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USA Today
a day ago
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Can this book teach your dog to talk? How to use the button method with your pup.
Christina Hunger spent the morning arguing with her dog. Stella isn't an ordinary pup. The Blue Heeler/Catahoula mix doesn't just whine and bark. She uses her words to communicate her frustration to Hunger, who told her it was time to come inside to start the work day. 'Play outside,' Stella 'said' by pushing a button on a mat programmed with various words. Hunger told Stella no. 'Play outside,' the dog repeated, then tried a different approach, offering 'bed outside.' 'Do bed outside later,' Hunger told her. Stella is among the first of the viral 'talking dogs' who have sparked curiosity and speculation across social media. In 2018, Hunger, a speech pathologist, wondered if the button mat, a form of assistive language technology, that she used working with nonverbal children could help her dog communicate too. A little over a year later, Stella had learned almost 30 words. Now, she's bringing a practical guide to pet owners through her book, 'Your Dog Can Talk' (out now from Ten Speed Press). A homegrown global phenomena: Meet Stella, the talking dog Teaching Stella to talk started as a passion project. Hunger applied the techniques she did with her patients by looking at the ways her dog was already communicating and pairing a word with it. Stella would paw at her water dish when it was empty. The next time she did it, Hunger paired it with a button that barked out the word 'water.' She started with basic needs, and when Stella knew over 10 words, she started combining them. Hunger included buttons with her and her husband's names and phrases like 'love you.' Eventually, she taught Stella to communicate emotions like 'mad' and 'happy.' 'Friends would come over and be spooked by what she was saying,' Hunger said. She knew it could be bigger than just Stella, so she started blogging about her experience in 2019. Six years later, she's part of a global movement and has inspired several studies. The largest one, an ongoing project out of the University of California San Diego, involves participants from 47 countries and aims to determine whether dogs are actually communicating or behaving only to secure treats. Many social media users are skeptical. But an initial study from UCSD showed that dogs can comprehend specific words and produce contextually relevant responses. 'The most interesting part has been seeing it take on a life of its own beyond me and Stella,' Hunger tells USA TODAY. 'It started as something so personal in our home, and now it's global.' Why you should teach your dog to talk Any dog can learn to talk, at any age, Hunger says. Your dogs already pick up on vocal and visual cues. With my dog, we have to spell out the word 'walk' and 'treat' when we speak so she doesn't get too excited. Expanding an animal's mode of communication 'opens up so many doors for understanding' to deepen the pet-owner relationship, Hunger says. 'The majority of dog owners have had that feeling of 'What are you thinking?' Or, they've seen their dog whining at them, they know they've been outside, they're fed, but what do they want? What are they trying to communicate to you?' Hunger says. 'First, it's just really reducing the communication breakdowns and any sort of frustration from your dog's end and your end.' Hunger's first book, 'How Stella Learned to Talk,' was closer to a memoir. With 'Your Dog Can Talk,' Hunger instead shares an interactive guidebook with step-by-step instructions and open space for pet parents to write notes. Hunger was inspired by baby books that track milestones like walking or talking. 'I kept hearing from pet parents and talking to pet parents who were trying this, and they just really needed more information and more prescriptive guidance,' Hunger says. 'I had so many more strategies to give, tips to give. … I really just wanted to create a very accessible resource that could be by someone's side the entire time that they're teaching.' How to teach your dog to talk Before you even start with buttons, Hunger recommends taking stock of your dog's communication patterns. 