Dancing Spoon

Got Better Tasting Milk?

Pastures Greener

by J. Michael Wheeler
Got Better Tasting Milk?
Great story/article on NPR Got (Good) Milk? Ask The Dairy Evangelist by John Burnett about  "the Che Guevara of the American dairy industry." Warren Taylor owns and runs Snowville Creamery, and he's trying to make milk the way it was made 40 years ago, when, he insists, it tasted better.

"I built Snowville Creamery to prove to the American dairy industry that the reason our children have had a 30-year continuous decline in their consumption of milk is not entirely Coke and Pepsi's fault, but because the dairy industry has been delivering a continuously declining quality of milk, in terms of its freshness and taste," Taylor says.

Taylor sells most of his milk within 48 hours, he doesn't homogenize it, and his milk is pasteurized at a lower temperature — 165 degrees. The industry standard is 175 degrees, which Taylor believes diminishes taste. Today, the popular "ultrahigh temperature" or "ultrapasteurized" milk is sterilized at 280 degrees, a process that trades flavor for long-distance marketing and long shelf life.

Listen to the Morning Edition Story Got (Good) Milk? Ask The Dairy Evangelist

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Julie & Julia: the Movie

On Film Cooking

by J. Michael Wheeler
What's for Dinner?
Julia Child has influenced so many of us: her recipes and TV shows were our first introduction to cooking and to French cooking (not the least of which was how to be brave in the kitchen). We would try this recipe and then cook that one. We could pretty much count the number of Childs' recipes we'd attempted. But it was certainly nowhere near all 524 of them.

Julie Powell did just that and wrote about it: Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously. And now Director Nora Ephron combines Julie Powell's book on her quest to "be like Julia" and Child's own memoir of her years in France, My Life in France, in a new film (opening August 7, 2009) starring Meryl Streep as Julia Child and Amy Adams as Julie Powell.

Streep practically channels Julia Child as you can see in this trailer from the film. The cast also includes Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina, and Linda Emond. Watch the trailer to the film, Julie & Julia.

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My Life in France
by Julia Child
Julie Child's memoir of her first embrace of France and cooking. Julia Child singlehandedly created a new approach to American cuisine with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television show The French Chef, but as she reveals in this bestselling memoir, she was not always a master chef. 

Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously
by Julie Powell
Julie & Julia, the bestselling memoir that's "irresistible....A kind of Bridget Jones meets The French Chef" (Philadelphia Inquirer), is now a major motion picture. Julie Powell, nearing thirty and trapped in a dead-end secretarial job, resolves to reclaim her life by cooking in the span of a single year, every one of the 524 recipes in Julia Child's legendary Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Her unexpected reward: not just a newfound respect for calves' livers and aspic, but a new life-lived with gusto. The film is written and directed by Nora Ephron and stars Amy Adams as Julie and Meryl Streep as Julia.

Hand selected Books for Foodies are at Foodie's Emporium! 

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Guarded Secrets of Food, Inc.

Food Factory

by J. Michael Wheeler
Where Does Food Come From?
"From the store," most kids answer. They are, of course, wrong. Most food comes from the factory. On the PBS program NOW, (Food, Inc.Behind the food we love—Secrets that giant food companies don't want you to know. Week of 6.5.09) David Brancaccio talks with filmmaker Robert Kenner, the director of "Food, Inc." What goes into the production, packaging, and sales of our foods?

"Food, Inc." takes a hard look at the secretive and surprising journey food takes on the way from processing plants to our dinner tables. The two discuss why contemporary food processing secrets are so closely guarded, their impact on our health, and another surprising fact: how consumers are actually empowered to make a difference.

Here's the trailer for Food, Inc.

Why is factory food so cheap? And is the cost at the supermarket or fast food joint the real cost? How does it affect our personal health and the health of the nation? The modern supermarket has, on average, 47,000 products! Food, Inc. Behind the food we love—Secrets that giant food companies don't want you to know. Watch NOW's David Brancaccio talks with filmmaker Robert Kenner, director of Food, Inc. on PBS.org

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The Food of a Younger Land: A Portrait of American Food--Before the National Highway System, Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food, When the Nation's Food Was Seasonal

Award-winning New York Times–bestselling author Mark Kurlansky takes us back to the food and eating habits of a younger America: Before the national highway system brought the country closer together; before chain restaurants imposed uniformity and low quality; and before the Frigidaire meant frozen food in mass quantities, the nation’s food was seasonal, regional, and traditional. It helped form the distinct character, attitudes, and customs of those who ate it.

