Baking Bread

Baking Bread, Helen Allingham

Snack with Fried Egg

Snack with Fried Eggs, Georg Flegel

Farm-to-table and flatbed trucks

She laughed out loud when she first heard the term "farm-to-table." They had it in her day, too; they called it a flatbed truck. She knows her food is not the healthiest, yet her people live long, long lives, those not killed by gunfire, moonshine or machines. She has never tasted ceviche or pate, but can do more with field-dressed quail, fresh-caught perch, or a humble pullet than anyone I know. With a morsel of pork no bigger than a matchbox, salt, a pod of pepper, and a sprinkle of cane sugar, she can turn collards, turnips, cabbage, green beans, and more into something finer than the mere ingredients should allow. With bacon grease and two tablespoons of mayonnaise, she turns simple cornmeal into something more like cake. I watched two magazine photographers eat it up standing in her kitchen, with slabs of butter. I do not believe they were merely being polite. "They even eat the crumbs," she said. "They were nice boys."

Rick Bragg, The Best Cook in the World

Every time I read this book, this makes me laugh out loud.

How and why to cook

'Now, just one more question, Mrs. Appleyard,' the Editor said, hoping she would break another cookie. 'I've heard it said that a well-known painter when asked what he mixed his paints with, said "With brains." Now do you feel that--to sum up what you've told me--people should cook with brains? May I quote you?'

Mrs. Appleyard put another batch of cookies into the oven.

'Brains are not enough,' she said. 'You have to like things: the dishes you cook with, the people you buy the butter from, the field where the crows fly over the corn and the wind that blows through their wings. You have to like the table you put the food on, and the people who sit around it. Yes, even when they tip back in your Hitchcock chairs, you have to like them. You don't just like how the food tastes--you like how it looks and smells and how the egg beater sounds. You like the rhythm of chopping and the throb of the teakettle lid. You like to test the frying pan with water and see it run around like quicksilver. You like the shadow in pewter and the soft gleam of silver and the sharp flash of glass. You like the feel of damask napkins and the shadows of flowers on a white cloth. You like people eating in their best clothes in candlelight, and in their dungarees on a beach in the broiling sun, or under a pine tree in the rain.

'You like the last moment before a meal is served when the hollandaise thickens, the steak comes sputtering out of the broiler, the cream is cooked into the potatoes and the last drop of water is cooked out of the peas.' Here she was silent long enough to take the correctly lacy and golden cookies off the pan. 'Not with brains,' she repeated, putting down the spatula. 'With love.'

Louise Andrews Kent, Mrs. Appleyard's Cookbook

A book I love to read over and over. There are recipes — which are fun enough on their own to read — but there are also wonderful pieces like this.

McAtlas by Gary He

McAtlas takes readers on a captivating journey around the world, offering a unique glimpse into the iconic McDonald's restaurant chain's adaptations to regional tastes and customs. This visually stunning book, featuring photographs and research from over 50 countries, serves as the first-ever independent cataloging of the brand's localization efforts. Discover how McDonald's tailored its menu items, restaurant designs, and overall experience to thrive in diverse cultural landscapes. With a keen eye for detail, the author unveils the fascinating stories behind the Golden Arches' global success. Immerse yourself in this comprehensive exploration of one of the world's most recognizable brands.

I remember taking our two young daughters to McDonald's on the Champs Elysee because our oldest really needed a dose of "normality" after being in Europe for a week. It turns out that it was American enough but we were bemused by the French culture that infused it - from the red wine to the beggars going table to table. It was an unexpectedly memorable experience.

So how could I not spend my Christmas money on this book?

This wound up being about more than McDonald's just by the virtue of seeing all the local variations. It was forced to please the natives to get sales and thereby became something more than a one-note global giant. I loved discovering all the attachments to each country's favorite cuisines, ways of eating, customs, and cultures. I learned a lot about how flexible McDonald's can be while still adhering to their basic menu structure. I've never wanted to go around the world before. Now I would just so I could visit all the McDonald's for the local food.

