Cinco de Mayo is a day of national pride for Mexicans around the world, commemorating Mexico’s victory over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. We join in the celebration with our favorite Mexican food and drink.
The Paloma: Commonly found in regions where tequila is produced as well as consumed, the Paloma combines grapefruit soda and tequila, making it a great seasonal refresher.
Michelada: The michelada is a spicy beer cocktail that first became popular in northern Mexico. The cocktail's name is derived from "mi chela helada," or "my cold, light beer".
Cinco de Mayo is a day of national pride for Mexicans around the world, commemorating Mexico’s victory over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. We join in the celebration with our favorite Mexican food and drink.
Black Bean Tostadas with Corn Relish: The interplay between hot and cool, the balance of savory warm filling, and the spicy bite of a good salsa—all good things.
Poblano Tacos: These tacos filled with roasted poblanos contain no meat, but still pack lot of flavor.
Cinco de Mayo is a day of national pride for Mexicans around the world, commemorating Mexico’s victory over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. We join in the celebration with our favorite Mexican food and drink.
Chicken Fajitas: Grilled, marinated chicken strips on warm four tortillas provide a base for all the guacamole, sour cream, and pico de gallo you can pile on top.
Essentials: Easy Enchiladas: Although this recipe may not be authentically Mexican or even authentically Tex-Mex, it is consistently yummy.
Cinco de Mayo is a day of national pride for Mexicans around the world, commemorating Mexico’s victory over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. We join in the celebration with our favorite Mexican food and drink.
Best Tacos in Chicago: when it comes to finding the best regional Mexican dining outside of Mexico, Chicago is the best spot in America.
Chi-Mex: A New Frontier: Mexican Inn turns out to be a very inspired delicious meshing of cultures, a unique Chi-Mex blend, and holds the middle ground between Bayless and Taco Bell quite nicely.
Cinco de Mayo is a day of national pride for Mexicans around the world, commemorating Mexico’s victory over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. We join in the celebration with our favorite Mexican food and drink.
While bread gets cracker-ified during Passover, chosen bottles of soda get stripped of their high-fructose corn syrup and are sweetened instead with the real deal. No need to hunt for imported Mexican colas or hitch a ride south of the border for the cane sugar cola that tastes so great.
That's right: Passover Coke is here! (Or Passover Pepsi, if you're on that side of the Cola War.)
Both Coca-Cola and Pepsi make a real-sugar version around this time of year, and you can find it by looking for yellow caps on Coke bottles or white caps on Pepsi. But to be sure you really have a sweet, sweet sugariffic cola in your hands, check the cap for a "P" next to whatever kosher symbol appears (see photo).
This is a true story: when I was about five years old, I asked my mother how Moses and his friends had time to stop in the middle of the desert to dip their matzo in chocolate. Turns out I wasn't the only curious kid. This Passover season marks the 20th anniversary of Chuck Siegel's (the Charles of Charles Chocolates) matzo-dipping party. But the whole scene got started with apples—not dipped in honey, but in caramel. Chuck, then owner of Attivo Confections, was vacuum-sealing his candied Granny Smith apples with heavy-duty equipment. "The guy we bought the bags and the machines from was Jewish, and still is Jewish," Siegel said. "And he said, 'my daughter really wants to make some chocolate-covered matzo—can we come over and put some matzo through the enrobing line?'"
Amy's April Fools' Day "Eggs and Toast" could've fooled me. The "egg" is actually Meyer lemon pudding and Meyer lemon curd, and the "toast" is toasted cinnamon cake slices. Learn how to make this trompe l'oeil dessert at Amy's blog, Eggs On Sunday.
Make tomorrow's April Fools' Day a special night with these recipe ideas from Allrecipes. When else will you have an excuse to make a cake out of meat or a burger out of cake?
Plague-themed Peeps, candy molds, and chocolates: they're perfect for Passover!
The ten Passover Plagues in Exodus didn't involve much sugar or butter. If only Moses delivered G-d's demands in candy form, then those gnats and ticks could have been chocolate, not infectious insects! With Passover only three weeks away, here's a few candy homages to the anniversary of Egyptian calamities. Mmm, who wants a sugar high from boils and murrain?
