Cooked Books

Bingo and Burritos

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Sun, 28 Oct 2018 13:24:00 +0000

Photo courtesy of Soho Grand's Grandlife

If one could create a timeline of one’s life using restaurants and bars as the only measurement, Tortilla Flats would occupy a very happy and specific chunk of my life from the late 1990s into the early 2000s. Perhaps that’s why, amidst all the bad news stories one could share on any given day in late October 2018, the story I chose to group text my family was “Tortilla Flats is closing.”

Located since 1983 on Washington Street in the West Village, just a hop, skip and jump from the Meatpacking District, the Standard Hotel, the Whitney, and the beautiful, stylish Santina, Tortilla Flats has begun in recent years to look like an outlier, a relic of another time. The frozen margarita machine kept churning at the bar, the salsa came in small plastic saucers, and the water in tall plastic cups. The booths had old vinyl car bench seats with duct tape to cover up the tears. Then again, I might be getting some details wrong as it’s been a while since I last was there. But when asked to call up memories of Tortilla Flats, in the pre-hotel, pre-museum era, I have no trouble at all.

Tortilla Flats managed to be a communal party restaurant, but without being full of jerks. It was intimate without being exclusive. And while not cheap, it was affordable enough to welcome lots of different people. There was no private room, which meant that when bingo started, the whole restaurant played bingo. When the hula hoop contest began, you could either join, watch, or keep eating. The hosts not only showed you to your table but worked double-duty as MCs to keep the party moving and happy. There was tinsel and color and lights.

For a spell of a few years in the late 90s, my oldest brother gathered his friends and siblings to celebrate his birthday at Tortilla Flats. We’d find a Saturday afternoon in early November, with a chill in the air and the sun just giving out. Some years, we’d sit inside at the long table in the back. Other years, we’d opt for outside hoping the plastic sheet covering the patio would keep us sufficiently warm. If the sheet didn’t do the trick, the margaritas and chili con queso certainly did. We’d start early to avoid the crowds, relishing the freedom of youth with an afternoon buzz and burritos.

More recently, within the past few years, I've shared celebratory meals with friends and family at Barbuto, directly across the street from Tortilla Flats. Barbuto is known for its delicious pastas and roast chicken. The chef and owner is Jonathan Waxman. The garage doors open on to the streets on summer evenings. The meals were delicious, the company fantastic. I’ve returned again to Barbuto a few times since. It’s an odd, bittersweet feeling though, like cheating on a friend, by entering the wrong door to the wrong restaurant to meet the very same people I had celebrated with at Tortilla Flats years before. Now Tortilla Flats is leaving and perhaps a more austere restaurant will open in its place. Or another jubilant restaurant, but without the bingo. Or, more likely a bank. Either way, next time I find myself at Barbuto I’m going to order a margarita. While I’m sure it will be delicious, it won’t taste as sweet.

Don't Let the Girl

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Wed, 29 Jun 2016 20:01:00 +0000

Beets from The Vegetable Grower's Guide

Don't let the girl pare these esculents all over as she does turnips. Don't let her cut off the tops and roots with a careless knife. Tell her to wash them clean, but not to draw blood with even so much as a scratch. And when they are boiling don't let her thrust her fork into them promiscuously to see if they are done; tell her to make her trials on one beet in particular. So shall you garnish your table with a dish beautifully colored as well as toothsome. Peel after boiling, cut into slices, sprinkle with salt and pepper and put on a little piece of butter.

Recipe for "Beets" in Oneida Community Cooking (1873)

Kaddish for O'Casey's

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 15:18:00 +0000

Photo from The Daily News.

O'Casey's Irish Bar and Restaurant, which closed a few weeks ago, was never in the running for a James Beard Award. It's not listed in Zagats, nor will you find it mentioned on eater.com. Midtown Lunch liked its food and atmosphere but bemoaned the lack of happy hour, and New York Magazine made note of the banker/lawyer contingent among its patrons.

O'Casey's was never an in spot, but that's precisely why it was such a favorite watering hole among many midtown-based librarians. It was a short walk from the Schwarzman Building on the 42nd Street, the Mid-Manhattan Library on 40th Street, and library offices on 39th Street. The bar served good beers on tap and the waitstaff allowed you to sit at a table without ordering food. But when you did order food—and you always did—it was better than your average pub fare: the mozzerella sticks were well-seasoned and flavorful, the burger was tasty, and the fish and chips were more than commendable.

The restaurant's interior, with its cozy feel and flattering lighting, provided a warmth that the outside world didn't. The silent TV screens meant you could watch the Knicks lose while talking about more important issues. Extra seating both upstairs and downstairs meant never having to wait for a table, and if you were really lucky you might hear the Gin Blossoms over the stereo. If there were a sitcom called Library Life, O'Casey's would be our Monks, or Riff's, or Regal Beagle.

No, it wasn't the best bar in the city, but O'Casey's was a solid, beloved spot for going away parties, work celebrations and travails, holiday mayhem, appreciation lunches, group discussions, one-on-ones, and solo dining. And it will be missed.

Clearing the Lunch Table

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 19:32:00 +0000

Eight months after its opening, Lunch Hour NYC is closing this Sunday. It will be a bittersweet day for me, but it had a healthy run and I'm thankful that I had the opportunity to work with Laura Shapiro to help put this exhibition together.

But as of today, Friday, there are only three more days to see Lunch Hour! Get thee to the Library! To whet your appetite, here are some of my favorite items from the show -- and one that didn't make it in.

Noah Webster's 1841 Dictionary, Rare Books Division:

When I found this hand-written annotation of "lunch" in Noah Webster's own copy of his 1841 dictionary, I got very, very excited. Lunch as a verb!

Coffee Instructions from the Horn & Hardart Manager's Book, Robert Byrnes Collection, Manuscripts and Archives Division:

For those curious about coffee pre-Starbucks, these instructions on how to brew a proper cup of coffee from the Horn & Hardart Automat manager's book will provide some helpful insight. Hint: it's all in the details.

Doughnuts from Horn & Hardart, Robert Brynes Collection, Manuscripts and Archives Division:

I want this photograph hanging in my apartment.

Nathan Nirenstein's Real Estate Atlas, 1955-1958, Map Division:

If one wanted to get a sense of walking down a New York City street in the mid 1950s, one need only to consult Nathan Nirenstein's Real Estate Atlas. You'd learn that there were at least three Horn & Hardart Automats within a few blocks of each other on 42nd Street. That the Brass Rail restaurant took up a lot of real estate next to Grand Central Station, and that a large Woolworth's lived in the space where the HBO building is today.

While most real estate atlases show major buildings and landmarks from a bird's-eye view, Nirenstein's hits the streets. When the map curator showed me this atlas (for the exhibition we display only the area in and around the New York Public Library, but the atlas details all of New York City), I knew it was worthy of inclusion in the show.

