The plating trend that some chefs find vexing

December 6, 2017 by
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  When you eat at a fine-dining establishment, it's become commonplate to find precisely arranged droplets of sauce or a discrete schmear of puree on your plate. The trend started many years ago and shows no signs of abating, but not everyone finds it pleasing, says Nina Martyris on NPR's 'The Salt'.  In an article titled 'Haute Dots of Sauce… read more

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s non-traditional wedding cake preference

December 5, 2017 by
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  With all of the negativity that seems to be invading my news feed these days, I must admit I am a sucker for food-related posts that lighten my mood. Today's winner in that regard was the announcement of the type of wedding cake that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are reportedly favoring.  Food and Wine reports that the royal… read more

The fascinating history of celery

December 2, 2017 by
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These days, about the only place you'll see celery being served is alongside Buffalo wings, in a Bloody Mary, or as part of a relish tray (where it will likely remain after all of the other vegetables are eaten). That wasn't always the case, says Heather Arndt Anderson. Beginning in the mid-1800s and continuing for almost 100 years, celery was… read more

Little steps helped accomplish a big dream

November 29, 2017 by
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Conventional wisdom says that if you want to publish a cookbook but don't have a huge Instagram following, own a wildly successful restaurant, or host a popular television cooking show, it's almost impossible to get taken seriously by agents and publishers. It's a good thing that Reem Kassis didn't believe in conventional wisdom, because she recently published a cookbook without… read more

Spice support: holiday baking spices

November 28, 2017 by
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  As they enter the holiday baking season, bakers the world over are assessing their pantries to make sure they have enough of the requisite spices and flavorings to complete their baking agendas. Vanilla, cinnamon, anise, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, cardamom and ginger form the backbone of flavor for many baked goods. We have already discussed cinnamon and cardamom in previous… read more

Ways to use those Thanksgiving leftovers

November 24, 2017 by
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  Our non-U.S. members may be getting weary of our Thanksgiving posts, but it's hard to overlook the one holiday truly devoted to eating. This will be the final post of the year on Thanksgiving, to help out those (like me) who made too much - I mean, a generous amount of food yesterday. Marcus Samuelsson has a few ideas… read more

Help EYB when you shop Amazon on Black Friday or Cyber Monday

November 19, 2017 by
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  It may be difficult to believe, but we are less than a week away from Black Friday, the largest shopping day of the year. Many of you will be buying gifts - for other or for yourself - with the deals offered by major online retailers beginning next Friday and continuing to Cyber Monday. Amazon has stretched the deals… read more

Cooking Channel takes a chance on a new show

November 16, 2017 by
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  Cooking Channel is debuting a new cooking show tonight and tomorrow, and its future rests entirely on how many viewers it attracts in those two showings. Columbus, Nebraska native and food historian Jason Liebig created and hosts the program, titled Food Flashback.  According to the blurb on Cooking Channel's website, the show "takes a trip down memory lane exploring… read more

Cookbooks get another (premature) eulogy

November 14, 2017 by
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Over the past few years, we've reported on several people who have proclaimed the death of cookbooks. As we know, not only are cookbooks not dead, they are doing a smashing business. Yet there are those who continue to proclaim that cookbooks are dead. The latest to do so is Delia Smith, who recently announced that she won't be writing… read more

An A-Z culinary dictionary

November 10, 2017 by
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  Even experienced cooks often run across culinary terms that are unfamiliar to them, whether a type of food, an uncommon spice mixture, or a technique that they haven't seen before. While a quick Google search usually clears up any confusion, it's nice to have a handy reference that contains many definitions in one place. Australian Gourmet Traveller is here… read more

Dessert anthropology

November 7, 2017 by
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I just discovered my dream job, and baker and cookbook author Valerie Gordon has it: dessert anthropologist. Gordon's enviable position involves researching and recreating popular items from bakeries, stores, and other places that are no longer in business, where the recipes for iconic dishes have been lost to time. When I was majoring in anthropology years ago, I never imagined… read more

2018’s food trends according to Waitrose

November 6, 2017 by
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  Each fall, Waitrose publishes an annual report on food and drink. In it, they predict what the next year's big trends will be. Often, they are right on the mark - last year, they correctly predicted trends like gourmet meal kits and botanical cocktails. Last week, Waitrose published their report for 2018, providing us with clues as to what… read more

Spice support: galangal

November 5, 2017 by
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Some spices so much resemble another spice that the more common of the two is usually substituted for the lesser known one. Such is the case for galangal, a tropical plant in the ginger family. There are two main types of galangal used in Southeast Asian, and to a lesser extent, Chinese cooking: greater galangal and lesser galangal. There is… read more

