They are visual depictions of Google searches for the words "mango" and "ginger," coming to us courtesy of Google's partnership with Truth & Beauty. At the linked website, you can see similar data visualizations for a bunch of food-related words. For someone like me - someone who is equally taken with data and food - this is nothing short of magical.
Truth and beauty, indeed.
(I didn't discover this on my own. Thank you, Richard Gorelick, for sharing it on FB!)
1. Eames + Shag This Curbed article about a Charles and Ray Eames-themed exhibit at the Nucleus gallery in LA. How could I not love it, when it includes this Shag drawing? I love Shag - and hadn't seen any of his work in a while. This is just a perfect match of subject and artist.
Also, this is how I like to think Cooper and I look when we're just hanging out around our house. (Note: this is not actually how we look at all.)
2. Party Girls This video and this article about the greatest "It Party Girls" of all time. Zelda! To be fair, the list doesn't really cover all of time. More like the past hundred years. And even then, it leaves some room for debate. Lots of room.
But still, I love a party girl.
3. Light City's Success This article about Light City's massive success. We went last night and it was even better than I expected.
The installations were cool and even though we only saw a little of the entertainment, it was engaging and fun. The crowd was friendly and spirits were super high, all around. It just felt good.
The pictures I took completely didn't do the installations justice - especially not this photo. But what I love about this picture is that Dixon is totally smiling OF HIS OWN ACCORD. That never happens and it especially doesn't happen after I've made him pose a bunch of times, like I had last night.
Mandated photos are not his favorite, to put it mildly, but Light City was cool enough that he was more than willing to let me snap away.
We didn't even get a chance to see the whole thing - I know we missed some good stuff. I'm already looking forward to next year, when I will definitely plan better, so we get there more than once.
Something cool is happening this weekend at Silk Road Bistro in Pikesville. They're celebrating Spring, in a way that's both ancient and completely new to me.
One of my favorite dinners of all of last year was at Silk Road, which is an Uzbek restaurant on Reisterstown. We dined there on a Thursday, during a belly dancing show, and from start to finish, the meal was fun, festive and so delicious.
Uzbek cuisine is interesting - the country is at the crossroads of the East and West and it shows. The food feels both Russian and Middle Eastern - even Indian, sometimes - but really, it's its own thing. The country has a unique culture that comes from its double-landlocked position on the Silk Road, the ancient East-West trade route, and that's on display in its traditional dishes.
This coming Sunday, March 20th, eating at Silk Road will be even more exciting than usual, when the restaurant hosts its annual Navruz celebration.
Navruz, which is translated as "New Day," coincides with the first day of spring (this year, March 21st). Silk Road will celebrate with a special, traditional dish, halisa, served at 8 a.m. on Sunday the 20th.
"It's a meat porridge that is cooked for twelve to fifteen hours," explains Silk Road manager Shahboz Eshpulatov. "People start coming to the restaurant around 6 p.m. on Saturday. That's when all the meat will be placed in a giant pot, approximately 100 pounds, and cooked all night until about 3 a.m."
This video shows halisa being made, at Silk Road's 2012 celebration (in their old space):
Halisa is the centerpiece, but Navruz is mostly about people getting together to carry on traditions, says Eshpulatov. "Every neighborhood and family celebrates this holiday in Uzbekistan. In order for our people not to forget their traditions and for their children to be familiar with the traditions, we make this event at the restaurant free of charge for anyone who wishes to attend."
On Sunday morning, most of the Uzbek celebrants (and chefs) will likely be men, says Eshpulatov. "Women also have a dish they prepare during Navruz celebrations," he says. "It is called sumalak. Our wives are planning to cook it sometime during the month of March."
Navruz celebrations will happen up and down the East Coast this week and people will travel from one city to another - it's a tight knit community on a national scale. On Sunday at Silk road, there will be some Uzbek-Americans from Philadelphia, New York and Florida in attendance and Monday, a small group of Uzbekis from Baltimore will head up to Philadelphia for a party there.
Here in Baltimore, the Uzbek community is small, but part of what I loved so much about eating at Silk Road is that you could feel its strength. These are people who love each other, and the traditions of their home country, so much.
When we dined at Silk Road, back in June of last year, the restaurant was packed and every table around us was filled with multi-generational families talking and laughing and drinking vodka and generally enjoying the food, the belly dancing, and each other. Their spirit was infectious.
