The Bitten Word

The Bitten Word's Holiday Gift Guide 2009

Some of you might be scrambling for gift ideas. Then again, some of you might be like us, sort of lazily drifting towards the holidays.  Maybe there will be gifts, and then again, maybe there won't. A holiday surprise! 

We're trying to keep it simple this year. Rather than just buy a bunch of stuff, we want to give friends and family things that they will really enjoy. 

So here are some ideas for you that we've collected over the last few months.  Have something you'd add to the list?  Let us know in the comments. 

GIFTS YOU CAN MAKE

Full disclosure:  We're not sure either of us has ever actually made a holiday gift for anyone since the sixth grade.

But last December we made Jacques Torres' Cherry-Nut Mudslides (pictured left) and we liked them so much, we still think about them to this day. No doubt the person on your list who receives them as a gift this year year will as well.

December's Real Simple also has a feature about homemade gifts.  We loved their ideas for Infused Vodkas and Chocolate Chunk Hot Cocoa Mix.

The latest Food Network Magazine has an excellent feature about recipes-in-a-jar that can be given as gifts, from Curried Lentil Soup (pictured left) to Blue Cornbread to Christmas cookies. The photos are beautiful and make for festive looking packages.  The full batch of ideas are available on their site.

THE GIFT OF FOOD/GIFT CERTIFICATES

This year's hot holiday gift?  Pork.  You heard it here first.

We're giving a lot of gifts from Western Kentucky-based Broadbent Hams, who has been making award-winning pork products since 1909. We've been Broadbent's obsessed since visiting their store this fall. Here are some items we liked from their store that would make excellent gifts:

• Bacon Trio Gift Pack: Maplewood, Hickory & Pepper! (6 packages for $35).
• Two pounds of classic Cooked Country Ham (2 pounds for $28)
  
• Country Sausage Sacks (50 servings for $20)

If pork's not your thing (Heaven forbid!), a friend introduced us to La Tienda (Tienda.com), an online retailer specializing in products from Spain. They carry everything from food to kitchen gear.  It's definitely a fun site to browse. We already have our eye on this Bomba rice and this Chorizo Soria. 

Our friend Ken is a huge fan of Ricks Picks, a New York based company that makes fourteen varieties of pickles.  Ken, who has excellent taste, recommends the Mean Beans, a spicy take on dilly beans, and the Smokra, pickled okra with Spanish paprika.  With a name like Smokra, how can you go wrong?

More ideas after the jump, including gifts you can drink, read and cook with.

The Leftovers | Interesting Stuff from November Food Magazines

Here are some non-recipe items that caught our attention in November's assortment of food magazines.

Gourmet

In the (sniff) final issue of Gourmet, John Willoughby has a short but surprising item. 

The Gourmet test kitchen bought eight random tablespoon measurements from a variety of stores, and then weighed the amount of salt each one held.

The results were surprising, with the variance between the largest and smallest at 33 percent -- 33 percent!  As Willoughby points out, this might not make much of a difference in a lot of cooking, but in more precise recipes, like baking, it could make a huge difference in the final result.

Now we need a scale to see how much our tablespoons hold!

Food & Wine

We loved this profile of Athens, Georgia-based supper club The FourCoursemen.  The club was started by two friends who just liked to try new recipes. Over the course of three years, it has blossomed into a full-blown affair, with elaborate dinners for twenty-four guests. Invitations are in high-demand. Their food is beautiful and we want to come to dinner.  Seriously.

Martha Stewart Living
 
We've been hearing about The Lee Brothers' new cookbook, Simple Fresh Southern, all over the place, but it was in Martha Stewart Living that we first saw it featured. 

We haven't yet gotten our hands on a copy, but we're looking forward to checking it out this winter.

If you've already picked it up, let us know what you think!

Follow Us on Facebook

And finally, if you're on Facebook, then be sure to become a fan of The Bitten Word.  It's one more way you can follow the goings on here at the blog.

The Leftovers | Interesting Stuff from October Food Magazines

Here are some items we liked from October's magazines that weren't necessarily recipe-related. Previous "Leftovers" can be found here.

Us in Portland, Maine, this summer.

Bon Appétit profiles Portland, Maine in the magazine's annual round-up of America's Foodiest Small Towns.  We were excited to see the article, because we visited Portland in August. It's a beautiful city, filled with fantastic food. Most memorably, we had dinner at Fore Street, a restaurant serving mostly locally sourced ingredients. It was one of the most memorable meals we've had this year. We also loved J's Oyster, where they make an amazing Bloody Mary. Much of the feature is available online.

