Jessica B. Harris receives JBF Lifetime Achievement Award

Today the James Beard Foundation announced the recipient of its 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award, bestowing that honor on Jessica B. Harris. The award is given to those "whose body of work has had a positive and long-lasting impact on the way we eat, cook, and think about food in America". Harris is the author of twelve cookbooks documenting the foods… read more

Where there’s smoke…

Plenty of recipe writers will tell you to make sure you don't heat an oil past its smoke point, or dire consequences will occur. This raises the dual questions of what kind of consequences and how bad are they? The answers are complex, says Becky Krystal at The Washington Post. She explains the ins and outs of smoke points in… read more

Food news antipasto

Our first news nugget for this week falls under the 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' department: Anna Sanders, a reporter for the New York Daily News has an unusual and interesting food-related hobby. She likes to paint portraits of bagels. Food & Wine recently caught up with Sanders to discuss her bagel art. We have some sad news… read more

Missed opportunities

One evening several years ago, I was walking along Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis and passed by the Dakota Jazz Club. There were a lot of people standing outside, and when I looked at the marquee, I understood why. Prince was playing that night. Amazingly, there were still tickets available, but they came with a steep price tag. I pondered the… read more

Diving into the deep end

Ideas for quick, satisfying weeknight dinners are always welcome. When you've logged in a hard day at the office, in the field, or in the house, the last thing you want to do is tackle a recipe with a laundry list of ingredients, multiple complicated steps, and the potential for dirtying every saucepan and mixing bowl you have. However, on… read more

How to stock up for a quarantine

Somtimes I discover information that, while practical, is something that I hope I will never have to use. Today is a case in point, and it surrounds the growing concerns over COVID-19. While it might be too soon to think about a potential quarantine, that hasn't stopped people from emptying store shelves of supplies like hand sanitizer and toilet paper.… read more

How the Sugarcraft Guild made an historic cake replica

When then-Princess Elizabeth married Prince Philip in 1947, the entire world watched. The post-war euphoria, combined with a first-ever televised ceremony, created an atmosphere of celebration that reverberated around the globe. To honor the couple, bakeries from near and far sent cakes to London. One of the most elaborate came from the now-defunct Peek Freans biscuit company. As Gastro Obscura… read more

‘Classic Indian Cooking’ turns 40

We live in what has been described as a golden age for cookbooks. There are thousands of cookbooks published each year, and of those thousands, hundreds are noteworthy. But will they still be discussed after forty years has passed? Only the best and brightest books can claim to be relevant and inspiring decades after their release. Julie Sahni's Classic Indian… read more

The rise of private restaurants

Getting a table at most of the world's top restaurants is not easy. Most of them are booked months ahead of time or have limited seatings that can only accommodate a relatively small number of diners. A new wave of eateries is making fine dining even more limited. Some chefs and proprietors are turning to private restaurants to control costs… read more

Food news antipasto

Remember all of those stunning cheese boards that popped up on Instagram a few years ago? The idea behind these sumptuous displays is now taking root for other foods, as The Washington Post explains. They explore how people are putting everything from deconstructed salads to French fries and even pancakes on boards. The reason this type of display is so… read more

Bonus recipes

I spent the better part of my day reorganizing my cookbook collection, adding the new volumes I purchased over the last few months. I had to do some serious rearranging because 2019 was such a great year for books that I ended up with more than I had planned. As I was moving items from one shelf to another, some… read more

Food Network has a new reality baking show

Martha Stewart wearing an all-white outfit smiles at the camera. The background is an off white just darker than Stewart's outfit.
If you enjoy reality baking programs, this news is for you. Food Network recently announced a new reality baking program, hosted by none other than the doyenne of domesticity Martha Stewart. Called Bakeaway Camp with Martha Stewart, the show puts a new twist on the standard competition format. The show will feature six amateur bakers vying for the prize, which… read more

