"Melissa Clark" news and stories

Ham this good, and well-spiced with chili powder, cinnamon, allspice, and Dijon mustard, will do your Easter table proud. KitchenDaily contributor Melissa Clark's recipe tempers the spices with a healthy dose of brown sugar, which creates a beautiful caramelized effect.

Get the recipe for Brown Sugar and Spice Baked Ham.

Get our Traditional Easter Menu.

• As the economy has gotten tighter, restaurants have gotten a whole lot friendlier and more solicitous, all in the hopes of getting and keeping your business.
• The show The Biggest Loser showcases the problem that most Americans don't know how to cook for themselves.
• The peanut butter salmonella scare has led people to wonder about the safety of nearly everything they put in their mouths.
• Frank Bruni reviews the Oak Room at the Plaza Hotel and finds that it's heavy on atmosphere and light on dependably delicious dishes.
• After experiencing a couple bad years, Eric Asimov declares that the barolo is back to its former glory.
• For inexpensive Indian food in Manhattan, you can't go wrong at Dhaba.
• Andrew Carmellini is teaming up with Robert De Niro to take over the restaurant in the Greenwich Hotel.
• Mark Bittman takes a standard cracker recipe and tarts it up with cheese, butter and cream for a richer result.
• Most recipes for braised rabbit require lots of fat to keep the lean meat moist. Melissa Clark has figured out a way to keep the meat tender without making it heavy.

• Frank Bruni chronicles five meals he recently had in which he and a companion ate at least three courses for $100 or less. I'm in love with the description of a baked cauliflower dish as "promiscuously cheesy and hammy."
• Ordering wine from the bottom of the list.
• Lobster prices are lower than they've been in years (mostly due to the closure of Canadian processing plants) and so Melissa Clark prepares lobster a three ways to celebrate the discount prices.
• Persimmons are something of a mystery to many home cooks, so Harold McGee sets out to unravel their mysteries and make up two lovely steamed pudding out of them.
• The economy has led many folks to give up the restaurant habit and eat at home. Marian Burros talks with several people who have revamped the ways that they eat.
• Corton gets the Frank Bruni treatment and comes away with three stars.
• The Minimalist makes sorbet using nothing more than frozen fruit, a few ingredients and his food processor.

It seems like lately the whole food world is turning out to help people prepare and plan for their Thanksgiving dinners. The latest way to get tips and tricks for your turkey day celebration? Epicurious, in addition to being an excellent all-around source for recipes, is going to be hosting a chat with cookbook author and Epi-log blogger Melissa Clark this Friday from 12 noon until 2 pm (that's Eastern Standard Time).

Melissa will be available to discuss general Thanksgiving problems and solutions. She'll also be answering questions about how to prepare the items on the Epicurious Thanksgiving menu that she compiled and tested. Isn't the internet a wonderful place!

Source

I cook on a 41-year-old turquoise electric stove. While it has a certain amount of retro appeal, it has many features that render it an total pain in the tuckus. Chief among the frustrations is the fact that the oven hovers a mere 13 and a half inches above the rear burners. This means that if you have stuff on the front burners, you can basically forget about using the rear ones. This is why I often find myself with lust in my heart for the stoves that other people get to cook on. I'm particularly jealous of my friend Jamie's stove, which is hulking stainless steel gas-powered monster with five burners and a double oven.

Over on the Epi-Log, cookbook author Melissa Clark has announced to the foodie world that she is in the market for a new stove, and she's asking people to send in their recommendations. Since reading her post, I've found myself shopping online for potential stoves for her kitchen, living vicariously through her impending new stove purchase. If you have a stove you love (or one you hate), feel free to weigh in on the discussion over at the Epi-log or here in the comments. Because there's nothing that generates more intense feelings of passion than a cook's relationship with their stove.