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 Chocolate & Zucchini
Clotilde Dusoulier
  
Flourless Poppy Seed Cake
My oven and I are going through a rough patch and frankly, I don't think it can be fixed. You see, it has been behaving in the most erratic manner this fall, and if there's one thing a cook doesn't need, it's an unreliable oven, one that takes forrrreeeeevvver to preheat, turns itself off mid-baking, refuses to turn itself back on, or burns the food that's placed too far out in the back. Oh, and I almost forgot the best part: mine is also an oven that chooses to not demonstrate any of the above symptoms when the Oven Doctor comes to examine it. Mischievous, no?
Washington Post
Joe Yonan - Food & Dining
Shaw Baker Finds Her Forte in an All-Natural Niche
A funny thing happens when people try two versions of the same cookie made by baker Hareg Messert: They often like the vegan one better. She thinks it's the butter, or lack of it, that does the trick. Without dairy products, her cookies taste clearly of chocolate, ginger or pecans because, as she puts it, "the flavors have not been taken over by the butter." Most of her friends are vegan, and when she first thought of creating cookies with them in mind, people told her it would be easy, "because vegan products don't have to taste as good," she said with a smile.
Passionate Cook
Johanna Wagner
"Waiter, there's something in my... roast pork!" - an Austrian Schweinsbraten 101
The issue of what constitutes a traditional roast pork with all its trimmings is, of course, hotly debated. Some will eat it with dumplings (and there are more varieties of those than I can count on my chubby fingers), others with potatoes, some with cabbage wedges (Stöckelkraut), others with cabbage salad (Krautsalat with crispy bacon)... and although almost every region I know makes their Schweinbraten with tons of garlic (step aside, 100-clove-chicken!), the Viennese insist that the protagonist of their version should be caraway (Kuemmelbraten), with a mere hint of garlic instead.
Vinography
Alder Yarrow
The Sadness and Irony of a Wine Museum
There's something quite poignant, not to mention ironic, about a museum full of bottles of wine that no one will ever drink. Wine is not like jewelry, or glassware, or old coins, or art. It is created to be drunk and each bottle of wine is only meaningful if that possibility continues to exist. If we're going to worship wine, we should do it in our glasses, not from behind a glass wall. It's meant to be drunk.
Simply Recipes
Elise Bauer
Cranberry Sorbet
Still, if you're a bit cranberry crazy like me, you'll be more than willing to give this a go. It met with resounding praise at Thanksgiving and was polished off shortly after the next day; as such it's making a Christmas appearance as well. Its deep garnet color and perky flavor just ring with cheer and spirit. Paired with a snifter of good brandy or maybe some fresh blondies or gingerbread men this sorbet is best enjoyed in a cozy home wrapped in your warmest sweater.
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Splendid Table
American Public Media
Meat: A Love Story
This week it's a philosophical look at meat. Can you even eat it these days with a clear conscience? Investigative journalist Susan Bourette dug for answers when writing her book Meat: A Love Story. It's sticky date pudding for the Sterns. They're eating theirs off an ironing board! Our wine guy Joshua Wesson picks the right wine for the right person on your gift list - and some are bargains. Mike Colameco, our go-to guy for great eats in the Big Apple, has an insider's tips for holidaying in the city. That one-and-only diva of hospitality and funny gal Amy Sedaris takes on homemade gifts. And Mark Reinfeld shares a menu and recipes for a vegan holiday feast.
Cooks Illustrated
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New York Times
Gerri Hirshey - Dining and Wine
Time to Buy a New Stove. Again.
He leaned over to inspect the collapsed burner and replied, lowering his gaze, "You'll be facing a difficult decision here." It seemed that getting beneath the stove's sealed cooktop would require, well - work. There would be drilling and maybe as many as 12 new screws. About $600 in parts and labor, plus the cost of the initial visit, he informed me, adding that he would personally opt for a mercy killing. "Junk it." Cooking for a family of four, I had likely banged a pot onto that largest and hottest burner at least 10,000 times. So I could accept that small screws might give out. But I was unprepared for the scorching truth: This cooktop was not engineered to be repaired. Ever.
