Makes you hungry, doesn't it? C'mon; you know you want it. (Photo by Lorenia) WARNING: If you find yourself watching the Food Network with the kind of enthusiasm most toddlers save for Barney, think recipes without pictures are stupid, and constantly refresh your browser to see if anything new has been posted on foodgawker, you may be addicted to food porn.* Food porn addiction, also known as Iron Chef Syndrome, is an affliction commonly found among foodies and amateur chefs. It's often expressed through such profound philosophical statements as, "How am I supposed to know what I want to eat if I can't see it?" and "Me wanty."** Alas, in the interest of economics, many cookbooks tend to skimp on the pictures, rendering many recipes useless except to the most adventurous of chefs. However, thanks to the Internet, there are countless websites with full-color photos and step-by-step instructions on how to make your favorite dishes. There's Smitten Kitchen, a website that combines the deadly force of succulently roasted chicken with the cuteness of cinnamon swirl hair. Or TasteSpotting, a visual carousel of temptingly delicious recipes best not looked at before lunchtime. And the irreverent-yet-tasty Cook to Bang, which aims to not only please the palate, but other parts of the anatomy, as well. So, if you find yourself drooling at the computer screen on your coffee break, dreaming of lobster thermidor while asleep in your bed, or wondering helplessly what to do with those cranberries in your refrigerator, you may be in need of an intervention: a tasty one. * Be wary of typing "food porn" into a search engine. ** Quotes not at all taken from this writer's sister. Suggested Sites... Epicurious - recipes, menus, pictures, and ratings of thousands of dishes. foodgawker - a collection of recipes and images from all over the Internet. Foodista - a food encyclopedia users can edit. Serious Eats - a blog all about recipes, dining, and all things food. The Amateur Gourmet - restaurant reviews, recipes, how-tos and more.

Directory categories: Recipes, Food Blogs, Gourmet Food, Cooking, Ingedients

Archived under: Books, Chefs, Cooking, Fanatics, Food and Drink, Photography, Recipes

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(Photo by foooooey) Cookbooks have a prominent place in my tiny apartment. My kitchen doesn't have a lot to brag about except for its charming built-in bookshelf, which I've packed with my favorite cookbooks. Sure, like most of you, I probably look up hundreds of recipes online (the Yahoo! Directory boasts an amazing collection of recipes). But when I really want to relax and cook something that I know will turn out just right, I turn to one of my trusted "kitchen bibles." In the age of the Internet, Food Network, and food blogs, how does a cookbook survive? The books that make it onto my kitchen shelf are the ones that have withstood the tests of many home cooks. These cookbooks are more than just a collection of recipes: they include explanations that are so nuanced and detailed that they make for an interesting read even when you're not standing in front of the stove. A true example of this is Marcella Hazan's "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking." Anyone who's followed her recipes knows that the paragraphs preceding the recipes are as important as the ingredients themselves. For polenta, Marcella instructs you to rain the polenta over simmering water so slowly that you can see individual grains. Her Bolognese sauce is simmered for four hours or more, and you'll know why there is milk in the sauce only if you read carefully. My other kitchen bible is from America's Test Kitchen. Their recipes have gone through the gauntlet of scientific tweaking, and the book explains why each recipe has won out over the rest of the test batches. Try the lemon bars from the book and you'll be a convert (the secret is whole milk -- shh!). Now, cookbook fans, don't get your aprons all twisted -- I didn't forget "The Joy of Cooking" or Mark Bittman's "How To Cook Everything." Enough poetry has been waxed about these books, so I'll spare you. So, what's your no-fail kitchen bible? Tell us in the comments below. Suggested Sites... Omnivore Books on Food - a bookstore dedicated to cookbooks and all books on food. For Better, for Worse, for Richer, for Pasta - Marcella Hazan, profiled by The New York Times. Jamie Oliver - books and recipes by the Naked Chef. From the Design Desk: Focused on Food - Chronicle Books explain the design behind books on food.

