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 Chocolate & Zucchini
Clotilde Dusoulier
  
On Reusable Shopping Bags
And call me smug, but it always gives me great satisfaction to stop sales attendants mid-gesture and say, "I won't be needing a bag for this, thank you," as my magic tote bag materializes where there formerly was none. And just because a little green proselytization never hurts, I sometimes add, with a smile, "I'm trying to save the planet." I like to think that it makes the other customers feel just a little bad about the five plastic bags they have entwined in their fingers, and that they privately vow to start carrying a reusable shopping bag in their purse, too. (It is a lot more likely that no one notices, or gives a fig, but I am endlessly entertained by the imaginary thoughts I put in strangers' heads, and I'd be grateful if you didn't ruin it for me.)
Washington Post
Food & Dining
When 'The Face' Is Away...
Flavor is my ally. I scour cookbooks, blogs, food articles and farmers market stands for tips on using herbs and seasonings to perk up lighter meals. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy a good, bloody steak, a piece of fried chicken or brownies, but I have learned to love to prepare all sorts of healthful foods such as salmon, trout, eggplant and fresh berries. In truth, the results have been mixed. My husband eats fish, but he doesn't really like it. I can tell by The Face. You know the one: an eyebrow raised, head cocked to the side, mouth twisted down on one corner. Skeptical before the first bite. When he's away on business, I can cook to please myself. I don't have to see The Face, and it is liberating.
Passionate Cook
Johanna Wagner
Mojito Cheesecakes
Of course, I am a bit of a light-weight and drink them very weak, but that doesn't distract from the flavour too much and the pleasure lasts for longer. In fact, this incarnation of mojitos in cheesecake format can do entirely without the alcohol... I found them in an issue of delicious magazine and there's a fabulous line-up of summer recipes by Tom Aikens - sticky pork ribs, tuna teriyaki burgers and for dessert: mojito cheesecake. What a wonderful grown-up menu for a garden party!
Vinography
Alder Yarrow
The Myth of the Monolithic Wine Palate
So let's just put this one to rest, shall we? If anyone wants to persist in the argument that Robert Parker is ruining wine for the world then they need to answer the following question: how can that possibly be, when the rest of the major wine critics in the world seem to agree with him (nearly wine for wine) and when it appears that some have done so for decades? Oh, and about that 1855 Classification? Looks like it needs a significant overhaul.
Simply Recipes
Elise Bauer
Red Chile Marinated Grilled Chicken
As you might expect, if you have access to the dried chiles and can make the time to make your own sauce base, it's totally worth it for the extra intensity and depth of flavor. The good news is that if you can't get a hold of the dried chiles, or you don't have the time, canned red chile sauce works fine as a base for this sauce. Red chile enchilada sauce works too, though you may need to add some chili powder to it to increase the heat. In any case you are going to pump up the sauce a bit with ground cloves, cinnamon, and cumin.
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Splendid Table
American Public Media
Smoke Grilling
This week we're celebrating the Fourth of July and the start of high summer. Gourmet magazine's John Willoughby talks smoke roasting, a much-ignored technique worthy of revival for its easy and succulent results. John's latest book, Grill It!: Recipes, Techniques, Tools, co-authored with fellow grilling guru Chris Schlesinger, is hot off the press. The Sterns feast on only-in-America fried clams and onion rings at Champlin's Seafood Deck in Narragansett, Rhode Island. Sally Schneider, author of The Improvisational Cook, has ideas for summer coleslaw. Gary Nabhan, co-author of Renewing America's Food Traditions, looks at America's endangered foods, and David Rosengarten, creator of The Rosengarten Report newsletter, talks burger bliss.
Cooks Illustrated
Current Issue
In This Issue
New York Times
Dining and Wine
Well: School Is Out, and Nutrition Takes a Hike
While childhood health advocates often blame schools for poor nutrition and a lack of physical activity, the problem often gets worse in the summer. Last year, The American Journal of Public Health published a provocative study showing that schools may be taking too much of the blame for the childhood obesity epidemic. Data from kindergarteners and first graders found that body mass index increased two to three times as fast in summer as during the regular school year. Minority children were especially vulnerable, as were children who were already overweight. Notably, even children who were too thin and needed to gain weight appeared to have better eating habits during the school year. They actually gained more weight while in school and less in the summer.
