Photo: joyosity/Flickr

Like many of you, we’re guessing, PRK has kept up with the flurry (frenzy) of articles, updates, blog posts and commentary about Paula Deen’s new public persona as a celebrity diabetic.

In the midst of this spectacular turnaround, let’s pause and be reminded of numerous other food-related news stories reported this week beyond Deen’s admission of her disease — news unrelated to allegations of hypocrisy, big money-making prospects and drug companies.

Here’s the latest in food news at WBUR.

From the Newsroom:

On Monday, in his annual State of the City address, Mayor Menino very publicly cited obesity as a community problem in Boston, even as the Hub’s been lauded as one of the top ‘healthiest’ cities in the US.

Menino is dedicating efforts to implement a city-wide strategy that will connect new initiatives and resources to residents and their families wherever they work, learn or play. Shedding a million pounds in a year — that’s his goal for the Hub, and he’s willing to walk his talk by losing weight himself. His colleagues at City Hall are joining in. Will you, too, shed some extra weight? It’s clearly a communal call to action…

From Here & Now:

Remember last November when BU hosted its Essential Jacques Pépin event in honor of the beloved, much admired teacher-chef? Pépin had to cancel his appearance that evening due to health problems. Well, he’s hale and hearty, and talking:  resident chef Kathy Gunst of Here & Now recently spoke with Pépin from The Chocolate Factory in New York. She asked him about career surprises (“I”m still alive!”), TV and celebrity chef-dom (“I am not an actor, I am a COOK!”) and how he wants to be remembered (“As a good father, I hope.”)

Pepin is being modest, of course, but he’s also insightful. As ever.

Earlier in the week, Here & Now aired an interview with Gabrielle Hamilton, chef of Prune in New York City and author of good food read Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef — Hamilton’s memoir. Hers is a compelling story about memories and her passions for serving food, and she clearly can write. Listen to The Life and Story of Gabrielle Hamilton.

From Radio Boston:

Dramatizing diabetes. What might that sound like, and why do it? Radio Boston spoke with Robbie McCauley, an African-America playwright who has dramatized her personal experience of the disease. “Sugar carries shame,” McCauley proclaims, parsing out her meaning with co-host Meghna Chakrabarti. McCauley’s one-woman play, Sugar, will debut at ArtsEmerson tonight, Jan. 20. Listen to the interview.

Cafe G (photo: Jesse Costa, WBUR)

LOCAL BITES

But What Did You Eat??
The new wing of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum opens today to much acclaim and great anticipation. The grand-scale architecture, the new galleries and intimate concert hall are nothing short of inspiring. But don’t forget the food! Cafe G has a wholly new profile due to its larger digs, and chef Peter Crowley is excited. Read more about his offerings, and tell us what you ate if you go this weekend…

Engaging Your Palate
Reminder: the Boston Wine Expo is ongoing this weekend, through January 22. Tickets are still available, and there truly is something for every palate, every mood. Seminars, Vintner dinners, chef demos and, of course, a host of wineries offering tastings. The comprehensive website gives you full details.

Food Ed, Food Policy 101
Save the date. On Sunday afternoon, Jan. 29th, the MOS is hosting a Farm Bill Teach-In, with keynote speakers Marion Nestle and Maine Rep. Chellie Pingree. Learn what you need to know about this mammoth, critical and pending legislation — the 2012 Farm Bill. Organized by Let’s Talk About Food, the cities of Boston and Cambridge, MIT, and Food law Society at HLS. Registration required, wait-list only at this point. But put your name in anyway; they’re trying for a larger space!

Dine Out to Conquer Diabetes
CityFeast, in its 7th year, is being organized on Sunday, January 29, to benefit the Joslin Diabetes Center. Five North End restaurants — Antico Forno, Terramia, Lucca, Taranta and Tresca — will participate in this annual fundraiser which features a five-course diner with wine pairings. They’re also auctioning off a Vespa! Details and tickets here.

