Do the Brits have an unrequited love affair with American food?

January 11, 2013 by
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The Word of Mouth blog at The Guardian has an intriguing entry today - Why do Brits love American food? According to the author, Katy Salter, "Britain is having a passionate love affair with American grub and, embarrassingly for us, it's an unrequited romance." She traces this romance from the cupcake to the burger to barbecue, and believes much of… read more

Is it worth it to grow your own vegetables?

January 9, 2013 by
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Some time ago we read an excellent book by William Alexander called The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost HIs Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden. The subtitle describes the book well, and the $64 refers to the cost of his perfect heirloom tomato after calculating the money he… read more

Why drinking tea was once considered to be sinful

January 2, 2013 by
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Now that the egg nog, champagne cocktails, wassail cups, and other holiday potables are being put aside for awhile, we thought it only appropriate to note that this is national hot tea month. At least it is in the United States - we imagine that in other English-speaking countries they have the intelligence to realize that every month is hot… read more

10 ways to identify a good restaurant

December 27, 2012 by
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As New Year's Eve approaches, it may strike many as a good time to try out a new restaurant - bring in the new with the new. Here's an informative list we found at the Amateur Gourmet that may help: 10 Signs You're in a Good Restaurant. We've added a few of our own comments, but also check out the article for… read more

Celebrating leftovers

December 26, 2012 by
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According to The Guardian, food's latest hot trend may be leftovers.  First, however, we need to expand the definition of leftovers. Leftovers are not just food that has been cooked and not eaten, but the food parts that are discarded before even being cooked. According to the article, there are multiple reasons why we have chosen to discard leftovers (and,… read more

These food quotes impart wisdom in just a few words

December 24, 2012 by
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The attraction of quotes is how truly wise just a few words can be. In that spirt, here are some of our favorite food quotes from a list - compiled by Buzz Feed - of the 24 Best Quotes Ever About Food: Everything you see I owe to spaghetti - Sophia Loren The most remarkable thing about my Mother is that… read more

The best time-saving tips of 2012

December 22, 2012 by
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The Kitchn is running a series of "Best of 2012" articles, and we particularly liked this one, Homemade in a Hurry: 15 Time-Serving Tips. From coring a head of lettuce in 3 seconds, to four ways to soften butter, to quickly peeling fava beans, to freezing smoothie ingredients in muffin tins, this list truly has something to help everyone.  And we'd like… read more

3 food & drink apps for your consideration

December 20, 2012 by
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Food- and drink-related apps are becoming better and better. Here are three that have been singled out in the press recently that we thought you might be interested in: The Kitchn recently published, This New Italian Cooking iPad May Be the Best We've Seen. They introduce it with "If you're looking for a clever yet easy-to-understand Italian cooking app, we… read more

The year’s most embarrassing live TV food moments

December 18, 2012 by
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We're fans of Monty Python, which we can still catch at occasional odd hours on TV, and in that tradition we thought we'd bring you this list from the Braiser of "The 11 Most Disasterous Morning Show Cooking Segments of 2012." Some of them have reached notoriety already, such as the infamous scene of Paula Deen groping Matt Lauer who… read more

Why we eat what we eat – a new blog presents a unique viewpoint

December 16, 2012 by
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In a recent Huff Post Food blog, Why I Don't Read Your Damn Food Blog, Stephanie Stiavetti details quite clearly what makes a bad food blog. What made this article particularly interesting was to compare the faults she lists (poor writing, too much advertising, bad photography, uninteresting writing) with a new food blog that we ran across recently and, frankly,… read more

Led by Bobby Flay, star chefs argue for a gender-neutral Easy Bake Oven

December 12, 2012 by
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We'd be remiss if we didn't alert our readers to the latest viral controversy, since it reflects on the way many of us may have enjoyed our first cooking experiences. Apparently, an eighth-grade girl has petitioned Hasbro to offer Easy Bake Ovens in more colors than just pink, backing up her request with a widely viewed You Tube video of… read more

Are vegetable or bean chips that much healthier than potato chips?