'Your Dog Can Talk' has accessible prompts for this so owners can narrate their dog's actions and intentions. This could be as simple as your dog standing by the back door when they want to go outside. After that, pick four to six basic words to represent these activities. Hunger recommends words like 'outside,' 'eat,' 'walk,' 'love you,' 'water' and 'play.' If you see your dog standing by the door, ask 'Do you want to go outside?' and press the button at the same time you say the word 'outside.' Repeat this a few times, then pause and give your dog time to process. Hunger says pausing is 'the most underrated' tool in teaching your dog to talk. 'Dogs process words a bit slower than humans, and actually communicate at a rate a bit slower than humans, even through their natural vocalizations and barks,' Hunger says. 'So really slow it down. Give them some quiet time to think about what's happening and then go ahead and execute. It just helps actually give them a chance to catch up to speed and decide what they want to say.' Words like 'outside' are just the beginning. In her book, Hunger includes practical tips for getting over learning hurdles and ensuring your dog is communicating, not just repeating words to get a desired action, like a treat. Stella doesn't just use the buttons to communicate her needs, she observes the world around her. When her husband leaves, she asks Hunger where he went. In one recent video, Stella sniffs Mia's infant daughter and then presses the button for her name. Not every dog will learn the same, so it's important pet parents don't get discouraged, Hunger says. 'Figuring out your dog's learning style is key,' she says. Having worked with other button-training dogs, Hunger can break it down to two categories. 'Explorers' have an immediate curiosity and want to play with the buttons. 'Observer' dogs take a bit more time to watch how you use them before they start experimenting on their own. But if your dog is having a hard time catching on, Hunger's 'Your Dog Can Talk' has tips, including increasing pause time, adjusting vocabulary, changing the physical location of buttons, adjusting verbal and visual cues and modeling words in new contexts. Button training isn't one-size-fits-all, but every dog can learn it, Hunger says, and every pet parent can become a "great teacher.' 'I've been blown away seeing how many times Stella has just talked about exactly what we're doing or what's going to happen next that she's already anticipating,' Hunger says. 'It's just really cool to see all the different things that are going through your dog's mind.' Books to make you smarter: Niche nonfiction to read next Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@
Hindustan Times
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
2025 James Beard Media Awards: Full list of winners revealed
The 35th outing for the James Beard Media Awards took place in Chicago on Saturday (June 14). The annual celebration is meant to honor 'excellence in books, broadcast media, and journalism covering food or drink-related content', according to the official website. The event was hosted by the Illinois Restaurant Association and Choose Chicago. Sift: The Elements of Great Baking Nicola Lamb (Clarkson Potter) The Bartender's Pantry: A Beverage Handbook for the Universal Bar Emma Janzen, Jim Meehan, and Bart Sasso (Ten Speed Press) Sake: The Art and Craft of Japan's National Drink Yoshiko Ueno-Müller (Prestel) Richard Hart Bread: Intuitive Sourdough Baking Richard Hart, Henrietta Lovell, and Laurie Woolever (Clarkson Potter) Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch Andrea Freeman (Metropolitan Books) Pass the Plate: 100 Delicious, Highly Shareable, Everyday Recipes: A Cookbook Carolina Gelen (Clarkson Potter) The Balkan Kitchen: Recipes and Stories from the Heart of the Balkans Irina Janakievska (Quadrille) Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves Nicola Twilley (Penguin Press) Convivir: Modern Mexican Cuisine in California's Wine Country Rogelio Garcia and Andréa Lawson Gray (Abrams) McAtlas: A Global Guide to the Golden Arches Gary He (Self-published) Jang: The Soul of Korean Cooking (More than 60 Recipes Featuring Gochujang, Doenjang, and Ganjang) Nadia Cho, Mingoo Kang, and Joshua David Stein (Artisan) Our South: Black Food Through My Lens Ashleigh Shanti (Union Square & Co.) Mastering the Art of Plant-Based Cooking: Vegan Recipes, Tips, and Techniques Joe Yonan (Ten Speed Press) McAtlas: A Global Guide to the Golden Arches Gary He (Self-published) Paola Velez Bodega Bakes: Recipes for Sweets and Treats Inspired by My