People & Culture

City: Population: Local specialties:When you think about chowing down in Cow Town, the first thing that comes to mind is barbecue. Smoking and cooking meats of all shapes and sizes is a badge of honor in these parts and we are quite serious about the craft. That isn’t to say there aren’t other delicacies found in the area!

‘Oh, domesticity! The wonder of dinner plates and cream pitchers. You know your friends by their ornaments. You want everything. If Mrs. A. has her mama’s old jelly mold, you want one, too, and everything that goes with it — the family, the tradition, the years of having jelly molded in it. We domestic sensualists live in a state of longing, no matter how comfortable our own places are.’ –from The Lone Pilgrim by Laurie ColwinAre you a domestic sensualist?

A friend offered to help me with the final canning of my 3-Day Apricot Jam last week. I didn’t need the help–it was only a few jars after all– but he really seemed to want to come over and he’s good company, so I said ok.And while I could have done it alone, I’m sure glad I didn’t because company in the kitchen, even my tiny one, is a really wonderful thing.

Considering that I’m a cheesemonger, I’m surprisingly not too discriminating when it comes to old cheese. Admittedly, the quality of a cheese that’s been sitting in your fridge will never be superior to its condition upon purchase, but just because a cheese has sat in the back corner of your deli drawer doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not fit for consumption.But just how old is too old?Always try to consume cheese within a few days of bringing it home.

Back in our post about saving your butter wrappers, we mentioned off hand that we’re trying to be paper towel free. Well… that isn’t exactly correct. We figured it was better to be honest about our efforts to reduce our paper towel usage (not because we’re trying to be “green”), why we think they can still be essential in the kitchen and how to be ok with the stigma that surrounds their use.

This is my father’s recipe for fudge, written and illustrated in his own hand. I have many fond memories of standing on a chair next to the stove, stirring up batches of this fudge in our Revere-ware pot with the copper bottom. I was one of the lucky ones whose father did a little cooking and didn’t seem to mind having me and my brother around to help.He would always make us smell the vanilla -mmmmm- and then taste a drop straight from the bottle -yuck!

Here in The Kitchn we’re all about home cooking. But home cooking, especially in this age of interwebs and world travel, food networks and glossy monthly magazines, is deeply influenced by things beyond the kitchen door. Indeed, far beyond our immediate neighborhoods and family traditions.So many things influence our cooking: the seasons and markets, friends, family, tradition, budgets, time, energy…Today I’m thinking about restaurants. This has to do in part with where I live.

Do you ever get in the mood to go into the kitchen, shut the door and take on something really fussy, with a lot of steps and ingredients? Something that takes almost all your pots and pans and every inch of your counterspace and loads up the dishwasher twice? Something that asks for every drop of your attention and passion, your whole heart and soul?Something you do just for the doin’ of it.Forget the ‘no-knead in five minutes’ and chicken stock from a can.

This is one of those things that we read, then think, “We’re moving to the suburbs.” Just so we can build this fire pit. If you live somewhere that has more than an outdoor windowsill, maybe you can fulfill our dreams for us? Sherry and John, the DIY couple from the blog This Young House, did it for less than the cost of a tank of gas… This simple fire pit was part of an inexpensive patio makeover at their Richmond, Virginia, home.

Do you love breakfast? How about weekend breakfast outdoors on the front stoop, the porch, or the back deck? What about brunch on the balcony, if you’re so lucky as to have one? Here are five photos to inspire you to eat breakfast outdoors this weekend. • 1 A modest breakfast – Looks like bread, jam, tomatoes, butter, cheese, and juice. By Flickr member Szili licensed for use under Creative Commons. • 2 Fruit on a Berlin balcony – What a splendid spread of fruit!

What’s a memorable day for you?It’s a holiday weekend for a lot people here in the states. Memorial Day, a day in which we honor those who have died defending our country. But it’s also barbecues and picnics and planting a garden. It’s opening up the summer cottage or cleaning out a closet in search of white shoes.At the market you’ll find strawberries and asparagus, little lettuces and radishes, peas and scallions. What foods say Memorial Day to you?

