We started it off by gabbing about the weird things people put in coffee, the evolution of the sweet tooth, and the history of cereal boxes, among other topics. We explored five ways to eat many kinds of seasonal produce. We launched a new Monday feature called Inviting Writing, and you all have been responding with wonderful stories on themes like road trips, college food and eating at Grandma’s house.

Looking back. Image courtesy of Flickr user hhoyer (saturn ♄).

Yes, it’s been a wonderful year. But personally, it’s not just 2010 that I’m wrapping up and waving goodbye to… I’m also leaving Smithsonian to work for another magazine. While that’s certainly exciting, it’s bittersweet, since it means parting ways with Food & Think, the blog I helped launch just over two years ago. We really hit our stride last year thanks to Lisa Bramen, the fantastic freelance co-blogger who joined me “temporarily” and is still going strong. You can look forward to reading more of Lisa’s work here, as well as posts from a few new and returning writers in months to come.

For me, this blog has been an excuse to do some fun things like interview a movie food stylist, attend a Red-Bull-themed art opening and sip Spanish wines with Jose Andres.

It has challenged to me to pay closer attention to serious issues of the day like food safety, childhood obesity and sustainable seafood, as well as track down answers to not-so-serious questions like “Does cheese pair better with beer or wine?” and “Why are chocolate Easter bunnies hollow?”

And it has inspired me to taste or cook many things for the first time: fresh sardines, jellyfish, lionfish, biltong (South African jerky), poutine, kohlrabi, sunchokes, purple long beans and more. Heck, I’d never even cracked into a crab or a whole lobster until I became a food blogger! I’m grateful for those opportunities, and to all of you for reading.

If you’d like to stay in touch, you’re welcome to visit my new personal blog, The Editor Eats, or connect with me on Twitter (@AmandaBensen).

Happy New Year, everyone!

This sweet story comes to us from Lori Berhon, a self-described “fiction writer by vocation; technical writer by profession” based in New York City.

Fondue Memories
By Lori Berhon

At my freshman orientation, the culinary high note was that a former alumna had set up a fund to ensure that every student, lunch and dinner, had access to fresh salad. In other words, an iceberg lettuce fund. In those days, you couldn’t find arugula unless you were Italian and grew it in the yard. Julia Child was just wrapping up The French Chef, and easy access to things like balsamic vinegar, chutney, or even Sichuan cuisine was still a couple of years in the future. In short, the American Food Revolution hadn’t yet begun.

Hopping from room to room, looking for likely friends among the strangers, I noticed that a girl named Susan and I had both considered a few books from Time-Life’s “Foods of the World” series important enough to drag to school. I had The Cooking of Provincial France, The Cooking of Vienna’s Empire and another about Italy, I think. (I know one of Susan’s was Russian Cooking, because we used it the following year to cater a dinner for our Russian History class…but that’s another story.)

Courtesy of Flickr user Denis Dervisevic

It was astounding to find someone else who thought reading cookbooks was a reasonable hobby, not to mention someone else who understood what it meant when the instructions said “beat till fluffy.” Susan and I became firm friends. Over the course of our college careers, we swapped a lot of recipes, talked a lot of food and teamed up to cater a few theme-heavy history department functions. But to this day, if you ask either one of us about food and college, the first thing that comes to mind is our favorite midnight snack: chocolate fondue.

If you were in New York in the 1970s, you’ll remember the fad for narrowly-focused “La” restaurants: La Crepe, La Quiche, La Bonne Soupe (still standing!) and of course, La Fondue. Eating at these, we felt very adventurous and—more importantly—European. In this context, it shouldn’t come as a thunderbolt that my school luggage contained not only a facsimile of Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, but also an avocado green aluminum fondue pot, a set of forks and an illegal electric burner.

The “illegal” bit is crucial to the experience. Our dormitory was built in 1927 and, at the dawn of the consumer electronics age, hadn’t yet been rewired. We were told not to use hair blowers in our rooms, and we were not even supposed to possess such things as burners, toasters, irons, televisions…and certainly not refrigerators. We were supposed to avail ourselves of the common-use shelf on each floor, which had an electric burner and a grounded plug. No one listened. Everyone had some sort of appliance for playing music, and I had a television, as I considered myself constitutionally unable to study unless seated in front of one. Susan had a bar-sized refrigerator that masqueraded, under a tablecloth, as a storage box.

I can’t remember how it started, but the routine was always the same. Throughout the term we kept boxes of Baker’s chocolate and miniature bottles of flavored liqueurs—Vandermint, Cherry Heering—in the metal safe boxes nailed near the doors of our bedrooms. When the craving would strike, we spent two or three days filching pats of butter (that’s where the refrigerator came in), stale cake and fruit from the school dining hall. It was pure forage—whatever we found, that’s what we’d be dipping. The anticipation was intense.

