Al Dente

How To Get Rid of Fruit Flies (Low-Tech Version, High-Tech Version)

The downside of juicy, ripe summer produce? It attracts swarms of pesty fruit flies, which soon multiply into mega-swarms.

The remedies I've tried in the past? Failures. I've been told to leave out a glass of wine, or try a few drops of dishwasher liquid in a container of water. What did I get? House parties of flies who seemed to particularly enjoy a nice Cabernet.

This summer, though, I found the key. The first trick was a variation on the wine-glass method. Fill a jam jar with an inch or two of wine, but then cover the top with plastic wrap. (I know. Seems obvious now.) Secure the wrap with a rubber band, then poke a few holes through it. Flies get in, but can't get out.

Then Terro, the pest control company, sent over a sample of its new fruit fly trap. The trap is a little apple-shaped plastic ball, filled with a non-toxic compound (more or less vinegar and dish soap, looking at the ingredients). It operates on the same theory as the jam jar, and also works quite well. Bonus points to the Terro device for looking a lot nicer on the countertop than a rubber-banded jam jar. I'm tempted to ding it because the contents stained my counter when my curious toddler turned it upside down... but with enough scrubbing, the stain came out, and a red wine spill would have caused problems too. 

Customer reviews of the Terro are interesting -- people seem to either love it (17 five-star reviews) or hate it (9 one-star reviews). As you would figure, the lovers say it solved their infestations; the haters say it didn't work for them. Count me among the lovers, because my kitchen is now fly-free -- I may even have the nerve to set my compost container back on the counter. 

Short of calling in the Very Busy Spider, how do you get rid of a pesty (fruit) fly?

-- Rebekah Denn

The 50 Best Cookbooks Ever?

Hungering for a heated debate? The Guardian/Observer newspaper just listed its picks for the "50 Best Cookbooks of All Time," and there are plenty of bones to pick with it. Momofuku made the list, but not The French Laundry Cookbook? Jamie Oliver at #15? The Rice Book by Sri Owen, but nothing from Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid? No Bittman, no Blumenthal, no Michael Ruhlman, no Peter Reinhart...? Yes to Simon Hopkinson, who was also a panelist (#5), but no Jeffrey Steingarten? (Perhaps Steingarten doesn't technically count under "cookbooks," but neither do some of the others.) Delia Smith's "Complete How To Cook," but no "Joy of Cooking"? (It was a British-centric panel, of course, which might explain that one.)

On the other hand, I nodded my head at plenty of listings, like panelist Fuchsia Dunlop's "Land of Plenty" (#9, under its British title of "Sichuan Cookery") and Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking" (#39).

The #1 spot on the list? It went to The French Menu Cookbook by Richard Olney.

Comments are already spilling over on the Guardian's site, and the paper clearly expected a debate. In the introduction to the list, editors wrote "We can't promise to please all-comers. After all, one person's sauce-stained personal favourite is another's shelf-filling waste of space. That cookbooks arouse such passion is one of the reasons we put together the list in the first place."

All "best-of" lists are shaped by the tastes of the panelists, of course. But this one seems more open to debate than most. Which cookbooks would be on your list?

-- Rebekah Denn

Food Safety at Summer Barbecues (and Beyond)

A colleague at a catered barbecue last week, squinting at his burger, asked if I thought it was cooked through.

Luckily, I could tell him the burgers were fine -- not because I was any better than he was at gauging the level of pinkness in the meat, but because I had seen the catering staff poke each patty with a digital thermometer and check the numbers before releasing it to a bun. After years of reading professor Doug Powell's "BarfBlog," a sharp and scientific (and highly entertaining) blog on food safety, I know you can't trust the color of meat to tell you whether it's cooked. You need to make sure the internal temperature is high enough (160 degrees, in the case of ground beef) to kill any microorganisms.

Testing the temperature of my home-grilled burgers, which I always do, serves two purposes: For one, I'm reassured that the burgers are safe. For another, keeping an eye on the thermometer ensures that I don't overcook them. (I know some disagree, but the 160-degree burgers taste plenty juicy to me.)

How do you judge your burgers? By feel, by appearance, or by the numbers? 

  -- Rebekah Denn

Real Foodies Eat... Hershey Bars?

You might figure that James Oseland, editor-in-chief of Saveur magazine, would have some doozies when it comes to guilty pleasures. And you would be right. Sort of.

We're not talking quail tongues or foie gras gelee here (or even candied bacon ice cream or Mexican paletas, which are actually featured on Saveur's home page right now). No, the man favors milk chocolate Hershey bars.

