Artificial sweeteners aren't for diet products anymore. The Times outlines the ins and outs of sweeteners, and how they're not only entering our cooking but are also ripe for mixing with regular sugar.
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson talks about his vegan lifestyle and how sometimes he slips (but only to be polite).
Delicious and buttery biscuits: How the Southern tradition moved out of the home and into our freezers.
We try to keep our kitchens clean, but sometimes bacteria are so very welcome -- especially when you're making homemade yogurt.
A sad love letter to Charles, a restaurant that disappointed, from Frannie Von Furstinshow.
The Times investigates New York's burger scene, from wagyu, to a tasty side of french fries -- Flip, Black Iron Burger, and City Burger.
Empanadas are pretty much the national food in Chile and can be made at home with a quick dough and tasty filling.
Most people of legal drinking age have at some point mastered the necessary spatial relation between wine and standard glass to allow themselves an enjoyable portion while not getting totally sloppy after one initial serving. Riedel's new suite of machine-blown TriO red and white wine tumblers blows that all to hell. Their groundbreaking sans-stem O Tumbler takes a cue from the Champagne and beer end of the product line to reunite with a beehived, hollow base that's ridiculously pleasing the hand, and ever so easy to over-fill.
F'rinstance, the (very) generous pour in the dime-a-dozen IKEA glass on the right is the same quantity as seen in the TriO on the left. I tend to be a glass-oughta-be-full kind of girl, and found myself having to quite consciously refrain from serving right on up to the usual mark. There are worse problems to have, and these glasses are possessed of none of them. As mentioned before, the grooved stem is a treat to hold, the design quite visually appealing, and, joy of joys, they're dishwasher-friendly.
At $30 for a three-pack, they're not quite IKEA cheap, but they're hardly a $106 Sommelier's Grüner Veltliner Glass, either. The wine, by the way, is a $10.99 2004 Kanonkop Kadette from South Africa's Stellenbosch region and if you can't find it in a store near you, it's prolly because I went in and bought all of it. Sorry.
Slowly but surely, home cooks are coming 'round to the idea that many one-hit wonders of the gadget world just aren't worth the purchase. Heck, there are even some two-purpose gadgets that we could really do without. One such gadget would be a dried spaghetti measuring device. You know, something to tell you just how many noodles are needed for the amount of mouths you have to feed.
But what if it is not only pretty, but also offers another truly handy alternative that makes it a benefit to your kitchen?
The Noooodle, seen above, might be overrun with O's, but it's also a funky trivet that doubles as a spaghetti measuring device. What I particularly like about this is that it also looks quite nice -- the perfect trivet to use when you have company, and heck, it would even look nice hanging on the wall.
Oh, the pineapple. What a majestic fruit. On the outside, it looks like something you probably shouldn't eat, but the inside is -- well, you know. Delicious and totally unique.
Love pineapple but hate the mess of hacking one up to get at the succulent fruit? I have a solution! And no, it's not a pineapple cross-bred with a yam, or a dish towel, or anything. It's the Vacu Vin Pineapple Slicer.
The Vacu Vin Pineapple Slicer cuts your pineapple into rings and leaves the shell intact. Click through the gallery to watch how it takes you from solid fruit to slices and the perfect booze-vessel. And then buy one for $9.95 on amazon.com.
Great news! Here's a kitchen gadget everyone can afford. Your popcorn just got way more awesome.
The Nordic Ware Microwave Corn Popper comes highly recommended by my very practical friend Shannon, who reports that it's really fast, doesn't need oil, and is a snap to clean. Sounds good to me!
This thing is $8.99 from The Kitchen Store, and microwave and dishwasher safe. You just put in the corn, put it in the microwave, and perfect, fluffy popcorn comes out. It's a stroke of Nordic genius.
I only wish it were pretty, so I could pass it off as a holiday gift. Guess I'll just have to get one for myself!
Last summer, a reader took the opportunity to excoriate me for my perceived show-offery when a sorbet recipe I posted mentioned the use of an ice cream maker. Well, for one, a goodly percentage of ice cream, sherbet and sorbet recipes conclude with the mandate to "freeze according to ice cream maker's directions" and for another, it was a goshdarned wedding gift!
