Photograph by Steven Freeman Fortune Small Business interviews sushi chef Nobu Matsuhisa who discusses how he got started in the sushi business and the trials and tribulations he's faced along the way to becoming a celebrated chef. Asked when he first knew he wanted to be a sushi chef, Matsuhisa replies: When I was 11 or 12 - a young boy in Japan - one of my older brothers took me to a sushi restaurant. I had never been to one, and it was very memorable. Back then sushi was expensive and hard to come by, not like today, when there's a sushi restaurant on every street corner and you can buy it in supermarkets.I recall walking through the sliding... More

The Pegu Blog has some good advice from photographer Sara Remington for shooting cocktails and food in general. Or, you could just stop being weird, quit taking pictures of food and drinks, and apply her advice to everyday situations (like people and the outdoors). [via David Lebovitz]... More

Photograph from kickinthehead on Flickr Wired interviews AnnaTheRed to find out more about her popular character bento boxes, many with nerd/geek appeal, that she makes for her boyfriend and blogs about at AnnaTheRed's Bento Factory. You can view more of her creations at her Flickr and her boyfriend's Flickr. My favorites are her Studio Ghibli-themed ones, like the Totoro snowman one above, but anything with big googly eyes would make me happy. Related Play With Your Food By Making Creative Bento Boxes Cute Cuddle-Worthy Bento Boxes Bento Boxes That Look Like Album Covers... More

Cupcake blog Cupcake Takes the Cake interviewed Zilly Rosen, the baker and artist behind the 1,240 cupcake mosaic of Barack Obama's portrait, about how she made the mosaic along with other cupcake-related questions.... More

Longtime fisherman Randy Hartnell; photo from Vital Choice My Alaskan friend recently shipped me ten pounds of fresh salmon he caught in the Kenai River. Not a bad cardboard box to find waiting on your doorstep. My first batch—cooked with lemon, sea salt, and pepper— was so tasty, I wanted to jump up and down and invent a happy dance called "The Salmon." Unlike the light pink, over-boiled salmon at Ikea (sorry Ikea)—and most salmon of my childhood (sorry Mom)—this one was a deeper, almost-red shade. Why is Alaskan salmon so much better? To understand, I went to Randy Hartnell, a longtime Alaskan fisherman and founder of a wild fish and berries company called Vital Choice. After over twenty... More

Editor's Note: It's time to introduce another new and predictably awesome intern, Kerry. When she's not concocting orange and black Halloween recipes for us, she's making whimsical fondue and beignets over on her blog French Revolution. Kerry is taking a gap year between masters at Oxford to work on a cookbok of French recipes, a novel, and a children's book. Please say hello to Kerry! Name: Kerry Saretsky Location: New York City Occupation: I am a writer and a student taking a gap year between masters (literature and business) at Oxford--and, most importantly, a Serious Eats intern! URL: frenchrevolutionfood.com Favorite comfort food? French fries, with a side of hot and bubbly, fresh mac'n'cheese. Guilty pleasures? Macarons, in all the floral... More

Serious Eats caught up with Hanoi restaurateur, Bobby Chinn, to talk about his new cookbook, Wild, Wild East: Recipes & Stories from Vietnam. Though we originally scheduled to meet up over a bowl of pho, we instead met up at the Guggenheim. Here’s why: So here we are at the Guggenheim. What happened to your appetite for pho? I had the most disappointing meal in Chinatown yesterday. At Thai Son, recommended by three different friends in Hanoi who know their food! All in all, Vietnamese food in Manhattan has been pretty average at best. So sad, so true. Why do you think that is? I don't know. Access to ingredients? Equipment? Indifference? The fact that management is more often ethnic... More

In Salon's interview with Jennifer McLagan, author of the recently released Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes, learn more about the controversial ingredient that is fundamental to flavor and to our health. She answers questions about animal fat and its relation to obesity, America's bad relationship with fat, and how animal fat lost the popularity contest to vegetable-based man-made fats. But most importantly, why is it better to eat and cook with animal fat than vegetable fat? Unlike vegetable oils, animal fats are very stable and don't turn rancid easily. This makes them ideal for cooking, which involves heating the fat. And they have no trans fats.Animal fats have lots of good fatty acids that fight disease,... More

Editor's note: Please say hello to one of our newest all-star interns, Allison. She is already on fire, photographing and blogging. We are so happy to have her--especially when she picks up ice cream en route to work from the Bent Spoon in Princeton, New Jersey! Thanks again for that chocolate Earl Grey flavor, Allison! Name: Allison Hemler Location: Jersey City, New Jersey Occupation: Caffeine supplier, cookbook cataloguer, intern at Serious Eats, and future library science student. URL: notenoughspoons.wordpress.com Favorite comfort food? Though it's cliche, my mom's homemade marinara sauce. There are times I don't even need to eat it, just existing in a room with the smell of canned tomatoes and Italian seasoning permeating the air is enough. Outside... More

A couple tidbits from his interview in this week's New Yorker: "On a television show, precise acting isn’t the order of the day," he said to me. "It’s a sitcom. The idea is to hit certain beats, and we do it cleverly. But, you do a television show, you become a pastry chef. I’m a pastry chef now; I’m not the big chef at the big restaurant. I’m not Daniel"—a brief pause, then he jutted out his lips in a way that was familiar from his movies, and almost shouted the next word—"Boulud. You know?""I always think, What if you just took your hand off the wheel, and slowly, over time, it all went away, and your life became about,... More