Ingredients Recipe Quotes

There will never be another woman who owns the look, the personality, and the experience that you do. Those ingredients make up the recipe that defines who you are, and it's your gift from the Lord - own it.

In my food world, there is no fear or guilt, only joy and balance. So no ingredient is ever off-limits. Rather, all of the recipes here follow my Usually-Sometimes-Rarely philosophy. Notice there is no Never.

Once you start cooking, one thing leads to another. A new recipe is as exciting as a blind date. A new ingredient, heaven help me, is an intoxicating affair.

Witches and sorcerers cultivated plants with the power to "cast spells" -- in our vocabulary, "psychoactive" plants. Their potion recipes called for such things as datura, opium poppies, belladona, hashish, fly-agaric mushrooms (Amanita muscaria), and the skin of toads (which can contain DMT, a powerful hallucinogen). These ingredients would be combined in a hempseed-oil-based "flying ointment" that the witches would then administer vaginally using a special dildo. This was the "broomstick" by which these women were said to travel. (119)

Abusiveness can be thought of as a recipe that involves a consistent set of ingredients: control, entitlement, disrespect, excuses, and justifications (including victim blaming)—elements that are always present, often accompanied by physical intimidation or violence.

...he was fascinated by the mid-western/middle American phenomenon of recombinant cuisine. Rice Krispie Treats being a prototypical example in that they were made by repurposing other foods that had already been prepared (to wit, breakfast cereal and marshmallows). And of course, any recipe that called for a can of cream of mushroom soup fell into the same category. The unifying principle behind all recombinant cuisine seemed to be indifference, if not outright hostility, to the use of anything that a coastal foodie would define as an ingredient.

Cooking is not a science but an art, mistakes are okay, messes are fine—the pleasure is in the creating and the sharing of the result.

She thought that trying to live life according to any plan you actually work out is like trying to buy ingredients for a recipe from the supermarket. You get one of those trolleys which simply will not go in the direction you push it and end up just having to buy completely different stuff. What do you do with it? What do you do with the recipe? She didn't know.

She kept the wish to herself, as she should have, and simply blew out the candle.I clapped and whistled and then dove into my own cupcake, dying to know how my creations tasted. And seeing as I’d done the hard work—frosting and decorating—I felt like I could take credit and call them my creations. All Cassie had done was get the ingredients, come up with the recipe, and do all the measuring and mixing.

No matter our age, everyone in our household knows that cooking and eating together is where the fun is

Give two cooks the same ingredients and the same recipe; it is fascinating to observe how, like handwriting, their results differ. After you cook a dish repeatedly, you begin to understand it. Then you can reinvent it a bit and make it yours. A written recipe can be useful, but sometimes the notes scribbled in the margin are the key to a superlative rendition. Each new version may inspire improvisation based on fresh understanding. It doesn't have to be as dramatic as all that, but such exciting minor epiphanies keep cooking lively.

There is lovemaking that is bad for a person, just as there is eating that is bad. That boysenberry cream pie from the Thrift-E Mart may appear inviting, may, in fact, cause all nine hundred taste buds to carol from the tongue, but in the end, the sugars, the additives, the empty calories clog arteries, disrupt cells, generate fat, and rot teeth. Even potentially nourishing foods can be improperly prepared. There are wrong combinations and improper preparations in sex as well. Yes, one must prepare for a fuck--the way an enlightened priest prepares to celebrate mass, the way a great matador prepares for the ring: with intensification, with purification, with a conscious summoning of sacred power. And even that won't work if the ingredients are poorly matched: oysters are delectable, so are strawberries, but mashed together ... (?!) Every nutritious sexual recipe calls for at least a pinch of love, and the fucks that rate four-star rankings from both gourmets and health-food nuts use cupfuls. Not that sex should be regarded as therapeutic or to be taken for medicinal purposes--only a dullard would hang such a millstone around the nibbled neck of a lay--but to approach sex carelessly, shallowly, with detachment and without warmth is to dine night after night in erotic greasy spoons. In time, one's palate will become insensitive, one will suffer (without knowing it) emotional malnutrition, the skin of the soul will fester with scurvy, the teeth of the heart will decay. Neither duration nor proclamation of commitment is necessarily the measure--there are ephemeral explosions of passion between strangers that make more erotic sense than lengthy marriages, there are one-night stands in Jersey City more glorious than six-months affairs in Paris--but finally there is a commitment, however brief; a purity, however threatened; a vulnerability, however concealed; a generosity of spirit, however marbled with need; and honest caring, however singled by lust, that must be present if couplings are to be salubrious and not slow poison.

When you have the best and tastiest ingredients, you can cook very simply and the food will be extraordinary because it tastes like what it is.

~There are no recipes, only ingredients~

Remember to add the most important ingredient to every recipe you make - your love!

Have ten successful people share their recipe for success and you shall receive ten different versions. What is your recipe ,and why not add the first ingredient today? Develop a plan.

Season food with the proper amount of salt at the proper moment; choose the optimal medium of fat to convey the flavor of your ingredients; balance and animate those ingredients with acid; apply the right type and quantity of heat for the proper amount of time—do all this and you will turn out vibrant and beautiful food, with or without a recipe.

Success for you is a RECIPE that ONLY YOU KNOW the ingredients for.So to you I say ,COOK UP the success that ONLY YOU know how to make and allow the world to see YOUR CREATION!

Raw ingredients trump recipes every time; farmers and ranchers who coax the best from the earth can make any of us appear to be a great cook.

Never underestimate the power of cookies.

She is incomplete, a part-written recipe. How can she imagine what she will be if she only knows half of her ingredients?

‪Just discovered that creating a recipe is like writing, the art is knowing when to stop adding and changing the ingredients.

We are not creators; only combiners of the created. Invention isn't about new ingredients, but new recipes. And innovations taste the best.

I once read that the recipe for a good life had but three ingredients: something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to.

But more than anything, they worried that since everyone was using different media ingredients, recipes, cells, and techniques, and few knew their peers’ methods, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to replicate one another’s experiments. And replication is an essential part of science: a discovery isn’t considered valid if others can’t repeat the work and get the same result.

I like racing but food and pictures are more thrilling. I can't give them up. In racing you can be certain, to the last thousandth of a second, that someone is the best, but with a film or a recipe, there is no way of knowing how all the ingredients will work out in the end. The best can turn out to be awful and the worst can be fantastic. Cooking is like performing and performing like cooking.

More often than not, expecting to lose weight without first losing the diet that made the weight loss necessary is like expecting a pig to be spotless after hosing it down while it was still rolling in mud.

The kitchen can be a sacred space. Where magic is created, whether it's mixing up a potion, or baking a cake for friends. The whole process is part of this spell - intention being just as important as the ingredients! The Kitchen Witch keeps a warm and happy home infused with magic.

Use the Same Ingredients My biggest stressor is seemingly limitless options. I want every ingredient, every new cookbook, and the time to make every new recipe I can get my hands on. Oh, and I want kids who will eat every bite without complaint. Fat chance.

The great secret of an authentic tagine is to simmer the ingredients over a low heat, so that everything remains deliciously moist and tender.

Nana’s oven-baked fried chicken cut off the bone (with plenty of ketchup) was a huge hit. So were Thanksgiving turkey bathed in gravy and Nana’s Passover brisket

There is no recipe for friendship. Just a bunch of ingredients that different people put together in different ways to create something magical between them.

Mind control is pretty easy. All the ingredients are always there, it’s just that people don’t have the recipe.

I learned to cook by helping my mother in the kitchen. I assisted her with the canning, and she began assigning me some other tasks like making salad dressing or kneading dough for bread. My first attempt at preparing an entire dinner¾the menu included pork chops Hawaiian, which called for the pork to be marinated in papaya nectar, ginger, cumin, and other spices before being grilled with onions and pineapple cubes¾required an extensive array of exotic ingredients. When he saw my grocery list, my father commented, “I hope she marries a rich man.

