Jerry Seinfeld on Coffee

April 26, 2013 by
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Apparently Jerry Seinfeld loves the Morning Edition show on National Public Radio, and just decided to call in one morning to discuss coffee. He is a relatively recent convert to coffee, having only started to drink it five years ago, but - being Seinfeld - has developed many coffee convictions. NPR obviously followed up and has just posted their conversation… read more

Is cooking school worth it?

April 25, 2013 by
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One of the most prestigious culinary schools in the U.S. - the Culinary Institute of America or CIA - recently experienced a student revolt. About 20 percent of their bachelor candidates (4-year students) walked out to protest falling academic standards and extremely high tuition rates. Several factors led to the walkout: Declining admissions standards designed, according the students, to increase… read more

Specialty kitchen tools – which do you toss & which do you keep?

April 23, 2013 by
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Food Republic recently ran an article dealing with specialty tools, "Spring Cleaning: 5 Outdated Kitchen Tools You Should Toss Right Now." To some degree, we found the list surprising, since of the 5 tools they mention, we consider 2 of them to be remarkably useful: Egg separator: This makes sense - your fingers do the best job Garlic press: Sorry,… read more

Foolproof Hollandaise in 2 minutes

April 22, 2013 by
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Last month we published An honest to goodness foolproof way to poach an egg - which became one of our most highly viewed blogs. That blog pointed to a video from Kenji Alt at the Serious Eats Food Lab on, obviously, egg poaching. Now he has followed up with a somewhat related video how-to: The Food Lab's Foolproof Hollandaise in… read more

Mark Bittman interviews Michael Pollan

April 21, 2013 by
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In his recent New York Times column, Mark Bittman chatted with Michael Pollan about Pollan's newest book, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation. This isn't a cookbook - in fact, it only has four recipes - Bolognese, pork shoulder, sauerkraut, and bread - that Pollan uses to explore fundamental principles of cooking. As anyone familiar with both men would expect, the conversation… read more

R.I.P. Cupcakes

April 19, 2013 by
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We're sad to announce the demise of one of our favorie food fads - the cupcake. Three separate news sources have published obituaries.  The first is from no less an unimpeachable source than The Wall Street Journal. In Forget Gold, the Gourmet Cupcake Market Is Crashing they note that the publicly traded cupcake company "Crumbs" has gone from $13/share to $1.70.… read more

Chefs’ favorite knives

April 18, 2013 by
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The Kitchn recently pointed out this article from details.com, which asked six chefs to name their favorite knives: April Bloomfield, Marc Forgione, Jesse Schenker, Stuart Brioza, Chris Shepherd, and Stephanie Izard. The answers are an unquestioned victory for the Japanese - all of the knives are of Japanese origin - with strong and thin seeming to be the most attractive… read more

Julia Child comes to life in a new, different type of app

April 17, 2013 by
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Since many of you enjoy our occasional notices of interesting food-related apps, we wanted to alert you to one that Random House, the long time publisher for Julia Child, has  issued - it's a unique app that is far more than just a cooking app. In AppStorm's just-published review of the app Mastering the Art of French Cooking, they describe this… read more

Some of the best food moments in movies

April 16, 2013 by
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Awhile ago we published a blog on The best food movies and movie scenes, which proved to be quite popular. We had a lot of nice responses from our readers about their favorite scenes, including the escargot moment in Pretty Woman, the Solent Green jelly moment, and this scene from Tampopo. So when we saw this blog on Serious Eats, Staff Picks:… read more

Making a pepper mill more user friendly

April 15, 2013 by
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ATK's Feed recently published some helpful tips on managing a pepper mill. Most cooks have learned the mantra that freshly ground pepper is much more flavorful than preground, but that still doesn't mean that pepper mills are especially user friendly. Here are some tricks to making them a bit more useful (check out the article, 3 Terrific Pepper Mill Tricks,… read more

Is “A” graded Maple Syrup better than “B”?

April 14, 2013 by
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It's maple syrup season here in the New England, so we thought we'd take a moment to discuss grades of maple syrup and dispute the claim that an "A" is better than a "B."  We should note that the grades depend whether you're buying maple syrup from Canada or the United States, since the two have different grading systems. Canada, which… read more

Time to play hide-and-seek

April 12, 2013 by
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It's Friday (at least here in the U.S.) so we wanted to be a little frivolous and this posting from Epicurious touched the spot. In Top Ten Places to Hide Your Snacks Kemp Minifie aims to help those of us who'd like to make the cookies, chips, caviar, whatever just a little harder to dip into. Or, alternatively, keep them to… read more

Do you need a spice therapist?

