Politics and cooking have a long history together

February 27, 2020 by
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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

Were you a pie baker, when pie baking wasn’t cool?

February 27, 2020 by
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Remember when Bundt cakes were only for funeral eats and definitely not considered to be one of the cool kids of baking. The same can be said about pies. Pies were made by grandmothers who whipped them out for holidays, but the pie times they are a-changing - pie baking isn't just for grandmas anymore. Thanks to the power of… read more

Art of Eating prize winner announced

February 25, 2020 by
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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

February 25, 2020 by
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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

Food news antipasto

February 23, 2020 by
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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

An ode to the carrot

February 21, 2020 by
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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

February 20, 2020 by
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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

Order up: one recipe, hold the narrative

February 17, 2020 by
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This was a busy weekend, one in which I worked very late on both Saturday and Sunday. This morning I eased into my day by scrolling through my Facebook feed. The following post from one of our favorite book stores, Kitchen Arts & Letters caught my attention. My first thought was to question just which recipes Kathryn likes? Most recipes… read more

Food news antipasto

February 16, 2020 by
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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

February 15, 2020 by
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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

What it’s like to live with a food nerd

February 14, 2020 by
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My husband often jokes that the only way to get me to make something twice is to tell me that the dish I made isn't very good. He is not altogether wrong in that opinion. As someone who is more than mildly obsessed with cooking and baking, I am so eager to try the next new thing that it can… read more

A treasure trove of rare and historical Mexican cookbooks is now available online

February 11, 2020 by
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The history of Mexican cuisine involves adaptation, conquest, and assimilation. One way to trace this story is through cookbooks. While not many exist from the earliest interactions between Europeans and Native Americans, a collection of cookbooks at University of Texas at San Antonio provides a rough timeline of the transformation from native dishes to the today's cuisine that combines American… read more

Unsung culinary heroes

February 10, 2020 by
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February is Black History Month here in the US, a celebration of African Americans who have contributed to the fabric of American society. In the culinary world, the focus tends to be on familiar names like Edna Lewis and George Washington Carver, but Nneka M. Okona of The Huffington Post is using this occasion to highlight people you may not… read more

Food news antipasto

February 9, 2020 by
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Have you ever thumbed through a supermarket tabloid while waiting in line at the cash register? If so, you've probably seen a headline that went something like "Stars: they're just like us," with photos of celebrities doing everyday tasks like grocery shopping or walking their dog. For some reason, a recent Epicurious article reminded me of those tabloid pieces. The… read more

Why recipe writers don’t need to worry about artificial intelligence

February 8, 2020 by
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Artificial intelligence (AI) is touted as a way to make things better and faster than humans can by harnessing the power of computers that process innumerable equations in the blink of an eye. It's been put to use in the fields of engineering, medicine, finance, and more. There are plenty of people worried that AI will put them out of… read more

The history of chopsticks

February 7, 2020 by
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Everyone knows that chopsticks are the traditional food eating implement of most Asian cuisines, but do you know where they started and why they became popular? That's a question posed by the Chinese Food & History blog of the University of Michigan's Chinese studies program. There, Q. Edward Yang explores the origin and function of chopsticks in Asian cuisine. Right… read more

Extreme makeover: cast iron edition

February 5, 2020 by
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There are few household items durable enough to hand down from generation to generation, and among these tough goods cast iron cookware may be the most useful and appreciated hand-me-down. A well-seasoned pan is a thing of beauty, handling everything from high heat searing to baking the best cornbread you've ever eaten. If you aren't fortunate enough to receive Grandma's… read more

Food news antipasto

February 2, 2020 by
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The Unicode Consortium, the group that approves all new emojis, has announced eight new food emojis set for release in March in Unicode Version 13.0. The new symbols are blueberries, an olive, a green bell pepper, flatbread, tamale, a Swiss fondue pot, teapot, and bubble tea. Not making the cut again this year: white wine. Sorry, Chardonnay lovers. Don't expect… read more

Over 8,000 video recipes in the EYB Library

February 1, 2020 by
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Video recipes are a growing trend in food media. Some people use them as a tutorial while others watch for entertainment. The videos can take the form of a mini-episode of a cooking show or focus on specific techniques or methods. Sometimes it’s easier to make something if you can watch how it’s done, as in the braiding technique for… read more

Valentine’s Day treats

January 31, 2020 by
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Every Valentine's Day, I get a box of chocolates from my sweetie, and I make him a special treat. It's nothing fancy, in fact, it is quite the opposite. Since I love to cook and bake, we eat a variety of foods from cuisines around the world. While my partner enjoys this bounty, there are some foods that he recalls… read more

Changes for The Piglet cookbook competition

January 29, 2020 by
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After ten years of running The Piglet Tournament of Cookbooks, Food52's sometimes controversial cookbook competition, the site announced yesterday that they were making changes to the contest's format. In past years, the contest has pitted cookbooks head-to-head in a bracket style competition (think of college basketball's NCAA Sweet Sixteen competition). The photo below represents half of the competitors of last… read more

Food news antipasto

January 26, 2020 by
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When you think of noodles, your line of thought might head straight to Italy, but you would be overlooking an even older noodle culture. Asian cuisine has featured noodles for centuries, and they can be made from more than just wheat and rice. Serious Eats has put together a comprehensive guide for choosing, storing, and cooking various types of Asian… read more

Picky eaters are born, not bred

January 25, 2020 by
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J J Goode has co-written several books in the EYB Library, including Pok Pok: Food and Stories from the Streets, Homes, and Roadside Restaurants of Thailand (with Andy Ricker) and A Girl and Her Greens: Hearty Meals from the Garden (with April Bloomfield). Since he was a consummate food lover, Goode had visions of raising children who shared his broad… read more

Taste of Home feature on our own Jane

January 24, 2020 by
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In the new Feb/Mar issue of Taste of Home magazine the "Why I Cook" feature is on our own co-founder, Jane. She explains how her cookbook collection started, why she loves to cook and bake, and what British foods she brings back from trips back to the UK. You can read the full article here. We have been busy working… read more

Celebrate National Pie Day

January 23, 2020 by
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Well, I missed it - again. Today was National Pie Day, celebrated in several countries, and I forgot about it. That is because I believe the logical choice for the day is March 14, a dual pi(e) celebration. (Nerds unite!) I once wrote a persuasive argument that pie is better than cake, and I think that it still holds true… read more
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