Pops: Cake or Ice?

June 11, 2012 by
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As long as I could remember, "pops" were something you bought off a truck--some kind of unnaturally-colored ice on a stick you didn't know whether to lick or bite, but ate anyway after a swim on a hot day. Then, I married into a Midwestern family and got used to hearing "pop" in places where I was used to hearing… read more

The end of baking season?

June 4, 2012 by
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It started happening last week already.  I'd planned to bake a couple loaves of bread for sandwiches.  But around mid-morning, when I got around to pulling down the flour and finding the yeast, it was already muggy and still and shaping up to head toward 85 degrees.  I looked at the oven.  The oven looked at me.  We agreed to… read more

“Having it all in one place”: a good enough reason to keep a cookbook?

May 30, 2012 by
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In the days before I developed a systematic winnowing process for choosing my favorite cookbooks, I often found myself making a familiar argument, as I stood - book in hand - over the discard pile.  "But having all these recipes in one place - that's got to be worth something, right?" Usually the cookbook in question leans on a lot… read more

Going without: are photos essential in a cookbook?

May 21, 2012 by
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Remember the old, unillustrated days of cookbooks, when you opened to a page of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, or Joy, and your eyes always fell on an unbroken page of solid words?   Oh, you might get a diagram of primal cuts on a beefer or something like that.  But as for the recipes themselves?  How they were… read more

Three cheers for garden cookbooks!

May 15, 2012 by
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With spring firmly underway and greenery springing up in every direction, I'd like to say a few words in praise of one of my favorite types of cookbooks--kitchen garden books.  Unlike, say, grill books or preserving books, it's not a densely populated category--there might be one every year or two.  They're all roughly the same format:  a focus on each… read more

Where are the summer cocktails?

May 9, 2012 by
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I'm a bit late with this week's post.  It's because I'm in the final throes of the summer cookbook roundup, that mad mid-May marathon smackdown from which just ten perfect summer cookbooks will emerge on NPR's summer recommendation list.  (All the runner-ups will appear in a shortlist on my blog). I can't say what the theme is, or give away… read more

Michael Natkin

May 8, 2012 by
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We visit with Michael Natkin, who left his job in software engineering to follow his passion for food and devote himself to an innovative vision of vegetarian cooking. He is the author of the immensely popular and award-winning vegetarian blog Herbivoracious and his new book, Herbivoracious, is out from Harvard Common Press in May. As I've been working on Herbivoracious: A Flavor… read more

Girl trouble

April 30, 2012 by
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We had no idea what we were getting into when the blog post on recipes that fail went up last week.  What spawned the controversy was a single phrase I put in at the end of the piece: "the home cook will blame herself [for the failures of the recipe]." It was then that one reader on a cookbook forum… read more

Epic fail – anatomy of the recipe that didn’t

April 26, 2012 by
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I recently tested a recipe of such surpassing inscrutability that I felt it merited a post of its own.  Like last week's memorable disaster it was a sort of pie.  But unlike last week's, the fault could not be chalked up to user error. This one was a pork pie, with ground meat enclosed in puff pastry (yum! I thought.  Foolproof!).… read more

First-love cookbooks

April 23, 2012 by
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I don't know about you, but when I first learned to cook I had no idea what to look for in a cookbook.  I had my old roommate Conrad's 365 Ways to Cook Chicken on permanent loan, and I'd been given The Essentials of Italian Cooking.  But from that point on, it was pure speculation. I bought Salad, by Amy… read more

When the pie hits the floor…the occupational hazards of cookbook reviewers

April 16, 2012 by
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I am testing pies this week.  (Yes, I know, poor me.  Taking one for the team again.)  Today was key lime tart and strawberry-rhubarb crumble pie. All day I made dough and fillings.  The tart dough and filling for the key lime came together in an instant, with enough leftovers to make a second small tart--luckily, as it turned out.… read more

Read this post! Bossy cookbook titles

April 10, 2012 by
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Every once in a while you come face to face with your own subtle biases.  When I'm reviewing, I hunt hard for them...I figure that to be aware of a bias is a big step towards neutralizing it.  But the one I discovered this week was a new one. It arose when restaurateur Zakary Pelaccio's book crossed my desk.  "Eat… read more

One animal books

April 2, 2012 by
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It used to be that if you wanted to find that familiar diagram of a bovine, carved up with dotted lines into "rump," "loin," "plate," "brisket", you'd find yourself heading back to the Joy of Cooking, which was the last word in pretty much everything.  Nowadays, the Joy of Cooking--for all its many virtues--isn't the last word in anything, and primal-cut… read more

