Tag: Mark Bittman
Food writer Mark Bittman recently ended his long-running Minimalist column in the New York Times to shift into a new role as an opinion writer for the Times. This change of perspective, that food is about so much more than filling our bellies, is apparent in his book “Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating.” Bittman wrote in the announcement…
I’ve been traveling a lot lately, and rather than falling into my usual trap of reading fluffy magazines, I’ve used that travel time to dive into some good books. I pounded through Mark Bittman‘s “Food Matters” in just a few days. Much like Michael Pollan‘s books about what’s wrong with American food production, Bittman writes that how we eat is…
Maybe a year ago, I made a quickie list of five people who inspired me that I’d like to meet. I reviewed the list earlier this week, after checking off my fourth: Mark Bittman. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXfarIbdaVA] I’m working on a freelance story about food and it was a great opportunity to interview one of my kitchen icons. I got off the…
I love Mark Bittman’s food writing. He makes cooking unintimidating. Even recipes with fancy or unfamiliar ingredients feel accessible because he explains it all so clearly. His book How to Cook Everything is my go-to when I’m trying to figure out how long to cook salmon or the best way to store raspberries. This video is a great example of…
There are certain life events that seem to amplify our natural tendencies toward perfectionism — planning a wedding and hosting Thanksgiving dinner among them.
We pull out a Martha Stewart yard stick to measure our efforts and almost certainly fall short. In real life, most of us don’t have a staff of dozens invisibily helping and we won’t make five turkeys so we can photograph whichever one looks most perfectly golden, then Photoshop out any flaws.
In short, real life is messy.
I grew up in an agricultural state. Michigan grows cherries, apples and sugar beets, among other things, and to live in Michigan is to know the mantra “knee high by the Fourth of July” is a growth measure for the huge expanses of corn fields all over the state.
But I don’t think I’d even heard the phrase “farmers’ market” until I was out of college. Ironically, it’s in super urban New York City where farmers’ markets have transformed both how we shop and how we eat, in both cases for the better.