The Food Section

The Food Section: Now "Jersey Fresh!"

So, after a summer sabbatical from publishing, we've resurfaced to post a brief update from our new home in Maplewood, New Jersey. The town (about 35 minutes from Manhattan by train) is sort of a suburban Park Slope-in-exile, with colonial houses instead of brownstones.

We're slowly acclimating to our new surroundings, enjoying the weekly farmer's market (whose small, but impressive bounty can be seen in the snaps below), and facing the typical ordeals of first-time homeowners, from a broken dishwasher and leaky faucets to tackling landscaping . . . speaking of which, any idea what kind of herb Anya is sniffing above (which has overtaken a good chunk of our garden)? It looks and smells like mint, but tastes awful.

We're picking up and leaving soon for a quick trip to Las Vegas and San Francisco. Upon our return, The Food Section will return to its regular diet of postings, including the occasional foray into the wilds of the Garden State.

Press Sighting: Recipics

A formula for cooking: I (ingredients), M (measurements), T (tools), A (actions), and D (duration).

Sunday's T Living, the New York Times Style Magazine, includes a brief article I wrote about "recipics," recipes transformed into wordless diagrams. Graphic designer Lauren Bugeja started creating these recipes constructed of pictograms while she was a student at the University of Technology in Sydney, and is now developing the concept, in collaboration with designers Thomas Ashelford and Greg Turner, into a website for sharing recipes (with and without words). Lauren has posted a set of her original recipics on flickr, including instructions for making roast chicken, fig and honey sauce, and panna cotta. She says that her recipic for pancakes is the most popular.

Image: Lauren Bugeja.

TFS at Epicurious

Epicurious.com editor-in-chief Tanya Wenman Steel has headed out of the country on vacation, and in her absence, she has graciously asked me to step in as guest blogger for the week at the epi-log. Stay tuned here and there as I practice the fine art of food blog juggling.

Radio Silence

Anya came down with a scary and horrible stomach virus over the weekend that took us completely by surprise. Despite our best efforts to keep her fluid intake up (we have a delightful recipe for Pedialyte JELL-O if you're interested), she steadfastly refused any of it, and we ended up bringing her to the emergency room today to be treated for dehydration. Anya's spending the night in the hospital, and we're hoping she'll recover very quickly and return home soon. Expect posting to be light to nonexistent while she gets her noodle-eating groove back.

Update (2/1/07): After two nights in the hospital, Anya was finally released yesterday. She's on the mend and is quickly returning to her former self. Thanks for all the comments and emails wishing her a speedy recovery. The Food Section will be back with regular posting next week.

A Menu for Hope: Update

As you may have heard, the third annual edition of Chez Pim's online fundraising campaign, A Menu For Hope raised a staggering $60,925.12 in contributions to support the United Nations World Food Programme, the food aid arm of the UN.

Chez Pim has posted a list of all of the winners of the raffle. So, if you contributed towards one of the prizes, check to see if you might have won.

The Food Section auctioned off a copy of the Oxford Companion to Food, generously donated by Oxford University Press, and I'm pleased to announce that Simona Tal is the winner.

Congratulations to Simona, who will be receiving her prize shortly, and thanks to all those who made a gift to support the campaign.

A Menu for Hope III

The third annual edition of Chez Pim's online fundraising campaign, A Menu For Hope has returned to the blogosphere. Last year, $17,000 in contributions were raised to support UNICEF. This year, the campaign is raising support to benefit the United Nations World Food Programme, the food aid arm of the UN.

The campaign takes the form of a raffle for food-related prizes offered up by food bloggers from around the world. For every $10 you donate, you may claim one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. The more you give, the better your chance to win, and the more that the World Food Programme will benefit from your generosity. The campaign is scheduled to run from now until Friday, December 22nd, 6:00 p.m. PST.

Oxford University Press has generously donated a copy of the Oxford Companion to Food ($65) towards A Menu for Hope. Originally edited by food historian Alan Davidson and published in 1999, the second edition of this massive culinary reference book was just released this past October under the editorship of food writer Tom Jaine. The new edition, clocking in at 976 pages, includes more than 70 new entries -- from "molecular gastronomy" to "doggy bags" (not to mention "paper-bag cookery").

So, how can you support A Menu for Hope and win a copy of this book or the myriad other prizes being offered?

Here's how:

1. Choose among the prizes and identify your prize code at Chez Pim (the code for the Oxford Companion to Food is UE21).

2. Go to the donation page at http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhopeIII and make a donation: each $10 donation will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. Please specify which prize (or prizes) you'd like in the "Personal Message" section in the donation form when confirming your donation. Indicate how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code -- for example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for UW01 and 3 for UW02.

