Gastropodiatry

Puzzling out the personal life of a famous food critic can be hazardous to your cherished impressions. I’ve just tripped over (I’m still not technically savvy enough to have “Stumbled Upon”) Regina Schrambling’s blog gastropoda.com, and it’s a little too revealing. I wonder if she’s obsessing sincerely about the sorry state of food journalism today, or bitter toward those who still have solid writing gigs at the major newspapers (I know I am), or whether she just hasn’t noticed how far she’s gone in the direction of the classic rant blog. Throughout, you can discern the deep frustration of someone who does her own homework and legwork, and sees less and less of that career dedication in a field she regards as intellectually worth the effort as the times roll on. Gastropoda is Schrambling’s “Howl”.

Challah

Two nights ago I brought a couple of homemade loaves of challah to some friends’ house for Shabbat dinner, which was also the last night of Chanukah. Their mother, a fairly well-known kosher caterer, was there and my jaw dropped when she said she’d never learned how to make this classic bread. Challah looks beautiful once it’s baked even if you’re not a champion braider (I’m definitely not), but it’s not such a big deal.

Impatient for Orange Peels

The standard recipe for candied orange peels takes over 2 hours. My inner child is whining. Following up from my microwaved kumquat marmalade experiment, which worked beautifully, I decided I could probably do something similar to candy orange peels. The result is not perfect by professional confectioners’ standards, but it was done in 15 minutes from peeling oranges to dredging-and-drying, and the taste is not bad, not bad at all.

Lentil Stew with…Pineapple?

You’d think the rule for making pineapple work in something savory would be that the other main item has to be pretty salty to stand up to all that acidic tropical sweetness. But that’s not the only way to deal with it. This Lebanese lentil and vegetable stew takes advantage of pineapple’s tang while mellowing out its jarring sweetness, and it contains no salt at all.

Jazzing up Creamed Spinach

Standard creamed spinach, the old Norman Rockwell American standby, is one of the easier and frankly quicker side dishes to put together. But gawd, is it bland. Of course, I grew up wondering “If there’s no garlic, is it really food?” Here are a couple of possibilities from non-British cuisines that taste satisfying without relying on heavy cream or butter, and they can be done either on the stove or in a microwave.

Adventures with Cheese

A French marketing expert once announced the difference between French and American attitudes towards cheese based on his research: “In America,” he declared, “Cheese is dead. I can assure you of that.” Cheese was ok as long as the cheese was processed, uniform, free of visible mold, refrigerated, odor-free, pasteurized and–most important–wrapped in plastic so nothing could possibly escape. Otherwise, he said–you could hardly miss the sneer–Americans considered cheese unsafe. They–we–were culturally afraid of it. In France, he maintained, “Cheese is alive.” The French focus groups brought out words like culture, flavor (something the Americans forgot), and the names of many, many specific types of regional cheeses that were their personal favorites. I really do have a thing for cheese (damn my cholesterol-packin’ genes), but good artisan-type cheeses are often pretty expensive–$15 and up per pound–and the more affordable varieties of things like brie or gorgonzola usually lack something in the way of flavor. For the last couple of years I’ve been playing around with the idea of taking an inexpensive fresh cheese and culturing it further to get to something approaching the aged artisanal cheeses. Starting with a fresh cheese means you skip the clabbering and pressing and pot washing, and you don’t need your own cave out in the countryside, just a fridge, some plastic sandwich bags, and a handy Trader Joe’s or the like. Here, the cheater’s guide to a make-your-own goat cheese brie or bleu/brie combination.

Food as Barometer

The past week has seen a number of shock waves go through the food world. Gourmet magazine’s announced closing yesterday is the latest and the one with the best PR. But Gourmet isn’t the most important food barometer, particularly because it represents a shrinking target audience at the top of the food chain, as it were. The Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) food supplement program has just changed to allow low-income participants to buy fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grain foods with the credits.

Microwave tricks–When the peach doesn’t ripen

What if you’re stuck with supermarket peaches or nectarines that looked good, were on an incredible discount, smelled like they had potential if you left them out on a counter for a couple of days, and then when you did, they somehow never really ripened? Just turned mushy or the texture of a pale yellow [...]