"food section" news and stories

Yesterday, when I was reading through the Philly Inquirer food section, I noticed a recipe for roasted broccoli tucked in, down at the end of the article about the year's best cookbooks. I think roasting veggies is a great way to prepare them, as it allows all those natural sugars to caramelize and develop maximum flavor. However, I've always struggled when it comes to roasting broccoli, because by the time the stalks cook to tender, the flowers are burnt to a crisp.

The recipe (from the Best of America's Test Kitchen cookbook) is fairly basic (olive oil, salt, a pinch of sugar and pepper) except for one thing. It has you preheat the roasting pan in a 500 degree oven while you prep the broccoli, so that when it comes time to lay the broccoli out on the pan, it gets a cooking boost by the hot pan.

I tried it out last night and was a revelation. The broccoli came out perfectly crisp-tender, but without the acrid flavor that comes when the flower tips get too brown. This one is a winner and I think would be great for a variety of other vegetables. I can't wait to try it with asparagus come spring!

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• Tweak your Easter meal into a meaningful celebration of spring, rebirth and renewal with these recipes for Parsi Deviled Eggs, Fall-Apart Lamb Shanks With Almond-Chocolate Picada, Chopped Greens, Carrot and Dill Salad with Yogurt Dressing, Smashed Greek Potatoes and Chocolate Malted Pudding With Marshmallows and Coconut.
• The food section editors take on a canned tuna taste test, in order to determine what is the best flavor bang for your buck.
  
• Columnist Rick Nichols offers a particularly lovely column about finding a replace for the beloved wooden bowl he broke during a kitchen remodel.
  
• The Rush Hour Gourmet throws together a Moroccan Vegetable Ragout in a hurry.
  
• Local restaurants struggle with rising food costs, the Market Basket is full of sweets and spring-y products and Table Talk is chock full of local restaurant gossip.

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Regina Schrambling shows us how to host a Dumpling Party, with recipes for Seafood Dumplings, Vegetable Dumplings, Pork Dumplings, Dumpling Dipping Sauce, Five-spice Snickerdoodles, Cheater's Scallion Pancakes, and a comparison of Dumpling Wrappers.

Also in the kitchen, cook with jamon iberico, add tang with tamarinds, and bake Coconut Cupcakes from Auntie Ems.

On the dining scene, SIV gives new tapas joint Bar Pintxo 1½ stars and Fraiche is doing so well in Culver City, it's already thinking of expanding to additional locations.

To drink, Prosecco gets serious and the Wine of the Week is 2006 Paolo Scavino Dolcetto d'Alba.

If you are female and often browse the internet to find various items of interest, this may be a good site for you to check out. Much like Digg, Netscape, and the like, Sk*rt features reader-submitted articles, webpages, blogs, videos, etc. which you can vote for if you enjoyed it. The main difference with Sk*rt is that it was designed by women and is very female-centric, focusing on categories such as food, fashion, mind/body/spirit, arts & crafts, parenting, and more. Of course our focus here is their food section, naturally, but the rest looks pretty interesting too.

Best part is - you can use this site for your own purposes. If you are simply looking for some interesting ideas, you can browse what others have submitted. If you are looking to share info or increase traffic on your own blog or website, you are able to submit your own links.

Besides, when it helps us to find such items as chocolate bubble-wrap, it just can't be a bad thing.

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• David Kamp criticizes the few choices restaurants are offering our children nowadays, in what he calls a chicken-finger pandemic.

• Is tap water the new black? Many restaurants are ditching over-priced designer waters and returning to the stuff that comes straight from the sink

• Summer is the right time to serve up Soft-Shell Crabs, according to The Minimalist, Mark Bittman

• Are you intimidated by the power of saffron?

This week's recipes include:

The Soft-Shell Crab Poor Boy (video), Fettuccine with Mushroom Ragù, Saffron Almond Meringues, Papas Bravas (shown, above), and Vegetable Paella With Wild Mushrooms

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