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

With December, residents of the northern hemisphere enter winter. It’s the season for rich desserts and hearty foods, slow-cooked dishes that ooze calories and luscious saturated fats and make us forget there will ever be a time when we might consider wearing something more revealing than a down parka. 
Self-deception can be glorious when served in over-sized portions.
Speaking of over-sized portions, this issue is simply bursting its buttons with tasty new sites for those of us who cogitate (and/or pontificate) about all things gastronomical. Think of it as an extended cocktail hour preparing you for the holiday feasts to come (or a last chance to kick back and relax before the frenzy of festivities consumes us all).

You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook, and Twitter.  Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner. 

As usual, we assume that too much is never enough, so this month’s issue is piling on additional comments appropriate to the gorging season (from On the Table’s culinary quote collection):

Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody. Samuel Pepys 

FEAST, n. A festival. A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy person distinguished for abstemiousness. Ambrose Bierce 

Contemporary societies have lost the sense of the feast but have kept the obscure drive for it. Umberto Eco

PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs -- or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed (as has my friend Cynthia Bertelsen) -- 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 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. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.
aashpaz
(“a history of Persian food through the ages”)
Afternoon with M.F.K. Fisher, An
(Paul Levy’s article in The Wall Street Journal)
Amazing Ribs.com
(“the science of barbecue, grilling, and outdoor cooking”)
Apples
(Anna Lovett-Brown on the history and mythology of Malus pumila)
Ben Franklin’s List of 200 Synonyms for “Drunk”: “Moon-Ey’d,” “Hammerish,” “Stew’d” & More (1737) 
(not necessarily more useful than a thesaurus, but definitely more entertaining)
Bread of Affliction, The
(Lindsay Eanet, in McSweeney’s Monthly, on sandwiches)
Community of Lush: Wine, Alcohol, and the Social Bond, The
(Dwight Furrow on what goes on at wine tastings)
Fake-Tongue Illusion, The
(Nicola Twilley on how the perception of foods is altered by our expectations; in the New Yorker)
Food
(blog, recipes, and archive of food programming on PBS – for those outside of the US, that’s our Public Broadcasting Service)
Food and Drink
(food-themed articles selected from Aeon magazine)
Food & Gastronomy: Media and Writing
(eclectic site of Dr. Len Fisher, who studies food, biophysics, and nano-engineering—not necessarily in that order)
Food Stories from Gascony
(southwestern France described by photographer Tim Clinch and writer Kate Hill)
Green Revolution: Curse or Blessing?
(report by Peter B.R. Hazell, posted by the International Food Policy Research Institute)
Happy Apicius
(articles on food and culture from the Bibliothèque Municipale de Dijon; in French)
Image Gallery: Supper Clubs
(Jan Whitaker recalls more restaurants – swanky or not – but mostly perdu)
In Vitro Meat Cookbook, The: Recipes as Design Fiction
(an artistic and philosophical discussion of meat that doesn’t come from animals; a review of a whimsically and graphically lovely book)
Interview with Dwight Furrow, An
(the philosopher talks about his reasons for thinking about food)
Little Food History, A
(Nanna Rögnvaldardóttir on the food of Iceland)
Nietzsche’s Angel Food Cake 
(Rebecca Coffey’s deliciously deicidal recipe, in McSweeney’s)
Pen & Fork
(recipes, cookbook reviews, tips, links)
Shut Up and Eat: A Foodie Repents
(New Yorker article by John Lanchester, author of The Debt to Pleasure)
Symposion Journal
(“...a website devoted to things cultural, aesthetic and intellectual about food”)
Weiser Kitchen, The
(Tami Ganeles-Weiser – anthropologist and chef – creates modern variations on dishes from around the world in her Kosher kitchen)
What’s the Most Ethical Way to Eat Snack Mix?
(Dan Pashman allows several philosophers to weigh in on this... ummm... weighty question)
Why Civilization Rests on that Roast
(Dwight Furrow -- a professor of philosophy who often writes about food and wine, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics -- considers the social meanings of food)
Yesterdish: Rescuing America’s Lost Recipes
(a project that salvages old family recipes, often from spattered index cards, and often comparing them with contemporaneous published recipes)
Amazon’s Crowdsourced Publishing Venture Kindle Scout Goes Live
Back of the House: Writing this Blog
Editing Checklist For Writers, An
Ethical Author
Leave Me Alone
Looking for Inspiration? Open Your Eyes…and Get to Work 
Merriam-Webster Apps
On All the Ways to Write a Recipe
Passive Resistance
Platforms Are Overrated
SelfControl
Smashwords
5 Second Rule
Cooking in the Archives
Coorg Table, The
Culinaria
Culinary Bro-down
Cultured Grub
Eat. Drink. Think.
Elizabeth Minchilli in Rome
Foraging & Feasting
Former Chef
Historical Cooking Project, The
History’s Just Desserts 
Hortus
Hungry Dog, The
In Search of Taste
Kitchen Historic
Life’s a Feast
Lost Past Remembered
Monsoon Spice
Parla Food
Pen & Palate
Plated Stories
Revolutionary Pie
This Cook Book Life
Thyme & Temp
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