Where are the summer cocktails?
I'm a bit late with this week's post. It's because I'm in the final throes of the summer cookbook roundup, that mad mid-May marathon smackdown from which just ten perfect summer cookbooks will emerge on NPR's summer…
Susie
Michael Natkin
We visit with Michael Natkin, who left his job in software engineering to follow his passion for food and devote himself to an innovative vision of vegetarian cooking. He is the author of the immensely popular and…
Girl trouble
We had no idea what we were getting into when the blog post on recipes that fail went up last week. What spawned the controversy was a single phrase I put in at the end of the piece: "the home cook will blame herself…
Epic fail - anatomy of the recipe that didn't
I recently tested a recipe of such surpassing inscrutability that I felt it merited a post of its own. Like last week's memorable disaster it was a sort of pie. But unlike last week's, the fault could not be chalked up…
First-love cookbooks
I don't know about you, but when I first learned to cook I had no idea what to look for in a cookbook. I had my old roommate Conrad's 365 Ways to Cook Chicken on permanent loan, and I'd been given The Essentials of…
When the pie hits the floor...the occupational hazards of cookbook reviewers
I am testing pies this week. (Yes, I know, poor me. Taking one for the team again.) Today was key lime tart and strawberry-rhubarb crumble pie. All day I made dough and fillings. The tart dough and filling for the key…
Read this post! Bossy cookbook titles
Every once in a while you come face to face with your own subtle biases. When I'm reviewing, I hunt hard for them...I figure that to be aware of a bias is a big step towards neutralizing it. But the one I discovered…
One animal books
It used to be that if you wanted to find that familiar diagram of a bovine, carved up with dotted lines into "rump," "loin," "plate," "brisket", you'd find yourself heading back to the Joy of Cooking, which was the last…
Book News Shelf Life With Susie
New Season Cookbooks Preview 2012
As the seasons change it's high time for a peek ahead to the cookbooks coming round the corner, including a veritable parade of big titles. These are some of ones Susie has spotted that are coming out shortly in North…
The selling of style
Something odd is going on in cookbook merchandising, and I'm trying to understand it. We're all familiar with the explosion of food websites and food blogs in the last 10 years and their inevitable transition into…
Matters of taste
Strangely enough, in just this past week I've seen two very different books on the scientific basis of taste. One looks at taste from a human-centered point of view. Barb Stuckey's a professional food developer. Taste…
One recipe cookbooks
When you bought the cookbook, you were sure it was forever. You browsed through it on the first day, turning down pages or maybe sticking post-its on the pages. Within a week you had tried a couple of the recipes and…