The key to a good sandwich

October 13, 2014 by
 |  One Comment  |  Leave Comment
Over 49% of Americans eat a sandwich on any given day. What separates good sandwiches from bad ones isn't necessarily the ingredients, says Dan Pashman, author of Eat More Better: How to Make Every Bite More Delicious. Instead, as Pashman tells NPR's The Salt, assembly is a critical factor in a successful sandwich. Pashman thinks that people should take into… read more

Dustbin dining

October 12, 2014 by
 |  One Comment  |  Leave Comment
Supermarkets proudly display bins full of pristine, perfectly ripe vegetables and fruit. But what happens to the produce that is overripe or blemished? Chefs in France wanted to bring that point to the public's attention, and to do so they prepared a banquet for 5,000 entirely from ingredients rescued from the trash. As reported in The Telegraph, five French celebrity… read more

Oh, sherry

October 10, 2014 by
 |  Leave Comment
Until recently, sherry was all but forgotten in the U.S., often regarded as a quaint, old-fashioned quaff meant to convey elegance but falling short of the mark. Now sherry is making a comeback, as the L.A. Times reports in a review of a book out next week, Sherry: A Modern Guide to the Wine World's Best-kept Secret  by Talia Baiocchi. Sherry wasn't always… read more

Snacking across the globe

October 8, 2014 by
 |  Leave Comment
It's a fact: everyone likes to snack. All around the world, people are consuming more snacks, as evidenced by the $400 billion USD per year snack market growing by two percent last year. But the types of foods people munch vary greatly depending on which area of the world they live, according to a recent Nielsen study discussed in the Washington… read more

The Moby Dick of food

October 6, 2014 by
 |  One Comment  |  Leave Comment
Even the most accomplished cook usually has one food item that utterly frustrates him or her. For many cooks the aggravation comes from the baking arena - pie crusts, pate a choux, and souffles are items that people frequently find difficult to successfully prepare. My vexation was something that most cooks find quite simple, but that took me over a… read more

The history behind fish and chips

October 5, 2014 by
 |  Leave Comment
Fish and chips is inarguably the definitive national dish of the United Kingdom. How this dish, which features a New World ingredient, became the emblematic meal is explained in a new book by Panikos Panayi. As The Telegraph reports, the book delves deep into historical writings to find out how fish and chips became so popular.  The chips part of the… read more

In defense of dessert

October 4, 2014 by
 |  6 Comments  |  Leave Comment
Restaurant dessert menus have been on the decline for some time. Perhaps we can blame the trend on people cutting back on carbs or the demonizing of sugar. Or perhaps it is a by-product of the growing practice of restaurateurs eliminating pastry chefs and relying on a limited menu of pre-made desserts as a cost-saving measure. Chef Marco Canora is… read more

Fusion isn’t just for food anymore

October 3, 2014 by
 |  Leave Comment
When you think of alcohol, it's usually in terms of individual spirits: vodka, bourbon, tequila, or rum, for example. The latest trend in the cocktail world combines these distinctive spirits with each other, or with lower-proof drinks like wine and beer, reports Bon Appétit. While some of these new combinations sound terrible (tropical-flavored vodka + Moscato), the idea of hybridized… read more

Of baking and bartering

September 27, 2014 by
 |  Leave Comment
Baking bread can be cathartic. So it was for Malin Elmlid, who started making her own sourdough in 2007 as an escape from her day job. She quickly became enamored with breadmaking and pursued the hobby passionately, honing her skills along the way. Fast forward a couple of years and one of her loaves ended up with a friend of… read more

Goodbye, free bread basket

September 25, 2014 by
 |  2 Comments  |  Leave Comment
The familiar restaurant scenario where the waiter brings you a basket of bread to nibble while you are perusing the menu is fading into oblivion (at least in the U.S.), according to this Yahoo! Food article. The recent lawsuit by shareholders of Darden (parent company of the Olive Garden restaurant chain) brings this trend to light. Investors objected to the unlimited free… read more

Alta Editions Kickstarter features a “pioneering digital cookbook”

September 18, 2014 by
 |  Leave Comment
Alta Editions, publisher of award-winning digital cookbooks like Laurent Gras: My Provence and The Journey, was launched a couple years back as a project inside a large mobile content company. Earlier this year, the team that started Alta purchased the business from the parent company. This independence, while fostering continued innovation in digital cookbooks, comes with a catch: fewer resources… read more

Stamp of approval

September 17, 2014 by
 |  Leave Comment
The U.S. Postal Service is honoring five influential chefs in a new series of postage stamps. The Celebrity Chefs series recognizes icons like teacher and author James Beard, whose stamp is now available for pre-order (it will be officially released September 26). According to the U.S.P.S. website, these chefs "invited us to feast on regional and international flavors and were… read more

Storage wars

September 9, 2014 by
 |  7 Comments  |  Leave Comment
Nothing says summer like fresh tomatoes. And apparently nothing stirs up debate like how to store them. Alton Brown is adamant: never, ever store your fresh tomatoes in the refrigerator. Over at Serious Eats, Daniel Gritzer says unequivocally that you should refrigerate tomatoes and ignore anyone who says otherwise. Why is there such a difference in opinion from two respected sources? Brown's reasoning… read more

