Meet Watson, a most virtual chef

March 7, 2014 by
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Milk and Cookie Shots are not the only food items making a splash at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. IBM's Watson computer (perhaps best known for being the world's best Jeopardy player) demonstrated its culinary prowess at an event called "Cognitive Cooking." The idea behind this endeavor is to showcase what IBM calls Watson's "computational creativity." IBM engineers pondered… read more

Creating the next “it” food

March 6, 2014 by
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In 2013, the cronut hit the NYC food scene like the Beatles descending on the States in 1964. People waited in line for hours to sample this hybrid croissant/donut, the brainchild of Chef Dominique Ansel. The sensation even resulted in cronuts being scalped on Craigslist and, as one might expect, spawned a host of imitators. In this age of internet… read more

Featured Cookbooks & Recipes

March 6, 2014 by
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Today we're sharing our latest compilation of recipes and cookbooks we've featured on Facebook, Twitter, & Google+. Many of the recipes are samples from recently indexed cookbooks, so even if you don't have the book (yet!), they can give you an idea of what each one has to offer. It is our hope there will be a little bit of something here for everyone.… read more

Et tu, bratwurst?

March 5, 2014 by
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It seems that every other week a new report is published on what foods are good or bad for you. Often, these reports conflict with earlier research. First coffee is bad, then it is good, and so it goes with other products. It's enough to drive a food lover crazy. Now the culprits seem to be meat and cheese: a… read more

“Recipes and Stories”

March 4, 2014 by
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In early 2011, I was scratching my head trying to think of an appropriate subtitle for my book, A Spoonful of Promises.  I know! I thought.  I'll use "Stories and Recipes"!  That sounds like something I'd want to read.  I thought about the way my stories reminded me of the short piano pieces I'd grown up learning, and in a moment… read more

Pro Pho

March 4, 2014 by
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  Difficult for many people to pronounce--is it fuh? foe? (find the answer here), pho is a dish that defines a country. Even though Vietnamese cooking is varied and complex, pho is probably the food most familiar to foreigners. I fondly recall my first bowl of pho, slurped at a cozy neighborhood restaurant in Seattle. The aromatic broth combined with a dizzying… read more

Sizing up the situation

March 3, 2014 by
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 Over at Food52, award-winning cookbook author Alice Medrich is dishing out excellent advice on using a kitchen scale instead of measuring cups. Ms. Medrich points out the obvious advantages that weighing is faster, easier, and less messy than using measuring cups. It can turn a complicated cake recipe into a one-bowl affair. While using a scale returns the biggest benefits in… read more

When good wine goes bad

March 2, 2014 by
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Sometimes it's difficult to know if the wine you bought is really bad, or if it started out good but became flawed. This recently happened to me when I was celebrating with colleagues at an Italian restaurant. Because I mentioned that I was a fan of Italian reds, I was given the assignment of ordering the wine. I'm no oenophile,… read more

Scene stealers

March 1, 2014 by
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The Oscars are tomorrow, which provides the perfect opportunity to wax nostalgic about our favorite movie scenes involving food. Leite's Culinaria solicited readers to share their favorite or most memorable movie food scenes. Not surprisingly, movies like Babette's Feast, Julie and Julia, Big Night, Chocolat, and Eat Drink Man Woman were frequently mentioned. Even though these food movies are great,… read more

The core of the matter

February 28, 2014 by
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Ben & Jerry's new ice cream flavors created a lot of buzz this week. Ever wanted two ice cream flavors and a swirl in one convenient container? Well, your dreams have now become a reality with Ben & Jerry's Cores. While E! online claims that Ben and Jerry's has "changed the ice cream game forever," I'm not convinced this is… read more

Improve your cooking skills with EYB’s new feature

February 27, 2014 by
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We've created a new feature that gives you access to 594 (and counting!) online how-to demonstrations, including how to carve a duck, how to make homemade ricotta, how to make marshmallow fluff, and how to prepare and cook artichokes. Select tutorials from cookbooks are indexed as well.  And even better, 127 of the tutorials have  videos. To browse all of the how-to links, go… read more

Featured Cookbooks & Recipes

February 27, 2014 by
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Today we're sharing our latest compilation of recipes and cookbooks we've featured on Facebook, Twitter, & Google+. Many of the recipes are samples from recently indexed cookbooks, so even if you don't have the book (yet!), they can give you an idea of what each one has to offer. It is our hope there will be a little bit of something here for everyone.… read more

