Food as comfort and solace

April 17, 2013 by
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It felt strange to be driving in to Boston yesterday, the day after the terrible bombings at the Boston Marathon finish line.  It was a gorgeous spring day, traffic was light but there was an edgy feeling, not helped by the large numbers of heavily armed police, security and army around the city. But having lived in London during the… 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

Local and localer

April 16, 2013 by
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In the days before I had my own vegetable garden, I could hardly wait for the farmstands to fill up with local color and variety each year.  What's better than a fresh carrot?  A purple carrot grown five miles away.  What's better than a cool new radish?  a bunch of Easter Egg radishes, ovoid and pastel.  What's better than a… read more

Making a pepper mill more user friendly

April 15, 2013 by
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ATK's Feed recently published some helpful tips on managing a pepper mill. Most cooks have learned the mantra that freshly ground pepper is much more flavorful than preground, but that still doesn't mean that pepper mills are especially user friendly. Here are some tricks to making them a bit more useful (check out the article, 3 Terrific Pepper Mill Tricks,… read more

Is “A” graded Maple Syrup better than “B”?

April 14, 2013 by
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It's maple syrup season here in the New England, so we thought we'd take a moment to discuss grades of maple syrup and dispute the claim that an "A" is better than a "B."  We should note that the grades depend whether you're buying maple syrup from Canada or the United States, since the two have different grading systems. Canada, which… read more

Time to play hide-and-seek

April 12, 2013 by
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It's Friday (at least here in the U.S.) so we wanted to be a little frivolous and this posting from Epicurious touched the spot. In Top Ten Places to Hide Your Snacks Kemp Minifie aims to help those of us who'd like to make the cookies, chips, caviar, whatever just a little harder to dip into. Or, alternatively, keep them to… read more

IACP 2013 Cookbook Award winners

April 10, 2013 by
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Fiona (left) and Jane (right) were honored to present the Eat Your Books General Cookbook Award last night to Maricel Presilla for her important work, Gran Cocina Latina.  The Awards were tremendous fun and you can see the complete list of winners here. HIghlights of the night were: Meeting Charles Phan of the wonderful Slanted Door restaurant (where we had… 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

Gwyneth Paltrow’s new cookbook raises controversy

April 9, 2013 by
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The actress Gwyneth Paltrow has become quite prominent in the food and lifestyle industry. She co-hosted with Mario Batali a PBS food show on Spanish food; published a cookbook (My Father's Daughter: Delicious, Easy Recipes Celebrating Family & Togetherness); and set up a lifestyle website at goop.com. (This latter website raised a lot of eyebrows when it was calculated that… read more

The mainstreaming of the global pantry

April 9, 2013 by
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When I was first learning to cook, the 80's had just swept past, leaving in their big-haired, big-shouldered wake a trove of newly-popularized ingredients that had once been exotic: raspberry and balsamic vinegars, arugula, sun-dried tomatoes. And because shiitakes were becoming affordable and mainstream, it was now possible to make recipes with "wild mushrooms" any night you wanted to without… read more

Why printed cookbooks are here to stay

April 8, 2013 by
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We loved this article from the Kitchn, Four Reasons Why I Will Never Give Up Print Cookbooks. Since we at EYB modestly believe that EYB brings you the best of both the online and print worlds - at least when it comes to cookbooks and recipes and blogs and magazines - this article sings to us. The article describes four reasons… 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

What’s your favorite song to cook to?

April 5, 2013 by
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The Daily Meal recently posted a fun list, Best Songs to Bake To. And they have some good ones, which they've posted on Spotify if you'd like to download them. Here's the list: I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) - The Four Tops Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns In Bed - Kinky Friedman Good Lovin'… 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

An honest-to-goodness foolproof way to poach an egg

April 3, 2013 by
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We all have little challenges in life that aren't momentous but are a constant irritant - and cooking a perfect poached egg was one of ours. Somehow, despite numerous attempts, research and, yes, even cooking school (where we were taught to carefully lay the eggs on a kitchen towel and manually trim the eggs with scissors), our poached eggs tasted… read more

All About Branding

April 2, 2013 by
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Let's talk for a moment about "branding," a term one hears a great deal of in cookbook publishing these days.  Everybody does it: The TV chef who sells a line of cookware, the market gardener who starts a blog, the Barefoot Contessa, the Naked Chef, Chris Kimball with his bowtie.  Even me, with my cookbook-rating app. "Branding," with respect to… read more

What do 2012’s best-selling cookbooks tell us about food trends?

April 2, 2013 by
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It seems that Spring (finally arriving here in the Northern hemisphere) really starts the new cycle of cookbooks. But before we let go of last year, Cooking by the Numbers - an analysis by Publishers Weekly of just what made for a best-selling cookbook in 2012 - provides some interesting insights and forecasts about what is coming up (they primarily, but not… read more

Our five favorite April Fool’s Day sites

April 1, 2013 by
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We'll admit to being a little jealous at some of the great April Fool's Day sites that have gone up today - we applaud both the cleverness and the humor in the companies that have surrendered their sites to whimsy.  Alas, we can't emulate them, but at least we can honor them. So here are our favorite five food-related April… 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

Thomas Keller loves Peeps!

March 29, 2013 by
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Thomas Keller is certainly one of the top 5 most respected chefs in the world, so it wasn't surprising that NPR visited him to talk about his favorite Easter recipes, as reported in Homemade Peeps, And More Easter Treats, A La Thomas Keller. Keller's  new book, Bouchon Bakery,  is up for numerous awards, so a lot of the conversation had to do… read more

March 2013 cookbook roundup

March 27, 2013 by
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Every month Susie Chang reviews new cookbook releases and notes trends. And she may also occasionally throw in a review of a "not-quite cookbook." We're arranging for similar roundups like Susie's for books published in the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand, but until we formally launch those, we'll still be noting new arrivals and providing brief descriptions. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- March is a… read more

Interview with Deborah Madison

March 27, 2013 by
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We recently sat down with Deborah Madison, winner of too many IACP, Julia Child, and James Beard awards for her vegetarian cookbooks to list. She has just added a new one: Vegetable Literacy. This book uses a unique approach, which she describes on her website: "Families are about similarities and relationships, and it's as true with plants as it is… read more

Teeny-weeny tiny print!

March 26, 2013 by
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As I might have mentioned a while back, I'm in the middle of developing this cookbook-rating app, which means that I've been going through the backlist and re-examining cookbooks from about the last 12 years (as well as some up-to-the-minute ones). One of the many criteria I tabulate is the size of the print, because although - as we all… read more

Do TV chefs have to be sexy to succeed?

March 26, 2013 by
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Both the Guardian in the U.K. and the Braiser in the U.S. have recently weighed in on the question: Do TV chefs have to be sex symbols to be successful? It's a good question - and may explain why the most talented chefs are disappearing from TV while the more photogenic ones hang on (when was the last time you… 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
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