Corner Store (Union Square & Co.) Rose Levy Beranbaum Audio Programming Loading Dock Talks with Chef Preeti Mistry 'Cream Pie with Telly Justice' Airs on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcast platforms Post Reports 'Bacon: The Best-Kept Secret in Washington' Airs on: Post Reports La Mera Mera Tamalera Airs on: YouTube MARCELLA Airs on: PBS American Masters World Eats Bread Airs on: National Geographic Channel G.O.A.T. Airs on: MasterClass Relish Airs on: PBS, Passport, TPT, TPT-2 and YouTube Little Fat Boy Airs on: Instagram, TikTok, Substack and YouTube Drink: A Look Inside the Glass Airs on: Apple TV, Prime Video, Tubi, and Roku Mohammed Shaqura Hamada Shoo Airs on: Instagram and TikTok Martha Stewart Beverage 'Want to Make Spirits in Thailand? Good Luck.' Craig Sauers Punch 'The farm bill hall of shame'; 'The essential workers missing from the farm bill'; 'Tribal nations want more control over their food supply' Teresa Cotsirilos, Bridget Huber, and Claire Kelloway Food & Environment Reporting Network and Mother Jones 'New tasting menu dinners at Honeysuckle Provisions are provocative and delicious'; 'The enduring, confusing, and always delicious Octopus Cart is still puffing along after 34 years'; 'Loch Bar, a new high-end seafood spot on Broad, swings big and misses' Craig LaBan Philadelphia Inquirer 'Gastro Obscura's Feast' Anne Ewbank, Diana Hubbell, and Sam O'Brien Gastro Obscura 'We Need to Talk About Trader Joe's' Adam Reiner TASTE The Bitter Southerner 'As Detroit sees a future in urban agriculture, some pushback harkens to a dark past' Lyndsay C. Green Detroit Free Press 'Florida Banned Farmworker Heat Protections. A Groundbreaking Partnership Offers a Solution.' Grey Moran Civil Eats 'The Art and Science of Kimchi' Andrea Geary Cook's Illustrated 'The North Koreans behind global seafood'; 'The Whistleblower' Ian Urbina and the Staff of The Outlaw Ocean Project The Outlaw Ocean Project and The New Yorker 'Etta's Five Bankruptcies Have Left a Collective Mess'; 'White Sox Fans Came for the Losses, Stayed for the Milkshakes'; 'Namasteak, USA' Ashok Selvam Eater Chicago 'The City that Rice Built' Jeff Gordinier and George McCalman Food & Wine 'The Only Constant is Chuck's' Rory Doyle Self-published "My Family's Daily Struggle to Find Food in Gaza' Mosab Abu Toha The New Yorker 'A Cuisine Under Siege' Laila El-Haddad SAVEUR 'Padma Lakshmi Walks Into a Bar' Helen Rosner The New Yorker MacKenzie Chung Fegan San Francisco Chronicle
Los Angeles Times
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Salvadoran cookbook makes history with Beard nomination
'The SalviSoul Cookbook' by L.A. author Karla Tatiana Vasquez on Wednesday became the first entry by a Salvadoran chef or author to be nominated for a James Beard Foundation Book Award. The significance is not lost on Vasquez, a fiercely devoted Angeleno who like many others came to the United States from El Salvador as an infant with her family fleeing the Salvadoran civil war. In 2024, after years of research and rejections, she published 'The SalviSoul Cookbook' with Ten Speed Press. It is a detailed and lovingly rendered compendium of recipes for classic and regional Salvadoran dishes, a hardcover that feels sprinkled with a touch of L.A. finesse and sensitivity. The book is anchored by richly reported profiles of the women whose recipes have inspired Vasquez's cooking, and taken together, offer a testament to the resilience and poetry of the Salvadoran diaspora, one that is integral to L.A.'s modern identity. Vasquez, a contributor to The Times, is vocal in her commitment to place Salvadoran American culture and cuisine in the pantheon of U.S. cooking. She received the Beard news with a barrage of ecstatic early-morning messages from her agent and editor when the 2025 nominees were announced. 'These are spaces we're not normally in, and it just feels exciting to think about what this can mean for more Central American stories, certainly Salvadoran stories ... [on] such a huge gap on the cookbook shelf,' Vasquez said a day later. 