The Kitchn Archive: Oct 2013

Last September I signed up for a wheel-throwing ceramics class thinking I would be able to make a set of dinner plates. I had big plans to write a piece about my experience: a photo of a stack of serene white plates, a little wabi-sabi of course, not perfect, but complete, heavy and unique. I knew there would be some bumps along the way, but I fully expected to succeed and have a great story to tell.

When legendary cookbook author Paula Wolfert realized one afternoon last year that she had forgotten how to make an omelet, she knew something was very wrong. Doctors diagnosed her with either early-stage Alzheimer’s disease or mild cognitive impairment, a form of dementia. Neither has a cure, but The Washington Post tells the inspiring story of how she has turned to food and cooking for help.

Grade B, Grade A… have you ever been confused by maple syrup labeling? Grade “A” sounds like a higher-quality product but this is misleading; personally, I prefer Grade B, which is just as pure but darker and more robust in flavor. Well, things are about to get less confusing. Vermont is changing their maple syrup labeling, so say goodbye to Grade B. But don’t worry, dark syrup lovers — it’s just branding.

Ice cream is the perfect dessert for busy hosts and there are so many ways to fancy up a simple scoop. Here’s a tasty, seasonal idea that would work for an autumn dinner party, or even as a Thanksgiving dessert: serve scoops of pumpkin ice cream in no-bake gingersnap cups! This recipe comes from The Merrythought, who make their pumpkin ice cream from scratch, but you could easily adapt the idea with good-quality store-bought ice cream.

Need a last-minute Halloween costume? Bon Appétit put together a slideshow of simple yet clever costume ideas for dressing up like your favorite famous chef this Halloween. The chef costumes include Alton Brown, Julia Child, Anthony Bourdain, Paula Deen, Mario Batali and, of course, Guy Fieri. Beyond just dressing up like the chefs, I think there is a lot of room to have some dark fun with these costumes.

Have you recently undergone a kitchen makeover or renovation and have great ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos of the process? Did you figure out a smart, efficient way to organize your pantry or cupboards, or come across a tip or product that changed your life in the kitchen? We want to see it! Every week we showcase reader kitchens in our Before and After feature, and we’re always looking for examples of smart kitchen solutions and organizing ideas.

Step up your slow cooker game with this relatively new channel on YouTube called “Cooking with Phyllis”. Phyllis Pellman Good is the co-author of the celebrated Fix-it and Forget-it series, and is prepping for the launch of her new book with these fun, accessible videos. Most of the videos are between three and five minutes, and are super comprehensive.

I’ve talked a little in the past about my very favorite kind of fall dinner party: the soup party. And this week, my partner Sam and I started planning what is becoming an annual tradition. While we discussed chunky minestrone versus puréed butternut squash, the one question that has us inspired this year was: what to put on the toasts? Last year for our fall soup party we made a Moroccan Carrot Soup and a nice chunky minestrone soup.

In all the history of cakes that look like other stuff, this cake is truly the most insane. Mhmm, that’s right, what you see pictured above is not actually ramen, but in fact a cake made to look like ramen. It’s OK if you need to cry. But wait! It gets even better – there’s a video of how to make the actual ramen cake.

Do you know the story of stone soup? In it, an unlikely ingredient — a stone, or sometimes buttons, nails or an axe — is transformed into a delicious, satisfying soup because everyone in the town contributes a little something to make the stone soup better.

Edward Behr is a beloved figure in my household where old copies of his magazine The Art of Eating can still be found in their original newsletter form, circa the late 1980s. These days, The Art of Eating is a beautifully bound quarterly but still remains a treasure for anyone interested in food and eating, to collect and hoard and pass on to the next generation. I was very excited, then, to receive Mr.

Downton Abbey is back in the UK and will hit the US shores in early 2014, so it’s a good time to consider the importance of the proper soup bowl. What is that, you say? You didn’t know that there are seven different kinds of soup bowls, each one appropriate to a particular soup or occasion? Of course, this kind of fussiness is a very formal approach to eating soup. Most people these days have one kind of bowl for all their soup needs.

You might think that most of your daily water use comes from household tasks like washing the dishes or taking a shower, but the surprising truth is that a whopping 92% of the water you consume comes from the food you eat. That’s right — you eat 3496 liters (about 924 gallons) of water every day. How is this possible? Designer Angela Morelli created a fascinating interactive infographic that details how and why we consume so much water through the food we eat without even knowing it.