After the spectacular storm last night I’m thinking about wonder, and specifically 16th century thinker Francesco Patrizi’s list of the 12 sources of wonder, which he published in the 1580s. Patrizi’s twelve sources of the marvelous: —ignorance —fable —novelty —paradox —augmentation —departure from the usual —the “exceedingly natural” —the divine —great utility —the very exact [...]
http://www.encyclopediaoftheexquisite.com/?p=1390
I would just love to see Casanova’s handwritten memoirs, “The Story of My Life,” now being shown at the Biblioteque Nationale in France, where more than 3700 pages of his papers are kept. “Worthy or not,” he wrote, “my life is my subject, and my subject is my life.” Of course, his life did make a [...]
http://www.encyclopediaoftheexquisite.com/?p=1247
Master chef Jacques Pépin has changed breakfast around here, and has challenged Encyclopedia of the Exquisite’s entry on omelet-making. After reading this article in the New York Times, the ground shook. Unlike Julia Child, who gently tossed her eggs before cooking them, Pépin works them into a fully whisked froth. We’ve tried this new method [...]
http://www.encyclopediaoftheexquisite.com/?p=1243
What could be so newsworthy as to break my non-blogging habit? Nothing other than my newest invention: one-bite blancmange drizzled with fresh raspberry puree. I used the blancmange recipe for this creamy, almond-y treat as found in Encyclopedia of the Exquisite, but instead of casting one big mold, we daubed the blancmange into cute silicone [...]
http://www.encyclopediaoftheexquisite.com/?p=1231
As I write this my kitchen is full to billowing with the most delightful steam, delightful because—for the second day in a row—I’m making a giant batch of marmalade. My expert mother-in-law, Nancy Harmon Jenkins, wrote about the whole process and finesse of making bitter orange marmalade on her excellent blog, link here. But I [...]
http://www.encyclopediaoftheexquisite.com/?p=1150
I am feeling frighteningly adult today. I bought cranberries. In preparation for the holidays. It’s the final frontier. But now, what to do with said tart berries? I did a little poking around and came up with a nice recipe for roasted cranberry relish, with cardamon and jalapeño, thanks to Saveur (check it out), but [...]
http://www.encyclopediaoftheexquisite.com/?p=1046
Though the food world of the past boasted elaborate, strange Medieval sotelties—strange food dioramas and jokey dishes like four-and-twenty-blackbirds baked in a pie, which I write about in Encyclopedia of the Exquisite—it seems to me now that no era has produced a culinary mad scientist like Ferran Adria, of El Bulli restaurant fame (now closed). [...]
http://www.encyclopediaoftheexquisite.com/?p=879
It’s now thought that if Marie Antoinette made her most famously un-p.c. statement at all, she said, “Let them eat brioche!” and not, as legend has it, ‘cake.’ (Rousseau offered the disambiguation.) Let me eat brioche! The eggy puffed cake traces roots back to ancient Rome, as so many entries in Encyclopedia of the Exquisite [...]
http://www.encyclopediaoftheexquisite.com/?p=855
Encyclopedia of the Exquisite includes an entry on the history of ‘sotleties,’ clever foody creations that mesmerized diners at European Medieval and Renaissance feasts, including the four-and-twenty-blackbirds-baked-in-a-pie of nursery rhyme fame. Only recently, however, did the tradition of Thai food carving come to my attention. Aristocratic ladies once practiced the skill, which reached the height [...]
http://www.encyclopediaoftheexquisite.com/?p=709
Though the ancient Greeks ate asparagus, which grows wild in the Mediterranean, and the Romans did, too, in the East the vegetable picked up a sexy reputation as an aphrodisiac, one served in Tales of the Arabian Nights. (Asparagus’s success story is similar to that of the truffle, or saffron, both of which are included [...]
http://www.encyclopediaoftheexquisite.com/?p=533
