We finally got it together, just under the wire, to release the new Fish & Game Quarterly. Never ones to bury the lede, we’re pretty happy to announce that Project 258: Making Dinner at Fish & Game will be out on March 14 and you can preorder it right this very minute. It took three years to make this book, so if you’ve been a fan of this blog it’s safe to say that you will enjoy owning and reading the result.
cookblog Posts
At long last, the summer issue of the Fish & Game Quarterly is out. It was worth the wait; we’ve got some excellent work by talented people addressing issues both summery and shameful for your edification. We even have a world premiere of a music video, edited by yours truly. Enjoy.
This meal happened a little while ago (the sage flowers should date it pretty accurately for those of you in these parts). But no matter; it’s still highly seasonally appropriate.
As I wrote in the garden post—and countless times beforehand—spending time in the garden (or outside in general) every day inspires plentiful ideas for the evening meal. In any given week (once things get growing) one is confronted with an array of plants at different stages of their lives: sprouts that need thinning, bolting things that need eating, things that bolted and didn’t get eaten so now they have pretty flowers or pungent seeds to use, and always various plants at peak maturity that are ready for their closeup.
The spring issue of Fish & Game Quarterly is out today. Appropriately for the issue that coincides with Zak (and by extension Jori and Kevin) winning a James Beard Award, we’ve got more contributors in more diverse media, organized loosely around the idea of place. This issue includes our first poetry offerings, plus music: besides an instrumental track, we’ve got two essays by two musicians, one of which is about a musician and which is accompanied by a photograph from still another musician. I find it particularly interesting to see work by people who are known for a different kind of work. Talented people tend to have more than one. Enjoy.
Front yards are overrated. Sure, it’s good to have some grassy space to kick a ball or toss a disc with the kid, but otherwise lawn is a waste of square feet and resources, especially water. Rip out the grass, run a nice fence around it, and build some raised beds, though, and you’ve got yourself a one-stop shop for food, physical activity, neighborly sharing, and epic curb appeal.
At the end of February, I spent a long weekend in the city on assignment for Food Republic, covering a couple of natural wine fairs, New York’s first. You can read the preamble I wrote beforehand, and then the post-game recap. Both events were gratifying, with impressive wines across the board and some terrific people and meals thrown in for good measure.
The winter installment of Fish & Game Quarterly is out, featuring another fine assortment of regional talents stretching out on a number of topics in several media. We’re pretty pleased with it; take a look. Those of you interested in learning more about the inspiration behind my wife’s video could start with Caroline Weber’s excellent Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore To The Revolution. Thanks to all our contributors.
Colder weather urges cooking in a way that summer’s insouciant plenitude cannot rival. Now that we’re down to about a third of the garden, it’s all roots and greens out there (though bolstered immeasurably in the kitchen by the deep benches of pantry and freezer). Their flavor—the sheer information, the resolution and detail in each bite of humble leaf or root, sweetened by frosts and elevated to center stage by the departure of the tender competition—presents targets both easy and challenging. Easy, because a fat fall turnip needs little embellishing to glow, and challenging because families are wont to clamor for novelty when it comes to dinner.
The beauty of having both a garden and way too much visual art training manifests itself in many subtle ways, most of them involving dinner. This iteration of inspiration began with the radicchio, arrayed as plump and shiny purple heads in the chicory bed. After a busy day loading frost-leveled detritus into the wheelbarrow for trips to the compost pile, I took stock of what remained: a lot.