Determining the best Pepperidge Farm cookie

September 24, 2012 by
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We're sure that many of you (esp. those whose mothers didn't bake) regard Pepperidge Farm cookies with a certain nostalgia. While a daily store-bought cookie might have been Chips Ahoy or Oreos, Pepperidge Farm cookies were always just a cut above. More elegant names (Tahiti, Milanos), more elegant packaging, even more elegant looks. With Pepperidge Farm's 75th birthday, Serious Eats… read more

A dream kitchen where money is truly no object

September 23, 2012 by
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The Guardian is profiling a new kitchen for the home that costs over 250,000 British pounds (over $350,000). So what do you get? "An arsenal of blast-chillers, sous-vide vacuum packers and ovens powered by computer hard drives."..."Cupboards, drawers and work surfaces are your own business, adding upwards of £100,000 for the best finishes, say designers." If you love molecular gastronomy,… read more

It’s Hobbit Day!

September 21, 2012 by
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We have to admit we're devoted fans of all things Lord of the Rings, and the upcoming movie version of The Hobbit may be the most exciting thing of 2012. In that spirit, we can't forget that tomorrow is Bilbo and Frodo's birthday, known around the world as "Hobbit Day." To help everybody get prepared, we're linking to Buzz Feed's… read more

150 Cover Issues of Saveur

September 20, 2012 by
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To celebrate its 150th birthday, Saveur has produced a gallery with every cover published since its beginning in 1994. Saveur has always celebrated food in its photography and we consider their images to represent the best food photography out there. So take a few minutes to enjoy this trip and luxuriate in their classic view of food. And then come… read more

Tasting whole chickens

September 19, 2012 by
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Cook's Illustrated has a strong reputation for its taste tests and occasionally makes one available for the public at large. Recently, they conducted a national test on whole chickens, looking for "meat that was rich, clean-tasting, tender, and moist." They also took a hard look at labeling and production, determining that air-chilling (vs. water-chilling) can make a large (positive) difference.… read more

New Zealand has thrown down the cereal gauntlet

September 18, 2012 by
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Somehow in the excitement of the Olympics last month, we didn't notice that 648 New Zealand school children honored their Olympic team by tackling a special challenge. 648 children, along with their teachers, ate more than 300 boxes of  Weet-Bix cereal, soaked with 106 gallons of milk, thereby earning the world record for most cold breakfast cereal consumed. (Weet-Bix, for those of you… read more

Catching Downton Fever

September 17, 2012 by
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It's 111 days until the premiere of Downton Abbey's third season--not that anyone's counting!--and cookbook publishers are doing their best to milk the nostalgic, Downton-deprived masses. Adams Media, which brought us the Unofficial Hunger Games and Unofficial Game of Thrones Cookbooks, has come through again. The Unofficial Downton Abbey Cookbook has the usual blend of just plausible and just silly… read more

How to spot a fake restaurant or hotel review

September 17, 2012 by
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  Yelp and other similar similar review sites are enormously popular with people looking to venture into the unknown. And most people are aware that some reviews are planted or, even worse, created by extortion. So how do we screen reviews to find out what genuine consumers really think? NPR's The Salt tackled the issue in their article "Five Ways… read more

Dorie Greenspan expands her cookie reach

September 14, 2012 by
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Famed baker Dorie Greenspan, author of the wonderful book Baking: From My Home to Yours and the blog In the Kitchen and on the Road with Dorie (recipes indexed on EYB), had a pop-up cookie store in NYC for a while.  It would appear around celebrations such as Christmas and Valentine's Days.  Now she has teamed up with her son and a business… read more

Great cooks rate 5 new important cookbooks

September 14, 2012 by
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Food & Wine asked 5 noted chefs with about-to-be published cookbooks about each others' cookbooks (for the most part) and why they regard them as both important and worthwhile. Specifically: Bruce Aidell talks about Burma: Rivers of Flavor  by Naomi Duguid ("simple home dishes from real families"); Adam Roberts reviews Bouchon Bakery  by Thomas Keller & Sebastien Rouxel ("both the recipes and… read more

Rhubarbgate & the great caviar heist

September 13, 2012 by
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Well we've tried to stay above the political fray, but this story by Marian Burros Food Fight: Current And Former White House Chefs Dish On Their Presidential Service, was just too good to pass up. Burros writes about a panel presentation given by former White House chefs at the Association of Food Journalists. Some of the chefs were notably discrete and… read more

2-Ingredient (no yeast) pizza dough

September 12, 2012 by
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Our friends in Australia have once again shown culinary innovation with this recipe for 2-ingredient pizza dough, which the kidspot kitchen site describes as: "This fast and easy pizza dough is perfect for when you don't have time to wait for dough to prove or to play around with yeast ." While it may never replace  great hearth-baked pizza, and Peter… read more

