Category: Gulf Coast

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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.

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Prolegomena To Any Future Gumbo.

West Africa parades Benin, Burkina Faso, the island nation of Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, the island of Saint Helena, Senegal, Sierra Leone, São Tomé and Príncipe and Togo.  West Africa remembers the empires of Ghana, Mali, Oyo, and Benin.  West Africa cooks Yassa, Maafe, and Fufu. In The … Continue reading Prolegomena To Any Future Gumbo.

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Alchemy In The Afternoon

Alchemy is a chemical transformation of matter through air, earth, fire and water, a process characterized by melanosis (blackening), leukosis (whitening), xanthosis (yellowing) and isis (reddening), also known as nigredo (chaos), albedo (release, daybreak) and rubedo (intensity, sunrise); which means through the language of the opus magnum, alchemy is to cook, and specifically for these … Continue reading Alchemy In The Afternoon

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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

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Reading And Eating Clarice Lispector’s Story “As Águas Do Mundo.”

There it is, the sea, the most unintelligible of non-human existences.  And here is the woman, standing on the beach, the most unintelligible of living beings.  As a human being she once posed a question about herself, becoming the most unintelligible of living beings. She and the sea.  (401) The moment of consciousness, of self-awareness … Continue reading Reading And Eating Clarice Lispector’s Story “As Águas Do Mundo.”

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Market Day In Rio

Tuesday morning which means we’re off to the farmers’ market in Praça General Osorio, Ipanema.  I love going to markets whenever I travel, markets in Dublin, Madrid, Stockholm, Thessaloniki and of course, Rio de Janeiro.  I’m planning on cooking with local fish and have my sights set on Namorado.  Namorado in its dictionary form means boyfriend … Continue reading Market Day In Rio

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A Southern Saturnalia

Saturnalibus, optimo dierum! (Catullus) And so it is.  A time of honoring agricultural deities, gathering to brave darkness, exchanging tokens of friendship, banquet-style eating of copious amounts of the gods’ riches, and drinking . . . drinking and drinking.   For twenty years I’ve started Saturnalia celebrations with the seasonal Anchor Brewing Christmas Ale, 2016 … Continue reading A Southern Saturnalia

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“You Ain’t As White As You Think.” Braised OxTails And Greens.

  Society has to be crowded with the truth. The truth must kneel on football fields and spill onto our dinner plates. Chefs, writers, bartenders, bakers, farmers, and the lot of us food people are keepers of social space—and we have a responsibility to introduce racial equity as a necessary non sequitur. Tunde Wey writes … Continue reading “You Ain’t As White As You Think.” Braised OxTails And Greens.