Archive for the ‘food’ Category

Alexander McCall Smith’s Heroine Precious Ramotswe Set to Publish Cookbook

Monday, June 29th, 2009
Woman cooking Botswana Fat Cakes - a favourite food of Precious Ramotswe

Woman cooking Botswana Fat Cakes - a favourite food of Precious Ramotswe

Precious Ramotswe, leading character of  Alexander McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series is “writing” a cookbook to share her favourite recipes for Botswanan dishes.

The cookbook is actually the brainchild of charity worker and former BBC journalist, Stuart Brown.  While working  for a charity in Africa, Brown collected authentic Botswanan recipes and with McCall Smith’s blessing,  the cookbook project came to life.  “I am delighted to be working with Stuart on this book, which will raise funds for worthwhile causes in Botswana,” says McCall Smith who will write a forward and reflections from Ramotswe for the book.

Precious Ramotswe’s  generous figure is a recurring theme throughout the series and in Blue Shoes and Happiness, the seventh book, she tries dieting before deciding that satisfying her appetite is more important. As for the cookbook, Brown says that concessions have been made to healthy eating but much of the food is of the calorific type enjoyed by the heroine. “As fans of the series know, Mma Ramotswe is quite a fan of doughnuts, or fat cakes as they are called in Botswana. They feature heavily in her recipe book, as well as fruit cake. The book is a celebration of what she calls the ‘traditional African build’, as she is very much against the tyranny of the thin shape which dominates the fashion world.

Watch for the book in November the  scheduled date for publication by Polygon.

The Final Chapter for Thomas Hardy’s Ale?

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

The loss of a great beer is a tragedy - and it’s even more tragic that I haven’t tried Thomas Hardy’s Ale and soon it could be no more. Damn this economy!Thomas Hardy's Ale

Beer devotees have hailed the ale as one of the world’s best but English brewery O’Hanlon has had to plug the keg citing the time and money it took to produce the liquid gold made it a necessary decision. The packaging itself is time consuming as each bottle is individually numbered, is topped with gold foil and has a hand-hung gold medallion.

Thomas Hardy’s Ale was created 41 years ago by brewer Eldridge Pope as a tribute to the author.

A quest is on to find another brewery to produce the beer so it’s not a hopeless situation yet. But just in case, grab a bottle of Thomas Hardy’s Ale for one hand and a copy of Tess of the d’Urbervilles for the other and toast good old Hardy himself.

The Skinny On Losing Weight Without Being Hungry

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

The Skinny: On Losing Weight without Being Hungry-the Ultimate Guide to Weight Loss Success by Louis J. Aronne, M.D.The latest in weight-loss books is Dr. Louis Aronne’s The Skinny on Losing Weight Without Being Hungry.

Dr. Aronne tells us that it’s not willpower but “fill power” that will keep us from overeating. He says that certain foods will stop us from getting hungry while fattening foods (those yummy cakes, cookies and chips) don’t make us feel full. In fact, his belief is that the more you eat of these latter foods, the hungrier you’ll get.

According to Aronne, a few simple changes can make all the difference. He suggests:

  • Start meals with a soup.
  • Eat your vegetables first.
  • Avoid calorie-dense foods. (Again those yummy cakes, cookies and chips.)
  • Eat a protein breakfast.

Dr. Louis Aronne talked about his book on CBS’ The Early Show this morning.

Find copies of The Skinny: On Losing Weight Without Being Hungry - The Ultimate Guide to Weight Loss Success starting at $14.71.

Remembering the How To Repair Food cookbook

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

how-to-repair-foodThe Washington Post remembers the How to Repair Food cookbook by Marina and John Bear. It’s a very quirky cookery book first published in 1970 by Harcourt. The book provides solutions for foods that are “over-cooked or undercooked, stale, burned, lumpy, salty, bland or too spicy, mushy or tough, too wet or too dry, wilted, fatty, collapsed, curdled or just stuck together.” That’s most things cooked by most people.

The End of Overeating by David Kessler, and Society’s Relationship with Food

Friday, May 8th, 2009

end-of-overeatingI had a bad day yesterday. It started badly, I worked late, and by the time I was driving home at 6:30, the idea of thinking of something to cook, going to the grocery store, wandering around with a cart, waiting in line, going home, cooking, and washing dishes was enough to make me want to cry.