Would it work to sprinkle a little finely minced rosemary over this lemon tart? Can I cook a pizza in my teeny tiny oven and have it turn out like those wood-fired ones from A16? What does a nopales taste like? Does this recipe have to have this much sugar? What can I make with a passion fruit? Who is coming to dinner tonight and what would they love to eat? Where does this chicken come from and was it treated well there?So much of my cooking is asking questions, being curious and investigative.

There are myriad ways to express love and none is better than the other. Much depends on timing and personality and intention. But one of the most common and most powerful ways is though labor–or, to be more descriptive, through making an effort beyond one’s own self-concern.And the kitchen is a perfect place for this labor of love to be expressed.Food is more than the sum of its nutritional and caloric counts.

Look at this tall, slim pear. Do you recognize it? We found it at our little organic food co-op, nestled between the oranges and beets. We had never seen this particular variety, so we scooped one up and brought it home. Well, now we know: if you see these, buy more than one.The abate fetel (pronounced ah-BAH-tay fuh-TEL) pear, from what we’ve read so far, was bred by monks in Italy several hundred years ago. It is very slim and long; some people describe it as banana-shaped.

Confession: I do not have a green thumb. I would like one but the truth is I’m lucky to keep a few house plants (barely) alive. I just don’t have the instinct for it like I have the instinct for how to roast a chicken or bake a layer cake. Somehow, when I pick up a knife or a wooden spoon, I know what to do. Without hardly thinking, I understand that a particular recipe would taste better if the onions are browned a little instead of sweated.

We just learned about Dyngus Day yesterday, and man have we been missing out. All those years we could have woken up to boys throwing buckets of water over our heads or hitting our legs with willow branches. All those times we could have been eating kielbasa and pierogi. If you have no idea what we’re talking about, read on…Dyngus Day is a Polish holiday, celebrated the Monday after Easter.

Sometimes when life gets too full of stress and obligation and disappointments, I lock my door, bury my cell phone under the bed pillows and start chopping carrots.When all the carrots are chopped, I move to onions.When the onions are done, I push a few cloves of garlic under my knife.Usually by the time the garlic’s done, I’m more relaxed, present and maybe even a little happy.It’s time to move on to the ginger.It’s time for carrot soup.

Modern psychological research is discovering that happiness is not actually contingent on things or circumstances. One way they’ve proved this is by following people for a year after they’ve either won a big lottery or became a quadriplegic. Basically they found that the lottery winners weren’t any happier, nor the quadriplegics more miserable, than they were before their life-changing event.This goes against everything we’ve been told to believe.

Double bock (or doppelbock) beers have became one of our new favorites this winter! And with cold weather lingering in many parts of the country, there’s definitely still time to enjoy this warming malty brew. Read on for more info and a few suggestions…Double bocks are often described as “liquid bread.” Indeed, some of the ones we tried we so thick and hearty that they could have been a meal unto themselves!

I’m feeling quiet today, kind of hermit-monkish. As I write this, I realize that this statement implies a sense of withdrawal but that’s not quite accurate. Rather, it’s more like sinking deeply into the moment, into my life, into myself. It’s setting aside some time to reflect, rather than stir up. It’s pausing, rather than acting.

A few years ago I noticed that I had an odd eating habit: I would save what I thought was going to be the best bite for the last bite. For me this means the gooey center of a cinnamon bun, or the thick button of frosting on the top of a cupcake or the largest, ripest piece of mango in a salad.Soon after I had my realization, I began to notice that there were others who were like me but there were also others who were just the opposite. These people would eat all the good stuff first!

If you’re a fan of cooking blogs (which if you’re reading this is likely) then you may know Molly Wizenberg simply as Orangette. One of the early and most popular blogs focused on food and cooking, Orangette has won the hearts and minds (inside joke) of many people with its casual, intimate prose and unabashed love for time spent at the chopping board and stove.

Grand Central Market is a long, often very crowded arcade of food stalls on one end of Grand Central Terminal. We think of it as a pit stop for commuters, a mecca of prepared foods and last-minute dinner staples, which it is, mostly. But it’s also the only place in the city you’ll find Penzeys SpicesOn each end of the market is Greenwich Produce, where you can pick up fruit and vegetables. They are expensive but necessary if you’re trying to do one-stop shopping.

