A Cookbook for Geeks Brings the Scientific Method to the Kitchen
Geeks have come up in the world since the 1980s, when John Hughes movies depicted them as scrawny outcasts with headgear braces and excessive knowledge of things called "floppy disks." In the dot-com boom of the 1990s, the computer-savvy became millionaires, considered heroes instead of neo maxi zo...
September 16, 2010 |
By Lisa Bramen
Confronting Childhood Obesity: Chef Jose Andres Speaks Out
National Hispanic Heritage Month starts today, and it's a great opportunity to celebrate our ever-growing Latino population, which will make up 29 percent of the U.S. population by 2050. But it's also an opportunity to confront an ever-growing threat to that population: childhood obesity."Although ...
September 15, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Breaking Bread (and Dancing With It) at a Macedonian Wedding
Weddings nowadays have become highly customized expressions of a couple's interests, values and backgrounds. The one I attended this weekend was a good example: the theme was horror movies, with tables named after Dracula, Bela Lugosi and other classic scary guys. The reception soundtrack included ...
September 14, 2010 |
By Lisa Bramen
Inviting Writing: The Salad Days of College Food
Today's Inviting Writing post puts a twist on the college food theme by venturing beyond campus—and beyond the typical age range for most freshman students' choice of dining companions. Our featured writer, Leah Douglas, is a Brown University student who contributes to Serious Eats and also has her...
September 13, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Poutine Hits the D.C. Streets
Until about a year ago, a quest for a quick snack on the streets of downtown Washington, D.C. turned up little more than slightly sketchy hot dogs, not-so-soft pretzels and those ubiquitous frozen novelties—at least on the fringes of the National Mall, where I spend most of my weekday lunch hours.S...
September 10, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Five Challenges We Wanted to See on Top Chef, D.C.
Today's guest writer is Brian Wolly, the magazine's Associate Web Editor.Last night’s penultimate episode of Top Chef: DC saw the "cheftestants" leave Washington, D.C. for Singapore, where the winner of the elimination-style cooking competition will be decided. Back when Bravo announced that D.C. w...
September 09, 2010 |
By Brian Wolly
Switchel: Drinking Vinegar to Stay Cool
Make hay while the sun shines, the saying goes. But what's good for the haying is not always so comfortable for the haymaker. Even today, using modern equipment, farmers are liable to work up a powerful thirst out in the fields. Just think how much thirstier a job it was for Colonial-era haying tea...
September 08, 2010 |
By Lisa Bramen
Playing With Food: Eight Science Experiments in the Kitchen
In my first few years of living away from home, I performed a lot of unintentional science experiments in my refrigerator (the variety of colors and textures of mold that can grow on forgotten foods is truly astonishing). But there are plenty of less disgusting—and more fun and educational—ways to ...
September 03, 2010 |
By Lisa Bramen
Five Ways to Eat Ground Cherries
What tastes like a cherry tomato injected with mango and pineapple juice, and looks like an orange pearl encased in a miniature paper lantern?No, I'm not just trying to cram as many fruit references into one sentence as possible. It's a real plant: Physalis pruinosa, aka the "ground cherry."I'd nev...
September 02, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Inviting Writing: Alchemy in the College Cafeteria
We asked you for stories about college food in this month's Inviting Writing, and it's been fun to read the responses so far. If you haven't submitted yours yet, there's still time—please send it to FoodandThink@gmail.com by September 3rd.Let's start off with this one from Eve Bohakel Lee, a Louisv...
August 30, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Warm Beer and Cold Tomatoes: How Temperature Affects Flavor
Years ago, before I ever traveled overseas, I remember hearing that English people drink warm beer. This sounded disgusting, of course, because the only "warm" beer I had ever tasted was the dregs of a cup of Miller or Budweiser from a college keg party that I had drunk too slowly. A few years late...
August 27, 2010 |
By Lisa Bramen
Five Ways to Eat Okra
Okra's a strange little vegetable, the kind of thing you might not guess was edible if no one told you. Its prickly skin can sting your fingers, and slicing into it reveals little more than seeds and slime. I admit, if okra hadn't been included in our CSA share these past few weeks, I would probabl...
August 26, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Seitan: The Other Fake Meat
Like Amanda, I became a vegetarian in my teens, but in my case it had nothing to do with a white lie; basically, I just thought meat was "gross" and realized I was old enough to make my own food choices. And although I now eat fish and some meat, I still like—even prefer, in some cases—"fake meat" ...
August 25, 2010 |
By Lisa Bramen
A Micro-Winery in the Colorado Mountains
We've all heard of micro-breweries by now, but how about micro-wineries? The concept was new to me until this summer, when I went on a family vacation that involved spending a few nights in Conifer, Colorado.My aunt, who lives nearby, had made reservations for us at a charming four-room B&B cal...
August 24, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Inviting Writing: College Food
As I was reminded on a trip to a packed Target the other day, the back-to-school season is upon us. Seeing carts filled with things like electric hot pots, microwave popcorn and instant soup got me thinking about dorm life...which brings me to our latest Inviting Writing theme: College food.As alwa...
August 23, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Five Ways to Eat Cucumbers
Lately I have acquired a troop of cucumbers from various friends and acquaintances trying to unload their late-summer garden bounties. I like to toss a few cucumber slices in salads or on sandwiches, but I would have to eat them morning, noon and night to use them all up that way. What else can be ...
August 20, 2010 |
By Lisa Bramen
A Culinary Tour of "Eat Pray Love"
"I'm having a relationship with my pizza." As Julia Roberts looks over her Neapolitan pizza at her Eat Pray Love co-star, Tuva Novotny, I too feel a pang for the thin, cheesy, luscious display that nearly outshines the Oscar winner. As it turns out, this particular scene was filmed at the famous L’...
August 19, 2010 |
By Jess Righthand
Deciphering the Food Idioms of Foreign Languages
Last week I wrote about funny English-language food idioms and their origins. Word-and food-geek that I am (and I imagine/hope I'm not alone), I find this stuff fascinating. At least as interesting is how other languages work food into their quirky turns of phrase.For starters, there's the one in t...
August 18, 2010 |
By Lisa Bramen
A Quest for Conch
Uh oh! Did I just eat an endangered species?Fortunately, the queen conch (Strombus gigas) isn’t quite endangered (yet). But the species has been over-harvested in the Florida Keys, leading to a drastic decline (pdf) in its reproductive capabilities. The state of Florida has placed a moratorium on c...
August 17, 2010 |
By admin
Inviting Writing: A Floating Food Festival in Mexico
We've traveled vicariously to Paris, Munich and the coast of California on this Inviting Writing road trip, eating everything from pate to hamburgers. It's almost time to introduce a new theme, but for today, let's linger on a Mexican canal boat with Kate Blood, who blogs at Something We Dreamed.Xo...
August 16, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
