Busting common food myths

March 30, 2013 by
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Angela Keller, writing for the Daily Meal, took on some common food myths and busted them all. Here's a short list of the kitchen myths she refuted - you can check out all the myths and the full details in Busting the Most Common Kitchen Myths: Salting water makes water boil faster Never rinse your mushrooms Store coffee in the… read more

Thomas Keller loves Peeps!

March 29, 2013 by
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Thomas Keller is certainly one of the top 5 most respected chefs in the world, so it wasn't surprising that NPR visited him to talk about his favorite Easter recipes, as reported in Homemade Peeps, And More Easter Treats, A La Thomas Keller. Keller's  new book, Bouchon Bakery,  is up for numerous awards, so a lot of the conversation had to do… read more

March 2013 cookbook roundup

March 27, 2013 by
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Every month Susie Chang reviews new cookbook releases and notes trends. And she may also occasionally throw in a review of a "not-quite cookbook." We're arranging for similar roundups like Susie's for books published in the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand, but until we formally launch those, we'll still be noting new arrivals and providing brief descriptions. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- March is a… read more

Interview with Deborah Madison

March 27, 2013 by
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We recently sat down with Deborah Madison, winner of too many IACP, Julia Child, and James Beard awards for her vegetarian cookbooks to list. She has just added a new one: Vegetable Literacy. This book uses a unique approach, which she describes on her website: "Families are about similarities and relationships, and it's as true with plants as it is… read more

Teeny-weeny tiny print!

March 26, 2013 by
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As I might have mentioned a while back, I'm in the middle of developing this cookbook-rating app, which means that I've been going through the backlist and re-examining cookbooks from about the last 12 years (as well as some up-to-the-minute ones). One of the many criteria I tabulate is the size of the print, because although - as we all… read more

Do TV chefs have to be sexy to succeed?

March 26, 2013 by
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Both the Guardian in the U.K. and the Braiser in the U.S. have recently weighed in on the question: Do TV chefs have to be sex symbols to be successful? It's a good question - and may explain why the most talented chefs are disappearing from TV while the more photogenic ones hang on (when was the last time you… read more

Weird British foods we must try

March 25, 2013 by
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How could we resist an article called "18 Weird and Wonderful British Foods You Need to Try"? Given our global membership we're all for creating a community of food, so pointing out this article provides a public service.  According to BuzzFeed UK here are some of the dishes our UK brethren are keeping to themselves, but shouldn't: Bedfordshire Clanger Cranachan… read more

Dipping cookies makes them taste better

March 24, 2013 by
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NPR at The Salt recently asked one of the food world's most crucial question: Do Cookies Really Taste Better Dipped in Tea? This is the quandary no less an expert than Heston Blumenthal "recently set out to discover on his TV show, Heston's Fantastical Food. With the help of a high-tech gadget inserted up the nose, he found that a chocolate-covered… read more

Which food words make you laugh?

March 22, 2013 by
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Kerry Acker at Epicurious wrote a column yesterday - Food Words are Funny! which certainly sent us into the weekend with a smile:  "I woke up this morning and laughed out loud. Why? Because, for some inexplicable reason, the first thing I thought about as I crawled out of bed was the word pumpernickel. Seriously, is there a funnier word out… read more

Do you really need Kosher salt?

March 21, 2013 by
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Kenji Alt over at The Food Lab (nominated as a James Beard finalist - congrats!) recently addressed the question: Do I Need to Use Kosher Salt? After acknowledging that there is no difference chemically among table, Kosher, and fine sea salts, he goes on to compare the three for texture and flavor, ultimately explaining why he keeps Kosher salt for cooking and fine sea… read more

Two tirades against food television

March 20, 2013 by
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Every time that the Food Channel eliminates cooking shows in favor of a contest or non-cooking related channel, there are rumbles from the media. But two recent rants caught our attention as particularly well-written, including both insightfulness and thoroughness. Both are well worth the time to read; here are just a few of the highlights. Andy Greenwald in Grantland titles… read more

Are you a supertaster?

