Food Network has a new reality baking show

Martha Stewart wearing an all-white outfit smiles at the camera. The background is an off white just darker than Stewart's outfit.
If you enjoy reality baking programs, this news is for you. Food Network recently announced a new reality baking program, hosted by none other than the doyenne of domesticity Martha Stewart. Called Bakeaway Camp with Martha Stewart, the show puts a new twist on the standard competition format. The show will feature six amateur bakers vying for the prize, which… read more

Politics and cooking have a long history together

If you are following the US presidential candidate primary, you may have seen Pete Buttigieg's controversial salsa/ranch dressing mashup, or perhaps viewed Stephen Colbert talking with Elizabeth Warren over a meal featuring traditional foods of South Carolina. Combining food and politics did not begin with these events, of course. There is a long history of food and politics being intertwined,… read more

Art of Eating prize winner announced

Today the magazine Art of Eating announced the winner of its annual prize for best food book of the year. It's the sensational Black Sea by Caroline Eden. In her review, Jenny noted several reasons to love this book: the author’s gift for the written word which spirits the reader away to the locales rich with historystunning photographs of the… read more

Behaviors that drive chefs batty

With a plethora of websites that allow people to rate their dining experience, everyone has the ability to be a restaurant critic. Most of the time chefs and restaurateurs do not react outwardly to the negativity that inevitably seems to be hurled at them. The Guardian thought it would be fair to turn the tables, so to speak, and let… read more

A new show called ‘Dishing with Julia Child’ coming to PBS

Julia Child has been getting plenty of posthumous love. Last fall we reported on an upcoming documentary featuring the legendary cook and author, and now we have another show to tell you about. This one is coming to public television as a six part series in which chefs and food personalities provide commentary on a different episode of The French… read more

Food news antipasto

It's almost physically impossible for me not to click on a social media post that touts a great new 'kitchen hack' video on YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook. Apparently I am not alone, as many of these posts go viral and get millions of clicks. However, some of them turn out to be duds, and a great number of them are… read more

André Simon Food and Drink book award winners 2019

We have long covered the IACP, JBF, and Writers Guild UK cookbook awards, but one has sailed under our radar for years. This year we are rectifying that oversight, and are reporting on the 2019 André Simon Awards. Simon was the charismatic leader of the English wine trade for almost all of the first half of the 20th century, and the… read more

An ode to the carrot

In yesterday's post about cooking under lockdown, the bloggers profiled in the story said that they could always find carrots at the supermarket because nobody really liked them. One of our favorite cookbook authors begs to differ. Yotam Ottolenghi just penned a missive extolling the virtues of the 'anything but humble' root vegetable. Ottolenghi posits that carrots are loved by… read more

Cooking under lockdown

Unless you have been living under a rock, you have heard about the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in China. Because this virus has a relatively long incubation time, the quarantines that have been set up to contain it are long-lasting. Some people in the hardest hit region have been hunkering down for several weeks. The virus has also hit supply… read more

Over 70,000 cookbook recipes online

The milestones at Eat Your Books just keep coming. Last month we were excited to announce our 600th EYB Digital Preview and over 9,000 cookbooks indexed. This month we are adding another feather to our cap: we now have surpassed 70,000 online recipes from cookbooks in the EYB Library. To think of it in book terms, those freely available recipes… read more

IACP Cuisinart Awards – 2020 Nominees

Congratulations to the 2020 class of nominees for the International Association of Culinary Professionals Cuisinart Awards. The winners will be announced at the IACP Annual Conference on March 28, 2020 in Pittsburgh. Once again the IACP has made changes to the categories of books being judged. For 2020 two categories got the axe: there will be no Compilations or Reference/Technical books… read more

Improve your baking in ten weeks

I love to bake and usually have a baking project going at any given time. To keep this habit from further expanding my waistline, I give away most of the cakes, cookies, pastries, pies and tarts that I make. My friends and coworkers gratefully receive these goodies, with many of them saying that they do not themselves bake because they… read more