Saveur, in looking at food in Mississippi, mentions Craig Claiborne's Southern Cooking, originally published in 1987. We knew very little about Claiborne, a former restaurant critic of the New York Times, until we read Gael Greene's memoir Insatiable earlier this summer.  We loved Greene's book, in which Claiborne makes several appearances.

A guest on The Splendid Table recently mentioned Claiborne's autobiography, A Feast Made for Laughter. It appears to be out of print, but we're going to track down a copy and read it this winter. 

We geeked out over this month's Martha Stewart Living feature on vintage cast-iron pans.

They're beautiful and come in an astounding number of shapes. The feature is definitely worth seeking out. A short version is available online.

We haven't yet mastered how to make fancy edges on pie crust, but Fine Cooking has inspired us to try with their feature "How to Make Decorative Pie Crust," including a beautiful looking "wheat edge."

The magazine has a video online that shows you the technique.

Leftovers | Interesting Stuff from September Food Mags

Goodbye summer, hello fall ....

As we head into October, here are a few non-recipe related items from September's food magazines that caught our eye.

Bon Appétit

A great chef's knife for less than $25? Yes, please.  Bon Appétit claims to have found just that, with this knife produced by Mundial, a respected knife manufacturer.

We, admittedly, are knife neophytes and take most of our cutlery advice from Cook's Illustrated. In fact, almost all the knives we own were recommended by Cook's. But at $25, we're willing to give any knife a go. 

The Mundial knife is available on Amazon.

Saveur

We were ecstatic to see Saveur feature two of our favorite food destinations in its September issue. 

The first is Chase's Daily, a fantastic restaurant in Belfast, Maine.  Our friends Dan and Wendy took us there back in 2007 and it was one of those meals we've talked about ever since. 

But here's the kicker -- it's a vegetarian restaurant.  If you read The Bitten Word with any regularity, you know that we eat our fair share of meat.  But Chase's is still one of our all-time favorite dining experiences. The dish we still talk about is a braised fennel that was truly spectacular.

If you're ever in Maine, make the trip to Belfast for a meal at Chase's. They don't have a website, but you can easily find them. Here's the Saveur profile of the restaurant.

The second destination mentioned in Saveur is the Swanton Berry Farm in Davenport, California. When we visited San Francisco earlier this year and planned to take a drive down the coast, our friend Trey demanded that we stop at Swanton. Though it is a working berry farm, there is also ample food in a small help-yourself kitchen.  We arrived mid-morning and helped ourselves to blackberry cobbler and strawberry shortcake. (Yeah, we said mid-morning. WHAT?)

The farm's setting is gorgeous -- just across Highway 1 from the Pacific Ocean. And the food was AMAZING. The fresh fruit cobbler and shortcake were stunningly delicious. And we were utterly charmed by the fact that it's all on an honor system: There aren't any employees working in the kitchen.  You just help yourself to the food out of the icebox, tally up the total, and leave the money on the counter (taking change if you need it).

After the jump, we'll leave you with some photos we took at Swanton Farm in May.  Hope your October is off to a smashing start!

Leftovers | Beach Edition

We're at the beach this week, where we're taking in some sun with friends, eating seafood and (gasp!) taking a break from the Internet.

Typically at the end of the month, we post items we liked in food magazines that weren't necessarily recipe related.  (See previous Leftovers here.)

But you know what?  In August, while there were several dishes we wanted to cook, there wasn't really any non-recipe stuff we wanted to share with you.

Instead, here's a look at what we've been reading this summer and what we plan to read at the beach.  

THE FORTUNE COOKIE CHRONICLES: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food by Jennifer 8 Lee
Purchase The Fortune Cookie Chronicles

Zach just finished this book and Clay is going to read it while we're gone. It's an absolutely amazing look into the history of Chinese food in America.

Starting with an instance of dozens of people across many U.S. states all winning the lottery using the same set of numbers they each got from fortune cookies, Lee takes a deep dive into Chinese food around the globe. 

The entire book is chock-full of interesting tidbits that you'll be sharing over your General Tso's for years to come. 

Word of warning: You will crave Chinese food!