On the Road typescript, Jack Kerouac Archive, Berg Collection and Hector's menu, Rare Books Division:

The image of Beat writers hunkered down with a notebook in a smoky coffee shop or cafeteria is iconic, and we were hoping to convey that in the show. Fortunately, because of the rich collection of materials in the Jack Kerouac archive, we were able to. Kerouac, a fan of the midtown self-service chain Hector's, wrote a short piece called Last of the Old West in Hector's Cafeteria in 1950 which is displayed in the exhibition. He also mentioned Hector's on the first page of On the Road (shown above on the left); when Dean and Marylou arrive in New York they head straight to the Hector's. Kerouac, in his edits, adds the word cafeteria in pencil. And for those curious about Hector's, we have a hand-written menu thanks to menu collector Bernard Fread.

Esther Bubley photograph, Photography Division:

I love this image and I find it especially arresting blown up as it is in the home lunch section.

Jello-O ad from Pictorial Review, General Research Division:

Still Life of Jell-O. Beautiful.

How the Other Half Lives manuscript, Jacob Riis Archive, Manuscripts and Archives Division:

What does Jacob Riis have to do with lunch in New York? In our charitable lunch section, we argue that Riis' documentation of the squalor of tenement living -- in his newspaper writings, in his photographs, and especially in his book How the Other Half Lives -- did much to move the progressive movment and the philosophy of scientific charity forward. These movements in turn, helped usher in school lunch programs and other charitable food initiatives in New York City.

Esther Bubley photograph, Photography Division:

This photograph hangs on the wall between the front and back wall of the Automat vending display, so I'm guessing a lot of people may have missed it. If I could, I would've displayed all of Bubley's wonderful Automat photographs. But this one is especially great.

Yoshino-Ya menu, 1932, Rare Books Division:

This 1932 menu from the short-lived Yoshino-Ya restaurant on West 47th Street is one of my favorite items in the show. While many claim that sushi and sashimi arrived in New York via California in the 1960s, this menu features both dishes on the menu thirty years earlier. While we don't know for sure whether their version of sushi and sashimi is what we think of today, it's a clue that is worth deeper exploration.

And one image that didn't make it. Who said there was no such thing as a free lunch? This Charles Dana Gibson print from 1911 shows that the proof is in the pilsner.

A Child is Born

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 14:54:00 +0000

Happy Birthday, Julia.

Thanks for giving me a childhood of delicious food, cooked with love by my parents from their splattered cookbook bible.

Quiche

Chicken Breasts

Spinach or Salmon Souffle

Mustard Chicken

What Vassar Girls Eat

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 14:04:00 +0000

Vassar/Yale Bike Race, 1952. Courtesy of Life Magazine

For those of you who received an incomplete, unedited version of this in your RSS reader -- my apologies. I published (by accident), then perished. Here is the correct version.

Vassar girls like to eat. I should know - I am one.

But what I eat today is far different from what I ate as an undergrad at Vassar's AC/DC (All Campus Dining Center). For example, Lucky Charms aren't part of my ~~dinner~~ diet anymore. I consume a far greater variety of vegetables now than I did as a co-ed. I don't subsist on starch in 2012 the way I did...quite a few years ago.

Sorry, is this boring you?

It apparently wasn't boring to 19th century readers. Because over a century ago, What Vassar Girls Eat was an article that appeared in at least three different publications over the course of several years. Caramel consumption evidently proved newsworthy.

Here's a rundown of the articles I've uncovered thus far:

1895 Class Day, courtesy of Vassar College Archives

June 1, 1884
New York Times as taken from the Poughkeepsie Eagle
"What the Vassar Girls Eat"

The article describes the wholesome foods available on campus, from spinach, asparagus, and lettuce grown in hot-houses, to bread "made on the premises, in a well-appointed bakery, by experienced men, and of the higher grades of flour."

The breakdown of consumption for the 1883-1884 school year:

94,158 pounds of fresh meat
6,238 pounds of coffee
405 pounds of caramel
over 36,000 clams
209 bottles of pickles

Class of 1872 at their 50th Reunion, courtesy of Vassar College Archives

January 31, 1885
Harper's Weekly
Under "Waifs and Strays," a popular column.

The article doesn't dive too deeply into the eating habits of the students, except to question the latest statistics of the Vassar girl diet: "It is to be hoped that one may doubt without offense the statistician who pretends to have learned what the girls at Vassar College have eaten during the past year."

The authors cites the following statistics:

111,438 of fresh meat
1592 gallons of oysters
32,000 clams
90,000 quarts of milk
457 gallons of apple sauce
104 pickles

The pickle statistic provokes the greatest debate. "Either at Vassar they ate no pickles at all, or else the 104 pickles were smuggled in, or else they ate 10,000 times 104 pickles."

I suspect the number refers to bottles of pickles, not individual dills, although the number does seem low.

1890s dorm room, courtesy of Vassar College Archives

August 4, 1891
Once a Week: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper
"What the Vassar Girls Eat"

"Any notion of the Vassar girl as spirituelle creature, living on caramels, bon-bons and other delicacies, would be quickly dispelled by a visit any day to the large dining-room, and there witness the attack on the solid and substantial things on the table." Although based on the numbers below, caramel was clearly an important part of the diet.

Breakdown of the 1890-1891 school year:

98,500 pounds of meat
98,000 eggs
40,000 clams and oysters
500 pounds of caramels
300 bottles of pickles
250 quarts of olives ("The taste for olives is acquired, they say, but with the Vassar girl it comes naturally.")

1901 basketball team, courtesy of Vassar College Archives

November, 1905
Ladies Home Journal
"What College Girls Eat"

This article, written by the great domestic scientist and cookbook author, Sarah Tyson Rorer, explores the eating habits of female college students more generally. Not surprisingly, Rorer spends a bit of time on the women of the Seven Sisters schools, including Vassar. And while no statistical breakdown is listed, Rorer provides enough colorful commentary to more than make up for it.

First, she takes issue with the Vassar girl's attitudes towards hygiene: "There is a strong inclination to ridicule the idea of a hygienic table or any special care towards the womanliness of its students."

Then Rorer judges the meals: "In all the bills-of-fare there was too much nitrogenous food, too few green vegetables, too little fruit, and an entire absence of salads. The dietary was too largely composed of dead things, like hot bread, white bread, cookies and cakes."

Her description, in other words, sounds quite familiar to this former student who survived on rice, pasta, and cucumbers. Or, as a proper Vassar girl might say, "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."

Playing Cards in the 1950s, courtesy of Vassar College Archives

Lunch Time

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 17:27:00 +0000

Lunch Hour NYC, the exhibition I wrote about last November on this very blog, is now up and free and open to the public.

My co-curator, Laura Shapiro, and I are incredibly thankful to everyone who made Lunch happen, especially the exhibitions staff at the library and the incredibly talented designers at Pure+Applied. They were tireless in making sure everything looked perfect, but full of humor all the while.

It's been a hectic several weeks, but we're really pleased with the results and the response. Now I'm back to my regularly scheduled duties which include culinary acquisitions, electronic resources, What's on the Menu? (a million dishes strong!), and coming soon: culinary research classes.

But first I wanted to share what is perhaps my favorite image from the show. It also happens to be of one of my favorite foods: doughnuts. I generally don't veer toward chocolate-covered anything, but I will make an exception for this photograph.

