January 2011
Go Gourmet On Game Night
It’s 6 days, 17 hours, 5 minutes and 39 seconds ‘til game time, and I’m just beginning to plan my menu. How about you? It’s easier than ever before this year, because I can reach for Cynthia Nims’ Gourmet Game Night, a feast of spreads, snacks, sandwiches, pastries and drinks.
Sure, Nims may have been thinking of Scrabble, poker or backgammon when she envisioned...
How To Make Sushi Rice
We’ve been tinkering with learning how to make our own sushi. The learning curve has been sharp for sure, so today I thought I’d briefly discuss sushi rice. Have you ever made your own sushi rice? Well, I can assure that it is very simple to do, especially if you have a rice cooker!
When I shift into “sushi-making mode,” I simply load my Zojirushi rice cooker with...
This Happy Birthday Candle Takes The Cake
It’s a birthday candle like none other, and until you actually see it spinning and spitting fire, you really can’t believe it, but if you want serve a birthday cake no one will every forget, this Happy Birthday Candle is sure to do the trick.
I’ve put sparklers on my daughter’s birthday cakes before, but this candle, well, it takes the cake. The initial flame is so...
Hello Mom! What Kind Of Food Processor Do You...
I was absolutely stunned when I got that recent instant message from my daughter, a college student who is only just starting to show an interest in cooking.
Oh, how I wished we had spent lots of warm and fuzzy moments in the kitchen when she was growing up, but the kiddo was indifferent to food. (Gasp!) And not really interested in learning how meals were put together.
Yet, this fall, she moved...
The Classic Glass Canister
When looking for the perfect container for preserving my Meyer lemons, I suppose it’s no surprise that I ended up with another Bormioli Rocco glass canister. Over the years, I’ve used these canisters to make limoncello and krupnikas (a Lithuanian liqueur), and to store tea, sugar, and flour. They’re sturdy, and the rubber seal does an ace job of keeping out air. Since...
A Successful Batch of Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream
Yesterday was the day. I cleaned and readied my “new” White Mountain Ice Cream Freezer and cranked out a small batch of vanilla ice cream. I made the vanilla ice cream using the recipe in the owner’s manual. The results were excellent.
The first step required scalding the milk in a saucepan, adding the sugar, and stirring the mixture until the sugar was completely dissolved....
Something Warm And Wonderful For Those Sullen Days
After those freezing cold days, when the weather changes and the slush sets in, there’s nothing more warming that a hot cup of tea with milk and sugar. One lump or two? Or would you prefer lemon and honey? Orange blossom or lavender?
I would take tea everyday at 4 o’clock if it only were possible. High tea with freshly baked scones, thick strawberry preserves and rich clotted...
New year, New Toys
Check out what new toys and games await your home. See what’s new from your favorite brands like LEGO, Mattel, Fisher-Price, Melissa & Doug, LeapFrog, and more.
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The Hit Parade: Memorable Movie Hit Men
“Dying ain’t much of a living,” as Clint Eastwood once famously growled in The Outlaw Josey Wales, but you sure wouldn’t know it from the movies, which routinely sport a gaggle of hitmen, assassins, and people generally collecting money for doing very bad things. As Jason Statham and Ben Foster pay their dues in this week’s revamp of The Mechanic, here’s a look...
Friday's Food For Thought: Future of Food Edition
Here at Al Dente Blog our eyes are never too big for our stomach: We devour the food world news all week long, including the stories that give us heartburn. Here are some of the bits that caught our eye this week, plus some noteworthy items we’ve heard folks talking up around the virtual water cooler.
This week we’re thinking about the future of food. Will we all be cooking up...
Graphic Novel Friday: Of Demons, Avengers, and...
The recently released The New Avengers Vol. 1 by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Stuart Immonen may be the best comic I never read when I was 12 years old. It features a to-the-brim team roster filled with marquee characters like Wolverine and Spider-Man, who share the spotlight with underappreciated B-listers such as The Thing, Ms. Marvel, and Luke Cage. The weird and mustachioed Dr....
For Those Snowy/Cloudy/Foggy Days, Sunny Yellow...
Have you ever tasted something so extraordinary that the flavor remains with you, if not on your tongue than in your head for days? You dream about the taste, the texture. And you wait with anticipation for the next opportunity to taste it again.
Well, turns out that what’s been haunting my days and nights these last few weeks is Dorie Greenspan’s Lemon Cream, an intensely flavored...
"What Can I Bring?" The Good Neighbor Cookbook
Were you as impressed as I was with Tracy’s week of cooking when her sister welcomed a new baby? I’ve talked before about how I think food is the best gift we can offer new parents, and now there’s a book that offers some help with that. “The Good Neighbor Cookbook” has recipes, advice on organizing a “meal train” for new parents, and helpful tips aimed...
