Author: Joe Gray
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Holiday haul: The best new cookbooks
New cookbooks of the season teem with passion, quirkiness and flavor. Our favorites are perfect for the cooks on your list (including you). “The Art of Living According to Joe Beef; A Cookbook of Sorts”By Frederic Morin, David McMillan and Meredith Erickson(Ten Speed Press, $40)Believe the title: This boisterous book is as chock-a-block with whimsy…
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Alton Brown: The Doctor of Culinary Science
Alton Brown’s job on the popular Food Network series “Good Eats” was to deliver mainstream food and unearth the science behind it. And to always present it in his own quirky fashion — with crazy, custom-built models, hand puppets and crew members pressed into acting roles.“Good Eats,” which aired its final regular episode this summer…
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Fruit and pork chops make a peachy combo
Apples go well with pork. That’s a classic savory-sweet complementary team. But by that token, so should the stone fruits of summer: the peaches, nectarines, plums and apricots. We know of many a fall or winter recipe that calls for such fruits in their dried state to pair with a pork loin roast. But not…
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COOKBOOK REVIEW: Kitchen lessons and a little dish from “Top Chef”
“HOW TO COOK LIKE A TOP CHEF”Text by Emily Miller(Chronicle Books, $29.95)What it is: This, the third book spawned by the popular Bravo TV competitive cooking show, gathers recipes from throughout the first six seasons (and some from spinoff “Top Chef Masters”), plus cooking techniques and Q&As with contestants and guest judges.Praise and quibbles: The…
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Cider boosts apple flavor in pork dish
A tasting of several hard ciders not long ago got me thinking about how to cook with them. Bottled hard ciders, once the favored drink of the Colonies, have enjoyed a resurgence in recent years. Whether mass-produced or small-batch artisanal, the bottles have been muscling their way onto store shelves.To put the appley drink to…
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Make Lidia Bastianich’s pesto with walnuts
Walnut-ricotta pesto is a variation on the more well-known sauce, pesto, made from fresh basil.To retain its fresh flavors, the pesto is not cooked; instead, it is warmed by tossing it with hot pasta. This recipe is adapted from “Lidia Cooks From the Heart of Italy: A Feast of 175 Regional Recipes” by Lidia Matticchio…
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The precise art of Japanese cocktails
Sushi and sake go together like beer and pretzels. And the pairing has a certain appeal: When sitting at the sushi bar, drink like the Japanese, right?Well, no, says Yuri Kato, beverage consultant and editor of Cocktailtimes.com.“Everyone in the U.S. thinks sake is the best drink to be paired with sushi, but in Japan it…
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A taste of the Italian Alps
This unusual salad from “Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy: A Feast of 175 Regional Recipes,” by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, is based on fontina, a creamy, nutty-tasting cow’s milk cheese from the region of Valle d’Aosta in the Italian Alps.“With a chunk of fontina or other fine cheese and some tasty vegetables … you…