When my friend Olga responded to my tweet about mussels with an offer to teach me how to cook them at home, my eyes widened with excitement–and fear. The idea of feeding anyone mollusks that I had prepared myself filled me with terror. I feared unleashing upon my guests the hordes of gut-wrenching illnesses I imagined these [...]
Archive for the ‘cooking’ Category
Mussel Lessons with Olga
Posted in cooking, recipes, try this on February 19, 2011 | 4 Comments »
How Intelligent Web Design Can Lead Us Back to the Kitchen
Posted in cooking, recipes on February 3, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
A friend alerted me to yesterday’s rollout of Foodily, a new social recipe search engine, via a USA Today article describing the site. Reading through it, I was prepared to be underwhelmed. “Foodies can be friends on new Foodily site,” the headline yawned. Just what I need, I thought, another social network to keep up [...]
The Politics of Nutrition
Posted in cooking, food policy, tagged dietary guidelines, food politics, nutrition on January 31, 2011 | 2 Comments »
As a big food policy and public health dork, I’ve been awaiting the release of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for some time. (Yes, that’s right: 2010.) The government (represented in this case by the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services) revises these every five years to help guide Americans’ food [...]
Dispatch from a Homesick Stomach
Posted in breakfast, cooking, Georgian food, restaurants, tagged American food, nostalgia on January 23, 2011 | 2 Comments »
A few posts back, I enumerated the Georgian foods I’d pine for most after leaving and promised a rundown of what I missed most about American cooking and eating while I was abroad. Here they are, in no particular order: 1. Kale, and other dark green leafy things Maybe it’s the subconscious boost I get [...]
The Citrus Harvest
Posted in cooking, Georgian food, travel, tagged citrus fruit, tangerines on December 20, 2010 | 1 Comment »
I returned home to Minnesota last week and haven’t had much time to write in the interim, what with packing in as many thank-yous and goodbyes and last-chance experiences as I could before leaving Georgia, and now soaking up the comforts of home and family while getting ready for Christmas and an imminent move back [...]
Dreaming of Thanksgiving Lefse
Posted in cooking, writing, tagged lefse, Minnesotan food on November 17, 2010 | 1 Comment »
As the November weather turns chilly and the perennial discussion arises about what ingenious new strategies have been devised to keep any part of the turkey from drying out in the oven, my mouth begins to water for lefse. My grandmother has been preparing these Scandinavian potato crepes for more than 40 years, and for [...]
Georgian Wine from Vine to Table
Posted in cooking on October 21, 2010 | 4 Comments »
I have a piece in the Minneapolis Star Tribune (the newspaper I grew up with) today about a trip a few friends and I took to Pheasant’s Tears Winery in eastern Georgia during the grape harvest in early September. Pheasant’s Tears is one of the few wineries using age-old Georgian methods to produce wine on [...]
Small Kitchens, Big Meals
Posted in cooking, try this on October 10, 2010 | 2 Comments »
By the time I left DC in August, I had almost completely stopped cooking in the galley kitchen I shared with two housemates. The problem? It was too small, I whined, too dingy, and painfully uninspiring. Tough. I’ve been living with a host family here in Georgia for two months as of today, and I’ve [...]
Honey for Halva
Posted in cooking on October 5, 2010 | 1 Comment »
My host father Misha came home one recent evening clutching a plastic bag to his chest like a baby. He carries it to the kitchen, calls for the largest pot in the house, and carefully unties the knot from the top of the bag. Honeycombs! He opens the sack to reveal two flat wooden frames [...]
A Ketchup I Can Salivate Over
Posted in cooking, recipes on September 22, 2010 | 4 Comments »
I woke up this Sunday to find the kitchen floor obscured under plastic bags bulging with tomatoes, red bell peppers, chili peppers, onions, and garlic. “We’re making ketchup today,” Shushana (my host mother) announced as I peered into each sack, knowing that I’d be up for what looked to be a daunting but exciting challenge. [...]
