"Newspapers" news and stories

• Fall is here and with it have come a wave of new cookbooks. The Baltimore Sun food section staff take a look at the new crop and narrow it down to the pick of the harvest.
• This week the Recipe Finder tracks down instructions on how to make Tomato Jelly.
• After some trial and error, Rob Kasper succeeds in baking up a batch of homemade pretzels for his own personal Oktoberfest celebration.
• Kate Shatzkin uses a recipe from the new cookbook Two Dudes, One Pan to prepare a weeknight dinner for under $12.
• Elizabeth Large highlights her top 10 local restaurants that just happen to be located in strip malls.

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Burgundy wines are mighty impressive these days, says the Times resident oenophile Eric Asimov.

Writer Lara Vapnyar's short stories are heavy with imagery of meatballs, garlic and smoked salmon.

All cooks have their recipe deal-breakers: no deep-frying, no stencils, no trussing of meats.

A recipe for spinach salad with pine nuts and raisins.

The Minimalist does artichokes with garlic, tomatoes and olives.

Indian wines are growing in popularity abroad.

Restaurants are bottling their own house sodas. Good idea!

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• White asparagus is a culinary world darling. It is grown so that the plants are shielded from the sun, never to develop chlorophyll, which would turn it green. Farmers harvest them under cover of darkness to preserve their creamy colorlessness.
  
• If you manage to get your hands on this delicacy, consider making Warm White Asparagus With Dungeness Crab, Poached Egg and Walnut Vinaigrette or Grilled White Asparagus With Pistachio "Pesto" and Balsamic Vinegar.
  
• Tomato season is still at least a month away, and so while you wait for the local ones to hit your markets, turn to canned whole peeled tomatoes. The FoodDay editors have done a taste test of some popular brands. Click here to check out the winners.
  
• Why are San Marzano tomatoes so darn special?
• Instead of calling for take-out midweek, do a little culinary multi-tasking on the weekend, to ensure that you have plenty of leftovers in the fridge all week long.
  
• We all know we should eat more whole grains, but when it comes to pasta, which tastes better? Whole wheat or whole grain?

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• A young mother finds a way to feed her family foods that are healthy, local and sustainable, all while lowering her food budget and reducing her environmental impact.
• A FoodDay staffer recalls her family's month in the low-budget challenge that was featured last week in the section. She saved more than $40 a week on groceries and discovered that her family was far more willing to try new foods than she ever thought before.
• Cookbook author and MPR cooking show host Lynne Rossetto Kasper sits down with FoodDay's Leslie Cole to talk about her favorite foods, her love of cooking and her new cookbook, How to Eat Supper.
  
• Fresh, young salad greens are starting to pop up and what better way to eat them than paired with mellow goat cheese.
  
• Fiddlehead ferns, nettles and broccoli rabe are starting to show up in the farmers markets.
  
• We know him as Jared, the man who lost an enormous amount of weight by only eating Subway sandwiches, but his accomplishment now is that he's kept the weight off for ten years.

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Pollsters are now looking at how consumer behavior, including eating, affects voter choice. Dr. Pepper is for Republicans, Sprite is for Democrats. Clinton supporters snack on Fig Newtons, McCain fans on stuffed-crust pizza. While some results are weird, others are predictable - Whole Foods is a dead giveaway of liberal orientation.

Cookbook author Susie Fishbein is providing observant Jews with gourmet Passover recipes, including turmeric, tomato and spinach matzoh balls.

**#!*@! souffle! *$*#*!* emulsification! Chefs like to curse in the kitchen. Really.

Eric Asimov talks kosher wine - you don't have to be Jewish to like them.

The Minimalist does Hangtown Fry - eggs, bacon and...oysters.

Cakes masquerading as muffins make breakfast less guilty. Includes a recipe for spicy ginger muffins with currants and toasted pecans.

Food, or lack thereof, in Holocaust concentrations camps is still a taboo subject for survivors, writes Jewish cooking maven Joan Nathan.

Cindy McCain shares her favorite family recipes. Except they were ripped off from the Food Network. A rogue intern is apparently to blame.

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