What Did They Eat Back Then?
A professor of History and some ambitious (hungry!) students at MIT spent their break between semesters researching and cooking a meal that noble folk from the 14th century might have had. Not surprisingly, the fare is healthy and mostly plant-based. But the flavors! Continue reading →

Photo: MinimalistPhotography101.com/FLickr

During the winter, I find that I like having dinner parties in lieu of going out. Nothing fancy — usually just cheap potlucks around a theme (this weekend we’re spotlighting all the mulled wine we have left from the holidays). It’s really the laziest way to stay social in the winter, on nights when you can barely force yourself outside — bring the fun to you!

Of course, some work is required when hosting a party. You have to spend all day cleaning both before and after, for one. And you should have some reliable munchies on hand, too. You can always buy some Doritos and call it a day, but come on: your friends deserve better (especially since, as mentioned, they had to leave the house to get there in possibly sub-zero conditions).

This recipe from Spoon Fork Bacon — Sweet Potato Hummus with Cumin Flatbread Chips — is one idea. It’s healthy, it’s interesting, and most importantly, it sets a casual and fun tone — no prosciutto-wrapped dates here. It’s best served in slippers and shared with your giggling best friends.

Grillo's Pickles. Photo: Jaime Lutz/Public Radio Kitchen

In Travis Grillo’s new pop-up pickle store, there are pickled cucumbers, of course, in various combinations of sweet and sour and spicy and herbed. Stacked along with these are less common standbys — pickled garlic, onions, root vegetables. And then, something new. Something a bit unusual. In one container, dark orbs float in murky water. They look like olives, but they’re not.

“Pickled grapes with mint leaves,” the 30-year-old owner of Boston-based Grillo’s Pickles says. “They’re sweet and they’re sour.”

You can eat them with cheese, or alongside wine or beer. Grillo was influenced by an old French recipe, which calls for eating them with champagne — but they are an unusual and addictive snack all by themselves.

Adventurous eaters can’t get these grapes at any of the Whole Foods stores that sell Grillo’s Pickles, or at the Grillo’s Pickles food cart in the Boston Common. They’re one of several products unique to the small Inman Square pop-up — a 3-month experiment that Grillo admits is a testing ground for a full-time store. However long the venture lasts, it’s the first pickle store in Boston, Grillo said. Continue reading →

Photo: .Larry Page/Flickr

There is, perhaps, no more controversial food on the political horizon right now than sugar. Think: rising obesity rates;  the prospect of front-of-package labeling; the impact here in Boston of banning sugar-sweetened drinks from school properties. Think of our constant love-affair with sweets. As individuals, as a nation, how could we do without them?

Pardon the pun, but here’s your chance to weigh in. BackStory Radio, a new public radio program broadcast out of Charlottesville, VA, is pulling together a show on the history of sugar and sweetness in America. With three renowned historians from U.Va and U.Richmond as hosts (a.k.a., “the History Guys”), BackStory is looking for callers with questions, conundrums or personal stories related to sugar or sugar substitutes as they discuss these fundamental questions about American history:

From the triangle trade to labor struggles in Hawaii to the rise of high-fructose corn syrup, sweetness in America has always been politically charged. Why has sugar been so intimately linked to power over the centuries? How has our national sweet tooth shaped our political and economic priorities?

Maybe you remember rationing during WWII, or have an unusual family recipe for sweets that sparks an idea. Are you concerned about sodas in school, or do you try every new sweetener that comes your way? BackStory Radio is eager for any questions, thoughts or stories you might share — environmental, social, political, economic, international, you name it.

Leave a comment at the BackStory site. They’d love to hear from you!

Photo: Eran Finkle/Flickr

I remember reading a fabulous, open-ended question put to a professional chef that went something like this: ‘What are the five ingredients someone can always find in your kitchen?” In essence, what’s really being asked here is, ‘What are the core flavors you feel are essential to your cooking? What flavors do you like best?’

For the life of me I cannot verify the chef being interviewed (though I believe it was Lidia Bastianich). What I do remember was one of her staple ingredients: fennel. How unusual! Imagine the flavoring possibilities. My own answer to the same question is a bit more mundane, perhaps, but no less flavorful: Kalamata olives and capers. It’s the Sicilian in me, for sure, since their tangy saltiness seem to meet some innate flavor need I wasn’t even aware I had. Dishes forever have greater appeal if they call for olives and/or capers and, — funny how this works — I always seem to have them in my pantry.

