These posts all have something to do with cookbooks: from recipes that come from cookbooks I like to experiences I’ve had while writing cookbooks.
There are many right ways to write a recipe. There are also many wrong ways. In 2007 when I sat down to write recipes for A16 Food + Wine, I knew I was going to run into trouble. How, for instance, do you guide a stranger through the process of cooking a pig head using only [...]
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There are two seasons for cookbooks, spring and fall. I like them both but for different reasons. Publishers often save their flashy, cheffy or celebrity cookbooks for the fall to ensure to books take a piece of the holiday shopping pie. This often means that spring books are less self conscious, filled with ideas that [...]
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Do you ever have those recipes that you keep meaning to try? The ones marked with Post-Its or torn out of magazines? But a week goes by (or several) and somehow the burning desire to try the recipe turns to ashes. Since I’m still on a Japanese cooking kick, I was determined not to let [...]
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When Paul Virant and I were writing The Preservation Kitchen, Paul wanted to include a menu that acknowledged Earth Day. As far as holidays go, it’s not an obvious one for cookbooks to cover. But for Paul, a chef who took pains to compost at his restaurants long before other Chicago chefs got on the [...]
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Let me introduce you to my favorite chocolate frosting. Let me also say that I generally hate frosting. It’s too sweet, too buttery (if such a thing is possible), too bland. I have been known to knock decorative frosting roses off birthday sheet cakes before diving into the good part, the cake. But sometimes a [...]
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For the past few years, there’s been a trend among elite dining institutions that involves making a plate of food look natural–to the point in which it’s styled to look as if it were emerging from the ground. Many restaurants have served dishes that resemble a patch of dirt growing vegetables, most famously Copenhagen’s Noma [...]
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In a city as old and historic as Jerusalem, it is hard to make simple statements about culture and food. Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi don’t dwell on generalities in their latest cookbook, Jerusalem (Ten Speed Press), with a few exceptions: “Everybody, absolutely everybody, uses chopped cucumber and tomatoes to create an Arab salad or [...]
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This week, SPQR Modern Italian Food and Wine hits bookstore shelves. (Look for it at local places like Omnivore Books in Noe Valley and Book Passage in the Ferry Building and other spots around the Bay Area.) The book, a cook-wine-travel book shaped around Italy’s ancient Roman Roads, has been mentioned quite a few times [...]
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“Americans have learned a lot from Italians. We embrace Old World traditions, such as buying cheese from a cheese maker we know by name or building relationships with farmers that grow our tomatoes. Now, as in Italy, we appreciate how wine can season a meal as well as any ingredient. These are just a few [...]
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We love old-new things. Anthropologie’s shabby chic aesthetic is one example of our attraction to the past (viewed through an Instagram lens). The same holds true with cooking. I wonder if a lot of food editors retire when they see a trend coming around for a third or fourth time. Heck, I wonder what I’ll [...]
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