Feasting, Friends & Memories
John J. Audubon/'The Birds of America'
The 10 million prairie hens in Mark Twain's day have dwindled to 300 birds.
Mark Twain's fanciful 80-dish Thanksgiving dinner menu drew on wild bounty. Now, some foods on his list are extinct and others are known only by hunters, fishermen. Preserving or restoring wild foods begins with joy of marshes, mountains, lakes. We must learn from his premise: Losing a wild food means losing part of the landscape of our lives. And: Observing the prairie hen, by John J. Audubon, in 'The Birds of America' (click 'See also').
By Andrew Beahrs
The New York Times 2008-11-26 (entry)
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Sherry Dudas, of Honeybrook Farm CSA, will dig turnips from the farm fields and steep home-grown lemon balm tea.
From heritage turkeys to homemade lemon balm tea, New Jersey cooks see Thanksgiving as chance to grow their own, or buy it from nearby. Either way, they're celebrating the bounty of the Garden State.
By Kelly Feeney
The New York Times 2008-11-16 (entry)
Food is a prism of understanding. Grandma's pot roast, Daddy's salad dressing, the meal you ate when you first fell in love: we each have our own stories and they're more interesting with recipes. Food writing is a gentler, lovelier voyeurism that links our humanity. How better to know other families, other love stories, than through meals people share?
By Luisa Weiss
Tufts Magazine 2008-06-21 (entry)
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Proposition 2, which would ban factory farms in California from using small pens or cages, brings to mind childhood on Oregon farm. Of animals raised for food, two provided pause: Pigs, with their characters and obvious intelligence; and geese, many of which could overcome panic at slaughter time to step away from flock and comfort a doomed mate.
By Nicholas D. Kristof
The New York Times 2008-07-31 (entry)
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When area grandmother's offer to make cold-cut sandwiches for everyone is rebuffed, she is persuaded by grandchildren to try Indian restaurant a couple of blocks from her home. There, a feast of new flavors assaulted her palate, The Onion reporters learn.
The Onion 2008-06-14 (entry)
Culinary mysteries, for book club members, are bonbons with good recipes.
Books and cooking blend into dinners and convivial chaos for Dallas-area group. Though the group's members lean toward mysteries (the recipes are sometimes better than the improbable plots), they have read and cooked from non-fiction, including Frances Mayes' 'Under the Tuscan Sun.'
By Joyce Saenz Harris
The Dallas Morning News 2008-04-22 (entry)
With noise level the Number 1 complaint of restaurant-goers in Washington, critic decides to test the levels with a discreet loud-o-meter, then rate the racket in his reviews. Restaurateurs have called the phenomenon 'energetic' and 'exciting.' San Francisco Chronicle also rates noise in its reviews.
By Tom Sietsema
The Washington Post 2008-04-06 (entry)
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Barbecued turkey legs trot from Renaissance fairs to NASCAR tailgate parties, but they're just a fad. Race day fare is basic and includes pulled pork, chicken and beef brisket. Filling in the gaps: foot-long hot dogs with everything, giant burgers, Italian sausage, funnel cakes, Polish sausages and Philly steak sandwiches, or items from NASCAR's official cookbook, 'Race Day Grub.'
By Tom Wharton
The Salt Lake Tribune 2008-03-20 (entry)
In 'A Baker's Odyssey,' author Greg Patent cooks with immigrants, children of immigrants and their grandchildren to learn and record secrets of ethnic baking from more than 30 nations, including Italy, Nigeria, Austria and India.
By Daniel Zwerdling
National Public Radio 2008-01-27 (entry)
For this family, hunting, fishing and love of outdoors is a 50-year fest of togetherness, with mom, now 80, carrying her own gun afield in pursuit of ducks, pheasants, ruffed grouse and deer. This season, she just bagged her 52nd deer.
By Doug Smith
Star-Tribune (MN) (may require registration) 2007-11-10 (entry)
The smell of Chicago, and home - in a grilling hot dog - drew an overnight switchboard operator to the vendor at an Arizona hospital, and from there, a relationship grew, and now the couple is planning to marry.
By Sonja Haller
The Arizona Republic 2007-11-07 (entry)
At Anna's Coffee Shoppe in Michigan town, Marion Cosstick is dependable, resilient and always there in her white waitress uniform, filling coffee cups and platters with fresh-made treats that are the culinary equivalent of a warm hug from your grandmother.
By Megan Pennefather
Hometown Life (MI) 2007-11-04 (entry)
In remote stream that leads to the Miramichi in New Brunswick, a taste for brook trout finally bears fruit after 903 casts on two days, and 118 on the third - but who's counting?
By Adam Clymer
The New York Times 2007-10-16 (entry)
In a culture centered around meals and eating, Yom Kippur demands fasting, and that makes one writer recall childhood, when he contemplated fast food instead, and whether salt counts as nourishment.
By Michael Rosenberg
Detroit Free-Press 2007-09-24 (entry)
The promise of fried chicken and a movie moves inmates to compete in cleanliness contest at South Carolina jail (showers are the tie-breaker); the center, which moves 6,800 prisoners through each year, still has the original carpet, from 1992.
By Daniel Brownstein
The Island Packet (SC); The State (SC) 2007-08-30 (entry)
For chefs with the ripe stuff, now's the season for them to luxuriate in too many juicy tomatoes, fresh herbs, zesty peppers and tender zucchini, and then serve up food that's as local as the the farmers' market.
By Beth D'Addono
Philadelphia Daily News 2007-08-23 (entry)
Like prima donnas, heirloom tomatoes wait an extra week to ripen, but these voluptuous misfits with the tawdry, nightclub-act names - Cherokee Purple, Banana Legs, Green Zebra, Hillbilly, Black Russian - have it in their power to hold us all in thrall for a good part of the summer.
By Tim Stark
Washington Post 2007-08-15 (entry)
Remembering the good old days before electricity, when a porch was used and often held the icebox, which kept foods cool with an actual blocks of ice; what we once called icebox pies we now might call terrines.
By Sylvia Carter
Newsday 0000-00-00 (entry)
Lake trout, a Rodney Dangerfield of fish, with its oil and sweet-tasting flesh, may not be a thrill to catch, but they do move anglers to buy homes that front the Finger Lakes and spend hours with fishing poles in hand, hoping for a bite.
David Wallis
The New York Times; Milwaukee Journal 2007-08-17 (entry)
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In search of past glory, team of top-level scientists from Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station aim for the return of the tasty tomato, one that is nirvana with salt on a piece of crusty bread, one that isn't necessarily a good keeper.
By Dianna Marder
Philadelphia Inquirer 2007-08-14 (entry)
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