Rlandau

I didn't grow up in a house with a dedicated canning pot or a stockpile of home-preserved goods in the basement. My mom made her mom's bread and butter pickle recipe once in a blue moon, but otherwise we bought our jams, jellies, dill spears, and tomato sauces from the neighborhood Publix. It wasn't until I worked on a few DIY-focused cookbooks a while back a that I finally got my canning feet wet. These days, I try to sneak in putting up a preserves or two on empty weekends. Now that summer produce is in full swing, I've got even more motivation to break out my empty Ball jars.

A wonderful new resource for home canners is Southern Living Magazine's new cookbook, Little Jars, Big Flavors. Like many newer canning cookbooks, Little Jars, Big Flavors focuses on small-batch preserving (instead of the massive homesteader-sized projects in books from our parents' generation). Preserving small amounts of jams, jellies, and pickles keeps canning manageable, even in small kitchens with negligible counter space.

Even so, canning can be daunting to the novice. When I first learned how to use a boiling water bath canner, I was terrified that my jars would explode, fail to seal, or worse, make me or one of my friends sick. Little Jars, Big Flavors does a great job quelling those anxieties. Between the warm, welcoming tone of the recipes and no-nonsense, information-packed canning intro, the book could put even the biggest hypochondriac at ease. There are plenty of step-by-step photos as well as super-helpful sections like: ingredients and techniques not to fudge, spoilage signs, and a list of issues that are "not ideal, but usually not a big deal."

The recipes, written with help from Southern culinary maven Virginia Willis, cover a wide range of preserves, from simple berry jam and dill pickle spears to scuppernong jelly and pickled cherries. Towards the end of the book, there are a few DIY pantry items like vanilla extract and mustard to expand the preserver's repertoire. In addition, there are recipes that make use of the preserves scattered throughout the book for those of us who need a little nudge to get through the last jar of jam. Yet, while some of the recipes add an intriguing spice or two, the flavor profiles are generally familiar—you won't run into recipes for things like mole-infused zucchini or Cynar artichokes anywhere on these pages.

What you will see this week are an assortment of summer preserves, like cardamom-plum jam, jalapeño jelly, and spicy peach salsa. We'll end the week by pickling several bunches of Japanese turnips with shiso and then using the results in a bánh mì-inspired sandwich.

Win 'Little Jars, Big Flavors'

Thanks to our friends at Oxmoor House, we have five (5) copies of Little Jars, Big Flavors to give away this week. All you need to do for a chance to win is tell us about your favorite preserve (Jams, pickles, jellies, chutneys, you name it!) in the comments section below.

About the author: Kate Williams is a freelance writer and personal chef living in Berkeley, CA. She is a contributor to The Oxford American and Berkeleyside NOSH, and she blogs at cookingwolves.wordpress.com.

Editor's note: Each Saturday morning we bring you a Sunday Brunch recipe. Why on Saturday? So you have time to shop and prepare for tomorrow.

[Photograph: Sydney Oland]

If you've never fried an egg in lots of olive oil, you're missing out on some major crisp, puffy, runny action. But be warned, it's hard to go back to the more modest fried egg once you've tried this version. This type of egg cookery is not for the faint of heart—when you drop the egg into the oil it splatters quite a bit. So please be careful if you're trying this out for the first time.

If you're having people over for brunch, roast your asparagus before they arrive. It'll save you time and energy, and they're wonderful served at room temperature. Once company arrives, just fry up your eggs and brunch is ready to serve.

About the author: Sydney Oland lives in Somerville, Mass. Find more information at sydneyoland.com (or read eatingnosetotail.com)

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From Chicago

VIEW SLIDESHOW: 11 Awesome Veggie Tacos in Chicago

[Photographs: Nick Kindelsperger]

There is beauty in the veggie taco. That was one of the many surprises uncovered during my two trips to Mexico. While meaty options were far more prevalent, vegetable fillings abounded, and they were often the most colorful and enticing option. I've been on the hunt for similar tacos here ever since.

When done right, veggie tacos should feature fillings that are tender but still crisp, with a bracing sauce, a good heat, and some natural sweetness to round things out. When they are bad, which happens far more often in Chicago than I'd like to admit, they are mushy, bland, and greasy. Veggie tacos are easily the most inconsistent filling to order. Fortunately, while taquerias have taken longer to get on the vegetable bandwagon here, there are now enough options to feast heartily without every touching meat.

I should stop and point out the growing trend of Mexican restaurants offering fake meat alternatives for vegetarians. You won't find any of that here. I'm not completely against the practice, but I still don't think they can compete with the best of these meat-free options.

Click on the slideshow, or check out the picks below. If you have any veggie tacos you think should have made the cut, leave a comment below!

• Grilled Brunkow Cheese Tacos at Takito Kitchen
• Aguacate Tacos at Masa Azul
• Rajas with Corn Taco at La Lagartija
• Rice and Bean Taco at El Milagro
• Kale and Grits Taco at Bullhead Cantina
• Market Mushroom Tacos at Antique Taco
• Papas con Rajas at Big Star
• 'Colorful' Taquitos de Papa at DeColores
• Potato Tacos at Carniceria Jimenez
• Hongos Tacos at Mercadito
• Vegan Lentil Taco Platter at Nana

View Awesome Veggie Tacos in Chicago in a larger map

We all played with paper cutouts as kids, but Helen Musselwhite never grew out of it. In fact, she elevated the whole thing into works of art. The details are stunningly gorgeous!

Beauties Butterfly

Beauties Garland

10

Hawthorne Blackboard

Sanctuary (L) and Wild Wood (R)

Ghost Butterflies

Under The Moon of Love

Happy House

View more over at Helen's website - via Yatzer 

From Sweets

[Photographs: Carrie Vasios]

I'll admit I've been a bit narrow minded when it comes to upside-down cake. I assumed it was owned by pineapple, like in Mean Girls when Regina tells Gretchen Wieners that she's not allowed to wear hoop earrings because they're her thing. Side note: let's make another version of that movie in which every character is a food. Lindsey Lohan (circa 2004) would definitely be a cronut.