When most American homecooks think of Chinese food, it’s the kind eaten out or ordered in, not cooked at home. This is partly a function of a pantry not fit for Chinese cooking and partly the intimidation factor. Heating a wok properly, making tasty condiments, folding dumplings; it can all seem like a lot of trouble when a bowl of pasta, just a boiled pot away from the plate, beckons at the end of a long day.If this sounds familiar, might I make a plug for some good Chinese cookbooks?

In the Northern Hemisphere, today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, a time of deep rest that is sacred to all living things and necessary to life. As a culture, we push against this darkness with celebration and light, busyness and bustle. This is fine, essential even, but there is wisdom to be discovered in the slumbering dark, in allowing the brightness to fade and the quiet to prevail.

By the time you read this, I will have landed in Tokyo and stuffed myself with beer and delicious food at the first izakaya I find. When I return in January, I’ll have a lot of food-related photos and tales to tell. In the meantime, as we near the winter solstice, I thought it fitting to talk about yuzu fruit.Yuzu is a golfball-sized citrus fruit that originated in East Asia. It’s very tart, with little pulp and lots of seeds.

I recently got hip to a great cream-cheese alternative for bagels and such and was thinking it’d be a nice time to pass on the tip given what a brunch-y time of year this is between Christmas and New Year’s and all the other excuses for gathering and eating. Spreadable goat cheese is a lower-fat form of goat cheese with a looser texture as compared to the chèvre usually sold in log form and usually comes in a tub so it even looks like cream cheese.

It’s the holidays, a time for special parties, feasts and fetes, and lots of good cheer. For some, it’s helpful to have a non-alcoholic bottle on hand that still captures the feeling of celebration. Or maybe you’re hosting a dinner party and you want to offer a distinctive pairing with the cheese course, something that balances perfectly with your ForsterkaseThen you’ll want to check out Golden Star’s White Jasmine Sparkling Tea.

Now that it’s officially holiday movie season, we thought we’d highlight a classic recipe from a classic seasonal film – “A Christmas Story.”The movie marks its 25th anniversary this year, so there’s even more celebration of all things Ralphie.My family decided not to wait until December to try Ralphie’s Mom’s Braised Red Cabbage and served it for Thanksgiving instead, but it would be a great addition to any winter meal.

We know some of you are fans of “Pushing Daisies,” and we recently discussed the show’s honey-related story lines, but we could hardly let this month pass without a mention of the show’s primary food theme: Pie!Read on for recipes from the show, including one that requires a certain magical power.Many of the show’s episodes center around pie, and much of the action takes place at Ned’s restaurant, the Pie Hole.

It’s easy to get a famous chef to sit for an interview about his latest restaurant or cookbook. But for this article in The Washington Post, the writer took Jacques Pépin shopping at the Giant supermarket to see what the 72-year-old French chef would buy and what he’d make.

It’s harvest month here in The Kitchn, so a metaphor from the fields feels appropriate. The one that intrigues me the most these days is fallow time. Technically, fallow refers to not planting seed on a field, allowing it to rest, to be unproductive.These days, being unproductive is a rather radical suggestion.But it’s one worth considering. Who are you when you’re not doing, producing, creating a future in the present?

Cluttered to clean – that’s what PANTREE promises to do for your kitchen. We’re intrigued by this storage system – see more of how it works below.Do you have pots, pans, skillets, and spatulas shoved willy-nilly into your cupboards? We do, and it’s driving us crazy. We keep rearranging to find a better configuration, but we wonder if this PANTREE would be a good solution.The PANTREE is a plastic cupboard organizer that is (hello! good idea!

When first encountering David Tanis’s new cookbook, A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes, skeptics might roll their eyes: why do I need a full-color, hard-cover book from a chef who splits his life between the Chez Panisse kitchen in Berkeley and a dinner club in Paris to tell me how to put some figs on a platter? Stop.

