Empires, Cannibals, and Magic Fish Bones

June 18, 2014

From Small Goat Farms To Megafarms: The Shared Reality of Urban and Rural America.

Born in Royal Oak, Michigan, raised in Troy, I really didn’t interact with the city of Detroit until I went to Wayne State University located in mid-town, south of Grand Boulevard and what used to be the General Motors Building, and north of Cass Corridor and dire poverty. My whole stay in the Metro-Detroit area …

Continue reading From Small Goat Farms To Megafarms: The Shared Reality of Urban and Rural America.

June 17, 2014

“Wait till the honeying of the lune, love! Die eve, little eve, die!” Telmetale of Stobhach Gaelach, Guinness and Lady Galadriel.

A few words from Finnegans Wake and we’re off. Last night, Bloomsday evening fell, along with the one hundredth anniversary of Dubliners reaching the world, the amazing short story collection from Mr. Joyce featuring “The Dead,” and its mesmerizing final lines, “His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and … Continue reading “Wait till the honeying of the lune, love! Die eve, little eve, die!” Telmetale of Stobhach Gaelach, Guinness and Lady Galadriel.

June 16, 2014

Guinness, Oysters and the Inner Organs of Beasts

Back in June 2011, Gabriela, Demian and I voyaged across the Atlantic to Dublin, Ireland with about 30 other students and faculty from The Honors College at the University of Houston. All organized by this fine man, Robert Cremins–wonderful Irishman, novelist and pint-sharing companion. We roomed at Trinity College and explored this amazing city famous … Continue reading Guinness, Oysters and the Inner Organs of Beasts

June 16, 2014June 16, 2014

June 16

“Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crust crumbs, fried hencods’ roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of scented urine” Happy Bloomsday! Leopold … Continue reading June 16

June 15, 2014

You Can’t Tuna Fish, But You Can Smoke It!

Ah, REO Speedwagon back in the early eighties. I had traded in my Britannia Bell Bottoms, silk shirts and platform shoes for thin black ties, Guess jeans, and high tops. The air bristled with “Roll with the Changes” and “Time for Me to Fly,” (the latter became the song for my 1981 graduating class) well … Continue reading You Can’t Tuna Fish, But You Can Smoke It!

June 15, 2014June 15, 2014

Unsettling America

Grant Wood’s 1930 painting of a pitchfork-wielding farm couple heralds our return to Wendell Berry’s The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture. How to interpret this portrait? How to interpret American Gothic, which to my mind means the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe. Through the lens of The Unsettling of America, an interpretation becomes … Continue reading Unsettling America

June 12, 2014June 12, 2014

Know Thy Eating.

Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are, Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin writes, and there can be no question the answer philosophically challenges us. This blog seeks to engage with the aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics, and philosophy of food. I begin with the proposition that eating is an agricultural act, writes Wendell Berry … Continue reading Know Thy Eating.

June 12, 2014

BBQ Goat Leg

Originally posted on From Belly to Bacon:
With Memorial Day giving me an extra day to finish planting our garden and making the last preparations for summer, I also had time to fire up the smoker and try smoking not only a new cut of meat, but also a new beast altogether. On the last Monday in… Continue reading BBQ Goat Leg

June 12, 2014

When Surrounded By Iberians, Cook Like An Iberian!

My visit to San Diego immersed me in a family deeply rooted in the Iberian peninsula with Portuguese and Catalan roots, so why not, as an ambitious Scots-German, cook two of the quintessential dishes of Portugal and Spain: Caldo Verde and Paella? If something’s not right, they’ll tell me. My perfect setting for serving paella … Continue reading When Surrounded By Iberians, Cook Like An Iberian!

June 10, 2014

Kare Kare (Philippine Oxtail and Tripe Stew)

Originally posted on The Domestic Man:
Let me tell you a quick story. I first visited Singapore about 10 years ago, flying solo to the city-state for a work trip. I loved this tiny country from the very start, most especially their melting pot of cultures and languages (the country has four official languages: English,… Continue reading Kare Kare (Philippine Oxtail and Tripe Stew)