Paper Palate

The Tools of the Trade section of December’s Bon Appetit features super-sized cooking tools, from chafing dishes and warming trays to a screwpull cork catcher, that promise to make cooking for a crowd slightly less painful.
I suspect more than a few readers aren’t prepared to spend $120 on a De’Longhi Coffeee Urn they’ll use once […]

Thanksgiving is over and we all need a little break from turkey. Most of us also need a little break from the prolonged kitchen toil that comes with feeding hordes of family and friends. Having exhausted my takeout options I flipped open the December issue of Fine Cooking and spotted the recipe for “authentic” Beef […]

I love Thanksgiving, I truly do. A gathering of friends and family celebrating food and togetherness and the year’s blessings; what’s not to enjoy. But if I get one more food magazine with a glossy bird on the cover, I’m going to roast Ruth Reichl on a magazine rack for this year’s holiday feast. Saveur, […]

Last week, the San Francisco Chronicle celebrated its 20th birthday with the best recipes of the past 20 years. I was particularly intrigued by Barbecued Vietnamese Five-Spiced Cornish Game Hens and Sumatran Red Short Ribs of Beef. Don�t be expecting a festival of sun-dried tomatoes and pesto sauce � there are plenty of recipes that […]

Are the in-laws coming over the river and through the woods to your house or apartment this Thanksgiving? Are you so scarred by past turkey troubles that you can�t bear to face this year�s bird? Do you still store your sweaters in your oven? Try out for the San Francisco Chronicle�s Turkey […]

September�s Bon Appetit promises you will �Cook Like a Chef� with �Secrets and Recipes from America�s Top Spots.� I was intrigued. Who doesn�t want to know special chef secrets? Not me!
Sometimes, though, cooking like a chef doesn�t make sense. Chefs have huge industrial kitchens, supersize appliances, yards of counterspace, and […]

You can�t pick up the food section of a newspaper without reading something about the many laudable attempts, nationwide, to improve school lunches. Last week�s San Francisco Chronicle is no exception. The Chronicle has some great homemade lunches to pack for kids and adults and lunch packing secrets from the crew in hard hats.
The article […]

Impress your friends, terrify your enemies, dice like an Iron Chef! Last week�s Chronicle offered a few tips on improving your knife skills.
There really are four simple steps to improved knife skills: practice, slow down, be more precise, and practice some more. Here�s how I learned to make square dice of any size […]

As I lay here gasping and panting on the cool, cool tile of the bathroom floor, my thoughts are far from the kitchen. I am not a hot weather person. Memorial Day marks the start of three months of solid complaining and sweating on my part, accompanied by total refusal to enter the […]

I have a love hate relationship with the New York Times Magazine. Every Sunday morning, I eagerly settle down with my coffee, favorite pencil, special eraser, and the crossword puzzle. After an hour, I�ve thrown the pencil on the ground 18 times, erased so much that the paper is worn thin, and started […]