Entries tagged with 'cookbooks'
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Buttered toast necklace. Photographs from inediblejewelry on Flickr There's a very slim market for cookbooks involving ingredients that are not only tasteless but unavailable at grocery stores, and tinier than a dime. The shelf life of this food, however, is indefinite, and it looks cool with pretty much any outfit (as opposed to ketchup stains or coffee dribbles). Jessica and Susan Partain have been making miniature, inedible food for nearly 20 years. It all started when they were kids and discovered polymer clay at the craft store. With so many colors to play with, they crafted teeny chocolate-chip cookies, burgers, apples, and more. (They admit to raising some pretty well-fed dolls.) Flash forward to now—the two have made a...
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"What about your bubbe's borscht recipe? Didn't she probably squeeze it onto an index card in roughly 140 characters?" Twitter user @cookbook condenses recipes to 140 characters or fewer. Recipe from a 1950s Gourmet cookbook, for sale on etsy.com, is definitely more than 140 characters. Can a recipe be only 140 characters long? Sure, you could cram in short-hand terms for liter (l) and olive oil (olvoil), but is it truly a recipe? Many people, including the entire cookbook industry, would argue no. Using Twitter as a platform to share shrunken recipes—which @cookbook has proven can attract over 15,000 followers—strips the recipe of its headnote, its hand-holding instructions, and its soul, some would argue. It's like showing the credits to...
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Most home cooks would think nothing of whipping up an Asian-inspired stir fry, some tacos, or a bowl of linguine with pesto for a quick weeknight dinner. Although these dishes are not American in origin, they have worked their way into our culinary vernacular over the years. While Indian food is not exactly exotic, it has not really been widely adapted into most American home kitchens. I have a feeling that most of us are not familiar with the techniques, or stocked with the ingredients to make a batch of saag paneer and some chapati for dinner. But why not? In the introduction to Modern Spice, Mark Bittman speculates that inaccessibility of ingredients is the primary reason why most Americans...
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There are so many ways to end a meal. Some people like a rich chocolate dessert, others prefer a cheese course, some might need nothing more than an espresso or a digestif, and some of us indulge in all of these. Although I have been known to take the cheese-chocolate-coffee-after-dinner-drink-route, there are times when nothing hits the spot like a fruit-based dessert. A simple pie or cobbler with a scoop of ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream is prefect, especially when the weather is warm and beautiful summer fruits and berries are in season. Peaches, plums, apricots, and berries of all shapes and colors have been begun showing up in the markets—or will appear sooner than you think....
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SE contributor Matthew Amster-Burton has a new book out called Hungry Monkey about eating grown-up foods with his five-year-old daughter, Iris. From the book's introduction: Hungry Monkey is the book I wish someone had handed me before Iris was born so I would have known that breastfeeding is challenging (even for dads), that there are two simple rules to take a lot of the stress out of feeding kids, and that it's OK to feed a baby sushi and spicy enchiladas. Most important, I would have been reassured that having kids doesn't require dumbing down your menu: If you love to eat, a new baby presents an opportunity to have more fun with food than ever before in your life....
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There are some foods that I have only to think about and a myriad of childhood memories come flooding back to me. Snapper soup is one example; those words instantly take me back to a seafood restaurant in northeast Philadelphia. I couldn't be more than six or seven years old, and I'm sitting with my grandparents in a wood-paneled room; there are decorative oyster plates on the wall alongside Victorian valentines. My grandfather is drinking a Harvey Wallbanger and orders snapper soup to start. He offers me a taste, and it's delicious. "What's in it?" "Turtle, sherry, and cream." "Ohh..." I'm pretty sure that Lari Robling, a fellow native Philadelphian, has had a few similar experiences. Endangered Recipes is an...
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Canning and preserving usually fall into the "shoulda, coulda, woulda" category of home cooking. There are many reasons that people are apprehensive when it comes to preserving: It's too labor-intensive, too time-consuming, and requires all of that special equipment. Why bother doing it yourself when your supermarket is brimming with cans and jars? Eugenia Bone is on a mission to change your mind with her new book, Well-Preserved. A passion for preserving was instilled in Bone at an early age. She was fortunate to grow up with home-cured olives and prosciutto, canned tomatoes and canned tuna, all lovingly put up by her father. Although she thoroughly enjoyed her father's preserves, it was not until Bone was eight months pregnant with...
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Italians and Southerners have one important thing in common, a love and respect for food. Both cultures share the belief that nothing can compare with the food that comes from your land or out of your kitchen. Think about it: Georgia peaches, San Marzano tomatoes? Frank Stitt has taken this reverence for the best ingredients and opened three definitive restaurants in Birmingham, Alabama. According to the late, great R. W. Apple, Stitt has turned Birmingham, Alabama, into a "sophisticated, easygoing showplace of enticing, Southern-accented cooking." In 1982, after studying philosophy at Berkeley and cooking all over San Francisco, and in France in Burgundy and Provence, Stitt returned to his hometown and opened the French-accented Highlands Bar and Grill. Cooking with...
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Adam Perry Lang is a French-trained chef with years of experience at illustrious restaurants such as Daniel, Le Cirque, and Guy Savoy. With a resume like that you might assume that Lang would be more comfortable with squeeze bottles and a sous vide machine than tongs and a grill. In fact, Lang has retired his proverbial toque and become a bona fide barbecue expert. In 2003 he opened Daisy May's BBQ and entered the professional barbecue circuit. Lang's pork shoulder won first place at the World Series of Barbecue and was named Grand Champion at the World Pork Expo. With victories like these under his belt, it's obvious that Lang knows his barbecue. His next project is taking him across...
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Most people in the U.S. think of Cinco de Mayo as a great excuse to break out the chips and salsa and drink a bunch of Coronas or margaritas. It's a common misconception that Cinco de Mayo is Mexican Independence Day. In fact, the real Mexican Independence Day falls on September 16; the 5th of May isn't even a Mexican federal holiday. Cinco de Mayo actually commemorates the Battle of Puebla, in which an outnumbered Mexican Army defeated the French Army in an unlikely victory in 1862. That's enough history, let's move on to the tacos. Tacos are quintessential Mexican street food, sold from roadside stands, and they are meant to be eaten on the go and out of hand....
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