Anyway, a little late night internet search that started with "Tayberry recipe?" somehow led to an old post from Joy the Baker in which she made strawberry upside down cake with cardamom. I'd never seen an upside-down cake made with anything other than pineapple, but her version looked quite tasty. "If you wanted to experiment with other berries for this recipe, I'd totally support you!" said Joy at the end of her post. Joy, I thought, I might just take you up on that.

With blueberries finally in season, I decided to use them as my fruit of choice, and turns out they make for pretty awesome upside-down cake. The technique is the same for any upside-down cake, and it's a simple one: Melt some butter in a cake pan, then sprinkle it with brown sugar and pour in the blueberries. Top the layer of fruit with cake batter. Bake cake until golden then invert, revealing the beautiful layer of cooked fruit on top.

The cake base is moist and flavored with cinnamon and every bite gets some of the juicy berries on top. Next time I think I'll try it with a mix of berries. Maybe even tayberries, to answer my own question.

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Blueberry Upside Down Cake »

About the author: Carrie Vasios is the editor of Serious Eats: Sweets. She likes to peruse her large collection of cookbooks while eating jam from the jar. You can follow her on Twitter @carrievasios

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From Drinks

When I walked into Leo's Diner bright and early on a Thursday morning, I wasn't quite hungover. I had, however, been traveling cross-country for a few days and was feeling particularly bleary-eyed. Though most of the neighborhood was still sleeping, Leo's had quite a few tables filled, and from the hand-drawn thank you notes on the wall to framed reviews from the local paper, it was clear this spot was an Omaha favorite.

The Fantasy Island ($8.25) is a mountain of food: hash browns topped with biscuits and gravy, two eggs and bacon, sausage, ham, green pepper, onion, and tomato. It's a breakfast masala of sorts—a combination dish whose sum is definitely better than each of its components. Each bite includes rich over-easy egg, crispy and salty hash browns, fluffy biscuit, and savory sausage-and-ham-laced gravy. (I didn't find much bacon on my plate, but honestly, I did not miss it.)

Even with two hungry drivers digging through the Island, we couldn't finish it. If you're eating solo, I would recommend getting a half-order instead ($6.00). And don't order extra toast, like we did. It was decadently soaked in butter and damn tasty—but it takes up valuable stomach space better reserved for another bite of that sausage gravy.

Leo's Diner

6055 Maple Street, Omaha, NE 68104 (map);
402-553-2280

About the Author: A student in Providence, Rhode Island, Leah Douglas loves learning about, talking about, reading about, and consuming food. Her other work can be found at her website.

[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

This is the best way to serve corn, period.

I know that's a bold statement, but it's one I've backed up with years of detailed scientific studies into the eating habits of my wife and the occasional friend or neighbor. I've calculated to several decimal places exactly how much faster the average ear of corn cooked in this manner disappears from the table and down the gullet of an unsuspecting dinner guest than an ear of corn cooked through other means, cross-referencing and controlling for seasonality, the °Bx of the corn, and the starting appetite of the diner. I've conducted blind, double-blind, and even triple blind* taste tests and ran the results through sophisticated analysis algorithms I had specially programmed.

*That's when even the corn doesn't know it's being eaten.

As luck would have it, I've since lost all of this data in an unfortunate diving accident (note: never attempt to free dive without rubber pants your size), but believe me when I tell you that I have rigorously proven this corn to be more delicious than any other.

Don't believe me? Just try out this recipe risk-free. If you are in anyway unsatisfied, I offer a 100 percent, no-questions-asked, money-back guarantee.*

*Cost of time, ingredients, internet connection fees, paper, printer ink, gas, coal, cooking equipment, beers, or any other costs with actual monetary value not included.

The basic premise is to start out with really great grilled corn, already unarguably* one of the most delicious things on the face of the planet. There are many ways to grill corn, but in this case, you want to go with fully shucked cobs, cooked directly over very hot coals. If all goes well, the corn should be completely cooked through just as it begins to char, rendering each kernel bursting with sweet juice with a rich, nutty flavor from the toasting.

*To the wiseguy trying to argue with the unarguable right now: you're fooling no one.

Next up, you'll want to combine a few more delicious things together. Cotija cheese, crumbled finely (if you can't find it, a good crumbly feta will do well), Mexican cream (or sour cream), mayonnaise, garlic, cilantro, and powdered chili.

There are those strange folks out there who can't seem to stomach mayonnaise or mayonnaise-slathered food. To those, I would first suggest attempting to try to start thinking about finding more joy in your life, then immediately follow it up by filling their mouths with deliciously saucy grilled corn before they can begin to argue otherwise.

The most delicious thing about all those delicious ingredients is that they become even more delicious when you combine them all together into a creamy sauce.

Want to know how to take what's already more delicious and turn it into something that's more than more delicious? Slather more delicious item A over more delicious item B to create more more delicious item C.

A + B = C, but magically, C > A + B. That's the magic of synergy in foods, and it comes out in spades in this recipe. The final result is sweet, salty, savory, creamy, nutty, and—with the help of a squeeze of lime—tart. To my mind, it's the very best way to get a taste of summer. Gloriously drippy, fat-smothered summer.

When I make corn like this, I plan on at least an ear and a half per person, though realistically, it's better to go with two, it's that darn delicious.

And if you're in the mood for something a bit more demure, you can always go the fork-and-plate route by making esquites, a close cousin to this dish, and equally delicious.*

*How can the most delicious way to eat corn be just as delicious as a different way to eat corn? Because they're both the most delicious way. Just go with it.

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Mexican Street Corn (Elotes) »

About the author: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is the Chief Creative Officer of Serious Eats where he likes to explore the science of home cooking in his weekly column The Food Lab. You can follow him at @thefoodlab on Twitter, or at The Food Lab on Facebook.

