A Literary Culinary Journal
by Tamar Chamlian
There are many reasons to love winter. For some, it might be gorgeous change of colors as the new seasons ease in; for others it’s festivities that bring celebration and lots of activity. I like both the colors and the festivities, but most of all I like the abundance and versatility of vegetables available that can be used in endless combinations to make hot soup.
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Don’t miss Mark Bittman‘s “Thanksgiving as a model for sustainable cooking” in The New York Times.
The one thing that is different about Thanksgiving is that we are less wasteful. For the rest of the year, Americans have a record for throwing out at least 40% of their food, while even before Thanksgiving we are figuring out what do do with all the leftovers. Perhaps we should make this our model for the rest of the year.
…The holiday also contains a solution to one of our greatest problems today: our eating. We’re finding it incredibly hard to feed ourselves the way we want. It’s not, as many think, because food is so expensive or we’re so short on time, but because we have a perspective on cooking that impedes our getting real value from our ingredients, or the most from our time.
On Thanksgiving, though, we get it right.
Click here to read the rest of this very important article.
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Swiss television station TSR has just produced a version of Food, Inc. in French.
Click here to watch it.
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by Tamar Chamlian
Cranberry harvest in New Jersey in U.S.
It’s autumn, a season when the color of much of nature goes red by default — vineyards, trees, Japanese oaks, Virginia creeper. Houseware and kitchen accessories — and even Starbucks — magically sells everything in red, even the paper cups. Except for cranberries, which are naturally red, and we have plenty of good reasons to eat them in abundance during the two months they are available, not just for their color, but for their taste and health benefits.
Here are five easy ways to incorporate cranberries into pretty much any dish you’re whipping up.
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David Downie, our France and Italy correspondent, has just been interviewed by the American Library in Paris in one of the best interviews I’ve seen to date. “I’m an accidental Parisian: my early encounters with Paris in the 1970s left me wondering what all the commotion was about. Pompidou was playing Napoleon III—or Baron Haussmann—and the city seemed like one endless worksite, an experiment in brutalism, populated by people Sophia Loren once described as “Italians in a bad mood.” Click here to read on. 
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by Jonell Galloway
A recent Huffington Post article revealed that in 1980, Donald Rumsfeld was head of G.D. Searle, as well as part of Ronald Reagan’s transition team, along with Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr., later to be named head of the FDA. Hayes, not having experience in food additives, allowed Searle to reapply for approval of the use of aspertame, which had previously been banned because “it might induce brain tumors.”
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I read the Daily Green every day, but today’s slideshow list of 19 tips for saving the earth, improving your diet and health and saving money, all at the same time. Watch it immediately! Just click here.
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We all know what a Francophile I am, especially when it comes to food and wine.
But there is ONE thing the French do which really gets on my nerves!
In the first place, rare is the restaurant that uses good lettuce. Mesclun is considered some kind of luxury, and now that I’ve lived in Switzerland, I’m accustomed to eating the wild greens and mesclun fresh from the mountains. So the supermarket lettuce in France is really not to my liking.
The other thing that really annoys me is that they just throw a bit of mesclun on top of the salad, and the bowl is invariably too small to allow one to mix the greens and the vinaigrette without spilling it out onto the table, so I inevitably end up feeling like a klutz.
Of course, Julia Child’s Niçoise salad, when made with top quality, fresh, local ingredients, is impeccable. Ironically and unfortunately, Nice is about the hardest place to find a good Niçoise. The tomatoes are invariably hothouse from Holland, even in the middle of the summer, and the green beans are frozen in the height of the green bean season.
My conclusion is that French restaurants most often just throw salads together, and don’t consider it real cuisine, so they can’t be bothered. But if you really like or yearn for a salad, this is disappointing, especially since the salads are overpriced, as if they were “real” cuisine.
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by Tamar Chamlian
The alarm goes off again. Another day…you need to get yourself out of bed, get your creative juices flowing, and prepare your kids a healthy lunchbox for school.
The challenge for parents today is creating a healthy balanced lunchbox meal ensuring their children receive all the required nutrients, and at the same time giving them things that they want to eat (and WILL actually eat).
Here are five easy tips to render your child’s lunchbox “yummier” and more child-friendly, creative, and appealing:
Tamar Chamlian studied in Lebanon and the U.K. She is a food scientist and holds a Master’s degree in food marketing. She currently lives in Switzerland.
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by Tamar Chamlian
Quinoa is a health food addict’s best friend. I have a love affair with it.
If I were to tell you that it could be used in 101 ways, yes there would be. I’ll keep it simple to start, however, by listing 5 easy, quick-fix ways to incorporate this magic grain in your everyday meals.
Do you want to know what so “magical” about quinoa? Its glory is that it is high in protein and fiber, yet provides you with lots of long-lasting, balanced energy.
But I don’t only like quinoa because of its nutritional values. I also like it because it is easy to combine it with other ingredients when cooking.
I often come home after a long day and the just the thought of thirty minutes in the kitchen making a big homemade meal overwhelms me. And can my digestive system really handle a big heavy meal?
The quinoa is sitting there, set, ready to go in just 10 minutes (and sometimes even less).
Here are my 5 easy, healthy quick-fix dishes:
Quinoa is revolutionary in the world of cereals and grains. It is chock-full of nutrition and fiber.
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Meet Jonell Galloway, a freelance writer and editor specialized in French cuisine. 
