Review: Picnic

This book offers menus, recipes and planning suggestions for 29 portable repasts, from an "After the Wedding" Brunch Picnic to a Workday Picnic. Arranged seasonally, the suggested picnics cover all 12 months of the year, beginning with a Spring Day-Hike Picnic and progressing to a Summer Canoe Picnic, an Autumn Beach Picnic and then, in winter, an Apres-Ski Picnic.

Picnics are usually associated with lazy Sunday afternoon trips to the seashore or a riverside park and a hamper full of sandwiches, cold meats and lemonade.

Picnic:  

125 Recipes with 29 Seasonal Menus  

by DeeDee Stovel 

Storey Books, 2001

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Review: Vodka

Does the word "vodka" derive from the Russian "voda," meaning water, or the Polish "wodka," derived from "woda," or water? Historians from the two countries will argue incessantly on the origins of the world's favorite liquor, which almost certainly originated somewhere in Eastern Europe during  the 14th or 15th century.

This new volume in The Edible Series of Reaktion Books explores how a rather unremarkable liquid -- pure alcohol distilled from grain -- became such a potent spirit, both culturally and economically. Once a humble drink known only to Eastern Europeans, it is now the most popular liquor in both the U.S. and Britain, and probably the world.

Vodka

A Global History

by Patricia Herlihy

Reaktion Books, 2013

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Good Guides: The New Stokes Field Guide to Birds

The culmination of many years of research, observation, and study, The New Stokes Field Guide to Birds is factually, visually, and organizationally superior to any other photographic field guide available.

Available in Eastern and Western volumes, these easy-to-use guides feature over 4,600 North American bird species with stunning color photographs.

The New Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Eastern Region

The New Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Western Region

by Donald Stokes and Lillian Stokes

Little, Brown and Company, 2013

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Reading the History: The Old Fashioned

American tavern owners caused a sensation in the late eighteenth century when they mixed sugar, water, bitters, and whiskey and served the drink with rooster feather stirrers.

The modern version of this "original cocktail," widely known as the Old Fashioned, is a standard in any bartender's repertoire and holds the distinction of being the only mixed drink ever to rival the Martini in popularity.

In this book, Gourmand Award--winning author Albert W. A. Schmid profiles the many people and places that have contributed to the drink's legend since its origin.

The Old Fashioned
An Essential Guide to the Original Whiskey Cocktail
by Albert W. A. Schmid
The University Press of Kentucky, 2013

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Reading the History: Kit Carson

Best known today for his role in the tragic "Long Walk" of  the Navajos as Col. Christopher Carson of the First New Mexico Volunteers, "Kit" Carson was a mythical hero in dime novels of the 19th century and movie Westerns of the mid-20th century who fought savages, protected the virtuous and helped open the frontier.

This biography portrays the real-life Carson as Scots-Irish border man - a trapper, guide, hunter, soldier - shaped by his culture and his times. Rather than a stereotypic Indian killer, it argues that he matured intellectually and ethically as he grew older.

Kit Carson

The Life of an American Border Man 

by David A. Remley

University of Oklahoma Press, 2012

Continued in ... Out of the Past

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Fast Pitch: Top of the Heap

Perhaps more has been written about the New York Yankees than about any other sports team. And the magic that has played out on the field over the years has been rivaled only by baseball scribes' prowess on the page.

Excellence breeds excellence, and for 100 years some of the best writers in America have chronicled the New York Yankees, taking a single swing or game and somehow making it singular.

This anthology from the series editor of The Best American Sports Writing and author of Yankees Century collects the best writing about the Yankees over the course of their long history. Published to coincide with the team's centenary celebration, this is a must-have volume for fans the world over who claim the New York Yankees as their own.

Top of the Heap

A Yankees Collection

by Glenn Stout

Mariner Books, 2003

• Playbooks
• The Roster
• The Best American Sports Writing
• Yankees Century

Death by Melons

Speaking of unusual papal successions...

Massimo Montanari recounts the peculiar demise of Pope Paul II who died of a sudden apoplectic attack on a summer night in 1471.

"His doctors attributed this to a melon binge the evening before. After having spent the day in consistory, the pontiff dined late (around ten) on 'three melons, not too large' and other things 'of meager substance, as had become his habit over the past few months.' The account of this event, written in these words by Nicodemo di Pontremoli in a letter to the Duke of Milan, reveals and attitude of great suspicion toward this fruit, capable of causing not only indigestion but even death."

Medieval physicians disapproved of cold and juicy fruit, believing it could undermine the body's natural heat and upset its equilibrium. They commonly advised people to eat very little melon and, if possible, avoid them entirely.

"Melons in particular were held to be the most toxic of all fruits."

Let the Meatballs Rest

And Other Stories About Food and Culture

by Massimo Montanari

Columbia University Press, 2012

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Artwork: Ripe Melons by John F. Francis