On the Table - the curious home of Gary Allen, Food Writer & Dillettante

Here, at the very end of the year, with all sorts of holidays to occupy our attention, there's no time for procrastinating. We either get the update newsletter out, now, or continue setting a bad example for ourselves by sending it sometime in January.

While it seemed, not long ago, that our appetites would never return -- they have, just in time for one or two more gastronomic onslaughts. In the interest of seasonal good will, we offer this little bit of advice: The Science of Your Hangover, in which Kate Hilpern explains the how, why and escape route from post-holiday hell. It won't help you recover from all of the season's over-indulgences, but it may minimize the after-effects of one of them.

Regular subscribers to our updates newsletter receive these updates from our blog, Just Served, directly -- but there is much more on the blog that isn’t sent automatically. We understand that many (OK, most) folks have better things to do with their time than wade through countless unwanted e-missives, so we avoid adding ours to that pile. However... should you feel an inexplicable craving for exactly the sort of self-indulgent claptrap we periodically post, you can satisfy that urge at Just Served.

Leitesculinaria is still in the process of reposting, sometimes with shiny new updates and edits, some of our older articles. The entire list of our currently-posted LeitesCulinaria articles (some twenty or so) is available here.

For hard-core addicts of our stuff (assuming such unlikely beings exist), Marty Martindale's Food Site of the Day has been completely redesigned, and has returned to posting A Quiet Little Table in the Corner -- an ever-changing index of our writings on the web.

As always, we conclude our monthly peregrinations with some presumably appropriate selections from On the Table's culinary quote pages. This month, alas, is no exception.

"There is a remarkable breakdown of taste and intelligence at Christmastime. Mature, responsible grown men wear neckties made of holly leaves and drink alcoholic beverages with raw egg yolks and cottage cheese in them." P.J. O'Rourke

"In my experience, clever food is not appreciated at Christmas. It makes the little ones cry and the old ones nervous." Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

And, as any writer will tell you,

"Do give books for Christmas. They're never fattening..." Lenore Hershey

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 of you who have suggested sites -- 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, go here.

PPPS: 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. You can unsubscribe here .




2,400-year-old Soup Found
(Chinese archaeologist Liu Daiyun found bones and soup in one bronze pot, and a wine-like liquid in another)

Chinese Noodle Dinner Buried for 2,500 Years
(archaeologists discovered noodles and moon-cake-like baked goods among ancient grave goods)

City's Food History on Exhibit
(restaurant memorabilia, from 1849 to 2010, an exhibition at San Francisco's Main Library)

Classical Cider
(Rachel Laudan muses on cider, Puvis de Chavannes, and the institution of Frenchness in France)

Divided We Eat
(Lisa Miller's Newsweek article on class differences in American eating habits)

Food & Foodways
(an index of available titles from the Center for the Study of the American South, at the University of North Carolina)

Foods, Most of Them Scary
(another site that proves that our nostalgia for foods of the past is terribly mistaken)

Guide to Spanish Cured Meats, A
(an annotated slide show from Saveur)

Historic Restaurant Photographs
(an archive of over 700 pictures compiled by The Museum of the City of New York)

In a Nutshell
(Noreen Malone's "brief history of nutcrackers," in Slate)

Kapeleion
("Casual and Commercial Wine Consumption in Classical Greece," Clare F. Kelly-Blazeby's PhD thesis; a PDF)

Maple Recipe Collection
(amassed by the University of Vermont)

Menus: The Art of Dining
(a digitized collection, history of menus and restaurant, the artists who created the menus and the technologies involved in their production)

New Front in the Culture Wars, The: Food
(article by Brent Cunningham and Jane Black, in The Washington Post, on how food choices are being used as political fodder)

Nuts…Their History
(part of the website of the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum))

Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, The (FFA)
(a clearing house for everything concerning the fishing industry in the region)

Wijnanda Deroo: Inside New York Eateries
(press release for an exhibit of photographs at NY's Robert Mann Gallery)

World of Breakfast, A
(article, in Saveur, comparing breakfast traditions in several countries, and some of the historical reasons for them)



Blogs about blogging -- their writing, design, photography, promotion, and ethics -- can help us become better, and possibly more successful, writers (i.e., having more people read our stuff). Here are a few recent favorites:

3 Thanksgiving Cookbook Authors Dish on Their Craft

10 Things Every Cookbook Publisher Should Know

Food Blog Alliance

Food Blog Forum

Food Bloggers Unite

Let Your Story and Identity Shine Through, says Cookbook Publisher

Ten Blogging Mistakes I Learned in Year One




Another Wine Blog

Appetite

Creole Notes

Dining Alternative, The

Drankster

Drinkster

Hosemaster of Wine

In the Kitchen and on the Road with Dorie

Jane Black

Nectar Tasting Room and Wine Blog

Restaurant Club

Suburban Wino

Sweet Beet, The



Except, of course, for the usual legal mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:

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:

Our books, The Resource Guide for Food Writers, The Herbalist in the Kitchen, The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries, and Human Cuisine can be ordered through the Libro-Emporium.

Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...

...for the moment, anyway.