Leela's artful chopstick collection/wall art!

Most non-Asian cooks aren't aware that chopsticks are more than just an eating utensil. They also make great cooking tools. In fact, there are special cooking chopsticks (saibashi in Japanese) that are a little longer and sometimes joined at the end with a string for just that purpose. More

Have you ever tried to recreate a Thai, Indian, or Vietnamese dish from a restaurant and just had it... fall flat? Have you ever wondered how to get a Chinese stir-fry to really sing in the kitchen? Every cuisine has its "secret" ingredients — the ones that turn a dish from a weak imitation to the real deal. These are often the ingredients that are a little harder to find, or less familiar to Western cooks. Here are some thoughts on the secret ingredients of five Asian cuisines. More

Last week we shared Master Bladesmith Bob Kramer's helpful advice on how to tell if your knife is sharp enough — but how do you sharpen your knife in the first place? Here are two more videos from Kramer demonstrating how to correctly hone and stone your knives, processes which take just a few minutes, but make such a difference in cooking. More

Sharp knives make cutting and prepping ingredients faster, easier and safer, we know this. But what does a truly sharp knife look like? In this short but very illuminating video, Master Bladesmith Bob Kramer demonstrates five simple tests to tell if your knife is sharp enough. (Spoiler alert: it probably isn't.) More

Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Sally Schneider of MPR's The Splendid Table are two of my most favorite and trusted cooks, so I was excited to discover this video of the two of them cooking together. (Well, actually Lynne is mostly holding a microphone but her questions and comments are spot-on as usual.) At first I wasn't so sure about the subject matter: a recipe for a homemade garlic herb salt. Do I really need another flavored salt in my pantry? Turns out the answer is yes! More

Fava bean season is long over in my area, but I'm looking ahead to next spring and filing away this tip for easier fava bean peeling from food scientist Harold McGee. He recently stumbled onto a trick that accomplishes the laborious task of peeling off fava skins in half the time — all you need is one common kitchen staple. More

I'll admit that in my cooking lifetime I've been known to use a few, er, creative techniques to prep my fruits and veggies. (It's amazing I still have all my fingers!) If artichokes and pomegranates, mangos and squash get the better of your knife skills, then this post is for you. From how to peel a head of garlic in 10 seconds to how to cut a grapefruit, from the best way to dice an onion to the super easy way to peel ginger, these 20 tips and techniques will change the way you work with produce. Let the learning begin! More

Adding a dollop of whipped cream is about as fancy as it gets when I serve dessert, but I am still inspired by Gilt Taste's look inside the mind of pastry chef Michael Laiskonis, which details his thought process while creating the dessert pictured above. Though I'll likely never create anything as lovely (or time-consuming!) as Laiskonis's dish, I still picked up a few tips for making my plates more beautiful. More

You know the expression, "A picture's worth a thousand words.' Well, in this case it's absolutely true! Our Small Cool Kitchens 2012 Contest just got started. Want to enter the contest? We draw so much inspiration from you and your kitchens, so here are a few ways to improve the photos you submit. More

We're canning, you're canning, just about everyone is canning these days. And we think that's pretty fantastic. But before you fill your kitchen with steaming hot glass jars and pounds of tomatoes, we have a few insider tips that might just make your next canning session go a lot more smoothly. More