How much do I love the New York Public Library's What's on the Menu? project? Inordinately, that's how much. They're dealing with a fairly common problem among libraries with digitization projects: a big collection of image files of interesting documents; the need to capture the text from those documents into a usable, searchable form; the […]
This week I tested out a recipe first encountered at my family's Christmas dinner, via my uncle and aunt, two of the best cooks in the family. They themselves found it somewhere on the internet (possibly at Good Housekeeping) and tweaked it to their liking. Technically, it's a thick lentil soup studded with butternut squash, […]
I just made two more loaves of bread from my sourdough starter, after many weeks of trying miscellaneous sourdough things that didn’t require kneading. This time, apart from some loaf-shaping issues that I think can be fixed next time around, the end product was immensely to my liking. And I think I just learned a […]
Although I do a lot of cooking, I've never been much of a one for baking my own bread. Foccaccia was pretty much the only yeast-raised bread I'd seriously attempted, and I'm more of a cook than a baker, anyway. But I'm also a bread snob who was hopelessly spoiled by five years of living […]
Yesterday I finally went to a wine tasting at Thames River Wine and Spirits, which hosts these evenings every week. It was a nice event, and I love their cavernous underground cellar space, which looks like a stage set for a prison scene in some Verdi opera or another, only with wine racks lining the […]
I'm having one of those blogger's block weeks. It's probably due to the beginning-of-semester rush at work; my brain's been a bit fried lately. (In a good way—I had an absolute blast teaching a class today—but nonetheless in a way that leaves me disinclined to write long blog posts.) So in lieu of anything thinky, […]
This recipe is courtesy of my friend R. We made it this weekend when the temperature was hovering around 90 degrees, and it’s guaranteed to make you feel at least a little bit cooler. Hungarian Cucumber Soup Peel, de-seed, and finely dice 2-3 medium cucumbers. Mince up 1 garlic clove, and chop up a bunch […]
It’s a little embarrassing that the La Dominique crepe cart has been in business right next to Drexel’s Hagerty Library for four months already and it took me until today to discover it and try their crepes. One can get crepes made with buckwheat flour and a greater range of fillings at Beau Monde Creperie […]
Last week I brought home a prodigiously large butternut squash from the Fair Food Farmstand. I had in mind a recipe for squash in a spicy yogurt sauce from Bharti Kirchner’s The Healthy Cuisine of India. So earlier this week I de-skinned, de-seeded, and cubed the squash; I needed four cups of it for the […]
The return of the pastoral
By Amanda on October 14th, 2008
Interesting: Michael Pollan, in Sunday's New York Times, writes an open letter to the next president about the need for a complete overhaul of our farming and food system. (It's long, but it's well worth reading.) There's a petition for an organic farm to be planted on the South Lawn of the White House (a […]