January 31, 2013
January Favorites
Honey jars from Russia, featured on Buzzfeed via Lovely Package.
A few of my favorite finds and reads for January:
~ What's on the menu? The New York Public Library's collection of digitized restaurant menus.
~ Some of the coolest food packaging designs of 2012.
~ The unpalatable truth about quinoa, and Tom Philpott's follow-up post.
~ 50 life hacks to simplify your world.
~ Why do health articles so often get it wrong?
~ The Havas Paris...
"January Favorites" continues »
January 29, 2013
Garlic: To Press Or Not To Press (+ a Giveaway!)
{See below about winning the garlic press to end all garlic presses.}
Over the years, I've gone back and forth on this burning issue: is it a good idea to press garlic?
The question sparks surprisingly violent debates, and often there's an undercurrent of judgment ("real cooks just chop") that I find out of place in any cooking discussion: there's no single right way of doing anything, just different skills and circumstances.
As far as I can...
"Garlic: To Press Or Not To Press (+ a Giveaway!)" continues »
January 25, 2013
[Edible Idiom] Cheveux poivre et sel
Illustration by MelinArt.
This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Browse the list of idioms featured so far.
This week's expression is, "Cheveux poivre et sel."
Literally translated as, "pepper and salt hair," it is used to describe graying hair. It is also -- though less often -- used to describe someone's beard (barbe) or sideburns (favoris).
Example: "C'était un monsieur d'un certain âge, aux cheveux...
"[Edible Idiom] Cheveux poivre et sel" continues »
January 22, 2013
Smoked Herring and Potato Salad
Harengs pommes à l'huile -- literally, herring and potatoes with oil -- is a great classic among French hors-d'oeuvres, one that you'll still find on brasserie and traditional (or neo-traditional) bistro menus.
{I'll take this opportunity to mention this formidable project from the New York Public Library Labs: What's on the menu? is a digitized collection of restaurant menus dating back to the 1850's, and harengs pommes à l'huile appears in q...
"Smoked Herring and Potato Salad" continues »
January 15, 2013
Parents Who Cook: Aran Goyoaga
Aran with Jon and Miren, photographed by Marcus Nilsson.
Parents Who Cook is a Q&A series in which I ask my guests about how their cooking has changed after kids entered the picture, and pick their brains on their best strategies to cook with little ones underfoot.
Aran Goyoaga is the talented baker, stylist, photographer, and writer behind the gorgeous blog Cannelle & Vanille. She was born and raised in the Spanish Basque country, and now liv...
"Parents Who Cook: Aran Goyoaga" continues »
January 8, 2013
Roasted Onions
Peeling onions is one of my least favorite cooking tasks. The stubborn papery skin that refuses to come away smoothly, the pesky little flakes that get stuck under your fingernails and on the cutting board, not to mention the occasional outer layer that's part flesh part skin (what to do with those?), all conspire to vex me.
Yet I adore onions and the pungent or sweet things they do, so I put my head down and try to take each specimen as an op...
January 1, 2013
Best of 2012
Happy New Year! Here's to 2013 and the glorious meals, peals of laughter, new friends, and unforgettable adventures I hope it has in store for you.
Before we remove the protective film from this brand new year, I'd like to take a moment to look back on some of the best things 2012 brought. The two biggest, happiest events for me have been (1) the birth of my baby boy in the spring -- Milan is now seven and a half months and he's a ray of sunshin...