December 10, 2012 by
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With the holiday season, there are more parties and more snack foods. In that context, It's been fun watching the proliferation of "healthy" chips in the snack food aisle. After all, it's been drilled into us that potato chips are bad for us, so it seems to make sense that kale chips, black bean chips - indeed anything not labeled… read more

Mint confusion: spearmint vs. peppermint

December 6, 2012 by
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Peppermint is a popular holiday flavor - where would we be without candy canes? And spearmint can also be a popular candy flavor  - think gum. Most of us would  regard these two flavors as quite different, yet most recipes just call for "mint." So which type should you use? And which flavor do you get when you buy undifferentiated… read more

23 unexpected, but intriguing,flavor combinations

November 30, 2012 by
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One of the hardest challenges for cooks is to go beyond cookbooks (no matter how great they are) and branch out into experimenting with creating individual recipes, maybe using unusual food combinations. And here is where true taste preferences can come in (peanut butter and pickles anyone?). But despite the obstacles, it remains a fascinating challenge. In this context, we… read more

How to purchase cookbooks to match your cooking style

November 29, 2012 by
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  As avid cookbook collectors, we're sure that everyone in the EYB community has met with one of two aggravating scenarios. First, there are the recipes that just don't tell you enough. For example, a muffin recipe calls for 2 butternut squash, pureed, but just how much pureed squash is that - after all, squash come in different sizes and… read more

Eliminating smelly fish odors

November 28, 2012 by
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We all know that we should eat a lot of fish - not a hardship since fish can be extremely tasty. But you rarely see a discussion regarding one issue with fish - the odor that remains after you cook it. Over at the Kitchn they've looked at the problem and come up with some solutions. Here are a few:… read more

Introducing the Thanksgiving Cherpumple and the Sir Plumple

November 20, 2012 by
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Now that a Turducken has become almost mainstream (we even wrote a serious blog about it), we're very pleased that Serious Eats has taken up the gauntlet of producing a new, outlandish Thanksgiving treat - and not just one, but two. The Cherpumple is described thusly:  "First there was an original Cherpumple (yes there was a forefather Cherpumple who spawned derivative… read more

How to insure a crunchy brownie top

November 18, 2012 by
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With the demise of the Twinkie, we thought we'd refocus on a comfort sweetie that will never go out of style or production - the homemade brownie. And the perfect brownie has to have a crunchy top - it makes the fudgy goodness underneath that much more delectable.  So while it may not be an earth-shattering issue, it's important to… read more

The Smitten Kitchen publishes a cookbook

November 7, 2012 by
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One of our favorite food blogs is the Smitten Kitchen by Deb Perelman. Of all our indexed blogs, the Smitten Kitchen is at the top of the our blog list, with 1,146 of our members following her. Her popularity is obviously due to the quality of her recipes and photos, but it should also be noted that her kitchen is a… read more

Three no-cost ways to protect cookbooks & tablets from splatters

November 6, 2012 by
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We're heading into some intensive cooking weeks, so an item from America's Test Kitchen with ideas on how to prevent cookbooks and recipe cards from getting splattered struck us as particularly useful.  And they use no-cost items you probably already own - clear pot lids, ziplock bags, and clear protector sheets. You can see them demonstrated here.  And while these ideas don't… read more

Are apple cider, apple juice, & hard apple cider interchangeable?

November 5, 2012 by
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In colonial times, in both the United States and Canada, if you asked for a glass of cider - far more popular and safer than water - you'd get a beverage with somewhere around the alcoholic content of beer (2% to 8% ABV).  But alcoholic cider, now called "hard cider," gradually lost its popularity, finally killed off - at least… read more

What to substitute for fresh lemon juice

November 2, 2012 by
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The Kitchn has an excellent blog item today, Help! Is There a Good Substitute for Fresh Lemon Juice. We're pretty sure our savvy members realize that fresh lemon juice is always the best choice but, let's face it, we've all run out of lemons or couldn't find them at one time or another. So this blog, which not only includes the… read more

Cooking Light’s Best 25 Recipes

October 31, 2012 by
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Cooking Light is celebrating its 25th anniversary by publishing, both in print and online,  its best 25 recipes. As they say, "25 years, 25 dishes. We're going back in time to count down our best of the best, from 2011 to 1987." The collection, gathered by its recipe archivists, has some interesting features. We noticed that five include chicken (including… read more

Making groceries last longer

October 30, 2012 by
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First, we want to send all our members who were affected by Hurricane Sandy our very best wishes; we hope you're safe and recovery will be swift.  And since survival is on our mind, we thought it appropriate to share this article from BuzzFeed Food, 27 Ways to Make Your Groceries Last as Long as Possible.  The article is full… read more

The proper way to eat a cupcake

October 28, 2012 by
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Cupcakes have been an intensely popular food item for several years now, so it is not surprising that one of the key questions tormenting the food world has been how to avoid that dreaded modern problem - the frosted nose. It used to be that frosting was spread thinly over cupcakes, but the modern cupcake comes with a high swirl… read more
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