I might have been Italian...
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
...in a previous life, because sometimes I get a
really strong craving for the simple flavors of
Italian cuisine. Last night I was on my way home
from work around 10:30 at night. I had been
thinking about garlic and tomatoes ever since my
mom told me about The Minimalist (Mark Bittman for
the NYT) and I watched a video about making tomato soup from
oven-roasted canned tomatoes. I detoured to
the open-til-midnite supermarket to get some
garlic (a staple I had somehow run out of).
The sauce I made was ready by the time the
pasta was done boiling, and was just what my
inner italian needed. Note to self: always
keep garlic and canned tomatoes on hand.
Cultivate fresh basil on windowsill.
Michael Pollan - The Omnivore's Dilemma
Monday, February 18, 2008
For anyone (like me) who is
interested in how food and eating figure into
our greater experience of life (and/or our
politics), Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma is a
really important (and fascinating) book.
Recently he gave a talk and answered a few
questions about the book at Williams College. Here's
the video of the
talk, which is great but is mainly
highlights of the book. If you have read the
book and don't want to listen to the whole
thing, skip to around the 51 minute mark to
only hear the Q & A portion- there are
some really great ideas in there, like how our
spending on food relates to our spending on
health care, for example.
Happy New Year!
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
... and Prosit neujahr to the Austrians I
met on my recent holiday trip to Vienna with M. If
you know my password, you can visit my photos of
the trip here.
My favorite part of Vienna, which was
(characteristically) foggy and very cold,
were the coffeehouses. Practically a national
pasttime, these caffeinated sanctuaries offer so
much more than a half-caf-non-fat-soy-latte
(actually I think they might laugh at you if you
ordered that). Warm, elegant, and full of quiet
conversation, free newspapers (and cigarette smoke,
alas), they offer the perfect retreat for escaping
the cold for a while. And you can take as long a
while as you want- the waiter won't bring your
check over until you ask for it.
cafe sperl in Vienna
cafe sperl in Vienna