Traveler's Lunchbox
Melissa Kronenthal
Ah, Abruzzo
...a couple of years ago Manuela decided to start offering up the cooperative's sheep for 'virtual adoption', sending adoptive parents all the wool, pecorino and ricotta their ovine offspring produces in a year. It was a media sensation; in her thick file of articles are descriptions of her project in the New York Times, Washington Post and just about every major European newspaper. It's no wonder people are interested; at $190, adoption is not only a steal, but a great opportunity to help preserve a dying way of life.
David Lebovitz
David Lebovitz
What's "a handful"?
Like your morning toast, which you might "spread with a thin layer of jam", do you need to "use a elongated butter knife, or spatula, grasping the handle, dipping the blade in the jam pot, and coating the bread with 1 3/4 tablespoons of the jam"? If I asked, "How much milk do you take in your coffee?" or "How much hot fudge should I ladle over my ice cream?", no one would answer with a precise quantity. I know, and I hope that you know, you can eyeball it perfectly, using your instincts, without taking out the measuring spoons.
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Smitten Kitchen
Deb Smitten
Project Wedding Cake: An Introduction
As there is no casual way to say this, ahhhem, let me just blurt it out: I am baking a wedding cake! Like, a real live honest-to-god wedding cake. I have always wanted to make a wedding cake. Alex and my wedding cake was well-intentioned but ultimately disappointing, the obvious product of all the shortcuts bakeries get themselves into when quantity trumps quality. In the same way that I believe that everyone deserves a cake baked with a symphony of butter, eggs, flour and devotion on their birthday, a wedding cake should be all that and more. No mystery-ingredient toppings, no highly unnatural silver dust, no fake cake for display with a sheet cake in the back for serving.
Orangette
Molly Wizenberg
In Its Frilly Finest
What I wanted was the pure heart of the Hasselback, which is to say a potato that straddles the line between roasted and baked, and that happens to be pretty too. So we made a rustic version. We bought some red potatoes, scrubbed them, and cut slits into them from the top down, so that they would fan open like accordions when they baked. Then, for extra flavor, we slipped slices of garlic down into the slits of some of the potatoes and, into the slits of others, some bits from a broken bay leaf. Then we drizzled them with olive oil, salted them generously, and baked them until they opened like strange flowers and their skins were wrinkled and crisp.
New York Times
Dining and Wine
The Pulse of Summer: Blender Drinks Are Back
You may regard the electric blender as a helpful household appliance. For your bartender, it is a tool straight from the devil. So widespread is the loathing that whenever Martin Cate posts a job opening at Forbidden Island, his bar in Alameda, Calif., he finds it necessary to screen out bartenders who refuse to use the devices. "Don't like blenders?" his ad goes. "Don't apply." Each time it runs, people write to tell him just how happy they are that they don't work for him.
French Laundry at Home
Carol Blymire
Double Rib Lamb Chops with Cassoulet of Summer Beans and Rosemary
That's me, and my dog, Jake, having a bit of a hurl; the lamb chops are blue and emitting blue and black rays of death; and, my face is undeniably green upon having smelled the lamb chops when I opened the package. For the record, I did not actually throw up, but it was close. Here's the deal: I bought my lamb chops from my local Whole Foods, brought them home, and the next day when I opened them? They smelled bad... really bad... almost WORSE THAN TRIPE bad. They were yellow and green, and made my eyes water with their badness.
101 Cookbooks
Heidi Swanson
Blackberry Limeade Recipe
This is Southern cookbook with all the deep-fried, shortening-packed delicacies you can imagine. Lots of meat, plenty of seafood-based recipes. That being said, there are many great ideas that are easily adaptable. For example, there's a black-eyed pea cake that (minus the bacon) looks like a fresh twist on a veggie burger, a frozen cucumber salad that sounds fascinating, and multiple rice salads that could easily be done with any number of whole grains (or whole grain rice). Plenty to be inspired by. One of the things I loved about the blackberry limeade recipe was Martha's use of raw sugar - it lends deep, complex level of sweetness that you just don't get with white sugar. It bridges the blackberries, lime, and cardamom wonderfully.
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