The Bitten Word

Thanksgiving Index 2016: All of This Year's Recipes in One Place. Plus a Giveaway!

Yesterday, we talked about the trends in this year's Thanksgiving menus. Now it's time get down to serious business. 

Here's the full index of every recipe from a Thanksgiving feature in the big food magazines this year -- a catalog of 198 recipes from 9 magazines.

Browse the list to find new inspirations and new ideas for your big Thanksgiving Day feast, and for great meals throughout the holiday season and the winter. There's lots of good stuff here.

PLUS, you can win something! Leave a comment on this post telling us which dish sounds best or worst to you, and you'll be entered to win a cookbook. We'll randomly select 10 comments left between now and Thanksgiving Day, and each of those people will be sent a cookbook! 

Happy eating!

We're Back (With Some Big News)

Hello, Bittens! It's September, and we're back to share some news with you.

Back in early August, we told you that we needed a break. Here's a video that talks a bit about that, and about our news:

So, yes.

As we said in the video, we used the last month to talk a lot about the future of The Bitten Word, and the role it plays in our lives. As we shared back at the beginning of this year, we've been struggling with the future of this site on a number of fronts. After a lot conversations and real sadness on our part, we've decided to end The Bitten Word by the end of this year. 

But don't go just yet! We're not quite done. 

We're sad about the end, but we think it's the right thing for us and the site. We've loved doing this, but the cooking and photographing and writing are no longer the creative outlet they once were for us. We're no longer as inspired by the cooking magazines that served as the impetus for this site. (It's not so much that the magazines have changed, it's just that nine years of reading them closely is, well, a lot.) 

But like we said, we're not done yet. There will be another Fakesgiving (we just couldn't end before then). And there's more that we'd like to share and do before we officially wrap up this site. 

We hope you'll join us for these final months. And we hope that you'll help us celebrate nine great years and what we've all done together.

And if you have an idea for something we should do in the next couple months, perhaps something you'd like to see us all accomplish together before the end of the year, let us know! You can email us or leave a comment. 

Much love,
Zach & Clay 

See You in September + Your Assignment

We don't want to be those bloggers who suddenly go silent on you for a long stretch of time, so we're giving it to you straight: We need to take a month off. We're heading out on a much needed vacation. And we also have another project we're going to be doing some work on, so we're giving ourselves permission to step away here, recharge, and come back for a strong Fall. (Get ready for pumpkin-spice everything. [Just kidding.]) 

While we're away, we'd love to hear about what you cook from the July & August issues of food magazines. If you make something, send a photo and your thoughts, and we'll do some kind of round-up featuring your dishes. Here are a few things we were eyeing that we just haven't gotten to (though we may on vacation):

Oregon Blackberry Pie

Blistered Green Beans with Garlic and Miso

Tuna Poke (which is truly the "it" dish of the moment -- We see Hawaiian poke everywhere)

Plus we're sure there's a lot of awesomeness in the August issues of Food & Wine, Martha, and Bon App. We haven't gotten to those yet. (Don't worry, they're coming to the beach with us.) 

For those of you who aren't feeling the cooking, we highly recommend binge-watching Orphan Black (wowza) and Unreal (so trashy and we love it). And if you just need a dose of pleasantness, you can't do better than the new season of The Great British Baking Show (Mary Berry: marry us!). 

See you in a few weeks. And if you need a hit of The Bitten Word between now and then, check up on us on Instagram. Warning: there will be a lot of beach shots.

xoxo

Zach & Clay 

 

 

3 Must-Have Tools for Summer (All $20 or less)

  

We're just now getting into the groove of summer cooking. At our house, that means we're cooking everything we can on the grill, and whenever possible, we're not cooking much at all, making salads and eating as many raw vegetables as we can.

Over Memorial Day it occurred to us that there are three kitchen tools we reach for really often in the summer. We've recommended them to dozens of friends, so we figured it was time we shared them with you, too. 

None of these are fancy gadgets -- just all really useful items to have on hand this summer. Here's our top 3, but we want to hear about your must-have tools for summer, too. 

