Are you a fan of goat milk? It’s common knowledge that people are more easily able to digest it over cow’s milk, due in part to the fact that it contains less lactose (milk sugars) and very different fat and protein profiles. These differences in chemistry also make it taste different, and a lot of people are down on the goat milk – which is a huge bummer, because its culinary capabilities are outstanding. Also, I’ll bet a lot of people don’t know that goat’s milk actually tastes similar to cow’s milks when it’s stored and consumed properly. If you cool goat’s milk quickly and consume it fresh, that flavor that people complain about just isn’t there. Yes, really.
I’m a goat zealot. I love goat milk, and I can’t imagine a happy life without goat cheese. I can think of few things that make me happier than someone who does something unexpected with goats milk.
So, dear readers, here’s a concept that might be new to you: goat milk sweets.
Ecce Capra: Behold, goat milk caramels.
Ok, stop – before you freak out and click away, I’d like to introduce you to my friend Michael Winnike. Michael’s the brain and taste buds behind Happy Goat, a brand of candies that [Click to keep reading...]
For this next edition of Food Blogger Spotlight, I’ve got a veteran who was there right around the time this whole food blog phenomenon began. Please say hello to Clotilde Dusoulier, who writes Chocolate and Zucchini. As a young French women who came over to the United States to work as a computer programmer in Silicon Valley, she began her food blog waaaaay back in September 2003. Do you remember hearing about blogs in 2003? I can. Sort of.
Being an early adopter of the medium, Clotilde is one of the lucky few who’s been able to successfully turn her web-writing journey into a solid career. She has written two books, Clotilde’s Edible Adventures in Paris and Chocolate and Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen, and has written for the Saveur, NPR, the LA Times, and ELLE à Table, just to name a few. I’ve seen her sweet, smiling face pop up all over television, whenever a show is talking about food blogging or French culinary culture. She’s definitely a food blogging success story!
So please put your hands together for Clotilde, and as always, feel free to say hello in the comments.
[Click to keep reading...]
The publishing industry is on its ear, but while book sales are lagging overall, sales of cookbook titles are on the rise. We could hypothesize about the ‘whys’ all day: people are broke and cooking at home more, American food culture has gained in momentum over the past decade, people are returning to a ‘back to basics’ way of eating that involves cutting out restaurants. Whichever theory you subscribe to, the facts are the same; cookbooks are as popular as ever.
With so many cookbooks titles on the market, which are worth their salt? I know I’ve stood at my local Borders and gawked at the rows upon rows of colorful spines within the culinary section, wondering which to pull down and flip through. When faced with a selection of hundreds to choose from, overwhelm sets in and I just give up and walk away.
For me, it always ends the same way: with the sense that there are just too many damn cookbooks in the world right now.
Thankfully, we’ve got a few pros to help us separate the wheat from the ass. Small specialty shops, such as Omnivore Books in San Francisco, are filled with more cookbook titles than any single large-scale chain bookstore can possibly hold. You might think that it would be more difficult to make a selection when confronted by literally thousands of cookbooks, but here you’d be wrong. Because in a store like this, you have a pro at hand who can walk you through the vast majority of the books before you.
Today we’ve got Samantha Tackeff back again, sharing with us her favorite cookbook selections. You might remember her from Food Blogger Spotlight a few weeks ago, where I introduced her and explained that she had the best job ever – she works at the afore mentioned Omnivore Books, where she spends her days getting up close and personal with more cookbooks than you can possibly imagine.
So if you’re like me and find yourself prostrate before a throng of cookbooks, gaping wildly and drooling on yourself in confusion, you’ll appreciate Sam’s advice about which are worth your pennies and ingredients. Some of her recommendations might surprise you.
[Click to keep reading...]