Oseland (a Top Chef Masters judge and author of a stunning book on Southeast Asian food) told CNN's Eatocracy blog that Hershey's "velvety mouth-feel and subtle, caramel-like sweetness connect to my pleasure sensors (and to happy childhood memories) in an immediate, primal way." And that's not all. The other guilty pleasures in his Top 5 list are Dr. Pepper, Swiss Miss vanilla pudding cups, any barbecue potato chips, and (sharp intake of breath here) McDonald's Filet O' Fish.  He told Eatocracy, "I’m sorry, I know it is the height of foodie irresponsibility even to admit to setting foot inside the Evil Death Star that is McDonald’s, but the mega-chain’s Filet-O-Fish sandwiches are perfection on a bun." Check out the whole story here.

I admire his honesty. And I can sort of relate. I'm not all-artisanal-cheese-and-homemade-bread all the time, any more than he's all lemongrass-shallot sambal. I happen to think that Hershey's tastes like brown suet, but I'm not above a Butterfingers when alone in a room with a vending machine. And yes, lips that have touched Swiss Miss vanilla pudding shall never touch mine... because the plasticine chocolate version is more my speed.

I suspect that most of us who love food and cooking have a few similar guilty pleasures. Got any to share? I'll start: That candied bacon ice cream actually sounds great to me, but I'm also rather fond of Good 'n Plenty candies. 

What are your guilty food pleasures? Fess up below. No public shamings allowed!

Kitchen Indulgences: Do You Need A $400 Ice Cream Machine?

Do you need a $400 ice cream machine? It's something of a trick question. First, Amazon is currently discounting the machine in question, the Cuisinart ICE-50BC, so $260.99 is the true financial bar. Second, as my Depression-era grandmother would argue, few things in life are actual needs. 

Now that that's out of the way, let me say that I bought one of the ICE-50BC models (partly thanks to a generous gift certificate) for my own kitchen a few years back, in what friends have come to call "The Summer of The Perfect Scoop," when we went wild making batches of ice cream from that wonderful cookbook by David Lebovitz. 

The machine culinarily seduced me at a friend's house, when they used a similar model to toss together a spur-of-the-moment batch of chocolate mint ice cream. They started it just before we sat down to dinner; it was ready in time for dessert. 

The ice cream itself is excellent, but the spontaneity is a big part of what makes the machine worth the price tag to me. I don't have room in my freezer to keep a bowl from a standard machine at the ready, and I don't usually plan ice cream far enough in advance to clear out the freezer space and get the equipment ready. You can also make several batches in a row with the built-in compressor freezer, which has come in handy on more hot summer nights and for more parties than I would have guessed. (The only negative for me is that, as some reviewers have noted, the machine can be loud. But my dishwasher and fridge are equally loud, so my kitchen is already in a constant state of noise pollution.)

Ice cream maven Lebovitz owns the machine and recommends it highly, also offering good advice on less splurge-y options.

Sound crazy to you? Consider this: There's also a $700 ice cream maker, which boasts glowing Amazon ratings. (I did consider this review a recommendation: "Everyone in my family proceeded to gain 20 pounds soon after (t)his purchase.")

Aside from my KitchenAid and a Le Creuset Dutch oven, versatile workhorses which get constant use, my ice cream machine is the only piece of kitchen equipment I own that required such a financial investment. I haven't regretted buying it for a minute.

What's your biggest kitchen indulgence?

Give Your Wok a Facial

We all found Grace Young's expertise invaluable when she showed us how to season a wok. But what if your wok isn't new? What if you tried out the wok thing years back, shoved it in the back of your cabinet in frustration because you didn't have an inspiring guidebook, and now it's a rusty mess? (No. No. You would never do that. I meant to say, what if you bought an old wok at a garage sale, and need to know how to clean it?)

No worries. The Wok Doctor is in, and she shows us here how to use salt and oil for a "wok facial" to clean and rehabilitate even the worst woks. Hooked? There's more in Young's new book, Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge.

-- Rebekah Denn

Geekiest Grilling Gadgets?

How well do I speak geek? Let's just say that I once took an elective class in Fortran. So naturally, I tuned in when Scott Heimendinger, the Seattle Food Geek, posted a list of "5 Grilling Tools Every Food Geek Should Own". I admit that his first selection, extra-long barbecue tongs, struck me as practical more than geeky, and #2, the TurboQue Turbo-Charged Smoker, tiptoed closer to the realm of the fanatical. But he won me back with #3, the infrared thermometer, and #4, the instant digital probe thermometer. (Did I mention that my dad, a chemical engineer, once used his lab thermometer on our Thanksgiving turkey, roasting it to six significant figures?) 

Best of all was geek gadget #5, onion goggles. This tool, meant to "protect the eyes from irritating onion vapors," is purchased about half the time as a gag gift, half as a serious purchase, a saleswoman once told a writer for Saveur. The Saveur writer counted herself among the serious fans. Amazon reviewers, as you can see, also love them, bestowing a slew of 5-star ratings. As one reviewer put it, "The bad news...you'll look totally silly wearing them. The really great news...they work!" They're not just for onions; reviewers praise them for other uses too. 

Scott neatly summarized it this way in his grilling post: "The foam-lined glasses are highly effective at keeping the smoke out of your eyes, and keeping girls from ever talking to you."