Usually in this situation I would buy sandwich material, or pick up some sushi, or something, but last night I thought “when’s the last time I had a fast food hamburger?” So I went through the Drive-through (I’m sorry, I mean “drive-thru”) and ordered a chicken burger, a medium french fries, and a Sprite. When I got home, I ate what I had bought. The fries were so salty they leeched all the moisture from my tongue and made it feel like a dessicated starfish washed up on the beach. The bun was flaccid, spongy and flat, with no memory of a grain left in its bleached facade. The chicken patty tasted good, actually, but was lukewarm, overly salted and completely unlike chicken. I’m not complaining - it was seven bucks, it was easy, it was fast, and I was full. But the thing is, I didn’t love it. I didn’t even like it. I spent the rest of the evening in mild discomfort, aware that my body was attempting to process an already over-processed, rock-heavy ball of saltfatsugar. It had been at least a year - probably two - since I’d patronized the golden arches, and I now know I have completely lost my taste for it, and with it, any pleasure I ever took in it.

Which I suppose is good. I don’t eat fast food for a couple of years, and then when I do, my body and tongue go “ick, stop it.” I imagine it’s a similar phenomenon to the one at work when I now have a puff of a cigarette, after quitting 2.5 years ago. I smoked and loved it for years, but now, one puff, and my mouth tastes like a carpet across which a small dog has scootched its rear end. No, thanks.

Former FDA (Food and Drug Administration*) Commissioner David Kessler has written a book called The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, in which he talks about what’s happening to the appetites, the food habits, the waistlines of the American (though I certainly think it applies equally to Canadian) public. Not new territory, perhaps, but still interesting.

Kessler’s claims throughout the book are that the ingredients that the vast majority of restaurant foods are heavily laden with (fat, sugar, salt) are not intended to be in such long supply, nor intended to be put into the human body in the quantity and frequency with which we consume it. Processing has become so efficient that restaurants and chemists can simulate and achieve any texture, flavour, consistency, product possible, relatively cheaply and in quantity, and as a result, our brains and tastebuds are being constantly stimulated. I haven’t read the book yet (thought I want to), but I wonder whether he gets into 1) the ways in which food’s roles have changed for us societally; 2) the addiction of food; and 3) the correlation between poverty and obesity.

There’s a line from the movie When Harry Met Sally that goes something like “Restaurants are to people in the eighties what theater was to people in the sixties” and now, a year away from 2010, the trend has only grown. Food has become a form of entertainment, of art. It’s a status symbol, a cultural experience, and above all, food is social. We seldom view food as fuel, anymore. And while the pleasure of eating is certainly a good thing, an important thing, a thing not to be missed, we have gone to excess. Where’s the balance?

Recent years have shown trends toward more healthful practices, with people incorporating words like organic, sustainable, free-range, green, and antioxidant into both their vocabularies and their diets. Butour society is backwards. We talk about the obesity epidemic, we talk about the drain on the healthcare system, we talk about heart disease, cancer, diabetes and other health complications associated with obesity, poor diet, poor nutrition and overeating.

But in 2007, 12.5% of all people in the United States lived below the povery level. I imagine that number is higher now. In a world where people struggle to make ends meet, at a time when the recession is forcing people to work harder, work longer hours to pay their bills, how is it right that I can spend $7.00 to be fed right now, but a single free-range chicken breast - raw - is going to cost me the same?

Fast food, if it is as damaging to our bodies as studies show and nutritionists claim, should not be available at the price it is. We need to make healthy food more readily available, easier, and more affordable and accessible to all. Fast food should be taxed, should be expensive, should not be available more easily and more readily than its saner counterparts. I know people need to take responsibility for their own actions, for their own consumption. But that to me sounds like it’s coming from a place of privilege, from people who have the time, the education and most of all the money. The education to know the benefits of healthy food and nutrition and the drawbacks of fast food, the money to afford to buy healthy, fresh groceries, and the time - find that when you have 2-3 jobs and children - to prepare it every day. We put a McDonald’s, KFC, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, Burger King (on, and on) on every corner, then judge people who eat there.