David Lebovitz
David Lebovitz
The Cookie That I Couldn't Eat
Some friends brought over a box of his macarons from his newest shop on the rue Cambon, and as they were running down the list of flavors in the box after dinner, I stopped...and gulped...when they told me what was in this one: foie gras and chocolate. Look, I like foie gras. I like chocolate. But the idea of a sweet cookie combining the two was making my stomach quesy. As we worked our way through the box, we finally got to the end, and all that was left was that one lonely red-hued foie gras et chocolat macaron. They insisted I try just a bite, a small bite, and I had to beg off. I honestly felt like I'd hurl right then and there if I ate it.
Traveler's Lunchbox
Melissa Kronenthal
Top Cookbooks of 2008
A couple of people I know have suggested that the worse the economy gets, the better the cookbook market will fare, since more people will turn to cooking both out of necessity and as a substitute for more expensive pleasures. I don't know how true that is (particularly since I know other people who are convinced of the opposite), but I'd like to believe it; in fact I'd like to think that no matter what happens we'll never have a shortage of beautiful books to inform and inspire us, to help us get dinner on the table, and to provide us a window into countries and cultures we can only dream about visiting.
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Smitten Kitchen
Deb Smitten
Zuni Cafe's Roasted Chicken + Bread Salad
And yet, the technique, which hinges on three things, isn't actually that crazed, and can be easily replicated at home. Win-win! The first is the size of the bird, which should be small."Don't substitute a jumbo roaster," they warn, "it will be too lean and won't tolerate high heat, which is the second requirement of the method." They reason that small chickens flourish at high heat, roasting quickly and evenly, and, with lots of skin per ounce of meat, are virtually engineered for succulence. This is like music to my ears, people.
Orangette
Molly Wizenberg
Look at That
Before I tasted Lisa's version, the words peppermint bark weren't even in my vocabulary. I guess I thought of it as one of those cutesy things you get in a gift basket but never eat, like tiny jars of cheese spread or plastic-encased summer sausages. Most of the time, it was simply a sheet of pallid white chocolate with crushed-up peppermint candies mixed in - or, in a slightly fancier incarnation, a layer of dark chocolate topped with a layer of white chocolate with crushed-up peppermint candies mixed in. I know this will sound like sacrilege to some, but I couldn't get excited about it.
New York Times
Amy Thomas - Dining and Wine
Le Tour du Chocolat
The problem, of course, is squeezing in as many of these indulgent visits as possible while also giving the rest of the city its due. My solution: devote one full day to chocolate boutiques, and do it in style. So, on my last visit to Paris, I took to the city's Vélib' bike system and mastered a two-wheeled circuit of eight of the chocolatiers that had the best reputations and most glowing reviews in city guidebooks and online message boards. It was exhilarating and exhausting, not to mention decadent. It was a chocoholic's dream ride.
Alinea at Home
Carol Blymire
Yolk Drops, Asparagus, Meyer Lemon, Black Pepper
So, here's hoping this blog entry will make sense, because we kind of botched one of the steps. No wait, two. Yeah, two. It didn't make the dish a failure by any means; it just didn't "sing" like I expected or wanted it to. And away we go... The first thing I did was remove the tips from the asparagus spears, setting aside 8 tips from which I could dismember the individual buds therein. Thereon? From which? Du hast? Steve Holt?!!?? Not sure what's grammatically correct there, but I'm hoping you get what I mean. I'm tired. It's been a long week. Mama needs a cocktail.
101 Cookbooks
Heidi Swanson
Fantasy-ish Fudge Recipe
Classic fantasy fudge - so good, but oh-sooo bad. It's an icon of holiday indulgence, and the rich, smooth chocolate squares are hard to resist. I love the way each bite feathers against the enamel of my teeth. I love the jolt of tooth-ache inspiring sweetness that dissipates before I know what hit me. That being said, I'm never the supplier - I never make it. I know what goes into a batch of fantasy fudge, and rarely have anything other than the chocolate on hand in my own kitchen... It's still fudge, it's still the sweetest thing I've put in my mouth all year, but it's a few degrees in my direction on the ingredient spectrum.
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