From Scratch

Let’s be honest. Making corn bread is dead easy but despite that, dump and stir mixes abound, I suppose because they’re fast. This recipe is ready for the oven in the time it takes to pre-heat and it has the added appeal of being one of those “can’t mess it up” recipes. I think the reason […]

The first Thanksgiving was in 1621 and if we pretend it was observed every year thereafter, that would give us 334 years of Thanksgiving meals without green bean casserole.
For those outside the US, the five-ingredient side dish is built around a can of cream of mushroom soup and it’s estimated that it’s served in nearly 20 […]

No, I’m not crazy. I haven’t rinsed raw poultry in a couple years, since reading about a then-proposed change in Federal food safety guidelines to recommend against it because of the great risk of cross-contamination by doing so. Here’s the government’s current official stance:
Washing raw poultry, beef, pork, lamb, or veal before cooking it is […]

People who know me know two things: I won’t dirty more pots, pans or bowls than I have to and if it’s a holiday meal, I like to make as much of it ahead as I can.
Thanksgiving brings the American mega-meal, of course, but I hate the  rush of finishing side dishes while the turkey rests. I […]

A few weeks ago Carl Bernstein described himself as a missionary for A Woman in Charge, his biography of Hillary Clinton. And why not? It’s an excellent book and, as I said in April and will say again, an important book. As he has pointed out, had there been real biography about our current president before […]

Already? If I could tell American retailers one thing it would be a plain old, “Enough already.” Joe Heller of the Green Bay Press-Gazette said it for me on Wednesday in a far better way.

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All-purpose flour, quick-mixing flour, cornstarch. All can be used to thicken gravy and for most of my life I assumed they were interchangable and simply a matter of preference. As it turns out, your choice of thickening agent depends on when you add it to the gravy and whether it will be reheated.
…your choice of […]

That’s just my score for one session. Overall, it’s one billion grains and counting.
FreeRice is a recent website that is donating rice to the United Nations World Food Program with a multiple-choice vocabulary quiz. For every correct answer FreeRice will give 10 grains of rice. You watch your bowl fill up as you progress and if […]

It’s been a year to the day since Mark Bittman’s Minimalist column in The New York Times turned conventional wisdom upside down and prompted who-knows-how-many people to make bread for the first time. This crusty, holey no-knead bread featured in that column is the brainchild of Jim Lahey of Manhattan’s Sullivan Street Bakery. It’s become […]

I can’t think of many common ingredients that confuse people as this one does. Is it only for bread machines? Is it only for super-fast breads? Does it produce inferior loaves?
The answer to all three questions is no.
The yeast industry can blame itself for some of the confusion, having sold it under names such as Rapid […]

I love chili and even when I was a rookie in the kitchen I made it without a recipe, concocting it according to my mood and what was on hand. You probably make chili that way too, and this is not a recipe. It’s about a technique I adopted a few years ago.
I’d always added […]

Fudgy or cakey? That’s always the question of preference about this quintessential American treat, the brownie. Of course, some people are happy with them either way.
These are fudgy and couldn’t be faster or easier. They’re also thin, baked in an oblong pan instead of the usual square, which is ideal because they’re rich. A small […]

This is one of the most fascinating things to land in my inbox in a long time. It’s a photo project showing families in ten countries, ten different cultures, and their weekly food purchases. Some aspects are immediately jarring: the paltry amount of food for the poorest of the poor. Others take a moment to sink in, […]

With the debate and the Edwards ad, there’s been so much chatter about Hillary Clinton this week and so many cartoons. We’ll go inside the Beltway this time for Nate Beeler’s sharp take on Friday in the Washington Examiner, a free daily for the District and surrounding areas.

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The Democrats’ debate October 30 was not Hillary Clinton’s finest hour or two, especially when it came to the sharp challenges by Senator John Edwards  of South Carolina. There were moments that went way beyond any Flip-flop Award I could give her — again.
Now the Edwards campaign has jumped on her performance with a hard-hitting ad that […]