Groundbreaking women in food and drink

September 8, 2014 by
 |  Leave Comment
The number of women helming food-related companies and otherwise influencing the food industry has been growing steadily over the past few decades. Fortune magazine (in partnership with Food & Wine) takes a fascinating look at top 25 innovative women in food and drink. While some of the women are well-known, others effect their influence from behind the scenes, like Liz Myslik, Executive VP… read more

Complaint etiquette

September 6, 2014 by
 |  2 Comments  |  Leave Comment
We've all seen the horror stories on social media: a customer's rant that makes us cringe in embarrassment. So what should you do when a restaurant meal (or other service) doesn't meet one's expectations? The Guardian offers good advice on how to complain without being rude. The article's tips are straightforward but useful. The first rule is don't complain while… read more

How well are cookbook recipes tested?

September 5, 2014 by
 |  11 Comments  |  Leave Comment
Purchasing a new cookbook makes some of us almost giddy. We open the book and pore over it like it's a novel, marking recipes that we can't wait to try. Sometimes those recipes are pure perfection, but other times we are left scratching our heads, wondering what we did wrong. Perhaps it's not us, however, as Julia Bainbridge notes in… read more

Culinary cult items

September 1, 2014 by
 |  One Comment  |  Leave Comment
People who are serious about cooking spend serious money on their cooking gadgets. Many folks believe that a $300 USD blender or a $600 USD mixer are worth the price for the performance they deliver. But how much are you willing to spend on kitchen tools? The Wall Street Journal shows us some really expensive kitchen toys that only the… read more

Weather woes and tremor troubles

August 25, 2014 by
 |  2 Comments  |  Leave Comment
Brace yourselves for an increase in the price of Nutella: a cold snap in Turkey, which produces three-quarters of the world's hazelnuts, has led to a price increase of over 60 percent for the nuts. Four hazelnut-producing Turkish provinces were hit by storms and unusual freezing weather this spring, which led to a greatly reduced harvest. Since most of the hazelnuts exported from… read more

Brilliant product redesigns

August 23, 2014 by
 |  One Comment  |  Leave Comment
An Australian company aims to make the frustration of spreading cold butter on bread disappear forever with its "Stupendous Splendiforous ButterUp" - a butter knife with cleverly placed holes that aerate and soften cold butter. This and nine other reimagined products are featured in an entertaining Washington Post article. In addition to the ButterUp knife, which has wildly surpassed its… read more

Go a little nuts

August 20, 2014 by
 |  Leave Comment
Millions of people worldwide suffer from nut allergies. These allergies are frequently severe, and they've become so widespread that schools have been forced to change menus (no more PB&J sandwiches) and many airlines have quit offering nuts as snacks. Scientists at the USDA's Agricultural Research Center hope to change all that by creating a hypoallergenic nut. Molecular biologist Christopher Mattson… read more

Gut instincts

August 16, 2014 by
 |  2 Comments  |  Leave Comment
We've often been told that our "gut instincts" can guide us to a decision. That saying may be more true than we ever thought. Researchers from three U.S. universities recently conducted a review of scientific literature and concluded that our guts may indeed tell us what to do--at least when it comes to eating. The researchers determined that microbes living in… read more

An unlikely success

August 10, 2014 by
 |  5 Comments  |  Leave Comment
We recently lamented the contrived drama of "reality" cooking shows and others have ranted about the declining quality of The Food Network, which makes us wonder what food programs, if any, are still worth watching? One worthy contender according to both The Telegraph and The Guardian is The Great British Bake Off, which is in its fifth season and has… read more

Tickets, please

August 6, 2014 by
 |  Leave Comment
If you are a concert attender, you know how exciting (and sometimes frustrating) it can be to get tickets to a very popular event. You might stand in line or set your alarm for a ridiculously early time so you could make the phone call as soon as the tickets go on sale. Now, some restaurants are moving away from… read more

A cooking magazine for a special audience

August 5, 2014 by
 |  One Comment  |  Leave Comment
  Sue Hoss of Des Moines, Iowa, is designing a digital cooking magazine aimed at an underserved audience: people with developmental or intellectual challenges. Sue, a partner at Main Dish Media, also founded a coffee shop that teaches developmentally challenged people how to be baristas and do some simple baking. There she saw that "the kids demonstrated a real interest… read more

Crafty distilleries

August 2, 2014 by
 |  3 Comments  |  Leave Comment
The craft cocktail trend has spurred an explosion of new whiskeys on the market, many of them claiming to be small-batch, hand-crafted products. But are they really what they seem? NPR's The Salt talks to a blogger who believes that many of these small potatoes distilleries are actually buying whiskey from a larger conglomerate. The blogger, Steven Ury, is an attorney… read more
« Older posts
Newer posts »
Seen anything interesting? Let us know & we'll share it!

Categories

Archives