Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
re: "It's so hard to talk to someone when you think you know better." 


Well, the polite thing to do is not to worry about it.  People have
their own priorities, and that's good.  Do you really want to tell a
musician they should spend more time cooking than on music?
  

    
> if you learn to place real eating and cooking in your
>  life, you will be happier

absolutely true for me, Julie. It's been my joy since I was about 7 years
old. 
  

    
You're lucky.  I never knew anything about cooking -- or eating,
really -- until I was in college.  

I guess that has its pros and cons, actually.  Learning from scratch
as an adult.  Anything, really, but food especially.

I'm just finishing up a book called "Never Eat Your Heart Out" by
Judith Moore.  She writes so well about all this stuff -- and by god
she's tough.  Clear-eyed, unsentimental, with an excellent
bullshit-detector.  I highly recommend her.
  

    

Judith Moore is (was?) a longtime member of the Well.  "Never Eat Your
Heart Out" is a great book.
  

    
She makes a mean borscht, too. If it's the same Judith Moore I'm thinkin'
of, that is.
  

    
She sounds like someone who could make a good borscht.  Of course, my
husband's no slouch either!
  

    

oh i would sacrifice a lot of things in a significant other if good borscht
were involved.
  

    
Yeah, it's a good thing.  The boy can make a lot of good stuff, or
could if he hadn't gotten so terminally lazy.  Which is just as well,
actually.  Until this motherlovin' diet is done with, I don't need any
more temptation.
  

    


what style borscht does he make? (is he russian, polish, other, ukranian)?


in poland, where i lived for two years, the version is basically a beet/meat
broth that is strained (not chunky.) i was shocked the first time i had
ukranian style borscht at Veselka, where it contains all kind of exotica
including lima beans. delish.
  

    
His is chunky, but simple -- pretty much beets and beef.  Lots of
dill, LOTS of sour cream (though it's actually good without.)

And Eric is sixth generation (or so) Texan, from good German stock, so
this is not exactly some recipe handed down through the generations. 
Tell you the truth, he may be using the Joy of Cooking recipe, with
additions (lots of dill, LOTS of sour cream) to suit his taste.
  

    
mmm, beets and beef.
  

    
Hey, Germans eat borscht, except they call it Borschct or something I
can never pronounce. It sure doesn't look like the stuff they serve at
Canter's in L.A., though. I used to *love* that. I think it was all
beets (the part that wasn't sour cream), but I could be wrong. 
  

    
I got so inspired by this talk of beets that I bought two bunches of 'em
last night, cooked 'em up and popped them into the fridge. This evening
they're going to become beet salad, with a sprinkling of feta and some
toasted pine nuts. 
  

    

beets are useful.
  

    
But not to me. 
  

    
You know, when I was a toddler, I was apparently MAD for pureed beets.
 I always thought that was disgusting and slightly embarrassing.  But
now I am into beets once again.  These things come full circle.
  

    
I had some a couple of years ago. Damn things haven't changed. To be
honest, I OD'd on them when I was a kid and had to go to the hospital
for a badly-broken elbow. People don't believe me, but I got beets
three meals a day there. Haven't been able to stand 'em since. 
  

    
Fair enough.

I detest cottage cheese solely on the basis of on particularly
horrendous memory of a childhood friend of mine's disgusting father
eating it at dinner.
  

    
Eewww!
  

    
my hubby detests cottage cheese because when he was a little kid his mom
sent him to the store to buy a carton of small-curd cottage cheese. As a
little kid, my hubby had difficulty pronouncing his R's. So when he asked
for "small cu'd cottage cheese" the store clerks laughed at him.

A traumatic small-curd experience!

Me? I love cottage cheese. Don't like mixin' it with beets, though.
  

    
R.I.P., Julia Child.

I posted links to some obits and tributes on my weblog at
http://blogs.salon.com/0001004/2004/08/14.html#a5999 and Julie
returned to her Julie/Julia Project blog to post some thoughts at
http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/2004/08/13.html