Good fortune and talent are both ingredients of success, but like any recipe, they can be substituted with clever alternatives. The one irreplaceable ingredient I've found, however, is work.

What is the recipe for successful achievement? To my mind there are just four essential ingredients: Choose a career you love, give it the best there is in you, seize your opportunities, and be a member of the team.

Feeling inspired, I grabbed one of Jay’s cookbooks from the kitchen shelf and flicked through until I found a recipe for something I recognised. Lasagna. That was just pasta, and pasta was easy, right? Trying not to be put off by the list of ingredients longer than my small intestine, I scanned the instructions. Chop onions… I could do that. Brown mince…trickier but manageable. Probably. Make a roux in the usual way… I sighed, shut the book with a snap and went off to make dinner in my usual way: pierce film; bung in microwave; wait for bell.

You see, a spell is essentially like a recipe. It needs ingredients - just as a loaf of bread will require flour, yeast, water, and sugar. But that bread isn't going to bake on its own unless you add the energy - or heat, so to speak.

Most girls have a recipe for disaster, but few of them actually find all the ingredients and bake them at the right temperature. If they did, they'd learn to measure more accurately and that they ought to clean up their mess as they go along.

What are you making?" he asked me. "Eggplant with a pomegranate walnut sauce." It was nice to be able to answer at least something with certainty. I turned the eggplant over in the pan. The sauce was just a mixture of pomegranate juice, good red wine vinegar, garlic, red pepper flakes, and salt. Nothing else. It was hard for me to resist embellishing recipes that called for so little, but the complexity of the juice transformed what would otherwise be the world's most basic support ingredients into a symphony of flavor.

Since my earliest memory, I imagined I would be a chef one day. When other kids were watching Saturday morning cartoons or music videos on YouTube, I was watching Iron Chef,The Great British Baking Show, and old Anthony Bourdain shows and taking notes. Like, actual notes in the Notes app on my phone. I have long lists of ideas for recipes that I can modify or make my own. This self-appointed class is the only one I've ever studied well for. I started playing around with the staples of the house: rice, beans, plantains, and chicken. But 'Buela let me expand to the different things I saw on TV. Soufflés, shepherd's pie, gizzards. When other kids were saving up their lunch money to buy the latest Jordans, I was saving up mine so I could buy the best ingredients. Fish we'd never heard of that I had to get from a special market down by Penn's Landing. Sausages that I watched Italian abuelitas in South Philly make by hand. I even saved up a whole month's worth of allowance when I was in seventh grade so I could make 'Buela a special birthday dinner of filet mignon.

There are as many ways to make Hungarian goulash as there are cooks in Hungary. The dish’s origin was from the ninth century when Hungarian shepherds or gulyás threw in whatever they had to make stew. Some recipes call for beef, pork, veal, or lamb; some include pasta, and some don’t. Take your pick of other ingredients: vegetables, potatoes, beans, sauerkraut, wine; no two recipes are the same except they all have paprika.

The only acceptable hobby, throughout all stages of life, is cookery. As a child: adorable baked items. Twenties: much appreciated spag bol and fry-ups. Thirties and forties: lovely stuff with butternut squash and chorizo from the Guardian food section. Fifties and sixties: beef wellington from the Sunday Telegraph magazine. Seventies and eighties: back to the adorable baked items. Perfect. The only teeny tiny downside of this hobby is that I HATE COOKING. Don't get me wrong; I absolutely adore the eating of the food. It's just the awful boring, frightening putting together of it that makes me want to shove my own fists in my mouth. It's a lovely idea: follow the recipe and you'll end up with something exactly like the pretty picture in the book, only even more delicious. But the reality's rather different. Within fifteen minutes of embarking on a dish I generally find myself in tears in the middle of what appears to be a bombsite, looking like a mentally unstable art teacher in a butter-splattered apron, wondering a) just how I am supposed to get hold of a thimble and a half of FairTrade hazelnut oil (why is there always the one impossible-to-find recipe ingredient? Sesame paste, anyone?) and b) just how I managed to get flour through two closed doors onto the living-room curtains, when I don't recall having used any flour and oh-this-is-terrible-let's-just-go-out-and-get-a-Wagamama's-and-to-hell-with-the-cost, dammit.

Laura made a great chili. She used lean meat, dark kidney beans, carrots cut small, a bottle or so of dark beer, and freshly sliced hot peppers. She would let the chili cook for a while, then add red wine, lemon juice and a pitch of fresh dill, and, finally, measure out and add her chili powders. On more than one occasion Shadow had tried to get her to show him how she made it: he would watch everything she did, from slicing the onions and dropping them into the olive oil at the bottom of the pot. He had even written down the recipe, ingredient by ingredient, and he had once made Laura's chili for himself on a weekend when she had been out of town. It had tasted okay-it was certainly edible, but it had not been Laura's chili.

I don’t believe it can be taught as if it were a recipe. There aren’t ingredients and techniques that will guarantee success. Parameters exist that, if followed, will ensure a business can continue, but you cannot clearly define our business success and then bottle it as you would a perfume. It’s not that simple: to be successful, you have to be out there, you have to hit the ground running; and, if you have a good team round you and more than your fair share of luck, you might make something happen. But you certainly can’t guarantee it just by following someone else’s formula. Business is a fluid, changing substance.

Pumpkin compote in a masa shell," she says. "It's a new recipe I'm going to try this week." "So, a pumpkin tamale? You know you can just call it a pumpkin tamale. Nobody's going to be impressed because you used some fancy words." Her mouth turns down. "Thank you for the editorial. Just try it." I take a bite. It's good. Better than I expected. The balance of cinnamon and nutmeg is perfect, a hint of allspice. And some ingredient I can't place. Almost... coppery? But it works.

What most people don't get about professional-level cooking is that it is not all about the best recipe, the most innovative presentation, the most creative marriage of ingredients, flavours and textures; that, presumably, was all arranged long before you sat down to dinner. Line cooking - the real business of preparing the food you eat - is more about consistency, about mindless, unvarying repetition, the same series of tasks performed over and over and over again in exactly the same way.

Yield 1 main course Prep time approximately 2 minutes Processing time approximately 10 minutes Calorie Burn 172 Calories 105 Net-Calories -67 Ingredients: Olive oil cooking spray Pinch of red pepper flakes, plus more as desired ½ head cauliflower, grated on the small holes of box grater to the size of rice (about 1 cup) Kosher salt

What’s the legacy you want to pass on? We can’t choose what our ancestors did, or what was done to them. But we get to create the recipe that’s handed down. Write a recipe for a life well-lived. Take the good things from your family’s past and add your own ingredients. Give the next generation something delicious and nourishing to build on.

It is difficult to give a recipe for successful conversation. But it would certainly include three fundamentals. Assemble good ingredients, mix and spice with your own thinking, and serve attractively. To assemble the ingredients, read. Read lots of different things. Read newspapers that express a viewpoint contrary to your own; read periodicals that have thoughtful, provocative articles; read books that tell of places and persons of current interest; read fiction, of course, but not to the exclusion of all other things.

Kindness is the basic ingredient for the recipe of happiness.

I think it's more accurate to think of aesthetics as a key ingredient in a recipe, as opposed to the icing on the cake.