Score! A White Mountain Ice Cream Freezer
Yikes. I’m thinking that my friends on the East Coast will bypass this post on ice cream, but I am so excited that I just have to share my latest little adventure. I’ve wanted a White Mountain Ice Cream Freezer for some time, but I wasn’t quite ready to buy one at full price. Last week, however, I scored a used one for less than $10 at one of my favorite thrift shops.
Upon...
Low-Cal Recipe: Spaghetti and Turkey Meatballs
Like many of you, I ushered in 2011 with a renewed focus on health and fitness. A recent visit to my doctor nudged me (reluctantly) further down the path. “No white flour, no sugar, no alcohol,” he said. I then explained to him that I recently completed my Italian culinary training, and wasn’t there another option? He smiled and told me that I should look into changing my area...
Omni Daily Sort-of News: McCain Aide Wrote "O"?
Well, that was quick. Faster than Michiko Kakutani can type “trite, implausible, and decidedly unfunny,” speculation has reached a convincing pitch that the “Anonymous” behind O: A Presidential Novel is not someone in Obama’s inner circle, but Mark Salter, John McCain’s longtime speechwriter and amanuensis on books like Faith of My Fathers and Worth the...
Going Skinny Dipping For Super Bowl Snacking
Let’s face it. By the time the Super Bowl rolls around next Sunday, people who made New Year’s resolutions to eat healthy are sick of being on diets. They’re ready to cut loose and score some over-the-top fatty snacks. Hello chicken wings, platters of gooey nachoes, big sloppy burgers. The NFL’s biggest game of the year is a great excuse to overindulge.
This year,...
Are Grocery Stores Becoming The New "Third Place"
I was invited to a foodie tweet-up last night at a Whole Foods in Seattle. It was a special happy hour featuring global street food, and the menu included Jamaican souse, Filipino lumpia, Cuban fried plantain and Mexican sopes. Tables were reserved so we could comfortably eat and tweet.
It seems to me that there are an enormous number of foodies on twitter. (Follow me at @choicemorsel.) Food...
Five-Star Toys and Games
See our top-rated toys and games, as rated by Amazon customers. Categories include Preschool Toys, Construction Toys & Blocks, Kids’ Arts & Crafts, and Games.
Preschool Toys
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Construction Toys & Blocks ...
Vladimir Nabokov Vindicated: The Importance of...
Pages from my copy of Nabokov’s Butterflies, the author and butterfly enthusiast pictured on the left.
“I found it and I named it, being versed/in taxonomic Latin; thus became/godfather to an insect and its first/describer—and I want no other fame.” – from “A Discovery by Vladimir Nabokov, New Yorker, May 15, 1943 I don’t know why it seemed such a shot of adrenaline to read this...
The True True Grit
As Seira, like more or less everybody in the media world, noted this morning, True Grit, the second adaptation of Charles Portis’s novel into film, was one of the top nomination-rustlers in today’s Oscar announcement, and it’s the most prominent book-to-movie among the contenders. (Trivia side note, which I’m sure has been mentioned elsewhere: since Jeff Bridges is...
When Did Brussels Sprouts Get So Cool?
It seems like Brussels sprouts are everywhere these days, especially on restaurant menus. Just yesterday, I ordered a pizza topped with this member of the cabbage family at Serious Pie in Seattle. The pretty pale green sprouts were cooked al dente in the wood-fired pizza oven and paired with caramelized onions, a great combination.
When I was a kid, Brussels sprouts were typically boiled to...
Bourbon-Ginger Pork
Now that I’m back home, it’s time to start feeding my own family. Luckily, my friends in Vermont are always sending us new dishes to try. If you like Chinese flavors, this one’s for you too.
Previously, we have commended Good Housekeeping magazine for a couple of its excellent recipes. Now, we must take it to task for a disastrous one. We are on an electric-frying-pan kick at...
Amazon Exclusive: Daphne Kalotay Reviews "Stalina"
Daphne Kalotay is the author of the novel Russian Winter, and a critically acclaimed collection, Calamity and Other Stories, which was shortlisted for the 2005 Story Prize. She received her M.A. from Boston University’s Creative Writing Program, where her stories won the Florence Engel Randall Fiction Prize and a Transatlantic Review Award from the Henfield Foundation, before earning her...
2011 Toy Of The Year Nominees
Check out the 2011 Toy of the year nominees. Nominees include popular brands like LEGO, LeapFrog, Crayola, Fisher-Price, Playskool, and more. The 11th Annual Toy of the year award-winners will be announced on February 12, 2011.
The categories are:
Innovative Toy Of The Year
Activity Toy Of The Year
Boys’ Toy Of The Year
Educational Toy Of The Year
Game Of The Year
Girls’...
