1. Really good chocolate. It probably comes as no surprise that the first step to making a really good box of chocolates is to use really high quality chocolate. Here are a few ways you can suss out quality, without an advanced chocolate degree. Look. Good chocolate is glossy. Avoid any chocolates that are dull […]
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1. First things first: What cheeses should you get for a cheese board? The classic answer is to get a variety. Get a young soft cheese. An aged harder cheese. Maybe a blue. Maybe a goat or sheep’s milk option. That is still a safe and delicious way to go. But it’s not the only […]
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Let’s start with the basics. A ham is the meat of the leg—nearly always the back leg—of a pig, from its ankle to its rump. If you were to go to the butcher shop and ask for one that was raw, you’d be getting what’s called a fresh ham. You could cut it up and […]
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When you think of the Mediterranean, what comes to mind? Perhaps sipping an espresso at a cafe tucked along the French riviera? Cruising in a sailboat between rocky Greek islands? How about soaking up the sun on the beaches of Tunisia?
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The origin of the word “curry” is like the story of “kangaroo”—it’s based on a British misunderstanding. Historians suggest that a few centuries ago the Tamil word kari referred to a spiced sauce or to black pepper. British colonizers took that term, anglicized it to “curry,” and used it to describe a wide range of […]
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Fresh or dried pasta, which is better? Are people concerned about this? Are you talking about it at dinner, arguing for one pasta style over the other? Frankly, I don’t know if this is a debate or not. If it is I’m sure it ranks very low on the scale of disputes, somewhere far under […]
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“Extra virgin” is a legal term used to categorize olive oil. It’s like the USDA ratings for beef: Prime, Choice, and Select. For olive oil, the standards are set by the IOC, or International Olive Council, an organization set up by the UN to coordinate and promote olive and olive oil production.
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Are foods past their expiration dates unsafe to eat? Probably not. The dates printed on foods—whether they are labeled as “sell by,” “best by,” “use by,” or any other variation on the language—have very little to do with safety, or even when the food will “expire.”
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Take two tins of tuna: one from Ortiz, one typical of the supermarket. They came from the same animal living in the same ocean. One costs twice as much as the other. Why?
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For centuries, coarse, whole grain flours were the everyday norm for bread and porridge. White flours were a once-in-a-while treat for only the most special cakes or breads, reserved for the highest of holidays. As refined white flours became more readily available in the 20th century, Big Ag marketing departments promoted them by running a […]
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