Mardi Gras returns to New Orleans

Tomorrow is Fat Tuesday (aka Mardi Gras) and festivities are in full force in New Orleans after a pause in 2021 due to Covid. Celebrated as the last extravagance before the austere days of Lent, Mardi Gras features indulgent food and drink. Even if you don’t celebrate the religious holiday, the festival is a good excuse to eat classic New… read more

Food news antipasto

Let's start off this week with a timeline cleanse. This one comes to us from Taste of Home, which recently assembled a pairing of classic American desserts with zodiac signs. As a Boston cream pie-loving Aquarius, I concur with the match for my sign (but really, I would have been okay with most of them). Ukranian stuffed cabbage (Golubtsi) from… read more

Cooking shows you should know about: The Julia Child Challenge; Top Chef returns and more

On March 14th, Food Network will air a new competition show entitled The Julia Child Challenge. Photo credit: Melissa Libertelli - Food Network In this new series, eight home cooks compete in culinary challenges to find out who has the fire, skill and passion to win the first-ever primetime competition series dedicated to all things Julia. "The competitors, all Julia… read more

The internet is adoring this restaurant review

Restaurant critics like Ruth Reichl, Jay Rayner, Pete Wells, and the late Jonathan Gold are known for crafting eloquent and thoughtful reviews of the world's top restaurants. But what happens when an everyday person decides to eat at a Michelin-starred restaurant and writes about the experience? Something magical, at least in the case of Kirsty Bosley, who wrote about her… read more

RUSA publishes a list of essential cookbooks for 2022

The Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) is a division of the American Library Association. RUSA serves all types of libraries in reference, user services, adult readers advisory and collection development The organization publishes an annual list of what it deems as "essential cookbooks," and while it skipped 2021 due to Covid, it has announced its list for 2022. Called… read more

EatingWell Magazine to end print publication

Another longstanding culinary magazine is moving to digital-only. Dotdash Meredith, which publishes EatingWell, announced that effective immediately, that magazine along with Entertainment Weekly, InStyle, Health, Parents and People en Español, would cease print publications. The April issues will be the last print magazines to hit newsstands. According to Dotdash Meredith CEO Neil Vogel, this announcement should not come as a shock.… read more

Food IQ: Cookbook Giveaway

Enter our US giveaway to win one of three copies of Food IQ: 100 Questions, Answers, and Recipes to Raise Your Cooking Smarts by Daniel Holzman and Matt Rodbard. Food IQ: 100 Questions, Answers, and Recipes to Raise Your Cooking Smarts by Daniel Holzman and Matt Rodbard features 100 essential cooking questions and answers; 113 recipes and instructions for a variety of… read more

February 2022 New Cookbook Review

Typically, February is much larger in terms of the number of cookbook releases but (again!) publication dates "they are a'changing". I think I feel a song brewing - perhaps a country song where cookbooks end up at the bottom of the ocean and the ever-moving publication schedule. The 2022 preview post is being updated weekly – new additions and revised release dates… read more

February 2022 EYB Cookbook Club Summary

Each month we offer at least four cooking options in our Eat Your Books Cookbook Club. This month we have been cooking from: Cookbook: Together: Memorable Meals, Made Easy by Jamie OliverClassic Title: Jamie's 30 Minute Meals: A Revolutionary Approach to Cooking Good Food Fast by Jamie OliverBaking: The Best of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: Favorite Recipes from… read more

Inside the Ebony test kitchen

For those interested in culinary history, a new exhibition in New York City's Harlem neighborhood needs to be on your visiting list. African/American: Making the Nation’s Table, opens on February 23 at the Africa Center at Aliko Dangote Hall in Harlem. The exhibition focuses on the African American food experience. One highlight of the exhibition is the Ebony test kitchen. First installed… read more

The Steger Homestead Kitchen – Cookbook Giveaway and Quick Bites

Enter our worldwide giveaway to win one of two copies of The Steger Homestead Kitchen: Simple Recipes for an Abundant Life by Will and Rita Mae Steger with Beth Dooley. The Steger Homestead Kitchen: Simple Recipes for an Abundant Life by Will and Rita Mae Steger with Beth Dooley is a collection of meals and memories gathered at the Homestead, the home of… read more

Food news antipasto

After two years of shuttered events, people are beginning to come together for festivals of all types. One Australian event that is coming up in a couple of months is Tasting Australia, presented by RAA Travel, a showcase of South Australian produce and culture. Held each autumn since 1997, it blossomed into an epicurean destination. Head over to the Tasting… read more