It is worth mentioning just how visually stunning these images are, especially the location shots. Equal care was taken with the book itself. You may not be able to tell it from the image, but the little white spots on the cover are embossed, rising above the surface to be the sesame seeds on the bun. The page edges are colored to mimic the structure of a burger — brown for beef, yellow for cheese, etc.

Fried Chicken

Das Backhändl, Eduard von Grützner

Just because I love fried chicken and like to see everyone enjoying it too!

Lagniappe: One of the happiest nights of my adult life

One rainy Sunday a few years ago, Isabel, Owen, and I decided to pass the afternoon by watching a DVD of The Fellowship of the Ring, that movie about hobbits and elves and Orcs that we'd been hearing about. One hundred and seventy-eight minutes later, during which we neither moved nor spoke, we looked at each other, eyes glazed. We walked straight to the car, drove to the video store, and rented The Two Towers and The Return of the King. It was getting on dusk when I pulled into the Kentucky Fried Chicken down the hill and bought dinner.

My kids were shocked. Happy, but shocked. What was going on with Mom? KFC? I wondered that myself. But we were hungry and the chicken was hot and we had five more hours of Viggo Mortensen to watch. Fifteen minutes after I pulled into the KFC, we were back on the sofa with the bucket on the coffee table, eating mediocre chicken and mashed potatoes and biscuits and watching The Two Towers. It was one of the happiest nights of my adult life and my children get dreamy and nostalgic talking about it.

[here we're skipping her description of making perfect fried chicken from a Thomas Keller recipe, which was eaten without comment by her family after hours of labor]

Soon I was left with plates of picked-over bones and a ravaged kitchen. One of these days I will forget the evening ever happened. I suspect Mark and our children already have. But that night we ate KFC on the sofa and watched The Two Towers? That, we will never forget.

Jennifer Reese; Make the Bread, Buy the Butter

This book is so entertaining. I appreciate the analysis of whether it is better to buy or make various standard food items — granola/make, Pop Tarts/buy — but I have never made anything from it. I have read it twice, however, because the author is just so darned entertaining. And honest.

Ancient Mesoamerican relief sculpture of maize

Ancient Mesoamerican relief sculpture of maize

Le Chef de L’Hotel

William Orpen, Le Chef de L’Hotel Chatham, Paris, 1921

Fajitas

 After today's quote, how can we not admire the artistry of this food and setting?

Swanson TV Dinner

Swanson TV Dinner 1963

We all know the best is the chicken pot pie, but I like the ad. It takes me back to a simpler time.

A Highland Breakfast

A Highland Breakfast, Edwin Henry Landseer

Why is breakfast different from all other things?

I would very much like to know what those who have an answer to everything can say about the food requisite to breakfast? Those great men Marlowe and Jonson, Shakespeare, and Spenser before him, drank beer at rising, and tamed it with a little bread. In the regiment, we used to drink black coffee without sugar, and cut off a great hunk of stale crust, and eat noting more till the halt ... Dogs eat the first thing they come across, cats take a little milk, and gentlemen are accustomed to get up at nine and eat eggs, bacon, kidneys, ham, cold pheasant, toast coffee, tea, scones, and honey, after which they will boast that their race is the hardiest in the world and ready to bear every fatigue in the pursuit of Empire. But what rule governs all this? Why is breakfast different from all other things, so that the Greeks called it the best thing in the world, and so that each of us in a vague way knows that he would eat at breakfast nothing but one special kind of food and that he could not imagine breakfast at any other hour in the day?

Hilaire Belloc, The Path to Rome

The Path to Rome is such a wonderful book to idly read here and there in your day. It is the story of the pilgrimage Belloc made on foot to Rome in as straight a line as possible order to fulfill a vow he had made. It is a delightful travel book with all sorts of discoveries and musings, such as above!

The Frugal Meal

This is from J.R.'s Art Place where he says:

The Frugal Meal by Rose Hartwell, 1903, showing an immigrant family sitting down to a dinner of spaghetti. Note the image of St. Anthony of Padua on the wall!

It seemed the perfect accompaniment to the story about the Spaghetti Trees!

