The Avenue | Food - The Independent Florida Alligator

THE AVENUE | FOOD

Before Thanksgiving, have Friendsgiving

By Emily Cardinali | Nov. 19, 2014

Before you go home for Thanksgiving to see your (hopefully not bickering) family, the best way to pre-celebrate is by having Friendsgiving with your (again, hopefully not bickering) friend family in your dorm. I mean, you’ve probably seen these people naked in those (awful) communal showers. The least you can do is share a dinner.

THE AVENUE | FOOD

Cookbooks as works of art

By Kelsi | Nov. 12, 2014

In a time when many of us are turning to online recipes for instruction, how is it that heavy, richly illustrated cookbooks (unwieldy for practical use in the kitchen) are being released in a steady stream? Are cookbooks becoming more of an art piece than an instructional book? Are they resting on the coffee table more than on the kitchen counter?

THE AVENUE | FOOD

Daily Green looks to redefine local drive-thru food

By Christina Hunt | Nov. 7, 2014

Daily Green, a healthy fast food option in downtown Gainesville, will soon offer online ordering and drive-thru pick up.

THE AVENUE | FOOD

Dixieland Music Park Fall Bluegrass Festival returns to Waldo

By Cody Smith | Oct. 22, 2014

The fall music festival season is kicking off strong in Central Florida in the coming weeks, and the small town of Waldo is once again bringing back bluegrass.

THE AVENUE | FOOD

Your cookbook is more than simply your recipes

By Kelsi | Oct. 22, 2014

A cookbook can be considered an autobiography.

THE AVENUE | FOOD

Local food: Ward’s fall festival returns

By Lilianne Busto | Oct. 22, 2014

A locally owned Gainesville grocery store is celebrating its 63rd Anniversary Fall Food Festival on Saturday.

THE AVENUE | FOOD

Toasting to the holidays ahead

By Keri | Oct. 15, 2014

Now is the time to start preparing for the holidays ahead. No, we don’t mean shopping or menu planning, which are good ideas by the way, but preparing for the social events ahead. Ways to fine-tune your social etiquette are to know how to give good toasts, a universal practice of honoring a person or occasion with an expression of goodwill and a drink. The holidays present many opportunities to give toasts with gatherings of friends and family ahead, including parties, winter weddings and graduations.

THE AVENUE | FOOD

Wizardly drinks this month

By Lauren Bobek | Oct. 8, 2014

Wizard-themed drinks are whizzing into UF’s Starbucks this month.

THE AVENUE | FOOD

Universal Cutlery Culture: the spoon’s diverse history

By Keri | Oct. 1, 2014

Ever been bewildered by the multitude of forks, knives and spoons jostling for space at a formal dinner table? Which to use? When? And how did they get there, anyway?

THE AVENUE | FOOD

Gainesville Original Food Truck Rally back for Fall 2014

By Chloe Finch | Sep. 24, 2014

When the first Original Gainesville Food Truck Rally opened one Saturday in January 2013, thousands of people lined up to sample food from six local food trucks.

THE AVENUE | FOOD

Eating offers creativity

By Kelsi | Sep. 24, 2014

Eating, like cooking, is an outlet for creativity and manipulation. Take Oreos, for instance. Do you eat the frosting first and save the chocolate wafers for last? Do you carefully take apart the cookie to separate the filling and then scrape it off with your teeth? Or do you chomp through the whole cookie?

THE AVENUE | FOOD

TV cooking shows: Do they or can they offer more than cooking tips?

By Keri | Sep. 3, 2014

Within the last 20 years, there has been an international boom in TV channels devoted exclusively to food and cooking, including Cuisine TV in France and the Food Network and Cooking Channel in the U.S.

THE AVENUE | FOOD

Don’t be gullible for gluten-free

By Claudia Stantzyk-Guzek | Aug. 6, 2014

Gluten-free eating has become synonymous with guilt-free eating, though that may not actually be the case.

THE AVENUE | FOOD

Dining: The rhetoric of etiquette

By Kelsi | Aug. 6, 2014

"The Greenes always request for small slices. You can ask them if they would like just a little more, or if they are sure they are full, and they always express with certainty, ‘I really only want a tiny slice.’

THE AVENUE | FOOD

Reading cookbooks as history

By Kelsi | July 30, 2014

Cookbooks contain more than directions for food preparation. They are like a “magician’s hat: one can get more out of them than they seem to contain,” or so muses culinary historian Barbara Wheaton.

THE AVENUE | FOOD

Cookbooks for men: reflecting on gender roles

By Keri | July 23, 2014

Walk into a bookstore, browse Amazon cookbook category listings, and you’ll find various genres of cookbooks. There are cookbooks for kids, for vegetarians, for couples, for one, for beginners and even for dogs. Look closer, and you’ll notice a category of cookbooks for men. But absent is a category for women, revealing the assumption that unmarked cookbooks are for women.

THE AVENUE | FOOD

Recipe titles: Does a recipe by any other name taste as good?

By Kelsi | July 16, 2014

The title of a recipe gives the first impression of the dish and the author. Recipe titles are printed in special, large type, memorable as the official label. The title can be simply a word, “Oatmeal,” a more elaborate phrase, “Bountiful Blueberry Pie with Spiced Whipped Cream,” or almost a paragraph, a format more typical of earlier recipe titles. One from 1608: “To Make a Walnut, That When you Cracke It, You Shall Find Biskets, and Carrawayes in It, Or a Prettie Posey Written.”

THE AVENUE | FOOD

Eating to win eats away at your health

By Debora Lima | July 9, 2014

After Keenan “Ginger Chestnut” Bailey won The Swamp Restaurant’s first hot dog eating contest Friday by scarfing down nine hot dogs in 10 minutes to take home the grand prize of $100, a $50 certificate to the restaurant and a silver plate with his name engraved, he said he felt just fine.

THE AVENUE | FOOD

Reading Recipes as Stories

By Keri | July 9, 2014

Reading hundreds of cookbooks and recipes has convinced us that these books form a distinct genre, a storytelling genre, governed by conventions and codes.

THE AVENUE | FOOD

Recipes: The instruction manuals you actually want to read

By Kelsi | July 2, 2014

Recipes are, on one hand, an instruction manual with directions or instructions on how to make something and also a narrative with engaging prose or a story that elevates the procedure into something else entirely.