All-Purpose Vinegar

I rang in the new year to the...odor of vinegar. Some friends' New Year's Day party was winding down and the couple began cleaning. "Mom, could you PLEASE not spray vinegar on the kitchen counters while I still have guests here?" their 21-year-old daughter asked. I silently thanked her because as m...
February 01, 2011 | By admin

A Taste of Sticky Rice, Laos’ National Dish

One cannot travel to the Southeast Asian country without many meals of sticky rice, the versatile staple of Laotian cuisine
February 01, 2011 | By Mike Ives

Neanderthals Noshed on Plants—and Cooked?

Neanderthals and modern humans coexisted in Europe between 44,000 and 30,000 years ago and perhaps in the Middle East even earlier, between 100,000 and 60,000 years ago. But, ultimately, it was the modern humans that survived, while the Neanderthals died out.To better understand the extinction of N...
January 31, 2011 | By Megan Gambino

Delicious Wild Mushroom Recipes

From two of Oregon’s best chefs come two recipes to liven up your wild fungi
January 28, 2011 | By Smithsonian.com

Weirdest Pizza Toppings

This month's Inviting Writing series is about "first tastes," revelatory experiences of foods you'd never tried before. My first memory of a first taste is of pizza. I was six years old, and the pizza was pepperoni with extra cheese at a pizza parlor that had just opened in my neighborhood. I remem...
January 06, 2011 | By Laura Helmuth

Fruitcake 101: A Concise Cultural History of This Loved and Loathed Loaf

The action of Truman Capote's 1956 short story "A Christmas Memory" is set into motion when a nameless sixty-something woman looks out her kitchen window and exclaims, "Oh my, it's fruitcake weather." Thus, she and her dearest friend, her 7-year-old, live-in cousin Buddy, begin amassing supplies fo...
December 21, 2010 | By Jesse Rhodes

Holiday Gift Guide: A Food Book for Everyone On Your List

As Christmas draws closer, have you finished your shopping yet? If not, try turning to your local bookstore to find something for nearly everyone on your list:The Aspiring Home CookRadically Simple: Brilliant Flavors with Breathtaking Ease, by Rozanne Gold. All the recipes in this lovely cookbook a...
December 17, 2010 | By Amanda Bensen

Cooking With the Stars: Celebrity Cookbooks

There was a time when celebrity chefs were rare. When I was growing up, there was Julia Child and...umm...does Famous Amos count?Now celebrity chefdom is easier to achieve than ever. Cordon Bleu training is no longer a prerequisite—a perky (or, in some cases, cranky) personality and a knack for coi...
December 15, 2010 | By Lisa Bramen

Five Ways to Eat Leeks

All the hubbub about Wikileaks has me thinking about another kind of dish from an underground source...leeks!When my father-in-law sent us home from Thanksgiving with a bag full of fresh leeks from his garden, I thanked him (diplomatically, of course), but was secretly befuddled. Having seen leeks ...
December 09, 2010 | By Amanda Bensen

Unorthodox Potato Latkes for Hanukkah

In my half-Jewish family, latkes were a coveted once-a-year food. My health-conscious Catholic mother, who learned how to make potato pancakes from someone or other (certainly not my cooking-impaired Jewish father) made them on the first night of Hanukkah every year. We ate them just before lightin...
December 07, 2010 | By Jess Righthand

Holiday Gift Guide: New Children's Books About Food

Know a kid who's interested in food—eating, growing, or cooking it—or who you wish would be? With the holidays coming up, one of these food-related children's books could be the perfect gift idea.Unless otherwise noted, all titles were published this year. If I've missed something great, please add...
November 30, 2010 | By Amanda Bensen

Nutmeg: The Holiday Spice With a Glamorous Past

Forget turkey. The flavor I most associate with Thanksgiving, and the holiday season in general, is nutmeg. I like the sound of the word. I like the spice's warm, woody scent. I like the way it adds complexity to both sweet and savory dishes. And, unlike many foods people now associate with the Tha...
November 24, 2010 | By Lisa Bramen

Inviting Writing: Family Feasts at a Georgia Granny's House

We've received such wonderful stories from readers in response to our latest Inviting Writing theme about eating at Grandma's house—thank you! This one, a richly detailed recollection of Southern-style family dinners in the 1950s and early 1960s, seems perfect for Thanksgiving week because it's a v...
November 22, 2010 | By Amanda Bensen

Five Colorful Ways to Eat Fresh Cranberries

Fresh cranberries abound at this time of year, and you may even be ambitious enough to slog through a bog to pick your own, as my friend Bryn did in Massachusetts. (It was fun, but next time she'd prefer to try it without a 30-pound toddler on her back, she said.) After baking all afternoon, she st...
November 16, 2010 | By Amanda Bensen

Inviting Writing: Lefse Lessons With Grandma

Continuing our Inviting Writing theme about "eating at Grandma's house," today's story celebrates another Bestemor. Author Jenny Holm is a freelance writer who grew up in Minnesota, but has been all over the place since, from Russia to D.C. to an organic farm in Vermont. Currently, she's teaching E...
November 15, 2010 | By Amanda Bensen

Soufflés: The Original Molecular Gastronomy?

Since my wedding earlier this year, I have made it a personal goal to use all of the kitchen tools I received as gifts. Some, like the glass nesting bowls and the microplane zester, got a good workout from the get-go. Others, namely the ramekins and the soufflé dish, have so far languished in the c...
November 12, 2010 | By Lisa Bramen

The Wild Mushrooms of Fall

I know I am probably in the minority, but I despise mushrooms—at least the little white button ones you get at the supermarket. They rank up there with cilantro on my short list of ingredients I wouldn't want to meet in a dark restaurant, or a well-lit one, for that matter.Raw mushrooms are relativ...
November 03, 2010 | By Lisa Bramen

The Magic of Kale, and Five Ways to Eat It

If Lisa's post about the connection between chocolate and child labor has made you reconsider your Halloween candy-buying habits, here's an alternative for you to feed the trick-or-treaters: kale!Yeah, you're right—that's probably not a good idea unless you want your house egged. But did you know t...
October 26, 2010 | By Amanda Bensen

Five Ways to Eat Kohlrabi

Kohlrabi isn't the coolest kid in its class. It has a weird name, and looks even weirder. I admit I've always ignored it in favor of prettier, more popular vegetables. Why befriend it now?Well, because kohlrabi is nutritious: no fat, lots of fiber and vitamin C, even some protein. It's cheap and in...
October 21, 2010 | By Amanda Bensen

The Game Less Eaten

I don't hunt, and I've caught (and released) a total of three fish in my life, so I'm not exactly a regular reader of Field & Stream magazine. Over the weekend, though, I picked up the latest issue for the purposes of research, and a short article caught my eye. It was called "Acquired Tastes: ...
October 13, 2010 | By Lisa Bramen

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