It's especially meaningful to me because when Laura and I were going through the Horn & Hardart papers in the library's manuscript division, we found fantastic images of automats throughout the city: street views, interiors, workers, but we never found a single food image. Then, in the very last box, in the very last folder, we uncovered photographs of soups, sandwiches, cakes, ham, and doughnuts. Despite our naturally reserved nature (not to mention the fact that we were in a quiet reading room), we -- how shall I put this? -- freaked out.

I might've gasped or jumped. Laura definitely put her hands in the air in some sort of celebratory gesture, and we then proceeded to show the photograph above to every single person in the room, without exception.
They didn't necessarily share our enthusiasm.

So there you have the thrilling story behind a black and white photograph of doughnuts.

The Primeburger

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Thu, 24 May 2012 11:25:00 +0000

It's been a hard few months for a couple of classic midtown institutions. First Bill's Gay Nineties closed. Now Primeburger is shutting its doors after 74 years in business.

Stepping into Primeburger is like stepping back in time: waiters wear white coats, the menu has half a grapefruit and individual tins of sardines on offer, and Prime's single-diner seating alone is probably enough to grant the restaurant landmark status.

I stopped in on Tuesday for a lunch of grilled swiss on rye with tomato. According to the gentleman I spoke with, Prime's last day in business is Saturday which means there is still just enough time to head to 51st Street to order a burger, orange sherbert, rice pudding, or cinnamon toast.

To keep the memories alive, Eater.com has compiled reminiscences from Primeburger servers, This Must Be the Place has a wonderful short film on Prime, and, last but not least, the menu collection at the New York Public Library now has a Primeburger bill of fare in its archive.

Bobby Short's Chicken Carlyle

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 04:20:00 +0000

(Courtesy of NYPL)

Forget cleanses. Forget atoning for gastronomical sins.

That's what I try to remind myself every January when it seems as though everyone and their sister (and by sister, I'm looking at you Bon Appetit) is forgoing something -- alcohol, meat, whipped cream -- for the betterment of their health and well-being.

Not that it's not a noble cause. And I wholeheartedly support my loved ones who choose to detox even if I, myself, choose not to participate. I prefer to drink water to cleanse my body -- in between glasses of wine and forkfuls of pasta alla Bolognese. It's January, for Pete's sake! The coldest, most miserable month of the year and a ginger broth is not going to make me feel better, even if it certainly will make me feel better.

As a gift to myself for standing firm, while progressively getting soft, I made a lovely dish that is bound to make me softer still: Bobby Short's Carlyle Chicken Hash. The recipe, named for the Mr. Short, the great singer and piano player who graced the Carlyle Hotel lounge for over three decades, includes cleanse-verboten ingredients such as cream, white bread, and foie gras. The recipe was featured in an article by Sam Sifton in the New York Times in 2009 and was introduced to me by my friend Diana, whose love for this dish knows no season.

The recipe is super simple. Chicken stock, cream, and truffle oil is added to reduced sherry. That combination gets reduced again, and is mixed with cooked chicken and foie gras. If foie gras isn't handy (plebeian!), and in my case it certainly isn't (librarian!), just leave it out. I also used, and immensely enjoyed, sauteed mushrooms. The best part comes at the end: toasted white bread points. And no, Ezekiel 4:9 doesn't cut it.

I'd be lying if I told you it wasn't rich. And decadent. And not terribly pleasing to the eye (which is why I didn't photograph it). But this is your chance to practice moderation for the new year. And if that doesn't work, you have twelve months to diet it off.

Bobby Short's Chicken Carlyle Hash
(courtesy of the New York Times and adapted from James Sakatos of the Carlyle)

One three to four pound kosher chicken
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup medium-dry sherry
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon truffle oil (optional, but don't be a hater -- the truffle oil is really good here)
4 ounces foie gras (optional)
Toasted white bread

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and roast until its juices run clear, 60 to 70 minutes. Let cool. Remove the skin and meat from the bones. Cut the breast meat into cubes. Shred the thigh and leg meat.

In a large saucepan, reduce the sherry by half over high heat. Add the cream, chicken broth and truffle oil, if using, and boil over high heat, stirring constantly, to reduce by half again, about 10 minutes.

Add the chicken meat and blobs of the foie gras, if using, to the reduction and bring to a light simmer. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve hot with toast points.

Schmatz! Lunches at Steidl

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 20:37:00 +0000

I have a complicated relationship with lunch.

As much as I'd like to say that I take my full lunch hour to savor every delectable bite of my homemade meal, and that I use real silverwear, a cloth napkin, and glass stemware, and then take a refreshing walk around the block -- just to clear my head and feel the fresh air on my skin -- I can't. In fact, that would be a bold-faced lie.

The truth is that the utensils are plastic, the Diet Coke is taken straight from the can, and the plate is either a plastic bento box (Cafe Zaiya), a swath of tin foil (Olympic Pita), or a folded box with "window" (Pret a Manger). The hour is more like 12 minutes and my walk around the block is, well, sitting at my desk reading Lifehacker.com.

I don't feel very proud of how I spend my lunch hour every day, but I felt a lot worse after reading Schmatz! Lunches at Steidl.

Schmatz! -- the book defines the word as 1) smacking one's lips in anticipation of good food 2) eating noisily 3) big sloppy air kisses -- is both a cookbook and an artist book. It's a cookbook, in that it contains the recipes and menus of Chef Rudy Schellong, the full-time cook at the Steidl publishing house in Gottingen, Germany, who prepares delicious lunches everyday for those artists making the journey to work with founder Gerhard Steidl. It's also an artist book in that many of the guests at "Steidlville" -- writers, designers, photographers, and artists -- contributed art work and written testimonials to Schmatz!, praising Chef Rudy's own creative genius in the kitchen.

Karin Mamma Andersson

Producing a book with Gerhard Steidl, from the paper selection, typography, edits, and design is, by all accounts, a rewarding but exhausting experience. (The book-creation process at Steidlville has been made into a film called How to Make a Book at Steidl.) Visiting authors work at Steidl from early in the morning to late in the evening, which makes Chef Rudy's lunches that much more essential to the happiness and well-being of the guests. The dishes are largely vegetarian, centered around fruits and vegetables, and created, shopped for, and executed all on the same day. Examples of dishes include endive with orange-cucumber vinaigrette; pasta fredda with mushrooms, arugula, tomatoes, and olives; lemon pudding with nectarines. They don't serve that in midtown.

This is a book filled with simple, healthful, satisfying, and envy-inducing dishes that are more than worthy of their own cookbook. And that they appear alongside such beautiful and haunting images from artists like Mitch Epstein, Bruce Davidson, and Susan Meiselas, is an added bonus.

Salad with tzatziki

Below is a photograph by Paul Graham, who accompanies the image with the following memory of sitting with Gunter Grass at a Steidl lunch:

I was so in awe of sitting with Gunter Grass for lunch that I have little recollection of anything apart from a long discussion complaining about not being allowed to smoke his pipe in America, the gist of which was that he wouldn't go there ever again. The next time I met him was in the New York Public Library.

Paul Graham

I wonder what they had for lunch in midtown.

The Thanksgiving Project

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:56:00 +0000

Norman Rockwell

This Thursday, many Americans of different religions, ethnicities, and backgrounds will be chowing down on Thanksgiving fare. For some, the Norman Rockwell scene above offers a mirror onto one's own dining table, with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and pie taking center stage. But for other Americans, Thanksgiving dinner means tofu instead of turkey. Or rice instead of potatoes. Or Bird's Custard instead of pumpkin pie. And then there are those who forgo the holiday completely, either by choice or necessity.

