Are you wondering where I’ve gone? Most of the action is over on the soup blog. And when I’m not there I’m running around trying to wrap up work on the next edition of the Soup & Bread Cookbook, to be published in November by Evanston-based Agate Publishing. It’s a hybrid: part cookbook, part social … Continued
Not exactly breaking news, since it hit the streets October 6, but for the record here’s what I’ve been working on for the last month — a feature on the agonizing bureaucratic odyssey of the shared-use Logan Square Kitchen. I have to confess here that when I hit send on the last round of revisions, … Continued
Here’s a link to another recently published something: a review in Bookforum of James Ellroy’s new memoir, the Hilliker Curse. Subtitled “My Pursuit of Women,” it’s essentially that — a twisty travelogue through his romantic life. It’s not an easy ride, though there’s much to enjoy about it. And, interestingly, for all the torment love … Continued
I spent a several weeks this summer hanging around with Sarah Kavage, creator and executor of Industrial Harvest, an elaborate — and supercool — project aimed at sorting out and making manifest the intimate relationship between the commodity futures market, the city of Chicago, and the food we eat. And then I wrote about it, … Continued
I have a piece out this week in the Reader’s annual These Parts edition on Azerbaijani-to-Wisconsin transplant Sofya Hundt and her excellent blog, Rich Food, Lean Times. If you’re in the market for a recipe for venision-blue cheese stroganoff, step-by-step instructions for pickle soup (pictured), or just some tips on tender pelmeni, she’s your girl.
Back in January I was having dinner with a friend when he launched into a description of the performance he’d attended earlier that day. The performer was a mutual friend of ours — a writer and critic who had, in the great tradition of underemployed journalists across the land, gotten himself a job in a … Continued
I just spent a very long three days at this year’s FamilyFarmed expo, “live blogging” it for the Reader and, g-d help me tweeting it to boot. You can read the results over on the Reader blog, where I weigh in on the sad saga of shared-use kitchens, whole-beast cookery, urban chickens, and bunch of … Continued
I have a piece in this week’s Reader — a special issue devoted to all things Hyde Park-Kenwood — on the ongoing hoo-ha surrounding the U. of C.’s plan to use the lot long-occupied by the 61st Street Community Garden as a staging area for construction of the new Chicago Theological Seminary at 60th and … Continued
Are you wondering where I’ve gone? I’m here. And over here. Come visit!
I did this little interview with Nance Klehm as a companion piece to an exhibit she participated in earlier this year called AgriART: Companion Planting for Social and Biological Systems. Although the premise seems at first quite straightforward — “An array of art works that critically engage with cultures of food production and consumption” — I … Continued