Note: this post comes with a glossary.

"Twecipes¹" are the moment's micro-obsession and we ♥ the New York Times' Dining staff -- certainly active and useful Twitizens² themselves -- for flying into the eye of the storm in conjunction with today's profile of Twitter's marquee recipe condenser Maureen Evans, aka @cookbook. Still, must all prose now be condensed for optimal Tweetability³? Yup, it's been an addictively (though ADD) good time watching the 140-or-fewer-character Challenge responses stream into #nytrc⁴:

@betaphen Prep chokes w/lemon. Stuff w/zest, crumbs, parm, parsley, r-mary, garlic, carrot, capers. Roast in veg & liquid, covered @ 400 for 90

@rorycberger clean chokes stuff:lemzest/breadcrumbs/Parm/parsley/rosemary/garlic/carrot/capers/s&p. braise w/wine,carrot,onion,evoo @ 400 1.5 hr

We soundly applaud (and ever so slightly fear) their efforts, but our response was this:

@kittenwithawhip Sometimes the answer is just "Go here: http://bit.ly/bhf92" Not all recipes need be tweetable.

Perhaps it's terribly 2008 to think this way, but there's a near visceral joy in the reading of Melissa Clark's Stuffed Artichokes with Lemon Zest, Rosemary and Garlic recipe in its original form. The title alone (55 characters) vividly evokes the action and sensory experience of crafting, then savoring this dish in a way that spare, if technically correct Tweets can not. It makes for excellent editorial muscle flexing -- like a digital lipogram -- and it's an efficient way to circulate links, but we can't help but hope that Nigel Slater and his ilk of culinary poets never sign up for an @ handle.

Oh - and @pete_wells, serial tweets are for wusses.

1. Twecipe: 140 character recipe
2. Twitizen: Participant in the Twitter community
3. Tweetable: Expressible in a 140 character Tweet, or Twitter message
4. # : Hashtags are added in front of terms to make Tweets including them more easily searchable.

[via: New York Times Dining @nytimesdining on Twitter]

'Appetite'
Nigel Slater
Clarkson Potter -- 2000
Buy it at Amazon

Anyone titling a recipe "Classic, Unmucked-About-With Roast Chicken" is going to get our attention. Our Brooklyn kitchen measures 5-feet by 7-feet, so we're enormous fans of simple, hearty fare. So is Nigel Slater, an English toque who only uses a handful of seasonal ingredients in his recipes and would not take kindly to the notion that "back to basics" is some brand-new trend (this book printed in 2000). Slater's juicy roast chicken is our standby, his caramelized onion-taleggio tart has amazed many a dinner guest and his general approach to cooking -- welcoming, hilarious, opinionated -- is right up our alley.

Takeaway tips:

1. Not a book for those who like their measurements precise; Slater's a fan of "a handful" and "a bunch."
   
2. There's a knockout pantry guide: "A bag of pasta, a lump of Parmesan and a bottle of olive oil ... the best friends you will ever have."
   
3. Look for the "what goes with what" primer, which includes "marriages made in heaven" like figs and Roquefort.
   
4. Pour yourself a drink before cooking (his words, not ours).
5. Look for the "and more" at the end of each recipe (i.e.: A Potato Supper "with sausage" or "with cheese").
   

Quality of pictures: These are snapshots for real, hungry cooks, with droolworthy pics of the greasy inside of a skillet, an Impressionistic stained apron and a closeup of freshly plucked sage you can nearly smell.

We tested: Roast Chicken, A Tart for a Party

I picked up my copy of Nigel Slater's Real Fast Food several years ago at a thrift store. It was actually my initial introduction to Nigel Slater and I was totally smitten with him within the first few paragraphs. His voice is appealing and basic, especially in the Notes section towards the beginning of the book. The copy I have is a squat paperback British edition published by Penguin, which is additionally endearing because of the differences in spelling and vernacular. However, it was also published in the United States, so there are lots of copies available.

The really terrific thing about this book is that it contains so many tasty, easy recipes. I love the section on eggs, because I always have eggs in my fridge and often get tired of the ways in which I typically make them. With 20 pages of egg recipes, I always have a good place to turn when I want something different than what is in my inner food rotation. The section on vegetables and salads is also one of my favorite resources. This is a great cookbook for January as it contains lots of simple, healthy recipes.

Andreea and Mark over at Glorious Food and Wine sure managed to capture the essence of roasted potatoes with this picture. The potatoes look tender and flavorful (little spots of caramelization always imbue me with great confidence that the item in question is going to taste wonderful). I love that a bit of the craggy pan edge is included in the shot. Its patina of age and use gives you the feeling that their recipes are to be trusted, as anyone who has a pan like that has spent many hours in the kitchen. It doesn't hurt at all that they confess that they used Nigel Slater's recipe for Anchovy Potatoes. He is a food god and his advice rarely disappoints.

One of my favorite food blogs is The Wednesday Chef, written by Luisa Weiss. She mostly cooks and posts recipes from the foods sections in the New York and Los Angeles Times (although the picture of the Fennel and Olive Salad you see above is from Nigel Slater's "Kitchen Diaries"). Her pictures are gorgeous but real, she alerts her readers to any changes she made from the printed recipe and she is always honest about how she feels about the results of her cooking efforts.

Her latest post is particularly appealing to me because in it she tells of the scent memory that a recent trip into a cheese shop triggered, taking her back to childhood visits to a cheese shop in Germany with her mother.

photo by Luisa Weiss

A Vegetarian Special with 10 pages to cook up a meat-free feast. One thing I did notice was that a picture is labeled Potatoes with dill and chicken stock; the recipe is titled Potatoes with Dill and Vegetable stock - I guess you can use either.

Any-road-up the recipes for those with a vegi-bent include Sweet Potato and Coconut Polenta with Asian Vegetable Fricassé (which sounds lovely except I seriously dislike sweet potato, coconut and polenta... no hope really).  The Tuscan Tomato Bread Pudding with Peas and Broad Beans sounds more my thing as does Spice-Roasted Nectarines with Pistachio Milk Sauce.

Nigel Slater has all the potato recipes suggesting the chicken/vegetable stock one as a stand-alone dish or, for the carnivores, great with grilled mackerel, flash-fried lamb's liver (thats the one for me!) or bacon. His Crushed Potatoes with Cream and Garlic I am sure has appeared in several of his books but I don't recall seeing Sea-Salt Baked Potatoes with Parmesan Greens before. Nice.

A fascinating piece on life in China during the Cultural Revolution with food as the only safe topic of conversation... Jamie Cullum picks Fifteen as his Favourite table... a big piece on fair trade products... sushi... how chef Fergus Henderson suffered from Parkinsons before 'they drilled into my skull. Now I can cook again"... a piece on the Diesel fashion brand's wine. The taste test on chocolate and the best buys for wine need an article of their own...