I guess I’ve been in a mushroom mood lately. This morning, I joined the Mycological Society of San Francisco, and this week I’ve written about pink oyster mushrooms and abalone mushrooms.I’ve always wanted to learn how to forage for my own mushrooms. On a recent trip to France, I purchased an Opinel mushroom knife that’s specially made for mushroom collecting.

I was chatting with a young barista in a newly opened coffee shop in San Francisco’s Mission District last week. She was lamenting the lack of community and connection in her life. In her opinion, this was in part because these days what people do for a living often has no relationship to their friends and communities.

Danielle from AT:San Francisco found that she and her husband were shopping (and eating out) far too many times a month, so they devised a system to help keep their trips to a more budget-friendly level.Grocery shopping can add up quickly when not planned well; we find that we spend more when we’re constantly running out for this and that. And yet we like to shop frequently for fresh things.

Pick up a bottle of Italian wine and you’re likely to see one of these designations somewhere on the label. What exactly to these letters stand for and what do they mean? Read on…In the second half of the 20th century, Italy decided to establish a series of laws to safeguard the quality and authenticity of their wine.These safeguards take the form of protected zones where growers and producers must adhere to strict regulations in order to be certified by these laws.

The Outdoor Film Festival returns this week with 1957’s “An Affair to Remember,” starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. For this week’s menu, we’re sailing through the French Riviera along with the characters. Food is mentioned in the early minutes of the movie as a news announcer discusses the engagement of playboy Nickie Ferrante (Grant) to a wealthy (and apparently attractive) heiress.

I was inspired a few weeks ago by a post over at Smitten Kitchen on what we are afraid to cook and why. What a great question! And what a great thing to take on. There’s nothing like the feeling of overcoming fear (baking bread, souffle, sushi), plunging right in and coming out the other side victorious. Kind of like a culinary Outward Bound.What are you afraid to cook?In my case, it was fried chicken.

So many cookbooks leave us in the dark wondering why do we have to add salt here or why does this need to sit overnight.Not this one!This is a cookbook for the people. It’s written with the Splendid Table’s characteristic wit and down-home language, which is always inviting and never offended when you have a question.

A friend of ours was in an accident recently and broke her leg, requiring surgery. She’s unable to walk for the next few months, and a group of us are banding together to prepare foods that she can store in the freezer and heat up easily. What should we make?

Well, the food blogs and boards have been buzzing all weekend with sorrow and speculation about Tastespotting’s mysterious demise. We have already come across a couple of new food photo galleries that hope to fill the void left by Tastespotting. Take a look at these hopeful alternatives below…• Food Gawker – Pretty much a direct copy of Tastespotting’s gallery and submission concept.

My Father and the FigtreeFor other fruits my father was indifferent.He’d point at the cherry trees and say.“See those? I wish they were figs.”In the evenings he sat by my bedweaving folktales like vivid little scarves.They always involved a figtree.Even when it didn’t fit, he’d stick it in.Once Joha was walking down the road and he saw a figtree,Or, he tied his camel to a figtree and went to sleep.

What the… While going through our daily blog reads last night, we visited Tastespotting and discovered that the entire site has been taken down. In its place is a handwritten note from founder Jean Aw:She says that due to “recent legal complications” Tastespotting will no longer be hosted by NOTCOT.This makes us sadder than we can say – Tastespotting was a brilliantly visual way to browse the overwhelming amount of food blog content available these days.

In the summer, when there’s rather less clothes and things like beach trips are on one’s mind, one has a tendency to eat lighter. We are not necessarily on a diet, mind you, but we are eating light and healthy as much as possibe. Also, we have always been fascinated by the concept of catabolic foods.What are catabolic foods? Well, first off, they sound too good to be true.Supposedly, catabolic foods burn up more calories than they supply.

As I write this, I am slowly savoring a bite of Mo’s Bacon Chocolate Bar by the amazingly innovative Vosges Haute Chocolate. The initial hit of rich dark milk chocolate is followed by hints of smoky salt from the alder wood smoked sea salt then quickly reinforced by chewy bits of applewood smoked bacon.