The Washington Post hosted a contest for Peeps dioramas and the results are in. Called Peeps Show, the contest inspired more than 800 entries, some riffing on pop culture, others on current and past events. My favorite was the one at right, which might be fall into the category of "suicide food," since the bunnies are toasting marshmallows 'round the campfire here. Other dioramas in the contest include a reenactment of former D.C. mayor Marion Barry's arrest, a scene from Hugh Hefpeep's mansion, and one titled "The Lion Peeps Tonight."
Need a last-minute greeting card for Easter? Cybele made some great Peeps-inspired Easter Island postcards for your convenience. And amusement. If only it were real...
Transform your marshmallow Peeps into classy (or classier) treats by coating them in salted caramel and dipping them in melted dark chocolate. Roopa has the recipe for these highbrow peeps at her blog, Raspberry Eggplant.
I'd say the only downside to coating the Peeps in caramel and chocolate is that they ultimately look more like like chocolate lumps than vaguely chick-shaped marshmallows, but the loss of form is worth the 500% increase in deliciousness.
Candy Addict shares an idea for a cute Easter Bunny Cake that's easy to cut and construct. Your naked bunny cake is then a blank canvas for heavy doses of frosting topped with all kinds of Easter candy.
Why are eggs closely tied with Easter? Why do we paint them different colors? And what's with all the bunny-related imagery? Get some basic answers from Food Timeline's page about the history and symbolism of Easter foods.
For Raaven O'Quinn, Peeps aren't just pastel-colored marshmallow blobs, they're what poems are made of. About five years ago, O'Quinn fused two wonderful things, Peeps and haikus, to create PeepHaiku.com. The site allows any Peeps poet to upload 5-7-5 metered dedications to those brown, beady eyes.
In the spirit of prime Peeps season, we electronically sat down with O'Quinn to find out why the fat-free, meatless chicks are just so darn special and have spawned other fetishistic side projects such as this dot-org Peeps Research site or Washington Post's Peep Diorama contest. (The 2008 winners will be announced in Sunday's issue).
Maki over at Just Hungry must be on a similar wavelength as our own Robyn Lee here at Serious Eats, because neither of them can resist stepping to it with the cute foods. Last year for Easter Maki made "bunny bao." This year, it's "hot cross bunnies." (Nice food pun, btw.) Over on her site she says she started with this recipe from the BBC and tweaked it a bit. From there, she shows you in pictures and words exactly how to create these little guys for yourself.
Why had I not heard about the glorious marriage of muffin and goo-filled chocolate treat before reading Nicole Weston's recipe for Cadbury Creme Egg Muffins? Weston say that while you probably wouldn't want to serve these at any regular brunch (but...but maybe I do!), they're good for Easter and may prevent you from eating a bag of Cadbury Mini Creme Eggs all at once, "since you’ll have to eat through each muffin to get to them first." I like that idea; stagger your intake of eggs by wrapping each one in a muffin.
If you have patience, dexterity, and the desire to have some classy chocolate egg-shaped treats for Easter, check out these directions for making golden chocolate Easter eggs from the Culinary Institute of America's baking and pastry art professor, Francisco Migoya. All you have to do is empty out some eggshells, fill the empty eggshells with melted chocolate, and paint the eggshells with edible gold paint. It's just a bit more involved than how you decorated eggs in elementary school. [via craftzine.com blog]
What makes March 14 so special? Besides that it's Friday, it's also the Pi Day! And while the purpose of this day may be to honor our favorite mathematical constant, it's also a great excuse to eat its buttery crusted homophone: pie.
I think in honor of it being the 20th anniversary of Pi Day, you should feel no shame in eating at least 20 different kinds of pies. (You don't have to finish all of them; just think of it as a pie buffet.)
Posted by Erin Zimmer, February 13, 2008 at 10:30 PM
When You Care Enough to Give the Very Worst
Candy can be a beautiful thing, but throw Valentine's Day into the equation and suddenly every candy company unloads the kitschiest, tackiest, most undelicious confection onto the shelves. Sometimes it's the thought that counts, but other times, it's just a waste of perfectly good sugar—and, potentially, a relationship killer. We went on a hunt to find the best of the worst so you could see how bad it really is out there.