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[Photo: Lauren Rothman]

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across Sarah Karnasiewicz's Wall Street Journal article about chilaquiles, that classic hangover dish of oily tortilla chips, spicy salsa, and plenty of melty cheese that's particularly effective at sopping up any extra drinks from the night before. In her article, Karnasiewicz describes another day-after dish she relies on: a buttery tangle of torn lasagna noodles amped up with a touch of umami-rich soy sauce, brightened with fresh lemon juice, enriched with grated cheese, and made into a complete meal with the addition of a few runny poached eggs.

Butter, cheese, and eggs all in one dish? That was a pasta I could get behind, I thought. The ingredients were in my shopping bag by the time I got home that evening.

I made just a few small changes to Karnasiewicz's recipe, cutting down slightly on the luxurious amount of butter she called for, and thickening up the rich sauce with a few spoonfuls of starchy pasta water. I also quadrupled the amount of chopped fresh herbs in the original recipe; after all, this is summer, when herbs are in abundance and at their best. The resulting dish was everything I'd hoped for—nutty with brown butter, a little salty with soy sauce, but somehow, impossibly, light with zingy lemon juice and fragrant herbs. I'll definitely revisit this recipe the next time I've had one too many.

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Torn Pasta Sheets with Brown Butter, Herbs, and Poached Eggs »

About the author: Lauren Rothman is a former Serious Eats intern, a graduate student of journalism, and an obsessive chronicler of all things culinary. Try the original recipes on her blog, For the Love of Food, and follow her on Twitter @Lochina186.

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From Chicago

[Photograph: Joe Roy]

Am I insane for being immediately reminded of Heaven on Seven when I first stepped into The Purple Pig? I don't think so. That slightly cramped, controlled chaos spills similarly, along with hunger inducing smoky cooking smells, from the kitchen at both places. And I could've sworn I spotted a wall of hot sauce. I'm exaggerating that last point (they're corked wine bottle lined walls, thank you very much), but apparently I can spot a Bannos—or his kin—when I see one.

Most restaurants of this caliber make a fried food enthusiast for hire work for it when trying to select dishes. When I'm lucky, that beautiful "f" word will be in plain print, but all too often, I'm left politely inquiring just what the menu means by "crispy." The Purple Pig makes it easy, though, with most all dishes of interest relegated to their own section, simply labeled "Fried Items." Working your way down the list is as good a strategy as any, and one I employed most successfully.

Pork Fried Almonds, Rosemary, and Garlic ($5.00, and from the "Antipasti" section, I should add) arrive to the table warm and plenty salted, with whole cloves of roasted garlic adding welcome sweetness. Contrasting the crunch of the lardy almonds, the fried rosemary leaves dissolve instantly on the tongue. We made a table wide pact to never eat lesser almonds again.

The technique on the Fried Manchego Cheese with Membrillo ($8.00) is perfect: just the right amount of crispy breading gently enrobes the slightly melty cheese. Said cheese is salty and assertive in a way regular mozzarella just isn't. Come to think of it, whether marinara or ranch, I'd dip these into just about anything, but the sweet membrillo sauce is the best choice. The slight apple flavor cuts through the rich cheese, and the all-too-soon empty bowl didn't know what hit him.

One bite into the Salt and Vinegar Beef Tendon Chips ($9.00), and I feel mislead. I've been carrying on, assuming that the best rinds come from pork, when this dish has been patiently awaiting me the whole time. Am I allowed to prefer beef in this context? Do I need to turn in my credentials? In any event, the vinegar taste is strong, in line with the theme, and the chips themselves practically melt in your mouth after first crunch. The fried parsley sprigs are a nice touch too, distilling concentrated parsley flavor into the dish and then disappearing quicker then they came.

The Pig's Ear with Crispy Kale, Pickled Cherry Peppers, and Fried Egg ($9.00) appears to be the restaurant's signature dish, and it certainly looks the part. But its place at the end of the meal, after all its intensely seasoned predecessors, is a handicap: it comes across rather bland. The slivers of battered pig ear taste of breading, and little else. A more assertive sauce would help matters: egg yolk is always appreciated, but the pickled peppers just can't stand up to the dish's overwhelming richness. Some sort of vinegary sauce would work wonders.

One visit in, and I'm already planning my return to The Purple Pig. I've barely scratched the surface of the expansive menu, and there are even more fried items to try. A man could get used to all this luxury, and I think it's safe to say that heaven just might be a bit more grounded than we thought.

The Purple Pig

500 N Michigan Avenue Chicago, IL 60611 (map)
312-464-1744
thepurplepigchicago.com

From Drinks

[Photo: Liz Clayton]

Whether you call it by-the-cup, hand-brewed, or manually brewed coffee, anytime you're creating a fresh, single cup experience by pouring water over coffee into a cone, you're making a "pourover"—a flavorful, clean-tasting way to express the qualities of drip coffee (that can hold myriad subtle and fanciful flavors that can get lost in the concentration of espresso, or the sludge of a French press, or the uneven extraction of most automatic drip machines.) What's more, the act of preparing a pour over coffee encourages an intimacy with your brewing process that even non-experts can tune in with right away. Still don't know why pourover is so darn wonderful? Do you want to know what it takes to make it wonderful at home? Today we offer you our definitive guide to pourover.

The Whys: Why Pourover is Awesome

1. Your cup is fresh
The greatest thing about a coffee brewed by-the-cup is its freshness. You brew it, just enough for you and perhaps a friend, and you drink it. There's not going to be enough to languish on a heating element, cool off on the counter, or even dare to cast an askance glance at your microwave hours later. You grind your beans fresh, pour just as much as you want to drink, and consume it promptly. You know, just like you'd do if you were cooking food to eat.

