Cotton Candy grapes sound like something you’d find on a tour of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, or in the cereal aisle next to the Frankenberries, but we’re happy to report that they are very real. The grapes were developed by cross-breeding different types of grapes to create a variety of grape that taste extra sweet. They can be difficult to find and they tend to sell out fast, but now Costco has them in stock in several locations, and people are running to get them before they disappear.
If you’re hesitant to look at your bank account because you went a little overboard on spending this month, join the club! Since we are only halfway through June, we’ve compiled a few simple-yet-smart ways to save and make it to next month without going over your food budget.
We’ve decided to spend as much time as humanly possible at the beach this summer, which has led to my other new favorite habit: grabbing a few cookbooks I’ve been meaning to go through and reading them en route. In the fleeting moments when the kids have limited their bickering in the backseat and the traffic isn’t too terrible, when I’ve been away from my laptop and the kitchen for enough hours that I’m ready to absorb new inspiration, I find myself more open-minded and curious to try new recipes than I am, understandably, in the thick of deadlines and or hangry o’clock, approximately 6:15pm when dinner is nowhere near done.
Two weekends ago it was Saladish, a cookbook from Ilene Rosen, who is the chef and co-owner of R&D Foods in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn and previously did a 15-year stint as the savory chef at City Bakery, creating a salad bar with a cult following. This book is a natural progression. “All of the food I really like to eat and make is saladish,” she says in the intro, something I immediately related to. To me, salads are meals and meals can be salads, and only a fraction of them really need leafy greens. Layers of grains or roasted or raw shaved vegetables plus something pickled or punchy and something crunchy and herby and a good vinaigrette; I ate lunch 15 minutes ago and I literally made myself hungry again typing that.
I struggled a little as the book continued because I kept running into ingredients I didn’t keep around, pappadum, green garlic, makrut lime leaves, Chinese preserved cabbage, pea greens, and honestly, this is barely the tip of the iceberg. There wasn’t a recipe that didn’t have something that required an extra grocery run (easy for me to get in NYC, but still, I am lazy, and even when I overcome it, I know you guys would appreciate me finding alternatives) but wait, come back. You see, the sun was shining in the windows, little puffs of popcorn clouds dotted a blazingly blue sky, the shore towns were approaching, and I decided to stop being such a curmudgeon and look beyond these sticking points, which in many places are merely accents or extras. And here, at the base of each recipe, I found a dozen things I couldn’t wait to make.
In case you didn’t already know, Father’s Day is this Sunday. With two small kids, we try to keep things simple for these kinds of minor holidays, so a special meal and a few handmade cards is all we’ve got planned for celebrating my husband this year.
I did, however, have a really fabulous time and a few good laughs asking my husband what he thought would make a good roundup of recipes for Father’s Day dinners this year. There are some classics — steaks and pork chops — but there also a few surprises in the mix. Have a look and see what inspires.
Michelle DiBenedetto-Capobianco’s life sounds awfully romantic. During the school year she lives in Port Washington, New York, and each summer she packs up her husband and three sons — ages 9, 10, and 12 — and moves to a tiny town in the mountains of Italy for the summer, where she runs a cooking school and tour company.
The village, called Salle, where her father grew up, feels frozen in time. “There are no stores in Salle,” says Michelle. “We either rely on the various trucks that come to sell things like fruits and vegetables, breads, cheeses, and fish, or we travel to neighboring towns to shop at open-air markets or shops.”
We talked to Michelle about how life’s rhythms change for her in Italy each summer.
In any home, large or small, storage issues tend to be among the top gripes. There’s a good chance that your basement — if you even have a basement — is filled with needless items that you’ve collected over the years. You’ve probably lived through the experience of donating several small appliances, so you can, um … make room for new small appliances. And let’s not even discuss the clutter in that kitchen drawer.
It happens to the best of us, which is just one of the reasons why more and more people are turning to a minimalist lifestyle. The frontrunners of this movement? Tiny house owners, who have had to part with many of their possessions in favor of no mortgage, a simpler life, and the freedom to pick up and go whenever they like.
If you’re struggling to fit one more thing into your small space, look no further than these words of wisdom and minimalist practices shared by longtime tiny home owners.
The house-cleaning community of this Reddit thread got pretty fired up the other day when the topic of often-forgotten nooks and kitchen gadgets was raised, prompting a passionate discussion about tidying fixes that will have your space looking brand-spanking new. In the off-chance that you’re not a professional house cleaner, here are some spots to keep an eye out for the next time you give your kitchen a clean sweep.
During his two-decade-long career helming the kitchen at Alice Waters’ iconic restaurant Chez Panisse, Cal Peternell mentored countless breakout chefs, but the most important people that he’s taught to cook are his three sons — Henderson, Milo, and Liam (ages 26, 22, and 13) — right in his home kitchen.
As you might expect, instilling a love of cooking within his kids came pretty naturally for Cal because teaching people how to cook is woven into his DNA.
We’ve sung the cast iron skillet’s praises so many times here at Kitchn that we probably sound like a broken record. So how about a little reinforcement from the choir? In this case, the choir is a group of smart, seasoned home cooks who also keep their trusty skillet within arm’s reach to churn out easy and delicious meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Here are the 10 recipes that made them fall hard for the cast iron skillet and that they still turn to time and time again.
Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond has turned her small town of Pawhuska, Oklahoma, into a tourist attraction, and she’s just expanded her food empire with a brand-new restaurant called P-Town Pizza.
Ree announced her upcoming new restaurant on Instagram over the weekend.