 

The Tool That Helps You Eat Healthier

We've all seen the recipes online that recommend swapping julienned vegetables like zucchini for pasta, making dishes lighter and less carb-heavy. We always loved that idea, but never had a tool that allowed us to easily julienne (our big, heavy duty mandoline can do it, but is a chore to haul out and use). Last summer we ordered a simple julienne peeler, and we've used it dozens of times since. It's lightweight, cleans easily and quickly turns vegetables into thin strips. Amazon sells the one we own and recommend for $14. 

 

 

The Handy Scissors That Are Fun to Use 

We first learned about Fiskars -- the celebrated scissors brand, much loved by crafters -- when Clay read Brains on Fire, an excellent book about word-of-mouth marketing. Years later, we learned that Fiskars released a kitchen line, and the company sent us a few of their scissors. The scissors are excellent, but it's these kitchen shears that we fell in love with. They're compact, incredibly sharp, and we find ourselves reaching for them all the time to cut herbs, or to run through salads to make everything bite sized. Fiskars kitchen shears are available for $17 on Amazon. 

 

The Pretty Mandoline

Our Japanese mandoline has been in our kitchen for a few years now, and it definitely gets the most use in summer. We reach for it all the time when we're making salads, or when we want to serve beets or turnips raw (we're getting a lot of turnips these days in our CSA, so it's especially handy). Plus, it's pretty and available on Amazon for $20. 

 

So here's our question for you: 

What kitchen tools do you find yourself constantly reaching for in the summer?

 

10 Best Japanese Snacks (and 1 We Couldn’t Eat): Noshing Our Way Through Japan

Japan, it turns out, is the most amazing place to snack.

We didn't know that about the country when we planned our trip. (Otherwise, hello, we would have gone years ago.)

Sure, we had great meals while we were there, with Yakitori, Oysters, and Pastries, and the Ramen, Sushi, and unexpected pancakes. But Japan is just the best for between-meal grazing -- whether it's elevenses, tea time or fourthmeal.       

Snacks are everywhere in Japan. In larger cities, department store basements are almost universally full of amazing food halls with all sorts of delicious items. In train stations, the grab-and-go cuisine is legitimately great. Even at convenience stores -- actually, especially at convenience stores. Japanese convenience chains, including Lawson, Family Mart and 7-Eleven (which is so much nicer than in the U.S. -- trust us), all offer surprisingly delicious treats and fresh foods. 

Here are 10 snacks we either especially enjoyed, or thought were crazy interesting -- along with a bonus one that we just couldn’t bring ourselves to eat.

 

1. Omelet on a stick

Japan doesn't have a street-food culture the same way that, say, Singapore or Thailand does. But one exception to that is the Outer Market at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market, where you'll find small stalls selling all sorts of edible takeaways. We saw a lot of Japanese tourists lined up to by these omelets on sticks. We’re not honestly sure what’s on top – it tasted like some kind of sweet-onion sauce. But it was a delicious little bite with savory egg and a hint of sweetness.

Do We Still Care About Food?

 

 

Do we still care about food? 

 

That's the question we're pondering as we conclude the eighth year of The Bitten Word and look toward the ninth. When we reflected on year seven, we shared that we've questioned when we might end The Bitten Word. That question remains on our minds as we think about the year ahead. So pardon us while we do a bit of navel gazing and reflect on where we are both in our relationship with food but also with this blog. 

 

We don't ask this question -- do we still care about food? -- facetiously. Of course as humans who must eat, we do. But we also recognize that we care about food these days in ways far different than we did eight years ago, when we were fumbling our way through the kitchen and trying to figure out how to put a decent meal on the table. And really, the way we're thinking about food manifests in what we choose to eat and cook, and then share with you here on the blog. So here are some things on our minds about our relationship with food. 

 

We're finding that the raison d'etre of this blog -- to put our food magazines to use -- no longer holds the same sway for us that it once did. We've spent 8 years hanging on every word of the country's best food magazines. That has been an incredible education, and has taught us to be far more confident and creative cooks, but it also isn't as inspiring as it once was. It's not the fault of the magazines. We actually think the quality of today's food magazines is just as high (if not higher) than 8 years ago. Rather, we feel less inspired. We are, frankly, a little bored with the concept that has made this blog so successful. We often find ourselves reading magazines and struggling to come up with a list of recipes we want to cook. Those that we're most drawn to are incredibly similar to other dishes we've made; others look amazing but are things that we don't really need to be eating (more on that below). We still find inspiration -- it's just that we have to look harder for it. 

