tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89623652405833151162024-03-14T16:01:47.166+01:00A Temporary Omnivore in ParisLaurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-8024125735655041112008-09-08T05:03:00.001+02:002008-09-08T05:05:20.308+02:00What I've LearnedWhile visiting Houston last month, I dropped by Brazos Bookstore and picked up a copy of Susan Bourette’s Meat: A Love Story, a book that truly made me appreciate my own lack of street cred. Bourette, a Canadian journalist, spent four days undercover in a pork processing plant and, disgusted by punitive working conditions and the sheer gruesomeness of the job, vowed to swear off meat. Her Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-48730979459147673432008-08-28T06:29:00.002+02:002008-09-06T21:55:57.031+02:00On Animal LiberationIf I have been quieter than usual over the past couple of weeks, I can blame it only partially on the fact that I’ve been traveling. The other part is that now that I have returned to vegetarianism, the issues surrounding meat seem more complicated than ever.In my search for clarity, I have finally gotten around to reading Animal Liberation, Peter Singer’s seminal philosophical treatise on the Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-75707395657927895592008-08-10T03:52:00.003+02:002008-08-10T03:56:23.397+02:00Other Omnivores' RecommendationsAlas, due to constraints of time, budget and metabolism, I was not able to try as many kinds of meat in Paris as I wanted to. But for the sake of others looking to increase their intake of dietary cholesterol in the City of Lights, I’d like to share some of the restaurants and dishes that were recommended to me but that I wasn’t able to experience firsthand.Dan, author of the charming and Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-24846352228893837742008-08-06T01:38:00.002+02:002008-08-06T01:42:04.454+02:00A Note to ReadersMy days as a temporary omnivore in Paris are a thing of the past, but I’m not quite finished with this blog. I'm eating vegetarian now but am planning to have one last meat-containing meal with Tristan when I get back to New York in September, and, until then, I’ll keep posting here (with a little less frequency than usual). How does America’s food system look up close to someone who’s been Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-45106831828108081232008-08-02T19:41:00.002+02:002008-08-02T19:45:49.698+02:00Le Bistrologue Revisited“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” –Ernest HemingwaySomething seemed right about going back to Le Bistrologue for lunch on my last day in Paris. It was a sunny day; a cool breeze combed through the leaves of the tall trees that line Boulevard Diderot—a reminder that Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-39802217206456320172008-07-31T03:52:00.004+02:002008-12-10T10:22:16.763+01:00Amsterdam: Pannenkoeken MadnessThere are many reasons to visit Amsterdam: serene canal views and public parks, historical landmarks like the Anne Frank House, museums housing unrivaled collections of Van Goghs and Rembrandts, infinitely friendly locals. But there is a certain image of tourists who come to Amsterdam, and, as a recent weekend trip to the Dutch capital taught me, there is more than a grain of truth in the Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-33831919404989580632008-07-28T23:35:00.004+02:002008-12-10T10:22:17.011+01:00L'Ecailler du BistrotOne of the few French pop songs I truly like is Vincent Delerm’s “Tes parents.” In it, the singer envisions how his girlfriend’s parents might be and describes a few different familial scenarios, each more horrifying than the last. The happy ending is that Vincent is willing to put up with a lot—slideshows of vacation photos, slobbering dogs, opera music—to make things to work out with his ladyLaurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-42360815507946786822008-07-25T19:11:00.012+02:002008-07-26T06:08:55.046+02:00Dear Cojean LetterDear Cojean,I don't want this to be awkward, but I thought I owed it to you to tell you why I haven't been to see you in a while.First, let me say that I really enjoyed all the time we spent together. You remember those few months when I would leave work every day around 1:30 PM to come to your place just around the corner. I used to bounce through your doors with a smile on my face, looking Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-35469313043724385312008-07-24T17:11:00.005+02:002008-07-26T06:40:40.924+02:00ApologiaI really appreciate the comments people have made on Bitten and other online forums about my writing and my project, and (without stooping to pettiness, I hope) I'd like to respond to some of the interesting criticisms I've seen.Many took offense at my assertion in my Bitten post that “Taking the life of an animal for food is a morbid, ironic affirmation that we are alive.” I admit that, as Luke Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-7094417507202515632008-07-23T10:54:00.018+02:002008-12-10T10:22:19.188+01:00The SlopeBack when I thought I'd never not be a vegetarian, people used to ask me, "Well, why don't you eat only organic, free-range, ethically raised meat?" My answer was that to do so would be to start down a slippery slope. If I justified eating certain kinds of meat, it would then be very easy to start justifying eating other kinds of meat, and finally to start eating meat indiscriminately. I've Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-56009562882118561212008-07-22T22:26:00.004+02:002008-08-01T20:46:07.876+02:00Good FortuneMark Bittman has been so kind as to let me write a post for his blog at nytimes.com. If you’re not familiar with Bitten, you should change that—it’s a great source of recipes and culinary musings by Mark and other food writers who know what they’re talking about but don’t take themselves too seriously.Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-82512415729025844852008-07-20T11:15:00.002+02:002008-12-10T10:22:19.371+01:00Other Omnivores: LeahThis is the second installment in an occasional series exploring others’ alimentary habits and thoughts about food.Talented violinist and singer Leah Germer, my sophomore-year roommate at Columbia, is one of the most thoughtful vegetarians I know. As a precocious five-year-old, she decided to give up meat and convinced her parents and sister to do the same. The Philadelphia native is still a Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-32402440428383628992008-07-17T08:44:00.002+02:002008-07-19T20:55:31.402+02:00Tout burgers, tout le tempsSometimes it feels as though The New York Times dining section is speaking directly to me, and it's a wonderful feeling. Take yesterday's "In Paris, Burgers Turn Chic," which rocketed to the top of nytimes.com's "Most Emailed" list almost as quickly as last week's chocolate chip cookie recipe. This week’s article, and its hauntingly gorgeous accompanying slideshow, left me with just one Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-67741583057136486232008-07-17T08:27:00.003+02:002008-12-10T10:22:19.718+01:00Pertinent Quote from My InboxCourtesy of Anu Garg’s A.Word.A.Day email newsletter:“Profits, like sausages... are esteemed most by those who know least about what goes into them.” (Alvin Toffler, futurist and author)Image © George Bailey | Dreamstime.comLaurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-42401321365846823712008-07-14T20:59:00.005+02:002008-12-10T10:22:19.982+01:00Here a "meuh," there a "meuh," everywhere a "meuh meuh"The part of Saturday’s post about the noises that pigs make reminded me of the time last year when my French grammar professor, having gone off on a considerable tangent, taught my class the onomatopoeic words for sounds that French farm animals make. A little Googling turned up this very useful list of animal sounds in various languages. My favorite French ones, in increasing order of how Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-5997701424091587822008-07-12T17:38:00.004+02:002008-12-10T10:22:20.150+01:00Pork Week's Blind SpotThis week was Pork Week at Salon.com, and it marks either one of the most brilliant editorial decisions ever made or the beginning of the end for Salon—only time will tell.The four articles and one video in the series are a frequently self-congratulatory celebration of pork from pastured, organic, preferably acorn-fed animals. There’s a personal essay about making bacon—as in, starting from the Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-36078377447021669202008-07-09T19:54:00.008+02:002008-12-10T10:22:20.357+01:00Mmm, Hair...I didn’t think that the list of body parts I’d be consuming would include hair, but it seems I was mistaken. I’ve become addicted to a Lebanese candy known as sha’er banat (“girl’s hair”), a box of which has been sitting on a table within arm’s length of my work computer. It looks like a haystack (much more than any of the cookies that Americans call haystacks), and it tastes like sugar, Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-43572090778777831922008-07-07T19:59:00.002+02:002008-07-07T20:03:55.991+02:00Chicken-Craving Heart of DarknessWhen people used to tell me that chicken was their favorite kind of meat, I always inwardly rolled my eyes. There’s nothing sexy or enigmatic about chicken. It always seemed so boringly inoffensive to me, so conventional. I chalked up others’ love for chicken to their predilection for blandness, their lack of gastronomic adventurousness, their underdeveloped palate.My own first personal Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-90834473618430059562008-07-04T17:28:00.005+02:002008-07-05T18:13:00.106+02:00God Bless American Beef?I began this project operating under the assumption that European meat was bound to be better than the American kind, but at least a few fellow expatriates beg to differ. My coworker Chris, who hails from Florida but hasn't been in the States for over a year, gets a starry look in his eyes when he starts talking about American beef. "It's juicy, it smells good...it's just so damn good, I don't Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-24641330839567690332008-07-02T19:00:00.004+02:002008-12-10T10:22:20.582+01:00Other Omnivores: TristanToday I introduce a new feature founded as much on a lack of eventfulness in my own alimentary life—there are only so many new kinds of meat one can try—as on my immoderate preoccupation with what and how people eat. “Other Omnivores” will take a look at other people’s thoughts about food and at their eating habits and preferences. My fascination with eating is pretty equal-opportunity, and Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-80159259766782879172008-06-30T19:32:00.005+02:002008-12-10T10:22:20.793+01:00The En Route En-CasAs I try frantically to take advantage of Europe's geographical compactness during my last few weeks here, I've been doing a lot of traveling. My time spent in transit has included encounters with plane and train food—which has made me realize how much better travel snacks are in Europe than in the U.S.On my flight to Berlin I was reminded of my all-time favorite complimentary airline snack, theLaurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-80935608334128922502008-06-26T17:26:00.007+02:002008-12-10T10:22:23.269+01:00London: Not a WastelandEven though the rest of us have long recognized that England is not a culinary wasteland, the French seem to hold on rather desperately to outmoded stereotypes. “In London, in England, what do they have? They have nothing. I mean, a gastronomic heritage. No, but anyway, apart from pudding, biscuits, there’s not much, you know?” said Gilles Ajuelos, chef of Paris’s acclaimed La Bastide Odéon, Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-83258979183198464812008-06-24T22:21:00.002+02:002008-06-24T22:24:32.916+02:00Side EffectsMeat and cheese: Is there any combination more straightforwardly indulgent—or more treacherous?I tried the cholesterol-laden pair twice last week and lived to regret it both times. The first time was at Le Bistrot du Boursier, which, according to Gridskipper, has some of the best tartiflette in town. I’d wanted to try the dish of potatoes, bacon and onions smothered with melted Reblochon Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-5290402860025915902008-06-20T11:53:00.004+02:002008-06-20T11:57:16.820+02:00One Reason I Won't Keep Eating Meat When I Go HomeThe USDA won’t let beef producers voluntarily screen their cattle for mad cow disease. How I wish I had worn my t-shirt today…Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962365240583315116.post-59879044252236291342008-06-17T09:44:00.002+02:002008-06-17T09:51:36.535+02:00Berlin, the Land of White MeatBefore I left for Germany, a handful of people told me, “Berlin is a good place to go if you’re eating meat now.” They were right. To be fair, Berlin is a good place to go for a lot of things. It’s a good place to go for laid-back bars and biergartens serving cheap, excellent beer. My favorite was 25. Its German name, fünf und zwanzig, is nearly impossible for native Anglophones to wrap their Laurahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01620655851523500572noreply@blogger.com0