That's where you come in. The New York Public Library wants to capture your Thanksgiving menu. We want to know what you eat, what you don't eat, and why.

Woody Allen once said, "Tradition is the illusion of permanence." But traditions, including culinary traditions, shift and morph and evolve. New spouses (or in-laws) add to or change food customs. A bad economy or loss of a job might alter the way a meal is celebrated. And vegetarianism, gluten-free diets, veganism, and an enhanced awareness of where one's food comes from can create a meal that looks quite different from the meal our parents or grandparents ate. And for a holiday as seeped in Americana as Thanksgiving, the food rituals and traditions of our multicultural landscape bring ever new dishes onto the Thanksgiving table.

For example, in the fascinating paper "Being American: An Arab American Thanksgiving,"* William G. Lockwood and Yvonne R. Lockwood describe the "creolization" of Thanksgiving in the Arab American community in and around Detroit, Michigan.

(Hotel North. Augusta, Maine, 1900. NYPL)

One woman interviewed by the Lockwoods, and considered one the best Arab cooks in the community, prepares hashwa (rice with ground meat, almonds, pinenuts, and spices), and yogurt, but also turkey, cranberries, creamed corn, mashed potatoes, and Sara Lee pumpkin pie. Another family serves hummus, baba ghannouj, sliced raw vegetables, flatbreads, Cornish hens stuffed with hashwa, Arab salad (lettuce, tomato, parsley, cucumbers, lemon, mint, and olive oil), and harissa for dessert.

(courtesy of NYPL)

In my own anecdotal survey of Thanksgiving culinary rituals closer to home, similar themes emerge. The turkey might serve as a nod towards the American holiday, while the sides express the family's cultural background. Perhaps kimchee is served alongside the turkey, or biryani.

But the proof, as they say, is in the (corn) pudding. We'd like to hear from you about what you do or don't eat for Thanksgiving. What you grew up eating, but don't eat now. What your mother served, or what your uncle can't eat, or the restaurant that is your Thanksgiving home-away-from-home. Your entries will make up one component of the upcoming lunch exhibition, so please share (and pass this request around like a gravy boat) with friends, co-workers, and family members. But to make it easy, here's a step-by-step process of what to do:

1) Go to NYPL's Thanksgiving Project website.
2) Submit photographs of your Thanksgiving dinner, both past and present OR upload audio of your Thanksgiving dinner (with recipes!) OR write a short story/anecdote about your Thanksgiving culinary traditions OR film the meal and submit the video!
3) Then make sure to come to the New York Public Library next year to see your Thanksgiving meal reflected in the upcoming Lunch exhibition!

And if you feel compelled to share immediately, don't hold back! Please comment below. And happy Thanksgiving.

*Oxford Symposium on Food and Drink (2001)

Lunch Break

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:39:00 +0000

Berenice Abbott, 1938, courtesy of NYPL

It's the first meal regularly taken outside the home, it's associated with school children, workers, women, power players, and with charities. It's an hour in the middle of a quick-moving, industrial, modern city. What happens in New York at noon?

In eight months, June, 2012, the New York Public Library will open an exhibition on lunch in New York, curated by culinary historian Laura Shapiro and me.

Co-curating an exhibition has been a tremendous honor, challenge, and undertaking and it's been a large reason why this blog has been left unattended for many months. But as you can see with the new redesign (TA DA!), I'm inching my way back, anxious to share menus, recipes, interesting books, and of course, lunch stories.

Edouard Manet, Luncheon on the Grass, Grove Art Online

And I also hope to share, in the coming months, the general process of putting together the lunch exhibition ("What to Expect When You're Exhibiting"). What our thought process has been, what materials we're finding (and not), and the books, articles, and movies that have inspired us.

One thing I can divulge right away. Working with someone as sharp, funny, witty, and grounded as Laura Shapiro has been the highlight of the experience. If you're not familiar with her work, become so immediately! She has taught me, by example, how to work, how to write, and most importantly, how to read. I thank the gods above that she said yes when asked to take on this project with me.

But first, a pressing question: Why lunch? I'm glad you asked.

Laura and I were charged with the task of putting together an exhibition on food. And while that was music to our ears, it's also a challenge. What about food? Where? Home or in restaurants? Cookbooks or menus? What time period?

We knew a show focusing only on menus was out of the question. William Grimes had created that platonic ideal back in 2002 with New York Eats Out, an exhibition, as it turns out, which introduced me to NYPL's incredible collection. I was in my first semester of library school when I went to see his exhibition and I haven't been the same since.

Home Made Lunch Room, 1900, NYPL

A show focusing only on cookbooks was another option. NYPL's cookbook collection spans centuries, from Platina (1475) to Cooking Basics for Dummies (2011) and nearly everything in between. But cookbooks, while often fascinating texts, aren't always thrilling to look at.

Laura and I were looking for a compelling story that could tap into the Library's collections -- not just menus and cookbooks, but periodicals, photos, rare books, archives, etc. We quickly decided to focus our food story in New York. It is, after all, the New York Public Library, and while the collections here cover continents, a New York focus helps us...well, focus and gives us room to tap into the City's relationship with food today. The idea for lunch came soon afterwards. We flirted with covering "24 Hours", but it quickly became clear that lunch stood out as a layered and fascinating story all its own.

So what happens in New York at noon? That's what we wanted to find out.

Sol Libsohn, 1938, courtesy of MCNY

The Red Lobster and the Red Flag

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 21:02:00 +0000

I've always loved this menu for the Lobster Oyster and Chop House. It reminds me of the lobster image on this Soviet children's book featured on a wonderful McGill University library project. The menu, with its reds and pinks and quirky illustration, is a bit more playful than the children's book, with its ominous looking crustaceans and block lettering. But capturing the lobster from above, claws open, climbing up the page, grabs my attention on both.

The inside of the Lobster Oyster and Chop House is equally fantastic:

What's on the Menu?

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 16:44:00 +0000

This past Monday evening, the New York Public Library launched What's on the Menu?, a web site which invites the public to transcribe our digitized historical menus.

It all started about a year ago, when my beloved former colleague Amy Azzarito*, NYPL Labs manager Ben Vershbow, and I were thinking of new and interesting projects for the culinary collection. Having worked with the menu collection for a few years, I had begun noticing an increasing number of researchers coming in to research specific dishes. Although nearly 10,000 menus in the collection had been digitized, we didn't have an efficient way to search their content. At first we considered, optical character recognition (OCR) software to transcribe the menus, but quickly realized that the menus weren't optimal OCR candidates, due to being hand-written, being mimeographed, using funky fonts, etc.

Then Amy had the brilliant idea to open the digitized menus to the crowd, and invite our hungry public to help us transcribe them. A year of talking, meeting, and pow-wowing -- with fellow NYPL'ers Michael Lascarides, Kris Kelly, and Michael Inman -- followed, but it happened! WOTM launched last week.

We're five days in, still fixing and tweaking and planning out our next steps, but so far, so tasty!

