New Year’s food resolutions

As we look forward to 2020 vision (I had to make that joke sometime!), many of us are taking stock in the year that has passed and resolving to make a change in one or more areas of our lives. For food and cookbook lovers, this change often revolves around cooking and eating. I looked at my resolutions for 2018… read more

Casa Cacao – Cookbook Giveaway

Enter our giveaway to win a copy of Casa Cacao: The Return Trip to the Origin of Chocolate by Jordi Roca and Ignacio Medina open to members in US/CA/UK/AU/NZ. Jordi Roca is one of the world’s most advanced chocolatiers and was proclaimed the best pastry chef in the world in the 2014, 50 Best Awards. Casa Cacao covers Jordi’s search for… read more

Favorite holiday food memories

In this season of celebrations, parties, and massive amounts of food, memories are made. The best ones are fixed when you are a child - when the heaping platters and bowls seem gigantic, you are surrounded by family and friends, and no one admonishses you for eating two desserts. One of my favorite food memories centers around the container of… read more

Food news antipasto

2019 is almost through, and it was an interesting year in food. What will 2020 bring? Eater pored over the predictions from a number of sources, and came up with the ultimate list of upcoming and declining food trends. Alternative meats continue their ascendancy while Southern cooking is trending downward. Vegetables of all kinds are predicted to be big in… read more

2019’s food trends that chefs hope will go away

As the year draws to a close, it's natural to take stock of what went right in 2019 and also to note which things we would do well not to carry over into 2020. To that end, Bloomberg asked a handful of US chefs and bartenders what trends from this year that they do not want to see in the… read more

Frittering the hours away

Maybe it was all those images of latkes that floated through my social media feeds or perhaps it was the falafel I ate for lunch a few days ago, but whatever the reason, I have recently been dreaming of fritters. Fritters are fabulous because they are fried, of course, but you can also feel less guilty because many fritter recipes… read more

The last two weeks at EYB

It has been two weeks since our last roundup as we were super busy with the month-end new cookbook review and EYB cookbook club summaries along with the best of the best cookbooks 2019 and best cookbooks of 2019 by the experts. Our monthly newsletter went out on Monday of this week be sure to check your inbox if you… read more

EYB included in the ‘Best Bites of 2019’

Kathy Gunst is the writer of a small library of cookbooks, including six collaborations with the founders of the specialty food line Stonewall Kitchen. She has received numerous nominations for International Association of Culinary Professionals Cookbook Awards and has received a James Beard Award. Her most recent work, which will be released in February, is Rage Baking: The Transformative Power… read more

The seven stages of Christmas leftovers

Over the Christmas holiday, you don’t need a calendar (or even a clock) to know what time it is. You can tell the time by the leftovers you are eating, and you can use The Guardian’s reference for the seven stages of holiday leftovers as a gauge. The guide starts off with Christmas Day, after the main meal: “Despite the fact that you… read more

The fascinating history of eggnog

Eggnog is one of those love it or hate it drinks: either you are clamoring over the pitcher at a party or you take a wide berth around it. The rich, thick, and sometimes boozy holiday beverage has a long and interesting history - one that includes a role in a riot at the US military academy West Point. While… read more

Best of the best cookbooks 2019

Whew, that was a marathon! More than 300 best cookbooks lists from around the world have been collected and amalgamated by myself and EYB staff to create the definitive guide to the top rated food and drink books of 2019. With no new books from huge names with international appeal (Ottolenghi, Nigella, Barefoot Contessa, etc) there was a chance for… read more

Food news antipasto

Award-winning chef Daniel Humm didn't skip a beat after his split from partner Will Guidara. The former Eleven Madison Park chef has opened a new eatery in London. Recently Food and Wine interviewed Humm about his new restaurant called Davies and Brook, which opened December 9 at Claridge’s, the iconic London hotel. Forget trying to list the best food shows of… read more

Put a little punch in your holidays

I used to host a solstice party every year, one in which I would spend hours on various appetizers and desserts, carefully select a range of wines, and plan an elaborate cocktail menu. After trying to mix cocktails to order for a couple of these parties, I decided that the party would flow better (and I could mingle more) if… read more

