Category: Food

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A Short History Of One Meal With Help From The Pixies And Charles Baudelaire

Le Larousse Gastronomique vous regarde.  Le Larousse Gastronomique interroge votre cuisine.  You’re pretty sure it’s smirking but you go on. Frankly, you have your doubts about the Culinary Institute of America’s The Professional Chef . . . does it laugh behind your back?  What do you do? What do I do?  I’ll listen to the Pixies. … Continue reading A Short History Of One Meal With Help From The Pixies And Charles Baudelaire

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If The Foodie World Is A Family Drama, Then It May Look Like “Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf.”

Above is vision of hell from an unknown Portuguese artist from the sixteenth century.  I’m thinking the great Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton movie. Sometimes cooks, foodies, gastronomes, gourmands and everyone else may come off as a bit too celebratory, a bit too awed by food and the culinary world.  Sometimes we need a reminder … Continue reading If The Foodie World Is A Family Drama, Then It May Look Like “Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf.”

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Eating Ants (Or How All That’s Good Tastes Like Bacon)

I used to burn them with a magnifying glass when I was a kid. Yes, not the most humane, civilized moment in my youth, and since then it’s been a tense relationship.  Accidentally stepping into a fire-ant mound ranks as one of my least favorite things about Texas, and I usually respond with gallons of … Continue reading Eating Ants (Or How All That’s Good Tastes Like Bacon)

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A Midterm, Two Ribeyes and Skeletor

Above, the Fury of Achilles as painted by Coypel Charles-Antoine in 1737 captures the divine-infused killing spree the Greek hero embarks upon after his friend Patroclus is killed by Apollo, Euphorbus, and Hector. Quite appropriate for this post as Gabriela and I spent the week helping to create a midterm for three-hundred and fifteen Honors … Continue reading A Midterm, Two Ribeyes and Skeletor

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The Ark Of Corn, Uncle Tupelo, And Red Wattle Pigs.

Above our heads in the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo offers us a calm, High Renaissance view of mass extinction; whereas, The Flood (1588) by Kaspar the Elder Memberger has a darker tone. Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, with all your household, for you alone have I found righteous before Me in … Continue reading The Ark Of Corn, Uncle Tupelo, And Red Wattle Pigs.

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Cooking: A Faustian Wager.

It’s a scene out of Goethe’s Faust and a print by Jacob II de Gheyn (1600)–a witch’s kitchen.  Lord knows what’s bubbling in the cauldron.  It’s an old legend.  A magician strives for all knowledge and power crafting a bargain with the Devil, and rules over the world for a few years, but then plummets … Continue reading Cooking: A Faustian Wager.

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Protein Of The Soul

Francisco Goya’s still-life, A Butcher’s Counter.  A sheep’s head and sides of mutton.  Painted between 1810 and 1812.  Painted during the ano del hambre in Madrid when thousands starved to death.  This was the time of Napoleon’s invasion, time of Desastres de la Guerra. In our featured painting, protein is the key molecule, movement.  In … Continue reading Protein Of The Soul

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Bowls Of Sugar And Cocaine, While Reciting The Song Of Songs With Odysseus, Penelope And Neil deGrasse Tyson In Bed.

Growing up in the 70’s in middle America, breakfast cereal provided me with a philosophy of pleasure.  Of course the sugar, but also the sweet beauty of packaging captivated me and schooled my budding aesthetic sense on not what’s in the box, but on the bright colors, solid lettering, and promotional pitches.  A “Glow in … Continue reading Bowls Of Sugar And Cocaine, While Reciting The Song Of Songs With Odysseus, Penelope And Neil deGrasse Tyson In Bed.

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Fats, Gods, and Fire

I consider Harold McGee a Moses of Food, that is, he’s come down from the mountain with tablets announcing what cooking is really about, and what natural laws we should follow. Concerning the Holy Tablet of Fats, here are his words from On Food and Cooking, Fats and oils are members of a large chemical … Continue reading Fats, Gods, and Fire

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Water, Water, Every Where, And Always A Drop To Cook

The final chapter of Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking, in Moses-like fashion, declaims the basis of all cooking: “The Four Basic Food Molecules.” Water, fats and oils, carbohydrates and proteins.  H2O, of course, makes up not only most of what we eat, but our own bodies as well.  As McGee states, Leaving aside the … Continue reading Water, Water, Every Where, And Always A Drop To Cook