tweet of the day
I’d be less likely to think “isn’t it ironic?” than “why the fuck did I buy 10,000 spoons?”
— Matthew Baldwin (@matthewbaldwin) January 18, 2012
Cooking Up Change
They looked so young, the four college students who sat down and ordered coffee at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., on Feb. 1, 1960.
Legal challenges and demonstrations were cracking the foundations of segregation, but a black person still couldn’t sit down and eat a hamburger or a piece of pie in a store that was all too willing to take his money for a tube of toothpaste.
Those four freshmen at North Carolina A&T College — Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair Jr. and David Richmond — sat until the store closed, but they still didn’t get their coffee.
But that day helped spark other sit-in protests — led by young people like themselves — that spread throughout the South in 1960, energizing the civil rights movement. And the Greensboro Woolworth desegregated its lunch counter later that year.
It wasn’t the first time that food, or the lack thereof, figured large in the movement.
Cake Camouflage
Wild Cakes certainly lives up to its name with this sweet take on spaghetti and meatballs made with buttercream pasta, strawberry jam pasta sauce, Ferrero Rocher meatballs and shaved white chocolate parmesan.
More here from mental_floss. (Via @nypl_menus.)
Jonah Weiner interviews Louis C.K.
From The Write Around: A Series of Conversations with Writers
I worked [at KFC] for a year or something, and that was really hard work. I was a cook, and you had to do everything. I’d always figured it was some kind of frozen thing, but it’s serious chicken cooking. You get a big box of whole Perdue chickens in the morning, not frozen, but cold as hell, and you have to break them up into pieces. Some of them you break, and the little bones rip your hands up, it’s so hard, and then you marinate the chicken in this big metal drum. It’s a process, it starts early in the morning. The marinade is water and… it’s all MSG, that’s all it is, MSG and salt and some other stuff, and it gets turned in this drum to soften and marinate it, and there’s these packets that don’t say what they are, and a breading, and you throw it all in this breading, and there’s this basket you shake out until it’s just coated with the breading, and you put it in these cages, this cylinder, then you close the cage up, and there’s a drum-like deep-fry cooker, hot, hot, hot grease, and you drop it in there. When you drop it in, the grease burbles up, and there was a fucking thing where in order to lock it into place, after you dropped it, three-quarters of the way down, you had to turn it and then it goes in, so you couldn’t let go of the thing. They made these hooks that you’re supposed to use to do the turn with, but they just didn’t work. You had to just do it with your hands.
The Cake That Makes Our Family
Read between the lines of an old family recipe and you’re liable to read the story of the family itself. The scrawled marginalia and cooking stains, the collective memory of shared feasts—they might as well be alleles in the genome. Maybe it’s the chicken soup your aunt makes by the gallon during flu season, or the roast your mother overcooks every Easter. Maybe, if you’re lucky, your dad has taught you the secret to a perfect Old Fashioned, which he learned from his uncle, who learned it from his bookie. For my family, the recipe that defines us as a tribe, and whose origins best reflect our idiosyncrasies, is my grandfather’s babka.
headline of the day
Chile daily must pay readers for exploding churros
I’ve got some fantasies, and they all involve the cheese
headline of the day II
Man spontaneously combusted, coroner says
Did you know Clusterflock would be illegal if run from the UK?
Vegan Black Metal Chef
This week, on My Drunk Kitchen
Vote which one is a weiner.
By Way of My Translato-Wheel…
I’ll attempt:
Los frijoles se ubican dentro del grupo de las leguminosas, que se caracterizan por crecer en forma de vaina y se caracteriza por ser uno de los alimentos que contienen más proteínas que constituyen hasta el 20% de nuestro peso corporal y sirven para el crecimiento, el proceso del metabolismo, la formación de anticuerpos que protegen de enfermedades y la producción de energía, entre otras funciones.
Frijoles
It was the photo of a friend’s pot of weekend frijoles that called this to mind, and now I want to tell a story.
It’s a Texas gubernatorial anecdote. Could well be spurious, but even if so, it’s true. In the early 1970s, a white man named Preston Smith was governor of Texas. And there was this Texas member of the Black Panthers named Lee Otis Johnson, who got 30 years for possession of one joint. And then there was this one day (probably one of many) when people were demonstrating outside the Governor’s Mansion or the Capitol. And Preston Smith is said to have asked, “Why are those people hollering for beans?”
