Gastronobooks!

2008-07-21T10:40:00.002-06:00

Guys, I have moved. Please redirect your browsers at this time:

http://arscoquinaria.typepad.com

Vintage Cocktail Reprints

2008-07-01T09:01:00.001-06:00

A new book publisher called cocktailkingdom.com is reprinting a bunch of mid century bar books. Yes, please. (via alcademics)

Ok.

2008-07-01T06:47:00.001-06:00

Let's get this party started again, shall we?

Cookbook reviews for all!

I promise this will last at least for the rest of the summer.

Links

2008-05-24T10:33:00.001-06:00

Ruhlman, Your Floppy Haired Self Has Won a Place in My Heart

2008-05-13T08:51:00.002-06:00

"The chef as inspiration ... is getting harder to hear in an increasingly cacophonous food world."

Increasingly cacophonous food world. Exactly.

"The Case Against the Foodie" essay gets closer and closer to the surface, doesn't it?

Blog Crushes!

2008-05-13T07:15:00.002-06:00

Here's another step towards convincing the food-blog-reading internet that I don't hate them. (Although, who am I kidding--this blog is me standing in the corner of a dark room muttering about writers no one has ever heard of being "overly precious"--I'm probably crazier than my buddy Claiborne. Hope there's a special place in heaven for me and Craig to drink $300 bottles of scotch and make fun of how Giada de Laurentiis is dressed. GOD that sounds fun.)

Anyway, just wanted to point people toward sub-genres of food blogs that tend to decidedly not suck: that is, Wisconsin Cheese blogs and Liquor (DEFINITELY not wine) blogs.

Wisconsin Cheese Blogs: Refreshing, On Topic, Sometimes Technical, Written by Ag Majors, Sometimes Adorably Over-Enthusiastic, Slightly Naive, Have Vendettas Against Vermont and California.

Read: Cheese Underground. So You Want To Be A Cheesemaker?.

Booze Blogs: Railing Against The Impossibly Trend-Driven World of Mixed Drinks, Excited about Peat, Witty, Never Twee, Budget Conscious, Drunk.

Read: Alcademics.

Things I Can't Do

2008-05-09T09:43:00.004-06:00

Just so everyone doesn't think I'm this holier-than-thou bitch who hates everything, here's a list of things I can't do:

Make rice.
Make omelettes.
Make caramel.
Not listen to Eklektikos every single day, despite my intense irritation with John Aielli's inane rambling.
Read most culinary theory.

I messed up there, at the end.

What's the food equivalent of white guilt?

2008-05-01T09:57:00.001-06:00

Accidental Hedonist makes a good point.

2008-04-25T21:22:00.002-06:00

I call bullshit!

Look, let's pay attention to the words we use, shall we? I thought the term "ghetto" had long gone the way of "retard" and "gay," but perhaps not.

When you don't have money, you call Tostinos for pizza, not Wonder Bread.

I've been considering for awhile creating a blog entirely composed of self-absorbed food bloggers' pictures of over-thought, disgusting-looking creations. Thoughts?

That or a chemo-patient recipe blog. Have I mentioned that a certain boy in my life has cancer? No?

Forgive the bile, then.

Pet Peeve

2008-04-17T17:32:00.002-06:00

I am currently watching Molto Mario. Mr. Batali just told his guests that if you look in the front of any cookbook, it will tell you what size of eggs will be used consistently throughout the book. This isn't true, obviously. I once read an interview with Martha Stewart that made some claim about measuring nuts before or after you chop them being a "rule" of cookbooks.

Why on earth would anyone say anything like this? Especially when most people believe it.

Quit making cooking easy where it's not.

Snark.

2008-03-17T18:45:00.000-06:00

Ha!

Apologies

2008-03-16T19:05:00.002-06:00

Sorry I've been semi-present to absent for the past month or so, but someone decided to pay me to write about food and, well, you guys don't click enough ads for this to be my full-time gig. (Not to mention the fact that I have had non-stop visitors since New Year's--I love you guys, but seriously, I need to catch up with my Tivo, my cat, and my bank account.) So, that said, I'm still keeping this blog, but purely to house food lit essays. News and commentary will be up at the other site, which I will let you know about when it goes live.

I spoke way too soon.

2008-03-04T12:03:00.001-06:00

This is awesome. If anyone goes, shoot me an email.

No News Is...

2008-03-04T11:10:00.003-06:00

Out of 250 food-related items in my blog reader this morning, not one had a damn thing to do with literature. So no links today.

Actual content coming soon! Read The Food Snob's Dictionary over the weekend, but no fair doing David Kamp twice I figure. Working on some Betty Fussell, possibly a double-essay on My Kitchen Wars and Masters of American Cookery, if I can find a copy of the former for like a dollar. Also still working on the foodie essay.

This close to being back in a kitchen...

Links

2008-02-28T11:07:00.002-06:00

Ha hahaha. Oh, wait, for real?
New editor at Eater.
News is apparently slow in the food book world. Tips appreciated!

By the way, I've been doing some recipe testing lately, and I think it's loads of fun. I also think I'm pretty good at it. If anyone knows of people who need testers, let me know. I can give references!

A Half-Assed Attempt at Links

2008-02-20T11:48:00.002-06:00

Eater has the nominations for The Golden Clog awards, an awards...program (I guess? Is it an award if you're Biggest Douchebag?) set up by Ruhlman and Bourdain. My favorite category is the Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places award, with chef nominees from the backwoods. Give a little love for Iowa!
A little blogger gets his wings.
Sorry this is barely literate. I am no longer an office lackey, working early and drinking coffee. It took me like an hour to compose the above.