When we finally had enough, we would muster our ingredients in one room or the other late at night, after studying to whatever goal we had set. While the chocolate and butter and booze melted together in my one saucepan, we cubed the cake and fruit. The smell of melting chocolate would snake out of the transoms (1927 dormitory, remember), driving everyone else who was awake in our hall half-crazy.

We listened to Joni Mitchell, stuffed ourselves with chocolate-covered goodness and talked for hours, the way you do in college. Afterward, we’d have to wash out the saucepan and the pot in the bathroom’s shallow sinks, with the separate hot and cold taps—not so easy, but a small price to pay.

There are photos that capture that memory. We sit on the floor by the painted trunk that, when not in active service between campus and home, did duty as my “coffee table” and held the fondue pot. There’s one of each of us, looking slantwise up at the camera while carefully holding a dripping fork near the pot of molten chocolate.

A couple of years ago, some friends pulled together an ad hoc dinner after work one night. The host had a brand new fondue pot and wanted to put it to use. Stepping up, I found myself in her kitchen, melting chocolate and butter and raiding her liquor cabinet for an appropriate soupcon. The smell floated out into the living room, drawing everyone near. People picked up their forks and speared strawberries and cubes of cake, and we sat in a circle dipping chocolate and talking for hours.

Don’t you love when your college education pays off?!

Salad Days
By Leah Douglas

The salad bar was no match for a dinner with the grandparents. Courtesy of Flickr user garda

I’m not one of those people who loves to hate the food provided at my university’s cafeteria. Sure, the meat seems dubious at times and the “nacho bar” appears too frequently for anyone’s gastrointestinal comfort. But as a vegetarian, I appreciate the somewhat creative non-meat dishes, and the extensive (if a tad wilted) options at the salad bar.

All that being said, I do not reflect on my first year of college eating with rosy-colored glasses. I would go for days without much in the way of protein, and late-night burrito and pizza runs happened far too frequently. For someone who thinks, reads, and dreams about delicious food, I felt slightly stalled and unsettled by my limited options—but frankly, and perhaps fortunately, there were more important things on my mind than my next meal.

Except for the nights I ate at Red Stripe.

The French bistro, my favorite restaurant in the college neighborhood, is somewhat pricey and a bit of a walk from campus—two factors that keep the majority of the student population away. However, I am the truly fortunate student whose grandparents happen to live half an hour away from my dorm.

That’s right: Lucky duck that I am, I attend college within an hour’s drive of several family members. Suffice it to say that I never really had any problems with moving furniture, getting to and from the train station, or running out of shampoo during my first year. But neither did I have the expectation that my grandparents would end up saving the most valuable part of my person—my stomach—from complete deprivation.

I can’t remember the first time we went to Red Stripe, but I know that I ordered the “Everything But the Kitchen Sink” chopped salad. How do I know this? Because I have ordered the same thing ever since. Pshh, you’re thinking, she thinks she’s an adventurous eater?! Scoff if you will, but then try this salad. Hearts of palm, house-marinated vegetables, chickpeas and olives and tomatoes; oh my. It is heaven in a very, very large bowl. Not to mention the warm, chewy, crusty, perfect sourdough bread served endlessly on the side, with whipped butter…Excuse me. I may need to go get a snack.

My grandparents branched out far more than I, ordering everything from short ribs to grilled cheese. I appreciated their sampling, of course, since it meant I got to taste extensively from the bistro’s excellent menu. The food was prepared in an open kitchen by young, attractive chefs who liked to glance my way as I grinned through their hearty meals. Before long, we had a regular waiter who knew us by name, and with whom my grandfather found a partner in friendly rambling.

As we ate, my grandmother would hold my hand and question the sanity of my far-too-busy schedule. My grandfather would dutifully remember the names of two to three friends to ask about, and I would share as many grandparent-appropriate details as I could. I looked forward to their tales from “the real world,” where work ended at 5 and social engagements featured cheese plates rather than Cheetos.

Over that large salad, in dim lighting and sipping an always-needed Diet Coke, I would feel the knots in my brain unwind and nutrition seep into my slightly neglected body. These dinners were heartwarming and soul-strengthening beyond their cost and deliciousness.

And at the end of another lovely meal, I would inevitably take home half my salad (I promise, it is huge) in a plastic container. This would be my late-night, or perhaps very early morning, connection to the world beyond exams and parties. If I couldn’t control what time my first class started, or whether my roommate had decided to host a gossip session ten feet from my head, at the very least I could satiate grumblings with a reminder of the food world I so missed. These treats were the bright spot in an otherwise nondescript freshman year of eating.

My grandparents will always insist I am doing them a favor by taking the time in my schedule for our dinners. Little do they know how much my stomach is truly indebted to their generosity.