Directory categories: Cooking Techniques, Shop for Cookbooks, Julia Child, Chefs

Archived under: Books, Chefs, Cooking, Food and Drink, Home and Garden, Recipes

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Wonder if the Cream of Wheat man will ever be made CEO, like Uncle Ben was? What's the greatest invention to come out of North Dakota? The "Roughrider State" takes credit for the first parking meter, but in my humble estimation, Cream of Wheat is a far more notable contribution to world happiness. The hot cereal made its debut exactly 116 years ago, when a wheat miller in Grand Forks, ND, sold the first box. I've always liked my Cream of Wheat with milk and honey, but today's online foodies are showing me up with their creations. They're serving up the cereal with coconut milk, rhubarb, and even pumpkin and spices. We're also seeing a proliferation of recipes that use Cream of Wheat for non-cereal, non-breakfast purposes. While I can't vouch for the quality of these recipes, apparently Cream of Wheat can be a key ingredient for such diverse foods as filet of fish, chocolate bread, and dumplings. And for the category of "stuff I learned on the Internet that I never would have asked:" most dogs can safely eat Cream of Wheat. It's not the recommended use, folks, but there’s an eHow article devoted entirely to the question, "Can dogs eat Cream of Wheat?" The answer is yes, but you should remember that dogs, like humans, can have food allergies. Suggested Sites... About.com: Nutrition - find out why breakfast is the most important meal of the day. RecipeZaar - more recipes using Cream of Wheat. The History of Cream of Wheat - 116 years of hot farina cereal. Was the Cream of Wheat Chef a Real Person? - he was, and his name was Frank White.

Directory categories: Food and Drink, Eating Practices, Breakfast Recipes, Nutrition, Recipes

Archived under: 19th Century, Anniversaries, Brands, Cooking, Eating, Food and Drink, In Character, Nutrition, Recipes

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The perfect meal (Photo by TheBusyBrain) Back in July, we dealt with the multiple claimants to the title "inventor of the hamburger." At the time, we asked you not to get us started on who invented the hot dog, but what with the passing of the summer grilling season and the rolling-around of Hot Dog Day; well, we’ve decided to take on the topic. The sausage itself goes back thousands of years. There are descriptions from China as far back as 589 BCE, and even a lost Greek comedy from around 500 BCE called "The Sausage." But the "hot dog" variation is of comparatively recent vintage. As with the hamburger, the food is of German or Austrian origin. The "frankfurter sandwich" clearly owes its name to Frankfurt, and the "wiener" to Vienna (or "Wien," as the locals know it). And while those creations date back to around 1500 AD, the hot dog we know and love today didn't emigrate to the United States until around 1867, when German immigrant Charles Feltman began selling sausages in rolls to hungry visitors at Coney Island. Feltman served 3,684 hot dogs during his first year in business, a mere fraction of the what is consumed today. Feltman would seem to hold the crown as inventor of the hot dog, but Antonoine Feuchtwanger of St. Louis also has his supporters. Feuchtwanger, in a tale that sounds apocryphal, sold sausages on the streets and gave his customers white gloves to protect their hands from the hot food. After too many customers walked off with the gloves, Feuchtwanger asked his baker brother-in-law to devise a bun to put the sausages in. What makes this story sound fishy to us is another story involving one Anton Ludwig Feuchtwanger, who served sausages in rolls at either the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago or the 1904 World's Fair in St Louis, again substituting bread rolls for gloves. Even the story of how the name "hot dog" was coined is murky. Supposedly, around 1900, cartoonist Tad Dorgan heard a vendor at New York's Polo Grounds selling "red hot dachshund sandwiches," and, not knowing how to spell "dachshund," Dorgan drew a cartoon featuring a "hot dog" instead. (This story loses credibility when one realizes that Dorgan didn't move to New York until 1903, the cartoon in question has never turned up, and the term "hot dog" was already in use by 1893.) Regardless of where the hot dog came from or how it got its name, Americans love them, and eat some 20 billion every year (that's 70 per person), with 155 million of those consumed on the Fourth of July alone. While pretty much everyone seems to eat hot dogs, everyone also has their own particular way of enjoying them. My own favorite is a hot grilled Dodger Dog with ketchup, mustard, and relish. You can also get them deep-fried ("rippers"), with bacon and guacamole, with chili and slaw, on a stick, made from antelope, elk, buffalo, reindeer, or salmon, done up like a pizza, from the place where the pros go, or you can try the inexplicably popular Chicago style, which buries the poor dog under a mountain of mustard, pickle spears, tomatoes, peppers, celery salt, and neon-green relish. Now, if you'll excuse me, the "recession special" at Gray's Papaya (two dogs and a drink for less than five bucks) is sounding mighty good right about now. Suggested Sites... National Hot Dog & Sausage Council - the big dogs of hot dogs. A Hot Dog Program - Pittsburgh's Rick Sebak went in search of America's finest hot dog emporiums -- and found them. Travel Channel: Hot Dog Paradise - their guide to the best tubes of processed meat. Wikipedia: Hot Dogs - history, variations, and places to get them. USDA: Hot Dogs and Food Safety - the official federal standards (we'll bypass whether they're good for you ...)

