Photo of the Day

Photo of calcots in Catalunya by Flickr user Carlos Lorenzo.

Hold On To Your Wine Glass!

I hope you're sitting down for this one. A new study into the Byzantine workings of the primitive ladybrain has determined that women make their wine choices based not on fashion or diet concerns, but by basically the same criteria men use: Does it taste good?

Shocking? It was to researchers who conducted the first-ever study of women's attitude toward wine in the UK, who professed "surprise" and "interest" at the finding that women buy wine based on how it tastes and whether it goes well with food, as opposed to how well it works as a fashion accessory and whether it will help them shed pounds. Also shocking to researchers: The fact that women tend to bristle at wine ads aimed specifically at them (e.g., those b.s. "girlfriends" wine ads aimed at professional women who supposedly spend their time together knitting, giggling, and scrapbooking--all over glasses of shitty Mondavi or Gallo whites), and the fact that women actually prefer red wine despite the fact that white wine is marketed as "lite."

Robert Beynat, chief executive of Vinexpo, which conducted the survey, "was particularly pleased with the response of 79% of women who said they drink wine because they like the taste – as opposed to its compatibility with food or fashion status, calling it 'extraordinary'."

God, the next thing you know, women will be buying food because it tastes good. Try to contain your astonishment.

Photo of the Day

Photo by Flickr user jlunar.

OMG WANT

This adorable book (Serious Eats claims it's a children's book, but I think that's ageist) by Amy Krouse Rosenthal (and illustrated by Scott Magoon) is about a self-conscious spoon working his way through an identity crisis. He's jealous of Fork (who gets to "go everywhere,") feels threatened by "cool and exotic" Chopsticks, and worries about going "stir crazy" from never being able to spread jam on bread or cut into a spongey slice of cake. Ultimately, though, Spoon realizes that he's pretty lucky: He gets to clink against the side of a cereal bowl, twirl around in a mug, and "relax in a cup of hot tea." And what knife, fork or chopstick can say that?

Spoon's family portrait (Spoon in front, looking at the reader; his cousin Spork looking uncomfortable far right):



Spoon goes on sale April 7; preorder on Amazon now. (Via Serious Eats).

Photo of the Day

Photo by Flickr user sonicwalker.

Vintage Sexism, Get-Back-In-the-Kitchen Edition

(Image via Haleysuzanne on Photobucket) Via Slashfood, a letter that ran in the New York Times in 1907, which argues not only that the job of a woman is to cook for and serve men, but that the only reason some women don't enjoy cooking and housework is that they don't know how to do it right.

WOMEN ENJOY COOKING.
A Pleasure, Not a Drudgery, Once the Art Is Acquired.

To the Editor of The New York Times:

Will you allow me space in THE TIMES to take up the discussion of the subject reported in to-day's TIMES before the Woman's Conference for the Society of Ethical Culture, in which Leslie Willis Sprague advocated the training of women for domestic service? [...] I think what I have to say may be of interest.

I am a strong advocate of schools to teach cooking, and in my professional life I advise every woman who comes to me for advice as to her future to learn to do the things which make for property house-keeping and home-making. As long as the race exists, men will have to eat, and some one will have to do the cooking. [...] I believe that if women could learn to cook well at proper schools so that they know how and why they do the various things in preparing a meal, the doing of it would be a pleasure and not a drudgery.

One of my father's pet stories is how one day he came into our home for lunch, and found me sitting in the kitchen with a cookbook on my lap, crying great tears into the pages while I tried to find out what to get him for lunch. He thinks it is a good story [!!!--ECB], but I know the trouble was that I was attempting to do a thing I did not understand, and was declaring that I never could and never would cook. After we finished that meal of bread and milk, I went at it with a will and learned to cook properly, and stuck at it under Mrs. Rorer and my mother until I could cook everything in the usual family menu, and as soon as I learned how I loved to do it. And I have never since then heard a woman decry cooking who was herself a good cook. Watch that point, and see if it is not so. [...]

Housework done intelligent is not drudgery. Cooking done well is as great a pleasure as painting a picture. Serving a good meal cooked by yourself is as great an achievement as arguing a case well in court. And the woman who can do so, and lets her servants have the benefit of her knowledge, has no trouble with her servants. [...]

GABRIELLE STEWART MULLINER
New York, March 26, 1907

While it may be true, as I've written elsewhere, that men think they do a lot more housework, cooking, and child care than they actually do, we've come a long way in the last 100 years. Maybe in another 100, that 70-30 split will actually be closer to 50-50. I still doubt that either gender will have started liking housework, though.

Photo of the Day

Photo of chicken gyro by Flickr user ncmysteryshopper.