A chef’s magic is his ingredients, how he can substitute one for another, then break with convention by changing it all around again without once referring to the recipe. And then just at the death complete the beauty by adding another element never previously thought of. Well words are the writer’s sorcery, our dark arts and our sleight of hand. They’re our enchantment and our temptation. Sometimes both the chef and the writer overindulges himself and it gets out of hand, but that’s how we like it, it’s how we’ve ghosted some of our best creations.

female superhero, Marston insisted, was the best answer to the critics, since “the comics’ worst offense was their bloodcurdling masculinity.” He explained, A male hero, at best, lacks the qualities of maternal love and tenderness which are as essential to a normal child as the breath of life. Suppose your child’s ideal becomes a superman who uses his extraordinary power to help the weak. The most important ingredient in the human happiness recipe still is missing—love. It’s smart to be strong. It’s big to be generous. But it’s sissified, according to exclusively masculine rules, to be tender, loving, affectionate, and alluring. “Aw, that’s girl’s stuff!” snorts our young comics reader. “Who wants to be a girl?” And that’s the point; not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, power. Not wanting to be girls they don’t want to be tender, submissive, peaceloving as good women are. Women’s strong qualities have become despised because of their weak ones. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.14

I have started to see poetry in the strangest of things: from the roughest nub of nutmeg to the pale parsnip seamed with soil. And this has made me wonder if I can write a cookery book that includes the truth and beauty of poetry. Why should the culinary arts not include poetry? Why should a recipe book not be a thing of beauty? My thoughts come quickly and smoothly in the solitude of the kitchen, and as I beat the eggs I find myself comparing the process of following a recipe to that of writing a poem. Fruit, herbs, spices, eggs, cream: these are my words and I must combine them in such a way they produce something to delight the palate. Exactly as a poem should fall upon the ears of its readers, charming or moving them. I must coax the flavors from my ingredients, as a poet coaxes mood and meaning from his words.

In Paris in the 1950s, I had the supreme good fortune to study with a remarkably able group of chefs. From them I learned why good French good is an art, and why it makes such sublime eating: nothing is too much trouble if it turns out the way it should. Good results require that one take time and care. If one doesn't use the freshest ingredients or read the whole recipe before starting, and if one rushes through the cooking, the result will be an inferior taste and texture--a gummy beef Wellington, say. But a careful approach will result in a magnificent burst of flavor, a thoroughly satisfying meal, perhaps even a life-changing experience. Such was the case with the sole meunière I ate at La Couronne on my first day in France, in November 1948. It was an epiphany. In all the years since the succulent meal, I have yet to lose the feelings of wonder and excitement that it inspired in me. I can still almost taste it. And thinking back on it now reminds me that the pleasures of table, and of life, are infinite--toujours bon appétit!

Writing is hard. Writing that is good, writing that is powerful enough to evoke a change or an authentic emotion or even just an idea in another human being is about as mysterious as an alchemical recipe, but there are a few known ingredients. Craft? Yes, absolutely. Devotion? A load - yes! Humility? Not vital, I suppose, but all my favorites include at least a dash. Before those can be added to the cauldron though, you must have a base of Honesty. Honesty is difficult to find in public spaces these days (and getting harder every goddamn day) but if you're quiet, and patient, you can usually find some hidden in your room somewhere. (It helps to turn off the lights, for some reason.) Problem is, Honesty is invariably bound to Vulnerability and the only thing that cuts the bitterness of Vulnerability is Courage. And Courage? Well. Courage is the hardest thing of all.

while everyone’s recipe is a little different, the main ingredients for a successful batter are love, gratitude, kindness and patience. And the single most common ingredient that makes people’s cake bitter is fear, so don’t use

That is just one more thing I love about cooking. Recipes are certain. Use good ingredients, follow the directions, be sure your oven temperature is true and monitor your stove properly, and you are assured success. There are not many variables once you understand how cooking works. Life, on the other hand, is full of variables. Nothing is predictable. Not the weather, not other people, not traffic, not even our own bodies. We are like seaweed, whipped around in the current of an erratic ocean.

And so the milk ran dry. But first we had the luck of those creams, those spilled-down sauces, that summer of appetite that began with a soufflé cheesecake. There are very few ingredients to the recipe. Butter doesn't make the cake, nor cream. Its secret is ephemerality. Pull it from the oven and it is perfect; the next moment it is cooling, flattening, collapsing beneath the gravity of time. This is a flavor untasted by diners and critics, no record of its existence but for a private memory that lingers on one or two tongues.

Pessoa invented The Book of Disquiet, which never existed, strictly speaking, and can never exist. What we have here isn’t a book but its subversion and negation: the ingredients for a book whose recipe is to keep sifting, the mutant germ of a book and its weirdly lush ramifications, the rooms and windows to build a book but no floor plan and no floor, a compendium of many potential books and many others already in ruins. What we have in these pages is an anti-literature, a kind of primitive, verbal CAT scan of one man’s anguished soul.

The assembly of the innovation engine that propelled the Industrial Revolution becomes easier to see once we recognize how the psychology of premodern Europeans had been quietly evolving in the background for at least eight centuries. Of course, there are many economic and geographic factors that matter too, but if there’s a secret ingredient in the recipe for Europe’s collective brain, it’s the psychological package of individualism, analytic orientation, positive-sum thinking, and impersonal prosociality that had been simmering for centuries.

Ingredients 1 drops Grapefruit Essential Oil 1 drop Ylang Ylang Essential Oil 1 drop Wild Orange Essential Oil 2 drops Patchouli Essential Oil 3 drops Bergamot Essential Oil Directions To support harmony in a tense home or mind, combine all ingredients in your diffuser and use as normal.

The largest culture shock was being Black in this atmosphere. We had white coaches, and they wanted the Black players to be the embodiment of who they were. They would tell us to wear our pants or shoes a certain way; this is what it meant to “be a man.” They thought our path to manhood was to be found in skinny jeans and a tucked-in shirt. (Although now Migos, getting “Bad and Boujee,” has all kinds of young players dressing like that by choice. Go figure.) But they never understood or tried to understand us. They projected their morals and thought processes onto young Black men without figuring out who we were. This struck me as a recipe for our continually being misunderstood, misguided, and misjudged, ingredients for disaster and rebellion, or at the very least for stress and self-destruction and the creation of the very PTSD that afflicts players when it’s all over.

Recipe for Goodbye From the Kitchen of Lila Reyes Ingredients: One Cuban girl. One English boy. One English city. Preparation: Give Polly her kitchen back and share a genuine smile, from one legitimate baker to another. Ride through the countryside on a vintage Triumph Bonneville. Walk through Winchester, all through town and on the paths you ran. Drink vanilla black tea at Maxwell’s. Eat fish and chips and curry sauce at your friend’s pub. Sleep in fits and bits curled up together on St. Giles Hill. *Leave out future talk. Any form of the word tomorrow. Cooking temp: 200 degrees Celsius. You know the conversion by heart.

½ cooked then frozen purple sweet potato ¼-inch piece of turmeric root ¾ teaspoon matcha 1 cup unsweetened soymilk 1½ teaspoons ground flaxseed 1½ teaspoons wheat germ ¼ cup frozen cranberries ½ cup frozen strawberries 3 pitted dates ¼ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice Dash of cardamom Scrub one purple sweet potato under running water, then pierce it a few times with a fork. Microwave on high until it is fork-tender. When it is cool enough to be handled, cut it in half and freeze both halves. (You’ll use half for this recipe and the other half next time you’re craving this smoothie.) Place all the ingredients in a blender, and blend until smooth.

I walk down the aisle, keeping my head down. Sit across from a very old woman in a windbreaker who at first looks to me a little like my dead grandmother, at least in the face. I’m comforted. There is my grandmother sort of. Wearing the clothes of a slightly insane person. Tattoo on her throat of a spider in a web. Reading a ripped-up medical poster about schizophrenia aloud. SCHIZOPHRENIA: Do You Have the Symptoms?? She reads each symptom on the list, going, “Oh I have that, oh I have that.” Making sounds of delighted surprise. Like it’s a recipe she’s reading and she’s tickled to discover that— “—​she already has all the ingredients in her fridge. No need to go shopping.

