June 10, 2017
The bear has been prowling around lately – I took this picture from the dining room table – but I can’t say I blame him. We were sitting there eating the wonderful lamb, spinach and feta sausage from Jamison Farm, and it’s enough to drive anyone crazy.
I’ve been eating John and Sukey Jamison’s lamb for years; they were the first farmers I knew who raised little lambs entirely on grass. They also harvest them at a very young age, as they do in France. I think it was the late (and much lamented) Jean-Louis Palladin who first told me about them, practically weeping as he described the flavor. “This is like my childhood,” he said. “So sweet and fresh. You can taste the grass.”
Their lamb IS fantastic: smaller and milder than the robust lamb you may be used to eating. We had a little leg for dinner the other night – rolled around parsley, lemon and garlic.
But this morning we ate Sukey’s fine savory sausage for breakfast. You can order it online, but beware: try it once and you’ll always want to have some of this delicious stuff stored away in the freezer
June 6, 2017
The Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine
the collaborating society of the
Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research
Tuesday, June 6, 2017 at 8:00 p.m.
New York Academy of Medicine, 2 East 103rd Street at Fifth Avenue
Open to all • No advanced registration required
Orality Revisited:
A Gustatory Journey with Chef, Food Critic, and Memoirist Ruth Reichl
in conversation with Dr. Susan Scheftel
Chef and food writer Ruth Reichl’s acclaimed memoirs touch on her relationship with her brilliant, ambitious mother, a woman limited by both bipolar illness and pressure to conform with societal ideals of feminine domesticity. Raised in Greenwich Village, the young Ruth ventured through communes in Berkeley and the sexism of the restaurant world to become food critic for the New York Times, editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine, and winner of four James Beard awards. Her works in include Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table, Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise, and My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life. In her later memoir (Not Becoming My Mother, renamed For You, Mom. Finally!) Reichl delves into a trove of her mother’s letters and diaries to poignantly reconsider this complex woman from the vantage point of experience and maturity.
Join us as Columbia University psychoanalyst Susan Scheftel, Ph.D. explores such themes as the role of food in Reichl’s relationship with her mother, the sublimatory power of cooking and writing, and Reichl’s overdetermined and serendipitous career.
Questions about the program can be addressed to:
Hillery Bosworth, MD
Chair, Program Committee
80 Fifth Avenue #1001
New York, New York 10011
(212) 604-9355
hb2082@cumc.columbia.edu
www.theapm.org
June 3, 2017
My newest teakettle is made in America, dates back to the 1930s – and with its bakelite handle, is even more beautiful, I think, than the Scottish Picquot Ware version.
This Wagner magnalite kettle – manufactured by a family firm in Sidney, Ohio, is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
They’re not all that hard to find, and they’re not (yet) as pricey as Picquot Ware. And while we’re on the subject, the Wagner company made many other casseroles, pots and pans of great beauty. Google Wagner, and an astonishing collection comes up.
June 2, 2017
I’ve written about my Picqout Ware tea kettle before. I think it’s the most beautiful kettle I’ve ever seen. But once again, some negligent person (I’m not pointing any fingers here….) left it on the fire too long and burned off the handle.
In the past, you could send the kettles back to the factory in Scotland for a replacement handle. But sadly, the factory has now closed. So I’ve been looking for a replacement.
This one turned up! I was confused because it’s not labeled Picquot Ware, but rather Newmaid.
Turns out, however, that it’s the same company: the first kettles made by Picquot were marketed under the trade name ‘New Maid’ in 1946- 47 . They changed their name to Picquot Ware in 1951.
You can read about it here.
I also turned up another, older kettle. It’s American – and it’s the original. Tomorrow I’ll show you this 1936 beauty.