It seems to me that the specialty, out-of-the-way, expensive stores and restaurants shouldn’t be the ones that carry the organic foods, but the ones that carry the cola and deep-fried saltsticks.

More books about food, consumption and health in today’s climate:

*Am I the only one that thinks there should be a Food Administration, and a Drug Administration, and that having them lumped together is a bit scaryweird? No wonder our meat has antibiotics in it.

The Quantum Wellness Cleanse - Ditching “The Big 5″

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

quantum-wellness-cleanse-frestonBestselling author, Kathy Freston visited ABC’s Good Morning America today to discuss her new book, The Quantum Wellness Cleanse.

Freston, who advocates replacing foods with healthier choices rather than depriving yourself, claims that in just 21 days without  “the big 5″ - caffeine, gluten, sugar, alcohol and animal products -  you’ll experience more energy, lessened cravings and a change in your tastes. Freston herself engages in these three-week cleanses a few times each year. She also says if you can’t handle removing all five things at once, try just abstaining from one or two.

TV maven, Oprah Winfrey praises the cleanse and even blogged about her own  21-day experience. (Ironically, Oprah has just posted a coupon for a grilled chicken two-piece meal from KFC on her website…)

Although it is said to help with dropping a few pounds, Freston’s cleanse is more than a weight-loss plan; she suggests trying it as a way to jump-start an inner makeover. The program actually has its roots in Freston’s third book, Quantum Wellness: A Practical and Spiritual Guide to Health and Happiness which details how incremental changes can reap large rewards.

Ready to give it a go? You can pick up your own copy of the Quantum Wellness Cleanse: The 21-Day Essential Guide to Healing Your Mind, Body and Spirit starting for just $ 9.79.

See Diane Sawyer’s interview with Kathy Freston.

Dom DeLuise’s books

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

eat-thisPortly actor Dom DeLuise died yesterday at 75. You’ll have seen him in the wonderful final fight scene of Blazing Saddles (”throw out your hands, stick our your tush….” - see Youtube below) and in less wonderful films like The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, The Muppet movie and the Cannonball Runs, but he also wrote a lot of children’s books and cookbooks.

His children’s books include…
Charlie the Caterpillar
Hansel & Gretel
The Nightingale
King Bob’s New Clothes
The Pouch Potato
There’s No Place Like Home

His cookbooks include…
Eat This … It Will Make You Feel Better: Mama’s Italian Home Cooking and Other Favorites of Family and Friends
Eat This Too! It’ll Also Make You Feel Better

My name is Nancy and I’m addicted to cookbooks

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

Check out this endearing tale of addiction to cookbooks from the food editor on the Seattle Times, Nancy Leson. Nancy’s hardcore and she has two first editions of A Treasury of Great Recipes by horror movie star Vincent Price and his wife Mary.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck Writes About Her Gluten-Free Lifestyle

Monday, May 4th, 2009

g-free-dietElisabeth Hasselbeck,  co-host of the popular daytime chat-show, The View appeared on Good Morning America earlier today to discuss her new book The G-Free Diet: A Gluten Survival Guide.

Hasselbeck, who suffers from celiac disease, says she “learned about gluten the hard way. I wrote this book so you don’t have to.”

Ironically, Hasselbeck discovered that gluten was making her sick while living off the land as a contestant on Survivor: Australian Outback.  I guess bugs are pretty good for you!

A personal account of Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s life without gluten, The G-Free Diet is summed up this way:

In this all-inclusive book, Hasselbeck shares her hard-earned wisdom on living life without gluten and loving it. She gives you everything you need to know to start living a gluten-free life, from defining gluten - where to find it, how to read food labels - to targeting gluten-free products, creating G-Free shopping lists, sharing recipes, and managing G-Free living with family and friends.

Find copies of The G-Free Diet starting around  $13.02

Clement Freud dies

Thursday, April 16th, 2009

Clement Freud died yesterday. Listening to Just a Minute on BBC Radio 4 is one of the things I miss most about not living in the UK. I know I could listen on the internet but it’s not the same as having the radio on in the kitchen while cooking dinner.

For those of you who don’t know him, Clement Freud was the grandson of Sigmund and brother of artist Lucian. Clement was a chef, a food writer, a politician and a radio panelist for three decades.