Around Here: Dickens and the Sandwich

Having revisited Dickens and Boxers last Friday made me remember another thing I love and its connection with Dickens — sandwiches. This is also from several years ago but well worth revisiting. At least it was for me!

Sandwiches and Dickens

I was reading Barnaby Rudge and was startled by seeing a sandwich mentioned:

He was not without some refreshment during the long lonely hours; generally carrying in his pocket a sandwich of bread and meat, and a small flask of wine.

Now I know sandwiches were invented some time ago but I hadn't come across them in fiction this old, especially as a reflection of casual everyday life. And this book was set around the time of our Revolutionary War so I had 1776 firmly in mind.

Did they eat sandwiches then?

Finishing up Barnaby (not bad, not bad at all), I picked up The Pickwick Papers for a bit of light bedtime humor.

I was stunned to find ... another sandwich in Mr. Jingle's shocking but funny story:

Heads, heads — take care of your heads!... Five children — mother — tall lady, eating sandwiches — forgot the arch — crash — knock — children look round — mother's head off — sandwich in her hand—no mouth to put it in — head of a family off—shocking, shocking!

This made Tom look up the origin date of the sandwich which, of course, no one knows. The famous story about the Earl of Sandwich, all honor to this lazy but tidy card player (bread kept the meat grease off his hands and cards) who invented one of my favorite foods, is placed in the late 1700s.

Of course, sandwiches were around before then but they weren't called sandwiches. They were known as "meat and bread" or "bread and cheese." It is when the name "sandwich" became commonly used that is interesting. And then we have this bit of evidence:

That respectable body, of which I have the honour of being a member, affords every evening a sight truly English. Twenty or thirty, perhaps, of the first men in the kingdom, in point of fashion and fortune, supping at little tables covered with a napkin, in the middle of a coffee-room, upon a bit of cold meat, or a sandwich, and drinking a glass of punch.

Edward Gibbon, journal entry, November 24, 1762

So that's all right then, for Dickens use in Barnaby Rudge. And it turns out that Dickens had his own sandwich memories, though this one doesn't seem happy at all:

A longer time afterwards he recollected the stage-coach journey, and said in one of his published papers that never had he forgotten, through all the intervening years, the smell of the damp straw in which he was packed and forwarded like game, carriage-paid. “There was no other inside passenger, and I consumed my sandwiches in solitude and dreariness, and it rained hard all the way, and I thought life sloppier than I expected to find it.”

Dickens writing of his journey when he was 10
to join his family in their new home,

Life of Charles Dickens by John Foster

I found a few more of Dickens' sandwiches when I was looking around.

Great Expectations: My guardian then took me into his own room, and while he lunched, standing, from a sandwich-box and a pocket flask of sherry (he seemed to bully his very sandwich as he ate it), informed me what arrangements he had made for me.

Bleak House: "My dear son," said Mr. Turveydrop, "you have four schools this afternoon. I would recommend a hasty sandwich."

Mugby Junction: "Well!" said Our Missis, with dilated nostrils. "Take a fresh, crisp, long, crusty penny loaf made of the whitest and best flour. Cut it longwise through the middle. Insert a fair and nicely fitting slice of ham. Tie a smart piece of ribbon round the middle of the whole to bind it together. Add at one end a neat wrapper of clean white paper by which to hold it. And the universal French Refreshment sangwich busts on your disgusted vision."

Uncommercial Traveller: Between the pieces, we almost all of us went out and refreshed. Many of us went the length of drinking beer at the bar of the neighbouring public-house, some of us drank spirits, crowds of us had sandwiches and ginger-beer at the refreshment-bars established for us in the Theatre. The sandwich--as substantial as was consistent with portability, and as cheap as possible--we hailed as one of our greatest institutions. It forced its way among us at all stages of the entertainment, and we were always delighted to see it; its adaptability to the varying moods of our nature was surprising; we could never weep so comfortably as when our tears fell on our sandwich; we could never laugh so heartily as when we choked with sandwich; Virtue never looked so beautiful or Vice so deformed as when we paused, sandwich in hand, to consider what would come of that resolution of Wickedness in boots, to sever Innocence in flowered chintz from Honest Industry in striped stockings. When the curtain fell for the night, we still fell back upon sandwich, to help us through the rain and mire, and home to bed.