If they approach the new spring season with anything near the zest they had for a random Thursday night in June, then 1004 Reisterstown Road is sure to be the most fun place in the Baltimore area next Sunday morning.
Between the loosening of brewing laws (locally) and a surge in craft brewing, the booze world in 2015 appears to belong to the beermakers. In 2014, craft breweries generated $19.6 billion of $101.5 billion U.S. beer sales - a 22% increase over the year. That is...a lot of craft beer.
It's no surprise, then, that the beer industry is a strong player in the internet's coveted "people who make cool maps and write listicles using consumer data" market. Just today, I came across three good examples of the genre.
The map above, which summarizes those findings, suggests that America is Bud Light Land. Except for Maryland and Virginia...which are Miller Lite Land. Interesting. Also interesting: that South Carolina is a little pocket of Yuengling Country. And that Okies love Stella. Who knew?
But wait, there's more.
Using Beer Advocate data, the website Cool Material created a list of the most highly rated beer from each state. In Maryland, it's Duckpin from Union Brewing - a brew that is, these days, almost as common on restaurant menus as Natty Boh.
The Chive mined data from Thrillist and the Beer Hunt app to put together a list of the most popular craft beers from each state. I have to kinda question their methodology, though...because Natty Boh was listed as Maryland's beer. I'm pretty sure that no matter what definition of "craft" you're using, something brewed by a major international brewer shouldn't fall in that category. (Unless, I guess, it has more to do with limited distribution area than brewer. But that still seems wrong.)
Unsurprisingly, Delaware is allll about the Dogfish Head - on all of these lists. The actual beer might vary but there's no doubt that DE is Dogfish country.
Instagram's food data crunching and presentation is just on fire right now. They've created a cool, semi-interactive website focused on "The Food Capitals of Instagram" - the cities where certain frequently photographed foods are hottest.
Since the data is driven by numbers, it's not a huge surprise that large global cities - London, New York, Seoul, Sydney - dominate the discussion. But there are still some intriguing findings.
Like this: apparently right now, 7.5% of all photos of pulled pork originate in...London. That's a higher percentage than come from NYC, which is a whole lot closer to the heart of BBQ country.
That doesn't completely surprise me. After all, when we were in Paris last year, McDonald's was advertising the hell out of a southern sandwich, proving that southern cuisine really had overtaken the Western world.
It's a good lesson, too, in how trends expand and what is truly global. (The answer: pizza. Pizza is truly global.)
I wish the website allowed users to drill down - I'd love to be able to explore regional stats, especially in the US. Right now, you can get a general sense of what's happening and where, but nothing specific.
But still, it's cool. Data + food always makes me happy.
We have been eating a lot of Indian food around here lately. Like, a lot.
Also, I have been working on an article related to the scientific underpinnings of some sensory experiences.
These two things do not, at first glance, appear related. But they are.
According to this Washington Post article, science has proven that part of the massive appeal of Indian food comes from the fact that its dishes typically combine ingredients that are scientifically unrelated. And not just that the ingredients kinda seem unrelated - they really aren't related, in chemical terms.
This is some interesting stuff.
The article also links to a chart that could be my downfall this week. I could spend all my hours playing with it. It's an interactive graphic that shows which foods share the most, and the least, chemical links.
On Facebook this morning, I discovered an infographic - courtesy of Kathy - that was absolutely calling my name. Put together by a British company called thefoodpeople, it's a graphic representation of 2015 food trends, including several fairly specific food trends (things like the rise of fermentation and multiple condiments on the table), how broad food trends fit with larger consumer trends, flavor markers (smoke, hay, spice, etc) and how national cuisines fit as overall influencers. Needless to say, I am all about it.
Trends have been on my mind lately, as they often are at the end of one year and the beginning of the next. In past years, I've made my own predictions and written summaries of others' predictions. I didn't get to that this year...but I did just write an article about McCormick's flavor forecasting efforts. (It appears in the Sun today.)
I found one piece of thefoodpeople's infographic, the cuisine influence map, especially interesting. The map charts different cuisines in terms of trend influence and market appeal - it seems very useful for people thinking about food marketing and product development:
It caught my eye, in part, because I'd just spotted this map, also someplace on Facebook:
Many of the above findings are no-brainers. Steak in Wyoming? Yes. Southern food in the South? Tex-Mex in Texas? Who could've guessed? But Maryland and Virginia are more into Peruvian cuisine than the rest of the country. That was a bit of a surprise. I'd noticed an uptick in Peruvian joints around Baltimore...but I didn't realize it was a regional phenomenon.
