Potlikkery

must save dogs' lives

photo by  Christopher Hirsheimer

I was reading Tenth Muse:  My Life in Food (2007) when I flew to Philadelphia back in January.  Judith Jones is just one of THE finest book editor who brought out books like Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking  as well as cookbooks by Elizabeth David, Madhur Jaffrey, Edna Lewis, and Lidia Bastianich. Besides bringing those women's work to a larger audience, Jones discovered The Diary of Anne Frank while working in Paris for Doubleday. She pushed to have it published in America and we have her to thank for promoting the manuscript.

Her memoir was not so heavy on her personal life. We learned a few details of her childhood and marriage, but the book's focus was on her career and the food circles she traveled in. I learned a fabulous trick that I hope never to use. And I've forgotten the exact details except for what notes I jotted down. At some point Jones's friends had a dog who swallowed a razor blade. She recommended feeding the dog asparagus because it's fibrous  composition would pillow the razor in the dogs stomach/intestine, thus allowing it to pass the razor without killing itself.

Another fun anecdote she shared was while she worked with Julie Child. Child was working with a whole pig and she recommended covering its ears and tail with aluminum foil. Or better yet, to tuck the tail into the hole beneath it. What a hoot!

At the end are recipes that I have not tried. They were classics. English and French, I believe. Must return to the back of that book and select a few to try.

culinary ghosting

Have you thought about who really writes those celebrity cookbooks?

I had not.

Financial Times has a story about how translator/writer/recipe tester does not have his name on the cover, even though he wrote the book.  Seems horribly unfair to me.

Especially since believing that cooks are triple-threats; you know, good at cooking, writing, and singing/dancing/acting/ is difficult.

Found via http://www.kiplog.com/food/

food writing alert

Great article in the IHT about food writing. That's all. Good day.

food writing

Haven't read it yet, but there's an article about food porn at CJR.

wanna be a critic?

CBS News features a story about the trails of being a food critic. First there are the disguises, and then there's gorging yourself on 13-14 meals each week. There's a bit of history in there about the profession's emergence at the beginning of the twentieth century. Prominent food critics like Craig Claiborne and Ruth Reichel are mentioned as well.

how to write a cookbook

Braiden Rex-Johnson wrote a cookbook about Pike Place Market (Seattle). She took a course first, of course. That was then: If you want to author a cookbook now your name must be Nigella or Martha or something recognizable to millions of eager cookbook buyers. Once you gather the recipes, they must be tested. The royalties are sparse. Surely there is some underlying satisfaction  in the process. The Seattle Times article reports how three authors made cookbook writing work for them.

the dirty truth about tipping

I had chance to read "The tipping point," written by a NYC cocktail waitress and published in the Village Voice. The intro says that New Yorkers are great about leaving something behind for their server while tourists, it seems, just don't know any better. There's a minimum dollar a drink rule in the city and it must be unspoken, or at least only understood by the natives. It's not the rubes from the country who tip the worst, but the international tourists who "seldom connect good service with dollar bills." Servers respond by overcharging and pocketing the difference.

Cristeta Comerford Executive chef

The first woman to be named chef in the White House is Cristeta Comerford. She served as an assitant chef since the mid-90s. She's a wiz at preparing W's huevos rancheros and Ms. Bush's literary-themed dinners. Comerford is known for her distinctive flavoring.

waiter in training

In the NYTimes, an article about teenagers wielding trays with seemingly bionic arms as they train to be servers at the French Culinary Institute. Twenty-two "food-obsessed" teenagers attended the school to learn the finer points of napkin folding, place-settings, and other skills that come together to create the perfect dining experience. It was part of "a pilot program started by Careers Through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP), a nonprofit group that creates restaurant internship and scholarship opportunities for inner city students."

how to be a food critic

Timing and dumb luck are what one food critic attributes to the success, or origins, or his vocation. He does it in New Orleans. And he has fake names and credit cards to match them. Somehow his PhD in Baroque Spanish theater and his yearning to write landed him a food writing job with an alternative weekly paper. It's that simple.