Small Bites: Phone app tells you what to eat and fighting global poverty is in the bag

A new phone app that doesn’t just review restaurants, but rates individual menu items, is the subject of my latest USA Character Approved Blog post. And recycled shopping bags now on sale at Whole Foods support microlending programs in developing countries.

When it comes to technology, I’m a late adopter. I keep resisting smart phones. But apps like this one keep coming along, making me rethink my Luddite tendencies. When you want to eat out, choosing where to go is usually pretty easy. Friends, the media, websites like Yelp and even street buzz can keep all but the most clueless of us up on the hottest new tables, the classic standbys and the best neighborhood joints. Choosing the best dishes from an unfamiliar menu can be a bigger challenge. Continue reading “Small Bites: Phone app tells you what to eat and fighting global poverty is in the bag” →

Lodge Cast Iron: What’s old is new again

Lodge Cast Iron cookware—hefty, oldfangled and enjoying a resurgence—is the subject of my latest USA Character Approved Blog post.

Whenever I’m shopping for a new skillet or sauté pan, the first thing I do is lift it. Usually, the cheaper the pan, the lighter it feels. Meaning there’ll be very little metal between the flame and whatever it is you’re cooking. You want a pan with a satisfying heft to it—otherwise, you’re going to be scorching stuff on the bottom before the rest of the food even has a chance to get warm.

Cookware doesn’t come much heftier than cast iron. That solid, lift-with-your-knees weight assures even heating, great heat retention and generation-spanning durability. This sturdy, no nonsense cookware is enjoying renewed popularity these days among a whole new generation of cooks. Continue reading “Lodge Cast Iron: What’s old is new again” →

Healthier lunches go back to school

Sending kids back to school with healthier lunches—and actually getting them to eat them—is the subject of my latest USA Character Approved Blog post.

I was not a lunchbox and thermos kid growing up. My school lunches were strictly brown bag and consisted almost invariably of a peanut butter and jelly (almost invariably grape) sandwich, a banana of questionable vintage (or a box of raisins, similarly carbon dated) and, on rare occasions, a cookie or piece of candy. I bought milk at school, unless I found more interesting uses for my milk money at the confectionery across from the playground. This would have been a healthy, if boring, lunch, if I had eaten it. More often than not, I made it about halfway through my food before bailing and heading for the playground.

As someone who taught elementary school for a few years (and did my share of lunchroom duty), I’m here to tell parents that my school lunch experience was not uncommon. So as we hear more and more about how school performance is linked to nutrition, how do we get kids to actually eat lunch at school—and eat healthy? Continue reading “Healthier lunches go back to school” →

Small Bites: Snow cones, cocktails and seven pounds of chocolate

Snow cones going artisanal with small batch syrups is the subject of my latest USA Character Approved Blog post. And Marion and I are asked to judge chocolate. Lots of it.

Snow cones are a primal summer pleasure. I remember staring at the spouted bottles of colorful syrup at the snow cone stand as a kid, agonizing over my flavor choice. If the stand allowed you two flavors (or sometimes even three! three!), the decision became exponentially harder.

Now a former Chicago restaurateur is making the decision a lot more interesting. Melissa Yen used to run one of our favorite weekend breakfast haunts, Vella Café. Frustrated by the limited choices in syrups for flavoring coffee for the café, she started experimenting with her own. Out of those caffeine-fueled adventures, Jo Snow Syrups was born. Continue reading “Small Bites: Snow cones, cocktails and seven pounds of chocolate” →

BODUM’s colorful new knife holder is no chip off the old knife block

The unboring, unblocky BODUM Bistro Universal Knife Block is the subject of my latest USA Character Approved Blog post.

One of the biggest problems in most kitchens is storage. More precisely, the lack of enough of it. For many home cooks, storing knives is one of the toughest challenges. You need them readily available when you’re cooking, but you also need them some place safe—both for you and the blades.

For years, wooden knife blocks have been the answer. The chunky, counter space-gobbling answer. And if you’ve built your knife collection one carefully chosen knife at a time (the best way to do it, by the way), chances are the knife block’s pre-cut slots won’t perfectly accommodate your collection. Enter BODUM’s Bistro Universal Knife Block. Continue reading “BODUM’s colorful new knife holder is no chip off the old knife block” →

Put a sommelier in your smartphone

18th century lexicographer, writer, critic and probable Tourette Syndrome sufferer Samuel Johnson once said, “Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.” When shopping for wine, I frequently use the second kind of knowledge. And most often, my source is Marion. She not only knows much more about wine than I do, she remembers more about it. (Note to self: Could that be because I drink more of it than she does?)

But now there’s a smartphone app that possibly knows even more about wine than Marion and me put together. And it’s free. Continue reading “Put a sommelier in your smartphone” →

Rocking the dinner party: Brooklyn Slate Company cheese boards

Fine china is refined and elegant. Thrift store trays are retro fun. But for sheer tabletop coolness, Brooklyn Slate Company’s slate cheese boards are hard to beat.

Quarried in upstate New York and hand finished in a small studio in Brooklyn, they’re durable, sustainable and ruggedly handsome. You can write on them with the provided soapstone chalk, so your guests can tell the Abondance from the Wensleydale. And unlike your Royal Limoges, you can toss this cheese board in the dishwasher after the party. Continue reading “Rocking the dinner party: Brooklyn Slate Company cheese boards” →

Small Bites: Cooking it old school, growing your own mushrooms and tracking down your next meal on your iPhone

Two new USA Character Approved Blog posts and a brand new iPhone app that lets you track food trucks in real time.

We’re always on the lookout for the next cool kitchen tool—for our own kitchen and to report here. So it was a refreshing change to stumble upon Jacob Bromwell, the oldest housewares company in America. How old? When they opened their doors in Cincinnati in 1819, our nation’s constitution was a mere 30 years old. Strategically situated on the Ohio River, many of the tools for they made for kitchens, fireplaces and campfires headed west or down the Mississippi. Continue reading “Small Bites: Cooking it old school, growing your own mushrooms and tracking down your next meal on your iPhone” →

Six cool new things for the kitchen from the International Home + Housewares Show 2011

Okay, I’ll admit it. The first cool thing about attending the world’s biggest marketplace of home and housewares stuff is getting to wander around it with an Internet Media pass slung around your neck. This was the third year Marion and I have done it and it was just as exciting as the first year.

Some 60,000 people attend the show at Chicago’s McCormick Place every year. Many are buyers, running the gamut from boutique owners to lead buyers for major chains. And while some of them are talking price points and delivery times, some, like us, are looking for what’s cool and new. Here are six things that caught our eye this year. Continue reading “Six cool new things for the kitchen from the International Home + Housewares Show 2011” →

Chicago chef Grant Achatz honored at USA Network’s Character Approved Awards

The 2011 Character Approved Awards will recognize 12 cultural trailblazers for innovation and contributions in their fields in a one-hour documentary that premieres Tuesday, March 8, at 11/10c. Grant Achatz will be honored for his groundbreaking molecular gastronomy.

In the space of a week last year, two different friends told me they’d just eaten the best meals of their lives. Both were speaking of dinner at Grant Achatz’s Chicago restaurant, Alinea. So it was no surprise that USA Network chose Achatz as a recipient of one of their Character Approved Awards.

Achatz is at the forefront of molecular gastronomy, a movement that is turning the kitchen into a lab, using scientific tools and techniques and changing the very idea of high-end dining. As USA Network’s Character Approved website reports, “With incredible imagination and whimsy, Grant Achatz re-envisions the way we experience food.” Continue reading “Chicago chef Grant Achatz honored at USA Network’s Character Approved Awards” →