So it's interesting to me, then, to see that on the cuisine map above, Peruvian cuisine is about average in terms of trend-setting but it's fairly low on the market appeal scale. The cuisine map is not about the US - or at least not all about the US - and doesn't deal in any regional cuisines, so the two maps don't sync perfectly. But still, the overlap is interesting.
Merry post-Christmas! As usual, I have a million things to post and instead of writing, I am clicking through "related link" after link on The Kitchn. It started when an old post about writers' favorite snacks showed up in my Facebook feed.
How could I resist this:
Next thing you know, I'm knee deep in vintage cocktail recipes that have tenuous literary links.
And I'm still not any closer to finishing that post rounding up birthday celebrations from this past fall. Or, for that matter, writing about the Keuka Lake wing throwdown we judged last fourth of July. I'll get there?
No posts for two weeks?!? Not intended, I can assure you. I've had a crazy couple of weeks and posting kept slipping farther down the list.
(I realize that's a common excuse around here - so common that I decided to make an early New Year's resolution to stop complaining about my schedule/stress, since a) no one cares and b) everyone is busy. It is...challenging. I'm way better at complaining than at not complaining.)
Anyway, I'm working on a large-ish post but in the meantime, here are a couple things I've been into lately:
Visiting this Greenspring Station shop, originally conceived as a pop-up, is like touring the inside of my brain. it's full of things I desperately want - or already have, from books to hostess gifts. I'm in love.
2. Frederick.
Sarah G's hometown is adorable - I've known that for a while. But after interviewing over a dozen shop-owners for this Sun article, I really feel like I need to spend more time there. Every person I interviewed was so passionate and interesting and friendly. Even Bryan Voltaggio, who might have a few other things to do besides talk to me on the phone.
3. Chefs and Holidays.
You know what else is fun? Talking to chefs about holiday recipes. Writing this Sun magazine article was an absolute blast. I got to talk to some of the city's most creative and talented food people about the holidays and what they love to cook and eat.
When I see an article like this one, or the one about Frederick, in print (or, more realistically, online), I remember that my actual job involves talking to people about pretty, cool and delicious things that they love to make and sell. Could I be any luckier?
A few weeks ago, I came across New Orleans-based Alexa Pulitzer and I could not get enough. She makes stationery, cups, coasters and all kinds of adorable things - including the plastic "hunting crest" cup pictured above. I now own about 50 of those. I couldn't resist! It's so Pollard.
It's a good problem to have, finding so many things interesting and cool. Even if it does make me busier and busier!
Saturday, November 01, 2014
This is a cocktail menu:
It's the menu at the Beaufort Bar, which is in the Savoy hotel in London.
The menu was, apparently, conceived by the bar's head bartender, Chris Moore.
Each drink is described both in words and via illustrated pop-up.
How amazing and gorgeous is that?
My sister just sent me a link to this NYT article about what kids around the world eat for breakfast. That it's different everywhere is not really a surprise, of course. It's also not a surprise that breakfast looks gorgeous when it's in little bowls and shot from above.
You know what is a surprise, though? That kids in Amsterdam are hoodwinking their parents into serving them chocolate-topped bread every morning:
According to the linked article, a Finnish team of divers found five bottles of beer, thought to be from the 1840s, in a Baltic Sea shipwreck. The beer was well-preserved in corked bottles and has been analyzed by a Finnish lab. Now, using those findings, the Stallhagen brewery will produce a beer to match what our ancestors drank.
Add in a little intrigue - were there Scandinavian pirates? - and you have got the makings of a movie I would totally watch.
I have been a lucky girl lately - on the receiving end of a bunch of thoughtful, cool, and completely unexpected gifts:
The two vintage magazines - a House & Garden from February 1981 (complete with a feature on Baltimore that gushes about how new and great Harborplace is) and a House Beautiful from May 1984 (the month my sister was born!) - came from from my mother-in-law, Patsy, as did the garden club cookbook. She knows how much I love things like that and frequently passes on cool old books or magazines she finds in her house or in a shop. More on these to follow!
