Amazing amari

March 30, 2014 by
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Until fairly recently, only dedicated cocktail enthusiasts, or perhaps those who had traveled to Italy, knew much about amari, bittersweet herbal liqueurs often served as an aperitif. If you did know an amaro, it was probably the popular Campari, one of the keys to the Negroni cocktail. But lately, amari of all types have exploded onto the cocktail scene. And,… read more

When it looks too good to eat

March 28, 2014 by
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Crack open any cookbook or visit any major cooking blog (and even many minor ones) and you will see page after page of gorgeous food photos. The pictures make you hungry at a glance: each arugula leaf is expertly arranged, each seed in a berry is exquisitely highlighted, and vegetables shimmer ethereally. But, like photos of supermodels, some food photos… read more

Hummus is on a mission

March 27, 2014 by
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Surprising news from a recent survey: a quarter of Americans have never heard of hummus, let alone eaten it. (We are left to assume that everyone else in the world knows about it.) But one company is on a mission to change that metric. Sabra, which corners 60% of the hummus market share in the U.S., recently launched an effort to get people to try… read more

Extreme Makeover: fruit edition

March 26, 2014 by
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The kiwifruit is an iconic symbol of New Zealand as well as an important export for the country. But some people think the exotic fruit is held back from greater success by its furry brown wrapping. The most popular fruits in the world are very convenient to transport and consume: think bananas, apples, and grapes. So scientists in New Zealand, sponsored by taxpayer… read more

Don’t keep it bottled up

March 24, 2014 by
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Russ Parsons of The L.A. Times recently reminded us of the importance of purging the spice drawer. His story is probably similar to that of many other cooks: you buy a spice to make a particular recipe, the bottle languishes in your cupboard for several months or even years until you pull it out to make another dish, only to… read more

Down the rabbit hole

March 19, 2014 by
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When you first learn to cook, it's exciting to learn how to make from scratch things that you used to buy ready-made. It begins with simple items like chicken stock and hummus, and quickly progresses to pie crusts, cakes, and bread. You branch out to dairy, starting with yogurt and crème fraiche and graduating to cheese. Channeling your forebears, you learn… read more

If you can’t beat ’em, drink ’em?

March 17, 2014 by
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Depending on your point of view, dandelions are either tasty and beautiful rugged perennials or noxious weeds to be eliminated from your landscape. Either way, they have been used as food and medicine across the globe for centuries. The jagged shape of the plant's leaves gave rise to the French name dent de lion (lion's tooth), which was Anglicized to dandelion. Dandelions… read more

New science on the “five second rule”

March 15, 2014 by
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Everybody does it. Well, at least 87 percent of people admit to doing it: eating food that has been dropped onto the floor. That is one of the findings in a new study on the transmission of bacteria to food conducted by students at Aston University in Birmingham, U.K. The study offers a bit of support to the longstanding "five… read more

Something to crow about

March 12, 2014 by
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You won't find them indexed on EYB, but these amazing animal sculptures made exclusively from knives, forks, and spoons are worth a share nonetheless. The only thing more amazing than seeing Ohio artist Gary Hovey's stunning work is learning that Gary has been challenged with the effects of Parkinson's disease since 1994. Gary continues his art with the help of… read more

Captivating cardamom

March 11, 2014 by
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Do you remember the first time you tasted cardamom? Perhaps it occurred when you nibbled on Swedish meatballs or drank masala chai. Mysterious yet approachable, cardamom contains notes of cinnamon and nutmeg coupled with an intense aroma and spicy undertone that some describe as camphoric. Hailing from the Indian peninsula, cardamom is used there (and in the Middle East) to… read more

Recycled love

March 8, 2014 by
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One of my favorite ways to spend a Saturday afternoon is browsing a dusty secondhand shop, church bazaar, or (weather permitting) an outdoor tag sale. It never ceases to amaze me the perfectly useful things people throw away. Many times cookbooks are among the artifacts gracing overstuffed, disheveled bins. I take my time looking at each title, leafing through the… read more

Meet Watson, a most virtual chef

March 7, 2014 by
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Milk and Cookie Shots are not the only food items making a splash at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. IBM's Watson computer (perhaps best known for being the world's best Jeopardy player) demonstrated its culinary prowess at an event called "Cognitive Cooking." The idea behind this endeavor is to showcase what IBM calls Watson's "computational creativity." IBM engineers pondered… read more

