Today Beatrix Potter's very rare personal recipe book will go on sale in London. The children's author is most famously known for creating the Peter Rabbit stories (although there are no recipes for rabbit in the book!). The 161-year-old book recipe book is full of what were most likely family recipes, probably handed down over generations, with recipes for sponge cake, roast turkey, curry, and gingerbread. And thanks to an official release by the book's handlers, we have the actual gingerbread recipe here! More

Remember the favorite snacks of these 12 writers? Literature and food have long been entwined and a source of fascination for us today. Awl writer Jane Hu adds to the history by exploring an A-Z guide to the snacks, foods, and food-themed living that accompanied various writers throughout their lives. More

Earlier this week we told you about the frenzy surrounding President Obama's homemade brew. Well, lest we think it's unusual for a president to be so particular about his food and drink, Grub Street has provided us with a list of the favorite foods of 10 other presidents and first ladies, and some of them are pretty bizarre. More

To earn a title like "Gadget Guru," you'd expect America's Test Kitchen's Lisa McManus to be a lover of unitaskers, but the opposite is true: she's anti-gadget. That's good news for followers of her reviews; to get a recommendation from her, a product has to be well-made and truly necessary. In an interview with the L.A. Weekly, she recently shared her thoughts on a few of the best and worst gadgets on the market — and why a strawberry huller is worth it. More

We, along with everyone else on the internet and in the publishing world, just can't stop talking about Julia Child! This past Wednesday would have been her 100th birthday, and in honor of that, Architectural Digest reprinted an essay Julia wrote for their July/August 1976 issue. It's mostly about the design of her kitchen, which makes it a particularly lovely read. Jump below for an excerpt: More

It's Julia-mania today, on Julia Child's 100th birthday, and PBS got into the swing of things too with this video remix of Julia, autotuned and set to a beat, telling us how it is in the kitchen. It doesn't beat my favorite video performance from Julia (that amazing occasion with the blowtorch and David Letterman) but it's charming and rather sweet to see her break out in song. More

Let's say you wanted to make over the look of your kitchen (which you detest) but feel, rightly, that it would be unwise to spend a huge amount of money on a full renovation. What approach would you take? What would you do? Well, we should all take inspiration from Amanda Hesser's recent kitchen makeover, which turned what was rapidly becoming a dated space into something more sophisticated and modern, better tuned now for the video and photographic work done every week in this kitchen. Want to see the after? More

Iconic and beloved, Julia Child would have been 100 years old today. You'll probably see odes to her legacy all over the internet today, and we'll start here: For new and late-blooming cooks, Julia was an inspiration. (She was 32 when she started cooking.) For seasoned cooks, she offered better techniques and new ways of doing something. For the timid, she encouraged having fun, making mistakes, and learning something new. For the wild, she said careful cooking is love. And for the overly enthusiastic, the ones who flip a little too high, whisk a little too briskly, and mess up, don't fess up! Who will ever know, she said? More memorable quotes from Julia Child below: More

Bon Anniversaire, Julia! Tomorrow is Julia Child's 100th birthday and all across the country people getting ready to celebrate the birth and life of this beloved icon of gourmet cooking. In my area, local restaurants are advertising their special tribute to Julia with menus which feature such Julia classics as poulet en gelée à l'estragon avec salade de laitue beurre et tomates, along with boeuf bourguignon and coq a vin. More

Over the years I've had many close brushes with the famous Julia Child but I never had the pleasure of meeting her face-to-face. I did however get to interview her once via phone, and her words on wine still ring through my ears each time I crack open a wine list. She said, "A restaurant is only as good as its least expensive bottle of wine." For that bit of wisdom my purse and my husband continually thank her. More