The little glass dishes were a surprise gift from Noreen (Patsy's sister and Sarah G's mom), who bought them thinking they were French salt cellars. They're heavy and gorgeous...and they're ashtrays. Which totally cracks me up. Even so, they're a great size for salt, discarded toothpicks or even nuts. I see a lot of uses for them - and it only makes it funnier that they're ashtrays. (And reminds me that my parents got a ton of ashtrays as wedding presents - how times change.)
The final gift came from Cail, who foist it upon me when we stopped by Richmond on our way home from Duck last week. Before our quick lunch at The Continental, she said to me, "Do you want a signed cookbook?"
"The answer is usually yes," I replied, expecting a book from a Richmond restaurant, or something like that. Instead, she handed me a copy of The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook signed by John T. Edge - who is pretty much my favorite food writer.
Cail got the book as a part of her work fundraising for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society earlier this year (someone ended up with two and gave her the extra, but she already had one). I haven't had a chance to even crack it yet, but I am crazy excited about it.
As I said, I'm a very lucky girl to be surrounded by family members who are thoughtful and generous - and who have incredible taste!
My old friend Amy and a new friend of hers, Ellen, are starting something so cool I felt compelled to write about it.
The two of them are both longtime fans of fashion - Ellen worked in fashion merchandising for years and Amy studied fashion photography. Now they're living the suburban-ish life in Arnold, but they still love fashion. So they're starting a pop-up shop!
It's called "Here." and will occupy otherwise empty storefronts around the area for short stints. First up: March 1st through 10th at 47 Spa Road in Annapolis.
Every installment of the shop will have a different theme - the first theme is "flirting with spring."
The shops will feature clothes, accessories and home goods. Ellen and Amy are hoping to feature local designers as much as possible, too.
As soon as Amy mentioned this to me, I was in love with the idea. She's so creative and this is a fantastic outlet - it's such a great, low-risk way to start a retail business.
So if you're near Annapolis in early March, check them out! (Hours and other information are on their website.)
My sister just sent me a link that is so up my alley. It's a short article about the London Tube turning 150 - and the evolution of its iconic map from a more traditionally-drawn diagram to the angular, modern schematic we're familiar with today.
The basis for the current map was actually drawn back in 1931 by Harry Beck (that picture at the top is the 1933 version). It's amazing how totally fresh it still looks today.
If you're at all interested in old maps and changing graphics, check out the link. You won't regret it.
Last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, my parents, sister, brother, sister-in-law and I went to my grandmother's house to do some cleaning and gathering.
My grandmother, and the brother she lived with after my grandfather died in 1980, have both recently moved to assisted living places. They don't have a lot of room in their new homes, and they'd accumulated a lot of stuff over the years.
Some of it went straight to the trash, some went to my parents' bar (if anyone needs any Wolfschmitz vodka anytime soon, my parents have the hookup, thanks to Uncle Jack's vodka martini stash), and a few of my grandmother's things went home with my brother, sister, and me.
I brought home some cool things I packed up with the blog in mind, including liquor bottles from the sixties and an awesome traveling bar case with the tags still on.
Also: cookbooks.
My grandmother is not well known in our family for her exceptional interest in the kitchen. My mom loves to cook, and is a good cook. But that's not something that goes back for generations.
My grandmother is, however, amazingly social. I love going out to dinner with her and she's at her brightest when she's in a room full of people.
So while paging through a cookbook put out by the California wine growers, I was thrilled to find a bunch of little notes and marked-up recipes Nan used for dinner parties. Including the schedule above, which she made for a party she hosted on February 2, 1972.
In case you can't read it, here's how the schedule goes:
Guests to come - 6:30 PM
Put chicken in - 7 PM
Beans - 7 PM
Potatoes - 7:05 PM
Rolls - 12 min
Serve - 7:30 PM
The menu includes chicken cordon bleu, baked stuffed potatoes, green been casserole, spiced crab apples (a - not on the timeline and b - crab apples?) and rolls. For dessert: parfait. And parfait it is.
Is it as fancy or intense as one of my pre-party spreadsheet timelines? No, no it's not. Did my grandmother spend the day before the party carefully making thoughtful hors d'oeuvres from scratch? No she didn't. Has she ever infused her own vodka? Ha.
But you know what? I'm sure that party was at least as fun as anything I've hosted in my house.
