Garlic meets the microwave – quickly peeling or roasting a head of garlic

February 25, 2013 by
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Here's a quick tip from Chow for a Monday morning. Heat a head of garlic in a microwave for about 20 seconds and the cloves will slide right out of their skins  - no mess and no sticky problem. This video demonstrates. And while we're on the subject of microwaving garlic, check out the Kitchn's tip for roasting garlic in… read more

An Interview with Clifford A. Wright

February 24, 2013 by
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We recently had a chance to chat with Clifford A. Wright. Clifford, a specialist in Mediterranean cuisines, was a winner of the James Beard Cookbook of the Year and Beard Award for the Best Writing on Food for his 2000 cookbook, A Mediterranean Feast. He just published a new cookbook, One-Pot Wonders, which Susie reviewed in her Cookbook roundup, stating "What… read more

Pies in the face and James Bond

February 24, 2013 by
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This weekend we're honoring the Oscars with great food-related movie moments. Yesterday we wrote about The best food movies and movie scenes. Today we're presenting memorable food fights and a tribute to 50 years of James Bond. Food Republic recently published 10 of Our Favorite Movie Foodfights, inviting readers to "get ready to get dirty." Here's their list: Homicidal tomatoes… read more

The best food movies and movie scenes

February 23, 2013 by
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We're doing a two-part food and movie blog this weekend in honor of the Oscars. Today we're looking at two compilations - from Serious Eats  of  their favorite food movies  and Boston.com's collection of chefs's favorite movie scenes. In 12 of Our Favorite Food Movies, Serious Eats lists movies that are either about food or have great food scenes. Here's… read more

Sous vide – is it more than just boil-in-a-bag?

February 21, 2013 by
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Sous vide has been a restaurant cooking technique for many years. For anyone who is not sure what sous vide is, it's a process of cooking food in a vacuum-sealed bag.  The food is then cooked in a precise temperature-controlled water bath. There are several advantages: reliability - the same moist results every time; cooking to the exact desired temperature -… read more

The best way to store lemons

February 18, 2013 by
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America's Test Kitchen Feed recently  tackled one of the kitchen's basic questions: How to best store lemons? It's tempting (and cheaper) to buy lemons in bulk, but then how to keep them juicy? In We Prove It: The Best Way To Store Lemons, they compared the results between storing whole lemons in an unsealed container,  in a zipper-lock bag with 1/4… read more

Fish Wars

February 17, 2013 by
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NPR recently pursued an indepth investigation of the Marine Stewardship Council, an organization which certifies seafood as good for the environment. In their three-part series, Under the Label: Sustainable Seafood, NPR reports that  "as more retailers promise to sell only sustainable-labeled seafood, the program is certifying fisheries that don't deserve it." The MSC is a non-profit, non-government organization that provides a sustainable… read more

The Piglet cookbook contest

February 15, 2013 by
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Since we are confident that our readers love cookbooks, we wanted to make certain that people are aware of Food52's Piglet contest. It's a bracketed tournament of cookbooks, where they choose 16 notable cookbooks from the previous year and have them square off for the Piglet trophy. They ask a top food writer or chef to judge between two cookbooks. The… read more

Jell-O never ceases to amaze

February 14, 2013 by
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What's not to love about Jell-O? Well, awhile ago we wrote a blog about the ways people have abused Jell-O over the years (see Abusing Jell-O vs. respecting it) but this week (International Jell-O week) we wanted to join with BuzzFeed in celebrating all the ways - many unexpected - that Jell-O have contributed to our lives. Here are a… read more

Truly awful cooking results

February 13, 2013 by
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We've all had kitchen disasters, but hopefully never as bad as the ones that BuzzFeed so graphically illustrates in 37 People Who Are Worse At Cooking Than You Are. Here are a few of our favorites - check them all out for reassurance that your kitchen disasters can - and have - been surpassed: (Check out yesterday's blog, Tips for easy… read more

Tips for easy cake icing

February 12, 2013 by
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If you're an experienced cake froster (icer), this blog probably isn't for you. But for those of us who ice cakes only on special occasions (Valentine's Day, birthdays, etc.) it doesn't hurt to be reminded of some basic frosting rules that will truly make a difference. After all, our EYB members have over 600 cake cookbooks in their collections (750 of… read more

Is food more fashionable than fashion?