Big thanks to everyone at the Library who has helped make this happen, and to the site visitors helping us create a robust catalog of dishes.

I'm getting hungry just thinking about it!

*Amy is now full-time at Design*Sponge

Tabla's Unleavened Bread Bar

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 02:26:00 +0000

Danny Meyer's beloved Tabla closed a few months ago after twelve years in business. And although I wish the Library had more Tabla menus than the small handful from 2007, I am pleased that one of them includes Chef Floyd Cardoz's Unleavened Bread Bar menu, created for Passover week.

I'm not sure when restaurants began to offer meals catering to the Passover crowd; most kosher restaurants close for the duration of the holiday because a thorough cleaning of any leavened bread product (biur chametz) is a serious chore, and add to that the requirement to use different pots, pans, plates, etc. and you've got a lot of work on your hands, especially for a restaurant.

Non-kosher restaurants don't have those restrictions, so they can offer seders and Passover meals to anyone interested. In New York this year, there are quite a few seders taking place: Savoy in SoHo, Capsouto Freres in Tribeca, JoeDoe in the East Village, Sammy's Roumanian on the Lower East Side, and Julian Medina's Toloache, Yerba Buena, and Yerba Buena Perry. And Joan Nathan writes about others joining the trend in the Times this week.

I'll be contacting the above restaurants to add their menus to our Passover collection, and if anyone is attending a seder, or simply dining, at a Passover-friendly restaurant this week, please let me know.

Doing the Dishes: Paul Freedman on 19th Century American Dining

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 17:32:00 +0000

Paul Freedman, a medieval history professor at Yale, has been not-so-secretly flirting with food history for a few years now. First there was the James Beard-nominated Food: A History of Taste which he edited in 2007. Next came Out of the East (2008), a fascinating (and very readable) history of the medieval spice trade. And now Freedman has focused his attention on American food history by fastidiously documenting every dish found on thousands of early and mid-19th century hotel menus (Fifth Avenue Hotel, the American Hotel and others), to understand what people -- at these tonier establishments where menus were printed daily -- were eating when they ate out. Among the surprising results: lots of macaroni.

The fruits of his labor have been published in the March, 2011 issues of both Gastronomica (short version) and the New England Quarterly (long version), and Paul has generously agreed to answer some questions about his latest project for Cooked Books.

CB: You teach medieval history and have for quite some time. What attracted you to 19th century American dining habits?

PF: There were a few steps. I wanted to write about spices in the Middle Ages and why they were so popular. That is what first interested me in the overall history of food. I became interested in other eras and in particular what sorts of food were prestigious and which lacked prestige. So in the Middle Ages spices were associated with noble status while root vegetables were for peasants; organ meats were prestigious in the 19th century, poor people's food for most of the 20th, and now fashionable and high status again. When I was at the NYPL's Cullman Center (2002-2003), I was working on the book I eventually published on spices, but the menu history exhibit organized by William Grimes fascinated me. I'd date my interest in New York and 19th-century history to that exhibit.

CB: How did you go about finding menus to consult?

PF: I began with the NYPL and its immense collection. Others who work on the history of food, many of whom I met while editing Food: A History of Taste, told me about other libraries such as those at Cornell, NYU, the Culinary Institute of America or the New-York Historical Society. You, Rebecca, were very important to me both in helping me with the NYPL material and we visited the authoritative private collector of menus Henry Voigt in Delaware at the suggestion of Darra Goldstein of Gastrnomica. In the last couple years I've tried to find out about state and local historical societies, some of which have great menu collections.

A dinner menu from the Fifth Avenue Hotel: August, 10, 1862

CB: Turtle Soup, Canvasback Duck, Mutton...those are familiar 19th century foods to many people. What dishes were you surprised to see well-represented on the menus you consulted?

PF: Well some of these game birds (like canvasback ducks) I had barely heard of or never heard of. The most surprising common item is macaroni. In the menus I've examined (several thousand of them) this is the most common item among the category of "entrees" or "side dishes", a middle course that changes the most from day to day and that involves the most elaborate cooking techniques. There were a dozen or so varieties of macaroni, mostly boiled with sauce or boiled and baked, usually with cheese, but also sometimes with meat or meat gravy. This was not what we would call "comfort food" but rather considered elegant. Other surprises: so many stewed game items such as salmi of duck, or snipe, or goose but also of squirrel, venison and other meat items. A lot of calf's head with various French sauces. Hearty, you might say.

Canvasback Duck

CB: Which dishes do you think deserve a comeback?

PF: Venison and game generally-- both because there are too many deer for the pathetic habitat we provide in much of the Northeast, and because it is tasty, even delicious, sustainable, versatile. Obviously not game that is endangered or scarce, so I don't expect to see canvasback ducks again. Another category: organ meats which although chic, are still a pretty small niche. Chicken livers might be a starting point. Here again, not only are they common, there are too many of them since lots of chicken is eaten, but most liver goes to waste (or maybe into pet food). Like many people there are some organ meats I like (brains, kidneys) and some I don't (tripe, hearts). All of these are common moderately luxurious dishes of the 19th century in America. I don't know that any of this is going to make me terribly popular, but there is my answer.

CB: You also teach a food history class. Is this the first food studies class offered at Yale? What's been the response?

PF: There are other food studies classes at Yale, especially those dealing with obesity, body image and to some extent sustainability and agriculture. On the graduate teaching level we've for a long time had an Agrarian Studies class that is very popular and touches on food-related issues. This is the first food history course, I believe. There are also now courses on Italian food culture (Italian Dept.), Women and Food (Gender Studies), and Food Writing.

Laura Shapiro's Something from the Oven

CB: Finally, what are some of your favorite food history books? Cookbooks?

PF: I'm a great fan of Laura Shapiro's books, especially Something from the Oven. For the Middle Ages the most over-the-top book (that I strongly recommend) is Fetes gourmandes au Moyen Age, in French, but the pictures recreating medieval banquet items and served on medieval dishes and with medieval utensils are astounding---- green glazed and gold-foil boar's head breathing fire, "armed rooster" (a cooked rooster holding a lance and shield, riding an orange-glazed suckling pig). My favorite cookbooks, beyond the well-known ones, are The Nero Wolfe Cookbook, Pierre Franey's two 60-Minute Gourmet books (in part because of the notion in the late 1970s / early 1980s that 60 minutes was fast), the marvelous recent vegetarian Silk Road Cooking, and for actual use (I'm sure this dates me), the incomparable Cucina Fresca.

(images from Fetes Gourmandes)

For more about Paul's research and findings, check out his wonderful articles in Gastronomica and the New England Quarterly. Both journals are available at the New York Public Library.

An Updated App: Duck BLTs

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:43:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, at a birthday/dinner party for our friend Johnny, my friend Kyung served the best kind of appetizer one could give to a group of peckish, gab-happy adults: BLTs.

But these weren’t just any BLTs -- they were dressed up and suited BLTs.

Toasted Pepperidge Farm white was still present, but duck bacon took the place of regular bacon, a squirt of Sriracha in a near-empty Hellman’s jar spiced up the mayo, and lightly dressed arugula (with white truffle oil) stood in for both lettuce and tomatoes.