2. Aromatic experience
As any coffee expert will tell you, aroma is paramount to your coffee experience, and may be even more important than taste. The art of preparing a pourover coffee—from the fresh grinding of the beans to the initial smell of coffee as water hits the grounds—is full of olfactory goodness. It's these initial whiffs that set the stage for what's going to be special about the particular kind of coffee you're brewing and open a doorway into what kinds of things you're going to taste. It awakens your senses, excites you for the experience you're having as well as what's to come. Standing directly over your coffee with its aromas coming right towards you during the entire brewing process allows you this experience much more intimately than other brew methods like French press or automatic machines.

3. It doesn't actually take more time
One thing we hear about manually brewed coffee is that it seems to be a time investment. This is, for the most part, a temporal illusion. Measuring and grinding coffee can be done while heating water, and the pouring portion of your program shouldn't exceed four minutes. Four minutes sound like a lot first thing in the morning? Spend it waiting for some bread to toast, if you're one of those people who still eats bread.

4. You can do it iced!
In summer heat, making a pourover in the Japanese style, concentrated over ice in the pourover carafe, is a wonderful way to preserve the brilliant acidity of your coffee and keep all its inherent flavors—while still giving you a refreshing cup. Pourover adapts with great versatility to this cold-brew method, needing only a modified strength recipe and the right measure of quality ice to dilute your brew. We love pourover for its willingness to change so easily with the seasons.

The Wherefores: What You Need to Succeed

1. A pourover cone
Though they're not created equal, there's a fine world of cone drippers to choose from depending on your proclivities (ceramic? metal? plastic Melitta?) and how much room for error you'd like to leave. Whether it's a Japanese Kalita Wave or Hario V60 or a fancy stand you've rigged up with an American-made KONE, you'll be pouring water onto coffee in no time.

Though they're all based on the same principles, each pourover cone is slightly unique. Want something durable? Try a metal Kalita Wave. Want something ceramic that's got a single small hole to limit your error in extraction? Try a Beehouse. Want something you can serve beautifully at the table? Try a Chemex (this is, after all, a pourover method, too.) Want to practice your perfect pour? Try the V60. Roomate left behind a plastic cone in the cupboard? Use that, too! You're still having a fresh-brewed coffee experience that will be worth it in the end.

2. The accoutrements
We're not going to insist you buy a fancy scale to make each cup of immaculately prepared, brilliant coffee (so long as you find a consistent amount and stick to a measurement that works), but we'll admit that it helps. Brewing on a scale allows you to make sure you're using the right proportions of water to coffee, plus (depending on which kind of dripper you're using) affords you the ability to walk away from what you're doing once enough water is in the cone. (Extra seconds to slap some butter on that toast!) What you'll want for sure, though is a good pouring kettle to ensure you have control over your stream of water, which affects things like agitation, water-to-coffee contact, and even extraction. You need water, coffee, and filters appropriate to your dripper, too...but you knew that.

3. Can I just jerry-rig this?
Possibly! At the end of the day, the best thing about pourover coffee is that it puts you in close touch with your brewing experience, so if you're the sort to experiment (can I use this old shoe as a filter? Will it work if I put a spiral of wire along the walls of my funnel?, etc.) you're sure to be getting intimate with what brewing can be. So long as you're getting results you like, you're going to have some fun. And if you've rigged up a particularly odd pourover method, we'd like to hear about it!

About the author: Liz Clayton drinks, photographs and writes about coffee and tea all over the world, though she pretends to live in Brooklyn, New York. She is the creator of Nice Coffee Time, a book of photographs of the best coffee in the world, published by Presspop.

From Slice

[Photograph: J. Kenji López-Alt]

As I write this post, I'm sitting in the study at my friend's home in Belfast, looking out the French windows to his back yard. His dad is busy stoking the flames of a wood-fired stone pizza oven that he built with his own hands. This is probably the best possible way to enjoy pizza: real fire, close friends and family, everything hand-made.

But I'm usually not this lucky. My own best pizzas are made on my little 80 square-foot deck on the 17th floor of a Manhattan apartment. If you're like me and your access to stone ovens is limited, the grill is your best bet for making crisp-on-the-outside, soft-and-airy-on-the-inside pizza. It's the only heat source that approaches the insanely high temperatures that are so essential to great pizza.

The absolute best way to work on your home kettle grill is to convert it into a real-deal pizza oven using a KettlePizza insert and a Baking Steel. With the two combined, you've got a fire-breathing beast capable of achieving dome temperatures in the 1200°F+ territory that'll sling out pies from start to finish in under 3 minutes. If you've never tried it, it'll step up your pizza game to a whole new level.

Want to take a more casual approach? You can grill pizzas directly on the grates of either a gas or coal-fired grill. The end results are slightly different, but the technique is simple, and I have never seen a grilled pizza go uneaten in all my years making them.

You can make your own dough using our Neapolitan Pizza Dough recipe, but even store-bough dough will do the trick.

Check out the Complete Guides!

• The Pizza Lab's Complete Updated Guide to Grilled Pizza »
• The Pizza Lab: Combine the KettlePizza and the Baking Steel for the Ultimate Home Pizza Setup »
• A Pizza Snob's Approach to Toppings »

About the author: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is the Chief Creative Officer of Serious Eats where he likes to explore the science of home cooking in his weekly column The Food Lab. You can follow him at @thefoodlab on Twitter, or at The Food Lab on Facebook.

From Serious Eats: New York

Shredded Beef with spicy green pepper. [Photographs: Nick Solares]

You know you are not in a generic "Chinese" restaurant when items like General Tso's chicken and Orange Flavor Beef are relegated to their own section on menu under the title "American Chinese Food." You will find these and other familiar members of the Chinese American canon dismissively situated, like the kid's section, in the back of the164 item menu at Hot Kitchen in the East Village. Craving Kung Bao chicken? You will find it on the lunch menu, but you will likely be frowned upon for requesting it at dinner. Hot Kitchen is as serious about the authenticity of its Sichuan cooking as its chilies are hot. And the restaurant lives up to its name through the liberal use of heat and spice.