We use the effect of centrifugal forces on matter to offer insight into the rotation rate of extreme cosmic objects. Consider pulsars. With some rotating at upward of a thousand revolutions per second, we know that they cannot be made of household ingredients, or they would spin themselves apart. In fact, if a pulsar rotated any faster, say 4,500 revolutions per second, its equator would be moving at the speed of light, which tells you that this material is unlike any other. To picture a pulsar, imagine the mass of the Sun packed into a ball the size of Manhattan. If that’s hard to do, then maybe it’s easier if you imagine stuffing about a hundred million elephants into a Chapstick casing. To reach this density, you must compress all the empty space that atoms enjoy around their nucleus and among their orbiting electrons. Doing so will crush nearly all (negatively charged) electrons into (positively charged) protons, creating a ball of (neutrally charged) neutrons with a crazy-high surface gravity. Under such conditions, a neutron star’s mountain range needn’t be any taller than the thickness of a sheet of paper for you to exert more energy climbing it than a rock climber on Earth would exert ascending a three-thousand-mile-high cliff. In short, where gravity is high, the high places tend to fall, filling in the low places—a phenomenon that sounds almost biblical, in preparing the way for the Lord: “Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain” (Isaiah 40:4). That’s a recipe for a sphere if there ever was one. For all these reasons, we expect pulsars to be the most perfectly shaped spheres in the universe.

Your mention of Elizabeth David reminded me of her recipe for risotto alla Milanese, which I have wanted to try for a long time. As I am sure was the case in your area, the grocery store shelves went bare as everyone prepared for end times. In a harebrained panic, I rushed to C & K Importing for their gallon cans of artichoke hearts, and by the time I got to the Mayfair, all the macaroni and bottled water were gone. Fortunately, I already had the ingredients for risotto in my pantry. It was a balm to turn my attention to rice and butter. It was my own small way of rebuffing shattered nerves and the Reds, although I suppose hamburgers or hot dogs would have been a more appropriate form of patriotic resistance.

Jennifer Anne had prepared some complicated-looking recipe involving chicken breasts stuffed with sweet potatoes topped with a vegetable glaze. They looked perfect, but it was the kind of dish where you just knew someone had to have been pawing at your food for a long while to get it just right, their fingers all in what now you were having to stick in your mouth.

Sahl was never a great comic. His nervous, jabbing, keep-them-off-balance delivery was the strategy of a man who was not comfortable in front of an audience. His creative method -- a rapid scanning of the day's output of newspapers, magazines, and radio broadcasts -- was a recipe for superficiality or, at best, the kind of quick, shallow laugh triggered by a topical allusion. Sahl was always devoid of the two basic ingredients of great humor: imagination and soul. He could make fun of the latest Hollywood movies. He could stab at the pieties of his own class. He could take an abrupt insight into politics or wold events and phrase it neatly into a gag. What he could never do was suggest a world of living, breathing people behaving in ridiculous yet recognizably human patterns.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients except the meatballs and pour into a labeled 1-gallon freezer bag. Tape this bag to the meatball package and freeze.   To serve, thaw the ingredients of both bags. Pour the soup ingredients into a large saucepan. Bring to boil, reduce the heat, and simmer 30 minutes. Add the meatballs and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Spice” or “Ground Spice Mix” asked for in some recipes.  Here is an easy to make mixture.  If you want, you can substitute “Pumpkin Pie Spice” instead. Depending on the amount of preserving you plan on doing, you might want to double or triple this recipe.   INGREDIENTS: 1 tablespoon ground allspice 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon 1 tablespoon ground nutmeg 2 teaspoon ground mace (optional, add 1 additional teaspoon nutmeg)

The earliest recipes on record come from Mesopotamia (the site of modern-day Iraq, Iran, and Syria). They are written in cuneiform on three stone tablets, approximately 4,000 years old, offering a tantalizing glimpse of how the Mesopotamians might have cooked. The vast majority of the recipes are for pot cooking, most of them for broths and court bouillons. “Assemble all the ingredients in the pot” is a frequent instruction.

7. Ant Spray: FAST FIND: A nontoxic spray which can be used anywhere. Ingredients: 2 tablespoon of peppermint essential oil 2 cup warm water 1 spray bottle.   Method: In the spray bottle, add essential oils and water. Shake well to combine the ingredients. Spray on ant trails or around areas where you don’t want ants to go. Shake well before use. Ants do not like the smell of peppermint and this will act as a strong deterrent.

Smoky Candied Bacon Sweet Potatoes prep time: 15 minutes     cook time: 40 minutes     servings: 10-12 The flavors of Fall come together in this dish of spiced roasted sweet potatoes with candied pecans and bacon. ingredients 3 pounds sweet potatoes, peels on and scrubbed 6 ounces bacon, sliced into 1-inch pieces 1/2 cup pecans, roughly chopped 1/3 cup pure Grade B maple syrup 1 teaspoon chili powder 1/2 teaspoon sea salt 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon cayenne powder method Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Cut the sweet potatoes into even cubes then toss them with all of the ingredients in a bowl. Spread in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper and roast for 20 minutes. Stir and continue roasting for 15 minutes. Turn the oven to broil and brown the potatoes for an additional 5 minutes. Watch the nuts closely and pull the tray out early if they begin to burn.

Basic Cornbread Recipe 1 cup cornmeal ½ tsp. salt ½ tsp. baking soda 2 tsp. baking powder 1/3 cup flour 2 tbsp. melted butter 2 eggs 1 cup buttermilk (fresh or from powder)   Combine the dry ingredients. Add the butter, beaten eggs, and buttermilk. {For maple: add 1/3 cup maple syrup. For spicy: add 2 Tbs. chopped jalapeños and 1 cup cheddar cheese.} Stir. Pour into a greased pan and bake for 20 minutes at 450 degrees. A cast iron skillet works best.

To make a tarte of strawberyes," wrote Margaret Parker in 1551, "take and strayne theym with the yolkes of four eggs, and a little whyte breade grated, then season it up with suger and swete butter and so bake it." And Jess, who had spent the past year struggling with Kant's Critiques, now luxuriated in language so concrete. Tudor cookbooks did not theorize, nor did they provide separate ingredient lists, or scientific cooking times or temperatures. Recipes were called receipts, and tallied materials and techniques together. Art and alchemy were their themes, instinct and invention. The grandest performed occult transformations: flora into fauna, where, for example, cooks crushed blanched almonds and beat them with sugar, milk, and rose water into a paste to "cast Rabbets, Pigeons, or any other little bird or beast." Or flour into gold, gilding marchpane and festive tarts. Or mutton into venison, or fish to meat, or pig to fawn, one species prepared to stand in for another.

Jaclyn’s Snickerdoodle Recipe Ingredients: 1-1/2 cups sugar 1/2 cup BUTTER, softened 1 teaspoon pure vanilla 2 eggs 2-3/4 cups flour 1 teaspoon cream of tartar 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons sugar 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon AND a secret ingredient! 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (cookies are good without the nutmeg, but sooo good with it) Instructions: Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Combine first four ingredients and mix well In separate bowl combine flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda. Then mix into creamed mixture. Blend well to avoid flour clumps! Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Combine the 2 tablespoons sugar with the cinnamon and nutmeg. Roll each dough ball in the sugar mixture and place on a cookie sheet, leaving about 2 inches between cookies. Bake approximately 10 minutes. Remove from cookie sheet immediately and allow to cool. ENJOY warm or allow to cool. Serve with cold milk or hot beverage of your choice. These keep best in the refrigerator if they last more than a few minutes!!

MAKES: 2 quarts COOKING METHOD: stove COOKING TIME: 20 minutes This is an all-purpose barbecue sauce, with a distinct garlic and tomato flavor. We have used this recipe to rave reviews at the James Beard Foundation and the American Institute of Wine and Food’s “Best Ribs in America” competition. Use it as a finishing glaze or serve it on the side as a dip for any type of barbecue. 2 TABLESPOONS OLIVE OIL ¼ CUP CHOPPED ONION 1 TEASPOON FRESH MINCED GARLIC 4 CUPS KETCHUP 1⅓ CUPS DARK BROWN SUGAR 1 CUP VINEGAR 1 CUP APPLE JUICE ¼ CUP HONEY 1½ TABLESPOONS WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE 1½ TABLESPOONS LIQUID SMOKE 1 TEASPOON SALT 1 TEASPOON BLACK PEPPER 1 TEASPOON CAYENNE PEPPER 1 TEASPOON CELERY SEED Heat the olive oil in a large nonreactive saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and lightly sauté. Stir in the remaining ingredients and heat until the sauce bubbles and starts to steam. Remove from the heat and cool to room temperature. Transfer to a tightly covered jar or plastic container and store refrigerated for up to 2 weeks.