Oscar Nominees: Who's In, Who's Out
The Oscar nominations have been announced, and we’ve got your entire list right here, including new pre-orders for top nominees like True Grit, The King’s Speech, The Fighter, and Black Swan. But it’s always fun to talk about who’ll be sitting out this round. Among the snubs: 1) Poor Christopher Nolan. In the last three years he’s delivered two films that audiences...
Capturing A Burst Of Summer, One Squeeze At A Time
My sister called me the other day from her deck in sunny Southern California, where the temperature was around 77. Ugh.
She wasn’t trying to rub it in that she spent the morning in the garden, the birds chirping: Spring is here! This is the best time of the year to live in L.A. and I don’t begrudge her the pleasures of January sunshine, even as I brood under the endless gray skies of...
A Farewell To All That
My role as personal chef to my sister and her husband, who have just had a new baby, has come to an end. I made chocolate chip cookies (which I then froze, five to a bag, thanks to the comments of Sonja) in the wee hours of the morning and then stepped onto a plane for the long flight home.
Below is the tally for the freezer. (Uncles Luke and Denis made the Bourguignon, the pot pies and the...
National Book Critics Circle Nominees Announced
The National Book Critics Circle announced the nominees for their six annual awards this weekend, and perhaps because these awards reflect a critics’ consensus more than other prizes with smaller juries (NBCC president Jane Ciabattari explains their process on the Daily Beast), you’ll see many familiar names from the year-end best lists (11 of the 31 nominees were in our own...
Razzie Nominations Announced: "Last Airbender,"...
Here are the nominations for the Golden Raspberry Awards (aka the Razzies) honoring the worst movies of the year:
Worst Picture “The Bounty Hunter” “The Last Airbender” “Sex and the City 2” “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” “Vampires Suck”
Worst Actor Jack Black - “Gulliver’s Travels” Gerard Butler - “The...
Who's Up For Some Chicken and Waffles?
The unlikely combination of fried chicken and waffles has caused quite a stir in recent years, with many upscale restaurants adding the popular dish to brunch menus. There’s usually a nod toward the downhome Roscoe’s in Los Angeles and the East Bay as the godfather of this offbeat dish, but the roots run far deeper.
While roaming around, digging for history, I stumbled across a...
Enter the Future: The Iconic Asimov's SF Magazine...
The rise of e-books and demand for electronic content has created a period of transition for many of the iconic SF/Fantasy magazines like F&SF, Analog, and Asimov’s SF Magazine. To their credit, such publications are beginning to take full advantage of the options now available to them.
For example, Asimov’s editor Sheila Williams has just shepherded into e-print Enter the...
Caffeine Highs and Lows
Last week Starbucks announced it would buck the anti-Super Size Me movement and launch a 31-ounce option called the Trenta (for iced beverages only). Which makes me wonder: Is anyone at Starbucks headquarters paying attention to health and obesity statistics? Assuming that a high percentage of people will then add sugar to their gargantuan beverages, here is why I think this is a terrible idea...
Effortless Cooking with Uncles Luke and Denis
I was in my sister’s and her husband’s kitchen, making the same brisket I’ve made for years. I’m their personal chef for a few more days, helping out in the kitchen so that they can take care of their new baby. I love cooking the same recipes over and over. They become part of the family, and I’m at ease as I chop, mix and stir.
New recipes make me nervous. Did I...
Submit Your Novel to the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough...
Manuscript submissions for the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest are now being accepted through February 6, 2011, at 11:59 p.m. (U.S. Eastern Standard Time), or when 5,000 Entries have been received in each of the General Fiction and Young Adult Fiction categories, whichever is earlier. Visit www.createspace.com/abna to see the Official Rules and register and submit your Entry...
Happy National Pie Day!
Have you heard? Pie is the new cupcake, the sweet darling of the food-trend pundits. But I’ve always loved pie. (What’s not to adore?) I prefer a birthday pie to a cake. Whenever I spy pie on a menu, I order it. I own several pie cookbooks. Yes, I’m a sucker for pie.
Yet, I rarely bake it. Even after taking a pie-making class from the fantastic Kate McDermott, the Seattle-based...
Do Heirlooms Beat Modern Kitchen Tools?
One friend of mine cooks with his grandmother’s cast-iron pots, and I swear the family recipes he makes in those weighty, well-seasoned heirlooms taste better than when they’re repeated in modern gear. Another friend commented the other day how she wished she had even one of her grandma’s Le Creuset Dutch ovens.
But here’s the funny thing: Those same friends were over to...
Sandro's Pork Tenderloin
Betsy, Mary and Paul, this one’s for you!
Sandro’s Pork Tenderloin
Ingredients: 2 pork tenderloins 2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons olive oil 2 tablespoons brandy 1-1/2 cups chicken broth 3/4 cup dry white wine 1 cup heavy cream 1-1/2 cups Parmesan cheese 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, finely chopped Salt and pepper to taste
Directions: 1. Melt butter with oil over high heat. Add...