Oh bother.

2008-02-16T00:20:00.004-06:00

Maybe I'm just a huge cranky bitch, but food blogs have been annoying the piss out of me lately. I don't have much to say about it that isn't petty, so I won't say anything specific. Just, you know, I'd rather write things I'm proud of infrequently than write asinine, cutesy bullshit every day in order to remain...what, surely not relevant? Or timely? Just active? Or something? Let's just say a lot of blogs I used to respect have become 99% filler fluff crap over the past couple months.

In other news, Monday's my last day of office work and it's back to the kitchen for me February 27th. Expect an increased sense of entitlement.

PS Enough with the goddamn bacon worship.

(Thanks for putting up with me.)

Death to Foodies

2008-02-15T09:21:00.002-06:00

I am preparing an essay detailing how damn irate the word "foodie" and the people it describes make me. I know Ruth Reichl talks about it in Comfort Me With Apples; does anyone else know of any sources in which people talk about the meaning of that word? Particularly early. I'm guessing David Kamp does? Anyway, I'd really appreciate it!

Ugh.

2008-02-13T17:05:00.001-06:00

Maybe I need to stop reading more than YumSugar, cause this is about the dumbest thing I've ever read.

Seriously? Food is great and interesting and, you know, necessary, and there are lots and lots of things to say about it. DRAW THE LINE SOMEWHERE, folks.

Links

2008-02-12T13:25:00.000-06:00

Oh, snort: "I think we need to be alive to the possibility that this is simply Ruhlman's way of telling us that he loves 90s Chicago house." Reminds me of being in fourth grade, watching the dress rehearsal for the talent show, and leaning over to a comrade and saying "Why is everyone song about kitchen appliances?" Anyway, love me a good fight, love me some Ruhlman, and love me some Gurgling Cod.
Amateur Gourmet reads The Omnivore's Dilemma--and touches on How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read, kind of.
Nothing to do with food or books, really, but Rachel Ray is having a SXSW party with OMG BATTLES among others.
Orangette on Edna Lewis.
Oh, HELL NO.
"Better than yo' Momma's titties" - Learning to cook with Coolio.

Links (etc.)

2008-01-29T09:24:00.000-06:00

Oh no! Wacky title hijinks.

Serious Eats is cooking Robb Walsh's The Tex-Mex Cookbook this week, in honor of the super bowl. Apparently super bowls are Texan? Funny, growing up I was convinced they were Midwestern, with the beer brats and the spinach dip and whatnot. Whatever, Tex-Mex rules. I'll allow it.
The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook is available online, in full! Exciting! (And searchable!)

In other news, I have quit reading any and all Sugar publications. Life's too short to be a stereotypical woman. In any case, if I miss anything “important,” let me know.
In other other news, does anyone have any suggestions for good things to read on the theory of reviewing? The more I think about it, the less I think recommending books to a general public makes any goddamn sense.

Review: The Tenth Muse

2008-01-21T18:13:00.000-06:00

Year: 2007
Recipes: Yes
Grade: B

Reading Judith Jones' recently published memoirs The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food is like sitting in your grandmother's living room. The ordered, bare room is strewn with pictures of lustier times: Grandma in a kicky mid-50s, tea-length wedding dress with matching hat & jacket, Grandpa in his Air Force uniform, blonde hair cropped close; Grandma in a floor-length black gown smoking a lengthy cigarette and talking to three or four dashing gentlemen in tuxedos; Grandma sitting in front of a picnic basket, pouring wine for James Beard and Marion Cunnigham; Grandma and Grandpa standing on either side of the imposing figure of Julia Child. Meanwhile, the woman herself stands before you, plain cotton apron dusted with flour, hands on hips, politely answering your questions about the photographed luminaries before you while constantly trying to steer the conversation back to the picture of her pushing your toddler-aged father on a swing.

That is, it's a restrained, elegant tome that outlines Jones' experience as the “it” editor to culinary 20^th century America (and let's not forget Anne Frank's diary) without divulging too many opinions or gossip. I found myself at times getting anxious with the dilligent prose style, wondering when Jones' would come back to facts she had left out (for example, the beginning of her relationship with the then-married Evan Jones) and realizing, with great disappointment, that she would not. Such details simply are not pertinent to the task at hand.

Why disappointment, though? Ostensibly our (the culinary literature reading public) interest in Jones' life is as it relates to the development of the American culinary literarture catalog. I can practically hear her chiding me: “This is a book about food, darling. Why do you wish it were something more than that?”

I don't know why. I don't know that I truly do. I know that I gorged myself of David Kamp's luscious The United States of Arugula and came away feeling both satiated and yet somewhat artificially so. Jones' book had rather the opposite effect; it somehow reminded me of eating shortbread.

I talk a big talk about treating this literature with the respect it deserves; I claim to be anti-food porn, anti-foodie. Does my desire to see some color added to The Tenth Muse belie these professions? I don't entirely think so—or at least, I hope not. Closer to the truth is that I honestly think it's possible that Jones is on unfamiliar territory here—a women so clearly devoted to the culinary literature of others, a woman who has spent her entire life discovering and cultivating new and fascinating gastronomic voices has failed to develop one of her own. I wonder if we couldn't get a better picture of Jones' life, voice and vision by reading the collected works of her writers. I think that her great passion and skill was in delivering the right culinary voice to the right audience at the right time. The Tenth Muse is interesting but perhaps a better reference volume than a page-turner.

Article: Food porn

2008-01-15T16:52:00.000-06:00

Salon reinvents the wheel, er, food blog.