Bread

As we approach St. Patrick’s Day, the minds of Americans turn to three foods: corned beef, cabbage, and soda bread. But unlike corned beef, the Irish in Ireland actually eat soda bread! Known by various names according to its flour content and shape, soda bread is eaten all over the Emerald isle. And while the…

There’s nothing like freshly baked bread to make your home smell amazing. Everyone loves a fresh, warm loaf spread with softened butter and maybe some quality jam. But bread is intimidating for many people to make, and so most of us rely on the store-bought stuff. And while I’m not here to criticize sliced bread,…

If there is a food that is more versatile than pasta, I’m not sure what it is. The sheer taxonomy of it alone boggles the mind. Fresh and dried, filled and unfilled, extruded or rolled, hollow or solid—those are just the forms. Then there are the preparations—tomato sauces of a million varieties, pesto, cream sauces….

While there is much to commend the classic American pizzeria-style, delivered-in-a box pizza, it will almost always fall short of a Neapolitan-style pizza. When Raffaele Esposito created the Margherita pizza in Naples back in the mid-1800’s and launched the popularity of pizza, he used a woodfired brick oven that had enough heat to lightly char…

Bread—the staff of life, the very metaphor for food and companionship—is a subject shrouded in tradition, lore, and even legend. Baking homemade bread is one of the most ancient practices of civilized society, and has, therefore, had plenty of time to allow some muddled facts to be folded into its production. Instructions like “place on warm…