Worst Disney Character On a Stick
Add this to the nauseating marshmallow lollipop genre, except ... wait. Serious Eats intern Emily Koh—who probably loves Disneyland and Thunder Mountain and Minnie deep down—wanted no part in the taste-test. And who can blame her? The confection had all the, ahem, subtle aroma of undiluted lemon-scented floor cleaner. Disney should really get a grip on brand image.
Posted by Adam Kuban, February 13, 2008 at 5:45 PM
Warning: The following link is not safe for work (NSFW). For some of you, it may not even be safe for home. ;) But, just in time for Valentine's Day, here's a set of lollipops in the shape of NSFW. And before you click, did I tell you—NSFW?
Ever since I had my say about my dislike of Valentine's Day, I've been thinking about ways to ratchet down the pressure and the expectations and ratchet up the pleasure and enjoyment we derive from spending Valentine's Day with people we really care about.
If you have a significant other, find a way to actually talk to each other on Thursday night. My wife says that that is more likely to occur with me (a guy) when we sit side by side, so sometimes we search for a bar or counter to eat at. Other people without significant others at the moment can hang out in a communal celebration of friendship. But what kinds of communal things can you do for Valentine's Day without spending much money?
Posted by Mario Batali, February 12, 2008 at 1:15 PM
This year for Valentine's Day, I'm taking my kids and wife, Susi, out for our traditional fondue fest at Artisanal. We all send Susi a dozen wacky flowers (never roses—way too common), and then it's out for the first seating at 5:30 p.m. for some cheese and chocolate, and then home early!
My ideal menu celebrates the most mysterious and romantic town of Italia—Venezia—and is based on Carnevale, which always falls near, and sometimes overlaps, with Valentine's Day. The celebration is simple and based on seafood and birds from the Venetian lagoon—or the closest lagoon to you.
This Valentine's Day share Mii-shaped chocolate figurines with the one you love. They come packaged in a Wii-shaped box bearing the heartfelt declaration, "Wii belong together, you and Mii." Available for $15 at Paul Pape Designs. [via Yumsugar]
Washington D.C. houses the largest Ethiopian population second to Ethiopia. That means lots of spongy injera (their bread alternative), tibs (lamb stew), doro wat (chicken stew), and tej (honey wine)—the best of which is packed on U Street. “Little Ethiopia,” as I like to call it. Though favorite Ethiopian eateries such as Etete, Dukem, and Madjet are all open today, it’s actually Ganna, or Ethiopian Christmas, according to the lunar calendar.
But they're not frosting snowman sugar cookies or sucking on candy canes. When asked about the yuletide holiday, Hareqwine Messeret, an Ethiopian-born baker at the French bakery Chez Hareg on 9th and U Street, actually decided to improvise Christmas cookies this year. She's got a spicy shell-shaped cookie made with chili pepper, cardamom, and other savory spices usually added to Ethiopian meats. She didn’t want to re-create the indigenous flavors, so she just worked with what she had in the spice cabinet.
Posted by Melissa Hall, December 31, 2007 at 2:30 PM
Southern Foodways appears weekly as part of our collaboration with the Southern Foodways Alliance, an organization based in Oxford, Mississippi, that "documents and celebrates the diverse food cultures of the American South." Dig in!
Looking for good luck and good fortune in the new year? Secretly wishing for both while publicly resolving to do good unto others? Maybe you're just looking for a way to celebrate the new year that doesn't involve Champagne, Times Square, or staying up late?
Try a New Year's Day feast of black-eyed peas and collard greens. Both are thought to bring a year filled with prosperity. Some think the black-eyed peas represent copper—pennies, specifically. So, for truly good fortune in the new year, be sure to eat 365 black-eyed peas (the only way to get a whole year's worth of good luck).
Posted by Mario Batali, December 25, 2007 at 9:00 AM
On Christmas morning, we wake up at 8, light the fire, open presents, and eat lightly: clementines, Marchesi panettone from gustiamo.com (which will become your only panettone once you taste it), and scrambled eggs with white truffles. Lunch really does not happen, but I fire up the pizza oven as we head out to ski.