Tips for baking with chocolate

I will never forget the first time I had chocolate seize - a couple of errant drops of water on a silicone spatula was all it took to turn a creamy, smooth bowl of dark chocolate into a lumpy, grainy, blotchy mess. It took a lot of effort to correct that situation, and I learned my lesson. Baking with chocolate… read more

This week: Mochi donuts, recipe comments, 2022 cookbook news, previews, giveaways and more

In my social media feed this week, I came across this satire post poking fun at the sometimes funny, often annoying comments that are written on recipe content. In particular, the author created a treasure trove of comments that mimic similar comments left on New York Times recipes for Homestyle Spaghetti Carbonara. Note: there are several recipes for carbonara on… read more

HBO series about Julia Child sets premiere date

It has been nearly two years since we first announced that HBO was producing a series based on the life of Julia Child. After this lengthy wait, we finally have a premiere date and photo stills from the show. People Magazine published several exclusive photos from the eight-episode program and provided additional details. HBO Max's new series, Julia | CREDIT:… read more

In praise of the microwave

Avid home cooks eagerly embrace the latest technology: think sous vide, air fryers, and Instant Pots. You can't swing a stick on Facebook without running into a group posting recipes for one of those popular appliances. What you don't see, however, are groups singing the praises of the humble microwave, which is often dismissed by serious cooks. That's too bad,… read more

The Fresh Eggs Daily Cookbook & Product Giveaway

Enter our US giveaway to win a prize package consisting of a signed copy of The Fresh Eggs Daily Cookbook: Over 100 Fabulous Recipes to Use Eggs in Unexpected Ways by Lisa Steele as well as a selection of products and ingredients as set forth below. Lisa Steele, fifth-generation chicken keeper and founder of the popular blog Fresh Eggs Daily, knows… read more

Red velvet: is it time to move on?

With its vivid coloring, red velvet cake is often the top choice for a Valentine's Day dessert. The cake - once a relatively obscure Southern specialty - rose to prominence in the late 90s and soon 'red velvet' found its way into a host of other foods from bagels to cinnamon rolls. The phrase become "secondhand for luxury, decadence, and… read more

March 2022 Great Big Cookbook Club Summary

As our members know, each month we offer several cooking options in our Eat Your Books Cookbook Club. There are other fun cookbook clubs around the interwebs and we’d like to highlight those for those members who might want to cook or bake something other than our choices.  We want to get this information out to you so you can prepare… read more

Food news antipasto

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. If you are not the type to plan ahead, don't worry, we have your back. Good Food (Aus) has 22 last-minute Valentine's recipes that are simple yet impressive. Likewise, The Guardian features a bevy of recipes that are sure to impress. One of my favorite food shows of the late 90s/early 00s was Two Fat Ladies.… read more

André Simon Food and Drink Book Awards 2021 Shortlist

And just like that, it's cookbook award season, with the announcement of the shortlist of the André Simon Food and Drink Book Awards 2021. Simon was the charismatic leader of the English wine trade for almost all of the first half of the 20th century, and the grand old man of literate connoisseurship for a further 20 years. In 66 years… read more

This week: Club Masala and Diaspora Co. discount code, EYB features, cookbook previews and more

A member recently asked if there was a way to determine the percentage of recipes she had cooked from a book. While the member will have to do the actual math, there is a way to tabulate this information: utilizing your Bookmark functions, "I've cooked this" and a few easy steps. (Darcie briefly covered this feature and others in this… read more

On saving a restaurant

Over the past two years we have written many stories that involved the pandemic: the Dalgona coffee craze, the spike in sourdough baking, the effects of lockdown cooking fatigue, and more. We also covered the struggles facing restaurants around the world. Most of those articles involved grim statistics and were written from a detached, industry-wide viewpoint. When reading abstract numbers… read more

Save-It-Forward Suppers -Cookbook Giveaway

Enter our US giveaway to win one of three copies of Save-It-Forward Suppers: A Simple Strategy to Save Time, Money, and Sanity by Cyndi Kane. Fans of The Pioneer Woman know Cyndi Kane as Hyacinth, Ree's best friend. Ree gave her that nickname twenty years ago. Cyndi has now written a time, money and sanity saving cookbook design to get supper on… read more

Celebrate National Pizza Day

This one almost slipped by me, but once I saw that it was National Pizza Day I could not let it go unmentioned. Pizza, after all, was what got me through my college years - literally, because I worked my way through school at two different pizza joints. In my heyday, I could toss pizza dough with flair, although enough… read more
Seen anything interesting? Let us know & we'll share it!