RATIO: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking by Michael Ruhlman
Purchase Ratio

Clay just finished this book and found it fascinating. Ruhlman outlines 33 basic food ratios and then gives you ideas on how to use those ratio to create your own variations on classic dishes. The dough chapter, for instead, includes ratios for, among other things, Cookie Dough (1 part sugar: 2 parts fat: 3 parts flour) and Pie Dough (3 parts flour: 1 part fat: 2 parts liquid). Once each ratio is introduced, Ruhlman then gives you many variations on both.

Other chapters cover Batters, Stocks/Sauces, Farcir (meat-related ratios), Fat-Based Sauces, and Custards. We haven't been baking much this summer, but when we get back, we're eager to take some of these ratios for a spin. 

THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg
Purchase The Flavor Bible

This isn't so much a book we're reading as one we're constantly browsing.

The authors have created an extremely useful reference book that tells which ingredients go together best.  Let's say, for instance, you find yourself with a bunch of juniper berries sitting on the shelf (like we have right now).  The Flavor Bible has more than 40 recommendations for complimentary flavors, from cabbage to pork to venison. 

Earlier this summer, when we wanted to make a cardamom ice cream, we got the idea for adding vanilla by browsing this book, resulting in our Cardamom-Vanilla Ice Cream.

If you're the kind of cook who likes to experiment and just go with the flow, this book is perfect for you.

INSATIABLE: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess by Gael Greene
Buy Insatiable

Top Chef viewers likely know Gael Greene as a judge on this summer's Masters series. Before that show, we were aware that Greene was a long-time New York City restaurant critic, but we knew very little else about her. Zach's mom just read Greene's memoir and then sent us her copy of the book, with an intriguing note:

"This book is a really fun read but it's really raunchy. Pretend you didn't get it from your mother."

Let's just say, by page three, she's describing a very intimate encounter with Elvis.  We can't wait to read it at the beach!

What did you read this summer? Any books to recommend?  We'd love to hear about them. 

Leftovers | Interesting Stuff from July Food Mags

We're far from finished posting about what we've cooked from July food magazines.  But in between dishes here's a look at some non-recipe items featured in the last month's food mags.

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Gourmet

Attention, Bloody Mary fans:  You're going to want to pay attention.

Last summer, our friends Drew and Ralph introduced us to their favorite Bloody Mary mix, with the adorable name Zing Zang.  And it was love at first sip.

Zing Zang isn't your ordinary, mild mix that needs to be spiced up. It's fantastic as is, though we still spice ours up a bit. When it comes to bloodies, we love to tinker, adding a dash of this, a smidge of that. We were thrilled to see the mix featured in Gourmet. If you want to try it but can't find it in your area, you can order some from the company's website.

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Martha Stewart Living

Interested in u-pick fruits and vegetables but uncertain where to go in your area? Martha features PickYourOwn.org, where you can find nationwide listings of farms that offer u-pick options.  The site is also stocked with canning and preserving tips if you want to try your hand at food preservation this year.

Sometimes we're suckers for packaging. That's one reason that Maldon sea salt jumped off the pages. Its classic looking packaging is a adorable, like something you might find in your great-grandmother's pantry. Which might be possible, since the company, based is England, has been making sea salt for more than 200 years. If you can't find it in your local supermarket, you can always order it online. We're eager to try it!

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Cook's Illustrated

Cook's has an "Essential Kitchen Equipment" feature with "The 39 must haves in our kitchen that we recommend for yours." Though we're not 100% on board for everything on the list, we loved reading their recommendations.  Portions of the list are available on their website.

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And Just Because We Love It . . .

For Christmas last year, our friend Katie sent us an awesome package from Nashville's famed Loveless Cafe.  The package included some of the smokiest bacon we've ever tasted and some amazing grits. But our standout favorite was the Loveless Maple Syrup which is beyond delicious. We loved this syrup so much that we've been rationing it for the past seven months, only using it for very special meals.  Well, we're sad to report that this weekend we finished off the syrup. We're definitely going to have to order some more or pick some up the next time we're in Nashville. 

Find The Leftovers from previous months here.

Leftovers | Interesting Stuff from June Food Mags

Here are a few non-recipe items from June food magazines that we liked.

Martha Stewart Living

We love this suggestion for making muffins more festive and easily portable by making Crisp Muffin Wrappers out of parchment.  We tried it when making Best Blueberry Muffins (pictured right) earlier this month.  It's a great alternative to using muffin cups.

Also from MSL and Merchant4.com come these crazy Chikotan Charcoal Stirrers, which are charcoal sticks made from Japanese bamboo.  Used in high end bars in Japan, these drink stirrers absorb impurities in beverages. 

