Nothing beats the intensely fresh flavor of a tomato still warm from the vine. You can slice it for a simple salad or sandwich with fresh mozzarella and fresh basil. Or you can go wild by experimenting and building an entire meal around it. This is a great way to use up all those tomatoes ripe in gardens now - especially ...

We like to watch food T.V. at my house. We go on and off with watching the Food Network, but recently we really haven't been watching it at all. There are currently three food shows that are on a weekly rotation on my TiVo: • Hell's Kitchen (Gordon Ramsay/FOX) • _Last Restaurant Standing_ (BBCA) • _Top Chef_ (Bravo) I like each of ...

Here’s the secret: miso is inexpensive, keeps for an amazingly long time, and is very versatile. So just buy some and play with it a little. The Basics On Miso There are a hell of a lot of kinds (see the Wikipedia entry if you want a not-entirely-comprehensive list), but the only ones you’re going to get without a big search, ...

Valentine's Day has gotten hit by hard times, and we're not just talking about the recession. Many of us have become cynical about this holiday of love, particularly when it comes to food. No wonder. "Special" restaurant menus often mean price hikes that take advantage of starry-eyed souls staring so intently at their sweethearts that they hardly give a thought to ...

Is the emphasis on healthy eating driving some young diners to go overboard? Last fall, Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) found itself with a nutrition information controversy on its hands. Except the controversy wasn't about too little information but too much. HUDS had been posting nutrition data about its various dining hall offerings in the servery, where the dishes were being ...

In 1975, Don Maloney, an American expatriate businessman who’d been writing a series of short columns for the English-language Japan Times, published a collection entitled Japan: It’s Not All Raw Fish. In these little vignettes, Maloney conveys a lot of the difficulties and oddities of a big fat white guy living in Japan — the sort of guy who, at least ...

Move for traditional Red Leicester ‘appellation’ fails Attempts to establish Leicestershire as the cheese capital of the nation are being thwarted by a tussle between rival cheesemakers. The county already boasts special protected labels approved by the European Commission for Stilton and Melton Mowbray pork pies. A move to achieve the same recognition for a traditional version of Red Leicester, however, ...

Check out some of the year's most important stories written about food, all in the running for this week's Beard Awards. The James Beard Foundation hosts its prestigious award ceremony at Lincoln Center in New York City on May 3. Much like James Beard, the man himself—a quintessential American cook who loved to eat—the Oscars of the food world tends to ...

Vegas dining once meant buffets and cocktail waitresses. No longer. The fabled desert playground has become one of the world's best places to eat. "Vegas' explosion of superdeluxe hotels and casinos has lured high-roller tourists and the international celebrity chefs who feed them," says Max Jacobson, the city's top dining critic, for Vegas magazine and Las Vegas Weekly. "And as in ...

Delicious Winter Citrus! (photo by T.M.) Citrus season brings a necessary and amazing wallop of pizazz to these bleak winter days. It's like a burst of fresh air, with a hint of zest. I love going into my local grocery store and seeing the absolute abundance of all these different types of citrus: a true feast for the eyes! I ...

A new soft drink made with bovine urine is under development in India, and if that country's leading Hindu cultural group has its way, the beverage will be marketed as a "healthy" alternative to Coke and Pepsi. The soft drink, called "Gau Jal" – that's Sanskrit for "cow water" - is undergoing lab tests and could be launched "very soon, maybe ...

Note: This Orange-Apple fruit is not one of these strange fruits because it is too strange to actually exist... Bored of bananas? Apples giving you apathy? Over oranges? If you’re trying to expand your fruit horizons, traveling the world, or just searching for a cool-looking edible centerpiece, look for one of these funky fruits in your local grocery store (though ...

Caviar is the salted roe of certain fish species, most often sturgeon, a class of fish, which dates back to the prehistoric age. Lacking scales, sturgeon has armor type plates and does has a cartilaginous skeleton, similar to a shark. Persians were the first to each caviar, which they called Chav-jar, which loosely translates to Cake of Power. They also believed ...

NEW YORK - Michelle Obama's vegetable garden is about to become a culinary battlefield. The Food Network announced Wednesday that an episode of "Iron Chef America" will be taped at the White House featuring Mario Batali, Bobby Flay and Emeril Lagasse. The three chefs, joined by White House chef Cristeta Comerford, will be welcomed by the first lady and allowed to ...

For Bryant Terry, veganism is not about "delete meat, insert tofu." It's not about sneering at meat-eating friends or finger-wagging, carrot-crunching superiority. It's not just for affluent white people; and it's not about food with no flavor. Rather, in his latest cookbook, Vegan Soul Kitchen, Terry seeks to reclaim two foodways that he says are misunderstood: veganism and soul food. He ...

What makes a man ditch a high paying, high profile luxury resort chef position in the middle of a recession, uproot his family of four, and move two states away to live in a tiny apartment in Coupeville Washington? Well, historical providence, low interest rates, and greener pastures perhaps; in this case literally. Chef Vincent Nattress, the Executive Chef of Meadowood ...

The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they'll sleep at night." I agree and disagree with that remark, which is attributed to Otto von Bismarck, founder and chancellor of the German Empire in the 19th century. While I accept that watching the legislative process can be unsettling, I have to say that after seeing Sam ...

Francis Ford Coppola changed the way Americans thought about movies with films like his "Godfather" series and "Apocalypse Now." The Academy Award-winning director, producer and screenwriter may now be changing how Americans think about and buy wine. Coppola got into the wine business in 1975 when he bought the old Inglenook estate in Napa Valley. Over the years, he restored to ...

LONE OAK - Supper is an all-day affair at Hedda Gioia Dowd's farm, a brisk walk from Lake Tawakoni. The eggs need collecting from the henhouse. Fresh hay must be cut to line the roasting pan. And the poussin is already on the spit by 8 a.m., making the first of many turns in the living room hearth. This is slow ...

I have just finished a short, intense love affair. I am afraid my lover will not be visiting again soon—he’s just too much for a girl to handle. He makes me do crazy things, like sit in the kitchen for hours, hot and red-faced. He takes his time. He makes me sit inside the house, blushing and indulging and licking my ...