Kentucky | The Rambling Epicure

The French and What They Eat

Published by Jonell Galloway + Friday, August 28, 2015 Permalink 0

From Southern biscuits to French baguette. You might wonder how a country girl from Kentucky who grew up on fried chicken, creamed corn, biscuits, cornbread, and church supper fruit pies could be qualified to tell others about boeuf bourguignon, cassoulet, choucroute or coq au vin. Yes, I’m writing a book we’ll call The French and What They Eat, since the title hasn’t yet been finalized. I’ll tell you the story in the book — from a general store/cream station/feedstore in a spot in the road in Kentucky, where the loafers discussed whether it was better to put a bag of peanuts into a Coke or an RC, to the City of Light and the Cordon Bleu Cooking School, eventually cooking, eating and drinking my way around France.

“What to Eat in France,” a series of regional French recipes with a story and a bit of history, is laying the groundwork for this book. If you’d like to follow the series on a regular basis, sign up for the newsletter in the right-hand column.

How To Be A Poet, by Wendell Berry

Published by Jonell Galloway + Thursday, March 12, 2015 Permalink 0

How To Be A Poet, by Wendell Berry

(to remind myself)

i

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your work,
doubt their judgment.

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

iii

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

About

Published by Jonell Galloway + Tuesday, March 11, 2014 Permalink 0

I’m Jonell Galloway, a freelance food and travel writer, editor and consultant.

I created The Rambling Epicure in 2011. It is a daily international food ezine, joining the voices of professional food and travel writers from around the world who talk about the art of mindful and sustainable eating, drinking, traveling and living, with an emphasis on good writing and spectacular photos by some of the best in the business.

Based in Switzerland, The Rambling Epicure food writers and artists promote a mindful, responsible approach to real food shopping, cooking, and eating, as well as food politics, safety, history, art, literature and philosophy.

We sponsor this non-profit project through freelance writing, editing and publishing; custom-tailored culinary tours, cooking classes, and tasting events; recipe development and testing; book reviews and sales of recommended books and products, and seminars and workshops on the various subjects we cover. Thank you for supporting us by clicking the Sponsor Us button in the right-hand sidebar.

My Personal Profile

You can learn more about my personal career path in my LinkedIn profile. I’ve been rambling around the world eating food and writing about it for over 30 years now, so there’s a lot to tell.

I ramble mainly in Switzerland and Europe, looking for good food and restaurants. My articles are available on TheRamblingEpicure.com, 10Best.com/USAToday, GenevaLunch.com, Paris Voice and TheRamblingEpicure.tumblr.com.

I studied cooking at the Cordon Bleu and La Varenne in Paris, and wine tasting here, there and everywhere in France and at CAVE S.A. in Geneva and Gland. In France, I worked for some years as a contributing editor for the English edition of the GaultMillau guide and as a food translator, while I ran a small cooking school in a château near Paris. I now live in Switzerland, where I have learned to love the earthy Swiss food and wine. One of my many interests is promoting Les Artisanes de la Vigne et du Vin as an ambassadress for this Swiss women wine producers association and Slow Food, of which I am an active member.

Apart from various restaurant guides for France and Switzerland recently published books include: Ma Cuisine Méditerranéenne in collaboration with Christophe Certain (in France) and Le tour du monde en 80 pains / Around the World with 80 Breads published by Orphie, in collaboration with Jean-Philippe de Tonnac (part of the French and all of the English) (covers history of bread around the world), André Raboud (Swiss sculptor), Edipresse.

My cooking method is “spontaneous cuisine.” Lessons consist of writing out a tentative menu based on seasonal, local products; going shopping for the products, and adapting the menu according to what is available and fresh; going to the wine seller to select a wine to go with the menu, then going home and cooking all afternoon with my students. The day ends with a candlelight dinner at the château (in the past), and now, at my chapel converted into a house in Chartres or in your home.

I give Mindful Eating seminars and therapy for those who have problem relationships with food and eating in general, helping them reconstruct their lifestyle and relationship to food and eating.

Specialties: French, Swiss and Italian cuisine with a bit of American influence. I believe in healthy, natural, sustainable cooking in the spirit of Slow Food, so all my articles, recipes and classes have this emphasis.

Kentuckian Bill Sanders’ Extra Virgin Olive Oil Named “One of the Best Olive Oils in the World”

Published by Jonell Galloway + Tuesday, April 23, 2013 Permalink 0

by Jonell Galloway

Native Kentuckian from Maysville, Bill Sanders has spent a lifetime training his taste buds and nose. A graduate of the University of Kentucky, Sanders went on to study law at Salmon P. Chase College of Law in Cincinnati, Ohio, embellishing his résumé with other studies of quite a different nature: sensory evaluation of olive oil and professional wine studies at Culinary Institute of America.

Sanders started Crush and Press in January 2009, financing it through a Kickstarter campaign to which I gladly donated. The olive oil quickly took off, and has already received mention as “one of the best olive oils in the world.” This olive oil, Sanders Fresh Press, received the mention.

Congratulations, fellow Kentuckian!

The Rambling Epicure Made Loads of New Friends at the Wendell Berry Conference 2013

Published by Jonell Galloway + Tuesday, April 23, 2013 Permalink 0

by Jonell Galloway

“A Rambling Epicure”: a short article about my work

One great thing about spending 3 days with a group of like-minded people, who have come from all over the country (and Switzerland) to pay homage to their “spiritual guide”, Wendell Berry, is that the audience is already filtered, and you can be sure to meet people you can relate to and that you will stay in contact with.