For dinner we go to the American South for inspiration. I put a ham from Nodines with cloves and a brown sugar glaze in the slow wood oven and steal the rest from the Lee Brothers' excellent cookbook; we eat black eyed peas, collard greens, biscuits with black truffle honey from Otto and then finish with a selection of chocolate gifts from my friend Katrina at Vosges Haut-Chocolate and some cool confections from Camilo de Blas in Oviedo, Spain, including glazed hazelnuts, tiny bitter chocolate creams, and a bottle of orujo de hierbas to burn the path clear.
The rest of the week is devoted to football, ping pong, and snow activities with the boys.
Ho! Ho! Ho! and Merry Christmas, Serious Eaters! Please enjoy our version of the famous WPIX Yule Log program. For your enjoyment, we give you the Burning Bûche.
Everyone here at Serious Eats wishes you and all your extended family the happiest of holidays. We hope all of your holiday wishes come true.
Posted by Adam Kuban, December 24, 2007 at 12:30 PM
Of course you're going to want to leave some cookies for Santa tonight. If you don't already have a recipe in mind, here are some of our favorites from the Serious Eats Recipes archives.
Posted by Paul Clarke, December 19, 2007 at 3:00 PM
“A merry Christmas, Bob!” said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. “A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss our affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!”
A Christmas Carol regularly gets trotted out this time of year (or DVDs of Scrooge McDuck cartoons do, anyway), to mark the holiday with Dickens’ tale of redemption. While Tiny Tim’s treacly “God bless us, every one!” is enough to set my teeth on edge, I have to admit that this reference to Smoking Bishop in the closing scene at the Cratchits puts me in the holiday mood.
The old Smoking Bishop is one of a family of once-common drinks that now make their sole appearance during the holidays, if then. But this near-forgotten class of punches is worth rediscovering, for both culinary and social reasons. As Eric Felten writes in How's Your Drink?, “Of all the outward signs of the miser’s redemption, the final confirmation of Scrooge’s transformation comes when he takes ladle in hand to serve up the Bishop.”
Posted by Lucy Baker, December 19, 2007 at 9:00 AM
Christmas is less than a week away, which means it's time for my mother and me to resume our annual debate: Is it too soon for another turkey dinner?
I say yes. Thanksgiving was barely a month ago, and my memories of the meal (unlike the half bag of cranberries in my fridge and the shriveled sweet potato in my vegetable drawer) are still fresh. Not to mention the fact that I ate leftover turkey sandwiches for days afterward.
For the upcoming holiday feast, I think a roast beef would be perfect, particularly when rubbed with fresh herbs, studded with garlic, and finished with port sauce. Lobsters, in their festive red shells, would also be lovely. Or why not try our hands at preparing a true Christmas goose?
Posted by Erin Zimmer, December 13, 2007 at 2:45 PM
Way back in 2005, my early food blogging days were spent obsessing about the Starbucks red cup phenomenon. Something about the festive tumblers said "pay attention to me." But back then, the little cups were young and naive, with only a few cutesy games online. Definitely not a philanthropic campaign. As an iconic telltale of the season, just like coats or snow, they've become so ambitious that world peace is next on the agenda!
But it's a cup! Oh, but the red cup has spearheaded a nationwide pay it forward-esque campaign called the "Cheer Chain." Basically, Starbucks leaves some buy-one get-one coupons near registers—and has since last year—hoping you'll become BFF with the stranger behind you. Use the coupon on that dude's coffee tab (hoping it's not a venti frap with soy milk, flavor shots, and Ibérico ham shavings), and they'll do the same for another dude.
"Imagine a Christmas ham, sealed in plastic and defrosting in the fridge. Imagine the cloudy ham water that leaks out of it and sits in the bottom of the plastic when you unwrap the ham. Imagine it carbonated and sweetened. Imagine putting it into your mouth and manfully fighting the automatic gag reflex." Thanks to The A.V. Club's review of Jones Soda Christmas Pack, I now know what I want to serve at my Christmas dinner!
Posted by Alaina Browne, November 21, 2007 at 4:30 PM
For last minute help and advice preparing your Thanksgiving feast, there are a number of helplines set-up to answer your questions. Or, ask your fellow Serious Eaters!
Butterball Turkey Talk Line
Phone: 800-288-8372 Website:butterball.com
Cooking advice 9 a.m.-9 p.m. EST today; 7 a.m.-7 p.m. EST Thanksgiving day.