They were chanting, “Free Lee Otis! Free Lee Otis!”
mmmm…jello
Quote out of context
Finally, coming close to my threshold for pain, I asked the chef, “How do I know when it’s done?” I waited expectantly for his wisdom. With a mischievous glint in his eye he smiled, and said “When the sweat starts pouring down the crack of your ass.”
In Case You’re Wondering About Beets
Sheila and I were talking about beets. In case you were wondering, you don’t have to limit yourself to beets from a can. Pickled beets are good. Raw beets in a salad are delicious. They also can be served with a side of cottage cheese. Another way to enjoy beets is to roast, peel and toss with balsamic vinegar, olive oil and a bit of thyme.
I like to juice beets with carrots and celery. You also could juice a beet with one-half lemon and two-three apples. Don’t throw away the leaves, they can have a bitter taste but are very nutritious. Beets are potent and can be a problem for some people, especially at first. But you can avoid nausea by chasing your beets with a raw apple. Beginners are advised to juice half a medium-sized beetroot once a week, slowly increasing amounts.
Sometimes urine will turn red after eating beets in quantity. This is called beeturia, or the passage of pink or red urine. The effect is temporary. Beets provide anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, and detox support. In addition, the betaine in beetroot is an amino acid said to have anti-cancer properties.
EAT. Your Best Friends
The YBF dinner party collective is back, this time they served a ten course meal based on the Arcade Fire’s album The Suburbs. This is the third course, Snow Day.
Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup: Butter Grilled Sourdough Bread, Sharp Cheddar Cheese and Apple Ice Cream, Tomato Sorbet, Lemon Roasted Garlic Mousse, Strawberry Balsamic Glaze, Smoked Fluer De Sel. Served on top of smoking dry ice and chive oil.
Tyler and Jessica Kemp are doing remarkable things with food, all from their own home kitchen. The care and precision required to pull these dinners off is incredible, and well worth the $50 price tag.
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Kasoundi
Select your mix of chillies and slice them up. Separate the seeds from the flesh if you want a milder outcome. Kasoundi is not a macho hot-sauce contest. Avoid the temptation to construct an edible inferno, because all those subtle flavours will be lost. Look, you should just throw out the seeds.
Cornish pasty wins protected status
The European commission has awarded the Cornish pasty “protected geographical indication” (PGI) status. Only pasties prepared in Cornwall according to the traditional recipe can be described as Cornish pasties. Pasties prepared in Cornwall and baked elsewhere in Britain may be sold as Cornish pasties.
The Cornish Pasty Association said a genuine Cornish pasty had a distinctive “D” shape and was crimped on one side, never on top.
“The texture of the filling is chunky, made up of uncooked minced or roughly cut chunks of beef (not less than 12.5%), swede, potato, and onion with a light seasoning. The pastry casing is golden in colour, savoury, glazed with milk or egg and robust enough to retain its shape throughout the cooking and cooling process without splitting or cracking. The pasty is slow-baked and no artificial flavourings or additives must be used.”
My food truck fantasies
Fransk dog as served by Danish pølsevogn. (via Street Cuisine)
have been evolving over the past week, which began with my confessing to having entertained the notion of converting my Honda Element into a food truck. A friend asked what I’d serve.
“Pasties,” I replied. “Spicy pasties.”
Then I got thinking. Ooh, yes. And empanadas. And samosas. And calzones. And pierogis. And knishes.
But I got sidetracked by an art project.
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Coney Island Hot Dogs
Distraction: An occupational hazard of visual research. I was looking for cowboys.
Carry on.
A (Soup) (Swap) Conundrum
I actually pondered hosting a Soup Swap. Pondered it briefly. I really like soup, both the making and the eating of it, and besides, I need to “put myself forward” out here in the Back of Beyond if I am not going to drift out beyond the Back of Beyond and into La-La Land.
But I got to thinking about how few friends I have here and about how a Soup Swap, like a Book Club, sort of demands that the participants know one another at least a little. Else you start drifting into the territory staked out by Amway, Avon, and Tupperware.
Plastics.
Bûche de Noël
Thought I’d share our Bûche de Noël. Note the snail details, which I was rather proud of.
Rugelach
