Posted by Ed Levine, July 23, 2007 at 3:10 PM
Serious Eater Meg Hourihan (aka "Megnut") weighs in on the "what to eat when you're pregnant" issue with her usual blend of passion, intelligence, and common sense:
Every pregnant woman needs to find her own balance, and it's not going to be the same for each. For me the anxiety of worrying about what I ate was worse than actually eating it. Early on, I was so worked up I wasn't gaining enough weight. And that's a much worse consequence for a developing fetus.
Why take any risk? Because life is risky. Are you going to stop driving because you're pregnant? Are you going to stop leaving the house? I found my balance between enjoying food and tolerating risk, and it included the occasional Wellfleet on the half-shell. It's easy to get overwhelmed by all the recommendations and to live in fear of every bite of food you put into your mouth. But that makes for a very stressful, anxious, long nine (plus) months. And that certainly isn't good for the fetus.
Meg and her husband, blogger Jason Kottke, brought young Ollie over to Serious Eats world headquarters last week, and he's a cute little bugger. And, as my mother-in-law told me after seeing our son, Will, for the very first time (when he was all of one day old), "I think he's very bright."
Posted by Alaina Browne, July 6, 2007 at 6:06 PM
We would like to extend a big, warm welcome to the newest and littlest serious eater, Ollie Kottke. Congrats, Meg and Jason!
Posted by Alaina Browne, May 16, 2007 at 3:48 PM
After Meg put out the call for the best chocolate chip cookie recipe, she received a whooping 26 different recipe submissions. I feared for Meg's health and mental well-being as I imagined her toiling away in her hot kitchen testing all these recipes, but I should have known better. "So like any good geek, I averaged the recipes for make the best cookie recipe ever, or what I call a Mean Chocolate Chip Cookie."
Posted by Lia Bulaong, March 7, 2007 at 2:18 PM
Today in the LA Times, Regina Schrambling recommends you eavesdrop on cutting-edge chefs at Diálogos de Cocina next Monday and Tuesday:
The forum itself — Kitchen Dialogues, in English — is ambitious enough, with one entire afternoon devoted to "other ways" of seeing, thinking, understanding and cooking. The chefs ramrodding it are the Ferran Adriàs of San Sebastián, which itself is the mecca of the food world right now because of its concentration of wildly adventurous, highly praised kitchens: Pedro Subijana of Akelare, Andoni Luis Aduriz of Mugaritz, Juan Mari Arzak of Restaurante Arzak and Martín Berasategui, whose restaurant bears his name. And the speakers they have lined up cover the food spectrum, from Carlo Petrini, the founder of Slow Food, to Davide Cassi, an Italian physicist who is one of the fathers of so-called molecular gastronomy.
But what sets this conference apart from the increasing number of techno-centered events lately is the technology itself. These kinds of conferences seem to be so popular — the French held Omnivore last month in Le Havre; the month before, Italians organized Identita Golose in Milan — that it's a wonder "molecular gastronomists" get any foam made with all the informational jet-setting.
Diálogos de Cocina, by contrast, wants to be the Oscars of the food world, with the whole planet watching what goes down on the stage in one city in Spain.
Diálogos de Cocina will be webcast online, not quite live but completely free; you'll be able to watch all of the presentations and panels from your home. Schrambling goes on to discuss the rising popularity of conferences either webcasting or archiving their videos online; she points out that Taste 3, the US version of Diálogos, has videos up of the speakers from last year's conference and will be doing the same for speakers at the upcoming conference in May, which include Serious Eats' very own Megnut.
Posted by Meg Hourihan, December 15, 2006 at 7:00 AM
From left: Crestware 9-inch professional-gauge fry pan, All-Clad Master Chef 2 9-inch fry pan.
In this corner, clad in extra-heavy-duty aluminum for durability, from China by way of Bowery Kitchen Supply in New York City, and weighing in at 19.25 ounces, the challenger, Crestware Professional Gauge Fry Pan!
And in this corner, wearing brushed aluminum over stainless steel, from Pennsylvania by way of Amazon.com , and tipping the scales at 25.9 ounces, the champ, All-Clad Master Chef 2 9-Inch Fry Pan!
Tonight, these two frying pans will face each other in an epic battle to determine who can fry the better egg.
Continue reading »
Posted by Alaina Browne, December 8, 2006 at 6:00 AM
Serious Eats' Meg Hourihan gets advice on cooking chicken wings from
an unlikely source, fancy-pants French chef Daniel Boulud.
Continue reading »
Posted by Adam Kuban, December 6, 2006 at 10:00 AM
I hate being discriminated against because I'm skinny. "What often happens is that I'm standing in a pizza line next to a big guy and two pizza slices come fresh out of the oven for us. The server takes a look at me and then at him and gives me the smaller piece and him the bigger piece."
Posted by Alaina Browne, December 5, 2006 at 1:03 PM
Gastrokid is a great blog about feeding kids good food. Two dads write it and share recipes and tales of success in getting their children to eat vegetables (like broccoli rabe) and fruit. A great source of inspiration for anyone trying to feed healthy, whole foods to their children. [via Typepad Featured Blog]
Posted by Alaina Browne, December 5, 2006 at 12:03 PM
Every weekday between now and December 22, I'm going to do a food enthusiast gift idea. There will be ideas for all gift-giving budgets, so if you find yourself stuck for a present, and the myriad lists other people have created can't help, you might spy something here. Today we begin with a Wine Knot from Modern furniture purveyor Design Within Reach. An "ingenious interplay of shape and color," Wine Knot holds six liter wine bottles, with space in the center for a magnum. This is a wine holder for display, not cellaring. $98 from www.dwr.com.
