"What about your bubbe's borscht recipe? Didn't she probably squeeze it onto an index card in roughly 140 characters?" Twitter user @cookbook condenses recipes to 140 characters or fewer. Recipe from a 1950s Gourmet cookbook, for sale on etsy.com, is definitely more than 140 characters. Can a recipe be only 140 characters long? Sure, you could cram in short-hand terms for liter (l) and olive oil (olvoil), but is it truly a recipe? Many people, including the entire cookbook industry, would argue no. Using Twitter as a platform to share shrunken recipes—which @cookbook has proven can attract over 15,000 followers—strips the recipe of its headnote, its hand-holding instructions, and its soul, some would argue. It's like showing the credits to...
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Michael Pollan gave a lecture last week at Google's Mountain View, CA, headquarters to discuss his book, In Defense of Food, and share simple advice about how to eat healthily and responsibly, but also for pleasure and community. The video runs for about an hour—half lecture, half Q&A with the Google crowd—but it's worth listening to if you're a fan of Pollan (or if you need an introduction to him). Watch the video, after the jump....
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