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Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology

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Born to Pasta

October 7, 2022 by Jeff Weinstein

I've been absent and errant, for many reasons, but global tumult has sifted through everything I am. The other day, I admitted to a friend who masters a special bookshop -- which, if forever ambered, could be an Ashurbanipal or Alexandria for our rickety future -- that my daily reliance on cooking as thinking, hand-ballet, and even small achievement was waning, and I wanted to end my relationship. He stopped, struck. As we spoke, he had been sorting books and ephemera in his store's exploded back room. I already knew that New York City … [Read more...]

What a Stranger in the Family Ate

January 5, 2022 by Jeff Weinstein

Nothing goes without saying, and I have said and written many times that my father, Harry Weinstein, was crucial to my cooking and eating life. If you have browsed this blog over the last decade you might recall his salami and eggs, or my watching him delicately prize open and slide down steamers in the clam bar at Brooklyn's long-gone shore-stadium, Lundy's. He took his food seriously, with concentration I've rarely seen elsewhere. To be sure, my mother, Edythe, cooked more food for us than Harry did: it was her task and responsibility, … [Read more...]

Beans in My Closet

May 18, 2020 by Jeff Weinstein

Many of us in 2020 understand that we must retreat from strangers, sometimes even from our very closest, and do for ourselves. The threat of death by a new plague makes any comparison unusual, although comparing different threats of death in past decades and centuries puts some of the present danger in existential limbo. Small comfort. But I've been told that context is important. When I hear "context is important," I usually screw my face into a please, no. So I did some lookback and realized I had rarely written about beans, now a … [Read more...]

Kapusta!

January 24, 2016 by Jeff Weinstein

[Or Polish cabbage soup from a Ukrainian Jew] I haven't posted for a while, I know, but changes in my life urge me to find that thread that leads to writing. I've had trouble cooking, too, but for that I've found a trick: pretend that I'm cooking for company, for neighbors and friends. Then, when I'm done, I can invite them to share -- or not. Here's a recent example. My late husband, John, was taught by his mother, Mary Urzendowski Perreault, to cook kapusta, cabbage soup. Hers is a Polish version, natch, yet not too far in taste from … [Read more...]

Finding My Chowder — Part 1

August 21, 2014 by Jeff Weinstein

  I don't know where she was born, and I don't know her real last name. When I say this to friends or even to party strangers, they quite rightly raise eyebrows. My late mother lived to almost 90. What kind of adult son would have been so profoundly uncurious? As of now, I've found no record of her before her marriage to my dad -- no marriage certificate, either. Her maiden name is "Browne" on the photostat of my birth certificate, but she told me later that that was not the case and offered another one -- also, as it happens, … [Read more...]

Cooking Alone

April 9, 2014 by Jeff Weinstein

Writers, even on Facebook and Twitter, are solipsistic. Writers burrow, like moles or voles, in whatever dirt we find ourselves to make some kind of momentary home. Because cooking is a form of writing, as eating is a form of reading, I've always felt most comfortable and free when I'm cooking in a tunnel, for myself. Solo menu choices narrow to a slim juggle (no whole turkey tonight), but the ego of one's appetite has the final say. First question: What do I -- I! 80 decibels -- want to eat right now? Too bad there's no microwavable … [Read more...]

Pasta Vazool: The Conclusion

January 21, 2014 by Jeff Weinstein

    A Note to My Readers -- Part 3 In learning to cook, I find that I am learning to think, in recipe form. That's different from cooking per se, because a recipe is communication, a medium that's supposed to outlive a Tweet, or a chef. It's also not supposed to hurt you: Place the unopened cans — yes, unopened — in a pot of boiling water, perhaps on top of a washcloth so that they don’t rattle. Cover the pot and simmer for two and a half or three hours, taking care to replenish the water as needed to keep the cans submerged: … [Read more...]

What Cooking and Writing Have in Common

January 2, 2014 by Jeff Weinstein

A Note to My Readers -- Part 1 When I was a youngster, I thought writing blocks were cubes with different letters that I could arrange into words. I'd do it horizontally, left to right, just as I had learned to print letters in penmanship class, or I'd do it by piling the blocks into towers and read the result from top to bottom. In that case, I'd have to lift the whole pile each time I added a letter, and if the word were too long it would topple. To prevent that, I tried to fashion my words from the bottom up, but I'd be stumped. What's … [Read more...]

Learning To Cook: Frittata

May 29, 2013 by Jeff Weinstein

  Eggs, and recipes for eggs, are paradoxical. That shouldn't seem so at first. An egg will do a certain thing when placed near, or mixed with, another thing, and do that thing at a certain temperature for a certain amount of time. Which is what all ingredients do. But actually, as lucky four-year-olds know, eggs are full of surprises. Eggs are also full of doubt. Their clichéd purity of form is challenged by the slippery dualism of yolk versus white, which is why there's something sad, even destructive, when you take a fork or whisk … [Read more...]

I Never Cooked for My Father

July 2, 2011 by Jeff Weinstein

"I learned about cooking and flavor as a child, watching my mother prepare food in our kitchen in Virginia." Maybe I'm worried that it's too easy, or dislike the part of me that's a permanent boy, but I've become increasingly shy of drawing from the same family well to recount my early fascination with food. Recently, though, I came upon a recipe for creamed scallions by the late chef Edna Lewis taken from her kindly and expert "memory" cookbook, In Pursuit of Flavor. The line at the top of this post is that book's opener, and here's how she … [Read more...]

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Jeff Weinstein

Based in New York, I've been an editor of arts coverage at New York's "Soho Weekly News" (1977-79); of visual arts and architecture criticism and much else at the "Village Voice" (1981-95, with a stint as managing editor of "Artforum"); of the fine arts at the "Philadelphia Inquirer" (1997-2006); of arts and culture at "Bloomberg News" (2006-07). Until recently... Read More…

Out There

The media make a potentially fatal mistake by dividing arts coverage into high and low, old and young, and by trivializing our passionate attraction to things. In Out There I propose that all creative expression has the potential to be both … [Read More...]

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@JeffWeinstein

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Recently & Elsewhere

I wrote and narrated a Daylight Magazine slideshow (click on "Read more" below to access it and the rest), an appreciation of the late photographer Milton Rogovin. Also one about the late photographer Helen Levitt. To go back in time, kindly click … [Read More...]

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Recent Comments

  • Jeff Weinstein on The Thursday Store, and a Dream: “And a happy one to you, Elizabeth. Funny that those Catskill eggs didn’t smash.” Dec 31, 14:28
  • Elizabeth Zimmer on The Thursday Store, and a Dream: “I love the tone of this. My grandmother was a farmer in the Catskills. She’ sold eggs, and would mail…” Dec 31, 08:26
  • Jeff Weinstein on The Thursday Store, and a Dream: “Hope I see you too. Thanks!” Dec 31, 02:46
  • Carol Felsenthal on The Thursday Store, and a Dream: “There’s something to be said for staying awhile; for watching the evolution of a neighborhood, from the same building, same…” Dec 30, 18:23
  • Meredith Brody on The Thursday Store, and a Dream: “Such a lovely piece, dear Jeff Weinstein. Such a great picture. I’m overwhelmed by memories. Hope that you and your…” Dec 30, 15:43
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