Cut into small triangles and piled high on a plate in front of a group of hungry adults (and their kids), these BLTs disappeared in a flash.

They’re not revelatory. They’re just BLTs, but the combination of nostalgia, simplicity, and a little spicy difference, can transport them off of the lunch counter and into a dinner party.

Lexical Life

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 15:02:00 +0000

Merguez, orecchiette, tikka masala, veggie. What do those words have in common? They were all added to the Oxford English Dictionary in the same year, 1975.

Ryan Haley, an editor at Ugly Duckling Presse and librarian in the Art Division of New York Public Library (and born in 1975), recently published a limited edition artist’s book. In Autobiography, Volume One (1975-1993), he documents the first eighteen years of his life by chronologically listing the words added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in that time period.

On its website, the OED is described as "an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words, both past and present," and is the considered to be "the definitive record of the English language." Every year the OED adds new words to the dictionary, thereby cementing that word or phrase to the annals of history. When compiled together, as in this project, the list of words reads like a time capsule capturing the social history of a given year. And while most (if not all) of the added words had been in use before their entry date, their addition to the OED represents when they became more commonly used in the English language.

I was fascinated with the food words in this project, and how certain themes clearly emerge, specifically coffee drinks, ethnic foods, and name brands. For example: Espresso-macchiato and latte macchiato (1976), Shake 'n Bake (1976), kir royale (1977), pad thai (1978), pasta fagioli (1980), amuse-bouche (1982), microbrew (1985).

I asked Ryan some questions about Autobiography.

CB: Do you have any favorite food words from this project?

RH: I really didn’t pay too much attention to the words as I was assembling the book. Once I had thought of and fine-tuned the idea, the words themselves ceased to be really important. I think it’s only recently as I’ve “read” through the book that I’ve started to notice the kinds of words that were added within that time and sort of ponder the cultural or historical moment that gave the word currency or legitimacy. For example, McDonaldization from 1975; used as a term for the corporatization of culture or for American cultural homogeny. What was happening then? Did a chez McDo open on the Champs-Élyssées? Did the last Mom & Pop restaurant close down in Peoria? Well, the OED references this book by Jim Hightower called Eat Your Heart Out: Food Profiteering in America as the first (popular/documented) use. I haven’t read it, but summary descriptions indicate that book was quite influential in some of the anti-corporate/back-to-the-land ethos of the late-70’s. Then in 1979 you get McDonaldize, which is somewhat related and in 1982 you have just plain old McDonald’s…

CB: What do you think about the culinary themes reflected in these eighteen years?

RH: The first thing one notices is the cosmopolitan growth of the English language and how voracious we are at borrowing terms from other cultures. A lot of that has to do with the British and American empires—look at all the Hindi and Sanskrit words that in a bastardized form entered English in the 19th century (i.e., chutney). I think Autobiography reflects a slightly different universe of borrowing: science, technological boosterism, political terms, pop cultural references, and urban slang. These areas are heavily represented; whereas foreign terms are definitely in the minority. But back to the topic, I think it’s pretty evident that Americans have expanded our eating habits during my lifetime to encompass most of the world’s cuisines—we’re omnivores in more than one sense—and that’s reflected in our language as you mentioned with ‘pasta fazool’ and microbrew and also words like cavolo nero (1987). Currently, I think nothing of making Thai, Indian, and Mexican dishes; foods that my Scottish grandmother would have died had she seen and tasted.

CB: Any favorite recipes or cookbooks?

RH: There are a lot of dishes that I come back to semi-frequently because they function as comfort food and I really enjoy making them: carbonnade à la flamande, Bolognese sauce (I’m uncertain which recipe is the best, but I’ve been gravitating towards Marco Canora’s), a Turkish lentil soup, and a pork shoulder braised in orange juice, whole spices, and beer. However, I’d say my all-time favorite recipe is nasi lemak, which isn’t in the OED incidentally, and which my sister turned me onto in Vancouver in 2001. It’s a Malaysian coconut rice dish with a few other components we had at a little restaurant for breakfast. Another is a dry-curried green bean dish with mustard seeds from Yamuna Devi’s Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking; which is probably my favorite cookbook and the 2nd or 3rd cookbook I purchased—I think the first was James Villas’ French Country Kitchen or the Dean & Deluca Cookbook that David Rosengarten wrote. Also, really important to me now is Diana Kennedy’s Art of Mexican Cooking. She’s written several really great cookbooks, including a new one about Oaxacan cuisine that I have on my wish list. And, because I’m a big nerd, I really like Harold McGee’s book and the Oxford Companions to Food and Wine.

CB: Are there any food words that you think should be added to the OED?

RH: I haven’t checked these, but how about lardo, guanciale, speck,…

You can purchase a copy of Autobiography, Volume One on the Ugly Duckling Presse website.

In the Name of the Fava

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 18:54:00 +0000

While it may seem rather small to acknowledge the historically momentous events in Cairo last week with a plate of food, I can think of few better ways to to mark the occasion and celebration of the Egyptians than with a dish of ful, or dried fava beans.

In her book A Book of Middle Eastern Food, Cairo-born chef and cookbook author Claudia Roden calls ful medames "'the' national dish of Egypt" and is a meal that is "pre-Ottoman and pre-Islamic, claimed by the Copts [Egyptian Christians], and probably as old as the Pharaohs." Roden's recipe calls for dried ful, soaked and then cooked with crushed garlic, served with lemon, olive oil, and hard-boiled eggs.

In her later edition, the New Book of Middle Eastern Food, she acknowledges canned ful as something accepted by expatriates who improve on its shortcomings with spices and flavorings. While neither Egyptian, nor an expat, I've used the canned ful to great success in this recipe recited to me by a friend and following much of the same guidelines as Roden's. And while perhaps not traditional, I enjoy my ful medames with plain yogurt or labne.

Ful Medames (Egyptian Brown Beans)
1/4 cup olive oil or more.
1 medium onion, chopped fine
2 or 3 cloves of garlic, chopped fine
1 can of ful, drained (I add some of the liquid from the can to the dish. You may want to add all the liquid, but then watch the salt).
Some cumin, coriander, cayenne
Salt and pepper

Heat the olive oil over medium heat until warm and then add the onion until softened, about 5-6 minutes. Add the garlic until fragrant, 30 seconds or so, and then the ful with spices and salt and pepper. Cook until warmed through. Add more liquid or olive oil if the dish looks to be dry.

Serve with lemon wedges, hard-boiled egg, and parsley and a drizzle of olive oil on top.

Food for Thinkers: A Few Good Menus

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 22:34:00 +0000

When GOOD food editor, Nicola Twilley, called upon various bloggers to discuss food writing, it forced me to stop and think more about the things I choose to write about. Usually it's as simple as finding interesting materials in my day-to-day job as a librarian and wanting to share those stories and objects with others. But on deeper reflection, the books and documents I work with often tap into different way of seeing social history and material culture. For example:

Let’s say you want to try a new restaurant in New York City. There are many ways to find one to your liking.

Perhaps you’ve read about some promising places on a few restaurant blogs, and maybe you scan the Sifty Fifty iPhone application for recommendations from Sam Sifton, the New York Times restaurant critic. Yelp provides helpful user recommendations, Menu Pages allows you to look over the menu in advance, and Open Table is there to put in your reservation.

