Leena Eats, Gourmet Communication ... Food, Travel, Gastronomy

A Portrait of Ross by Felix Gonzalez Torres @ Art Institute of Chicago.

********* Update: Whoa. WHOA. Sorry to have lost radio contact there for a good majority of the week! First, the Memorial Day holiday through me off by a day. Then early Wednesday morning, I had a lovely stomach attack (brought on by IBS complications) that ended with severe gastrointestinal stress and a quick and dirty trip to the hospital. Not a fun reality of my life, but one I have to deal with from time to time. The downside is, it tends to hurt, but the upside is I get to look totally cute and skinny in the days that follow. Lemons to lemonade, my friend. ********* Second update: While getting ready for lunch today with a friend (my first time leaving the apartment for three entire days!!), guess who threw her back out doing the stressful task of getting dressed? 70 year old Leena, that’s who. I swear I’m like Benjamin freaking Button here, a 70 year old trapped inside of a 28 year old’s body. Therefore, only two posts this week my friends, and I hope you can forgive me for the absence. I have a LOT of delicious eating & drinking to catch up on. ********* Happy Gastro Friday, fellow readers and gastronomes. This week, I’d like to chat a bit about the representation of food in art. Back in gastronomy grad school, only a week of one class was devoted to food in art, but it always intrigued me. First, there are so many different levels that food can be in art. It could be as simple as a painting of a bowl of fruit, or as complicated as an ad campaign for a high-end champagne company. It could literally be food– without a picture frame or a canvas to rest on. This could mean a dish of food beautifully presented at a restaurant and captured on film, or food presented as art in a museum or art gallery. Read the rest of this entry »

Lemon meringue pie and strawberry rhubarb pie @ Hoosier Mama Pie Company.

The high school food studies class I have been teaching has finally come to an end for the year, and I like to think we went out with a bang. We ended with pie and a class-published food mag. Not too shabby, eh? Read the rest of this entry »

Evan’s Thai Scallop Ceviche in Wonton cup.

As you hopefully already know, this week is Appetizer party week here at Leena Eats This Blog. I threw an appetizer party and had a million photos and recipes to post about, thus necessitating an entire week’s worth of posts. Intense, I know. Lucky for you it was also sprinkled with liberal amounts of bacon, so you know it will be worth your time. On Monday, we had a Leena Cooks video of me assembling my Chinese pan fried pork dumplings, and on Wednesday, an epic post of all the appetizers served at my big-ass appetizer party. For this week’s Gastro Friday, I wanted to take a closer look at our little friend, the appetizer. My own instincts led me to hosting my own appetizer party, but I’m curious to find out why. Are appetizer parties just a trend, or has a human desire to dine on small portions of many flavors existed for a while? According to my research, food cultures all over the world have been indulging in pre-meal snacks to whet their appetites since, well, forever. What is interesting is the different roles appetizers play within different food cultures. Read the rest of this entry »