MSL also has some wonderful ideas for infused liquors, such as Beet-Cucumber Vodka, Lemongrass Peach Sake and Fennel Vodka.  As our herbs start to take off, we look forward to experimenting with some of our own. We especially like the idea of making these as gifts for housewarmings and summer gatherings.

Fine Cooking

We're going to keep Fine Cooking's handy guide to preserving fruits and vegetables through freezing at hand for later this summer, when we're in need of using up vegetables from our CSA.  Freezing through preserving is something we've experimented with for a few summers.  We've had great success with some vegetables (especially bell peppers), but also some freezing failures (like eggplant).The handy guide walks you through how to best prep 20 fruits and veggies prior to freezing them. 

Gourmet

MixMyGranola.com is a new site that allows you to create your own customized granola blend. Ingredients range from the delicious (dried blueberries and cranberries) to the exotic (Goji berries, Chia seeds) to the whimsical (gummi bears, animal crackers).

The MixMyGranola team reached out to us earlier this summer, asking if we'd like to create our own blend.  We did, building a mix that included Goji berries, dried blueberries, Chia seeds and roasted almonds.  Pricing depends on how many ingredients you add (ours totaled $11.04 plus shipping). 

If you want to give MixMyGranola a try, the site is offering Bitten Word readers 10% off their orders.  To receive the discount, use the promotion code "BITTENWORD" when you check out. 

And finally, also from Gourmet, we're in love with these adorable Pantone PA27 Series coffee mugs.  We had first seen them earlier this summer at the San Francisco MOMA gift shop. Our coffee needs these mugs.  

And now, on to July!

Leftovers | Interesting Stuff from May Food Mags

Just as we do at the end of each month, here's a round-up of items from this month's food magazines that we found of interest but weren't necessarily recipe related.

Martha Stewart Living

You've likely heard of Mark Kurlansky's other books, such as Cod: The Biography of the Fish That Changed the World and Salt: A World History.  When we read in MSL about his new book, we were instantly intrigued by the title alone: "The Food of a Younger Land: A Portrait of American Food--Before the National Highway System, Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food, When the Nation's Food Was Seasonal."  Based on research completed but never published by the WPA prior to World World II, Food of a Younger Land explores regional food cultures in America. Mississippi chitlins and Montana Fried Beaver Tail?  We're excited to read this book! 

Everyday Food

The magazine's "How to Cut Up a Chicken" feature is among the best and simplest diagrams we've ever seen for a simple step-by-step guide into this process.  It's especially good for the novice cook, who may need more instructions and visuals that the typical recipe or cookbook provides.  Luckily, Everyday Food has made the feature available online.

Gourmet

Gourmet's "Obsessions" column -- which outlines 5 or 6 products each month that the staff likes -- features one of our favorite products: Dale's Steak Seasoning.  Zach's mom uses it religiously back in Tennessee; Clay had never heard of it until Zach brought home a bottle and now we use it occasionally when making steaks.  Dale's is an intensively flavored marinade that is popular in the South and sold in supermarkets throughout the Southeast. The flavors are intense (chiefly soy sauce, onion, garlic, sugar, ginger and paprika) and the label says it can be used on almost anything ("Delicious on all meats, fish, fowl and vegetables"). If it's not available in your area, you can also order it through Amazon.

Cook's Illustrated

We love the rating features in Cook's, where they test out a bunch of brands of the same product and then give you their recommended brands.  There are two of these excellent features in the May issue: Testing Cookware Sets and Tasting Chocolate Chips.  The intros to both features are available on their website, but the results are only available to subscribers. Pick up a copy or try their two week site trial and check it out!

And Now For Some Funny Videos

And finally, we leave with you with Posh Nosh -- a parody online cooking series that our friend Todd recommended.  Watch and enjoy!

Leftovers | Interesting Stuff from April Food Mags

Just as we did in March, we wanted to highlight some great food magazine features that caught our eye in April that aren't necessarily recipe related.

Coffee That Will Change Your Life (And the World?)

We've had the great pleasure over the last two months of receiving some free samples of Storyville coffee.  It's a subscription coffee service based out of Seattle with a fanatacism for freshness. They roast the beans and then immediately ship them out to subscribers, who receive their orders only days later.  It's definitely the best damn cup of coffee we've ever had a home. You can read more about Storyville and the very detailed -- but extremely effective -- experience of brewing a cup over at The Kitchn.  

