An Ode to Krispy Kreme Doughnuts When I read this morning that Krispy Kreme, the doughnut chain founded in 1937 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was opening its first-ever outpost in Bangkok, Thailand, today, I had to smile. The chain is suitably famous for its unbelievably addictive yeasty raised and glazed doughnuts; they are an ultimate comfort food, those little sugar bombs.... Food
Bacon Cheddar Muffins Do you notice bacon-lovers all over the place? I’m talking about people who find a way to include bacon into just about any recipe, from ice cream to pizza. Bacon’s currently beloved position of honor in the world of food is testament to the exaltation of the homey: Bacon is, after all, just slices of... Food
Broccoli and Cheese For Breakfast Eggs are one of the few foods that all four people who live in my house agree on: We love them, all of us. The problem is, we all have our own unique preferences as to how we like them cooked. My husband goes for over-easy. My younger son: scrambled. Me: poached. My older son,... Food
Deep Dish Caramel Apple Pie Conventional wisdom suggests that when it comes to dessert, there are chocolate people and then there are fruit people. I am a fruit person, and lemon desserts are my very favorite. So what’s up with that apple pie? Every once in awhile, a food comes along and takes you out of your comfort zone. It’s... Food
Double Chocolate Molasses Cookies You might assume that because I’m a food writer, my children are fantastic eaters. Nope. They like chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese and have no predilection for, say, octopus. They are not often impressed when I test recipes, either. So when my six-year-old piped up one afternoon recently with “let’s make cookies,” I responded... Food
Killer Baked Spaghetti with Bacon Casseroles are a brilliant concept—the original hearty feed-a-crowd, one-pot meal. None other than the great food writer M.F.K. Fisher called the casserole “probably one of the greatest modern inventions since aspirin.” She’ll get a witness from canny chefs and restaurateurs who have for years offered on their menus casseroles by names that seem to class... Food
Ten Great Uses for Iceberg Lettuce “Iceberg would smile if it could,” opined the cookbook author Marion Cunningham about her favorite lettuce. “It is sturdy but has a surprisingly delicate flavor. Unlike some of the frail field lettuces that wilt, swoon, and have the vapors ready, iceberg is a stalwart,” she wrote. It is awfully popular to knock iceberg lettuce in... Food
How More Sausage is Made “Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made,” wrote the late poet John Godfrey Saxe. I always agreed with that sentiment. Making sausage is not part of my own food heritage, and it always seemed like a hobby that was deeply, profoundly messy. But my friends Andrew... Food
Bubbe’s Chicken In my Southern-Jewish family, we always ate brisket on Rosh Hashannah (ten great Jewish holiday recipes are here). Now that I’m raising a family, we spend the Jewish holidays with friends. I miss my grandparents, especially my grandmother’s cooking. But I feel excited, too: I love to make new traditions for my own kids. Which... Food
New Age Chicken Schnitzel The term schnitzel conjures images of Oktoberfest, lederhosen, and platters of Flintstone-sized slices of fried meat. Schnitzel means “cutlet” in German and often refers to the egg-dipped, battered, fried veal called wiener schnitzel. It has many charms: When done right, the meat is fork-tender, the breading is perfectly salty, and the lemon wedges served on... Food
The Last Bite of Salsa Vinaigrette Did it happen when you started cooking for your kids: You discovered you were tossing out perfectly good yet uneaten food? It is impossible to predict which meal my kids will chow down on, and which they will forsake. It is clearly an arbitrary game-time decision. To combat the unnecessary discard, we instituted a “waste... Food
Pickles from My Aunt Elaine If you are lucky enough to have someone in your life who tells you the unvarnished truth no matter how difficult it may be to hear, you are lucky. My Aunt Elaine is like that. If you don’t want to know if a dress makes you look fat, don’t ask her. Her motto is, “I... Food
