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 Chocolate & Zucchini
Clotilde Dusoulier
  
On Hotel Breakfasts, and How Not to Have Them
Hotel breakfasts, even in nice hotels, make me want to cry - remember, we're all children at breakfast - as I stand by the buffet, trying to identify the least unappealing items and more importantly, the most nutritious, so I won't feel faint an hour later. So, whenever possible, I take matters into my own hands, and try to keep the makings of a decent breakfast in my hotel room. The invaluable bonus is that you get to eat it in the privacy of your own bathrobe, without having to endure other guests' early morning conversations (if I had any sort of power, I would make it illegal to conduct business over breakfast).
Washington Post
Food & Dining
Space Invaders
Once upon a time, pantries were a collection of staples: salt, pepper, butter, sugar and eggs. But spurred by intrepid chefs, travel and a seemingly endless array of specialty products, many food lovers find their collections are spiraling out of control. It all starts innocently enough: Cooks pick up asafoetida, a garlicky onion spice, to make that potato curry - once. Before long, they have aji powder, elderflower vinegar, figs in malbec syrup, ras el hanout and sumac. Modern pantries have become the Blob.
Passionate Cook
Johanna Wagner
Very Nutty Home-made Granola
More often than not, I use porridge oats as a base, but there's a lot of variety out there even in oats - every grain imaginable comes as flakes at the moment, so use spelt, barley, rye, or, like I do here, a four-grain mix. Then I add seeds and nuts: sesame, linseed, coconut, pumpkin seeds, pine nuts, pistachios, pecans - whatever I have at hand. And I sprinkle over a good measure of berries (goji, acai, blueberries, cranberries etc) or dried fruit. Moisten up with some apple juice, a tiny bit of honey and some oil, you can season this with any spices you like, but cinnamon and cardamom are my favourites.
Vinography
Alder Yarrow
Screaming Eagle Snubs The Wine Trade
It says very clearly that they pretty much don't give a damn about anyone. That's fine, of course. It's their prerogative. But I find it quite ironic that for two hours after they abandoned their table, the two folks who came to pour Screaming Eagle were still wandering around, tasting everyone else's wines, almost none of which ran out until nearly three hours into the event. Shame. I'm sure I'll taste Screaming Eagle someday, but I wonder if it will ever be able to overcome this bad taste I have in my mouth?
Simply Recipes
Elise Bauer
Lemon Chicken
Overheard at the market, "I'm a breast girl." "Really? I'm definitely a thigh girl," pause..."dark meat, so much more flavor." Had to laugh, I'm so so so much a thigh girl myself. Here is the secret to fabulous lemon chicken - use bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (or legs, but thighs are easier to eat). Lemon is acidic and greatly benefits from the balance of the stronger flavor of the dark meat in thighs and legs, and the fat from the chicken skin. You don't have to eat the skin (my father doesn't, he gives them to me, score!), but cook with them on for the flavor.
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Splendid Table
American Public Media
Educating Peter
We're looking at the education of a wine rookie with Lettie Teague and her student, movie critic Peter Travers. Lettie is the author of Educating Peter, How I Taught a Famous Movie Critic the Difference Between Cabernet and Merlot or How Anybody Can Become and (Almost) Instant Wine Critic. Jane and Michael Stern are in the Mississippi Delta at Rhoda's Famous Hot Tamales and we look at the advent of a new dining trend, one-pot meals served in private homes.
Cooks Illustrated
Current Issue
In This Issue
New York Times
Dining and Wine
The Next Best Things in Sliced Bread
Slim and precise, it lacks the compressed, complete pleasures of the Cuban sandwich, the heft and chew of a fully loaded gyro, the cool crunch of a Vietnamese banh mi. Those three are two-fisted, five-minute complete meals with the kind of flavor and texture contrast available on, say, a seven-course tasting menu at Jean Georges. A great New York sandwich is large; it contains multitudes. And new contenders are turning up all the time to challenge the mighty meatball parm and the elegant B.L.T. Whether invented, imported, or refined here - whether discovered in the boroughs or farther afield - the seven sandwiches here move the dialogue forward.