Needless to say, cooking for a man with such a delicate palate can be challenging and every once in a while I like to make something that isn't served with a glass of milk and a side of applesauce. This can be difficult with a husband with such discriminating taste buds. Difficult, but not impossible, if you're willing to lie. Which I am.   During the winter months I love to make soups and one of my favorites is taco soup. It has all of the basic food groups in one bowl; meat, veggies, beans, and Fritos. It's perfection. I've been warming bodies and cleaning colons with this recipe for years. However, when I met my husband he advised he didn't like beans, so he couldn't eat taco soup. This was not the response I hoped for.   I decided to make it for him anyway. The first time I did I debated whether to add beans. I knew he wouldn't eat it if I did, but I also knew the beans were what gave it the strong flavor. I decided the only way to maintain the integrity of the soup was to sacrifice mine. I lied to him about the ingredients. Because my husband is not only picky but also observant, I knew I couldn't just dump the beans into the soup undetected. Rather, I had to go incognito. For that, I implored the use of the food processor, who was happy to accommodate after sitting in the cabinet untouched for years.   I dumped the cans of beans in the processor and pureed them into a paste. I then dumped the paste into the taco soup mixture, returning the food processor to the cabinet where it would sit untouched for another six months.   When it came time to eat, I dished out a heaping bowl of soup and handed it to my husband. We sat down to eat and I anxiously awaited his verdict, knowing he was eating a heaping bowl of deceit.   “This is delicious. What's in it?” he asked, in between mouthfuls of soup.   “It's just a mixture of taco ingredients,” I innocently replied, focusing on the layer of Fritos covering my bowl.   “Whatever it is, it's amazing,” he responded, quickly devouring each bite.   At that moment I wanted nothing more than to slap the spoon out of his hand and yell “That's beans, bitch!” However, I refrained because I'm classy (and because I didn't want to clean up the mess).

My life in the kitchen began with my grandmother in the village of Champvert in the Tarn-et-Garonne department of southwestern France, the town so small you'd need a magnifying glass to find it on the map. I'd sit on a tall wooden stool, wide-eyed, watching Grand-mère Odette in her navy-blue dress and black ballerina flats, her apron adorned with les coquelicots (wild red poppies), mesmerized by the grace with which she danced around her kitchen, hypnotized by all the wonderful smells- the way the aromas were released from the herbs picked right from her garden as she chopped, becoming stronger as she set them in an olive oiled and buttered pan. She'd dip a spoon in a pot or slice up an onion in two seconds, making it look oh so easy, and for her it was. But my favorite part was when she'd let me taste whatever delight she was cooking up, sweet or savory. I'd close my eyes, lick my lips, and sigh with happiness. Sometimes Grand-mère Odette would blindfold me, and it wasn't long before I could pick out every ingredient by smell. All the other senses came to me, too- sight (glorious plating), taste (the delight of the unknown), touch (the way a cherry felt in my hand), and hearing (the way garlic sizzled in the pan).

Tender poached egg. Creamy mashed potatoes. And the thick layer of hot, melted cheese! Those are all incredibly delicious, but what takes the cake is the roux! It's been made in a VICHYSSOISE style!" VICHYSSOISE Boiled potatoes, onions, leeks and other ingredients are pureed with cream and soup stock to make this potage. It's often served chilled. Its creation is generally credited to Louis Diat, a French chef at the Ritz Carlton in New York, who first put it on the hotel's menu in 1917. "Amazing! It looks like a thick, heavy dish that would sit in the stomach like lead, but it's so easy to eat!" "The noodles! It's the udon noodles, along with the coriander powder, that makes it feel so much lighter! Coriander is known for its fresh, almost citrusy scent and its mildly spicy bite. It goes exceptionally well with the cumin kneaded into the noodles, each spice working to heighten the other's fragrance. AAAH! It's immensely satisfying!" "I have also included dill, vichyssoise's traditional topping. Dry roasting the dill seeds together with the cumin seeds made a spice mix that gave a strong aroma to the roux." "Hm! Fat noodles in a thick, creamy roux. Eating them is much the same experience as having dipping noodles. What an amazing concept to arrive at from a century-old French soup recipe!

A dynamo in the kitchen, she was elevating Mexican cuisine to new gastronomic levels. She had opened her restaurant, El Colibrí, two short years ago. At first people thought she was nuts- then they tasted her dishes. Billing her cuisine as "not your mother's tacos," she'd introduced gourmet Mexican food to Los Angeles, and you didn't eat her creations- like the lobster tail served with the pomegranate mango salsa, served on a blue corn tortillas- with your hands, especially with her secret version of a chimichurri sauce. A hint: truffle oil along with olive oil. The girl genius was an alchemist in the kitchen, creating elixirs and blending ingredients like a mad culinary scientist.

The researchers tried a clever tactic to overcome this problem. They created a number of recipes for common foods including muffins and pasta in which they could disguise placebo ingredients like bran and molasses to match the texture and color of the flax-laden foods. This way, they could randomize people into two groups and secretly introduce tablespoons of daily ground flaxseeds into the diets of half the participants to see if it made any difference. After six months, those who ate the placebo foods started out hypertensive and stayed hypertensive, despite the fact that many of them were on a variety of blood pressure pills. On average, they started the study at 155/81 and ended it at 158/81. What about the hypertensives who were unknowingly eating flaxseeds every day? Their blood pressure dropped from 158/82 down to 143/75. A seven-point drop in diastolic blood pressure may not sound like a lot, but that would be expected to result in 46 percent fewer strokes and 29 percent less heart disease over time.125 How does that result compare with taking drugs? The flaxseeds managed to drop subjects’ systolic and diastolic blood pressure by up to fifteen and seven points, respectively. Compare that result to the effect of powerful antihypertensive drugs, such as calcium-channel blockers (for example, Norvasc, Cardizem, Procardia), which have been found to reduce blood pressure by only eight and three points, respectively, or to ACE inhibitors (such as Vasotec, Lotensin, Zestril, Altace), which drop patients’ blood pressure by only five and two points, respectively.126 Ground flaxseeds may work two to three times better than these medicines, and they have only good side effects. In addition to their anticancer properties, flaxseeds have been demonstrated in clinical studies to help control cholesterol, triglyceride, and blood sugar levels; reduce inflammation, and successfully treat constipation.127 Hibiscus Tea for Hypertension Hibiscus tea, derived from the flower of the same name, is also known as roselle, sorrel, jamaica, or sour tea. With

Driven by heartache, she beat the eggs even more vigorously until the glossy meringue quickly formed into stiff, bird's beak peaks. "Philippe, do you have any orange liqueur?" Marie asked, rummaging through her brother's pantry. "Here it is," Philippe said, handing a corked bottle to her. "What are you making?" "A bûche de Noël," Danielle said, concentrating on her task. Carefully measuring each rationed ingredient, she combined sugar and flour in another bowl, grated orange zest, added the liqueur, and folded the meringue into the mixture. "It's not Christmas without a traditional Yuletide log." Marie ran a finger down a page of an old recipe book, reading directions for the sponge cake, or biscuit. "'Spread into a shallow pan and bake for ten minutes.'" "I wouldn't know about that," Philippe said. "I don't celebrate your husband's holiday," he said pointedly to Marie. "Let's not dredge up that old argument, mon frère," Marie said, softening her words with a smile. "I converted for love." A knock sounded at the front door. Danielle threw a look of concern toward Philippe, who hurried to answer it. "Then we'll cool it," Danielle said, trying to stay calm. "And brush the surface with coffee liqueur and butter cream frosting, roll it like a log, and decorate." She thought about the meringue mushrooms she had made with Nicky last year, and how he had helped score the frosting to mimic wood grains.

