"rabbit" news and stories

• You want local, grassfed meat? Time to try rabbit. (Fatal Attraction fans, take note.)
• Sweetened, condensed milk has a humble history, but now it's going glam.
• Visit Baltimore by way of Manhattan at Greenwich Village's Choptank.
• Some vintners painstakingly coax their grapes to greatness -- others take a Zen approach.
• Blue Bottle Coffee in Brooklyn: where coffee-making meets performance art.
• Speaking of art, here's a kale soup recipe straight from MoMA.

While grabbing an image for my Globe and Mail post, I came across the attached picture from the Joy of Cooking in 1953.

My, how times change.

At the very least, I guess squeamish cooks can be thankful that the book chose to use illustrations and not actual pictures. I mean, look at the squirrel images! Take yar thar boot, step on that tail, and PULL! At least they let him keep his "pants." I suppose that's dignified skinning.

At least the rabbit is a white-eyed zombie with a creepy look that certainly cuts down on cuteness.

Thanks, atduskgreg!

Put all thoughts of Bambi's Thumper out of your head: it's time to talk about rabbit. Inspired by iFoods online video of how to skin a rabbit (not for the squeamish. Or maybe the squeamish are the ones who need to take the hardest look?), I've decided to do a rundown of rabbit grilling recipes. Skinning your own is not necessary, though fresh rabbit can be a bit difficult to find. If you don't have a local butcher (I've also found it at Whole Foods in the past), you can order it online at D'Artagnan.

With a deep, gamey flavor, rabbit meat is relatively low fat and can be tough. This makes rabbit stews and braises especially popular, but, for summer, grilling is also an option provided you take steps to get the meat nice and tender.

It has been several years since the lever corkscrew design first catapulted to popularity, going from a gadget that was almost strictly for big wine drinkers to a staple in any home that also has a bottle or two of red. The style was popularized by the Metrokane Rabbit corkscrew, but there are any number of similarly designed openers available today. The last time that Cook's Illustrated put these openers to the test was about 9 years ago and in their most recent issue, they decided that it was time to revisit them and see how some of the more expensive brands stacked up to some of the less expensive newcomers.

Their "ultimate opener" was the Screwpull Trigger from Le Creuset, which has a unique mechanism that adds an extra grip to the cork, ensuring a fast and clean uncorking. But out of the 13 models, 12 made a respectable showing, so CI's conclusion seems to be that you will do fine with almost any lever-style wine opener. Their advice, if you're not going for their "ultimate" model, is to try to select openers with longer handles, which will make removing the corks easier.

Who could resist seeing a couple of adorable bunny pancakes on their plate of Easter morning? Best of all, these little guys take no longer to prepare than ordinary pancakes - which is to say that they take about 5 minutes from start to plate. I used this recipe for buttermilk pancakes and, instead of dropping the batter into one large round, I used a smaller spoon to "pour" the batter into shape. Bunnies are a fairly simple shape, so there is no need for a mold to form them. I used chocolate chips to make eyes and noses, but fruit slices would work just as well. If you do want chocolate chips and three isn't enough for you, you could always try adding a few chocolate chips into the batter. And, of course, serve with maple syrup!