Click here to buy The Food of a Younger Land: A Portrait of American Food--Before the National Highway System, Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food, When the Nation's Food Was Seasonal

Hand selected books for foodes are at Foodie's Emporium! Click here.

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Fresh, Really Fresh, Eggs

Trends Food

by J. Michael Wheeler
The Hip Egg
In case you hadn't heard, the chicken coop is what's new.  Kathy Lohr (Backyard Coops Make Chicks Chic, All Things Considered, May 21, 2009) reports that “Chickens aren't just for farms anymore. That's right — urban hens are hip. Across the country, city dwellers — attracted by the idea of having fresh eggs, a new hobby or even unique pets — are keeping flocks.”

Chicks And The City
The backyard chicken movement is catching on, thanks no doubt to the variety of resources for people who want to learn more about keeping chickens in their backyards. There are Web sites, coop tours, and in Atlanta, there's even a class called "Chicks and the City." The class, offered through a community garden's education program, teaches everything would-be urban chicken farmers need to know.

Some cities don't allow residents to keep chickens, because they worry about the noise, the smell and the rodents that are attracted to the feed. And, of course, there are those who say they don't want chickens next door. Yet many are taking another look at the idea.

From how-to to where-not, Lohr's story makes great listening. Click here to Listen.

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The Food of a Younger Land: A Portrait of American Food--Before the National Highway System, Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food, When the Nation's Food Was Seasonal

Award-winning New York Times–bestselling author Mark Kurlansky takes us back to the food and eating habits of a younger America: Before the national highway system brought the country closer together; before chain restaurants imposed uniformity and low quality; and before the Frigidaire meant frozen food in mass quantities, the nation’s food was seasonal, regional, and traditional. It helped form the distinct character, attitudes, and customs of those who ate it.

Click here to buy The Food of a Younger Land: A Portrait of American Food--Before the National Highway System, Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food, When the Nation's Food Was Seasonal

Hand selected books for foodes are at Foodie's Emporium! Click here.

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Food of a Younger Land

by J. Michael Wheeler
Regional cuisine was the way of life in America before the interstate, fast food, and the homogenization of our menus. To chronicle the cooking and eating habits, traditions, and struggles of local people In the 1930s, FDR created the Federal Writers’ Project under the New Deal as a make-work program for artists and authors. The project, called “America Eats,” and writers were dispatched all across America. It was abandoned in the early 1940s because of the World War and never completed.

Mark Kurlansky’s latest book captures these remarkable stories, and with authentic recipes, anecdotes, photos, and his own insights, guides us to a time when Americans had never heard of fast food and the grocery superstore was a thing of the future.

Chat for Foodies!

Trends Food

by J. Michael Wheeler
We're always looking for ways to help our Foodies Connect!
We're very excited to tell you that we've just launched Chat for Foodies on Dancing Spoon Community. With our new online chat you can have conversations with other members in real time. You can even have private chats.

The Live Chat Window

Don't Knead Bread?

Trends Food

by J. Michael Wheeler
No Need to Knead: A Simple Way to Bake Bread
All Things Considered, March 22, 2009
National Public Radio's Jacki Lyden talks with Nancy Baggett, author of the new cookbook Kneadlessly Simple: Fabulous, Fuss-Free, No-Knead Breads. Now, with Nancy Baggett's revolutionary new Kneadlessly Simple method, even complete novices can bake bread quickly and easily in their own homes, with no kneading and no kitchen mess. The secret is in Baggett's slow-rise method, which allows the yeast to grow slowly and develop the same full, satisfying flavor of traditional bread, without any kneading at all.

"Kneadless bread, in fact — we think of it as very novel and revolutionary now — kneadless bread is actually the way it was made before people figured out that you could knead bread," Baggett says.

Baggett lives and bakes in the Washington, D.C., area. NPR's Jacki Lyden paid a visit to her kitchen a few weeks ago to learn the secrets of no-knead baking.