Abusing jello vs. respecting it

September 11, 2012 by
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Sometimes nostalgia for home-baked goods, old-fashioned roast chicken, or home-canned tomato sauce can make us a bit guilty for not spending the requisite time in the kitchen. So it's good to remind ourselves of some old-fashioned foods that were once considered good homemade food and are not deserving of resurrection. This collection by BuzzFood of "39 Things That Should Never… read more

Cakes from the Dark Side

September 10, 2012 by
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The other day I got a serious problem in the mail.  I was briskly opening up boxes and bags of new fall cookbooks when--blam!--there it was, staring up at me with an evil expression.  Twisted Cakes, it read, and beneath that was a Technicolor splurge of frosting which swiftly resolved into a hideous, grinning clown-face that didn't even pretend not… read more

The $1 million recipe

September 10, 2012 by
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We have a sneaking suspicion that most of our members have a soft spot for the Pillsbury Bake Off contest. Certainly anyone who's ever made a bundt cake should be grateful to the 2nd place winner of the 1966 contest: The  "Tunnel-of-Fudge" cake inspired an explosion in popularity for bundt cakes. Ditto anyone who's ever unrolled crescent dough and added… read more

Two tips: Storing cut avocados and substituting parsleys

September 9, 2012 by
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Here are two helpful tips for the kitchen. First up, what to do when you have leftover avocado. Avocados are double trouble - they're expensive to start with, and then are problematic to store as they brown so easily. The ideas of: a) keeping the pit in while storing, and b) sprinkling a little lemon juice over the cut portion… read more

A gastronome’s puzzle

September 8, 2012 by
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Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has a new book just out Hugh's Three Good Things.  Hugh's premise is that there are combinations of three ingredients that create culinary magic.  And we will be indexing the book shortly so we will find out how well that works. The Guardian newspaper has revealed a puzzle that academics have been pondering for at least three decades.… read more

The absolutely best way to dry herbs

September 7, 2012 by
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About this time of year (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) gardens are beginning to show wear and tear. And that's especially sad for those who love just plucking fresh herbs when you need them -  or buying them in bunches at the markets - and dread having to use store-bought dried herbs that are drab and may be musty.… read more

“Shades of Grey” inspired food

September 6, 2012 by
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Huff Post Food has an article titled, "'Fifty Shades of Grey'-Themed Cooking Class Has Us Cringing" that also left us a bit disconcerted. In particular, it was the part about the mother-daughter duos that attended this class in a California strip mall. We appreciate that cooking and food should  bring families together, and we do see the humor in it… read more

Two approaches to food writing: Memoirs and Cookbooks

September 5, 2012 by
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We know that our members share our fondness for food writing - after all, many of us love to read cookbooks as much as cook from them. So we thought these two articles from Dianne Jacob's blog, Will Write for Food, would be fun to point out. In the first article, Dianne challenges her readers to "Go On a Quest:… read more

Going back to bread

September 4, 2012 by
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We've just rounded the corner on Labor Day, which means...it's bread season again! Time to make soup and swab the bowl with torn and crusty slices.  Time to slice sandwich breads for school lunches.   Time to rise early and smell the claylike aroma of the yeast.  Soon, there will be a sweet spot near the wood stove that's perfect… read more

A Stanford Univ. study finds no advantage in organic

September 4, 2012 by
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The New York Times  today is reporting the results of a mega-study conducted by Stanford University on organic produce and meats, looking at four decades of results. The over-all study concluded "that fruits and vegetables labeled organic were, on average, no more nutritious than their conventional counterparts, which tend to be far less expensive. Nor were they any less likely… read more

Can you eat food dropped on the floor?

September 3, 2012 by
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One of our favorite apps comes from "Fooducate." The app, (available for both iPhones and Androids) , allows users to scan a product's bar code, immediately see nutrition information, and get suggestions for a healthier alternative. Each item is graded and clearly marked why it earned that grade.  It's free and easy to use, recommended by the Wall Street Journal,… read more

Ingredient substitution guide

September 2, 2012 by
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The Kitchn has a useful Quick Guide to Ingredient Substitutions for last-minute kitchen replacements or "if you're trying to modify a recipe out of dietary necessity (shifting it to be dairy or gluten-free, for example)." Find the best gluten-free flour substitute, or what to replace for cake flour, buttermilk, vinegar, bananas, and much more. And make sure you read the comments… read more

Holly Herrick

August 31, 2012 by
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For this month's author profile, we have some lovely insights into the writing and cooking life of Holly Herrick, author most recently of Tart Love.  In her piece you'll find surprising answers to questions like "What's the hardest part of writing a cookbook?" and "How do you become a food writer?" as well as a charming personal anecdote about Julia Child. … read more
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