Take a Vacation to the Caribbean from your Kitchen

By David Hu

Who doesn’t like steak and potatoes? Instead of the traditional steakhouse combo, marinate your steak in citrus juices and accompany with sweet potatoes mashed with OJ.

This meal will transport you to the sunny Caribbean, no matter what the weather is like outside your door. It’s really easy to make and marinating tenderizes and infuses the flank steak with flavor. Be careful not to overcook.

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Sugar and Spice

By Marilyn Hunter

Autumn leaves. Crisp nights. Cooler days. Not here.

Autumn looks very different in L.A. It’s slow to arrive and sometimes impossible to tell one season from the next. At least there’s one thing we can depend on this time of year…pumpkin patches! I know fall is officially here when pumpkins begin to appear.

The boys love the fall season for two reasons: pumpkins and trick or treating. I love this time of year for pumpkins and pumpkin pie spice. Food is one of the biggest pleasures the seasons bring and I love to celebrate the change of seasons by baking. For me, the flavor of pumpkin pie spice signals the arrival of fall. I like to add it to pancakes, waffles, oatmeal, even sprinkled on my morning yogurt.

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Soup for two! Plus Leftovers

By Lori Powell

Soup time is here. I had to turn the heat on yesterday. I realized that my hands had lost some of their feeling due to how cold my kitchen was without the oven on...which I must admit, is a rare thing. It would have been lovely to have my hands wrapped around a mug of homemade soup.

In my neck of the Hudson Valley, the arrival of fall carries with it the aroma of dried leaves (carpeting the floor of my front yard which I will have to address soon) and wood burning in someone’s fireplace or wood stove (I have neither and yearn for one or the other) with smoke that wafts in the direction of my house.

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A Spa Day for Your Wok

By Katie Barreira

This week in the test kitchen, we were working on recipes that required a wok. Even in professional kitchens, less frequented equipment have a way of hiding best when you need it most. A fly on the wall that day would have heard,

“Do we have a wok?”
“Yeah, I know I’ve used it before, but I haven’t seen it recently.”
“Do you remember packing it? Maybe it got lost in the move.”
“How do you lose a wok?!”

Once unearthed and inspected for quality assurance we concluded that our carbon steel wok had received no love. But that was about to change. A bit of research in our cookbook library uncovered an excellent wok priming primer by Chinese cookbook author and wok connoisseur, Grace Young. Armed with good counsel and some steel wool, we undertook a transformation on par with Michael Caine’s makeover of Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality. Our wok has never looked, or cooked, better.

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Slow Cooking in a Fast World

By Sandy Hu

Michele Scicolone made me buy a slow cooker. She did it by writing The Italian Slow Cooker cookbook, filled with such irresistible recipes, to tempt anyone who doesn’t own a slow cooker to run out and buy one. Who wouldn’t want to try mouthwatering, traditional Italian dishes made easy?

Michele is a friend of many years and I have always admired her deep knowledge of Italian cooking and her meticulous recipe writing. One of the foremost authorities on Italian cooking, Michele is the prolific author of 14 cookbooks.

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