Chickpea Stew Canned chickpeas, potatoes, tomatoes, and onion flavored with rosemary cook into a chunky vegetarian main-dish stew. This also makes a great side dish for pork or lamb. SERVES 6 3 16-ounce cans chickpeas, rinsed and drained 5 medium carrots, sliced 2 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped 1 cup peeled, seeded, and chopped fresh or canned tomatoes with their juice 1 medium onion, chopped 2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary ½ cup Chicken Broth ([>]), canned chicken or vegetable broth, or water 2 tablespoons olive oil Salt and freshly ground pepper Combine all the ingredients in a large slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours, or until the vegetables are tender. Serve hot or at room temperature.

After that, we don't talk much until she brings out a ginger cake from the larder. "An old family recipe," she says. "I've been experimenting with the quantities of cloves and Jamaica ginger. Tell me what you think." And she pushes a slice toward me. I try not to gobble for it, for I am starving. "The most important thing with this cake is to beat in every ingredient, one by one, with the back of a wooden spoon," she says. "Simply throwing everything in together and then beating produces a most unsuccessful cake. I know because my first attempt was as heavy as a brick---quite indigestible!" She gives a rueful smile and asks if I think it needs more ginger. I feel the crumb, dense and dark, melt on my tongue. My mouth floods with warmth and spice and sweetness. As I swallow, something sharp and clean seems to lift through my nose and throat until my head swims. "I can see you like it." Miss Eliza watches me and smiles. And then I blurt something out. Something I know Reverend Thorpe and his wife would not like. But it's too late, the words jump from my throat of their own accord. "I can taste an African heaven, a forest full of dark earth and heat." The smile on Miss Eliza's face stretches a little wider and her eyes grow brighter. And this gives me the courage to ask a question that's nothing to do with my work. "What is the flavor that cuts through it so keenly, so that it sings a high note on my tongue?" She stares at me with her forget-me-not eyes. "It's the lightly grated rinds of two fresh lemons!

This is an art I can enjoy. There is a kind of sorcery in all cooking; in the choosing of ingredients, the process of mixing, grating, melting, infusing, and flavoring, the recipes taken from ancient books, the traditional utensils- the pestle and mortar with which my mother made her incense turned to a more homely purpose, her spices and aromatics giving up their subtleties to a baser, more sensual magic. And it is partly the transience of it delights me; so much loving preparation, so much art and experience, put into a pleasure that can last only a moment, and which only a few will ever fully appreciate. My mother always viewed my interest with indulgent contempt. To her, food was no pleasure but a tiresome necessity to be worried over, a tax on the price of our freedom. I stole menus from restaurants and looked longingly into patisserie windows. I must have been ten years old- maybe older- before I first tasted real chocolate. But still the fascination endured. I carried recipes in my head like maps. All kinds of recipes: torn from abandoned magazines in busy railway stations, wheedled from people on the road, strange marriages of my own confection. Mother with her cards, her divinations, directed our mad course across Europe. Cookery cards anchored us, placed landmarks on the bleak borders. Paris smells of baking bread and croissants; Marseille of bouillabaisse and grilled garlic. Berlin was Eisbrei with sauerkraut and Kartoffelsalat, Rome was the ice cream I ate without paying in a tiny restaurant beside the river.

Fresh seafood stock made from shrimp and crab... It's hot and spicy- and at the same time, mellow and savory! Visions of lush mountains, cool springs and the vast ocean instantly come to mind! She brought out the very best flavors of each and every ingredient she used! "I started with the fresh fish and veggies you had on hand... ... and then simmered them in a stock I made from seafood trimmings until they were tender. Then I added fresh shrimp and let it simmer... seasoning it with a special blend I made from spices, herbs like thyme and bay leaves, and a base of Worcestershire sauce. I snuck in a dash of soy sauce, too, to tie the Japanese ingredients together with the European spices I used. Overall, I think I managed to make a curry sauce that is mellow enough for children to enjoy and yet flavorful enough for adults to love!" "Yum! Good stuff!" "What a surprise! To take the ingredients we use here every day and to create something out of left field like this!" "You got that right! This is a really delicious dish, no two ways about it. But what's got me confused... ... is why it seems to have hit him way harder than any of us! What on earth is going on?!" This... this dish. It... it tastes just like home! It looks like curry, but it ain't! It's gumbo!" Gumbo is a family dish famously served in the American South along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. A thick and spicy stew, it's generally served over steamed rice. At first glance, it closely resembles Japan's take on curry... but the gumbo recipe doesn't call for curry powder. Its defining characteristic is that it uses okra as its thickener. *A possible origin for the word "gumbo" is the Bantu word for okra-Ngombu.*

What do you remember most about what your pai put in his lamb chops?" "I think it was basically salt, pepper, and garlic." He squeezed his eyes shut and focused so hard that not dropping a kiss on his earnestly pursed mouth was the hardest thing. His eyes opened, bright with memory. "Of course. Mint." "That's perfect. Since we're only allowed only five tools, simple is good." "My mãe always made rice and potatoes with it. How about we make lamb chops and a biryani-style pilaf?" Ashna blinked. Since when was Rico such a foodie? He shrugged but his lips tugged to one side in his crooked smile. "What? I live in London. Of course Indian is my favorite cuisine." Tossing an onion at him, she asked him to start chopping, and put the rice to boil. Then she turned to the lamb chops. The automatic reflex to follow Baba's recipe to within an inch of its life rolled through her. But when she ignored it, the need to hyperventilate didn't follow. Next to her Rico was fully tuned in to her body language, dividing his focus between following the instructions she threw out and the job at hand. As he'd talked about his father's chops, she'd imagined exactly how she wanted them to taste. An overtone of garlic and lemon and an undertone of mint. The rice would be simple, in keeping with the Brazilian tradition, but she'd liven it up with fried onions, cashew nuts, whole black cardamom, cloves, bay leaves, and cinnamon stick. All she wanted was to create something that tasted like Rico's childhood, combined with their future together, and it felt like she was flying. Just like with her teas, she knew exactly what she wanted to taste and she knew exactly how to layer ingredients to coax out those flavors, those feelings. It was her and that alchemy and Rico's hands flying to follow instructions and help her make it happen. "There's another thing we have to make," she said. Rico raised a brow as he stirred rice into the spice-infused butter. "I want to make tea. A festive chai." He smiled at her, heat intensifying his eyes. Really? Talking about tea turned him on? Wasn't the universe just full of good news today.

BONNIE BROWNIE COOKIE BARS Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.   4 one-ounce squares semi-sweet chocolate (or 3/4 cup chocolate chips) 3/4 cup butter (one and a half sticks) 1½ cups white (granulated) sugar 3 beaten eggs (just whip them up in a glass with a fork) 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 cup flour (pack it down in the cup when you measure it) 1/2 cup chopped cashews 1/2 cup chopped butterscotch chips 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli)   Prepare a 9-inch by 13-inch cake pan by lining it with a piece of foil large enough to flap over the sides. Spray the foil-lined pan with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray.   Microwave the chocolate squares and butter in a microwave-safe mixing bowl on HIGH for 1 minute. Stir. (Since chocolate frequently maintains its shape even when melted, you have to stir to make sure.) If it’s not melted, microwave for an additional 20 seconds and stir again. Repeat if necessary.   Stir the sugar into the chocolate mixture. Feel the bowl. If it’s not so hot it’ll cook the eggs, add them now, stirring thoroughly. Mix in the vanilla extract.   Mix in the flour, and stir just until it’s moistened.   Put the cashews, butterscotch chips, and chocolate chips in the bowl of a food processor, and chop them together with the steel blade. (If you don’t have a food processor, you don’t have to buy one for this recipe—just chop everything up as well as you can with a sharp knife.)   Mix in the chopped ingredients, give a final stir by hand, and spread the batter out in your prepared pan. Smooth the top with a rubber spatula.   Bake at 350 degrees F. for 30 minutes.   Cool the Bonnie Brownie Cookie Bars in the pan on a metal rack. When they’re thoroughly cool, grasp the edges of the foil and lift the brownies out of the pan. Place them facedown on a cutting board, peel the foil off the back, and cut them into brownie-sized pieces.   Place the squares on a plate and dust lightly with powdered sugar if you wish.   Hannah’s Note: If you’re a chocoholic, or if you’re making these for Mother, frost them with Neverfail Fudge Frosting before you cut them.