Check out Scott's full discussion of geeky grilling gear here. And if you want to go beyond grilling and just focus on the geek part, look out for this upcoming book, "Cooking for Geeks," or check out one of my all-time favorite cooking reference books, the one that makes us realize that cooks should be geeks, Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking".

McGee, by the way, has this to say about the eye-watering sulfur compound released when we chop onions: "This volatile chemical escapes from the damaged onion into the air, and lands in the onion cutter's eyes and nose, where it apparently attacks nerve endings directly, then breaks down into hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide, and sulfuric acid. A very effective molecular bomb!" He recommends chilling onions for 30-60 minutes in ice water before chopping them.

-- Rebekah Denn

Gwyneth Paltrow's Cookbook Picks

Didn't pick up on the Al Dente recommendation or on other kudos for Urban Pantry? The new cookbook from Amy Pennington, "a gal who defines cool in Seattle," just got a celebrity nod as well, with Gwyneth Paltrow giving it top billing in her latest "GOOP" newsletter. 

Paltrow praised the book in her list of summer cookbook picks, saying it's "full of clever recipes for using your kitchen to the max," and reprinting some of its tips and recipes, including an introduction to water-bath canning. 

As I write, the book has broken Amazon.com's list of top 100 bestsellers. Buyers are purchasing it along with some of Paltrow's other selections, including Sophie Dahl's cookbook, "Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights" and the "Recipes from an Italian Summer" book from the editors of Phaidon Press.

I've enjoyed seeing Pennington's other food and gardening projects, such as the Urban Gardenshare program, which I wrote about here, but the cookbook has been a particular pleasure. Pennington writes just the sort of recipes I like to make at home -- bright and full of good flavors, nutritious and economical, approachable even when they call for learning new skills. Who knew that Gwyneth and I had something in common?

Check out some of Pennington's recipes and Paltrow's other cookbook picks here.

-- Rebekah Denn

Great Grilling Gone Global

He’s been called the “guru of grilling” and the “Tolstoy of Tabasco,” but here’s what Steven Raichlen says about himself: “I’m the sort of guy who will travel halfway around the world to try a dish I’ve never had before.”

That’s just what the "Barbecue Bible" author did for his latest release, "Planet Barbecue!" -- technically speaking, it's what he did again and again. Raichlen's currently on tour for the new book, after spending three years flying around to more than 50 countries in search of great global grilling and barbecue traditions. 

When we caught up with Raichlen by phone before his planned Seattle appearance Friday, he said the book came out of a simple but profound realization: “Grilling is the world’s oldest and most universal cooking method, but everywhere you go, it’s done differently.”

Think of it as “barbecue as comparative literature,” he said. And if one of his previous projects, “BBQ USA,” was a love song to America, this one is a shout-out to the great and iconic grill dishes that other nations have to offer.

I've been a Raichlen fan since meeting him on his last Seattle tour, where he not only shared his Dahlia Lounge dessert with me (*that's* generosity) but answered every question I could imagine on grilling any ingredient I could imagine. (He also gave the best answer I've heard to date in the gas v. charcoal debate: Why not gas and charcoal? And, as far as that goes, his own preferred fuel is wood.)

Here are some highlights from our conversation:

On figuring out where to visit for the book: Raichlen started with 35 or 40 countries on his must-do list, but others emerged through his research. Colombia, for instance, “certainly wasn’t on my barbecue map.” But he kept hearing about lomo al trapo, beef tenderloin wrapped in damp cloths with a half-pound of salt, grilled directly on embers until it’s charred. He took off for Colombia and dubbed the dish "the best way there is to cook beef tenderloin," with meat that's incredibly moist when the salt crust is cracked open. 

On whether the people he visited shared their recipes: “In general, people were incredibly generous with their knowledge and their recipes.” Regardless, what he was after was experiencing the dish in its land of origin, and translating that experience sometimes required tweaking. In most of the world, for instance, grills don’t have grates, so he had to work around that to achieve the same results for U.S. cooks.

On which places stood out for him: Beyond the obvious stops like Japan, Argentina, and India, he was “delighted and surprised” by Cambodia, where he saw a 12th-century temple with a carving of barbecue on its walls and a “virtuoso range” of dishes from grilled eggs to corn grilled in coconut milk. Serbia, a place he approached with trepidation because of its 1990s strife, also turned out to be a delight, with “this amazing grill culture, dominated primarily by women.”

On whether his travels changed the way he thinks about American barbecue: Doesn’t sound like it. “Grilling and barbecuing are one of the few arenas where America is truly world-class.” 

On advice for making great satays (a question from a Twitter follower): In general, he reminds us, good things in Asian barbecue comes in small packages. “Traditionally, you have a lot of people, inexpensive labor, hands to do the cutting, but fuel is relatively scarce, grills are small, space is limited.” The meat must be cut in very small pieces, he said, and must be seasoned robustly. Don’t forget to add some kind of fat to the marinade, from vegetable oil to coconut milk. Architecturally, the meat should occupy no more than half the skewer. The other half should be kept free for a handle. Also, leave a quarter-inch point at the end of the skewer to scoop up a post-grill bite of cucumber relish. 

