Cookbooks

It's been the case at every party in recent memory that I've been at when deviled eggs are on hand. They're simply a magnet. There may be tons of other great food on hand, but folks spring into action around those eggs...and the plate's usually the first one to be emptied. I'll admit to having a bit of an eagle-eye for them. When someone new arrives at the door and I see ...

Ah to have been in Paris this past week! It would have given me the opportunity to toast—in person—my mentor Anne Willan for the honor bestowed on her latest book at the Gourmand Cookbook Awards. Instead I raised my coffee cup generally France-ward to salute this book that represents a lifelong passion for, and curiosity about, not only food we eat today, but chefs and cooks who came before us. If any cookbook author deserves the nod of “prolific” it’s surely ...

It was a simple enough question, but it caught me off guard. "Can you recommend a cookbook for the basics, for someone starting out in the kitchen?" Paraphrased, that's what was posed to me by someone a few weeks ago at one of my book signings. Um. Well. Gee. I told her about Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, but ...

Having just completed a few months of heavy-duty (and fun) promotion of my latest book, it's probably no surprise I've been deeply engrossed in salty snacks lately. When demonstrating or sampling a recipe from the book , the key is to represent the books recipes exactly as written to give folks an authentic taste of results they can expect. Which can take a bit of discipline on my part -- when I'm off the cookbook-author clock, I rarely cook a ...

Well.....the official release of Salty Snacks is tomorrow, September 25!! But already the publisher's posted a generous little preview of the book with a handful of recipes -- so you can get an early taste of what the book has to offer! Here you go: Recipes ...

It strikes me as interesting that I have my liberal arts education in Tacoma, Washington to thank for my introduction to North African cuisine. Indirectly, I suppose, but it was a University of Puget Sound winterim study program of a month in Paris that had me exploring the bustling, colorful byways in and around Paris' Rue de la Huchette where there's a convergence of international cuisines, Moroccan among them.  Of course the ...

It's such a delightful problem to have. More crab than you can eat in one sitting. Friends who have a home on Whidbey Island had had pretty good luck with the crabbing last weekend,  got through as much as their family could consume, then dropped a quick email to see if we'd like to take some off their hands. Next thing you know, we're picking a parking lot to meet in, they handed off 4 Dungeness crab that had been caught-and-cooked the ...

I love this snippet about "How to Forage for Mushrooms" from a not-too-long-ago issue of Esquire magazine. (My husband pulls random pages out for me -- this one doesn't happen to have the issue month on it.) Step 1 reads "Find a humid forest." followed by Step 2: "Leave that forest and go to a farmers market or a good grocery store." They then go on to talk about general tips for choosing mushrooms. At the store. I had to laugh ...

All work and no play has been making Cynthia somewhat dingbatty. Honestly. It's that kind of brain-frizz that makes me turn in circles in the kitchen 3 or 4 times before I remember that all I needed to do was grab a knife out of the drawer to spread peanut butter on this morning's English muffin. But it's a good kind of dingbatty -- because it's the result of being in ...

Yeah, I know. Though technically it was less than two months ago, Thanksgiving already feels like a faint memory from months gone by. So I won't dwell on details of that day's feast that we enjoyed here at my house. The ginger-and-orange brined turkey that I grilled over mesquite-enhanced charcoal out in the garage. The mashed potatoes with fried sage. Stuffing with chanterelle mushrooms. All I'll say is that it was, ...