USDA Meat and Poultry Hot Line
Phone: 888-674-6854 or 800-256-7072 for hearing impaired Website:fsis.usda.gov
Open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. EST today and 8 a.m.-2 p.m. EST Thanksgiving day.
Not really. An ounce of white meat has four fewer calories than the same amount of dark meat, but dark meat has more nutrients. There was no mention of the hidden health benefits of crisp turkey skin.
Posted by Jamie Forrest, November 20, 2007 at 10:00 AM
OK, so you read my post last week about crafting an American cheese plate for Thanksgiving, and you said to yourself, "I would love to eat that, but my family won't touch it unless it comes wrapped in individual plastic sheets." Well then maybe it's time to go plan B and make a bacon-covered artisanal cheeseball. This has got to be literally the cheesiest appetizer you could possibly serve to your guests, and yet how could anyone complain about something that combines cheese and bacon?
Posted by Karen Resta, November 19, 2007 at 12:45 PM
Editor's note: While we were planning our Thanksgiving coverage, Serious Eats community member Karen Resta happened to email and offered the following essay on what the day means to her. It's a nice take on Thanksgiving as approached by three generations of American women. —Adam
I am a modern American woman and my Thanksgiving foods reflect that. The Thanksgiving foods of my mother and grandmother were also reflective of their own ways of being modern women of their times, though for each of them the approach to Thanksgiving was fearsome—for time spent in the kitchen was not pleasurable in any way either one could find.
My Grandmother's Kitchen
There was no turkey on my grandmother's Thanksgiving table regardless of the annual hype about the bird's vital importance for the day in the attractive pictures sketched in women's magazines and in the "women's pages" of the newspapers (where all news about food could be found). Instead, there was a fresh ham, glazed with brown sugar and mustard, crackling still intact—because hams were easier to procure and easier to cook. There were browned Maine cull potatoes from the neighbor's farm up the road, home-canned beans from the garden, and cornbread, which forgave a less-than-perfect baker more easily than yeast rolls would.
Posted by Wan Yan Ling, November 12, 2007 at 2:30 PM
The Grocery Ninja leaves no aisle unexplored, no jar unopened, no produce untasted. Creep along with her below, and read her past market missions here.
My family travels several months out of the year, and it is unusual for all of us to be in the same place at the same time. While we travel light, the one item we always have space for is a bottle of my mom’s hae bee hiam or chili shrimp paste. It doesn’t look like much, and it doesn’t even sound like much, but when you arrive in a foreign country and the weather’s cold, the stores are closed, and you’re just not up to greasy take-out…this stuff is ambrosia over plain white rice.
Essentially a meal of just a condiment on carbs, I’ve had concerned housemates insist on my “eating properly." But I’ve turned down expensed sashimi dinners just because I knew I had a bottle of this in the fridge and was craving a taste of home. Made from a pounded and dry-fried concoction of dried baby shrimp, chili, candlenuts, shallots, belacan (fermented shrimp paste), and a touch of sugar, it’s considered the ultimate condiment—priceless because it’s tedious to prepare, chockful of shrimp, and completely reliant on the cook’s experience and “aggak” (estimation) skills to achieve the perfect balance of sweetness, savory-ness, briney pungence, and blistering heat.
"People have to get over their fixation with green vegetables. Green beans are disgusting. Our meal is all shades of white, brown, and orange."
Christopher Kimball is an unlikely media mogul. He's the founding editor and publisher of Cook's Illustrated, the bespectacled host of America's Test Kitchen on PBS, and the proud owner of many bow ties. We caught up with him a couple days ago on the phone to talk turkey (day) with him. It turns out that, among other things, the man hates green beans, and he's not afraid to admit it.
How do you approach Thanksgiving at Cook's Illustrated?
How we approach Thanksgiving goes to the heart of our philosophy. Today, most people's repertoire in the kitchen is unlimited. (Once upon a time people knew how to make 100 dishes, at most.) As a result, nobody ever gets good at anything, because they don't do anything twice. In our magazine, we keep doing the same thing over and over again. So in our Thanksgiving issue we stay focused on the things people want to make: turkey, mashed potatoes, pie crust, biscuits.