Frustrated by bamboo skewers that burn on the grill? “In Asia, satay grills are very slender, they look like elongated shoeboxes.” There, the meat-free part of the skewer hangs over the edge and doesn’t burn. Here, try folding some foil into a makeshift grill shield and sliding it under the exposed part of the skewer.  

On what he’s doing next: “I have just finished my first novel, and it has nothing to do with barbecue! It’s a love story set off the coast of New England. I’m not leaving barbecue, but certainly that was a thrilling project, and I hope to write more books that are not cookbooks.” If all goes well, look for it next spring.

-- Rebekah Denn

How To Season A Wok

Hungry to know more about how to season a wok? Here's a video of the recent get-together where Grace Young, author of "Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge," did an expert demonstration with Tracy Schneider's new wok.

Young had an answer for every question our wok-challenged selves had about a piece of equipment that's intimidated most of us in the past. She said she loves being the "wok doctor". People get so nervous about the problems they come across, she said, yet "the solutions are so simple". Listening to her, they really did seem that way.

Check out the comprehensive book for recipes, stories, and detailed recommendations for picking out a wok. (Young advises choosing a flat-bottomed one, better suited to lower-powered Western ranges, and says a 14-inch diameter is ideal). She also stressed during our seasoning session at host Hsiao-Ching Chou's home that a good wok is a lifetime investment, one that requires time and care more than money.

"The best wok is just ordinary carbon steel, and you don't need to spend more than $25."

Use it well, though, and it will acquire a natural nonstick surface -- creating a treasure that will, as she told Tracy, last a lifetime. One of the sweetest moments that afternoon was hearing Hsiao-Ching say that her own wok, after building up that invaluable patina over the years, will go with her now 3-year-old daughter when she's ready to leave home. I love that idea. But for now, here's how to get started:

-- Rebekah Denn

Repurposed Kitchen Tools

For me, learning new kitchen skills has meant pulling out some surprisingly old gear. 

Andrea Nguyen's latest book, for instance, Asian Dumplings, imparted this bit of forehead-smacking wisdom among its other helpful tips: A tortilla press will do a great job flattening out dumpling dough. You only need a rolling pin to finish it off.

And when I started baking bread more seriously, I never got the hang of slashing the top of a loaf with a razor blade or knife, as the directions dictated. My kitchen shears, though, worked fine. At a recent conference, I was surprised (and glad) to see professional bakers recommending the same thing.

I figured I couldn't be the only one doing double-duty with tools, and that I could find some more obvious-once-you-think-of-it tips. Indeed, Marisa McClellan posted a while back about how useful a potato masher could be when making guacamole. Commenters on her post recommended repurposing a melon baller as a tool to make elegant, petite ice cream scoops, and employed a tea ball to sift small amounts of powdered sugar over cakes. 

Meanwhile, over at Chow, they're using a salad spinner to remove the seeds from canned tomatoes. It's nice to see the maligned single-use kitchen gadgets pick up some extra jobs along the way.

Any recommendations? I'm sure there are plenty of uses I've missed for tools I already own, but, somehow, I don't think I'll be making scrambled eggs with an espresso machine. I'm sure it's not the same, but my stovetop gets them fluffy enough for me. 

-- Rebekah Denn

Food Styling Master Class

Two things struck me after browsing through Food Styling, the impressive new book by Delores Custer. One is how thorough the hefty hardcover is -- practically a textbook, as one Amazon reviewer commented, although also entertaining and readable. The other thing is how many people, in this new world of photo-rich food blogs and food photography sites, have been asking just the sort of questions she addresses. Five years ago, I would have admired the book but expected it to have a tiny audience. Now, I think it'll be the essential resource in a field hungry for expert advice.

Custer, who has worked as a food stylist (and instructor) since 1978, uses her nearly 400 pages of text to share trade secrets about how to make food look good in a photo or on film. She reviews everything from prepping dishes to invoicing clients to overcoming "challenging" foods. She drills down into both the business and creative sides of the field, and still has room left over to share her own war stories. (What would you do if Paul Newman decided at the last minute he needed two 5-pound lobsters for a shoot, and there was nothing bigger than a 2-pound lobster to be found?) In the school of all-natural food shots versus gorgeous but inedible products, she falls on both sides, willing to use glues and sprays as needed, but also providing plenty of tips for those who expect their subjects to serve double-duty as dinner.

The tome is an investment ($75 list, but currently $47.25 on Amazon), but I've paid more for a single food photography class, and I think it's worth it. Here's a random sampling of five tips from the many that struck me throughout the book. And Seattleites will be tickled to know the author is also the mom of one of our star chefs, Danielle Custer.  