3. If your company matches your charity donation, please remember to check the box and fill in the information so the corporate match is claimed.

4. Please also check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we could contact you in case you win.  Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

5. Check back at Chez Pim on January 15 for the results of the raffle (the drawing will be done electronically).

Buon Giorno!

I'm in Milan (that's a shot above from my hotel in the Brera district), and then I'm off on Thursday to Puglia for a food conference presented by Oldways.

Posting will continue, along with some help once I head south from intern emeritus Jane Lopes (on the Agenda) and Shopping List contributor Melissa McCart, who will helm the Appetizers.

I went to my favorite restaurant, La Latteria, last night, and I have received a bunch of eating and drinking recommendations which I'm sorting through for the remainder of my stay. If you have any must-eat, must-drink, must-see suggestions for Milan, please share them in the comments or send an email.

Happy Halloween: Chicken Edition

Last year: peapod.

Press Sighting: Olive Magazine

Back during the summer, I wrote a travel feature on dining and food in New York City for Olive magazine, published by the BBC.

The article has just arrived on newsstands in the October issue of the magazine, which is enlivened by some fantastic photography.

Unfortunately, the article is not available online at the Olive website, but you can find the print edition of the magazine in the U.S. at many Barnes & Noble stores.

CHOW 2.0

The magazine formerly known as CHOW has relaunched as a website. The new, online version of CHOW has been up and running in a "beta" mode for several weeks behind password protection, but the site is having it's public launch today.

I'm contributing to a food media blog at CHOW called The Grinder, which can be found on the lower right corner of the main page.

Thank You

Happy (belated) birthday to The Food Section! The official third anniversary of this site took place back in July, which I somehow neglected to acknowledge amid the hubub of work, blogging, and writing.

Creating this site has been an incredible experience for me, one that I never would have imagined when I wrote my first post back in July 2003 (that’s an early iteration of the banner, above, if you’re new to TFS). While food blogs have now become almost commonplace (and practically de rigeur in the mainstream media), when I started this site, the idea of self-publishing writing and photography about food online felt completely novel. I have to be completely honest that I had no idea where the site would go, but I am incredibly grateful for all of the recognition and opportunities it has afforded thusfar.

I want to thank all of the readers who visit the site on a regular basis, and even those who still come here only searching for links to scantily clad photos of Rachael Ray. I’m always looking to improve the site, so please drop me a line if you have any suggestions. And, I also want to thank the contributors who have added their voices to TFS over the past year: Renée Kaplan, Melissa McCart, and Jessica Ritz.

P.S. Speaking of contributors, our official summer intern, Jane Lopes, has spent her last virtual day at TFS and has headed back to the University of Chicago. A special thanks to Jane for all of her hard work on the Agenda and MarketWatch, which goes on a hiatus in her absence. If there are any folks out there interested in being an intern at The Food Section this fall, let us know.

Thanks again, and keep reading!

Press Sighting: Food & Wine

The August issue of Food & Wine magazine includes an article on food photography featuring several "Best-Shot Blogs," including Chez Pim, She Who Eats, 101 Cookbooks, and The Food Section (by the way, the blood orange photos mentioned in the article can be found here).

My top photography recommendation is to use available light whenever you can. If conditions are so dark that you'll risk blurring the shot by shaking your camera, try using a mini-tripod. There are quite a number of models on the market (I happen to own this and this), but I've also seen two more that are particularly novel: The Gorillapod has flexible legs, so you can attach it just about anywhere (even hanging upside down), and Bogen's Pod, essentially a beanbag, helps to stabilize almost any surface. If you must resort to using flash, I prefer to bounce the flash off the ceiling, but this will only be an option if you have an external flash.

And then there's always the water glass-as-tripod technique mentioned in the article, which really does work (see the photos here for evidence). However (and this should seem obvious), don't do it with a digital SLR, or your camera might end up smack dab in the middle of your clafoutis. On the other hand, using a glass will help you steady one of the smaller, lightweight digital cameras when you're shooting at a slow shutter speed. But, only use the glass to help keep your camera steady -- don't let go!

For more on the subject of food photography, be sure to visit 101 Cookbooks, where Heidi Swanson has put together a post with additional tips for improving your food photos. For some examples of truly awe-inspiring food shots, you can do no better than Keiko's stunning blog nordljus.

Introducing Jane Lopes

The Food Section has its first-ever intern. Her name is Jane Lopes, and she's a senior English major at the University of Chicago. "I love Shakespeare, New York, and anything to do with food," she declares.

Jane will be contributing to the Agenda event listings as well as a new summer feature coming soon to TFS. Welcome aboard, Jane!