Creating the next “it” food

March 6, 2014 by
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In 2013, the cronut hit the NYC food scene like the Beatles descending on the States in 1964. People waited in line for hours to sample this hybrid croissant/donut, the brainchild of Chef Dominique Ansel. The sensation even resulted in cronuts being scalped on Craigslist and, as one might expect, spawned a host of imitators. In this age of internet… read more

Sizing up the situation

March 3, 2014 by
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 Over at Food52, award-winning cookbook author Alice Medrich is dishing out excellent advice on using a kitchen scale instead of measuring cups. Ms. Medrich points out the obvious advantages that weighing is faster, easier, and less messy than using measuring cups. It can turn a complicated cake recipe into a one-bowl affair. While using a scale returns the biggest benefits in… read more

When good wine goes bad

March 2, 2014 by
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Sometimes it's difficult to know if the wine you bought is really bad, or if it started out good but became flawed. This recently happened to me when I was celebrating with colleagues at an Italian restaurant. Because I mentioned that I was a fan of Italian reds, I was given the assignment of ordering the wine. I'm no oenophile,… read more

Scene stealers

March 1, 2014 by
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The Oscars are tomorrow, which provides the perfect opportunity to wax nostalgic about our favorite movie scenes involving food. Leite's Culinaria solicited readers to share their favorite or most memorable movie food scenes. Not surprisingly, movies like Babette's Feast, Julie and Julia, Big Night, Chocolat, and Eat Drink Man Woman were frequently mentioned. Even though these food movies are great,… read more

Amber waves of techology

February 21, 2014 by
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Grains factor prominently in my diet, which can be explained in part by the fact that I come from a family of grain farmers. I have grain on the brain even more after listening to an NPR story on the latest farming technology. Agricultural giants Monsanto and John Deere are offering a service that lets these big companies collect data… read more

Inconvenient truths

February 20, 2014 by
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Since I grew up in an agricultural area and spent a lot of time on my grandparent's farm, I was not surprised that a Huffington Post article on "disturbing" food facts noted that peanut butter may contain rodent hair. If you have ever seen field crops being harvested, you realize that many insects are extracted from the field along with… read more

Poach perfect

February 19, 2014 by
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Recently, a lot of recipes for poached foods have flickered across my news feeds. It's no wonder, because poaching is a timeless method to gently cook many types of foods while also enhancing their flavor. Poaching liquids are as varied as the foods cooked in them and add distinctive flavors to the finished dish. Wine is a favorite for poaching,… read more

Parsley, sage, rosemary, inside

February 15, 2014 by
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Today seemed to be dreary the world over; raining in Sydney, cloudy in London, and snowing in a large part of the United States. When it's cold, raining or dreary outside, I comfort myself with visions of green gardens. Since it will be sometime before I can get back outside in my garden, my Pinterest search today focused on indoor… read more

You say potato, I say potahto…

February 13, 2014 by
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We've all been there, intently reading a recipe, when suddenly a foreign word or unfamiliar ingredient causes us to pause because we don't know how to pronounce it. If you are like me, you sound out the word in your head and use that pronunciation going forward. Then you hear a famous chef say the word, and you realize that… read more

Mystery food for thought

February 11, 2014 by
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Like many cooks, I enjoy curling up with a new cookbook and reading it like a novel. Snuggled up on the sofa, I pore through each recipe as though it were a spellbinding mystery. I enjoy reading mystery novels too, and recently learned about a genre of culinary-themed mysteries that not only offer intriguing plot twists but also include recipes!… read more

Share and share alike

February 9, 2014 by
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Most cooks have at least one special recipe, where an unusual ingredient or technique helps set the dish apart from similar recipes. A few cooks are more possessive about these secrets than others. Some family recipes now exist only in the mists of memory, because Grandma or Aunt Betty would never relinquish the cherished mystery ingredient. Professional chefs and cooks… read more

Perfect brown sugar, every time

February 8, 2014 by
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I've seen a lot of kitchen tips on how to soften brown sugar. The advice varies from using damp paper towels, using the microwave, putting an apple or piece of bread in the container, and using adorable terra cotta bears. But even if my brown sugar is soft, it always has small, hard lumps that never seem to go away,… read more

A rose by any other name

February 6, 2014 by
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When looking for German chocolate cake recipes on Eat Your Books, I found a recipe that, along with the usual directions and ingredients, explained the origins of the cake. I was surprised to learn that German chocolate cake is not German at all. The cake is an all-American creation originally called German's Chocolate Cake after the sweet baking chocolate used… read more
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