1. When photographing blueberries, look for berries that have a lot of white bloom on them, so they won't appear black when photographed. Are you tearing a muffin in half? Run a wooden skewer several times through the bottom along the area you want to split, then tear it open from bottom to top. Milk and cookies? Use whole milk or half-and-half; lower-fat milks don't look creamy and sometimes have a bluish cast.

2. The 34 "typical" items Custer details in her styling kit include Joyce Chen scissors, which she says "are strong enough to cut through chicken bones, but they will also do very fine work, such as snipping off one little leaf of dill that is too long."

3. The color of the fruit or vegetable in a shoot can suggest a complementary side dish or garnish. Custer's chart of suggestions includes, among the "red foods," apples, cherries, crabs, Edam cheese rinds, pomegranates, radishes, red lentils, and rhubarb.

4. "Watch for strong contrasts in dark and light foods or props. The camera has trouble exposing for both. A white item will look bigger and bolder on film. Think about softening it, reducing it, or breaking it up." With whipped cream on a dark chocolate cake, for instance, soften it by dusting the cream with cocoa powder or cinnamon, reduce it by making the dollop of cream smaller, or break it up by garnishing it with a raspberry or mint sprig.

5. Think of the edge of the plate as a picture frame. A common mistake is to have too much food overlapping the edge.

-- Rebekah Denn

(Kitchen) Tools For A Happy Marriage

I married young, with only fledgling kitchen skills, and my husband and I ate on a student budget. Years later, we're better cooks, but we still feel like newlyweds. One of the things I appreciate about The Newlywed Kitchen, the new book by Lorna Yee and Ali Basye, is that it includes some recipes that would have worked for us at either stage of our lives. (I only wish I'd had the confidence to try prosciutto pastry pinwheels at student-housing dinner parties, but I could have braved the orange-blackberry scones.) Newlyweds who love cooking will dive into dishes like rack of lamb with sour cherries, cauliflower and capers, or carrot cake with whiskey praline cream filling. But any kitchen romantics will spend time on the book's interviews with couples who enjoyed successful collaborations in life as well as at the stove. 

Seeing the lists of their favorite kitchen tools brought back memories of the generous wedding gifts that helped along our own newlywed cooking experiences -- the pasta machine from my sister that let my husband run back from class to make fresh noodles for lunch, the coffee pot from my cousin Joan that seemed so fancy at the time -- it let you set an automatic brewing timer! -- we couldn't believe someone spent so much money to give us a little luxury in our new life together. 

Armandino and Marilyn Batali of Salumi talked in the book about running out of cash and food on their honeymoon, but how it didn't take a lot of money to eat well when people gathered their own clams and grew or gathered their own produce. Their favorite things in the kitchen are "a good saute pan and a Cuisinart". Amy and Neal Fraser of BLD and Grace talked about food made simply and with love, and pronounced a Staub cast-iron pan as their favorite kitchen tool, "good for everything, from scrambling eggs to braising meat". Amy Scherber of Amy's Bread favored a good pair of tongs, while master sommelier Sally Mohr went specific with "a two-stage waiter's corkscrew with a double boot and a Microplane cheese grater."

It didn't surprise me to see one couple's recommendation of a KitchenAid stand mixer. We didn't acquire one of those until we had been married nearly a decade, and we still feel lucky every time we use it, which would be nearly every time we bake. (We might have to pull it out to try Lorna's orange-cinnamon honey sticky buns.) We have young kids now, and that brings a whole new dimension to cooking together as a family. But I know two things: One, my children would probably dive right into making prosciutto pastry pinwheels -- they've grown up watching two people who love each other and also love to cook together. Two, it won't seem like very long before, if I'm lucky, I'll be watching them celebrate their own love stories, unwrapping gifts like Newlywed Kitchen and setting up their own coffee pots and saute pans. Perhaps my husband and I will send them off with a rack of lamb dinner.

What were your own favorite newlywed recipes?

-- Rebekah Denn

Absolutely Amazing Doughnuts

Three shocking things about the "sugar and spiced mini doughnuts" I ate at a recent baking symposium at the International Association of Culinary Professionals conference:

1. They were gluten-free.

2. They were dairy-free.

3. They were baked, not fried.

In short, they lacked some major pieces of what I normally consider essential doughnut-hood. However:

4. They tasted so good.

5. I wanted a cup of coffee just so I could dip the donuts in it.

6. I am not crazy, because my husband, an even harsher critic than I usually am, offered equivalent praise when he finished the leftovers 12 hours later. (I wanted to eat them all myself, but I wanted his opinion more.)

The donuts came from the hands of Silvana Nardone, whose new book, "Cooking for Isaiah," is due out this fall. Nardone, also the founding editor of Everyday With Rachael Ray, told the group how Isaiah, her son, was diagnosed with gluten and dairy intolerances at age 10. The list of foods he could no longer eat was a tough sentence for a kid that age. "They know what everything tastes like. It's like saying the sky is no longer blue," Nardone said. And it might be especially tough for a child whose mother had run an Italian bakery, who used to have a kid-business card with the title "director of quality control".