Announcing Shopping List

A new feature begins today at The Food Section -- "Shopping List," a mini-blog about gastronomic materialism, from food products to cookbooks, gadgets, cooking gear, and everything in between. The most recent post can be found on the left, with all entries at The Food Section: Shopping List. There's even a dedicated news feed (RSS).

There was a minor redesign and shuffling around of items to accomodate the new feature, so there is bound to be something amiss in how this site appears in your browser. If something is not quite right (and, better yet, you know how to fix it), or if you have any other feedback, please let me know.

Introducing Renée Kaplan

I am pleased to welcome Renée Kaplan as a guest editor who will be contributing a series of guest posts to The Food Section.

Ms. Kaplan is a writer and television producer in New York. Her first novel, Shaking Her Assets (Berkley Trade), came out in May 2005, and her most recent writing appears in the just-released anthology Half/Life: Jewish Tales from Interfaith Homes (Soft Skull Press). She is currently a news producer for CNN, previously produced for “60 Minutes II,” and before working in television journalism was a writer and editor for the New York Observer.

Born in upstate New York, Ms. Kaplan grew up between Ithaca and Paris, France, which probably made her the only kid in midde school who knew more about Michelin stars than the teen ones. She says it wasn't good for her popularity, but it fostered a life-long passion for thinking, writing, and reading about food. In addition, as the daughter of an expert of French bread, she has been talking about the mouthfeel of crust and the alveolage of the crumb since her mother started her on solids.

Look for her first post -- on a curious French salad -- to appear later today.

TFS on WRKO

I'll be a guest on the "Taste of Boston" show on Boston radio station WRKO (AM 680) tonight during the 8:00 p.m. hour. You can hear the show live on the radio, streamed online, and via podcast.

Going Dutch

I have been invited to visit Amsterdam later this month as part of Bloggers in Amsterdam, a special trip arranged by Blogads and the Dutch Tourism Board. In all, 25 bloggers have been selected to travel to Amsterdam throughout the month of February. I'll be joined by my wife, Danielle (we're a two-blog family), and our (blogless) baby daughter, Anya.

In exchange for the free trip, which includes gratis airfare and lodging, each of the 25 blogs will carry a month-long advertisement for Holland.com. There is no official schedule (we're free to do what we want and go where we please), nor is there any requirement that we write anything about the trip. For further information about all the details, a complete disclosure is available at the Bloggers in Amsterdam website.

We're very excited about the visit, as we've never been to Amsterdam before. If you have any suggestions for places to go and things to eat, we want your recommendations. Please chime in below in the comments about restaurants, museums, and specialty food shops, as well as tourist traps that should be avoided. We're also interested in learning about possible day trips outside of Amsterdam, including to Belgium, if it's not too far to visit for the day. We leave in two weeks!

TFS on WNYC

Here's some exciting news: I will be a guest on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show on Tuesday, January 10, for a discussion of food blogs. Gourmet magazine editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl will be in the studio, along with several food bloggers, to talk about the online phenomenon.

The segment will air live tomorrow at 12:00 p.m. on 93.9 FM. You can listen to the show on the radio, via streaming audio through WNYC's website, or by podcast.

Updated: Hey, I survived my first radio appearance! An mp3 recording of the show is now available for download at WNYC.

Press Sighting: USA Weekend

The Food Section (along with The Accidental Hedonist, Chocolate & Zucchini, Too Many Chefs, An Obsession with Food, Slice, and Orangette) were featured in a roundup of food blogs appearing in the January 8 issue of USA Weekend. The Sunday magazine insert appears locally in Newsday.

Here's what the article ("Please pass the ... blog?") had to say about this site:

Run by Josh Friedland, this award-winning blog touts itself as "All the News That's Fit to Eat." It's what is referred to as a filter blog, which posts a variety of food-industry information -- from recipes to articles to a calendar of food events (in the New York City area). Gourmet magazine calls it "the consummate gastronomic blog."

Press Sighting: Christian Science Monitor

Just before 2005 became 2006, this site was featured in a roundup of food blogs by Jennifer Wolcott in The Christian Science Monitor. Here's what the December 29 article had to say about The Food Section:

Josh Friedland's slogan "All the News That's Fit to Eat," sums it up. His site is chock full of information, especially about the New York food scene. For foodies visiting the Big Apple, this site's calendar listings are a must-see.

»More cooks say 'blog appétit!'

Please Stand By

Due to widespread problems at TypePad, the blogging service through which The Food Section is created and hosted, this site experienced some technical difficulties on Friday, December 16. Posts reverted to a week earlier, and the visage of our beloved stuffed cinghiale vanished into the ether.

However, things seem to be returning to normal (though with some images missing here and there), and I fully expect that regular posting will resume on Monday.