A Literary Culinary Journal
by Simón de Swaan
Over-the-hill eggplant betrays its age precisely in the same manner as over-the-hill debutantes: slack skin and slightly puckered posteriors.–Dione Lucas
Dione Lucas was an English chef, and the first female graduate of L’Ecole du Cordon Bleu in Paris. Lucas was fundamental in establishing an unprecedented extension of the famous Paris Culinary School in London in the 1930s. She later wrote a book, the Dione Lucas Gourmet Cooking School Cookbook.
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by Simon de Swaan
A boiled egg raised its little lid and revealed its buttercup yolk.–Colette
Colette was the surname of the French novelist and performer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette. She is best known for her 1944 novel Gigi, upon which Lerner and Loewe based the stage and film musical comedies of the same title.
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by Simon de Swaan
“Often, admiring a chef and getting to know him is like loving goose liver and then meeting the goose.”–George Lang
“Mr. Lang, a native of Hungary who escaped a forced-labor camp and imminent execution during World War II, came to New York in 1946 with a few dollars, no English and dreams of becoming a concert violinist,” says The New York Times, but found his calling as a restaurateur. He created the restaurant The Four Seasons and Café des Artistes in New York, as well as a long list of other restaurants.
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by Simon de Swaan
Food is the most primitive form of comfort.–Sheilah Graham
Sheilah Graham Westbrook was an English-born American nationally syndicated gossip columnist during Hollywood’s “Golden Age,” who with Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper wielded power to make or break careers prompting her to describe herself as “the last of the unholy trio.” Graham was also known for her relationship with F. Scott Fitzgerald. Click here to read about her life story.
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by Simon de Swaan
To ask a woman to become unnaturally thin is to ask them to relinquish their sexuality.–Naomi Wolf
Naomi Wolf is an American author and political consultant. With the publication of The Beauty Myth, she became a leading spokesperson of what was later described as the third wave of the feminist movement.
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by Simon de Swaan
All cooks, like all great artists, must have an audience worth cooking for.–André Simon
André Simon was a wine merchant, gourmet, and prolific writer about wine. Hugh Johnson describes him as “the charismatic leader of the English wine trade for almost all of the first half of the 20th century, and the grand old man of literate connoisseurship for a further 20 years.”
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From “Channeling MFK Fisher: An Everlasting Meal, ” by Kurt Michael Friese, on Civil Eats
“In a time when we can all appreciate the value of frugality in the kitchen, when each of us can ring a wry smile from the Tuscan proverb she quotes: Si stava meglio quando si stava peggio (“We were better off when things were worse”), it is refreshing to know that with just a little effort, and a lot of love, delicious healthy meals are waiting to be awakened from their slumber in the back of the pantry.”
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by Jonell Galloway
There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.–Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, when India was still under the British Empire.
More commonly known as “Mahatma,” he “pioneered a belief in resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, based on total nonviolence. This concept helped India to gain independence, and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.”
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by Simón de SwaanAll cooks, like all great artists, must have an audience worth cooking for.–André Simon
André Louis Simon (1877 – 1970), born in France but married to an English woman, was the charismatic leader of the English wine trade for almost all of the first half of the 20th century. He became the grand old man of literate connoisseurship for a further 20 years.
His most distinguished book was The History of the Wine Trade in England from Roman Times to the End of the 17th Century, in three volumes (1906, 1907 and 1909).
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Meet Jonell Galloway, a freelance writer and editor specialized in French cuisine. 