Isn’t it funny then, that when you finally sit down at the restaurant of your choosing, you’re given a piece of paper.

In a world where one could very easily go through a day reading only off a screen, the restaurant menu may well be one of the few documents regularly and preferably distributed in print. In fact, one could argue that the menu, rather quaintly, is one of the last hold-outs of a thriving print culture. Sure, you can look up the menu online, but most still expect a physical document upon seating.

Chicago Great Western, 1900, NYPL Rare Books Division

Menus are ephemeral. They are used to convey information and when that information is no longer relevant, the item is often disposed of. The asparagus appetizer in April may not be available in August. The chocolate mousse from October 1st is not offered on October 31st.

However, like many pieces of ephemera, a menu's informational value rarely stems from its original, intended use. And that, for me, is where things get interesting.

At their most basic, menus tell us about a place or event and what was served. But dig a little deeper, and one can often find out how much a dish cost, on what date the meal was served, and who was in attendance.

Dig a little deeper still -- perhaps with the help of old newspapers or a biography -- and wider contexts and connections are made. For example, the 1908 menu below celebrates the accomplishments of Harvey Washington Wiley, the chief chemist for the Department of Agriculture, a crusader for pure food, and the "Father of the Pure Food and Drug Act" of 1906. And while on first glance, the menu resembles many other "testimonial" dinner menus, further study show annotations explaining the chemical make-up of many of the dishes, a clever way of demonstrating the very labeling Wiley campaigned for.

Dinner for H.W. Wiley, 1908, NYPL Rare Books Division

Or that the menu of Restaurant Florent, which resided in what was once a gritty New York neighborhood, advertised a separate children's menu, a gesture hinting at a fast-changing neighborhood and the need to cater to that new clientele.

Or that when President McKinley was assassinated in 1901, his fellow Ohioans at the Gifford House demonstrated their grief by printing a daily bill of fare on black paper.

Gibson House, NYPL Rare Book Division

Or that a popular, "see-and-be-seen" restaurant in New York's West Village has, at its roots, tuna fish salad with a side of potato chips.

Ye Waverly Inn, NYPL Rare Book Division

For historians, graphic designers, food enthusiasts, and chefs, menus are a sometimes overlooked source for inspiration and information, and can provide researchers with valuable insight into our social history in a way few other texts can do. I write about the food and menus and restaurants as a way of seeing the small details of history and celebrating the rich print culture they inhabit. On a very practical level, I am fortunate to have a job which not only allows but encourages exploration and research. The only thing more rewarding than that, is the charge to keep it up and share what I learn.

So, the next time you're sitting at a restaurant -- any restaurant -- look for the potential informational value in the menu. And then order some food. You must hungry by now.

Food for Thinkers is a is a week-long, distributed, online conversation looking at food-writing from as wide and unusual a variety of perspectives as possible. Check it out.

God Serve the Queen

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 22:56:00 +0000

Queen Elizabeth II's first state visit to the United States took place in October, 1957. After a few days in Canada, she and Prince Philip met with President Eisenhower in Washington, D.C., watched a football game in Maryland (with a brief detour to a grocery store), and then wrapped up their trip in New York City, where the royal couple stayed for a mere fifteen hours: "A teaser" remarked the Queen. (Indeed!)

The dinner given to the Queen and Prince on their final night took place -- as lunch also did -- at the Waldorf-Astoria. The menus from both meals are included in the Library's holdings. The dinner menu is especially intriguing, but not because the food offerings are unusual ("American simplicity" is what the New York Times called it), but because of the memo found inside.

Type-written on thin white paper and folded in half, General Instructions for Waiters (below) provides a rare glimpse from the other side of the swinging door. And while the instructions don't reveal anything juicy or even anything terribly interesting (politeness and courtesy are emphasized, cigarettes will be at the tables, candles stay on all night), finding a menu from a worker's point-of-view is unusual, especially for such a high-profile dinner. I also like to imagine how these instructions came to the Library. Did a waiter keep a menu as a souvenir, tucking the memo inside? Who thought to preserve such an ephemeral document? Whoever it was, I'm glad he/she did; these are the very types of items libraries treasure, as they offer evidence of an event largely, if not completely, undocumented elsewhere. These instructions provide us with more of a complete story of the event -- not just that the Queen ate green turtle soup, but that it was a served in plates with fines herbes -- and it reminds us of those who shuttle in and out of the dining room all night, carrying filet of beef Perigourdine, savarin au rhum, and butter -- but only on request, of course.

The Queen's Trip to an American Supermarket

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 22:19:00 +0000

(photo by s.alt via flickr)

On October 19, 1957, in West Hyattsville, MD, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip paid an unexpected visit to a local supermarket, their first to any American grocery store. The New York Times reported that the royal couple turned into the appropriately named Queenstown shopping mall on the way home from a football game at College Park and wandered into a "giant food store. " The Queen, escorted by the store's manager, looked over the vegetables, "then moved to the dairy food counters where methods of keeping the food chilled were explained." She was, apparently, also intrigued by the meat counter: "The Queen seemed especially interested in chicken wrapped in transparent plastic and looked hard at a large counter filled with steak." Meanwhile, Prince Philip wandered around the store, eating cheese and crackers.

Next: The Queen's dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria, and the menu left behind.

Jean Strouse's Brussels Sprouts

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 22:57:00 +0000

Many people have their own recipes for converting Brussels sprouts haters into Brussels sprouts lovers. The key to success, it seems, is adding fat.

Firmly in the lover camp myself, I had two such recipes in my arsenal, and as of today, three.

In addition to my mother's roasted sprouts (a heavy pour of olive oil), and Molly Stevens’ cream-braised sprouts (cream!), I now look forward to adding Jean Strouse’s buttery and bacony Brussels sprouts to my recipe roster.

Jean Strouse is the director of the New York Public Library's Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, which offers a nine-month fellowship to fourteen scholars and writers who require use of the Library's collections for their work. Jean also makes some mean Brussels sprouts.

I asked Jean a few questions about this recipe and some other favorites:

CB: Where and when did you first encounter this recipe?

JS: I found the recipe in The New York Times when it was first published, in 1990. [The article was in the New York Times Magazine on December 16, 1990 and is called Coming Home by Aimee Lee Ball. - CB] I made it that first year, and forever after. The original calls for nutmeg, which I omit - not right for this mix. And you can either double the bacon or add butter. The sprouts really absorb the fat (I wish there were a better word), and without more they stick to the pan, burn, and don't get soft enough.

CB: Who are some of your favorite cookbook authors? And which cookbooks do you most enjoy cooking from?

JS: My all-time most favorite cookbook author is Marcella Hazan - the original volumes I and II of Classic Italian Cooking. I have used them for years - one had a yellow book jacket, the other green, so I have kind of a sense memory of which recipe appears in which book. Also Julia Child, of course - I learned to cook from her, and from my favorite aunt. I also often work from Maida Heatter's fabulous dessert books, starting with Maida Heatter's Book of Great Desserts. She actually has THE best recipe ever for chocolate chip cookies, and an amazing flourless chocolate cake with ground almonds and orange peel. And "East 62nd St. Lemon Cake" -- light, lemony, perfect. You paint a mix of fresh lemon juice and sugar on the hot cake just after it comes out of the oven, with a pastry brush; the solution soaks into the cake and forms a gentle crust.

