Book Group: Best Food Writing 2014, edited by Holly Hughes

The Slow Food Russian River Book Group will be discussing essays from the book Best Food Writing 2014 (Da Capo Life Long, a member of the Perseus Books Group, 2014), edited by Holly Hughes on Thursday, October 6.

This book can be had for $4 from an Amazon reseller (incl. shipping and handling).  It may also be available in public libraries.

To RSVP email the Book Group at sfrrbookgroup@gmail.com.  The Book Group is open to anyone who can read, loves cooking a dish, and likes a good conversation.

For this session, Book Group members need to select three essays, from those not yet chosen by other group members, for which you will be responsible: read them, be able to summarize them at the session, and have a leading question for the essay.

With RSVP you will receive a link to a google spreadsheet where you can register your choice. To RSVP email the Book Group at sfrrbookgroup@gmail.com.

The Book Group meets the first Thursday of the month, 7 – 9pm. It’s a convivial dinner. Please bring a dish for four and a beverage.

Membership

You don’t need to be a member of Slow Food, although – of course – we hope that with time you will become one. Location for this session in Rohnert Park with RSVP. Otherwise we meet in Sebastopol.

Best Food Writing 2014 on Goodreads

For fourteen years, Best Food Writing has served up the creme de la creme of the year’s food writing. The 2014 edition once again offers the tastiest prose of the year, from a range of voices: food writing stars, James Beard Award winners, writer-chefs, bestselling authors, and up-and-coming bloggers alike. With new sections devoted to “A Table for Everyone” and “Back to Basics,” you’ll find a topic and a flavor for every appetite—the cutting-edge, the thoughtful, the provocative, and the hilarious—a smorgasbord of treats for the foodie in all of us.

(Goodreads, with 400+ readers reflections)

Other Reviews

Jane Smiley’s review on New World Reviews.

Table of Contents of Best Food Writing 2014

THE WAY WE EAT NOW

Age of innocence, Saveur, 2013 / Jay Rayner

Are big flavors, destroying the American palate?, Food and Wine, April 2014/ Kate Krader

A toast story, P:acific Standard, Jan. 2014/ John Gravois

Five things I will not eat, Civil Eats, 2013 / Barry Estabrook

Baconomics 101, Chapter from The Tastemakers/ David Sax

The right to eat, Alimentum. The Literature of Food/ JT Torres

A TABLE FOR EVERYONE

America, your food is so gay, Lucky Peach / John Birdsall

Debts of pleasure, Oxford American / John T. Edge

The dignity of chocolate, Edible Vancouver / Eagranie Yuh

The indulgence of pickled baloney, Gravy, Southern Foodways Alliance/ Silas House

Austerity measures, SF Weekly / Anna Roth

Waiting for the 8th, Washington Post/ Eli Saslow

BACK TO BASICS

A sorta of chicken that we call fish / Elissa Altman

Forget the clock, remember your food, from Eat Your Vegetables: Bold Recipes for the Single Cook / Joe Yonan

Meals from a hunter / Steve Hoffman

The man machine, Fool #5 / Oliver Strand

Cooking as the cornerstone of a sustainable food system, Civil Eats 2013 / Kim O’Donnel

How to boil water, Eat the Love 2014 / Irvin Lin

The lions of Bangkok street food,  Roads and Kingdoms, 2013/ Matt Goulding

How to cook a turkey, The Dinner Files, Nov 24, 2013 / Molly Watson

HOME COOKING

And baby makes free-for-all, bon appétit/ Adam Sachs (The Obsessivore)

Sense of self, Food Thinkers by Breville / Erin Byers Murray

The ghosts of cakes past, Monica Bhide | Recipes, Stories, Inspiration/ Monica Bhide

Bread and women, The New Yorker / Adam Gopnik

The science of the best chocolate chip cookies, The Food Lab / J. Kenji López-Alt

How to cook chicken cutlets, and give yourself a reason to keep living, Deadspin / Albert Burneko

Smelted, Full Grown People / Sara Bir

STOCKING THE PANTRY

A green movement, Dark Rye Magazine / Jane Black

The 16.9 carrot, excerpt from his book The Third Plate / Dan Barber

Monsanto is going organic in a quest for the perfect veggie, Wired Mag / Ben Paynter

Kevin Scheuring. The Flavor Man, Edible Cleveland / Laura Taxel

Yellow Dutch / Rich Nichols

The forgotten harvest, Garden & Gun / Jack Hitt

SOMEONE’S IN THE KITCHEN

The leading light of pastry, Food & Wine / Alex Halberstadt

Cheapskates, Edible San Francisco / Sarah Henry

Sherry Yard’s sweet independence, LA Weekly / Besha Rodell

A day on Long Island with Alex Lee, Lucky Peach / Francis Lam

Savoring the now, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution / John Kessler

The tao of Bianco, Edible Baja Arizona Magazine / Dave Mondy

PERSONAL TASTES

Familiarity breeds content, NY Times / Frank Bruni

Everyman’s fish, Saveur / Tom Carson

The cheese toast incident, Food for the Thoughtless / Michael Procopio

Because I Can: Homemade Ketchup, Leite’s Culinaria / David Leite

Solitary man, Saveur / Josh Ozersky

Tomato pie, Tin House / Ann Hood

EXTREME EATING

The Invasivore’s dilemma, Outside Online / Rowan Jacobsen

Learning how to taste, Chapter 6 from Edible: An Adventure Into the World of Eating Insects and the Last Great Hope to Save the Planet / Daniella Martin

Seven bald men and a kumquat tree, Gastronomica / Amy Gentry

Fixed menu, Lucky Peach / Kevin Pang

Last meals, Lapham’s Quarterly / Brent Cunningham

About the Editor of Best Food Writing 2014

“Are you the same Holly Hughes who –– ?”

“Well, there are many Holly Hugheses around . . . I am only some of them. Click the links to the left to learn about the various things I do.”   The true Holly Hughes, food writer.

More by Holly Hughes

Besides the Best Food Writing series we discovered this essay by Holly Hughes, Luxury, in: Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant‚ Riverhead Books‚ 2008, edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler.

Book Group at the May 5 session on The End of Overeating