BlogHer - Cooking - Comments

The Hunger

Osterizer — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:49:40 -0600

We talk about it all the time, there is a huge overlap in carnal hunger and stomach hunger. One time we had an amazing meal and all we wanted to do was continue to eat the pastry chef and other chef. I think of it more like foodies are sensuous people and one adds to the other rather than serves as a replacement. Maybe I am just hopeful that I will continue to have sex. I find it be the best way to finish off any meal, but I must admit, sometimes I just settle for dessert.

Here was an example of when our carnal hunger was stirred: http://uncouthgourmands.com/2009/04/14/how-bizarre-at-the-baazar/

You've gotta stop doing that!

Laracolvin — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:32:36 -0600

...reading my mind, that is! Just last night I made dinner for my daughter and roommates, and as I chopped and diced and tasted and simmered, I was mulling the explicit sensuality in the act, even though there was no holy chance in hell of the kind of culmination I was dreaming about. I think it's the convergence of the senses that enhances the similarities and makes food such a natural substitution for seduction. And - at least there is fire and steam somewhere. :)

Lara

Notions of Identity

Woohooo

Denise — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:43:59 -0600

Gotta love a recipe that calls for Cheez-Whiz

~Denise BlogHer Community Manager
Flamingo House Happenings

Out of Africa - Parts I and II

therovingstove — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:48:48 -0500

Please also read parts I and II on my blog for the full story!!

http://jewelsfromtherovingstove.blogspot.com/

Julie Anne 'Jewels' Rhodes

http://www.therovingstove.com/

As with most foods,

Denise — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 06:55:34 -0500

Some do and some do not. The least picky eater we have won't touch quiche because she does not eat eggs.

~Denise BlogHer Community Manager
Flamingo House Happenings

Deviled Eggs Recipe

expectingmommy — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:04:33 -0500

I found a great deviled eggs recipe that is easy and very tasty. Just thought I'd pass it on.

This is just

emcgillivray — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:34:26 -0500

This is just lovely.

Erica

Sliver of Ice

My mom's turkey pot pie

sassymonkey — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:57:05 -0500

My mom makes the best turkey pot pies. She makes them mini-sized. I've never had anything that comes close to them. She's coming to visit next week and I can't tell you how tempting it is to buy a turkey (they are all around since it's Canadian Thanksgiving) and make her spend a whole day teaching me to make them.

But instead I'll make her make her new biscuit recipe and write down what she's putting in because she doesn't measure and doesn't really use a recipe. She does it all by feel and makes the best biscuits I've ever had.

Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.

Wow!

cluelesscrafter — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:27:16 -0500

Really beautiful reflections. I visited Lara Ferroni's site and am so glad you included it. Her photography is delicious along with the entire site. I'm keeping this one on file.

http://www.thecluelesscrafter.com/

It's great cookbook

AnnanAmos — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:57:14 -0500

She really did write a great cookbook, didn't she? It's certainly a novel idea, a cookbook full of stuff kids like to eat that clandestinely sneaks in healthy ingredients, so they aren't eating junk all the time.

The other good thing is that the lawsuit surrounding the book finally got settled. It turned out that some other woman had written a similar book, and then when a publisher picked up Jessica Seinfeld's over hers, she got herself a lawyer and sued her for plagiarism. Well, if you don't read something someone else wrote but happen to write something just like it, it can't be called plagiarism, now can it? The other author was Missy Chase Lapine, who really didn't have much claim to fame before the lawsuit except for editing Eating Well magazine. It looks like no soup for her, no matter how many years she waits.

It is in the book

Suzanne Reisman — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:28:57 -0500

Sorry this took a while to respond to, but my apartment was under renovation, my book was in storage, and I was not only too busy to cook, but also to get back to you sooner. :)

First, he absolutely did say that we need to shop and cook like our great grandmothers. It begins on page 148 of the paperback edition of In Defense of Food. Granted, you are correct in that the second part of his argument is that we should not buy things that she wouldn't recognize as food. Of course, I point out that a good deal of things that we available to my great grandmother that she would recognize as food are no healthier than things available in the store today. It is just different. To refuse to acknowledge that most people did not eat better in the past is to lead us down a path that will offer no more of a solution to our food problems than just saying don't eat. People in my great grandmother's era had a lot of health problems from lack of access to good food, they were just different from the ones we have today. The argument that our food today is bad can stand on its own. There's no need to muddy things up by comparing it to a past that never existed for most people.