Nardone's goal was to develop gluten-free baked goods every bit as good as the ones her son could no longer have -- chocolate chip cookies, for instance, that tasted like chocolate chip cookies, not like a consolation prize. This is a common message to hear from people doing fill-in-the-blank-free cooking. Sometimes it works (I'm always thrilled and hungry for an invitation to my friend Gluten-Free Girl's table.) But too often it doesn't, even when the baker thinks it has. (I had to agree with another food writer sitting next to me, who gasped "this...is....awful!" as she bit into a different baker's samples of other gluten-free goods.) Nardone's donuts, to me, were startling in how closely they matched the sugary donuts I'd pick up at any good bakery.

I don't meant to tease gluten-free readers by not giving out the full recipe, but the book isn't out yet, and that's where the recipe will be for the all-purpose gluten-free flour blend Nardone developed. "I wanted a 5-pound container of flour in my cabinet," she said, rather than tweaking different percentages of tapioca flour and potato flour and the likes for every recipe. If you just want to try great dairy-free baked donuts, though, she did say that people who don't have problems with gluten can use regular all-purpose flour in her recipes. I was curious about the doughnut baking pans too, and they seem to be a general hit. 

So, here's the recipe as Nardone gave it out at the conference. I was impressed enough by the doughnuts (and by the muffins she also passed out) to keep my eyes out for her book. And until then, what other cookbooks would you recommend for people with celiac disease or dairy allergies?

Sugar-and-Spiced Mini Doughnuts

Ingredients:

for donuts:

1 1/2 cups gluten-free Silvana's All-Purpose Flour (or, in this case, regular all-purpose flour)
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup rice milk

for spiced sugar:

1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease two nonstick 12-doughnut baking pans with nonstick cooking spray. To make the doughnuts, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in a large bowl.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil and milk until smooth. Add to the flour mixture and whisk until combined; fill each doughnut cup about half full. Bake until springy and a toothpick inserted comes out clean, 10-12 minutes. Let cool slightly in the pans.
3. Meanwhile, make the spiced sugar. In a small bowl, stir together the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and cloves. Dredge the warm doughnuts in the spiced sugar to coat.

Makes about 20 doughnuts

Silvana Nardone, "Cooking for Isaiah"

-- Rebekah Denn

Jamie Oliver Can't Do It Alone

As fun (or depressing, depending on your attitude) as it's been to watch Jamie Oliver try to revolutionize school lunches, there's only so much one celebrity chef can do. That's why it's been inspiring to watch a group of Seattleites get fired up by Oliver's "Food Revolution" show, founding a local action group supporting his goals and announcing a "Teach Your Kid To Cook Day" on April 17. 

The inaugural event will include free cooking lessons for kids at Seattle's University District Farmers Market, with chefs and cookbook authors contributing advice and recipes. Want to participate? Even if you don't live in the Northwest, you can mark the day by teaching a child to cook any simple recipe that incorporates "fresh, whole, and wholesome" ingredients. 

I watched the idea take off, as so many do these days, on Twitter, backed by an old colleague of mine, Hsiao-Ching Chou. I asked why the idea resonated with her, and it sounded as though it fit with her overall philosophies of food and parenthood: "You can eat well at any level. You just have to know how to cook. That means you have to understand how to shop for whole ingredients, how to be resourceful, and you have to put value in family mealtime."

If you're trying to avoid cafeteria food after seeing Oliver's close-up view of it, here are some ideas for brown-bag school lunches that I gathered the year my own son started kindergarten. This book has lots of useful information and recipes too. And if you like the idea of joining Oliver's revolution in a more hands-on way than signing a petition, why not participate on April 17 -- or start a Food Revolution branch of your own? 

-- Rebekah Denn

Ready for Dessert

It's a good sign for a new cookbook when the food-lovers at the table keep passing it around. At one point on Sunday, I kept grabbing back Ready for Dessert to check on directions for the coconut tapioca pudding simmering on the stove, with my husband flipping the page back to write out his shopping list for peanut butter cookies, and our friend Tea copying directions for yet another irresistible recipe. 

The warm reception wasn't a particular shock. David Lebovitz is one of a handful of authors whose books are pure gifts in the kitchen. He helps readers easily stretch into experiments that otherwise would have seemed out of their comfort zones -- marshmallows, meringues, macarons, souffles. Somehow, under his written guidance, they work. It helps that he writes engaging, wry headnotes and blog posts, and it helps that his own gusto for the food comes through on the page. But the proof is in the pudding -- in this case, that includes coconut tapioca, orange-almond bread pudding, and kumquat sticky toffee -- and I find his recipes both unintimidating to prepare and impressive to eat. 

