Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I loooooooove pie crust unplugged, especially hot, with a glass of ice cold (whole) milk. I usually make a two crust recipe even if I just need one for a pie so I can have a special treat.

Many recipes call for 1/2 shortening + 1/2 butter - I stick with all butter because I like the taste, and I sacrifice some fluffyness. But my snickerdoodles are not flat. Are you sure your mother used all butter?

Here's some ideas:

Did you use room temperature butter, not warm and runny or coldish? The eggs should be room temp too.

What size eggs did you use? I use extra large.

I've been using the recipe from "Rosie's Bakery Chocolate-Packed Jam-Filled Butter-Rich No-Holds-Barred Cookie Book" for years - I love this cookbook. A quick Google turned up the recipe & tips here, but you'll have to sign in to the Fresh Direct site:

http://www.freshdirect.com/recipe.jsp?recipeId=rec_wk_bak_bst_snkrdoo&trk=rsrch

My recipe for pumpkin pie is a riff on the back of the Libby's can, and it always gets raves.

Use 1/3 cup dark brown sugar & 2/3 cup white sugar instead of all white

Use 1-1/2 cups heavy cream instead of evaporated milk (half & half is OK)

Double the spices, and heap the spoons a bit & add a teaspoon of nutmeg

Use 3 eggs instead of two

They kept the "bam" but lost Emeril! Yes - they should refocus on more cooking, more recipes, less flash. I miss the chefs that were featured on the line up until the last few years we so much more focused on cooking and why food works - Sara Moulton, Michelle Urvater, etc., as well as shows like "The Melting Pot"

A big bowl of thick pasta e fagioli is a nice cold weather vegan dinner, another idea is lentil soup. Ratatouille, stuffed tomatoes provencal, felafel, or maybe a Portobello mushroom burger.

I also think Indian food is a great idea, and you can go light on the spice if you don't care for hot food. This Aloo Palak is a good Dinner Tonight suggestion:

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/08/palak-aalu-spinach-potatoes-recipe.html

And grilled Chinese eggplant with garlic and ginger sauce:

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/07/grilling-chinese-eggplant-garlic-ginger-recipe.html

You can also go easy on the spices in firehouse vegetable chili:

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/false-alarm-vegetable-chili

These are soooooo good, and a great seasonal dessert. I've also sandwiched the cakes between cannoli filling - the tangy, cinnamony twist makes it even more special.

Eating, cooking, sharing - this is a great community!

Emelia's, IMHO, is the very best. I grew up in the Bronx right near Arthur Ave, went to Roosevelt High, had a bunch of Italian relatives who lived there, and I go back frequently. Hands down, I think Emelia's is the best. Here's a link to their site:

http://www.emiliasrestaurant.com/home.php

089, the restaurant with an antique Fiat parked in front of it a few blocks down, is a close second choice.

I love Gina's Seriously Italian columns, and they are a wonderful example of the type of writing and recipes that explore ingredients, destinations and traditions the way Gourmet used to when it was a successful magazine. This is another outstanding example, and I'll be looking for farro perlatto or spelt to try this recipe. It sounds like the perfect fall soup.

Though I love his recipes, books and articles, as well as what he's done with the magazines and broadcast ventures he brought to life, I did think that in this op-ed piece, Chris Kimball did sound like the Walrus of Lewis Carroll fame. And Ed and others are right - it wasn't the internet that killed Gourmet, or a lack of vision that killed Gourmet, it was the inability to see and think straight, and to keep its focus on food and the in which direction foodies were turning. It became more of a travel/luxury lifestyle magazine rather than an exploration of food and cooking. And with so many alternatives in so many media - in broadcast, book publishing, as well as other food magazines, it Gourmet didn't refresh its outlook - it just became more irrelevant as it ignored many trends in cooking and dining. Advertisers and readers went elsewhere (including me about 8-10 years ago). And for at least a few months, I'd been getting subscription solicitations in the mail charging $6.00 for 12 issues - a sign of desperation, and an indication that readers were moving elsewhere

My Sephardic grandmother made delicious biscochos de almondras - almond cookies. She died way too soon when I was about seven, and as my mother never liked to bake, the recipe has been lost. I've searched for years and found recipes online, but none of them come close to having the same flavor and texture that I remember so well - they were crunchier than sables, but a kind of similar taste. I remember almonds that she would grind with a mortar and pestle, and I think halvah or almond paste too. I will continue to search and experiment....

I spent over 25 years in magazine publishing. Subscribers, not to worry - by law, magazines have to offer a refund or another subscription of at least equal value to the unused portion of your subscription. However, most magazines will not emphasize the refund, or offer good deals on alternative subscriptions. One of the reasons why publishing groups fold unprofitable publications, rather than try to sell them, is to try to transfer the subs over to other magazines whose circulation is suffering and to whom new readers are increasingly expensive to acquire.

I was a Gourmet subscriber for many, many years, but dropped my sub about 10 years ago. The editorial in the last few years became less and less about food and food prep, and more about travel. And the articles focused more on fashionable destinations and dining - more on spas, celebrity oriented locals - the better to sell traditional Conde Nasty ad niches - cosmetics, fashion, jewelry. I suspect that Gourmet's editorial was crafted to be more attractive to these types of advertisers than actual food advertising, which tends to be less loyal to print and magazines.

When Conde Nast bought Gourmet, they immediately did away with its emphasis on using fresh ingredients - remember the few and far between mentions of "tinned chicken broth" as an alternative, etc.?, They abandoned the magazine's recipe format - including the measurements and ingredients within the preparation details, which was instituted to encourage experimentation. They initially pushed to make Gourmet a more upscale, but typical food magazine, and began including frozen ingredients, etc. The Gourmet I miss is the "real," independent magazine that was owned by a devoted small publishing company that stuck to the magazine's mission.