Empires, Cannibals, and Magic Fish Bones
Join us as we celebrate food, the dinner table, and quite likely empires, cannibals and magic fish bones!
On March 25 at the Houston Country Club, I’ll sit at a white-cloth table, dine on a salad, a fowl perhaps, and some sort of pie, while drinking a few glasses of wine. This is the annual Great Conversation hosted by the august Honors College at the University of Houston–where I work. Along the way, … Continue reading A Rose For Emily, Buffalo Trace Bourbon, And A Lowcountry Seafood Boil
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
Greenling has delivered okra! Harold McGee in On Food and Cooking tells us that “Okra comes from the annual plant Hibiscus (Abelmoschus) esculentus, a member of the hibiscus family and a relative of roselle and cotton. It originated in either southwest Asia or eastern Africa, and came to the southern United States with the slave … Continue reading Why A Food Blog? Roux And A Symposium . . . Or How I Dance, Talk, And Brown Butter At The Same Time.
Our third president farmed, and failed in quite a spectacular and yet illuminating way, as Modern Farmer’s Thomas Jefferson”s Farming Failures reveals–“When it comes to agriculture, few have persevered more in their failures than Thomas Jefferson.” His was a philosopher’s wonder as he walked the fields and forests of Monticello. In a letter to Lafayette on April … Continue reading Thomas Jefferson And La Fruta Del Diablo: The Promise And Problems Of Harvesting Food