April 10, 2013 by
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The New York Times recently published their special magazine food and drink issue and one article struck us as especially interesting. In The Transformational Power of the Right Spice  they interview a spice purveyor (Lev Sercarz) whom restauranteurs call "a magician" and who  himself considers spices to be both a vocation and a mission. His talent in the former role was… read more

Gwyneth Paltrow’s new cookbook raises controversy

April 9, 2013 by
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The actress Gwyneth Paltrow has become quite prominent in the food and lifestyle industry. She co-hosted with Mario Batali a PBS food show on Spanish food; published a cookbook (My Father's Daughter: Delicious, Easy Recipes Celebrating Family & Togetherness); and set up a lifestyle website at goop.com. (This latter website raised a lot of eyebrows when it was calculated that… read more

Why printed cookbooks are here to stay

April 8, 2013 by
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We loved this article from the Kitchn, Four Reasons Why I Will Never Give Up Print Cookbooks. Since we at EYB modestly believe that EYB brings you the best of both the online and print worlds - at least when it comes to cookbooks and recipes and blogs and magazines - this article sings to us. The article describes four reasons… read more

It’s time to harvest the spaghetti crop

April 7, 2013 by
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Recently, a member of a very erudite cooking bulletin board raised the  fact that it is now the spaghetti harvest season in Switzerland. The Swiss have, to a large extent,  convinced the rest of the world that spaghetti is made in Italy from a wheat dough, but true food cognescenti are aware that spaghetti is actually grown on trees. Like… read more

What’s your favorite song to cook to?

April 5, 2013 by
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The Daily Meal recently posted a fun list, Best Songs to Bake To. And they have some good ones, which they've posted on Spotify if you'd like to download them. Here's the list: I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) - The Four Tops Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns In Bed - Kinky Friedman Good Lovin'… read more

Trying to understand umami

April 4, 2013 by
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  We recently just made our first batch of dashi - the Japanese soup stock made with kombu (dried kelp) - one of the purest sources of umami . So it was fortuitous that one of our readers, Ken, brought our attention to this recent Wall Street Journal article, Understanding Umami. It's relatively easy to understand the other four taste… read more

An honest-to-goodness foolproof way to poach an egg

April 3, 2013 by
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We all have little challenges in life that aren't momentous but are a constant irritant - and cooking a perfect poached egg was one of ours. Somehow, despite numerous attempts, research and, yes, even cooking school (where we were taught to carefully lay the eggs on a kitchen towel and manually trim the eggs with scissors), our poached eggs tasted… read more

What do 2012’s best-selling cookbooks tell us about food trends?

April 2, 2013 by
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It seems that Spring (finally arriving here in the Northern hemisphere) really starts the new cycle of cookbooks. But before we let go of last year, Cooking by the Numbers - an analysis by Publishers Weekly of just what made for a best-selling cookbook in 2012 - provides some interesting insights and forecasts about what is coming up (they primarily, but not… read more

Our five favorite April Fool’s Day sites

April 1, 2013 by
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We'll admit to being a little jealous at some of the great April Fool's Day sites that have gone up today - we applaud both the cleverness and the humor in the companies that have surrendered their sites to whimsy.  Alas, we can't emulate them, but at least we can honor them. So here are our favorite five food-related April… read more

Busting common food myths

March 30, 2013 by
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Angela Keller, writing for the Daily Meal, took on some common food myths and busted them all. Here's a short list of the kitchen myths she refuted - you can check out all the myths and the full details in Busting the Most Common Kitchen Myths: Salting water makes water boil faster Never rinse your mushrooms Store coffee in the… read more

Thomas Keller loves Peeps!

March 29, 2013 by
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Thomas Keller is certainly one of the top 5 most respected chefs in the world, so it wasn't surprising that NPR visited him to talk about his favorite Easter recipes, as reported in Homemade Peeps, And More Easter Treats, A La Thomas Keller. Keller's  new book, Bouchon Bakery,  is up for numerous awards, so a lot of the conversation had to do… read more

Interview with Deborah Madison

March 27, 2013 by
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We recently sat down with Deborah Madison, winner of too many IACP, Julia Child, and James Beard awards for her vegetarian cookbooks to list. She has just added a new one: Vegetable Literacy. This book uses a unique approach, which she describes on her website: "Families are about similarities and relationships, and it's as true with plants as it is… read more

March 2013 cookbook roundup

March 27, 2013 by
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Every month Susie Chang reviews new cookbook releases and notes trends. And she may also occasionally throw in a review of a "not-quite cookbook." We're arranging for similar roundups like Susie's for books published in the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand, but until we formally launch those, we'll still be noting new arrivals and providing brief descriptions. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- March is a… read more
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