Perhaps some small accord could be struck, or perhaps even kicked with the use of the UCO Play & Freeze Ice Cream Maker. Ice and rock salt are added to one chamber and edible ingredients to another. The whole unit is then hand-tightened together and the merrymaking/ice cream churning commences. The ball can be tossed, shaken, passed and generally frolicked about with, then opened and stirred, resealed and agitated again until the mixture reaches a pleasing consistency, and co-churners have worn out all "Have a ball!" related puns.
Still, should the $16.50 expenditure (via Amazon) still seem a tad schmancy, I included a coffee can agitation method in a post on Soul-Saving Sweet Tea Sherbet a while back.
Being a foodie with a degree in English, not much is better than the mixture of food and words. Usually, that manifests in a wonderfully written essay or book, but sometimes it comes out in the actual making of food.
BoingBoing has posted about a designer named Chris Dimino who took an old Corona typewriter and made it into a waffle maker called the Corona-Matic. How cool is that? Boring circular waffles will never seem as good now. Unfortunately, there's no DIY instructions yet (not that I have the prowess to pull them off), but here's to hoping this could become a little business -- I'm not talking about fake keyboards, but those actual typewriters repurposed into wonderful machines of waffle goodness. Who's with me?
Baking Bites is a really great baking blog. I always enjoy reading it, and Nicole usually has great recipes and cool gadgets. As I was perusing the blog today, I was especially attracted to this post about the non stick oven spill catcher.
My first thought, being a sucker for kitchen gadgets, was "ooooh, neat!" My next thought was "is that really necessary?" Why not just put a foil lined cookie sheet under whatever it is that you're baking? It would be less expensive just to utilize products you already have on hand, not to mention easier to just toss the foil when you're done.
However, at just five dollars, and with it being non stick and all, the spill catcher could be an economical and easy way to avoid making more garbage while you're trying to keep your oven clean. How do you feel about the non stick oven spill catcher?
I don't know about you, but I'm always hesitant to buy fresh herbs. I never know if I'm going to use them before they go bad. I love to cook, I just don't do it very often. If I cook at home it's usually just for myself, so I just make a sandwich or eat cereal.
If you're like me, and love fresh herbs but don't cook regularly enough to justify buying them, then the Herb-saver might be for you. The Food Section recently brought this device from Prepara to our attention. If it works, it just may be the thing I need to get me buying fresh herbs again.
Has anyone used the Herb-Saver? I'd really like to know if it's any good. I might actually get one. By the way, turn down the volume before linking to the Prepara site: a video starts automatically, and while it's helpful, it's also loud.
Back in high school, I loved woot -- a site that offers a great deal on one item of technology per day. The idea of selling selected items for low prices has really caught on, and now I subscribe to a tons of these sites (especially fashion ones, which are amazing).
I finally learned about a site like this for foodies, and I'm so excited to see what deals they plan to offer. The site is called OneFoodieGoodie, and they sell one item (in limited supply) every 24 hours. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to view past goodies, so it's hard to say what type of items the site typically features. Today, they're selling travel salt and pepper shakers, which are cute but definitely not necessary for someone like me.
Do any of you use this site regularly? What do you think?
Forget Obama versus Hillary, the debate heating up over at Apartment Therapy has to do with dish racks. Some people consider them another fun piece of kitchen gear, buying bamboo or ultra-modern stainless steel versions. Others can't stand them (including the Apartment Therapy bloggers), finding them a waste of space, a silly unitasker easily replaced by a dish towel.
I've got one, but honestly I never really thought about it. But, judging by the number of comments on the post, it's a real Coke/Pepsi divide. It reminded me of a cool book, Emotional Design: Why We Love (Or Hate) Everyday Things, by Donald Norman. Norman, a consultant to design firms, analyzes why people feel the way they feel about things like teapots and juicers. It's a good read for the kind of design junkie who has genuine emotions about things like dish racks (or vintage toasters, or enameled cookware, or the "perfect" coffee thermos etc.).
