How to write recipes worthy of publishing

June 4, 2013 by
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One of the real pleasures of learning to cook well is the creativity that comes from creating your own recipes. And while sharing those triumphs with family and friends is great, it can also be fun to submit original recipes to cooking contests or food magazines. In an article from the blog Will Write for Food, Kristine Kidd - the… read more

A refresher course on how to store greens

June 3, 2013 by
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With gardens and farmers' markets in bloom (at least in the North), we thought a short refresher course in how to store greens would be appropriate. With the help of Food52, who explains the details in this article, here are some helpful pointers: Don't wash your greens until you're ready to use them Remove any wilted or slimy leaves right away… read more

A non-blobby way to melt hard-to-melt cheese

June 2, 2013 by
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There are so many great cheeses out there, but many have a problem - they simply do not melt without breaking into greasy oil blobs. So when it comes to making Nachos, or a mac and cheese without first making a cheese (Mornay) sauce, cooks are often limited to a few cheese choices. The secret to making hard-to-melt cheeses was… read more

Potato chips taste test

May 28, 2013 by
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To help with all your picnics and cookouts we thought it would be appropriate to highlight a recent taste test of potato chips that Serious Eats  conducted. They kept it plain and simple: "We kept our selection to chips that are widely available nationwide. No small boutique brands.  We were also after plain old potato chips, which means no flavors,… read more

Should you buy salt- or oil-packed anchovies?

May 26, 2013 by
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With the discovery of umami, and the further discovery that anchovies are packed with this flavor component, anchovies have expanded their food reach way beyond pizza. As their ability to impart umami doesn't depend on quantity, and as anchovies dissolve easily which masks their flavor, it's easy to add succulence without a fish taste. Which brings us to our question… read more

Everything you needed to know about the world’s best-selling cookie

May 24, 2013 by
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It's probably not too surprising that Oreos are the world's best-selling cookie. After all, people have been known to rate possible friends, even marital candidates, based on whether they ate the cookie as a sandwich, or twisted off the top and licked the inside. Or whether they prefer their Oreo dunked or undunked. So here's a few facts on Oreos… read more

The difference between grilling and barbecue

May 21, 2013 by
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At least in the northern hemisphere, it's now officially grilling/barbecue season - and we understand that it's actually never not grilling season down under. So we thought a brief primer on the difference between barbecue and grilling, courtesy of this video at Southern Cooking, might be helpful to all our members. So what is the difference? It's simple: Barbecue is… read more

Answers to 4 farmers’ market questions that are always asked – and shouldn’t be

May 20, 2013 by
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Forrest Pritchard is a farmer who just published a well-reviewed book, Gaining Ground: A Story of Farmers' Markets, Local Food, and Saving the Family Farm (his is an eighth-generation farm) - you can read Michael Ruhlman on the book here. But Pritchard also publishes an interesting blog at his farm's website, Smith Meadows. One of those blogs we thought would… read more

5 truly good online cooking videos

May 19, 2013 by
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  Adam Roberts, over at the Amateur Gourmet, recently provided an antidote to Food TV. He gives links to five past food shows, now available online, that really defined good food television - they actually give you tips and advice on how to cook. In no particular order, they are (with our comments): Molto Mario, with Mario Batali (probably the… read more

Kale has now been annointed as veggie-chic

May 16, 2013 by
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Since we doubt that anyone is unaware that kale has been soaring in popularity (stand aside, tomatoes) we haven't tackled it as a blog item -  it seems to be almost passé. But sometimes events overtake the best of intentions, and the event that overtook us was the final, canonical blessing on kale by the New York Times who just… read more

Remembering the great food commercials

May 15, 2013 by
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The Daily Meal has a wonderful list today for all of you of a certain age who might have spent a fair time in front of a television set (we plead guilty) in the U.S. It's a list of The 11 Most Iconic Food Commercials of All Time, plus links to the actual commercial on You Tube. As they say, "They're… read more

All hail Hummus – the new King of the Snacks

May 8, 2013 by
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No less an authority than the Wall Street Journal has chosen to crown hummus as the new king of the snacks. In their online article, Hummus is Conquering America, they discuss how the growing demand for hummus is encouraging farmers to trade transplanting tobacco for chickpeas. Apparently the chickpea harvest has been concentrated in the Northwest, which creates a diversity of climate… read more

The Food Network is losing popularity

May 3, 2013 by
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The N.Y. Post published today some news that we thought our members would find interesting. According to recent ratings, the "Food Network shed 17 percent of its audience during the 12 months through April 30.  The average primetime show on the cable channel, which features such series as "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives," slipped to 1.06 million." Also interesting, by contrast… read more

Why eat the hottest pepper in the world?

May 1, 2013 by
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Recently Slate posed a question that has puzzled us for a long time. In Eating Fire, they ask: "Why do people feel compelled to put the world's spiciest chili peppers in their mouths?" Indeed, in recent years, there has been a contest to develop the hottest pepper in the world. In 2012, the new  scorpion pepper edged out the ghost… 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

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

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

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

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

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

Weird British foods we must try

March 25, 2013 by
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How could we resist an article called "18 Weird and Wonderful British Foods You Need to Try"? Given our global membership we're all for creating a community of food, so pointing out this article provides a public service.  According to BuzzFeed UK here are some of the dishes our UK brethren are keeping to themselves, but shouldn't: Bedfordshire Clanger Cranachan… read more

Do you really need Kosher salt?

March 21, 2013 by
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Kenji Alt over at The Food Lab (nominated as a James Beard finalist - congrats!) recently addressed the question: Do I Need to Use Kosher Salt? After acknowledging that there is no difference chemically among table, Kosher, and fine sea salts, he goes on to compare the three for texture and flavor, ultimately explaining why he keeps Kosher salt for cooking and fine sea… read more

Two tirades against food television

March 20, 2013 by
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Every time that the Food Channel eliminates cooking shows in favor of a contest or non-cooking related channel, there are rumbles from the media. But two recent rants caught our attention as particularly well-written, including both insightfulness and thoroughness. Both are well worth the time to read; here are just a few of the highlights. Andy Greenwald in Grantland titles… read more

Refrigerating regular or sweet potatoes – yes or no?

March 17, 2013 by
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Potatoes are an appropriate topic for St. Patrick's Day, so we thought we'd highlight a simple question that Food Republic recently asked: Do you need to refrigerate potatoes? And here's the simple answer: No. Potatoes don't spoil, and, in fact, if put into a refrigerator they will develop a bitter taste. The best way to store potatoes is also simple, "Potatoes should… read more
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