When I first moved to Boston (and for several years after), I had the strangest notion that for some reason I could only get Maryland Crab Soup in Maryland. So, every time I’d go to Baltimore to visit my family and friends, I’d have to go somewhere that served it.
For the New England Patriots vs. Baltimore Ravens playoff game a couple weekends ago, Jeff and I invited some friends over and asked them to dig into a hearty bowls of soup to support their favorite team. I made a big pot of New England Clam Chowder and an even bigger pot of Maryland Crab Soup (as the only Ravens fan watching the game at my apartment, I had to compensate somehow). Unfortunately, eating two bowls of crab soup didn’t help the Ravens win.
I already know that this is going to be a multi-part topic because my rough draft was pushing 1000 words, and that only included my initial thoughts! So I hope you’re all in for the long haul.
Before you get mired in reading and (hopefully) deep contemplation, you should check out this Chipotle commercial, both parts of this Freakonomics podcast (scroll down – I have no idea why they bury it so much), and Martin Heidegger’s “The Question Concerning Technology”. Or, at least check out the first two, and major props if you get through the third.
Apologies for the long hiatus. I’ve had a busy November and December, but now that the holidays are over and things are settling down again, I’ve got more time to share recipes and philosophy with you.
Now that winter is officially underway, I thought I’d start bringing out my favorite cold-weather recipes, many of which will be soups and stews. I mean seriously, what’s better than stew and soup in winter?
In my opinion, the best thing about watching sports, is eating the food that gets put out with it. Not that the sports games aren’t dazzlingly interesting, but just that good food makes everything that much better. Soft pretzels top my list of the best snacks to serve on a game day (along with hearty beef stew, potato skins, stove-top popcorn and spinach dip – one day you’ll see those things up here).
“How Cooking Made Us Human” – Sounds like a fascinating subtitle to a book, right? It seems like it promises all sorts of investigation into the nature of humanity and how our relationship with food shaped our understanding of what it means to be human, right?
Unfortunately, Richard Wrangham’s book Catching Fire, didn’t really address those issues, but that didn’t make it any less of a fascinating read. Instead of a philosophical or sociological discourse, Catching Fire is an education in evolutionary biology that argues that the modern human body and omnivorous diet stems from the advent of cooking millions of years ago.
Jeff and I just recently started this thing where he has to decide what we’re having/doing for dinner on Tuesday nights. Unfortunately, we both have very different tastes when it comes to the foods we love, but since I’m the only one who cooks, I rarely make him the meals he prefers. So, Tuesday dinners are now officially his.
