Food & Writing Sites for November 2024
Thursday, October 24, 2024As this is being written, those of us who live in the US are bracing ourselves for Halloween and the Presidential Election—that is, something to scare every one of any age. The stores, of course, have faith that life will go on as usual—no matter what terrifying things we encounter—so they are busy stocking the shelves with the sugarplums of Christmas future.
We’re no longer—at the moment—editing other people’s books. However, hours sitting at the foot of a spousal hospital bed (fortunately, she’s recovered and back at home now) have given us ample time to work on books-in-progress—and post over a dozen new Substack pages:
“BBQ,” a reminiscence about the Texas of my childhood, but not a fish story;
“Thinking Ahead,” some idle thoughts about an idle future;
“Small Town Life,” on food people helping food people;
“While You're Up, Get Me A Grant,” because meaning changes across generations;
“And Fall Back…” one of many Meetings with Remarkable Men;
“Ahhhhh, Youth…” in which bad things happen to frogs and snakes (but not fish);
“Never Meet Your Heroes. They’ll Surely Disappoint,” art and life… never the twain should meet;
“Appetite for Change,” oddly enough, is not about our appetite;
“They’re as Happy as if…,” more on bibliomania;
“Uncertainty Principles,” how to get ideas;
“Testosterone Poisoning; Part One,” some true confessions;
“Testosterone Poisoning: Part Two,” more of the above;
“Mentor/Mentee,” two snippets of assigned writings; and
“A is for Autumn…” on preserving apples.
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.
As is our wont, we include some seasonal quotations (found in On the Table’s culinary quote collection).
As the days grow short, some faces grow long. But not mine. Every autumn, when the wind turns cold and darkness comes early, I am suddenly happy. It's time to start making soup again. Leslie Newman
My favorite word is “pumpkin.” You can’t take it seriously. But you can’t ignore it, either. It takes ahold of your head and that’s it. You are a pumpkin. Or you are not. I am. Harrison Salisbury
Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of each. Grow green with the spring, yellow and ripe with autumn. Henry David Thoreau
Gary
November 2024
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or 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 David Leite—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 —
All the Different Lager Styles Around the World
(an overview, by Pete O’Connell, at VinePair)
America’s Dairy Farms Have Vanished
(Elizabeth Eckelkamp, on why 95%of farms have disappeared since the 1970s, in Wired)
Brief History of Peanut Butter, A
(Kate Wheeling’s Smithsonian article)
Bronze Age Cheese Reveals Human-Lactobacillus Interactions over Evolutionary History
(archaeological evidence of some very well-aged cheeses; reported in CellPress. More here)
Cosmopolitan is a Great Cocktail, Actually, The
(the pink drink—if made properly—defended by Georgina Torbe in The Manual)
Do Colder or Warmer Places Eat More Spicy or Bland Food?
(Frank Jacobs’ answer at Gastro Obscura)
Food Studies: Summary and Keywords
(in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication)
(Jerusha Klemperer’s and Ryan Nebeker’s report in FoodPrint; introduction by Anna Lappé)
Getting Saucy: 13 Condiments from Around the World
(Gillian Finklea’s Mental Floss article reaches across the table, well-past the ketchup and mustard)
In a World of Hazy IPAs, These Beers Use No Hops at All
(Pete O’Connell, at VinePair, on gruit—an ancient beer style)
Issue 91, Radishes, Part 5: Horseradish
(more from the substack page of David S. Shields)
Little History of the Anchovy, A
(Mathew Lyons, on the big impact of a little fish, at Engelsberg Ideas; book review of A Twist in the Tail: How the Humble Anchovy Flavoured Western Cuisine)
New Exhibition Features Culinary Art from Across the Islamic World, A
(show at The Detroit Institute of Arts)
Olfactory Logos: Why Your Restaurant Needs One
(advice from “Aaron Allen & Associates, Global Restaurant Consultants”)
Our Best Recipes for Every Classic Cocktail
(raising a glass—or two— to the staff at Punch)
Scientists Just Figured Out How Many Chemicals Enter Our Bodies from Food Packaging
(Shannon Oak’s report in The Washington Post)
Simple Ingredient that Paprika Is Made of, The
(Dennis Lee explains , in The Takeout, that it’s not as simple as it seems)
(another myth… busted; in Nature)
(Michael Sebastian, in Esquire, on changing attitudes about the classic drink)
Ultra-processed Foods: Five Policy Ideas that Could Protect Health
(a study from Harvard’s School of Public Health)
— inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers —
Allrecipes, America’s Most Unruly Cooking Web Site
America’s Regional Chili Styles
Blood, Wine, and Ziti: The Starring Role of Food and Drinks in “The Sopranos”
Chef Celebrities, Foodstuff Anxieties and (Un)Happy Meals: An Introduction to Foodways Redux
Chef Grant Achatz, Wieners Circle Plotting a Corn Dog Collab
Cookbook Author Interview: Part 1
Cooking, Celebrity Chefs, and Public Chef Intellectuals
Eating the Other. Translations of the Culinary Code.
Entangled in Our Meals: Guilt and Pleasure in Contemporary Food Discourses
Food as an Object of Cultural-Technical Study
Food for Thought: On Practices, Tastes and Food Systems from a Social Anthropological Approach
How Chain Restaurants Use Smells to Entice Us
I Am Once Again Asking You to Cook with Shellfish
I’m a Vegetarian—with One Exception
I’ve Finished My Manuscript, Now What? On Dealing with Post-Book Blues
“Let There Be Food”: Evolving Paradigms in Food Studies
Meet the “Cheese Portraitist” Who Painted Our Back Cover
On Making Space for a Writing Project
Poetry of the World’s First Cookbook, The: What Cooking Can Teach Writers and Translators
Prince of Gastronomy Laid an Egg, The
Putting an End to Perfect Wine Scores
Restaurant Design Trend We Can’t Get Enough of, The
Sociology of Food, The: Eating, Diet and Culture
Tap into the “Hemingway Effect” to Finish What You Start
Tension in the Kitchen Explicit and Implicit Politics in the Gourmet Foodscape
There’s a Reason Chili’s Is All Over Your FYP
Ultra Processed Foods—the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Understanding Culture: Food as a Means of Communication
Vast Divide Between Republicans and Democrats over Fast Food, The
Wine Marketing: Isn’t It Obvious?
Women’s Place: Cookbooks' Images of Technique and Technology in the British Kitchen
— podcasts, etcetera —•
Evolution of the Old Fashioned Cocktail—1806 to 2050!
Has the Drinks Industry Taken Creativity Too Far?
How Guinness Remains the Coolest Beer on Earth
How is Whisky Made, What’s in it, and Why Does it Burn Like That?
How Should Brands Credit Cocktail Creators?
New York’s Best Cheesecake—Big Kitchens—Food Documentary
“Oyster Sommelier” Is Now a Job, Thanks to this New Oyster-education Program
Secret Food Hacks I Learned in Restaurants
Spicy History of Hot Sauce, The
— 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)
Substack Lightnin’: Volume One, The First Year
Substack Lightnin’: Volume Two, Second Year
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
______________
The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #289 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.
Copyright ©2024 by Gary Allen.