Photo: courtesy of Oldways

I was easily enticed, then, by a recipe for Baked Mediterranean Fish from Oldways based here in Boston. A white, firm-fleshed fish such cod or halibut serves as the backdrop to a caper, olive, lemon zest and hint-of-oregano sauce that is a cinch to prepare. You get a big return on flavor for a small investment of time whether you’re baking or grilling. It’s an elegant, simple and nutritious dish.

So, what makes up the handful of ingredients YOU always have on hand? Let us know! And, guaranteed, if you’re looking for a creative way of incorporating one of them into your next meal, you’ll find it in the treasure trove of recipes offered at the Oldways site.

Photo: Laurie {Simply Scratch}/Flickr

TASTY LOCAL BITES…

2012 NOFA Winter Conference
It’s only days away, beginning this Saturday, Jan. 14, at Worcester State University. Foodie features include: Maple Syrup 101, Curing Ham, Making Fresh Mozzarella and Using a Pressure Canner. If that doesn’t whet your appetite to register, perhaps this will: David Ravicher, lead lawyer in the patent case against Monsanto, is slated to speak. All in all, rich educational offerings and food for thought.

The City Eats
Northeastern University has launched its Open Classroom Series for the semester, and it’s  based on food policy: Food & American Society: an Urban Prospective. Lectures are free and open to the public! (You do need to register, however.) View the schedule of topics for each class and get the full scoop here. Lecturers will include African American Studies Prof.  Bob Hall of Northeastern, plus Sarah Dwyer and Sara Baer-Sinnott of Boston-based Oldways.

Super Hungry? 
Don’t Forget! The Greater Boston Food Bank (@gr8bosfoodbank) is again organizing their January fundraiser, The Super Hunger Brunch, with over 20 restaurants offering prix-fixe brunch menus for the weekend of Jan. 28-29. Proceeds will help the GBFB offer meals to folks who need them. Hunger is closer than you think! Choose a restaurant, make a reservation and help battle hunger in New England.

LOCAL FOOD FOR THOUGHT…

America’s Test Kitchen hits the airwaves
Brookline-based America’s Test Kitchen announced earlier this week the launch of its new weekly radio show. Co-hosting with ATK TV chef Bridget Lancaster, Chris Kimball says it’s NOT a how-to show, it’s NOT a personality show and it’s NOT a call-in show. What is it, then? Continue reading →

Photo: Laity Lodge Youth Camp/flickr

Even the pickiest eaters will usually eat potatoes, and as a young child, I was no exception. I wouldn’t, however, touch potato salad until just last year — something about cold potatoes mixed with mayonnaise seemed icky to me.

Now, in the dead of winter, I find myself craving potato salads — odd, considering it’s a food normally associated with summer barbecues. Luckily, the ever-reliable Stone Soup — a blog in which each recipe is no longer than five ingredients — comes through.

These three recipes for potato salad all sound like winners to me. Better yet, the blog offers a huge number of variations, including ways to turn these salads into an entree-sized meal. Not a bad deal in these budget-strapped times.

Photo: mote/Flickr

Because I am someone who sees lots of recipes at work, I feel kind of sheepish admitting I don’t know WHAT I feel like eating these days.

Maybe it’s a weird sort of hangover from the holidays. I don’t mean that I ate too much. But maybe eating so many different specialty dishes so many days in a row made my inner food compass go haywire. What flavors are next??

When A Cambridge Story tweeted her newest recipe yesterday, I pounced: Spinach Lentil Cakes and Moroccan-Style Vegetables. The spices had to be great, no doubt. Plus, lentils are one of those foods nutritious enough that we should be eating them all the time, but they need verve — some kind of pronounced sass so that you’re psyched to be sitting down to them again.

As I suspected, her recipe calls for no fewer than six spices: garlic powder, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, cumin and curry powder. Whoot! Plus, you get a solid handful of vegetables with a bonus top-off of wheat germ and golden raisins. The whole ensemble looks gorgeous.

Ping! My food compass just got re-set. True north. Thanks, A Cambridge Story, for sharing this savory creation.