January 2007: Spice, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and Hungry Planet

COOK: Ana Sortun’s Spice. Ana is the chef at one of my fave eateries, Oleana, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This James Beard Award–winning chef is a genius at combining winning flavor and textural harmonies that don’t fight each other, and isn’t precious or annoyingly on-trend in that Sondra Lee or Barefoot Contessa sort of way. Sortun cooks in the styles of the Eastern Mediterranean countries and dabbles in North African and Indian flavors enough to be considered dangerous.

Check out her recipes for Turkish steak tartare, roasted duck with tomato jam, ground beef and pistachio kebabs, and her fried haloumi with pears and spiced dates, and then give me a call.

READ: The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan, is a must-read if you care at all about what you eat and where it comes from. The book has gotten a lot of attention over the last year and with good reason. Pollan is the most articulate voice for cultural relativity as it pertains to our environment and our kitchen table of this generation. I don’t want to spoil this for you. Trust me, read this book.

SEE: Faith D’aluisio and Peter Menzel’s Hungry Planet. This picture book with a conscience has won every award it possibly could during 2006. Their idea was simple: take forty families around the world and photograph them in their kitchens, surrounded by the foods they eat in one week. The results were startling, and the simple act of looking at what a family of four eats in a rural and impoverished village half a world away will change the way you think about mealtime forever.

Buy Spice, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and Hungry Planet at Barnes & Noble.