Food & Writing Sites for December 2025
Sunday, November 16, 2025
A lovely antique wood stove—not mine, alas...
Short days and long cold nights discourage most folks from “goon on pilgrimages.” Once December descends upon us, it makes more sense to stay at home, sitting by a fragrant fire of well-seasoned apple wood, reading, or—better yet—writing a book.
Even without the companionship of our old wood stove, we continue to scribble. Since the last issue of these updates, we've added chapters to a book-in-progress, edited and designed a book of poetry for someone else, and posted these pages via Substack:
“Memento Mori, Part 1…” poems for the dying season;
“Memento Mori, Part 2…” medical musings on mortality;
“Rendering…” thinking about memory;
“Does This Taste Funny?...” some cannibal humor;
“Memento Mori, Part 3…” pharmaceutical satire; and
“A child said, What is the grass?...” on visiting the graves of writers (okay... we confess to having “goon on one pilgrimage”).
You can, should you choose to, follow us on Facebook (where, among other things, we post a LOT of photographs) and Twitter. Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner and other Substack pages. There’s even an Amazon author’s page, that includes food writing and anything else we manage to get into print.
A few writerly selections from On the Table’s culinary quote collection:
Don’t assume you’re always going to be understood. I wrote in a column that one should put a cup of liquid in the cavity of a turkey when roasting it. Someone wrote me that “the turkey tasted great, but the plastic cup melted.” Heloise
I’d like to have money. And I’d like to be a good writer. These two can come together, and I hope they will, but if that’s too adorable, I’d rather have money. Dorothy Parker
They laughed when I sat down at the typewriter. Julia Child
Gary
December 2025
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or if you know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those who have pointed out corrections or tasty sites (this month we’re tipping our virtual hat to Sally Ekus )—thanks, and keep them coming!
PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or, if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list, but should you choose to be one of them, let us know, and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again.
— the new sites —
Coffee’s Delicious Journey from Tiny Bean to Tasty Brew
(Sara Kiley Watson tracks it for Popular Science)
Cooking from Two Historic Cookbooks
(Julia Skinner prepares a modern recipe by comparing multiple historic recipes on her Substack page)
(how do you say “lunchroom” in Dutch?)
Economic Impact of Plant-Based Diets, The: Fewer Jobs, Lower Costs, and Big Climate Benefits
(Emma Bryce’s report about some effects of a sustainable diet, in Anthropocene Magazine)
Let’s Talk About Rice Noodles & Glass Noodles
(Xueci Cheng’s comprehensive Substack page on Chinese “pasta”)
Maybe People Who Want to “Save Beer” Should Learn Something About It First
(Dave Infante critiques beer journalism for VinePair)
Pizza and Beer Are a Match Made in Heaven, According to Science
(according to The Takeout’s Laura Christine Allan, it’s all about the yeast)
(Alicia Kennedy’s Substack post)
Tacos, Los Angeles and Me: Spilled Milk #381
(Andrew Zimmern looks at the evolution of tacos—in Mexico and beyond)
To Truly Understand Tequila, You Have to Know These 5 Mexican States
(Nickolaus Hines on tequila terroir, for the Matador Network)
(Alice Callahan’s New York Times article on American food history)
(Alder Yarrow’s “source for non-mainstream wine writing”)
Why Midcentury Lawyers Spent 12 Years Arguing about Peanut Butter
(Matt Blitz, at Atlas Obscura, on the history of the question: “what exactly is peanut butter?”)
Why Pastrami Sandwiches Are So Popular on the East Coast
(Erica Martinez in The Takeout)
— inspirational (or useful) sites for writers/bloggers —
Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, The: An Audacious Literary Experiment
All Praise to the Lunch Ladies
Dark Truth Behind the Making of Pumpkin-Spice Lattes, The
Design Terroir: An Eco-social, Relational, Bioregional Approach to Design
Five Lies You’ve Been Told About Meat
Foods That Make You Smell More Attractive, The
Interview: Fisher the Bookseller Explains How Bookstores Decide Which Books to Sell
Kid Is All Right, The: In Defense of Picky Eating
Restaurant, The = The City + The Home
Scratch Cooking Is Not Going to Improve the American Diet. Just Ask the French.
Sweet Halloween Archives of a Candy Historian, The
Three Journalism Techniques to Try
Why Food and Music Mobilize Communities
— podcasts, et cetera —
Bohemians, Bootleggers, and Bogus Bottles: A History of Absinthe
Cookbookery Collective with Jenna Helwig
Cooking the South with Michael Twitty
Leah Paulos: Finding Your Book PR Superpower
Witness the Mesmerizing Process of Making Hard Candy
— that’s all for now —
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
As an Amazon Associate, this newsletter earns from qualifying purchases made through it. These include our own books (listed below), and occasional books mentioned in the entries above. If you order anything via those links, the price you pay is not increased by our commission.
Occasionally, URLs we provide may take you to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advantage of them), or publications that have paywalls. We do not receive any compensation for listing them here and are providing them without any form of recommendation—other than the fact that they looked interesting to us.
Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose. Ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs for our own books:
The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Hardcover)
(Paper)
(Kindle)
(newsletters like this merely update the contents of the book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Human Cuisine
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Sausage: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Sauces Reconsidered: Après Escoffier
Terms of Vegery
(Paper)
(Kindle)
How to Serve Man:
On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating
(Paper)
(Kindle)
How to Write a Great Book
The Digressions of Dr Sanscravat: Gastronomical Ramblings & Other Diversions
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Ephemera: a short collection of short stories
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Prophet Amidst Losses
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Future Tense: Remembrance of Things Not Yet Past
(Paper)
(Kindle)
The Backstories: As retold by Gary Allen
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Tabula Rasa, Baby: (Not Written in Stone)
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Unbelievable: A Modern Novella (the Extended Edition)
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Noirvella: The Extended Edition
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Hot Hot Hot/Risky Business
(Paper)
(Kindle)
The Long & Short of It: A Miscellany
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Beer Taste & Other Disorders
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Galloping Gourmand: A Culinary Collection
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Inedible: Cruel & Unusual Foods That Moms Used to Make and Inflicted on Young & Innocent Palates
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Substack Lightnin’: Volume One, The First Year
Substack Lightnin’: Volume Two, Second Year
Substack Lightnin’: Volume Three, Third Year
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
______________
The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #302 is protected by copyright and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author’s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.
As the author of this page—being a real living person—I have not used AI for any purpose (beyond routine spellcheck). Nor do I permit the use of any of its content for training of AI systems, or in the generation of AI content.
Copyright ©2025 by Gary Allen.