CB: Any special bacon you use, or is it simply supermarket bacon?

JS: I ordered the bacon from a smokehouse in Wisconsin called Nueske's. They make applewood smoked hams, turkeys, sausages, bacon, and lots of other meats, all superb. This time I got two pounds, one for the NYPL recipe, and another for tomorrow's Thanksgiving dinner.

CB: What else is on your Thanksgiving menu?

JS: Another recipe from that same page in the Times for a winter vegetable puree - squashes, parsnips, turnips, rutabaga (a wonderful word), celery root - and (forget coronary arteries) heavy cream.

Also a pumpkin pie: I got the recipe from a friend in the mid-1970s, wrote it out on an index card, and still have the card. Another friend asked for it last night and I thought I'd lost it - but no, it turned up. I've got to store it on my computer. It calls for a mix of brown and white sugar, milk and cream. Somehow those ingredients enhance and don't overwhelm the pumpkin flavor. I hate pumpkin pies that are too sweet or loaded up with cloves (I leave the cloves out of this one).

The Library was recently invited into Jean's kitchen to watch her make the sprouts with the help of Melanie Rehak, a former Cullman Center fellow (for her work on Girl Sleuth), and author of the engaging new book Eating For Beginners, which makes special mention of Jean's recipe. Check out the video above, and be sure to read more about Jean's sprouts adaptation - and get the recipe - on NYPL's Tumblr page.

Happy Thanksgiving!

New City Reader, Food Edition

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 18:48:00 +0000

I recently took advantage of Target Free Thursdays at the New Museum to view their exhibition The Last Newspaper, which uses the newspaper "as a platform to address issues of hierarchy, attribution, contextualization, and editorial bias." As someone who relies on newspaper archives almost every day, I was fascinated by the way the curators played with the print news to create new narratives based on the artists' idea of the journalistic emphasis.

The exhibition spans three floors of the New Museum; one floor is almost completely devoted to the people creating stories, including the talented editors behind New City Reader.

New City Reader is an ephemeral piece of ephemera: a pop-up newspaper exploring a different theme each week until the Last Newspaper exhibition closes on January 9th.

I was honored and thrilled to be asked to contribute a piece in New City Reader's food issue, which is still freely available at the Museum (and soon-to-be-online).

Nicola Twilley, of the always fascinating and inspiring blog Edible Geography and one of the food issues' editors, asked me to write about commemorative cocktails.

Commemorative cocktails, as I wrote in the piece (and which you can read in full on Nicola's blog), are born out of an incredible assortment of historical events, from monumental achievements and epic heroes to fleeting trends and otherwise insignificant peculiarities, such as the Strikes Off cocktail (to mark the end of the 1929 General Strike in Great Britain) and the Moonshot (a industry-created cocktail to mark the Apollo 11 flight).

Other features in the food issue include an interview with Alan Stillman, he of T.G.I. Friday's fame; an app idea for a Coffeehouse Commons; a fantastic mapping project to chart the food prep kitchens in the city; and one of my favorite pieces called Is This a Bodega?, Jeff Sisson's crowd-sourcing project wherein users are asked to identify bodegas around New York in order to document every bodega in the city.

The Last Newspaper is on view until January, 2011 and back issues of the New City Reader can be viewed online or by going to the Museum.

Len Deighton: The Spy Who Came In From the Kitchen

noreply@blogger.com ( ) — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 13:56:00 +0000

Those familiar with the writer Len Deighton most likely know him as a spy novelist. His debut in 1962, The IPCRESS File, was a big hit and many other spy works followed as evidenced by his lengthy bibliography: Spy Story (1975), Yesterday's Spy (1976), Twinkle, Twinkle Little Spy (1977), Spy Hook (1988), Spy Line (1989), Spy Sinker (1990) and more.

But while a large part of Len Deighton's success came from his novels, he was also a highly regarded food writer with a column in the London Observer and two cookbooks under his belt: The Action Cookbook and Où est le garlic, both published in 1965 between the releases of Funeral in Berlin (1964) and Billion-Dollar Brain (1966).

Deighton was by no means a dabbler when it came to cooking. While studying commercial art at the Royal College of Art, he worked as a kitchen porter to make money. Deighton learned from chefs and spent time honing his culinary craft. In later interviews, Deighton said he bought cookbooks for his apartment but instead of taking the books into the kitchen with him, he drew comic strips of the recipes and posted them to his kitchen wall.* Clive Irving, an editor of the Daily Express, saw the strips and suggested featuring them in that paper, but they didn't take off. When Irving moved to the London Observer, he brought Deighton's strips with him to much success.

Profiteroles from The Cook Strip Cookbook -- click to enlarge

The first cook strip appeared in the Observer on March 18, 1962 with the headline "Cook-strip Starts with the Rudiments" and was "devised to show, in the simplest way, the basic rules of cooking." Deighton, as creator, was described as "one of the foremost young British illustrators and a cook of catholic experience." Those strips continued to run in the Observer and formed the basis for the Action Cookbook, which was republished in 1966 as the Cook Strip Cookbook, and which was re-released last year in honor of Deighton's 80th birthday.

Deighton's work in both the Cook Strip Cookbook and Où est le garlic is unique, not only for the clear passion for food and technique displayed in Deighton's writing, but also in the graphically arresting typefaces and illustrations he drew for each recipe. The panels are beautifully done and provide a bit of levity to the serious art of gastronomy.

Borscht from the Cook Strip Cookbook -- click to enlarge

In addition to the recipes in the Cook Strip Cookbook, Deighton also dishes out helpful information to the potential newbie (read: bachelor) in the kitchen, such as the proper food combinations for a successful sandwich, which food items to buy on a weekly basis, and why the blender is a cook's secret weapon ("a whirling set of knives in a heat-proof glass goblet").

A sandwich chart from Cook Strip Cookbook -- click to enlarge

Où est le garlic, on the other hand, contains traditional French recipes and a comprehensive glossary of French cooking terms for new and eager cooks. Later, in 1989 and in 1990, Deighton wrote two more French cookbooks, including a more traditional text called The ABC of French Food, which provides, as Deighton calls it, "an edited version of my loose-leaf notebook" including notes from the "brains of professionals: chefs, waiters and restaurateurs, greengrocers, gardeners...."

A fish sauce chart from Où est le garlic -- click to enlarge

So while Anthony Bourdain might have his food-themed Get Jiro! coming out in a few years by DC Comics, and others may delve into cookbook cook strips (the linear storytelling format does lend itself very well to step-by-step cooking), there are few that do it better then Len Deighton, as he was able to infuse both a love for the art of illustration and a deep-rooted passion for food in every line he drew.

Chicken Paprika from Cook Strip Cookbook -- click to enlarge

Quenelles from Où est le garlic -- click to enlarge

* In the film adaptation of the IPCRESS File, Harry Palmer, played by Michael Caine, has one of Deighton's Observer strips pasted to his kitchen wall. You can briefly see it here at about the 1:40 mark.