Carrot Top

Yes, of course. To me, Shavuot is Noodle Kugel Day. And I think there should be a Noodle Kugel Day each month. India is marvellously full of festivals, isn't it, Milagai. I am always astonished and impressed! You have explained exactly how I feel about turkey with those words.

Don't ask me. I'm sitting here wondering why on earth I ever gave away my first four issues of Art Culinaire which they're saying on another thread are selling for six hundred fifty dollars or so.

The only group I know of in the US that seriously celebrates Epiphany (besides some ex-Brits) are those who attend the Greek Orthodox Church (which uses the Julian rather than the Gregorian calendar to date celebrations). Don't know if that's any help in answering your question.

There *are* places in the world where this has happened in modern times. It is happening in places at this very moment. War. Soils that have been depleted since pre-historic times unable to produce enough to eat. Starvation, and one person killing another for a handful of food. No easy solutions. Certainly no solutions "right there", easy to implement. And what comes in (not enough, of course, ever, seemingly) to try to help *are* the products of industrialized agriculture, shipped halfway across the world quickly, not in boats moved by sail, and what comes in to help additionally are the developing ideas of modern (sigh, yes industrialized) agriculture studies by those who, when faced with a "nothing" in front of them in terms of soil and geography, try to find a "something" so that people who do live there can hopefully find a way to live. There are no grocery stores or on-line shopping for these people to fall back upon. There is only the hopeful goodwill of others who do not live where they live. It's only serendipity that any of us were not born to live in these unrelenting places. ......................................................... Farming is hard work, Sunny, of a type suited not for everyone. . .as you say. I'm not suited for it, but have great respect for anyone who does manage to do it.

Two mentions of Laurie Colwin made me realize that she was one of the writers I've never read a lot of (she wrote mostly in the 90's, didn't she? I wasn't reading Gourmet hardly at all them. . .). Since she seems to have really been someone important to read (based on your thoughts), I ordered "Home Cooking" - a collection of her essays. It just came and even without delving in too far, I am totally thrilled. Thanks!

Trust Me Knock-knock Who's there? The cannibal who lives upstairs A cannibal? Then I'm dead meat Nonsense! Do you think I'd eat My neighbor? Crunch. Yum. Never trust a cannibal

Gosh but it's fun flipping those two words around in that sentence while imagining the Life and Times of Busboy. (Edited to alter a phrase for I was starting to sound like a guy from Coney Island who eats only in restaurants with bullet-proof windows. )

I don't think OCD is encroaching, nor the dreaded sin of being "girly". And probably you didn't pay a consultant "up to $1200 per hour" to learn these things (as some people do need to), as this article discusses: Mind your Manners There are also some fun retro shorts (movies, not what one wears ) from Emily Post featuring two women (ladies ) learning how to dine, on this site: Taste TV (Of course, just sitting through the fifteen second commercial previous to the piece teaches manners, too. . .sigh) That sounds interesting.

Can I have a T-shirt with that written on it? This is what I wrote: Did each one aside from the garden and chicken coop.

Actually I am not going to look anymore, because I just went on Amazon and ordered this: Secret Ingredients: Race, Gender and Class at the Dinner Table Sounds thrilling, doesn't it? Must. Not. Order. More. Books.

Here's something more on gender's role in food cravings. (Here's a link to an abstract of a thesis which discusses this in scholarly terms: Comfort Food Preferences Across Age and Gender) Of course here "comfort food" is what is being discussed, without the additional social impetus of dining out in public with others. Would be nice to find more on that - I'll look a bit.

My sense is that perhaps parts of the article are "right", perhaps some not. Just as with most things in life, including articles in the daily newspaper. There is the fact to be considered, in reading this, that it is in a British publication, writing for that specific audience. There can often be anywhere from a small to a large difference in the "style" and tone of the writing. These differences are sometimes quite apparent in restaurant reviews in British publications as opposed to those in American publications. The humor is often different, in particular. I think this article was meant to be humorous, and that the archness used in the style of writing was meant to hint at that. It would be interesting to hear a native Brit's opinion on it, though.

No harvest festivals to tell of. Probably due to industrial agri-business.

One person who *did* try, who posted on this thread, just signed a book contract. I wanted to share the news that Janet (The Old Foodie) has signed a contract for a book on pies - pies in both historic and cultural context, with illustrations and recipes. She noted that her blog turned out to be a good way for the publisher to view her work. Yaaaay, Janet! I look forward to reading it!

Thanks for all the ideas you all added to this thread. I'd never heard of the rye-based sauces in particular, so that was very interesting!

I've heard tell of a still waaaaay back in the woods. A guy I know has kin who knows a guy who knows a guy. Not organic, now. They don't mess with that all. Free-range for sure, though, honey. I'll nose around there a bit next time I get taken snipe-huntin', and will let you know what I find.

