Royal Wedding Desserts

If you missed my Bon Appetit TODAY show segment from this past Monday, check it out HERE.....seriously, the groom's chocolate biscuit cake is Super Easy. Whip it up for a viewing party for this Friday. The recipes, brought to you by the Bon Appetit test kitchens, can be found HERE....and our industrious BA folks also came up for a way to recycle LEFTOVERS by making a Bread Pudding.

Photograph by Mary-Frances Heck, from bonappetit.com

Thursday 4/28 is National Blueberry Pie Day!

Join me on the eve of this delicious day. At 7pm EST I will be chatting live on Facebook for 1 hour courtesy of Driscoll's. Ask me questions, bring me YOUR tips and tricks for the best blueberry pies. Are you a double-crust person? Flour vs. cornstarch vs. tapioca. How about berries...how many cups are in your standard size pie? And what is your favorite pie dish? Start in a high oven and turn it down? There is so much to chat about! Can't wait to hear your questions and ideas and I will gladly share mine.

Introducing the "New" Bon Appetit

The May issue of Bon Appetit magazine has just hit the shelves. What's new, you might ask? Well, for one thing, we have a new Editor in Chief, Adam Rapoport, and this is his debut issue. To get a feel for Adam and his POV, check out this great interview at Eater.com.

But dont fret, all the things you love about Bon Appetit are still intact, we are just shaking it up a bit to make it fresher, more relevant to our everyday lives and a tad more exciting. The design and layout is brighter and more realistic, there are now lots of supportive sidebars to help you be the best cook you can be and there are things you wont find anywhere else....the May issue has an essay from Gabrielle Hamilton, info on David Chang's new food app, things you didnt know about eating throughout Italy, and we even fit comedian Aziz Ansari into the issue in a new back page column.

And bonappetit.com has a new look as well....our print magazine and online community are now more aligned in terms of style, content and editorship

Let us know what you think!

HSN Cooks Spring Weekend with Bon Appetit

I'm heading for the 80 degree weather for a weekend at HSN in St. Pete. The channel has an entire weekend of food related events, brought to you by Bon Appetit. See that April cover of the magazine above? I will be bringing many of the issue's recipes to life, live on the air.

There's plenty of shopping to do. Dont miss the debut of Vintage-Style enamel cookware by the Lee Brothers. They hail from South Carolina and know about down home cooking. Your recipes, or ours, will look smashing in their line of graniteware. Check out the 12-piece Canning Set, the Oval Roaster with Wire Rack, or the Boiler Pot with Spigot, pictured below. These are just a few of the many items that are available.

I will be on morning, noon and night bringing you a great Bon Appetit subscription special (check the HSN.com schedule for the Bon Appetit presentations). Enjoy 12-issues at a fabulous price of $9.97!

Come join me and Emeril Lagasse, Wolfgang Puck, Padma Laksmi, Jaqcques Torres, Ken Hom and others for your favorite items and new gadgets as well.

Slow Food in Sicily

Port: Taormina

Mission: Eat

For the second year in a row I have had the good fortune of visiting Sicily in early fall, specifically Taormina. This mountaintop town is on the east coast of the island, in the province of Messina. It is a fabulous walking town complete with many clothing, shoe and pastry shops and of course those offering jewelry made from local coral and volcanic rock. But, of course, I am focused on the food. The town can be seen in the upper left of this picture above, which was taken from our boat.

I was once again working with Gohagan Travel and accompanied their cruise ship through a week in Italy, Croatia and France...but this day in Taormina was the highlight, and indeed one of the best meals of my life. We took small "tenders" (small boats) from our cruise ship to land, where we boarded a small bus up the mountain. The bus deposited us at the edge of town and the first thing we saw was this man selling fresh grapes out of the back of his car; we couldnt resist taking a picture.

Here are some pictures of the typical streets, piazzas as well as a look back at our boat.

Finally we came to a narrow street, an alleyway really that led to our restaurant where we would have an olive oil tasting and lunch.
Arrangements had been made for us to have lunch at Osteria Nero D'Avola, a Slow Food establishment, where we would eat and taste local olive oils.

Here is Elaine Trigani, our olive oil taster introducing our chef, Salvatore Siligato.

True to the Slow Food concept, the menu was not decided upon until that morning....it depended on what was fresh at the market. And then, just as the chef was describing our first course of a tuna tartar, a fishmerman walked in carrying this container of fresh shrimp. They were immediately added to the plate, raw. They tasted of the sea, pure, sweet and salty at the same time, with the heads the sweetest of all.

Here below is the whole plate, drizzled with some olive oil and accented with caper berries, which provided a welcomed acidity.

A wine was poured to accompany the seafood which while of the soil, had a remarkably briny essence.

For our pasta course, we had a traditional Sicilian preparation of swordfish with tomatoes and capers with a fresh pasta - sort of a narrow pappardelle.