'This is just another brick we are putting to build that world.' The moment I heard the news, I immediately thought of Vasquez's salpicón de res. Technically a salad, similar to a larb, Salvadoran salpicón could go head-to-head with any plate in Latin America for perfecting the balance between coolness and intensity of flavor, especially so with Vasquez's approach. It was one of the dishes she made at The Times' Test Kitchen a year ago. After that shoot, I took a large portion home as leftovers and had it for dinner and then lunch the next day, with a fresh bolillo — confirmation of my instinct that Salvadoran salpicón de res is one of those dishes that tastes better and even cooler a day or more later with a fresh splash of lime. The salpicón is defined by the strength of mint and lime with the minced meat and minced radish. Vasquez says in the book that she identifies the dish with a satisfying Saturday morning: 'It marked the pinnacle of rest.' Salvadoran rice and beans are essential for a full plate of salpicón, but if you're in a rush, you could just as well eat it plain with crumbled tostadas to scoop up bites, or with tears of fresh bolillo from any mercado or panadería in your part of L.A. I know I did. Get the recipe. Cook time: About 1 hour. Serves 4 to 6. There's been an upward sprouting of 'Salvi' identity and energy lately in California. In food, new generations are taking Salvadoran cuisine to other planes as seen in restaurants like lauded new Popoca in Oakland or La Pupusa Urban Eatery in L.A., which joined the 101 Best Restaurants of Los Angeles list by Times critic Bill Addison in 2023. It got me thinking about the abundance of Salvadoran and Central American family restaurants we have. And what I like eating when I visit one. It's not pupusas, though pupusas are always nice. It's Salvadoran breakfast and comfort foods. When learning to cook Salvadoran food, Vasquez also argues: Skip the pupusas. Point taken — have you ever watched one being made? 'I get this question a lot: What's a good dish to start? All they know is pupusas. And I always tell folks, 'Do not start with pupusas.' First of all, it is hard. A lot of these pupuseras are athletes, masters,' Vasquez said. 'Get some basic skills under your belt. Learn how to make an olla de frijoles. Learn the life of an olla de frijoles. … Start with desayuno.' 'The SalviSoul Cookbook' contains a recipe for Platanos Fritos con Frijoles Licuados, but in most places, this dish is casually called breakfast. It is fried plantains, smoothened beans, a hunch of queso fresco, crema and slices of avocado. Versions of this meal also constitute desayuno from Guatemala to Colombia. I love the simple array of distinct, core flavors, and combining them in varying amounts on each forkful. Once or twice, I've made an improvised version of this meal at home. If I'm craving a Salvadoran lunch, I always go for a pan con pollo (or con pavo). This is the iconic Salvadoran sandwich, similar to Vietnam's bahn mi, or like a good Italian sub — the sort of sandwich that feels like it's telling you something about a people. The marinated turkey or chicken is stuffed into a French roll intended to soak up the recipe's recaudo or marinade, along with slices of tomato, cucumber, radishes and sprigs of watercress. As Vasquez describes in her book, a pan Salvadoreño is a marriage of textures that brings joy in each bite. Get the recipe. Cook time: 2 hours. Makes 6 sandwiches. The women who are featured in her book, she said, offered her an education that she could not have gotten at any university or institution. Upon hearing of the book's reception and mounting recognitions, Vasquez said her subjects sometimes politely congratulate her, but easily shrug off the topic. Mainstream stardom is not their concern. 'The lucha that they go through is kind of the language that they speak,' the author said. 'It's good, because these accolades can really blind you sometimes. … They would say, like, 'But did you learn what we told you? In listening to my memories, did you learn how to live when this part of life gets hard?' 'That's the part that tells me that we're made of something that teaches me about living,' Vasquez said. The connectivity to the history, the culture, as well as the collective traumas of the Salvadoran diaspora pulses throughout the cookbook. The mainstays of Salvi cooking feel reenergized here, even a dish as homey and familiar as sopa de res. When Vasquez's mother 'randomly' gets the urge to make sopa de res, she writes, the extended family somehow hears the rumor, and quickly gathers for 'the warmth, laughs, and arguments.' 'Sopa de res isn't just a meal,' Vasquez says in her book. 'It's an event you don't want to miss.' Get the recipe. Cook time: 1 hour, 45 minutes. Serves 4 to 6.