Dickens must have enjoyed a good sandwich as much as I do. I'll have one of those universal French Refreshment sangwiches for lunch, please!

The Grill

The Grill
painted by Karin Jurick

I love paintings showing the details of ordinary, modern life. No one did it better than Karin Jurick.

Cooking and the Ballet

Noncooks think it's silly to invest two hours' work in two minutes' enjoyment; but if cooking is evanescent, so is the ballet.

Julia Child

Sometimes I think of this quote when I am cooking. Then I think of how many other things in my life are considered evanescent and how I enjoy them.

My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud'Homme

This book is the charming and fascinatingly told story of Julia Child and her husband living in France. What elevates this beyond the usual food/life memoir is Child's telling of the whole picture, not just the food oriented moments. Yes, the food is there. After all, we are in France, n'est-ce pas? And this is Julia Child's story. However, just as in life, the food memories wind their way through the rest of her stories which make us understand just why she adores France. A snippet to whet your appetite.

... I had come to the conclusion that I must really be French, only no one had ever informed me of this fact. I loved the people, the food, the lay of the land, the civilized atmosphere, and the generous pace of life.

August in Paris was known as la morte-saison, "the dead season," because everybody who could possibly vacate did so as quickly as possible. A great emptying out of the city took place, as hordes migrated toward the mountains and coasts, with attendant traffic jams and accidents. Our favorite restaurants, the creamery, the meat man, the flower lady, the newspaper lady, and the cleaners all disappeared for three weeks. One afternoon I went into Nicolas, the wine shop, to buy some wine and discovered that everyone but the deliveryman had left town. He was minding the store, and in the meantime was studying voice in the hope of landing a role at the opera. Sitting next to him was an old concierge who, twenty-five years earlier, had been a seamstress for one of the great couturiers on la Place Vendome. She and the deliveryman reminisced about the golden days of Racine and Moliere and the Opera Comique. I was delighted to stumble in on these two. It seemed that in Paris you could discuss classic literature or architecture or great music with everyone from the garbage collector to the mayor.

The Lemon Wins

If I were forced to give up every fruit in the world but one I would have absolutely no trouble choosing. The lemon wins, hands down.

The lemon is the workhorse of the food world: dependable, versatile, and available all year round. You can preserve it in salt, as the Moroccans do, and stuff your chicken with it, or you can stick it into a suet crust surrounded by butter, as the British do. You can dice it up and put it into a salad with red onion and Italian parsley. You can make lemon cookies, lemon cake, lemon icing, lemonade (hot or cold), lemon flip, and lemon rice pudding. A drop of lemon juice and a strip of lemon peel make a chicken soup divine. A tablespoon of lemon juice in your pesto brings all the flavors together. People who find vinegar hard to take love lemon juice in their salad dressing, and people on low- or no-salt diets find lemon juice just the thing. The ascorbic acid it contains makes things taste salty.

Laurie Colwin, A Writer Returns to the Kitchen

After a long absence, I have been rereading Laurie Colwin's food writing. It is so delightful and evocative. It makes me want to cook. 

And it surprises me. Mostly because a lemon isn't categorized as a fruit that I'd have considered as an answer. I would have thought of fruit for eating — grapes, strawberries, cantaloupe, even the humble banana. But I would have been wrong.

"It's hard to get clos'r to a chicken goin' at him head on..."

A chicken lived every situation, every moment, like it was brand-new, and so lived in a constant state of wonder and surprise. "It's hard to get closr to a chicken goin' at him head-on," the old man said, because, though chickens had tiny brains, most of these brains seemed devoted to suspicion.

Rick Bragg, The Best Cook in the World

We kept chickens for a while when I was young. My mother found them frustrating, but also relaxing with their clucking, scratching, and general gossip sessions amongst themselves.

It's her 90th birthday today. It's the excuse for a family reunion so it will be full of good food and laughter and talk. We will not, however, be eating chicken. We're having TexMex for this celebration.

This quote and today's chicken picture are a little blog gift for her. Happy birthday, Mom!