Just a Minute is a game where panelists compete to see who can talk the longest without hesitation, deviation or repetition. Try it, it’s not easy.

He wrote books for children, inventing ‘Grimble’, the sensible son of criminal parents, and Freud on Food and The Book of Hangovers for adults.

Here’s a clip of Clement on action on Just a Minute - remember, no repetition, deviation or hesitation.

Eggs-ellent! Top 10 Egg Books

Thursday, April 9th, 2009

It’s that time of year when eggs are everywhere - chocolate eggs, dyed eggs, plastic eggs,  jelly bean eggs …

We can’t leave books out of the picture so here’s an eclectic Top 10 List of egg books:

1. Faberge’s Eggs: The Extraordinary Story of the Masterpieces That Outlived an Empire by Tony Faber

faberges-eggsIn 1885, Carl Fabergé created a seemingly plain white egg for Czar Alexander III to give to his beloved wife, Marie Fedorovna. It was the surprises hidden inside that made it special: a diamond miniature of the Imperial crown and a ruby pendant. This gift began a tradition that would last for more than three decades: lavishly extravagant eggs commemorating public events that, in retrospect, seem little more than staging posts on the march to revolution. Above all, the eggs illustrate the attitudes that would ultimately lead to the downfall of the Romanovs: their apparent indifference to the poverty that choked their country, their preference for style over substance, and, during the reign of Nicholas II, their all-consuming concern withthe health of the czarevitch Alexis, the sickly heir to the throne-a preoccupation that would propel them toward Rasputin and the doom of the dynasty.

2. Egg & Nest by Rosamond Purcell

egg-nestThe beauty of the robin’s egg is not lost on the child who discovers the nest, nor on the collector of nature’s marvels. Such instances of wonder find fitting expression in the photographs of Rosamond Purcell, whose work captures the intricacy of nests and the aesthetic perfection of bird eggs. Mining the ornithological treasures of the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology, Purcell produces pictures as lovely and various as the artifacts she photographs. The dusky blue egg of an emu becomes a planet. A woodpecker’s nest bears an uncanny resemblance to a wooden shoe. A resourceful rock dove weaves together scrap metal and spent fireworks. A dreamscape of dancing monkeys emerges from the calligraphic markings of a murre egg.

Alongside Purcell’s photographs, Linnea Hall and René Corado offer an engaging history of egg collecting, the provenance of the specimens in the photographs, and the biology, conservation, and ecology of the birds that produced them. They highlight the scientific value that eggs and nest hold for understanding and conserving birds in the wild, as well as the aesthetic charge they carry for us.

3.  Good Egg by Barney Saltzberg

good-egg-kidsMeet Egg. Cuter than a button, enormously personable, and talented, too. Say “sit,” and Egg sits. Good Egg! Say “roll over,” and egg rolls over. What a good Egg! Of course, Egg does all of this with a toddler’s help, who lifts the flaps and pulls the tabs and operates the wiggle behind the wiggle-waggle. But that’s the most fun part: interacting with the Egg.

Then comes the pay-off. “Speak,” is the command, and children will crack up in delight and surscrambled-eggs-superprise with what happens next.

4.  Scrambled Eggs Super! by Dr. Seuss

Illus. in color. “Riotous humor in picture and verse as an enterprising Seuss creature hunts uncommon eggs for a super deluxe dish.”–Child Study Assn

5.  Intricate Eggs: 45 Egg-Cellent Designs to Color! by Chuck Abraham

intricate-eggsForget about messy dyes and hard-boiling eggs–with the simplicity of Intricate Eggs, kids and adults can decorate their own luxurious masterpieces. A perfect activity book format for on-the-road or at home, all it takes is Crayons, colored pencils, or markers and you’re set to illuminate forty-five of the most magnificent egg patterns, each as unique as you. With room to color inside–and outside–of the lines, this is coloring fun for everyone…minus the breakage!

6.  Confessions of a Serial Egg Donor by Julia Derek

confessionsGrowing by nearly 20 percent annually, the business of egg donors is exploding in the United States. Confessions of a Serial Egg Donor tells the true and disturbing story of how an independent college girl got so caught up by the tens of thousands of dollars she was making on her eggs her body shut down. With brutal honesty, always applying her own brand of humor, she will describe exactly what it was like to be a twelve-time egg donor, including how the broker of her eggs betrayed her viciously in the end.

