Paper Palate

According to Chow’s “Year in Food” round-up, 2006 was the year that molecular gastronomy “graduated … from geeky curiosity to major American culinary movement.” That means that 2007 might be the year that trend-followers everywhere hit the books and start cramming for the expert exam in this intellectual study of kitchen science. And […]

I wonder if it happened while we were sleeping. Or while we had our backs turned. Or maybe it was while we were at the dinner table. Seemingly overnight, we’ve become an educated public. We know where our food comes from, how it’s made, and what it’s doing to us. Organics are now a supermarket […]

On the heels of The 150 Best American Recipes (reviewed here), The Best American Travel Writing 2006 comes out this month. The collection, edited by Tim Cahill, is written by an intimidating band of bourgeois philosophers (Alain de Botton), essay-writing New Yorkers (Ian Frazier), persuasive satirical fiction writers moonlighting as investigative journalists (George Saunders), beloved […]

Three new books promise to satiate all the foodies who clip recipes from newspapers, print off endless pages from food blogs, and clutter their kitchens with piles of magazines and cookbooks. The stalwart Best American Series (the final word on everything from short stories to nonrequired reading) has put out The Best American Recipes […]

The Moosewood Collective (the nineteen interlinked owners of Upstate New York’s 33-year-old vegetarian Moosewood Restaurant) just wheeled out a fresh printing of their Moosewood Restaurant Cooks for A Crowd. Together, this group of “musicians, singers, dancers, actors, performers, mediators, meditators, activists, teachers, trainers, consultants, writers, gardeners, editors, poets, artists, quilters, calligraphers, martial arts instructors […]

Some people base their diets on their favorite foods, on specific ingredients that are central to their culture, or on the number of calories they ingest. But food allergies can be an inconvenient deciding factor of their own for a significant number of people (the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases estimates that […]

I’ve seen a lot of strange old books. I used to own a used bookstore. The books I sold were in English, though my shop was in Latin America. To put together my stock, I collected boxes upon boxes of cast-off material from literary types in the States and shipped everything to […]

Melbourne, Australia, is one of the world’s great food cities. In addition to the upcoming Taste of Slow Festival, the southern hemisphere metropolis hosts the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival annually, and it’s home to lauded chefs such as Teage Ezard and Jamie Oliver (at least part-time: he’s opening a branch of his Fifteen […]

On Tuesday, August 1, The Melbourne Food and Wine organization will unveil the schedule for one of Australia’s biggest annual food festivals: A Taste of Slow. During the two-week lineup of events, local farmers, restauranteurs, winemakers, and cheesemongers will toast the international Slow Food movement, celebrating the relaxed pace and enriched taste of […]

I’m an itinerant traveler, a lover of literature, and a native New Yorker who’s currently based in Australia. I’ve also been a movie reviewer, a reproductive health researcher, and an independent bookstore owner.
I grew into an everyday cook a couple of years ago when I lived in the historic Central American town of Antigua, Guatemala. […]