We were at the greengrocer a couple months ago, slightly nonplussed because we couldn’t find arugula yet. The girl at the counter told us that she just grows it herself; even through the winter, she said, it grew like wild in her containers. Hmm…we said. So when we saw tiny baby arugula at the garden center, it seemed a good idea.Well, now look what we’ve got on our hands…Arugula gone wild! We had just hacked this nearly to the root, grabbing leaves for pizza.

There’s abalone. And then there’s the geoduck.On Good Food this past week, Evan Kleiman had a captivating (and a bit giggle-filled) interview with filmmaker Justin Bookey on his documentary, 3 Feet Under: Digging Deep for the Geoduck Clam. Bookey explains that there’s more to the geoduck than…er…meets the eye.

These days it’s trendy for restaurants to develop a relationship with a local farm, but here in the Bay Area this has been going on for quite a while. Greens Restaurant in San Francisco has been featuring Marin County’s Green Gulch Farm’s organic lettuces, potatoes, chard and other coastal-grown vegetables since they opened almost 30 years ago.

For anyone with an interest in cooking, a trip to the Paris brocantes — roving antique fairs that set up shop around Paris in every season but summer — is a lesson in kitchen nostalgia. From vintage kitchen canisters and coffee mills to 19th-century locked crystal sugar boxes used to store the then-precious sweet stuff, there’s always something fascinating to discover.

I used love my small, cluttered kitchen. Joyfully I would produce delicious, many-coursed meals from my Barbie-sized stove, stuff a week’s worth of organic produce into “my cute refrigerator”, balance yet another latte bowl on the top of my towering collection.I believed my kitchen had a certain boho charm that I was happy to identify with. Besides, I really enjoyed all the individual components of my clutter.

I live in Rome, Italy, and today I saw a sweet, sweet deal on an Illy FrancisFrancis X1 espresso machine. It is red. It is sexy. And even with the terrible exchange rate, it is still costs less than half what the same machine would cost in the United States. There is, however, one big problem: it is wired for an Italian outlet. I have looked online, and I can get a European/American voltage adapter with surge protection for about 20 bucks.

We’ve already shown you some pretty Seder plates, but we’ve haven’t yet talked about what goes on them. Those who grew up celebrating Passover can probably recite the traditional items in their sleep. But you may not be aware that some Jews are adding and substituting new items to bring additional meaning to their Passover rituals. And, if you’ve never been to a Seder before, you might be lost entirely.

We admit it. We have a cookbook addiction. Our bookshelves are overflowing, and yet we keep buying them. In New York, our favorite place to feed that delicious addiction is Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks. This tiny Greenwich Village shop is a must-see destination for cookbook lovers and anyone interested in culinary history.Crammed floor to ceiling with historic, vintage, and contemporary cookbooks, Bonnie Slotnick’s is a dangerous place for the cookbook addict to browse.

What word do you use to refer to the last meal of the day? Some of us say “supper,” and some of us say “dinner.” We’ve noticed it’s either a regional or a generational thing, and we’re interested in knowing what you say. More on the history of dinner versus supper below…Technically, the word “supper” refers to a light evening meal, and “dinner” is a more formal, hearty meal.

What would Hungry Reader month be without a reference to J.R.R. Tolkien’s hobbits and their everlasting love of mushrooms? The small, homey people in those books have an enormous love of food that far outsizes their miniature frames. A proper breakfast is one of their great loves, and mushrooms and bacons are chief among their passions.

The most inspiring thing to land in my kitchen in a long time is The Mystery Box, the “guerilla vegetable delivery/taco truck-meets-the farmers market” bi-weekly drop-off from my favorite local organic farm. Every two weeks on a Thursday evening, Mariquita Farm co-owner Julia drives into the city, parks next to one of the many restaurants they supply and throws open the back of her truck.By prearrangement, I pick up a large box of vegetables that I will (gladly) pay $25 for.

Asparagus are in season in some parts of the US. Here in New York, they are the cheapest (about $2.99 a pound) they’ll be all year. According to a few of your comments about side dishes to go with Easter ham, asparagus are high up on the list.We agree. And while we usually roast our asparagus with a little olive oil and salt, we’re thinking about the fresh, bright green color we get when we blanch and chill them. Another benefit of serving asparagus cold?

