Blog Posts by Epicurious.com

Cranberry Quince Sauce

Gourmet | November 2005

Yield: Makes about 5 cups

Active time: 30 min

Total time: 2 1/2 hr

This sauce, a mix of everyday and exotic, provides a sweet and tart contrast to rich meat or poultry.

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 lb quinces (2 large)
• 4 cups water
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 (12-oz) bag fresh or frozen cranberries (do not thaw; 3 1/2 cups)
• Special equipment: an 8-inch square of cheesecloth; kitchen string

Preparation

Peel, quarter, and core quinces, reserving peel and cores, then cut quarters into 1/4-inch pieces. Tie up peel and cores in cheesecloth. Bring water and sugar to a boil in a 4-quart heavy saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved, then add quince and cheesecloth bundle and simmer, partially covered, until quince is tender, about 1 1/2 hours. Add cranberries and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until cranberries burst and soften, 8 to 10 minutes.

Drain mixture in a large medium-mesh sieve

Seeing as how you're all foodies and all, I'll assume you've heard about the Jones Soda Co.'s new bacon-flavored soda. So I'll cut straight to the chase:

I somehow managed to convince over a dozen people in two different countries to take part in a taste test of the new beverage, had them record their immediate reactions, and score the bacon soda in several categories. (You may remember the many absinthe taste tests and the gangster-wine taste tests I held from a while back.)

This time, the results were pretty damn hilarious. You can get a whiff after the jump ...

I had the taste testers judge the soda in four categories: fragrance, flavor, "bacony-ness," and an overall general category where they could express their general feelings and other things like appearance, etc.

The real gems are the reactions from the taste testers, so I'll just reprint some of what they had to say and get out of the way.

From the get-go, the tasters were rather horrified. For the

Create your own harvest-inspired floral arrangement with our step-by-step instructions

Florist Michael George, the artistic director of FlowerSchool New York, designed this contemporary harvest-themed tablescape for Thanksgiving. The key is using multiple vessels in varying shapes, sizes, and colors to hold a mix of flowers, herbs, vegetables, and seedpods. The arrangement is inspired by what you might find at the market or in your own backyard, so anything you can collect in abundance will work-you just need plenty of each element.

Despite the number of flowers and vases involved, this look is quite simple to execute. To get started, use the step-by-step guide that follows. Once you understand the guiding principles, have fun creating your own arrangements using what you have readily at hand.

Floral design by Michael George; Text by Lauren Salkeld; photos by Steven Torres

Michael George is a second-generation florist known for his modern and minimalist approach to

Florist Michael George, the artistic director of FlowerSchool New York, designed this classic Thanksgiving centerpiece. In keeping with the holiday, this arrangement features colors inspired by the fall harvest, but the same technique can be used to create floral displays for any season, holiday, or occasion. To learn how to make your own centerpiece, follow our easy step-by-step instructions.

Floral design by Michael George; Text by Lauren Salkeld; photos by Steven Torres

Michael George is a second-generation florist known for his modern and minimalist approach to flowers-his signature arrangements are both monochromatic and monofloral. George is the artistic director of FlowerSchool New York and the author of Simply Elegant Flowers with Michael George.

Founded by Eileen Johnson, FlowerSchool New York offers all levels of flower-arranging instruction. Classes are taught by world-renowned florists, including Michael George, Chris Giftos, Remco van Vliet, and Cas Trap.

Top-rated Thanksgiving recipes: turkeys, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, and more

How better to celebrate Thanksgiving than to gather friends and family around a feast? For recipe ideas, we gathered 21 of the most popular Thanksgiving recipes as determined by you, the Epicurious reader. So whether you roast a classic Herb Butter Turkey or a take a modernist approach with a Deconstructed Holiday Turkey, or maybe just serve plenty of vegetarian sides such as Garnet Yams, Green Beans with Lemon and Pine Nuts, and Brussels Sprout Hash, we've got a delicious list of recipes for which you can be very thankful.

Tom Colicchio's Herb-Butter Turkey

Bon Appétit | November 2005

by Tom Colicchio

Yield: Makes 8 servings

Ingredients

• Gravy base
• 2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter
• 2 pounds turkey necks and/or wings
• 2 cups diced onions
• 1 cup diced peeled carrots
• 1 cup diced celery
• 6 cups (or more) low-salt chicken broth
  Turkey
• 1

__________________________________________________________________________

Six delicious books to give or get this holiday season

With the rise in popularity of electronic reading devices such as the iPad, Kindle, and Nook, putting together a list of the year's best cookbooks may seem like a genteel and antiquated pursuit. And yet, like many home cooks, we at Epicurious still make time to actually turn the pages of a new cookbook and make space in our homes to add noteworthy titles to our existing collections. These six books deserve to take up some countertop real estate, as they wowed us with their love of good food, their bold designs, and their intimate stories told through recipes. We hope these cookbooks will inspire you not only in the present but also in the future, in their inevitable electronic versions.

Two Additional Titles to Keep in Mind

Bon Appétit Desserts: The Cookbook for All Things Sweet and Wonderful by Barbara Fairchild (Andrews McMeel) weighs a

Sometimes from failure comes inspiration. The lasagna in the photo above, for example, was never supposed to be lasagna. It was supposed to be ravioli: butternut squash and walnut ravioli in a sage brown-butter sauce, to be exact. I'd roasted a gorgeous butternut squash, pureed it and mixed it with toasted walnuts, and it was standing by to be sealed up into silky hand-made pasta envelopes.

But then I made a batch of pasta dough that wanted nothing to do with this plan. Maybe the semolina flour in my cupboard was old and dry, or maybe I didn't mix enough egg or water into it, or maybe my pasta stars just weren't aligned. Whatever the reason, the clay-like lump of dough fought me tooth and nail.

Kneading it was like trying to knead a slightly softened cinderblock. My pasta machine groaned as I tried to press the stubborn stuff through its wheels, and spat it out in shreds instead of sheets. Frustrated, I did something I almost never do in the kitchen: I gave up. I wrapped the

Putting aside the controversy over what President Barack Obama is allegedly spending on his trip to Asia right now ($200 million a day, by the way, has been pretty thoroughly debunked as a correct figure), it's of obvious interest to foodies what he'll be chowing down on while he's there.

Interestingly, when the Indian prime minister visited the White House in the Obamas' first state dinner (you remember, the one with the party crashers), the chef on duty was Ethiopian-born Swede Marcus Samuelsson.This is what he served, according to the Washington Post ...

"Guests began with potato and eggplant salad and White House arugula ... the bitter green favored by food snobs clearly no longer is deemed a political hot button ... with onion seed vinaigrette. That was followed by red lentil soup. There were two main courses: roasted potato dumplings with tomato chutney, along with chickpeas and okra, or green curry prawns with caramelized salsify, smoked collard greens and coconut