Coming Together Sharing Food

 Eating with other people is good for your health. That's what Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy is recommending. e knows that sharing food is the cure for loneliness and isolation. It is the antidote America needs to combat the overwhelming  feelings of being alone.

Regular contributor Julia Moskin wrote about the surgeon general in yesterday's New York Times Wednesday Food section. SO many people are alone these days.It;'s hard enough to live , harder still to try to eat when they're feeling desolation. Last year Dr. Murthy released a much heralded study on loneliness that identified loneliness as a growing public health epidemic.It can increase the risk of premature death almost s much as obesity and smoking. The study identified "six pillars" of change which the government  can use to combat the problem. There's all sorts of recommendations, whether it'sa shared scone, a family visit to a taco truck, a neighborhood cookout or a Freindsgiving where friends are welcome to come and cook at a Thanksgiving dinner. He showed up at cookbook author Joan Nathan's house with a pot of ras Malai, a cardomon scented dessert of milk and sugar topped with pistachios. He is used to and enjoy socializing over meals. His parents threw informal dinner parties when he was tiny after they left Karnataka  in Southwest India and settled in Miami.

Potlucks are the easiest parties to throw. People can come as they are and make  easy to cook dishes that cna be easily reheated.For the party with Dr. Murthy it was a little more complicated.Ms. Nathan had to cooridinate all sorts of dishes because the surgeon general is a vegetarian, Another invited chef wanted to bring a pork shoulder while another famous chef, Alice Waters opted to get her childhood favorite fresh greens from a local market to create a salad. Some dishes were interesting. Chef and activist Matthew Railford who is also a sixth generation farmer in Georgia brought a suitcase of boiled peanuts.Kevin Tien, chef and owner of Washington D.C.'s Moon Rabbit carried in trays of banh ho choi gio chay, sheets of rice noodles to be wrapped around vegetables and hebs. He also did what most potluck guests do, going into the host's kitchens and immediately looking for serving platters.Others brought in simpler dishes. The chef and owner of Centralina Amy Brandwine  brought a kambucha squash soup while  Chef Andres borught his mothers;vegetable stew and various other foods. Tiffany William, the president of Martha's Table.s brought c hicken wings. A potluck can be anything you want it to be. As long as there;s good company and good food.

No one should have to eat alone. Follow. Dr. Murthy's advice and arrange a pot luck with friends and family.It's a good wau to connect, with food and community.

Computer Cooking?

AI has taken over much of our lives today.Yet can it take over our kitchen and our time honored recipes? Can  artificial intelligence give us the perfect Thanksgiving dinner? That's what both chefs and home chefs want to know.

Regular contributor  Priya Krishna along with AI tech writer Cade MIller for the NY TImes, explored the possiblities in yestrrday's New York Times Food section. This is a new branch of AI but it is making headway. These computer generated recipes do share many aspects with their handwritten counterparts. There is the list of ingredients, exact measurements , step by step instructions and even fabricated notes with personal touches. The best test of these, as food editors and chefs of all sorts know is Thanksgiving. Ms. Krishna, along with other New York Times Food writers, Melissa Clark, Genevieve Ko, Erik Kim and Yewande Komolafe decided to try out a technology known as GPT-3 to devise a holiday menu. GPT-3 is a neural system that's more adept at analyzing large amounts of data. it has created credible recipes in the past. In fact some can pass for human generated ones. in order to create recipes, Ms. Kirishna had to put in her background along with likes  like Italian and Thai food along with making not too sweet desserts.It also asked for what ingredients she often cooks with. she then added "Show me a Thanksgiving menu made for me."

How did the computer do?The first recipe was pumpkin spice chaat or bite sized snacks that can be used as appetizers. Ms. Kirishna was confused by the concept but impressed with the program's inventiveness. Minutes later she had a palusible menu. Along with the pumpkin spice chaat there were recipes for green beans with miso and sesame seeds, a turkey with a soy-ginger glaze and a naan based stuffing. She wanted a cranberry sauce that wasn't too sweet and a little spiced and she got one with those exact requirements.. There was also a pumpkin spice cake with orange cream frosting. How did it all work out? The personal notes about using the flavors of Ms Krishn'as childhood fot the turkey were a li. The naan stuffing required thirty-two components. The recipes were light on salt and fat.  Still there was hope - until they were tasted. The naan stuffing tasted like chana masala and fruitcake got into a bar fight, There was no butter or oil to moisten the bird and it came out incredibly dry and stringy,. It was also flavored with only one garlic clove. The chaat tasted like grassy mush. The cake looked like two pancakes sandwiched together with icing. Her felloow food writers were hard with their comments, with Ms Ko summing it up - "Food with no soul."

Should we rely on AI for our recipes? No, We need the human touch for delicious recipes and time honored dishes. It's this that makes meals especially holiday ones memorable and beloved.

Dinner Around The World

Ever wonder what other people eat for dinner? The New York Times Food section did and published a fascinating pictorial of main meals and favorite dinners?Are there difference yes. Yet there are more similarities that unite us.

Food section reporters and  photographers, Sara Bonisteel, Kim Gougenheim and Lisa Dalsimer interviewed sixteen families from sixteen countries around the world. We find out what they cook and eat on a typical weeknight. There are no fancy or multi step holiday meals. These are just everyday ones, with locally sourced foods from their local groceries and markets.It really is an interesting window into what the world eats. The Levy family of Rehovot , Israel, a city not far from the Mediterranean, south of Tel Aviv, observed their Shabbot night meal with  Yemeni soup, chicken schnitzel and chraime. The last is a spicy Moroccan fish dish eaten by Sephardic Jews and it's served with rice and bread. The Charles family of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, use oranges and limes from their yard to marinate their lalo, a flavorful stew made with both beef and blue crab along with spinach and jute leaves. Do the French go all out with their weekday suppers?No. Home chef Marina Pajovic-Devouge serves leftover roasted chicken from the butcher around the corner and pairs it with couscous from a popular frozen food store Picard Suegeles. Her kids get cheese for dessert. Monterrey Mexico couple, Luis Leduc and Katia Barragan take turns cooking. Her turn had huevos revueltos, scrambled eggs served with chorizo and onions. dinner was shared with their daughter, Emma, and dog, Polly.

Good Italian cooking begins at home and that's how home chef , Claudia Bellucci ,from Rome works magic in creating saltimboca alla Romana. This is veal rolled with ham and sage, the herb coming from her balcony garden.There was also pesto with trofie pasta, made with basil along with baked tomatoes au gratin which her daughter Fiamma puts through a taste test. South Americans are notorious steak lovers and that was evident in the Guevara's of Lima,Peru's dinner. Jesus and Margot shared grilled steak along with corn and potatoes with their kids. They're lucky because they have a housekeeper who cooks and cleans up for them. Another lucky family who has a cook is the Osans of Gurgaon, India, a  thriving town, southwest of New Dehli, The family of four, usually eat around nine PM and enjoyed a meal of palek paneer, spinach with cheese, raita - a cooling yogurt and cucumber sauce and kadai aloo, potatoes with onions and spices.  Cucumber salad and chapatis round it out.  Food writer,Ozoz Sokoh of Lago , Nigeria shares a meal of plantain flatbread stuffed with chicken suya, a sweet and spicy dish, with her three children. There is also peanut butter sauce and papaya chutney. Other countries such as Australia, Russia, South Africa and Saudi Arabia. The two things missing? The US and recipes. It would have been nice to have some of them printed so US homes chefs can try them.

Dinner around the world is the same, no matter what the food and the nationalities. It's eating together and sharing good food and talk. It's the recipe that keeps families together.