Food news antipasto

It is nearing peak melon season in Australia, and while the drought has been bad news for the fires that are wreaking havoc across the continent, less water is not bad for the melon crop. When water is scarce melons can actually have more flavor, according to The Guardian. They have assembled a guide on how to choose the best… read more

Ways to use leftover Valentine’s Day chocolate

I cannot imagine this happening to me, but according to Food & Wine it is possible to receive too much chocolate for Valentine's Day. For those who are fortunate enough to have a windfall of extra truffles or other chocolate goodies, they offer five ideas for using up the leftovers. I suspect you will be able to guess some of… read more

What it’s like to live with a food nerd

My husband often jokes that the only way to get me to make something twice is to tell me that the dish I made isn't very good. He is not altogether wrong in that opinion. As someone who is more than mildly obsessed with cooking and baking, I am so eager to try the next new thing that it can… read more

Over 25 years of quick tips

Cook's Illustrated Magazine has been helping people understand the whys of cooking since 1993. Ever since the publication first appeared, a column called "Quick Tips" has been showcasing readers' tips for the ultimate kitchen hacks. Daniel Souza, Editor-in-chief of Cook's Ilustrated, sat down with The Splendid Table's Sally Swift to talk about the history these reader-provided tips. In case you… read more

How to pick the perfect melting cheese

While most recipes in the EYB Library that call for cheese specify a particular variety, sometimes you will come across one that tells you to use your favorite "melting cheese". You might wonder which cheese is best suited for the purpose. The varieties that immediately come to mind are mozzarella and American cheese, both considered to be a "melting" cheese… read more

A treasure trove of rare and historical Mexican cookbooks is now available online

The history of Mexican cuisine involves adaptation, conquest, and assimilation. One way to trace this story is through cookbooks. While not many exist from the earliest interactions between Europeans and Native Americans, a collection of cookbooks at University of Texas at San Antonio provides a rough timeline of the transformation from native dishes to the today's cuisine that combines American… read more

Unsung culinary heroes

February is Black History Month here in the US, a celebration of African Americans who have contributed to the fabric of American society. In the culinary world, the focus tends to be on familiar names like Edna Lewis and George Washington Carver, but Nneka M. Okona of The Huffington Post is using this occasion to highlight people you may not… read more

Food news antipasto

Have you ever thumbed through a supermarket tabloid while waiting in line at the cash register? If so, you've probably seen a headline that went something like "Stars: they're just like us," with photos of celebrities doing everyday tasks like grocery shopping or walking their dog. For some reason, a recent Epicurious article reminded me of those tabloid pieces. The… read more

Why recipe writers don’t need to worry about artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is touted as a way to make things better and faster than humans can by harnessing the power of computers that process innumerable equations in the blink of an eye. It's been put to use in the fields of engineering, medicine, finance, and more. There are plenty of people worried that AI will put them out of… read more

The history of chopsticks

Everyone knows that chopsticks are the traditional food eating implement of most Asian cuisines, but do you know where they started and why they became popular? That's a question posed by the Chinese Food & History blog of the University of Michigan's Chinese studies program. There, Q. Edward Yang explores the origin and function of chopsticks in Asian cuisine. Right… read more

A tale of two covers

Have you ever noticed that the covers of the same cookbooks published in the US and the UK are frequently different? There are several reasons for this phenomenon, explains Charlotte Druckman in a recent Epicurious article for why this occurs so often. One of the examples discussed is Diana Henry's 2016 release Simple.  Says Henry, “The cover is the thing… read more

Extreme makeover: cast iron edition

There are few household items durable enough to hand down from generation to generation, and among these tough goods cast iron cookware may be the most useful and appreciated hand-me-down. A well-seasoned pan is a thing of beauty, handling everything from high heat searing to baking the best cornbread you've ever eaten. If you aren't fortunate enough to receive Grandma's… read more

First pancake problems

Breakfast for dinner is one of my favorite meals, and if I'm making it then chances are good that pancakes will appear on the menu. Both decadent and comforting, pancakes make any day feel like a special occasion. I have a favorite recipe, developed over the years, that always gets rave reviews. There is just one problem: the first pancake… read more
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