The best cookbooks of 2019 by the experts

Who knows cookbooks better than the owners of specialist cookbook stores? They stock and sell thousands of cookbooks and because their stores are focused on food and drink books, they are true experts. They read the books, cook from them and then share their knowledge with their customers. When shopping for cookbook gifts this holiday season, please think about supporting… read more

Pick the right cocoa powder for the job

Dutch-process, high-fat, black, natural: which type of cocoa powder should you use for hot chocolate, brownies, cakes, and other recipes? Most of the time a recipe will merely ask for cocoa powder without specifying a type. It can be rather confusing, but Epicurious is here for us. They have assembled a succinct primer on how to pick the right cocoa… read more

December 2019 EYB Cookbook Club Summary

We have a helpful community here at Eat Your Books that has flowed into our Eat Your Books Cookbook Club and Sweet Eat Your Books Cookbook Club, places where we share our successes and fails in cooking and baking from specific cookbook titles. This month we’ve been cooking from the following titles: Main Selection: Milk Street – The New Rules or The Way to Cook by Julia… read more

December 2019 New Cookbook Review

How did we reach the end of 2019, and the decade, so quickly? It seems that Eat Your Books has been covering and indexing cookbooks for our members for ten years in just a blink of an eye. Every year cookbooks get better and better and this year was no exception. My best cookbook lists - Part I and Part… read more

New food words added to the dictionary

The English language is always evolving, with new words continually entering the lexicon. Sometimes the new words describe new technologies, other times it is a word from another language that is adopted wholesale into English. Definitions get expanded as well, when a word is used in a new manner often enough. This year, Merriam-Webster added 640 new words, and many… read more

Christmas cooking tips and recipes from chefs

Planning a big holiday meal can involve a fair amount of stress. Keeping track of the timing of dishes can be tricky and doing the prep work is important. Who better than a professional chef to understand these pressures and be able to offer advice? Australian Gourmet Traveller asked several chefs to provide their best tips and tricks for cooking… read more

Anatolia – Cookbook Giveaway

Enter our giveaway below to win a copy of Anatolia: Adventures in Turkish Eating by Somer Sivrioglu and David Dale. Anatolia is a cookbook that explodes with the vibrancy of the people, food, and landscape of Turkey. Far more than a cookbook, this beautifully photographed book is a travel guide taking us on a journey to explore the 4,000-year-old cooking… read more

How the food writing landscape is changing

When Ruth Reichl was a restaurant critic back for The New York Times in the 1990s, she shook up the staid profession by visiting restaurants in disguise and offering rave reviews for eateries that fell outside the traditional upscale French places that were the norm. Soleil Ho, restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, is also making her mark known.… read more

The Taste of Belgium – Cookbook Giveaway

Enter to win a copy of The Taste of Belgium by Ruth Van Waerebeek in our giveaway below open to US/CA/UK/AU/NZ. Belgium is a country that boasts many Michelin-starred restaurants and it is sometimes said that Belgian food is served in the quantity of German cuisine but with the quality of French cuisine. It's a country where home cooks –… read more

Food news antipasto

We're going to start off this week's food news recap by tooting our own horn. We have recently surpassed over 9,000 indexed books here at Eat Your Books. None of this would be possible without our indexers - both professionals and members - so hats off to the people who have indexed the over 1.5 million recipes contained within those… read more

The rise of Nordic baking

In the past decade, Nordic baking - that is, baking in the traditional styles of the Scandinavian countries plus Finland, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands - has been on an ascendant arc. Why has it reached a much wider audience in recent years than it ever has before? Some of it has to do with superstar authors like Trine… read more

How many licks does it take?

If you are over a certain age in the US, you probably remember the commercial for Tootsie Pops where a cartoon kid asks a wise owl how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of the sucker. I was reminded of this commercial the other day when I made the Soft gingerbread tiles with rum butter… read more
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