Take the Shredded Beef with Spicy Green Pepper ($14), a tangle of green peppers, shredded spears of ginger, and slivers of tender beef round. The heat starts off low and slow, allowing the flavor of the meat to come through before the ramping up to a fiery crescendo. It is one of the few dishes from the "proper" menu that is available as a lunch special. Order it and the waiter will compliment your choice, and not just because it cost a $1 more than the American Chinese offerings at $8.50 (comes with soup or soda and rice).

Sichuan hot and sour soup.

The Sichuan Hot and Sour Soup (small, pictured, $2.50; large $5) is no better than an average rendition. It's suitably viscous, not especially spicy, and it seems dumbed down for the lunch menu. Certainly it doesn't have anything adventurous in it like pig's blood.

Spicy Sichuan dumplings.

You are better off starting out with the Spicy Sichuan Dumplings ($6), tender ear-sized pockets stuffed with minced pork and served in an oily sauce laced with sichuan pepper. The flavor is raunchy and earthy with a pleasing heat.

Sauteed pea shoots with fresh garlic,

A heaping plate of just-wilted and wonderfully fresh pea shoots ($14) spiked with slivers of garlic offers some respite from the heat.

Smoked tea duck.

The Smoked Tea Duck ($19) comes with the sought-after crispy skin, properly rendered fat, and tender flesh. But the bird can attain a disconcerting acridity, as if the tea leaves are burned at too high a temperature.

Dining room.

Hot Kitchen is a stripped-down dining room, and the service can range from serviceable to friendly (ordering off of the the American Chinese menu will likely illicit the former reaction). Speaking of the American Chinese and lunch menus: they are clearly a compromise, and speak to the economic realities of operating a restaurant in the pricey East Village. Certainly the vision here is purer than that of Grand Sichuan on St. Marks, which offers a far more expansive and universal menu. And when it comes down to the Sichuan dishes, Hot Kitchen holds its own.

About the author: Nick Solares is a NYC-based food writer and photographer. He has published Beef Aficionado since 2007, with the stated purpose of exploring American exceptionalism through the consumption of hamburgers and steak. He has written over 350 restaurant reviews for Serious Eats since 2008 and served as the creative director for the award-winning iPad app Pat LaFrieda's Big App for Meat. You can follow him on Instagram (@nicksolares) and Twitter (@beefaficionado).

From Serious Eats: New York

[Photograph: Max Falkowitz]

If you've noticed an absence of brunch coverage on this site of late, I'm sorry. You can include me in the class of New Yorkers Who Do Not Brunch. The reasons aren't important, but suffice it to say, most brunch menus leave me cold, and there's plenty of other good eating out there.

Ten years after opening, Hearth has started a brunch menu (PDF), and it has something just for non-brunchers like me: meatballs, three fat ones, served over their renowned "cacio e peppe" polenta ($19). It's the same polenta served at dinner—coarse, nobbly Cayuga Farms corn grits cooked with plenty of cheese and black pepper—simmered to a puddinglike creaminess that is nonetheless full of bite and substance. The porridge is impressively savory, and the pepper tingle at the end makes this one of the more memorable plates of polenta in New York.

The meatballs look and taste a lot like grandma's, refined, but not by much. That means they're clean-tasting, intensely meaty, and come with a tomato sauce that's more or a jus. It also means, for the case of my grandma at least, that they're more tough and dense than your meatball ideal—hearty, not delicate. But they work with the polenta, an added element of texture. Softer ones would get lost in the mix.

No, there's nothing about this brunch dish that's especially brunchy. But that's just the way I like it. And if I'm in the position of brunching again soon, I have a good way out.

About the author: Max Falkowitz is the editor of Serious Eats: New York. You can follow him on Twitter at @maxfalkowitz.

Editor's note: Each Saturday afternoon we bring you a Sunday Supper recipe. Why on Saturday? So you have time to shop and prepare for tomorrow.

Creamy mac and cheese gets a hot, smoky twist with the addition of andouille sausage and jalapeño and habanero peppers. [Photograph: Jennifer Olvera]

Mac and cheese is all-but-universally beloved. Even a bad version is likeable enough. That said, takes that incorporate creative ingredients—or lingering ingredients from the fridge—are even better. Here, andouille sausage, jalapeños, and habaneros offer an update, while a breadcrumb topping gives it a bit of crunch.

If you can get your hands on fresh sausage, by all means do. If not, the smoky supermarket variety—or even kielbasa—will work just fine.

Note: A word to the wise: add additional milk if necessary to achieve a creamy, slightly loose consistency, since the noodles have a tendency to suck up the sauce.

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Andouille, Jalapeño, and Habanero Mac and Cheese »

About the author: Jennifer Olvera is a veteran food and travel writer and author of "Food Lovers' Guide to Chicago." Follow her on Twitter @olverajennifer.

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Editor's note: Each Saturday morning we bring you a Sunday Brunch recipe. Why on Saturday? So you have time to shop and prepare for tomorrow.

[Photograph: Sydney Oland]

Small, sweet beets are plentiful in CSAs and farmers markets this time of year And while roasted beets are delicious, sometimes you just don't have time to heat up your oven. This hash is quick to prepare and makes a colorful, earthy brunch. For something heartier, top it with sour cream and chives or serve it alongside a few pieces of bacon and a fried egg.

Be careful when flipping the hash, it takes a couple tries to get into the groove. On the bright side, if a cake or two ends up scrambled, it's not the worst thing in the world, either. Just make sure to get some edges crisp and you've still got a brunch you can be proud of.

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Beet and Potato Hash »

About the author: Sydney Oland lives in Somerville, Mass. Find more information at sydneyoland.com (or read eatingnosetotail.com)

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From Serious Eats: New York

[Photograph: Max Falkowitz]

Fu Run in Flushing is best known for its Muslim Lamb Chop, but I'd argue that their fish is just as good—as tender as can be, receptive to the simple but bold flavors of Dongbei-style Chinese cooking. You can have fish there whole and drenched in sweet chili sauce, in battered nugget form, and also like the above, poached in chili oil with herbs and sweet spices.