A Good Meal Gone Bad
It was going to be a delicious evening of food and memories. On the menu, Sandro’s pork tenderloin.
My sister and her husband came to meet my family in Italy this summer, and we all spent time with our friends Sandro and Terry. One evening, Sandro cooked up, seemingly out of thin air, a pork loin like I’ve never eaten before. It was soft and buttery, in a creamy gravy with hints of...
Graphic Novel Friday: Axe Cop!
Axe Cop’s awesomely succinct and B-movie-inspired title alone piqued my interest, but its backstory made it the must-read comic on my shelf. Two brothers (ages five and twenty-nine) came up with the concept over a Christmas break. The elder brother, Ethan Nicolle, drew a few pages based on the hyper-imaginative stories of his younger brother, Malachai, and then posted them online for fun....
Friday's Food For Thought: Super Bowl Snack...
Here at Al Dente Blog, our eyes are never too big for our stomach: We devour the food world news all week long, including the stories that give us heartburn.
Super Bowl Sunday is still a couple of weeks away, but I know you Type As are already in high party planning gear. Here are some fun ideas to get your creative juices flowing:
*For healthy snackers: 10 Do It Yourself Snacks Under 100...
What Is Your Clam Chowder Preference?
Yuck. It’s cold, dreary, windy, and rainy here in Seattle today. It isn’t exactly a “beach day,” but it is a great day to dip into a bowl of clam chowder. I tend to waffle between the creamy New England-style clam chowder and the tomato-based Manhattan-style clam chowder. The creamy chowder seems more popular here in the Pacific Northwest, while the Manhattan seems to...
SF Writer Jason Sanford: Special Interzone Issue...
Few SF/fantasy writers generate a buzz through short fiction alone, but Jason Sanford is an exception. Over the past few years, he’s created a growing fan base through his brand of modern speculative fiction, something he called “SF Strange.” published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Year’s Best SF 14, and other magazines and anthologies. He also founded the literary...
Reynolds Price, 1933-2011
When Randall Kenan contributed his list of essential North Carolina books for our Books of the States project a couple of years back, rather than choose a single example of Reynolds Price’s books, he just said “Reynolds Price,” and Price himself seemed a natural choice as the N.C. writer to honor on the spurious state quarters we were concocting back then. He was raised and...
The Healing Power of Chocolate Chip Cookies
In my new and temporary role as personal chef to my sister and her husband, who have a new baby, I’ve been working hard to make nutritious meals every day, with fruits, vegetables, eggs, meat, cheese and grains.
Today I made a healthy favorite, a mainstay in my cooking repertoire, the Nicoise Salad. We had it at lunch and picked at it again at dinner, combined with the leftovers from...
53rd Annual GRAMMY Awards: Performers, Quiz, and...
In preparation for the 53rd Annual GRAMMY® Awards on February 13th, SoundUnwound has created a Grammy-nominee quiz. Here’s your chance to test your knowledge of the music before the show and challenge your friends. Click here to give it a try!
As reported back in December, this year Eminem leads the pack with ten nominations, followed by seven nominations for Bruno Mars, and six nominations for...
The POURfect Solution For Teaching A Boy To Bake
My teenage son told me that he was in the mood for some homemade chocolate chip cookies the other day. I said, “Great. Here’s the bag of chips and there’s the KitchenAid mixer.” Initially, he responded by saying, “Huh?” Then, he realized I was serious. I told him that the machine was great for cranking out cookies. I also pointed out that the original...
Infinity Plus: New Science Fiction/Fantasy Books...
For years, Infinity Plus provided a source for high-quality, free science fiction, fantasy, and horror short stories online, plus nonfiction and some novellas. You can still access their website and read hundreds of great stories. But now, too, they’ve launched a great new e-book series that’s very reasonably priced. Their first releases are as eclectic as the short fiction on the...
Anne Hathaway and Other Actresses Who Played...
Today’s Warner Bros. announcement that Anne Hathaway* has been cast as Selina Kyle/Catwoman in the upcoming Batman film The Dark Knight Rises met with a variety of responses among Amazon’s Movies & TV team. Reactions ranged from mild surprise to “No way!” (Guess who was responsible for the latter—that’s right.) This sparked a minor debate as to who played the purr-fect Catwoman and why. Do...
Bagels For Breakfast, Kimchi For Lunch
Today was a dizzying day of family and friends, a wonderful peek into the world our new little one will inhabit, and a delicious one at that.
I didn’t cook a whit. But I ate the traditions of this new family, with bagels for breakfast and kimchi for lunch.
The bagels—egg, pumpernickel, marble, poppy, sesame and plain—came from Pikesville, which is said to have the largest...