 

Part of that is the food that we want to cook these days. A friend who reviewed our favorite dishes of 2015 said, "Wow, you guys really cut out the carbs this year." That is, in fact, true. When we're cooking at home, we're largely cooking high protein, low carb, and vegetable heavy meals. As we creep toward [gasp!] middle age, we're more and more conscious of our overall health. Hard truths in this realm: We are vain. We see a personal trainer. We want to pretend we still have the metabolism of 25 year olds. We are thinner now than we've been in years. And we're happy about that. Sure, we still bake occasionally and when we travel or go out to restaurants we (wildly, madly) indulge, but we have much more of a focus on moderation than ever before. 

 

But we are still obsessed with cooking, and we cook the vast majority of food we eat in a given week. On average, we eat maybe 2 to 4 meals a week that don't come from our kitchen. That's a lot of meals cooked at home. And we still very much enjoy the act of cooking, and of cooking for others. (Dishes, on the other hand, we would gladly never do again.)

 

And then there's The Bitten Word itself. We still love the creative act of writing. And we love trying new recipes. And it's fun to put together a compelling photo to go with a story. But we find that our time do so is increasingly limited. We both have careers that keep us very busy, and we're each traveling quite a bit for our day jobs. There are a thousand things we would like to do with this site if we had more time. We have loads of ideas. And not executing on those ideas feels like a bit of a failure, even though (as we constantly have to remind ourselves) this is a hobby. 

 

And then there's you, dear reader. Getting to know you, hearing from you, smiling at your comments, and seeing photos of what you're cooking have been the biggest, most unexpected surprise of the past eight years. We love hearing from you, and we're not quite ready to give that up yet. So stick around, okay?

 

So where does this leave us? Well, first, we're not going anywhere. We're going to continue to feel our way through this. But we are searching for something -- a tweak on this blog's concept? A new direction altogether? Inspiration? A sign? 

 

We share this with you because we ant you to be a part of the future of The Bitten Word. 

So what shall we do together in Year 9?

 

 

~ Clay & Zach

 

 

 

Remembering Gourmet: Ruth Reichl's "My Kitchen Year"

We don't recommend a lot of cookbooks these days. It's not that we don't love them. (We do, as our cluttered bookshelves attest!)

It's just that we haven't been reading as many of them lately. And when we do, we don't usually buy them, opting instead to sample them from the library. That way, when we do purchase a cookbook, we have a good idea it's one we'll actually use. 

Recently we sat down with our first cookbook in quite a while: Ruth Reichl's My Kitchen Year. As two fans who still miss Gourmet, we found that the book brought back so many feelings -- happy and sad -- about the shuttering of Gourmet magazine, which Reichl edited from 1999 until it ceased publication in 2009. 

My Kitchen Year tracks a year of cooking by Reichl following the magazine's sudden, devastating closure. We felt a great sense of loss when this happened in 2009, but we know our loss as fans was nothing compared to what Reichl and her staff were experiencing. This book takes you into Reichl's life at the time, as she mourns the loss of the magazine and then hits to the road to promote a just-released cookbook by the magazine.

Over the course of Reichl's year, we travel along with her to places across the country, but most of the time is spent in her rural home kitchen in New York's Hudson Valley, as she cooks her way through a difficult time and contemplates the future. Some food-world people we love show up (Calvin Trillin comes to Thanksgiving, bringing spiced matzo and frozen dumplings from Chinatown. #SquadGoals!). As Reichl cooks and fumes and heals, the book provides an honest and beautiful example of food's ability to comfort and heal. In sharing her year, Reichl slows the value of diving deep into something in a time of despair. In this case, it results in a true celebration of home cooking.

The recipes themselves are chatty and informative. A lot of the food is pure comfort (chocolate cake, fried chicken, carbonara) but also great meal options for entertaining (we especially enjoyed the piece on making burgers for guests). The book is punctuated by Reichl's tweets from 2009 and 2010, adding more context into what she was eating and thinking at the time. And the photography is simple and intimate. 