The next course featured squid and three kinds of mushrooms, two of which are only found growing in the soil of the local volcano. It was meaty and earthy and utterly unique.

A marvel of a course came next - a refreshing and palate reviving lemon salad. Whole Sicilian lemons, skin intact, were combined with their juice, red onions and olive oil and a bit of salt to create the most unusual salad I have ever had. The lemons were chewy with substance, but not overwhelmingly so and the acidity, the sourness, was thoroughly enjoyable and not the least bit too much. Do Not try this at home with supermarket lemons.

A cheese course followed and then a variety of sweets arrived.

Prickly pears and persimmons....ultra ripe to the point of being obscene with their silky juicy innards.

A pistachio cake, incredibly vivid in color from the local nuts

and a tray of two kinds of local chocolate, both cold tempered, with a pleasantly gritty, unprocessed texture.

We gathered Salvatore and his crew to give them a round of applause

This was, quite simply, one of the meals of my life. If I never return, the memories will remain....but I will try to find a way.

Tune Into HSN for a Special Bon Appetit Cooking Event!

Once again Bon Appetit has teamed up with HSN to bring you a fabulous subscription offer: 12 issues for $12 during our November HSN Cooks Event Presented by Bon Appetit. Your subscription will start with our packed November issue, which is filled with Thanksgiving recipes as well as everyday recipes to help you through the busy season.

Our readers like traditional holiday food, gently tweaked. With that in mind we always present dozens of turkey, stuffing, potato, vegetable side dishes and cranberry sauce recipes as well as all your favorite pies from apple to pumpkin – all with a Bon Appetit twist. This year consider sampling our Malt Beer Brined Turkey with Malt Glaze, Rosemary Bread Stuffing with Speck, Fennel and Lemon and our tangy sweet Cranberry Sauce with Mustard Seeds. Try our new take on a veggie classic with Green Beans with Toasted Walnuts – and (are you sitting down?) – we even have a complete main dish that you can get to the table in less than Two Hours: our Roast Turkey Breast with Potatoes, Green Beans and Mustard Pan Sauce from our very popular FastEasyFresh column seen here below

Photo by José Picayo

Thanksgiving is but one day of the month so we also have recipes to help you with weekday meals, whether it is just for you and your family or visiting guests: the Seared Asian Steak and the Lamb Chops with Red Onion, Grape Tomatoes and Feta (see below) are also from our FastEasyFresh column, which means you will get the food on the table quickly, using fresh seasonal ingredients and a full nutritional profile for each dish. Photo by José Picayo

If you are vegetarian, or just looking for a change from turkey, try the hearty Mushroom and Lentil Pot Pies from our Sunday Suppers column.

With your subscription, you get all this and more. Our December issue covers all the winter holiday menus and of course every issue has our standard columns, such as the ones mentioned above, as well as restaurant reviews, ideas for gifts, housewares, wine and beverage recommendations….and of course, my favorite, desserts! This turkey day I’m going with the Apple Pie with Oat Streusel (the crunch of the topping contrasts so nicely with the juicy fruit filling) and the Pumpkin Pie with Pepita and Ginger (tune in to HSN to see me make this one on-air; see the preview below).

Photo by Hans Gissinger

You can see all of these recipes and others on our HSN segments. Tune in EST on:

Thursday 11/4/10 during the 7am hour

Friday 11/5/10 during the 2am, 6am, 3pm and 7pm hours

and

Saturday 11/6/10 during the 2pm hour.

I expect Wolfgang Puck and Emeril Lagasse will be there to help us celebrate the season during our HSN Cooks Event Presented by Bon Appetit. Call in! I would love to hear your favorite Bon Appetit and holiday food stories.

A Special Edition Magazine from Bon Appetit: Pasta Favorites

When I saw the cover of this hefty pasta cook "book" in all its full-color glory, my first thought was, I wish I could smell those meatballs! If ever there was a yearning for scratch and sniff, it was at that first glance. I seriously want to eat that Spaghetti & Meatballs All'Amatriciana.

This special edition is a magazine format, with over 125 pages of recipes to entice such as Penne with Lemon and Root Vegetables, Pancetta and Taleggio Lasagna with Treviso, Goat Cheese Ravioli with Bell Peppers, Seafood Pasta with Lemon-Saffron Herb Dressing, Thai Chicken Salad with Rice Noodles and more. Full page color pictures are plentiful. It is easy to use with chapter headings such as Quick, Baked, Ravioli and Other Filled Pastas, Gnocchi, Gnudi and Spaetzle, Salads and Sauces. And if you are hankering for some serious comfort food, turn to page 51 for the Tuna Noodle Casserole with Leeks and Fresh Dill.

You can find this special edition at the Conde Nast Store and also at Whole Foods stores as well as Barnes & Noble, Borders and Hudson News, among other outlets.