September 2025 EYB Cookbook Club Summary

Each month we allow posting in our Eat Your Books Cookbook Club from any cookbook, magazine or blog and we also offer one featured cookbook -most months. We hope that sharing our favorite recipes will help our Members discover new cookbooks and recipes to try. Also please see our October 2025 Great Big Cookbook Club Summary which is now organized by location and includes… read more

Food news antipasto

We start out this week's review with the passing of two very different culinary figures. The first is Marian Burros, cookbook author, food columnist for The New York Times from 1981 to 2014, and former Washington Post food editor, who has died at age 92. An Emmy award-winning television host, Burros became famous for her plum torte recipe, which was… read more

The Great British Bake Off/Baking Show – Bread Week 3 – 2025

I dread bread week for two reasons. One, there is never enough time to proof the dough. Secondly, I envision Paul as he violates a loaf of bread as the giant finger who would poke the Pillsbury dough boy's belly back in the day. Darcie: I share Jenny's opinion about bread week, but for an additional reason - I have… read more

Chemistry in the kitchen

If you love to cook, you are applying scientific concepts every time you make a meal - even if you hated science classes in school. I happened to love chemistry, which may explain why I geek out over the science of cooking. Serious Eats also has a thing for food science, which is why they created a series of articles… read more

October 2025 Great Big Cookbook Club Summary

As our members know, each month we offer several cooking options in our Eat Your Books Cookbook Club. There are other fun cookbook clubs around world and we’d like to highlight those for those members who might want to cook or bake something other than our choices.  I will update this post as clubs make their additional choices. Something that has… read more

Forgotten vegetables

While there is a large variety of vegetables to be found at farmers' markets and grocery stores, some veg that were once staples in diets around the world have faded into obscurity. The Takeout looks into fifteen of these all-but-forgotten vegetables and explains a bit of the history of each. While I was familiar with several of these foods, there… read more

A new (old) way to fry food

A deep frying technique that has been used for centuries in Asia is gaining a new fan base in the West, and it uses a surprising ingredient: salt. Salt (or, more commonly, sand) frying "is a process with historical roots that spans countries and centuries" says Food & Wine's Merlyn Miller. It's receiving renewed interest since cooking creator Roice Bethel's… read more

Food news antipasto

Love avocados but struggle to get them out of their skins? You may want to try the viral method that relies on a whisk. It is just as easy as it sounds - cut the avocado in half, remove the pit, and "insert your whisk right into the green part of the avocado, twist, and scoop". Just be sure to… read more

The Great British Bake Off/Baking Show – Week 2 – Biscuit Week 2025

After a rough Cake Week, we are back in the tent for Biscuit Week! In case you missed this: Waitrose Weekend’s September 4th edition has a two page article (p. 6-7) about the two women who organize all the logistics for the Bake-off Tent. Signature challenge: Slice and bake biscuits with a design in two hours. How to make slice and bake… read more

Upcoming cookbooks and events, EYBD Previews and more

Today, I will tell you about a few upcoming titles that I am loving! First up, Chesnok: Cooking from My Corner of the Diaspora: Recipes from Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia by Polina Chesnakova is a must have for this Cookbooktober. I love Polina's cookbooks and was thrilled to learn of this title. Chesnok translates to a head… read more

In praise of beige food

Beige is not a color that inspires - it is most often associated with words like dull, drab, boring, and bland. This is true even when you extend it to the food world. Instagram is not exactly brimming with glam shots of plain porridge or buttered noodles or an unadorned piece of toast. These foods get zhuzhed up with vividly… read more

Are cooking shows on their way out?

