Friday, January 23, 2009

Food-Focussed Fridays

I’m in dire need of some blogging discipline and to that end I’m experimenting with a weekly feature. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about food lately so I’ll make that my focus. Welcome, then, to Food-Focussed Fridays. Every Friday, I’ll report in on or offer up a quotation from whatever I’m reading on the topic of food be it a memoir, a cookbook, a social history, a food industry exposé, a treatise on nutrition, a manifesto on eating locally, or just a particularly toothsome passage of fiction.

Fridays are also the days that I expect to have a bit of time for cooking this term, so I may double up and report on my culinary adventures here too. Mind you I’m not very domestic, and just turning on the stove is a culinary adventure for me. Nevertheless, in a quest to up my vegetable intake, I’ve resolved to attempt a new soup recipe every week for the remainder of the winter. If I make good on that, I can offer up soup reviews alongside book reviews.

Here are some of the recent acquisitions that I expect to be writing about in the coming weeks:

Andrew Carmellini & Gwen Hyman: Urban Italian: Simple Recipes and True Stories from a Life in Food;

Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life;

Harvey Levenstein, Revolution at the Table: the Transformation of the American Diet;

Harvey Levenstein, Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America;

Marion Nestle, Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health;

Michael Pollan, Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals;

Paul Roberts, The End of Food; and,

Alisa Smith & J.B. MacKinnon, The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating.


And two new releases that I haven’t got my hands on yet but that I’m keen to acquire:

Mark Bittman, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating; and,

Hank Cardello & Doug Garr, Stuffed: An Insider's Look at Who's (Really) Making America Fat.

On the menu for next week then, a post on Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle accompanied by a report on the soup of the day. Right now it’s a toss up between Warm Pea Soup (surely the “Warm” in the title is redundant? would anyone serve cold pea soup?) and Carrot with Red Lentils…

5 comments:

litlove said...

I'm always up for learning a new soup recipe. We make a good one with tomatoes,apples and celery, but you need a food processor to whizz them up in.

jenclair said...

Ruth Reichl's Tender at the Bone is an interesting look at food. I still haven't gotten around to her Comfort Me with Apples, but the title is wonderful.

Another great food/memoir is M.F.K. Fisher's Long Ago in France: The Years in Dijon.

Kate S. said...

litlove, I like the idea of mixing in apples with a savoury soup. If you're game to share, I'd love to have that recipe.

jenclair, Thanks for the recommendations. They all sound great. I'm expecially keen to look up the Fisher book on account of the French setting.

Heather said...

This is a great idea! I'm really looking forward to all your posts.

Melwyk said...

Great idea, Kate! Looking forward to reading your posts. I've read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and quite enjoyed it. I'm reading one now that I'll be (hopefully) reviewing soon, Gary Paul Nabhan's Where our food comes from. So far it is a great read.