How is your coverage different from the other food magazines like Gourmet, Bon Appétit, and Food & Wine?
The editors at the other food magazines write for their friends and themselves. They feel compelled to do something different every year because they're bored. People want mainstream American cooking, and that's what we give them.
What does Chris Kimball serve at his own Thanksgiving? Keep reading.
This is the time of the year when turkey buying panic sets in for those of us obsessed with finding the best-tasting (responsibly raised if possible) turkey to roast. There seems to be more and more choices every year, and I don't know about you, but I think there's a conspiracy afoot to befuddle and confuse us with these choices.
Just consider what we are confronted with: fresh, frozen, frozen basted, free-range, free-roaming, all-natural, heritage fresh, heritage frozen, organic, wild, kosher fresh, kosher frozen. It's mind-boggling.
Maybe that's why one year I switched to an all-pie Thanksgiving dinner. I didn't have to choose one pie. I just bought a dozen pies of every variety imaginable, including a turkey pot pie. I thought it was genius, but my wonderful mother-in-law (and my wife) could not wrap her traditionalist head around it. She thought it was too radical. So I learned the hard way that you can't mess with your mother-in-law's expectations when it comes to holiday foods.
My favorite turkey to date has been the Eberly Farms organic bird, raised in Pennsylvania in apparently humane fashion. A couple of years ago I had great success brining an Eberly Farms turkey on a friend's penthouse roof. Of course it was incredibly windy the night before Thanksgiving that year, so I was worried that my brining turkey was going to fly off the roof of the building and kill someone 15 floors below. Now that would have given fresh-killed turkey a whole new meaning. How did I choose the Eberly Farms organic turkey? I read a 1996 New York Times turkey taste test article.
But 1996 predated the resurrection of heritage turkeys, so I thought it might be helpful to all the Serious Eaters out there to gather a flock of experts to weigh in on this weightiest of all Thanksgiving issues.
I spoke to Chris Kimball, the man who has built a media empire (think Cook's Illustrated and America's Test Kitchen) tasting, testing, and telling us what the best is. In the November-December issue of Cook's Illustrated Chris and his merrily opinionated band of testers tasted eight turkeys, though not the Eberly Farms organic bird.
Turkey Day is a mere 16 days away and counting. If you already know where you're eating this year, this is optional reading. If you're unsure of your Thanksgiving plans at this relatively late date, the clock is ticking—loudly.
Keep reading, and I'll tell you how to get yourself invited to someone else's Thanksgiving feast.
I am a master Thanksgiving invitation garnerer. I speak from experience. I lost my parents when I was a teenager, so I had to develop this expertise early on or face a lifetime of Swanson Hungry Man turkey dinners. Knowing how difficult Thanksgiving can be for the uninvited, my wife and I make sure any strays we know are invited to our admittedly fat-laden but oh-so-delicious repast.
So here's a 10-step moocher's guide to getting invited to Thanksgiving dinner, practically guaranteed to land you at least one invitation you'd actually accept.
For a take on pumpkin pie that's cuter than the traditional crusted version, try filling baby pumpkins with pumpkin pie filling. Lara Ferroni shares the recipe for Pumpkin Pie Pumpkin accompanied by her beautiful photos on her food blog, Cook & Eat.
Posted by Wan Yan Ling, November 5, 2007 at 10:30 AM
The Grocery Ninja leaves no aisle unexplored, no jar unopened, no produce untasted. Creep along with her below, and read her past market missions here.
I was asked to write about an "ethnic Thanksgiving" and I've been thinking about it all week. But there already are plenty of wonderful ethnic-American floggers waxing gustatory over what's on their (way more cohesive) menu. So I thought I'd share with you a little bit of my world: that of the international student.
Since we hail from all manner of ethnicities, we call our gathering the "United Nations Thanksgiving," and it's a night where we all bring a plate (a common newbie gaffe: to figure the host must be running low on crockery and helpfully show up with a stack of empty dishes).
We try to stick to the concept of "traditional Thanksgiving foods," so there will be turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, yams, corn, and pumpkin pie. Except, because most of us call home and ask mom how to cook it, we end up with particularly unique renditions of these Thanksgiving stalwarts.