But why are we telling you about Storyville?

Besides delivering a great cup of coffee, they're also trying to make a difference. In May, they're donating 100 percent of their revenue -- as in all revenue, not just profits, up to $1 million -- to International Justice Mission, a human rights organization, to combat slavery, human trafficking and other forms of violent oppression. 

If you're a coffee fanatic or have one in your life, think about giving Storyville a try during May.  Learn more about Storyville and their "Give It All Away in May" campaign at their website.

Gourmet (sort of)

We've raved about her books before, so it's no surprise that we're recommending Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl's latest book, "Not Becoming My Mother: And Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way." A departure from her previous books, which were focused on Reichl's life with food, "Not Becoming" is an examination and celebration of her mother's life, which whom she had a complicated relationship. It's a slender but sweet book that we definitely recommend to Reichl fans. If you haven't read any of her books, we recommend that you add all three books to your summer reading list.

Gourmet (for reals)

On the Good Food podcast this week (if you're not listening, subscribe immediately -- it's free), Evan Kleiman interviewed Barry Estabrook, author of Gourmet's recent article "Politics of the Plate: The Price of Tomatoes." The article, which shines light on instances of slavery in the Florida tomato industry (yes, that Florida), is a must-read for the conscious consumer. 

Everyday Food

In the "Freeze It" column, Everyday Food features a handy set of tips about how to have cookies anytime you want (sign us up!). Make the cookie dough, dropping balls of it on parchment-lined baking sheets, and freeze.  The frozen balls of cookie dough can then be kept in a plastic freezer bag for 3 months.  Whenever you want a cookie, pop one (or one dozen) in the oven. We're making room in our freezer already! 

Bon Appétit 

We're not really certain we could eat off these plates, but we love interesting plates and we love floor plans.  Floor Plan Plates:  hot or not? We can't decide.

Food & Wine

Back to cookies: We're big cookie fans, which is why we're eager to try to the Compost Cookie from NYC's Momofuku Milk Bar.  As the (unappetizing?) name implies, this cookie has a little bit of everything thrown in, from chocolate chips to oatmeal to coffee grounds. You can read some blog posts about the compost cookie here and here. We've been to Momofuku Noodle Bar and Momofuku Ssam Bar, but not yet Milk Bar. It's definitely on our list for our next trip to NYC.

Anything catch your eye this month that you think we should know about?  Share it in the comments!

Now on to May!

(Images: Gourmet, Bon Appétit)

Leftovers | Interesting Stuff from March Food Mags

With March nearly behind us, we wanted to point out a few things that caught our eye in this month's food magazines that weren't necessarily recipes.  In case you missed it, here's last month's list. 

Bon Appétit

• Pop-Up Cakes Note Cards -- We're not typically into cutesy stuff like this. But c'mon, these are adorable! They're available from the MoMA Store.

• The Best Places for Chili in the U.S. -- Number one on the list? DC's own Ben's Chili Bowl. We've been known to drop by Ben's after the occasional late night out, and when Zach's mom Brenda visited a few weeks ago, we had lunch there. If you ever visit our Nation's Capital, a chili dog at Ben's is a must.

Everyday Food

• Cook It in the Sauce -- In a feature about "10 New Ways to Love Pasta," Everyday Food includes a marvel idea (at least to us): cook the pasta in the sauce, rather than in boiling water.  We're eager to try it. The idea totally makes sense -- we've just never thought to do it.  If you give it a go, let us know how it turns out. 

Martha Stewart Living

• Etched Glass Storage Jars -- We're a little obsessed with storage jars recently. A few weeks ago we cleaned out our cupboards, and transferred a lot of items we had in bags (like raisins, risotto and various kinds of nuts) to empty jars we had around. It looks quite nice in our cabinet and has made finding items much easier. Well Martha has gone and one-upped us, with a do-it-yourself guide to etching your own glass jars.  Good grief, Martha -- these are beautiful!

Food Network Magazine

• Tomato Paste in a Tube -- Tomato paste is one of those products with perpetual leftovers.  You purchase a can of it for a recipe and only need a tablespoon, and then you're left with a small amount of it.  We've been wrapping whatever's left in cling wrap and freezing it.  No more!  At the behest of Food Network Magazine, we're now buying tomato paste in a tube. We've already used it in several recipes and it turned out great.  If you're interested in buying some, it's available in supermarkets nationwide. 

See anything in food magazines this past month that you particularly liked?  Let us know in the comments!