Blog Posts by Epicurious.com

My life in Japan has been filled with cultural and culinary discoveries. Among fond recollections from my first summer many years ago in Kanonji, a coastal township on the island of Shikoku, was a lesson in making udon noodles under the guidance of Kiyoko Andoh, the diminutive but energetic woman who, several years later, would become my mother-in-law.

Born Kiyoko Shinohara in 1907, my mother-in-law was the eldest daughter of a prominent landowner in Niihama, a coastal farming community on the Inland Sea. At the age of 20, she had an arranged marriage to Hisao Andoh, a businessman in nearby Kanonji. She bore him nine children - the second youngest, Atsunori, became my husband.

My mother-in-law died in 1998, but her skills live on every time I make udon - not by hand, but by foot. The dense, stiff dough, a combination of high-gluten wheat flour and salt water, requires tremendous strength to knead - especially in hot weather, when additional salt must be added. Stomping power is

OK, the rising cost of food is inconvenient. No, it bites.

But no matter how outrageous you think your weekly grocery bill is at the local Acme or A&P supermarket, at least you're not shelling out nearly $1,000 for a single bunch of grapes.

That's right: $910 for a bunch of 30 grapes, or about $30 per grape, which is what one Japanese hotel owner paid Monday at auction in Ishikawa.

Of course, they weren't your average jam-making grapes. These were Ruby Roman grapes, the product of a special government-funded program that took 14 years to come to literal fruition. Agriculture official Hirofumi Isu called them "delicious: sweet but fresh at the same time, very well balanced." The hotel owner said he planned to serve them to select guests at his upscale hotel, Kagaya.

"We wanted to delight our customers and also wanted to wish producers good luck" the hotel's chief cook said.

In the context of the fruit-buying culture of certain East Asian countries like Japan, it's not

In this video, Chinese cooking authority Chef Shirley Cheng of the renowned Culinary Institute of America shows us how to make Yangzhou Fried Rice.

The recipe's origins lie in the city of Yangzhou in the Jiangsu Province, north of Shanghai, and it's loaded with shrimp, mushrooms, ham, and peas. According to Chef Cheng, every restaurant in Shanghai serves its own version of this famous dish. The key to success with this recipe, as with any stir-fried dish, is to do all your preparation in advance (chopping, slicing, measuring) and have it ready before you start cooking. Then each ingredient is added according to how quickly it cooks: Those things that take the longest go into the wok first.

More Recipes and Resources:

• Browse hundreds more Chinese recipes and menus.

• Watch Chef Anita Lo make Chinese dumplings and get her delicious recipe.

• View a China travel guide from our sister site Concierge.com.

More videos from our series Around the World in 80 Dishes:

The United States Department of Agriculture created a food pyramid of daily guidelines for kids. (It's available online at mypyramid.gov, although the guidelines are only applicable for children age two and up.) Some nutritionists feel the government should have been more strict; for instance, requiring all, not just some, of the grains to be whole grains, insisting on reduced fat when recommending milk and dairy products, and completely restricting sodas and sports drinks, rather than labeling them as drinks to be used occasionally. Essentially, a child's daily diet should be composed mostly of calories from complex carbohydrates and lean proteins and no more than 20 percent of calories from fat. Here are particulars about each category of food and the specific daily nutritional breakdown for preschoolers, elementary school children, and teenagers all derived from the U.S.D.A. and Institute of Medicine.

Daily Foods
Vegetables: Opt for bright and dark veggies. Spinach,

Singing in the shower is...okay. Pleasant. Mildly, moistly enjoyable.

But I believe the kitchen is an even better place than the shower for unabashed, full-voiced, superfreaky solo singing. (Or, as the Beastie Boys once put it, for "spazzing out all alone.") Kitchen acoustics are irresistibly flattering, even for those of us with less-than-operatic voices: all that echoey tile.

Some basic precautions are necessary, of course: When you're wielding a knife, it's better if you're not distracted by the sound of your own (awesome) singing. And I'm one of those people with a teetering stack of crusty CDs in my kitchen, next to an equally besmudged old CD player: "The land of spills," as I like to call it, is no place for a fancy sound system, or, God help us, an iPod.

If you're with me, let's hear it: What are your top ten songs to cook to?

Here's my list:

1. "Foux du FaFa" by Flight of the Conchords. The way they say "boeuf" is funnier than a box full of puppies.

It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but with the economy in poor shape, food prices rising and most everyone feeling the pinch in their pocketbooks, the humble bag lunch has enjoyed a comeback.

According to a market-research poll, adults carried a record 8.5 billion brown-bag lunches to work last year, mostly eaten at people's desks, and mostly because of their finances. Health and nutrition came in as reason No. 2.

So what are people brown-bagging these days?

Again, no surprise here, but the typical combo was fruit, chips and a sandwich of some sort. Kids tended towards cookies instead of chips, men liked turkey or chicken sandwiches instead of chips (though I'm not sure if this means they had an extra sandwich as a "side dish" or not), and women preferred yogurt and veggies. The good ol' PB & J was the top sandwich, and soda pop the top beverage.

In terms of what percentage likelihood a food item makes it into the average brown-bagger's lunch, it broke down

Any parent will agree that the world's toughest food critics are children. This "aptitude" for culinary criticism is particularly evident with school-day lunches. You want to give your mini gourmand a balanced meal, one filled with double-duty foods that provide energy and nutrition while keeping junior sated and satisfied. But getting your little loved one to actually eat a wholesome homemade lunch can be as difficult as getting him or her to log off and unplug.

To ensure that junior's power lunch doesn't go straight into the trash (and your time and money with it) or get traded for something a whole lot less nutritious, parents need to approach this nagging problem with a strategy. For years, I've come up with creative, healthy ideas for my kids' brown-bag lunches, and so when it came time to write my cookbook, Real Food for Healthy Kids, my coauthor, venerated food professional Tracey Seaman, and I devoted a whole chapter to this 180-days-a-year conundrum.

What follows

Without eggs, we wouldn't be able to make a lot of our favorite dishes-breads, cakes, omelets, and egg salads. What would breakfast be without eggs that are scrambled, sunny-side-up, or soft-boiled? Behind the scenes, eggs often act in a supporting role as a binder, emulsifier, leavening agent, and even as a source of food coloring. Very high in protein, eggs can be an ovo-vegetarian's best friend. Chickens still produce the bulk of eggs sold and consumed throughout the world, but if you're looking for some variety, you can experiment with eggs from other fowl, like duck, geese, and quail, most likely available at a farm stand, farmers' market, or gourmet food shop.

Learn how to fry, poach, and more by watching our egg technique videos.

Recipes:

Eggs, All Different Ways
Olive Oil Fried Eggs with Mozzarella and Harissa

Baked Eggs and Mushrooms in Ham Crisps

Salmon Wrapped Poached Eggs

Cauliflower and Feta Omelet

Frittata with Bacon, Fresh Ricotta, and