Me and my cookbooks

February 27, 2014 by
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At a time when conventional wisdom insists that no one is interested in cooking at home anymore, there is great joy in realizing that there are many others (EYB members) who enjoy the creativity and pleasure of sharing good food. So we wanted to celebrate our members by regularly publishing vignettes about members and their cookbooks. If you'd like to… read more

And the nominees are…

February 26, 2014 by
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It's the end of February, so it must be time for culinary award season to begin. We've already addressed Food52's The Piglet competition, which is in the quarterfinal round, the James Beard Foundation cookbook awards, which will be announced on March 18 (read about JBF restaurants and chef semifinalists), and the IACP nominees were also recently announced. Without further ado,… read more

Cookbook store profile: Featuring Cook the Books in Auckland

February 26, 2014 by
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Recently we began to offer an EYB feature highlighting independent cookbook stores. Now you can discover (or get reacquainted with) a store near your home - or plan a new target destination when you travel. And to make this as strong a feature as we can, we're asking our members to help us. We already know of many great stores,… read more

February 2014 Cookbook Roundup

February 25, 2014 by
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Every month Susie Chang reviews new cookbook releases and notes trends in the United States. And she may also occasionally throw in a review of a "not-quite cookbook."  And for our non-U.S. members, Jane and Fiona provide similar reviews for new U.K., Australia, and New Zealand releases. USA February's an interesting month in cookbook land.  It's kind of a grab… read more

Cookbook Giveaway: Down South: Bourbon, Pork, Gulf Shrimp & Second Helpings of Everything

February 25, 2014 by
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We're delighted to be able to offer three copies of New Orleans chef Donald Link's latest cookbook, Down South: Bourbon, Pork, Gulf Shrimp & Second Helpings of Everything. Chef Link, a James Beard Award winner, sat down with EYB to discuss his love of Southern food and share his memories of his grandfather's down-home cooking. From quintessential Southern classics like… read more

E-cookbooks: Love ’em or hate ’em?

February 25, 2014 by
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I hear that every year, more e-cookbooks are published and sold.  Yet few people I know seem to use them (even though everyone seems to use online recipes at some point or another). It occurred to me that maybe I just hadn't put the question to people directly. So, EYB members, how about you? Do you use e-cookbooks? I'm thinking… read more

New Orleans chef Donald Link shares his love of Southern cooking

February 25, 2014 by
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Chef Donald Link is a very busy man. Not only does he operate some of New Orleans' most highly-acclaimed restaurants (Herbsaint, Cochon, and Pêche Seafood Grill), the James Beard Award-winning chef is actively involved in the New Orleans community and has just completed his second cookbook. Chef Link graciously took time out of his hectic schedule to answer our questions… read more

Curds and whey

February 24, 2014 by
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It's a good thing I am not lactose intolerant, because I have been on a dairy kick recently. First it was cultured butter, and now it's homemade ricotta cheese. It amazes me that something this simple can produce such fantastic results. Two of my more recent cookbook purchases have been Home Cheese Making: Recipes for 75 Homemade Cheeses by Ricki… read more

The past is a foreign kitchen

February 23, 2014 by
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Recently The Australian held a contest to find the worst recipes. This search was inspired by food columnist John Lethlean after he discovered a recipe for lamb salad soufflé with lime jelly crystals and mayonnaise in the 1971 New Zealand Women's Weekly Cookbook. To make the soufflé, "First, you dissolve your jelly crystals, lime or lemon; then you stir in… read more

Every day is a celebration

February 22, 2014 by
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Today is National Margarita Day in the United States. This is, of course, not an official holiday, but a quick Google search turns up a plethora of similar food celebration days in the US and the UK. (My search for specific UK food holidays was hampered by the different use of the word holiday in these countries. I guess the… read more

Amber waves of techology

February 21, 2014 by
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Grains factor prominently in my diet, which can be explained in part by the fact that I come from a family of grain farmers. I have grain on the brain even more after listening to an NPR story on the latest farming technology. Agricultural giants Monsanto and John Deere are offering a service that lets these big companies collect data… read more

Featured Cookbooks & Recipes

February 20, 2014 by
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Today we're sharing our latest compilation of recipes and cookbooks we've featured on Facebook, Twitter, & Google+. Many of the recipes are samples from recently indexed cookbooks, so even if you don't have the book (yet!), they can give you an idea of what each one has to offer. There are also recipes from indexed magazines, blogs, and around the web, so it is… read more

Inconvenient truths

February 20, 2014 by
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Since I grew up in an agricultural area and spent a lot of time on my grandparent's farm, I was not surprised that a Huffington Post article on "disturbing" food facts noted that peanut butter may contain rodent hair. If you have ever seen field crops being harvested, you realize that many insects are extracted from the field along with… read more
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