Directory categories: Hot Dogs, Hot Dog Recipes, Sausage, Fast Food Restaurants

Archived under: Beef, Celebrations, Chicago, Cooking, Delicatessen, Eating, Events, Fast Food, Food and Drink, Germany, Hot Dogs, In Character, Junk Food, Meat, New York, Sandwiches, Snacks, Summer, United States

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The finished products -- a carnivore's delight (Photo by jessbess1) Two chefs were born on August 15, but one couldn't have reached his television stardom without the trailblazing work of the other. Last week. I celebrated the birthdays of my two favorite chefs -- Julia Child and Tom Colicchio -- by hosting a steak cook-off in my apartment using recipes from each chef. I usually don't need much excuse to eat steak, but I haven't actually ever made it myself because the smoke alarm system in my studio apartment likes to go off at any semblance of real cooking. For Tom and Julia, though, the risk of smoking out my apartment (from the amount of butter used in each recipe) was well worth it. Tom Colicchio is famed for his Craft restaurants and steakhouses, and in the past few years, he's reached heartthrob status with fans of the Bravo television show, "Top Chef." His recipe for steak with potatoes, which I actually found in the "Esquire Recipes for Men" (and don’t get me started on that questionable title), calls for hanger steak. But since there's only one hanger steak on each cow (hence driving up the price), I opted for a ribeye cut instead. Tom had me sear the steak in canola oil and baste it with butter and thyme. Think that's overkill? Never. Tom then instructs us to cook bacon in the same skillet and fry the potatoes in the delicious combination of fat. It seemed like the butter bath in Tom's steak might be hard to beat -- it gave the steak a beautiful, brown crust. But when my three tasters cut into Julia's pan-broiled steak, the decision was unanimous. Julia also had me sear the steak in a combination of butter and oil, but the crowning glory of her steak was a simple pan sauce deglazed with beef broth, white vermouth, and (what else?) unconscionable amounts of butter. The pan sauce was smooth, beefy, and luxurious. The best part was that it took only about five minutes to make the sauce. We raised our glasses to Julia and Tom -- and to the smoke alarm that miraculously stayed silent through our whole meal. If you want to have a steak-off of your own, check out Tom's and Julia's recipes for steak au poivre. In Julia's words, "Bon appetit!" Suggested Sites... Julia Child: Lessons with Master Chefs - official site for the PBS series, with videos, recipes, and cooking tips. Top Chef - from Bravo TV. Season recaps, updates, news, and blogs. How to Order a Great Steak - interview with Tom Colicchio. How to Run a Restaurant - Tom Colicchio explains. Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch - Michael Pollan discusses the influence of Julia Child.

Directory categories: Julia Child, Tom Colicchio, Steakhouses, Beef, French Recipes

Archived under: Authors, Bacon, Beef, Birthdays, Celebrities, Chefs, Coincidence, Cooking, Eating, France, Homemade, How-To, In Character, Meat, Men, Recipes, Restaurants, Steak, Women

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