Brains and Balls.

To cook, to eat, to kill.  An animal’s life taken, body split open, applied to fire and torn between teeth.  What are the aesthetic and ethics?  Dan Barber argues that good taste necessitates sustainable farming to table.  Tayyib and Halal mean the animal has been raised in a “good” environment–think ethically sourced and sustainable–and then … Continue reading Brains and Balls.

Cooking Hannibal Through Thirty-Six Inches of Rainfall: It’s All About Love.

Rain falls for six days, rain falls for one hundred and forty-four hours, rain falls for eight thousand six hundred and forty minutes, and so on.  As with Aureliano Segundo who fights boredom during the four years, eleven months, and two days rain falls in Gabriel Garcia’s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, I have … Continue reading Cooking Hannibal Through Thirty-Six Inches of Rainfall: It’s All About Love.

Body and Soul: “our demands upon the earth are determined by our ways of living with one another.”

Most of the artwork through this post is by Joe Jones (1909-1963) who painted midwestern wheat fields, segregation in the south, and the effects of The Great Depression on American farmers.  The above painting The American Farm (1936) captures the stark ruin of soil and crops and the precarious struggle for life in rural America. … Continue reading Body and Soul: “our demands upon the earth are determined by our ways of living with one another.”

Is The World Better Off With Celebrity Chefs? Bourdain, Pépin, And Hong Kong Gardeners.

While working on a new post, I often like to scrawl through what’s happening in the blogosphere and discover a comet, orbiting planet or an emerging galaxy–today is one of the emerging galaxy days, I think. Throughout Dan Barber’s new book The Third Plate, he’s constantly wondering if chefs like himself are part of the … Continue reading Is The World Better Off With Celebrity Chefs? Bourdain, Pépin, And Hong Kong Gardeners.

Bluefin Tuna to Palm Oil: Sustainability is the Word: Three Books And A Blog.

I’m almost through reading Carl Safina’s seminal text Song for the Blue Ocean, which surveys the state of Bluefin Tuna in the Northeast of the United States, salmon in the Northwest, and coral reefs in the Pacific.  More than fifteen years ago Safina’s voice artfully, evocatively raised an alarm about the real thought that needs … Continue reading Bluefin Tuna to Palm Oil: Sustainability is the Word: Three Books And A Blog.