Cooking shows have proliferated in the past 20 or so years - every streaming service has multiple offerings, as do more traditional broadcast and cable networks. These vary from competitive reality TV to educational programs to travel shows. Programs like Top Chef, Chopped, Hell's Kitchen, Good Eats, America's Test Kitchen, No Reservations, and dozens more have educated and entertained us… read more

Cooking by sound

A friend was over at my house one day when I was baking a cake. When I took the pan out of the oven I held it to my ear. Puzzled, my friend asked what I was doing. I told her I was listening for the cake to tell me it was done. She didn't believe me at first, but… read more

Listen to Your Vegetables – Quick Bites – Worldwide Giveaway

Enter our worldwide giveaway to win one of two copies of Listen To Your Vegetables: Italian-Inspired Recipes for Every Season by Sarah Grueneberg. I love this book so much - I bought two extra copies to giveaway here. Listen To Your Vegetables - published in 2022 - is a vegetable focused cookbook of more than 200 Italian-inspired recipes that are surprisingly achievable… read more

Food news antipasto

Gordon Ramsay announced he plans to revive his show Hell's Kitchen in the UK, possibly with a spin-off chain of restaurants. His show in the US has run for 24 seasons and spawned seven restaurants across the country. ITV has reportedly trademarked the Hell’s Kitchen name and insiders say the show could debut as early as 2026. Fried chicken, honey butter, and… read more

The Great British Bake Off/Baking Show – Week 1 – Cake Week 2025

And we are back with cake week! I might hurt myself if I do not get this off my chest - the Jurassic Bake opening was tragic. At first blush, I thought Prue Leith was Martin Mull (resurrected) and each bad joke was predictable. That being said, I can forgive them the opening as I love the show. Update: Waitrose… read more

Dobre Dobre and other baking titles, events, EYBD Previews and more

There are an embarrassment of riches in terms of baking releases this autumn including: Dorie’s Anytime Cakes by Dorie Greenspan (Preview), Baking and the Meaning of Life by Helen Goh (Preview), Sally's Baking 101 by Sally McKenney; Sure Thing Desserts by Matt Lewis; Lebanese Baking by Maureen Abood (we will have a promotion with a Quick Bites on this title); SCÉAL:… read more

Food52 goes to the farm

Food52 is not the place I would think of when it comes to rural life. Based in NYC, it's filled with glam and a definite urban vibe. However, the site recently added a new weekly column from food writer and recipe developer Alexis deBoschnek titled From the Farm. Alexis has written two cookbooks, 2022's To the Last Bite: Recipes and… read more

Of ground cherries and gooseberries

There are not many tropical fruit flavors to be found growing in gardens in the northern Midwest where I live. In fact, there is really only one garden stalwart with this attribute: ground cherries. After I posted a photo of a tomato and ground cherry tart on my Facebook page, some of my friends asked what a ground cherry was.… read more

The vegan restaurant dilemma

A few weeks ago I wrote about how, after four years as a vegan-only establishment, Eleven Madison Park was adding meat back to the menu. The famed NYC restaurant is not the only vegan eatery to make changes in the current restaurant climate. Many once-beloved vegan restaurants have even closed permanently in recent months. Is this part of a trend… read more

Food news antipasto

Want to experience something from Rene Redzepi's NOMA but can't afford to go to Copenhagen? You can try Noma Kaffe, a monthly subscription service that allows you to sample the coffee served at the award-winning restaurant. As you might expect, this service is not cheap: the cost is $65 USD per month for two 250-gram bags of coffee. Noma’s head… read more

TL;DR

Remember food blogs? You know, the ones that had charming stories that ultimately led to a recipe that you wanted to try? It seems that in our increasingly fast-paced world, reading a few paragraphs takes too much time. In the last few years much ado has been made about food blogs being a waste of time and that bloggers should… read more

Seasonal shifts

A few days ago, we had a brief taste of autumn when temperatures dipped to unseasonable highs and lows. While we are still weeks away from true autumn, this short spell of cool weather created a shift in how I thought about cooking and baking. I have written before about how changes in the weather can provoke anticipation for certain… read more

How do you like them pommes (de terre)?

Please forgive me for the bad pun on the old saying "how do you like them apples?", but I just couldn't resist. But it is for a good reason - the ranking of 10 potato dishes from worst to best, by Andrea McGinniss of The Sydney Morning Herald's Good Food. This is bound to be controversial, because everyone is going… read more

August 2025 New Cookbook Review

Are you ready for our favorite time of year Cookbooktober season? August ushers in the best time of the year. We have loads of new releases to ease us into the heavy months of September, October and November. Our 2025 Cookbook Preview Post is continually updated and I will soon begin our 2026 post! Don’t forget that you can create a wishlist and share… read more
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