The Kaiser roll quandary

January 17, 2011 by
 |  Leave Comment
I love baking in midwinter, don't you?  The heat of the oven, the smell of yeast, the golden brown perfection of baked goods...did I mention the heat of the oven? I got a kaiser roll stamp for Christmas, and I'm trying to find a good kaiser roll recipe.  Not a big, shiny, bulky one that you might want to heap… read more

The first cookbooks of the year

January 10, 2011 by
 |  Leave Comment
Well, the holiday rush of cookbooks is past and the publishers are looking ahead to spring.  This week the mail held the galleys of spring--April cookbooks in their raw, pre-edited state.  I don't test recipes from galleys or advance proofs--if there's mistakes, they might be corrected in the final copy, and I don't want to base my judgment on an… read more

Time for a snack and a book

December 20, 2010 by
 |  Leave Comment
The holiday season this year has been a compressed blur, with Thanksgiving segueing instantly into Hanukkah into Christmas. I bet you haven't had a chance to do much more than crack your cookbooks to the right page as you dash from one festive culinary ordeal to the next. Forget about browsing through new books in an armchair! But in the… read more

Armchair Adventures

October 17, 2010 by
 |  Leave Comment
Lushly photographed on coated stock, ruinously priced, and as heavy as a KitchenAid mixer--you know what I'm talking about: coffee-table cookbooks.  You tell yourself this will be the last one, truly, and yet there you are again, plunking down $50 and change for a cookbook that will never see the inside of your kitchen. Why is that?  It's because they're… read more

Crust craze: Dinner’s in the oven!

September 17, 2010 by
 |  Leave Comment
If there's one thing I love about the end of the summer, it's turning the oven back on again.  And if there's one thing I like about an oven, it's getting to make dinner under, inside, or on top of a crust. My son's favorite dinner is chard tart (sautéed greens in a Gruyère custard in a crust, basically).  That's followed… read more

Never mind what I eat…what do you eat???

August 6, 2010 by
 |  Leave Comment
Although new food books arrive at my house every day, very rarely does one stop me in my tracks.  But that's what happened when I opened the familiar cardboard envelope and found What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.  One moment I was sorting through the mail; the next I was transported on a whirlwind, National Geographic-style tour… read more

Hostess with the mostest (…or not!)

July 25, 2010 by
 |  Leave Comment
Entertaining-focused cookbooks come out twice a year--before summer and for the holidays (even if their party suggestions are not season-sensitive).  I always leaf through the summer ones with the slightly dislocated sense one has when observing a foreign culture.  Twice each summer is my limit, basically, when it comes to entertaining.  The first time is my daughter's birthday (cookies &… read more

We Scream for Ice Cream

July 5, 2010 by
 |  Leave Comment
97 degrees - that's the high today, and that's here in New England.  Even the most dedicated home cook has mixed feelings about cooking in weather like this.  All I want to do is sit in a hammock with a book while someone brings me a cool drink once in a while.  Or, better yet, a dish of ice cream.… read more

Loco for local

May 11, 2010 by
 |  Leave Comment
The summer cookbooks have been rolling in and holy guacamole!  It's farmer's markets and local foods, left and right.  And it's not just the cookbook authors and advocates anymore.  There's Fast, Fresh & Green by Susie Middleton.   Melissa's Everyday Cooking with Organic Produce from the famous produce company.  Eating Local by the folks at Sur La Table, Edible from the Edible… read more

Spring fever

May 8, 2010 by
 |  Leave Comment
Is it my imagination, or has it been the longest, sweetest spring in recent memory? A couple of months ago, at a time when the frozen ground usually still rings like iron when struck by a futile hoe, I had lettuce seedlings sprouting in the garden beds, the kids were running in the warm grass, and the daffodils were in… read more

Lighting the fire

April 12, 2010 by
 |  Leave Comment
The last snow was only a week and a half ago, and already this year's grill books are arriving. I don't blame the publicists for wanting to hasten the warm weather.  Last week, I bought my own first sack of charcoal for the season and threw the first steak on the grill.  It was beefy, juicy, smoke-kissed perfection.  But I… read more

Oven Thermometers

April 4, 2010 by
 |  Leave Comment
As a cookbook reviewer, I sometimes have to measure where it would usually be perfectly fine to guess.  I don't always like having to measure 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, but I do it...I've got 5 sizes of measuring cups, a couple of instant-read thermometers, and a scale that gets regular use.  But the tool that makes me hands-down-flat craziest is… read more

Susie’s Breads

March 22, 2010 by
 |  Leave Comment
People have strong feelings about that ancient skill, the baking of bread. There are those who avoid it like the plague because yeast is smelly and inscrutable, kneading is messy, and who has time to wait for a 3-hour rise? Then there are those who embrace bread with such fervor that they dedicate a whole fridge to their pet sourdough… read more

Gender studies in the kitchen.

March 14, 2010 by
 |  Leave Comment
Today, something funny came in the mail, and it set me thinking. 100 Recipes Every Woman Should Know, from the editors of Glamour Magazine (who else!?), is a blithely feminine romp.  The recipes have titles like "Wake Up and Make Up Sausage Biscuits" (for the morning after an argument) and "Get Over Him Berry Parfait," not to mention the subtitle's… read more

Slow cookers

February 14, 2010 by
 |  Leave Comment
OK, I came late to the game when it comes to slow cookers.  As a person who's home and in the kitchen most of the time anyway, I didn't need a device that could do the cooking by itself for hours and hours.  I was the slow cooker, you know? Until last Wednesday, that is. I got the slow cooker for an assignment reviewing… read more

Soup Books

January 6, 2010 by
 |  Leave Comment
Let me make it clear: I'm not well suited to living in New England. I take after my mom, who grew up in a subtropical part of China - I flinch when the frost comes creeping up the windows. While my daughter runs around the house barefoot in a tutu and my son fetches the wood in a T-shirt (no… read more

Holiday Time

November 4, 2009 by
 |  Leave Comment
The thing about the holidays is that we expect to cook more than any other time of year while having less time to do it. Every year about this time, I think: Oh no, here comes the turkey again. My brain starts considering the Thanksgiving menu for about 30 seconds before turning tail and running off screaming in another direction.… read more

Favorite cookbooks

September 17, 2009 by
 |  Leave Comment
Every so often, people ask me "What's your favorite cookbook?" Usually, I wince. Then I make some kind of smart-alecky answer like, "Oh, that's like asking which one's your favorite child? or your favorite music?" These days, I often use a different cookbook every night, improvising and borrowing with abandon. When it comes to cookbooks, I have to say my… read more

Dinner Ninja

August 11, 2009 by
 |  Leave Comment
Every once in a while, you suddenly realize that you're richer than you thought. Maybe you find a twenty in your sock drawer, or you remember that you have leftover paella in your fridge and no one else knows about it! I suddenly got that feeling the other day while using EYB for the first time. In this case, though,… read more
Newer posts »
Seen anything interesting? Let us know & we'll share it!

Categories

Archives