Blog Posts by Epicurious.com

Ask me what my favorite drink is and I'll tell you it's water. The first and last thing I like to drink on any given day is a tall glass of cold water. And yet, even I've got to admit that it's not exactly the most exciting beverage. My attempts at flavoring still water are limited to slices of lemon or lime, and I'll sometimes combine juice with sparkling water just to jazz things up. But repetition sometimes gets boring. So when I got my hands on Cool Waters: 50 Refreshing, Healthy, Homemade Thirst Quenchers (Harvard Common Press) by Brian Preston-Campbell, I was intrigued.

Sweet to savory, fruit to vegetable, and familiar to completely surprising, there's a wide range of flavored waters (and ices) in this book.

Epi-Log: What inspired you to start making these drinks?

Brian Preston-Campbell: After several people mentioned to me that they found it really tedious to drink their daily requirement of plain tap water, I began to experiment with a few additions to make it

The year of the ox is upon us as we celebrate Lunar New Year 4707 (though some sites claim it's really year 4706). If you're looking for something more adventurous than a bottle of wine to bring to a dinner party between now and February 9th (the end of the 14-day celebration), we've got ideas. All sorts of foods and sweets are traditionally given during the festivities: fruits, chocolates, candies, and cookies.

L.A. Burdick has put together beautiful collections of handmade chocolates ($5 to $61) infused with smoky teas, complex layerings of Asian spices,and sweet citrus fruits. They are available in bamboo boxes wrapped in rice paper or wooden boxes sealed with a golden wax "Good Luck" stamp and tied with bright red and gold ribbon.

For something a little less sinful, consider an assortment of dried fruit from Bella Viva. The gourmet World Voyage fruit platter ($17) contains 24 ounces of flavorful, moist pears, plums, prunes, apples, apricots, mango, and pineapples.

If

Delicious recipes and tips starring the pig

From the humble but versatile pig come roasts, chops, sausages, ribs, ham, and bacon. And with the growing popularity of eating head to tail and the offal in between, we get tasty treats such as pig's feet, belly, ears, and cheek. Or perhaps you like your hog served whole. Regardless of your preferences for the "other white meat"-ever tried the breakfast pâté called creton?-we've got thousands of recipes to try. Here are some of our favorites.

Recipe tips:

Go Thick, Not Thin

When buying pork chops, choose ones that are at least an inch thick-they won't dry out as easily as thinner cuts.

Porcine Anatomy 101

Recipes that call for pork butt are actually referring to pork shoulder. The meat on the upper part of a pig's rear legs-near its true butt-is known as pork leg or ham.

In the U.S. , bacon traditionally comes from the sides of the belly. Canadian bacon-also known as back bacon or Irish Bacon-is typically a

The celebrity chef-and former baseball player-prepares a Super Bowl menu for the masses

Super Bowl Sunday may be the most widely celebrated entertaining day of the year. It's nondenominational, and you don't even need to know how to cook. Guys who never go near the stove break out their once-a-year chili. To celebrity chefs, though, it's a different kind of opportunity.

"To me, the Super Bowl is all about the memories," says Todd English, an avid Patriots fan and former Guilford College baseball player who has gone on to great success quarterbacking a restaurant empire. Since he opened his first restaurant-the Charlestown, Massachusetts-based Olives-in 1989, he has expanded his reach to include eateries all over the country and even at sea-his eponymous Todd English is the gourmet option on the $800-million Queen Mary 2.

In anticipation of the big event, English has composed a Super Bowl party menu inspired by his youth tailgating at football games in Atlanta. It

In honor of Australia Week, which actually requires a month (see calendar), Epicurious interviewed celebrity chef Pete Evans, who was in New York to participate in G'Day Australia festivities. The calendar may seem confused, but Evans sure isn't: This guy knows what he likes and dislikes and isn't afraid to say so. He has been called the "Jamie Oliver" of Down Under because he's hosted many TV shows, written several cookbooks, owns a passel of restaurants, and is disarmingly handsome. Before heading out to Public Restaurant in downtown New York, Evans discussed the misrepresentation of Aussie cuisine, why seafood is better than beef, and the origins of his daughter's name, Chilli.

Epi-Log: Did you really work at a McDonald's?

Pete Evans: I started cooking as a 13-year-old in a bakery making pies and breads. I worked at McDonald's as a 14-year-old and spent some time at Sizzler too. I was in the kitchens cooking from the ages of 14 to 17. Then I started an apprenticeship. I

Can't make it to Tampa for the big game? Grill indoors-Steven Raichlen explains how.

The Super Bowl is fast approaching, and you've decided to invite everyone you know for a long day of eating, drinking, and yelling. So what does a football fan want to eat in early February?

To Steven Raichlen, there's only one answer: food from the grill. "The game action takes place indoors, in front of your TV," says Raichlen, grill master and bestselling cookbook author. "So why shouldn't your tailgate picnic? Indoor grilling brings the thrill of barbecue to the center of the pregame and halftime action: your living room."

Raichlen's book Raichlen's Indoor! Grilling will show you how to bring smoke and fire into your home in the most modern ways. For Epicurious, he has chosen five of his recipes to start off your Super Bowl celebrations. And his expert tips guarantee that it will be a winning day. After all, Raichlen writes, "if something tastes good baked, fried, or sautéed, it probably

Last week I wrote about Super Bowl party menus devoted to the two opposing teams: a Southwestern buffet in honor of the Arizona Cardinals and a menu of Pittsburgh favorites to celebrate the Steelers. This week I want to present another option: a meal featuring dishes being served at the actual Super Bowl. That's right, for your game day feasting pleasure, Epicurious has seven official Super Bowl recipes, including Tampa Dogs, Cuban-Style Shredded Roast Pork, and Florida Strawberry Crisp.

For recipes and information on what goes on behind the scenes in the Super Bowl kitchens, I spoke to Ron Krivosik who is Vice President of Culinary for Chicago 's Levy Restaurants, the caterer for Super Bowl XLIII. Krivosik was in charge of planning the food for the suites, restaurants, and general concessions at the stadium, and he'll be there on game day, supervising the kitchens.

Catering the Super Bowl is a major undertaking. Raymond James Stadium in Tampa where the game is being played

While 2008 will go down in the record books as a bad year economically, it will likely be remembered as a great year for films.

It must have been a difficult job for the 6,000 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to choose the best of the best, but as the sun rose over the Pacific Ocean this morning, we learned who would get the Best Picture nominations. We then got to work creating delicious and creative menus inspired by those movies. After the jump you will find perfect dishes to eat before or after you see one of these five films, or to cook up for an Oscar night party on Sunday, February 22nd....

Slumdog Millionaire: An Indian Dinner Fit for a Millionaire

• Bombay Punch
• Bombay Bhel
• Goan Shrimp in Roasted-Coconut Sauce
• Scalloped Potatoes with Coconut Milk and Chilies
• Cardamom Chai
• Fragrant Indian Brittle

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: A Classic New Orleans Supper

• Sazerac