When I first moved out on my own, my mother thoughtfully gifted me with a paperback copy of Fanny Farmer's Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. As a novice cook it was my go-to for pretty much everything, from simple tasks like mashing potatoes to more complicated pies and pastries. I think my copy lasted about a year before the spine split and the pages became too grease-stained and sticky. I then graduated to a secondhand copy of Irma Rombauer's indispensable Joy of Cooking. Both of these books have lived with me in kitchens all over the country and seen me through hundreds, if not thousands, of meals over the years. While Fanny Farmer and Joy of Cooking are great for basics...
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Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl famously employed several disguises while serving as restaurant critic for the New York Times in the 1990s. In this video (after the jump), the magazine's executive editor, "Doc" Willoughby, suggest she reprise the gimmick. While chefs and restaurateurs might not peg these extreme makeovers as Reichl, the looks she takes on would certainly not go unnoticed....
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All you food-lovin' Twitter haters out there might change your mind about the microblogging service when you see some of the food luminaries who are tweeting. The San Francisco Chronicle namechecks a few: Ruth Reichl, Martha Stewart, Mark Bittman, Grant Achatz. The paper localizes the story by noting some well-known Bay Area chefs using the service: Daniel Patterson, Chris Cosentino, Nate Appleman, Eater SF, and Richie Nakano. (And, as always, you can follow Serious Eats here: @seriouseats.)...
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Every Thanksgiving we check in with food magazine editors around the country to see how they have gone about putting together their Thanksgiving issues. Today we talk to
Gourmet editor in chief
Ruth Reichl.
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How do Gourmet editor in chief Ruth Reichl and Top Chef judge Padma Lakshmi feel about their mothers? At the recent Women in Communications' Matrix Awards in New York, Reichl said, "I wake up every morning grateful not to be my mother. Grateful, in fact, not to be any of the women of her generation." Lakshmi, on the other hand, wasn't as concerned with former gender barriers. She walked up to the podium with her mouth full (would her mom be proud of that?) declaring, "I'm living my mother's dream. I sit on my ass, I eat, and I talk."...
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We caught up with
Gourmet's editor in chief a few days ago to talk turkey. We found out that there's hell to pay if you bring a dish to her Thanksgiving. Read on to find out what
Ruth Reichl is cooking this year.
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I signed myself up for Gourmet's weekly email newsletter last month and am now puzzled as to why I didn't before, as it's a great short read and I always look forward to seeing it in my inbox. In this week's installment, Ruth Reichl spilled the beans on what she calls the perfect chocolate ice cream... which turns out to be four different flavors from a small company named Choctal! She says their ice creams, "like single-vineyard wines, or single-barrel Bourbons, are made from the chocolate of a single region. You find yourself tasting the Kalimantan, with its sneaky sweetness, and then going to the deep coffee back-notes of the Costa Rican, the round, tropical intensity of the Ghana,...
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Blogging has ousted political leaders,
written dialog for Samuel L. Jackson, and
forced Doogie Howser out of the closet. Food blogging is just beginning to gain power. Restaurateurs and chefs are starting to take notice of the strange quiet types scribbling notes and taking pictures of their food.
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