Wendell Berry speaking in Frankfort, Indiana

Such is the case with Elias Crim, a native Texan who spent “several good years studying classics and medieval Italian at U.C. Berkeley before wasting several more years in financial journalism around Chicago.” Crim has also written for The American Scholar, The American Conservative, the Washington Times and The Chicago Observer.

This is the only photo ID I could muster up and I think it rather amusing.

He also runs a website, Solidarity Hall, which he describes as “as a hospitable old hostelry, a mental oasis in the deserted landscapes that surround us. We no longer have the coffeehouses of eighteenth-century London, where Samuel Johnson and his friends said more of substance in an hour than our blogs today could manage in a week. Nor do we have a local culture of pubs such as Chesterton’s Old Cheshire Cheese, where friendship could flourish easily, even amidst clashing opinions.” I thoroughly recommend that you take a look and start a conversation of your own.

Elias was so kind to publish this article, “A Rambling Epicure,” about my work after the Wendell Berry conference. I invite you to take a look.

Start here and then continue on Solidarity Hall:

Jonell Galloway is surely the only person from Hardinsburg, Kentucky, to ever study Sanskrit. But that’s secondary. More important is the way this spiritual daughter of Wendell Berry has developed the Rambling Epicure, an encyclopedic and literate website which describes itself thusly: “A gastronome’s guide to mindful eating. A serious approach to real-food shopping, cooking, and dining.”

Click here to continue.

Wendell Berry Interview, by Mark Bittman

Published by Jonell Galloway + Friday, March 15, 2013 Permalink 0

by Jonell Galloway

There’s probably no better short overview of Wendell Berry‘s views on agriculture and sustainability than Mark Bittman‘s interview of Berry in The New York Times in 2012.

Wendell Berry speaking in Frankfort, Indiana

Here are a few excerpts about agriculture and sustainability:

“That’s one of Wendell’s recurring themes: Listen to the land.”

“If you imitate nature, you’ll use the land wisely.”

“The two great aims of industrialism — replacement of people by technology and concentration of wealth into the hands of a small plutocracy — seem close to fulfillment.”

Mark Bittman (Photo credit: rebuildingdemocracy)

“You can describe the predicament that we’re in as an emergency, and your trial is to learn to be patient in an emergency.”

“[N]o great feat is going to happen to change all this; you’re going to have to humble yourself to be willing to do it one little bit at a time. You can’t make people do this. What you have to do is notice that they’re already doing it.”

“I’ve been thinking about that question about what city people can do. The main thing is to realize that country people can’t invent a better agriculture by ourselves. Industrial agriculture wasn’t invented by us, and we can’t uninvent it. We’ll need some help with that.”

Read The New York Times entire article here.

The Mama Posts: Hanging out with My Mother

Published by Jonell Galloway + Friday, December 28, 2012 Permalink 0

Yes, you might have noted my absence over the last month. I’ve been hanging out with my mother in Kentucky.

She is still hanging in there. Her body may be shrunken and “miniature”, like the workings of a fine Swiss watch, but her heart beats strong like an ox. I’m not sure she was aware when the clock struck Christmas this year. She had already stepped far into another world where one speaks in the King James Version. She talks to God all day. “God, please help me. God, I doeth love thee. ”

Often I climb into her bed and hold her, talking of the old days and saying, “You’re the best Mommy in the whole wide world.” She strokes my cheek, and says, “I love thee,” and stops talking to God for a short while.

I’ll see you soon. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Jonell Galloway, Editor

A Leave of Absence: Nurturing and Nourishing in Kentucky

Published by Jonell Galloway + Monday, May 7, 2012 Permalink 0

There are moments in life when you don’t have to ask where your priorities lie. You know — without a single doubt; with your heart, your soul, your gut, your entire being. If you have not heard from The Rambling Epicure team for the last week, it is because that is what the editor is experiencing.

I spend most of my life writing about how to nourish the body through healthy, sustainable food. The nourishing and nurturing I’ve been doing this week fall into a much less concrete realm.

I had news of my mother’s health, and I knew unquestionably that I should drop everything, go to the airport and go straight to her.

So that is where I am, in the green rolling fields of Kentucky, sitting with my mother, holding her hand, covering her with kisses, telling her what a wonderful mother she is; telling her, as I did as a child, “I love you bigger than the world; you’re the best mother in the whole wide world.” Listening to the birds and crickets, taking in the chlorophyll, while listening to her tell me stories of her life. Reading poetry, reciting Tennyson, her favorite poet. Repeating nursery rhymes. She’s even been writing a few new poems from her bed. The last couple of days she has told me about her boyfriends, which almost sounded juicy for the proper Southern lady she is.

Wendell Berry on Small-scale Farming in Good Times and Bad

Published by Jonell Galloway + Tuesday, October 25, 2011 Permalink 0

by Jonell Galloway

Quote from Wendell Berry‘s Bringing it to the Table, On Farming and Food, introduction by Michael Pollan

In the time when my memories begin –the late 1930s — people in the country did not go around empty-handed as much as they do now. As I remember them from that time, farm people on the way somewhere characteristically had buckets or kettles or baskets in their hands, sometimes sacks on their shoulders.

Those were hard times — not unusual in our agricultural history — and so a lot of the fetching and carrying had to do with foraging, searching the fields and woods for nature’s free provisions: greens in the spring-time, fruits and berries in the summer, nuts in the fall. There was fishing in warm weather and hunting in cold weather; people did these things for food and for pleasure, not for “sport.” The economies of many households were small and thorough, and people took these season opportunities seriously.