This episode captures a thought experiment. In my mind I can see myself creating an eatery of some kind. A second career. But I know enough to know that I don’t know nearly enough or have the fortitude to actually establish and run this eatery I’ve been thinking about for at least 10 years ..read more

The 2024 explosion of cicadas didn’t happen here in North Texas. This was going to be a once in a lifetime event. A coincidence of thirteen-year and seventeen-year broods that hasn’t occurred since Thomas Jefferson fretted over pests in his Monticello gardens. Maybe it has been a bigger deal in the upper Midwest where the bugs were expected to darken the skies. If broods XIX and XIII have made national news or the viralverse, I don’t know about it. I did come across cicada recipes published in anticipation of the bumper crop of bugs. Some thoughts on the cicada as a food and on cicadas in gen ..read more

What follows now are musings about the forces impacting what we choose to eat AWAY from home  Priya Krishna, a contributing writer to the New York Times food section shared her assessment of what she and her team discovered surveying 121 menus from restaurants around the country in a story called “The Menu Trends That Define Dining Now.” This was in the February 7th 2024 edition. It's mostly a light-hearted take on what is on menus and observations about the menu itself.  In a previous episode I explored themes Ms. Krishna identifies around what’s being served. On this episode I mus ..read more

On this episode of Talk to Me About Food I share top line findings from "The Menu Trends That Define Dining Right Now," by Priya Krishna, writing in The New York Times. I also muse specifically on Caesar salad which is one of items that's hot across the country from the survey of 121 menus that underpins Ms. Krishna's article ..read more

This episode is one in a mini-series about a range of soups and simple foods from different food traditions that are suggested, prescribed, maybe sometimes even foisted on someone feeling under the weather. I consider a basic udon soup. Where it’s the bounty of the land that nourishes a chicken, it’s the bounty of the ocean and sea washing up on every millimeter of Japan’s coastline that infuses udon noodle soup with its curative power. Marc Matsumoto talks me through how to make dashi; the basic fish stock at the heart of a good bowl of udon noodle soup and okayu, a rice porridge. Marc is ..read more

How much, if at all, does the food you eat define who you are and where you come from? Do the choices around what food you buy, where you buy it, how you prepare it and even how you dispose of it subscribe you to a specific community (willingly or unwittingly)? In this episode I muse about "gastronativism" -  a word coined in a book titled Gastronativism, Food, Identity, Politics by Fabio Parasecoli. The author, a professor of food studies at NYU, defines gastronativism as the use of food as a political tool to specify and then galvanize a community into action ..read more

Brief musings around discovering overnight oats. Beats regular old hot oatmeal any day of the week ..read more

Sandor Katz, a self-described fermentation revivalist and author of three books on the topic helps me unpack fermentation. What it is and why it’s so engrained in all food cultures. He talks about the role of fermentation in preserving food then explains how fermentation plays a vital role in helping us get the most of the nutritional content of food by breaking food down into easier-to-digest elements, like amino acids. Apparently, we don’t benefit from the full nutritional potency of manufactured, fermented foods. The better to make your own yogurt or sauerkraut. We also talk through how fer ..read more

On this episode I consider healing meals; traditional dishes believed to help cure what ails you, physically, emotionally, even spiritually.  First, I reflect on my conversation with Ashley Thuthao Keng Dam, a PhD candidate in Eco-gastronomy, Education, and Society at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy. I recently came across their blog post entitled Curative Cuisines of Cambodia. The article reflects on ethnographic research done in rural Cambodia, looking at the impact of seasonal changes on how plant-based traditional medicine complements maternity diets. This i ..read more

In this audio blog post I consider Squareat; a start-up meal delivery company that delivers a box of brownie-sized pieces of animal protein (like chicken breast) and same-size, same-shape squares of veggie and grain side dishes. 21st century food to ponder while you enjoy your Thanksgiving meal ..read more