It's called Sliced Fish in Hot Pepper ($12.95), though it's one of the milder dishes with chili at Fu Run. You taste the peppers' sweetness more than their heat, bolstered by star anise and coriander steeped into the slippery, oily broth. There are bolder dishes on the menu here, but this subtle one, taken with plenty of rice to soak up that broth, makes a worthy side order.

About the author: Max Falkowitz is the editor of Serious Eats: New York. You can follow him on Twitter at @maxfalkowitz.

From Serious Eats: New York

[Photographs: Andrew Coe]

A half dozen of our most talented bakers descended on the New Amsterdam Market last Sunday. The occasion was the third annual Bread Pavilion, featuring loaves made from local grains. Peter Endriss of Runner & Stone curated the event, rounding up the bakeries and presiding over a fund-raising effort to help grain purveyor Cayuga Pure Organics recover from its recent beanery fire. For an afternoon, the bakers escaped from their ovens to meet the public, support a good cause, and show off their loave.

"It's great that everyone ended up using some or all local grains," said Peter Endriss.

Gabriele and Aileen Suleiman.

The new kid on the block was Suleiman Goods, a start-up making Syrian-style pita bread using Farmer Ground wheat flour and coated with a fragrant layer of Lebanese za'tar. Its owners are Gabriele and Aileen Suleiman, who saw the dire need for quality (non-industrial) pita bread in the city. He's of Iraqi-Jewish descent, while she's a professional baker who's done time at Sullivan Street, Bouchon, and Bakeri. Their pita has a rich flavor and oily but not too heavy texture. Look for them at future New Amsterdam Markets and at the September 14th Sweet Spot Festival in Harlem.

Summer wheat loaf.

Last year, Keith Cohen of Orwasher's used this event to introduce his excellent Local Levain, perhaps the largest loaf made by any city bakery. Keith brought the Local back this year, but he also used the occasion to inaugurate yet another new loaf, called Summer Wheat. "I think people are looking for a bit of a lighter bread in summertime," he said. The Summer Wheat loaf is an overgrown filone made from local flour and honey and comes out of the oven well-crusted with flour. The crust is softer than the Local Levain, while the crumb is fluffy and faintly honey-flavored—perfect for picnic sandwich bread.

Kamel Saci.

Down the line, Il Buco Alimentari's Kamel Saci wowed the crowds with not one but two new, alkaloid-enhanced breads. I've long been fan of his focaccia, which is probably my favorite in the city. On Sunday, he brought his new Chocolate Bread, made from white flour, sourdough, honey, cocoa powder, and 64% Valrhona chocolate. Unlike many chocolate breads today, Il Buco's loaf isn't an overpowering chocolate bomb—it's mild, not too dense, and not too sweet. Kamel suggest eating a slice with a slab of blue cheese. His second new loaf is an Espresso Bread made from white flour, a poulish starter (two-day ferment), and a shot of La Colombe espresso. The bitterness of the coffee perfectly enhances the faint tang of the crust, further stimulating the salivary glands. Both these loaves will be available weekends at Il Buco Alimentari's Great Jones Street location.

Sunflower Pullman loaf.

Hot Bread Kitchen is one of the local bakeries most dedicated to using local grains. It brought two of its greatest hits: the city's best bialys and its always delicious whole wheat challah. Next door, Nordic Breads came back to the market with its consistently delicious Finnish Ruis loaves, made from 100% local rye flour, and also a delicious little sunflower Pullman loaf.

Spelt bread.

Finally, Peter Endriss of Runner & Stone brought back two of my favorites, his Bolzano Rye and Buckwheat Baguette, and also introduced a new sprouted spelt bread. It's made from 65% sprouted spelt flour, covered in oats, and flavored with buckwheat honey. The loaf has rich, nutty spelt flavor and a soft, almost crumbly texture that melts in the mouth—delicious.

About the author: Andrew Coe is the only reporter covering the city's bread beat.

[Photographs: Yasmin Fahr]

This is one of my favorite dishes to make when having friends over for a relaxed and easy meal. The do-it-yourself style of fajitas makes them an easy hosting dish—just serve them right out of the skillet with the accompaniments on the side.

I like to top my tortillas with avocado slices (or guacamole), cheese, and a tomato or corn salsa, but the garnish and topping possibilities are endless. A fresh guacamole, salsa verde or raw corn salsa when corn is in season are all fantastic additions. Honestly, though, it doesn't need much else, so don't feel like you're missing out if you're short on time. The onions become super sweet and I love the way the peppers break down to become soft and flavorful. For a weeknight meal, I usually skip the sides and just serve this with warm tortillas and sliced avocado, as you'll see in the recipe.

If you love heat, you can serve more jalapeños on the side or finish it off with your favorite hot sauce. If heat's not your thing, try adding a pinch of red chili flakes for more a mild, flavorful hit of spice. Just make sure to give each fajita a generous dousing of lime juice to finish it off.

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Skillet Chicken Fajitas with Avocado »

About the Author: Yasmin Fahr is a food lover, writer, and cook. Follow her @yasminfahr for more updates on her eating adventures and discoveries, which will most likely include tomatoes. And probably feta. Happy eating!

Every recipe we publish is tested, tasted, and Serious Eats-approved by our staff. Never miss a recipe again by following @SeriousRecipes on Twitter!

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[Photograph: Suzanne Lehrer]

After traveling through Southeast Asia last month, the memory that's stayed with me the most, I suppose neck-and-neck with Angkor Wat, is cha ca la vong. I know I'm late to the party, and both the Vietnamese fried fish dish and the famous Hanoi restaurant of the same name (which only serves, you guessed it, cha ca la vong) have been well documented, but I was blown away nonetheless. With turmeric, fish sauce, and a plate of fresh herbs as large as my head, something very simple was transformed into something that became more rewarding with every bite.