7.  Mommy Laid An Egg!: OR Where Do Babies Come From? By Babette Cole

mommy-laid-eggIn this hilarious twist on one of the most difficult discussions in a child’s development, award-winning author Cole illustrates the one question all children are bound to ask–where do babies come from? Offbeat illustrations are accompanied by a text that is short, simple, and anything but predictable.

8.  The Good Egg: More than 200 Fresh Approaches from Breakfast to Dessert by Marie Simmonsgood-egg-simmons

Beginning with basics, such as how to make perfect scrambled eggs, and continuing on to sandwiches, soups, pastas, quiches, soufflés, and delectable meringues and cakes, The Good Egg artfully describes the many uses of one of cooking’s most essential and healthful ingredients.

9.  Fresh Eggs by Rob Levandoski

fresh-eggsCalvin Cassowary is ready to do whatever it takes to keep Cassowary Farm in the family for one more generation. Hatching a scheme to specialize in chickens, soon he’s got a million hens laying eggs for Gallinipper Foods, but he still finds himself deeper and deeper into debt. To make matters worse, his chicken-loving daughter Rhea is spending far too much time with the chickens and is starting to act very strange.

Filled with as many tears as chuckles, Rob Levandoski’s Fresh Eggs is a provocative father-daughter tale guaranteed to make you ponder the realities of modern farming and think twice the next time someone asks, “white or dark meat?joe-egg

10.  A Day in the Death of Joe Egg by Peter Nichols

This play is about the nightmare all parents must have dreamed of at some time, that of living with a child born so hopelessly crippled as to be, as the father says, “a human parsnip”.

Eat Your Words With The International Edible Book Festival

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

Although the date of the event is April 1, The International Edible Book Festival is no joke.  The event,  conjured up by two women over a Thanksgiving dinner with book artists has become an annual event around the world since 2000.

The festival coincides with the April 1st (1755) birth date of Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, a French gastronome most noted for his book Physiologie du goût, “a witty meditation on food”.

Some cities have arranged festival events but if where you live isn’t one of them, don’t despair - individuals are invited to participate as well.  The rules are pretty straightforward:

1.  The event must be held on April 1st (or close to that date)
2.  All edible books must be “bookish” through the integration of text, literary inspiration or, quite simply, the form.
3.  Organizations or individual participants must register with the festival’s organization (go to Registration) and see to it that the event is immortalized on the international festival website (www.books2eat.com).

Looking for some inspiration? How about these creations….

millionlittlereesespieces1catch-22


You can see more online in the albums on the International Edible Book Festival website.

The 100-Mile Diet Book Inspires Reality TV

Monday, March 30th, 2009

100-mile-diet-booksThe 100-Mile Challenge, a six part series based on the bestselling book The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating by James MacKinnon and Alisa Smith is scheduled to air on Food Network Canada starting Sunday, April 5 at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET.

The program follows six families in Mission, BC as they spend 100 days completely living the 100-Mile Diet.  Authors MacKinnon and Smith were on hand as guides.

Interestingly MacKinnon noted, “[The families] couldn’t get their kids to eat spinach from the store, but when they grew it they ate it.”

Parents, get ready to plant!

Organic Obama: Barack and Michelle Plant a Vegetable Garden

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

americangothic Barack and Michelle Obama have announced their plans to transform part of the existing White House lawn/landscape into an edible garden. Among the veggies destined for presidential planting are spinach, chard, collard greens, black kale and cilantro, as well various other herbs and lettuces.

The garden will be used in part as an educational tool for children, teaching that fresh food, grown from your own garden, can taste a lot better than what you can get in the supermarket, and be healthier too. Involving kids in the process of growing their own food can be an exciting, informative way to generate excitement about healthy eating.

Since Michelle and Barack are Chicago city-slickers, we figured they could use a little help, and we recommended them 10 books on growing your own fruit and vegetable garden.

…Looks like they’ll have plenty of space.

white-house

Pancake quiz…..

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

…..that’s so hard I looked at the questions and didn’t even bother trying to answer them.