My Kitchen Year is a beautiful book. If you loved Gourmet, we think you'll find great comfort and memories in the book. If Reichl is new to you, follow her @ruthreichl. And by all means, if you haven't already read her autobiographical trilogy -- Tender at the Bone, Comfort Me with Apples, and (our favorite) Garlic and Sapphires -- do so immediately; they're among our all-time favorite food books. 

Have any of you read My Kitchen Year? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments!

 

Sign Up Today: The Holiday Cookie Challenge!

Last year, we banded together with readers to make every cookie featured in the December 2014 food magazines. There were triumphs. There were disasters. There were many, many cookies.

We wanted to repeat the Holiday Cookie Challenge again this year, just as we had done it in 2014, but the entire endeavor is an incredible amount of work and our time is limited this December. 

Instead, we're offering readers a last-minute opportunity to participate in....(drumroll)....The 2015 Holiday Cookie Challenge (Abridged). 

Here's how it will work:

• You'll sign up to be randomly assigned a cookie -- we will also be making those same cookies
  
  
• You will make said cookie, and share it online (we will not be able to post everyone's images this year, but we have a workaround for that)
  
  
• We'll write about the all results here next week

• Random prizes will be awarded to those who participate 

The challenging part is that this is truly a last-minute opportunity (apologies to those for whom the timing does not work out). Sign-ups start today. Cookies will be assigned on Friday, and you'll have to do your baking this coming weekend. 

Sign up today! 

We hope you'll join us!

~ Zach & Clay

A Weekend in Montreal: 7 Lessons Learned From 3 Nights

If you're following us on Instagram, you likely saw a few weeks ago that we were in Montreal. (We also mentioned it in this post on Glazed Sweet Potatoes with Maple Gastrique.) On the heels of Fakesgiving and Halloween, we took a trip North as a surprise (at least until the 11th hour when the airline ruined it, but alas) for Zach's birthday. 

Montreal had long been on our list of weekend destinations -- neither of us had been there, and Zach had yet to set foot in Canada. We packed a lot into three nights. Here are some lessons we learned along the way. 

 

1. Joe Beef is reason enough to visit Montreal. 

Joe Beef -- the storied bistro in the city's Little Burgundy neighborhood -- is, all by itself, worth the trip to Montreal. We had a spectacular meal there, due in no small part to the phenomenal staff. We arrived for our 9:45 p.m. reservation to discover that we had accidentally booked our table for the following week. The staff was so nice about it, sending us to the bar for snacks and drinks and then getting us seated in no time. We were the ones who goofed up, yet they treated us like VIPs.

The food at Joe Beef is the stuff dreams are made of. 

We started with a dish of shaved ham and cheese with mustard that was served not on bread, but on a piece of oven-roasted squash (pictured above). The combination of the savory ham on the sweet squash made us question why we haven't been eating it this way all along. 

For entrees, we had two gorgeous dishes. The first was a lobster spaghetti that was incredibly rich but also worth the indulgence. 

Happy Thanksgiving, Bittens!

One Fakesgiving, 24 guest, 20 dishes and 20 recipe reports later, it's a wrap on this year's Thanksgiving coverage! 

We're going to leave you with well wishes, a bit of advice, and some photos from our Fakesgiving party, like the one above of us laying out the food just before time to eat. 

First, the well wishes: We're thankful for many things this holiday. One of those things is readers like you who choose to spend some time with us, obsessing about what to cook next and dreaming about deliciousness. Your comments and encouragement mean a lot to us. So thank you. We are grateful. 

Here's our very best, last-minute advice for Thanksgiving: Take a deep breath and enjoy the moment. Yes, there are onions to dice and pies to brûlée and turkeys to spatchcock. Some of the dishes you make will be epic; others may not be so great. But who cares? It's Thanksgiving. Laugh it off. Don't apologize for your food. Take the compliments guests give you. Be proud of what you put on the table.

As for us, we're planning to spend Thanksgiving day ordering in Chinese food and watching the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD. No joke.

Please send us your Thanksgiving reports and tag us in your Instagram photos! We can't wait to see what you make. 

Much love and Thanksgiving wishes,

~ Zach and Clay