"epicurious" news and stories

During the first couple of days of July, I nibbled my way through three floors of New York City's Javits Center while attending the Summer Fancy Food Show. Several other folks from AOL Food and Epicurious were also there, tasting chips, cheese, chocolates and dips. We discovered that there are quite a few people making artisanal chocolate, flavoring things with lavender and pear-ginger and doing amazing things with live foods among many other, tasty things.

We've all sorted through our samples, press kits and memories, trying to bring you what we think was the very best of the show in one fun, appealing slideshow that you can find over at AOL Food. Head on over, take and look and then come back over here and let us know what you think. Did we pick anything you love? Or did we happen to hit on a product you've tried and not liked? We want to hear what you think!

[via: AOL Food]

A salmagundi is either an English dish that consists of chopped egg, ground meat, anchovies, onions and assorted spices or, more generally, a miscellaneous collection. So today, I bring you a salmagundi of links for the Slashfood Ate. These are links I've collected all week long, tasty bits that I've been holding on while I looked for a way to write about them.

1. For her birthday, Laura at The Kitchen Illiterate made Tuna and White Bean Sandwiches that have captured my attention and motivated my purchase of a can of cannelinni beans last night.
2. On Tuesday, Culinate posted a terrific interview with Lynne Rossetto Kasper, host of American Public Media's wonderful food program, The Splendid Table.
3. Over at Serious Eats, Robyn Lee posted a hilarious and wonderful stop motion "cooking" video called Spaghetti Western. This one is a definite must watch.
4. Geekadelphia found a cache of retro cereal box images. My favorite? Cocoa Hoots!
5. PAgent twittered this link over to me yesterday and it has gone straight to the top of my 'must make' list. Because how can you live until you've tasted coffee jell cubes?
6. Starting at the end of this month, the folks from Epicurious will be touring farmers markets in five US cities. They've created menus for each market and I'm particularly thrilled, cause they're coming to Philly.
7. The Homesick Texan has the ability to stir up cravings inside of me that I didn't even know were possible. Now I can't stop thinking about carnitas.
8. And lastly, did you hear that a bunch of new food-related words are going to be in the 2008 edition of the Merriam-Webster dictionary? The list includes edamame, pescatarian, phytonutrient and prosecco.

I'm not gonna pretend that this picture is pretty, or in the least bit appetizing, but I will note that the results are disturbingly delicious. The heart of the matter is that I went to a cookout a few weekends ago and was offered a grilled chicken heart by a friend who has yet to serve me anything that is less than madly tasty. Emboldened by this, I picked up a package of chicken hearts on a shopping jaunt this week, and started perusing my favorite recipe sites for marinades. It didn't take me long to find a 1956 James Beard recipe suggesting that these would make a dandy appetizer for a group of 25. Twenty-five of whom, I'm not entirely sure, 'cause even as staunchly carnivorous as my pals tend to be, few of 'em dig getting their offal on as much as I do, and I wouldn't subject them to it. There are exceptions, though.

Some friends came over this afternoon to serve as panel members for AOL Food's upcoming Hot Dog Taste Test. As I tended the grill between rounds, one of them began holding forth about how methods of barbecuing and grilling really were born of the necessity to bring greater flavor to cheap and previously discarded cuts of meat, and how folks were getting way too fancy-schmancy with the whole thing these days. I left my post at the flames, walked him to the fridge, pulled out the plastic container full of marinating hearts and started putting them on bamboo skewers.

He shut up and started eating.

James Beard's 1956 Grilled Chicken Hearts Recipe on Epicurious

(Note: In the above pic, I was out of sherry and subbed in brandy, which proved perfectly yummy.)

Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, I have an innate understanding of when things come into season in that area of the country. I know when the U-Pick blueberries on Sauvie Island are going to be ready and my insides tell me when the wild blackberries are coming into fruit. Sadly, this knowledge does me no useful good these days, since I live in the mid-Atlantic region.

Despite nearly seven years here, I still struggle with the growing seasons. Last year I nearly missed picking my own New Jersey blueberries because I was waiting for them to get ripe on Oregon time. However, thanks to Epicurious, there's a new resource out there that can help me retrain my brain to learn when things are ripe in my area. They've launched a Seasonal Ingredient Map that allows you to click on each state in the US to see what's ripe in that area. The only flaw I've found with it is that I start clicking on states where I don't live and get myself all jealous of the produce that other states are seeing now.

Source

On the Today show, Epicurious.com Editor Tanya Steel shows Hota Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford how to make a simple key lime pie.

Even if you can make a key lime pie in your sleep, it's a fun video (even though they say to use pre-squeezed key lime juice if you can't find limes - eek! That's like using lemon juice instead of real lemons in lemon squares!) The taste just can't compare.

Well, the video is fine until good ol' Kathie Lee ruins the moment by first commenting on the amount of calories in the condensed can of milk (Steel smartly replies "Yeah, but who's counting calories?") and then likens the ingredient to colostrum (and Kotb remarks, "Buzzkill.")

Cook much, Kathie Lee? Yeesh - don't invite her over when you're making key lime pie. She'll totally ruin your appetite.