Food news antipasto

This is cause for celebration – Le Creuset is having another Factory to Table Sale, with discounts of up to 40% off. The sale features everything from Dutch ovens to grill pans to tagines to nonstick skillets to dinnerware and more. Even better: they are offering free shipping on all orders, with no minimum purchase required. Be sure to check out the gorgeous new olive branch pieces.

This week The Splendid Table offered a repeat of one its most popular episodes, called ‘Pepper Party‘, a celebration of chilis in all their glory. Francis Lam talks to botanist Heather Arndt Anderson about the history of chilis, there’s a lesson on making Oaxacan chiles rellenos, and America’s Test Kitchen explains various ways to use green peppers. If you are a fan of chili peppers, this is one episode you will want to dive into.

In her award-winning blog Tales from Topographic Kitchens, Nicola Miller explores a topic that will appeal to most of our members, that of single-subject cookbooks. She gets help from a number of food writers, including John Birdsall, Lulu Grimes, Caroline Eden, and others who share their favorite single-subject cookbooks, whether it’s an exploration of a particular food, technique, or region. They explain why they like the book and how it influenced their own cooking or writing.

After the kitchen fun ends, the cleanup begins. Food and Wine offer the best cleaning advice from one of their Test Kitchen professionals for dealing with stubborn cooking stains. You’ll learn how to take care of discolored enamel, wrecked roasting pans, and how to remove stains from marble and granite. Plus, you’ll get “the most bizarre, ridiculous, and effective cleaning solution” that the pro has ever encountered.

If there is one condiment that screams “America”, it has to be ketchup. What we know as ketchup today is different from its origins, however. What is now a monolithic product used to have many unique variations. “There were tremendously different ways of producing ketchup historically,” according to historian Andrew Smith. Read more at Gastro Obscura about how ketchup evolved into what we take for granted today.