The World's Best Sardine Sandwich So there’s this really great sandwich shop in my town. It’s called “Sandwhich” because the Moroccan dude who owns it, who used to cook at Union Square Cafe in Manhattan, is named Hich. His are special sandwiches, filled with locally-sourced ingredients and made with a lot of care. They are not cheap, but I think... Food
Food White People Like Meet Christian Lander, 31, a white guy from Toronto, Canada, who was out to entertain his buddies when he launched the satirical website Stuff White People Like in January 2008. If you can get past the joke, his site is both wildly funny and wildly popular. Since then, the comedic social experiment has garnered more than... Food
7 Really Good Things from Martha Stewart Like millions of American women (and Andy Samberg), I have complicated feelings about Martha Stewart. Her quest for housekeeping perfection: totally irritating. Her recipes: nearly idiot-proof. Her capabilities: inspiring. I hate to get heavy, but Martha makes us think about feminism: What does it say about us if our kitchen counters don’t gleam and we... Food
Savory Cornbread and Bean Pudding: Make It Alluring The epic battle I wage against the drudgery of dinner on a busy weeknight has many casualties and many chapters; sometimes I feel like Frodo in “The Lord of the Rings,” muddling my way through Middle Earth. If you ask me, pulling together a family meal on nights when there’s not a lot of time... Food
Love Your Kids: Make Chicken Nuggets Yeah, I know all about it: Chickens don’t have any parts on their bony little bird bods called “nuggets.” (Just like tuna don’t have “loins”, a fact that doesn’t stop many chic restaurants from listing such a term on their menus.) And I know the brilliant reasons for keeping kids from processed foods. But if... Food
What to Cook This Weekend: Summer Brisket “For years I held fast to the theory that only two kinds of people could properly cook the cut of beef known as brisket: Southerners and Jews,” wrote a food writer a few years ago in Saveur magazine. The statement’s author, me, posits a view that Eastern European immigrants to the United States brought with... Food
Quick and Easy Eggplant Stir Fry: Not Just for Breakfast The other day my family spied some baby eggplants, stripy with purple and white, at our Whole Foods. They were labeled “Indian eggplants” and were on sale — as in not just for sale, but offered at a discount price…which we all know is unusual for “Whole Paycheck.” I was very intrigued for a variety... Food
Pesto Rocks: The Condiment We All Love It is documented among the food bloggers here at Babble that pesto is fantastic. (See our pesto archive.) And I would like to chime in, in my own special way. Note that it is with a painful self awareness bordering on shame that I write: Before it even came into view, the basil at my... Food
9-Minute Shrimp Cocktail: The Ultimate Summer Night Almost-No-Cook Dinner Sometimes I swan myself over to a very sophisticated bar, order a very dry and icy martini and a very sweet and tender shrimp cocktail, and contentedly ponder whether I should paint my nails shell pink or race car-red. And then a voice from the depths of the other room bellows “Mom! He took my... Food
Almost as Good as Fried Chicken Chicken Fried chicken is one of life’s true indulgences, a food at once achingly humble and yet astonishingly delicious. Can you tell I grew up in the South? Coated in buttermilk, sprinkled liberally with coarse salt and fresh-ground black pepper, fried in lard in a cast-iron skillet, fried chicken would be my last meal on earth... Food
Best Bundt Cake Ever: A Hug in Pan A bundt cake is all about the pan: the puffy tube of steel created by H. David Dalquist, Minneapolis native and cookware designer (also founding father of Nordic Ware) who was approached in 1950 by a group of immigrant Jewish women about creating for them a pan like one they’d used in Germany but were... Food
The Ultimate Jewish Baked Good: Mandel Brot It’s raining. It doesn’t matter that it’s also more than 90 degrees outside. It is a gray, gloomy, stay-in-bed sort of day. The only thing to do? Bake, of course. On days like this, I head for the cookie sheets and the sugar jar. And I tend to make old favorites; somehow trying out new... Food
