I can hardly think of a more attention-grabbing headline than the following, from SFGate yesterday: Chef Makes Wedding Gown With Cream Puffs. I am deeply fond of cream puffs in any form (the two Beard Papa’s franchises near me, about which more in a future post, are more tempting than I can begin to tell [...]

I’ve always loved the idea of being able to buy M&M’s in nonstandard colors, such as purple. And you can do so at any of the M&Ms retail stores or online at M&M’s.com. At some point within the past couple of years, they started offering Custom Printed M&M’s—also, clearly, a brilliant idea for which I [...]

You’d think it was a trick question, right up there with “When did the war of 1812 start?” but it’s not: How many ingredients are there in Chinese Five Spice? I’ve got a jar of the stuff in my spice rack with six ingredients:

Fennel Seed Anise Seed Ginger Licorice Root Cinnamon Cloves

It turns out that there are several different formulas, [...]

In the process of working on Take Control of Thanksgiving Dinner, I mentioned the items you’ll have to remove from the inside of your fresh or frozen turkey: the neck and the giblets (heart, gizzard, and liver). These parts aren’t usually eaten, but they can be used to make an excellent gravy. I wanted to [...]

Morgen and I have been (mostly) on the South Beach Diet for a couple of months, and for those who know anything about it, it involves eating a lot of eggs. As a result, I’ve been thinking more than usual about different ways of cooking them, just to have some variety.

Still, I was a bit [...]

Ordinarily, I’m very good with deadlines. I’ll stay up night after night, consume endless amounts of coffee, and push anything and everything out of the way to meet a deadline for a book or article. Sure, there are occasionally circumstances beyond my control, but I’m generally on time—and in fact I typically do my best [...]