Egad, it's hot in Chicago.

All I want to eat are chilled salads.

Here's a simple rotini-and-tuna salad that's chilling in my refrigerator right now.

Labels: recipes

Monday, July 01, 2002
12:00 AM
0 comments

I am still on the "one new recipe a week" New Year's resolution, and so far it has been great: after two months I can sense a distinct difference in my relationship to food. But as my semester gets busier, the new recipes I'm trying get simpler. I have student conferences all this week, which more-or-less quadruples my time spent on campus, so tonight I will be making this extraordinarily basic Easy Tuna Casserole. Hey: I ain't too proud to fall back on a classic.

Labels: recipes

Monday, February 25, 2002
1:37 PM
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new narrative

Eclogues makes me a happy boy this week by drawing my attention back to Narrativity, a San Francisco critical journal (and also for linking to this apple soup recipe, which sounds delicious and is likely be my new-recipe-of-the-week this week).

I've only begun to poke around the Narrativity site: there's a lot there and much of it is heady. But this piece, "Long Note on New Narrative," by Robert Glück, grabbed me right away with its engaging memoirish tone. It's a piece about Bay Area writing in the 70's and 80's, and, most particularly, about how a pair of author/publishers (Glück & Bruce Boone) hammered out a genre within which they could write what they wanted to.

"I wanted the pleasures and politics of the fragment and the pleasures and politics of story, gossip, fable and case history; the randomness of chance and a sense of inevitability; sincerity while using appropriation and pastiche."

Lots of ideas which resonate with me here. For instance:

"We brought gossip and anecdote to our writing because they contain speaker and audience, establish the parameters of community and trumpet their 'unfair' points of view. ... as a collagist I had an infinite field. I could use the lives we endlessly described to each other as 'found material' which complicates storytelling because the material also exists on the same plane as the reader's life. Found materials have a kind of radiance, the truth of the already-known."

The piece provides avenues for further exploration by referencing perhaps a dozen relevant thinkers (both critics and poets) who helped Glück & Boone formulate their conception of "new narrative," and several writers who are practicioners of the form, all of whom are unknown to me.

Further reading: this hypertextual interview with Glück.

Also the newest Imaginary Year entry, on the role of poets in the military-industrial complex.

Enough stalling—time to grade some student drafts.

Labels: narrative, recipes, writing

Friday, February 08, 2002
2:23 PM
0 comments

Both of these tortilla soup recipes look pretty good (vegetarian | contains chicken), but I think I'm going to try to avoid the vegetarian one for now, as that business about charring the poblano pepper is a little bit intimidating for someone of my "beginner cook" status.

Labels: recipes

Monday, January 28, 2002
3:49 PM
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celery, part two

Yesterday I wrote that I am loathe to buy celery.

That was even before I knew that it can make my underpants fall down. Thanks to Chris C. for the warning.

The rice and celery soup was OK, but not great. I added a little extra butter on a whim and the soup made my mouth feel greasy.

Labels: recipes

Tuesday, January 22, 2002
3:33 PM
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soup of the maestro

Celery is one of those things that I am loathe to buy, because, living alone, I never seem quite able to consume an entire bunch of celery before it rots. So I have decided that this week's simple recipe will be one that uses celery.

How about a celery soup?

How about Toscanini's Rice and Celery Soup, the soup that "the Maestro insisted on eating before conducting a concert?"

Learn more about Toscanini's life and methodology here.

Labels: recipes

Monday, January 21, 2002
2:45 PM
0 comments

cookbook testimonials

Snark writes:

there are a number of dead simple recipies in Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, the single best vegetarian cookbook on the market.

Laura writes:

a book suggestion:
The Vegetarian 5-Ingredient Gourmet. The food is all over the place and simple as hell--using canned beans, etc. Also, a little fancy--with the right idea, that fanciness is about clarity of flavor and not about the rarest musrooms you can find.

Labels: book_commentary, recipes

Saturday, January 19, 2002
4:04 PM
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minimalist cooking

In response to my request for cookbooks with easy recipes (below) Judith recommends The Minimalist Cooks Dinner.

I'm a big fan of both minimalist art and minimalist music, so: minimalist dinner? Why not?

I'll keep you posted.

Labels: book_commentary, recipes

Tuesday, January 15, 2002
6:49 PM
0 comments

food for 2002

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to try out a new recipe every week. Living by myself has made me realize the inadequacy of my basic repertoire of dinners: by the end of last year I thought I would kill myself if I had to eat another frozen pizza.

Monday looks like it is shaping up as "new recipe night." Tonight I made this risotto dish; it was pretty good. If any of you out there in webland have any favorite easy recipes (or recommendations for good entry-level cookbooks), I'd love it if you'd send them my way.

Labels: personal, projects, recipes

Monday, January 14, 2002
6:09 PM
0 comments