Simon Says: Daily Food Quote, February 27, 2012

Published by Monday, February 27, 2012 Permalink 0

by Simón de Swaan

My kitchen is a mystical place, a kind of temple for me. It is a place where the surfaces seem to have significance, where the sounds and odors carry meaning that transfers from the past and bridges to the future.–Pearl Bailey

Pearl Mae Bailey (1918-1990) was an American actress and singer. After appearing in vaudeville, she made her Broadway début in St. Louis Woman in 1946. She won a Tony Award for the title role in the all-black production of Hello, Dolly! in 1968. In 1986, she won a Daytime Emmy award for her performance as a fairy godmother in the ABC Afterschool Special, Cindy Eller: A Modern Fairy Tale.

You can see her perform in the video at the bottom of the page.

 

Pearl Bailey in “St. Louis Woman”, 1946

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Food Art: Making Art from Buffet Ingredients

Published by Saturday, February 25, 2012 Permalink 0

How Sunday Lunch Can Turn into an Art Show

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This Week’s Top 10 Food Photos

Published by Friday, February 24, 2012 Permalink 0

February 24, 2012

We’ve started a food photography album! Every time we fall in love with a food photo, we add it to our gallery.

 

Baroque Lemons (C), by Alessandro Guerani

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One Green Planet: Infographic Explaining GMOs in an Easy-to-understand Manner

Published by Friday, February 24, 2012 Permalink 0

One of our columnists, Wendy Kirby, who runs the site La Phemme Phoodie, discovered this GMO infographic on One Green Planet. It illustrates GMOs extremely well for those of us who are trying to understand it better.

Please take a look!

 

 

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Simon Says: Daily Food Quote, February 24, 2012

Published by Friday, February 24, 2012 Permalink 0

by Simón de Swaan

I judge a restaurant by the bread and by the coffee.–Burt Lancaster

Burton Stephen “Burt” Lancaster was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile. After initially building his career on “tough guy” roles, Lancaster abandoned his “all-American” image in the late 1950s in favor of more complex and challenging roles, and came to be regarded as one of the best actors of his generation as a result. Lancaster was nominated four times for Academy Awards and won once — for his work in Elmer Gantry in 1960. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Lancaster 19th among the greatest male stars of all time.

Click here to watch him here in his Academy Award-winning role in Elmer Gantry.

Burt Lancaster

Burt Lancaster (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

 

 

 

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1.3 kg black truffle for sale in Perigord, France

Published by Thursday, February 23, 2012 Permalink 0

The Daily Mail in the U.K. says what is possibly the world’s biggest black truffle went on sale in the Sarlat truffle market last week.

Black truffles are the most sought-after and expensive mushrooms in existence, and are said to be an aphrodisiac, due to a “compound within the truffle similar to androstenol, the sex pheromone of boar saliva, to which the sow is keenly attracted.”

Click here to read more.

Truffle 3

 

 

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David Downie: Truffles in Black and White: Part Two, Truffle Hunting in Piedmont

Published by Thursday, February 23, 2012 Permalink 0

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by David Downie

Truffles in Black and White: Part Two, Truffle Hunting in Piedmont, Italy

The scent of truffles is what draws trained dogs and pigs to them. Wild or cultivated, truffles grow at random around host trees and must be hunted out and carefully removed using a small pick or trowel.

Eighth-generation truffle hunter and dog trainer Renato Agnello, a wiry dynamo in his late 60s, teaches truffle hunting at Alba’s Centro Nazionale Studi Tartufi (CNST) and leads simulated hunts. In Alba’s main square, Piazza Risorgimento, Agnello opened the back hatch of a muddy FIAT Panda and introduced me to his aging truffle hound, Diana. We drove at breakneck speed into vineyards bordering the Tanaro River south of town. The smell of Diana, dirt and truffles was dizzying.

Photo courtesy of Alison HarrisIn Italy, truffle hunters must be registered, trained and licensed. Piedmont’s 10,000 are reputed to be secretive. Agnello was expansive. “I’ve been at it 61 years,” he laughed. “With people and dogs it’s genetic.”

Italian law states that truffles on public or private land belong to their finder. To keep truffle hunters out, private property must be fenced and posted “no trespassing.” Trespassing is common, however, particularly in central Italy’s commercial black truffle plantations (there are no white truffle plantations).

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Simon Says: Daily Food Quote, February 23, 2011

Published by Thursday, February 23, 2012 Permalink 0

by Simón de Swaan

No coffee can be good in the mouth that does not first send a sweet offering of odor to the nostrils.–Henry Ward Beecher

Henry Ward Beecher — brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin — was a prominent Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, abolitionist, and speaker in the mid to late 19th century. An 1875 adultery trial in which he was accused of having an affair with a married woman was one of the most notorious American trials of the 19th century.

 

 

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Simon Says: Daily Food Quote, February 22, 2012

Published by Wednesday, February 22, 2012 Permalink 0

by Simón de Swaan

Without my morning coffee I’m just like a dried up piece of roast goat.–Johann Sebastian Bach

here was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity. “He learned to play all of the keyboard instruments of the time and also how to repair and build organs,” says Music at Your House.

Click here to listen to some of his most well-known recordings.

Johann Sebastian Bach (aged 61) in a portrait ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Food Art: Apples, Lace and Pie, food photography by Prerna Singh

Published by Tuesday, February 21, 2012 Permalink 0

Prerna Singh runs the award-winning food blog Indian Simmer, which was a finalist in the prestigious Saveur Best Food Blogs this year. Her photos are at the same time sophisticated and rustic, giving a natural yet polished look to the simplest of foods. She grew up in India, but now lives in the U.S. with her husband and daughter.

Prerna uses a Canon 50mm f1.4 lens and photographs in natural light, occasionally using reflectors.

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