Vietnamese cuisine aims to hit every note on your palate, and I humbly tried to borrow a bit of that here with turmeric, dill, scallions, garlic, and lime. The most glaring difference being the absence of the fish. Fried fish does not a lunchbox item make, so I substituted with shitake mushrooms instead and was not disappointed. Well...to be home, yes. But to recreate a little bit of my favorite food memory? Not at all.

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Make-Ahead Turmeric Mushroom Stir-Fry with Herbs and Vermicelli »

About the Author: Suzanne Lehrer is a writer and recipe developer in New York and a recipe editor for Cooking Channel. When not curating her budding hot sauce collection, she puts her French Culinary Institute education to good use in kitchens all around town. Follow her recipes and cooking adventures at TheSuzChef.com and on twitter @the_suzchef.

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Jill sez, "Exciting study samples new books for sale by Amazon and asks: Why are there three times more books initially published in the 1850's than books from the 1950's? The chart on page 15 is eye-popping, showing graphically decade-by-decade how many more new books initially published before 1923 are currently available than those published after 1923 [the magic public domain date]. The music and YouTube data are also compelling!"

How Copyright Makes Books and Music Disappear (and How Secondary Liability Rules Help Resurrect Old Songs)

[Photograph: Nick Kindelsperger]

Tilapia is the beige of the fish world: inoffensive and ubiquitous. It doesn't stand a chance against, well, just about every other fish around, but it's also incredible cheap and fairly adaptable to whatever toppings you'd like to add to it. This explains why I spent far more time worrying about what would go with the fish than I did worrying about the fish itself.

I wanted something dramatic and flavorful, which led to the idea of coating the tilapia in crushed almonds. But I always cringe before starting a recipe where I have to make sure something adheres to fish. Regardless of how careful I am, half the time the coating falls off in the pan, burning the ingredients and leaving the fish exposed. And even when I do succeed, I've usually made a mess of the kitchen in the process.

Instead, I took the easy way out and sprinkled on almonds at the end. That way I could focus on making sure they were properly toasted, and not on whether they were sticking to the fish or burning in the pan. This also allowed me to mix in some briny green olives with the almonds, which added even more character to the dish.

I took the easy route with the green beans, too. They're simmered in boiling water until bright green, drained, and then immediately tossed in a tart Sherry vinaigrette. I liked the vinaigrette so much, I drizzled a bit of it over the whole finished dish.

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Tilapia with Toasted Almonds and Green Olives »

About the author: Nick Kindelsperger is the editor of Serious Eats: Chicago. He loves tacos and spicy food. You can follow him as @nickdk on Twitter.

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From Serious Eats: New York

In this great city of ours, one could eat a different sandwich every day of the year—so that's what we'll do. Here's A Sandwich a Day, our daily look at sandwiches around New York. Got a sandwich we should check out? Let us know. —The Mgmt.

[Photograph: Craig Cavallo]

We knew we'd revisit Choza after one bite of their potato and poblano torta. It was our introduction to the Mexican spot's tortas and one that left us craving more.

On the potato and chorizo torta ($9.04), the familiar Portuguese roll is griddled again to start things off. The high heat leaves the thin bread buttery, lightly toasted, and soft and chewy. It's the perfect companion for the starchy black beans, creamy guacamole, and spicy chipotle mayo that give the sandwich its deeply satisfying richness.

The combination of meat and potatoes is more than practical in this case. Diced potatoes are sponges that soak up the salty, smoky juices that render from the fatty chorizo as it cooks. And the potatoes aren't overcooked, so their firm center gives the sandwich a bit of texture. A sprinkling of grated Oaxaca cheese tops everything off before the other half of the roll is placed on what is one of the better tortas we've had of late.

Choza Taqueria

Multiple locations in the West Village and Flatiron
chozataqueria.com

Editor's note: Each Saturday afternoon we bring you a Sunday Supper recipe. Why on Saturday? So you have time to shop and prepare for tomorrow.

[Photograph: Jennifer Olvera]

Although spring has sprung, it couldn't feel further from the truth in Chicago. It's no wonder I'm dreaming of a beach vacation.

When getting away isn't in the cards, jerk stew transports you to balmy climes. Started on the stove top and finished in the oven, it's a fiery meal best served with rice. Caramelized plantains would be great companions, too.

Take the time to properly brown the meat—it'll build depth as the dish slow-cooks. If you're concerned about the heat level, remove one of the habeneros or replace them with milder peppers, such as jalapenos or serranos. Unfortunately, fruitiness of the habeneros will be lost. A splash of orange juice can help offset this, but the dish won't be the same.

If you want to cut corners, prepared jerk seasoning paste is an acceptable substitute to the spices here. If you use it, omit the allspice, cinnamon, brown sugar, soy sauce, and steak sauce from the recipe. You'll need no more than a tablespoon or so of the paste, so taste as you go.

The flavor of the stew improves the next day. Just cool it down before placing it, covered, in the refrigerator. When you're ready to serve, gently reheat the stew on the stove top, garnish it with green onions and serve it with rice that's made the day-of.

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Jamaican Beef Stew with Rice »

About the author: Jennifer Olvera is a veteran food and travel writer and author of "Food Lovers' Guide to Chicago." Follow her on Twitter @olverajennifer.

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An anonymous reader writes with a link to Kotaku's recent profile of Civilization creator Sid Meier, and includes this snippet: "One year, as [coworker John] Stealey recalls, the two men went to an electronics trade conference. On the second night of the show, they stumbled upon a bunch of arcade games in a basement. One by one, Meier beat Stealey at each of them. Then they found Atari's Red Baron, a squiggly flight game in which you'd steer a biplane through abstract outlines of terrain and obstacles. Stealey, the Air Force man, knew he could win at this one. He sat down at the machine and shot his way to 75,000 points, ranking number three on the arcade's leaderboard. Not bad. Then Meier went up. He scored 150,000 points. 'I was really torqued,' Stealey says today. This guy outflew an Air Force pilot? He turned to the programmer. 'Sid, how did you do that?' 'Well,' Meier said. 'While you were playing, I memorized the algorithms.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Larry Tomczak, the senior pastor of Christ the King Church in Atlanta, has an amusingly idiotic column in Charisma magazine in which he goes full Godwin. He seems to think that Christians are terrified to speak out against equal rights for gay people — wouldn’t that be nice? — and that this is, somehow, just like Nazi Germany.