In his latest book, which includes a dozen new offerings along with updated hits from out-of-print books, Lebovitz gives some background to his philosophy: "When people tell me 'I can't bake,' I'm truly puzzled because baking is the least fussy of the culinary arts," he writes in the introduction. "Sure, you need to measure carefully, but 1 cup of sugar is 1 cup of sugar. Eight tablespoons of butter isn't really open to interpretation. To me, baking has much of the guesswork taken out of it. (I often think the world would be a safer place if people would drive with the same exactitude and precision that they think is necessary when baking.)"

He also provides some recommendations on kitchen gear, which I appreciate seeing. Sure, as he writes, you can get by pretty well with the basics, but a few extras do make baking easier and more enjoyable. The biggest tip he can offer is to buy the best you can, and "fortunately, the best isn't always the most expensive." A few items on his list: He wouldn't bake without a pastry scraper in reach, he likes heatproof silicone spatulas, especially the Le Creuset "spatula spoon," and his own favorite cookware is All-Clad. 

But, mostly what we're here for are recipes, and there are enough here to keep me happily busy for months: Peaches in Red Wine, Pistachio-Cardamom Cake, Rosemary Cookies With Tomato Jam, Nectarine-Raspberry Upside-Down Gingerbread... I can't wait. Already, I can vouch for that tapioca pudding, which my 7-year-old said reminded him of Thai sticky rice with mango. And even as I type these words, the oven timer is beeping to alert me that the peanut butter cookies are done. 

Coconut Tapioca Pudding

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups (875 ml) Thai coconut millk
1 3/4 cups (430 ml) whole or lowfat milk
1 cup (200 g) sugar
1 cup (160 g) small pearl tapioca
Pinch of salt
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
3 large eggs, separated
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Dried unsweetened shredded or flaked coconut, or shards of fresh coconut, toasted

Directions:

1. In a medium saucepan, combine the coconut milk, milk, sugar, tapioca, and salt. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean and add them to the saucepan, then drop in the pod. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly with a heatproof spatula to make sure the mixture isn't scorching on the bottom, until the pudding thickens and the tapioca pearls are completely cooked through and translucent, about 20 minutes (Note: Mine took more like 30). Remove from the heat.

2. Briskly stir the egg yolks into the pudding, incorporating them quickly. Let cool for about 10 minutes. Remove the vanilla pod.

3. In a stand mixer fitted with the whip attachment (or in a bowl by hand), whisk the egg whites on medium speed until they form soft peaks. Fold the whipped egg whites into the pudding, then stir in the vanilla extract.

4. The pudding can be served warm or cold. Spoon it into individual serving dishes and toss with toasted coconut. A simple compote of fresh tropical fruit, such as cubes of bananas, mangoes, papayas, and pineapple, tossed in brown sugar, is a perfect accompaniment. The pudding will keep for 3 days in the refrigerator.

Serves 8.

Recipe reprinted with permission from Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes by David Lebovitz, copyright © 2010. Published by Ten Speed Press, a division of Random House, Inc.

-- Rebekah Denn

What Makes A Kitchen Tool Go Viral?

 I could have written this love letter to immersion blenders myself. My sister could have too, she bought the same model after visiting from the East Coast and seeing mine in full liquefying action. Then she bought one for my mom as a holiday gift. And my mom bought one for my brother. I expect the ripples are still spreading -- after all, I bought my own after seeing a friend use hers.

The blender's appeal is easy to quantify. It's powerful and efficient and affordable, and it makes nuisancy kitchen tasks easier. I'm a lot more likely to make soup these days now that I don't hit the deal-breaker line of "puree carefully in small batches".

But the immersion blender isn't the only tool that I've seen spread with the dominance of a Girl Scout selling the season's first Thin Mints. The Microplane is a similar super-tool, grating and zesting with the greatest of ease. Bakers all over seem to be springing for Silpat non-stick mats.

What are the common threads in tools that go viral? The aforementioned "powerful, efficient, affordable" all apply. Then, I think viral tools address needs that are near-universal in kitchens. Most people will need to zest a lemon with some frequency; but not everyone will want (or admit to wanting) help poaching an egg.

Any other nominations for tools that seem to be in the hands of everyone you know? My next prediction for a kitchen-drawer takeover, if it hasn't reached that status already: Angled measuring cups. 

-- Rebekah Denn

Little-Known Herbs I Have Loved

I planted part of my herb garden one year based on the recipes I wanted to try in Jerry Traunfeld's The Herbal Kitchen. After seeing the magic Traunfeld's quick, straightforward recipes wrought with familiar friends like dill and basil, I couldn't resist delving into the realm of cinnamon basil and lovage. 

Lovage, in particular, turned out to be a winner both in the garden and on the plate. In Seattle's moderate climate, it springs back every year around this time, the first soft herb of the season that I can pick by the cupful instead of the pinch. By mid-summer, the plant practically grows into a bush, and I cut the celery-flavored leaves into omelets, cook them into sauces for fish, even pick lovage bouquets for the house. 