With so many vegetarians in the group, it's an unspoken agreement that the stuffing be meat-free. So we will have Indian biryani, Malaysian nasi ulam, Middle Eastern megadarra, Bhutanese red rice salad, and, as promised by the cute new grad student from Italy, his grandma's "kick-ass" panzanella.
The Hansel and Gretel aesthetic is so outdated. This year why not decorate your holiday table with a modern gingerbread house? No colorful gumdrop roofs or candy cane lanes here—just a garage, a rock garden, palm trees, and an asymmetrical roof. [via notcot.org]
Posted by Amanda Clarke, November 1, 2007 at 11:15 AM
Lidded eggplant teacups can be perfectly repurposed to serve soup—while also keeping it warm.
In the midst of planning and executing a Thanksgiving feast, few of us have the time or even the space for elaborate table decorations. And with a meal that tends to consist of so many textures, colors, shapes, and sizes, there’s little need for extensive embellishment, anyway—usually just a few small flourishes are all it takes to elevate the most basic table setting to the occasion.
Here are three of my favorite time- and space-friendly picks for adding detail and dimension to this year’s Thanksgiving table.
It's November 1, so now I can start obsessing in earnest about Thanksgiving without everyone thinking I'm a complete nut job. To me Thanksgiving is all about the stuffing and the pie. But maybe not everyone feels the way I do, so I've decided to let Serious Eaters weigh in on this extremely important topic.
Perhaps some of you love turkey or its crisp skin. Others may live for the moment they bite into the sweet potatoes (with or without marshmallows) or the mashed potatoes enriched with loads of butter and heavy cream. Maybe, just maybe, to some folks, Thanksgiving is all about the green beans or the brussels sprouts or some other green or other-colored vegetable.
For my wife turkey day is all about the broccoli puree with creme fraiche she makes from the Silver Palate (recipe to be posted in the days to come).
Let me make the case for both stuffing and pie before you cast your vote.
I love this awesome ghost cupcake with innards of green buttercream frosting and a gumdrop for a brain that Jill Davis found at Wheatberry Bakery in Pasadena, California. The only way I could imagine it being cooler is if they had used a red or licorice gumdrop instead.
The New York Times looks into the candy lobby's role in extending daylight saving time by a month. The lobby believed that the extra hour of trick-or-treating in daylight would increase candy sales and decrease child deaths.
Instead of giving out Snickers bars and Hershey Kisses, why not pop edible candy scabs or poop-shaped chocolate into your trick-or-treaters' bags? Check out Wired's list of the creepiest, craziest Halloween candies for more ideas. Kids will eat anything!
Candyfreak author Steve Almondanalyzes your candy-giver personality at the Washington Post. For example, he labels those who give out candy corn as, "Purely deluded people. They don't get that candy shouldn't attempt to imitate other food groups, particularly corn."
"I developed a candy hierarchy, along with an elaborate trading scheme in which I would try to pawn off the candies I couldn't stand to unsuspecting friends and neighbors in exchange for a candy bar."
Candy corn, chocolate ice cubes, candy peanuts, and generic hard candies are patently unacceptable. To me they show a lack of respect for trick-or-treaters everywhere. Photograph from iStockphoto.com
For someone like me, who has a serious sweet tooth and likes to eat a lot, Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. I always loved trick-or-treating, and to me Halloween was always about the candy.
It certainly wasn't about the costumes. I was always the kid dressed up like, well, me. My mother was too busy to think about what costume I wanted or needed to wear on Halloween, so I'd go to Halloween parties dressed as Ed Levine. There was nothing fun, festive, or scary about that particular state of affairs.
For me the candy was king, and not just any candy, either. There were candies I desperately wanted in copious amounts, candies that were sort of OK—"sweet tooth–neutral" I used to call them—and then there were the candies I was desperate to avoid, that I regarded like the plague. I developed a candy hierarchy, along with an elaborate trading scheme in which I would try to pawn off the candies I couldn't stand to unsuspecting friends and neighbors in exchange for a candy bar. Those trades were built around an exchange of quantity for quality.
So consider my baker's (or should I say confectioner's) dozen halloween candy hierarchy.
Not Martha shows you how to make crawly spider cakes for Halloween using various kinds of Pocky, snack cakes, sugar eyes and chocolate sprinkles. Spiders will never again look as freakishly adorable or taste as sweet.