Eggs are cheap, versatile and rich in high-quality protein. But up until now, they've always been so insipidly...oval.
Well the Japanese are changing all that, with hard-boiled egg molds. These brightly colored plastic contraptions will turn your boring old oval egg into a cartoon fish, star, ghost or, of course, Hello Kitty. Simply drop in a freshly boiled and shelled egg while it's still warm, close the mold and pop in the fridge for a few minutes.
The crafty folks over at Flickr's bento box appreciation site often use molded eggs as part of their adorable Japanese-style boxed lunches - egg chickens laying on nests of julienned zucchini, egg bunnies dashing through broccoli forests, etc. I was so inspired I bought a mold of my own while visiting San Francisco's Japantown last week and have since been enjoying fish- and car-shaped eggs for breakfast. If only my mom had known about these when my brother was a picky toddler who only ate his PB&Js cut into dinosaur shapes!
A wide variety of egg molds are available at eBay's Store in Japan.
Pie is one of America's favorite desserts. It is uniquely of our country. But there is one big problem: the sides dry out in storage. Well now we have an ingenious new gadget to save your pies.
The Pie Gate is a new creation that protects the sides of a pie once it has been cut and put into storage. It's hinged design allows it to fold out and adjust to the pie no matter how many pieces have been cut.
It also helps with keeping the shape of the pie. The sides of thePie Gate will keep soft pies from oozing. And it helps keep the fruit in fruit pies where it belongs. For pie lovers, this tool may be a great new addition to your collection. If you do have a leftover pie (Heaven forbid), the Pie Gate will make sure the outer sides are just as fresh as the inside.
I don't know about you, but I hate having to stop and scrape down my mixing bowl when whipping up a batch of cookies. Well, I just came across a gadget that claims to solve that problem for good.
It is called the SideSwipe Spatula Mixer Blade. This paddle attachment to a stand mixer is made with silicone fins lining the outer blade. The fins enable the SideSwipe to reach all parts of the mixing bowl, including the bottom, and the design of it pushes ingredients down. Thus the SideSwipe is able to incorporate all ingredients fully and you no longer have to stop and scrape.
The only downside is that it may not fit your stand mixer, as this is a pretty new product. The SideSwipe attachment currently fits the tilting Kitchen Aid, but not the lift model. However, they plan on expanding their line in the current months. The website also goes into much more detail and even offers a video demonstration of the SideSwipe in action. So start mixing and don't stop!
I use my serrated edge peeler all the time, it's a kitchen utensil that I've never, not for a minute, regretted buying. However, not every utensil I've brought into my kitchen has inspired the same feelings of affection and appreciation in my heart. The corn zipper was a pain in the butt and totally not worth the money I spent on it. I love my mandolin, but am happy that I picked it up at a thrift store for $3, as I only use it two or three times a year. However, lest you think my kitchen is filled with things I don't use, I am totally devoted to my microplane as well as my flat whisk (so wonderful for making roux).
They are talking about this subject over on the Recipe Swap Forum at the Epi-Log, but I'd love to hear you all chime in about the gadgets you love as well as the ones you wish you had walked past, here in the comments as well.
Slowly but surely, home cooks are coming 'round to the idea that many one-hit wonders of the gadget world just aren't worth the purchase. Heck, there are even some two-purpose gadgets that we could really do without. One such gadget would be a dried spaghetti measuring device. You know, something to tell you just how many noodles are needed for the amount of mouths you have to feed. 
Oh, the pineapple. What a majestic fruit. On the outside, it looks like something you probably shouldn't eat, but the inside is -- well, you know. Delicious and totally unique. 
Great news! Here's a kitchen gadget everyone can afford. Your popcorn just got way more awesome.
Back in high school, I loved 
Eggs are cheap, versatile and rich in high-quality protein. But up until now, they've always been so insipidly...oval.
I don't know about you, but I hate having to stop and scrape down my mixing bowl when whipping up a batch of cookies. Well, I just came across a gadget that claims to solve that problem for good. 
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