So far this spring, my lovage have all been about soup. I could give you a recipe, but it doesn't really need one; just make potato-leek soup with a cup of chopped lovage stirred in near the end. Try sauteeing a handful of sliced leeks in olive oil, adding 4-6 cups of chicken or vegetable broth, then simmering it all with about 2 pounds of peeled, sliced Yukon Golds until tender. Lightly press down on the potatoes with a masher until you like the texture (make sure not to splash hot soup on yourself). Add lovage, simmer a few minutes more, then add salt and pepper and maybe a spoonful of creme fraiche.

Now, what new herbs should go in this year's garden?

-- Rebekah Denn

Can Recipes Be Too Simple?

Food writer Monica Bhide recently wrote that she got a complaint about her latest cookbook, Modern Spice. Not a complaint about the way the food tasted, that part was great. The reader's problem was that the recipes were "too simple."

The woman told Bhide Indian cooking is supposed to be hard. “And this book made it seem easy. That isn’t real Indian cooking, right?”

Remembering my own early cooking days, I can understand why Bhide's reader expected complications and stress. But one of the wonderful surprises I found when I branched out my skills is that great cooking, regardless of the cuisine, doesn't have to be difficult. It doesn't require real magic, all it takes is learning the secret behind an impressive magic trick. And even restaurant-worthy dishes can be as simple, wonderfully simple, as procuring the right ingredients and combining them in a practical way. (As Bhide pointed out, "Ask someone what their favorite dish is to make at home and rarely will they announce foie grais with bacon air, mint puree, and pine nut confit.") 

Commenters on her post, including fellow cookbook authors, joined the debate. Dorie Greenspan wrote that "for me, the most important thing about a dish is the pleasure it brings to those who share it. Whether it took me all day or just a few minutes to prepare, whether I used a handful or a cupboardful of ingredients, whether it involved a fancy technique or a quick stir, the ultimate criterion is still pleasure." Elissa Altman wrote that "it's inevitably the simplest dishes and recipes that are the most brilliant, and the most true; consider David Tanis, for example, whose recipe for salmon is something like "salmon, salt, pepper, sear, serve."

But those blog-readers, one would assume, are already fans. Does anyone else, like the reader who approached Bhide, feel cheated when they aren't challenged by a new cookbook? Do you crave complicated kitchen adventures? Would you rather bake a crumble or a croissant?

-- Rebekah Denn

The Inevitable Canning Backlash

Anything seen as trendy in the food world gets a take-down sooner or later, so I shouldn't have been surprised to see this Slate article conclude that home canning has become the "pretty" and "modish" and "self-congratulatory" domain of urban kitchen warriors and boasting bloggers.

"It's cute that a practice once associated with grandmothers, 4-H-ers, zealous gardeners with too many cucumbers, and the occasional survivalist, is now a litmus test for gourmandism," the article said. "But there's a revivalist fervor bottled up in those jars—enthusiasts tout the thriftiness, healthfulness, and environmental virtues of marmalades and dilly beans—that seems overwrought."

Now, the author here is a generally fabulous food writer. I normally nod my head at her sharp and astute articles, but this one had me shaking it the other way. I can't argue with the assertion that buying a slew of new canning equipment and jamming up a ribbon-wrapped collection of $5/lb heirloom tomatoes isn't particularly frugal. The process does pencil out nicely, though, if you re-use those cans year after year, and choose tomatoes from the cheapie seconds bins, or grab 20 pounds of inexpensive fruit from the U-Pick, or if you do belong to that not-particularly-endangered category of zealous gardeners with too many cucumbers. Even better? The home-canned and pickled foods I've sampled generally taste great, which alone seems a good enough reason to make them. Even better than that? I know exactly what's gone into the cans. I don't wind up grabbing a jar off the shelf that's loaded with sweeteners, dyes, preservatives, and additives that I'd need a chemistry degree to decode. If that's considered touting an environmental virtue, I'm OK with that.

I also plead guilty to the charge of not "producing serious food for the future," but that never struck me as the purpose of my own canning. We no longer need to rely on home canning to keep our families fed through the winter (though my Midwestern cousins still do a good job at that, and I should take lessons from them). My own relatively small investment of labor last summer meant that my family feasted on wonderful jam from the pantry year-round, enough to carry us through to the next berry season. That was enough of a reward for me to plan on returning to my collection of quilted jelly jars as soon as cheap flats of strawberries hit the farmers market. Call me overwrought. Call me cute. Or, spend some time with the Ball Blue Book of Preserving. Sure, as the article decried, there are plenty of "sassily titled" new canning books on the market. Some of them are quite good, too. But the Ball book is a classic that's been around for more than 100 years -- that should tell us something. Rather than dismiss its topic as "ridiculously trendy," maybe we could think of it instead as a lasting trend.

-- Rebekah Denn