Mindless Eating - Why We Eat More Than We Think

One of the problems (or, heh, "challenges") in chicken farming is, when you start getting lots of chickens, gathering them when they are due to be gathered. Chickens do not like to be gathered for slaughter. Understandably. In large-scale operations, if you read chicken farming magazines (don't ask ) they are always trying to come up with better methods for this. This is one reason for keeping chickens in cages. If they *are* actually free-range, running around loose, they must be captured. Right now there is a big vaccuum machine that does this job. You scoot around with this huge tractor-like thing, sucking chickens into the vaccuum extension. Not kind, to the birds. Some are mangled. But it is an easier way of management than to have ten or twenty guys running around in circles trying to catch their bird all day long. There is an in-between method that is being advised for those who wish to have the chickens outside, actually being "free-range" while still maintaining a better control while avoiding the vaccuuming scenario. You build spacious chicken coops in a pyramid shape from 2 by 4's, cover them with wire, fill them with your chickens, then hook up the coops to your tractor and drag them out to the field each day. The bottoms of the coops are mostly wire, so the birds can peck up insects and greens from the field. Then you haul them back in to the barn at night. It's advised that the cages be taken to a different spot in your field each day to assure variety in the bird's diet. Of all the methods I've heard of in larger-scale chicken production for meat, this seems the most fair to the birds, keeping quality high in terms of being "free-range", while keeping the human owners from running around themselves like uh. . ."chickens with their heads cut off" while attempting, de facto, to do exactly that to the birds.

Limerick to Celebrate the Past Full Moon Yesterday ................................................ There once was a wan girl named Hannah Who ate only seeds and bananas But one day on a hike She found something she liked It made her experience nirvana. For she'd met a fey guy named Lars Who spent lots of time in sports bars He gave her foie gras She said "Ooh la la!" then screamed "Ah! Me gusta bailar!" Entonces they ate many things Pigeons en croute and hot wings Those hot dogs with fixins' She ate with conviction And sometimes she started to sing. There once was a wan girl named Hannah Who'd discarded her only bandana Now she ate escargots And wriggled her toes As she waved her "so-long's!" to Montana.

Strangely enough, I can think of things that are more rewarding to do, personally, than spend my time on earth (needlessly) limiting my food sources to a hundred-mile radius, maintaining a garden and a wheat field, and canning/drying/preserving whatever foods come from this. Karen (not barefoot, pregnant, or always in the kitchen or fields)

I agree with you, Sandy, particularly in the area that I placed in bold letter above. What bothers me most is the sense of evangelism that is attached to the locavore movement. Secondarily, the holes in the theory then bother me.

If the ultimate goal here is to save on resources (i.e. gas and oil) within the scope of what and how we eat, perhaps those who use the cars that clog the highways, and the planes that swim through the air, on major holidays, should just eat at home on holidays. That would save a lot of resources. Actually, maybe people should live in the same neighborhoods if they want to dine with each other. No further away than one could walk or ride a bike. Same thing for work, of course. As we must eat during the day we really should always live near enough to where we work to not waste resources. I say let the food travel and keep the people off the roads. Heh. Yes. I'd like to see those numbers.

Particularly interesting as when "we" think of doing it, it's all from apparently a good place within ourselves, but when "others" do the same in any formal way it's called "zenophobia".

Myself, I only deal in intuitive appeal, Shalmanese, never with *facts*, for *facts*, factually, are much more contradictory when well-explored and fully gathered than anything intuitive. And I think that *most* people deal in intuitive appeal, then gather the facts they wish to support whatever it is their intuition points to. But what appeals to me intuitively, is that a global economy, with its shipping and sharing of foods and cultures is a good thing. Gloom and doom is always with us, of course, it has travelled hand-in-hand as companion with every step of creative congress humanity has ever taken. If someone wants to eat locally, and find reasons for it, no reason for them not to. I'll continue to eat globally. I do wonder how well eating locally goes over in areas where there is poor soil and little water, histories of ongoing war and social disruption. Most of those, of course, are not here in our country, but the challenge to "eat locally" certainly seems to be a bit difficult sometimes, even moreso than if I had to eat turnips and dried beef through the winter, here.

Okay. I admit that the whole story sounded so. . . well. . .just slightly "off" that I didn't take it entirely seriously in some way. Didn't read the link till this morning. Though I was serious about the truite au blue. Wonder if a live fish would even stay alive in an aquarium in space. I guess, all in all, this is very nice in ways for the astronauts. Better than eating those little packets of "space-food" that I've seen in the Discovery Store, anyway, which seem like colored bits of cardboard and mashed cotton. But most of all I can imagine Alain, sitting at a table with a bunch of the guys, comparing new locations. "I opened in Las Vegas!" murmurs one. "Eh. Moi, I opened in Tokyo!" another guy smiles, pushing his chair onto its back legs while tossing down a Calvados. "Ah." Alain says, eyebrows raising ever-so-slightly, "But I, I have opened in Outer Space." Heh. Top that, buddy. Plus, it's the sort of thing to make any Mom proud.