February 11, 2013 by
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Over at the Huffington Post, Martha Stewart reflects on the possibility that food may be the new fashion. As she writes in her introduction to Food is the New Fashion: "The notion that 'you are what you eat' extends beyond the virtues of a nutritious, well-balanced diet. These days, it often seems that you are what you purchase in the… read more

How not to impress a food lover

February 10, 2013 by
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Thanks to BuzzFeed, and just in time for Valentine' Day, here are several no-no's if you're going on a first date with a food lover. Check out the post for the rationale behind each item: Don't choose a super-fancy restaurant Don't choose a concept restaurant Don't make someone you ask out choose a restaurant Don't be rude to anyone who… read more

Alton Brown’s 5 most important kitchen tools

February 8, 2013 by
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Serious Eats has been publishing a series of interviews with Alton Brown that are each, in their own way, quite interesting. We wrote about one of them, Will recipes become living things?, in December, and we've been meaning to highlight another one that was published last month: Alton Brown's 5 Essential Pieces of Kitchen Equipment.  We wanted to note this interview… read more

Celebrating the year of the snake

February 7, 2013 by
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This coming Sunday begins the Chinese New Year. The Chinese calendar is a lunar/solar calendar and other names for this festival - by far the biggest in the Chinese calendar - are the Lunar New Year and the Spring Festival. The celebration begins on the new moon on the first day of the new year (Feb. 10 this year) and ends… read more

Borrow your seeds from the public library

February 6, 2013 by
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We assume since our members are avid cooks that many of you are also avid gardeners - the two often go hand-in-hand. And, at least up here in the cold environs, it's now the perfect time to plan a garden. So here's an idea that NPR recently reported about that struck us as a win-win idea. According to How To… read more

When can you claim a recipe as your own?

February 5, 2013 by
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Last month The L.A. Times published an article that delved into a thorny problem in food editing - who actually owns a recipe? When can you claim a recipe as your own? In The complicated case of the simple cookie The Times described how a rosemary apricot bar cookie had been declared the winner of a recent baking contest. Several readers wrote in… read more

Is the fish cooked?

February 4, 2013 by
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The classic time guide for cooking fish is to cook it for ten minutes for every one inch of thickness. But this really isn't a satisfactory method as it leaves too many questions open - At what oven or stove top temperature? What kind of fish? Oily or dry texture? And, as Molly Stevens at FineCooking writes: "The often-quoted theory… read more

Jello and Popcorn

February 3, 2013 by
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As we already wrote the only Superbowl blog you'll need (Margaritas and guacamole), we thought that, while we'd get in the Superbowl spirit today, we'd take an off-beat path. So we're noting two recent articles on under-praised snack foods - jello and popcorn. Buzzfeed has a wonderful photo essay on popcorn that should provide lots of inspiration, as should some… read more

Are you a flexitarian?

February 1, 2013 by
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We like to stay current with food terminology, so the word "flexitarian" caught our eye. The Guardian has been concerned recently with defining vegetarianism and, in two recent articles, they do a good job of summing up the fluidity with which this term is being used. In a moderately light-hearted article, Flexitarianism: Isn't it just vegetarianism with cheating? they note that "Flexitarians… read more

We’re one of the 50 best global food websites!

January 31, 2013 by
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Today we'd like to take a time out and brag just a little. We're especially proud that The Times (London) has included EYB as one of the top 50 best global food websites. If you have a Times subscription, you can view the entire article here, but if you don't, we wanted to let you read the nice things they had… read more

Margaritas and Guacamole

January 30, 2013 by
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We've recently celebrated Australia Day and Burns Night so it is only fitting that we acknowledge that great U.S. holiday - Super Bowl. And who better to do it with than Rick Bayless? And what better to do it with than margaritas and guacamole?   Bayless has a new book out called "Frontera - Margaritas, Guacamole, and Snacks" (already indexed… read more

Should restaurants ban taking food photos?

January 29, 2013 by
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There is a growing dispute engulfing the food world - should taking food photos in restaurants be banned (such photos are now known as "foodstagrams")? There are now multitudes of way to post photos immediately online,  and more and more restaurant diners are taking photos of their foods as the plates arrive. But, recently, some restaurants have banned the use… read more

Customizing garlic flavor

January 28, 2013 by
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Susie wrote an interesting blog today on the problem of having too many Italian cookbooks (see Magic number) so we thought this recent article from Serious Eats,  On Developing Garlic Flavor, might make a nice companion piece. Kenji Alt, who writes Ask The Food Lab, deals with the question of how to tame garlic's harshness. In the article he reveals some… read more

The Chowhound challenge – describe your cooking in 3 words

January 27, 2013 by
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We imagine many of our members post on Chowhound - one of the largest discussion boards on food. Recently, one of the discussions concerned a rather interesting question, "Can you describe your cooking style in three words?" That fairly simple question started a personal train of thought that eventually included how to define cooking styles, how personal cooking styles change over… read more
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