He carefully poured the juice into a bowl and rinsed the scallops to remove any sand caught between the tender white meat and the firmer coral-colored roe, wrapped around it like a socialite's fur stole. Mayur is the kind of cook (my kind), who thinks the chef should always have a drink in hand. He was making the scallops with champagne custard, so naturally the rest of the bottle would have to disappear before dinner. He poured a cup of champagne into a small pot and set it to reduce on the stove. Then he put a sugar cube in the bottom of a wide champagne coupe (Lalique, service for sixteen, direct from the attic on my mother's last visit). After a bit of a search, he found the crème de violette in one of his shopping bags and poured in just a dash. He topped it up with champagne and gave it a swift stir. "To dinner in Paris," he said, glass aloft. 'To the chef," I answered, dodging swiftly out of the way as he poured the reduced champagne over some egg yolks and began whisking like his life depended on it. "Do you have fish stock?" "Nope." "Chicken?" "Just cubes. Are you sure that will work?" "Sure. This is the Mr. Potato Head School of Cooking," he said. "Interchangeable parts. If you don't have something, think of what that ingredient does, and attach another one." I counted, in addition to the champagne, three other bottles of alcohol open in the kitchen. The boar, rubbed lovingly with a paste of cider vinegar, garlic, thyme, and rosemary, was marinating in olive oil and red wine. It was then to be seared, deglazed with hard cider, roasted with whole apples, and finished with Calvados and a bit of cream. Mayur had his nose in a small glass of the apple liqueur, inhaling like a fugitive breathing the air of the open road. As soon as we were all assembled at the table, Mayur put the raw scallops back in their shells, spooned over some custard, and put them ever so briefly under the broiler- no more than a minute or two. The custard formed a very thin skin with one or two peaks of caramel. It was, quite simply, heaven. The pork was presented neatly sliced, restaurant style, surrounded with the whole apples, baked to juicy, sagging perfection.

... If I am correct... ... the secret to this sauce is honey and balsamic vinegar ." "Got it one, sir! Both ingredients have a mild sweetness that adds a layer of richness to the dish. The tartness of the vinegar ties it all together, ensuring the sweetness isn't too cloying and giving the overall dish a clean, pure aftertaste. The guide told me that Hokkaido bears really love their honey... ... so I tried all kinds of methods to add it to my recipe!" "Is that how he gave his sauce a rich, clean flavor powerful enough to cause the Gifting? Unbelievable! That's our Master Yukihira!" Something doesn't add up. A little honey and vinegar can't be enough to create that level of aftertaste. There has to be something else to it. But what? "...?! I got it! I know what you did! You caramelized the honey!" CARAMELIZATION Sugars oxidize when heated, giving them a golden brown color and a nutty flavor. Any food that contains sugar can be caramelized, making caramelization an important technique in everything from French cooking to dessert making. "I started out by heating the honey until it was good and caramelized. Then I added some balsamic vinegar to stretch it and give it a little thickness. Once that was done, I poured it over some diced onions and garlic that I'd sautéed in another pan, added some schisandra berries and then let it simmer. After it had reduced, I poured bear stock over it and seasoned it with a little salt... The result was a deep, rich sauce perfect for emphasizing the natural punch of my Bear-Meat Menchi Katsu!" "Oho! You musta come up with that idea while I was relaxing with my cup o' chai! Not bad, Yukihira-chin! Not bad at all! Don'tcha think?" "Y-yes, sir..." Plus, there is no debating how well honey pairs well with bear meat. The Chinese have long considered bear paws a great delicacy... ... because of the common belief that the mellow sweetness of the honey soaks into a bear's paw as it sticks it into beehives and licks the honey off of it. What a splendid idea pairing honey with bear meat, each accentuating the other... ... then using caramelization and balsamic vinegar to mellow it to just the right level. It's a masterful example of using both flavor subtraction and enhancement in the same dish!

HERE ARE MY TEN BEEF NOODLE SOUP COMMANDMENTS: 1. Throw out the first: always flash-boil your bones and beef to get the “musk” out. I’ve gone back and forth on this a lot. I would sometimes brown the meat as opposed to boil, but decided in the end that for this soup, you gotta boil. If you brown, it’s overpowering. The lesson that beef noodle soup teaches you is restraint. Sometimes less is more if you want all the flavors in the dish to speak to you. 2. Make sure the oil is medium-high when the aromatics go down and get a slight caramelization. It’s a fine line. Too much caramelization and it becomes too heavy, but no caramelization and your stock is weak. 3. Rice wine can be tricky. Most people like to vaporize it so that all the alcohol is cooked off. I like to leave a little of the alcohol flavor ’cause it tends to cut through the grease a bit. 4. Absolutely no butter, lard, or duck fat. I’ve seen people in America try to “kick it up a notch” with animal fats and it ruins the soup. Peanut oil or die. 5. Don’t burn the chilis and peppercorns, not even a little bit. You want the spice and the numbness, but not the smokiness. 6. After sautéing the chilis/peppercorns, turn off the heat and let them sit in the oil to steep. This is another reason you want to turn the heat off early. 7. Strain your chilis/peppercorns out of the oil, put them in a muslin bag, and set them aside. Then add ginger/garlic/scallions to the oil in that order. Stage them. 8. I use tomatoes in my beef noodle soup, but I add them after the soup is finished and everything is strained. I let them hang out in the soup as it sits on the stove over the course of the day. I cut the tomatoes thin so they give off flavor without having to cook too long and so you can serve them still intact. 9. Always use either shank or chuck flap. Brisket is too tough. If you want to make it interesting, add pig’s foot or oxtail. 10. Do you. I don’t give you measurements with this because I gave you all the ingredients and the technique. The best part about beef noodle soup is that there are no rules. It just has to have beef, noodle, and soup. There are people that do clear broth beef noodle soup. Beef noodle soup with dairy. Beef noodle soup with pig’s blood. It would suck if you looked at my recipe and never made your own, ’cause everyone has a beef noodle soup in them. Show it to me.

I want you to cook more. It's good for you. You know exactly what you're nourishing yourself with (which for me almost always includes a healthy dose of fresh vegetables). It allows you to feel the natural rhythms of life in a way that microwaved frozen dinners never can. And cooking often draws people to the table, encouraging dialogue and providing a moment to appreciate the good (and truly tasty) things in life. I know: if I want you to cook more, I need to make it easy for you. And to my way of thinking, that means I need to help you with three things: First I need to help wean you from a slavish dependency on recipes - I need to hand you a few go-to recipes that are easily varied depending on what you have on hand, and teach you to look at other recipes with an eye to how they can be varied to suit your own tastes and kitchen. Second, I need to help you know what ingredients and basic preparations to have on hand so that a good meal is never more than a few minutes away. And third, I need to help you know which kitchen equipment will enable you to create delicious food fast (and, of course, I need to guide you in how to use it to its best advantage). I can do all that.

