morsels & sauces

My father-in-law and I disagree about chili.  We also disagree about most of the books we read in Bookclub, but that's another issue, especially when one has the pressing issue of chili to discuss.  You see, he's wrong. And I am right.  Beans belong in chili. And that's where he chimes in: He argues that chili should not have beans in it. He ascribes to Texas chili making, where beans are eschewed for more meat. And then some more meat on top of that. I guess, the happy part about a Bowl of Red is that if you're paleo, this is one meat-friendly pot of soup. Adapted from  The New American Heart Association Cookbook ,  this bowl of red is incredibly simple, especially since I didn't stew this on the stovetop for an hour, which you are welcome to do. Instead, I put this is in the slow cooker after browning the meat. Then I went to work. And when I came home I had a fantastic bowl of chile-meat soup, which is what we non-Texans might call this dish....

In this  Cook Your Books  series, I have chosen 15 books to read in 2017 based on somewhat arbitrarily chosen categories. My theory (bogus it might turn out to be) is that all 15 of these books will somehow connect to food. And I plan to write about that food.  And it turns out that these entries are a sort of long-form blog-post. So settle in. This seventh installment is a book published in 1917 . Where there is a fallen woman, there is usually an apple.  Even for the venerable Edith Wharton. In Wharton's little novel  Summer , published exactly 100 years ago, Wharton likes to talk about eating. A lot. She is not particular about the food, itself. But eating--well, eating and its environs take center stage. Eating becomes a place of transaction.  And apples, both in their pie and in their unsliced, unsugared, and unbaked forms, show up a lot .  But then again, we've got a fallen woman, the Fourth of July, and New England. Seems just about ri...

This cookbook is not for the faint of heart.  In Maricel Presilla 's new cookbook,  Peppers of the Americas , one must be a serious connoisseur of peppers, either as a gardener or a cook. One does not dabble with this cookbook. Instead, one must commit. Do you want the history of this capsicum? Do you ache for a breakdown of pepper anatomy and heat? Do you long for pretty little naturalist drawings of calyx, flower, and seed, and then hope for well-shot, full-color photographs of hundreds of peppers? Do you need the Latin name, the approximate lengths, and a thoughtful catalogue of the growing season of each of those hundreds of peppers? Again, I ask of you, are you a serious connoisseur of peppers?  If you answered yes to even just one of those questions, then this just might be your new cookbook.  In fact, I think this is the perfect book for my friend at   Bat Barn Farm . He's a food geek, and this book is for geeks. Period. Presilla is the fi...