cooking Archives - Page 2 of 3

More Americans cooking—not b/c they’re broke but b/c they know how @michaelpollan @JamieOliver @Bittman: It’s working! http://ow.ly/bv2PR ::

April 1, 2024June 11, 2012

Credit whomever or whatever you like — foodie journalists, celebrity chefs, the depressing state of the American economy — but Americans are increasingly cooking at home, according to a recent poll, reports trade magazine Progressive Grocer. Two key findings: (1) Americans are cooking more In fact, seven in 10 Americans say they are cooking more … Read more

Holy Ted Nugent, We’re All Foodies Now

January 22, 2025March 4, 2012

Los Angeles Times • March 4, 2012

A few years ago I bought a cookbook titled “Kill It and Grill It” for my boyfriend, a Yale grad who hunted and fished. Admittedly, I offered the gift ironically. I’d been drawn to it by its cover photo of ’70s rocker Ted Nugent and his wife, Shemane, each clad in a denim vest and clutching a rifle and knife, respectively. As a native of rural Michigan, I saw the image as both funny and dismaying. They kind of look like families I grew up with, I thought. But who buys a cookbook with a gun on it?

The Best Mexican Food of My Life

January 22, 2025March 1, 2012

The Wall Street Journal • March 1, 2012

A few years ago, working an undercover stint for “The American Way of Eating,” I had the best soup of my life. I had just taken a room—a cubby, really— with farmworkers in California’s Salinas Valley, paying $300 for the next seven weeks, using it as a homebase from which to find field work. As soon as I agreed to take the room, my landlady led me into the kitchen and set a steaming bowl of soup, scarlet and speckled with golden globules of fat, before me. Chunks of fish, fleshy and white, floated in the bowl alongside translucent onion snippets and scraps of herbs. Eat! she commanded in Spanish, handing me half a lime and a salt shaker. Then she pointed to a stack of fresh flour tortillas. Eat!

Best Food Writing 2013

December 16, 2023January 9, 2012

My Slate essay “Cooking Isn’t Fun” has been selected for the Best Food Writing 2013 anthology edited by Holly Hughes. For thirteen years now—a baker’s dozen!—the annual Best Food Writing anthology has become known as THE place where readers and food writers meet to celebrate the most delicious prose of the year, from a dynamic mix … Read more

Q&A: Mister Bean

January 22, 2025September 11, 2007

Salon • Sept. 11, 2007

Every food has its fans, and with Ken Albala’s new book, “Beans: A History,” the humble legume may well have found its champion. Over a year spent eating beans on a daily basis, from minuscule rice beans to 4-inch whoppers called gigantes, the culinary historian put his expertise — and his stomach — to work, compiling a detailed family history of the world’s edible beans.

But lest that seem like an avalanche of research to pour into a humble subject, Albala is quick to point out that beans are one of the few foods that appear in nearly every national cuisine, from French cassoulets to Filipino bean and fruit desserts. Pairing a foodie’s curiosity with an academic’s knack for detail, Albala carefully charts the food’s historical arc while also offering recipes in keeping with each era.

Review: Up From the Roots

January 22, 2025June 1, 2007

Saveur • June/July 2007

The novelist Barbara Kingsolver, whose latest book is a memoir-cum-treatise that documents a year during which she and her family grew almost all their own food or purchased it from farms nearby, is not the first writer to note that Americans tend to approach eating more as distracted consumers than as participants in a natural process. Indeed, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle joins a growing canon of food-based personal chronicles and social critiques, and it will inevitably yield comparisons with Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Penguin Press, 2006), which chronicles his own DIY quest.

Soothing Chicken Soup is Worth the Time

January 22, 2025February 16, 2007

MSNBC.com • Feb. 16, 2007

My first attempt at chicken soup ended in an explosion. I was nine, and making a Laura Ingalls-inspired effort to nurse my pneumonia-stricken father to health. In keeping with the pioneer theme, I had grabbed an old-fashioned ceramic pot out of my mother’s china cabinet. It shattered in about five minutes, having endured the highest heat setting possible on the electric stovetop.

This particular experience illustrates several rules to keep in mind before undertaking the creation of your very own chicken soup. Nostalgia may well work against you. Though the end product will be pretty, the process is not. And while the work stops short of being complicated, it nonetheless attains the label of “time-consuming.”

Perfect Grilled Cheese is Simple, Satisfying

January 22, 2025January 4, 2007

MSNBC.com • Jan. 4, 2007

It’s easy to overlook the grilled cheese as a culinary delight. Reminiscent of rainy childhood afternoons, and most typically prepared with highly processed ingredients, this hot sandwich can in fact yield an opportunity for fresh and delicious experimentation — even for the most cooking-averse grown ups.

“Put together properly, you can really experience the perfect bite,” says Nancy Silverton, whose famed Campanile made waves in L.A. with its sandwich nights — so much so that she went on publish “Nancy Silverton’s Sandwich Book.”

The Julia Child of Malaysian Food

January 22, 2025December 12, 2006

Salon • Dec. 12, 2006

Pre-made sushi and pad thai may now be making appearances on American dinner tables from coast to coast, but mention Malaysian food to your Midwestern aunt, and you’re still likely to get a raised eyebrow. James Oseland is on a mission to change that. Just as Julia Child‘s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” brought French food into the hearts and hands of American housewives 40 years ago, Oseland’s new cookbook, “Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking From the Spice Islands of Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia,” is a comprehensive and charismatic attempt to introduce Americans to a great, global cuisine.

Mashed Potatoes, Holiday Time’s Comfort Food

January 22, 2025November 13, 2006

MSNBC.com • Nov. 13, 2006

For a thoughtful home cook, whipping up a batch of mashed potato can induce an identity crisis. What kind of potato: Russet, Yukon, fingerling, blue or red? Do you boil or steam? Use broth or cream? Melt the butter or keep it at room temperature? And don’t even start on the add-ins: garlic, onions, herbs, chiles, even chocolate. Fortunately, while this humble concoction’s versatility resembles nothing so much as a choose your own adventure book, all roads lead to a delicious conclusion.

The first order of business for a mashed-potato cook is simply deciding which kind of potato to use, a debate largely settled amongst American chefs. It’s either Idaho russets or Yukon golds, depending on your flavor preferences. The former is the least likely to turn starchy while the latter has a mild buttery flavor. Be wary of other spuds, particularly smaller ones.