The joy of failing in the kitchen

January 10, 2020 by
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Does the following scenario sound familiar? You are excited about making a new dish, and as you lay out the ingredients, you envision the perfect meal you are about to enjoy. However, things do not go according to plan - the timing gets screwed up, a shaping technique turns out to be much more difficult than anticipated, you scorch some… read more

Get the most out of your mortar and pestle

January 8, 2020 by
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If there is one kitchen purchase that I put off for far too long, it is buying a proper mortar and pestle. For years I had one of those tiny marble ones that was too small to be practical and I wondered what all the fuss was about. I recently bought a larger, more versatile one and it was a… read more

Meet India’s ‘Pickle Queen’

January 7, 2020 by
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Most self-published books are vanity projects and their print runs and sales are usually miniscule. Sometimes, however, one will break the mold and become a cult classic or even, in rare cases, a bestseller. That is part of the story behind Usha's Pickle Digest: The Perfect Pickle Recipe Book by Usha R. Prabakaran - but the self-publishing success is only… read more

Cave cooking

January 6, 2020 by
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The trend for cooking more 'plant-based foods' continues unabated, but it really is not a new phenomenon. In fact, you could say it is one of the oldest trends in human history. That's because a new discovery shows that people have been cooking plants for nearly 170,000 years. The recent find, in the Border Cave in the Lebombo Mountains on… read more

Food news antipasto

January 5, 2020 by
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Sodium alginate, spheres, and foams: when these items first made their appearance in the early 2000s, they ushered in a new way of looking at food. Pioneering chefs like Wylie Dufresne, Heston Blumenthal, and Grant Achatz applied scientific principles to an industry that had long been one of tradition and even superstition (lest we forget, many old-school chefs said that… read more

Starting the new year off sans meat

January 4, 2020 by
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As the calendar turned from December to January, millions of people worldwide started working on their healthy-eating resolution for 2020. A growing trend in this vein is to eat a vegan diet for a month, a movement dubbed 'Veganuary'. If you are new to veganism, this can be a daunting task. There are some resources you can use if Veganuary… read more

In praise of a unitasker

January 3, 2020 by
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Blame Alton Brown or perhaps even Marie Kondo for the backlash against kitchen tools that have only one use - unitaskers, as Brown calls them. The argument against them boils down to this: why take up valuable kitchen space for a tool that does only one thing? Sometimes, however, the item does that one thing so well that it becomes… read more

Food history via menus

January 2, 2020 by
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Restaurant critic Ruth Reichl has seen her share of menus. During her stints writing for a variety of newspapers and magazines, she dined in some of the finest establishments in the U.S. During her career as critic - from the 1970s to 1990s - she couldn't capture what was listed on the menu by pulling out a cell phone and… read more

Avoid the authenticity trap

January 1, 2020 by
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Have you ever looked at Yelp reviews when deciding on whether to eat at a particular restaurant? Have terms 'authentic' or 'inauthentic' swayed your decision-making? If so, you'll want to read the article by Mai Tran, who implores to ignore the 'purists' and 'zealots' who demand authenticity in restaurants. Tran says that almost always, the term 'authentic' is used to… read more

New Year’s food resolutions

December 31, 2019 by
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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

Favorite holiday food memories

December 30, 2019 by
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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

December 29, 2019 by
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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

December 28, 2019 by
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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

December 27, 2019 by
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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

EYB included in the ‘Best Bites of 2019’

December 26, 2019 by
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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

December 26, 2019 by
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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

December 23, 2019 by
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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

Food news antipasto

December 22, 2019 by
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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

December 21, 2019 by
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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

Pick the right cocoa powder for the job

December 20, 2019 by
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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

New food words added to the dictionary

December 19, 2019 by
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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

December 19, 2019 by
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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

How the food writing landscape is changing

December 17, 2019 by
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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

Food news antipasto

December 15, 2019 by
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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

December 14, 2019 by
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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
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