Listen to No Need to Knead: A Simple Way to Bake Bread: Click Here. There's even a recipe for Baggett's Crusty White Peasant-Style Pot Bread

Related Links
Bread Simplified What really, is bread?
The Artisan An Artisan Baker Talks of his Craft
Re-Thinking Wheat Food Trends
Weigh In Weigh, Don't Measure

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"Nancy Baggett's technique is simple and virtually fool-proof."

Kneadlessly Simple: Fabulous, Fuss-Free, No-Knead Breads
For years, countless home cooks have shied away from baking their own bread because they were intimidated by all the mess, the experience, and of course, all the kneading required. Now, with Nancy Baggett's revolutionary new Kneadlessly Simple method, even complete novices can bake bread quickly and easily in their own homes, with no kneading and no kitchen mess. The secret is in Baggett's slow-rise method, which allows the yeast to grow slowly and develop the same full, satisfying flavor of traditional bread, without any kneading at all. The technique calls for minimal ingredients, often mixed in one bowl with one spoon, eliminating all the mess of traditional bread recipes, and it can be used to produce a wide variety of breads, from Whole Wheat Boules and English Muffin Loaves to Raisin Bread and Caraway Beer Bread. With this innovative new method, anyone who can read, measure, and stir can now make delicious, fine-textured yeast bread at home.

Hand selected books are at Foodie's Emporium! Click here.

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Drink Me: The Matrix

by J. Michael Wheeler
While Esquire’s Francine Maroukian denies any scientific claims, The Coffee Matrix (Esquire 3.09) is so full of those cross-indexing, spider-webby kinds of lines, whose unachievable goal is to make the complicated clear, that you might think her title is Dr. Of Something Or Other, rather than that magazine’s food editor. But food editor she is and The Coffee Matrix reassures that the best way to make a great cup of coffee is with a French Press.

To quote from the article (subtitled A Simple Guide to Your Ideal Cup)

We are not scientists. [Really, she says this. In bold.] We are simple people who want to make a good cup of morning coffee in our own kitchens. To that end, [and here’s where “we’re not scientists” begins to crumble] we designated three bean categories...from three brands...used five typical brewing methods...

Well, I’m glad they did it and after tracing each squiggly line from Typical Brewing Method to Designated Bean Category to one of 15 Taste Results, I agree with the we’re-not-scientists: a French Press can’t be beat, using any designated bean category.

Making coffee in a French Press is simplicity itself: medium to coarsely ground coffee is placed in a cylinder, hot water is poured into the cylinder and a plunger separates the coffee from the grounds. Done. The details follow...

Extreme Chocolate!

by J. Michael Wheeler
Extreme Chocolate from the Mayans to today: listen to Tom Ashbrook of On Point from NPR, interview food author Bill Buford who takes us deep into rain forest, dark beans, and extreme chocolate:

Deep in the cocoa bean plantations of Brazil and beyond, there’s a chocolate revolution underway. Deep, dark, intense, pure chocolate — extreme chocolate — is rising up as the chocolate of choice like never before among chocolate connoisseurs and beyond. Chocolate that lives very close to the bean. Forget milk chocolate. This is 70 percent pure cacao. 80 percent. 90 percent. 100 percent. Intense. Food and drink super-guru Bill Buford is up to his neck in it. Literally naked in a vat of beans.

New Yorker gourmand Bill Buford takes us deep into rain forest, dark beans, and extreme chocolate.

Listen to Extreme Chocolate: Click Here.

Related Links
Chocosphere.com

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Fine Crafted Wine Storage is now at Foodie's Emporium! Click here.

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Farmer in Chief

Politics Food &

Dear Mr. President-Elect,

It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food. Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration — the last time high food prices presented a serious political peril.

So begins an open letter to Barack Obama or John McCain written by Michael Pollan, published in The New Times Magazine, 10.9.08 (For full text Click here.)

Is food a national security issue? On NPR's Fresh Air, 10.20.08, Terry Gross interviews Pollan and discusses, among other fascinating issues,  "the waning health of America's food systems — and warns that 'the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close.' "

"The future president's food policies," says Pollan, "will have a large impact on a wide range of issues, including national security, climate change, energy independence and health care."

It is an engrossing interview. A "must-listen."  Click here.

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Michael Pollan, is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, and a professor of science and environmental journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.

For more details or to buy In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan Click here.

For huge selection of Baking and Cookbooks, visit the Book Store at Dancing Spoon. Click here.

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