hosts” struggle to achieve the most fundamentally unique experience of the human species, consciousness and all its attendant wakefulness and awareness, or so we’d like to think about ourselves, but hosts like Dolores Abernathy and Maeve Millay become alert to themselves and the world around them, distinctly … Continue reading Banquet World: “These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends.”

June 20, 2018

The Anatomical Theater Of Anthony Bourdain

A pulling back of skin and forceps on flesh reveal an inner world of the human body in Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp. Anatomy lessons entertained curious spectators throughout Europe from the sixteenth into the nineteenth century. Such spectacles danced the edge of the sacred and profane as worlds under the skin … Continue reading The Anatomical Theater Of Anthony Bourdain

September 8, 2017February 15, 2019

Eating A Burning Heart Of Love.

In the early sixteenth century, Leonardo Da Vinci sketched many anatomical drawings and wrote many notes concerning the human heart. Nature has made the cords on the back side of the fleshy membrane of the three gates with which the gateway of the right ventricle is shut; and she has not made them on the … Continue reading Eating A Burning Heart Of Love.

July 16, 2017

More Alchemy And Travels Through Space And Time With Barbecue Sauce.

Houston like any city from Ur to Rome to Hong Kong tells its story through food and those who bring food traditions from around the world to their neighborhood. A Brief History of Houston Barbecue offers such a tale, one where I stir a barbecue sauce in my Houston Heights home and wonder, whose sauce … Continue reading More Alchemy And Travels Through Space And Time With Barbecue Sauce.

July 3, 2017

House Of Kitchens To Doctor Omelette: Cooking Strategies And Tactics.

A maid and a cavalier look out at us from a 17th century kitchen in Pieter Cornelisz van Ryck’s A large kitchen still life with a maid and a gentleman. She’s scaling a fish and he’s pouring back some water or wine. Practices of a day and time, very much like today, though the clothes … Continue reading House Of Kitchens To Doctor Omelette: Cooking Strategies And Tactics.

March 29, 2017

A Few Thoughts On Soup

Such a sacred tableau in Pablo Picasso’s 1902 painting La Soupe. There’s a graceful, reverential bow on the part of the mother as she offers a bowl of soup to her daughter, who springs forward, ready to receive sustenance, ready to receive a gift. I love cooking soup. A small, crafted merging of nature and … Continue reading A Few Thoughts On Soup