March 19, 2013 by
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The Wall Street Journal has an interesting video that discusses the challenges facing  "supertasters."  A supertaster not only tastes things more intensely, they have stronger feelings about what foods they like and they don't like. And there are good reasons to determine if you are one - in fact, many supertasters may be at risk for certain illnesses like colon… read more

“Table” vs. “Kitchen”

March 18, 2013 by
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A funny thing is going on at Marketing Department, c/o Cookbook Publisher, Industry St., Anytown USA.  I was just perusing the titles of cookbooks published in the last 30 days, and it seemed to me (I stress the unscientific nature of this impression) that practically half the titles contained either the word "kitchen" or the word "table".  Here are a few… read more

James Beard Finalists Announced

March 18, 2013 by
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The James Beard Foundation just announced its cookbook finalists for 2013. (For other awards, see our blog Cookbook award season is here!.) So who made the list? You can view the entire list here, but here are some of the more popular categories. First, however, are the two who won the most prestigious achievement awards: Humanitarian: Emeril Lagasse Lifetime Achievement:… read more

Refrigerating regular or sweet potatoes – yes or no?

March 17, 2013 by
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Potatoes are an appropriate topic for St. Patrick's Day, so we thought we'd highlight a simple question that Food Republic recently asked: Do you need to refrigerate potatoes? And here's the simple answer: No. Potatoes don't spoil, and, in fact, if put into a refrigerator they will develop a bitter taste. The best way to store potatoes is also simple, "Potatoes should… read more

The Bloomberg – the “sugariest drink in the world”

March 15, 2013 by
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Since Friday is a good day to clean up loose ends, we thought we'd finally note the death - or at least the coma - of Mayor Bloomberg's attempts to ban the sale of mega-sodas in New York City. And the most creative coda to this story  has come from a surprising source, NPR, which invented The Bloomberg - the… read more

How colors affect taste

March 14, 2013 by
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Two recent articles struck us as working together in a somewhat ironic fashion. FoodBuzz has 24 Foods That Shouldn't Celebrate St. Patrick's Day while The Guardian reports on How we taste different colours. The former is a compilation of foods that have been dyed green - and definitely never should have been.  Their photos of bacon, steak, eggs, grilled cheese, mashed potatoes,… read more

Tea services – traditional vs. modern vs. basic

March 12, 2013 by
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In the U.S., the final show of Downton Abbey was shown a few weeks ago. And it seems that an entire continent is going through withdrawal (we know those of you in Great Britain experienced this a few months ago). So just in time to provide an emergency proper English fix,  Serious Eats has published, "A Short Introduction to Afternoon… read more

Let your canned goods get old – and better

March 12, 2013 by
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A few months ago, we wrote a blog on how long food can last. In Don't throw out that food  we noted that expiry dates don't need to be religiously followed - rather it's your nose that should be. Now one of the best known food scientists, Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking,  has weighed in on the… read more

Database cookbooks

March 12, 2013 by
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Correction: Since this post was published, ATK has contacted me to clarify that some cookbooks (like Slow Cooker Revolution) consist of brand-new content, and others (like Cooking for Two) use database recipes as only a starting point.  So the answer is perhaps not as simple as I thought!  My point, however, stands: a database remains a critical element in a publishing… read more

The ten best TV food shows

March 11, 2013 by
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Just because we like to stir up a bit of controversy every now and then, we wanted to note this article by The Guardian, "The ten best TV food shows." Some of the names may not be familiar in the U.S., but some will be, and this list could help our U.S. viewers keep a look out for some new… read more

New look for Eat Your Books

March 10, 2013 by
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    We have a site redesign released today. We have dropped the left navigation - all links are now from the tabs across the top.  This has allowed us to increase the size of the images of book covers and recipes.  There is now also a images view for books and recipes - read more in our Help topic. You… read more

The fate of the family dinner

March 10, 2013 by
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The demise of the family dinner has been forecast since at least the 1950's, when TV dinners and tables became popular. So we were a little surprised that NPR brought the subject up again in "Family Dinner: Treasured Tradition or Bygone Ideal." But we wanted to hear if they said anything new. Well, kind of. As a result of a… read more

Can you eat bread that’s five-months old?

March 8, 2013 by
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In elementary school science classes, a favorite experiment was to grow mold on bread and then study the mold under a microcope. But it appears that modern-day science has put a damper on this experiment, at least for store-bought bread. In this article from Epicurious, "How Fresh is Five-Month-Old Bread?" the author recounts how a loaf of bread became lost… read more

An homage to the artichoke

March 7, 2013 by
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Artichokes are among our favorite vegetables - on our first visit to Italy, it was so exciting to discover they actually put them on pizza! But given artichokes' regionality and the challenge of eating them, many people avoid getting acquainted. So we wanted to give a shout out to this article from the L.A. Times: Let artichoke possibilities flower. You… read more
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