Substituting Ingredients: The A to Z Kitchen Reference
The classic question for any home cook is what to substitute for ingredients you don’t have on hand, can’t find, don’t like, or are outside the budget. That tin of baking powder in the pantry is well past the expiration date and probably won’t rise your cake, so what can you use instead if you can’t make a mad dash to the store? What if a recipe calls for a spice, cheese, or sauce you’ve never heard of and can’t find? Read more
The Art of Eating In Book Giveaway
Cathy Erway gave up eating out in New York and started cooking for herself, a two-year experiment she chronicled on her blog, Not Eating Out in New York. Restaurants, take out, and street carts were out, cooking for herself, foraging, and freeganism was in. Cathy’s story is interesting for anyone trying to live frugally by cooking at home more and eating out less, and she shares it in more detail in her book The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove, scheduled for release on February 18.
You can win my review copy of The Art of Eating In, just leave a comment in this post about how you have changed or plan to change your/your family’s eating out habits. Please make sure your email address is correct in the email field so I can contact you if you are the lucky winner. (Please don’t put your email address in the comment field unless you want a bunch of spammers to find you.) You can get an extra entry if you mention the contest on Twitter, just leave an additional comment with a link to your Twitter status.
Apologies to my international readers, but the prize can only be shipped within the continental U.S. The contest closes at 9 P.M. EST on Thursday February 18, and Random.org will select the winner. Look for the announcement of the winner in this post soon after.
Update February 19, 2010: Congratulations to Carol, comment #10, for winning the book!
Children’s Books with Food Themes
October 1, 2008 by Andrea
Filed under Cooking With Kids
We are a family of readers, and my boys love the time we spend every day reading stories together. When the boys were very young, I began choosing books about food, wanting to introduce them to a healthy, well-rounded diet as soon as possible These are some of our family’s favorite books with food themes. The books are geared toward ages 0 to 6 for reading aloud, though some older children could read these on their own. I read these books with all my boys together, and though Monkey Boy (age 2) doesn’t necessarily understand some of the story, he still enjoys looking at the pictures and laughing along with his brothers. If you have children in the 7 to 9 age range, they may still enjoy hearing these stories or may even want to read to their younger siblings.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle
“In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf.”
A caterpillar emerges from the egg and goes in search of food. My boys have fun counting all the things the caterpillar eats.
Children’s Books with Gardening Themes
“I want to help!”
I was separating grape tomato plants, preparing them for planting, and Bob the Builder (5) and Top Gun (3) were reaching for plants as I worked. Our family plants an outdoor herb and vegetable garden every spring and we keep an indoor herb garden year-round. When I’m planting seeds I let the boys get right in and help, but I had visions of battered plants and decided this was one of those times they needed to watch a little before trying on their own. I demonstrated how to pull gently to separate the tangled mass of roots and pour dirt around the plants in the cups. After watching them nearly squeeze a couple plants to death, I decided pouring the dirt would be a better job for my boys! They get very excited, but tend to have a bull-in-china-shop approach.
They have some favorite books with gardening themes, each of which I see constantly laying around or handed to me for story time. I enjoy the stories as much as the boys, especially when they pull up next to me and ask to help plant the seeds or flowers or vegetables and talk about things that we’ve read. They like playing in the dirt as much as I do, and we want to continue encouraging that.
Planting a Rainbow, by Lois Ehlert
“Every year Mom and I plant a rainbow.”
The story starts in the fall with planting different kinds of bulbs and goes throughout the year of planning and planting a garden. Our boys enjoy identifying the colors and different types of flowers, as well as seeing the stages of growth. Abstract illustrations.
Read aloud: 0 to 4 Read more
He Said Beer, She Said Wine and a Give Away
What do you get when you put together a highly regarded sommelier and a craft brewer? You get a very entertaining evening of good food and beverages as well as good-natured banter about the attributes of the wine and beer and how well each pairs with particular foods. Sam Calagione, founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, and Marnie Old, award-winning sommelier and wine educator, put their talents and impressive knowledge of wine and beer together to create an accessible and informative book about pairing beer and wine with food.
The book, recently released by DK Publishing, is a spin off from the “competitive dinners” that Old and Calagione started in 2003 at his brewpub in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Each evening offers a five course meal, and each course comes with both a beer and a wine pairing. Using anonymous ballots, the diners vote for the best pairing for each course, and though both Marnie and Sam thought there would be a clear winner, that has never been the case. The margins have been slim, and the number of wins for either side has been pretty even, strong evidence that beer and wine both pair well with a variety of foods. Read more
Great Source for Cookbooks: Jessica's Biscuit, www.ecookbooks.com
October 10, 2007 by Andrea
Filed under Reviews, Shopping Tips
I began my cookbook collection when I was in high school with the purchase of Farm Journal’s Homemade Breads, the 1985 version. I wasn’t an avid cook or even an occasional cook, but I loved bread (still do) and thought that someday I would learn how to make my own. Well, I did learn how to make my own bread, and from that simple beginning my cookbook collection has slowly grown over the years to well over 100, although I’m not exactly sure of the current number. The last count two years ago come in somewhere around 130, and my collection has definitely grown since then!
I’m always on the lookout for great deals on cookbooks, and I’ve picked up used books from eBay, yard sales, or Freecycle, and years ago I belonged to a cookbook-of-the-month type club. Recently I came across a great source for cookbooks that has been alive and well for quite some time but is a new find for me. Jessica’s Biscuit® has been selling cookbooks for 27 years, first out of the family living room and now in a large warehouse in Massachusetts. This boutique bookseller focuses on cookbooks and caters to cookbook collectors. Their selection of over 14,000 titles runs the gamut, including new releases, bestsellers, out-of-print or hard-to-find, and the skills levels range from basic to gourmet. They do offer a few other genres of books as well as their own label of single origin coffee beans, but selling cookbooks is their specialty.
They offer everyday discounts at 20-75% off retail, and they have some nice perks for buyers Read more