On the note about women and cooking, obviously women have historically been responsible for preparing family meals. But if someone is going to complain that people don't have time to prepare meals at home any more, and not explore why the task is not shared by men and women, then the implication is that the old way was better. My suspicion (not knowing Pollan at all) is that he is not comfortable saying it upfront, so he just let's it be unsaid, which gives him wiggle room. But that's lame.

Suzanne Reisman, Contributing Editor - Feminism & Gender
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants

I have a problem with your interpretation of Pollan's work!

Sally K — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:37:50 -0500

I tend to agree with HomesteadDeb (and others). Stating that women entered the workforce and time in the kitchen declined isn't sexist. Neither is acknowledging that women still do most of the cooking. It's the way it is.

Why should he explore why men don't pick up the slack? He's not trying to solve the division of labor in the home; he's talking about food.

If he'd said that we all need to quit our jobs and stay home, barefoot and pregnant, and cook for the menfolk, that would have been sexist. But he didn't say that. Also, I don't think he's said that we need to shop and cook like our great-grandmothers. He's said that we shouldn't eat anything that she wouldn't recognize as food.

Frankly, I have more problems with your interpretation of what he said than with what he said. I think you're attributing things to him that he's never said.

Don't forget....

HomesteadDeb — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:53:02 -0500

Michael Pollan grew up in a time when many women were at home, keeping house and cooking and so on. Heck, my mom did; I grew up in a time where a single wage-earner could support a family in the US and have some money to spare for savings or luxuries. Like it or not, our society did go through this period of time, and there are societies around the world where the home is still the domain of the wife/mother/woman. Heck, there are plenty of American households like this, and I'm not ashamed to say that by economic necessity, mine is one of them. Remembering what Pollan grew up with and documenting it isn't sexist, it's recounting his life. Sure, there are and always have been households where men did at least some of the cooking, if not the majority of it, but if that's not his experience, he can't speak from that perspective.

He was writing a book about food, about how it's changed from from-scratch cooking using raw ingredients to convenience foods, and it happens to correspond with women needing to make meals in less time because many were re-entering the workforce. That happened - it's not sexist, it's history. Whether it was the experience of any particular family that womenreturning to the workforce had a big influence on the introduction of convenience foods (and paper plates, and paper towels), it's a societal fact and a marketing bonanza for companies who led the way in production of and advertising for products like TV dinners.

Why not deal with the division-of-labor question? It was a book about FOOD. Division of labor is another story, another entire book or perhaps several volumes of books, for another time and perhaps another author. Meanwhile, don't let this put you off reading The Omnivore's Dilemma. There is information in there that EVERYONE who eats food should read.

I'm with your brother

kitpat — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:41:21 -0500

My book club - also primarily post-college educated middle to UM-class liberal women, all of us work-outside-the-home mothers - read both Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food, and none of us saw it from this angle. Perhaps because our group has a lot of gardener/foodies in it, the defense of home cooking fit with our personal beliefs, and we didn't think to look for the message it sends to women who don't enjoy cooking.

If you read Omnivore's Dilemma, you'll know that Pollan himself is a passionate cook. Maybe the idea that if Mom isn't doing the cooking then Dad should put on the apron is obvious to him. Both my husband and I grew up in homes where our dads were the primary cooks and our moms took on other responsibilities (in my husband's case, his mom was the breadwinner). In our house, we share the job, but only because we both love food and cooking, and not because we have any prejudices about who *should* be cooking.

My understanding of IDOF was that in modernizing our lives, we've gotten away from common-sense knowledge about how to care for ourselves, and become over-reliant on "science" to tell us which micronutrients to get more or less of to be healthy, recommendations which seem to fluctuate by the week (more carbs, less fat! No, wait a minute, strike that, reverse it!). If someone in the household takes on the responsibility of learning what is *actually* healthy (with a focus on whole foods instead of processed ones), and feeding the family accordingly, it will create both healthier bodies and better habits. Even though he reminisces about his mother and talks about the coinciding influences of women going to work and the food industry developing more processed foods, I just didn't see in his writing that it had to be the woman taking on that role for her family.

Hmm

justeatit — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:31:30 -0500

Ok, don't know why that posted twice.

Just Eat It