The meaning behind food memoirs

November 4, 2017 by
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If cookbook lovers aren't devouring the latest offering from Yotam Ottolenghi, Ina Garten, or their favorite blogger, they are probably reading another food-related book such as a food memoir. That genre has exploded in recent years, with bloggers, chefs, and other food writers sharing their stories. Although some critics complain that the books are too similar, Ruby Tandoh thinks that… read more

Meals that changed the world

November 3, 2017 by
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Yesterday we posted about six people who changed an entire country's (and perhaps even beyond its borders) cuisine. In addition to people, meals themselves have shaped the course of world affairs for centuries. Whether in the form of celebratory banquets or intimate dinners, this "dining diplomacy" helped negotiators get the upper hand when it came to treaties, drawing borders, and… read more

Use this food-serving calculator to make just the right amount this Thanksgiving

November 1, 2017 by
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  Planning a big holiday meal, like the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday for those of us in the US, can be stressful. First, you have to choose which dishes to make, running the risk of angering family members if you stray too far from tradition. Then you have to determine how much of everything to prepare. The biggest concern is running… read more

Even top chefs use shortcuts

October 31, 2017 by
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  When you think of what the world's top chefs make at home, you likely picture them gently simmering bones and vegetables to make homemade stock, or folding and rolling puff pastry from scratch. As it turns out, even chefs use shortcuts. Michelin-starred chef Tom Kerridge surprised many people last week when he admitted to using stock cubes instead of… read more

Truffle prices surge due to poor harvest

October 30, 2017 by
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Truffles have long been associated with haute cuisine. Brillat-Savarin called truffles "the diamond of the kitchen", and the delicious fungi have graced fine dining menus the world over. Truffles are notoriously finicky to grow, steadfastly resisting attempts to cultivate them. This results in truffle prices being high even in good years - which 2017 is not. Bloomberg reports that white truffles… read more

Raiding Grandma’s recipe box

October 20, 2017 by
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  If you are a fan of Southern barbecue, you are probably familiar with the side dishes that are must-have accompaniments like baked beans, macaroni and cheese, coleslaw, and potato salad. One North Carolina pitmaster is shaking things up at his popular restaurant. Matt Register, proprietor of Southern Smoke BBQ in the tiny town of Garland, raids his grandmother's recipe… read more

Feeling the absence in the leftovers

October 19, 2017 by
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  When I was growing up, Sunday supper at my grandparents' farm was all but mandatory. Portions were substantial, dessert always provided, and leftovers packaged and sent home to various households. The act of cooking for others - whether it be your own family, for friends, or even for strangers - is entrenched in cultures worldwide.  Food writer Jay Rayner… read more

The evolution of the newspaper food section

October 15, 2017 by
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  In today's media saturated age, it can be difficult to imagine a time when there was only one or two sources for information about food and cooking. For decades, however, that was the case. Before there was Instagram, blogs, food television, or even food magazines, the newspaper food column provided the only information most people could get about recipes… read more

Quick action saves M.F.K. Fisher’s former home

October 14, 2017 by
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Few people have had as much impact on food writing as M.F.K. Fisher. Beginning with Serve it Forth, published in 1937, her career as a writer flourished. For the last 20 years of her life, Fisher resided in a home she designed and called "Last House", built in Glen Ellen, California.  The recent devastating wildfires in northern California threatened the… read more

Are recipes dead? Tyler Florence thinks so

October 13, 2017 by
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While attending the Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle, celebrity chef Tyler Florence made a bold declaration: recipes are dead. Not only did he say that, he proclaimed that our entire approach to making food, from grocery shopping to ingredient preparation to cooking, is outdated.  "Recipes served a purpose back in the day, but inflexible recipes don't work with the modern lifestyle anymore… read more

Preserving on Paper

October 8, 2017 by
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Cookbook enthusiasts often read vintage cookbooks for entertainment, using them to imagine past ways of cooking and eating. Kristine Kowalchuk also enjoys digging into old cookbooks, although she approaches them from a very different perspective. As part of her Ph.D. thesis at the University of Toronto, Kowalchuk wrote Preserving on Paper, a critical edition of three seventeenth-century 'receipt books'. These handwritten manuals… read more

Magazines to read in October

October 1, 2017 by
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  Jenny provides us all with excellent cookbook reviews each and every month. But what about magazines? While we diligently provide indexes for the major food publications, we haven't yet been able to incorporate magazine reviews into the mix. Lucky for us, The Kitchn has done that (for US magazines) for the month of October.  This review comes to us… read more
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