Reading through all the great Bathroom Month posts over at our sister site got us thinking: when is the last time we actually took the time for a honest-to-goodness bath? With our hectic schedules, a long warm bath sounds like such a luxury.But why not treat ourselves! A bath can be a relaxing and wonderfully self-indulgent way to end the day. And, of course, one of the most important elements to a good bath is having the proper snacks on hand.

With all the Hungry Reader nostalgia going on, we couldn’t help but run to the bookshelf for our copy of Little House in the Big Woods. Whether it’s hasty pudding or salt-rising bread, Ma’s always got something special cooking away on her wood-fired stove!

Last week we talked about your favorite food-themed picture books. This week, we’re curious – what are your favorite food scenes in classic novels? There is so much to choose from, especially among the great Victorian authors.We actually summon up scenes of privation as much as anything else; poor Oliver Twist, so hungry and begging for more; Jane Eyre with her wretched burnt porridge in the horrible school.

Our Book Club wrapped up last week, and it was such a treat to read through Julia Child’s memoir. My Life in France is full of life, color, and the intense pleasure that can be found in cooking good food. We loved hearing Julia’s voice – it practically jumps off the page!We’re not quite done with this book, though – who’s up for cooking the dish at the beginning, the classic sole meunière?

Corners are important places in small kitchens. They are often the awkward spots, where drawers pull out and bump into each other, and they hold potential for wasted space. We showed you a cutting board to make better use of your counter corners.Now, corner drawers from Heritage Custom Cabinetry designed for that corner sweet spot.All of these drawer setups are from Heritage Custom Cabinetry’s Zona Cucina line. Check out their site for information on dealers.

The host of no-knead recipes from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day have been making quiet ripples through the baking community, and we felt that it was time take a look for ourselves to see what the hubbub was all about.Given that this book was likely in production around the time when Jim Lahey’s recipe appeared in the New York Times, we were curious to see how they compared.

We break from our regularly scheduled programming to let you know that the new Gourmet website is reaching further back into the magazine’s fabled archives and bringing forth… varmints?The Gourmet website republished a selection of recipes from their back issues to show what their readers in the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s did with woodchucks and wild hare. They do stipulate that these recipes have not been retested; they are more cultural artifact than dinner tonight.

It keeps happening: discoveries like the one reported on the front page of today’s New York Times (High Mercury Levels Are Found in Tuna Sushi) keep telling us that eating tuna just isn’t a great idea.After being pregnant last year, I all but completely removed it from my diet. But lately, there are some interesting “lower” and “lowest” mercury options out there, which Burrows’s article neglects to discuss.

My party for forty in my 650 square foot apartment is just four days away.Here’s some sources that I count on when I’m cooking for a crowd:Bed Bath & Beyond While I am not a fan of big box stores, my weekend trips to Bed Bath & Beyond will make serving this large crowd more affordable.My partner and I want our guests to eat off “real” plates and drink from glass glasses. Ever year, we re-stock our supply of Nuance Stemware Sets. They’re just $9.99 a dozen.

[The sixth and last finalist in our Green Tomato Contest is Roopa – we liked the ease of this recipe and also that she used homegrown green tomatoes in her tomato and lentil stew. Voting on all six finalists will open around lunchtime today.] This is a recipe for a South Indian dish called Thakali Masiyal. It’s an original recipe I wrote based on my mom’s instructions. The green tomatoes I used were homegrown. I have (actually, had) tomato plants growing in pots on my balcony.

The only horrifying thing about these cute Ghost Fruit from Godiva is the price – $4.50 each! We saw them in Epicurious’ roundup of Halloween treats, and we think they would be very easy to make yourself. If we had time to try today, here’s how we would do it: • Fruit: Small seasonal fruit. Strawberries are completely out of season. Instead, look for small green figs, globe grapes, or very small lady apples.

Have you heard about the brownies made with carrots and spinach (PDF recipe)? The new cookbook Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld, wife of comedian and sitcom star Jerry Seinfeld, shares advice on how to hide vegetables so kids will eat them. There’s recipes for pureed cauliflower in mac and cheese and kale in spaghetti and meatballs.