Politics and cooking have a long history together

If you are following the US presidential candidate primary, you may have seen Pete Buttigieg's controversial salsa/ranch dressing mashup, or perhaps viewed Stephen Colbert talking with Elizabeth Warren over a meal featuring traditional foods of South Carolina. Combining food and politics did not begin with these events, of course. There is a long history of food and politics being intertwined,… read more

Art of Eating prize winner announced

Today the magazine Art of Eating announced the winner of its annual prize for best food book of the year. It's the sensational Black Sea by Caroline Eden. In her review, Jenny noted several reasons to love this book: the author’s gift for the written word which spirits the reader away to the locales rich with historystunning photographs of the… read more

Behaviors that drive chefs batty

With a plethora of websites that allow people to rate their dining experience, everyone has the ability to be a restaurant critic. Most of the time chefs and restaurateurs do not react outwardly to the negativity that inevitably seems to be hurled at them. The Guardian thought it would be fair to turn the tables, so to speak, and let… read more

A new show called ‘Dishing with Julia Child’ coming to PBS

Julia Child has been getting plenty of posthumous love. Last fall we reported on an upcoming documentary featuring the legendary cook and author, and now we have another show to tell you about. This one is coming to public television as a six part series in which chefs and food personalities provide commentary on a different episode of The French… read more

Food news antipasto

It's almost physically impossible for me not to click on a social media post that touts a great new 'kitchen hack' video on YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook. Apparently I am not alone, as many of these posts go viral and get millions of clicks. However, some of them turn out to be duds, and a great number of them are… read more

André Simon Food and Drink book award winners 2019

We have long covered the IACP, JBF, and Writers Guild UK cookbook awards, but one has sailed under our radar for years. This year we are rectifying that oversight, and are reporting on the 2019 André Simon Awards. Simon was the charismatic leader of the English wine trade for almost all of the first half of the 20th century, and the… read more

An ode to the carrot

In yesterday's post about cooking under lockdown, the bloggers profiled in the story said that they could always find carrots at the supermarket because nobody really liked them. One of our favorite cookbook authors begs to differ. Yotam Ottolenghi just penned a missive extolling the virtues of the 'anything but humble' root vegetable. Ottolenghi posits that carrots are loved by… read more

Cooking under lockdown

Unless you have been living under a rock, you have heard about the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in China. Because this virus has a relatively long incubation time, the quarantines that have been set up to contain it are long-lasting. Some people in the hardest hit region have been hunkering down for several weeks. The virus has also hit supply… read more

Over 70,000 cookbook recipes online

The milestones at Eat Your Books just keep coming. Last month we were excited to announce our 600th EYB Digital Preview and over 9,000 cookbooks indexed. This month we are adding another feather to our cap: we now have surpassed 70,000 online recipes from cookbooks in the EYB Library. To think of it in book terms, those freely available recipes… read more

IACP Cuisinart Awards – 2020 Nominees

Congratulations to the 2020 class of nominees for the International Association of Culinary Professionals Cuisinart Awards. The winners will be announced at the IACP Annual Conference on March 28, 2020 in Pittsburgh. Once again the IACP has made changes to the categories of books being judged. For 2020 two categories got the axe: there will be no Compilations or Reference/Technical books… read more

Improve your baking in ten weeks

I love to bake and usually have a baking project going at any given time. To keep this habit from further expanding my waistline, I give away most of the cakes, cookies, pastries, pies and tarts that I make. My friends and coworkers gratefully receive these goodies, with many of them saying that they do not themselves bake because they… read more

Food news antipasto

It is nearing peak melon season in Australia, and while the drought has been bad news for the fires that are wreaking havoc across the continent, less water is not bad for the melon crop. When water is scarce melons can actually have more flavor, according to The Guardian. They have assembled a guide on how to choose the best… read more

Ways to use leftover Valentine’s Day chocolate

I cannot imagine this happening to me, but according to Food & Wine it is possible to receive too much chocolate for Valentine's Day. For those who are fortunate enough to have a windfall of extra truffles or other chocolate goodies, they offer five ideas for using up the leftovers. I suspect you will be able to guess some of… read more
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