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Shocking Chocolate: Readers Respond to Inviting Writing
Time for another installment in our series of true-life stories about food and manners, submitted by our wonderful readers in response to our first Inviting Writing prompt. (You can read the first story here.) Today's tale comes to us from Christine Lucas, a writer in Savannah, Georgia.Nanna
By Chr...
April 23, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Why Are Chocolate Easter Bunnies Hollow?
Isn't it cruel to disappoint kids, who bite into what looks like solid chocolate and are confronted with emptiness?
April 02, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Cooking with Easter Candy
Did you buy too much Easter candy to fit in a basket? Not sure you can stomach eating it all straight? Well, in the foolish spirit of the day, here are some alternatives:1. Melt down a chocolate bunny and whaddaya know, you've got molten chocolate—perfect for fondue. You could also use bits of bunn...
April 01, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Peep Art
Marshmallow Peeps are a funny thing. They're technically edible, but that's not their main appeal for most of us (although I do confess an embarrassing fondness for stale Peeps—it's a texture thing; almost like meringues). Would you buy a normal-shaped marshmallow rolled in neon sugar? Probably not...
March 25, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Five Ways to Eat Tahini
Recently, there was a discussion over at Epicurious about the essential ingredients home cooks always have on hand because they use them so frequently. For me, one of those items would be tahini, or sesame-seed paste. As I found during my "week without recipes" challenge a couple of weeks ago, it a...
March 24, 2010 |
By Lisa Bramen
The ABC's of Maple Syrup
March can be an ugly month in the northeast, all mud and slush and wind—some compare it to a lion, but I think of it more like cranky old Mr. Wilson in Dennis the Menace. Like him, it conceals a current of sweetness beneath its bluster.It's hard to predict exact dates for maple sugaring season beca...
March 02, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Making Science Palatable
Oh, how many science quizzes might I have aced if only the lessons had been delivered via, instead of a teacher's droning voice, adorable cookies like these?The self-described "typical nerdy biological anthropologist turned stay at home mom" who writes the blog Not So Humble Pie has channeled her s...
February 24, 2010 |
By Lisa Bramen
The King of Cakes at Mardi Gras
The restaurant where I work has been collecting order forms for king cakes for the past few weeks. The other night, a woman who had recently moved to the States asked me about the cake and its importance to American culture. Unfortunately, all I could tell her at the time was that it is served duri...
February 16, 2010 |
By Abby Callard
Going Red Velvet for Valentine's Day
Sweets are not in short supply around Valentine's Day. But here's an option a little more sophisticated than candy hearts or chocolate kisses: try Red Velvet cake. The rich red color always surprises people and makes it perfect for a holiday that is celebrated with a lot of crimson.This allegedly S...
February 11, 2010 |
By Abby Callard
The Evolution of the Sweet Tooth
There's a reason sweethearts don't give each other boxes of radicchio for Valentine's Day, and it's related to the reason we don't refer to lovers as bitterhearts: humans, like most animals, have a soft spot for things that taste sweet.How we developed the fondness for sugars, and how sugars came a...
February 10, 2010 |
By Lisa Bramen
Chocolate That Wants You To Be Happy
I almost deleted the odd press release that landed in my e-mail inbox a few days ago. At first glance I thought it was about "International Chocolate," which frankly, isn't that interesting; lots of foods are international these days.But then I read the opening sentence and did a double-take: "Inte...
February 09, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Agave Nectar in Your Tea?
My roommate recently asked me to pick up a few bottles of agave nectar for her at the store. She works at a restaurant and was using it for a signature cocktail. Not wanting to seem ignorant, I agreed. I had no idea what the stuff was. When I got to the store, I found it sitting innocently next to ...
February 01, 2010 |
By Abby Callard
The Most Successful Food Commercials
A lot of people try to avoid television commercials, for good reason. They are kind of like an uninvited guest in your living room: there you are, hanging out with your funny friend Jon Stewart, when along comes some way-too-perky lady trying to sell you car insurance. Not cool.But Super Bowl Sunda...
January 29, 2010 |
By Lisa Bramen
Bring on the Salty Sweets
As any baker knows, salt is as common an ingredient in cookies and cakes as flour, though usually in small enough quantities that it hardly registers. According to Progressive Baker, salt is included to add strength, slow down chemical reactions and, of course, enhance flavor. Lately, though, I've ...
January 08, 2010 |
By Lisa Bramen
Gingerbread Mansions
The housing market is still in the tank in many parts of the country, but only if you fail to take into account the gingerbread sector, where things have really been picking up lately.For Exhibit A, look no further than the White House, where pastry chef Bill Yosses constructed a 400-plus-pound rep...
December 23, 2009 |
By Lisa Bramen
Barley Candy, a Victorian Christmas Goody
Yesterday, Amanda wrote about the recent discovery of evidence that humans may have started eating cereal grains tens of thousands of years earlier than previously believed. Humans didn't start eating refined sugar until about 5,000 B.C., and it took until a couple of centuries ago for someone to c...
December 18, 2009 |
By Lisa Bramen
Hanukkah Gelt, and Guilt
In a telephone conversation last night with my mother, who lives on the opposite coast from me, she confided that she was thinking of serving frozen latkes—potato pancakes—at the Hanukkah dinner she was preparing for my brother's family this weekend. "I think they taste as good as the ones I make f...
December 11, 2009 |
By Lisa Bramen
The Inevitable, Detestable Fruitcake
The holidays are upon us, and so are the sickeningly sweet cakes decorated with neon-colored fruits. That's right, the fruitcake. Some people despise them, some people love them and some people couldn't care either way. But the sweet has cemented its place in American culture. So much so that Uncle...
December 10, 2009 |
By Abby Callard
Oh My Darling, Clementine
There are two small, sweet treats on my desk right now, and I predict that they won't make it to lunch break. I can't resist; I end up downing dozens every holiday season. But that's not so bad, since unlike cookies and candy, clementines are fat-free and full of vitamin C (though I suppose their n...
December 08, 2009 |
By Amanda Bensen
Baking Apples in a Schnitzer
While visiting an Irish friend in the Kilkenny countryside a few years back, I admired her mother's charming wood cookstove. It was nearly the size of a twin bed, was always kept burning, and produced daily loaves of delicious brown bread and amazing apple pies. But, until I moved to New York from ...
November 06, 2009 |
By Lisa Bramen
