Day: December 8, 2004

A few goodies from here and there in my food reading:

Tea-smoked chicken and free-range pigs at Boston.com.

New York Times: Hold the Risotto, Make It Fried Rice. Apparently über-Italian cookbook author Marcella Hazan prefers Chinese food when she’s in New York City. The author of this piece says it’s because Marcella first started thinking about teaching cooking classes after an abortive set of lessons with a Chinese chef; it could equally well be because no New York Italian restaurant measures up to Marcella’s famously sniffy palate.

Too Many Chefs: When Life Gives You A Lemon. I think the best thing to do with a single perfect home-grown lemon—if you’re abstaining from cocktails—might be to juice and zest it for a lemon risotto. It doesn’t take much juice to transform a plain old risotto completely.

And not specifically food related, but close: Boston.com: Firm serves sweet brew for de-icing roads. A fine thing to do with residues left over from distilleries, even if the resulting product’s molasses odor might bring back bad memories for North End residents.

New York Times: Justices Pick Apart Ban on Wine Sales From State to State. I’d love to see this quashed, but somehow I don’t see Massachusetts, which doesn’t even have the same liquor laws from town to town, rolling over if the Supremes rule that laws barring buying wine through the mail are illegal. Interesting legal battle, with the 21st Amendment (Prohibition Repeal) being pitted against the commerce clause. Ironically, states’ exemptions that allow local wineries to deliver in-state disembowel the states’ argument that regulations against interstate shipments are necessary to protect minors.

Interestingly, one of the plaintiffs in the New York case, Juanita Swedenburg, is proprietor of a Virginia winery (albeit one I’ve never heard of).

Other commentary: Slate, NPR.