Food news antipasto

If you love cookbooks, chances are you have several written by chefs knocking about on your bookshelves. They often provide technical guidance or offer avant-garde flavor combinations and techniques. One of my favorite chef-written books is The Art of French Pastry by Jacquy Pfeiffer (ebook available for around $3 on Amazon, Amazon.co.uk. Amazon.ca, Amazon.com.au). Over at Plate, Kate Leahy has assembled what she believes are the best cookbooks by chefs (and for chefs) that have come out this spring.

Do you have a favorite mug – the one that you must drink your morning coffee from or it’s just not right? If so, you probably also have a least favorite mug, maybe a gift from someone who doesn’t really understand you or one that you received at an office function. You might be tempted to throw out your least favorite mug because after all, you hate drinking out of it, but Eater’s Daniel Lavery wants you to reconsider doing that. He says that the worst mug in your collection serves a valuable purpose.

Speaking of morning mugs of coffee, how much would you be willing to pay for a kilo of coffee beans? It’s common to spend upward of $30 USD for an upscale brand, but would you consider paying $500 for a bag? Apparently some people do, because an extremely rare coffee bean called Bourbon Pointu, grown exclusively the island of Reunion (near Madagascar), has developed a cult following and connoisseurs are shelling out big bucks in order to have it.

The Taste of London is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, and Regent’s Park is again the location where dozens of London’s best restaurants pitch a tent and offer samples of their wares. The five day event begins on June 12, and in addition to 120 different dishes offered at the food stands, there will be themed workshops, cooking classes, live music and entertainment.

Did you end up with too many chocolate Easter eggs this year? Instead of nibbling on them one at a time, Good Food’s Katrina Meynink has thought of five different ways you can use leftover chocolate eggs. The recipes range from a chocolate sauce to an Easter chocolate burnt Basque cheesecake, which sounds like a much better use than snacking on several in the middle of the night (not that there’s anything wrong with that).