New Season Cookbooks Preview 2012

March 31, 2012 by
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As the seasons change it's high time for a peek ahead to the cookbooks coming round the corner, including a veritable parade of big titles. These are some of ones Susie has spotted that are coming out shortly in North America, the UK and Australia, including a few interesting non-cookbooks. North America Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard by Nigel… read more

The selling of style

March 22, 2012 by
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Something odd is going on in cookbook merchandising, and I'm trying to understand it. We're all familiar with the explosion of food websites and food blogs in the last 10 years and their inevitable transition into print. From Heidi Swanson and the Tipsy Baker to Food52 and Serious Eats, there's an abundance of popular online hosts who've turned author, and… read more

Matters of taste

March 12, 2012 by
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Strangely enough, in just this past week I've seen two very different books on the scientific basis of taste. One looks at taste from a human-centered point of view. Barb Stuckey's a professional food developer.  Taste What You're Missing is a popular-science romp through the five senses, with lots of fun experiments to try at home (dye your tongue blue and… read more

One recipe cookbooks

March 5, 2012 by
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When you bought the cookbook, you were sure it was forever.  You browsed through it on the first day, turning down pages or maybe sticking post-its on the pages.  Within a week you had tried a couple of the recipes and while they weren't all great, one of them knocked your socks off.  I'll have to remember that, you said… read more

Cree LeFavour

February 29, 2012 by
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Cree LeFavour is the author of The New Steak and Poulet, she's run her own baking business and taught writing - so she knows a bit about recipes - creating them and following.   In her "Cook Book" Alice B. Toklas admitted that when she "was still a dilettante in the kitchen" cookbooks held her "attention, even the dull ones,… read more

Health food, then and now

February 27, 2012 by
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In the mail the other day came a book whose title struck me as odd:  500 of the Healthiest Recipes and Health Tips You'll Ever Need.  I wasn't sure, for a moment, what made it so odd.  But then I realized it was that "health food," as a term, isn't something we hear about so much these days.  Sure, we… read more

Have airplane food, will travel

February 17, 2012 by
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It's midwinter break, and every other year that means a trip to Arizona to see my favorite in-laws, Grandma and Grandpa B. Unfortunately, it also means a long, cramped, economy flight with only two prospects: overpriced, mediocre snacks in the cabin, or overpriced, mediocre meals in the terminal.  Although there is decent food in Dallas/Ft Worth terminal, where we'll be… read more

Labors of love

February 14, 2012 by
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Along with our own Jane Kelly and 248 others, I attended the Roger Smith Cookbook Conference over the weekend. It was just as I'd hoped--good company, stimulating panel discussions, excellent food. Among the panelists was my provocateuse du jour, Julia Usher--the author responsible for last week's Valentine's pledge, in which I promised to make fancy little heart-shaped cookies come hell or high water.… read more

Fancy cookies for Valentines big and small.

February 6, 2012 by
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I have to confess I'm not really that great at holiday food projects.  Every year I want to make an Epiphany cake, but never do since we don't follow any ecclesiastical calendar here and I never know when to do it.  I sort of wanted to make wings for the Superbowl, but one kid had an ear infection and I… read more

Just for show

January 31, 2012 by
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When you have several hundred cookbooks (or even over a thousand, as I know some of you EYBers do!), it's hard to admit that some of your books aren't for actual cooking. But it's true, isn't it?  There's at least a half-dozen books on my shelf that are strictly for looking at.  I've never even contemplated attacking one of the… read more

The matter of exotics

January 23, 2012 by
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Happy Year of the Dragon, everybody!  Today, there are dragons in every Chinatown and every Chinese storefront.  There are even dragons in every Chinese restaurant, in the form of xiao long bao ("little dragon buns" or Shanghai soup dumplings.  Actually pork.)  or maybe "Dragon Meets Phoenix" (Actually shrimp and chicken).  I think this betrays a certain fascination with exotica, or at least… read more

An ode to culinary bookstores

January 17, 2012 by
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My son and I spent the last few days in San Francisco, that gastronomic paradise, because I had a couple of book readings and a companion ticket burning a hole in my pocket.  What a splendid town for a pair of adventurous eaters!  We stuffed ourselves with tacos and dim sum and Bi-Rite ice cream, sushi and banh mi and… read more
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