Fresh Pasta Dough Recipe INGREDIENTS: 1 ½ cups flour ½ cup semolina flour (pasta flour) 2 whole eggs, at room temperature 3 egg yolks, at room temperature DIRECTIONS: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour and the semolina. Create a well in the center and add the eggs and egg yolks. Using a fork, break up the eggs then gradually start to draw flour from the edges of the well into the mixture. If the dough gets too firm to mix with the fork switch to mixing with your hands. Continue to work in flour until the dough no longer sticks to your hands; you may not need to incorporate all of the flour. (I used a bit more than what the recipe called for.) Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead the dough for 8 to 10 minutes or until it is smooth and pliable. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and allow to rest for at least 30 minutes. If using a pasta roller: Divide the dough into 4 pieces. Starting with the machine set to the widest setting, pass the dough through the rollers. Fold the dough into thirds and pass it through again 2 more times. Continue passing the pasta through the machine, reducing the setting a few notches each time. You may need to dust a bit with flour if the dough sticks to the rollers at all. Once you reach your desired thickness, use the cutting attachment to cut the pasta sheet into fettuccine. Dust the cut pasta with more flour to prevent sticking and repeat with the remaining dough. If using a rolling pin: Divide the dough in half. Dust your surface with flour and sprinkle generously on your rolling pin. *Roll out the dough as thin and as evenly possible, adding flour as needed to prevent sticking. Use a paring knife (a pizza cutter works great!) to cut your dough into even ribbons, then set aside, dusting the cut pasta with more flour. Repeat with the remaining dough. (At this point, the pasta can be transferred to a sealable plastic bag and frozen for up to 3 months; do not defrost before cooking.) Cook the pasta in a large pot of generously salted boiling water, checking for doneness after just 1 minute; fresh pasta cooks very quickly. As soon as it is al dente, no more than 3 or 4 minutes, drain, reserving some of the cooking water if desired for saucing the pasta. Toss with your sauce, loosen with some of the reserved cooking water as needed and serve immediately. *Note:  You must get the dough as thin as possible and cut them into small strips, otherwise, it will be too thick and end up having the texture of dumplings.

It's called 'Hollywood Dunk.' An appetizer from the fifties." Bronwyn dipped the chip into the white creamy spread speckled with green dots and popped it in her mouth. She chewed slowly, her face moving through a variety of expressions- none of them good. "Yeah, I know." Alice laughed as she watched her best friend try to get the chip and dip down. A giant swig of wine later, Bronwyn sputtered, "What's in that?" "Deviled ham. Chives. Onion. Horseradish." Bronwyn stared at her, mouthed, Deviled ham? "It's chopped up deli ham mixed with mayonnaise, mustard, hot pepper sauce, and salt and pepper, and then you blend it a bit. Then you add the chives, onion, and horseradish. Oh, and the last thing is whipped cream. Can't forget that," Alice added. "Why would you make this? To eat?" Bronwyn pressed a napkin to her lips and squeezed her eyes shut. "Whipped cream and ham should never mingle. Never ever, never." Alice placed the still-full dip dish in the sink. "Agreed. That's why it wasn't out. I was curious, but it's disgusting." "Thanks for the warning," Bronwyn murmured, now drinking wine directly from the bottle. "You didn't give me a chance!" Alice replied. "I was hungry. I've been on a stupid juice cleanse," Bronwyn retorted, and they both laughed. "You're lucky I didn't serve the bananas wrapped in ham, baked with hollandaise sauce on top.

English Gingerbread Cake Serves: 12 to 16 Baking Time: 50 to 60 minutes Kyle Cathie, editor for the British version of The Cake Bible (and now a publisher), informed me in no uncertain terms that a book could not be called a cake "bible" in England if it did not contain the beloved gingerbread cake. When I went to England to retest all the cakes using British flour and ingredients, I developed this gingerbread recipe. Now that I have tasted it, I quite agree with Kyle. It is a moist spicy cake with an intriguing blend of buttery, lemony, wheaty, and treacly flavors. Cut into squares and decorated with pumpkin faces, it makes a delightful "treat" for Halloween. Batter Volume Ounce Gram unsalted butter (65° to 75°F/19° to 23°C) 8 tablespoons (1 stick) 4 113 golden syrup or light corn syrup 1¼ cups (10 fluid ounces) 15 425 dark brown sugar, preferably Muscovado ¼ cup, firmly packed 2 60 orange marmalade 1 heaping tablespoon 1.5 40 2 large eggs, at room temperature ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons (3 fluid ounces) 3.5 100 milk 2/3 cup (5.3 fluid ounces) 5.6 160 cake flour (or bleached all-purpose flour) 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (or 1 cup), sifted into the cup and leveled off 4 115 whole wheat flour 1 cup minus 1 tablespoon (lightly spooned into the cup) 4 115 baking powder 1½ teaspoons . . cinnamon 1 teaspoon . . ground ginger 1 teaspoon . . baking soda ½ teaspoon . . salt pinch . . Special Equipment One 8 by 2-inch square cake pan or 9 by 2-inch round pan (see Note), wrapped with a cake strip, bottom coated with shortening, topped with a parchment square (or round), then coated with baking spray with flour Preheat the Oven Twenty minutes or more before baking, set an oven rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F/160°C. Mix the Liquid Ingredients In a small heavy saucepan, stir together the butter, golden syrup, sugar, and marmalade over medium-low heat until melted and uniform in color. Set aside uncovered until just barely warm, about 10 minutes. Whisk in the eggs and milk. Make the Batter In a large bowl, whisk together the cake flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, baking soda, and salt. Add the butter mixture, stirring with a large silicone spatula or spoon just until smooth and the consistency of thick soup. Using the silicone spatula, scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Bake the Cake Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a wire cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean and the cake springs back when pressed lightly in the center. The cake should start to shrink from the sides of the pan only after removal from the oven. Cool the Cake Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. While the cake is cooling, make the syrup.

Birch bark lends a mild wintergreen flavor to brewed sodas. Birch beer, flavored with sassafras and birch, is a classic American brew. Birch bark is usually sold in homebrew stores. Bitter Orange (Bergamot) s highly aromatic, and its dried peel is an essential part of cola flavor. The dried peel and its extract are usually available in spice shops, or any store with a good spice selection. They can be pricey. Burdock root s a traditional ingredient in American root beers. It has a mild sweet flavor similar to that of artichoke. Dried burdock root is available in most Asian groceries and homebrew stores. Cinnamon has several species, but they all fall into two types. Ceylon cinnamon is thin and mild, with a faint fragrance of allspice. Southeast Asian cinnamon, also called cassia, is both stronger and more common. The best grade comes from Vietnam and is sold as Saigon cinnamon. Use it in sticks, rather than ground. The sticks can be found in most grocery stores. Ginger, a common soda ingredient, is very aromatic, at once spicy and cooling. It is widely available fresh in the produce section of grocery stores, and it can be found whole and dried in most spice shops. Lemongrass, a perennial herb from central Asia, contains high levels of citral, the pungent aromatic component of lemon oil. It yields a rich lemon flavor without the acid of lemon juice, which can disrupt the fermentation of yeasted sodas. Lemon zest is similar in flavor and can be substituted. Lemongrass is available in most Asian markets and in the produce section of well-stocked grocery stores. Licorice root provides the well-known strong and sweet flavor of black licorice candy. Dried licorice root is sold in natural food stores and homebrew stores. Anise seed and dried star anise are suitable substitutes. Sarsaparilla s similar in flavor to sassafras, but a little milder. Many plants go by the name sarsaparilla. Southern-clime sarsaparilla (Smilax spp.) is the traditional root-beer flavoring. Most of the supply we get in North America comes from Mexico; it’s commonly sold in homebrew stores. Wild sarsaparilla (Aralia spp.) is more common in North America and is sometimes used as a substitute for true sarsaparilla. Small young sarsaparilla roots, known as “root bark” are less pungent and are usually preferred for soda making, although fully mature roots give fine results. Sassafras s the most common flavoring for root beers of all types. Its root bark is very strong and should be used with caution, especially if combined with other flavors. It is easily overpowering. Dried sassafras is available in homebrew stores. Star anise, the dried fruit of an Asian evergreen, tastes like licorice, with hints of clove and cinnamon. The flavor is strong, so use star anise with caution. It is available dried in the spice section of most grocery stores but can be found much more cheaply at Asian markets.