Many leaders in our churches and ministries today are backing up and unfortunately remaining silent in the midst of crisis. Succumbing to fear, intimidation and political correctness, they are remaining silent and saying, “Well, let’s just preach the gospel and trust that everything will work out.” The Great Commission and Cultural Commission (“take dominion”) are two wings, but unfortunately one has been forgotten…

A few days ago, my wife’s father, who is in his early 90s, spoke something to me that had tremendous impact on my life. He is a committed Christian, an elder and part of what is oftentimes called “the Greatest Generation” due to their courageous stand against the Nazis in World War II. Joe and Anne have been married 68 years!

He’s never done this before, but he said he had a prophetic word to share with me. The core of it: “Why are leaders in our churches and ministries afraid to speak up in a charitable way concerning what’s happening regarding homosexuality today?”

It would do us well to recall that in Nazi Germany, only a small percentage of the people were part of the Nazi party. Amid the atrocities, the overwhelming majority were apathetic and afraid to speak up. Consider the consequences.

Is history repeating itself?

No, but stupid arguments are.

It's kind of hard to scope things out on Venus because the surface probes we send get obliterated pretty quickly by the heat. Pictures of Venus' surface do exist, though, and this one shows "large circular domes" that look pretty darn hot. The domes are thought to be magma erupting through vents, in a process that happens on Earth too, called volcanism. Get it? Volcanoes? Get it? Okay. Moving on.

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These grave markers -- pressed up against either side of an imposing wall, with a pair of clasped hands reaching over the wall's top -- date to a time in Dutch history when Catholic and Protestant graves were strictly segregated. A Catholic and a Protestant married couple, separated in death, arranged for this unique workaround in order to rejoin one another:

In 1842, a colonel in the Dutch cavalry, JWC van Gorkum, married a woman known as JCPH van Aefferden. The union was controversial — van Gorkum was Protestant and van Aefferden was Catholic. Despite the prevailing culture at the time, the two remained married for decades, only separating when van Gorkum died in 1880. He was buried in a cemetery near the Dutch town of Roermond called Begraafplaats Nabij de Kapel in ‘t Zand (“the cemetery near the chapel in ‘t Zand”). Pillarisation was taken very seriously — each community had its own schools, media, and graveyards — and Begraafplaats was no different. It took this segregation literally, with each religion having its own section. Van Gorkum was buried in the Protestant section, as would any other Protestant during that era.

But when van Aefferden passed away eight years later, she couldn’t be buried with her late husband; even in death, Catholics needed to stay with their own. While alive, she made her wishes clear — she did not want to be buried in her family tomb, and, instead, wished to be as close to her husband as possible. The solution, seen above, is her grave site. (Here’s a bigger version of her tombstone, and here’s his.) The two tombstones, separated by a wall and by religions, feature a pair of hands connecting over the brick divider.

Until Death Do Us Reunite [Now I Know]

(via Super Punch)

From Sweets

A super light version of a pound cake [Photograph: Yvonne Ruperti]

I love chiffon cakes because they're light, fluffy, and super moist. Chiffon cakes use both whipped whites and a leavener to create the airy texture, and use oil as the fat, which makes for a really moist crumb. Chiffon cakes are similar to an angel food cake, but less sugary and so much richer. Most importantly however, is that they're really easy to mix up. Most of the ingredients for the batter are briefly combined in the mixer (you can even hand whisk it), then whipped egg whites are folded in. That's it.

While there are many variations on a chiffon cake, lemon is among my favorites. Lemon matches perfectly with the light, spongey texture. The effect is a light-as-air lemon pound cake. How can you go wrong with that?

I made sure this version was quite zingy by adding a good amount of lemon juice and zest to the batter. It's important to be gentle when folding the meringue into the batter so as to not deflate the whites.

Unlike an angel food cake, which gets turned over to let the cake cool (so that it doesn't shrink), I never turn my chiffon cakes over. I've tried, and it flops out every time (must be the weight or the oil in the cake). Regardless, even though it shrinks slightly upon cooling, the texture is as light as ever. Serve it with a dollop of whipped cream, a dusting of sugar, or a smear of blueberry preserves.

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Lemon Chiffon Cake »

About the Author: Yvonne Ruperti is a food writer, recipe developer, former bakery owner, and author of The Complete Idiot's Guide To Easy Artisan Bread. You can also watch her culinary stylings on the America's Test Kitchen television show. She presently lives in Singapore working on her new baking cookbook, and as a recipe developer for HungryGoWhere Singapore. Check out her blog: shophousecook.com . Follow Yvonne on Twitter.

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We're big fans of Pop Chart Labs, the Brooklyn-based company that charts out everything from the constitutions of classic cocktails to pie charts of pie. Now the data-loving group has turned its attention to the glorious world of cheese, creating a wheel of 66 cheeses from around the world.

The cheeses are organized by type and texture, and the wheel covers everything from all-time faves like cheddar, Brie, and mozzarella, plus more advanced offerings like Stinking Bishop and Humboldt Fog. (Not familiar? Brush up on our Serious Cheese archives to get the curd nerd lingo down.)

New Yorkers will be pleased to know that Pop Chart has partnered with Murray's Cheese shop through July 6th to give away five $100 gift certificates. But if you're not in New York, you're still in luck: we're giving away three copies of this awesome poster to have for all of your future cheese-procuring needs. To win, tell us in the comments below: if you were a cheese, what kind of cheese would you be and why?

Contest will end and comments will close at 10 a.m. on Friday, June 21. One entry per community member. Winners must provide US mailing address, sorry, posters cannot be shipped abroad. Standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.