The Return of Read Up On It

After a long hiatus over the spring and summer, this fall marks the return of Read Up On It to Passable!

I have to admit I kind of missed doing the weekly digest of food-related readings/stories/posts/op-eds/news. And so here it is, once again, with stories about everything from beavers to butchers.

 

– A couple weeks ago, the CBC posted an engaging report about the rise of more and more young people getting into farming, a practice which is predominantly done by those over the age of 50.

– Also from a few weeks ago, Adam Leith Gollner writes for The Globe and Mail about why butchers are wonderful friends to have.

– Zester Daily takes a peek inside the oyster.  Specifically Blue Point Oysters.

– A quick brief at The Atlantic on the tasty and vanilla-esque anal gland found in beavers.

– I love this story from Gawker. A patron at a restaurant leaves a nasty review on Yelp. And then the owner calls out the yelper, and does it with panache.

– The New York Times’s Jeff Gordiner writes about a recent symposium where chefs talk with farmers about how seeds could be the new avenue to greater tasting food.

– And finally, an interesting look at all things gluten. NPR talks to a doctor who thinks that all the hype around gluten-sensitivity is unscientific as well as still very much misunderstood.

 

 

 

PEI in Saveur Magazine

This month I am fortunate enough to have a piece about the wonderful food of Prince Edward Island featured in what I consider one of the all-time great food publications, Saveur Magazine. This piece means a lot to me; it’s about the food passed down from my grandmother—my father’s mother—to my mother, who was kind and interested enough to take up the mantle and adopt a lot of Acadian recipes into her originally Manitoban repertoire. As a kid, the charm and simplicity of a lot of Acadian dishes—boiled dinners, fish cakes, simple stovetop beans, scalloped potatoes—was lost on me. I would pull up a big wooden chair to my Grammy’s table and stick to her fluffy homemade rolls with big dollops of butter and slices of sharp cheddar cheese, avoiding whatever was lurking beneath pot tops on her stove. The salty steam that would hang in the air from boiled pork neckbones or fresh fish was the last thing that would ever whet my appetite. Whether my tastes simply changed or if it just boils down to nostalgia being the sweetest spice of all, those Acadian basics are all comfort food to me now, and make me think of my PEI home. From the time I was a kid, and my parents would bring me, my brother, and my sister to PEI to wander the red shores to walk, swim or dig clams (like my uncles are doing in the above photo) or knock around in our grandparents’ fusty basement, to every time I get to go back to the Island to visit my parents who now live there full-time, PEI has held a very special place in my heart. But more than anything, this article has been a wonderful way to celebrate the thing I love most in the world: my family. Nothing could be more delicious than that.

I hope you’ll pick up a copy of the magazine or read the story online at Saveur.com.

The Big Scoop

Last week I went to TIBS at Nite and enjoyed a plate of Renée Lavallée’s delicious white bean salad with grilled striploin, salsa verde, and feta, along with the sweet raspberry soda and triple chocolate brownie that completed the pop-up’s Thursday night dinner. I was also lucky enough to get the scoop on Renée’s upcoming venture—The Canteen—which will open sometime in late 2013 or early 2014 in the space upstairs from TIBS on Ochterloney St. in Dartmouth. I’m really excited to see how this unfolds. Read all about it in this week’s issue of The Coast!