Learn how to make a bacon costume. All you need is foam, some big plastic bags, stick pins, spray paint in various baconesque colors, a hot-glue gun, Velcro fastener tape, and a burning love for bacon. [via Make]
At Serious Eats we try to have fun with days named after foods we love. We're not ashamed to have made a big deal of National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day, a day, I might add, that Kim took note of without mentioning our PB&J celebration. These days just give us an excuse to have some fun and focus on foods that give us great pleasure. And we had no idea that there was an entire book, Chase's Calendar of Events, devoted to such occasions. We will be ordering a copy right now on Amazon. But now that we know that this Friday, June 2nd, is Yell Fudge at the Cobra Day we're kicking ourselves, because as we have previously noted, we are celebrating National Doughnut Day this Friday. Plus I, as the Serious Eats overlord, hate fudge and have never eaten snake. Is there such a thing as truly great fudge? Or rattlingly delicious snake?
One more thing: I like the idea of September 12th becoming Ropa Vieja Day. I think we might be able to get some traction on Serious Eats with that.
I ate some fantastic crawfish over Easter weekend. Crawfish boils are a Easter tradition in Louisiana, and that makes sense, since the season typically begins in March and ends in June.
As a New Orleans resident and the author of Eating New Orleans, Pableaux Johnson is an expert on such matters. Here, he aptly describes the tradition:
... [A] backyard crawfish boil—a traditional Easter event throughout Louisiana—is an epic affair involving 40-pound sacks of wriggling crawfish and bubbling cauldrons big enough to be stirred with canoe paddles. Unlike a New England lobster boil, where ingredients fit into a single grocery sack, Louisiana crawfish boils require planning and a pickup truck, u
The Washington Post hosted a contest for Peeps dioramas and the results are in. Called 
For Raaven O'Quinn, Peeps aren't just pastel-colored marshmallow blobs, they're what poems are made of. About five years ago, O'Quinn fused two wonderful things, Peeps and haikus, to create 
Add this to the nauseating marshmallow lollipop genre, except ... wait. Serious Eats intern Emily Koh—who probably loves Disneyland and Thunder Mountain and Minnie deep down—wanted no part in the taste-test. And who can blame her? The confection had all the, ahem, subtle aroma of undiluted lemon-scented floor cleaner. Disney should really get a grip on brand image.
This Valentine's Day share 
Washington D.C. houses the largest Ethiopian population second to Ethiopia. That means lots of spongy injera (their bread alternative), tibs (lamb stew), doro wat (chicken stew), and tej (honey wine)—the best of which is packed on U Street. “Little Ethiopia,” as I like to call it. Though favorite Ethiopian eateries such as Etete, Dukem, and Madjet are all open today, it’s actually Ganna, or Ethiopian Christmas, according to the lunar calendar. 
Looking for good luck and good fortune in the new year? Secretly wishing for both while publicly resolving to do good unto others? Maybe you're just looking for a way to celebrate the new year that doesn't involve Champagne, Times Square, or staying up late? 
regularly gets trotted out this time of year (or DVDs of Scrooge McDuck cartoons do, anyway), to mark the holiday with Dickens’ tale of redemption. While Tiny Tim’s treacly “God bless us, every one!” is enough to set my teeth on edge, I have to admit that this reference to Smoking Bishop in the closing scene at the Cratchits puts me in the holiday mood.
, “Of all the outward signs of the miser’s redemption, the final confirmation of Scrooge’s transformation comes when he takes ladle in hand to serve up the Bishop.” 
OK, so you read my post last week about crafting an 
My family travels several months out of the year, and it is unusual for all of us to be in the same place at the same time. While we travel light, the one item we always have space for is a bottle of my mom’s 
We try to stick to the concept of "traditional Thanksgiving foods," so there will be turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, yams, corn, and pumpkin pie. Except, because most of us call home and ask mom how to cook it, we end up with particularly unique renditions of these Thanksgiving stalwarts.
(recipe to be posted in the days to come). 
author Steve Almond 
I ate some fantastic crawfish over Easter weekend. Crawfish boils are a Easter tradition in Louisiana, and that makes sense, since the season typically begins in March and ends in June.