Blog Posts by Epicurious.com

In our ongoing video series Chef Eve Felder, from The Culinary Institute of America, demonstrates how to make a classic Southern Fried Chicken with Country Gravy

Perhaps the only thing better than having a good Southern cook make fried chicken for you is having her show you how to make it yourself. Chef Eve Felder, of The Culinary Institute of America, grew up in Charleston , South Carolina , where she ate fried chicken every Sunday. In our videos, Felder shows how to marinate, batter, and pan-fry chicken to crispy perfection.

When frying chicken, it's important to look out not just for visual cues (such as a brown, crispy-looking exterior) but also audible ones: In the videos, you'll hear what chicken sounds like frying in oil that's just the right temperature. If the oil bubbles too aggressively, your chicken might burn, but if it's not hot enough, then the chicken can soak up too much oil and get greasy (you'll know the oil temperature is too low if you don't hear crackling).

If you read newspapers or food blogs, you've undoubtedly come across debates about a so-called soda tax (also known as the sugar tax, a form of sin tax). But it's not always clear what products would be taxed, or for how much, and when. Here's what you need to know:

1) This is not a new idea. In 1776, Adam Smith endorsed taxing non-essentials too: on sugar, rum and tobacco. And Kelly Brownell, the director of Yale's Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, advocated a Twinkie tax plan about a dozen years ago.

2) The concept behind the tax is: Tax those things that hurt society in general. Sugar may be a culprit in the war on obesity. This raises money for national health care and discourages the bad behavior.

3) In addition to sugary soft drinks (Coke and Pepsi), the list of taxable beverages would include Gatorade, Red Bull, and sugar-sweetened teas.

4) Consumers would have to spend a few cents more on each can or bottle of soda.

5) Diet soda and real juice would

Do people drink more beer when it's warm outside? I know I do. Indeed, we are entering prime beer season. The buzzwords have started to bombard us: grilling, pizza, summer, picnics, graduation, outdoor, baseball, burgers. I equate beer with all of these. (Not that I don't equate beer with winter, football, and indoor, too.)

Two new books approach beer from very different angles. One tackles the subject from a primer perspective: the history, the science, the tasting rituals. The other leans on culinary coordination and features beer-friendly recipes. Yes, both feature beer drinks, too (see our beer cocktails in the drinking section).

The Beerbistro Cookbook ($40, hardcover)
By Stephen Beaumont & Brian Morin

Pros: The authors speak from experience (they are co-founders of beerbistro restaurant in Toronto and Beaumont is a regular beer story contributor to Epicurious); every recipe paired with a "style" of beer (quenching, smoky, fruity, etc.); good closeup shots of how

Why Grow Your Own?

As a cook, nurturing your own vegetables is the perfect way to seize control over your ingredients. And "victory gardens" (also known as "war gardens" since they popped up during World Wars I and II to reduce pressure on food supplies) couldn't be timelier: Spring and summer are planting season, do-it-yourself projects can save money, and you don't have to be a gourmet eater to recognize the advantages of using local and seasonal ingredients.

Gardening is trendy too: Nearly 43 million U.S. households are planning to grow their own produce this year, which is up 19 percent from 2008, according to the National Gardening Association. Even Michelle Obama is into it; she has become the first First Lady to maintain a veggie garden since Eleanor Roosevelt.

Yes, there will be some down-and-dirty moments. But the pros far outweigh the cons. For example: You'll always have fresh, tasty, nutritious food on hand. You will know that your food has not been sprayed with

When you're at a restaurant do you prefer to eat your bread with olive oil or butter? Perhaps both? Here's a thought. Land O' Lakes just launched butter with olive oil ($2.49 for 7 oz tub), which is said to have 0 trans fat, 45 percent less saturated fat, and 50 percent less cholesterol than regular butter. So it's a healthier alternative to butter, but does it taste good?

We were intrigued by this 3 ingredient spread made of cream, olive oil and salt. We wanted to know if it really tastes like olive oil or butter. We gathered around and each took a sample of this slightly pale yellow spread with a regular butter-like consistency. "Slightly sweet, creamy and oily," said one taster. "Certainly tastes more like olive oil than butter," commented another. "I don't love it, but I don't think its bad," declared another.

One editor was happy to find that this could be a great alternative for butter lovers who have high cholesterol, but just can't live without the stuff.

If you're like us, you're inspired by GQ's 25 Best Pizzas in America, to buy a plane ticket and head out to try each one pie. However, not everyone-including the Epicurious staff-can travel across the country to try all 25 pizzas so we've put together our own list of favorite pizza recipes that you can make at home. Whether you're a fan of Neapolitan, Sicilian, deep-dish, grilled or New Haven-style pizzas or like them topped like a Margherita or a marinara, sausage,pepperoni, or salad pie, we've got an easy recipe for you.

Recipe Tips:

Stone, Pan, or Even a Skillet

If deep-dish is what you crave, give your cast-iron skillet a second purpose. Or get a deep-dish pizza pan. A deep-dish pizza is going to be heavy so be sure to have a pizza pan gripper! A pizza stone is great for Neapolitan thin-style pizzas. A pizza pan (also sometimes referred to as a "round") will get you a crisp bottom, but whereas a pizza stone will absorb more of the moisture from the pizza and result

Graduating with all A's except F's in cooking? Learn to cook with ten basic recipes

Congratulations, graduates! It's time to get out there and put your mark on the world. The only problem? When school ended, so did your meal plan, and as much as you thought you could live on take-out Chinese and frozen pizza, even that's getting tired. In other words, it's time you learned to cook. But where do you begin? Back in the day, students took home economics in high school and learned how to roast and bake. Today, despite all the attention bestowed on food, many people, young and old, can barely boil water.

Before you go into starvation mode or your food budget goes sky-high, we're here to help. The first step is to learn some very basic techniques (think roasting, sautéing, marinating) that allow you to follow myriad recipes and prepare an almost infinite number of meals. We've gathered a collection of ten very basic recipes-and each is geared to help you learn a different skill.

Grilling. Barbecue. What's the difference, you may ask. Well, the two are as separate and intertwined as related topics can be. Simply put, grilling is cooking with direct heat. Imagine a fury of flames reaching for the food. Barbecue, on the other hand, relies on indirect heat and smoke. Both have fervent adherents, many who like to write and publish cookbooks. First up in a series of Epi-Log posts on grilling and barbecue cookbooks are 25: Essentials: Techniques for Smoking and 25 Essentials: Techniques for Grilling (Harvard Common Press) by Ardie A. Davis.

Davis, Ph.B (Doctor of Barbecue Philosophy) and resident of Kansas City , Missouri , tackles these two methods with a gentle but firm hand. After reading both books, you will have no excuses for not using your grill to cook because he covers a range of techniques and ingredients in these two books. Want to know how to smoke shellfish? Turn to page 44 of Smoking and cook up some Barbecued Shrimp Pasta Salad with Citrus