Kitchen Chick

Charity Cookbooks & the Empowerment of Women

 
When I was at Zingerman's Roadhouse during their fabulous Harvest Dinner, I ran into the delightful Jan Longone, curator of American Culinary History at the Clements Library.  She told me about her latest exhibition at the Clements Library called "The Old Girl Network: Charity Cookbooks and the Empowerment of Women."

Cookbooks were one of the early means women used to communicate and advocate for important women's issues, such as suffrage and education. So check out this exhibit of cookbooks, cartoons, and ads to see "the politics just under every woman’s nose (and, often, behind many men’s backs)."

Jan will be giving a lecture on Sunday, September 21 from 3:00 - 5:00 (and she's a good speaker). The exhibition will be opened for pre-lecture viewing at 2:30 on the 21st. It's open now, M-F from 1pm - 4:45pm and runs through October 3, 2008.

William L. Clements Library
909 S. University Ave
Ann Arbor, MI
734-764-2347

The Tomatillo Season

August always surprises me. I wait with great impatience and not a little anxiety, completely convinced that my garden will wield nothing. Then suddenly in August my tomato plants are heavy with fruit and the little paper lanterns of my tomatillos are starting to burst. Today I went out and picked myself 2lbs of tomatillos, and I haven't even made a dent in the population of soon-to-be-ready tomatillos. Dare I say it? I feel it's almost heresy, but I think I like growing tomatillos even better than growing tomatoes. They are so simple to grow, seem to be less plagued by bugs and bacteria, and are just so pretty with their paper lanterns dangling from branches. And just like tomatoes, tomatillos fresh from the garden are worlds better than ones bought at the store. To start, and this is not to be underestimated, a fresh tomatillo is much easier to disrobe from its shell and one where the shell has had time to dry out and shrink wrap itself to the fruit.

With a few fresh serranos from the garden and some cilantro and garlic, I'll turn this batch into Salsa de Tomate Verde, which I use for everything from salsa for chips to a sauce for enchiladas verde. (And it freezes great.)