New York Times
Dining and Wine
A Run on Rice in Asian Communities
Its price has skyrocketed at many stores amid fears that an international shortage will spill into the United States. At the Sun Kau Shing grocery, for example, 50-pound bags of long-grain rice were selling for $32 to $38 on Tuesday. That, customers said, was an increase of about 35 percent over a month ago. It was enough to stop amazed pedestrians in their tracks. Across San Francisco, where a third of the population is of Asian descent, shopkeepers report runs on rice that have depleted their supplies and left some wholesalers scrambling to meet demand.
Traveler's Lunchbox
Melissa Kronenthal
Balkan Beauty
Culturally I pictured a fusion of, say, Greece and Italy, with maybe a touch of Portugal's delightful time warp. At any rate, it sounded pretty much perfect, so without another thought we bought the flights, booked apartments on the islands of Korcula, Hvar and Vis, and set off, expecting to find sun, seafood and plenty of blue, blue sea (which the internet assured me would still be far too cold for swimming in April, but I figured what is cold by Mediterranean standards is probably quite comfortable by Scottish ones.)
David Lebovitz
David Lebovitz
I'm Twittering...
...housecleaner en route - how do I convince her not 2 use my fancy German nail brush for cleaning bathtub instead of the $2 brush I got @ Target ...I wish Twitter would let you buy a vowel ...tip4men: Don't iron just out of the shower - especially if the ironing board's waist level & the your iron has a 'burst of steam' feature.
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Smitten Kitchen
Deb Smitten
Brownie Roll-out Cookies
The two chocolate cookies? Forgive me for using this over-tired metaphor, but they were an almost Proustian experience. You see, we made chocolate cookies exactly like that for Hanukah each year growing up. Why for Hanukah? Honestly, I have no idea. It might be that the only cookie cutters I remember were our Hanukah ones (a dreydel, menorah and Jewish star, the nuisance-y stamp type that it was impossible to get the dough out of) or that it was the only time my mother found the nuisance of rolling out dough worth it, but man, did I love those cookies, and I had to make them again, immediately.
Orangette
Molly Wizenberg
Because of the Cookies
We could even spike the lemonade with a healthy dose of vodka, so that they would understand that we were very, very grateful. Anyway, the pen I was using to write the notes ran out of ink today. Or, rather, it dried up. Because Brandon left it uncapped on the coffee table last night, after he helped me double-check the envelopes. I do still love him, but for a minute there, it was touch and go. So I made an important decision. If we can't throw a party to thank everyone, the least I can do, I figure, is eat cookies while I write thank you notes. With my dried-up pen.
New York Times
Dining and Wine
The Birthday Cake as a Milepost
Well, at least he remembers it. Clearly, so do I. And I've found that most of the women I know, whether infrequent bakers or those who bake at the drop of a hat, mix-users or only-from-scratch types, remember the cakes they've baked, vividly. You know the way clothing can function in memory, outfitting important events? Well, I think cakes we've baked make for equally rich, if not richer, recollection. Tastes, decorations, adventures or ordeals come flooding back, coalescing around the cakes' reasons for being - the people they were baked for and their landmark celebrations. Especially children.
French Laundry at Home
Carol Blymire
"Peas and Carrots" - Maine Lobster Pancakes with Pea Shoot Salad and Ginger-Carrot Emulsion
Actually, I'm sure the reason they turned and looked at me so strangely is because allergy season is kicking my ass, and with all this pollen my exclamation about pea shoots resembled a Harvey Fierstein stage whisper, so they probably thought they had a celebrity in their midst. What a disappointment that they turned around and it was only me. C'est la vie....
101 Cookbooks
Heidi Swanson
A Simple Spring Salad Recipe
Perfect lettuce glows. I don't know a better way of describing it. Unfortunately, the glow doesn't last long. From the minute lettuce is picked, you're in a race against time and the elements. Tick, it is getting smashed by your other groceries. Tock, it's starting to wilt. Great lettuce emanates a color and vibrancy that makes you believe it is still alive. Chances are, by the time you encounter lettuce in your local grocery store the glow has long since faded. I hate to be too snobby, but you really have to go to the farmers' market to seek it out.
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