Michael Ruhlman has a nice new look for his website to coincide with a new book out last week: From Scratch. I’m hoping to pick up my copy at The Regulator Bookshop tomorrow. Michael also has a new podcast, From Scratch.
In his first episode, Michael’s guest Krishnendu Ray ends with a thought about the sensory memory of food, and how we externalize the world through food. I was listening to that as I was driving home from Greensboro tonight, and I reflected on my food memories, and immediately thought back to the smells of the tortilla shop in Caldwell, Idaho, where we often stopped for a bag of warm, fragrant, soft corn tortillas. I also remembered working beside migrant farmworkers as we planted Christmas-tree saplings in a dusty field, and my father driving me out to the simple living quarters where the workers ate their meals at the day’s end. My father worked to ensure that migrant farmworkers across Idaho get a toilet to pee in.
I wrote a longer post, Beside the farmworkers, about these Idaho experiences. I learned a lot from those hard-working Mexican farmworkers. I learned a lot from my parents as they treated these men with dignity, respect, and often a meal in our home. I should be telling these stories more.
Back to Michael’s podcast.
In his second episode, Citrus, Michael features an interview with Miami chef Michelle Bernstein, a name familiar to me. Erin and I celebrated an anniversary with dinner at Bernstein’s restaurant, Michy’s, in 2008. I blogged about that delicious meal (and others in Miami Beach) here and here.
Here in North Carolina, the nights are getting cooler, so I’ve brought the Meyer lemon tree in from the porch. Two lemons are turning yellow, three more smaller green fruit have months to grow.
© Anton Zuiker