Curators of the new exhibit "America's Kitchens" at the Long Island Museum at Stony Brook, depict the American kitchen as a place where technology, industry, class and gender cross and sometimes clash. 

At its core, the exhibit - created by Historic New England - portrays the kitchen as the emotional center of the home.  Indeed, there is a quote from author Nathanial Hawthorne which says that if the kitchen hearth did not exist, there would be nothing to attract children to one center, and domestic life would retreat to "its separate corners."    

At the Roger Smith Food Writers Conference in New York City on February 13, a common thread touched upon by professionals in various panel discussions was considering the question: what defines “good food writing” in the 21st century?

For a change of pace, we decided to bring the cameras to our Ketchum Chicago chili cook-off  on Feb. 15 and share the sizzling good times with all!  And talk about sizzle – I am telling you, Mr. Drew Ferguson’s “Satan’s Chamberpot” chili is one hot bowl of red.  (Yet, I couldn’t stop eating it.)  He used the infamous Bhut Jolokia, or Ghost Pepper, from India, which was recently ranked THE HOTTEST IN THE WORLD.  We hope you are inspired to make your own batch of chili, as you can pretty much bank on March for being, well, pretty damn chilly! 

Yes, for the person who only wanted a phone to call and leave messages, I am officially dependent on my mobile device to get me closer to my love of food, literally.

Today the basics of the work of a slaughter and a butcher are left to industrial production with all its side aspects. People have lost their knowledge. The simple position as a consumer was not enough for Florian Siepert, who had the idea of a culinary camp, similar to a, to regain this almost left knowledge. This was the starting point for the first so called Porkcamp in Germany.